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Why do people insist on giving their sergeants CCW/pistol, power weapons, powerfists, ect?

Why do you want your marines to win/draw combat? Seriously. I want my marines shoot, not sitting in combat where they do absolutely nothing. ATSKNF is amazing, why would you not want to use it?

You ever played against someone who runs say lots of wave serpents. Let your marine squad run, ill baby sit them right off the table.

an example I had in a game at a local tournament.

enemy player was using nidzilla. he had shootyfexes advancing on me. my terminator assault forces were busy dealing with his tyrants.

so that left just my tac squads to deal with his dakkafexes... he had 3. my melta/fist tac squad advanced out, put a melta round into a fex, and then decked it in hand to hand with a power fist. it was great. he honestly didn't expect me to charge into hand to hand, because he figured they are marines, they shoot better.

or against mega armored nobs.... if you have terminators nearby, try to send in a tac squad with a fist into hand to hand to support them. pull a few powerclaw attacks away from the valuable terminators onto the much cheaper tac marines, while providing good hand to hand ability.

power swords, on the other hand, are a much less useful item... they don't instant kill ANYTHING, and wound on 4+ vs MEQ, which is the most common enemy. On the other hand, they are a great deal of help against eldar aspect warriors, their 4+ armor is quite good, and cutting through it can help you get that extra wound or two in to cause them to flee combat.

ATSKNF is awesome, but really, sometimes you just want the ability to take the fight to the enemy and win in hand to hand. Against guard players, I don't want to stand back and shoot... that kind of tactic will get your ass killed. There comes a time when the tac marines just need to charge, and the upgrade options give you the ability to do that.

ATSKNF is not 100% effective, all it takes is someone within 6" and they keep going back until they hit the table if the opponent keeps up.

Giving Tac squads a fist allows them to be more flexible than they already are.
Charging is almost always better than being charged.

If you can reduce a MC to 1-2 wounds, you'd best finish the job.
Dropping down to kill the dread with 2 melta shots and they miss or fail to do anything useful... they will have a sizable chance of killing said dread when it charges into them.

Fists generally account for a sure 1-2 wounds, tipping combat towards you rather than away.

You may not design your SM to be in combat, but that doens't mean the opponent is not doing everything in his power to get into combat with you if they are superior or equal in it.
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Tactical squads have the HIGHEST damage output when double tapping, and double tap range means combat range.

Fist means they can do things to walkers, MCs, tanks that are too close and the melta failed, and punching a terminator equivalent save down.
It adds to their flexibility, offers them more ways to take out a variety of targets without needing to rely soley on shooting.

It's not to say they should be spammed everywhere...

Combat tactics is nice to get out of combat, but it's not a sure thing and has major cons if the gamble goes even a little bit south.

And if you win combat, you can make a sweeping advance

Against guard players, I don't want to stand back and shoot... that kind of tactic will get your ass killed.

You need a Powerfist for that?

No, you need a powerfist when you combo charge the guardsmen AND a leman russ and punch it to death with fists, while MEQ's punch up guardsment.

It also makes a great deterrent to certain assaults. Say by lone dreads, big critters down wounds, etc. For example, I had a Slaanesh DP with two wounds left staring at a ML/Flamer tac squad on their table half. Now, with no fist, he would happily charge in unsupported and kill 'em up. If they ran, it would be one turn away from getting chased off the table. Or, even better, they get caught (I4 v. I6) and die some more! But there was a Pfist there. So Mr. DP really had to think. Because either result was now bad. They could put a wound on and flee, rally, then kill him. Or put a wound on and stay to put another wound next turn. Or get really unlucky and die then and there!

I'm struggling to think why you wouldn't want a krumpfist. How else are you going to share the love (powerfist hugs)?

i run units of 5 marines with melta and a sgt with differing wargear.
so no, i dont want them to shoot unles sits at a vehicle with thier melta.
The sgt will usually take either a fist, or meltabombs + power wep.

JD21290 wrote:i run units of 5 marines with melta and a sgt with differing wargear.
so no, i dont want them to shoot unles sits at a vehicle with thier melta.
The sgt will usually take either a fist, or meltabombs + power wep.

A squad like that is going to get wiped by any decent shooting. Making upgrades just a waste of points...

Every time I see a powerfist in with marine squads I always chuckle.
Wait, you want you 200+ pt unit to be tied up all game with my 100 pt dreadnought? Alright...

Marneus thinks the 'Fists are stylish, and my Ultramarines are just slaves to fashion.

Timmah wrote:Every time I see a powerfist in with marine squads I always chuckle.
Wait, you want you 200+ pt unit to be tied up all game with my 100 pt dreadnought? Alright...

Everytime my Tactical Marines bag a 100 point Dreadnought with a PF (losing maybe 3-4 Tacticals in the process), I always chuckle.

I see your point as generally the PF is a safety net to handle situations you probably don't want to be in to begin with. However, Combat Tactics is far from a sure thing (especially against I4+ opponents or anyone smart enough to baby-sit you off the table) and shouldn't be counted on to save you any more than a PF. And all I need to do to try and use Combat Tactics is lose combat by 1. Against Dreadnoughts and MCs, this isn't a problem as they're going to kill a few guys. Against other MEQs, yeah it might turn into a tarpit, but at least then, I'm either holding up an equal number of points, slowly grinding them down, or losing and falling back. All those results work for me. And the PF does nothing to prevent you from using Combat Tactics when it's the most useful... before the charge.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think every squad needs a PF, but they do have their uses (popping vehicles and light walkers or making ICs think twice about going in without help).

Timmah, I don't understand. A dread can hold a tac squad far better if it *doesn't * have a fist. The tacs will probably lose every round, and have the same chance of using CT regardless. With the fist, they might actually break the dread since they hit 50% (one hit on average) and need a 4 to glance. That means a pen 1/3 of the time and a real chance to either 1) neuter its CC ability or 2) immobile it (hello grenades or walk away and shoot) or 3) destroy it. Without the fist, if they can't get lucky on the I roll, it just eats them.

Why in th world would you not want a PF? It makes the squad SO much more deadly. It gives you the ability to fight nearly anything in HtH, plus anti tank. If you are holding an objective it makes you a lot more tough to move in assault, and it ensures that nothing in the game is going to lock you in combat without having a chance to destroy it.

Only very specific squad builds are more efficient without a fist, but they have specific battlefield roles. In general, every Tac squad should have a fist, IMO.

You may chuckle when you see a marine unit with a fist, but then you get knocked out like rock'em sock'em robots!

My marines chuckle when they see your marines running away from everyone with combat tactics!

Tactically double tap range often means you are allowing your opponent to get into combat. While using combat tactics is often a good idea, winning combat is generally a better idea. SA is more powerful than double tap, and pw/pf is a good way to get there. Tactical squads are about flexibility, and the pw/pf only increases that.

@Reecius:
I agree with you.

BUT... there are reasons why fists are not needed.
1. it's expensive.
2. you will be playing a tight game and have overlapping supporting units, so the Tacticals don't need it.
3. you kill those threats to tacticals first.

In addition, Combat Tactics is a powerful thing, only when the situation arises where it's best used.
It's not something to spam at every oppurtunity.

My 7 Cents.

every squad shouldn't have a fist. the ones that are geared for tank hunting and meltas should, however.

its not a great idea to give a fist to a tac squad built to hold an objective... generally if that squad gets into hand to hand your going to loose the game because its supposed to be holding an objective, not fighting in hand to hand.

I use a fist only on my melta / multimelta squad in a rhino. They are designed to get in close and hit tanks... and the ability to smash things around in hand to hand really helps because close combat for them is inevitable.

Also, powerfists are not that great. They usually will kill 1 more guy a turn. 2 CC attacks from a marine at str 8 are not really all that scary. Most MC's are still going to run through you as are any units tooled for CC.

For 25 points, the mandatory fist in my squads (which nearly all of them have) have always been worth while. They give you the ability to react to and deal with changing table top conditions.

Theory hammer is great, and I love to analyze units in the vacuum or theoretics, but in my gaming experience, the fist in a squad is nearly always worth the points. The reason being that the plan we come to the table with, of using our specialized squads just right, rarely happens.

Does it mean the tac squad will be able to take on a tooled up assault unit?

Nope, but it does mean that in the last turns of a game if they need to take on a weakened assault unit that is trying to push them off an objective, destroy a vehicle that is threatening them, take on some termies, oblits, or whatever, they can. I find that having that flexibility in the squad means that they can do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Besides, a squad going from 160 to 185 and gaining so much flexibility, is not the end of the world, IMO.

Besides, the power fist is sweet, who doesn't want to throw a dragon upper cut to the chops of some alien with a giant, electronic boxing glove?

Sanctjud wrote:No, you need a powerfist when you combo charge the guardsmen AND a leman russ and punch it to death with fists, while MEQ's punch up guardsment.

I'd save 20 points and take some Melta bombs. Sure just one attack, but you can hurt LR/Liths. Do that 3 times and you just earned yourself a Landspeeder.

@Joostuh:
Fist is primarily there for MC and Walkers.
Meltas don't do well against both those, mobile walkers anyway.

Melta bombs are decent vs. 6<" moved LR's and not great against Monoliths, extra D6 doesn't work and no AP1, so actually pretty bad.

@Reecius:

Theory hammer is great, and I love to analyze units in the vacuum or theoretics

I don't think that was worded accurately.

The point of suggesting a fist is to take on all comers, that's great and all.

Not taking a fist is a viable option. It doesn't mean we are talking about a vacuum. At the very least I can suggest this:
Keep your squads together and consolidate the points from not taking tactical fists into a terminator squad.
They can contribute at range and offer counterattack when needed.

Having a fist is nice for a squad, no doubt about it. But it doesn’t mean they can’t perform without them.

It’s basically a re-allocation of resources. With a fist a tactical squad can somewhat handle themselves. With supporting elements, they can focus on things they do better while having more points for those supporting elements.

I agree that the squad can operate without it. Having Krak grenades on all your troops and the ability to fall back is definitely a mitigating factor, but they can easily find themselves in situations were they are screwed because they lack the fist.

Different strokes for different folks, but my boys don't roll without the ability to throw powerfist hay makers to the face!

Reecius wrote:I agree that the squad can operate without it. Having Krak grenades on all your troops and the ability to fall back is definitely a mitigating factor, but they can easily find themselves in situations were they are screwed because they lack the fist.

Different strokes for different folks, but my boys don't roll without the ability to throw powerfist hay makers to the face!

Take a look at Timmah's record with his Space Marines...and that's enough said for me.
I'll play my way, which so far, has worked. (might even submit a list in the next day or two, who knows?)

It’s basically a re-allocation of resources. With a fist a tactical squad can somewhat handle themselves. With supporting elements, they can focus on things they do better while having more points for those supporting elements.

And thus making a better army.

Just my two cents here, but a powerfist is ultimately a matter of preference. They greatly increase the flexibility of your tactical squads and open up a bunch of different options for the tactical situations you face. Tac squads can, with a fist, assault vehicles with greater reliability and help destroy enemy heavy infantry after it has been weakened through shooting). For example, if at the end of the game there is a lone Mega Armored Nob or Terminator contesting an objective and only a Tac Squad in range to reach them, the fist gives you a reasonable chance of prevailing should your shooting fail to dislodge him.

That said, they are not 100% necessary depending on how you build your Army. Personnally, I only use them on about half my tac squads and use power weapons on the other. I have seen successful Marine armies that use even fewer powerfists inside Tactical squads. But in both of those cases, the tactical squads are always supported by true assault units to mitigate the risk assumed by passing on the powerfist.

As for combat tactics...it is a game breaker when used in the right spot. It is also a quick way to lose a squad if you don't read ATSKNF correctly. No auto-rally inside of 6" of the enemy means that you are opening yourself up to having squads walked off the table when used at the wrong time and having multiple Marine squads on the run is a really quick way to have a really bad day.

I think the most effective thing to do would be to use your Combat Tactics to make a rearward advance (hehe), firing with the squads Bolt Pistols, then assaulting if within range, of course. Also, during that shooting phase you're able to further weaken an enemy unit with shooting from the rest of your army. Against an MC or Walker this is incredibly useful even if you have a PF in the unit for obvious reasons (ie a MC/Dread won't be going last in combat whereas your PF will!).

A powerfist adds extra tactical flexability to your tactical squad.

The only thing worse than being tied up for a few rounds of combat against a dread is being tied up for a few rounds of combat against a dread that you can't hurt.

Tacs aren't the best shooting or assault unit but they can do a little of both fairly well when equipped properly and have a decent level of survivability when hunkered down on an objective.

The only times I consider taking a naked sgt. is with my devastators, where the sgt. generally acts as just another wound to take before taking out heavy weapons.

/shrug.

I don't even use tacticals or scouts anymore...

But I do take fists on my vets.

Combat Tactics doesn't always work either. Even if you want to fall back, Marines will still get stuck in combat 21/36 times against an opponent with I4. I5, like Daemon Princes and Hive Tyrants, will keep you stuck in there 26/36 times, which means 2-3 assault rounds on average. It's nice to be able to hurt things badly if you do get stuck, even if you do plan on falling back as soon as you can.

Plus so many marine armies lose Combat Tactics thanks to the various chapter tactics.

Powerfist-free is very viable, and keeps costs down. But they do put out a lot of hurt on nearly everything, even with the point cost.