# Space marine Tactics



## Ordo Xeno Commander (Jan 17, 2007)

Post your various tactics for killing whatever army and how successful they were here. Im looking for tactics because i basically run and shoot, or stand off nd shoot, OR drop pod and get into CC and kick some ass with lots of power weapons.


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## mechboy (Feb 18, 2007)

this is a very hard thing to cover due to the nature of marines. 
atleast in my eyes, they're the "B" army in 40k. By this I mean that while some armies are A's in assaulting (tyranids/orks) they usually suffer in shooting or something else. Tau for example are probably A's in shooting but a B for mobility and D- for assault. 
Marines are always above average and therefor can be played alot of different ways. 
Some very general thoughts would be: 

A huge strength of marines is their basic troop choice. 
The tactical squad is probably the single best troop selection in the game due to its massive versatility and flexiblity. However that can also work against you if you aren't sure what to do with it or try to do too much. Also the basic marine is a great unit and has one of the best stat lines, armor and gun available, all in one nice little package. End result of this is you can't go wrong with more marines and especially more tac squads. 

Also since they're above average on everything, a good idea is to find what you're opponent is weak against and exploit it. 
Say you're fighting tau, well don't try to outshoot them (even though you have a better BS) instead get in close and slaughter them in assault where you are grossly superior. Conversely, don't try to out assault a tryanid swarm list, rather use your excellent shooting and the great bolter to sweep them away. 
Other armies lack the ability to do many things good. VERY rarely would an IG general consider assaultying to be in his best interest, even against a very shooty opponent but marines can find the enemies weak points and exploit it. 

I hope that helps some, even though its really basic. Its hard to write more tactics than that without having a specific army type in mind.


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## nightmarine (Mar 30, 2007)

first of all i would like to say taht ive had libarians and command squads taken out by about 10-20 Ig since they guy gives 1 a power weapons and the rest become food. NOt to mention crap save rolls. Anyway, what Mechboy said is just about perfect. SMs are perfectly ballanced so you can exploit the enemy's weakness. Like he also said u shoot nids and orks and u charge tau.

Now my bit of advice is more or less a bettleplan. It works better in bigger games i have found. I get some scouts and give my troops rhinos/razorbacks to get them deep into CC. Wut u do is give your chaplains etc. terminator armor and a termy comm squad. Then u give each of oyur troops (including scouts) ter honors and teleport homer. Your goal...get close ad let the guns rip them appart. Then let your termies come in and assault the enemy to deat. It has lots of variation available like droppers and such, but the strategy. I havent really tried it yet, but i will soon. I will say this, strategies that were like it have proved fatal against imperial armies and some tau. I just thought i would throw that out there. I know its a bit thrown about and unorganized, so feel free to ask questions


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## Ordo Xeno Commander (Jan 17, 2007)

yea, i have a termie librarian, so he deepstrike and then the termies drop in around him (tele homer) then proceed to rip almost everything apart. all the while i have lascannons and assault cannons hosing eveything dow while mi normal command sqaud marches/drives down the field. 2 squads of troops move up the outside with 2 heavy/ assault weapons each and prceed to flank them. it generally works


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## nightmarine (Mar 30, 2007)

yup just got back from testing it with an all-nighter (from 10-3 and then we got tired and quit) we were playing 3v3 teams 3000points/team and a shared list for purposes of compusorary choises (standard). The fiction did not make too much sence, but we didnt care. The teams were Tau,IG, and WitchHunters VS Chaos, Daemonhunters (Like that would ever happen), and SM (ME). Since Grey nights can be taken as fast attack and teleported, the greynight player took about 10 in 2 squads of 5 and then got 5 termies, a LR (mine since his is crusader) a predator, a landspeeder with melta, and maybe some other stuff. I got a razorback (just got it) with a squad of people with a tele. homer, 2 squads of scouts (5 each) with a vet sergeant and a tele. homer in each, and 1 infiltrating devastator squad with 2 missile launcers and a lascannon. I then put Ol' Mr. Chappy (chaplain) into a squad of 5 termies and i was set. The chaos got 2 havoc squads 1 with 4 missiles and 1 with 4 lascannons and both with tankhunters. Then he got some obliterators and a lord, i think, with termies.

We had tons of terrain and buildings in the middle of the table so i infiltrated 1 scout into a sactuary i made whos only entrance is a narrow alley between 2 bunkers. the devastators found a home behind the santuary, and my other scouts hid in a building on the other sdie of the map. 

Things started out decent but then took a turn for the worse as their superior range began to show. Our biggest threat was a squad of barrage suits on the farr side of the map. My ally got my landspeeder in a building within 12" of a lemen russ :twisted: BOOM toasted! the piranas popped into the sanctuary and gunned my scouts down as the obliterators were APed back to the warp. Then all of our termies came into play. Mine got caught up in an assault with St. Celestine and the grey night termies and some grey nights went and killed the barrage battlesuits. That was another gamebreaking point. When we qiut the reall battle was about to begin. We had all of our termies still on the board except 1 and 5 scouts, 5 grey nights, and out LR while they only had 2 squads of IG, a tau special character and his retinue, and an inquisitor. If it would have continued, victory would have been our. It was fun beacuse it kept our enemy guessing and their leaing player only seems to be able to plan if he knows where everything is. I know this was vague, but it did work


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## Ordo Xeno Commander (Jan 17, 2007)

sweet. lol yea i love termies, they, and dreads are mi fav units in SM armies. but yea i have charging units in transports (LRC) and long range units (dread, pred and devs next week) plus a few infiltrators and my legendary Captain Shrike. then the termies just blow the crap out of everything, and mi termie librarian and his Grey Knight terminator guard squad jus decide to drop in and proceed to rip appart troops and characters allike


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