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My go-to weapon loadout is back to lascannon, plasmagun again . But the mkre I play the more I appreciate Missile Launchers too. If youre getting the Calth box you might as well start with those and Plasmaguns and see how you like em.

BrianDavion wrote:
heck I think heavy bolters might not be a bad option now eaither. they're cheap and offer a decent increase in firepower, and can be fired on the move. a good choice if your looking to keep costs down

Heavy bolters are great! Anything that can give out a lot of shots is a good choice to make, especially for those worried about hordes.

Arcanis161 wrote:

 Kommissar Kel wrote:

 FeindusMaximus wrote:
Well 65pts for bare bones is not that bad. Chain sword cost nothing. 5-10 S4 AP0 shots or 7 CCA.

Don't forget they still get 5 of those shots while in cc.

OP if you are getting 3 tac squad boxes also pick up a devs box: tac boxes only come with the missile launcher whereas the devs box gives you 2 of each heavy. If cost is a factor get 2 tacs and a dev then get another tac box next month/pay cycle.

I know I need to get another few of each cause my youngest managed to get a hold of some of my marines awhile back.

Devistators are mostly covered right now. Just need two more Missile Launcher guys and a Sergeant and I'll have two Squads with 2 Lascannons and 2 Missile Launchers.

I also have 20 Terminators (3 squads with Assault Cannon, 1 Assault squad with assorted TH+SS and Lightning Claws).

I plan on getting one or both of the Horus Heresy Boxes (at least getting all of the Terminators, Characters, and Special Units of both and bunches of Marines), as well as the Primaris half of the Dark Imperium box.

The bunches of Marines will be used for 2 five man Assault squads with Flamers (and maybe a Plasma Pistol and Power Weapon on the Sergeant), and a 10 man Veterans squad with Combi-Meltas.

That leaves 30-40 Marines to make Tac Squads out of. Which is why I asked about the loadout suggestions.

What I meant was to getthe devastators box for the heavy weapons, not as an actual devastators squad.

Infantry heavy weapons are even more important this edition, only suffering a -1 to hit while moving(which the vehicles do as well) instead of only hitting on 6's and being able to fire what used to be blasts on the move really ups their quality. For the longest time an infantry multimelta was merely area denial and mostly wasted points. It got a little better with 6th and 7th but was still "meh" at best. Now it is pretty awesome with the ability to get into melta range and still hit half the time instead of on a 6.

Plasma cannons are no longer static and deal with light vehicles/medium monsters well.

Missile launchers are finally completely well rounded.

Heavy bolters were still effective in 6th and 7th on the move and are sooo much better now.

Grav cannons ate pretty much the same as heavy bolters but deal better damage vs most targets.

Tac marines would be a lot better if most/all armies had infantry on the table. My past three games have been against a bunch of tanks/flyers/elites though, and they're still pretty useless. They are better if we compare the way they work now into 7th, but in 8th so far I'm not seeing their effectiveness increased much at all. They still need transports to get where you need them, and those increased in price a good bit.

All the good things mentioned apply to other, more specialized units just the same. I've already cut way back on my tac marines and put those points into devestators and an extra pred instead to much better effect. Scouts can do pretty much everything a tac marine can do anyway, and with a much more interesting transport option, and I'm probably going to switch them out completely before long.

Oh well. I think it's just impossible at the scale and size of this game to make regular infantry make sense on any large scale, except for super cheap hordes that can get around the battleshock issue.

Arcanis161 wrote:

 Kommissar Kel wrote:

 FeindusMaximus wrote:
Well 65pts for bare bones is not that bad. Chain sword cost nothing. 5-10 S4 AP0 shots or 7 CCA.

Don't forget they still get 5 of those shots while in cc.

OP if you are getting 3 tac squad boxes also pick up a devs box: tac boxes only come with the missile launcher whereas the devs box gives you 2 of each heavy. If cost is a factor get 2 tacs and a dev then get another tac box next month/pay cycle.

I know I need to get another few of each cause my youngest managed to get a hold of some of my marines awhile back.

Devistators are mostly covered right now. Just need two more Missile Launcher guys and a Sergeant and I'll have two Squads with 2 Lascannons and 2 Missile Launchers.

I also have 20 Terminators (3 squads with Assault Cannon, 1 Assault squad with assorted TH+SS and Lightning Claws).

I plan on getting one or both of the Horus Heresy Boxes (at least getting all of the Terminators, Characters, and Special Units of both and bunches of Marines), as well as the Primaris half of the Dark Imperium box.

The bunches of Marines will be used for 2 five man Assault squads with Flamers (and maybe a Plasma Pistol and Power Weapon on the Sergeant), and a 10 man Veterans squad with Combi-Meltas.

That leaves 30-40 Marines to make Tac Squads out of. Which is why I asked about the loadout suggestions.

I would reconsider taking Missile Launchers, lascannon is better at blasting chunks off things for the same price and if you want t deal with hordes then heavy bolters are extremely cheap. my .02 there

for tacts I don't think you can go wrong with plasma/combi-plasma, especially when buffed by a captain and since you already have anti-tank in the lascannon devastators. besides, supercharging 4 plasmas/combi-plasmas with a captain buff can threaten vehicles/mc's pretty well in addition to being good vs mostly everything else.
if you're taking a heavy weapon with the tacts I'd consider taking a multi-shot option due to the -1 hit modifier for heavy weapons when moving, it will give you a better chance of hitting overall, so something like a heavy bolter, grav cannon or plasma cannon. another option for one of the squads is flamer/combi-flamer ideally at the tip of your formation to deter charges.

 benlac wrote:

Arcanis161 wrote:

 Kommissar Kel wrote:

 FeindusMaximus wrote:
Well 65pts for bare bones is not that bad. Chain sword cost nothing. 5-10 S4 AP0 shots or 7 CCA.

Don't forget they still get 5 of those shots while in cc.

OP if you are getting 3 tac squad boxes also pick up a devs box: tac boxes only come with the missile launcher whereas the devs box gives you 2 of each heavy. If cost is a factor get 2 tacs and a dev then get another tac box next month/pay cycle.

I know I need to get another few of each cause my youngest managed to get a hold of some of my marines awhile back.

Devistators are mostly covered right now. Just need two more Missile Launcher guys and a Sergeant and I'll have two Squads with 2 Lascannons and 2 Missile Launchers.

I also have 20 Terminators (3 squads with Assault Cannon, 1 Assault squad with assorted TH+SS and Lightning Claws).

I plan on getting one or both of the Horus Heresy Boxes (at least getting all of the Terminators, Characters, and Special Units of both and bunches of Marines), as well as the Primaris half of the Dark Imperium box.

The bunches of Marines will be used for 2 five man Assault squads with Flamers (and maybe a Plasma Pistol and Power Weapon on the Sergeant), and a 10 man Veterans squad with Combi-Meltas.

That leaves 30-40 Marines to make Tac Squads out of. Which is why I asked about the loadout suggestions.

I would reconsider taking Missile Launchers, lascannon is better at blasting chunks off things for the same price and if you want t deal with hordes then heavy bolters are extremely cheap. my .02 there

for tacts I don't think you can go wrong with plasma/combi-plasma, especially when buffed by a captain and since you already have anti-tank in the lascannon devastators. besides, supercharging 4 plasmas/combi-plasmas with a captain buff can threaten vehicles/mc's pretty well in addition to being good vs mostly everything else.
if you're taking a heavy weapon with the tacts I'd consider taking a multi-shot option due to the -1 hit modifier for heavy weapons when moving, it will give you a better chance of hitting overall, so something like a heavy bolter, grav cannon or plasma cannon. another option for one of the squads is flamer/combi-flamer ideally at the tip of your formation to deter charges.

I can see what you mean about doing just Lascannons and Heavy Bolters, however one of the main reasons why I'm hesitant on making all of my Devistators take Lascannons is because the bits on eBay are darned impossible to find at any reasonable price, and I don't feel like getting two whole Devistator packs just for them.

I'm very surprised at the amount of suggestions for getting Plasma. I plan on using the Hellblasters in almost every list I make, wouldn't that be enough? (I mean it's cool if y'all don't think so, as it would help. As I said, I'm just surprised is all.)

"Plasma is the bestest" is a knee-jerk reaction to the new rules; same as ,but if I move my plasma cannon it overheats on a 2".

It depends on your opponent and your playstyle.

Plasms is not the best in safe mode(no better than a heavy bolter vs t4-t6 and t8(better vs the fairly rare t7))

Vs infantry you want high rof. Vs vehicles and monsters you want high d.

Do not put all your anti-bigguns in the same few units: this will cost you games.

Plasma is not bad, but a lascannon had 0 chance to kill your model and a higher chance to wound all around; it is just not as ubiquitous.

Heavy bolters in general are a lot stronger than they were in previous editions.

I've been running a 10-man Tac squad, which gives me the option of splitting them into two combat squads.

Sgt with Chainsword and Plasma Pistol, and a Marine with a Plasmagun goes in one group and has the option to be mobile. And the other group gets a Heavy Bolter and usually ends up sitting on an objective. Depending on the enemy they might not combat squad and all camp on an objective.

All tactical marines have pistols and can shoot and then fight in close combat, they might not be great but they can stick around for a short while if they are camping. And having that one plasma pistol shot if stuck in close combat is also nice.

Heavy Bolters are a solid option now, especially if the rest of your army has the options of dealing with the big scary stuff. A HB can deliver your 3 shots to grind up troops every turn, and being able to shoot with a penalty when moving just makes it even better. A 5 man squad with a HB camping on an objective gets 13 shots if they get charged, which is not half bad.

The way I see it, the Tacs don't really have a specialized role and letting them be a simple firing line designed to camp and support is best. Letting the tacs deal with bread and butter troops seems like a better option than trying to set them up for delivering the killing shot on a tank or monster. They may deliver the shot that blows up a heavy. They may get that killing blow in close combat to kill the enemy HQ. But I don't count on them to do either of those things. But I think that plasmapistol/chainsword, plasmagun, HB is a good cost effective combo that lets them be versatile and useful.

Might be best to see what Chapter Tactics are available with the new Marine Codex as that may give you much more powerful loadouts - unless you have a specific painted army you like - then again whatever CT they receive may also have a bearing.