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Im new to 40k, and since I play as Grey Knights I was wondering if there's ever a reason to not combat squad your knights. It seems to me that the only disadvantage is that your opponent has two choices to fire at rather than one.

Well there are uses for combat squadding...
1 being 2 scoring troops for the price of 1...
2 being a chance to split fire

But disadvantages are....
Little model count (but as you're GK I wouldnt worry about this)
Gives a disadvantage for you as you have a 5 man kill point that can be easily killed out of their ride.

My 2 cents

With GK I think combat squadding is a good idea. They are quite strong in five man squads anyway. With regular marines it needs more thinking.

At the moment(I mean in 6th edition, so ignore these first three words) you should combat squad by default with only in exceptional circumstances leaving squads together.

The obvious point is in victory point battles you can field hardly any units and win comfortably.

Then some things like paladins with an apothecary or units boosted by a librarian work best in big squads.

Sometimes you look at the enemy and dump a squad of ten on an objective knowing that the enemy will find it had to push them off. So explicitly this is more cc and leadership reasons, as, yes, 2 squads of 5 can also be hard to shift off a single objective.

MFletch wrote:At the moment(I mean in 6th edition, so ignore these first three words) you should combat squad by default with only in exceptional circumstances leaving squads together.

The obvious point is in victory point battles you can field hardly any units and win comfortably.

Then some things like paladins with an apothecary or units boosted by a librarian work best in big squads.

Sometimes you look at the enemy and dump a squad of ten on an objective knowing that the enemy will find it had to push them off. So explicitly this is more cc and leadership reasons, as, yes, 2 squads of 5 can also be hard to shift off a single objective.

I wouldn't combat squad everything, as if you are playing an army that brings a lot of dakka to the table, your combat squads will vanish leaving the enemy with twice as many kill points as usual.
It's a good idea to combat squad a unit with a heavy weapon, as they can sit back and shoot that, while the rest of the squad pushes, but in any other circumstance i tend to keep my marines together.

farrowking37 wrote:

MFletch wrote:At the moment(I mean in 6th edition, so ignore these first three words) you should combat squad by default with only in exceptional circumstances leaving squads together.

The obvious point is in victory point battles you can field hardly any units and win comfortably.

Then some things like paladins with an apothecary or units boosted by a librarian work best in big squads.

Sometimes you look at the enemy and dump a squad of ten on an objective knowing that the enemy will find it had to push them off. So explicitly this is more cc and leadership reasons, as, yes, 2 squads of 5 can also be hard to shift off a single objective.

I wouldn't combat squad everything, as if you are playing an army that brings a lot of dakka to the table, your combat squads will vanish leaving the enemy with twice as many kill points as usual.
It's a good idea to combat squad a unit with a heavy weapon, as they can sit back and shoot that, while the rest of the squad pushes, but in any other circumstance i tend to keep my marines together.

Since Kill Points are only used in 1 (?) mission in the rulebook, that's not too much of an issue anymore.

One important detail that nobody has mentioned yet is that the rules for combat squads and transports have changed this edition. Previously, combat squads could not occupy the same transport, and there is an advantage to having a full strength squad present when taking an objective.

Now, combat squads can occupy the same transport, so you can bring 10 Space Marines to an objective in their Rhino whether they're combat squadded or not. There are still a few benefits to keeping the squads at full size, including increased protection from assaults (better Overwatch), but for the most part you really have no reason not to combat squad unless you're playing Kill Points.

I think the change to Kill Points and the fact that they can be in the same transport together made them better. But that's also offset now with the addition of Overwatch and being full strength in the assault phase.