Nevelon wrote:
Welcome to Dakka and the Space Marines.

List looks fluffy and cool, but I suspect it’s going to struggle on the table.

Captain is not bad. I might swap out the relic blade for a power fist or thunder hammer. With the SE you are unlikely to be killed before getting your swings in, so might as well make then S8 AP2. Without the shield, I could see wanting to get your hits in at I5, but that’s unnecessary IMHO.

Command squad is another OK-ish choice. CC is not the best option, but they should do OK backing up the captain.

Grav/Plas pistols are comically overpriced. Try to avoid them. A bolt pistol would serve you just fine on the chaplain.

While I’m a big advocate of including the heavies in 10 man tac squads, they should be the last upgrade added. These guys are going to be on the move. Get a normal melta gun and a c-melta on the sarge before picking up the MM. And ideally, get them all. You don’t want 9 guys standing idle while the melta gunner takes his shot (with a 1/3 chance to miss). But when you have multiple guys shooting, the odds of actually popping a tank go up dramatically.

The 5 man squad in the razor feel like a pure tax unit. Razors woek if you spam them, but are very fragile. There are better ways to get lascannons on the table. I know you need to take 3 tac squads, but if you want a naked 5 man one, you might be better off putting them in a pod. This will bring you up to an odd number, letting you drop more on turn 1.

Assault marines could use a pair of flamers, and a power weapon on the sarge. I’d go with an axe. Unless he’s getting the evis. Which can work. Easier to get challenged out, but more attacks.

Grav cents are nasty, but short ranged. But they do project a nice bubble of death within 24”. Just be careful with them. I might just run with a 4xLC dev squad, but that’s me.

How many tactical squads do you want/need? Because you are putting just shy of a whole companies worth on the table. And while you will butcher anything that can be killed via the humble bolter, there is a lot of stuff out there that needs more serious firepower to deal with. If you want to field something like this, take the tacs from the demi-co and stick them in pods. Use your aux pick for something with teeth. If you want to keep the drop theme, take the 1st company TF or the other skyhammer, the annihilation force.

 Nevelon wrote:
From a mechanics standpoint, shooting command squads work a lot better then CC ones. That can be said about most things in the game though. Also, bikes are very good, and a bargain for command squads and HQs for what they do.

That said, the shelf deployment for my command squad is a CC one on foot, because it’s iconic and looks cool.

I’d say most people would be OK with it, but everyone is different. The important thing is that you pay the points for what you take. Odd looking pistols is an easy thing to deal with, especially when it’s just a guy with his default wargear. My personal rule of thumb is that I like to keep the odd things I need to remember about your army to 3 or less things. More then that I spend too much time asking questions to double check what’s what.

One thing to keep in mind, particularly with drop pods, if to have a squad geared up for a certain role. MM/M, c-melta has a good chance vs. tanks, and can always bolter foot troops. HBs pair well with flamers and plasma, to work on killing different troops. Grav is expensive, but works well vs. the kind of things that are otherwise hard to kill.

I almost never put more then 30 tac marines on the table. And it’s not for lack of miniatures. They do a decent job vs. other equivalent troops and hold objectives reasonably well. But there is limit to how much of that is needed. Both rhinos and drop pods work. There are pros and cons to both. You can even mix them up; hybrid drop lists can get decent results. It’s all about what style of army you want to play.

 Nevelon wrote:
Looks pretty good!

Keep the CM upgrade. While expensive, it offers a lot. And with the SE, every wound is going to have to be pried off him the hard way, and he puts up a solid fight. Also, for the points you are spending for a guy on foot, you might want to look into Lysander.

As an alternative to the command squad, you might want to take honor guard. No FnP, but free 2+ and power weapons for everyone. They lack the options of the command squad, but it’s not like you are using most of them.

Tacs are fine. The 5 man squad could use some help. In general, you want an odd number of pods. You drop half first turn, round up. So that 6th pod doesn’t do much for you.

The speeder is a pure tax. Lone HB on a fragile platform. Doesn’t even have chapter tactics. If you just want something to fill the slot, an attack bike would be better. Other options would be to give it some relevant guns. I’m a big fan of the TML/HB speeder, and run a squadron of two frequently. MMs and HFs can also work. In a drop pod list, an assault squad with 2xFlamers is a good call. It’s a dedicated anti-infantry unit good for burning light troops out of cover.

With you going with drop pods, I’m even less fond of the cents. They will be your only thing on the table turn one. If you go second, they are going to be staring down the entirety of your opponent’s army. And you can’t really hide them in the back of your deployment zone; they need to be front and center with their short range. You could buy them a pod if you added a CAD to your list, but there is a lot of overhead there. For the theme of your list, I’d replace them with a dev squad in a pod. HBs or GCs probably for guns.

I’m not a fan of combi loaded sternguard, but they can get the job done. Personally, I like full 10 man squads with a pair of HFs. If you can get these guys up to 10 man squads, you can combat squad out of the pod, giving you 3 units (2x5, plus the pod) getting the 1st co TF bonus.

I like to have VVs a little more flexible. All LCs is fine for blending MEQ. And boy will they, especially with the chaplain there. But they will struggle against other targets. It might be worth tossing some axes in there, or a hidden power fist. Some SSs would not be out of line either.