Goatboy’s 40K: It’s Raining Gladius Marines!!!
Goatboy here again on another lovely Monday morning – to talk about kicking butt with the Space Marine Gladius (or 2).
My weekend is slammed with being out of town so this article is going to be a short and sweet one dedicated to working on a Space Marine Gladius style list the utilized 2 Battle Companies. It seems to be somewhat of the current rage at competitive events and I want to look at ways I can built and effective one. First let’s look at the basics of the list.
The most important thing is you will have to use 2 Demi Companies plus some kind of support unit. Normally the Scout option is used as it is the cheapest so will just start with that. Each Demi company has a list of mandatory choices mixed with some extra addons. Here is the Basic build for the Demi Battle Company (2 Battle Companies) that make up the initial build of a Gladius Strike Force
Captain of some sort – can be a special character
Chaplain
6 Tactical Squads
2 Squads of either a Attack Bike, Assault Squad, Land Speeder Squad, or Centurion Assault Squad
2 Squads of either Devastators or Centurion DevastatorsYou get the option to add the Following if you want
0-2 Command Squads
0-2 Dreadnoughts, Ironclad Dreadnoughts, Venerable Dreadnoughts
From there you have to pick the support unit of some sort and could add some command choices if you want. With points getting very limited it becomes a heck of a lot harder. Lucky for us – if we take 2 Demi Companies we get free transports for everyone in the Demi Companies. This is pretty spicy as its a way to break out of the normal point limits even though Rhinos are not going to win you the game. You also get some extra options like getting use of each of the Combat Doctrines once per game as well as all of the Demi Companies being Objective Secured. The Demi Companies get to use the Tactical Doctrine as well so you get 2 Tactical, 1 Assault and 1 Devastator Doctrines. This will come in hand when you need your big turns to hit with all your bullets/brown noises/etc.
You need to have one support formation and the cheapest one seems to be the 10th Company Task force with 3-5 squads of scouts. As you know a good buddy of mine has shamed many a player with massed scouts so there is still a threat of an all encompassing super turn of death.
Frankie from Frontline seems to have one of the better initial builds for the Gladius Super Fun Full on Marine Time builds. If you haven’t seen it here is the rundown.
Battle Demi Company X 2
HQ: Khan, Moodraken
HQ: Chaplain, Bike, Auspex
Troops: Tactical Squad X 10, Grav Cannon, Meltagun, Rhino, Dozer Blades
Troops: Tactical Squad x 10, Grav Cannon, Meltagun, Rhino, Dozer Blades
Troops: Tactical Squad x 10, Grav Cannon, Meltagun, Rhino, Dozer Blades
Troops: Tactical Squad X 10, Grav Cannon, Meltagun, Rhino, Dozer Blades
Troops: Tactical Squad X 5, Meltagun, Rhino Dozer Blades
Troops: Tactical Squad X 5, Meltagun, Drop Pod
FA: Attack Bike, Multi-Melta
FA: Bike Squad X 4, Grav Gun X 2, Combi-Grav, Attack Bike, Multi-Melta
Devastators X 5, Grav Cannon X 2, Rhino, Dozer Blades
Devastators X 5, Grav Cannon X 2, Rhino, Dozer Blades
10th Company
Scouts X 5
Scouts X 5
Scouts X 5
How it Works:
The basic jist is he has a ton of scouting Rhinos that come up, get in range and cover you in the brown noise of doom. He also has a large amount of Melta to help get through any big things, Void Shield Generators, and any Knights he could face in other formats that are not NOVA. He has a small fast little star that can kill most basic things and with Hit and Run from being White Scars he will probably never get stuck. It is a pretty rough list as there is nothing directly needed as a crutch for it to work. There are no psychic spells that have to go off. There isn’t any fear of an opponents having a one off counter – specifically designed to crush your army. It is fully MSU so smaller and slower death stars have issues against it. Opponents with units that have devastating firepower are kind of lost when just killing 5 Marines or a Rhino.
The bigger threat is all that massed Objective Secured means that you have to kill everyone off any specific objective and even the lowly Rhino is an end game threat. The things I like about the list is the sheer massed number of bodies. It is great that it has so many boots on the table that it always has a chance versus just about any list. I feel it is the closest to a true TAC list we have right now as it can win the mission, crush specific armies, and have great match ups versus just about most of the field. It does have a weakness versus psykers and that might be the only thing I could see changing. Figuring out a way to get an Assassin might be helpful as he can kick out a tactical squad from a Rhino and hall around the table.
If you wanted to get one added on you could just change out of the of the expensive tactical squads down to another Rhino/Meltagun carrier and bring the Bike Squad down to 3 to try and fit one in. I would think this would give it more play versus the coming storm of Wolf Stars with Casting. Plus it can help turn off some of the other crazy options with psychics in the game. I really think this style of list is something you will see in any bigger event as we all know how many dang Rhinos we have laying around at home.
Gladius Variants
Some other options seem at NOVA had a large amount of Pods, smaller Tactical Squads, and utilized a storm of fire as things came in from the sky, on the table edge, and shot up the field in boxes with bigger guns. This type of list has a little action among all different “opponent” unit types with utilizing better Razorback weapons as well as other types of units like the Iron Clad Dreadnought. This list looks a bit more fun as it has so many different units you can try. Here is the 4th place finisher, Sascha from the NOVA Open with another strong Gladius list.
Battle Demi Company X 2
HQ: Khan
HQ: Chaplain, Auspex
Troops: Tactical Squad X 5, Meltagun, Combi-Melta, Drop Pod
Troops: Tactical Squad X 5, Meltagun, Combi-Melta, Drop Pod
Troops: Tactical Squad X 5, Grav Cannon, Drop Pod
Troops: Tactical Squad X 5, Plasma Cannon, Razorback, TWL Assault Cannon
Troops: Tactical Squad X 5, Grav Cannon, Razorback, TWL Lascannon
Troops: Tactical Squad X 5, Plasmagun, Razorback, TWL Lascannon
FA: Assault Squad X 5, Flamers X 2, Razorback, TWL Heavy Flamer
FA: Assault Squad X 5, Flamers X 2, Razorback, TWL Lascannon
Heavy: Ironclad Dreadnought, Heavy Flamer X 2, Drop Pod
Heavy: Ironclad Dreadnought, Heavy Flamer X 2, Drop Pod
10th Company
Scouts X 5, Sniper Rifle X 5
Scouts X 5, Combi-Melta, Land Speeder Storm, Multi-Melta
Scouts X 5, Combi-Melta, Land Speeder Storm, Heavy Flamer
This one has a ton more options for the army. It also feels a lot more fun with tons of different things, interactions, and just useful units. I do miss the small bike squad that can be an effective assault unit for some basic stuff. I think a mixture of the armies might be the best – with different Razorbacks and other Transports to create different waves of effects on your opponents armies. I still don’t understand the Plasma Cannon but hey good for him for throwing something different out there.
It is nice to see massed Marines doing well without the help of some kind of Super Friends combo.
What Gladius style lists have you found to be effective? I know a lot go for cheaper marines with added in bonuses of having a small Death Star/Pyschic star. Are these style of Decurion/Gladius formations the way to go for more interesting armies? Do these sandals make my feet look fat?
