Tactical marines vs Grey Knight strike squads

This is the first in hopefully a series of comparisons between similar troop’s choices in different armies.  I hope to show that not all is as it seems between units which at first glance seem to be a poor option.

As space marines of various flavours are Games Workshops highest selling ranges, I think we can safely assume that they are probably the most popular.  Let us take a look at a common choice amongst players, the tactical space marine squad.  I hear quite a lot that all space marine armies should be based around three to four tactical marine units.  So I thought I would take a look and do a compare and contrast with grey knight strike squads

You can have five to ten space marines, who come with all the normal rules and basic equipment space marines generally do.  They have a sergeant and optional special and/or heavy weapons.  They can't take either of these options unless you have ten models, but then you get them free/discounted.  Therefore logic suggests you are paying at least part of these costs in the models you buy for the squad.

These compare badly to grey knight strike squads.  These come with a storm bolter and a power weapon for only a small amount of points more than tactical marines.   If they were paying the going rate for their weaponry they would be around ten points a model more than they are currently paying.  They can also upgrade their guns strength and field a supremely decent heavy weapon in the form of the pyscannon cheaply.

The next question you have to bear in mind is how important each unit is to the army it is included in.  Space marine tactical marines compete directly with scouts and bikes (if you have a biker captain) whereas strike squads compete against terminators and henchmen (with Coatez).  This is probably why the strike squads are cheap.  If they were more expensive, they would just be too uncompetitive against terminators in the same slot.  Tactical marines are unfortunately constrained by decades of being equipped the same, much like godhammer land raiders.  It is highly unlikely that tactical marines will ever change in their weapon choices, even in a new book.

Does this mean that tactical marines are miles worse than grey knights?  Not really.  They actually perform a slightly different role in the armies they are assigned to.  Space marines generally are a cheaper, therefore higher model count list than the grey knights.   Tactical marines can take the ever popular meltagun and multimelta combo, which is useful against mechanised armies which tend to dominate 5^th edition.

Having a power weapon, but only one attack limits how good at combat the strike squad is and stormbolters, while being good for basic troopers, are not exactly killing loads of the enemy as you are unlikely to have very many of them.  You can upgrade the guns with pysbolts but this is only economic in larger numbers of models which can be difficult to find the points for in a grey knight list.  The pyscannon is near mandatory, but can be fielded better on purgation squads which can field more of them, or on terminators which are relentless and can therefore use them more efficiently.