Our playgroup has found great success with mass Scout armies accompanied with a Warlord Titan.

They use this common base:

- 8 Scout Detachments, 2 with a Captain.
- 1 Warlord Titan
- 1 Thunderbolt Squadron

2300 pts.

Then there are variations, but I have lately gone with:

- 2 Vindicator detachments, both with a Hunter
- 4 Razorback upgrades

Another successful spin has been:

- 1 Devastator with Hunter and razorback
- 1 Terminators

and, tbh anything you want, as long as there are at least 12 activations.

The deployment is very versatile, as 8 activations can be deployed as garrison and the Warlord can be screened.

It plays out by activating scouts all along turn 1, for optimal positions to execute 2-3 (combined) assaults on turn 2, while usually doubling with the Warlord. The scouts can alternatively just activate and place a BM if the enemy formations are too tough to assault (8 BMs breaks a lot of things).

If the opponent focuses the scouts, he has to shoot tons to actually hurt more than 3 formations, due to the ATSKNF, cover and base save. If he focuses the Warlord, Regroup is your friend.

All of that is relatively harmless ( ), except the army is remarkably able to recover from breaking due to high Marine initiative, and usually gets into position to contest/control all the objectives in the map. Combined with the Warlord breaking 1 formation/turn (most of the time) and sometimes even supporting scout assaults, and being a very hard BTS, it has proven a very effective army.

This list configuration has proven remarkably successful in different hands, winning 7 out 9 games to date, which is not our usual statistics with marines. It has definitely affected our local metagame.

It also is remarkably resilient to counters, due to the fact that scouts and the Warlord require vastly different solutions to handle.

We have not tried it at 2k points with a Reaver, but it might be even more effective.

If anything, this has confirmed to us the potency of SM scouts, which are pretty much eclipsing the need for other SM units.

Any thoughts on this are welcome, especially if you can find easy counters .

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At first the force looks a bit strange, but got to say it would be a lot more fun to play against then the standard boring Marine drop force.

Ah , "pop-corn" armies
(that are designed to out-activate an opponent and exploit the activation disparity)

Well, my initial thought is that I think that Pop-corn armies are more effective at smaller points values (perhaps from 1500 to 2500), than they are at higher values. This is because in my experience too many 'cheap' formations get in each others way, and actually become easier for the opponent to pick off. To be fair, I have been doing this mainly with Eldar which are more brittle than SM. So, have you tried this at 3K or higher, where you need 15+ activations and a means to maintain a lead of at least 3 activations?

The point is that at higher list values, people take more upgrades which makes their formations more resilient and more potent. And there will be more armoured formations that the scouts will not be able to handle by themselves, and too many for the Warlord.

That said, SM scouts are good, and having an army that majors on them means that you have to come up with more effective tactics for their use. So, what tactics do you use?

Hmmm... Interesting

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Well, I briefly mentioned a couple above, and it deserves to be specified that the captains are used to effect combined assaults with 2-3 Scout detachments on turn 2. Such an assault combined formation, with infiltrate and Rhinos taking first hits, can win assaults vs. many different formations, except the toughest, which are either avoided or "Warlorded" in some way.

The big difference between Eldar pop-corns and SM pop-corns is the ability for SM to recover from breaking point so much easier with the 1+ initiative. We have found that very difficulty to handle.

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First thing that jumps to mind is for your chaos player to take lots of Defilers as these should have great fun working their way through the scout screen.

Unless taking a force which can handle the Warlord, I'd leave it alone and concentrate on the other formations.

Eldar should be looking to catch several formations in rolling engagements.

Ork player should be rubbing his hands and getting the skorchas out along with gunwagons with the odd Oddboy.

Tyranid player again should be looking forward to getting his forces forward into combat.

Guard player I would expect to be having a go at the Warlord.

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Thank you very much for your advice.



That's a great idea. I am looking forward to trying it





That has actually been very difficult to achieve effectively. In effect, Eldar forces manages to rout a lot of the SM army, but exposes itself while doing so, and the SM mobility allows it to counter-attack effectively, resulting in similar amounts of damage to both armies at the end of turn 2.

However, SM recovers much better due to higher initiative, and Eldar struggles in the race for objectives in turn 3. Do you have a list in mind for Eldar?



Orks are indeed better suited than many to handle the scout swarm. A standard ork roster here starts usually like this:

- 3 Big Blitz Brigades, with 2 Oddobyz each and supa-ZZaps
- 2 Big Kults of Speed, with 12 Skorchas and 4 Buggies each

The 2 losses of the list actually have come against orks.



Can't speak here. We unfortunately dont play much Tyranids these days.



IG has suffered dearly for the moment. Defensive setups tend to fail and Infiltrating scouts are a big problem for CC-less IG. You have a list in mind?

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playing guard against that list would be interesting, I think deathstrikes (if taken incidentally) would be a very handy asset to have, especially if you had vultures or russes to strip shields at range

I usually take a few shadowswords so I'd definitely have a go at killing the titan if possible, or certainly trying to limit the opponent in his moves and keeping it out of the game as much as I could

the lots and lots of scouts would be a pain for a guard player, but then if it takes 3 formations to break a mechanised company or similar, you're going to give up the activation advantage quite quickly

it's not a weak list though, I'd certainly enjoy facing it

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Yeah it's not an invincible army and not gamey in any way. I think it would be a hoot to try out. Thanks for posting, it's going to be fun to try out (might use a variation to do this with the Raptors)


I agree with Kyuss that I see lots of vultures and death strikes as a guard counter. Wondor how a DKoK swarm might work with this?

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I agree with Kyussinchains here. Vultures to strip shields, Super Heavy Tank Company (3x Shadowswords) & Deathstrikes to finish any Large Titan off. It was always a main stay of my early SL armies.

You then have 2000pts to hit the rest of the army with. I'd look at Reg HQ, Mech Comp. Rough Riders, Hydras, Sentinels & Thunderbolts in a combination to suit your style of play.

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Generally if I take deathstrikes I try to fit vultures in somewhere!

I think a mech guardian + warlock titan list may give you a few problems as it's essentially doing what you do, and presents similar problems for an opponent, but th warlock has to get close to the warlord without being blasted first so it's not a sure thing!

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Rough riders would be a challenge for SM scouts. And placing the IG infantry in cover and within supporting distance of other IG formations will certainly make them much tougher, possibly even able to resist three combined scout formations. And, TBolts really *love* broken formations to death (with extreme prejudice ).

Well 160 scouts is more than any chapter can muster.

If the list plays better with scouts as both shooters and assaulters than other Space marines, isn't that a bit gamey?

Regarding RR, Scouts do have an FF score...

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Anyways just because the stand leverages the Scout stat line doesn't mean that every marine in the stand is a scout or a member of the 10th company in a codex chapter. They could be representing lightweight recon forces forgoing heavy weapons and heavier equipment, special ops guys, etc. Hell each stand doesn't even mean there's actually 5 marines there. Just the generalized representation of a squad with a high level tactical ability, whatever that means in reality.

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Umm, I think this matches IG infantry at 5+, while the scouts are far superior at CC (4+ vs 6+).

However getting the scouts into position could be messy, and assaults are made even more problematic if the IG start the combat on OW (by resisting the temptation to shoot the scouts in round #1)