Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Space Marines (section)

====How To Kill Space Marines====
Space Marines can be a challenging army to fight. Their basic statlines are quite 'ard, they have a deep and varied roster which allows them to play a variety of styles effectively, and access to both classic and Primaris marines means they can field flexible units with plenty of redundancy or specialist units which are very effective in their niche. Together, these make list-building difficult because it's difficult to predict what you'll be fighting; many a player has wept at the sight of an armoured column rolling up in front of their anti-infantry gunlines, or brought specialised lists to negate Primaris specialisations only to be confronted with a varied and well-rounded force.

Nonetheless, there ARE certain things you can predict about the Marines, and certain decisions you can make which are ''generally'' reliable.

The first is that you're probably going to be facing a lot of Elites. Marines are already quite elite by the standard of most factions, but their Elite choices are particularly strong. This means you're going to need a way to deal with small groups of heavy and super-heavy infantry; the two most common statlines here are T4 2W and T5 3W. Armies like the Necrons or Tau who have strong basic guns won't care so much, but if the bulk of your firepower is S3 without AP you're going to run into difficulty, especially once the Marines get into cover.

So - crack open the special weapons. Most armies have access to something in the S5 D2 range, so you'll want to stock up on these, as they tend to be a very point-efficient way of dealing with marines. Heavy flamers and heavy bolters are easily available to a lot of factions, but be wary of going for Plasma; you'll need to overcharge these to outright kill a Marine with one shot and it's particularly risky in 9th Edition.

Dealing with T5 3W is much harder. These two stats are in a real sweet-spot where most anti-chaff is going to bounce off altogether, and even your dedicated elite-killers are usually D2 or Dd3, meaning twice the shots to bring them down. For these, your best options are looking for anything with high rate-of-fire in the S6 1D range, or just committing outright to anti-vehicle. Neither of these are particularly appealing choices, but now that Gravis armour is available in every slot, you need a way to take care of it. Don't skimp here; Heavy Intercessors aren't very efficient killers, but they're absolutely fantastic objective holders, and you don't want to get ground down on victory points, to say nothing of the damage things like Aggressors can do. If you can, consider going for high-strength D3 melee weapons (don't fuck about with Dd3 as this WILL cost you); if your opponent doesn't bring Gravis, they can still be put to work on vehicles or characters.

Speaking of characters; Marine characters are strong, but limited in numbers, especially given 9th Edition's restrictions on captains and lieutenants. Use this to your advantage; Marines generally like to build a castle of overlapping auras for their heavy guns like Devastators and Eliminators, so try and break line-of-sight. Just making those guns move has a much higher effect than you'd expect on their efficiency with re-rolls. Fast units and transports are particularly great here, being able to flit between areas where the Marines can't see to capture objectives, and can force the castle to play inefficiently or even split up altogether to try and shoot you off multiple objectives.

Melee is generally a good choice against the Marines. Marine infantry is decent in melee, but not points-efficient; even if you can't kill them, you can usually tie them up for a few turns to take advantage of their low unit numbers and attacks. Marines also tend to pour a lot of points into their guns, as they have great options there, so just swarming them with expendable fodder can tie up those guns for a turn or two and give you the advantage; that said, the dedicated melee units are very dangerous and several chapters have melee specializations that can make this strategy backfire. Blobs also tend to be very effective in general; Marines have plenty of options for deep-striking, so filling the board with trash can cut off their options and force them to land in their own territory, giving you more room to safely capture objectives in your own backfield.

Finally, Marine vehicles are strong, but tend to be surprisingly frail. S8 is your friend here; put down enemy vehicles as quickly as you can, and then turn those guns on their Elites. Because Marines tend to have low multi-wound models, powerful single-shot weapons like lascannons aren't too inefficient here, and are particularly good against Primaris as you can quickly pick off dangerous specialists as they get into their effective ranges.

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000 9E]]

[[Category: Warhammer 40000 Tactics (9E)]]

[[Category: Imperial]]

[[Category: Space Marines]]

{{Warhammer_40k_Tactics}}