How many tactical marines is too many?

[RIGHT-Titan]

I've been working on a variety of army lists as I repaint my models. I am currently working on converting my AoBR dread to an Ironclad..

 

But what I'm really curious is: How many tactical marine squads are too many at a 1500 pt game.

 

I know this can come down to taste.. but there has got to be a breaking point as to when you're sacrificing other features of your army for feet on the board..

 

I was reading this battle report from a guy who played 1500 pts with Cato Sicarius at the helm with 5 full 10 man tac squads! I'd never entertained the idea of that many before and it did get me thinking... Now he only had I think 5 tac squads, a full scout squad and a predator on the board.. so not a lot by any means other than rhinos and marines, and he lost to the Tau player in a kill points game because he wasn't able to stop his rhinos from getting popped it sounds like...(not to mention the lack of assault marines cutting up the xeno bastards..)

 

Every list I've worked out so far either has 2 or 3 tactical squads in it at 1500 points..

Now I'm structuring my list around Sicarius as well.. so I'm trying to find the best way to deploy them.. I can combat squad them and put them in razorbacks and then he fits with a squad.. but in a 10 man tac squad there is no room in the rhino for him.. which leaves me wondering.

 

Most lists I work come out looking something like this:

 

Cato

10x Tac on foot

10x Tac in Rhino

5x Assault Termies

1x Ironclad

1x Support Dread

1x Vindicator

10x Assault Termies.

 

Which seems like a decent combination and balance. Except now one group of tacs are footslogging because Cato wants to tag along.

 

Soooo...

 

Where do I put my IC?

How many squads are too many?

[Brother-Chaplain Gaius]

put cato with assault terms?? that way he can hit the line hard with them, instead of sitting around in some blast crater shouting orders at a tac squad

[Skambankt]

At 1500pts, I would say that 5 tactical squads are too many. I prefer to play with 2 tactical squads at 1000pts, 3 at 1500, and four at 2000. It all depends on what you want to do with your list, and what kind of armies you usually play against. Personally, I would never run as many as 15 termies at 1500pts, especially not assault termies, but whatever floats your boat I guess.

[RIGHT-Titan]

Yeah I have only been running 5 so far. I thought about putting cato with the termies and drop podding them in... or I could just walk em up lol...

[RIGHT-Titan]

I won't bother with wargear etc here.. just the barebones as that would seem better suited for the army list forum.. but,

Hows this look:

 

Cato

w/ 5x Assault Termies

 

3x 10 man tac squad

w/ rhinos

 

1x Vindicator

1x Predator destructor

 

1x Ironclad

 

 

Alternatively I could do:

 

Cato

w/ 8x Assault Termies

 

3x 10 man tac squad

w/ rhinos

 

2x Vindicator

 

or:

 

 

Cato

w/ 5x Assault Termies

 

2x 10 man tac squad

w/ rhinos

 

1x 10 man assault squad

 

1x Vindicator

 

1x Ironclad

[Brother-Chaplain Gaius]

roughly ~25-30 marines at 1000pts

 

40+ marines for 2000pts minimum

 

safe numbers

[Commander Sasha]

Rule of thumb would seem to be 1 squad per 500pts.

With 2/3 of missions needing troops, any less is going to leave you with too few tools to do the job.

 

As marines are good at everything, great at nothing, I see them in two roles: hardy objective campers, and tough tarpits (compared to most troops that is). As such, crossing the board in a rhino leaves them open to fire, and they will have trouble reaching their targets.

 

I'd suggest that if you're running a Tac-heavy list, 3 Drop pods will give you much more control of the table; Sicarius' Rites of Battle means you can play a bit more daring, A-la-Dark Angels, and Infil/scout plus 2/3 of your pods in round one means you are tying up ranged weapon squads, melta-ing difficult vehicles from early in the game, creating that all-important kill gap.

 

Without a codex handy, Sicarius, 5 tacs with fists, 3 pods & 2 rhinos should be ~1350

[Giga]

I used to run 3 tactical squads, but since tactical squads are generally underwhelming, I've been forced to lower this number to only two for all of my lists, even 1750+ ones.

 

I find having two tac squads in transports, and spending the points you'd spend on the 3rd on stuff that can actually deliver the damage, is a better idea in the long run.

[angry man]

at 1500pts ive been having fair success with 2 tacts in rhinos. whilst 2/3 missions do require troops to claim the oblectives, and there are plenty of ways to get around the fact you only have the 2 troops:

 

-you only need to control 1 of them to win the game. all the others can be contested.

-take out all of his scoring units - now he cant claim any

-wipe your opponent out completely, the faster the better

 

at 1500, the 200 odd points you spend on a 3tact sqd could be being spent on things far more valuable to support the rest of your build. but at the end of the day you have to factor in your play style, what you have available to you in terms of models and $£, and how you rate tacticals in comparison to the rest of the codex's entries

 

AM

[Commander Sasha]

...and, of course, if you just like tacticals! Plus, at least at the level I play, you're opponent won't know what you're planning due to too many similar units.

[Koremu]

Depends. Sometimes two squads of 10 men, sometimes one squad of 10 men, one squad of five... occasionally 2 squads of ten and a squad of five.

 

And almost always use Rhinos/Razorbacks.

 

But yes, 5 Squads is a bit much! Generally if I want more Troops after I have two Tactical Squads, I'll be looking at Bikes or Scouts to add variety.

[Cadarn]

At 1500 I'd say a minimum of 2 x 10 man squads, and I don't go above 3. 3 Ten man squads gives you the option of having up to 6 scoring units, which can be a devil for an opponent to deal with in an objective game due to target saturation. I love my Tactical Squads for the tactical flexibility they give me.

 

As for the rest of the list, I'd say that 15 Assault Terminators is overkill, especially when they don't have any transport. without transport they are really only useful as base defenders. Don't get me wrong, nothing wants to go near ten assault terminators, but that means that most things simply won't bother, or will sit back and shoot at them. I would swap out at least one of the terminator squads and get a standard Assault Marine squad, if you have the models, that is.

 

Also, you need to check your list re Force Organisation, as you have four elite choices in there: Ironclad, support Dread, & 2 x terminator squads.