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Hey,
Over the course of time I noticed that my armys lack some punch and now I´m considering to drop the amount of regular marines. As a SW player I am used to take as many GH as possible but vanilla seems not to follow the same doctrine...
Is there a rule of thumb on how many marines you should take? I´ve read about using 1 troop choice per 500 points but I´m not sure if it´s better to have 3x 10 marines or smaller units at 1500. Am I underestimating msu for object holding or is it usually better to let some Scouts sit on an objective?

Usually 1 troop/500 points is about right. The cool thing about Marines is they can combat squad, so against certain armies, or game types, it is in your favor to do this. I personally do not take scout because of the lack of accuracy. If you play marines...you take marines.

1 per 500 pts is safe, and then combat squad if you are coming outta pods, or take heavy weapons (eg the old ML/Flamer) combo

There's no 'right' amount to have to be honest, but you're correct in that treating them like GH is not the best idea.

I like to run between 20 and 30 at games under 1500, as I find them to make a good core of a list, and I'm not a fan of scouts. Combat squadding for MSU is certainly viable, especially in smaller games, but some of the time it's better to keep them whole.

It really depends on what you want to do. If you're running pods, then you'll probably want less so you can put more points into the likes of Sternguard, if you're using Rhinos then you'll want a higher number as rhinos only really work en masse.

There will be some that tell you scouts are better as troops, but that's a matter of preference and playstyle, and I'd say 20-30 tacs at 1500 is plenty.

In a 1,500 list I'll have 2x10 man squads in rhinos, and a 5 man sniper scout squad. Going to 2k, I'll normally add a 3rd full tac squad. I shuffle my lists up a lot, but the core of two tac squads is a constant throughout most of them.

If you're using DP consider dropping into cover. That will increase survivability against AP 3 stuff (except Helldrake) and rarely kills more than a marine.

I like the one troop per 500 thought. Tend to follow that myself. I actually like scouts. Cloaked scouts in a ruin, will have some good objective control. Give half bolters, half sniper rifles. Have the bolters move around to create focus fire snipes for you, and spend the game removing non-character special weapons and banners.

40 in my Heresy army, 20 post heresy at the same points.

I think in general lists, 2-3 is the right number. Scouts in Land Speeder Storms or biker troops are great for mobility as well>

However, a Calgar-type army should be more in the 5 full squad range to maximize his buffs. Not many people play this type of list anymore, but you can surprise people. I think it takes a true expert to play a tacspam army well; but it does have the tools to win.

I personally only use bikes or scouts. Tactical marines have never done anything useful for me, so I don't use them.

I take one 10 man tac and one 10 man sniper scouts. That or a bike list.
(1750p btw) ... Then again I also take Kantor and two 10 man Sternguard squads so I have 4 scoring....
In general I go one ten man tac (two if it's above 1250p) and a sniper squad (usually 10 man, sometimes 5 if I need the points elsewhere)

0-5. Tactical marines are pretty bad. They are ok as 5 guys in a pod with special + combi. Bikes, scouts and allies provide better troops most of the time