Space Marines at the Fargo Two Rivers ITC Event: A Naramyth Trip Report

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t need to chase Admech RTT points for the rest of the ITC year so now it’s time for me to turn my attention to my true love: Space Marines. I’ve owned marines for the majority of my time in the hobby, and got my first GT win with them. They are fun, durable, allegedly mechanized, and have been terrible for most of 8th edition. I did play around with running Roboute Guilliman and Stormravens or Razorbacks during index-hammer but I never really loved it.  With the new book out and official for my local events, it’s high time to bust out the boys in green, and that was my plan for the Fargo Two Rivers ITC Tournament.

The List:

The Warhogs Army List - Click to Expand

The list is definitely limited by the models I currently own. Turns out that even despite excellent-looking, well-proportioned marines being out for quite some time I haven’t really invested in picking them up because they have, again, been terrible rules-wise. But they don’t call me “WAACmyth” on the Goonhammer Discord just for fun*, and so I scooped up and painted two three Invicuts Warsuits and an additional Repulsor Executioner before this event. I’d prefer a Primaris Chaplain instead of the random upgrades in the list, or maybe even a normal Primaris librarian instead and Phobos Librarian is bae. I would also drop the Infiltrators for Incursors but they simply aren’t an option until the models for them have actually been released.
*Editor’s Note: It’s mostly for fun

So how does this list work? Great question, hypothetical reader! I’ve only got some reps in with a single Executioner and no Warsuits, but here is how I see things going down: I use the infiltrators, Warsuits, and Phobos Librarian pretty aggressively in the midfield to force a flank, or block off some choke points while setting up the Thunderfire Cannons hopefully near where the double Executioner party will be. If I get to go first I am in position to hammer my opponent and start contesting objectives immediately. If I have or want to go second, I can use Rapid Redeploy and the Lord of Deceit Warlord Trait to move around an astonishing 6 of my 11 drops into better positions. This could be pulling the Concealed Position units back to safety or moving the executioners out from behind cover. After playing a couple of games against my fellow Warhog teammate Sean’s 4-knights list that went well. They can be summarized as “Knights got 6 turns in 2 games: A Naramyth Trip Report”

The Chapter Tactics should be pretty self explanatory: Moving and shooting with no penalty on turn two is wild, having a free re-roll once per activation just to make the bloody 2s to wound not be a nightmare is fantastic, and Executioners with a 2+ save and Thunderfire Cannons with a 1+ save are a huge problem to dig out. On the topic of Successors: Being “real” Ultras isn’t super worth it with this list: I have no need for the relics or characters, nor do I really need a persistent fall back and shoot for my army as either I can solve that problem with 2 CP for the Fall Back and Re-engage Stratagem (and this also allows me to charge again) or the unit being charged is probably just Tactical Squad marines who will not contribute significantly to the war effort.

The rest of the list is a bit of a marine battle pile: the Captain and LT run around making sure the the tanks keep re-rolls, the Intercessors go and grab objectives or screen, Thunderfires force half movement on key non-fly/titanic units and dig out troops hiding behind hills. The Drop Pod with 10 Tactical Squad marines is a bit of an odd ball. I like having one Deep Strike threat and Inceptors are excellent at that but I just didn’t have the points and this lets me make the Tactical marines useful in some way. It works pretty well with the Termite Drill and Rangers in my Admech army, and marines are like twice as good as rangers, right?

As far as pre-game things that are not already in the army list (I know I don’t have to spend the CP for Chapter Master (edit: yeah you do, past Naramyth. Love, Future Naramyth) and Lord of Deceit, but come on) I expect the Chaplain to consistently pick Recitation of Focus (+1 hit) but I have had some use out of Catechism of Fire (+1 wound at closest target) with all the Executioner small arms going into T6 or better targets. Litany of Faith is also a strong contender against mortal wound spam. Finally if it all sounds bad it would only take one more CP to buy the Benediction of Fury, pick the Mantra of Strength and just go to hammer town, maybe even trading out a set of Tac marines so he has a pod he can jump out of. My few games with the librarian I’ve used Scryer’s Gaze and either Psychic Shackles, or if I don’t have a target for a half move spell Telepathic assault is an ok pick to attempt a double tap of mortal wounds.

After some practice games and the acquisition of a third Warsuit, I made some adjustments:

Army List - Click to Expand

I removed a Thunderfire Cannon, downgraded the Chaplain to a Tech marine, and replaced one set of marines with scouts. Plus I removed some minor wargear to put me right at 2,000 points. This makes the battle pile a little easier to manage as I do not have to try to cover two thunderfires and “frees up” a tech marine to do repairs without being stuck to a cannon. The chaplain is kind of a hard loss (look at all the words I just wrote) but a third suit should be some good pressure that still can be moved around pregame. The pod still feels weird but it’s still nice for that “third secondary” that can be hard to get with a gunline.

Thinking about ITC secondaries picked against me: Big Game Hunter is a no brainier against me as that is probably everyone’s path to victory. After that I think it gets a little rough on the killing stuff secondaries: Getting Head Hunter means I’m close to being boarded, Butchers can be annoying with all the 2+ and it competes with BGH, meanwhile the positioning secondaries like Behind Enemy Lines and Recon can be difficult with the early pressure, and with a thunderfire and a pod full of bolters engineers can be a big trap. Overall this list feels like it’s reasonably hard to pick secondaries against.
Note: If you need a refresher on ITC Secondaries, check out our guide to choosing them here.

Round 1

The Opposition
Army List - Click to Expand

ITC Mission 4, Vanguard Deployment, NOVA terrain (Two opposing L blockers in the middle, ruins in corners, hills in opposite corners, hills in top and bottom of map)

First game is against my teammate Warhog Dan. After the marine book dropped he got on the idea of “what if a brick of stalker rifles, also causing Mortals on 5s with cents and a chaplain?”

Pregame Decisions:

He “lost” the roll off and chose to setup and go first. He chose BGH, Old School, and butchers(?). I chose Butchers, recon, and Gangbusters, knowing I’ll just give up a secondary point but the cents were my path to victory. My spells were Scryer’s Gaze and Telepathic assault since movement wasn’t really his MO and I just needed to blast fools with mortals and get some CP back.

The Game

He setup his entire army on the N central objective I placed, and the cents and a couple characters covering the NE objective near the L blocker. I setup my executioners and thunderfire in the SW, far enough away where the cents could never shoot them and on an angle using the L blockers to hide from the majority of his stalker rifles. The infiltrators were in my L blocker, and my three sneaky dreads and libby were hiding behind his L blocker but far enough into the middle where if he moved to shoot them only two could see.  They would take some stalker fire but it seemed like it would be pretty limited. I tried to seize and failed.

He moved his cents S to shoot my invictor and the brick of stalkers stayed put to open up on what they could. He wound up crushing one invictor with mortals on 5s and put 6 wounds on another with stalker fire while also putting 4 or so on an executioner. My turn the suits make it around the corner to charge the cents and chaplain while the executioners shuffled around to get some LOS on things. The executioner killed 3 cents with it’s laser destroyer and the rest of my shooting went into thinning out stalker rifles, killing around 15 of them. Some shot back and did some damage but it wasn’t enough to really threaten anything. Meanwhile the suits finished off the centurions and charged and killed the chaplain, but couldn’t quite pile into intercessors without getting off the objective he was holding (in hindsight this was wrong, I thought I was holding my bonus objective, but it was actually the one he placed. He was castled up on my bonus). His return fire on two killed both suits but he didn’t really move around much, On my two my droppod came down on the now open objective to grab me recon and grab me another “bonus” point.

The rest of my game was trying to kill exactly two units a turn, including trying to soften up squads to finish them off in the next round, while throwing away units to the NE corner to grab recon. He did kill an executioner and severely wounded the other but the damage was done by that point. We ran it out to 6 but never quite lost everything.

Postgame Thoughts:

AP -3 Stalker rifles with ignore cover are real mean when a portion of my defense is a cover save. And two cents ripping down a full health suit is wild. There are the bones of a couple scary concepts in this army but both of them needed mobility which Dan lacked. Coupled with tall L blockers and an angle deployment allowing me to hide the majority of my army only further exposed the mobility weakness.

Final Score: 30-19

Round 2

The Opposition
Army List - Click to Expand

ITC Mission 4, Dawn of War deployment. We played on an identical table to the last one, NOVA standard.

One of the two 5 repulsor lists at this event. This is the first RTT in a while Danny has been able to make it. He is an Ultrabros guy through and through and also loves big ole tanks. 5 Repulsors seems like a lot. Let’s see how it goes. He picks BGH, Old School, and Butchers Bill

Pregame Decisions:

Powers: Tenebrous Curse and Temporal Corridor. The game plan is to keep bobby in place while the suits catch an edge of his battle pile and then run away into an L blocker. I choose BGH, Kingslayer (Bobby), and Recon.

The Game

He sets up on the very center N objective with an attack bike in the NE to grab the E objective. I setup in the SW-ish using the L blocker to prevent at least one executioner from seeing me without moving 10. I setup my infiltrators behind the W blocker while I setup the three suits in the E L blocker  He doesn’t seize. I use I Rapid Redeploy to move my suits onto his W flank and move one infiltrator into the E blocker to grab the objective. My libby moves up, curses Bobby, and catches a repulsor with a smite. I then proceed to pick up two executioners with my two executioners and put some chaingun fire into a repulsor. His counter fire strat tiers one of my executioners. Two of my suits then charge the now injured repulsor, and the third goes into Bobby.   The repulsor explodes, killing his tech marine and doing damage all over the place, my suit puts a three damage on Bobby, who returns by cutting the suit in half, but the suit swings back as it dies and puts Bobby down, who gets up after the reroll.  His turn two his last Executioner shoots my Executioner, kills it, and gets killed in the return fire. His repulsor and bobby pick up another suit in shooting but bobby can’t charge the third because the suit is 7″ away. My turn two I kill the bike, bobby, and the repulsor and we shake hands.

Postgame Thoughts:

Boarding 5 repulsors on the top of two. Holy. Moly. I think we are in for some insane trading wars in the marine mirror, similar to the early castellan meta. We talked about him trying to redeploy as well to counter my redeploy but because of his castle, even if he moved three tanks away the pile the suits could counter and charge whatever my executioners couldn’t. Alternatively if he moved to LOS my executioners I could have redeployed them instead.

Final Score: 36-5

Round 3

The Opposition
Army List - Click to Expand

ITC Mission 5: Vanguard Deployment, and the same table as last game.

The other 5 repulsor list. Iron hands this time. I played Mark last month game two, but I see him on the top table pretty frequently and when he isn’t playing Grey Knight trash he has something ridiculous like this.  He chooses BGH, Old School, and Butchers.  Thankfully the Iron Hands book wasn’t active yet.

Pregame Decisions:

Powers are back to the default: Scryer’s Gaze and Telepathic Assault. More mortals more betta, and some CP will be nice. My choices are BGH, Old School, and Recon.

The Game

We both choose the Priority Objective in our respective corner. We get to play the scout mini game! He puts his scouts in the center spread out, I place mistakenly on the NE corner, far away from where his battlepile will be, and he tosses the infiltrators on the SW corner, then builds his battle pile around his objective, and a little hill. I setup my dreads and libby aggressively in the open in the SW to threaten the battlepile as best as I can, and am able to LOS all three of his executioners unless they move 10 using the L blocker. My thunderfire and tech marine hold my objective. We roll off, and I win even without the +1! He doesn’t seize and I get to work. I Rapid Redeploy my Executioners into the mid S of the table so I can see his whole battle pile and unload my characters and intercessors to threaten the scouts that are hanging out. The scouts and interceptors get killed from various shooting from my dreads and infantry and my executioners kill two of his, while his return fire only does 4 damage on the strat back swing because his characters were still in the rides.

He bottom of the turn involves everyone getting out of the rides, and the repulsors moving up to help tear down the dreads and put what they can into my executioners. In his first activation, which is probably going to be a real common exchange in the next few months, kills my wounded Executioner, which uses Vengeance of the Machine Spirit, and kills his Executioner, which returns with it’s own Vengeance of the Machine Spirit and blows up my second Executioner.  975+ points off the table in one activation. Go Team.  He then proceeds to sandpaper down the warsuits but fails to kill any of them.

On the top of turn two I finally go into tactical doctrine for the first time all event. My Pod comes down exactly close enough to his objective to steal it from him since he floated away to deal with the suit menace and everything else moves up to start using those AP -2 bolt rifles. My shooting proceeds to kill one repulsor and the charging suits pick up another.  He is able to back away and kill a suit, but I am able to with two CP rerolls in two different phases keep a suit alive at 1 that used his flamer and incidental shooting to finish off the intercessors.

I eventually kill the last repulsor on turn 4 and in assault doctrine on turn 5 declare a charge with tactical marines, probably the first time I’ve said those words this edition, to charge his phobos LT who was hiding from the world my being in combat with my drop pod, and killed him in the hail of -1 AP rifle butts for the tabling.

Postgame Thoughts:

Going first was obviously very huge. However having the suits did force some defensive deployment, which would have allowed me to keep the executioners up for a turn or two. I still think it would be an uphill battle though. Also once his army becomes real Iron Hands it will be terrifying. So there is that.

Final Score: 39-12

Final Result: 3-0

Note: Full results for the event are here.

And that’s it! Marines are super fun right now. Going first is obviously very helpful, but with some terrain and some creative positioning Ultras can really take advantage of certain maps. The drop pod felt fine but consistently grabbing recon with 3 units in some far corner isn’t a bad use of points, especially with trying to fit all three warsuits. I can see cutting one suit, but they are supremely efficient and really do something that can’t be replicated with with a contemptor or something. I was correct on secondaries: this army is kind of a nightmare to pick against. You better be playing your own positioning game or you will have a bad time. I do want to try to sneak in aggressors since it feels weird being ultras and not be taking advantage of them, and Ravenguard also looks mighty tempting with it’s deployment trickery and amping up Eliminators to 11. Unfortunately(?) I’m still chasing Admech ITC points so the next report will be the robots marching to Iron Halo. Until then!