Killhammer Strategy: Using Tactial Squads

[Gornall]

I might've missed it, but it appears you guys haven't mentioned kill points yet.

 

While having multiple 5 men squads with razorbacks might be great in certain situations, it also means enlarging the number of easy killpoints in your army. A razorback is, after all, only armor 11, and 5 tac marines die much faster then 10.

 

This puts you at a huge disadvantage against shooty armies such as IG, Tau, even other marines, etc. because these armies have lots of firepower they can direct at your armor 11 transports. Even with a 4+ cover save, your razorbacks are still an easy target, which means you're unlikely to be able to catch up on kill points even if your opponent doesn't pay much attention to your killy units.

 

Now, I don't know about you guys, but when I make my lists I try to have at least 3 big, durable scoring units. So if instead of 10 men tac squads I took 5 men tac squads with razorbacks, that'd send me to 6 5 men squads (6 easy kill points) + at least 3 RBs for them. That's 9 free-for-the-taking KPs. Also, 3 of your 5 men squads will footslog, thus limiting their efficiency.

 

Also, there's the point value. A 10 men tac squad with a free flamer and a free heavy weapon and a rhino is 205 pts. A 5 men tac squad with a razorback is 130 points, making two such squads 260 points, with no special weapons apart from the two tl heavy bolters. Though the tl heavy bolters are surely awesome against infantry, they have absolutely no anti-vehicle efficiency. What's more, I'm not exactly sure a tl heavy bolter can make up for the loss of a free flamer in your tac squad. Being the kind of guy who often fights genestealers, I sort of learned to appreciate my cover-ignoring flamers.

 

Finally, a problem with a razorback is, if you need it to get somewhere fast (ie. to move more then 6"), you can't shoot the heavy bolter, hence your tac squad inside loses its only heavy weapon. :/

 

EDIT: forgot to mention;

Having 5 men tac squads also means no cool stuff like plasma cannons, meltaguns etc. I believe this goes a long way towards lessening the overall efficiency of tac squads.

 

/concur

 

Giga said what I've been thinking much clearer than I could have possibly done. I have almost no complaints against Combat Squadding in general. I do agree with Warp Angel in that they become more squishy simply because your opponent can focus his fire on the half he fears most (the Sarg with PW/PF or the fire support team with Plasma Cannon (Probably the best 5 points I spend in my army lists)) and can force leadership/pinning checks much easier. However, in some games that is less of a concern than overkill (outflanking Genestealers or 30 man Ork charges), so in that case, Combat Squadding makes sense. Having the option to choose every game whether to run as 5 men squads or 10 man squads is too important to me. That's why I disagree with buying basic 5 man squads with Razorbacks rather than a 10 man squad with a Razorback (or Rhino). I feel it limits my options, puts out way too many kill points, and prevents me from getting free (or cheap) upgrades such as flamers, MLs, and PCs.

 

That's why I run a 10 man with a PF, Flamer, ML, and Rhino along with a 10 man with Flamer, PC, and Razorback. They give me options. I can keep the Rhino/PF squad together and go hunt tanks with a PF, perform drive-bys, dump out 10 guys within RF range of a unit that needs to die, or sit on an objective popping ML shots out of the top hatch. That or they can split up to pursue different goals/reduce overkill. My Razorback squad can stay together on an objective absorbing fire while the Razorback/PC dish out hurt, or they can split up and the Razorback can take the flamer squad to support my assault elements (possibly including the Rhino) or can go claim a cleared objective. With the 10 man squads I can look at what each individual opponent is bringing to the table and task my Tacticals to fill in any needs that could use more coverage, whether it's anti-tank, firebase, reckless assault, or even 5-man speedbumps. If you ask any of my opponents, they'll tell you that they don't know what I'm going to do with my Tacticals until the game is well underway. That extra flexibility and degree of unpredictability suits my playstyle, but once again YMMV.

[Resv]

How do you play chess? It is a game of movement, defence, offence, sacrifice, traps and deception. Chess is only a game of attrition if you are of equal skill, if you play someone of greater skill they will out maneuver you, out think you and win without taking many losses. You do know you can win a game in 4 moves, Fools mate, the 40k equivelent of a top tournie player playing a 12yr old new to the hobby. Sorry, I love playing chess, i like 40k aswell, but see chess as a superior game.

 

Chess is fun sure, but no matter how much you move and plot, it comes down to taking your opponents pieces. Go is the greatest game that has ever been played on the planet, next to cricket and rugby of course.

 

I base my 40k game off of Go, never chess.

 

Rage, I feel a little off put here. It seems like I write what seems to be well found thoughts. I don't want to get in a "Who has a bigger Chainsword" fight. My points still stand.

 

A 5 man unit suffers wounds with far more impact to its effectiveness than a 10 man unit.

 

You assume that you opponent will not try and stop you, with other parts of his force, so while you focused on trying to blow apart the razorbacks and then the tacs inside, I'll be focusing on tearing the guts out of your army. You're alsio assuming I'm going to chuck my tacs at your lines making it easy...what happens if i hang back 36"? That wouldn't be a little effort to get to them through the rest of my forces.

 

*Koff* I assume nothing. This is a war, they should try to stop me as well as they can. I see a soft spot, I plan my to use my army to attack and destroy your valuable low survivability assets. They are welcome to do so! I bet I can still get to your troops with out too much effort with my standard heavy weapons.

 

I've read it, your first objective is not to get killed so you can grab those objectives. There is absolutely no way you can ignore a LRR with killy stuff hurtling towards you, especially if the softer targets are behind it. If you do that the LRR and termies will tear through you. You can only ignore dangerous stuff if it is low on mobility and you can avoid it, a LR can get the Termies to something over 18" away...that is diameter that you have to stay out of to be able to avoid it. Your opponent is not going to let you avoid whatever you feel like.

 

In Killhammer the goal is to asses your opponents forces to best attempt creating a Kill Gap or rendering your opponents ability to achieve their objectives ineffectual.

 

What about my Land Raider filled with Terminators? How will you deal with that? Your welcome to use anything in the Codex, but on a purely hypothetical argument why can't I have one too?

 

It has a higher risk of losing a special or sarg, yes. When you say greater hit, if you lose a bolter marine as a percentage no it doesn't. Most of your killing is coming from the special weapon and PF/PW not the red shirts that happily catch the bullets. The point is you can't take each 5 man unit in isolation they are part of a team.

 

They represent TWO different units as you have said before. I can shoot one with my tactical units and I can shoot the other with my heavy anti-infantry units. I can take both units without too much trouble. I only need to do two or three wounds to each to render them both ineffectual. I say again, not 4-6 wounds to one unit, no. In one shooting phase I need to shoot two different units and score 2 or 3 wounds to make a significant impact on their effectiveness. That isn't that hard. I don't need to overkill anything. I don't need to bring to bare a huge volume of fire to accomplish this.

 

Before you quote this out of turn, again, you can put your 5 man units in Land Raiders if you want. You can decided never to ever let them out of their protective cases of solid stone carved by master masons. My point still stands.

 

A 5 man unit suffers wounds with a greater impact to their effectiveness.

 

2 x 5 men in RB's is about the same cost as a 10 man unit in a rhino, so you have 2 tanks that need to be shot down.

 

Can you do the math on this for me? Really quick. I just want to check my figures against yours.

 

I would address your two 5 man units the EXACT same way I would deal with 10-12-16-20 man units. Nothing more, nothing less. I could kill them quickly or render them harmless and then move on. Spending time dealing with them and preventing them from taking an objective or getting two Kill Points seems logical to me.

 

Your arguments, concepts, and examples seem to hinge on your opponent not taking the opportunity to devote forces to dealing with your troops. Having a Land Raider rolling up the middle of the field doesn't mean that your Half Strength troop units are any less of a valid target. The are a very valid target because they are your scoring units and also easy kill points.

[Giga]

2 x 5 men in RB's is about the same cost as a 10 man unit in a rhino, so you have 2 tanks that need to be shot down.

2x 5 men in RBs = 260 points

1x 10 men in rhino = 205 pts

 

The 5 guys got only bolters and perhaps a chainsword sarge.

 

The 10 guys get a free heavy weapon + a free flamer.

 

The 5 men squads got two twinlinked bolters on their RBs. These can be destroyed with weapon-destroyed or a second immobilization result.

 

The 5 in RBs cost 55 points more then the 10 guys in rhino.

 

The 5 guys in RBs are 4 easy KP. 10 guys in rhino are 2 KP, one medium-to-hard depending on your opponent, the other easy.

 

 

 

Now try to multiply this. 4 squads of 5 guys in RBs cost 520 pts = 8 easy KP. 2 squads of 10 guys in rhinos cost 410 pts - 4 KP.

 

The more I think about 5 men squads in RBs, the less I like it. :/

[Terminus]

@ Terminus

 

On the subject of transports:

 

I field two tactical squads as the core of my army. One has a rhino, one has a razorback.

 

I've found that the full squad jumping out of a rhino has a greater punch than one squad jumping out of a razorback. And that razorback for the second tactical squad is almost always within support fire distance and LOS to help the tacticals should they need it.

 

19 bolt gun shots (8 bolt guns, one pistol, one storm bolter) = just more 6 wounds to allocate.

Add in a melta gun and you make it over 7 average.

Add in a Razorback and it's about 9.

 

8 bolt gun shots (4 bolt guns, one melta gun) = just over 3 wounds to allocate

Double that

Razorback x2 = just about 3 wounds to allocate, and your total is a bit over 9, but not much.

 

Firepower is just about a wash.

 

I don't LOSE the benefit of the Razorback just because it's not driving 5 marines around. I can use an EMPTY razorback to screen my Rhino, and still use both to protect 10 marines moving across the battlefield.

While your numbers are mostly correct, simply counting the number of wounds inflicted vs. toughness 4 without considering the quality of the weapons is disingenuous. I don't think you're intentionally fudging the numbers, but that's what it amounts to, and it only serves to weaken your position. You just implored us to keep this at the level of civil discussion, so there's no need to resort to statistical chicanery to win an imaginary argument.

 

Now, let's look at the actual numbers, keeping to three significant digits.

 

In the red corner we have a 10-man squad with a melta-gun, a heavy weapon (irrelevant since it's not used in this scenario), riding in a rhino with a stormbolter, and supported by a razorback with a TLHB.

 

In the challenger corner, we have two 5-man combat squads with melta-guns, both riding in razorbacks with TLHB.

 

Both configurations share 8 boltguns, 1 meltagun, and 1 TLHB:

8 rapid-firing boltguns vs. T4 cause 5.34 wounds before saves.

1 meltagun vs. T4 causes another 0.556 wounds.

1 TLHB vs. T4 causes an additional 1.78 wounds.

 

So far, both configurations have caused 7.68 wounds. Where they diverge, I trade 1 bolt pistol and a stormbolter for a second meltagun and a second TLHB.

 

The three bolter shots will cause exactly 1 wound before saves. So your configuration causes a total of 8.68 wounds. The second meltagun and TLHB of my configuration cause an additional 2.34 wounds, for a total of 10.

 

1.32 wounds is not a huge difference, but certainly more than your suggested "one is about nine, and the other is a bit above nine but not much".

 

Now let's consider the weapons fully. The second meltagun gives you an additional shot that insta-kills T4 models, can actually do something to a Wraithlord or Carnifex, rolls 8+2d6 for armor penetration, and ignores personal armor and feel no pain entirely. Against anything better than T3 Sv5+, the meltagun alone has equal or better damage output than three bolter shots. Against vanilla Marines, it causes 0.556 wounds vs. the three bolter shots' .33 wounds. It continues to deal the same amount of wounds vs. T5 or T6 or terminator armor, or feel no pain, while the bolter shots get progressively worse. At the most extreme example, shooting at Nurgle Terminators, the meltagun is 10 times more likely to cause a wound than all three bolter shots. And this is all before you fire the TLHB, which scythes through firewarriors, scouts, various Eldar aspect warriors, IG grenadiers, extended carapace Tyranid warriors and genestealers, etc. etc. Any damage the heavy bolter inflicts only further widens the gap between the two configurations.

 

Moving on, let's add combi-meltas to the Sgts. Suddenly I'm shooting 4 meltaguns to your 2. The gap widens some more.

 

Then let's swap all those melta guns for flamers, which is my preferred weapon for tac squads. With 2 templates vs. 1, or 4 vs. 2, the gap gets wider still. (For fun, since we both favor THSS terminator squads, I could throw Vulkan in here, too, but let's keep special characters out of this).

 

And since we're both talking about two squads, let's include the rest of the marines in the equation. So you have your 10-man fire support squad (say, plasmagun + missile launcher?), while I have two 5-man combat squads (with two missile launchers, or in fact, if we want our points totals to be the same, I can upgrade one to a plasma cannon). The 8 boltguns and 1 missile launcher are a wash, but what will cause more damage, a plasmagun or a missile launcher/plasma cannon?

 

When you consider the quality of the weapons, I don't know how you can claim with a straight face that the difference in firepower is negligible.

 

Then there is the flexibility of having all the weapons separated, because it lets me deal with twice as many targets. If the missile launcher misses, or fails to do sufficient damage, I can try again, whereas you have to hope for the weaker plasmagun to do the job. If the missile launcher hits and kills/disables, the other one can target something else. Likewise for the fire squads, if 3 boltguns, 2 flamers, and a TLHB wipe out a unit, the other combat squad can target something else.

 

It would appear that after long analysis, the choices we make are between a _slightly_ higher offensive potential, and somewhat greater flexibility (your choice), I've gone for the durability route. Against my opponents, going into 5 man squads is asking to die horribly and never getting a chance to play maneuver and firepower games.

How do you define "slightly"? Because depending on how optimal the target is, my configuration can deal 50% more wounds or more. I'm not going to do breakdowns for every possible target, but if you want any specific examples, let me know and I can crunch the numbers.

 

So our choices are between a significantly higher offensive potential and more flexibility in applying it vs. durability. And given how we use our respective squads, that's fine. You use yours as the core of your army, to tarpit enemy units, or the occasional late game assault. I use my squads for one thing, and one thing only, and that's clearing enemy troops off of objectives. They come as a second, or even third wave, once enemy specialists are thinned out, engaged, or otherwise dealt with. I don't feel I'm losing much by holding them back, because I still have two TLHBs and two other heavy weapons to fire every turn.

 

But your point about the much reduced durability of a 5-man squad is well taken, and I think it has finally convince me to drop those power fists. I certainly didn't mean to imply that I always, absolutely no matter what, split my tacs into combat squads. In kill point missions, I still have the option of fielding all 10 together and simply using the Razorback for dakka.

 

It's obvious that our target priorities are different... I don't send power fists at dreadnaughts, I send melta guns and save the power fists for tanks and infantry. Of course, if my opponents were spamming dreadnaughts at me instead of sending them in onesies and twosies, I might feel differently... but that's exactly what I've got TH/SS termies for.

I actually don't send powerfists at dreadnaughts either. That particular kill happened because they assaulted me, failed to kill all 5, and got power bitch slapped in return.

 

You say that you deploy your combat squad firebases in cover... a lot of local games, I don't have that option, or doing so will get them eaten by outflanking units that will assault them or otherwise ignore cover. As the Guard players field more and more of their AP3, ignore cover template artillery pieces, combat squadding to maintain a firebase becomes less practical. I think that your tactics are going to need to change just based on that... pure conjecture on my part.

We have beautiful tables at my local LGSs, including (but not limited to) two huge cities made up of several city blocks, a factory full of various pipes and cisterns (looks very much like the factory they used for the showdown in Enemy at the Gates), and a desert canyon. Lots of places to hide, which is why I :D me some flamethrowers.

 

As for outflanking it really depends on what shows up. If it's something like Chaos Chosen with meltas/plasmas, that's one dead combat squad (RIP missile launcher), whereas a full squad would just lose 5-6 bolters. Then again, if it's something like Genestealers, or those pesky Striking Scorpions, we're back to the advantage of being able to lose a combat squad but retaliate with shooting, rather than lose most of a full squad, be unable to shoot and be finished off on my turn, and then have something else assaulted.

 

Ordnance is also a mixed bag. If it's a direct hit, it will kill as many Marines as they can fit under the template, which will probably be most of the squad and certainly more than 5 models. And yes, while a scattering ordnance template could land on the other combat squad, it has to scatter in that general direction, that specific distance (5-man squads make smaller targets). If the scatter distance is small, the 10-man squad is far more likely to be clipped than the 5-man squad. Then again, the combat squads test for pinning at Ld8 rather than Ld9. It's a wash.

 

I'm sure I'll have to adjust my tactics eventually in any case, because it's only a matter of time before they get tired of losing to me, and start tailoring their lists to pwn me. :(

 

 

edit: Also, for all the people talking about how much cheaper the single unit is, and how the 5-man squads are useless because they don't have special weapons, please re-read the discussion. We're not talking about just taking a 5-man naked squad and sticking them in a razorback, that would be silly.

 

Imagine this:

 

10 Tac Marines, Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Missile Launcher, Razorback w/Dozerblade= 225 points

10 Tac Marines, Flamer, Combi-Flamer, Missile Launcher, Razorback w/Dozerblade= 225 points

Total = 450 points

 

Two missile launcher combat squads form a mid/long-ranged fire base, while the two flamethrower combat squads mount up to deliver hot bolter and promethium death up close and personal. I used to have power fists, but this discussion led me to drop them. I'm not sure what I'll do with the 50 points. The easiest thing would be to upgrade the missile launchers to plasma cannons and buy another terminator/sternguard/HK missiles/melta-bombs for Sgts.

[Rage]

edit: Also, for all the people talking about how much cheaper the single unit is, and how the 5-man squads are useless because they don't have special weapons, please re-read the discussion. We're not talking about just taking a 5-man naked squad and sticking them in a razorback, that would be silly.

 

I was, if you purely intend to use them as objective grabbers and long range support. They hang back behind the plunking away with their heavy bolter out of range of most of the Heavy Weapons, while the rest of the army sweeps forward clearing objectives and at the same time protecting the RB squads by being the closest targets. Therefore they gain a very low target priority meaning they can survive longer even though weaker than 10 man unit which for the amount of points need to do something.

 

Maybe I need to start adding diagrams for clarity?

 

@Giga: I would of thought there would of been a PF in your tactical squad? So making it 230pts, 30 pts cheaper still but not really much difference. If not then the 10 man squad would be much cheaper and you're right, though for the purposes of all my comparisons against the standard set up the PF is in the unit. Also if you start adding melta guns, Plasma weapons, or Lascannons the price goes up again so it might be closer to the cost.

 

@ Resv: There should no reason to be put off, I am just trying to explain things to you that I feel you haven't understood. Just as long as you understand that chess is not a war of attrittion and no you don't always have to take pieces (I've beaten a good player without taking any pieces, I used deception and sacrifices to open the hole I needed) though in the majority yes you do have to take pieces but you have to do the same in 40k. I find that chess and 40k is good for analogies (I've never played GO).

 

In Killhammer the goal is to asses your opponents forces to best attempt creating a Kill Gap or rendering your opponents ability to achieve their objectives ineffectual.

 

What about my Land Raider filled with Terminators? How will you deal with that? Your welcome to use anything in the Codex, but on a purely hypothetical argument why can't I have one too?

 

Yes i understand the concept, but you cannot just ignore the dangerous stuff that ia a direct threat to your own plan and go for the soft stuff...anyway their objective may be to wipe you off the table, to paraphrase Warp Angel (not out of contect, I hope :))

 

"Annihilation is the key to victory condition"

 

The LR was an example, you asked for an example earlier. Of course you can have one and if it was a threat then I'd have to focus my attention on it to remove the threat.

 

They represent TWO different units as you have said before. I can shoot one with my tactical units and I can shoot the other with my heavy anti-infantry units. I can take both units without too much trouble. I only need to do two or three wounds to each to render them both ineffectual. I say again, not 4-6 wounds to one unit, no. In one shooting phase I need to shoot two different units and score 2 or 3 wounds to make a significant impact on their effectiveness. That isn't that hard. I don't need to overkill anything. I don't need to bring to bare a huge volume of fire to accomplish this.

 

Before you quote this out of turn, again, you can put your 5 man units in Land Raiders if you want. You can decided never to ever let them out of their protective cases of solid stone carved by master masons. My point still stands.

 

A 5 man unit suffers wounds with a greater impact to their effectiveness.

 

Quote this out of turn!!! You've got a nerve! And your the one who feels you're being put off...!?

 

So why can I not turn around and say I can put those 4-6 wounds on a single tactical squad and say that it has lost just as much effectiveness as the 2 x 5 men squads ? Am I not allowed?

 

But to prove your point let's just do the math for a bolter marine say at RF range against another MEQ.

 

2 shots

1.33r Hits

0.66r wounds

0.23 kills

 

So if a 5 or 10 man unit loses a bolter dude then the unit has lost 0.23 MEQ kills a turn.

 

For a 5 man unit that is 20% if all of them are bolter guys. So 10% if all the 10 men are bolter guys, so by that premise you are correct ( i haven't bothered adding in the flamer here). But...

 

The effectiveness of the units is mainly affected by the loss of the PF/PW or special weapon as that is where most of the kills will come from. If we add a flamer and say it hits 5 guys both will kill 0.83 MEQ, that is about 47% of the units effectiveness from shooting for a 5 man unit, 30% in a 10 man unit (I'm assuming RF)...if we then take out a bolter guy, the 5 man unit loses 13% of it's kills and the 10 man unit loses 8.3% of it's kills, therefore a loss of ~5% effectiveness of the unit compared to the 10 man unit. While you're right it is greater, my apologies, I'll leave that up to you to decide if that is significantly greater. Now where I think your point is really valid and Warp Angel has been through this before is that the 5 man unit is more susceptible to wounds on their special weapons, if the 5 man unit loses the flamer it loses 47% effectiveness against the 30% for a ten man, now that is massively significant.

 

See chuck me some numbers and I'll agree with you :)...unless I think they're set-up to win you the arguement :tu:

 

As I've tried to explain, obviously without much luck, is that if you have 2 x 5 man squads with flamers the effectivenss of those 10 marines to your 10 marines skyrockets and the loss of a bolter marine is of very little consequence due to the dual special weapon.

 

I understand what you want to do and your objectives in a game but putting them into practice is a totally different thing. Just because things sound easy on paper does not make it so...I assume you know this. We could go around and around like a dog chasing its tail saying what we'd do and how we'd counter it but in the end that is just trying to play a game of 40k without dice or models.

 

As Warp Angel says it is all about S, which I think is possibly the most important thing that has come out of killhammer, situations are different so what may work in one place wont work in another....and will lead to these kind or disagreements. I think S may only start to become the same for everyone when you start putting into the context of a GT where the playgroup part of S is about the same.

[Giga]

@Giga: I would of thought there would of been a PF in your tactical squad? So making it 230pts, 30 pts cheaper still but not really much difference. If not then the 10 man squad would be much cheaper.

Normally, I have at least one 10 men tac squad with a PF in it. If I have spare points, I'll give PFs to other squads too, but it's not a priority as I have lots of anti-tank anti-MC stuff in my army anyway. A fist is only mandatory on my aggressive tac squad (the one that drives in a rhino, and usually gets all the dangerous assignments close to the enemy deployment zone :)).

 

However, wouldn't at least some of your 5 men squads have some kind of upgrade? Like a combiweapon, or a plasma pistol, or perhaps even a fist?

 

If not, then I'd still say my 10 men squad in a rhino is considerably better AND cheaper, since now I have a power fist too, which gives me a hidden power fist that I can use to one-shot special characters, to destroy vehicles, to effectively protect my tac squad from walkers and monstrous creatures looking to assault them, to instakill hard stuff like nobs and obliterators, etc.

 

 

 

 

By the way, you haven't addressed the matter of kill points. How do you deploy your 5 men tac squads in RBs? How many of those teams do you take? How many KPs you have in those RBs and 5 men squads? Also, what's your regular size game, how many points? And how many points do you spend overall on your tacticals? I want to know, because I'm comparing it to my local metagame, to see whether there might be a possibility of using 5 men squads in RBs here as well. So far it doesn't seem so, but I'm always open minded. :(

[Resv]

I am actually starting to enjoy this discussion a bit more lately.

 

A 5 man unit suffers wounds with a greater impact to their effectiveness.

 

Sargent

Flamer

Bolter

Bolter

Bolter

 

Now your opponent successfully hits your for 7 shots. You must use wound allocation.

 

Sargent = 1

Flamer = 1

Bolters = 5

 

You take three wounds due to bad rolls what have you. Every model has a chance to fail here. Bad dice roll your Sargent goes down. Or your flamer. Or you just lose your 3 Bolter Marines.

 

Leaving you with two Marines, who if not running, are less of a threat.

 

Lets say you lose your Bolter Marines. Two from one squad, 3 from the other. The squad with three Marines left gets assaulted and destroyed. The assaulting unit then uses the free movement to get out of range of your remaining marines. Your mutual support is gone.

 

A flamer is a great weapon, but it is still uses a template. You have to sacrifice range to get it into place and, like it or not, it isn't going to be as effectual as a flamer and a volume of rapid fire bolters. You put yourself right in front of the enemy at close range.

 

A Power Fist is fun, functional, and looks great on the battle field. Are you going to assault a 10-12-16-20 man squad with two Marines, one hitting at I1? What does Mathhammer say to the Sargent surviving to use it.

 

If these are your only objective taking/holding units do you risk them and risk not being able to score anything? In a kill point mission, do you risk giving up two kill points while not taking any?

 

If effectiveness is directly tied to your Power Fist and Flamer would it not make sense to protect them a bit better?

 

I am totally in agreement that just because things sound easy on paper doesn't mean they really are. Who knows, maybe your 5 man unit fail their bait and trap. Maybe you 2 x 5 man units are unable to support one another.

 

Maybe, just maybe, you can understand my point.

 

A 5 man unit suffers wounds with a greater impact to their effectiveness.

 

We both agree that Marines despite their great stats aren't immortal. With not much effort, your squad can become unable to pose a significant threat.

 

I think I'm going to leave it at that for now. It is time to let other people have a say rather than repeating the same thing. I hope you continue to play however you want. It really is all about the S.

[Terminus]

So why can I not turn around and say I can put those 4-6 wounds on a single tactical squad and say that it has lost just as much effectiveness as the 2 x 5 men squads ? Am I not allowed?

Well, this point is something on which I can agree with our opponents. When you consider wound allocation, having 7 grunts to throw in front of the bullets is much better than 3. I don't think you can legitimately dispute this fact.

 

For simplicity's sake, let's just assume there are two enemy units that can each causes 6 wounds before saves.

 

Against a 10-man squad, you allocate 6 wounds to bolter guys, and your Sgt., special and heavy weapon upgrades are safe. You fail two saves, and are down to 8 men. The second enemy squad now fires, causing another 6 wounds. You allocate five to grunts, and then choose one of your upgrades to make a saving throw. You have a 33% chance of losing an upgrade, and worst case scenario will lose 1.

 

Against a 5-man squad, both of the upgrades have to make saving throws. You have a 56% chance to lose an upgrade, or 11% chance to lose both.

 

The 10-man squad took twice as much fire, and has a significantly smaller chance of losing a upgrade, and will never lose two.

 

So the reduced durability of a 5-man squad is a cold, hard fact. That said, these examples favor the 10-man squad, because the amount of wounds delivered is relatively low. As we move up to units that can cause more and more wounds, the durability of the 10-man squad becomes less and less significant.

 

Also, the way I play my tac squads, that loss of durability is irrelevant. These squads do not get in the thick of it until I'm good and ready. In the early game, they cower in their tanks, in cover, out of LOS, or zooming around 12". By the time they go for the enemy's throat, both sides have been thinned out, and my opponent has fewer options to attack them with. The type of models they target, those usually assigned to guard home objectives, are rarely serious threats after being hit by 4 flamer templates, 6 rapid-firing bolters, and two TL heavy bolters. In order to keep the objective I just cleared, only one Marine from one combat squad has to survive . I will gladly stall the enemy for the last turn or two by feeding him the other combat squad and both tanks, and anything else I may have in the area.

 

I don't use my troop squads as tarpits, or to assault things, or to pop armor and/or dreads/obliterators. Maybe I'm spoiled by Chaos Marines, but Imperial Tac squads simply aren't very good at any of that. What they are good for is scoring, and clearing other grunts. So I focus on maximizing their objective-clearing potential by loading up on flamethrowers and razorbacks.

[Warp Angel]

Also, the way I play my tac squads, that loss of durability is irrelevant. These squads do not get in the thick of it until I'm good and ready. In the early game, they cower in their tanks, in cover, out of LOS, or zooming around 12". By the time they go for the enemy's throat, both sides have been thinned out, and my opponent has fewer options to attack them with. The type of models they target, those usually assigned to guard home objectives, are rarely serious threats after being hit by 4 flamer templates, 6 rapid-firing bolters, and two TL heavy bolters. In order to keep the objective I just cleared, only one Marine from one combat squad has to survive . I will gladly stall the enemy for the last turn or two by feeding him the other combat squad and both tanks, and anything else I may have in the area.

 

Which is pure S. My opponents look at loaded transports as candy filled pinatas, ready to be broken open to release the gooey insides, and TLOS cover using terrain at any of the local stores means that there's not a whole lot of places to put them in cover or out of LOS. 12" doesn't save them from being shot at. Because I taught them Killhammer targetting principles, durnit. (or they already were doing it).

 

Assuming a hit from a lascannon, a Rhino/Razorback is going to be glanced 1/6 and penetrated 2/3 of the time. That's a 5/6 chance of penetration per hit. Reduced to 5/12 if you have smoke or cover.

 

That same lascannon is going to glance a vindicator 1/6 and penetrate 1/3 of the time. That's 1/2 effective shot, which is BARELY better than shooting at a Rhino or Razorback in cover, with much better odds to actually penetrate the Rhino/Razorback when you do get a successful hit.

 

Counting the models inside, from a target priority perspective, it's a better gamble to shoot at a Rhino than at a Vindicator or Land Raider with your AT weaponry. You've got a better chance of eliminating the considerable S of the vehicle, and K if it's a Razorback AND reducing S, increasing K2 (decreasing overall unit K) of the squad it contains. Oh, and you've got a small chance of inflicting casualties or pinning the occupants.

 

Essentially, much better bang for your buck.

 

You can swap missile launchers or multi meltas for lascannons and get similar results, all of which will demonstrate that the odds are in your favor for beating up a transport with anti-tank.

 

A couple choices like that early game (that pay off) and your two five man maneuver squads are now unable to provide mutual support. They have no heavy weapons, and hiding like you've got them means that they're a few turns of movement from their optimum killing distance. That allows the heavy weapons to refocus on your shooting squads or take their chances with better armored tanks.

 

All that's required is that your opponent make those targetting choices and either be deployed in such a way that allows them to minimize the impact of your heavier armor or willing to take the casualties that they will bring on the next turn. Or maybe they've got melta equipped bikes whose sole purpose is to hunt heavy tanks so the missile launchers and lascannons can thump the transports that are trying to hide.

 

S is why we're not going to agree, and S is the one thing that we cannot quantify.

[Rage]

@ Giga: Used to take just 3, that was usually enough to do the job. 3 RB's are a real pain to blow up when they are hanging back out of the way. KP's is pretty much the same deal, depends on the army I'm facing though, reasonably static gun lines are a cinch as they just can't get at them if i keep them out if range, highly mobile aggressive lists are a pain but I usually counter them with the killy stuff.

 

I moving over to a unit of scouts in LSS recently (thanks to GC08 and Bro Tuals)....great for late game grabs and staying well out of the way during KP games.

 

I've considered this wound allocation stuff with combat squads, is it worth going

 

PW, Combi-flamer, Plasma gun, HW of some description and a RB.

 

Put the Plasma gun in the heavy weapon squad, to get the old plasma gun/HW squad back. Then you can have 4 abalative wounds before taking a wound on the good stuff in the 'forward' combat squad. I've gone for the power weapon so that it'll at least get to strike if the squad is about to be wiped out. You'll still get 5 bolters if required and since I usually only get to fire the flamer once anyway the combi-weapon seems a good choice (just needs to be used when you can cover at least 3 or more MEQ). Obviously you can replace the combi-weapon for anyone you feel suits what you wish to achieve. If you're doing killpoints you can always keep them attached which will give you 2 HW's and 2 SW's....it's just a thought, might try it out tomorrow if I can't find enough bikes to proxy my new list.

[Ryjak]

I barely lost a game with my Nids fighting a Vulkan army today, but one thing that helped me out was my opponent breaking into Combat Squads. The one round of shooting where I actually hit stuff, I effectively removed two combat squads because I put their special models at risk and they died... and only the special models died.

 

I might have to bite the bullet and get a Flyrant to tear open Ironclad Dreads (AV 13 in HtH) and Land Raiders (AV14), especially since I can't hit the broad side of a Land Raider with my Zoanthropes, but I digress...

[Resv]

/concur

 

Giga said what I've been thinking much clearer than I could have possibly done. I have almost no complaints against Combat Squadding in general. I do agree with Warp Angel in that they become more squishy simply because your opponent can focus his fire on the half he fears most (the Sarg with PW/PF or the fire support team with Plasma Cannon (Probably the best 5 points I spend in my army lists)) and can force leadership/pinning checks much easier. However, in some games that is less of a concern than overkill (outflanking Genestealers or 30 man Ork charges), so in that case, Combat Squadding makes sense. Having the option to choose every game whether to run as 5 men squads or 10 man squads is too important to me. That's why I disagree with buying basic 5 man squads with Razorbacks rather than a 10 man squad with a Razorback (or Rhino). I feel it limits my options, puts out way too many kill points, and prevents me from getting free (or cheap) upgrades such as flamers, MLs, and PCs.

 

That's why I run a 10 man with a PF, Flamer, ML, and Rhino along with a 10 man with Flamer, PC, and Razorback. They give me options. I can keep the Rhino/PF squad together and go hunt tanks with a PF, perform drive-bys, dump out 10 guys within RF range of a unit that needs to die, or sit on an objective popping ML shots out of the top hatch. That or they can split up to pursue different goals/reduce overkill. My Razorback squad can stay together on an objective absorbing fire while the Razorback/PC dish out hurt, or they can split up and the Razorback can take the flamer squad to support my assault elements (possibly including the Rhino) or can go claim a cleared objective. With the 10 man squads I can look at what each individual opponent is bringing to the table and task my Tacticals to fill in any needs that could use more coverage, whether it's anti-tank, firebase, reckless assault, or even 5-man speedbumps. If you ask any of my opponents, they'll tell you that they don't know what I'm going to do with my Tacticals until the game is well underway. That extra flexibility and degree of unpredictability suits my playstyle, but once again YMMV.

 

I know I am doing a complete quote here, but I have to say that his is very well written and sums up a lot of my own thoughts. Well done Gornall!

[Giga]

@ Giga: Used to take just 3, that was usually enough to do the job. 3 RB's are a real pain to blow up when they are hanging back out of the way. KP's is pretty much the same deal, depends on the army I'm facing though, reasonably static gun lines are a cinch as they just can't get at them if i keep them out if range, highly mobile aggressive lists are a pain but I usually counter them with the killy stuff.

Only 3 5 men tac squads as troops? Do you take scouts in addition to this? Or scoring sternguard/bikes? I really can't see having only 15 models with RBs being enough to work in objective games, nowadays. Not where I play, anyway...

 

Also, from my experience anything with front armor 11 isn't hard to kill. Even if it gets a constant 4+ cover save, it's apt to go boom when I shoot some concentrated anti-tank fire at it. My 1500 pts lists usually include lots of lascannons, missile launchers and autocannons, as well as the orbital bombardment if I'm rolling a pedro list. The only stuff I'd shoot rather then the RBs are the AV10 thingies like speeders, or those juicy attack bikes.

 

As for scouts and LSS... Opentopped armor 10 and BS3. Transport capacity 5 (can't even take a full squad of scouts). The heavy bolter isn't even twinlinked, and it's basically screaming to be shot at and destroyed. Again, where I play, people tend to go to battle with lots of shooty stuff. Again, a pair of extremely easy kill points. I can think of a thousand ways in which my regular opponents can decimate both the LSS and the scouts in a single turn of shooting. :/

[Resv]

@ Giga: Used to take just 3, that was usually enough to do the job. 3 RB's are a real pain to blow up when they are hanging back out of the way. KP's is pretty much the same deal, depends on the army I'm facing though, reasonably static gun lines are a cinch as they just can't get at them if i keep them out if range, highly mobile aggressive lists are a pain but I usually counter them with the killy stuff.

 

If I may ask this Rage, what is your normal point value and what armies do you usually face? This might help give some insight. Also, how much "Killy Stuff" do you field?

 

I like Razorbacks just fine but their AV11 front and AV10 isn't that hard to crack. I, like Giga, take a lot of anti-armor and anti-MC so 3 Razorbacks wouldn't offer much of a challenge. Even the seldom used Krack Grenade can open a transport with out much trouble. Assaulting a Razorback is usually pretty easy since on average they only move 6 inches if they want to fire off their Bolters.

[Fintan]

I was under the impression that dedicated transports AND the squad using them counted as a single kill point together, whereas people here seem to be implying that they have a seperate kill point each?

[Giga]

I was under the impression that dedicated transports AND the squad using them counted as a single kill point together, whereas people here seem to be implying that they have a seperate kill point each?

Transport = 1 KP. Unit inside = 1 KP.

 

If this weren't so, dedicated transports would be extremely overpowered in kill point missions. Transports are separate units. That they happen to be bought alongside a certain squad doesn't mean anything. They still give a KP when destroyed.

[Fintan]

Wow, thanks! You learn something new every day. :)

[Rage]

@Giga and Resv: 1500pts...and yes that usually was enough, it does take a bit of care but I had success with it. If you are thinking Scouts in a LSS is just a waste of time i recommend you have a chat with GC08 (especially his tactica) and Bro Tual, they will give you lots of reasons why it's an awesome unit. I checked it out today and it went on a damn fine killing spree. It's all about the outflank/reserve rule, since they stay in reserve they can't be shot and if you're really unlucky and you pass the reserve roll straight away then keep them the hell out of trouble and when you really have to grab an objective dump them at full pelt onto an objective. They get a 4+ cover save on the speeder, which means you'll have to put more than 2 units into them to take them out in one turn unless you get lucky. Also an open topped vehicle only does S3 hits when it blows up, which I enjoyed immensly today when my opponent roled 5 4's (you what!?) and cackled with delight until I informed him that he needed 5+!

 

Due to only having <400pts tied up in troops I can get quite alot of killy stuff into a list....after today's events I'm thinking TH/SS termies in a LR with bike squads in support will work quite well. It was driving me mad attempting to break that kind of formation and that was only 1 5 man bike unit with a captain supported by a LR...I just couldn't get close enough to hit the LR with MM's and I couldn't take out the bikes due to a great big damn tank sitting in my way. Lacannons just don't do the job against a LR (<4% chance of blowing up is pretty poor odds per lascannon). Luckily a MM/HF speeder , MM bike combat squad and a LSS + Scouts saved my day and destroyed more than half his army.

 

The thing about these discussions is that most of the time we are argueing a point determined by our play groups, the only way we can reach a consensus is if we talk GT's, since most time we can discuss the Meta game of the top tier army lists...though we can always hit stupid lists in the first games and then we are stuck again! When I discuss this type of stuff I'm usually trying to think of one off games against an opponent based around an all comers list and not something that is prepared just for mine....lots of lascannons will not work in a GT due to the possibility of horde armies. Actually I think that is why the RB's do well, most of my play group spends an inordinate amount of time messing around with lists for tournies so they are all built as all comer lists...so instead of a horde of high strength weapons for anti tank there is a good mix between anti-tank and ant-horde.

[Giga]

If we go with the notion that you spend 130 pts per 5 men tac squad + razorback, that means you spend a total of 390 pts on your troops. That is supposing you don't invest any more in your tac squads.

 

3 full tac squads with razorbacks (we'll imagine they all have razorbacks, for the sake of the argument) cost 630 pts. That's 240 points more then your 5 men squads. For these 240 points, I get 15 power armored bodies, 3 heavy weapons, 3 flamers, an option to combat squad if needed, as well as access to all kinds of goodies. Personally, I can't think of much killy stuff I can get for 240 points, that I'd take rather then this. Even with extra 240 points of killy stuff, your 6 easy kill points of troops are still going to be at a disadvantage in both KP missions AND objective missions.

 

Also, I disagree with the notion that if I have plenty of anti-tank, then I must have very little in the way of anti-infantry. We're marines after all, we're flexible as hell. Our base troop choice has access both to a free flamer and to a free missile launcher/heavy bolter, and some of our dedicated transports come with inbuilt tl heavy bolters. Sternguard, our stock elite choice and even a scoring unit in certain builds, has access to 4 types of specialized ammunition + ultra-cheap combiweapons + inexpensive specialized weapons.

 

Whatever you need, we have it. Hence, as a marine player I never had problems making an all-comers list. I might add a thing or two to suit my local metagame, but in general I am equally prepared for everything.

 

In the end, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. ^_^

[Rage]

Nope, don't see us agreeing on this one. Thank the lords! If we all agreed on everything this would be a rather bland game, with the same armylists.

 

I can get some nice stuff for 240pts, 6 TH/SS terminators for example and let's be honest they would quite happily chew through those 15 power armoured bodies and RB's...which I then see as a load of easy kills :lol:. I just cannot see Tactical squads as cost effective, but that is my opinion and experiences.

 

See you keep saying 'easy' but it doesn't work out that way, with the killy stuff moving towards you you will usually have to concentrate on them or fall back away from them to keep distance. Which will force you away from the 'easy' kills, also remember that I'll be targeting the major threats as well...I'm sure you'll come up with a counter arguement ;)

 

As for flexible as hell, not really in a cost effective manner, definitely not compared to chaos marines...a decent sized Sternguard unit costs a fortune! That ultra cheap combi-weapon makes them 30pts each, add the PF in and then transport and you are over 300pts for a 10 man unit that will die to a decent Pie plate hit or a Good CC Unit! To keep them safe I had to stick them in a LR...how many points now!? A drop pod doesn't do it for me as they just become a suicide unit if they land close or immobile and easy to evade if they drop away from the enemy. If you drop them they will destroy what they shoot at but if I've got my squad in a Razorback you'll have to blow that first then wait to kill the guys inside at which point I can just jump them with other elements of my list and wipe them out, if you attack the Landraider (which I can negate you being able to drop next to my LR by positioning of units) the same deal will happen. If you place them in a Rhino I'll take out the rhino and then they're walking and I can dictate when I want to engage them. I'd only ever use them if I had Pedro in the build anyway.

 

Yes the tactical squad is quite flexible but just not very good at anything which keeps them from being cost effective for killing stuff, a 200pt unit trying to plink away at a heavy tank with a ML is just not a good deal. Their real power is meant to be at the RF range and even then they aren't that great, and at RF range they are susceptible to being jumped on by a decent CC unit and while you may do some damage to it you wont do ~200pts of it. I'd rather save the points, get some flexible stuff from the rest of the codex that is much more cost effective and keep my Troops out of harms way to win me the game.

 

But that's how my mind works and fits my playstyle, it works for me (not everytime but no-one wins every game!), it may work for other people but it's up to them to consider the options and see if it's the right option for them.

[robdark1]

wow reading this stuff is really exicting here both sides of the agurement about using tactical squad form space marines all together. my 3 questions are permitting that i can ask them or cousre playing dark angels the last 5 games is this .

 

1. taking 6 tactical squad really worth in a friendly or hostile enviroment and what equiment would i rather take in some of them? the reason is that i have a major rtt coming in july and i trying to write a general list with what i gut. now on to what i aksing is that taking the free weapons and keeping them cheap useful or maybe adding a little more firepower the list help make them more effective and not taking nothing put plasma pistol and a melta bomb on the sgt really worth that to began with.

 

2. 1850 pts seem to be the standard for a lot of rtt lately but just wondering if 1500 come i take 5 tactics in stead of 4 to reforce the idea of coutious fire support and assault support running the frist 3 turns of the game or do i reload with a total different idea all togother? i mostly playing a foot style army with about 6 tactical and maybe 1 of elites, faxt attack and heavly support and realizeing that i need better info on playing this game now after seeing what 5th has done to my style of thinking.

 

3. lastly were do i put my self playing this many tactical as conservation or agressive way of playing? reason i was playing dark angels and wasnt very fast to began with that sucks all togheter. i do have bikes avabile but would rather run a stragight leg unit if i can so that put me on the edge of my seat wondering if i need to run bikes and transport troops based army really be better at what i trying to do. yes i do have enought to run 30 +2 save is i need to instead of going this route but i would like to have fun not kill me self if can avoid this...

 

lastly warp angel your right about doing combat squad but also realize this that even a 10 man squad with combat tactics is going to win a combat when your facing a pure power weapon that is still fresh. that what i found out playing into the late game is what unit are still at 70 to 80% combat effective because those unit really are the one that win game for you alot of the time. also warp angel yes kill hammer does work but, my only problem is that in advanced game play staragty doesnt allow it because you look at the entire game and not one unit overall. but that donest mean that in a rtt style setting it the best idea to get ride of his holding unit on top of the objective if you can thourght the entire game if can as what i figure out lately..

[Gornall]

Nope, don't see us agreeing on this one. Thank the lords! If we all agreed on everything this would be a rather bland game, with the same armylists.

 

I can get some nice stuff for 240pts, 6 TH/SS terminators for example and let's be honest they would quite happily chew through those 15 power armoured bodies and RB's...which I then see as a load of easy kills :D. I just cannot see Tactical squads as cost effective, but that is my opinion and experiences.

 

See you keep saying 'easy' but it doesn't work out that way, with the killy stuff moving towards you you will usually have to concentrate on them or fall back away from them to keep distance. Which will force you away from the 'easy' kills, also remember that I'll be targeting the major threats as well...I'm sure you'll come up with a counter arguement :)

 

As for flexible as hell, not really in a cost effective manner, definitely not compared to chaos marines...a decent sized Sternguard unit costs a fortune! That ultra cheap combi-weapon makes them 30pts each, add the PF in and then transport and you are over 300pts for a 10 man unit that will die to a decent Pie plate hit or a Good CC Unit! To keep them safe I had to stick them in a LR...how many points now!? A drop pod doesn't do it for me as they just become a suicide unit if they land close or immobile and easy to evade if they drop away from the enemy. If you drop them they will destroy what they shoot at but if I've got my squad in a Razorback you'll have to blow that first then wait to kill the guys inside at which point I can just jump them with other elements of my list and wipe them out, if you attack the Landraider (which I can negate you being able to drop next to my LR by positioning of units) the same deal will happen. If you place them in a Rhino I'll take out the rhino and then they're walking and I can dictate when I want to engage them. I'd only ever use them if I had Pedro in the build anyway.

 

Yes the tactical squad is quite flexible but just not very good at anything which keeps them from being cost effective for killing stuff, a 200pt unit trying to plink away at a heavy tank with a ML is just not a good deal. Their real power is meant to be at the RF range and even then they aren't that great, and at RF range they are susceptible to being jumped on by a decent CC unit and while you may do some damage to it you wont do ~200pts of it. I'd rather save the points, get some flexible stuff from the rest of the codex that is much more cost effective and keep my Troops out of harms way to win me the game.

 

But that's how my mind works and fits my playstyle, it works for me (not everytime but no-one wins every game!), it may work for other people but it's up to them to consider the options and see if it's the right option for them.

 

I agree with Rage on this one... to a point. At 1500 points, I think spending too much on Tacticals limits your killing ability. (Which was one of the points Warp Angel makes with his article) Yes, Tacticals do a great job at supporting other units, but you need to have points left to buy those other units in the army. There is a fine balance between too many Tacticals and not enough, and that largely depends on playstyle and meta. For example, my opinion is biased towards running no more than two 10-man squads with transports because most of my army builds use a full, scoring bike squad. That it works for me doesn't mean that it's the best combo ever or that other people can't succeed with different builds... it just means that it works for me, my playstyle, and my meta.

 

PS: Where I disagree with Rage is how to spend those points. For almost the same cost as those three 5-mans, I can get 2 full ones. That's a preference issue though.

[Warp Angel]

The thing about these discussions is that most of the time we are argueing a point determined by our play groups, the only way we can reach a consensus is if we talk GT's, since most time we can discuss the Meta game of the top tier army lists...though we can always hit stupid lists in the first games and then we are stuck again!

 

Killhammer S strikes again. :D

[Warp Angel]

wow reading this stuff is really exicting here both sides of the agurement about using tactical squad form space marines all together. my 3 questions are permitting that i can ask them or cousre playing dark angels the last 5 games is this .

 

1. taking 6 tactical squad really worth in a friendly or hostile enviroment and what equiment would i rather take in some of them? the reason is that i have a major rtt coming in july and i trying to write a general list with what i gut. now on to what i aksing is that taking the free weapons and keeping them cheap useful or maybe adding a little more firepower the list help make them more effective and not taking nothing put plasma pistol and a melta bomb on the sgt really worth that to began with.

 

Never worth it. As Rage points out, Tactical squads just don't kill a whole lot. Which is why he combat squads them to squeeze every ounce of offensive potential out of them, and I don't to squeeze every ounce of defense potential out of them. He agrees the 10 man squads are more survivable, so I'm improving something that they're good at. I'll conceed that 5 men have the potential to be more killy, and he's improving something that they're okay at to make them better. Rage, Gornall, and I all think that you should look to other units in your army to do the killing.

 

2. 1850 pts seem to be the standard for a lot of rtt lately but just wondering if 1500 come i take 5 tactics in stead of 4 to reforce the idea of coutious fire support and assault support running the frist 3 turns of the game or do i reload with a total different idea all togother? i mostly playing a foot style army with about 6 tactical and maybe 1 of elites, faxt attack and heavly support and realizeing that i need better info on playing this game now after seeing what 5th has done to my style of thinking.

 

See my answer to point 1. The ONLY time Tacticals in large amounts is killy is if you've got a Vulkan based army, and even then, you can probably optimize better with different units.

 

3. lastly were do i put my self playing this many tactical as conservation or agressive way of playing? reason i was playing dark angels and wasnt very fast to began with that sucks all togheter. i do have bikes avabile but would rather run a stragight leg unit if i can so that put me on the edge of my seat wondering if i need to run bikes and transport troops based army really be better at what i trying to do. yes i do have enought to run 30 +2 save is i need to instead of going this route but i would like to have fun not kill me self if can avoid this...

 

Every tactical squad should have a transport. Period. I like at least one Rhino to move a 10 man squad forward, but always have an equal or higher number of Razorbacks because of their firepower edge.

 

lastly warp angel your right about doing combat squad but also realize this that even a 10 man squad with combat tactics is going to win a combat when your facing a pure power weapon that is still fresh. that what i found out playing into the late game is what unit are still at 70 to 80% combat effective because those unit really are the one that win game for you alot of the time. also warp angel yes kill hammer does work but, my only problem is that in advanced game play staragty doesnt allow it because you look at the entire game and not one unit overall. but that donest mean that in a rtt style setting it the best idea to get ride of his holding unit on top of the objective if you can thourght the entire game if can as what i figure out lately..

 

Robdark... I'm having a hard time reading what you mean by this last part. Could you please rephrase it so that I can respond better.

[Giga]

Nope, don't see us agreeing on this one. Thank the lords! If we all agreed on everything this would be a rather bland game, with the same armylists.

 

I can get some nice stuff for 240pts, 6 TH/SS terminators for example and let's be honest they would quite happily chew through those 15 power armoured bodies and RB's...which I then see as a load of easy kills :devil:. I just cannot see Tactical squads as cost effective, but that is my opinion and experiences.

 

See you keep saying 'easy' but it doesn't work out that way, with the killy stuff moving towards you you will usually have to concentrate on them or fall back away from them to keep distance. Which will force you away from the 'easy' kills, also remember that I'll be targeting the major threats as well...I'm sure you'll come up with a counter arguement :cry:

 

As for flexible as hell, not really in a cost effective manner, definitely not compared to chaos marines...a decent sized Sternguard unit costs a fortune! That ultra cheap combi-weapon makes them 30pts each, add the PF in and then transport and you are over 300pts for a 10 man unit that will die to a decent Pie plate hit or a Good CC Unit! To keep them safe I had to stick them in a LR...how many points now!? A drop pod doesn't do it for me as they just become a suicide unit if they land close or immobile and easy to evade if they drop away from the enemy. If you drop them they will destroy what they shoot at but if I've got my squad in a Razorback you'll have to blow that first then wait to kill the guys inside at which point I can just jump them with other elements of my list and wipe them out, if you attack the Landraider (which I can negate you being able to drop next to my LR by positioning of units) the same deal will happen. If you place them in a Rhino I'll take out the rhino and then they're walking and I can dictate when I want to engage them. I'd only ever use them if I had Pedro in the build anyway.

 

Yes the tactical squad is quite flexible but just not very good at anything which keeps them from being cost effective for killing stuff, a 200pt unit trying to plink away at a heavy tank with a ML is just not a good deal. Their real power is meant to be at the RF range and even then they aren't that great, and at RF range they are susceptible to being jumped on by a decent CC unit and while you may do some damage to it you wont do ~200pts of it. I'd rather save the points, get some flexible stuff from the rest of the codex that is much more cost effective and keep my Troops out of harms way to win me the game.

 

But that's how my mind works and fits my playstyle, it works for me (not everytime but no-one wins every game!), it may work for other people but it's up to them to consider the options and see if it's the right option for them.

Wanted to reply indepth to this, but then realized it'd just be the dicussion of "I think color yellow is cooler then color purple".

 

Yeap, obviously the two of us have VERY different playstyles AND the ways we view certain units in comparison to others. As ye said, would've been boring if we all just agreed. :P