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Hi everyone,

So I've yet to play with many allied attachments with my Space Marines, and wanted to know what everyone's experience with playing with Allied Attachments with Space Marines was like. Please let me know which attachments you used, and as well as your experience with them, both pro's and con's.

As far as I'm thinking, I'd like to use an Imperial Guard attachment as I don't have any models from that codex yet, and it'd be a nice way for me to learn a new codex, and possibly start a new army with them.

Please feel free to share your thoughts. Thanks everyone!

T'au is good for long ranged Suits. A Broadside team is prettttty good. (Though Pricey. When their new codex comes out, this will be a pretty serious thing to consider)

Space Wolves are good for Long Fangs + good Melee units.

Blood Angels give you Battle Brother Stormravens, and scoring assault marines.

Imperial Guard give you access to some good Ordnance/Barrage, such as the Manticore.

and dark angels give you scoring terminators that can take any kit out you want.

Crazyterran wrote:
T'au is good for long ranged Suits. A Broadside team is prettttty good. (Though Pricey. When their new codex comes out, this will be a pretty serious thing to consider)

Space Wolves are good for Long Fangs + good Melee units.

Blood Angels give you Battle Brother Stormravens, and scoring assault marines.

Imperial Guard give you access to some good Ordnance/Barrage, such as the Manticore.

I don't believe Chaos can ally with any of the Space Marine types, unless it's apocalypse, or a House Rule.

Thematically IG and Daemons are best, and maybe in game too... IG would basically be a troop for objectives (Vets are better than Cultists for, say, a Quadgun) and then a few tanks/artillery for the Firepower CSM need, especially blasts. Havocs can do weight of fire ok with Autos, but Basalisks are far better than say, Defilers, for similar firepower. Plus, Manticores and Medusas for Strength 10 Land raider Popability, or Hydras if needed.

EDIT: Wow, read that as Chaos not Codex... Ignore me.

Thanks for the tips, everyone!

Anyone ever try allying Eldar with SM?

I'd prolly stay away from most allies. The one's I'd be more willing to try would be brotherhood. Unless they bring something good to the table. Unsure what Necrons are to SM BGB outside.

about the Dark Angels :
on top of scoring (Fearless) Terminators that can forego the crappy sword for a TH/SS, you got a (mandatory) cheap @$$ Termie Captain with TH/SS for 130 pts and you can get another cheap @$$ Typhoon Speeder (75 pts)
oh and you can Deep Strike a unit of termies on T1 too (I usually run the second one on foot, if I field two)

Have seen Tau allied in, plonked in a bastion, used effectively.

Necrons might be ok. Anrakyr+10 Immortals+Res Lord+Night Scythe comes in at under 500 point for a decent flyer, decent dakka and a tank troller

Dark Angels sounds more and more fun, now that I hear these new comments about them...

Thanks guys!

DA do sound interesting, that could be a different tact which would add some power.

The way I see allies is their goal is to, for about 500 points, fill in some sort of specifica strategic hole in our army. Furthermore said ally's tax has to minimal and the firepower/advantage that the ally provides has to offset the firepower we ourselves would have otherwise gotten. Finally the ally needs to be able to score, as you might as well be able to use the tax to that end (otherwise it's even more lost firepower).

As such that for me rules out necrons because, although they are a great ally, the fact that they cant score makes a typical contingent (nightscthe, d-lord or CCB lord and 5 tesla immortals) unable to really do much other than contest. Furthermore one eye open means they will be out without support, which can become very untenable.

As such there are a few allies that stand out to me:

IG remain the best for 3 reasons:

The vendetta is strictly better as a flyer than the talon. Better armour, better firepower, transport capacity, cheaper. No real contest there, so that's a good replacement.
An IG blob provides some nice swarming to our army and gives us a large (with up to 6 extra troops choices) boost in scoring power for a reasonable cost, and if you go FW you get sabre turrets to boot, which is some devastating AA/interceptor power.
Cheap HQ


DA sounds pretty good too, because you get a very durable scoring unit and stricly cheaper typhoons, which are always good. It's not so much filling a hole as getting in terminators in a more useful way (scoring). So that's pretty solid. Not much gain on our AA front though so that could prove to be troublesome, but still worth trying.

Tau: not a bad ally... but the costs stack up pretty fast. Sure firewarriors objective sitting behind cover give a good base of fire. and the leader is cheap and can get some solid medium weaponry... but we really dont gain a lot of advantage here. It's a gunline allying gunline. Would U rather have a twin linked rail shot or a vindicator? That's not really the question you want to ask. You will likely lose out on mobility and even long range fire to get some more medium range missile fire with a rail shot or 2... but that's about it. Furthermore the fact that we cant make use of markerlights throws out the best part of tau. It would be better in this case to be tau with SM ally to maximize the markerlights, otherwise it just seems to me like somewhat of a waste.

BA: great ally, gives us good deep strikers, very durable (with chalice) troops, it's just expensive fast and extra mobility instead of long range shooting. *shrug*.

 jifel wrote:


I don't believe Chaos can ally with any of the Space Marine types, unless it's apocalypse, or a House Rule.

It's C:SM, not CSM bro

lol I love those confusing acronyms

Guard. Guard are a great, cheap, fast way to bring spammable special weapons to the table, or tons of bodies for objective sitting.

I really think that guard would best complement a space marine list (both thematically and strategically) . I actually find my guard blobs hold objectives better than space marine tactical squads do while putting out similar amounts of shooting. Guard tanks also tend to be better than space marine tanks (aside from maybe the land raider).

Overall, I think that the weakest area of the space marine codex is in its troop choices and the IG codex will cover for that very well, along with presenting a lot of nice options in the other slots.

 Leth wrote:
and dark angels give you scoring terminators that can take any kit out you want.

Though they are expensive, for about 1/3 of your army points (assuming 2k) you can have 2 agressive, fearless, scoring, termie units.

Combined with 3 pods and some scouts with a homer you can make a pretty strong 1st turn alpha strike.

Do SM have any units you are particularly excited about having a lot of? Me neither! I'd much rather use them as allies for an army with crappy scoring units but cheap flyers, shooting, harrier or Death Star units!

I thought the best SM lists these days involved either lots of bikes or lots of thss terminators, both of which require most of your points already.

I don't know Lucre, I'm pretty excited about SM pods in 6th

Pedro and his Sternguard boys for the win

I'd say that the BA are probably the best for allying troops in.

Give them a librarian as HQ, sanguinary priest as elite, and 2x10 man <troops> assault squads, and now you've got FC and FNP marines hopping about in jump packs. Why even deepstrike them? Just charge them across the board. And thats at 600 pts. Have the libby either use shield for an invulnerable save, or go for telepathy powers. Hope for invisibility. Gangbusters And scoring.

Necron destroyer lord with 6 wraiths with whip coils and 1 squad of troops of your choice. my marine list with this build is undefeated about 8 games with it so far.

But sternguard are just expensive marines with some extra short range aggressive abilities, not exactly amazing scoring units to be relied on. I mean, if you can make them score all the better, but you don't generally want to use a unit like that as the bulk of your army, they are little neat tricks or hot knives to use specifically and decisively.

Tacticals are really pretty alright. Combat squads/tactics are neat tricks and can give you some interesting utility or advantages but there isn't much in C:SM that you want to do that couldn't be done with just a splash unless you are looking to commit to a really clunky gimmick.

Though knowing no fear and those other abilities are great, especially if you are battle bros with something and can confer them to other fun units.

i think BA are good, but more so just to make units already available to you better or cheaper.

As mentioned, Assault Marines go from FA to scoring, scatter only 1d6, and have a small shot at the red thirst.

BA devs are also pretty good, if you run the 4 ML squad, they are 20 points cheaper with BA.

BA are good ... but you can have ass-cheap Long Fangs instead of kinda cheap Devs
you can have very cheap (and stronger, if slower) Grey Hunters
you can have cheap Assault Vets in the form of Wolf Guards / cheap or very tough annoying Lone Wolf
ubber assault troops in the form of Thunderwolves ...
You can even take 2 allied HQ with Space Wolves allies ! (even though it ain't really the point of allies if you ask me)

But yes, I would say that Guard is maybe the best ally for the marines.
it gives you ultra cheap scoring troops (or not-so cheap veterans if you prefer them), Battle Tanks with a lot of variety to choose from, the best anti-air flyer in the game (arguably the best overall flyer), a HQ with useful advisors (+1 / -1 to reserve rolls ...)
and it is very logical to take guards alongside marines

I love this thread because I originally play guard and I thought about building an allied Marine detachment along the lines of BA or DA. I also believe if your have a Marine army guard is effective as it brings Multiple Scoring units if you use platoons or you could blob them up and make it one tough cookie to kick off the board. They have the vendetta which is arguably the best flier and you could even put a vet squad in that unit to add some more scoring. Guards Heavy support can be taken in squadrons so you could add some heavy armor with the Leman russ varients which can also bring some great templates many shots or you could go with their artillery like the manticore or basilisk and just bomb the dakka outta your opponent.

< Taken by the void dragon. >

Anyone think of any decent combos using Marines as the allied detachment?

well, having an allied marine detachment in drop pods sounds pretty nice with Guard because it can take a lot of pressure off of having to get your guardsmen across the board to claim/contest objectives. Also fairly pinpoint melta guns coming out of those pods are pretty nice.

 Instinctual wrote:
I don't know Lucre, I'm pretty excited about SM pods in 6th

This. Right here. In 6th ed, Drop Pods are far more powerful and useful, with the new disembarking rules. Even in 5th edition, I loved playing them, and in this edition, it seems that they've become a lot more efficient.

At any rate, I am leaning heavily towards IG, but am still considering other options. Thanks for the advice everyone! Keep the input coming!

*Hi Mike!*

 IHateNids wrote:
Anyone think of any decent combos using Marines as the allied detachment?

I like using Tyberus and a squad of lightning claw termies in a crusader as allies with tau. The raider draws the big guns off of my hammeheads and broadsides and the stuff inside can intercept your opponents assault units before they get to your firewarriors. And its a pretty beef scoring unit to boot.

It could serve the same role with guard as well I suppose. I just don't have guard to test it out.

I actually have decided on an Allied list. Ill post a link to the thread once I create it.

Believe it or not Dark Eldar are fantastic allies, as long as you keep 6 inches away. They excellent at everything the marines suck at like mobility And long range tank killing.