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.

Like the title says i am looking to start a new marine army for friendly games (i still like to win) but i really want to avoid having the exact same army as everyone. So what units should i be looking towards? and what should i be staying away from in order to have something different from the masses.

Space Marines have been around for years, you're going to have similarities in yours, so...yeah. Also, I'm not sure what "I still like to win" actually means when you don't want to have any of the same nuances as any of the more popular lists.

Anyhow!

It's best to get the codex and decide what you want to do tactics wise. Barring that, buy some of everything and test out what you want to do.

Also, you haven't really described, like, at all, what playstyle you're looking for in your SM army. It might help more if you give a more in-depth description of your plan.

Fair enough, ill be more specific.
I am usually not into placing everything in a rhino but i still like mobility.
Back when i had marines in 4th edition i liked speeders a lot.
I am very against flavor of the month armies, so much so i refused to place riptides in my tau because everyone was rocking 3.
By "i like to win" i mean i like friendly games but hate having a list that will get blown over by anything yet still don't want to be that guy that shows up will a "croissant" necron army.
The gist of what i was asking is what is the flavor of the month with them so i can try and avoid it, was looking into making a bike army with speeders and drop pods but it looks like bikes are fairly popular right now.

Grey knights and blood angels can be played different.

Tank-heavy SM armies don't seem to come up much.
So, something different might be troops-in-boxes, Predators and similar for Heavy, and Speeders for Fast.
Maybe just 1 squad on bikes for counter-assault, with a techmarine or 2 (on bikes) as support.
There's still room for Thunderfire Cannons in pods if you wanted to drop a tank or 2.

a very fun army that can be hit or miss is speeder spam, and its acctually cheaper than some builds.

3 speeder typhoons, 3 speeder's with multi-meltas and heavy flamers, 3 speeders with heavy bolters and assault cannons.

6 scout squads in land speeder storms/w heavy flamers.

15 speeders that can take out anything given proper placement around the field.

Might even go with raven guard chapter tactics and add a chaplain/w jump pack, auspex, shrike, and an assault squad to that to make a very mobile hard hitting army.

Grullon1982 wrote:
Fair enough, ill be more specific.
I am usually not into placing everything in a rhino but i still like mobility.
Back when i had marines in 4th edition i liked speeders a lot.
I am very against flavor of the month armies, so much so i refused to place riptides in my tau because everyone was rocking 3.
By "i like to win" i mean i like friendly games but hate having a list that will get blown over by anything yet still don't want to be that guy that shows up will a "croissant" necron army.
The gist of what i was asking is what is the flavor of the month with them so i can try and avoid it, was looking into making a bike army with speeders and drop pods but it looks like bikes are fairly popular right now.

So far you're a player after my own heart.

You're right about the bikers lists, it's a popular thing (it had better be, its stupid good) but you could take your own spin on it maybe. Less cheese and more variation in the units you deploy; attack bikes, standard speeders, land speeder storms with scouts, etc. Would make for a highly mobile force but still has a bit of a punch when you need it.

Drop pods are always a great thing to have in a SM list in my opinion, they offer a great 'oh gak' factor when you drop them on your enemy, or they can anchor your line in case of some outflanking shenanigans.

Do you have a chapter in mind?

Good thread. I think many people get burned out of this hobby by spending lots of money on stuff they end up regretting.

Avoid painting your army one of the "founding chapter" colors. A custom paint job can be played as any chapter without much fuss, but some people get confused/disgruntled when you plop down ultramarines and call them blood angels.

Avoid over marking your units. Your typical trooper can easily plug into Command, sternguard, tactical, or devastator squads. But if all your devastators have silver shoulders or whatever you dont have as much flexibility during list building. The same goes for transports, go for army markings, not unit markings.

Avoid trying to make a skew list. If you really want to stick an army out, you are going to want it to be competitive against most if not all potential opponents, and over the long term. Its a real bummer when you spend an entire edition building an all-whatever list and the next codex/edition nerfs that strategy, or the next codex has some must take unit that completely counters what you try to do.

Avoid carbon copy units initially. If you want to branch out into narratives/campaigns it really dampens the mystique for all parties involved when all the armies of one faction have the same composition. This is where having access to alternate weapon upgrades, or a transport or two can really spice up your list creation process.

Avoid buying everything at once. Many people get intimidated by a huge table of grey wplastic staring back at them, its much more manageable mentally to have breaks/goals/and rewards as you are painting. Assembling the next unit is a good way to keep morale up and keep you focused, while taking a break from painting.

Personally, When first starting a collection I tend to imagine the army fighting without thinking of the stats or anything, and go for a natural progression from there. What style of fighting do I see this army using? What sort of troops would a captain of this army use? If he is on the offence how would this army take the battle to the foe, and claim objectives there? If he is defending how would he disrupt an attack while holding ground?

In my experience people stick with and enjoy "armies" more than "lists"

hope it helps.

If your looking at getting into it again, Perhaps start by getting the Space marine Strike Force. It seems like a reasonably good start.

Of course if you want to do something totally different you could try a "Power armor tide" list. Taking 6 tactical squads, (( just special weapons no heavy weapons)) 3 assault squads, 3 units of Legion of the Damned, 3 devastator squads ((again with no heavy weapons)) and 2 command squads, putting about 180 marines on the field...

'The masses' is somewhat irrelevant to the conversation if you are doing something 'different'. It depends more on your gaming group and what they field. I know in our area, playing White Scars would make you stand out as there are no Ravenwing or White Scar players....but in areas just east of here that isn't the case.

The other option I am seeing for you, is run a bike list, if you like land speeders and bikes I would suggest looking at Dark Angels, and more specifically ravenwing. And more importantly you can at least pick up a few bikes from DV and trade the rest for more bikers

Build a TAC list with a little bit of everything. Avoid any list that spams the same thing. You can have a squad of bikes without being a WS bike spam list. You can have sternguard in a drop pod without going for a full Pedro-drop list.

By running a little bit of everything, you lack the reinforced strengths to bludgeon your opponent with. But you also lack the flaws inherent with a more focused list. Less rock/paper/scissors. You won't win as big as a focused list, but there should be less times you just get tabled. I find win or loose, I have more fun with a TAC list.

Any by playing something that's not a focused list that can be summed up in a one line description, you are unlikely to run across someone doing the same thing.

I like the idea of a mech heavy marine list. Armor seems to be on the decline in the recent meta, so you should have an edge if you go with it. Less melta and more plasma on the field is a good thing for tanks. You have an armored column of tanks/rhinos/razors, flanked and screened by your fast attack picks. LRs make for a nice centerpiece, loaded with something mean.

A word of warning: picking an army just to be different is a crippling initial mistake. Yes, you might end up with a bad army, but that's not the point. There are two more fundamental flaws with this mindset.

1) You are shooting yourself in the foot by imposing artificial limitations on your army construction, as opposed letting your vision guide your army construction.
2) You are playing for other people, and letting the opinions of others influence what you choose to field.

Trying to make an army that is different for the sake of being different means that you are letting other people decide what should be in your army. It means that you define what is fun or cool by what other people are using (or not using). It means that your estimation of your army's fun factor is based on your opponents' reaction to your vision.

I would advise you (as some others have already done) to read through the Codex, come up with a "realistic" vision of an actual chapter and how they would fight, and then try to pick an effective force that will match that vision. What is your chapter's story? What is there fighting style? What kind of units do they like to field? Work from the ground up. Fall in love with an army and then create that army. That is, in my opinion, the most fun way to build a force.

Yes, you may end up using some powerful or popular units, because those choices make sense in the context of your army (e.g. - taking a lot of bikes in your mobile strike force). Some people might look at those powerful or commonly-faced units and moan. Forget about these people. Cool gamers will notice the choices that you did not make (e.g. - refusing to take dev centurions in your mobile strike force, or committing to mounting all infantry in a meta that doesn't favor boxes).

Follow a sound army construction that fits a chapter you are enthusiastic about fantasizing about, modeling, painting, and playing. These are the four major aspects of our hobby; embrace them all. Play for your self, and the force of your narrative and the strength of your vision will make your awesome army something that worthy opponents will enjoy facing.

There are some normally overlooked units that are very good, if your looking for units that are not in normal netlists but can be very good here are a few.

Legion of the damned, great firepower in small squads, ignore cover, improved deep strike, 3++ and 2 attacks base in combat, these can be super effective if played right.

Vulkan Lists, not many people still run them, but they are stil very good

Assault Squads without jump packs in drop pods with 2 flamers.

Speeders, they have been supplanted by bikes or stormtalons but they are still very good if you use them right.

Melee scouts in landspeeder transports

Horde black templar marines. ( 20 man blob squads of marines)

Telion in a scout squad, (just plain fun)

IWND tanks with techmarines, helps if you can afford forgeworld for achilles, and lucious droppods, make a wall of landraiders, dreadnaughts inside lucious droppods (they don't have to disembark and can shoot out of them giving them a AV12 3hp shield to enemies), and stormravens with techmarines. Basically an AV wall of doom, its can be done without forgeworld, but it becomes much scarier/harder to kill if you use forgeworld.

White Scars centurions in a land raider, gives them the ability to scout.

thanks to everyone who has commented and understood what i wanted to get out of this, for an HQ how does this sound.

Captain, jump pack, teeth of terra, grav pistol

He will be rolling with an assault squad, 2 flamers and a P. fist sergeant

Sounds like a Good start. I would also advise, that by building One of the Codex's Battle Companies, it provides a couple of bonuses some folks may have not thought of.

First, It will allow you to fill all your choices on your FOC.

Second, If you choose to start playing Apocalypse games you will have your first Slot choice filled towards that. By taking some of the crazy Hodge podge lists you see from the net, they tend to be very 40K specialized.

And lastly, by starting to build a full battle company, your Primary HQ will actually feel like the Captain of a Battle Company, rather than a leader of rag-tag, ad-hoc Howevers.

However, If you like the idea of your warlord of misfits. Then bye all means, buy the models as you see fit/suits your whim. Its your army, make it your own!

That's a good Captain for an Assault Marine-heavy army. You might want to play Black Templars if that's the way you're going - Crusader squads are basically assault squads on foot that can take extra scouts as meat shields.

Of course, you sacrifice the Librarian for that.

Who needs a librarian (and ones who cant even take divination), while the only psyker in the codex that can use divination, everyone else i using.

Im with Ugin. You pick which chapter (codex or homebrew) fluff/playstyle you like and base your army on that. Then fill out the FOC with units that you think fits into that style.

E.g.
My templar list has always had droppod dreads and artillery support followed by a mech unit to get in close while their leaders likes to get up close and personnal.

Before update, it was typhoon speeders, 2x droppod AC dreads/command squad w/ champion, and vindicators rolling up.

With the update, its now 2x drop pod ironclads and dp sq squad, a bike squad with a biker chapter master and thunder fire cannons Might seem like a different list, but it plays the same way for me and fits in to how I imagine my Templars would go into battle.

They were underpowered before the update, but i liked the army and its fluff that i didnt care. Now everyones talking about centurion squads/tigurius/other chapter tactics, and some consider we are a contender for worst chapter tactics, but i dont care. I still play my templars because i enjoy them.

Also consider this, when I was looking into starting the hobby in 5th ed, i saw the models for grey knights and loved them. I bought a decent sized 1500 army and had them commision painted (wasnt comfortable painting them yet myself). But soon as I read more on their fluff and their "cheesiness?" In 5th, I found out about the BT and went that way instead. (Killing off SoB for "purity" seals, attempting to wipe out armageddons people because they witnessed daemons, attacking Space wolves because they tried to stop the massacre - this all leaves a bad taste for me).

Tldr
Pick a playstyle you love, and stick to it. I see you went with an assault jump pack hq and I like that. Im sure you know CC is nerfed this time around, but it still has its uses. Just need to be a little bit more smart about it.Good luck on your endeavors.

Mantis Warriors, my other suggestio, do get divination.

a little contradictori the post, you want something to make a different army, but you look for advise with the majority opinion , but i am not here for trolling pourpuse, hence you can always ask to the majority then evade everything they give you in theirs anwersb (you get the point ).
As a wolve player, every one spam grey hunters and long fangs, and i was in the same predicament, so instead of drowning my oponent on bolter fire and missiles, or lighthings with runepriest, i play a them army, with thunder wolves and charismatics leaders, as my wolf priest with a plasma pistol and rounic armour, nobody use them but they are great charcters.

Returning to the space marines, what i see on the forum, everyone wants to play them as white scars, iron hands or imperial fist, and to be fair they have great rules, as the bolter drills and the hammer of wrath improbement, but everyone are making that, certanly stay away of the salamanders builds. I was planning to make a crazy chapter master for a custom build chapter, useing the raven guard, equiped with the teeth of terra, the bolter relic (dont remember the name), the indomitus armour and a jump pack, just crazyness, a sink of points, yes, but charismatic and unique too.
If you want to play tourneys and want to win at all cost, then make a army as everyone else, but if you want your unique army, something with your soul on them, make the builds as you want to look, you want them shooty, use range weaponary, and so on...
Make your army how you want to love it, how you want to look, and more importantly, make your army as your character, if you are an angry person, assault units, if you are passient, use defentcibe units

I wouldn't recomend LRs becuase you need an assault units inside them and that's another 200+pts on the base cost.

The general advice I'd give, from the experience of working on 5 SM armies, is to have a plan for each unit, and not just buy stuff because you can. Too many times in my early days I bought a unit because it was cool, and then found that, no matter how awesome it was, it didn't fit the army I already had (eg. I have had a 5-man Assault Squad on a shelf for the last 3 years as it just didn't work with my fairly static tac/dread list). So yeah, plan the list before you start buying, so you don't waste money.

In terms of specific advice, I fully get where you are coming from with wanting to have a good list but not an OP one, it's how I build all my armies. With that in mind, you want to look at, like others have said, covering all the bases. I'd suggest trying not to duplicate squads entirely (eg, 2x tactical squad is fine, 2 with same loadout is a bit more boring). That way, you can also build up some cool fluff, like having a forward assault themed squad (PW, flamer, HB), an anti-armour squad (melta, LC) and so one and so forth. There aren't really any drastically bad units in the SM codex at the moment for non-tournament play, so within reason you can just use whatever you want. Assault Marines, Vanguard Vets and dreadnaughts are all frowned upon, but can be absolutely fine.

I like the sound of that captain, Teeth Of Terra is an awesome weapon, and putting it in an already assaulty squad with even greater mobility is just brutal (a word of advice here, though, is not to be afraid to split the captain off from the squad. With Rampage he can get the attacks to wreck most squads of 10 or less on his own, while the AM kill something else. I'd suggest giving him artificer armour as well to boost his survivability)

One last thing to look at is to see if your local area allows Forge World Rules, as they have just released (free) a load of new Chapter Tactics (there's a link in the thread in the News and Rumors forum) which would almost guarantee your army played differently to the netlists/other lists you see.