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Hey guys, I'm kinda new to WH40k (I'm mainly a WHFB and LOTR player) and I would like to start a custom chapter with imperial fists rules. Can you recommend me a good 2000pts army list to use as a guideline to start collecting my army? Please no FW models if it is possible. Thanks in reserve!

Well, imperial fists means bolter drill iirc, so you want to have enough of those to take advantage of the rules, so there should be a solid core of marines and devastators.

Lysander and a mob of assault terminators will probably get their points back most of the time and handle CC.

Add Predators and Land Raiders to your liking. I'm not sure whether tanks profit from bolter drill, but if they do, crussader-patern Raiders may become nasty.

Sadly, no, the vehicles don't get the chapter tactic benefit.

A double land-raider list with Lysander and terminators in one, and an unnamed chapter master in the other with more termies, or honour guard or what have you, with devastators, a storm raven, and a couple rhinos full of marines who could combat squad into 4 groups for objectives seems pretty solid.

Kosake forgot to mention that all your devastators and cent. devs get tank hunter for free.

It's your custom chapter, so you might have a preference on say, the chapter master's loadout, or you may want more devastators instead of the raven, or just more troops and less non-scorers in general.

First of all thanks for the replies guys. Yeah I think I'll go with Lysander as my google search showed me he is used by most so he has to be good although since it will be a custom chapter based on the Imperial Fists I'll propably convert my own model to use as Lysander but the thing is I have no experience with 40k (still haven't finished reading the rules) and I have no clue what's good and what's not in battlefield terms and so if anyone can point me to a good army list I'll be much obliged!

If you want to avoid special characters such as Lysander because it's your own chapter, you might want something that benefits the overall "gunline"-feel of the fists. A librarian springs to mind, though I am by no means a SM player, so other options may be better. I feel like the fists do most of their killing inside the 24" range, so thats the area where you should either make sure nothing serious survives or you might want something with longer range to thin the ranks before the tacticals and devs open fire. Honestly, i'd go with a librarian and more devastators.

Thanks Kosake your comments have been most helpful!

No problem. Oh, one more thing: if you and your group are cool with it, you could look into the siege vanguard list (forgeworld). The primary difference for me is 4 heavy support choices and 2 fast attack choices instead of the regular 3/3. I feel this does fit much better in with the fists and their siege warfare penchant, as you want to have more firepower and the fast attack options for marines are so-so anyways. Just saying.

Imp. Fists are traditionally stubborn siege experts. Fluffly armies tend to be gunlines (for defense) or an armored fist (for offense). It is worth noting that as a codex chapter, they do have all the tools at their disposal, even if you don’t see a whole lot of fast attack units.

With a gunline you want to make sure you have enough long range firepower to crack anything in their deployment zone, and enough short range guns to make coming to you suicide. LC devs are probably going to be your go-to for reaching across the table, but save some HS slots for thunderfire cannons. They have the range to blow infantry out of your opponent’s deployment, and also the techmarine will bolster your ruins to make it harder to kill you. Win/win. When digging in for a gunline don’t neglect maneuver entirely. It’s nice to have a reaction force, or the ability to go out and grab objectives.

If you are going for an offense force, look to tanks. LR full of something nasty, some vindicators, and your troops in rhinos/razors.

One problem with giving advice for new marine players is that so many things are multi-role. If there is a unit you like, fit it into your list. Just take other things to cover the gaps it leaves. Some things are more point efficient, but nothing is useless. There are better ways to get firepower downrange then a TLLC/ML dreadnought, but I don’t think the unit it’s shooting at cares that it’s being shot at by a sub-par unit; it’s just hunkering down and eating death. The trick is to make sure you have all your bases covered.

Getting troops to objectives and having them there at the end of the game.
Killing heavy armor
Popping med/light armor/transports
Dealing with monstrous creatures
Thinning out hordes
Shooting down flyers

With marines there are many way to fill all these roles. So I’d start with picking 3 things about the army that resonate with you. When reading the codex, what stands out? What makes you go “oh!, that’s awesome!” What visual sings to you? Take those units and make it happen. You will enjoy the game a lot more playing an army you love, in a way that you like. Once you have the stuff you want, fill up your list with the stuff you need. Look at my checklist above and see what you don’t have covered. Take units that do that.

And welcome to Dakka and 40k!

Thanks for the replies guys. Nevelon the problem with me and miniatures is that I suffer from the "oh shiny" syndrome and I get easily distracted buying heaps of stuff that in the end I can't play with! I have a few heaps of Imperial guard that are stored in a box (more than 60 troopers half cadian half catachan with command squads + mostly untouched space marine scouts that I wanted to convert to stormtroopers, a leman russ, a halfway done superheavy tank built from an old toy tank and another halfway done flyer made from a toy helicopter) also I have a unit of thousand sons that I only have assembled and black templar veterans ,painted in the worst way possible, accompanied by an emperor's champion. As you understand I ain't gonna make my guardsmen into an army anytime soon but maybe after I finish the IF I will use some of them as allies. At least in WHFB I am more disciplined I mostly collect chaos warriors and dwarfs (+ a few beastmen +a few high elves +a few wood elves +some units of dark elves and tomb kings ) I shouldn't of course get started with my LOTR collection because I doubt there is enough space on the thread . So your guidelines about the fists were really good since I couldn't really understand how the siege experts thing really fits in gaming and the only chapter's fluff I really know is Blood Ravens and Black Templars (and the few bits of the Heresy everyone knows).

Oh, I understand the shiny model syndrome. I’m just trying to figure out which shiny brought to to be a noble Son of Dorn. Telling you that bike armies are probably the strongest marine build, and that drop pods are still competitive is not going to be useful if the thing that lights your imaginative fire is a line of marines standing shoulder to shoulder, hammering out a bolter drill into the enemies of mankind.

I could whip up a list for you, or modify one of mine. A quick trip to the army list section will yield dozens. But none of them would be -yours- Grav centurions are not a bad unit. I don’t like the way they look. You might love them. Little quirks like that. Also how competitive are you? And how cut-through is your local scene? What kind of armies do you expect to play? You just want a 2k list, then done? Or is this a step to a larger project (like building a battle company)?

What kind of budget are you on? You buying new, used? Anything you hate?

In truth I will not really be a noble son of Dorn as I am actually building a custom chapter based on the Imperial Fists and I didn't want a close combat force like that I know the Black Templars are. The custom chapter will have a Late Byzantine theme and I think when I finish my 2000 point force I will add allies such as a varangian themed chapter based on the space wolves and surely some of the imperial guard I have packed. I should write down the fluff that I am thinking off some day since it's kinda big when you put all those together Also I am no fan of the centurion models but I don't hate them either. I don't know what I will be up against because I know only the WHFB people around here (surely there is one necron guy here though) but I'd like to have a competitive armylist that isn't way overpowered, if you could give me a list it would be awesome! I have even created a sample of the colours I am thinking based on the flags of the palailogos dynasty the possible name is Knights of Mystras with their symbol being either an aquila or a cross.


PS. LoL it's the imperial fist colours inverted
Edit: I'm buying new most likely.