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I'm sure that this one's floating around deeper in the boards, but...

HQ

Space Marine Lieutenant 30 pts

WS BS S T W I A LD SV Type
Lieutenant 5 4 4 4 2 4 2 9 3+ Infantry (character)

Wargear:
Power armor
Bolt pistol
Chainsword
Frag grenades
Krak grenades

Options:
May replace Bolt pistol with a boltgun Free
May take a storm shield 15 pts
May replace power armor with artificer armor 20 pts
May replace power armor with scout armor and camo cloak Free
A Lieutenant may take items from the Melee Weapons, Ranged Weapons,
And/or Special Issue Wargear lists.

Special Rules:
And They Shall Know No Fear
Chapter Tactics
Independent Character

Unit Composition: 1 Lieutenant. You may take up to 4 additional Lieutenants at 30 pts each.

Command Squad: You may take a command squad for up to one Lieutenant in your detachment. This selection does not take up a Force Organization slot. (Full information on a command squad is on pg 164 of the Space Marine Codex)

(I bet that the Word format, with all the nice spacing and italics and such is going to get eaten by the board code. Let's see!)

The Lieutenent's an older Marine concept that's gotten lost over the years. They're junior officers, sitting between the Veteran Sergeants and the company Captain, each usually given oversight over twenty men (Since there's five to a company), but also given full command over smaller engagements when the Captain is otherwise engaged. In larger battles, they shore up the line, providing a little extra morale to the normal marines and giving a little extra resistance or aggression as needed.

As they aren't high command, I didn't give them access to relics, but I'm torn on if they should get Terminator Armor as an option or not. There probably should be, but for now, I'm just setting them out as-is. The cost is probably a tad high, but I'd rather it be too high than too low, for balance's sake. 1-5 take up one HQ slot, but I figure most people would stick to just one for small point level games, having better options at a thousand plus. Still, someone might have a use for three indy characters running around, bolstering units, so the option of several was included.

Thoughts? Comments? Advice on how to get the code to work better?

(edit: Wargear and Options ate one another, so separated them)

30 pts for a slightly improved marine, with some options, with two marines? hrm
Eh, I'd say price was about right, but I don't really know if they fill a niche that a cheap captain doesn't already fit?

There is a similar thread down the page a bit.

From a old fluff perspective:

Each chapter is lead by an imperial commander. He has a Lt. Commander assisting him as a second in command. Each of the 10 companies is lead by a captain, who has one lieutenant acting as a second in command.

So I have a problem with the 5 per company bit.

What role do they fill?

Mandatory HQ that doesn't flush too many points down the crapper. Because marine HQs are still very meh.

Why would there be a squad of LTs?

What's the point of having 5 of them.

LTs in infantry units are the tactical leaders of a platoon size element.

I would never field a squad of glorified privates

Martel732 wrote:
Mandatory HQ that doesn't flush too many points down the crapper. Because marine HQs are still very meh.

So really not so much a 'role' in the game as it is something to skirt a mandatory FOC requirement.

In that case, no. Improve the HQs, this is just lazy.

 curran12 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Mandatory HQ that doesn't flush too many points down the crapper. Because marine HQs are still very meh.

So really not so much a 'role' in the game as it is something to skirt a mandatory FOC requirement.

In that case, no. Improve the HQs, this is just lazy.

Marine players have been waiting since 2nd edition for this to happen. Ork bosses are STILL better lol. If I didn't have to take a marine HQ, I almost never would.

 curran12 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Mandatory HQ that doesn't flush too many points down the crapper. Because marine HQs are still very meh.

So really not so much a 'role' in the game as it is something to skirt a mandatory FOC requirement.

In that case, no. Improve the HQs, this is just lazy.

In low point games it can be a pain to field an expensive HQ. While the new pricing on bare-bones librarians does help this, it would be nice to have a marine commander, not a specialist in charge. So there is a mechanical niche to fill.

From a fluff perspective, it fits in fine with the old stuff. There used to be more marine ranks, and the Lt. was one of them. They were the guys tasked with taking a small detachment, while the captain lead the bulk of the company. So exactly the guy you’d want on the table in low point games. This position was even maintained into “modern” 40k, where the 3rd edition codex had a “Leader” for 30 points who had the same statline as a vet sarge.

You do raise a point about the mandatory FOC slot. Having a dirt cheap HQ would make allied force shenanigans a little easier to pull off. But it’s not like marines are abusing those anyway.

One Tau buffmander has more uses in 6th than two marine HQs within the course of a game. The buffmander is more what an HQ should be, so I'm not ripping on the buffmander. I'm ripping on the useless marine HQs.

Johnnytorrance wrote:
Why would there be a squad of LTs?

What's the point of having 5 of them.

LTs in infantry units are the tactical leaders of a platoon size element.

I would never field a squad of glorified privates

They wouldn't come as a squad, you'd just get 1-5 ICs to scatter around. Upthread, a different take on fluff was posted which would suggest that they'd be a single, rather than 1-5. I'll have to grab my old books out of storage and double check that, but if it's the case then, yeah, it'd drop to a 1 selection. If that's the case, I'd probably include an "Upgrade to Terminator Armor" option as well, which nearly made it in anyway.

And, yeah, his main role is helping out in small games, such as a 500 pt game for newer players, where, you know, the company captain shouldn't be the one in charge. The Lieutenant gets jobs like "Take twenty guys and go recon that church on the flank while the rest of us go crack open this fort" and the like. Officers gotta delegate.

Wakshaani wrote:

Johnnytorrance wrote:
Why would there be a squad of LTs?

What's the point of having 5 of them.

LTs in infantry units are the tactical leaders of a platoon size element.

I would never field a squad of glorified privates

They wouldn't come as a squad, you'd just get 1-5 ICs to scatter around. Upthread, a different take on fluff was posted which would suggest that they'd be a single, rather than 1-5. I'll have to grab my old books out of storage and double check that, but if it's the case then, yeah, it'd drop to a 1 selection. If that's the case, I'd probably include an "Upgrade to Terminator Armor" option as well, which nearly made it in anyway.

And, yeah, his main role is helping out in small games, such as a 500 pt game for newer players, where, you know, the company captain shouldn't be the one in charge. The Lieutenant gets jobs like "Take twenty guys and go recon that church on the flank while the rest of us go crack open this fort" and the like. Officers gotta delegate.

Or you could just have in the absence of an actual HQ, one Sergeant must take the 10 pt. Veteran upgrade and becomes the Warlord, but can't get relics. And in the case of multiple Veteran Sgts, pick one. Problem solved.

Good.idea and I.also have been wanting a middle ground between captain and sarg, 30pts is dirt cheap though and doesn't feel right, make it 50 and throw in a pw and refractor field, or just the field

I'd eyeball it at about 10 to 15 points too cheap, currently.

OuroborosTriumphant wrote:
I'd eyeball it at about 10 to 15 points too cheap, currently.

I figured that a Librarian with the same statline (+1LD) was 65 pts, but came with a Force Weapon, an invulnerable shield, and a psychic power. A power weapon is 15 pts, and +1 psychic power is 25 pts, so that'd be rooouuughly a 40 pt savings there, which'd be 25, plus the invulnerable save has some nebulous value. I figured I'd play it safe and call it 30.

Wow wowowowowooo Hold on a sec...

Lieutenants was Chaos cheap Hqs choice in 3.5Ed, so back off!.

i still have 2 Lieutenant of Khorne models, and it was 45pts back in the time WS and BS 5, 2 Wounds, Init5, LD10, had acces to everything in the wargear section, but limited to 75pts of wargear(Lords could have 150pts).

 Slayer le boucher wrote:
Wow wowowowowooo Hold on a sec...

Lieutenants was Chaos cheap Hqs choice in 3.5Ed, so back off!.

i still have 2 Lieutenant of Khorne models, and it was 45pts back in the time WS and BS 5, 2 Wounds, Init5, LD10, had acces to everything in the wargear section, but limited to 75pts of wargear(Lords could have 150pts).

It’s a marine rank from the RT era. The reason Chaos used it is it pre-dates the Heresy.

Rank for the fluff in RT Marines army, real, tangible unit for Chaos in 3.5Ed.

 Slayer le boucher wrote:
Rank for the fluff in RT Marines army, real, tangible unit for Chaos in 3.5Ed.

Real, tangible unit for marines in RT. You can argue that chaos might have had them more recently, but not first.

They already have lieutenants in the space marine codex. They are called command squads, read the fluff about them.

Slayer le boucher wrote:Rank for the fluff in RT Marines army, real, tangible unit for Chaos in 3.5Ed.

Tangible means you could touch it. Can you touch a rule? You can touch a model. I don't believe there is a model for chaos lieutenants.

hyozanman wrote:They already have lieutenants in the space marine codex. They are called command squads, read the fluff about them.

So true.