Topic: Space Marine Pinpoint Strike Force?

[St. Louis]

I've always played the space marines hard and heavy predators devastators and lots of troops for the most part forming a solid line of firepower. While this has worked great for me I'm looking to explore into other tactical areas. One idea that I thought of and am fond of is the idea of forming an army that has a small troop base (I'm thinkin 4 5 man combat squads w razorbacks) and the rest of the army being composed of elites and fast attack and HQ. The idea is to move fast and engage the enemy in tight areas where my lack of numbers wont hurt me (the fields me and my friends play on are extremely clustered).

What I would like to know is if this kind of army has any chance at all 1
If this army could work well against specifically the dark eldar and orks  2
what units/wargear I should look into taking 3 (I'm considering a land raider/terminator assault squad thing)

anything else anyone has to say is of course welcome ... 4

[Swan Knight]

It may well work, and I definitely like the idea. However, I feel that you might just not have enough troops to get the job done


And aren't fast, surgical strikes the name of the game for dark eldar? I bet you thought that the DE player would not be expecting it at all, and so you would probably win the first few matches until he figured out what to do

Against Orks, you may get very bogged down.

This kinda sounds like Ravenwing... But with more assault.

It could work very well, it just depends on how well you play them.

[St. Louis]

With the dark eldar I honestly didnt see the problem with fighting fire with fire but for the record suprisingly most of my problems from the dark eldar came in the form of disentigrators those things can turn an entire space marine squad into dust. I figure that if I can lock the eldar into close combat on my terms I may have the advantage

with regard to the orks the danger of being bogged down was number on on my list of things to watch out for but game after game ive been able to slow his advance by forming bottlenecks I figure if a tac squad can do it well a then terminator squad should be able to do fantastic (the terminators would all have lighting claws). to be honest im more worried about being outflanked by the orks

[Swan Knight]

Well, for the orks it seems like much of the game would be based on terrain placement, so as to allow good bottlenecking, or to impede flanking.

Termies would be excellent for this. They would cut through the orks like a hot knife through butter.

Ya, you definetly wanna be careful against the DE anti-tank. very nasty stuff...

How many tanks do you plan on feilding, in, say, 1500 pts?

[St. Louis]

Well the size of the army I'm planning is actually going to be 2500 so Ill answer in those terms

At this point I plan on being extremely light in terms of heavy support the only things I may take are landraiders to move my transports or a drop a dred in somewhere up field (I know dreds are elites but they pretty much act as a HS choice if your not technical about it) other than that I have the four combat squads razorback TL lascannon Plus the RL of the squad itself. I plan on using all my firepower to destroy enemy transports to slow there army down allowing me to maneuver properly

also it should be noted that I do not yet own a 5ed SM codex

[FifthWindDieGermanator]

also it should be noted that I do not yet own a 5ed SM codex

Then you need to get it, as tthe oodles of special Characters and new rules might change your perspective on how you want to do things. I am a firm believer of "MOAR TROOPS", but if you know that you are going to be without many Troops as part of a theme then I can live with that. I agree that Orks could bog you down, escpecially if one of your Combat Squads gets into combat with a semi-full boy squad.