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I'm putting together some tactical marines and I'm wondering what is the best way to outfit them. Blood Angels by the way.

5 man: CombiX, Special
5 man: CombiX, heavy

10 man: CombiX, special, heavy

Right now I'm looking at the first one, focusing on plasma. For heavy weapons I have heavy bolters and missile launchers, and . I have three of every non-grav special weapon and three combi weapons, and can scratch build more if needed.

I'm a vanilla codex player, but 5 man double Plasma has seemed to work best for me. I usually run a pair of these squads sharing a Rhino or in two Razorbacks with characters.

They won't be the stars of your list, but as far as SM troops go they're about as hard hitting per point as you can find. As a BA you might also find a power weapon useful, but I generally keep mine pure shooty.

Double special seems like the way to go in general. If you're running a gunline I can see the utility of heavy weapons to take advantage of the buffs you're presumably providing your other heavy weapons. 10 men squads don't seem to make much sense in general; even if you can't afford the combi-weapon, you may as well take 2 5-man squads to get the free sergeant.

10 man squads maximize buffs and minimize drops. But not a whole lot more then that. MSU is probably the way to go.

That said, I run full 10 man squads with a special and a heavy, sarge usually with a combi. But I’m a traditional Ultramarine like that.

All the guns can work, depends a lot on the rest of your list and what you need them to do.

Tac squads didn't get a lot of love in 8th. Just as an example, why take a 5 man Tac with HW when you can take a 5 man Dev with the same weapon and a cherub? Anyway, not trying to derail the convo, just venting (I like Tac squads).

I like Tacs in squads of 5 either with double special, or single HW (LC mostly). The HW option is useful because it spreads out your HW and gives them a solid number of ablative wounds and allows for a lot of objective camping. They aren't generally a great option at the competitive level, but that's true of 85% of the units in the game. I think the best use of the HW version is in lists that go all 1W infantry to deny the efficiency of the opponents AT weapons. The one benefit the Tacs have over Devs is the production of CPs.

I don't see a lot of utility in 10 man squads - Heavy and Special weapon saturation is too important IMO.

I don't see use in tac squads frankly. For troop tax, take scouts. For Saturation, I take devastators. But, I suppose that if you want say Plasma Guns, then 5 man with combi plas and plasma gun.

Thanks for all of the advice.

I was leaning towards the 5 man special/combi build. My main use is as a screen. I know scouts are better for that, but it's a bit of a fluff choice (looking at lamenters).

I think if you make use Salamander CT, 5 men Tactical squad with a single Lascannon or missile launcher is another way to spam the heavy weapons.

I'm fond of a 5 man squad with a lascannon, sarge with a storm bolter and chainsword. Cheap, cheerful, and useful all-around.

The four 5 man Combi-Plasma + Chainsword, Plasma Gun squads in a pair of Rhinos are absolute workhorses in my Blood Angels army. They get a lot of work done for cheap, are mobile since they aren't going to suffer moving and shooting penalties, and are great for clearing out heavy infantry so that the rest of my army can operate in relative safety from Terminator equivalents.

In a pinch, if you don't mind the occasional guy blowing himself up, they are great for finishing off wounded tanks or other monstrous creatures.

The only other loadouts I have been toying with and found to be useful are 5 man squads with Combi-Melta + Chainsword, Meltagun. A pair of those squads was able to punch some serious damage through onto Magnus in my last game.

I have tried running Power Fists and Axes on some of the squads, and it never really seemed useful with just 2 attacks on the Sergeant. Chainswords have been the most useful, for the number of attacks to make the most of The Red Thirst, and they normally end up fighting weaker troops in melee, so a loss of AP hasn't been a big issue.

Inferno Pistols are always another option, but mine seemed to be eternally just out of 6" of a decent target, and they rarely survive long enough to use them in the following shooting phase.

Vortenger wrote:
I'm fond of a 5 man squad with a lascannon, sarge with a storm bolter and chainsword. Cheap, cheerful, and useful all-around.

this does not suck.

Thanks for all the responses guys, I really appreciate it.