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Hey guys just wanted your thoughts on land speeders, mostly what weapon options you guys like to fit and why. There's no doubt there handy units but whats the best mix.

Let me start by saying I'm considering running 3 typhoons with the H.B missiles combo in my B.A army. Am I right in saying I can move 12" fire my H.B and frag at the same time?! Also worth mentioning is my friend who's thinking of running a salamanders list with Vulcan in it. What advice would you offer him as he's pretty keen on taking 2 speeders with the mm, heavy flamer option with Vulcan's special rules. But I'm sure he would get better use out of them if he decided what role he wanted them to play and stuck to a pure breed such as 2 mm speeders for a sole tank hunting role or 2 heavy flamer speeders for troops.

Well guys what do you think

Speeders like to be comfortable, so they rock the jeans and t-shirts, with an occasional polo
[/sarcasm]

So generally speaking there are 3 kinds of speeders run, though there are infinite possibilities.
MM: these will generally be run alone, and deep struck. They drop down, blow a tank, then die. 60 points, blows a ~200 point tank. Doubly effective with vulkan

MM/HF: These can handle anything. Multi-Melta for armor, Heavy Flamer for infantry. Plus they are pretty cheap. Triply effective with vulkan, but will rock in just about any list. These also do well deep striking.

Typhoon Missile Launcher: These guys are really under utilized. They are fairly expensive (for a speeder), but can deal serious damage. 2 templates or 2 krak missiles can do real damage to anything. When run in multi unit squads, they will really crush things. Plus, thanks to their 48" range, they are able to keep out of small arms fire range, which means the enemy needs to divert long ranged tank fire towards them. I actually saw a template list that had 3 TFC, and 2 3 man units of typhoon speeders. Able to obliterate anything.


Everything else is generally considered sub-par, but quite honestly, as long as they are kept cheap, speeders will generally do well. For a cheaper run on the Typhoon load out, try a 3 man unit of dual heavy bolters. They will punk infantry.
I think the dual mm or dual hf are kinda tough to justify. They are super specialized. The dual mm one will definitley nom nom tanks, but the dual hf one will prob die before it gets close enough.

Putting dual weapons on a speeder hampers their versatility. First, you can't fire two weapons after moving 12 inches and trust me, there are only a few occasions when an enemy is within 6 inches of the speeder and it will still be alive the second turn. So more often than not you can only fire one shot, that's it.

Yes, you can fire two frag missiles and the heavy bolter on the same turn. If I were running more of a gunline army, or an army that needed more long range fire support, this is how I would run them. They are extremely worthwhile fire platforms, particularly against armies where you have a range advantage or a lot of very light vehicle/clustered infantry targets.

I run mine with MM/HF. My army is very much offense oriented, so this loadout works much better, and it is not such a burden to move towards the enemy. I'm going there anyway. It presents the opponent with something that, whether he is foot slogging or meched up, WILL cause some damage if it is not dealt with now, and should he not outright destroy it (Something that I have found rather rare, for an unsquadroned speeder to be outright DESTROYED on a turn where there are also multiple threats that figure just as prominently in the opponents mind to be dealt with.) it still has some capacity to inflict serious pain.

Even in the event of a weapon destroyed result, the vehicle is not reduced to last minute objective contesting or "Stay within 6 of that squad that's falling back!" duty. It can still go hunt for clusters of infantry or vehicles/MCs, depending on which weapon your opponent picked to destroy. It also doesn't quite have the same downfall as double HF or MM speeders do, since you cannot fire both weapons in the same turn if moving 12, the -only- purpose the second weapon serves is as a backup, rather than something to take advantage of targets of opportunity (If I get a lucky shot in with a lascannon on that rhino, I can flame the contents. If my tacticals bolter down a terminator squad, I can instead direct the speeder to MMing the nearest vehicle rather than adding in the HF.)

With vulkan, this gets doubly effective. MM/HF would be my vote hands down above the other combination in a list with him involved.

Whatever you pick, don't run just one, and never isolated as a threat. Speeders are best when not in squads, but also in pairs or trios, and paired with comparable threats in your army. One speeder is a pushover. Two or three speeders supporting a land raider driving upboard screaming about sparta from the loudspeakers, or firing missiles to support a bunch of predator tanks/devs and long range firepower is another matter entirely.

Thanks for all your advice guys it was top dollar :-D

I played against a fairly good Nids player this afternoon with 2 Typhoon Missile Launcher/H.B land speeders in my B.A army and I gotta say i was really impressed. I stayed back far enough that i wasn't in range of small arms fire but the fire i was putting down from these two speeders was sick. Turn 1 and 2 seen these guys wiped out 2 gene stealer squads on there own. Now this was probably due to some good rolls but I can really see why a few elite players are constantly running several land speeders at a time. My land speeders continued to hassle his army for the rest of the game and then ran flat out to contest an objective giving me the win.


My next question is should I run two or three in a squad. My thoughts being 3 are kinda over kill shooting at one target where if i bring two units of two I have more options. Thoughts?!

Run your first three speeders in squadrons of one UNLESS you are deathly afraid of giving up killpoints or you lack the FA slots to do so.

Pros of squadron:
One killpoint for multiple vehicles.

Cons:
Inability to fire on multiple units at once, quite possibly overkilling.
50% chance on a pen (On AV10. Not hard to do.) to down your first speeder or two.
Inability to have your useful speeders firing on the board in one area while having one that has been shot gunless flying around staying within 6 of retreating squads or contesting objectives
Devastators/long fangs/etc. having the at least theoretical ability to down your entire squadron with a round of shooting, rather than overkilling one speeder.

The next speeders I work on will be HB and TML speeders. I like the long range and the options with the missiles (infantry or tank busting). In my lists, I run them as single speeder squadrons to escape some of the trappings of squadron damage rules plus for versatility (I can shoot at different targets or I can concentrate fire).

Another thing that is awesome about phoons is they, more than any other unit in the vanilla codex, have the capacity to sidestep cover at range and put two missiles into something, or get sideshots on a surprising number of vehicles.

The only unit comparable to this is BA stormravens fitted with lascannons and phoon launchers doing the same things, and they bring issues of their own to the table.

Dark Angels do Land speeders the best They can take 5 in a squadron and only 65 points each (base)... drawback is you can only have one typhoon ML, and one Tornado pattern loadout. If you go this route its better to use heavy bolters and create a highly mobile firing line with min 3 shots each and 36" range + the Assault cannon, and Typhoon ML. Kinda feels like a landspeeder tactical squad huh?

Artificer5150 wrote:Dark Angels do Land speeders the best They can take 5 in a squadron and only 65 points each (base)... drawback is you can only have one typhoon ML, and one Tornado pattern loadout. If you go this route its better to use heavy bolters and create a highly mobile firing line with min 3 shots each and 36" range + the Assault cannon, and Typhoon ML. Kinda feels like a landspeeder tactical squad huh?

By your own logic BT have the best landspeeders.

DA have two value for money options: the typhoon, so that is 3 models; the landspeeders that are troops. Why would you take 5 in a squadron with assault cannons as they are vulnerable, weak and expensive.

Artificer5150 wrote:Dark Angels do Land speeders the best They can take 5 in a squadron and only 65 points each (base)... drawback is you can only have one typhoon ML, and one Tornado pattern loadout. If you go this route its better to use heavy bolters and create a highly mobile firing line with min 3 shots each and 36" range + the Assault cannon, and Typhoon ML. Kinda feels like a landspeeder tactical squad huh?

Except vanilla marines get land speeders for 50 points base, and none of those drawbacks.

I'm trying to sort out my Fast Attack options, as I think that's a major part of what my SM army lacks...
I'm thinking either 2x HB/MM speeders, and a 10man Assault Squad...
or... 2x10man assault squads, and 1 speeder... would it be bad to have 2 speeders in one FOC slot, as a squadron? I am unfamiliar with how that would work.
I am kindof leaning towards 1 assault squad for pts. reasons, but I'd like 2, one in Rhino, one with Shrike... that would leave me with only 1 slot...
I may have to take just one Assault though, because of pts...

Are HB/MM speeders a decent fast choice?

I'm really curious to see how x3 Typhoons with Hvy Flamer x3 would do.

Standoff mode = x18 missiles. Or if something swarmy got near, x3 heavy flamer for that squadron.

Sure, it's 9 models with Arm10. And that sucks. But if they hang back to lob missiles (like Fast shooting platforms like they are) they've got at least a chance.

I havent run it myself but I'm curious how it'd perform. What, you're going to run LS Storms, attack bikes, or assault squads instead?

I run 2 MM/HF speeders at 1000 points. I find they do 2 really important jobs. First, they are great at doing what they are supposed to do. I can send them in to pop enemy artillery, tanks, or transports early. Once in close they switch to HF and waste troops in cover or now out of their transports.
Second, and sometimes more importantly they draw fire away from my rhinos. This means I can carry more troops into battle and not have to try and squeeze them into Razorbacks. Plus, they usually seem to survive a lot longer than I would think a unit with AV 10 should. Usually turn 1 sees them zooming as far across the board as possible, all rhinos do the same and pop smoke. Turn 2, your hitting them with those speeders and either advancing troops again or deploying them where they need to go. The big advantage is how cheap these things really are. I'm even tempted to take out some of my other assets, just to squeeze in one more MM/HF.