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So I know everyone loves tactical marines in 30k and they even got a price drop in the latest army list book, but I've been pretty underwhelmed with mine. They usually just park on some objective on my side of the board, never come close to killing their point cost back, and sometimes don't even fire a shot.

I was looking at better units besides them to hold objectives on my side of the board, because dropping 245 pts (20 marines, serg w/ power axe and melta bombs) just to cap one point sucks.

Here's what I've been considering

Volkite Caliver support squad. 225 pts for 10 marines. 30" range. Lots of dakka. Pretty deadly against anything that isn't armor 13 or T8.

Recon squad with power armor and sniper rifles. 225 points for 10 marines. 36" range is VERY nice. Good vs. high T mechanicum units, decent vs heavily armored marines, worthless vs vehicles and underwhelming vs hoard infantry. Also basically double the cost of their 40k equivalent. Very reticent to field these. Does anyone use snipers and have them not suck?


Note, I'd also consider using the wall of martyrs imperial bunker for either of these squads. drop either to 8 marines, the cost plus the bunker is now 240. Only 8 marines worth of firepower, but the equivalent of a land raider's durability, which, consdiering how much more durable vehicles / buildings are in 30k compared to 40k could be totally worth it.

Veteran squad with sniper and two heavy bolters. 200 pts for 10 marines. 36" range for the heavy bolters, 24" range for the entire squad. This is a lot of dakka that I could see being very deadly against anything besides vehicles, they all have 3 attacks each if they end up in hand to hand, they can move and shoot, AND they're the cheapest squad I've just mentioned. Only downside is they take up an elite slot and I like my dreadnoughts. I feel like these are the best option if I can spare the slot.

Breacher squad with 2 volkite chargers. 210 pts for 10 marines. Lowest range with 15" for the chargers, and def the worst shooting overall, but they can move and shoot, I can add more marines to the squad, they can take the best pounding out in the open, they're better in melee than the recon marines or the support marines, AND they take up a 'required' troop slot. I could see these guys being a valid choice when I can only deploy one assault squad, but other than that they seem like the worst option. Do any of you guys use breachers to lock down your side of the board?

Militia Allies

These don't work as well for me since they're not battle brothers with the blood angels, so I can't just take that 50pt guy, choose my warlord trait to make him a scoring unit, then stick him with a missile launcher marine squad or something, BUT 40-50 points for squads of TWENTY militia men that can lock down objectives seems like a steal, when even if they don't kill anything, I'm used to dropping 250ish for 20 tactical marines that sometimes also kill nothing.

Only downside is I can only use these guys take up that precious single allied slot so I can only use them when I'm not using my knights.

Any of you fellow marine players out there equally dissatisfied with your tactical marines and have any thoughts here? Thanks!

Vets with sniper are great for sitting on objectives. Especially since they can outflank. Probably your best option.
How many dreads do you bring? Two elite slots is 6 dreads and you have 4 elite slots.

I think tac marines aren't bad, they are the core of any list I make. Yeah they sit around a lot but adding a WhirlRhino with a havoc launcher will at least allow them to reach out and touch something from their objective. Once the battle is up and going the rhinos tend to be ignored over more lethal units and they typically pay themselves off and the marines hold whatever.

Imperial Militia as noted are not a bad call. For that matter, you can attach your force commander to a 50-man Levy unit with alchem-jackers, for 50 Ld8 stubborn unit that will never fall back. They're bolter fodder but your opponent will need a lot of shots....

A Mortar squad is a nice one, too. Not as lethal as a thudd gun battery but cheaper and scoring.

Col. Dash wrote:
Vets with sniper are great for sitting on objectives. Especially since they can outflank. Probably your best option.
How many dreads do you bring? Two elite slots is 6 dreads and you have 4 elite slots.

I think tac marines aren't bad, they are the core of any list I make. Yeah they sit around a lot but adding a WhirlRhino with a havoc launcher will at least allow them to reach out and touch something from their objective. Once the battle is up and going the rhinos tend to be ignored over more lethal units and they typically pay themselves off and the marines hold whatever.

Yeah, after I crunched all the numbers vets do def seem like the best option, so I'm building a squad ASAP. I know tac marines can be good. I know of one deathguard player who builds a lists around 50-60 of them. I could see that making a real tough line. They just really don't seem to be working with my blood angel-ey play style. Whirlrhino is a decent idea too that I'm def going to experiment with! It's a 50 point model, but I feel like it could easily kill 50 points worth of guys over the course of a game. As a blood angel player I also get assault cannon rhinos, which are good oo, but lack the 4 foot range of the whirlrhino.

And I own a decent amount of dreads, the issue is I have trouble stacking them in talons. I have a mortis, a vanilla contemptor, a cortus, and a few boxnaughts. I'm not sold on the effectiveness of the boxnaughts, and if I treat my regular contemptor as a cortus, or vis versa so I can talon those up, their effectiveness goes down, because they're both geared up to be optimized for one role.

So that's 3 elite slots right there. If I'm not using any apothecaries I can still shoehorn in a veteran squad.

Main problem is I frequently drop two knights as my primary detachment to get the AMAZING knight lancer seneschal, so then I have ONE blood angel elite slot to play around with :/.


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locarno24 wrote:
Imperial Militia as noted are not a bad call. For that matter, you can attach your force commander to a 50-man Levy unit with alchem-jackers, for 50 Ld8 stubborn unit that will never fall back. They're bolter fodder but your opponent will need a lot of shots....

A Mortar squad is a nice one, too. Not as lethal as a thudd gun battery but cheaper and scoring.

Love the levy idea. You're paying 85 pts to make the squad unbreakable, which sucks at 20 models, since for those 85 points you could just drop another 40 guys and have room to spare, but for a 40-50 man squad could be totally worth it. Also would save me some points since the ten man command squad I usually use with my militia is 100 pts.

I'm going to dig around and see if I have 5 mortars laying around. 48" range on a scoring unit is super nice, I just, oh man, am I reticent to pay 100 points for five dudes. that are that fragile. The large bases will help them deal with artillery hits, but they'd NEED cover not to get shredded by just about any shooting attack. I can just see a dual kheres mortis dropping them all in one round of shooting with a totally average roll, even if they're in ruins.

Anyway, two replies, and solid ideas in both of them. Nice one, guys

Couple of things - When vets take a heavy bolter, they take a suspensor web as well, which halves their range to 18". Put em in a rhino and you can be maneuverable as well as durable.

Volkite calivers isn't a bad idea, I've thought of it myself (this is probably my favorite pick you have).

Recons with sniper rilfes aren't terrible, but I have awful luck with their rifles, so I usually use recons with shotguns and melta bombs + infiltrate in my opponents backfield (YMMV)

I'd ditch the breacher idea in holding you're ground if you want to reach out and touch stuff, they just have too short of a threat range, and are hella slow.

In response to you statement that, "my tac marines just sit and don't kill their points back" I'd say to change your thinking. If your tac squad sits in your backfield and secures an objective for you, and DOESN'T die before the end of the game, I think you have a winner. Though I usually don't invest in a 20-man squad to hold my backfield. I go for 10 dudes in a rhino or infiltrating (I play RG).

Change the manner in which you judge units by "getting their points back" and you might find certain units do better than others.

cool?

I've done really well with recons hitting my opponent's backfield as well. I do 4+ armor and ccws for the squad, power axe, melta bombs, artificier armor and inferno pistol on the serg, sometimes lead by a vigilator with power axe, inferno pistol, and 4+ armor. They're great for hunting tanks / artillery / heavy weapon squads.

I also have a power armored recon squad with shotguns I drive around in a scouting rhino with assault cannon. They're good too.

And I get what you're saying about a unit 'just' scoring still being good, I'm just trying to explore options to really get the most out of my army here. When my assault squads mop the floor with my opponent's units AND cap a point, and my infiltrating recon squads do the same, and then my tactical squads sometimes go an entire game without even firing a shot, I can't help but wonder why I'm paying 250 points for a squad when a 40 point inducted levy squad would work just as well. It'd be like if you were regularly using a land raider and going 'man, I might as well have deployed a scout sentinel.' that never happens because that would be insane!

Anyway, the volkite caliver squad is probably the one I'm most looking forward to using. I'll prob bring em to an apocalypse game I'm playing this Sunday. If they work well I'll let ya know

 Castellan Alaric wrote:
Couple of things - When vets take a heavy bolter, they take a suspensor web as well, which halves their range to 18". Put em in a rhino and you can be maneuverable as well as durable.

Heavy bolters do not lose half their range with suspensor web...think its a common misconception. Read the rules and they even give the range and use in the rules blurb. It specifically states that a heavy bolter with a suspensor web can choose to fire as normal Heavy 3/36inch range or as assault 3/18 inch range.

So if the vets arent moving they can still reach out with sniper heavy bolters 36inch ....or if mobile in a rhino top hatch and assault x6 shots range 18 inch with 2 heavy sniping bolters.

chaos45 wrote:

 Castellan Alaric wrote:
Couple of things - When vets take a heavy bolter, they take a suspensor web as well, which halves their range to 18". Put em in a rhino and you can be maneuverable as well as durable.

Heavy bolters do not lose half their range with suspensor web...think its a common misconception. Read the rules and they even give the range and use in the rules blurb. It specifically states that a heavy bolter with a suspensor web can choose to fire as normal Heavy 3/36inch range or as assault 3/18 inch range.

So if the vets arent moving they can still reach out with sniper heavy bolters 36inch ....or if mobile in a rhino top hatch and assault x6 shots range 18 inch with 2 heavy sniping bolters.

I think your misunderstanding the point and i cant imagine anyone actually thinks they lose half the range when they have suspensor web.


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To be honest blood angels much like Emperors Children dont really need tac squads especially with the assault squad points decrease and the fact apothecaries can go in them.


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As an actual backfield unit to be honest sniper scouts hugging cover is the best ive found.

They're twice as expensive as they are in 40k, king, and no heavy weapon :(

 Castellan Alaric wrote:
Couple of things - When vets take a heavy bolter, they take a suspensor web as well, which halves their range to 18".

Only if you want to use it as an assault weapon. Using the half range option is just that, an option. You can still fire it as a heavy weapon if you're camping on an objective and want the full range.

I'm going to dig around and see if I have 5 mortars laying around. 48" range on a scoring unit is super nice, I just, oh man, am I reticent to pay 100 points for five dudes. that are that fragile. The large bases will help them deal with artillery hits, but they'd NEED cover not to get shredded by just about any shooting attack. I can just see a dual kheres mortis dropping them all in one round of shooting with a totally average roll, even if they're in ruins.

Oh, god, yes. A single kheres - let alone two - on a contemptor will turn the squad to mulch and scrap metal in a single burst.

Heavy weapons teams have always, always been incredibly fragile. I think that's why Mortar squads see more use than most - because you can hide them out of line of sight and avoid being shot at.

If that worries you, and you're prepared to drop a few more points, there's always Abhuman Helots as a second provenance.

Upping the levy to T4 is not a bad thing - because that drops the damage you take from bolters by 1/4 - but its real bonus is for the heavy weapons squad, because firstly it prevents S6-7 weapons causing instant death (which, since that includes Kheres Assault Cannons and Accelerator Autocannon is a popular bracket) but also means they can use Feel No Pain if they have it. Not really so great in an allied detachment (because you can only by medicae in a minimum of threes, and the levy can't take one) but nice in a primary detachment.

As an alternate observation - are you using your fortification choice? Because a bastion + aegis line (imperial strongpoint?) gives you a safe-ish place to put the fire support, and a defence line to put your 50-odd dudes behind. Plus quad-gun, giving flak which an assault marine-heavy blood angels army might have trouble with.

I actually really REALLY like the idea. For some reason I thought abhuman helots was a traitor only provenance, but looking back at it now, I see that it is not. I honestly probably won't do that since nothing about my forces make them look the part, but I can see how buffing a two wound model from 3 to 4 is hugely helpful.

Totally forgot that mortars can be 100% out of sight. That will help their survivability quite a bit, and I do own a bunker that I'm considering cracking back out for 30k games. 55 pts for armor 14 / four hull points, plus eight guys can shoot out of it. I could put a missile launcher squad in there and that would be 125 points for 5 missile shots that can cap a point. Not a bad options either...

It's right next to the traitor-only ones, but no, it's not restricted. If you want loyalist squats, go right ahead.

The Wall Of Martyrs stuff is probably even better than a bastion, because it's cheaper and has those lovely wide fire points. Good thought.

I only really overlook it in 30k games because it's got a bit too much ecclesiarchy bling and too many distinctly 40k corpses on it, but I dont think the bunker (as opposed to the defence line) is that bad.

Going with what I own over here, also the bunker is so cheap at 55 pts.


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Any yeah, the abhuman helots are def allowed for loyalists, but prob still won't be doing that. I've been accused of being power-gamey on this forum (though never irl), but really I just like getting the most out of the models I like. I built up my 'guard' to look like a Baal PDF force or blood angels serfs, so nothing about them visually screams 'abhuman helots.' No bigs, saving 35 points is like an extra 17 guys

Walnuts wrote:Any yeah, the abhuman helots are def allowed for loyalists, but prob still won't be doing that. I've been accused of being power-gamey on this forum (though never irl), but really I just like getting the most out of the models I like. I built up my 'guard' to look like a Baal PDF force or blood angels serfs, so nothing about them visually screams 'abhuman helots.' No bigs, saving 35 points is like an extra 17 guys

Well, the indigenous inhabitants of Baal are wretched, rad-wasted humans in barely functioning environment suits who are only 'turned pretty' when they get turned into Astartes. That could totally represent Abhuman Helots!

Generally, though, I'd warn against using too many Provenances on the odd Allies squad unless you have a large allied force with a significant number of units. The Force Commander (who does little else as an ally) and the Provenances alone easily top 100pts, and if that's just to give T4 to a couple of heavy weapon squads it's really not worth it!

And yeah, I hear ya, but while my baal pdf / blood angel serf guys rightfully look a little more mad max road warrior-ey than your typical guard regiment, other than the occasional servitor on the heavy weapon bases, nothing about them screams T4 :/

Besides, the whole point of me replacing my tactical squads with militia is to get a cheaper objective grabber.

And if i don't use the force commander, then I get to use the command cadre as my HQ choice and for 95 pts I get to drop 10 dudes in carapace armor, 7 of whom are carrying heavy stubbers. I like that.