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Hi all,

In a box set of SM Tactical Marines the spruce comes with a Missile Launcher for use with one of the miniatures. My question is, in the lore of Tactical marines can that missile launcher be swapped out for a heavy Bolter?

Many thanks

^Yes. Heavy weapon options are Heavy Bolter, Missile Launcher, Lascannon, Plasma Cannon, Multimelta, Grav Cannon.

Is that in the rules or in the lore itself? I’m making a custom Chapter you see and want to know for my fluff

Thanks

yeah it is, tactical squads are a very well.. tactical unit formation, lore wise a squad carries a heavy and/or special weapon to allow the squad to deal with a wide range of situations. So a squad of ten fighting Orks say, might have a missle launcher to allow it to deal with large formations of troops at a distance, or attack light vehicles. well also carrying a flamer to deal with Orks that push into clsoe range (BTW on table top this is a pretty weak weapons combo) meanwhile a tac squad fighting chaos marines might carry a Plasma gun and plasma canon.

etc basicly they'll carry a buncha differant weapons dependant on the situation

Azkallean wrote:
Is that in the rules or in the lore itself? I’m making a custom Chapter you see and want to know for my fluff

Thanks

The lore is somewhat fluid. There are rules, except when there aren't.

Some chapters don't follow the codex very closely. Some authors say contradictory things. Back in my day Grav Cannons didn't exist - now they always did in the lore.

Blood angels can have a heavy flamer in a 10man squad

Out of all the choices, the Missile Launcher is the most tactical as it can be used in both an anti-infantry role (frag) and anti-tank role (krak). So based on that, the missile launcher probably makes the most versatile weapon and suited for a Tactical Squad.

man, I miss the days when you used to use 10 man tac sqds with the 1 hvy and 1 special.

 bullyboy wrote:
Out of all the choices, the Missile Launcher is the most tactical as it can be used in both an anti-infantry role (frag) and anti-tank role (krak). So based on that, the missile launcher probably makes the most versatile weapon and suited for a Tactical Squad.

man, I miss the days when you used to use 10 man tac sqds with the 1 hvy and 1 special.

And anti aircraft (flakk)

There's no lore on what a standard weapon loadout is but Missile launcher/Flamer is traditional.

Visually: A shoulder fired bazooka is instantly recognisable, the flamer is visually distinct from the rifles. They communicate that in the 41st millennium soldiers use high tech versions of 20th century weapons.
Thematically: A missile shoots a physical object that explodes with destructive force. A flamer bathes living beings in flaming fuel. These immediately separate the marines from more raygun, energy stun beam scifi properties.
Tactically- As noted the missile can carry many payloads- it could conceivably combat any enemy the marines might be expected to face and do so from a long way away. The flamer is a close range force multiplier that allows the marines to kill many enemies and break units- but can't operate at the range the launcher can. This allows contrast for introduction games that a plasmagun (+3 boltgun) won't allow.

In my headcanon, a lascannon, plasmacannon or heavybolter is a more specialised piece of equipment. Plasmacannons and plasmaguns are what you employ when you want to hunt heavy infantry or keep the enemy at range, meltaguns, multimeltas and lascannons are dedicated to killing very hard targets.

Back in the day well 2nd ed, each chapter that had a tactical squad had different special/ heavy weapons,
The vanilla marines had ML/flamer, the blood angels had HB/melta, space wolves grey hunters had just special weapons
Dark angels had LC/ plasma gun