[Grand Master Raziel]

Wargear

Terminator Honours: I started with Termie Honours because they are one of the must-haves for any SM IC. We buy ICs for their close combat abilities, and Termie Honours gives them an additional attack. Your ICs should never leave home without them.

Articifer Armor: Arty armor is an expensive, ineffective points-sink. The Majority Armor rules neuter it, and anything your opponent is likely to throw at your ICs in close combat is likely to ignore armor saves anyway. To be avoided.

Auspex: worth taking if you’ve got a few extra points to spend.

Bionics: This is another useless waste of points. Bionics sorta gives your character an extra save, but not against anything you’d really need it against. Avoid.

Combat Shield: An invulnerable save is one of the most important things you can give to an IC. A combat shield gives a decent invulnerable save, is fairly cheap, and doesn’t take up one of your weapon slots the way a storm shield does – the save isn’t quite as good as a storm shield, however. You can also give these to Veteran Sergeants, and while he won’t get to use it until he’s the sole survivor from his squad, it’s cheap enough to be worth giving anyway. For ICs, the combat shield is better than nothing – consider it to be the bare minimum invulnerable save to buy.

Familiar: Only Librarians can take these, but boy do they make Librarians worth taking! They boost the Librarian up to I6, so he’ll get to make his attacks in CC before most anything else in the game. Combining that with the force weapon is what makes Librarians so effective at IC-killing.

Frag Grenades: Any IC you plan on sending into assault should have these – so all your ICs should get them.

Jump Pack: If you want to send an IC to accompany an Assault Squad, then you should give him a Jump Pack. Otherwise, don’t bother. A chaplain with a jump pack does go with an Assault Squd the way peanut butter goes with jelly, however.

Krak Grenades/Meltabombs: I grouped these together because they serve the same purpose – vehicle killing. In general, you can afford to leave these alone, as your characters shouldn’t be screwing around with trying to kill vehicles. The Codex has much more effective options for that at your disposal.

Master-crafted Weapon: Generally too expensive to be worthwhile. The only thing I consider worth the expense of master-crafting is a Librarian’s force weapon, and even then it’s an iffy expenditure.

Purity Seals: cheap, and might make the difference between getting away and staying stuck in an untenable situation.

Space Marine Bike: Expensive, but might be worth using if you’re using Bike Squads. A Bike does boost an IC’s toughness and comes with a twin-linked bolter, so you don’t need to buy him a gun. Also, the rules do not state that a character with a bike needs to use one of his hands to control the bike. So, you can get the bonus attack for having two weapons (if applicable).

Teleport Homer: If you’re using Terminators, it’s worth sprinkling these throughout your army. Infiltrators and fast-movers are especially good units to carry these.

Terminator Armor: Terminator Armor is the major bargain item of the SM armory. It gives an extra attack, and improved armor save, a good invulnerable save, and the ability to Deep Strike, all for only 25 points! If you tried to get all the benefits of Termie Armor with other gear from the armory, you’d wind spending at least 65 points to get it all. So, you can definitely do worse than give Termie Armor to your ICs. As for sergeants, in the previous codex, Termie Armor had an ICs-only notation. The current dex doesn’t, however it does state that 1) no model may take the same item more than once, 2) Termie Armor gives Terminator Honours at no extra cost (the extra attack) and 3) in order to get access to the armory, a sergeant must first be given Terminator Honours.

Relics & Artifacts
Iron Halo: The Iron Halo is the most commonly used relic, as it gives a good invulnerable save against both shooting and close combat attacks, and an invulnerable save is a necessary item for any IC. There are cheaper options, but the Halo is the most effective (not necessarily the most cost-effective, however).

Adamantine Mantle: This pricey item protects your ICs from being insta-killed by S8+ attacks, which can be handy. However, since you can only take one relic, it often gets overlooked in favor of the Iron Halo. That means in order to use this, you need to get your invulnerable save from another source - such as a storm shield or Terminator Armor. If you’re going to equip one of your ICs with a power fist, then that’s exactly what you need to do.

Holy Relic/Chapter Banner/Sacred Standard: I don’t generally use these items because I don’t generally use a Standard Bearer, they’re expensive, and I’m usually either using an Iron Halo or an Adamantine Mantle. That said, I’d say that the Holy Relic doesn’t suck, but that the Chapter Banner and the Sacred Standard do – or, at least, they’re not worth what you pay for them.

This seems like as good a place as any to discuss Vehicle Upgrades. The Space Marine army doesn’t have any really sexy vehicle upgrades, but it’s got a few utility ones that should be on all vehicles, and a couple that are conditionally useful. The upgrades that should be on every vehicle (except Speeders, which can’t take them) are Extra Armor and Smoke Launchers. It’s a mere 8 points for the pair, and their protective value is not to be denied. Even Dreadnoughts and gun tanks should be given these upgrades. The conditionally useful vehicle upgrades are the Pintle-Mounted Storm Bolter and Power of the Machine Spirit. In general, I don’t consider it worth the points to put the extra storm bolter on most of my vehicles, but I do have one on my Predator Destructor. Power of the Machine Spirit, for its part, is too expensive to put on anything other than the Vindicator, and the only reason it’s worth putting on the Vindicator is because the Vindy doesn’t need to roll to hit with its Demolisher Cannon, thus negating the downside to firing at BS2. I’ve never used Dozer Blades, but I suppose they could be handy on a table with a lot of terrain, like a City Fight board. The Hunter-Killer Missile is a waste of points. Night fighting conditions don’t crop up with much frequency, but Searchlights are cheap enough to slap on all your vehicles just in case.