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Got a big bunch of IG minis ready to assemble; Im wondering what weps to equip my troops with. I got a big assortment of random weapons Snipers/Plasmas etc(I sort of have to play you get what you see, it bugs me otherwise)

Also whats the best Leman Russ Kit?

Both those questions are totally dependent on each other and the rest of what you usually take. Do you have ways of dealing with 2+ armor and high toughness? Need to wipe out hordes? Just looking for a cheap and cheerful upgrade? Are your guardsmen veterans or regular infantry? I think the closest thing you'll get to universal advice is to leave the sniper rifles for the ratlings, but that's about it.

Same goes for the Leman Russ - there's a couple I don't see recommended often (Eradicator, Punisher without Pask), but most are pretty solid. I like the Executioner with multi-melta sponsons, myself. Eat hot death, xenos scum!

For the leman russ I would suggest you play it safe and use the variant with the battlecannon - it is just too well rounded. The plasma cannon variant is also quite useful, but significantly more expensive.

For your troops it depends on if they are veterans or an infantry platoon:

- if veterans give the squads 3 plasma rifles or 3 meltaguns
- if infantry platoons - give the member with a special weapon either a flamer or grenade launcher as they are not affected by the somewhat poor BS of 3.

When equipping guardsmen and their tanks, there is one key tenet. Specialisation.

With Space Marines, you can build a squad that can handle most roles well, with IG, you need a job for each squad. Guardsmen don't lend themselves to versatility on a squad-by-squad basis, instead being able to bring enough squads they don't have to.

So you need a role in mind for each squad. If you're looking for the optimised setups, they are:
Infantry Squads:
Melta, LC in a blob, great AT at long and short range, and also good against heavy infantry and MCs. Can use plasma in place of melta but it's a little more expensive.

Power Weapon (usually axe), Melta/flamer. Good for a more aggressive blob, swap the PW for Meltabombs if you see a lot of MCs.

Flamer. Nice and cheap, meaning you can bring more guys. You do have to rely on other stuff to do the heavy lifting if you go down this route.

PCS:
Your best option is 4 flamers, makes a great counter-attack unit for anything that breaks the lines.

Vets:
Special weapons, 3 of the same, Chimera or Carapace armour. If you have limited melta/plasma bits, prioritise the veterans when dishing them out. BS4 is better than BS3.

Russes:
I'd avoid the battle cannon, you can do any one role better with any other option. If you need AT, bring a Vanquisher with lascannon and melta/plasma sponsons. Murders vehicles, MCs and marines of all flavours. If you need anti-horde, bring an eradicator (best against tau/eldar/crons) or a Punisher (preferably with Pask). For a Jack-of-all-trades, you can do better than the standard Russ with a LC/PC exterminator, again better with Pask.

Honestly as stated above it all comes down to how you are playing them.

If vetrans then triple up on metla or plasma and call it a day. I run a mechanized guard army with vets and thats how they are set up.

Also when in doubt about what variant of the LRBT to use then always go to the tried and true work horse of the Imperial Guard : The Standard Leman Russ.

The best you can do is get the highest strength, lowest Ap weapons you can, and cram as many as you possibly can into your lists. You've got enough lasguns/free heavy bolters (depending if you're going foot or mech) to handle everything else. Lascannons, plasma guns, and melta guns won't let you down like everything else invariably will at one point or another.

As for which KIT is best for the russ, I'd say the regular russ kit. The regular leman russ is, by far, the worst russ, but the kit also comes with the exterminator and the vanquisher cannon, both of which are much less useless. There's even a place for the occasional eradicator.

While the punisher and the executioner are also good nowadays, both of them are going to be a lot easier to scratchbuild the turret for, the punisher being basically a bunch of brass tubing lightly draped in plasticard, and the executioner cannon being able to be reproduced with the plasma cannon from the sentinel, or by gluing a few extra plasma sponsons together. The other turrets would be a lot more futzy to scratch build, I think.

 gossipmeng wrote:
For the leman russ I would suggest you play it safe and use the variant with the battlecannon - it is just too well rounded. The plasma cannon variant is also quite useful, but significantly more expensive.

For your troops it depends on if they are veterans or an infantry platoon:

- if veterans give the squads 3 plasma rifles or 3 meltaguns
- if infantry platoons - give the member with a special weapon either a flamer or grenade launcher as they are not affected by the somewhat poor BS of 3.

I agree with this whole post . Side note: If you take the vanilla Lemun russ make sure you don't put sponsons on it.

 Paradigm wrote:


Flamer. Nice and cheap, meaning you can bring more guys. You do have to rely on other stuff to do the heavy lifting if you go down this route.

PCS:
Your best option is 4 flamers, makes a great counter-attack unit for anything that breaks the lines.

When in doubt add more flamers Burn the Heretic and then keep your doubt to yourself.

I personally would really recommend against taking the vanquisher. Its good on paper/in theory but the 1 shot at bs 3 is extremely unreliable. If it hits, yes its going to kill whatever you aimed it at but once you kill their vechs or lets say they didn't bring any, its basically useless. 1 infantry model maybe per turn is not worth the points.

I would say keep a few (a bunch actually) troopers laid aside un-made.
1.When you put your command squad together, use the spares to make extra commanders and officers with the parts provided.
2. use spares to make all of the extra special weapons. Meltas/plasmas/snipers
3. use a standing guy to put the missile from the heavy weapons squads.
4. Heavy weapons guys, put them on 25 mm bases
5. use horse bases to put together the autocanna/heavy boilters/las cannons (you'll need to find home made stands for 2 out of 3) and termy bases for morters. when you put your heavy weapon teams together, just pop 2 guys and a weapon on one of the heavy weapons bases (60mm). Get a few extra 60mm bases and mix in some standing guys to put on with weapons to greatly increase the number of teams you can field per 3 team box set.
6. Get some of the snap together 5 man cheapy guard box sets to bulk out troops. (assuming your using cadian models)
7. Remember, holstered pistols can be a pistol of any kind so they are more versatile than hand held ones. The same goes for swords.
these can help you more efficiently put your models together to save money and have a wider range of options to experiment with.

The one-shot gun on the Vanq is perhaps a little unreliable, but then you factor in the LC and 2 PC and you're got a very good chance of hitting with at least something, And really, it's not useless after the vehicles are dead, as there will always be something worthy of being shot at with 4 shots that are at least AP2, with a rage of 36" at worst, be it a riptide, terminator squad or a dreadnought.

 Paradigm wrote:
The one-shot gun on the Vanq is perhaps a little unreliable, but then you factor in the LC and 2 PC and you're got a very good chance of hitting with at least something, And really, it's not useless after the vehicles are dead, as there will always be something worthy of being shot at with 4 shots that are at least AP2, with a rage of 36" at worst, be it a riptide, terminator squad or a dreadnought.

Well yeah, but then its 60 points more expensive than a base leman russ. Definitely worth it point wise (if you can afford the 60 points) but just saying that its not apples for apples.

That's the thing with Russes. The more you pay, the more you get, and also, the ability for powerful long-range AT is very valuable.

If you want cheap large blasts then Artillery is the way to go. A Basilisk is cheaper than a Russ, and has Barrage and +1S over a standard Russ. So you're right, comparing a LRBT to a LRV is not that helpful as they fulfil different roles, but a Bassie does do the same, better and cheaper.