Ostsol said:
Small squads (of more than one model) for maximizing heavy weapons doesn't actually lend any additional protection, actually. . . It just makes it easier to force a morale test. If anything, it places higher emphasis on the first turn -- or rather, the first shots.
agreed, but to call that cheese (to get more weapons) and then turn around and run min'ed squads to protect your squads from single units (by spliting fire into each seperate squad) just seems a bit hypocritical to me.
As to the min'd squads: you suffer a lot of problems, pin tests, casualty tests, cc tests, outnumbering wounds on fearless units, multiple break tests in CC, loss of scoring capability with only nominal wounds.
But you do gain some: splitting fire into multiple squads, protection from wrap around wounding, forcing priority checks for shooting, tying up units with one squad while the other still does it's thing, more scoring units, more units to place during deployment.
Again, comes down to playstyle. If it works for you, go for it.
As to if it's unfair or cheese, cheese is in the toes of the beholder. Me, I get called cheese for everything:
My guardians beat genestealers in cc with the help of a WL-cheese
My guardians outnumber greyknights-cheese
My starcannon kills marines-cheese (despite him having 5 asscans)
My vypers in single squads-cheese
My farseer mindwaring a librarian and killing him after having fortuned stopped 4 times in a row-cheese
My guardians having haywire grenades at 3pts each in a squad of 20-cheese
My banshees killing marines despite having the same WS and a really really crappy strength and toughness and crappy armour-cheese
My scorpions infiltrating in missions that allow, unlike every other army that get's to always infiltrate or deepstrike-cheese
My falcon that costs 200 bones, and has a bs of an orc with a targeter-cheese
My avatar that moves 6" a turn and still misses 1/3 cc attacks, and has a worse save than any demon in the game-cheese
My CTMs that cost 30pts and allow my skimmer to hide after shooting, unlike most every single tau unit/model-cheese
As to anything that anyone does, cheese is simply a whiners way of not tactically solving a problem. If you can't bring down a monolith go for phase out, if I have a ton of cc troops, stay away and outshoot me or take the objectives. Each and every army in the game has a specific weakness and a way to beat it in any game. If you plan a siren bomb army and I happen to have ctms and gun you down, that ain't cheese, that's being prepared. If I go all guardians and leave the singing spears at home and you go armoured company, guess what, I'm gonna get trounced, my bad.
Sorry again for meandering. Just trying to let ya know that it all boils down to perspective, and not everyone shares a common vantage point.