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Hello fellow Dakkites,

I wondered what you're thoughts were on building a list for an upcoming escalation campaign being run by my LFGS.

Essentially you start at 500 pts and for every victory get an additional 50 pts for your next game with additional points being awarded for people voted as most fun game and for models painted during the campaign.

With such a small points limit at the starting point I came to the conclusion that with the doctrines available to Ultramarines the best bet would be to go msu spam.

So it'd be Librarian
4 x tac squads
2 x assault squads

...with rerolls from doctrines and a couple heavy weapons on camping tac squads I thought it'd be quite good.

Thoughts?
And what discipline should the Librarian be rolling on?

Any other restrictions? Like sticking with a CAD? How long is this going to last? What points are you thinking you will end up at? Can you totally re-write your list between games, or do you need to add the points to what you have?

Because I might start with a battle demi company.

Chaplain in a squad of assault marines, 3 tacs and a dev squad. Weapons as points allow. As you grow, hand out more guns and transports. Once you get that fleshed out nicely, add something like a 10th co. TF to upgrade to a Gladius.

If you are going to go with footslogging MSU, I might add some scouts to the mix. Their deployment options will help you get to objectives. They also generally do good in low point games.

What to give the Lib depends on the role you have in mind for him. Divination is still an excellent go-to choice for buffs. At low points, he might have to act like a beatstick, so biomancy might work well. But there are pros/cons to all the choices.

 Nevelon wrote:
Any other restrictions? Like sticking with a CAD? How long is this going to last? What points are you thinking you will end up at? Can you totally re-write your list between games, or do you need to add the points to what you have?

Because I might start with a battle demi company.

Chaplain in a squad of assault marines, 3 tacs and a dev squad. Weapons as points allow. As you grow, hand out more guns and transports. Once you get that fleshed out nicely, add something like a 10th co. TF to upgrade to a Gladius.

If you are going to go with footslogging MSU, I might add some scouts to the mix. Their deployment options will help you get to objectives. They also generally do good in low point games.

What to give the Lib depends on the role you have in mind for him. Divination is still an excellent go-to choice for buffs. At low points, he might have to act like a beatstick, so biomancy might work well. But there are pros/cons to all the choices.

That's basically the only restrictions, the TO hasn't said anything about having to add onto the list form the last game although I may well double check that.

I would hope I can re-write the list between games since the campaign is due to run every week until Christmas so lots of added 50 points adding up to 1250 tops.

I was thinking this really for limiting the number of models my opponent can shoot at in a turn ie can only shoot at a 5 man marine squad rather than a 10 man tac unit but running them in a mutually supportive role close by each other in a similar way to small unit tactics allow in real life.

I did come up with a few other options as well including the idea of sticking 2 squads of tacticals in rhinos both with missile launchers to use as mobile bunkers with a librarian to buff the 5 man one and the other a 10 man unit to allow combat squadding and then a dreadnought to cause some distraction and rush the enemy making use of cover (we normally play with a good amount) to get in their lines and stop them advancing.

These two trains of thought are based on the local tendancy to shooty armies, ie tau and ad mech beyond marine deathstars. The small unit spam is basically to remove the possibility of the enemy removing 7 of a 10 man squad from one units shooting whilst the boxes and dread will make them shoot at armour before even getting a look at my PA guys.

I've only got a 5 man squad of scout snipers, should probably invest in a better variety of scouts though for campaigns like this, thats a good idea

If you want to use a dread as a disruption unit, pods are your friends. Even the basic MM/fist(HF) dread is something that needs to be taken care of when it drops down next to you. If you have the points, Ironclads do it better (AV13 is a tough nut to crack).

MSU is a valid tactic. Marines do it very well, and one of out top tournament builds (full company gladius) is an extreme example of that concept. That said, you end up paying a lot of points for basic bolter bodies to fill out squads, and have trouble actually causing casualties. But it does make it hard to pry you off objectives.

In objective games, particularly maelstrom, the mobility of a 5 man scout squad in a LSS is great. When taken in a CAD, you get a fast skimmer full of troops, both ObSec. You can fill it with pretty much any non-sniper load of scouts and get some good results.

Rather then a 5 man tac squad shooting a ML from the top hatch of a rhino, I’d go with a razorback with one of the turret upgrades (and a special/combi inside). MLs are a bit on the “meh” side. OK, but nothing to write home about. I’d rather have one of the meatier guns from the razor. This way, rather then sitting back and shooting, you can slowly creep around 6” a turn shooting as needed, and then deploy and shoot the guys inside at the right time.

If you know you are going to end up at around 1,250 I’d start with an idea of what you want your army to look like at that point. Then take elements of it and build a 500 point list. I see from your sig that you have a reasonable sized collection to pull from, and probably want to pull from that. If you have an idea of where you want to be in a month, you can start buying/painting stuff to get it ready for the table once the points open up.

I was contemplating the ironclad for its survivability but mainly for saving points i stuvk with the basic dread to give my enemy something to focus on while my tac squads play the mission.
I dont mind basic bolter marines as with doctrines they become more reliable againt infantry, their main issue is in being able to deal with anything more specialised. Thats the thought behind saving some points on the dread and giving them boxes and heavy weapons. i do really need some more scouts to be fair. We tend to play at the larger end of the point range so 500 points is kind of new to me.

Ive played with razorback DT's before and i just honestly dont think theyre worth the points cost over a rhino. If you run a battle company and they become free thats different but i dont like having to pay for them.

Yeh ive got a fair amoint to pull from and a lot magnetised so i dont even think i need to buy anyt maybe apart from scouts, whats your opinio on best loadout for them?

To be honest, I don’t like razorbacks myself. But when I see a 5 man squad, I ask “why not a razor?”. I just tend to never field 5 man tac squads personally, I’d rather get a real tank with non-paper armor, even if it’s only to the front.

I’m sorta all over the place with my scouts. Some of that is I play WYSWYG and have an odd mix. There are a couple of ways I think they can work well:

5 bolters, in a LSS. The “drive-by shooting” config. Open topped transports, everyone can shoot out. They also work as all-terrain tacticals without the speeder, especially if you give them cloaks. Not as good in the open, better in the rough, with extra fun deployment options.

Mix of CC and shotguns, again in the LSS. These guys have an assault transport (open topped has many perks) might as well use it. Shotgunners get less swings in combat, but more hits before. Put them up front to die to overwatch if needed. I run 2 in a 5 man squad, as that’s what I own, but I think it’s a good mix. The extra shooting from the shotguns is nice once you have seized an objective and don’t want to move off to assault someone.

Snipers are your classic camper config. HB can be fun to have here, but not required.

On a related note, I also enjoy my scout bikers. Toss on a few AGLs, and go to town. Less tricks you can do with them these days then previously, but still a versatile and fun unit.