Marine horde armies

[minigun762]

One thing I hear alot, especially from non Marine player, is how much they fear an army with alot of MEQ bodies in it.

Few armies have the firepower needed to kill off 50+ Marines in a 1500 game especially when they're mechanized and the basic Marine (either Chaos or Loyalist) is flexible enough to handle themselves in a variety of situations.

 

So that being said, why do I never seem to see Marine horde armies?

 

Is it that people want to play with the fancy stuff?

Do they think an army of 50 of the same model would look boring?

Is it another attempt at min/maxing and finding the absolute best balance?

[KhorneHunter57x]

Marine Horde armies are more common with the Black Templars. Try killing off 40 Marines that have 40 meat-shields before they slam into you (in 1500 points!). Most armies, as you said, just don't have the kind of firepower to kill enough of the Black Tsunami off before it slams into your lines.

 

(it is also used with the BTs because it is pretty much one of 2 competitive lists with them)

 

Outside of the Templars, I think it is that most people fear the cool and flashy stuff, and overlook the normal Marine as too bland for their lists (if a 7.5' tall superhuman in Power Armor can be called "normal"). So both fancy stuff, and the 50+ boring look (and most people who want hordes go to Orks, IG, or 'Nids).

[Marshal Wilhelm]

I run 40 Initiates in 1500 pts games.

I get worried that I have enough TROOPS....

I do feel the Vindi, Tri-las Pred & MM HF Dread are all crucial though, as they give me more than what more Marines would.

 

Would I want to run 40 Tacticals/Scouts. Probably not though. So maybe that is a contributor for all the UM and DA lists, the TROOPS just aren't exciting enough?

 

TROOPS for BA, BT, SW & Chaos lend itself to hoard because "the boys" are better.

 

Still I see what you are saying. Why don't people swap Preds/Vindis for Devs and Dreads for Sternguard? I don't know. I guess because Devs can perform the specialist function a Vindi/Whirlwind can. Sternguard can't deliver i4 DCCW hits, which is gold for MegaNobz, Death Company etc.

[Corpse.]

I've played horde before to great effect. Got bored with the simple playstyle, and some typical drawbacks such as no fearless versus PBSquads, lash, etc.

 

If you can fit 5 effective marines in each of 6 troops, 3 elites, 3 heavy support and some in HQ or otherwise, you end up with 60 men and no "large squad drawback" syndrome like a large unit of chaos space marines. I say chaos does it better then loyalists, because of being well rounded with all models and being able to pack special weapons without 10 models a squad. Quite the opposite we can thrive without 10 models a unit. 1 special gun get troop, 5 per elite, 4 per heavy, we're still a min/max dream marine force.

 

I say 80 specialist marines beats 100 regular marines, since I do like fearless as a part of the force. Be weary of losing your powerfist champs though.

[Deus de Mortalis]

5th Edition is absolutely no good for marines to take an entire list of foot sloggers. 4th Edition could be alright with this from how eccentric the codex was. 3rd Edition could have a powerful list consisting entirely of foot sloggers. Luckily there are other ways to make a horde, like what I am trying to do.

 

I'm currently working on changing my play style. I have absolutely no experience with this, but I'm thinking something very light on armor and very heavy on marines with armor saves, about 60-70 of them in 1750 points. Basically a couple of tacs in rhinos or razorbacks, 3 squads of close combat scouts, and a bike squad to round out the troops choices, and an assault squad and some land speeders to round out the fast attack choices. It has a lot of mobility without relying on transports and tons of models. I'm just stuck right now trying to figure out how to load up the special weapons. It could be absolutely devastating vs horde or mech depending on what they are armed with but I really need to figure out how to play something like this and find the balance of weapons for all the units.

[minigun762]

5th Edition is absolutely no good for marines to take an entire list of foot sloggers. 4th Edition could be alright with this from how eccentric the codex was. 3rd Edition could have a powerful list consisting entirely of foot sloggers. Luckily there are other ways to make a horde, like what I am trying to do.

 

It doesn't have to be footslogging at all (though its funny you mention that because I had another topic debating footslogging in 5th).

 

5 Tactical Squads or CSMs squads in Rhinos with various loadouts = 250 points each, so 1250 points total, leaving you 250 points for HQ/other stuff.

 

Thats atleast 50 warm bodies all in transports and packing a variety weapons, mostly anti-tank because I think 50+ Bolters handles horde pretty well.

[Giga]

I've never once seen a scary marine horde. The closest I got to it was playing against a world eaters player who had a bunch of zerkers and CSM in rhinos and a LR.

 

Still wasn't any scary, TBH.

[Grey Mage]

One thing I hear alot, especially from non Marine player, is how much they fear an army with alot of MEQ bodies in it.

Few armies have the firepower needed to kill off 50+ Marines in a 1500 game especially when they're mechanized and the basic Marine (either Chaos or Loyalist) is flexible enough to handle themselves in a variety of situations.

 

So that being said, why do I never seem to see Marine horde armies?

 

Is it that people want to play with the fancy stuff?

Do they think an army of 50 of the same model would look boring?

Is it another attempt at min/maxing and finding the absolute best balance?

1) Your local areas metagame.

 

2) Probly, alot of people set on "Big" units, like Landraiders and TDA- and those have their place.... but not nessecairily all the time.

 

3) Not really- The guy who got me into 3rd edition and educated me in how to kill marines by putting them in my path over and over again fielded something like 75 CSMs, including 6 max Undivided squads, some havocs, and a small retinue of chosen for his lord. It was deadly.

 

4) Its a question of playstyle- most everyone is chanting "Mech mech mech mech mech" and you cant realy do that with horde... its against the theme, and its against the bodycount most of the time.

 

That being said- alot of BT do it, but most of them fill up on neonates. Some SW players used to do a BC rush- now were in the same boat as CSMs... and can do a full Ultragrit bearing horde. Particularly with Fenrisian wolves.

 

The thing is- its effective, but it takes a different set of tactics than most people use... and most people arent willing to learn them.

[tahrikmili]

I have such a list actually. It's a Blood Angels list, fluffwise, it's a reserve company force. It's made up mostly of Tacticals, Assault Squads, Scouts and Devastators and Rhino/Razorbacks. The only veteran units in it are a Chaplain and his Honor Guard. It's a 51 models 1500pt force.

 

I never playtested it, I'm still painting it :)

 

I'd post the army list but this isn't really the relevant forum is it?

[deepstrike]

currently building one. Lots of tacticals incoming

[Man'o'war]

I have played an entire Company list at 2000 pts - 6 Tacs, 2 Assault Squads, 2 Dev Squads and one of the 100 pt characters = 101 Marines. With everyone loading up to fight Mech Spam, this army does pretty well. It's pretty hard to kill enough Marines in 6 turns for the enemy to win. You can take an insane amount of casualties, and still outnumber they enemy by a wide margin. It's only 11 KPs, or you can combat squad to give you up to 20 units to run around with.

[minigun762]

I have played an entire Company list at 2000 pts - 6 Tacs, 2 Assault Squads, 2 Dev Squads and one of the 100 pt characters = 101 Marines. With everyone loading up to fight Mech Spam, this army does pretty well. It's pretty hard to kill enough Marines in 6 turns for the enemy to win. You can take an insane amount of casualties, and still outnumber they enemy by a wide margin. It's only 11 KPs, or you can combat squad to give you up to 20 units to run around with.

 

Was there any reason you didn't mount up in Rhinos?

You'd lose some bodies overall, but 1 less Assault squad would buy all your Tacticals a Rhino or Razorback and that might be worth it.

[glayvin34]

Interesting topic, my buddy just told me he's going to do the "Infantry Only" force against me tomorrow. We play a pretty loose game, so I can expect all kinds of unfamiliar rules from the SM codices.

 

So I pose a question: What would you guys do to counter such a horde?

 

Right now I'm planning on a Vindicator, a LRR with 5 CC termies and a libby with VoD, an assault squad with chaplain for counter-charging, and maybe a few Dreads. But that's mostly close-range, what would work better to thin them out before they hit my lines?

[minigun762]

So I pose a question: What would you guys do to counter such a horde?

 

 

If he's footslogging, then Vindicators will be a good choice. If he's mounted in Rhinos (the smart choice), then they'll still be useful, but less so.

 

The best counter is phase 1) an emphasis on long range firepower like Missile Launchers and Plasma to get kills in at range and open up transports (if he takes them). Predators or Rifledreads would be really useful here.

 

Phase 2) using some assault elements to tie up his Marines, dual Flamer Assault Marines with a Power Fist will bring alot of attacks to the table, Ironclads dropping in to say hi and of course Terminators in Land Raiders are always viable. Here is the time you use your HQ and their attached squad. Hopefully you're dealing with weakened units so you can kill them in a few turns. If they're still strong, this attack will focus on weakening and delaying them.

 

Phase 3) will be moving your short range elements into the battle to mop up any leftovers from the big melee. Tactical squads rapid firing, Shotgun/BP Scouts, Assault Cannon Dreads etc etc. Its probably not worth assaulting a tiny 3 guy squad, especially if that squad still has their Power Fist Sarge (which is the smart thing). Instead just dakka them down.

[glayvin34]

Hm, sounds good. I'm going to post the list I came up with over in the battle list subforum so as not to jack your thread.

[Veldrik]

how about 6 units of blood claws :)

 

plain thats 1350 points

 

could make them larger, keep them as troops and chuck in some wolf guard.

Then all yuo need is a HQ.

and every unit is a troop type :)

 

or better yet, an army full of fenrison wolves (although from teh wording, they become troops - not "taken as EITHER troops or elites") so you can still only get 6 units - but it leaves more space for numbers :)

[Mal]

Horde marine armies can be highly effective, but as previously stated it requires a shift in tactical thinking, and a lot of regular marine players simply dont grasp the differences in tactical playstyle.

 

Of course this isn't helped by further shifts depending on which type of horde you run.

 

I am currently working on yet another marine horde army, but this time a solid gun line with zero armour.

In 1500 points I put out 55 power armoured bodies and 1 termie and 1 artificer, not an easy challenge to wear down before falling victim to their overlapping fields of fire.

 

Thr trick to a gun line army (as any good tau knows) is all about deployment, you do not want to spend 1 or 2 turns moving into position (you can usually afford 1 turn as most opponents wont get in firing range until turn 2). You need to make the most of any and all cover avaiable and try to bottle neck your opponents (very hard to do to eldar, but most other armies can be fairly easily maniupliated).

 

The down side to this type of army is you only ever play for a draw, since its difficult to advance whilst maintaining the best fields of fire and use of cover, you only ever hold objectives on your side of the table.

On the flip side, if carried out correctly, you should rarely ever loose as a solid gunline can stop most armies dead and thus prevent your opponent from grabbing the objectives to score them a win.

 

The main advantage to such a high number of Bs4 PA boltgun troops is that you can afford to loose a unit or 2 to infiltrators without seriously effecting your stopping power.

[Vaktathi]

One thing I hear alot, especially from non Marine player, is how much they fear an army with alot of MEQ bodies in it.

Few armies have the firepower needed to kill off 50+ Marines in a 1500 game especially when they're mechanized and the basic Marine (either Chaos or Loyalist) is flexible enough to handle themselves in a variety of situations.

 

So that being said, why do I never seem to see Marine horde armies?

 

Is it that people want to play with the fancy stuff?

Do they think an army of 50 of the same model would look boring?

Is it another attempt at min/maxing and finding the absolute best balance?

 

Personally, I think the reason you don't see the marine horde armies is that, while they tend to do well against armies like Imperial Guard, Orks, etc. they aren't as effective against other SM armies.

 

Against an IG army for instance, that 500something pts Terminator+HQ+LR combo unit is grossly inefficient, as it's never going to kill enough stuff to earn back its value and as it consists of so few models is easy to concentrate on. Having Vulkan and his terminators multi-assault out of a Land Raider into 2 IG infantry squads is horrifically overkill. When taken against an opposing MEQ army however, it'll tear through everything just like it will the cheaper IG stuff, but the stuff its killing is now actually far more expensive and valuable, making the unit totally worth its cost. Having Vulkan and his terminators multi-assault out of a land raider into two tac squads on the other hand, or two units of Plague Marines to make it even sweeter, is totally worth it and a beautiful thing.

 

Now with horde marines, it gives an army like IG a much greater threat because each marine is only slightly less effective relative to the IG army than a heavy CC terminator that costs almost 3x as much, so you have tons of more dudes posing a much greater threat overall. Facing other SM armies however, the super killy units with small model counts become far more efficient and effective.

 

Since MEQ armies tend to be so much more common in general, the SM horde lists aren't taken as often. If you beat the other three SM lists and lose the one IG player, well, most people are OK with that.

[glayvin34]

The down side to this type of army is you only ever play for a draw, since its difficult to advance whilst maintaining the best fields of fire and use of cover, you only ever hold objectives on your side of the table.

 

Very good point, there. I played my Ultras against my buddy's BA infantry army recently and got decimated but still won on a draw because I had 5 camo cloak scouts camping my objective, they had 2+ cover behind some bolstered ruins. I think the main reason everything else got blown up was due to a tactical error on my part in leaving too many points in reserve and feeding him my army piecemeal to rip apart with lucky lascannon and ML shots. He just couldn't get his troops across the board even though he started moving them on round 3. By that point there were no transports on the board. He did manage to get an assault squad across the board and almost contest my objective, but my vindicator arrived from reserve in round 4 and destroyed the whole squad before getting destroyed itself.

 

The strength of his army was ablative wounds for his heavy weapons. He had two tactical squads, two dev squads (with 2 or 3 heavy weapons each) and some sternguard, and 4 or 5 lascannon and 2 or 3 MLs distributed amongst those squads. I landed a Sternguard drop pod near his lines and took out 8 troopers with vengeance rounds, and only destroyed one missile launcher before my whole squad was killed the next round. Lascannon shots that I landed with my dread never took out any heavy weapons. I hit him a lot with heavy bolters and sniper shots, but the 3+ armor save went far enough to protect his heavies.

 

The trick to a gun line army (as any good tau knows) is all about deployment, you do not want to spend 1 or 2 turns moving into position (you can usually afford 1 turn as most opponents wont get in firing range until turn 2). You need to make the most of any and all cover available and try to bottle neck your opponents (very hard to do to eldar, but most other armies can be fairly easily manipulated).

He went first and laid out a great gunline. Symmetrical in his Spearhead corner, Sternguard in the center with Pedro, two tac squads on either side, then two dev squads on either side, then 5-man scouts with MLs infiltrated, but still roughly symmetrical with the rest of his force. And an assault squad behind the whole thing. I couldn't advance without being in range of several MLs, LCs and sniper rifles.

[tahrikmili]

The down side to this type of army is you only ever play for a draw, since its difficult to advance whilst maintaining the best fields of fire and use of cover, you only ever hold objectives on your side of the table.

 

Very good point, there. I played my Ultras against my buddy's BA infantry army recently and got decimated but still won on a draw because I had 5 camo cloak scouts camping my objective, they had 2+ cover behind some bolstered ruins. I think the main reason everything else got blown up was due to a tactical error on my part in leaving too many points in reserve and feeding him my army piecemeal to rip apart with lucky lascannon and ML shots. He just couldn't get his troops across the board even though he started moving them on round 3. By that point there were no transports on the board. He did manage to get an assault squad across the board and almost contest my objective, but my vindicator arrived from reserve in round 4 and destroyed the whole squad before getting destroyed itself.

 

The strength of his army was ablative wounds for his heavy weapons. He had two tactical squads, two dev squads (with 2 or 3 heavy weapons each) and some sternguard, and 4 or 5 lascannon and 2 or 3 MLs distributed amongst those squads. I landed a Sternguard drop pod near his lines and took out 8 troopers with vengeance rounds, and only destroyed one missile launcher before my whole squad was killed the next round. Lascannon shots that I landed with my dread never took out any heavy weapons. I hit him a lot with heavy bolters and sniper shots, but the 3+ armor save went far enough to protect his heavies.

 

The trick to a gun line army (as any good tau knows) is all about deployment, you do not want to spend 1 or 2 turns moving into position (you can usually afford 1 turn as most opponents wont get in firing range until turn 2). You need to make the most of any and all cover available and try to bottle neck your opponents (very hard to do to eldar, but most other armies can be fairly easily manipulated).

He went first and laid out a great gunline. Symmetrical in his Spearhead corner, Sternguard in the center with Pedro, two tac squads on either side, then two dev squads on either side, then 5-man scouts with MLs infiltrated, but still roughly symmetrical with the rest of his force. And an assault squad behind the whole thing. I couldn't advance without being in range of several MLs, LCs and sniper rifles.

 

Sounds like my army list, good to hear a BA gunline army can hold up really well :D

[Veldrik]

The main advantage to such a high number of Bs4 PA boltgun troops is that you can afford to loose a unit or 2 to infiltrators without seriously effecting your stopping power.

 

If doing a similar tactic, if you were to replace the boltguns with storm bolters and 2 base attacks for a base cost of 21, do you think that would be worth it for this sort of gun line?

[greatcrusade08]

im not a big fan of gunlines myself, although in the right hands they can do pretty well.

If your going to have alot of points tied up in troops like tac marines, then your going to worry about lack of assault elements, i think to be competative a Pa armoured marneus calgar with a combat squad is essential, he hits like a whole squad of termies on his own and can really tear up the place.

 

Gc08