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is running 9 lemon russ tanks in 3X3 sqauds viable?

Well, considering that 3 squadrons of 3 basic Russes, without any upgrades at all, will run you over 1300 points, what are you going to do for your HQ and troops?

And remember that even though you have 9 Russes, they are squadrons and will only be able to shoot at 3 things per turn.

No.

In order to take 9 russes, and outfit them properly, you won't have enough points left over for properly equipped troops and HQ in a single FOC. Once you add enough points to fix this problem, you've added enough points to roll the game over onto a second FOC, which makes running the russes in squads of three unecessary.

The only way you can make this work is with ghetto russes that don't have any hull weapons. Paying 150 points for just a battlecannon and a snap firing heavy bolter isn't worth the points cost.

Ah yes.

I was thinking of a command squad, and 2 platoons for troop / bubble wrap and a commisar. maybe 2 vendettas. I have 1850 points to play with. But I am open to ideas. perhaps maybe 3X2 squads? I wanted to play a fluffy / somewhat compeditive list in the next tourny and through various trades have ended up with 11 Lemon Russ tanks all mix and matched and different loadouts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:
No.

In order to take 9 russes, and outfit them properly, you won't have enough points left over for properly equipped troops and HQ in a single FOC. Once you add enough points to fix this problem, you've added enough points to roll the game over onto a second FOC, which makes running the russes in squads of three unecessary.

The only way you can make this work is with ghetto russes that don't have any hull weapons. Paying 150 points for just a battlecannon and a snap firing heavy bolter isn't worth the points cost.

I am open to ideas and suggestions. As mentioned above is my thought process but if it is not viable then its not viable.

I have found that 3 or 4 Russes is probably enough. I usually take 1 Manticore, 2 Exterminators in a squadron (because they a generalists, and you can shoot them at alot of things and not be useless) with lascannons, and 1 special russ depending on points/situation. I usually take a Demolisher because it can be used against a variety of targets, and a S10 AP2 blast on AV14 is scary for alot of opponents.

I will whip up a list and try and post it tomorrow after work for some feed back.

Whats a lemon russ?

gork and possibly mork wrote:
Whats a lemon russ?

I find that the Lemon Russ is far too common. Most opponents will just hit you with sugar to turn your squadrons into lemonade.

I usually run Lime Russes, or Passion Fruit Russes. Most people don't know they can throw sugar at you to give you Limeade Russes and nobody knows what the hell a Passion Fruit actually is.

loling so hard at the moment, and honestly, even at 1850, 9 russes, would be enough for most competetive lists be all like, ah, crap 9 av 14 vehicles, how the heck do I deal with this..... seriously most armies have just enough anti-vehicle to kill 1 or 2 heavy tanks, 9 would overwhelm and march through most lists your infrantry could just sit in some cover the whole game

9 Russes is doable with a circle the wagons and olnt let them hit the av 14 side but it is one of the biggest F*ing TFG tactics I can think of.

9 Lemon Russes will go sour on you very quickly.

*ducks*

I would agree that in a single IG FOC army list 9 leman russ' are overkill and will leave you neutered in your ability to actually kill things.

You can run a 2FOC list at >2000pts which allows you to take 6 HS slots. This would be much better and give you enough points to actually upgrade them to be the killing machines they should be.

Alternatively FW provided us with the armoured battle group list from IA1. It allows you to run leman russ tanks as Troops, HQ, and Elites. You will have trouble getting proper scoring units in the list but that is what allies are for. The best thing about this army list are the upgrades which actually make the leman russ' you normally don't take useful and allow them to fulfill roles that would normally be left unfilled.

It's not really viable.

The costs of the 9 russ tanks is high

3 tend to over kill.

Any single IG unit over 400 points should have a prescience if it's not tl.

2 russ with prescience average 1/9 more pie plate hits/turn than 3 without prescience.

When life gives you 1500+ points to spare, make Lemanade.
But seriously, it will be heavily one sided. Either you'll kick butt, or crash and burn miserably.

9 of them is just too much of a points sink and will imbalance your list.

Also, I just had to put this here:

 Commander_Nightflier wrote:
loling so hard at the moment, and honestly, even at 1850, 9 russes, would be enough for most competetive lists be all like, ah, crap 9 av 14 vehicles, how the heck do I deal with this..... seriously most armies have just enough anti-vehicle to kill 1 or 2 heavy tanks, 9 would overwhelm and march through most lists your infrantry could just sit in some cover the whole game

The problem is that the 9x LRBT list doesn't really have much offensive power. Battlecannons are only really good against MEQs (preferably MEQs that aren't camping in cover), and you can only target three units each turn. If you upgrade some of the LRBTs to a better mix of tanks you aren't going to have enough scoring units so your opponent can just ignore the tanks and win on objectives. And of course if your opponent can deal with lots of tanks (mass melta, anything that can assault, etc) you're getting tabled.

Mali wrote:
9 Russes is doable with a circle the wagons and olnt let them hit the av 14 side but it is one of the biggest F*ing TFG tactics I can think of.

Err, lol? This isn't even close to a TFG tactic. Maybe you should review how the rules for determining which armor facing you shoot at?

aww, poor, thirsty ork.

Anyways, I'd also note that while russes are AV14, their rear armor is only 10 or 11. A squadron of three russes is just a powerfist or two from being wiped out in a single round of close combat.

Not to mention other hard counters like... well, everything necron, or deepstriking melta weapons, etc. etc.

But what if the opponent has flyers or Terminators?

 PrinceRaven wrote:
9 of them is just too much of a points sink and will imbalance your list.

Also, I just had to put this here:

I know what my next modeling project is.

I play my first game with my new IG army a few days ago and went against a Grey Knight Army kitted out with all termy paladins.

In most cases my three basic LR battle cannons just bounced off of them, as a result I will be soon upgrading one of them to a demolisher.

I think running nine would be a good first turn shocker but after that they could get taken apart by a prepared player very easily.

Maybe running two in a squadron and a another one on its own and that's leaving you room for something else.

My standard XV-8 tank hunting team (2 suits with 2x Fusion Blasters each) could easily slag an entire squadron a turn, especially with some ML support.

My point is, it's really easy to counter this choice.

It would also be a serious lol list.

 Commander_Nightflier wrote:
loling so hard at the moment, and honestly, even at 1850, 9 russes, would be enough for most competetive lists be all like, ah, crap 9 av 14 vehicles, how the heck do I deal with this..... seriously most armies have just enough anti-vehicle to kill 1 or 2 heavy tanks, 9 would overwhelm and march through most lists your infrantry could just sit in some cover the whole game

I assault them and stuff krak gernades down their tailpipes.

Many xenos armies would have problems though. Crons and Eldar come to mind.

I would not take 9 though. I think your better off taking 6, so you can ally in marines with to prescience your russ' squadrens. That Heavy 20 Russ with 3 HBs becomes a lot more scary when its hitting 75% of the time instead of 50% of the time. Instead of gettting 43.5 STR 5 hits a turn on the target, they are getting 65.25 STR 5 hits per turn.

How many Kroot are in that squad?

I fought two IG players and their 4000 points of tanks the other day. It looks terrifying in deployment, and they can do some stupid damage depending on their rolls and if they get first turn.

A couple turns in though, six leman russ chassi tanks were utterly wrecked by a chaos lord, a nurgle sergant, and a single obliterator. All because they got into combat with their power fists. Squadrons are really a kick in the teeth, I almost felt bad when I did three glances and two pens, and rolled two explosion results. That's three executioners that just vanished. The obliterator did the same thing to another squad too, except with three pens.

I think these scary powerful tanks are better used when you actually have enough points to put something between them and the enemy. If you're only getting one or two shooting phases before a solid chunk of your army is being cut off in close combat, often it really just isn't enough.

I was thinking of taking a couple infantry platoons for bubble wrap purposes.

But the general talk appears that 9 is not a good idea and that maybe squad of 3 X 2 or 2,2,1 ?

 ansacs wrote:
Alternatively FW provided us with the armoured battle group list from IA1. It allows you to run leman russ tanks as Troops, HQ, and Elites. You will have trouble getting proper scoring units in the list but that is what allies are for. The best thing about this army list are the upgrades which actually make the leman russ' you normally don't take useful and allow them to fulfill roles that would normally be left unfilled.

Can't emphasize this enough. Whether you use it as your main force or as allies, it allows you to get more slots for more Russes, alongside some really cool bonus options.

Matt2429 wrote:
I was thinking of taking a couple infantry platoons for bubble wrap purposes.

But the general talk appears that 9 is not a good idea and that maybe squad of 3 X 2 or 2,2,1 ?

Platoons arent bad but look at it this way, there are only a few weapons that can kill russes from a distance, lascannons, lance weapons, and missiles can glance but otherwise nothing will hurt a russ. So since none of your opponents weapons can hurt a russ where do you think they will go, into the platoon and with how many points you got in the russes the platoon probably isnt very big and will probably die easily. Once that is done then comes the point where a russ dies easily, close range melta and assaults. Your opponent will swipe all the tanks off the board in a blink of an eye when assaults start to hit your tanks.

Ive actually tried a list with a bunch of russes but it has to be at high enough points level and you really need double FOC. These two options are key because you need enough points to use other variants of russes, It doesnt hurt to use some LRBT's but you really need to use other variants as the LRBT is kinda the worst of them all in reguards to the others taking sponsons. Double FOC allows you to use them in their own squadrons and allows you to have more dedicated rolls if you put any in squadrons.

If you use any variants the ones I seriously recommend are punisher with bolters all around or equip it with lascannon/MM sponsons. The other variant the Ive found to be really good and can do many rolls is the Vanquisher with Lascannon and plasma sponsons, if you take MM sponsons you make it a little more effective at killing armor closer up. Other than those some exterminators with Lascannons/bolter sponsons or MM sponsons are pretty effective. Eredicator with Bolters is pretty good for horde armies and then theres your executioner with plasma sponsons for destroying teq like crazy. After you use most of those variants is when I would start using LRBT's. But this is more so for higher point games. If your playing low point games Im pretty sure a LRBT or demolisher would do you fine.

Well, that's why you have mechvets. Mechvets are a superb defensive weapon, designed to keep those things that are good against russes away from the russes.

That said, you're sort of stuck in your deployment zone, running a gunline, like an artillery list.

... well, except you're kind of not, right? Because russes are heavy, which means you get to move 6", and have the armor to get away with it, which means that you can do rolling thunder games like this.

 Ailaros wrote:
Well, that's why you have mechvets. Mechvets are a superb defensive weapon, designed to keep those things that are good against russes away from the russes.

That said, you're sort of stuck in your deployment zone, running a gunline, like an artillery list.

... well, except you're kind of not, right? Because russes are heavy, which means you get to move 6", and have the armor to get away with it, which means that you can do rolling thunder games like this.

How many points is list?

Oop, sorry. That's 1850.

It was part of a tournament, and so I wrote those few reports at the same time, and thus somehow assumed that everyone would read them all at the same time.

In any case, you get the drift. Russes are strong enough to be able to slowly roll across the table so long as they don't have to worry too badly about things like close combat, which is what the mechvets are for.

Of course, I would go on to refine that kind of list (they wouldn't have lascannons in the future, and the exterminator became an executioner, for example), but as a basic template, that's one way you could do this kind of a list.

 Talore wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
Alternatively FW provided us with the armoured battle group list from IA1. It allows you to run leman russ tanks as Troops, HQ, and Elites. You will have trouble getting proper scoring units in the list but that is what allies are for. The best thing about this army list are the upgrades which actually make the leman russ' you normally don't take useful and allow them to fulfill roles that would normally be left unfilled.

Can't emphasize this enough. Whether you use it as your main force or as allies, it allows you to get more slots for more Russes, alongside some really cool bonus options.

QFT

I immediately thought of ABG when I read 9 Russes.