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This has to do with how you are to field Space Marine Assault Troops.  Now, it is my understanding that the brilliant rules state that if you have a jump pack, you can deep strike, but we all knew this.  My quandry comes about along that line; if you deep strike, you cannot assault, and with bolt pistols (maybe a plasma pistol or 2), you aren't taking down whatever you land near (unless it's guard or something like that), and you may get rapid fired to death.  On the oter hand if you start them in play, that is a huge target on their heads and the squad is obviously shot up (to many times few members out of the original squad are left and said squad isn't combat efficient any more ie your 8 man squad is shot to 3).  At 22 points a model, this could be bad...  Any ideas?

Don't deep strike them and hide in or behind cover when advancing? 

Deep strike them.

You have a 18" threat radius. You could hide them somewhere and smack someone down hard. But thats just me.

What happens if you scatter on the deep strike roll, and now you have slim/nil cover? I'm not trying to bust you, I know that is everyone's idea to deep strike, hide, assault; but it doesn't always work like that...

Posted By gorgon on 04/03/2006 3:00 PM
Don't deep strike them and hide in or behind cover when advancing? 

This is true, but what if you are on a table with little cover, or even more common, against a well spread army, where you can kill 1 squad, but then are left open to the rest?

What if your playing against indirect ordance? One hit and you lose the squad.


its the nature of the game. No risk, no reward.

Good Point, but you're a marine lol, you should be able to take one little Basi shell.....Incommi.......Squad Broken!

Assault marines have the ability to deepstrike. If you want them in a forward position without jeopardizing their safety a scout squad with a vet with teley homer works wonders. Advancing the assault marines isn't that bad and usually a 6 man squad gets the job done. If you want to deepstrike them taking special weapons is a must since they will have more punch when they land vs. a bunch of pistols. Besides I use my assault marines as more of a counter assault unit. I leave the direct attacks to my termy command squads and my speeders. Capt K

Ummm...Teleport homers only work on models that teleport.

Ummm...Teleport homers only work on models that teleport.

Agreed thats why they are called teleport homers.

That being said I always deep strike my assault marines...always. My friends and I like to play terrain heavy tables so theres usually alot to hide behind and then if you were really concerened about them getting shot up behind enemy lines you could always deepstrike close to your lines so that they have some models to work around. You can try coming in next to a tac squad and then assault from there. You wont get shot up while moving forward because you arent on the table until then.

Agreed thats why they are called teleport homers.

Pernkopf, you are aware that Skythe was referencing CaptK's post, right?

CaptKaruthors - A teleport homer does not work for Assault Marines. It says so right in the description on p. 25.

IMHO, Assault Marines are one of the only ways to use Flamers. The only other way is a squad taking a transport. The reason is this: What will you be using Flamers on? Little Bugs, Orks, Kroot, and Guard would be the affected the most. The vast majority of those will be able to charge you before you're within range to use the flamer. So, you'll need a faster way of moving the flamers, in this case Assault Marines.

I use my assault marines a ton as the mainstay of my army along with my jump pack chaplain.

8 Marines, 2 Plasma Pistols, Vet w/ PF and all have Furious Charge. When the Chaplain leads them and they get their charge off, it's almost as beautiful to watch as the Orks, if not better.

They advance direclty behind a stock rhino that a Tac Squad purchases. It makes life pretty easy and indirect ordinance isn't much of a problem since you just deploy the rhino last among your troops and the Fast Attack is always deployed after Heavies, so no worries about ordinance ruining your day, you can get in or start inside the minimum range with ease.

In a tournament list it's debatable whether they're worth it, but if you're goinig to take them to a GT you'd better have designed your army around having a lot of them and a detailed plan to safely land them in combat.

Just a quick note: jumppacks do not let you deepstrike.

Being an assault marine does.

Here's a nice little tactic. I've found this works well against Tau especially (probably because they're the only army I can play against on a regular basis): Move in your tac-teams through whatever terrain is available, and when you're within 12-24" from their front line, deep strike a squad of termies. Your opponent will tear their hair out trying to kill the pair of Assault Cannons, and will ultimately throw a lot of anti-tank weapons at them. Keep your assault squad within this mob of soldiers, rather than deepstrike them, because that will allow you to throw them into their lines while they pummel your tac-teams and termies. This is a bit of a gamble, but when it works, it really does damage. I've wiped out 20-some firewarriors and 3 stealths this way - my opponent is a stubborn, albeit foolish Tau player. He thinks that if I've made it to his lines and assaulted him, he might as well pile in the rest of his army.

Other times, I've also seen this fail miserably. He had a particularly effective shooting round one game, and ended up killing all 5 termies, about 8 marines in various squads, and 2 of my 5 Assault Marines. My assault was shattered, and his counter-attack of piling in 30 fire warriors, a pair of Shas'O Crisis suits, 3 stealths, and nearly 10 drones after I charged him allowed his forces to mop up the rest of my army with relative ease. That assault killed 15 of his models, and the last 6 of mine or so.

At the very least, use them as a rapid flanking force. zip them up the side, drop them behind enemy lines, whatever. Just be sure to give 'em meltabombs or a couple plas-pistols - they make decent tankhunting infantry, especially for armies like mine that are infantry heavy and only have anti-inf light vehicles.

CK

Actually I'm happy to post that Ed is wrong for once. Being an assault marine does not allow you deep strike, only the jump pack does. All models with jump packs can deep strike..p.24 of the codex, and only assault marines with jump packs can assault.
Now that that's done...the way I use my deep striking troops is I usually strike down where they can't be shot, it forces your opponent to decide to a) ignore that squad and probably be assaulted next turn or b) divert forces over to deal with that squad, allowing your other units to be more effective.

When discussing these things, people need to remember that no unit exists in a vacuum. So yes they are worth the 22 points.

Actually I'm happy to post that Ed is wrong for once. Being an assault marine does not allow you deep strike, only the jump pack does. All models with jump packs can deep strike..p.24 of the codex, and only assault marines with jump packs can assault.

Serpahim have jumppacks from WH and arent allowed to deep strike at all.

2 reasons...first the rule, thier jump packs follow the rules in the 40k book. SM jump packs are a SM item and follow thier rules, which allow them to jump pack.

The fluff reason...Seraphim don't deploy from thunderhawks

Gah! That's right. DUH! Assault marines can't use the telly. I've been flipping between so many boards that I got my wires crossed with another thread on a different board. Capt K

Sure, dropping an Assault squad is a risky proposition, what with deviations and cover issues and no assault...

So don't just drop "an" Assault squad, drop a couple. With 'pods, and Terminators, and maybe some Speeders to back them up. Just like any other unit in 40K, one squad all on its lonesome is free VPs. Several similar threats, on the other hand, are much more likely to survive.

Thou shalt not deepstrike guys with jump packs. It's always a mistake.

Let's clear this up:

You want to deepstrike you assault marines if there's a lot of cover or something for them to semi-reliably hide behind (so if they scatter within reason, they won't be out in the open). Also, remember that you can deepstrike on turns late in the game to capture objectives or quarters.

If there isn't a lot of cover or it is risky to deepstrike behind it b/c of scatter, don't deepstrike you assault troops and start with them on the table. Advance with them, using terrain or vehicles as cover.

Wheter or not you deepstrike should depend on the situation and the table you're playing on. So, the decision about wheter to Deepstrike them is up to you.

Also, remember that the price of Assaults has dropped- they used to be 25 points in the last codex. So now you can say they're more of a "bargain" than they were before. Assault Marines can be devestating if tooled up correctly and are able to get into combat. But ONLY if they are able to get into combat. The method you use should depend on the situation, opponent, and the table.

I normally field 8 with plasma and PF vet. The only time I DS them is when I'm using them in my (mostly) pod list. That way they don't get singled out while the rest of my army is waiting to come on the board. Same concept as not deep striking them alone- Sutekh hit the nail on the head. Don't send a unit alone unless you want to hand your opponent easy VPs.

When playing a non pod list, they start on the table and use cover. On occasions when there is no or virtually no cover to advance under, I will assess my enemy's firepower. If he has the shots to just take them out if they spend a round in the open, I will hide them and await an opening. If my opponent does not have the shots to wipe them out in one round (or if I am going to be exposing other units at the same time to "flood the zone" and give him too many targets to deal with them all), I will sometimes rush them out in the open, spread to max coherency to reduce blast damage. 30" is a good long way to move. If any portion of the squad makes it, there is usually something in my opponent's army they can do worthwhile damage to.

Posted By mauleed on 04/04/2006 6:12 AM

Just a quick note: jumppacks do not let you deepstrike.

Being an assault marine does.

Hey Mauleed, um... you can't deepstriked without jump packs AND I don't know of a jump pack/jet pack unit that doesn't deep stirke so I would say that jump packs do let you deepstrike.

SOB/Inquisitorial Jump packs do not allow for Deepstriking.

Furthermore, the Jump Infantry unit type has no mention of Deepstriking.

Jump packs in general do not allow deepstriking, but those in the Space Marine Armoury do. Technically, Assault Marines do not have "Armoury Jump Packs" and are simply granted Deepstrike by their Deepstrike special rule.

Pg. 36: "An Assault squad with jump packs may make combat drops from Thunderhawk gunships to strike at the heart of their enemy's battle lines. Assault squads with jump packs may use the Deep Strike special rulewhere the mission being played allows it."

The rules state, clearly (as clearly as GW can), that only Assault Squads with jump packs can Deepstrike. This means that those without packs cannot deepstirke. There's no place to argue this, it is what the rules say.

My Jump Troops did great for me today. 4x8 foot table and the scenario was Rescue. The mobility alone was worth the points.

Also, in Escalation it's nice to have troops that aren't slogging from 6" from the table edge. Speed kills.

Like everything else, the suitability of the army list depends on who you are playing against and what the mission is. However, In general I prefer to have speed.

Oh and I love that idea about following the Rhino, need to make room for that next time...

Against tau they are even too cheap. They make the stealth suit very dangerous to use because they shoot only at 18 inches and the firewarrior will have only one turn of shooting before to be in close combat and the crisis suit cannot get away from them. The tau have a lot of deep striking unit and the assault squad can cover a circle of 36 inches of diameter where anything that deep strike will be assault in the next round.

This make all the difference between a tau army that advance to kill unit one by one or that has to stay back until that jump pack are killed.

One of my friend that play blood angels always use a lot of them and I simply cannot kill them all before they assault me.

Advancing Assault marines behind a rhino or two is generally both effective and worth doing, unless facing indirect fire. With their movement rates, they probably only need the rhino to survive for one turn.

That being said I always deep strike my assault marines...always. My friends and I like to play terrain heavy tables so theres usually alot to hide behind

This is odd...

First off, I never Deep Strike my Assault Marines. I would Deep Strike them even less than never if the board is terrain heavy.

Heavy terrain offers cover for them to advance. Heavy terrain offers opportunities for them to scatter on arrival and die.

If you Deep Strike them, the earliest they'll show up is turn 2, and even then they can't assault. The odds of that are only 50/50. There's even a tiny chance they'll NEVER show up.

But, assuming the best case, the earliest they get to assault is turn 3. If you just move them where you want them, there's really nowhere on the board they can't be by turn 3.

They're Fast Attack, so they typically deploy very late, which further enhances the ease with which you can set them up. By the time they're being placed, you know where the enemy's heavy stuff is, and you can see a path of hops that will avoid shooting, and smack you into something good.

I think you're starting off in bad shape if your mentality is damage control. If you're taking a unit that you feel the need to hide, a unit you're trying to keep OFF the table so it's safe... Then you probably shouldn't be playing that unit.

When the Chaplain leads them and they get their charge off, it's almost as beautiful to watch as the Orks, if not better.

Try playing Blood Angels. The Death Company is just ridiculous. Every single guy is bringing 4 S5 I5 attacks, rerolling misses. It's amazing how many times you can wipe a squad before your free Power Fists even get to attack.

In a tournament list it's debatable whether they're worth it

I disagree. I think every Marine list can benefit from an Assault squad. Maybe just a smaller 6 man, but the mobility is killer. Grab table quarters. Herd Tau around. Chase down enemy tanks with Meltabombs.

You don't NEED them, but they're damn sure not a liability, especially not in a tournament, where a quick landgrabbing unit is always appreciated, and Escalation forces you to use their Deep Strike (which is the only time I'd consider it, and rarely then).

Advancing Assault marines behind a rhino or two is generally both effective and worth doing, unless facing indirect fire.

This is true.

It's not the best thing to do, but it's better than running in the open. I prefer to do a series of "golf shots" from cover to cover, "laying up" short of the full 12" if it means I can get in safe, but vehicles are a great source of mobile cover. My Blood Angels list has a Rhino, a Baal Predator and a Vindicator, and if there's no good path to hop in, the vehicles form a moving screen. Even if it's just a turn of screening, that's usually more than enough to get them where they're going.