Let's test something: Objective Oriented Tac-Squads

[Tamiel]

Due to real life reasons, I won't be getting too much of an opportunity to test something I've been thinking about. So I've come to you, the community, to help me test the following idea:

As Ultramarines, we have +1 to leadership. This means we have an easier time making a 10 man squad than other chapters. This will become important as having two 5man MSUs can give more killpoints to the enemy.

The idea is to get a 10 man tactical squad, put them inside a rhino, and park that rhino on or near an objective. (You can park it on the objective if the mission mode has per-turn scoring. But if the mission only has end of battle scoring, you can get away with hiding the rhino near the objective until later turns)

A 10man squad with no upgrades costs us 130 points. A rhino with a single stormbolter costs 72 points.

For 202 points total, we get a 10man squad inside a rhino. The kicker here is that the rhino also has smoke launchers, which for one turn can give us -1 to getting hit. Don't forget this rule!

That's a durable and mobile unit altogether. It has pitiful shooting but anything trying to kill it will have to go through a -1 to hit rhino, which could be in cover. Even if the enemy kills the rhino, then he has to go through 10 marines, which can possibly also be in cover.

Anything that can take out a rhino + 10 marines has to cost way more than 202 points. Even more-so if they can wipe us out in one turn. I'm willing to bet that a squad+rhino like this can sit comfortably on an objective for the whole game. If the objective is in cover, then that's even better. Use those smoke launchers.

So this is where you guys, the community, come in. If you're feeling adventurous, help us all by testing this out. If it works, great. If not, then we have more information to share with each other.

EDIT: Here are some batreps of my experiences using this tactic:
Game 1 (vs Harlequinns)
Game 2 (vs Scions)

Game 3 (vs White Scars)

[Tamiel]

Some of you may be thinking: "If I'm going to spend 202 on a unit, I want it to have at least some teeth."

This seems like a good idea at first, but marines can no longer shoot out of rhinos. If you give your 10man squad a plasma gun or whatever other weapons, those guys will have to make a choice: They either stay in the rhino safely, or get outside and possibly die needlessly.

If they stay inside the rhino, then those special weapons are just wasted points. If they leave the rhino, they're going against the whole mission of being really tough to get rid of (the rhino protecting them was a vital part of the strategy).

For this reason, I think leaving the squad with just bolters is more logical. Since the whole strategy is about holding an objective, our guys need to sit patiently inside their rhinos. Risking the mission just to get some plasma gun shots doesn't sound fit for this strategy. If you need the firepower, you can always get it from other units. But for the purposes of this strategy, this squad needs to have a single goal in mind: hold that objective (or grab it at the end of the game if you're playing such a game mode).

Let us know how it goes if you test this idea.

[Machine God]

Orbital Strike?

[Seahawk]

While true, a unit in a rhino isn't making use of any upgrades, those upgrades are still valuable. Realistically, <30 points spent on a little more firepower (plasma gun, heavy bolter, storm bolter for example) means that when they ARE forced out of their rhino, they have a little extra bite. Really, what will you buy instead for those ~30 points?

[Captain Idaho]

If I'm honest you're best off, in this particular circumstance, having the Tactical squad debarked and putting fire on opponents on that objective whilst the Rhino can act as a shield.

 

202pts is a lot of points for a Space Marines player. Our stuff is so expensive that we can't afford to have units hiding away like that. Everything we have needs to contribute to the overall effort either in multiple ways (like holding an objective along with plinking away wounds with distant fire) or be very very good at pulling its weight and that of other units.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I would rather have a six man squad with an TL donkey cannon RZB, lascannon and sergeant with combi-plasma.

[Stickeh]

Thing is that a 10 man tac squad in a rhino still isn’t hard to kill, and doesn’t contribute anything to the rest of the battle. Alternatively for 90 points you could take a 5 man primaris Squad with the same number of wounds, more potent ranged weaponry and with the remaining points still take a VV squad with jump packs.

[Tamiel]

I've played one game so far. It was a fairly friendly game, my opponent was trying out a Ynari/Harlequin list at 1.5k. He had a bunch of harlequinn squads, some harlequinn bikes and transports, a shadowseer, solitaire, and another unique model that I forgot the name of (it was the one with the trenchcoat and the rifle that looks like a scythe). For his Ynari, he had two Dark Avenger squads + Avatar of Yncarne.

I had the following list:
Captain with Power Sword

Leuitenant with chainsword

Dreadnought with Assault Cannon

Predator with quadlas
Stormtalon with Twin-Las and Twin Assault Cannon
Two 5man tac squads with one lascannon each, riding two razorbacks with twin assault cannons
Two 10man tac squads with no upgrades, riding two rhinos with no upgrades

We were playing the Contact lost mission (Where you generate as many objectives as you hold flags), using Dawn of War Deployment on a board with slightly above average terrain.

Objective Placement:
I think the key idea with this strategy is to make it hard for engagements to happen. If you can place objective markers in hard to shoot areas, your rhino-tac squads can basically camp objectives without fearing anything. Furthermore, if a fight isn't going on, you don't worry as much about your 10-men not contributing to anything. A peaceful turn 1 is ideal for this strategy, I think. To get a "peaceful turn 1", I placed my three objectives in areas where walls could cover my rhinos, regardless of which side I got. My opponent, surprisingly, placed objectives far apart. He was playing a melee army, and I think those armies do better when objectives are clumped together.

Turn 1: 
Not a whole lot happened. Due to the terrain and the objective placement, neither army could really shoot at anything. I took out a dire avenger squad to snag first blood. Also drew a "secure objective X" card for a flag I was holding.

With respect to the Rhino squads, the fact that there was no fighting going on went exactly to my favour as I had anticipated. The Rhinos were able to move into position and just hold objectives. Basically, everything was going according to plan. The enemy (who had first turn) was moving up towards me, so it was sort of a calm before the storm.

Turn 2:

He started disembarking and did quite a bit of damage to one of my rhinos through smite and fusion pistols. My rhino was reduced to 5/10 wounds. I brought over my captain and leuitenant to assist the area, and in return I was able to kill some harlequinns. He failed his charge, so that went well. I scored another objective, and he wasn't able to get anything.

My other Rhino squad (the healthy one) just moved up the side of the map to take the objective that his dead dire avengers were on. Since he had other things to worry about (the dreadnought, my captain + leuitenant, Stormtalon, ect) the Rhino was able to move up completely freely.

On other news: Stormtalon and a razorback wiped out another Dire Avenger squad. My lascannon tac squads killed a harlequin transport.

Turn 3:

This is where I started taking some casualties. My 5-man tac squads got decimated due to a really good smite roll and melee. My leuitenant also got carved up by his shadowseer. The thing is, all of this melee was happening right outside my damaged rhino with 10 marines still inside it. I realized that, even though I wanted to keep those guys inside, I had to bring them out to contribute to the fight. My captain survived the melee, and I fell him back on my turn.

Like I said, I wanted to keep the 10man squad inside the rhino, but I had to bring them out since there was a bloodbath right outside the doors. At 12", 10 rapid fire bolters were actually not that bad against the harlequinns. The dreadnougtht closed in and finished up the rest of the guys, leaving only solitaire and the shadow seer.

On other news: My predator was being meleed by the Avatar of Ynead.

 

At the end of turn three, even though I lost two 5man tac squads and a leuitenant, and my captain was in a dangerous place, I had quite the score lead and was holding way more flags than my enemy. I even used that one stratagem that lets you combat squad in the middle of a game so that my 10man tac squad could hold two objectives.

I was holding 5 objectives to my opponent's 1. Since we were playing "Contact lost", this meant I could generate 5 objective cards on next turn. Since I was already so far ahead on victory points, and had killed so many harlequinns, my opponent conceded.


Summary:
404 points spent on two rhino squads didn't do too bad. In fact, given the mission and the objectives being far away from each other, having these two rhino squads was really good. Unlike scouts, they took a total of 5 damage on one of the rhinos, then were left alone for the rest of the game (since my predator, draednought, stormtalon, and captain+leuitenant were more juicy). The fact that I can move 12" a turn with the rhinos allowed me to secure objectives on the enemy side of the board.

And even though I lost quite a bit of guys and almost lost my predator (which surprisingly did little this game), my 10man tac squads were completely unharmed.

I think it's worth bringing the guys out of the rhino if you're in rapid fire range. I'm still not sold on the idea of bringing them out at 24" range for 10 bolter shots (which on average kills 2.5 guardsmen or 1 space marine, mathematically). But at rapid fire, I think it's situationally worth it to bring them out.

I also think that, even from my perspective, the Rhino-tac squads seemed too much of a hassle to shoot at. You first have to go through 10 wounds on a rhino (T7, 3+ save) and then go through 10 wounds on 10 individual marines. What was nice about this was that my opponent had to bring anti-tank and anti-infantry weapons to deal with these squads (which both rhinos were moving aggresively up the board to grab objectives). And my opponent decided to focus on the other targets instead (dreadnought, predator, stormtalon, MSU-Lascannon-tac squads, captain and leuitenant, ect).

[crazyterran]

Put scouts in the Rhinos and save twenty points.

[Tamiel]

Put scouts in the Rhinos and save twenty points.

I thought about doing this. The advantage is that you save 20 points. The disadvantage is that you no longer have a 3+ saves on those 10 wounds. For now, I think 2 points per model is worth it for the 3+ save. Scouts, on the other hand, seem better suited if you are making use of their infiltrating ability.

 

So far, though, none of my Rhinos were destroyed in the first game, or even came close to being destroyed. The 3+ armor only came into play when I started disembarking the guys. So the 20pt discount of the scouts may be a good deal if the rhinos never die or get targeted.

[Captain Idaho]

I don't mean to try and shoot you down but I have to dispute some of the results there..

 

I applaud innovation and tactical play of course.

 

Seeing the game, you were playing against an army that is particularly outnumbered and lacking in long ranged firepower in most situations.

 

You got to ask why the 10 man squads didn't take damage - They spent all day in a Rhino until the end. Arguably you could have used their heavy weapons and bolter earlier and did enough damage to not lose so much.

 

Regardless, it was a good play by you.

 

You could have left 5 man squads in there with flamers and Combi flamers and probably got the same results for less points?

 

I love that you're trying something new but it is very inefficient.

[crazyterran]

Couldn't an empty rhino have scored the same?

[Tamiel]

We'll have to see how future games end up.

I think the 10 guys inside really act as a deterrent. It makes the rhino the opposite of a "juicy" target.

[Captain Idaho]

Please carry on with the playtesting and report back. :)

 

I suspect you'd find you can get away with smaller (and cheaper) squads hiding in there.

[Tamiel]

Played another game. In this one, I went really over the top with this strategy, just to see how far I could take it.

It was a 1k Big Guns Never tire game (4 objectives, worth 3 pts each at the end of the game. Killing Heavy Support units gets you one point). We were playing on a board with slightly above average terrain again. My opponent was a Scions player this time, and although he's not a tournament player, I'd say he's pretty good.

His list consisted of:

Two scion squads with no upgrades, riding two valkyries with anti-tank guns

Two Tempestor primes

One Astropath

One Primaris psyker
Another scion squad on foot with 4 hotshot volley guns

Two command squads with 4 plasmaguns each

 

His four characters (two tempestor primes and two casters) rode the valkyries as well.

Because I wanted to test how far my strategy could go, I had a very over-the-top list:

One Captain with stormbolter, power sword

One leuitenant with stormbolter
Three 10man tac squads, two in rhinos, one on foot with a lascannon

One 5man scout squad

One 5man assault squad with jump packs and plasma pistols

A devastator squad with misslie launcher, 2 lascannons and a cherub

The three 10man tac squads cost me 390 pts, plus another 25 with the lascannon, plus two rhinos.

That's, in total, 559 points in a 1000 points game. All for the 10man squads. More than half my army consisted of 10man tac squads and their two rhinos. I know it sounds crazy, but I went ahead and did it for the sake of experiment data. I wanted to get a really good idea of how naked 10man squads in rhinos could do.

And, surprisingly, the game was a tie. Let's get stated with the analysis.

Turn 0 (objective deployment):

I can't say I'm a big fan of "Score points at the end of the game" missions. I think this list does way better if you can continuously generate points every turn. As such, Big Guns Never tire wasn't a good mission, but we rolled in randomly. Furthermore, the fact that big guns never tire has only 4 objectives (unlike the usual 6 objectives) wasn't too great either. With my experience, this strategy (naked tacs in rhinos) really benefits from lots of objectives, and per-turn scoring.

Regardless, I tried to make the best of my situation. I placed my two objectives relatively close to each other because my opponent was playing Scions. I really don't like playing against scions, since they can just put their stuff in reserve. Because they can pop up anywhere on the map, you really can't leave squads like devastators by themselves. The objectives he placed were pretty far from each other. He got to pick the sides.

Turn 1:
I got first turn, and since most of his stuff was out of range for my lascannons, I couldn't do much. I made two strategic mistakes this turn. Before I explain, I need to refresh your memory that I had three 10man tac squads, two in rhinos, and one on foot with a lascannon. The squad on foot with the lascannon was just outside the range of an enemy scion squad with four hot-shot volley guns. We were both in cover.

I decided to move some of the squad members up within 24" so they could shoot at the volley-gun squad. I killed no targets, and now I was within range of the volleyguns. Even though the 10man squad was inside a crater (we had a huge crater) I would soon pay the price for this mistake.

My second mistake was to move my captain and lieutenant so that they were within 6" of the squad I was just talking about (the tac squad in the crater). I wanted to give them rerolls-1s on shooting and wounding. But even with that, as I've already said, I couldn't do any damage.

My first mistake was punished severly. When my turn was over, my opponent killed 6 tactical marines with just the volley guns. I had no idea they were so powerful, and I will not take them lightly again. Losing those tac marines ended up making that squad weaker, and lost me quite a bit of board control.

My second mistake (moving the captain and leuitenant) meant that my two HQs were now closer to one side of the map. My opponent moved his valkyrie to the other side and disembarked his guys there. It wasn't fatal, but not having my captain and leuitenant in the right place would cost me some missed damage output later on. This is one of the things I don't like about scions, they can really attack you where you're weak because they can be anywhere at any time.

With a really lucky roll, he was able to get first blood by killing my rhino. Thankfully, since his scions had to shoot at the rhino earlier, the 10 marines that got out of the rhino were safe from harm (although I lost 1 guy due to emergency disembarking).
 

Turn 2:
The guys that jumped out of the blown up rhino were less than 6" away from the scion squad that had just arrived. My assualt marines were less than 12" of the same scion squad. The scion squad was backed up by the primaris psyker and my enemy's warlord. So, of course, I emptied the tac squad into the scions and charged with both the tacs and the assaults. We managed to kill some, and took only two assault marines as losses, so this was going in my favour.

My devastator squad managed to severely wound the valkyrie that was in my lines now.

On his turn, he brought the valkyrie even closer and unloaded some anti-tank shots into my captain. His valkyrie had a lascannon, a missile, and twin-heavy bolters. Given that the valkyrie was damaged, and I had the sanctic halo (3++ invuln) I was able to tank everything. Still, it was risky. He also came in with a plasma command squad which took out two devastator marines, although one of them was the bolter guy. My only saving grace was that, thanks to my positioning, he wasn't able to get within 12" of my devastators so there was no rapid firing plasma.

Turn 3:

The combat between my tac marines and his warlord went on, but I killed his psyker. He also had three scion guys left in that fight, and the 10 tac marines (which were like 8 now) took a pitifully long time to kill them. One thing that is true about tac marines is that, even in melee, they just can't kill anything. At the very least, though, I was winning that combat and would be victorious... eventually.

I decided to break off the assault squad and take care of the plasma-command squad that had just shown up. Since the plasma scions were by themselves, getting them into combat meant they were basically doomed to stay in combat or just fall back and get charged again.

On his turn, his second valkyrie flew in and almost killed my devastator squad. I had one lascannon devastator remaining, and I put him into an empty rhino nearby to save the victory point (in Big Guns Never Tire, you get one victory point for killing heavy supports. My opponent had no heavy supports).From this point on, I basically had no anti-tank. His second valkyrie was untouched for the rest of the game, and it was a pain in the ass but it wasn't killing anything.

My first tenman squad (the one where I lost 6 guys with due to enemy hotshot volleyguns on turn 1) was wiped out as well. This left me with two more tac squads:

• One was locked in combat with the enemy warlord
• The other was escorting my two HQs to the objective that my first tac squad (now dead) was holding.

On my way there, I managed to kill off my opponent's first valkyrie. Like I've said, his second valkyrie had free reign due to me having no more anti-tank weapons.

On my enemy's melee phase, I killed off his warlord, giving me slay the warlord. The tac squad was still tied with the lone remaining scion sergeant.

Turn 4:

My assault marines cleaned up his original plasma command squad.
My tac marines cleaned up his scions.

I brought out my scout squad (who, up until this point, had been hiding behind a building) to charge his newst scion squad, which had just disembarked from his valkyrie. This worked really well. When you charge a scion squad, they're basically screwed, even with the "get back in the fight" order. At least they're not getting first-rank-second-rank.

My HQs and their escorting tac squads walked over and assisted the scouts.

On his turn, I was able to clean up his scions, but I lost my scouts. His flyer was in my deployment zone, so he would get linebreaker. Thankfully, his second plasma command squad had to drop in a useless place to hold a far away objective. They contributed nothing, but held an objective in his deployment zone that he had abandoned early game.

I was holding two objectives, and he was also holding two. I had slay the warlord, and he had first blood. He was also was getting linebreaker (his valkyrie was free to do whatever it wanted since I had no lascannons left).

Turn 5:

Using terrain to my advantage, I charged his volley gun squad, which was holding an objective in a building. The melee was going in my favor, but it would take ages and there was no way for me to get that objective in less than two turns. At least, thanks to this charge, I now also had linebreaker.

On his turn, he tried killing my captain again with his flier, but I took no damage. The 3-up invuln was really good.

At the end of turn 5, we rolled a 1 to see if the game would go on, which meant the game was over.

It was a tie.


Summary:
As I've said before, I dedicated 559 points out of 1000 on three tac squads, two rhinos, and one lascannon. More than half my army was naked-tacticals, which ended up creating a really weird game. Of my 30 tactical marines, I only lost like 12 or 13, and 6 of those were from me not respecting hosthot volleyguns. After that, I was only losing one or two tac marines per turn. And in return, I was killing scion squads, although very slowly.

Bolters don't really kill scions. But once you get into melee with them, you start beating them slowly and surely. Since scions are such a short ranged shooting army, I was able to get into melee against every squad that showed up. And from then onwards, it was a slow slugfest, but I would win every time. 

Since I had my rhinos to guard my 10man squads, his scions coudln't do any anti-infantry damage to my tac squads. Once again, he killed my first rhino, but my marines were able to get out and charge his scions the next turn.

So, long story short, I had the anti-infantry section of the game covered. Between the bolters, charging tacticals, and assauly marines zipping around helping out fights, I was trading 1 marine a turn for like 3-4 scions a turn, and even the enemy HQs didn't really threaten me. I want to emphasize that, even though I was winning the infantry battles easily, I wasn't winning them quickly. Once you get into melee with a scion squad (and in some cases, I was able to surround them so they couldn't fall back), you really can't lose a fight. Even if they do fall back, hotshot lasguns are wounding you on 5s, and assuming you did damage to them priorly, they're not firing at full numbers at you (plust they don't get first rank-second rank since their order has to be used for "get back in the fight"). I was trading really favouribly in all infantry battles, and in the end the tac marines were mostly unharmed throughout the whole game, even though they spent no longer than turn 1 in their rhinos.

The marines did really well and only died when I was trading super favourably. Well, aside from the 6 guys I lost to volley guns. But again, that was a mistake I made.

However, my anti-tank capabilities rested almost entirely on one devastator squad and a melta bomb from the assault sergeant. They all did great (even the melta bomb), but once I lost the devastator squad, I had no way of dealing with his second flier. I really needed some more anti-tank.

So, to tie everything up:
The tac marines, once again, took very little casualties. I lost about 6 of them initially to a stupid decision, but from that point on, anytime I lost a marine, I was killing like three or four scions in return, sometimes even more thanks to morale. My anti infantry was good, but it was also slow.

My anti-tank was seriously lacking.

I won't be dedicating half my total points to 10man tac squads in rhinos again, but this game was quite educational. Even hotshot lasguns don't kill marines fast enough to make up for how much of advantage you get with the "rapid fire + charge" combo that our tacticals can do. When it comes to infantry on infantry fights against scions, you win them, although you win them very slowly. And since scions want to be in rapid fire range, they're easy targets for charging. I think this is really thanks to the rhinos, which keep your marines healthy while the scions land in your doorstep. Rhinos, in this game, were just tanky enough so that he needed to shoot both his valkyrie and his scion squads at it.

Aside from volleyguns, nothing could threaten my tactical marines, to be honest. And even that was due to my lack of knowledge.

Also, in this game, since my enemy was always really close to me, I chose to make the marines climb out of the rhinos and do the "rapid fire + charge" combo. If I had been facing a normal Guard army, I probably would just keep my guys in the rhinos longer.

 

All in all, even though the objective was stacked against my list, I was able to get a tie.

[Tamiel]

Played a new game. We couldn't finish it in time, but my opponent offered to concede because I was tabling him. I told him we could continue the game another time so we left it as is for now. So he could technically win.
 

We were playing Deadlock (Maelstrom of war), 2,000 points, with slightly above average terrain on the board.

 

Here's my list:

BATALLION 1

HQ

Captain (Stormbolter, Power Sword)

Primaris Chaplain

 

TROOPS

10man tac squad with rhino, meltagun, meltabomb on sgt (In a barebones rhino)

8man tac squad with plasmagun, meltabomb on sgt (In a barebones rhino)

9man Intercessor squad, power sword on primaris sgt (In a repulsor with as many lascannons and heavy hitting weapons as you can fit on it)

 

BATALLION 2

HQ

Leuitenant (Storm bolter, power sword)

Sgt Chronus in a predator with 4 lascannons

 

TROOPS

3x 10man tac squads, no upgrades at all. (Each squad has a barebones rhino)

 

 

This is the entire army. I have 60 marines in here, 10 of whom are Primaris. 5 Rhinos, One Repulsor, and One Predator.
Captain and Leuitenant join the 8man Tac squad. Chaplain joins the 9 man Intercessor squad.

 

Philosophy of the army is really simple. My three barebones tac squads are just there to hold objectives, contest objectives, or clear off infantry. If they have to do anything that involves shooting, they MUST be within about 7" of the enemy, because I will rapid-fire + charge my enemy. A few times I couldn't get them so close to the enemy, but I was at least within rapid fire range with them every turn and could attempt a charge. But that 7" range is much more reliable. Ideally, I want to be right against the enemy's face as I rapid fire.

If the enemy unit is super good at combat, I either don't leave my rhino at all,or I just stay at 24" range.

Anyone who's read this thread knows that a 10man tac squad can actually do nice damage when they rapid fire + charge. Following the charge, because the enemy unit is not so good in melee, they become immune to damage and can just slowly punch the enemy squad to death unless it falls back. If they do fall back, I'm still usually at an advantage.

TL;DR: If the enemy sucks at melee, I drive my rhino up to them and then rapid fire +charge them the next turn with tac marines.

The Repulsor with the intercessors and the chaplain inside it follows the same principle. Their job is to stay inside the Repulsor until they can rapid fire + charge into something that sucks in melee.

 

The repulsor and the sgt chronus predator give me 8 lascannon shots a turn. This is basically my anti-tank, although it's maybe not enough for 2k. I also have some melta-bombs and a meltagun in my list.

The leuitenant and captain are wherever they need to be to give 1's rerolls. Usually on turn one they get out of the rhino to give rerolls to the predator and repulsor (so I can snag a turn 1 first blood).

I don't care much about deep striking enemy units with this list. If anything deep strikes near me, be it a tryranid monster or chaos terminators, I'm going to take some tac marines and rapid fire + charge them. So far it has worked well for me.

Enemy's list:

White Scars 2k

Batallion
Ultrmarines captain

Ultramarines leuitenant

 

Troops
5man scouts with snipers, cloaks, heavy bolter

5man scouts with snipers, cloaks, missile launcher

5man tac squad with heavy bolter

 

Vanguard detachment

HQ
Kosarro Khan

 

Elite

2x5man bike veterans with meltaguns and stormshields

1x5man bike veterans with thunderhammer stormshield

 

Supreme Command

3xBike Librarians

 

 

The Game itself:

 

My Turn 1:
We had a Vanguard deployment (corners) with most of the objectives in the midfield. He got the side with more objectives. He also put his scouts on a rooftop with an objective at the edge of the map, far away from everything.

I had turn one, and only drew objectives on his side of the map. I was able to kill one of his scout squads for fist blood, but his stormshield bikers survived my lascannons and repulsor guns. I think I killed just one guy. Since 3/4 biker squads were vets with storm shields, I basically had nothing good to shoot at with my lascannons.

I had a sad turn one in general. Tac Marines stayed inside rhinos.

Enemy turn 1:
He busted one of my rhinos with his melta bike veterans. The marines inside were fine and did not get charged.
His three librarians smite spammed my replusor.
His thunder hammer stormshield bike vets rushed my repulsor, thanks to the white scar strategem, they were able to advance and charge in the same turn. Repulsor killed two bike vets in overwatch.
His normal bike squad charged another rhino and surrounded it, dealing a whopping one damage per turn to the rhino for the remainder of the game.
On the good side, his bike squad (which had two plasmaguns) was tied with my rhino (which had 10 naked tac marines in it).

My repulsor fell to 6 wounds, but was making saves like a boss after that.

My turn 2:
This is the turn where I killed almost 50% of his army. Since his entire army was so close to all of my transports, I just calmly stepped my Tac marines out of them, and started the rapid fire + charge plan.

The thunderhammer stormshield bikers that charged my repulsor? My Intercessors and a nearby tac squad came out of their transports, then the repulsor fell back (it has fly, so it can still shoot). The tac marines killed two more bikers with boltguns alone. My captain and leuitenant finished off the last biker.

His librarians? My repulsor killed one (snagging me the "Slay a character" card), and the Intercessors + Primaris Chaplain did work on the other two, almost killing them both.

His other two meltagun bike vet squads? My Tac marines got out of the rhinos, and... well, you get the point.

There's not much to say about his turn two. He was left with little remaining. He had a score lead (Me:3, him:7) but I was catching up thanks to the fact that he had almost no units left, and whatever he had left was being slowly punched to death by tactical marines or intercessors.

Long story short, I stayed in my Rhinos and let them take the brunt of the attack. I lost a Rhino, two more were severly wounded, and my repulsor was down to half its wounds remaining. But all the tac marines that came out? The intercessors? The Primaris chaplain and the Captain + Leuitenant?

Rapid fire and charge.

Really, once I took out his thunder hammer stormshield squad, and Kosarro Khan, the rest of his army just had veterans on bikes, who were punching me. All those meltaguns never got to fire more than once while my tac marines where trying to strangle them. Best part is, I still had my pistols on my units, and his bikers had no pistols at all. Extra shooting for me in my shooting phases, because you can fire pistols whenever you want, basically.

My guys are outnumbering his guys two to one to begin with, and I was able to almost table him on turn three.

Take what you will from this game, but if the enemy doesn't have a plethora of power weapons, tactical marines will eventually beat the crap out of bikers. The rapid fire at the beginning knocks a biker or two down, and then in the following fight phases, you're putting out around three times their melee attacks (plus you have pistols and they usually swap theirs out for special weapons).

He could still theoretically win, but so far the game is really going in my favour. I'll update this thread with the remainder of the game when we play again (the table is still left where it is).

[jpwyrm]

I like your theory and the way you put it to the test. I'd be interested to see how it stands to the likes of Mortarion, Daemon Princes, Nidzilla lists or Tau massed firepower.

 

In light of the new FAQ potentially meeting drop alpha strike, I think I will try something similar myself!

 

Thanks for sharing and keep updating this post if you follow on the concept.

[Tamiel]

For sure. I hope people can find something useful from all of this, even if they don't go full on tac-marines like I do.