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.

I've been watching some video and floating around dakkadakka looking at various army builds. Trying to figure what I should be building. And I have noticed no one really talking about despoiler squads. It mostly seems to be two full tac squads for troops and a support squad or assault squad or two. Now, I'm mostly playing with the rule of cool and a mob of space running with chainswords seems appealing to me. Are they just not that good? Do other things just do melee better? I'm curious.

Was wondering the same thing.

I think it's honestly a lack of a kit. You could either:

-Buy the Tac Squad anyways and spend extra money scrounging for straight arm, Pistol, and Chainsword bits for what's essentially a Tac Marine unit that replaces bolters with Chainswords

-Or you can spend 10-50 extra points to add a flavor of melee to the Tac Squad kits that are easily accessible.

I'll likely be mostly staying away from Despoilers for this very reason. That and that I want to save the extra "melee" arms I have for another project.

EDIT: I guess 3d printing is an option, but it does require investing in a 3d printer. I don't know about other people, but I’m waiting on a 3d.printer until I both have room for it and when I have multiple projects where one would be highly advantageous.

I converted a squad of despoilers using (gasp) mk7 assault marine arms. It's not really noticeable. They're testing new elbow armor, I guess.

I gave them 3 power swords and 3 plasma pistols. Should probably put them in a rhino, but I'm not sure that'll help their survivability. They'd probably work better in a squad of 20 to overrun a position.

I can't say they're bad, or good. They're certainly not contemptors, nor are they terminators.

Despoilers aren't easy to make compared to normal Tacticals. But for Legions like the World Eaters where you can swap all the Chainswords for Chainaxes for free, yeah Despoilers can be a lot of fun.

For my Word Bearers, I'm making at least one squad of ten. What I'm really looking forward to doing is building some Destroyer squads with Khorne bits so as to make them look like early Khorne Berzerkers. I might even buy another 40k Kharn model and give him an extra plasma pistol to make him a Moritat.

It's the lack of an upgrade kit. Seen loads of people on the internet, especially new World Eaters and Wolves players, asking what they can make Despoilers out of or if there's a kit coming.

I have ~20 built (I used to run Tac squads with chainswords so had the models) but not had a chance to use them yet. Not sure if it'll work best with them all in a blob running forward, or 2 squads in Rhinos.

Main issue with taking despoilers is finding the parts.

Personally I love them and I've now 3d printed enough heavy chainswords to make 20 man squads. They're a great unit and look super cool but like I say, difficult to source parts for without spending a bit of money or getting a 3d printer.

There's also the point that in the last edition they were kind of pointless from a rules perspective. I used them in my son's of Horus because they look really cool and I wasn't too bothered about winning, but for most people just paying the extra 2pts to give your tacticals bolter, pistol, and ccw was what most people went for.

I expect we'll see a lot more of them on the table I. The next 6 months or so while people built new units to reflect the changes in 2.0

we need a despoiler/assault marine upgrade kit, and a breacher upgrade kit.

hell if GW released MK II Breachers along side 40k rules for them they'd sell like hot cakes, it's money on the table

As stated, lack of kit.

For despoilers in particular though, assault marines make them a tough sell. Going from 10 points to 12 points is a very small cost bump... Especially to nearly double their movement, gain deep strike, and change their native -1 to charge rolls into +2.

Despoilers do have spite of the legion and heart of the legion too though. And don't pay a squad tax so they're quite a bit cheaper overall. It is nice having those cheap old assault marines now though 😊

Where is the -1 to charge from btw? Have I missed something 😮

Bobug wrote:
Despoilers do have spite of the legion and heart of the legion too though. And don't pay a squad tax so they're quite a bit cheaper overall. It is nice having those cheap old assault marines now though 😊

Where is the -1 to charge from btw? Have I missed something 😮

Spite feels super situational to me, as you need to make a noticeable investment into either snipers or artillery to activate it (unless you're a select few legions). Heart is straight good, but tacticals are probably the better (and fluffier) choice for a "dudes that sit on objectives" option.

In the close combat / assault section of the BRB, specifically rolling assault, it has a list of bonuses to assault range you get based on movement. IIRC 5-7 gets -1 to their roll, 8-10 gets +0, and 12+ gets +2. So assault marines have a rock solid +3 to their charge roll in comparison to despoilers.

5"-7" is a zero modifier
8"-10" is +1
11"-12" is +2
13" + is +3

Assault Marines do have a +2 on charge distance over Despoilers, they do not have Heart of the Legion (or Spite of the Legion). They also cost 45 more points base and 2 more points a marine. Both units have their place.