Tell Me All About......

[Bannus]

TELL ME ALL ABOUT...

Space Marines in general


OK, folks, here is our first compilation thread for the Tactica Astartes project. As with all of these threads, we want to keep the discussions focused and on topic. The more we stray or ask off-topic questions, the harder it is going to be for our volunteer editors to sift through the material and put together a concise article. Unnecessary posts will be deleted for clarity.

As with any project, we must start with the fundementals. In this topic, we want to focus on those aspects that apply to any Space Marine army - be it a foot-slogger or biker army, these truths will remain consistent. We want to focus on their general strengths and weaknesses - the pros and the cons. We want to look at the decisions we all made when we chose to play a Space Marine army to begin with.

Let the discussion begin............

[Koremu]

OK, I'm going to do a quick run through the basics ;

 

 

The Standard Astartes statline is a highly durable, versatile Infantry unit. A standard Marine, such as your usual Tactical or Devastator Squad member is capable of beating any non specialist in Assault as well as outshooting more enemies. While your generic Marine isn't going to outfight any specialist in their arena, they will always have an option to viably target the enemies weakness.

 

Toughness 4 and Power Armour in particular are the backbone of Space Marine strength. Many people who start playing with a Marine army don't appreciate just how much more durable than other armies units Marines really are.

 

Further to this theme of durability are ATSKNF and Combat Tactics. Together, these are incredibly annoying, with it being necessary to individually kill each Marine really bogs down enemies.

 

While your average 1*CCW Marine isn't especially deadly in extended CC, a large Tactical Squad on the charge will seriously mess up many enemies that may not have twigged to you as a CC threat.

[thade]

Just to add:

 

High all-around leadership (marines at 8, sergeants at 9).

 

A diverse portfolio of special characters, both commanders and unit upgrades, that can alter the behavior/play-style of the entire army.

[greatcrusade08]

And lets not forget the scouts :)

[Brother-Captain Isaac]

Space Marines have access to cheap firepower（Thunderfires and the Dakka Pred for example）but expensive assault specialists（Vanguard and Assault Termies），and they have very durable characters （Calgar， Lysander and Cassius）

[Velkairiwyth]

A note on: Landspeeders.

 

For about the same price of the eldar equivalent (Vypers) you get a fast attack vehicle that is more durable - and has a very versatile loadout.

 

They can sit back at range as the humble Heavy-Bolter weapons platform for 50 points a unit - they can upgrade to a multi-melta tank hunter unit that can make effective kamikazee runs (12" move to get within 12" of that enemy armour, or just 24" for a S8 AP1 attempt to crack the shell)

 

They can be loaded out for anti horde (Assault Cannons, Heavy Flamers, Typhoon Frag shots)

 

The can be loaded out for cracking armour (Assault Cannons, Typhoon krak shots, Multimeltas)

 

And very easily - can be adapted to do both (Typhoon launchers do frag or krak, and kitting it with a heavy bolter or multi melta will further augment its precision.)

 

A bonus of the Typhoon launchers is that it has extreme range, so if you so choose you can stay 36" away with heavy bolter and typhoon launchers, move 6" and fire all - and if taking on horde armies/troopers a 12" move followed by 2 frag missiles and 3 heavy bolter shots can be a cheap and effective way of whittling down the enemy.

 

Individually they make cheap sniper or suicide units to wear away at the enemy of take a shot at cracking that tough nut,

 

In squads they gain the ability to manipulate their positioning for cover saves to improve their survivability, ignore crew stunned results and can amass lots of firepower for a fairly cheap cost. (the cost of a geared landraider (270) will get you 6 frag/krak shots off a round aswell as 9 heavy bolter rounds from a range that only heavy weapons can touch back - and with your ability to gain a cover save in a squad, and having more immediate threats (e.g vindicator/land raider) they can be ignored for quite a while. The biggest drawback is an immobilised speeder = destroyed if squadded.

 

Weaknesses:

Their low AV means you need to be careful about how you use these units. Infantry fire and assaults will easily result in a wrecked speeder, and solo means that it might be tough to position for a cover save whilst still being able to shoot the enemy.

 

A single suicide unit is a hit or miss affair (literally) - if you fail to take out your target - you just made that speeder a target priority, and they do not have the durability to act as one.

 

Quirks:

Deep striking can give the speeder that vital melta shot at the enemy vehicle, but can also easily result in destroying your vehicle or leaving it vulnerable to counter attack... but a 60 point crack at close range against that land-raider can make all the difference (8+2D6 will on average glance, and with meltas being AP1 - a glance can wreck the vehicle.

 

Hope this input helps. It can probably be picked apart easily - but thought I may as well have a shot at contributing :D

[2500kgm3]

Let's see... I am mostly a noob with very little experience, but these are some things that came to my mind, in case you consider adressing these issues in your guide.

 

I hope you are trying to make this strategy guide as newbie friendly as possible.

 

 

Things to consider in order to collect a space marine army:

 

Their codex is updated quite frequently. This means the army is likely to need changes to your models in order to keep it "what you see is what you get" more frequently than what other armies would require. On the other side, it means it is much less likely to become outdated rules-wise in comparison with some other races.

 

Furthermore, several codices use space marine models, so by buying space marine models, if you are interested in using one of the "singular chapter" codices you are very likely to be able to adapt your army to this other codex with ease, since many models might be usable under these other rules.

 

And finally, Most the space marine model range is in plastic. Plastic is cheaper (although nothing in this hobby is actually cheap) than metal, and plastic miniatures are way easier to convert than metal ones. Metal miniatures are heavyer and used to be more detailed, but plastic is catching up with time. In addition the paint chips way more easier from these metal models. With Space Marines, almost all units are avaliable in plastic but three or four elite and heavy support choices and special leaders of your army. It is guaranteed you will have an almost 90% plastic army on your table.

 

 

Now, about game considerations:

 

Space marines are the elite of the human race. Modified humans with enhanced abilities. Almost everyone in our army is a space marine or is in training and being genetically modified to become one. This means all our models have a rather impresive statline when compared to some other less elite armies, being stronger, more resilent to be hurt by the enemy, and missing with their guns and close combat weapons less often than many other races.

That statline comes at a cost, however, since our armies will usually be outnumbered by the enemy. In addition to that, such a well balanced statline means when we get units with specialized roles in the battlefield we are paying too (points-wise) for better-than-standard stats that are not contributing directly to their performance in that role. That means that an experienced player capable of avoiding situations where units find themselves out of their supposed roles might find these stats (and the percentage of points of the model they represent) wasted. On the other hand, some less skilled players, it means their specialized units can still hold their own when they are caught out of their supposed role.

 

That well rounded statline also means space marines are supposed to be decent at every job, but is very likely that any army specialized in a certain type of warfare will easily outperform a space marine army in that style of warfare. Space marine units tend to be versatile but not as effective in any role as some other army specialized units.

 

This is coupled with our models using the best gear the Empire can provide. Therefore space marines an armor save of 3+, which is really impressive when our miniatures are forced to stand out on the open, or in close combat encounters against enemies without power weapons. Heavy weapons with low armor penetration will kill our models easily, however, so cover is still very important for that invulnerable-like save. It also means against enemies from which we expect several power-weapon attacks, it is much better to avoid close combat, since they totally negate one of our best assets.

 

As brave warriors, space marines know no fear. This allows them to regroup when fleeing automatically, and in circumstances other races would not dare to. Thanks to this rule, space marines should not be scared of running away after losing a close combat where they were outperformed, since they can shoot at the enemy while they are running away and allowing other nearby units to shoot at their attacker, hopefully negating the advantage gained by the enemy close combat specialized unit. Then that unit can regroup and continue the battle.

This is made even more efective by the Combat Tactics rule which, unless being replaced by some special character, allows your units to retreat even if they would have not according to the result of the dice.

 

The low model number that will count as a full army for a space marine player implies all our units must support themselves closely. While resilent, no unit of 5-10 models will be able to stand alone against any enemy. Having a cohesive force, providing a variety of targets can make you avoid losing our models because of huge ammounts of not-so-dangerous attacks being focused on them, or disencourage close combat assaults on your long ranged marines by having a unit the enemy can hardly damage -a dreadnought, for instance- close by, ready to counter-assault the attacker and tie it in a combat they can not win for the rest of the battle. Even if your marine unit is charged, after being countercharged by the dreadnought, the marine unit can choose to fail their morale test and run away, then regroup, having escaped from any more rounds of combat and tied the enemy in a fight they can not win for the rest of the game.

 

Maybe a more experienced player might bring some light, specially on that last point, since I lack the propper expertise to talk about that.

[Fatuous]

High quality units, but you will not get many! Marines must work together and support each other.

 

Marines generally have to out fight their opponents turning their weaknesses agasint them. Out shoot the CC enemies, and out fight the shooty armies.

[Arnil]

Space Marines can easily adhere to either a very mobile or very stationary style of game play and excel at both.

 

Biker armies allow for tougher marines, more hits in shooting, faster, and allows for fast moving heavy weapons. Vehicles can also allow for this such as a Tactical squad in a Rhino shooting heavy weapons out of it each turn of full speed transport.

[jesselowe]

Space Marines are not as tough as they look! It's easy for a player new to the game to look at these power-armored giants and think they're invincible, but they will die quickly and ingloriously if they are not used carefully. If the Imperial Guard are the Emperor's Hammer, Space Marines are His swift swords. Space Marines need to be fielded with planning, forethought, and daring if they are to be victorious.

[Brother_Fatiswon]

shhhhh.. Space marines are really dwarfs from WFB, just after 59,000 years of evalution and genetic alteration. think about it... i mean look at the Iron lord icons... ;)

[chapter master 454]

Space marines are extremely good at doing everything at once. Being jack of all trades they can easily charge a unit, kill it then sweep into cover to proceed to unleash serious firepower with a combination of their bolters and selection of weapons.

 

First off: marines need to be played with cunning in mind. If you face imperial guard gunline with a gunline space marine army then you have to adopt some very strange tactics or other means to out-gun the imperial guard. If your an assault marine army vs. tyranids then you will need to employ equally strange and off-hand tactics to win the day. Make no mistake though marines are the only ones who can take on any army style without problem (fire, earth, water and air) and do really well for it (speaking as an earth player).

 

Second: What do you need because we have it all. Lascannons, heavy bolters, missle launchers or even plasma canons? Your all good because our basic troops can take them (and calling a marine basic is a very misleading thing) while if you need to pour it on a little more heavy we can offer you a range of long ranged weapons and tanks that can dish out damage quite easily. Would you prefer encircling the enemy then striking when they are weakest then we can do that too, our range of fast attack and readily available transports make for a nice air army who likes to dance around the opponent with bikes, jump packs and transports. If you want there is even the fire style then a slight mod to your air style and you have it. If you however prefer reactive play and hamstringing your opponent by second guessing then the style of water is easily achieved with little effort.

 

Marines are a very good army to play and while somewhat seen as 'boiler plate' in terms of army choice, there is nothing average about a trooper who can do what marines do with just a handful of resources where others would take 3-5 fold the effort for their trooper.

 

As a beginner army they are a good choice: forgiving for bad placement with good armour saves and with their bolters being slightly above average for standard issue ranged weapon, they can lay down painful firepower. Even in the assault they give the player good hitting power. The main thing about marines is that they become more and more deadly the better you get with them as you become more able to make use of their power in far more well used manners.

 

The down side is they do tend to get out-numbered and even with their forgiving playstyle they will not forgive a player who gets over-run. However geting overrun can often lead to some of the most interesting games depending on how things go (sometimes there is that one epic turn around from a sarge putting epic mode on!). Marines are in general a good fun army to play with some fun options for conversions (come on, who hasn't done the dual weilding marine with pistols!).

 

In short: Marines are to be put bluntly (ironically) a swish army knife.

[captain sox]

To me, it was the fluff that drew me into the Space Marines. And the tanks. Of all the 40K armies, the Space Marines have some of the nicest models out there too... (yay Tanks!!).

 

Another huge part is versatility they offer on the game table. You can play a footslogging army, or a mech army. You can run 3 Dev Squads with 2 Assault Squads, and 2 Tactical Squads... etc. Or a Bike Army. Or a Drop Pod Army... (or even a Scout Army) :o

 

And they can be tough to kill.

 

I also like the custom models you can create. I have a full 10 Man Honour Guard that was made with various bits, which look great - even unpainted!

 

To Me, the Space Marines are great for the hobbyist, game player and collector.

 

- PS some of the newest models are incredible: Venerable Dreadnought and Land Speeder Storm!

[Bannus]

Sorry for the delays in getting back to these threads. Real life has made it impossible to focus on this project like I should.

 

 

A few things I would like to see more input on for this thread are the three Space Marines special rules:

 

ATSNF

 

Combat Tactics

 

Combat Squads

 

 

There are a couple of good threads I remember reading in this forum that would benefit this project greatly - I just don't have the time at the moment to find them and post links. I'll try to get to them later.

 

After these elements get covered a bit more, I think this thread will be ready to sift through and write into a comprehensive article.

[thade]

Combat Tactics is by far the biggest thing I miss having moved to the BA dex. The ability to Choose to Fail a morale check is excellent, because it helps you avoid being assaulted when you don't to be. With I4, it's not a huge risk to use it to try to escape an Assault either. This allows Dev squads to say flee from a potential (or successful) assault, rally, turn on their heels and not count as moving, and lay into the squad that would've still been pounding their faces otherwise.

 

It is the sister-power to their definitive ability, ATSKNF, which is my favorite aspect of SM.

 

My troops never break and run because they are *scared*. They break and run to gain the advantage; always a tactical retreat. Even if only one marine remains, he alone can Rally and charge back in. That surviving power fist sergeant can take another shot at the Dreadnought, hold or contest an objective, or lend a hand still. Every model counts when you needn't worry about a squad being one-below-half and running 3 pain-staking feet until they escape the game.

[Validar]

on the combat tactics:

I don't get it. I think the ability suck.

I'm somewhat new to the game and by no means a veteran. Maybe someone slightly more experienced than me have found use for this ability. The one or two times I have used it during my gaming experience it have been to escape from close combat, which is okay I guess, but I'd just take a simple ability like stubborn or fleet over it any day.

I know that you can avoid getting in CC if your oppenent shoots and you so that you can flee out of range. But analyzing that it does need your opponent to be stupid and ignorant of your rules - since HE is the one allowing you to flee in the first place

 

Combat squads: A great rule given the nature of the Space Marine Tactical squads. Splitting into a heavy weapon team and an assault weapon team is very useful. For other units it is so-and-so, since you can specialize them a bit more in one direction. Being able to combat squad out of a drop pod is an excellent way of having two (potentially dangerous) units all the way into your opponents dropzone. The one trick pony of 10 sternguard + meltamelta is ofcourse also worth looking at.

 

ATSKNF: Awesome. You can't run me down in CC. This is what makes combat tactics bearable, since you can choose to escape CC without too much risk and you can be somewhat sure to regroup when fleeing. I agree with Thade on this being the most awesome ability of the vanilla space marines.

[bystrom]

The searchy I got was:

 

Combat tactics

Combat tactics, a comprehensive list

Combat tactics, silly rule or incredibly usefull one?

 

Combat squads

Combat squads, musings on new tactics and its librarium compilation

Proper combat-squadding bikers..., though this is more relevant to the air part.

[Gunslinger87]

You also shouldn't forget that SM have some of the best death star combos out there. What would some armies do to have a land raider with a squad of termies inside... not even talking about adding independent characters.

 

Our elites and heavy support choices are some of the best in the entirety of 40K in a points/effectiveness ratio.

[Bannus]

The searchy I got was:

 

Combat tactics

Combat tactics, a comprehensive list

Combat tactics, silly rule or incredibly usefull one?

 

Combat squads

Combat squads, musings on new tactics and its librarium compilation

Proper combat-squadding bikers..., though this is more relevant to the air part.

Thanks for posting the links bystrom - those were some of the threads I remembered reading.

 

Do we have any volunteers who would like to start compiling this information into an article?