Why don’t people take big blocks of infantry?

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**Totalwar1402**

zedmeister wrote:
In a word:

On a more serious note, the sheer amount of AP3 and greater firepower coupled with the all or nothing AP system means tacticals die in droves. Until you do something about Typons or Fellblades being able to remove hordes in a turn, then you're stuck. The other option is to come up with a gentlemens agreement (no Typhons, quads and/or being able to take the void shield harness from conquest for example).

However, being creative with rites of war is another option. For example, I am changing my Alpha Legion into being a headhunter leviathal with more emphasis on troops and surprise deployment. 2 headhunter squads, Lascannon squad, destroyer squad and a veteran squad mixed into termites, rhinos, bunkers, land raiders and dreadclaws. Stick a Cerberus and Vindicator laser destroyers in and I'm set. Maybe take a more unusual approach with your legion using the rites to be able to take troops while mitigating their weaknesses?

See I don’t think the vulnerability argument really stacks. A typhoon can kill basically anything. The problem is the opportunity cost. If I spend 300 points on a tactical block which can get vaporised then that’s 300 points I am not spending on, for example, 10 Invictari. Now the Typhon can kill those 10 invictari; but I can potentially wipe whole squads with the Invictari.

Well I still think units like the Typhon should be powerful. But, they should compensate by making troops so cheap that it doesn’t matter if I lose 40 tacticals. A super heavy should not be able to make its points back twice over; something is obscenely wrong if that is happening. Basically troops should be simply seen as cheap map control and to impede an enemy advance. They are cannon fodder costed like line infantry.

**Midnightdeathblade**

Stevefamine wrote:
Pride of the Legion and all Terminators does some work

Power Armour? 20 Man Blob squads with Apothecaries.. I've only run this since I haven't bothered to buy Rhinos. They will be a brick that sits on an objective... but their output of damage is really really bad. Especially when they wander into combat with anything melee oriented

This is just false. Ive personally won many fights agianst terminators with tacticals due to sheer number and speed of attacks in CCW and volume of fire. And its not like its bad quality either. 3+ 4+ X60 or 80 is bound to kill a few things.

**Totalwar1402**

Midnightdeathblade wrote:
Stevefamine wrote:
Pride of the Legion and all Terminators does some work

Power Armour? 20 Man Blob squads with Apothecaries.. I've only run this since I haven't bothered to buy Rhinos. They will be a brick that sits on an objective... but their output of damage is really really bad. Especially when they wander into combat with anything melee oriented

This is just false. Ive personally won many fights agianst terminators with tacticals due to sheer number and speed of attacks in CCW and volume of fire. And its not like its bad quality either. 3+ 4+ X60 or 80 is bound to kill a few things.

Well the basic terminator has issues because they are WS4 and 1W. As soon as they become WS5 and have 2W they effortlessly beat tacticals. Occasion where tacticals beat terminators are decided by them needing 4s to hit.

In my experience, most terminators are in Spartans and Storm eagles deployed to get off one charge against a prime target like another terminator said, a vehicle, or a heavy weapons team. With, usually, all the supporting fire. By the time turn 3 comes around you won’t have huge blocks of tactical ready to fury of the legion. They’ll have been decimated by shooting and the outflanker is picking his fights so he won’t land in the middle of a kill zone. If the game developers are imagining games of tactical s shooting foot slogging terminators across an open field they are blissfully ignorant of how the game is played. Even if a player did that, the terminators would be dead long before the tactical seven started firing.

If you face lots of terminators, why take tacticals or even plasma support squads when Medusa are far cheaper and difficult to kill? So tactical aren’t a viable alternative. They’re a massive points sink. Relying on your opponent rolling 1 is not a valid strategy.

Terminators have a lot of advantages over tacticals. With power fists and chain fists they can reliably kill anything in the game. If you hurl 400 points of terminators at a Primarch they can kill him. 400 points of tacticals would not even be funny. The invulnerable save allows them to tank attacks which would normally kill space marines.

I’ve taken big squads and my experience is that they just get butchered long before they ever get in Bolter range and are never a decisive arm. The same points in Leviathans, Siciarans and artillery will kill so much more stuff with less risk or randomness. They are not cheap or expendable. A 100 points for 20 is what they should cost. Even if they were that cheap I still think players would refuse to take them because you lose so much mobility, range, killing power and other elements by not taking tanks.

**BlaxicanX**

Totalwar1402 wrote:
I’d refuse to play anyone using quad guns so it’s a none issue for me.

Then clearly the answer to your question is "because the majority of players don't have the luxury of playing in a safe-space where units can arbitrarily be removed from the game".

People don't take big blocks of slogging infantry because big blocks of slogging infantry get annihilated by artillery and gunlines.

**Totalwar1402**

BlaxicanX wrote:
Totalwar1402 wrote:
I’d refuse to play anyone using quad guns so it’s a none issue for me.
Then clearly the answer to your question is "because the majority of players don't have the luxury of playing in a safe-space where units can arbitrarily be removed from the game".

People don't take big blocks of slogging infantry because big blocks of slogging infantry get annihilated by artillery and gunlines.

If Forgeworlds purpose was to recreate the battles of the Horus Heresy then they failed to do that. Look at any book cover or the description of any battle, it overwhelmingly focuses on large blocks of foot slogging infantry. At Istvaan that’s pretty much what both sides do. If the rules of your own system mean that you can’t do that then something is wrong with your system. What is the purpose of playing a game that’s only the Horus Heresy in name? It’s not just a question of what units are viable in the game. The system should enable and encourage you to take large blocks of foot slogging infantry, not undercost tanks and quad guns.

**JamesY**

The heresy books describe marines being slaughtered in their thousands. So many marines died so quickly at Isstvan that they had to retcon legion sizes to be in their hundreds of thousands to make the death rate possible. If anything, having weapons that actually do that quickly is more fluffy than not.

**Totalwar1402**

JamesY wrote:
The heresy books describe marines being slaughtered in their thousands. So many marines died so quickly at Isstvan that they had to retcon legion sizes to be in their hundreds of thousands to make the death rate possible. If anything, having weapons that actually do that quickly is more fluffy than not.

Because in those battles there isn’t a quad or basilisk for every ten men. Most of the killing is done by bolt guns and chain swords. They describe huge columns of space marines slamming into each other. Yes the tanks and titans kill a lot but they are never so dominant that this style of fighting never happens. Even an Imperator Titan doesn’t prevent that at Istvaan. Troops should be so cheap that your opponent should feel like he is wasting a turn of shooting to knock out a tactical squad. Instead, he will 100 percent make back the cost of his quad gun squad in one shot (which BTW is just a light mortar in the lore, basilisk are the real heavy artillery). There is no rational for making the base troops as expensive as they are. They can be cannon fodder, but they are not costed like expendable cannon fodder.

**SirDonlad**

I am of the opinion that the 'pride of the legion' ROW was a mistake for the same reason - it allowed players to take elite units as troops and the 'massed troop war' notion kinda dies with it.
If not for that ROW then a lot more units make a lot more sense because you don't have the force org slots to spare without compromising on other potential selections.

I'd be tempted to add a rule, call it 'supernumeracy' or something and give a choice of tactical tricks if a certain amount of vanilla tactical units are used at the force org stage

**JamesY**

@ totalwar I think that the main thing that you can take from your points is that the idea of 30k being "a fluffy" or "pseudo-historical" is a load of bs. The majority of heresy players are playing to win, or want to use the cool models, not recreate those book covers.

**BroodSpawn**

Playing to win a scenario or game doesn't preclude recreating book covers or building fluffy/themed lists

**JamesY**

@BroodSpawn of course it doesn't, which from the replies in the thread it seems a lot of people do. The op however keeps insisting that tactical squads aren't being used much because they are easy too easy to kill to be worth taking.

**Totalwar1402**

JamesY wrote:
@BroodSpawn of course it doesn't, which from the replies in the thread it seems a lot of people do. The op however keeps insisting that tactical squads aren't being used much because they are easy too easy to kill to be worth taking.

Two twenty blocks with apothecaries at 4K isn’t troop heavy. Apothecaries should not be mandatory.

It’s not just too easy to kill. They’re over priced and have no teeth.

In my experience this is the exception. Rhino mounted veterans or tactical s is the default option and usually only three of them.

**hobojebus**

I run big blocks of slayers all the time against fist and iron warrior lists packing lots of artillery you just have to accept some losses.

I just take enough bodies to absorb that damage so the lads carrying the fists and power weapons get where they need to be.

Really have come to appreciate hvarl he minces dreadnoughts and land raiders easily gives preferred enemy to the unit in range and let's you outflank a distraction carnifex or three to distract from the 40+ slayers romping their way.

**smurfORnot**

FW should just make marines cost maybe 5pts, maybe even less? This way everyone profits, they because they sell you more gak and earn more, you because who cares that your 20 man unit got annihilated, you got 200 more marines on table...

Also, if you have problems with phosphex, go play vs good custodes player before nerf, you will see that they are kinda sucky, and that custodes player will just roll over you phosphex or not...

**kungfujew**

This seems like it's an agree to disagree situation.

If you refuse to accept that many of us use big blocks of troops with great success then that's your choice. If you want to understand how it works, then you need to see it in action. Also, as should always be stated, play with the appropriate amount of terrain.

**smurfORnot**

kungfujew wrote:
This seems like it's an agree to disagree situation.

If you refuse to accept that many of us use big blocks of troops with great success then that's your choice. If you want to understand how it works, then you need to see it in action. Also, as should always be stated, play with the appropriate amount of terrain.

A lot of those problematic weapons don't really care about terrain and LOS. You can opt to play without them ofcourse, but in a same way, people can opt to play with no tanks, and say, well, you don't need AT in HH, since there are no tanks around...

**BroodSpawn**

If your group is using all the anti-infantry weapons all the time then yes, infantry will suffer.
If your group has a way of trivially removing armour from the table then armour is also going to suffer.

The online opinion of the best/optimised/'competitive' list does not dictate what people play, as has been proven a few times in here

**Totalwar1402**

BroodSpawn wrote:
If your group is using all the anti-infantry weapons all the time then yes, infantry will suffer.
If your group has a way of trivially removing armour from the table then armour is also going to suffer.

The online opinion of the best/optimised/'competitive' list does not dictate what people play, as has been proven a few times in here

Just speaking generally, tanks and transports have a huge advantage over a footslogging army. They can move very fast, can more easily avoid being trapped by terrain with a smaller footprint, have immunity to most of the guns in the game and a high degree of protection. Blowing up that rhino means you aren’t just wiping out the squad. For example quad guns will have to spend two turns to delete a tactical squad in an rhino as opposed to one. It also gives you control over when to unleash a charge or point blank shooting. Heresy often plays like whack a mole because transport and outflanking units get one turn and then get squished as soon as they show. But tanks have a significant firepower advantage. For example a tactical squad doesn’t have the infantry firepower or survivability of a Sicaran Punisher despite being less in points?

You seem to be implying that your infantry counter anti tank weapons? I think that’s not how the system works. 10 lascannons are pretty much as good as ten autocannons at killing tacticals. I don’t see how tactical marines with short range and weak weapons are better than selecting artillery or different vehicles to knock out the enemies AT? I shouldn’t be paying points for mediocre units. What do they add?

**Red_Five**

zedmeister wrote:
In a word:

On a more serious note, the sheer amount of AP3 and greater firepower coupled with the all or nothing AP system means tacticals die in droves. Until you do something about Typons or Fellblades being able to remove hordes in a turn, then you're stuck. The other option is to come up with a gentlemens agreement (no Typhons, quads and/or being able to take the void shield harness from conquest for example).

However, being creative with rites of war is another option. For example, I am changing my Alpha Legion into being a headhunter leviathal with more emphasis on troops and surprise deployment. 2 headhunter squads, Lascannon squad, destroyer squad and a veteran squad mixed into termites, rhinos, bunkers, land raiders and dreadclaws. Stick a Cerberus and Vindicator laser destroyers in and I'm set. Maybe take a more unusual approach with your legion using the rites to be able to take troops while mitigating their weaknesses?

As we have seen with 8th edition, granular AP is just as big of a detriment to normal Marines as all or nothing AP.

**Durandal**

It seems it's more an issue of getting infantry into position. If your block has to walk for two turns, eating fire all the way it's less effective when it finally gets there on turn three. Especially if your opponent sees it coming and has moved a prime CC unit to intercept.

If that unit is there turn 1, then it's far more effective both because it hasn't weathered as much shooting and because your opponent doesn't have as much time to react.

Thus things that give large blocks more mobility or the ability to deploy into the enemy lines are what balance out the AP3+ things like the Scorpius.

Havrl's scouting of 3 units, Alpha Legion infiltrate, etc, all make infantry better by getting it into effective range faster. Transports do the same thing, from the Rhino to the Kharybdis. The thing is that to take a full 20 or 21 man group, you need to take a Kharybdis, Spartan, or Mastodon. That is such a large point investment that it will inevitably be reserved for the more punchy squads like Terminators.

If there was a Dracosian for marines, that could carry a squad of 20, you would definitely see the larger squads more often.

**smurfORnot**

Well, I play alphas and wanted to do 3x 20 tacticals + medic, all infiltrating...thing is, it's expensive and very ineffective. You will be wiped sooner or later, you are almost no threat to anyone, so people can ignore you and kill more dangerous stuff first, and yet at same time, you cost too much just to stand there and fire those 20 bolters, because 20 bolters usually do jack gak to stuff. You have fury of legion, yay, if enemy is stupid enough to walk in it's range and just stand there while you fire 80shots...ain't gonna happen against anyone with half a brain. You are also kinda very big unit and hard to hide in terrain. most of time, half of your guys don't have range to stuff. And if you mannage to squeeze in terrain, then you are just serving your guys to those juicy pie plates that are everywhere...enemy doesn't even need phosphex to murder you. 3 thudd gunns will do the job, they also cost less than you.

So more or less, everyone outshoots you, and outkills you in cc, while at the same time, costing same or less.

**LunaWolvesLoyalist**

It all depends on a few things.
-Your legion
-Your RoW
-Your local Meta.

Some legions do blobs better then others. Some RoW can use them better. The Storm Eagle is a great way to get a blob on the table in realative safety.

But the biggest is your local meta. Here in New England we rather enjoy large blobs so we shy away from things that just remove them too much. A gentlemen's agreement to "not be a dick". Or play centurion .

**SickSix**

From the mixed responses, it clearly depends on your local meta whether or not 20 man tactical squads will work.

This is why often times internet advice on TT games is useless.

**agurus1**

SickSix wrote:
From the mixed responses, it clearly depends on your local meta whether or not 20 man tactical squads will work.

This is why often times internet advice on TT games is useless.

I agree about the internet advice being mostly useless.

Also the way the game works (IGOUGO) means that the first turn could either help or hinder an army with large blocks of infantry. If you go first and have the firepower you can knock out enemy units that could destroy your large blocks of tactical marines. If you don't go first, well depending on the enemy army and where you put your infantry, you could be decimated.

One of my own hilarious experiences with phosphex was with my breachers. Every shot from this guys phosphex quad mortars landed squarely ontop of my Artificer Armor Breacher... so... 50 or so re-rollable 2+ saves later... well lets just say my opponent was suffering some moral issues hahaha. I guess my point is that situations on the table can hinder or hurt a largely infantry army even vs some of the more OP stuff in the game.

**SickSix**

I absolutely agree about I-go-U-go. It's faults are magnified the bigger the game is. So for 40k and 30k its laughably clear how broken it is. In a small skirmish game it probably wouldn't be quite so bad, but when your fielding armies with vindicators, batteries of artillery, squadrons of tanks and super-heavies, first turn is basically victory.

**Togusa**

Totalwar1402 wrote:
I mean the rules seem to be based on the assumption that everyone is taking masses of infantry. Hence why all three core troops are cheaper in big squads and have a max size of 20. You also have the obscene firepower of some units. Clearly the designers imagined those units like quad guns and Leviathans stomping through massed ranks of enemy infantry.

But in practice people don’t do this from what I see at my club and online. People disdainfully take a few tacticals in rhino and make do with some implacable advance terminators; then max out on firepower or close combat backed up by tanks. You rarely see 3 squads of 20 tactical even at 4K and when I have mentioned on this forum people think you’re insane to take that many troops. This is one slot more than the bare minimum amount.

Personally I think tacticals and breachers are horribly over costed. These are squads which have mediocre shooting and can only conceivably make their points back by routing an enemy squad. That can only happen if they run down a squad in CC and they’re only likely to win against other troops. If everybody takes terminators and tanks then this never happens. Iam not kidding, I have never seen two blocks of 20 tacticals fight each other in close combat. Usually everything is dead by shooting or the offensive arm of the enemy comprises of Terminators. On foot they are slow and vulnerable to heavy weapons fire. A rhino is cheap and offers good protection. Why take a squad that can’t shoot, can’t win assaults and will likely die before it’s in bolter range? Implacable advance and plentiful rites of war totally nullifies any concern over objectives.

I think they should be almost halved in price. People clearly view them as a points sink and not as viable units. You should be able to bring enough bodies to just overwhelm terminators and be able to lose a squad without thinking “that 300 points could have been a Leviathan or a squad of Invictari”. If the point is that these are cheap and disposable infantry then their cost should reflect that. Three tactical s are not remotely equal to a Terminator with a power fist. 6 tacticals? That’s probably a lot closer to the reality.

I used to!

My favorite list was 4K of Ultramarines

1 Guilliman
1 Honor Guard Squad
1 Praetor in Cataphractii with a Thunder Hammer and a Volkite Blaster

4 Squads of 20 Legionaries lead by sargents with plasma pistols and power swords

4 Squads of Cataphractii Terminators with Mixed weapons (Power axes, Power Fists, Lighting Claws and so on)

1 10 Man squad of Fulmentarus with Missiles and fists

2 10 Man Squads of veterans with 1 plas 1 melta and sgts with plas/power swords (They were the only ones that had a car to ride in, 2 Rhinos)

3 10 Man Heavy weapon teams (10 Auto Cannons, 10 Missile Launchers, 10 Heavy Volkite)

3 Leviathan Dreads with double claws

Three Sicarian Tanks

2 Vindicator Laser Tanks

It was a hella fun list to play, but I got wiped most of the time. :(

**HandofMars**

Never mind, not even worth the effort... too many histrionics going on as it is.

For what it’s worth, we often play cities of death where there is tons of cover, and both players get 2x20 free tactical squads beyond their regular point allotment. We don’t spaz out over phosphex, although limit them to no more than 2 (not even for their lethality, but the tedium of dealing with all those templates), and as for Typhons we basically don’t use them because it just dies to a lightning, so we don’t bother wasting the points.

**AnomanderRake**

HandofMars wrote:
Never mind, not even worth the effort... too many histrionics going on as it is.

For what it’s worth, we often play cities of death where there is tons of cover, and both players get 2x20 free tactical squads beyond their regular point allotment. We don’t spaz out over phosphex, although limit them to no more than 2 (not even for their lethality, but the tedium of dealing with all those templates), and as for Typhons we basically don’t use them because it just dies to a lightning, so we don’t bother wasting the points.

Addendum: 30k playgroups tend to be smaller than 40k playgroups and the game is way more expensive (models and points) so you don't see people who have everything in the same way; so we've got a complex rock-paper-scissors polygon in which the counters to certain things may or may not exist. The Typhon isn't used in your playgroup because it dies to the Lightning too easily, but in a playgroup where nobody's bought a Lightning it may utterly dominate, or there might be playgroups where nobody's bought a Typhon. Or you might not have to worry about a Typhon because someone's got a Lightning but the Lightning isn't an efficient counter to the Mechanicum player's Thanatars so hordes still don't really happen.

The forty free Tactical Marines is an interesting idea, but I feel like that might get a little wobbly with Surlak/Augmented Inductii lists; does your group have any issues with World Eaters using that rule?

**HandofMars**

AnomanderRake wrote:

The forty free Tactical Marines is an interesting idea, but I feel like that might get a little wobbly with Surlak/Augmented Inductii lists; does your group have any issues with World Eaters using that rule?

Haha, yes, he takes a third and fourth 20-man unit and charges across the board. Those games are usually a dance of trying to win via objectives before getting tabled. The very high terrain density forms funnels and chokepoints, so I think he would be better with just 3 squads and some artillery to dislodge objective campers.

I’m really intrigued by the new 8th cities of death rules and waiting for that urban conquest box. We are trying to figure out how to incorporate them with 7ths trash AP system.

**Pancakey**

JamesY wrote:
Totalwar1402 wrote:

I’d refuse to play anyone using quad guns so it’s a none issue for me. The unit is disgustingly undercosted and obscenely damage resistant. It basically takes a D template to shift them and they can make their points back in one shot. It’s not fluffy that one of them can put out more firepower than a whole Basilisk battery. The crew also void precision shot and are treated as toughness 8 which is outright disingenuous. FW clearly didn’t play test this unit since I could take two Fellblades and not kill as much as a Quad mortar squad.

I have two and only two, more is unnecessary. They are good, but they are killable, I've lost mine to deepstriking knight errants, a pair of multimelta attack bikes, enemy phosphex rapier fire, typhon siege guns, drop podding leviathans, scorpius rounds from seekers in scouting landraiders... If someone over took them, I'd probably refuse. One unit I don't think is too bad.

Thats rich!!!