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I've been trying to come up with a list where a 10 man tactical squad is more valuable than 2x 5 man squads.

I don't see it.

To me, the heavy weapon has always been a kind of liability as it normally means you are wasting the shots from the other bodies in the unit.

Since C:SM tactical squads are now permitted to purchase a special weapon when only 5 strong, it seems that its pretty much universally better to just spam 5 man squads for the 2 special weapons instead of taking a 10 man for a special and a heavy.

This really just seems natural, as the other SM armies tend to do likewise and stick with 5 man squads and only do 10 if you can double up on specials.

What do you think dakka?

Eh stick with a 10 man then combat squad them, one squad with the special weapon and a sergeant with the combi-version of said special weapon and then the other 5 sit around a back field objective taking potshots at things

80+ points for a unit to sit on an objective doing essentially nothing seems like a waste to me. If I wanted that, scouts would be better, right?

Scouts are cheaper, and have extra tech with outflanking options etc.

Dedicated transports.

The fact that your handing out kill points with only 5 men

I usually run 3 ten-man squads with razorbacks in most of my lists. keep the artillery static and running the sgt with the special weapon up to grab objective seems to work well.

Also, a full ten man squad together is a good fat pool of 3+ saves, running them in a rhino to grab objectives with say a heavy bolter and a flamer is a nice defensive posture.

 Dracos wrote:
80+ points for a unit to sit on an objective doing essentially nothing seems like a waste to me. If I wanted that, scouts would be better, right?

Scouts are cheaper, and have extra tech with outflanking options etc.

If you have a Heavy weapon in that back-field objective-sitter then they should not be doing nothing, they should be firing their missile Launcher/lascannon/plasma cannon/Heavy bolter(they should not have a Multimelta in this role) every turn; with the Heavy in the back and the 4 bolter-bearers in front of him.

For a fun exercise calculate the probability of a single ML doing anything to a vehicle. You'll note its essentially the same as doing nothing most of the time.

but if you succeed, then you've done something.

are you looking to just mathahmmer everything or do you want to actually sit down and play?

It also helps that you combat squad before deployment so your 5 man with combi weapon and weapon can go in the pod while your 5 man with heavy can go on the table(and count as one on the table for reserves purposes, while the unit in the pod does not count towards the units in reserve)

So a 10 man with 5 in a pod, and 5 on the table sitting on objectives.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
but if you succeed, then you've done something.

are you looking to just mathahmmer everything or do you want to actually sit down and play?

The game, after the movement phase, becomes mathhammer.

However, I find the heavy bolter in a 5 man tac squad pretty nice because it can cause casualties to things like dire avengers outside their effective range.

The one and only thing that the 10man squad does better than two 5man squad is having the option to not combat squad during a kill points game.

everything else 5mans are just better.
Edit: as below
5man also gets access to
Extra Sarge + combi
1 extra DT

One vet sarge can give Ld9 to all 10 marines
If a 10 man squad looses 5 marines, that's 5 bolters. Special/heavy still lives.
Less kill points
Bolter fire works better in mass.
All 10 guys get to snap fire when being charged, Flamer covers everyone.

I freely admit, there are pros and cons to 5 man squads vs. combat squadding. But if you take a full 10 man squad, then break it down, you have more options.

 Dracos wrote:
For a fun exercise calculate the probability of a single ML doing anything to a vehicle. You'll note its essentially the same as doing nothing most of the time.

I'll take a PC over a ML any day of the week for a 5 man combat squad sitting in back. A couple S7 AP2 blasts are always something to worry about.
They also force your opponent to pay attention to coherency or suffer. Wider spread units mean less cover.
I've crippled many TEQ and MEQ units with one solid plasma hit. A ML doesn't have that potential.

As said before though, 5 man squads really do just hand out killpoints.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
but if you succeed, then you've done something.

are you looking to just mathahmmer everything or do you want to actually sit down and play?

Right how are those lotto tickets working out for you? They do nothing most of the time, but when you hit that lucky draw then you're golden.

Just dont hold your breathe waiting for it.

Why do we care about kill points? I used 5 man squads all the time in 5th and never had a problem with kill point missions.

 Dracos wrote:

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
but if you succeed, then you've done something.

are you looking to just mathahmmer everything or do you want to actually sit down and play?

Right how are those lotto tickets working out for you? They do nothing most of the time, but when you hit that lucky draw then you're golden.

Just dont hold your breathe waiting for it.

1 in 300+ odds for anything useful(more than $5) on lotto tickets; vectoring outward rapidly for Higher $ amounts.

1 in 3 odds for a single Krak missile to do any damage to an AV12 Vehicle with a 22.22222% chance to cause said vehicle to become less effective(even if just for 1 turn).

50/50 chance for your Frag missile to still land on the targeted unit most of the time with a general 50/50 or better to cuase a wound(that can then generally be saved).

I would not say that single missile launcher in a scoring unit, on an objective is doing nothing, it is playing the odds that are not exactly stacked too high against it.

A ten man squad is good with the IF CT or UM CT, the former converting 33% of misses into hits, while the latter converts 66% of misses into hits for one turn. An alpha strike with pods an the UM CT could be pretty effective, while a lot of Tacs in pods with IF and good Dev support could can open quickly and allow a lot of bolter fire into what's inside.

The one thing with combat squadding for the special and heavy is it's basically the same as taking two squads. If you're loading up on Tac squads its fine to save troops choices, but I personally just try to get them out of the way as cheaply as possible to get to Sternguard who can score with Pedro, or just avoid Tac squads altogether with bike armies.

So you are paying for a squad that has a reasonable chance to get a pen once per game on av 12 or less (assuming no cover) or take a hull point or two, while not using the other members of the squad at all really.

So I guess where I'm going with this is that at least for me, its an easy choice to say its not worth 80 points. Nor is it worth 90 if you take the lascannon, nor is it worth 75 for the heavy bolter.

Maybe the heavy bolter, since at least it doesn't have the opportunity cost of not using the other 4 bolters.

Still seems like a poor choice.

I think having the choice to combat squad them or not can be really valuable. Additionally, you save on transports for missions where you want to send everyone to the midfield, and 10-man squads can drop more firepower, tarpit units and camp objectives more effectively. While MSU options certainly got infinitely better in the new codex, there's still value to having units in-game that are 10-strong.

So then on this forward advancing 10 man rhino squad(s), are you proposing simply not have a heavy weapon? I guess I can see that.

 Dracos wrote:
So you are paying for a squad that has a reasonable chance to get a pen once per game on av 12 or less (assuming no cover) or take a hull point or two, while not using the other members of the squad at all really.

So I guess where I'm going with this is that at least for me, its an easy choice to say its not worth 80 points. Nor is it worth 90 if you take the lascannon, nor is it worth 75 for the heavy bolter.

Maybe the heavy bolter, since at least it doesn't have the opportunity cost of not using the other 4 bolters.

Still seems like a poor choice.

No; they are not doing nothing, they are sitting on a home objective scoring you a Victory point/Objective.

That's how my BA use 10 man tac squads: combi, special, no heavy. That's when I bother to use them.

 Dracos wrote:
So then on this forward advancing 10 man rhino squad(s), are you proposing simply not have a heavy weapon? I guess I can see that.

Not really. I like the option of having a heavy weapon in the squad that can concentrate on the same type of targets that the special weapons want to shoot at. It won't work the sme turn they disembark, but the heavy weapons still provide a ranged threat when you do combat squad, and give you an ability to zone out certain areas of the map by threatening with a heavy weapon that can wreck certain types of units when given a chance.

A foot-slogging 100 marine strong list like mine I suppose. 6 10-man tacs, 2 10 man assaults, 2 10 man devs.. but other then that I'm not seeing the opportunity... although combat squading is a good reason. But from what I've been reading, most C:SM armies will feature a lot of bikes.

I have a moderate amount of bikes in my lists.

Played a game tonight where my three 10-man squads held three objectives split into combat squads. Full squads are effective and cheap.

I run ten man squads, since as Salamanders I get to master-craft that multimelta. I find that the heavy weapon survives more often than it doesn't.

Personally, I think ten mans are worth it, but five mans are now a viable alternative.

 Desubot wrote:
The one and only thing that the 10man squad does better than two 5man squad is having the option to not combat squad during a kill points game.

everything else 5mans are just better.
Edit: as below
5man also gets access to
Extra Sarge + combi
1 extra DT

I'd like to add that, if you're running a Drop Pod-heavy army, you'll want the option of combat squadding out of the pod into 5-man units. Pods are very inefficient for delivering 5-man combat squads...

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

I'd like to add that, if you're running a Drop Pod-heavy army, you'll want the option of combat squadding out of the pod into 5-man units. Pods are very inefficient for delivering 5-man combat squads...

You're right, pod lists are a good example!