HQ Choices
Chapter Master
The default choice when list building. Typically riding a bike. Standard load out is a power fist, artificer armour and the shield eternal. He then makes bike squads troops, is a combat beast with 5 S8 AP2 attacks on the charge, tanks wounds as well as anything with T5 and 2+/3++ and eternal warrior, is mobile and has an orbital bombardment that he can fire on the move because the bike gives him relentless. I played him over the weekend with a just a storm shield and he was a very good tank, but you have to watch out for assaults against things like dreadnoughts that will instant kill him. Most shooting isn't strength 10. The shield eternal is always a good choice though; I only opted against it to improve my comp score. Other options worth considering for this guy are digital weapons to ensure all his hits are converted to wounds, a thunder hammer to give him an edge in ongoing combats against things like Wraithknights, and an auspex so the grav-guns in the squad he is rolling with aren't foiled by pesky cover saves. His shooting is rarely effectual anyway after the bomb has gone off. Speaking off Grav-guns, remember that they are concussive, so the thunder hammer is often redundant if he is rolling with a squad of grav-maniacs.
The only other load-out for him that I think is sensible is terminator armour with thunder hammer and the shield eternal. The armour makes him relentless so he can exit a land raider, drop a bombardment at the back of a target and then charge the front. He still has 2+/3++
It's outstanding to have this guy with a command squad so he gets the apothecary's 5+ FNP, or using Iron hands Chapter tactics so he gets 6+ FNP and 5+ IWND. If he's riding along with Khan in a squad of White Scars he will benefit from Khan's Furious charge and Scout and the squad's hit and run. Once he is on his own you mostly want to be stomping vehicles and small targets that he can wipe out in a turn so you don't have to hit and run. I have killed a wonderful number of Necron Barges with this guy.
Tigurius
He was my principle HQ in 6th edition for
semi-competitive games and I still find him very useful. His best location is
amongst some Devastator Centurions where he can benefit from their high
toughness and ablative wounds and they can benefit from his buffs, including
his warlord trait - storm of fire. He is a pretty reliable delivery mechanism
for them if you roll for gate of infinity, which means you don't need to take a
Land Raider. It does, however, mean you probably won't get to take the best
buffs, though you might get force dome for a 5+, which is something.
With the changes to the psychic phase in 7th he also works very well with Sternguard. Previously, if you dropped him in a pod you wouldn't get to cast buffs straight away because you had to cast them before the movement phase. Now you can get precognition, ignores cover, prescience and 4+ saves on your squad before your opponent can shoot back (unless he's Tau, who laugh at drop pods).
Marneus Calgar
I've got him here for drop-pod Ultramarines, otherwise he's not really worth it. Rhino ultramarines with Tiggy gating some devastator Centurions is feasible, but White Scars do that army better because Khan gives the tanks scout and outflank.
Marneus took a big nerf with the changes to ATSKNF which took away the free movement for auto-regrouping, but he's still a house. Being able to choose to pass/fail morale checks can be game-winning, especially for pod lists that tend to be bit immobile. Note that it allows you a lot more freedom to partake in assaults that you will lose in the long run in order to protect your guys and limit your opponent's movement because you can essentially hit and run out when it suits you.
Marneus has 2+/4++ and eternal warrior, so he tanks with the best of them. He has the orbital bombardment, so you always want terminator armour to make him relentless. Note that it doesn't prevent sweeping advances, so Marny with a squad of Sternguard can wipe annoying units like Commanders with crisis suits and Necron lords. He's got two fists, so five attacks base and six on the charge at S8 AP2. His storm bolter is also nice because it's AP2!
Being able to use a tactical doctrine twice is amazing for drop pod lists because turn 1 and 2 your tactical squads are re-rolling all misses, so your meltas will connect (even the multi-meltas have a good chance) and your plasma guns won't overheat. Plus all that rapid fire will reek havoc.
Kor'Sarro Kahn
An auto-include for White Scars lists as he allows your bikes and Rhinos to scout/outflank, which gets your tactical squads onto objectives/away from big guns and your grav-guns in range of Tau fire-bases. He is pretty cheap for what he does, but don't expect him to excel at damage output. He is good at killing small squads of moderately armoured dudes like fire warriors and tactical marines. Big squads will kill him with weight because his saves aren't great. He's nice to tank a wound or two for bikes as well.
Note that Khan must be your Warlord to give the Scout bonus. His Warlord trait - +D3 VP if you slay the enemy Warlord in a challenge - is almost worthless because Khan is not equipped for challenges. The only time I can see this maybe working is against a Warboss because they go last, don't get a save and you might roll a 6 for instant death with Moonfang. Could also happen with a Hive Tyrant I guess, or anything with a save that isn't 2+.
TROOPS:
Bikes
Fast, scoring with a large volume of low-AP shots, a great delivery device for melta and flamers and surprisingly durable because of T5 and the ablative wound on an attack bike and the spare bolter man, bikes really are fantastic. They aren't even expensive. The the MSU squad - 4 bikes with 2 grav guns, a combi-grav, melta bombs and a multi-melta attack bike is only 184 points - less than a tactical squad in rhino.
If you do take bikes I would suggest taking only bikes as troops. You've invested in a HQ so you its efficient this way (bit different for Ravenwing because their bikes come with scout and hit and run).
Note that bikes fall apart fast. Unless you alpha strike is totally devastating you're often better off disengaging Khan and the CM to do close combat while your bikes go after objectives and exposed units. Do not be afraid to spend a turn turbo boosting across the board to give your opponent something completely different to look at, especially if they are slow. Note that bikes hit like a wet-noodle in close combat, so don't expect to be killing much or getting many sweeps, but because of hit and run (for White Scars) you can pretty safely hide bikes in close combat for a turn if need be.
Tactical Squads in Rhinos
Rhinos are sah good now! 3 HP on an 11/11/10 chasis is not easy to kill thanks to the 7 to explode damage table. With tacticals inside they get ob-sec, so you've got yourself a fast, tough super-scoring unit that can force morale checks on orks for a mere 35 points! And they move your men forward.
One tactic that I don't see enough with Rhinos is getting back in them. If a squad takes heavy casualties don't let it die. Get it in that Rhino and make your opponent pry you out. If they don't manage, drive off into the sunset to return later for objective grabbing late game. Similarly, if a Rhino goes down to one hit point, turbo boost it away so it can still be used to grab objectives.
Tactical squads are a bit meh. Their best features are resilience and krak grenades. With melta guns they can put out some damage, especially to vehicles or elite units. Otherwise they exist to hold objectives, which they do amazingly well because of T4 and 3+. MSU spam Rhino rush wins by not dying. You won't kill many of your opponent's units. But while he's trying to kill your Chapter Master and thunderfire cannons you will be consolidating objectives. One nice feature is that Tacticals can beat just about any other objective secured unit, so you are going to take those objectives god damn it!
Kill points is harder to win but not impossible. Don't combat squad and play cat and mouse the whole game. Go after his tanks with your melta and Chapter master for points, and otherwise avoid casualties. Run away in your Rhinos and use them to screen shooting to beleaguered squads.
If you're just getting started with space marines you want two tactical squads with meltaguns and combi-meltas in two Rhinos. Build from there.
Tactical Squads in Drop Pods
These became really hot when pods got ob-sec scoring, especially in Maelstrom because you can drop directly onto objectives and then move away with the squad. 12/12/12 all round and 7+ to explode makes pods quite hardy, even with open-topped. 9 Krak grenades frequently take two turns to kill one, and when you've got six or seven your opponent will have a hard time uprooting you from objectives.
Ultramarines and sentinels of Terra chapter tactics make drop pod builds particularly deadly. The first because of massed, re-roll to hit Melta, the second because of Devastator Centurions getting out of drop pods with a little help from Space Wolf allies, backed by re-rolling to hit boltgun fire.
Scouts in land speeder storm
A borderline unit, but great in the MSU-spam Rhino army. Can play keep away most of the game thanks to speed and deep strike while occasionally darting forward to flamer something. At the end you can turbo boost to take something 24" away, or move up, unload the scouts who charge a unit with -2 LD thanks to the Cerberus launcher, hopefully allowing them to move the opposing unit off the objective so you can score it.
ELITES
Sternguard
Always with five combi-meltaguns, except in Ultramarines drop where they are sometimes better equipped with a power fist. You typically just run 5 of them in a pod to get you first blood by blowing up an annoying tank. It won't help against Tau but everyone else will have something for you to smoke. Ten of them can come very close to killing Hive Tyrants and Wraithknights using 2+ wounding ammunition. You can also combat squad them so the meltas blow up a wave serpent and the combat squad kills the contents with AP4 rounds. In the Ultramarines list you can put them with Marneus (and Tigurious in large points). They can drop and smoke a heavy infantry squad with special ammunition and orbital. Marneus can tank for them and then you can all perform a jolly charge. Tigurius with Divination makes this unit a wrecking ball.
Command Squad on bikes
Great synergy with Khan and the Chapter Master. The FNP is divine and all those grav-guns and melta-bombs make this a real toolbox unit. Two or three storm shields optional. They allow you to bounce low AP wounds onto (expensive) bikers from the ICs and also allow you to put 3++ onto the unit's flanks, but they are a bit expensive. Maybe they aren't worth it now that this unit can't contest against ob-sec units.
FAST ATTACK
Space marines are a little weak in this department. Assault squads are grossly overpriced and don't hit hard enough unless you power them up in which case they become OMG expensive. Vanguard are a little better but still too expensive and fragile. Speeders would be good if heavy flamers had torrent, but has 2x multi-melta delivery platforms they aren't as good as bike squads with four meltas, especially now that you 7s to blow things up. Bikes are a decent choice but you can probably build a more synergistic list with them as troops or not included. That leaves...
Storm Talon
Not a bad little unit. The 2HP is a bit weak and means you will die to single skyfire volley from a quad gun or unit on a skyfire nexus, but if your opponent is light on anti-air this thing will be an amazing nuisance. With a skyhammer you can pop a transport every turn (and they can't get away) or put heavy casualties on infantry. This guy is also great at chasing down farseers and flying daemon princes trying to summon and run off the board. High strength and rending makes it passable against heavy infantry, especially orks. Late game you can go into hover mode and you have a fast scoring unit that ignores intervening terrain.
Be mindful of overflowing reserves if you use a lot flyers. Having more than two units come on from reserve can cost you dearly, especially in Maelstrom, I'd only consider something like a Stormwing if I have Tigurius to let me re-roll my reserves.
HEAVY SUPPORT
This is where the action is! Just about everything is good, but especially these:
Storm Raven
The weakest choice I think, but nonetheless great. 12 all round and 3 HP makes for a tough flyer, and this one is brimming with guns. The basic multi-melta, lascannon and missiles model will cost you 200 points and reliably kill a tank each turn while transporting a scout squad for late game scoring antics. The two other builds worth considering are assault cannon, hurricane bolters and meltagun - where you use power of the machine spirit to shoot the melta and fire everything else at light infantry - a great little assault boat. And the fully tooled up version, with a typhoon, plasma cannons and hurricane launchers. This thing can smoke infantry and light vehicles pretty comfortably.
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Don't overstock the transport section. You have to go into hover mode to assault, which means you won't get it off until turn three unless your opponent is very close to your lines and you can arrive in hover (moving 12 onto the board). My preference is for a squad of scouts with shotguns or close combat weapons. This keeps the cost down and means your Raven can focus on shooting and staying alive for most of the game. Then you go into hover mode, move 12 and unload your scoring scouts, they charge to one objective and you turbo boost to another. Can swing games.
Devastator Centurions
I'm only going to talk about the grav-cannon squad, because I haven't used the lascannon-missile version, though I'm told its great. I'm a little skeptical because they unit can't kill Riptides or Wraithknights, but they also have a lot more range so maybe they can just shoot twice?
The grav-cannon version is an excellent unit, though pricey. They will wipe out entire squads of heavy and light infantry (don't forget the Hurricane bolters) in a single turn. This is especially the case if you have Tigurius casting storm of fire or Prescience (note that Rune priests can cast it as well) so you can re-reroll to hit and wound (thanks to the grav-amps). I played these guys in nearly every one of my games in 6th edition and nothing ever survived a volley, even from just three of them.
Because of their range (24") you need a delivery mechanism. You can two options - Land Raiders or Gate of Infinity. Storm Ravens don't come on early enough I think, but they are also arguably viable (move 18-36 pending deployment type, drop off and shoot 24 should reach all targets). Again, Tigurius works great because you can bail out of the Raven, get your buffs up and then shoot - your opponent will definitely get some bullets unless he has interceptor on your Raven. And that's the rub, actually. These guys are best against Tau; putting them in a Raven makes them not so good against Tau because if the Raven dies they will probably die too, costing you 500 odd points.
So Raiders or gate. You have two options for Gate. Tigurius will get it 6/7 times if you roll for it. Pretty reliable, but it means he can't buff. It's also Santic, so he will start having perils. Drago has it automatically. Most competitive lists use both of them with a large number of Centurions. Tiggy buffs and Drago teleports and tanks. The Centurions shoot everything to shit. With Drago, you never have to worry about being caught up in combat. Centurions don't kill things well in hand to hand, so you can get mired easily. Tigurius won't help much because he is AP4 and only gets 3 attacks. Drago, however, will slaughter anything that charges you, and then you can simply gate away on your turn (yes, you can use it while in close combat). Note that gate is pretty bad when there is a lot of terrain on the board.
For land raiders, you probably want a Crusader and no psychers, or maybe a single librarian with a force axe and take a Godhammer. The librarian can roll for Iron-Arm/Toughness, which will either buff him to the point where he can do damage with his axe in combat, or buff the unit so they survive shooting. Smite ain't so bad. You drive forward and your opponent shoots everything at the raider. Next turn you definitely get to shoot. Worth having at least four bodies in the unit with an omniscope so you definitely kill a unit and hurt another one. Works wonders. Once you've got the middle of the board, if you can keep these guys firing they will win you games single handedly by deleting a unit per turn.
If you have a target you can kill in two rounds, don't be afraid to assault with these guys in some circumstances. with T5 and 2+ they won't take casualties, and you can use the charge and consolidate to slingshot yourself up the board and into a good position.
Thunderfire Cannon
This is so good, though $100 for a finecast model is brutal. For barely above the cost of the techmarine it comes with you get 4 small blast templates per turn at either S6 AP5 or S5 AP6 ignores cover (100 points!). Orks be dying. Hordes be dying. Deep striking squads be taking 18 wounds. So do squads consolidating out of close combat. And this guy is pretty tough. You can hide him in your deployment zone in bolstered ruins for a 3+ cover save. You have to wound on T7 because of the cannon, and the techmarine has artificer armour. Try to keep him away from rending weapons. Aside from drop pods, that's how is usually dies for me. I often find myself with a 100 points when list building and I will always take these guys. More than two is overkill. They mostly kill infantry and two is plenty. Plus you want to take other heavy support choices a lot of the time.
Land Raider
Now that they score these things are getting pretty good. You can screen an objective with its bulk if you drive on to it, and it can deliver a unit very safely thanks to 14/14/14, 4HP and the 7 to destroy rule. They make Deathwing/DA half viable. Never take the Redeemer - the flamestorm cannons never get to fire. If I was using this it would almost always be to deliver Centurions. Tactical squads don't give it ob-sec so I'd rather just have a Rhino, and assault terminators aren't what they used to be (Centurions wreck more face).
LISTS
So what does that leave us with? There are three main lists for space marines, all relying on the Space Marine ability to field high volumes of tough objective secured units: drop pod spam, bike spam and tactical squad pam. I've written articles on the first two and will have something on the third soon enough.
If you're staying away from those then I have some rules of thumb:
1. You need some way to reliably kill riptides and wraithknights. That means either grav/plasma bikes, drop podding Melta (not so good against Riptides) or Centurions. So I would recommend having Centurions in your list. Then you need a delivery mechanism, which means either Tigurius, a storm raven or a land raider.
2. Now you can kill big nasties, you also need to be able to kill Hordes. You're going to want one or two cannons and some tactical squads in Rhinos. I'm assuming you're not taking bikes because then you could use them instead of the Centurions. Bikes and pods both work best in large volumes.
3. After that you're free to mess about. Five melta sternguard in a pod is a good choice because it's all purpose and guarantees you first blood (and a shot at linebreaker), or maybe a command squad with a Chapter master (especially if you declined Tigurius and/or want some more grav).
4. Don't forget about all the other units in the Codex that you can use for flavour. An iron hands list full of Vindicators could be fun, or Salamanders in Rhinos and pods firing flamers and melta backed by the single Devastator Centurions squad. When I play my army to the fluff I wrote for it I run the following air cavalry list at 1500 points (that's where we play nowadays):
Tigurius
Tactical with flamer in a Rhino
Tactical with melta, combi-melta and melta bombs in a Rhino
Scouts with close combat weapons
5 Sternguard in a pod with combi-meltas
Storm talon with skyhammer missile launcher
Storm Raven with TL multi-melta, TL assault cannon, hurricane bolters
4 Devastator Centurions with grav-cannons, omniscope
At higher points levels I add another tactical squad and upgrade the talon to another Raven transporting another scout squad. It's been solidly competitive in both Maelstrom and Eternal War missions, and can deal with any army (though I'm not hugely fond of Orks). In Maelstrom I have a little difficulty winning challenges, winning assaults in the early turns and killing warlords, which makes this not so competitive there. But it has no problems grabbing objectives, scoring big game hunter, scour the skies, harness the warp, linebreaker, first blood and all the rest of it. I've even secured all six objectives late game using the planes on one occasion.
In case anyone is interested, the transportation of the Centurions depends a lot on my opponent and the terrain. If there are plenty of places to deep strike and my opponent is not playing something that is going to come at me, I will put the Centurions in the Raven. If my opponent is coming at me I will start on the deck and put some scouts in the Raven. If my opponent is Tau I will start on the deck and role for gate of infinity with Tigurius.
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