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I've been getting very conflicted views on the standard, Codex;SM Razorback. On the one hand, Razorspam is apparently a buzzword in the local meta, when it comes to Mech-Marine lists. On the other hand, whenever I bring it up, I'm told its a waste of time, because it doesn't have the firepower of a Predator, or the carrying capacity of a Rhino. I've been told it's basically a Land Raider on suck-pills. :/

Care to shed some light on this for me?

Your HS slots should be full anyway so razor vs pred isn't really an issue. They're cheap twin-linked heavy weapons, that can provide transport/cover in the early game.
You don't NEED them as such, but they're not bad en masse.

Generally other marine codexes (gk, sw, and BA) spam razorbacks better than regular marines. That said razor backs are good to include in your armies for some extra punch. IMO you should either go regular so they are cheap or go with las/plasma. IMO twin lascannon lacks versatility.

The razorback can provide heavy support from your troops, which is excellent when your (mine) heavy support is all thunderfire cannons.

It also gives you the ability to combat squad and hide small units that can hold objectives.

The vanilla codex is a shooting army, so razorbacks never hurt so long as they have a weapon that helps you.

Even then, you are better off using a 10man squad to hold an objective, rather than a 5man one.

Razorbacks are better for other Marine armies because they can afford to have MSUs with special weapons. Vanilla Tactical Marines cannot function well in MSU, since, you can't take any special / heavy weapons with less than 10 marines.

I used to like Razorbacks a lot, but, now, not so much.

You can always take a 10 man objective sitting squad with free missile and flamer then just buy the razorback as an extra heavy weapon and run it empty.

Crazyterran wrote:Even then, you are better off using a 10man squad to hold an objective, rather than a 5man one.

Razorbacks are better for other Marine armies because they can afford to have MSUs with special weapons. Vanilla Tactical Marines cannot function well in MSU, since, you can't take any special / heavy weapons with less than 10 marines.

I used to like Razorbacks a lot, but, now, not so much.

This, the good sir said everything.

I am assuming, OP, from your name that you like landraiders. And you are comparing a razorback to a predator and a landraider.

Let's compare apples, oranges and chocolate cake. They're all the same, right?....right? For the cost of a landraider you can get 7 rhino's. Think about this OP- one melta into your landraider and goodbye 240+ points. One melta into a rhino, and then the marines inside are going to get pissed and call in the 60 other marines in the other rhino's. You've got 6 turns to melta them all. A landraider is a big fat juicy target that few weapons can hurt, but the ones that do really really really hurt. Watching a landraider die like a rhino to melta or MC's or railguns is painful, and makes you wonder if 7 rhino's or 6 razorbacks are a better choice. But i digress...

Razorspam works better for other non vanilla marine armies.

I.E 5 vanilla marines+TLLC/LC TLPG razorback (thats a mouthful. They are now lasbacks and lasplasbacks ) is 165p
5 Grey hunter+lasback/lasplasback is 150. Same units, but the SW ALL have BP/CCW and they have counter attack. Cheaper too
So the idea is to spam lots of cheap troops in a larger point army for 1) lots of firepower 2) durability via target saturation and 3) instead of a few solid troops units you have lots of smaller units, making it harder to knock them all out, especially when you have to destroy a vehicle for every 5 troops
So a razorspam army would look like-

Rifleman dread
Rifleman dread
Rifleman dread
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
Typhoon
Typhoon
Typhoon
Dakka pred
Dakka pred
Dakka pred
1500~

So again- spamming cheap firepower is what razorback lists are about. They can be quite fun, but also monotonous. I wouldn't tell you to jump on the wagon, but i will admit it is an effective army.

Jihallah wrote:I am assuming, OP, from your name that you like landraiders. And you are comparing a razorback to a predator and a landraider.

Let's compare apples, oranges and chocolate cake. They're all the same, right?....right? For the cost of a landraider you can get 7 rhino's. Think about this OP- one melta into your landraider and goodbye 240+ points. One melta into a rhino, and then the marines inside are going to get pissed and call in the 60 other marines in the other rhino's. You've got 6 turns to melta them all. A landraider is a big fat juicy target that few weapons can hurt, but the ones that do really really really hurt. Watching a landraider die like a rhino to melta or MC's or railguns is painful, and makes you wonder if 7 rhino's or 6 razorbacks are a better choice. But i digress...

Razorspam works better for other non vanilla marine armies.

I.E 5 vanilla marines+TLLC/LC TLPG razorback (thats a mouthful. They are now lasbacks and lasplasbacks ) is 165p
5 Grey hunter+lasback/lasplasback is 150. Same units, but the SW ALL have BP/CCW and they have counter attack. Cheaper too
So the idea is to spam lots of cheap troops in a larger point army for 1) lots of firepower 2) durability via target saturation and 3) instead of a few solid troops units you have lots of smaller units, making it harder to knock them all out, especially when you have to destroy a vehicle for every 5 troops
So a razorspam army would look like-

Rifleman dread
Rifleman dread
Rifleman dread
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
Typhoon
Typhoon
Typhoon
Dakka pred
Dakka pred
Dakka pred
1500~

So again- spamming cheap firepower is what razorback lists are about. They can be quite fun, but also monotonous. I wouldn't tell you to jump on the wagon, but i will admit it is an effective army.

So what I'm getting from this is that Razorbacks are not something you just throw into your list piecemeal; it's either go big or go home. Would that be accurate?

Not entirely. They are effective in any list that uses armour saturation, the most extreme example of which is the above list type.

Jihallah wrote:I am assuming, OP, from your name that you like landraiders. And you are comparing a razorback to a predator and a landraider.

Let's compare apples, oranges and chocolate cake. They're all the same, right?....right? For the cost of a landraider you can get 7 rhino's. Think about this OP- one melta into your landraider and goodbye 240+ points. One melta into a rhino, and then the marines inside are going to get pissed and call in the 60 other marines in the other rhino's. You've got 6 turns to melta them all. A landraider is a big fat juicy target that few weapons can hurt, but the ones that do really really really hurt. Watching a landraider die like a rhino to melta or MC's or railguns is painful, and makes you wonder if 7 rhino's or 6 razorbacks are a better choice. But i digress...

Razorspam works better for other non vanilla marine armies.

I.E 5 vanilla marines+TLLC/LC TLPG razorback (thats a mouthful. They are now lasbacks and lasplasbacks ) is 165p
5 Grey hunter+lasback/lasplasback is 150. Same units, but the SW ALL have BP/CCW and they have counter attack. Cheaper too
So the idea is to spam lots of cheap troops in a larger point army for 1) lots of firepower 2) durability via target saturation and 3) instead of a few solid troops units you have lots of smaller units, making it harder to knock them all out, especially when you have to destroy a vehicle for every 5 troops
So a razorspam army would look like-

Rifleman dread
Rifleman dread
Rifleman dread
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
5 GH/assmarines/tac marines (depending on your codex) in a Lasplas/lasback
Typhoon
Typhoon
Typhoon
Dakka pred
Dakka pred
Dakka pred
1500~

So again- spamming cheap firepower is what razorback lists are about. They can be quite fun, but also monotonous. I wouldn't tell you to jump on the wagon, but i will admit it is an effective army.

wow thats a dirty list, why dont I see more of that?

Dracos wrote:Not entirely. They are effective in any list that uses armour saturation, the most extreme example of which is the above list type.

QFT. The idea in the above list is to use as many "cheap and cheerful" units as possible, units that don't need bells and whistles, RB's, auto/las and dakka preds, Typhoons, Riflemen etc.

Razorbacks can still be strong outside of spam. I did an army awhile ago that had a tac squad in a rhino, a tac squad with a razorback and a pod tac squad and 2 dread pods. The dread pods drop first leaving the tacs in reserve. The razorback unit combat squads, and leaves a ML/PG/LC at the home objective, and the rhino and razorback support each other. The razorback can nip back if the home base squad dies, or the rhino. The reserve tac squad can drop with the 2 vehicles for local superiority, or at the backfield to reclaim the home objective if lost. This was for a 2v2 game if that helps- IIRC the rhino ended up going back to help the home base because the pod was delayed, and then the pod reinforced the midfield with the razorback... well the then smoking hull of the razorback but the 5 guys were still there and were happy to triple the number of bodies on the objective

I'm not saying take it to a tournament, but you don't need to spam razorbacks to make them worthy. I will also point out that I think SW does this the best- 5 tac marines, 5 assault marines or 5 GH, 5 GH are the nastiest+have better options for 5 man units (unlike tacs that can't even get a special weap)

-edit- ALWAYS BUY RAZORBACKS. THE KIT IS THE EXACT SAME AS THE RHINO, BUT WITH EXTRA BITS. YOU PAY THE SAME PRICE. WHEN CONSTRUCTING THE MODEL, DO NOT GLUE THE TOP HATCH OR THE TURRET ON. YOU CAN NOW SWAP BETWEEN A RHINO AND A RAZORBACK. NEVER BUY A RHINO KIT. NEVER!!!

Jihallah wrote:

Dracos wrote:Not entirely. They are effective in any list that uses armour saturation, the most extreme example of which is the above list type.

QFT. The idea in the above list is to use as many "cheap and cheerful" units as possible, units that don't need bells and whistles, RB's, auto/las and dakka preds, Typhoons, Riflemen etc.

Razorbacks can still be strong outside of spam. I did an army awhile ago that had a tac squad in a rhino, a tac squad with a razorback and a pod tac squad and 2 dread pods. The dread pods drop first leaving the tacs in reserve. The razorback unit combat squads, and leaves a ML/PG/LC at the home objective, and the rhino and razorback support each other. The razorback can nip back if the home base squad dies, or the rhino. The reserve tac squad can drop with the 2 vehicles for local superiority, or at the backfield to reclaim the home objective if lost. This was for a 2v2 game if that helps- IIRC the rhino ended up going back to help the home base because the pod was delayed, and then the pod reinforced the midfield with the razorback... well the then smoking hull of the razorback but the 5 guys were still there and were happy to triple the number of bodies on the objective

I'm not saying take it to a tournament, but you don't need to spam razorbacks to make them worthy. I will also point out that I think SW does this the best- 5 tac marines, 5 assault marines or 5 GH, 5 GH are the nastiest+have better options for 5 man units (unlike tacs that can't even get a special weap)

-edit- ALWAYS BUY RAZORBACKS. THE KIT IS THE EXACT SAME AS THE RHINO, BUT WITH EXTRA BITS. YOU PAY THE SAME PRICE. WHEN CONSTRUCTING THE MODEL, DO NOT GLUE THE TOP HATCH OR THE TURRET ON. YOU CAN NOW SWAP BETWEEN A RHINO AND A RAZORBACK. NEVER BUY A RHINO KIT. NEVER!!!

0.0 I did not know that, but will forever keep that in mind.

Damnable games workshop. Should be a dual kit ><!

Jihallah wrote:Damnable games workshop. Should be a dual kit ><!

Heh, now where would all the fun in that be? (Read as Profits) Thankfully for me, I'm gonna be magnetizing a lot of stuff, so taking advantage of that little tidbit shouldn't be too hard.

TermiesInARaider wrote:

Jihallah wrote:Damnable games workshop. Should be a dual kit ><!

Heh, now where would all the fun in that be? (Read as Profits) Thankfully for me, I'm gonna be magnetizing a lot of stuff, so taking advantage of that little tidbit shouldn't be too hard.

Yeah, I looked at that now that i'm not a dumb 12yr old (back when i started Warhammer, 9 years ago), I look at all the dumb stuff i bought and cry a bit.

Rhino boxes, Venerable Dreads, Space Wolf boxes (though, they where good back when they sold Jump Packs seperately if you wanted Assault Marines), Chaplains, bike squads (to use as FA >.&gt 2 boxes of Vanguard Veterans, Command Squads (though, don't really regret that one, since I built it properly and have now finally painted it up nice), Heck, the old Space Wolf Venerable dread is sitting on my shelf from when I bought it. Wonder if I could trade someone to get a vanilla dread for it, hmm...

(Though, what i do miss from the old store was the old bitz catalogues. Being able to buy those Marneus Calgar backpacks for commanders and sergeants was pretty baller. Though, I never did it. :()

Crazyterran wrote:

TermiesInARaider wrote:

Jihallah wrote:Damnable games workshop. Should be a dual kit ><!

Heh, now where would all the fun in that be? (Read as Profits) Thankfully for me, I'm gonna be magnetizing a lot of stuff, so taking advantage of that little tidbit shouldn't be too hard.

Yeah, I looked at that now that i'm not a dumb 12yr old (back when i started Warhammer, 9 years ago), I look at all the dumb stuff i bought and cry a bit.

Rhino boxes, Venerable Dreads, Space Wolf boxes (though, they where good back when they sold Jump Packs seperately if you wanted Assault Marines), Chaplains, bike squads (to use as FA >.&gt 2 boxes of Vanguard Veterans, Command Squads (though, don't really regret that one, since I built it properly and have now finally painted it up nice), Heck, the old Space Wolf Venerable dread is sitting on my shelf from when I bought it. Wonder if I could trade someone to get a vanilla dread for it, hmm...

(Though, what i do miss from the old store was the old bitz catalogues. Being able to buy those Marneus Calgar backpacks for commanders and sergeants was pretty baller. Though, I never did it. :()

Those bits could come in handy. It'd be awesome if I could get different combi-weapons without needing to muck around with green-stuff, and then just magnetize my Sternguards and kit them how I like without any fuss.

TermiesInARaider wrote:

Crazyterran wrote:

TermiesInARaider wrote:

Jihallah wrote:Damnable games workshop. Should be a dual kit ><!

Heh, now where would all the fun in that be? (Read as Profits) Thankfully for me, I'm gonna be magnetizing a lot of stuff, so taking advantage of that little tidbit shouldn't be too hard.

Yeah, I looked at that now that i'm not a dumb 12yr old (back when i started Warhammer, 9 years ago), I look at all the dumb stuff i bought and cry a bit.

Rhino boxes, Venerable Dreads, Space Wolf boxes (though, they where good back when they sold Jump Packs seperately if you wanted Assault Marines), Chaplains, bike squads (to use as FA >.&gt 2 boxes of Vanguard Veterans, Command Squads (though, don't really regret that one, since I built it properly and have now finally painted it up nice), Heck, the old Space Wolf Venerable dread is sitting on my shelf from when I bought it. Wonder if I could trade someone to get a vanilla dread for it, hmm...

(Though, what i do miss from the old store was the old bitz catalogues. Being able to buy those Marneus Calgar backpacks for commanders and sergeants was pretty baller. Though, I never did it. :()

Those bits could come in handy. It'd be awesome if I could get different combi-weapons without needing to muck around with green-stuff, and then just magnetize my Sternguards and kit them how I like without any fuss.

When I get some more cash I'm going to buy a box of tactical marines and a bunch of the Chapter House magnetized bolters. then use all these stupid purity seals and paper tabard things and make them look veterany. (and use all of my crux terminatus shoulders too, i guess).

http://chapterhousestudios.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=77&product_id=150

Oh, and throw the extra Deathwatch pad i get into the bit box, never to see the light of day again.

Razors also work in a list like mine, where you also have plenty of other weapons that will either force the enemy to shoot at them or simply add to the barrage.

McNinja wrote:Razors also work in a list like mine, where you also have plenty of other weapons that will either force the enemy to shoot at them or simply add to the barrage.

So if you have something juicer, like Predators or a Land Raider or two, then that can give the Razorbacks free reign, or at least take some fire off of them?

Also, I just got a wild thought to put some Devastators in them. Any comments on that?

Sure, put a 5-6 man Devastators in them. That'd be a better use for them than on Tactical squads.

You need to take the heat off of them as much as possible if you want to use them after turn 1. Predators will work, Land Raiders will work, pretty much anything with a Lascannon will work. I'm using 4 or 5 dreadnoughts, so that'll work as well. Deathstars like... Terminators in a land raider would be a bright target, and you may just get your devastators where you want them.

However, a razorback is still an av11 trasport, so don't expect it to last all that long, even with other targets.

I keep my Captain & Command Squad in the Razorback. Since it is only a 6-man squad to begin with the extra space in a rhino would be wasted. And I don't think a command squad is worth sticking in a LR.

Pony_law wrote:Generally other marine codexes (gk, sw, and BA) spam razorbacks better than regular marines. .

This is the truth.
BA get their razorbacks at a nice discount if they fill them with assault squads -- and why would you not? SW do razorspam well because they have such great troops inside. Lets not even talk about how cheap GK henchmen can pull off razorspam.

C:SM just don't pull it off as well. As such, I think that its better for C:SM to spam multiple dreads and predators and limit the number of razorbacks in the list. You can still take em, just don't take all razorbacks.

Smitty0305 wrote:wow thats a dirty list, why dont I see more of that?

Because it's a list that's been tailored to fight... well... this list.

If you're bringing a list that doesn't really care about autocannons and the like getting shot at it, then it's not that great. I'd prefer a version that had a little more diversity in firepower, but if you're going to play in an environment that you know is going to basically be one giant MSU parking lot circle... bible reading... then this would probably be THE way to do it.

Jihallah wrote:Razorbacks can still be strong outside of spam.

True. I'd note, though, that if some of your troops are doing razors, what are the rest doing? SM is an army that doesn't field a lot of models, and so having a strategy that is part-something, part-something else is going to be rather tricky to pull off. It's probably going to be better if your army has a single modus operandi, which means that razors really do tend to become all or nothing affairs - not because of a characteristic of the razors themselves, but because of other factors.

A rhino with a tac squad firing a las cannon out the top hatch is a good enough "razorback" for me haha and you can't weapon destroy my las cannon either
and the ability to stick the full squad in it or combat squad with half still inside is so flexible I prefer the rhino.

as for the actual razorback I believe the 5 man squads not being able to take the special weapon really hurts it the most. I would personally use it for command squads etc. but I always like the rhino more personally.

Ailaros wrote:

Smitty0305 wrote:wow thats a dirty list, why dont I see more of that?

Because it's a list that's been tailored to fight... well... this list.

What? I just whipped that up off the top of my head, not tailored to fight anything in particular. What list do you think its tailored against?

And smitty- its copy paste. Take a dirty shooty unit, take more so you have redundancy. It's nothing special- i mean, its got only 5 different units. Sure its got 13 different elements (17 if you count the marine squads), but there's only 5 variations in there. Its a mathhammer list.

Crazyterran wrote:

TermiesInARaider wrote:

Jihallah wrote:Damnable games workshop. Should be a dual kit ><!

Heh, now where would all the fun in that be? (Read as Profits) Thankfully for me, I'm gonna be magnetizing a lot of stuff, so taking advantage of that little tidbit shouldn't be too hard.

Yeah, I looked at that now that i'm not a dumb 12yr old (back when i started Warhammer, 9 years ago), I look at all the dumb stuff i bought and cry a bit.

Rhino boxes, Venerable Dreads, Space Wolf boxes (though, they where good back when they sold Jump Packs seperately if you wanted Assault Marines), Chaplains, bike squads (to use as FA >.&gt 2 boxes of Vanguard Veterans, Command Squads (though, don't really regret that one, since I built it properly and have now finally painted it up nice), Heck, the old Space Wolf Venerable dread is sitting on my shelf from when I bought it. Wonder if I could trade someone to get a vanilla dread for it, hmm...

(Though, what i do miss from the old store was the old bitz catalogues. Being able to buy those Marneus Calgar backpacks for commanders and sergeants was pretty baller. Though, I never did it. :()

Ha! You and me both! Around 1995 when I was 14 I had a huge kick ass 2nd edition blood Angels army, mostly shooty. Now I have 4000 pts of vanilla blood angels that are hard to get into a cohesive and competitive 5th edition list. I was loathe to buy more marines for a while and raised a nice IG regiment, now I am thinking it's time to start getting some more competitive units.

That being said razorbacks are great, you want at least 2 and I use 2 rhinos to shield them as they roll across the board, with either some bikers assisting or a predator. Although recently I have gone off the predator in favor of devastators. Always feels like its a waste to take a predator with no sponsons so it can keep moving, and I find they attract attention when sitting stationary plinking away with sponsons and turrets.

Jihallah wrote:

Ailaros wrote:

Smitty0305 wrote:wow thats a dirty list, why dont I see more of that?

Because it's a list that's been tailored to fight... well... this list.

What? I just whipped that up off the top of my head, not tailored to fight anything in particular. What list do you think its tailored against?

Hah, well, it was accidentally so, then.

I think this might be a freudian moment. Play against MSU mech spam much?

I use mine by using combat squads and attaching any ic to them eg chaplain. leave the heavy weapons in cover, CC guys in the tank.
My command squad is on a TL heavy flamer razorback. My 2 tac squads have a razorback. And i have 2 more if i have 80 points to spend on cheap fire support.
Iv'e seen a list that had more razorbacks than troops and any other infantry haha. Talk about mech spam