starting AM army - how to outfit, what to get?

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

There are only a few Leman Russ variants that I would take sponsons on. Most of those are not Leman Russ varaints I would use. Heavy bolter sponsons on Punishers, and Heavy flamers on Eradicators. Demolishers and Battle Tanks have ordnance weapons, so the sponsons are useless most of the time since they'd be snap firing, so take a heavy stubber on pintle to protect the main gun from weapon destroyed. Don't upgrade the hull weapon on the ordnance tanks at all either. The Range of the Vanquisher's main gun makes sponsons rather useless as well, the only ones that make sense are multi-meltas, but you have to get insanely close to use them, and the vanquisher's advantage is standing off at range (keep that 72" S8 AP2 Armorbane gun out of range of all the other antitank stuff). Maybe give it a lascannon on the hull for some extra anti vehicle power, but I'd rather just keep the Heavy bolter in case infantry get too close, and it keeps the cost down. 

 

Hoenstly the Battle Tank, Vanquisher, Demolisher, Punisher, and Eradicator are the only Leman Russ tanks I'm likely to use. As for the Eradicator, keeping with the theme of using it to clean out entrenched infantry, I'd put heavy flamers on the hull and sponsons. The Punisher gets heavy bolters all around.

 

So that really leaves the Exterminator and Executioner, the Exterminator is a TLAC, so give it multi-melta sponsons for tank hunting, or Heavy bolter sonsons for infantry hunting. The Executioner is a plasma tank, so the Plasma Cannon sponsons are really the only thing that make sense to me. For tank hunting, take lascannons on the hull for these, and heavy bolters or heavy flamers for infantry hunting. 

 

But yes, I agree with Immersturm, to shave off some points, I'd look at ditching sponsons before anything else. I have a very realistic take on tanks though, you take tanks to do the things that infantry can't, in this case, slug it out with other tanks...

[march10k]

I generally agree.  I wouldn't do sponsons on anything but the exterminator and punisher, though.  Both of them would get heavy bolter sponsons.  I wouldn't put sponsons on an eradicator, though.  It definitely gets the heavy flamer on the hull, but it's going to be really tough to hit a single target with the hull heavy flamer and a sponson one at the same time, so it's really wasteful.  Anything with ordnance makes sponsons a no-no, and so does a hull heavy flamer.  I won't offer an opinion on giving a plasmacutioner plasma cannon sponsons, since I don't use that tank and am thus unqualified to comment.  

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

I've had the executioner with plasma cannon turrets used against me, and it was pretty effective, 5 S7 AP2 blast templates can do an awful lot of damage. I do see where you're coming from march, I hadn't though about that, forgetting that the Leman Russ doesn't have Power of the Machine Spirit. Most the LR variants don't need sponsons to be efective, and besides I actually like the way they look without sponsons...