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    Yo, new to the forum and decided to make my first post a useful one.  I have been modeling these lil buggers for years but never really finished an army.  Recently though, I came up with a space marine theme I really enjoy and I think I might follow through with this one.  That said, I'd like all these mini super humans to actually amount to a decent army when i finish, so here's a very uneducated attempt at a list.  Theme revolves around infiltration, but beyond that feel free to critique/contribute at will!

See But Don't Be Seen, Die Standing

Master: Master crafted Thunder Hammer, Artificer Armor, Iron Halo, Terminator Honors, Storm Bolter (185)
Command Squad: Sargeant w/ Terminator Honors and Power Fist, Company Champion, Spacemarine w/ Plasma Gun, 2 Spacemarines w/ bolters (140)
Rhino transport: Dozer Blades and Smoke Launchers (78)
2 Tactical Squads: Sargeant w/ Terminator Honors, Bolt Pistol CC weapon, Spacemarine w/ Heavy Bolter, Spacemarine w/ Plasma Gun, 7 Spacemarines with bolters, all Infiltrate (210 each)
Devastator Squad: Sargeant, 2 Spacemarines w/ Heavy Bolter, 1 Spacemarine w/ Plasma Cannon, 1 Spacemarine w/ Lascannon, 1 Spacemarine w/ Bolter, all Infiltrate (208)
Scout Squad: Sargeant w/ Terminator Honors Bolt Pistol+CCW and teleport homer, Scout w/ Heavy Bolter, 2 Scouts w/ Rifles, 1 Scout w/ Bolter (98)
Assault Squad: Sargeant w/ Terminator Honors and Power Fist, 4 Assault Marines, Meltabombs (150)
Terminator Squad: Sargeant, Terminator w/ Assault Cannon, 3 Terminators (220)

My biggest worries are 1: not enough melee worthy troops and 2: tiny squads.  I get the feeling i should drop one squad to bolster another etc., but I don't have any experience, so I'm hoping ya'll can help me.  Thanks in advance!

mixing DEV weapons is usually a bad idea

get 2 assault cannons in the terms squad, they are quite good.

you're buying vetsarges, but you already have the master, who gives everything LD10

give command squad a melta, it's tooled up for CC, as well, drop the storm bolter, an extra thunder hammer attack is better.

one rhino will die, period, first turn.

Hmm well, dropping vet sarges from tact squads, trading out the boss's rhino for infiltration skill...that gives me 90 or so points to kick around.

As for the devastator squad, do you mean use one type of big gun for all four? Or just limit it to two types...heavy bolters and lascannons seem like they'd lay down an even dose of firepower. Again, though, Im completely inexperienced, so Im going off of half remembered charts instead.

The command squad advice seems sound, but the commander is already built in all his smashy glory so i have to think about choppin off the big bolter for something smaller.

OK then, assuming those are where points should indeed be spared, where should i dump them? Both the scouts and assault marines seems tiny in number, but I dont know how much that will affect their survivability. The second assault cannon for the termies sounds like a good idea, but that means paying for a whole 'nother kit for one lousy gun...ok so not quite so lousy, I'll think about it.

Thanks much for the reply, though Id still appreciate some more input on this shot in the dark i call a roster.

Sorry, but you really should give some thought to chopping off the stormbolter. I know it looks cool...but it smashes your effectiveness in CC. I would advocate, if you intend to go CC wild with your Captain, giving him Lightning Claws, a Combat Shield, and Melta Bombs or a Fist and something cheap. I have a cool model with fist + powerweapon, which I find is nice because it means I can choose to move quickly against Banshees or Genestealers, or fist vehicles and wraithlords.

Other notes...and btw, I do love "See But Don't Be Seen," it's grand fun to start with that many tacmarines on the table and all too close (or far) for your enemy's liking:

You can give a Command Squad and its attatched Character infiltraite. Read the list entry and do this. Then you can drop the Rhino.

The ideal layout for a See But... tac squad is eight models, one of whom is a vetsarge with a fist and a bolt pistol, and either two special weapons or a special and a HB or Multi-Melta. Normally, multis are a waste -- but when you have the option of infiltration, their shorter range is less of a drawback. Plus, they're cheaper than Lascannon.

See But... scouts can go either way -- you can use them to bolster and/or delay enemy squads in close combat -- for this, use an 8-ish squad with pistols, swords, and a prayer. They can also go the sniper-missile combo -- these only need to be 6 man squads.

Devs...eh. I'd get more infiltraiting tac marines, personally.

Assault Marines -- key troubleshooters in a list like this. Consider having your Captain with them, and they can hide out until your infiltraited positions look threatened, then come swooping down. Drop the meltabombs -- they push up the cost of an already expensive unit too much. If you really must, give one to the vetsarge.

Terminators -- Assault Cannons are the magic win button of 4th edition. What more is there to say? Oh, yeah. Deepstrike these babies and make sure some of your vetsarges have homers.

You do have a good sense of where your list is going (GUNS IN THEIR FACE!) and a solid sense of tactics. Good luck!

Oh, and about that Assault Cannon for the termies. There's a link to your right that says "Battlewagon Bitz". Click on it....soon, too, if we're to believe the hullabaloo....(chuckle)<chuckle>

-Adso</chuckle>

Get rid of a Dev sqd (way expensive... and fragile), and think about:
A) Land Raider (they are hard to take down and deliver your hth quickly)
B) Tact Sqd in Razor back (Most conservative route)
C)Pred. annhi.
D) Speeder sqd.

Just my opinion.
But your list needs some Hevy Metal, don't get to wrapped up in infiltrating as you can find yourself out manuvered in the set-up phase and your "infiltrating" units are forced to setup in the normal deployment area.
It sucks!
Definetly lose the Storm Bolter for a pistol and lose the Rhino cause it's going down! (and you can't assault from it.)
Its boring but, all serg. get Pfists or Lclaws and all Devs. get M-launchers

Listen to Adso, he knows what hes talking about.

I would take your list and probably do 2; 6 man devastator squads both with rocket launchers or multimeltas, but not both. The missile launchers are both Anti-infantry (frag) and Anti-tank (krak). NEVER MIX WEAPONS unless you have to.  The list you have though, does not need devastators! Think about fast moving units...

Back off on the scout squad since you have the infiltrating tact squads and put that towards a chaplain with jump pack. The chappie makes your assault squad fearless and he lets them reroll failed to hits when you assault (litanies of hate). Make sure the assault squad is 6 man.

Cut the tact squads back to 8 man like Adso said. Keep the heavy bolter and Plasma, or take a meltagun. Give the VetSgt's the Teleport Homer, power sword, melta bomb, and plasma pistol. The Sgt's can then annihilate most vehicles in h2h and still get to strike at normal initiative.

Definitely Upgrade to 6 termies and put another assault cannon in there.

Take a 4 man scout bike squadron with a meltagun and meltabombs. You get infiltrate, scout, and move through cover I believe. They can be really effective and you can pounce on those enemy vehicles before they can think.

This is a game with a lot of options, and people here will always chide you for not taking the ones that they favor. There are a lot of serious veterans on this forum, and there's a lot of armchair generals (me included, haven't played an actual game in years). Since you're new to marines, this is what I've decided that tactical squads do best:

Long range - Usually 6 man, usually lascannon and plasma gun. The las is the king of the heavies, wounds characters, monstrous creatures, and vehicles better than the others. Missile launchers are a jack of all trades but a master of none. Heavy bolters are best used en masse or accompanied by an assault cannon when mounted on a speeder to maximize the volume of fire. Plasma cannons are screwed by the rule that requires you to center templates on a model and multimeltas are very sort ranged and not as strong as a lascannon. The plasma gun has a 24" range, which helps the squad stay put and fire, then two shots when the enemy gets within a foot is also pretty helpful. Why six guys? Even numbers are better because it's one more marine before your squad goes below half and stops being a scoring unit. This is the most reliable use of the tactical squad in most missions because above all else space marine can be relied on to stand back, take punishment, and fire accurately.

Short range - Two special weapons, powerfist sarge, either a rhino or drop pod from which to jump out and unleash rapid fire Hell. Best if this squad is eight or ten guys, they're up close and they'll be taking casualties. Meltas will ensure that you can hurt tanks and big nasties while the bolters can take on hordes. I'm sure it's not impossible to make flamers work, but I don' know how many light infantry armies (the kind that fear flamers) will let you get close enough to use them before they charge you. If you're going to use plasma guns then making the sarge an apothecary via traits is a good idea, one to possibly theme a whole army around. The short ranged squad is sort of a one trick pony, but can be the mainstay of a mechanized list. Rhinos die very, very quickly if there aren't literally eight other targets that take priority. Drop pods, on the other hand, are cheaper than they probably should be, can't be shot to Hell before they deliver their payload, and block the enemy's line of sight if you're clever.

Choppy - Eight or ten men, powerfist sergeant, assault weapon or two, bolt pistols and close combat weapons, maybe furious charge. As someone suggested, if you can't do two assault weapons then heavy bolter, missile launcher, or multimelta aren't terrible ideas just in case you do end up standing still and firing. This is, in my opinion, the least efficient way to use a tac squad. They can't assault out of their transports so it's tough to get in close and attack with these guys, even with infiltration, but special situations can happen. People love Cities of Death and the buzz from a lot of folks on this forum is that bp/ccw is the way to do drop pods if you're going to focus on tactical squads rather than five units of terminators.

A few extra nuggets of advice:

-Redundancy is effective. If you've only got one souped up tank, every railgun or lascannon your enemy has will focus on it. If you've got six or eight vehicles and each one presents a threat, not only will they have a tough time deciding which to shoot, but once they kill it there's five to seven more they'll have to take down. Remember, redundancy is effective.
-Sniper rifles work poorly against marines, the most common army, but if you take them you should take lots. Like eight or nine per squad. See above RE: redundancy (is that being too redundant?)
-Assault marines get cheap special weapons, use 'em. Plasma pistols are great for taking out the rear armor of tanks or wounding monstrous creatures before you charge them. Be careful with the flamers, sometimes you can clear out so many enemies that you don't have enough left to charge & then they'll shoot you up on their turn.
-Dev squads should probably have twice as many marines as heavy weapons, no more and no less. You also shouldn't mix weapons, either all heavy bolters or all missile launchers (the cheapest, most efficient choices).
-Dreadnoughts aren't very durable. Their assault cannon/ heavy flamer/ powerfist combo is great up close, but getting them there is a problem unless you drop pod in (and then a pair or trio is more effective, see above). It's too bad because they look so damn cool.
-Assault cannons are ridiculously effective against every type of target. Four shots slaughters infantry and gives their rending ability a chance to tear up tanks and power armor. One way to win (and possibly make your opponents stop playing you out of frustration) is to max out on them via terminators, landspeeders, and dreadnoughts.

Again, take all of this with a grain of salt. My life has prevented me from ever playing a game of fourth edition so I know what I know from watching some pick up games at a local store and reading forums. Your opinions, opponents, and experiences will probably be different than mine. These are just ways I've found of making lists leaner and meaner.

Hmmm ok, lots of good advice. I've revised the list considerably, and it now stands as a fairly interesting sneaky wall of searing hot shrapnel slingers. My only worry is that the list is too static, but i think thats jsut gonna have to be my achilles heal (until i decide to upgrade to 2000 points, then its land speeders and jump packs galore!)

Master- master crafted thunder hammer, artificer armor, iron halo, terminator honors, infiltrate, and BOLT PISTOL (the hammer stays though! it stands for all that is smashy!) (184)
Command Squad- veteran sargeant w/ power fist, company champion, spacemarine w/ melta gun, 2 spacemarines w/ bolters, all infiltrate (155)
3 Tactical Squads- veteran sargeant w/ power fist and teleport homer, spacemarine w/ plasma gun, spacemarine w/ heavy bolter, 5 spacemarines w/ bolters, all infiltrate (582)
Assault Squad- veteran sargeant w/ power fist, 5 assault marines, 1 assault marine w/ plasma pistol (189)
Predator Annihilator w/ extra armor and lascannon sponsons (150)
Terminator Squad- sargeant, 2 terminators, and 2 terminators w/ multi-barreled whoop-ass (240)

Again, I'm a bit worried this army is too slow. The jump packs and the tank are the only guys that can really cover ground, excluding the teleporting termies of course. However, the tactical squads seem versatile enough with their shiny lil guns of doom. What I'm thinking is generally holding down the fort with at least 2 stationary tac. squads while commander closes the gap with assault marines trailing behind, termies teleport as needed, and the tank shoots (through) stuff. Then again, I don't know how much moving around will effect the tac. squads' usefulness. Guess Ill figure that out when they're built though. But yeah, should this list work out and i decide to go 2k points, the chaplain idea is in, and the rest is going strait into speedy shooty smashy toys. Thanks for the help all, and if I still have some major dents in the list's armor, don't hesitate to point it out (or just tell me better ways to work a list like this on the field for that matter).

P.S.: I'll be slapping the commander, command squad, and a tact. squad up in the photo gallery soon...just not til i think up a good snake-related chapter name (Viper Legion? Celestial Serpents? The Green Wigglies?)

Master- master crafted thunder hammer, artificer armor, iron halo, terminator honors, infiltrate, and BOLT PISTOL (the hammer stays though! it stands for all that is smashy!) (184)

I'd make this guy a Master of Sanctity with a Jump Pack instead of infiltrate, getting the 4+ invul for free. Adamantine Mantle to put the kibosh on those sharp-shooting lascannon, no need for bolt pistol since he comes with a power weapon, no need for master crafting on the hammer because of Litanies of Hatred, Terminator Honours are still good, and he carries a one-point flashbang in case he has to fight anybody hiding behind a hedge. The only thing you would lose would be the Rites of Battle - but all your squads have veterans sergeants so it shouldn't be too big of a loss.

Command Squad- veteran sargeant w/ power fist, company champion, spacemarine w/ melta gun, 2 spacemarines w/ bolters, all infiltrate (155)
If you liked the looks of that Chaplain, but still want LD10, possibly consider swopping this squad for an infiltrating Master with a power sword, plasma pistol and teleport homer (60 floating)...

3 Tactical Squads- veteran sargeant w/ power fist and teleport homer, spacemarine w/ plasma gun, spacemarine w/ heavy bolter, 5 spacemarines w/ bolters, all infiltrate (582)

then strip one of these squads of its sergeant and promote it to command squad (95 floating)

Assault Squad- veteran sargeant w/ power fist, 5 assault marines, 1 assault marine w/ plasma pistol (189)
These guys want two flamers. Think of them as extra attacks - or a no-Psychic Test I10 Holocaust. Still in "crowbar in that second HQ" mode, you could just run these as (5x22)+2(6)=122 point double-flamer outfit getting back 67 points, 162 floating

Predator Annihilator w/ extra armor and lascannon sponsons (150)
Some will call me a fool - actually many all ready have - but I still like heavy bolter sponsons best. The option of mobile fire is always handy. With the points saved from trimming back the Assault Squad and the Command Squad, buy a second with identikit. That should leave 42-62 points floating: maybe enough to put that Assault Sergeant back in and possibly get bionics for the Chaplain and melta bombs for the Master.

Terminator Squad- sargeant, 2 terminators, and 2 terminators w/ multi-barreled whoop-ass (240)
Impossible to go wrong with some of these guys.

Hope that was helpful.