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I'm working on my Guard army lists right now and I was wondering if anyone on Dakka has had good experiences with large numbers of Leman Russ tanks and variants in squadrons?

I've got 7 kits all told right now, 2 built as standard LRMBTs, 3 new LRMBT kits and 2 Demolisher kits.

Doing the math I can fit all of them into a 1500 pts list easily if I keep them all as LRMBT and Demolisher loadouts with no sponsons.

The rest of the army would be barebones CSS and Blobs with minimal equipment, I could probably make them power blobs instead.

Would this be worth considering or are squads just useless?

As long as you have sufficient bubblewrap, your opponent would certainly have a headache trying to kill a significant number of av14 at range.

I prefer other variants to vanilla LRBTs, but they should do relatively well.

Personally, I don't like having my LR in squads. Only bevause they're to darn expensive. If one of them gets immobilized it is destroyed.

Just like that.

Poof. Gone.

IMHO, not worth it. And even though the ordinary LRMBT is a potent tank (perhaps the most potent in the game, competing with the Land Raider) I don't really see them doing much good.

And then they are vulnerable. I've noticed that you really need the infantry as a wall of meat. If, for example, a pack of 'stealers assaults the LR it is doomed (been there). If you want a tank heavy force you should look to chimeras and hellhounds too.

Altough, the new variants of the LR gives a possibility to create a fearsome tank force (3 punishers in a squad, oh yeah).

Thanks guys,

I'm thinking that powerblobs are the only way to protect these properly. Maybe keep a Banewolf hidden near by to spank deep striking units.

If I do a mixed army with vets and platoons I wont be able to stick enough chimeras in there to be worth anything.

I'm thinking of doing squads like so:

LRMBT
LRMBT
Demolisher

LRMBT
LRMBT
Demolisher

The units start the game tight up against the back of one flank, packed in tight to show only front armor.

Demolishers pop smoke early in the game to give both squads cover. When the enemy closes the unit moves forward to make use of the Demolishers.

The only problem I can find with that strategy is if you're meeting another guard-player with ordnance. He will almost certainly target the central LR and sooner or later hit straight on. So...
But other than that I think it can work! You found a way to combine the demolisher and LRMBT that I've never considered.

The smoke launcher trick doesn't work so well on squadrons of three. The squadron is in cover if half or more of it is in cover and one tank using smoke is only one third. To make it work you'd need it to be more like battle tank/demolisher, battle tank/demolisher, battle tank/battle tank.

the wall of russes is the worst way to play armored company!

you must have armored fists, and support for the russes. hth will be the weakest link in an armored company. you must shield the tanks, otherwise your army will be a complete joke.

I've got a complete armored company around from when I played an armored battlegroup (IA1) if you really want loads and loads of tanks that might be the way to go (they count as troops, squadron commanders count as elites and your HQ can be a tank too), it doesn't exclude you from taking a few AF squads too, but the focus would be on an ever-advancing wall of death supported by big guns.

In normal games i regularly squadron a LRMBT and a Demolisher but i wouldn't take a third one unless i have a gigantic (flat) board without terrain, they would simply take up too much space. A nifty thing with the squadron rule is that you can assign pen-hits to any tank in the squadron so all hits go on the vanilla russ until it is destroyed. Another thing is the cover-rule, keep one tank in cover at all times to give all tanks a 4+ cover save.

Ironically, the biggest problem nowadays with an all tank army is other mechanized lists containing lots of AV14 vehicles. Before 5th ed the vanquisher was something of a behemoth since it combined a regular battlecannon with a 96" range AND the ability to fire AT-shells in a neat little package, meaning that you could pop tanks when the opportunity presented itself and rain hellfire on unsuspecting infantry from the other side of the table when not. However the new rules put a stop to that and now it's so niched that it's not worth it's points, especially at BS3. Shame, since it's the only LR-popping LRMBT aside from the demolisher (which is chronically short-ranged). If you really want to use a LRMBT/vanq as tank hunter you might want to look at the IA1-update, available for free from forgeworld, with additional rules for the vanq that allows you to use a Co-Ax weapon (if you hit your target with a coax shot first the main gun counts as TL).

CC is your worst fear when playing an AC-list, but as long as you are aware of it, it is possible to avoid. Anything with a powerfist or thunderhammer needs to be dealt with quickly. Keeeping a demolisher, vanq or executioner in front in a squadron will give you some breathing room as they are AV11 and thus immune to MEQs without powerfists. In all, it is possible to field an armored company that can take care of threats ranging from hordes to MEQs but I wouldn't do it using codex rules but rather IA rules.

I've tried this as a codex build. Minimal infantry, lots of artillery and tanks. It did not work. The problem is that when you are in squads, an immobilized result is a wrecked result, so now you are stuck with a hunk of new terrain blocking a road on top of the loss of a tank to an immobilized result. Also, being in a squad means you have to distribute the damage results like wound allocation for troops. So, if the squad gets shot up and gets 3 stunned results, all your tanks get stunned, not just the front one. The squad rule lowers these results to shaken, but you still cannot shoot with any of the tanks in the squad. So, you can get shut down pretty quick.

If you do try it, be sure to remember that models within the same unit do not obscure LoS of other models in the same squad. This is critical and a departure from true line of sight. So, you can line up your tanks in a goose line and they will still shoot to full effect as if the intervening ones are transparent and insubstantial. Of course, tanks from other squads do preclude LoS as normal, just as wrecks do.

Close combat is also deadlier than normal to tank squads, because all the enemy needs to do is fully engage just one tank of the three. All the damage results suffered on that one tank magically distribute themselves to the other tanks in the squad as well. So, you have to allocate the glancing hits and penetrating hits like wounds. Obviously, the entire squad can easily be lost just because the front tank got swarmed. Finally, always striking the back armor on 14/13/10 or 14/13/11 tanks is deadly especially with the proliferation of MEQ with TH and PF. Many of those would have 2+ armor (terminator or artificer), against which most LR variants are suboptimal.

It's been said over and over, but it cannot be stressed enough with how weak IG tanks can be with the 5th edition CC rules. Mech IG works wonders with the amount of cheap special weapons we can throw around, but it only works because of the numbers that also go along with it.

I've personally lost numerous tanks to CC endeavors simply because AV10 is not something that holds up well. You absolutely need a shield of some form for your tanks, or you'll crumple like paper.

As far as tank squadrons, I've had success with units of 2 LRBTs. Barebones the unit is only 300pts, which isn't that big of a sink, and generally speaking as long as you play them rear-mid field, they make a great wall and apply a fair amount of pressure. Be sure to have countermeasures for when they get charged, but they should be able to pack in enough hits in a few turns to earn their keep.