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Looking into list-building in 30k I see a theme popping up-artificer armor.
Artificer armor everywhere.

Why?
I mean, I get why its useful on a value CC unit. but on a tac squad, devestators? tactical support even? why bother? and as EVERYONE says this, and practically every list is filled with it, am I simply missing something?



Speakin of tac squads-do they serve a purpose? at all? ever?
Are they anything but tax?
Do they DO something I'm not seeing?


And for troops in general.
As in, compulsory ones.
Any of them worth a damn? specifically for thousand sons (as that's what I'm going for), but even in general-is there ANYTHING of value there?
Everyone and their grandma is going for PotL and using veterans, and honestly, its getting old and I haven't even started yet!
Is there a way to be remotely effective without the "mandatory" PotL list?

Are you new to 30K? As in, have you played it at all or watched any games? It's not 40K with Forge World models.

As to why Artificer Armor everywhere- 2+ armor save. Some Legions require you to make a challenge whenever you can. That 2+ comes in very handy then. Most squads require a uniform load out of weapons and equipment, except for the sergeant. When you have 20 Marines and only one of them has a melta bomb or p-fist, you want to make sure he lives long enough to use it. Why in a Devastator Squad/Support squad? Survivability. Having one guy that can stick around for just one more turn or force your opponent to devote more shooting to him means less shooting at the rest of your army.

Not sure what you mean by "Speakin of tac squads-do they serve a purpose? at all? ever? Are they anything but tax? Do they DO something I'm not seeing?" Well, only troops choices are scoring units- everything else is a denial unit. There is no "Objective Secured" in 30K. The only way to win is to either table your opponent, or out score him, and half of the missions in the Red Book have objectives.

I run two 20 model Legion Tactical Squads with Apothecaries. They just foot slog across the table. I've never lost both of them in a game yet. There is also something to be said about Fury of the Legion. 80 Bolter shots at 12" kills a lot of stuff in this game. Although the most I've been able to roll is something like 60-ish? Then there is the tarpit aspect of the unit: 21 models with CCW's means- 38 regular attacks, plus the sergeant and the Apothecary. And then at initiative 1, if I outnumber you, all my models that have already attacked get to attack again. Sons of Horus! Lupercal! Oh, and I'm +1 BS with Assault, Rapid Fire, and Pistols at less then 12" (doesn't apply to Fury of the Legion and Moritats, sadly). Are they a tax? Not to me. They are the work horse units of my army. I'm actually thinking of dropping my Vet squad for another 20 Tacticals (60 models in three squads!). Foot slogging infantry in 30K is not only viable, but a pretty good army.

A lot will depend on your Legion and what your tactical squads can or cannot do. There are a ton of AP 3/2 pie plates that get thrown around in 30K. MSU means entire squads wiped off the table in one salvo. Also, your Right of War. I have no idea why so many people would want to take Pride of the Legion unless they have some awesome Elites choices or awesome Terminators. Even then, most of those squads will only have at most 10 models, and because of the expense, most would probably only run 5. And then you are back to MSU and Pie Plates of Doom being thrown around. As a Sons of Horus player, I have two fantastic Rites of War (The Long March is my favorite), and see no reason why I would ever play Pride of the Legion. Not all Legions are the same, so obviously some people feel that Pride of the Legion is their best option. /shrug

Tacticals are good enough. SoH, WE, EC can use them with aditional CCWs or chainaxes and get good results. IF have them shoot at bs5, Salamenders and WB use them to hold objectives thanks to there moral boosts. They are good enough if you know how to use them. PotL is used often as it helps with a quick start - vets and terminators are good and come cheaper in real life money than 20man tacticals. But that doesn't make them a much superior choice. TS might get more out of PotL since you can give vets and termies a mastery level and aspyx shells, but in general it all comes down to certain legion preferences.

I think most armies have vets for sniper rule to deal with phosphex quad morters. The sniper helps deal with t7 and the outflank gets them to backfield where the juicy targets are.

Cant help but notice that all the reasons why tacticals are useful presented are legion-spesific, not general.

Scoring? so does vets, and terminators
Gunning down pretty much anything? the marksmen veterans are superior.

How does FotL even work is beyond me considering you have to stand still to use it. how in his right mind enters within 12" of a unit that he is NOT intending on putting down.

And as for "entire squads getting deleted". if I can delete 2 10-man squads, I can just as easily delete a 20 man squad.

So in short, if your legion don't boost your tactical in some way-they really are a tax. they don't do anything that other units don't already do better.

Because its just amazing
Say a Battlecannon wipes out your tac squad
who survives?
The Sgt, with Meltabombs

Know that your squads will take light fire?
Stick him at the front to bank on 2+ saves

I cant tell you how many times the 2+ has prevented me from killing units

 commander dante wrote:
Because its just amazing
Say a Battlecannon wipes out your tac squad
who survives?
The Sgt, with Meltabombs

Know that your squads will take light fire?
Stick him at the front to bank on 2+ saves

I cant tell you how many times the 2+ has prevented me from killing units

Well he's worth it to tank ap3fire. Ap4 or worse better not tank.

But good to be at front with ap3 pie plates at the other side

I don't know many experienced players who run PotL. Yeah Veterans can dish it out better than most other units but they die too damned quick for their points. To quote Master Yoda: "Long is the war, only by surviving it will you prevail." - Tacticals are cheap wounds to tie the enemy up till the pie-plate exchange is over and everything expensive is dead.

On the other hand, not only tacticals can fill your compulsory troops. Assault squads and Breachers can also do that. Assault marines are punchy, breachers are more shooty. Tacticals are the middle if you give them CCWs. It depends on what you want and what rules your legion gives the units. Just like with every other unit. Blood angels get CC bonuses, so they are best at using fast assault units like assault marines. So do the Night Lords and Raven Guard. WE can use both assault squads and tacticals, since thacticals can be made into inductii, giving them an advantage over assault squads in CC. IF will be better off with tacticals or breachers, since their rules favor shooting, just like with UM and IH. The latter will benefit more from tacticals, as they are not the best in CC, so they will want to shoot. SoH can use both, since assault squads get more benefit from Mercyless Fighters and tacticals get better with Death Dealers. So yes, many things depend on your legion, it dictates your playstyle and the worth of units to your particular army.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Cant help but notice that all the reasons why tacticals are useful presented are legion-spesific, not general.

Not really? They're a solid Troops choice, the cheapest and most well rounded one in fact, without requiring a RoW to unlock, or wasting a RoW to take more expensive Veterans or Terminators instead.

I can take solid Tactical Marines with practically any RoW of my choice, but I can only take Vets with certain RoW, which locks me out of other ones.

Scoring? so does vets, and terminators

But they're Elites, far more expensive.
Vets are no tougher than Tacticals, so can't be relied as Scoring units when I could have more Tacticals instead.
Terminators are tougher, but more expensive, and lack as much firepower and their equivalent in Tacticals.

Gunning down pretty much anything? the marksmen veterans are superior.

Fury of the Legion is pretty good in it's own right, and I can take more bolters in Tactical Squads than Veterans can in the same amount of points.

How does FotL even work is beyond me considering you have to stand still to use it. how in his right mind enters within 12" of a unit that he is NOT intending on putting down.

Zone Mortalis, defensive tactics, general utility - I've used it enough times to be perfectly viable.

And as for "entire squads getting deleted". if I can delete 2 10-man squads, I can just as easily delete a 20 man squad.

If you can delete two ten man squads. And even if not, it's cheaper to have larger units than MSU ones.

So in short, if your legion don't boost your tactical in some way-they really are a tax. they don't do anything that other units don't already do better.

That's very much not the case.

It is worth arguing that the Thousand Sons want to be playing Pride of the Legion all the time because Tactical Veterans can be psykers and ordinary Troops can't.

As for Troops in general given that you need Troops to score anti-infantry firepower is a lot more relevant in 30k than it is in 40k, so having the bolter-fire or chainswords to kill the other guy's Tacticals frees up your big guns to do other things.

Also being Thousand Sons you're one of the few Legions where Breachers might actually be worth it in open-field games (most of the time they're useful in Zone Mortalis and not that useful outside of it). Kine-Shields plus Atomantic Pavise and you're running around with a 4++ on your big shieldwall squads with which to sneer at phosphex and heavy artillery.

Atomantic pavise? What's that?


Being a tough shieldwall might be a good choice, especially as breachers can actually pack good guns.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Atomantic pavise? What's that?


Being a tough shieldwall might be a good choice, especially as breachers can actually pack good guns.

The Atomantic Pavise is a toy available to the Deredeo Dreadnaught in place of its carapace weapon that gives models within 3" +1 to their Invulnerable save against shooting attacks, to a maximum of 3+. Stack that with Kine-Shields (+1 to existing Invulnerable save) and the 6++ from Breacher shields becomes a 4++ against ranged attacks (and a 4++ in melee, but that's the base 5++ plus Kine-Shields, the pavise doesn't help there.)

Coverage isn't very large, but it certainly makes Breachers a more attractive choice than they are in Legions that can't just have a free bonus to their Invuls.

ASM with combat shields and Raptora can be rather tanky for the points, doubly so if you jam an apothecary in there. Compulsory troops too.

Others have covered artificer and it's uses for challenges and tanking, though having said that, the other bit of gear that is very common on a sarge is a powerfist, so you could just do a 40k and have your sarge be yet another bullet catcher, but since there's a majority of things in 30k that aren't fearless, losing combat and getting swept is a very real threat (one that many 40k marine players just don't understand), so the extra gear to stave that off as long as possible is often welcomed.

As for the use of tacticals - I suspect that it highly depends on your meta. The more scoring you have elsewhere and the more you subscribe to the spartan deathstar, the easier it is to justify 2x10 tacs in rhinos and leaving them in reserve to nab objectives later in the game. I've watched quite a few games in my local meta and tacs just aren't taken anymore and when they were, they were just removed, sometimes on purpose, others as collateral damage, but when you've got Typhon shells flying around, a big squad of 20 tacs with an apoth doesn't mean much at all.

30k is a lethal game and it's fairly easy to remove most things that aren't a flare shielded spartan in 1 round and while you'd think that makes the tacs useful since they're cheap wounds, it also means you're wasting points on trash that often can't do anything but be removed as a casualty instead of being able to launch your own alpha strike, so there's definately a balance there. Not to mention the futility of running large squads of infantry outside of transports if phosphex rapers rapiers are a common sight.

Do thousand sons get any legion buffs to tacs? Not really, though Corvidae could definately get some use (especially in conjunction with Amon or Ahriman since you have to take Corvidae as your compulsory and Amon can't take a rite IIRC), as could Pyrae if you don't get butchered before you make combat. Atheneans will frustrate a NL opponent while Pavoni with extra CCW have an edge over other tacs. Raptora tacs are probably the least useful, but if your meta is filled to the brim with ap2/3 ignores cover, at least you're getting some save and even 1 marine hanging around on an objective is enough to claim it.

Worst comes to worst, look at them as a 250 point tax to not give up a VP if you get all your vets/termies destroyed or as a way to get specific arcana on other units without having to compromise on your praetor/warlord's arcana choice.

Taking pride as sons is basically stupid, taking vets isnt but taking pride instead of guard of the crimson king is stupid.
Taking artificer will save you a lot of wounds, especially to shooting, its a 2+ save for generally 10p if you cant see the use youve not played the game.
Tacs are scoring, they can be taken in anything from 10 to 20 men, they can take an apothecary they can take a rhino they can go in other transports and can be anything from an excellent distraction to a great line/objective holder and they are cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap as hell.
Vets are literally tacs with a special rule extra ccw and some special or heavy weapons, unless they have a purpose that isnt enough to make them really worth it as troops unless you are IF.

 King Amroth wrote:
Taking artificer will save you a lot of wounds, especially to shooting, its a 2+ save for generally 10p if you cant see the use youve not played the game.

Well generally short of when facing AP3 you don't really WANT sergeant at the front tanking though. Against AP4 or worse it in average saves one extra wound. Which funnily enough is cost of extra tactical marine so not really points save but you lose extra LD and attack(plus whatever gear he has). Bad tradeoff.

Now if you are facing specifically AP3 shots(or power weapons in CC) tanking makes more sense.

tacticals are a generally amazing utility unit. A squad of 20 with extra CCWs and AA on the srgt. is a stupidly tough to remove brick that can hold objectives, and even harm tougher units due to weight of fire (i.e. ~80 bolters shots if you rapid fire + fury of the legion) Stick on an Apothecary with AA and augury scanner, and you have a unit that will take a TON of effort to murder, and will ward off deepstrike, because nobody wants to deal with their unit getting 40+ bolter shots on 'em the turn they arrive.

Now we add in Thousand Sons: Sure, they don't generate warp charge, but they aren't effected by the "fear of sisters" that our veterans and command are. Tac on the fact that Tacticals still get cult bonuses, and you start to see a really fun unit. 20 of them running Athenean, corvidae, or pavoni makes a super fun, all around good block of bodies with lots of attacks on the charge.



Seriously: 30k tends to dislike MSU, and a tactical squad, while generic, hits well enough, and tanks damage better than their squishy veteran cousins. Yes, vets and termies score, but you're termies should be smashing into the enemy line for laughs, you're vets should be moving around shooting or stabbing, and they both eat up valuable over-crowded elite slots.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 King Amroth wrote:
Taking pride as sons is basically stupid, taking vets isnt but taking pride instead of guard of the crimson king is stupid.
Taking artificer will save you a lot of wounds, especially to shooting, its a 2+ save for generally 10p if you cant see the use youve not played the game.
Tacs are scoring, they can be taken in anything from 10 to 20 men, they can take an apothecary they can take a rhino they can go in other transports and can be anything from an excellent distraction to a great line/objective holder and they are cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap as hell.
Vets are literally tacs with a special rule extra ccw and some special or heavy weapons, unless they have a purpose that isnt enough to make them really worth it as troops unless you are IF.

Pride allows vets. and termies as your compulsories.
Guard forces sekhment as your compulsory.

vets are a bit more complicated than that, but you do have a point: I find vets. flounder as you're core line troop as they 1) limit your RoW options, and 2) are just to squishy to do that job IMO. for IF, why use vets when breachers and tacticals have more fun with their tactics ;P

 Brennonjw wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 King Amroth wrote:
Taking pride as sons is basically stupid, taking vets isnt but taking pride instead of guard of the crimson king is stupid.
Taking artificer will save you a lot of wounds, especially to shooting, its a 2+ save for generally 10p if you cant see the use youve not played the game.
Tacs are scoring, they can be taken in anything from 10 to 20 men, they can take an apothecary they can take a rhino they can go in other transports and can be anything from an excellent distraction to a great line/objective holder and they are cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap as hell.
Vets are literally tacs with a special rule extra ccw and some special or heavy weapons, unless they have a purpose that isnt enough to make them really worth it as troops unless you are IF.

Pride allows vets. and termies as your compulsories.
Guard forces sekhment as your compulsory.

vets are a bit more complicated than that, but you do have a point: I find vets. flounder as you're core line troop as they 1) limit your RoW options, and 2) are just to squishy to do that job IMO. for IF, why use vets when breachers and tacticals have more fun with their tactics ;P

Pride forces vets and termies as compulsory, you have to take a minimum of 2 of them and if you lose them you give up a vp, ive rarely ever found that the one vp makes a difference to the score but why give it up when you dont have to at all.
The thing is that for sons taking legion termies over sekhmet doesnt make sense unless you are taking them barebones, ie no upgrades or mastery level when for only 80 more points you get a force weapon instead of a power weapon, 2 wounds, mastery level 2, asphyx shells and stubborn.
As for the vets, i would still reccomend them as they are awesome but they arent line troops they are surgical strike weapon who you take to do a job with the added benefit of they can score.

Something that should be made clear in this thread is that there is a big difference between competitive 30k and regular 30k. Competitive 30k is filled to the brim with Phosphex Rapiers/Typhons/Mechanicum Monsters/etc which all murder power armoured models very efficiently. Ergo, Pride of the Legion with Veterans as the Troops in Rhinos is arguably the most common competitive build because a Rhino can potentially save a unit from being obliterated in one shot. There are lots of units that are capable of over-killing in 30k but not too much that's great against well designed MSU builds which Veterans are better suited for than Tacticals. In standard play, you won't see 9 Phosphex Rapiers so taking big infantry blobs is not only worth it but it's incredibly fluffy.

Now, as far as Thousand Sons are concerned, their two best Troops choices by far (again, speaking in terms of competitive usage here) are Sekhmet and Veterans. Sekhmet are power-houses regardless of how you favour the two rules issues they have, they are a fantastic unit and having them be Compulsory Troops is good if you pair them up with Magnus or a Raptora Praetor (for the 4++/3++ invulnerable saves). Veterans are also fantastic because 10 Veterans with Asphyx Shells and Sniper bullets are incredibly deadly, especially if you take Ahriman as your Warlord to Infiltrate them forward and give them full benefit from the Corvidae bonus. They also give you a fairly inexpensive Warp Charge 1 psyker that with some luck can get a really good power and become even more of a threat, for example if you get something like Iron Arm or Invisibility. When Veterans are already more popular than Tacticals in competitive games, it's no wonder Thousand Sons Veterans are as respected as they are; Thousand Sons have the best Veterans in 30k, hands down.

On the topic of 2+ armour saves on your Sergeants, there's so much AP3 and AP2 in 30k that sometimes it will be worth it and other times you'll feel robbed...but it's only two handfuls of points so it's not like you're breaking the bank unless you buy the upgrade for numerous units. The 2+ won't save you against AP3 Barrages (Phosphex Rapiers/Whirlwind Scorpii) but it will be massively useful against Mauler Bolt Cannons and the like.

I hope that helps For Thousand Sons, Guard of the Crimson King/Pride of the Legion are your two best Rites of War for varying reasons but mostly because Sekhmet and Veterans happen to be your two best Troops choices. However, unless you plan on playing in tournaments anytime soon or your local gaming group has been cursed by that TFG you can't go wrong with big Tactical blobs backed by Apothecaries. Just be mindful of who you pick as your Warlord as it affects which Cult Arcana they must take, though for Tacticals you can do alright with most of them (i.e. there's no clear all-round winner like Raptora for Breachers or Corvidae for Veterans).

Pride of the legion is a good choice for Amon. He's locked out of GoTCK , and can't be raptora, so terminator troops are non optimum, but Athenean / Corvidae stacks well with vets.

But my favourite troop has to be the fast predators of armoured breakthrough.

Tacticals are a tax, and I will go out of my way not to take them. Maybe in the axis of dissolution.

IDK, when I played a few times and added Art armor and melta bombs and all the other stuff people told me i "Needed" in 30k on my SGT, I felt It was easier to just buy another squad

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
IDK, when I played a few times and added Art armor and melta bombs and all the other stuff people told me i "Needed" in 30k on my SGT, I felt It was easier to just buy another squad

Yes totally. Max out on units, then look at upgrades

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
IDK, when I played a few times and added Art armor and melta bombs and all the other stuff people told me i "Needed" in 30k on my SGT, I felt It was easier to just buy another squad

who said put melta bombs on everything? they are silly. The only 2 upgrade I consider "musts" tend to be Artificer armour, because like it or not it WILL come in handy, and a vexillia, because re-rolling LD is a huge buff. 20 points for so much more staying power is nothing to scoff at. IF I have the points, I'll toss extra CCWs on tactical or support squads. Voxes, depending on your ROW, are really, REALLY good. with the Crimson king ROW, the ability to have bubbles of no-scatter deepstrike all over the board is huge, and for any artillery list, being able to pull LoS from your infantry is a nice boon too.