So, Space Marines And Light Tanks

[CipherShaw]

I'm new and have a few questions on this topic.

While screwing around with light tanks in the division designer, I realized you can make light tanks much cheaper than mechanized or armored cars (who would have thunk right?) and that gave me the idea of mixing these shit-tanks in with my infantry or cavalry.

So I googled some stuff on the subject and discovered the concept of space marines. Now, I'm not playing multiplayer yet, but I'd like to once I get a better grasp on the game, but I also don't want to be using divs that would get me banned in multiplayer games. That being said there seems to be some contention over what exactly counts as space marines, or if they are even worth it.

So my questions are as follows:
1. Does using light tanks in my infantry/cav divs count as space marines in all circumstance? Like, does it still count with wheeled, half-track, no TD role, no hypervelocity cannon, etc?
2. Would such a strategy even be worth it?

Specifically I'd like to combine this with mass assault in maybe a 44 cw div for some fat stat blocks. Essentially, the idea is to create divs that take very few IC losses

 

[Cavalry]

The medium tank with light turret can be cheap too, and better for the armor bonus. If you play a major in MP, then heavy tank with medium turret is affordable and best. I would use that in SP if not too poor, though use it with cavalry or MOT is still cheap if you are worry about space marine rule.

1 heavy tank/med + 7 MOT/CAV ! Note some components was cut to reduce cost for the tank. The armor bonus is great so cut elsewhere to have it.

 

[The Colonel]

1. "Space marines" usually refers to any mix of tanks with something that isn't motorized or mechanized nowadays. Originally it tended to specifically refer to mixing just a battalion or two of usually heavy tanks into infantry divisions to make them armored and thus receive less damage while doing extra org damage at a cheap price. It's always been primarily more an SP strat that's good against the AI than an MP thing, altho many MP lobbies still ban it (or limit it, i.e. require a minimum number of tank battalions per division, as the real point is to get an outsized bang for your buck in a large number of divisions rather than make especially high quality ones).
2. Depends. It's been nerfed in SP since back in the day you could pretty easily use just light tank recon and be unpierced by almost all AI divs early game. They nerfed the armor contribution of LT recon a while ago though. You can still do it with heavy flame tanks, but that's more of an investment, and they should still get pierced by divs with like 1940 techs. The main appeal of it (in theory) is that you nearly double the effectiveness of all your inf divs, but if you start getting to the point where you are doubling the cost to do so (while also now needing a ton of fuel for your army) then it becomes dubiously useful... personally I think it's more fun to play with normal infantry and focusing on some more powerful breakthrough divisions.