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My favorite thing about 30k so far has been the realization that troops are the bread and butter of an effective force again. Now, I don't have to worry about gimping myself if I want to run a foot infantry army. Anyways,how have people been taking legion tactical squads? In my experimental lists, I've been going whole ham with them, 20 men, nuncio vox, vexilla, etc. but that's upwards of 300 points per squad. Do the more shooty legions still stand to benefit from CCW upgrades?

I'll be honest, I always run squads with CCW's, vexilla then the Sgt gets either a power fist or power sword and melta bombs.

My units are 10 man though as I use a ton of rhinos.

I do find the CCW really help out though as even a basic marine on the charge has 3 attacks, meaning against 99% of the other armies, since they are mainly marines, assures you win combat.

Your going to have 3x the damage output and 2x after the first phase.
So for me its pretty much mandatory.

Throw in a weapon on the Sgt and the damage output goes up more.



Depends how much work you want them doing though.
For holding objectives a bare bones unit is perfect and cheap.

For doing work though, I think they need some upgrades to be useful.
Also helps out in case your forced to fight a dedicated CC unit.

Jackal makes a pretty good point. But I will say that even with a shooting Legion it's still a pretty good choice - so long as you aren't stationary gun-lining them - they'll probably be in the mid-field killing other Tacticals and so will probably end up in assault by turn 4 or 5 and making sure they can really kill something dead after the shooting is over is invaluable.

It also really helps if your opponent sends out some dedicated assault units.

Unless you are hurting for points ccws are a great buy. Dont forget to add an apothecary as well. When running 20 man squads they are auto includes for me with the scanner.

Also; artificer armour. For 10 points it makes sergeants damn near immune to power swords and lightning claws.

Praetors with Paragon Blades will still go through them, but it's surprising how long a sergeant can survive non-AP2 weapons.

Equally, it gives you a decent chance of not being shot out of a squad by massed bolter fire.

Yeah, I was just about to say that if your Sergeants have a limited budget, get Arty Armour as a priority; then just use then as either up front tanks for as long as they last or keep them back for challenges against sword/claw armed opponents.

The Vexilla is probably the next most useful upgrade, you don't want to lose most of a 20-man squad to a bad Morale roll. The Vox I tend to leave, I don't find them that handy.

CCWs are always nice, it turns your Tactical Marines into basically infantry Assault Marines, and potentially gives you something to do on the turn after you unload Fury of the Legion on something. FotL on one turn, then fire a pistol volley and charge in on the next.

 Paradigm wrote:
FotL on one turn, then fire a pistol volley and charge in on the next.

I don't think you can shoot your Pistols on the next turn though, because the FotL rule straight up says you cant Shoot in the next Shooting phase.

Ah, I thought it was just the bolters that applied to. Either way, the extra ccw still makes the unit more of a threat on the Turn it can't shoot.

My prefered way to run tactical squads is full size with a extra CCW, a vexilla, and a meltabomb on the sgt. I also like to add on an apothecary with rad grenades (when available via the reaping).

Artificer armour and special weapons on the sgt became an increasingly low priority after seeing him taken out by bad luck in the shooting phase over and over. Probably just my luck though.


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I will note that I sometimes scale my tactical squads down for smaller games.

BTW, do you model the artficial armour upgrade to you sarges?

I usually model the sergeants up a little bit to help aid in visually distinguishing them. If they got artificer armour in the list super, if not whatever.

I bring CCWs on my Death Guard (mainly because it's fluffy), but because it works well. I do it with my Thousand sons because eventually, your gun line WILL get charged, and what a nice, effective surprise those 40/60 attacks will be . The only upgrades I would call situational on a tac squad are CCWs (if you already have dedicated melee units that can block charges, or get in first), and Nuncio-voxes (only helps if you have artillery units, really)


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 Morhgoz wrote:
BTW, do you model the artficial armour upgrade to you sarges?

Artificer looks like regular Power armor. At most, some fancy trim, at least: remember in 30k artificer was mass produced, so it probably just looks like regular armor for srgts. and apothecaries.

I put 10 in a rhino, and gave the sergeant a power sword. If I can afford it, he also gets AA. That's it.

 Morhgoz wrote:
BTW, do you model the artficial armour upgrade to you sarges?

All of my sergeants have the Imperial Fists upgrade torsos, which are fancy. Otherwise, I've seen very few people model their AA dudes any different.

My Tactical Squads always get Dark Channeling, so I do invest in the added CCW to get the most out of the CC upgrade. And Artificier Armor + PF on the Sarge. (I take the Artificier Armor upgrade wherever I can just for modeling purposes).

I also use nuncio vox if I am fielding some units with barrage, which I do run basilisks and/or medusas quite a bit, along with Master of Signal sometimes. I do have models for Legion Vexillas, but Word Bearers have special rules that make it pretty redundant so I've only used them a couple times.

I though 'vox and vex' were mandatory?

The Vex pretty much is if you don't have some other morale boost in place. The Vox is a lot more situational, some armies will have nothing that really benefits from its Scatter abilities.