Holding the midfield with marines

[Maritn]

I didn't want to take over the topic that this reply is from, so here's a new topic.

 

  

On 12/8/2022 at 2:18 PM, TheNewman said:

Consider this more of a 'bump' than anything else, my answer to how you hold mid-field objectives early with Primaris is "you don't".  And the answer to the follow up question of how you hold the mid-field with Marines in general is "You don't.  Kill everything that's a threat, then advance into the mid-field.  Try to do it in the other order and you'll just get shot off the table."

 

 

How do you play your marines? Is it really impossible to hold the mod-field early? Do we really need to be passive, remove the biggest threats with shooting and after this begin to move forward?  I haven't played for a year (and also not a lot since I got back into the hobby), so I'm interested in hearing what you have to say. Answers from all chapters are appreciated (and please mention what chapter you're playing, because it might make a big difference).

 

To be honest, the comment from TheNewman reflects a lot how the games last year played out for me.

[Karhedron]

To some extent it depends who/what you are facing. I play Blood Angels and Space Wolves so pretty aggressive Chapters. I don't aim to hold the midfield exactly, I normally charge the centre with a spearhead of my best units to kill off the enemy in the centre. For Wolves my "speartip" usually consists of Bladeguard Veterans buffed by a Character and supported by a Dreadnought. For Blood Angels It is usually Sanguinary Guard with close fire support from Plasma Inceptors and MM Attack bikes.

 

Once  I have killed off the main threats in the centre, my Troops units move up behind to hold the ground while my speartip moves on to fresh targets. Any flavour of astartes Troops can fill this role. I find a mix of Heavy Intercessors and Infiltrators works well for me. Both a a bit tougher than normal Troops (either thanks to the Gravis armour or the combo of Smoke and Helix Gauntlet). This means that my opponent really has to decide whether he wants to target my Objective holders or attack my Speartip which is often still rampaging around.

 

The only army where I have found this approach to fail spectacularly are Knights. Knights can concentrate force better than Marines can and need to be active in both shooting and melee phases to pull their weight. This means that rushing the centre is just giving the Knight player a chance to get maximum value from his units as early as possible. I haven't quite hit on a winning formula for Knights. I am planning to try Wulfen with Thunder Hammers for that juicy S10 in the new year so I will let you know how that works out.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I don't try to control the midfield very much anymore with my wolves.

 

1) Our transports stink (and marines are not alone in that respect). It makes it hard to push into the mid field when you're relying on advance roles with a lot of your units that you would want to hold an objective with.

 

2) Progressive scoring also makes it a bit tougher. You need to hold onto to your home objectives and trying to do that and to position yourself to hold the midfield is going to leave you overextended. I go after one of the midfield objectives early but its more my redemptors passing through (and Wolves have some unique tools with our Rune Priests to make that work).

   

3) Marines just aren't that durable. I've found it's a lot better to use our aggressive options to knock our opponent off of their objectives than to try to make a list that just sits on them. Really only Orks & Nids have been able to get away with that strategy and Nids are definitely better at it. Our best defense is our offense in this edition.

[CausticCossack]

It can be hard to get up the board very quickly, but my Imperial Fists force relies on terminators to take the midfield.  Support them with an apothecary and captain w/ rites of war, and run the IF bolster barricades secondary to get light and heavy cover while on the objectives.  We also have a 2CP strat to grant +1 to armor saves and attacks to a unit on an objective.  This means it's not hard to get them to a 0+ save, and if they survive the first turn to complete the secondary action they can sit there at -1+ save. 

 

That's a real tough unit to chew through, and while they don't have great defense against mortals, a 10 man unit has enough wounds that even those take awhile to make a real impact.  My current list has two of these squads - 10x regular terminators and 10x relic terminators, all with storm bolters.  They can put out a surprising amount of damage in that position as well, and can be somewhat maneuverable with teleport homers.  At the end of the day they're certainly not super competitive versus options some other armies have, but they're the best option we have currently as far as I can tell.

[ValourousHeart]

I think you might be asking the wrong question.  Holding the mid-field implies units in the area repelling enemy units.  Marines are not designed to Hold things.

 

I once played a game against a different kind of Ork list.  Through some fortunate accident with GW when he ordered the Green Tide bundle in order for GW to replace the 10 missing power claws they end up sending him an extra 22+ frames of Ork Boys beyond the 10 frames from the initial order.  So his list was comprised of all of the cheapest units that could be built from the Ork Boy kit just to make use of all of those Boys.

 

By turn 2 there was no room for any of my models on his half of the table, and by turn 4 I was limited to sections of my own deployment zone.  That is what holding the mid-field looks like in my mind, and Marines will never have enough models on the table to do that.

 

Marines are designed to Control things.  Controlling the mid-field implies preventing enemy units from securing a foothold or reinforcing units in the area.  My Ravenwing works in a different way to the Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Imperial Fist described above... but the outcome is the same.  We each use our superior firepower, speed, and other strengths to force the engagements on our terms, in a space of our choosing, and to control the battle field.  It doesn't matter if the enemy charged us... if the marine player is smart about it the fight happens in a place most advantageous to the marine player.

 

For example, in a match with my Ravenwing vs Custodies on a dense cityscape board.  I sent forward a damaged pair of Land Speeders to try to deal with his last unit.  The custodes survived my shooting, and then charged my speeders.  Now because I had my mind on Controlling the board and not Holding certain parts of the board I tricked the Custodes player into charging my units.  I put those speeders in a place that when they were charged put the Custodes out in the open and in a nice little kill box for the rest of my Ravenwing to open fire on the following turn.  Custodes were tabled.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I’ve had good luck taking and holding mid field objectives with gravis units.

 

aggressors backed up by a gravis captain is mean.

[Captain Idaho]

I've used Centurions to create a no-go area in the centre the past, but certain armies shrug off their damage. Death Guard in particular just upset me that way.