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.

This thread has just succeeded in making me not want to use LR's at all. Artillery all day!

 KplKeegan wrote:

 alarmingrick wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

The LRBT is utter junk,

Sorry A-man, but just because you type it, doesn't make it so. I agree that it's not perfect
and may have it's upside/downside verses other variants, but you can't totally dismiss it. Or,
I guess you can, but that doesn't mean the OP shouldn't give it a go. I got sick to death of
reading on here how bad the Demolisher was by some people in 5th , and never had all the
same "luck" as those that hated it I guess.

To the OP, I'd simply say "yes, it is worth it.".

I second this notion.

Movement passed. Meeting adjourned.

It also can depend on your meta and tactics you use. I play against a lot of CSM and I love the ap3. I also run into a lot of transports filled with marines so I love popping them with lascannons and then blasting whole squads of marines that are in the remains.

^Pretty much, I feel like Ailaros over emphasizes the usefulness of math hammer far too often. Some of the ridiculous assumptions in this thread behind that math made me chuckle.

 Red Corsair wrote:
^Pretty much, I feel like Ailaros over emphasizes the usefulness of math hammer far too often. Some of the ridiculous assumptions in this thread behind that math made me chuckle.

I think he expects too much out of a 150 pts tank, personally. You spam LRBTs not rely on them.

alarmingrick wrote:I agree that it's not perfect, but you can't totally dismiss it.

I didn't just dismiss it, though. I gave arguments for why it's terrible and should generally not be taken compared to other options.

If you have good reasons to take them when the exterminator is better against so much, I'd like to hear them.

Red Corsair wrote:Some of the ridiculous assumptions in this thread behind that math made me chuckle.

Such as?

TheCustomLime wrote:I think he expects too much out of a 150 pts tank, personally. You spam LRBTs not rely on them.

Personally, I usually make them 200 points, and take them with four guns, rather than just one gun for 150 points, but that doesn't mean that the LRBT is good, or that the exterminator isn't better.

I can rely on fully kitted out russes. Saving a few points, but doing so in such a way where you make the big pile of points you DO spend unreliable doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

 Ailaros wrote:

alarmingrick wrote:I agree that it's not perfect, but you can't totally dismiss it.

I didn't just dismiss it, though. I gave arguments for why it's terrible and should generally not be taken compared to other options.

If you have good reasons to take them when the exterminator is better against so much, I'd like to hear them.

Red Corsair wrote:Some of the ridiculous assumptions in this thread behind that math made me chuckle.

Such as?

TheCustomLime wrote:I think he expects too much out of a 150 pts tank, personally. You spam LRBTs not rely on them.

Personally, I usually make them 200 points, and take them with four guns, rather than just one gun for 150 points, but that doesn't mean that the LRBT is good, or that the exterminator isn't better.

I can rely on fully kitted out russes. Saving a few points, but doing so in such a way where you make the big pile of points you DO spend unreliable doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

Why is why I'm starting to dig Vanquishers. They can actually -do- what you want them to. LRBTs, though, hardly ever do what you want them to. People like them, though, because you can reasonably want them to do several different things. Where the LRBT shines, though, is just spamming them at high point games. You can cover the battlefield in templates and they'll have a hard time taking you out. You don't want effective tanks in this sense. You want tanks that are there to make life hard for your opponent. A wall of AV14 that shoots a ton of explosive. The Exterminator can be spammed as well but it just doesn't have the same punch as all those templates.

They are also nice for Av14 in small games. Outside of those two circumstances, though, they are too unreliable to run competitively. 5 more points gets you a vanquisher, which is a far better tanks. IMO. 15 more for a demolisher.

TheCustomLime wrote:


Why is why I'm starting to dig Vanquishers. They can actually -do- what you want them to. LRBTs, though, hardly ever do what you want them to. People like them, though, because you can reasonably want them to do several different things. Where the LRBT shines, though, is just spamming them at high point games. You can cover the battlefield in templates and they'll have a hard time taking you out. You don't want effective tanks in this sense. You want tanks that are there to make life hard for your opponent. A wall of AV14 that shoots a ton of explosive. The Exterminator can be spammed as well but it just doesn't have the same punch as all those templates.

Vanquisher's will always be king at fighting AV14 Vehicles at range. Slot a Las Cannon on the hull and its a Tank Destroyer. But aside from that, you can't realistically math hammer a scattering template, which is why the math-addicts think they're terrible.

In the case of the Leman Russ, being able to Instant Death T4 with an AP value of 3 is a rather strong deterrent against Bugs and Nobs and Crisis Suits, not to mentionTank Shocking horde units into clusters with empty Chimeras and letting the longer ranged Battle Cannons wail on them with impunity with selective fire.

 Ailaros wrote:

kestril wrote: 4 models hit, wounds on a 2+, is 4 wounds that force a 5+ save instead of a 3+. Autocannon hits 3 models, wounds on a 2+ and allows them to save on a 3+.

You're assuming that the russ hits with every shot. It does not. Furthermore, a russ is a bit better than an exterminator here. Let's look at two turns of firing against 4+ cover. The russ hits once, for 4 models hit, and the exterminator hits 6 times.

4 hits times 5/6ths wounds times 2/3ds makes through cover = 1.68 dead marines.
6 hits times 5/6ths wounds times 1/3rd makes through armor = 1.68 dead marines.

The only time the battlecannon is better against this ONE target type is when we're talking about 5+ cover, and it only really takes off if we're talking about 6+ cover or worse.

Or, marines in the open.

I'm not defending vanilla Russes (recently bought a crap-tonne of them off ebay because they were cheap, I'm as gutted as anyone that my recent experiments with them have been lacklustre to say the least), I thought you'd over-looked the Ordinance armour penetration when you were actually factoring in the to-hit chance. My apologies for miss-reading what you said.

Well before this thread completely goes off topic, I am most likely going to go with an Exterminator, as you guys made a lot of valid points about it, however I might try out a Punisher in a game or two to see how it does w/Pask in it. Has anyone tried the Pask-Punisher combo yet? Because I would like to hear some feedback about it.

 Rommel44 wrote:
Well before this thread completely goes off topic, I am most likely going to go with an Exterminator, as you guys made a lot of valid points about it, however I might try out a Punisher in a game or two to see how it does w/Pask in it. Has anyone tried the Pask-Punisher combo yet? Because I would like to hear some feedback about it.

I've never used it, nor seen it used. A tank that has only 24" range really doesn't need the BS4 upgrade for 50pts, since I highly doubt it won't be moving.

 Rommel44 wrote:
Well before this thread completely goes off topic, I am most likely going to go with an Exterminator, as you guys made a lot of valid points about it, however I might try out a Punisher in a game or two to see how it does w/Pask in it. Has anyone tried the Pask-Punisher combo yet? Because I would like to hear some feedback about it.

Ive used the bolter boat punisher with pask against a flying daemon prince spam where the tank nearly killed 3 different daemon princes so it does great againts monstrous creatures if you got a nice bubble wrap or protection for it. I then tried the same tank against CSM as thats the more common army I play against and to be honest everyone in the wrold could post mathhammer of how its better than a LRBT. The tank never achieved its points back, let alone even half of its points. My LRBT's were still doing what I had them do best, blast all the guys in the transports when they were popped.

People also can post the math hammer of the chances of hitting a target with the template of the LRBT but I could careless. Since the new rule change in 6th for vehicles I think I missed 1 vehicle in all my games playing. Everyone also talks about completely scattering off target but I have that happen maybe once in 2-3 games.

All Im stating is that with my personally experience math hammer isnt always right. and to the OP if you have use for an exterminator in your list then take it. Think about what the tank is going to do and if you think something else does better that you might use instead then play test. Ive tested most of the LR varients and I still find the battle tank my favored tank and have decided not to pay so muchh attention to math hammer when it comes to LR.

 tankboy145 wrote:

everyone in the wrold could post mathhammer of how its better than a LRBT. The tank never achieved its points back, let alone even half of its points. My LRBT's were still doing what I had them do best, blast all the guys in the transports when they were popped.

People also can post the math hammer of the chances of hitting a target with the template of the LRBT but I could careless. Since the new rule change in 6th for vehicles I think I missed 1 vehicle in all my games playing. Everyone also talks about completely scattering off target but I have that happen maybe once in 2-3 games.

All Im stating is that with my personally experience math hammer isnt always right. and to the OP if you have use for an exterminator in your list then take it. Think about what the tank is going to do and if you think something else does better that you might use instead then play test. Ive tested most of the LR varients and I still find the battle tank my favored tank and have decided not to pay so muchh attention to math hammer when it comes to LR.

This is so ridiculous. You clearly don't understand statistics. No, the statistics won't happen every time, but they are the only objective way to understand how anything works.

Every time your LRBT kills a squad, my LRBT gets blown up by a lucky lascannon on turn one. Stats are stats, learn to love them, learn to understand them, don't dismiss them for anecdotal evidence.

By your logic, lasguns are op, since one time I killed a terminator on over-watch.

Anecdotal evidence is the poison of 40K arguments. When building a list, you have to look at likely outcomes, not what your buddy did last week. Mathhammer, computed correctly, is always right. The assumptions behind it may not always be relevant in a given case, however. Mathhammer is how I make most of my all important movement decisions that people are always are saying are more important than mathhammer. Why don't you want to walk up within charge range of DC? Oh yeah, mathhammer says they'll crush you. If mathhammer didn't work, you'd have no way of knowing not to send guardsmen to fight DC.

 Griddlelol wrote:

 tankboy145 wrote:

everyone in the wrold could post mathhammer of how its better than a LRBT. The tank never achieved its points back, let alone even half of its points. My LRBT's were still doing what I had them do best, blast all the guys in the transports when they were popped.

People also can post the math hammer of the chances of hitting a target with the template of the LRBT but I could careless. Since the new rule change in 6th for vehicles I think I missed 1 vehicle in all my games playing. Everyone also talks about completely scattering off target but I have that happen maybe once in 2-3 games.

All Im stating is that with my personally experience math hammer isnt always right. and to the OP if you have use for an exterminator in your list then take it. Think about what the tank is going to do and if you think something else does better that you might use instead then play test. Ive tested most of the LR varients and I still find the battle tank my favored tank and have decided not to pay so muchh attention to math hammer when it comes to LR.

This is so ridiculous. You clearly don't understand statistics. No, the statistics won't happen every time, but they are the only objective way to understand how anything works.

Every time your LRBT kills a squad, my LRBT gets blown up by a lucky lascannon on turn one. Stats are stats, learn to love them, learn to understand them, don't dismiss them for anecdotal evidence.

By your logic, lasguns are op, since one time I killed a terminator on over-watch.

Mathhammer is not statistical data, its theoretical probability. Nothing objective about that. Get some models and dice out and play some shooting/survivability scenarios 100 times. That's the data I'd listen to.

 Griddlelol wrote:

 Rommel44 wrote:
Well before this thread completely goes off topic, I am most likely going to go with an Exterminator, as you guys made a lot of valid points about it, however I might try out a Punisher in a game or two to see how it does w/Pask in it. Has anyone tried the Pask-Punisher combo yet? Because I would like to hear some feedback about it.

I've never used it, nor seen it used. A tank that has only 24" range really doesn't need the BS4 upgrade for 50pts, since I highly doubt it won't be moving.

Punisher is 36" range. Pask Punishers are seriously powerful.

You don't have to roll dice hundreds of times to come up with data for a given scenario. Math can do that for you. But there are just so many scenarios in 40K. Mathhammer is a guideline to tell you what is good in general.

 guinness707 wrote:

Mathhammer is not statistical data, its theoretical probability. Nothing objective about that. Get some models and dice out and play some shooting/survivability scenarios 100 times. That's the data I'd listen to.

How do I know that two of one thing added to two of another will get four? I demand to have them in front of me and count them out!

Yeah, no. Mathammer works dude. Get used to it.

Mathhammer is great when comparing A to B weapon...but it does miss alot as well. One poster mentioned how his exterminator was often ignored and hence survived more. Also, how will a player recat to a line of 3 naked LRBT's? Math hammer is crazy instructive but not the end of the conversation.

ender502

Martel732 wrote:
Why don't you want to walk up within charge range of DC? Oh yeah, mathhammer says they'll crush you. If mathhammer didn't work, you'd have no way of knowing not to send guardsmen to fight DC.

Or you could use a pair of eyeballs and common sense.

 guinness707 wrote:

Mathhammer is not statistical data, its theoretical probability. Nothing objective about that. Get some models and dice out and play some shooting/survivability scenarios 100 times. That's the data I'd listen to.

It's as close to statistical data as you can get without collating the individual dice rolls from every single player. While each player may not see exact numbers, across thousands of players who play all the time, the average will be close to the probability.

 BryllCream wrote:

Punisher is 36" range. Pask Punishers are seriously powerful.

Also, the punisher is 24".

 Griddlelol wrote:

 guinness707 wrote:

Mathhammer is not statistical data, its theoretical probability. Nothing objective about that. Get some models and dice out and play some shooting/survivability scenarios 100 times. That's the data I'd listen to.

It's as close to statistical data as you can get without collating the individual dice rolls from every single player. While each player may not see exact numbers, across thousands of players who play all the time, the average will be close to the probability.

Yes, your right. Its the closest you can get. But its still jsut a subjective probability. Great place to start a discussion, but not the end.

 guinness707 wrote:


Yes, your right. Its the closest you can get. But its still jsut a subjective probability. Great place to start a discussion, but not the end.

How is it subjective? In no way is the mathematical probability of a dice subjective. The way you choose to use that data can be, but the raw probability is not.

I also never said it was an end to a discussion, but rather that anecdotal "this unit did awesome!" is a pathetic attempt to ignore the objective probability. When it comes to determining which gun is better (which is what we're essentially doing), the probability is one of the best ways to do that, if not the best.
Expecting a unit to perform better than its probable output consistently will result in disappointment.

Also, clustering out of a transport? Who uses rhinos any more?

 Griddlelol wrote:

 guinness707 wrote:


Yes, your right. Its the closest you can get. But its still jsut a subjective probability. Great place to start a discussion, but not the end.

How is it subjective? In no way is the mathematical probability of a dice subjective. The way you choose to use that data can be, but the raw probability is not.

I also never said it was an end to a discussion, but rather that anecdotal "this unit did awesome!" is a pathetic attempt to ignore the objective probability. When it comes to determining which gun is better (which is what we're essentially doing), the probability is one of the best ways to do that, if not the best.
Expecting a unit to perform better than its probable output consistently will result in disappointment.

Also, clustering out of a transport? Who uses rhinos any more?

I mis-used the word. yeah the raw probability is as objective as anything else as long as you keep the word 'probable' in there. All i'm trying to say is that experience with a unit in real tabletop situations is more valuble than mathhammer thats all. Use what works best in your local meta

Sadly, chaos is still using Rhino's

My BA use rhino equivalents.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KplKeegan wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Why don't you want to walk up within charge range of DC? Oh yeah, mathhammer says they'll crush you. If mathhammer didn't work, you'd have no way of knowing not to send guardsmen to fight DC.

Or you could use a pair of eyeballs and common sense.

That's just a euphemism for shorthand mathhammer.

 Griddlelol wrote:

 tankboy145 wrote:

everyone in the wrold could post mathhammer of how its better than a LRBT. The tank never achieved its points back, let alone even half of its points. My LRBT's were still doing what I had them do best, blast all the guys in the transports when they were popped.

People also can post the math hammer of the chances of hitting a target with the template of the LRBT but I could careless. Since the new rule change in 6th for vehicles I think I missed 1 vehicle in all my games playing. Everyone also talks about completely scattering off target but I have that happen maybe once in 2-3 games.

All Im stating is that with my personally experience math hammer isnt always right. and to the OP if you have use for an exterminator in your list then take it. Think about what the tank is going to do and if you think something else does better that you might use instead then play test. Ive tested most of the LR varients and I still find the battle tank my favored tank and have decided not to pay so muchh attention to math hammer when it comes to LR.

This is so ridiculous. You clearly don't understand statistics. No, the statistics won't happen every time, but they are the only objective way to understand how anything works.

Every time your LRBT kills a squad, my LRBT gets blown up by a lucky lascannon on turn one. Stats are stats, learn to love them, learn to understand them, don't dismiss them for anecdotal evidence.

By your logic, lasguns are op, since one time I killed a terminator on over-watch.

I under stand statistics. What I was pointing out is that I give my LRBT's an opportunity to do great and to really destroy MEQ units in transports as thats what I play often, so generally my tanks kill more marines than what math hammer suggests, compared to an exterminator I would be lucky to kill 5 or so marines for 150pts worth of the tank. So in my meta I find good use of LRBT of an exterminator, also why I suggested to the OP to try out what varients he has and to see whats better for his list.

I think what he's trying to say is that the LRBT has great "homerun potential". The statistical outliers for this weapon are incredibly devastating. Ie, marines not fully spread out.

All this being said, not all armies are meq. So I urge people to try to look at this from an all comers standpoint.

Martel732 wrote:
All this being said, not all armies are meq. So I urge people to try to look at this from an all comers standpoint.

As true as that is, about 1/2 of the codexes are MEQ and, depending on your local meta, MEQ's could make up more than 1/2 of the armies you're likely to see. Focusing heavily on MEQ's is, for many people, the best way to make a TAC list.

How do you rate the demolisher?

Martel732 wrote:
I think what he's trying to say is that the LRBT has great "homerun potential". The statistical outliers for this weapon are incredibly devastating. Ie, marines not fully spread out.

This is why I still use LRBTs, because not everyone I know uses proper spacing (why infact very few people I know displace to 2" every time) in my opinion the LRBT is cheap and alright at stuff, I've never been much of a hard counter guy so I'd rather have a tank alright at all stuff than a tank great at only good at some stuff.

Note the following is anecdotal and is in no way an argument against the math which shows that LRBTs aren't as good as other variants:

My blast templates just seem to hit more often, I don't know why, something do do with the dice, so I personally will usually have 1 LRBT, 1 executioner and 1 vanquisher with pask, sub in a manticore sometimes. For me personally the LRBT works but its obviously YMMV

In general I would say find the tank that works for you and use it, no amount of forum argument will compensate for actual TT experience