Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Tyrant's Legion(7E)

Basically, the Tyrant's Legion are the Astral Claws before Lugft Huron got half his body shot off and then turned to Chaos. His army can be played using a normal Space Marines list, but he was a bit of a naughty boy even back then, and totally ignored the Codex Astartes; most of his soldiers were hidden among Badab's Planetary Defense Force as "advisors" and support units.

The list itself is practically a combination of the Codex: Vanilla Space Marines and Codex: Imperial Guard, but without what most would consider the best bits of either. But to make up for it it does have its own twist on certain units and adds in some unique ways to play on its own.

The army list is found in Imperial Armour Volume 9 if you're trying to find it and don't mind forking out a fortune on Forge World books and units.

Why Play with Tyrant's Legion?

• You want to play Imperial Guard but with power armour.
• You want to play Space Marines but with more bodies and bigger guns!!!
• You fancy playing bad guy Space Marines without all the retarded association with Chaos.
• You like the idea of having cannon fodder march in front of your Marine units and take hits for them.
• You play games for the fluff (i.e. you don't mind losing games).

Unit Analysis

Special Rules

Tyrants Due The list has an army wide special rule called Tyrant's Due, where the stupid humans jump in the way of gunfire to protect their superhuman masters. Any shooting attacks at marine units through human auxilia units essentially gives those Marines a boosted cover save, but causes that auxilia unit to take a handful of hits too.

FOC Changes The army does have its own unique FOC if you want to use that instead of the standard one. You can only take 4 troops and 1 fast attack, BUT get 4 elites and 4 heavy support, very helpful in this army since you can practically ignore fast attack anyway, your troops choices can be made massive and you really want to saturate heavy support as much as you can afford.

Chapter Tactics All of the Space Marine units (excepting those unlocked through Huron's elite slot or Cohorts' Heavy Slot) CANNOT combat squad, and all have Combat Tactics & Chapter Tactics (yes it's there in the army-wide special rules on p177) The book even goes so far as to have a handy little sidebar to indicate which units are space marines and which units are human auxilia (as if it wasn't completely obvious) so there's no arguing with your opponent about which units in the list should actually be able to benefit from Chapter tactics. While this is obviously an older list it refers to those rules printed in Codex Space Marines the same way that the Siege Vanguard refers to them in IA10. This means the Space Marines Codex and army-wide chapter tactics COMPLETELY change the way this army gets played:

• Ultramarines - If you're staying true to the fluff of the Astral Claws, then Ultramarines tactics are what you should take (yes yes, they "could" be Dark Angels instead, but you can't get grim resolve or inner circle). While you can get the partial benefit of the combat doctrines, this is probably the weakest of chapter tactics for you since they only apply to part of your army for one turn per game and you don't have actual tactical squads or assault squads and can only take devastators in certain circumstances.
• White Scars - Probably best to leave this one alone. Army (Marine) wide Hit & Run? Yes you can make your Iron Hunters into Born in the Saddle Bad-asses they were always supposed to be, but it's only one unit and other chapter tactics can give you so much more.
• Imperial Fists - Starting to get better, particularly in armies focussing heavily on Legion units instead of Auxilia; rerolls of ones to-hit on all bolt weapons. This is handy considering that you can have rather large squads of Legion Cohorts and can have marines of some type or another in every FOC slot. And by taking more of those cohorts you get more Heavy Support choices from the Marine Codex, so you can give Siege Masters to Devastators and Centurions and still have a couple of FOC slots free for Leman Russes/Artillery since you're playing Tyrant's Legion.
• Black Templars - This one acts as the great leveller, having Accept Any Challenge turns your rather mediocre sergeants and commanders into a worrying threat for enemy characters in a way they could never be before. Also giving all Space Marines the ability to run a bit further can give those large foot-slogging legion cohorts more mobility. Finally, the small bit of psychic defense softens the blow of not having any psykers in your army anyway.
• Iron Hands - Good enough, Feel No Pain, even if it is the lesser version is useful in nearly all situations, while you can't rely on it, it will save you the occasional guy and infantry heavy legion armies will appreciate it. Machine Empathy isn't as fantastic here though, since your only Marine HQ choice has two wounds and can only wear power armour so is therefore likely to die straight up rather than limp through a game slowly regenerating. Nothing has the ability to repair vehicles so you miss out on that ability. While regenerating vehicles does exactly what it says on the tin, be aware that is does not apply to Leman Russes or any other Auxilia vehicles. (remember the side bar)
• Salamanders - big squads makes big targets for flamers, being descended from Vulkan makes these units practically invulnerable to flames while making them more lethal with flamers at the same time. And giving your commander a master crafted weapon gives him a minor edge in whatever role you decde to put him in. This chapter tactic does actually work well, since you can leave your legion cohorts and retaliators to go infantry hunting with flamers and leave the tank busting to your other tanks.
• Raven Guard - Granting all of your marine units the ability to scout/outflank opens you up to a whole new set of tactical options with this army, rather than slogging it across the board all the time. Having Stealth on turn one helps too. However, Winged Deliverance is useless since you don't have any jump pack units. (the ONLY way to get one is to have Huron as your commander then take Vanguard Veterans, a waste of points and a chapter tactics since you're focussing way too much on one unit)

HQ Units

The HQ choices available to the Tyrants legion are SEVERELY limited; you only get two in the list and two special characters.

• Legion Centurion - In games of 1500pts or more this is your compulsory commander. He's basically a Space Marine Sergeant with the same options but with two wounds. He also has a special ability like a Commissar where if he's attached to a human auxilia unit that breaks in close combat, he gets to shoot D3 of them and give them another chance to regroup.
  • While generally crap and won't be winning you many combats or doing anything awesome with your army, he is one of the cheapest HQ units available to ANYONE, so you can take him naked and still have lots of points left over for the rest of your army. If you're looking to make something stronger you might as well take the special character, who still fills your compulsory slot.
• Auxilia Command Detachment - This is the equivalent of an Imperial Guard PLATOON command squad, but with NO ability to issue orders, No medi-pack and No standard bearer. What it does get you is a Leadership bubble (Ld 8? ...woo...)
  • The naked unit does come in cheaper than the Centurion, but can be customised to a much better degree. They can ADD (not replace) a heavy weapons team, which is a nice way of adding guns. You can also upgrade the officer to +1WS and +1 wound for 20 pts, but you probably won't do this as making him more survivable in CC probably means you're using the unit wrong. So spend the same points to give everyone carapace armour and lets them not immediately fall over when anything shoots at them.
• Lugft Huron - The man himself, before his heart turned black. He is a bit of a special guy who is so far above everything else that he seems out of place. He costs a boatload but considering how cheap many of the units are you might justify paying for him. His special rules are handy (Space Marines get Ld10 / reroll seizing initiative / one-shot Ordnance 2 bombardment) but his equipment loadout means he won't mesh well with the army. He's the only thing with a 2+ save and is a melee character in a gunline army, and NOTHING else can deep-strike along with him.
  • If you have the points, Huron DOES offer more to the army though; he can take a Space Marine Honour Guard if you like splashing out, but ALSO lets you take one Elites choice from the Space Marines Codex - I recommend taking Terminators, since they're the only thing that can deep strike with him, actually support him in melee and gives you the option of taking a Land Raider, which you don't have to use a slot for.
  • Taking Assault Centurions from the new codex is also a good and cheaper alternative to Terminators as a team up option for Huron; much more survivability with Toughness 5 and works very well for with his weapons load out as a short range unit with lots of flamers and the ability to use grenades when charging. Practically a match made in heaven and you can still take a Land Raider as a dedicated transport.
• Arch Centurion Carnac Commodus - Your other special character, who is probably the go-to guy. He's probably cheaper than any other space marine special character by a mile, has a statline better than a chaplain but not a captain. Has S5 RENDING attacks and lets you re-roll sweeping advances, which is handy if you don't like them getting away from you. He also fills up your compulsory Centurion requirement, so can't complain.

Troops

• Legion Auxilia - 1+ COMPULSORY: 20-40 models. On the face of it, these guys suck ass. They have the statline of conscripts but with a 6+ save instead. But if you look deeper they aren't so bad. You weren't getting a flak armour save against boltguns anyway. They have a Ld7 unit champion who lets them attempt to regroup even below half strength and can take flamers or frag(and krak) grenade launchers which don't rely on ballistic skill to hit anything.
  • You can go cheap with these guys; 70pts gets you a lot of bodies to sit on objectives and hopefully get a lucky shot off and kill something while your other units strike ahead in vehicles.
  • Or go more expensive (I say expensive... even 40 guys costs less than 10 marines!) and cover huge areas with models to deny deep strike, contest multiple objectives, REALLY claim that one objective and be a nasty overwatch threat with flamers.
    • Just don't overdo it, it's not really worth spending points upgrading the champion, if you're in combat you're likely to lose. Also don't buy heavy stubbers, they're overcosted and you're not likely to kill anything with a poor-mans storm bolter.
• Space Marine Cohort - A 10-20 man space marine squad that can take one special/heavy per 5 men. No plasma cannons or multi-meltas but don't worry, big guns are generally covered by heavy support in this army. And you can still put out the hurt with a lot of missile / heavy bolter / plasma gun firepower here with plenty of spare dudes with bolters. In addition, for every Cohort you take, you are allowed to take one Heavy Support unit from Codex: Space Marines as one of your FOC options.
  • An alternative is to stick them with power axes instead (you can do this) and have a nasty-ish melee squad that can't have the weapons picked off in challenges.
  • Only vehicle option is a Rhino, and only then if you've got the basic 10 men.
  • You could be a real douchebag and take a Spartan Assault Tank as your Heavy Support option, this is allowed according to the Spartan experimental rules. While being an absolute monster at only 40 or so points more than a land raider, is one of the few vehicles that can actually accommodate the unit sizes found in the Tyrant's Legion list.
• Auxilia Armsmen Cadre - It's easy to compare these to Imperial Guard Veteran squads, but if you do that they compare poorly. The only "doctrine" they'd get is access to carapace armour and are normal guardsmen rather than veterans. However in their defense they are cheaper and have a squad size of 10-20. They have a special rule that lets you re-roll 1s to hit if they stand still before shooting and have a beefed up melee sergeant (for what that's worth) Best thing about them though is they get access to Chimeras and so are your economical alternative to space marines for objective claiming.

Dedicated Transports

• Rhinos - Very cheap and good transport since space marines are KNOWN TO HIDE IN MEHTAL BAWKSES, DA KOWARDZ! TEH FEWLZ! There's not much to say about it beyond "use it!" Seriously, don't footslog your Marines. A walking Marine is a dead Marine, and dead men hold no objectives. The only upgrades recommended are the Dozer Blade and maybe Hunter-Killer Missiles (if you have a lot of HK's in your army already). Once the guys are out of it, you can basically throw it away in petty dick moves like preventing charges, blocking line of sight, and tank shocking people into tight formation to be hit with flamers, more useful for shielding your own guys as it's side armour is 11, as opposed to the 10 most transports have (*cough* Chimera *cough*) so str 4 weapons (standard infantry power) can't glance it. You can also use its speed to dick around with Necrons if you feel like trolling them and don't really care about winning.
  • NOTE: look on the entry for the rhino in your codex and you will notice a rule that no-one ever uses, which is a shame because it totally rocks: opt out of shooting for a 1/6 chance of repairing an immobilized result. Your opponent cries when he thinks he's immobilised your transport and then it starts moving again. I mean, what else are you going to do in that phase? You're not Chaos, you don't get decent guns on your Rhinos.
  • Exploit 6th edition rules: Now you can flat-out Rhinos in shooting phase. This means your tacticals, sternguards and devastators could dakka on enemy and THEN you flat-out nearby Rhino in front of them, basically negating fire back. Its all fair and legal. Guard and Tau could do the same, but their transports aren't as cheap as yours and actually have some good guns, so they can not skip shooting as easy as you.
• Razorback - The Razorback is a basically a Rhino but you can fit heavier guns on it including anti-tank weapons and of course more expensive than a standard Metal box. It is one of the best choices for a SM army themed on firepower. Best configuration is a Tactical Squad of 10 with Lascannon and Melta gun/Plasma gun. "But you can't fit 10 men in that tiny metal box!!11" Actually, if you check the Space Marine FAQ a Tactical squad can choose a Razorback as a dedicated transport even if it has more than 10 men. So at game start you combat squad them, one with the Sergeant and plasma gun or meltagun, and the other with a Lascannon. The former goes in your transport, the latter stays at the back of the board, providing fire support and capturing your home objective. Give the Razorback twin linked lascannons. The LC/TLPG looks nice but its an illusion. The TL re-roll can win or lose games, and the PG is too much of an oddball for any task you use it for. Its short range, can damage the vehicle and isn't particularly effective against heavy infantry or light vehicles. This combo can be brutal in both low points and higher points games, giving you a lot of firepower. Just remember to be careful with your deployment if you come up against a classic IG leafblower list.
• Chimera: This is the gem of the MEHTAL BAWKS world. Heavy Bolter Snap firing with Multi Laser? This has become the hate machine it was supposed to be. But nothing stops you from Snap Firing Multi Laser with Flamethrower. Or use Hunter-Killers to demolish enemy vehicles. Other points of this fine vehicle:
  • Cheap (point-wise). You can spam them, get lots and lots of multilasers (it will please you), and a solid wall of AV12 metal in front.
  • Unlike Imperial Guard Chimeras, this baby can have an Autocannon turret, which actually makes it vicious, and a threat to other vehicles.
  • Makes otherwise-slow Auxilia armsmen units mobile.
  • You can fire all your important shit (special weapons, which is, Melta and Plasma) out the top hatch. Letting you fry while staying safe from retaliation.
  • They also count as tanks, meaning that once your troops are in position, you can tank shock the enemies off the point and even crush some Ork vehicles and scare off the mobs.
• Trojan Support Vehicle - only an option for artillery pieces, and you probably won't take it, since they'll probably have the range to hit everything on the board anyway and you won't need to move them.
  • You could be a dick and take it anyway. 35pts for a moving heavy bolter/flamer that can tank shock or park in front of your barrage artillery won't cost you the world.
  • Revised IA1 changed this unit considerably. Depending on whether or not you have both IA books at the table, it's no longer an artillery tractor (which means that your heavy ordnance is now immobile, plain and simple). Now it has a transport capacity (no idea what you can use it for), its repair ability is useless since the army list doesn't have tech priests. Though as a supply vehicle it does grant preferred enemy to a friendly tank within 6". So take three heavy ordnance pieces and have the trojans hang out with your leman russ squadron.

Elites

• Corpse Taker - A fluffy unit. A single Apothecary in a unit of servitors (not even GOOD servitors, chainswords only). He lets you count enemy Space Marine kills within 12" as DOUBLE kill points, which in theory could be a game winner. Problem is he has to linger around in the threat zone to do this and he's fragile. While the servitors can spread the area of this bubble outwards, they're really just ablative wounds here, and if you lose the apothecary (has only 1 wound, 3+ save) you might as well remove the unit as it won't be doing anything else useful for the game.
  • You "could" use the unit as a bodyguard for your commander, granting him Feel No Pain and a lot of accompanying bodies.
  • The unit can also take a rhino or razorback, which if you take no other upgrades, becomes a slightly more survivable and faster moving 12" double bubble if you just never let them leave the vehicle.
  • Interestingly, the Apothecary can take hellfire rounds for his bolter, which could be handy in sniping monstrous creatures like greater Daemons and Wraithlords... but then you're not fighting against Space Marines and gaining double KP are you?
• Retaliator Squad - Kinda like an Assault Squad, but with combat shields instead of jump packs. They also get Void Hardened armour in battles where it matters, so if you're playing boarding missions it might equate to a justifiable expense. On top of whatever the sergeant gets, the unit can only get one special weapon, however the options are varied: You can go for a Heavy Bolter if you're schizophrenic and can't decide what the unit is supposed to do, a lascutter if you REALLY need to cut through that stationary vehicle. (it drops your WS to 1), or just take a flamer for free.
• Renegade Marauders - Now this is your unique modelling opportunities unit. Perhaps the melee mirror of Imperial Guard Veterans: They even get doctrines for FREE! What's better is they can add in pseudo-feral ogryns with no weapon other than rending fists. [or big mutants or combat servitors, depending on whatever you decide the unit looks like] One of the MAJOR downers of this squad is that it's only in it for the money i.e: once they break, they're broken for good.
  • One way of dealing with the leadership problem is to attach a basic centurion to the unit. Not only will it boost their Ld value, but will give them the second chance at the test, and considering that this unit may be one of your few melee units in the army, attaching a centurion isn't a total waste.
  • The unit can take a Chimera as a transport OR an Arvus Lighter, which in 6th edition is less of an insulting option.
  • The doctrine you take also will likely dictate what loadout you give to the squad as it will change how you use them.
    • Murder Cultists turns them into scouting, furious assaulters. Take power weapons or flamers since they'll be up close.
    • Stalkers turns them into sneaky bastards who hide in cover and see in the dark; take sniper rifles or heavy stubbers.
    • Hereteks gives them carapace armour and krak grenades, and is the balanced option; take whatever you like.

Fast Attack

• Maelstrom Fleet Landers - Up to 3 Arvus Lighters which can act separately, not a squadron. Basically flying transports. While probably overcosted, especially if taking any guns, it does give the army the fastest way do deploy shit on the battlefield since you don't get drop pods. Just zoom them to where you need to drop off dudes and switch to hover mode to let them out. Easy, just think of them as drop pods. Then slap yourself HARD for spending so much ££££ on resin boxes.
• Iron Hunter Squadron - For a guy who's supposed to pride himself on his bikes and have a long history of bikers in the chapter (the so-called Hounds of Huron), these are just underwhelming. They don't get access to an attack bike, can only take one special weapon per 5 men and only get the Counter Attack USR for their trouble (whoop-di-do). They are just too expensive -- goddamn Ravenwing are cheaper!
  • Besides all of the above, they are the fastest movers in the army list so can turbo boost to deny an objective
  • They are possibly also your "other" melee unit though not a great one, they'll probably just get stuck in a fight they'll never win.
  • ALTERNATE TAKE - Take a full squad with two flamers and annoy one of your opponents mid-strength melee units at close range, but refuse to assault them in close combat, that's the point. Your opponent will have to suck it up and assault them instead, forcing them through unenviable twin-linked overwatch fire > flamer hits > followed by counter assault > then try to take out toughness 5 models. Even Howling Banshees might have a problem charging against this unit Either that or they attempt to slug it out trading ranged attacks with them and trust me: your army has bigger guns!
• Auxilia Hellhound Squadron - 1-3 Hellhound Tanks (you can't take a variant).
  • The standard Hellhound is a very handy infantry-killer. If they're not Marine-equivalents (and even they will be hurting once the wounds pile up and they start failing saves), and not in a transport, they will die. What's that? You opponent has Rangers/Heavy Weapons Teams/snipers holed up in a building somewhere giving your commanders and high-value units a hard time? The Inferno Cannon laughs at cover. The range of the IC means that you can expect them to hit enemy infantry starting on turn 1 (move 12", fire 12", cover another 8" with flame template). Ran in support of longer-ranged anti-tank weapons for popping enemy transports, Hellhounds can also serve to finish off units from disembarked vehicles. In 6th edition, Fast vehicles can now fire 2 weapons at full BS at cruising speed, so enjoy the possibilities of hull weaponry combinations.
• Sentry Gun Battery - Tarantula turrets as Fast Attack WTF!? Regardless, lets roll with this. You get a battery of three immobile twin linked Heavy Bolters, with the option to add three more and swap them for a Multi-melta for free, or pay for TL assault cannons or TL Lascannons. Being automated, you have very little control over what they actually do in the battle, they select their own targets based on pre-set criteria, you basically just get to choose at deployment what their arcs are: 360 degrees but at 18" range, or 90 degrees at 36" range, so you're rarely going to be blasting things across the table with these things.
  • DON'T EVER mix and match guns or targeting criteria, nowhere in the rules do they say they deploy separately or behave any differently from any other artillery battery, meaning they should all be firing at the same target, which is still the one they select for themselves.
  • 6th Edition really gave these guys a boost, so they get Toughness 6 (not 7, due to IA2) and two wounds, rather than simply breaking at the slightest glancing hit as before. So they have considerably more survivability.

Heavy Support

• Auxilia Battle Tank Squadron: Leman. Fucking. Russ. It's a big tank. Holds the proud title of best tank in the galaxy for its size and cost. Side effects include: Templates, lots of dice, lots of AV. Take in units of 1-3. While you don't get as many choices as the standard Imperial Guard however, the same tactics apply and you can never go wrong with a Leman Russ. In 6th edition, Leman Russ lost "Lumbering Behemoth" rule, and became a Heavy vehicle, instead. This means that you are limited to only 6 inches of movement. However, you can fire all your non-ordnance weapons at the same turn, as if you haven't moved, meaning that non-ordnance Russes (Exterminator or Annihilator) are made even more rapetastic, at slight disadvantage of Ordnance ones (Battle Tank). Remember this, and kit out your tanks accordingly.
  • Leman Russ Battle Tank: Though it comes in many flavors, the basic tank is the most useful. With its S8 AP3 72" gun and thick armor, it is good against anything for decent points. This is your runner-and-gunner, your go-to tank, and the majority of your Leman Russ pool at any time should be these or Executioners. Kit em out with heavy bolters all around, since you are going to be forced to snap fire non-cannon weapons, so up the volume of fire.
  • Leman Russ Exterminator: Armed with a 4 shot twin-linked Autocannon means this thing is death incarnate for 4+ armour and light vehicles. Kit it with 3 extra Heavy Bolters for beautiful infantry shredding. It doesn't have Skyfire or a Targeting Computer but you will still put a big dent on anything you do end up hitting.
  • Leman Russ Annihilator- The alternative to a Vanquisher (not sure if Forgeworld make these any more!) While not as nasty when it hits, it is more likely to hit being twin linked and you don't get access to Pask. Use the same way as a Vanquisher.
• Auxilia Siege Defense Squadron - This is where the big guns start showing their teeth. Take in units of 1-3, mix/match to taste. (Probably a bad idea, maybe better to focus here since they all have mismatched weapon ranges)
  • Thunderer (Forge World): It's a Leman Russ chassis with hull-mounted demolisher cannon. Unlike the LR Demolisher it has no front or side sponsons. Obviously this is your Vindicator, and like all IG vehicles its all around better then its SM analog, due to the combination of superior armor and sufficient speed.
    • Unlike Thunderers in the Imperial Guard, these can be taken in a squadron. Which is a VERY scary prospect when you consider that lobbing three S10 AP2 pie plates on a unit will inevitably make it disappear. The problem is that they cost a bit more than vindicators and scatter their templates a bit more on average.
  • Basilisk Artillery Gun: Jokingly called the penis-enlargement gun by veteran Guard Players, the Basilisk is noted for having a really big gun. This gun is also known for being long-ranged, having the option for direct or indirect fire, and having AP 3 (meaning it can kill Marines in the open, or pummel Crisis Suits). However, having the worst minimum-range requirements has the potential to often relegate the Basilisk to being a direct-fire weapon, a task the Medusa tends to do better in most cases for a marginal upgrade in cost; this said, the Basilisk's direct-fire does have a longer range than the Medusa. Unless it's Apocalypse, you don't need more than 36" though, so get a Medusa, or a Leman Russ Battle Tank, which can do the same or even better job, considering that either way, you are dropping S8 AP3 Big Blast at the enemy within '72 at most.
  • Medusa Siege Gun: A pure direct-fire weapon, noted for having Strength 10 and AP 2, the Medusa is arguably the most popular form of Ordnance on account of its raw firepower. While having the same issues with accuracy most blast weapons have, whatever it hits will suffer on account of it. For those who wish to trade accuracy and flexibility for raw tank-busting firepower, the regular firing mode can be replaced with Siege Shells, turning the Medusa into a heavy tank hunter. With an AP 1 blast template, and the normal Ordnance bonus replaced by rolling 2d6 for armor penetration, the potential to kill enemy vehicles is incredible, and the threat of losing multiple vehicles to a well-placed shot does a lot to intimidating opponents into spreading their vehicles out. This said, like with the Devildog's Melta Cannon, the accuracy issues inherent with the Medusa mean it tends to work best in support of, rather than being the primary source, of ranged anti-tank.
• Artillery Barrage - If you don't have the models, or simply have a free heavy support slot lying around that you don't know what to do with, take one of these. Once it arrives from reserves a pie plate (or plates, depending on what points you pay) will be placed at a preset location determined by you at deployment. You can use this to really mess with your opponent as he tries to hold onto objectives, or just carpet-bomb choke points or obvious avenues of attack.
  • In "normal" games you get to take as many bombardments as you have slots, for the sake of balance in apocalypse games you can only take one per 2000pts, stopping you from simply spamming them to eternity and carpet bombing the whole board!
• Auxilia Fire Support Cohort - Similar to Imperial Guard heavy weapon squads, except manned by conscripts again, and you can take 3-6 weapon teams to make up for the poor accuracy with saturation fire. They also get the same unit champion as the Troops Auxilia unit, so they can regroup at under half strength. Unfortunately they compete for slots with much bigger and more accurate guns and a completely tooled up cohort can cost as much as those units which could generally perform much better.
  • They get mortars as standard, which if you get six teams allows you cover large areas of ground, but can take TL Heavy Stubbers, Autocannons, Heavy Bolters or Missile Launchers. Due to the lack of accuracy though, sticking with mortars is probably the option most likely to grant a return on investment.
• Maelstrom Fleet Detachment - You get a squadron of 1-3 flyers consisting of Lightning Fighters, Thunderbolt Fighters or Vulture Gunships, in any combination. This is a fantastic option given the rise of flyers in the 6th edition.
  • Vulture Gunship (Forgeworld):Essentially a 40k Apache Gunship, comes with strafing run USR, nose mounted heavy bolter, and 4 wing pylons that are divided into two sets of 2 pylons that give space for one twin-linked weapon (one pylon on each side) and one set of missiles. This machine is very modular, able to adapt to ANY situation; Green Tide getting you down? Well, instead of two twin-linked weapons, you can actually attach a twin-linked punisher cannon! The ammo boxes do take up the other missile pylons, but twin-linked and BS4 against ground targets means 18 shots hit instead of Leman Russes 10 (on average without Pask). I would personally recommend buying spending too much on all possible weapons and not gluing them in place - maybe use magnets or some other such method, just make sure you can change the vulture's armament easily to ensure it is never left wanting in a battle. Because the main strength of the Vulture is its adaptability.
    • Vultures are probably your best option, being both the cheapest and customisable to pretty much any battlefield role. Also, if you put it in a squadron with any of the other aircraft options it will never be able to use its hover mode.
  • Thunderbolt Fighter (Forgeworld): The Imperium's standard for Fighter craft, this workhorse of the Imperial Small Craft Fleet is meant to be able to do any job asked of it, whether it be bombing, ground attack, interception, or air superiority. But it is a bit pricey, and properly kitted Vendetta or Vulture could do ONE of it's jobs better. But this neglects the true strength of the thunderbolt, sheer immediate versatility, while the Vulture can claim to be versatile, it's likely going to be kitted out to do one role on the battlefield, while a thunderbolt can do four simultaneously. But the place where Thunderbolts really shines is in Apocalypse, where they are the bane of superheavy fliers (be wary of Harridans, they'll laugh at your Autocannons and the Lascannons are at best only going to take one wound off.)
  • Lightning Fighter (Forgeworld): A nippy little air fighter, it defines the trope of "fragile speedster" with a small armament, paper-thin armor and only two HP. It is supposed to the cheaper and longer ranged companion of the Thunderbolt, carrying more missiles to compensate for a fewer number of guns to allow it to (briefly) pack the same amount of firepower, it does however, has serious survivability issues, and even the Big Shootas on an Ork Bomma will send one crashing down. And of course once it blows it's missile load it's firepower drops dramatically, but hey - do you expect this thing to last for much more than one turn?
• Heavy Ordnance Battery - This is what you spend your points on rather than Basilisk or Medusa tanks. They are considerably cheaper than their vehicle counterparts, and do better in close combat because their crew can actually fight back as well as overwatch. This unit also does not suffer from conscript syndrome like the rest of the army, so actually has proper soldiers manning the guns.
  • Forgeworld updated these badboys and made them fantastic! Heavy Artillery units get T7 and 4 Wounds; a HUGE improvement over the Armour 10 / any glance will kill era of the past. Not only that but the changes to universal special rules means that if you take camo nets to give them Stealth, it also applies to any crewmen in the unit too. Did I mention you can take eight crewmen per gun for a total of 24 men and 3 guns in the battery?
  • Number crunching: For three points less than a basilisk you can get an Earthshaker, its Trojan and six total crew members, which altogether is far more useful, survivable and has marginally more firepower. The only problem is Forgeworld's prices. No, as you can buy a Basilisk, put the Earthshaker on some sprue pieces and use the chassis as a Trojan.
• Storm Eagle Gunship - Imperial Armour Aeronautica lets you take this as part of the core list. No Marine Cohort required. Though it excels in combination with them since it has a capacity of 20 and can fling out pie plates with the rest of the army. Being an assault vehicle, it also works well in combination with retaliators or marauders.
• Legion Heavy Support (Only one per Legion Cohort remember) - See Codex Space Marines Heavy support, a few options there that mesh quite well with the list, and remember that the infantry units can take Drop Pods:
  • Thunderfire cannons, while completely outclassed by most of the other guns, it remains quite a useful unit since they have the three types of blast and the techmarine can come in handy by fortifying cover for your static troops and if you lose the cannon, you've got someone who can repair your artillery vehicles at the back of the battlefield.
  • The aforementioned Spartan Assault Tank is one of the few vehicles that can carry your full sized astartes squads, is also a complete monster that your opponent will hate you for. At less expense, you could just take a Land Raider or variant for the same purpose, just with lesser capacity.
    • As an alternative level of douchebaggery, you could put 25 auxilia conscripts in it to roll over those forward objectives, you get the FULL use out of the vehicle which you can't get anywhere else short of odd combinations of terminators & power armoured characters.
  • You could always bring a Storm Raven Gunship if you don't own an Eagle or would prefer to put a smaller unit in a flying assault vehicle. Paint in Astral Claws colours for extra heresy.
    • You could even leave the corpse taker behind in the vehicle for that minty fresh nigh-unkillable-flying-12"-DOOM-Bubble that can deliver the double point goodness reactively nearly anywhere on the table. Take 2.
    • If you feel bad about taking the Storm Raven and wasting its dreadnought capacity. You can take Huron, combo'd with some retaliators (OR the Corpse taker to be funny) AND a dreadnought as his elite backup, it becomes a horribly expensive yet still very dangerous combination of gunship / assault troop transport nastiness.

Fortifications

• Aegis Defence Line: Cheap means of getting a quad gun. You could camp the Legion Auxilia behind this, but their place is in front of the other infantry.
  • You can instead place either an Auxilia Fire Support Cohort behind this (to give the prefect something to do besides stand there)
  • OR place the Heavy Ordnance Battery behind this with camo nets and get access to 3+ cover saves, as well as having loads of interchangable spare men to use the quad gun.
• Skyshield Landing Pad: 4++ save, park here your vehicles that are just going to stay still and shoot on top of this thing. It can't be demolished, laugh as your Leman Russes (you took them, right?) rain death unmolested.

Building your Army

Games workshop advocates it in all their codices, and I'm going to repeat it here: Start with an HQ, and two troops.

Remember that one squad of Legion Auxilia is compulsory, but they make excellent meatshields for more important parts of your army. In 1500+ games you must take a Centurion too, but he's cheap and you can use him to add some punch to a unit.

• Good troop choices are:
  • Cohort with Flamer, Missile Launcher. Cheap (Assault on Black reach set) versatile, convert Sergeant to have a power weapon/fist for bonus points.
  • Cohort. Melta gun. Plasma. Rhino. You'll be eating almost any armor and punching holes trough TEQs with ease.
  • Auxilia Armsmen Cadre on a Chimera. Ride this guys behind the plasma-melta squad just mentioned, help them clean an objective then sit there while the Marines move on.
• Nice Elites could be:
  • A big, scary unit of Retaliators with flamer to turn blobguardsmen into meat confetti, though your heavy support should be doing this.
  • A not-so-big, but twice as scary unit of Retaliators with a lascutter, on a Rhino. Send them against any tank and they'll eat it for breakfast.
  • Renegade Marauders with Stalkers could camp on your objective, IF they were a troop choice. Take Murderer Cultists if you want someone running at the enemy's exposed flank, otherwise Hereteks will make them way more survivable.
• Good heavy supports are:
  • Auxilia Battle Tank Squadron, with 3 standard Leman Russes. Do I need to tell you how to use them? All right. Point at something you don't like on the board. Shoot. Remove the annoying scraps. Repeat.
  • A Maelstrom Fleet Detachment. I don't really know what to suggest you here, but I'd say 1-2 Thunderbolts are a good idea.
  • An Artillery Barrage is useful, you can place a good bet here.
  • Remember: you can take one heavy support from C:SM for every Space Marine Cohort you have. If you don't want to buy Forgeworld models, you can always use Vindicators.