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With the release of Codex: Space Marines and Forge World's Chapter Tactics and special characters, I've been thinking about switching from heretics and xenos and embracing the glory of the God-Emperor.

Or in simpler terms: I've been eyeballing the Star Phantoms army and making use of Captain Androcles and his "your Devastators are now Elites" ability. Coupled with the Phantoms' ability to re-roll 1s on Deep Striking Reserves and their Hail of Destruction ability means that a drop-pod army with lots of guns seems like a possibility. Right now, my thoughts are running along maxing out Androcles' support with 6 Devastator squads: Three in Elites with three in Heavy Support (I'm thinking 3 squads of multi-meltas and 3 of plasma cannon/heavy flamers), following that up with Tac squads outfitted with a mix of meltas and flamers and a unit of Sternguard to round things out. My group usually plays at 2000 points, single Force Chart

A very rough/preliminary army list might be as follows:

HQ
Androcles

Elites
Devastator #1: 4 x multi-melta + pod
Devastator #2 4 x multi-melta +pod
Devastator #3 4 x multi-melta +pod

Troops:
Tac Squad #1: Heavy flamer + flamer + pod
Tac Squad #2: Heavy flamer + flamer + pod

Heavy Support:
Devastator #4: 4 x plasma cannon +pod
Devastator #5 4 x plasma cannon + pod
Devastator #6 4 x plasma cannon + pod

Allies (Mantis Warriors):
HQ
Ahazra Radth

Elite:
Sternguard #1: 8 Sternguard + 5 combi-weapons + pod

Troops
Tactical Squad #1 Heavy flamer + meltagun + pod

Heavy Support: Thunderfire cannon + pod

Total: ~1980 (give or take a few points)

It's a pretty bare-bones list I'll admit, but it does give the general gist of my thoughts. 11 pods in play, meaning there's a Turn-1 alpha strike of 6 units. I'd like the Devastator units to really have more troops as bullet-catchers, though I'd have to sacrifice the Thunderfire at a minimum to do so. I think it's also light on Troops for objective holding... I could also save some points by swapping Radth for a general Lvl 2 Librarian... but losing the ability to Shroud friendlies is the trade-off.

Anyways, any further recommendations/thoughts would be welcome.

Plasma Cannons have the range and heavy-ness not to want to be podded - Multi-meltas are actually pretty threatening once they land in the backfield, but the Plasma Cannons aren't doing much they couldn't already. You can't take heavy flamers and more multi-meltas is overkill, so I feel like you'd be best not dropping those devs at all. The pods could be included to increase the size of the first wave - but you don't actually have much else to drop in, just the sternguard really. The thundefire doesn't want a pod either, it is a barrage weapon so gains very little from deploying outside your deployment zone and skipping a turn of fire. I would cut pods from the three plasma dev squads and the Tfire - that gives you seven, enough for a 3 dev and 1 sternguard first wave, while saving you a bunch of points with which to get more scoring units. A small scout squad and a 5-man unit of podded tacticals should be fine and with a little jigging ought to fit ok, you will probably have to downgrade Radth like you mentioned. You have a massive amount of ap2 firepower, good tank-busting, and enough flamers to give any horde army pause for thought - but if your first wave is not decisive that's a lot of small, fragile squads packing 80% of the army's punch, so you could lose a lot of firepower very quickly.

If nothing else, it should be great fun to play! It's too bad you don't get Devastators as troops the way a proper ninth company should have, and also too bad Devastators can't take special weapons any more, since that would be nice if you went with dropping plasma devs.

thisisnotaseriousaccount wrote:
Plasma Cannons have the range and heavy-ness not to want to be podded - Multi-meltas are actually pretty threatening once they land in the backfield, but the Plasma Cannons aren't doing much they couldn't already. You can't take heavy flamers and more multi-meltas is overkill, so I feel like you'd be best not dropping those devs at all. The pods could be included to increase the size of the first wave - but you don't actually have much else to drop in, just the sternguard really. The thundefire doesn't want a pod either, it is a barrage weapon so gains very little from deploying outside your deployment zone and skipping a turn of fire. I would cut pods from the three plasma dev squads and the Tfire - that gives you seven, enough for a 3 dev and 1 sternguard first wave, while saving you a bunch of points with which to get more scoring units. A small scout squad and a 5-man unit of podded tacticals should be fine and with a little jigging ought to fit ok, you will probably have to downgrade Radth like you mentioned. You have a massive amount of ap2 firepower, good tank-busting, and enough flamers to give any horde army pause for thought - but if your first wave is not decisive that's a lot of small, fragile squads packing 80% of the army's punch, so you could lose a lot of firepower very quickly.

You make some good points; I forgot that heavy flamers can't be taken by Devastators. And swapping Radth might indeed by necessary; I like him for Divination and Mirage, but with good rolls, a Lvl 2 Mantis Warrior Psyker could mitigate that.

Though now I wonder if swapping out the pods on the Plasma cannon Devs and the Thunderfire would give me enough points for a couple of assault cannon or deathwind missile drop pods...

...must... send... death from... above...!

...or I can invest in more scoring units, like you said.

And it very much is a 'win quickly or die slowly army'. I drew the inspiration from my DE list: "How can I kill absolutely everything on the battlefield as quickly as possible?"

If nothing else, it should be great fun to play!

That's the plan. Already got Venomspam, loads of Guardians and Dire Avengers, Heldrakes, noise marines and plague marines. I figured a drop-pod army would be fun to play and while I'm doing that, I might as well go for broke and include as much dakka as possible. Because as we all know, dakka is love.

It's too bad you don't get Devastators as troops the way a proper ninth company should have, and also too bad Devastators can't take special weapons any more, since that would be nice if you went with dropping plasma devs.

If they could take special weapons like Havocs, I would definitely run plasma gunner Devs...

HQ
Androcles

Elites
Devastator #1: 4 x multi-melta + pod
Devastator #2 4 x multi-melta +pod
Devastator #3 4 x multi-melta +pod

Troops:
Tac Squad #1: 10 Marines 2x flamer + pod
Tac Squad #2: 10 Marines, 2x flamer + pod

Heavy Support:
Devastator #4: 4 x plasma cannon
Devastator #5 4 x plasma cannon
Devastator #6 4 x plasma cannon

Allies (Mantis Warriors):
HQ
Lvl 2 Librarian, Termie armour, Storm shield

Elite:
Sternguard #1: 8 Sternguard + 5 combi-weapons + pod

Troops
Tactical Squad #1 5 Marines, Flamer + pod

Heavy Support: Thunderfire cannon

Total: ~1940

I can squeeze in a bare-bones or sniper scout squad, but I'd have to juggle a little to get another Tac squad out of the list.

As far as I know...Tacs can't take two flamers :(

I wish they could though

Indeed they can't.

Dangit. Too used to Chaos Marines and their ubiquity of Special Weapons; thanks for the catch though.