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A lot of people seem to think that C: SM is "better" (i.e. stronger) than C: BA.

I've been fiddling with my minis under both lists, and it seems to me that these are very different lists, with very different strengths and weaknesses.

C: SM
- Special Characters for "Traits"
- 10-man Tactical Squads with Dedicated Transport
- varied Dreadnoughts, Bolter Marines, & Blast Artillery

SM are strongly-themed, but their Scoring options are very limited, and it very difficult to build an army that doesn't focus on 10-man Tactical Squads with Dedicated Transport. Scouts, while Troops are not really worth taking over Tacticals. Everything else seems *VERY* expensive.


C: BA
- strong Elites
- DC from MSU DC-generators
- 5-man Assault Marines

When you use GW's price of 30 pts per DC marine (+5 for JP), it looks like BA pay 15 pts for a Bolter, +10 pts for Sergeant. It then follows that Terminators are only 34 pts each; Assault Marines are ~20 pts; Vet. Assault are ~24 pts. These are actually pretty fair prices. And interestingly, BA push for small Assault squads with higher-than base costs on additional Marines.


Overall, I'm having real difficulty making a Marines list that I would enjoy more than BA. It just seems like Marines are boring Bolter Marines. Have I missed something here?

i dont think you have the new marine dex is an army based around the tactical squad with cool stuff thrown in to try and draw away from the basis of the army, however if you try to include all the cool shiny stuff your left with very few scoring units still thats how i like my marines, i have fielded a very effective jump troop based space marine army, of course i have had to take shrike to do it

BA have had a stigma attached to them ever since thier dex was re'released with people complaining they werent as effective as before but thier army works on different str to the vanilla marines, on the bright side you get baals and i would love to have them in a marine army even though they are more expensive than the greatly reduced Pred Destructor (its only 85pts its a steal for massed firepower)

the tactical squad army is a great one if a little boring but they are a very flexible squad and with combat squadding units you can take say your 3 scoring units to 6 and still have the firepower and limited assault capability to do the job and add in units to enhance what you have already taken, do you want your marines to charge forward in thier rhinos and hit people, take either more assault troops to add to that punch or add in long ranged firepower to cover them on the way in. of course the only one problem with the new marine dex is you have a unit you must take which isnt overtly great at one thing or the other thier just average at both

thats my 2 cents anyway what you tihnk