Armoured Fist Cohort vs Armoured Spearhead?

[Valkyrion]

I fancy making a tank army with as many tanks as possible that is primarily for fun, but I'd still like to present some sort of challenge and maybe even win the occasional game.

Re the SA;  I have no (0, zero) Solar Auxilia Models and will use the plastic Leman Russ to fill my boots so as to keep the price down but I don't mind forking out a bit for FW stuff. (certainly the mandatory infantry and associated transport)

Re the AS; it would really have to be Imperial Fist doctrine so I can add to an existing army that currently has a Spartan, Sabre and Arquitor, unless it's feasibly cheap enough to start from scratch, which it might be given the proliferation of new plastics and third party suppliers.

 

All help greatly appreciated!

 

 

[SkimaskMohawk]

The solar auxilia Russes kinda need either the las or vanquishers turrets to be useful. Most people should let you counts as the battle cannon as the vanq, but you basically don't have any real variety. You don't really need to take the cohort, as it only really gives you a unique HQ option; you still need foot guys for the compulsory troops.

 

The marine tanks and vehicles are broadly more useful and have more variety, with the plastic kits only being marginally more than Leman Russ to buy. Probably the better option.

[Noserenda]

Taaaaanks! 

Right now the SA treads are looking pretty sad, id almost certainly go Marines right now myself, plus you can build an army with no pesky squishlings at all! 

[Valkyrion]

I don't play enough games (or enough competitive games) to ever get to know what is in a sad place (or Meta? is it?) so I didn't know that - why are SA tanks sad, and what do they need to make them happy?

 

Does the plastic Leman Russ still come with the autocannon turret (it's no longer on GW's website as a standalone purchase) because if so then I can easily turn that into the Annihilator version (whenever I needed a rhino back in the day I always bought a razorback instead so I'd have a spare heavy weapon sprue so I can just chop the ends of unused lascannons to attach to the autocannon Leman Russ.)

 

What about the transport tanks -  the Aurox is £70 of resin for 30 points, whereas the Dracosan for £100 at least gives me a lascannon or demolisher platform (with flare shield) for 200 points or so. 

As far as I can tell, I could have my compulsory troops be 10 guys in a dracosan twice for around £300, or 10 guys in an aurox twice for around £220. (2 squads of 10 in a transport is the rule, I've not missed anything have I?)

[Noserenda]

They arent sad because of the meta, they are sad because the rules team made battlecannons and their ilk hit like tshirt cannons. It might get changed down the line but it probably wont, so half the tanks are toothless in the meantime, thus sad :( 

The Autocannon turret does come included last i bought one so yeah a swap to lascannons works, or get a bit of pipe and lengthen the barrel of a russ to a vanquisher. 

The Aurox is essentially a rhino with extra profit, if i was fielding them id just convert a rhino with a guard cupola and stubber, wazz on a bunch of stowage over the top hatch and sorted for a lot less! Fluffwise the army did use rhinos in the period so its all legit either way.

Ive not looked at the Dracosan much this edition but there was a lot of wailing about it from some SA players, i suspect because again the cannon got nerfed, but its a huge money and points investment to move some guard around.

[Lord Marshal]

The problem with the Armoured Fist Cohort is the buffs you get are negligible, to the point that you might as well run a different, better Doctrine and still theme/build your army the same way you would if you were running those others. The restrictions on unit slots don't really matter much for SA because Tercios give you so many that being limited to 'just' one Armoured Tercio doesn't mean much when you can stack up to 10 Leman Russes into one anyway. Armoured Fist fails to make Armoured Tercios neither Compulsory nor Line and the Warlord Trait is terrible - even excluding you from the usual 'may make an additional Reaction' - so there's no reason to take it over one which buffs your infantry like Reborn.

 

Leman Russes are in a strange spot, because the Vanquisher I'd argue is one of the best tanks in the whole game. It outrange almost everything at 72" (try Return Fire'ing me now HSS') and has decent armour. Heavy 2, Sunder, Brutal (2) and Strength 9 by itself would be delicious, but with the Co-Axial Autocannon you're rerolling most of your misses unless you have incredibly bad luck. All for 155/140pts? Yes please.

 

By comparison, the other Leman Russ weapons barely hold a candle to them. There are zero reasons to ever run anything but Vanquishers. The internal balance is poor to say the least.

 

On paper, Carnodons are looking like a cheapish (in points, lol, definitely not £££) way of packing Volkite and letting rip on infantry. Sure their armour is weak but at least they won't melt to a Return Fire like Veletaris.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Lord Marshal