Allies or allied

[Brother Delias]

Ok, so in building my list for my Inquisitors list(using DH list mind you) I've come to a stopping point. On the one hand, I could take marines as allies, and have access to the orbital bombardment, but then my forec is severely reduced in troop capacity(taking radical, GKs aren't allowed), or I can take the Inquisitor as an ally, gain the options for terminator squads, as well as full compilments of SM choices, but lose out on a powerful, constant shelling. What all is your take on it?

[number6]

If the DH Orbital Strike is all that is preventing you from basing your army on Codex: Space Marines rather than Codex: Daemonhunters ... don't! :yes:

 

The OS can be fun, but it is, for most practical purposes, useless. It's an interesting psychological weapon that might, once in a great while, actually damage a unit. But beyond it's possible ability to cause an opponent to worry about crossing a river, drive on a road, or enter a forest, it's pretty useless.

 

I say a more effective radical DH army utilizing Marines can actually be built off the SM codex with allied DH than the other way 'round. If you really really want an orbital strike, take the Chapter Master as your Marines HQ choice and get a better one in the form of his Orbital Bombardment ability.

[Captain Malachi]

You should always ally GK in to marines and not the other way around, trying to work off stormtroopers as your only troops choice (not including the allied marines of course) and daemonhosts/assassins for elites is hard, if not impossible. My marine army includes a few of my GKs, and it's a lot more useful than using my non-GK elements with a couple of marines, and I use a lot of non-GK units.

[Brother Delias]

Ok, good to know. I do tend to like using fear tactics, my xenos lists are proof positive of that. But then I am also pretty much building a shock and awe list with my Inquisitor army, so fear tactics might not be best used here then. Either way, I have enough to feild a small force now, all I have to do is paint them up... still waiting on that FW inquisitor to be released.

[Reinholt]

Things I do not like:

 

- Radical DH lists where the main list is the DH list.

 

This is because it forces you to use stormtroopers for your basic choices, then you either get to ally in marines without enough flexibility to be effective, or ally in guard (which, to be fair, might become significantly more viable in the next edition of the guard codex, so that might open up some options for a radical / guard list, but currently I find unimpressive).

 

- Non-Radical DH lists with allied space marines.

 

Again, I'd prefer to use the SM list as the main to open up more options.

Things I do like:

 

- All GK lists.

 

See Silent Requiem's posts for a description of why.

 

- Mostly GK lists with some select guard or stormtrooper elements.

 

They can make an effective sucker punch when they are not the main focus of the army.

 

- SM lists with Radical DH Allies

 

I actually use one of these lists pretty commonly; my main army is an Iron Hands successor chapter, but likewise, I tend to be willing to ally in some stuff from the DH list that fills gaps for me. The Inquisitor Lord and retinue I take are made for short range shooting (there are a lot of flamers to just inflict ridiculous numbers of wounds on a single squad), which provides me some insurance against hordes and/or a way to sweep in on someone after disengaging with combat tactics to absolutely annihilate a squad. I find it's actually a decent value for the points in this role, and more mobile than the gun servitor firebase. Plus, because it's not scoring and they have Iron Will, I can use them as a roadblock in desperate situations to hold things up.

 

Similarly, I'll take assassins or daemonhosts with this army in order to sow confusion and discontent in the back ranks of an opponents army, especially if it is someone I know likes to take fragile units in the rear guard (like small devastator squads, chaos havocs, lone shooting bugs, lone tanks, etc). I think daemonhosts are a terrible unit on their own, but when you have a few of them working with a more mobile marine army that can support them, I think they can actually be a decent (though not great) value for the points.

 

I have a few tricks I like with stormtroopers as well (small squads with two weapons for special operations, essentially), as they are a comparatively cheap and small troop choice in the marine world.

 

- SM lists with GK allies

 

The terminators are beastly, and the troops are essentially elites, if you want to play that style. I won't comment more here, as you are going radical, other than to say I like the flexibility.

 

Hope that was, in some way, useful.

[Brother Delias]

It was, thank you. in the end I will probably go with a relatively standard battle company , led by a chaplin , with my inquisitor, 40 stormtroopers, and 3 daemonhosts. from APOC standpoint I will prolly sit one or two vindis out there as well to take potshots at stuff. but for now, the force listed above shall be used, in it's varying elements(as I am not going to be able to feild all of that in any standard game).