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After reading up on his rules, I've decided that I need to get Marbo.

I don't care if he is the best or most efficient model... he just seems wicked fun to play.

Thoughts?

I've used Marbo in 2 games so far, in my IG allies for my Orks.

In 1 game, he only killed 3 Space Wolves.

In another game, he came down, and killed 12 Chaos Marines, including Fabius Bile.

I've heard IG players say he's the best, and I've heard them say he's garbage. Personally, I've only seen him used once, to no particularly spectacular effect.

 Dr. What wrote:
In 1 game, he only killed 3 Space Wolves.

The important thing to point out here is that Marbo almost earned his points back. Even for generic troops that's almost 50 points of stuff dead compared to 65 points for Marbo.

So: Marbo is awesome, but because he's a point-efficient threat, not because he always kills entire armies when he arrives. Consider him a very accurate Medusa shot and not a true character and you won't be disappointed. Fall for the hype and expect the contents of "what's your greatest Marbo story" threads to be average results and you'll hate him.

I won't say anything except to call attention to my signatures...

I rarely fail to make my points back with Sly. Don't expect him to live, hit something expensive with his demo charge, and hope for the best. The opponent has to deal with him, so worst case, something will shoot at him that isn't shooting at the rest of your list.

Just watch out for interceptor weapons.

Only tactics i have ever seen with marbo is
1: Throw democharge.
2: Demo charge explodes over himself.

He is basically just a demo charge put almost where you want it. His close combat skills and other abilities have always failed me. however, the demo charge usually works very good and is points effective. His other abilities usually don't work and most of the time he just gets gunned down on the next turn (in my experience). I only run him because he is fluffy for my army (catachans) but I do think he usually is a points effective unit. Overall, If you have the points to spare, you should take him, just dont make him the first choice for elites (no matter what anyone says, ratlings work well too! )

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Only tactics i have ever seen with marbo is
1: Throw democharge.
2: Demo charge explodes over himself.

At the FLGS, the joke is you have to model him with a boomerang Demo Charge, 'cuz he always hits himself with it.

Otherwise, he seems to be a one-shot trick that your opponent has to react to, or Marbo will go tie up some unit.

Every game I've used him in has been really effective and halarious.
One game I threw a demo-charge, wrecking a Chaos Dreadnought, half a Chaos Marines squad, and then when being assaulted by a Champion of Chaos, proceeded to cut his head off in three rounds of combat for only 1 wound in return.
The best way to use him is to lurk after letting off the bang, hiding and luring lone characters and/or weak squads into trying to kill him and that's where he's most effective, able to withstand a hail of bullets and still kill a worthy opponent.
He is true Catachan, hit and run warfare is the only way to use him, use him in any other way and your going to have a bad time.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dr. What wrote:
In 1 game, he only killed 3 Space Wolves.

The important thing to point out here is that Marbo almost earned his points back. Even for generic troops that's almost 50 points of stuff dead compared to 65 points for Marbo.

....Holy cow how expensive are normal troops?? I'm used to the 5 point guard model haha

zhutch wrote:I don't care if he is the best or most efficient model... he just seems wicked fun to play.

Welcome to the tactics forum. What we care about here are things like quality or efficiency of the model. If you want to start a thread about how cool marbo is, there's a general discussion forum just begging for March's first marbo thread.

In the world of tactics, he's the hunter-killer of large blast weapons. Pass.

zhutch wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dr. What wrote:
In 1 game, he only killed 3 Space Wolves.

The important thing to point out here is that Marbo almost earned his points back. Even for generic troops that's almost 50 points of stuff dead compared to 65 points for Marbo.

....Holy cow how expensive are normal troops?? I'm used to the 5 point guard model haha

Space Wolves are triple that. Guard are cheap and expendable.

 Ailaros wrote:

zhutch wrote:I don't care if he is the best or most efficient model... he just seems wicked fun to play.

Welcome to the tactics forum. What we care about here are things like quality or efficiency of the model. If you want to start a thread about how cool marbo is, there's a general discussion forum just begging for March's first marbo thread.

In the world of tactics, he's the hunter-killer of large blast weapons. Pass.

My apologies. I actually /don't/ want to talk about how cool he is, I really do want to hear some tactics about how people use him (and I have been- quite informative.)

Also, I'd argue that you can have models in the tactics forum that aren't /the/ best or most efficient, as long as they have some modicum of either, and I was curious as to whether Marbo fit the bill.

That said, I can see how my original post may have come across to you otherwise, and for that, I am sorry.

Cheers.

IMO Marbo is nice because he can get rid of something nasty that is hiding behind a wall or on the other side of the board. I like to pick off Broadside teams with him, as well as any other back board things. He is pretty hit and miss and if he lives longer than the following turn i would be surprised. Again, the ability to drop a Demo Charge virtually anywhere is IMO a nice force multiplier.

I face off against Marbo quite often,


my opponent usualy deploys him in a building when i'm near it,.. he looks down,.. he grins... he drops his ultrabomb... KABLAM!!!! 9/10 times he crushes a squad of orks/Necrons...
He can be quite deadly in CC but its the bomb that i hate most!

Cost/Effective wise... i would take him all the time... if i played IG..

He's generally a one shot suicide. The demo charges scatters so ~50% chance of actually hitting what you are targeting. Everyone who uses him with some regularity has a story about him blowing himself up.

If he lives to the next turn (rare) he is decent in cc against weak armor. No pw is a bummer.

ers126 wrote:
The demo charges scatters so ~50% chance of actually hitting what you are targeting.

Quite a bit better than that. Marbo is BS 5 so you have a 51.8% chance of hitting the exact spot you aimed for, but you rarely need to hit the exact spot to do an acceptable amount of damage. If you allow even 2" of scatter (which still hits the original target model) your chances go up to 72%, and if 3" is good enough you're up to 81%. If you're targeting a vehicle or an infantry unit with a large footprint then even larger scatter distances are still acceptable, which would make your chances of hitting pretty close to 100%.

I like tossing Marbo in a list if I can spare the points, in my experience his demo charge has killed more Terminators and tactical squads than most would think, and past that, either they waste some shooting or assault in killing him (and they will kill him, he has decent stats, but he's still just a Guardsman) or he's left to snipe and tie them up for a turn in assault. Either way, it's a win-win and he makes his points back (and, more importantly, he create an opening in their defenses, weakens a key unit, or just slows down their advance).

I'd argue he's worth the 65 points if you can spare them (I'm still working on collecting all the infantry models I need, so I can generally bring him along) as between the psychological factor of seeing a sudden cheap high priority target and the actual one-shot damage he does, he can actually be an asset to an army. You need to use him right though, and don't expect him to do much after the demo charge flies except die and maybe place a few wounds on them.

Marbo is a weapon of terror. The psychological effect he has far outweighs his point cost.

I agree, also a lot of people will say that his blast is the only great thing about him, but his ability to be placed is also very useful.

If you've taken the 2nd turn then he can be used to deny an objective at the end of the game. Careful placement means that he can't be taken out easily or ignored. Blessings from a Primaris Psycher can also make him particularly resilient.

The trick isn't to pop him up somewhere, where he can demo charge one unit.

The trick is to pop him up somewhere, have him throw his demo charge, and THEN be in a position to be annoying as gak unless he's dealt with. One example:

Enemy squad of Long Fangs in backfield. You pop up behind them, but out of sight to everyone else, throw the demo charge, and now unless that opponent wants his unit to get charged by Marbo and probably tied up, he's got to commit to wasting Krak missiles on a Guardsman.

Use him to take out a unit of 3 broadsides..
Im a tau player, i know. The only thing keeping them safe is area cover or shield drones.

I've recently modelled up Marbo for my Catachans. Only used him in one game so far. He did pretty good for taking out a large chunk of warriors and caused a good distraction for the turn after. He died, but I feel the point cost was fair for what he did. If he had lasted another turn, then he would of doubled his value. I could see him being even better if he gets a chance to take out some terminators or other really expensive unit.

I will try to fit him into every list if possible.

He is complete hit or miss for me. I use an astropath to get my Vendettas in early, but that means marbo usually comes in turn 2 as well. If I haven't busted a transport yet there usually isn't anything juicy out in the open. Having said that, there is nothing better than wiping out a 5 man termie squad that was trying to hide behind cover. He also got bum rushed by an IC once who thought he was going to have an easy killpoint. My opponent didn't realize marbo is I5 and got hacked to pieces. Marbo then charged into an assault in progress in my turn and chopped up a few more people.

He can dramatically change the game, but is a huge fire magnet and usually goes down in a hail of bullets. As long as you expect him to die a horrible death you shouldn't be too disappointed. As someone else mentioned, don't forget about interceptor. Sure he is a 65 point one shot wonder but how many more expensive units in Guard get decimated before they do anything? I've had numerous vet squads blown to hell when their chimera gets popped before they could even get into range of anything.

Marbo has never really failed me, almost every time he deals tons of damage!

One of my favourite things with him is to appear near tyranid warriors spaced just a LITTLE too tight together, and bam all of them dead from one little 65 point friend! Or appear up in a ruin and simply drop the briefcase bomb onto an enemy below.

He does tend to die immediately following his almost always spectacular entrance, but if not, he won't be killing any Marine squads, but he has meltabombs and can take on weaker units than MEQ in CC.

I do have the habit of sending him into the middle of a big fight to charge at their HQ in the SLIGHT hope of the cinematic vision that would be him charging in and beheading a warboss!

zhutch wrote:
After reading up on his rules, I've decided that I need to get Marbo.

I don't care if he is the best or most efficient model... he just seems wicked fun to play.

Thoughts?

Marbo does three things:

-Forces your opponent to account for a demo charge popping up anywhere when he/she deploys
-Pops up and throws said demo charge, oft making his points back (though at 65 points, I find that to be not that big of a deal)
-He takes up 65 points. If you have 65 spare points building a list, then thats a good thing. If you're trying to take out some bigger stuff to fit in marbo, you're doing it wrong.

Marbo will never win you a game, he'll never drastically change the tide of it either. Well, almost never. Randomness and all that.

Marbo should be used as filler. If you have the spare points, toss him in. Because like everyone has said, he usually makes his points back. He's rarely a negative impact on a list, and worst case scenario, he kills himself. That's only 65 points out the window. "Meh".

Never build a list around Marbo, and never expect too much from him. Whenever you have spare points to include him, enjoy it. He never makes it into my tourney lists, but when I get to use him, it's usually pretty darn fun.

-TheCaptain

Marbo never dies. He is simply removed from play so that he can appear on another battlefield where he is needed.

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Marbo never dies. He is simply removed from play so that he can appear on another battlefield where he is needed.

Correction: Marbo never dies, he just generously departs the game so that the rest of your army gets to kill something.

 Cursed Dice wrote:
He is complete hit or miss for me. I use an astropath to get my Vendettas in early, but that means marbo usually comes in turn 2 as well. If I haven't busted a transport yet there usually isn't anything juicy out in the open. Having said that, there is nothing better than wiping out a 5 man termie squad that was trying to hide behind cover. He also got bum rushed by an IC once who thought he was going to have an easy killpoint. My opponent didn't realize marbo is I5 and got hacked to pieces. Marbo then charged into an assault in progress in my turn and chopped up a few more people.

He can dramatically change the game, but is a huge fire magnet and usually goes down in a hail of bullets. As long as you expect him to die a horrible death you shouldn't be too disappointed. As someone else mentioned, don't forget about interceptor. Sure he is a 65 point one shot wonder but how many more expensive units in Guard get decimated before they do anything? I've had numerous vet squads blown to hell when their chimera gets popped before they could even get into range of anything.

Interceptor's no big deal if you deploy Marbo in cover. Sure they might get some hits in on you, but with an epic cover save with some luck you'll soak it all up.