Tactical Squads

Every couple of months it seems the Warseer community has ragged on Tactical squads. They're at it again led by CKO. Here are some links. One. Two. And three.

Let's just get this out of the way. The poll in link 3 is retarded. Is something bad or misused? I see them being misused all the time but that doesn't make it bad or a misused squad. Vespid are bad, tacs are not. l2makeapoll.

So how do people misuse tacs? Firstly they ignore their resiliency. Not much has an easy time of pushing 10 T4/3+ save bodies off an objective, especially in cover and they aren't relatively expensive. Then they pay out the wazoo for upgrades. PFists (on a shooting unit), Plasma guns and cannons, Lascannons, etc. Don't need it. You get a free heavy weapon and a free flamer. The only upgrade you can make an argument for is the meltagun and a Razorback depending how you are running your army.

Now the flamer/MM/rhino Tac squad is pure midfield fire support. You generally move it T1 into midfield to own an objective and get good firing position and then let rip with a heavy weapon every turn! Yahoo. This is what people are griping about again on Warseer. News flash, if that's all it needs to do all game consistently across games, your opponent sucks. Your tacs are going to be forced out at some point or forced to advance, etc. etc. And bolters aren't great but 17 bolt shots and a template is nothing to be waved away.

Now again what is the Tac squads role in an SM army? Provide more fire support, bodies, another tank chasis, control midfield w/bolters & flamer backed up by a heavy weapon and hold objectives. They do everything that could be asked of them. You want a super killy troop? Bugger off and go play some crap army like Nob Bikers. Tac squads are NOT offensive powerhouses. The fluff may say they are but they are not. Tired I am of having to hear about people sinking 1000 pts into 4 tac squads w/lascannons, plasma guns, meltaguns, RBacks, etc. They are midfield support who hold objectives and keep your opponent honest who hasn't fielded any torrent units. There is a helluva lot more killy crap in the Marine codex. You get your core of 2-3 Tacs depending on game size and then build around them (unless you are running RBack spam or Bikes).

From the 2nd link CKO is proposing a ML/flamer/combi-flamer and combat squading:

"Think about it, you know you have two flamers so you move the rhino with its two flamers near the chimera, you use one of your attack bike with multi-melta or land speeder with multi-melta to kill the chimera then flame the vet squad inside, they only have a rear access point so you know where they will be. You most likely dont need both because a flamer will most likely get all of them combine that with 4 bolter guns and thats bye bye chimelta unit. "

Really? You can flame units once you pop transports? And a standard flamer/MM/Rhino tac squad can't do that how? Furthermore CKO is complaining people "park Rhinos on objectives" which I covered above but again, wtf else are they supposed to do? Charge the enemy head on? And who's going to hold your objectives then? Yes moving forward and parking on objectives and then just sitting there isn't intelligent but if your opponent allows that to happen, then fine. Your Tacs are safe in their Rhino and scoring to boot. Throwing your tacticals in your opponent's face is even more stupid and 5 marines are not hard to deal with (assuming combat squadded).

From GWvsJohn in 2nd link:

It's a fantastic TROOPS choice, especially in the context of the SM army list. You need Tacs to take objectives, that's it. Everything else is bonus.

Perfectly said.

Here's another example of what CKO said from link 1:

10 man Tactical Squad Multi-melta, Meltagun, serg combi-meltagun Drop Pod

You drop pod the unit in near some transports, use combat squads to seperate them, aim one meltagun at one transport aim the combi-meltagun at another transport, you have the potential to take down two transports easily, but these are meltaguns you have the potential to take down two vehicles period, easily especially if you factor in Vulkan.

The best part is the unit must be dealt with because who wants a twin-linked multi-melta in your deployment zone or a twin-linked meltagun roaming about, if you take another one of these units you can target 4 vehicles!

Um. Who let's people get in melta range on a Deep Strike these days? Particularly since you have no flamer so any infantry I use to push your Deep Strike back are quite safe. Someone later mentioned a dropping Dread but CKO replied they are far to easy to get rid of or shake/stun, etc. due to your opponent's melta. Newsflash, so are 10 tacs. They suck in combat no matter how much you want to wish otherwise.

Sigh. I just don't get why the Warseer community needs to rehash this every other month. Even if they were bad. SHUT UP. If you really hate on them that much, go play Space Wolves with Grey Hunters in the mix instead and see how much losing that heavy weapon hurts. I'm using SW in place of my SM for this tournament because of the silly comp rules and for a better psychic platform but seriously stop complaining. The tac squad fits so well into a Mech Spam army and Warseer complains about it all the time. Again.

From GWvsJohn in 2nd link:

It's a fantastic TROOPS choice, especially in the context of the SM army list. You need Tacs to take objectives, that's it. Everything else is bonus.