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One thing that people haven't mentioned, which boosts the survivability and utility of Rhinos in 6th, is Night Fighting.

Over 50% of the time (think Night Attacker USR) it's going to be Night Fighting during the first turn. If your opponent goes first, he's going to have a hell of a time hitting your Rhinos and getting results to stick especially if they're behind an ADL. If you go first, you may be happy that you've got those Search Lights. If you've got 4 Lascannon Havocs and a nice juicy tank lined up, hitting it with Search Lights will help YOU score First Blood.


I personally am not planning to run Rhinos with my CSM in 6th edition but that's mostly because I'm moving from min squads of Plague Marines in Rhinos to larger footslogging units. I wouldn't disregard Rhinos altogether.

In my experience, first blood is not a huge consideration. I don't let first blood change my lists. I face tabling at the hands of Eldar and Tau. I'm more concerned about last blood.

Rhinos have done pretty well for me lately, except for one battle where one got assaulted by terminators. That kind of sucked. Other than that, I find them pretty useful. I blocked an assault by Howling Banshees one game. (I don't know why he was using howling banshees.) Once in a while a Rhino will take a silly amount of fire power to take down and sometimes they pop like a balloon.

Kind of funny to see Ailaros act like he plays good opponents.. Dakka is always good for some laughs.

I think the panic over First Blood and transports is a bit silly. With adequate terrain coverage you can easily hide a couple of Rhinos to deny FB (there are also ADLs, Skyshields, Bastions, Night Fight and other things i'm probably forgetting that can boost their durability).

Rhinos have plenty of advantageous uses that Labmouse did an excellent job of outlining. And as hyv3mynd mentioned, they provide a great deal of mobility which cannot be easily quantified. For it's point cost the Rhino is an effective transport, no more, no less. The only reason people have such an aversion to them now is because they are still holding on to their preconceived expectations of what a Rhino will do. Unfortunately 5th edition came and went and the role of the Rhino and other similar transports has dramatically changed.

Every army in 40k needs mobility. In that sense Rhinos offer a lot to every marine player. But as always, it is difficult to recommend a unit without knowing the army list and how they will interact, so YMMV.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:
One thing that people haven't mentioned, which boosts the survivability and utility of Rhinos in 6th, is Night Fighting.

Over 50% of the time (think Night Attacker USR) it's going to be Night Fighting during the first turn. If your opponent goes first, he's going to have a hell of a time hitting your Rhinos and getting results to stick especially if they're behind an ADL. If you go first, you may be happy that you've got those Search Lights. If you've got 4 Lascannon Havocs and a nice juicy tank lined up, hitting it with Search Lights will help YOU score First Blood.

Is it safe to assume that when BA gets updated they will get free searchlights stock on their vehicles? It's kind of dumb how they have to pay for it.

 Ailaros wrote:

hyv3mynd wrote:Like I said claim what you want, but your anecdotal evidence is based on playing altered missions in a meta that's very different than mine.

I am not making any claims based on personal experience, much less a few anecdotes. Please stop ad homineming this.

Ailaros, that's not an attack on your personal character.

Its highly doubtful that anyone would go onto this forum and deliberately give bad advice to people. There are better things to do with your time.
As such, we all are speaking from our life experiences. It may be your life experiences that you have found rhinos to be death traps that hurt you. It has been my life experience that they have been useful for the reasons I pointed out in the article I wrote.

 Ailaros wrote:
If I lived in a world where my opponents brought terrible lists without killing power, and couldn't figure out what multi-assaults were, or what target prioritization was, or how to have units work in synch with each other, then maybe, MAYBE it would be worth all the risks to bring them, but even then, probably not.

And you think that I play in a meta where people don't?

Surprisingly, the people who play at the local area are extraordinarily good. If you ever get up to the new england area I suggest looking up Battleground Games or The Battle Standard. Play in some local RTT's, and you will find yourself blow away by the caliber of players.

And yet I can still play in this environment using the list I showed in my article and faired well. I never had the rhinos turn into 'death traps', as I avoided letting that happen to me by proper movement. At worst, they gave up first blood in a few missions -- but in most of the RTTs and GTs I play in first blood is downgraded. Look at the NOVA missions for example. First blood rarely plays a significant part. Compared to delivering my plague marines to where they needed to be, and allowing me to scurry off 1-2 remaining plague marines from a squad to a safe spot for later contesting/grabbing they were an absolute deal.

I also found them to be difficult to play against using my helldrakes. You said that I should have just focused on the rhino with my other tools and then burned the squad inside. Its not that easy man. Do you focus on a rhino full of marines, or those 3 psydreads blowing your havocs away? (as a side note, thats why I swapped the havocs later for predators, but that's another show).

When playing FMC builds I had problems with rhinos for the same reasons I mentioned earlier. You had to destroy the shell to get to the candy goodness inside. This was not always easy as I would have to leave swooping mode and then I would get shot down.

To summarize. Were both speaking from our personal experiences. In both of our eyes were 'right'. Were not going to change either of our minds. The only question is this -- which advice will people take? That is why such discussions like we are having are so valuable. Its the many new players reading this forum that will get value from it.

First blood is nice when you can get it, but ultimately it's a tie breaker. If you and your opponent are close on points, it matters a lot. However, if there is a clear winner that might be your opponent's only point.

You can definitely build an army around winning on secondaries. My buddy had an Eldar army that he was EXTREMELY successful with before the new codex came out where he looked to deny the primary objectives and win on secondaries. So, to him, there were only three points in the game that mattered... First Blood, Slay the Warlord, and Linebreaker.

In my opinion, if you are that desperate to win First Blood, take a drop pod with sternguard in it or something that you can use to Guarantee First Blood. Short of that, you should try to get it yes but not hinder your list so much that you lose the mission.

Being able to move 12" and flat out 6" is pretty big. Sure you can't shoot, sure you could get stunned and snapfire (stupid rule) and sure you can't assault after. But if you have some marines with rapid fire weapons in there you won't be assaulting right away anyway.

Even if that 18" move only puts you in the next piece of cover it would be worth it.

I think the idea that you can ignore First Blood is a bit extreme, but that being said, I'm sure most people's lists have some element in it that could give it away just as easy.

For me I wouldn't have taken Rhinos in any lists last year because the meta revolved around lots of boots on the ground. This has changed thanks to the Heldrake, giving Rhinos a place once again to give your troops a fighting chance against that flamer.

Now admittedly I am basing my response on tournament play, which as labmouse pointed out, has toned down First Blood to a fairer standing. But there are always ways to mitigate First Blood with clever play no matter what units you are trying to protect.

Maybe you could put that bulls-eye intentionally on something like a rhino, an easy first blood, and use it to your advantage?

If you put it behind an aegis or slightly obscured by a building, your opponent will put a great deal of fire into it the first turn trying to get first blood. Objectively, a rhino is pretty low threat so you can potentially buy yourself a turn of lighter shooting by taking something so obvious?

When my opponent is shooting at my rhino (and they almost always go for the rhino) that means he's not shooting at something more useful. Run the rhino up, disembark and if he still shoots at the rhino, then you're troops survive for that much longer.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:
I think the idea that you can ignore First Blood is a bit extreme, but that being said, I'm sure most people's lists have some element in it that could give it away just as easy.

For me I wouldn't have taken Rhinos in any lists last year because the meta revolved around lots of boots on the ground. This has changed thanks to the Heldrake, giving Rhinos a place once again to give your troops a fighting chance against that flamer.

Now admittedly I am basing my response on tournament play, which as labmouse pointed out, has toned down First Blood to a fairer standing. But there are always ways to mitigate First Blood with clever play no matter what units you are trying to protect.

I ignore first blood because I'm BA and don't often have a good chance of getting it anyway. And yes, I often play shooty BA and *still* have a hard time with first blood. So why fret over 1 VP if its going to mess up my game?

Rhinos are First Blood. Hope no ones playing it otherwise.

I'm not, I just don't care.

The labmouse response is very well articulated and reasoned. It is very easy to hyperbolize and say that Rhinos are never ever ever worthwhile. They can be. However...

I still believe the downsides outweigh the positives.

First Blood

It isn't as much of a big deal at some tournies. Nevertheless, I played a RTT using the new Nova missions just a few weeks ago, and lost first round to a prominent player because of first blood. Nova's kill point mission does still use it as a VP. It is also worth noting that in our matchup, First Blood was not conceded until turn three. In a game with Rhinos, this would not have been the case.

For those people that mainly play book missions, First Blood is a huge deal. From my own experience, it is a decisive factor in most games of equal player skill and lists.

The effects of passengers

Exploding and pinning usually isn't the end of the world for MEQ. High toughness, saves, and leadership help in this area. Getting shaken/stunned does hurt. As does the inability to launch assaults after being blown out.

Cost versus what you get

6 Rhinos is the equivalent of adding another 15 Dark Angels, 15 CSM, or 14 GH. Ok...MEQ aren't very good right now. Still, 6 Rhinos also pays for 40 Guardsmen. Or 1.6 Vendettas. The list goes on.

Finally, why do you really NEED to get MEQ that close? Getting to midfield is relatively easy. I hate to say it, but I'd agree with Aliros that Drop Pods are more efficient.

Why are you using MEQ in general?

In 5th edition, MEQ were supposed to be the balanced army--great at nothing, but good at everything. They just so happened to be the best at just about everything. Xenos armies had some tricks, but often relied on complicated synergy to create a slightly more potent output than Marines. This edition, Xenos are back. They outshoot Marines. They bring more bodies. They beat them in close combat. The horror of failing leadership checks have been largely mitigated. Of course, we can't ignore the ubiquitous Helldrake.

I don't think that it is impossible to run a mechanized list. I don't think it is impossible to utilize Rhinos competitively. I also don't think it is the best idea.

I am impressed by the amount of thought that has gone into the lowly Rhino. The thread has given me alot to think about tactically.

One thing I didn't see (or perhaps missed) is getting your opponent to prioritize his shots. I have been using Coteaz w/ henchmen in a Chimera (my closest analogy to the Rhino) and even with all that firepower my opponents almost always fire at my other units because they feel the other units are the bigger threat.

Now if I am moving a squad of MEQ up the field it will draw attention, but if I don't have a deathstar in the Rhino my opponent's attention may be forced to another unit.

"All war is deception" - Sun Tzu

 illuknisaa wrote:
I don't think any vehicle can be first blood as to regarded as fisrt blood you need be able to remove the model as casualty. Vehicles are never removed as casualties they only suffer from effects of destruction.

Thats not the real rub, Rhinos become cheap blocking terrain you set up during play. You can have enough of them to block LOS to an army.

Got nasty firepower on a flank, move Rhinos to intercede, they are a 35pt storm bolter plus mobile barrier. The enemy gleefully shoots them, so what, now they cant draw a bead on your Vindicators, oh dear.
A Rhino assault doesnt actually need to haver an y infantry involved its good enough in a shooty army.

I still prefer Razorbacks though, nice and cheap with heavy bolters. Use them as turrets and mobile walls, if they are shot to bits they still function as a wall unless they blow up completely, yet while they persist they have useful gunnery.

If you are still not convinced ask yourself this. How many points would you pay to wall off a section of the firing line so you could advance behind full concealment? If itsd worth more than the number of Rhinos you think to do so x35, then Rhinos are useful to you even if a marine never sets foot in one.

Labmouse and Hyv3mynd have it right. The rhino can be worthwhile in games and definitely worth a look in the current meta. They add diversity of movement and protection to any marine list.

I disagree with Ailaros, and agree that his opinion is mission biased.

When 6th first came out, Rhinos were bunk. As players have adjusted, however, things are coming full circle. There is just soooo much effective anti-infantry right now that taking a transport is a great idea.

Mobility is just so key right now. Think of it as a 35pt shunt move with added utility; blocking, an extra grounding check, los-sniping, moving cover, tankshock shenanigans, searchlights, etc.

It just takes a little practice in order to get the full use out of them. While they are no longer the invincible assault transports they used to be, they're great for getting up to midfield for a nice redeploy/rapidfire. If it's still alive after that, get creative.

Edit:

Some counter points:

First Blood: Calling it "the most important part of 6th," is ludicrous. Hyperbole much? If it really is an issue (single objective games like The Relic and Emprah's Will), reserve them. If you haven't got first blood yourself by the time they come in, you prolly weren't gonna get it anyhow.

Effects on passengers: Really? This comes up sooooo rarely, it's proposterous. Either your rhino is wrecked thru weight of fire glances, or your opponent used real anti-tank (ap1/2), and those results are bypassed.

Cost: It's 35 pts. Out of.. 1850ish? Nothing. That's basically 2 Marines. The shots that Rhino will absorb will most likely save you at least 2 Marines.

Drop Pods: Yes, pods are good. However, besides putting the troop unit where you want, though offer ZERO utility after the fact. And you better hope your plans work out, because you aren't going anywhere else anytime soon. Also, Chaos, my main army and source of strategical input for this discussion, don't have pods. So.. How do you propose I get to that objective wayyyyyy over there?

Understand, there is a reason Tau still lose games. They have biiig problems getting troops into midfield and further.

Although I don't own a rhino, I have been shooting at them since 3rd, and I believe that they are one of the better transports around for the points, if not in the running for top cheap/effective transport.

Labmouse said it best, so I won't repeat his article, but I believe Alarios also hit a key point on the head. Drop pods are much better than rhinos.

If your playing space wolves, there is no question over rhinos or drop pods, as SW excel in pods. Nilla marines follow suite. Why run a rhino when you can get your sternguard,grey hunters or certain dreads in close to do their worst? Drop pods can also hold terminators, while rhino's can't.

However, in Labmouse's army, rhinos make perfect sense. Chaos have no drop pods, and he has other mech to saturate the board with. Yes, he is risking first blood, but if a rhino explodes his troops are far from dead. Plague marines laugh at a rhino explosion. You are looking at one plague marine dying from the explosion on average. In return, you get serious mobility and at least SOME protection from things that will kill your plague marines outright. Some is better than nothing, and for the cost the rhino compared to the plague marines, it is a pretty good bargain.

Another army that can effectively use a rhino is GK, because the GKSS have psycannons, which make effective use of the top hatch. A 10 man GKSS squad has 2 psycannons and 2 models shoot out of the hatch, making for a mobile pillbox. GKSS are far less durable from an explosion, but are also just MEQ on foot, making them quite vulnerable. GK also have no pods, and deep strike is riskier.

Overall, I agree that rhinos are by no means required, and not anything close to what they used to be, but they still have a place in certain armies and builds. They are no auto take, but they have uses.

Drop pods are not that good for BA. Plus, BA can move 24" a turn in Rhinos. The only units the BA have that excel in drop pods are sternguard and fragnoughts. DC and blender dreads are not good candidates for drop pods.

I will take the mobile cover for my bikers and jump marines any day over the "one and one" of drop pods for BA.

I do have a list that uses drop pods, but I'm dropping in Sternguard and fragnoughts. None of my other lists bother with them. The are a good way to piecemeal your own army and teleport yourself into rapid fire and assault range.

SOB use rhinos quite often. Since I'm somewhat forced to use them, I've grown an appreciation for them. 35 pts and it does so much.

Martel732 wrote:
Drop pods are not that good for BA. Plus, BA can move 24" a turn in Rhinos. The only units the BA have that excel in drop pods are sternguard and fragnoughts. DC and blender dreads are not good candidates for drop pods.

I will take the mobile cover for my bikers and jump marines any day over the "one and one" of drop pods for BA.

I do have a list that uses drop pods, but I'm dropping in Sternguard and fragnoughts. None of my other lists bother with them. The are a good way to piecemeal your own army and teleport yourself into rapid fire and assault range.

Oh yeah, BA rhinos are fast! I totally forgot! My bad; well that's a plus for BA to use rhinos.

Plus, BA stuff usually relies on assaulting. The inability to take Lucious drop pods makes drop pods very dubious for BA.

 JGrand wrote:
First Blood

It isn't as much of a big deal at some tournies. Nevertheless, I played a RTT using the new Nova missions just a few weeks ago, and lost first round to a prominent player because of first blood. Nova's kill point mission does still use it as a VP.

Lets look at the effect of first blood in all the NOVA primer rounds.

Mission One - Counts as a KP, along with Slay The Warlord and LIneBreaker
Mission Two - Tie Breaker bonus of 50 points.
Mission Three - Tie Breaker bonus of 50 points.
Mission Four - Tie Breaker bonus of 50 points.
Mission Five - Tie Breaker bonus of 50 points.
Mission Six - Tie Breaker bonus of 50 points.

In 5/6 of the primers, first blood plays almost no effect.

Don't you think your situation of losing that game is a little uncommon? In fact, you could easily argue that you lost that game because you did not get a VP, or that he managed to get an extra VP, or Slay the Warlord or Linebreaker

 Dr. Serling wrote:
If your playing space wolves, there is no question over rhinos or drop pods, as SW excel in pods. Nilla marines follow suite. Why run a rhino when you can get your sternguard,grey hunters or certain dreads in close to do their worst? Drop pods can also hold terminators, while rhino's can't.

Pods are excellent, but to paraphrase Alton Brown -- that's another show.

If I were to play MEQ today, I would bring .. well ... bikes. Ravenwing botler-banner FTW. If I were to play infantry based, I would combine pods and rhinos. Maybe 3 pods and 2 rhinos. This lets you take advantage of the rhino movement capabilities after you have podded down.

I run 2 rhinos and a drop pod in my list, along with 3 land speeders. The drop pod has combi-weapon termies in it (SW player), and the speeders are a much softer target. On top of that, I use my rune priest to cast Storm Caller on my rhinos so even after they flat out, they still have a 5+ cover save. My rhinos aren't an immediate threat, plus I have numerous distraction units. And I have no cares about giving up first blood because I typically get line breaker with my outflanking squad which makes up for it.

Also on the note of drop pods... If you're MEQ... As soon as a helldrake comes on the table you're getting vector struck then baleflamed because you're not inside of a metal box. You are literally begging to get shot. Also, Tau have interceptor out the arse, and will shoot you the moment you can do anything including with the riptide.

I have been noticing a lot of ailaros hate not only on this thread, but several others, which i just don't understand. Maybe I'm missing something, but people do seem to love to bash on him and dismiss his ideas as absurd, without addressing a lot of his points (not lab mouse and a few others, but certainly more than half...)

Rhinos are very army dependent despite them being in almost every single MEQ codex out there. I would say that the armies that benefit them the most are probably BA (because of fast) SoB (because of the fragile nature of their troops) and plague marines (because you really want to double tap their plasma, and they don't care about an explosion). You could make an argument for wolves, but they tend to do better with a razorback.

Lets not include the NOVA rules based games here, because that's an extremely specific meta that doesn't apply to over 90% of anyone's games. It's funny that people are claiming somebody plays in a very different meta, and then bring up one of the most specific cases I've ever seen as a counter example, but I see statistics thrown in here without standard deviations too :p

The fact is, rhinos are not that great for most of the armies that can take them. For GK, this is because they are assault 24" and don't really need to rush forward as much and giving up a KP/first blood for no reason doesn't benefit. For most loyalists, drop pods (even empty ones) are superior in every way. Saying they are separate is, frankly, ludicrous. They are both transports and cost roughly the same, how are they not comparable? Ask a chaos player what he'd rather have; we are all dying for drop pods. For Nm spammers, the salvo sonic weapons and blast master benefit from not moving, and so a rhino is pointless there too.

Aleph, you claim line breaker makes up for it...that's not an argument for rhinos. If anything, you are admitting they provide a handicap that another part of your list covers to bring you back up to neutral, instead of being one ahead.

I'm not bashing Ailaros as much as expressing skepticism of the drop pod. Units are stuck foot slogging after they drop in, and I'm just not a huge fan of that. Personally, I think marine transport options are some of the worst in the game and we are essentially debating whether crap is better than a turd.

If only BA could have open topped Rhinos...... I'd even settle for Ork trukks.

I do agree that if your transport isn't Av12, open topped, or sporting an impressive weapon load out, it's mediocre at best.

I've played since 3rd edition and have about 6 rhinos sitting currently unused, since they were strong that edition. Granted, not Eldar or siren bomb strong, but still one of the best builds out there.

That said, drop pods aren't amazing, I'd rate them a 6/10

I still like 2 Plasmaguns riding in a Rhino with Havoc Launcher too much to stop. Two of those squads are standard in my Black Legion lists. Usually spearheaded with a Vindicator or Land Raider to draw fire and provide cover. Luck favors the bold! If faced with heavy AT just park the Rhinos where you want cover to be or reserve them.

Luck favors the player with the best codex and/or army list most of the time in my experience.