Tactical Squad with Siege Mantlets

[Valkyrion]

Anyone who has IA10 will have seen the new army list and I'm going to draw up a list with two squads of siege mantlets, 6 dreadnoughts, Master of the Forge in an Achilles and some filler for a 2k force.

 

I don't know what to do with the Siege Tactical Squad though. They are ideal objective sitters, with a 3+ rerollable save, but how do you get them to the objective? They can't run or ride in a rhino, or deep strike. Like stunted terminators.

Their best use seems to be moving 6" every turn and firing 10 bolters a turn, but then you are paying around 250 points for a unit that is tough to kill from basic ranged weaponry, but offers little else.

If you give them a heavy weapon, which is free, then when are they going to get to fire it?

Would you combat squad them?

 

I was thinking of a ten man squad, plasma gun and sergeant with combi plasma, for the rapid fire goodness.

 

How would you run them?

 

I'm running this list just for fun and for something different to model, and compared to a standard tactical squad their usefulness is greatly diminished, but I'd still like to win a game every now and again...

[spartan249]

Foot slogging tacticals isn't that damning to do. Most of the time, you'll be able to deploy on the objective from the beginning anyway (Why you would want to do this is a mystery to me).

 

I would stick them in cover, then sit and shoot. They are rather good at sitting in cover and not moving, especially when they have a heavy weapon. If you do that, you can fortify their piece of cover for a 3+ cover save alongside the 3+ rerolled armor save.

 

Not putting tactical squads in rhinos is not an automatic death sentence. It just means that they are going to take a defensive role instead of an offensive role (which is where they belong, IMO).

[DerekLee688]

Two tac squads seem pretty safe if they get a re-roll AND 6 dreads to walk with. They travel the same speed and defeat what the other can't. Dreads hate horde and tac's hate monsters/vehicles.

 

Free heavy weapon is a free heavy weapon. You give up the one bolter shot and pick up something that's a lot more deadly for free.

[Kage no Kitsune]

My understanding is, that to use the siege rules, your oppenant gets to place a special objective in his deployment zone, 6" away from the board edge or impassable terrain. If you dont grab this objective, then the best you can do is tie the game, reguardless of its outcome. I beleave this is page 184 of Apoc reload.

So, yeah you'll have to foot slog guys to get there. I use the shields for 5m tac squads plas pistol, plas gun/melta, and power axe for 190pts. I run 6 sqds, 2 with rhinos, 4 with shields and use this tactic as a turtle shell for allied troops in my apoc games. My allied section is 5 inquistor psykers each with 3 henchman, 1 psyker, 1 warrior, 3banishers, 1 jeriko, and 1 death cult assasin. these surround a culexus for 6 psykers giving the culexus a str 5 ap 1 assault 12 rng 12" to blast gargantuan deamons and such with. its fired at BS 10 so... oh the banishers make demons reroll invulns ^.^

Anyways, I find in apoc units that dont move are garbage, devistaors are awesome but not in games that are huge, too much will deepstrike on it, for me I use it as a mobile aegis defence line. I also modeled mine to be closer to medieval siege shields. Instead of each model holding a shield like a storm shiled or combat shield I made mine from plasticard 3.5" long and 1.25" tall, used a small triangle on each side so they stand on thier own, cut firing ports, and put a carring handle/bar on the insides, they're 2man jobs you can hide 5 marines behind. ;)