1850 Extramarines (Ultramarines) for my first ITC event

[nidzy]

Hi All,

I have decided to play in the Guardian Cup in Portland this year, my first ITC event. The only way I can make it happen is to paint I strongly disagree off for the next 30 days. I decided I could do it after I busted out my first airbrushed Drop Pod and Rhino in an afternoon and realized how quickly I could get all of these transports painted. All I have to buy to finish my Gladius Strike Force is a whirlwind.

My long suffering Space Marines have been left on the shelf gathering dust. Literally, I had to scrub the (please do not swear) things off with water and a toothbrush to prime them. I had a running joke while they were grey that these were the Extramarines, hanging out in the backwaters and closets of the galaxy. Their paint job will be mostly ultramarinish but I am playing with the accent colors to make them more unique with little effort. Mostly they are going to be table top quality without much highlighting...I have about 1600 pts left to paint in a month. Don't look for squad markings on these guys. It is too grimdark in the Extramore system to worry much about heraldry.

Anyway, this Gladius started out about as optimized as I could make it for free models, and I have been moving a few points around for some flair rather than just trying to max free transports. I started by adding dreadnoughts to each of the demi battle companies, trimming down to speeders from bikes and dropping the Storm Wing I started the list with. I kitted the Captain out to be a fun little fighter and hid the chaplain in a naked tac squad (bolters are the most ideologically pure of the SM's weapons, after all). The rest is pretty standard.

My basic idea was to go for layers of shooting, and the naturally overwhelming ability to score that comes from the Gladius list. Do you have any suggestions for how to make it better, knowing I made those changes for a reason? For example would grav bikes be better than the typhoon ml speeders? Is this fighty captain a total waste of points? I included him because I already had him at 145 pts (fist, combi melta, artificer) and had the idea to make the Chaplain the warlord, hide him in a razorback in the backfield and let the captain roam the midfield guarding the centurions and looking for someone to punch in the face.

The basic idea is that rhinos with grave move onto midfield objectives while obsec drop pods harass the enemies lines and score. Free storm bolters kill xenos for the win.

Anyway, here it is:

Extramarines Gladius Strike Force

Battle Demi Company #1:

Captain: Powerfist, Teeth of Terra, Jump Pack, Artificer Armor (185)

5 Tactical Marines: melta, combi melta, drop pod (90)
5 Tactical Marines: melta, combi melta, drop pod (90)
5 Tactical Marines: flamer, combi flamer, drop pod (85)

5 Devestators: 2 grav cannon, rhino (140)

Ironclad dreadnought: 2x Heavy Flamer, Drop pod (145)

Landspeeder: Typhoon ML (70)

Battle Demi Company #2

Chaplain (90)

5 Tactical Marines razorback, tl lascannon (90)
5 Tactical Marines: Grav Cannon, rhino (105)
5 Tactical Marines: Grav Cannon, rhino (105)

3 Devestator Centurions: 3x Grav Cannon + Hurricane Bolters, omniscope (250)

Venerable Dreadnought: assault cannon, drop pod (135)

Landspeeder: typhoon ML (70)

Suppression Force:

2x Whirlwind (130)
Landspeeder: 2x Multi Melta (70)

[nidzy]

Played against Tzeentch daemons for my first practice game. List was ugly. It was a CAD(or two?) with Kairos, A D Thirster, 4 heralds, bunch of brimstones horrors, screamer star.

I had a terrible turn 1, mishapping with a melta drop pod, failing to kill a chariot with grav centurions, multi melta speeder and assaulting fist captain, failing to kill a herald with 10 bolter and 2 twin linked melta shots. Failed my first two armor saves with the captain as well. I also discovered he cheated since the chariot driver should have died on the first failed allocated wound to him, but that is all good, was his first game with his list as well.

I need to work on placing Rhinos and recognizing when to get out and flood the board with marines in a given spot. I also might work in a culexus because 0 psychic defense was miserable against this list.

[No One]

Thoughts (don't play SM, so take with salt):

Could you swap the grav cents into a CAD+pod with the kitted captain, and then pick up some grav devs to replace? Either 2 grav in a rhino so you've got the armour saturation with the grav tacs and other dev squad already, or 4 grav in a pod with a Cataphractii captain for pseudo-skyhammer? (Dropping a dread, and/or the speeders to attack bikes for points?)

Had some other thoughts, but the only other thing I can think of now is a storm shield for the captain - if he's with the dev cents, then that's a bit 'shoot me with AP2' target, and a 3++ is really nice for that.

[nidzy]

I have actually been playing around with a CAD for this. The points get pretty tight and I would have to drop my beloved dreadnoughts in order to do it. I thought about dropping the cents in favor of another squad of devs with a couple of grav in a rhino and then adding in a command squad with grav or a couple of thunderhammers.

I have been crushing painting so far so it actually gives me a little more latitude to play around with my personnel.

I like the idea of the storm shield on the captain but he would lose an attack and I really want this guy to catch people off guard as a beat stick. I can also hide him behind a rhino to keep too many targets out of the centurions. I will let you know if I make the points work though and try it out in one of my 3 remaining practice games.

[nidzy]

Apr 8, 2017 8:40:40 GMT No One said:

Thoughts (don't play SM, so take with salt):

Could you swap the grav cents into a CAD+pod with the kitted captain, and then pick up some grav devs to replace? Either 2 grav in a rhino so you've got the armour saturation with the grav tacs and other dev squad already, or 4 grav in a pod with a Cataphractii captain for pseudo-skyhammer? (Dropping a dread, and/or the speeders to attack bikes for points?)

Had some other thoughts, but the only other thing I can think of now is a storm shield for the captain - if he's with the dev cents, then that's a bit 'shoot me with AP2' target, and a 3++ is really nice for that.

So I ended up moving some points around to get grav in a drop pod. I did it with devestators though, which limits their range and output when they come down, but with 12 rerolls (20 if they live to the next turn) to hit and to wound they will still get their work done.

I used the 40 points this change saved me to turn one of the landspeeders into 5 bikes with 2 grav guns and a combi grav which adds another source of t1 grav output and gives a better place for the captain to hang out.

[nidzy]

This is the list I settled on. Tourney starts tomorrow! On a scale of 1-10, how do you feel this compares to the power level of this edition? I gave it a 7 which I think might get me to my goal of winning 3/5 games.

Gladius Strike Force:

Battle Demi-company #1
• 5 Tactical Marines: Space Marine Sergeant (combi-flamer); 4 Tactical Marines; flamer 85
• Free Drop Pod
• 5 Tactical Marines: Space Marine Sergeant (combi-melta); 4 Tactical Marines; meltagun 90
• Free Drop Pod
• 5 Tactical Marines: Space Marine Sergeant (combi-melta); 4 Tactical Marines; meltagun 90
• Free Drop Pod
• Captain: thunder hammer; artificer armour; storm shield; Space Marine bike 175
• 5 Devastator Marines: Space Marine Sergeant; 4 Devastator Marines; 3 × grav-cannon and grav-amp 175
• Free Drop Pod
• Ironclad Dreadnought: power fist (built-in heavy flamer); seismic hammer (built-in heavy flamer) 145
• Free Drop Pod
• 3 Space Marine Bikers: Biker Sergeant (combi-grav); 2 Space Marine Bikers; 2 × grav-gun 103

Battle Demi-company #2
• Chaplain 90
• 5 Tactical Marines: Space Marine Sergeant; 4 Tactical Marines 70
• Free Razorback: twin-linked lascannon 20
• 5 Tactical Marines: Space Marine Sergeant; 4 Tactical Marines; grav-cannon and grav-amp 105
• Free Rhino
• 5 Tactical Marines: Space Marine Sergeant; 4 Tactical Marines; grav-cannon and grav-amp 105
• Free Rhino
• 5 Devastator Marines: Space Marine Sergeant; 4 Devastator Marines; 2 × grav-cannon and grav-amp 140
• Free Rhino
• Land Speeder: Typhoon missile launcher 70
• Contemptor Dreadnought: Kheres Assault Cannon 185

Suppression Force
• Whirlwind 65
• Whirlwind 65
• Land Speeder: multi-melta; multi-melta 70

1,848 points