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Hey guys,
lately I´ve got the impression that all a rhino does is giving my enemy first blood and it doesn´t even protect it´s cargo all that well. Most of the time they don´t live long enough to deliver their marines way more forward compared to simply running your dudes on foot and the amount of guys getting killed via footslogging seems to be comparable to the ones dieing inside of an exploding transporter. In my opinion there is literally no reason not to take drop pods instead.
Am I just getting frustrated with my transports or do you share my thoughts?

They do delay shooting for at least one round. They do help with target saturation for the mid S weapons (autocannons etc.), and they can soak up low level S weapons pretty well.

On the average deployment, you have only 24- 40 inches between yourselve and the enemy and even if the rhino survives only one round he can shave 12 inches of that, bringin most of your weapons into range.

All in all the rhino still does the same thing he always did: offer some mobility but not a bunker.

They're fast and they're cheap. They save your squad from at least a few salvos.

Unfortunately, they do give up first blood if you go second or if your opponent doesn't have any easy kill points. However, I think you could get a lot of milleage out of these.

Move 12", Flat out 6". Move 6", Disembark 6", Rapid Fire 12"

42"

Summary
Internet wisdom is that Rhinos are bad. Like much of the 'internet wisdom' you see, it has more holes than swiss cheese. Rhinos are not 'bad', they are just not 'awesome'. For 35 points though, they are a pretty good bargain. This post hopefully will explain why this is the case.

Rhinos are not bunkers. Rhinos are transports designed to bring your unit to their needed location.

First, I want to give a little background. For about the past 8 months I've played a CSM list. I played with 4 rhinos, an ADL, plague marines and some helldrakes.



Giving Up First Blood
If your worried about giving up first blood with your rhino's, start them behind an ADL. An AV11 vehicle behind a 4+ cover save is actually fairly hard to dislodge. A havoc marine with an AC has a 2/3 (to hit) * 1/2 (to damage) * 1/2 (cover save) to cause a hull point. That's a 1/6 chance of causing a hull point per shot. This means ~18 autocannon shots will wreck one rhino giving your opponent first blood.

Tau and Eldar can ignore cover so they won't care about the ADL as much. You probably going to be seeing a lot of these players at tournaments where first blood is downplayed in the missions. Look at the NOVA missions for an example of this.

Simply put, don't let fear of losing 'first blood' keep you from taking rhinos.


They Can't Protect Your Units from Helldrakes
Rhinos are no longer the mobile bunkers of 5th edition. Get that out of your head right now. You won't want to sit in a rhino for the majority of the game any more. However, there are times when Rhinos can be used to protect your units.

First of all -- helldrakes. Internet Wisdom states "Helldrakes just blow up the rhino with a vector strike and fry all the models inside!!!" Run the math, and you will see that a vector strike will do ~1.5 hull points of damage to a rhino. In order to line up for that amazing flame, you had to show the rear of the helldrake to your opponent's army.

Even if you managed to blow up the rhino, imperial SM will combat squad out of the darn thing, putting 5 marines on each side, so your baleflamer can only make 5 marine kabobs.

Sure you can use 2 helldrakes on one rhino, but then your showing the rear of 2 helldrakes! Why is showing the rear of helldrakes so bad? Because AV 10 is much weaker than AV12 to resist firepower. A stormraven getting into the rear arc of a helldrake is bad news for the drake. Even a LRC in the rear arc can be bad news for a helldrake.

In comparison, marines outside rhinos become crispy bacon vs helldrakes. A helldrake can vector strike ~3 marines and then burn another ~5 per turn. Even when working in unison on a single rhino, their MEQ frying power is 50% of what it would be vs MEQ on foot.

Rhinos can protect you against drakes for a few rounds. Anyone who tells you differently has not played helldrakes against skilled opponents.


They Can't Protect Your Units from Other Stuff
Rhinos can protect your unit from small arms fire while you advance. In today's meta much of the shooting is small arms fire. Sure, you might run into an Eldar player who does not have a single gun on the table with a STR lower than a 6, but a lot of armies still use small arms fire. Rhinos can protect you against a lot of that fire for the turn you advance.

Rhino's however cannot 'protect you from a round'. A smart opponent will crack a rhino then shoot all the units inside with small arms fire. You can mitigate this somewhat by deploying behind the rhino if its wrecked.


How do I use Rhinos -- Getting to Mid Field
Rhinos are used to get to mid field fast. They can take the unit inside up to 18" a turn -- or enough to easily get to the middle of the board. This helps to deliver your units to where they need to go to maximize their area of influence.

When playing units like plague marines, this is extremely important, as PMs are very durable, but need to be in the middle of the board to maximize their presence.


How do I use Rhinos -- Get Out of Them!
This next step is important. On the following turn get out of your rhinos. You want to lower the target priority of rhinos dramatically in your opponents eyes. On round 3, after first blood has been scored, will your opponent shoot at a rhino or shoot at your squad of MEQ standing in front of it?

Why is this important? Because if your MEQ squad is reduced to 1 or 2 models, you can hop into the rhino and get the heck out of dodge! In a KP mission, this can protect valuable KPs. In a objectives mission it can let you move to backfield to secure an objective and let a backfield unit move forward. If its late game and you went second, you can even use them to contest enemy objectives!

For what it's worth, you can have 2 storm bolters on your rhino also shooting while your squad is in front of them. At long range, that's actually 50% more bolter shots than they would otherwise have. (Assuming 8 bolter marines + 2 special/heavy weapons)


How do I use Rhinos -- Blocking Assault
This worked in 5th edition, and it works in 6th edition. You can use rhinos to block assaults on your units. If your opponent has an assault force and you don't want to get into assault with it, you can dance around them daring them to get close. This works even more effectively when your opponent must get out of a transport to do the assault -- like meganobs out of a battlewagon.

What you don't want to do is get completely surrounded by your opponent and be wrecked. Don't tempt fate by moving 10" from a squad of seekers and expect them not to take your lunch.


How do I use Rhinos -- Mobile Cover!
Instead of keeping Rhinos behind your unit after deploying your marines, you can use them to block enemy movement. If you don't care about losing them, you would be surprised at how well this can work!

My favorite time was when I surrounded a LRC full of TH/SS marines. I stopped 1" from each of the hatches and had 1 behind it. He was not able to rotate the LRC as he could not get within 1" of me. He could not deploy any of his terminators as they would be within 1" of my rhino. He was stuck just shooting at the rhino to free up his entire force, but that had to be done in the shooting phase, so my rhinos managed to block his termi-star for a full round. In a 6 turn game, that can be a big difference.

You can also use them to just block general enemy movement. Its quite easy to make a wall of 5 rhinos, and it can reach quite far. Like the previous example, it will block all enemy movement past them for one round. Does one round not seem like much? Think of the 'turn two assault daemon' lists. Forcing them to destroy rhinos for a turn instead of killing all your MEQ in assault means you have another full turn to shoot them. This is literally twice the amount of firepower you can dump into them before they are on top of you. That seems like a great investment of 175 points to me...

Note that does not apply to FMC builds, only khorne dog builds. Against FMC builds you actually want to stay in your rhino since they can't surround it (unless they use 3 FMCs) This means your squads inside can hop out and shoot the FMCs in the face since they will no longer be swooping.


How do I use Rhinos -- Rhino Tricks
Since you can move 6" forward in the Rhino, then deploy another 6" out, your troops inside can move up to 18" a turn with a run. This has shocked more than one of my opponents when my plague marines contested an objective 20" away on turn 6.

It also lets you grab the relic on turn 1. Start 12" from the relic. Move up 6", then move forward 6" and grab it.

You can also use this trick to get within rapid firing range on turn one if you desire. (and your opponent has started 24" away from you)


Edit : This article has been added to my site at simhammer.com

I actually have had some good luck with my 2 rhinos I run. Both were glanced to death, no explosions. I was even able to disembark, and then re-embark later in the game. My Rhinos have been pretty durable at least against my opponents bad rolls

I usually start off moving 12" then popping smoke. Usually after that is when I try to disembark somewhere in cover or use the Rhino as cover for a turn.

Wow, you made rhinos sound life gifts from God. You need to be a rhino spokes person.

LOL -- they are not god-like, but they are pretty good for 35 points.

I don't think any vehicle can be first blood as to regarded as fisrt blood you need be able to remove the model as casualty. Vehicles are never removed as casualties they only suffer from effects of destruction.

for 35pts,theyre pretty good. Its unlikely they'll die 1st or 2nd turn unless hit by table-long anti tank, which if you have other targets that deserve that kind of shot then you just won a little more than save the unit embarked from being shot at / moving a bit further.

That being said, dont overestimate them. Theyre still AV11 and have limited uses. Use them as a boost to what you have, not as the main asset to your army.

Labmouse, quit posting such quality responses. It's making me feel inadequate!

You could have a job as a rhino salesman.

do the whirlwind missile launchers come standard or is that the luxury edition?

Worrying about first blood is silly

its a mission based rule and highly dependent on the list you are facing


If you are facing an ork green tide(or some other army full of super resilient units), it is almost assured that you will be giving up first blood anyway.

If you are facing an MSU DE list, it is almost assure you are going to get first blood, all those AV10, open topped 2 hull point boxes are gonna die quick.

If you are in a mission where first blood is going to matter, and where your opponenent would likely get first blood before you because of your rhinos, then start the rhinos in reserve and the units on foot. You can adapt. For 35 points, taking 2-3 is 5% of your list at 1850 and often they add a ton of surivability.

 Icculus wrote:
You could have a job as a rhino salesman.

do the whirlwind missile launchers come standard or is that the luxury edition?

If you upgrade to the whirlwind kit, you can field it as a rhino, just by not glueing the top hatch on. So you are really getting two kits for the the price of one! And if you have a spare TLHB, TLAC, TLLC or Las/plas turret option, you can even field it as a razorback! That's 3 tanks in all! With a few fleur-du-lies decals (sold separately), it even makes and excellent counts-as exorcist.

Act now, and we'll throw in the searchlight and smoke launchers, ABSOLUTELY FREE! Operators are standing by...

 Nevelon wrote:

 Icculus wrote:
You could have a job as a rhino salesman.

do the whirlwind missile launchers come standard or is that the luxury edition?

If you upgrade to the whirlwind kit, you can field it as a rhino, just by not glueing the top hatch on. So you are really getting two kits for the the price of one! And if you have a spare TLHB, TLAC, TLLC or Las/plas turret option, you can even field it as a razorback! That's 3 tanks in all! With a few fleur-du-lies decals (sold separately), it even makes and excellent counts-as exorcist.

Act now, and we'll throw in the searchlight and smoke launchers, ABSOLUTELY FREE! Operators are standing by...

*Searchlight not included on red models (Blood Angels).

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

 Icculus wrote:
You could have a job as a rhino salesman.

do the whirlwind missile launchers come standard or is that the luxury edition?

If you upgrade to the whirlwind kit, you can field it as a rhino, just by not glueing the top hatch on. So you are really getting two kits for the the price of one! And if you have a spare TLHB, TLAC, TLLC or Las/plas turret option, you can even field it as a razorback! That's 3 tanks in all! With a few fleur-du-lies decals (sold separately), it even makes and excellent counts-as exorcist.

Act now, and we'll throw in the searchlight and smoke launchers, ABSOLUTELY FREE! Operators are standing by...

*Searchlight not included on red models (Blood Angels).

Or black ones.

Why did this conversation turn vaguely racist?

I went from taking ZERO Rhinos in my Sisters of Battle force to taking as many as 7.

There is far too much made of the Hull Points issue. Until you get down to TWO hull point models, you're really fretting over nothing. 2 HP models are maybe a bigger question mark to me but otherwise...meh.

Rhinos are just so much more important to Sisters of Battle now.

Labmouse´s post might be in the top 10 best answer ever given on dakka and has been exalted of course. That alone convinced me to give rhinos another go!

 illuknisaa wrote:
I don't think any vehicle can be first blood as to regarded as fisrt blood you need be able to remove the model as casualty. Vehicles are never removed as casualties they only suffer from effects of destruction.

Except when they go boom! (Chaos make that 2d6 explosion please)

 StarTrotter wrote:

 illuknisaa wrote:
I don't think any vehicle can be first blood as to regarded as fisrt blood you need be able to remove the model as casualty. Vehicles are never removed as casualties they only suffer from effects of destruction.

Except when they go boom! (Chaos make that 2d6 explosion please)

In that case, lets play Purge the alien where only Vehicles give up Kill Points!

 illuknisaa wrote:
I don't think any vehicle can be first blood as to regarded as fisrt blood you need be able to remove the model as casualty. Vehicles are never removed as casualties they only suffer from effects of destruction.

Right, and do you want to quote the rule book where a thing such as 'destruction' is defined? This is one hell of a stretch.

labmouse42 wrote:(stuff)

Quite an answer. I think I disagree with... everything, though.

Firstly, rhinos are absolutely first blood bait, even behind an ADL. There are things that will ignore it, as mentioned, like tau and artillery, but even then, it still only has a 4+ save. 4 lascannon hits have a little bit worse of a half chance of seeing the vehicle explode, and are likely to strip off a hull point or two (if not, as mentioned just blowing it up). That's not very much firepower to muster. Honestly, if they can't kill a rhino behind an ADL, that means they don't have enough firepower to handle other things like monstrous creatures or fliers or whatever. You've got to assume an opponent who is bad at making lists to be able to say that one of the flimsiest vehicles in the game isn't a serious first blood liability.

Secondly, even if you're not just looking at first blood (which you should, as that's sort of the most important thing in 6th ed), you still have to look at KP for those games where you'll play that. You're pretty much starting the game with a disadvantage equal to the number of rhinos you're fielding.

Thirdly, an even remotely sane person will be able to blow up a rhino before hitting the marines inside with some Ap3 ignores-cover weapons. Rebutting the most awkward way of doing this (vector striking) doesn't mean this isn't a real problem. Likewise, rhinos are going to keep you out of close combat? Not if the rhino has been killed before the assaulters move in.

Fourthly, transports are terrible in this edition, when judged only by the metric of moving troops closer to things. If you spend basically any time in one, you're pretty much guaranteed not to be able to get the charge in on someone with a choppy squad (unless it has an assault ramp). When I can blow up your rhino on my turn, and your guys inside STILL can't assault me on your turn, that's a problem. Meanwhile getting into transports after you're disembarked is still as awkward as it was before.

To, to summarize. Rhinos have one benefit: +6" of movement on turn 1 (unless the vehicle immobilizes itself running over an ADL). Meanwhile, rhinos are serious first blood bait, will kill you on KP missions, will bunch up your troops to be hit by templates, will restrict your squad down to just 10 models (especially important for CSM), and, to put icing on the cake, when one explodes it likely kills 2 marines out of a 10-man squad.

And you can't give troops a drop pod, which is the much, MUCH better transport choice, or make them in big hordes (for CSM).

I wouldn't take rhinos in this rules edition if they gave them to me for free.

 Ailaros wrote:

labmouse42 wrote:(stuff)

Quite an answer. I think I disagree with... everything, though.

Firstly, rhinos are absolutely first blood bait, even behind an ADL. There are things that will ignore it, as mentioned, like tau and artillery, but even then, it still only has a 4+ save. 4 lascannon hits have a little bit worse of a half chance of seeing the vehicle explode, and are likely to strip off a hull point or two (if not, as mentioned just blowing it up). That's not very much firepower to muster. Honestly, if they can't kill a rhino behind an ADL, that means they don't have enough firepower to handle other things like monstrous creatures or fliers or whatever. You've got to assume an opponent who is bad at making lists to be able to say that one of the flimsiest vehicles in the game isn't a serious first blood liability.

Secondly, even if you're not just looking at first blood (which you should, as that's sort of the most important thing in 6th ed), you still have to look at KP for those games where you'll play that. You're pretty much starting the game with a disadvantage equal to the number of rhinos you're fielding.

Thirdly, an even remotely sane person will be able to blow up a rhino before hitting the marines inside with some Ap3 ignores-cover weapons. Rebutting the most awkward way of doing this (vector striking) doesn't mean this isn't a real problem. Likewise, rhinos are going to keep you out of close combat? Not if the rhino has been killed before the assaulters move in.

Fourthly, transports are terrible in this edition, when judged only by the metric of moving troops closer to things. If you spend basically any time in one, you're pretty much guaranteed not to be able to get the charge in on someone with a choppy squad (unless it has an assault ramp). When I can blow up your rhino on my turn, and your guys inside STILL can't assault me on your turn, that's a problem. Meanwhile getting into transports after you're disembarked is still as awkward as it was before.

To, to summarize. Rhinos have one benefit: +6" of movement on turn 1 (unless the vehicle immobilizes itself running over an ADL). Meanwhile, rhinos are serious first blood bait, will kill you on KP missions, will bunch up your troops to be hit by templates, will restrict your squad down to just 10 models (especially important for CSM), and, to put icing on the cake, when one explodes it likely kills 2 marines out of a 10-man squad.

And you can't give troops a drop pod, which is the much, MUCH better transport choice, or make them in big hordes (for CSM).

I wouldn't take rhinos in this rules edition if they gave them to me for free.

Likewise, I disagree with just about everything Alairos has said. His bias comes from playing altered missions and tailoring a list to draw on everything and win on first blood.

I actually like rhinos more now and have used them with great effect, going undefeated in our last RTT with 2 rhinos and a chimera. I went second in all 3 games and only gave up first blood once (purge the alien nonetheless). Having a transport left in the end to tank shock a 3pt objective outweighs first blood every day. One game was against double thunderfire cannons and I only lost 5 infantry over the course of the entire game.

The ability to move 18" a turn means you can stay back and safe until turn 4.

Moving up 6", disembarking, shooting, then using the rhino to go flat out and block the unit is amazing.

Using an empty rhino to block assault units is invaluable.

Many games they literally mean the difference between life and death for infantry.

Test things out yourself, but 6th rewards mobility heavily and MeQ armies without transports are exceedingly easy to counter with very few exceptions.

 Ailaros wrote:

labmouse42 wrote:(stuff)

Quite an answer. I think I disagree with... everything, though.

I wouldn't take rhinos in this rules edition if they gave them to me for free.

In other news. The sun is yellow.

Ailaros, we agree to disagree quite a bit. Sometimes that makes the best discussion.

Drop pods cost the same as Rhinos, discourages First Blood (go ahead, shoot at the Drop Pod), covers more distance faster than Rhinos, and are immune to Heldrake vector strikes and Riptide intercepts completely provided you can disembark close enough to the enemy units since they cannot place templates over their own models.

Just another option to consider, but not without its own drawbacks.

hyv3mynd wrote:The ability to move 18" a turn means you can stay back and safe until turn 4.

Neutering one of your own units for 4 turns?

Even then, that assumes that the rhino survives for 4 turns. If it's important for the unit inside to die, the rhino is getting blown up. I'd note that the thing that labmouse, the article and myself would all agree on is that the rhino isn't a bunker (not that it ever was).

hyv3mynd wrote:Moving up 6", disembarking, shooting, then using the rhino to go flat out and block the unit is amazing.

What's amazing is that your opponents can't kill a rhino. And then be able to attack the stuff behind it.

Or that they don't just move around the rhino and shoot/multi assault anyways.

hyv3mynd wrote:Using an empty rhino to block assault units is invaluable.

Or your opponent knows what multi-assaults are.

Or they kill the rhino and then assault the stuff in/behind it. Or assault the rhino and then assault the unit that comes out the next turn. A rhino won't stop your units from getting assaulted.

hyv3mynd wrote:Many games they literally mean the difference between life and death for infantry.

Only against opponents who bring anti-infantry killing power, but also don't have enough firepower to blow up a rhino.

hyv3mynd wrote: transports are exceedingly easy to counter

This, though, I agree with. Transports are easy to counter. Well, transports with flimsy armor and no assault ramps or hatches that everyone can shoot out of.

Seriously, for everything else, you're treating rhinos like they're land raiders. They're not. They're a 35 point wrapper that may get units closer to something on turn 1, or they may not, and they might blow up and kill some of the guys inside and leave them as bait for template weapons while giving away first blood, which is useful on EVERY mission, not just the THREE games I've written battle reports for recently. Among other serious disadvantages.

How many other 35 point models can have such an impact?

The rhino may die but they go down by hull points a lot more often which makes for a softer landing for the unit. Even if it blows, a few wounds on 4+ with a 3+ armor save will always be less damage than if the rhino had no been protecting them for one or more shooting phases.

Like I said claim what you want, but your anecdotal evidence is based on playing altered missions in a meta that's very different than mine.

hyv3mynd wrote:Like I said claim what you want, but your anecdotal evidence is based on playing altered missions in a meta that's very different than mine.

I am not making any claims based on personal experience, much less a few anecdotes. Please stop ad homineming this.

hyv3mynd wrote:How many other 35 point models can have such an impact?

How many other 35 point models endanger your troops with explosions and vulnerability to blast and template weapons, give your opponent a strategic leg-up by making it easier for your opponent to claim first blood, and kill points, and stifle your ability for a squad to shoot its guns or get into close combat?

None, I'd imagine. Usually my opponent has to pay points to make those things happen, rather than me.

If I lived in a world where my opponents brought terrible lists without killing power, and couldn't figure out what multi-assaults were, or what target prioritization was, or how to have units work in synch with each other, then maybe, MAYBE it would be worth all the risks to bring them, but even then, probably not.

Your cliche responses are based on a vacuum that lack elements like terrain usage, pre measuring, and player skill. I could spend all night matching your responses with batreps that contradict your claims.

Threads like this should have a poll so people can vote from their experiences without having to compete with Internet hotheads.

Ailaros, you've said your bit in your first post, get off your soap box. You even misquoted hyv3mynd. We get it, you hate rhinos and think first blood is the best thing since sliced bread, cool.