Ok, so I've been playing Epic for a little over a year, and at this point I think I really need to "start over." I've been getting throttled so badly in all the games I've been playing, that I think I need to look at the fundamental basics to see what I'm doing wrong.

(I have emailed back and forth with Dave about this and his help has been invaluable, but I also would like to hear opinions of others.)

My favorite units in the game are Terminators, Thunderhawks, and Drop Pods. I always take terminators in my army list and would like to include both a turn 1 drop pod attack and thunderhawk air assault, but that tends to not work too well because it ties up a lot of points. If I do that then I cannot afford whirlwinds and my other ground forces are severely limited for defending objectives on my half of the table.

So....I try to take two out three of my favs, but then I still can't come up with an effective marine list and battle plan, and I end up just flailing wildly about the battlefield.

Scouts....I just find hard to play with. I understand ZoC and screening other forces, but I'm still having trouble recognizing how to best deploy and seeing opportunities to use them effectively. If I take two units of scouts, then I REALLY don't know what to do with them all.

Supreme Commander is, of course, very important to a SM force to get the re roll, but I have a hard time using them and the unit they are included in. I don't want to lose him in battle, and the unit he is in always ends up sitting in the back and not doing much of anything......or I charge him with other forces into battle and always end up losing him.
(I have a similar problem using units of tacticals in general....but thats a whole other issue.)

Air power bugs the hell out of me because if I take thunderhawks, and my opponent takes fighters, and I take fighters to counter his fighters....then it quickly becomes a standoff and no aircraft are used and all those points are wasted. And don't get me going on hunters.....in all the games I've played with hunters and all the shots I've taken at enemy aircraft, I can count on one GD finger the number of times they have ever done anything for me.

So that's my rant. How can I make my air attacks most effective, use scouts, tactical marines, and SC in offensive roll? And how to build the good army lists.

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That's not a moon....it's a space station....

Mate,

I have played alot of Marine games and had my arse handed to me until I stopped wanting to do everything. By the look of what you have said, you are yet to reach this point. You need to make a decission on how you intend to play each game, you can't at 3k points do everything. So decide on a set of tactics for a particular game and tailor your foce to suit that game. You need build your force arround an focal point. Its commonly refered to in military terms as a main effort, that component of your force that is going to win the fight. Up to 2/3 of your force should be allocated to a main effort. The remainder is a supporting effort that should deny your enemy objectives and support your main effort in achieving your goals.

Dont be afraid to lose the SC, yeah it suck but war is about accepting risk and calculating what will happen and having a go. If you sit him at the back he is doing nothing. By the sounds of things you are not combining your battlefield effects to achieve victory. You must use a layered approach to the contact, before infantry can assult you need to have treated the target to some indirect and direct fire. You have options, Whirlwinds and aircraft for indirect and a miriad of ground based direct fire units at your disposal. Looking at the example above, you are going to drop, sight your bombardment close to blitz, you should cover a unit that is guarding it, particularly if you come in early, this accounts for your indirect fire and has a pretty good effect against most units. Don't sight your Drop site at exactly the same location, this allows the deathwinds to add to the work and spread the love and you have now layered your direct fire over your indirect. if you drop multiple formations, do a combined assault on the poor unsuspecting foe and wipe them out. Marines have small units so combine to achive better numbers, load up with Chaplins to get the +1, every little bit helps.

Objectives, you cant get them all, so select what you want to achieve in a game and go from there. Aim for three, this gives you some flexibility, and if opportunity knocks, take it. Your force an strategy should match up. Look at what you want to do and go from there. Consider your opponent, you should aim to target his weaknesses. whilst shielding your own. An example, look at Guard, they are great at shooting, have heaps of good ranged weapons; however, are very weak against assaults. So match a strenght against it, go with a assault focussed army, Termies, Tacs in Pods, and some TH with combinations in them. Aim your objectives accordingly, Take and Hold, Blitz and TSNP. Don't try and drop on everything, drop on a single point and expand from there. They are not that strong so loading them up with BM will break many units and you can get your third. Don't get caught in a shooting match, they have too much firepower for you to match.

From this you can expand using TH with Devs and Assaults to widen the breach you have caused. Teleporting Termies on turn 2 can further add to the confusion you have caused by your initial assault. Having a couple of warhounds and some speeders on your table side can keep tanks busy an move in later in the game to support your main effort.

Consider your opponent, what is his force construct. By looking at his units you can identify his strategy for the game. Avoid going toe to toe, use the gaps in the line to get where you want to be. Try and get inside his head, if you play the same person alot, you will be able to do this to good effect after a few games, everyone has a style of play.

Enough for now, seehow you go looking at those principles.

Cheers
Aaron

Very briefly

1. Concentrate your forces - they work much better when mutually supporting each other
2. Use THawks and Landing Craft to deliver major assaults where you need them - but make sure you have prepped the target first, and have other support as needed.
   An air-borne Terminator assault is probably the best point-for-point attack; but the relative lack of mobility means you need to pick your target carefully.
   
   (A very good alternative is THawk carrying Bikes, who have a mean attack and usefull mobility/support capabilities)
3. Use TBolts to harrass / destroy *broken* enemy formations as their primary role, Intercept enemy air formations as their secondary role and only consider them as AA if really desperate
   
4. Space Craft permits Planetfalling which can be tricky to master, but is devastating when used well - try to pick weaker areas of the battlefield where you can create an advanced base of operations, not just as an outright 'assault tool'.
5. When planetfalling (or air-assaulting) consider where your reserves are and how they can be used / linked to the more forward formations. If you split your forces too widely, you give you opponent the opportunity to concentrate on part of your divided army (usually with only one result)
6. Be bold in your strategies - Marines are one of the most mobile armies, but cautious in your tactics - only risk your forces where they can get good results.

On scouts: I can barely imagine a list without them. Their benefit is beyond their stats and instead simply the effect they have on the opposing player's tactics. This is generally due to their position, or the possibility of what they might do. If you leave them in blocking positions or near objectives, the opponent either has to let them exert their influence or do something about them. And everybody hates having to do something about cheap scout formations, to the extent that they often fail to. Not only that, but it's often not as easy to get rid of them as you might think. Overwatch always makes people think twice about assaults, barrages are a waste because scouts are spread out, and shooting is rarely decisive unless a lot of points are used (especially vs infantry, who get cover from being on overwatch no matter where they are).

I find either one of three things happens with scouts.
1. A large number of points is dedicated to eliminating them (multiple activations or an expensive activation). You win, because they just paid for themselves and allowed your main forces to achieve their mission.
2. They are ignored. You win, because they are happily continuing to contest objectives (2 if you place them close together), exert ZoC, and/or maintain the threat of overwatch.
3. They are broken but not eliminated. You win, because the opponent almost certainly used more points to do it, they still exert ZoC (be brave and leave them in blocking positions), and the threat of rallying still exists (again, it's what they might do).

Perhaps a bit simplistic, but IMO scouts are possibly the best value units in the game. They aren't going to win a decisive game changing assault, but they probably will dictate the flow of the battle in some way.

For marines specifically, remember that with SR5 you deploy your garrisons first. This means it is likely you'll be able to place your objectives to form a triangle with the blitz, near enough to the centre line for your garrisoned scouts to contest to objectives, block an advance high up the table AND start on overwatch. Remember also that yours are even more difficult to shift than other armies'. I'd probably take a formation of scouts, a formation of speeders, terminators, a thunderhawk with something assaulty, and whirlwinds (their presence makes things spread out and vulnerable to clipping assaults). Maybe some tacticals to get themselves entrenched in enemy territory, they're tough to shift.

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Interesting....

Yes, I'll admit that I haven't really been using my forces in combination lately, and it has cost me dearly. I usually don't keep in mind the objectives of the game and instead just focus on destroying my opponent.

Ginger: I know Tbolts don't cost that much, but it would seem to me that just using them to mop up broken units is still a waste of points, and I should use them for something more productive such as laying blast markers to prep an assault?

I did not even consider that Thawks can carry bikes, but since both assault marines and devastators are better in their areas of specialty, isn't it more important to hit hard and then have a base of operations?

Kurt: I know scouts are great and I want to get good at using them, I just usually don't see how they can be used effectively. I guess the only solution to that is to use them a lot.

I dont have titans for my SM army. I'll get some....someday....but right now I don't have them. When my opponent takes them I find the best thing to do it maneuver around and avoid/ignore them. As long as I don't have titans, is there ever any situation where SM should take them on?

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That's not a moon....it's a space station....

With the Tbolts, it really depends on what's happening in game as they can effectively hurt a broken unit or lay a pre-engage BM. For example, if you manage to break your opponents Leman Russ company with a Terminator teleport assault, I would much rather whittle them down with the Tbolts than lay a BM somewhere else.

TBolts are also a 'cheap' activation, very usefull where most of the activations tend to be very expensive.
As to 'mopping up' - they are really good at taking down broken commisars etc where the rest of the Marine army is busy elsewhere.

Played a game tonight....we had to call it due to time constraints, but it wasn't looking half bad for me......although the whole thing was kind of a tutorial because my opponent and I often stopped to analyze what was happening and for him to give advice.
I'm agreeing more and more that Tbolts should definitely NOT be used to try to shoot down enemy aircraft.....I did that at the end of turn 1 tonight to try to CAP an orc landing craft, and both my fighters were shot own for their effort. So that was 150 points lost instantly with nothing to show for it.
I'm understanding now that during engagements, it's not so much who necessarily has the larger force, but who can score more casualties and get more bonuses for the combat resolution roll. My terminators saved my right flank when they teleported in on turn 2 and stabilized things for me. With support from nearby FF units, they stopped one Orc advance. On the left flank a unit of bikes stopped a much larger unit of Orc buggys....which was, admittedly, lucky rolling on my part, but still it was cool to see a unit of bikes stop an opposing unit almost 3x it's size.
I found using a unit of tacticals to plant in a spot and dare my opponent to attack (maybe throw down a blast marker on a nearby enemy), then double with bikes to get into 15 cm support range and drop a blast marker with an attack bike, and finally engaging with speeders with bikes for support -- tended to work pretty well.
I didn't take Thawks or drop pods tonight. My next game will involve figuring out how to incorporate and play with one of them again.

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That's not a moon....it's a space station....

On TBolts, (and other fighters etc):-
- CAP uses up an early activation, which can be usefull to delay revealing what you intend to do,
- Intercept is a later activation that allows you to shoot down enemy a/c including enemy fighters and to lay BMs (both of which can give you air superiority)

Laying BMs on aircraft is almost as important as shooting them down. Working your aircraft within your own 'FLAK umbrella' (ie within 60cm of a Hunter) means that you can provide them some protection from the ground (or from other aircraft**). The same is true for ground troops. If you can, try to shoot at the enemy aircraft once as they fly on and once more as they fly away. Even if you do not hit them, you will lay two BMs that will make it much harder for that air formation to return the following turn. If you also intercept, you will lay a third BM (or a fourth etc) - - -

Always try to preserve your own A/c. Apart from Eldar, most a/c have poor armour, so position them where enemy AA cannot hit them. In the case of TBolts, you can stay at 30cm and still hit the target with rockets (and you might get lucky!). Also, don't forget fighters and Fighter Bombers can "Jink", so use it.

For any turn where you have 'air superiority' (where only your aircraft can fly over the battlefield), you can use the activation(s) to force the opponent to conform to your plans. This is done through supporting ground troops (prepping assaults etc), breaking formations and harassing broken formations. Up to a point, the more air power you have under these circumstances, the greater your chances of winning the game - through attrition if nothing else
(Note this is the main reason why air formations can become so powerfull - and why the 'air-game' can so easily unbalance E:A as a whole)

** Remember that flying A/c already positioned on the table can also use their AA against any enemy A/c that ends their movement within range and arc of fire.

On Scouts, people often forget that they have infiltrate and are almost as good as Tacticals when in assault (CC4+, but armour 5+).

As Kyrt says, earlier in the game their use is to deny areas through their own insignificance and using their ZoC. However Marine scouts are better than other races in CC and as such they can also take on enemy scouts to clear the path for marine advances. The addition of Razorbacks also makes them quite potent and resilient.

Later on they can be used to gain or hold objectives, and if they have retained their transport they can usually get to most objectives on the table

... and of course they have really long arms (20cm) which make them very useful to contest 2 or more objectives in the 3rd turn!

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has that actually been clarified yet? I remember a very long thread on here some time ago discussing the whole "aircraft AA umbrella" deal and I thought that the consensus was that aircraft only use their AA defensively when they are being attacked.

Yes, the detailed answer to this is in the Master FAQ, detailed in blue.

Note the slight difference between "Ground" AA and "Flying" AA:-
From the How to use bombers in 3000pt (competitive) tournament ga thread:-

And for what it is worth, robbypk's original thread has a lot of thoughts and suggestions on marine army and tactics.

Was working on some army lists this week, and one I came up with seemed - on paper - like it would be a lot of fun to play. It was fully air-assault. There would be nothing on the board initially.

Tactical and devastators units in drop pods
Two Thunderhawks loaded with devastator and assault units.
Couple units of thunderbolt fighters
Terminators to teleport in.

While it looked like tons of fun when made the list, I don't know how well a list like that would play in a real game. Has anyone here done an all-air assault army with SM?

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That's not a moon....it's a space station....