Question about Legion rules and my model collection

[SevenPlagues]

Space Marines!

 

I am a 40k player, but am interested in making a 30k army along with the rest of my core gaming group. I do not yet have the newest red book of rules from Forge World, but have it on order. I've looked through a few recent threads about Legion special rules to try and learn on my own, but figured I'd ask the community as well.

My question is this - I have a Battle Company and a TON of different sorts of Tactical Marines from years of playing 40k. What set of Legion special rules/"Chapter Tactics" would be at the most advantage using a ton of Tactical guys in Rhinos/Razorbacks? I would also be perfectly happy fielding large units of Tacticals as well - nothing says 30k like a twenty-man unit of Astartes. I already have dual Sicaran Tanks and a Fire Raptor from using them in 40k, and am thinking about getting a big vehicle or two from FW. Which Legion of Marines best suits playing a light-vehicle heavy list like that? I am ignorant of what is effective in 30k, and hope you can help!

 

(apologies brothers if this is the wrong forum - I rebooted this account after a year of inactivity)



 

[Gabriel Santar]

Judging by what you say you have (and as an aside, Razorbacks aren't around in 30K unless you start strapping certain pintle-mounted weapons to Rhinos) the three Legions that immediately come to mind are the Ultramarines, the Alpha Legion, and the Raven Guard - probably in that order. Ultramarine tactics favour small squads in transports to provide the infantrymen with re-rolls to hit, and if you take Roboute that pair of Sicarans becomes incredibly useful due to him benefitting units with redundancy. Alpha Legion have arguably the best /most customisable Veteran squads in the game, a unit that plays closer to 40k Tactical squads than its 30k equivalent does and is widely considered the best Troops choice. The Raven Guard don't get quite as much mileage out of Transports (and indeed, can't use as many vehicles as other Legions) thanks to army-wide Infiltrate, but Flyers are fluffy for them and they can get away with smaller units than some of their peers.

While I'm biased () I'd also throw my hat into the ring for Iron Hands. We've taken a considerable tumble from being near the top of the Legion power-heap, but in terms of resilience to small arms fire we still can't be beat and we have plenty of ways to make our vehicles tougher. Judging by your profile picture you seem to like the Mechanicum, and we're one of the best choices of Allies for the cowboys. Another possibility is the Dark Angels using their Ironwing Rite - these guys are a little trickier to use than the three mentioned above, and have far more restrictions in terms of army composition, but if you want to run Tanks and infantry squads in Rhinos they are definitely worth considering.

Finally, something to consider might be the Blackshields - Marines who've renounced their Legion entirely. These guys again don't get as many vehicles as other armies but have a few different army-wide rules to run them under (which can roughly be summed up as death-seekers charging across the battlefield heedless of casualties, tight-knight groups of Marines working together to deal more damage, deep-striking space pirates with Xenos weapons, and the community favourite Mutant Marines who mess around with their base stats) as well as swapping Tactical Squads for the highly customisable Marauder squads. They're probably the hardest to get a feel for since their rules have only been printed in the sixth Big Black Book, Retribution, but check them out if you can since they might be what you're looking for.

[Robzilla]

To echo the above point, alpha legion and ultramarines make for a good starting point for heavy infantry. Both lend themselves legion rules-wise to the focus on infantry.

 

With that said...

In 30k, tactical marines are the new guardsmen. They don't last long in the same pool as the shiny toys like typhons, and other superheroes.

 

Alpha legion punch hard, as you can tailor them so so much. Ultramarines buff the average dude with cooperation, which is nice and fluffy.

 

My first legion was alpha legion for much the same reasons as you have outlined, and I really liked how they played.

 

This article is the gold standard for getting to know the options in 30k before committing to a rulebook purchase, or a Legion for that matter;

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marine_Legion_List_(30k)

 

Edit:

I should add... Some people can get shirty with 40k marines being used as 30k. The latter being somewhat an historic game, people can feel like it's breaking the immersion a bit.

 

Personally? I accept everyone's circumstances are different. Back when i first started to try to do 30k I had basically no cash, so ended up sculpting a lot of dark vengeance marines to look the part. Some people do less than they, which is fine too. It's your hobby!

 

Couple of quick and cheap things that can help kitbag your existing force to help fit in (should you want to):

 

1) Filing off a lot of the a quills. Makes the armour look a lot more military, and less ornamental. A quill as were around, but really were less common than in 40k.

 

2) scatter in some plastic 30k bits. Ebay is invaluable for this, and you can normally pick up helmets for next to nothing thanks to calth box set (which tend to be the most obviously 40k part) of the current tax squads.

Arms and backpacks (especially the mk3 armour ones) would help mix stuff up a bit.

 

Either way, like I say, it is most definitely your hobby, so don't let anyone else tell you how to build your little toy men. But for me, I do like having an aesthetic in keeping with the setting. And believe me, I've spent my fair share of hours trying to do it on a budget.

 

Welcome to 30k in any case! The heresy train has no breaks!

[SevenPlagues]

Thank you both brothers so much for the depth of your comments!

Robzilla: my Marines are FW MkIII suits so don't worry about them not fitting in! I've had Space Marines for ages, so I've got about 75ish Iron-armoured guys to work with. I agree with you -- isn't the point of 30k to use crazy-looking models you don't normally use? I'm mostly looking forward to customizing all kinds of crazy 30k units using the new Prospero Space Marines!

 

Alpha Legion would be a great fit in that sense, because my guys are not painted like any of the 'historical' Legions, too. They're in a white and blue scheme, vaguely reminiscent of the World Eaters... but I don't like hand to hand armies ;)

Gabriel Santar:

 

I've read the article to which you linked, and I think Iron Hands may well be what I will next experiment list-wise.  I have a lot of Mechanicum stuff, and using them together would be ideal and let me get up to speed with my friends who are rapidly assembling 30k armies!

Tons of well-equipped Veterans in Rhinos would be pretty cool, as well, though - I think I'm going to try and learn more about how the Alpha Legion play.

 

[noigrim]

I'd go with imperial fists BS5 in all bolters and make big blobs of 20