It depends on whether you bring your own Thunderbolts; As a rule of thumb, I'd say one Thunderbolt formation or one hunter per 1000 points in the list.

They're always upgrades to other formations; which formations to put them in is a matter of taste. I like to put one in a backfield formation (eg, Tactical with SupCom) and one in an advance formation (eg Predators or Devastators), to get good coverage over the table.



I think it's because they're slow and short-ranged compared to other Marine units, and the anti-inf role is well covered by basic Marines. They would shine in a cityfight, digging lightly armoured inf out of buildings, but in the default tournament terrain layouts I've seen, they don't really work.

Thanks, I hadn't found that one before. It's a good one.


ok cool, I have plenty of rhinos that I can spare 2 for hunter conversions. I'm thinking I just make a little turret out of sprue or something. Should be simple.


I suppose eventually I'll pick up some thunderbolts, but compared to simple rhino conversions into hunters, thunderbolts are way more expensive or harder to make.

Thanks for the basic advice on hunter placement. And makes sense on the Vindicators I guess. I mean, it makes sense that in more open battles, they are too slow and short range to be much use compared to a predator or whatever, and that they really shine in city battles or dense terrain. I mean, that's a good thing, that's what they're made for. If they were also awesome in open battles, it would probably mean they were OP.

One of the reasons I'm getting back into Epic and not 40k or whatever else is the tactical gameplay and the combined-arms maneuver warfare. I haven't seen too many other games that really do a good job of portraying that kind of combat.

Many formations become more effective when upgraded in some fashion, whether it be the use of characters, additional vehicles (especially Razorbacks) ground vehicles or air-transport. However, these upgrades can introduce certain drawbacks (usually in decreased mobility).

This is one reason why the Landing Craft is such an interesting "upgrade" to use, because it can drop Vindis and Landraiders into action, Whirlwinds into position for a 1st turn bombardment etc along with infantry and associated Dreads into position. As such it is so much better than the THawk which has more limited capacity and options, though with a corresponding price hike. Adding as Space Cruiser adds an extra dimension.

Bottom line for this as with most armies is that you have to build the army to support a given strategy, with appropriate strengths where needed. Doing this may well introduce intended weaknesses deliberately built into the list, which you must also consider when building the army.

The main reason that the Marines work well with some form of air capability is because this allows them to concentrate attacks on particular points playing to their strengths, although this can leave them open to counter-attacks.

If you look on Shapeways you can find various conversion bits for Rhinos, including Hunters, Razorbacks, Predators and Whirlwinds.
Razorbacks are quite a nice addition to a formation (only add one per formation) - they cheaply bump up the formation size, add a decent AT shot and a little more transport capability.

The E:A army lists usually limit transport vehicles to the minimum needed to carry the formation. A standard tactic is to try to pick off a transport to limit the speed of the formation. Adding an odd number of Razorbacks to the formation gives an empty transport spot which can help preserve transport capability. (The same is true for those lists which allow the Crusader variant of the Land Raider which can carry three infantry rather than the usual two).

Good to know that Razorbacks are so useful. I'll have to convert some or whatever. I did notice that awesome 4+ AT shot it has.

And yeah I was looking at exactly those things on Shapeways.


can definitely see that being useful