Force Organization

I've been playing around with the space marine force organization chart, using the aforementioned sample army from Games Workshop as a starting point. It's important that you select your forces before you start buying and painting minis, otherwise you end up wasting time and money when you realize you can't actually field what you've bought; I know this seems obvious, but I've been guilty of buying cool looking minis just to have them (then, never actually using them). I've made a few changes to the list, to suit my own style.

Captain: The leader for my army will join the terminators on the battlefield. As such, I've equipped him with both a stormbolter and powerfist (basically making him a terminator himself, but without the terminator armor). He'll be arriving via teleportation with the terminators.

Scouts: My army includes two scout squads, both with teleport homing beacons. I decided to go with two beacons instead of just one in order to add some tactical flexibility to the force. I generally think it's dangerous to have only one homer in the force, because it's possible for one squad to be eliminated pretty quickly (especially from assault or a well-placed blast template). With some redundancy, I'm assured of both survival and flexibility; the terminators have two targets they can home in on, instead of one. Also, both squads have a heavy weapon -- one heavy bolter (with hellfire shells) and one missile launcher. This way, they can take on bigger targets (like vehicles).

Tactical Squad: This is the standard tactical squad, equipped the same was as in the sample force organization chart. It's got a flamer and missile launcher (because that saves me on points), and a drop pod.

Terminators: The hammer in my toolbox. The terminators remain at a five-man unit (again, to save on points), but I've equipped them with an assault cannon rather than the heavy flamer. I generally don't like flamers. I realize that the terminators on GW's list are likely expected to hold their ground in a hand-to-hand assault, in which case the heavy flamer makes sense. But I prefer them to stand their ground when they arrive and blast everything. There's also the potential with the assault cannon to get hits on a vehicle's rear armor. The terminators (and captain) arrive via the deep strike rules, using the scout's teleport homers as targets (and thus not scattering).

Sternguard Veterans: On the orginal list, the sternguard veterans were only a five-man strong unit. Generally, I prefer to field full-sized units. As my friend Matt Colville likes to point out, if one is good, ten are better. So I took this unit up to it's maximum size of ten. They also come with a drop pod for deep striking. I intend to have them hold an entire flank on their own, and hopefully draw attention away from other units in the force. With both a heavy bolter and missile launcher assigned to the unit, they can cause a lot of havoc, and should be ignored at peril.

Vanguard Veterans: This is where I have to skimp on points. Violating my own "ten is better" rule, I kept the force at a five-man squad. They still have jump packs, which allows them to deep strike. I've given them two power swords (taking the total up to three in the squad) and two plasma pistols. My intention is to select the most dangerous non-vehicle unit in my opponent's army, and have them assault as soon as possible. With two attacks each, plus one for the close combat weapons, that's 15 attacks (and the power swords ignore armor and get a re-roll to wound). That's nasty.

Options: Believe it or not, I still have points left over to spend (77 to be exact), which gives me some options:

1) I can include two more vanguard veterans (taking the squad up to 7 total) and give both them and the sergeant meltabombs (which gives them vehicle-hunting capability).

2) I can include a landspeeder equipped with both a heavy bolter and multi-melta. But landspeeders are notoriously fragile, and it would attract a lot of attention. I'm not sure it's worth spending 70 points for a bullet magnet.

3) I can include Sgt. Tellion (a special character), which allows one model in the scout squad to use his ballistic skill 6 for shooting. The likeliest nominee would be the heavy bolter with hellfire shells, which would produce a blast template and wound on a 2+ on a to hit roll of 1+. Nasty.

4) For ten points each, I can equip both drop pods with a locator. This would allow the teminators even more options for scatter-free teleportation. They could then unerringly reinforce the tactical squad, sternguard or vanguard veterans. I would use this option with Sgt. Tellion in the army.