Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

A friend is getting back into the game with an Emperor's Children army and loves Noise Marines. He is looking at making them his primary troops (along with a biker lord with bikers, maybe a sorcerer, maybe some Heldrakes, maybe some heavier artillery, and Slaaneshi daemon allies for CC).
I'm curious as to what's the preferred manner of fielding them? In Rhinos? Icon of Excess? 5-man (to get the most Blastmasters out there) or 10 (to make the most out of Icons of Excess?) Power Sword on the Champs for the unavoidable challenges, or leave them bare?

5 with blastmaster, and bolters/sonic weapons + Rhino for backfield.

10 with sonic weapons / bolters, probably with extra ccw, Icon of Excess and a Doom Syren + Rhino for midboard controle.

8-9 with ccw and Doom Syren + Icon of Excess accompanying an indep in a landraider. They're on par with regular marines exchanging melta for a Doom Syren and gaining Fearless Stock. Can be useful if you're running them with Sorc, who's not fearless himself. On the other hand, you generally want sorc on a bike, but why not!

20 with ccw + Icon Of Excess for infiltrating madness - they work best with Huron/Ahriman as a warlord + joined by Cypher for H&R and Shrowded. I generally use regular slaaneshits for 2 meltas + combi-melta but even ld10 with ATSKNF can fail from time to time. So, you might as well exchange regular marines for noise marines. Meltas are sweet but so is true Fearless.

In any case, i'd recommend taking Rhinos even if you're not riding them. For 35 pts it's a steal. Especially with obsec.

I pretty much agree with koooaei with the following exceptions:

5 man blastmaster squad - give that rhino a havoc launcher. Its range pairs up nicely (i.e. both are 48" small blasts)

I ran larger squads of sonic blasters (usually 13-15) with a doom siren, lucius, and an IoE. Same as above, large squad to make the expensive icon a little more manageable. With infiltrate, it was even better. They can deny a large portion of the board with that many shots.

I have also tinkered with an additional ML3 sorceror to gain access to the slaanesh power to increase sonic weapons by 1. When it worked, it was nice but never game breaking.

Lastly, the cult troops are all fearless. This is a benefit that cannot be discounted. It makes those small 5 man squads hanging in the back very difficult to dislodge.

Prior to this codex, I also used to run 3 defilers with this list. This gave me a ton of str 8 apr 3 large and small blasts that could strike from across the board. WIth this new codex, defilers are way more expensive. It may be worth trying a pair of them, but that is your call.

I'd probably go for demolishers if you want strong blasts. And they're a good place to get posession.

Haven't considered an infiltrating firebase of sonic blasters, to be honest. How does it work? I'm often running infiltrating 20-strong mellee-oriented slaaneshits with meltas (regular guyz with MoS and IoE) together with Cypher. And they're very effective. Shrowded + fnp makes the squad unexpectedly resilient. Small arms need to go through 3+/5+++ - and that's almost as durable as 2+ while big gunz still have to go through cover. And there are not much ap3 or better weapons that ignore cover. Even so, they're generally blasts, so won't kill more than ~4 guyz as you can always spread out. And H&R proves very useful too.

Oh...and the enemy can't sweep us. Cypher has ATSKNF The only problem is that they're not fearless => can sometimes fail ld10 and run/get pinned. But not that it happens too often. On the other hand, they guyz will rock 2+ cover and fnp when they g2g in cover.