Judge my 2000 SM list

[humbletermagant]

Hey Hive, when Im not devouring the galaxy with my Tyranids I also have a space marine army.

Please offer comments and suggestions.

HQ
Librarian force sword bolt pistol

ELITES
5xTactical Terminators assault cannon
5xAssault Terminators SS/TH
Dreadnought twin linked lascannon missile launcher

TROOPS
10xTactical Squad combi flamer, flamer, missile launcher
10xTactical Squad combi melta, melta gun, lascannon
10xTactical Squad combi plasma, plasma gun, lascannon
5xScout sniper rifles, missile launcher, teleport homer

HEAVY SUPPORT
Predator lascannon sponsons, hunter killer missile
Vindicator seige shield
Vindicator seigh sheild

TRANSPORTS
Razorback twin linked lascannon storm bolter dozer blade
Razorback twin linked lascannon storm bolter dozer blade
Razorback lascannon plasma gun turret storm bolter dozer blade

Ok thats 2000 points, or should be anyway unless I forgot something. I realize I have no flyers or flyer defence Im kind of holding out for the 6th edition SM codex, Anyway what do you guys think of this list. The goal is to be a very very shooty gunline with multiple lascannons for...all the enemy vehicles Im sure to face...hm. I plan to just shoot my opponent to death and move combat squadded tac squads up to objectives in razorbacks. If the purge the alien game type comes up I would just leave the tac squads together as opposed to combat squadding them. I have a couple other SM units I could substitute such as a 10 man assault squad with plasma pistols and power sword. I also have a jump pack captain with relic blade and plasma pistol, and a jump pack chaplain with a power fist.

[infornography]

My first thought is how do your assault termies get to the fight? Are you deep striking them in or foot slogging it?

I don't generally find tactical terminators to be worth it. They are very powerful but they cost as much as assault terminators and don't do nearly as much damage in my experience.

Also you seem to be packing a good bit of melta and flamers. Have you considered taking Vulkan? he would twin link all your flamers and melta and master craft all of your thunderhammers.

I think hunter killer missiles are over costed. a one shot missile launcher isn't that great.

Las cannons on razorbacks tend to be too expensive, dozer blades are largely a waste of points because driving through area terrain isn't that risky without them and putting storm bolters on razorbacks is a waste if you intend to move them at all and kind of short ranged if you don't.

I would replace the librarian with Vulkan, drop the dreadnought, replace all the tac squad heavy weapons with multi meltas, drop all dozer blades, storm bolters, and siege shields, drop the tac termis, and get either a land raider or storm raven for the assault termies and vulkan to ride in.

That way you would have a more reliable gunline with tons of twin linked melta shots, one combat squad of tacs with twin linked flamers that can ride a razorback into battle, and your terminators riding in with an assault transport ready to drop them off into melee.

Codex:Space Marine's greatest asset is it's named HQs. Vulkan, Pedro, or Shrike are great for boosting some part of your army to significant effect. I would recommend trying to build a list around one of them. You are close to a good Vulkan list now. but Pedro can make a really nasty pure static gunline army with scoring Sternguard.

[rinark]

Looks ok but I would recommend getting a landraider if you want lots of lascannons. and no-one likes a 14 armor all round tank on their board.

[andy089]

i tried commenting yesterday but there was a problem so here I go again:

Either go down the flamer/Melta/Thunderhammer road and get vulkan as your HQ.
Or go for a gunline army, in which case you'd want sternguards and kantor as your HQ.

I don't really like Tactical Terminators because they are neither this nor that, especially for their price tag.
TH/SS Terminators are nice, especially if together with Vulkan and maybe inside a Land Raider, but I can't really see them in a gunline army.
Dreadnoughts went from barely okay to not really that good in 6th I think, so if you want to use one I would suggest an Ironclad with heavy flamers built into its CCWs inside a drop pod with Vulkan as an HQ or Dual Autocannons to keep the price low. While the range of a Lascannon and a missile Launcher match, pretty much all other attributes (S, AP) differ in a way that you would never really use it for the same target.
I would use sternguards if you want to go for shooting - combi weapons are great and so is the special ammo!

I think you can't go wrong with tactical squads, if you go down that Vulkan-route you'd try to get as many flamers and meltas as possible, otherwise, if you want to sit further back and shoot more scouts would probably be your thing or Lascannons as heavy weapons.

I think you should get 3 vindicators, just because it's cool but actually I am a huge fan of thunderfire cannons, especially with scouts with camo cloaks. Vindicators just don't have the range to be used in a gunline army.

if you are going for vulkan you might want to invest in a squadron of speeders with 2 multi-meltas. That would really mess up your opponents day.

Generally I think razorbacks should either have long range guns OR dozer blades. If your razorbacks had assault cannons those dozer blades would be worth it, but as it is they aren't really...


Another thing is that I would definitely get a fortification. Be it an imperial bastion or an aegis defence line (I am more for the bastion), with a gun on it (use the quad gun and have telion man it. That's really mean).

[humbletermagant]

Yeah Im Pretty Fickle And Have Changed Up My List Already I Do However Agree With Not Taking Tac Termies. I Also Plan To Add A Land raider But Am Not Sure Which, I'M Leaning Toward The One With Flamers. Redeemer Maybe? My New LisT Has Three RhinoS Instead Of The Razorbacks. Ive Also Included A10 Man Assault Squad With Three Plasma Pistols And A Jump Pack Captain With A Plasma Pistol And Relic blade. Finally I Dropped The Scouts And Gave The Dreadnought Tl Las And A Missile launcher. By The Way I Have No Idea Why Every First Letter Is Capatilized.

[infornography]

Redeemers can do a lot of damage but suffer a bit from their extremely limited range and that they don't carry any more than regular land raiders.

I generally recommend either regular land raiders for the lascannon goodness or the crusader for the improved capacity and great anti-infantry firepower. A crusader has about the firepower of an entire 10 man tac squad twin linked.

[andy089]

I actually think the redeemer would be a good idea, mainly because of the AP of the flame weapons. If they are mounted on the front sponsons you actually get a good range, especially considering that you are transporting something that will assault anyway. A Land Raider with Lascannons and Assault Terminators in it doesn't really work in my opinion because you want to be as close as possible to your enemies to assault but at the same time as far away as possible to use the Lascannons appropriately (long range) and stay away from meltas...

[infornography]

Just because lascannons are long range doesn't mean you have to use them at long range...

They are still good at popping vehicles that are 6" away and sometimes better because you can get behind a leman russ for instance and nail it's weaker back armor.

Meanwhile the templates on a redeemer won't likely be able to hit anything on turn 1 and have less ability to pick targets throughout the game due to range constraints.

[andy089]

yeah but do you really want something that has a range of of almost 50" get into range of pretty much the only weapon that can threaten it (melta)?
And are those 2 shots/hits really worth it?
Between the vindicators, the Las/plas Predators and melta-tacticals there is plenty of AT in that list, but not a lot of antiMEQ, which are the exact profile of the Redeemer (due to AP3). It's a pity that Vulcan doesn't twin link flamestorm cannons too, that would be awesome...

[infornography]

My point is just that a land raider is a transport. That is it's primary role. It is a VERY good transport. The weapon systems are secondary.

Since it's primary role is that of transport you can take the concept of hiding on the back lines out of the equation. Ignore that as an option. Now, with that strange sticking point removed compare which you would rather have. A couple of templates that are going to take a turn or two to get into range to do anything and while very good will be unable to be fully utilized even in the front sponsons because the nose of the raider will be partially in the way, 6 twin linked bolters which should be able to pour firepower downfield from turn 1 and pour a LOT of firepower on turn 2 for sure, or a pair of some of our best twin linked anti tank cannons that can fire from turn 1?

I always pick either the crusader or the standard raider because those flamestorm cannons are tricky to position well, especially when deploying your payload.

[andy089]

6 bolter shots, that's 5.33 hits - aren't really all that good...against MEQ the models still get their safe after half of the shots don't wound and everything (so really you are talking about about 0.9 wounds after safes)
And against T3 hordes, even without a safe, that's 3.6 or so wounds.
Still doubling that you are talking about 2 dead MEQ and 7.2 dead GEQ - note that these are probably not from the same squad due to the positioning of the weapons. Also as far I can remember you are very limited in terms of shooting first turn with bolters - you essentially have a range of 42" (12" deployment, 6" move, 24" range), but at that range you only get half the amount of shots (and thus wounds).

Saying it's "one of our best twin linked anti tank cannons that can fire from turn 1" is a bit meh - it's the only one. In fact it's one of 3 real anti tank weapon (the other one being melta weapons and a vindicator), as far as I know. (but I've been wrong before)

A template is actually quite large and a land raider is one of the few models that would survive going straight into enemy lines to use that weapon. 5/6ths of any MEQs under that template is dead (supposing you can cover 4 of them with each weapon you are WAY better off than with the other options), it's the same against T3, except that those models will suffer ID due to S=2xT, but there aren't a lot of T3 multiwound models out there, so I don't really consider that a huge point.
And especially considering you WANT to drive that thing up close up to transport your dudes I think it's the more feasible choice, you aren't stuffing 10 Terminators in there and you still have your assault cannon (which is a good bit better than a heavy bolter) for turn 1/turn 2 shooting.

[infornography]

Getting 4 MEQ (considering MEQ tend to spread out more) under a template is a pretty good result in the best of circumstances. With the redeemer you are losing an inch and a half off of both cannons from the front of the raider. Plus they are in cumbersome locations and almost HAVE to target different units, though sometimes you will get lucky with a large unit.

The crusader almost never has to target two different units. Those sponsons can turn a little bit inward from straight forward when they don't have to worry about the teardrop shaped template and at even 12" can easily hit different models in the same unit. I actually cannot think of a time I have ever had to aim them at different targets when the raider was not immobilized. Also generally I can manage to get into rapid fire range with little difficulty.

That said, if you are mostly facing MEQ, the redeemer is the better pick unless you need the extra capacity on the crusader, but unless you have no ground vehicles or skimmers to target, I generally find the lascannons better by far as I usually need all the ranged anti tank I can get because as you pointed out, space marines are rather sparse on anti tank firepower. I guess it largely comes down to your local meta.

[humbletermagant]

I ThinkTheRedeemer Is The All Around Winner Due Too The Fact That It Is A Transport First. I Never Looked At It That Way. However A Quick Review Of My List Revealed That I Only Have 150 POints Laying Around Ooops. I Am Planning To Buy A Third Edition boxSet And Just Add A FourthTactical Squad. I Think Ill Drop Both Tactical Squad Lascannons To Get The Extra 20 Points Ill Need.

[humbletermagant]

I Meant To Say crusader

[humbletermagant]

I Also Just Realized The Crusader And Redeemer Come In The Same Kit So I Could Easily Magnetize..