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The fluff has bee redone at GW's whim so much by now it disent even matter. I would not bat an eye if they decided tomorrow sigmar becomes the emperor thus thing their games together, at least I would not be surprised at their terrible mistake. And if you think they wouldn't change fluff based off one little tank line you must have been shocked when they canned fantasy. If they thought it would sell 5 prevent more lemon russes they would declare them powered by cocaine. At least doomrider could have an alternate ride then.


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 Orock wrote:
The fluff has bee redone at GW's whim so much by now it dosent even matter. I would not bat an eye if they decided tomorrow sigmar becomes the emperor thus tying their games together, at least I would not be surprised at their terrible mistake. And if you think they wouldn't change fluff based off one little tank line you must have been shocked when they canned fantasy. If they thought it would sell 5 prevent more lemon russes they would declare them powered by cocaine. At least doomrider could have an alternate ride then.

All blast weapons should apply a -1 cover save modifier.
Ordnance blast should also force rerolls of successful cover saves or provide a -2 modifier.

Being stealthy or quick should matter far less against a hit that impacts everything around you in a 20 foot radius.

That sounds fair.

But wait! Everyone knows that modifying saves instead of just negating them was what caused fantasy to go under. It's not like it makes a lot of sense and adds flexibility to the rules system.

Actually, it's a terrible idea to modify stats, just to add more rules. Keep it simple, stupid. All or Nothing.

Martel732 wrote:
AV 14 front and AV 13 sides are still pretty serious. Well, there's grav and D-weapons, but there is no amount of AV that helps there.

Add 1 hullpoint.

*drops mic*

Personally, LR-BT has its place. great for anti-infantry and dishing out some serious damage. You want to run an armored company, you should check out the rules for Armored Battle Company in IA:1 2nd edition. I use it alot and love it. I usually take a basic CAD. Something as followed:

HQ
Tank Commander in LR-VQ, dozer blade, co-axle Heavy stubber, Heavy stubber, 3 heavy bolters, armored track guards, camo netting, anti-grenade mess and Beast hunter rounds. If you got the points Artificer Hull.

Now Tank Commander uses a different order system than the Codex IG tank commander. Personally, I think its better. Roll d6 1-3 nothing. 4-5, 1 order. 6, 2 order. Then you just pick the orders you want and your done. Orders are Evasive maneuvers = jink (usually a 4+, but camo netting gives you stealth so 3+), Concentrate fire = forces opponent to re-roll successful cover saves. (This over rides any re-roll cover save ability the target unit would have. Remember you can not re-roll a re-roll), Full Speed ahead = only way in the game to get an LR to flat out, regardless that it is a heavy tank.

Beast Hunter Round, 3" blast with Instant Death special rule.

Troops
2x LR-BT with Dozer blades, Heavy stubber, 2 heavy bolters, Lascannon, armored track guards, camo netting, and anti-grenade mess.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Actually, it's a terrible idea to modify stats, just to add more rules. Keep it simple, stupid. All or Nothing.

Not sure if this is being said seriously or ironically.

If serious, I agree that 40k has gotten too happy with special rules. In my opinion, you shouldn't have to have 9 separate special rules associated with a model to make it viable.

That said, I still think blast weapons need to be able to reduce cover saves without outright ignoring them.

Maybe instead of modifiers, blast weapons ignore stealth, shrouded and jink saves, so only physical cover counts.

Change Ordnance to say:
-If a model takes a save against this type of weapon, they must re-roll successes.

Now they're fethed. And the IG does something others can't.

Serious. All of these special rules and modfiers have made the game itself a disaster. We play 40k for the nice models and Fluff and storytelling, not for the chromey rules.

The way to deal with cover is that a HIT ignores cover while an ARROW does not. (scatter may be zero for accurate shooters).

This applies to ALL Blast weapons, Frag, etc., so Night Spinners and Defilers such become more effective as well.

Looking at the Blander-than-bland DE book, where virtually nothing has special rules beyond a few crap ones from the BRB (Where would we be without Concussive?), I think some middle-ground may be nice.

While I agree that 40k is bloated with rules (Fear is utterly pointless, imo) I think save modifiers would be a nice addition. That way the new hotness doesn't have to have AP2/Ignores cover on pretty much everything.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
While I agree that 40k is bloated with rules (Fear is utterly pointless, imo) I think save modifiers would be a nice addition. That way the new hotness doesn't have to have AP2/Ignores cover on pretty much everything.

But will anyway.

It's nice to dream, Vipoid. It's nice to dream.

I've got to agree with Martel - from the front, Leman Russes may as well be land raiders. If enemies get round the rear, most vehicles would die anyway. I think they pack a decent marine killing gun and have generally decent stats. May not be the most competitive option, but we have wyverns for that.

ScratchDash wrote:


I can't deny the firepower, but to me it keeps coming back to the cost. Maybe it's just my meta, but when I look at a trio of LR on the table, I see a massive points sink that's waiting to get wrecked in one turn with alpha striking melta or D weapons. Obviously they're impervious to 95% of infantry, but plop a Sternguard drop pod down nearby and they're toast. The way I mitigate this is with diffuse cheap threats ("do I kill the wyverns or take on the sentinel squadron?")

Are you putting your tanks in squadrons? That could be he leading cause of your lack of fuss fever. There nothing worse than seeing shots rip through a squadron and know out three ranks in one go. But really, you should never run them in groups larger than two and where possible, try to keep them in their own. A lot of leman Russ ranks as separate targets can be very threatening and very difficult to get through.

the one good thing russes have is the steelhost which is essentially a mountain of thick armor with lots of guns on it, but its biggest strength is its biggest weakness, in maps with lots of LOS blocking terrain thats been well placed they often cant protect eachother and so they can be singled out in ones or twos and demolished peacemeal often with little response in return.

this is a huge problem in say cities of death where you can have say a 130 point vindicator laser destroyer sitting up on a corner and simply crushing every russ that rolls forward because they will lose two to three russes before he goes down to their inferior shooting.

russes have their uses but their not invincible and they certainly arent incredible but when you look at the other options for tanks in imperial guard the list is shockingly grimm, the hellhound/banehound is only good in close quarters against certain foes, and the chimera chassis its based on is pretty wimpy

the baneblade chassis is overcosted like you wouldnt believe on some models and on others the fact that their a lord of war makes them difficult to take in numbers more than 1 usually consuming their entire alotment of points for MBT's. the russes strength comes from the fact that their cheaper than a baneblade chassis and as a result you can take more of them, their also stronger than other imperial tanks in one on one engagements like versus a predator or a repressor who will struggle to get through his hull meanwhile hes going to wreck theres pretty badly. its also the only tank in the imperial army (that isnt forgeworld) with the distinction of having access to large blast plasma which is something only two non fw vehicles of the imperials posess (the other being the LSV). its also got access to a very strongmodifier in pask which can do really well in certain situations.

all in all the russ isnt bad its jsut that the rest of the list for imperial guard are either that awful or that expensive.

the hellhound/banehound is only good in close quarters against certain foes, and the chimera chassis its based on is pretty wimpy

The Hellhound class of tanks actually has side armour 12 unlike Chimeras. So it is a decent bit tougher, not to mention you don't really need to be super close with a hellhound with its extended 18 inch torrent flamer.

Well I've played against IG enough to fear the 29-shot rending tank commander with rerolls and stuff all around that can also ignore covers sometimes I think (or is this order for other dudes?). And he's not terribly expensive to boot, he's what, 160 pts? That's sick and you can give it prescience if you got psykers around. Siiiiick dude, just siiiick.

ScratchDash wrote:
I've been working on an armored company list. When I first began running some test lists, I was planning to use Leman Russes, but as time went on, I realized that Russes I would be using had two plausible roles:

- Kill tanks
- Kill hordes

As I've been refining the lists, however, I've found that Russes appear to be inferior to different (and cheaper) combinations of plasma cannon Sentinels, Devil Dogs, and Wyverns. As it stands now, my army lists from 750 to 2000 points will not include a single Leman Russ, and will instead be a ton of AV12 vehicles (and vets, obv)

So why use Leman Russes? I get that they're vastly harder to kill than any Chimera-based weapon platform, but they're also vastly more expensive and much more obvious targets. It seems like the points sink for a squadron of Leman Russes would be better spent on a superheavy or a handful of lighter armor.

Any LR lovers out there to explain for me?

Ultimately, I don't think there's anything to change with most variants. There's an increasingly large amount of very powerful weapons and abilities that simply ignore AV (Haywire, Gauss, Grav, Destroyer, etc) and cheap & accurate DS'ing melta that their resiliency is vastly overplayed.

Coupled with the issues that Ordnance weapons have and the painful 3E-realm GW insists on relegating them to (notice however the Necron Doomsday Ark got the detriment-free but otherwise identical Primary Weapon rule that used to be superheavies only), and you have a rather poor class of vehicle.

Now, that's not to say they're useless, a lot of AV12 IG tanks have their problems too, but they're certainly not what they once were.

The only variants I really like are the Exterminator (with a lascannon & heavy bolters, it can be pressed into just about any role needed and at just about any range), the Eradictor (does what a Hellhound does, but better), and the Punisher (in some situations, great for "finishing off" a unit you just need wiped).

Aside from that, the LRBT and Demolisher are basically too expensive as single weapon platforms and non-functional with other weapons, the Vanquisher is actually amusingly bad at being an anti-tank unit with the way vehicle kill works now, the Executioner is simply far too likely to kill itself (over a 6 turn game a plasma equipped tank will kill itself on average without the enemy having to do anything), and the FW Annihilator faces the same problem the Vanquisher does.

Personally I use russes in almost every one of my lists. Without upgrades they are pretty much a cannon on a slow moving high av platform. Add some sponsons and you increase the firepower slightly. I almost always run a tank commander, pask to be specific in a vanquished with hull lascannon and sponson multi meltas and maybe the occasional relic plating or camo netting. I understand the punisher is far better but personally I just usually use the vanq because as per fluff the commander usually takes a vanq and pask is a tank hunter so why not the tank hunting russ. Usually per fluff I usually use a battle tank with him but an executioner is usually used more often for the preferred enemy bonus.

I typically never use the exterminator because I can find autocannons somewhere else in the list. But this version is pretty decent with a variety of hull and sponson weapons. Pretty much the all comers russ if I would say so.

Eradicator is a new favorite. That s6 ignores cover large blast ruins most units in cover that are objective grabbers so I try to pick them off early. Lately I've given it a hull lascannon and sponson multi meltas as usually guard lacks anti armor at a distance so as the enemy gets closer those anti tank weapons become useful. I've play tested this a couple times and even took a pair (in separate squadrons) to a tourney where they faired really well. They've kinda become an all comers vehicle for me. I've been contemplating running plasma sponsons with this one to target heavy infantry more. But I usually don't stick with heavy bolters all around because then it's pretty much just an infantry hunter and my wyverns already have that covered and are so much better with it so I try to have this guy cover some other grounds.

Executioner as others mentioned will kill itself in a game unless it's twinlinked or has preferred enemy so I only ever run him with a tank commander.

Battle tank and demolisher both are used less lately. Demolisher would probably have more merit but it's hard for me to justify it at 170pts. Off all the variants with these 2 having ordnance I thought they would have gone down in price but I guess not. I typically use barebones batte tanks from time to time as they can help finish off a hull point on vehicles or target most infantry forcing the opponent to hug cover which usually slows my opponent down greatly and with its range I have time to move around and try to avoid the enemy of assault or melts gets too close.

Vanquished I usually use as my tank commanders for the increased bs. And I usually always give the hull lascannon and sponson multi meltas because the average enemy army will close the distance with your guard so as they get closer increase your firepower. Prior to tank commanders I used to run heavy support vanqs with hull lascannon and sponson plasma cannons. This way they can target heavy infantry as well so they have a wider variety of targets.

In general russes can be tricky. Our codex can have a huge number of units and out number most other codexs giving us an advantage of not being tabled and also drowning our opponent in bodies/armor. As the imperial guard way it doesn't matter how many units die as long as the job gets accomplished in the end that's all that matters. If you're trying to have your units survive then you're playing guard wrong. Aside from expensive pask or other named characters I would consider everything else in your list as expendable.

Now guard is in the previous edition and are suffering from not having formation benefits/and almost everything in the codex is over costed. So if you compare your russes to top tier units and anything in a recent updated codex you're crying for no reason. Wait for guard to get updated and if they are still horrible then you would have an excuse but seeing as guard is in a previous edition they aren't going to have any formation bonuses or special rules to help them out like most new armies have.

With that said there are some things in the codex that might be better than most russes but that's going to depend on your play style and how you want a list played. 3 plasma sentinels versus and executioner might seem cheaper but personally as I mentioned above unless that executioner has rerolls on gets hot I wouldn't even use it. But if you look at how survivable a Russ is to sentinels I would vote the Russ any day. Av14 is pretty damn hard to kill at a distance. Most common ranged anti tank I come across is lascannons and lance. Lance will really do work on your Russ so that's up to you to make sure it's getting some kind of cover bonus unless he's a fire magnet so your squishy vets in a chimera aren't targeted so they can speed over and grab an objective or spring a counter attack. Against lascannons I actually never really worry about them. I sometimes will try to stay in cover but needing a 6 to just outright blow me up is pretty difficult and I couldn't tell you the last time it ever really happened as most shots won't even pen as they also need a 6's.
Now against grav If you're comparing it to a grav death star this goes back to what I said before about guard being an older codex fighting against a newer one. Plus that grav death star will pretty much kill almost anything it touches. With how many points it is let them waste fire on a leman russ.

Personally ways to make a Russ live longer would be to bubble wrap it. Use bullygryns to form an advancing 4+ cover save.

Or use a really cheap conscript wall. This is my favorite as you stick a priest in with a conscript unit and they are dirt cheap and will tie up a unit for the game or assault a bunch. Of stuff. Conscripts are usually the most feared things in my armies now as a priest does wonders for the cheap guys. And as I said they're dirt cheap. For 115pts you get 31 fearless bodies that reroll hits on the charge and wig war hyms get reroll wounds or failed saves.

Or if needed use your other armor if you have chimera vets to block from deep striking melta.

But like I said, unless it's pask I would consider your units expendable and would invest to much in upgrades for them so you can use more of that unit. And I wouldn't complain to much and say they aren't useless until guard guard gets updated to this new formation edition. And when they do and if they still suck then maybe they will be worthless.

I recently changed up my ABG and I went from using Battle Tanks, to all Vanquishers. Now the cool thing is FW has said that the ABG can use the Steel Host formation. So you can get preferred enemy on just about all your tanks. I've found that you either have to go all in with the tanks and play like a German style army from WW2 or Russian style, which is what most users on here have suggested, Cheap tanks bubble wrap them. Personally, I like to run very expensive tanks. ABG Tank Commander comes in at about 275-300 points depending on if I take the artifact hull.

 Glitcha wrote:
I recently changed up my ABG and I went from using Battle Tanks, to all Vanquishers. Now the cool thing is FW has said that the ABG can use the Steel Host formation. So you can get preferred enemy on just about all your tanks. I've found that you either have to go all in with the tanks and play like a German style army from WW2 or Russian style, which is what most users on here have suggested, Cheap tanks bubble wrap them. Personally, I like to run very expensive tanks. ABG Tank Commander comes in at about 275-300 points depending on if I take the artifact hull.

How is the ABG able to use the steel host? Is that in an FAQ?

 Dramagod2 wrote:

 Glitcha wrote:
I recently changed up my ABG and I went from using Battle Tanks, to all Vanquishers. Now the cool thing is FW has said that the ABG can use the Steel Host formation. So you can get preferred enemy on just about all your tanks. I've found that you either have to go all in with the tanks and play like a German style army from WW2 or Russian style, which is what most users on here have suggested, Cheap tanks bubble wrap them. Personally, I like to run very expensive tanks. ABG Tank Commander comes in at about 275-300 points depending on if I take the artifact hull.

How is the ABG able to use the steel host? Is that in an FAQ?

Presumably. IA1:2E says that ABG is to be considered, for all intents and purposes, part of the AM codex anyway.

 Glitcha wrote:
I recently changed up my ABG and I went from using Battle Tanks, to all Vanquishers. Now the cool thing is FW has said that the ABG can use the Steel Host formation. So you can get preferred enemy on just about all your tanks. I've found that you either have to go all in with the tanks and play like a German style army from WW2 or Russian style, which is what most users on here have suggested, Cheap tanks bubble wrap them. Personally, I like to run very expensive tanks. ABG Tank Commander comes in at about 275-300 points depending on if I take the artifact hull.

ABG can't use the Steel Host because they don't have Tank Commanders, they have Company Command Tanks

Dedicated IG Treadhead; this is how I view/run russes:

But first a few notes on the perceived shortcomings of blast. Many claim blasts suck, a properly spread unit reduces or negates multiple hits. That would be true for stringing a unit in a line, but a spaced blob will net you more hits on most scatters than a direct hit; you just have to understand the math behind it(and the line has problems all on its own that make seeing it forced by blast weapons pay for those blasts by themselves). Any blast weapon hits 1/3 of the time, depending on BS it will also hit a fair bit of those arrows, but here is the rub: you want to miss, and you want to miss by an odd number. Spread lines limit the number of models that can return fire on your units, they can also easily be forced to move for rejoined coherency. This lets you control your opponents movement. Spaced blobs take up real estate on the battlefield and scatters will generally net more hits than direct hits.


LRMBT: KISS, battle cannon and Lascannon, this iofit. That is all you need. The battlecannon hits all non-vehicles hard and negates most saves. Those units with a 2+ are usually also small units due to cost so will likely suffer worse from the occasional failed save(and deep striking termies are less likely to get in a spaced line from running so you should net 2-3 hits for a reasonable chance to kill 1. Against vehicles that S8 ordinance is going to pen pretty often which will also limit the vehicle's usefulness next turn. The lascannon is there for a pot-shot or when your mbt takes a weapon destroyed. Heavy bolters could be added for both the classic russ look/feel and because 6 snap shots are better than nothing(I even field heavy bolters on tac marines that move to take objectives for fluff reasons), and can be surprisingly good when you score more than 1 hit(which will happen with about the same frequency as no hits)

Vanquisher: dedicated anti-tank, lascannon and maybe multi-meltas if you have the points. Not much more to be said here really, although if you are limited on other multi-role heavy bolter sponsons and a pintle stubber

Eradicator: pure anti-troop, maybe light skimmer. Honestly not worth the points with the wyvern(but don't even start me on that), moderate strength, decent ap; its blast is better than any basic weapon as far as ap goes but one of the biggest problems I have with this game is that you rarely have ap below 5 and ignores cover(and ap 4 ignores cover, while the sweet spot, will rarely see any ap 4 in cover unless their is a ton of ap 4 or less in the list; 4+and better will generally stay out of cover. So, yeah ap 4 ignores cover is the sweet-spot, yet worthless without being multiple units thereof. I generally avoid this russ, but plasma sponsons or heavy flamers worh for the non-ordnance main gun.

Exterminator: another generalist with a non-ordnance. 4-shot t-l ac on a fairly durable frame. Nothing that exciting about it really, you want to load up on guns and all of them work with it. The non-blast-non-ordnance main gun means you can safely get up close and personal, but then you can get glanced to death by a grenade-less boyz mob that charges you due to the rear av 10. It can be a decent generalist with las and mm/plasma or hb/hf(either hull or sponson for either weapon; although this limits the anti-tank to light vehicles).

Punisher: there is no way to take this as anything other than anti-troop; all heavy bolters and if you are feeling saucy a pintle stubber.

Executioner: plasma sponsons and hhb, hunts light tanks and heavy infantry but can glance itself to death without help about once every 3-4 games, at least they lowered both the base cost and the plasma sponsons(although those had a proper cost when vehicles ignored gets hot altogether I am glad GW was wise enough to lower costs when that went away)

Demolisher: ugh, the demolisher. Hull las and that is it. Short-ranged ordnance main means you need a long range hull, that pretty much limits you to tank-hunter or city fighter.

Final note: all heavy vehicles should have 4 hull points, the russ may not be as big of a tank as a land raider, but it also doesn't have space for up to 16 power armoured giants.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Glitcha wrote:
I recently changed up my ABG and I went from using Battle Tanks, to all Vanquishers. Now the cool thing is FW has said that the ABG can use the Steel Host formation. So you can get preferred enemy on just about all your tanks. I've found that you either have to go all in with the tanks and play like a German style army from WW2 or Russian style, which is what most users on here have suggested, Cheap tanks bubble wrap them. Personally, I like to run very expensive tanks. ABG Tank Commander comes in at about 275-300 points depending on if I take the artifact hull.

ABG can't use the Steel Host because they don't have Tank Commanders, they have Company Command Tanks

I would assume that this means that the tank commanders are interchangable and the two different Tank squads in the IA1 would be valid selections. In comparison to the Codex:IG, its the same tanks expect for the FW ones. So for the ABG it would be 1 Company Command Tank, 3 Battle Tank squad/Siege Tank squad, and 1 Hydra Flak Battery.

 Glitcha wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Glitcha wrote:
I recently changed up my ABG and I went from using Battle Tanks, to all Vanquishers. Now the cool thing is FW has said that the ABG can use the Steel Host formation. So you can get preferred enemy on just about all your tanks. I've found that you either have to go all in with the tanks and play like a German style army from WW2 or Russian style, which is what most users on here have suggested, Cheap tanks bubble wrap them. Personally, I like to run very expensive tanks. ABG Tank Commander comes in at about 275-300 points depending on if I take the artifact hull.

ABG can't use the Steel Host because they don't have Tank Commanders, they have Company Command Tanks

I would assume that this means that the tank commanders are interchangable and the two different Tank squads in the IA1 would be valid selections. In comparison to the Codex:IG, its the same tanks expect for the FW ones. So for the ABG it would be 1 Company Command Tank, 3 Battle Tank squad/Siege Tank squad, and 1 Hydra Flak Battery.

Except that formations are unit specific. A company command tank is not the same as a tank commander. A tank commander is a unit that requires 2 tanks minimum, A company command tank is a single tank. The steel host clearly calls for the specific units from the Am codex. I don't think you can use ones from the ABG list since they aren't the same specific units.

Looking at it from a casual angle, would anyone have a problem houseruling it so that the ABG is fully compatible with Steel Host?

Aside from a few wargear options, and that the ABG is more expensive per tank, it's pretty much the same.

I would have a problem with it. The ABG is its own specific list representing a tank company. The steel host is an entirely seperate formation calling for specific units. Now I would be fine with someone bring FW leman russes as part of a steel host, but not cloning the units. The tank commander example is really a prime one. It on;y requires you to bring one tank which is a significant improvement over having to squad them. I feel like combining them is just taking an ABG and giving your warlord the PE bubble. There's nothing wrong with the ABG list, but I think trying to mash it together with the steel host is a good idea.

Again, no problem with taking FW tanks in a normal LR squadron as part of the host. But the units are simply not the same, and if you were going to argue that they count as being from codex AM then I would say that by that argument, theres nothing keeping you from taking the LR troop squadron as the troop choice for your normal CAD, afterall, its a troop choice, and counts as being from the normal AM codex.....


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i just think making those kinds of allowances opens a slippery slope