Hello all.  Today, I want to bring up somewhat of a controversial idea that is starting to sink in about my thoughts of 8th Edition.  And that is mechanization and how it impacts our lists.  In general, there are a lot of benefits to mechanization.  Mobility and adaptability comes to mind.  In the case of transports, you gain the protection of their wounds before you have to put the boots on the ground.  Not to mention, they are often pretty tough to take out quickly.  However, there is a distinct con to vehicles in this new edition for Space Marines -- high points cost.

For a lot of the choices in our codex, this is mitigated by being very effective at what they do.  An example is the Predator.  It puts out a ton of firepower for the price.  The same with Ven Dreadnoughts.  They validate their points by being great sources of survivable fire support.  So they aren't really my problem.  Its the transports.  Do you think transports pull their weight?

So lets look at the rhino.  What do we get for those 72 points?  You get a transport capability of 10.  The ability to bumber car assault.  You also get some line of sight blocking from them, but that is about it.  Not really worth the points, when we are so strapped for points elsewhere.  What about Razorbacks?  At least with these, we get some guns with it.  But even the most basic version is 87 points and you're looking at twin heavy bolters.  If you go for more powerful weaponry, you pay a premium.  Is it worth it?  I don't think it necessarily is.  In my list building, I've almost started to consider transports a tax that isn't needed in lists.  Just think about it:  I lose a bit of mobility, but I gain a ton of points that might be more beneficial to my army.  More bodies, more firepower, additional weaponry.  A ton of things.  What do you think?  Are transports obsolete?

Each 8th Edition Space Marine List is made of several parts.  In my experience, the defining aspect of a Codex Space Marine Army is “the Center”.  An example is the Ultramarines.  A common center is Guilliman + 3-4 Razorbacks or Fire Raptor Gunships, and Tigurius all cuddled up around all around him. Or non-competitively, a more common center in general is Captain or Chapter Master, Lieutenant, and three to four line squads of player preference.  Tacticals, Intercessors, or their equivalents is a good example.

My personal list has a center of 2 14-Man Tide Squads, 2 5-Man Intercessors w/ AutoRifles, Champion, Marshall w/Helm, Cenos and Deep Striking Castellan w/Teeth.

The existence of that centers defines my army play-style and style of engagement: melee anvil.  My army is then built to support that style of engagement. However, why is the center important? How does it define your army? Well in a word, the center is your army.

That Gulliman list might have a couple units, perhaps a few backfield Devastators, or the generic Space Marine List a few forward deploying scouts. The Blood Angel list at LVO with its numerous Intercessors, was spearheaded by Hammer Captain, Mephiston and other Characters, alongside Sanguinary Guard and Death Company Bombs or Deathstars. Each Center presents is own unique challenges and advantages.

A classic or basic center of a double character (Marshal and Castellan or Champion for us) and 3-4 Line Squads is able to secure a position. It’s highly inflexible in movement, as you try to stay bubbled. That inflexibility renders is vulnerable to flanking. If an enemy say Scion Squad hits your left flank. A classic center needs to delegate or separate one of its line squad to handle the scions. A Razorback center instead would disembark its contents and send a couple MSU Squads to handle it.

But those MSU squads would risk the counter attack or the opponent’s BolterBro/(or equivalent fire) taking them out.  Though, in theory, the amount needed is give or take take 50 Bolters Shot per 5 man squad, or 10 Shots a Marine. For context a 5 Man MSU with DoublePlasma puts out 25 Bolter Shots in Rapid/Charging.

In contrast a center like Fire Raptors, cannot take and hold objectives, reliant heavily on its supporting characters to clear enemy off midfield (at least those who cannot be shot off). But unlike the above examples given it has a larger array of weaponry can respond to flankers without separating from its support elements.

Where do as Black Templar fit into all this? Well, first and foremost, our Crusader Squads are one of the best power armored Line Squads in Warhammer 40,000. They can be whatever you want a line Squad to be. 5 Man MSU in Razors? 5-4 Rhino Fire Support? 13-15 maybe 20 Man, Tide Squads. The innate weakness of said Crusader Squads is battlefield flexibility. We lack combat squad and thus unable to respond to a changing battlefield scenario.

Tide Crusaders especially suffer that weakness. Meaning we have to build our army to incorporate and reduce that weakness. I use Mechanicus Skitarri; though Space Marine Biker Squads, Scouts or even cheap Assault Marine can fill the same function. In addition to my two tide Squads, I run two Intercessors Squads and Cenobytes. Intercessors armed with Auto Rifles, follow behind my Crusaders.

If the enemy force requires me to separate I move one of my two Intercessors to engage. And if I need to hold a midfield and keep moving on, I leave my Cenos behind to claim the objective. Third, the issue is getting to enemy force. Advancing turn 1, means I am likely within range (average distance is 7”-9” well within reason for our tactics). But I need to survive the critical first two turns.

So I utilize 10 reserve Reivers, Ponies, Scions, and Castellan w/ Teeth, alongside two Rattling Squads. A pure list could use Scout Marines, Assault Terminators, Interceptors, or more Reivers, to achieve a similar effect. But they are important as they force the enemy to spread out and being unable to bring their guns to bear on my Center army or force.

The flankers and deep strikers, work together to support my Center. If my Center were Rhino focused, I’d not have the flank support or as many deep strikers (Ponies notably). But I do it this way so the rest of list is setup to support them. If you have a weak center your list fails.

A lot of players I see take the minimum troops and then load up on toys. Minimum troop/squad size only good for Razorspam style lists. If you are taking a couple Storm Ravens or LRC, then throwing MSU Squads, maybe a single overly upgraded Vanguard and Ironclad Dread into the list, it’s gonna fail before it begins.

Furthermore different styled centers require different characters, Helbrecht and Grimaldus do not belong in the same list. Helbrecht supports high elite Pseudo Star Lists where they need his full re-rolls to bring maximum effect. Use Grimaldus instead for a black tide list for when his ability can become most relevant.

These character you take them or you have a list that can utilize them. In either scenario, your ‘army’, not a single unit defines your force. A good list starts with a firm foundation.  In most lists, that should be the troop section.

~Schlitzaf~

With the exception of a couple of sub-links that still need to be updated (e.g. Building a Competitive 8th Edition List), the BT 101 guide is functionally done.  I still have to add some additional stuff to Part One, but for all intents and purposes...the core guide is updated for 8th edition.  Yikes!  That took much longer than I thought it would take.  Of course, I will be continuing to update and expand these articles as time goes on, but they are finally at the baseline that we need for our newer players to start learning from.  Enjoy!

Hello everyone!  Today, I would like to announce some exciting news.  As everyone knows, blog content has been irregular at best, over the course of the past few years.  Even the BT 101 guide hasn't been updated to the standards that I expect of myself.  Well, 8th Edition is a revival of sorts for a lot of players and Implausible Nature is no different.  I want to continue putting out quality blog content for the competitive-minded players out there.  And the best way to do that is to draw on a tactic I used in the past:  guest authors.

I have been following this person's posts and assistance given to other players on B&C for some time and after some one-on-one conversation, I feel this is an excellent fit for both the competitive BT community and IN going forward.  So it is my pleasure to announce that Schlitzaf will be joining the IN staff of one, as a guest author for the blog.  I am glad to have you on board!

~Marshal Laeroth~

Hello all!  As promised, I got some work done on the BT 101 guide on Wednesday, completing the update to 8th Edition for the first few sections of the guide.  Part One and Part Two have been completed.  I will be trying to get the sub-links completed as well (by next Wednesday), such as BT 101: Building Low-Point BT Armies.  Once those are completed, I will move onto Part Three of the guide.

Also, please be sure to update your bookmarks.  If you may have noticed, we are now using a secure connection here at Implausible Nature and the updated SSL has messed up some of those links.  If you are reading this, you are probably fine...but...yeah, the downtime over the past couple days was due to renewing the domain and updating the SSL.  See ya all soon!