In the Company of Marines



(Dave still cannot keep a straight face when he sees my pink 'n' purple Marines)

One of my fevered ideas, of which I have many, is to field a full company of one hundred Space Marines in a game of 40k. In a moment of weakness on Thursday, Gav (aka Claws & Fists, the head honcho around these parts) agreed to satisfy this most indulgent of requests and so, this coming Thursday, we will take to the table to fight out this Battle Royale.

In the Grey Corner...

...will be Gav's trusty Space Wolves - what else! Gav and I have played may games over the last two-and-a-bit years, since we both re-entered the hobby (originally unbeknownst to each other) and I struggle to recall a time when I have bested his wolfpelt-clad saviours of humanity.

In the Pink 'n' Purple Corner...

...will be my Chaos Space Marines, joined by about another seventy more Marines that I bought cheap from a mate of mine during the summer. These hundred power-armoured warriors will form the core of my Company of Marines for Thursday night's game, but my quandary is, which codex is best suited to fielding a full company of foot slogging Marines? The only requirement is that there are one hundred Space Marines on the table at the start of the game. They can be Scouts, regular Marines, Assault troops or even Terminators. I'm also happy to use a few Rhinos, as long as the points do not exceed 1,750pts.

My choices are:

 - Codex: Chaos Space Marines
 - Codex: Blood Angels
 - Codex: Space Wolves

The CSM book is my prefered option, as it allows me to field twenty-man strong Troops units which easily satisfies the purely numerical requirement of one hundred marines, however we all know that unless you play Plague Marines & Obliterators & Lash Prince, the CSM book is, umm, a little underwhelming, shall we say.

The BA book is a nice alternative, as the selection of a few Sanguinary Priests - with their 6" Feel No Pain bubble - will go a long way to keeping my infantry alive long enough to get into bolter range.

The third choice is to fight fire with fire. What better to fight Space Wolves with, but another army of Space Wolves? The real attraction here is the ability to field three full-strength units of Cheese-Fangs. As my foot-slogging army will be perilously under-powered in the big-gun department, the ability to fire Missile Launchers (and the odd Lascannon) at six different targets simultaneously is just to good to overlook.

So, it's over to you, the trusty crew of the good ship Claws & Fists. What do you think is the best way of fielding a full company of Marines?  

What do points make? Prizes

Just get some better glasses Bruce, not bigger cards

One of the things Dave talks about a lot is a unit "making its points back". Now, this is a very easy way of evaluating a units performance in a game - if a unit cost 200 points, has it killed 200 points worth of stuff? If it's killed more than that, it's done well, if it's killed less than it hasn't.

However, we've talking the last couple of weeks about how it's a very narrow view of a unit's effectiveness. Anyway, here's a couple of examples of when it's not always a useful benchmark...

Wolf Scouts

As we all know, these guys can arrive late or in the wrong place entirely. It's also possible that even if they do turn up in the right place, they might not "make their points back". However, what they do is put that element of doubt in your opponent's mind when deploying. They also make your opponent want to keep moving their vehicles so that you don't get autohits on them in combat, thus lessening their firepower. Then, when they do arrive, they usually take out a critical unit (eg a squad sat on an Objective) or a dangerous unit that's difficult to take out at range (eg tanks) Plus, your opponent then has to deal with the Scouts since they can't risk having them run around in their backfield and anything focusing on the Scouts isn't focusing on the rest of your army.

Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield Terminators

This particular example if from a game two weeks ago between Dave's Space Marines and Keith's Grey Knights. Dave's Termies Deep Struck in right next to Keith's Purifiers whose Rhino had been immobilised the previous turn. The threat from the Terminators meant that Keith shot pretty much his entire army at them before charging in with the Purifiers. The Terminators were promptly wiped out. Clearly the Terminators hadn't "earned their points back" but they had saved the rest of the army from being shot and had also cost the Purifiers a turn of movement towards the rest of Dave's gunline.

Land Speeders

Yep, the Heavy Flamer is great and of course the Multi-Melta is brilliant. However, the best thing about Speeders is their ability to block enemy units. It's entirely possible that the Speeder won't actually kill anything during the course of a game but if it can slow down an assault for a turn or two then that can make all the difference.

Rhinos

For me, this is the absolute best example. When did you ever have a Rhino kill 35 points of stuff? Never. But its ability to move your army around quickly and safely is worth every one of those points. Even after it's disgorged its squad it can make a nuisance of itself by blocking the enemy and tank shocking.


Is there a better 'force multiplier' out there than the humble Rhino? Lower than a King? Aw, you get nothing for a pair; not in this game!

Codex Review - Wolf Standard

Captured at Talavera

What is it?

Sometimes a Grey Hunter who has shown exceptional bravery will be given the honour of carrying the Wolf Standard into battle. In game terms, it's a 10 point upgrade for a unit of Grey Hunters.

What does it do?

For one round of assault you can re-roll all '1's. So, that's difficult terrain rolls, dangerous terrain rolls, to hit rolls, to wound rolls, saving throws and Mark of the Wulfen rolls.

Any Good?

For a long time, I didn't take this but Mick kept going on about how awesome it was so I gave it a try. First couple of games using it, I rolled nothing but '2's! Since then, I've had times where it's been brilliant and times where it's been underwhelming.


For example, I've taken charges from Necron Wraiths and Blood Angel Assault Squads and taken no wounds thanks to the banner. It's also great for Power Fists especially when you've rolled a '1' for the to wound roll.

Problems

The way that it's worded is that it affects the "following assault phase". This means that you have to declare using it during the movement phase or the shooting phase. This is especially important on your opponent's turn. Don't get me wrong, most people are good if you don't announce it unit the assault phase but they'd be well within their rights to not allow it during a tournament. In fact, people are entitled not to charge your unit if you've declared you're using the Standard which would mean you've wasted it, although I've never actually seen this done.

Combos

As mentioned, you get a re-roll for your MotW rolls with the Standard so that's a good mix as it means potentially more attacks and also potentially another chance for rends. I've also seen people run a Wolf Guard in Terminator Armour with their Grey Hunters which can make that guy very hard to kill for a turn. Even more so if he has a Storm Shield making him an ideal way of soaking up Power Weapon attacks.

In fact, for me, the best thing about the standard is the re-roll of the saving throw. Against anything without armour-ignoring weapons it makes your Grey Hunters almost like Terminators for a turn.

Big or Small?

I've only ever used the Standard on big squads (8-10 models) reasoning that more dice rolled = more '1's rolled = more re-rolls. However, I could see an argument for using it with small squads, since in that case each '1' your roll is proportionally more important. I'd love to know what peoples' views are on this.

Wolf Standard, yay or nay? Please feel free to share your sagas of '1's magically becoming '6's below the line...

10 Week Challenge - Week 0.5: Tactics

Punderful

This post is just intended as a bit of a mind-dump of thoughts I've been having around my new list, especially with regard to the Wolf Guard. These are all just generalisations rather than hard and fast rules - a jumping off point that can change depending on opponent/mission.

Kill Points

Split off all of the Wolf Guard and then Deep Strike the Drop Pod somewhere out of the way in order to try and deny KPs. Obviously subject to change if there is an enemy vehicle that must die.

Single Rock list

eg Land Raider with TH/SS Terminators or anything that is difficult to take out at range with Missile Launchers such as Obliterators or Leman Russes.

Keep 3/4 Combi-Melta Wolf Guard in the Drop Pod and Deep Strike into Melta range to (hopefully) take out the threat. The best thing with this is that even if you don't blow up the vehicle, the Drop Pod is still sat right in front of it so it has to waste a turn of movement going around it.

There are some shades of grey with this though - for example what about Predators? They're a pain to take out at long range (with this list) but would it be worth suiciding the WG just to take one out? Would it be better to drop the two Cyclone Missile Launchers in about 48" away to get side shots?

Shooty lists

For gunline armies the Wolf Scouts will go BEL with the 2 Power Fist WG to walk on and take out as much as possible.

Assaulty lists

For these, I'm thinking about infiltrating the Scouts and using them as roadblock. Whether they get a Powerfist or just a Combi-Melta guy would be dependent on exactly what's coming their way.

BEL

Actually, speaking of BEL, would there be any mileage in putting the CMLs with the Wolf Scout packs? Then if they came on the "wrong" board edge, they'd still have some ranged shooting.

Flexibility

Argh! My head hurts and I've barely even started! I think my list might have too many deployment options. I've never been great at deployment so I'm hoping that having to think about it more will make me better (that's a "glass half full" line if I ever saw one) 

I guess that the big question will be, "is there something that absolutely must be stopped on Turn 1?" If so, get podding and try and kill it otherwise deploy normally.

Even writing this conclusion, I've started thinking about Drop Podding in CMLs for Dawn of War(!) At least we'll see how the list fares with its first outing tomorrow. Until then, does anyone have any tips?

More Space Wolves Nostalgia

After posting last week's Space Wolf display pictures, I noticed that a couple of the old 1st/2nd ed Space Wolf boxes were conspicuous by thier absense. Luckily, I still have mine:



Assault Cannon AND Heavy Flamer in a 5-man squad - those were the days




It's not a new thing; Grey Hunters have always been cool




Bjorn, when he was a very, very heavy lump of metal



The Problem with Plasma and Power Weapons Part 2

Today's post is brought to you by the letter "P"

Part 1 here

Just a quick addendum really, based on comments on the original article and some things I was thinking about while writing this.

The prevalence of cover

So, S7 AP2 is brilliant but it's so easy in the current edition to get that 4+ cover save for your infantry that, it's actually not that good. Especially when you compare it to Melta. Most of the time you're firing Melta at vehicles where, smoke launchers apart, it's a lot harder to get cover (although as Andy says, what is the difference between 49% and 50%?)

Boys before toys

In general, Power Weapons are 15 points in the pace Wolf Codex. Grey Hunters are exactly the same price. Personally, I'd rather have the extra GH - it's one more guy your opponent has to kill to wipe the squad out, it's another guy adding to your firepower.

It may surprise you to hear this, but I actually like Plasma Guns and Power Weapons, I just can't justify taking them :o(

The Knights of Ni

We want... a shrubbery

2+ is the new black

So, here is my Grey Knight list of 2+ goodness (oh, and don't worry Kirby, we all know that 3++ is really the new black)

HQ
Librarian, Sanctuary, Shrouding, Warp Rift, 3 Servo Skulls

Troops
10 Terminators, 2 Psycannons, Nemesis Warding Stave
10 Terminators, 2 Psycannons, Nemesis Warding Stave

Heavy Support
Nemesis Dreadknight,  Heavy Psycannon
Nemesis Dreadknight,  Heavy Psycannon
Nemesis Dreadknight,  Heavy Psycannon

That comes to 1630, so not quite enough to fit in an assassin. Instead, let's pimp up the units a bit. Psybolt ammo adds a bit extra shooting punch to the Terminators and a Brotherhood Banner gives everyone in the unit +1 attack and lets you automatically activate your Force Weapons (handy against all that 3D6 Eldar/Tyranid nonsense)

We shouldn't leave the Librarian out of this, so let's give him some shiny stuff too. A Master-Crafted Halberd, Digital Weapons, Psybolt ammo, The Quickening and Might of Titan use up the remaining points nicely. Okay, so the list in full...


HQ
Librarian, Sanctuary, Shrouding, Warp Rift, Quickening, Might of Titan, Master-Crafted Halberd, Psybolt Ammo, Digital Weapons, 3 Servo Skulls

Troops
10 Terminators, 2 Psycannons, Nemesis Warding Stave, Brotherhood Banner, Pysbolt Ammo
10 Terminators, 2 Psycannons, Nemesis Warding Stave, Brotherhood Banner, Psybolt Ammo

Heavy Support
Nemesis Dreadknight,  Heavy Psycannon
Nemesis Dreadknight,  Heavy Psycannon
Nemesis Dreadknight,  Heavy Psycannon

Pros

2+ - it's a big f-you to all the missile spam out there
Versatile - it's a list that's good at shooting and combat. Plus since everything can reliably Deep Strike using the Servo Skulls, it's got some good deployment options.
Cheap - it comes to about £175 from Dark Sphere 

Cons
Small - every guy who dies is keenly felt
Unfocused - The Dreadknights look cool and fit into the "2+" theme but would more Terminators be better? The Librarian with his grab-bag of powers also feels a little unfocused.

Terminator options

I'm also a little unsure of how to arm the Terminators. Currently I'm thinking

2x Storm Bolter/Sword
2x Storm Bolter/Halberd
2x Storm Bolter/Hammer
Psycannon/Sword
Psycannon/Halberd
Storm Bolter/Stave
Storm Bolter/Banner

Although I'm not sure what to give the Justicar. I really good at failing psychic tests so he's probably going to die quite quickly and I don't know whether I'd be better losing a Sword, a Halberd or a Hammer...

What do you think, could this list work? How would you arm the Terminators? What order would you take wounds on the squad?