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Basic unit overview and guide into the Space Marines.
3 years ago
Olteonz
[ INFANTRY ]
- Tactical marines : A terrible early contesting unit. Upgrades make the unit moderately useful, and devastating with doctrines and correct placement. Flamers with slowing doctrine are fantastic, but other than that the unit is pretty worthless - Use as a requisition dump to tank the frontline OR upgrade it, and never get it early. 4/10
BARRACKS
- Assault Marines : This is your bread and butter, rush them as quickly as possible to gain control early. There is no unit that can contest assault marines early on with the venerable dreadnought command doctrine. Next you will want powerswords ASAP, and the reason for this is to capitalize on your early control by destroying shield generators and harrasing opponents economy. - Rush this unit, rush powerswords, mass until at least Escalation phase 2. 10/10
- Scouts : Fantastic unit, but one you DO NOT want alot of. 1-2 should be fine, anything more and you are spending resources you could be spending on assault marines. - Get a hold of those early on, use them to pin the enemy down and finish them with assault marines. Be extremely careful not to make too many of those, as they bring only support. They are the jam on the assault marine sandwich. 8/10
- Sniper Scouts : A decent unit, a couple of them could never hurt. Great at defending chokepoints with the overwatch doctrine, can devastate most 2-cost elites. - Only get if you have the overwatch doctrine, and only when you have at least 3 assault marines on the field. Never mass them, they are a supporting defensive unit. Set them up behind a node and point their overwatch on the nearest ramp the enemy will come through. 6/10
DOCTRINE CHAPEL
- Devastators : A very decent unit, one of the better requisition dumps later on. If you can hold an objective with a heavy cover nearby, these guys will do a fine job at defending. It is however a bad idea to get them without some assault marines to screen them from other melee units, so again, you want assault marines before you get devastators. - Get it later on if you need to defend from a good position against alot of infantry, always screen them from melee using flamers or assault marines. 5/10
- Lascannon Devastators : Terrible unit, you should almost never get it. The only situation in which they are useful is as a requisition AV dump, where your opponent masses heavy armour and you dont want to spend power on assault marines. 2/10
[ VEHICLES ]
- Whirlwind : Fantastic unit against mass infantry - Get it every time your opponent masses infantry. Even better against immobile infantry such as lootas or dark reapers. This is one of the units you might consider rushing ASAP against orks that rush lootas. 9/10
- Land Speeder : Fantastic unit all around. - Get it every game, dont get more than 3. Destroy opponents economy with multi-meltas upgrade. General rule i stuck to is - dont rebuild them. If you lost one, oh well, it did its job. At that point you dont want to spend power on a harrasing unit, or your opponent will just rush your core and kill you while you hopelessly tickle them with landspeeders. 10/10
- Dreadnought : Now this, this is an intresting one. Dreadnoughts provide excelent healthpool behind heavy armour, and fantastic damage. This is the perfect unit against squads of Nobz or wraithblades, but is very vurnerable to long range anti vehicle units. Its generaly a good idea to get a couple of them, but dont spend all your power on just dreadnoughts. 8/10
- Predator Destructor : Here it is, your main power dump late game. Get 2-3 Land speeders -> 1-3 Dreadnoughts -> all the power goes to Predator Destructors. They deal with infantry just as well as they deal with vehicles, never a bad choice. 10/10
- Predator Annihilator : Again, an intresting unit. Same cost as Predator Destructor, you trade AoE damage for a higher burst and higher DPS. This is your answer to skimmers, 2-3 Annihilators will deal with any falcons, fire prisms or land speeders your enemy decides to field. Not a bad unit, worth considering against lots of vehicles, but generaly gets outclassed by the Destructor. 7/10
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Comments
MajBumWhistler
Nice post be awesome to see the same for doctrines.
Gavarenth
same, Id also like to hear the general opinions of the elites as well since there are several that are at the same cost, it makes people wonder which ones are better at what.
Kharneth
This is really nice. Greatly appreciate quick tips for how to use units in addition to which are more useful than others. Never used a Predator Destructor or a Land Speeder, I'll have to give them a try next time I'm in a game that lasts long enough.
MajBumWhistler
I've switched to only Destructors, theres very little performance difference and they just mow infantry/elites down. Land Speeders are really nice for quick attacks like shield generators or resource points. Usually use them with 2 squads of ASM points just melt.
redScare
I pretty much agree with all points. I don't think I've ever built lasscannon devs in 1vs1, in fact. You could try to leave one at a triple point or even base in mirrors to protect against LS but... a LS with **any **doctrine >> devastators.
Krupp
Nicely written, and overall I agree.
Couple of points: I think more Scouts are fine. You still shouldn't mass them, even with the doctrine but 2-3 at a time are good, those stun nades are amazing. I also like rebuilding a scout later in the game for scouting. And the nade stays good throughout the game.
HBDs get a bit better with the Pin doctrine, but unfortunately still get outgunned easily.
Dreadnoughts are easily the best units to put in Drop-Pods in the lategame. Depending on doctrines, they might even be 9/10 (the Charge makes them much more mobile for instance).
Destructor>>>Annihilator in almost all cases (heavy Vehicle spam is the sole exception, and even then the Destructors aren't far behind, especially with the Doctrine). I don't think there's a reason to build Annihilators atm.