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So not too long ago I rummaged through my attic to take count of a few things, and realized that, after the purchase of a few Burning of Prospero boxes and a bag or two of the marines that came with them, I have upwards of 70-80+ marines in Mk III iron armor, unassembled and unpainted. Now, I’m a really big fan of the pattern, but I’m having trouble coming up with a good way to make use of so many power armored marines.

I’d prefer something usable in 8th ed, and something that’s at least partially effective. So far, I’ve been toying around with the idea of a power armor heavy CSM army, as most of their unit sizes go up to 20, but aside from maybe Berzerkers nothing really seems to shine. Aside from that, I’ve been looking into units that benefit from being aligned with Tzeentch (to go along with the piles of Tzeentch daemons I have laying around). Possessed have been tempting with their potential to get down to a 3++ by doubling up similar psychic powers, but any melee option always comes back to ‘why do that when Berzerkers exist?’

Maybe someone here has a clever use for them that I haven’t thought of, yet? A kind of army build that makes good use of crowds of footslogging power armor? It doesn’t necessarily have to be Chaos, but I would like to lean that direction if only for a lack of armies serving the dark powers in my group.

Unfortunately power armour is...power armour. While the new books have added some quality to CSM (if you're going that route), you're still dealing with one wound models in a game where wounds and shots are cheap.

Havocs are now better (arguably arbitrarily so...but it's a boost nonetheless). Chosen have become cheap and have access to better weaponry. If you kit-bash characters you could make some additional Dark Apostles which have become much stronger units (and more expensive...). You could bash up some of the new characters as well - a Master of Possessions and a Master of Executions.

If you want an honest answer...if you have them new on sprue and with bases etc....eBay them. They used to go for $17 a squad when the boxes were out. Now they're $35-45 because they're no longer available cheaply. You could easily cash in on them and buy whatever you want. Anybody sitting on numerous copies of those boxes just ended up with a really good investment. The boxed squad is something like $50 from GW direct...so you could easily shift them for $40 a pop or so.

There have been some curious Death Guard lists with 70+ footslogging plague marines (1500-2000 points range), loaded up to the gills with bolters and blight launchers. With a bunch of reroll princes and some armoured support they've seen quite a bit of success.

80 or so marines is a pretty solid number, you could simply build a battle company for display.

 Sherrypie wrote:
There have been some curious Death Guard lists with 70+ footslogging plague marines (1500-2000 points range), loaded up to the gills with bolters and blight launchers. With a bunch of reroll princes and some armoured support they've seen quite a bit of success.

And the cool thing is that the Plague Marines are modelled with...Mk III armour

Deathwatch?

Sherrypie brings up a solid point - if you do feel inclined to run Plague Marines, you can bash them quite easily. Mine are all MkIII based.

Yeah, Plague Marines would have been my idea as well. You could easily leave them not too mutated, paint them in Heresy Era DG colors and make up some story about warp shenanigans happening to them.

Other idea: MK III Iron armor is not only DG, but also the iconic pattern of the Iron Warriors. Havocs, Chosen, CSM, Crew for Rapiers, you could easily equip some with Chainaxes and play them as Berzerkers, too. They also have a simple paint scheme and fluffwise keep it simple with the ornamentation.

Elbows wrote:If you want an honest answer...if you have them new on sprue and with bases etc....eBay them.

Oof, that's rough to hear, but I can see where you're coming from. Enough people pour over this game that, if hordes of power armor were effective, someone would have built the list by now.

BrianDavion wrote:80 or so marines is a pretty solid number, you could simply build a battle company for display.

Yeh... But that's just infantry, and just for display. Space is already aggressively limited where I live, so I think I'll have to pass on a display piece.

Drager wrote:Deathwatch?

Funny you should mention that - I've already committed several of the Mk III's to DW, and might put in a few more to add some storm bolters. But I'm dubious on fielding more than 30 veterans in a list. Has anyone ever tried crowds of storm bolters before?

Sherrypie wrote:There have been some curious Death Guard lists with 70+ footslogging plague marines (1500-2000 points range), loaded up to the gills with bolters and blight launchers. With a bunch of reroll princes and some armoured support they've seen quite a bit of success.

Elbows wrote:Sherrypie brings up a solid point - if you do feel inclined to run Plague Marines, you can bash them quite easily. Mine are all MkIII based.

Spoiler:

If only my friend wasn't already playing Death Guard and Nurgle Daemons, I'd be all over that. I was even considering a cruddy white/gray-white color scheme. As it stands, more Nurgle would be pretty redundant. I won't dismiss the idea completely, just in case nothing else works. In any case, it feels like GW's been giving Death Guard way too much love lately.

Axle_Gear wrote:

Elbows wrote:If you want an honest answer...if you have them new on sprue and with bases etc....eBay them.

Oof, that's rough to hear, but I can see where you're coming from. Enough people pour over this game that, if hordes of power armor were effective, someone would have built the list by now.

BrianDavion wrote:80 or so marines is a pretty solid number, you could simply build a battle company for display.

Yeh... But that's just infantry, and just for display. Space is already aggressively limited where I live, so I think I'll have to pass on a display piece.

Drager wrote:Deathwatch?

Funny you should mention that - I've already committed several of the Mk III's to DW, and might put in a few more to add some storm bolters. But I'm dubious on fielding more than 30 veterans in a list. Has anyone ever tried crowds of storm bolters before?

Sherrypie wrote:There have been some curious Death Guard lists with 70+ footslogging plague marines (1500-2000 points range), loaded up to the gills with bolters and blight launchers. With a bunch of reroll princes and some armoured support they've seen quite a bit of success.

Elbows wrote:Sherrypie brings up a solid point - if you do feel inclined to run Plague Marines, you can bash them quite easily. Mine are all MkIII based.

Spoiler:

If only my friend wasn't already playing Death Guard and Nurgle Daemons, I'd be all over that. I was even considering a cruddy white/gray-white color scheme. As it stands, more Nurgle would be pretty redundant. I won't dismiss the idea completely, just in case nothing else works. In any case, it feels like GW's been giving Death Guard way too much love lately.

Have you heard about your Lord and saviour Huron blackhreart and the stratagem for regular csm aswell as bonus cp?

You could consider running 2battalions which are 5,5,20 csm and play a skew list with lots of plasma.

The Red Corsairs thing seems tempting, but I was also looking at Thousand Sons, seeing as I also have a bunch of Tzeentch daemons to go along with my power armor. How are Rubric marines this edition?

Axle_Gear wrote:
The Red Corsairs thing seems tempting, but I was also looking at Thousand Sons, seeing as I also have a bunch of Tzeentch daemons to go along with my power armor. How are Rubric marines this edition?

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, not so good, tzanngors and Cultists are what we normally.

I'd say build some of them as basic bolter CSM and others as Havocs (get yourself some 3rd party chaincannons from Kromlech or somewhere and go nuts!). My friend runs a cool detachment from Vigilus that does good work and uses plenty of actual power armor, so it's not totally dead yet.

Play Horus Heresy 30K?

 harlokin wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:
There have been some curious Death Guard lists with 70+ footslogging plague marines (1500-2000 points range), loaded up to the gills with bolters and blight launchers. With a bunch of reroll princes and some armoured support they've seen quite a bit of success.

And the cool thing is that the Plague Marines are modelled with...Mk III armour

It's also a really good look for Imperial Fists. You could do a VII legion army for 30k, or do something a bit more modern and call it a M31 army.

Take primaris, and turn them into chaos.