40K: Making Movie Marines In 8th Edition
Help! I’m going to a tournament and don’t know what to play. Could the answer be… Movie Marines?
In August GW is holding the first official North American Grand Tournament in ages. I’m lucky enough to get to go play in it. The only problem is I don’t really know what I should take. Is the answer something truly crazy? Let’s talk about.
The Days Of High Adventure
Official Grand Tournaments used to be the major high point of competitive 40K back in the day. Mixing hardcore playing with light fun aspects, like quizzes, and the pageantry of an official event. Back when events like NOVA and Adepticon were in their infancy this was what you aspired to play in. I was lucky enough to pay in a number back in the day, and in a number of the final ones here in the USA. I played in the last Dallas GT, the last Baltimore GT, the last Chicago GT, and the last Las Vegas GT. And then they were gone, and we wondered if we’d ever see anything like them again.
The Legend Returns
After years and years, we’ve finally got an answer to that question: GTs are back in North America. In a stroke of luck for us here at BoLS, the first one is being held just up the road in Dallas, TX. Now, as a long time fan of GW’s GTs I jumped at the chance to go. This promises to be a great event with a lot of great people there. Goatboy is coming with me, and some other members of the crew might turn up as well. More importantly, playing in an official GW event is about the best way to experience 40K the way its meant to be played. With our tickets purchased just one questions remains…
What To Play?
Now despite the fact that I often get accused of being a hardcore competitive/tournament player, the truth is that I haven’t played in a major 40K event in close to ten years. I’ve played in some local events and played some other games, but I’ve been out of the 40K scene for a bit as a player. I’ve obviously kept an eye on the meta, but I don’t have a standby army ready to go. My first thought was to take this seriously and a hardcore Imperial Guard list. I want to stick to mono-codex and think IG are great (I’ve also played them for close to 20 years). However, I’m just not sure I want to be that serious about this. I got to thinking and came up with the idea of finally building a list I’ve wanted to do in 8th for a while. Movie Marines!
What Are Movie Marines?
Movie Marines is a term created for Marines that act more like they do in the fluff or like action heroes from a movie. Way back when, in I think the 300th issue of White Dwarf, they actually published some just for fun rules for this list. Over time others have toyed with updating these rules. The basic idea is to take a 10 man Marine squad and make it an army on its own, powerful enough to fight a whole 2000 pt army. Just like in the fluff.
These guys had souped up weapons, crazy stats and a pile of special rules. Each one was a killing machine. Together the squad was supposed to kick butt, spout one-liners and generally fight the war on their own. It’s a great idea and one that has captivated players for years.
Movie Marines In 8th?
So how do you make Movie Marines in 8th? And how can you take them to a tournament? Well, we aren’t going to use any house rules or made up datasheets since I can’t take that to an event. However, 8th does have a way you can take ten very powerful Space Marines that cost about as much as an army: Captains. The Space Marine Codex has 6 different datasheets for captains, add in the new Phobos Captain and you can take up to 21 captains without violating the rule of 3. Now, I don’t need to take 21 captains, I just need 10 and a suitable ride for the guys.
So many Captains to choose from…
Now a basic captain is actually pretty cheap, so you can easily fit 10 assorted captains into a list with room for upgrades and a cool ride. While this list won’t be the most competitive list I think it would be a lot of fun. I can’t think of a better way of representing Movie Marines in 8th, either. This way I can get a ten man unit and transport, just like the old rules, and have each one be a powerful fighting force. It’s silly, but also I think cool.
What’s In The List?
So what’s actually in the list? I don’t 100% know. At first, my idea was to take a Mastodon, a crazy super heavy, and ten stripped down captains. The GW event is, however, being played at 1750 pts and I can’t fit all that in 1750. That means I’m now looking at a more mid-ranged vehicle, maybe a Spartan Assault Tank, a Storm Eagle or a Caestus Ram, with 10 more tricked out Captains. If I want to stick to regular Marines I can. I can take 3 foot captain, 2 bike captains, 3 captains in Terminator Armor and 2 in Chatphratii Armor. This would represent a 5 man Tactical Squad and a 5 man Terminator Squad. Maybe put these ten in a Caestus as a boarding party? That would be thematically cool.
Sticking to the script, they will all probably die – gloriously!
Alternatively, I could mix and match Primaris and Classic Marines. The idea, since this is a movie squad, would be to give each of the ten Marines their own character. Make one guy the close combat specialist, one the biker, one the jump pack guy, one the sniper, etc.. It wouldn’t be a Codex tactical squad, but would be in the spirit of a movie squad. Maybe I can even get Goatboy to draw up some glamour shots for the guys. The idea would be to really give this list character and flavor. Either way, let me know what you think I should take in the list in the comments, and if you want to enjoy some great games for 40K and see some of us BoLS folks pop on down to the GW USA Grand Tournament in August.
Let us know what you think about this idea for taking Movie Marines, should I do it?
