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Chapter Tactics - Firehawks
Formation Skyhammer Ann. Force

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/fw_site/fw_pdfs/Warhammer_40000/Forge_World_Space_Marine_Chapter_Tactics_V2.pdf


Best way to run Assault Marines? 5 or 10?

What weapons?

I normally play the Iron Tenth, so guns and treads are my specialty. I have no idea what im doing in assault.

Winning Assault means forcing Leadership tests and Sweeping Advance checks. Go with 10.

I'd agree. 10 is best for LD and casualty reasons. Plus, it makes for a decent delivery system for the Powerfist Sergeant most usually run in an Assault squad.

Add in a 1st Co aux for the -2 LD boost from Sternguard, makes the assaulting much better T1 to try and force them to run off the table.

It entirely depends on what you could get with those pts and the chapter tactics you are using.

With the CT you are using I would much rather buy 5 more devastator marines than 5 more assault marines in the skyhammer as you can force more Ld checks to force units to GtG and can even split the heavy weapons up if you need to. (not to mention the dev marines will be cheaper than the jump pack assault marines)

If you were playing as white scars my opinion would be different as you can hit and run out of combat and are likely to get a good multicharge the turn after you DS if you take big units. With any other CT the likelyhood of getting a good multicharge (which is the real reason to take large melee units) becomes extremely low.

Even with 10 assault marines you are not likely to cause that much damage in melee. Assault marines just don't have the stats to put out real damage in melee and your opponent would have to be a fool to let you DS and charge anything assault marines would be good against off the DS. Additionally you will probably have to break the unit up so you can DS close enough to get charges thus you are really just putting more small assault marine units in which will mostly act to tarpit units. Skyhammer bolter dev squads accomplish much the same thing but tend to be more reliable and take less return damage for their efforts.

BTW if you take a heavy bolter in each of the dev squads you can force Ld checks on units 36" away from your dev unit for a low price. It is a nice low cost trick.

To be honest I never take ASM's in squads under 10. They just don't do enough in melee at 5 men, and at that point they're only usable as suicide melta squads (which irritates me as a player who prefers fluff). At least at 10 men if you get into CC you can do some damage (maybe not a lot depending on your opponent, but still...). I have had my Assault Marines do great things, just not at 5 strong.

It's probably best to never use ASM at all. And that's coming from the BA. /cry

 ansacs wrote:
It entirely depends on what you could get with those pts and the chapter tactics you are using.

With the CT you are using I would much rather buy 5 more devastator marines than 5 more assault marines in the skyhammer as you can force more Ld checks to force units to GtG and can even split the heavy weapons up if you need to. (not to mention the dev marines will be cheaper than the jump pack assault marines)

If you were playing as white scars my opinion would be different as you can hit and run out of combat and are likely to get a good multicharge the turn after you DS if you take big units. With any other CT the likelyhood of getting a good multicharge (which is the real reason to take large melee units) becomes extremely low.

Even with 10 assault marines you are not likely to cause that much damage in melee. Assault marines just don't have the stats to put out real damage in melee and your opponent would have to be a fool to let you DS and charge anything assault marines would be good against off the DS. Additionally you will probably have to break the unit up so you can DS close enough to get charges thus you are really just putting more small assault marine units in which will mostly act to tarpit units. Skyhammer bolter dev squads accomplish much the same thing but tend to be more reliable and take less return damage for their efforts.

BTW if you take a heavy bolter in each of the dev squads you can force Ld checks on units 36" away from your dev unit for a low price. It is a nice low cost trick.

This right here is dirty. One HB to cause pinning. I was considering taking all heavy flamers and MM due to the Fire hawks CT +1 flamer STR.

The only way i would consider 10x marines is again, the CT +1 HoW Str.

If you are considering 10 ASM for extra hammer of wrath attacks then don't bother. You have to make it into btb contact during the charge to gain those HoW attacks. Getting anything more than 6 models into btb contact is extremely difficult even against large units and entirely impossible against some small units.

Derail! In a 10 man Assault Squad is it worth taking 1 or 2 Flamers? I suppose it would depend on the enemy, but is losing the bonus attack for two melee weapons worth the possibility of a well placed pair of flamer shots?

 Robbiedbee wrote:
Derail! In a 10 man Assault Squad is it worth taking 1 or 2 Flamers? I suppose it would depend on the enemy, but is losing the bonus attack for two melee weapons worth the possibility of a well placed pair of flamer shots?

This is the kicker. Fire Hawks get hand flamers. So my two flamers still get thier attacks in CC. As a bonus all flamers are +1 STR turn of deep striking. So, i would drop the marines, flame away and not worry about losing cc attacks.

Take 10 , this way you can combat squad if you need too

Ooooo this is a good idea.
But how does it work with a Skyhammer?

2x 10 suqds. Then, turn 2 i declare combat squadding?

You have to decide during deployment


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I like it because if I need to just tie up a unit I can use the 5 man without the Sgt, and have my Sgt (whom I always give a melta bomb) maybe take out a vehicle

10 in your case, your chapter tactics directly benefit assault squads and their flamers on the turn you deepstrike, you need to take 5 man squads anyway for the formation and with only 5 they'll be a total waste unable to ever win fights

with 10 and the added bnueses from CT AND the formation they'll be much better than you might typically see from them

(plus it's fluffy and you get props for using fluffy)

In the Skyhammer formation I would run two 5-man assault squads with a veteran sarge with an eviscerator. Maybe add a regular flamer and that's it.

I would use two 10-man Devastator squads and combat squad them to cause 4 pinning checks. That leaves armor as your weakness and the 5-man assault squads can attack armor on the turn they drop with 3 eviscerator attacks and 4 krak grenades.

My vote is 5 man. Drop them into your enemy's backfield behind devastators, artillery, tanks, or other heavy weapons and let them be a distraction. They tend to work quite well, assuming you don't play in a WAAC meta with netlists on every table.

10 man squads or nothing, that way they'll die in the enemies turn instead of yours and then you can blast a second target with your grav devs.

Also allows a second evicerator if you actually want to threaten MC's or Knights (of any variety). Melta bomb on the sarge and now you've got a reasonable chance to take out most walkers, MC's or an IK before you get whacked. The squad won't be much good for anything afterwards, but they'll have done their job.

Had mine beat down a bloodthrirster a few games ago, and carve 4 wounds out of a wraithknight in another game. A few games before that, they were instrumental in defeating a knight list since 2x 5 str 8 armourbane attacks on the charge can be devastating.

The ability to simply hold things down for a turn is also highly under-rated, and a 5 man squad just won't get the job done for 2 rounds of combat against anything sufficiently scary.

Or just take 2 skyhammers with 16 grav cannons and 4x 5 man ASM as a tax. At least this way you're going to be able to tie up a bunch of stuff to buy another round of shooting.

For me a 5 man squad is nothing to be worried about. A 10 man squad is.

For example I can shoot at the 5 man with some random small arms, killing one or two and the unit is weakened. I can't do that vs the 10 man.

 womprat49 wrote:
For me a 5 man squad is nothing to be worried about. A 10 man squad is.

For example I can shoot at the 5 man with some random small arms, killing one or two and the unit is weakened. I can't do that vs the 10 man.

The reason I prefer 5 man squads is:
(1) I don't expect them to do my heavy lifting in assault, merely create distractions/act as a bully unit to enemy models; and
(2) Since a 5 man squad has a smaller footprint, it is much easier to hide them behind small buildings and other LOS blocking terrain until a unit comes into their threat bubble or they want to clear off an objective.