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I'm building a 500 pt Space Marine Blood Ravens Army to begin and am whittling down my choices for purchases. As the title suggests what do you beleave to the most effective on the battlefield.

This will help me choose what to buy next.

So far I've:
A librarian
A ten man tactical squad (flamer, heavy Bolter, power Sword)
A combat Squad (Power Sword) (soon to buy)
A Rhino


Thanks

For 500 points, I like Libby, tac in rhino is ok since you have it, 5 scouts for 2nd troop with missile and sniper, and with 85 left I recommend a predator with Bolter sponsons. Make sure to assemble the pred so you can switch weapons later on.

I don't recommend a combat squad purchase as 5 guys with bolters don't do much and you get terrible bits in that set. If you need 5 more marines at least buy a devastator box set, as you get a lot more good stuff that way.

Thanks for the advice, if I got the combat squad I would buy a Tactical Squad and just use 5 ( my end aim is for a full company).

I didn't mention in the OP because it would push into the army list forum but the games i'm playing have a no armour greater than 33 limitation.

It's hard to make sweeping generalizations in codex lists, as so much depends on the list as a whole.

Both work. I'm fond of both. I'm going to give the edge to the scouts in this case. If you go with the assaults, they will get a lot more use out of that power sword then the tac sergeant.

I dislike 5 man tac squads, both on a list or buying the box. Always go for full 10 man squads. If you just want 5, go scouts.

In groups of 5, the snipers will give you more. They can camp on an objective and give you some long-ranged options. They're not great in that area, but they'll give you a chance at doing some damage on priority targets. With camo cloaks, they can hunker down in ruins and be pesky. And, the missile launcher is a really good asset to have. If you can, fit one into your tactical squad as well (I'd take it instead of the heavy bolter).

The assault marines need to be run in larger squads; they die fast and you need a full unit to get a charge through. I've only ever had luck running them in units of 10, and when I do, I run a Chaplain with them (so they can benefit from his Litanies ability).

Thanks you've all been a great help, would camo cloaks be worth losing a rhino or power weapon on the smaller tac squad.

ids1984 wrote:
Thanks you've been a great help, would camo cloaks be worth losing a rhino or power weapon on the smaller tac squad.

If you are puting them in a ruin to camp an objective, then yes give them camo cloaks.

If you are using them to camp an objective near an Aegis Defense Line, then the cloaks are not really worth it, as you are just going to go to ground every time something shoots at you.

If you are going to use assault marines or sniper marines, make them 10 strong .

Between the two, a 5 man sniper would help you more.

To your question in the title:

depending on your army build both of them have their advanteges and disadvantages. Firstly, both options are second choices to me, I'd rather field tacticals instead of scouts and landspeeders/stormtalons intstead of assault marines. however, both assault marines and scout have great advantages. lets start off with the assault marines:

they are a durable and reliable assault force. a 3+ save and T4 gives them their strength over for example boyz etc. on the other side, assault marines are far more expensive.

Hammer of wrath. this will give every marine that charges another attack, giving them 4 attacks in total with average Ws and S.

mobility and specializing. you are able to make them anti infantry with flamers, frag grenades and more, but also anti vehicle with plasma pistols and melta. on top of that, they have great mobility so you can have them where you want them, opposed to, for example, devastators(or sniper scouts), who are mostly immobile and therefore will not always have line of sight with your best target. Assault marines can deepstrike and flamer infantry, or plasma and melta tanks. they can jump over buildings and walls to harass somewhere else or hide from enemy fire.

harassment. I guess that, unless you'll field them en masse, harassment is key with assault marines. keep their points low, and their deeds great. Deepstrike them so they can shoot a tank in the rear, and pray it'll turn around and show his beautiful rear to the rest of the army. let your assault marines come where your enemy DOESN'T want them, not where they you WOULD want them. most of the time I use them, the assault marines dont do gak, but attract fire as hell because they pop up at the 'wrong' place. this means at least two squads and some more fire being lost to my 100 pt fast attack slot, allowing my 200 pt tacticals to remain on their objective.


Now I have to say, assault marines have their ups, but in my case, they aren't worth the points(haven't used them in 6th though) for fast attack id rather consider bikes/landspeeders/storm talons.
then we continue with scouts. scouts have great potential, but are always in the shadows of the 'better' space marine. this isn't true, but might be right. I explain this:
compared to an ork a scout is an excellent marksman, but next to a vindicare assassin he's only a drunk moonshiner.
Scouts can be equipped with the most various weapons, giving the squad totally different roles, and that for relatively low prices.
here's a list of pro's on scouts:

points cost. they are a great fill-up for your last 100 points or so

scoring unit. dont underestimate the power of scoring units, especially when you can specialize them to be either very aggressive or very passive.

different scout 'kits':

sniper squad: snipers(free) missile(only 10 points, worth it) and perhaps Telion(havent used him, but i'd like to try)
-these guys can sit back and snipe the hell out of monstrous creatures and more terrible things on the field

harassment squad: mix of shotguns and pistol CC weapon (keep 'em cheap is key here, I'd go for only free upgrades) and a landspeeder storm
-lets have fun, race forward in your landspeeder, unload your heavy bolter prior to assaulting a weaker unit(hope for non-fearless T3 blobs) and have fun.
most likely your scouts'll die quickly, but its a fun tactic haha. im working on a squad like this, dunno the outcome on the field, but has potential...

Cheap fireline: just go with bolters, and maybe camo cloaks
-take a ten man squad and have a semi-tactical squad capable of confusing the enemy, and perhaps you'll even kill something

all in all, both units are a good choice, depending on the rest of your army, you could go for an assault army, then I wouldn go for sniper scouts, but if 5 assault marines will be the only CC unit in your list, I would seriously reconsider that.
next to that I have to say that however both are good units, you cannot use them as main force, unless using them en masse. with this i mean that you cant run your scout forward in the middle while your tacticals sit back on objectives. use your scouts NEXT to tacticals, so they'll have a weak and easy, but cheap unit next to a strong and durable, but expensive unit.

all the above said is my opinion, I do not intend to say that units are bad or good, just that in my view they are not as effective as their points value suggest.

Excellent points made above, in my humble opinion, in a game of 500 pts, I'd go for the 5 man sniper squad with the ML, I think it will provide more scoring opportunities and the ML is a solid asset in a lower points game, more so than five assault marines.

If you have a 33 point armor limit, I might suggest a whirlwind. I know, I know... but for the future it is a rhino hull, so its still a good buy, and the s4 ignores cover, or s5 ord against av10 sides of chimera type hulls, will be handy.

Thus
Libby
10 man tac with flamer, missile, fist in rhino
5 sniper scouts with missile
Whirlwind

This way, when you play larger games, you can very easily switch the whirlwind to a rhino or razorback, which you will need at some point, and you still have the option to use the missile top as a thunder fire cannon if you convert up some tracks and fab up a tech marine.