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Deathwing Knights can be pretty good, if you have any interest in DA. Stick Ezekiel with them and watch them kill almost anything in melee. Not very competative due to being a slow melee unit, but can be used in casual games to great effect

Space Wolves completely blow the other options out the water. BA aren't really good in assault, BT are pretty mediocre.


Space Wolves have TWC and Wulfen. Two of the best melee units available.

BT are mediocre, especially if you try to use a lot of infantry in an effort to take advantage of the CT's. From what I hear (on this forum predominantly) BA are pretty sub-par. So your best bet is Space Wolves, second choice BT, and finally BA (assuming those three are your only options).

 TheMostWize wrote:
Good players can get somewhere with just about anything. Army comes into play when player skill level is on par. At least thats based on my experience.

I disagree with that to some degree simply on the basis of relative list formation. For example, if I give a skilled played a very infantry heavy list with minimal AT and give their opponents Land Raiders and Predators, they're going to lose. That being said, if we assume the lists are roughly equal, then a skilled player will do better with one of those armies than an unskilled/not-so-skilled player will.

X

So why not just bring SW? They can bring the same amount of melta with GH and more attacks to boot. Throw in a unit of wulfen or two, a pack of TWC and a 10th company CAD so you can add conclave. Everything you can use, nothing you cant. Not necessary at all to bring a bunch of jackals especially in JPS to hold back your army...

Space Sharks!

Everyone has fear, we can buy extra CCWs for our Tactical squads, once you win 1 combat you get rage, and if you bring Tyberos you get MORE buffs once you win your first combat.

Take Black Templars.
The game is currently mainly objective based and getting onto objectives wins games. The BT have crusader- giving you an extra inch or two on each run move and making a 1 inch run much less likely.

This gels well with CCW armed crusader squads who want to close with the enemy anyway. Neophytes can let you add numbers to a unit either for surviability or additional sword arms. They can also take assault 2 s4 shotguns to thin the enemy before charging- supplementing the smattering of bolt pistol fire the unit will be throwing out.

Smaller, 5 man boltgun squads, perhaps with a plasmagun/lasplas can hold backfield objectives and take potshots if desired.

Do you want CC units, or do you want your units to be better at CC?

If you want CC units, TWO and Wulfen bring strong actual-CC units to a Loyalist dex.

If you want Tacs, Devs, and ASM, but with better CC, BA is the best (aggressive) CC chapter.

Note that going Tac/Dev/ASM- heavy without Gladius is considered pointless from a competitive standpoint.

Finally, the true CC beasts, despite being the weakest option, are CSM. Not competitive, but can be as CC with nearly everything. As CC as you want.

So:
Competitive: SW
Astartes with CC: BA
Marines with CC: CSM

If you want some potentially decent Terminators then look to the Arjac Shield Brothers formation. All TH/SS terminators that get T5 when in base contact with another member of the unit, 6s on invuln saves in CC cause an instant TH equivalent hit on the enemy, and WS5. Its also requires a Land Raider Crusader but its probably the best way to move a melee terminator squad around. Throw in a rune priest with biomancy and you have a nasty melee beat stick unit.

As for which SMs are the best in melee? Personally I think Space Wolves are the most practical army to go assault heavy of the lot. Bloodclaws/Skyclaws are cheap on points while having a ton of attacks on the charge. Wulfen hit like a battlewagon without brakes while also boosting the other SW units. TWC are notoriously deadly in CC while being quite durable and mobile. Iron Priest on a thunderwolf with cyberwolves are quite nasty and can join units like TWC, Bikes, or even Skyclaws to make them even harder hitting. Even the shooting units all have counter attack so they aren't chumps in CC when charged unlike their codex astartes following brethren.

I know that Grey Knights are a bit of a dated book, but I rather like them for their assault abilities. Let's just face it, Dreadknights are MUCH better than Dreadnoughts, even with their added FAQ attacks. They are much more mobile with a personal teleporter.

Grey knights have the best Jump Infantry of any marine chapter. You get to use teleport homers to help them arrive, Their flamers are Strength 6, and they can "super move" once a game with shunt.

Grey Knights terminators can be custom tailored on an individual. They have a great mix of ranged and close combat abilities.

Add to this that their psychers have a GOOD chance of popping off stat boosting abilities and that basically everything outside of tanks can deepstrike without a drop pod.


If you are going after more elite units, Grey Knights rock.

If you are facing a horde army.....Space Wolves are better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As another option, Has anyone considered using the Cataphractii Terminator armor from the Angels of Death book? They can be taken instead of normal terminator armor (same points cost) , they have a 4+ invulnerable (characters reroll a roll of 1) , and they get to mix and match ranged and close combat weapons.

Martel732 wrote:
Space Wolves. By a mile.

BT are better than BA, because they have access to vanilla toys. BA are really gak at assault in 7th.

BA will usually win in CC because they have an init bonus.

Or does no one ever play against BA and forget that?

Wolves are a strong 1B, but BA are by and large going to win out over the wolves.

If we want to go on technicalities, a KDK space marine army is king of cc for space marines, mostly because they can get FNP and daemon khorne dog units to tie up your units before they hit you.

Nobody forgets the +1I bonus, it just isn't great compared to Counter Attack with Space Wolves or everyone having a Power Weapon like Grey Knights or actually having decent toys in the vanilla codex.

Plus the +1I only comes into play in a specific detachment.

 IllumiNini wrote:
BT are mediocre, especially if you try to use a lot of infantry in an effort to take advantage of the CT's. From what I hear (on this forum predominantly) BA are pretty sub-par. So your best bet is Space Wolves, second choice BT, and finally BA (assuming those three are your only options).

 TheMostWize wrote:
Good players can get somewhere with just about anything. Army comes into play when player skill level is on par. At least thats based on my experience.

I disagree with that to some degree simply on the basis of relative list formation. For example, if I give a skilled played a very infantry heavy list with minimal AT and give their opponents Land Raiders and Predators, they're going to lose. That being said, if we assume the lists are roughly equal, then a skilled player will do better with one of those armies than an unskilled/not-so-skilled player will.

I would actually make an argument that land raiders and predators might not be that effective against an infantry list due to lack of volume of shots. Also it really depends on what time of infantry based army. Necrons? or Dark Eldar? That is what I was getting at by saying that list comes into play. If you are playing objective based games and not just kill everything that a skilled player could certainly defeat a bad player who has a 'stronger' list simply by playing smart and maneuvering in ways that make it hard for the player with the tanks to combat. Would it be easy? Probably not but far from impossible I would say.

Now it seems there are certain armies that a monkey could play and win with but in the absence of those players, play what looks cool to you and what you will enjoy modeling and painting. The thing to remember is playing games is only part of the hobby. If you don't have an interest in the models you are putting together you won't get very far.

 sfshilo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Space Wolves. By a mile.

BT are better than BA, because they have access to vanilla toys. BA are really gak at assault in 7th.

BA will usually win in CC because they have an init bonus.

Or does no one ever play against BA and forget that?

Wolves are a strong 1B, but BA are by and large going to win out over the wolves.

If we want to go on technicalities, a KDK space marine army is king of cc for space marines, mostly because they can get FNP and daemon khorne dog units to tie up your units before they hit you.

BA, by default, have no such bonus. Giving up obj sec for that bonus is extremely dubious.

Bharring wrote:

If you want Tacs, Devs, and ASM, but with better CC, BA is the best (aggressive) CC chapter.

Barely. You also lose everything that makes Tacs and Devs good from the vanilla codex in the first place.

 Griddlelol wrote:

Bharring wrote:

If you want Tacs, Devs, and ASM, but with better CC, BA is the best (aggressive) CC chapter.

Barely. You also lose everything that makes Tacs and Devs good from the vanilla codex in the first place.

I thought I'd let someone else point this out for once.

You lose Grav, a shooty Chapter Tactic, and Gladius.

The first two have nothing to do with being an assaulty chapter. It's a tradeoff.

The third is OP.

Bharring wrote:
You lose Grav, a shooty Chapter Tactic, and Gladius.

The first two have nothing to do with being an assaulty chapter. It's a tradeoff.

The third is OP.

Even the melee-bases ones from the Vanilla codex are ridiculously superior.
Look at Carcharodon Tactical Marines and compare them to Blood Angels ones. It is silly.

What do Carcharodons have? They can buy cc weapons can't they?

Okay, I'm going to make a specific post about exactly what I want in my army, that way we form advice from that. I'm going to use 500-750 points of IF/IH as a CAD of shooting, I have them for that purpose, but I don't like shooting armies. So, I want to use a detachment of another army, up to a 1000 more points of just melee. I have always loved fantasy settings, and Knights and great warriors from books. I want to have a force of chainswords, power weapons, and pure hard hitting. I want them to be as melee as possible, with little to no shooting. I want to charge them into battle with swords swinging and axes smashing, while my other army moves onto objectives and uses firing platforms to pick away at those who break away from my bad arse melee Warriors. I'm using a vanilla marine detachment so I have access to all the toys, but I really want a melee, slam and cut army. Like I said, I don't play in tourneys or anything, I just don't want to bring what I would want, which is a force of guys with chainswords and power weapons, maybe in drop pods if they don't have jump packs, and then have them get ripped apart because they're useless. I want them to be a wall of power, with my shooters hanging back and giving support with some librarians. I love Khorne berserkers, but don't have the skill to paint them spiky boys, but would love the option to run the list on its own, with the only shooting being pistols and AT?

Have you considered an IH smashfether and friends?

For light CC you could add some bikes or even ASM. For serious CC units, you'd need something more than power armor marines.

pm713 wrote:
What do Carcharodons have? They can buy cc weapons can't they?

They can replace Bolt Guns with CC weapons, or buy for 1 ppm. In addition they get Rage when they kill something in combat.

Their Captain, Tyberos, also gives them +1 Strength for the rest of the battle if they get Rage. That's better than Furious Charge. Rival Death Company in turns of output.

pm713 wrote:
What do Carcharodons have? They can buy cc weapons can't they?

1. Fear, which is pretty silly as half of what you face will ignore it.
2. Tactical Marines can either buy an additional CCW for one point or do the CSM thing of switching out the Bolter for one.
3. Anyone gets Rage after their first unit killed in melee (swept as well, but I don't have my computer handy). This is easy for Grav Bikers and Skyhammer Assault Marines.

Only issue with Carchadons is the ally thing.

Their Tactical Marines have one of the better loadouts you can create. One half will have 3 CCW's along with two additional bought ones coming with a Melta Gun and Combi-Melta, while the other half has the standard Bolters and a Grav Cannon. Then when the pod comes down you Combat Squad them for fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 HCMistborn wrote:
Only issue with Carchadons is the ally thing.

Formations make this a non-issue.

Seems pretty unfair the Carcharodon cc weapon costs 1 point.

pm713 wrote:
Seems pretty unfair the Carcharodon cc weapon costs 1 point.

It's actually unfair that CSM have to pay two points. They're only worth one.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Seems pretty unfair the Carcharodon cc weapon costs 1 point.

It's actually unfair that CSM have to pay two points. They're only worth one.

CSM aren't the exception. Two factions pay two. One pays one. Which is the exception?

pm713 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Seems pretty unfair the Carcharodon cc weapon costs 1 point.

It's actually unfair that CSM have to pay two points. They're only worth one.

CSM aren't the exception. Two factions pay two. One pays one. Which is the exception?

Grey Hunters should only have to pay one point as well.

Shooting the topic to the far right, is it possible to eliminate 95% of reg shooting, bringing it down to pistols, AT and armor?