How do you keep your Land raiders alive?

[Meatman]

In every battle I've seen with one or more land raiders, I've seen them go bang first or second turn without accomplishing anything noteworthy. Maybe it's just my local meta but everyone has lots of fast or podded melta (or equivalent), to take raiders down quickly.

 

How do you keep your land raiders safe?

[DarkGuard]

In my local metagame there was a guy who used to run at least two Land Raiders. Very hard to get rid of them (but then my melta sucks), and then he's have a Rhino full of Wolf Guard to give me something else to worry about. Or a couple of Razorbacks. So he had saturation, and a bit of luck on his side.

 

On the rare occasions when I've used my LRR, I've had it accompanied by two Vindicators, and of course I have a few mounted Tactical squads and Land Speeders and Dreadnoughts. It's all about forcing your opponent to make a choice, between the LR and the unit inside, or the rest of your army. If he goes for the LR, then my Vindys and Dread will make him pay.

 

Luck inevitably comes down to it though. The first time I used my LR, it got shot with a lascannon first turn and blew up. I hadn't even moved it, quite upsetting.

[greatcrusade08]

how do i keep my LRs alive?

 

 

i leave them at home

[gettothegone]

Stop thinking about your Raiders as an attacking unit *situational, vs demons feel free to faceroll at your leisure*, and more as a delivery unit. A raider should be used aggressively to ram whatever nasty you have parked inside it, to wherever it needs to go, first turn should be 12" pop smoke, second turn should be 12" pop nasty. *Again situational, but I'll assume you know what to attack and what to avoid with a raider*

 

Extra armor is almost a requirement, you don't want to be stuck because you got shaken, raiders NEED to move constantly. Which is also why crusaders are so good, because you can fire those hurricanes while moving 6" should you find yourself in a situation where you can use it. *otherwise you're making a bee line towards whatever you want to unleash holy hell on*

 

I run Redeemers constantly * Personal preference. I play in a heavy pod/DS environment* and they perform exceptionally well, because I don't care about them. What I DO care about is that Vulkan and his sidekicks get to pop out and go ruin someones day.

 

1 single Raider has a big sign that says "Bad MFer" to you only. To everyone else it says "SHOOT ME, OR I WILL MESS YOUR DAY UP". Bring 2 at minimum if you're going to play with LRs. If you got podded marines on the other side of the table, reserve your raiders, then come on 12" when they're available to avoid first / second turn double strength melta.

 

On the otherhand, if its a killpoint mission, god bless the people who will trade 2 kill points for 1. A pod and a squad is worth 2 to your 1. And if they whiffle on your raiders, thats even better. Blow up raider, get assaulted by terminators, I'll take that trade in a KP game any day. *And most pod players will do this, I have no idea why, but they do, people like blowing up raiders, it makes them feel fuzzy inside*

 

Other options are bubble wrapping, which just has you drop units far enough away to prevent first turn 2D6 melta on your raiders which may work for some, not for others.

 

Raiders are incredibly durable as long as you keep melta away. Even vs lance weapons they'll stand up to a few shots if rolls are average. But again, the key rule when I play raiders is, its 250 points of throwaway. Its expensive, and dangerous, and some will think its a terrible strategy. But whats inside the raiders are what I'm looking to deliver, and the best way to do it is find what the enemy covets the most, and ram whatever you have down his throat. If your raider dies, unfortunate, but now that you have what you want, where you want it, it doesn't matter, you're already ahead.

[LardO'Blood]

1. Land Raiders survive twice as long in pairs. Triplets tend to chew up to many points, however.

2. Don't be stupid. Don't let the carnifex assault it, don't ram the rhino with the MM and melta gun tactical squad.

3. Support your Raiders! Generally Land Raiders can only be killed by: Lances, melta and close combat. Now, 2 of those generally have a 6-12 inch "danger zone". Having a tactical squad or tactical terminators nearby will turn those wannabe tank busters into suicidal maniacs.

4. Know your threats. Quite simple, know what weapons your enemy has to bust your Land Raider.

5. Use smoke if you just moved 12" and don't have good targets, it will keep you alive much longer.

[spartan249]

I have two methods of keeping my LR alive.

 

1: Bubblewrap. I keep my tactical squads unmounted so that I can wrap around the raider if I know some podded melta's coming my way. Keeping the melta out of 6" of the raider is a good thing. If there are multi-meltas coming in to fire at the raider, then I'm either making a larger bubblewrap or using the terrain to force the droppers to come down in one area (Namely the corner. This forces pods to land right in the sweet spot of my firepower, visible to 100% of my own forces).

2: Target priority. I shake/stun/destroy the land speeders with multi-meltas and Ravagers and Piranhas as quickly as possible. It's a task that needs to be done anyway, so I do that first.

 

Having lascannons on the LR really helps with that, as it can contribute to my firepower against the primary threat to it.

[Grey Mage]

Podded melta doesnt seem reliable enough to take out my tanks turn 1- most of my opponents perhaps just arent good with drop pods?

 

For the fast moving stuff- deployment, deployment, deployment. If theres anything I took out of learning fantasy when I was so much younger its the need to start your assets off in the right places or just how boned theyll be otherwise. If my opponent has a squadron of 3 MM attack bikes then guess what? My Raider isnt going to deploy as far forward as it can right in front of them. If Im deploying first then its just plain deploying a few inches farther back.

 

Support- my long fangs should be stunning, or killing, two threats a turn. My rhinos should be agressively engaging targets and letting the special weapons inside attack them while their positions disrupt enemy movement. Theyre the esocrts to my battleship. Bike squads come in and engage enemy units they can tackle, speeders use their own MMs to take out my opponents.

 

In fact Id say my number one priority when playing ANY mech list is to take out my opponents anti-tank guns, just like artillery is my number one priority when playing a DP list.

 

Stormcaller helps- a rune priest on bike isnt uncommon in my armies, and thus a few of my vehicles will be getting a cover save most turns.

 

Pop smoke. Yeah, the tanks got big guns on it- but you can still fire one of them after popping smoke and frankly if its dead it doesnt have any guns at all.

 

Duelling- I do however expect my raider to shrug off the firepower of two squads/vehicles each turn, and thats the amount of firepower Ill willingly expose it. Small exception- getting the unit inside into assault will change the face of the game? Then the raider can die and I dont care because the educated risk is low enough compared to the reward. Still, I cant count the number of games where my landraiders main opponent has been.... another raider, or a single skimmer.

 

Extra armor- its a godsend.

[spartan249]

Pop smoke. Yeah, the tanks got big guns on it- but you can still fire one of them after popping smoke and frankly if its dead it doesnt have any guns at all.

 

Whoa, this is a huge red light. Not even LRs can fire after popping smoke.

 

 

Pg. 62 BrB: "The vehicle may not fire any of its weapons in the same turn it used smoke launchers..." "As normal, the rules in the codex take precedence."

 

So it can be overruled... but as follows:

 

pg. 81 C:SM: "A [LR] can fire one more weapon then would normally be permitted."

 

Sounds like you're in the right... but wait!

 

"Therefore, a [LR] that has..." lists the situations where the PotMS empowers the LR. After popping smoke is not listed here. It doesn't use "For instance" or "For example". It uses Therefore, which extends the definition of the term, not giving a few examples of the rule's usage.

 

So anyway... Popping smoke is another good method, just don't expect to shoot anything on it unless you want to get into a heated argument that you will most likely lose.

[DarkGuard]

The popping smoke debate is still going on. Personally I prefer the interpretation that it can fire, as it cannot fire one normally, and so can fire one weapon. I see the list as examples, I know it doesn't say eg. but you can't expect them to highlight every single situation. I don't care either way though, I'll play it both ways. Of course, there's a time and place, and that's not here, but the best policy is to discuss it with your opponent and gaming group before playing.

 

Other than that Grey Mage, as usual, gives some fantastic advise, even if it is Space Wolf centred :P.

[Meatman]

Pop smoke. Yeah, the tanks got big guns on it- but you can still fire one of them after popping smoke and frankly if its dead it doesnt have any guns at all.

 

Whoa, this is a huge red light. Not even LRs can fire after popping smoke.

 

 

Pg. 62 BrB: "The vehicle may not fire any of its weapons in the same turn it used smoke launchers..." "As normal, the rules in the codex take precedence."

 

So it can be overruled... but as follows:

 

pg. 81 C:SM: "A [LR] can fire one more weapon then would normally be permitted."

 

Sounds like you're in the right... but wait!

 

"Therefore, a [LR] that has..." lists the situations where the PotMS empowers the LR. After popping smoke is not listed here. It doesn't use "For instance" or "For example". It uses Therefore, which extends the definition of the term, not giving a few examples of the rule's usage.

 

So anyway... Popping smoke is another good method, just don't expect to shoot anything on it unless you want to get into a heated argument that you will most likely lose.

 

 

 

Nooooo not this again.

 

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...howtopic=201869

 

There is 4 whole pages of discussion on it. Read through all of it before posting though. No need to open up that thread again :P

[KhorneHunter57x]

In my Black Templar lists, I run a pair of Crusaders (with Blessed Hull, which really helps against the ever-more-common Lance) and a pair of Vindicators. This way, my opponent is faced with four high-priority targets.

 

With my Ultramarines, I keep them alive in a few ways:

 

1: Again, fielding two Land Raiders is a must. I use a Phobos and a Redeemer, and this provides me with a balanced combination of long-range power and up-close burnyness.

 

2: Percieved threat. People fear the Redeemer, and so I tend to put my nasty close-combat unit (if I am using one) in the Phobos, and leave the Redeemer empty. This helps, in that the opponent must weigh whchs a bigger threat: The Redeemer's Flamers, or the Phobos' cargo?

 

3: Support. A Land Raider is an awesome unit, but it cannot work alone. I support my Land Raiders with a pair of Predators (Annihilators with Heavy Bolter sponsons). Their armament is useful against a multitude of threats, and they cannot harm the Land Raiders or their cargo once they get close (unlike Vindicators).

 

Also in my favor is the fact that fast melta is very uncommon in my local metagame, which allows me to use cover to my advantage instead of it being a negative.

[Vaktathi]

Don't forget to present multiple threats to pressure your enemy and stress their AT resources. If they have 5 transports bearing down on them, one LR full of termi's and a bunch of squads in rhino's, it's all bad news and all needs to be stopped. Whats the priority going to be? The LR heading to crush a flank and destroy their fire support or the rhino's that are 15" from an objective?

 

I see way too many players consistently making the LR the obvious, brain dead choice to take out in too many situations. They do stuff like drive the LR ahead of everything and hide all their other transports behind it and then wonder why their LR and transported squad always ends up splatted before it can do anything. Now if you planned for that and it's advancing your battleplan then its fine, but if not then one needs to force more threats on an opponent.

[Grey Mage]

Pop smoke. Yeah, the tanks got big guns on it- but you can still fire one of them after popping smoke and frankly if its dead it doesnt have any guns at all.

 

Whoa, this is a huge red light. Not even LRs can fire after popping smoke.

 

 

Pg. 62 BrB: "The vehicle may not fire any of its weapons in the same turn it used smoke launchers..." "As normal, the rules in the codex take precedence."

 

So it can be overruled... but as follows:

 

pg. 81 C:SM: "A [LR] can fire one more weapon then would normally be permitted."

 

Sounds like you're in the right... but wait!

 

"Therefore, a [LR] that has..." lists the situations where the PotMS empowers the LR. After popping smoke is not listed here. It doesn't use "For instance" or "For example". It uses Therefore, which extends the definition of the term, not giving a few examples of the rule's usage.

 

So anyway... Popping smoke is another good method, just don't expect to shoot anything on it unless you want to get into a heated argument that you will most likely lose.

That the rule includes a couple examples does not make the list exhaustive.

 

And its how we play it in this area for that very reason. The rule is quite straightforward *one more than would normally be allowed*.

[Vaktathi]

The problem is that can be read two different, but completely legitimate ways. Either the "therefore" is as an example, or its a qualifier. Both readings are entirely accurate given the way its written, and GW has yet to FAQ it one way or the other.

[Grey Mage]

The problem is that can be read two different, but completely legitimate ways. Either the "therefore" is as an example, or its a qualifier. Both readings are entirely accurate given the way its written, and GW has yet to FAQ it one way or the other.

*shrugs* Its not like I can interfere with your games eh? If by some miracle were ever accross the table Im sure we can have a reasoned discussion at that time, and 4+ it if neither is properly convinced of the others position at the time.

 

In the meantime however my area reads it as '0+1=1' for the number of shots on a landraider with popped smoke. So thats part of the advice Ill give to others.

[pattison]

how do i keep my LRs alive?

 

 

i leave them at home

 

seconded

[Shadowstalker Grim]

I don't really think 'I'd leave them at home' is very constructive, poor chap came looking for help, not to be told that what hes got should be left at home!

 

I agree with many of the points here, keep it away from big obvious melta weaponry and use it for what its purpose is in your batle plan, whether that be dropping off a tough hardcored unit (in which case once its done that, anything else it acheives is gravy, but nice gravy) and if its there to put the hurt on other units it'll need support and multiple threats.

 

Im not overly sold on multiple land raiders, sounds like a couple of unlucky hits and you'll have lost a good 1/3 of the army list and have 2 units stranded, it does add in a lot more redundency and make it hard for enemy units to knock out BOTH, after all the LR is a pretty tough beast.

 

Having looked at that POTMS vs Smoke Launchers, I feel more inclined to agree with POTMS from the wording, though as stated it's possible to argue both sides of the arguement reasonably well, so thats more of a 'cross that bridge when you come to it' with your opponent.

 

Land Raiders are a big tough vehicle which works in their favour and it'll inevitably draw fire, but the more threats you have on the field, the more things the enemy needs to worry about and the more likely he'll acheive nothing, if the LR is the only target then you can kiss it goodbye. I think the best point is to try and make it one of many urgent and dangerous threats, so that if it does die, the enemy pays in blood! :)

[Tanhausen]

I usually play Deathwing and carry 2 LRC.

 

In 20+ games with this list, I'd say 60% of the games I lose 1 LRC, 20% both and 20% none.... usually depending on the opponent.

 

Most of the times, people can handle 1 AV14 easily, because they bring builds to tackle several AV11 transports and the odd AV13+.

 

But when they face 2 x AV14 and 1xAV13 (Vindicator in my case), target priority is not so easy.

 

The best way to keep your armour alive is either having a lot of it (hence, you might blow up 1, but here comes the other) or even better, keep them obscured and pray to the dice gods!