1850 Novamarines Scout List

[mrjjourden]

***Almost finished painting***Photos coming soon***

So I haven't played a game since 4th edition until last week. Sure I was a little rusty, but at the end of the day, I have to hand it to my 10th Company. They came, they saw, and they kicked some ***.

I have an addiction to 40K and tend to do things on a Company level - Battle Company, Bike Company, Terminator Company, etc. You get the picture. So at the beginning of November, I got the crazy idea to put together a Scout Company and get back into 40K (been on a 5th edition hiatus, and of course life takes over sometimes).

So within a few weeks, I assembled the troops (140+/- all metal space marine scouts), and their support elements and went to work stripping, assembling, basing, painting, and experimenting with different lists, and different units. I had to maintain the Scout theme, so bringing in lumbering Centurions with Grav Cannons, although tempting, just didn't fit with what I wanted the army to do.

As a US Marine, I wanted to give the army a realistic mission, with realistic game play using tried and true tactics of combined arms. Put my opponent on the "horns of a dillemma" so to speak. So what do Scouts do? Recon of course! So I built an army based on stealth supported by fast attack, fast transports and deadly artillery elements. However, after reading and re-reading the rule book and Codex, I discovered three things that I would like on a Scout wish list. Each of which are further discussed below: 1) Flamers; 2) Have some type of "Forward Observer" Special Rule with the ability to paint a target for airstrikes and artillery; and 3) BS 4.

1) Special Weapons: Don't know what's going on here, but Scouts don't have access to any special weaponry unless they take bikes. Well OK, we get Sniper Rifles, Missile Launchers and Shotguns. I would love access to a Flamer, especially since Scouts are BS 3 (more on that below), but alas until then I'll live vicariously through the Heavy Flamers on the Landspeeder Storm.

2) Special Rules: Scouts already move through cover (lovely), infiltrate (awesome), scout (sweet) and outflank (amazeballs), so why the hell can't we put eyes on a target, paint that pesky Wraithknight with our trusty laser guidance system, and call in an airstrike or fire mission? I mean come on people, there has to be a piece of wargear in the 41st Millennium that Marines can put to use to this effect. After all, Tau have their ridiculous marker lights...some food for thought.

3) Advanced Weapons Training: Speaking from experience, I was thrown into the sand flea infested swamps of Parris Island at the ripe old age of 18, handed an M16A1 Assault Rifle, and taught how to hit a man size target 500 yards out. By the end of the week, I was nailing 8/10 head shots without a scope. After over a decade in the Corps, I could nail head shots from a thousand meters without breaking a sweat. I'm sure that Marine Scouts are taught how to fire their weapons effectively, especially with the likes of Sgt. Telion training the Tenth Company. Give them BS 4 already. Just saying.

Moving on...as a Novamarine player, we get to use the Ultramarines Chapter Tactics and believe me I'm not complaining. Both the Tactical and Assault Doctrines came in very handy for a Scout army (didn't use the Devastator Tactics and you'll see why soon). Rerolling 1's in the shooting phase, and rerolling assault distance in the assault phase is a nice little dagger in the heart of my opponent. Bang bang...he shot me down...

Without further adieu...

Captain - 180 points
Bike
Artificer Armor
Storm Shield
Relic Blade

Troops - 1105 points
9x Scouts - Vet Sgt, Sniper Rifles and Camo Cloaks
10x Scouts - Vet Sgt with Bolter, Boltguns, Heavy Bolter with Hellfire Shells, Camo Cloaks
10x Scouts - Vet Sgt with Power Fist, CCWs, Camo Cloaks, Landspeeder Storm with Heavy Flamer
10x Scouts - Vet Sgt with Power Fist, CCWs, Camo Cloaks, Landspeeder Storm with Heavy Flamer
10x Scouts - Vet Sgt with CCW, CCWs, Heavy Bolter with Hellfire Shells, Camo Cloaks, Landspeeder Storm with Heavy Flamer
10x Scouts - Vet Sgt with CCW, CCWs, Heavy Bolter with Hellfire Shells, Camo Cloaks, Landspeeder Storm with Heavy Flamer

Fast Attack - 265 points
Stormtalon - Twin-linked Lascannons, Twin-linked Assault Cannon
Stormtalon - Skyhammer Missile Launcher, Twin-linked Assault Cannon

Heavy Support - 300 points
Thunderfire Cannon
Thunderfire Cannon
Thunderfire Cannon

Total 1850

Yep, that's 59 Scouts with Camo Cloaks, 3x Techmarines bolstering defenses and 3x TFC's dropping Heavy 12 S6 or S5 no-cover-save blast markers for at least two turns.

Out of the gate, 5x of the Scout Squads are set up in Combat Squads with the Snipers staying together. 4x Scout Combat Squads with Landspeeder Storms, and two Stormtalons stay in reserve, Scout squads deploy taking advantage of Scout and Infiltrate. TFC's set up wherever they want as LOS is helpful but not required. Captain on Bike deploys and ready to zip around within a moments notice to wreak havoc where needed.

Have played in two games so far and haven't been disappointed. The army performed admirably, even if I am still a bit shaky on game mechanics/game play/rules.

Comments?

[Citizensmith]

Nice list, really like the scout theme. I did a smaller (1000pt) version, admittedly tailored to a degree to what I have so I don't have to buy more.
HQ 130
10th company captain (lightning claw, melta bombs, bike)
Troops 555
Alpha squad Scouts (sniper/camo, heavy bolter with hellfire, Telion)
Beta squad Scouts (6 bolter, 2 sniper, missile launcher, sgt with shotgun and melta bomb) - the what models do I have left squad
Gamma squad Scouts (5 close combat, vet sgt with power fist, riding in a Storm with heavy flamer)
Delta squad Scouts (5 close combat, sgt with melta bombs, riding in a Storm with heavy flamer)
Fast 219
Storm Talon with skyhammer
Epsilon squad bike scouts (3, grenade launcher, vet sgt with power fist)
Heavy 95
Predator (Destructor with heavy bolter sponsons) - converted with forward turret location for T34 look, painted up with camo.

Almost done painting, this will become my pick up game army that can live in a box in the car.

[mrjjourden]

Nice! I've mulled Telion time and time again and just can't justify the points in 1850 - let alone 1000! There is a good article [URL="http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/01/40k-tactics-space-marine-heroes-torias.html"]HERE[/URL] talking about him. Check it out.

[Darren Wachnuk]

I love this concept and I am, myself, in the conceptual phase of doing this very same thing myself (when I started space marines I could trait accordingly to have my whole army infiltate, its my favourite thing about 40k). In practice, I am on the fence about which tactics to employ... I am thinking of either the Scars or the Ultramarines. Granted, I haven't had much game time with 6th at all, and only played other MEq armies to boot. The storms Cerberus launcher combined with hit and run is a constant boon to the CCW+BP Scouts performance especially if I can re-apply it each turn. As you say above though the Ultramarines traits are probably just as good, and maybe even less crutch in performance. I haven't attempted them yet. The old man (telion) is hella appealing as well, just because he looks so bossy.

[mrjjourden]

I'm putting together a Bike Company themed off of a White Scars successor Chapter called the Ulagan Chinua "Red Wolves" but I can tell you that fielding an all bike army sounds sexy, but in actually you simply don't have enough wounds to hold out 5-turns in a standard game. I've been running scenarios left and right and at the end of the day 6th edition is all about sustainability. If you can survive, then you can win games. So far this scout army has been a tough nut to crack!

[Hauptmann61]

Its great to see other chaps going with scout themed army lists. I myself have just got back into 40K, read a lot with the new 6th Edition rulebook and the new Spacemarine Codex, I also decided I wanted to go with Scouts. I'm thinking of backing them up with a tactical squad or two. I grabbed that magic boxset with the two Stormtalons and Stormraven and was thinking along the samelines as you mrjjourden backing the scouts with airsupport and some heavies such as the Stalker or Whirlwind or a Devestator squad or two. Those are my plans. I had to go with Sergeant Telion and had scouts on bikes with the teleport homer in mind.

One question i had on your force list. On the squads you have 10 scouts did you go with two Landspeeder Storms to accommodate the whole squad? As I understand the Storm can only carry five scouts. I may be wrong on that. I was looking at equiping my 10 man squads with two Storms each so thats why I ask.

Look forward to seeing this army of yours Sir.

Huge respect to you for serving your country by the way.

[mrjjourden]

Thank you for the post...sorry for the delay.

Each squad can only take one Storm. So if you take 10-man squads then you can take one Storm and five of them can hitch a ride. You can combat squad and the other five scouts can deploy separately. Since Storms are not standalone units and must be taken with a squad, the max you can bring in using standard force organization is 6.

So far, my scouts are performing exceptionally. Will be posting some battle reports soon enough.

You're very welcome.

[Chexmix282]

Pics or they're poorly converted Battle for Macragge marines.

Bust seriously, good army list. Looks like fun to play.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Looks pretty solid, but any reason you didn't include biker scouts to back up the biker captain? A minimum squad of 3 would do wonders to eat any plasma fire, keep the big guy fresh for combat, and the biker scout sergeant could accept any challenges, keeping the Captain free to tear through the enemy squad.

[mrjjourden]

Pictures coming very soon. I'm almost done painting. All of the minis are done, am working on the Storms and Stormtalons and will have them completed very soon. My self imposed deadline is 23Feb.

I'll have a few scout bikers in a larger list...for now he's on his own. Yeah, he gets sacrificed at times, but he is also good at tying up an enemy unit while my scouts go to work securing objectives. Aside from cheesy Eldar re-rolling every failing throw under the sun, the list is very competitive. I'll line them up to any army in the game (non-Imperial Marines as I don't battle other Marines on principle).