I've recently recieved a large package of marines to round out my novamarines to essentially any size I want to make them. I'm looking to build this stuff up and sell off the excess. Can someone please give me some guidance in how to build the formations (character placement for example) and how many formations I'm likely to need. I'd like the option of latter on using some of the variant lists, mainly the Scions. I'd like to be able to build 3000-6000 point lists with plenty of tailoring available at the lower levels.

Firstly Character placement:

Am I right in thinking Tacticals should probably have Captains or nothing, Devs have Librarians, Assaults have Chaplains?

Should I build a character stand for a bike formation? Or are they not as useful?

What should I place in Terminator Formations? I'm thinking a Chaplain and a Captain in 2 formations currently.

Are there any other formations that need characters?

Next Duplicate Formations:
How many Terminator Formations should I keep? Is 2 the practical maximum for competitive lists? Or do people run 3 or 4?

Bike Formations? Any good? Any reason to have a second formation?

Land Raiders? I have a million of them, they aren't worth much to resell, will I ever field 4 formations, or is 2 or 3 more likely?

Scout Formations? Is 2 enough, or should I make 4?

Whirlwinds? 2 worth it? Do I need 3?

Thunderhawks? 2 or 3? Mainly thinking about how many in a competitive 3000 list with this choice.

Thanks, sorry it's so long.

Though certainly characters can be most effectively employed in certain formations (Devs make best use of the 3+ FF for Librarians etc), they shouldn't dictate your plan, but assaist it.

For instance you take two terminator formations. Most people slap chaplains inside and send them off like forlorn hopes. maybe instead you would want to use them in tandem. So the Librarian terminator formation shoots up the target, then supports the 2nd formation charging in, then provides support for an air assault and so on. Hell I've seen one with a Librarian teleported in to support two thunderhawk assaults on either side.

Likewise assaults normally pick up chaplains for air assaults, a loaded thunderhawk can have +2 to resolution that way. But you could be trying to use them as a swarm and want captains to co-ordinate the survivors attacks.

Likewise Devs with a chaplain get a definate +1 to resolution, instead of maybe getting a kill with a Librarian.

Tacticals I've seen with all three, the stat line supports any really.

Generally the order of frequency is
Chaplain (easy to use, good effect)
Captain (a tactical choice and often a hard one if you are running low on activations, normally replaced by a supreme commander in my experience)
Librarian (rarest, hardest to use as effectively as Chaplains)

Bikes benift most easily from Chaplains, but the stat line makes them similar to tacticals in that they can use all three.

Bikes incidentally are excellent, far better than assault marines that really need to be air inserted to be any good.

I've seen people jump titans with 3 formations. Generally 3 is the most as thats all a captain can take with him if you are thinking of teaming up.

Land Raider formations probably no. But if you are using EpicUK lists they are very good transports to have.

Scouts are the bees knees, I've seen aries that use them as the main troop type!

I can't imagine ever using 3 formation of whirlwinds.

Matts one of the best marine players, he regularily uses three.

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I would suggest writing out some theoretical army lists for any list you would like to play.

As an example, I did this with Salamanders and Scions because both feature mounted infantry and armor, especially LR variants.  I found that with the same set of models I could field 4500-5000 points in each army, depending on how they were organized.  Now I have a defined set of models to acquire.

I've done the same thing with other combinations of armies.  In addition to the Sallie/Scions combo, I organized these:

Codex/Blood Angel/Raven Guard (my home-brew RG list) - My Codex army is infantry-heavy and armor-light.  That means it fits with both the BA and RG lists.

White Scars/Dark Angels - White Scars bikes double nicely as Ravenwing.  Speeders work as good support for White Scars (Typhoons do a nice "counts as" for White Scars Tempests), and also as additional Ravenwing elements for DAs.  First Company Terminators with Transport for the White Scars double as Deathwing and Ironwing (for the old-skool people) for the DAs.

Am I right in thinking Tacticals should probably have Captains or nothing, Devs have Librarians, Assaults have Chaplains?

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Neal