Footslogging Marine CC

[CHIAPETOFDOOM]

Heyas folks,

I recently turned away from my massive hordes of gribblies and decided to give in for once and try a generic space marine army (sorry no offense I never concidered them up till now). So I purchased a space marine commander box at the local gaming hobby store.

Now I want to expand a little...I havent put my commander together or anything yet but I'm thinking I want to create an army based around tons of marines in close combat...basically a tyranid-esque Space marine army...I KNOW THEIR SPACE MARINES...Im just still having some nids-withdrawl symptoms and I need to know if this is possible.

From what Ive heard blood angels and black templar are good at close combat...but can they be numerous enough? Can they be outfitted efficiently to footslog into close combat? And can they stand against my nids?

I myself have argued against some of you that tyranids are supperior in this respect but now im trying to challenge it, so if you have any ideas, im scouring the codexs trying to find the combinations of low point costs marine boyz thatll do the job. Thanks for any help you can offer, I know alot of you are alot better with marines than I.

Cheers!

[hairyyahoo]

well i think black templars can all be outfitted for combat and can have upto 20 man squads so they should survive the march a bit better. i know from experience that you wouldn't want to be on the recieving end of a blood angel charge cos they all have the furious charge ability and get a 1 in 6 chance of an extra d6" move. in my opinion its do-able but you'd be better off with transports.

[Inquisitor Ralei]

My Space Marine Army (The Black Lions) are a dedicated CC SM force.

My Trait Advantages are;

Blessed Be The Warriors
No Mercy, No Respite

With Eye to Eye as the disadvantage.

Basically, it means that I have a load of Assault Marines (Elite choice as well as Fast Attack choice) and all the Marines in my Army have Furious Charge.
They get across the table pretty quick which makes up for the lack of heavy weaponary.
My HQ is a Master of Sanctity in Terminator Armour (see the Painting Competition thread) with a Reclusiam Command Squad as his bodyguard.
One of my Elite choices is a 10 man Terminator Assault Squad mainly with Lightning Claws.

As anyone will tell you, one trick pony armies are hard to use but I've been using this army since the 4th Edition Space Marine Codex allowed Traits (I had a BA and Salamander Army before that) and know exactly how to use them.

If you want a dedicated CC Army then No Mercy, No Respite is an essential Trait but you could easily swap Blessed Be The Warriors with Take The Fight To Them if you didn't want a lot of Assault Marines in your Army.

[Librarian_Tigurius]

I play Black Templars and i have to say these are probably your best choice... they are 1 pt more a piece then normal marines but neophytes are only 10 pts a piece and you can take the 10 initiates (power armor) and 10 neophytes (scout armor) in one unit and when they take a casualty (even just 1) you must make a leadership (a commander or Chaplain comes in handy here) and if you pass you run D6" at the enemy... in essence you have a chance of falling back but more often then not you run at the enemy... with 20 strong units they enemy is gunna have to punish you to stop you... the only disadvantage to this is you only get one special close combat weapon per squad so even if you have 20 guys you only have 1 power wep... but with all those guys and perhaps the vow to give you prefered enemy against whoever you are fighting you will have a good chance of just simply crushing your enemy when you hit thier lines... as long as you don't spend too many points on units like sword brethren.. they are expensive and hard hitting but if you are hoofin it all the way over there then you won't want them...

[Dan296]

black templars are the way to go for some pure close combat tin canned goodness. blood angels are good but if you want to have them i would wait for the next codex of theirs to come out. i have a pretty good close combat marine force but it is balanced out alot by some shooty squads as well as pure shooty sisters of battle allies. good stuff.
now as for the marine horde idea=its tricky. it can backfire. its expensive. to have close combat marines you will have to buy assault marine boxes, which come with normal backpacks. for a HORDE, it would be very expensive.

tyranids vs a dedicated close combat space marine force? tyranids any day of the week. i think the only armies able to really face down tyranids in close combat are world eaters, blood angles (only if they are able to charge) orks, and maybe, MAYBE a very good black templar player. ive faced several black templar players who think they can handle it....but they cant. but i have been wiped out by a black templar player who based his entire list around defeating nids and orks. not very nice...

[Inquisitor Ralei]

One of the two people I regularly play against has a Tyranid force so I get to perfect my list constantly with tweaks here and there.
I've played a lot of Tyranid players who have the whole range of variations on the army list and pure CC Tyranids are very very nasty but if you know what you're doing then there are a few key strategies that hurt them everytime.

[MSguardsmen]

hmm. well any army can beat any army.


it is a common rule among generals to use the terrain to your advantage. just find a way to funnel the nids into a tiny space and slaughter them.


Thought For the Day: When fighting a tyranid remember to jump, duck, and most of all RUN

[rintinglen]

'Black Templars are an excellent choice if you want to play CCW space marines. However, the best way to get your ccw marines is to buy the Blood Claw Box. You get all the chain swords, bolt pistols, etc. You don't have to spring for back packs to replace the jumppacks from the Assault Marines, cause they are already there.
However, CCW Marines can't really do it all. Nids are better at ccw, and if you want to play their game, you will lose a lot more than you win. Balanced armies do better, though having said that, I have been experimenting with an all fast army. Everybody has either a transport or else a jump pack, and it does allow you to get places fast.

[r4wr89]

tigurius brought up a good point, about how BT run really fast. they are also pretty CC like, and a lot of people already talked about how BT get optional big squads.

if you want a DIY you could possibly try infiltrating, but it is really, really expensive for non-chaos marine armies [lol alpha legionnaires that infiltrate cost the same as normal marines, with higher leadership??? haha]

i think BT are your best bet though. not to mention the fact that they just got a new codex while BA are still waiting :]

just a few thoughts! :]
-ant

[masterofweirdness]

For a total CC army... BA or BT, most definatly, COdex: Space Marines doesn't allow for a FAST CHEAP GOOD TOTAL CC army. Grant Space Marines can do CC fine... Rhino+P. fist+2 assault weapons + frags = good assaulty unit.

However, said unit is expesnive, and frankly, one or two of these hike up your points REAL fast.

However, you can create a VERY balanced list, and, while head-to-head with assault armies marines can lose, had some infiltrating dev. squads (to deploy AFTER everyone else ) with 4 heavy bolters and the 'nids and their lovely Genestealers w/ extended carapace (I HATE IT!) are toast.

[jus10 the angel]

Blood Angels are superior in every respect to all other chapters
If you pick BA, your gonna have small squads, so you wont get as many number as say Space Wolves or Templars.

And CC is great, but being a Blood Angel severly shafts you in terms of Heavy Support. That 1 in 6 chance of moving a d6 is cool for everybody you want to charge, but you will suffer if heavy weapons are forced to move when you need the to take a shot.


And you'll need to buy loads and loads of bolt pistols and CCW's because you're not going to be able to have a tac squad shoot their bolters and assault, and BA's only get bonuses if they are the ones doing the assaulting. And that extra attack comes in handy.

You are pretty much forced to pick a squad of CC Scouts (BA only get one scout squad with special weapons), but thast works out. Sending a scouut squad (of 10 scouts), infiltrating them, and them having a free move at the start of the game is one hell of a way to take out an enemy HQ or heavy weapons squad.

So i say go blood angels, because we're awesome.

[Dan296]

well like i said, BA are good but their codex is very old. once the new ones come out you should consider them after giving them an overlooking but right now i wouldnt. to beat nids a balenced force is the way to go.

[Inquisitor Ralei]

I don't see the new BA Codex coming out anytime soon.
Unless it is the one after the Ork Codex which if it is then you're still looking at about a one year wait.

[jus10 the angel]

Originally Posted by Inquisitor Ralei

I don't see the new BA Codex coming out anytime soon.
Unless it is the one after the Ork Codex which if it is then you're still looking at about a one year wait.

Yeah, if you want a new codex (and the new codex usually makes for a better army), then BA is gonna hafta wait a while.

[masterofweirdness]

Assuming that the ork codex is released around june/july, and they don't do Codex: Armageddon (stupid idea, IMO), and BA is next Imperial Codex (the other choice would have to be space wolves), then it could be out by December... thats slightly less than a year.

If they do Codex: Armageddon, it'll be more than a year.

[Inquisitor Ralei]

Where do you get a June/July release date for the Ork Codex?
All sources and sites point to an Autumn release although if you are correct (which I personally can't see) then this is the best news I've heard!

[Librarian_Tigurius]

Originally Posted by jus10 the angel

And CC is great, but being a Blood Angel severly shafts you in terms of Heavy Support. That 1 in 6 chance of moving a d6 is cool for everybody you want to charge, but you will suffer if heavy weapons are forced to move when you need the to take a shot.

Just thought i would throw in... BA are the ones that suffer if they run forward... in BT if you have a heavy wep in a unit that runs at the enemy they don't suffer from it and can still fire the heavy wep... heh but otherwise the BA are pretty good... and this reason was the only reason i chose BT

[r4wr89]

Originally Posted by Librarian_Tigurius

Just thought i would throw in... BA are the ones that suffer if they run forward... in BT if you have a heavy wep in a unit that runs at the enemy they don't suffer from it and can still fire the heavy wep... heh but otherwise the BA are pretty good... and this reason was the only reason i chose BT

woa seriously? hmm...i was unaware of this...lol. that is definitely an awesome rule.

-ant

[jus10 the angel]

Originally Posted by Librarian_Tigurius

Just thought i would throw in... BA are the ones that suffer if they run forward... in BT if you have a heavy wep in a unit that runs at the enemy they don't suffer from it and can still fire the heavy wep... heh but otherwise the BA are pretty good... and this reason was the only reason i chose BT

yeah..i said BA suffer.

[Librarian_Tigurius]

Oh yeah i know you said that... i was just pointing out that cuz BT run in the nemy shooting phase they may be slightly out of possition but still can shoot heavy weapons