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.

I haven't had a chance to play any games of 8th yet, but from the lists I've been seeing posted it seems like transports are not as popular. I'm assuming this is due to their increased cost, lack of fire points and general increased movement of dedicated CC units,

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who switched from a mechanized force to footsloggers and how that is working out for you. Alternatively do you find yourself still using transports, but now only having select squads take them vs each one.

I've found that I'm starting to leave Chimera behind in my Guard lists. I haven't played many games yet, but my last game I used no Chimera and I'd say it was the strongest list I've played.

I find I lose too much firepower while advancing. The old Vets in Chimeras feel like I'm leaving points off the table. Especially since they're "elites" now, and I can take Scions that "deep strike" exactly where I plan them to go.

93 points for a MultiLaser / HB Chimera, and then 81 pts for Vets with 3x Plasmaguns = 174 pts.

62 points for 5x Scions, with 2x Plasmagun. *3 units* = 186 pts. Full firepower, delivered exactly where you want it. No waiting for a turn or two of movement, hoping you don't get blown up. Twice as many Plasmaguns. 15 dudes vs 10 dudes for camping objectives. Having the option to deploy behind an advancing enemy, instead of trying to plow through. Cheap "Troop" options make taking a Brigade a real option at 1500 pts, and easy above that.

To me, it's a no brainer. Chimera have been overcosted for a while, and each edition seems to make it worse. With super cheap Scions being better weapon platforms than Veterans, there's no real reason to take an inefficient transport when you can take super-efficient troop choices.

For IG it's mostly firepoints. I used to run half gunline and half mechvets. Now that I don't have useful vets or mech with the relevant utility, I take infantry for my gunline and scions to do basically what the vets did before, and I don't really have a reason to take transports at this point.

For anything marine, I think a lot of it is the sticker shock of what the transports cost point-wise. I think Rhinos are actually a super good way to get marines up to the <12" range to cause some damage.

They're probably not particularly useful for some armies, like GK. They never really were particularly essential for them though in previous editions either, razorback gunline notwithstanding.

I'm in the same boat. In 5th edition, my favourite play was some Mech Vets and a Demolisher to head forwards, while some gunline grunts supported longer ranged Russ and an artillery piece.

I haven't looked into SM recently. I've been wanting my Guard to be playable again for so long, and they are most definitely that right now. And I've never really been attached to Chimerae, they were necessary evils in my mind. Now I can advance "gunline" grunts with slower tanks to take the midfield, sit back with artillery for home objectives, and drop Scions on distant objectives. I'm playing the whole board again, and loving it, and transports have no part in that plan.

It is worth mentioning that I've had some luck with the Taurox Prime as well. I don't actually use it as a transport, but it's a pretty decent weapons platform for the price. Add the gatling cannon and the twin HSVGs and you've got about a squad worth of firepower in a vehicle's package.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 greatbigtree wrote:

I haven't looked into SM recently. I've been wanting my Guard to be playable again for so long, and they are most definitely that right now. And I've never really been attached to Chimerae, they were necessary evils in my mind. Now I can advance "gunline" grunts with slower tanks to take the midfield, sit back with artillery for home objectives, and drop Scions on distant objectives. I'm playing the whole board again, and loving it, and transports have no part in that plan.

Toward the end of 5th and through 6th, I actually got into power blobs. It's a different (and harder) game to play, but it's WAAAY more interesting than traditional gunlining, and the look on an opponent the first time you start crossing table faster than they are screaming "FIX BAYONETS!" is kind of precious.

Having that been said, there's no blob in 8th yet, so it's a mixed bag as far as level of effectiveness. Given that you have aura support from characters, it kind of plays out similarly, but there are a few oddities that come up, like if your characters can't make the charge but half your squads do, you might wind up in trouble. Wound allocation is also not as good as it would be with blobs but at the same time leaps and bounds better for the pseudo-blob than it was in the last two editions. Having that been said, with AP and S/T working more in Guard favor nowadays than they ever have, I've been putting power swords on my sergeants every game and I don't think there's been a single time I wished I would have spent the points otherwise. The money shot was the priest with evicerator that murdered Baharroth (4++ is super good when it's your only armor) and the commissar with power fist who uppercutted a Wraithlord to death. I mean, I won't claim they did the bulk of the work, but that finishing blow just feels good, ya know?

That's because while transports got a boost in survivability vs anti tank (It's literally impossible for a single Krak missile or Lascannon to destroy a vehicle now for example), they paid for this with a MASSIVE hike in price, a lot of transports lost their fire points and now all are vulnerable to massed small arms fire they were immune to before. Add to that the fact you are effectively forced to sit there and take a round of shooting before delivering your payload, due to disembarking having to happen before the transport moves.

Simply but, transports are not worth it outside of a couple of oddball exceptions.

 gossipmeng wrote:
I haven't had a chance to play any games of 8th yet, but from the lists I've been seeing posted it seems like transports are not as popular. I'm assuming this is due to their increased cost, lack of fire points and general increased movement of dedicated CC units,

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who switched from a mechanized force to footsloggers and how that is working out for you. Alternatively do you find yourself still using transports, but now only having select squads take them vs each one.

IG has four transports.

The Chimera is the old heavyweight champion. If you're charging into the teeth of the enemy, the Chimera is what you need. But. . . . IG rarely wants to charge into the teeth of the enemy. So the Chimera is kind of blah unless you're stuffing it with Ogryns. Chimera should be able to carry a lascannon in the turret in my opinion.

Taurox: The confused lightweight. Faster than a chimera, and notionally cheaper, for some reason you're forced to bring along a pair of the disappointing and expensive autocannons. Without the AC this would be a useful light transport vehicle for IG. With them its too expensive to bother with. GW really needs to make the ACs optional and people might buy these.

Taurox Prime: The Contender. Faster than a chimera and up-gunned enough to make the Leman Russ a bit jealous, the Taurox Prime is an incredible vehicle. Its only failing is that it can't carry normal guard, but is reserved for Scions. You see these a lot, but mainly because they're light tanks with a crew compartment. My scions have never actually ridden in it yet.

Valkyrie: A Chimera with 4 extra wounds that flies through the air with a better gun selection, that has an awesome deployment option.

I haven't used one yet (4'x4' table problem), but really the Valkyrie is the only transport I really want at this point. Its fast, its tough, it has a respectable armament, and while its expensive, its also likely to stick around a while. I can see myself using it to make troops air-mobile for late game objective grabbing after its delivered its primary cargo. I'm picking one up in my next army expansion. I'll always bring Tauroxes, but that's because I like them better than Leman Russes.

That's how I see it anyway. Transports need to have a specific purpose now. They're expensive and need to earn their keep. There's just no reason to mechanize a whole army anymore.

For Orkz our trukkz went from 30 to 88pts....so Why would you pay 88pts to transport 72pts of boyz? especially since hte trukk is useless afterwards except as a bullet sponge.

They way too expensive now. They also changed the disembark rules you have to get out before the vehicle moves so it doesn't even increase a units mobility by that much any more.

Cant really see a reason to take many transports anymore unless they also provide a stupid amount of damage output, which rare the ones you see. (LR, RB and Raven)

 daedalus wrote:


Toward the end of 5th and through 6th, I actually got into power blobs. It's a different (and harder) game to play, but it's WAAAY more interesting than traditional gunlining, and the look on an opponent the first time you start crossing table faster than they are screaming "FIX BAYONETS!" is kind of precious.

Semi-Interesting, Self-Promoting fact. The term "Power Blob" was coined by the author of a series of articles called "How to Win with Imperial Guard". I was also a big fan of them, in 5th and early 6th.

Tree's Ghost no longer haunts that place.

Some Guilliman UM lists seem to max out Razorbacks with assault cannons in his bubble making use of his special rules.
Not really transports but shooting devices.

Necron's only have one dedicated transport, and it actually nerfs the unit capable of taking it if you want to use it for its intended purpose of being a transport

Aye. That twin-Assault Cannon tastes so good, but it's high in Cholesterol, and will clog your heart if you aren't careful.

To that end, Wave Serpents are still pretty bad-ass. And Necron Ghost Arcs - the repair barges? Are decent as well.


EDIT: I stand by the Ghost Arcs being decent. You can drop a squad of Warriors off at close range, and then dump a half-a-million shots into something.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Aye. That twin-Assault Cannon tastes so good, but it's high in Cholesterol, and will clog your heart if you aren't careful.

To that end, Wave Serpents are still pretty bad-ass. And Necron Ghost Arcs - the repair barges? Are decent as well.


EDIT: I stand by the Ghost Arcs being decent. You can drop a squad of Warriors off at close range, and then dump a half-a-million shots into something.

The Serpent is the best overall transport in the game.
The Razorback szenario with Guilliman takes Razorbacks as shooty units only.

Basically because transports have become 2x or 3x more expensive than they were before. But they're not disappeared.

SM rhinos and razorbacks are very good, chaos rhinos are also popular. Serpents are still very common as they are a great option while drukhari and sisters can't play without transports, and they're both spamming 8-10 vehicles in a 2000 points game, most of them are transports.

Even orks can have decent lists with trukks and BWs, and I think AM could be ok with chimeras and taurox too. For these specific armies we usually see more footslogging dudes than embarked units since they are more effective and easy to play.

Transports are worthless right now if you want to actually carry troops and move them around the board.

But they're really good at tanking wounds for elite units that would die in droves if they had to footslog (Orks Tankbustas / Flash Gitz, Rubric Marines, Berzerkers, several Eldar units, etc...) or as primary weapon plateforms (which they probably should not be).

GW needs to raise the cost of Razorback's weapons and reduce the cost of things like Trukks or Chimeras in order to balance them imo.

 Nym wrote:
Transports are worthless right now if you want to actually carry troops and move them around the board.

But they're really good at tanking wounds for elite units that would die in droves if they had to footslog (Orks Tankbustas / Flash Gitz, Rubric Marines, Berzerkers, several Eldar units, etc...) or as primary weapon plateforms (which they probably should not be).

GW needs to raise the cost of Razorback's weapons and reduce the cost of things like Trukks or Chimeras in order to balance them imo.

A Razorback with a twin assault cannon is nice, several of them is real threat. They might shoot you off the table rather quickly.

Yeah, and many SM players consider them average or maybe decent.

I've never took a tank in 7th edition with my SW, now it seems that I can't play without them if I have to face a competitive opponent.

Transports are straightforward to use in the new edition.
Have some squad inside. Move forward and launch smoke (Rhino). Next round disembark and charge or move to an objective.

I think the usefulness of transport depends heavily on terrain.

Many people complain how good alpha strike lists are at the moment and that depends on the terrain as well. If your terrain is usually set up in a way such that alpha strike is strong, transports suck more often than not.
The more LoS blocking terrain there is, the better they get. Imagine a battlefield that is build like a city, a lot of buildings, some wide roads and a lot of narrow ones.
Depending on what you want them to do, transports can be really powerful.


Transports have (at least) 4 things going for them:
-What transports are really good at is blocking line of sight or small corridors. A rhino is 12cm(~4.7") long without the spikey thing in front and units can't walk move into 1" from it, bases are 1" or even wider. So you can effectively block units from moving trough any corridor of 8" or smaller for most units. To move where he needs to be, he must get rid of that tough metal box.
-Most infantry units are covered by transports so they cant be shot without the right special rules. Most opponents don't really want to spend their anti-tank shooting in a 72 points rhino to get a few shots at the infantry behind them if there are other targets. I guess if you put 2 squads of havocs with 4 Lascannons behind a rhino and a predator right besides it, your opponent will shoot the predator, even though the Havocs are much more dangerous. Deploy the havocs early in a place where they can only be seen from a small part of the opponents deployment zone, wait for him to deploy his anti infantry shooting against them or his anti-tank shooting somewhere, where he cant shoot the rhino you intend to place right in front of the havocs and enjoy.
-Then you can use them to tank overwatch, which is really good as well now if you have some melee units.
-Against alpha strike you can deploy a lot of infantry that can't be put behind LoS blocking terrain in transports to protect them from turn 1 shooting. You might lose one or two models per squad when the transport is destroyed, but that should be worth it. Your opponent can't freely choose his targets because he needs to get rid of the transport first.


It really is all about terrain. On a board that is as flat as your kitchen table, points 1-3 are not a thing.

 Nym wrote:
Transports are worthless right now if you want to actually carry troops and move them around the board.

But they're really good at tanking wounds for elite units that would die in droves if they had to footslog (Orks Tankbustas / Flash Gitz, Rubric Marines, Berzerkers, several Eldar units, etc...) or as primary weapon plateforms (which they probably should not be).

GW needs to raise the cost of Razorback's weapons and reduce the cost of things like Trukks or Chimeras in order to balance them imo.

Isnt protect and carry guys basically their core role, next to providing fire support?

Yes, razorbacks with TACs are too cheap, but my favourite transport is still the Valkyrie - with two Command Squads, plasma and/or melts, and a Company Commander inside.

Running without transports is only viable in a pure gunline or if all your close range units are fast / can deep strike. Melta Tac Squads really benefit from a transport though , for example. Same with eg Aggressors, they are really harmed by only having the incredibly pricey and small (just ten slots) Repulsor available.

Way to expensive to be worth using I just advance my troops while my fast attack gets stuck in first turn, troops will be in combat turn two.

And forget drop pods entirely.

I don't know what you are playing, but I prefer a twin lascan razorback instead of two 5 model tac marines with one lascan each. The razorback is much harder to kill and it's cheaper.

Vehicles became much tougher to kill across the board, and thus prices went up - they're no longer disposable soda cans.

It depends on factions.
Harlequins rely heavily on their transports to survive first round shooting and soak overwatch.
Raiders with kabalite warriors inside are still pretty decent.
Wave serpents are great to deliver wraithguards, and also have great firepower.
Immolators also combine transport with firepower (and can advance without penalties).

So yes, droppod and rhino spams aren't what they used to be, but I don't think transports as a whole became worse.

But transports once they've delivered cargo become pretty useless unless your able to park it on an uncontested objective.

And really with the AP change marines make it on foot just fine.

I have 4 rhinos I'll never use and a drop pod destined to be forgotten.

fresus wrote:
It depends on factions.
Harlequins rely heavily on their transports to survive first round shooting and soak overwatch.
Raiders with kabalite warriors inside are still pretty decent.
Wave serpents are great to deliver wraithguards, and also have great firepower.
Immolators also combine transport with firepower (and can advance without penalties).

So yes, droppod and rhino spams aren't what they used to be, but I don't think transports as a whole became worse.

I think transports with decent weaponry are viable in the new edition.
Here Serpents and Razorbacks come to my mind.
Also Raiders with Trueborn (4 blasters) and Venoms with Trueborn (2 splinter cannons) are viable options.

I've been thinking and looking back at prior rule sets in an effort to characterize how the balance has shifted across editions.

It seems to me that vehicles (not specifically transports) are significantly stronger than they ever have been before.

I ran the odds of a BS 4+ unit with a missile launcher killing a T8, W10 vehicle. It would take on average 17 krak missiles. With a 3+ BS it drops down to ~12. That's an entire squad of devastator marines firing missiles at a vehicle for half of the game. And other vehicles have even more wounds.

Speaking of devastators, why would you ever take them over say a predator? 5 devastators have 5 wounds (instead of 11), 4 toughness (instead of 7). They can only move 6" instead of up to 12". When they take casualties they immediately lose a large part of their firepower. Oh, and the predator isn't that much more expensive either.

That's just one instance, but there are plenty of other cases where the vehicle clearly outclasses an equivalent infantry unit.

Transports are nerfed, relatively, only in the fact that their points went way up for what you're getting. But some are still just ridiculous. Who decided that twin-linked assault cannons on a Razorback that shoots TWELVE times was a good idea? Other transports just seem crazy expensive for what they provide.

I dunno - every time I think I wan to play 8E more, I think maybe I should just go back to a house-ruled 5th edition.

Transports are nerfed, relatively, only in the fact that their points went way up for what you're getting. But some are still just ridiculous. Who decided that twin-linked assault cannons on a Razorback that shoots TWELVE times was a good idea? Other transports just seem crazy expensive for what they provide.

Well, an assault cannon has six shots. Twin linking doubles the number of shots.
This seems to be a paradigm of the 8th ed. No more twin linking in the sense of the former edition, but doubling the number.

I'd postulate that the best transport in the game right now is the Razorback. Not for it's transport capabilities (only six Space Marines), but it's weapon options. Specifically, the twin linked lascannons and assault cannons. The squad "tax" of five Space Marines is only 65 points for a Plane Jane squad, but there is nothing stopping you from giving them a missile launcher. The Razorback with TLLC's is only 115 points, and that gives you tremendous firepower vs. multiwound models. The TLAC version? 100 points for 12 S6 AP-1 shots. Pair that up with something that allows some rerolls, and it's insane the amount of firepower a Razorback can throw out.

The only other Transport that comes close in fire power is the Wave Serpent, but it's grossly over costed.

Something to remember also- transports can fight in close combat. It's not much, but it's a far cry from 7th edition when your vehicle would get assaulted, and get blown up almost instantly.