GWvsJohn Builds an Army: Foot Marines

Our fearless leader received a request (via Warseer PM no less) asking for a footslogging marine "horde" (1750 points) and Kirby delegated the responsibility to me. It's good to be the king, right Kirbs? As crazy as that request was, it only gets wilder. No vehicles at all, no scouts, no terminators, no bikes and no more than 23 (odd limit) JP troops. Oh yeah, it also should be Blood Angels. Eager for a challenge, I dove in and tried to hit every request. (As an aside, if you really want a competitive all foot marine list, a Loganwing fits the bill and is very, very good)

Kirby comments in blue! Sorry Thud, didn't get to this today unfortunately :( so I asked GWvsJohn to do it since he was free :P; hope you don't mind! We talked about it and I agree with him on what he's produced and am quite impressed. I think it fulfils what you were asking of us (lots of Marine bodies & no mech) whilst staying as competitive as possible though I think at 1750 and lower is where it shines (GWvsJohn said this too I think). The problem with this type of list though is your killing power. Whilst you have awesome staying power w/FNP bubbles and T4/3+ x~60, you'll find Mech is capable of taking your 1st turn punch and punching back but I think in the restrictions given, it's near the best we can come up with and pretty decent. Personally if you were going for infantry and BA I'd prefer a pure Jumper list or Blood Rodeo but this is a bit of mix & match in terms of combat and shooting. Will post Thud's PM below so everyone else can have a gander and thanks to GWvsJohn for doing this! Silly power outage and assignments (again).

PM in from Thud:

"Instead of e-mailing you, I thought I'd just send you a PM. ;)

Ever since I saw a guy put down 100 Marines on the table way back in 3rd edition, I've wanted to make a large, footslogging Space Marine army; no vehicles, no Scouts, no nonsense, just Marines.

At the time, however, I was 13 and living off my allowance, so my dream never came to fruition. Now, however, after recently seeing a battle report video with tons of Marines (though accompanied with some tanks) I was reminded of this army type and I'd really like to go for it.

There are, unfortunately, a couple of problems. I play in a very competitive environment, and while I don't really care whether or not I win, I'd prefer not to get trashed all the damn time. And, then there's the fact that I haven't played with anything in power armour since I Rhino-rushed my Space Wolves forward before the time of the trial-assault rules in 3rd edition.

And that's where you come in...

To give you an idea of what I'm thinking of, here's a quick list I knocked together at 1,750 points, which is the standard point level around here, using the BA codex;

Librarian w/ jump pack
2x Sanguinary Priests w/ jump packs, power weapons
4x 10 Tactical Marines w/ meltagun, lascannon
2x 10 Assault Marines w/ 2 meltaguns 1 sgt w/ power weapon, the other w/ power fist
1x 10 Devastators w/ 4 lascannons

In objective missions the meltagun parts of the Tac squads would create sort of a Kroot wall around the Devs and the Lascannon parts of the Tac squads who camp on objectives. The Assault Squads, Priests and the Libby charge forward to contest/claim objectives in the opponent's side of the board.

Obviously this is not very refined yet, and I'm not used to being the guy who shoots with Marines, rather than the one who shoots at them, so hopefully you'll be able to help me refine this concept to the point where I'd at least be able to put up a decent fight against mech IG and whatnot.

I'm open to most changes except adding anything with an armour value, Terminators or Bikers and I'd prefer not to have any more models with jump packs than the 23 I have included in the list above. Dropping one Assault Squad in favour of, say, a Vanguard squad would be alright, though. And yes, I'm aware of how far I'm stretching the relative nature of the term "most changes."

Thanks in advance,
Thud. "

So, where do we start? Well, the same place every good Marine army (except maybe DA and obviously BT) should, with a Librarian. Blood Lance is just too good to leave off the table, so let's make this guy one of our 23 jumpers.

125 - Librarian - Jump Pack, Blood Lance, Shield of Sanguinius

The biggest problem (of many) with an all-foot list is lack of mobility. Slowing the enemy's plan becomes harder and seizing objectives nearly impossible (C&C becomes bunker down and hope for a draw). "Slow" mostly foot Tau and IG lists can blow opponents off the board, but even the shootiest marine list will have trouble with that. We need something that can go out and menace and maybe take objectives. Thankfully Thud (the requestor) is ok with some Jump Infantry and BA just happen to have very good ones that can score to boot. A foot list is also going to have a hard time taking out heavy armor, because it can't bring as much melta to bear quickly. So let's pack our ASM to the teeth with melta love.

250 - 10 Assault Marines - 2 meltaguns, Veteran Sgt, infernus pistol, powerfist

Let's bring 2 of them. 21 jumpers down so far, and not much of a footslogging list, lol. FNP is one of the greatest strength of the BA Codex, so let's get some (with FC too) for our jump wing.

75 - Sanguinary Priest - Jump Pack

One bubble for 20+ marines is tight, but we're gonna run with it for now. Just like we have the Jumpers to go get far objectives, let's bring some lads to protect our home base.

170 - 10 Tactical Marines - Missile Launcher, Flamer

Free upgrades FTW. Hopefully, these guys will stay relatively unscathed during most games as they project little threat. They also make a great bodyguard for the FNP bubble in our foot/shooty section. When it comes to a SP on foot, Corbulo is absolutely worth the 55 points extra he costs. In a list like this, going first becomes even more important, so Corbulo is well worth the cost.

105 - Brother Corbulo

We need more foot and more shooty, and for some reason the bloodthirsty, assault crazed marines get cheaper Devastators. We won't complain here.

130 - 5 Devastator Marines - 4 Missile Launchers

Bare bones and fragile, but put out decent hurt. Let's bring 3. I think this is everything we "need" so let's tally where we are. 1365, 22 jumpers, 25 footies, 6 melta, 13 ML, 2 FNP bubbles and most likely going first. To be honest, it's better than I expected with almost 400 to spend. In fact, I think this could be a very mean 1500 point list. But that's not what we're going for. Where to go from here. We need more foot to make Thud happy and we need more shooting to stay competitive. We'd all like Tacticals to be the core of our marine list, kicking ass and taking names like in the fluff, but in reality, the majority of a Tactical Squad's threat comes from the heavy and special, and they have to pay 170 points to even get those weapons. That's just not gonna cut it. We need more boom, so let's take a gander through the codex for options. Hmm, Sternguard can take 2 heavy weapons in a 5 man squad, and at Tactical prices? That's something that's easy to miss in an initial read of Marine codices and rarely used when you can mount or drop them and go all melta.

155 - 5 Sternguard Veterans - 2 Lascannons

I think paying 20 more for 2 Lascannons here makes sense while paying 10 for 1 Lascannon in a Tactical Squad is dumb. Why? I can't really explain. The Tactical heavy is a sort of afterthought, if it works, great, but we're not relying on it, so let's keep it cheap. Here, we are adding the Sterns as a firepower unit and the threat of 2 s9 over 2 s8 is significant. We also don't have a lot of ap2 in this list, so that's nice. Let's bring 2 of these squads. Those 6 special ammo guys also provide some last ditch anti-infantry for when things go south. That brings our total up to 1675. For our last 75, I think a 2nd jump SP is the way to go. This relies on the small jump wing to do a lot. Having a 2nd bubble gives you greatly increased versatility (since you can split the squads) and redundancy (since each bubble has 10 ablative wounds). Here's our list:

125 - Librarian - Jump Pack, Blood Lance, Shield of Sanguinius
75 - Sanguinary Priest - Jump Pack
75 - Sanguinary Priest - Jump Pack
105 - Brother Corbulo
155 - 5 Sternguard Veterans - 2 Lascannons
155 - 5 Sternguard Veterans - 2 Lascannons
250 - 10 Assault Marines - 2 meltaguns, Veteran Sgt, infernus pistol, powerfist
250 - 10 Assault Marines - 2 meltaguns, Veteran Sgt, infernus pistol, powerfist
170 - 10 Tactical Marines - Missile Launcher, Flamer
130 - 5 Devastator Marines - 4 Missile Launchers
130 - 5 Devastator Marines - 4 Missile Launchers
130 - 5 Devastator Marines - 4 Missile Launchers

Did we succeed? 1750 point Blood Angel, check. No vehicles at all, no scouts, no terminators, no bikes, check. No more than 23 JP troops? Quick math, 23 exactly. Damn, I'm good. Competitive? For 1750, yeah, I think it is. 16 ML and 4 LC is a decent alpha strike, and with Corbulo you'll probably go first. 23 FNP jumpers are tough to put down before they can put a hurt on you. Your 35 man foot/shooty base puts out decent firepower, but is a little vulnerable to blasts as they all huddle around Corbulo for the FNP love.

Unfortunately, I think 1750 is the end of the line for this list. You've maxed your foot firepower with no more elite or HS slots. I think your best option to go up to 2000 would be

247 - Inquisitor Lord - null rod, psycannon, terminator armor, emperor's tarot, 2 mystics, 3 MM gun servitors

3 MM are nice, and the tarot (plus Corbulo) almost guarantee first turn, but 250 is a lot to spend for a t3 squad with only 8 wounds.

Anyone have other ideas?

-GWvsJohn