Tactica: Space Marines Underused Units.

Tactica: Space Marines. 

 Explosivo111 – Sci-fi wargamers Tactica Blog
Blog 2 – Power of the Unknown
Part 1 – Codex: Space Marines

Greetings sci fi wargamers! Explosivo111 here with another edition of my tactica series. Unfortunately due to the snow closing 95% of England down, I haven’t been able to play any 40k so this time I’m going start a new irregular mini-series for my blog called ‘power of the unknown’ where I will look at the little used units in 40k that you rarely see on the gaming table. These units, when given some care and attention, can really surprise your opponent.

Whirlwind Tank 

The Whirlwind, underrated?

 Most players look at the whirlwind tank and say ‘vindicator’. Why wouldn’t they? The vindicator has double the whirlwinds strength and the mighty AP of 1. I have had a whirlwind in my collection since 3rd edition; it’s horribly built because of the hefty metal cannons that were provided in them days but still has a place in my heart.
I must admit when I first started playing with the gaming group I have now, I didn’t use my whirlwind at all but that all changed when I was having problems with a very sniper heavy Eldar list (never EVER underestimate Eldar snipers). They were picking off my terminators and Lysander with ease as well as destroying my sternguard which was leaving me without a large amount of my points. They were really hard to remove due to the 2+ cover save they were receiving and it was difficult to assault them because it pulled my attention away from the rest of the game. Eventually it occurred to me that a whirlwind could solve all my problems, it has specific ammunition which ignores cover which with its strength and ap meant I was killing the pathfinders on a 3+ (provided I hit) this meant I could easily destroy them from a nice safe distance at the low cost of 85 points per game!
Sure whirlwinds fragile but due to their reputation at the moment, most players won’t even bother wasting a shot on them….until it’s too late!

Techmarine/Master of the Forge

Master of the forge. master of the battle?

 For some this is an obvious choice in a lot of lists, mainly for allowing dreadnoughts as heavy support but techmarines can have their own uses. A lot of space marine lists nowadays have the usual TH/SS terminator death star in a Land Raider but since 6th edition vehicles have become a tad more delicate due to hull points. Slam a techmarine into your death star squad and that problem goes away.
Now I know some of you are saying a techmarine is a waste of an elites slot, but if you kit this badboy out with a full servo harness then he really can become a combat monster in himself!

Scout Bikers 

Scout bikers, Useful?

Scout bikers truly are a hideously underused unit! The trick is to look at these as a unit that is eventually going to die, it’s up to you to decide WHEN they die. Kit them out with a teleport homer and the bikes combined with the pre-game scout move means they can easily get to an objective early in the game and use there teleport homer to bring down a more powerful unit to hold the objective.
As an added bonus these bikers can be very useful during the scenario ‘The Scouring’ whereby fast attack units become scoring themselves.

Attack Bike Squadron 

 It baffles me that I never see an attack bike squadron on the gaming table. 3 of these with a multi melta each comes to only 150 points! These can move 12” and fire the multi melta due to relentless giving them a huge 36” threat range. The advent of the jink special rule in 6th edition means these guys got a bit more survivable as they don’t have to go flat out and forgo shooting to receive a cover save.
It’s also worth noting that attack bikes have two wounds each and will need strength 10 to instakill them.

So that rounds up another blog. I hope I’ve given all you space marine players something to think about next time you’re writing an army list, and I hope I’ve put a little bit of fear into you non-space marine players.
As always please leave comments in the section below if you have any suggestions/comments/abuse and I’ll be sure to get back to you ASAP.

Expolosivo111

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