Noise Marines are the Bees Knees!

[BobbyDaBlue]

Ok, please people stop whining about how horrible noise marines are. I Find that they are amazing! Come on there the cheapest of the god troops with fearless, I5 and S5 AP3 Flamer!!!! that alone is worth its weight in gold! To people that say there to expensive stop buying crappy Sonic Weapons. I run mine Cheap 5, Champ, Power weapon, and Doom in a rhino with a combi melta normaly in groups of four (can get plenty of Anti-tank else were in my army). Just drive around shooting a S5 AP3 template which is great in these blood angel feel no pain days. If they blow up your ride and charge you most likely you'll still be swinging first.The biggest thing is to keep them cheap so you dont care that much if they get killed. You can also run them as 5 with a blast master at 140 points, keep them in the back in cover for objective holding while blasting away remember there fearless so you have to get shot off to the last man. As for sonic weapons they basicly have the same stats as a storm bolter yawn.... Why even bother Keep'em cheap. Sure there are better troops out there but all in all I love noise marines!!! What other ways have people found to run these guys?

[Drudge Dreadnought]

Speaking as someone who plays a list that does what you suggest here, i can tell you that it's just not that great. Yes, it works against marines. Doom sirening a lashed or recently disembarked squad is nasty. But that's all this unit has going for it. Noise marines may cost less than other cult troops or even CSM squads, but they do it at the cost of meltas that vanilla csm or plague marines could have, and they don't stand up in cc effectiveness when compared to berserkers. They can do minimum sized unit spam, which the others can't, but it's not that great, and they'll be worthless against any larger scale mechanized or armored lists (guard) and against anyone who doesn't care about ap3 (any terminator wing, grey knights, blood angels since you get FnP against ap3) and since lash is generally required to make it all work anyway, you're also going to fall on your face vs anybody who shows up with a psychic hood, which is all modern marine armies. It only really works against badly build and badly played troop spam meq armies.

[BobbyDaBlue]

Speaking as someone who plays a list that does what you suggest here, i can tell you that it's just not that great. Yes, it works against marines. Doom sirening a lashed or recently disembarked squad is nasty. But that's all this unit has going for it. Noise marines may cost less than other cult troops or even CSM squads, but they do it at the cost of meltas that vanilla csm or plague marines could have, and they don't stand up in cc effectiveness when compared to berserkers. They can do minimum sized unit spam, which the others can't, but it's not that great, and they'll be worthless against any larger scale mechanized or armored lists (guard) and against anyone who doesn't care about ap3 (any terminator wing, grey knights, blood angels since you get FnP against ap3) and since lash is generally required to make it all work anyway, you're also going to fall on your face vs anybody who shows up with a psychic hood, which is all modern marine armies. It only really works against badly build and badly played troop spam meq armies.

 

I diagree, There are plenty of other ways to get melta then to rely on troops. Slap Combi meltas on all your rhinos and run chosen and havocs with melta in rhinos. That way you have Tank killing and Troop killing. I dont want a army with nothing but melta which the CSM Dex can easily do if it wants but like I said above I get my Anti-Tank from other areas in my army. As not as good as Berserkers in hand to hand well thats no contest but if you can soften the target up before with a doom blast its not to bad. They are better however on the defense then Bezerkers becasue of there constint I5 and if you give your champ a power weapon your going to kill something before they get a chance to swing back (plus Bezerkers look funny with there bunny ears and all). True Terminators are nasty but terminators are also very expensive and if you even kill three which you have a good chance of doing between shooting and HtH you almost made up the points of your tiny squad. All im saying is that these guys are overlooked and really arnt that bad as long as you have anti tank else where in the army. Im so tired of seeing nothing but melta everywhere its just plain boring....

[Drudge Dreadnought]

I must still disagree with your premises. Running melta chosen or havocs is just propping up one bad unit choice with other bad unit choices. I use combi meltas on my noise marine's rhinos as well, but it's a poor substitute for having actual melta troopers. You want your meltas on your troops because that's the best place for them. Chosen are inefficient, and havocs compete for slots with better units (defilers, oblits, vindicators, autocannon havocs.) It's essential to get your meltas from your troop units, because you need to be taking other units like heavy support in a competitive chaos.

 

Noise marines are not better on the defensive than berserkers. That powersword champion averages less than 1 wound against meqs with only 3 attacks. He will not kill something more often than he will. And if you are running only 5 man noise marine squads, they will easily get killed by a single volley of shooting, or go down to lots of CC specialists that have even higher initiative (anything eldar) then you'll wish you'd had a larger squad of berserkers instead.

 

Against terminators, let's assume you hit all 5 with your doomsiren, fire your bolt pistols, and then charge with a powersword champ and 4 normal guys. Note that this is a perfect world scenario and should never happen against a competent opponent. Your shooting will average ~.77 wounds. In assault, your power weapon champion will average ~.66 wounds, and your 8 normal attacks will do .33. Total, that's an average of ~1.75 wounds. Your squad, on average, will then die to any terminator loadout. Sure, if you kill more it's great, but your chances are just as good of killing less. It's not a good matchup for noise marines even in the best circumstances.

 

I agree that they aren't that bad. I run a fluff slaanesh list myself. But what it comes down to is that Chaos only has 1 competitive army build, and it doens't involve noise marines. If you swap plague marines and/or berserkers for noise marines, then you have to put more AV somewhere else, and the whole list collapses. Noise marines have plenty of uses is less competitive lists, but you are overestimating their capabilities here.

[the jeske]

5 man hth syren squads . where to start here . First of all . ap3 st5 is ok , not so good on a flamer class weapon . you realy have to get realy realy close to use it and your opponent has to not know that something like a syren exist[am not saying that it is impossible few people actualy play NM . but this kind of a makes it a one per player trick build] .

I will not go in to what are not optimal because me and others did it a lot of times . what I will do is talk about the syren build[not just the 5 man one your using] .

the syren build [aside for being one trick per opponent] has 2 main problems . First it it razor builds of any kind .if your rhinos get poped before you get in to template range and open opponents transports your screwed . The lack of range support [and yes I do agree that buying sonics for hth units makes little sense] for chaos in general is felt with NM even more . csm/pms at least have their plasma or melta . If our rhinos get poped we have 8-10guys[in the case of your build 5] that start the long walk and considering the number of shots per turn in 5th ed is optimized to kill/hurt 10 man squads[unlike it 4th ed when it ws 5-6 because of minimax] , our NM die fast . Or rather they die just like any other meq , but for more points .

 

The second problem is mecha . even if one runs 9 oblits , it is still only 3 targets possible per turn . most loyalist meq armies do a lot more[ NM with oblits are like pure DW , only DW has better resilliance to shoting]. And unlike other armies build around gimiks [eldar/dark eldar] our transports are not skipers and we cant play the terrain/cover game better then other meq armies.

 

there is also some more minor problems like being unable to deal with LR rush build or any form of wing army[+2save means the syren gimmik does nothing].

[Penmarch']

Conclusion? Noise weapons are too costly compared to their efficiency?

[Brother Nihm]

Pretty much,

 

5 Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters = 125 @ 15 stationary str 4 shots - 24"

10 Termagants with Devourers* = 100 points @ 30 mobile str 4 shots - 18" (24" with movement)

*casualties inflicted on the enemy reduces their leadership

 

Sure the 'Gants may die in droves but you won't feel their loss as much as that of Noise Marines... Oh and dont even try to compare NMs with the volume of fire that Grey Knight units can put out for the same (or less) points.

[minionboy]

Pretty much,

 

5 Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters = 125 @ 15 stationary str 4 shots - 24"

10 Termagants with Devourers* = 100 points @ 30 mobile str 4 shots - 18" (24" with movement)

*casualties inflicted on the enemy reduces their leadership

 

Sure the 'Gants may die in droves but you won't feel their loss as much as that of Noise Marines... Oh and dont even try to compare NMs with the volume of fire that Grey Knight units can put out for the same (or less) points.

 

Lets do it for fun!

 

5 Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters = 125 @ 10/15 mobile/stationary str 4 shots - 24"

6 Grey Knights with Storm Bolters = 120 @ 12 mobile S4 shots - 24" -or-

5 Grey Knights with Psybolt Ammo = 120 @ 10 mobile S5 shots - 24"

 

And that's ignoring all the other awesome stuff they get for the same points.

[Penmarch']

Pretty much,

 

5 Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters = 125 @ 15 stationary str 4 shots - 24"

10 Termagants with Devourers* = 100 points @ 30 mobile str 4 shots - 18" (24" with movement)

*casualties inflicted on the enemy reduces their leadership

 

Sure the 'Gants may die in droves but you won't feel their loss as much as that of Noise Marines... Oh and dont even try to compare NMs with the volume of fire that Grey Knight units can put out for the same (or less) points.

 

Lets do it for fun!

 

5 Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters = 125 @ 10/15 mobile/stationary str 4 shots - 24"

6 Grey Knights with Storm Bolters = 120 @ 12 mobile S4 shots - 24" -or-

5 Grey Knights with Psybolt Ammo = 120 @ 10 mobile S5 shots - 24"

 

And that's ignoring all the other awesome stuff they get for the same points.

 

About time the Chaos codex gets an update then!

[carnosaur93]

About time the Chaos codex gets an update then!

 

more like about time Ward is fired and the greyknight dex is remade to cover this shamefull version that is now

[BobbyDaBlue]

I must still disagree with your premises. Running melta chosen or havocs is just propping up one bad unit choice with other bad unit choices. I use combi meltas on my noise marine's rhinos as well, but it's a poor substitute for having actual melta troopers. You want your meltas on your troops because that's the best place for them. Chosen are inefficient, and havocs compete for slots with better units (defilers, oblits, vindicators, autocannon havocs.) It's essential to get your meltas from your troop units, because you need to be taking other units like heavy support in a competitive chaos.

 

 

??? Chosen ineffective? A 175 point unit that can outflank in a rhino with a combimelta a 4 melta guns??

[Hiro_Protagonist]

But those meltas aren't showing up untill turn 2 at the best with a 66% chance of being on the side you want.

 

As for the Combi on the Rhinos, you'd need to be within 12" of the enemy to get full effect (6" move + 6" for half range) and then your squad would need to be right on top of the target to take advantage of the Siren. 5 guys standing in the breeze hoping that their one shot weapon pops a tank sounds risky to me. I favor the Combi on Rhino as a secondary means of tank hunting, but never as your primary.

[BobbyDaBlue]

Man you guys are harsh on noise marines, this is the basis of my army maybe then you'll understand. So I don't need my troops to be my anti tank because of the fact that I'm running 6 rhinos with 4 melta guns in Each them. Despite what anyone says that's some dam good anti tank. Now throw the noise marines on top of that and you have even more rhinos with noise marines for anti troop. Result you can kill all the rhinos because of sheer numbers, smoke, cover saves and other factors. The combimeltas are there as an after thought mostly because it's so Funny when a Sweet Little innicent rhino blows up à Land raider. I personaly feel Long range Shooting is completly overrated due to the fact that Cover Saves are everywhere. Say what you want but i Run my army like this and it does pretty well.

[the jeske]

??? Chosen ineffective? A 175 point unit that can outflank in a rhino with a combimelta a 4 melta guns??

for a kamikaze unit that may end up on the wrong side of the board[1/3 chance for that] that gives 2KP yes it is. how many points do you play to fit in 3 havock and 3 chosen units 2250? or do you play with 2 minmal troops [which means your kind of a screwed in 2/3 of games that are objective based] . On top of that most europe plays 1500 . you cant fit chosen or havocks in to 1500 without making the list worse then it would be not runing them and just taking oblits and termicid [one cheaper and the other more effective].

[BobbyDaBlue]

??? Chosen ineffective? A 175 point unit that can outflank in a rhino with a combimelta a 4 melta guns??

for a kamikaze unit that may end up on the wrong side of the board[1/3 chance for that] that gives 2KP yes it is. how many points do you play to fit in 3 havock and 3 chosen units 2250? or do you play with 2 minmal troops [which means your kind of a screwed in 2/3 of games that are objective based] . On top of that most europe plays 1500 . you cant fit chosen or havocks in to 1500 without making the list worse then it would be not runing them and just taking oblits and termicid [one cheaper and the other more effective].

 

Then dont outflank them, I normaly just outflank just one anyways as a wild card. 1005 points gets you 6 rhinos, 24 melta guns, 6 vehicle mounted combimeltas. Ummm sounds like a pretty good deal to me. 555 points gets you 3 rhinos , 3 S5 ap3 templates, 3 vehicle mounted combi meltas, 3 I5 power weapons. Add a kitted out daemon prince and you have a just shy of 1750 points. So for 1750 you have 9 rhinos, 9 combimeltas, 24 melta guns, 3 wicked flamers, 3 I5 power weapons and a kitted out Daemon prince. If you want 1500 drop one chosen squad and tone down your Daemon prince. You can try long range shooting all day but cover saves are everywhere, and actualy a squad in a rhino has a 24 inch range anyways just like a multimelta except the target probly will not get a cover save, there's four shots instead of one and th melta special rule range is 18 inches instead of 12. This works pretty well, sure if you bring 3 or 4 rhinos they'll get shut down but 9 is pretty tough to do when you factor in smoke and getting cover saves from your own units. So like I said noise marines for troops and the rest for mech.

[Hiro_Protagonist]

I can see where you're going but I still think that you're forgetting a few things.

 

Those ranges you're quoting only apply if the squad gets out of its rhino. Squads can't fire if their transport moved at cruising speed.

 

If you are outside of your rhino a five man squad is basically sitting ducks next turn.

 

You may have 3 Troop choices but they are stiil only 15 guys (total) in power armour.

 

Not everything is mech. As an example at 1500 points I run over 200 Orks in my other army. At 1750 it gets even worse.

[BobbyDaBlue]

I can see where you're going but I still think that you're forgetting a few things.

 

Those ranges you're quoting only apply if the squad gets out of its rhino. Squads can't fire if their transport moved at cruising speed.

 

If you are outside of your rhino a five man squad is basically sitting ducks next turn.

 

You may have 3 Troop choices but they are stiil only 15 guys (total) in power armour.

 

Not everything is mech. As an example at 1500 points I run over 200 Orks in my other army. At 1750 it gets even worse.

 

Hordes are pretty tough, funny how the topic went to from noise marines to chosen. Well an all foot slogging horde is tough. Thats where the noise marines can do a little better then troops spammed out for melta. Now dont get me wrong Im not expecting a 5 man squad to destroy hordes and hordes of orks but a S5 flamer can help. I also play horde Orks and know how tough it can be to wipe out huge boyz mobs. Another version I like to run is Three defilers, 3 melta chosen squads W Rhinos, and noise Marines in Rhinos. That could do a bit better against horde orks because of the defiers pie plates and being able to lock up a mob in CC (its still pretty tough for a Power Klaw to take down a walker). But Yes Hordes are a pain.....

 

Side note Chosen can Infiltrate which also applies to there transports. So if you get turn one Three Chosen Rhinos 18 inches away from the stuff you really need to kill (Battle wagons, Land raiders, any type of transport for nasty Hammer units). Zoom forward 12 hop out 2 your in that 6 inch sweet spot. Four melta guns has a really good chance of killing what ever its being shot at and then theres 15 marines and three rhinos sitting in in there face, sure they'll probly get killed but thats taking the pressure off the rest of your army at least for a turn or two. Call me dumb I dont care but I feel that Chosen are great tools in the chaos dex.

[Castigator]

Side note Chosen can Infiltrate which also applies to there transports.

 

Err....no it doesn't.

I still think they're good though, especially against leafblower guard.

Try as I might though, I can't get my Castigators (Emperors Children) to compete at a high level, Noise marines just can't do it at that level unfortunately.....still my other army is Sisters of Battle so all's well.....oh wait....bugger..... ;)

[the jeske]

Call me dumb I dont care but I feel that Chosen are great tools in the chaos dex.

as cast said this is illegal to do . the rhino does not get infiltrate . you can outflank with it and that is all.

[Brother Delias]

As I have said somewhere else before(with a dex in front of me at the time no less). NM are at best a supporting fire unit, and should never be taken without their sonics, or at worst a massive point sink and not in any way cost effective as a competitive list.

 

While I cannot agree with mathhammering or cookie cutting an army, they are right, NMs simply don't do that well as a standing force on their own, worse if they are set in rhinos and incapable of using the weapons made especially for them.

 

Remember, Each cultist unit has it's own use, for NMs, it is a support role more than anything else, best if kept at 1-2 units of ten, supporting raptors and regular CSMs, or better yet, supporting PMs that are busy grabbing objectives.

 

On the other side of things, if you are going for 'fluffy', then I fully support you, as I am all about fluffy. Just don't expect that your army will work competitively unless you do a lot of hard work matching fluff with true to game tactics.

[techsoldaten]

As I have said somewhere else before(with a dex in front of me at the time no less). NM are at best a supporting fire unit, and should never be taken without their sonics, or at worst a massive point sink and not in any way cost effective as a competitive list.

Could not agree more.

 

When I think of Noise Marines, I think about them in relation to other units. They are more a way of freeing up my Obliterators to concentrate on tanks, or clearing the way for Khorne Berzerkers to advance, or giving my Death Guard some covering fire, or as a group that is just going to sit on an objective and shoot anything that comes near it.

 

I would never think about them as the basis for an army, at least under this Codex and version of the rules. The high initiative is a red herring, charging with them is just going to cost you more than they are worth. The points cost is unjustifably high compared to alternatives in other army lists.

 

That said, they do have their uses. One tactic I use is to put them in a Rhino with a Havoc launcher, park it in the middle of the battlefield, and have Noise Marines fire out of it with the Blastmaster. When it blows something up (coupled with the Havoc launcher, it will) I bring out the NMs to mow down whatever is left over. Shooting from the firing point means they get LOS above other units (who can actually provide cover for the tank), and keeping them in the Rhino until it's important means I am going to have a lot of concentrated fire for a round or two. The worst that can happen is the Rhino blows up and they have to shrug off some S4 hits.

 

Another tactic I sometimes use comes into play on a 4 foot or less table, I pair up Noise Marines and Chaos Spawn just to piss people off. The Noise Marines go into cover behind a unit of spawn, and the guy with the blastmaster peeks out just enough to get a shot off at the enemy. The spawn will move up slowly with these big blasts coming from behind them, soaking up a lot of damage along the way. It's forces people to make a choice between shooting up the spawn (who will eventually reach them) and wasting a round of shooting to deal with this one, very powerful gun that keeps pinning their troops. When something changes, like jump infantry comes in behind the spawn, I have all these other Noise Marines waiting to tear them up.

 

It's important to keep the distance between you and your enemy short when trying to pull this off, for obvious reasons. I have never actually lost a spawn model with this tactic, but have taken out complete units of Marines, Orks and Eldar. There is a magnetic affect to it - once the Noise Marines start screwing with one unit, there's a tendency to send in another to relieve them. In one game where I had some extremely lucky rolls, I used this method to wipe out a tactical squad, route an assault terminator squad, then turn around and wipe out a large unit of assault marines without taking any Noise Marine or spawn casualties. (There is a great irony in hearing a SM player say Chaos is OP.)

[Zankuro]

I actually really like my noise marines, who are vastly important to the theme of my army since it's meant to be the defenders of a Slaaneshi pleasure world. Not only are my noise marines heavily converted (daemonettes wearing power armor) I've always found them to do really well. The theme of my army changed drastically after the latest version of the Chaos marine codex came out and I had to redo rather a lot of the army but I still do well with 2 units of 12 on foot with 10 blasters, a blastmaster and a champion with fist, then 2 units of 6 in rhinos with 5 blasters and a blastmaster. I back them up with a unit of 15 marines with melta and flamer and a champ with a fist, 2 Obliterators, and 6 havocs with a decent mix of heavies along with my Prince(ss). The army was originally only marked units but I had to change it with the new codex since I no longer had access to actual daemonettes (and I still miss them.) This is a 2000 point army, which is what we usually play at.

 

People tend to be terrified of the noise marines (maybe they look scary) and I can rely on them to do very well with shooting against infantry units and taking fire back. Nobody plays Mechanized armies where I play and I've only faced one in a tournament but even then I did okay since it was chimeras and I just had to move to hit them on the side. No idea how I would do against a rhino or devilfish army but I can normally take down up to four tanks with the rest of the army per game.

 

I would totally agree that they would work best for most people as a supporting unit and that it's fully necessary to give them sonic blasters to really get the most out of their points (since they are up there) but I do have a unit of 12 with just close combat weapons (and I had to stick bolters on there too for the new codex ) and they've done all right in Apocalypse games against enemy infantry with their great initiative. I would not take that unit in a regular game since there are much better assault options and a noise marine unit used strictly for assault is very highly priced.

 

I also made the army for theme, not for its ability to kill-kill-kill, which is how I make all my armies, so I may not be the best person to do Math-hammer, but I can say that from using the army a great deal I'm really happy with my noise marines, especially having so many of them in my army. I'd have more if I could but I ran out of money to continue doing the conversions ;) I've never won a tournament with this army but I have won quite a few games and this army did win Best Theme in an RTT, which is far more important to me since I put a great deal of work into the theme and appearance. I also play Sisters and I've found that one noise marine with a sonic blaster performs far better than two Sisters with bolters. The Worldeaters army I had never worked for me and was beaten down six times (perfect number) by my Slaanesh army when I loaned the WE to a friend--although that was a complete close assault army and my Slaanesh army has more balance between shooting and assault.

 

No real conclusion, save that I would agree that, from my experience, Noise Marines are pretty good! They're expensive and you have to use them right but I sure have fun rolling that many dice to shoot even on the move! If you want to use them because you like them then do so! I'd love it if they were less expensive but we're stuck with what GW gives us in the end.

[Machine God]

Bees don't have Knee's ;}