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~Landspeeders= Javellins or vanilla?~


paz

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Has anyone really played with Landspeeders in age of darkness?

 

Ive been peering at the javellin over the vanilla, but 75 pts base for arm 11, 2 hullpoints doesnt seem worth it.

 

Is the Vanilla landspeeder a better option? I cant see myself running a lot of weapons on such a killable platform, but just a multimelta or plasma cannon, as a support vehicle (I usually run 2 deredeos and a contemptor for anti-tank)...

 

Or should I just chop the whole thing and go for the tougher jetbikes...

Regular Land Speeders are 50pts and only come with a Heavy Bolter. Your +25pts gets you: Outflank, +1AV  F&S and a Twin-linked Cyclone Missile Launcher. Sounds like a good deal to me, tbh.

 

If you're after budget though, and whilst I have no personal experience with them, I've heard good things about mounting Graviton Guns on them. They overcome many of the obstacles of the weapon - it being Heavy and short ranged.

Very few people take units capable of dealing efficiently with AV10-11 vehicles. Missile Launchers and Autocannons are rare as houses, for the most part among the competitive lists. instead preferring to take heavier weaponry to deal with AV12 Drop Pods. There are three, maybe 4 or 5 in a pinch notable units, I find, the Deredeo, Sicaran and the Predator Destructor as the first 3, then there is the Quad Mortar and the Dual Kheres Mortis Dreadnoughts which are can reasonably be expected to be taken at some points (and with the exception of the Deredeo aren't top tier units).

 

The Sicaran and the Predator Destructor are about the only units which are kind of purpose built for the purpose of taking out light vehicles. The Sicaran's 6 Twin Linked S7 Shots which ignore Jink are awesome; you're looking at taking down 1 or even 2 in a blaze of firepower; while the Predator Destructor Squadron's arguably more useful ability as an AV13 Wall with an Autocannon on top means that you're really just looking for opportunity targets; with the AV10-11 on the board, it's rare that you'll have more use for the Autocannon's than prioritising the Land Speeders, however, only being BS4 means that it's 4 hits, 2 glances, and one successful jink later, and the land speeders only really knocked out of commision for a turn while it jinks (which can be useful enough, especially against a squadron of Land Speeders with Graviton Guns).

 

A local player uses this lack of S7-8 weaponry to his advantage, and runs 3 units of 5 Graviton Speeders. It's fairly expensive, and leaves the squad very fragile (he once placed badly, and left himself in range of a Fury of the Legion Tank Hunter Alpha Legion Blob Squad with an Augury Scanner; 33 shots, 24 hits, and 8 Glances with only a single Jink passed left him with a 2 man team. That is the squadrons biggest risk.

 

That said, Deep Strike with an alpha strike capable of killing a Spartan or a Typhon with a bit of help for 325pts is pretty good. However, they will only really get one good kill a game (but that can be all that's needed) on a suicide drop. The Plasma Cannon had a bit of traction earlier in the meta development with massed Terminators being a thing, coming down turn 2 after the transports had been popped, but at 80pts for 1 Plasma Shot that could be killed by an Augury Scanner volley (either by outright death or jinking causing Snapfire), Plasma and Melta Preds soon became preferential (110pts for 3 Plasma Shots for the former, 120pts for the latter to drop a FNP ignoring Large Blast on a Terminator Blob sat in Difficult and Dangerous terrain from a Grav-Cannon volley were excellent choices).

 

Other options; Havoc Launchers just didn't do enough damage (unless you fight many T3 opponents), Volkite Culverin; at 60pts? Eh. It had decent survivability at the range it could snipe at, but for 300pts, even a Legion support squad could put out a 9 man Volkite Culverin Squad, while a Typhon does it better (I have two answers to most questions in 30K; typhon and graviton. If that doesn't answer your question, apply more of both). Might want to play around with that, but the difficulty is getting the models, seeing as there isn't a 30K speeder model with a Volkite Culverin on it. Multi-meltas just lack the punch due to AV14. Haywire Gravtion isn't much shorter range, and still keeps the Heavy Bolter in exchange for an extra meltabomb per model costwise, while almost guaranteeing a glance. A MM is hitting AV11-12ish usually. It may or may not be benefitting from Armoured Ceramite (anything AV13 or Super Heavy flavoured is Armoured Ceramited); this means it is hitting secondary targets, those which are of little consequence to the battle; but assuming it's hitting a priority target (let's say the AV12 Sicaran Venator's rear, AC'd up); this is 5 shots hitting on 3's - so that's 3-4 hits, with a 4+ to glance. You've just spent 300pts to get 1 or 2 HP's of damage, with a possible only 50% chance on one dice of doing important damage to it. If that's worth it to you, fair play, but I'm personally not sold. I'd rather put a squad of scoring Tactical Support Marines in a Dreadclaw (arguably using the same slots, because who fills troops?) with Meltaguns; 6 Meltaguns in a Pod is 305pts after all. 

I assume Hesh is speaking from an Alpha Legion perspective. I was immediately a big fan of the Javelin when I saw it. Cyclone, multimelta, 2 hunter killers. Outflank into opponent's deployment zone, and with Dynat you're now getting +1 on your pen damage rolls. Solid for all those Sicarians and Deredeos.

I play a single Land Speeder in every game. It is outfitted with a Multimelta and a Graviton Gun.

The performance depends on the terrain and what kind of army I play against, but I think it does quit well. I think a second one in that squadron would be nice though.

  • 2 weeks later...

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