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At my local shop I typically play against blob guardsmen and battlesuit tau, so in response to their their armies I purchased myself a Lemen Russ to use as an allied heavy support alongside of my possed vindicator. In my friend's Tau army, he runs with a a Riptide kitted out for killing MEQ as well as a plethora of anti armor battlesuits. Now what would be the best configuration for my new tank to deal with these suits and/or act as a target for his entire army? As for the guard player, he also runs with a single Lemen Russ, though it's kitted out for MEQ killing and ligt vehicles? What should I take in order to deal with this tank?

The best variant for what you want in terms of suits and vehicle busting is a LC/PC Vanquisher. You've got 2 S8+ guns that will ignore suit armour and ID the suits, and the plasma cannons can also pout wounds down on Riptides and hurt light vehicles with AP2. The LC and Vanq Cannon should also take out a Russ fairly easily if you don't have to use it on other targets. You might want to swap the PC for MM for more ID potential at the expense of range.

The thing is, you don't want this tank to be a target, as with only AV13 to the side and 10 to the back, it doesn't have as much ability to purely tank shots as a Land Raider or similar. AV14 is nice, but Russes aren't invincible, so if possible, you probably want to minimise the firepower coming at it. At the very least make sure it's in cover behind an ADL or Infantry squad. The longer it's shooting, the better it is.

 Paradigm wrote:
The best variant for what you want in terms of suits and vehicle busting is a LC/PC Vanquisher. You've got 2 S8+ guns that will ignore suit armour and ID the suits, and the plasma cannons can also pout wounds down on Riptides and hurt light vehicles with AP2. The LC and Vanq Cannon should also take out a Russ fairly easily if you don't have to use it on other targets. You might want to swap the PC for MM for more ID potential at the expense of range.

The thing is, you don't want this tank to be a target, as with only AV13 to the side and 10 to the back, it doesn't have as much ability to purely tank shots as a Land Raider or similar. AV14 is nice, but Russes aren't invincible, so if possible, you probably want to minimise the firepower coming at it. At the very least make sure it's in cover behind an ADL or Infantry squad. The longer it's shooting, the better it is.

This exactly^^^ when I first started using this russ I didn't believe it would do much as the vanquisher can be a hit or miss tank but I have found this tank to be mandatory in most of my IG armies. I've used it enough to say that I am at least happy with what it can do.

I use exterminator with hb, hb sponsons (and sometimes stabber) with Pask, it costs like 220+ but has amazing ammount of firepower and since ig is my allied detachment and orkses - main force, this nice, but rather costly tank is usually ignored. I take it to deal with mc and av up to 13 if there are no better targets. If you haven't moved, Pask allows you to add + 1 to str vs vehicles or reroll wounds on things with toughness. It can even work fairly well vs flyers which are a pain to me since i got no dedicated AA, 4 tl s8 shots + 12 s6 shots. Must tell ye that it's capable of bringing around 10 or slightly more ap4 wounds on most tartgets with t4-5 and same around 8 on t6 targets which is usually enough to take away a few wounds from a mc.

I've tried an eradicator also. It's cheaper and has some limited use, however works great vs what it's designed for - killing stuff with 4+ or worth sitting in cover. BB markerlights in 2+ cover.

I can tell that demolisher ain't working great cause it has lower range, is slow for a 24' s10 ap2 pieplate and can be avoided too easilly. Besides, lotsa stuff sits in cover or has invul. Same with executioner. On paper it's great but on table it's ap2 guns just face 4+ cover or 4++ and sometimes even better and do damage comparable or less than what my exterminator would have done (besides it can't hit flyers).

Guys, he said he wants to kill a riptide with a leman russ variant. There are many possibly answers, but only one answer that soars well above the rest of the pack for this particular goal - the king plasma tank.

Executioner, lascannon, sponson plasma cannons, pask.

With 6 BS4 shots (most of them blast), you're practically guaranteed 5 or 6 hits on a target as big as a riptide, and all of them wound on either rerollable 2's, or rerollable 3's, and ignore the riptide's armor save. The monstrous creature should easily be down in two turns.

Of course, the king plasma tank is silly for other things, and I don't know if I'd take it in general for anything other than the lulz, but in this case, nothing comes close for a single russ taking down a riptide.


Or, of course, you can demand the right to use forgeworld and take a beast hunter vanquisher and out-cheese your opponent. Whatever.

 Ailaros wrote:
Or, of course, you can demand the right to use forgeworld and take a beast hunter vanquisher and out-cheese your opponent. Whatever.

Yeah, let's whine again about how everything that isn't in your army is "cheese"...

Well i'm just telling that leman russes ain't great at killing riptides. If i were u, i'd focus a leman russ on another target category. And i'm talking about infantry. The best thing you can get vs tau or ig blobs is an eradicator, probably with hb sponsons, but not necessarily. U won't be able to kill riptides fast enough with any available leman russ but what you can do is kill pathfinders and that's gona be a big hit to his firepower. Same about ig.
So i say - ignore the riptides with u'r russ (unless it's low on wounds and really needs to be thrown everything you got at him) u'll almost alwayz find a better target. Ignore another russ with ur's - it's not worth it. U're supposed to have better options for such problems. Use u'r Leman Russ for what it does best:
- kill targets in cover that have 4+ armor or worse with eradicator
- send lots of wounds per turn with exterminator or punisher
- hunt down packed 2+ and 3+ in the open with executioner

Get plasma/lazcannon/gravgun for riptides and meltadrop/fast anti-tank vs leman russ

Would it be worth the points to take 2 decked out Vanquishers in a squadron and have an Inquisitor prescience them for taking out, basically whatever you want?

For Instance-

Squadron-
2x Leman Russ Vanquishers
Lascannon
Plasma Cannon sponsons

I think this could definitely put wounds down on a Riptide making it easy enough for a vendetta or two to come in turn two and take down the rest of its wounds. Same goes for things like terminators and other elite units.

So it is worth taking 2 and presciencing them over something like a Guard blob?

It seems overkill against most things, so unless you're seeing a lot of MCs, I'd advise against it.

Given the point about Russes being poor at MC-hunting, what you have to consider is that most IG armies are packing Lascannons and/or plasma in every squad, so if you can even do a couple of wounds you are doing enough that the army can finish the job. One on one, a riptide will survive against a Vanq or Executioner, but then you hit it with plasma vets, lascannon IS and Vendettas, and something's going to stick. The advantage of guard is that lack of shots at any given target is rarely a problem.

 Ailaros wrote:
Guys, he said he wants to kill a riptide with a leman russ variant. There are many possibly answers, but only one answer that soars well above the rest of the pack for this particular goal - the king plasma tank.

Executioner, lascannon, sponson plasma cannons, pask.

With 6 BS4 shots (most of them blast), you're practically guaranteed 5 or 6 hits on a target as big as a riptide, and all of them wound on either rerollable 2's, or rerollable 3's, and ignore the riptide's armor save. The monstrous creature should easily be down in two turns.

Of course, the king plasma tank is silly for other things, and I don't know if I'd take it in general for anything other than the lulz, but in this case, nothing comes close for a single russ taking down a riptide.


Or, of course, you can demand the right to use forgeworld and take a beast hunter vanquisher and out-cheese your opponent. Whatever.

Ailaros is correct. Plasma spam is the best way to deal with these things when it comes to Leman Russes. And beast hunter shells too if you really hate mcs.

 ultimentra wrote:
Would it be worth the points to take 2 decked out Vanquishers in a squadron and have an Inquisitor prescience them for taking out, basically whatever you want?

For Instance-

Squadron-
2x Leman Russ Vanquishers
Lascannon
Plasma Cannon sponsons

I think this could definitely put wounds down on a Riptide making it easy enough for a vendetta or two to come in turn two and take down the rest of its wounds. Same goes for things like terminators and other elite units.

So it is worth taking 2 and presciencing them over something like a Guard blob?

I would not put 2 in a squadron. Keep them separate so that if the enemy starts firing at the tanks they don't kill both of them at once. Also if you kill it with one the other can fire at a separate target. Also it isn't a bad idea to prescience it. I have an inquisitor in a blob and as it was turn 1 against nids most of my lasguns were out of range so the vanquisher helped put 4 wounds on a tervigon.

Emm sorry, i might miss something, is vanquisher that tank with a 72' s8 [+2d6 when shooting armor] ap2 heavy 1 gun? U really consider it for the ammount of points it costs? For a 50% chance to hit with a shot that still needs to pass through a coversave that everyone has nowadayz? Yep it looks cool and it's design is taken from an awesome IS (Iosif Stalin) Soviet tank that was made to deal with heavy armor tanks like Panther and Tiger that were a hard match to common T-34 tanks.
http://volkovysk.by/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IS3-550x400.jpg
But in Wh40k it's stats are pretty underrated to be considered useful.

It's advantage comes from the fact that, aside from the more expensive Executioner, it's the best way to throw AP2 shots at range on an AV14 hull. With 2 shots and 2 blasts, you're going to mess up something. It requires an investment to be sure, but very time it's more than worth that. It's not a case of it killing it's points back, it's the fact that you can really put wounds down on anything with it. The Executioner beats it on sheer firepower against MEQ/TEQ and MCs, but can't hurt anything higher than AV13 (and only just that).

So yes, it is generally worth it. In 5th ed, it was outclassed by the Ordnance Russes, but with the change to heavy, a LasPlas Vanq is the best option.

Since when vanquisher has 2 blasts? It has a s8 +2d6 heavy 1 gun

Like I said, LasPlas. You take a LC and PC sponsons as well as the main gun to make it work. So you get 2 S7 AP2 blasts, 1 S9 AP2 shot and one S8 AP2 armourbane shot. Like most russes, it's useless with just the main gun, which is why sponsons should be on everything but the Demolisher and LRBT due to them having Ordnance guns. Thanks to the heavy rule, you can fire all the guns at full BS on non-Ordnance russes, which is why they are now better than the ordnance ones (whereas in 5th Ordnance was better as you could only fire 2 guns max anyway)

koooaei wrote:
Emm sorry, i might miss something, is vanquisher that tank with a 72' s8 [+2d6 when shooting armor] ap2 heavy 1 gun? U really consider it for the ammount of points it costs? For a 50% chance to hit with a shot that still needs to pass through a coversave that everyone has nowadayz? Yep it looks cool and it's design is taken from an awesome IS (Iosif Stalin) Soviet tank that was made to deal with heavy armor tanks like Panther and Tiger that were a hard match to common T-34 tanks.
http://volkovysk.by/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IS3-550x400.jpg
But in Wh40k it's stats are pretty underrated to be considered useful.

Why wouldnt that same cover save be used against the executioners blasts?

And at least you're forcing cover saves. Most russ main guns just sort of bounce off riptide armor. Which is what the OP wants to break through.

Also, don't forget the range thing. The vanquisher puts down its firepower anywhere on the board starting turn 1. Most other russes can't necessarily say that.

executioner blasts are most likely gona bring more than 1 ap2 wound when the main weapon can bring just 1 with 50% chance.
Well imagine if you bring pask and u'r laz-plaz tank can throw a s10 lazcannon, s9 main gun and s8 plazma cannonz! Yep, he makes the tank cost like a landraider but doubles it's effectiveness.

Right, and if you want to kill monstrous creatures, then take the king plasma tank as I described above.

The vanquisher is still better in general, though, especially if you're doing russ spam. There are things that the vanquisher cannon does better than the executioner cannon. Don't let just a single part of the statline fool you. Having more shots isn't automatically the sign of a better weapon.

 Ailaros wrote:
Right, and if you want to kill monstrous creatures, then take the king plasma tank as I described above.
Don't let just a single part of the statline fool you. Having more shots isn't automatically the sign of a better weapon.

let's count.
Vanquisher cannon vs a riptide: 1 [shot] * 1/2 [to hit] * 5/6 [to wound] * 2/3 [to pass cover / invul, and that's not the worst case, a riptide can have 3++, don't forget, and many MC have 4++ or better] = 0.28 wounds for a 5+ save, 0.21wounds for 4+ save, 0,14 wounds for 3+ save, 0.07 if you somehow meet a 2+ cover.
Exterminator cannon vs a riptide: 4 [shots] * 3/4 [to hit] * 2/3 [to wound] * 1/6 [to pass armor] = 0.33 wounds for 2+ save.
It's hard to measure numerically how good Executioner is due to blast hits, but i think it's gona go forth for everything with 4+ or worse.

Besides, more shots have better chances for shooting down a flyer or grounding a fmc. If you add Pask, exterminator wins much more from him for MC hunting.
However, if you desperately need means to fight 14 armor from range - vanquisher's better. Although, i believe you can alwayz have better option than vanquisher.

With all the good info above just be sure to buy some magnets, magnetize the sponsoons and main gun then go experiment! I have one Leman Russ hull and a lot of options thanks to magnets!

 reece_mess16 wrote:
With all the good info above just be sure to buy some magnets, magnetize the sponsoons and main gun then go experiment! I have one Leman Russ hull and a lot of options thanks to magnets!

Actually, the beauty of the russ kits is the fact that all the guns slot in and out with no need for magnets! The sponsons just slide in and a tiny blob of blu-tac should do the main gun.

Yep that's the main point. It can be easilly rebuilt so you can try every option available. Well, from my experience there are several best options you can take:
-exterminators are the most tac and even capable of threatening flyers, with pask and all heavybolters it has devastating anti-infantry firepower
-eradicators are best at hunting down light infantry in good cover - you meet those more and more often, i've won quite some games with my orkses cause an allied eradicator took out pathfinders in 3+ or 2+ cover - not killable for me otherwise
-executioners are best at hutning down 3+ or better - preferably in the open and without 3++
-punishers are considered best at mc/light infantry hunting but they need devination and preferably pask...and they have a 24' main gun which is not that great on a tank that can move 6' max but if it finds a target - it's gona be forced to throw a bucket of saves

Personally i consider other options not that great cause i've tried them all and can tell that lrbt was ruined by a lumbering behemoth's nerf, demolisher is too slow and avoidable and vanquisher - as i've written above.
The main thing you must remember is that Leman russ is taken mostly not for it's firepower but for it's reasonably priced toughness which makes it reliable