Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Space Marines (section)

==Common Playing Styles==
===Drop Pod Assault aka [[Indrick Boreale|Steehl Rehn]]===
This can take on several layers of tactics, depending on -what- you're putting in the drop pods (however the overall strategy is almost always basically the same).  Either way, a mass drop pod assault will cause the opponent to massively shift the way he deploys his armor, especially any heavy tanks he has (expecting plenty of melta which you should be packing).  

====Strengths & Weaknesses====
'''Pros :'''
*From turn 1 you determine where the majority of fighting will be at, thus forcing your opponent to be on his feet tactically.
*A --> B, it gets you there, no questions asked.  You no longer have to worry about Rhinos and Razorbacks getting popped with flimsy AV11 HP3 and being stranded 24"+ from your intended objectives
*Option of null deployment, you can start with nothing on the table!  Very powerful if you can waste an opponent's turn.
*Alpha strike, 9/10 times with the exception of Interceptor shots, you will get in the first strike, meaning your opponent should always be on the back-foot in these fire fights after you drop.  
*Space Marines are often at their best within 12" (or 6" for melta), and the pods get you right to that sweet spot.

'''Cons :'''
*Weak to Flyers; Stalkers, Hunters and ADL's w/ Quad gun are weak counter-measures in a drop army when you're trying to limit the number of static units you have in your army.  Flyers are your friends here.
*Interceptor, you must always be aware of which units have it and where, or you can get torn to shreds before firing a shot.  Drop strategically to give you cover or drop units that can tank the hits face on. 
*Lack of mobility after drop.  Your army at this point is mostly foot-slogging, so you must take this into account when choosing your drop sites
*Also, while you start the game on offence, dropping melta behind enemy tanks and setting up devastators for support and vanguard vets for assault, after all your drop pods are on the table, your guys have nothing to do but footslog. This means that on turn 3-4 you will be low on mobility and can get pushed into a defensive position if the enemy regroups and pushes you back. Drop pod assault loses the advantage late game, so you have to be sure that you utilise the first turn in such a way that insures that you will have the upper hand till the end. To do this you will want large amounts of melta, if they have transports, or Flamers, if they are footslogging it. Break down their big guns early on and leave whatever comes in from reserve to deal with the squishies!
*only HALF of your drop pods show up on the first turn. If the majority of your army is in orbit you have to have a crippling alpha strike or for every point of your army on the board you will be fighting two.

====Optimal Chapter Tactics====
*'''Salamanders'''- These Tactics and Drop pods go together almost perfectly, with both meltas and flamers being brought to where you want them straight from turn one.  If you want to actually to be able to use melta's and justify their existence in your tactical squads, then take Vulkan He'Stan (at 1500pts or above at least).  Combi-meltas are great with him because that one-shot for 10pts is more likely to hit, so it's a little bit safer to load up on them. What's more, the boltgun part of the combi-melta is master-crafted as well. But remember that flamer weapons mounted on vehicles don't count as they don't have Chapter Tactics.  Basically there's a lot of synergy between drop pod assaults and Salamanders, but you'll want to load up on flamers and meltas to take advantage of the short range engagement.  
*'''Ultramarines'''- Believe it or not the Ultramarines have some solid Tactics that synergize decently with Drop pod units, given you know when to use the appropriate doctrine.  The Tactical doctrine provides a much stronger alpha strike if you load up on tacticals and units that fire a lot of shots from the get-go.  Tigurius is a god-send with his ability to take Divination and drop with your units, provided some neat buffs while altering reserve rolls which can be key to a drop pod/deep strke strategy.  
*'''Iron Hands'''- Iron Hands have a good deal of strength in drop pods as well, though they are limited in the number of truly viable units.  Ironclads, being tough to kill already with AV13, become nightmares with IWND as long as they don't get penetrated by AP2/1/Ordnance.  Chapter Master Smashbane/Smashfucker can either ride his bike from the ground or take Tactical dreadnought armor (15pts cheaper than bike/artificer armor) and ride in a pod and get into the enemy's face from turn 1.  Just walk out of the pod, lay down his Orbital Bombardment and laugh as the enemy tries to kill him with your 2+/3++/6+++/5++++.  Iron Hands in this case are weaker on the alpha strike, but a heck of a lot more durable than most other Chapters with the same units and can still do decent damage in the enemy lines. They're also one of 2 chapters (others being Imperial Fists) that can take the (in)famous Skyhammer Annihilation Force as part of their Decurion-type detachment. This lets you drop 3 pods, 2 of which contain '''relentless''' devastators, on turn 1. Combine with Smashfucker, combat squad abuse, and FNP trolling for maximum fun/butthurt. Drop pods with IWND along with a locator beacon/deathwind launcher also become legitimate threats; using these on the first turn alpha strike will increase the number of targets your opponent has to deal with.
*'''Imperial Fists/Sentinels of Terra'''- Not as strong as the above overall, but can provide solid backline support with Devastators (Centurions) and re-rolling bolter shots makes their alpha strike a little bit stronger than normal.
*'''Star Phantoms''' - A somewhat more specialized version of the Ultramarines, the Phantoms gain a single army-wide turn of twin-linked shooting. This applies to all non-ordinance and non-flamer weapons, giving you the option to maximize firepower from Command Squads and Sternguard who would otherwise have to fall back on just re-rolling 1's. The Star Phantoms also have the ability to re-roll 1's for deep striking reserves, which helps to ensure your pods arrive on time.

====Units====
*With Deathwind Launchers seeing a drop in points cost, they become a little more viable to purchase if you got points lying around.  For the cost of a Power Sword you can arm a drop pod with a S5 AP- pie plate that can do a respectable amount of damage should an enemy infantry unit or even a light vehicle come too close.  People gripe about the 12" range but you should really see it as locking down a 12" radius all around the drop pod.  It's best to buy them for your first-turn pods, since due to 7th edition changes, those DWL's can be fired on the turn they drop!  If you kill a MEQ you will have basically paid off the cost of the launcher.  
*If you take long-range arty in your Heavy Support slots (Thunderfire Cannons, Whirlwind, allied IG arty, etc.) and have them on the table on turn 1, you can support your 1st wave drop pods straight from turn 1 and not have to have them completely without support.  The best way to do this is load up on all anti-armor special weapons such as meltas, crack open transports, and then let the artillery fly on the exposed troops
*Ironclads are tough, intimidating, and provide a good AV13 distraction for squishier units in a first wave.  With Iron Hands these become a lot harder to kill other than outright blowing them up.  Other Dreadnoughts can be krak'd to death but are cheaper if you're on a budget.   
*Sternguard are one of the best but also most expensive units to put in your drop pods.  Most of the time I drop them down next to something mean (often high toughness units) and pump it full of wounds on a 2+ ammo. They will also remove units from cover, or mess up MEQ. They really do everything. The one problem is that they die just like other marines. So either choose a safe target that’s not going to shoot back once you unload on it, or kill something worth more than you. Dropping next to greater demons first turn and killing them before they get buffs running is worth the sacrifice. 
*Assault squads with x2 flamers is small, cheap, and pretty burny
*Tactical squads should be normally taken as a full 10man unit since they can split up from the drop pod to deal with different targets.  If you're packing a multi-melta with Vulkan, you have a decent chance of hitting something with it as well.  However multiple 5 man Tactical squads allows you to bring more pods and waste less points on heavy weapons.
*Salamanders: You can either take Vet sergeants with master-crafted power weapons for the inevitable charge and be relatively choppy in CC, or slim down with regular sergeants and take a master-crafted combi-weapon instead.  
*Legion of the Damned don't benefit from Chapter Tactics as per '''Aid Unlooked For''' rule, and take up an Elites choice that could be filled with Sternguards or Ironclads instead. And besides, Sternguard have ammunition that ignores cover anyway. Vulkan may [[RAW]] have strong synergy, Slow & Purposeful, master-crafted, multi-melta (which again ignores cover) and take a beating that would leave Ironclads/Sternguard blasted off of the table (typical AP2/3 weapons).  
*Honor Guard- a small cheap unit of these along with an IC to soak wounds and they provide hard-hitting power weapon attacks on the charge.  Solid choice in a drop pod if you take a Chapter master and intend to drop him.
*Generally speaking, basic stock Dreadnoughts are some of the most optimal units you can field in any slot. For a 100p. you have a polivalent unit, capable of murdering elite infantry with ease, hunting vehicles with its multimelta and fist, and even having a decent chance of gibbing other walkers. Suicide dreads in pods are an option for high priority target removal, but they'll usually be focused after the drop. They can make back their points with a lucky shot, but more often than not they'll only cripple targets temporarily, or fail at doing anything meaningful. Still, a good option to consider if you think they can fuck up a high value target, like a FW dread or vehicle. Otherwise, mid-field dropping or otherwise walking in cover is a very viable strategy for map control, and most enemy units will shit their pants if a 12 AV walker drops near them.

====Tactics====
*A string of drop pods across an enemy flank prevents all movement unless he goes around or -explodes- the drop pod in question.  In addition to all this, the enemy has to devote some firepower to silence those storm bolters you should be firing into the enemy units' backs.
**Do note, however, that smart opponent could block crucial parts of battlefield with widely spread cheap units, like conscripts, cultists, gretchin or kroot (who are not that cheap but can infiltrate), and of course with new terrain deployment system he may just put tank traps (which are impassable terrain for vehicles) anywhere he doesn't want your drop pods. 
**'''Do also note that as per the ITC FAQ, Drop Pods with their doors open are totally ignored for the rule that enemy units cannot be within 1" of your models. They do however count as both Difficult, and Dangerous terrain for enemy models. Be wary of the storm bolter.'''
*The second problem you may face is interceptor shots - this means some of your drop pods or their passengers may be shot down right after they land, so be sure to screen meltaguns, sergeants and heavy weapons with some expendable bolter dudes and try to move as far away from pods as possible: S3 explosion isn't that dangerous for your MEQ's, but some days dice gods just wouldn't be on your side.  AV13 Ironclad make for a weaker alpha strike in total, but can take the punishment of Interceptor and eliminate the threat for deadlier units to drop in later safely
**When facing an overwhelming amount of Interceptor units it's completely viable to drop the pods empty in strategic locations and foot slog it
*When facing another drop pod army or deep strike heavy army, castle up your static units in a corner and counter-drop when possible.  You want to go second so you can always drop and attack immediately, but if you can't get it, then you have to screen your own units and prepare to take some hits.
*If facing lots of scary large blasts in the drop zone, moving as close to 1” from enemy models without bunching up, this will keep the enemy from firing the blasts on his own units.  He cannot "aim" at his own units so if any of his models are under the template when taking aim, then he cannot take the shot.
*Take note that if you want a cluster of drop pods to deepstrike in the same general area for some reason, a locator beacon is a handy tool to take on a Scouting bike squad or your on your first wave of pods.  And -where- you drop those pods are crucial; and while you don't have to worry about landing on terrain or enemies, you want your placement of drop pods to inhibit enemy movement and create choke points where you need them.

*When playing droppods, think 'Sapper Squads' (Suicide Squads) Don't always expect them to survive, and don't count on it. Don't put your best guys in droppods either. We talking 10 man taxmen, Grav cannon, gravgun, sgt. combi-grav, combat squad just the 5 and drop them next to some MCs. Flamer Sternguard (honestly, stock sternies do fine on the board), Ironclad dreadnaughts. Nothing with a huge investment.... and not your main force. Especially not things built to fight in close combat. 10 man squads combat squadded as they walk out en masse can cause great confusion to the enemy... 10 man scouts or taxmen, split in 5 to make them shoot more than can be killed to put the pressure on. Also, Barren droppods with locator beacons first turn ain't bad either if you play jump infantry.

*The Dead Drop:  Empty drop pods are cheap and very hardy and available as a fast attack slot or as a DT to units you have no intention of putting in them.  Having a big spam of these both floods the battlefield with contesting blobs and, perhaps more important, allows you to stagger out your drops.  This can let you strike better (your whole strike force arrives 1st turn) or feint better (withholding your strikers until the foe is on the board).

===Mechanised Assault===
When I'm talking mech, I'm talking armour over flesh, AV versus T, and tank treads versus boots on the ground. This is a lesser-played style that has both been nerfed and strengthened in different ways thanks to 7th Edition. With the Hull Points system, every vehicle becomes more fragile, meaning mobility and cover are the most important things for keeping your vehicles alive. In addition, no longer being able to move 12" and disembark cripples your mobility and ability to react on the fly to different situations over long distance - you now have a 24" deadly threat range with a squad inside a Rhino. To compensate, you gain the ability to go flat out and move up to 18" in a turn with a transport - though this is of limited use.  This tactic has also been improved by 7th edition, thanks to vehicles only exploding on a penetration roll of 7 and thanks to the Double demi company with free razorbacks. 

Unfortunately, this is not an easy playstyle. It's brutal, and often even when it does work, the firepower you leverage against your opponent is not sufficient. It is, however, not entirely doom and gloom. If you run a mechanised list you should seriously consider the White Scars Chapter Tactics with Khan as a HQ. 

The advantages they confer make your army go from sub-competitive to just below tournament-level (tournament level if you're both lucky and good, or happen to use the aforementioned Double Demi).

White Scars CT give your mechanised infantry Scout, which they absolutely *need* in order to be as good as they should be. It gives massive amounts of flexibility to your infantry and the potential for an alpha strike that leaves your opponent in checkmate after the first turn. 

How, might you ask? Take your Mechanised Infantry and deploy them as close to the enemy as possible. Before the game, scout 12" towards the enemy. You now have a few options.

# Move 6",disembark 6", be in their deployment zone, and fire. This gives you your alpha strike that, with the right units, can annihilate your opponent's deadliest unit or cripple part of his force.
# Move 12", flat out 6". This allows you to compensate if your opponent bunches up and option 1 is not viable. Sometimes, having your men ready to react (remember you'll get a potential 6" move and 6" disembark instead of just the former) and staying inside the metal box is the best course of action. 
# Move 12", pop smoke. Use only if your opponent either had nothing that is worth risking getting out of the boxes to eliminate or if your opponent has a strong gunline with lots of anti-infantry firepower that you can't cripple.

Alternatively, you can do none of the above and outflank. This can be a risky but effective way of delivering an alpha strike or capturing an objective without being struck by fire. 

Now, the real question is what to put in your transports? As previously mentioned, a mech SM list suffers greatly from sometimes not being able to leverage enough firepower. This should be your primary concern. 

Tactical Squads should probably not be taken with full numbers at 10 men - unless you plan to abuse combat squads for a very specific use. Reason being, you do not want heavy weapons except Grav Cannons. There is no reason to maximise bolters. Heavy weapons will rarely get to fire effectively and now cost you points out the ass. Taking a special weapon and combi-weapon should be considered mandatory. Do not give this squad melta guns. Leave that to the other elements in your army, because you want your Tacticals to leverage as much firepower against infantry or MC's as is humanly possible, and have enough duplicates that losses do not necessarily mean defeat. 

*Grav Guns are a matter of debate. They are flexible against vehicles (if you can get off enough shots) if you do encounter them, if you do dig in the extra shot is invaluable, and they get the extra shots at longer range than a Plasma Gun. If there's a Daemon Prince or CC unit they even reduce their initiative to 1, giving you better odds if you get dragged into a CC. However, they suck hairy balls against anything that isn't wearing power armour or better, and are utterly useless against buildings. 
*Flamers are exceedingly good at quickly wiping anything weaker than Marines off of objectives. They also provide some effective overwatch. Even power armoured units will feel the heat due to the sheer number of wounds a flamer can throw at a unit. Their biggest drawback is being absolutely worthless against MCs. 
*Plasma Guns are good in that unless a rare high-toughness MC like a Wraithknight appears you'll be wounding on good rolls all the time. They don't suffer the drawbacks of Salvo (half range if you move, for instance) and have a greater maximum range than Grav weapons. 


You should take at least one Sternguard squad tooled up with enough firepower to destroy (not just cause medium damage to) a unit. Using #Option 1 they can pull off some kills that win games. They are the guys that are going to hunt the nastiest, shittiest, pain-in-the ass targets that your bolters and Tacticals can't handle. 

It's for this reason that they should have combi-plasmas or gravs. You might not survive into the following turn, as they will be a very high priority target, so what you shoot at needs to die. 4-5 combi-weapons should be sufficient. Heavy Flamers are worth considering, and the squad should not end up having more than 7-8 men. Do not tool up the Sergeant unless it's with a combi-weapon. 

There may be other units that perform this role almost as well - you may want to consider them, too. The effectiveness of the Grav-Gun Bikers make them one of
THE BEST units in the codex, and any bike-mounted IC makes them troops - yes, this means Techmarines, Chaplains and Librarians too.

These two units should form your core. In the end you should have a minimum of 3 mechanised squads, preferably 4. With the strong anti-infantry and anti-MC capability they provide you can look to everything else. 

*Units you may want to consider include:
**Tri-Las Predators or Devastators with Lascannons. If shit luck strikes and your Sternguard fail or don't do as well as you plan, these guys are Plan B. If there's tanks to kill, these are the units that will be your best counters.
**Storm Talons or possibly Storm Ravens. They provide AA and additional firepower on the fly (no pun intended) where its needed. In a pinch they can also serve as backup AT. '''Edit:''' Death from the Skies nerfed the hell out of these units, making them best suited for dealing with ground threats. For real AA, you need Hunters, Stalkers, Stormhawks, or Flakk Missile Devs, with an emphasis on ground-based AA to deal with threats you can't handle in the air, like Crimson Hunters.
**Land Speeder Storm Scouts. Deep Strike disruption, cheap scoring, can tackle weaker troops, and you can take a heavy flamer for free at 40 points, which negates the need for flamer Tacticals. 
**Assault Squads with flamers and either a drop pod or rhino. Cheap and (in certain circumstances) incredibly effective. 
**Grav Gun Bikers, for the same reasons as Sternguard. Or a Bike Command Squad. 
**Grav Cannon shooty Centurions in a Drop Pod or Land Raider. Bear in mind that they're shit in melee so if they get caught they're boned. That's why you attach a beatstick/bullet sponge IC. But now the White scar's CT affects them so you now have hit and run Centurions.

===Bike Armies===
Thanks to the White Scars Chapter tactics and Khan, this is one of the strongest space marine army configurations out right now, since biker troops become very cost efficient in this manner.  Skilled rider grants 3+ Jink Saves, along with the difficult terrain shenanigans (ain't no body got time for walls), whilst Hit&Run basically gives a superior version of the old Combat Tactics, meaning you will almost never be bogged down in a combat you don't want.  Even better, you can disengage on the enemy Assault phase and then Shoot/Assault again in your own phases using Hit&Run.

Khan lists also generate an incredibly potent alpha strike army.  Bikes can pack an astounding amount of small to medium arms fire, and put them in rapid fire range on turn 1.  No one is safe when you have a 5 man command squad pumping 15 grav bolts into them before they even get to think about moving.  Tanks get melta or grav shoved at them.  On the return phase, you can capitalize on your 3+ Jink and then hit everything with S5 HoW hits, stay in combat, and then run away to do both again every turn. With the new Chapter Tactics even Terminators '''AND CENTURIONS''' get the Hit&Run shenanigan.

For the love of God, though, break into the home of every Chaos player you know and smash their Helturkies.  Heldrakes can really really mess this army up. Fortunately their flamer of doom has been reduced to front-arc firing, so you can mitigate it somewhat. (When it enters it still eats up a squad, but with your speed you should be safer later turns)

===Dreadnought Party===
Use the Iron Hands chapter tactics.  Take a Techmarine (or you just play Clan Raukaan instead) and run one of each squadron of Dreadnaughts.  Give him a full squad of servitors.  Take another techmarine if you want, since another guy repairing your dreads is always helpful (and can be a bullet magnet, letting your dreads get more shots in).  

Put in the bare minimum 2 troops choices, preferably tacticals in drop pods or rhinos.  This way, your army is not unbound, letting your tacticals just sit on objectives and act as denial units, meaning your enemies have to completely destroy your squads while your regenerating (thanks to the IWND rule) dreads rape them.  

Next load up all 6 slots with dreadnaughts (some in drop pods if you want).  The best might be an even mix of Ironclads, Venerable, and Normal dreads, but experiment with what combinations suit your playstlye.  Remember you need some dreads to be heavy fire support (lascannons and autocannons), some to be close range fire support (assault cannons, heavy flamers, and meltacannons), and some to be melee (Ironclads are best for this, with two CC arms).  Putting some in drop pods gives you flexibility at the start of the game, since half of your drop pods go down on turn one, two pods can come in with dreadnaughts first, and eliminate or tie down the heavier enemy units, then later your two tactical squad pods can come down and secure objectives.  

The IWND rule combined with your techmarines can make your dreadnought army last through firepower that would destroy land raiders, and if you give the MotF the ironstone relic, the dreadnoughts become even more Ded' ard'.  You shouldn't just stand there soaking it all up, however; use your dreadnoughts like troops and keep them in cover and just use your head and they can last a lot longer than you think.  Dreadnoughts now come in 4-attacks-base flavour.  Iron Hands players rejoice.

===Gravity Gun Spam===
This play style is strictly used against other Space Marines or any unit with 3+ armour or better.

Use Ultramarines chapter tactics as you will definitely need the Devastator doctrine for re-rolls (or [[Star Phantoms]]). This play style will require 3 five-men devastator squads with fully maxed grav cannons with grav amps and an armorium cherub. Also, ally in a Librarius Conclave with 3 librarians with/without mastery level 2. Make sure all librarians choose the Divination table. When rolling for powers, always change the power for the Primaris Power unless you rolled 3: Perfect Timing. First of all, Prescience allows re-rolls to hit. Secondly, Perfect Timing ignores the annoying cover saves that hinder your grav weaponry power. Thirdly, why the conclave? Because if you keep the librarians close, you can succeed on powers on a 2+.  Switching multiple librarians to the primaries power allows for redundancy, in case you lose one (or two!).

Assuming we have the 3 squads of dev using either the doctrine, cherub, or Prescience, that will be a total of 60 shots if they do not move. Devs hit on 3+ with a re-roll, which leaves an average of 53.5 shots hit!! Now here is the fun part. Since grav wounds on the armour save, let's say we are going against Space Marine Power Armour, that will be an average of 47.7 wounds with no armour saves!! Plus if you have Perfect timing, your opponent may just rage quit due to the lack of both armour and cover saves against 48 potential casualties. For Normal Termies I did the math and there will be an average of 34.3 confirmed kills excluding possible FNP. Termie Assault will yield a lower death rate of 17.2 confirmed kills excluding FNP. Against vehicles, each squad will do an average of 5.5 glances.

If math is not enough for you, I used this strategy against my space marine player friend who played a game of 1200 pts with me. I altered the list a little, but in the end his entire army was wiped out while I had lost 4 devastators and 1 librarian. Watch your opponents remove his miniatures by the tens. 

[[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics(7E)]]
[[Category:Space Marines]]
[[Category: Warhammer Tactics/Old]]

{{Warhammer_40k_Tactics}}