The Tactical Equivalent and Friends

[Captain Idaho]

Yeah Infiltrators give an ability that is very valuable for buying an extra turn, or debilitating for Genestealer Cults and armies planned around striking first.

[Karhedron]

10 minutes ago, Captain Idaho said:

Yeah Infiltrators give an ability that is very valuable for buying an extra turn, or debilitating for Genestealer Cults and armies planned around striking first.

And the combination of AoC, Smoke stratagem and the Helix Gauntlet make them just hard enough for your opponent to shift that they can be irritating.

[Schlitzaf]

To be clear I excluded the Phobos units specifically because forward deployments makes them better. Also guys not be that guy try and keep focus on “Tactical” and equivalent chassis of units. And remember the point is comparing the units/chassis. 

[Medjugorje]

On 7/4/2022 at 3:54 AM, Black Blow Fly said:

A five man tactical squad with plasmagun, combi-plasma and powerfist seems viable to me.

too expensive - for the same points you can get much more efficiency. They are good as "action monkeys" compared to servitors when you look at their durability.

 

In general I think it depends on the chapter how "good" a squad really is. For example Ultramarines with 5 tacticals + Gravcannon 100 points have access to fully rerolls per strat and does not have the penalty for movement when fire their bolters and heavy weapon. Decent imo.

@Schlitzaf the best thing a firstborn crusadersquad is their access to chainswords because they are way better then bolters.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Medjugorje

[Captain Idaho]

An interesting development in these Troops choices is how each of them are now better against certain opponents compared to others which has been exacerbated by Armour of Contempt, perhaps in an unintended way.

A Primaris Intercessor squad will not enjoy the -1 AP of his bolters when used against Marines, Sisters of Battle, Chaos Marines and Guard vehicles. Those bolters are equivalent of Tactical Marine bolters outside the Tactical Doctrine, which is at best 2 turns a game unless you spend precious CPs on putting 5 dudes into Tactical Doctrine otherwise.

So against their "equals", Intercessors are actually worse than Firstborn in a fight; which is kinda fluffy that the experienced guys are still better (thanks to additional heavy weapon etc) against their peers whilst the superior physiology (extra attack means more against weak troops) and weapons of Primaris tells more against Xenos.

Assault Intercessors, Phobos troops and Firstborn all rank higher than Intercessors in my mind. They've become fairly niche when considered in damage terms, whilst being more expensive for pure action monkeys too.

[Karhedron]

Intercessors are still very good with the Assault 3 bolters. Better weight of fire and the ability to Advance and Fire if necessary.

[Captain Idaho]

They're ok, but 15 S4 bolter shots vs 8 S4 Bolter shots and 4 Grav Cannon shots again seems to outshine it against all bar Xenos infantry.

I dunno, it's like 3rd edition etc where you just paid for minimum Troops and crammed in as many Heavy weapons as possible or were wasting your time with inefficiency.

If you're taking Intercessors who advance forward, you'll probably take Assault Intercessors or Incursors. I don't see a place for regular Intercessors with Infiltrators, Incursors and Assault Intercessors taking up the Primaris reins, whilst Firstborn can either be cheaper action monkeys or hold that objective with a pot shoting heavy weapon to contribute.

Note this is in a competitive view. I know all sorts of "weaker" choices come forward in more casual games with more forgiving army builds.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Captain Idaho

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

On 7/22/2022 at 2:05 AM, Medjugorje said:

too expensive - for the same points you can get much more efficiency. They are good as "action monkeys" compared to servitors when you look at their durability.

 

In general I think it depends on the chapter how "good" a squad really is. For example Ultramarines with 5 tacticals + Gravcannon 100 points have access to fully rerolls per strat and does not have the penalty for movement when fire their bolters and heavy weapon. Decent imo.

@Schlitzaf the best thing a firstborn crusadersquad is their access to chainswords because they are way better then bolters.

An Incursor squad is 105 points while a tactical squad with plasmagun, combi-plasma and a lightning claw is only 115 points for a difference of just 10 points… seems like it could be worth it to me.

[Schlitzaf]

On 7/22/2022 at 9:30 AM, Captain Idaho said:

They're ok, but 15 S4 bolter shots vs 8 S4 Bolter shots and 4 Grav Cannon shots again seems to outshine it against all bar Xenos infantry.

I dunno, it's like 3rd edition etc where you just paid for minimum Troops and crammed in as many Heavy weapons as possible or were wasting your time with inefficiency.

If you're taking Intercessors who advance forward, you'll probably take Assault Intercessors or Incursors. I don't see a place for regular Intercessors with Infiltrators, Incursors and Assault Intercessors taking up the Primaris reins, whilst Firstborn can either be cheaper action monkeys or hold that objective with a pot shoting heavy weapon to contribute.

Note this is in a competitive view. I know all sorts of "weaker" choices come forward in more casual games with more forgiving army builds.

The difference is that if sometbing like of small squad of ASM or otherwise engages Tacticals. Than Tactical are sad marines while Cessors can defend themselves. Also Cessors can also take 5 Stalkers.

And they can take Aux Grenade launcher for an additional shot or two. But yeah for backfield obj camping Tacticals > Cessors. I agree. 

[DesuVult]

My problem with intercessors versus tacticals is that generally neither is going to do anything offensively or defensively so tacticals just do nothing for cheaper. 

As Imperial Fists I can take a blob of 10 intercessors, double shoot with double exploding 6s, +1 to wound, and have full hit rerolls and rerolling 1s to wound.  Running the math and in practice this can hurt something.  The problem is, it hurts 1 thing, I am out of CP, I have invested most of my HQ slots, and a lot of things will survive it.  Even in tactical doctrine this is just AP -1 so with my local meta being pretty Death Guard and Eldar heavy with a nice smattering of custodes these armies don't really care about this setup.  I can hurt something but have likely invested more points in the kill than what I killed while also using CP to do it.  I could half measure it and throw some buffs instead of all the buffs but damage falls off precipitously.

I can try to run them defensively with transhuman but no army in the game has problems killing transhuman intercessors anymore, even if I throw on Bolster Defenses or Shield Unwavering and Pain is a Lesson.  T4 W2 1+/6+++ Transhuman isn't a meaningfully different defensive profile compared to T4 W2 2+ when Death Guard or Tyranids waltz into my lines with even just plague marines or tyranid warriors.  Even against necrons everyone is going destroyer heavy now which makes MEQ a speed bump at best.

If I scrape for points in slots like troops I can potentially get another terminator in my list.  As IF I cannot really buff terminators too much but that body will do more than a handful of bolter shots or throwing CP away on transhuman for intercessors.