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I'm new to Space Marines and I'm wondering if there is any way, across the vast sea of Marine formations and army lists, to build jump pack equipped marines as a ranged unit instead of a melee unit. I know you can take some flamers in the codex Assault Marine squads, but is there any way, including Forge World units/chapters, I can run a jump unit with say all bolters and a couple special weapons? I haven't been able to find anything, but there is a lot of material to look through.

ExFideFortis wrote:
I'm new to Space Marines and I'm wondering if there is any way, across the vast sea of Marine formations and army lists, to build jump pack equipped marines as a ranged unit instead of a melee unit. I know you can take some flamers in the codex Assault Marine squads, but is there any way, including Forge World units/chapters, I can run a jump unit with say all bolters and a couple special weapons? I haven't been able to find anything, but there is a lot of material to look through.

Space Wolf Wolf Guard can. They're horribly overpriced even with a *good* build, but they can.

Why do you want to? You're pretty much throwing out half the use of the Jump Pack with no real benefit in return that couldn't be given by regular Tactical squads.

Death company can, too. I'm not sure how good that is. They're even relentless.

I'm not too concerned about unit effectiveness; if they can be effective that would be nice but I'm looking to build these guys for thematic reasons first and foremost Or to state it more clearly, I'm looking for the most effective possible unit within the category of "shooty jump pack marines" but it doesn't matter to me if said category is ineffective compared to melee jump pack marines.

Death company with relentless certainly sounds interesting...unloading rapid fire Bolters before charging in might be a decent tactic. Ignoring pistols, can they take any ranged weapons beyond Bolters (and I assume flamers?).

They can't take any special ranged weapons. They get bolters or bolt pistol and CC. They can get any CC weapon, though.

Can’t normal BA assault marines take melta? I thought they had more options then just the plasma pistol/flamer of the codex guys? Sarges get access to combis?

Plasma/grav?

Martel732 wrote:
Death company can, too. I'm not sure how good that is. They're even relentless.

If they could only get grav... or any other special.

Death Company can take hand flamers, inferno pistols or plasma pistols with no limit.

BA assault marines can take 2 flamers, melta or plasma. The sarge can also take a combi.

5 assault marines with 2 plasma and a combi plasma (125pts) can work, but its not exactly optimal. 5 bikes equipped the same is only 20 points more and the jumpmarines only gain slightly more effective movement, deepstrike and a smaller footprint, whilst losing 1 toughness, jink, relentless and tl bolters. With melta its much more effective as the DS is more useful and you can still charge after shooting.

Oh, yeah. DC can get the worthless pistol weapons.

The only plasma in my lists goes on tac marines. And it's getting more and more rare.

But that 3" melta range tho.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Death Company can take hand flamers, inferno pistols or plasma pistols with no limit.

BA assault marines can take 2 flamers, melta or plasma. The sarge can also take a combi.

5 assault marines with 2 plasma and a combi plasma (125pts) can work, but its not exactly optimal. 5 bikes equipped the same is only 20 points more and the jumpmarines only gain slightly more effective movement, deepstrike and a smaller footprint, whilst losing 1 toughness, jink, relentless and tl bolters. With melta its much more effective as the DS is more useful and you can still charge after shooting.

Almost any discussion about bikes and JPs is going to end up with bikes being better. Especially when talking about shooting.

But if someone want to field an army with shooty guys with jump packs, putting a few plasma guns on 5 man squads might scratch that itch.

 Nevelon wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Death Company can take hand flamers, inferno pistols or plasma pistols with no limit.

BA assault marines can take 2 flamers, melta or plasma. The sarge can also take a combi.

5 assault marines with 2 plasma and a combi plasma (125pts) can work, but its not exactly optimal. 5 bikes equipped the same is only 20 points more and the jumpmarines only gain slightly more effective movement, deepstrike and a smaller footprint, whilst losing 1 toughness, jink, relentless and tl bolters. With melta its much more effective as the DS is more useful and you can still charge after shooting.

Almost any discussion about bikes and JPs is going to end up with bikes being better. Especially when talking about shooting.

But if someone want to field an army with shooty guys with jump packs, putting a few plasma guns on 5 man squads might scratch that itch.

I'd probably give JPs the nod over bikes if we were discussing melta though. More accurate DS from Dante or a pod is way better than what bikes bring to the table melta wise.

I do have 2 plasma armed assault marines and have used the 125pt unit mentioned above. It's alright, not spectacular but is more reliable than a bare bones assault-assault squad as it doesnt need to get into assault. If Tacs could take 2 specials a similarly equipped tac squad would only be 15pts cheaper and the movement of jps and ability to DS is worth 15pts imo. But lets face it - no one takes anymore tacs than an FOC or formation requires.

With the new Castellans of the Empire formation in Cadia you could take Battle Sister Squads with two melta guns for the price of a tac squad with a single one. Or a guard vet squad with 3.

Use to be able to take Blood Angel Assault Marines with Bolters, Metlaguns and Jump Packs. Not sure if you still can. Had a blast with this build back in the day as mobile firepoint.

Grey Knight Interceptors are Jump Marines with Stormbolters and Force weapons. They aren't Assault Marines, though, unless you load them up with Falchions and wt least one Hammer per 5 models.

Sisters of Battle Seraphim are Jump Infantry armed with duel Bolt Pistols, duel Hand Flamers, or duel Inferno Pistols. While short ranged, they are cheap and have a huge amount of dice they can put out within that short range. Not to long ago there is were some pretty big threads on running Vanguards with duel pistol to take advantage of gun fighter; they are very expensive but quite effective.

SJ

To add to the BA, you can take the command squad with JPs and the three veterans can be given special weapons such as plasma guns.

Edited to fix the name of the squad.

Don't Sang Guard come with Angelus bolters as well as their power weapons?

Yes but thise are assault 2 range 12.

Martel732 wrote:
Yes but thise are assault 2 range 12.

Still meets the criteria of the OP though (bolters, jump pack, capability to take special weapons) - They can also take inferno pistols too IIRC?

Deathwatch Vanguard Veterans - more melee oriented and SW Skyguard expensive but capable.

I think it's worth noting that much of the advantages of jump packs over bikes come into play when you play 40k with the amount of terrain, particularly impassable and line of sight blocking terrain that the game intends you to use... 2-3 pieces per 2x2 table section or 12-18 pieces of terrain for the table... the problem is most people don't play with the prescribed density of terrain, where low lying terrain with low density favors bikes but spires, towers, walk ways, rocky cliffs, rivers etc favor jump packs. A shooting unit that can move into a high up perch with packs and then jump away before anything can try to assault them has a clear advantage, though it's uncommon enough that their isn't a good way to quantify it.

Left-field solution: go unbound and use the rules for Dark Eldar Scourge.

Do any 30k units allow this?

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Deathwatch Vanguard Veterans - more melee oriented and SW Skyguard expensive but capable.

Are these guys able to take bolters though? I didn't think they could.

 aka_mythos wrote:
I think it's worth noting that much of the advantages of jump packs over bikes come into play when you play 40k with the amount of terrain, particularly impassable and line of sight blocking terrain that the game intends you to use... 2-3 pieces per 2x2 table section or 12-18 pieces of terrain for the table... the problem is most people don't play with the prescribed density of terrain, where low lying terrain with low density favors bikes but spires, towers, walk ways, rocky cliffs, rivers etc favor jump packs. A shooting unit that can move into a high up perch with packs and then jump away before anything can try to assault them has a clear advantage, though it's uncommon enough that their isn't a good way to quantify it.

I do play with quite a lot of terrain, so this is sort of the way I can see them being used. I don't want bikes in my army because I don't really like how they look.

 Nevelon wrote:
Do any 30k units allow this?

With bolters not so much... the closest 30k unit would be a Destroyer squads, they 5-10 marines that have double bolt pistols, can take jump packs, rad grenades, and a missile launcher or 2. Seeing as the gunslinger rules allow a model with twin pistols to shoot both they are collectively an assault 2 12" bolter... that also confer the bonus attack of having two close combat weapons... someone could always do a count-as and model it as some sorta bigger than a bolt pistol, shorter than a bolter, bolter variant.

 Nevelon wrote:
Do any 30k units allow this?

Sons of Horus have a Reaver squad capable of taking both Jump Packs and Bolters. They can even be taken as troops with the correct Rite of War or Character.