Brother Sergeant Scarus

I absolutely understand the burn-out of playing purely for competitive aspects, I’ve quit other gaming systems before just because there wasn’t anything else to keep me really engaged with the hobby – whereas with 40k, because I’ve played for so long and I’m attached to lore and factions etc. that’s always kept my interest. If ever I need a little break there’s always just some painting to do, or converting or what have you. There’s even alternative ways to play that are fun – like Tempest of War. Every so often my team mates and I will play some tempest with pre-discussed forces, just to focus on a cool-looking game with less commonly used units. It’s fun, and a nice little diversion from tournament practice to keep things interested and varied. Thanks, I think focusing just on the one army means it was possible to win even in those horrendous match-ups, but not if the opponent was similarly practiced with their army. It’s much better these days – I still don’t *want* to be drawn against Harlequiins, but everything else at least feels like a game. I’m yet to play against Leagues of Votann though, so can’t comment for certain on them. Hah, that’s exactly what I like about the Salamanders/Ultramarines too. Compared to the majority of the setting they’re at least not actively trying to be horrendous to everyone and everything! There are a fair few Salamanders books, although I personally didn’t click with them (either the 40k ones or the Horus Heresy ones). First of all, that bladeguard looks awesome! The scheme reminds me of something, Iron Ravens maybe? Either way it’s very clean and looks distinctive enough to be it’s own thing, but nobody would be surprised to see you running them as Ultramarines, it has that vibe about it. I think the bladeguard model which is wiping it’s sword on a traitor flag is possibly one of my favourite space marine models. I, obviously, painted the flag as Word Bearers and used a heresy era helmet to mark him out as a sergeant. I’ll find a photo of him (you can just see him here on the bottom left). As for the “What would I do in hindsight?” question; I personally would not just because of my love for Ultramarines BUT it’s definitely something I encourage people to do if they don’t have a lore/aesthetic reason for painting their marines as one thing or another. If people want to paint an in-lore chapter but have it be flexible rules-wise I tell them to use the Minotaur chapter. Their gene-seed is chimeric and deliberately obscured from records, so people can use them as any chapter and it be lore friendly (if they care about that at all). The Minotaurs though, are very much the opposite end of the spectrum to Ultramarines (they’re even barred from entering Ultramar). Very interesting chapter but very much not nice people to be around.

It is the trickiest part, and practice is the only real way to find out what works and what doesn’t. Everyone plays things slightly different, and will look at situations from their own perspective (inevitably) so there’s no substitute for practice games! I don’t know what your local gaming group is like, but try and get as many games as you can across a broad spectrum of opponents. Not that you would, but don’t be afraid to shy away from tougher games and match-ups. It’s all very helpful for developing your familiarity with the army, similarly don’t change your list too quickly. I see far too many people completely abandon things because a couple of games don’t go their way. For me personally, I play the Ultramarines because they’re my favourite faction – I’ve owned Ultramarines since 2nd edition and, aside from some of the awful lore which was penned around 5th edition, they’re a really well constructed army in the background material. Guilliman is such a reasonable guy, and that really appeals to me (Dan Abnett’s Know No Fear is probably my favourite book in all of the Black Library, and I think it presented Guilliman in the way he was finally meant to be written). I also spend a very long time painting my miniatures, and that takes a lot of time and effort. So even if I wanted to switch to other factions, that would hold me back. I am definitely a competitive player, and that’s true whether it’s table top games or sports or what have you. But, for me, the goal of the game is to win. But the *aim* is to have fun. I’d much rather lose a really close and interesting game, than just absolutely walk all over someone. These things happen, but I don’t set out or aim to just crush someone. I’ve never really been interested in “netlisting” – if I can see the reasoning behind something I think is clever, I’m not too proud to adapt it or anything, but I like trying out different things. Which is kind of why my list is where it is now – the final 150 points, or so, are something I haven’t quite settled on, but the rest comes from a long process of trial and error. I know I could, for example, just switch to Iron Hands. But something about that doesn’t sit right with me. I’ve no problem if other people want to do that, but my marines are my Ultramarines and I’ll always play them that way. We also have some real hidden strengths, like I’ve attempted to discuss in this thread, that can be surprisingly powerful. I always ask people, at tournaments, if they’ve played against Ultramarines before. Everyone says yes. But then they’re always surprised by the things we can do. I’ve never been tempted to run my marines as other chapters, even when the numbers look grim for the Ultramarines, but there have been a couple of times where it has felt like playing them is certainly playing on “hard-mode”. In 9th good examples of that were against Harlequins (especially before any nerfs) and Custodes as they were on release. An army that is built around re-rolls falls apart a little when the opponent can turn them all off! Or when you’re hit by an absolute barrage of mortal wounds (like un-nerfed Tyranids). But on the whole I’ve managed to keep up with the meta as best as I can. In 9th I’d say I was mostly a 2 wins, 1 loss RTT player, and 3 wins 2 losses or 4 wins 1 loss GT player. When I moved across to more dreadnought heavy, that ratio definitely swung to 4-1 (and my previous four GTs prior to Arks of Omen were 4-1s) so that did help with motivation. There’s a lot to be said for practice and not getting too caught up on the meta perception of different factions. But mostly it’s my love of the faction, the time I’ve put into collecting and painting them, and (as you’ve said) the memories models make that keep me hooked to the army. I have one incursor sergeant who is notorious in my gaming group for his heroics, and the amount of times he’s done something spectacular to score me precious primary points and so on. He’s often been the last man standing against a Nemesis Grandmaster/Be’lakor/Phoenix Lords and so on and so forth. Courage and Honour being a fantastic strat to make sure he doesn’t then fail his leadership test, and score me extra primary. Or my victrix guard, who are possibly my most hated models amongst my regular opponents. And are one of the reasons I could never even run as successor tactics, the VHG are just excellent value. Plus they look awesome!

I've gone through a bunch of photos but I'm notoriously bad for/at taking photos in tournament games. Here are two slight examples of how I split things up: In the photo with the custodes, you can just see the volkite of one of my contemptors, they're both down there with the techmarine - I'd used a rapid redeploy, turn one, to kill one of the two units of vertus praetors. Guilliman, Tigurius and the redemptors are up top defending my priority objective and drawing firing lines down the middle of the table.The front redemptor is also close enough to move up to the obscurring ruins directly ahead of him, so he can potentially move up and shoot through it by touching the terrain. However, as you can see, there are custodes to deal with at the top of the map first. In the photo with the drukhari, I have Guilliman, a Techmarine, Tigurius, 2 Redemptors and a Volcon all very close to each other, and all getting close to the ruin for the same reason as the redemptor mentioned above. I then have a volcon at the top of the picture (on the left) to shoot any drukhari who come and attack my objective, and draw a line of sight into the middle objective. The main thing to think about are where your lines of sight will be, where you'll be able to move to in order to draw line of sight once the enemy moves. Dreadnoughts aren't particularly fast so you have to find the right mix of keeping them defended, but also putting them in positions where they can move to firing lines. There are games where I advance both redemptors just to get them into decent staging positions, there are games where I have a volcon out on it's own (the 5+ invuln makes them a little safer to operate away from Tigurius, and their long range is useful. I have games, like against the custodes, where both volcons move with the techmarine because they're excellent at punishing whatever my seal of oath target is. It really does depend on the enemy list, threats, map and mission. As for contemptors, I really like two twin volkite and cyclone missiles. Ultramarines and permanent dev doctrine make them very efficient. I also quite like Multi-melta, Cyclone, Chainfist and heavy flamer. That loadout is a real menace for vehicles, especially the chainfist, and the flamer helps clear screens. In your list I'd be tempted to have one with two twin lascannons and a cyclone, and then multi-melta/cyclone/fist (that comes to the same points total as you had in your list). I'd definitely recommend magnetising though, adds so much value!

That looks like a solid and sensible list for the points, 2 units of infiltrators provide an enormous amount of utility to the army; forward deploy, rapid redeploy, protecting your dreads from deepstrike charges from factions like daemons. I also really like the 2 units of VHG for actions, and disposable units for throwing at Oath. Dreads work best at a critical mass, but I don't think it's realistic to take more than 2 at 1k points, at least from looking at it. The main thing is just to be conscious of your shooting lanes with the dreads, and try and protect them from enemy return fire by predicting where units might move to in order to shoot them. Don't be afraid to run VHG onto an objective and then shoot the enemy off with dreads, that's a viable way to score shock tactics; doesn't always have to involve melee or your obsec units. Just don't under-commit to the kill when you do that.

I very much enjoyed the graphic! As a general concept that's exactly the sort of approach I'm talking about, the overlapping auras - not everything needs to be within 6" of Guilliman, but just being within 12 with some stuff can dramatically increase unit efficiency when you also have Wisdom of the Ancients to provide yet more re-roll 1s to wound. One thing I would say, and this isn't me being pedantic, is making sure that anything within the 12" bubble is just in by the slightest fraction. The aura only has to be touching the tiniest part of a base, and that can extend the overall aura ranges dramatically. That may also be obvious, but it's just worth pointing out. And then Guilliman need to be pretty close (certainly within 3") of the dreads he's giving full rerolls too, so they character screen him. But all of this is match up dependent, I'll send through a photo as an example - where I have some of my dreads nowhere near Guilliman's 12" aura because of the map/mission/opponent. As for piloting the list; at it's very simplistic state it's a castle and sort of walks forward and shoots. But that'll only get so far. The more you play with it the more you'll see different ways to make the most of it, and when and where to group up, and when to split. For the auras, I'd definitely recommend tokens for the following: +1 to hit (from the Techmarine), -1 to be hit (Master of Prescience) Might of Heroes and Psychic Fortess. There are cards you could use, but a black base with some white paint on works perfectly well (and is less clutter). For Guilliman's auras, I've just used him so often that they're kind of ingrained - because he has so many effects (+1adv/charge, re-roll morale, re-roll 1s, then full re-roll to hit for core/character, re-roll 1s to wound for core) just focus on keeping those in mind and then allow the tokens to ease the cognitive burden for other stuff. I hit a point where the tokens are there for my opponent's information not mine, repetition is a wonderful thing. But it's also nice to make it abundantly clear where things like -1 to be hit and +1T from might of heroes are. Both those abilities skew your opponent's maths so I like to make sure the opponent knows where my buffs are. For your list, looks very solid! I really like the reaper with Guilliman, especially if a techmarine gives it +1 to hit. You have a good mix of anti-tank and anti-infantry weapons. Are your contemptors magnetised?

Hello! Those three missions are all pretty interesting in their own ways, and have a few little quirks to them that can influence what you do. What sort of terrain maps do you play on? My main worry for the Kratos is, at 18 wounds, it can't be obscured and as it isn't core it can't benefit from Master of Prescience from Tigurius to help it survive (or might of heroes either). With Tear Down Their Icons the mission specific action kind of relies on having cheap expendable units to perform the action, so if you own victrix guard I'd definitely recommend including them. Another slight problem with the kratos is that, as it isn't core, it doesn't benefit from the rerolls for Seal of Oath or rerolls to wound from Guilliman - both of which make volkite a lot more effective. And you can do quite a bit with those 320 points, such as victrix guard and some additional troops for secondary play. Do you have a plan for the secondaries you'd take? One thing I would consider, is moving Rites of War to the Techmarine and then putting Warden of Macragge on the Judiciar. I honestly find that Adept of the Codex is just a bit too unreliable for what it does, whereas having Warden on the Judiciar allows him to heroically intervene 6" which massively increases his defensive power. Having the additional units would also be handy for Tide of Conviction, with the numerous objectives. Especially if you have to take something like March for Macragge (which is actually pretty viable on Tide of Conviction, depending on what you face). I know the vindicator laser destroyer also isn't Core, but it's fewer shots so the loss of rerolls isn't as much of an issue, and you can make one of the shots auto hit for one cp, which is solid value on the damage 6 weapon,

No problem! I'm genuinely happy to help, and I like talking about Ultramarines. For the longest time they were dismissed as not very good, but I honestly just think people didn't always put the time in to try and figure things out, and picked more notably powerful chapters. Because I only focus on playing Ultramarines, I obviously focus heavily on them and different interactions with other factions/missions/map packs. Which is partly why I mention my ITC results, whilst I'm very pleased to have done well, it's more to say that I've faced some really good players and have been to a wide variety of tournaments and played all different calibres of players. The gaming groups in my area also have some really great players, so I'm in a constantly evolving and high standard meta (though it's a really friendly one here in Leeds UK!). We've had numerous players in no.1 spots for various factions, and at close of season some narrowly missing out. So I'm certainly in at the deep end and really have to work hard to keep the Ultramarines working. For new players, I notice a lot of Ultramarine players get told (on the internet, I hasten to add) "Just run them as Iron Hands" or something to that vibe, and it's a shame. So if anything I can share can help you with playing your games or your motivation for Ultramarines, great stuff! So as always, feel free to ask away.

Hi @Meletiah - I don't have much experience with1k points, it's been a very long time since I played a non 2k game. The units I like generally are phobos units, dreadnoughts and victrix guard. I don't know how well that would translate into 1k games though. Do you have any thoughts on the list you'd run?

I'm obviously a big fan of the volkite contemptor, and I have occasionally ran one as Volkite Culverin, Chainfist, Cyclone. Which was quite a nice all rounder. Similarly I also like the Multi-melta, Cyclone, Chainfist and Heavy Flamer option. It makes a great dedicated vehicle hunter, the flamer helps deal with screens and the fist is (as you've said) absolutely excellent vs vehicles and heavy infantry . On the ranged front, I've not actually tried the twin las+cyclone build. I can see how it'd be useful though, depending on what's in the rest of the army.

Hello, I definitely think this could work - it only gives up a max of 10 on Bring It Down which isn't terrible at all, might just be enough to tempt people into taking it then cap their secondaries somewhat. Calgar helps the eradicator squad to be efficient, although he obviously doesn't help the general bubble as much. There's also a slightly annoying lack of an innate re-roll 1s to wound, which you can get around with Wisdom of the Ancients, but then that stops Wisdom being used elsewhere (vs the Guilliman variant) and I really like having access to more auras spread across the army. I haven't really experimented with invictors too much, but if you did give the list a run out I'd be really interested to hear how it goes

Thanks, Idaho. It feels like the army in it's current iteration certainly suits me well, and things have definitely worked out (as a related aside, I managed to finish the ITC rankings as No.1 Ultramarine in Europe, 4th in the world and 19th overall space marine in the world. So that was pretty cool! My goal was just to hit top five ultras UK, so very pleased with how it has ended up). Something I forgot to mention in my write up is that I put the hellblasters in strat reserve, and they turned up and nuked some rough riders and that was it. So not enough data to say for sure really, but I am wishing I hadn't locked myself in to them for the month! In terms of ratings for how things function in my army I honestly would rate all of the following as 10/10 Guilliman, Tigurius, Techmarine, Victrix Guard, Infiltrators, one squad of incursors, Redemptors and Contemptors. They're the core of what makes everything tick and it all fuses together really well. The second unit of incursors and the 2 units of eliminators I'd probably give an 8. They do a job, do it really well, and appeal a lot more than several of the other options which would take up the same points. I really like having 4 units of innate obsec with forward deploy, and the eiliminators can do some very cute objective play with their move-shoot-move (especially when rites of war is on the table). The raw damage output of the 2 eliminator squads is less than, say, 3 eradicators, but being able to duck back behind cover is just fantastic. Plus their BS2+ means that at worst they're hitting on 3s - which is fine with so many sources of re-rolls. The 2nd units of incursors I'm looking at replacing with a 3rd unit of Infiltrators. There are so many teleport/deepstrike/strat reserve/drop-pod/GSC/Daemons to worry about, and now they're so much cheaper (and have a gauntlet for extra resilience) they've been really really useful in all games. Just need to finish painting them! The main elephant in the room is the 150 points that's wrapped up in hellblasters - and I change my mind on this so often. Sometimes it's 3 eradicators, which bring some nice anti-tank, but as I camp dev doctrine they're hitting on 4s most of the time, unless I spend a CP and that's kinda annoying in itself. I could add a gladiator reaper, if I owned one. Plus a gladiator (or an invictor, or a storm speeder) would bump up my BID to 9. Which isn't horrendous, but it's still more tempting for opponents than the 7 I currently offer. Seeing that I'd have to find 10 points to upgrade one unit of incursors to infiltrators, I'm technically working with 140 points. There's honestly part of me that's tempted to throw in 2 individual Invader ATVs. They're not core, but they do benefit from the re-rolls 1s from Guilliman, and their multi-meltas don't suffer the penalty for moving and shooting as they're bikes. They also bring some anti-chaff guns in their auto bolt rifles. It's not much, but 12 total shots (from the two of them) does help a bit with chaff clearing. And it makes them more useful into horde armies than eradicators would be. They're also much faster than anything else in my list (21" of movement if they advance and start the move within 12 of Guilliman) so I can happily zip one off onto an objective etc. without caring too much that they might kill my 70 point model. They can also benefit from strats like Transhuman Physiology (though it would be pretty specific circumstances to use it on one ATV), Sons of Guilliman for an independent re-roll 1s to hit, Martial Precision to make one multi-melta shot auto hit etc. etc. I just keep testing things out till I find what I'm totally happy with.

I played a game vs the new Guard last night. Recover the Relics. My secondaries: Shock Tactics Codex Warfare Raise the Banners His secondaries: Inflexible Command Boots on the Ground Raise the Banners My starting cp: 4 His starting cp: 1 My list: The list I linked above with hellblasters Opponent's list: Cadian Castellan with Redeploy trait Command Squad with an Astropath with the cp power and a relic Tank commander with Meticulous Calculator, Gatekeeper and Lead by Example 6x10 Cadian Shock Troops Commissar 2x5 Rough Riders 2 Leman Russ with Plasma Executioners 2 Leman Russ with Vanquisher cannons 3 Chimeras I think Recover the Relics is a pretty poorly designed mission to be honest, for a lot of armies it's really punishing to not be able to gain CP in certain situations and the roll off to go first is pretty significant (and usually my army much prefers to go second). I've included a little terrain guide to try and explain a few things. Anything in blue is an obscuring ruin with windows. So you can step on the actual "L" itself and see through the windows, but you can safely stage a fraction of an inch behind them to not be seen. The red Ls block line of sight and have no windows, the green lines are obstacles with the dense cover keyword. It's worth noting that the objective "top left" and "bottom right" (as we look at it) can only be held if you're standing on the windowed terrain (and thus can be shot, though they give light cover) but this mission is hold one hold two, so is less punishing than it would be in a hold 2/3 mission. We go back and forth with deployment, I have plenty of space to hide everything behind obscurring ruins, I put my hellblasters in reserve and put one squad of incursors staged behind the blue L on the bottom left, and one squad on the top right 9" away from his deployment zone. My infiltrators start strung out between my home objective and the bottom left objective, and one squad is on the top left objective. The idea being that if I go first it'll make all three of my objectives sticky and I can then move off, which is huge in this mission as I then can't be shot off the top left objective. It also means that if I go first the incursors deployed aggressively can charge the infantry holding his top righ tobjective (which he's forced to do in order to receive CP because of the mission rules) which will also allow me to score shock tactics, tag a leman russ and hopefully score one point for the mission tertiary (score one point for each unit killed, per round, to a max of three). My opponent has a trickier time with such a large number of vehicles, he puts his rough riders in reserve and hides the tank commander and vanquishers as best he can, then the executioners cluster top right, but realistically there's probably no where they can get to that I can't get *some* guns on to them. I win the roll to go first, and we both use our redeploys. He wins the roll off which forces me to do my redeploys first (as per the wording of Rapid Redeployment) which is a shame, but not huge issue - I mostly use it to drag the redemptors from my back line and they take up positions on opposite sides of the small red L on the bottom of my deployment, I also move Tigurius up. In my turn I put master of prescience on the top most redemptor (above the small L) and give it +1 to hit with the techmarine, my elimiantors raise banners on my bottom and middle objectives, the victrix guard raise a banner on the top most objective. They're now visible but with a 2+ save, 3++, light cover and access to transhuman (and with the banner already raised and the objective sticky from the infiltrators who were on it during my command phase) they're such and investment to try and kill, for no real gain. I have a contemptor behind the blue L at the top of my deployment, it uses Wisdom of the Ancients for re-roll 1s to wound (as it can see an executioner) and my incursors move forward to charge the cadians holding his home objective. My bottorm most redemptor just advances to get behind the blue L at the bottom, and the one with all the buffs hides as much as it can behind that same ruin, but with LoS on another executioner. Guilliman, the techmarine and tigurius move up with them. Tigurius perils on a double 6 to cast psychic fortress, I reroll it into a 3, so the spell fails. He does get Might of Heroes off on the redemptor though. So it is -1 to hit from master of prescience, behind dense terrain and T8 - almost as tough as I can make it, just lacking the invuln. My two dreads do some reasonable damage on the two executioners, putting them on mid bracket but otherwise OK. My incursors charge and kill 6 of the cadians (who then lose 2 to morale) and tag one of the leman runss. This gives me a 4 for shock assault and robs my opponent of a cp due to the mission rule (he didn't deploy anything visible on the bottom objective other than a unit which wisely re-deployed away once he knew I was going first. The angles made his turn a lot more complicated to try and unpack, and whilst the tank commander took a redemptor to 6 wounds, the bracketed Executioner couldn't finish it - BS4, degraded to 5, +1 to hit from turret weapon, -1 to hit from Master of Prescience, -1 to hit from dense. It opted instead to go after my topmost contemptor, but between his lack of cp, a cp reroll save for me and the degraded profile it left the contemptor on 4 wounds. The incursors lost a couple of models to the leman russ they were tagged with, but survived a charging cadian squad and killed the 2 remaining soliders they'd trapped in combat, netting me 1 point for the tertiary. From this point on, I could sort of explain in detail, but I don't really need to. It isn't often games are decided so early on, but I scored a 12 for primary, had 3 banners up, and in this turn I killed the tank commander, finished both the executioners, repaired my redemptor back to 9 wounds, the incursors fell out of combat with the charging cadians who were obliterated by onslaught gatling cannons. So I also scored 8 codex warfare in one turn. In my opponent's turn, with his 1 banner, 1 cp and dwindling resources he moved out and took shots with his vanquishers. Both missed, and they died in my next turn. We went through the motions but the final result was pretty clear and my opponent decided to concede. I would absolutely have maxed banners and codex warfare, maxed primary and scored somewhere between 8/12/15 for Shock Tactics, just depending on what my opponent did with his remaining guardsmen. It was interesting to get a test game ahead of my league game on the 28th - that opponent also owns Lord Solar and kasrkin so probably an entirely different prospect to take on. Honestly this wasn't the most fun game for me or my opponent, I'd much rather lose a close and back-and-forth game than just have a game like this. The icursors depriving him of 2cp by themselves was just a bit ridiculous, and I can see why this mission is always relegated to the bottom of event packs. It and Abandoned Sanctuaries are by far my least favourite missions. I have another game against Sisters next week, not a league game though so I'll see if he'd like to do a different mission. Fingers crossed, but he is also in the league and may want to practice his list!

So, with Calgar he gives you 2cp, but then there's 1cp to take his Warlord Trait. Guilliman gives you 3cp (2cp if a judge ruled you were forced to take his trait). So Calgar gives a net gain of 1, and a 5+ regen capped to once a round. Guilliman gives you three. Personally I find it's a lot more handy to have more cp up-front, rather than the regen. Especially as most of the time I'm spending 2cp on Rapid Redeployment so every cp helps a lot. The points difference is 140, which is something like 3 Eradicators or an Invictor Warsuit - which isn't terrible, but Calgar's buffs aren't anywhere near as good; full re-rolls to hit for one unit, re-roll 1s within 6" compared to Reroll all hits in a 6" aura, re-roll 1s to wound for Core in a 6" aura, re-roll 1s to hit within 12, +1 advance and charge and re-roll morale within 12". Calgar, as infantry, can move through walls which is a big bonus, but his personal threat is much lower than Guilliman - and his gun is also less powerful. I don't think there'd be anything wrong with taking Calgar, but the way my list works/the way I play it, I definitely want Guilliman

Current version of the list is: Guilliman Tigurius - Psychic Fortress, Might of Heroes, Null-zone Primaris Master of the Forge - Rites of War, Seal of Oath 5 Incursors with mine 5 Incursors with mine 5 Infiltrators with Helix Gauntlet 5 Infiltrators with Helix Gauntlet Relic Contemptor with Cyclone Missile Launcher, 2 Twin Volkite Culverins Relic Contemptor with Cyclone Missile Launcher, 2 Twin Volkite Culverins Redemptor with Macroplasma, Icarus Pod, Onslaught Cannon and Storm Bolters Redemptor with Macroplasma, Icarus Pod, Onslaught Cannon and Storm Bolters 2 Victrix Honour Guard 5 Hellblasters with Assault Plasma Incinerators, Sergeant has Honoured Sergeant: Master-crafted Weapon 3 Eliminators with 2 Las Fusils and Instigator Bolt Carbine 3 Eliminators with 2 Las Fusils and Instigator Bolt Carbine In complete honesty there's a couple of changes I want to make, but will have to wait till next month. Nothing too major, basically shifting to this: Guilliman Tigurius - Psychic Fortress, Might of Heroes, Null-zone Primaris techmarine - Rites of War, Seal of Oath 5 Assault Intercessors, Thunder Hammer on Sergeant 5 Infiltrators with Helix Gauntlet 5 Infiltrators with Helix Gauntlet 5 Infiltrators with Helix Gauntlet Relic Contemptor with Cyclone Missile Launcher, 2 Twin Volkite Culverins Relic Contemptor with Cyclone Missile Launcher, 2 Twin Volkite Culverins Redemptor with Macroplasma, Icarus Pod, Onslaught Cannon and Storm Bolters Redemptor with Macroplasma, Icarus Pod, Onslaught Cannon and Storm Bolters 2 Victrix Honour Guard 2 Victrix Honour Guard 4 Eradicators with Heavy Melta Rifles 3 Eliminators with 2 Las Fusils and Instigator Bolt Carbine

Thank you, that's really good to hear. Mostly that's why I like to share these reports; if something I'm sharing is useful for other Ultramarines, that's great. We have a lot of strengths that sometimes get overlooked for more overtly powerful factions (such as Iron Hands). There are a couple of GT reports I've done below: Those are older reports, so before our recent buffs, but the principles are largely the same (and if anything my game plan is now easier to achieve due to points cuts, better secondaries and "Sticky" objectives for marine troops. A lot of it, like many things, comes down to practice. I own three armies (Ultramarines, Daemons and Necrons) but 99.9% of the games I play are using my Ultramarines and I've been playing since 2nd edition so I've had a fair old time to practice! My general points would be: 1) People tend to underestimate Ultramarines. We don't "math-hammer" quite as hard as some chapters, but our access to multiple sources of re-rolls, redeployment strategems and excellent characters really do combine powerfully. 2) I tend to run dreadnoughts as they get a lot of leverage out of re-rolls and auras, and can function well in multiple phases such as shooting, overwatch (with Guilliman's full re-rolls) and melee, but our chapter tactic does mean I can also take purely shooting focused dreadnoughts. Being tagged in combat by a consolidate is far less of an issue for our units than for many other factions. Redemptors with macro plasma, for example, really enjoy being able to fall back and shoot (and also charge if needed, via the "Fall-back and re-engage" strategem, whereas the redemptors of other chapters would either have to fall back and not shoot, or stay in combat and not be able to fire any blast weapons they have such as macro-plasma and icarus pods. 3) Resist the temptation to cluster too many units around Guilliman. His aura of full re-rolls to hit is fantastic, but if your entire army is clustered around him you're limited in the enemy units you can attack (due to terrain) and the relatively slow speed can limit the number of objectives a heavy castle can interact with. Instead, make use of over-lapping auras; Guilliman has an aura of re-roll 1s to hit for friendly Imperium units within 12, and dreadnoughts can use Wisdom of the Ancients for re-roll 1s to wound for Core within 6", between those things you can have units which are a long way from Guilliman still re-rolling 1s to hit and wound, without having to "castle" too heavily around the primarch. 4) I like to include a lot of phobos troops. They enable easier access to "sticky" objectives (for example they start the battle deployed on an objective, and if I go first it becomes sticky at the end of the command phase, and my unit can then run off and do something else. Whether that's move blocking enemies, performing actions, running onto other objectives for shock assault or even using the Guerilla Tactics strategem to go into reserves for later in the game. 5) I frequently get asked how a slow army reliably scores Shock Tactics, and again that's partly due to the large number of obsec units I take. Running onto an objective and then shooting enemy units off of it, with my dreadnoughts, is just as effective as "flipping" the objective using melee units. Though you have to plan your deployments and movements to enable firing lines. Here in the UK, especially where I'm based, we use the LGT/WHT/UKTC terrain packs (I don't know why it has so many different names!), so requires a different approach to, say, the GW terrain layouts. 6) Really familiarise yourself with your datasheets and strategems. I know this sounds obvious, but I see a lot of Ultramarine battle reports where our special characters aren't used correctly (for example people not using Tigurius' Master of Prescience, or not selecting the correct melee weapon for Guilliman, relevant to the enemy he's fighting) and some of the more niche strategems can be really useful. For example Courage and Honour. 1cp in the morale phase for +1LD to Ultramarines. Doesn't sound that appealing, but if you have an Infiltrator sergeant alive on an objective, having lost four of his friends, that bonus leadership puts him to Leadership 10 (in combination with our chapter tactic) and means he cannot fail morale. If he's on an objective, that can be absolutely crucial for primary points - rather than risking the 1/6 leadership failure, or paying 2cp for the once per game auto-pass morale, Courage and Honour has come up at least 6 times for me in 9th. Which isn't THAT often given the number of games I play, but each time it's made a significant contribution to me winning a game. Situational, but very handy. Similarly Avenge the Fallen (1cp for re-roll 1s to hit, for your entire army, against an enemy unit which has killed an Ultramarine unit) can be really handy. Again it alleviates some of the burden of clustering around Guilliman's re-rolls, but it also works for non core units and can be very handy if Guilliman dies. There's an example of that in one of my GT reports where I lose Guilliman turn 1 due to a mistake on my part, but Avenge the Fallen throughout the course of the game keeps my shooting efficiency at a decent level. I probably use the strat more in that one game than any other 30 games combined, but again it was a niche stratagem proving invaluable in the circumstances. 7) Victrix Guard are incredible units, they're cheap, tough and disposable. They're one of my favourite things for throwing into the middle of the table for Oath of Moment, or performing actions where they have to surive to my next command phase such as March for Macragge. I get the feeling they'll be combined into one unit with Calgar when the next supplement is released, but for now they're incredible. 8) Lastly, as things stand, my army makes very little use of our Super Doctrine (Scions of Guilliman) with so many heavy weapons, and with dreadnoughts already ignoring the penalty for moving and firing heavy weapons, it's much more efficient for my army to stay in devastator doctrine all game for the additional ap. It also helps massively with scoring the Codex Warfare secondary. I have a feeling at least one of those things will change with the next balance patch, but for now it works so may as well leverage it! If there's anything specific you'd like to ask, or any general questions, please just ask and hopefully I can expand on things.