jimmyzimms wrote:
I mean perhaps Devs should get 3 shots but less FF as you say, they're lugging around weapons that while powerful, are a pita. Also they're not 10 man teams either in the fluff, unlike Tacts.
You're wrong there actually Jimmy - a full Dev squad in the 40k game and background is 10, with 4 heavy weapons, so perfectly matching 2 epic Dev stands. A Dev stand should have 2 shots because it carries 2 heavy weapons.
It's the Epic Tac stands that cheat and carry twice as many heavy weapons as the codex astartes allows which should be 1 per 10. I really hate that about the list and when I get round to doing my marines I'm probably going to model 3 extra techmarines with a heavy weapon each onto my Tactical formation's bases just so there are actually enough heavy weapons to match their out of whack stats. Then there might be too many too many marines to technically fit in their transports, damn it, can't win...
So yes I'd very much be behind making Tac stands have 1 shot per 2 like IG as a trade off for the FF3+. It'd correctly differentiate Devs to be the shooting specialists if Tacs only had 3 shots compared to their 8.
There's also a number of SM units that aren't represented in the Epic codex list but people may well still model them and that would probably count as tacticals but justify a high FF if statted - Intercessors, Hellblasters, Assault Centurions and Sternguard Veterans. Imagining these to be abstracted/averaged into Tacticals adds justification for Tacticals to be statted with FF3+ when Chaos Marines stay with 4+.