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A friend of mine plays ultramarines. I'm currently playing imperial fists. He usually takes 2 troop choices and then loads up on long range firepower (including a knight) and beatstick units like calgar. I like to play a fluffy fists army when possible, usually a demi company + vets + command.
Is there a strategy of beating him other than "bring more big guns than him"? He tends to sit back and let the long range guns murder stuff for as long as possible. I've been eying up centurion devs recently - a unit with 5 relentless twin linked lascannons seems perfect, but is there anything better out there?

If you're playing Imperial Fists, you get some powerful bonuses to Devastator units against tanks.

Even without that however, SM's are generally rather stellar at engaging armor. Between drop podding melta units, Dev Cents of just about any kind with either Grav cannons or Las/Krak, bikers with meltas and other such things are all highly effective.

Why not roll around and score points? He's holding back. That's not a winning strategy in 7ed.

We haven't started with objective based games yet, neither of us have been playing 40k long (I've just come back from a 10 year break and he's just started) so we've just been trying to kill each other while we get to grips with the rules - mostly me telling him how stuff works . I will keep that in mind for when we start though...

So would a drop pod full of 10 combi-melta sternguard and two backfield dev squads (either 1 centurion squad or both marine squads) with lascannons be able to deal with it do you reckon? I'm not 100% on how combat squadding works with drop pods, but 10 melta shots at close range sounds like enough to kill a few vehicles .

Fists excel at gunpower fights. Bring devastators and Cents.

If Calgar is annoying you, bring Lysander for a spin along with some Cent friends of his - you'll see Calgar will become much more... manageable.

We haven't started with objective based games yet

You'll see a big difference when you do. A mobile force of tactical marines with rhinos has many objective secured units and does incredibly well in Maelstrom Of War missions - that's their big power; winning by completing the missions, not by annihilating the enemy.

Otherwise, if you want to take the fight to them, as noted, pick close-ranged stuff then drop pod in; if you've spent points on firepower (e.g. flamers) and he's spent points on range AND firepower (e.g. heavy bolters), you should come out ahead if you 'just appear' at point blank range with a similar points value of dudes.

Seriously. Objective based is the way to go. Maybe not specifically Maelstrom because I think that has some issues as well but having objectives is 100x better than just slugging it out.

 Otto Weston wrote:
Seriously. Objective based is the way to go. Maybe not specifically Maelstrom because I think that has some issues as well but having objectives is 100x better than just slugging it out.

I can't really blame them, since they're learning the ropes. I am teaching my nephew in the exact same manner - we're starting with kill team missions in which we're pretty much just shooting each other so he can get a hang of the turn sequence, the rules, etc. I have even banned melee for the time being (being a marine player I know this is shooting myself in the foot against tau XD) but it will soon be introduced, and then we'll go on to missions per se.

Every marine tank other than the horribly overcosted land raider dies to krak grenades. Marine tanks also aren't noted for their effectiveness against 3+ armor. Yes, vindicator, but side armor 11 makes it a rolling coffin.

Martel732 wrote:
Every marine tank other than the horribly overcosted land raider dies to krak grenades. Marine tanks also aren't noted for their effectiveness against 3+ armor. Yes, vindicator, but side armor 11 makes it a rolling coffin.

Don't listen to Martel. If you try to deal with enemy space marine armour with krak grenades you are shooting yourself in the foot. Stick with your devastators since your chapter tactics gives you a nice buff. Maybe even consider a couple of multi-melta attack bikes for area denial. They are greatly underrated.

Krak nades are good. In mellee.

 koooaei wrote:
Krak nades are good. In mellee.

They are very good in close combat against rear armour 10. Tough to get there though with a fluffy demi-company list against big beefy units like Calgar and Co. as described in the OP.

The point is that most marine tanks can't stop you from getting to melee. Because their firepower is terrible. The vindicator is the one exception, but you can hp it out on its side armor easily at range.

MM attack bikes are good, but explodes are really hard to come by now, so just plan on hping everything out. If the marine tanks are preds and whirlwinds, you can just rush them and win because they'll never cause enough damage.

Don't pretend that mm attack bikes deny anything because they dont.

Martel732 wrote:


MM attack bikes are good, but explodes are really hard to come by now, so just plan on hping everything out. If the marine tanks are preds and whirlwinds, you can just rush them and win because they'll never cause enough damage.

This^ as well as melta sternguard in drop pods and/or melta dreadnoughts in drop pods. If you don't like drop pods and they have weak armor, you can use some rifleman dreadnoughts (autocannons).