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I'm new to 40k, and would like to get a decent army of SM infantry, for general killing stuff what would I need? I already have the marines from Black Reach and am focusing on mixed infantry tactics with Dreadnaughts being my heaviest unit. What weapons are the best at what and any other useful info is appreciated.

TL lascannons on the dreadnoughts.

Get the battleforce for a rhino (you should make it a razorback with lascannon....laserback)

two tac squads will also help.

Depends though. the lascannon options are for playing a shooty army, which vanilla marines are pretty good at


Also get some droppods to go with those dreads. give one a heavy flamer and drop him on the infantry.

But what style do you want to play? Do you have a chapter you plan on playing? Is there an independent character in the codex you thought sounds cool and would like him to lead your army?

I'd suggest ironclad dreadnoughts in drop pods if you want more dreads.

You can always make the most of your tactical marines by taking 10, giving them a lascannon, taking a razorback with a lascannon, combat squadding them at the start and putting the other 5 man team with a free flamer in each razorback.

A unit of sniper scouts can't hurt if you want to use them.

Keep in mind dreads are slow, so unless you take a decent ranged weapon on a dread, it should arrive by drop pod.

Recipe for Space Marine happiness:

2-4 Tactical Squads, plus one assault weapon and one heavy weapon to taste. (Meltagun, plasma gun, and flamer; missile launcher, multimelta, or lascannon.)

1 vehicle per squad (Drop Pod, Rhino, or Razorback to taste.)

1 HQ (your preference)

1-3 special units that work with your play style (blitzkrieg, assault, gunline)

1-2 units that make up for the deficits in your play style

Enjoy, and welcome to the ranks of the Marines!

A TFC is a requirement now in 6th edition. It is ridiculously powerful for how cheap it is.

What are your thoughts on shotguns? I have seven 40k style Saiga12s ready for a particularly mean squad

Tried them, personally not a fan. For my money, sniper scouts provide way more bang for your buck.

mad_eddy_13 wrote:
What are your thoughts on shotguns? I have seven 40k style Saiga12s ready for a particularly mean squad

Scouts with shotguns generally strike me as obsolete given rules changes preventing assault from Outflank and changes to Rapid Fire weapons; the shotgun seems pretty clearly inferior to the bolter across plausible use cases now.

Unfortunately shotguns are totally worthless. Bolters are superior in every way, except you cannot assault after shooting with them. But if you are going to assault then you want bolt pistol and CC weapon for the extra attack.

But the sniper rifle is probably still the best option.

 Kingsley wrote:

mad_eddy_13 wrote:
What are your thoughts on shotguns? I have seven 40k style Saiga12s ready for a particularly mean squad

Scouts with shotguns generally strike me as obsolete given rules changes preventing assault from Outflank and changes to Rapid Fire weapons; the shotgun seems pretty clearly inferior to the bolter across plausible use cases now.

It might be worth tossing a few in a BP/CCW assault squad for a few extra shots before charging in. But I agree, they are generaly not worth it. They are kinda mediocre in a lot of roles, where specialization is the way to go.

Why not Vulkan

An Ironclad with 2 TL Heavy Flamers

A squad of 5 TL Combi Meltas

TH/SS with Master Crafted Hammers

I was thinking of giving full marines shoguns, not scouts, as part of a medium range assault/suppression squad.

mad_eddy_13 wrote:
I was thinking of giving full marines shoguns, not scouts, as part of a medium range assault/suppression squad.

That's not possible...

As a fellow Ultramarine player I offer the following advice. Depending on how big of an army you want you're going to want the following.

Dreadnoughts with 2x TL Autocannons
2-4 10man squads of Tac marines (bolter fire is very very effective)
A vindicator. You might not want to invest right away, but the demolisher cannon is one of the most effective ways to deal with terminators.
A Master of the Forge with the Conversion Beamer, he allows you to take more dreadnoughts as heavy support.


You'll want to avoid wasting money early on with stuff like veteran squads, lots of fancy HQ figs or Legion of the Damned guys. They look cool, but ultimately don't pay back they're points.

The aobr set should have given you a tac squad, terminators, dreadnought and a generic hq.

To have a legal army you need 1 more tac squad, which would put you around 750 points or so depending on options.

Beyond that you'll want at least one rhino. They aren't as effective in 6th but still a great way to get your guys across the field. You may want a drop pod as well.

You might look at the various marine battleforces. There are slight differences in both price and what they come with.

The way I play, I'd add a storm talon and a devastator squad next. The flyer for anti infantry and anti flyer. The devastators to take out the heavy stuff. However, play some games first at 750 before deciding what to do. There are so many options and ways to play marines that it is trivially easy to spend a lot of money now on models you'll never pull out again because of your style.


As bibblles said, don't worry about the special hq characters yet. Get a few games in before you decide what you want to do there. They all have their strengths and weaknesses but it helps to understand your own play style first.

I agree with the devastator and the stormtalon next, though a razorback (never buy the rhino kit unless it's from a battleforce or second hand-you can use the razorback as a rhino by taking the turret off) might be next on my purchase list. A piece of advice on the devastator kit. If you have a spare torso and base lying around, the devastator squad comes with 6 sets of legs and at least that many heavy weapons

mad_eddy_13 wrote:
I was thinking of giving full marines shoguns, not scouts, as part of a medium range assault/suppression squad.

By the Codex, only scouts can be equipped with shotguns. Now, if you have cool looking bits you want to use, you might want to consider sternguard. They are one of the better units available to us, and get to fire all sorts of special ammo, so they might work for you. For friendly play, I don't think many people would mind you swapping bolters for shotguns rules-wise, but it does put you into "house rules" territory, so you need to check with your opponent and won't be able to bring them to a tournament.

What do you mean by "Dreadnaughts being my heaviest unit" Do you want nothing with tracks? No vehicles at all? No tanks? One thing about 40k, is you need to get your troops to objectives. Rhinos or Drop pods help with that. Having a better idea of what parameters you are working with will help us narrow things down for you.

So far, going from what has been said, and taking into account my love of conversions, I'm looking at another tac squad, a basic dread kit and a drop pod, along with the guys in Black Reach.

And yeah no tracks, nothing that can't be dropped in from orbit on call.

 Kingsley wrote:

mad_eddy_13 wrote:
What are your thoughts on shotguns? I have seven 40k style Saiga12s ready for a particularly mean squad

Scouts with shotguns generally strike me as obsolete given rules changes preventing assault from Outflank and changes to Rapid Fire weapons; the shotgun seems pretty clearly inferior to the bolter across plausible use cases now.

This. Something needs to be done to make the shotgun viable again. Even in Guard lists, shotguns are now inferior to even the puny lasgun. How do you fix shotguns? Make them Str 5? Give them assault 3? IDK.

Really with space marines there are so manny different ways you could go, so manny different type of army's you could play and field. So manny different units to try and see whats the " best"

All the units is great in their own way and can be tooled up to do whatever you want them to.

The Hq choices are basicly buffs that you want for your army

Kantor makes sternguard scoring
Vulkan makes all flame and melta twin linked and TH master crafted
Etc etc etc

Or smaller Hq that provide support like librarion or chaplains

I could go on and on but i don't have the time

To sum it up i would just start small, with aproxied units
To get a feel of what you would like
Play test first
And when you like what you've tested get the models


On another note you could never go roung with a land raider with terminators

mad_eddy_13 wrote:
So far, going from what has been said, and taking into account my love of conversions, I'm looking at another tac squad, a basic dread kit and a drop pod, along with the guys in Black Reach.

And yeah no tracks, nothing that can't be dropped in from orbit on call.

How do you feel about bikes? Judging from the need to drop restriction, I'm guessing no, but thought I'd double check. Attack bikes (and bike squads in general) are a good source of fast melta, which is a nice thing to have. Scout bikes with locator beacons will help if you need precision drops.

I might add some land speeders to your list of things to pick up. Typhoon/HB speeders will help with fast, mobile, ranged firepower. MM/HF (or double up) will help for cracking tanks or flushing units out of cover. If you aren't using rhinos, you are going to be fairly static once you deploy. If you need to react to something, having a mobile element helps. Assault marines can work here as well.