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Hi all,
I'm new to the WH40K game, I got into it by means of the various fluff based around the universe. I want to build a space marine army that is well suited for taking on Xenos races, specifically Orks and Tyranids since they seem similar to Orks since they both do well with hordes of models. So my question is, what is a good way to build the army so it can take on hordes of enemies with ease. And for fluff purposes of my army i would prefer any suggestions to not have Librarians and be more focused on holding off enemies at range rather getting up close and personal.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions

Salamanders...FIRE FIRE!

I do like the "Kill it with fire!" approach, it woul be perfect against the Tyranids considering all insectoids must die by fire!

Vulkan and his boys definitely like to get up close and personal.

And it's a time tested strong way to play Marines.

Should I focus on any other type of weapon in addition to fire(melta?) weapons? Also, are there any units that have good CC capabilities?
I see my my mistake here. By CC I meant crowd control, I see that's how the information about melee came into play.

If you're looking for CC marines and want to be librarian free...go Black Templars.

Templars have special assault units that other marines don't have access to, They deny psychic powers on a 5+. and they aren't even allowed to take librarians.

I just love the Salamander ideology.

Do Orks or Tyranids have psychic units?By the sound of it, it would appear that a Black Templar based army with fire weapons would be my best bet. Right?

Actually as much as I love Black Templar, I think they have it hardest against horde armies. Since they are elite CC, they can get swarmed pretty easily. But perhaps that's just how I build them. My losses have all come from Tyranids and Daemons. I only played Orks once, and ended up winning, but he wasn't running hordes of boyz.

I would say either salamanders or imperial fists. Or even Iron hands. Things that will work well:
Thunderfire cannons
Vindicators
Land Raider Redeemers
Twin-linked flamers (salamanders)
Ironclad Dreadnoughts with 2x heavy flamers (IH for IWND)
Stormtalons (cheap base for a TL assault cannon)


EDIT: and as far as enemy psykers. Orks have weirdboys, but are rarely used these days, and Tyranids...yes, almost all of them are psychic. Lots of psykers

The thing about Marines and assault.

IT'S A TRAP!

Unless you're GKs or SWs you're not going to melee well.

You have a bit of a common misconception. Orks and Tyranids do not function in a similar way. In orks the units of boyz have signifcant killing power and staying power. Killing units of Boyz is therefore a worthwhile proposition. In Tyranids the synapse points and monstrous creatures are the real force behind the nids. The units of gaunts (which are the only really horde portion of the codex) are a distraction that can be easily mopped up after you remove synapse support for them. Therefore you kill the big bugs, the small bugs mostly fail their instinctive behavior and you opponent forfeits.

Salamanders are the masters of horde and vehicle killing so they are aptly suited for exterminating orks but they struggle with the MC of the nids and therefore are only mediocre against them.

If you decide to go with Salamanders you will definitely want some grav centurions in a stormraven to help out with monstrous creatures. Strenguard are also reasonably good against MC.

If you want to actually use melee in a consistent fashion then the two best armies to actually get into melee are White Scars and Raven Guard. Black Templar are about equal to White Scars (the best) when they get into melee but they have a much harder time doing it, Black Templar are the option you want if you want to run a foot horde of marines.

You should really decide if you want bikers, foot sloggers, mechanized, or drop pod as you delivery system. Any of these can be made to tackle orks and/or tyranids with about equal proficiency.

Yea, I would like to avoid melee as much as I can. Are there any Space Marine vehicles that do well against hordes of enemies? And also, would a squad consisting of heavy meltas and bolters and a sergeant with a combiweapon bolter w/ melta be a good setup against Tyranid swarms and Ork hordes?

I'm an ork player and there is nothing I fear more than a marine / Dread with a flamer. They cut the numbers advantage down pretty quickly once the boyz get to close range.

 ductvader wrote:
The thing about Marines and assault.

IT'S A TRAP!

Unless you're GKs or SWs you're not going to melee well.

This is not true. SM biker armies are some of the best armies in the game as far as using melee as a tool. If the opponent is better in melee than you then you just shoot them. Hammer of wrath at Str 5 and hit and run allow you to out melee SW with ease and with proper usage you can handle GK with your shoot, charge, hit and run, repeat.

Ravenguard will use melee more often than SW and GK armies combined. They are not great at it they just have the speed and numbers to be able to assault stuff weaker than them. Their krak grenades make them extremely useful.


That is the thing about SM. They must use every phase of the game to work at full effect as they pay for abilities for each phase of the game. If you don't then SM will seem overpriced to a large degree.

So for The big guys of Tyranid armies, would using a drop pod to deliver Sternguardunits close to them be a viable tactic against Tyranids?

Span1shAztec wrote:
So for The big guys of Tyranid armies, would using a drop pod to deliver Sternguardunits close to them be a viable tactic against Tyranids?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As far as melee goes, I would like to keep that to a minmum. If it comes down to it though, like in an instance where a bunch of Orks/Tyranids close the gap to my units, what would be my best option?

Imperial Fists and Salamanders are going to like Pods...Salamanders for close flamer death and fists for coming down with a reign of bolter fire.

Alright, sounds great! I think I have enough information for now. Thanks so much for all the help!

The regular sternguard poison ammo works pretty well against tyranid MC as they have relatively poor armour. Combi plasma works well against the better armour save nids or even melta.

You can play a drop pod slamanders or a raven guard rhino rush. Either of these armies is primarily a ranged army. However if you play SM then you always want to be prepared to charge something. If a vehicle comes near you or you ground a tyranid harpy you want to charge it and krak grenade it to death.

A bunch of Boyz or hormagaunt coming at you? Move a 5 man TAC squad up to overwatch and take the charge (getting killed in the process) and then shoot the unit next turn.

As an ork player, what I fear in the marines list is:

Lascannons. You might think of orks as having weak armour, but when they bring some, they tend to make it heavy. Knocking out battlewagons early in the game is a very efficient way of wrecking most ork armies. You will need a lot of them to really ruin a wagon-rush though.

Anything that ignores cover, but especially Thunderfire cannons. As soon as a vehicle has been cracked open, you need to start landing blasts onto the passengers.

Both of these should also be effective against Tyranids. Lascannons knock out Synapse sources, while Thunderfires take care of anything fast enough to rush your lines, then switch to mopping up the rest.

As a nid player, the top 5 things that make me say "oh dear god please no" are:

CM + Tig or Lib w/ Dev Cents (Grav) - deletes important things off the table.
Dreadknights - Torrent flamer + NM Sword wipes out buggies en mass while keeping my ap2 melee at distance.
Vendettas or Stormtalons - These guys wreck if I'm lacking in anti air
Sternguard + Pedro - go f*** yourself, you perfectly adaptable scoring podding squad of harted! Your 2+ psn can eat a d.
Longfangs - with a divinations bot, the str8 ap3 spam can be bruuutal.

I have ways of dealing with all of these, from tarpitting DKs to VStriking and backshots, but by far the one I hate the most is the tig+devcents. It's power comes from a 24" threat radius, which coincidently happens to be exactly where I want my units. Very high potential to nab IGCover, Rerolling hits, or a 4+ save, while rerolling AP2 wounds on a 2+ or 3+ for my most important stuff. I have a buddy that runs the squad every game against me and it 100% destroys whatever it is shooting at, every time.

Honorable mentions:
Legion - Mean DStrikes + Melta can kill any choice MC i have on a flank or otherwise. Great counter units.
TFCannon - sits back and lobs fire, sometimes it's an absolute waste, but when it works, it woooooooorks.

Don't be mistaken - horde armies are rather weak and not competitive now. If the enemy brings footslogging horde - you can win with a general tac list without much trouble cause hordes are slow, badly protected and easilly outshot. The strength of orks lies in battlewagon spam and nob bikers. The strength of nids lies in mc spam. Don't focus on horde-killing too much. Just a few flamers or large blasts or 1-2 tfc is all you need. But if you can't deal with wagons/nob bikers/mc/fmc than you're screwed.

It seems to me that if you want ranged killing the best choice would be Imperial Fists. Bolters aren't good for much besides dealing with blobs of cheap infantry, and the Fists make bolters better by a decent bit. Adding a missile launcher or a heavy bolter, as well as a flamer will make your squads far more lethal as well.

I'd probably fill elites entirely with sternguard, heavy flamers, combi-weapons, and their special ammo will make them just about the most lethal thing your army can bring. Drop podding them can be a good idea, but don't expect them to live past their first turn of shooting.

My preffered fast attack would be a mix of land speeder types, specifically a squadron of Typhoons + HBs, a squadron of assault cannon + HBs, and a single speeder with dual MMs.

For heavy support I'd probably bring 2 squads of devs, 1 with all lascannons for killing MCs and vehicles, and then 1 with a mix of HBs and MLs for dealing with the hordes themselves. The other heavy support could be pretty much any of the vehicles available, as they can all bring suitable weapons for dealing with any aspect of a horde.

raptor tactics (forge world) work really well vs nids, if you don't know it its basically the raven guard tactics minus the boost to jump packs.

the boost to jump packs is swapped for allowing bolters to fire as heavy1 weapons with rending. against monstrous creatures this is downright nasty. most nid creatures have no invulnerable save. combo this with flamers and basic tactical squads will be able to put a few wounds on monstrous creatures, lightening the load on the heavy support options and granting a fall back in the event the devastators get mawloc'ed

against orks, most players are avoiding trucks due to the advantage of 30 strong shoota mobs. so grab a thunderfire cannon/whirlwind and template them off the board

So to me it sounds like an optimal build would consist of troops armed with flamers and meltas for cutting down tides of Orks and Tyranids, and then bringing in the big guns like thunderfire cannons and drop podding Sternguard with multimeltas and such near the big boys of the enemies armies. And maybe some landspeeders or something of the like to speed my heavy troops (possibly centurions) into the midst of battle to mow down MCs and cannon fodder alike.

Well the Two ideas I would stick to...

Salamanders with Flamers and Meltas

OR

Imperial Fists with loads of bolters/heavy bolters/ and plasma guns


Both would be largely pod based.
Both would have 1-2 Sternguard. (Heavy Flamers and Combi Meltas)
Both would have 1-2 Thunderfire Cannons.

Just my opnion as a veteran tyranid player.

 Perfect Organism wrote:
As an ork player, what I fear in the marines list is:

Lascannons. You might think of orks as having weak armour, but when they bring some, they tend to make it heavy. Knocking out battlewagons early in the game is a very efficient way of wrecking most ork armies. You will need a lot of them to really ruin a wagon-rush though.

Anything that ignores cover, but especially Thunderfire cannons. As soon as a vehicle has been cracked open, you need to start landing blasts onto the passengers.

Actually, this.

And as much as I love Black Templar and hate gakky barrage weapons, I'd say you want to avoid the former and take the latter.

Edit:

against orks, most players are avoiding trucks due to the advantage of 30 strong shoota mobs. so grab a thunderfire cannon/whirlwind and template them off the board

I've seen the opposite. Mech Orks are the way to go, because foot Orks are a) susceptible to blasts and stuff and b) are really, really unfun to play because of the model count.

I always run trukks or wagons. I'd be willing to forfeit any advantage foot orks could give to do so, simply because I can move my whole army by moving like five models instead of 180 of them

 ductvader wrote:
If you're looking for CC marines and want to be librarian free...go Black Templars.

Templars have special assault units that other marines don't have access to, They deny psychic powers on a 5+. and they aren't even allowed to take librarians.

I just love the Salamander ideology.

MEQs trying to out-swarm Ork boyz or endless waves of Skyblight Gargoyles/Endless Swarm Termas/Hormas tends to end badly for the MEQs. Crusader squads don't have the gumption to beat boyz in assault and getting in shoot-outs with Shoota boyz is...inadvisable.

Against Tyranids, you mostly want plasma weapons. Nothing in the entire book has any ability to get a toughness higher than six, and because most units in the codex have poor saves grav-weapons are less attractive. The lack of vehicles makes lower RoF weapons like meltas unattractive. Flamers and Barrage weapons can help clear out gaunts but it seems that the way of the future for the Tyranids lies in hoping for catalyst and getting shrouded from Venomthropes. Even termagants can be hard to kill if they have a 3+ cover save and FNP, so make sure you stock up on things that can bypass cover.

Tyranid armies used to be very heavy on psychic choir builds due to having a lot of units that could get a nice number of rolls on BRB tables, but GW has spoken and killed off the psychic choir build for reasons unknown; denying them access to all BRB tables and only allowing them a single table that compared to what Tyranid psykers could once do; is much less intimidating. These days, you mostly see Tyranid Psykers as a way to hope to get onslaught and catalyst, or are Zoanthropes with warp blast. Tyranid Psykers are all synapse creatures, so you'll still want to kill them.

The main threat from the Tyranids these days though; is Skyblight Swarms. Endlessly respawning waves of scoring gargoyles who score even if the objective is contested lead by a miniature flying circus. A lot of Tyranid lists I see now just take the bare minimum of troops, a flyrant, and then spam as many skyblights as they can squeeze in. You will need ways to deal with FMCs and endless hordes of Gargoyles used in bulk or suffer for it. The other dangerous Tyranid formation is the living artillery node which can drop very accurate and painful fire on your head from a safe distance. You may not be too worried about a Biovore's S4 AP4 large blast barrage pieplate with your saves, but they can continuously pile on wounds and snipe out important models. The Exorcine can also spew out a lot of TEQ/MEQ killing fire in the form of either a large blast plasma (S7 AP2) pieplate, or six plasma shots, all at a respectable range for a tyranid formation.

The warriors needed for all ground based formations are usually seen as a tax, but me and some other Tyranid players have endeavored to at least get the most out of the over-priced things.

All the other Tyranid formations range from good but overshadowed by Skyblight and Living Artillery (endless swarm, the shooty carnifex/tfex combo) to situationally useful (that one-lictor formation)

Tyranids don't get very much from Forgeworld for standard games, you have the Malanthrope which was nerfed from a god of instant, 2+ poison, 3++ save, death lash whip dealing death at 250 points a model down to a 110 point budget MC, and you have Meiotic Spores which are literally just Spore mines +1 that vomit out more spore mines, the Crushing Claw Carnifex is however good as it has crushing claws that have all the best aspects of both the new and old claws (armorbane, +d3 attacks, AP1) and rerolling old style regeneration (roll a d6 for all wounds, recover that wound on a six) and a 2+ save all for a cheap price with some special rules that only really apply in cities of death, but can only be taken in squads of one and two of it's core aspects (crushing claws and regeneration) are still stuck with 5e rules. I expect it to change quite a bit when updated. So don't worry about those too much.

For their lords of war; the Heirodule is an overpriced Wraithknight and is widely agreed as sucking. You know that one Imperial fist special Hammernator special character with FNP? He can actually reliably beat a melee Heoridule in assault. Those Ironhand/Clan biker builds that can beat up most SCs? He'll eat the Heirodule alive. And if you have grav guns or D weapons, the Heirodule may as well not bother showing up. If they show up with one, be smug in the knowledge that your enemy just wasted 600 points.

dark angle bike spam. ravenwings + landspeeder typhoons + darkshroud. cripple their backlines and orks fold

against nids take whirlwinds, devistators and tactical marines, the nephilim with an avenger is pretty menacing too

 Perfect Organism wrote:


Anything that ignores cover, but especially Thunderfire cannons. As soon as a vehicle has been cracked open, you need to start landing blasts onto the passengers.

Can't agree with this enough. Thunder fire cannons are the truly useful Swiss Army knife of marines. It can hurt any army for a very minimal cost. Ignores cover is huge!

Span1shAztec wrote:
Hi all,
I'm new to the WH40K game, I got into it by means of the various fluff based around the universe. I want to build a space marine army that is well suited for taking on Xenos races, specifically Orks and Tyranids since they seem similar to Orks since they both do well with hordes of models. So my question is, what is a good way to build the army so it can take on hordes of enemies with ease. And for fluff purposes of my army i would prefer any suggestions to not have Librarians and be more focused on holding off enemies at range rather getting up close and personal.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions

Simple stuff: Tac marines with Flamer, and Heavy Bolter. Thunder Fire (?) Devistaors with Missiles, Razorbacks...you just need to take enough Template weapons, and maintain a high Volume of Fire. And most of the job is done Vs Tyranids in specific: Monster hunters, and (very) good anti air are "must haves"