Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

A little background. I have a guard army with some chimeras and veterans units, with a regular rifle platoon. The pcs has has hb and 2 gl. The squads have a gl each. i also have a manticore for long range heavy support. I wanted to expand my unit with some more leman russes. Currently i have a demolisher w/ lc and hb sponsons. I was thinking of making 2 squadrons of tanks. I want to add some more demolishers to the one squadron but i was trying to think of what to do for the second one.

Should I make it anti infantry with punishers and/or exterminators. Regular russes. Vanquishers? I am not sure. I was also thinking of making the demolisher unit the anti infantry and maybe have 2 of them in it with a punisher. But I am really not sure what I want to do.

Any suggestions?

Exterminators are great for anti-air/infantry,light vehicles and anti-air is beneficial for 6th with the new flyer rules

I don't actually use any LRBTs (I should though) so just wait for other experienced folks to reinforce or criticize and suggest things to you.

Executors with full plasma layout, with 6th, most people are trying to get that 2+ AP and the 3 microblast explosions are always good.

Punishers, in groups of 2 with the Heavy Bolter sponsons, and cast prescience on that unit.

That is a brickton of Str 5 shots there, with re-rolls to hit.

Not many units can withstand that kind of 'punishment'

I would go with an Exterminator with Heavy Bolter sponsons and maybe a lascannon up front, but, not necessary. After that, I like the Punisher with heavy bolters all around. Just my thoughts and opinion.

The standard leman russ is arguably the best version. Ordnance helps smack around vehicles, large blast high strength and good ap smacks around MEQs.

I never add sponsons. More often than not you'll only get to use one of them, or neither. Those points can go towards making your orders giving CCS a nightmare to assault via 4 flamers.

Punishers always fail to deliver for me.

BS 3 means you miss half the time
No AP means everything gets a save. For being an anti horde it kind of sucks at it.
Moderate strength means only light vehicles will worry about it. Possibly also a lone slogger.
30 pts more than a standard leman
24 inch range? Welcome to the world of return fire

While on the other hand...

BS 3 usually means little because your using a large blast
Great AP that ensures only TEQs get a save
High strength means MEQ instakills
Barrage nature gives you extra oomph taking out enemy vehicles
Due to the nature of blast, some cover saves can be completely negated.
Causes pinning
72 inch range. Death from afar and rarely will anything be able to shoot back.
Don't have to see your target

As for the exterminator, I'm kind of iffy about that too. It's really just a glorified autocannon heavy weapons team. With the heavy weapons team being superior firepower wise with a CCS nearby and bring it down being ordered.

I'd say just get a standard leman, no upgrade. Park it in the back, or surround it with meat shields, and go to town.

 DeathReaper wrote:
Punishers, in groups of 2 with the Heavy Bolter sponsons, and cast prescience on that unit.

That is a brickton of Str 5 shots there, with re-rolls to hit.

Not many units can withstand that kind of 'punishment'

You have to ally in another army to do that, but it's okay I guess. Low-mid strength anti infantry shooting isn't something IG have a problem with though. Guard armies don't have a problem putting down tons of anti infantry firepower with Guardsmen. It's better to let your HS slots do the heavy lifting with battlecannons or demolishers.

Unfortunately, Leman Russes that shoot ordnance weapons have to fire everything else as snap shots. This means that a tank with a battle cannon or demolisher cannon is best served without sponsons and taking the hull heavy bolter to keep points down. I still take lascannons on my LRBTs just because they're modeled that way, but if I was running off to a tournament I wouldn't use the hull lascannons. Executioners are good, but I might leave the sponson plasma cannons off since the Gets Hot! rolls might glance your own tank to death. The chances of this happening aren't huge, but still it would suck to have a gun not fire.

 Necroshea wrote:
The standard leman russ is arguably the best version. Ordnance helps smack around vehicles, large blast high strength and good ap smacks around MEQs.

I never add sponsons. More often than not you'll only get to use one of them, or neither. Those points can go towards making your orders giving CCS a nightmare to assault via 4 flamers.

Punishers always fail to deliver for me.

BS 3 means you miss half the time

You missed the part where I said to cast Prescience on the unit.

No AP means everything gets a save. For being an anti horde it kind of sucks at it.

58 shots, 43.5 hits, 28.71 wounds on a T4 unit, a unit with a 5+ save fails to save 18.9486 wounds. per round. not a bad anti horde unit if you ask me. (That does not take the AP5 from the 3 heavy bolters into account).

Moderate strength means only light vehicles will worry about it. Possibly also a lone slogger.
30 pts more than a standard leman

It can do more damage than a standard russ, and can kill MC's a lot better, but it is worse at killing vehicles. It can even do some damage to Swooping FMC's.

24 inch range? Welcome to the world of return fire.

AV 14 cares not about your return fire. flank that unit with two chimera and you are gold.

 DeathReaper wrote:

AV 14 cares not about your return fire. flank that unit with two chimera and you are gold.

Also means you're closing in on charge/melta range!

 Brother SRM wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:

AV 14 cares not about your return fire. flank that unit with two chimera and you are gold.

Also means you're closing in on charge/melta range!

True, if the Meltaguns are still alive after all those wounds (Average of 9 wounds on a 3+ save unit)

Still I think they have merit as allies. Ran them with my BA and they rocked the house out of anything they fired at.

 DeathReaper wrote:

 Necroshea wrote:
The standard leman russ is arguably the best version. Ordnance helps smack around vehicles, large blast high strength and good ap smacks around MEQs.

I never add sponsons. More often than not you'll only get to use one of them, or neither. Those points can go towards making your orders giving CCS a nightmare to assault via 4 flamers.

Punishers always fail to deliver for me.

BS 3 means you miss half the time

You missed the part where I said to cast Prescience on the unit.

So far you need allies to make this plan work. So basically your paying for the punisher, and roughly 200 more points (this is a guess) for an hq and troop choice

No AP means everything gets a save. For being an anti horde it kind of sucks at it.

58 shots, 43.5 hits, 28.71 wounds on a T4 unit, a unit with a 5+ save fails to save 18.9486 wounds. per round. not a bad anti horde unit if you ask me. (That does not take the AP5 from the 3 heavy bolters into account).

Moderate strength means only light vehicles will worry about it. Possibly also a lone slogger.
30 pts more than a standard leman

It can do more damage than a standard russ, and can kill MC's a lot better, but it is worse at killing vehicles. It can even do some damage to Swooping FMC's.
Well, yeah. It's doing more because you're adding a crap ton of stuff to the equation to make it work. The comparison needs to be between naked standard and naked punisher

24 inch range? Welcome to the world of return fire.

AV 14 cares not about your return fire. flank that unit with two chimera and you are gold
Again, you have to add stuff to make that tank work. Also, melta would like to have a word with you. Plasma too. Don't forget lascannons which you won't be able to shoot at for another 24 inches, which is about 4 turns worth of moving .

 Necroshea wrote:

How do you get 43.5 shots? Even if you started out with 58 shots without a psyker power, you will only hit half the time which is 29

You reroll your misses with prescience, remember?

 Bobthehero wrote:

 Necroshea wrote:

How do you get 43.5 shots? Even if you started out with 58 shots without a psyker power, you will only hit half the time which is 29

You reroll your misses with prescience, remember?

Ah, brain fart there.

Thanks for the replies. I think I am leaning toward a group of regular russes and adding a punisher or 2 to my demolisher. Not 100% certain on the punishers but heavily considering it.

 Necroshea wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:

 Necroshea wrote:
The standard leman russ is arguably the best version. Ordnance helps smack around vehicles, large blast high strength and good ap smacks around MEQs.

I never add sponsons. More often than not you'll only get to use one of them, or neither. Those points can go towards making your orders giving CCS a nightmare to assault via 4 flamers.

Punishers always fail to deliver for me.

BS 3 means you miss half the time

You missed the part where I said to cast Prescience on the unit.

So far you need allies to make this plan work. So basically your paying for the punisher, and roughly 200 more points (this is a guess) for an hq and troop choice

100 point BA psyker stick him with a blob and cast Prescience on the LRBT unit. You have to have a 90 point Tac Squad that can take objectives and are fairly hearty. as well, but you could take a bunch of Death Company, who are really nice right about now.

 Necroshea wrote:
Well, yeah. It's doing more because you're adding a crap ton of stuff to the equation to make it work. The comparison needs to be between naked standard and naked punisher

Even 1 basic LR's to 1 Punishers, the Punisher does more damage to MC's and the Basic LR's can not even attempt to hit Swooping MC's

 Necroshea wrote:
Again, you have to add stuff to make that tank work. Also, melta would like to have a word with you. Plasma too. Don't forget lascannons which you won't be able to shoot at for another 24 inches, which is about 4 turns worth of moving .

The best 3 patterns still hasnt change, LRBT, Demolisher and Executioner are still the best ones.
Exterminator did become more attractive somewhat now that Hydra has to snap shot at ground targets.

Executioner by far. Any thing within 36" of it will be toast. If your lacking in AA, then go with the exterminator with HB sponsons. I've had pretty good sucess with it taking out infantry squads, transports, even a flyer or two! It supports advancing chimeras/infantry pretty well and is durable enough to take whatever the enemy throws at it (just dont let it get into assault).

 Necroshea wrote:
The standard leman russ is arguably the best version. Ordnance helps smack around vehicles, large blast high strength and good ap smacks around MEQs.

I never add sponsons. More often than not you'll only get to use one of them, or neither. Those points can go towards making your orders giving CCS a nightmare to assault via 4 flamers.

Punishers always fail to deliver for me.

BS 3 means you miss half the time
No AP means everything gets a save. For being an anti horde it kind of sucks at it.
Moderate strength means only light vehicles will worry about it. Possibly also a lone slogger.
30 pts more than a standard leman
24 inch range? Welcome to the world of return fire

While on the other hand...

BS 3 usually means little because your using a large blast
Great AP that ensures only TEQs get a save
High strength means MEQ instakills
Barrage nature gives you extra oomph taking out enemy vehicles
Due to the nature of blast, some cover saves can be completely negated.
Causes pinning
72 inch range. Death from afar and rarely will anything be able to shoot back.
Don't have to see your target

As for the exterminator, I'm kind of iffy about that too. It's really just a glorified autocannon heavy weapons team. With the heavy weapons team being superior firepower wise with a CCS nearby and bring it down being ordered.

I'd say just get a standard leman, no upgrade. Park it in the back, or surround it with meat shields, and go to town.

Please, PLEASE, tell me I wasn't the only one who saw this.

Leman Russ Battle tanks are NOT artillery. They may feel like it, but they are not. You are thinking of BARRAGE weapons, not ordnance. If thats what you want, a basilisk is basically the leman russ of our mobile artillery and will serve you well.

To explain...

1. Leman Russes DO NOT have barrage, therefore they MUST be able to see their target.

2. As they are not barrage, they cannot "Barrage snipe", and all wounds must be taken from closest to the tank.

3. As they are not Barrage, you will hit whatever armor value is facing you, not the "top" (aka side armor) when firing at enemy vehicles. Ordnance does however give you 2d6 pick highest on the pen roll though, and that is handy in and of itself.

4. As it is not Barrage, you will probably never ignore a cover save unless some other ability is applied (pysker abilities that IG can't get except through allies for example) Therefore, if your opponent is hiding behind a hedge or inside a building, he will always get his cover save.

Sorry man I didn't mean to sound rude, but I feel seriously bad for any opponent you accidentally used your russ in this way against.

Also, to get back on topic, I've found the executioner with plasma sponsons to be insane. The "glance itself to death" is pretty silly once you think about it. You'll only glance yourself once a game usually per tank, and that's if it lives till the end of turn 4. The amount of damage it will put out on the first turn alone will ensure it'll eat literally every shot the opponent has with even a prayer of killing it the next turn.

What's funniest though, was that even when they get killed turn 1, usually they STILL made their points back. Those things are insane

Only the Sponsons overheat too, the main gun doesnt, which is sweet.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

1. Leman Russes DO NOT have barrage, therefore they MUST be able to see their target.

2. As they are not barrage, they cannot "Barrage snipe", and all wounds must be taken from closest to the tank.

3. As they are not Barrage, you will hit whatever armor value is facing you, not the "top" (aka side armor) when firing at enemy vehicles. Ordnance does however give you 2d6 pick highest on the pen roll though, and that is handy in and of itself.

4. As it is not Barrage, you will probably never ignore a cover save unless some other ability is applied (pysker abilities that IG can't get except through allies for example) Therefore, if your opponent is hiding behind a hedge or inside a building, he will always get his cover save.

Sorry man I didn't mean to sound rude, but I feel seriously bad for any opponent you accidentally used your russ in this way against.

Whoops, when I was looking over the rules in 6ed rulebook I guess the time of night played tricks on my eyes and I got ordnance and barrage confused. No worries regarding the confusion, the few times I used them in 5th I just simply shot at vehicles I could see, and picked the highest dice for pen if the center landed on them.