Army Success

[tturen]

Each player seems to have preffered play style and the lists often don't change a great deal. Given that most of the players tweak their armies to about the same degree the tactical playing field is pretty level but tactical squads in general don't play a big role. The games still come down to tactical descisions on the table top. The player who makes the most misstake is still the one that tends top lose.

With that said it would be an inmprovement to see basic squads have a more useful role. Thats the best game change I've seen in the OGC rules.

[Adoni-Zedek]

I tend to agree. My tactical squads typically don't do a whole lot. My assault squads do fine (Powerfist, Jumppack and bolt pistols), and my devestators do well if I can get them a good field of fire, but my Tactical squads never seem to accomplish a lot.

Playing as eldar, my guardians tend to carry the day for me (though my dreadnought certainly does his fair share, and the aspect warriors certainly help), with a single squad of 10 even taking down a squad of 8 plague marines. And my Harlequin troupe outperfomed the Solitaire and Great Harlequin (who both fell to heavy bolter fire, even though the orks needed a 7 to hit them [6 followed by a 4+]). But as hard as I try, I just can't seem to get my tacticals to play a major role.

[James 40K Champ ***]

well if your playing with assault marines, why not load your tacticals up in rhinos, or even better razorbacks and give your assault marines some close back up, I bet they'd appreciate it.

Personally Im using all assault squads (and bike squads), some with jumppacks but mostly mounted in transports, but then im playing a very fast white scar army.

Charly uses loads of tactical marines, in his army at the moment there are just 5 assault marines, 2 predators a dread and the rest are tacticals.. hes doing alright in terms of victorys too..

[tturen]

Under the standard rules marines in rhinos is for gamblers. If you go first you can win. If you go second you likely just paid 50 points for coffins.

The way we play doesn't favor the use of Rhinos as transports either. Our opponents are picked pretty much at random so the lists do not get tailored and Marines could easily face marines. If you know who you will fight then Rhinos can be pretty useful.

Predators (150 points version is to cheap), Rhinos (50 points is to cheap), and Dreads (An excellent value unless your Wolves) are extremly lethal particularly with 50 point armoured shields running interference. Lists that include these choices can be effective particularly when lots of basic troops are fielded by both sides. I use two Predators myself.

[James 40K Champ ***]

yeah it seems mega harsh to kill everything off when a rhino explodes, hence us awarding the one last chance armour save.

But either way, with carful deployment (I think its always good to have the odd bit of chunky scenery near DZs so you can hide even tanks so its not all over in turn one), and good movement you can get rhinos into decent positions without encountering too much fire.

Saying that, we do use some very scenery littered tables, making for gritty battles fought up close, with heavy weapons having a couple of useful shots off a game.

Also, tactically the main aim of heavy armour, is to draw enemy heavy weapons fire away from your lighter armoured transports. A pred in a squad covering a rhino works wonders for getting your troops deployed where you want.

In our games, tanks have a good part in the early game, but at the end of the day it comes down to infantry with good manouverment, cos they can hold ground.

Oh dont forget there plenty of tricks to pull, get a rhino going nice and fast, give it auto launchers with blind nades, the blind nades go off, basically blocking off its front arc from incoming fire, with good use of scenery, you can position it so hardly or none heavy weapons draw LOS to your tank. Only option left for them then is to try manouver a vehicle to take it out, but as i mentioned, if theres a pred teamed with the rhino, thats likely to be a priority

[tturen]

We use lots of terrain all over the board. Vehicles often find it hard to manuever. With limited DZ scenery I'd hide the tanks instead of the APC and leave the Rhino empty myself. Otherwise the enemy can opt to just blow the tank instead if they go first. In reality Rhinos should be empty at the ranges on the 40k battfield (Not a fun fact though). Yes I know they should also operate behind tanks but then tanks should not operate ahead of an infantry force in built up areas like heavily terrained 40k battle fields. Reality like I said though isn't always the most useful or fun way to play the game.

Then of course I pretty much want my Rhinos empty after the first turn and if they hide behind cover it can be tough to get them up to get them into position. I don't use take to many chances when I play simply because Murphy tends to follow me around with a club when I do. So I just play it safe with Rhinos. Even with the best outfit and cover fire to many things can go wrong with them.