Unit size vs number of units... Help me

[captain sox]

Hi everyone!

 

 I need help. I've been so torn the last few weeks with what to do with my army. I don't play often, and when I do, it's usually 1000-1500 pt games. What I'm having trouble dealing with, is how large to  make my squads, not in game size per se, but in general.

 

 With all the diversity of the DA Codex, I find I'm always getting excited about a specific "wing" one week, and then another "wing" a few weeks later.

 

Right now, I'm trying to finish one aspect of my army, my PA marines. I'm thinking about setting my squads like dis:

 

TTT  TTT  TTT   TTT  TTT  TTT  AAA  DDD  DDD  DDD

TTT  TTT  TTT   TTT  TTT  TTT  AAA  DDD  DDD  DDD

                                               A      DD    DD     DD

 

6 x 6 man Tactical, 1- 7 man Assault and 3 x 8 Devastators (in my "fluff" my battle companies are setup a wee bit differently). That gives me 67 PA "troops" in total.

 

Basically, I use the tactical squads for cheap heavy weapon support for my Terminators and Bikes. I know they are smaller units and will likely perish quickly, but I can filed 3 or 4 smaller units compared to just 1 or 2.

 

I favour Devastators to anything in the Codex to be honest, so cheap and useful... why I'm going with 3 units. But is 8 man too high of a number? Maxing out the Heavies too, unless I go to 6 man with 3 heavy. The Assault squad is there just to look pretty, and will likely never use it. I have the modes and am switching the jump packs to the BA ones. I figure they may be used in Apoc or larger games if I run out of other stuff to bring.

 

As is stands I have 45 Terminators and 15 various bikes and 3 speeders in my army. I have no other vehicles (tanks) at all. Tanks = rhino chassis and Land Raiders.

 

I guess the real question I have (and I'm sure I already know the answer) is are smaller squads worthwhile in DA armies due to the fact most of us will have a higher number of bikes and terminators? I don't really see the need for me (personally) to build a full Battle Company when there is so much to choose from from the 1st and 2nd Companies.

 

I've rambled on looooong enough and I hope this makes sense.

[Darkangeldentist]

Well I do like a 6 man tactical squad to back up my fire support, however I still always field a full strength one as well. 

 

I don't fault your plan but I do find that devastators get extra members as and when i have the points spare. I take a couple of bodies to absorb the first couple of kills and no more. So i'd probably not make them quite so large. They attract fire but they also tend to be able to hang out at the back the most.

 

For the assault squad, don't be so pessimistic, they are cheap for what they do now and have the valuable option for flamers making them a solid counter-attack unit to spring on people. If you don't need the jump pack to set up the assault then they make a decent assault unit with a lot of attacks. Even against high initiative units due to hammer of wrath. (Which with their numbers is quite useful.) I'd make them a full unit, even if you don't expect to use them all that often simply because their main benefit is their volume of attacks. (Which on the charge with the jump pack is respectable.)

 

Anyway, nice to see you want to have so many green marines and the only thing I want to ask is where are the veterans? 

[Disciple of Caliban Sgt]

Sox,

 

Also don't forget you can always combat squad as needed. I know it's not quite what you're talking about especially with the Dev's but it does add the flexibility of larger or smaller units. My 2 cents DoC

[captain sox]

Anyway, nice to see you want to have so many green marines and the only thing I want to ask is where are the veterans? 

 

I forgot to mention them, I have about 20 various PA vets... 

 

Thanks for the input so far!

[FarFromSam]

Our ability to take a Heavy with just five marines coupled by their low price makes them absolutely worthwhile.  Where trouble may arise is a crowded, static deployment area.  By which I mean the six squads of tacticals and 3 squads of Devs will be competing for cover.   You could give each squad a razorback but that almost defeats the purpose of having the heavy weapons if night fight isn't on at start.  

 

That being said... Do it and let us know how it goes! 

[march10k]

I prefer full ten man squads...I've always had more luck with 3x10 tacticals than with 6x5, even though it's the same number of models.  Same thing with devastators.  They're not as expensive as they used to be, but I've never been sorry for the extra wounds.  A unit with four lascannons is going to draw fire!

[captain sox]

Our ability to take a Heavy with just five marines coupled by their low price makes them absolutely worthwhile. Where trouble may arise is a crowded, static deployment area. By which I mean the six squads of tacticals and 3 squads of Devs will be competing for cover. You could give each squad a razorback but that almost defeats the purpose of having the heavy weapons if night fight isn't on at start.

That being said... Do it and let us know how it goes!

I don't think there will ever be a situation where I'd field all 6 Tacs... I'd use maybe 3 or 4 at the most in regular games and maybe 1 or 2 Devs. In larger games like Apoc or 2000+ points, I would use all 6.

M10K: That's the debate I keep having in my head. I like the 10 man squads (especially with the Standard of Devastation), but I also like the idea of 2 heavy weapons per 10 men... With the 6 man Dev Squads I have planned to only have 3 of heavies in each squad.

Maybe 10 man is the way to go after all??

[Cactus]

Why not have some of each?

[march10k]

Why not have some of each?

 

 

That's a pretty good idea.

 

The main reason that I like ten man tactical squads is that they can't score if they're wiped out.  If you take two five man squads, the enemy can choose which one is more important to kill and ignore the other one.  They're not all going to be doing missions of identical criticality.  On the other hand, if you have half as many squads, but they're twice as big, you're going to devote them only to the most critical assignments, because you don't have any extra ones laying around to do less important missions.  And at the same time, the enemy is going to be forced to kill ten marines, instead of five, in order to remove a scoring unit.

 

As for the devs...well, I could accept smaller squads, as long as you scale down the number of weapons.  Four heavy weapons and only 1-2 meat shields is a recipe for losing a lot of firepower in one hell of a hurry.  On the other hand, if you have six meat shields on the four guns, it's going to take a significant effort to shut them down...and if they never get shot at (yeah, right!), you're an idiot if you think the extra men were wasted.  When you have four heavy weapons in the same squad survive the entire game, that's a win and well worth the full price of a ten man squad!  But a dev squad with two weapons and three guards...yeah, in a points-starved situation, why not?  You're trading scoring status for access to twice as many heavy weapons, without giving the enemy too much bang for his buck if he eliminates them.  My favorite setup is ten devastators with four lascannons joined by a librarian with prescience and a power field generator.  Four man-portable godhammers with six extra wounds AND a 4++?  Titanic!