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They are a good tank for the imperium humans though, it's just that all aliens they fight are either so freakishly advanced that your mind cannot comprehend, pretty damn advanced, or orks. The Russ is probably just as survivable as our tanks, compared to the weapons used by humans.

 Melissia wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Armor and capability don't matter at all when the Leman Russ is so poorly designed that

By that argument, the only tanks in 40k that are any good are Eldar, which are the only tank designs that are reasonably designed for a futuristic war-- no, Tau designs aren't either, they're pretty crap.

Eldar tanks are actually among the worst designed by far. It's their usage that is extremely competent, with the zoom and boom idea.

Now if only Eldar actually won battles.

Also, the Space Marine Rhino is actually a very good tank, as it's based off a real world APC. Hell it even has suspension. The Forge World Baneblades also don't look that bad either excluding their shear mindbogglingly huge size.

Its plenty survivable unless it is:

1.) With the tech priest who forget to beseech the machine-spirit in the proper ritual.

2.) In melee range of any monstrous creature.

3.) In melee range of any enemy dreadnought or walker.

4.) Is noticed by a titan or large walker whose mad they don't have AV-14 and gets jealous.

5.) Noticed by threats like Fire Dragons, Shadow-Spectres, Broadsides, Tank Bustas, Burnaboys etc.

6.) Operated by an incompetent crew. (Though this rectifies itself when the commissar finds out.)

7.) Meeting a bigger tank.

8.) Meeting someone who has a Krak Grenade, Melta Bomb or that guy at the back of the squad with the hidden power-fist to the rear armor.

9.) Is targeted by heavy weapons (las-cannon, plasma-gun, auto-cannon at close range, lifta-droppa, a spit-ball).

10.) Going through a minefield.

11.) Meeting Sly-Marbo or Iron-Hand Straken for the first time.

11.) Pointed in the wrong direction ( at which point the crew's survivability will be in question when the commissar finds out).

13.) Mistaken for a lemon by gork and mork and squeezed accordingly. Gotta love that russ-nade.

14.) Is playing "chicken" with a battle-wagon driver who remembered to bring his "deth-rolla".

15.) On a list a G W rule writer thinks needs to be toned down.

16.) Meets the guy its named after.

Other than that, sure its best thing to ever grace the battlefields of the 41st millennium.

 Desubot wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Armor and capability don't matter at all when the Leman Russ is so poorly designed that

By that argument, the only tanks in 40k that are any good are Eldar, which are the only tank designs that are reasonably designed for a futuristic war-- no, Tau designs aren't either, they're pretty crap.

So its confirmed that wave serpents are op?

Also where exactly in which book was the whole 5-1 thing?

Tau Codex, page 50.

Specifically, the entry for the Hammerhead.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Even in most fluff they aren't particularly durable. They die in droves in Gunheads, as well as every Gaunt's Ghost book they feature in and most of the SM books I've seen them in.

Like most things in the Imperium, they compensate against xeno equivalents via sheer numbers.

In the case of Gunheads, they were being bombed, swarmed by tens of thousands of ork boyz, stomped by a rampaging gargantuan squiggoth, shot at by a baneblade turned battle-fortress and at the mercy of a vain-glorious idiot whose mission parameters conflicted with their survival. So there's a reason they didn't perform that well there.

Also against their ork counter-parts, its the Leman-russ that can usually find itself out-numbered.

That'd be fair enough if many of them had simply been ground down by sustained attacks. A lot of them were simply being one-shotted, though. The cats who got merc'd by the tank bustah's bomb-on-a-stick thingy comes to mind.

Really fun book, by the way. Classic 40K imo.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Fortunately, this is a thread about Leman Russ, not about Tau Teh Awezums.

FAV14 suggests that from the front, its armour is pretty much the toughest anything can possibly be in the 41st millenium. Nothing, not even planetary defence bunkers, not even Imperator titans, has stronger than armour 14.

That said, any smart opponent will flank them, which isn't hard to do because they're slow. They can barely grind along at infantry walking speed under the current rules, and even the previous, fluffier ones had them being like RNLI lifeboats - not the fasted boats around, but they'll do those fifteen knots through a typhoon just as well as they'll do them through open seas.

Their game stats are decently reflective of the fluff. They are slow, but very tough on the front, with a substantial amount of firepower.
In Epic their formations really shine. They are one of the toughest non super heavy formations in the game.

You have to watch the fluff from codexes because IG are always the low level BG that the the GG takes out to show how boss they are.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Armor and capability don't matter at all when the Leman Russ is so poorly designed that

By that argument, the only tanks in 40k that are any good are Eldar, which are the only tank designs that are reasonably designed for a futuristic war-- no, Tau designs aren't either, they're pretty crap.

Eldar tanks are actually among the worst designed by far.

Holofields say otherwise. They're the only tank that actually makes use of futuristic technology to defend itself. The imperium has hologram generators, and the Tau probably does, too. But only the Eldar are intelligent enough to actually make use of them, and use them in a way that also fools electronic methods of tracking targets.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Fortunately, this is a thread about Leman Russ, not about Tau Teh Awezums.

The OP asked how survivable they are. I answered. It's everyone else that's derailing this.

They're not very survivable at all against Tau.

When hit by a rail gun, it the vacuum effect is so strong that the Russ's crew will be sucked out the exit hole as a human jelly smear, meaning even a hit that doesn't hit the engine or ammo storage will still kill the thing.

Like Big Blind Bill said, the LR is great if you're facing Imperial or Chaos forces, because their tech sucks. You put it up against alien tanks, and they die in droves. It just doesn't have a way to deal with lances or gauss or rail guns.

They do. Lascannons, and big cannons firing away. Nothing says I love you like a Vanquisher firing.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Fortunately, this is a thread about Leman Russ, not about Tau Teh Awezums.

Like Big Blind Bill said, the LR is great if you're facing Imperial or Chaos forces, because their tech sucks. You put it up against alien tanks, and they die in droves. It just doesn't have a way to deal with lances or gauss or rail guns.

Just to clarify, my point isn't that the leman russ is bad vs xenos races. My point is that 40k fluff varies greatly depending on which faction is being highlighted.

In the imperial fluff, the leman russ is usually recognised as being a robust and capable battle tank.

However, because the leman russ is so well known and widely used whenever there is a xenos attack against the imperium it is usually the leman russ' job to explode spectacularly, to show how great and powerful the xenos are.

In SM novels they are toned down, so as not to overshadow the marines. And in gaunt's ghosts rebel leman russes are reliably dispatched by light infantry, because the Tanith 1st are literally gods of war.

Fact is, fluff can give very biased perspectives depending on who is writing it and for what purpose.

I would personally say a leman russ is going to stay around for a long time against all but the most prepared or deadly opponent.
Lexicanum lists its armour thickness as being around 150mm. For a comparison a rhino has 60 mm, and a wave serpent has 15mm of armour.

Whilst in a sci-fi world of forcefields and fictional materials this is not conclusive, it does give an indication that the leman russ is particularly durable when compared to other vehicles of a similar size.

I can't actually remember any Leman Russ under Chaos control in the Gaunt's Ghosts books. They're usually fielding Urdeshi knock-offs with T-numbers.

Then again, the same passages also comment on how they're inferior because they don't have the Imperial technology that lets their vehicles aim and fire on the move like RL tanks... which game-stat Imperial tanks don't have either.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
That'd be fair enough if many of them had simply been ground down by sustained attacks. A lot of them were simply being one-shotted, though. The cats who got merc'd by the tank bustah's bomb-on-a-stick thingy comes to mind.

Really fun book, by the way. Classic 40K imo.

If you're going to call it "Classic 40K", then that should explain why characters-not-the-protagonists are dying in droves.

Remember that tech level in the Imperium isn't consistent (same with the way people fight.) and the nature of STC is that you can essentially build the same class of vehicle out of different materials (including different quality), run it off different powerplants/fuels, etc. That's going to lead to some variation in performance as well - a Russ designed by a 19th century industry is not going to behave the same way as one based on a 20th century (or something closer to 'current' Imperial, such as out of ceramite, adamantium, plasteel, etc.) Its even possible for contrasting or variable tech levels to be mixed in the same vehicle (the prime example is from Imperial Armour 1, with the tank that has a steam engine and mind impulse links.)

It also doesn't help that 'durability' of a battle tank in a modern context is more than a little complicated compared to how it was 50-100 years ago (WW1/WW2 era roughly) - the principles and dynamics by which HEAT and APFSDS penetrate armour and the methods by which that armour defeats the attack differs, and it differs even between HEAT and APFSDS as well (the general rule of thumb seems to be kinetic penetrators are better at penetrating armour than shaped charges.) You can also have differences due to different armour schemes (Explosive and non explosive reactive armour, spaced armour, composite armour, etc.) and from what I've read it gets even more complicated as some tricks like sloping work good against certain attacks with certian kinds of armours but are useless against others (EG spaced armour.)

As far as the Tau vs Imperium goes, the Codex depiction in the Hammerhead entry isn't just about tech level or the virtues of the tank itself as it was depicted, it was the tactics and terrain they engaged the Imperium in that helped significantly as well (Basically they had the advantage in terrain that played to their strengths, they were engaged by an enemy their tactics were - conveniently - optimized for, etc.) Not to mention that we dont know much more beyond it was 'Imperial tanks' they engaged (whcihc ould mean a great many things, not just a Leman Russ... and even if they were all Russes we dont know what specific designs were there, etc.) So there is alot of context to consider.

Also the quote was 'at least 5 to one odds', so that is simply the LOWEST end of the ratio.

Edit: Also this does assume you put any stock in the accuracy of the model/artwork of the vehicle in question insofar as design goes. Artwork and designs for 40K vehicles have changed rather dramatically over the years, but even apart from that the artwork quite often depicts something that contradicts what the fluff actually says. For example a number of sources indicate Russes use 120mm shells, are depicted to be able to carry anywhere from 36-40 of them in their magazine, and can be loaded by hand. The actual model/artwork typically depcits a cannon which is at least a good 250-300+mm in caliber (to put this in perspective thats as big as a short barreled, 10-12" battleship gun, and those shells are between 1-1.5m long, and mass hundreds of kilos for the shell not INCLUDING propellant or casing. It would be very hard to cram 36-40 of those into a tank the size of the Russ without installing some sort of pocket dimension, nevermind loading them into the turret!)

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I can't actually remember any Leman Russ under Chaos control in the Gaunt's Ghosts books. They're usually fielding Urdeshi knock-offs with T-numbers.

Then again, the same passages also comment on how they're inferior because they don't have the Imperial technology that lets their vehicles aim and fire on the move like RL tanks... which game-stat Imperial tanks don't have either.

There was a Daemon-possessed Leman Russ that stalked Gaunt and some of the Ghosts in 'Armour of Contempt' I believe.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
I would personally say a leman russ is going to stay around for a long time against all but the most prepared or deadly opponent.
Lexicanum lists its armour thickness as being around 150mm. For a comparison a rhino has 60 mm, and a wave serpent has 15mm of armour.

Bear in mind that there is alot about the armour ratings we don't know. Pre-IA fluff noted the armour thickness was variable (like 45mm to 200mm for the Russ I remember) and the IA1 (1st and 2nd edition, but not the really really old IA1 that was put out back in like 3rd edition or so I believe.) but we dont know what the exact composition is, nor if it is bare hull or if it includes extra/add on armour plates/panels/etc. (Ablative, spaced, reactive, etc.) It is also worth noting that modern tank armour thicknesses (in RHA terms) are actually equivalencies - an approximation to how many mm of steel the armour is supposed to protect like (or how much the weapon would penetrate.) and those are not only very broad approximations, they are context sensitive - eg tanks have an RHAe rating against HEAT AND against KE penetrators, and the former tends to be much higher than the latter.

From various discussions I've seen if you take away the armour modules/panels on many tanks (EG like reactive armour) their actual 'bare' hull thicknesses aren't much better (and in some cases may even be worse, like with side armor) than the Leman Russ.

 Psienesis wrote:
If you're going to call it "Classic 40K", then that should explain why characters-not-the-protagonists are dying in droves.

"And then the PDF died to a man" is a(n annoying) meme for a reason, sadly.

 Melissia wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
If you're going to call it "Classic 40K", then that should explain why characters-not-the-protagonists are dying in droves.

"And then the PDF died to a man" is a(n annoying) meme for a reason, sadly.

In all fairness, it'd happen a lot less often if the Inquisition didn't like killing them off just as much as Chaos.

If we are talking about WW2 analogues I would liken the Leman Russ to a T34. Great armor, good gun, crappy comms and varying crew quality.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
If we are talking about WW2 analogues I would liken the Leman Russ to a T34. Great armor, good gun, crappy comms and varying crew quality.

If we wanted to create a T-34 Warhammer profile, it'd be somewhere around a predator with dozer

The thing with t-34 is it's minimalistical yet robust design. It was easier to maintain, it weathered harsh conditions better and it was easier to produce. And all that without going lower than average on combat abilities.

Probably same goes to Leman Russ. But in this case, the front and side armor of Leman Russ are very tough. I'd compare it more with a hybrid of Tiger mass and guns and T-34 robust minimalistical design. Without the numerous Tiger expluatational drawbacks.

 koooaei wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
If we are talking about WW2 analogues I would liken the Leman Russ to a T34. Great armor, good gun, crappy comms and varying crew quality.

If we wanted to create a T-34 Warhammer profile, it'd be somewhere around a predator with dozer

The thing with t-34 is it's minimalistical yet robust design. It was easier to maintain, it weathered harsh conditions better and it was easier to produce. And all that without going lower than average on combat abilities.

Probably same goes to Leman Russ. But in this case, the front and side armor of Leman Russ are very tough. I'd compare it more with a hybrid of Tiger mass and guns and T-34 robust minimalistical design. Without the numerous Tiger expluatational drawbacks.

The T-34 is a very accurate comparison against the Xenos M4A3E8 in Korea or moreso the up-armed Israeli M4A1 during the Six Day War. Actually, the Six-Day War seems to have a lot in common with the Damocles Crusade.

The Leman Russ is as survivable and powerful as it needs to be for the piece of fluff.

Pask's fluff has him driving up to Titans in his trusty LRBT and taking them out with a single shot from his battlecannon. He crushes silly Tau in battle, blows apart legions of Orcs, and even gives Chaos Space Marines pause.

In the Tau codex, Longstrike takes out an armored column of Leman Russes by himself.

In the Space Marine codex, both traitor Russes and anything Tau gets butchered indiscriminately. Hell, in the 5th edition (I haven't really read the 6th yet) Space Marine codex, it states the Tau only manage to survive the Ultramarines + Friends onslaught because Tyranids are scarier than Warhammer's Space Goats.

As for a balanced approach? Yes, the Leman Russ is quite survivable. It can stand up to the vast majority of opponents in the galaxy, and anything outside of a tank or Terminator Armor equivalent is probably going to be turned into a fine, pink/blue/green mist because of it's armament. Of course there are weapons designed to destroy armor (Railguns and Meltas), will obliterate a Leman Russ, but that's to be expected.

On top of that, the Imperium seems to be able to produce ten Leman Russ for everyone that goes down.

^ This right here.

When it comes to the russ I guess quantity is all the survivibility you need in the face of heretic and xenos aggression.

 Crazyterran wrote:


Pask's fluff has him driving up to Titans in his trusty LRBT and taking them out with a single shot from his battlecannon.

I think this actually says a lot more about Imperial titans (being poorly constructed) than it does about the Leman Russ itself.

Well if you think about it....what is the benfit of having walking fortresses when you could just be in space with space guns.

 Desubot wrote:
Well if you think about it....what is the benfit of having walking fortresses when you could just be in space with space guns.

That's why the only Tau "titans" are spacecraft. Tiger Shark, Orca, Manta.

What's the point of having a walking fortress that can be killed by a single tank?

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Well if you think about it....what is the benfit of having walking fortresses when you could just be in space with space guns.

That's why the only Tau "titans" are spacecraft. Tiger Shark, Orca, Manta.

What's the point of having a walking fortress that can be killed by a single tank?

I think you'll find IOM super heavies do quite well against them actually.

Of course:

Tau "titans" vs. Eldar titans = a lot of burning aluminum and dead sheep.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Well if you think about it....what is the benfit of having walking fortresses when you could just be in space with space guns.

That's why the only Tau "titans" are spacecraft. Tiger Shark, Orca, Manta.

What's the point of having a walking fortress that can be killed by a single tank?

Please for the love of god lets not turn this into a tau circle jerk like it always tries to become when you are involved

 Desubot wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Well if you think about it....what is the benfit of having walking fortresses when you could just be in space with space guns.

That's why the only Tau "titans" are spacecraft. Tiger Shark, Orca, Manta.

What's the point of having a walking fortress that can be killed by a single tank?

Please for the love of god lets not turn this into a tau circle jerk like it always tries to become when you are involved

Would you be ok with WW2 circlejerk like we had on the 1st page?

Nope

But at this point i think we already answered the question. in the sense that a lemon is only as strong as fluff needs it to be.

Well I think we've established:

*Its a slow moving rock of a vehicle.
*Its able to be produced on a variety of worlds, from differing materials, and operated by crews with "limited" knowledge.
*It has excellent firepower for its size.
(so far you described most Soviet tanks)

*While effective, especially in numbers, it is not as advanced as certain other races, which have dedicated antitank weaponry that can effectively overcome its armor (of course it has less common variants that can do the same). In these circumstances, these deficiencies are made up for with numbers and tactics (mostly numbers).

In essence, its the metal equivalent of the IoM itself.

 Frazzled wrote:
Well I think we've established:

*Its a slow moving rock of a vehicle.
*Its able to be produced on a variety of worlds, from differing materials, and operated by crews with "limited" knowledge.
*It has excellent firepower for its size.
(so far you described most Soviet tanks)

*While effective, especially in numbers, it is not as advanced as certain other races, which have dedicated antitank weaponry that can effectively overcome its armor (of course it has less common variants that can do the same). In these circumstances, these deficiencies are made up for with numbers and tactics (mostly numbers).

In essence, its the metal equivalent of the IoM itself.

That sounds about right. It's a good tank for it's cost, simple, and powerful.