First thoughts on Space Marine list building contours in 7th Edition

Been working on some lists. It's pissing me off a bit that everyone is writing off the demi-company because it doesn't have enough guns. If you use Rhinos instead of Razorbacks then yes, you have less guns. If you don't bring command squads full of grav then yes, you have fewer guns. If you captain and chaplain are on foot with no upgrades then yes, you have no guns. If you bring assault squads instead of bikes and attack bikes then yes, you have no guns. If your scouts aren't rocking combi-gravs for their precision shot Alpha strike then yes, you have no guns. If you aren't bringing a chapter master then yes, you have no guns. Finally, if you aren't bringing Khan then yes, your opponent may actually be able to blow you off the table by the end of turn 7.

So onwards to some lists. Let's start with the double demi-company because that's what everyone is talking about. Then I'll discuss pods for a bit and some other stuff, including the Librarius Conclave which I can't quite work out.

DEMI COMPANY #1
Khan on Moondrakan
Command Squad with 4 grav-guns, apothecary
Tactical squad (5) in razorback (heavy bolter) with meltagun
Tactical squad (5) in razorback (heavy bolter) with meltagun
Tactical squad (5) in razorback (heavy bolter) with meltagun
Devastator Squad with 4 lascannons and drop pod
attack bike with multi-melta

DEMI COMPANY #2
Chaplain on bike with auspex
Tactical squad (5) in razorback (heavy bolter) with meltagun
Tactical squad (5) in razorback (heavy bolter) with meltagun
Tactical squad (5) in razorback (heavy bolter) with meltagun
Devastator squad with 4 lascannons and drop pod
attack bike with multi-melta

COMMAND DETACHMENT
Chapter Master with bike, artificer armour, shield eternal, power fist, auspex

10th COMPANY STRIKE FORCE
Scouts (5) with combi-grav
Scouts (5) with combi-grav
Scouts (5) with combi-grav

That's 1850 points. Tell me you can 'counter that easily'? Everything has objective secured. Most of it can scout forward or outflank against armies that are less mobile or try to shoot you off the table rather than secure objectives (e.g. Lictor-Shame or other flyrant lists). With the scout move and the scouts you can deliver a fairly solid alpha strike. The Scouts get precision shots on turn 1 so they can pick off apothecaries, painboys and key characters in squads. The grav-gun command squad will handle Wraithknights with a little help from those 8 devastator squads. I can't see hordes doing much against 6 heavy bolters and 30 rapid firing marines (plus another 15 rapid firing scouts). I'd be a little bit concerned about an opponent who is equally meched up, but only because they weather the alpha-strike (lol @ jetbikes). As the game grinds out your crack grenades, meltaguns and attack bikes will end their tanks and your death star, hiding amidst all the ruined razorbacks, will mop up. Note that you have 2 empty pods with which to claim objectives on turn 1 and 2 so that you don't need to stress too much about that when planning your alphra strike or reserving all your scout units. In an ob-sec against ob-sec battle I can't see this being topped. You have so much ob-sec and it's mobile, tough, re-rolls runs and can hit-and-run. Other bonuses: the death star is mighting bad-core with a fist, maul and sword, furious charge, preferred enemy and FNP, plus the Chaplain brings a handy invul for when you don't want to put wounds on your chapter master.

What could you change in this list? I played a shit-tonne of MSU Rhino-spam with the last Codex. It was my main army (Raven Guard) and I've found that scout is critical. Now that Raven Guard doesn't have scout, I think that means you have to play Khan. White Scars were always better at it this style than Ravenguard anyway, so it's not exactly a loss, but it does lock you into certain choices I think. Once you have Khan it seems efficient to go the bike route with the Chapter Master (still the best melee HQ in the game besides maybe Marneus) and Chaplain in a death star. Incidentely, this gives you access to a block of grav-guns in the command squad with which to kill annoying things on the scout (Riptides, broadside squads, Wraithknights, Cataphrons, Devastator Centurions if they haven't already killed you, Wraithguard if they haven't already killed you, other space marine death stars etc). Note that you can block WPP Wraithguard and Devastator Centurions with this list somewhat by bubble wrapping your HQ death star with razorbacks. Centurions can't shoot what they can't see and Wraithguard with flamers won't be able to drop in close enough if you make a wall. If you get turn 1 then I think it would still be profitable to scout forward provided you can reach those jetbikes, otherwise turtle up, use your pods to score turn 1 objectives, weather the Wraithguard and then settle in for the objective securing grind.

One option would be to drop the command squad and change the attack bikes into regular bike squads loaded with grav. I'm leaning against this because I like having the two lone bikes to grab an objective every now and then, and the extra long range melta is handy against car-park lists, which are making a come-back in 7th. Plus the apothecary just makes the Death Star so much deadlier.

I'm tempted to tweak the load out on the marines to 3 meltaguns, 1 plasma and 2 flamers. I worry about Dark Eldar a bit. You could also change one squad of lascannons to rocket launchers to give you a little bit more versatility (and open up melta bombs for the tacticals), but I think this limits your ability to kill things like Riptides. STR9 is also significant vs STR8 these days with all the Wraithknights around. Playtesting will show the way.

I don't think any of the auxiliary detachments are as good as the scout squads. They all have some lame tax like Vindicators or assault centurions or whirlwinds or some garbage. P.S. No White Scars formation means the Ravenwing formation coming out this weekend is likely to become the new hotness in bikes - lucky all my bikes are Ravenwing!

Now let's have a quick look at some drop-pod lists. First, Sentinels of Terra:

DEMI COMPANY - Sentinels of Terra
Lysander
Command squad with drop pod, apothecary, meltagun x4
Tactical Squad (10) with drop pod, multi-melta, combi-melta, meltagun
Tactical Squad (10) with drop pod, multi-melta, combi-melta, meltagun
Tactical Squiad (10) with drop pod, heavy bolter
Assault Squad (10) with drop pod, flamer x2, melta bomb
Devastator Centurions with grav-weapons and omniscope

ALLY DETACHMENT
Tigurius
Tactical Squad with drop pod, rocket launcher
Drop pod

The difficulty with running demi-company for drop pods is that you can't take Centurions with grav in a pod without allying in something to get the pod itself. This makes me think that the demi-company is maybe not worth it. You get a doctrine, but after you have dropped in your opponent's face the Sentinels chapter tactic does the job pretty well, or the Ultramarines chapter tactic if you just take Ultramarines. Lysander is out of place here as well because you want him to be the Warlord to get FNP, but that makes the apothecary in the command squad redundant, but you can't take Sternguard without violating the Demi company conditions. So maybe straight Ultramarines instead:

SKYHAMMER ANNIHILATION FORCE
Devastators (5) with drop pod and multi-melta x4
Devastators (5) with drop pod and multi-melta x4
Assault Squad (5) with flamer x2, melta bomb
Assault Squad (5) with flamer x2, melta bomb

CAD
Marneus Calgar in terminator armour
Tigurius
Sternguard (7) with pod
Tactical squad (10) with pod, multi-melta, combi-melta, meltagun
Tactical Squad (10) with pod, heavy bolter
Drop pod (empty)
Drop pod
Devastator Centurions with grav-weapons and omniscope

I think the Skyhammer force is pretty good but it's not about assaulting units that you've shot at. It's a way to get 4 re-roll to hit multi-meltas in your opponent's face on turn 1. The assault squads are mostly about the flamers but I imagine that I will often just drop them in the midfield to claim objectives. The Centurions, Sternguard and 2 devastator squads will be more than enough for the alpha strike. Then again, it's handy to be able to flame something after you have blown up a transport and immediately assault it. After that, the assault squad can walk around grenading things. You have one empty pod for claiming back field objectives on later turn (use Tigurius to decide when it comes in) and to get you to 7 pods, and one tactical squad with just bolter rounds to hold mid-field objectives and be a nuisance.

We play a lot at 1500 points, and I came up with the following: the best of Space Marines 2015 list for that level. It's all different chapters:

SKYHAMMER ANNIHILATION FORCE - ULTRAMARINES
Devastators (5) with drop pod and multi-melta x4
Devastators (5) with drop pod and multi-melta x4
Assault Squad (5) with flamer x2, melta bomb
Assault Squad (5) with flamer x2, melta bomb

10th COMPANY STRIKE FORCE - Sentinels of Terra
Scouts (5) with combi-grav
Scouts (5) with combi-grav
Scouts (5) with combi-grav

CAD - White Scars
Chapter Master with bike, fist, artificer armour, shield eternal
3 bikes with 2 flamers
3 bikes with 2 flamers
Thunderfire cannon
3 devastator centurions with grav-weapons
drop pod

You get 3 drop pods with 8 multi-meltas and 3 grav-cannons in on turn 1 to wreck your opponent's key units. Plus the scout strike and the assault squads if you want. It's quite a potent little Alpha strike with only 3 pods. The Assault squads, flamer bike squads and thunderfire can mop up infantry and your Chapter Master goes around hitting isolated targets and being a nuisance. He can ride with one of the bike squads for ablative wounds in the meantime. The Scouts, bikes and assault squads mean you should have no trouble claiming objectives after you've finished your alpha strike, and the thunderfire, scouts and Chapter master mean that you will survive easily to deliver your alpha strike. I'm going to play this for the next fortnight or so until I've got the DA codex and can start making Deathwing lists. Please be good!

Finally, some very fast thoughts on the Librarius conclave. I will definitely write a full article on this formation, but not for at least 2 months - there will be a lot of playtesting needed.

1. The SM conclave is way better than the DA one because you don't have to take Ezekial, who is shit, and you can harness on a 2+.
2. However, it is not a Seer council, because the council gets cheap access to level 3 psychers who can ride jetbikes.
3. It also isn't any good for a Centurion star. You need guaranteed gate and invisibility for that to work, which means bringing both Draigo and that Forge World Librarian (or Tiggy, but occasionally Tiggy fails you). Centurions ride in pods for marines anyway - it's better. Draigo does double duty there by making it rather suicidal to assault the star - something puny Librarians can't do.
4. I think you need Tigurius, but that might just be because I haven't read the rules properly. The conclave needs to cast 3 powers a turn for it to be worth it, which means you need a level 3 psycher. It also needs invisibility for it to be worth it, and Tigurius maxes your chances of getting that. Tigurius is an awesome psycher, but you really want to put the conclave on bikes so that they can go where needed and charge things while wrapped in invisibility and toughness. Tiggy needs to stay within 12 for maximum effective, which makes things difficult. You can bring him down in a pod, but then you need Khan to get the conclave scout and you need something to bubble wrap Tigurius. As such, I think the best way to run this might be in some sort of Uber death star full of techmarines on bikes with fists, kind of like the thunderwolf cavalry death stars we have seen a few off. The difficulty there then remains how you get Tigurius into the action. My thought at this point is to put a thunderfire cannon into a drop pod and attach Tigurius to it. The cavalry scouts forward and joins the cannon, which makes them T7 and brings Tigurius into range of the conclave and effectively bubble wraps him. You cast invisibility and toughness (because you can't join a command squad with an apothecary if you've joined the thunderfire cannon), weather the storm of shooting, and then charge forward for the win. The missing piece is that I can't get storm shields onto anything other than a chapter master and chaplains are expensive, which means you don't have much in the way of invul saves for things that do get through your invisibility (like grav gun shots). Hmmmm. Perhaps the answer is to create two death stars and drop two thunderfire cannons....hmmmm....still working on this one.