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Watched a pickup battle over the weekend, 500 points of Marines vs Tau.

The two players just wanted to play what they brought to see how it would go.

Terrain killed the Tau, if you're interested. That and poor Missleside placement.

It started me thinking about these kinds of low-points kind of battles: what would an Army list look like, if you had your choice of units, followed the FoC, but had to stay under 500 points?

Naturally, I thought I would bring the question to Dakkadakka. I have some ideas of my own, but they're all for Marines.

What would you guys bring? Any army is good.

Personally, I find 500 points a little restricting without using a reduced FOC (1-3 troops, 0-1 everything else), but if I had to make a marine list at 500, it would look something like this:

Librarian: 100

10 tactical marines, Flamer, HB: 170
10 tactical marines, MM, Melta: 175

Attack bike, MM: 50

495 points. Covers Anti-infantry and AT, fits FOC and has good objective-holding ability. The new codex should make it a bit easier to do marines at 500, due to cheaper HQs and troops, leaving more points for a more specialised unit.

I love 500 points games. Even put together a local tactical leagues for it. Played on 4x4 boards.

Nid get sick at this point level thanks to the Trevigon:

Prime w/toxin 90

Trevigon 160

10 Genestealers 140

10 termiguants 50

1 zoanthrope 60

Dark Angels:

Librarian
Tactical Squad (9), PG, PC, Combi-melta + MB - This is illegal, see my updated list further down in the thread.
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Tactical Squad (10), MG, MM
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Total: 501

The tactics would be to drop close to objectives, put your marines behind the drop pods for cover.

Try to focus fire down elite, light transports or armored infantry with the PC and MM.

Let the drop pods soak up anti-tank fire and hopefully somewhat successfully support the marines with anti-infantry fire (their deathwind launchers are a STR 5, large blast, AP -).

flodihn wrote:
Dark Angels:

Librarian
Tactical Squad (9), PG, PC, Combi-melta + MB
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Tactical Squad (10), MG, MM
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Total: 501

The tactics would be to drop close to objectives, put your marines behind the drop pods for cover.

Try to focus fire down elite, light transports or armored infantry with the PC and MM.

Let the drop pods soak up anti-tank fire and hopefully somewhat successfully support the marines with anti-infantry fire (their deathwind launchers are a STR 5, large blast, AP -).

Your first tac squad is illegal with only 9 marines. You have to make 10 models to get special weapons, beyond the sarg's.

DA can take 1 special or heavy at 5 men, but need 10 for both, so you could have either the PG or the PC.

What Paradigm said about the restricted FoC - only 1 compulsary troop, no compulsary HQ, 0-1 or 0-2 of non troop slots.

For Orks and a standard FoC I guess I'd run Big Gun Lobbas and blobs of boyz.

Most of my 500 point lists are structured like this:

HQ 100 points
Full Tac squad 170 points
Sniper scouts w/kit 100 points

So I get the basics out of the way for 370, giving me 130 points left for a fun unit/upgrades. The 25 point kit for the scouts (Cloaks and a HB) could be scrapped if I need more then that.

HQ is normally a librarian, as they work great bare-bones. Tac squad is normally ML/F, as it's the classic TAC load.

barnowl wrote:

flodihn wrote:
Dark Angels:

Librarian
Tactical Squad (9), PG, PC, Combi-melta + MB
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Tactical Squad (10), MG, MM
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Total: 501

The tactics would be to drop close to objectives, put your marines behind the drop pods for cover.

Try to focus fire down elite, light transports or armored infantry with the PC and MM.

Let the drop pods soak up anti-tank fire and hopefully somewhat successfully support the marines with anti-infantry fire (their deathwind launchers are a STR 5, large blast, AP -).

Your first tac squad is illegal with only 9 marines. You have to make 10 models to get special weapons, beyond the sarg's.

The tac squad has the librarian attached, so it has 10 models in the unit that would allow it to kit it with full weapons.

The libby is an attached character, and from the point of view of list-building, entirely separate from the tacs, and therefore does not complete the required squad of 10 men for both weapons.

 Paradigm wrote:
The libby is an attached character, and from the point of view of list-building, entirely separate from the tacs, and therefore does not complete the required squad of 10 men for both weapons.

So where in the rules are this stated, because when I read the codex is says "If the unit counts 10 models, you can take yada yada", it does not say all models have to be tactical space marines.

Because at the point of army selection, the tactical squad and libby are entirely separate units Therefore the tactical squad is a unit of 9 men, and the libby is a one-model unit with the independent character rule allowing him to join other units. He is in no way part of the tactical squad until deployment, and as such, does not allow the tactical squad to take both weapons. Hope that clears it up, but if not, then I'd suggest you open a thread in YMDC as army lists is not the place for a rules discussion.

DE - 'Hits like a hammer; Dies like a crane-fly'. Kabal 500pts.

HQ:
Haemy
Troops:
5 Wyches, Haywires, Venom with extra SC
5 Kaballites, Venom with extra SC
5 Kaballites, Raider, DL, Splinter racks
Heavy:
Ravager with DL's or Dissies to taste

flodihn wrote:
Dark Angels:

Librarian
Tactical Squad (9), PG, PC, Combi-melta + MB
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Tactical Squad (10), MG, MM
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Total: 501

And how does this even work? There have to be at least something on the ground already on turn 1 for it to be legal. You can't drop your entire army in drop pods at the start, or else it's an auto lose.

Actually an all-pod army is perfectly legal, as all units that must go in reserve don't count towards the reserve limit. 50% of 0 is 0, so you can actually run a no-deployment army with all pods. However, if all of the pods that arrive T1 get wiped out, or if it mishaps by going off the board, then the game is over due to the no-models-at-end-of-turn rule.

Well let's just say it's a giant gamble to run that list.

My first DA army list was illegal, it seems that you can not count a character towards the 10 model limit during list creation and still get weapon + heavy weapon.

Here is the new list:
Librarian
Tactical Squad (9), PC, Combi-melta + MB
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Tactical Squad (10), MG, MM, Combi-melta + MB
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Total: 496


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Well let's just say it's a giant gamble to run that list.

Yeah it is, I was just 7 models left from being wiped by the no models left in the end of turn rule, however I had some really bad luck, getting misses on all shots and rolling perils of the warp on the librarian on the first turn

flodihn wrote:
My first army list was illegal, it seems that you can not count a character towards the 10 model limit during list creation and still get weapon + heavy weapon.

Here is the new list:
Librarian
Tactical Squad (9), PC, Combi-melta + MB
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Tactical Squad (10), MG, MM, Combi-melta + MB
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Total: 496

are you doing these as Codex Marines or Dark Angels? Because codex Marines require a 10 man squad for heavy weapons, the plasma cannon is out of place.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

flodihn wrote:
My first army list was illegal, it seems that you can not count a character towards the 10 model limit during list creation and still get weapon + heavy weapon.

Here is the new list:
Librarian
Tactical Squad (9), PC, Combi-melta + MB
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Tactical Squad (10), MG, MM, Combi-melta + MB
Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher

Total: 496

are you doing these as Codex Marines or Dark Angels? Because codex Marines require a 10 man squad for heavy weapons, the plasma cannon is out of place.

It is DA, I updated the post to clarify that.