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Getting back into 40k (or at least building some of the new stuff) which I haven't played since early 7th. All this primaris stuff is new to me. I'm having trouble identifying what role each of the troops play. Looking at lists it seems to me like troops are primarily either a tax you pay to bring battalions for CP, and/ or backline objective holders. Is that correct? I play Dark Angels and our deathwing troops are gone so I'm probably gonna need some troops.

Tacticals seem to have just gone out the window

See a lot of 5 man scouts squads which look like a tax

Intercessors are just better Tacticals? The gun options makes them interesting, as a sub question: when do you bring which gun?

Infiltrators and Incursors seem like they kind of do the same thing. What role do these guys each fill?

Reading some threads, seems like Dark Angels have a relatively competitive build with Sammeal/ talonmasters, Ravenwing bike and black knight squads "Teleport homing" deathwing knight squads. Once I can start playing games again I'll probably run something like this. I already have the models, it's pretty similar to what I played in 5th and 6th, and does not look too complicated. What would be good troop choices for this kind of army? I have scouts and am working on some Incursors.

One of the things I try to aim for when building my army is for each unit to have a purpose. 5 man scout squads camping objectives seems like a waste of a unit slot to me. I play pretty aggressively, which troop choices are A: useful for something beyond a tax/ objective holding and B: can be used aggressively?

9th edition will be out soon enough that I would advise against making any purchases until we have a better idea of how it's going to work. What makes sense now may be quite different a month or two from now and you don't want to be out a couple hundred bucks for something you wouldn't have bought if you knew what was going to happen to it.

For troops in particular there will no longer be a need to take them for CP generation, so if GW get the balance wrong and don't do enough to make them good without the CP generation, taking none may become standard.

Space marines are also getting assault primaris and those will probably be troops too so it is yet another reason not to invest in anything right now.

yukishiro1 wrote:
9th edition will be out soon enough that I would advise against making any purchases until we have a better idea of how it's going to work

I have 40 tactical marines that are all nodding their heads right now

Makes sense though. I did see that thing about CP being tied to point level. Will be interesting to see if anyone takes battalions, although hopefully there will be some incentive.

Is there a rumored date for 9th? I haven't seen one but am guessing fall/ holiday season.

No date given, but at one point on the reveal they said something that made it sound like this was something coming sooner rather than later. Which makes sense. GW aren't stupid, they know that when you announce a new edition and advertise it heavily as changing the way both tanks and troops work, people are going to hold off on making new purchases until they know what the new edition is going to be like. So it behooves them to release it as soon as they can after revealing it.

I think it's very likely 9th would already be out right now without covid. It is clear from the way they're talking about it that the rules are already finalized, and it's probably just a matter of how quickly they can get the release models made now that their factory is back open. And they wouldn't have announced it if they weren't sure that was going to be soon. It's no coincidence the announcement came right after they were allowed to open back up.

I would expect a mid-July release date, or August at the very latest. FWIW, 8th was announced April 22, 2017 and released June 17, 2017. I would be surprised if there is a greater gap than that.

To answer the question about Intercessor guns, it depends your desired overall target and what you want them to do. If you're planning to simply camp them on the objective and NEVER move overall, Stalker. If you plan to ALWAYS be on the move, Assault one. Rapid Fire one is for max squads making use of that sweet sweet Strat for making them Rapid Fire 2 (you need to really invest, basically).

Incursors don't really fill a role, you're correct. Infiltrators fill a role, but die incredibly easily. Their area of denial is MUCH better than a Scouts, but for the points Scouts will deny two smaller areas, and that's two taxes filled compared to just one.

As others have said, we have no idea how 9th is going to change things.

I don’t play DA, so take this with a grain of salt. Chapter tactics and army synergy make a HUGE difference about how things work in 8th.

Scouts: Cheep screening units. You can also snipe/fish for MW if you pay to gear them up. The ability to forward deploy has some good uses. Cant tkae HB/ML for use w/ strats.

Tacticals: Can take special/heavy weapons. Flexible equipment.

Intercessors: Solid troopers. More resilient to small arms then tacticals, but D2+ weapons are going to cash them out faster. All their guns are viable these days, depending on their role/chapter/buffs.
Assault - high rate of fire, good for clearing chaff and spamming wounds
Rapid Fire - best all-around. Good range, bolter drill, built in AP.
Heavy - Long range, hard hitting, low rate of fire.

Infiltrators: The 12” deep strike denial is a hard counter to a number of strategies. It make things like assaulting from DS literally impossible, as opposed to unlikely (but I’ve got tricks to make it happen). They do pay a premium for this though, and don’t bring a lot of firepower for their points.

Incursors: Another hard counter squad. They get bolters that ignore cover and to hit mods. Against things that rely on those to live, they are going to be worth it. Against everything else? A bit overpriced.

What nevelon said. I run 3 sniper teams and 3 tacticals, 2 with las cannons and 1 with a heavy bolter, in my dark angel list. They do well, snipers deal with chrs, tacticals sit on back objectives / cover my field to help deny deep strike opportunities / and don't move so get reroll 1's to hit. Heavy bolter for the mortal wound strat, 2 las to help finish vehicles / monsters. I never feel like they are a tax, they have a job to do and do it well.