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Martel732 wrote:
Marines have no source of dakka or chopping that can efficiently clear screens. That's why everyone is just planning to shoot past the screens.

For example, Let's say 8 DC charge 10 guardsmen or 15 gaunts and wipe them, and in turn are wasted by enemy shooting. I'm trading 160 pts for 40 or 60. That's untenable.

I don't know about that. Veteran bikes with storm bolters and a few storm shields for soaking up plasma shots = a ton of shooting. Heck 5 bikers get 40 shots at 12", and they will get within 12" easy with their movement / toughness / 3++ save. That's 200 pts. Or take land speeders with dual heavy flamers, again that's 2d6 auto hits at 8" that will makd the opponent focus fire on them or pay for it, and at 104 pts a model they can wipe any swarm down in numbers.

Is it as cost effective as the swarms they are targeting? That's a different question. But they do the job quite well. And no one wants to charge a squad of 3 land speeders with dual heavy flamers.


As for tacticals, I run 3-5 squads of them normally. It's normally a 5 man squads, srg with combi flamer for over watch help, 1 with a laz cannon. I also sometimes give a few rhinos to help them move around the field. But they always do great for me. Salamander tactic = who needs a captain around anyways. Put them on an objective, use them to deny deep strike, take pot shots at anything big that shows its face, profit. Are there other things mathematically that could be more efficient? Probably. But this has worked well for me ever since the codex dropped and I am not about to stop running it this way, if anything I need to find more rhinos. Rhinos drop of tac squad, then run around the field with 2 storm bolters. Run them up in front of that squad of conscripts, watch them fall like flies when 4 rhinos all put out 8 shots each. They make great, cheap storm bolter gunboats.

Martel732 wrote:
Marines have no source of dakka or chopping that can efficiently clear screens. That's why everyone is just planning to shoot past the screens.

For example, Let's say 8 DC charge 10 guardsmen or 15 gaunts and wipe them, and in turn are wasted by enemy shooting. I'm trading 160 pts for 40 or 60. That's untenable.

I like analogues from previous editions. Before hull points, "ignore the land raider" was a popular one.

You guys remember 5th? In 5th, 8 DC would have charged 30-50 guardsmen and a commissar. Welcome to the Tar Pit. They would have been stuck in there for at least a full round, depending on a tiny bit of luck and how many guard there were, the DC not doing anything meaningful this entire time other than ripping through some cheap guard, and then when it was convenient to deal with them, the guard player would have taken that one wound on a Commissar. The tar pit drains, all the guard disappear, and then the DC die. Hell, you take a couple power weapons in the guard squad and you might actually take out a few DC along the way and make it even easier. It wasn't as cheap as it is nowadays, but most everything is cheaper than it is now.

This is not the first time fighting horde with elite assault units has been a losing battle. Not quite as much, but the above holds true if you substitute guard for nids. You had to do more shenanigans with synapse bubbles, but you could do it, and then you countercharge the DC with genestealers, and the 'stealers probably wind up winning that fight with fewer losses.

Honestly, I don't say stuff like this to try to justify how things are now. I do this to try to illustrate how much nothing has changed. I mean, it's one thing to get fed up with it and want something better. It's something entirely different to pretend any of this is new though, and I feel like the toxicity is doing that. I feel like this is just wheels spinning an inch away from making contact. It's not really going anywhere, because it never did to begin with.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Azuza001 wrote:

I don't know about that. Veteran bikes with storm bolters and a few storm shields for soaking up plasma shots = a ton of shooting. Heck 5 bikers get 40 shots at 12", and they will get within 12" easy with their movement / toughness / 3++ save. That's 200 pts. Or take land speeders with dual heavy flamers, again that's 2d6 auto hits at 8" that will makd the opponent focus fire on them or pay for it, and at 104 pts a model they can wipe any swarm down in numbers.

Is it as cost effective as the swarms they are targeting? That's a different question. But they do the job quite well. And no one wants to charge a squad of 3 land speeders with dual heavy flamers.

It was determined in one of the many conscript threads that a bunch of tac/scouts with captains and lieutennants rhino rushing with combiflamers could cost effectively get through screens.

My observation is that part of the problem is that there's a level of expectation that any sort of play style should be effective against any army. Without opinion on if this should be the case, it remains that it is not and has, through most of my experience outside of 7th, never been. The fact that it was effective in 7th was actually the biggest complaint about 7th.

I agree, and that's an unrealistic expectation for any game. I want to make a list that is competitive against the most options possible with out making it a crazy psycho 5 land raiders / 8 storm talons kind of list. And here I find 5 man tacticals with rhinos to actually be effective. Will it always work? No. But it always has a chance. And it will be useful in many different situations depending on what I am facing and what's going on. I think many people put too much focus into that single way their army wins and it causes them to either

A. Not be able to react when an opposing players play style / army forces them to not be able to play the way they wanted to and they cry "foul" or "op"
B. Force an opposing player to not be able to play the way they expected and cause the reverse to happen.

Plan for the unexpected is what tacticals are made for. They can really help fill in gaps when you don't know what's going to happen but you need that flexibility in the field. And if they do "just get shot up and die" so what, they are just tacticals.

There's always further considerations. The more I think about 8th Ed, the more I think what we used to call a TAC list is not identical to a collection of the best units.

Don't have time for a deeply meaningful conversation, but that's what struck me about Lawrence's list. There's four things that, based on how I approach list building, I would identify as "themes."

1) Have lots of tools in the toolbox, any of which you don't care if you lose. In this case, both the razorbacks and the lascannon Tacticals fit- small, but meaningful contributions to damage, but not items where he was dependent on any single squad.
2) Play for endurance. In this case, it's disproportionately hard for the opponent to remove enough of Lawrence's units on both a by-unit and by-army level. The Tac squads need to be completely eliminated to lose what they provide (and he's got Tiggy to help with any unit that's become fragile), and again, you wipe a single Tac squad you've barely made a dent. Other people talk about target saturation, which is a similar principle. If he had taken Devs or some other high visibility target, he'd be setting priorities for his opponent.
3) Flexibility. This is a basic one- he's got two sets of six units that all do the same thing. Deploy with a good LOS spread and it doesn't really matter what his opponent does, his counter is already deployed. Spamming units, a long-standing stable for power lists, frequently do this.
4) Invert the meta- I'm not sure this kind of list will play as well if the conventional wisdom on tactical marines changes.

I saw something similar back in 4th- in an age where everyone was running 6 man las-plas squads, I was running 10 man bolter squads. Five of them in rhinos, with double assault-squads+chaplains. Depending on points level, I'd toss in "bullet magnet" tanks that I absolutely assumed would die turns 1-2.(My actual AT was multi-melta speeders)

I won a hell of a lot more than I lost simply because no-one knew what to do- "knowing" that Tacs sucked, they didn't actually know how much it took to whittle down a full squad if their opponent was smart about cover. In fairness, I ran my rhinos as pairs as much as possible- so it was really 1 20 man "combat squad" to game the targeting/charge rules of the day. Lawrence a little did that here- I'm sure his opponents went right after his flying "look at me, I'm hard to hit" dummy while he papercut them to death with his carbide-paper.

BrainFireBob wrote:
There's always further considerations. The more I think about 8th Ed, the more I think what we used to call a TAC list is not identical to a collection of the best units.

Don't have time for a deeply meaningful conversation, but that's what struck me about Lawrence's list. There's four things that, based on how I approach list building, I would identify as "themes."

1) Have lots of tools in the toolbox, any of which you don't care if you lose. In this case, both the razorbacks and the lascannon Tacticals fit- small, but meaningful contributions to damage, but not items where he was dependent on any single squad.
2) Play for endurance. In this case, it's disproportionately hard for the opponent to remove enough of Lawrence's units on both a by-unit and by-army level. The Tac squads need to be completely eliminated to lose what they provide (and he's got Tiggy to help with any unit that's become fragile), and again, you wipe a single Tac squad you've barely made a dent. Other people talk about target saturation, which is a similar principle. If he had taken Devs or some other high visibility target, he'd be setting priorities for his opponent.
3) Flexibility. This is a basic one- he's got two sets of six units that all do the same thing. Deploy with a good LOS spread and it doesn't really matter what his opponent does, his counter is already deployed. Spamming units, a long-standing stable for power lists, frequently do this.
4) Invert the meta- I'm not sure this kind of list will play as well if the conventional wisdom on tactical marines changes.

I saw something similar back in 4th- in an age where everyone was running 6 man las-plas squads, I was running 10 man bolter squads. Five of them in rhinos, with double assault-squads+chaplains. Depending on points level, I'd toss in "bullet magnet" tanks that I absolutely assumed would die turns 1-2.(My actual AT was multi-melta speeders)

I won a hell of a lot more than I lost simply because no-one knew what to do- "knowing" that Tacs sucked, they didn't actually know how much it took to whittle down a full squad if their opponent was smart about cover. In fairness, I ran my rhinos as pairs as much as possible- so it was really 1 20 man "combat squad" to game the targeting/charge rules of the day. Lawrence a little did that here- I'm sure his opponents went right after his flying "look at me, I'm hard to hit" dummy while he papercut them to death with his carbide-paper.

That was my train of thought as well. These days a lot of people just buy the most statistically strong units for one purpose and drive them forward, without much consideration of adapting on the fly.

I disagree, historically the best units were the ones with great offense and movement.

Movement is often time all the tactical synergy you need. To say there is no tactics is disingenuous of course. But often times GW themselves overlooked that part of The game.

My love for Tacticals comes from 3rd edition, after I was losing a streak of games against Eldar and Blood Angels. Eldar would starcannon out my elites, and Blood Angels would bum rush my lines, and their speed and CC efficacy would tie up or kill important units too fast. I had a real hard time with it.

Then I realized that 100 space marines cost 1500 points, and we were playing 1750 point games. I started building armies around the idea of more basic guys rather than fancy stuff. I think my army was something like Captain, 6x10Tacs Las/Flamer, and two Land Raiders for more Lascannons. The wall of marines proved effective immediately, and I've never looked back.

It's the inverse of taking the "most efficient damage dealers". Instead, taking a ton of basic guys robs the opponent of "point efficient" targets, and gives you a more long lasting battle line.

Also, historically marines tend to stick around because of their morale rules, and they're more resilient than most basic troops. As jacks of all trades individual marines can't do much damage, but you can often use squad remnants to be extremely irritating.

Martel732 wrote:


It's actually super boring.

I agree, but this is true to ANY competitive tournament list. They're all super boring with no real tactics, just a bunch of overpowered stuff. The only tactic in those tournaments is list-building.

 Insectum7 wrote:
My love for Tacticals comes from 3rd edition, after I was losing a streak of games against Eldar and Blood Angels. Eldar would starcannon out my elites, and Blood Angels would bum rush my lines, and their speed and CC efficacy would tie up or kill important units too fast. I had a real hard time with it.

Then I realized that 100 space marines cost 1500 points, and we were playing 1750 point games. I started building armies around the idea of more basic guys rather than fancy stuff. I think my army was something like Captain, 6x10Tacs Las/Flamer, and two Land Raiders for more Lascannons. The wall of marines proved effective immediately, and I've never looked back.

It's the inverse of taking the "most efficient damage dealers". Instead, taking a ton of basic guys robs the opponent of "point efficient" targets, and gives you a more long lasting battle line.

Also, historically marines tend to stick around because of their morale rules, and they're more resilient than most basic troops. As jacks of all trades individual marines can't do much damage, but you can often use squad remnants to be extremely irritating.

I had the exact same experience with 3rd. The guy who was teaching me played eldar. I never could win until I took nothing but marines with missile launchers and dev squads with laz cannons. Suddenly it was an actual easy win since I just had a ton of body's he could not deal with every thing.

I still sometimes run just tacs by themselves. 40 marines broken into combat squads are a lot of body's and area denial that's not that easy to just "deal with".

Martel732 wrote:
Marines have no source of dakka or chopping that can efficiently clear screens. That's why everyone is just planning to shoot past the screens.

For example, Let's say 8 DC charge 10 guardsmen or 15 gaunts and wipe them, and in turn are wasted by enemy shooting. I'm trading 160 pts for 40 or 60. That's untenable.

You should be shooting past the screen.

It shouldn't be tenable to throw something at a giant tarpit and kill it off with equal cost.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Marines have no source of dakka or chopping that can efficiently clear screens. That's why everyone is just planning to shoot past the screens.

For example, Let's say 8 DC charge 10 guardsmen or 15 gaunts and wipe them, and in turn are wasted by enemy shooting. I'm trading 160 pts for 40 or 60. That's untenable.

You should be shooting past the screen.

It shouldn't be tenable to throw something at a giant tarpit and kill it off with equal cost.

Totally agree. It may take you 200 pts of units to kill 100 pts of theirs, but it may also happen that your 200 pts kills a 250 point Tank before getting mixed in with the 100 pts of guys. Many things are looked at in a bubble. It's not a good way to look at it.

Problem is at the moment it is pretty easy to make a green...grey? khaki? Choose your Guard Colours Tide.
Sadly, far, far easier than it is to make a successful Ork army.

I play Space Wolves and have feared Guard since I started, Guard terror is nothing new to me.

 Insectum7 wrote:
My love for Tacticals comes from 3rd edition, after I was losing a streak of games against Eldar and Blood Angels. Eldar would starcannon out my elites, and Blood Angels would bum rush my lines, and their speed and CC efficacy would tie up or kill important units too fast. I had a real hard time with it.

Then I realized that 100 space marines cost 1500 points, and we were playing 1750 point games. I started building armies around the idea of more basic guys rather than fancy stuff. I think my army was something like Captain, 6x10Tacs Las/Flamer, and two Land Raiders for more Lascannons. The wall of marines proved effective immediately, and I've never looked back.

Being an ex 3rd edition player myself, I've always followed the idea that the more bodies on the board - the better. Simply put, if you take a high stat line trooper and take a lot of them, they're going to be hard to shift. Have a couple of bullet magnets to ensure your little guys get ignored and you just wear the enemy down with weight of fire. I recall as a guard player facing off against a very over confident World Eater player. He did exactly what I expected and rushed my lines, but I baited his assault unit around with a Chimera and just rolled a lot of lasguns. Even if each squad of infantry only killed one CSM each round of firepower, he simply didn't have enough bodies to soak up all the lasgun shots. I try to play the same way with Chaos these days, lots of Cultists on the board to wander around getting in the way, with decent sized units of CSM to actually do the killing. Granted, I generally only ever play friendly games, and don't generally play to win (beyond simply trying to win the game, I mean).