Sorry i forgot to tell anyone

Hello,

Sorry i forgot to say but i'm having a month off. I've played thirty odd games with the sons in about two months so its been a bit intense and thought a rest would do me good. I'll also be able to get some more units painted up leaving me with a bit more choice and basically more stuff to kill when i get back to it. So once again sorry for the delay but i'll see you in October

Just a quicky

So I came 6th over all which would sound good if there were more than 14 players, still not terrible. Great fun weekend though and like I say great venue etc. But on that form I wouldn't qualify for the GT so I'd better buck my ideas up. Sorry I've been brief but not had much time and pretty busy trying to sort out Starsmash now. Any way I'll be in touch later in the week.

Many Thanks,

Charley

X Legion Game 6

Points: 1500
Mission: Cleanse, Gamma
Opponent: Steve Harrild-Jones
Opposition: Orks (Again, again)

Major Win

Losses:
6 V Company Tactical Marines
1 V Company Veteran Sgt
5 VIII Company Assault Marines
5 I Company Veterans
5 I Company Terminator suits
1 IX Company Dreadnoughts

1 Predator Destructor

X Legion Game 5

Points: 1500
Mission: Secure and Control, Omega
Opponent: Chris Bingley
Opposition: Black Legion

Massacre Win

Losses:
2 V Company Tactical Marines
1 V Company Rhino
1 VIII Company Assault Marines
1 IX Company Dreadnought

1 Predator Destructor
1 Codicier

X Legion Game 4 (Sunday morning)

Points: 1500
Mission: Take and Hold, Gamma
Opponent: Andy Kent
Opposition: Black Legion

Minor Loss

Losses:
8 V Company Tactical Marines
2 V Company Veteran Sgt
5 VIII Company Assault Marines
5 I Company Veterans
5 I Company Terminator suits

1 Land Raider Crusader

X Legion Game 3

Points: 1500
Mission: Recon Omega
Opponent: Rob Tillman
Opposition: Mech Eldar

Major Win

Losses:

9 V Company Tactical Marines
1 V Company Rhino
5 VIII Company Assalut Marines

1 Codicier

X Legion Game 2

Points: 1500
Mission: Seek and Destroy
Opponent: Steve Harrild-Jones
Opposition: Orks (Again)

Draw

Losses:
1 V Company Rhino
8 V Company Tactical Marines
5 I Company Veterans
5 I Company Terminator suits
2 VIII Company Assault Marines

1 Predator Destuctor
1 Land RAider Crusader

X Legion Taurnament, Langford 18th 19th August Game 1

This was a great little taurnament that turned up out of the blue, myself and Dave were planning on heading up to London to see Dan for a couple of days when Dan saw this on the web and signed us up. Well worth the trip and hats off to Rob for running such a good weekend. It was a small group but all were very nice players and most of us went off to have a couple of pints and a nice meal on the saturday night, the venue was great and extremely spacious with Rob providing some top class scenery.

Anyway down to the games.

Game 1
Points: 1500
Mission: Cleanse, Omega
Opponent: Dan
Opposition: Orks

Major Loss

Losses:

1 IX Company Dreadnought
5 I Company Veteran Marines
5 I Company Termintator suits
5 VIII Company Assault Marines
10 V Company Tactical Marines

Pick up game, sorry i've been so lax

Points: 1500
Mission: Secure and control
Opponent: Hal Belmonte
Opposition: Necrons

Major win

Yeah sorry I've not written anything for a while but as I said I've been pretty busy with films and stuff so here we go. It'll be brief as I've got seven games to update so no long battle reports I'm afraid but I'm sure you'll enjoy to see the ammount of losses I've had recently.

Speaking of which:

6 VIII Company Assault Marines
6 IX Company Devistator Marines
1 V Company Rhino
4 I Company Veterans
4 I Company Terminator suits

1 Codicier

What next, or rather who's next?

So with twenty or so games played with just slightly better than a 2:1 win loss ratio and the Chapter down to around 70% fighting strength where do I go from here?

Two possibilities I've been looking at are either Drop-podding but that means getting or making drop pods. Or a large infiltrating force with a couple of tanks to try to pull my opponents deployment in my favour.

The other worry is at this rate i wont have anything left to take to the GT in November? Or not anything like a competitive army, so do i work one out now and play around that list or take it slow for a bit or just go hell for leather and hope my recent poor form improves?

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

I'm working on a film set all next week so will be unable to play a game but I will post any other ideas and of course look forward to seeing if you've got any.

Cheers

Charley

Pick up game

Points: 2000
Mission: Recon, Omega
Opponent: Tom Ralph
Opposition: Tyranids

Draw

Things seemed to be going well in this game, Toms big gribblies were coming on slowly so i could pick at them as i chose and I was killing off the threats one by one. Unfortunately when the flying Tyrant turned up he quickly blasted his way through two six man Tactical Squads mainly due to my inability to roll 3+ saves but also just to the ammount of re-rollable shots/re-rollable wounds (Lots of twin linked Devourers) Finally having avoided his carnifexes and other Tyrant and with enough in Toms Deployment zone I thought I was quids in. Unfortunately a misjudged distance allowed his Tyrant a Str10 warp blast shot at my Crusader, the only shot of the game at it, which duly blew it sky high. Ah well back to the drawing board eh.

Losses:
1 Land Raider Crusader
12 V Tactical Marines
6 VIII Assault Marines
6 IX Devastator Marines

Pick up game, Chaplain Ortotha's short day out

Points: 1500
Mission: Cleanse, Alpha
Opponent: Dave Richardson
Opposition: Necrons

Major Loss (0-2)

With the rest of the company dead Chaplain Ortotha of the 4th felt he had to avenge them and his shattered reputation. The Thunderhawk flew through the smoggy air of Shaftsbury I and dropped the regal Crusader "Pride of Ferus" with its lethal cargo of Chaplain Ortotha and his Terminator Assault Squad. As the Crusader began to rumble forward a lone Necron Immortal popped his head over cover and blew the tracks off the tank leaving it stuck behind a building, with no where to go and nothing to shoot, and an elite close combat squad in its belly. Great. The terminators proceeded to march slowly towards the Necron guns beating down some immortals on the way. But low the sheer weight of fire the Necrons could bring to bare was too much for the Chaplain and his brave warriors.

Losses:
1 Master of Sanctity Chaplain
5 I Company Veteran Marines
5 Suits of Terminator Armour
1 Land Raider Crusader
2 V Company Rhino's
5 V Company Tactical Marines
3 VIII Company Assault Marines

Pick up game

Points: 1500
Mission: Secure and control
Opponent: Dave Richardson
Opposition: Imperial Guard

Major Loss

Losses:

1 VI Company Dreadnought
5 I Company Veteran Marines
5 Suits of Terinator Armour
2 VI Company Veteran Sgts
7 VI Company Tactical Marines
1 VI Company Rhino
2 VIII Company Speeders
4 VII Company Tactical Marines
1 Codicier

Pick up game and the not so charmed life of Captain Arisis

Points: 1500

Mission: Seek and Destroy Alpha

Opponent: Jonathan Last

Opposition: Dark Angels



Minor win (2-1)



Well he had to go at some point but at least he sold himself dearly. The Captain was the last of the Terminator squad that had been ripped apart by Predator fire so he promptly got out of harms way by charging an attack bike, duly ripping it apart he swept onto a ten man Assault squad who had just taken my flank, in two rounds he whittled them down to nothing- oh no wait there's a power fist left. Damn. But like I say he had sold himself dearly and no-one can last forever. The 4th would be proud, oh wait there's no 4th left.



Losses:

1 IV Company Captain "Arisis"

5 I Company Veteran Marines

5 Suits of Terminator Armour

2 VI Company Dreadnoughts

14 IX Company Devastator Marines

9 VI Company Tactical Marines

Pick up game, Captain Arisis and his charmed life

Points: 2000
Mission: Recon, Alpha
Opponent: Moz Peachy
Opposition: Eldar

Minor win (4-3)

So Captain Arisis has finally arrived, he's been involved in three missions now. Somehow he managed to convince the Grandmaster he was worthy of leading an ensemble cast of First Company Terminators, Ninth Company Devastators and Sixth Company Marines and a fair bit of the Chapter Armoury to boot. Somehow he keeps getting away with it, not a bad ratio either to be fair, minor loss, massacre win and minor win but how does he do it? Well in this games the slowly advancing Wraithguard simply proved to scary and he turned tail and ran for in at the first sign of trouble, luckily I'd done enough other damage and nipped two "fully operational battle-stations" er I mean Tactical squads in their Rhino's up the other flank along with the Land Raider picking up some pretty scared and scarred Devastators on the way.

Well here's to Captain Arisis and his continuing good fortunes

Losses:
10 IX Company Devastators
2 VIII Company Dreadnoughts
2 I Company Veteran Marines
2 Suits of Terminator armour

Pick up game

Points: 2000
Mission: Cleanse, Gamma
Opponent: Rob Clayton
Opposition: Chaos

Massacre win

As I had a Land Raider ready to fling the new Terminators into the maelstrom and Rob has more than enough models to make a large army we thought we'd try a 2000 pt game for a laugh. Cleanse again, but the first time I'd played a choppy combat Chaos list. I've included three squads of small Devastators two with Missiles and one with Hvy Bolters all with Tank Hunter which made taking out his Dreadnoughts first turn nice and easy so with the rest of his amry walking towards my gun line it was looking comfortable. Of course they finally did get there and there wasn't anything left of the Devastators after a turn of combat. I had enough left tho to finish him off at a leasurely distance and finished the game with all four quarters.

Losses:
16 IX Company Devastator Marines
4 VI Company Tactical Marines
4 I Company Veteran Marines
4 Suits of Terminator armour

Pick up game

Points: 1500
Mission: Cleanse, Gamma
Opponent: Chris Blair
Opposition: Eldar

Minor Loss

Finally I have some Terminators and a Captain painted and rearing to go. Unfortunately they didn't have a very good time of it, having said that nothing did in this game. Pretty much mutual destruction, Chris had a unit of Pathfinders hiding in a building I couldn't get to which won him the game, I had the Captain and one Terminator left in Chris's deployment zone, pretty pointless really seeing as Chris managed to kill one in the last turn and make them non scoring. But that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Losses:

14 VI Company Tactical Marines
18 IX Company Devastator Marines
2 VI Company Veteran Sgt.
2 VI Company Rhinos
1 Whirlwind
3 I Company Veterans
3 Suits of Terminator Armour

Pick up game, my god I hate playing Dave

Points: 1500
Missions: Secure and control
Opponent: Dave Richardson
Opposition: Lost and the Damned

Massacre loss

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Not quite sure how this all went wrong other than two turns of god awful dice and a Tactical squad who choose to hide behind the bike sheds smoking rather than turn up until they could jump out of their burning Rhino.

First two turns I had amazing dice and nothing was turning up for Dave, his Lemon Russ tanks were slowly dribbling on. Then my newly promoted Epistolary Librarian turned up. Zooming on with his Jump Pack blazing he rushed over to a building containing a the lone possessed Champion and a couple of squads of heretics. Run like little girls heretics he screamed unleashing "The fear of the darkness". Unfortunately for him he got a migraine instead and blindly ran into the lone possessed Power Fist. Seriously need to start using other HQ choices. After that things just wouldn't go my way and the army began to crumple under the pressure.

Losses:

1 VIII Company Dreadnought
1 Annihilator
1 Whirlwind
4 IV Company Devastator Marines
2 IX Company Devastator Marines
5 VIII Company Assault Marines
1 VI Company Veteran Sgt
12 VI Company Tactical marines
1 VI Company Rhino

1 Epistolary Librarian

So fittingly the player who has caused the most casualties to "The sons" is the man who finishes of the last foot slogging marine in the fourth. Captain Arisis, Chaplain Ortotha, Apothacary Damius and Chapter Standard Miclaus have a lot of explaining to do as to why they didn't even turn up before the entire Battle Company was reduced to a few vials of precious, precious, gene-seed

Pick up game

Points: 1500
Mission: Cleanse
Opponent: Rich Tovee
Opposition: Dark Angels

Minor win

The second game of the night last Thursday. Rich is an old acquaintance who used to come to a lot of the events we run at Spikey and has recently gotten back into the hobby. It was a quick game played in high spirits as we were both pretty pissed (No change there then) and he hadn't played for a while. Luckily for him he was using Dave's current Dark Angles speck, luckily for me he, not Dave, was using Dave's Dark Angels and after losing to them plenty I am slowly getting to grips with how to beat them. You'd think tho I might of gotten better than a minor considering the conditions.

Losses:

1 Annihilator
4 IV Company Devastator Marines
4 VIII Company Assault Marines
3 VI Company Tactical Marines

Pick up game

Points: 1000pts
Mission: Secure and control
Opponent: James Giddings
Opposition: Marines (Blood Ravens)

Massacre win

This was an off the cuff, neither opponent had turned up, I've only got an hour to play type game. Hence a thousand points. After set up with only forty minutes left we introduced a chess clock giving each other four minutes per turn. We both strayed over this (Myself much more than him) first few turns but when turns three onwards arrived and our small forces were in each others faces it sped up extremely quickly. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone tho it makes for an interesting and fast paced game, just be strict with people faffing around in your turn.

Losses:

4 IV Company Devastator Marines
4 VI Comapny Tactical Marines
1 Codicier

Pick up game

Points: 1500
Mission: Seek and destroy
Opponant: Andy Hatton
Opposition: Marines

Major win

Losses:

2 IV Company Vet. Sgt.
11 IV Company Tactical Marines
1 IV Company Rhino

1 VIII Company speeder
1 VIII Company Dreadnought
5 VIII Company Assault Marines
7 VI Company Tactical Marines

1 Codicier

Quiet...

Oops, sorry it's been a bit quiet around here for a couple of weeks - I've been moving, and playing Blood Bowl, but more games arranged this week...

In the meantime, David was right in the things that are dead comments, so the damage is a little worse than I thought - I need to get my terminators painted...

Pick up game and total losses

Points: 1500
Mission: Recon, gamma
Opponent: Gareth Bowen
Opposition: Tyranids

Minor Loss

Losses:

3 IV Company Tactical marines
1 VII Company Tornado
4 VII Company Tactical marines
1 VIII Company Dreadnought
1 VIII Company Tornado

1 Codicier
1 Predator Annihilator

Rather than go into a report on the game which was basically swap table edges save a few pot shots either way, I'm now at the ten game mark so I thought I'd give a summary of losses so far.

IV COMPANY LOSSES:

49 Tactical marines
20 Assault marines
8 Devastator marines
4 Dreadnoughts
5 Speeders
5 Tornados
1 Rhino

VII COMPANY LOSSES:

36 Tactical marines
5 Assault marines
4 Dreadnoughts
2 Speeders
5 Tornados


VIII COMPANY LOSSES:

1 Dreadnought
1 Tornado

HQ LOSSES:

4 Librarian Codiciers

ARMOURY LOSSES:

3 Predator Annihilators
1 Whirlwind

So with ten games gone one of the battle companies is pretty much dead, a handful of marines and supporting officers are left. They almost died at an equal rate as a whole company, unfortunatley though I have taken out another companies support vehicles aswell. However I have been using a very similar list for a while longer than I was planning and having seen the support eliments die I wanted to drop them, I now finally can so we'll see if the other companies can do better or worse than the, now dead, forever missed Fourth Company. Poor, Poor, Captain Arisis his company is all but dead and he hasn't even fired a shot.

Pick up game

Points: 1500
Mission: Recon, gamma
Opponent: Steve Leaves
Opposition: Templars

Massacre win

Steve and I were assisting at our club (Spiky Club, Reading) annual fantasy tournament "Tides of Chaos" and after an easy first day we arranged a game on the spare table on the Sunday. Much to the disgust of the other players we threw oodles of scenery on the board and started rolling up mission (Eh whats one of them). Steve has a very mobile list with several bike squads and big squads in Rhino's, with a couple of tanks in support. The scenery had a fairly large centre of low levels so there were plenty of good firing corridors and a nice woods to hide my right flank which the infantry dived up leaving the armour to hold the approaching Templars. First turn i was lucky a immobilise the vindicator creating a bottle neck of Templar tanks allowing me to pick them off one at a time. Steve had to quickly re-route his bikes to deal with my armour and try to free his tanks some space to manoeuvre. But the my Tactical squad in rhino rushed his bikes and destroyed them. Mid game Steve couldn't even start to move his forces near my lines so went in for the kill hoping I couldn't take all his tanks and marines before he got to me. The Codicier then came into his own, holding up marines with Fury and then charging in selling his life very dearly. I really need to stop using suicidal Codiciers but they seem to work quite well. So with Steve's lines held I moved into his lines getting everything bar the Codicier and Assault squad there.

Losses:
1 IV Company Assault marines
5 VII Company Assault marines
1 IV Company Tactical marine
1 Codicier

Pick up game

Points: 1500
Mission: Take and hold, gamma
Opponent: Dave Richardson
Opposition: Orks

Minor Loss

Dave's Orks are a walking hoard which came second at last years second round qualifiers for the GT. So the army is pretty competent and Dave knows it inside out. Featuring lots and lots of boyz i had to be ruthless and efficient with my shooting and only enter assault on my terms- a lot easier said than done. My plan was pretty simple, flank the Orks and close in on the centre from both sides and not front on, meet in the middle and hopefully have enough stuff left. It seemed to be working early on with the devastators flying frag missiles into the boys, however a Predator Annihilator zapping two or so Grots a turn is a little disheartening. Mid game Dave hit the speeder squadron which brought up the abandoning crew point. One of the speeders with stunned the other shaken, with no returning shots and therefore another turn of shooting a had no choice but to hide the still mobile speeder effectively killing the other but keeping the squadron scoring (see the earlier post for the outcome) So the game came to the last turns and i hadn't done anywhere near enough damage but hadn't suffered to badly so i committed the Tacticals forward in the hope charging Orks has got to be better than being charged, it almost worked- if it wasn't for all the other Orks i couldn't get to. The end result, lots of dead Marines one of the most costly games yet.

Losses:
6 IV Company Assault Marines
9 IV Company Tactical Marines
1 IV Company Devastator Marine
2 VII Company Tornados
2 VII Company Dreadnoughts
4 VII Company Tactical marines

1 Codicier

A couple of quick points

So here's a quick not of what i have decided counts as a kill/death/destruction etc:

Any Model which losses its last wound due to failing a save or a waepon which would ignore that save.

Any Vehicle which suffers a Vehicle destroyed result.

Any deep-striking model that is counted as a casualty due to landing in terrain or an enemy model.

Any bike or speeder that is destroyed kills the driver/pilots (Assault marine/6th company in the case of bikes and solely 7th company with the speeders)

Any veteran who is killed in terminator armour also destroys the armour.

So what doesn't die:

Any model which takes wounds but is not removed from play is considered safe/alive and re-usable.

Any vehicle that suffers any result other than "vehicle destroyed" (Outright or by crashing due to immobalised results ) is considered safe/repairable and re-usable.

Any models that flee of the board re-group and are considered safe/alive and re-usable. (It certainly helps i'm using marines in this instance as it makes more sense)

Any sacraficial pilots are treated as fleeing models. (The squadron would decide that in the interest of the company the downed carfts pilots should fall back)

Any models held in reserve, for whatever reason, and do not enter the field of play.

Any deep-striking models that deploy/land off board. (They missed the drop zone/malfunction on the ship)

Hopefully thats covered everything but somehow i doubt it. We shall wait and see.

I have looked into injury tables/vehicle damages and recruitment/promotion of scouts for quite a while now and for several reasons i have chosen to avoid these, so here goes:

Firstly there is no clear amount of scouts in any given chapter. The third ed codex (Which is gospel for the "Sons of Manus") also states that last planet fall 6 Neophytes were accepted with a 54% survival. At best i could add 3 scouts per game but it seems to vague to work with.

Secondly this is an army i will be using for club/friendly games and tournaments. So whilst it'll be fun and no problem down the club to say the grandmaster has one less attack this game due to his arm being replaced by bionics i don't think that'll go down well at events.

Thirdly i think it'll be more interesting to see just how long the chapter would last going from full strength on a single campaign. This may well take me a year, maybe more, probably less (100 or so games at this rate), but for the chapter its a month or so on campaign. Maybe when they are all dead i'll try again with injury charts etc. but i may have to kill myself first.

Finally i did play a couple of games last weekend but i'm trying to write up a couple of more interesting battle reports for them so you'll have to give me a couple of days (We just had a tournament of that other game at the club so i was a bit busy) and i'm also trying desperatly to paint up some terminators and bikers so i can take a bit of pressure off the tacticals.

Cheers, Charley

What counts as dead?

Having played eight games with the Sons, a couple of, um, unforeseen circumstances have arisen. Namely, what constitutes a dead marine?

Situations that have happened in games include sacrificing speeder pilots, by deliberately breaking coherency after one of the squadron was unable to move for a turn, and, as already mentioned, fleeing marines. From this, scattering deepstrikes off the table, and reserves not turning up before the end of the game are theoretical problems I have to come to a decision on.

So, any thoughts?

Points - 1500
Mission - Cleanse, Omega Level
Opponent - Stu Robertson
Opposition - Dark Eldar

Minor Win

Lost:
1 Third Company Land Speeder Tornado
6 Fourth Company Assault Marines
19 Fourth Company Tactical Marines
1 Fourth Company Veteran Sergeant
1 Codicier

Pick-up game

Points - 1500
Mission - Recon, Gamma Level
Opponent - Caroline Pringle
Opposition - Mantis Warriors
Win

Lost:
1 Third Company Land Speeder
1 Third Company Land Speeder Tornado
4 Seventh Company Tactical Marines
3 Fourth Company Devastator Marines
1 Third Company Dreadnought

Pictures

A few pictures of the army, as it currently stands

The whole army, from a distance

Multi-melta landspeeders

Dreadnought, and tornadoes

The Las/Plas squads

Librarian, and friends

Tactical Squad in a Rhino

Heavy Support Section (including the venerable dreadnought)

Pick-up game

Points - 1500
Mission - Recon, Gamma Level
Opponent - David Richardson
Opposition - Dark Angels
Draw

Lost:
2 Fourth Company Assault Marines
1 Fourth Company Land Speeder
1 Third Company Land Speeder
2 Fourth Company Land Speeder Tornados
1 Fourth Company Rhino
5 Fourth Company Tactical Marines
8 Seventh Company Tactical Marines
4 Fourth Company Devastator Marines
1 Third Company Dreadnought

ASMoH - Outcome

Very pleased with the Sons' first outing, as it was good enough to get me second place overall, just missing out on first by 700 Victory points.

I can see this is already making me a lot less reckless and much more thoughful of committing troops to engagements. I am distraught by the loss of my annihilators and also the effect losing a Land Speeder has on the Seventh company. The new list I am looking at is much more troop/rhino based

ASMoH - Game 4

Mission - Secure & Control, Gamma Level
Opponent - James Karch
Opposition - Mentor Legion
Major Win

Lost:
2 Fourth Company Assault Marines
1 Fourth Company Land Speeder
2 Fourth Company Land Speeder Tornados
1 Fourth Company Rhino
8 Fourth Company Tactical Marines
1 Fourth Company Veteran Sergeant
6 Seventh Company Tactical Marines

ASMoH - Game 3

Mission - Seek & Destroy, Omega Level, No Dusk & Dawn, No Random Game Length, No Concealment
Opponent - Dave Pike
Opposition - Blood Angels
Minor Win

Lost:
1 Codicier
2 Fourth Company Dreadnoughts
1 Predator Annihilator
1 Fourth Company Assault Marine
2 Landspeeders
1 Landspeeder Tornado
6 Seventh Company Tactical Marines

ASMoH - Game 2

Mission - Recon, Alpha level with Victory Points
Opponent - Richard Phillips
Opposition - Ultramarines (painted black)
Massacre Win

Lost

2 Fourth Company Dreadnoughts
1 Whirlwind
1 Predator Annihilator
2 Fourth Company Assault Marines
1 Landspeeder
2 Seventh Company Tactical Marines

ASMoH - Game 1

A Small Matter of Honour was a tournament in Basingstoke organised by the Sad Muppets, consisting of one 400 point game, and three 1750 points games.

First game - 400 points

Mission - Cleanse, Omega level, no Random Game Length, Night Fight throughout
Opponent - Stu Robertson
Opposition - Tau
Major level Win

Lost: 3 Fourth Company Tactical Marines

First Army list

The first outing for the Sons of Manus will be at A Small Matter of Honour, a 400 plus 1750 one day event in Basingstoke on the 2nd of June. This is the list I will be taking to that:

Trait: Honour your Wargear
Disadvantage: We Stand Alone

Codicier, Fury of the Ancients, Jump Pack, Bolt Pistol, Terminator Honours

Dreadnought, Heavy Flamer

Dreadnought, Twin-Linked Lascannon, Missile Launcher, Venerable, Tank Hunter, Extra Armour

6 Devastator Marines, Tank Hunter, 3 Missile Launchers

8 Tactical Marines, Veteran Sergeant, Power fist, Lascannon, Plasma Gun, Rhino, Extra Armour, Smoke Launchers

6 Tactical Marines, Lascannon, Plasma Gun

6 Tactical Marines, Lascannon, Plasma Gun

6 Assault Marines, Veteran Sergeant, Power fist, 2 Plasma Pistols

2 Land Speeders with Multi-Meltas

2 Land Speeder Tornadoes

Predator Annihilator, Lascannon sponsons

Whirlwind, Extra Armour

1750 Points

What am I doing?

I don't remember how it started - one of my many conversations with David or Dan, I suppose - but the thought arose: How cool would it be to start with a full chapter of marines and then, whenever one died, or got blown up, you weren't allowed to field it again.

Well, as with most of these things, it got discussed, and then forgotten, but following some disillusionment with my Eldar, as well as borrowing a Marine force for a couple of games, the thought came back.

And now I'm doing it. Starting with a single chapter, as defined from the Codex Astartes, I shall play 40K games with the Sons Of Manus and, whenever one dies, or gets blown up, then they shan't be fielded again.

The Rules

The rules are pretty simple - starting from a single Codex list, I pick legal lists, and play games. Any model that is killed, cannot be used again. For all non-vehicles, death means losing their final wound. For vehicles, it is any of the "Destroyed" results.

Any multi-wound characters that lose a wound, but do not die, are considered to be unwounded the next time they are used. Any model that runs away is not dead and can be re-used. Any vehicle damage that is not "Destroyed" (such as immobilised or gun destroyed) is considered to be fixed in between battles.

In addition, bikes and speeders, when destroyed or killed, also lose me the marines that are crewing the speeder/bike. This is only true for bikes and speeders, as all other vehicle crews are figured separately to the main company strength.

When building a list, I am allowing myself to use any Space Marine codex, including any combination of traits, in order to create a legal list. Setting myself just a single set of traits and disadvantages, although more correct to the background, would leave me, I suspect, with armies that I have the models for, but do not fit in a standard force organisation chart.

Starting Size

The starting list is primarily based on the third edition Codex:Space Marines description of the Ultramarines chapter in the back of the book. This lays out the format of the chapter (which is repeated in a number of other places) but also goes into detail about how many vehicles, support staff and so on are in a codex chapter. It is noted particularly that the fourth company is at full battle strength, so I have multiplied this up for the other battle companies and, where appropriate, the reserve companies. So, before anything else happens, I currently have:

Headquarters

1 Chapter Master
1 Chapter Standard Bearer
3 Chaplains
3 Rhinos
2 Land Raiders
5 Razorbacks
5 Epistolary Librarians
23 Codicier Librarians
17 Apothecaries
41 Techmarines (inc. 5 capable of leading an army)

Armoury

14 Predator Destructors
11 Predator Annihilators
8 Vindicators
9 Whirlwinds
14 Rhinos
14 Razorbacks
12 Land Raiders

1st Company

1 Captain
2 Chaplains
1 Apothecary
1 Company Standard Bearer
10 Veteran Sergeants
100 Veteran Marines (all with Terminator armour and Power armour)
4 Dreadnoughts
20 Rhinos
10 Land Raiders

2nd -5th Companies (all the same)

1 Captain
1 Chaplain
1 Apothecary
1 Company Standard Bearer
5 Veteran Sergeants
60 Tactical Marines
20 Assault Marines
20 Devastator Marines
25 Bikes (uncrewed)
5 Attack Bikes (uncrewed)
5 Land Speeders (uncrewed)
5 Land Speeder Tornadoes (uncrewed)
5 Land Speeder Typhoons (uncrewed)
4 Dreadnoughts
15 Rhinos

6th Company

1 Captain
1 Chaplain
1 Apothecary
1 Company Standard Bearer
5 Veteran Sergeants
60 Tactical Marines
20 Assault Marines
20 Devastator Marines
25 Bikes (uncrewed)
5 Attack Bikes (uncrewed)
4 Dreadnoughts
15 Rhinos

7th Company

1 Captain
1 Chaplain
1 Apothecary
1 Company Standard Bearer
5 Veteran Sergeants
60 Tactical Marines
20 Assault Marines
20 Devastator Marines
5 Land Speeders (uncrewed)
5 Land Speeder Tornadoes (uncrewed)
5 Land Speeder Typhoons (uncrewed)
4 Dreadnoughts
15 Rhinos

Eighth Company

1 Captain
1 Chaplain
1 Apothecary
1 Company Standard Bearer
5 Veteran Sergeants
100 Assault Marines
30 Bikes (uncrewed)
10 Attack Bikes (uncrewed)
10 Land Speeders (uncrewed)
5 Land Speeder Tornadoes (uncrewed)
5 Land Speeder Typhoons (uncrewed)
5 Dreadnoughts
15 Rhinos

Ninth Company

1 Captain
1 Chaplain
1 Apothecary
1 Company Standard Bearer
5 Veteran Sergeants
100 Devastator Marines
7 Dreadnoughts
15 Rhinos

Tenth Company

1 Captain
1 Chaplain
1 Apothecary
5 Veteran Sergeants
10 Sergeants
Some scouts

Notes on the list

Some random notes on the list:

• A Predator Annihilator is not a Predator Destructor, and each will be accounted for separately
• All bikes are crewed either by the sixth company (Insignium Astartes) or by Assault Marines, so each time a bike dies, so must either someone from the sixth company, or an Assault Marines
• All Speeders are crewed by the seventh company (Insignium Astartes), so each time a Speeder is destroyed, two people (pilot and gunner) from the seventh company must be removed
• Squads will reform within the chapter, and be reinforced from the reserve companies
• The Land Raiders may be of any variant, and this is undefined, so I will simply count Land Raider hulls. However, once I have started taking (for example), a Crusader, a Crusader that will remain until it gets destroyed
• Veteran Sergeants are in addition to the regular Marines, and regular Sergeants, hence their addition in the lists above
• I have not yet decided what to do about scouts, as there is no Codex Astartes approved number for the scouts in the tenth company
  

Who are the Sons of Manus

Finally, a quick note on the Sons of Manus. As may be deduced from the name, the Sons of Manus are a successor chapter to the Iron Hands chapter, named for the primarch, Ferrus Manus. I chose these as I like the Iron Hands "bionics" models that were released a couple of years ago.