[lobukia]

Who can build the best 2000 pt force with my units?

I'm returning to the game (after 6 years). In all modesty I was a very competitive, very successful Eldar player back in the day. Now I'm building a Ultramarine army (sorry guys, I now they're the newb choice, but I like the paragon attitude and the low expectations that come from opponents).

I've acquired a very well painted force from friends/acquaintances/ebay but it has given me an odd mix of models (price was right, but you'll see its hardly a standard distribution of units). Right now I have the following and need to build a 2000 point army against an unknown opposing force for Monday (local game, low stakes, but I would like to do well)... not real comfortable with all the shorthand yet, so pardon the spelling out of everything

24 with bolter
4 with missile launchers
2 with lascannons
2 heavybolters
4 sargs with powerfists
1 sarg with chainsword
1 sarg with bolter
5 special weapon poised model without weapons (thinking 2 flamers, 2 meltas, and ?)
5 assault marines without packs (a sarg with a powersword/boltpistol)
9 assault marines (a sarg with lightening claws, and two others with plasma pistols )
10 vets (8 with chainsword/boltpistol, 1 with powerfist, sarg with powersword)
5 terms (1 assault cannon)
Term captain/master
Master of the Watch
Techamarine with servitor
Apothecary
1 Libby
10 Damned Legionaries (1 melta, 1 heavy flamer)
Dreadnought with interchangable (CCW, twin LC, assault cannon, missile launcher)

2 Landspeeders with heavy bolters and assault cannons
2 Rhinos
A Predator with either a twin LC turret or auto-cannon turret and LC sides
this predator can also convert to a Whirlwind
A Vindicator

within a week or 2 I should have 2 more Heavy Bolters, lascannons, plasmacannons, and missile launchers... a drop pod, honor guard, 3 chaplains (1 jump), 3 bikes, 5 jump veterans, 5 no jump veterans, scout squad (4), landraider crusader, 5 more terms, Telion, Cassius, Calgar, Chapter Champion, and 5 more assault marines

I used to be the type of player would could build an SM, Eldar, 'nid, IG, (squats), or Ork army better than most players and its very humbling to now be the newb. Any help would be very appreciated.... thanks in advance

 

[lobukia]

...one other thing... I don't mind advice on where to spend a future $100 to help this force.

edit: little surprised that in 12 hours no one has replied... is my force really that hopeless?

 

[CLT40k]

Nah... it's just that you've given a lot to work with....

One of the cool things about the SM Codex is that you have the option to do a lot of different builds... but pretty much everything effective is going to be in transports....

So I'll come back to you with a question... What sort of game do you want to play? Cause ultimately that will drive your decisions more than any other factor. Case in point, I briefly flirted with playing a list built around Razorbacks... but I didn't like it much (too much shooty and not enough hitty) - and if you're not having fun, then the game sucks... So as a result, I based me list off of what I needed to support three rhinos full of assault guys.

Also, do any of the SM special characters appeal to you? If so, you can base a list off of one of them - eg... If you really dig Vulcan (or if you just dig TL meltas and MC thunderhammers) then your list will be somewhat defined by what you can do well... (edit, meaning what you can do better than the other kids)

Regardless, you're probably gonna want more Rhinos (though I'd buy razorbacks... just in case cause you always have need of a razorback or 6)

Hope that helps.

 

[mcmuffin]

I'm returning to the game (after 6 years). In all modesty I was a very competitive, very successful Eldar player back in the day. Now I'm building a Ultramarine army (sorry guys, I now they're the newb choice, but I like the paragon attitude and the low expectations that come from opponents).

I've acquired a very well painted force from friends/acquaintances/ebay but it has given me an odd mix of models (price was right, but you'll see its hardly a standard distribution of units). Right now I have the following and need to build a 2000 point army against an unknown opposing force for Monday (local game, low stakes, but I would like to do well)... not real comfortable with all the shorthand yet, so pardon the spelling out of everything

24 with bolter

one more marine and you will have 5 tac squads,
4 with missile launchers use these in your dev squads
2 with lascannons between these and the missile launchers you now have a dev squad
2 heavybolters until you get more missile launchers, use these in your tac squads
4 sargs with powerfists again, to lead your tac squads
1 sarg with chainsword
1 sarg with bolter
5 special weapon poised model without weapons (thinking 2 flamers, 2 meltas, and ?) perfect, just another meltagun for the 5th

5 assault marines without packs (a sarg with a powersword/boltpistol) take them in their free razorback and make it a las-plas. this can easily be made out of one of your rhinos
9 assault marines (a sarg with lightening claws, and two others with plasma pistols ) as it is, just get rid of the plasma pistols
10 vets (8 with chainsword/boltpistol, 1 with powerfist, sarg with powersword) i dont know about these, maybe as vet sergeants in your army o
5 terms (1 assault cannon) they are ok, but TH/SS are so much better and they would be worth your while converting
Term captain/master dont know
Master of the Watch captain with a relic blade and storm bolter
Techamarine with servitor
Apothecary
1 Libby
10 Damned Legionaries (1 melta, 1 heavy flamer) these are perfect, but save them for big games, give your sergeant a special cc weapon too
Dreadnought with interchangable (CCW, twin LC, assault cannon, missile launcher) if you could, Rifle man dread would be great, but if not, ass cannon missile launcher combination, it works well

2 Landspeeders with heavy bolters and assault cannons these work well against infantry
2 Rhinos
A Predator with either a twin LC turret or auto-cannon turret and LC sides
this predator can also convert to a Whirlwind go for the autocannon/ lascannon sponson pred
A Vindicator give it a siegeshield

within a week or 2 I should have 2 more Heavy Bolters, lascannons, plasmacannons, and missile launchers... a drop pod, honor guard, 3 chaplains (1 jump), 3 bikes, 5 jump veterans, 5 no jump veterans, scout squad (4), landraider crusader, 5 more terms , Telion, Cassius, Calgar, Chapter Champion, and 5 more assault marines

I used to be the type of player would could build an SM, Eldar, 'nid, IG, (squats), or Ork army better than most players and its very humbling to now be the newb. Any help would be very appreciated.... thanks in advance

as i dont actually play marines, this is the best advice i can give you, maybe some more veteran players can offer you some more advice

 

[Inquisitor Malaclypse]

You’re wanting a sample list built, it seems. Recommendation to do a forum search for 2K lists. But here’s an idea (without the codex), so check my points, and I’m only going with models you already have as your game is Monday, and something coming in a week from now won’t matter.


HQ
Libby

ELITES
Dread with LC/ML and extra armor

TROOPS
X10 Marines
X1 ML
x1 melta
X1 sarge with PF
Rhino

TROOPS
X10 Marines
X1 ML
x1 melta
X1 sarge with PF
Rhino

FAST ATTACK
X10 Assault Marines
x2 flamers
X 1 sarge with PF
(you may have to do a bit of remodeling and reorganizing of your models to make this unit; put two of the flamer guys here. I couldn’t tell how many guys with jump packs you have)

FAST ATTACK
LS with HB/AC

FAST ATTACK
LS with HB/AC

HEAVY SUPPORT
X2 Marines with bolters
X2 ML
X2 LC
X1 Sarge with bolter

HEAVY SUPPORT
X2 Marines with bolters
X2 ML
X2 HB
X1 Sarge with chainsword

And that’s all I could build that I would use. Would not use the LoD, Capt. in termie armor, and termies as LoD is too expensive. the termies need better options than an assault cannon if walking across the board (I wouldn’t deep strike them; they can’t assault if they come in that way) and the Capt. needs better gear, IMO.

Didn’t use the Vets and the Assault Marines without jump packs as they had no transports. Everything in this list either has a transport, jumps in, or is stationary to lend support fire.

Last piece of advice is to give the Libby a jump pack, or use an Assault squad without jump packs join the Libby so he can Gate of Infinity with them wherever you like.

Model wise, you need more Tact. squads and rhinos. A LC for the termies would be a good addition as well.

Good hunting.

 

[Drizzt_13]

Alright welcome to 5th edition 40k where mech is king.

Space Marines are a tough army to play despite what some people may say about an easy learning curve. At first glance they appear much weaker then wolves and angels but I believe that this is largely superficial.

Let's start with a few core concepts, I don't want to say a lot but if you read other 40k sites you can find a lot of support for what I say here. There are a few things all imperial armies need, fast scoring units, fast melta units, long range light anti tank, and close range anti troop.

Let's start with the first one of these, fast scoring units. As you are playing generic marines and have relatively few bike models the only way you're going to get these is by taking tactical squads in Rhino's or razorbacks. While razorback make the most efficient unit they require use en masse and you don't have enough of them to work, so we go with 10 man tac squads in rhinos. Each of theese takes a Multi melta, then either a combi melta and flamer or combi flamer and meltagun. alternatively you could double up one either flamer or melta but diversity is nice.

Lets go with the combi flamer build clocking in at 220 each. they sit in their rhinos midfield and provide area denial with the MM and then can either advance to meltagun a heavy tank or take potshots with their S8 MM. end game they can advance toward an objective with their rhino and do a final push with rapid firing bolters and combi melta.

So now let's talk about the next thing on our list fast Melta units. For them we'll use land speeders and bikers. The landspeeders will have MM and HF, I talk about why here The Bikers will also have 2 meltaguns. The bikers can advance behind your rhinos hopefully shielding them from your opponents fire until it's too late. a MM attack bike would be great with them but you don't have one so that's too bad.

Then for long ranged anti tank we'll take a dread with Ml and Lascannon, ideally we would want more shots at a lower strength (autocannons) but were working what you got. Then we take the pred with Lascannon sponsons and autocannon turret. They will kill tanks from across the board and later turn two heavy infantry if they run out of targets.

as for the short ranged anti infantry ideally this is built into your troops. Which you don't have enough of since you don't have enough rhinos.

Now I've made all the really efficient obvious choices based on your models and it only comes to 990. We'll throw in a librarian and call it 1100. Now I would recommend you buy a rhino and add a third tac squad. In addition because the FLGS is not a tournament setting and tanks are not as dominant we'll add a vindicator. against veterans they won't be as effective because of effective spacing but they can still come in handy. Let's add those 5 no jump veterans in a pod and give them all combi meltas they can come in and lay the hurt down on a backfield tank.

Let's put the scouts with bolters and sarge with combi flamer in the Land raider crusade just to make it scoring and possibly for a last turn push. The I'll throw in an assault marine squad to fill in the last bit.

List looks like this

HQ: Librarian 100

Elites:
Dreadnought ML LC
5 Sternguard 5 combi meltas drop pod 185

Troops:
10 Tac marines rhino
MM Meltagun Combi Flamer

10 Tac marines rhino
MM Meltagun Combi Flamer

10 Tac marines rhino
MM Flamer Combi melta

5 Scouts w/bolters
Combiflamer

Fast Attack
2x Land speeder MMM HF 140
3x bikers with meltagun 110
5x Assault marines 100

Heavy Support
LRC Extra armor 275
Vindicator 115
Predator 115


I think you would do well to scale down to 1500 as a lot of this is less efficent then it could be. Also I think you collection suffers from having a lot of vanguard vets which are just terrible outside of a all jump pack blood angels army. If you are committed to playing generic marines i would suggest you invest in 1-2 more rhinos and then either more land speeders predators or dreadnoughts.

Edit: crap i missed all those extra heavy weapon guys. Devastators suck but they would probably do better then some stuff in this list.

 

[lobukia]

Thanks guys... given me a lot of food for thought. I really appreciated/need the help

 

[lobukia]

Created my Army List... tell me what you think

HQ = Libby Epistolary: GoI & Quick

Troops = 2 full tac squads: (sarg = Pfist, +flamer & + Hbolter) +Rhino

Elites = Dread with lascannons

FastAttack = 10 Vanguards no pack (will have libby join them)
8 Assault Marines
2 Landspeeder Tornados

HeavySupport = 2 Dev squads (10 troops, Lascannon, 2 ML each, 1 with an extra ML)
Predator with Lascannon sponsons

Thinking Keep the Rhinos and the Tac Squads between heavy fire and the Vanguards... have the Libby GoI (leapfrog) the Vanguards into Assault range and use the Dev Squads (broken into 4 firing squads) to lay down support fire, keeping the LCs with their sarg.

Should I Deep Strike the Landspeeders or just delpoy them?

 

[Inquisitor Malaclypse]

i would keep them off the board. you lack so much anti-tank that they may get blown up before they can be useful. if they had MM/HF set up, i would put them on the board to begin with and have them kill tanks right off.

good hunting.

 

[lobukia]

Went pretty well... having 4 different lascannon platforms went real well... the Veterans tore apart a ork commando squad with no losses and the Predator turned a Chaoslord with term armor and a demonic weapon into fried egg.

I had to cut down to 1500 points, so the tac squads got culled a bit and the Rhinos and landspeeders were dumped along with assault marines... it was two SM players against a Ork (who I wiped out with only 1 loss) and a mechanized Chaos Marine force (two vindicators and 4 Rhinos full of Khornish assault-type troops... still don't have all the Chaos forced names back to recall yet). The Chaos tore apart the other SM force, but my heavy weapons were able to crack 2 Rhinos and 2 Vindicators in addition to the Chaoslord... it was a draw, but I feel that my force perfomed well, I had fun, and learned a lot. We had three objective. One went to each side and one was unclaimed.