Chaos Land Raider upgrades

[Lord Humongous]

Which Chaos Land Raider upgrades are worth the cost?

 

Extra armor? I think no. There's only 1 result on the damage table it affects, and that result only shows up 1 in 6 for both glances and penetrates.

 

Demonic Possession? Probably yes. With all the weapons being twin linked, the shooting hit is not so bad. Without it, 2/3 of all penetrating hits rob you of transport capacity; with it, only 1/3 do. For less than 10% of the vehicles cost, you get to ignore 2/3 of all glancing hits (1/3 if its AP1, but AP 1 usually penetrates) and 1/3 of all penetrating hits (1/6 if its AP 1).

On the other hand, that last bit concerns me; the majority of stuff that gets shot at a LR is AP 1, and is either melta or lance, so will penetrate more than it glances; even with DP, half the pens from AP knock the tank out.

 

Dozer blade? I say yes. Its not uncommon to move 6" into difficult terrain to take a single twin lazcannon shot.

 

Dirge caster? Meh.

 

Pintle Weapon? Most of them work better if carried by the passengers. The havoc launcher is maybe worth looking at if, for some reason, you like shooting the heavy bolters at hordes. Its also not a bad MEQ killer, if they are clumped up. The havoc also doesn't suffer much of you buy demonic possesion.

 

Naked? I think this is a viable "option". It keeps the cost down, and a lot of the options are very limited-purpose. If you just want to use it for a speartip, the naked LR seems viable. Although DP would be nice, using cover and smoke is even better.

 

Hmm, looks like I'll tool mine with DP, havoc, and dozer blade... magnetized, of course.

[Corpse.]

The plausible pintle weapon is the combi-flamer/havoc launcher. Tank shock, bundle some unit together (the only models that move are the ones forced out of the way, and they must remain in coherency and move the minimum distance to stay away from your vehicle + the 1" distance, bundling them tightly together).

 

Flame/blast that (twin-linked blast from havoc is extremely efficient sometimes with hitting/rolling 4 and under with 2 dice)).

 

Combi-Melta and Combi-Plasma not so much. Though if you want to fork a few points out for a defensive twin-linked bolter then thats fine. 2 bolter shots rerolling + 3 heavy bolter shots rerolling moving 6" is perfectly ok for infantry perforating.

 

Dozer blade is somewhat dubious because of how to model it on the darn thing. Most prefer to give it some sort of "jaws" or blades along side eather tracks at the front. Because of its weird design as a transport vehicle/getting in the way of its own TLHB guns.

 

The dozer blade rules-wise is an investment if you want it to be a core move and shoot vehicle. That role normally falls on the cheaper predator version, that can shoot just as many guns on the move (and the same guns in fact) at 6". Mostly people move 12" with the raider when transporting, or they just use rhinos.

 

Dirge Caster. If you dont like it, think of ordnance. Except when you make them run, you are within 6" and you make them flee off the table. With a rear armor of 14, and moving to avoid melee to stay on them. You can run 200+ points worth of units off the table without firing a single shot. It is worth its weight in gold, and its a toned down version of what we used to do in the previous chaos codex. Having entire armies forced off the table without killing much. On a land raider, being a transport of all things makes the most use out of it. Though fearlessness and rerolling LD/stubborn is more common these days. When you get a raider into the line of a horde imperial guard and you can tank shock 4+ units in one move, you will miss it dearly....

 

Most take it nakid to make use of its cheaper cost. Its an additional terminator normally...