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Hey lads. I've seen many times that people fielding Noise Marines prefer not to mix up sonic blasters with blastmasters. Why is that?

My opinion (as a rookie player) is that blastmasters do well with sonic blasters, because they either:
1. Create a gun line that showers the enemy with heavy metal goodness, or
2. Move together in a Chaos Rhino transport that drops them on an objective and then they do 1.

What is the reason to pair blasmasters with bolter-wielding NMs? What do I overlook?

Beacause sonic blasters are over priced bolters on overpriced marines, why pay for more than you have to?

I've suspected that point cost is a reason, but is it the only one?

I'd personally use bolter NMs to assault infantry units (and take objectives on their own). Placing blastmasters with them would be a waste, since they'd be expected to move a lot, and I'd be left with Varied Frequency.

Because all people want in their noise marine sqauds are Blast masters for that delcious str 8 ap 3 ignores cover, eats through Marines and Crisis suits.

I think I get it now. It's not a tactical choice per se, but rather the fact that many players take only blastmasters in their NM squads due to point cost. Thank you for your answers, it'll help me decide upon my primary army list.

Blastmasters are designed for different targets than sonic blasters. You can mix them sure, but then you're not using either weapon to its full potential.

 Badablack wrote:
Blastmasters are designed for different targets than sonic blasters. You can mix them sure, but then you're not using either weapon to its full potential.

Yeah, I think I see this now. No wonder that the sole NM squad I have at the moment usually just sits on an objective and the Blastmaster guy is the only one who contributes throughout the entire game.

While I understand the logic about smaller squads with just the blastmaster but think it's sub-optimal. NMs are all about firepower. I like to take them in squads of 10 with a full sonic loadout and put them in a Rhino, which lets me play peek a boo. The way peek a boo works:

1) Have your NMs disembark behind the Rhino near enemy infantry.

2) Start your next turn by moving the Rhino out of the way enough to let you shoot at your opponent.

3) Shoot with the noise marines and put the Rhino back where it started.

This is really the case for full sonics, they can lay down a devastating amount of firepower. You may lose a Rhino, but you can do an extra 3 - 4 MEQ wounds before anything can assault you. Opponents will often send in a sacrifice squad to kill the Rhino, which is actually better when you consider the rules around intervening units. Sonic weapons ignore cover, so you can shoot through the sacrifice unit without penalty then assault for maximum damage. Not many things are tougher to kill than MEQ that strikes at I5 with FNP.

It takes skill to pull something like this off, but that's the thing about NMs. Everything is about finding a way to stand still for a round, even with the Blastmaster. Might as well get something with the extra shots.