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So my friend told me about the changes to the eldar banshee leader (Zar?) and how she melts your face off in close combat. This got me thinking about what space marines can do in close combat. I remember back in 4th I ran a BA Sanguinary Priest with twin lightning claws for re-roll to-hit/to-wound and honor guard with power weapons....but now everyone has power weapons and ID and shooting is much better ......... but what about for close combat marine units? Are there any that are left?

TWC are fantastic CC units.

The new vanguard vets in the SM codex are pretty damn cost efficient given their new PW costs alongside their cheap access to jump packs. Theoretically honor guard are better due to their artificer armour but they pretty much need a land raider to make them worth taking which stacks up the points a lot more.

Blood Angels also have Death Company which kick ass as usual. One of the few things going for them at this point.

As Frozocone has said, for Space Wolves Thunderwolf Cavalry remains a top CC unit.

I'm honestly not sure about DW Knights, they seem decent but I think they suffer from what almost all terminator variants have to deal with which is their lack of mobility without expensive transports or having to stand still for a turn.

Dreadknights are top dog for GK.

Vanguard vets are fast and have crazy cheap CC weapons and storm shields, Honour guard have a 2+ and power weapon for a decent price but need an assault vehicle, terminators of both kinds will still mulch most things in CC especially with a charaxcter but need an assault vehicle, DW knights hit hard and have T5, dreadknights can be fast and hit hard but have few attacks for the price, assault centurions are now much cheaper will mulch anything they hit and are T5 2W but need a transport.

Thunder Wolf Cavalry are the terminal close combat unit right now, propelling a slightly weak codex to top dog by just multi assaulting everything and killing super heavies with Iron priests

Space marine command squad with bikes, narthecium, company champion, 4 storm shields, power fist, 2 lightning claws, and power maul. 3 melta bombs

Led by Chapter Master Smash-fether( bike, thunderhammer, shield eternal, digital weapons, )

Does chaos count?

For he most part, each of the Marine Dexes have a pretty good contender for CC.

Space Marines have Honour Guard and Vanguard Vets. Both are cheap and have a boatload of attacks to lay down.

Space Wolves have Thunderwolf Cavalry. Pretty much the premier CC unit of all the Marine Dexes, one of the best in the game.

Blood Angels have Death Company. They can lay down so many attacks and are really hard to put down.

Dark Angels have Deathwing Knights, which are pretty good.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Does chaos count?

I'm pretty sure that's heresy....


I did see that Vanguard Vets can have both jump packs and storm shields + (insert your own power weapon there). Seems to be a pretty nice combo (expensive) if you run an assault heavy list.

Black Knights are like genestealers that have a maximum charge radius of what, almost 30 inches? If rolled right they also have a 2++ rerollable cover save, hit and run, and can't be overwatched. 4 rending attacks isn't as deadly as say, an honor guard, but they'll almost definitely make it in, ruin something, and then troll away.

Yeah everyone has basically listed the primary assault units for each marine book, though oddly enough the actual marine book falls behind a bit in the close combat dept. So far we have:

-Space Marines: Assault terminators with hammers and shields (honorable mention for Vanguard vets and honour guard)
-Space Wolves: Thunderwolf Cav
-Blood Angels: Death Company (honorable mention for Sanguinary Guard)
-Grey Knights: Nemesis Dreadknight

Of these, TWC and death co are probably the best.

dark angels company veterans became amazing with the new codex.

okay here we go heres the hotness that is hammer of caliban with veterans:

500ish points of hammer of caliban, land raider crusader with three predator's (stock), techmarine with harness and conversion field

10 veterans with 3 power fists and two lcs's

the predators n speeders charge in and mess up whatever their going to charge into using their firepower to make them weak, the veterans charge in and with the techmarine and finish up anything left standing.

thats 13 power fist attacks and two sets of claws not to mention all kinds of chainswords

 th3maninblak wrote:
Yeah everyone has basically listed the primary assault units for each marine book, though oddly enough the actual marine book falls behind a bit in the close combat dept. So far we have:

-Space Marines: Assault terminators with hammers and shields (honorable mention for Vanguard vets and honour guard)
-Space Wolves: Thunderwolf Cav
-Blood Angels: Death Company (honorable mention for Sanguinary Guard)
-Grey Knights: Nemesis Dreadknight

Of these, TWC and death co are probably the best.

Dreadknights are respectable, but they're more for catching weaker units and beating up on them, or for Force weapon'ing stuff with no Eternal Warrior. They're not the end-all of assault units, especially not within the Grey Knight codex. In fact, in that context, Draigo with 10 Paladins is the best assault unit in the game (not counting some crazy apocalypse unit, but even then, I can't think of anything).

Emperor's Champion buried in a squad of Honor Guard with banner.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Black Knights are like genestealers that have a maximum charge radius of what, almost 30 inches? If rolled right they also have a 2++ rerollable cover save, hit and run, and can't be overwatched. 4 rending attacks isn't as deadly as say, an honor guard, but they'll almost definitely make it in, ruin something, and then troll away.

I've been absolutely crushed by a Ravenwing list in my last two games (playing Necrons).

I mean, they are so utterly broken-good it's unfunny.

The support squadron rules are completely OP.