Redundancy and overkill

"Only one marine may be equipped with heavy weapons per 10 man squad. But it doesnt say how many he can take"
-Sgt Kronus debating the rules in Roboute Guilliman's codex

Redundancy and Overkill.

It seems obvious to most players out there, or at least it should, but I still see so many people making the same mistake over and over again. Taking a single weapon in a squad which makes the rest of the weapons redundant, useless, or just a waste of points.

Take your standard tactical marine squad. Each man has a boltgun (24" S4 Ap5) which is designed as a medium range anti infantry weapon. Now the guns also get better at 12" so the marines want to be mobile enough to move into the ideal range and spray bullets at some infantry. "This is not new, not some genius unnknown wisdom, its obvious" I hear you shouting down your monitor at me. Well then, if this is so damn obvious, why do you keep taking that lascannon as a heavy weapons choice?

Seriously the amount of lists I see where people will do this, is astounding. If the squad has bolt guns, then the specials/heavies you should take should compliment them in some way. Or at least have some use when being fired at the wrong target.

For example, Plasma guns have the same range, are also rapid fire and are used to beat infantry. Plasma guns works really well in marine squads. As do flamers, as despite their shorter range, they operate on the same principles of get marines up to the enemy and fire while closing the gap. A lascannon on the other hand does not help. It has twice the range of the other guns, so you really want to use this range to its advantage, it its predominately an anti-tank weapon, and is heavy. Meaning to get the bolters in range, you are moving and snap firing the cannon. Now while you may think "But Dan, now this unit can shoot both tanks and infantry" well yes it can, but you are playing for that squad, plus the heavy weapon, and suddenly a triple las-pred is cheaper, gets more shots off, and can even move and shoot fairly well.

Now this doesnt mean you should never take lascannons on marines. Devistators are welcome to take them. Havoks, go nuts! If you are playing templars and your 5 man squad can get both a multimelta, a melta and a combi melta in a 5 man squad, well then you clearly have a short range anti tank unit. If thats the case, you can build them this way. Because your points are devoted to antitank, which is what the squad will do, and the 2 bolter guys are just cannon fodder (or ablative wounds).  

The same problem I have seen with weapon load outs on dreadnoughts. 2x autocannons, great! Auto + Missile, not as good but still gets the job done. Multimelta + Lascannon, no. Lascannon + CCW, yuck. Multimelta + CCW. Better, but still not ideal. You go from being good at shooting OR combat to average at both. Yes tanks will fear you, which is possibly the only thing going for it, but you should really look more into equipping it to cover the weaknesses in your army. Not everything can be the fabled Chaos obliterator, who is good at all ranges and fills any spot in your army. Sorry guys you dont all get one of those units.

If your army is full of power armoured marines, then you dont have to worry about taking anti-light infantry. Your army is full of it already. Take some plasmas in your marine squads. Unless your army is terminator heavy, and the only reason you have any power armour is to fulfill the 2+ troops slot. In which case, consider flamers, because you might need some anti ork boy stuff. If you army is mostly cc, do you think that sniper squad is really that helpful? Sure you can pick off something at range, but all those points could be something else designed to actually achieve victory in your preferred method. If snipers are your only shooting unit, its a lot easy to ignore them and focus your assault marines. If you have more squads of assault marines, who do they focus?

Its easy to make these mistakes, as not only do GW seem to work to make you make these mistakes (by releasing devistator kits with one of each heavy weapon) but also with the mentality behind Marines (both loyal and chaotic) that they are the swiss army knives, able to combat, able to shoot etc. White dwarf battle reports also further this trend of mismatching equipment.

So please stop taking reaper autocannons in 5 man terminator squads. Please dont take lascannons in 10 man tactical squads. That one missile in your boyz squad sounds like fun as it could pop a tank or marine. But firing its loses a turn of running, which means that boys squad is slowed down a turn for a 1/3 chance to hit. On average you slow down 3 boys squads to kill a marine, or 6 squads to pen a rhino. Use those points to buy another few lootas, or tank busters. Thinks designed to kill tanks.

I know this seems counter intuitive and even seems to go against a lot of ideas behind other people on the internet, in their blogs. But this is not saying "dont take a power fist on your Raptor Champion" or "Dont take a 3 man combimelta terminator suicide squad." its saying "dont take a powerfist on your havok squad just in case they get into combat." and "dont take a Devistator squad with 2 lascannons and 2 plasma cannons" as well as "dont take Chosen with 2 flamers, 2 plasmas and a melta." Yes the melta would be nice if you came up against a tank, but it seriously hinders that squads ability to perform at the task you bought it for. Which is pouring out plasma shots. Dont take a reaper on terminators. If youre in range of the enemy with all your guns, the combi plasma would have been better. If youre not, you just spent almost 200 points on a Aegis defense turrret.

As always comments are welcome. In fact encouraged. Maybe you have had success with a single weapon before. I want to hear about it. Maybe you have a tactic you want to share. I want it! Maybe you need a tactic for a situation. I will share it, and write about it next post!