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Greetings all.

Didnt get a huge response on my last thread about a doubles tournament MEQ combo with CSM but that's ok. Reason is that I found my old IG stuff and the 4 Leman Russ I had hidden in a box. So question to the crowd: are tank squads viable in 6th or are they just heavy weapon bait.

A few notes, first I have very limited list slots to work with. At best I can take 2 heavy slots, but that is at the price of stealing the 2nd slot from my chaos teammate. Second is that I have no doubt about Leman Russ being good, my question is specifically for squads.

The 4 Russes are the only heavies I have left from IG so I wouldn't have other options for the slot. Can these tanks compete with what chaos can bring to the table or am I stealing a valuable slot that my teammate could make better use of?

I have more than enough parts to turn them into any basic variant, although I'm leaning pretty heavily towards demolishers.

I know 6th is a scary edition for tanks but I figure AV 14 fronts will go a good way to keeping them alive long enough to win their points back, or so I hope

Bruteboss wrote:
Greetings all.

Didnt get a huge response on my last thread about a doubles tournament MEQ combo with CSM but that's ok. Reason is that I found my old IG stuff and the 4 Leman Russ I had hidden in a box. So question to the crowd: are tank squads viable in 6th or are they just heavy weapon bait.

A few notes, first I have very limited list slots to work with. At best I can take 2 heavy slots, but that is at the price of stealing the 2nd slot from my chaos teammate. Second is that I have no doubt about Leman Russ being good, my question is specifically for squads.

The 4 Russes are the only heavies I have left from IG so I wouldn't have other options for the slot. Can these tanks compete with what chaos can bring to the table or am I stealing a valuable slot that my teammate could make better use of?

I have more than enough parts to turn them into any basic variant, although I'm leaning pretty heavily towards demolishers.

I know 6th is a scary edition for tanks but I figure AV 14 fronts will go a good way to keeping them alive long enough to win their points back, or so I hope

I personally like 2x LRBTs W/Hull HB.

Cheap and killy "enough"

If you want to run demolishers and you want to run 2 squadrons. I'd run a squadron of standard and a squadron of Demo.

That's alot of AV14 front/13 Side. Also just over 600pts if memory serves correct. Like 630iirc

There's a guy at my FLGS who runs 3 squads of 3, plus a bunch of other mech in his lists.

He's almost impossible to beat. By the time you finish with one squad of Russes, half your army is gone.

Even in smaller loadouts I think they would be fine. The high AV is just too good in this edition.

Too expensive; competitive lists will run train on lists like that.

At most, 2 Tanks in a squadron, and only one squadron. More is ridiculous, and chances are you'll be short in some other field as a result.

Squadrons are fine, provided the tanks synergize well.

A fun little day-wrecker tactic is a demolisher squadron with either two demos, a demo-executioner or, believe it or not, a pair of punishers with bolters outflanked via Creed's special rule can really wreck someone's day.

 MajorStoffer wrote:
Squadrons are fine, provided the tanks synergize well.

A fun little day-wrecker tactic is a demolisher squadron with either two demos, a demo-executioner or, believe it or not, a pair of punishers with bolters outflanked via Creed's special rule can really wreck someone's day.

They're too expensive, and lead to overkill, which leads to points wasted.

Two outflanking punishers plus creed is like 400 points.

Just use a Vulture with TL-Punisher cannons. That's 155 points.

A single Demolisher squadron of two is the only viable, non-apocalypse time to squadron Leman Russes.

Oh, it's certainly expensive, but incredibly amusing.

In truth, I only really use the above formation when playing in larger team games, as two outflanking AV 14 vehicles with lots of gun forces the enemy to adjust their lines, leaving openings for my allies, as well as the rest of my force, in a way that flyers don't necessarily provide.

Though, in truth, outflanking an infantry platoon would have a similar affect, I'm just partial to armoured solutions.

Yes.

I would say so, you could also try to be cheeky and immobilise one of your tanks as iirc once it is immobilise it becomes its own separate unit and thus you have cheated the force org chart by having more individual tanks. I've never tried this it is just something my mate has talked to me about.

Squadrons are certainly more viable in 6th than 5th. That said...

TheCaptain wrote:overkill, which leads to points wasted.

This is still a problem that they suffer from.

Being judicious with your choice of squadrons can mitigate this, though. Taking two bolter boat punishers in a single squad is flat-out insane, because you're likely to run into overkill problems every turn. Meanwhile, taking a pair of demolishers isn't that bad of an idea, as one of them is likely to miss completely every shot anyways, and even if both demolisher shells hit, the second one is going to be there to help make sure there aren't stragglers, or to make sure that vehicle is actually dead.

I typically run 3-4 LRBT and squadrons of 2 arent bad, I used to run a manticore so I would have 2 squads of 2 but ditched the manticore and am working on getting a foot horde to rush forward with the tanks although demolishers would be better for this. I have had great success with squads of LRBT so deffinitly try it and see how it goes for ya, Need to protect them really well if I might add.

 Ailaros wrote:
Squadrons are certainly more viable in 6th than 5th. That said...

TheCaptain wrote:overkill, which leads to points wasted.

This is still a problem that they suffer from.

Being judicious with your choice of squadrons can mitigate this, though. Taking two bolter boat punishers in a single squad is flat-out insane, because you're likely to run into overkill problems every turn. Meanwhile, taking a pair of demolishers isn't that bad of an idea, as one of them is likely to miss completely every shot anyways, and even if both demolisher shells hit, the second one is going to be there to help make sure there aren't stragglers, or to make sure that vehicle is actually dead.

I run a pair of eradicators or exterminators, with all heavy bolters and heavy stubbers. 18 S5 shots, 6 S4 and either a pair of pie plates or 8 S7 twin-linked shots. It's not that over-kill, dishing out 12-13 wounds (before saves) on T4 targets; that kills ~4 marines, 2 Terminators or 9-10 orks (who always seem to get some sort of cover). Punishers would score another ~6-7 wounding hits, at a cost of 60 more points.
While I want to like the Punisher, I just don't like the shorter range on such a slow tank.

As far as the Creed bit goes, people always knock him because he's 90 points. He's also packing double the order at twice the range, and can give units Furious Charge and Fearless. Fearless is huge, as you can tie up any unit that can't do 10 wounds in one round of combat when you charge. 10 naked guardsmen jump your unit of thunder hammer terminators. I take my 10 S4 attacks (most likely doing nothing, but I might get lucky). You then take your 10 attacks, hitting on 3's, killing on 2's. If you fail to hit or wound with a single roll, I'm fearless, and now you're stuck in place on your turn. It's absolutely amazing.

Also, you don't have to outflank with creed's ability, you could just drive forward up to 12" before the start of the game, and start the game in range.

-Matt

unless you have to never squad ur tanks in my opinion, just makes them easier to kill and cant kill as much

Not necessarily.

If you have two tanks in a squad, you can always slightly stagger them so that all of the shots have to go to the front one. Once that one gets down to 1HP, you can just back it up slightly behind the other one, and now your opponents have to start all over again.

There is no kill like overkill!

Seriously now, I am not sure tank squads are a good idea, as you will overkill any unit that you are actually equipped against, and against units you are not equipped against being in a squad gain you nothing.
Also, they require some careful management like Ailaros said to get millage out of the extra defense options.
But the greatest negative in my eyes, is that enemy overkill units will no longer overkill, as the "over" will spill to the next tank in line.

So, in short, its a way to "cheat" the FoC into having more tanks, but only use this option once you run out of FoC space.
Its not like its a squishy unit that having it go solo will be easy first blood for the enemy.

 BoomWolf wrote:
There is no kill like overkill!

Seriously now, I am not sure tank squads are a good idea, as you will overkill any unit that you are actually equipped against, and against units you are not equipped against being in a squad gain you nothing.
Also, they require some careful management like Ailaros said to get millage out of the extra defense options.
But the greatest negative in my eyes, is that enemy overkill units will no longer overkill, as the "over" will spill to the next tank in line.

So, in short, its a way to "cheat" the FoC into having more tanks, but only use this option once you run out of FoC space.
Its not like its a squishy unit that having it go solo will be easy first blood for the enemy.

As Ailaros pointed out, staggering your tanks makes the most out of hull points.
Over-kill isn't as bad as some people make it seem. 2 bolter boat punishers are going to score ~14 wounds against T3 models in 5+ cover. That's not that wasteful.
It's really rare for a single battle cannon to one shot a marine squad, and having them in a squadron makes the fire more effective than two running solo. Why? You roll up hits and wounds for both before you start pulling off dead guys. This leaves the greatest density of enemies for both blasts. If you were running two solo russes, the first one would thin down the number of hits the 2nd could score.

-Matt

14 wounds is not wasteful?

Even if your target was on full strength, you did 140% of the damage required, and units are rarely found in full strength after turn 2.

Not to mention the possibility of the enemy using combat squads, or not even HAVE marines. after all xeno players ARE out there (and enemy IG as well)

Sure, squads gives the multi-blast advantage to the AoE guns, but you still dont NEED that firepower, if you killed 7 of them-the last 3 are mop-up remains, not an actual threat-the second cannon might as well target another squad.

Most of the Leman Russ models are obsolete to some degree or another (especially if you have access to Forgeworld). I still think there's a place for an executioner with Plasma Cannon sponsons, however.

The eradicator is just trash, though. When you're working with THE Ordnance Barrage Codex, Aegis Lines are a pitiful excuse for this weapon platform.