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Hi all,

Question for the CSM players.

What do you think about the new Chaos land raider data sheet?

It seems very good to me, but it still doesn’t seem to be a popular list choice. I understood this in past editions, but not so much now. Am I missing something?

It’s got…

1. Our best anti-tank shooting (and EC can use murderous perfection on it)
2. Incredible durability (and EC can use delightful agonies on it)
3. The ability to fire in combat because it’s 9th (and with no hit penalty for EC), meaning getting tied up isn’t such an issue anymore
4. Transport capacity (which is more useful now due to its increased durability and chosen and possessed becoming lethal melee options that are worth transporting)

All of this is for the same price as a squad of obliterators.

Any views?

It is as good as it has been for quite a while. But it is not very good.

For what it brngs in shooting it is exspensive, you get better things elsewhere.

Any dedicated anti tank will melt it very fast. Even with T9 2+.

It is a transport, so you want to move it up fast. Preferably advance, and then you can not shoot with the laser cannons.

It has a big footprint. It can be hard to navigate on the map.

What is it transporting? Most interesting things take 2 places in the transport, and then you are paying a lot of points to transport less points. Most good melee units are self sufficient.

If you are trasporting regular models, consider the humble rhino?

That beeing said - if your opponent can not deal with it and you fill it with goodies there will be many games where it will rock the opponents socks off. For funn please take it.

Depending on weather or not the world eater rumours aretrue the landraider can be a consideration there. But I think it will be subpar.

 Niiai wrote:
It is as good as it has been for quite a while. But it is not very good.

For what it brngs in shooting it is exspensive, you get better things elsewhere.

Any dedicated anti tank will melt it very fast. Even with T9 2+.

It is a transport, so you want to move it up fast. Preferably advance, and then you can not shoot with the laser cannons.

It has a big footprint. It can be hard to navigate on the map.

What is it transporting? Most interesting things take 2 places in the transport, and then you are paying a lot of points to transport less points. Most good melee units are self sufficient.

If you are trasporting regular models, consider the humble rhino?

That beeing said - if your opponent can not deal with it and you fill it with goodies there will be many games where it will rock the opponents socks off. For funn please take it.

Depending on weather or not the world eater rumours aretrue the landraider can be a consideration there. But I think it will be subpar.

I was thinking about this earlier because most games I’ve played recently have been against people who actually didn’t bring a lot of AT. Certainly not so much that it would have easily got through W16 T9 2+ with armour of contempt. Most long range AT is S8 or 9. You would need quite a lot to take it out. They dealt with my havocs and obliterators well, however, and rhinos wouldn’t have been a problem. Maybe you *could* do it if you really tooled up for AT, but is that the typical build?

EDIT: I just remembered you can use smokescreen for -1 to hit as well.

I was thinking of transporting chosen in it or possibly even possessed (yeah they take up two transport spaces but they are still killy even at that size).

When I think about the alternatives, everything seems much easier to kill and less killy for both AT and transport roles. It’s about 100 points more than a lascannon havocs squad, and the same price as a squad of obliterators, to do their job better AND carry a melee unit.

 Niiai wrote:
It is as good as it has been for quite a while. But it is not very good.

For what it brngs in shooting it is exspensive, you get better things elsewhere.

Any dedicated anti tank will melt it very fast. Even with T9 2+..

Well that's 17.5 multi melta shot at point blank with full to hit rerolls opponent needs to average one out. 24 lascannon.

That's generally way more than what I pack certainly.

LR still have the problem that you're paying for good shooting, good survivability and transport capacity, when you rarely need all 3 of those qualities, so you end up overpaying for something.

I think there's an additional problem in the current 40k meta too. Whereas "good" anti-tank was previously S8 or S9 with Ap-3/-4 and around D3+3 damage, we're now seeing a lot of things like railguns and the new IG Vanquisher cannon that are above S9 with higher damage, making the LR not as defensively tough as it was intended to be. If you're playing against a lot of older books, like DE or Ad Mech, it's actually pretty survivable against their typical AT weapons. Anything newer than that can kill it relatively easily, or at least as easily as most other vehicles.

For the cost, you can take a lot of other options too. For example, if you plan to put Possessed in the LR, you can take those 5 Possessed and a Predator Annihilator for similar cost to just the LR and get similar firepower. Possessed on foot are arguably faster than going in a LR because the LR's mobility is heavily restricted by terrain and the Possessed are basically as fast as a LR anyway.

I think LRs can work in CSM army, but you need some pretty specific niches in your army for them to fill in order to justify the cost.

The best examples of good antitank currently I think are the Votan rail gun, Tau rail gun (they have several) and the Tyranid venom cannon. I don't know all the armies that well.

Slipspace wrote:
I think there's an additional problem in the current 40k meta too. Whereas "good" anti-tank was previously S8 or S9 with Ap-3/-4 and around D3+3 damage, we're now seeing a lot of things like railguns and the new IG Vanquisher cannon that are above S9 with higher damage, making the LR not as defensively tough as it was intended to be. If you're playing against a lot of older books, like DE or Ad Mech, it's actually pretty survivable against their typical AT weapons. Anything newer than that can kill it relatively easily, or at least as easily as most other vehicles.

Tau and new Guard can certainly tool up for it if they want. I’ll assume Votann can too as I don’t know much about them but I know they’re supposed to be powerful. That’s still just three armies, and they won’t necessarily take that loadout. I also play craftworld Eldar and I would need three fire prisms with linked fire to realistically do it.

Those older AT weapons that you mention are still very effective against the other units that people recommend taking instead of the land raider, eg predators and contemptor dreads, so the LR still seems to win out there.

I could even make it T10 using the MOP if I wanted to.

For the cost, you can take a lot of other options too. For example, if you plan to put Possessed in the LR, you can take those 5 Possessed and a Predator Annihilator for similar cost to just the LR and get similar firepower. Possessed on foot are arguably faster than going in a LR because the LR's mobility is heavily restricted by terrain and the Possessed are basically as fast as a LR anyway.

I definitely see your point. Wouldn’t it depend somewhat on how the game goes? Even possessed are not likely to get a turn one charge, so you can at least move forward to set up a reliable turn two charge, and without being shot on the way in. Even if you disembarked straight away you would still get a decent movement boost from disembarking. If you use chosen over possessed then it’s even more advantageous IMHO.

I think LRs can work in CSM army, but you need some pretty specific niches in your army for them to fill in order to justify the cost.

For me, I’ve noticed that my games always seem to start well, but they end up with my terminator brick making a Custer-style last stand against my opponent’s entire army as the rest of my units eventually got ground down. The land raider seems way tougher than the units I’ve been using for the AT role and also even more shooty.

I do take the point that you can’t advance and fire the lascannons, which somewhat diminishes its utility as a transport. I guess I was thinking that advancing is random anyway, and 10” of movement whilst keeping the occupants safe whilst still firing at targets of opportunity is not bad.

 Niiai wrote:
The best examples of good antitank currently I think are the Votan rail gun, Tau rail gun (they have several) and the Tyranid venom cannon. I don't know all the armies that well.

Ok so votan and tau has rail guns. Venom cannon? Assuming carnifex with full rerolls that's 24 venom cannon shots needed. 21 if you have 3+ BS platform.

(I presume you refer to heavy version. Regular venom cannon at BS3+ platform you are looking at 64 shots to take out chaos land raider...)

tneva82 wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
The best examples of good antitank currently I think are the Votan rail gun, Tau rail gun (they have several) and the Tyranid venom cannon. I don't know all the armies that well.

Ok so votan and tau has rail guns. Venom cannon? Assuming carnifex with full rerolls that's 24 venom cannon shots needed. 21 if you have 3+ BS platform.

(I presume you refer to heavy version. Regular venom cannon at BS3+ platform you are looking at 64 shots to take out chaos land raider...)

Is this factoring in -1 to hit from smokescreen and/or 5+++ from delightful agonies?

 Krusha wrote:

For the cost, you can take a lot of other options too. For example, if you plan to put Possessed in the LR, you can take those 5 Possessed and a Predator Annihilator for similar cost to just the LR and get similar firepower. Possessed on foot are arguably faster than going in a LR because the LR's mobility is heavily restricted by terrain and the Possessed are basically as fast as a LR anyway.

I definitely see your point. Wouldn’t it depend somewhat on how the game goes? Even possessed are not likely to get a turn one charge, so you can at least move forward to set up a reliable turn two charge, and without being shot on the way in. Even if you disembarked straight away you would still get a decent movement boost from disembarking. If you use chosen over possessed then it’s even more advantageous IMHO.

The thing you're missing is terrain effects. The reality is, Land Raiders often have problem moving around because they're so large. Those Possessed can advance in turn 1, to get around 12-13" up the table, quite possibly hiding behind or in cover, then they can charge turn 2. It shouldn't be that difficult to hide a 5-model unit for a turn on any reasonable board, so the protection the LR offers becomes moot. Chosen aren't as fast as Possessed, but the freedom to utilise terrain often means that, in practice, the difference between their movement rate and that of the LR is smaller than you think. Yes, the LR is faster, but it has to move through more restricted parts of the board.

I am a bit out of the loop on competetive tyranid list. If they can't shoot it, they will try to movement block it (very table and list dependent) and try to deal mortal wounds to it (witch they are good at). 24 heavy venom shots is a lot. So perhaps it is safe from nids.

Someone submitted IG as one army that can shoot it. It sounded like all favour of space marines will have a hard time VS it. I am not shure about GSC, but they are rare anyway. I don't know about knights as well, they have some point and delete weapons.

Perhaps the landraider is finally playable?

My Grots can take it out in 1 turn.

As usual the problem is points cost. Old kits like Land Raider or Predator have been overcosted by 20-30% at least. For what it gives on the battlefield and compared to vehicles of other armies a LR should cost 170 points

The Deer Hunter wrote:
As usual the problem is points cost. Old kits like Land Raider or Predator have been overcosted by 20-30% at least. For what it gives on the battlefield and compared to vehicles of other armies a LR should cost 170 points

So you think that a LR - with it's transport ability, better T, better BS, more W, better Saves, & AoC , + whatever perks & options it might gain from faction/subfaction - should only cost 10pts more than the Grot Mega-Tank I'm going to use to kill it?

Then the issue is the Grot Mega-Tank is also overcosted.

 Niiai wrote:
It sounded like all favour of space marines will have a hard time VS it.

not really, Vindicator Laser Destroyers, Rapier Laser Destroyers, RepX, there are quite a few things that will put a lot of hurt on one, from every flavor of power armor except GK

 WindstormSCR wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
It sounded like all favour of space marines will have a hard time VS it.

not really, Vindicator Laser Destroyers, Rapier Laser Destroyers, RepX, there are quite a few things that will put a lot of hurt on one, from every flavor of power armor except GK

IMO it’s a question of what marines *could* bring if they specifically tooled up for it vs what they are likely to bring 90% of the time.

 WindstormSCR wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
It sounded like all favour of space marines will have a hard time VS it.

not really, Vindicator Laser Destroyers, Rapier Laser Destroyers, RepX, there are quite a few things that will put a lot of hurt on one, from every flavor of power armor except GK

Are any ody bringing any of these? I have yet to see one. SM long ranged weapons are volkites (rarly seen after nephilim) plasma dreadnoughts and drop pod meltaguns for the most part. I have a hard time seeing them pop T9, 2+ armour of contempt.