Noise Marine squad sizes...why?

[Excessus]

Hello all!

 

This topic is suspiciously named like another one I found, but doesn't deal with the same issue, hehe. I've had this idea of making dark mechanicus noise marines with outlandish biomechanical weapons for a very long time now, but I am at a loss of how to build the actual unit in my lists.

 

Basically I'm torn between MSU and 10-man squads. They both have the same amount of BMs, but while MSUs are more flexible I guess, I would never consider giving them an icon like I consider it with a 10-man squad. You also get them 10 points cheaper if you take them as 10-men, since you get rid of one of the champion taxes.

 

Also, are sonic blasters completely out of the picture? I keep hearing people say that bolters are better (and obviously cheaper).

[Tenebris]

Sonic Blasters force your army to be static, very static and if you go for this kind of gameplay you should take in account an Aegis Defense Line and Icons of Excess across all your squads for many armies have the tools to deal with such setup from range and only the most dedicated assault armies could hope to win trough that hail of fire that you will be able to put on the board.

 

The size of a Noise Marine squads again depends on your setup. If you plan to take them only for Blastmasters than 10 men could be great behind some solid defenses and than you are free to take cheaper CMS as your assault and objective taker element but if you go pure Slaanesh than you have two builds to consider, Blastmaster MSU or Rhino Doom Siren squads with CCW and VotLW. The first type rounds on five marines with any additional one as an extra wound for the Blastmaster while the second one should be 10 marines at least with the only upgrade a Power Weapon and the Doom Siren. 

 

But if you plan to field big squads of ten with two Blastmasters and an Icon of Excess in each, than go big but you will be hard pressed to find points and you would struggle to make a decent army with fast and heavy support. The Noise Marines can and will win you games but so far the MSU Blastmaster is the most cost efficient way to field them, followed by CCW squads with a Doom Siren and a Rhino. 

 

Remember Slaanesh is a marine killer army that deals well with 3+ saves but hordes and 2+ save armies are our natural predators. The Blastmaster awesome as it may be has problems and big problems with such armies thus we need a solid and versatile support and it is better to invest points there rather in more Noise Marines.

[Bonzi]

MSU BM trumps max BM for two reasons.  

 

#1.  More target saturation.  Breaking the squads up lets you capture/contest double the objectives and it makes it harder to tarpit all your scoring units.  This also foils deathstar-centric armies which have units set up to obliterate any opponent...yet realistically they can only kill two or three units in a normal game.  Having few large units makes you vulnerable to this style of play where multiple scoring units means you have more troops than the deathstar can kill.

 

#2.  Targeting options.  The MSU army can pick how many blastmaster shots to put into a unit.  Large BM units are stuck with the possibility that firing two BM shots at one important target may be overkill.   The MSU also lets you set up better zones of fire because one unit will always have a blind zone where they can't shoot but dual units can be deployed in such a way as to limit blind zones.

[Phytoon]

Yeah, Bonzi's got the shooty part figured out pretty well. Sadly, since the BM is 30 points, there really isn't any controversy about squad size for them. One squad of five with a blastmaster costs at minimum 125 points, and the difference between adding five more guys and a blastmaster, or getting another five man squad is only 10 points. So you're either spending 240 points for one unit or 250 points for two units, and like he said, it's simply more efficient to have multiples.

 

Now for assaulting, it's a different story. Are you putting them in a transport? Max unit size there is 10, even in our hella expensive Land Raider. However, with an assault squad, you might actually consider giving them the Icon of Excess for 30 points, giving them feel-no-pain. This upgrade is hard to justify without having lots of guys in the squad, because once the icon bearer is killed, you lose the upgrade. In a squad of ten or more, this is understandably easier to justify than in a squad of five.

 

Then, if you have infiltrate (if you're playing Huron or Ahriman as your warlord) you can have a larger unit come in from infiltrate, obliterate a unit, and probably die right after (acceptable losses?). This was an idea I toyed around with for a little bit, because in this case, the sonic blasters might actually be viable. You can infiltrate to a minimum distance of 18 inches in plain sight, and those shoot 3 shots at 24 inch range. Suppose you have a squad of 10, 9 guys firing the blasters. That's 36 bolter shots ignoring cover. Again, that's just an idea. I can't say this would be actually viable in any army.

[Excessus]

Well, that is a lot of info and I thank you for it. I am going to start slowly with two squads of five marines each and fill up after that.

 

I built a test subject last night while I was half asleep, and then this morning I had to clean up leftover mouldlines and such...fun stuff...

 

http://imageshack.us/a/img18/2074/mechanicus02.jpg

 

http://imageshack.us/a/img197/1910/mechanicus01.jpg

 

...though as they always do, he needs more mecha tentacles...

[hushrong]

I like that guy! Is the respirator from the IG Command Squad? 

[Dallas Drake]

I play my NMs with Sonic Blasters depending on the enemy. Against Nids/Orks etc I camp (usually behind an Aegis) & shoot as much as I can but against an army that can out camp me (IG, Tau) I take it to them, 2 shots at 12'' means getting close, but with I5, overwatch and doom sirens I find Noise Marines can do quite well played aggressive in a Rhino. I tried infiltrating them and camping them against IG, they just get erased every time before they can do much more than pick off half a dozen guardsmen.

 

Dallas