2500 Marine List!

Tigurius

Chapter Master Artificier Armor, Lit Claw, Storm Bolter, Melta Bomb,
4 Honor Guard Champion/ Thunderhammer, Chapter banner, 2 Relic Blades,/ Drop Pod

Ironclad Dreadnought/ Drop Pod
Ironclad Dreadnought/ Drop Pod

7 Terminator Assault Squad 3 Lightning Claws 4 THSS

2 Vinicators

6 Scouts 4 Sniper Rifles, Heavy bolter, Camo cloaks, Sgt. Telion

8 Scouts 5 Combat Blades, 2 Shotguns, Bolt Pistols, Sgt. Melta Bomb, Power weapon,

10 man tactical Squad Heavy Bolter, Flamer, Sgt. Chainsword Plasma pistol

10 man tactical Squad Multi-Melta, Meltagun, Sgt. Power Fist
Razorback with Twin Linked Lascannon

10 man tactical Squad Missle Launcher, Plasma gun, Sgt. Chainsword Plasma pistol

Gonna try it out tomorrow see how it goes!!! So what ya think?

Looks hard, might consider switching out the heavy bolter on the tactical squad for a lascannon or multi melta for a little more bang. You have the Vindicators for anti-infantry a little more anti-armour never hurts.

I'll be interested in how that assault scout unit does.

Are you looking to play competitive, or just to play friendly style?

I'd have to agree with 'monger about the switch out. It lacks in long range anti-tank. You opponent could pop those vindis before you got close enought to use them. Other than that... nice!

Thanks guys for the feedback, please don't hold back...

I planned the list for fun originally but after seeing what it can do I modified the list some and brought it to 2500 from 1750 for competitiveness.

My long range anti tank is lacking, but I think my Close combat tank busters are more than ample to take care of most of the armor I may face.
The heavy bolter was one of the weapons i was debating.

The new additions from the 1750 list are:
The Chapter master
Razorback,
CC Scouts,
a few more Termies,
and the 2 vindies


and dropped a tact squad from last list.

Tomorrow I get to test it vs. Nids and I need to test vs. tau

Oh I figured this was your 'ard boys list.

Would be good if you could get it up and running by then.

I have almost half painted and trying to get that done for the tourney!
the 1750 list version of it does well as you can see in my signature my standing with it although it is actually 12-1-1 cause I used a different list with the other games.

But please any suggestions?

I was thinking of dropping the cc scouts to 5 and taking the scout speeder with multi melta and dropping the razorback.

Or this?

Marneus Calgar
3 Honour Squad Chapter Banner, Relic Blade,
1 Champion, Thunderhammer

Tigurius

2 ironcladDreads in Drop pods with Beacon

7 Assault Termies 4 THSS

10 man Tact Squad Flamer Missile Launcher x2
10man Tact Squad Melta Gun, Multi melta, Power Weapon

6 Scouts 4 Sniper Rifles, Heavy Bolter, Telion

5 Scouts 4 Combat Blade 1 Power weapon Melta Bomb,

2 vindicators

1 Predator Autocannon side sponson Heavy Bolters

This isn't meant to be rude, insulting or anything of that sort. This post is made with assumption that you're playing to win (with manners, of course) in the 'Ard Boyz tournament.

Your current list, as it stands, is probably not competitive.

In order to understand why, you need to understand the "power" or strong lists that populate the metagame. Currently, some of the most competitive lists include:

Mech IG (air or not)
Mech SM
Mech SoB
Mech Orks
Mechdar (see a pattern here?)
Double Lash
Nidzilla (although this one is slipping away)

Nearly all these lists have large amounts of maneuverable armor. Because of this, many will be stacking large amounts of melta equivalent weapons. There is going to be a lot of vehicle hate.

I'll compare to Mech SM, which is what I'm most familiar with, but realize that most of these Mech lists are similar in many aspects.

Your average Mech SM list is going to be running 2+ land raiders, 4-6 Speeders, 4+ Rhinos/Razorbacks (or Drop Pods), and a couple of other preds, vinds and dreads for good measure. That's 10 - 14 tanks.

The Vulkan variant list typically runs ~15 Meltas, plus some scattered combi-weapons and other tank solutions.

Your list totals 4 answers to AV 14, since you can't kill with glances anymore. Vindicator 1, Vindicator 2, Tactical Multi-Melta, Razorback Lascannon. See a problem yet? All the Vulkan list has to do in order to make his Land Raiders invulnerable is shake, stun, weapon destroy, or either explode (5 of the 6 possible results!) to your only 3 vehicles. At that point, you have a Multi-Melta to beat 1 land raider (if you're lucky and got one earlier) and multiple other tanks and vehicles.

On top of that, your poor 4 answers to AV 14 are going to pressed into transport duty, since the only other AV answer you have is a Missile Launcher in a tac, and a pair of Ironclads.

Your first instinct is to say, "But wait! I have 2 Ironclads and 4 TH Termies!" The Ironclads can reasonably crush armor, and against mech lists can be relied on to destroy SOME armor - but it's going to be the armor the enemy lets you destroy. It will never be able to catch a Land Raider, meaning it doesn't help you with your AV 14 problem. Sure, they'll probably make things difficult, or tear up some transports, but the Land Raider is really never threatened by the Ironclad (move 12", machine spirit shots to the Ironclad). The typical tactic is to block the Land Raider, but since you have so few vehicles as it is, you're going to have a real tough time doing that. The terminators, having only S8, won't really solve your AV 14 problem.

And as a side note- melta bombs don't count. Any tank you're going to assault by foot-slogging is a tank that's already done its job. On top of that, 1 meltabomb is going to have a rough time hitting the vehicle anyways.

Next, your list has no mobility. You have 1 whole transport, 3 drop pods, and 3 units that can move over 6" (including the transport). That's just not going to cut it, especially in objective missions. You have little ability to do a late game contest or objective grab. You can kind of deal with the latter by loading up on troops, but you need either more templates / indirect fire to scare enemies out of cover if you don't want to add mobility.

So basically, you need more vehicle hate and at least some mobility.

I'll go into your list to be more specific.

Tigurius

He's a good choice, but you should probably take advantage of his abilities more or downgrade him. That probably means more Drop Pods, or something that likes GoI (Sternguard are the typical choice here).

Chapter Master Artificier Armor, Lit Claw, Storm Bolter, Melta Bomb,
4 Honor Guard Champion/ Thunderhammer, Chapter banner, 2 Relic Blades,/ Drop Pod

Here we see the beginning of the problem. You have a few, tough assault units that are all foot-slogging, and can't assault the turn they show up. Chapter Masters really aren't worth the points hike over the Captain, as you're probably never going to use the Orbital Strike, and Honor are overpriced, especially with no transport.

This unit is probably overgeared as well - you don't get bonus points for wiping out the enemy two or three times instead of just once. On top of that, all of your important models are going to have to take wounds right away. Slim some of the gear for extra models, so you have guys in the squad you don't care about losing.

Ironclad Dreadnought/ Drop Pod
Ironclad Dreadnought/ Drop Pod

Despite my comments earlier, I like these guys a lot. Especially as a pair - they're really solid disruption. They make for a great distraction, and are incredible tarpits (AV 13 vs S 8 hidden fist). However, you can't really rely on them to kill what you want. What's likely going to happen is your opponent will feed them units that they don't need - which is okay with you, since they'll probably get their points back.

7 Terminator Assault Squad 3 Lightning Claws 4 THSS

These guys really need a ride, or a bigger distraction (more terminators, more dreads, whatever). You might be okay using a locator beacon and a drop pod assault. You have to be really careful deep striking these guys in against a lot of people though - many are going to be running DH Inquisitor + x2 Mystic, which means free shots. Other DS hate is going to be rampant as well (master of the fleet, etc).

2 Vindicators

Vindicators are great - but not as your only real tank. With the mass of tank hate, you either need more tanks or less.

6 Scouts 4 Sniper Rifles, Heavy bolter, Camo cloaks, Sgt. Telion

Telion is just not worth the points, especially when you're lacking in AV and transports.

8 Scouts 5 Combat Blades, 2 Shotguns, Bolt Pistols, Sgt. Melta Bomb, Power weapon,

What exactly are these guys going to do? Either get them a Storm or drop them.

10 man tactical Squad Heavy Bolter, Flamer, Sgt. Chainsword Plasma pistol

The Heavy Bolter should probably change into AV, and Plasma isn't worth it in most cases, and this is one of those cases.

10 man tactical Squad Multi-Melta, Meltagun, Sgt. Power Fist
Razorback with Twin Linked Lascannon

I'd move the Razorback to a squad with longer range weapons (say, the one above it) and give them a rhino. They then provide more mobile AT, while the Razor has someone else to draw shots away from it.

10 man tactical Squad Missle Launcher, Plasma gun, Sgt. Chainsword Plasma pistol

Five troops? Loading up on troops is typically good, except Vanilla Marines don't have good troops. I'd drop the assault scout squad, drop the plasmas here, and give these guys a lascannon. Missile Launchers are pretty much the suck - glances can't destroy anything more, it makes a big difference.


Your list kind of flirts with a bunch of different ideas, but doesn't really commit to any of them well enough to establish a solid relationship. You're not really good at tank busting. You have some nice assault troops, but they will have trouble getting where they're going, while your gun line just kind of sits there, because it's fairly static. You have a couple drop pods, a couple transports... etc.

With that in mind, I'd try to form a basic plan. Then, go through your list, and cut whatever units don't really fit that.

For example, you could decide to go aggressive with pods, with the drop pod assault. Drop the scouts, stick a few locator beacons on some of the pods you know are coming down first. Get some meltas, combi-meltas and drop pods for your tacs. You'd basically leave the two vinds on the board (in cover if you're going second, probably should have dozer blades if this is the strategy you want to go with), and DP/DS the rest, using your pods as a wall to split the enemy's forces. Don't be afraid to take the second turn either in this case - you effectively make your opponent lose an entire round of shooting.

You could also go aggressive with transports (rhino, razors, etc), defensive with more tanks (preds, vinds) or something else altogether, just try to focus your list.

I definitely like this critique its what I'm looking for and I will look at making adjustments, I don't think it is rude at all you are doing exactly as I asked comments!!!
As far as focused I prefer a balanced attack and defense,
I do see land raiders and Monoliths being a bit troublesome but not a definite nail in the coffin for me.
The idea behind this list is for disruption. The suprise of the 2 dreads dropping turn one and the hope here is if there is a LR or Mono I'll drop one of the dreads near it and shoot with the melta gun, although less usefull against a monolith. The assault Termies seem to be pretty resiliant, not indestructible, and I will be directing their attacks towards troublesome areas as well. I planned on using the chap master or Marneus unit to drop in with Tigurius and tie up anything that needs to be slowed and possibly get some support from the CC scouts but as you can see I don't have them in the new list. Any other armor I come across can hopefully be dealt with by HtH or Vindy's.

I prefer to have too many troop choices and discourages people from attempting to destroy all my scoring units, I plan to combat squad them unless playing kill points. The scouts with Telion are for pinning Purposes and taking out or wounding Special Char, Weapons or what not as he assigns the wounds. In the second list i added the predator with autocannon and heavy bolter sponsons to handle horde or infantry. I am still trying to find good roles for the 10 man tactical squads and because the heavy weapons (some) are free then i don't feel it is a waste if I need to move and not be able to shoot it for a turn, but mainly use them to "hold the Line" if possible. I'm at work right now but please keep pouring on suggestions and reasons.

Ricter is a true tactician.

Even though i'm 1200 miles away I feel our minds our in sync. He has a tight grip on the metagame and a fantastic understanding ok competitive play.

I would reread his entire post again. I feel some of it ist sinking in.

The problem you have with asking for advice is the amount of conflicting advice coupled with the experience of the player giving the advice and coupled with that player being "in the know"

What do I mean by "in the know?" You can have a player that has played 40k since the beginning as a casual player and he will be quick to give advice and back up all his opinions with liberal facts but really he doest have a frickin clue about the competitive side of the game.

Its like being on the outside and looking in. As someone who has played 40k in several states iv moved to, you will always have tons of those. My favorite example in the guys who tell me dreads are just magnets and thats the only reason to take them and they don't even understand the concept of tarpitting.

I really hate having to compete against these people when giving advice. Because they honestly believe they know everything when really they dont know the first thing about tournament play. Their advice is based on what they think is cool. Or what may look good on paper. Many of these people often fall for everything in a space marine codex and don't understand the difference between effective and efficient.

Let me tell you, Ricter is "in the know" I doupt i'v ever met the guy but his understanding and reasoning is flawless.

I'm not trying to put him or me on a pedastol but I know first hand you often wonder how much someone says is fact or opinion and I support his logic 100% I would consider it carefully if you are indeed looking to make a viable tournament list.

And as far as more suggestions, I say you need to look more into what hes telling you because even though your choices are justified in your mind, I can tell you the list is not competitive.

A major key tourny lists have is saturation. You have the
jack of all trades, master of known going" and if you dont change that, it wont matter because whatever your opponent specialty is he will be uncontested there and then will have a subpar counter to deal with.

I use tau as an example. Well your not geared to shoot it out with him so he will outshoot the hell outta you meanwhile he fears close combat but you have a subpar close list. So for him its like I shoot better than half his army and I only have half a list of CC to deal with, awesome!

The same would apply is reverse for a CC army.

Bottem line pick a role, make a plan and be good at it. The vanilla, generalist will NEVER cut it.

rewrote some of your post

archite666 wrote:

Ricter is a true tactician. My man crush grows with every post

Even though i'm 1200 miles away I feel our minds and hearts move in sync. He has a tight grip on my nether regions and can roll my dice in his delicate fingers any day.

Let me tell you, Ricter is "my perfect match"

seriously... Ricter's post was an informative and well thought out essay on competitive play.

Your post was demeaning and personally attacked Makari. You insulted him and his style of play.

Here is the deal... this is a local board. You are 1200 miles away. Most of us have met and have a level of respect for one another.

If you choose not to show that personal respect then your posts are not welcome.

I can only surmise why you choose not to haunt a site more local to yourself. Perhaps your behavior there is not tolerated either.

So please...your input is welcome but not in the manner in which you posted above.

regards and happy gaming

Thanks John, i was wondering if i was the only one that seemed to think what Archite666 had written was a bit off kilter ...

So after Reading Ricters advice I used the second list and we were not able to finish the game but it was turning out to be a good game...
I didn't have time to adjust my army to the suggestions but my second list was closer to what was suggested ish... I really wish there could be more options for a standard Tactical squad and I need more protection in my rear... ok that sounded bad.

I'm not sure where the comment of a sub par CC force is warranted as the main reason why the Marines did as good as they did was because of CC against Nids. The 2 dreads came in first turn as usual and since there was no armor to aim at I shot at big bugs, The beacons from the drop pods were good way points for Marneus and the Honor guard, and the Assault Termies with Tigurius Leading the way to teleport units to where they needed to be and dropping the vortex power left and right!!!

In other games my Vindicators generally are shut down kinda quick but they did thier job this time... I expect the worse and hope for the best.

THE sniper scouts handled some of the big bugs quite well, the CC Scouts jumped out and helped a dread take down a Hive Tyrant, but by themselves would have been owned. They were still not too far from the objective to hold.

I combat squadded the tact squads and left the heavies near the objective and let the other Sgt and special weapon push forward under cover fire from the predator which helped take down a carnifex and fire on some gaunts but forgot about the whole Hey we are dead lets come back!!!

I am going over my army again and seeing where I can tweak things,
Yes I want it to be competitive, and yes I would like to place high in rankings, but honestly I don't want a cookie cutter army that "everyone" plays. If i don't get very far than and I have fun Awesome!!! If I crush my opponents and it was not a good time (not saying I can't crush and have a good time) then I'd rather loose. I prefer the challenge of tactics of my own volition (with help of course) and taking what I am given against my opponent and pulling a win out and I do prefer a close fight.

So Ricter and anybody else, any other pointers or suggestions? Archite666 any actually suggestions would be good instead of instructing me about what in the know is... Remember it is a just a (extremely expensive, time consuming, and sometimes frustrating) game of toy men!!!

"Why so Serious!!!" -The Joker

Well put Makari!

But you forgot to mention that those nids were played by a very experienced nid player who hosts a well formed army and may have done some damage in the later rounds if we would have the time permitted to finish the competitive battle that we were involved in and I do state this from a player who just may be "in the know' about tyranids!

HA HA! just kidding!
But It was Fun!

I'm going to make another long post that's going to probably become a general tactica - please let me know asap if you've changed your list from the second posted here.

Urg...

Ok where do I start...

First, I was under the impression you were trying to make a competitive list. As in a winning one, and so I was simply expressing that I totally agree with ricter because as I said alot of times your get missed reviews.

The stuff about subpar CC was used an example to the "jack of all trades, master of none effect.

Once again I remind you, that when I type its factual, I don't really think about "well it might hurt their feelings if they I say their list sucks" I think "hmm this list is garbage, I should let this guy know so he can get try something else since HE ASKED FOR A CRITIQUE.

If you constantly looked at the " its just a game" aspect then please don't ask for competitive lists because then its totally void.

Bob: "I want a army that can win a tourny"
Joe: "well then dont use (XYZ)"
Bob: "But I love (XYZ)"
Joe: "Well (XYZ) is a garbage unit"
Bob: "Well i'm going to use it anyway"

I mean whats the point? If your not asking for competitive advice then my mistake.

Of course if your not asking for then I'm really confused why you would ask for competitive advice on a casual list.. Is't the point of casual lists to just play and have fun and so it would be impossible for anyone to give you advice in that area?

I am sorry if find it "mean" Say you want "polite, light hearted suggestions" and I will be nicer.

I figure if you come to a board to ask a question rather than someone you play with then you want the facts clean and dirty.


As for a the .... that wrote me off as some common junkie lurking to troll local gaming boards...

I'm from Cincinnati! I'm also in the military. I got stationed at Goodfellow, 1200 miles away. I have met probably 60% of the people who post here and played with just as many even briefly before shipping off. I also went to school with Matt's brother and was in their circle of friends. On that note Matt is the person responsible for me ever playing 40k.

As I said please remove the idea that there is spite (or any kind of emotion for that matter) behind my posts. If you assume i'm typing to make people mad or cause bad feelings, you are mistaken.

Quote :

Urg...

Ok where do I start...

First, I was under the impression you were trying to make a competitive list

He was.

Quote :

....so I was simply expressing that I totally agree with ricter because as I said alot of times your get missed reviews.[\quote] Not sure what the second part means.

Quote :

The stuff about subpar CC was used an example to the "jack of all trades, master of none effect.

Fine... Where is the critique of HIS list.

Quote :

Once again I remind you, that when I type its factual, I don't really think about "well it might hurt their feelings if they I say their list sucks" I think "hmm this list is garbage, I should let this guy know so he can get try something else since HE ASKED FOR A CRITIQUE.

AGAIN WHERE IS THE CRITIQUE OF THE LIST. HE ASKED FOR A CRITIQUE OF THE LIST. NOT THE TYPE OF PLAYER.

Quote :

Bob: "I want a army that can win a tourny"
Joe: "well then dont use (XYZ)"
Bob: "But I love (XYZ)"
Joe: "Well (XYZ) is a garbage unit"
Bob: "Well i'm going to use it anyway"

Just back up why XYZ is garbage. If you don't explain your point of view of a unit, composition etc... it is lost on us. Your opinion needs to be substantiated. While you may be correct and have more experience you post just touts the experience and knowledge of another player.

Quote :

I mean whats the point? If your not asking for competitive advice then my mistake.

He was. Please highlight the points in your post that discuss making his list more competitive.

Quote :

Of course if your not asking for then I'm really confused why you would ask for competitive advice on a casual list.. Is't the point of casual lists to just play and have fun and so it would be impossible for anyone to give you advice in that area?

I am sorry if find it "mean" Say you want "polite, light hearted suggestions" and I will be nicer.

I figure if you come to a board to ask a question rather than someone you play with then you want the facts clean and dirty.

Then where were the facts in your post?

Quote :

As for a the .... that wrote me off as some common junkie lurking to troll local gaming boards...

I'm from Cincinnati! I'm also in the military. I got stationed at Goodfellow, 1200 miles away. I have met probably 60% of the people who post here and played with just as many even briefly before shipping off. I also went to school with Matt's brother and was in their circle of friends. On that note Matt is the person responsible for me ever playing 40k.

Good. Thank you for your service. I'm certainly glad to know you aren't just trolling. Your relationship to Matt doesn't give mean a whole lot. Your post brings little to the thread beyond critiquing player type.

Quote :

As I said please remove the idea that there is spite (or any kind of emotion for that matter) behind my posts. If you assume i'm typing to make people mad or cause bad feelings, you are mistaken.

Let me highlight your post next.

HERE IS BREAK DOWN OF YOUR POST

archite666 wrote:

Ricter is a true tactician.

Even though i'm 1200 miles away I feel our minds our in sync. He has a tight grip on the metagame and a fantastic understanding ok competitive play.

I would reread his entire post again. I feel some of it ist sinking in.

Nothing wrong here.

Quote :

The problem you have with asking for advice is the amount of conflicting advice coupled with the experience of the player giving the advice and coupled with that player being "in the know"

Immediately a KNOCK on the player. The problem YOU have does not critique the list or add value you are only attacking the player at this point.

Quote :

What do I mean by "in the know?" You can have a player that has played 40k since the beginning as a casual player and he will be quick to give advice and back up all his opinions with liberal facts but really he doest have a frickin clue about the competitive side of the game.

I think you are really attacking Sean here. Maybe not but it comes across harsh. Still the post is devoid of any critique of the list.

Quote :

Its like being on the outside and looking in. As someone who has played 40k in several states iv moved to, you will always have tons of those. My favorite example in the guys who tell me dreads are just magnets and thats the only reason to take them and they don't even understand the concept of tarpitting.

Again an attack on a Player or player type. Maybe meant toward Sean or in general. Still no critique of the above list.

Quote :

I really hate having to compete against these people when giving advice. Because they honestly believe they know everything when really they dont know the first thing about tournament play. Their advice is based on what they think is cool. Or what may look good on paper. Many of these people often fall for everything in a space marine codex and don't understand the difference between effective and efficient.

Again... an attack on the Type of player you hate. Nothing about the list above.

Quote :

Let me tell you, Ricter is "in the know" I doupt i'v ever met the guy but his understanding and reasoning is flawless.

I'm not trying to put him or me on a pedastol but I know first hand you often wonder how much someone says is fact or opinion and I support his logic 100% I would consider it carefully if you are indeed looking to make a viable tournament list.

MOre sucking sounds.

Quote :

And as far as more suggestions, I say you need to look more into what hes telling you because even though your choices are justified in your mind, I can tell you the list is not competitive.

No suggestion but to look at Ricters post.

Quote :

A major key tourny lists have is saturation. You have the
jack of all trades, master of known going" and if you dont change that, it wont matter because whatever your opponent specialty is he will be uncontested there and then will have a subpar counter to deal with.

I use tau as an example. Well your not geared to shoot it out with him so he will outshoot the hell outta you meanwhile he fears close combat but you have a subpar close list. So for him its like I shoot better than half his army and I only have half a list of CC to deal with, awesome!

OK... a critique of the army. But you really don't provide any solution or which units are at fault and which may be a help.

Quote :

The same would apply is reverse for a CC army.

Bottem line pick a role, make a plan and be good at it. The vanilla, generalist will NEVER cut it.

Fine a closing.

But you spend a ton of time ripping apart a player/player archetype but spend little time even trying to spell out the problem with the list or how it can assist. Even in a plain and factual manner.

You smatter your post with your opinion about "that type of player". Hardly factual. Regardless. I hope this shows you what is wrong with your post and why it is of little value. The difference between what Ricter put down and yourself are light years apart.

Regards and stay safe in the military.

Ok I see the conflict here.

And as you said its totally my bad.

That whole spiel was NOT DIRECTED at anyone here.

Basiclly I'v been trying to gather good data from play testing over at dakka. I was more relating my experience there. I was attempting to stat how often it can be confusing trying to get good opinions from the online community.

I was NOT attacking anyone on this site. Thank you for clearing that up, I was really confused as to why people seemed angry at what I had typed.

I really hope that makes sense with what I say, I can't say this is the first time I hadn't articulated correctly.

And you are correct that I didn't state any of my own opinions but hence why I was commenting on what ricter said, because I agreed whole heartedly with it.

I always get alot of conflicting information online and so sometimes I wished someone would just come in and tell me whos advice is decent. I was meremly trying to say ricter had sound advice.

Looking at my post from your prospective I have to say it looks like iv put my foot in mouth big time, and I whole heartedly apolagise.

Thanks for the compliments, but that's not why I posted. I didn't intend to encourage any negative feedback either.

With regards to your comments, but no offense, but performance against a list that is not geared for competitive play is not an indicator of how the list will perform. Also, you note some ideas that really are not reliable - for any tournament, you want to minimize the impact of the dice on your strategy.

For example, you suggest that you'll use a ironclad dread to take down a land raider with it's melta gun. Alright, first, just getting the deepstrike to land within 6" requires a lot of luck. But let's ignore that, and continue on, assuming you're lucky enough to get within 6". You hit on 3+, pen on 7+, and effectively stop the lr on immobilize or either of the destroyed results. 1 shot translates into 2/3 hits. 41.67% of those hits aren't going to do any damage, leaving .3953% of the time you'll get a damaging shot. Finally, on a 1 or 2 for the damage table, you don't really effectively stop the raider, dropping your % of actually stopping the raider down to a measly 26.48%. This number is highly optimistic to boot, it's assuming no cover save, that you actually get in range, etc etc. This also throws away your dreadnought, as it will easily be rear-shot by opposing melta shots. Basically, on average, you'll need a whopping 642 points spent on ironclad dreadnoughts (nearly 4 dreads) to pull this off per land raider reliably! As I'm sure you've guessed, this isn't nearly as reliable as you can get.

In my previous post, and what archite666 was trying to emphasize, is there are certain things that nearly every competitive list needs to do in order to compete. I applied these concepts to your army list without explaining what they were, so in this post, I'm going to try to take a step back and explain these concepts and then apply them, rather than skipping to the explanation step.

The four concepts are redundancy, focus, threaten and efficiency (someone go ahead and come up with a clever acronym - I'm not good with them). While few (very, very, few) lists can get away without keeping them in mind, these lists are few and far between, and since 3rd, marines have not had that luxury. With that being said, something I appreciate about 40k is you can avoid the cookie cutter lists and remain competitive. I'm doing the same thing. However, you still need to ensure that you are able to properly handle the threats provided. You can go with a combined shooting/assault aspect, and it can sometimes work. I'll go into that more later.

These four concepts are highly reliant on something nearly all 40k players "know", but may not consciously realize. 90% of the damage of a squad comes from 10% of its members, usually some kind of squad leader, and 1 or 2 special/heavy weapons guys. You've applied this for years likely, by removing the upgraded models last. Basically, most of the squad (for a tactical, 7 men) exist simply to die such that the rest of the squad can do maximum damage. Let me say that again so it sinks in properly - most of the guys in the squad are there to simply die. Again, there are a few exceptions to this - notably Terminators and vehicle squadrons. But now, into the four concepts.

Redundancy is the concept of having multiple solutions to same problem for each problem that exists in the 40k tournament environment. It sounds intimidating at first, but most problems can be boiled down to a core few. This is the most important concept for a competitive list. Ignoring everything else, you MUST be able to answer everything the opponent can throw at you in multiple ways (3+ is really preferred), especially at 2500. There's really no excuse with that many points available to you. A short list of these are monstrous creatures / characters (look at being able to handle the c'tan and you pretty much cover all of them, but you want to be able to handle 8 MC for Nidzilla), 3+ AV 14 (monoliths or land raiders), 12+ AV 12 (chimeras are the common one here), ridiculous melee units (seer bike council, nobz bikers, incubi, etc), fast threats (kind of catchall for the likes of hammerheads and their ilk, along with some mech infantry) and massed infantry (180+ models, although these lists are rather weak these days).

Focus is the concept of having a goal for each unit, and tuning its weapon options, model count and gear choices to that goal, and that goal only. Think of it this way. Every turn your weapon upgrades aren't firing on their preferred targets is a round these shots are wasted. A squad can only shoot at 1 target a turn, and if it's trying to get stuck in, it isn't going to spend much time shooting! There are five roles that really appear in the game of 40k - ranged AT, ranged AH, assault, tarpit and utility. If you can't describe what the unit is going to do for you, it probably needs to go.

One exception to this rule is at lower point levels, especially 750 and below. Sometimes, it can be difficult to focus units and still fulfill redundancy - if that's the case, you can let focus slide for the sake of redundancy.

There are very few units in each list that are able to get away with trying to fill multiple roles. No, not that unit. Not that unit either. Pretty much the only unit able to do this for Space Marines is the Land Speeder, and sometimes the Dreadnought, but not very often. The Land Speeder gets away with this for a couple of reasons. First, mobility - it has high speed, a small profile and is a skimmer, all meaning that it is easily able to get to whatever position it needs to in order to get the maximum effect out of whatever weapons it does fire in the turn. Its cost is dirt cheap (70 for MM/HF) and is relatively resilient for its point cost, especially with the buffs to vehicles in 5th ed. This really is the Land Speeder's golden age. The Dreadnought can, to a much lesser extent, perform a similar function. Even short of a weapon, he still provides a solid, resilient melee option, and since his weapon options are cheap, he can provide a dual threat. However, his dual threat is more tarpit/ranged rather than melee/ranged, and speed plays a HUGE factor here - he's a lot less fluid than a Land Speeder is, and thus not nearly as effective in this dual role.

Threats are kind of an additional role that I spoke of earlier, but they're important enough to mention separately. Every battle plan is flawless until the enemy is involved - and the threats are what screw up battle plans. These are the units that force your opponent to play around them, adjust his plan, and basically make him play on the fly, rather than his preferred, practiced, plan. The more a player is forced off of their normal tactics, the more openings for mistakes appear. You immediately seize control of the game, forcing your opponent to react to you. This works even better if you are able to predict their threats. If you can effectively nullify their threats, essentially having their nuetrilization as a part of your normal plan, you already have a huge advantage in the battle. Threats are really what buy you time to get your crucial elements into play how you want.

Efficiency is kind of a catch all a handful of other things. The primary way this is done is by spending the least amount of points to get the most effect. There are also some side considerations as well however that might not be as obvious. These include making sure that your points that you spend are well protected, especially if you rely on those points spent to perform a role. Also, you want to make sure that the models you spend points on are able to get where they need to go to be most effective. This last one is critical - if you're spending points on solutions that aren't getting used, you're not only wasting points, but you're assuming you have something covered that you really don't. Another important part of this is there are no bonus points for overkill, something a lot of players haven't quite realized yet.

Now before I get into your list - like I said, you do not have to play cookie cutter. However, your strategy will need focus. Typically this means shooty or assaulty, but marines can pull off a kind of "dual threat" list. There's a reason why the slang is MEQ - it's because marines are the benchmark everyone else uses. Better than us in assault? That makes you an assault unit. Better in shooting? You're a shooty unit. Why do you care? Basically, you need to be prepared to move into whatever role your opponent is vulnerable to. With this list, you are never going to out-shoot Tau, Eldar, Necrons, Imperial Guard and hell, even some Ork armies. You're never going to out-assault CSM, CD, Orks, Tyranids or Dark Eldar. So what do you do? Play like a Space Marine.

What that means is you need to shoot their assault units, and assault their shooty elements. This sounds obvious, but a lot of people get this part wrong. You only need to soften up their assault units to the point that your assault units have an easy clean-up - that's what your assault units are there for. Against a shooty list, you need to assault their elements that your shooting units will not have an easy time dealing with, if nothing else to stop them from shooting.

Even with that strategy in mind, you can really take it one of two ways - aggressive or defensive. If you go aggressive, you need a mobile firebase (think dp tacs, land speeders, vindicators - a mix of things that can get there now and some units that put out strong damage on the move) and an efficient assault wing (dp squads, ds terms, dp dreads can serve as this wing, but there are other ways to do it, just make sure it synergizes!). This way relies more on the firebase to neutralize threats to the assault wing, while the assault wing sweeps in and does their thing. This often evolves into the popular flank crash, using the Space Marines few units and models to its advantage.

Defensively, your list would revolve around a gun line that still retains mobility if pressed (predators, shooty dreads, razortacs are popular choices here, as well as vinds) but that has a strong counterattack element (assaulty squads in transports, not DP, some dreads).

Stupid post size limit.

Basically the issue that I'm seeing is that your list wants to do both at once - the DP's want to go get them and press the advantage, but the 5 troop squads and predator don't really want to move around much, and can't really keep up and be effective.

Marneus Calgar
3 Honour Squad Chapter Banner, Relic Blade,
1 Champion, Thunderhammer

Here you run into issues with efficiency. While this unit serves as a solid threat and assault unit, there are two primary issues. First, four of the models you really, really don't want dying, meaning you have a single model to take the ablative wounds. After that, you start taking really important casualties - a bad thing. Also, this squad is already really killy with just the chapter banner, Calgar and a champion with a power weapon - anything you actually need the TH and RB for you probably shouldn't be assaulting in the first place. I'd really suggest a lean squad of Calgar, Champion with PW, 1 Standard Bearer and 2-3 no-upgrade vets.

In previous editions, units like this worked because you wanted to make sure you at least broke your opponent so you could sweeping advance ASAP. This is no longer the case, since you can no longer sweep into other units. Instead, you ideally want to take two turns to beat the enemy - that way you have your precious assault troops protected from all shooting attacks as well as a large melee providing cover during your opponent's shooting phase. A win-win for you.

Tigurius

He's good, but like I said, you need to make sure you're using enough reserve units that his points hike is worthwhile. Being able to fire three powers is nifty, but not worth the points hike by itself. If you cut the pods from the list, he should probably be downgraded.

2 ironclad Dreads in Drop pods with Beacon

These make great Threats, forcing your opponent to deal with them. Especially with AV 13, they're incredible tar pits and should be used as such.

7 Assault Termies 4 THSS

These guys have an effective threat range of 12". This makes them really easy for the enemy to avoid. Remember, a threat that an opponent can easily avoid isn't worth the points, and if you're relying on this unit to do things (which you are) you need it to be able to get there (which it can't). I realize that you plan on teleporting them in, but the squad is easy to avoid after that. Remember to run when you do DS them in, so they're at least a little spread out.

10 man Tact Squad Flamer Missile Launcher x2

And this is where your list really breaks cohesiveness. You have a lot of points that's going to be teleporting/DP'ing in, and these guys aren't invited to the party. With how much cover is available these days, they're likely to spend most of the time trying to get a single missile launcher shot off, which is not nearly worth 170 pts a squad.

Next, Missile Launchers are really bad in 5th edition. Really, really bad. I understand they're free, but so are multi-meltas and heavy bolters. You really want these guys to have Lascannons or Multi-Meltas, your AT total is far too low as it is.

10man Tact Squad Melta Gun, Multi melta, Power Weapon

These guys are much better focused, but they're missing a transport.

6 Scouts 4 Sniper Rifles, Heavy Bolter, Telion

You now have 3 squads that like to sit back on your objective, and none of them are actually good at it. I really cannot stress this enough - at 50 points, Telion is just not worth the points. He is a trap - he pays far too many points for the abilities he has. His VoE is largely worthless, so you're basically dropping 50 points for his upgraded boltgun and the ability to assign the wounds. His ability to assign wounds sounds really, really nice. But since you don't believe me, let's math it out:

2 BS 6 shots means 31/18 hits. However, they're only S4, and against MEQ, that quickly brings the wounds down to .86 wounds / turn. He'll rend 1/6 of his hits though, giving him .28 rends/turn and .58 non-rending wounds/turn. At a 3+ save, this nets him .4714 MEQ kills / turn, or 2.82 MEQ kills per game. Even if you're picking on special/heavy weapons models, you're only netting ~47 points worth of shooting - not really that impressive. Other units can get away with this by providing other utility, but since shooting is all he does, this is fairly pitiful. At first it seems okay, since it's about his points cost, but you need to realize that these are heavily ideal conditions. He fires every turn, the enemy has no cover saves available and the enemy squad always happens to have a special or heavy weapon in range, every turn.

Just in case you're still not convinced, let's compare him to a scout with a sniper rifle. 1 BS 3 shot means 1/2 hits, and he'll net .083 rends, .166 wounds. On MEQ, he'll net .1383 wounds, or .83 MEQ kills per game. To net the same kills as Telion, you'd need to spend 44 points on scouts, compared to his 50. At that point, you're paying 6 points for the ability to choose your target, which doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Not terrible - until you realize that this game was rigged for Telion in the first place. MEQ is pretty much the best it gets for Telion. You don't take Scouts with Sniper Rifles to take down MEQ - that's not what they're good at. You take them to take down MC's and other high T foes, where Telion's bolter seriously falters. At that point, you're actually paying to decrease your effectiveness.

By now, I hope you realize the focus issue of the squad. The squad wants to pick on high T stuff, which Telion is generally worthless against. If you really want to use Telion, he belongs in a bare bones scout squad with no points spent on upgrades. I still would really suggest you not use him even then, but at least trim the stuff to focus the squad.

5 Scouts 4 Combat Blade 1 Power weapon Melta Bomb

I really don't like this squad. As it stands, it's a free KP to the enemy, that seems to be like a really, really weak back up assault unit. If you're stuck on this unit, stick it in a storm.

2 vindicators

These guys make for fantastic threats. Just like you noticed, they'll get shut down early - but that's there whole reason for inclusion in the army. They draw a largely disproportionate amount of fire power because they force your opponent to deal with them, as no one likes eating S10 pie plates. These are some of your most cost effective threats that you can run, and I'd even consider a third.

1 Predator Autocannon side sponson Heavy Bolters

A lot of people are fans of this specific predator load out, and it's a solid choice. I personally don't prefer it, but it definitely provides some nice fire output. However, keep in mind focusing on your strategy - these guys like to sit tight and fire away, and that doesn't really support your Drop Pod assault very well.


Overall, you really need some ranged AT into your list. You seem to really like the drop pod ideas, so I'll go off that. I'd suggest the following:

Take out:
- Trim Honor Guard
- Trim 1 Assault Terminator (if necessary)
- Remove Combat Blade Scout Squad
- Trim Telion
- Remove Pred

Put In:
+ 3 DP for the tacs
+ Lascannon / Multi-Melta / Meltagun for the twin tacs
+ MM Attack Bike or Landspeeders

If you have the points:
Vindicator Dozer Blades
Scout Camo Cloaks

Basically, I'd suggest having at least ~10 guns that can pen av 14, and ~15 to pen av 12, if you can. You'll probably struggle to reach the 15 mark for this list though.

1st. No problem Archite666. I think we all struggle trying to get our point across sometimes. Especially if we feel passionately about it.


Being a WH40K Noob I have some questions.

Again... nice write up Ricter.


Give me the idea of the Tarpit. I understand what it is but I guess I don't understand what the correct match ups may be. My lack of experience and playing different armies seems to cause this.

I have believe I was able to achieve this w/ a Dread 3 occasions. Against boyz x2 and against Space Wolves another. The dread was the Assault cannon and CCW kit out.

Is this really the best use? How else would you tarpit? I'd especially like to know if you can do this against high power units... Nob (Nob Bikers) Terminators (reg not assault). What should you bring into these to hold them down? Is there a goal for how many turns to tie the unit up? Does this goal depend on the 'sacrificed' unit?


I'm also curious on the best way to play speeders? I broke out a three speeder squad for the first time and promptly lost them after a Deep Strike? Give me some situations and solutions for using the models. Should you mix weapons in a squad or kit them out all the same (focus).

I was totally going to close this thread down when I saw all the back and forth... but the kind of write up that Ricter gave is EXACTLY what we need on this forum. Really good stuff!

Just play nice everyone

Ok back to vacation in England See you upon my return (perhaps with some more stuff!)

Cool stuff matt!

Yeah I think everyone on this forum is on the same page, some of us just come off as asshole when were just trying to talk in general terms about certain things.

I'm refering to myself here and myself only.

John Gemrich wrote:

Again... nice write up Ricter.

Give me the idea of the Tarpit. I understand what it is but I guess I don't understand what the correct match ups may be. My lack of experience and playing different armies seems to cause this.

I have believe I was able to achieve this w/ a Dread 3 occasions. Against boyz x2 and against Space Wolves another. The dread was the Assault cannon and CCW kit out.

Is this really the best use? How else would you tarpit? I'd especially like to know if you can do this against high power units... Nob (Nob Bikers) Terminators (reg not assault). What should you bring into these to hold them down? Is there a goal for how many turns to tie the unit up? Does this goal depend on the 'sacrificed' unit?

I'm also curious on the best way to play speeders? I broke out a three speeder squad for the first time and promptly lost them after a Deep Strike? Give me some situations and solutions for using the models. Should you mix weapons in a squad or kit them out all the same (focus).

Thanks,

You've basically got the idea of a tarpit unit. The ideal tarpit unit is difficult/impossible to kill in assault, resistant to shooting and low in points cost and some version of fearless. Oftentimes they don't have a lot of offensive killing power, especially in terms of attacks.

Examples are the Dreadnoughts for SM and Drones for the Tau. These units probably won't win an assault on their own, or may after a long time. What they're there for is to tie up an important enemy unit in assault for a few turns, while your units go after their squishier targets.

Units you will go for are things that you can't sufficiently weaken in time before they get to your lines, or whom are particularly vulnerable to tarpitting - basically any assault unit without meltabombs or powerfist equivalents - banshees, orks without a pk nob, etc etc. The more points, the better. By tying them up, you prevent them from assaulting units they can actually kill reasonably.

The gun defines the other role for the dreadnought, it doesn't really affect his tarpit role. It's not the "best" role necessarily for the dreadnought, but more of a useful tactic to keep in mind. Typically it's done when the Dreadnought has run out of ideal targets or when you need to protect more vulnerable units from assault.

I'm not sure there's really an expected goal for a tarpit unit in number of turns, rather it's assumed that it will be "enough".

Theoretically you can tarpit any unit, but tarpitting more expensive combat units gets more and more complicated. Basically, in order to tarpit something good in assault, figure out why it's good in assault. In the terminator example, it's their high strength that really sets them apart, but they don't have a lot of attacks (1 atk / 20 pts). The first unit off the top of my head are Ork Boyz - the terminators will average ~4 boyz a turn, and the boyz are fearless until they drop below 12. This isn't as good in previous editions since the Boyz take extra wounds, but since you're paying 6 points a boy and they're not squishing your more important units, you're sitting pretty good.

Finally, with regards to the land speeders - whenever they move, you ideally want to have cover between you and anything that isn't your target. Use terrain to block off every AT weapon you can, picking off targets on the flanks. If you see a valuable target, it's okay to risk the speeders and put them in the open, just realize you're probably going to lose them then.

The bread and butter layout for speeders is Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer (on the same speeder). This lets them threaten just about everything, and their speed and size means they can get to just about everywhere. They're cheap too. This speed and low points cost allows it to cheat the focus concept. I would never mix weapons in the squad, ideally arm every Speeder identically. If you really want a speeder other than MM/HF, then put it on its own.