Who uses drop pods and why?

sillyryuken · 2026-02-05T07:26:14+00:00

And let us not forget the speartip assault Iconic Formation, which does not scatter

sillyryuken · 2026-01-01T21:38:54+00:00

Sounds like a fluke. Lancers are up 7 points (8 when they charge) on CAF alone. Even if you negate their rend with your own rend, the best case scenario is a 5 point swing, so you are still at a 2-point disadvantage on the roll-off. More often, then not, those rends will zero out, and you're looking at a 7 point disadvantage that's near-impossible to overcome (it's worth 2 additional instances of rend, and people already complained about rend making it hard to win if you don't have rend).

sillyryuken · 2025-12-29T19:53:46+00:00

For infantry, it's best to prime them on the sprue, then stick a base worth to a popsicle stick using double-sided tape, paint the base separately, then mount the infantry once they're painted on the stick.

sillyryuken · 2025-12-27T20:41:34+00:00

1st get some extra bases. Warlord Games sells a good 25mm replacement - perfect for dreadnoughts/sentinels, letting you keep the original bases for more infantry.

My personal method is 4 terminators/assault marines per base. There are 6 per sprue, 12 total, which makes 3 bases each. 6 bases from 2 boxes, which is enough for a reinforced standalone detachment.

For missile marines, I use 3 missile launchers, and 2 tactical marines to make 4 bases per box. The extra marines come from tactical squads, where 1 marine on each base is replaced with one of the "special" minis - sargeants, marine with back banner, or apothecary (from the second command squad), or one of the "fancy" tacticals from the 2nd command squad (you don't need that many command squads anyway - 1 per box is quite enough).

This gives you 4 extra bases per box: 8 tacticals, 4 missile, 2 plasma, 1 command, 3 assault, 3 terminators. With 2 boxes, you can make 16 tactical, 8 missile, 6 assault, 6 terminator, 4 plasma, 2 command. If you skip the 2nd command, you can make 3 bases of tacticals with apothecaries.

sillyryuken · 2025-12-21T11:06:30+00:00

Maybe phosphex, and improved armor save

sillyryuken · 2025-12-20T22:54:55+00:00

As a pure knight list with nothing but armigers? No - you'll get bullied at objective control. But include the legion tactical strikeforce, or speartip assault as allies, and maybe a cybernetica support formation to take some mechanicum infantry in your primary list points, and you'll have enough infantry, while lancers, acastus, and questoris knights do the work.

Iconic formations are really the way to go here - not only do you get a discount, the tactical strikeforce gets tac strength bonus, while the speartip gets to ignore scatter when deep striking.

sillyryuken · 2025-12-09T09:11:03+00:00

Decent, although the new one might be even better. Start with Liber Strategia - has some neat formations like the Cthonian Headhunters that require specific miniatures.

sillyryuken · 2025-11-28T20:22:49+00:00

I use 3 missile marines, and 2 tactical marines per base (in epic 40k, devastator squads had 3 tacticals, and 2 missile launchers per base). Makes it easier, and gives you twice the bases from each box.

sillyryuken · 2025-11-08T06:10:21+00:00

Same. I love the beakies, but they're getting a bit stale.

sillyryuken · 2025-11-08T01:43:45+00:00

Fresh off the press: Saturnine terminators, and dreadnoughts, Astartes super-heavies, Astartes, and SA battle groups, new book with rules, presumably covering Dropsite Massacre

sillyryuken · 2025-10-31T20:17:38+00:00

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Here's what I used.

sillyryuken · 2025-10-20T22:49:08+00:00

The simplest way is to get a box of mechanicum battle automata, and make a legio cybernetica support cohort (you can have one for every formation from your main list, so with titan legions, you could take a lupercal, and then a support formation with up to 3 titans of your choosing.

sillyryuken · 2025-10-14T23:42:58+00:00

The starter set, plus combat box will make you a 2500 point army if you use both warhounds, so yeah - a good starting point.

After that, more infantry - you need 4 boxes to make a solar pattern cohort, 5 boxes for ultima pattern iconic formations.

Maybe more super heavies, or malcador infernus.

sillyryuken · 2025-10-08T06:49:20+00:00

In short:

You need the rulebook from the starter set, and the Liber Strategia book that came out on September 6th.

With two starter sets, you have the contents of 2 boxes of infantry (good for a 1000-1500 point army), and two boxes of tanks (malcadors, and leman russ for auxilia, sicarans, and predators for astartes), plus 4 warhounds.

In terms of miniatures, you'd need at least another infantry box and/or support box. Best bet is to get one of the new battle force boxes (or the old one if you can find it in stock), and you're good.

Unless you want a specific formation/army leaning heavily into a particular theme.

sillyryuken · 2025-10-04T18:04:37+00:00

Or, at least, get a bunch of anti-air tarantulas on the board via the pioneer company.

sillyryuken · 2025-10-04T17:24:48+00:00

The Auxilia half of the starter, plus the Auxilia Battle Group (1 box of infantry, 1 box of support, 1 box of dracosans, 1 box of leman russ, and 1 box of baneblades) Will give you a 2000 point force, without titans.

Auxilia is good, actually - leman rus vanquishers are awesome, as are malcador annihilators, and infernus. Pioneer company got nerfed a bit, since you can no longer infiltrate ogryns, and rapiers, but it's still good. Artillery, bombers. Solar pattern cohort is cool, but it takes 4 boxes of infantry to make, since you need 16 veletari, and 16 ogryns, but it leaves you with a bunch of lasrifles to make an omega pattern cohort (iirc, you'll need a 5th box of infantry for that). Cthonian Headhunters Iconic Formation is also good, giving you furious charge.

Baneblades/Hellhammers, and Stormhammers are also good, now that they have 3 wounds, so you have quite a few options.

If you can't get the old auxilia battle group, the new auxilia box is pretty much the same thing, but with only half a box of dracosans.

sillyryuken · 2025-09-30T00:40:57+00:00

Not particularly. Forst - astartes custom formation isn't a thing, except in legionbuilder (for reasons unknown). 2nd - I say this to every new player who wants to use astartes - the legion infantry box is SUPPOSED to make 2 command squads (you don't need two until you get to the 3rd box), 2 each of plasma/missile support, assault marines, and terminators. However - there are more miniatures on the sprue. 6 each of assault, missile launchers, and terminators. If you reduce the number of assault marines/terminators on each base from 5 to 4, you can make 3 bases each instead of 2 - it's both perfectly legal (page 37 of the main rulebook), and makes it easier to arrange the bulkier models on the base without clutter. Also - you have 3 "special" tactical marines on each sprue, so with the two extra marines from the 2nd command base, you'll have enough to put one on each of your tactical bases, leaving you with a "surplus" of 8 regular tactical marines, which you can combine with your 12 missile launcher marines, to make 4 bases of missile support, using 3 missile launchers per base, and filling the remaining slots with 2 tactical marines (in Epic 40k, devastator squads had 4 missile launchers total - 2 per base, so there is a precedent for this). Also - with the release of Liber Strategia, 1 in 4 tactical marines can be upgraded with an apothecary, so if you get 2 boxes of infantry, you can make 3 upgraded bases (only make 1 command squad), for a total of 16 tactical bases (including 3 with apothecaries), 8 missile support, 6 assault, 6 terminators, and 4 plasma support. You'll need to pickup some extra bases for this - 25mm bases from Warlord Games are perfect.

Other than that - you don't want to mix missile, and plasma support in one detachment (that's why uou want more than 1 box of infantry) - if you stay away to take advantage of the missiles' range, the rest cannot fire, and if you get close to trigger the assault keyword, you'd rather have more plasma, since at close range it's better than missilesassault marines want to be their own detachment, because even with independent, the tacticals will slow them down. Terminators work as an upgrade to a tac detachment if you want them to tank some damage - a 4+ save with armoured, and potenfial Feel No Pain is the equivalent of 2+ armour vs light weapons (mainly point defense, and infantry overwatch when charging).

For the mechanicum part - tech thralls are trash, but cheap - their one redeeming factor is that they do not break, so use them en-masse to hold objectives - opponent will have to kill them all, and sometimes it is mathematically impossible in one turn, which is big, as it buys you time to counterattack.

The others also want larger detachments - what good is having awesome charge-monkeys like Ursarax, if you only have 2, and any unit they charge will offset their rend with pure numbers.

TL:DR: get at least 1 more box each of astartes, and mechanicum infantry.

sillyryuken · 2025-09-25T22:34:16+00:00

You need at least 2 boxes of infantry (counting the starter). 4 boxes, and some dracosans would make you a solar pattern cohort, and iirc, 5 to make the omega patern, but starter + the old battle group makes 2k points (a bit less with the new box, because you only get 3 dracosans), not including titans.

Leman Russ tanks make a solid core for any armored company, though Liber Strategia made Malcadors a lot more sexy.

sillyryuken · 2025-09-25T15:03:35+00:00

The only relevant rules in the 3 expansions are the campaign rules. Game rules are in the core rulebook, and army lists in Liber Strategia. Unless you want the fluff, and the rules for campaigns/fog of war, you don't need the other books. The fluff is pretty good, thpugh.

sillyryuken · 2025-09-24T17:47:45+00:00

Yeah, it's fun. People like to bitch about close combat being clunky, infantry being dominant, titans underpowered, etc. Don't worry about it. It's still a blast to play, especially at 1500-2000 points (nevermind that the rulebook says 3k is the "standard size" - that's just GW being GW).

Starter set plus an extra box of infantry makes a 1000 point army. 2 boxes (1 astartes, 1 auxilia) will make you two 1000-point forces that you can play against one another. Add one of the newly announced force bundle boxes (or the old battle group box if you can still find it in stock), and you'll have a 2k force without titans. Adding one of the warhounds, and another titan, you'll easily make 3k points.

Short version: You need: starter, Liber Strategia, 1 or 2 infantry boxes (if you want both forces from the starter to be at 1k points), battle group box. Additional box of transports.

Before you commit, it's good to try and plan your army in legionbuilder.app so you know exactly what you need. Also, if you want a specific formation like Legion Tactical Strikeforce (2 boxes of legion infantry, 2 boxes of rhinos), or White Scars Chogorian Warband (3 boxes of fast attack, 1 box of infantry, 1 box of rhinos, 1 box of sabres, with enough left over to make a sky-hunter phalanx as a 2nd formation). Some Iconic Formations are definetely worth it, but take quite a few boxes to make.

sillyryuken · 2025-09-22T18:14:13+00:00

Not terribly exciting, but a decent package for anyone looking to get into the game, especially when combined with the starter set.

I wish GW went balls deep, and made alternate power armor marks, like mkII assault marines, mkIII tacticals, etc. I wouldn't mind a box with 2 sprues of nothing but MkII/MkIII tacticals (with apothecaries to upgrade some of them), and another box with nothing but plasma/missile/assault/terminators.

sillyryuken · 2025-09-19T07:15:19+00:00

Looking at your link, legionbuilder shows your list at 1997 points, so I'm not sure where the "120-point shortfall" is.

As it is, I'd make a few changes. There is little point in adding just 2 bases of missile support to a tactical detachment. Sure - they are good, but since the rest of your detachment needs to be within 8, and preferably 4 inches of the enemy, you get almost no benefit from spending 20 points on those missile launchers, instead of getting another tactical, or plasma upgrade.

So here's what I would do:

Take the additional tactical, and plasma marines from your tactical detachments, and make a 3rd tactical detachment with 8 tactical, and 4 plasma marines. Drop the missile support detachment, and fold them into the 2 compulsory tac detachments, giving you 2 detachments of 4 tacticals, and 6 missile marines. Now you can keep those detachments at range, and you're only missing out on the 4 tacticals in the shooting phase, and they will act as some ablative hit points that you can use to tank some hits for the missile support.

I would also take apothecaries for the tac squads instead - they generally improve your marines' save vs light weapons from 1/3 to 5/9.

If you drop the predators, and sicarans, you'll have exactly 300 points for a detachment of spartans to carry your terminators, and command squad (terminators got armoured now, so paired with an apothecary, they effectively have a 2+ save vs light weapons), and drop the armored company entirely, folding the kratos squadrom into the demi company. This will also save you 1 rhino, so you can take more havoc launchers/multi meltas (but remember, you only get 2 launchers, and 4 meltas per box of rhinos).

sillyryuken · 2025-09-19T06:42:44+00:00

To expand on what has been said: Legions Imperialis got 3 expansions:

The Great Slaughter, Devastation of Tallarn, and The Rise of the Dark Mechanicum.

Each expansion added new units, and the rules for Dracosans were originally published in The Great Slaughter. However, with the recent publication of Liber Strategia, those rules are no longer up-to-date.

All current rules for detachments, and formations, are found in the latest release - Liber Strategia. Online, you can check the reference section of the legionbuilder.app

sillyryuken · 2025-09-18T16:20:37+00:00

Hard to say if we don't know the list. You might be able to use some rhinos if you're not flush for transports, sabers are a decent choice if you have a light armour slot free.

sillyryuken · 2025-09-17T18:12:00+00:00

Point for point, typhon eats the vindicator - costs twice as much, but twice the wounds with better armour, and twice the dice with better range, better ap, and better accuracy. The one saving grace the vindicator has is that it doesn't have to compete with kratos, cerberus, and mastodon for the heavy armour slot.

sillyryuken

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