Every army has at least one Deathstar unit. The humble Space Marines actually have a couple of options, albeit of very
similar makeup. "What is a Deathstar unit?" you ask. Quite simply, a Deathstar unit is a high points cost unit that can
deal out a tremendous amount of damage to the enemy, but ultimately will hurt your army very badly if destroyed.
Deathstar 1: Lysander & Crew
Darnath Lysander is a beast in combat. With Eternal
Warrior, you're going to have to hit him again and again
before you bring him down. When you throw him into a unit of
terminators with storm shields, then your enemy has to determine
just which part of that threat he wants to take out first: the four
wound model with S10 hits, or the four individual terminators...
while getting smacked around with S10 hits. As Lysander makes them
stubborn, they will not suffer negative modifiers to their
leadership rolls even if they lose the combat, which means they're going
to stick around for a very long time. The only problem
with this unit is that it is very, very slow. To fix that problem you
also need to throw in a librarian with a storm shield and
the Gate of Infinity psychic power. The added threat of a force weapon
going at initiative and the ability to deep strike all over
the board makes this a unit the enemy just can't avoid.
Deathstar 2: Marneus Calgar & Crew
Marneus Calgar is a beast, and he is incredibly
expensive to boot. As an Eternal Warrior, like Lysander, you once
again are going to have a guy in the mix that the enemy will have to
decide whether to go after individually, or else take out the
single terminator models around him. Calgar is only S8 (with his
fists), but he has more attacks and also has the option to use
a power weapon against a foe that is going to hurt your terminator
escorts. And once again, since this is a slow unit, throwing
in a librarian with GOI is a must if you want to get this unit around
the board quickly. Alternatively, you can also use Calgar
as a forward element and allow the terminators to jump in with him at a
later time with his teleport beacon. Either way, once
they get together, this is a unit that will not break -- unless you want
it to due to Calgar's special rule -- and has a LOT of
heavy S8 power to throw around.
Deathstar 3: Kantor & Vanguard
Vanguard squads are cool. You can equip them with all
kinds of nasty weapons, all of which can have a nasty
sting. You can give them storm shields and power weapons, or power
fists, or thunder hammers. Alternatively, you can give them
plasma pistols and let them keep their standard chainswords to make them
the ultimate counter-attack unit. With base 2 attacks,
before you give them any equipment, you can easily give a unit of 10 men
30 attacks standing still, or 40 on the charge. Want
to make it even more sick? When you throw in Pedro Kantor, they all get
an additional attack with his special rule,
allowing this squad an unholy 50 smacks on the charge. Regardless of
whether you give them power weapons, or just let them keep
their chainswords, that is going to hurt a LOT of enemy units. Throw in
Kantor's own invulnerable save and power fist attacks, and
even the chainsword crew can take out just about anything you face.
Like the squads above, this unit is even nastier if you
elect to throw a librarian into the mix. They can all fit into a
landraider, or you can drop a couple and put them in a rhino.
Or you can use GOI and the librarian to get them around. With a few
well placed teleport homers early on in the game (drop pods,
perhaps?), this unit can be exactly where you need it at a moment's
notice. While it's always nice to have a storm shield on
your librarian, you can opt for a cheaper version and Might of Ancients
to give this squad a little extra punch. The only real
downside to this unit is that without storm shields, they are incredibly
fragile. Further, they can also get extremely
expensive VERY quickly. Consider that a terminator with storm shield
and thunder hammer is 40 points - each with 2 attacks. That
same loadout, with a vanguard marine is 75 points! Now, he'll also have
a jump pack at that cost, but WOW is that expensive --
especially when you consider that he'll only ever get a 3++ save while
the terminator has a natural 2+ with his armor. That's a
bummer, but this really is an incredibly nasty unit nonetheless. As an
alternate to the librarian, you can maximize this unit's
initial 50 attacks with a humble chaplain. His ability to re-roll
misses on the charge is an awesome way to make every hit
count.
Deathstar 4: Kantor & Honor Guard
If Vanguard are nasty, then honor guard are just plain obscene. Every man in the unit can have a relic blade
and auxiliary grenade launcher, which means they can hit you hard (in
addition to their bolter and bolt pistol shots) all the
way to the point they start dishing out S6 power weapon hits. Every man
in the unit has a base 2 attack if you keep the relic
blade, or base three if you use the power weapons they are purchased
with. Like the vanguard, that's 50 power weapon hits on the
charge (or 40 S6 power weapon hits if you use relic blades). That's a
LOT of nasty smacking. Artificer armor means that they have
the same ability to shrug off hits as a terminator, but they do not have an invulnerable save, and they can't purchase
one either. That inability to have an invulnerable save means that they
will probably not last very long against the enemy death star,
even though they'll chew through basic units. They do have longer reach
than the vanguard with their launchers and bolters, but
area also slow since they can't take jump packs. They'll need a
transport, or yet another librarian in order to give them the ability
to move around the board.
Deathstar 5: Lysander & Command Squad
We know Lysander is nasty, but the command squad is
another nasty option to use with him. Like a vanguard squad,
every man in this unit can take a storm shield and any close combat
weapon except a relic blade... except the apothecary. But the
apothecary does give the unit Feel No Pain, which is nothing to
sneeze at. Further, you can also throw in just about any
comb-weapon or special weapon you want as well. In a way, this unit
really bridges the gap between Vanguard and Sternguard by
giving them the ability to tap into either squad... or both squads at
the same time. That is not the best way to maximize their
fighting or shooting ability, but the option is there, I guess. The
downside to this unit, besides an apothecary that can't seem
to field anything other than his basic equipment, is that they are both
expensive and you can only take five of them. The size of
this squad means that it will not last over the long haul. Like all the
other units, this squad can benefit from a librarian like
most of the others, although they do have a more mobile option that I'll
discuss below.
Deathstar 6: Kor'sarro Khan & Command Squad
As a captain, Khan can take a command squad. And
command squads can take bikes. That means you can have a
nasty six man unit running around the board, with storm shields, power
weapons, T4(5), Feel No Pain, and the ability to Hit & Run,
Turbo Boost, and hit with Furious Charge. This is an extremely fast
unit that has the ability to deal out some serious damage...
albeit with only five men. Although a little light as far as
Deathstar units go, the cost is still pretty high, and it
can be pretty scary to face. Although Khan's ability to deal out an
insta-kill hit with his power weapon is a little suspect, on
the charge (which Hit & Run allows him to do often) his S5 smacks should be able to harm non-monstrous creatures
fairly easily almost every time.
Conclusion
As a jack-of-all-trades army, the Space Marines can build some pretty effective Deathstar units in some fairly
creative ways. No Deathstar is foolproof, but any of these units can be fun to run every now and then. Some are definitely
more fragile than others, but all of them have fangs.
