Full Army Photo
Photos coming soon.
Unit Photos
Army List
Original 2K army list from yesthetruthhurts
-Shrike (195)
-Librarian, epistolary with gate & null zone (150)
-10 Sternguard, 8 x combimelta, in a drop pod with locator beacon (335)
-10 Tactical marines, multi-melta, melta, combi-melta, in a drop pod with locator beacon (235)
-10 Tactical marines, multi-melta, melta, combi-melta, in a drop pod (225)
-10 Space Marine Scouts, combat blade x9, sergeant with power weapon (155)
-10 Assault marines, 2 flamers, powerfist (235)
-10 Assault marines, 2 flamers, powerfist (235)
-10 Assault marines, 2 flamers, powerfist (235)
1850 point variant for tournament play
-Shrike (195)
-10 Sternguard, 8 x combimelta, in a drop pod (325)
-5 Command Squad, meltagun X4, lightning claw, storm shield X2, in a drop pod (240)
-10 Tactical marines, multi-melta, melta, combi-melta, in a drop pod (225)
-10 Space Marine Scouts, combat blade x9, sergeant with power weapon & meltabombs (160)
-10 Assault marines, 2 flamers, powerfist (235)
-10 Assault marines, 2 flamers, powerfist (235)
-10 Assault marines, 2 flamers, powerfist (235)
It is possible to go to 1750 by shaving wargear, especially from the command squad.
List Notes
The list is constructed around getting a big alpha strike. The fleet ability Shrike grants all the infantry makes it possible to get turn 1 charges when going first:
Scouts infiltrate at 18" in plain sight, scout move to just over 12" away from what they're going to charge before turn 1. Then in turn 1 they move-fleet-assault at least 13" and as much as 18". Works great with meltabombs and krak grenades on vehicles that haven't moved yet, or weak shooty units that can't fight back effectively.
Shrike infiltrates with an assault squad at 18" in plain sight, and turn 1 they move 12", fleet, & assault 19" minimum, 24" maximum.
Three pods are necessary so that two will drop in turn 1, carrying the meltaguns close to the enemy immediately.
The two turn 1 charges combined with the sternguard & another squad dropping turn 1 in pods (that's 10-12 meltaguns fired on 3-4 targets with combat squads) makes it possible to open transports and assault the riders immediately.
With 20 more assault marines following in a second wave, that's about 55+ marines in the opponent's face by the bottom of turn 2. When it goes well, it can be really overwhelming.
That's why it's so important to max out assault marines (and I almost never combat squad them) and have 30 in the list. It's the one thing that I can never change in any variant. You really need 10 assault marines to get the 25-27 attacks per unit on the charge that it takes for them to be effective. Five assault marines or a weakened unit are really only good for mop-up or catching a slow-moving vehicle with krak. A few assault marines in a non-assault list is just a free expensive KP for your opponent.
I resist putting terminators into this list because, although they're better than assault marines in HtH, they are too slow. I've experimented with assault terminators in a couple of tournament games, and always found that they got left behind and/or had a terrible time getting into close combat. Also they're totally incapable of participating in the turn 1 assault, and more often than not still aren't stuck in until turn 3. They would have a longer reach in a land raider, but the high cost of the unit and vulnerability of the raider means losing a lot of bodies.
Bikes can work with this list too, but don't benefit from fleet and are comparatively expensive. Bikes can fill the role of the sternguard, but usually can't quite get there in turn 1, and they don't have the HtH capability that sternguard get. In a higher point list (2K+) there's an argument for taking a bike captain and some bikes as troops, but they cost too much for armies in the tournament range 1750-1850.
Dreads in pods would be cheaper, but they are a suicide unit. The dread gets one shot off, then gets meltad to death or crunched by a monstrous creature. It's one thing if you're using your dropping dread as a distraction, but this army depends on having the meltaguns in the thick of the action where the fighting is toughest in turn 1. Infantry can hold up to all kinds of high-strength firepower and assaults, but a dread is too flimsy to fill that role.
Sternguard also have the advantage of being able to shoot up things the assault marines don't want to assault (C'tan, high-initiative models, high-toughness models that aren't fearless), and if their shooting isn't needed, sternguard are exactly like slower assault marines in HtH combat. Although they are expensive, they play a vital role in the list, and fewer than 10 also doesn't work because you need to be able to combat-squad them on the drop so they can shoot at two different targets in turn 1. There are always really three things you want to shoot with multiple meltaguns--actually more, but three you really need to shoot.
It seems risky only having 2 scoring units (4 with combat squadding), but so far hasn't been a huge problem. The command squad replacing the second tac squad from Stelek's original list packs more melta and more HtH capability, and in spite of the smaller size it has as much or more durability than a 10pman tac squad because of FNP and the storm shields. Because of the way that the sternguard no longer have any melta after they shoot of their combis, it's important to have those real meltaguns floating around in there.
Why I Started This Army
I already had a Ravenguard-painted mech army done, and was reading Stelek's blog and came across the list. Something about the list captured my imagination, and I could see how it would work right away. 30 assault marines, 10 scouts, 3 pods and 10 sternguard later, I started playing the army in tournament and league games. It is a really fun army to play. So far I'm running about a 50/50 win-loss ratio (writing this only after about 2-dozen games), but the proportion of wins has been going up as I learn the army.
Tactical Notes
Assault Marines
On the surface, it looks like an all-dropping army. In fact, however, I never deepstrike the assault marines. They are so fast with fleet that they can cross the whole table in two turns, so there's no need to wait around until turn 2 and roll--hoping they'll drop, and too bad if they don't--then spend a turn with them standing around getting shot up before they can do anything turn 3 at the earliest. They can just deploy on the table, and take one turn of fire at the most before they're in assault in turn 2--or even in turn 1 if the opponent is considerate enough to come to me.
They are vulnerable to things like long-range templates, so I depend on intervening cover and dispersal if those things are on the table. Anything with a flamestorm cannon is a very high priority for the infiltrators and drop podders to handle in turn 1. I laugh at vindicators--they don't have the range to get more than one shot at the most before I'm on top of them, and that shot usually scatters off or only nicks a couple of marines (who usually get cover).
Man-to-man, they're overmatched by space wolves, blood angels, chaos marines (of all kinds), and pretty much any dedicated assault unit in the game--especially if there's a character in the unit. So against those kinds of opponents, I have to gang up and send 2-1 or 3-1 against the unit I want to kill. But the extreme mobility of the units makes that possible. With a move-fleet-assault reach of 19-24", they can coordinate the combined assaults they need to make on single, isolated units of enemy assault specialists.
Against tyranids, assault marines struggle against the big bugs. So I use "no retreat" wounds to make up for the deficiency. I send the majority of an assault unit in against little weedy bugs, and only a single guy goes in a combined assault from the assaulting unit against the big bug. Hitting small bugs on a 3 and wounding on 3s (and them with no real saves) nets about 8-9 wounds, so if the return wounds are fairly minimal, the big bug will be making a handful of saves at the end of the fight. In carefully combined assaults (which I can do with my extreme mobility) I have put as many as 10-12 "no retreat" wounds on a big bug before. The same technique works against any army with tough, fearless models you can catch standing near weedy little models.
At these speeds, they nearly always get the charge on orks--can even often use flamers before going in. 10 charging assault marines can handle about 15 orks--20 with the flamer shots first. To handle a mob of 30 takes 2 units of 10 assault marines.
Guard and Tau armies just crumble.
Things can go wrong really quickly, though. One turn of bad rolls, getting caught by a tough dreadnought, catching a plasma cannon shot or two, or being caught in the open when a doom of Mylanta drops in the middle of your army--I've lost games I would otherwise have won because of bad turns like this. It's a glass hammer.
Sternguard
Coming Soon
Drop Pods
Three pods means two drop in turn 1. With this army, I typically drop the sternguard and either a tac squad or command squad in turn 1. The advantage of the pod is that it immediately puts the meltaguns fairly precisely within melta range of the targets that I want to hit. Nothing else in the space marine list can get melta into the enemy in turn 1 that way.
If you put the third pod empty in reserve (deploy the unit for which the pod was bought on the table, leaving the pod empty in reserve) then you can start with everything on the table by the end of turn 1--except the empty pod. The pod is mostly useless, but sometimes you can drop it when it comes in later in the game to contest a quarter/objective, block movement or LoS at a key chokepoint, or prevent something that's falling back from regrouping.
Pods are dead weight after they drop, so it's best to keep them cheap.
The locator beacons in the 2K point version of the list are for the librarian to use with gate of infinity. The idea is that the librarian deploys on the table with a tac squad (their pod is in reserve as a dud) and then, starting turn 2, he can use the locator beacons to gate the unit forward without scattering to bring their melta/bolters into useful range of the enemy. It works pretty well, except against space wolves and Eldar because of their psychic defenses.
In versions of the list without the librarian, there's no need for the locator beacons because the only thing you drop after turn 1 is the empty pod, and who cares if it scatters?
