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Hi all,

It would be great to get some advice on the below list. I've started collecting marines, and have put together this list below. The idea would be to march the lieutenant forward with the core of intercessors and assault hellblasters, and having the captain initially helping the devs and heavy hellblasters at the back before getting involved in some skull bashing late game (Hence jump pack).

It would be great to have some advice on mobility, anti-infantry, and anti-vehicle capability here - as well as any other things! The reivers are there to cause some extra aggro and harrass, alongside the terminators providing an unpleasant surprise if I find myself caught out or can be used to press an advantage.

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Imperium - Space Marines) [119 PL, 3CP, 1,749pts] ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

**Chapter Selection**: Ultramarines

Battle-forged CP [3CP]

Gametype: Matched

Use Beta Rules

+ HQ +

Captain [6 PL, 117pts]: Combi-melta, Jump Pack, Relic blade, Storm of Fire, The Sanctic Halo, Warlord

Lieutenants [4 PL, 62pts]
. Lieutenant: Chainsword, Storm bolter

+ Troops +

Intercessor Squad [10 PL, 170pts]: 2x Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Bolt rifle
. 9x Intercessor
. Intercessor Sergeant

Intercessor Squad [10 PL, 170pts]: 2x Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Bolt rifle
. 9x Intercessor
. Intercessor Sergeant

Scout Squad [6 PL, 80pts]: 5x Camo cloak
. Scout Sergeant: Bolt pistol, Sniper rifle
. 4x Scout w/Sniper Rifle: 4x Sniper rifle

+ Elites +

Reiver Squad [10 PL, 120pts]: Combat knife, Grapnel Launcher
. 5x Reiver
. Reiver Sergeant
. . Bolt Carbine/Heavy Bolt Pistol

Terminator Assault Squad [24 PL, 228pts]
. Terminator Sergeant
. . Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield: Storm shield, Thunder hammer
. 2x Terminator w/THSS: 2x Storm shield, 2x Thunder hammer
. 3x Terminator w/x2LC: 3x Lightning Claw (Pair)

Venerable Dreadnought [8 PL, 134pts]: Assault cannon
. Dreadnought combat weapon w/Storm Bolter: Storm bolter

+ Fast Attack +

Attack Bike Squad [3 PL, 37pts]
. Attack Bike: Heavy bolter, Twin boltgun

Attack Bike Squad [3 PL, 37pts]
. Attack Bike: Heavy bolter, Twin boltgun

+ Heavy Support +

Devastator Squad [11 PL, 139pts]: Armorium Cherub
. Space Marine
. Space Marine Sergeant: Boltgun
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Plasma cannon
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Missile launcher
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Heavy bolter
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Heavy bolter

Hellblaster Squad [16 PL, 280pts]: Assault Plasma Incinerator
. 7x Hellblaster
. Hellblaster Sergeant: Bolt pistol

Hellblaster Squad [8 PL, 175pts]: Heavy Plasma Incinerator
. 4x Hellblaster
. Hellblaster Sergeant: Bolt pistol

++ Total: [119 PL, 3CP, 1,749pts] ++


Any help much appreciated!

First, Welcome to Dakka and the Ultramarines.

Overall your list structure and plan is sound. You are very close to a brigade, rather then a battalion. One more HQ, split the intercessors into 5 man squads and add another troop, and a extra FA and you are there.It might not be worth doing at this point level, but if you build up to a 1,850 or 2k list, something to keep in mind. With the 3x elites and HS you have right now, you could add another HQ and calve those off into separate detachments for additional CP.

Captain is not bad. Melta is a bit overpriced these days, and will be of no use if he spends half the game in the backfield. If your captain is close enough to melta, he’s close enough to charge. I might invest in a thunderhammer over a relic blade. I’ve been running my jump captain with a thunder hammer and the shield eternal. The halo is not bad, but I’d rather be halving the damage he takes then getting one deny a turn. Does cost a few more point and takes up one of his gear options, but worth it IMHO.

If you are taking a Lt. on foot, consider a primaris one. The extra W/A can be worth it. You are not really taking advantage of the options on the old school Lt. One thing to consider is a jump pack. His main strength is his aura. Letting him easily reposition to maximize who he’s covering can be quite nice. He also has a healthy number of attacks hitting on a 2+. Might be worth investing in a better CC toy than a chainsword. Cheep and cheerful might be fine if you were planning to just camp in the backfield, but if you are going aggressively forward, make with the stabbing! That said, sniper scouts love having the Lt. around to help then fish for MWs on 6’s with their rifles.

If you are going to field full 10 man intercessor squads, you might want to look into the vigilus formations. But generally you want smaller squads. You get less out of buffs, but are more durable and tactically flexible. Plus more sarges. Minimum they should have their free chainsword. And on a model with 3A base, I find it’s worth the points to give them at least a powersword. Adding a ‘fist or two could help with AV work.

The reiver squad has to all have the same gear, so if the squad has knives, the sarge has to as well. I think they are overpriced and don’t bring a lot to the table, but they can pull duty as backfield harassment and general mayhem. If you want some phobos armor, some of the new shadowspear stuff is better. They look cool, so take them if you want them. And they do add some mobility options to your list. If trimming points for elsewhere, I’d probably cut the 6th man first, if not the whole squad.

Assault terminators are classic. I’ve not fielded mine a lot in 8th, but they should basically work. Nice to have a CC option. I’ve been fielding tactical terminators more, as the weight of fire from the SBs is nice. But some days you need to put the hammer down, and the SS helps keep the plasma off. Again, if you need points elsewhere, dropping the 6th man is not a bad idea.

My only problem with the Ven Dread is that he’s the only vehicle in your list. Every lascannon on the other side of the table is going to be on him turn 1. I’m tempted to say drop him, and just run pure infantry. But I love those angry washing machines.

The bikes do give you some mobility, but don’t bring a whole lot more to the table. If you were running a brigade, they work to fill slots. If you play maelstrom, where you need to zip around and cap objective, they could be useful. But they are going to be sacrifice units doing so. A single bike is not going to live long alone. I might upgrade to scout bikes, which are faster, bring a TON of light dakka, and have a strat that can be fun. Or a unit like Inceptors, which bring a lot more firepower, but do cost a bit more. I like that you are trying to keep some mobility. It’s easy just to focus on gunlines. A good TAC Ultramarine list should have a little something from every FOC slot. But that’s the fluffy Ultramarine player in me talking.

The dev squad has both a ML/HB to use the strats, which is good. I might go with a LC over the PC, as it’s less relient on the captain being around to work. Plus, sometimes the S9 is needed for heavy armor. Points allowing I might swap one of the HBs for a second LC, as your list has plenty of infantry firepower, and you can never have enough long range AV.

In almost every case you want the rapid fire version of the primaris guns. Plasma especially. You are not going to advance and overcharge (unless desperate/crazy) so the situations where it’s worth the drop in S are few and far between for the assault version. If going for a single shot heavy, why not take a LC? The only role I see for the heavy plasma is (besides looks, which I get) is if you are running a pure primaris force, where they are one of the few ways to get high-S AV firepower.

--

Now, when making advice on changes to a list, there are always a lot of caveats. What’s your local meta like? Who’s your most common opponent? What drew you to the army? Are there any units that are must includes or never takes? Do you already own some units, or have them built a certain way?

From a practical POV, while it’s easy in battlescribe to just click up to add that 6th guy to a squad, that normally means buying another box. So unless you already own them, I’d drop those two guys, probably the extra hellblasters as well. The same could be said for the spare bolter guy in the dev squad, but I assume every marine player has a ton of extra bolter boys sitting on the shelf. If you already own all of them, it’s another story, but something to keep in mind.

If you already own a lot of the list, swapping out stuff for a marginal improvement is not worth the real life cost most of the time. It’s not like units like the heavy hellblaster don’t work, they just aren’t as efficient as other options. So if you already have them built and painted, it’s not worth swapping them out for Devs due to RL concerns. At the semi-casual FLGS level, it probably won’t make that huge a difference.

--

If I was you, I’d cut all the squads down to 5 men to start. Split the intercessors into 5 man squads and go for the brigade. You are almost there. For the 6th troop, grab a bare-bones scout squad. As you are playing Ultras, you can pick up Talion to hang with the snipers and fill that last HQ slot. Start with a 3rd attack bike for the FA.

From there it’s number crunching to see what you can upgrade.
Swap the reivers for another dread (or the dread you have for another elite, like another terminator squad)
Swap attack bikes for better FA picks
Add more/better geared HQs. In an ideal world you have both a captain and a LT for the advance and firebase elements.
Max out squad upgrades. CC toys for sarges, ML/HB for the sniper scouts, etc.

I have an idea but it works at 2000 rather than 1750. (You can cut the number of Intercessors to make it at 1750.) Also it uses only primaris so that there is nothing for your enemy to target with
his heavy anti-tank weapons.

- Uses a brigade formation and the Indomitus Crusader Vigilus formation.

1 Primaris Captain ( may use 1 CP to give him the artifact power sword.)
1 Primaris Lieut ( give the Crusader extra warlord trait to give everyone the 1-time use of a different chapter trait. I would be an Ultramarine & do the one-time Raven Guard rule to get the -1 to be hit on T1.)
1 Phobos Lieut so he can deploy with the Reivers...

TROOPS

30 Intercessors divided into 4 squads
10 Infiltrators in 2 squads

Elites
10 Reivers in 2 squads
1 Primaris Ancient with the Crusade artifact standard.

Fast
9 Suppressors in 3 Squads

Heavy
9 Eliminators in 3 Squads.

To go to 2000, I would add the Command detachment.

1 Primaris Librarian
1 Primaris Librarian - Dark Angels
1 Phobos Librarian

You could arm the Intercessors with assault bolt guns so you can move and advance every turn
and still fire. With the stratagem for the crusaders you can move 7 to 12 inches to close with an enemy and hit him automatically with 40 S4 hits from a 10-man squad of intercessors. As an alternative arm them with the regular boltguns and you can double tap them with that stratagem. Combine that with bolter drill and you have some pretty nasty stuff!

All of this army can be really mobile with the advancing but not losing your fire or in the case of suppressors jump packing and the reavers and phobos lieutenant deep striking on the board. Even the eliminators can move and chosing the right round, get a 2+ BS!

Only thing it suffers from is light on the anti-tank but that is where the three librarians come in.
with the right combo of spells, you can give a big nasty -2 to hit you for the next turn with a -1 being permanent to that game for the rest of the game and can be cumulative. (I want to ignore an opponents wraith knight or stompa or the like because it has a -5 to hit!)

Thanks for the tips guys, really helpful! @Daddict your list is interesting although I've got no idea on how it would work as a fairly new player! Also has a lot of stuff I don't have unfortunately, which is a shame, because looks pretty interesting!

@Nevelon - awesome analysis, cheers.

I think you've put so much for me to think about I'll have to analyse a few comments independently. I think you hit the nail on the head with the IRL concerns. Basically, I've got 4 aggressors, 3 inceptors, 7 terminators, and about 4 space marines I didn't use in this list - so I've got to be pretty careful what I swap out!

Overally what I'm taking from the post is that I think pushing this to brigade at 1750 with my current models isn't going to work due to constrictions of both points and what I can actually field. That's one of the reason for including the heavy hellb's. They aren't my fave config, but I need something alongside my devs to take out vehicles, as I feel I'm pretty light on the ground on this front.

Taking some of your suggestions though, this is what I may be able to do inside my current model limits:

Drop Heavy Hellbs.
Top Assault Hellbs up to 10. (Creating c. 70 spare points on net)
Drop dread (yeah, he's gunna get smoked second turn) (Creating 130 spare points)
Take another unit of Terminators (These would have to be CC, due to me not having the normal models) (200 points)
Drop bikes in favour of giving some toys to some of the intercessor squads, and splitting them up, as well as creating jumpy leut?

I'd be keen to hear thoughts on giving toys in exchange for models, because my gut is telling me more guns > more toys - I'm still pretty new though to this, so am eager to be proved wrong.

Reivers have got to stay, they are just too cool...

My worry is with the above changes is firstly that I now am too CC weighted with too many terms, and also I'm losing some mobility and variance by dropping the bikes and dread. Furthermore, My AV has become more focused in the form of 2 CC term squads, and I will struggle to long range snipe units given my lack of heavy Hellbs.

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Imperium - Space Marines) [97 PL, 1,750pts] ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

**Chapter Selection**: Ultramarines

+ HQ +

Captain [6 PL, 124pts]: Jump Pack, Storm of Fire, Storm shield, Thunder hammer, Warlord

Lieutenants [4 PL, 69pts]
. Lieutenant: Bolt pistol, Power fist

+ Troops +

Intercessor Squad [5 PL, 85pts]: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Bolt rifle
. 4x Intercessor
. Intercessor Sergeant

Intercessor Squad [5 PL, 85pts]: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Bolt rifle
. 4x Intercessor
. Intercessor Sergeant

Intercessor Squad [5 PL, 85pts]: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Bolt rifle
. 4x Intercessor
. Intercessor Sergeant

Intercessor Squad [5 PL, 85pts]: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Bolt rifle
. 4x Intercessor
. Intercessor Sergeant

Scout Squad [6 PL, 80pts]: 5x Camo cloak
. Scout Sergeant: Bolt pistol, Sniper rifle
. 4x Scout w/Sniper Rifle: 4x Sniper rifle

+ Elites +

Reiver Squad [5 PL, 100pts]: Combat knife, Grapnel Launcher
. 4x Reiver
. Reiver Sergeant: Combat knife, Heavy Bolt Pistol

Terminator Assault Squad [12 PL, 187pts]
. Terminator Sergeant: Lightning Claw (Pair)
. 2x Terminator w/THSS: 2x Storm shield, 2x Thunder hammer
. 2x Terminator w/x2LC: 2x Lightning Claw (Pair)

Terminator Assault Squad [12 PL, 193pts]: Teleport Homer
. Terminator Sergeant
. . Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield: Storm shield, Thunder hammer
. 2x Terminator w/THSS: 2x Storm shield, 2x Thunder hammer
. 2x Terminator w/x2LC: 2x Lightning Claw (Pair)

+ Heavy Support +

Devastator Squad [8 PL, 132pts]: Armorium Cherub
. Space Marine Sergeant: Boltgun
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Heavy bolter
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Missile launcher
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Plasma cannon
. Space Marine w/Heavy Weapon: Plasma cannon

Hellblaster Squad [16 PL, 350pts]: Assault Plasma Incinerator
. 9x Hellblaster
. Hellblaster Sergeant: Bolt pistol

Hellblaster Squad [8 PL, 175pts]: Heavy Plasma Incinerator
. 4x Hellblaster
. Hellblaster Sergeant: Bolt pistol

++ Total: [97 PL, 1,750pts] ++



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Right - I've had a rework to the above. Smaller squads, dropped the dread and bike, added terms, and made lt more stabby. Thoughts?

I think you are still lacking in ranged AT.
Couple of suggestions:
Lose one assault termie for a regular termie squad with the ML.
Beef up your devastators with ML or Lascans of even multimeltas. You don't need more plasma, you need more AT.

Also Storm of Fire isn't really that good a Warlord Trait (IN MY OPINION)

an extra 1 AP on a roll of a 6 to wound is ok but you could be better served by the following:

Changing Ultramarine tactics to Imperial Fists tactics (no cover saves allowed for enemy against all shooting, and reroll failed wounds against buildings

Architect of War warlord trait allows all units within 6" of warlord to add 1 to saving throws against all attacks that are AP-1 (so bolters etc)



Just an idea