List Preview/Review - All Foot Marines

All-foot Sternguarrd Veteran list!

 

I'm privileged to once again have a fantastic list provided by Dave at Dave40k. I love his lists. I tend to get stuck in a creative rut in my thinking and his ideas are very freeing for me. I've taken the list in the above link and tweaked it a bit. I want to be clear that it's a very good list in its own right and that my modifications are just to make it suit my play style. So, with that said, let's take a look at it.



So the biggest factor in the original list is that it's composed entirely of infantry. You'll also note that it's lead by Pedro Kantor, has a decent number of Sternguard Veterans, packs not 1, but 2 Thunderfire cannons in it, and has more Lascannons than you can shake a Power Fist at.


I really like where Dave went with this, but I made some slight modifications to it that I thought would be useful. First, I dropped the Dakka-Dread. As the only piece of armor in the list, it seemed to me that it would quickly be lit-up by enemy anti-tank units for lack of any other viable targets. Then, I dropped the Lascannon Devastators. At 35 points a piece for the cannons, I just can't justify it with their effectiveness. The cheapest Lascannons are in TAC squads, so that's where I left them. After dropping one of the Thunderfire cannons, I used the 2 remaining Heavy slots to add 2 Devastator squads with 4 Missile Launchers, each. This provides twice the anti-tank firepower, for a drastically reduced cost. The next change came from dropping one of the TAC squads and taking another Sternguard squad. Tactical Marines are, in my opinion, one of the worst Troops in the game. Sternguard, on the other hand, can hold their own in almost any scenario. With Pedro making them scoring, there's no fear about being able to hold objectives, either. Finally, using the remaining points, I kitted out the Sternguard Vets. with some ridiculously cheap Combi-meltas and Combi-plasma and a Heavy Flamer in each squad. I also gave 2 of them, and one TAC squad, Drop Pods for increased mobility while still remaining within the theme of the list.


2000 Pts - Codex: Space Marines Roster - 2000 pt all foot
HQ: Chapter Master Pedro Kantor
Troops: Tactical Squad
   9 Tactical Squad, Flamer, Lascannon
      1 Sergeant, Power Fist
      1 Drop Pod
Troops: Tactical Squad
   9 Tactical Squad, Plasma gun, Lascannon
      1 Sergeant, Power Fist
Elite: Sternguard Veteran Squad
   9 Sternguard Veteran Squad, Combi-Meltagun x3, Combi-Plasmagun x2, Heavy Flamer x1
      1 Sergeant, Lightning Claw
      1 Drop Pod
Elite: Sternguard Veteran Squad
   9 Sternguard Veteran Squad, Combi-Meltagun x3, Combi-Plasmagun x2, Heavy Flamer x 1
      1 Sergeant, Lightning Claw
      1 Drop Pod
Elite: Sternguard Veteran Squad
   9 Sternguard Veteran Squad, Combi-Meltagun x3, Combi-Plasmagun x2, Heavy Flamer x1
      1 Sergeant, Lightning Claw
Heavy Support: Thunderfire Cannon
Heavy Support: Devastator Squad
   4 Devastator Squad, Missile Launcher x4
      1 Sergeant
Heavy Support: Devastator Squad
   4 Devastator Squad, Missile Launcher x4
   1 Sergeant


Along with modifying the list, I also had a chance to play it out. As I didn't have my camera at the time (due to the move) I wasn't able to snap any pictures of the fight. And as this battle was a little while ago, it's not as fresh in my mind, but I'll give a quick rundown of how the list performed.


I wound up playing Donovan and his Black Templar and we decided that we'd both run all foot lists. We rolled Annihilation and Spearhead deployment, so I used Drop Pods to deploy my Veterans mid-field and slowly worked my way backward while gunning down all of the approaching Templar.

Here, you can see the board that we played on, but the photo was taken at a different time. The terrain gave me a pretty big advantage for the way the list worked as the frequent difficult terrain checks often denied Donovan the big assaults that he needed. That being said, however, I was able to use my Drop Pods to split his force to my advantage. Using the Thunderfire and Missiles, I was able to cut down his Terminators and keep his Dreadnought pinned to where it couldn't affect me to its full extent.

I was also pleasantly surprised at Pedro Kantor's effectiveness. Giving those Veterans 3 base attacks is pretty nasty and the 12" radius is a lot bigger than it seems. I really like running him and will probably work him into more lists now. He also killed the Emperor's Champion in single combat after making all 3 of his 4+ Invulnerable saves. Overall, I'm very impressed with how the list handled. I didn't really think you could make a competitive foot list with Vanilla marines, but I'm happy to say I've been proven wrong. While I did manage to table Donovan with this list, I think that the short range of his army, the benefits of the table, and his total lack of gunfire in his army mean that the win may have come easier than it would have against a more common mechanized list. So, I'll probably give it some further testing in the future.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the breakdown and the quick summary. Questions, comments, concerns? Hit me up below. :)