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So, I'm just getting into 40k now and painting up some Imperial Fists and I like their fluff of being defensive siege specialists with loads of bolters. My main question is, how much of a disadvantage is it to not take special/heavy weapons in a tac squad. It just seems that if I plan to stay at max range then a metla gun wont get much of a work out, if there's a flamer in the squad the temptation will be to great to run into close range to use it and plasma guns seem a bit risky.
So how much of a disadvantage would I be giving myself by not taking any of these?

I almost always take the specialist/heavy weapons.

Specialist weapons: Keep in mind that although you lose your bolter, you will still retain your bolt pistol. At 12-24 inches, you sacrifice one shot out of the squad for the amazing returns you get in the 0-12 band. The meltagun is my personal favorite, and I'd field them ten strong if they'd let me! Flamers are pretty sweet, too, especially if you're getting charged, which you inevitably will. Sometimes you'll find yourself in a situation where it's far more advantageous to charge your opponent than to get charged, or to sit around and get shot. Remember that Space Marines are generalists, and despite the fluff that informs the Imperial Fists, against shooting oriented armies, your best bet is often to engage them up close and personal. An extra bolter per tactical squad isn't going to swing the balance to your favor if you're trying to outshoot a Tau gunline! If you aren't playing Salamanders, then the plasma guns are often the best choice, since they can injure any vehicle except for AV14, have a chance to hurt every enemy in the game, ignore armor, and still allow you your epic armor save if you get hot, which isn't often. It's a gamble, but no balls, no babies.

Heavy weapons: If my tactical squad is intended for direct close combat, I sometimes leave the heavy weapon at home. Usually, I bring it anyway. Especially with sixth edition, the heavy weapons still have the snapfire even on the move, which is awesome. If nothing else, a heavy bolter sounds like something you can't lose with, given the play style you seem to want to pursue. An extra shot (no matter the distance), a longer range, better strength, better AP, all at the cost of having to make snap shots if you moved? Yes, please! The missile launcher is also pretty amazing. Best of all, some of your options in both this and the specialist weapon categories are free!

I highly recommend flamer/missile launcher or plasma gun/missile launcher, if nothing else. I seldom, if ever, have had cause to regret taking a heavy or specialist weapon.

Hope that helps, and good luck to you! (Both in building your army and in the hell that is trying to paint Imperial Fists!)

Thanks heaps for the advice, I had been thinking of using heavy bolters, multimeltas and missile launchers and being able to swap them out depending on what enemy I'm facing, but I might invest in getting some plasmaguns then, I didn't put any thought into the armor save for gets hot. so that seems like a good way to go

40k is ALL about the special/heavy weapons. A bit too much so, in my opinion, but there you have it. Bolters and normal CCWs wont really do much most of the time, and they are there mostly to take wounds for your more important pieces.

Most of your damage will come from your specialists, be it Powerfists, Plasmas etc. So you pretty much always want to utilize any special weapon slots you know you'll get to use, which is pretty much always for shooting(but not so much with melee weapons).

For a defensive list, plasmas are almost always worth it. Even if that Gets Hot! kills you, which is actually fairly rare, you almost always will have made your points back. There are waaay too many armies with plentiful 2+ there to ensure you'll always need to have some plasmas around.

Flamers I am personally not very fond of. This might be because I usually play chaos, so my melee guys can take out hordes with ease, but mostly it's the fact that infantry is the one thing your bolters are good for. Plus, aside from orks, most of the horde armies out there tend to also bring in a lot of MCs, where those plasmas will be even more critical. Flamers are fantastic if you know you'll be facing orks, but otherwise I tend to leave them at home.

Meltas are also fantastic. When playing CSMs, they are always the default option, simply because they are Assault. But even for the less CC oriented SMs, they make your squad impossible to ignore.

As such, my general suggestion when it comes to special weapons is, plasmas for footslogging squads, meltas for squads in Rhino.

The heavies are a bit harder, and largely depend if you are going to combat squad or not. If you intead to combat squad and heave the heavy weapon half behind, I always suggest plasma cannons, they are greeeeat! Missile Launchers are ok, but they took a hit on 6th, as 2+ saves are becoming more popular. Plasma cannons on the other hand terrify people.

If you are not going to split the squad, then you either go multimelta or nothing, in my opinion. The heavy bolter is worse than a bolter if you are going to be moving and shooting. If you are not, the multi meta again opens up the squad to threaten most things in the game, which is much better than a minor improvement in anti infantry capabilities, even with a snap shot. Again, unless you KNOW you are going to be facing Orks, or Tyranids at which point the Heavy Bolter might be worth it.

BTW, it's generally considered unsportman like to talor your lists, i.e change your army loadout after you've seen what your opponent is playing, unless you agree it with him.

I meant more along the lines of, this guy is most likely running orks so I'm going to bring a missile launcher, sort of thing rather than wait to see what they deploy.

My stock two tac squads are ML/F and MM/M in rhinos.

There is a lot a well executed bolter drill can do. People who discount the humble tactical marine with his bolter and treat him as a tax they need to pay, are selling themselves short. Keeping the squad together maximizes the bolters, combat squadding the special/heavy.

Flamers are good against the same things you want to bolter, so has good squad synergy. And template range is not that much closer then rapid fire distance. And being your free choice, well worth taking. You might miss the few shots you could have had at distance, but get them all at close range.

If you plan on bunkering up and shooting, plasma guns are very good.

Melta is it's own thing, but worth having. While it doesn't have synergy with the squad's weapons, it expands what the squad can threaten.

Some heavies are good vs. troops, others expand what you can hunt. At the very least I'd take the free HB or ML. Plus they look good.

MultiDyls wrote:
So, I'm just getting into 40k now and painting up some Imperial Fists and I like their fluff of being defensive siege specialists with loads of bolters. My main question is, how much of a disadvantage is it to not take special/heavy weapons in a tac squad. It just seems that if I plan to stay at max range then a metla gun wont get much of a work out, if there's a flamer in the squad the temptation will be to great to run into close range to use it and plasma guns seem a bit risky.
So how much of a disadvantage would I be giving myself by not taking any of these?

Don't forget C:SM's ability to combat squad their TAC's.

I will normally split my 10 man tac with a flamer/melta in one and the las/ML/HB in the other. This way I can assault if I need to and not loose the Heavy fire.

You gain the ability to split a TAC's fier power and can still have them both focus a target down as a 10 man unit.

Just don't use it with a Kill Point game as Combat squaddin ggive your opponent an extra victory point to score (a weaker one at that.)

Don't underestimate the humble flamer. Because it doesn't roll to hit, mathhammer smiles on it.

If you flame six Marines, 3 are wounded and 1 die. If you rapid fire plasma 1.11 die outside of cover. The extra 1/9 is also equal to the chance you kill yourself from the rapid fire.

Add cover or add more bodies and the flamer clearly wins. It also more reliable in over watch, where the chance to kill yourself is pretty close to the chance to kill someone. Flamers are also assault weapons.

Plasma is good outside 8", vs 2+ saves and MCs, or small or spread out squads.

I use two Plasma/Lascannon Squads + one Melta/Plasma Cannon Squad.

So how would this go?
Squad 1: Flamer + ML
Squad 2: Plasma + HB?

or should I get some metla in there?

MultiDyls wrote:
So how would this go?
Squad 1: Flamer + ML
Squad 2: Plasma + HB?

or should I get some metla in there?

How's the rest of your list fixed for anti tank? Melta in tac squads is a nice backup if you don't have enough elsewhere. But those two squads will work. It's hard to make bad choices, some just fit different roles better.

The 1500 point list I'm working towards is

Darnath Lysander

Terminator Librarian

5x Sternguard

5x Assault termies

5 sniper scouts

2 tac squads in rhinos with powersword on sergeant

and 2 vindicators with dozer blades,

have about 25 points I can work with for special weapons.

So I guess the only anti tank I really have is Lysanders thunder hammer and vindicators

On the Tac Squads:

They need their special weapons, it helps them out and can give flexibility if you decide (or have to) combat squad them. Usually I find their are only these viable options: flamer or meltagun for specialist, ML/MM for Heavy (favoring ML with new vehicle rules). This gives you a wide range of uses for the quad.

On the List

Okay this list...has some issues (if going for competitiveness. If not worrying about competitiveness, nvm.)

The first problem is the assault terminators. They're just sitting there, in the open, waiting to die. They are not as good as you may think at rolling into enemies without a landraider to babysit them. If you're taking them, throw them in a raider. If not, think about taking Tac termies. With Bolter drill, they become very scary.

5 Sternguard with no rhino/razorback/drop pod will die horribly VERY quickly. They also have no combi-weapons, which they really do need (they give them SO much more range imo).

2 HQs at 1500 = too many points for C:SM. C:SM does not handle multiple HQs well. You have 1/5th of your army tied up in two models, one of which (the libby) can be insta-deathed by a krak missile. The libby is wasting points in this list.

I'd recommend removing the terminator librarian and the assault termies, and then looking at what to do with Lysander. Lysander + sternguard can equal some very powerful attacks. Esp. with combi-meltas/flamers under their belts, they become a nasty ranged group that can eat up anything that gets close (and doesn't assault them).

I'd also recommend looking at tactical termies. Storm bolters + lysander = lots of death.

Again, this list is fine if you like the fluff and look of it. But if you want to make it competitive, skim off the assault termies and libby and throw down more sternguard, a rhino/razorback for them, and maybe some tactical termies. If you go the tac termies route, try adding locator beacons on the scouts and a tac squad or so, to ensure the termies arrive where you want them.

Hashbeth wrote:
On the Tac Squads:

They need their special weapons, it helps them out and can give flexibility if you decide (or have to) combat squad them. Usually I find their are only these viable options: flamer or meltagun for specialist, ML/MM for Heavy (favoring ML with new vehicle rules). This gives you a wide range of uses for the quad.

On the List

Okay this list...has some issues (if going for competitiveness. If not worrying about competitiveness, nvm.)

The first problem is the assault terminators. They're just sitting there, in the open, waiting to die. They are not as good as you may think at rolling into enemies without a landraider to babysit them. If you're taking them, throw them in a raider. If not, think about taking Tac termies. With Bolter drill, they become very scary.

5 Sternguard with no rhino/razorback/drop pod will die horribly VERY quickly. They also have no combi-weapons, which they really do need (they give them SO much more range imo).

2 HQs at 1500 = too many points for C:SM. C:SM does not handle multiple HQs well. You have 1/5th of your army tied up in two models, one of which (the libby) can be insta-deathed by a krak missile. The libby is wasting points in this list.

I'd recommend removing the terminator librarian and the assault termies, and then looking at what to do with Lysander. Lysander + sternguard can equal some very powerful attacks. Esp. with combi-meltas/flamers under their belts, they become a nasty ranged group that can eat up anything that gets close (and doesn't assault them).

I'd also recommend looking at tactical termies. Storm bolters + lysander = lots of death.

Again, this list is fine if you like the fluff and look of it. But if you want to make it competitive, skim off the assault termies and libby and throw down more sternguard, a rhino/razorback for them, and maybe some tactical termies. If you go the tac termies route, try adding locator beacons on the scouts and a tac squad or so, to ensure the termies arrive where you want them.

Yeah I only just realized I wrote assault , they were meant to be tac termies that go with Lysander so that clears that up, and I'm not 100% interested in being fully competitive but losing every game wouldn't be fun. And I was wondering about the sternguard, they were meant to hang with the libby and gate around the board but I wasnt sure about the effectiveness of just 5 of them with a librarian.

MultiDyls wrote:
Yeah I only just realized I wrote assault , they were meant to be tac termies that go with Lysander so that clears that up, and I'm not 100% interested in being fully competitive but losing every game wouldn't be fun. And I was wondering about the sternguard, they were meant to hang with the libby and gate around the board but I wasnt sure about the effectiveness of just 5 of them with a librarian.

For a while I fielded a 5 man sternguard squad with just bolters. They did OK. Then I picked up another 5 guys and they got a LOT better. And this is just with the bolters, I'm not a big fan of loading them down with combis.

Bolters, be they normal ones on tactical marines, or special ammo sternguard, need numbers to work. While 5 sternguard are going to mess someone up a lot more then 5 normal marines, it's not going to be enough to make a big impact.

Combi-plasma, plasma gun, multi-melta, Razorback - Assault cannon.

24" range all around. Get these guys to midfield and they are set.

Polecat wrote:
Combi-plasma, plasma gun, multi-melta, Razorback - Assault cannon.

24" range all around. Get these guys to midfield and they are set.

How do you combat squad that to fit in the razor? Normally you leave the heavy at home, and the MM is not the best choice for that. Or are you taking the razor just as a light tanks and footslogging the whole squad up?

special and heavy weapons are a must, 2 vindicators gives you quite a bit of back up, but thats only on 2 targets, so its in your best interest to pack some more punch on your tac squads. I try to orient each squad for a particular objective. for example if i want them to get up close and personal i give them a flamer ML and put them in a rhino or drop pod. If i want them mid field taking out other high risk units (MC, vehicles, etc) id go with plasma / melta and PC / LC / MM (pretty much depends on how you want to allocate points and how close you want them to get in).
I normally have 1 squad with melta and mm and the other will either go fl ml or plas las depending on if im fielding an assault squad with them or not

For BA, I use combi-plasma, plasma gun, las plas razor, and combat squad out a lascannon. Obviously C:SM don't want a las/plas razor, so I'd probably go with TL LC. I'm not a fan of the assault cannon really.

I would never not talk special/heavy weapons. It is always better than the bolter for it's points. Also, plasma is not as risky as it seems, as you have a 1/18 chance to fry your guy with each shot, and you won't shoot every turn anyways. I am a big fan of plasma cannons in tac squads.

I know that not everyone will agree with me but listen to my logic here... I use my tac squads in pods and require them to do mobile. I find that a meltagun is a must for anti tank, a meltabomb is gold and for a heavy weapon I go with heavy bolter... my reasoning is you are going to be moving and I would rather snap fire 3 HB shots than 1 MM or ML shot. Its also good for Overwatch when you get charged after the drop. Take it or leave if tho... If I was just going to sit back with them tho I would go with a PC.