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With the old codex I liked to kit my tactical sergeants with a bolt pistol and a power sword. I understand that one can question the wisdom of kitting tactical sergeants for CC in the first place, but unfortunately with the new book my preferred combination is just utterly idiotic as opposed to merely questionable. All sergeants can now have a lightning claw for the same price as the power weapon, so claw & bolter is just outright superior choice over sword & pistol (this makes me sad as I like the look of the power swords.)

So it seems I need to build some new sergeants. Now, assuming that one is going to have veteran sergeants in tactical squads to begin with, what are the reasonable or at least not utterly stupid ways to kit them?

I'm going to stick with powersword and melta bombs for now. I'd rather the +1 attack than the reroll wounds personally. If you do use a lightning claw, then I'd make the bolter a combi weapon of some kind (synched with his squads specials). Neither the powersword nor the melta bombs come into play regulary but when they do, it's always been worthwhile in my TAC list.

Combi and specialist weapon, LC or PF imo, that's how I ran them last edition in my vulkan lists, and that's probably how I will this edition if I take vet sgts.

Combi Grav for 10

I would give a Veteran Sergeant the power sword because you're looking at two extra Attacks out of him overall. On a normal Sergeant, the lightning claw is more worthwhile than the sword.
...of course, I say more because it's not actually worthwhile doubling the point cost of a single-wound, single-Attack model this way. Non-Veteran Sergeants should either be taking a combi-weapon or left entirely vanilla.

power axe.

3 attacks and strength 5 is > than 2 attacks at strength 8 a lot of the time.

Too true...I don't see enough power axes out there for how good they are. But for a normal Sgt in a tac squad swords still win...on a vet the lightning claw has a better average wound amount...but the sword is still viable because if you are lucky it has a better MAX wound amount.

Sword and claw is really pretty close.
With either you're likely to kill the other guy in a mirror match and that's all you can expect from a squad leader really.

I run vet sgts in all my tac squads. One has a PF and boltgun, the rest are cheap with chainswords and bolt pistols. I usually end up splitting my 10 man tacs into 2 five man groups and try to position assaults to where 2-3+ can charge the same target a turn. That tactic seems to work pretty well for me. That said, I'd take a PS over the LC myself, for the +1 attack over re-roll wounds like PanzerLeader mentioned.

I tend to run a power fist in my melta team, and a power sword in my flamer team. Synergies well with the goal. I also have some power axes floating around.

To all those people who say they prefer extra attack of the sword over the re-roll offered by the claw: I quickly calculated in my head (so I may be wrong), but it seems to me that unless you're fighting ratlings, two attacks with claw will yield equal or greater number of wounds than three with the sword. Furthermore, the sword requires you to forgo the bolter or combi-weapon. And of course any extra attacks from charging, banner or Pedro etc benefit the claw more. What am I missing?

 Crimson wrote:
Furthermore, the sword requires you to forgo the bolter or combi-weapon.

No it doesn't.

Trade bolter for chainsword. Trade chainsword for Combi. Trade bolt pistol for sword.

I would go with a combi bolter in any case. I'd take a veteran for the extra Ld, maybe. Not really expecting him to do anything but die with the rest of his squad if something even halfway decent at CC charges them.

rigeld2 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
Furthermore, the sword requires you to forgo the bolter or combi-weapon.

No it doesn't.

Duh. I meant getting the extra attack with the sword requires forgoing the bolter. Of course you can take bolter and sword, but that is every way inferior to bolter and claw!

 Crimson wrote:
To all those people who say they prefer extra attack of the sword over the re-roll offered by the claw: I quickly calculated in my head (so I may be wrong), but it seems to me that unless you're fighting ratlings, two attacks with claw will yield equal or greater number of wounds than three with the sword. Furthermore, the sword requires you to forgo the bolter or combi-weapon. And of course any extra attacks from charging, banner or Pedro etc benefit the claw more. What am I missing?

It's the law of averages versus potential. Most of the time when charging something, its usually a GEQ and I like the chance for the extra wound because the extra wound usually makes the difference between passing and failing morale. Against like characters, mutual destruction is still pretty much a given and he doesn't stack against anything decent in CC anyway.

I've always tended towards PF + Combi-Flamer in a 10 Man Tac Squad with FL and HB. When your Squad Hops out of a Rhino and unleashes the Fury of Bolters at 12" the Combi is great.

If you get charged you get another d3 hits as well as your squad flamer.

PF is anti-everything - but you don't get a bonus Attack with a BP so you may as well go for a Boltgun or Combi because it makes the shooting more effective.

If I took a blade I would look at a Pistol.

The downside 25pts is expensive for the PF and init 1 is a pain. So if you buy 3 sergeants like this....Well it's enough for a Scout Squad.

As a minimum I roll with Combi-Flamer.

I ran into a giant mathhammer article somewhere else and I think it was between the gambit of t3-t6 the sword and claw where virtually identical in wounds causes, with the claw having a slight advantage.

 hazal wrote:
I ran into a giant mathhammer article somewhere else and I think it was between the gambit of t3-t6 the sword and claw where virtually identical in wounds causes, with the claw having a slight advantage.

Pretty much.
Claw has an edge against higher T while sword is better at beating up low T units.