Unit of the Week series: Landraider

[Wolf Lord Loki]

The original heavy transport.

 

4 lascannon, 2 heavy heavy bolter and some loose change guns.

Carries 10 men or 5 terminators

 

I want to love it. But I rarely ever take it. My thoughts are that in an army with limited anti-tank that they bring some utility

 

The problem is they are very pricy for what they bring.... Which is a tough beast of a tank not massively killy

[Toldavf]

God hammers should be better than a standard lascannon but aren't. It is slow at only movement 10, you could advance it but you  would loose all it's shooting. You pay a massive premium for its transport capacity. They aren't even that tough (most nid beasts are tougher) with units that bot melta like eradicators and fire dragons or with weapons that hit like a train such as the railguns of the tau or the lances of the eldar races. The list is long the point is that removing a land raider is easy enough. 

In short all of Op's points echoed. 

[Marshal Mittens]

I think they are super cool, and a must have in some armies (black templars) collection, but I think they are very over costed. Back in the day, an all around 14AV made them a hard nut to Crack, no matter how they came at it, the land raider was the toughest traditional vehicle you could take. It was immune to all but dedicated anti tank weapons, and even many of those needed a 6 to kill it.

 

Now it's 3+, 8T 16w model that's not all that tough.

 

For deathguard, I just feel like it does what a rhino does, but for way more points. I mean sure, it's tougher, though not by much in the current insane anti tank meta, some things kill a Land Raider just about as easily as they kill a rhino, and it has guns, but deathguard have much more points efficient guns in the form of the PBC.

 

I think it's a neat model to have in the force, and a classic 40k unit, but its just not a good option, rules wise, for the points.

[Tipper]

I’ve never messed with the LR myself, not for any particular reason. I was reading this thread and wondering if it could be used as a sort of false flag unit. Ram it up the middle, completely recklessly, maybe tie something up in melee with it. Just to draw fire and distract, maybe kill something as it goes.

 

I decided to look at how many points it was first, so I didn’t sound stupid. I actually laughed out loud! And they want us to pay MORE to put nice guns on. That’s honestly silly.

 

It really sucks tho, it’s a lovely model.

[MegaVolt87]

- Moves 2 inches slower than past editions.

- More points than past editions.

- No assault ramps like past editions.

- loss of defensive upgrades from past editions. 

 

GW- why aren't people taking or buying land raiders? 

[Plaguecaster]

The only ever way they'll actually make land raiders decent is if the make a Primaris version otherwise to even slightly make it better is to take a FW proteus instead which can at least have an inv save

 

I miss the old days of land raiders being one of the best centerpiece models a marine army could have and as chaos ones could be seriously converted to be an amazing looking model using.

 

I also wish there was a way to give them the plague weapons as there could be some interesting options if GW actually cared

Twin plaguespitter or entropy cannon sponsors, hullmounted have blight launchers wishlisting at its finest but sucks out armies so unique weapons are only limited to one or 2 actual units

[Wolf Lord Loki]

- Moves 2 inches slower than past editions.

- More points than past editions.

- No assault ramps like past editions.

- loss of defensive upgrades from past editions.

 

GW- why aren't people taking or buying land raiders?

The loss of the assault ramp is my biggest bugbear

 

Some of the new primaris model now have this rule but the way that the Landraider is designed......you stop suddenly with the front door open and everyone on board is getting out whether they want to or not!!!!

[MegaVolt87]

The only ever way they'll actually make land raiders decent is if the make a Primaris version otherwise to even slightly make it better is to take a FW proteus instead which can at least have an inv save

 

I miss the old days of land raiders being one of the best centerpiece models a marine army could have and as chaos ones could be seriously converted to be an amazing looking model using.

 

I also wish there was a way to give them the plague weapons as there could be some interesting options if GW actually cared

Twin plaguespitter or entropy cannon sponsors, hullmounted have blight launchers wishlisting at its finest but sucks out armies so unique weapons are only limited to one or 2 actual units

 

The Spartan has certainly surpassed the LR as a centrepiece model in the modern game. Spartan has also been decent for 8th-9th too. 

[Plague _Lord]

I really love my Land Raider and it looks great... on the shelf. The iconic unit that I really tried to make work - I even used it in every game of 8th I played and untill psychic awakening I got thoroughly trashed every single time.

 

The problem with the Land Raider isn't that it's bad (it is very bad) but that it is boring. It's just a glorified rhino with a few guns on it. No special rules, no real power. Back in the day we could have added daemonic possession, dirge casters and other flavourfull things.

 

As for offensive capability  - you know what 4 unbuffable lascannons do on average? 6 damage to a unbuffed ork buggy (so no -1 to hit, no 5++). Yeah if you add the heavy bolter then you will probably put a buggy down but thats 230 points that takes down around 75 pts - if you take under account the above buffs that an ork spead freak buggy will have then you probably won't kill it. So what does the LR do other than shoot really poorly? It can transport stuff! So what to transport? Possessed? You can only fit 5 in (lol what a joke) so even if you "safely" deliver this package it won't be doing significant damage anyway. Death shroud seem like the go-to option and 5 of em can lay most things low but you are putting a lot of points into 1 relatively fragile basket. The closer the LR get's to the enemy, the more suseptible it becomes to melta weapons - and it has near to no protection against those. Ironically it has to get closer to the enemy if it wants to deliver some assualt troops.

 

Oh and btw the 1ksons land raider is considered bad and they get a plethora of buffs for it - from the 5++ to strats and spell that can give it +1 to hit and extra ap. Our LR get's nothing...