Tactics:Centurions - Why You Should Think Twice
After reading multiple posts about the new Space Marines and giving the book a good look-over, I feel that it's time to make a post about it. This post will be about my thoughts on the new Centurions, which have been receiving mixed reviews (at least from what I've seen). I have created a few different scenarios and units as examples.
Points Cost
First off, lets take a look at the points for the Centurion Devastators. A three man unit of Centurions with TL heavy bolters and hurricane bolters is 190 points. The same three models equipped with TL lascannons and missile launchers is 270 points. Lastly, three with Grav-cannons/amps and hurricane bolters is 240 points. Let's compare these points costs to the prices of other units that do the same job.
Space Marine Devastators
Not really a huge surprise here, the closest thing to Centurion Devastators are normal Devastators. They can work as a substitute for Centurions very well. Five Devastators with 4 heavy bolters and a sergeant add up to 110 points. When compared to the 190 points from the Centurions, this can be very intriguing. Now it's really up to the list builder to see where he/she wants to go from here. If you only need a few heavy bolters, but really want them to survive, you could add some basic bolter marines to the squad. Ten Devastators with 4 heavy bolters and a sergeant adds up to 180 points. At this point, it is almost a perfect trade off. Instead of 3 TL heavy bolters, you get 4 normal heavy bolters. Instead of 3 hurricane bolters, you get 6 bolters (give the dev sergeant a bolter). Instead of six 2+ save wounds, you have ten 3+ save wounds. See what I'm getting at?
The same case applies to the lascannon Centurions. Five Devastators equipped with 4 lascannons and a sergeant adds up to 150 points. This is a good deal, but the Centurions are still getting more firepower with their missile launchers (assuming you want them). However, what you could do is add another Devastator squad with 4 missile launchers and a sergeant for 130 points. This adds up to 280 points in total, which is 10 more than the Centurions equipped with similar weapons. The added benefits from normal marines are that you have more bodies on the field, so S10 doesn't affect you. Not to mention each squad has a signum, so the extra missile launcher and lascannon you are benefiting from can have BS 5. Lastly, the seperate devastator squads can fire at different targets, allowing for much more damage output.
Space Marine Bikers
You're probably wondering what Space Marine Bikers have to do with Centurions. Well, since nothing else in the book can take grav-cannons, bikers are the best comparison to Centurions with the grav loadout (aside from maybe Sternguard). A squad of 6-bikers with 2 grav-guns is 156 points. This means that this squad can fire out 6 grav-shots a turn at 30" range (move + shoot). Although the Centurions can fire 15 shots at 30" range, you have to keep in mind that it is harder to get in position with Centurions because they can't run in the shooting phase. The bikers could move 24" on turn 1 to get into position, while the Centurions can only move 6". So although you are getting less shots, you are getting to shoot more often. It is important to remember how cheap these guys are points wise, and that you could easily take multiple squads in a White Scars army. Also, they are arguably just as (if not more) survivable than the Centurions because even though their armor save is worse, they have a 5+ cover save just for moving (4+ if White Scars).
Assault Centurions
Assault Centurion's still confuse me a bit when I read their stateline. Sure, they have S9 AP2 armourbane weapons, but when are they going to get in a favorable combat? Personally, I think they won't unless your opponent makes a mistake. Their slow movement and low base attacks leaves them open to a blob of termaguants or orks to just tarpit them for the whole game. The only real way to use them is to throw them in a land raider and charge up the board. But at this point, you're putting an arm and a leg into a game plan that can be thwarted by a single bright lance. Overall, not a huge fan of these guys.
Conclusion and Comments
Overall, if you're looking at getting Centurions, I would personally recommend the Devastator version. Just remember that they need support from the rest of your army. They can definitely work provided that you have a strong anti-troop backbone in your force. You essentially want to clear a path of any threats so the big boys can walk in and kill that pesky Riptide or Wraithknight. The main reason I made this post was because I have seen multiple people complaining that the Centurions look horrible, but they perform so well in-game that they feel inclined to buy them. Regardless as to how you think they look, this is simply not the case.
As you guys may have noticed this is actually my first blog post. I'm hoping to start adding more posts soon. If you have any feedback or have an opinion on what I discussed above feel free to leave a comment, I'll get around to replying to them as soon as I can. I'm hoping to upload some painting showcases/tutorials soon, but I need to get a good camera setup. Thanks for Reading!
