Marine codex 'review' (#5): transports.

Rhino: great.

Look at that paper armor, the pea shooter weapon, no option for bigger gu- 35 points for a transport!?
I'll take one for every squad, thank you very much.

Yes, people, it's true. A rhino indeed only costs slightly more than two tactical marines. Fun fact: ork trukks also cost 35 points, and are nowhere near as durable and useful.

While armor 11 may not look like much, it actually is. 11 is enough to make you immune to all but one basic gun in the game, and grants resistance to most anti-infantry. Strength 5 is likely to patter harmlessly off your rhinos, but strength 6 is still a threat - just not a major one. Pentrating hits on 6's doesn't make your armor sweat.

The fact that you're indeed 11 front and side means you can do all sorts of tricks with your transports, since your actual facing doesn't matter that much.
A handful of rhinos can setup literal walls, blocking off access to parts of the table, and keeping units behind them safe from enemy infantry. You can 'plug' holes in defensive perimeters with them, too, as well as pillbox infantry.

That last point is what makes the rhino such a good thing to have.
Tactical squads on foot are slow, vulnerable, and immobile. Putting them inside rhinos makes them immune to all those small-arms that would normally plink off two or three marines a turn, while also making them twice as fast, and much more mobile.
Because the rhino has two firepoints, you can actually shoot your two important guns from within the safety of your transport.

A drive-by from twin heavy flamer sternguard is a very exciting thing to endure, as is tactical rhinos setting up multi-melta bunkers midfield, daring armor to come closer.
Bunkering sternguard with twin lascannons is lovely, too - same with librarians and their five man assault squad buddies performing sternguard-styled drive-by's on weakened infantry.

No matter what you want to accomplish, adding rhino-mounted infantry (the non-tactical squad kind that's in addition to your two meltabunkers) to the effort is only ever a good thing.

Unlike other armies, you get extremely cheap transports for almost all squads. The fact that they don't have real weapons bolted on is of little concern, since the squad carried will have more than enough that can be used from the hatch.

The discount-costed rhino (and its improved variants) is one of many reasons why marines are so good in 5th edition. You can simply put more armor on the field than many opponents can deal with.

Mount up, roll out, and never look back.

What makes it good: very cheap, very flexible, and very useful transport. You want all your infantry to be in these.

What makes it bad: limited firepower, and no serious options for adding more.

-

Razorback: great.

If you're willing to pay five more points, trade in your stormbolter, remove all firepoints, and lower your rhino's transport capacity to six, your warm box becomes an infantry fighting vehicle.

Initial equipment is a 'mere' linked heavy bolter (bolterback). That's some 'mere' armanent for a bargain priced transport, isn't it? Thought so.

Default gun is good - after all, there's no such thing as too much linked, long ranged AP4 firepower.
On the other hand, half the optional guns are not good, and should be avoided. Let's look at what's available.
Criminally overpriced heavy flamer, that lacks the ability to move and fire like you'd expect it to. Overpriced lascannon. Fairly costed assaultcannon. Note that all these guns are linked.

Lascannon is sometimes useful, but not often. After all, why take a linked lascannon razorback when it's much more effective to shoot two regular ones out of a rhino's top hatch?
The heavy flamer is what it is. Template. AP4. Can't move 12 inches and fire. No, thanks, and two heavy flamers from a rhino squad is much more dangerous.
Assaultcannon (assback!) is useful, but expensive. It's good on razorbacks because they're linked, fairly well-protected, draws fire away from small infantry squads, and razors happen to be one of few platforms for them.

That's all fun and cute, but not why we're here, is it?
Something that passes lots of people by is the option at the bottom. What's that? Linked plasmagun and a single lascannon? 35 extra points?
"Big deal," some say.

Many are under the impression that this load-out is weak, wimpy, not all that useful, or even special.
Name another transport with strength 7 and 9 guns, both AP2, that costs 75 points or less, and is available to almost all infantry in the codex. I'll wait.
Yes, you got that right. There's no other transport in the game with this much firepower. Yes, the ones that approach razors in firepower cost many times more. Yes, space marines get the most heavily armed transport in the game - period.

This dakka is nice on its own, but there's more to it than meets the eye - namely that razors are cheap, commonly available transports, so can be used for massed lascannon and plasma fire, relieving your infantry of plasma- and lascannon duty. More melta and flamer, in other words, with sacrificing needed AP2.
It also offers you a profoundly potent source of anti-elite infantry firepower. Few things in the game annihilate 'uber' units as quickly as massed pLASmabacks.

That said, 75 points is still not a light sum. Cheap for what you get, yes, but take too many, and your army will suffer.
A 2000 point army isn't likely to include more than three plasmabacks or assbacks, with additional transportation made up of a healthy rhino/bolterback mix.

What makes it good: cheap, effective, and ubiquitous. Default gun is inexpensive, and always a welcome addition. Excellent platform for assaultcannons, should you desire some. Plasmabacks destroy all types of infantry, and can hurt all types of armor. Extremely potent weapon against elite infantry.

What makes it bad: no firepoints. Low capacity makes it hard to use effectively with full tactical squads.

-

Drop pod: bad.

Paying a 35 point tax gives pretty much any and all infantry and walkers in you army the ability to deep strike accurately, and en-masse.
The benefits of doing this include being in the zone almost instantly, rear armor attacks with melta, heavy flamer action during the first turn, and contesting whatever objective you feel like.
Drawbacks include your marines now being on foot, your walkers dropping within melta-range, and since the 'pod is a transport that counts as having moved a whole, you can't assault out of it.

They're also one-use only - meaning, you can't step back inside the drop pod to hide.
This seriously shortens your expected lifespan.

Should your opponent be smart (he or she will be after the first time), you'll find that nothing gets deployed, but you're still forced to deploy your drop pods during the first turn.
Now you get a turn to move around some, then the opponent's reserves come in and - massive hurt.
It's a time-tested classic to deal with drop pods, and why black templars got their 'drop pod assault' upgraded to take place during the second turn. Unfortunately. this was downgraded in all more modern books, for reasons still unknown to this day.

As for the pod itself, it's an open topped armor 12 vehicle, which starts out immobilized, and wields a single stormbolter.
For a premium cost in points, you can upgrade the tiny gun into a range 12 rocket battery, that shoots large blasts. No, this really isn't a smart thing to put on pods that carry infantry.

"How do I make a range 12 gun work on this thing?" Easy.
Because pods are transports, and transports don't have to be deployed with their unit, you can deploy 'empty' pods, and keep the infantry in your deployment zone. Of course, this costs you a minimum of 55 extra points per squad, and the squads themselves will now be taking the field on foot. Don't do this, please.

An interesting option is locator beacons. This is a very nice piece of bling - really an upgraded teleport homer - that removes the scattter from any unit attempting to deep strike within 6.
Gating librarians, terminators, landspeeders, other drop pods, and even vanguard and assault marines benefit from this.

By far the best use for pods is as almost guaranteed objective contesters.
Drop an empty deathwind pod with a beacon on an objective, and watch as the opponent has to deal with the armor 12 brick. Of course, this cuts into your rhino- and razorback allowance, so still isn't that good, but it's something.

Overall, drop pods fail to impress. A high-tech rapid insertion vehicle, beaten out by a metal box with treads.

What makes it good: half of them automatically come down in the first turn. Gets dreads up close and personal with little hassle on the way there.

What makes it bad: the first rule is 'thou shalt never disembark from your steel coffin' for a reason. Dropping dreads within melta-range is self-defeating. Is quite obviously not a rhino, or a razorback, yet costs as much as the first, and more than both if it's given any upgrades.