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Just did the math on naked squads vs squad with a plas gunner.

If we assume that the target is in rapid fire range (divide by two for the longer range), then against MEQ units the plas gunner statistically causes 1.111 unsaved wound.

A squad of 10 bolters at the same range manages to do 2.222 unsaved wounds. The entire squad. So, essentially, marine with plas gun is doing the damage of 5 marines with bolters-a cost of 70 pts.

I'd take the plas gun for 15 pts any day.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
^ what he said.
Why would you EVER concentrate on Bolters? That 15 points for a Plasma Gun is giving more killing power than another marine

Depends on what you are fighting. Against GEQ or Orks, two bolter marines have more killing power than a plasma gun, and for MEQ the difference is large but isn't immense. If you have 9 tacs with bolters and 1 with plasma, 2/3 of dead MEQ targets will be from bolters.

And the bolter part of the damage is 9x as durable. More than that due to Gets Hot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Aha, you did the same math, but put a reverse spin on it.

It's all fun and games doing this until someone sends a dreadnought at them

Corny wrote:
I find five guys in a pod with a special and a combi to be rather unreliable, especially when equip with melta, which my list needs more than plasma.

In general I find that one special and a combi to be rather lack luster, and five marines are way to easy kill in most situations.

I've always used 10 man squads for staying power. Having some of the squad left late game to hold an objective.

But with 10 models, I can have 2 X special, 2 X combi if they are two 5-man squads. I don't see any reason to run 10 man marine squads anymore.

Munga wrote:
It's all fun and games doing this until someone sends a dreadnought at them

thing is though, that even a dreadnought can be dealt with by a naked tactical squad. Ever hear of Krak Grenades? They don't have a good answer mind you, but they have an answer for most (if not all) problems.

I think one thing I've learned about marines is that you don't pinch pennies: send your boys with the tools to do the job. When you think about it, "saving" 10 points when you've already invested 175 is pretty absurd. Like a multi-melta on a Land Raider...why not spend 1/25th the total cost of the vehicle to make it nearly twice as useful?

Meltabombs have saved my bacon dozens of times. I always take them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 carldooley wrote:

Munga wrote:
It's all fun and games doing this until someone sends a dreadnought at them

thing is though, that even a dreadnought can be dealt with by a naked tactical squad. Ever hear of Krak Grenades? They don't have a good answer mind you, but they have an answer for most (if not all) problems.

Krak grenades are simply incredible. I have a 5 man scout squad with a truly impressive record of deff dread kills.

Krak grenades are passable against many walkers, but against MCs, they are terrible.

 Quickjager wrote:

 Anpu42 wrote:
Well Reading I had the thought of this.
IC with Combi-Plasma
Sargent with Combi-Plasma
1x Marine with Plasma Gun
7x Bolter Marines {Fixed}
All in a Rhino

That still sucks pretty hard, besides... rhinos only hold ten.

Same idea but better.

Sarge Combi-Plas
4 Tacticals and a Plasma gun
Drop pod

...and we're already looking at a more mobile and threatening force.

Fixed my bad math...

Tactical I was thinking with the two Combi-Plasma and the Plasma Gun it would give me two turns of dual Plasma Fire, about as long as i figure the Rhino would survive.

Just take 5 scouts.

As a Chaos Space Marine player, I covet the razor back and other loyalist only tech. The most common blob of marines i see is 20 CSM with Mark of Slaanesh on each marine and Icon of Excess to grant FNP all while being infiltrated by a warlord trait called Master of Deception. The 2nd build I see are those CSM blobs boosted by Fabius Bile to enhance 1 squad with higher strength and chem. Most people just take 5 plague marines with 2 melta guns in a rhino for 175pts.

If you plan on only taking naked marines then you must use the rest of your army to kill AT and AA. Can scouts take rhinos? So this means you need tri lascannon predators, melta gun bikers or Storm Talons, and lascannon dreadnaughts stern guard drop pods. Or any option for heavy, fast, and elite that takes lascannons and meltas. I recommend AT because if that gun can kill tanks then it can kill MC.

At 1850 I run three 10 man tacticals in drop pods with no up grades. I've had a fair amount of success with them two. After combat squading, my opponent has 9 objective secured units to take off objectives. Also krak grenades make them fairly worth while to many units.

I don't. mine is awesome!!
well, actually, it isn't a legal build.

If you play dark angels and are using the bolter banner a ten man squad naked in a bunker and a command squad with the banner behind the bunker is a good investment for a greenwing army, but I cant see them in other marine armies.

this is how i run tactical squads, they're like mini-sternguard almost

5x tactical marines w/ meltagun
techmarine w/ combi-melta & melta bombs
veteran sergeant w/ combi-melta & melta bombs
infernum razorback w/ storm bolter & dozer blade
240 pts

you can swap out the special weapon, the combi-weapons, and the razorback pattern/weapon to fit basically whatever threat you're facing (i.e. melta, plasma, flamer)

Corny wrote:
My tactical squads keep coming up short on the table top, as a result I find my self spending fewer and fewer point on them. This has been a long term trend for me, over the last few editions. I was writing a list the other day and I found my self wanting to include two 10 man squads in rhino's, no upgrades, 175 points a pop.

Anyone else run 175 point, 10 man squads? If so, how have they preformed for you?

Last game i ran 3 10 man squads for 140 points. Red hunters/scorpions chapter tactic (the one where tacticals get fnp)
Did alright. Mostly blobbed them around my objective and such. Probably should have taken just 2, but whatever.

I don't. I go for the grand effect.

They work okay naked, especailly if you're using IF or Sentinels of Terra CT. I do think it's always worth at least giving them a meltagun - small price to pay for the ability to blow up a vehicle in a pinch.

Honestly, I don't see any problem with it. Yeah they are intended to be flexible, with options for weapons, but a 5 man tac squad will be overlooked if you have a bigger threat. Are you gonna waste a considerable amount of fire to move 5 guys off an objective or kill a unit of bikes about to charge?

General Duf wrote:
Honestly, I don't see any problem with it. Yeah they are intended to be flexible, with options for weapons, but a 5 man tac squad will be overlooked if you have a bigger threat. Are you gonna waste a considerable amount of fire to move 5 guys off an objective or kill a unit of bikes about to charge?

Why choose? Kill both with a Xeno list. Only low firepower armies like non-Gravstar marines have to make those kinds of choices.

I never overlook units with objective secured. I might just not kill them until turn 5.

General Duf wrote:
Honestly, I don't see any problem with it. Yeah they are intended to be flexible, with options for weapons, but a 5 man tac squad will be overlooked if you have a bigger threat. Are you gonna waste a considerable amount of fire to move 5 guys off an objective or kill a unit of bikes about to charge?

Depends on game turn, missions, and what I have.

Because late game if it's the only unit you have in range of the objective I'm going to erase it, and force you to reconsider charging with those bikers because they may be the only unit you have that might be able to get back to the objective before the end of the game

Imperial fists or dark angels naked tac's with dropods withdeathwind launchers. chap tacs or dakka banner

I only use them in small armies <1000. Good for getting objectives but not much else.

Transport, meltagun and combi-melta. Always.

I don't see any reason why I would want to run them any other way.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Transport, meltagun and combi-melta. Always.

I don't see any reason why I would want to run them any other way.

Plasma maybe? Why melta?

Martel732 wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Transport, meltagun and combi-melta. Always.

I don't see any reason why I would want to run them any other way.

Plasma maybe? Why melta?

Because melta can hurt everything, and plasma cant.

Scoring vehicles and knights means the more melta I can pack the better.

Against many scoring vehicles, plasma is actually better than melta. Knights are an issue, yes.

Melts let's you charge afterwards, but is 1 shot at 12".

Sure, if you're facing Serpent Spam, Plasma is better. Even if you can Pod behind it. Mine almost always have a PG/combiPG in my first squad.

That said, Melta is Assault. Marines are better, per point, than most Troops in Assault, and can Krak most vehicles AV10 tailpipe if the melta fails. Don't discount assaulting Tacs.

Martel732 wrote:
Against many scoring vehicles, plasma is actually better than melta. Knights are an issue, yes.

Regarding vehicles plasma is only better at range.

At close range plasma does 0.333 more hull points to an AV10 vehicle than melta. AV11 is the same. melta is better vs AV12.
In all these cases the melta has double or better the chances of causing an explode! result.

So yes plasma can do something, but it is not great at it, and I would rather have a tool for a job that is more reliable.

Also, plasma can cook your own marines, which is never fun.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Against many scoring vehicles, plasma is actually better than melta. Knights are an issue, yes.

Regarding vehicles plasma is only better at range.

At close range plasma does 0.333 more hull points to an AV10 vehicle than melta. AV11 is the same. melta is better vs AV12.
In all these cases the melta has double or better the chances of causing an explode! result.

So yes plasma can do something, but it is not great at it, and I would rather have a tool for a job that is more reliable.

Also, plasma can cook your own marines, which is never fun.

Meh, I don't value them much. It's just super tempting to use a weapon with the same profile as the bolter for tac squads, thereby making the most of both weapons.

I also don't ever count on explodes results anymore. They are too unreliable now. I just plan on hull pointing everything out. That's why I've been taking the MM off my stormraven and using the typhoon.

You're already paying premium price for jack of all trades, master of none troops, why you wouldn't have them specialize I don't know.

I think I would use as much Melta as possible, or as many Flamers for hordes. Transport mandatory.

Ok, but anyhow - are those Special/Heavy weapons THAT expensive in your opinion that it is more profitable to keep this guys basically naked?

Look on it in example of BA. For adding 30 pts to those 175 for 10 in Rhino, you get Heavy Flamer, Melta Gun, and Combi-Melta. Isn't this making your Tactical Squad unbelievably more powerful, and, well, valuable, especially for a price of 2 naked Tacticals? This works especially well with BA codex because HF is ASSAULT weapon, which doesn't handicap your Tacs ability to move, shoot, and assault alike.

On C:SM as well - for 25 points you can give 'em Plasma Gun and Combi-Plasma. On midrange it means 4 s7ap4 shots which can tear a pretty big hole in some thick-armoured douche or nasty monster.

In my opinion - always give your Marines upper hand if you can, especially if it is for little number of points.