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There really isnt much point to Blood Angel Tac Squads. You can get more mobile Melta in an Assault Squad. Assault Squads are better at HtH. Assault Squads allow you to pick up transports at a 35 pt discount (somewhat offsetting the tactical loadout for a full 10 guys). Lastly, if its long range firepower you want, tacticals are outmatched by anything else that shoots in the entire codex.

Basically,unless scouts are your thing, there is only a single troops choice in the Blood Angel Codex, Assault Squads. I see NO reason to bring tacticals to a battle.

Tacticals cannot even equip Blood Angel Specific Wargear, such as the Infernus pistol. Assault Troopers can.

So....whats the point of Tacticals?

Bolters?

Gornall wrote:Bolters?

Hahahahahahaha! Bolters in an army that has furious charge everywhere! Hahahaha! Elite choice chaplains! Yukyuk! Mephiston! *choke/cough* Seth makes you suffer red thirst on a 1-3! Bwahaha! "I've got 3 Baal's and 3 Dakkapreds in my list, what else should I take? Ahhh, bolter-marines!" HahahahahaROFLMFAOBD!

"Bolters".....wow.

Exactly.

I agree with you, I only run Assault squads because I do not see the advantage of taking Tac squads for almost the same cost in points. That being said, a 5 man Tac squad in a Rhino has its place for quickly taking/contesting objectives with the over charged engines...

Maybe they are catering to those that had bolter marines in the past and would like to stick to it because they do not have the money or time yet to make the change to more "Rape you on the table" lists or just different lists than they used to have?

Was it that hard to think of that?

Or, there are players that like having the tactical squad to bring some close cover fire to their assault elements that are still beefy in combat should they need to be/home base objective campers and defenders that can contribute to the fight outside of 12" and still score and still do well if htey need to charge?

Maybe, just maybe?

You take 1 Squad to sit back and Hold an Objective.

I dunno Sanc, I think Shane's correct. BA Assault Squads are better than their tactical brethren, pretty much provably.

So you disagree that there are people out there who don't have the time or money to transition to a new optimal army list?

You disagree that there is a point to an objective camper that's not a lame duck/fish scouts?

I think it's naive to think there is no reason for a unit to exist in a codex, you can always find a legitimite role... it doesn't have to be 'bend your opponent over a chair and rape him' effective.

Ok, but it's worse than something else. That's what the OP is saying. You can play Tac Marines. You can win with them. Assault Marines are better. Given money and the desire to prevail, you would play with assault marines.

Gwar! wrote:You take 1 Squad to sit back and Hold an Objective.

In fact, bolters are good in a defensive mode.

For objective holding. Assault Marines are really bad at that, because they can't fight back when they do.

What's funny about the AM squad is that for 100 points you get five men but once you drop the jump packs and get the 35 point discount towards a transport the five men only cost 65 points. This means you have 13 point Assault Marines. Grey Hunters are 15 points a pop, so with the saved 10 points total you can buy a special weapon for the Assault Marines. The end result is very economically priced spammable 5man squads with meltas in fast Razorbacks. Once we add the fact that potentially just one 50 point Sanguinary Priest can give all of the AM squads feel no pain and furious charge (consider if you have 20 AM and one Sanguinary Priest every model pays only about 1 points per skill and the Sanguinary Priest is totally free), we might actually have found the strongest SM troops choice unit yet. They can bust tanks with the melta or infernus pistols, they have multiple S5 I5 attacks on the charge, are nearly as tough for holding objectives as Plague Marines, and drive around in a fast AV11 vehicle with TL plasmas and a lascannon. All in all a very versatile package for a scoring unit.

Therion, thanks for clarifying.
This sounds very promising.

Wow, Therion.

You know, I was actually kind of excited about starting up a BA army, but I'm having second thoughts. Seeing that they're going to be pretty tough, I don't want to give the impression of just being a band wagon jumper :(

Just make a DIY chapter and you can play any MEQ codex that comes out

I'm guessing AM's can have one special for each 5?

"You guys stand here on this point thing. We'll be back in 6 turns to help."

BA is a new army so I don't see why GW would say "Lets just throw this in the list to make people not have to pay". I think the idea is that you should have the option of taking the tactical squad if you really want (comp scored and such). I can't see GW making a decision based on making less money then they could have. Hell, the only reason they're releasing more Space Marines instead of DE and Necrons is because more people will buy.

On a seperate and less negative note this gives me something to do with the CC weapon marines I've had from the last vanilla codex where I could use chapter traits. BA counts-as army here I come!!

BA counts-as army here I come!!

That's the spirit...and in the future they can be very clean Chaos legion marines when their crazy rules come out.

Tactical Squads are flexible. Tactical squads can take a heavy weapon and a special weapon with a transport and combat squad so you sit back with 4 bolter marines and the heavy weapon on you objective and drive forward with the special weapon, sarge with powerfist and 3 other marines in the transport to claim the opponents objective. In kill point missions you can not combat squad to have less kill points.

You can't beat everything by assaulting it, therefore tactical squads allow you to shoot things. If they get Furious Charge then they can punch people too.

Edit: Oh, and when they aren't flipping out shouting "BLOOD!" they have the same combat tactics that ultrasmurfs have, which is a neat rule.

"Edit: Oh, and when they aren't flipping out shouting "BLOOD!" they have the same combat tactics that ultrasmurfs have, which is a neat rule."

Wrong.

Blood angles do not get Combat tactics at all! Red thrirst replaces ATSKNF with fearless and Fury.

Blood Angels Assault Marines are a very strong Troops choice and seem to preclude Tactical Marines completely. If I were making a competitive BA list, I might consider taking one Tactical squad as a home objective holder, but I think that a Scout squad or Assault squad in Razorback would likely do a better job in this role.

Why would you play Blood Angels and take Tactical Marines? Makes no sense. If you like Tactical Marines, play a different chapter.

That's like playing a Khornate CSM army and not wanting to take bezerkers.

Probably someone forgot to proofread the Dex. If they had, points on Tac Squads would be less.

Or points on Assault Squads would be more, or Assault Squads would be unable to take Razorbacks.

Solorg wrote:Probably someone forgot to proofread the Dex. If they had, points on Tac Squads would be less.

Since when have GW ever proofread, well, anything?

I don't know the points value of BA Tactical squads, or of AM squads taken as troops. If the points cost is equal or AM is actually less, then disregard the rest.

Tactical squads are about resilience. In most Space Marine forces, they are the cheapest Marines you can get. It's not about what they kill, it's about how they stand up to punishment. A Tactical squad is made for absorbing losses. There's 7 regular guys in every squad. Why? Extra wounds with no frills at a reasonable cost.

Being a scoring unit they WILL be targetted. Of the troop selections available, Tacticals are the hardest to kill for the points value. AMs are just as resilient, but more expensive (and not scoring for us Vanilla armies), Scouts are cheaper, but less resilient (arguable with the Camo Cloaks, but I say this because a Heavy Flamer removes them by the squad even so).

Tactical Marines are supposed to be the sweet spot of a) scoring, b) toughness, and c) flexibility. Killiness is not a priority for them, but an afterthought.

To relate it to another game, Tactical Squads are like Tanks in WoW or EQ. Their job is to soak up damage and remain effective. Doing so allows other, more specialized units, the freedom to operate.

I haven't been very diligent in following the blood angels rumors, but Therion, Manimal and Gitsmack have been keeping me abreast.

It does seem that the blood angels tactical marines are to their assault marines what space wolf blood claws are to grey hunters.

Having bad blood claws didn't make the SW dex a fail, and bad tactical marines won't ruin the blood angel dex. Like Sanct was saying... it lets the guys play with their red painted bolter marines if they want to... or if they have no financial means to update to assault marines...

But it also naturally rewards players for playing their blood angels differently than space marines. That difference is vitally important in keeping the multitudes of power armored armies on the tables interesting.