Space Marines 101 - Tactical Marines & Transports

Going to talk about all the different choices in the Space Marines codex. In this part I'll start out with the tactical marines and dedicated transports.

Tactical Squad


The main guys in your army, the ones who will make sure you can win objective games. I'd take at least 20 of these in any sized army. However personally I rarely take more than 20. As they are quite expensive and in my opinion not that great at killing stuff.

Also you really need some sort of transportation for these, be it Rhino/Razorback or Drop Pods. I'd rather take Rhinos and Razorbacks for my tactical marines and use drop pods for more specialized squads.

Theres several ways to use tactical marines, but my favorite one is just to bunker down around an objective with them and/or move them up towards the enemy objective escorted by the rest of your assault force. This is one of the reasons scouts aren't as good as objective holders, tactical marines can get where they need to with less losses on the way.

Wargear

Always remember to take the free upgrades (Flamer/Missile Launcher etc), as even if you take a missile launcher marine in a squad that is moving around, he can shoot 1 shot (bolt pistol) to the same range as the rapid firing boltguns, which means that they only lose 1 shot, but gain the heavy weapon.

The wargear options that I think are the most price worthy are, the flamer (free, anti-horde), the meltagun (cheap, anti-vehicle), the missile launcher (free, versatile), the multimelta (free, anti-vehicle), plasma cannon (cheap, anti-elite). However the plasma cannon is debatable, as you risk killing the firer with the weapon. But if it lands on meganobz, terminators or something like that, it can be devestating.

Sergeant Wargear

On the sergeant I highly suggest taking a power fist if you have the extra points. If you dont, running him vanilla with just chainsword and pistol is good. But the power fist can really be extremely useful! Some people think that codex marines shouldn't win close combat (Combat Tactics, ATSKNF), but honestly I don't feel the same way.

I'll try to explain why: Yes its true, we can chose to fall back, yes we can also auto regroup even if we're under 50% squad size. However what if you roll poorly on your fall back move, and the enemy conscolidates towards you. Its actually pretty easy for them to get within 6" of your squad, which means you can't regroup. And you continue to fall back, and once this has started he'll just escort you out of the table.

Another reason is what if you get charged near your own table edge? Losing combat then means you'll lose the entire squad.

A power fist in the squad often means that you tie or even win close combat, unless its against specialized assault squads. But then you can at least kill someone in the process, and then fall back. Also making tyranid monsterous creatures fear your tactical squads can be extremely valuable!

Transports


As already mentioned, your tactical squad will need transportation of some sorts. And trust me, they really need it. If you decide to footslog with your tactical squad, they wont be half as effective. There is several reasons for this, but the most important ones are: faster movement, and protection from low-strength infantry fire.

But luckily the space marines have several really nice transport options:

The Rhino is the most basic transport, armed with a normal storm bolter. It is a really cheap choice and one of the best choices to carry tactical marines.

The Razorback is a ideal choice for a squad that is set up to camp an objective in the own deployment zone. The normal razorback comes with twin linked heavy bolters which can hurt infantry squads. Most of its armaments got long range, which further improves its defensive role. One of the other popular choices for the razorback is the twin linked lascannon, however this is a expensive upgrade, but it does help to destroy incoming transports. The only problem with the razorback is that it can only carry 6 models, which means tactical squads need to combat squad, to use them. Giving more possible kill points for the enemy.

Drop Pods are actually great for many units, and is a way for units to deep strike relatively safely. As long as you are 12" from the table edge you can't really fail your deep strike down. The main problem with the drop pods are that once you are down, you are walking. This is why I think drop pods are better suited for specialized units, like sternguard or dreadnoughts. Sternguard can kill off the most dangerous threat around them and hope to survive a turn. And the dreadnoughts can pop smoke or kill something on the turn they come down. I don't think dropping tactical marines down are the way to go, as they really need to get from point A to B fast, and a drop pod only lets you get to point A fast.