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Has anyone tried using flamer-flamer Chimeras to transport infantry squads to objectives in 9th Edition?

My opponents have usually taken most of the objectives in each battle before my troops can reach them.

Move, Move, Move is typically better. That's anywhere from a 14 - 24 inch move in one turn. Though that assumes you are massing infantry to hold it.

Heavy flamer chimeras are great to tag enemy units.

Well folks I just ran my first tank-heavy AM army in 9th. (1k points, 2 Tank Commanders, 1 demolisher, a few transports with minimum infantry support. I came here for tanks @#$% it!)

My opponent was running a fairly balanced ork list, and I honestly did better than I thought I would. I still ended up getting tabled, and losing in VP by a truely laughable amount (I think he was more than 30 points up by games end).

In terms of sheer killing power though: all he had left at the end was one buggy, a warboss, and a single solitary boy camping on an objective. Had I made my last few saves at the end I might have even pulled off a last minute win (at least in terms of kills).

I also got too dang aggressive at the beginning, trying to get to objectives instead of thinning the ranks a bit. Honestly, I'd like to try again as I think there is real potential in my russ setup of demolisher cannons, three heavy flamers, and a storm bolter.

The three flamers really sell the thing as they make charges scary for the opponent, give you something to shoot when you DO get into CC, and give you something that doesn't rely on a degrading BS.

Of course, if he had a dedicated AT crew I would have probably lost even more... but it was still a great game, and really makes me excited for the new codex when it finally hits (hopefully december! Fingers crossed!)

Hello.

What you display is not so new and has been nicknamed the" fireball Leman Russ". It had been scarcely found in IG lists, with some success, beginning of 8th edition. Not so much since then. But some factors might bring it back into action. First, the fireball Leman Russ can still be somewhat usable when in degraded profile, and we know how this can happen quickly with 9th edition level of lethality (especially for vehicles). Secondly, there is the increase of range of flamers, from 9" to 12", which is crucial. And means less units can deep strike out of overwatch range, then charge your fireball LRBT without fear. Then, due to the drastic decrease of overwatch possibilities in 9th, the abilities that shut down overwatch are of much less use, so are seldomly taken. They were a strong deterrent for bringing fireball Leman Russes. Now, meaning if you have a unit with a strong overwatch, it has more opportunities to get usable. Another factor, specifically since 9th edition rules dropped : the heavy flamers can now be used in engagement range, after an enemy managed to charge or consolidate into your LRBT. Punishing them for having touched the tank without finishing him off. Impossible before. To finish the list, a key factor, are the more obscured lines of sight (LOS blocking ruins) and smaller tables. These make the average engagement ranges shorter, so that a very short range weapon is not so much a liability as before.

On the other hand, there is a negative factor I can think of, which is the need to keep this CP available fort the fire overwatch stratagem. Keep that in mind !

All these combined made me reconsider my decision to shelve the fireball configuration. I will soon bring a pair of fireball Leman Russ demolishers in a 2*1000 doubles tournament. These are not tank commanders, but since the heavy flamer does not use the BS, I don't mind. This makes me save 2*35 points for not bringing tank commanders over regular LRBT's. Apart from that, I will field one full payload manticore in the list. I will come back with a report of how I fared in this tournament, soon.

Please do! We also do 1000pt doubles games a lot in my store, so I am quite curious to see how you fare!

I also like the term: Fireball Leman Russ :-)

leerm02 wrote:
Please do! We also do 1000pt doubles games a lot in my store, so I am quite curious to see how you fare!

I also like the term: Fireball Leman Russ :-)

Sure !

I just made a topic in army lists section. I will make reports in there.
This will be my first tournament since covid-19 disrupted the tournament scene. Any help is greatly appreciated.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/800795.page

Hey folks, quick question:

Carnodon with twin lascanon and 2 heavy flamers (120pts)

+Cheap(ish)
+Anti-armor AND anti-infantry
+seems great for advancing into enemy territory and making a nuisance before dying

-it's not a Leman Russ
-it has bs 4+
-it definitely WILL die, and probably not take too long about it either.
-can't be taken in squads (which means using up your HS slots quickly)

So, what's your thoughts? Hot or not?

For 25 more points you can put a Manticore out of LoS to dish out even more damage up to 4 rounds per game.

TBH, the twin Lascannon is not that great, especially at BS 4. It's only two shots that deal an average of 3-4 damage per hit (with my luck, that's 1-3 average).

Manticore with the Full Payload Tank Ace trait can fire 2d6 shots (still BS4) and, should the opponent fail their save, deals a flat 3 damage per failed save.

If you want more direct fire that deals the same amount of damage per shot, look to the Leman Russ Demolisher. It will die, fast, but the two shots it does (thanks to Grinding Advance) gives 5-7 attacks on average (3-4 hits) with 1 higher strength and still maintains the same D6 damage.

EDIT: I do want to say, I appreciate your looking into other options, but right now our options for effective firepower are limited as our vehicles, well most vehicles in general, are super fragile this edition, so anything not outside of Line-of-sight is dead instantly.

Most I've been able to do is 2 Manticores, a Basilisk (spending 2cp per turn for rerolls), a Master of Ordinance, 1 Tank Commander with Demolisher Cannon (knowing it will die first turn), and Harker for re-rolling 1s and praying that'll be enough to kill anything that can efficiently take out my hordes of infantry. (Hint: it typically isn't).

Edit Edit: Before someone jumps me on complaining, I'm not saying we can't win matches, it's just a lot harder for us. You have to bring your A-game in terms of deployment, positioning, target priority, etc. And choose your Secondaries wisely. There will not be a game where you'll have more on the board than your opponent, but if you score enough points, that won't matter.

No I think all IG players are in agreement that we're in a rough spot in 9th. We can bring some strong, cost efficient firepower, but we cant take objectives to capitalize on it. Which leads to games where you kill 90% of the enemy army but lose by 30pts.

Stormtroopers, manticores, and demolishers are all stupid efficient for their cost. The problem is we just dont have a fast, efficient scoring unit to capitalize on it that doesnt die to a stiff breeze. Plus we bleed so many secondaries that if you dont just completely annhilate an opponent in the first couple of turns youll never catchup.

That could be due to design more than anything. Guard have always been about the quantity rather than the quality. Meaning as the editions rolled on and secondaries became a thing/were stolen from ITC, factions that took a lot of any given type of unit took a bit of a hit.

Not sure how it could be fixed, outside of perhaps bringing back the old platoon system and forcing the enemy to kill all of a platoon to count as killing a single unit. But that's a bit clunky no?

One small saving grace for the Carnodon might be: Should GW decide to correct the price for its multilasers (currently they cost 15 points a piece, while they cost 5 on every other platform that takes multilasers), it would drop to 70 points for the quad multilaser option.
70 points for 12 T7 3+ wounds doesn't sound that bad. Even if it's just for standing in the way... Then again, a Chimera would be even cheaper.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
No I think all IG players are in agreement that we're in a rough spot in 9th. We can bring some strong, cost efficient firepower, but we cant take objectives to capitalize on it. Which leads to games where you kill 90% of the enemy army but lose by 30pts.

Stormtroopers, manticores, and demolishers are all stupid efficient for their cost. The problem is we just dont have a fast, efficient scoring unit to capitalize on it that doesnt die to a stiff breeze. Plus we bleed so many secondaries that if you dont just completely annhilate an opponent in the first couple of turns youll never catchup.

Yeah, I went the other direction. 10 Infantry Squads, 3 Scout Sentinels, and 5 Scion Squads (3 Regular, 2 Command). Get objectives quickly, hold ground, and then win on points.

I'm currently 2-2 with 4 games, ranging from non-competitive to semi-competitive lists. Both losses could have gone better if I had deployed or moved better.

I do miss having good firepower, but I have to trade redundancy and durability of obsec troops in order to get it.

Has anyone tried using the Macharius Vanquisher in 9th? I know that super-heavies are sorta crap right now... but that twin cannon with it's built in +1 to hit is spicy... Probably not that competitive, but I have to say I dig the idea of a flat 9 damage!

Disclaimer: I haven't tried it in practice. But mathematically that flat 9 damage is... problematic. While calculating the average damage it doesn't look bad in comparison with Battlecannons etc., it's performance drops significantly when it fires on targets that don't have 9,18 or 27 wounds.
A full hit on a Chimera doesn't kill it, two hits are severy overkill. A double hit on a troup of Sentinels, while mathematically doing 18 damage only kills two for 10 damage etc.

I recently surfed around a bit on Forgeworld looking for tanks and had an eye on the Crassus/Praetor that (for my taste) look pretty interesting. I'm so far just collecting, so in the end the decision will be rule of cool, but out of interest:

1. the Praetors seems to have as it's special thing that it can switch each round between its missile types and that the Firestorm Missiles ignore cover. Can anybody with practical experience tell me if this ever comes up? Has anybody used it and found it at least somewhat practical to ignore cover? And also how problematic is the minimum 12'' range on the board?
2. regarding the crassus: It costs almost as much as 3 Chimeras for roughly 3 x the transport capacity, so seems to me kind of a sidegrade (if it wouldn' also occupy a superheavy slot). Again: can someone with practical experience give me some pointers in which situations this can come in handy? I assume one praetor with 35 guys inside has a smaller footprint than 3 Chimeras, but am unsure if that is "worth something"

 Pyroalchi wrote:
One small saving grace for the Carnodon might be: Should GW decide to correct the price for its multilasers (currently they cost 15 points a piece, while they cost 5 on every other platform that takes multilasers), it would drop to 70 points for the quad multilaser option.

70 points for 12 T7 3+ wounds doesn't sound that bad. Even if it's just for standing in the way... Then again, a Chimera would be even cheaper.

If it was 70 points it would ironically be one of the best vehicles we have. Same cost as 2 sentinels, same amount of wounds, double the firepower, better movement, better toughness, etc.

But the firepower would still be multilasers that do very little. And occupying a heavy support slot I don't really see it as that powerful even at the (in my opinion correct) 70 point price tag.

Yeah, it would have to either be squadron-able or move to Fast Attack imo.

I'm gonna go on the record right now as saying that in the new codex they are going to change multilasers in some significant way. Maybe super cheap, maybe a buff in killing power, I don't know... but I bet they are going to do something significant with them.

The trend seems to be: change things that people mostly ignore. I mostly ignore multilasers...

Lets put it that way: buff them to heavy 4-6 and they become interesting against Orks.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Lets put it that way: buff them to heavy 4-6 and they become interesting against Orks.

I think making them Heavy 4 would be a great way to buff multilasers. It would make them a competative option for chimera and sentinels without IMO making them need a points increase. I run 3 multilaser sentinels in my Tallarn army anyway so I would love it.

How do you guys interpret the Eradicator Nova Cannon Rule

Blast. Units attacked by this weapon do not gain any bonus to their saving throws for being in cover

One reading could be that the cannon simply ignores cover.
Another reading might be that once a unit is attacked with this cannon, it no longer gains cover period. The latter would be quite interesting as it would make life easier for other lower AP weapons to hit the target unit.

Anyone know any authoritative interpretation?

 RegularGuy wrote:
How do you guys interpret the Eradicator Nova Cannon Rule

Blast. Units attacked by this weapon do not gain any bonus to their saving throws for being in cover

One reading could be that the cannon simply ignores cover.
Another reading might be that once a unit is attacked with this cannon, it no longer gains cover period. The latter would be quite interesting as it would make life easier for other lower AP weapons to hit the target unit.

Anyone know any authoritative interpretation?

It does not benefit other weapons of the Leman Russ or other units. Pretending it could apply to other weapons than eradicator nova cannon would be disingenuous. Special rules applying to shooting / melee attacks always assumes that they apply to the weapon that makes them.

However, the removal of bonus to saving throws does negates special rules that grant additional save bonus for being in cover. An example is the Ork kommandos, who will lose the +1 for cover, and their +2 from their "Sneaky Gitz" special rule.

Well I regret if it sounds like there is any desire to pretend falsely about rules or that there is any intent to be disingenuous.

Elsewhere I've read the Catachan Strategem "Burn them out" causes a unit hit by it to lose cover for the rest of the phase. I was merely wondering if the wording here suggested a similar mechanic.

Please do not assume ill intent. I merely seek clarification.

Sorry if my remark felt harsh to you. It was not the intent, maybe I've seen too much rule bending here or there to take it easy.

I think it's an interesting take on the cannon though, and potentially a cool way for it to go in the next codex. Personally: I still think it would need a little something extra for me to take it over a demolisher though.

 RegularGuy wrote:
Well I regret if it sounds like there is any desire to pretend falsely about rules or that there is any intent to be disingenuous.

Elsewhere I've read the Catachan Strategem "Burn them out" causes a unit hit by it to lose cover for the rest of the phase. I was merely wondering if the wording here suggested a similar mechanic.

Please do not assume ill intent. I merely seek clarification.

The Catachan ruling is wrong. It only removes cover on flamer and heavy flamer weapons in that unit.

 Salted Diamond wrote:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Lets put it that way: buff them to heavy 4-6 and they become interesting against Orks.

I think making them Heavy 4 would be a great way to buff multilasers. It would make them a competative option for chimera and sentinels without IMO making them need a points increase. I run 3 multilaser sentinels in my Tallarn army anyway so I would love it.

You're not dreaming hard enough...

Multilasers become Pistols for classification.

But why? It's a lascannon adjusted for lower energy rapid fire, why should it be more suited for firing into CC than a lascannon?

What might be interesting (in my opinion) would be a range dependent profile simulatingsome kind of spread of the lasbolts. Something like 12" heavy 6, 24" heavy 4, 36" heavy 3. Who knows. I would definitly like the Multilaser to be more than just "the cheapest option"

The multilaser isn't a shotgun--there isn't really a "spread".

The reason why, IMO, we should consider the Multilaser for a Pistol role or something like that? It's a weapon that commonly gets described as being more akin to a defensive armament. A large part of the bulk is the cooling setup and the power generation.