Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey guys. I've got a game later today (graveyard shift, so i got plenty of time for responses ), and im fine tuning my army list, which got me thinking.

My opponent is going to be orks, pretty heavily mechanized. as in everything is in a trukk unless its a kan/deffdread/deffkopta/is in his BW. The lists i usually run also are fairly heavy on the mec side, with rhino's for every squad. But now i'm thinking, he is going to need to be in close combat- So why am i racing forward to meet him? Instead of using my superior shooting and running at him whilst he runs at me, i get the feeling it might be a bit more effective to drop my 4 Rhino's(plus havoc launcher & 2 Combiweaps), take a dakkapred/Havoc squad with 4 AC's to shoot him more as he crosses the field, and then countercharge his units with Bezerkers/term+sorcerer (nurgles rot) etc? I've already got a ML toting Havoc squad, so that and a Dakkapred/ another Havoc squad should be able to pop transports and eat up the contents. Im confident my 2 zerker squads and terms will have enough punch to countercharge what does make it across the field to assault me.

Can anyone come up with flaws in this idea? any suggestions? I am limited in choice by my models, and so is he, so suggestions of "You should be fielding a DP! with Lash!" are just going to make my wallet wince

Rhino's are great.
I go for a min. of 3.
BUT, they don't fit everyone's playstyle. Mech favors more of a short range firefight before combat.

Combat mech can be done, but it's more of a reactive force, as getting off the charge from a rhino needs planning a turn before.

3+ is a decent number of rhinos, but beware of too many and inflating kill points too high.
The rhino's do need some more armor/target saturation in the form of some hvy support (always crowded FoC slot).

Rhino's allow you to tank shock, and deliver short range death.
What's better, tank shocking to bunch up a bit, disembark with double (or one time triple shot) flamers covering the bunched up orks.

Zerkers work well with counter charging, which is something orks really hate (losing momentum).

My 7 Cents.

I couldn't agree with you more. I run 4 of the buggers, how could you not love 'em! the reason his Deffdread has never bothered me is rhino w/ combimelta and 2 meltaguns inside.

But, considering his list and gameplan, I'm thinking those points might be better spent popping his transports instead of going where he wants me to be

Use them as mobile terrain. Place them in front when he starts to get close, moving each more than 6 inches so he hits on 6s. Next turn move the rhinos and charge him. Theyre also necessary at the end of the game when you need to race to an objective.

Also, if he decides to charge the rhinos, use your flamethrowers to hit 15 of them in one shot

4 vanilla rhino's are 140 points. 140 points for mobile terrain seems a bit odd to me, especially in small elite force like CSM's. Since i also had 2 combi weaps and a Havoc launcher, I've got the points for another havoc squad with ML/AC. And my gameplan is to shoot/mop up popped transports contents until a counterassault. Mobile Terrain doesn't seem as good of a fit in plan as a squad of havocs with ML/AC.

We have played several games with heavy ruins on them (my friend has some wicked ruin terrain peices), creating a demolished cityblock. The mobile terrain rhino shone like nothing else- especially as roadblocks! Stopped IG from getting 2 objectives, just because he thought the rhino's weren't a valuable target

Yep, like Night Lords says, mobile terrain.

For assault armies, rhinos let you "cut a slice" off a bigger army with tank shocks, isolate part of the army from other units, and assault/wipe out the isolated section. Then you can either hop in your surviving rhinos and drive off, or keep maneuvering the rhinos to slow his advance (make him go around) so that you deal with the bigger army piecemeal.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Yep, like Night Lords says, mobile terrain.

For assault armies, rhinos let you "cut a slice" off a bigger army with tank shocks, isolate part of the army from other units, and assault/wipe out the isolated section. Then you can either hop in your surviving rhinos and drive off, or keep maneuvering the rhinos to slow his advance (make him go around) so that you deal with the bigger army piecemeal.

Much better arguement for mobile terrain. definately making this a harder decision, but i think i'm going to go with the Havocs. I've used them a bit as mobile terrain, but i think some personal experience with other options will help for making lists in the future. But using rhino's to divide and conquer is definately something my friend will be dealing with in the future

But, would you put combiflamers on the rhino's for this tactic? I think it might bump up their cost a little too much.

Im more of a Razorback man myself. While the transport ability is not all there, against horde armies, Orks included, the TLHB have come in handy more than once.

I rarely take more than 2 rhinos, just a personal thing.

There are no razorbacks for chaos.

Here are a few things.

As an Ork player, mech armies are incredibly difficult to deal with. This is made even more apparent due to the extreme suckage of Ork Mech -- Truuks are not as good as Rhino's and Battlewagons cost to much for what they deliver. Just by going Mech, you are gaining a psychological advantage on the orks.

When I am playing against a marine player, I want to get my truuk boys into assault as quickly as possible. Rhinos make this much more difficult.
If a tactical squad is in a Rhino, I need to use truuk boys Nob to PK the rhino. After doing this, the marine squad escapes unscathed. This means that my orks have engaged the wrong target, allowing the marines to move around the wreckage and place 20 rapid fire bolter shots into the squad of 12 orks -- not a pretty sight.

15 Burna boys in a battlewagon is a different story. Your screwed here if they get close. If the flame template from the truuk manages to catch 5 models -- not at all unrealistic, the law of averages show that the following will happen.
* 50 man IG blob squad will be wiped
* 30 man Ork squad will be wiped
* 10 man Marine squad will be wiped
* 7 terminators will be killed.
That rhino will keep your squad from getting burned to a crisp.

The one drawback is the rider's in the rhino can't assault in the same turn they come out, least in most case's so they would have to be shooty marine's (Noise Marine's Sterngaurd or Stormbolter's)
Land Raider's are great cause not only do you have a Giant ass tank on the field you got one full of Assualt Termy's or Zerker's or something of cource lovely being put onto the enemy's doorstep, you know like the gift's a kitty will leave ya?

OK, I disagree about meching up messing with Orks.

I run very shooty Orks with 2 mobs of Lootas and 2-4 RokkitKoptas, plus either BWs or a Kan wall. I must say that nothing short of a LR bothers me in the least. Heck with boardingplanks and claws in the BWs or 9 Kans even LRs are not THAT terribly scary...annoying, yes, but not scary.

With that said, against Orks, I suggest either using LRs or no transports at all. Then, invest in more stuff that actually kills Orks instead of transports that are going to die horribly fast anyway, thus giving away KPs while earning nothing back fro you.

Shadowbrand wrote:The one drawback is the rider's in the rhino can't assault in the same turn they come out, least in most case's so they would have to be shooty marine's (Noise Marine's Sterngaurd or Stormbolter's)
Land Raider's are great cause not only do you have a Giant ass tank on the field you got one full of Assualt Termy's or Zerker's or something of cource lovely being put onto the enemy's doorstep, you know like the gift's a kitty will leave ya?

What? Youre not moving the rhino. They can do whatever they want.

If its destroyed by a PK, then it was your opponents turn and you can move as well (provided youre not pinned). So either case, the marines can do what they want.

Keep em.

The Orks will have to smash through them just to get to your marines, and your havoc launchers are doing what your Havocs would be doing anyways.

The rhinos can still be valuable. As others have said they add an extra layer of protection to your squads. If you are expecting a charge from the Orks make sure you move to make it harder to hit the transport. If the ork player takes the charge anyway you can now deploy on the opposite side of the transport take your move, fire pistols/assault weapons and follow with a charge.

Grabbing some extra toys for your army might seem like a decent idea but leaving marines out in the open leaves your infantry open to shooting. Also anything wanting to charge them only needs to wade right into them.
The rhino offers mobility, protection, cover and the ability to perform tank shocks.
Nothing super amazing but its worth it IMO.

The trick with using your rhinos against the orks- is letting them take a charge.

This works in your favor a couple of ways-
First- PK's can pen Rhinos pretty easy- a Destroyed:Explodes can hit lots of boyz that all have crap armor.
Second-if the rhino gets popped and your guys get ejected- they get to shoot and charge on your turn.

Charging the orks works in your favor- it means you're denying them the chance to Waaaagghh- so you're assuring you strike first which means you take fewer hits , and you're reducing thier S- which means fewer wounds. A large squad counts as fearless, so dont forget about the extra wounds from the fearless/combat resolution, those are particularly harsh on orks with their weak armor saves.

So, the rhinos are a utility unit- use them to tank shock, or as a speed bump to break up the charges.

I agree with mistress here--- rhinos are an absolute must for any marine army. They just give too many advantages and tactical options to pass up.

Labmouse and Mistriss have the right idea. You set the rhinos in the ork player's face, and say "assault me, or move away, either way you're screwed."

However, if you are using the "deffrollas can ram" rule, then it becomes far, far less viable as then the ork player can kill the rhinos in the movement phase, a much more dangerous proposition.

ah yes... the nebulous rules situation in regards to deffrollas. Quite frankly ... I think deffrollas are just ridiculous in the sense of insta-ramming and then simply penetrating with ... what was it D6 Str 10 hits or something? I haven't seen it used in our circles for some time so I can't quite remember.

The thing is against any Ork army with Boarding planks, Deffkoptas or Lootas (especially Lootas), Rhinos become a liabilty, fast.

With Boarding planks you have a similar problem to "ramming rollas", because the orks do not have to disembark in order to pop your transport.

Koptas can easily first turn shoot + assault Rhinos and pop them with Buzzsaws, leaving your SMs stranded, thus open to assault or shooting.

Lootas absolutely destroy rhinos...not even smoke helps with all those shots.

Around here you WILL face at least one of these tricks against any ork player (my army has all 3), so Rhinos do nothing against Orks in our local games.

Triple Land Raiders, however, still continue to be a great option, because only the PK nobs/Boss can really do much to them, thus negating both Koptas and Lootas completely.

Don't you wish you had a Redeemer pattern Land Raider right about now?

Ork-kebob! It's the new veggie-burger!

LRRs make my Orks cry....

ehh, I guess it' just been a long time since we've seen a mixed Ork force here. I remember the deffkoptas being annoying and the Lootas were of course just silly for Orks to have. I mean come on people... Mass Ork Autocannons? Wtf, lol

Good to see some discussion, but stop recommending Redeemer Land Raiders to chaos players T_T

LOL..we weren't recommending LRRs to you, we were pointing out how sad it is that you don't have access to them

Chaos should seriously have some land raider variants other than "possessed" and "non-posssessed."

Also, bring back the infernal spirit. There's a reason why space marine land raiders are finally seeing use after years, and although the shiny new variant is nice, it's not what's making Land Raiders useful: the new Machine Spirit rules are.

I will say this.. being able to move 12", pop smoke, deploy the troops and still being able to fire a weapon is ridiculously awesome.

Being able to move 6" and fire both redeemer cannons is what makes the redeemer a huge, huge threat.

What I would like to see from Chaos variants is either a special type for each God, or a pure assault-oriented version that costs less, but has less weaponry.

I also think that hull-mounted reaper autocannons+sponson multi-melta+special side weapon would be a nice way to go, as according to fluff (which may be outdated) the reaper autocannon was the precursor to the autocannon.

There could be tons of ways to give chaos some more flavorful options.

Didn't read all the responses, but honestly I think keeping Rhinos is the way to go. They gotta get through the shell to get to the creamy center. Also, you can shoot your special weps outta the tops anyway, so while they work on taking down your rhinos you can be flamer/lascannon/meltaing their faces off. Lastly, rhinos are invaluable terrain if needed. You can just make your marines hop out the top and force the orks to assault you on toppa the vehicle.

yeah.. I still agree. Even though the one ork-a-riffic player pointed out Lootas can blow through them easily there's still the big factor involved to remember...

They have to blow through them

If you didn't have a rhino the same ork players would proceed to laugh and loota/deff rolla you to kingdom come much, much easier.