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There is no point in subbing the LR for other tanks, imho.

the vanilla LR has 2 TLLC. They are great for destroying tanks, and if you want to sit on a objective, then you can shoot them both!

besides, if you got rid of one, how would you transport your sternguard?

Ryan_A wrote:

Nevelon wrote:I think the MM bike/speeder thing comes down to preference. They both do the same job, with different perks/weaknesses. I often include a MM speeder in my army. It gets a lot of work done for the points I spend on it and I like the way it looks. Barring corner cases, I believe that you could just swap them out in any list and it would work out just the same. They are close enough together in effectiveness that how the dice gods are feeling is more important then which one you bring to the table.

As for the tactical squads, don't think of them as paying extra points for anti-armor, but think of what you are doing with the points you already spent on them. All of my lists have at least 2 tac squads. One with ML/F the other with MM/M, both in rhinos. The ML hangs back to cover my objectives, while the box-o-melta pushes forward into enemy ground. Your basic tac squad is not a shiny as the elite specialist units, but give them the tools and they will get the job done. And you are fielding two of them anyway, might as well put them to work.

I agree with your summary of bike/speeder, what do you mean on corner cases? Speeder bikes are better there ya?

I personally hate rhinos, armor 11 KPs carry 10 troops? NO THANKS lol. Thats just me though, my old army was great, except when it came to two things, heavy armor, and KPs. So I am a little obsesive over it if you havn't noticed loloololol. I don't field any tac squads anymore, I used to field 3, but they really just say there with an M.Launcher an objective as a M.launcher turret.

Corner cases are going to be those little oddball things that show up. For example, if your game board is an agriworld where all the cover consists of low walls and tall grass, the bikes are going to be in cover all the time, while the speeders never will be. On the flip side, if you are fighting on a board covered with deep, impassable, crevices, the speeders are going to have a massive edge. Different armies might also have wacky rules that impact them in different ways as well; I don't own all the modern codexes, so couldn't give specifics.

I understand where you are coming from on KP, I'm working on my own army to try to reduce them myself. Rhinos give you a lot of mobility, but there is a price, not just in points, but easy KP. But you need to do something with your troop picks. If you invest a little extra in them, you can get big results. I like sniper scouts, but I feel that they don't pull their weight as well as they used to. Tactical squads are iconic; it feels wrong not to have a couple on the field. But I will admit to not being hyper-competitive.

spartiatis wrote:2 Rifleman Dreads
3 Typhoon Speeders
3 Predators with lascannon sponsons

=

problems solved

Never worry about the Land Raider across the board, always fear what they carry

Excellent suggestions. Not necessary to take all of the listed options, but 2 out of 3 of these options should solve most of your long range anti-tank needs for vanilla marines.

I typically employ 2 typhoon speeders and 2 preds with las sponsons when playing vanilla marines,

Ryan_A wrote:Good point, though I am not a big fan of drop pods, either they get their use and you suicided, or they don't get their use and your troops arrived where they wouldn've originally

Well, that's my point though. Drop pods aren't a dichotomy between in-your-face suicide or far-from-the-action uselessness. It is possible to play pods sensibly.

Wait, you think 10-man tac squads in a Rhino are squishy so you use... 5-man sniper scouts? Huh.

10-man tac squads in a Rhino is just as squishy as 10-man sternguard squads in a Rhino. Maybe less, since they will attract less fire.

Ironclads are the best option in the codex for damage potential and survivability.

Av 13 is basically impossible for missile spam to deal with reliably.

Drop pod in, pop smoke or if you have vulkan, using the melta gun works too.

The dread can be given defensive and offensive grenades, and it can be given two hunter killer missiles for those deployments were you don't want to drop.

Zambro wrote:There is no point in subbing the LR for other tanks, imho.

the vanilla LR has 2 TLLC. They are great for destroying tanks, and if you want to sit on a objective, then you can shoot them both!

besides, if you got rid of one, how would you transport your sternguard?

True, but if I was to play a smaller point value, I was thinking I would toss one of the LRs and 1 sternguard (or let them sit on an objective close to spawn) and then grab an anti-tank weapon and maybe throw in some assault marines (or some other anti personelle). Or if I wanted to use one of my other HQ's and roll a different army layout, I couldn't rely on sternguards as scoring, so they would switch to tac units and I might throw termies in 2 Lrs, then I'd have a good amount to have extra for tank killy stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nevelon wrote:

Corner cases are going to be those little oddball things that show up. For example, if your game board is an agriworld where all the cover consists of low walls and tall grass, the bikes are going to be in cover all the time, while the speeders never will be. On the flip side, if you are fighting on a board covered with deep, impassable, crevices, the speeders are going to have a massive edge. Different armies might also have wacky rules that impact them in different ways as well; I don't own all the modern codexes, so couldn't give specifics.

I understand where you are coming from on KP, I'm working on my own army to try to reduce them myself. Rhinos give you a lot of mobility, but there is a price, not just in points, but easy KP. But you need to do something with your troop picks. If you invest a little extra in them, you can get big results. I like sniper scouts, but I feel that they don't pull their weight as well as they used to. Tactical squads are iconic; it feels wrong not to have a couple on the field. But I will admit to not being hyper-competitive.

Infantry outside transports are more squishy than infantry inside transports.

heartserenade wrote:Infantry outside transports are more squishy than infantry inside transports.

Not neccicarily. If you have a squad in a light armored vehicle, there is a good chance that a few strength 7+ weapons are going to come to bare on it and do some damage (and some damage to the squad as well). However, if you have a squad out in the open but out of reach of small arms fire, your enemy is probably not ganna waste that laz cannon and forfeit the rest of his squads fire just for a 50/50 chance (at best) to take out one of your guys. More than likely he is ganna aim that thing at a vehicle. If your have a light transport carrying a squad to an objective, the last thing you want is to suffer an imobilization or a destroyed-Explodes! and your whole squad is sitting out in the open, all with str3 hits. Or at the very least they are sitting in a precarius place due to the transport benig immobilized/destroyed (50% chance if just one scores a pen hit). Personally I think if you are ganna transport your troops, you don't give them av 11 crap unless you want them to be an easy target and you really really want your enemy to have a free KP. You either give em av 14 or you don't give your enemy a KP. I would rather have the enemy ignore my squad on ground and try to use that laz on something else if my squad is in the open (or they could throw it away on a 50/50 chance of taking one of my guys out) than giving them a big heaping av 11 35pt KP and stranding my squad there as their assault is incomming. Just me though, its a valued tactic by many even though I don't agree with it.

Right, transports are not about increased survivability. Between vehicle explosions, and being clustered together in a tiny footprint when they disembark (voluntarily or otherwise - especially otherwise) making blast and template fodder, things don't look good. Plus, you also have to spend the points on the transports that could have been spent on more models, which also hurts the relative durability of transports.

Really, the only practical thing a transport gives you durability-wise is that the transport (while it survives) acts as a speed bump against close combat.

The benefit of transports is their ability to focus short-ranged firepower. Put another way, the benefit of a transport is its ability to transport, and little else. Which, you know, is why they're so cheap.

I guess in the case of expensive transports like falcons and land raiders, they also have other stuff (like actually keeping troops safer, and having some real firepower of their own), but for most transports, it's just not the case.

Ailaros wrote:Right, transports are not about increased survivability. Between vehicle explosions, and being clustered together in a tiny footprint when they disembark (voluntarily or otherwise - especially otherwise) making blast and template fodder, things don't look good. Plus, you also have to spend the points on the transports that could have been spent on more models, which also hurts the relative durability of transports.

Really, the only practical thing a transport gives you durability-wise is that the transport (while it survives) acts as a speed bump against close combat.

The benefit of transports is their ability to focus short-ranged firepower. Put another way, the benefit of a transport is its ability to transport, and little else. Which, you know, is why they're so cheap.

I guess in the case of expensive transports like falcons and land raiders, they also have other stuff (like actually keeping troops safer, and having some real firepower of their own), but for most transports, it's just not the case.

This!!!!!
I cannot tell you how many battles I won with my raven guard army when I should've been destroyed, because for some reason they wanted to use light transports. Once they popped, I could move my assault marines out of cover and desimate anything there or alternatively throw some templates out and they would cave in.

Thats why I hate rhinos and I never use em, its a free KP and a great way to get your forces scattered all over the table with little support and they get destroyed.

And its why I bought 3 LRs. Mobile av14 bunker that holds 12 models and shoots 2 TL laz to pop tanks and has a TL heavy bolter for S&G? Yes please.

Ailaros wrote:Right, transports are not about increased survivability. Between vehicle explosions, and being clustered together in a tiny footprint when they disembark (voluntarily or otherwise - especially otherwise) making blast and template fodder, things don't look good. Plus, you also have to spend the points on the transports that could have been spent on more models, which also hurts the relative durability of transports.

Really, the only practical thing a transport gives you durability-wise is that the transport (while it survives) acts as a speed bump against close combat.

The benefit of transports is their ability to focus short-ranged firepower. Put another way, the benefit of a transport is its ability to transport, and little else. Which, you know, is why they're so cheap.

I guess in the case of expensive transports like falcons and land raiders, they also have other stuff (like actually keeping troops safer, and having some real firepower of their own), but for most transports, it's just not the case.

I can't tell you how many marine, ork, and guard players thought that they were a lot safer from my tyranids in their razorbacks and chimeras. Then they find out just how easily genestealers rip through 5 man tac squads, 12 boy mobz or 10 men guard squads once the Hive Guards take away their metal bawkses.

So you're saying that as long as you're out of range from small arms fire your troops are more survivable?

...in a unit that needs to be in small arms fire range to deal damage (unless all your sterns have, I dunno, lascannons)?

Huh.

Kain wrote:
I can't tell you how many marine, ork, and guard players thought that they were a lot safer from my tyranids in their razorbacks and chimeras. Then they find out just how easily genestealers rip through 5 man tac squads, 12 boy mobz or 10 men guard squads once the Hive Guards take away their metal bawkses.

Not sure if serious or being sarcastic.

starsdawn wrote:So you're saying that as long as you're out of range from small arms fire your troops are more survivable?

...in a unit that needs to be in small arms fire range to deal damage (unless all your sterns have, I dunno, lascannons)?

Huh.

Kain wrote:
I can't tell you how many marine, ork, and guard players thought that they were a lot safer from my tyranids in their razorbacks and chimeras. Then they find out just how easily genestealers rip through 5 man tac squads, 12 boy mobz or 10 men guard squads once the Hive Guards take away their metal bawkses.

Not sure if serious or being sarcastic.

Once you pop the transport, the small units are fodder for genestealer broods, and there aren't many units better at popping transports than hive guard for their points cost. Land raiders do give me problems though.

starsdawn wrote:So you're saying that as long as you're out of range from small arms fire your troops are more survivable?

...in a unit that needs to be in small arms fire range to deal damage (unless all your sterns have, I dunno, lascannons)?

Huh.

More survivable than having them be in an av11 vehicle, yes. I don't like stranded marines, and I don't like giving KPs away.
I said I have 3 LRs, so ya, getting in range with everything in tact isn't a problem.

Light armor transports are a curse that lose battles. I find that 90% of games they do more damage to the one fielding them then help. The other ten percent is either enemies being stupid, lucky dice, or amazing tactics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kain wrote:

starsdawn wrote:So you're saying that as long as you're out of range from small arms fire your troops are more survivable?

...in a unit that needs to be in small arms fire range to deal damage (unless all your sterns have, I dunno, lascannons)?

Huh.

Kain wrote:
I can't tell you how many marine, ork, and guard players thought that they were a lot safer from my tyranids in their razorbacks and chimeras. Then they find out just how easily genestealers rip through 5 man tac squads, 12 boy mobz or 10 men guard squads once the Hive Guards take away their metal bawkses.

Not sure if serious or being sarcastic.

Once you pop the transport, the small units are fodder for genestealer broods, and there aren't many units better at popping transports than hive guard for their points cost. Land raiders do give me problems though.

I understood what you were saying perfectly, I don't know why he responded like that... not sure if he is a troll or just had a bad day.

Are the majority of the battles you play KP based? because you seem polarised against transports.

Doomhunter wrote:Are the majority of the battles you play KP based? because you seem polarised against transports.

I have played a few tourneys in my local shop, KP based games have been the bane of me in the past. I did a few practice games with my new army, and KP games were very easy.

Kain wrote:

starsdawn wrote:So you're saying that as long as you're out of range from small arms fire your troops are more survivable?

...in a unit that needs to be in small arms fire range to deal damage (unless all your sterns have, I dunno, lascannons)?

Huh.

Kain wrote:
I can't tell you how many marine, ork, and guard players thought that they were a lot safer from my tyranids in their razorbacks and chimeras. Then they find out just how easily genestealers rip through 5 man tac squads, 12 boy mobz or 10 men guard squads once the Hive Guards take away their metal bawkses.

Not sure if serious or being sarcastic.

Once you pop the transport, the small units are fodder for genestealer broods, and there aren't many units better at popping transports than hive guard for their points cost. Land raiders do give me problems though.

First off, who takes 5-man tac squads or mobz of 12 boyz? 12 boyz?! Really.

Second, YOU have to pop the transport first. I imagine it's hard for your genestealers to kill them inside a transport, yes? That means transports do add survivability, if not then they're free to be killed by the genestealers without you having to pop their transport.

Third, if you do pop the transport and it exploded, you're assaulting on difficult terrain. Can't imagine it being good for your genestealers, striking at I1.

It's like saying "Your shield doesn't make you more resistant to damage! Granted, I have to destroy your shield first before I can damage you, but it doesn't really do anything! Really!" It doesn't make sense. Or in 40k terms, "Screening doesn't make your MC more survivable! I'll just have to kill the screening units so that you won't have a cover save! Ha!"

It's absurd.

starsdawn wrote:

Kain wrote:

starsdawn wrote:So you're saying that as long as you're out of range from small arms fire your troops are more survivable?

...in a unit that needs to be in small arms fire range to deal damage (unless all your sterns have, I dunno, lascannons)?

Huh.

Kain wrote:
I can't tell you how many marine, ork, and guard players thought that they were a lot safer from my tyranids in their razorbacks and chimeras. Then they find out just how easily genestealers rip through 5 man tac squads, 12 boy mobz or 10 men guard squads once the Hive Guards take away their metal bawkses.

Not sure if serious or being sarcastic.

Once you pop the transport, the small units are fodder for genestealer broods, and there aren't many units better at popping transports than hive guard for their points cost. Land raiders do give me problems though.

First off, who takes 5-man tac squads or mobz of 12 boyz? 12 boyz?! Really.

Second, YOU have to pop the transport first. I imagine it's hard for your genestealers to kill them inside a transport, yes? That means transports do add survivability, if not then they're free to be killed by the genestealers without you having to pop their transport.

Third, if you do pop the transport and it exploded, you're assaulting on difficult terrain. Can't imagine it being good for your genestealers, striking at I1.

It's like saying "Your shield doesn't make you more resistant to damage! Granted, I have to destroy your shield first before I can damage you, but it doesn't really do anything! Really!" It doesn't make sense. Or in 40k terms, "Screening doesn't make your MC more survivable! I'll just have to kill the screening units so that you won't have a cover save! Ha!"

It's absurd.

I see the point you are making to him (and to a lesser extent me).
Without a doubt it is an efective tactic. I am just scared shitless of relying on an av11 vehicle for anything. I had 2 bad games in my ravenguard when I used 4 rhinos. It was like popcorn. But I did have a few games where they were very helpful. I ended up selling them because the codex changed and I didn't want to use them anymore.

The rhino is very versitile, I just wish they weren't worth a KP, then they would be pretty much perfect, but I guess that is the balance.

Good point you raised.

Ryan_A wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

imweasel wrote:

spartiatis wrote:2 Rifleman Dreads
3 Typhoon Speeders
3 Predators with lascannon sponsons

=

problems solved

Never worry about the Land Raider across the board, always fear what they carry

Excellent suggestions. Not necessary to take all of the listed options, but 2 out of 3 of these options should solve most of your long range anti-tank needs for vanilla marines.

I typically employ 2 typhoon speeders and 2 preds with las sponsons when playing vanilla marines,

I see the benefit of preds with laz and rifleman dreads, but I don't see how typhoon speeders are an effective use of points. They only will last two turns and M.launchers obliderate them. One turn speant moving, the other turn shooting. 6 M.launcher shots for that price and losing a KP isn't my style, maybe I'll go a game when I try the suicide tactic, I hope my marines can forgive me.

You simply place the typhoons behind the Predators and get cover.
I use this all the time and my speeders survive. With so many priority targets, the opponnents seem to think twice about spending a shot that even if it penetrates, has a 50% chance to be negated.
And they do need to spend a turn moving, they are fast skimmers, so they move 6 and fire everything, or 12 and one weapon. Not to mention they are excellent late-game objective grabbers.

starsdawn wrote:

Kain wrote:

starsdawn wrote:So you're saying that as long as you're out of range from small arms fire your troops are more survivable?

...in a unit that needs to be in small arms fire range to deal damage (unless all your sterns have, I dunno, lascannons)?

Huh.

Kain wrote:
I can't tell you how many marine, ork, and guard players thought that they were a lot safer from my tyranids in their razorbacks and chimeras. Then they find out just how easily genestealers rip through 5 man tac squads, 12 boy mobz or 10 men guard squads once the Hive Guards take away their metal bawkses.

Not sure if serious or being sarcastic.

Once you pop the transport, the small units are fodder for genestealer broods, and there aren't many units better at popping transports than hive guard for their points cost. Land raiders do give me problems though.

First off, who takes 5-man tac squads or mobz of 12 boyz? 12 boyz?! Really.

Second, YOU have to pop the transport first. I imagine it's hard for your genestealers to kill them inside a transport, yes? That means transports do add survivability, if not then they're free to be killed by the genestealers without you having to pop their transport.

Third, if you do pop the transport and it exploded, you're assaulting on difficult terrain. Can't imagine it being good for your genestealers, striking at I1.

It's like saying "Your shield doesn't make you more resistant to damage! Granted, I have to destroy your shield first before I can damage you, but it doesn't really do anything! Really!" It doesn't make sense. Or in 40k terms, "Screening doesn't make your MC more survivable! I'll just have to kill the screening units so that you won't have a cover save! Ha!"

It's absurd.

Unless you intend to use your transport as little more than a glorified bunker or a diet-tank, the unit needs to be small for it all to fit in the transport and move with unit coherency. Small units as a rule do not preform well in assault, but the metal box they're hiding is their one trump card.

A trump card a single hive guard brood can remove very quickly. At this point, crashing a brood of 20 genestealers into that small squad is pretty much garaunteed to wipe it off the board in one go. A squad of marines small enough to all pile into a razorback or an ork mob in a trukk and move around is little more than free kill points to a 20 genestealer brood.

A full sized maxed out blob of Marines or Ork mob on the other hand, will generally not really care about the hive guards firing, and have enough bodies to tie up the genestealers for more than a single turn. In a game I played against the Eldar, I cracked open their grav falcon with one turn of Hive Guard shooting, and then that small squad of dire avengers inside the falcon was mashed in a single round of combat by genestealers without even getting to hit back.

But the footslogging dire avenger blob camping the objective was able to survive a round, long enough to hold firm until they could bring up some striking scorpions and hack apart the stealers.

I think the point was almost all vanilla SM lists (and those are the only lists that frequently uses tac squads) use Rhinos with a full tactical squad: BA Razorbacks have Assault Marines, while SW will have Grey Hunters. As for Razorbacks in Razorspam, they'll be more survivable than Rhinos against Hive Guard since they have the superior range and they do not need to stray inside the 24" range of the Hive Guard.

And Rhinos are mobile bunkers.

3 Attack Bikes w/Multi-Meltas - 150

I take 9 of these in my Vulkan list. 3 dead tanks a turn. Even if you don't twin link them, that's a ton of AV firepower in a cheap platform that's really easy to hide until you need them.

They're not hugely survivable, but keeping them out of LoS is easy. Just put them behind rhinos/razorbacks/raiders, move up the board, when you're in range of a target just use their 12" move to get into melta range and poof. Or just turble boost them first turn behind terrain, and then starting in your second turn they'll all be in melta range.

So Genestealers can kill 5 marines in a transport as long as you have a Hive Guard that's in range and maybe penetrate and maybe destroy the transport before you can assault them? Wow! Yes, they are guaranteed dead for sure!

You know what's easier to kill with genestealers? 5 marines without a transport! No Hive Guard in range that needs to pen and destroy needed!

Seriously. It's absurd. It's a bit like this:

Player A: I have genestealers that can kill your marines!
Player B: Oh yeah? Well I have a transport that can stop your genestealers!
Player A: Oh yeah? Well I have Hive Guard that will blow off your transport into pieces!
Player B: Oh yeah? Well I have Assault Terminators nearby that will charge your Hive Guard so they can't kill the transport!
Player A: Oh yeah? Well I have gaunts screening my Hive Guard so you can't charge them directly!
Player B: Well I have Son Goku as an IC and he will use Kamehameha to kill all your models
Player A: But I have a forcefield that is immune to Kamehameha!

starsdawn wrote:So Genestealers can kill 5 marines in a transport as long as you have a Hive Guard that's in range and maybe penetrate and maybe destroy the transport before you can assault them? Wow! Yes, they are guaranteed dead for sure!

You know what's easier to kill with genestealers? 5 marines without a transport! No Hive Guard in range that needs to pen and destroy needed!

Seriously. It's absurd. It's a bit like this:

Player A: I have genestealers that can kill your marines!
Player B: Oh yeah? Well I have a transport that can stop your genestealers!
Player A: Oh yeah? Well I have Hive Guard that will blow off your transport into pieces!
Player B: Oh yeah? Well I have Assault Terminators nearby that will charge your Hive Guard so they can't kill the transport!
Player A: Oh yeah? Well I have gaunts screening my Hive Guard so you can't charge them directly!
Player B: Well I have Son Goku as an IC and he will use Kamehameha to kill all your models
Player A: But I have a forcefield that is immune to Kamehameha!

5 marines in a razorback or ten marines with my mortal enemy, sergeant with a power fist. The hive guard will statistically do...pretty much nothing of import against the 10 marines but they will rip up the razorback, and then the genestealers come in and make ceramite confetti. They'll likely slaughter the ten man squad too though.

But of course, there is more than one variety of marine. Against 10 Bezerkers in a havoc rhino, the Rhino will get popped as before. The stealers will charge and likely cut down the bezerkers in one round. But against a twenty man bezerker squad, the stealers have virtually no chance of killing them all before they can hit back. If the Rhino is trying to get that Bezerker squad into combat, it's probably not shooting the Havoc Launcher, so it's a non issue.

As there's no way I'm going to waste hive guard shots on a MEQ unit, shooting will not be a factor from my end. The bezerkers may get to shoot their bolt pistols, so assuming one's a skull champion that means they get 19 shots, of which 12 hit and six wound, the plasma pistol also fires and may or may not get a hit and a wound. So the stealers are already down by six. On average, the stealers will get 21 hits with 7 rerolled from scything talons, 4 to 5 or so rending wounds, 18 regular wounds with toxin sacs, of which only six kill. The ten or nine remaining bezerkers will get fourteen to thirteen hits back, seven or six or so wounds, the stealers only save two hits. The skull champion will then swing, get two hits, both of which wound with his power fist, and no saves can be gotten for the stealers. So in total we have 11/10-9/8 in the stealers' favour. Some more bezerkers will drop from fearless wounds, but that unit is still in the game.

Better yet, the stealers still haven't gotten any kill points which can be decisive in the last round or so of the game.

starsdawn wrote:So you're saying that as long as you're out of range from small arms fire your troops are more survivable?

If you're in small arms range (and thus the transport is keeping your guys from being shot at by small arms - assuming it's even survived to this point), then you're in melta and plasma gun range. Instead of showing up with more infantry models, you're showing up with fewer, possibly even fewer than that due to a vehicle explosion, and you're showing up in a tiny little wad. And guess what, if you're in small arms range, you're in flamer range.

starsdawn wrote:It's like saying "Your shield doesn't make you more resistant to damage!

The shield only helps you at long range - a range at which the guys inside were unlikely to be all that seriously targeted in the first place, and the shield actually hurts you at close range when your opponent bypasses it. It's less of a shield, and more of a piece of plate glass that gives you the illusion of safety when it doesn't matter and gives you jagged shards of glass flying in your face when it does.

Were transports really a way to have overall more durability in your list, then every mech commander would instigate a highland charge with their vehicles every game. Instead, they hide in the backfield like a bunch of little girls, plinking with the longest ranged weapons they can buy. Hardly the sign of transports being more durable.

... Which brings us back to the OP. The OP wants anti-armor with survivability. Rhinos slightly increase their anti-tank power, but, at best, wash on increasing their survivability.

...and you pretty much miss the point entirely.

The fact that you need a hive guard that's in range (and it's not even guaranteed that you'll destroy the transport) just so you can hurt 5 marines means that the transport is offering protection that you need to deal with.

You didn't even factor in the fact that razorbacks have a longer range than Hive guard, so you need to be in range first, and razorspam lists tend to be static and shooty.

You even assumed that your Hive Guard will always pop the transport 100% and not miss, or you know, not penetrate or just shake/stun/immobilize it. Pray tell, gove me the mathhammer of how likely is it to get a destroyed/explodes result. It's not even close to 50%.

starsdawn wrote:...and you pretty much miss the point entirely.

The fact that you need a hive guard that's in range (and it's not even guaranteed that you'll destroy the transport) just so you can hurt 5 marines means that the transport is offering protection that you need to deal with.

You didn't even factor in the fact that razorbacks have a longer range than Hive guard, so you need to be in range first, and razorspam lists tend to be static and shooty.

You even assumed that your Hive Guard will always pop the transport 100% and not miss, or you know, not penetrate or just shake/stun/immobilize it. Pray tell, gove me the mathhammer of how likely is it to get a destroyed/explodes result. It's not even close to 50%.

6 BS4 S8 shots vs AV10 (Trukks) or AV11 (Rhinos and Razors).

4 hits.

Roughly three pens vs AV10 and 2 for AV11. That statistically means that I'll get at least one destroyed result for a trukk, and will at the very least cripple the Rhino or Razor.

If I really want it dead I'll just shoot it with a Rupture cannon.

2 shots, 1 hit, garaunteed penetration against trukks so I'm getting a 2/3 chance of rendering it incapable of doing it's job of bringing those orks in my face will at least glance Rhinos and Razors.

As for Razorbacks, the Razor lacks any weapons that are terribly efficient against Hive Guard that can actually outrange them, so they're probably going to get in impaler cannon range. Lascannons you say? Still only dealing one wound on a two wound unit, you've accomplished absolutely nothing. Focus fire? I have three broods of three, pick and choose, and if you're going all lascannons or lasplas (the only way your razorbacks are going to wipe out a hive guard brood in one turn) then you have more or less gimped your own ability to deal with hordes.

I think me and Ailaros can agree that MSU is not god and Hordes are not crap like far too many people think.

starsdawn wrote: the transport is offering protection that you need to deal with.

So? I have to deal with whatever my opponents bring, whether it's a transport or not. If my opponent doesn't bring transports, I have to deal with whatever my opponent brings, and if he does, I have to deal with what he brings.

I mean, you're saying that transports are good because I have to shoot at them with the things I specifically brought to deal with them before I shoot at the marines with things I specifically brought to shoot at the marines?

Gasp...

Yeah, because I totally said that MSU is god and horde is crap. Like, tooooooootally.

I also didn't say that the razorbacks are there to kill the Hive guard. What I said that you need to get in range first because they're most likely staying at the back and can even run away from you if need be (especially with BA razors).

What I'm arguing against is your line of thinking that, somehow, having a unit that may possibly be not in range and may possibly miss and may possibly not penetrate and may possibly be killed/assaulted before they fire their weapons makes surefire mincemeat of the insides of a transport. There's a lot of things you haven't considered and you act as if, somehow, having Hive Guards and Genestealers would surely produce the exact same results, thus making transports useless because.. hive guard and genestealers, maaan!

And again, who uses trukks? Who uses 5-man tac squads?!