Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Space Marines (section)

===Army Building===
====Army Composition====
Deciding on what units to take generally comes down to what you want your force to accomplish on the tabletop. One school of thought is to avoid having too many various “types” of marines in one force, instead focusing on using lots of similar profiles in order to force opponents to attack units using suboptimal weapons. Using very little vehicles and lots of Infantry “wastes” your opponents anti-tank shots, for example. Or by having lots of heavy infantry and armour means that the small arms fire directed at you will be less effective. Other schools emphasize the modular nature of Space Marines and prioritize the taking of multiple styles of Marine units in order to more effectively deal with various threats. These two schools are extremes, and good list building most likely lands somewhere in the middle.
*The goal of making an army themed around a specific profile type is to reduce the effectiveness of your opponents shooting- an all-infantry army being more effective against anti-tank weapons is an obvious example, but similar principles apply to things like multi-wound attacks being overkill against single-wound units. However, this idea has one catastrophic flaw which should always be kept in mind: when the opponent is able to counter your chosen style and you don't have any units not of that style, they will counter you '''''hard'''''. Try to figure out what your enemy will be likely to use ahead of time so you don't pay for putting all your eggs in one basket!
**All scouts is one type. Or all Power Armour-traditional. Go all Primaris or all-regular Marine, do not mix. You want to either be all 2 wound models or all 1 wound models. The 1 wound models would all suck were it not for the awesome veterans: Sternguard kill things; Vanguard with 2 chainswords (4 attacks) that's a lot of attacks that does add up well; Company Champions can carry 1 stormbolter and 1 chainsword for 18 points and intercept wounds meant for the characters. Even Tacticals have the advantage of being a cheap source of heavy+special weapons, if nothing else. 
*The T5 family is all bikes, Inceptors and Aggressors. They'll be able to take a beating and things like Pedro Kantor+Aggressors are a powerful combo, but Bikes and Gravis-armoured Primaris Marines don't synergize very well with each other and you might end up leaving half your army behind if you don't pay extra for Repulsors (and it has to be Repulsors, Impulsors don't carry Gravis-armoured units).

====Bringing Allies====
In general, you use allies to cover your weaknesses, such as the marine's usual lack of hordes or particularly heavy vehicles by bringing in guard, skitarii, or knights, but be aware that you will sacrifice the HUGE benefits of Combat Doctrines unless the other detachments are also drawn from Codex: Space Marines- and even if they are, you'll lose your Chapter-specific Combat Doctrine boost if its Chapter Tactics are different. Before Codex 2.0 and Faith and Fury, allies were something to consider, but with the new doctrine rules and massive influx of ways to fit in FnPs, psychic protection, and point cuts, there's almost no reason to bring anything other than an inquisitor (with their risk-free, no downside but cost ways of being brought) in your marine list.

=====Specific Mixes=====
Specific combinations are mainly dependent on your chapter trait but there are some combo's that are great for any army some examples are shown below:

*Grav-Bomb, stick some grav-cannon devastators or grav-centurions in a razorback, stormraven or rhino with a captain. Yeet it up the board ideally keeping out of LOS or at least partially obscured, then drop off your devastators or centurions in cover somewhere just in range of a nasty enemy unit ideally a centrepiece unit with a high armour save (at least 3+). Then drop the 1cp  stratagem to re-roll all wounds and damage rolls for the unit and if your using devastators use the armorium cherub too. That's 4 shots each at strength 5 AP -3, hitting on 3+ rerolling 1's and re-rolling all wounds and damage rolls. Usually this is enough to make targeting your devastators a priority for your opponent and in all likelihood they're going to take heavy casualties but the unit will have easily made back its points by then and seriously disrupted your opponents army.
**If you're Iron hands or a successor then you can move these guys without any penalty to hit and re-roll 1's without a captain so that's something to consider, only works in the devastator doctrine though.
**Effective against hordes as well so this combo is still good against swarm lists and those army's will have a hard time dislodging your guy's from a ruin. 
*Captain and hellblasters, pretty self explanatory stick a bare bones captain near a 10 man squad of hellblasters and fire on overcharged with only a 1 in 36 chance of dying each time you fire, generally works best if you use a impulsor as this allows you to move a fair distance BEFORE DISEMBARKING to shoot with no penalty to hit, if you're within 15" then that's 20 shots at s8 AP-4 which is enough to cripple or kill almost anything without an invulnerable save.
**Although this unit is a serious threat to your opponent it's unlikely to be killed off early, an impulsor's fairly tough anyway if you give it the shield dome equipment and hide it behind a wall it becomes incredibly difficult to remove turn 1. Not to mention that if you have the right threat saturation in your army then your opponent is unlikely to shoot this thing anyway.
*Aggressor auspex scan, when playing against an opponent like daemons, orks or tyranids it's pretty common to have a swarm of infantry pop up to charge you out of deepstrike, ordinarily this can be a real problem as many of the units available to these armies have ways of getting a very easy charge. This trick's for just such a situation. When you deploy your units leave a nice gap behind your lines where an enemy infantry unit could deepstrike just in range of your agressors ideally a unit of six that hasn't moved, when your opponent tries to deepstrike his infantry play the 1CP stratagem to shoot all your aggressors at his guys TWICE at a -1 penalty, (you should have a chapter master in range anyway so that's not too big a deal) even with a 5 man aggressor unit you should annihilate any light infantry that tries to deepstrike for just 1 cp.
**With iron hands chapter tactic then you can pretty much get the same effect on normal overwatch, for 1CP you overwatch on a 4+, 75% accuracy near a chapter master.

====Character Buffing====
For those of us that want a pure marine army it is important to double up on your force multipliers at every opportunity. The Troop Tax is no more; it is replaced with the HQ tax. Use your HQs to their maximum. And while HQs and the Lord of War Guilliman improve your hitting and wounding, units inside the elite slot have created a new dynamic for Marines. The Marine Formula -- a Unit and it's accompanying support Unit, goes for all the non-character models. 
*Ancients are must-takes in infantry-heavy Space Marine armies. Ancients enable out of turn shooting from models you'd otherwise be removing from play, even on your opponent's turn and help reduce the toll of Alpha Strikes: getting shot off the board Turn 1 is a thing, and Ancients help you recoup some of your losses by returning fire as models die.
*Apothecaries are best described as a trap, unless you're looking to fill out slots for detachments. the inability to revive heroes, the bad odds at returning lost models, and the loss of the once cool 5+ FnP in earlier editions is down right heartbreaking. maybe with the Chief Apothecary upgrade they could have a use, but in general avoid them. 
*Build around your Warlord! HQs like Kantor, Shrike, Vulkan, and Khan can drastically change your army's peak efficiency. Using Vulkan around loads of Melta toting marines is more efficient than Kantor around the same loadout. Conversely, Kantor with dedicated heavy assault troops (Assault Centurions, Assault Terminators with Thunder Hammers, Vanguard Veterans with Thunder Hammers, etc.) can take out a Knight in one turn of CC. Without Kantor, they only accomplish 50% of the damage. 
*Another popular combination is a Captain (ideally upgraded to Chapter Master if you can spare the CP) and Lieutenant; the Captain allows hit re-rolls of 1 while the Lieutenant allows wound re-rolls of 1. Hellblasters and Devastators in particular really benefit from being inside these auras. Chapter Masters and Lieutenants are essential for getting accurate firepower; other armies lack accuracy but make up for it with volume of fire. Marines will usually have a low model count and so need each shot to work.

====Sergeant Equipment====
Most of your regular Infantry and Bikers have a Sergeant that takes items from the Sergeant Equipment List.  This includes your Tactical/Scout/Assault/Devastator Squads, your Company/Vanguard/Sternguard Veterans, and your Bike Squads and Company Veterans on Bikes.  If you don't have specific wargear in mind, '''ALWAYS''' take a Storm Bolter and Chainsword instead of leaving them with their default options.  This 2-point upgrade adds the same amount of dakka as an entire 13-point Tactical Marine/11-point Scout.
*Veteran Sergeants all have 3 attacks, so investing in a nice melee weapon is often worth the points, even if you don't intend to use them in assaults.  A 16-point Thunder Hammer presents a very serious threat to pretty much any multi-wound model, be it Infantry, Monster, or Vehicle.  Taking a Thunder Hammer in this instance is as much about limiting your opponent's options as it is about directly inflicting losses, though landing even a single blow will more than make your points back if you pick the right target (putting it on an Intercessor Sarge helps here since they get one more attack than the other types).
**Saying that, remember that most power weapons are only 4 points in 8th. So when low on points left, consider a Power Sword or something like that to cut through armour if you find yourself in combat.

====Transport Tips====
*'''Razor Rush:''' Razorbacks hauling troops are way better in 8e than they were in 7e, and in 7e they were free. The unit inside the razorback should do something complementary to the razorback, while maintaining a similar weapons range. If inside a laserback, consider a plasma tactical squad. A razorback with heavy flamers would benefit from a melta/combi-melta tactical squad, or even an assault squad to offer a bit of melee counterpunch. In this MSU approach, it is better to diversify your squads. So while one can bring devastators with 4 multi-meltas inside a razorback (5 if you're using FW's infernus razorback to take another multi-melta), that razorback is going to [[Distraction Carnifex|draw too much attention]] and those devs are likely to be stranded.
**Non-Ultramarines watch out. While spammable, Razorbacks aren't disposable. It can be infuriating to not be able to use a twin assault cannon because an enemy managed to touch the transport. Protect your boxes!
*'''STEEL REHN Revisited''': The ability to deep strike on the first turn in Matched Play using Drop Pods is a significant boost to the Space Marines' offensive ability. We shouldn't need to go into detail about what this means for you<sup>''please do, this is a tactics page''</sup>, but needless to say it lets you take the fight to the enemy much sooner than most armies can. Seriously though, this can get a bit stupid, this writer has killed entire 2500 point armies in two turns by stuffing the entire army in drop pods, suffering something like 6 models as casualties<sup>''How?''</sup>. Yes, 6 MODELS, not units. Whilst this is ridiculous and broken, it does limit you to non-bulky infantry. You will lack termies, Dreads, or any large vehicles, so play with caution. Of course you could just bring some cheap backfill units, like artillery (Whirlwind anyone?<sup>''lmao''</sup>) to counter this issue. Advised only to be done when you really, really need to win or teach someone a lesson. You will lose friends, you have been warned.

====Command Points and You====
If you are gonna go for an all-marine army with CPs, it's gonna be hard to balance multi purpose, jack-of-all-whatchamacallsits with specialized elites, HS, Fast attack and HQs in brigades and battalions. Dodging the Troop Tax is viable with the Outrider, Spearhead and Vanguard detachments, but doesn't give as many command points, and CPs are like Psykers, they may do a little, or they may wreck your shit, and it's good to have a few just in case.
*You can build a Space Marine Army around 6 troop choices and burning Command Points. You'd likely need to go cheap on Fast Attack units. In this approach every turn you should use Hellfire Shells, Flakk Missiles and Expert Marksmen. If your model dies, but gets one last shot off with an Ancient, use the Flakk Missile and Hellfire stratagem for Mortal Wounds in your opponent's turn. Use Scouts to control how your enemy deep strikes, and use Tacticals to zone off your Deployment Zone. With a large pool of Devastators in your Deployment zone rerolling because of Lieutenants and Captains, when the onrushing hordes reach your army use characters to defend them, and use Honor The Chapter for a game winning Counter Charge by your heroic character. Use the Standard of Emperor Ascendant to maximize this shooting.  Because this build takes up  a lot of points and few/no vehicles consider using Assault Weapons on your Tactical Marines so they can Advance every turn. If you prefer this playstyle you should really consider allying with some Imperial Guard/Admech since they provide CPs and infantry screens for far cheaper.
**As hinted at above, allying with Guard/Admech for CPs is significantly less viable than it once was, with marines losing many of their faction specific rules if they soup another faction in. Also, with all the buff they've received, marines can make a low CP list work much more easily than they once could, to the point where its just not worth it to lose combat doctrines to get allies and CPs. 

**If you're struggling with CP and you would (obviously) rather stay with a pure Marine army, consider trying Ultramarines; two of their best characters grant free CP just by being the Warlord, and one of their unique WTs offers them a way to recycle CPs.


====On Primaris Marines====
As these are the primary new toys given to Space Marines, a bit of caution should be taken when using them, especially when considering making an [[Ultima Founding]] Chapter, or using [[Crimson Fists|chapters]] [[Scythes of the Emperor|who]] [[Black Consuls|have]] been heavily supplemented by these new Chadmarines. The first and absolutely most important thing is that these guys are specialized to an extent that is jarring in comparison to other units in the codex. Almost every Primaris unit is a one trick pony, being very good at one role and struggling to do anything else: 
*For the most part, the characters take their roles deathly seriously, having no options that deviate from their purpose (if they even ''get'' options, that is- many of them don't even have that). They also have far fewer ways of accessing a 2+ save, so they have to be more careful around weapons whose AP is -2 or better. On the other hand, their profiles are a flat upgrade over an identically equipped normal character and they can be very nasty in close combat. 
*Aggressors are short-ranged shooting DISTRACTION CARNIFEXES that particularly rip apart light to medium infantry from short to mid-range and hit hard in melee, but their guns have to rely on the sheer quantity of the shots they put out against anything with a Toughness score greater than 5 and are sluggish enough to be at risk of getting blasted away before they get into the 18" range that most of their weaponry uses.
*Reivers are ranged or melee harassers with a powerful grenade capable of disrupting enemy units, some powerful deployment methods, and the potential to cause the worst problems for morale, but fare poorly against anything with morale boosts (or morale immunity, either inherently or due to small unit sizes) or armour saves above a 5+.
*Inceptors rely on their ability to deep strike and gun down their preferred prey (light infantry for Assault Bolters, everything else for Plasma Exterminators) but also suffer from range issues on top of poor melee ability, Suppressors combine the Inceptor's mobility with a long-range weapon whose secondary ability is ideal for softening up a unit you want to charge, but their autocannons aren't so hot against vehicles and they have subpar melee as well. 
*Infiltrators and Incursors are expensive and not that good against heavily armoured foes, but they are superb for quickly taking and holding objectives. Both can infiltrated and use smoke grenades to be hard to hit. The Infiltrators can bring in a mini-apothecary or count as being in range of a Phobos Captain/Lt.'s aura even if the Captain providing it is on the opposite side of the board, all while having a decent chance to wound even high-toughness units. The Incursors, on the other hand, are slightly better in melee, ignore cover with their guns, and ignore debuffs to hit in the shooting phase while also providing a source of mortal wounds from their haywire mines. 
*Eliminators can serve one of two functions. They can either pick off high-value infantry and characters even without a clear line of sight, or they can blast vehicles from afar with what's basically a shorter-ranged but more reliable lascannon. Either way, they can infiltrated to move into optimal positions and are a bitch to hurt with shooting when in cover. While they too are weak in melee the sergeant's optional instigator bolt carbine can act as a panic button if they're ever charged. 
*Hellblasters and Intercessors are the exceptions that prove the rule, with the former acting as a solid MEQ/TEQ-killer that can also double as improvised anti-vehicle if needed and the latter being a more expensive but resilient Troops choice that's great at holding down backfield objectives.
*Though the Repulsor does somewhat open them up to versatility, it pays significantly for multi-tasking and is often best for clearing out hordes; the Repulsor Executioner is its vehicle-killing cousin that shares the double-shooting trick of the IG's Leman Russ tanks. The Impulsor, on the other hand, has less transport capacity and can't carry Aggressors or Gravis-armoured characters, but it's much cheaper and can be equipped for either greater resilience or for extra firepower. The Assault Vehicle option also opens up potential for some techniques that don't work with other transports. 

These guys are truly Aspect Marines and should be treated as such, even in a full army of the true scaled bastards.

====Tactical Marines====
The introduction of Primaris Marines all but stopped the popular use of Old Marines, it was hard to argue why you would wouldn't take the Nu-boys, twice the wounds, an extra attack, an extra -1 ap and 6" on their weapon range all for a few extra points. However the new Codex Space Marines (8E) 2.0 gave the humble Tactical Marine a new lease on life. They can gain the benefit of all Doctrines, Devastator for heavy weapons and grenades, Tactical for bolters and special weapons and assault for their melee attacks. "MELEE?!!" You say, "Why would you trade the obviously superior shooting of their bolters?" and I say "Fools!!!, you know nothing of the glory days of yore, when the Metal Bawks had the personality of a steam roller, clearing an inexorable path across the field of battle, when the holy Bolter was but a device to smear butter on any unfortunate newbs who happened to risk the wrath of the OG' to snatch an extra round of shooting at something more important."
*But enough of the nostalgia and theatrics. 2.0 gave marines a lot of what they had back in 2-7ED, +1A on charge, strike first if they charge (back then there was an Initiative stat (I) and charging granted +1I making marines I5 and against most armies except the Eldar and 'stealers this meant they got first strike), the new doctrines are an effective reintroduction of special rules you could purchase to allow you to flavour your marines to whatever chapters you had in mind. But now the glory days of Tactical Marine have returned, 2 shots with their bolter then another 2 in Melee, that makes for up to 41 S4 attacks per turn with a 10 man squad and 4.6 dead enemy MEQs before they can even react, with a base 10 man marine squad for only 120pts, with doctrines (either tactical or assault) and you get another dead enemy marine. Then the support options are all gravy. Consider using the Rhino rush strategy to deny the enemy ground, deliver your marines in safety and use them to soak up overwatch, you should muse over use of the trusty; Stay in combat and clean up during your opponents assault phase tactic to protect your units from shooting.
*Do you want to know what what they get now that they didn't get back in pre 8ED 2.0? 2. Damage. Melee. Attacks. The White scars take Tactical marines melee to a whole new stratosphere even if you only take generic Chapter Tactics. If you manage to preserve a 10 man Tactical squad until turn 3 they will of earned 21 S4 ap-1 2D melee attacks, that's 3.5 dead primaris, 2.3 dead TH/SS terminators, 4.6 wounds against a character with T4 2+ and ... wait for it ... 3.1 wounds against a T5 2+ Character (Abbadon springs to mind). Bear in mind this is a Full tactical squad with no weapon upgrades OR support of any other kind and in addition to any added bolter fire.
*A Captain/lieutenant adds about 10% damage to both melee and range, Chapter Master (-2CP) adds about 20% to both in melee and range, Chaplain w/litanies of hate (66% of the time) adds about 20% in melee only and a WS Master of Sanctity (-1CP) with both litanies of hate and strike off the head (88% of the time for 1 and 44% for both) adds about 40% damage boost in melee. You want to go all melee? Master of Sanctity. Want reliable? Go Chapter Master and want cheap but effective support? Go lieutenant.