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There was an argument in my local store recently between a space marine player and a necron player. The guys had arranged to play fluffy lists at 1,000 points. The cron player brought massed warriors and poured most of his points into his HQ. The SM player took him apart with thunderfire cannons and vindicators. He took Scouts to pay troop tax.

To me thunderfire cannons have no place in a 'fluffy' marine list. I started thinking about what a fluffy marine list actually looks like, based on what I tend to read in fiction. Tactical and Assault marine spam, with an epic captain laden with point sucking gear joined by a melee command squad, with maybe some predators / vindicators in support.

I would be interested to hear others thoughts on the matter. It seems the more I think about it that a lot of 'fluffy' lists I see are anything but.

Don't forget the dreadnought and devastators.
A demi-company (and by extension, Gladius) is pretty fluffy. And for certain chapters, bike spam.

I mean, there's such a breadth of chapters, you can assume every list is fluffy considering they can have entirely different tactics and preferences.

Luckily there is Something that Marines had (Pre Formations) that no one else has(to my knowledge) in one of the older books:

An actual Breakdown of what is in each standard Space Marine Company.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/c/ce/CodexOrganisation.jpg

If I was going to try to build a CAD list for Fluffy Space Marines, I'd try to keep a ratio of 2 tactical:1 Assault:1 Devastator, throw in a Captain and a Chaplin with Jump Packs, Put the Chaplin with a ASM squad and get a Squad of Vanguard Vets for the Captain to roll with ( Former Captain Idaeus of 4th Company Ultramarines) Or have the captain footslong with Sternguard(Current Captain Ventris of 4th Company Ultramarines). Sprinkle in Rhinos, Drop pods, and Dreadnoughts for flavor.

A Demi-Company is a good representation for the tabletop. It's pretty rare for a single Chapter to commit more than that in a Strikeforce unless you're talking about a massive engagement like what is featured in books like Damocles and Damnos and those are Apocalypse games.

Here's an example from IA: 10, and this is during the Badab War, which was a pretty big deal.
Salamander Strikeforce:


The Minotaurs are similar with:


So in a basic game, the fluffiest thing you can grab apparently is a Gladius with the Armoured Spearhead (which does have TFC options) and/or Veterans.

Thunderfire cannons are fluffy depending on the chapter. Imperial Fists, Iron Hands and Ultramarines would be good.

But a Gladius would be a good place to look for fluff - not one of the min maxed ones for gameplay, but actual 10 man squads. Might have to cut back for 1k, but you get the gist.

Fluffy doesn't mean underpowered. Fluff refers to a themed, background heavy list.
In fact, it's very easy to thumb a bit of fluff around almost any min/maxed or horribly op army.
A good Wargamer with the right convertions, some nice painting, a bit of background, some narrative forging and a good attitude can make even the most ragequitable, table flip making, cheese filled army seem fluffy and make it bearable to play against.

Most Space Marine lists are fluffy. But your typical astartes strike force will consist of a demi-company with full 10 man tactical squads along with some reinforcements from the rest of the chapter.

There are a lot of ways to build a fluffy list, but it sounds like he didn’t do that.

Nothing wrong with using scouts as troops, if the rest of the list backs that up. I could see a fluffy list that starts with nothing but scouts on the table, and everything else in pods/reserve. Or fast moving stuff like bikes and speeders. Obviously the scouts made contact with the enemy, and the rest of the army reinforced them.

Nothing wrong with with a vind and TFC. (I don’t think I’d spam multiples in a 1k list). This is obviously a siege force. But the core should be tactical squads, not scouts.

As an Ultramarine, I like to take something from every slot of the FOC in a list. Feels balanced. I also try to have a clear vision of the armies’ theme in mind. Armored column, drop pod assault, gunline, etc. And every unit should fit that theme. So if I’m taking an mechanized force, I’d rather take a pred over a dev squad.

Most of my lists have a pair of tac squads as a core. While they might be less then competitive, they are iconic to the army. It’s hard to make something called a fluffy list without them. There isn't a set ratio of how much of your army should be made with them, but around a third seems right.

The thing is, chapters do have a set administrative structure, but it's not rigidly adhered to tactically or even strategically. The 3rd edition vanilla Codex had a full breakdown of the entire Ultramarines (actual strength, not 'X squads' like every other write-up), out of the entire chapter only the 4th company was at full strength *administratively*, but half of the company were assigned to an Explorator Fleet whilst the other half were assigned to other duties.

There are few combinations that can't be explained away fluffwise. Thunderfires, Vindicators and Scouts would make sense for an urban clearance force: Scouts advance through the buildings/ruins/rubble lining the streets making sure there weren't any nasty surprises waiting for the Vindicators to show their flanks, with the Vindicators and Thunderfires there for dealing with any heavily occupied or fortified buildings the Scouts can't handle.

Probably the only unfluffy space marine list is the imperium super friends list that have three or more chapters/ other imperial forces to play around with psychic nonsense.

Actually what he fielded could actually form into a "fluff" army, as it is one of the legit formations in the SM codex (minus the scouts) called the Armored Taskforce, which is specifically to field the chapter's Armory against an enemy force.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Actually what he fielded could actually form into a "fluff" army, as it is one of the legit formations in the SM codex (minus the scouts) called the Armored Taskforce, which is specifically to field the chapter's Armory against an enemy force.

While a legit formation, I don’t think the marines would let that hit the battlefield without a few squads of tacs in rhinos/razors. From a fluff POV. You generally don’t just have armor rolling around without some sort of support.

What is a 'fluffy' space marine list comprised of?

Space Wolves

But seriously, pick a chapter, find out the company structure, and pick one of them.
If you restrict yourself to a company and sprinkle in some command and support units, you should be good.

I think the Battle Demi-Company(including the variants like the Pinion and Stormlance) is a good place to start. It is fluffy, but can be tailored to each Chapter's typical deployment style. White Scars would generally take a Bike Captain with Bike Command Squad, a Bike Squad instead of Assault Marines, and not take a Dreadnought(they dislike the concept). Imperial Fists would likely swap the Assault Marines for Assault Centurions and possibly the Devastators for Devastator Centurions. And so on and so forth.

Bike Spam is still fluffy, and several chapters will field TFCs. And scouts as troops and lots of veterans is how I run my Crimson Fists. They have a lot of scouts and their companies are understrength. They also have a lot of veterans.

consider building a battle company. 100 marines. Just remember that each Rhino or Razorback counts as 2 - the drivers. Apply this across the army. Landspeeders as 2, Hunters & Preds as 3(?), etc. when you hit that, add the things that don't have crew like Drop Pods.

Then there are the auxiliary forces. AM Veteran squads and the like; people petitioning to join the chapter, and general support as well.

What things would break the 'fluff factor'? How about Titans, Skitarii, Eldar, etc?

 carldooley wrote:
consider building a battle company. 100 marines. Just remember that each Rhino or Razorback counts as 2 - the drivers. Apply this across the army. Landspeeders as 2, Hunters & Preds as 3(?), etc. when you hit that, add the things that don't have crew like Drop Pods.

Then there are the auxiliary forces. AM Veteran squads and the like; people petitioning to join the chapter, and general support as well.

What things would break the 'fluff factor'? How about Titans, Skitarii, Eldar, etc?

There is some debate over the drivers of tanks. Bikes and speeders do take members of the company to use though.

not grav spam...

Yeah, a fluffy marine list is pretty much a Gladius, with no min-max squads. In fact, TFC are still pretty fluffy depending on Chapter or ideal usage, in the Armoured Task Force Formation. This certainly works with Imperial Fists. But Scouts shouldn't really be the only Troops, especially supporting the heavy armour.

The only unfluffy thing i can think of is massed grav weapons. That is very against the fluff since those guns are supposed to be rarer than plasma.

As already stated above the marine player was using a fluffy list, sounds very much like a siege style army and something I would expect from Iron hands/Imperial fists or even Ultramarines.

You might have had an argument of there were multi chapter deathstars or grav spam but the thing is, most of these powerful powerful marine lists and formations in general are very true to the fluff