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I was looking through the space marine book and I look at the assault marine page and i just think to myself is their anything good about they got 1 attack and dont have anything special for their points. I think they should have 2 attacks and make their chainswords AP 6 but leave your thoughts please on what you think assault marines should get more of and how they could get improved.

Get ravenguard bonus by default.

I think making Chainswords have stats of some kind would be the best fix.

If you have two attacks, chai swords with s+1, ap6, shred, and rending, then what are you going to do? Kill Wraiths? Kill bikers and centurions? Kill riptides? Kill wraithknights and jetbikes? Maybe if rending is cheap enough, except it doesn't work on wraiths.


I think what you have to do is convince people to spam foot fire warriors and IG heavy weapons platoons. Then assault marines would clean up.

pelicaniforce wrote:
If you have two attacks, chai swords with s+1, ap6, shred, and rending, then what are you going to do? Kill Wraiths? Kill bikers and centurions? Kill riptides? Kill wraithknights and jetbikes? Maybe if rending is cheap enough, except it doesn't work on wraiths.


I think what you have to do is convince people to spam foot fire warriors and IG heavy weapons platoons. Then assault marines would clean up.

I think it's important when discussing homebrew rules to identify whether you're designing around highly competitive environments or more casual ones. In my meta, bikers, centurions, wraith knights, and jetbikes pretty much only show up at tournaments. Wraiths and riptides are a bit more common, but still a pretty rare sight. So designing assault marines (or any other unit) to be on park with things like scat bikes would actually mean they'd been made too powerful to enjoy in my local meta. This is especially important when discussing homebrew rules as such rules really need your opponent's thumbs up if they're going to see the table. I mean for this to come across completely politely with the intention of pointing out an alternative perspective as you seem to be pointing out that certain units are notoriously powerful and suggesting that any unit being homebrewed needs to live up to their standards. I may be misreading you.

+1 strength, shred, and rending seem a bit busy to me. Ap 6 with any one of those other rules would be reasonable, I think. Personally, I kind of like the idea of bolt and melee weapon having slightly different profiles based on your chapter. Ravenguard might get a heavy 1 sniper shot for their bolters and rending on their melee weapons (go for the weak points!) for instance. That's probably a bit busy of an idea and off-topic besides though.

Something I've pondered is giving jump infantry (or at least assault marines) the ability to jink. If a bike can move quickly and wildly enough to get a cover save while still stuck on the ground, surely a slightly smaller target moving in three dimensions is at least as difficult to hit, right? Plus, assault marines give up less fire power than bikes while still leveraging superior (sans the toughness difference) melee potential. This would mean that jump packs would jink "better" than bikes and have the ability to deepstrike, which might make them slightly more appealing next to their tougher, pricier cousins.

Also, captains with jump packs should really make assault marines with jump packs troops or at least allow them to fill compulsory slots somehow.

It is pretty strange how that works. Biker HQ's unlock Biker Troops, but Terminator HQ's don't open up Terminator Troops, nor do Jump Pack HQ's open up Jump Pack troops.

I always thought that the idea of just using jump packs on assault troops was poor. I like the idea of devastator squads with lascannons using them to reach prime firing positions, and then being able to escape approaching enemies quickly.