ironclad or venerable dreadnoughts and tacticals

[Brother_Ead]

They seem to support each other. Marching up the board side by side, couldn't the tacticals shield one flank of a dread from the lascannon and melta equivalents while the dread shields the tacticals from anti MEQ on the other? Tacticals could be in a rhino of course, maybe with a plasmagun specialist on the hatch and double stormbolters on the rhino. Pointed at an objective, does anybody see this tactical maneuver making sense in a game?

[Cornelias]

I generally use Sicarius to infiltrate a tac squad then drop pod in an ironclad and squad of sternguard first turn, the 3 of them support each other really well and gives me a pretty wicked firebase wherever i want them.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Kind of, but not really.  The problem that Dreadnoughts of all types have is a very limited number of attacks; four at most, and that's on the charge for an Ironclad.  They're really easy to bog down with infantry.  A heavy flamer or two helps against "normal" squads, but something with loads of bodies like boyz or gribblies and you're hosed.  Tacticals don't do much to ameliorate this problem either, since you'll get one, maybe two turns of bolter shots to thin the herd before they tie up the Dreadnought.  Once they're in combat with Big Stompy, your only recourse is to join the combat, and your average Tactical Squad has trouble fighting its way out of a paper bag.  Don't get me wrong, I love Tacticals as Troops. . . but as shooting units, not fighting units.  The pairing only really works if you've got an ideal situation where you're facing other small, elite forces (like other Space Marines, most Eldar squads, most Tau squads) and the weight of numbers isn't against you.

[BassWave]

So you pair dreads with something that can fight in cc. Honor guard are built for cc and come with bolters so they aren't useless the turn they drop. On the much cheaper side, assault marines with 2 flamers and a pod works well.