Viability of the close combat Leviathan

[Punchomatic]

So I’ve been toying with the idea of running land raiders full of crusader squads with a jump chaplain (or maybe a chaplain dred) to help them get across the board with the extra saves.

 

Whilst theory crafting with some friends we thought that the best way to get the LRC across the board was to put something scarier out there. This got me thinking of Leviathans since they’re terrifying.

 

I like to play to win but I also like to field awesome looking units (preferably rage filled melee units) and I love how the leviathan looks built for close combat.

 

It looks like it’s feasible points wise to run 2 LRC with 16 man crusader squads and 2 Leviathans walking with them. A chaplain with the crusader helm could stand in the middle of this to provide litany protection and it would present some hard choices for enemy shooting.

 

I wanted to fill the list out with Incursors for first turn charge, screening, objective grabbing, and other shenanigans as well. Possibly some scouts too depending on points.

 

All of this fits in a 2000 point list pretty easily.

 

So the questions are:

Are hand to hand Leviathans going to draw fire from the land raiders?

Are any of these units going to get across the board?

If they do get across are they going to be effective?

Can you guys think of better ways to keep the land raiders from getting nuked right away while still fielding baldass (looking) units?

[Medjugorje]

the special thing on the dreads is their stratagem. If you have two in your list, one will be targeted first and after you take the stratagem the enemy will shoot at the other one. I think the 5+++ 

[SirJyo]

It's funny cause I had the opposite idea, regular land raider full of assault centurions & champ wingmaned by vindicators barreling down the center of the board with 5+fnp litany and arillian shroud to distract from my foot slogging crusader squads advancing up the field.

 

Crusader squads are not effective troops to begin with, they look great and are fluffy but are overcosted. They also will do little when you cross the board and your opponent's tanks are still waiting for your chainsword attacks. Unless you stand to gain from a Max sized squad(20), 5-10 man scouts do the job better and do not require a transport.

 

If you really want to go scary to distract your opponent from an LRC, bring a big imperial knight. While leviathans are scary stat-wise, the size of a knight makes for better theatrics imo.

How you "play it up" it in your intro or small talk can play a big role in how your opponent decides threat priority.

Edited February 18, 2020 by SirJyo

[Acebaur]

I would take at least one gun on the Leviathan because it's not very fast, so this way it's doing something as it marches up the board. To Medjugorje's point, I think that yes while you can only use the Dread strat once, you can buff the other dread with something like Litanty of Protection to compensate. I'd have to do the math but I imagine both increase durability pretty close to the same. 

[Punchomatic]

Don’t leviathans drop to theee attacks if they only have one hand to hand weapon equipped? Also which stray is the dread strat, I’m having trouble finding it?

 

If I was to take ine ranged weapon what is the best choice?

[Medjugorje]

Don’t leviathans drop to theee attacks if they only have one hand to hand weapon equipped? Also which stray is the dread strat, I’m having trouble finding it?

 

If I was to take ine ranged weapon what is the best choice?

thats correct but GW already said that they will relaese new rules then... And I think Leviathans will be changed into the Chaos version but still get 4 Attacks like all other Dreads too.