Tournament Tactics

[Deus Ex Machina]

Wow, MuteAssasin has covered almost all of my advice and more! Well done.

 

From personal experience, I'd also like to point out that Infiltrators are very handy to have in a tournament army. As G-Man says, "The right man (or men in this case) in the wrong place can make all the difference." Another thing is to try and make sure your HQ has a retinue if they are not self supporting. With reserves being all the rage, it's important to make sure you're HQ won't have to walk across the board himself or wait for a ride.

[Espi0n-DA]

Troops

 

Troops in a Space Marine army are your staple, doing anything and everything pretty well. They can be tailored for certain roles but I'll look at Vanilla Marines to keep it simple. Also, in Toury's you need 40% Troops, so choose wisely. I'd also like to point out that in many Tourny's, almost half of the armies will be power armoured, according to the statistics. I'm going to give Scouts a try for this.

 

Scouts

 

Scouts have been changed a lot with the new codex and now find themselves being a lot more versatile. You can choose 1 of 2 roles for your Scouts, CC or Snipers.

 

CC Scouts typically have CC weapons (duh..) so this means no Snipers! Due to their Scout Armour their save isn't as beefy as a normal Marine's, making them slightly more fragile. But dont think they are wimps! CC Scouts need to be quite a large unit so that they can take a bit of damage but still function. With their Special Abilites ; Move Through Cover and Infiltrate they are adept at swiftly moving across the board in the first turn to get utilise some cover and can move through it just as easily. Bear this in mind when you need to take a table quarter or seize an objective.

 

However, although CC squads can tie up an enemy unit for a while, they arent dedicated CC fighters. IMO the best use for Scouts is to use them as a shooty squad against high-toughness units such as TMC's, Daemons and the Wraithlords. To combat these units sniper rifles are your best friends. Now the Scout Sergeant can take a sniper rifle so use this ability and dont use the Sergeant model you have, get that extra sniper in instead. The ability to hit on a 2+ and ALWAYS wound on a 4+ gives the Space marine player a very annoying edge ^_^ A good complement to this unit is the Missile Launcher which can deal with the save enemies, but in the good ol'e fashioned way! The heavy bolter is an option especially if your playign against Nids or Orks but generally speaking the Missile Launcher is more versatile as it can also use Frag. With these squads it's better to have 4-5 snipers with a Missile Launcher and then some Scouts with Boltguns to provide a bit of support and to remove as casualties.

 

The Sergeant can also now be given extra equipment to make your army more effective. An Auspex can be taken to detect Hidden Units and then use your Snipers to pin them! An Infiltrating anti-Infiltrator team! A teleport Homer can be invaluable to teleporting models like Termiators.

 

I hope that helps people wanting to use Scouts.

[Brother_Darius]

I got this stated to me as a counter argument regarding Scouts. Thought that it might be appropriate to post it here. The statement was made by Mauleed:

 

Scouts come in 2 basic flavors.

 

CC scouts: The idea is that these guys get a bp/ccw and can infiltrate, and hence can be where they're needed and provide cheap hth punch. The problem is, they're still highly vulnerable to shooting. Unless the mission objectives and terrain give you a good hiding spot, these guys are just bullet catchers. And with a 6" movement, they can't reliably be where you need them. And now that all marines could have bp/ccw due to doctrines, their hth advantage is gone. I just don't see people reliably getting these guys into hth when it matters.

 

Shooty/Sniper scouts: These guys are supposed to be a sort of junior dev team, able to reach out at range. But Their guns stink. Sniper rifles are only really useful against things marines have no trouble with anyway, and at 18 points each, they're far too expensive. Sure, they can sit back and use cover to offset that 4+ save, but so could a dev squad, which makes more sense (to me) every time.

And of course the counter-point with a response.

I don't take my sniper scouts unless I KNOW I'm facing the guy I assembled them for. He took an uber-cheese necron force with lots of wraiths flying shotgun on the nightbringer. Where the sniper force would be superior to devastators is against anything that would get a save against the missile (2+ save or invulnerable save). You would then be forcing more saves. That is the ONLY instance where I feel sniper scouts would be better.

 

As for your reasoning on the CCW scouts... for those of us that are playing something other than the trait system (a good number of players I'd wager), they remain the best option for cheap CCW to compliment your assault squads. If you are willing to shell out the points, you can get around their weaknesses by ponying up the points for a Land Raider. There's a local Blood Angel player that is quite successful using them in that fashion. Or you could reverse the roles. Have the scouts assault something first (from their forward position) and have the assault squad support them. Should allow you to keep more 3+ save marines alive for the later portions of the game.

 

 

Excellent point on the snipers. They are definitely worth it against any army that bring Invulnerable saves that need to be shot. But I've yet to find a situation where I would have needed the extra shots from the snipers. Night bringer is slow and wraiths still have only one wound.

 

Again, I think scouts are great in hth, I just don't see a reasonable way to get them there (and I would not call buying a land raider a reasonable way to get them there.

[SalPyro]

Thanks. Ok how about we move on to some advice on elite units? Personally I love my veteran squad, I usually run 8 vets in a drop pod with furious assault, a power weapon, a set of lightning claws and a vet with a powerfist. <_<

[ChaplainKel]

Thanks. Ok how about we move on to some advice on elite units? Personally I love my veteran squad, I usually run 8 vets in a drop pod with furious assault, a power weapon, a set of lightning claws and a vet with a powerfist. ;)

Ill give it a Shot :huh:

 

Elites:

 

I will go Point by point through the Codex Choices in listing order.

 

 

Terminator Squad: Pricey, but a fairly Durable force when used correctly. Do not make most players mistake and think you can run them straight down the center of your opponent

[Ezzeran]

Regarding ChapKel's post on Terminators.

 

Furious Assault won

[Spacefrisian]

Don't know if this has been posted already.

 

Chaos: Don't forget a Defiler with indirect fire. It works found out the hard way.

 

Black Templars: 20 man squads work especially for outnumbering.

 

Space Wolves: Wolfguard with mark of Wulfen, a lot of people overlook him and their lies his strength. Scouts with operate behind enemy lines and a Melte works well against (you guest it) Tanks with indirect fire.

 

Against Tau: Try to get rid of those hammerheads as soon as possible they hurt.

[5nivF]

Also, black templar armies are very very effective at rhino rushing... ill post the how-to and what-not's of the army as soon as I get back from lunch.. and I just noticed I need to start postin more, ive been here too long to have 8 posts lol...

 

5nivf? - just say snorf.

[Spacefrisian]

Rhino rushing isn't possible anymore. But the following combe is quite usefull.

 

Assaultmarines with Teleport homer. Nothing is more demolerishing for youre opponent when they thought to almost have destroyed those Assaultmarines when suddenly those nasty powerfist Terminators appear behind them. It also works well for claiming.

[The Praetorian]

Can we start getting some input about tourney tactics with 5th Edition and the new codex?

 

thanks

[Ming]

This should be archived as the 4th ed tournament tactics and a new one opened for 5th.

[Jamie777]

Please archive this as the above poster asked, this can be replaced by a 5th edition specific thread to the enjoyment of all :D