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Hi Folks,

I'm looking for advice on making an Ultramarines CAD, at 1500 points. We play Eternal War missions most of the time, probably 9/10 games. We're competitive-minded, but casual-playing, if that makes sense. We all like to win, and aren't afraid of bringing a ball-busting list. That said, if we feel we're steam-rollering everyone, that's not fun so we change up the list. I don't think any of us has played the same list more than 4 times in a row, kind of idea. We like to keep things fresh.

I'm pretty sure that I'd want to use Tigurius as the Warlord, I generally prefer my HQ to be Buff-manders rather than melee beasts. I don't mind Chapter Master on a bike, though. I'd be interested to know if there's some other suggestions.

I'm torn between Tactical, Scouts, or Bike squads for troops. The Tactical Doctrine is pretty cool, and I like plasma-packing Tacticals as support units to take objectives. On the other hand, Scouts are pretty damned good at holding ground, if you can have some "power squads" to deal damage. Scouts fall apart when faced with Ignores Cover, but I don't [thankfully!] see much of that around me. That said, I don't mind the idea of Chapter Master on Bike, which would then allow Bike squads as Troops... Maybe some of each?

I'm kind of lost with elites. I like using Dreadnoughts, and with the increased attacks and option to squadron them, I've had pretty good success taking pairs to support units in Rhinos. I'm nostalgic about Assault Terminators, and still like using them. The Elite shooty squads, like Command Squads, Vanguard, and Legion of the Damned all seem like great Plasma-spam squads. Melta has mostly disappeared from my metagame. I seldom see anything with higher than AV 12, aside from the occasional Ghost Ark. Even then, dropping down behind it lets me tag the weaker rear armour. I can't remember the last time I faced a Land Raider, and I'm the only Guard Player around, so I don't even need to worry about Russes.

For Fast Attack, I've had mixed results with Assault Squads. They usually achieve their goals, but also usually wind up spontaneously dead all of a sudden. Land speeders generally seem inferior to Storm Talons... which seem pretty good. Bikes seem good, but if I go down that route, there seems little reason to not take an IC on bike to make them Troops instead. Having IC's in with the Assault Squads / Bike Squads has been quite powerful, with the Assault Doctrine.

Dev squads... I've had some fun with, but they don't seem to be innately good due to lack of mobility. Dev Cents are undeniably good, but I dislike the models. I guess if they're considered unstoppably good, I should get some, but they don't float my boat. TFC are a nice, handy, multi-purpose option, that seems to be loved or hated depending on whom I talk to. Predators seem to suffer from being crazy over costed. Hunters and Stalkers would be more valuable in a meta with lots of flyers... I seldom face more than one or two, and that's within my ability to deal with in a normal game. Vindicators feel like they have tons of potential, but suffer from being slow and short ranged. I like them if I'm running Tacs in Rhinos, with Dreads... but otherwise not so much. Storm Ravens are ok, but feel over costed unless I'm transporting something. If I'm transporting something, my opponents [reasonably] actively try to shoot it down to kill the embarked squad... and that squad dies horribly unless they're rocking Storm Shields... and then the package tends to come in at about 425 to deliver a 5-man Assault unit. 535 points if I want to drop off a Dread too.


I'm not opposed to using a Gladius, but I generally find the build restrictions to be overly confining.

Any suggestions?

What do you like?

If you don’t need to squeeze every last drop of power out of your lists, you have a ton of options available to you.

How do you feel about drop pods vs. rhinos? A lot of units work very well with them, including some of our better ones (grav cents, sternguard) Pods are also a good spot to put dreads if you like them.

IMHO, as a fluffy Ultramarine player, start with two full tac squads, and then make sure you have one thing from every FOC slot. What to take depends a lot on your collection and what you like. The important thing is to be sure you cover all the bases for a TAC list. Have something to deal with heavy/light armor, MCs, hordes, etc. But there is a huge amount of flex in where you stick all that. Fast melta can be frequently found in the FA slot, but you could also use suicide sternguard for that role. Long range fire support could be a dev squad, or a pair of TML/HB speeders.

These days my stock answer to a lot of these questions is formations. I like a 1,000 point demi-co as a core to a lot of my lists. 3 full tac squads, 3 man AM/Dev. Forms a very flavorful center to a list. This gives you 500 points for an auxiliary formation. which you can do a lot with. And you can always trim back the company if you wanted to wedge something a little more expensive (like a 1st co TF) into the list.

Honestly there is very little that is unusable in the codex. Sure, some things are more efficient then others, but there is still a lot of room to make a decent list for play at the FLGS.

I'm fortunate in that I have 5 friends that all regularly play 40k, usually in my friend's garage. This go around, I am looking to run a powerful list.

I usually take funsies lists, using something that I want to try out, or a new model I made. This weekend I used Salamanders with some Scouts on Storms, Melta Command Squad with an Apothecary in a pod, 2x Melta-Dreads with HFL and Pods, Some Jump Pack Flamer Assault Squads, and Vulkan with Flamer Assault Squads in a Storm Raven.

My friends were running things like Double Flyrants, Tigurius in a Pod with Grav-Cents... They were running powerful lists for the most part. They both took a couple for-the-giggles units, but it's mostly the top end of their codex making the table. Tiggy player has been running Eldar lately, and felt like playing SM again.

[3-player game, 6 objectives, secondary objectives. I tied for first with 7 points. ]

I'm hoping to run a list in which I don't start out with a strong idea, but get side-tracked by some unit that I haven't used in a long time, or some random new model I made [recently created a plasma-spam Legion of the Damned unit...] and wind up with another "funsies list".

Tig + grav cents in a pod
Melta tacs in pods for troops.
Some air cover
sternguard/ironclads/other in more pods until you run out of points/models.
Skyhammer annihilation force? (I know you said CAD...)

I'm hoping to run a list in which I don't start out with a strong idea, but get side-tracked by some unit that I haven't used in a long time, or some random new model I made [recently created a plasma-spam Legion of the Damned unit...] and wind up with another "funsies list”.

It sounds like I make my lists the reverse of you. I start with things I think need the dust knocked off, and/or fresh paint. Once I have them, I figure out what else I need to add to my list to it balanced. Or if a theme calls out from them. I find it very hard to just generate a list in a vacuum. There is always a seed.