Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Some interesting things in here that make me want to re-try Rhinos but I have committed a lot to making my SM army a drop pod list and I have made my GK army be almost pure DS. If I didn't have to overhaul most of lists in order to put in Rhinos, I think I would want to try some of these tactics.

 Sir Arun wrote:

 undertow wrote:
Do you find that using Rhinos is almost handing First Blood to your opponent?

I'd say fielding drop pods is more likely to yield first blood to the opponent.

Of course, if you have a single Rhino in a 1500 point army that's mainly a gunline and you use your Rhino to move one troop forward, then yes, that's first blood. But when used with other stuff advancing, you force your opponent to split his fire.

Meh...if you're fielding an army heavy on drop pods and you don't get first blood, it's either a really bad dice problem or an issue of generalship.

What cover save TWC would get behind a Rhino? I'd like to hide my wolves in and behind Rhinos but I guess vs Tau Drop Pods are better - Rhinos simply get poppet 1st turn and my Troops are still far away from their effective range.

TBH getting to Tau is the hard part no matter the army, interceptor 60inch guns make things painful.

 Springfluter wrote:
What cover save TWC would get behind a Rhino? I'd like to hide my wolves in and behind Rhinos but I guess vs Tau Drop Pods are better - Rhinos simply get poppet 1st turn and my Troops are still far away from their effective range.

Cover saves are 5+ unless stated otherwise. You would only get that cover save if the model is at least 25% obscured from TLOS from at least one model in the firing unit.

I'll take Drop pods over Rhinos any day of the week. I bring three 10 man tac squads in drop pods (at 1850) and the work wonders for me. Because I combat squad them, my opponents seem to have a tough time because that is 9 OS units to try to force off objectives all while dealing with the more Leathal aspects of my army.

Crazy Jay wrote:
I bring three 10 man tac squads and the work wonders for me.

The internet won't accept this.
Common wisdom is that you must spam bikes and hate the hobby.

Zimko wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Zimko wrote:

Back on topic though... Take those same 10 Tac Marines and put them in a Rhino and compare that to 10 Gaurdians in a Wave Serpent and I think the Gaurdians are the clear winner in both objective grabbing and killing power. Drop Pods are undercosted for what they do while Rhinos just don't fit in. An above poster was saying that if Tac Marines had an option for a mid-cost transport like a Razorback with more armor then that would be viable over Drop Pods (kind of like a Wave Serpent).

You're comparing 90 points of Guardians enabling the purchase of a 145 point MBT with 140 points of Tactical Marines enabling the purchase of a 35 point transport..

10 Tac Marines with Plasmagun, Plasma pistol, Power Fist and Rhino are 230 pts.
10 Gaurdians with kitted Wave Serpent is 225 pts.

What's wrong with comparing these two? They both fulfill Troops selections and both have objective secured in a combined arms detachment.

235 points.

What's wrong ?

You can take MSU Tac Marines, those Guardians are already MSU.

Nobody wants Tacticals, everybody wants Wave Serpents.

That comparison is worthless except to point out once more that the only failure of the Rhino is what it transports.

Crazy Jay wrote:
I'll take Drop pods over Rhinos any day of the week. I bring three 10 man tac squads in drop pods (at 1850) and the work wonders for me. Because I combat squad them, my opponents seem to have a tough time because that is 9 OS units to try to force off objectives all while dealing with the more Leathal aspects of my army.

Then your opponents aren't seeing clearly. Kill the parts of your army that matter -> then kill useless tactical marines -> profit $$. It's right out of the guidebook of how to wipe up non-optimized marine lists. Basically, marines are short bodies and putting bodies on the board that can be ignored is not a good plan for marines. You don't have to spam bikes, but tac marines are horrid in practice.

Drop Pods are plain crazy, especially unbound.

Imagine that you can just cut the table in two with 350 points.

That's some crazy tactical power, almost auto-win against Tau.

 GoliothOnline wrote:
Its a LoS Shenanigan jerk is what it is lol

No, seriously, it is a jerk for blocking LoS.

Move - Disembark - Occupants shoot - Rhino moves flat out to block further LoS from enemies to your now disembarked unit.

35 points of SHENANIGANS!

I'm pretty sure you can't flat out after disembarking, sadly. However, you can do this every turn after you disembark, so it still works pretty well.

morgoth wrote:

Zimko wrote:
So you're saying Eldar Gaurdians and their transport/weapon options are crap compared to Tac Marines and their options? It's really a matter of opinion but I respectfully disagree. I think they're both capable of performing their own battlefield roles for a relatively decent price.

Back on topic though... Take those same 10 Tac Marines and put them in a Rhino and compare that to 10 Gaurdians in a Wave Serpent and I think the Gaurdians are the clear winner in both objective grabbing and killing power. Drop Pods are undercosted for what they do while Rhinos just don't fit in. An above poster was saying that if Tac Marines had an option for a mid-cost transport like a Razorback with more armor then that would be viable over Drop Pods (kind of like a Wave Serpent).

You're comparing 90 points of Guardians enabling the purchase of a 145 point MBT with 140 points of Tactical Marines enabling the purchase of a 35 point transport.

Not only are those very different in terms of points, they're very different in battlefield roles and raw power.

I have explained above why the Wave Serpent is not a good transport. It's a good tank, but it's become a bad transport. You don't buy a Wave Serpent as a mobility option for a unit, you buy a unit as an excuse to get another MBT.

Rhinos are perfect, what's missing is a competitive unit that needs the transport ability, and a severe recost of the Drop Pods.

The best transport is a fast vehicle that's hard to kill and has a bunch of guns. Being a good tank in no way negatively effects the WS as a transport - in fact it makes it the best transport in the game. Your logic is especially flawed and you obviously play a lot of eldar. You are correct about the lack of competitive units to put in the rhino though this doesn't help their case ether.

Also you are totally disregarding the superiority of the units that go inside them too. Guardians are perfectly pointed for what they do - which is provide more firepower than a tactical squad for about half the points.

As a CSM player, I don't own enough rhinos. CSM rhinos get all sorts of neat upgrades like dirge casters (no enemy overwatch for units in range) and a set of blades that let you deal damage to enemy infantry every time the rhino tank shocks. Add a havoc launcher for some twin linked blast template fun and you have an effective, albeit much more expensive, anti infantry box. Dropping its payload close to the enemy, where a kitted CSM squad is quite deadly, and then offering up some wonderful support makes them invaluable. The table that you're playing on really affects their usefulness, though. If there's little cover, a rhino is going down FAST. However, the local tournament rules require a fair amount of cove so that bleeds over into the meta., So usually I'm riding up behind cover and disembarking, then the rhino lends its support to infantry in conjuction with my TL lascannon/heavy bolter predator, usually making people ignore the predator for a turn or two.

 Xenomancers wrote:

The best transport is a fast vehicle that's hard to kill and has a bunch of guns. Being a good tank in no way negatively effects the WS as a transport - in fact it makes it the best transport in the game. Your logic is especially flawed and you obviously play a lot of eldar. You are correct about the lack of competitive units to put in the rhino though this doesn't help their case ether.

Also you are totally disregarding the superiority of the units that go inside them too. Guardians are perfectly pointed for what they do - which is provide more firepower than a tactical squad for about half the points.

The best transport has no guns whatsoever.
It's cheap, fast, lasts until target is reached.
Having guns gives it a dual purpose which makes it worse at being a transport, that's how things work.

WRT Guardians, no they are not perfectly pointed, and there are no good Eldar troops except jetbikes (and only when playing Maelstrom type games), especially not when compared to Tactical marines, which cost one and a half Guardian a piece with T4S4Sv3+, good heavy weapon options, combat squadding, ATSKNF, krak grenades, access to pods and rhinos.


The Wave Serpent is an awesome MBT and a horribly overcosted transport - and we make it work by playing it as an MBT first, and as a transport second.

I'll take DA all day every day over tac marines. But that's another thread, I suppose. To say there are no good Eldar troops and then talk about tac marines is pretty laughable. Tac marines are one of the worst troops in the game, imo, because of their pt/efficacy ratio. Basically, you are paying a lot of points to do nothing with tac marines.

This is simple: Things that kill a lot of infantry models really fast don't move very much (with the exception of flamers) Heavy/ordinance. You have very few models if they die you lose game also they are 12inch range at best so you want them there so you get rhino to get them there then you shoot enemy and win

Yeah... the WS is a grossly undercosted tank that happens to have a transport capacity (why not?).

The Rhino is good because it's cheap for what it does, but suffers because tactical squads are meh. As a SoB player, I like them because I can carry Dominions 20 points cheaper than an immolator and it's less likely to blow up because it doesn't have a TL MM on top that screams kill me. This generally means that while the enemy is murdering my melta doms after their alpha strike, they ignore my Rhino that drives around a bit then parks on an objective I cleared from long range.

If you want to see why a "better, more expensive" transport fails, see the Devilfish. It's almost as survivable as the WS (minus the ignoring pens bit, but it's got a 3+ jink and AV12 too) and cheaper, but without the option to fire 10+ shots a turn, it just ends turns into an expensive reminder that your Fire Warriors really don't really want to fly away from where you set up your gunline, and they definitely don't want to double the cost of their squad to do so.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Honestly, I think Scouts in an LSS are a much better troop + transport choice for marines. It saddened me deeply that BA didn't get it. (Imagine 3 S5, I5 attacks + open topped fast skimmer transport on a map with enough terrain to hide behind then pop over with your skimmer.)

I'll agree that the Rhino is more cost effective than the Devil Fish. The Tau need their pseudo-fast vehicles back. They should have never lost them and never gained the Riptide.

morgoth wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

The best transport is a fast vehicle that's hard to kill and has a bunch of guns. Being a good tank in no way negatively effects the WS as a transport - in fact it makes it the best transport in the game. Your logic is especially flawed and you obviously play a lot of eldar. You are correct about the lack of competitive units to put in the rhino though this doesn't help their case ether.

Also you are totally disregarding the superiority of the units that go inside them too. Guardians are perfectly pointed for what they do - which is provide more firepower than a tactical squad for about half the points.

The best transport has no guns whatsoever.
It's cheap, fast, lasts until target is reached.
Having guns gives it a dual purpose which makes it worse at being a transport, that's how things work.

I actually have to agree in this regard, Wave Serpents are not a great choice if all you're looking for is a transport. Being fast and survivable is great, but in order to transport effectively they have to show their rear armour and sacrifice basically all of their mobility and shooting. In this regard, yes, they're not particularly amazing. However, they're still ridiculous elsewhere.

Anybody run upgunned razorbacks? I know they have considerably more punch with ass can or lascannon, but have my doubts about spending points on something which can be taken out so easily, my thinking being it'd be better to invest in more surviveable vehicles like predators or vindicators.

Lascannon is better than AC because you might be able to outrange opponents and protect your AV 11 hull.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
Anybody run upgunned razorbacks? I know they have considerably more punch with ass can or lascannon, but have my doubts about spending points on something which can be taken out so easily, my thinking being it'd be better to invest in more surviveable vehicles like predators or vindicators.

I still like lascannon/twin-plasma gun Razorbacks. You can use the range of the lascannon in the early game and three AP2 shots at short range are a decent threat against assault units/FMCs that get close.

Martel732 wrote:
Lascannon is better than AC because you might be able to outrange opponents and protect your AV 11 hull.

But hanging around way backfield shooting lascannons runs counter to the Razorback's other purpose: transporting your dudes to where they need to be (which is usually near the enemy). If your razorback is driving around within 24" of the enemy anyhow, then you might as well give it an AC (which is better than the LS in most cases).

I like the lasplas a lot because it lets you fill both role effectively. A non-TL Lascannon is not that much worse than a TL'd one.

You don't necessarily have to hang around the backfield. Sometimes you can drive away from the anti-tank threat but still towards an objective.

Martel732 wrote:

Crazy Jay wrote:
I'll take Drop pods over Rhinos any day of the week. I bring three 10 man tac squads in drop pods (at 1850) and the work wonders for me. Because I combat squad them, my opponents seem to have a tough time because that is 9 OS units to try to force off objectives all while dealing with the more Leathal aspects of my army.

Then your opponents aren't seeing clearly. Kill the parts of your army that matter -> then kill useless tactical marines -> profit $$. It's right out of the guidebook of how to wipe up non-optimized marine lists. Basically, marines are short bodies and putting bodies on the board that can be ignored is not a good plan for marines. You don't have to spam bikes, but tac marines are horrid in practice.

If my opponents ignore my Tacs, then I utterly destroy them on objectives. I truly hate the internet mindset of there only being one correct way to play. Just because one person doesn't know how to utilize a unit, doesn't make it worthless.

Ok, here is something you should know about rhinos.
Razorback: Less transport, moar weapons.
Rhino: moar transport, less weapons.
But the good thing is, the Rhino has a storm bolter for defensive purposes.

Crazy Jay wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Crazy Jay wrote:
I'll take Drop pods over Rhinos any day of the week. I bring three 10 man tac squads in drop pods (at 1850) and the work wonders for me. Because I combat squad them, my opponents seem to have a tough time because that is 9 OS units to try to force off objectives all while dealing with the more Leathal aspects of my army.

Then your opponents aren't seeing clearly. Kill the parts of your army that matter -> then kill useless tactical marines -> profit $$. It's right out of the guidebook of how to wipe up non-optimized marine lists. Basically, marines are short bodies and putting bodies on the board that can be ignored is not a good plan for marines. You don't have to spam bikes, but tac marines are horrid in practice.

If my opponents ignore my Tacs, then I utterly destroy them on objectives. I truly hate the internet mindset of there only being one correct way to play. Just because one person doesn't know how to utilize a unit, doesn't make it worthless.

No you won't, because the last two turns will be a tac massacre after all your real units have been dealt with. I've done this to marine player over and over with the worst codex (at the time) in the game. (Arguably still the worst, just not nearly as bad)

Playing with a tac heavy list is basically crippling your own ability to reduce the amount of fire you take each turn. This disparity increases every turn as your opponent kills more and more of your units and you kill less and less back, as they are fragging your dangerous units and leaving your helpless units alone until the point where you can cause no damage to their list because all you have is tacs. There is no good way to utilize tacs because they don't really have any game effects to utilize from an offense per point perspective.

That's wierd. I was under the impression that I was the one present at my games and not you. I'll have to let my opponents know that they actually did win those games, I'm sure they'll be thrilled to know it.

You make it sound like I play 1850 worth of standard space marines. That I don't bring bikes, and tanks and other things. I can't help that you feel tactial marines are worthless and I'm not going to change your mind. However, stepping off your high horse might enable you to see other points of view.

Crazy Jay wrote:
That's wierd. I was under the impression that I was the one present at my games and not you. I'll have to let my opponents know that they actually did win those games, I'm sure they'll be thrilled to know it.

You make it sound like I play 1850 worth of standard space marines. That I don't bring bikes, and tanks and other things. I can't help that you feel tactial marines are worthless and I'm not going to change your mind. However, stepping off your high horse might enable you to see other points of view.

You can win with them, but they don't contribute anything in those victories. Generally speaking. If you are bringing bikes, it would be strictly better to dump all the tacs and bring more bikes. That's the problem with the current rules. I just don't feel tactical marines are useless. I've observed them being usless since 5th ed dropped.

I'm curious what army(ies) you own and play. While biker marine is better than an infantry marine, bike armies suffer from low model count. It's also fair to say that different units work better for different play styles and against different armies. Finally to say the tactical marines don't contribute to my victories when they are often holding a majority of objectives for multiple turns is to deny what actually wins games, victory points.