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I'm thinking about running 4 Annihilator Russes (pew-pew).
Twin linked lascannon turret, lascannon hull and multi-melta sponsons, all for 175 points.
Would you balk at that, or do you think it's fairly costed?
They are on the standard russ hull (not the heavier rear armor version).
Since I can move 6" and fire everything at full BS, it seems like a pretty solid tank.

I'm hoping that people go for these, as I'd rather have big clunky tanks than just running the vendettas for anti-tank.

Also, what's everyones take on Autocannon Chimeras? I'm kicking around the idea of blowing my last 20 points on converting my 4 chimeras to all have autocannons.

-Matt

I'd say the FW russ variants are fine; they're much better costed than a vendetta at any rate, although where are you getting your pie plates from if not from your heavy slots?
For the autocannons, it depends what you're running in them. If, like me, you run veterans, they will die right off the bat, and so aren't worth upgrading. If, on the other hand you're running AF squads, then it'd be good to stay back and plink stuff, with AV12 keeping you safe. I personally find melta bombs being a much better investment for some of my squads.

The lascannon is probably the least overpowered one I've seen. You should be fine. Anyone that freaks out over that has never seen a vulture or a sabre defense platform before.

I balk, but only because I think it's unfair to you to take them, not because it's unfair to your opponent.

I prefer the Lightning.

 undead flesh addict wrote:
I'd say the FW russ variants are fine; they're much better costed than a vendetta at any rate, although where are you getting your pie plates from if not from your heavy slots?
For the autocannons, it depends what you're running in them. If, like me, you run veterans, they will die right off the bat, and so aren't worth upgrading. If, on the other hand you're running AF squads, then it'd be good to stay back and plink stuff, with AV12 keeping you safe. I personally find melta bombs being a much better investment for some of my squads.

Pie plates? Vets with plasma x3, melta bombs and demo charge. Several of those.
I've found that I often need lascannons more often and only need pie plates once.

Off the top of my head:
Company command: 2x melta, 2xflamer, chimera w/autocannon heavy flamer
3x vets, demo charge, 3x plasma, melta bombs, chimera w/autocannon heavy flamer
vets, demo charge, heavy flamer, melta x2, melta bombs (uses valk)
Vets, forward scouts, heavy bolter, grenade launcher x3, Harker
Valk with missile pods
4x Russ with lascannons and multi-melta (unit of 2 and 2 units of 1)
Aegis line, autocannon

Harker and his vets man the Aegis line, with 4 S7 twin-linked shots, 6 S5 shots and 3 S6 shots, all AP4, and while standing, 2+ cover.
The plan is to stroll forward with the 4 chimeras and 4 russes while Harker and friends park on an objective behind the wall. Might deploy the wall outside of my deployment and infiltrate to it.
Valkyrie uses the heavy flamer/melta vets as the game changer, dropping them where needed most.
Larger games I throw in marbo, 2 units of melta storm troopers, and a 2nd company command squad (4x plasma 2 body guard and autocannon chimera)


-Matt

In fifth edition you'd probably have only seen autocannon chimeras if they were in the codex. I'm not sure much of that has changed.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Pie plates? Vets with plasma x3, melta bombs and demo charge. Several of those.
I've found that I often need lascannons more often and only need pie plates once.

My sides!

No but seriously, you can't rely on Demo Charges for anti-horde.

Foot lists are back; you'll get slapped around with this mindset.

Know how I know?

It happened to me. And I'm incredibly good.

Edit: Like, so good that it's incredible.

Edit2: Really really good.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
I'm thinking about running 4 Annihilator Russes (pew-pew).

I'm sorry.

The Annihilator is an awful tank. Its only small virtue is that it's even cheaper than a normal LR, but that's because a TL LC turret is a joke. If you want a single anti-tank shot for your turret just take a LR Vanquisher with the coax heavy stubber.

Also, what's everyones take on Autocannon Chimeras? I'm kicking around the idea of blowing my last 20 points on converting my 4 chimeras to all have autocannons.

Not much of a difference. Multilasers are better against some targets, autocannons are slightly better against others. If you can't find anything better to spend those points on it's not going to be a big regret, but it's not something to really get excited about. The only real benefit you get is that the AC turret looks much better than the standard one, but then you could always just put the AC turret on the model and count it as a multilaser.

I'd save your money and take the Exterminator Turret instead.

I think the above comment is the best for Autocannons on Chimera's. IMO Autocannons are awful guns, there is always a better weapon for the job. But Multi-Lasers are in the same camp so your choice.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
I'm thinking about running 4 Annihilator Russes (pew-pew).
Twin linked lascannon turret, lascannon hull and multi-melta sponsons, all for 175 points.
Would you balk at that, or do you think it's fairly costed?
They are on the standard russ hull (not the heavier rear armor version).
Since I can move 6" and fire everything at full BS, it seems like a pretty solid tank.

The Annihilator definitely isn't fairly costed. It should cost substantially less than it does.

HawaiiMatt wrote:Also, what's everyones take on Autocannon Chimeras? I'm kicking around the idea of blowing my last 20 points on converting my 4 chimeras to all have autocannons.

Broken in 5th edition, "who cares" in 6th edition. Autocannons aren't good anymore, so I honestly think multilaser Chimeras are better.

Am I the only person that still sees a lot of mech lists?

Pie plates? Vets with plasma x3, melta bombs and demo charge. Several of those.
I've found that I often need lascannons more often and only need pie plates once.

i'm more inclined to agree with the captain here. I personally run 4 mech vet squads backed up by an infantry platoon, with all the platoon squads equipped with lascannons
There are far more foot lists than before, so I run 2 vanilla battle tanks to deal with marines at range, as you cannot reliably get your demo charges to their target if you take them in chimeras, as their rides will get smoked as soon as they show side armour, aka whenever they advance
My advice would be to proxy the annihilators against your local meta before you buy them

 Kingsley wrote:

The Annihilator definitely isn't fairly costed. It should cost substantially less than it does.

Odd, on paper it looks like a pretty good deal.
175 points for twin-linked lascannon, lascannon and 2x multimeltas, along with armor 14/13/10 and the ability to move and fire everything at full BS.
It's effectively the same hitting power as an all lascannon predator, where you get much better armor and mobility for 35 points over the new cheaper chaos version.

The annilihilator is a different tank than the vanquisher. With 4 shots at S8+ and AP2/AP1 the tanks can help with killing off TEQ.
The Imperial Armor Vanquisher (w/co-axial) comes in as a 35 point upgrade to the twin-linked lascannon, and IMO, it's not worth the extra 35 points.
My plan is to build and magnatize both twin-autocannons and twin-lascannons to make switching between Exterminator and Annihilator very easy.

The points on anti-horde are most likely true.
What if I drop a plasma out of each vet squad and add a heavy flamer (and swap autocannon back for multilaser).
That would give me 5 units of heavy flamers, 4 chimeras with heavy flamers, (still have 4 demo charges), and the pair of S4 AP6 5" blasts (valk).

At any rate, I've been happy with melta exterminators, so I'd thought I'd give the cheaper Annihilators a try.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:

The Annihilator definitely isn't fairly costed. It should cost substantially less than it does.

Odd, on paper it looks like a pretty good deal.
175 points for twin-linked lascannon, lascannon and 2x multimeltas, along with armor 14/13/10 and the ability to move and fire everything at full BS.
It's effectively the same hitting power as an all lascannon predator, where you get much better armor and mobility for 35 points over the new cheaper chaos version.

Four BS3 shots are equal in terms of accuracy to three BS4 shots. The BS3 shots have slightly more reliability, but the fact that the weapons have dramatically different ideal ranges makes this largely irrelevant.

The Leman Russ Annihilator is very diluted in terms of its ideal targets and ranges and is more expensive than the Chaos tri-lascannon Predator. Its defensive advantages are not particularly relevant because the Chaos tri-lascannon Predator's front AV13 is generally good enough as a defense, and the two are more or less equally vulnerable to Deep Strikers. The Annihilator is actually somewhat more vulnerable in that it has to move up and move away from "home base" defensive screening if it wants to engage with all of its weapons.

Overall, the Chaos tri-lascannon Predator is in fact both more effective and less expensive than the Leman Russ Annihilator. To make matters worse, you can't even use the Leman Russ Annihilator unless you allow Forge World, and if you allow Forge World both are terrible in comparison to the utterly broken Sabre Defense Platform, which is by far the best lascannon unit in the game at present.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
The annilihilator is a different tank than the vanquisher. With 4 shots at S8+ and AP2/AP1 the tanks can help with killing off TEQ.

How is this different from a LR Vanquisher, which has four shots at S8+ and AP2/AP1?

And if you really want to kill terminators, you need a LR Executioner which is far, far better at it.

The Imperial Armor Vanquisher (w/co-axial) comes in as a 35 point upgrade to the twin-linked lascannon, and IMO, it's not worth the extra 35 points.

Very wrong. For 35 points you go from a TL LC, a weapon that is mediocre at best against vehicles, to a TL Vanquisher cannon which is excellent against vehicles. That's an upgrade you don't even have to think twice about taking.

I thought the co-ax was +10 and not +35?

I like the FW turrets, I have pretty much all the versions bar the ridiculous looking Demolisher, I use an alternate gun for the Demolisher.

I still cant understand why the Russ appears to have the demolisher cannon around the "other way" to everything else.

Ross74H wrote:
I thought the co-axial was +10 not +35?

What he means is that upgrading from the Annihilator to the Vanquisher with coax gun is 35 points total.

oh I get it now, Its an upgrade worth taking really, gives a much better chance of hitting your target.

Update I have for IA (albeit for 5th ed) says you have a choice of stormbolter or heavy stubber.

 Peregrine wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:
The annilihilator is a different tank than the vanquisher. With 4 shots at S8+ and AP2/AP1 the tanks can help with killing off TEQ.

How is this different from a LR Vanquisher, which has four shots at S8+ and AP2/AP1?

And if you really want to kill terminators, you need a LR Executioner which is far, far better at it.

The Imperial Armor Vanquisher (w/co-axial) comes in as a 35 point upgrade to the twin-linked lascannon, and IMO, it's not worth the extra 35 points.

Very wrong. For 35 points you go from a TL LC, a weapon that is mediocre at best against vehicles, to a TL Vanquisher cannon which is excellent against vehicles. That's an upgrade you don't even have to think twice about taking.

Going to Executioner single rolls the tank into anti-infantry. It's very good at that roll, but I'd rather have my tanks toasting enemy armor.
I'll have to see if I can squeeze in two vanquishers. Two lone Vanquishers (with co-axial) and a pair of annihilators would be fun.
Vanquisher cannon is only twin-linked at ranges of 36" or less, and only if the heavy stubber hits (87% chance).

Executioner is also 60 points more (nearly a 50% mark up). I like the tank, but it's a different roll. In a plasma vet spam, I don't really need more S7. I need something to bust armor. If it can also double as additional MEQ/TEQ killing, great.

-Matt

Peregrine wrote:but that's because a TL LC turret is a joke.

Less of a joke than a vanquisher.

Lucre wrote:Am I the only person that still sees a lot of mech lists?

No.

At my store, a vast majority of people are mech players, just like in 5th ed. In fact, the ratio of mech to non-mech players has increased. Hull points were not the counter to mech lists that GW intended.

As far as the annihilator, it's one of the least-egregious things that FW has put out over the years. It would be nice if the guard had a serious Russ-based alternative to the medusa, devil dog, vendetta, or 3x lascannon scout sentinel squad. As it is, I think we'll have to keep waiting...

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Vanquisher cannon is only twin-linked at ranges of 36" or less, and only if the heavy stubber hits (87% chance).

However, the Annihilator's LCs have nothing outside 48", so it's only more accurate over the narrow 36-48" range. And usually you'll find that 36" is enough to hit most targets on a 6'x4' table.

And sure, it's only TL 87.5% of the time, but that's pretty reliable, and the "missing" 12.5% of the shots is more than offset by the Vanquisher's much higher chance to penetrate armor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:

Peregrine wrote:but that's because a TL LC turret is a joke.

Less of a joke than a vanquisher.

Only if you stubbornly insist on refusing to use FW options, which is kind of amusing when you're discussing a FW-only unit. If you aren't banned from taking the coax gun the Vanquisher is far better than a TL LC.

Peregrine please stop taking this off-topic by flaming about Forgeworld.

OP, I have to say I agree with the posts above - Annialators are rubbish. Vanilla Russes are better at tanks to begin with - S9 and with 6th edition scatter rules, means you'll be hitting pretty acurately - almost guarenteed against larger vehicles (though these are nearly always AV14). Except you also get an awesome long-range pie-plate.

 Testify wrote:
Peregrine please stop taking this off-topic by flaming about Forgeworld.

So you dug up a dead thread just to whine about this?

And no, it isn't off-topic to point out that in a thread about a FW unit it is stupid to insist on comparing it to codex-only Vanquisher and refuse to allow the Vanquisher to take the FW upgrade that makes it significantly more effective.

edit - yeah. my bad, sorry for necro.

A week is necro?