Dark Crusade

Statistics

Space Marines that have shown skill in close combat quarters and have above average power and reflexes are often taken into the deadly Assault Marine Squads; these units use Jetpacks to soar into the battlefield and make lightening strikes on enemy infantry and structures. Armed with the deadly and brutal Chain sword and Bolt Pistol, Assault Marines can cut through infantry units with ease while laying down a hail of suppressive fire from their pistols if needed. Sergeants have a range of weaponry and can carry the deadly Power Sword, able to cut through all types of infantry armour, or the crushing power fist that can damage vehicles and structures alike. Available at tier one after construction of an armory and barracks, Assault Marines can be a costly investment, however when used right they are really useful and can be deadly in later tiers with their upgrades; Plasma Pistols and Power swords greatly increase the effectiveness of the Assault Marine Sergeant while Melta bombs give Assault Squads an edge against armour and buildings. Here are the Assault Marines statistics Taken from Relic Wiki:




Build Cost 220/0/3
Build Time 32 seconds
Built From Chapel Barracks
Squad Size 4/8
Requires Armory
Limit None
Hitpoints 465/1
Armour Infantry Heavy Medium
Morale 450/10/50
Unit Mass 18
Move Speed 24
Sight Radius 25 (cannot detect)


The First thing we can notice about the Assault Marine squad is that it takes up three population cap, unlike other tier one jump troops that only take up two. This impedes the production of other troops and if you are planning on using a couple of Assault Marine squads in tier one then you will only have enough cap space (without researching more population cap space) for an extra Tactical Marine squad. Using three scout squads as a start and two Assault Marine squads will take up 9 population cap and you will have to delete or sacrifice a Scout squad for any other units. With a build time of 32 seconds the Assault Marine squad is produced much faster than its Chaos counterpart; however it takes much longer to build than the Storm Boyz. With a reinforce time of 10 seconds, you can keep an Assault Marine squad at strong numbers fairly easily in a protracted battle and against such units as Kroot and Raptors.

The Squad starts at just four members, for a melee specialist squad it is advisable to increase the squad size by one or two members straight away to increase their damage capabilities. The squad can be reinforced to eight members; this would cost 440 requisition and 0 power, with a sergeant, a full Assault Squad costs 515 requisition and 20 power. Compared to other Jump troops with leaders the Assault Marine squad is the cheapest and outstrips a fully reinforced Raptor Squad with Leader (665 Requisition, 10 Power) and a fully reinforced Storm Boy squad with Leader (675 requisition, 20 Power). With upgrades and careful use, an Assault Marine squad is a sound investment and will beat other jump troops for both cos efficiency and in squad to squad combat. Although both the Storm Boy and Raptor squads have more squad members, an Assault Marine is hardier and generally a more powerful squad.



Each member of an Assault Marine has 465 Hitpoints of Infantry Heavy Medium health; compared to other melee infantry the Assault Squads have by far the most, beating Kroot (310), Raptors (405), Storm Boyz (275) and Howling Banshees (385) by a good amount. With the bionics upgrade the Assault Marines are boosted to 581 giving them a significant boost. As the Assault Squads are fitted with Jetpacks, each squad can use the Jump ability. Use the jumps carefully and remember to use them to bypass impassable terrain such as rivers and buildings. When produced from the Barracks, an Assault Marine squad’s jump ability is charged twice; it is advisable to not use both these jumps straight away as you could meet a large force and take heavy losses. When fully charged, an Assault Squad has 2 and 4/9 jumps available.

The Assault Squads movement speed is 24; this puts it on par with all the other Jump Troops and the same as Eldar Troops with Fleet of foot. One of their great advantages is their move speed and any Assault squad can easily chase down fleeing enemy squads or builders. Their sight radius is 25 and this is fairly standard and of little consequence as both of the assault Marines Weapons (Bolt Pistol, Plasma Pistol and Melta Bomb) are all ranged 25 or under. This squad cannot detect and if fighting such races as Eldar or Tau, it is a good idea to send a Skull Probe with your Assault squads or keep a scout squad near with an attached Probe for detection.

This post has been edited by GW_Fingolfin: Sep 15 2007, 09:38 AM

Upgrades/Abilities

Assault Marines are a fairly powerful squad on their own; however the upgrades available to them from the armoury make them so much more effective and give them an edge against multiple unit types. When using Assault Marines, a Space Marine player should always use the upgrades listed below as they scale your Assault Squads and allow them to perform better. The Plasma Pistol and Power Sword upgrades should be brought while tier two is researching or as soon as the Armour is built; this saves time in later game when you might need the Bionics and Target finder upgrades quicker. Listed below are all the possible upgrades for your Assault Marine squads.


Sergeant

Possibly the most important upgrade for an Assault Marine squad, the Sergeant is available at tier two and costs 75 requisition and 20 power with a build time of 30 seconds. All your Assault Squads should have a Sergeant researched immediately at tier two and if you ever loose the Sergeant then it should be replace straight away; the bonus the leader gives are vital to the power of an Assault squad after tier one. Remember that without a Sergeant then the Assault Squad looses the Power Sword and Plasma pistol. Here are the upgrades available for the Assault Marine Sergeant:

Rally:

The Sergeant uses his leadership qualities to inspire his squad to greater feats on the battlefield; bringing hope and determination in their hearts. Once activated, Rally makes the Space Marine squad take no Morale damage for two seconds and fully recharges their morale bar. This ability should be used in large fights whenever your ASM are broken and in melee combat; being broken in melee will reduce their effectiveness greatly and using rally will put them back to 100% strength. With a cool down of 120 seconds (2 minutes) use it at the right time and mainly in heavy battles; using Rally when your ASM are under no major threat is a waste.

Plasma Pistol:

An Upgrade of the Basic Bolt Pistol, the Plasma pistol is basically a lesser ranged version of the Marine Plasma gun. This upgrade should be brought early on as it benefits more than just the ASM sergeant. The plasma pistol makes the ASM squad more effective at chasing fleeing units or killing builders etc; switch to ranged stance and the Sergeant can shoot his Plasma pistol. With good DPS to Infantry Medium, High and Heavy High, the plasma pistol is excellent for weakening tough troops before the charge to melee.

Power Sword:

An Upgrade of the Basic Chainsword, the Power Sword has a power generator giving it an electric field that allows it to cut through all armour types. This Upgrade should be brought after the Plasma Pistol upgrade (the Plasma Pistol is more beneficial for the rest of your army). This gives your Assault Squads another significant damage boost and their melee effectiveness will be increased (providing you have a Sergeant). The DPS to all infantry types at least double that of the Chainsword and some by even more; Furthermore the power Sword does good damage to vehicles and its DPS against Structures/Tanks is roughly on the same par as the infantry values.

Power Fist:

An Upgrade to the Power Sword, the Power fist is a more powerful melee weapon able to damage vehicles and buildings, as well as carving through all infantry types. This upgrade should be brought after the plasma pistol, however make sure all other important upgrades are brought first. I.e. Bionics/Heavy Weapon upgrade etc. Damage wise, the Power fist is stronger again than the Power Sword and does much more damage to all armour types including vehicles and structures. Most notable is the Power fists damage to building Low and building high; combined with melta bombs and Assault Marine Squad with Power first sergeant can do sound damage to structures.



Melta Bombs

A powerful anti armour/anti structure grenade the Melta Bomb is an excellent upgrade for your Assault Squads and gives them diversity in their role, allowing them to deal with vehicles, infantry and buildings alike. For just 75 requisition and 75 power, the Melta Bomb research is cheap; however make sure your Barracks is free as its research time is 45 seconds which could tie up unit production. Note. The Melta bomb does no damage to enemy infantry, only vehicles and structures; here are its damage values to the relevant armour types:

Vehicle Low – 600-675
Vehicle Medium – 800-900
Vehicle High – 800-900
Building Low – 600-675
Building Medium – 800-900
Building High – 400-500

A couple of Melta bombs can take down low armoured vehicles such as Chimeras in a couple of shots, while heavier armoured vehicles like Hellhounds will be taken to red health. After using the Melta bombs, if the target is not destroyed, then an upgraded Sergeant with Power Fist or Power Sword will make short work of the remaining unit. The Melta bomb also makes your Assault Squads powerful as a harassment unit; using the Bombs on medium armour buildings such as Barracks will make a significant dent, several Bombs can take a building down to a third of its health.


Bionics

The Bionics upgrade should be brought immediately at tier two (providing that the Plasma Pistol, Power Sword and heavy Weapon upgrade are already purchased) as it boosts most of your troop types armour and morale. While mainly used to boost tactical squads, it also benefits Assault Marine squads; here is the bonus it provides:

- Increases Assault Marines Hitpoints by 25%
- Increases Assault Marine Sergeants Hitpoints by 50%
- Increases Assault Marine morale by 150

This translates in-game to the following: Assault Marines health is boosted to 581, Assault Sergeants health is boosted to 975 and the Assault Marines morale is boosted to 550. This makes your Assault Squads more durable, especially the Sergeant.


Target Finders

After the Bionics upgrade is brought, the Target finder upgrade should be researched straight afterwards. This rounds off your troops and scales them fully into the later tiers. The Bonus it gives to Assault Marines is shown below:

- Increases Assault Marine Chainsword minimum damage by 50% and maximum damage by 25%

This is a really good boost and together with a Sergeant with Power Sword or Power fist, the Assault Squad fully upgraded becomes powerful in both melee and hardiness. The best thing about a Fully upgrade Assault Marine squad is that only the Melta Bomb is specifically for the Assault Squad; the rest of the upgrades complement the rest of your force to, so money spent on Assault Marines will benefit in more than one place.

This post has been edited by GW_Fingolfin: Sep 16 2007, 11:57 AM

Strategies/General Tips

Assault Marines are fairly Micro intensive and need a good amount of attention to make them useful; utilising their jumps, switching from ranged to shooting stance at the right times, knowing which squads to melee first, when to use Melta bombs; all of these things need to be considered when using your Assault squads as well as reinforcing, building Sergeants and squad cap. As an Assault squad costs 220 and takes up three population cap, it is wise to use them sparingly and always try to keep the squads alive; loosing a full Assault squad is a costly set back; you will loose 220 as well as a good portion of your fighting army.



When using Assault Marines in tier one they are best served for a harassment unit as well as a unit to hold map control and deny your enemy easy travel across the ground. If you go for a double Assault build then send one squad to outer enemy points and relics etc to disrupt and take down enemy capping squads, while this is happening your second squad should enter the enemy base and search for builders and generators to take down. As the enemy builds strength you should bring your scout squads in to take the map and use your Assault squads to combat your opponents main tier one units such as tactical squads, reapers and firewarriors. By this time you should be teching up and just holding the enemy at bay with your ASM squads. If you are fighting a race with weaker building damage like Eldar then you can continue to harass and send your ASM in fully to the enemy base; the Reapers/Rangers will not do a great deal of damage to your base, whereas you will do a great deal.

Progressing into tier two, your Assault Marines become more of a complimentary unit for the rest of your force. You can either use them in conjunction with Tactical Marines to tie up ranged units while the Tactical squads lay down heavy fire, or alternatively you can use them to counter harass the enemy economy. At tier two you can have Sergeants, after this you need the Plasma Pistol, Power Sword and Melta Bombs. The power swords will give you a better edge in melee combat, allowing you to deal more damage to ranged troops, while the Melta bombs will allow you to make dents in buildings and vehicles. If your main infantry force is holding ok then send your assault marines to harass generators and listening posts.

In later tiers such as three and four then your Assault Marines (if still alive) should be used to tie up heavy ranged units that will rip apart your weaker tactical squads. Such units as Obliterators and Warp Spiders have fairly average melee damage compared to their ranged damage and Assault Marines can be used to negate their firepower in later tiers when they are most deadly. With Sergeants upgraded, Assault Squads can inflict damage on said squads and greatly reduce their effectiveness. Furthermore they can be used to hold map control or important locations such as Critical and Relics; quickly jumping across the map, Assault Squads can get to possible decapping squads to take them out.



Micro – When chasing fleeing squads that are damage or broken, it is a good idea to switch to Ranged stance as the Assault Marines will not be able to finish them off in melee (unless pathing issues allow them to catch up). This is particularly useful when chasing builders; with their generally weaker health, most races builders can be taken down with the Assault Marine Bolt pistol and even easier with a Sergeants Plasma Pistol. Chasing broken units is even harder as they gain a speed movement bonus; shooting stance allows you to inflict damage; after you move out of range you can use a jump to quickly overtake fleeing squads. If you have several Assault squads, make sure you tie up as many units as possible; sending two squads to melee the same unit is wasteful and will result in other ranged units being able to freely shoot your ASM; make sure each squad is tying up a separate opposing unit. Make sure you utilise your ASM jumps; wasting jumps can leave your squads with limited mobility in vulnerable situations, always try and save your jumps for optimum situations such as surprise attacks, quick retreat when low squad numbers, quick use of Melta bombs on lone targets or to overtake fleeing units.

This post has been edited by GW_Fingolfin: Sep 19 2007, 16:24 PM

Build Orders

There are several varieties of build when using Assault Marines; in most cases the Marine player’s tech speed will be reduced and the Assault Marines must be used effectively to compensate. Use them to gain map control as well as hinder your opponent’s tech speed as much as possible. Listed here are the standard Assault Marine build orders, together with execution and races to use them against.


Standard Build

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This build uses three Scout squads and two Assault Marines squads in tier one, followed by teching up to tier two. Build Order:

- HQ: Builder, Scout, Scout, Scout
- First Builder: Creates Barracks and shift que’s an Armory
- Second Builder: Helps build Barracks and Armory
- First two Scouts: Cap base points and then critical’s/relic’s
- Third Scout: either harass or cap outer points
- When Barracks and Armory are built que the first Assault Marine Squad
- When possible que the second Assault Marine Squad
- Harass and tech up to tier two.

The double Assault Marine build is the most commonly used, and relies mainly on the ASM as your T1 force, with Scout support. When starting, queuing both the Barracks and Armory first allows you to accumulate requisition afterwards for your Assault Marines. If using this build a Marine player has to harass strongly with the squads and take out the enemy capping u it’s to deny your opponent map control. Splitting the two squads to cover scout squads at different points of the map works fairly well and using the ASM’s jumps, you can easily cover the map. Try to not over reinforce the Assault Marines squads and keep them at roughly 5/6 members; if a Marine Player overwatches their squads their economy will be drained and tech speed severely diminished. When using this build make sure you utilize your scout squads as they will be useful for extra firepower and in tier two you can add Plasma to the squads.

Races to use against:

Imperial Guard – Can easily demoralize Guardsmen and negate the command squad, Scout squads can shoot the guardsmen and decap.
Tau – Risky but can counter Tau Commander and Vespids: don’t get trapped in the Tau base however as you will just chase the squads around while taking losses from LP2.


Assault Marine/Force Commander

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Not as widely used as it is fairly costly for a tier one strategy. This involves using an Assault Marine squad and Force Commander for your tier one force, with supporting scout squads and Plasma Pistol upgrade from Armory. Build Order:

- HQ: Builder, Scout, Scout (Third Optional)
- First Builder: Creates Barracks and shift que’s an Armory
- Second Builder: Creates generator and helps with Armory
- First two Scouts: Cap base points and then critical’s/relic’s
- If Third Scout: either harass or cap outer points
- When Barracks and Armory are built que the first Assault Marine Squad
- When possible que the Force Commander
- Research the Plasma Pistol upgrade from the Armory.
- Tech up to tier two.

The first Assault Marine squad should be used to harass and deny your opponents capping units free map control. Once the force commander is built use it to either engage larger T1 ranged squads in combat or on shooting stance with the Plasma pistol upgrade to take down smaller number squads. Building only two scout squads will enable you to put down a generator sooner and then subsequently get the Plasma pistol upgrade quicker, however it will limit you’re capping abilities and map control. If you go for three scout squads then you’re Force Commander and plasma pistol upgrade will arrive later. Progressing into tier two you should aim for the triple hero combination while keeping the Assault Marine squad alive to harass with Melta Bomb and Power sword upgrades or to tie up powerful ranged units.

Races to use against:

Eldar – Space Marines generally have a tough time against Eldar due to their detectors and lack of units to effectively deal with the Ranger/Reaper combo. Using the Assault Marine and Force commander combination works fairly well; the Plasma Pistol is vital however to inflict damage on Rangers and Reapers; the damage it does will quickly take down Reaper squads and due to their low numbers, the Eldar will have to retreat.


Triple Assault Marine build

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This is a very requisition heavy build and will slow down your tech speed greatly. This is best used in team games where your allies have smaller forces allowing them to tech up at a better speed while you go for a hard tier one Assault Marine mass to tie up any melee units. This build is basically the same as the first but adding an extra squad and teching slower. Build Order:

- HQ: Builder, Scout
- First Builder: Creates Barracks and shift que’s an Armory
- Second Builder: Helps build Barracks and Armory
- First Scout Squad: Caps strategic points
- When Barracks and Armory are built que the first Assault Marine Squad
- When possible que the second and third Assault Marine Squads

You have to use your Assault Marines to their full potential and harass from multiple points to keep your enemy forces split and chasing the squads. The Three squads themselves should deal with any infantry in tier one that your enemy has, however they will most likely out-tech you so harassment and eco bashing is vital to slow them down. Map Control will be easy with this build and you can use a single assault squad to hold the critical’s and relics for your Scout to take while the other two squads harass the enemy base. It is inadvisable to use this build in most 1on1 matchups, it can sometimes work against Eldar and Imperial Guard; the Three squads can tie up Reapers and Rangers and Guardsmen. However if the player has decent Micro they will most likely dance around LP2 while teching up. If this occurs then use your three Assault squads to keep map control and harass as much as possible.

This post has been edited by GW_Fingolfin: Sep 14 2007, 17:21 PM

Replays

	Fingolfin_vs_Sniper__Sm_vs_Chaos_on_BH_.rec
	Size: 306.3k
	Number of downloads: 330
	Player Name	Side	Team
	GW|Fingolfin		1
	SnIp3R|T		2

Space Marine vs Chaos: Good use of Assault Marines to harass the Chaos economy.

	Fingolfin_vs_Sniper__SM_vs_IG_on_SoE_.rec
	Size: 213.97k
	Number of downloads: 275
	Player Name	Side	Team
	GW|Fingolfin		1
	GW|SnIp3R		2

Space Marine vs IG: Use of Assault Marines against Guardsmen and Melta Bombs on LP's/Vehicles.

This post has been edited by GW_Fingolfin: Sep 16 2007, 09:47 AM