Unit Review: Tactical Squads

What are WE doing out of the case?

This is an article I didn't expect to be writing. I don't think I've touched a Tac Squad since 7th edition, when Games Workshop introduced the Battle Company detachment that gave Space Marine players free transports if their lists had the requisite numbers of Tac, Dev, and Assault Squads. 8th edition saw the release of the first of the Primaris units, and since then Primaris units have been taking over the roles of Firstborn units. Some Firstborn datasheets happen to be aggressively costed, or synergize well with detachment rules or whatnot, but by and large Firstborn units have been vanishing from army lists.

So, when Games Workshop dropped the cost of a Tactical Squad to 140 points, I didn't initially think much of it.  However, I was invited to be a guest on the Path To Redemption blog, one of the hosts (Heath) asked me what I thought of it. I admitted I hadn't, and then I had to stop and think about it, and I realized at 140 points, Tac Squads could have some play.

Broadly speaking, we put units in our armies for two reasons - to kill things and to exist in particular spaces on the table - often not where we need to put the units killing things. At the very least, we need one unit to sit on a backfield objective, and we're likely to want cheap units doing other things - scoring Cleanse, Deploy Homers, Engage on all Fronts, Behind Enemy Lines, and so on. 140 points would be kind of pricey for one unit to do that, but the Combat Squads rule really makes a Tactical Squad two 70 point units. That's only 5 points more than a Scout Squad. Admittedly, Scouts have some groovy rules, but Tac Squads are more durable, and they have a not-inconsiderable list of wargear options. 

There are a few options

So, if you purchase a Tac Squad for your list, you can divide it up into 2 units at the beginning of the game. You can then have the 5 Marines with bolters sit behind LOS-blocking terrain on your backfield objective, and stick the other 5 Marines in Strategic Reserve to have them pop out and exist in an advantageous space when it's appropriate to have them do so. As icing on the cake, that unit can be toting a meltagun and a multimelta, and the sergeant can be carrying a power fist and plasma pistol. They can function as a ghetto budget Eradicator Squad and go after your opponent's backfield units. An alternate configuration would be to stick 2 flamers in the backfield squad so you have a modestly good Overwatch threat should your opponent drop a unit near them.

Another advantage to Tactical Squads is that practically every food power armor character can be attached to them. The upshot of that is that one can attach Azrael to the backfield unit if his primary role in the army is CP generation. That way, Azrael has some ablative bodies around him should an opponent be using units with Indirect, which makes it harder for them to snipe him out with a cheeky volley. And, Azrael makes the total package considerably more threatening, so opponents won't be able to just drop into your backfield with something trivial and take it away from you with little effort.

As a point of comparison, here's the existing-in-a-space contingent from my most recent list before the points update, and what it looks like afterwards with a Tac Squad included.

Before
Assault Intercessor Squad
Inceptor Squad
Scout Squad

After
Tactical Squad
Scout Squad
Scout Squad

It doesn't look like a big change until you remember that the Tactical Squad represents two 5-man squads, so it's a whole additional unit. The 5 Tactical Marines with bolters can sit on my homefield objective as well as the Assault Intercessors, and in place of the Inceptors I can have Tac Marines toting the aforementioned meltagun, multimelta, plasma pistol, and power fist.  Granted, the Inceptor Squad has superior ability to exist in a space, but I think that's more than mitigated by being able to get an additional unit for the points, especially with one of them being a Scout Squad, who have their own exist-in-spaces shenanigans.

So, the takeaway from this is to not sleep on Tactical Squads. Sometimes, a unit's most important quality is how efficiently it can exist in a space, and Tac Squads can do that on a budget. I think we might actually be seeing these veterans of edition past show up on tables for a last hurrah.