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starbomber109 wrote:

Storm Bolter

I didn't think you could give normal tactical squad sargents a storm bolter...

Oh, well you can!

Most of the time, I don't shoot before I assault unless it's something like a horde of ork boys, but not always even then.

The reasons for this are twofold:

1. Morale. If the opponent breaks from the shooting casualties, then you won't be able to make assault, leaving your unit out in the open. If your opponent is space marines, then they will almost certainly choose to break in order to avoid the assault.

2. Casualty removal. If you are playing against a smart opponent, they will remove casualties from the models that you are in assault range of first. It's fairly rare for a unit to really right on top of their enemies before assaulting, because most players try to avoid ending up in that position. So a lot of the time shooting a unit before you assault will simply cause the assault to fail.

For this reason, I suggest that tac squad sargeants be armed with combi-flamers. This way you can fire the flamer before you assault in the rare situation where shooting first will benefit you, but if you are rapid-firing you can still join in on the bolter fun.

Yeah, the OP asked a binary question...

It doesn't look like he has any points to spend on a combi-weapon, and he isn't interested in dropping the power fist.

The best you've heard so far is...

Are you in a rhino? Then you should run a bolter, rhinos drive up and bolter drill, you don't stay still, get out and charge very often.

Also, a lot of times, charges are very close things, and firing a bunch of bolt psitols could cause casualties which, when allocated shrewdly, could deny you of your charge.

Pfist/bolter.

Thanks for the responses. I'm pleasantly surprised the thread would have this much activity and have so many good points. When I get the time I'll replace the bolt pistol with a bolter on my power fist sergeant. I have a bolter sergeant as a stand-in for the same squad, but I like to be able to change it up sometimes. Besides, the bolter looks cooler too when wielded one-handed.

Arbalest wrote:Thanks for the responses. I'm pleasantly surprised the thread would have this much activity and have so many good points. When I get the time I'll replace the bolt pistol with a bolter on my power fist sergeant. I have a bolter sergeant as a stand-in for the same squad, but I like to be able to change it up sometimes. Besides, the bolter looks cooler too when wielded one-handed.

If you can spare the points you should really try out the combi-flamer for a game or two. They work wonderfully for me.

Arbalest wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:1) Are you using Combat Tactics or Chapter Tactics?

2) Why are you giving your Sergeant a power fist?

I'm using Combat Tactics, but I am familiar with the argument about whether to arm the sergeant with a power fist in the first place (and yes the squad is Rhino mounted). I chose a power fist because 25-30 extra points are hard to spend on worthwhile upgrades at low point value games, and I thought I'd try out the power fist sergeant myself to see what he can do. I have to say that he looks a lot cooler with a power fist than just a bolter.

OK. I would definitely go with the bolter for a mounted squad, for reasons established above. If you have more points to spare, combi-weapons are also strong options. I run my Sergeants with combi-meltas to give the squad a bit of extra punch against the first tank the squad targets, and it's seemed to work out well thus far. In fact, I would probably purchase the combi-weapon before the fist, using whatever weapon the squad has as its special. In small points games, though, the fist becomes much more important.

I don't like Storm Bolters on Tactical Sergeants. 10 points is a radical overcharge for something that costs 3 points on a model with higher BS.