Hi,

Have a game set up for Wens against my main opponent using Beil-Tan Eldar (very Aspect heavy, light on SH/Titans.) I have generally been getting the hang of Steel Legion, but tried SMs for the first time a couple of weeks ago and got my as(s)tartes handed to me on a plate... Hoped someone could show me where i was going wrong.

Think i tried to do everything last time - bit of air, bit of termies, but of armour...lot of nothing.

This time i thought i'd try going hard in the air with 2 thunder bricks with a small but solid delaying force (tacs/wirlwinds) holding ground and setting up for the air assaults. The scouts/Speeders/preds designed to look lively and making sure the tacs don't get flanked.


Incompertus, 3000 POINTS
Codex Marines (170711)
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ASSAULT [225]
4 Assault units, Chaplain

DEVASTATOR [300]
4 Devastator Units plus Transport, Librarian

THUNDERHAWK [200]
1 Thunderhawk gunship


DEVASTATOR [400]
4 Devastator Units plus Transport, Chaplain, 2 Dreadnoughts

THUNDERHAWK [200]
1 Thunderhawk gunship


PREDATORS [250]
2 x Predator Annihilators, 2 x Predator Destructors

TACTICAL [425]
6 Tactial units plus Transport, Hunter, Captain

SCOUT [200]
4 Scouts plus Transport, 2 Razorback LAS

WHIRLWIND [300]
4 Whirlwinds

LAND SPEEDER [200]
5 Land Speeder


THUNDERBOLTS [150]
2 Thunderbolt Fighters

THUNDERBOLTS [150]
2 Thunderbolt Fighters

Two Thunderhawks is average from an air assault list, 3-4 or 2 plus a Landing Craft would be a heavy air list.

The list generally looks reasonable, 12+ is a good number of formations. Switch one of the Razorbacks from your Scouts to the Tacticals though. That makes the BTS slightly bigger and its always a best to have 1 Razorback per formation as that way you don't reduce the numbers of Rhinos that way and you have an empty ablative Razorback to go at the front.

These are more personal playstyle suggestions now, but to my tastes you have too many characters and while Chaplains are good I don't really rate Librarians or Captains. Eldar have good AA and while one formation of Thunderbolts may be useful, two is a bit wastefull. I'd perhaps drop the Captain and Librarian and replace a Thunderbolts formation with a second formation of Predators.

I am not sold on whirlwinds, they need to sustain to be at their most effective, yet this tends to leave them quite exposed as the other marine units are very fluid.....

Against eldar, it's very wise to try and nobble their AA early on, they have a lot of it and it's very effective (although if using NetEA lists you won't have to worry about 75cm lance fire prism AA!) once you can fly your thawks in relatively safely, you can hit them very hard

just be wary of canny eldar players screening the vulnerable guardians with wave serpents in engagements, your termies/assaults can't BTB the troops, and the skimmers force FF.... not pleasant!!

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I'd also drop the captain in the tacs, if they're not going in to the main engagements, the commander ability will be of limited use, either a chaplain (for the +1 combat res) or librarian for the extra MW FF attack would be better choices

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In my experience I've had better luck with my Predators being one pattern or the other.

I agree with Kyuss that Librarian > Captain. I almost never leave home without a Supreme Commander though, nothing worse than blowing that critical roll.

I tend to add some scouts to screen the arty if you take them. They're somewhat blitz sitting formation.

Land Speeders often benefit from the addition of a Tornado (which is free IIRC) for laying a blast marker before supporting an assault from another formation. Really depends on how you olay them though.

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Thanks guys.

Must admit, tacitals were useless last time and gave away my BTS with a Shining Speer massacre... Though i should give them another shot, but thought the Captain would allow them to do a big counter assault - bit stuck what to do with them now...

Thinking i might be better skinning the tacs down and moving the BTS to the devs with Dreds who should be fighting on my terms ?

Surprised no one mentioned warhounds - better or worse than a 2nd pred unit ?

Take the point on t-bolts - they were there to escort the bricks and intercept any potential interceptors... Other solutions ? Unfortunately i am prob also facing the EpicUK fireprisms. Would Warhounds be a good way to take them out first? Terminators ?

At 3.5k I always have two Warhounds. At 3k I find them hard to cost justify and taken one it always seems to get shot up and die before they do anything. May be that's their point in a marine list: bullet magnet?

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Most of the succesful marine lists in the UK scene tend to have a pair of warhounds, very useful for clearing ground flak and providing macro shots....also bullet magnets and distraction purposes!

I would say that the advice given to me when facing eldar is to deal with ground flak (especially fire prisms) through 'liberal application of warhound'

one other option would be to bring an empty thawk on, just in range of a single prism, take the hit, hoping you don't get shot down, then shoot back and try to knock it out with your battlecannon, breaking the formation for the 2nd thawk

doesn't help much against armies with 2 or more units of fire prisms though.......I think in many games, it comes down to whether the marine player can knock out the eldar AA before the eldar can reduce his activations significantly.....

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Pulled this off in turn one perfectly until i rolled eight 1/2s in my assault saves with my dev/assault unit thawk... 5:10 combat res and pop went the thawk too!

Could have been a crushing victory but was a hard fought draw in the end - 1:1 in 4th round with a lot of dead on both sides... However a massive improvement from the turn 1 route last time and a greatly increased fun was had by us both !

Thanks for all your advice!

Next time i get my eldar back for revenge...

Is it really needed with the Initiative 1 though? I find it better to spend the 100 points on more units with marines and probably take a Supreme with them less than 20% of the time.

Tacticals do make a good BTS and Blitz Guard. A Chaplain would be better to keep them alive.

I'd probably drop all the Thunderbolts if going against AA heavy Eldar. Use Wahounds, Terminators, or long range Thunderhawk battlecannon to kill the AA.

Glad to hear you did better and had a good game

I seem to have an uncanny back to blow marine activations once the BM start getting laid down. Since youre usually playing at a disadvantage for formation size and activations you live and die on setting the pace if the battle so your opponents reacting to you and not vice versa. More than once I've had a battle turn because of a failed roll.

OTOH I'm also the guy that seems to get my titans TK'd before they accomplish anything too

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in my last (and indeed first and only) game using marines, I went up against Steve54's tau, made the mistake of bringing a thawk loaded with assaults and devs on to try to wipe out a broken hammerhead formation with battlecannon sniping, he CAP-ed it with his barracudas, my hunter missed them, then they damaged the thawk, then next turn I took the chance at ground attacking his firewarrior blitz, only for the thawk to be shot down on approach by his lone skyray

the moral of the story for me at least is never go in when any AA can hit your thawk....

I also found the Supcom very useful, and while he's 100 points, unlike other armies, marines can't buy another activation for that....

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Yep, i did regret my lack of S. Commander on the 4th turn of rolling a 1 for activating my Thunderbolts... Fluffling Imperial Navy! Bring me some proper SM air power !

You know we got a "pure" astartes list with Marine flyers and none of those pesky and unreliable navy flyers over on the Iron Hands thread that just happens to need some more play testers. Just sayin'

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Hey! I was shamelessly begging for playtests of my pure Astartes list with Marine flyers and none of those pesky and unreliable navy flyers before it was cool! (The Apocrypha of Skaros)

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