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I'm a very new player sitting on his first box set and want to know rather I should start collecting towards a Gladius strike force, for the extra doctorine, or say screw it.

On a side note I'm planning on making my squad a ten man with a plasma/combi plasma. My friend plays necron and nids.

Gladius is a solid formation. Ultramarines, while they already get the doctrines from their chapter tactics, can always use more. The ability to spam the tactical doctrine for most of the game is a lot of fun. Even if you don’t go for the full company free transport spam list, the battle demi-co makes a solid core of a list. Pick an auxiliary choice that appeals to you; I find the 10th co works well for small games, and the 1st for larger ones.

Plas/c-plas is a solid base for a tac squad. I would consider your list overall for where to distribute gear. Tac squads are a good place to shore up weakness in your list. The old-school Ultramarine in me would like to see the heavy in the squad, but there are a number of legitimate reasons to skip them these days. A heavy bolter or a grav cannon would be my recommendation to pair with the plasma.

Welcome to 40k and the Ultramarines. Courage and Honor!

In addition to Nevelon's advice, I would also recommend that you not sit on your box sets; you might damage the models.

 Nevelon wrote:
Gladius is a solid formation. Ultramarines, while they already get the doctrines from their chapter tactics, can always use more. The ability to spam the tactical doctrine for most of the game is a lot of fun. Even if you don’t go for the full company free transport spam list, the battle demi-co makes a solid core of a list. Pick an auxiliary choice that appeals to you; I find the 10th co works well for small games, and the 1st for larger ones.

Plas/c-plas is a solid base for a tac squad. I would consider your list overall for where to distribute gear. Tac squads are a good place to shore up weakness in your list. The old-school Ultramarine in me would like to see the heavy in the squad, but there are a number of legitimate reasons to skip them these days. A heavy bolter or a grav cannon would be my recommendation to pair with the plasma.

Welcome to 40k and the Ultramarines. Courage and Honor!

My plan with the squad is to practice painting and have them ride about in a rhino. For the other two squads I honestly have no idea what to do with them.

Just make sure they have a job and are geared for it. And that all the upgrades work together.

Some of my common tac squads:

Multimelta/meltagun, c-melta sarge. (melta for popping tanks, bolters for the rest)
Heavy Bolter/flamer, c-flamer sarge. (could probably just go with a naked sarge here)
Missile launcher/flamer, basic sarge (mostly for nostalgia)
Grav cannon/grav gun, c-grav. (expensive, but gets results)

 Nevelon wrote:
Just make sure they have a job and are geared for it. And that all the upgrades work together.

Some of my common tac squads:

Multimelta/meltagun, c-melta sarge. (melta for popping tanks, bolters for the rest)
Heavy Bolter/flamer, c-flamer sarge. (could probably just go with a naked sarge here)
Missile launcher/flamer, basic sarge (mostly for nostalgia)
Grav cannon/grav gun, c-grav. (expensive, but gets results)

Is it worth taking the heavy weapon? I though that it would never be used since I'm constantly moving units in my rhino.

I'd say heavy weapons are largely not worth it, but then again I wouldn't run full 10 man squads for Gladius. Keep everything min, except for a Melta or a Grav Cannon if you have the points. By doing that, you can get 2 Tactical Squads out of 1 box, making it much more efficient money wise.

The thing I struggle with is if I should go all Melta, or half Melta half Grav. I feel Grav hinders use in a Tac squad because it is a Salvo weapon (so its range is halfed after moving).

charz wrote:Is it worth taking the heavy weapon? I though that it would never be used since I'm constantly moving units in my rhino.

Besides the obvious fluff answer “Because that’s what was written down in the Codex by our primarch” I still find them useful. Remember, in the current edition movement is checked on a pre-model basis. So the heavy can stand still while the rest of the squad moves around him. Yes, when you deploy from your pod/rhino you are snap firing, but the following turn, he stands still. He’s probably got range on whatever the squad is shooting, even when rooted. For things like melta squads, on your first shot is 2 at full (meltagun, combi from the sarge) and one snap from the MM. The second turn, you still get 2 shots at full, as the heavy has had time to settle in. Using doctrines can also help mitigate the snap shooting with re-rolls. Not perfect, but it helps.

Also if you end up camping an objective out of harms way, it still lets you contribute to the fight.

WarbossDakka wrote:I'd say heavy weapons are largely not worth it, but then again I wouldn't run full 10 man squads for Gladius. Keep everything min, except for a Melta or a Grav Cannon if you have the points. By doing that, you can get 2 Tactical Squads out of 1 box, making it much more efficient money wise.

The thing I struggle with is if I should go all Melta, or half Melta half Grav. I feel Grav hinders use in a Tac squad because it is a Salvo weapon (so its range is halfed after moving).

The grav cannon is the only heavy that can be used efficiently on the move. Sure, you only get 3 shots on the go, but they are nasty ones. Pricy, but lethal. Grav guns are also not bad on tacs. While I think plasma has an edge on non-relentless troops, grav still can work. The 9” range might seem tight, but I have no problem getting rhino based flamers on targets, and that’s shorter. I think in general a good mix of weapons is the way to go. Some things still need that melta lovin’.

I get best results from running mostly plasma with a little bit of grav and even less melta.

For the Dev units in gladius a 2x grav in a rhino is a good option - or 4x HB or even rockets + an empty razorback.

It is my experience that there is little to no difference between 4 Doctrine uses and 7 Doctrine uses. By the 5th turn, not a whole lot is left to buff. 2nd turn, a Tactical doctrine is a bombshell. 6th turn, a Tactical doctrine is a firecracker.

Further, my experience is that the Gladius benefits tend to overlap poorly with all of the "offensive" benefit chapters, like UM, Salamanders, and Imperial Fists. You don't get a benefit from twin-linking twice, if you catch my drift.

On the other hand, the benefits don't overlap at all with the "defensive" benefit chapters, like Iron Hands and White Scars. I think you get more bang for your buck with those chapters.

 greatbigtree wrote:
It is my experience that there is little to no difference between 4 Doctrine uses and 7 Doctrine uses. By the 5th turn, not a whole lot is left to buff. 2nd turn, a Tactical doctrine is a bombshell. 6th turn, a Tactical doctrine is a firecracker.

Further, my experience is that the Gladius benefits tend to overlap poorly with all of the "offensive" benefit chapters, like UM, Salamanders, and Imperial Fists. You don't get a benefit from twin-linking twice, if you catch my drift.

On the other hand, the benefits don't overlap at all with the "defensive" benefit chapters, like Iron Hands and White Scars. I think you get more bang for your buck with those chapters.

I agree with this, but for fluff reasons I still play mine as Ultramarines!

Having that reroll every turn can really do some heavy lifting. I normally play a full company with either the armoured task force or max out the tact squads and add in a 10th company. Typically I will run it with 10 Las/Plas razorbacks for maximum firepower concentration and too many targets to shoot and I'll give my Tacts meltas (i play against lot of armor and MCs), but I usually dont include any heavy weapons on the Tacts. My devs are typically 4 plasma cannons and 4 heavy bolters to keep them cheap and if you are lucky to get the rending warlord trait you can really do some work attaching your captain to the HBs squad.

Im not a huge fan of Combi anything unless you are using drop pods and I keep all upgrades simple and to a minimum so i can get more bodies on the field.