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So my current plan is to do a little surgery on the Dark Apostle by taking off his left hand and giving him a pointing finger and using him as a counts-as Sevrin Loth, but what should I do with the rest of the box set? My current idea is to divide the 30 marines into 3 x 10 tactical squads with a combi-plasma on the sergeant and a plasma gun in each group. Then I can end up buying a Centurion Squad and a Drop Pod and stick Loth in there with them. Or should I do 3 x 5 tactical squads, 1 x 5 assault squad, and 1 x 5 devastator squad and go for a demi-company instead? It would be cheaper...but are missile launchers even good this edition? I'm just trying to get the most bang for my buck here, oh and as an added note: I have a full 2k points of GK that I'll be allying in to fill the gaps. Definitely willing to hear any ideas from you guys.

For what missiles lack in pure power they more than make up for in flexibility. S8 for Anti-Tank and a Template for Anti-infantry. Definitely worth their cost. 5 man Assault Squads are great for fast-moving Meltas or Flamers, choose one on what you think the force is lacking. Contemptor Dreadnoughts need no introduction for all their awesomeness - Though I would recommend the Assault Cannon for dealing with heavy infantry (Seeing as your missiles and possible melta Assault Squad will have anti-tank covered). And Plasma Tacticals are a staple of many good armies. Terminators aren't the most competitve things ever, but still fun.

Take what you will from what I've said, I just hope it's helped a bit.

People keep telling me about meltas on assault squads, but battlescribe only shows flamers/plasma pistols. weird. but yeah you're probably right about the missile launchers, I'm just wondering whether I should go full 10 man tacticals to take advantage of the FNP or if staying MSU works best.

Missiles are not overly powerful, but they are workable. as TMWNP said-they got flexibility on their side. they will hardly ever be optimal, but they will never be completely useless.

Assault marines are completely useless for RS though, they provide them zero benefit and got no synergy there.

The real thing you need to remember-you are red scorpions! tactical spam is your thing, due to the free apoth upgrade to tactical Sargent being half your chapter tactics. you want to make use of it. but loth can't be a part of one, nor of a librarius conclave. the FW chapters have yet to be FAQed to fit into the gladius (you can try emailing FW about it, might speed them up if enough people do.)


Tactical spam "boots on the ground" is a solid path for the scorpions. I'd say go for small 5 man teams, as it means more apoth running around, making snipers less of a threat.
A CAD with loth leading 6 tactical teams, the termis and the dreadnaut, is not that bad. each tac team packs a special gun, and you just march towards the enemy.
Not the most top-tier army, but a workable start.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Tactical spam "boots on the ground" is a solid path for the scorpions. I'd say go for small 5 man teams, as it means more apoth running around, making snipers less of a threat.
A CAD with loth leading 6 tactical teams, the termis and the dreadnaut, is not that bad. each tac team packs a special gun, and you just march towards the enemy.
Not the most top-tier army, but a workable start.

I certainly agree on that point, lots of Tacticals with special weapons would be a better way to go, but I'm holding my ground on Devastators with missiles being good enough for a starter army.

Only BA can take Meltaguns in Assault Squads.

bigsaks5 wrote:
My current idea is to divide the 30 marines into 3 x 10 tactical squads with a combi-plasma on the sergeant and a plasma gun in each group

Tac squads should be the core of your Red Scorpions detachment.

For maximum flexibility, I would do 6 tactical squads, and then use all the plasma and melta guns from the set to kit them out. However, you may not be willing to buy 6 transports for them, so you could instead take the 3x10 squads. You'll have to kit-bash something for the nartheciums on the sergeant - maybe cut up some chainswords, and build the little "pointy" bit out of green stuff?

The allied Grey Knights you mentioned: take them as a Nemesis Strike force. They'll be the hammer of your army. The job of the Red Scorpions will be to spread out across the table and take objectives, and catch bullets (the more FNP rolls you make, the better).

Loth can ride in a drop pod - just take a 9 man tactical squad. Use him to cast invisibility on a Dreadknight, and other such shenanigans.

Thanks for all the advice so far guys! I'm thinking big squads of ten would work better for me because I don't know if I could live with myself if I bought/built/painted six identical rhinos haha. I've always been a bigger fan of the space marine model than the space marine vehicles (which is why my first 7th ed army was grey knights!). Would it be considered too much cheese to buy grav centurions, replace their heads with the MK4 ones in the Calth box, and stick them with Loth in a drop pod? I know about the Loth centstar with Draigo but I think I'd prefer them in a drop pod Draigo-less instead. At least until Draigo gets a non finecast model...god I refuse to buy finecast.

Grav-cents in a pod with a libby is actually one of the more competitive options for Space Marines. Whether or not it is "cheese" somewhat depends on your meta. If lots of people play competitively then grav cents are great. In a more casual environment you might get some hate for them though. Tiggy is better for a cent-star though imo.

What does Tigurius do that Loth can't? Or is it a points thing? I'm mostly doing Red Scorpions chapter tactics because I love tactical squads and mk4 armor and don't feel like investing in a lot of Forgeworld resin for a 30k army. I'm actually pretty excited to be using Kurtha Sedd as a counts-as Loth because I really don't want to buy the whole FW Loth command squad for 90 bucks.

But I'll admit it's a sexy looking FW model.

Mostly because there is no confusion over how Tiggy's rules work, and as an Ultramarine player Tigurius is a fluffy addition.

Didn't realize there was confusion about Loth. Thought it was pretty clear he takes 3 spells from the same discipline, or maybe I'm mistaken...

Thought there was some confusion over one of the rules involving his armor. Maybe I'm thinking of something else though, haven't looked at FW rules in a while.

Picking up Centurions and a Drop Pod at my LGS tomorrow for their Black Friday sale, now here's my final question: for the 10-man tac squads, do I want to give them a combi-melta/melta or a combi-plasma/plasma? I'm thinking plasma because the FNP helps offset the whole Gets Hot business.

I would say plasma. Melta is only really good for drop podding tac squads that can get close to the enemy

 War Kitten wrote:
Thought there was some confusion over one of the rules involving his armor. Maybe I'm thinking of something else though, haven't looked at FW rules in a while.

I believe the rules, which were written before the introduction of the Psychic Phase, allow you to spend a Warp Charge to make his save a 2+ Invulnerable. However, the rule states it occurs sometime during the turn (I can't remember specifically) when you'd lose or have yet to gain any Charges for that turn. Ergo, you can't spend Charges if you have yet to gain them or lost the remaining ones.

bigsaks5 wrote:
Picking up Centurions and a Drop Pod at my LGS tomorrow for their Black Friday sale, now here's my final question: for the 10-man tac squads, do I want to give them a combi-melta/melta or a combi-plasma/plasma? I'm thinking plasma because the FNP helps offset the whole Gets Hot business.

I'd say don't use 10 man squads, use 5 man squads.

That way you can get double the plasma guns, rather than combi plasmas. (or, have each 5 man team pack both a plasma and a combi, for alot more plasma shots.)

2 5 man teams costs just like a 10 man team anyway.

The Calth box comes with 3 combi-weapons, 3 plasma guns, 3 melta guns, and 3 flamers, so that's why I'm leaning towards the 3 squads of 10 at least at first. If I get my hands on more plasma guns I might try out 6 x 5 man squads instead BoomWolf.

Well, in that case, check with your local if they are fine with you using meltas as proxy plasmas for now, it will allow you to field more guns.

And in any case, learn from mistakes of others-learn to magntize NOW, and get they special weapons magntized so you can switch them in the future if desired.

Just got the Centurions and a Drop Pod on sale for $94. I can't believe how expensive those little fat dudes are. But I'm glad I finished all the purchases I need for the army at least!

Yeah the prices on Centurions suck (thus why I still haven't picked any up for my UM, despite them being one of the best Marine units). Good luck with the army, maybe you can make a P and M blog detailing the rise of your force?

I hadn't even thought about blogging it, but that might be a fun little side project. And I agree with you on the steep cost. I utterly refused to buy them at retail price but the 25% discount they offered this weekend was enough to make me reluctantly part with my money. Also I'm planning on using the BaC helmets with the Roman-style "galea" (horse brush thing) on the Centurions to keep with the MK4 theme so I can at least make them a little cooler.
What are you using in place of Grav Cents for your guys?

At the moment? Nothing. I've been playing mostly at low point games, and haven't used my Marines in a few months. The BaC set has given me cause to break out the boys in blue again though.