Tri-Plas Assault Squad

[Shadowstalker Grim]

Thing is, I believe the plasma pistol has been an upgrade for the assault squad for a long time. Perhaps GW is trying to move away from the plasma pistoleer idea and move them into more of what they are, anti-infatry?

 

Or does anyone see the assault squad losing their flamers after this edition? I started this thread to see what this unit was capabe of, to hear reviews and speculation on that and whilst they have been positive, they are as I expected, not good enough when juxtaposed against the flamers. I should think the flamers are now here to stay (perhaps even becoming the sole upgrade for this unit) and that vanguard will now take on the expensive pistoleer role

[greatcrusade08]

what irks me is the lack of melta options for the assault squad, that would be very cool.

The BA guys get melta pistols which would be a nice addition.. pop open a tin can and chop up the meaty innards

[Shadowstalker Grim]

Ah if they had melta weaponry, that'd be my weapon of choice! Mobile anti-tank, capable of getting juicy rear shots and with enough punching power to deal some nasty wounds in combat.

 

As melta and flamer weapons are rather prevailent for marines, I fully expect assault marines to melta in the coming future. I think i'd surprised if there was no melta to speak of!

[DarkGuard]

Melta weaponry would be ideal, much like Raptors and BA Assault marines. If BA have them, I think we can assume that our Assault marines will get them in the future. However, that still won't help them in combat against MEQ, ideally I'd like to see an option to upgrade a couple of normal guys with power weapons. Only a couple, and only power weapons. Then you'd have three special combat weapons to let them do what they do best, assault. Meltaguns would be the icing on the cake, allowing them to get units out of transport before assaulting.

[Bartali]

Oh Plasma Pistols how you'd be good if

 

- They didn't kill the user

- Cover saves weren't so abundant

- Didn't cost a fortune in points

[captaincandle]

I think they are very useful against units like 5-man tactical termies.

 

Your unit only costs 35 points more, and you can reliably kill 2 of them, then assault them... you get 31 attacks, 15 hits and say 8 wounds which is another dead before they even strike... they kill roughly 2 assault marines, you win combat then go again assuming they don't flee (which they probably would if they were my termies )

 

He loses a termie unit probably laying down a lot of AI fire and you only lose a couple of models? sounds good to me... hell, a thunderhammer guarantees some death against them and can mess up vehicles.

 

Those kinds of targets would be fantastic application of tri-plas assault infantry, and can really put a hole in the opponents line.

 

It's certainly not a role you would ordinarily put them in but with three plas-pistols all of a sudden they can tackle high Armour low invun save elites like termies a lot easier, freeing up other elements of you army to deal with more pressing issues. and the loss of AI attacks usually isn't a problem. In my gaming group, most people spread out to avoid templates so two flamers tend not to get a lot of hits, and even then, you may lose assault range if they were positioned poorly and front-line casualties moved them too far away.

 

I can certainly see an application for the tri-plas, and it's one most people seem to ignore because the flamer option is better at their specialization... would be a good surprise move and because they are assault marines, you can maneuver them a lot easier than most elites outside of transports...