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So I've decided to bust out my SMs again after a wee break from the game. I started playing as SM and after a few months I started a Tau army and then a couple years later started a Tyranid army. Since then I've gained a lot more experience and my other 2 armies seem to have a bit more diversity in them as far as my collection goes.

I say all that because I took a look at my SMs today and noticed that I'm extremely troops heavy and I'm wondering if it could really do well against my Tyranid army or my Ork army (My friends that I play with use my armies) (I built the Ork army but only played 2 games with it.)

My SM collection is:

1x Chapter Master
1x Honor guard squad
1x Chaplain
1x Captain with Jump pack
4x Tactical squads
1x Devestators
2x Assault squad (1 with jump packs and 1 w/o them)
1x Sternguard Veterans
1x Vanguard Veterans
2x Dreads
1x Razorback
1x Scouts with snipers(5man)
1x Scouts (10man various weapons)
1x Drop pod

For special weapons I only have flamers
For Heavy weapons I have 5 missiles, 2 heavy bolter and 2 lascannons

I had more before this but I traded some things off for more Tau with a buddy. Unfortunately any suggestions for models that I do not have won't be an option for me as I cant budget anything for 40k anytime in the near future. Also I dont get to play enough nowadays to warrant spending the money if I did have it hehe.

A for the armies I'll be playing against. The Orks are VERY boyz heavy with 2 warbosses (1 with big choppa and tl shoota and 1 with tl shoota and power klaw) 2x 24 Shoota boyz w/ 2 rokkitz per mob, 1x 30 slugga boyz w/ 3 big shootas, 1x 12 'Ard boyz w/ a big shoota and a trukk, 3 bikes, 3 deffkoptas w/ tl rokkits and 6 nobz w/ big choppas.

The nids are: 1 Hive tyrant w/ stranglethorn cannon. 1 standard fex, 1 trygon, 40 hormies, 28 termagaunts, 16 genestealers, 2 lictors, 8 warriors, 8 rippers and 3 raveners.

FINALLY... So what I'm basically asking for here is... How do you guys think the SMs will stack up against the possible 1500pt army compositions that the Orks and Tyranids could come up with? Again I wont be able to buy anymore models so the absence of terminators, another devastator squad or at least 1 predator wont be something that I can fix.

Well unless you plan to hide and gunline, you don't have many options to get those marines up the field and for you to recieve some sort of response Dakka will cretique what you build (unless it is so broken then no one will say a thing unless they want to). No one likes handing out lists here to build stuff for other but we will as a whole gladly rip it apart and rebuild it.

So post a list of what you have, I would take cues from other list builds and go from there.

 BunkerBob wrote:
Well unless you plan to hide and gunline, you don't have many options to get those marines up the field and for you to recieve some sort of response Dakka will cretique what you build (unless it is so broken then no one will say a thing unless they want to). No one likes handing out lists here to build stuff for other but we will as a whole gladly rip it apart and rebuild it.

So post a list of what you have, I would take cues from other list builds and go from there.

I don't have a list yet as I've just taken them all out of hibernation a few hours ago.

As for my past experiences with them. When I played really heavily I went up against mostly Tyranids but did some games against Imperial guard and Tau. During those nearly 8 months of playing I never lost. I came close once but the squad of terminators that I no longer have saved it for me when they arrived from reserves.

My strategy was taken from how the US Marines Corps infantry fights. (I was in the USMC when I started 40k) I move the tactical squads up the field in groups of 2 (4 squads total) with one moving forward while the others support and leap frog them that way. All the while the devastators are providing long range support. I use the assault squads to tie up units that would give my tactical squads the most trouble on their way up the field and the dreads engage the heaviest targets while they move up with the tactical squads.

In all the whole army moves forward guns blazing and supporting each other. Keeping as much pressure on only 2-3 units at a time and then moving on. So far it hasn't failed me.

But I'll write up a list and post here tomorrow for you guys to rip to shreds javascript:emoticon('');

I don't see a whole lot of dakka for going against hordes. I'm not saying it can't be done, but that's the problem with edition changes. I'm thinking back to my old 5th edition list, and I think in 6th it would last like...3.5 seconds? Not that it was much better in 5th...

What are the dreads and razor armed with? Your two big problems are going to be mobility and anti tank.

For mobility, take a squad of assorted scouts. Infiltrate or outflank them. You might want the snipers to sit on the home objective. The tac squads just march forward. Rapid fire works on the move these days, so leapfrogging isn't as important. HBs and MLs on these guys. You probably don't need all the tac squads, but this is going to be troop heavy

Dev squads are a touch overpriced, but you need them. LC and MLs here.

Somebody should be in the drop pod as a disruption unit. This could be a dread, or the sternguard, depending on their gear. I suspect you are going to want to field both the dreads and the sternguard anyway.

An assault squad make for a good backfield harrasment unit, or troubleshooters if there is a unit getting a little too close to your tacs.

Thanx for the responses guys. I just finished making an army list. However it is not centered around a points value. I simply made a list of everything I have and what is equipped and how much it all costs. In all its 2500-ish points.

Also the edition I'm playing with is the current SM codex (I believe released in 2007). The edition of 40k we play with is the edition before this current one. I think it was also released in 2006 or 2007. Its the one that changed scoring units from non vehicle units above half strength to any unit from your codexs "troops" selection.

The Tyranids and Orks that I'll be up against are using the most current codex as well but the Tau is the edition before the hardback one.

The Army list page1 http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q681/Severus92985/armylistpg1_zps59cadce7.jpg

page 2 http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q681/Severus92985/armylistpg2_zps2547272a.jpg


Automatically Appended Next Post:
When playing against the Orks, I've found it best to lay into their big mobs with the dreads w/ assault cannons and devastators w/ frag missiles. The Tactical squads just form up and wait for the mob to rush them and lay down as much fire as they can with the heavy bolter and bolters and when they get close they switch to bolt pistols and the marine with the flamer hits them. Then I charge them so take away their furious charge benefit. If I lose the close combat I use "and they shall know no fear" and "combat tactics" to risk getting another shooting phase on them (during his assault phase of course, not mine.) and then re-assault them.

The assault marines with jump packs go after the nobz and warboss while the assault squad in the drop pod gets dropped in a flanking position. My main goal here is less about wiping things out and more about getting him to split his force to deal with them. The rest of my force spends its time focusing on w/e my tac squads are trying to kill.

Don't use ASM with vanilla marines. Just don't. They're not very good at all.

Martel732 wrote:
Don't use ASM with vanilla marines. Just don't. They're not very good at all.

I'm curious what you have to base that on. I've used them extensively and as I've said before, I've only lost 1 maybe 2 games with my SM force.

I hope that I'm making it clear that I'm playing games with 2 of my friend and their armies. I'm not going to my local game shop and battling anyone and everyone who shows up there nor am I playing tournaments. I've been playing since late 2007 and I've only played against maybe 7 different players and have been quite successful.

My reason for starting this thread was to see how some of you would organize the models that I currently have into a 1500pt army.

severus92985 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Don't use ASM with vanilla marines. Just don't. They're not very good at all.

I'm curious what you have to base that on. I've used them extensively and as I've said before, I've only lost 1 maybe 2 games with my SM force.

I hope that I'm making it clear that I'm playing games with 2 of my friend and their armies. I'm not going to my local game shop and battling anyone and everyone who shows up there nor am I playing tournaments. I've been playing since late 2007 and I've only played against maybe 7 different players and have been quite successful.

My reason for starting this thread was to see how some of you would organize the models that I currently have into a 1500pt army.

Assault marines, in a competitive setting, are too expensive to properly be cc specialists. At 18-20 pts. per model, they only have 2 attacks (counting their single-handed weapon bonus) and a 12" bolter pistol range. The only thing that makes them different from regular marines is that they can have jump packs, and get an additional attack.

Though they have increased movement range with their jump packs, a tactical squad can get the same benefit with a rhino, which also makes them more survivable. The tac squad also gets the option of getting one heavy weapon and one assault weapon for free.

Finally, most 'nilla marines are pathetic compared to other CC specialists. Unlike assault terminators, they don't have the armor saves, the invuln saves, and the weaponry to really take out enemies reliably. In most cases they're used to take out other fragile units, which would likely die just as easily to regular marines or rapid-fire bolters, the latter of which involves less risk than a typical assault.

Yeah I can agree to most of that. But are people forgetting that you can deepstrike assault marines? With SM in close combat, sure you dont have a lot of the other things that cc specialists get like genestealers for example. But what you DO have is a good stat line and armor save to go off of. The other thing with SM that I'm sure you guys can agree on is your tactics need to be pretty solid. ASM can do a ton of damage if a fresh squad gets to assault a unit. Giving all of my ASM sergeants power weapons as well as including 2 plasma pistols in each squad also helps.

You cant play each army the same way. So using ASM like you would genestealers or even a 30 boy mob of slugga boyz just doesnt work. You need to work with what you do have. If an ASM squad isnt looking likely to take down a unit directy in cc, then I soften it up with something else and then assault it. The army as a whole needs to support itself and each unit needs to work together. This is why I have had enough success with ASM to warrant using at least 1 unit in every game.
Also getting a dread into cc with their close combat arm and then assaulting with an ASM unit is pretty entertaining.

I will also note that my only experiences are against Tyranids, Orks, Tau and Imperial guard. I did play a small force of chaos SM once but it wasnt anything notable.


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I would also like to note that I'm not talking about a competitive setting. I'm playing casual/competitive games with friends as I've stated several times.

I appreciate all the responses but would appreciate it even more if we could keep it to the topic that was stated in my original post.

OK, I looked at your war gear options on your lists. Are you a WYSWYG kinda guy? I disagree with a few of your choices. Numbers are either from your list, or the top of my head, codex not at hand ATM.

At this point scale, I'd run the jump captain from the options you have. I'd prefer a bare-bones chaplain with a jump pack, but the captain is OK.

Captain AA, power sword, jump pack. 155
5 man assault squad, plasma pistol, axe on sarge 130

10 man tac HB/F 170
10 man tac HB/F 170
10 man tac LC/F TLHB razor 220
5 scouts, cloaks, snipers, HB 100

Dred AC/ML 125
Dred AC/DCCW(SB) 115

10 Man dev, 3xML, 1xLC 225

Not sure what to do with the last points looking t the models you have available. Options include boosting the assault squad up to 10 and adding another scout squad. Or another tac squad. Kinda stretching, which I dislike doing. Your sternguard gear all over the place. HBs and stormbolters are not really worth it on them.

I'm not a fan of deep striking assault troops, either in pods or with packs. You can't assault the turn you arrive, so you sit around getting shot at.

I've done some remodeling on the assault marines. They now have jump packs, and the captain no longer has one. As for the sternguard... They were more or less just something I built out of extra marines just to have on hand. Not really sure what I'd do with them as I'd rather just have tactical squads. I hardly ever run them. Also just curious why you would run a LC and 3 ML with the devs instead of 4 ML. I didnt really see the point of paying 35points for a LC on a dev when they are 15 for a tac squad when ML being str 8 will do just as well for me considering what I'm up against. The only vehicles I'll be fighting would be an Ork Trukk or a Hammerhead. The Monstrous creatures the Tyranids have, str 8 would be enough as I could still wound on 2's and the AP 3 will go through any Sv they could have.

I'm not disagreeing with you I'm just curious why that would be your choice.

severus92985 wrote:
I've done some remodeling on the assault marines. They now have jump packs, and the captain no longer has one. As for the sternguard... They were more or less just something I built out of extra marines just to have on hand. Not really sure what I'd do with them as I'd rather just have tactical squads. I hardly ever run them. Also just curious why you would run a LC and 3 ML with the devs instead of 4 ML. I didnt really see the point of paying 35points for a LC on a dev when they are 15 for a tac squad when ML being str 8 will do just as well for me considering what I'm up against. The only vehicles I'll be fighting would be an Ork Trukk or a Hammerhead. The Monstrous creatures the Tyranids have, str 8 would be enough as I could still wound on 2's and the AP 3 will go through any Sv they could have.

I'm not disagreeing with you I'm just curious why that would be your choice.

The sergeant can give one guy BS5, and sometimes you just need to lascannon something. Your model collection does not include a lot of anti tank units, so I thought this would be a good spot to make one of the ones you have more accurate. My personal preference is to run dev squads as anti infantry squads with 2xML, 2xHB, or 2xML, 2xPC if I'm feeling spendy. But if you are going tank hunting with devastators, the 3xML, 1xLC is a compromise between firepower and cost.

I build take all comers lists. While the LC might be a little overkill against what you are facing now, when your friend with the ork list puts down his new battlewaggon, you will be glad to have it.

Ah I see. Yeah that's a good point. Fortunately for me, the people I play with are using my armies to play with since they dont have one of their own. But my buddy that likes to run my Orks has expressed interest in buying some things for it. I'm a stay at home dad with 3 kids and a mortgage so I no longer have the extra money to buy new models but my buddy wants to start buying stuff and I told him the cheapest way would be to buy some things to use with the armies I currently have. That way he doesnt have to spend the money on a brand new army. I'm expecting to see the addition of mega nobz or maybe some killa kanz if he does that. I think a tank may be a little out of his price range but I'm not sure what to throw at the mega nobz and kanz if he does get them.

Also, How do you think my SM army will stack up against my tau? For Vehicles my tau only have 2 devil fish and 1 hammer head. Theres also a total of 8 battle suites, including a commander and 1 that usually ends up as a body guard for him. Other than that its just fire warriors and kroot. Nothing my Tacs and ASMs couldnt handle there.