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Hi everyone, I'm trying to build a semi-competitive list that can deal with a broad range of different army types and I was wondering if I had covered all my bases. Could anyone give me some advice as how I could tweak it? I'm not very sure which combinations of special/heavy weapons are effective in tac squads or in sternguard squads.Not sure whether or not I should stick the tac squads in drop pods or not and kit them out a bit differently. I'm also considering replacing the termies and land raider with 2 typhoon missile launcher speeders, a sky hammer storm talon and another tac squad in a rhino or drop pod. Could I also please get some advice as to which squads the librarian and captain would be most effective in? Thanks very very much. Anyways, here's the list:

1850 pts space marines:

HQ

Captain (180 pts)
-Artificer armour
-Burning blade
-Storm shield

-Librarian (100 pts)
-Psyker (mastery level 2)
-Storm shield

Elites

-5 TH/SS assault terminators (225 pts)
- dedicated Land Raider Crusader (250 pts)

-5 Sternguard veterans (175 pts)
-3 combi-meltas
-drop pod

Troops

-10 tactical marines (260 pts)
-1 veteran sergeant
-1 plasma gun
-1 lascannon
-razorback with TLLC

--10 tactical marines (260 pts)
-1 veteran sergeant
-1 plasma gun
-1 lascannon
-razorback with TLLC

Heavy Support

-Vindicator (130 pts)
-dozer blade
-storm bolter

-Vindicator (130 pts)
-dozer blade
-storm bolter

-Predator (140 pts)
-TLLC turret
-Lascannon sponsons

Hum, struggling to give much on an opinion on this list. I think it looks fine, and it would certainly do ok in my meta, but I'm not sure how it'll hold up against nasty lists if you get much of that sort of thing where you are.

I will point out that the Librarian can't take a Storm Shield without purchasing Terminator Armour though.

There's room in the Crusader for both HQ's, but at that point you're likely massacring whatever you touch in one round (meaning you'll get shot next turn). You could just attach the Librarian and roll for Prescience (Divination) or Endurance (Biomancy), or Invisibility (Telepathy) if you're feeling mean. That would leave the Captain attached to one of the Tac squads as an assault-deterrent, or attached to the Sternies to tank wounds (with the 2+/3++), neither of which is using him to his full potential I fear.

What Chapter Tactics are you using?

You have a lot of points sunk in HQs, I might drop one. As is, you have two places to put them, the LRC and the SG’s pod. There are pros and cons to both spots. As is, I’d put the captain in the box and the Lib in the pod.

I think your tac squads could use combi plasma on the sarges more then the vet upgrade. Vet is only worth it IMHO if you are planning on assaulting.

If you are doing a suicide melta drop with the SG, I’d try to fit one or two more c-meltas in there. If you are just shooting 3, one will miss, and only two rolls on the damage chart might not kill the thing you are shooting at. When you are sinking that many points into the unit, you need to make sure it kills what it’s aiming at. For what it’s worth, I prefer bare-bones SG just pumping special ammo into things. HFs are also nice, as you tend to be in point blank range, and they mess up the same sort of things the special ammo does.

Swapping the box of pain for some zoomie things will change the list around quite a bit. You loose your assault option, for more mobility and ranged firepower. Both work, and can be fun. One problem with that is you don’t have as good a spot to put your HQs

Tac squads should be geared where all the guns want to be shooting the same thing. Preferably as well as the bolters, but exceptions can be made. What you want to avoid is one guy doing all the work, while the rest act as cheerleaders. LC/P work well together. Both are high S/AP2 guns. If shooting at high value infantry, the bolters might get some wounds in by weight of fire. HB/F is another good pairing if you are worried about hordes. MM/M, c-melta sarge is a case where the bolters in the squad are not going to help, but tac squads are often aggressively deployed forward, so the chance to pop a high value target is worth wasting a round of bolter fire. If no tanks are present, they can always just bolter things. Very flexible squad.

Thanks a lot for the responses! The veteran sarge comment is a good call as combis cost the same points and I don't want them in combat. Thanks for pointing out the storm shield thing. With regards to the HQ, I'm undecided about taking one out or not, because if I did it'd be the captain, and I don't think a librarian is durable enough as a warlord. Perhaps I could take out the captain, put the librarian in terminator armour with a storm shield and stick him with the terminators? That way I'd have enough points to give the sternguard more weapons and have 2 typhoon missile launcher speeders. The problem with adding more meltas in the unchanged list is I'd be 20 points over. I'm playing ultramarines by the way!

Ultramarines? And you want a Libby? Take Tiggy!

Haha I would but there's just not enough points to go around.

I would drop the librarian entirely, one librarian is not going to do much. If you must take one take tigerius. I would also replace the predator with vindicator #3 so you can take advantage of the squadron rule (if anyone is going to let you).

The problem with your list is I think it lacks focus and you must decide what you want to do. If you want to use the land raider + terminators I'd built about them getting to CQC. So maybe 2x land raider + THSS. This can give you the nice formation (As in deployment, not formation formation) of:

Land Raider Vindicator Vindicator Vindicator Land Raider

That would mean your opponents can only shoot the AV 13 or 14 and not the sides of the vindicator. It would also mean you're likely to deliver either str 10 AP2 hits or the terminators into battle.

The problem is vindicator don't synergize well with the raiders or the terminators; you want to get there ASAP and not slow down for shooting. You also don't want to be dropping those pie plates close to your terminators.

So if you want the Termies in Raiders go with 2 teams of them and drop pod the rest in to disctract/tie up/keep busy your enemy until your hammers arrive.

If you do the switch you proposed(LR for speeders, Rhino tacticals & Talon it would focus your army into a mechanized gunline so thats a good idea. I'd than drop than Razorback tacticals to 5 mans with say: Plasma combi plasma. If you're only using one Pod make it count. 5x combi melta or (better) grav centurions. You'd have some points spare.

Maybe post your collection if you can and people will redesign your army I'm sure. As it stands I think its horrible unfocused; you must decide how you want to play.