Editing Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Kill Team(8E) Imperium (section)

===SM Strategies===
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'''SM Strategies:'''
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Asking how to optimize space marine teams is an interesting proposition, considering how many possibilities this team has. SM are the ultimate jack of all trades here, with high saves and decent morale that can be re-rolled, plus all of the variety of weapons (both melee and ranged) you could want. So first of, you want to choose between a CQC focused KT, a ranged KT, or a mixed one. 

*Ranged teams will use a decent amount of scouts and camuflage cloaks. 
*Melee teams will have a decent amount of Primris Reivers, their melee skills, plenty of attacks and W2 making them reliable choppy machines that could take a hit before falling, plus a lot of movility in high cover maps.
*Mixed teams are mixed. It's a great generalist team, though DeathWatch will outperform them by far here, even if outnumbered by one or two units.

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'''Counterplay:'''
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The best way to deal with SM is experience. Really, once you see the opponent's list, you may know what he can do, but SM are the ultimate jack of all trades in KT, and can adapt well enough to most situations. Generalist lists only get you so far, though, and will leave the player using them rather exposed to the strategy of his opponent. But even without looking at the list, most SM units share a 3+ save, so anything that could reliably lower that is a safe bet. Plasma spam with the IG is a good strategy, considering that even the heaviest loadout team will outnumber them, and overloading plasma will deal with the Primaris as well (more so if you play as Cadian, with those sweet 1 rerolls). Melee SM teams against plasma spam devolve in two different ways: either the plasma hits them before the astartes reach the guard lines, weakening them enough to have a chance of surviving melee (as in, killing them and/or leaving them wounded enough so that the negative modifiers make their melee attacks reliably fail), or the astartes reach the lines relatively fresh and slaughter the mortals. Beating them in melee is difficult, but teams like the harlequins, Death Guard and (obviously) the Custodes have good chances against them. However, Astartes can easily adapt to this by fielding specialist units, as they are one-man army knives. Against Custodes, Relic Blades or Power Fists with enough hits will put them in pain, and against harlequins enough chainswords + flamers will make it hurt for them to be around you. If you have to fight against a good Astartes player, consider what your strengths are and how his roster would allow to circumvent them, and try to play your faction differently. 
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