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http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2011/12/19/40k-tactics-and-tournament-report-leman-russ-imperial-guard/

This is an article I wrote for our blog, and a lot of folks have been asking me questions about it, so i thought I'd post it here, too.

It is about the viability of running a Leman Russ heavy IG list in the current tournament meta, and my first experiments running them in a local RTT.

Check it out if it interests you!

Reece

Russes are quite good, you just have to run some bubblewrap so they don't take a Melta to the face.

I never had your luck with the Executioner... my opponents quickly realized how powerful it was and started spreading out.

The Exterminator and Punisher are my 2 favorites, especially because everyone hates on the Punisher.

This actually doesn't have much to say about russes in it.

Furthermore, I'm really surprised that your opponents weren't able to figure out that a few well placed assaults would have ended your infantry presence on the board.

@odorofdeath

I agree, Russes are very good. I have always found the Executioner to be an all-star. It puts out such incredible amounts of damage, that it really is astounding. Even against vehicles, considering the current meta of light mech spam, they really do shine.

@Ailaros

The article was about Russes in an overall list, not just about the tanks.

The infantry blobs are extremely resilient. With all the hidden power weapons and a rerollable ld10 or 9, they are extremely hard to shift with 51 bodies. Anything that doesn't deal massive damage while also being highly resilient will get ground up by them.

In addition to that, I typically don't leave units in exposed positions. Anyone attempting to assault them would have to weather the storm of firepower in the way, first. It isn't easy to do.

Then either you copied your list wrong or I missed something, as I didn't see a commissar in that infantry platoon.'

If you could boil it down to a single scentence or two, what would you say the purpose or a russ is in a list like yours?

You missed the commissar lord as the first entry on the list.

The article explains extensively the purpose of the Russes in the list (as well as the Commissar lord, and how the Blob defends itself), but in one or two sentences:

AV14, high damage output vehicles combined with large amount of cheap infantry largely make points spent on the mid strength spam we see in the current tournament meta, wasted points as they can only shoot at a high armor tank them can't/hardly hurt, or at cheap infantry with a cover save.

Did you read the article before commenting?

IIRC an IC cannot share a rule (stealth from camocloaks) to a unit he is joined with.

This is why Fearless draigo doesn't make a paladin unit fearless.

Cool article...interesting to see how well the Penal Legion worked out for you in the first and last games. Your second game really highlighted the meta-related synergy of "AV14 or go home": all the S8 spam is really just pissing across the table at your AV14 or into your blob.

Against certain armies (GK, DE, and Imotek Crons) you'll be at a disadvantage from the start, because of Cleaning Flame (blob), Lances, and Imo's bizarre 1-shot ability respectively. It really does punk certain armies in a very interesting way though. Curious to see how you do against mech IG, Seer Council Eldar (S9 vs. rear armor ugly...), Wolves, etc.


Something you might want to try...the Lord Commissar is cool but he's an IC so he can be picked out. A Commissar w/ PW in the blob would only be 45 points and give you a little bit of insurance in case the Lord Commissar got picked off.

@Yuber

True, but stealth IS conferred to the unit! It is pretty dang awesome.

@NuggzTheNinja
I think this army would school Purifier spam. Cleansing flame would be rough if more than one squad got into them, but I out range, and out shoot the Grey Knights so much. Those tanks would obliterate the infantry. And, a 5 man purifier squad would most likely get eaten by the blob in combat.

The lord commissar is an IC, which is why you must be smart about where you place him in combat. A regular Commissar is a sarge, essentially, and much, much harder to pick out. Either way would work really well.

Seer council would be tough, but I never see that army at tournaments any more.

Very nice article. It's a nice to see there's other players who think without using the obvious units, to think about an army's overall synergy and how it plays out on the board. Rough Riders and Penal Legionares were a pleasant suprise, moreso when they performed past their expectations . I think Russes are more potent in that they can adress almost every type of unit group in the game, and their Heavy Bolter Sponsons can really clean up stragglers.

I like it, a breath of fresh air, really.

Though I'm not too estatic about Power Blobs. If they're placed too far apart, they'll suffer from what I call 'The rope burning at one end syndrome'. If an enemy player with an assault unit wants to screen his units from getting shot, all he has to do is charge one 'end' of the power blob. If the blob is spread out to maximum coherency, you will never more than 6-10 Guardsmen for the reaction, which usually results in all the guardsmen in the assault dying, so the assault unit scooches over to the closest model and begins again.

Its literally like setting a rope on fire at one end; the assault unit just eats up Guardsmen in small pieces, from one end of the blob to the other. So any part of the blob that's in the combat but out of the actual assault acts like a solid wall for shooting purposes, you can't shoot past them.

To me, I'd rather just sacrifice ten Guardsmen and have the rest able to pour shots into the assault units.

Regardless, the list is still nice and I can't wait to see furture battle reports for it.

Or you can just remove models on the far end of the blob. No need to remove models anywhere close to the opponent.

The only problem I see with your list is how you're going to be taking care of enemy tanks. 4 lascannons and 2 demolisher cannons are a little low for anti-heavy tank in my opinion. None of the armies you played against seemed to be tank or transport heavy, in your article. The outcome against mech lists may have been very different.

Reecius wrote:You missed the commissar lord as the first entry on the list.

Ah. How does an indepentent character work out for you here? Certainly you can keep things like priests out for awhile, but only for so long. Also, lord commissars are expensive compared to regular ones. Why take the HQ?

Reecius wrote:Did you read the article before commenting?

Yes, but there were a lot of words that poorly addressed Leman Russ IG tactics, which was what the advertised purpose of the article was. The whole article isn't nearly as articulate as:

Reecius wrote:the mid strength spam we see in the current tournament meta, (are) wasted points as they can only shoot at a high armor tank them can't/hardly hurt, or at cheap infantry with a cover save.

Which is why I started taking exterminators instead of hydras.

If you need the AV14, that's certainly what the russes are there for (especially given that their firepower:cost ratio is cruddy).

@KplKeegan
Thanks! I agree, it is nice to see something outside of the box, which is why experimenting and not just accepting the status quo is a good thing.

As Iridumstern said though, you can pull models not in combat in order to fight back. Putting your models in the right place in the blob is really important. Make sure the power weapons are all near the front where they can fight.

@Iridiumstern
You can always break up the blob if you want to, to make sure you can fire at multiple targets.

And it is 5 las cannons in the blob.

I agree though, that another heavy tank army may be tough. I will try that out to see how it plays. I think that a lot of the typical meta lists out there would struggle though, as they tend to spam str 6-8.

It bears investigation though, for sure.

It should be in lists, not tactics. There is no real tactical comment on how to play the tanks, only which one's you took. Deployment/movement v shooting/ granting eachother cover saves/how they work with the blob - none of these were covered.

On an objective game, the blob is presumably stationery as otherwise you can't use all those points put into lascannons. PCS presumably supports the blob, so you only have the one penal squad out from your deployment zone. I can't see how they last beyond the first turn to be honest and then you have no real basis of claiming objectives. List seems to work for KP missions, but on objectives I think you need more troops unless you just plan on tabling your opponent and then walking onto 1 objecitve in turn 5!

Yuber wrote:IIRC an IC cannot share a rule (stealth from camocloaks) to a unit he is joined with.

This is why Fearless draigo doesn't make a paladin unit fearless.

If you check the USRs on pp74-76, the asterisk specifies which USRs are lost by characters joining units (and vice versa) and which ones are retained or conferred when characters join. Fearless is a USR that's marked as lost--hence the thing with Draigo. But FNP, for example, isn't lost by a character joining a unit.

Stealth was ambiguous about how it worked until the latest FAQ on the GW site clarified that a character with stealth who joins a unit confers stealth on the whole unit. So Harker gives his vet unit stealth, and it's possible to do things like give a lord commissar a camo cloak, then join him to a 50-man blob, and the whole unit gets stealth.

Great article. I think it explains the reasoning behind the list pretty well, and the mini-battle reports were pretty good.

If I had one recommendation it would be to flesh out how the various tanks are used. What deploys where? do you try to screen tanks?

I know much of that is based on the situation, but it would help to have a bit more info on how to use the demolishers.

Good post! I was surprised to find out how effective the penal legionnaires actually were. How effective were your demolishers with drawing the enemy's fire? In your report you mentioned that the exterminators drew lots of fire from the blood angels and were destroyed, but did the same thing happen to the demolishers?

@Ruminator
Well, tactics are in there and the article was about how to play the list as a whole as well as how it did in reality. I will specify further next time, or include more about the tanks as that seems to be the part of it people wanted more information on. I suppose you could say this was more of a strategy article, which I can see as more of a list discussion than tactics discussion as I didn't get into the turn by turn decisions. Fair point.

Perhaps I will do a follow up on how to play the tanks, specifically?

The Penal Legions didn't get destroyed in any game for a number of reasons.

For one, they rated too low on the target priority scale.

For two, they were not presented as a target of opportunity. They were either kept of board in reserves, or scouted into a hidden position where they could strike at an objective in the end game.

@Flavius
You have it! That is a crazy ruling, but hey, it works.

@Polonius and Albeezie
I will go into more detail about how to play the tanks specifically as clearly, that is what people want more data on.

The Demolishers were played very aggressively in almost all the test games. They moved forward to fire first turn, only being careful to avoid obvious assaults or melta range.

They were damaged every game, but never destroyed.

Incidentally, the regular russes weren't even touched! They were too low of a threat rating for most opponents' limited amount of weapons that could even harm the russes.

My Penal Legionaires have never failed to perform. Perhaps that is just lucky on my part, but I have always been pleasantly surprised with how good they are, and how fun to play.

@Ailaros
As others have stated, I didn't clearly enough communicate the point of the article I suppose. It was about a list that uses lots of Leman Russes, not just the russes themselves.

The IC works fine so long as you place him properly in assault, but honestly, in all my game using blob squads, I rarely ever have them get into combat or shot at. Most players don't bother as they are so damn hard to kill and the Russes are raining death down on them.

My major tactical question about using tanks in combination with big infantry blobs is about how to work out who goes in front.

Clearly it's sometimes an advantage to have the blob(s) out front to screen the tanks from drop troops, melta and assault. But then they tend to get in the way of the vehicle movement.

But you also want the blob(s) behind the tanks other times, so that they get cover saves from the hulls or screen against wolf scouts, snikgrot, and/or outflankers?

Based on my own experience dabbling with hybrid infantry/tank armies, that was always the hardest thing--handling the movement. It seemed like every time I wanted to move my tanks, there was infantry in the way, and vice versa. Maybe the difference is that I was using hellhounds--which often want to move 12"--while Russes seldom move faster than infantry speed anyway?

Flavius Infernus wrote:My major tactical question about using tanks in combination with big infantry blobs is about how to work out who goes in front.

Clearly it's sometimes an advantage to have the blob(s) out front to screen the tanks from drop troops, melta and assault. But then they tend to get in the way of the vehicle movement.

But you also want the blob(s) behind the tanks other times, so that they get cover saves from the hulls or screen against wolf scouts, snikgrot, and/or outflankers?

Based on my own experience dabbling with hybrid infantry/tank armies, that was always the hardest thing--handling the movement. It seemed like every time I wanted to move my tanks, there was infantry in the way, and vice versa. Maybe the difference is that I was using hellhounds--which often want to move 12"--while Russes seldom move faster than infantry speed anyway?

That's a GREAT question! The First game i played in 5th Ed. i totally screwed myself with my troops in front of my tanks. DSing demons started showing up,
killing my tanks. Auto hitting due to no movement. Not to answer for the OP, i've tried setting up lanes or corridors for those times i did run a similar list. not
100% fix, but it did help. Switching to MeltaVet lists made it kind of moot for me.

Your list has a frighteningly low amount of kill points... geez that's scary! I like this idea!

If some Russes are hanging back all the time, have you considered Camo Cloaks?

Flavius Infernus wrote:My major tactical question about using tanks in combination with big infantry blobs is about how to work out who goes in front.

Clearly it's sometimes an advantage to have the blob(s) out front to screen the tanks from drop troops, melta and assault. But then they tend to get in the way of the vehicle movement.

But you also want the blob(s) behind the tanks other times, so that they get cover saves from the hulls or screen against wolf scouts, snikgrot, and/or outflankers?

Based on my own experience dabbling with hybrid infantry/tank armies, that was always the hardest thing--handling the movement. It seemed like every time I wanted to move my tanks, there was infantry in the way, and vice versa. Maybe the difference is that I was using hellhounds--which often want to move 12"--while Russes seldom move faster than infantry speed anyway?

The main problem with sticking your blobs out in front of the armor is that when they get charged, I think, you can't shoot through close combat, so that results your tank getting stuck in a horseshoe wall that you'd have to back out of in order to shoot past them.

I have been running a penal legion squad alot recently, and despite what people say, they seem to perform well above what you would expect. They seem to stay around the whole game, unless I seem to do something with them, like, assault an enemy unit nearby that can be taken (granted I gain the extra combat and rending). The penal legion is way low on the priority list of your opponent, so, it seems to avoid being a target. I keep forgetting the scout part of their rules.

I have been running a demolisher, a hydra, and two leman russes squaded together. The demolisher is always the priority target, due to short range of the cannon and its destructive ability. The other two russes stay so far away, my opponent has to dedicate something specific to take care of them. A big must, each turn though, is move those russes 6 inches.

I agree with you on your points, even though most won't. Penal squads survive when you have melta/plasma vets running around. Demolishers take all the fire until they are gone, so, other tanks can have thier fun.

I have had some luck with my Vanquisher whom I am about to repaint and name "Hells Teeth". 1st shot ever and took out a LRR. Despite the bad name they have, mine has always performed above and beyond the call of duty

@Flavius, alarimngrick, and KplKeegan

That is the trick of it. Good players win games with movement as much as with anything else. I never bubble wrapped my tanks, even against the DoA player, as there were too many of them and I didn't want to spread my blob out so much. I like them concentrated where then can do the most damage to a single target. What I would do was put tanks that I could lose in the most vulnerable position and have the rest of the army ready for a counter attack.

Not infallible, but it has worked so far.

I often deployed my units over a braodish area (half the deployment zone, so as to avoid having my Tanks get in each other's way. The Demolishers almost invariable advanced, unless the enemy was coming at me.

It really depends on the enemy you are fighting, to be honest. But I find that keeping the Demolishers mobile, and the Plamsactuioners and Russes in a defended area is good enough. If I lose a squad of Russes, it stinks, but it isn't game losing most times. They are only a single KP each squad.

@Talore
No, I passed on the camo cloaks as they are pricey. I would give it a go in higher points games, though.

@Martin74
I agree. Mine rarely die, only because they aren't scary. They are good, in my opinion, and bring a lot to the list.

@The Crusader
Yeah, a Vanquisher with a Las Cannon and Pask is not a bad unit at all. It will drop a tank a turn fairly reliably.

KplKeegan wrote:The main problem with sticking your blobs out in front of the armor is that when they get charged, I think, you can't shoot through close combat, so that results your tank getting stuck in a horseshoe wall that you'd have to back out of in order to shoot past them.

You're probably thinking of previous edition screening rules. 4th edition combats blocked LOS up to the height of the engaged models and I dimly recall 3rd being more restrictive. 5th lets you shoot through models engaged in close combat as long as you can still draw LOS over or between them.

Raxmei has it. So long as you can see down the barrel of the weapon to what you are shooting at, you can shoot it.

Care to put your IG to the test against my Necron Wraithwing-Scarab-farm at 2K?

It should make for a fun and interesting match.

BTW, I've only played 2 games with them so far, one against Chaos and the other against Blood Angels.

That sounds great! Let's do it!

Okay, so that makes sense. If you have the demolishers out front, that provides cover for the troops, then the executioners and standard russes in back, screened against assault. That way the tanks in the back don't have to move to avoid autohits--which means they can use their sponsons--while the demolishers are just there to soak up hits, and can move every turn because they don't have sponsons.

It sounds like the combination of short and long range tanks makes it work.