Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Making this thread because it's too off topic for the GT results thread.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
"... Or you could go with 5 or 6 Tac squads with a Lascannon.

It'd be interesting to discuss why that works, as opposed to whether or not it works."

My response:


It's actually super boring. The lascannon is a way to project force beyond screens of cheap chaff that marines don't have access to, nor viable solutions to directly engage. Even though marine fluff, for those that care, is full of marines laying waste to hordes of chaff. Yes, they made the aggressor, but that model is a complete failure.

The range of the lascannon means the tac squad can cower in cover the entire game getting a free bump from 3+ armor to 2+ armor, halving the casualties from two of the most offensive weapon systems, wyverns and mortars. This is far less effective vs basilisks and manticores, but you are counting on the 6 undercosted asscannon razors and the stormraven to suck up that fire. The bolters don't matter, nor does the assault ability. The other 4 marines in the squad could have no weapons at all and the list would play EXACTLY the same. That's why I say they aren't worth 13 ppm. They are a really expensive wound for a lascannon.

The 8th ed meta has reduced my armory to very few pieces of equipment that matter: lascannons, typhoon launchers, asscannons, and maybe a couple others. Melta is dead. Powerfists are dead. Thunderhammers are dead. Flamers are dead. Plasma with no rerolls is dead, so I can't use any characters that don't give those precious rerolls to shoot.

Cheap screens (that are always magically immune to psychology), like scatterbikes, have managed to make 85% of my codex mean nothing. Bravo GW.

Martel732 wrote:
Making this thread because it's too off topic for the GT results thread.

Never stopped anyone before.

Well, it looks like the mod is about to shut it down.

Yeah, I was part of the problem. It descended into "Are Tacs garbage" and "IG are OP".

That's actually very relevant for the GT winning list, but whatever. See my above reply for my thoughts on your question.

I don't want to run my BA like that, but GW is giving me no choice, and I'll never be as good at it as the UM. So why bother?

I would hazard the guess that they're a winning combination due to the rerolls and bodies, compared to the existing meta. You need to have some bodies right now to survive the Guard, and rerolls on the hits and wounds from lascannons makes them far more reliable than they'd otherwise be. There's unlikely to be a time when their shots will be wasted, and the extra bodies ensures that the lascannon stays alive longer against retaliation attacks.

Against some armies, the extra bodies can also give you some good board control, so this factor shouldn't be too easily dismissed. With 6 such squads, you have a sizeable 30 Marines floating around.

I wouldn't say they're OP or anything, they just happen to match up well against the existing meta (I guess... that seems weird to say). It's unlikely that this kind of list will be winning time and time again in the future. For now, let us all bask in the fantastic world we live in that a TACTICAL SQUAD - the most humble of all units - is appearing in tournament lists, and appearing not just to fill some minimum requirements (done better by Scouts).

I doubt they are getting any rerolls. Girlyman is handing those out the asscannon party.

 Desubot wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Intercessors are tougher, but they still cost more per model and for the same price, tacticals can have more specialist firepower than they have. It's a good example of a legitimate trade-off in the game right now rather than an outright upgrade.

Getting a Lascannon doesn't really make them specialist firepower.

Sure it does. Pop them in cover on a backline objective and they're obsec that can ding a tank. Or give them a plasmagun and combiplasma and now they have more short-ranged firepower vs MEQ even without overcharging. And with overcharging they threaten two-wound models.

camp on an objective in cover, with a lascannon or missile threatening more than half the board. 4 of those and you have a very spread out devastator squad that also is harder to straight kill as the guns are separated. and they take up a troop slot which opens up a higher number of command points.

Yay i found that conversation about spreading out the las cannons in tactical squads that also take up compulsorily troop slots.

My own theory is that the Tactical Squads were taken specifically for ObSec and then given a long range weapon so that they can camp behind cover near objectives while Guilliman and the Razorbacks (which are known to be some of the more powerful choices) run about drawing fire. What also interests me is that the list also took tigrus but no one brought it up. I'm not familiar with him but reading 1D4chan it says that he can grant a -1 to all to Hit rolls against any UM unit near him.

I get the feeling this was either used to prolong the lives of supposedly "fragile" Marine units OR was used in conjunction with the raven to make it really hard to hit.

Very much overbuying into this tacs with las cannons deal. If you saw how bad the second place list was you can easily determine that this was a pretty easy tournament.

The dude was just more concerned with his drop number than the total power of his army. I'm assuming they aren't using the chapter approved rules for going first. Though I have not seen anything about that. ITC has already switched to that because it's just more fair. Building an army that always goes first is just stupid. I can tell you that's the main reason tacs were included.

It's not "supposed". Quit being obtuse. Nearly EVERY weapon in the game kills more points of marines than the "intended" target of said weapon. S3 AP 0 kills more points of marines than it does of guardsmen. Absurd. Heavy flamers are particularly amusing at anti-meq work, compared to how much chaff it can kill.

Martel732 wrote:


It's actually super boring. The lascannon is a way to project force beyond screens of cheap chaff that marines don't have access to, nor viable solutions to directly engage. Even though marine fluff, for those that care, is full of marines laying waste to hordes of chaff. Yes, they made the aggressor, but that model is a complete failure.

So... can you explain to me what "super boring" has to do with if a strat will work or not? I don't understand how that qualifies as a legitimate reason for something not working.

Martel732 wrote:

The range of the lascannon means the tac squad can cower in cover the entire game getting a free bump from 3+ armor to 2+ armor, halving the casualties from two of the most offensive weapon systems, wyverns and mortars. This is far less effective vs basilisks and manticores, but you are counting on the 6 undercosted asscannon razors and the stormraven to suck up that fire. The bolters don't matter, nor does the assault ability. The other 4 marines in the squad could have no weapons at all and the list would play EXACTLY the same. That's why I say they aren't worth 13 ppm. They are a really expensive wound for a lascannon.

This cowering in cover comment confuses the hell out of me. I have been seeing comments about how BA are crap, and I believe that was attributed to the fact their codex was assumed to make them more CC focused? So.... staying in cover is "cowering", but the BA army is going to be crap because they wont be "cowering" in cover, but in your face with CC. Makes my head spin. Educate me would ya?


I think a lot of the posts I have seen over the past week on the SM army tactics thread and the GT results thread are bordering on hysteria, and knee jerk reaction... but I fully admit I am a novice with only a handful of 8th ed and 7th ed games under my belt. I'm asking to get a better understanding, and not to say one thing is better than the other.

Sorry, I'll quit with the snark.

To talk directly about the tac squad with lascannons, I think it's going to work great because it's designed to have ablative wounds protecting a single important thing. Four marines to soak damage happens to have a lot of factors that are common amounts of damage output for lots of things at greater than 24" range.

To give examples, and I'm loathe to go with guard examples, but everyone seems super stoked to make everything about guard, so I'll use it as a gold standard. If it's effective there, it'll be effective anywhere, right?

So anyway, I believe 2 dead marines is roughly the average expected outcome for a single basilisk firing the big gun. It's also the effective dead marines after a battlecannon fires at them twice. That's the secret sauce here. No, I'm not considering doctrines, orders, stratagems, or whatever, but I'm not doing that or cover on the marine side either. Keep it simple when you build the model. Take two basilisks and you probably still have that lascannon left, albeit with a morale check. Meanwhile 3 lascannons will, on average, degrade a basilisk. Full round of exchange between the long range guns and then lascannons? Marines still have "full" firepower (that you care about) left, and two vehicles on the other side just lost a BS off their profiles. Next turn comes up, you have decisions to make. You want to keep that lascannon? Drop it into a vehicle. You really NEED that last shot? Take it. You have five more if that one gets wiped out. Suddenly that conscript wall is looking a little less scary, particularly when your lascannons (540 points) are picking apart anything that could be a threat at long range a little bit at a time. What's the rest of your army doing? No clue. Waiting to deep strike? Hiding in transports? Razorbacks rolling up to start to clean out screening units?

---

More broadly speaking, I don't feel like the concept of ablative wounds on space marines is really a new one. In 5th, everyone talked about the hidden meltagun, the hidden powerfist, even the hidden thunderhammer or psycannon. The general attitude from back then, at least in my meta, was that the other guys were just there to get your one where it needs to be, and they'll maybe take some stuff down along with it.

I think we're seeing a resurgence of that concept now after two editions of removing from the front. There's some reasons why it's harder to do the hidden powerfist than it was back then. Nowadays, if you pull off the assault, you get to hit people for a round. That's pretty removed from 5th, because back then, if you touched someone, you got to keep that assault until someone was running away or dead. And if they were running away, odds are they were dead. There's some subtitles in tactics between each, which I feel like go out of the scope of this conversation as it varies from army to army and by weapon.

The truth of the matter that I see currently is that melee exists strictly as a clean-up option now than it ever has been before. I don't think anything outside of maybe nids can claim effective assault in 8th, and I'm not even entirely sure about them. To elaborate on that, I think there's effective means of using assault units. Your assault marines can be used currently. I do not think it is viable or productive to necessarily lead charging with them.

My boring comment was a reply to this:

"It'd be interesting to discuss why that works, as opposed to whether or not it works."

It's not interesting to me. It's just taking the best weapon system that can take toys away from lists packing 100+ screening models. We can't deal with the actual screens, we have to shoot past them. Okay. Boring.

As for "cowering", I say this because horde lists and lists with models that are completely expendable can easily afford to push across the table, simply ignoring their casualties because they have the bodies to give. This includes chaos cultists.

But the "mighty" space marines are so few in number that they have to cower in bushes to get that extra save bump to even have a hope of surviving the enemy shooting phase. I'm not a fluff guy, but this situation is pretty nauseating.

Martel732 wrote:
I doubt they are getting any rerolls. Girlyman is handing those out the asscannon party.

G-dawg has a 8" movement. Could be possible that he was moving him back and forth between whenever needed it the most, anti-infantry or anti-tank.

I feel like this is the biggest thing I never see anyone talking about online: People always say take Unit X. Unit X is good. Do Y with Unit X. Well, what if people are actually excelling by being flexible with Unit X and they're sometimes doing Z with Unit X instead of Y, when they need to, and then they're switching tactics mid-game?

That seems an obvious play. However, I would expect the tac squads to be in anti-scion formation, as so they won't be clumped up to take advantage of Bobby G's love.

 daedalus wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I doubt they are getting any rerolls. Girlyman is handing those out the asscannon party.

G-dawg has a 8" movement. Could be possible that he was moving him back and forth between whenever needed it the most, anti-infantry or anti-tank.

I feel like this is the biggest thing I never see anyone talking about online: People always say take Unit X. Unit X is good. Do Y with Unit X. Well, what if people are actually excelling by being flexible with Unit X and they're sometimes doing Z with Unit X instead of Y, when they need to, and then they're switching tactics mid-game?

This is what I believe in. It's almost like the squad was named after this! (jkz)

Martel732 wrote:
My boring comment was a reply to this:

"It'd be interesting to discuss why that works, as opposed to whether or not it works."

It's not interesting to me. It's just taking the best weapon system that can take toys away from lists packing 100+ screening models. We can't deal with the actual screens, we have to shoot past them. Okay. Boring.

I mean, 6 razorbacks with rerolls to hit (not even considering reroll to wound) remove 36 conscripts/turn. 120 conscripts are 4x30 now. That's 9 per squad per turn. Commissars take the last one, for 10. You could have them neutered in 2 rounds, and be completely through them in 3 turns of shooting.

The list is "boring"? Absolutely! When you get the most competitive levels, ALL lists are boring as hell.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
That seems an obvious play. However, I would expect the tac squads to be in anti-scion formation, as so they won't be clumped up to take advantage of Bobby G's love.

Assuming the opponent is IG with scions.

---

Hehe. Just realized something. I'm gonna dump the full stats for this one, because it's good:

A: 8 S: 8 AP: -3 D: 1 @ BS or WS: 3+
vs T: 4 sv 3+
Damage Outcomes percent
0 71 0.7%
1 485 4.8%
2 1452 14.5%
3 2427 24.3%
4 2648 26.5%
5 1905 19.1%
6 810 8.1%
7 173 1.7%
8 29 0.3%

That's a four plasmagun Scion command squad against space marines. Guess what? 60% of 0-4 dead space marines. That doesn't take into account the extra shot for 6s, but I don't think that would give you significantly different results at this scale.

And that's supercharged plasma even. Regular plasma is only 3 dead marines on average.

Martel732 wrote:
My boring comment was a reply to this:

"It'd be interesting to discuss why that works, as opposed to whether or not it works."

It's not interesting to me. It's just taking the best weapon system that can take toys away from lists packing 100+ screening models. We can't deal with the actual screens, we have to shoot past them. Okay. Boring.

As for "cowering", I say this because horde lists and lists with models that are completely expendable can easily afford to push across the table, simply ignoring their casualties because they have the bodies to give. This includes chaos cultists.

But the "mighty" space marines are so few in number that they have to cower in bushes to get that extra save bump to even have a hope of surviving the enemy shooting phase. I'm not a fluff guy, but this situation is pretty nauseating.

I see what you are saying. So I guess the problem is that you can field enough 5 or 10 man tac units to have enough firepower to both clear hard targets (for your LC) and also clear out the screen with say HB fire?

If this is accurate, wouldn't the theory of having your tac squads bolstered by one or two really strong units that are dedicated to one of those two jobs? For example a Stormraven with a massive amount of dakka, and say two pred's that are decked out in LC's?

Perhaps this is where we start to run into the inefficient part of the equation?

I have only played games that run up to 1k so far, so my sample size is limited.

Marines have no source of dakka or chopping that can efficiently clear screens. That's why everyone is just planning to shoot past the screens.

For example, Let's say 8 DC charge 10 guardsmen or 15 gaunts and wipe them, and in turn are wasted by enemy shooting. I'm trading 160 pts for 40 or 60. That's untenable.

Here's a storm eagle rocket:

A: 2d6 S: 10 AP: -2 D: 1 @ BS or WS: 4+
vs T: 4 sv 3+
Damage Outcomes percent
0 1365 13.7%
1 2782 27.8%
2 2802 28.0%
3 1771 17.7%
4 881 8.8%
5 299 3.0%
6 73 0.7%
7 22 0.2%
8 4 0.0%
9 1 0.0%

That's about a 4% chance to kill 5 marines.

I've seen enough to convince me: The number 4 is magic for marines.

As has been said many times, what about those of us power armored sods who don't have crazy rerolls or play as a gunline?

Grey Knights can't have lascannons. Whoops. And even if we did our base troop is 6 points more expensive than a marine, making ablative wounds a laugh.

I mean i get it, i bring up the same army in every damn marines thread.

I know there's nothing the forums can do for me.

It's just a bummer having an army that will suck until 9th, or until 8th evolves a LOT.

FWIW, I'm just going to play my Ultramarines until something sparks my fancy. I can play a gunline too. I think most people would rather face some variety, but whatever. Do what works.

I'm hearing two things in this article that don't really go hand in hand with each other.

A. "I want to play my list the way the fluff suggests."

and B. "I want to win competitive games."

If you care about fluff, you don't care about tournaments. If you care about tournaments, you don't care about fluff. If you want to be the top player that takes home the trophy, set fluff aside and look only at the stats and rules, make a winning list, and play that winning list to the best of your ability.

That's the way tournaments go. That's the way the competitive scene is. If you have an auto-win card in your deck, you leave it in your deck. You don't take it out for 'fluff' reasons in a competitive game.

Now, if your local meta is really that hardcore, that your group is nothing but netlisters, then I feel really bad for you. If you can't find any players that want to just have a friendly game where you aren't trying to table each other by turn 2, then that really does bite.

But, if you want friendly, fluffy games, you've got to spearhead that. You've got to tell your friends and your opponents 'Hey, I'm here to have some friendly, relaxing games. Can we leave the cheese and spam at home?'

If that still doesn't work, well, maybe time to move over to Age of Sigmar. The community over there seems a lot friendlier to fluff.

You can't want to win and also want to play fluff. It might work for some armies, but it doesn't work for all. That's just how it goes. As the Japanese say "Shouganai" - it can't be helped.

Don't forget they get all kinds of crazy rerolls.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

drbored wrote:
I'm hearing two things in this article that don't really go hand in hand with each other.

A. "I want to play my list the way the fluff suggests."

and B. "I want to win competitive games."

If you care about fluff, you don't care about tournaments. If you care about tournaments, you don't care about fluff. If you want to be the top player that takes home the trophy, set fluff aside and look only at the stats and rules, make a winning list, and play that winning list to the best of your ability.

That's the way tournaments go. That's the way the competitive scene is. If you have an auto-win card in your deck, you leave it in your deck. You don't take it out for 'fluff' reasons in a competitive game.

Now, if your local meta is really that hardcore, that your group is nothing but netlisters, then I feel really bad for you. If you can't find any players that want to just have a friendly game where you aren't trying to table each other by turn 2, then that really does bite.

But, if you want friendly, fluffy games, you've got to spearhead that. You've got to tell your friends and your opponents 'Hey, I'm here to have some friendly, relaxing games. Can we leave the cheese and spam at home?'

If that still doesn't work, well, maybe time to move over to Age of Sigmar. The community over there seems a lot friendlier to fluff.

You can't want to win and also want to play fluff. It might work for some armies, but it doesn't work for all. That's just how it goes. As the Japanese say "Shouganai" - it can't be helped.

I want more competitive options, fluff or no fluff. I don't even want movie marines. I just want to be as competent as Orks or guardsmen.

And competitive options that UM aren't hands down better at would be nice, too.

 Marmatag wrote:
As has been said many times, what about those of us power armored sods who don't have crazy rerolls or play as a gunline?

removed

drbored wrote:
I'm hearing two things in this article that don't really go hand in hand with each other.

A. "I want to play my list the way the fluff suggests."

and B. "I want to win competitive games."

If you care about fluff, you don't care about tournaments. If you care about tournaments, you don't care about fluff. If you want to be the top player that takes home the trophy, set fluff aside and look only at the stats and rules, make a winning list, and play that winning list to the best of your ability.

That's the way tournaments go. That's the way the competitive scene is. If you have an auto-win card in your deck, you leave it in your deck. You don't take it out for 'fluff' reasons in a competitive game.

Now, if your local meta is really that hardcore, that your group is nothing but netlisters, then I feel really bad for you. If you can't find any players that want to just have a friendly game where you aren't trying to table each other by turn 2, then that really does bite.

But, if you want friendly, fluffy games, you've got to spearhead that. You've got to tell your friends and your opponents 'Hey, I'm here to have some friendly, relaxing games. Can we leave the cheese and spam at home?'

If that still doesn't work, well, maybe time to move over to Age of Sigmar. The community over there seems a lot friendlier to fluff.

You can't want to win and also want to play fluff. It might work for some armies, but it doesn't work for all. That's just how it goes. As the Japanese say "Shouganai" - it can't be helped.

Who are you to say fluff and competition are mutually exclusive?

or friendly or silly list taken to a super tuned extreme.

 daedalus wrote:


So anyway, I believe 2 dead marines is roughly the average expected outcome for a single basilisk firing the big gun. It's also the effective dead marines after a battlecannon fires at them twice. That's the secret sauce here. No, I'm not considering doctrines, orders, stratagems, or whatever, but I'm not doing that or cover on the marine side either. Keep it simple when you build the model. Take two basilisks and you probably still have that lascannon left, albeit with a morale check. Meanwhile 3 lascannons will, on average, degrade a basilisk. Full round of exchange between the long range guns and then lascannons? Marines still have "full" firepower (that you care about) left, and two vehicles on the other side just lost a BS off their profiles. Next turn comes up, you have decisions to make. You want to keep that lascannon? Drop it into a vehicle. You really NEED that last shot? Take it. You have five more if that one gets wiped out. Suddenly that conscript wall is looking a little less scary, particularly when your lascannons (540 points) are picking apart anything that could be a threat at long range a little bit at a time. What's the rest of your army doing? No clue. Waiting to deep strike? Hiding in transports? Razorbacks rolling up to start to clean out screening units?

So 270 points of marines can degrade a basilisk in one round of shooting? Well, no. 3 * .666 * .666 * .833 * 3.5 = 3.9

You need 6 wounds. Or did you mean 3 lascannon shots with rerolls to hit and wound from a 360 point unit?

And you can get almost 3 basilisks against just the regular marines. Not to mention RG.

A lascannon squad can produce 5 shots in a game if it lives. The average total damage potential is 6.5 -- 0.07 per point
Rerolls to all takes it to 11.5. For 90 points plus support.

An earthshaker gets 7.5 -- 0.07 per point without bonuses and can be completely out of sight of the lascannons.

People aren't playing CC armies, because their big crutch RG is ahrd to get there and keep the bubble up. They'd rather take the easier route. People better get ready to have their gak pushed in when the 'Nid book hits.

Rerolls are key to making this army work. Don't forget that RG has a 12 inch aura, it's not hard to stand him up in the middle of everything you have.

I saw the Twitch video of the game versus Chaos and that's exactly what Lawrence did, bunched everything up and started shooting.

https://go.twitch.tv/videos/182149274

Let's remember, even if an opponent can kill a unit of Space Marines every turn, there's still more units with Lascannons + whatever tanks are in the list. As long as they have LOS, they remain a threat. It's not hard to spam heavy weapons with rerolls in SM and CSM armies.

That'll get me for recycling math from a day ago. Yeah, if I remember from the relative order in the console backbuffer and the order of the thread the other day, the 2 degraded "on average" projection I think was actually 3 lascannons with CM and lieutenant support, but Rowbooty should have slightly improved effects.

3 lascannons on their own have about a 31% chance to degrade one entirely on their own.
4 lascannons on their own have about a 45% chance to degrade one entirely on their own.