The tactical dilemma.

In all games, there are rules. Unless you've been granted an explicit exception, you must follow the rules as they are written, or you're playing wrong at best, and cheating at worst.Far disconnected from reality, inside the wild and wacky world of warhammer 40,000, the rules dictate that all armies must contain a minium of one HQ and two troops. Fair enough. Sure sounds easy. Let's see what we've got to pick from for our troops.

Scouts have poor stats, don't get transports, can only take melta on the sergeant, and if he takes melta, the squad doesn't get a flamer. No, thanks. Next!
Tactical marines cost more, but get all the things that are powerful in 5th edition. "Define 'cost more,' please." I think you should sit down.

10 tactical marines, mounted in a rhino, geared out with a flamer and a multi-melta, cost 205 points. This is a ridiculous sum of points for a single squad of troops.However, since this is indeed a boatload of points, let's take a closer look before we dismiss them completely. Maybe we're missing something.

So we get a multi-melta, which is a very nice thing to have. It lets us threaten armor at a maximum distance of 24 inches - lovely, and it's 'free.' We also have a rhino, so the squad can move around, take the intiative, launch attacks, and redeploy. The tacticals also won't die from small-arms, since you need to kill the rhino before you can hurt the squad. Rhinos are cheap, effective, and good, so these are well-spent points.
There's a single 'free' flamer in the squad, too. Because rhinos are good, you can flame from the hatch. Means clustered infantry - say after a tank shock - won't like you. On top of this, there're seven bolter dudes and a 'free' sergeant. As we've established already, bolters are small-arms - toy guns - which are dangerous in your hands. The sergeant can replace his pistol or bolter with a combat implement, which isn't all that interesting or smart, really.

'Free' doesn't mean free, even though the book claims it does. To get the multi-melta and the flamer, you have to add 5 additional marines to the unit, which adds 80 points to the squad's base cost. If you don't buy full ten man units, you only get the standard kit, plus whatever you give the sergeant - who isn't truly free, either.

Let's see if we can beef them up with some options. After all, tactical marines have a very wide arsenal of guns at their disposal, and since they're accurate, we might as well add a second heavy weapo- what do you mean I only get one? That's right. You get one big gun. No, you can't take two specials, either - maximum of one of each type. Well, can we give them better guns, then? The heavy can pick between missile launcher, heavy bolter, multi-melta, lascannon, and plasmacannon, and the special can pack a flamer, plasmagun, or meltagun. Lots of it sounds exciting, but it's mostly useless.

Landspeeders do missiles better, same with hunter-killers. Heavy bolters come on razorbacks, attackbikes, landspeeders, and predators. All of them can move and fire to some effect, unlike tacticals, or get more than one heavy bolter. Lascannons are available in sternguard squads, and they can take two. Plasmacannons should only ever be on venerable dreads, so they (a; get to fire every turn, (b; hit the target, and (c; don't risk killing the firing unit. Plasmaguns belong in command squads, on bikes, and bolted onto razorbacks. One of them has feel no pain, another can move and fire at full effect, and the third is a vehicle, so won't kill itself.

This leaves us with only three actual options. Obviously, the heavy will wield a multi-melta. Why? Despite their high points costs, tactical squads are excellent platforms for this gun, due to their bunker abilities. Since you have to take two squads, you might as well get the most out of them. You also want a flamer, since it costs nothing, and adds lots more anti-infantry from within the safety of your rhino, but upgrading to a meltagun is sometimes nice. Not always, but sometimes.

Bling the sergeant? Probably not. If you decide to give him anything, tack on a combi-melta as well. These always come in handy.

Let's recap.
A legal army must include no less than two troops.
Scouts and tacticals are both bad, but tacticals a whole lot less so.
Thus, we take two squads of tacticals, outfitted as such: 5 extra men, multi-melta, flamer, rhino.

In total, these two troops cost 410 points.
410 POINTS! That's almost a third of many armies.
A 5 man unit of sternguard, equipped with 3 combis and two heavy flamers, mounted aboard a rhino, only costs 195. Sure looks hopeless, doesn't it?

Well, it's not - not really, anyway.
As any true veteran will tell you, this is common and perfectly normal. In fact, there exists a really flavorful and cool nickname for this effect, one that's been passed down through three successive generations of gamers.

We call it 'the tactical tax.'

Each edition, the tactical tax changes, but it never goes away. For reference, during early 3rd edition, the tactical tax was a more humane 192 points, rising to 384 close to the release of 4th, and reduced to 200 once 4th edition was out. You must pay the tax, or you suffer badly during certain scenarios. While scouts were cheap and good during 4th, they were not a substitute for tacticals camping a table quarter with their trusty lascannons and plasmaguns. Under the 5th edition codex, these two expensive tactical squads bring the following to your army: multi-melta bunkers, two durable scoring units, extra flamers, armor saturation, and lots of bolters in case they get dismounted.

If we consider all this, the perceived cost drops from 'ridiculous' to 'bad, but bearable.'

That's the name of the game: bad. Tactical squads are bad. Much like ork boys, regular chaos marines, and thousand sons, they're limited and strangely priced. While the orks can't really shoot or survive any damage, the tacticals do both these, but cost a lot more, and in typical marine fashion, are average in combat, thanks to low volume of attacks. Chaos marines beat up horde units in combat, but can't bunker up, and if you want a unit that beats face, you're not gonna be able to fit them inside a rhino.

So while tactical squads are indeed bad, they're nowhere near useless. Compared to the worst troops in the game (power armor grey knights, noise marines, necron warriors, conscripts, firewarriors), tactical squads measure head and shoulders above. Even in a straight comparison between bad troops (blood claws, chaos marines, penal legion, dire avengers), marines still pull out ahead. The reason for this is very simple: they can do more than one thing, and everything they bring to the table is at least moderately useful. It's very true that dark eldar warriors, tyranid troops, grey hunters, and guardsmen veterans are much, much better troops, but that's because they're good units, while tacticals are bad, and at the end of the day, those units previously mentioned don't even exist in your codex.

Bad by design, it should be noted. GW strictly enforces the 'one special, one heavy,' and with the added requirement to take ten men, it's not likely that tactical squads will become good troops anytime soon.
If they had access to a heavy flamer as their heavy...
If they could take a second special instead of their heavy...
If they could take a second heavy instead of their special...

Lots of 'ifs,' yes? Give it up.
Let go.
It's not gonna happen.

Even if it does, it's a whole edition away, and the tactical squad as it's presented in the codex is what you have to work with.

Due to the fact they're simply not good value for the points, have little presence, only so many multi-melta bunkers are necessary and actually useful, and the simple truth that there are many better units available, it's recommended that you take the two mandatory ones, and stop there. Stacking tacticals is the number one reason new marine players lose so hard. If you let go, and accept the truth, your game and fun will both increase immensely.

The one and only reason you should ever take more than the two mandatory squads is if you're looking to put a lot of plasmabacks on the field. For this, take 5 man squads and the plasmaback. This totals up to 165 points, and spare points should be used to give each sergeant a combi-melta. "Why not take straight up plasmabacks, then?" Because they're not stand-off units, and want to get close to the enemy. Without the presence of bunkered multi-meltas, you're not gonna be able to secure midfield to launch a focused attack.
In short, you need the first one to make sure the other works.

In the next article, we get in for a close-up of the most misunderstood piece of gear in the game.

Ed: running a captain on a bike means you can ignore this whole thing, since his presence means bikes become troops. Nice of me to put it at the end, so you had to read it all, anyway.