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So I might be coming into two Betrayal at Calth boxes from a friend.

If this happens, I want to start a 30k army. (Would love to use most of it in 40k too if possible)

Anyway, I'm leaning toward a loyalist army (Ultramarines or Blood Angels, maaaybe Raven Guard/Salamanders) and I have no idea where to go from here. I will have 60 marines, 10 terminators, 2 dreads, 2 terminator captains, and 2 chaplains.

How do I even begin choosing what weapons to equip these guys with? What about adding to the army? What do I need to field a complete force in a 30k game and be semi-competitive?

If you're playing Legion then you need troops to score. Basic tactical marines (bolters only) or playing Pride of the Legion and building Vet squads (40k Tac. options). Pride is the better option out of double Calth because Vet's and Terminators are troops units.

Outside of that I'd suggest finding copies of the red books, looking at the legion traits and working from that. The key thing in Heresy is a narrative, so consider that when equipping guys

 BroodSpawn wrote:
building Vet squads (40k Tac. options).

It should be noted that Vet Squads are a bit better than "40K Tac options", as it allows you to double up on all the options at max, so you can take double Heavy Bolters/plasma/etc.

The other thing to note about 30k Tactical Veterans is that they all come with boltgun/pistol/chainsword as default on top of 2A, so they're surprisingly effective in melee (4A/model on the charge).

As to loadout it does depend on Legion. Of the ones you've listed I wouldn't suggest starting Blood Angels with that collection of models, since they really want melee Tacticals/Assault squads in Troops rather than bolter squads. I find Tactical Veterans with Machine Killers and missile launchers riding in Rhinos make for a flexible multi-purpose Troops unit; they're not great at fighting anything, but they're able to credibly engage anything without a 2+ save. With Raven Guard you get Infiltrate and with Salamanders you get S5 Flamers (and master-crafted meltaguns in Covenant of Fire), so those two probably want shorter-ranged weapons; Ultramarines and Salamanders both like Rhinos to cart their Tactical Veterans around in, it's more optional for the Raven Guard.

With the plastic Cataphractii you want to be wary of the fact that you don't have a good way of getting them anywhere outside of the Orbital Assault Rite of War; the Raven Guard don't give them Assault and they can't Run so they're stuck going 6"/turn and can be kited relatively easily. A plain ordinary Land Raider Phobos (the basic plastic lascannon/HB loadout) plugs some holes for you since it gets you anti-tank weaponry you're otherwise lacking and it lets you move Cataphractii around, but since it is only 10-model transport you can't move a character that way, be wary of that.

The plastic Contemptor's arms aren't cut in the same place as the Forge World one's, so it is theoretically possible to magnetize the arms but it'd take a lot of cutting. Otherwise probably stick with the assault cannon, the multi-melta is nice but the assault cannon is a lot more flexible.


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 BroodSpawn wrote:
If you're playing Legion then you need troops to score. Basic tactical marines (bolters only) or playing Pride of the Legion and building Vet squads (40k Tac. options). Pride is the better option out of double Calth because Vet's and Terminators are troops units...

Mind also that Terminators have Implacable Advance (so they score in any list), so even though Pride of the Legion is a good idea starting out since it gives you a wider range of effective weapons out of your Troops it isn't mandatory.

Blood Angels should have their rules released very soon so you could wait a bit to check them out.

Ultramarines have their own version of Terminators with missile launchers called Fulmentarus Terminators - if you take this Legion you should convert one squad of them. Very cool unit.

So after reading a bunch of stuff on 1d4chan last night, I'm pretty set on Ultramarines.

However, I like Chainswords a lot. Would there be any reason to give Ultramarines Chainswords?

Also, just curious for those of you who also play 40k. Would I be able to use any of these models effectively in a 40k Ultramarines army?

nachotacos wrote:
So after reading a bunch of stuff on 1d4chan last night, I'm pretty set on Ultramarines.

However, I like Chainswords a lot. Would there be any reason to give Ultramarines Chainswords?

Also, just curious for those of you who also play 40k. Would I be able to use any of these models effectively in a 40k Ultramarines army?

Absolutely, on the chainsword front. Ultramarines like MSU 40k-Tactical-Squad style Pride of the Legion builds, and the Tactical Veteran squads you take with those all have chainswords and boltguns already. It's also worth noting that the Interlocking Tactics to-wound reroll gets triggered by any unit in the detachment, which means if you take Rhinos they can paint targets to make your army more effective against.

Basic power-armoured Space Marines are in a hard spot right now in 40k; they're not really durable enough or killy enough to justify their cost unless you're playing very small games, and if you spend two minutes on Dakka you'll come across half a dozen fifty-page threads griping about how bad they are. You can try to field a traditional battle-company Tactical/Assault/Devastator-style force, but effective 40k builds don't overlap a whole lot with effective 30k builds right now.

(Now that I think about it that's really true for everyone; the Mechanicum doesn't have enough model overlap, the best Custodian units in 40k don't exist in 30k, the strong Knights in 40k are useless in 30k, and unless you're going Survivors of the Dark Age Militia none of the Imperial Army lists bear much resemblance to a 40k Guard army.)

If you're leaning towards Ultramarines, check out Radio Free Isstvan's episode 114, they go over the Ultramarines legion, its special rules, units, rites of war and give a list or two. Great overview/discussion and a bit more technical/here's what you might want to do than the 1d4chan list (which is still a great place to start).

What do I need to field a complete force in a 30k game and be semi-competitive?

You need to check how your group plays...there is really a lot of stuff that wipes marines off the board, really a lot

Usually veterans are better, tacticals kinda ended up for us as nothing more than a tax...