Land Raiders - still?

[Montuhotep]

Question for anyone who still runs First-Born Astartes....

 

Is the Land Raider, in any of it's incarnations, worth running in this edition? In previous ones it kicked much arse and running three in a Spearhead proved joyous, but in the one before this it sucked donkey-bars.

 

Has it been eclipsed by Repulsors or just plain replaced for points-effective by Las-Predators?

 

[Closet Skeleton]

 

Has it been eclipsed by Repulsors or just plain replaced for points-effective by Las-Predators?

 

None of the above, all tanks are bad. Even your monopose Betrayal at Calth Multi-melta Contemptor blows all non-dread vehicles out of the water before you get into real FW Contemptors.

 

For less points than a Land Raider you can take a Vindicator and a Rhino and have each do their own job rather than trying to combine them.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Closet Skeleton

[Karhedron]

Most Marine tanks are overpriced and under-tough in 9th edition. Predators are about the worst off, closely followed by Gladiators and Stormspeeders. Dreadnoughts are decent in 9th while other vehicles fall in a continuum.

• Drop Pods are worth fielding for things like Multimelta Dev squads.
• Rhinos and Razorbacks are OK because they are cheap enough to field in multiples so their limited durability doesn't matter too much.
• Vindicators and Stalkers are OK because they are fairly cheap for T8 and produce a reasonable volume of fire.
• Whirlwinds are somewhat useful as you can park them out of LOS and chip away at stuff.
• Impulsors are overpriced but are just about worthwhile with the Shield Dome if you have a squad of Bladeguard that need to get to grips with the enemy.
• Repulsors are just hideously overpriced.
• Landraiders are also very overpriced. The Redeemer and Crusader are just about usable because they don't mind getting tagged in melee as they can unload most of their guns quite happily on assaulting infantry. They are still pretty fragile for their points though.

Marines in 9th edition are all about the boys in power armour. Vehicles are there largely to take them places or provide capabilities they do not have. Point for point, most vehicles are less durable and produce less damage output than the equivalent points invested in Marines.

I haven't tried flyers in 9th yet. They are less durable than the tanks and capping the to-Hit modifier at -1 means they generally die quicker.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Karhedron

[Schurge]

Last night I brought two land raiders in a World Eaters list for funsies against pure Ravenwing. They were obliterated, and their lascannons didn't do :cuss. They really need an invulnerable save at the very least and even then I don't think the guns are worth bringing.

[Aurica]

As others have already mention Space Marine tanks are not worth taking in 9th Ed aside from transports.   There are too many multi dmg and high AP weapons out there.  If you don't have an invuln save or some form of damage reduction, the tanks get taken out very easily.  Even if the tanks can fire in melee combat, they are still doing so at a -1 to hit and you are forced to shoot at the enemy unit in melee combat with them.

[TheNewman]

Gotta disagree on something here; the Whirlwind is absolutely a viable piece, you're just not taking it for it's damage output. Suppression Fire denying Overwatch is really, really useful and the "fight last" portion is situationally brilliant.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

Land Raiders being bad is GW telling you to buy new models.  

[WrathOfTheLion]

Repulsors are also bad, so I don't think that's a useful statement. There are also plenty of units that have older kits and good, as compared to newer ones that are bad.

 

As far as running Land Raiders, I've found that a Land Raider Crusader can at least work, as I've taken it with my Space Wolves and it's pulled its weight at least at smaller, 1.5k games.

[Captain Idaho]

Thing is with these powerful vehicles, if the opponent has high quality anti-tank then you won't stand a chance getting anything out of them. If the opponent just doesn't have a mountain of anti-tank, or the Melta is limited, or isn't Drukhari (!) then you'll have a behemoth that can't be killed easily.

.which is the problem. It's easy to pack the army with cheap Melta and then nuke your Land Raider.

[Karhedron]

Imperial Knights are a significant problem here. Players can easily field an army of units tougher than Land Raiders. To compensate, most TAC lists need to be able to deal with Knights. An army that can deal with Knights will have no trouble in chewing through a Land Raider or two.

[Cactus]

Indeed. My group's army building mantra in 3rd edition was "can it [the army] deal with a land raider?" because that was the top end of the tough models scale. If everybody now tools up for tougher models the land raider is certain to lose out.

[Karhedron]

Indeed. My group's army building mantra in 3rd edition was "can it [the army] deal with a land raider?" because that was the top end of the tough models scale. If everybody now tools up for tougher models the land raider is certain to lose out.

The only 2 solutions I can see are buff the Land raider or discount it because at the moment it just does not earn its points.

 

Buffs are tricky as it has a pretty fixed loadout. You can't really buff those lascannons in isolation from lascannons elsewhere in the list. Something like a 5++, always needing a 4+ to wound or giving it some sort of Assault Ramp rule are possible but may tend to affect some opponents more than others.

 

Discounting is possible. The Land Raider is limited in terms of its offensive output by the loadout of the model. I am not sure how much a LR would need to be discounted by to make it viable. The problem then becomes that a lot of other Marine vehicles will then need adjusting too. A 200 point Land Raider might be viable but then you would also need to drop Predators and Gladiators (which might not be such a bad thing).

[Sword Brother Adelard]

You could buff the lascannons, they've always been called 'Godhammer' lascannons. Rename them that, and you have the artistic and design space to balance them separately.

[Captain Idaho]

It's funny that Primaris have different weapons for every unit but most of us don't want that bloat in the rest of the Codex. However, whilst I don't mind "Godhammer Lascannons" being different to other types of Lascannons, this doesn't quite fix the other weapons on Land Raider variants

 

Hurricane Bolters seem to be the biggest problem here as they don't really have any unique variant on the Land Raider to justify it. I suppose they can have consecrated shells or something to pay homage to the Black Templars origin?

 

Alternatively and my preference, Land Raiders need to get a decent set of rules to represent their position as Assault vehicles. Been said before but allowing units to charge after disembarking would help, as would giving it 6 extra wounds, for no extra points cost.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

Imperial Knights are a significant problem here. Players can easily field an army of units tougher than Land Raiders. To compensate, most TAC lists need to be able to deal with Knights. An army that can deal with Knights will have no trouble in chewing through a Land Raider or two.

 

Yeah I have to agree with this knights have a had huge impact. That said the list building flexibility we have now also contributes because most armies can field a ton of vehicles. Anti-tank has to be good, so while I like knights, flyers, and flexible detachments I feel the game would be in better shape without them. That said the genie is out of the bottle at this point.  

 

Hopefully they balance vehicles better next edition, and they become more aggressive with point updates. I can't stress this enough having more choices feel viable makes me more likely to spend. In era when we pay for living rules (chapter approved) there is no excuse for armies like Genestealers, Guard, and Tau to be this bad.

[mel_danes]

Agreed Jorin.

 

Imagine if everyone could bring a Dreadnought in Kill Team? What would that do to list building and game balance?

 

When you introduce an extreme, say super heavies, into the base wh40k game you then need to balance against that extreme.

If you introduce a one off class of units, say Flyers, and you bring rules to add granularity to allow them to thrive.

 

Now you have diametrically opposed units at either end of the balance spectrum.

 

These units must be accounted for every edition going forward, not just the edition they were introduced.

Meanwhile caught between them are all the original models that used to be the whole game, IE: infantry and regular vehicles.

 

So if a player needs to be able to survive those extremes they must account for them. This drags the lists they make toward those extremes.

Remember when they were selling us anti air models? Now editions after their introduction nearly all factions have dropped flyers, not all but most?

Super heavies, besides Knights are all gone as they get blown off the table.

 

Balance required standard units be able to fight super heavy units and flyer units. Stats were changed, rules written, and editions churned.

 

So all the vehicles between a Baneblade and a Stormtalen are paying the lethal price of this balance war, as they to are basically useless this edition.

 

The Land Raider is an iconic legacy unit quintessential to the marine aesthetic, and is no longer a viable game model, in this edition.

There are a number of ways to address it, but we will never go back to the day when it was the supreme tank on the field, commanding respect and dealing death to our enemies. It is simply another unit in the codex, with stronger options above it and weaker options below.

[9x19 Parabellum]

The only solution I can see here is to make a vehicle's overall "durabilty" a concept that adheres to the rock / paper / scissors paradigm.

 

ARMORED :  this is the standard battle tank, etc.  They would all have something like T7/T8, 2+ armor saves.  Anti-armor (ie, heavy weapons) would have +1 to hit them and would generally burn through their armor saves.   However, the costs of such weapons (melta, blasters, dark lances, lascannons, etc.) would increase significantly.

 

SHIELDED:  this would be for things like Command Barges and other Necron vehicles, wave serpents, etc.  They would have a 3++ against any weapon used from more than, say, 3" away.  Thus, once you got inside that danger zone, they would melt.  This would include melee weapons and any ranged weapons fired within 3".

 

SWIFT:  Swift things (most flyers, venoms, piranhas,  etc.) would go back to something like the 'snapshot' rule.  You'd only hit on 6's unless you were firing a weapon specifically keyed to hit them (ie, has the "skyfire" rule).   Models that had the "Swift" keyword, would generally have lower toughness and a max armor save of 4+ (for something like a Stormraven) with most having closer to 5+.

 

A few of the big ass iconic models (like Baneblades, Landraiders, Monoliths, and Knights) would have a combination of the Armored and Shielded keywords.

 

The weapons designed to take these down would be keyed to each platform (increasing the likelihood of success agains that specific platform only) and cost more.  Anti-tank weapons would thus have high strength/high AP ; Anti-swift weapons would hit on their regular BS, and have enough punch and AP do to good damage against flyers, and Anti-shielding weapons would do massive damage once they got in close.

Edited August 22, 2021 by 9x19 Parabellum

[XeonDragon]

I think the Achilles and Proteus are the only ones I would consider. The Achilles has OK dakka (the ability to generate mortal wounds is good) and a 5++, the Proteus would be OK as it has lascannons, can take MM and transport stuff with a 5++, but really, as others have said both need the assault vehicle rule to allow units to disembark after it moves and then charge.  

[Closet Skeleton]

Just making them T9 would be a start. Points also have to come down on vehicles across the board. List building around an expensive transport that contains an expensive unit has always been hard.

 

Its only combat doctrines that made the lack of an invulnerable really matter. You don't need a 5+ invulnerable on top of the 2+ armour if most weapons that can wound you are doing so on 5s.

 

I'd also just cap combat doctrines at -4 AP.

 

Then the Gladiator/Repulsor Executioner's weapon profile would actually have a logical target.

 

Everyone just wants everything to have an invulnerable save. Might as well just ditch the AP system.

[9x19 Parabellum]

Just making them T9 would be a start. Points also have to come down on vehicles across the board. List building around an expensive transport that contains an expensive unit has always been hard.

 

Its only combat doctrines that made the lack of an invulnerable really matter. You don't need a 5+ invulnerable on top of the 2+ armour if most weapons that can wound you are doing so on 5s.

 

I'd also just cap combat doctrines at -4 AP.

 

Then the Gladiator/Repulsor Executioner's weapon profile would actually have a logical target.

 

Everyone just wants everything to have an invulnerable save. Might as well just ditch the AP system.

 

Exactly right. If everything gets an invuln save, what was the point of having anti-tank weapons?  The whole point is exactly that anti-tank weapons *need* to be in the game in order to have counterplay to "big" things.

 

I would argue that the problem of armor (and anti-armor) needs to be resolved by more hard-counters and specific counterplay.

 

Imagine if Multi-meltas/Lascannons (and their equivalents) cost <a lot more than they do now, like 50-100% more than they are currently priced at>.  Additionally, they always have -1 to hit against anything that lacked the "vehicle" keyword, (regardless of whether or not they moved), and furthermore, they can never be used as part of Overwatch.  However, they get buffed for strength, AP, and damage.  I imagine every army would buy fewer of them, and take more careful pains to position and deploy them ONLY against vehicles.  Then you add another condition to the wound chart:  Toughness is MORE THAN 2x Str = wound on 7's (ie, must roll a 6 and have something that grants a +1 to wound roll).  That would make T7 and 8 vehicles effectively immune to Str 3 fire, and if you buffed Land Raiders to T9, that would make them effectively immune to Str 4 fire.  I would also add something like "any psychic powers which target a <vehicle> and deal mortal wounds are cast at -2" (because pyschic powers against vehicles is kind of dumb to me).

Edited August 27, 2021 by 9x19 Parabellum

[Captain Idaho]

Without fundamental changes to the game (I've long argued for larger ranges of Strength and toughness as well as anti-infantry and anti-tank specific weaponry) a simple fix is just increase all Marine Vehicles toughness values by 1 across the board, for the points we pay now.

 

That way, melta wounds on a 5+ and will do a lot of damage if it punches through but it has to first.

[Karhedron]

GW broke the S10 cap but still have not moved above T8 and I think that really limits what they can do.

[Captain Idaho]

Agreed.

[Maritn]

The combination of toughness and saves of tanks is really off by a fair margin when compared to lighter stuff like Raiders. All are wounded on 3+ by a Lascannon, but especially when in Devastator doctrine the Raider laughs at the AP while other vehicles get no save (or a 6+ on the case of the LR).