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I've been thinking about starting a Space Marine army once I've finished painting my Orks. A friend suggested the Crimson Fists and, after reading their lore, I can see why they would be perfect to have alongside my greenskins.

This is a small list to start things off with a consideration for expanding the army later. I doubt I'll be bringing the army to any tournaments, so I'm not focusing on making a competitive list, but I'd still like some comments and criticisms in that regard. As well, any suggestions as to what to get next to expand the army up to 1000 - 1500 points would be greatly appreciated.

Captain
Storm Bolter, Power Fist
#Proxy using Pedro Kantor's model, had the points left over for a storm bolter and it was too perfect to pass up.

Sternguard Veteran Squad
2x Combi-melta
1x Heavy Flamer
2x Boltgun

Tactical Squad
1x Missile Launcher
1x Flamer
8x Boltgun

Scout Squad
Camo cloaks
5x Sniper Rifle

Total: 500 pts on the nose

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Hard to comment on this size of army especially if you are planning on playing at a large point size.

I'd say plan for a 1500 point army and then pick 500 points from that to start your force off with. After all, you might be picking those scouts to squeeze into the 500 pt force but not want them at 1500.

500 point marine lists are always a little odd. You are footslogging across the table, so a shooty army is going to do bad things to you before you get into a good rapid fire range. Your sternguard in particular are going to be target one.

I normally say never pay points for a stormbolter. I’ll let this one slide. I also think power fist are overpriced, but will never begrudge one to any son of Dorn. In higher point games Kantor is a fine HQ. At lower points I might stick with a more bare-bones one.

I’d love to see those sternguard step out of a drop pod with a few extra guys. But you have a bunch of close range weapons on a footslogging squad. If you want sternguard I might just run 5 basic guys. Then add the lot you have there to flesh out the squad to full and put them in a transport. If you could scrape up the points for a rhino/razor they might be OK, but points are in short supply in 500 games.

You tac squad is classic, and the scouts are a good camping unit

As to where to go, that’s up to you. The easy answer is a Kantor/sternguard drop list. Buy pods full of sternguard until points/slots run out, and then extra pods to get as many as you can first turn. Another option would be a hybrid drop list. At 1,500 points have 3 pods, and the rest in a long range gunline. There really is no wrong answer. Depends what you like.

Thanks for the suggestions. I really like the idea of sternguards in droppods with Pedro. And yeah, I think it does make more sense to start with a larger list and then work up to it from there. I'll put together something around 1500 points.