Editing Warhammer 40,000/5th Edition Tactics/Space Marines (section)

===Elites===
*'''Terminator Squad''' - It's terminators, what's not to like about them? Expensive, but good. The regular terminators are best teleported in, but it depends on your enemies composition. If he has no AP2 or AP1 weaponry, footslogging them can be good, especially if you have an assault cannon or cyclone. If the enemy does have heavy weapons, it's best to deep strike them, and hope you can eliminate that weapon before that, or put them out of harms way. Can also go in a Land Raider, but I think it's a waste on normal terminators.
*'''Assault Terminators''' - Is where you want a Land Raider at. They should absolutely not be footslogged if at all can be avoidable. Always keep a majority of them with thunder hammers, a composition of perhaps 4 thunderhammers and 2 lightning claws are the best, to get that 3+ Invulnerable save if he brings out anything big and nasty. These guys attract a LOT of firepower (i.e. all of it) so keeping them alive can be difficult. They wreck just about anything in the game. Be aware of <s>anything that ignores both armor and invulnerable saves (Tyranid Swarm Lord, Necron's War Scythe etc) As that will ruin this expensive squad's day</s> <s>nothing does this anymore</s> '''[[Grey_Knights|GREY KNIGHTS]]''', so just watch out for shit that makes you reroll invul saves. Also, make sure you aren't tar-pitted (Nurgling etc). An interesting option is Kayvann Shrike allows all units to trade Combat Tactics for Fleet! Assault Termies have Combat Tactics, so suddenly your footslogging Assault Terminators are fleet, and become an incredibly dangerous unit, Shrike is expensive however. 
** As cool as they are, remember that they're expensive. Quite expensive. Like, A ready-for-battle-in-a-raider-squad will cost you 450+ points. Is that the best use of 450+ points? Choose carefully... 
** Also remember that a Land Raider is not 100% mandatory. If you want their Close Combat ability, but shrink at the price, consider putting a teleport homer or two in your list. It allows them a "Kinda safe" means of entering play that doesn't cost more points than the squad itself. Just be sure you have enough storm shields in the squad to cover your ass or you WILL be shot off table!
** A third note: remember, a single Land Raider is a '''massive''' bullet magnet. Viable competitive lists bring two, but that's only viable at 2k pts, because you still want some support for your Termies.
*'''Sternguard Veterans''' - Expensive 25 points models, but a very versatile ranged squad. Give combi-weapons to as many of them as you can, they're only five points and still let them use their special ammo for the boltgun. If you are fond of having a good ranged unit that can deal with almost any threat, bring in a squad of these in a Rhino. Razorback is bad as it requires disembarkation with the inevitable "SHOOT THEM OFF" from your enemy afterwards, while Rhino has the hatch. They also have access to a mix of two special/heavy weapons. If you take Pedro Kantor, they're scoring units (NOT troops, you still need to take tacticals) which allows you for some good ol' 4th edition style Las/Plas teams... but at too high a cost to be worth it. Another thing to be aware of is that although a storm bolter ''looks'' like a good upgrade, apparently you can't use their special ammo with it, which is TOTAL BULLSHIT, but them's the breaks.
**Oh, and don't forget: Sternies get base 2 attacks. Not a lot of opponents know this, so when they get 3A on the charge or 2A when defending some players are a little surprised. Still, they should shoot first, assault only if completely necessary. Even Pedro Kantor doesn't make them super efficient at CC due to their cost. 
**A particular tactic of note, is to attach a Librarian to the squad, and use Gate of Infinity to jump around the battlefield and abuse their rapid fire range, and, should they get caught up in combat, the Librarian can ''still'' teleport them away. This  all comes together to form incredible hit-and-run dickery.
*'''Dreadnought''' - The charm about dreads is that they pack quite a lot of firepower, and melee power. They might not be the meanest killers in the field, but they can crush almost every vehicle in the game, and can tie up hordes of enemies without even being scratched. The most common configs are MM/HF for killing everything in the path and providing mobile multi-meltas, and the Rifleman. The Rifleman is the King of fire support, armed with two twin-linked autocannons (the S7 AP4 Heavy 2 kind), which allows it to rip through transports, monsters and infantry alike. The best part about Dreadnoughts is their versatility, you can kit one out in almost any way and it'll still be useful in some fashion or another (unless you're an idiot and replace the DCCW with a Missile Launcher, there is literally NO reason to ever do this).
*'''Ironclad Dreadnought''' - The ultimate melee dread. Tough as nail with his 13/13/10 armour, and will tear your enemy a new one up close. Even better to use in as a close-threat in a drop-pod than the normal dread due to his increased durability. Sadly, like everything in this damned edition, it goes down to meltaguns rather easily, so be very careful about how/where you use him. Keep the Seismic Hammer unless you know you're going against a lot of AV14 vehicles, in which case use the Chainfist. 
*'''Venerable Dreadnought''' - Grandpa Dread has high BS and WS and will do a good job, and his reroll to the damage table can save him more times than not. He is however 60 points more expensive than a normal dread, and doesn't pack that much more *oomf*. One of these is nice if you like reliable vehicles. His special rule can be quite fun to use. "Using the rule. Reroll. What's that, you rolled a 1? That's too bad." Add a Techmarine and it becomes the second hardest vehicle to break in the game, the hardest being the Grey Knight version because they can nullify the Crew Shaken result. But generally, avoid it due to his high cost/low return, unless you really don't care about winning all that much and enjoy trolling the hell out of your opponent.
*'''Siege Dreadnought (Forgeworld):''' An interesting, somewhat cost effective alternative to the Ironclad, albeit not as heavily armoured. Has an inferno cannon with (which can be replaced with a multi-melta for free) and an assault drill with a built in heavy flamer. Can also mount two hunter-killer missiles just like an Ironclad, but the standout feature is that assault drill: +D6 for armour pen rolls on bunkers, fortifications, buildings and motionless vehicles. Then you get to take a free heavy flamer shot against anyone inside.
*'''Techmarine''' - Can be a useful unit in smaller point games (1000 or lower). Unfortunately, he has a hard time keeping up with the vehicles he's supposed to repair. However, an overlooked aspect of the Techy is that he's an absolute monster in close combat against non-power weapon wielding opponents. Fitting him with a Servo-Harness will have him crank out ten shitloads of attacks, so throw one on and watch a tarpit vanish like magic. However, he takes up one of your Elites slots that could probably be better filled by Dreads, Terminators, or Sternguard Vets.
** Run a Techmarine alongside a Venerable Dreadnought or two, despite their cost its retarded how much firepower it takes to down them and it psyches out most players when the only thing they can do is Crew Shaken results.
*'''The Legion of the Damned''' - I've never seen anyone field these guys. Ever. They're fairly expensive, but come with a 3+ invulnerable save, and get to re-roll their deep-strike result if it's not to your liking. (handy). They're also "Slow and Purposeful" (very bad). They can take a meltagun + MultiMelta, deepstrike in, and fire away. This will also cost you 200 pts. Or take some other configuration of special/heavy weapon, but their high cost prevents you from fielding a large squad. Unfortunately, despite their 2 Attacks, their slow movement usually sees them bogged down in some pointless combat instead of hunting priority targets.  Because of these downsides, most people find this role better served by Sternguard with combi-meltas in a drop pod.
** Don't use them, just cross that part of the codex out with a marker. Its just a Tactical Squad that can't be mechanized and is hard to move off a point... oops it can't Score and it can barely move to contest a point. The Special/Heavy Weapon is crap, its stupidly overpriced and can be taken elsewhere. The Sarge can dual-wield Powerfists, so thats a 3+ Invulnerable, 4 WS5 S8 powerfist attacks on the charge but doing this on the basic squad means you're paying slightly more then a Terminator unit of either flavour. Easily the most useless unit in the entire 'dex, and also the only unit in the 'dex that can't be used in some sort of interesting or effective strategy.
** Alternate Opinion: Yes, the the Speis Zombies are 'spensive, but remember that you're basically getting a unit of Stern Guards that come with an accurate drop pod. Running against lots of Melta? That 3++ means you can (accurately) deep strike them into any zone and know that they'll most likely be around to harass your opponent long enough to pop a tank. Run them in a Vulkan list with a Multi-Melta and you should be able to pop at least one tank or two.
*'''Contemptor-Pattern Dreadnought (Forgeworld)''' - A more advanced dreadnought, with more weapons options, greater base strength, 13 12 10 armour, a weapon skill of 5 and a substantial points hike. Also comes with 'fleet' (VERY useful), and automatic shielding (5+ inv. against shooting, 6+ inv. against close combat, and +1" to explosion if it suffers a 'vehicle explodes' result). Adding an extra dreadnought CCW would be best to take full advantage of 'fleet', but a shooty dread may be good since at range it retains a 5+ inv. save, and because the Kheres Pattern assault cannon is murderlicious (it's an assault cannon that's assault fucking 6!). However, the better loadout is two dread CCW's (one of which may be a chainfist), because contemptors get access to some nifty built-in guns to their hands: there's your standard storm bolter and heavy flamer, plus a plasma blaster (assault 2 plasma gun with an 18" range) and the freaky-deaky graviton gun. This gat shoots an AP3 small blast that forces a strength test or die and makes the terrain it hit difficult; vehicles are auto-glanced. Oh, and you can give the contemptor BS5 to go with its WS5 for a small upgrade.