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If Plasma needs to change at all, it needs to only overheat on natural 1s and only do 1MW, not slay the bearer outright.
Now you bump them up to 15ppm (Plasma guns, at least) and you're done. Still a worthwhile option that now has an appropriate cost and the risk/reward is less ridiculous.

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Yay, marines totally need 28 point dudes with one wound!

Martel732 wrote:
Yay, marines totally need 28 point dudes with one wound!

I don't get this math at all. A Tac squad with 1 Plasma and 4 Bolters would average 16ppm. If only 1-2 models per 5+ model unit can take the special weapon, the cost averages across said unit.
Stating it as "28pt 1W dude" artificially over-exaggerates what really going on.

13ppm is the real problem for Bolter Marines (and the fact that they only have 1W, but that's a whole other discussion).

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Okay then, 16 pt guys one one wound. It doesn't matter how you look at it. Gearing marines makes them bleed points.

Martel732 wrote:
Okay then, 16 pt guys one one wound. It doesn't matter how you look at it. Gearing marines makes them bleed points.

Agreed, but just because GW refuses to address their points cost, doesn't mean we can discuss how to make those gear choices better for them.

In an ideal world, "Primaris" Marines would have been just a new mark of armour with set gear, but ALL Marines would have 2W/2A base. But we don't live in an ideal world

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The problem with the MW change is that you can shift off wounds to others in the unit the way CIBs can, which is silly.

I think plasma guns are largely crap bc getting close is suicide very often.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
The problem with the MW change is that you can shift off wounds to others in the unit the way CIBs can, which is silly.

Not if the rule says the MODEL takes the MW, not the UNIT

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 Galef wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
The problem with the MW change is that you can shift off wounds to others in the unit the way CIBs can, which is silly.

Not if the rule says the MODEL takes the MW, not the UNIT

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Then the game breaks because the game doesn't have rules for resolving what happens when multiple models in a unit are wounded. It's why CIB got errata'd and why Index KMB are broken.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
The problem with the MW change is that you can shift off wounds to others in the unit the way CIBs can, which is silly.

Plasma gun explodes in a marine's face, killing him. One of the other marines picks up the still-smoking plasma gun and keeps firing. You remove a bolter model. You can come up with decent explanations for a lot of these things that seem silly on the surface. Though I do prefer that the plasma model is the one that removes if it gets hot.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Go real Salamander and heavy flamers/Meltas across the board? Sorry, flufflord at heart.

Try not to get too carried away with that fluff. Salamanders have a general affinity for flamer and melta weapons, but that doesn't mean that they're the only weapons they use. They're equipped and trained with the full arsenal of astartes weapons and will apply the appropriate weapons to the situation. Sure you'll see more melta than other chapters field, but it's perfectly fluffy for them to have lascannons and missile launchers too.

 Togusa wrote:

 zedsdead wrote:
Im looking to put Heavy weapons in my Salamander Tac squads to take advantage of the Sally Trait. What is the best option to go with ? i am considering MLs because the 2 types of fire mode.

I use primarily missile launchers because the dual fire mode is quite nice. The S4 D6 shot mode has been beneficial to me in more than one occasion, while the Krak missile mode and flakk missile mode have saved my butt a ton of times in recent games. It's a great weapon when supported with an LT and Captain for rerolls + Auspex. In my experience, the meta of your environment matters though. Lascannons are useless where I play because 99% of my meta is made of footslogging "x" almost no vehicles and zero knights are ever seen on my local tables. Obviously, if you're seeing knights + tanks and such, you might want to consider the LC. Don't forget the Heavy Bolters though, they're quite good and great for adding that extra umph to your squad. Plasma cannons are also an undersung hero this edition, and I am very confused as to why you don't see more of them on the table top.

Love me some Plasma, my Grey Hunter squads run a gun each and sometimes my Tempestas Scions follow suit.
Tacticals sucking would be the answer to your question though, 65 points worth of Marines loses to 40 points worth of Guard in a shootout more often than not so people don't bother adding to their cost.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 zedsdead wrote:
Im looking to put Heavy weapons in my Salamander Tac squads to take advantage of the Sally Trait. What is the best option to go with ? i am considering MLs because the 2 types of fire mode.

I use primarily missile launchers because the dual fire mode is quite nice. The S4 D6 shot mode has been beneficial to me in more than one occasion, while the Krak missile mode and flakk missile mode have saved my butt a ton of times in recent games. It's a great weapon when supported with an LT and Captain for rerolls + Auspex. In my experience, the meta of your environment matters though. Lascannons are useless where I play because 99% of my meta is made of footslogging "x" almost no vehicles and zero knights are ever seen on my local tables. Obviously, if you're seeing knights + tanks and such, you might want to consider the LC. Don't forget the Heavy Bolters though, they're quite good and great for adding that extra umph to your squad. Plasma cannons are also an undersung hero this edition, and I am very confused as to why you don't see more of them on the table top.

Love me some Plasma, my Grey Hunter squads run a gun each and sometimes my Tempestas Scions follow suit.
Tacticals sucking would be the answer to your question though, 65 points worth of Marines loses to 40 points worth of Guard in a shootout more often than not so people don't bother adding to their cost.

10 shots
5 hits
5/3 wounds
5/9 dead

10 shots
20/3 hits
40/9 wounds
80/27 dead

Marines kill, in the opening volley, about three Guardsmen.
Guardsmen kill, in the opening volley, about half a Marine.

Guardsmen are better than Marines, but not in a straight shoot-out without support. (Add cover, and while Guard take only about two to two-and-a-half casualties, the Marines take less than one-third of a casualty.)

Heads up is never the best analysis. Guardsmen vs the field are money.

The claim was that 40 points of Guard beat 65 points of Marines in a shootout.

That’s completely wrong.

I've tuned out the head to head comparisons. The space filling and wound soaking are invaluable.

Thanks guys... yea regarding flame, melta weapons , ive tried to make them work but Range really hurts them. Im looking to put together a Salamander Brigade that basically spams bodies. I figured i could make all the squads mini (BobbyG) equivilents by putting in a Heavy weapon rerolling a hit and wound. Lascannons seem to be best at taking advantage of that. However im going to run a few MLs on units to address Horde.

Right now im running 85 bodies so going to test it out and see where it lands. We play primarily ITC.

To answer the the OP, in the earlier days of 8th edition I payed a lot of tacticals as I built up my forces.

I found the perfect squad to be 5 man, sarge carries a storm bolter and chainsword, heavy carries a lascannon. Cheap, cheerful, and threatens most units in the game at least a little.
I also found that using ML's and a Heavy Bolter more useful in a devastator squad, as the cherub can help squeeze a bit more mileage out of the associated stratagems.

Vortenger wrote:
To answer the the OP, in the earlier days of 8th edition I payed a lot of tacticals as I built up my forces.

I found the perfect squad to be 5 man, sarge carries a storm bolter and chainsword, heavy carries a lascannon. Cheap, cheerful, and threatens most units in the game at least a little.
I also found that using ML's and a Heavy Bolter more useful in a devastator squad, as the cherub can help squeeze a bit more mileage out of the associated stratagems.

Not anymore. Angry baby got nerfed.

If you don’t have any infantry MLs yet, take 1-2 for the strat. If you still have space for more, then consider the above discussion for ml vs lascannons.

As to the assorted other topics:
Plasma really should be 1 MW to the bearer. It’s stupid every FW plasma weapon has some special name and only does 1 on overheat and GW plasmas kill. With the 1MW change leaving the negative penalty as is seems fine for balance.

Marines having +1 attack base I think would resolve a lot of their issues (let’s say not chars for balance). Assault and tactical marines would actually have enough attacks to match cheapo units. Still not good, but not laughably outclassed.

Marine heavy weapons are overpriced in general. Tacticals worked in prior editions due to their discounted specials/heavies. Meltas and grav are too costly for short range on a guy who takes -1 to hit and/or needs an overcosted pod delivery. Las and mls are actually okay when you only count the cost of the gun and bearer, but are too costly when you factor in the mandatory cost of the rest of the unit.

bort wrote:

Marine heavy weapons are overpriced in general. Tacticals worked in prior editions due to their discounted specials/heavies. Meltas and grav are too costly for short range on a guy who takes -1 to hit and/or needs an overcosted pod delivery. Las and mls are actually okay when you only count the cost of the gun and bearer, but are too costly when you factor in the mandatory cost of the rest of the unit.

For Tacticals with discounted weapons, the major difference now is that the heavy weapon guy can now fire at a separate target than the rest of the squad. A Tactical Squad shooting at a Leman Russ in prior editions wasted all the bolsters in the unit to fire at the Russ. IMO the lack of a discount is fine now, as we don't have that problem anymore.

In that sense yes, but the squad+weapon is still overpriced. A 33pt marine with a ML is among the top efficient AT picks in the codex. But add even 1 13pt ablative body and it drops to mediocre. Adding 4 bodies means you need to be able to split fire and bolter drill for any sort of efficiency at all.

bort wrote:
In that sense yes, but the squad+weapon is still overpriced. A 33pt marine with a ML is among the top efficient AT picks in the codex. But add even 1 13pt ablative body and it drops to mediocre. Adding 4 bodies means you need to be able to split fire and bolter drill for any sort of efficiency at all.

But you HAVE Bolter Drill and Split Fire.

And you see so many tactical squads doing this?
To clarify, you need efficient targets for splitting fire every round despite the expensive gun being 48” and not wanting to move and the others at 24”. If you can blaze away round after round not moving and still have a good target for each gun type, then yeah the unit is decent (there’s still better, but it’s decent).
That’s also to get efficiency in total. In terms of specifically AT efficiency it’s horrid. And I’m assuming we’re mostly concerned with AT here since talking MLS and lascannons.

And that is the problem with GW's approach to pricing tactically flexible units. They always overprice them on the basis that they can do everything to best effect every turn. Specialist units are usually better because you just play to put them where they excel and let them rip.