Las/Twin linked plas Razorbacks?

[Backslide]

in a fit of nostalgia I got my hands on 4 of these, how do people find them these days? was planning to bases a tactical squad heavy army around them

[Iron_Chaos_Brute]

They are the best Razorbacks if you want to do Razorback spam. Check out any Maximum Overdrive topic at YTTH for more info.

[Adam500]

Forgive my ignorance, YTTH? I'm interested because I was planning to run a couple Razorbacks in my Ard Boyz list and would love to read it.

[Rogue]

I've used them against nids with a fair bit of success - the AP2 part cuts through carnifex armour like it's not there, and you're wounding on 2 or 3 versus everything. I've run 2 squads of sternguard, in two razors, and the las/plas on top covers their weakness against tough, heavily armoured targets.

 

That said, with the recent limiting of 2+ saves in the new nid codex, I'm thinking about trying twin assault cannons, so...

[Giga]

IMHO, at 70 points a piece, they're just overpriced. There just seem to be better alternatives overall.

[Possessed Marine]

IMHO, at 70 points a piece, they're just overpriced. There just seem to be better alternatives overall.

no offense but, what other vehicle gives you las shots & transport capability? a land raider? I'd rather pay 70 pts than 250

[Giga]

IMHO, at 70 points a piece, they're just overpriced. There just seem to be better alternatives overall.

no offense but, what other vehicle gives you las shots & transport capability? a land raider? I'd rather pay 70 pts than 250

So what if it gives you a transport capacity and las shots?

 

If you're on the offensive, you're going to be moving 12" anyway, so you won't be shooting your lascannon.

 

What's more, the transport capacity is only 6, meaning you can at best transport a combat squad, meaning half the unit was going to be footslogging.

 

The vehicle itself is only 11 11 10, meaning that it can die (or lose its guns) fairly easily. Keep in mind that a single shaken or stunned result is also enough to prevent it from using the gun you paid 30 points for.

 

The way I see it, if you want a razorback, the good ol' standard razorback is the best. It doesn't draw much attention, and yet it does a good job of harassing the enemy + you don't care if it has to rush forward instead of shooting, since it's ultracheap anyway. You don't care much if it's destroyed, either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want lascannons, there are much better ways to get them. Combipredators are definitely the best option there, as they're extremely cheap, extremely reliable, highly survivable against shooting, and don't hamper your transporting capabilities.

[Possessed Marine]

If you want lascannons, there are much better ways to get them. Combipredators are definitely the best option there, as they're extremely cheap, extremely reliable, highly survivable against shooting, and don't hamper your transporting capabilities.

true, it doesn't hamper transport, there is none... with side and rear armor of 11 and 10 respectively, it dies just as easily... and after buying one TL lascannon, you're at 105 pts... and a shaken result stops you from firing a gun you paid 45 points for... so, basically the grass isn't always greener... my point is that there's not a whole lot that only cost's 70 points that has lascannons, and will get at least a combat squad of sternguard & Pedro Kantor across the board... although I do agree about using a stock razorback, as I'm a fan of heavy bolters... the sternguard are the real weapon here

[Justicar Valius]

Combi pred has no TLLC, it has autocannon and lascannon sponsons

[Bannus]

Combi pred has no TLLC, it has autocannon and lascannon sponsons

It depends on which "combi" you are refering to:

 

The TLLC/HB sponson Pred is also considered a "combi" because of its mixed weapons.

[minigun762]

I have to agree with Giga. Anything besides the cheap TL HB Razorback just seems too expensive for a AV11 platform.

Sure you can do the whole Chimera army thing and spam 6+ of them to keep them all alive, but I still think that Predators/Dreads/Vindicators and Speeders are all better platforms for dakka.

 

A big part of this is the simple fact that Lascannons aren't that important anymore. Armies, especially Codex Marines, pack enough Plasma Cannons and Melta weapons to punch through 2+ saves and for everything besides shooting at a Land Raider, Autocannons and Missile Launchers are cheaper and just as viable.

[Iron_Chaos_Brute]

Forgive my ignorance, YTTH? I'm interested because I was planning to run a couple Razorbacks in my Ard Boyz list and would love to read it.

Linky

[gravmania]

I'm actuallu using several of them with 5 man squads.

 

It's the only razaorback with multiple weapons so it isn't useless after a single weapon destroyed result.

 

I prefer to use them in a spacewolf list though, 5 GH sqaud can take a special weapon..

[Backslide]

actually the space wolf idea isn't bad, I was kinda hoping that BA would get them

[BlackDingo]

My 10 cents: They look cool.

 

Yeah, I know they ain't the best option, and the mathammer don't support them all the time... but dammit they look sweet.

 

Heh. I think this is my major flaw in competitive gaming. I just can't help myself when it comes to the good looking models. :cuss

[Giga]

true, it doesn't hamper transport, there is none...

It's better that way, because you can keep your units in real transports (rhinos and land raiders), while keeping your firepower operational throughout a battle.

with side and rear armor of 11 and 10 respectively, it dies just as easily...

Naw. The predator stays well away from the enemy. If you deploy it properly, it'll spend the entire battle in one place, blazing with its guns. Which also means you'll be positioning it so that its AV13 front is facing the enemy, making it much harder to glance/penetrate. The fact it stays well away from the enemy also means it's likely to have a cover save, too, and that meltas will find it hard or impossible to get into 2d6 range.

and after buying one TL lascannon, you're at 105 pts... and a shaken result stops you from firing a gun you paid 45 points for... so, basically the grass isn't always greener...

Lol no, you don't buy the turret lascannon, it's idiotically overpriced. You buy lascannon sponsors. This way you got an autocannon and two lascannons for 120 pts. 4 high strength shots at 48", meaning the combipred is excellent when it comes to both killing vehicles, inflicting instant death on things like nobs and warriors, and is rather useful against monstrous creatures. If the pred is shaken, you can use it to do str8 rammings on enemy vehicles.

 

As for the predator with heavy bolter sponsors and a lascannon turret, that has to be possibly the worst armament combo one can come up with on any vehicle. It sucks so much, I don't even understand why it's even a legal option in the codex.

my point is that there's not a whole lot that only cost's 70 points that has lascannons, and will get at least a combat squad of sternguard & Pedro Kantor across the board...

Eh, I don't think it's a particularly great idea to transport ~400 pts of HQ and sternguard in a razorback, unless you got some really good target saturation going on in your list. Even so, I'd still rather put them in a rhino, so they can do drive-by melta-ing out of the top hatch.

My 10 cents: They look cool.

 

Yeah, I know they ain't the best option, and the mathammer don't support them all the time... but dammit they look sweet.

 

Heh. I think this is my major flaw in competitive gaming. I just can't help myself when it comes to the good looking models.

The way a model looks is certainly important when it comes to buying/modeling it. However, this is a tactics forum, so model coolness/fluffiness isn't exactly a deciding factor around here. ;)

[Rogue]

It's the only razaorback with multiple weapons so it isn't useless after a single weapon destroyed result.

 

Oh. I've always played it as a single weapon, because you buy it as a single weapon. Am I the only one?

[Possessed Marine]

Naw. The predator stays well away from the enemy. If you deploy it properly, it'll spend the entire battle in one place, blazing with its guns. Which also means you'll be positioning it so that its AV13 front is facing the enemy, making it much harder to glance/penetrate. The fact it stays well away from the enemy also means it's likely to have a cover save, too, and that meltas will find it hard or impossible to get into 2d6 range.

termicide my friend, or outflank, or raptors, either way that things going down fast

It's better that way, because you can keep your units in real transports (rhinos and land raiders), while keeping your firepower operational throughout a battle.

it is a real transport... it's listed under dedicated transports, so it's basically the difference between vanilla & french vanilla... the raider takes up a heavy slot, though it is great for soaking damage

Eh, I don't think it's a particularly great idea to transport ~400 pts of HQ and sternguard in a razorback, unless you got some really good target saturation going on in your list. Even so, I'd still rather put them in a rhino, so they can do drive-by melta-ing out of the top hatch.

true, the top hatch is useful, but basically I wanted something that could help put out some shots after they unload the sterns, as like I said vanilla or french vanilla (for AV's)

[FlamingDeth]

The problem with putting an expensive and dangerous unit like Sternguard in an expensive and dangerous transport like the spendy razorbacks is that it will be a fire magnet, no question about it, and it'll likely get destroyed very early in the game. An opponent isn't likely to let such a fragile but deadly weapon platform live for very long.

[DarkGuard]

It's the only razaorback with multiple weapons so it isn't useless after a single weapon destroyed result.

 

Oh. I've always played it as a single weapon, because you buy it as a single weapon. Am I the only one?

 

Probably :)

 

It's in the latest Space Marine FAQ (the one back in November) that you play it as two seperate weapons, which does mean added survivability.

 

But I agree with Giga here, it's too expensive on a flimsy platform, which is why I prefer to use the HB ones for my two Squads staying in my deployment zone. Cheap heavy weapons to cover the advance of my 2 Rhinos loaded up with Tactical Squads.

[Xeonic]

Naw. The predator stays well away from the enemy. If you deploy it properly, it'll spend the entire battle in one place, blazing with its guns. Which also means you'll be positioning it so that its AV13 front is facing the enemy, making it much harder to glance/penetrate. The fact it stays well away from the enemy also means it's likely to have a cover save, too, and that meltas will find it hard or impossible to get into 2d6 range.

termicide my friend, or outflank, or raptors, either way that things going down fast

If you're termaciding an 85 pt dakka pred, with 105 or so pts of terminators, you're not selecting targets well. :P

 

That's why the codex dakka pred is one of the better HS options, it's hard to match the value for the points.

 

And I would love to use quite a few LPG/LC razorbacks, if they were like 10 pts cheaper or something. The regular TLHB razor is a great value for what you get though, especially for combat squads and squads that you're fielding as 5 man anyways(ranged command squad, say). Or just to use them empty to draw a bit of fire from your rhinos or other light armor(for some reason they have greater percieved threat than a rhino that's dropping the odd plasma templates :) ).

[Sternguard sergeant McColl]

I faced a tourny wolves army with three of them and they ripped me to shreds. Combined with fire from long fangs they kept me immobile and without dread support whille blood claws moved in for the kill.

[DevianID]

On the virtues of the las/plas razor, there are many. To everyone saying the razor is fragile, my experience and my math shows this is very false. As for the firepower versus cost, it costs 40 points to add a las canon and a twin linked plasmagun to a rhino. No other unit in the game can have that kind of firepower and protection for a total of 75 points outside of the very very broken longfangs.

 

For example, it takes 9 space marines shooting missile launchers to expect to kill a razorback. While yes, only 1 shot can potentially kill it, over the course of the vehicles lifetime it should average out, as a single missile has only about an 11% chance.

 

The biggest issue with the razorback is that as a dedicated transport, you can only get them packaged with another squad. Thus, the issue of the las/plas razorback is actually an issue with the squad you have to buy for the las/plas razor. IE, a naked 90 point tac squad makes the razor package 165 points for almost no apreciable increase in usefulness, as 5 naked marines are garbage. A full 10 man squad that always plans on combat squadding is a bit more efficient thanks to the free weapons, but you must design the army with the knowledge that you will never deploy as a useful 10 man squad.

 

2 las cannon sternguard sitting in the open with a razor beside them arnt bad, but by using a rhino instead of the razor the stern are not exposed and can fire out of the top hatch. Same goes with many dev squad options.

 

Finally, if you are using a rhino rush style army, then the transport capacity becomes an issue as you need the full 10 man squads to ensure you have enough bodies to keep the pfist swinging for as long as possible.

 

So my conclusion is that while the las/plas razor is a fantastic buy, you must design an army around it to make full use of the razor over the still amazing rhino transport. For space marines, this is harder to do. But as some have mentioned, the spacewolves are IDEAL to spam the razor with their undercosted and too-good-to-be-true-in-an-army-that-is-supposed-to-be-a-small-elite-force Grey Hunters.

[Brother-Chaplain Gaius]

A TL las/plas RB is a nice thing to have and can devestate lot of things i've seen it done many times. I don't run them though I run standard rhinos I just think its way too fragile and foolish. I mean one nice ML or lascannon and its gone. Just take the rhinos/land raider its more reliable and survivable

 

a plasma pistol can make it go popfizzle, makes it not worth it for me. I pop rhinos all the time with assault squad 2 PPs, its the same thing

[DevianID]

I always lose a lot of my point in my wall of text posts, but Gaius what you said is pretty much in direct contridiction to what I tried to point out.

 

AKA, you mention that 1 missile pops it... well that 1 missile has only an 11% chance to do so. Meaning you will average out to 9 missile shots over the course of many games. Similiarly, it takes an average of 6.75 las cannon shots to kill it.

 

As for plasma pistols, it takes 13.5 shots, or in other words you have a 7.5% chance per shot. Meanwhile, the plasma pistol has a 5.6% chance to kill HIMSELF when he takes his 7.5% chance to kill a razorback.

 

So in conclusion, the math doesnt lie. Everyone who plays the game has experience killing rhinos/razors, obviously! BUT, we only really remember signifigant events. Meaning, we remember when they die to a single krak grenade, not when we miss the razor with a pk nob with 4 attacks needing a 6 to hit. Likewise, we may remember missing with our las cannon 4 times in a row, which of course cost us the whole game, but we forget that the las cannon was shooting at that rhino that whole time.