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As I have no transports, my stormtroopers will footloged. There is no point to take them more than 5 models in squad. And question is what weapon to give them - pw/plasma/melta? I know, grenadelaunchers and flamers are useless.

They don't have to footslog though, they can deepstrike. Or are you counting that as footslogging?

And I wouldn't say flamers are useless at all. You can put out an ugly amount of wounds with a full squad of 10 and 2 flamers. And there is great point to taking squads of more than 5, they are quite good units.

yeah...

1.) they can both deepstrike and outflank (well, and scout or infiltrate, but don't bother with those). When they deepstrike, they get to reroll the scatter. The math is something a little shy of 90% that they land within 6" of their designated target. Anywhere on the board.

2.) There is certainly reason to take them in squads larger than 5. 10-man stormie squads give you a lot of Ap3 fire (if delivered by deepstriking, often against targets that don't have a cover save), along with the extra-zesty Ap3 overwatch. With that many guys in a 4+ save, they're actually going to survive more than a single round of return fire, allowing them to play havoc in the backfield for more than one turn after they arrive (I'll point you here and here for some recent examples of this principle basically winning me the game).

3.) grenade launchers are pretty terrible on stormies (well... at all...), but flamers aren't. Remember that part where you drop in a 10x squad of BS4 shootable power weapons? This makes them a superb anti-infantry unit. Give them flamers, and suddenly they're clearing enemy scoring units off of weakly-defended objectives like they were born to do it. I love my flamer stormies to death - they are consistently the most valuable unit in my army because they have so much going for them strategically.

That said, I don't run all of my stormies with them. The ones I run without flamers I run with meltas. Yes, in theory plasma stormies make the most sense, as the rapid fire Ap2 matches rather well with the rapid fire Ap3.

The reason I don't bother is because of vehicles. If my melta stormies show up against an infantry squad outside of cover, there isn't THAT much loss from losing 2 hellgun shots, at least, not against targets that hellguns are worth shooting at. If there isn't infantry out in the open that I can just pick off, that means that I'm going up against vehicles. If I'm going up against vehicles, then I'm going to be glad that I had BS4 melta that can drop straight into melta range, rather than hoping for some good rolls trying to glance things to death with plasma.

Or, to put the versatility thing another way, a 10x stormtrooper squad with a pair of meltaguns can handle everything in the game shy of fliers and terminators. That's basically everything. Meanwhile, the plasma gun adds terminators, but throws a lot of vehicles off for a total of fewer things they're good against. Moreover, in a way the plasma gun just makes the squad better against things its already good against. If I wanted that, I'd just take flamers for a fraction of the price.

Wouldn't bother with a PW myself. You're usually spending a lot of points on them, and they're going to be in the thick of it. If you keep finding them getting assaulted and think it would make a difference though, may be worth a shot. I'd use a mace myself, but an argument could be made for a sword as well.

As for "footslogging" read some of Ailaros's battle reports. He's using 10 man stormtrooper squads quite a bit, and they seem to work great for him. He treats them as actual special units, not as suicide meltaguns, and they can really wreck a flank if you play em right. I think he takes two 10 man units with melta and a 10 man unit with flamers if I remember correctly.

However, if you're only using 5, they're relegated to pretty much suicide duty, as that's not enough to reliably survive return fire. At that point, give em plasma or melta, and pick something that you want dead. Don't forget to use Aerial Insertion so you can reroll that deep strike.

Oh, the power weapons, I'd forgotten. I like them in principle, but more often than not, I don't like them in the list building phase. Stormtroopers (well, in quantities of 30) are expensive, and I often find I don't have a spare 10 points to blow. If I did, I'd take a mace as well.

Also, I've found that my stormtroopers don't actually wind up in close combat all that terribly often. Generally, they more or less wipe out whatever you send them against with their hellguns/special weapons, leaving the only things that can retaliate far out of assault. Those things that DO retaliate are going to be something that shoots at them. Often, they are going to be somewhat scary weapons shooting at them. While a 10-man stormie squad isn't that likely to be wiped out after the drop, it's not terribly likely that they're going to be in good enough shape to do all that much in close combat, especially if they have to walk all the way over to their nearest target to do it.

And, of course, 5-man squads should never get one. As Moustaffa notes, 5'ers are there just to deepstrike a couple of special weapons next to something and assume that both the target and the squad itself won't be around by the end of your opponent's next turn.

Hm.. ap3 can ignore SM's armour, but there's only strenght 3 it shots can kill about only 2 enemys. And increasing squad to 10 models will not increase special weapons in them, but growth cost to almost same as SM squad. Anyway, I don't have any expirience in usinf stromtroopers so will try to use them as you say.
And how about segreant weapons? What if give him ccw bolt pistol and bolter?

upd: one more question: Is it possible to bring someone else with stormtroopers to their target using deep strike?

Don't know why you would trade perfectly good hellguns for bolters. You're paying for AP 3 guns, may as well keep them and use them. As for why they cost as much as space marines, you're paying a premium for an elite unit in a codex that relies on cheap, expendable units, that can arrive pretty much wherever you need it very reliably. Yes, they're not as "Elite" as space marines, but they fill a very different role.

And no, you can't bring other units/IC's in with them via deepstrike. Which is sad, because I would love to deepstrike Yarrick into an enemy gunline sometime...

Freakazoitt wrote:Hm.. ap3 can ignore SM's armour, but there's only strenght 3 it shots can kill about only 2 enemys. And increasing squad to 10 models will not increase special weapons in them

A 10x flamer stormie squad doesn't cost much more than a bare-bones 10-man tac squad.

Assuming no cover, and assuming 6 flamer hits (because you can deepstrike right next to them without too much worry), that's 5 or 6 killed on the drop. In return, those marines that survive are going to do pittance in damage in return. Then the stormies attack the turn after and wipe the marines. The end result of a direct matchup is a victorious slaughter for the stormtroopers.

Likewise, they're not even THAT bad against things like THSS termies. Assuming the whole squad is hit by flamers, and that the termies assault the turn after (suffering overwatch on the way), the termies could easily be whittled down to just two of them before they get a chance to swing. And that's on a unit that costs 50 points more, against a unit that isn't designed specifically to beat them.

 Ailaros wrote:

Freakazoitt wrote:Hm.. ap3 can ignore SM's armour, but there's only strenght 3 it shots can kill about only 2 enemys. And increasing squad to 10 models will not increase special weapons in them

A 10x flamer stormie squad doesn't cost much more than a bare-bones 10-man tac squad.

Assuming no cover, and assuming 6 flamer hits (because you can deepstrike right next to them without too much worry), that's 5 or 6 killed on the drop. In return, those marines that survive are going to do pittance in damage in return. Then the stormies attack the turn after and wipe the marines. The end result of a direct matchup is a victorious slaughter for the stormtroopers.

Likewise, they're not even THAT bad against things like THSS termies. Assuming the whole squad is hit by flamers, and that the termies assault the turn after (suffering overwatch on the way), the termies could easily be whittled down to just two of them before they get a chance to swing. And that's on a unit that costs 50 points more, against a unit that isn't designed specifically to beat them.

I know its anecdotal evidence, but my 10 man flamer stormie unit killed 4 of 5 deathwing terminators last game, and my plasma stormies right next to them (I underestimated the power of the flamer stormies) were like 'whelp, we were a wasted drop here'

Actually, I did the math wrong. The most likely result of flamer stormies landing next to a squad of THSS termies is that only one is left to actually swing, with a slight bias towards them all being dead without getting to attack.

Not too shabby for a 175 point unit against a 250 point one.

Personally, I like infiltrating my Stormtroopers. DSing them works wonders, but having their weapons cause pinning for a round can be devastating.

As far as weapons, either Meltas or Flamers imo. Flamers seem to waste the stormies BS, but the amount of hits you can generate is totally worth it.

Don't forget that even if you take a flamer you still keep the pistol. You're going to be close anyway, so you often only lose a single shot over the standard gun if you're in a position where a flamer can't do much.

Personally, I like infiltrating my Stormtroopers.

How they can infiltrate? I thought they only can deep strike?

Don't forget that even if you take a flamer you still keep the pistol. You're going to be close anyway, so you often only lose a single shot over the standard gun if you're in a position where a flamer can't do much.

What? Hellpistol's range is only 6" so no difference with flame template range.

 Freakazoitt wrote:

Personally, I like infiltrating my Stormtroopers.

How they can infiltrate? I thought they only can deep strike?

One of the special operations rules grants infiltrate.

What? Hellpistol's range is only 6" so no difference with flame template range.

If you're in a position where you can only hit one MEQ model with the template firing the pistol is better.

Freakazoitt wrote:How they can infiltrate? I thought they only can deep strike?

Oh, here's the problem.

Buy the codex first. You'll learn lots of interesting things about lots of guard units, which will probably help you to think of uses for them. If you already own a codex, then we on dakka are not here to replace reading it.

They can infiltrate as well, and a hell pistols range is 9", not 6".

No, my 'dex says 6" on the summary page...

Mine says 6" as well in codex and new rulebook. It's 6", wow, never really used them, but I always assumed they were 12" like other pistols.

I would like to point out 5 SS in a Chimera outflanking, can be a great unit especially with the 5 shooting out of the top. In 5th I ran 2 of them in Chimera's, have not tried them in 6th, but I assume it would be close to the same effect if not more successful.

 Ailaros wrote:
Actually, I did the math wrong. The most likely result of flamer stormies landing next to a squad of THSS termies is that only one is left to actually swing, with a slight bias towards them all being dead without getting to attack.

Not too shabby for a 175 point unit against a 250 point one.

Ailaros,

I'm trying to recreate the maths and I'm struggling. Assuming 2 flamers, 1 sgt, and 7 troopers, here's what I did...

2 flamer templates @ 4.5 (S.AP)
14 RF HS lasguns @ 3.3
1 HS laspistol @ 3.3.

With BS4 that should lead to

6 flamer hits @ 4.5
10 HS lasgun/pistol hits @ 3.3

Wounds generated against T4

3 flamer wounds @ AP 5
3 HS wounds @ AP 3

Granted, this would go a long way to wiping out a 5-man squad of tactical marines, but how can it do the same to terminators? I know I must be missing something. I don't have a SM codex handy; do THSS terminators only have a 3+ Sv?

You're right, my first math was right.

10 termies hit by flamers, for 5 wounds. 16 hellgun shots for 10.6 hits for 3.5 wounds. Then you overwatch for 2 flamer wounds and .88 hellgun wounds. Then you attack first before the power fists, which is 3.5 more wounds. Before the first blow strikes, that's 15 wounds.

Which is 2 or 3 termies dead. Anyways, given that it's a unit that costs only 70% as much and is really not optimized to handle them, they still don't do THAT bad of a job, especially for their points. Properly supported, they could easily finish off a termie squad that had one or two of its members dinged off.

TH/SS terminators are 200 points even.

Don't take this as some kind of refutation of the idea that Stormtroopers are awesome. They absolutely are. They're the most awesome thing in the entire IG codex.

 Ailaros wrote:
You're right, my first math was right.

10 termies hit by flamers, for 5 wounds. 16 hellgun shots for 10.6 hits for 3.5 wounds. Then you overwatch for 2 flamer wounds and .88 hellgun wounds. Then you attack first before the power fists, which is 3.5 more wounds. Before the first blow strikes, that's 15 wounds.

Which is 2 or 3 termies dead. Anyways, given that it's a unit that costs only 70% as much and is really not optimized to handle them, they still don't do THAT bad of a job, especially for their points. Properly supported, they could easily finish off a termie squad that had one or two of its members dinged off.

Of course! I didn't bother to continue the analysis through to the assault phase. Thanks.