Email in: returning player 1850 marines

"Hi, 

   I was a 3/4th edition player and due to work have been dragging myself around the eastern portions of the globe for the last few years. I am settling down for at least 2 years and have decided to buy myself a load of mini and get them ready for my long awaited return home so I can immediately jump back into gaming. I used to run Blood Angels in 4th, I've had a look at what has been happening in 5th and based on the epic amounts of drama that seem to surround Angels and Wolves I have decided to spare myself the agro and go vanilla this time. From my research of the codex and time spent analyzing other codices I have created the following 1,850 list. It would seem that everyone is going mech this edition.

I tried to create a relatively balanced list that allow me to junk transports and even a few heavier units, at the same time I also want to be able to do a bit of crowd control should I encounter a foot heavy list. my game plan is to stick the Master of the Forge with a conversion beamer with the missile devs, in effect (almost) giving them another Krak missile or a more powerful frag missile a turn, as well as bolstering their terrain. I am going to use them as light armour/ crowd control unit.The 3 riflemen dreads are going to do same job. The Sterguards are going to take care of heavy armour. 

My rhino mounted plasma cannon squads are going to be used to do 2 things. Firstly mop up any (hopefully!) stranded deathstar units after the Devs/Riflemen/Sternguards have popped their transports. Secondly use them to thin out any infantry mobs in conjunction with the Devs, 4 frags/conversion beamer/3 plasacannons can thin out a hell of a lot of infantry! 

Last but not least the Speeders are going to be used as utility units, that can pop transports and perhaps most importantly block and or delay them giving my heavier units a bit more time to pop them. As well as taking out any entrenched big guns at the back.

Please let me know if I am moving in the right direction or if I need to change some things up, I am hoping this list can be used as an all comers list.

THE WATCH 2^nd COMPANY

1850pts

HQ              

-Master of the Forge Deadalus 125pts

+Conversion Beamer 25

TROOPS (690)

-Tactical Squad Geta 230pts
+5 Marines 80
+Plasma Gun 10
+Plasma Cannon 5
+Rhino (Hunter-Killer Missile) 45

-Tactical Squad Octavius 230pts
+5 Marines 80
+Plasma gun 10
+Plasma Cannon 5
+Rhino (Hunter-Killer Missile) 45

-Tactical Squad Varro 230pts
+5 Marines 80
+Plasma gun 10
+Plasma Cannon 5
+Rhino (Hunter-Killer Missile) 45

ELITES (435)          

-Dreadnought Survius 125pts
+Twin Linked Autocannon 10
+Twin Linked Autocannon 10

-Sternguard Veteran Squad Ursus 155pts

+2 Lascannons 30

-Sternguard Veteran Squad Felix 155pts

+2 Lascannons 30

FAST ATTACK (120)

-Land Speeder Tornado Squadron Faustus 60pts

+1 land Speeders 50

+1 Multi-Melta 10

 -Land Speeder Tornado Squadron Varinius 60pts

+1 land Speeders 50

+1 Multi-Melta 10

HEAVY SUPPORT (480)

-Devestator Squad Brutus 230pts

+5 Marines 80

+4 Missile Launchers 60

-Dreadnought Priscus 125pts
+Twin Linked Autocannon 10
+Twin Linked Autocannon 10

-Dreadnought Seneca 125pts
+Twin Linked Autocannon 10
+Twin Linked Autocannon 10

Thanks for your time and I appreciate your blog which seems far less hysterical (not the funny type of hysterical) then some of the other stuff out there.

Cheers

Alex"


Glad you're coming back to the game and enjoy the blog Alex. Travelling certainly has its advantages but it takes away from things like this :P. So your list, overall pretty solid. Good use of the MotF to get Dreads and Sterns into the list but I'm not a fan of your Tactical squads. Plasma just isn't what it used to be and whilst you have good anti-tank/suppression fire from your Dreads/Devs/Sternguard, the Tacticals can't do much at all against a mech heavy list. I'd look at least changing the Plasma Cannon to an MM and would preferrably drop the plasma gun down to a flamer as well (then add either a combi-melta or combi-flamer). I think what we should aim to do is get the Sternguard Rhinos and perhaps a transport for the Devs as well which someone else can hijack (such as a Tactical combat squad). 


By dropping the Tacs to flamer/MM/rhino and no HKM we free up enough points to grab the Sternguard a Rhino each and we're sitting pretty at 1840 points. Providing the Speeders with Heavy Flamers and the Tactical squads with combi-weapons would be advisable though yet we're only going to gain those points by dropping Devastator bodies which means we can't combat squad them... might as well. We're looking to free up 40 points so by dropping 3 spare marines from the Devastator squad we get the following:


MotF w/Beamer
2x5x Sternguard w/2x Lascannons, Rhino
3x Riflemen Dreadnought
3x 10x Tacticals w/flamer, combi-weapon, MM, Rhino
2x Speeder w/MM/HF
7x Devs w/4x ML


1842 points. 


If we drop the final two spare devastator bodies we can grab 4 hunter killer missiles as well if we wish but that's up to you. The Devastators aren't the most efficient of units in the Space Marine codex and potentially replacing them with a Dreadnought works as well but you'd then need to find a place for the MotF. The lack of plasma is overcome with the mass amount of firepower you can put out. Whilst plasma is nice to ignore saves you've got 6 autocannons, 4 missiles, 5 MM, 5 flamers, 4 lascannons + the beamer to all push out damage.