Leman Russ - which loadout is the best (for a particular role)

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**Zsolt**

I'm pretty sure there is no silver bullet here, so no single tank setup is good for all situations, as each race and each flavor of enemy will need a different approach to defeat.

What are the problems it needs to solve, and what can it solve? Tank hunter, MEQ hunter, TEQ hunter, GEQ hunter, anything else? Is it possible to create a Flyer/FMC hunter?

Can they be the core of an army, accompanied with some support, or are they just support units?

What is the best number of them to use, singular tanks, or in squadrons? Are squadrons useful at all, or they are just a limitation, so you can field a lot more tanks in your army?

What sponson weapon do they need, if need at all, what wargear do they need? What are must haves, what are useful, what are utter crap?

What support do they need, how to best set up? Can they defend themselves from enemies deep striking next to them, by turning around, blasting them with cannons, and burn what remained with heavy flamers, or do they need a blob or some other sort of defense?

Please share.

**tankboy145**

Well the ordnance russes like the battle tank and the demolisher can and are only good with no upgrades. If a vehicle fires an ordnance russ it snap fires all other weapons so why pay the points for sponsons and other weapons firing at bs1

As for other russes add sponsons that compliment the main gun. Plasma cannons for elite infantry, multi meltas for anti tank, both of those can be for anti monstrous creature. Heavy flamers are too close of range. If your using heavy flamers then you are going to be assaulted and destroyed, useless. Heavy bolters are for anti infantry.

Only upgrade to hull lascannon if you are anti tank.

It's good to have some variants like the vanquisher and punisher be tank commanders because they benefit from the bs4.

Good combos are as follows:

Vanquisher with lascannon

Vanquisher with lascannon sponson multi meltas or plasma cannons.

Punisher with heavy bolters all around.

Punisher with lascannon and sponson multi meltas.

Eradicator with heavy bolters all around.

Executioner with hull lascannon or heavy bolter and sponson plasma cannons.

Exterminator with hull lascannon sponsons multi meltas, or heavy bolters all around.

Russes cannont defend themselves from drop pods. I mean just think a bit. Enemy drops in and sends a melta gun right up your tail pipe. You're going to take some heavy damage and if anything the russ will be snap firing. Only defense for this is to have infantry or other vehicles surround so melta can't get in range.
Russes also die extremely easily to assault units. So have units that can get in the way of assaulters.

**Zsolt**

tankboy145 wrote:
Well the ordnance russes like the battle tank and the demolisher can and are only good with no upgrades. If a vehicle fires an ordnance russ it snap fires all other weapons so why pay the points for sponsons and other weapons firing at bs1

As for other russes add sponsons that compliment the main gun. Plasma cannons for elite infantry, multi meltas for anti tank, both of those can be for anti monstrous creature. Heavy flamers are too close of range. If your using heavy flamers then you are going to be assaulted and destroyed, useless. Heavy bolters are for anti infantry.

Only upgrade to hull lascannon if you are anti tank.

It's good to have some variants like the vanquisher and punisher be tank commanders because they benefit from the bs4.

Good combos are as follows:

Vanquisher with lascannon

Vanquisher with lascannon sponson multi meltas or plasma cannons.

Punisher with heavy bolters all around.

Punisher with lascannon and sponson multi meltas.

Eradicator with heavy bolters all around.

Executioner with hull lascannon or heavy bolter and sponson plasma cannons.

Exterminator with hull lascannon sponsons multi meltas, or heavy bolters all around.

Russes cannont defend themselves from drop pods. I mean just think a bit. Enemy drops in and sends a melta gun right up your tail pipe. You're going to take some heavy damage and if anything the russ will be snap firing. Only defense for this is to have infantry or other vehicles surround so melta can't get in range.
Russes also die extremely easily to assault units. So have units that can get in the way of assaulters.

Thanks for the info. Some more questions:

- Vanquisher's main cannon and the lascannon has pretty big range, does multi melta's and plasma cannon's much lower range help there anything?

- Punisher's gatling is an anti-infantry cannon, what's the benefit of adding lascannons/multi-meltas? Maybe with Pask's rending it can be used as tank-hunter for some degree?

- I don't really get why is the Eradicator good. It has mediocre strength and AP, is ignore cover that good?

**Paradigm**

My go to with Russes is always the LC/PC Vanquisher. With a 36" range on the shortest guns, range is never really an issue, especially when you can move and fire everything, effectively adding 6" range. The synchronised AP2 makes it excel at all roles, from anti-tank to TEQ killing through Monster hunting and marine blasting. Throw in Pask and you've got a very mean machine.

To answer your other questions, adding the LC/MM to as Punisher is not something I'd really advocate, but the idea is that it makes the tank truly multi-role in that you have 3 AT shots, or 20 anti-infantry shots, and where those overlap (light vehicles/heavy infantry) it's very effective. I prefer specialisation oner generalisation though.

The Eradicator is good as it's a blast that ignores cover and you can also fire other guns with it, unlike the other large blast russes. If the enemy are in cover they're more likely to be bunched to get more models a save, and here the blast can really be effective. S6 wounds T4 or less just as easily as S10, and AP4 kills anything but marines, or in other words, the people who will be hugging cover. Adding in 9 HB shots never hurt either, as the AP4 matches.

**Bla_Ze**

Sure you can run the vanq as a static long range sniper.
But gak will advance on your position, drop pods/skimmers whatever.
And with the new missions you need to be as mobile as possible.

Put pask in that punisher and you can glance landraiders.
And with meltas and lascannon it can engage anything.

Its my favourite loadout right now.

**vipoid**

With regard to the Eradicator, is it worth considering Plasma Cannons over Heavy Bolters?

Neither ignore cover, but the plasma cannons seem like a better fit for a tank firing blast weapons.

**Paradigm**

I'd take the HB, as the target profiles overlap a lot more (light infantry). You want plasmas on monster/marine hunters.

**Zsolt**

How bad is the plasma sponson's and the executioner's get's hot rule? If you add plasma to executioner, wouldn't it be too much?

**Paradigm**

Zsolt wrote:
How bad is the plasma sponson's and the executioner's get's hot rule? If you add plasma to executioner, wouldn't it be too much?

It is a risk now that the Executioner has Gets Hot, but it's a 1 in 12 change that you do a HP. If you're really worried, though, just park a techpriest behind it. He can repair if he needs to, and if not he grants POTMS so you can hit 2 targets_ hitting one with 2 PC shots and the other with the Executioner cannon.

**vipoid**

Paradigm wrote:
I'd take the HB, as the target profiles overlap a lot more (light infantry). You want plasmas on monster/marine hunters.

Even with a BS of 3?

Zsolt wrote:
How bad is the plasma sponson's and the executioner's get's hot rule? If you add plasma to executioner, wouldn't it be too much?

Most likely it will depend on what else is shooting it and on what targets it has.

If I recall correctly, plasma will cause it to lose 1 HP per 12 shots. So, even firing all 5 plasma cannons, that's still fewer than one HP per 2 turns of shooting. So, in terms of self-inflicted Hull Points, it should easily survive most games (unless you get very unlucky). But, if it's getting shot and losing HPs, then Gets Hot becomes a problem.

Also, it will depend on what targets it has. If you're fighting a lot of elite units (Terminators, Nobz etc.) then you should be fine. Even if it dies, it will likely have inflicted an immense amount of damage first. It's more of a pain if you're losing HPs but your only targets are cheap units. Although, even then, 5 blasts should do a lot of damage and can still vaporise just about any squad in the open.

I'd probably compare it to the Manticore - it won't be shooting all game, but it will do a lot of damage while it can.

**Paradigm**

Even at BS3. You want to be hitting units in cover with the Eradicator, at which point the plasma's AP is wasted. The HB don't have much AP to waste, and when they do get to use it, it will match with the kind of targets the Eradicator cannon should be going for.

**vipoid**

Paradigm wrote:
Even at BS3. You want to be hitting units in cover with the Eradicator, at which point the plasma's AP is wasted. The HB don't have much AP to waste, and when they do get to use it, it will match with the kind of targets the Eradicator cannon should be going for.

Ok, thanks.

**Zsolt**

vipoid wrote:
Paradigm wrote:
Even at BS3. You want to be hitting units in cover with the Eradicator, at which point the plasma's AP is wasted. The HB don't have much AP to waste, and when they do get to use it, it will match with the kind of targets the Eradicator cannon should be going for.

Ok, thanks.

Or you can put a Psyker with Divination next to it, Prescience gives you a re-roll for a unit in 12" range.

**tankboy145**

Paradigm pretty much answered your questions for you but on another note as to why you take PC or MM sponsons on a russ is because the enemy WILL close the distance between your two armies so as he gets closer why not add more fire power to hurt him more. When guard suffers significant losses they obviously lose significant fire power so as the enemy advances you will increase your fire power as he tries to get into assault or mid field range. At that point your russes start to shell out more fire power.