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OK guys, since three people have refuted the math hammer, I think that we need to write a HOW TO for doing math hammer. if you really want to get technical AND use math to figure this out....this is the breakdown.
3 shots at 33/36 = 2.75 successful psychic tests.
2.75 x 2/3 (to hit) = 1.83333 hits and ANYTHING but a 1 will do damage so ... 1 in six is ignored or .305555 of hits do nothing.
1/6 is a glance that will immobilise or better on a 5 or a 6 since it is AP 1. Five minus two (glance) plus one (AP1) = immobilised and a 6 is a wreck so
.1018518 immobilise or better, PLUS the other penetrating results of 3-6. since three through six amount to 2/3 of the final results rolled then of the remaining % of hits which (1.83333 - .305555 for ones and - .305555 for glances ) = 1.222222 hits times (2/3) immobilise or better since AP1 adds one to the damage roll making a 3 a immobilised result on a penetrating hit. since 3-6 are two thirds of the possible results for a penetrating hit then we can multiply 1.222222 x (2/3) = .8148148% immobilise or wreck the land raider.
you then add to this the .10185185% from glances and you get the total of .9166% imobilised or wrecked landraiders per 3 zoanthroaps shooting per turn, unless i am missing something
and if you include a librarian in this equation, he negates less than 50% of psychic tests since ties go to the psycher not the hood. even so you still immobilise or better greater than 45% of the time.

you didn't take the Psychic test into account.

that lowers the chance of success by a good amount.

I did. thats the 33/36 chance since only a 11 or 12 will result in a test failing. and ... of the 36 possible combinations you can roll with 2 dice, only (5,6) (6,5) and (6,6) result in fails.
BTW grey templar I really like your location. Awsome.

I am perfectly aware of how mathhammer works, sennacherib. Probabilities are a fairly simple branch of maths--my error was in execution (go back and look at my figures, I used the Lance rule to reduce AV to 13, not 12). I apologize for the needless correction. 92% to immobilize or destroy is in fact the correct figure.

All good. i have been having it out with people about numbers, and having three people post lower conflicting numbers was really getting to my orky side. and i SUCK at math, having failed algebra seven times.

Now rerun those numbers with a psychic hood in the mix because a zoey's 18" range on the lance with a minimum 24", almost universally 24" plus hull size on the hood.

Suddenly the numbers aren't quite so good and rosy.

the Psychic hood cuts the chance by 45% or so.

Grey Templar is right....then the chance of immobilising or better dips down to 53.46%

In all lists have a plan if you meet AV14. Especialy AV14 hammernators.

Easy solutions can be tyranofex (not so good vs the landraider, better as a general unit) a trygon (the snake right?) who charges and the humle 3xzoantropes.

Do not pod the zoantropes unles you list ios very mobile. You want the landraider dead in turn 2, not in turn 2+ with the reserve roll.

*IF* you are going to use Zoanthropes at all you must pod them. If you do not the other guys has turns/time to simply torrent them down with whatever fire power is available and play keep-away while they walk around. Ask Space Marines how far a save of three goes with 4 toughness. That's about how tough a Zoey is, only with an extra wound and it's invul. They're not exactly T6 W6 monster damage sponges. You have got to pod them in and try to get what shots you can get while you can get them. This incidentally also gets the other guy to dump his Str 8+ stuff into an invul save instead of chipping away at your monstrous creatures.

I Disagree w/ above.
A good Nids list will be pressing you with a number of threats at one time. If you Zoan get shot at, then some other unit in your army is Not getting shot at. Niiai is on the money here. Do not pod throaps. If you do they may not be around when you need them.

All you need to do is immobilise it and it's dead/useless.

A genestealer brood with adrenals can always glance it to uselessness. 20 stealers on the charge - 60 rending attacks at S5, so a good chance of a few glances. Add a broodlord with S6 on the charge and you even have a chance to pen! Ymgarls can do it as well.

Not the most optimal choice, but if you run a couple of stealer broods anyway then why not. If termies do then pop out and assault back the rending can make a mess of half a dozen termies - especially as they will go first!

sennacherib wrote:I Disagree w/ above.
A good Nids list will be pressing you with a number of threats at one time. If you Zoan get shot at, then some other unit in your army is Not getting shot at. Niiai is on the money here. Do not pod throaps. If you do they may not be around when you need them.

How is walking Zoanthropes around at all representative of target saturation? The number of turns it takes walking them into position with an 18" attack is not inconsiderable, especially given that Mycetic Spores will usually take about the same amount of turns. With them walking the enemy can just shoot whatever mid-strength firepower at the Zoeys they have not dedicated to any other high priority threats and try to whittle down their wounds while moving away from them. A Zoanthrope sucking up heavy bolter rounds is far less useful than a Zoanthrope bouncing lascannon shots off his invul save and the opponent is not going to go for Str 8+ instant killing a Zoanthrope on your side of the board the turn a Trygon has showed up in his face.

"Zoanthropes... 50% of the time, they work every time!"

Where I roll my dice, if there is a land raider, there is a null zone librarian, so.. you land with your pod, the muted trumpet fail-song plays, then the space marine player says 'null zone!' and since he is protected from the shadow in the warp by the shockingly terrible nid FAQ, it goes off, and then the zoanthropes get embarrassed back in to your carrying case by incidental bolter fire.

I've got my three adrenal trygons, and I hope for the best. It's not as easy to handle land raiders with nids as it is with marines or IG, or eldar/dark eldar, but I've managed to kill them off with trygons for the most part, its a close run thing, but its adequate.

And like someone else said in the thread... it could be worse, we could be using the ork codex

Shep wrote:"Zoanthropes... 50% of the time, they work every time!"

Brilliant.

Consider that line stolen!

+1 to Shep. 50% of the time, he's right every time.

Big ole trygons get the job done. Do or do not, there is no try....gon!

Zopes have worked fine for me vs. LR. The 18" range is mitigated by the fact the LR wants to drive into you to drop off it's passengers to assault. I see very few LR's hugging the board to shoot anymore.

Except for my forays into reserve lists I stopped using zoanthropes and haven't looked back. Rather have a unit that can potentially deal with the raider and what's inside along with the more efficient transport killing hive guard. Two adrenal trygons and other misc MCs have worked fine by me for Land Raiders. Anecdotally, I played in a tournament this weekend and faced two A13/14 heavy Blood angel armies and won both games without issue.

MekanobSamael wrote:

sennacherib wrote:If you make a kill, you've made your points back. If you stop it from delivering its cargo, so much the better. The math says that zoeys are a fairly reliable way to taking out an LR without getting as close as MCs do and thus subjecting themselves to Thunder Hammers. Remember, there's nothing more hilarious than taking out a gang of Hammernators with a swarm of Hormagaunts.

Oh yeah! Last game i had against my SM-buddy, it came down to his last stand with LR /w Termies, Cmd Sqd and 10 Veterans. As the LR was immo'ed, i had made a line of gants to screen the Aslt Termies, while my HT and Tervi'es were breaking it apart.
His turn came; so in Aslt-phase, he send in 5 Assault Termies, 6-man Command Squad and 10 Sternguard Veterans, to finish off my leftover 7 Termagants (used them as a screen right outside the hatch (LR was immo'ed), with my MCs smashing it to prevent getting assaulted, if the LR didn't break.). I then roll off with my Gants, i get lucky, score 4 wounds on his Assault Termies, and his saving throw:
1... 1... 1... aaaand 1....

But basically, against LR's, i even tend to use Hive Guards against it (after they've shot down Transports and other low-armored targets). If i can get the Immobilised result, it's pretty much done for. I use my lil' guys as a screening unit, so that the direct path to my MC's are cut off at all times, and buff the frontline up with FnP.

But i must say, the LR ain't easy to down. I've had 3 MCs smashing away, and only getting weapon destroyed/immo' results... LR's are tough to down, but 'Nidz always has ways to get around their weaknesses!

Thanks sennacherib.

A 4th solution (to tervigon charge, zoanthropes and tyranofex) is mawlock + gargoyles. It is not so good as your list probably would want some lictors to do it.

what you do is you suround the land raider (or the tank you want dead) with units in all sides, and then your mawlock lands in the moddel. What happends is that the 'lock destroy the landraider because it is now illegal to place it.

Although this list would need some balls to get it done right. It could work. Mawlocks have a lott of wounds for what they cost, they have nifty abilaties including hit and runn. But if you are a fayrly new tyranid player I would sugest sticking to what the major consensuss on the net says work.

Personally I am not a fan of using zoenys for land raiders, since the contents kill them. I prefer to attack targets that I can drop and keep killing. I love the tryanofex and genestealers for dealing with land raiders.

Remember that if you assault a land raider and immobilize/stun it (or the opponent keeps it still for some reason) and are in base contact during the SM assault phase, your models get to attack again as if they were locked in combat using their regular attacks value. Can really save time in getting those auto hits on the marine turn to potentially rip apart a vehicle and move onto tastier bits on your turn.

There is a section in the BRB that confirms this rule but i can't remember a page number ATM.

what you do is you suround the land raider (or the tank you want dead) with units in all sides, and then your mawlock lands in the moddel. What happends is that the 'lock destroy the landraider because it is now illegal to place it.

Remember though. You would have to surround the land raider, then your opponent doesn't move it or kill your gargoyles, and then your mawlock accurately comes in.

Reserve units are the first to move/be deployed, so the strategy really doesn't work. It is an incidental occurrence and nothing more.

Niiai wrote:Thanks sennacherib.

A 4th solution (to tervigon charge, zoanthropes and tyranofex) is mawlock + gargoyles. It is not so good as your list probably would want some lictors to do it.

what you do is you suround the land raider (or the tank you want dead) with units in all sides, and then your mawlock lands in the moddel. What happends is that the 'lock destroy the landraider because it is now illegal to place it.

Although this list would need some balls to get it done right. It could work. Mawlocks have a lott of wounds for what they cost, they have nifty abilaties including hit and runn. But if you are a fayrly new tyranid player I would sugest sticking to what the major consensuss on the net says work.

Yeah that's pretty much not going to happen. Reserves come in at the beginning of the movement phase. So unless your opponent ignored the gargoyles surrounding his vehicle for an entire turn it's a no-go. This kind of sniping with the Mawloc is suggested a lot but it's not practical on the table. The next step that will probably be brought up is 'well you can just use a lictor!' and yeah we've all heard that one before. It's been discussed to death by many, many 'nid players and outside of some fringe elements it's discarded as useless and impractical.