Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The Man, The Myth, The Marbo...


Guardsman Marbo has been a fast favorite of guard players the world over since his updated rules came out in 5th edition. He has been portrayed in pith helmets and kilts, Russian fur hats and Cadian standard gear. Marbo has even been seen on occasion masquerading as an Indian chief.

A quick google search will show you the many and varied ways that players have customized this character to their collections.

today I would like to discuss Marbo and 6th edition. As with any change in the rules we find ourselves scrambling to see how we must adapt our strategies and hoping that our favorite units have not been completely ruined and in this case I am happy to report that, in my humble opinion, Marbo has gotten even better!

His high WS, initiative and number of attacks mix nicely with the new challenge rules meaning that the loner guardsman might win some combats in 6th. only having to fight one on one is a huge boost for this guy.

His shooting attacks have gotten better as well with the wound allocation rules and his ability to show up behind the enemy to blast their models hidden in back ranks.

However, the real advantage that I have found is in the secondary objectives arena.
Line breaker is a secondary objective in most scenarios that I have read. Marbo makes an ideal line breaker as he can arrive anywhere he pleases and remain fairly safe with stealth and move thru cover. Often times your opponent will forget about the lone guardsman hiding behind that hill at the back of his deployment since he is just sitting and not posing a threat.
Even if they decide to gun for him, careful placement of Marbo can ensure that your opponent wastes resources and turns dealing with him instead of the fighting at hand.

and all this for 10pts more than a chimera... sounds like a deal to me.

4 comments:

  1. Good article - very informative. I've never really considered using special characters, but after looking through some of those great conversions, and seeing how useful he is, I might start a conversion. He seems like he's just a single model so is worthwhile for an enemy to divert a disproportionate amount of force to deal with him, but dangerous enough to cause havoc single-handed if they do ignore him.

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  2. I hadn't thought about Marbo's use to pick up the Linebreaker VP. Interesting!

    Since the 7th isn't a Catachan force, I did up an old-school imperial assassin as my stand-in Marbo (http://www.cold-moon.com/40k/Miniatures/Mordian7th/Marbo/MarboCountsAsPtd.JPG). His stat line and abilities seemed to be a natural fit as a member of a lesser-known Assassin Clade...

    I do enjoy seeing what other people have done as proxy Marbos, there's some really inventive stuff out there!

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  3. Great thinking, matey. That democharge of his is very tasty against vehicles now.

    I'm rather fond of my Marbo conversion, actually (if I do say so myself!) and as his original post was rather throwaway, I might just do a re-post...with some clearer photos too.

    Here's the original for your reference at least: http://admiraldrax.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/183-draxs-sly-marbo-variant.html

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  4. Duh... I usually just use him for demo-charging, hadn't considered the line-breaker aspect. Here's the afore-mentioned Marbo in a furry hat:

    http://pfchudson.blogspot.com/2011/03/sergei-marbov-painted.html

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