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I've been a fan of the GW universe for over 20 years, but so far I've played a grand total of 3 games in that span, 1 each of Age of sigmar, 1 3rd edition 40k and 1 game of necromunda a long time ago. I've been collecting space marine stuff for 16 years, and have a pretty good collection of rank and file.
My collection includes the following:
4 land raiders (at least one of each variant)
a few captains
a few commanders
probably half a dozen metal sergeants
40 or so unassmbled tactical marines, with enough heavy weapons for a 10 man dev squad
20 metal termies, split evenly between assault and ranged
half a dozen bikers
3 attack bikes
2 land speeders
a rhino
techmarine with servitor squad
couple of vanilla techmarines
10 man assualt squad
a dread, not sure on loadout
3 centurions (going all grav i think)
1 librarian
1 chaplain
command squad (old metal one)

I have a ton of questions
1 Is imperial fists a decent choice for a competitive build?
2 what type of detachments should i be looking at?
3 is it viable to split my force into an imperial fist detachment then make my bikes and speeders a white scars force?
4 am i missing anything?
5 what units just suck?
6 what units are a must for a competitive force?

thanks for any help

1: Imperial fists are by no means super competitive but will always be capable, they're very reliable (tbh competitive 40k is silly anyway, casual is much better imho)

2: Depends what you like, but you could quite easily turn your force into a demi company with LR armour spearhead formation, though the spearhead is pretty average

3: It's perfectly viable, but a few words of caution. It will limit your ability to take formations, since you can't mix and match within a formation, it will also force you not to mix squads, since if you do you lose chapter tactics

4: Rhino, Razorbacks or Drop Pods, your tactical marines need a way of getting onto objectives and these are the go to way of doing that. You also lack any 1st company, sternguard are always reliable but assault terminators or honour guard would go well with your land raider collection

5: nothing in SM is downright awful with the right force, but assault centurions are generally regarded as exceedingly slow and assault squads are more of a defensive counter charge unit since they are quite average in a fight and on't fit unless you have like a pure assault army which is rare for marines

6: there are three main Marine competitive armies, Full Company MEQ and Centurion star. The first is based around bringing two demi company formations so all rhinos are free, putting mimum squads in your 8+ rhinos and then taking board control and tank shocking and drivebying enemy off objectives. Centurion star use grav cannon armed centurions with librarian conclaves (sometimes less commitment but usually a conclave) rolling for invisibility and putting all your strength is these tough, invisible expensive and very shooty units. Last is skyhammer annihalation whereby you use that formation, usually with full numbers of devs and ASM combat squadded trying to do as much damage as possible on turn 1-2 and gain an early advantage

(personally i'd say avoid playing really competitive 40k, the game is easy as all hell to break and net lists dominate, if you like the fluff or having an even game with cool moments and heroics play casually)

What's meq? I looked for the acronym list but can't find it.

roddo wrote:
What's meq? I looked for the acronym list but can't find it.

MEQ is "marine equivalent". Your basic toughness 4, 3+ armor save trooper.

Although the army style he’s referring to is better described as a MSU, or Multiple Small Unit build. Lots of little packets of guys, so it’s hard to kill them all and you have a lot of tactical flexibility.

Welcome back to 40k, home of the TLA (Three Letter Acronym)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

roddo wrote:
I've been a fan of the GW universe for over 20 years, but so far I've played a grand total of 3 games in that span, 1 each of Age of sigmar, 1 3rd edition 40k and 1 game of necromunda a long time ago. I've been collecting space marine stuff for 16 years, and have a pretty good collection of rank and file.
My collection includes the following:
4 land raiders (at least one of each variant)
a few captains
a few commanders
probably half a dozen metal sergeants
40 or so unassmbled tactical marines, with enough heavy weapons for a 10 man dev squad
20 metal termies, split evenly between assault and ranged
half a dozen bikers
3 attack bikes
2 land speeders
a rhino
techmarine with servitor squad
couple of vanilla techmarines
10 man assualt squad
a dread, not sure on loadout
3 centurions (going all grav i think)
1 librarian
1 chaplain
command squad (old metal one)

I have a ton of questions
1 Is imperial fists a decent choice for a competitive build?
2 what type of detachments should i be looking at?
3 is it viable to split my force into an imperial fist detachment then make my bikes and speeders a white scars force?
4 am i missing anything?
5 what units just suck?
6 what units are a must for a competitive force?

thanks for any help

And to adress your OP:

Imperial Fists are a solid, generic chapter. They play well to a traditionally built marine list. If you want to do something wacky, one of the other chapters might serve you better, but the fists should do well generically.

You have all the parts for a demi company, and that’s a solid base these days. You are light on parts to make some of the other formations, but could do a decent 1st company one for casual play. Putting some of the tacs together as sternguard would boost your army a bit.

You could split, but I’d recommend just picking one and sticking with it. Your army will function more coherently if you just choose one. A full WS bike army is going to need a lot more then you have anyway.

You need transports in a bad way. You have one rhino. Generally you are going to want a transport for every tac squad, and maybe a few extra, particularly is you choose to go drop pods. There are pros and cons to rhinos/pods. Modern 40 is very much an objective based, and you need a way to get your guys to where they need to be, and footslogging doesn’t cut it.

Very few things in the codex suck. Terminators and land raiders are a bit overpriced, but can still get the job done. A lot will depend on your local crowd. If there is a lot of AP2 and melta, those guys will just explode. But if people are just relying on spamming mid strength fire to kill tanks, LRs will roll over them. YMMV.

There are a number of different builds competitively. Generally they either rely on some tricks, like teleporting invisible grav cents around killing stuff, or spamming more bodies then can be killed in a reasonable amount of time. Bikes are also quite good ATM.

Honestly, if you're looking into Imperial Fists, stick with Sternguard, Scouts, and Devastators of both variants. It's solid and serves the best way to get the most out of their Chapter Tactics.

Look into Lions Blade gladius Demi Company to get free razorbacks. potential 600 free points!

 Filch wrote:
Look into Lions Blade gladius Demi Company to get free razorbacks. potential 600 free points!

Gladius, not Lion's Blade. Lion's Blade is for DA, not C:SM.

1) Imperial Fists are solid. They took 2nd alongside BA allies at the LVO 2015 IIRC.
2) Gladius or CAD if you decide to use the Sentinels of Terra (an Imperial Fists supplement). Skyhammer also does really well with the Fist tactics.
3) Possible, with the new WS detachments, but you're generally better committing to one Codex marine tactics. Exception is combining with either BA, SW or DA, since you won't shut off your tactics.
4) Transports if you're not using a Scout heavy force. TFC are also really good, but not necessary.
5) It's meta dependent.
6) Gladius and Skyhammer are the two big detachments for Imperial Fists. Centurions are good as always. Sternguard got a massive improvement with the change to Bolter Drill and were already good to begin with.

So it looks like for gladius 2 battle demi companies and an auxiliary force are needed. I think the 10th company force is a decent way to get the auxiliary force. For my tac squads and dev squads, what should i be looking at for special/heavy weapons load outs? should I be kitting out my sgt's also? how about taking a dread or two in a drop pod?

If you are doing to the full company for the free transports, a lot depends on what points you are playing at. Just getting that many bodies on the table sucks up a huge amount of points.

In general, give the sarge a combi to match the squad’s special, make sure all the guns want to shoot at the same thing, and LC Devs are good for normal use.

Think about what sort of things you are going to see on the table and make sure you have an answer for them. light/heavy armor, MCs, flyers, hordes, etc.

wtf are you talking about? its just a minimum of 935pts to unlock 550pts free.

Imagine buying 3 squad of termi to unlock 3 landraiders for free! Too bad each terminsquad is 175 points.
Or i can be annoying AF and bring max msu scout squads with as many free pesky land speeders to move around.

I’m not saying it’s not worth doing, but in, for example, a 1,500 point list, that’s ~2/3 of your points just for a bunch of bare bones guys who are only really good at catching bullets. Massed bolters can work on certain things, but not everything.

So once you start sinking points into your auxiliary choice (probably another 200), gearing your captain so he’s not a pure tax, upgrading guns on the razors, etc, the points can go fast.

I’ll admit to being biased against the build. I think GW dropped the ball with handing stuff out for free like that from a rules POV, and the concept of swarming the table with more meat shields then can be killed in 6 turns smacks more of guard tactics then marines. And you have no chance of winning anything based on kill points.

But if you want to do more in the game then make armor saves and remove casualties, I’d not play this style of list in anything below 1,500, and that’s pushing it IMHO. 2k would probably be better.

 Filch wrote:
wtf are you talking about? its just a minimum of 935pts to unlock 550pts free.

Imagine buying 3 squad of termi to unlock 3 landraiders for free! Too bad each terminsquad is 175 points.
Or i can be annoying AF and bring max msu scout squads with as many free pesky land speeders to move around.

Only Rhinos, Razorbacks and Drop Pods are free.

yeah doing a full company is doable in 1.5k but it's more suited to 1850+

They way you'll want to run the tactical squads is 5 men ish with a special and the sgt carrying a matching combi weapon

 Filch wrote:
wtf are you talking about? its just a minimum of 935pts to unlock 550pts free.

Imagine buying 3 squad of termi to unlock 3 landraiders for free! Too bad each terminsquad is 175 points.
Or i can be annoying AF and bring max msu scout squads with as many free pesky land speeders to move around.

That makes Land Raiders viable, seeing you wouldn't have to spend 200+ points on them.

I'm probably going to start out at 1k points and play a few games from there. Gladius won't work to we'll at that level but should be fine by the time I'm ready for 1850. Will give me plenty of time to find some razorbacks, rhinos and drop pods.

Anyone know a good place to get grav weapons for my dev squads? Gonna do Gladius when I go past 1000 points and need 8 grav cannons since the devs I have are older. Also are centurion worth taking instead of regular devs?

Absolutely.

If you want Grav Devastators though, the best way to go about is find a good FW substitute. There's a Volkite heavy weapon that has a pretty similar profile.

roddo wrote:
Anyone know a good place to get grav weapons for my dev squads? Gonna do Gladius when I go past 1000 points and need 8 grav cannons since the devs I have are older. Also are centurion worth taking instead of regular devs?

Centurions are always good.

I'm not sure about Grav for regular Devastators considering the points it costs. Remember they get Tankhunters and Tankhunter on Las Cannons/Multi-Meltas can be vicious.

it still costs far to little, if the grav cannon where to have it's cost based on it's damage output compared to lascannons etc it'd be closer to 70 than 35 pts and still be strong

It's not the damage output I question, it's the platform it's on.

Since you already have the bodies and the Raiders I would do a 1 Demi company with a Land Raider Spearhead and FIrst company task force.

A Demi-company gives you access to each comabt doctrine once and Objective secured on top of the IF Bolter drills which work well with each other in a lot of cases.

The Spearhead makes the Proteus/Godhammer pattern landraider a very good SuperHeavy/GM hunter. And they can double as transports for either Termie squad if you dont want to DS from the 1st Company Taskforce.

For your Bikes and speeders you could add a Speartip STrike from the Kauyon supplement. It is 1-3 speeder units, and 2 units chosen from Bike,attack bike or Scout bike squads. Big advantage of the formation is the it lets you use the old Rage Bait (Aggro) tactic to pull units out of position and off objectives.

For terminators should I go for assault or vanilla? I have the bits for missile launchers and a squad each of lightning claws and thunder hammers (I know thunder hammers are prefered)

roddo wrote:
For terminators should I go for assault or vanilla? I have the bits for missile launchers and a squad each of lightning claws and thunder hammers (I know thunder hammers are prefered)

Both can work. Both have problems.

There are a lot of really nasty guns out there, so a 2+ save in the open just isn’t as tough as it used to be. Terminators also have the issue of being a bunch of T4 1W guys, so you can also just hose them down with small arms and wait for you to roll ones on the armor saves.

That said, if you are careful where you deploy them, they can work. But they are more vulnerable then the fluff would have you believe, and aren’t very cost efficient as far as units go.

I like my assault terminators 5 men, with a mix of hammers and claws. I run 3:2, partially because that’s what I have WYSWYG, but I also enjoy getting some hits in at initiative, and not everything needs the hammer. I always field mine in the classic LR. If I owned a LRR/C, I’d stick a HQ in there with them. When you hop out of the box, try to keep the SS pointed towards any AP2 threats. They are expensive, but can get the job done.

I will occasionally take a 5 man shooty squad as well. I like the assault cannon, and always take a chainfist or two. The CML can work, I just find that the AsC has better synergy with the stormbolters. Again, be careful how you deploy them. A HQ to tank wounds can help a lot. While the shooting is kinda “meh” they all have powerfists, so can put the hurt down.

Terminators are iconic and fun. They are expensive, and struggle to justify their points. If I’m trying to squeeze all the power I can out of a list, I leave them on the shelf. But for friendly games, I love dropping them on the table. YMMV.

Next question is about scouts, sniper rifles or no? Sentinels of terra let's me take them as troop choices so was curious which was better, or is a mix better. Also what heavy weapons should my scouts bring.

Scouts are troops for Space Marines anyway. As for loadout, it depends on their role. Snipers plus cloaks are good for objective campers, while bolters are good for if you're throwing them in a land speeder storm (or if they're moving around the field). Shotguns can also be good for drive by's. I've never tried BP+CCW though, so I can't say how that is. And for heavy weapons. It again depends on their role. Backfield camping scouts can do well with either a Heavy Bolter or Rocket Launcher. If you want your scouts to move I wouldn't give them a heavy weapon, it'll be snap firing most of the time anyway.

For Sentinels of Terra, always Bolters. They are the unit that is most likely to take advantage of close range bolter drill.