Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi everyone ! I am about to receive a lot of SM and I wanted to know which chapter tactic would be best suited for it. I know, I know. CHoose which you prefer according to fluff and play preference. Guess what ? I ain't really the kind of guy who's capable of making these choices without spending years experimenting (litterally). SO, I'd really would appreciate your help with the situation at hand
Here's what I am going to receive:

1-SM Strikeforce (Contents below)
-SM Commander
-SM Command Squad
-Razorback
-Rhino
-Tactical Squad x2
-Venerable Dreadnought
-Scout squad (sniper)
-Assault Squad
-Drop Pod

2-Devastator Squad
3-Rhino
4-Venerable Dreadnought
5-Two custom Drop Pod
6-AoBR Terminators squad x3
7-SM Tactical Squad

So I guess many of you are thinking : Ultramarines
Indeed, since my lot contains pretty general units, it would seems normal. But except the regular vanilla, is there anything else compatible ?
If we try to summarize this

1-Ultramarines: acceptable, but pretty generic
2-Imperial Fist : seems like a good choice, but only one devasttator squad.
3-Salamanders : master-crafted is good, but not enough to change a game. And why the rule only for flamers on vehicules? Who try to burn a tank ?
4-Raven Guard : Scout and stealth on first turn, plus the drop pod = tactical advantage for positioning. However, only one assault squad :S
5-Iron Hands : FNP and it will not die, good options. However, I don't really have many vehicules and ain't that much into mech. Plus, even if I was, I think it's a little OP
6-White Scars: No bikes, so no. Period.
7-Black Templars : Could make several small squad with 2 special weapons, bringing more guns to the table. However, small squads are easy to flood or outshoot. Plus, CC is kinda dangerous in 6th edition and I only havee one real assault unit.... Anbd I don't have acces to bolt pistols and chainswords bits right now.

So, what is your opinion ?

Make up your own chapter or use one with mysterious founding. That way you can do counts as without ruffling any feathers.

Paint them green with no chapter insignia.

You now have.
Aurora chapter. ultra
Invaders. Imperial fist
salamanders. salamanders.
Sons of medusa. Iron Hands.
Dark angels : on a pinch.

But easier than that make your own chapter and use whatever colors you want.

I see ! This indeed solves the fluff part of my dilemma. But which tactic would you suggest me first ?

I personally would paint them neon orange. I am sure every chapter has a succession chapter that wore neon orange at some point.

They are all good but i would biasly say go imperial fist. as bolter drill and tank hunter are simple things to remember.

Imperial Fists will make good use of your Tactical bolters, too - it's not all about the Devastators. With that in mind, they and Ultramarines are your top contenders.

With regards to the others - you could perhaps opt for them if you know you're more likely to get other units in future that would benefit more from them. For instance, Salamanders if you plan to get more melta and flamer weapons.

It has to be either imperial fists or vanilla, and who wants to play vanilla so sons of Dorn all the way, and who knows, you might give your opponent yellow blindness and win that way

You got a decent number of bolt weapons around (command squad, 3 tactical termi teams and 3 tactical teams) so IF are pretty decent even without alot of devs, and it will make the few devs REALLY good.

On the other hand, 2 dreads, 2 rhinos and a razor lets you do IF pretty good. its a decent MEQ if you start small.

Drop-pod salamanders would also work. and the flamer boost is not just against tanks.
You reroll all wounds you do with flamers against infantry/MC/etc, PLUS all armor pen rolls (and on that note, just today I had a heavy flamer shooting at my tank's rear. it actually got a pen.)
And you reroll any armor saves you would have against enemy flames, when it comes up. probably wont happen much-but good to remember.
If you go salamanders you might want to convery some heavy flamers on your termies though, and a MotF to make your dreads HS, so you can take both dreads and termies.

Astral Claws!!!

Unknown founding...
Super cool fluff...
Featured in the Badab Campaign...

Ultramarines, Imperial Fists, Salamanders and Iron Hands are going to be your best bet for a competitive list. So then you're left with a few choices.

Do you prefer or like any of the UM special characters? If yes, take CT:UM

Do you want to take a fair amount of Tactical and Devastator squads? (or Sternguard if CF with Pedro) If yes, CT:IF may be for you

Does the idea of the Salamanders bonuses 'light your fire?' If you're expecting to make use of some kind of flamer or melta spam you may want them.

Do you want to spam Dreadnoughts or abuse the living daylights out of a Captain/Chapter Master with 6+ FNP, it will not die, and preferably EW from the SE? CT:IH may be your well oiled machine.

(Seriously, the 6+ FNP is overrated. That's one saved Marine per each dead 10 man squad, providing it wasn't a double toughness pie plate, which it by all odds could have been)

From the list of your models, Iron Hands. The reason is because you have a lot of drop pods, vehicles, and walkers, who all get massive benefits from IWND.

Like you yourself noticed, you don't really have enough to abuse any of the other tactics, like spamming jump marines or bikes or flamers, but you DO have a lot of stuff that benefits from IH. The answer should be obvious.

 Mr.Omega wrote:
(Seriously, the 6+ FNP is overrated. That's one saved Marine per each dead 10 man squad, providing it wasn't a double toughness pie plate, which it by all odds could have been)

People are overrating this? It's a 1/6th chance of keeping a marine that would have died. Army wide. If you take 30 unsaved wounds in a game, the FNP saves 5 of those guys for you. Not amazing, but hey it's something.

Super Newb wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:
(Seriously, the 6+ FNP is overrated. That's one saved Marine per each dead 10 man squad, providing it wasn't a double toughness pie plate, which it by all odds could have been)

People are overrating this? It's a 1/6th chance of keeping a marine that would have died. Army wide. If you take 30 unsaved wounds in a game, the FNP saves 5 of those guys for you. Not amazing, but hey it's something.

17% increase in surviability to non double strength weapons is HUGE.
There is a lot of str7 and less out there. For bikes, there is even more str9 or less.

 Exergy wrote:

Super Newb wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:
(Seriously, the 6+ FNP is overrated. That's one saved Marine per each dead 10 man squad, providing it wasn't a double toughness pie plate, which it by all odds could have been)

People are overrating this? It's a 1/6th chance of keeping a marine that would have died. Army wide. If you take 30 unsaved wounds in a game, the FNP saves 5 of those guys for you. Not amazing, but hey it's something.

17% increase in surviability to non double strength weapons is HUGE.
There is a lot of str7 and less out there. For bikes, there is even more str9 or less.

Right, you know the odds. You know what to expect. How can you be overrating this? How can anyone be overrating this?

A 6+ FNP is actually *not* that big a deal. Look at it this way. A unit is fired upon and suffers 6 non-saved Wounds. As any other Chapter, you lose 6 models. As Iron Hands, you lose 5. It's really not that great a difference by the time you look at how many models you've still lost in the end.

Or to put it another way - look how badly Blood Angels are doing at the moment - not that it's the reason, but they have widely available 5+ FNP, yet they're still pretty easy to take down in the grand scheme of things. 6+ FNP is worse than that.

 Super Ready wrote:
A 6+ FNP is actually *not* that big a deal. Look at it this way. A unit is fired upon and suffers 6 non-saved Wounds. As any other Chapter, you lose 6 models. As Iron Hands, you lose 5. It's really not that great a difference by the time you look at how many models you've still lost in the end.

You offered yet another example of the math (I think I said 30 unsaved wounds means 5 guys saved rather than 0). Pretty sure everyone realizes the math here. Some just seem to think this durability buff of 16.6666% is good, others not so much.


The real question is, what tactics are you giving up to get 6+FNP and IWND on some things? Stuff which potentially can be a lot more helpful to the army.

Are these full kits with all the extra parts? Because if they are, then you will have enough heavy weapons for two devastator squads.

That 6+ FnP is already better than SoB's entire army wide mechanic. And it's not even the entire IH chapter tactics.

Looking at your list, and the comments you made on the different tactics you almost certainly want to try out imperial fists 1st. They are a gun line army and you have a bunch of gun lines. I would suggest you buy one ore two agis defense line kits (not to expensive) and you'll be all set.

Erm.... Why does he want two adls? Without allying that would be a waste of cash. And seriously who ever fields two anyway?

Jamo wrote:
Erm.... Why does he want two adls? Without allying that would be a waste of cash. And seriously who ever fields two anyway?

Because with IF you can have a Quad-Gun with tank hunter. But no, you don't need two; you can't have more than one fortification in under 2000 pointy army.

Super Newb wrote:

 Super Ready wrote:
A 6+ FNP is actually *not* that big a deal. Look at it this way. A unit is fired upon and suffers 6 non-saved Wounds. As any other Chapter, you lose 6 models. As Iron Hands, you lose 5. It's really not that great a difference by the time you look at how many models you've still lost in the end.

You offered yet another example of the math (I think I said 30 unsaved wounds means 5 guys saved rather than 0). Pretty sure everyone realizes the math here. Some just seem to think this durability buff of 16.6666% is good, others not so much.


The real question is, what tactics are you giving up to get 6+FNP and IWND on some things? Stuff which potentially can be a lot more helpful to the army.

Because that 16% survivability effects your entire army

so when you ultramarine army has just been tabled and lost the IH army still has 16% of it's guys left and can run them onto objectives to WIN.

Yea I personally love the IH chapter trait. I means being forced to go 1st doesn't lose me objective games against drakes and riptides as I can still have a marine or two survive/ contest those objectives. With demon forge a squad is all but guaranteed to be roasted off an objective but with FnP I have decent odds of sticking around. Same applies for first blood, warlord and linebreaker. Basically it's the only CT that directly boosts your odds on all 3 secondaries and most missions primaries.

 Exergy wrote:

Because that 16% survivability effects your entire army

so when you ultramarine army has just been tabled and lost the IH army still has 16% of it's guys left and can run them onto objectives to WIN.

That's not fair though is it? Wouldn't the ultramarine tactics make the army more effective offensively? Therefore they kill more and therefore get shot at less? So you can't just look at the 6+ FNP in a vacuum.

I think you need to look at your personal playstyle when determining what chapter tactic works best for you.

If you believe in direct improvement of durability and maybe have a more defensive mindset, than the Iron Hands CT may be the most valuable to you.

Someone who plays aggresively and wants to improve durability of their force by reducing the enemy's threats will prefer a more offensive threat.

Often times it's about perspective. Two skilled players will have very different armies and play styles. And while both armies may be good, put them in the other player's hands, and they may not perform because of differences in how each player sees the battlefield.

 infiltratethis wrote:
It has to be either imperial fists or vanilla, and who wants to play vanilla so sons of Dorn all the way, and who knows, you might give your opponent yellow blindness and win that way

This is the correct counter for night fighting.. just sayin'

 Exergy wrote:

Super Newb wrote:

 Super Ready wrote:
A 6+ FNP is actually *not* that big a deal. Look at it this way. A unit is fired upon and suffers 6 non-saved Wounds. As any other Chapter, you lose 6 models. As Iron Hands, you lose 5. It's really not that great a difference by the time you look at how many models you've still lost in the end.

You offered yet another example of the math (I think I said 30 unsaved wounds means 5 guys saved rather than 0). Pretty sure everyone realizes the math here. Some just seem to think this durability buff of 16.6666% is good, others not so much.


The real question is, what tactics are you giving up to get 6+FNP and IWND on some things? Stuff which potentially can be a lot more helpful to the army.

Because that 16% survivability effects your entire army

so when you ultramarine army has just been tabled and lost the IH army still has 16% of it's guys left and can run them onto objectives to WIN.

Except the Ultramarine army pumped considerably more firepower, made its game-winning charges where IH didn't and moved its Devastators out of a sticky spot while still firing at full BS.

Don't underrate army wide hit and run from white scars. Or Khan giving WS in transports scout. IMO, you can build a pretty effective WS army that doesn't have a single bike.

-Matt