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Two full tac squads with reasonable upgrades and either rhinos or pods, comes to around 400pts.

Lets look at what marines can get for that:
- Typhon heavy seige tank. With ceremite. 14 all round. 6hp. 7" st10 ap1 ignores cover blast. 370pts.
- Sicaran battle tank with schism of mars and ceremite, 2 predators with lascannon side sponsoons. 410pts.
- 2 bikes squads, each with 5 bikes and an attack bike, 2 grav, 1 combi and a multimelta. 400pts.
- 9 rapier guns with 2 crew each, 3 with laser destroyers, 6 with quad bolters. 405pts
- Stormraven and 2 thunderfire cannons. 400pts
- 2 stormravens. 400pts
- 5 landspeeders with dual multimeltas. 400pts
- 3 grav centurions with tigurius. 425pts
- 2 squads of assault terminators, each with 3 LCs and 2 th/ss. 420pts
- Tooled up CM with SE etc, grav biker squad. 395pts
- 2 Thunderfire cannons, 3 multimelta attack bikes and 5 sniper scouts. 425pts.

Yes the tacticals fill up your compulsory troops slots, but isn't the whole point about whether they are taken partly as a tax? In other words, if you didn't have to fill up your troops slots, would you honestly take 2 full tactical squads with transport over all the options above? Can they cause as much damage or take as much damage as the above? There are so many better options in the dex if playing competitively. Granted, scouting transports and rending bolters for raptors, bp&ccw option plus rage for carcharodons, bolter spam with bolter banner with DA etc, change the game up a bit, but aside from that, would you really be more worried by your opponents 2 tactical squads then of their typhon or knight bearing down on you?

Martel732 wrote:
If they serve themselves up in a pod, sure I'll kill them with weapons that can't reach the rest of my opponent's army. Please piecemeal yourself for me. Please.

Only because you asked so nicely. I play a full on aggression, board dominance list with pretty much anything. Even my Eldar lists' most common range is 12", basically melee. So don't expect any piecemealing on my part. If you get hit by that squad, you can bet you'll get hit by other squads on the same turn and my entire army T2. Please waste your firepower to kill my Tacs (who are actually notoriously tough to kill once they drop to 1 model. Proven fact. 1 Tac killed my unwounded Avatar back in 5th), and not my TWC or SG or DC or TDAWGs or Fenrisian wolves. Please.

Essentially, you'll never get your money's worth by killing stuff with Tacs. They're there to take objectives from other troop choices (most equivalent troop choices will get mopped up by a Tac squad, especially with those flamers), plant their own annoying asses on one and stay there for the rest of the game (no one wants to shoot anything at 2 Tacs going to ground every round), or be a semi-dangerous distraction from your more valuable units. It's all about how it all fits together. People keep shouting about spam, psychic phase, bla bla bla, but I've yet to see a well-built, balanced list not give a fair fight to the likes of Serpent spam. Of course, YMMV.

"but I've yet to see a well-built, balanced list not give a fair fight to the likes of Serpent spam"

Except for the ones that get tabled, right?


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 Desubot wrote:
Wait how in the world are you getting your numbers? it honestly makes no sense that guardsmen are beating marines at all per point.

5 marines against 10 guardsman stock, should be assuming some how no one is charging.
Marines go first. 5 attacks 3.33 hits 2.22 wounds 1.48 of them failed saves

and for the ease of calculations assuming no challanges to take out the extra attacks and assuming no one died for whatever reason

guardsmen have 11 attacks 5.5 hits 1.8333 wounds and only .611 failed

That is 47 kill per points vs 81.81 for guardsmen. the marines are near twice as good at killing in CC.


i dont disagree though i REALLY wish cover was a BS mod rather than an or save. also wishing invul worked like a ward to bring back terminators but thats just me

Cover giving out half the benefit of power armor for free is yet another problem that I wasn't even talking about. Tacs lack of offense is a bigger deal to me than them getting indirectly shafted on their defense. Actually , its more than half the benefit, because 5+ cover can't be negated by AP 2/3. Man they have ripped the gonads off meqs in general.

And the point is being missed still.

You are trying to claim point for point marines are the worst trash. and that anyone will kill marines more than they would kill in turn.

Iv pointed out that in the case. point for point for a straight up fight between two units the amount of unsupported (and even some supported) wounds caused per point give tac squads the win.

And this is done because for all intents there is really no way to account for ALL variables on table. it always comes into a what if this or what if that or well they should always come with a support or psyker or whatever.

Straight points for points marines are not the trash tier amongst troop choices you keep saying.

Poly: why in the world are you taking a full decked out unit. if it was takin as a tax at best they would be min squads with possibily a drop pod if the list is themed around it. probably with a special and a combi as that benifits the most in those ranges. at that you are at around 250 ish. Its a land raider. and those are noted to have far worse killing power than tacs.

Let's compare 5 tacticals with a plazmagun to 5 ASM in vacuum. Somewhat identical point cost.

Tacticals have a turn of 24' shooting and a turn of rapid fire shooting.

1-st turn. Bolters deal 0.44 casualtirs, PG deals 0.55 casualties - 1 dead ASM on average.
2-d turn. Bolters deal 0.88 casualtirs, PG deals 1.1 causalties - 2 dead ASM on average.

2 ASM shoot bolt pistol and throw a krak nade ~0.3 casualties. Tacticals shoot overwatch - 0.4-0.5 casualties on average, so we have 1-2 ASM charging 4-5 marines.
Let's say there are 2 asm and they're blood angels for the heck of it. 6 s5 attacks deal 0.66 casualties - let's say a dead marine paired with a few bolt shots.
4-5 tacticals strike back at ini 4 and deal 0.41 wounds for 5 and 0.33 for 4 - not much worse than 2 asm on the charge. Paired with overwatch it can round up to 1 dead ASM. And than you have a single asm with 2 s4 attacks vs 4 tacticals with 4 attacks.

Tacticals win a vacuum matchup against asm point to point hands down.

 Desubot wrote:
Poly: why in the world are you taking a full decked out unit. if it was takin as a tax at best they would be min squads with possibily a drop pod if the list is themed around it. probably with a special and a combi as that benifits the most in those ranges. at that you are at around 250 ish.

Because the point is that if you're treating your tactical squads as more than just a tax you're spending points on upgrades. And once you invest more than tax-level points in tactical squads they compare very poorly to the units you could have bought instead. Conclusion: pay the tactical tax, and no more.

Its a land raider. and those are noted to have far worse killing power than tacs.

Who cares if tactical squads are "better" than terrible units like a LR? Sucking slightly less than a bad unit doesn't make a unit worth taking.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 koooaei wrote:
Tacticals win a vacuum matchup against asm point to point hands down.

Well yeah, if you assume that an assault unit just walks across the table through open terrain before charging. I don't think anyone is surprised by that result.

 Peregrine wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 koooaei wrote:
Tacticals win a vacuum matchup against asm point to point hands down.

Well yeah, if you assume that an assault unit just walks across the table through open terrain before charging. I don't think anyone is surprised by that result.

That's why i'm saying vacuum. We're also assuming Tacticals are not riding a rhino and are not supported by other ranged squads as it's way easier to support shooters than assaulters in this regard. Sure, ASM will do great if there's a solid blos they can fide behind - that's why they pay for jump packs, for the opportunity of doing this. But it's also limiting their movement. And so on, and so forth. My point is that stating that ASM kill Tacticals like no big deal is plain wrong when you compare them point to point.

But comparing it to maxed out rather than what you would normally just take?

Going max points up to 400 then yeah any of the crazy toys will completely eclipse marines hands down.

They can be taken and be useful and are not as bad as people claim.

No one's really talking about the two biggest changes this edition.

Objective secured dedicated troop transports and 5 man Tacticool squads with a special weapon.

With one transport per 5 man troop squad, you could conceivably have a small army of 6 Razorbacks/Rhinos rolling around with objective secured.

 Desubot wrote:
But comparing it to maxed out rather than what you would normally just take?

That isn't maxed out, it's just two 10-man squads with heavy/special weapon and a transport. IOW, normal units that you'd take if you wanted to use your tactical squads as more than a troops tax.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
But comparing it to maxed out rather than what you would normally just take?

That isn't maxed out, it's just two 10-man squads with heavy/special weapon and a transport. IOW, normal units that you'd take if you wanted to use your tactical squads as more than a troops tax.

A single uber-unit, albeint killy, can't spread in 4 obsec squads with 2 obsec transports.

 koooaei wrote:
A single uber-unit, albeint killy, can't spread in 4 obsec squads with 2 obsec transports.

Except if you look at that list of ~400 point units you'll notice that it includes several options for taking multiple units or units that can split fire with multiple guns.

Martel732 wrote:
Except for the ones that get tabled, right?

You love to assume things. I see more Serpent spams tabled than them tabling anyone else. Granted, we play with a lot of terrain as a rule. You should try that.

 Araenion wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Except for the ones that get tabled, right?

You love to assume things. I see more Serpent spams tabled than them tabling anyone else. Granted, we play with a lot of terrain as a rule. You should try that.

Terrain only helps against serpent spam for your vehicles (which the serps take even greater advantage of). The weapons traditionally firing from a serp are worse than ap3, so unless your marines are shrouded and behind 4+ cover, they are going to be using their armour saves anyway. The issue is not lack of an armour save but the sheer amount of high strength shots.



In response to the 400pts worth issue. 400pts is 2 squads with basic load out and cheapest transports. Not maxed out. If you are taking minimum to save points then you are treating them as a tax. You would not be getting them otherwise as there are better options for the points. 5 man with melta and combi melta in a drop pod are 15pts more expensive than 2 multimelta attack bikes. An objective sitting squad with a lascannon is only 20pts cheaper than 2 rapier laser destroyers which are FAR more effective and WAY more durable. There are so many better options in the dex that either max or min - they are a tax.
Ask yourself this, if you could take absolutely anything in the dex/in IAs/in supplements as troops, would you still take tactical squads? If the answer is yes then I salute your fluff driven narrative gamestyle, if the answer is no, then, quite simply, they are a tax.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Peregrine has made the other points perfectly.

Poly Ranger wrote:

 Araenion wrote:
Terrain only helps against serpent spam for your vehicles (which the serps take even greater advantage of). The weapons traditionally firing from a serp are worse than ap3, so unless your marines are shrouded and behind 4+ cover, they are going to be using their armour saves anyway. The issue is not lack of an armour save but the sheer amount of high strength shots.

I'm not talking about cover saves, I'm talking about BLOS terrain that forces the Serps to come close to you if they want to shoot you.

 koooaei wrote:
Let's compare 5 tacticals with a plazmagun to 5 ASM in vacuum. Somewhat identical point cost.

Tacticals have a turn of 24' shooting and a turn of rapid fire shooting.

1-st turn. Bolters deal 0.44 casualtirs, PG deals 0.55 casualties - 1 dead ASM on average.
2-d turn. Bolters deal 0.88 casualtirs, PG deals 1.1 causalties - 2 dead ASM on average.

2 ASM shoot bolt pistol and throw a krak nade ~0.3 casualties. Tacticals shoot overwatch - 0.4-0.5 casualties on average, so we have 1-2 ASM charging 4-5 marines.
Let's say there are 2 asm and they're blood angels for the heck of it. 6 s5 attacks deal 0.66 casualties - let's say a dead marine paired with a few bolt shots.
4-5 tacticals strike back at ini 4 and deal 0.41 wounds for 5 and 0.33 for 4 - not much worse than 2 asm on the charge. Paired with overwatch it can round up to 1 dead ASM. And than you have a single asm with 2 s4 attacks vs 4 tacticals with 4 attacks.

Tacticals win a vacuum matchup against asm point to point hands down.

ASM aren't really good anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Araenion wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Except for the ones that get tabled, right?

You love to assume things. I see more Serpent spams tabled than them tabling anyone else. Granted, we play with a lot of terrain as a rule. You should try that.

Sounds like you were the one assuming lots of terrain when you made your initial statement. And terrain mainly grants cover, which doesn't help against WS at all. Or Tau. I was also tabling tac-heavy lists with 5th ed BA, so there's that, too. It really sucks for the tac user when they can't get by expensive and killy BA models off the table before its too late. Which they never can.

Final point: Eldar don't need WS spam to table marine lists that aren't using the holy trinity of smashbane, gravstar, and grav bikers. I can pull random units out of the Eldar book and put the wood to marines. Don't believe me? I've done it once.

Martel732 wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Sounds like you were the one assuming lots of terrain when you made your initial statement. And terrain mainly grants cover, which doesn't help against WS at all. Or Tau. I was also tabling tac-heavy lists with 5th ed BA, so there's that, too. It really sucks for the tac user when they can't get by expensive and killy BA models off the table before its too late. Which they never can.

Final point: Eldar don't need WS spam to table marine lists that aren't using the holy trinity of smashbane, gravstar, and grav bikers. I can pull random units out of the Eldar book and put the wood to marines. Don't believe me? I've done it once.

I've done it too. I never use Serpents and most marine armies don't stand a chance vs my list. But Eldar and Tau are relics of the old age. We'll get our turn with the nerf bat, don't you worry. And in the meantime, Serpent spam should be absolutely crushed by a decent BA or SW list with their sturdy and fast CC options. Ever tried killing 60 angry marines with 5-6 S5 I5 attacks each with 3+/5++ with AP6/- weapons? It's not pretty. Funny thing is, that's not a counter list, that's a TAC list. Just throw in a couple PFs and some trimelta ASM and you're done. And all I've seen so far suggests BA codex is on par with CoF SW supplement, probably better than the vanilla SW. Times they are a changing for marines and we'll see how xeno codices will age as the edition progresses.

I've seen the Eldar tear those 60 angry marines to shreds. Fast skimmers are hard to assault when taking all your losses from the front.

Martel732 wrote:
I've seen the Eldar tear those 60 angry marines to shreds. Fast skimmers are hard to assault when taking all your losses from the front.

Eldar can do it.
And when SW or BA bring the fast moving assault units, the passengers disembark and destroy them with pseudo rending weapons.

Yeah I've vassal'd eldar a few times with my "willing to play test anything" buddy. Any of the marine lists that were trying out some NOT top tier list were obliterated. I'm not sure what that guy was talking about when he said he didn't see serpents table other armies much. Maybe I'm just a godly eldar player without any prior practice?

 Araenion wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
Sounds like you were the one assuming lots of terrain when you made your initial statement. And terrain mainly grants cover, which doesn't help against WS at all. Or Tau. I was also tabling tac-heavy lists with 5th ed BA, so there's that, too. It really sucks for the tac user when they can't get by expensive and killy BA models off the table before its too late. Which they never can.

Final point: Eldar don't need WS spam to table marine lists that aren't using the holy trinity of smashbane, gravstar, and grav bikers. I can pull random units out of the Eldar book and put the wood to marines. Don't believe me? I've done it once.

I've done it too. I never use Serpents and most marine armies don't stand a chance vs my list. But Eldar and Tau are relics of the old age. We'll get our turn with the nerf bat, don't you worry. And in the meantime, Serpent spam should be absolutely crushed by a decent BA or SW list with their sturdy and fast CC options. Ever tried killing 60 angry marines with 5-6 S5 I5 attacks each with 3+/5++ with AP6/- weapons? It's not pretty. Funny thing is, that's not a counter list, that's a TAC list. Just throw in a couple PFs and some trimelta ASM and you're done. And all I've seen so far suggests BA codex is on par with CoF SW supplement, probably better than the vanilla SW. Times they are a changing for marines and we'll see how xeno codices will age as the edition progresses.

you've messed up the quotes


Automatically Appended Next Post:

niv-mizzet wrote:
Yeah I've vassal'd eldar a few times with my "willing to play test anything" buddy. Any of the marine lists that were trying out some NOT top tier list were obliterated. I'm not sure what that guy was talking about when he said he didn't see serpents table other armies much. Maybe I'm just a godly eldar player without any prior practice?

Yep, currently eldar power build with serpents and knights is super effective and easy to use. You don't need much gaming experience to win with it.

 Araenion wrote:
Terrain only helps against serpent spam for your vehicles (which the serps take even greater advantage of). The weapons traditionally firing from a serp are worse than ap3, so unless your marines are shrouded and behind 4+ cover, they are going to be using their armour saves anyway. The issue is not lack of an armour save but the sheer amount of high strength shots.

"I'm not talking about cover saves, I'm talking about BLOS terrain that forces the Serps to come close to you if they want to shoot you. "

Sorry, no one where I play will play on a pac-man board. There are going to be plenty of 36" firing lanes. I suspect if you had to play under those circumstances, you might change your tune.

Eh? What's going on with the quotes?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
^that wasn't me btw. I said the bit about cover not helping against serp spam.

Martel732 wrote:

 Araenion wrote:
Terrain only helps against serpent spam for your vehicles (which the serps take even greater advantage of). The weapons traditionally firing from a serp are worse than ap3, so unless your marines are shrouded and behind 4+ cover, they are going to be using their armour saves anyway. The issue is not lack of an armour save but the sheer amount of high strength shots.

"I'm not talking about cover saves, I'm talking about BLOS terrain that forces the Serps to come close to you if they want to shoot you. "

Sorry, no one where I play will play on a pac-man board. There are going to be plenty of 36" firing lanes. I suspect if you had to play under those circumstances, you might change your tune.

This could well be a huge part of your percieced issue. Throw in some terrain that forces actually decisions and movement and you may find shooty armies are far less dominant. I suggest at least 3-4 if not more 6" square BLOS Buildngs/hills if not more, it should liven things up a lot.

And if those players refuse to play such a setup as it would be ceding the advantages they are exploiting, then I'd say that tells you all you need to know about their attitude to the game.

 Paradigm wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Araenion wrote:
Terrain only helps against serpent spam for your vehicles (which the serps take even greater advantage of). The weapons traditionally firing from a serp are worse than ap3, so unless your marines are shrouded and behind 4+ cover, they are going to be using their armour saves anyway. The issue is not lack of an armour save but the sheer amount of high strength shots.

"I'm not talking about cover saves, I'm talking about BLOS terrain that forces the Serps to come close to you if they want to shoot you. "

Sorry, no one where I play will play on a pac-man board. There are going to be plenty of 36" firing lanes. I suspect if you had to play under those circumstances, you might change your tune.

This could well be a huge part of your percieced issue. Throw in some terrain that forces actually decisions and movement and you may find shooty armies are far less dominant. I suggest at least 3-4 if not more 6" square BLOS Buildngs/hills if not more, it should liven things up a lot.

And if those players refuse to play such a setup as it would be ceding the advantages they are exploiting, then I'd say that tells you all you need to know about their attitude to the game.

Even with what you suggest, there will be tons of 36" firing lanes. Any setup that doesn't allow for this is not going to fly, because it will be seen as slowing the game down too much. Also, my issues with proliferation of marine-neutering firepower is not just perceived.

Which is why what I suggested was at minimum. Some 36" firing lanes is fine, but more than 3-4 is probably too many. And if by 'slowing the game' down they mean 'making it harder to just wipe non-spam armies off the board', then yes of course it does, but that shouldn't be anything to complain about unless your only interest is how fast you can table your opponent. Terrain is the great leveller in many cases, especially in bringing shooting and assault armies closer in power.

And I call it percieved as myself and several others in this thread have seen no evidence of Marines being frail or weak against most lists (and no, I'm not counting Serpent Spam as, as has been mentioned, use that as a measuring stick and everything looks poor).

I think marines are still lacking pretty badly when not using Smashbane, grav cents, grav biker troops, and thunderfires. Of which BA get zero of those things. Not encouraging when I think of it like that.

Quotes are getting messed up left and right, lol.

Wave Serpent has on average 11 shots at 24", 8 at >24". Assuming all 11 hit, that's 9 wounds, or 2 DC dead. Per Serpent. 6 Serpents statistically kill 12 DC per turn. Even if every Serpent survived till the end game (highly unlikely) they'd just barely manage to kill all the DC in 5 turns, while all it takes is 3 DC to wreck a Serpent.

I've played Eldar for a decade now. When I tell you that if I played 4-6 Serpents, I'd be terrified facing that tide, you better believe me. Like I'd be terrified facing White Scars bike armies or SW TWC spam.

Don't misunderstand me, I was never one of those that claimed Serps weren't overpowered. They were and still are. Any army currently out there will have a chance at being overwhelmed by that much firepower. But they were and still are a gimmick. All it takes is a SINGLE squad to multicharge 2-3 Serpents and it's over. Completely. This is why I never play more than 2 Serpents and usually none.

I'd really like to show you what I mean. I'd take a Serpent/WK army vs an army of your choosing, then I'd take my usual Eldar list and see which one did better.

Martel732 seems fixed in his belief that he'll never beat Eldar with his BA. But from reading the codex and seeing it in action a few times, I just can't see that that's true. Feel free to disagree.

Niv-mizzet, regarding what you said. You don't need any experience with a Serpent spam to win, but since we're so fond of anecdotes, the lot of us, I once brought a tournament army to a practice game, but my opponent was a no-show, so I offered to play a CSM player who brought a fluffy foot CSM list, I think it was Nurgle. Neither of us saw a point in playing, so I offered to switch armies. I've never played with CSM before, he never used Eldar before. I've tabled my own tournament list with his own list. If what you all say is true, that should never, ever happen. Skill matters and Eldar aren't unbeatable, we just like you to think we are. One trick is to never let the Eldar player dictate the flow of turns. If you force him to shoot what you want, force enough turbo-boost or jinks and keep shoving your units down his throat, there's very little he can do except roll dice and hope for the best. When playing vs Eldar, you don't need to go for the kill, you just need to delay their firepower.

Oh and also, if you expect you'll beat a Serpent spam with an army of tacs, that won't ever happen. It's a top tier build that people shouldn't play casually, but do anyway because mechdar was the only way to play the army in 5th, so if those are the only models you have, you're stuck with them.

I'm going off-topic, I apologize. It just pushes my buttons when someone is claiming Eldar are unbeatable because Serpents! And Wraightknights! Eldar best units aren't those two. They're just ridiculously simple to play. And because of that, their tactics don't change much from game to game. If you've played vs one Serpent spam, you've played vs them all and you know precisely what they'll do. As much as people like to believe 40k is all about dice and luck of the draw, my experience has shown a vastly different picture. Like I said, YMMV. With that, I won't derail this thread any longer, I'm out.

Most Eldar players have stopped using true WS spam. It's not just WS; it's pretty much everything in codex. And, as I pointed out, BA are still missing all the best marine units. BA can do fine against Orks and DA probably, but against the good lists? I don't see anything in the BA codex that Eldar would fear at all. Eldar could down an entire BA list where every meq had FNP. Now BA can't field that. So they'll get gunned down even faster.

Martel, no one around here likes to play on plants-vs-zombies board, so I do have that going for me, true. But I'm sorry if your group is stuck in their gunline playstyle and they won't even give a chance to non shooty armies by exploiting an environment built precisely to suit their armies. But that's a problem with your meta, not the game, nor any particular codex.

What you say about Eldar units is true. Even stuff like humble Swooping Hawks can be deadly. But the Eldar aren't beasts that they were, back when Seer/Baron Council and Beaststar were in play. They have enough weaknesses that you can exploit and as was always the case with them, they're a snowball army. Foil their plans once early, and they won't be able to make a comeback.

Oh and hopefully, no hard feelings. It's just the discussion that gets my knickers in a twist, not you or any other poster. Mid-terms are coming up, so blood is boiling.

My proposed DC army does have FNP across the board. And there are a lot of combos in that book. It just might be that it'll take time to discover how best to utilize BA units. BA are the first and so far the only marine army that hands out special rules like they were IG orders (I don't know much about the new GK, but I wouldn't exactly call them your usual marine army either). Once people learn what units interact with those rules the best, it may be that you'll finally see the light at the end of a long tunnel that was 2 past editions.