Bringing My Marine's List from 1500 to 1850

Ok first of all if you do not know my marines list you could either go back to my "Poor Man's" Article Series (since this is really a continuation on it kind of) but ill highlight the additions to the list in green to make it easier. So here is the list


1850 Point Imperial Fist Space Marines- Tournament List

HQ
1. Librarian- Plasma Pistol -115

Troops
1. Tactical Squad-+5 marines, Missile Launcher, melta gun - 175
2. Tactical Squad-+5 marines, Missile Launcher, plasma gun - 180

Elites
1. Terminators- heavy flamer- 205
2. Legion of the Damned x5- Plasma Cannon, flamer - 185
3. Dreadnought- TL Lascannon, Dread. Close combat/heavy flamer – 220 145

Dedicated Transports
1. Razorback--Twin-Linked Lascannon, Extra Armor -90
2. Land Raider Crusader- Extra Armor - 265
3. Rhino -35

Fast Attack
1. Bike Squad- melta gun , attack bike, multi melta, plasma gun- 155

Heavy Support
1. Thunderfire Cannon -100
2. Devastator Squad, x2 ML, x2 LC, +1 Marine -206

Total: 1849

Ok so if you want a reason why the heck I would ever run this in a tournament go back to my "Poor Mans" article series from back in August. I did win my first tournament with the 1500 point version of this list. So if you did not read it go back and read some of that stuff......

Alright so I basicly wanted to improve the "Anvil and Hammer" (Static and Strike) style to this list. So since Mech is king and the nature of 40k at the 1750+ level dishes out a lot of vehicles I thought the static was the thing I needed to improve the most. In England, as I am told, the thunderfire cannon is very popular. It basicly takes your army and makes it defensive in nature. Now I played this list with Lysander previously to get "Bolster Defenses" yet the addition of the cannon/techmarine gives me that anyway. To even further improve my shooting and defensive nature I also added the devastators. The mix of LC's and ML's cheapens it out but still gives it more firepower to take down tanks of all sizes. (Also just a note, if you shoot this unit at a raider why waste the Missile Launchers when you could just use frag shots and hope they scatter off to hit something else, it makes sense ...think about it...this is of course if you decide to not go for the glance on a 6...I have just been thinking about doing it sometimes but never tried when it could have helped) Now I would like a plasma cannon battery but it can be very expensive and mech is the real problem out there in the tournament scene these days. The only other improvement is the plasma gun on the bikes to give it that much more anti transport shooting.

Now giving bolster defenses to my tactical squads combat squaded into the corrosponding piece of terrain just makes the one or two objectives in it that much harder to get rid of. The dread unfortunatly will not get the added cover. If you included sniper scouts (which I do like to do occaisonally) and camo cloaks they get a 2+ save which is also awsome. Devastators take the highest position possible in the terrain to maximize line of sight. The cannon can be a lot of fun to use as well up in that piece of terrain.

Now please correct me if I am wrong but if you are allowed to stack bolster defenses (If you take multiple cannons are just Lysander/another techmarine) are you allowed to stack them on one piece of terrain to give you a 2+cover save? I participated in a campaign where you could get +1 to a piece of cover as an upgrade and could stack it with BD's.....It is just another thing to think about...

I would run this if I had the devastators and the cannon, which may not be hard to find. 1850 would be fun to play again sometime....Look tommorrow for an article on a doubles list I wrote.... More on all this later....