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Hi I am thinking about buying 3 leman russ battle tanks. In what combination of boxes should I buy them?

Probably 2 regular and 1 demolisher(current kit with plasma and punisher variant options); then magnetize them all.

Well... That depends on what you already have...

I'd probably go with 2 Standard Leman Russ Battle Tanks with Battle Cannons and heavy Bolter Sponsons. For the third i'd go with a Punisher with heavy bolter sponsons

Never glue the sponson weapons in tho!

I've done extensive maths on Battlecannons, here are the main points:

Excluding Forgeworld, regular Battlecannons are the best all rounders in almost all scenarios.

Executioners are pretty good too, but you risk wounds to yourself. On balance it's pretty much personal taste.

Punishers are the best against Light Infantry, but obviously poor to bad against everything else. So will be meta dependent.

Demolishers are ok. The point drop recently is appreciated. But my estimation of them takes into account range, which is quite limiting. Also you get extra shots vs units of 5+, but otherwise it's profile wants to be targeting vehicles, so it's a little confused. Against armies that have squads of super elite infantry it'll be useful though, so again a little dependent.

The others are all trash. Just don't. Especially Vanquisher, it's laughably terrible.

Forgeworld turrets are all decent. Annihilator is strong but expensive, Conquerer outperforms standard Battlecannon but only within range of its coaxial gun.

If you're taking 3 tanks, my recommendation would be 2x Battlecannon and a Punisher.

I have started using Demolishers after Chapter Approved. D3 shots d6 damage is statistically equivalent to the d6 shots d3 damage, except the Demolisher is both stronger and better at penetrating armor.

Against units with ≥5 models, the Demolisher is d6 shots, d6 damage, so better than the Battle cannon against things that care about multi damage (FNP, multi-wound), higher strength against things with a higher than average Toughness (Death Guard, centurions, etc.) and better rend (useful against anything heavier than a Guardsman).

It gets all this for cheaper than a Battle cannon, though one must absolutely manage and be aware of it's short range.

 Stux wrote:
Forgeworld turrets are all decent. Annihilator is strong but expensive, Conquerer outperforms standard Battlecannon but only within range of its coaxial gun.

Just bear in mind that they can't be Commanders, which makes them slightly less useful.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I have started using Demolishers after Chapter Approved. D3 shots d6 damage is statistically equivalent to the d6 shots d3 damage, except the Demolisher is both stronger and better at penetrating armor.

They are pretty nice, but this leads me on to the main consideration when picking Russ weapons: what doctrine are you going to use? Tallarn Demolishers and Punishers are great, as the extra mobility lets them get into range, or effectively kite at 24". However, a Cadian Demolisher is going to struggle to get the same effectiveness from the gun, as they want to be staying still. A Catachan army is going to take blast weapons over things like Punishers.

So, referring to the OP, do you use a particular regiment? Or are you deciding that based on your tanks? It is possible to use a different regiment, although then you have to think more about how your detachments are going to work.

 Trickstick wrote:

 Stux wrote:
Forgeworld turrets are all decent. Annihilator is strong but expensive, Conquerer outperforms standard Battlecannon but only within range of its coaxial gun.

Just bear in mind that they can't be Commanders, which makes them slightly less useful.

Yup, this is very true. I'd definitely rather take a Command Battlecannon over a regular Conqueror now.

Of course it all depends how optimised the OP wants to be. So long as you stay away from Vanquishers, Exterminators, and Eradicators you'll be fine for 'normal' games.

Just for fun and casual games. I want to buy 3 because I got the money for it right now and think it would be fun to play 3.

I regularly play with two Russ, and either take a Battle Cannon and Punisher or Battle Cannon and Executioner.

Were I to take a third, I’d likely run one of each. I like variety in my models for style, but also to have a wider access to in-game tools. I prefer Plasma and a Lascannon on my BC and EX Russ, while HB all around for the Punisher.

I’m currently WIP painting my Punisher tank to represent the Commissar upgrade stratagem.

Darthi wrote:
Just for fun and casual games. I want to buy 3 because I got the money for it right now and think it would be fun to play 3.

Cool! Maybe go Battlecannon, Demolisher, Punisher then. So you have some variety, but they have a good power level.

In that case, I would go with 3 normal Russes if you want to have range, or 3 Demolishers if you want to get close.

My Catachan Mechanized Infantry unit (I hesitate to say Company with only 50 men) runs a fireball Demolisher (Demolisher with 3 Heavy Flamers) and I have looked into running more.

If I ever do a guard force, I'll be opting for Demolishers...simply because of variety and I feel they are sneakily strong - albeit they're vehicle/monster hunters and not proper siege tanks.

Advance the first turn into the center of the board, pop smoke...if you survive, you have a 24" (48" diameter) bubble, and you have cheaper demolisher and multi-meltas (another weapon I wouldn't have considered except with a points drop) and perhaps a lascannon on the nose.

2D3 (or 2D6) Strength 10, -3, D6 Damage
2x Strength 8, -4, D6 Damage
1x Strength 9, -3, D6 Damage
+Stubber...or a hunter killer if you want to be a dick for one turn.

All of a sudden that Demolisher is putting out a serious amount of anti-big-stuff firepower. Now consider having perhaps two (which is still a cheap way to do it) doing the same thing and you create a pretty competent zone of death in the centre of the board. If they get tied up they're already distracting stuff, etc.

The Demolisher got a much needed price break and is way more viable now than it was before. That said, I still have a hard time justifying the Demolisher personally. While the Demolisher is slightly better at whacking big things over the Battlecannon, the BC isnt too far behind, is much more versatile, and can shoot almost corner to corner and can hit anything on the board that it can draw LoS to. That reduced range, particularly for the turn 1 alpha strike, can really be felt sometimes.

While it depends on what you have, the ones that are good are:

Punisher tank [43-53 dice of infantry murder], and definitely the best tank to have as not-a-tank-commander.

Battle tank. It really needs the Catachan doctrine or to be a Cadian Tank Commander to be good. But it's okay.

Executioner. It's like a battle tank with improved AP, but you absolutely must be a tank commander, otherwise you'll cook yourself alarmingly quickly.'


If in doubt, I'd get the Battle Tank kit. You can never go wrong with a Battle Tank. Some observations of relevance are:
Battle Tank Commanders offer moderately strong antitank power. Punishers offer excellent anti-infantry power. As Imperial Guard, you have fairly good anti-infantry power on the cheap from other units, and a Battle Tank Commander packs enough shots to take a healthy bite out of most infantry units too. The Punisher is really good at what it does, but it might not be what you need to do, whereas a Battle Tank will always serve you well.

 greatbigtree wrote:

I’m currently WIP painting my Punisher tank to represent the Commissar upgrade stratagem.

You mustn't, all that dakka will go straight to his head!

*****
Guardsman Fred's squad is advancing through an open field. It's been quiet these past two weeks, not an Ork in sight. Even better, that uptight commissar hasn't left his tank in three days now. You could almost forget about the war.

The greenhorn, Bertha, is walking a few meters to Fred's right, eating a bar of corpse starch. Bertha stumbles as she takes a bite and she drops the bar. She takes a step back to pick it up, and the world explodes.

Commissar Bob puts on some classical music and cackles maniacally. He has just achieved what each and every commissar dreams of. Surely the commissariat will enter his name into the legendary Tome of BLAMming now. What a glorious day to be alive! A shame of all that equipment, but foe or no foe, cowardice cannot be excused.

Fred can't hear commissar Bob. Bob's laughter and music are drowned out entirely by the thudding cacophony caused by Bob's tank unloading all of its weaponry into Fred's platoon. Who on Terra thought it'd be a good idea to give one of those team-killing gakkers a tank?!

It’s ok. He’s also modeled with a bolt pistol in hand. But if a whole squad were to suddenly make a break for it, Bob’s prepared.

I run primarily regular Russe's and Executioner tanks. I have a Valhallans, Cadian, and Catachan army, but my mixture of tanks rarely changes. All the regiments do is change how I use them.

Executioners are absolutely terrifying when they get off a good volley, I have an executioner command tank with lascannon/plasma cannons that hits like a train. I do not understand the fear of it taking wounds though, a full volley can do at most 3 wounds with no modifiers for an absolutely vicous amount of firepower. If youre a commander you'd maybe take 1, or if you have one of the many ways to get rerolls/+1 BS. The big draw to executioners is that flat 2 damage and AP 3. There's not much in the game that can take that to the face and walk away. Not to mention command executioner tanks got a 3 tier price decrease for the commander, turret gun, and it's plasma cannons, a decked out tank is under 200pts.

The battletank on the other hand is much less flashy, but an old standby. When I'm running tanks, I often have 2 of these for every executioner, and these will be my bog standard tanks. With Vigilus, I now plan on running one TC with the relic battle cannon, but overall it's just a good all rounder. It can hurt anything it can see and it's got a good all rounder gun that rarely feels like the AP is wasted. I absolutely hate D3 damge though, I swear most of the time I roll 1's, or I'll roll a 3 in a multiwound unit when a model is on 1 wound. That said I've never once felt I made a bad choice bringing them no matter the matchup, something I can easily say for tanks like the punisher (knights), demolisher (eldar), etc.

The other tanks have a place, but they're meta dependent. Executioners and Battle tanks will never let you down.

As stated above command executioners are the only ones worth taking imo. Catachans re-rolling the number of shots and ones to hit can be devastating. I used 2 at an event Saturday and averaged about 15 shots each, I think I took 3 or 4 wounds to myself over 3 games which included shooting at flyers. On top of that they just dropped about 40 points too.

I found that battle cannons with one less ap and variable damage always failed when I needed them. Guaranteed damage is always better than the possibility of more.

Punisher cannons are only good when attached to a vulture.

Take the ones you like. Because honestly you'll get no useful advice off DAKKA. If you're not taking them as 3 commanders or 2 commanders and Pask you may as well never bother posting.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I do not understand the fear of it taking wounds though, a full volley can do at most 3 wounds with no modifiers for an absolutely vicous amount of firepower.

Err, what? You take one wound per 1 rolled, not 1 wound if any 1s are rolled. A full volley can do a theoretical maximum of 18 wounds (though, of course, it is incredibly unlikely to do so).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kommisar wrote:
Punisher cannons are only good when attached to a vulture.

IMO it's the opposite, Vultures are bad. A tank commander LR Punisher with that gun gets the same 40 shots, but at BS 3+ all the time instead of only when stationary and shooting at non-FLY targets (and remember, to do this the Vulture has to give up its -1 to hit) and with the ability to re-roll 1s for even more firepower or JSJ to stay out of trouble. Vultures were cool in previous editions, but the double shot buff to LRBTs killed them.



-edited by insaniak-

Sorry, Benadryl talking, should have said "average for a max volley is 3mw" my bad.

I believe there is good reason to take certain Russ over others, if one is concerned with achieving a powerful, non-underpowered list.

To that end, taking Tank Commanders is “better” than taking Standard Russ. The Improved BS is valuable, particularly when Extended to the sponson weapons. Although it may scrub some people’s sense of fluff, one could justify it by considering them Veteran / Ace Tankers, like Vererans are to standard Guardsmen.

LRBT are a solid, long ranged work horse that can tackle any target fairly well.

Executioners are incredible vs good-save targets or high-wound targets. Less efficient than LRBT against lighter targets, and shorter range on the main gun, it’s probably the second best all-round Russ.

The Punisher is probably the highest volume of S5 shots per point spent in the game. Awesome at taking out light and medium infantry, and you throw enough shots that even tough targets will fail some saves.

I haven’t seen the CA adjustments to Demolishers, so I can’t speak to them. Paired with Multi-Meltas and a Lascannon, they can be effective tank hunters but needing to get that close to things like Knights always seems suicidal to me.


It doesn’t hurt to know what the powerful builds are, and if you want to go against the advice that’s cool beans. But if you’re frustrated by a low win count, then following the advice would likely help to turn a losing streak around.

 Kommisar wrote:
As stated above command executioners are the only ones worth taking imo. Catachans re-rolling the number of shots and ones to hit can be devastating. I used 2 at an event Saturday and averaged about 15 shots each, I think I took 3 or 4 wounds to myself over 3 games which included shooting at flyers. On top of that they just dropped about 40 points too.

I've wondered about how people play those Catachan tanks. Do you "stand" on a 3 or a 4?

Slowroll wrote:

 Kommisar wrote:
As stated above command executioners are the only ones worth taking imo. Catachans re-rolling the number of shots and ones to hit can be devastating. I used 2 at an event Saturday and averaged about 15 shots each, I think I took 3 or 4 wounds to myself over 3 games which included shooting at flyers. On top of that they just dropped about 40 points too.

I've wondered about how people play those Catachan tanks. Do you "stand" on a 3 or a 4?

Statistically you should keep a 4 but re-roll a 3. Because on average you'll do worse than a 4 but better than a 3.

There are some circumstances where I might keep a 3, but I don't think I'd ever re-roll a 4. Basically because I think a 1 or 2 is worse than a 5 or 6 is good... If you get what I'm saying

For myself, I reroll a below-average result.

On a D6 shot, for example, on a 3 I have 2/6 to decrease, a 1/6 to break even, or 3/6 to Improve.

As an optimist, I look at that as a 2/3 chance to break even or better on the reroll, so I go for it.

On a D3, I keep a 2 or better. I'm good with average rolls. My mental math at the table generally factors in Avg "Minus 1", so if I hit average I'm a happy camper.

If you want to make a fireball demolisher (because you like heavy flamers), is it still worth it to be a Tank Commander?

I'd argue no...as you're wasting the main benefit of the Tank Commander. I think flamers on Russ bodies are best used simply for defending against charges, whereas actively attacking with them...just use Hellhounds (arguably one of the most useful units in the IG arsenal).

As a CSM player, the most hated thing for me is a Punisher with Vengeance for Cadia (also with three heavy bolters). That's 49 shots re-rolling hits and wounds...and my buddy doesn't even run them as a tank commander thankfully.

That is a borderline broken function of that tank when facing Chaos.

What do people think about Annihilators? 4 shots off the turret seems pretty strong.

Gordoape wrote:
What do people think about Annihilators? 4 shots off the turret seems pretty strong.

They're ok. They're very expensive though, and you can't put them on Commanders which since Chapter Approved is a really big deal.

Personally I'd rather take other options, but they aren't terrible by any means.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Compare to Predator Annihilators:

Preds cost 180 now, and get 4 shots at BS 3+. That's an average of 2.67 hits for 67.5pts per hit.

Russ costs 182 including hull Lascannon for 5 shots at BS 4+. That's an average of 2.5 hits or 72.8pts per hit.

So output efficiency they are worse than predators. There are some other factors of course. Russes are T8, they can move up to half speed and still shoot the turret shots at 4+ to hit. But then Preds can easily get buffs from other units, which is more difficult for non-commander tanks (Tank Commanders lose some of their own power if they aren't using buffs on themselves).

Point is, they don't look that exciting.