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For the moment I only have a small squad of 7 plague marines. For now I am filling them out with 2 Plasma Guns, Icon of Despair, and Veterans of the Long War
Champion is going to have Gift of Mutation, Power Sword, Plasma Pistol.

Now I know since they now have Plague Knives they aren't too bad in CC, but is that best for them or does it really matter. I was thinking of loading them up in a Rhino and rushing to the enemies side and see what happens.
Also heard they are good at camping objectives if I bring Typhus or a MoN Lord to make them count as troops.

What is everyone else's thoughts?

I'd say Plague Marines are a durable objective camping unit with a cc trick. I wouldn't send them in to cc unless you had to. Leave the cc to Khorne or Slannesh units. Also drop the icon. Fear is the most worthless ability in the game since all marine armies are immune to it.

Cut Icon of Despair. Fear literally does nothing to the majority of codexes, and even against non-fearless/ATSKNF units it's still not likely to do anything.

Other than that, double-plasma plague marines are good. They're a good objective-holder.

Here's a breakdown of why I have Plague Marines (PM) as my troops:

T5, FNP, Fearless Fearless is simply fabulous now in HTH, no drawbacks
Boltgun, Bolt pistol, Plague Knife As you said, plague knife gives rerolls vs T4 and below in HTH, priceless, and you get offhand weapon +1 attack
Blight Grenades offensive and defensive grenades, meaning you fight at Initiative charging through terrain, and the enemy loses its bonus attack if they charge you
I3 their only drawack, but I play it as I rarely charge, just rapid fire everything, as I won't be swinging first. Also, why I put power axes/fists on all my champions
2 special weapons 2 special weapons allowed below 10 figures, so way better than regular CSM

Anyway, I run 2 plasma guns, champion with power axe & plasma pistol or power fist & combi-plasma. (the pistol gives +1 offhand attack with axe).

I would lose the Icon, as it doesn't do anything against Marines and is worthless, you don't care about combat resolution in HTH, as there are no drawbacks to fearless now, so you can't be swept.

PM are the best troops in the codex, as long as you're willing to pay the MoN Lord tax to get them.

Hope this helped!

I agree that Plague Marines are fantastic. You get what you pay for:
Which is a troop unit that is more survivable than a terminator against most types of shooting that can get double special weapons at FIVE models, that has 2 CCWs with poison, fearless, t5, crazy grenades, bolters, with, er, what, maybe one drawback at I3?
At 24 points, these guys are just the bees' knees.
Also, this "Nurgle Lord tax" business is nothing but bull. You need an HQ in your armor and you can find at least three threads complaining about how bad Princes are. So that leaves you Sorcerer, named HQ, Warpsmith (also laueded as bad), Dark Apostle (also lauded as bad) to choose from. So what do you pick? A Nurgle Lord on a bike with the Burning Brand is a good choice. A Nurgle Lord on a bike tooled up for CC isn't bad either.

Anyways, back to the main point: PMs are good. I sometimes use other units of regular CSM, but almost once a game I come to the realization that I wish they were just the same amount of points of Plague Marines.

Hope that helps!

Is it worth maxing them out at 20 or only 10 so they can fit into a rhino?

 Solomongrundy wrote:
Is it worth maxing them out at 20 or only 10 so they can fit into a rhino?

Actually, PM work best in 5 or 7 man squads. 5 for holding an objective and 7 for aggressive squads or sacred number.

Does Sacred Number still exist as a rule?

I must have glanced over that...

Sacred Number??

 minigun762 wrote:

 Solomongrundy wrote:
Is it worth maxing them out at 20 or only 10 so they can fit into a rhino?

Actually, PM work best in 5 or 7 man squads. 5 for holding an objective and 7 for aggressive squads or sacred number.

I love it when people bring fluff into tactic threads. No, seriously, I do. I only field units of 7 because of the sacred number.

Sacred numbers used to have rules attached to them , free champion I think.
That said, 7 plague marines just happens to be a good balance between cost and effectiveness. It also matches up very closely to 10 CSMs with similar gear.

As far as sacred numbers, it's an old bit of background that the various gods had a preferred number and their minions would attempt to fight in that number or multiple.

Thank you for clearing that up

Plague Marines are actually superior in melee then Khorne Bezerkers due to poison.

Bezerkers are Str5 on the charge. So against marines they are hitting on 3s and wounding on 3s.

Plague Marines are hitting on 4s, and wounding on 4s. However they reroll to wound with poison if they are of higher or equal str to the toughness they are hitting.

Plus the Plague Marines have defensive grenades, superior shooting, and will never wound on worse then 4+

If you want assault troops (why?) take 10 noise marines with icon of excess and a doom siren in a rhino. Or bikers.

Plague marines are decent troops but don't expect them to do a whole lot in assault. They are at their best in five man squads with two special weapons in a rhino. Use them as mobile fire support and if you really need it to add some fearless numbers to an ongoing assault. But they are better riding around shooting stuff.

Yea I have 2x squads of 10 Berzerkers in 2x rhinos for the assaulting. I will probably just run them around in a rhino and shoot their plasma out the top.

 Solomongrundy wrote:
Yea I have 2x squads of 10 Berzerkers in 2x rhinos for the assaulting. I will probably just run them around in a rhino and shoot their plasma out the top.

They do make nice tar pits vs super weak stuff. I had five plague marines tie up like 10 bases of necron swarms before. The plagues don't do much, but the swarms just can't hurt them. So it keeps your vehicles safe. Gives you time to free up a daemon prince or something that can ID the swarms.

Kevlar wrote:
If you want assault troops (why?) take 10 noise marines with icon of excess and a doom siren in a rhino.

Why is it people constantly suggest this? Noise Marines in combat are exactly the same as regular Slaanesh Marines in combat, but the Slaanesh Marines are cheaper, so why on earth would you bother? Paying extra points just for the Doom Siren option when you are also being forced into a Slaanesh Lord you might not want otherwise is not a good decision. If you take Noise Marines, use them for what they are good at, laying down an ungodly hail of cover ignoring fire from midfield. While saying Plague Marines shouldn't be taken for an assault role specifically is true, suggesting a unit with less business being in assault doesn't help your point.

I agree with Godless here. Noise Marines are expensive I5 marines.
And whoever is suggesting that PM's are bad in combat or only good against "weak" units, is, well, just plain wrong. A T5, 3+, FNP, 2ccw wielding poison attacking, fearless marine with assault and defensive grenades is NOT bad in close combat. In fact, they are rather good against everything save TH/SS terminators and their ilk. If you have a champion with a powerweapon, you should be able to take on most MEQs, GEQs, Orks, Nids and whatever else you generally want to get into combat with. What's even better is that you will generally live long enough against everything else to allow whatever you are using as a counter attack unit to get there and swing combat your way.
Bad at close combat, please.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Kevlar wrote:
If you want assault troops (why?) take 10 noise marines with icon of excess and a doom siren in a rhino.

Why is it people constantly suggest this? Noise Marines in combat are exactly the same as regular Slaanesh Marines in combat, but the Slaanesh Marines are cheaper, so why on earth would you bother? Paying extra points just for the Doom Siren option when you are also being forced into a Slaanesh Lord you might not want otherwise is not a good decision. If you take Noise Marines, use them for what they are good at, laying down an ungodly hail of cover ignoring fire from midfield. While saying Plague Marines shouldn't be taken for an assault role specifically is true, suggesting a unit with less business being in assault doesn't help your point.

The sonic weapons options are overpriced.

10 noise marines with icon of excess and close combat weapons = 219 points (Fearless)

10 MOS marines with icon of excess, votlw, and close combat weapons = 218 points (not fearless)

Plus you get access to the doom siren with the noise marines, which is one of the best assault weapons in the game. If you can't see why the noise marines are better for 1 point more (per unit, not model) then I don't know what to tell you.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Brymm wrote:
I agree with Godless here. Noise Marines are expensive I5 marines.
And whoever is suggesting that PM's are bad in combat or only good against "weak" units, is, well, just plain wrong. A T5, 3+, FNP, 2ccw wielding poison attacking, fearless marine with assault and defensive grenades is NOT bad in close combat. In fact, they are rather good against everything save TH/SS terminators and their ilk. If you have a champion with a powerweapon, you should be able to take on most MEQs, GEQs, Orks, Nids and whatever else you generally want to get into combat with. What's even better is that you will generally live long enough against everything else to allow whatever you are using as a counter attack unit to get there and swing combat your way.
Bad at close combat, please.

Plague marines are severly overpriced for an assault unit. They don't get enough attacks per point to be worthwhile. They don't assault very well, they just get stuck in long protracted combats. Or something that doesn't care about their extra toughness just chews them up.

Kevlar wrote:


Plague marines are severly overpriced for an assault unit. They don't get enough attacks per point to be worthwhile. They don't assault very well, they just get stuck in long protracted combats. Or something that doesn't care about their extra toughness just chews them up.

Or something that doesn't care about their extra toughness... or their 3+ save... or their feel no pain? If survivability means nothing in an assault unit, then TH/SS terminators are out. In fact, they fail another arguement you made too: not enough attacks per point (worse than Plague Marines!)!

 Brymm wrote:

Or something that doesn't care about their extra toughness... or their 3+ save... or their feel no pain? If survivability means nothing in an assault unit, then TH/SS terminators are out. In fact, they fail another arguement you made too: not enough attacks per point (worse than Plague Marines!)!

Chaos Terminators aren't much more expensive than plague marines, and they all come with a 2+/5++ and power weapons standard. As an assault unit the terminators are much more reasonably priced than plague marines. They hit much harder stock, and have fairly cheap upgrades to make them even deadlier at it.

Plague marines are barely any more killy than regular CSM in assault. Their utility lies in their special weapon spam. If you only got 2 specials per 10 they wouldn't be seen nearly as often. If you have them stuck in assault they aren't shooting their special weapons that you paid points for.

If you want to field 10 man Plague marine squads for assault, then by all means do so, but you lose out on one of their greatest assets. Special weapon spam.

Both plague and noise marines make good assault units. One is better against light infantry and MCs while the other is better against MEQs and walkers.

I agree Kevlar! I don't think I'm going to use them in the same fashion as I would a dedicated assault unit, and that's okay. But I tend to use them very aggressively knowing that they won't get rolled in combat and have a pretty good chance of winning against whatever I'm fighting.
I guess the reason I was getting at the point so much was because the thread was asking if Plague Marines were really good. And I think that is just one more reason why they are.

 Brymm wrote:
I agree Kevlar! I don't think I'm going to use them in the same fashion as I would a dedicated assault unit, and that's okay. But I tend to use them very aggressively knowing that they won't get rolled in combat and have a pretty good chance of winning against whatever I'm fighting.
I guess the reason I was getting at the point so much was because the thread was asking if Plague Marines were really good. And I think that is just one more reason why they are.

Yes, it makes them great forward objective holders. The extra toughness makes them hard to shift, but the two rapid fire plasma guns do most of their killing. Melta guns are useful too if you want them to support assault units with them.

Kevlar wrote:10 noise marines with icon of excess and close combat weapons = 219 points (Fearless)

10 MOS marines with icon of excess, votlw, and close combat weapons = 218 points (not fearless)

220pts for the Noise Marine unit, and 208pts for the Marine in a fair comparison, as adding VoTLW to them but not the Noise Marines here is nothing but adding extra points to suit your argument. So you are paying 12pts more and the Lord tax (~130pts) just for access to the Doom Siren and Fearless. I wouldn't bother, especially because they fulfil a better role that regular Marines can't fill. You can claim that Blasters are overpriced all you want, but I disagree entirely and having used them plenty of time can attest to their worth. Ignoring the value of ignore cover is in my opinion folly. It can stop you from having to assault a unit to move it off a covered objective, as well as stopping even higher armoured targets from using go to ground behind an Aegis late game (or even just in ruins or area terrain when combined with the Blastmaster). Most importantly is the extra shots though. People cry often enough about staying stationary at 24", but the ideal targets for the Noise Marines are usually static (Guardsmen) or moving toward you (Orcs/Nids). There are ways around this also, even if it is a simple as sacrificing turn 1 shooting in order to set yourself up for later turns; it still ends up putting out way more than regular Marines.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

Kevlar wrote:10 noise marines with icon of excess and close combat weapons = 219 points (Fearless)

10 MOS marines with icon of excess, votlw, and close combat weapons = 218 points (not fearless)

220pts for the Noise Marine unit, and 208pts for the Marine in a fair comparison, as adding VoTLW to them but not the Noise Marines here is nothing but adding extra points to suit your argument. So you are paying 12pts more and the Lord tax (~130pts) just for access to the Doom Siren and Fearless. I wouldn't bother, especially because they fulfil a better role that regular Marines can't fill. You can claim that Blasters are overpriced all you want, but I disagree entirely and having used them plenty of time can attest to their worth. Ignoring the value of ignore cover is in my opinion folly. It can stop you from having to assault a unit to move it off a covered objective, as well as stopping even higher armoured targets from using go to ground behind an Aegis late game (or even just in ruins or area terrain when combined with the Blastmaster). Most importantly is the extra shots though. People cry often enough about staying stationary at 24", but the ideal targets for the Noise Marines are usually static (Guardsmen) or moving toward you (Orcs/Nids). There are ways around this also, even if it is a simple as sacrificing turn 1 shooting in order to set yourself up for later turns; it still ends up putting out way more than regular Marines.

We are getting slightly off topic but I'm glad sonic blasters are working.
I was very excited about them until seeing the salvo rule and range reduction when moving.
I do agree that ignoring cover has some amazing potential.

I personally have had trouble with Plague Marines all buffed up. I think that they are quite decent.

I only have problems with them in that when my dice take a dump on me, it is more noticeable when its plague marines.

 Brymm wrote:

Or something that doesn't care about their extra toughness... or their 3+ save... or their feel no pain? If survivability means nothing in an assault unit, then TH/SS terminators are out. In fact, they fail another arguement you made too: not enough attacks per point (worse than Plague Marines!)!

I'm not saying that plague marines aren't durable or anything, but when I love seeing them when I play tyranids. A smashing monstrous creature chews through their unit pretty quickly. TH/SS terminators...not so much.

Plague Marines are traps. They trade killing power for durability in a codex that is offensively focused. You can have the most durability in the world, but if your opponent can still kill you, then there's no point really. Focus on killing the enemy.