Tactics - Angry Marines

This article is awesome. Do not fuck it up.

Codex is Here. READ IT COCKSUCKER!!! Also, why are you here if you haven't read the codex already, the shit there is far cooler.

Why Play Angry Marines

Much like the hulking, green English football hooligans that everyone loves to play against, you can be a slightly less hulking, yellow football hooligan cock knocking anyone that stands in your way whilst screaming a never ending battle cry of FUUUUUUUUUUUU....!!!

Angry Marines, while not a GW endorsed army, can be just as fun to play as the Orks (If the Orks and Angry Marines put their very small amount of differences aside, the Angry Waaagh would probably dominate the galaxy!). And much like Orks, conversion work is highly recommended for Angry Marines, if not mandatory. Get out your greenstuff, glue, and plasticard and get ready to make some middlefingers for Commisar Fuklaw and Portable FUCK Launchers for the rest of your angry force. Happy converting.

Pros

• You get to play the coolest home-brew faction in existence, what more reasons do you need?!!!
• EVERYTHING IS WRITTEN WITH FUCKING CAPS LOCKS ON AND CURSE WORDS AT CUNTING MAXIMIUM!!!
• You have one of the best (if not the best) melee armies in the game, even your guns can be used in melee.
• You get to stick a giant middle finger up at GW for the shit they've pulled over the years (although even some of their stupid shit is cool, mostly it’s just the pricing).
• You get the largest variety of units in the game for a single faction. You get tanks, knights, titans, pseudo penitent engines, even goddamn honey badgers!
  • On top of that you get extra warlord traits, psychic powers, relics, detachments and codex supplements with even more good stuff.
• If you're a long standing 40K player your probably have what you need to play the Angry Marines just lying around.
• Everyone will love you for playing them, only customised orks while result in as much gamer glee.
  • Seriously, unless your a total dick about it turning up with your space marine orks will have everyone smiling, you will brighten up their day with your yellow and red glow.
• You have the best (if somewhat dangerous) deepstriking methods which allow for a greater than 50% chance of making a successful charge even without rerolls, and one of your methods deep strikes a rhino onto the field at 6”, the fun you can have with flame throwers in such a situation is beautiful.
• BECAUSE I SAID SO DICKHEAD!!!

Cons

• THERE ARE NO DOWNSIDES NOW SHUT UP YOU PRICK!!!

• All your models are either going to be proxy or difficult to make, as there is a lot of "character" which has to go into the angry marines, the painting alone puts them above and beyond other factions in terms of detail/graffiti.
  • You’d better get good at painting the colour yellow, because ow boy no colour in the entirety of warhammer can go as badly wrong as yellow.
• If you're not careful other armies will eat you for breakfast, as there's lots of stuff out there which is specifically designed to anally abuse MEQ'S.

• The codex is not yet finished or balanced, so you'll either have your arse handed to you or be labelled as "that guy".

• You lack a lot of the new primaris units or very specialized units like cataphracti armour.

• Most of your shooting is orks levels of accuracy unless you go to your elites or hq slots (but then again, that’s kind of the point).
  • This really hurts if you shill out for heavy and special weapons, as they cost only slightly less or the same as their vanilla counterparts.

• You will never be able to officially play them as there is no chance GW will make them canon, never fucking mind releasing a proper codex for them. Your best hope is that your local game club or GW shop lets you play them after checking that the rules aren’t broken.
  • Not really an issue as there are now angry knights and titans (and the knights apoplectic if you want knight characters) but you still don’t get stuff like spartan assault tanks.

Angry Marine Rules

• ALWAYS ANGRY!!!

The rule that makes angry marines angry marines, the chainsaw core of their being, which is plus 1 attack on the charge or heroic intervention, and hits of 6+ in the same circumstances become 2 hits instead of 1. By itself it turns a 1 attack marine into a 2.16 attack marine, and that’s without melee weapons (dual or otherwise) psychic powers or relics. The best part of this is the exploding attacks, as you have many ways of adding 1 to hit and increasing your base attack amount. Be aware though that this is only when charging etc, you get no benefit for being charged or for any rounds of combat after the first, incentivising you to either hit hard and make your enemy incapable of fighting back in any serious manner, or to cycle charge with flying units.

Be aware though that anything which gives you a minus 1 to hit in melee will mean you need a 7+ for this effect to activate, so thunder hammers, servo arms and the like don’t benefit at all unless you can get a plus 1 to hit.

• And They Shall Know No Fear:

Reroll morale tests, a bit meh this edition because of how morale works but it may save you from time to time. This will be glossed over in the following tactics.

• Desert Fangs Tactics:

Plus 1 attack and strength for the unit when it charges, the equivalent to ALWAYS ANGRY!!! for those units which are classed as desert fangs instead of angry marines. Makes your silencers hit harder on the charge.

• Dual Melee Weapons:

Plus 1 attack for a model if it is equipped with two of the same melee weapon. This does not come up often in other legions but the angry marines have greater access to dual everything, helping to add to your already impressive attack levels.

• FUCK THE BOLTER!!!:

Angry marines do not get the Bolter Discipline. Instead they may fire bolt weapons at enemy units within 1” of friendly units, or within 1” of themselves, but at a minus1 to hit unless they didn’t move, are bikers, characters, dreadnoughts or terminators. Given angry marines want to get into combat as fast as possible being able to use their weapons against units already in melee makes the most of the weapons they bring along, although with a minus 1 to hit your only hitting on 6’s without buffs. Models with a pistol also get to use the pistol butt weapon profile, which gives them an extra chainsword equivalent attack in melee but at a minus 1 to hit. With the angry marines strength of 5 an extra attack, even at minus 1 to hit, can go a long way.

• Jump Pack Assault:

Standard 9” deep strike for units with jump packs, which you have access to quite a few of.

• NOT ANGRY ENOUGH!!!:

• SHOCK ASSAULT BITCHES!!!:

Shock Assault but by another name. You know it. You love it. Anything that gives your marines more attacks to trigger ALWAYS ANGRY!!! is good.

• Storm Shield:

The classic 3++ save. A difficult one for the angry marines as an arm given up for a storm shield is an arm not carrying a melee weapon to give you a bonus attack.

• Teleport Strike:

Standard 9” deep strike for units in terminator armour, something which you have little access to due to the angry marines preference for speed and melee.

• THIS SHIT'S OURS NOW, FUCKERS!!!:

Objective Secured, Angry Marine style. The only difference is that troops with this that charged count as two models instead of one in that turn, incentivising you to make last minute charge attempts to shift an opponent off an objective at the end of the game.

• Turbo-Boost:

Your standard 6” advance for bikes. To be avoided unless your trying to get into cover as advancing means you can’t charge.

Warlord Traits

• FUCKING HERETICS!!!

Re-roll all failed wounds for your warlord. Simple. Effective, and allows you to make the most of the high number of high strength attacks your warlord can make. As a bonus, this also works with your ranged weapons, but is best avoided on characters who can already re-roll part of their wound rolls.

• FUCK SCORING!!!

For when you don’t need your warlord to contest an objective, in exchange for your warlord not being able to take objectives they add 1 to their attacks characteristics and to their ranged weapons type.

• GET OVER HERE YOU FUCK!!!

6+D6” charge range instead of 2D6”, giving you an average charge range of 9.5” and a minimum range of 7”. Increases your reliability after deep striking and can be very easily buffed further.

• IT’S KINDA FUN!!!

May take a ranged weapon for free and adds 1 to their ranged hit rolls and ignores the penalties for advancing and firing all weapons. A bit meh when you consider that you could give your warlord dual melee weapons instead and throw them into melee.

• IT’S ON YOU NOW COCKSUCKER!!!

Plus 2 attacks and movement of your warlords below half wounds. This will rarely activate as most of your characters will die before this activates unless they’re someone really tough, but it can also be utterly terrifying when that character your opponent thought was on their last legs is now in melee chopping them to pieces.

• Master of Furious Flight

Plus 6” extra movement and gains the benefit of cover after advancing, but only if they can fly. One of the few purely mobility based traits, but it does allow your warlord to engage whatever target they choose.

• Psychic Nutcase

Plus 2 to all psychic tests and knows and casts an extra power, but suffers perils on double 1’s, 2’s and 6’s. A high risk high reward trait, you will be suffering perils from doubles and rolling more than 12 very often, but you’ll also be casting some of the angry marines excellent powers far more often.

Psychic Powers

• FUCK HEAT!!!

For WC 6 a unit with plasma weapons rerolls all failed hit rolls until your next psychic phase, even on overwatch. Angry marine plasma weapons are more powerful than normal, but are far more unstable, so the ability to avoid those fatal 1’s helps.

• FFFFFFFF...!!!

WC 6 on an infantry unit, and they gain 1 attack, 2 if they’re outnumbered in melee, 3 if they’re outnumbered 2:1 in melee. You know that ork horde you just charged? Evaporated. Those hormogaunts? Annihilated. Best used on your tough units with melee weapons which normally suffer from a low attack count like the adamantium 2 by 4.

• RIP AND TEAR!!!

• FUCK YOUR PSYCHIC SHIT!!!

WC 5, minus 1 to the psychic tests taken by a within 24” (being able to target characters) and ALL other psykers within 6” of the psyker. Simple, effective and shuts down a lot of armies psychic phase. Grey knights and thousand sons in particular will suffer and at only WC 5 it’s easy to pull off. However, this is a one trick pony, it’s of no use against armies with no pskyers, or even against the necrons with their not psykers.

• ALL THE RAGE!!!

WC 6, an angry marine character get plus 1 attack and toughness until your next psychic phase and enemy units within 3” subtract 1 from their leadership. Toughness 5 holds a special place in the rules at the moment, as it provides protection against strength 4,5 and 8 weapons which are very common, the plus 1 attack and leadership debuff are just gravy to kill more stuff. Does not stack with the RIP AND TEAR!!! and FFFFFFFF...!!! Psychic Powers, so as before you’ll need to make a tactical choice on what you need your unit to do.

• I’M COMING FOR YOU FUCKER!!!

ArteFUCKts

• Sergeant Greenhands's SANCTIFIED Big Choppa

Units

HQ

Angry Captains

Angry Captain

Your standard space marine captain (T4 W5 A4, 3+/5++, reroll 1’s to hit), but angry marine style (S5, always angry, fuck the bolter). Kit wise they get two master crafted chainswords meaning that they have 7 attacks base, making them the deadliest base captain of any chapter, 9 attacks on the charge. Mostly you’ll have the vanilla, cheap as possible as with strength 5 you’ll wound almost all infantry on 3’s, at worst 4’s, even toughness 8 on 5’s. If you want to make them an utter murder machine they can take all melee weapons as dual weapons (except the power chair), so two lightning claws? Murder everything. Two power fists or hammers? Legal and murderous. But the holy grail of melee weapon duos are the Adamantium 2”x4” with a nail through it, which will cost you an arm and a leg (someone else’s hopefully) but they will give you 6 exploding attacks on the charge at S7 ap-4 DD3, allowing yourself base captain to beat the shit out of anything smaller than a bane blade.

Angry Captain in Terminator Armour

See the previous, but in terminator armour and with terminator weapons. Send with a squad of terminators to deep strike your enemy to death.

Angry Captain on Bike

See the previous, previous entry, but with turbo boost, plus 1 toughness, increased movement and biker weapons. Use when you want to speed of a jump pack, but don’t want them to die when looked at sideways.

Special Characters

Captain Bat Shit Insane

The most absurd infantry beat stick you possess. Stat wise he’s a basic captain (down to the 5++) but with an extra attack and two arecheotech chainswords (S user ap-2 D2 +1 attack) which give him an effective attack count of 8, 10 on the charge with ALWAYS ANGRY!!! and shock assault, on top of power feet and the usual D3 attacks with them at the end of the fight phase. By itself this makes him an infantry blender of some quality, but as with all angry marines what makes them special are their special rules. Skill through insanity allows him to reroll all failed hits and hit rolls of 6+ automatically wound, which stacks with always angry to give you two auto wounding hits on a hit of 6+, although with strength 5 this isn’t as essential. However, he may never be your warlord, stopping him from taking advantage of the absurdly powerful happy go choppy warlord trait (which would make his attack count 12 on the charge with triple exploding attacks on 6’s).

Finally, his Flurry of chain swords rule means that failed hit rolls of 1 against him in the fight phase deal a mortal wound back on the sender, which works absolute wonders on swarms, and at the beginning of each fight phase all (including friendlies) other units within 3” of him take a mortal wound on a 4+. In all he’s a glass cannon, so load him into a transport and fire him at your enemy as fast as possible and watch them disappear in a red mist, as on the charge he effectively creates 11.66 hits on whatever he is fighting on the charge, which is more than enough to simple evaporate most targets.

Dick Haggard

Dick Haggard does one thing and he does it well, and that’s punching stuff. Base he’s just a generic angry marine (ws 2+ bs 4+ S4 T4 W6 A5 Ld8 3+ sv) which makes him very squishy against any anti infantry weapons. What makes him that bit special is a 5+ feel no pain save, but with no invulnerability save melted will chew through him, but you should be keeping him behind a meat shield (unfortunately he is not allowed in vehicles). Things start looking up when you look at his melee weapons, which are his knuckle dustered fists (the plus 1 attack is baked into his stat line) which are S5 ap-1 DD3 melee weapons which he rerolls all failed hot rolls with and failed wound rolls of 1 and 2 (in other words all failed wounds against most targets) and become ap-4 damage 3 on a wound roll of 6+. On top of that, he gets to make D3 additional attacks with his fists every time he fights, which with the usual angry marine rules of always angry and shock assault give him a max of 10 exploding attacks on the charge. Against proper chaff this will do wonders and against MEQs with high invulnerability saves his low ap doesn’t matter, but this profile will suffer against properly armoured, massed foes.

For ranged he has one weapon, a literal fucking rock, an assault 1 6D3” S5 ap0 DD2. Normally this wounded even be worth rolling the dice for to resolve, but a wound roll of 6+ deals DD2 mortal wounds instead, which is improved to a 4+ against vehicles, making it at least possible for him to deal damage. Finally, haggard is also a body guard, but only for temperus maximus, who he intercepts damage for. The key word is damage, not hits, as the other competition for uber strong bodyguards, the guardians of fury, intercept hits. This allows the chapter master to use his invulnerability save first, then pass on any unsaved damage onto haggard to use his feel no pain save. All of this comes at the low price of 70 points, which even as a 6 wound and feel no pain upgrade for your chapter master is good value before adding on his melee prowess.

Temperus Maximus

Chapter Master Temperus Maximus

Your classic chapter master in power armour on the surface, 5”, 2+ weapon skill, T4 W7 A5 2+/4++, halves damage (rounding up) received, reroll all failed hits within 6”, deep strike, but with the angry usual angry marine trimmings (4+ bs, S5). Sub sonic battle cry and adamantium cigar prevents all angry marines within 6” suffering negative leadership modifiers and adds 1 to their leadership, which is a bit meh in this addition but still has its uses. What you want him for though is his combat prowess, as although he has the classic uber powerfist, he also comes with power feet and RIGHT IN THE NUTS FUCKER!!! which gives him D6 extra attacks each time he fights, but only with his power feet. And as already stated, power feet are quite dangerous, being effectively less accurate power fists. Combine this with always angry and his inherent attacks rerolls Maximus is able to kill any MEQ character in a single round of combat, or wipe out entire squads of multi wound infantry, making him essentially impossible to tarpit or kill with a single character.

However, other than the leadership and rerolls maximus doesn’t add anything extra to your army, and as he is inherently slow, and with his high price tag you will notice his presence in your army list.

Maximus, The Absurdly Miffed

In 8th edition not even the angry marines are safe from being primarisafied. Maximum in his primaries form shares all the same base stats as his non primaris form, but those differences he does have will be noticed. For starters, he has plus 1 wound and attack and toughness 5 which are standard in primaris chapter masters, immediately making anti MEQ weapons latterly ineffective against him, while further buffing his insane melee prowess. His weapons are also all the same except that he gains furious glare, a 2D6 flamer with ap-1, giving him excellent overwatch defence against infantry. For rules he gains YOU DID FUCKING WHAT?!!! and ffffuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!!!, the former of which allows him to charge after advancing while making him immune to the effects of any stratagem (yours or your opponent) while the latter makes him explode on death to deal D6 mortal wounds to everything in 2D6”. All in all, Maximus, The Absurdly Miffed benefits exceptionally well from becoming a primaris, but still suffers from his previous shortfalls.

The Guardians of Fury

The most dangerous infantry the angry marines have access to. Base they’re a unit (2-5 models) of cataphracti terminators (2+/4++, 4”, 2 attacks 3 wounds, half advance distances, ATSKNF and teleport strike) with the usual angry marine dressing (strength 5, 4+ ballistic skill, 2+ weapon skill and always angry). Things start getting interesting however with their weapons, first of which is a flamer (for horde clearance), second there’s power feet along with FUCK DOORS! FUCK TANKS! AND FUCKING NUT CRACKING!!! for two extra attacks with power feet at the end of the first phase. By itself this would make them a bit underpowered, so each one of them gets a chain glaive for their main melee weapon, a two profile weapon, one is a Strike, S8 ap -3 D2, a generally all round murder profile which performs well against all targets, and a Sweep, S5 ap-1 D1 where 1 hit counts as 2 for your chaff destruction.

If that was that however The Guardians of fury would still be a bit lacking at only 2 attacks, which is where there other abilities come into play. Stone cold anger gives them rerolls to hit, Furious to keep up and FUCK SHIT UP!!! gives them D2 extra attacks each time they fight, D3 when they charge, while No Avenue of Escape reduces the invulnerability saves of enemy units by 1 within 1” of this unit. This gives the guardians up to 7 attacks each on the charge (plus the exploding 6’s attacks) at S8 ap-3 D2 at a -1 invulnerability save. In short, they’re absolutely lethal. For context that’s 5.44 damage against guilliman, the toughest, none titanic unit in the game.

Lastly, the unit can intercept hits (not wounds) meant for angry marine characters within 3”, or automatically if the unit is a chapter master or primarch (they cannot divert damage they receive however, despite being characters). However, with their price tag of 70 points each and how powerful they are they’re better of used to back up someone like rachnus or temperus maximus.

Dedicated Transport

Drop Pod

If you’re after a recognisable space marine unit, but want it to still be utterly unique in the way only angry marines can only be, then look no further than the angry marine drop pod. On a base layer it’s a standard drop pod, same troop capacity (10) except with 3 storm bolters instead of the usual 1. In a world of 9” deep strikes on every Tom dick and Harry the angry marines drop pod is one of the few units which is capable of something remarkable. A 6” deep strike via the Please, JUST LET ME DIE!!! ability, at the cost of the drop taking 3D3 mortal wounds and all the models inside it taking a strength 3 ap 0 D1 hit. This potential loss of models is happily made up by the ability to have a much easier post deep strike charge, and considering that your army is built around making the most of a charge (right down to down model count on taking objectives after charging), the drop pod gives you a precision, and reliable, method of getting your units where you need them.

But 10 models making a 6” deep strike for 74 points might seem a bit pricey for you. You might also be utterly insane, in which case the drop pod has you covered with the Externally Awesome Improvised Seating a

Lords of War

Rachnus Rageous (Angry Marines Primarch)

The biggest primarch beat stick until angron, russ or Horus get rules. Base stats he’s guilliman but with a 3+ ballistic skill instead of a 2+ and a 4+ invulnerability save instead of a 3+, which by itself still makes him superbly lethal and survivable. Like guilliman he also has a ranged weapon, The Sandstorm Assault cannon at assault 5 24” s6 ap-1 DD2, which is certainly dangerous but will struggle against anything that isn’t a generic GEQ or MEQ. For melee he only gets one weapon, but it’s a melee weapon which far out strips girlymans, The Fangs of RAGING Desert, a S+4 ap-4 D4 weapon which deals 2D3 mortal wounds instead of normal damage on 6+ wounds or 4 mortal wounds (sometimes reliability is more useful than potential damage) against demons and psykers, but it’s most powerful feature is that all invulnerability saves taken against the weapon suffer a minus 1 penalty. This is a huge deal, as most important targets are protected by some kind of invulnerability save, making high ap weapons pointless. Against guillimans 3+ invulnerability save this increases damage dealt by 50%, a huge increase where you would otherwise require more attacks.

Abilities wise he gets ATSKNF (pointless but there), ALWAYS ANGRY!!! ALL THE TIME!!!, souped you always angry which provides D3 extra attacks every time he fights a double hits on 6+ hit rolls, DEATH CAN NOT STOP ME!!!