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So i'm looking to start a space marine army after all of the space marine releases finish and have been reading up on the tactica (having never played them before). But the main question i have is what load out is best to give to the tactical squads? I think im going to have a combi weapon, a special and heavy weapon but what to choose? grav, plasma or melta? not to mention flamers and so on! Thanks for any advice.

Are you throwing them in Pods? Camping with Rhinos? 5men to abuse the Battle Company in a Razorback?

I'm going for raven guard so i would like to have pods over rhinos and razor backs as its more fluffy and i don't trust the rhino/razerbacks armour ratings to get my men across the board

If you are doing pods you are going to want to hit hard

Id say Combi melta/plasma and 1 melta or plasma.

Flamers can be ok if your area has a lot of hoards type things.

wouldnt bother with combat squads or the heavy weapon.

best load out is grav cannon with combi plasma if 10 man throw in a plasma gun. That squad hurts.

 Xenomancers wrote:
best load out is grav cannon with combi plasma if 10 man throw in a plasma gun. That squad hurts.

Oh i guess thats true now that you can take salvo weapons out a pod. 18" (?) with effectively ap2 will hurt a lot.

But this is a whole lot of Eggs in 1 orbital basket considering that unit will tend to melt with enough shots.

thanks for the advice, also since the humble guardsmen have yet to be blessed with grav weapons what do they actually do? All ( i think) i know is that its ap is equivalent to the enemies armour save but is there anything more to them?

 Desubot wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
best load out is grav cannon with combi plasma if 10 man throw in a plasma gun. That squad hurts.

Oh i guess thats true now that you can take salvo weapons out a pod. 18" (?) with effectively ap2 will hurt a lot.

But this is a whole lot of Eggs in 1 orbital basket considering that unit will tend to melt with enough shots.

The thing I like about the grav cannon is they have to kill it the turn it drops - if not - they take almost double the grav next turn. 35 points aint cheap though but I think properly pointed. Unlike 10 point scatter lasers on jetbikes - those should probably be 20 points.

grav cannons are salvo 24" so same effective range out of a pod is the same of the plasma and with another shot to boot and reroll to wound.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yentzer wrote:
thanks for the advice, also since the humble guardsmen have yet to be blessed with grav weapons what do they actually do? All ( i think) i know is that its ap is equivalent to the enemies armour save but is there anything more to them?

They are always AP2 - their to wound roll is based on the enemy armor - so 2+ to wound anything with a 2 + save 3+ for a 3+ save. and so on. The also auto glace AV on a 6 in which case they also get an immobilize result. Grav cannons come with grav amps which allow you to reroll to wound and pen armor. Basically - there is nothing a gravcannon doesn't obliterate that has a 4+ save or better because they are salvo 3/5 24".

Gravs wound based on armor save so if you target a bunch of guardsmen with there 5+ armor saves

they only get wounded on a 5+

So if you pointed it at terminators they would be wounded on 2+ and get no armor saves as the grav is ap2.

Also on vehicles it glances and immobilizes on a 6

Ah ok grav weapons do sound quite scary! So as for the load out of the tac squad i should be looking at :

sarge with combi melta/plasma

marine with plasma/melta

and maybe a gravcannon?

And if i have a combi melta should i also have a melta gun (to stick with the melta theme) or would it be better to mix and match? also would it be best to have the same load out for all the tac squads, or have say one squad with 'full' plasma and 2 squads with 'full' melta? Finally if grav cannons are so useful then why are grav guns/combi gravs not as good?

Whatever route you take, commit to it. If you want a gravcannon, take a gravgun and a combi-grav. That way you can really mess up a TEQ squad or monstrous creature or glance a vehicle to death.

 Yentzer wrote:
Ah ok grav weapons do sound quite scary! So as for the load out of the tac squad i should be looking at :

sarge with combi melta/plasma

marine with plasma/melta

and maybe a gravcannon?

And if i have a combi melta should i also have a melta gun (to stick with the melta theme) or would it be better to mix and match? also would it be best to have the same load out for all the tac squads, or have say one squad with 'full' plasma and 2 squads with 'full' melta? Finally if grav cannons are so useful then why are grav guns/combi gravs not as good?

It's bescause of the salvo rule. Gravguns are 2/3 salvo 18" - so their range when they move is only 9" - 9" isn't that bad coming out of a drop pod BUT it leaves more room to go wrong. If you are relentless though (such as a bike squad) grav guns are preferred over plasma guns because it alows you to always use the 18" 3 shot mode.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 j31c3n wrote:
Whatever route you take, commit to it. If you want a gravcannon, take a gravgun and a combi-grav. That way you can really mess up a TEQ squad or monstrous creature or glance a vehicle to death.

I disagree - the grav gun and plasma gun comparison needs to be considered. The only thing grav gun is better at killing when it moves is 2+ save t6 (dreadknight + riptide) or AV 13 or higher and even then it's doing it with -3 range. I think it's reasonable to give the edge to grav when you take a full 10 man though as the chances of firing a second turn go up big with 5 more bodies.