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Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2007 10:15 am
Posts: 461
Location: UK
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A lot to reply too so this could get long.
In my opinion best marine unit is Terminators. I often use my marines without titans and do well. With marines you need to learn fire support and crossfire. Marines thrive on maneuverability and that should be used to it's full extent. You need to control where to attack, not the enemy.
All very 'art of war' but a bit hand-wavery. I.e. it's a lot easier said than done, your opponent often has the annoying habit of not doing exactly what you want, and he often has better units and tools to do this with.
For those invincible IG Russ companies. Wait until it has activated, then double Annihilators within range and in crossfire position. Next turn win initiative and sustain on crossfire. 8 * AT4+ and (if with hunter) 5 * AT3+ -> Russ with 5+RA save means plenty dead Russ, 4.83 dead on average. Annihilators are great if you decide where to attack and not the enemy. Those things can easily fry a Reaver with some help from others. Also add a crossfiring Speeders and 4+RA is suddenly 5+ save
Again, easier to plan than to do. I'd 'save' my IG Tank Company for one of my last activations (unless threatened), and I'm likely to outactivate SM's, especially if they have multiple formations bundled into one Thunderhawk.
Annihilators would also be high on my kill list as they are the easiest formation to destroy/break and cost as much as Tacticals. I've used Annihilators, I've used them cautiously, they still die way too easily.
I think embedded in a Tactical formation like the Scions is the only place I'd take them, in that set-up they are great. And I'd take any excuse to use them for variety.
I don't suppose you could ask your friend with salamanders to playtest this list?
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/forums/ ... 73;t=14129
As soon as I meet a friend who plays Salamanders I will,  
Mech formations, SHT formations, reinforced infantry companies. Largely because if you beat the company you oft beat the guard  With only 11 strong companies (russ plus hydra) you only have to take fire a half dozen times before you break, and when you do every time you come under fire more of your very expensive tanks die.
Agreed on beat the Tank Co. and IG suffer, disagree on it being easy. So your opponent only has to shoot half a dozen formations at it, likely more than half their army!
Leman Russe's don't die everytime you come under fire, with 4+ RA it'll take 4 hits to down one. They're a lot tougher than you make out.
Disrupt artillery, direct fire anti armour formations (shadowswords are amoung the worse), other anti armour formations make a mess of you. Say an eldar formation knocks out 3 tanks - you are then reduced to 3 un suppressed Leman Russ. DO that to a reaver or a SHT formation and either its still going or one is supressed (out of the SHT's). Its got a lot of firepower but each and every blast marker costs you 65 points of tank.
I agree that the Tank Co offensiveness deteriorates as it's attacked, whilst a Titan shrugs it off until Broken.
But conversely, that Shadow Sword formation you mentioned has possibly killed 3 tanks, it could also have near destroyed your Titan, which formation is then worse off?
The last point of course is that Leman Russes are Guard, Titans are not. I like the idea of Titans and the models, but I don't like the idea that Titans are compulsory in every army- that despite the thousands of battles the Imperium fights without 'your friendly neighborhood titan' where losses. They probably are, but I still don't like it.
With Marines it's probably true, with IG I think they can do without.
Normally people can often win by ignoring the big bts and going after everything else - the russ company is initial hard but degrades very quickly (and disrupt artillery combined with the threat of assault if you spread out too much is the worst so quite often people cheerfully rip in to it. And has been pointed out its one of the those formations that can be killed by less then its value in points of attackers.
Disrupt is a scary prospect, true. It's however rare, and if it's concentrated on my spread out tanks, it's ignoring my various infantry/transport formations that would grant far more hits.
I'm sure almost all formations can be defeated by cheaper formations in the right circumstances, with sufficient luck.
I apologise for being antagonistic but defeating IG Tank Companies is one of the most difficult challenges our gaming group faces, it's one of those 'you must learn to do this before going to a tournament' golden rules. It has never been easy.
So I'll need to see it firsthand before I consider IG Tank Co's pushovers.
With your army say a thunderhawk with assault marines can land in contact with three tanks, then everyone jump out into contact with the other 8 tanks. Thats 11 6+ attacks on you (2 hits that you can take on the thunderhawk), vs 8 3+, 2 MW3+ and 2 4+. By my calculation 2 kills to none, plus 2 chaplains and assuming you preped it with a blast marker prior to the assault - +5 on the dice roll to you. A 700 point formation knocked out by a 650 formation that is now intact and ready to do all sorts of damage.
I've assaulted with far more, and it's always bounced off- poor luck does play a part. But when the game is won or lost with this activation- I'd like more than a slim chance of success.
You've ignored the Tank Co likely outnumbering at the end, BM on the Air Assault force caused by flak, Inspiring Commissars and the very likely Supporting Fire of other IG formations.
Of course, all sorts of things can go wrong, but its to illustrate how you have the toys to do the damage
Agreed, the best laid plans can go wrong in war and wargaming. But the odds of these actions going in the Marines favour are slim, or at least under 50% for him in my experience.
When the outcome of these actions means either- Marine win, game continues, still grasping with fingernails to pull a game win,
or- IG/opp wins, Marines crippled, game all but over, I'd prefer more in my favour.
Nope. Moving nothing is indeed not moving. The clause it there to allow scenario specific stuff not to die. For instance an important comms bunker and so on. Fearless units can hang about in base contact, but of course they can't move into base contact. Note a broken unit does not get to fire flak shots though (I think that happened in one game).
I'll have to have a re-read of the rules and errata. I was sure there was a 5cm destroy zone for Fearless broken units added in the Errata, and that a Movement Action is movement even if you don't move.
Generally go faster, be more resilant to breaking (after an assault the a marines are oft combat ineffective for anything bar hiding near an objective) and can actually ff enemies like those pesky skimmers.
The A marines are a better thawk load, hence why they are overcosted for a ground role, but the bikes are still an ok cheap firefight load out for a thunderhawk. Only 200 points you know  Thats cheaper unit for unit than a marines.
Its a better ground option I feel. Air assaulting wise the a marines have the edge, but there are other marine tactics
I think we roughly agree, Assault Marines are better in Air Assault, Bikes are better with Ground Forces. Unfortunately ground forces are rubbish with the Codex army list.
So that leaves Air Assaults and Assault Marines.
Two things are of key importance to marines. The first is putting a blast marker on the enemy. The second is supporting fire when assaulting. The land speeder is ideal  Can move 70cm on a double, straight over any intervening terrain. Considering it can garrison that means the enemy formation you wish to terminate is going to be in a world of hurt.
I'm getting quite sold on these Land Speeders, I've faced them once and they died pretty quickly, but it does sound like they have uses.
Well, the tau list has the ability to have no weaknesses, out activate anything and deliver from orbit stuff in the opponents back field. Pray the tau don't decide to run you out of activations, then have a hero appear and planetfall those two moray with multiple fire AP/AT weaponry down on your armies rear, crossfiring them and then swiss cheesing them!
Fortunately he didn't use Spacecraft. He got bored of Tau because they could never use Engagements, so never decisively routed enemies- just bombarded from afar.
He switched to another Special Rule haven- Eldar.
Sadly it tends to be a quite aggressive army in most builds!
Meh, I've found Guard to be much more aggressive- since they have the numbers, resilience and firepower to be able too.
Thats purely a fluff thing. Look at orks, they are lost without fighter bombers. Hell I came second at the weekend using a great gargant. Surely I was actually using an 'armies of orkdom' army? Likewise every Guard army now needs navy support (I think). For fluff reasons the options are seperated out on the army selection sheets, but really they are in the same list.
I understand 'background excuses' are irrational, after all it is just pushing tiny bits of plastic around with numbered cubes, but I just can't shift them.
Take you Ork example, is there background for an elite, highly-trained, completely autonomous military faction that is recorded in numerous places as fighting alone, effectively?
You can play without but then you have to use I think (I'm sure others can prove me wrong) some element of air/space. This marine list is primarily an aerospace force (check out the salamanders or scion of iron for something different). I find a good titan substitute is a landing craft supported by terminators. The terminators and the rest of the army clear the flak from the target and prep it. Then you drop in the beast, possibly after having a thunderhawk land nearby to provide localised flak, or move up some infantry with a hunter. You load it up with whatever takes your fancy.
Different load outs include terminators with either devs or assault marines (the latter with vindicators) and a formation of vehicles, or the simplest, 2 formations of tacticals, or the shootyist 3 formations of devs. Regardless you can get a lot of hits, MW if you so desire, and chaplains. You should break anything you target and then have several intact formations ready to go in the opponents half.
But generally big air drops or multiple air drops or orbital drops take the place of titans (or of course work with them).
You've basically described my current Marine army, Landers and Gunships are the 'Titans' of the list.
They are prepared to make that sacrifice  I feel they have better firepower point for point than tacticals - though it is mostly for harrasment.
In most shooting events I've fought, the Infantry have -1 to hit from tank cover. This means missile launchers, etc are better shooting at tanks, as you get more 'bang for your buck' popping tanks.
How do Scouts achieve this?
Also, Scouts are smaller formation with weaker armour, this means the die and/or break even quicker than Tacticals.
I think tacticals are also up there for universal usefulness. Devs are a bit more specialised but again make it into most lists.
Agreed, they are common- but nowhere near as good value for pts as Termies. Fortunately online list makers have realised Termies are actually a decent unit, so have upped their pts- can't have Marines having a good unit can we-   .
Yes and they both won tourneys, beating stuff like warlord titans, lemon russ companies and so on. But it is regarded as the hardest army to use, with probably the guard being the easiest to pick up and play with out of the official armies (orks conversely are I think the most balanced).
Check out the tourny stats to see how well they do overall. Marines (white scars and regular) are currently from last years campaigning on 55 wins 60 losses  and 23 draws. But equally have won 3 tournaments.
Aye, and it will take a better (and luckier) general than I to make Marines work.
I've started with IG (proxied for now), such a refreshing change to be able to compete with any opposing army face to face rather than hide and hope you have incredibly dice rolls at just the right moments.
Looking throgh your bat reps I can't see many 'clipping' assaults. That is when you attack one side of an enemy formation. The idea is after counter charges all your troops can shoot, but very few of his can. Get some supporting fire in as well and you should wipe out your targets, suffer next to no casualties and be laughing all the way to the bank!
If you move into base with one Leman Russ (we'll use the Tank Company as example) and with Assault Marines that's kind of mandatory- every Tank within 20cm can fight, and because you've clipped just that extreme edge one, the rest use their better Firefight.
I don't know how you space your formations, but 80% of my units are within 20cm of the any other units. I.e. I can see clipping preventing 1 or 2 Leman Russ joining in, but the majority of the defenders can easily fight.
Now an Engagement where you only use Firefight, and so stop 15cm from that one tank, hmm, that is interesting- but would require Dev/Tact assaults only.
You can only kill that tank however- so at best +1. Whilst the enemy is still likely to outnumber.
Also you might want to think about objective placement. Against some armies it can near win the game on its own. Generally you want to ensure any objectives on his side of the table are away from cover and in the open (unless you have IC weapons). How close they are to you depends on how fast his army is and how fast yours is. An extreme examples would be marine air assault vs siegers. Here you would place the objectives 30cm from his baseline and on the short table edge, one on the left and one on the right. Now the slow enemy speed means one flank can't help the other whereas your troops can mass at will.
Agreed, I've been planning my Obj placement carefully. It's one of those, thankfully rare, WTF moments though- the best place to put an Objective is as far from any 'realistic' objective (forest, hill, building) as possible.
And Marines do use terrain. The enemy gets that -1 to-hit for that. So for example any attack with 5+ to-hit will mean that only half of the shots hit home when in cover. All infantry should almost always be in cover somehow. Remember that using just the vehicles, means that first enemy shoots them and then the now unprotected infantry. Though I often use Devastators with two Dreads in Thunderhawk with Dreads giving them mobile cover in case I have to hit target that has no cover nearby.
I was under the impression a formation fires simultaneously, so it can't shoot the tanks first, then infantry.
I too used to use Dread's with my Dev's- but I realised it makes an all-infantry formation into a mixed- so all your opponents AT fire has a target, a very dead target.
Marines will have serious problem doing castle defence. For that matter with Marines, I could smash you castle there in one retain action. You'd lose half of your forces. You've set them up for perfect intermingled clipping assault.
1. Teleport Terminators on the hill.
2. Bring in Thunderhawk full of Terminators with Chaplain to do an intermingled assault. Target is Whirlwinds and intermingle, both Tacticals and Devastators (as they seem to be within 5cm of Whirlwinds). Assault from the Tacticals side of the hill, keeping the hill between Terminators and Devs. Terminators will rip them apart and second set will support.
3. Retain and attack with second set of Terminators intermingling the second Tac and Russes. Assault from tacs side and *boom*.
That's nearly what happened TBH.
If Darren's Chaos had gone first that turn, he would have Engaged with 2 Daemon Bombs, my 'castle' would have been wiped out and the game would have ended there. So in hindsight poor deployment on my part.
The castle is mostly versus IG and Orks, who have little or no air assault/teleport capacity. It was my 2nd or 3rd game against Chaos, so I stuck with pre-planned anti-IG tactics until I've learnt the suprises. Now I know a castle against Chaos is risky, whilst I can be more aggressive with Air Assaults because they have some small formations I can take on and win.
For something different with Marines, I would suggest trying out the Scions in my signature. That gives you a armour heavy Marines. Not easy to use, but I like 'em.
I've looked at the list, it looks very interesting- I've been looking for a way to have a ground force that doesn't suck balls.
I have all the models to make a decent Scions list, apart from the compulsory Promethius...grumble.
I think the Space Craft unit entries need to be editted to remove Drop Pod assault rules and options.
Thanks for the feedback, for now I'm working on a Guard army. I just don't find the Marine list competitive, nor fighting games with both hands tied behind my back.
Maybe I'll take them off the shelf after more game experience with my Guard.
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With only 11 strong companies (russ plus hydra) you only have to take fire a half dozen times before you break, and when you do every time you come under fire more of your very expensive tanks die.