New to the marines

[insomniac142]

I've finally taken off the ork boots and thrown on a suite of power armor. I've played one game, but I feel like my tactics are hardly sound at the moment. My first game went over like a bag a sand dropped off of a high balcony into a swimming pool below. My list goes as follows.

 

Kantor

Tigerious

Sternguard Vets x10 w/ Drop pod

Sternguard Vets x 10w/ Drop pod

Dreadnought w/ Assault Cannon and Drop pod

Tactical Squad x10 w/ Multi-Melta, Meltagun, Power Fist, Drop Pod

Tactical Squad x10 w/ Plasma Gun, Plasma Cannon, Power Fist, Drop Pod

Devastator Squad x10 w/ Rocket Launcher x3, Lascannon x1, Drop Pod

 

My opponents list looked something like this (It's possible that this is quite off, as I'm going on flu-infected memory here)

HQ w/ Chimera, Master of the fleet (or whatever the upgrade unit that forces rerolls on reserves) and a number of other items

10x guardsmen w/ Chimera, Assault cannon, possible other items

10x guardsmen w/ Chimera, Missile Launcher, possible other items

10x guardsmen w/ Assault cannon possible other items

10x Veterans w/ Chimera

10x Veterans (Deep strike)

Valkyre set up for full lascannons

Basilisk

Flack Gun (AA gun, something like that)

A pair of hellhounds

and a pair of leman russ variants, one with the plasma cannons and the other with the Vulcan cannons (the heavy 20)

 

Now, I'm quite sure that I had no chance in the first place, as it appeared he was building a list against me (the re-rolls on reserves and AP3 weaponry was a bit of a giveaway) and it was my first game as marines. My assault consisted of dropping the devastators with librarian near the back of the map, on a hill, dropping a unit of sternguard vets in front of his unit of guardsmen without the chimera, and dropping the melta-squad off in front of the plasma cannon tank. I managed to ground the Valkyrie and wipe out the guardsmen, but did nothing to the tank. He responded by moving a chimera towards my vets, unloading the stormtroopers, and decimating them. The Melta Squad did a bit better, losing 3 to a barrage of tanks. My devastators survived thanks to the force field psychic power. It went downhill from there. His HQ was preventing a large number of my reserves, even with Tigerious backing me up. Eventually, the plasma cannon tank wiped out my second sternguard squad and the meltas, the vets cleaned up the other side of the board and the dreadnaught fell to an overwhelming barrage of barrage weaponry. I lost my last unit on turn 5, taking 2 kill points worth of units (the un-chimera squad and a hellhound) I managed to damage a couple tanks, but nothing that would make any of them harmless (perhaps mostly harmless, at best)

 

I think my first mistake was trying to spread out a bit too much. I also think I may be a bit light on anti-tank. Would a Thunderfire Cannon be worth it?

 

Lastly, I'd like to keep it as an all drop pod force, however, the thought of adding a couple of vindicators, a laind raider, or jump infantry seems appealing. If I were to add, say, a vindicator, it would often be the only thing on the field on turn 1, and if my opponent gets initiative, it's going to the the only thing to shoot at, would such an addition be a mistake? (I suppose I could always drive it in from reserves, but I'd generally like to avoid that)

 

Any other feedback or critiques are greatly appreciated.

[Giga]

All-drop pod forces aren't particularly effective. They sort of end up being easily owned by the opponent simply putting everything in reserve. Not to mention they're actually very slow lists (only the initial drop pod attack gives an illusion of speed).

 

Also, Tigurius is definitely useful for drop pods, but his price is still too steep to make him worth it (especially as he doesn't have an invulnerable save).

 

Also, dev squad in a drop pod really isn't all that useful. If you do insist on using a dev squad in drop pod, then give them multimeltas, so they can at least threaten vehicles. Lascannons are overpriced in dev squads.

 

You might wanna consider replacing the dread and the devs with some deepstriking land speeders. The mm/hf variety is extremely powerful, and with some locator beacons on those droppods you can be sure that the speeders won't be getting deepstrike mishaps and that they'll be within range to use their meltas.

[Arikel]

Don't forget you can always drop empty pods, and just start with some marines on the table. Might just want to switch them out for rhinos if you have the models to do that though.

[Iron_Chaos_Brute]

He wasn't tweaking against you-it's a pretty weak guard all-comers build.

That said, I'll agree with Giga that all-drop doesn't work that well for Vanilla SM.

[minigun762]

The first thing that I see is alot of points spent on fancy stuff like those expensive HQs and full Sternguard squads.

 

I think fitting in some Dreads and Speeders for your mobile heavy weapons and taking more Tactical Squads and possibly some cheaper HQs would really help.

[TheLaughingDreadnought]

I agree with minigun762 - too many fancy units and not enough "bang for your buck" units. Now, IMO, dreadnoughts are the best thing vanilla SM can put in a drop pod and fortunately we have an HQ that allows us to take 6! So I would do something like this:

 

MotF

5 X MM/HF Dreadnought in pods

1 full sternguard with pod

3 Tacs with pods

2MM/HF LS

scout bikes with locater beacon

 

Tactics: turn 1 drop all 5 dreadnoughts in his face. Hopefully you don't get screwed by his Master of the Fleet for the rest of your army. As others have pointed out Vanilla SM is not the best drop pod army but seems like fun.

[insomniac142]

I agree with minigun762 - too many fancy units and not enough "bang for your buck" units. Now, IMO, dreadnoughts are the best thing vanilla SM can put in a drop pod and fortunately we have an HQ that allows us to take 6! So I would do something like this:

 

MotF

5 X MM/HF Dreadnought in pods

1 full sternguard with pod

3 Tacs with pods

2MM/HF LS

scout bikes with locater beacon

 

Tactics: turn 1 drop all 5 dreadnoughts in his face. Hopefully you don't get screwed by his Master of the Fleet for the rest of your army. As others have pointed out Vanilla SM is not the best drop pod army but seems like fun.

 

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I have to say, I really like this list. I built the original list knowing it wasn't going to go into any tournaments and win (I have my orks for that). I just liked the novelty and imagery behind it. However, the ideas you've provided have defiantly gotten the creative juices going.

 

I ended up winning three times last weekend, two against Eldar (granted, he was a bit of a newbie, but his list was solid) and one against chaos marines. I found my one dreadnought was cleaning up wherever I happened to drop it, and the thought of having half a dozen in my list seems very appealing.