I’ve never posted anything about tactics before, but I’ve been mulling over how to load out my Space Marine captain and with GW’s recent post on their What’s New Today blog, I thought I’d share my thoughts and get some feedback.
The current load out I have is: Storm Bolter, Relic Blade and Artificer Armour.
The captains role as I see it, is to be an assault unit and one to be noticed no doubt. Further more, as an Independent Character he can join other units to aid them with things such as Leadership and/or boost their effectiveness in assault. For these reasons and after much deliberation, this is the best point for point load out I came up with and here’s why…
Storm Bolter – This was chosen over a boltgun or combi-weapon simply because a rapid fire weapon is useless in an assault unit. A boltpistol is perfectly fine, but for 3 points you gain an additional S4 shot, can shoot up to 24” and are able to assault after using it. The Storm Bolter was also chosen because of my next option which renders any pistol as an assault weapon useless.
Relic Blade – Yea, I know, it’s damn expensive and you’re probably thinking, Why not take a Power Fist, it’s cheaper and doubles your strength? And you’d be absolutely right, however using a Power Fist negates that nice I5. With a Relic Blade, I’m still increasing my S to 6, still negating armour saves, still have the same draw back of loosing +1A, but… I get to keep my I5. With an Independent Character that can be singled out during combat as well as fall to Instant Death, striking first can mean everything. The Relic Blade was also chosen over the other options because of that increase to S6. Let’s face it, S4 doesn’t cut it most of the time if you’re facing-off with another Independent Character or Monstrous Creature.
Artificer Armour – Point for point this is much better than Terminator armour and obviously better than Power Armour. It’s not a necessety, but I like to protect my investments if you catch what I mean. Opting for Terminator armour gets you a Storm Bolter, Power Weapon and a 2+ save for 40 points. Artificer Armour plus the cost of the Storm Bolter and Relic Blade above comes to 48 points. So for 8 points, you get a better close combat weapon and keep your abilities to ride in a Rhino/Razorback as well as do a Sweeping Advance. What about teleporting in? Whose to say he’ll arrive when and where you need him.
Comments welcome and as always, thanks for stopping by. Cheers!
Sounds reasonable, and good point on the I 1 for PFists. Stupid choice for an IC that can be KO'd quick.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree on the Relic Blade. I've been pretty happy with its performance on my captain. For all the reasons outlined above, it's a pretty solid choice. It's also one of the few commonly useful item in the SM book that aren't in the BA book (at least, on the captains).
ReplyDeleteI'm not super sold on Artificier Armor however. I used to equip it all the time but eventually stopped. My feeling was that any time my captain go hit with something (power weapon hit, low AP shooting, etc.) that would have defeated Power Armor, it also defeated the Artificier Armor. Particularly if you're being more aggressive about getting your captain into close combat, then I'm not sure it's worth it. Either way he gets iced by Power Weapons, Power Fists, Instant Death, and so on, and I was never really taking a ton of hits from normal stuff, so the AA didn't seem worth the price to me.
At 148 points it's tempting to just switch him to Sicarius. For another ~20 points or so (I believe, don't have my book with me), you'd get a weapon similar but not quite as cool as the Relic Blade, Artificier Armor, *Feel No Pain*, special abilities for one Tac Squad, a Plasma Pistol, and so on. I haven't played around with this though, preferring a generic character and keeping him low cost.
You make an excellent point about the artificer armour, but the key to surviving all of that, no mater what armour your adorning, is to join him to another unit. This will give him ablative wounds to ensure his survival under heavy fire. Once in combat however he can be singled out so it's a bit of a gamble, just try your best to keep the model wielding the power weapon out of base contact with him.
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