Part 2: Space Marine Troops, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support

Alright after the long delay I have come back to do the rest of my description of the space marine units, so let's jump into it.



Troops:

Tactical Squad: The standard marine squad, easily one of my favorite units in the game. These guys can stand up to pretty much anything if played and tooled right. They can be equipped to fight infantry or mech, and possibly both in the same squad.

Scouts: Awesome squad as well, not quite as efficent as marines in shooting or combat as they don't have the one higher weapon skill or ballistic skill. But they are awesome as objective holders especially if given camo cloaks and sat inside some cover.

Fast Attack:


Vanguard Veterans: The complete opposite from Sternguard veterans, where Sternguard are a shooting unit Vanguard are close combat monsters. Vanguard are a fully customizable close combat squad, able to take any number of different options they can be tooled to kill anything they hit. I personally like the way these play when a chaplain is attached to the unit.

Assault Squad: The cheaper version of the Vanguard veteran squad. Pretty much a close combat tactical squad that does not score. My opinion is that in this edition they are not worth it, especially since for a few more points you can get an awesome Vanguard squad.

Space Marine Bike Squad: These guys are an interesting choice and have a few changes that make them interesting. They are a great shooting unit who can survive close combat, but should truly be skirting and shooting the enemy with every chance they get. The ability to take these guys as troops makes them even better than they are normally, so if you're looking at taking 2 squads or more, just get a captain on bike and make them scoring.

Scout Marine Bike Squad: These guys are almost the same as the normal bike squad except that they can not be taken as scoring units. They can however outflank and infiltrate, and they can be bought in squads bigger than the normal squads, so they have their pros as well as cons.

Land Speeder Squadron: With the ability to take anti-tank and anti-infantry weaponry these things are easily one of the most versatile squads in the codex I think, the only problem with them is that they die so easily, when a bolter can take something out of the air something is wrong.

Land Speeder Storm: A lighter version of the Land Speeder, it is able to carry scouts in groups of five and is able to stop people from deepstriking where they want.

Attack Bike Squad: Able to be attached to bikes squads or taken in their own squad these are additional supplements that boost the anti-infantry or anti-mech killing ability of your army.

Heavy Support:

Devastator Squad: Space Marines that up to 4 in the squad can take heavy weapons. As most marine squads you can make it anti-infantry/mech. These guys pull their weight for me in almost every game I play.

Whirlwind: The siege unit of the marines, able to do heavy damage to armies at long range, I personally don't field them, but if three work together I'm sure they'd work well. These are mainly anti-infantry.

Vindicator: This tank can destroy even the most heavily armored unit. These can kill entire squads with one shot if done right. These are nasty, and the more of them you have the more deadly they can become.

Thunderfire Cannon: These are awesome, with the cannon itself and a techmarine attached to it this is awesome at killing anything, for about one round. If the cannon is glanced at all it's destroyed, and if the techmarine is killed the cannon is useless. So for one round they are good, this is a glass cannon unit.

Predator: The most versatile tank the marines have. Fairly survivable with high front armor and cover around. Can be built to be anti-infantry or anti-tank or both.

Land Raider(crusader/redeemer/normal): The Land Raider is the only vehicle that can transport terminators and that's what most people use them for, that or transport high number squads. As for the tank there are a few different ones. The normal one is anti-tank mainly, the crusader and redeemer are more anti-infantry oriented but can still kill mech so it's another unit that's versatile.

Overall Opinion Space Marines: Space marines are able to be played in pretty much any type of way. They are able to do almost everything well but not any one thing super-happy-mega-awesome. Depending on the build they can do pretty much anything you want.