Space Marine Builds?

aWildUPSMan

Starting this as a thread for suggested builds/construction orders for the Space Marines.

Currently I'm doing ok as SM but it takes one good Ork or Eldar player in particular to ruin my day.

My current line up Vs. [X] (For 2v2/3v3):

For Orks:

1 Servitor + 2 Tacs

Barracks (OR) Doctrine Chapel. (I've tried stun scouts which have their stun grenade dodged and for Devastators, 3 Boyz squads seem to swarm them even with tac supports)

The tacs even if I pull them back seem to get swarmed easily enough and cannot escape melee at all thus I usually lose a good chunk of my initial army.

I'm just not finding a good build order currently against Ork opponents.

For Eldar:

Similar to the Ork build though I prefer Sniper scouts to pick off Banshees from afar and give the Devastators the sight range once I complete a Doctrine Chapel.

Again though, combined with webways banshees can get into melee far too easily with my troops even if I pre-emptively pull them back to an LP or one of my barracks. Dire Avengers mow down what's left and if they have Macha or Dark Reapers they can run rings around my troops.

For Elite's I've been mixing it up between:

Gabe + Killteam + Solaria (For command doctrine for Tacticals)

OR

Gabe + Jonah + Terminators

If I manage to get Gabe or Jonah out I can normally micro them well enough to push my opponent back a bit but by this time they've had the Elite point node or extra resource node (3v3) for quite some time, thus having the advantage overall.

Does anyone have any good strategies for Marines or build orders they'd like to share? I'll take any assistance I can get plus this could be a good thread for other Marine players looking to start out!

gravy_rains

I usually grab an ASM as soon as I can. Lines up nicely I've found out.

Then I try to grab some heavy bolters or devestators. They do huge amounts of dmg early game if you can keep them guarded.

Jonah right now is a waste of a pick. Good at nothing. His familiar attack is a joke of dMG and his blinding light or whatever is best used for defense mechanics to keep your ranged safe for 3 secs. Then any melee after that melts him. He needs reworked into a straight caster as Librarians should be.

Also, mines from scouts go a long ways in bait tactics. Try them out and get used to them. They can change the tide.

Bersercker

I currently use one tacs and one asm in a drop pod at the start, cause if the enemy marine player does the same or if the eldar player goes fast banshees and i dont have asm i usually get wrecked. The tacs+asm trade well enough against 3 sluggas or dire avengers+banshees if you use the banner i think.

A shame tactical marines are so weak in melee.

lyinoats

Like they say, drop pod ASMs are godsend against sluggas and banshees. Grabbing a scout squad also helps. Damage wise, not so much, but scouting is important and the stun grenade helps peel for your tacs and DMs. Don't forget your Battle Standard either. A good battle standard placement can turn a disadvantaged fight to your favor.

ObsceneName

Tacticals except in the space marine mirror.
My favorite opener is three servitors
2 to capture nodes/scouts
1 to rush a barracks build a asm in a drop pod follow it up with a scout sniper/scout squad.
I've been using Jonah/Gabe/Solaria.
I think I'm going to switch to DWKT/Jonah/Solaria
I pretty much use the speed of scouts to attack nodes with out listening posts and cause attrition damage on units. Scouts can spot for the snipers/lock up units with the grenade. ASM come in case a favorable conflict is actually forced.

redScare

Most of my wins during the beta (1vs1, all matchups) have been with:
Extra servitor -> asm (barracks) -> asm (drop pod) -> asm -> arsenal -> power swords

After that you go snipers + Tier2

For mirrors you can maybe get away with another build. Against Orks and Eldar seems to be the only viable tactic as as Tacs are next to useless.

ObsceneName

I've been pushing some Arsenal Openers
2x servitors to cap, 1 tac squad 1 drop pod tac squad power gen on the tri node req upgrade on the second node into an arsenal + flamer.
You pretty much have to run DWKT and Jonas for this opener to work.
It's not the most powerful opener BUT, it leaves you with really strong transition options into either a barracks for ASMs/Scout Squads or a Chapel for the heavy weapon squads. The strongest part is the early arsenal allows you to get the tier 1 health upgrade fairly quickly to prevent your guys from getting insta gibbed by Macha or the Weirdboy. Another strong element is the quick transition to Plasma, which is just insane DPS in the early game

Roibr

@lyinoats said:
Like they say, drop pod ASMs are godsend against sluggas and banshees. Grabbing a scout squad also helps. Damage wise, not so much, but scouting is important and the stun grenade helps peel for your tacs and DMs. Don't forget your Battle Standard either. A good battle standard placement can turn a disadvantaged fight to your favor.

but shouldnt be SM the easiest to be played? This makes them even more Micro/Macro heavy...

wongtp

u will rarely need more than 1 tac squad usually.

i open with tacts in pod, servitor to get barracks asap and scouts and asm.

extremely potent in early game when there's just so many sources of stuns, stun nades, jumps and drop pods. land them right and you will always beat everyone in the 1st engagement.

then ill follow up with deathwatch, 1 more squad of asm and then go for devastators for ranged firepower, ignoring tacticals. so early mid, my build is 2x asm, 1 tactical squad, 1 scout, deathwatch and 1 devastator.

mid game is when ill get abit more tacticals because melee is far too dangerous with only asm, focus on troop upgrades and dreadnaughts.

BlessedSpartan

Glad this was brought up.

So during the 1st beta i designed a build for space marines vs xeno after Realizing how good drop pods are and the fact they they are essentially free.

Vs Eldar and Orks

Servitor
Drop Pod tactical
Tactical Marine
Tactical Marine
Death Watch

Then when you have the resources grab an snare and build flamers on your tacticals. This will allow you to deal with melee as the flamers absolutely destroy these races early game. Be sure to push your advantage can keep you marines alive. from here you can build the devastator building or the scout one with Assault marines

Vs space marine ( @vindicarex showed me this build and it totally wrecked the above build)

Instant Scout barracks (1st building)
Servitor to cap
Assault Marine in drop pod
Double scouts
ASM
Elite of your choice
Arsenal
Power swords
Assualt marine/tactical

This is a high power build use your scouts to well scout ahead and plan ambushes as well as harass power.
This should take you to the later stages of the game where you can build land speeders to harass resources and bully Elites

I hope this works when the game drops

aWildUPSMan

I've been using 2 tacs and rushing a drop pod ASM early on. Combined with Killteam IronMaw these can take on pretty much anything early on I've found.

EDIT: For Elite's I've found negating Solaria and using a combination of Gabe, Killteam and Terminators is incredibly powerful. The Terminators + Gabe can tie up ranged knights with ease.

Zackareus

For general metagaming i think Barracks are the best for Beginning.
Devastators or Lascannonteams are mostly usable at Tier 2.

My buildorder looks like that:

1: 2nd. Servitor
2: Barracks
3: ASM ( Assault Space Marine) or SS ( Scout Scuad) in Pod and Barrack
4: Arsenal
5: Tier 2

Next time i try to find out which timemanagement the best Buildorder gives.
Does someone already has experiences about time-oriented Basebuilding?

jambai

As a general strategy, I use devastators liberally with terminator (no setup) and the army doctrine that let your devs immobilize target (forget it's name).
Thinking adding Paladin for the shield wall thingy if it's any good (if anyone know the cooldown and time for the shield to be back on when standing, please tell me ). Scouts+asm+freakton of devs along with angelos, termie is working great so far.

Zackareus

but not time-efficient. Perhaps on Multiplayer, dont think that this strategy is working on 1vs1

MajBumWhistler

@jambai said:
As a general strategy, I use devastators liberally with terminator (no setup) and the army doctrine that let your devs immobilize target (forget it's name).
Thinking adding Paladin for the shield wall thingy if it's any good (if anyone know the cooldown and time for the shield to be back on when standing, please tell me ). Scouts+asm+freakton of devs along with angelos, termie is working great so far.

Using this with Tac Plasma no overheat doc (Venerable Dread). Thinking I might bring in Tacs shooting on the move.

sphaxou

@MajBumWhistler said:

Using this with Tac Plasma no overheat doc (Venerable Dread). Thinking I might bring in Tacs shooting on the move.

I don't think plasma marines can shoot on the move even with solaria doctrine since it specifies "tactical marines equipped with bolters"

Proenca

@gravy_rains said:
I usually grab an ASM as soon as I can. Lines up nicely I've found out.

Then I try to grab some heavy bolters or devestators. They do huge amounts of dmg early game if you can keep them guarded.

Jonah right now is a waste of a pick. Good at nothing. His familiar attack is a joke of dMG and his blinding light or whatever is best used for defense mechanics to keep your ranged safe for 3 secs. Then any melee after that melts him. He needs reworked into a straight caster as Librarians should be.

Also, mines from scouts go a long ways in bait tactics. Try them out and get used to them. They can change the tide.

I ++heresy redacted++ know right, i mean Jonah is only good becuse of the blind.
And his wall mostly ends up killing you becuse they will just use a global inside that later in the game, and we dont want that.

Proenca

@Bersercker said:
I currently use one tacs and one asm in a drop pod at the start, cause if the enemy marine player does the same or if the eldar player goes fast banshees and i dont have asm i usually get wrecked. The tacs+asm trade well enough against 3 sluggas or dire avengers+banshees if you use the banner i think.

A shame tactical marines are so weak in melee.

I mean they are called Tactical for a reason right ?
I think in a game like this they could get in a future patch chainswords or get more dps in ranged.
But im not sure if that would make them to strong then.

Skemooo

without the greandes doctrine tacs are bad for early game.. they get mele locked and cant break it...with tac nades the fight will be even ..and might turn your way if you can rush an early scout to stun them.. never get tacs without nades .. even if you have godly micro its all wasted in early engagements while your opp just A moves..

If im going Tacs these two docs are must, 1 nades , 2 fire on move to finish of 1 or 2 models..

my fav tac build is

tac-> tac in drop pod-> servitor and make him build Arsenal as soon as he comes out -> you can dont invest on any req gens untill u get arsenal + plasma.. you can get plasma on tacs in about 3 mins .. plasma tacs with nades chew threw infy..

TibblesEviLCat

how do u deal with the generalistic spamm of units/ asm when you rush plasma?

Elkantar1981

i would go this routes as opener https://www.reddit.com/r/DawnOfWarIII/comments/69dnce/math_on_openings_and_phase_1_squad_loss/ nice openers for all races.