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So anyway.

With 5e rules making transports usable and Razorbacks being very inexpensively priced in the new Space Marines codex, it seems Razorback Spam is going to be a pretty potent strategy.

This might be a decent spot to discuss such a thing without bickering.

Some thoughts:

- I'm not sold on TL Assault Cannon Razorbacks. The upgrade over the TL Heavy Bolter is pretty pricy. Now, it's not necessarily that fair to say it almost doubles the price of the 'Back -- you can't buy a Razorback without an attached squad, and you're going to pay a minimum of 90 points for that squad, and even at that value you're buying expensive troops without special/heavy weapons, so you're looking at a base of 210 (for a 10 man Tactical Squad plus Razorback) or 165 (for a 5 man Sternguard Squad plus Razorback). Even still, +35 for a TL Assault Cannon over a TL Heavy Bolter is pretty expensive -- expensive, but the Assault Cannon is still the best gun in the game.

- I think it's pretty clear that the optimal setup is going to be all Razorbacks with the same weapon. They're not particularly resilient, and the strength is in numbers of hulls, which gets negated if some of those AV11 hulls are bigger targets than others.

- 85 point Predator Destructors with HB sponsons. Seems to accentuate the Razorback spam.

- Sternguard have a few options here :

5 (or 6) man squad, two assault weapons, ride in the 'Back -- main problem is value increase of the Razorback carrying them
10 man squad, split into combat squads; one takes Sergeant and rides, the other takes two heavy weapons and stands and shoots

Sternguard in and of themselves are actually competitive in terms of cost with Devastator squads, and with Kantor in the army are scoring units, and have more
options with the second Combat Squad, if they're taken in 10 man squads.

- Lascannon/TL Plasma Gun sounds nice on paper, but really, at the same cost, is there a compelling reason to take it? It has more range, but by virtue of it being two weapons it has to stand still to beat the TL AC against infantry (and even still, the TL AC wins against certain types...) and is inferior against armor in most cases anyway.

I've been playing sisters with lots of tanks in 5 ed -- 3 exorcists + 5 AV11 vehicles in 1500 points and 7 AV 11 vehicles in 1850 points -- and AV11 does indeed have strength in numbers. It's easy to penetrate AV11, but the new damage table usually requires a few penetrations to get a destroyed result, so I rarely lose more than 2 vehicles in any given turn, and usually less than that. Given that, I definitely think we'll see razorback rush armies.

The AC upgrade is pricey, but my feeling is that it will prove to be worth it thanks to the versatility of the weapon. An army with tons of HB will be great against horde armies like orks, but against armies with a lot of AV14 or even a lot of AV11, HB will find themselves of limited use. For a player trying to build a take-all-comers force, the AC will be worth buying because there is almost no situation in which it is not useful.

I think we will see a lot of 10-man marine units broken up into combat squads. Five guys, including the sergeant and the guy with the special weapon (either a flamer or meltagun) will ride up in the razorback. The other five guys, including the heavy weapon wielder, will hang back. This also gives marines a natural way of effectively splitting their force into one part to hang back and hold the objective(s) in their deployment zone, and one part to move forward and capture mid-field objectives.

Very good analysis, shirou.

I'm sorry, but whoever thought that a ten-man squad can buy a razorback should taken out back and shot. I hate that idea. Thats like having the team bus be a van that seats 8, while you have 16 players on the team.. "Hey Coach, what about the rest of us?"

Personally, I am of the opinion that walking is for the Guard, and that its drop pods, teleport or transports for my marines. I'll only have a razorback for my command squad now, and in smaller point games, maybe the sternguard will be in one as well.

But...but...Marines ARE the short bus special, man.

Shirou after perusing the new codex, I came to the same conclusion as you did. It is only 210 points for a tactical squad with flamer and missile/multimelta, plus a HB razorback. 235 if you throw in a powerfist! Sure AV14 is going to give you some trouble, but 5 points more for a meltagun instead of a flamer is not much to pay, not to mention the multimelta if you are that concerned for free!

Really that is only 1410 for 6 squads which can combat into 12 objective taking plus 6 mobile terrain that can actually hurt things, sorry SB you just don't get the job done. =(

That still leaves you 340+ points for other fun bits.

If you consider the 4th edition cost of marines, you basically get the razorback for FREE!

Matt Varnish, I can see your point, but isn't that kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face?
"The team bus only holds 8 so instead of using it and only paying for 2 taxis we are all going to walk and forfeit all of our games this season!"

2 attack bike squads with multi meltas would cause some serious trouble for you, basically anything fast, with good antitank abilities would cause hell for you. Aside from that, it looks like a good strategy. And having lots of CC squads backed up by the other half of the tac squad would be really annoying to deal with.

I would give the shooty part of the tac squads either Las cannons, or plasma cannons. And give missile launcers to any devies that you're taking. To counter the fast anti tank squads that would be the greatest danger to your force, put assault, or biker squads in your Razorback formation, and have them hide behind the leading razors. They should also assault first, they have more attacks, and they usually have more assault weapons.

I am in agreement here that it's bastardly hard to actually destroy a bunch of AV11 vehicles. However most results mean you're not firing, good for kill points (it's not dead) but bad for offensive firepower.

Marines do not have a lot of offensive firepower for their cost either.

So razorback spam is a great defensive army and an average offensive army.

It should do well.

The reason that I would advocate the razorbacks is the 5 point difference for a HB. So when it does shoot it is well worth it.

Lascannons would be great for the combat squad hanging back, especially with how cheap they are for tac marines.

I've been thinking the same. 6 HB backs, for 240pts is a ridiculously good deal. The rest of the army can be tooled to take out heavy stuff, but for 240pts you get a fantastic deal for mobility and horde killing power, which in 5th will be welcome with all those strong ork builds out there!

1260 Points for 6 heavy bolters and 6 missile launchers kinda proves my point that you have rather average offensive firepower.

1260 Points for 6 heavy bolters and 6 missile launchers kinda proves my point that you have rather average offensive firepower.

Which is why I've been suggesting using sternguard (and taking Kantor to make em scoring and stubborn).
1155 points for 6 heavy bolter, 9 missle launchers (and 9 special ammo bolters which is nothing to sneaze at).

Not too shabby and leaves quite abit of points for counter charge or more shooting.

Couple of thoughts on this matter.

#1 - I think that if this is going to work, it needs to be done as cheaply as possible. HB Razorbacks and that's it. No Assault Cannons, no Lascannons, and certainly no Heavy Flamers. Heavy Flamers work on the Immolator for one reason and one reason only: it can move 12" and fire - the Razorback cannot. Your anti-tank capabilities will need to come from the Tactical squads.

#2 - Part of what made my Immolator list so effective, was that it was harder to kill the Immo's in assault than it was in shooting. My tanks always moved over 6", so they always needed 6's to hit. With Razorbacks, moving over 6" means you're sacrificing your shooting.

I think it will still be an effective arch-type, but it is not the same as an Immo-spam list.

I'd go for a mix of 3 Razorback squads and 3 Rhino squads focussing the Razorback squads for shooting and the Rhino squads for cc (incl. Vet with power fist).

stjohn70 wrote:#2 - Part of what made my Immolator list so effective, was that it was harder to kill the Immo's in assault than it was in shooting. My tanks always moved over 6", so they always needed 6's to hit. With Razorbacks, moving over 6" means you're sacrificing your shooting.

Do Immolators have a special rule or piece of wargear that permits them to fire weapons while moving at Cruising Speed? No one around here has a SoB army so I don't really have any experience with them to speak of, so this is an honest question.

The Immolator entry states that it can move 12" and fire, if it has the Heavy Flamers as weapons.

Wow, had no idea. That's insanely brutal. I wish I had some local SoB opponents to test my list against.

I dislike the idea of 6x HB and 6x ML. You have 260p more, buy a cheapo commander and then specialize the army. Lascannons/ML's in fire support squads(Or plasma, if you think you want them), and specialize the combat squads with the backs. I don't know all of the weapon options, but if it has multimeltas, 1-2 of those+Melta guy in a squad, 2-4 Assault cannon ones+Plasma guns, and if they have like... Plasma cannons, have those. Kind of expensive, but it can deal with more. Stay back, let him come to you, and shoot him up with the backs when he does. If he doesn't, do a massive objective grab turn 4-5. Or specialist squads, but standard HB backs. Actually has range, which is no bad thing. Still have specialist squads, 3x Meltas, 3x Plasma, and maybe associating combi-weapons on the Sargent if at all possible. Or Flamers, which could be fun. Especially with Salamaders.

Or, take Khan, and Outflank the backs. Wait, that sounds awesome. 6x Combat squads with lascannons, 6x outflanking combat squads in backs. Might have to make it 5 to include khan+Decent weapons. Like, say, 2-3 multimeltas+Meltas, and 3-4 Assault cannons+Plasma? And combiweapons? Be pretty fun. Coming in from the sides and all. Don't know how practical it is in gameplay, but would be worth playtesting.