All Leman russ army?

[bozo69pd]

Has anyone created an all Leman Russ list in 8th edition and is it viable? What armament load outs are working best so far?

[lash144]

You will struggle with objectives, because 2 Guardsman are more worth than a Leman Russ, when it comes to taking objectives.

[Halfpint100]

I don't like them. They are tough! But not enough output for the points. Especially when they can be tied up on close combat

[WarriorFish]

I think armoured companies will struggle in 8th as it stands. It's easy enough to get close and into combat, which means no shooting for that tank. Vehicles are more resilient but not cheap, so you need troops to help shield them perhaps more than 7th. The change to blasts leaves the template tanks at a bit of a loss, but the direct fire weapon hulls are good for throwing dice around.

 

Infantry got a buff in 8th, and as mentioned objectives will be very difficult. I don't think 8th is the edition for heavy armour, at least as the index stands. Combined arms is the way to go, and with how cheap infantry are they won't detract from your tanks too much but will keep them trucking much longer.

[narcolepticltd]

Is the idea for running this list for fluffiness, or because you'd rather paint tanks instead of infantry? I'm kinda on the same page wanting to run all armor (or even all russes) but just in list building came to the same conclusion regarding russes. If it's just the fluff factor, build an armored detachment and have a second mechanized detachment with dudes in chimera (steel legion style) mechanized infantry? 

 

Another idea/consideration would be hellhounds as screening units - as their extended range and auto hit works as a deep strike deterrent and has the added bonus of being 'great at killing flyers' (lol apparently this is a thing in 8th with anything that used to use a flamer template).

 

More cheap options that still are in the 'armor' category would be sentinels and cyclops demo blammo toy tanks... 

[lash144]

I would definitely take 3 scout sentinels to deploy a huge non-Deepstrike zone with their scout move.

[Chaplain Gunzhard]

Being able to move and shoot the turret without a penalty is pretty nice though, command tank orders are cool, and also being able to take a single hull-mount Heavy Flamer (or more!) will make someone pay or think twice about assaulting you... Also the new fire-arc rules and no vulnerable rear spot are pretty great boons for tanks, but still as others have said, they're expensive and troops win objectives.

[bozo69pd]

I already have about 200 veterans/guardsmen/conscripts and a shadowsword but no leman russes. Just curious how they are doing this edition, and if it is worthwhile to buy any as I have always contemplated them.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

I think that you should get some Russes! No Guard Army (or Collection as it were) is complete without them! But then my statement is flawed as WF will point out that no Guard Army/collection is ever complete. 

 

In all seriousness, Armor support is vital, Infantry will be the backbone of most armies, but you'll need some big scary things to draw your opponent's attention away from the real threats. Tyranids have big monstrous creatures for this, but Guard has Tanks. It's our version of the distraction carnifex, so go ahead plop down a couple LRBT's or 5, and watch your opponent squirm. The loss of templates hurts them, and so a squadron of LRBT's or LRD's won't delete an entire horde, but you can at least slow one down. 

 

Any opponent will go after the tanks, because he can't ignore them, and if he doesn't pay enough attention to them, you have a means of deleting his big stuff.

[bozo69pd]

Good to know. My opponents are usually Ynarri. Although I have been facing some Primaris/imperial knights.

[Withershadow]

I think you would have to lean heavily on FW tanks to even have a chance at this, while supplementing with Hydras and Manticores and the like.  Alpha Pattern Russes, Malcadors, all can be stand-out unitsThe core of the army would have to be a Superheavy or two, who can actually wreck stuff in melee.

[MoK]

My guard list is half mech, half Armoured. I've got three blobs, each blob consists of Tempestus Prime, Scions in a Chimera, a Hellhound and a Russ. So far it has worked very nicely each section working independently moving across the board. Leave troops/hq in the chimera until its immobilised or destroyed, fire two Plasma Guns from the top hatch, plus the las arrays, heavy stubber, heavy bolter and the turrets heavy bolter and you have a hell of a lot of shooty from just a single chimera, add into that the shooty from tne Hellhound and the Russ and you've got a lot of dice to roll. Of cause you could disembark your troops and get all those Hotshots as well. These are supported by three 20 man conscript squads each with a Commissar, for holding objectives and my back field.

[Shamansky]

All Russes list is very shooty but fragile. Opponet will need to take 6 wounds of each tank to make them useless. I'm not saying that it is an easy task but still. When i faced tau with my all tank list we played draw. I was not tabled only because of my pretty good save rolls. We played 100 power points. By the end of the game we reduced our armies to a couple of units that were almost unable to harm each other. If it was not a kill all enemies mission i'd lose, because to get good shots i had to stand still for almost every turn.

[Halfpint100]

You can't fire out of the top hatch anymore with chimeras. Only open topped vehicles can now, which the chimera is not

[MoK]

You can't fire out of the top hatch anymore with chimeras. Only open topped vehicles can now, which the chimera is not

 

Really? Wow, isn't that why the damned thing has a top hatch? Hopefully that will get Errata'd coz that is ridiculous.

But if not, that two Plasma Guns down, still makes a chimera a damned good shooty unit.

[CaptainHelion]

It is unlikely to be errata'd as removing firepoints from the vast majority of transports is a game-wide change. It's possible that firepoints may reappear in future, but it'll be a unit by unit case, and I would say very unlikely.

[MoK]

Why would they remove fire points? What benefit does that have to the game?

 

You know the more I read, the more I think GW has ruined 40k. I actually liked 7th ed. it needed a bit of tidying up and Codex updates for certain armies, but I think 7th ed was the best yet. 8th just feels to me like they have dumbed down the game do much it's turning it into a normal board game. Removing rules like Fire points, blast templates and other such rules hasn't improved the game one bit, infact it's actually dumbed it down too much. Any way, rant over.

[duz_]

I'd have to agree with that
Personally I felt like I would be grabbing my old blast markers and scatter dice out for fun.

I have had zero inkling to do that since 8th dropped! 

Losing fire points does kinda suck, but I think for the game as a whole its a lot better. 
Having mobile pill boxes only benefited a few (guard included), having to get out of a transport to shoot adds an extra level of complexity as there is a good chance they will be shot off the board in return. 

It also reduces the arguments of how LOS is determined and where exactly you need to measure from.

 

There is far more complexity in the game now, although it is less as overt as before. I for one am glad that vehicles now have 360 LOS! Especially flyers

[Withershadow]

Fire points do exist, they are just very rare.  Off the top of my head the only infantry-level transport that has them is the Repressor.  The next are the Baneblade variants that can transport troops.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

Why would they remove fire points? What benefit does that have to the game?

 

You know the more I read, the more I think GW has ruined 40k. I actually liked 7th ed. it needed a bit of tidying up and Codex updates for certain armies, but I think 7th ed was the best yet. 8th just feels to me like they have dumbed down the game do much it's turning it into a normal board game. Removing rules like Fire points, blast templates and other such rules hasn't improved the game one bit, infact it's actually dumbed it down too much. Any way, rant over.

You're not wrong. The game has become simpler in many ways. There are things that should not have been totally done away with like Universal Special Rules. Now, there were far too many of them in 7th edition, and making the game simpler to play and requiring less paraphernalia is a plus to me, even though it makes certain units less useful and effective.

 

I do feel that some changes were a bit too broad, like removing armor facings on vehicles, It could have just been changed to toughness, kept the facings so that taking down a vehicle still required some tactical planning.

 

7th edition had some very glaring flaws, and really 4th-7th editions were 3rd edition derivatives with some rather minor changes and a ton of rules bloat. 8th edition is a fresh start and hopefully we'll see some minor changes to the rule book, without needing major changes to the codex books.

[Withershadow]

A friend of mine put it best, I think.  Warhammer 40K 3rd-7th was a simulation game, Warhammer 40K 8th is like a board game.  I think this makes sense, considering Rogue Trader was basically an RPG and 2nd was a skirmish RPG.  It just got way too convoluted as it shifted from a basic skirmish game of a few squads and vehicles, to giant monsters, giant vehicles, and combined unit shenanigans.

 

I think it's a good call to keep Horus Heresy in 7th edition, the more granularity on stats and things like armor sides is more appropriate. 

 

Another good comparison I've seen is that 8th edition is like X-wing, simple and fast enough to play occasionally and not feel too out of the loop.  7th edition is like Armada, unless you play all the time and have an intimate knowledge of the ruleset, it's a giant hassle.

Edited August 29, 2017 by Withershadow

[MoK]

A friend of mine put it best, I think. Warhammer 40K 3rd-7th was a simulation game, Warhammer 40K 8th is like a board game. I think this makes sense, considering Rogue Trader was basically an RPG and 2nd was a skirmish RPG. It just got way too convoluted as it shifted from a basic skirmish game of a few squads and vehicles, to giant monsters, giant vehicles, and combined unit shenanigans.

 

I think it's a good call to keep Horus Heresy in 7th edition, the more granularity on stats and things like armor sides is more appropriate.

 

Another good comparison I've seen is that 8th edition is like X-wing, simple and fast enough to play occasionally and not feel too out of the loop. 7th edition is like Armada, unless you play all the time and have an intimate knowledge of the ruleset, it's a giant hassle.

 

Hence the reason I refer 7th ed and Armada. I'm paying a lot of money for these hobbies, I want to feel like I get my monies worth. It takes s long time to organise a game, building Army list, getting your army out, inevitable repairs, setting up the board, etc etc, then after the game there's the packing up. I don't want a game to be over in an hour. The shortest game I want is two hours. In fact if a game lasts over three hours, I feel like it's been worth all the rigmarole of all the non-game play admin. If I wanted to play a skirmish game, I'd play one of the many many skirmish games out there, I play 40k for a battle. The best battle I've had was a 12k a side battle between my DAs and a mates Chaos, it took two days in all. Best game EVER. I would play 30k, but I don't know anyone who plays it because of the cost of FW models/books.

 

Oh Well

[CoffeeGrunt]

I couldn't be happier with most of the changes tbh. 40K was becoming an exercise in tedium during 7th and I'm glad it's lighter and faster now. I miss templates, vehicle facings and firing arcs, but c'est la vie.

[Chaplain Gunzhard]

I couldn't be happier with most of the changes tbh. 40K was becoming an exercise in tedium during 7th and I'm glad it's lighter and faster now. I miss templates, vehicle facings and firing arcs, but c'est la vie.

 

Yeah we've been playing the crap out of 8th and having more fun than ever. Granted I still haven't put my IG on the table yet (need to build more infantry!)... but it's just a way better game.  I sort of miss just the Flamer template because it was straight forward and had that visual, visceral bam! ...but I absolutely do not miss armour facings and fire arcs, or blast templates.

 

We played some 30k to prep my friends for Nova and those old rules felt like unpleasant baggage after not using them. I'd say give 8th a chance at least.

 

There's definitely a small list of things I don't like (ie rules that just 'remove models' regardless of wounds), but man, my dislike list from 7th edition went on for days - and I still enjoyed 7th!

 

On to the topic, we've been learning that tanks are much more survivable now, but also way easier to neutralize with assault as well. So some bubble wrap or a preventative Heavy Flamer are really a good idea.

 

That said, outside of Overwatch (assault prevention) usage I find the Heavy Flamer way overpriced and overrated... people act like 'autohit' is some amazing new rule, but the templates always autohit and before you could target multiple units (including characters) now you're only, always, hitting one unit, and boy are they expensive.

[olcottr]

I think Leman Russes would be a great complement to your Super Heavy.  I was about to say you need at least one of those because of their Steel Behemoth Rule. Plus their adamantium tracks are not bad in melee.