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Hi guys, two variants on the Rhino today!

Now, we all know that Chimeras are kewl. but so are rhinos.

Hippopotamus = rhino w/ amphibious. costs 5 more points

Elephant is also a rhino. thought, it's open topped.

15 more points

Benefits of the first one are slight, however the second one is a bit of a ripper.

it's basically allows the entire squad to shoot out of it, and assault out of it. though I'm not sure about points.

I don't know if there would be any real purpose to the first variation, but the second one has some major problems.

It's basically a Space Marine Trukk, except less fluffy and less like to get its cargo to the target. If anybody shoots melta at it, two thirds of the time its dead, immob makes it a weak bunker, and weapon destroyed means keep trukking.

Besides that, there's the fact that you won't be able to field these in sufficient numbers to be useful. Their relatively expensive at 50 points, and the only benefit gained is that it is open topped. The strength of an Ork Trukk is that its open topped, fast, and has ramshackly, though YMMV on that last one. The Rhino as is is useful since the hatch on top means it counts as open topped for the purposes of two model's shooting, and that means you can just shoot out of with the heavy weapons section stationed inside while having the special weapons section doing something useful.

Adding qualities to unit like this doesn't work often because the codex simply isn't designed to work this way. Space Marines aren't very assaulty, and this open topped rule means that more is lost than gained since it's primary use is to get a unit into assault. Moving 12 and assaulting is pretty good, but moving six and shooting is better for Space Marines. There are very few situations where this transport would be useful, and in all others it would be a liability due to its increased vulnerability.

Boltguns rapid fire weapons usually, so you'd probably go with the bolt pistols, so shooting and then assaulting out of it would be a poor application as far this goes. Pricing is tough, since this unit gives up a great deal of durability in exchange for some questionable benefits. I'd place it at +10 points, and maybe make some upgrade that negates the disadvantages of open topped. That would probably need to be priced something like +15, since I'd say that brings it up to the usefulness of a razorback if one could quantitate such things.

Have to disagree with you there, MarkingLight. Open topped rhinos let my zerkers assault out on the turn it moves. That is huge. I'd pay a lot more than 15 points for it.

I'm amazed SMs aren't able to use more effective assault vehicles. Stick an assault ramp on the front of rhino and it becomes massively more effective.

EDIT: The hippo is a fine idea, but water doesn't feature much in my games. Would allow for interesting scenarios like beachhead or marine (badum-tish) assault (...sorry). How about a free upgrade, gives amphibious but a roll of 1 or 2 gives immobilised in non-water difficult terrain? 5 points is fine otherwise.

You posted the idea of an open topped Rhino before, and it wasn't really considered a good idea.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/265632.page#1115332

Found one thread at least. If CSM had them it would give them some much-needed differentiation from C:SM.

Rhinos aren't open topped for a reason... sheesh.

Do you really think that'd be fair?

Especially for Blood Angels, take an Assault/Death Company squad in a Rhino and then let them assault out of it?

That'd be almost as good for Chaos...

That also defeats the point of a Land Raider being a special Assault Vehicle.

Proposed rules shouldn't over power an army versus another... they should add something interesting or fluffly to the game.

Soup and a roll wrote:Have to disagree with you there, MarkingLight. Open topped rhinos let my zerkers assault out on the turn it moves. That is huge. I'd pay a lot more than 15 points for it.

I'm amazed SMs aren't able to use more effective assault vehicles. Stick an assault ramp on the front of rhino and it becomes massively more effective.

EDIT: The hippo is a fine idea, but water doesn't feature much in my games. Would allow for interesting scenarios like beachhead or marine (badum-tish) assault (...sorry). How about a free upgrade, gives amphibious but a roll of 1 or 2 gives immobilised in non-water difficult terrain? 5 points is fine otherwise.

A rhino doesn't have an access point on the front. An assault ramp (at least a conventional LR style one) could not work.

Why not change the Elephant for something like an Assault Rhino. Like an open- topped Rhino, with a battering ram that does +2 ramming damage, plus grants an extra 6" flat out speed. You could also stick heavy weapon mounts on top.

grayspark wrote:Rhinos aren't open topped for a reason... sheesh.

Do you really think that'd be fair?

Easy there. It's called proposed rules for a reason. Anything can be made fair by imposing restrictions (make them expensive, prone to immobilisation or limited in number for example).

CrazyThang wrote:A rhino doesn't have an access point on the front. An assault ramp (at least a conventional LR style one) could not work.

Would definitely need some tinkering. You could sacrifice the other exits for an assault ramp on the front. That would mean it is much easier to assault but also much harder to emergency disembark. If it were open topped, however, the problem become moot. I imagine something along the lines of WWII landing craft, but with spikes and skulls.

I don't get it. There's no real reason to have amphibious vehicles for space marines. Even if the vehicle exploded underwater, the space marines would be fine, since their suits can easily handle that sort of thing. The only reason IG have that rule is because they can't swim if the thing explodes, so they said "derp,make it like a turtle". Besides, I've only come into a water-based terrain piece once. It was a river, and it was in a place where you wouldn't want tanks anyway.


Neither variant is particularly valuable. Open topped is very bad for an 11 AV tank. Orks are the only ones who can actually pull it off, since their tanks are cheap as gak in the first place. I can't imagine really using it.