Space Marine Tactica pdf.

[gettothegone]

I still believe we should focus on army styles first. It is this basic structure of the army that a player needs to decide on first.

 

Do you just mean:

 

Foot

Mech

Drop

Bikes

 

Or is there some other way of defining space marine army types? I understand the Water / Earth / etc way of defining armies, but it applies to tactics and to all armies, not just marines.

 

I'm just curious how people would define armies.....

 

I define them 2 ways.

 

Passive, Aggressive.

[gettothegone]

Actually if you look at page 41 of that tactica from the first post. This is really what I would have included in my layout post under the "tactica section" complete with pictures.

[Warprat]

I suggest, however, that it would be best to divide by point levels as this makes a huge difference.

I think that this would make the project way too large and overly cumbersome. A few simple remarks throughout the tactica like "not recommended at lower point games" or "these units are a must at any point level" should suffice. However, it should focus on games of around 1500 points because that is the level the game is intended to be played.

 

The most important reason to include multiple point levels, is that various units become more or less valuable as the points change. What works for low points lists, does not necessarily work for high points. If only 1500 pts is used, then all is well and good for 1500. But the tactica will lose value as points deviate from that magic number, up or down. Not every person plays with 1500. And of those that do play 1500, they may deviate from time to time.

 

My idea was simply to post army lists under folders (foot, mech, drop, bikes etc...) in each point level. Each army type (folder) would contain the various star units at the top, with general stategies for that army type. As a living document, adding army lists on the fly would be as easy as dropping the new list into the folder, or deleating as new revs are added. There could be many good lists posted. Instead of hunting through pages and pages of old army lists, new players (and old) would have good lists instantly at thier fingertips with the relevant info to play it.

 

Much of the same strategies would be repeated from point level to point level, but so what? Copy and past is fast and easy. Make a stategy scection up and repeat it at various levels. Not a big deal.

 

What you gain is a living document that you can just throw lists into, but is catagorized for easy reference. It makes it easy on the people maintaining, and the Brothers (especially new) who would use it.

 

Warprat ;)

[Bannus]

I still believe we should focus on army styles first. It is this basic structure of the army that a player needs to decide on first.

 

Do you just mean:

 

Foot

Mech

Drop

Bikes

If this is the best option - then yes. But I hate to put Space Marine army concepts into box that limits the application of the tacticas.

 

Or is there some other way of defining space marine army types? I understand the Water / Earth / etc way of defining armies, but it applies to tactics and to all armies, not just marines.

In this application - it would just apply to Marines.

 

I'm just curious how people would define armies.....

 

I define them 2 ways.

 

Passive, Aggressive.

You ask a different person this same question, you'll get a different answer. this is why we need to find the most universal of catagories to start with.

 

Begin with broad concepts and THEN start focusing on more defined concepts.

 

I believe that AIR - as it applies to Space Marines, EARTH - as it applies to Space Marines, WATER - as it applies to Space Marines, etc is the best place to start from.

[gettothegone]

You ask a different person this same question, you'll get a different answer. this is why we need to find the most universal of catagories to start with.

 

Right, and that's kinda my point. In my opinion, the universal categories would be the units because how they work, what they take, and what they're good at really doesn't change much from person to person when you boil down what they're trying to do with it. After you flesh this out, then apply the book of 5 ring or however romanticism concepts in tactica format which changes from you, to the next guy, to me, since this is where the majority of the opinions will differ. Once you start developing the overview and builds of each unit, the end player can formulate what works together through synergistic suggestions given in the the unit descriptions and tactica.

 

Give the IG tactica posted in the first forum a good read. It starts with, and goes through each individual unit, with comments from multiple writers. Its a good format to start with, and with enough writers you can really generate a lot of good information to add in the tactica section.

 

The Chimera section which started out with deployments and tank shock concepts but then just ultimately fizzled out was where I think the entire PDF could go. I don't think any other section in the book started to talk about actual table top tactica, and most tacticas I see written up are theory with no actual display of how exactly to pull it off.

 

I'm not arguing or anything for the sake of arguing. I just really want to see a good format hammered out. I think honestly since BNC does focus on Marines, it should be the defacto bookmark for any marine player looking to better his game, and a really well written PDF available for download right on the front page could offer up a beneficial manual for any starting and seasoned marine player. This is the reason I offer up the conversation.

 

Ultimately, even before this happens, there needs to be an authority figure to dictate where it begins. Otherwise this hurdle never gets jumped over and we write about 5 more pages of how it should be formatted.

[Tenebris]

Well we must first ask ourselves what would a new space marine player hope to find in the tactica, how can a veteran player benefit from the guide?

 

A new player would seek:

 

- what the unit does on tabletop, which is its role on the battlefield?

- what do I gain with the wargear options?

- which are the advantages and the disadvantages of this unit?

- how do I deploy this unit?

- are there any good combos with the other units from the codex?

- which are the alternative methods of fielding this unit, are there some other use options than the basic use of the unit?

- which are the basic things that I have to keep in mind when creating my first army lists?

- I would like to see some generic army lists or the generic guidlines when creating an army list, some for the tanks, some for the drop pods, some for a shooty army, some for an assaulting army...?

- the heroes seem cool but I have no idea how to use them effectively and which army setup benefits most of their special abilites?

- what I have to know as a space marine when I am preparing my force to affront the enemy armies, how do I fight the orks, for what I must be careful when facing the tryanids...?

- I would like to learn about more advanced tactics so I can surprise my friends at the game store tournamet, I would like to know this tactics step by step?

- which allied forces are good to support my space marines?

- fielding veichles is complicate, my adversary seem to always have a good grasp on my side armor, I would like to learn how to deploy my veichles, how can I use them to protect my units or counterattack my enemies?

- ...

 

A veteran player would seek:

 

- are there any good methods to use my elites for an even greater effect?

- I know what army list I want, but I would also like to see how to improve it to make it even more deadly?

- I would like to know how to use the units that are rarely fielded so I can surprise my opponent.

- let's see what tactics are explained, pehaps I can learn something.

- let's see if there are some alternative ways to gear up my army instead of the classic ones.

- ...

 

 

So the guide must be clear in its intent to teach a new player how to use the space marine army and must be at the same time able to teach a veteran player how to make a space marine army even more effective.

 

So how could an unit profile look:

 

Unit Basics:

 

- Generic Unit description

- Generic Wargear/Upgrades description

 

In this two sections we roughly explain what the unit does, which are its strengths and weaknesses and what do the wargear options and upgrades provide. Are those options cost/effective.

 

Unit Advanced:

 

- Advanced unit tactics.

- Deployement

- Combos

 

In this three sections we describe how to gear an unit for a specific role and how this unit should be deployed. Is there a viable combo with another unit?

 

 

Now onto the hot tematic of the army lists. My idea, after reading over the comments, is that we should provide guidelines for creating a specific army list instead of giving directly the lists. In the guidelines we can explain how this list fights, which are its strenghts and weaknesses, how an army like this should be deployed an played and the possible options for upgrading it. In doig so we provide the rough idea of a specific army list and enough material for the reader to understand in which way the said list can be expanded without gimping the basic force layout and strategy.

[gettothegone]

- which allied forces are good to support my space marines?

 

EEP CAN O WORMZ!!! :D

[Bannus]

Quite often we see posts from players asking what would be a good unit to take.

 

The answer is always the same "well, it depends on your army".

 

This is where we really need to begin. While units remain unchanged, how they work within a given army concept can change significantly.

 

This is why we should start with what players should start with when building an army - "How do you want the army to work?"

[Captain Idaho]

Indeed. But I want move away from literal labelling. When we say a "mechanised list" everyone thinks of the same tired old units and play style in the false illusion of the most efficient "meta" list, which bothers me.

 

Play style (how aggressive we play the army, take risks, fight attrition, conserve forces etc), our comfortable and intended range of engagement (2 separate considerations), synergy between units to achieve a combined result etc, are all things that I believe are not considered by many when building a list and playing a game.

 

An introduction to list building and achieving the desired results on the table top should be the first part we work on.

[Tenebris]

Perhaps we should start with generic army info:

 

An Infantry themed army:

 

- Centred aroud Scouts,

- Centred around Tactical Marines,

- Centred around the Terminators,

- Centred around Veterans; Sternguard, Vanguard

 

A Veichle themed army:

 

- Mechanized Troops

- Mechanized Elites

- Mechanized Scouts

- Bike Army

- Landspeeders

- Artillery army

 

A Spec Ops Army:

 

- Drop Pod army

 

A specialist Army:

 

- A shooting army

- An assaulting army

 

...or we could use terms like Sword (assault), Hammer (Terminators), Wing (drop pods, landspeeders), Crusader (Mechanized Infantry), Shadow (Scouts), Knights (Bikes), Shield (defensive/stationary/gun line)...

[Captain Idaho]

...or we could use terms like Sword (assault), Hammer (Terminators), Wing (drop pods, landspeeders), Crusader (Mechanized Infantry), Shadow (Scouts), Knights (Bikes), Shield (defensive/stationary/gun line)...

 

I like those terms. They are also able to be used generically to move away from copy and paste army lists for the internet. Without wanting to go into a big debate, people sometimes forget that an army that has a Typhoon, Dreadnought, Rhino Tactical squad and Assault Marines (as a rough example) can be a focused force despite looking fractured.

 

Subtly, but the Tphoon and Dread provide mobile firepower which supports the faster Assault Marines who are in turn supported by the numbers and bolter-shock of the Tactical squad and potentially the Dread too. This is just as good as an Assault Squad and 3 Rhino Tacticals but works in a different way to achieve the same results.

 

Anyway, again, I like those terms. Perhaps something like this?

 

• Sword - Aggressive play including mechanised bolter shock perhaps with limited Drop Pod support, fast attack choices such as bikers and close combat assaults.
  
• Shield - Deffensive play including mechanised bunkering, gun lines and counter attacks.
  
• Death from above! - Massed Deepstriking attacks in a single army (specialised so as to need a section all of its own).
  
• Miscelaneous (awaiting whitty title) - More specialised lists such as massed outflanking, Dreadnought MotF lists, Scout armies etc.
  

[Warprat]

Ultimately, even before this happens, there needs to be an authority figure to dictate where it begins. Otherwise this hurdle never gets jumped over and we write about 5 more pages of how it should be formatted.

 

 

Best idea so far... I nominate bannus.

[waaanial00]

Personally I find that the first question that needs to be asked of a new player is "How would you most like to kill the enemy, punch them in the face, shoot them in the face?". From here spawns the choices we make in terms of building a list we like that works.

 

Personally I like shooting guys in the face, which leads to Space Marines as they are effective at shooting and have lots of guns. It makes me want to taks as many guns as possible which will do the heavy lifting in my force, this leads me to wanting a semi gun line. I then want to look for units which fit into this playing style.

 

Any beginners guide that doesnt pose the question "What are you expecting to get out of playing marines" is I feel doomed to miss the point. I dont mind throwing some words together about introducing players to Marines and 40K in general, this has very little to do with what is best at 1500 point or how to arm my Captain, I suspect something of this sort is a good foundation to start on.

 

I have some passable words to say about combat tactics and combat squadding in a recent thread here which you can use if you want it.

 

Wan

[Bannus]

This again, brings us back to army "types". A player must decide how he wants it to fight before he starts building an army.

 

But even given a choice between "punch them in the face, shoot them in the face?" is still limiting. What about a combination of the two? What about a choice between "firepower" or "maneuverability"? "Durable" or "surgical"?

 

See how we cannot limit a player initially to just two choices to start?

 

The most basic structure that I have found for an army is the elements - that should be the foundation of all of the articles, IMO. We simply cannot reduce the equation down any less.

 

 

So this is what I propose the structure should be:

 

INTRODUCTION

 

This will cover the very basics:

 

1) Choosing a Space Marine army vs. another army

 

2) The army's overall strengths and weaknesses

 

3) Getting started

 

ARMY BUILDING: The Foundation

 

Ways to select and build your army:

 

1) Theme vs. Competative/metagame

 

2) The way we fight: Elementals

• Air
  
• Earth
  
• Fire
  
• Water
  

 

SPACE MARINES: Air army building

 

1) What units work best for a Space Marine Air Army?

 

2) Styles of armies: Bikers, Drop Pod, etc....

 

3) Strengths and weaknesses

 

4) Tactics

 

5) Army ideas

 

DITTO for each other army type.........

 

THE ARMY LIST

 

1) HQs

• Master
  
• Captain
  
• Chaplain
  
• Librarian
  
• Master of the Forge
  
• Special Characters
  

 

2) Troops

• Tactical Squad
  
• Scout Squad
  

 

 

You get the idea.

 

KNOW THY ENEMY

• Eldar
  
• Chaos
  
• Orcs
  
• Etc......
  

 

 

 

 

This is not set in stone by any means and can be amended and altered as we see fit - that is the advantage of a "living" document.

[ImperialReaper]

First of all I like to say that I am a big fan of this idea!

 

Not so long ago me and some folks created a little magazine and published it on the internet in PDF. It was just about 15 Pages but it made a lot of work and we experienced some unexpected issues. I feel like I should mention them now that this prohect is evolving.

 

As far as I can see the board and the community has enough content and users with expertise to fill such a tactica book, so written content should be no problem. But since it shall be an pdf you shure want it to look fancy and you want a nice layout and illustrations. So you also need some guys making pictures to illustrate the text.

 

The next point is: most people think working togehter while not sitting in the same room, or eaven living near each other is no problem in our modern times. But as far as my experience goes - it IS! Especially communicating via an open board will make it hard do review and rework content and do make some hard and final decissions. We did it via board and E-Mail and we ended up by having dozents of versions of every article and at some point noone knew which version was the latest. One HINT to this problem: google docs helped us a lot here. It takes some time to set it up, but its worth the effort. Most people dont use this because they are afraid that google may spy on their documents. Bu I myself cant think of a reason why google should be to interested in warhammer tactics or my paper on fees of national patent offices....

 

Finally there will always be some kind of a bottleneck. Because at the end there has to be someone who takes all the content, pictures etc. and wraps it up in one nicely layouted document. I realy pitty this guy because this realy is a lot of work and you cant split it up, because you would see that someone else did the layout for page 5-9 i.e.

 

Never the less I am looking forward to this book and if there will be questions in the later steps of this project where my experience may be of any help, I will be happy to assist you. Because even if its some hard bid of work - those PDFs can look realy realy fancy.

[waaanial00]

Was sure that a while back I saw a thread which explained all of the formatting options on the B&C, getting first letter large capitalisation and banner titles etc. I think a lot of people will be looking for this thread when they come to writing content, does anyone know what I am talking about and can post a link?

 

Currently writing some content for the introduction

 

EDIT: Found it Here Very useful!

 

Wan

[ImperialReaper]

Was sure that a while back I saw a thread which explained all of the formatting options on the B&C, getting first letter large capitalisation and banner titles etc. I think a lot of people will be looking for this thread when they come to writing content, does anyone know what I am talking about and can post a link?

 

Currently writing some content for the introduction

 

EDIT: Found it Here Very useful!

 

Wan

 

Those shure are nice, but I would not spend to much time using them and formatting the content on the board. Because I could not think of any half way decent way to convert a board post into a PDF. You have to put the content into special layouting programms like adobe indesign. MS Word hast some nice ways to layout some text too and a very easy option to convert the document into pdf. But even there you probaly would get a mess if you just copy/paste stuff from the board into word.

 

Does anyone here has some experience with indesign or similar tools?

[bystrom]

As for communicating, I think that we'll divide the tactica into 'parts', where we take one part at a time. Note that these 'parts' will likely consist of several points. For each point we'd create a thread. It would be similar to how some of the Homegrown work is being done.

 

To take what Bannus has written in #39 as an example; ARMY BUILDING: The Foundation, SPACE MARINES: Air army building, THE ARMY LIST, KNOW THY ENEMY would all be 'parts'.

 

1) Choosing a Space Marine army vs. another army

2) The army's overall strengths and weaknesses

3) Getting started

The above would be 'points'. The 'points' part is not necessary if the 'parts' are small enough or narrow enough that one thread would do.

[Voltaire]

Will you also put the inital tactica focus on different 'styles' of spacemarine army?

 

For example Bike army variations, and Dreadnought army variations?

[Vaktathi]

As a contributor to the IG Tactica PDF, I wish you guys the best of luck. My articles on the chimera and mechanized platoons, and my articles for the upcoming update, take several hours each to write and several revisions, it's not an easy task. I'd highly suggest contacting Lord Cook on Warseer for some suggestions on organizing and editing the document since he did all that for the IG one.

 

I highly suggest you all look over the IG tactica document to get a feel for how things should, flow, and get organized.

[swooshfinn]

I think if you are going to try to break it down into army type (e.g. infantry heavy, fast attack heavy, mech heavy, etc, etc...) you need to look at the differences of how an army works with the standard mission types. Been playing a 2000 pt biker themed army lately (if you want, I can give you a list, just send me a message), and have been trying different tactics with it to get a feel for what it can and cannot do.

 

In a seize and capture game, I sat back and played Tau tactics against Tau, waiting for my opponent to come and take the objectives before striking, but have had terrible luck with the same strategy against Marines and Chaos, especially in all out annihilation. A couple of games ago, I tried to mix it up a bit using offensive and defensive tactics against Nids, had quite a few bad rolls, and it cost me the game.

 

Granted I am still fairly new to the game (been playing less than a year) so I still have a TON to learn about tactics, but if I can walk away learning something from every game and have a good time, then the game has done what it is supposed to.

[Bannus]

As far as I can see the board and the community has enough content and users with expertise to fill such a tactica book, so written content should be no problem. But since it shall be an pdf you shure want it to look fancy and you want a nice layout and illustrations. So you also need some guys making pictures to illustrate the text.

First off, I think that the PDF should be a secondary goal to a series of stickies at the top of this forum. Developing a comprehensive Tactica is monumental enough. Converting it into a PDF with nice illustrations/etc should be secondary.

 

We must walk before we can run.

 

The next point is: most people think working together while not sitting in the same room, or even living near each other is no problem in our modern times. But as far as my experience goes - it IS! Especially communicating via an open board will make it hard do review and rework content and do make some hard and final decisions....

Actually, it isn't that hard. I have coordinated a couple of projects in the Homegrown rules section that have drawn (or drawing to) a successful conclusion. Yes, it does require someone to play the big meanie sometimes - but it does get things done.

 

Also, I would like to point out that I find the community aspect of these projects to be the most important part. Because it is projects like this that draw us into being a community. The sense of accomplishment for a whole group of people contributing to such a huge task can never be underestimated.

 

I have no intention of going off to some private site to compile this. If that is what people want to do, you can count me out.

 

Finally there will always be some kind of a bottleneck. Because at the end there has to be someone who takes all the content, pictures etc. and wraps it up in one nicely layouted document. I realy pitty this guy because this realy is a lot of work and you cant split it up, because you would see that someone else did the layout for page 5-9 i.e.

That is why I think we should limit our initial goal to an easily achievable one - walk before we run.

 

Never the less I am looking forward to this book and if there will be questions in the later steps of this project where my experience may be of any help, I will be happy to assist you. Because even if its some hard bid of work - those PDFs can look realy realy fancy.

Consider yourself drafted. :rolleyes:

 

 

As far army types go, i think we should start with general concepts. As the project grows in scope, we may have to direct or redirect in ways we cannot foresee at this point.

[ImperialReaper]

Well we must first ask ourselves what would a new space marine player hope to find in the tactica, how can a veteran player benefit from the guide?

 

A new player would seek:

 

- what the unit does on tabletop, which is its role on the battlefield?

- what do I gain with the wargear options?

- which are the advantages and the disadvantages of this unit?

- how do I deploy this unit?

- are there any good combos with the other units from the codex?

- which are the alternative methods of fielding this unit, are there some other use options than the basic use of the unit?

- which are the basic things that I have to keep in mind when creating my first army lists?

- I would like to see some generic army lists or the generic guidlines when creating an army list, some for the tanks, some for the drop pods, some for a shooty army, some for an assaulting army...?

- the heroes seem cool but I have no idea how to use them effectively and which army setup benefits most of their special abilites?

- what I have to know as a space marine when I am preparing my force to affront the enemy armies, how do I fight the orks, for what I must be careful when facing the tryanids...?

- I would like to learn about more advanced tactics so I can surprise my friends at the game store tournamet, I would like to know this tactics step by step?

- which allied forces are good to support my space marines?

- fielding veichles is complicate, my adversary seem to always have a good grasp on my side armor, I would like to learn how to deploy my veichles, how can I use them to protect my units or counterattack my enemies?

- ...

 

As I happen to be a quite new player I could tell you a few interesting questions which cam across after my first few matches with Space Marines:

- what are the strengths of space marines

- what are their weaknesses

- which weapon ist the best choice against certain unit types

- which unit is the best to fullfill the most common roles like close combat tank, heavy fire support, transportation etc.

- how do I act in different kinds of terrain

- what are reasons to field some extremely pointintensive models like Calgar, Sicarius

- which models are good to go without any upgrades and can be played in low point games

 

to just name a few :down:

- clear and brief targets you should aim for when creating an army list against certain races. Like "If you fight ryranids - get as much DAKKA as possible!"

[Arnil]

So what im seeing is:

 

A debate post on stratigies and units blah blah blah!

 

Then someone takes it all and makes a pdf file out of it. Posts that asking for imput blah blah blah. Does that then asks for picture, phrases (I am a personal fan of ACTUAL Latin on my Warhammer figs so maybe some quotes of latin (with Translations) thrown in there) Ave Imperator!

 

Also i personally run a what i call Shock army. It takes Blitzkrieg tactics quite litterally. I deep strike, drop, outflank my best units INCULDEING a landdraider redeemer and my bikers run up to mop up the mess!

[Voltaire]

Indeed. Though how specific is this group willing to get on different vanilla-marine tactics?