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A landraider is points paid for certainty of delivery.

When you deepstrike, you scatter. And then the enemy has a chance to react before you can assault. So there is a signigicant risk that your expensive, and often fragile unit is going to go to waste.

When you roll down the field in a Landraider, you know exactly where you're going to end up, and there is nothing your opponent can do to stop you. He's going to wear those Terminators in the face, whether he likes it or not. Thats not always worth 250 points, but sometimes it is.

Factor in the extra killing power (while not their main purpose, Landraiders kill stuff pretty good also) and target saturation though, and you may be on to a winner.

grifter wrote:I just don´t see what those Landraiders do better that 3 more Berzerker Squads + appropriate can openers (Oblits or Havocs) don´t do better...

Which is sort of why I started this thread actually. I think the most satisfactory answer is "force concentration". If you concentrate 1,000 points of berzerkers into a single spot, you've got horrible, horrible pie plate fodder. If you concentrate that many points of berzkerkers into land raiders, you're going to much more reliably put berzerkers onto a much smaller footprint.

notabot187 wrote:Who actually thinks that an infantry movement unit with no special rules like fleet can actually do diddly

Every foot commander.

Jihallah wrote:Fast. Melta. Platform.
Speeders. Hell even Piranha's with their fusion guns.

Yeah, but if they're not deepstriking, then they're getting shot at by sponson lascannons before they get into range. If they are deepstriking, then they have to deal with the vagaries of deepstriking.

Plus, piranhas and MM speeders is a pretty short list.

... plus the fact that they only get one melta shot (which can miss), and it might be against a smoked target, and even when you hit, the average roll is only 15, so there's lots of room to hit with a multimelta and still fail to pen.

... and then you have to roll above a 2 on the chart (something I've struggled to do against raiders in the past. A single "surprise" multimelta isn't necessarily the instant doom of a raider.

... plus, redundancy is why you spam things.

Jihallah wrote:

notabot187 wrote:So LRs are mostly bad in serious gaming, can trounce scrubs, are prone to rock paper scissors gaming, but can still find a place in the right list.

TY! Another person who recognizes the RPS going on here

I'm actually not quite seeing it, actually. It's not an army made solely of land raiders (or even a majority of the points spent on them), and the mere existence of a hard counter to a unit you're spending a bunch of points on doesn't mean it's RPS. If spamming something meant RPS, then a guard leafblower list would have never made it off the ground.

Plus, there is more to the game than just the list. I mean, I've beaten some pretty hard counters against my foot guard before.

Jihallah wrote: If the local meta is good for it then yes the list can be scary.

For a month or two...

Heh, then I show up every other week either with a non-land raider army, or with my foot guard. If there's a 50/50 chance that I'll be showing up with 4 land raiders in 1850 points or 200 guard infantry models, that will breed a little prudence in the local meta.

schadenfreude wrote:The threat range of a land raider charge is the exact same as a disembarking melta gun attack.

Ah, okay. Still, relying on being better at guessing small fractions of inches isn't something I'm too concerned about. Plus, it's not like I could shoot those transports full of meltaguns with, say, twin-linked lascannons, or something.

I never used the landraider as a attacking transport. I feel it works best as a shooty/countercharge element. Landraider are weak to melta, but if you keep it in the back where melta has a hard tie getting to it, it has a good chance of surviving all game.

What's the point of that? Well, if you have a scoring unit inside, it's a hard to kill mobile scoring unit. Worse yet, even if your opponent spends a ton of resources trying to take it out, the squad inside comes out mostly ok. As a result, it's pretty immune to last turn sniping/tank shock/contesting.

The thing is, even with all the melta around, and everyone and their mother ganging up on you when you mention a land raider anywhere near a gaming table saying "Well that's alright I have melta, I don't need to worry about that, hahaHA!"

raiders are still a bitch to kill.

If you aren't vulkan you need approximately something like at LEAST 8-10 meltagun shots per turn to average a dead land raider per turn.

Could you explode it on the first shot? Sure, this is a game of chance.

Just because the immediate reaction to land raiders from people seems to be to scoff and gloat "I have melta you stand no chance!" doesn't mean they'll kill it outright for sure every game first turn.

Even a Chaos Land raider is good if you use it as a mainly shoot, then counter charge platform. This way, it gets to utilise both its twin linked lascannons most of the time, except for that turn you charge in to counter assault. And it still fills the role of protecting whoever is in it, and assault vehicle.

But if you use it only to shoot or only as an asault vehicle, then yeah, its overpriced...

@ailaros

I don't think many foot commanders think that 6 inch movement assault units without shooting will do much. That is what I'm talking about with that quote. Full foot armies when they bring assault units usually at the very least have fleet or extended movement/assault range.

The list I was referring to I believe had 4 LRs at 1850. A typical all out LR spam list. Now I know chaos landraider are cheaper to make up for the suck that they are, but with possession they aren't that much cheaper. So that list really did have about half of its points in LRs. The other half is in assault units that need the LRs to get anywhere wirthout being shot up.

You are honestly comparing this to leafblower which has many more target to try and take out? Leafblower lists also have multiple range bands other than "lets hit it with a sword" less vulnerable to melta as a result.

On the whole switching armies thing, its fun to show up with paper and rock and just play the counter to what your opponent plays.... Except they can do the same thing, or bring multiple lists and only pull out their list when you start show up with the army you are going to play. That kind of thing is only expected once you get into paper rock scissors play, unless you have a blind list choice mechanism. And your opponents don't really need to make a hard counter list to beat LR spam. Most good balanced lists can kill at least 1 heavy armor unit a turn. Most good players know the basics of layered defense and tank pinning.

Also when one of your hard counters is a basic SoB build, the worst of all "official" armies, you aren't making good design choices.

Ailaros wrote:

Jihallah wrote:Fast. Melta. Platform.
Speeders. Hell even Piranha's with their fusion guns.

Yeah, but if they're not deepstriking, then they're getting shot at by sponson lascannons before they get into range. If they are deepstriking, then they have to deal with the vagaries of deepstriking.

Plus, piranhas and MM speeders is a pretty short list.

Do I have to list everything that can move fast and melta you?

"If they aren't deepstriking then they're getting shot before they ppffffftttttbbbbbbb" Its called LoS blocking cover. Im'a hide out of your LOS and zip out. You're not going to have full LOS to my deployment every game- I'm not going to have something to hide behind every game. The games I do have, you're boned

Ailaros wrote:
... plus the fact that they only get one melta shot (which can miss), and it might be against a smoked target, and even when you hit, the average roll is only 15, so there's lots of room to hit with a multimelta and still fail to pen.

Vulkan and squadrons. Two common things.

... and then you have to roll above a 2 on the chart (something I've struggled to do against raiders in the past. A single "surprise" multimelta isn't necessarily the instant doom of a raider.

A list with lots of land raiders is going to struggle against a list that is specifically designed to stop a list with lots of land raiders?

Name a unit for which that isn't true. It seems hardly a complaint specific to this unit.

Certainly bringing a LR spam list would effect local meta, but the only way it's going to be more than a nuisance is if your opponent specifically takes a certain list when they face off against you. If you don't want to call this flat-out cheating, then it's certainly at least poor form.

I think it's important to not look at the LR in a vacuum. Examine the current meta: Str 7 & 8 everywhere, and I don't think there's any question that you must have transports in 5th Ed.

So here's your options:
1) Driving an AV 11 vehicle carrying your precious cargo into a field full of Str 7 & 8
2) Driving an AV 14 vehicle carrying your precious cargo into a field full of don't-care & don't-care-with-extra-armour

azazel the cat wrote:I think it's important to not look at the LR in a vacuum. Examine the current meta: Str 7 & 8 everywhere, and I don't think there's any question that you must have transports in 5th Ed.

It's pretty accepted that meta is a local thing- whilst many meta's might have things in common, some of them can be considered bizarre by others. Every time there's a storm trooper thread, A bunch of US/canadians/brits tell us they are mediocre, but I've noticed alot of German posters (Wuestenfux where are you >< who absolutely A) love them to bits and B) think they're quite competitive and useful as deepstriking melta delivery. On a similar note, Wuestenfux last time a landraider CSM thread was posted mentioned his CSM army usually included a raider or two- with smallish CSM squads inside. To sit on objectives. Apparently this was quite common in his local area.
I also think there's a big question to "you must have transports in 5th ed", as the OP runs a footguard list. And then there's DOA, 'nids and daemons who don't get transports...
Part of me cheers Ailaros on towards the landraiders for the landraider god list, as treading the path less traveled a) can surprise people in a memorable/entertaining fashion, and B) Change the local metagame. Part of me however feels that he might change it up a little in 6-12 months time

azazel the cat wrote:
So here's your options:
1) Driving an AV 11 vehicle carrying your precious cargo into a field full of Str 7 & 8
2) Driving an AV 14 vehicle carrying your precious cargo into a field full of don't-care & don't-care-with-extra-armour

Way to look at it in a vacuum Shouldn't 1 be "driving 7 AV11 vehicles..."?

Ailaros wrote:
Name a unit for which that isn't true. It seems hardly a complaint specific to this unit.

Name a unit that costs 250+ points and can be removed in a single shot.
My bloodthirster is 270 points and doesn't get one shot by a brightlance/meltagun.

I think we should agree that we disagree and leave it to the tabletop to decide here. Hurry up and buy them and put up some bat reps for me to read

Jihallah wrote:Name a unit that costs 250+ points and can be removed in a single shot.

Bjorn the Fell-Handed is 270 points, can be brought down with a single shot (albeit a very, very good shot) and then becomes a potential objective or D3 kill points.

Jihallah wrote:Name a unit that costs 250+ points and can be removed in a single shot.

Hah, so the biggest problem with a land raider is that it's a vehicle?

As a long time foot commander, I well understand the reluctance to take vehicles precisely for their unpredictability. I'd like to think I'm trying to grow here

The problem with a LR being shot and killed with a single shot is the cargo for that LR is usually the same price or even higher. That 1 shot stranded 200+ points in addition to killing an expensive tank.

In a balanced list or dual hammer list losing one early sucks, but you can deal since you have other elements. In the proposed LR spam, each lost LR is losing 1/4 of your army. 1/8 now, and 1/8 delayed to potentially uselessness.

In my humble opinion, the purpose of the Land Raider is a transport vehicle primarily. This vehicle is used to get the primary assault unit to where it needs to be. There is no subtlety here, its telegraphed and hard charging. During transport, the shear size of the Raider is used to shield other support units. Once delivery is complete, the tank transitions to fire support. MM and TL LC's used to open vehicle for the contents of the Land Raider to assault. Or Flamers and Hurricane bolters are used to suppress nearby or primary targets for the assault unit.

notabot187 wrote:The problem with a LR being shot and killed with a single shot is the cargo for that LR is usually the same price or even higher. That 1 shot stranded 200+ points in addition to killing an expensive tank.

In a balanced list or dual hammer list losing one early sucks, but you can deal since you have other elements. In the proposed LR spam, each lost LR is losing 1/4 of your army. 1/8 now, and 1/8 delayed to potentially uselessness.

I still find this line of thinking very strange.

When a unit runs, 50% of the time it moves somewhere between just 2" slower and exactly the same speed as if it were in a vehicle. Centrally deployed, a foot unit can get basically anywhere it would want to go by turn 3. The LR just bumps that down by a turn.

Seriously, play a foot list some, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Foot lists aren't much slower than mech lists.

Ailaros wrote:

notabot187 wrote:The problem with a LR being shot and killed with a single shot is the cargo for that LR is usually the same price or even higher. That 1 shot stranded 200+ points in addition to killing an expensive tank.

In a balanced list or dual hammer list losing one early sucks, but you can deal since you have other elements. In the proposed LR spam, each lost LR is losing 1/4 of your army. 1/8 now, and 1/8 delayed to potentially uselessness.

I still find this line of thinking very strange.

When a unit runs, 50% of the time it moves somewhere between just 2" slower and exactly the same speed as if it were in a vehicle. Centrally deployed, a foot unit can get basically anywhere it would want to go by turn 3. The LR just bumps that down by a turn.

Oh I'm with you on that. It's just those 8 'zerker's are going to eat every single shot that isn't pointed at the landraiders. And there's not much that can handle the raiders
Even against something like the boyz (Do not ask for an explanation on how orks blew a raider on the first turn in it's deployment. Just don't ), you might not cop a hail of fire but you will be much easier to out maneuver and much easier to get the ever-so precious charge.

Whilst your 50% of the time it will move almost like a vehicle is true, that's 50% of all runs made everywhere.
Because god damn my running sucks unless its a fleet unit or consolidating out of combat

Jihallah wrote:Oh I'm with you on that. It's just those 8 'zerker's are going to eat every single shot that isn't pointed at the landraiders.

Right, really the problem with losing a land raider is that you're losing 250 points that you could have spent on more berzerkers. If mech lists in general are viable, certainly an all-AV14 version must be, right?

Land Raiders are a gamble that occurs in the army building phase, as opposed to most which take place in actual play.

Against the right list, a Land Raider is invincible, and it's precious cargo will be delivered with pinpoint control (and let's be fair, the cargo is all that matters).

Against the wrong list, the precious cargo is walking from turn 1, assuming they aren't already dead. Plus they're down 220-250 points.

Secondary problem: In the first case (invincible Land Raider), there has to actually be a target worth delivering the cargo to. I've read enough Ailaros battle reports to know that you also know a good way to counter a deathstar is to have nothing worth deathstaring.

So really, how valuable is something that lets you reliably assault something that is actually worth committing 500ish points in one spot while sometimes losing half those points immediately? Seems pretty rare to me.

I have done the LR lists before. A couple years ago I ran a 5 LR list for a good 4 months. When it works, it works great. But when people bring melta and railguns and all that other stuff (nobz with power claws), it tends to fail.

That really isn't the worst thing about this type of list though, it is fantastically boring!! Keep in mind your monetary investment into this army, it is so linear that every game you play will leave you thinking, "Ok, so I have the same tactics that I did last game". It is one thing if this were actually an army that you could bring to a tournament and wipe face with, but you can't, it is just too one dimensional. Land raiders are best when they are limited to 3 or less.

Ailaros wrote:

Jihallah wrote:Oh I'm with you on that. It's just those 8 'zerker's are going to eat every single shot that isn't pointed at the landraiders.

Right, really the problem with losing a land raider is that you're losing 250 points that you could have spent on more berzerkers. If mech lists in general are viable, certainly an all-AV14 version must be, right?

The problem is that were would you fit those extra zerkers? A rhino can only hold 10 models and with 250 can barely get another zerker squad. Sure you have two av 11 vehicles and more zerkers inside them but it also takes 2 turns to get to the enemy. A loota squad is capable taking both rhinos in 2 turns and rest of the army takes care of the foot slogging zerkers.

I was in a battle today vs two land raiders, one standard and one with the side flamers and hull autocannon, one with mephiston and one with assault marines.
Yeah...they are fething DIFFICULT to kill. More often than that you'll wear them down, immobilised, weapon destroyd etc, and on a glance 2/3 of the results will stop it shooting next turn.
Also tricky when you also have a storm raven baring down on you.
Good job the things inside are a little easier to kill.

Ailaros wrote:

Jihallah wrote:Oh I'm with you on that. It's just those 8 'zerker's are going to eat every single shot that isn't pointed at the landraiders.

Right, really the problem with losing a land raider is that you're losing 250 points that you could have spent on more berzerkers. If mech lists in general are viable, certainly an all-AV14 version must be, right?

Why?
Fruit are yummy, so I must like oranges?


Also, I still maintain that Berzerkers are nowhere near scary enough to warrant basing your army on them (let alone, only three squads of them at 1850pts). Maybe it´s because you´ve been playing guard a lot, but against MEQ and FnO-troops their lack of power-weapons keeps them from being truely great. I shudder to think of charging them into most CC-oriented squads like halberd-wielding GK´s, TH/SS-Termies, Genestealers, DCA´s or even Wyches unsupported. (Well, I don´t, ´cause BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! and all that, but the cowardly tzeentchian strategist in me does.)

grifter wrote:Fruit are yummy, so I must like oranges?

What I was saying was in reference to the problem with land raiders is that they're vehicles. Low-AV spam vehicle-based armies also have to face the vagaries of vehicles, and they do just fine. With fewer, stronger vehicles, that vagary obviously feels more potent, but I don't see how it necessarily actually is.

grifter wrote:Also, I still maintain that Berzerkers are nowhere near scary enough to warrant basing your army on them

For 208 points, you get 28 S5 I5 attacks followed by 4 S9 power attacks on the charge. They are not THE end-all unit, certainly, but for their points, they do pretty well. Yes, they're going to lose to Grimnar and a 5-LC/FASS squad, but that costs twice as much. As for things like genestealers and wyches, I still have bolt pistols, and they still have terrible saves.

I'm not saying that berzerkers don't have hard counters, but I've never felt it was worthwhile to spend much time paying attention to those, as there are generally so few, and your opponents are never likely to spam them (plus, EVERY unit has hard counters, so talking about them doesn't really get you anywhere).

Plus, the whole point of land raiders is force concentration. It's never going to be just a squad of berzerkers against something, but rather will be 3 squads of berzerkers against something. 300 points of mixed GKs is going to be tough on a 208 point squad of berzerkers, but even they can't withstand over 600 points hitting them simultaneously.

DarknessEternal wrote:So really, how valuable is something that lets you reliably assault something that is actually worth committing 500ish points in one spot while sometimes losing half those points immediately? Seems pretty rare to me.

...which relates to this question. You don't ever NEED force concentration, just like you rarely, strictly speaking, need to have good field position either. That's not to say that neither of those are useful.

Taking a list against which 2/3ds of your opponents weapons do little, and at least half of their stuff is going to be out of range because you've knotted yourself up into such a small footprint can make for a serious challenge.

Is anyone else surprised at how expensive the Crusader is?

Is carrying more expensive units really that much of a benefit? I mean, they are already paying for the dumb expensive models (that are useless until they get out, besides possibly scoring) and trying to fill the container is making sure all your chickens are in that one basket, doing that one thing, which as we've confirmed is nothing until they get around to their target.

I just wonder what they figure is a fair price for a hurricane pattern bolter. Especially when you can't even fire defensive weapons when a tank moves 12.

As a necron junky, I've got similar apprehensions to the ghost ark. They are a little different, but very similar. Awkward, expensive, assault ramp, transport. Usually filled with oddly specific units. Never feeling like it's adding quite enough for it's cost, forcing weird decisions to make use of it's firepower.

They both seem to be units that require a lot of experience to know when to field and know how to use.

I think essential to our discussion are questions:
how much are those shots that have been directed at it worth
How much is the survivability of high av transport worth
How much is the "play around it" factor worth
How much are the potential extra turns of shooting a landraider has, after it has gotten into a person's face and survived longer than a lasback or two worth?

Lucre wrote:Is carrying more expensive units really that much of a benefit?

It's the difference between a 5-man terminator squad, and a 5-man terminator squad with an HQ beatstick also in terminator armor.

Lucre wrote:Is anyone else surprised at how expensive the Crusader is?

Is carrying more expensive units really that much of a benefit? I mean, they are already paying for the dumb expensive models (that are useless until they get out, besides possibly scoring) and trying to fill the container is making sure all your chickens are in that one basket, doing that one thing, which as we've confirmed is nothing until they get around to their target.

I just wonder what they figure is a fair price for a hurricane pattern bolter. Especially when you can't even fire defensive weapons when a tank moves 12.

Asides from carrying a little more, it's the only raider that can move 6" and fire every single gun it has. This is a boon with all the guns being anti-infantry and having good volume of fire. The only weapon you can put on it that doesn't want to fire at inf is the multimelta- which thanks to PotMS you can fire at a different target. There's nothing like whittling a long fang squad down whilst your assault unit gets stuck in and your multimelta blows tanks

Ailaros wrote:
What I was saying was in reference to the problem with land raiders is that they're vehicles. Low-AV spam vehicle-based armies also have to face the vagaries of vehicles, and they do just fine. With fewer, stronger vehicles, that vagary obviously feels more potent, but I don't see how it necessarily actually is.

Well, 3 LR and 3 BZ squads roughly equals 6 BZ squads in Rhinos...those Rhinos will get blown open faster, obviously, but that doesn´t matter too much I think, as, like you´ve previously stated youself, they don´t lose THAT much mobility; plus in some games you´re going to want to keep troops around your own deployment zone anyway. The real question is if the LR´s firepower plus the extra mobility they add to the squad is as good as simply having another of the same squad (let alone other choices), which, in my opinion, they´re not (at least not for CSM). And yes, I realize that´s kind of the point of this thread, though you sure seem to have changed your tune from your first posts. I wonder what did it?

Allaros wrote:
For 208 points, you get 28 S5 I5 attacks followed by 4 S9 power attacks on the charge. They are not THE end-all unit, certainly, but for their points, they do pretty well. Yes, they're going to lose to Grimnar and a 5-LC/FASS squad, but that costs twice as much. As for things like genestealers and wyches, I still have bolt pistols, and they still have terrible saves.

I'm not saying that berzerkers don't have hard counters, but I've never felt it was worthwhile to spend much time paying attention to those, as there are generally so few, and your opponents are never likely to spam them (plus, EVERY unit has hard counters, so talking about them doesn't really get you anywhere).

I´m not talking about hard counters or going up against super-deathstar units; the things I´ve mentioned are really rather run-of-the-mill things that you will have to deal with on a regular basis. They kill vanilla power-armor well enough, but anything tougher or killier they have problems with, even when there´s two or three units of them, which is basically all of your army if they drive around in LR´s.

Allaros wrote:
Plus, the whole point of land raiders is force concentration. It's never going to be just a squad of berzerkers against something, but rather will be 3 squads of berzerkers against something. 300 points of mixed GKs is going to be tough on a 208 point squad of berzerkers, but even they can't withstand over 600 points hitting them simultaneously.

I wonder how you plan to bring those 24 models into CC against a single squad? Your opponent will hardly do you the favor of spreading out since you lack any kind of blasts and not even Flamers...

In my experience, Berzerkers kill "vanilla" enemies by being a bit better then them in CC and relying on their Power Armor and Fearless to outlast them. Against things they don´t stack up so well against, and as I´ve pointed out there´s plenty of those to go around, they have to rely on support fire to soften up their targets, or be relegated to objective-sitters like regular troops. They´re simply not spammable in my opinion because to many things give them trouble.
A lot like LR´s.

Green is Best! wrote:Well, here is my experience with Land Raiders:

When I use them, they seem to go up like they are made of tinfoil.
When I go against them, they seem to be impregnable forces of doom that I cannot even scratch the paint on.

Land Raiders are a pain that force your opponent to deal with.

This. My experiences are the same.

not much mobility difference? On the turn of the assault the difference is: 12 with walking. 12+2+6. Now in my neck of the woods 8 inches of movement is a full turn different.

On a non assault turn sure, 12 isn't much different than the 6+d6. Only averages out to a movement difference of 2.5 inches. Over 2-3 turns that averages out to be quite a bit. In fact it makes a turn 2 assault unlikely, where the LR is going to get that assault pretty reliably. Turn 3 assault for zerkers on foot is 24+2d6. For a LR it is 3*12+8. 44 vs 31 on average? For 3 turns a 13 inch difference of movement is a big deal. That is 2 turns different.

As for using rhinos, I don't like having to drive foward and stop for a turn or early disembark your guys. It really isn't much more than paying 35 points to go the same speed as walking. Creative play can however can do a good job of blocking LoS with them. A rhino train is a bit scarier when they have Khorne on board.

While there is something to be said about elite armies and local superiority... It just doesn't work that well for zerkers. Because they really aren't elite enough. When it comes down to it zerkers are just assault marines with fearless and an extra attack and WS. What makes assault marines suck is generic CC attacks aren't all that good or reliable.

In the LR zerker list you have too few units deployed. 3 units vs the entire enemy army. Sure, the LR will ignore most of the enemies small arms fire. But it will also eat every single S8 and higher shot available. Against DE that is at least 12 blaster shots and 9 DL shots. 21 Shots that pen on 5s is not good for you. Against guard they are going to shoot many TL and non TL lascannons at you, followed by sacrificial melta vets. Then your 3 squads of 8 Meq type units are going to face the entire enemies small arms fire. In those two examples the anti tank fire power isn't paired up in same unit with the anti infantry. So what gets knock out is going to get shot at by quite a bit of fire during the same turn.

heartserenade wrote:Have you ever tried footslogging Assault terminators? They don't affect the battle very much.

Take shrike. Infiltrate 10 of them. Watch them fleet into assault on turn 2.

That squad can effect the battle quite a bit.