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 Duskweaver wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
As for how to fix it, you can't, because its armament is so unextraordinary its basically always going to be a more expensive predator / devastator squad.

The obvious solution is to replace its bog-standard twin-lascannons with "Land Raider Heavy Lascannon Arrays" with much better damage output but without needing to change the model at all.

Why should it though? It's guns aren't big, and they're secondary to it's role as a transport by design. It's lascannons are smaller than the ones that IG guys carry around, and the same one that are on the Predator.


Like, the Land Raider also just isn't a tank. It's a heavy IFV., it's primary purpose is the transport of infantry, and support of them once they're unloaded. The problem is that because the infantry it transports now self-transport and have done so for editions, it's basically left acting as a tank.

It should get a 4+ invuln and the las cannons should be las talons. Shorter range but double the shots seems to fit it’s assault vehicle mentality, along with the invuln to make it super tough to bulldoze in there and stay put shooting lots of shots to blow things up. Maybe that’s too much lol.

I've long wished they'd give us more freedom with it (especially the less dogmatic Chaos version) would love to be able to drop all the armament and a ton of the price and just use it as a mobile bunker.

 Tiberius501 wrote:
It should get a 4+ invuln and the las cannons should be las talons. Shorter range but double the shots seems to fit it’s assault vehicle mentality, along with the invuln to make it super tough to bulldoze in there and stay put shooting lots of shots to blow things up. Maybe that’s too much lol.

That doesn't really fix what it's problem is. [and also just sidesteps fixing the problems with vehicles in general]

It's problem is that it's redundant. It's entire purpose is to carry terminators, but terminators deep strike, so it's made redundant.

IMO, to make it useful, you need to either make it carry a lot more guys, and/or delete the ability to deep strike Terminators.


It's not that it has long range weapons when it's going to short range. It's weapons work fine at any range. It's that it's a transport that carries a unit that doesn't need to be carried, and doesn't transport anything else well either.


Adding more guns just drives it toward like super heavy status, and it's not knight or baneblade sized.





It does need a T and Sv Improvement, but that's because all vehicles need a T and Sv improvement because GW is stupid, not specifically because of the Land Raider

I always try to include a Land Raider in any Chaos army I play.

Trouble is that it only holds 5 Terminators. Meaning you can't have a unit of terminators and a hero, so it's useless both from a gaming perspective because its rules are terrible and from a fluff perspective because you can't do what it should do in story terms.

It's a lose/lose situation.

I have one that hasn't seen play since very early in 8th edition when people were still trying to figure things out. One way to fix it, I think, would be to give it an ability to halve all incoming damage, or be -1 to wound in shooting. Even then it costs too much for what it contributes (which is very little that other units don't do better).

It's a shame, because Land Raiders are iconic and cool looking and I'd love an excuse to actually finish painting mine (was going for a Deathwing scheme). It was the first model I ever magnetized, too.

Yep -1 to all dmg, to a minimum of 1 (ala dreadnoughts) and should be able to carry up to 10 termies would be pretty swish.

If it got its assault ramp back, then maybe...

There’s been a lot of talk about the basic variant but what about the crusader variant? In particular with something like Black Templars who fill it with regular close combat kitted marines. Crusader variant is pretty good at cleaning chaff no?

Well so far this all sounds very cool for how you could improve it, really any of these changes would help it. Some alteration to its weapons stats for specific lascannons, the godhammers I believe it has ? As well give it back assault vehicle, as it should be and really always had been.

Even with those changes it wouldn't be perfect but, being able to shoot in CC, better lascannons firing on the move and assault vehicle would go a long way to giving them some purpose on the board.

I mean I'll love all of mine no matter what but would be nice to feel like they are also a viable choice.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
It's guns aren't big, and they're secondary to it's role as a transport by design. It's lascannons are smaller than the ones that IG guys carry around, and the same one that are on the Predator.

And hellguns/hotshot lasguns aren't any bigger than regular lasguns. They just have bigger and higher-capacity power packs. The Land Raider has always been described as having huge banks of power cells for its lascannons, which is why the versions without lascannons have greater transport capacity.

Like, the Land Raider also just isn't a tank. It's a heavy IFV., it's primary purpose is the transport of infantry, and support of them once they're unloaded. The problem is that because the infantry it transports now self-transport and have done so for editions, it's basically left acting as a tank.

You know you can transport things other than Terminators in a LR, right? Mine tends to carry Berzerkers and/or Chosen, neither of which can teleport.

I have been taking to calling my SW LR 'Ole Yella'

Was thinking of a diorama with this veteran Blood Claw carrier at the back of some buildings with a Knight pointing a cannon pointblank at it.

Maybe a unit of Eradicators surrounding it.

Assault ramps would be a start. I'd just take that so I can again disgorge hyperactive space pups into battle once again.

Mine still isn't painted so I haven't ran it too many times, but damn if I wouldn't put some Deathshrouds in it if it would get an assault ramp again. That's what Land Raiders should be all about on the small 40k tables, ramming directly into the trench lines gorging out melee squads.

Regarding the lascannons above, shorter ranges like lastalons wouldn't fit the style Raiders engage in outside the crammed ranges of 40k. In various forms of Epic, for example, you had squadrons of Land Raiders as marines' premier battle tanks with reasonably long ranged guns. Predators were the faster, glasshammer unit that flanked the enemy while Raiders could duke it out a bit better. Then there's good stuff like the Heresy fluff where you have dozens of Raiders, Spartans etc. similar transports using pack tactics to force titans to back away from certain spots because their long range lasers can contribute from the position their transported troops have first assaulted and taken.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


It's problem is that it's redundant. It's entire purpose is to carry terminators, but terminators deep strike, so it's made redundant.

IMO, to make it useful, you need to either make it carry a lot more guys, and/or delete the ability to deep strike Terminators.

That's true, without a clear purpose LRs are garbage.

In fact I only use the crusader as it has a transport capacity of 16 and to carry 15 Blood Claws eventually joined by characters, or 5 Wulfen + 5 Blood claws also eventually joined by a character. And 40 ranged anti infantry shots, which is something I lack in my collection, while I have plenty of different ranged anti tank platforms instead.

Other chapters may not have the same need. And terminators should definitely not be able to deep strike.

 Sherrypie wrote:
Mine still isn't painted so I haven't ran it too many times, but damn if I wouldn't put some Deathshrouds in it if it would get an assault ramp again. That's what Land Raiders should be all about on the small 40k tables, ramming directly into the trench lines gorging out melee squads.

It's still worth it. If you give it DR for 2CP and protect it with the bell relic you can usually get it to survive turn 1, which means your death shroud are 17" into the field by the charge phase of turn 2. With a unit that's so slow and powerful it really makes a difference compared to gambling on a 9" charge with no re-rolls to catch some screening unit.

Land Raiders have suffered from bad vehicle rules. You need to be able to target different opponents for each of it's weapons and fire all of it's guns while on the move.
Whenever those things weren't possible due to questionable rules, you better leave your glorious world war I tank on the shelf.

 Strg Alt wrote:
Land Raiders have suffered from bad vehicle rules. You need to be able to target different opponents for each of it's weapons and fire all of it's guns while on the move.
Whenever those things weren't possible due to questionable rules, you better leave your glorious world war I tank on the shelf.

The can do all that though?

I have four painted.

Haven't used any of them since 5th edition.

It's a bit depressing.

I occasionally play an achellies ... havn't in 9th yet. its too bad that their invul went to 5++ instead of 4++

 Jidmah wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Land Raiders have suffered from bad vehicle rules. You need to be able to target different opponents for each of it's weapons and fire all of it's guns while on the move.
Whenever those things weren't possible due to questionable rules, you better leave your glorious world war I tank on the shelf.

The can do all that though?

I have used Land Raiders from 3rd to 5th. At that time all vehicles suffered from the following rule:

"You move, you suck. "

This was of course REALLY bad for a tank which is a mobile gun platform after all.

 Duskweaver wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
It's guns aren't big, and they're secondary to it's role as a transport by design. It's lascannons are smaller than the ones that IG guys carry around, and the same one that are on the Predator.

And hellguns/hotshot lasguns aren't any bigger than regular lasguns. They just have bigger and higher-capacity power packs. The Land Raider has always been described as having huge banks of power cells for its lascannons, which is why the versions without lascannons have greater transport capacity.

Like, the Land Raider also just isn't a tank. It's a heavy IFV., it's primary purpose is the transport of infantry, and support of them once they're unloaded. The problem is that because the infantry it transports now self-transport and have done so for editions, it's basically left acting as a tank.

You know you can transport things other than Terminators in a LR, right? Mine tends to carry Berzerkers and/or Chosen, neither of which can teleport.

It gives up less transport for it's 4 Lascannons than the Predator or Razorback does for it's, so I can pretty confidently say that they're just Lascannons. [Predator, of course, gives up 10 transport for 4, or a Razorback gives up 4 transport for 2]. Also, upping its armament just kind of sidesteps it's lack of purpose as an assault transport by just making it a heavy LoW class tank.

As for what you're transporting with it, regular marines are better transported by Rhinos or Razorbacks. A Rhino has the same transport capacity for much less, and a Razorback pair has the same transport capacity [plus room for 2 extra characters] and same firepower for less. A Razorback pair is also more resilient with 4 extra wounds between them and 2 targets.



I think just upping it's general transport capacity so it's at least 12, if not sending all to 16, would be good for giving it some value carrying regular marines, but I'm having a hard time thinking about what comes in squads bigger than 10. Assault ramp to charge after disembarking would be a cool trick to add on, but again most SM assault units except Assault Intercessors are natively fast. I definitely think that just making terminators unable to deep strike would go a long way towards a Land Raider have clear purpose and be a desirable choice. Honestly, going trans 12, charge after disembark [maybe without further movement to prevent T1 charges], terminators lose DS would make the Land Raider pretty attractive.



I have 3 of them, and I actually do use the GK Redeemer. I don't use any of the other ones, though. AP2 D2 flame guns with 12" range are nice in the Marine meta. I can even put some Paladins in it and Gates of Infinity it forward.



As for firing rules, at least in 5e, I'm pretty certain it had a rule that let it fire one additional weapon after moving.
Specifically, general vehicle rules were "stay still - fire all guns. move 6" - fire 1 gun. move 12" - fire no guns" [which is definitely not "move and you suck"]. and PoMS said something along the lines of "Fire 1 additional weapon at an extra target of your choice"

It's fixable, but it takes a couple of approaches.

First is that you need to remove inate Deep Strike from all Terminators, lower the cost of all Terminator models by 5 pts, then add "Teleport Strike" as an option for 5 pts a model that gives it to them.

Thus, a unit of Terminators that don't drop in get a points break, which helps mitigate the cost of the Land Raider.

From there, you need a couple of different LR versions... a basic all-arounder (Call it "A" for now), one with less guns but more transport (B), and one with more guns but no transport (C)

Each would base down at 180 pts unarmed (B starts at 200 for the more transport, balanced by having one less gun, so the cost will be the same) … unlike most vehicles, which are 10 pts per wound for T7 and a 3+ save, this carries a cost of 12 pts per wound for T8, 2+ save, a bargain, but since it's undergunned, it's fair. (And goes to 15 wounds, just to math it easier.)

A) gets the side sponsons, support gun, and an optional top gunm carries 10

B) gets the side sponsons and support gun, carries 15,

C) gets the side sponsons, support gun, top gun, another gun (probably top), and a 5+ invulnerable, no transport.

From there, you can just figure out what guns go where (las fusils or hurricane on the side, twin assault or twin heavy bolter on top, etc, let any Land Raider sport any weapon loadout from that list, good to go.

I haven't played with my Crimson Fists much in the past year or so, but prior to that I had decent success using an army based around a Land Raider or two. It was a First-Company-themed army, so I had some Terminators and Sternguard in the Land Raiders, supported by other tanks, Land Speeders, and Tactical Squads in Razorbacks. I never took it to a tournament but I did well enough in a fairly competitive casual environment.

I also had surprising amounts success with Land Raiders back in 7th edition, using the Space Marine tank formation (I forget the name). I took the army as a lark to some tournaments, including a local Grand Tournament, and actually ended up placing in a couple of them. Some of that was luck of the draw, but it shows the army (and the Land Raider) wasn't a complete dog.

Complaints about the Land Raider are over stated. It's not a great piece but it does enough useful things to be worthwhile.

I’m only recently back into the hobby so my main army is all Primaris except for some Terminators I picked up on eBay, but like has been mentioned Terminators don’t need it.

I am in the process of building up a Death Watch army and I was thinking about picking one up because currently I have 3 kill teams made up of first born marines and the idea I could fit all 3 kill teams and a watch captain in there is tempting, but after reading this thread I might pass on it. It’s a shame though because I think it’s one of the coolest looking tanks in the space marine armory so I might pick one up anyway down the road just for that fact alone.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
I think just upping it's general transport capacity so it's at least 12, if not sending all to 16, would be good for giving it some value carrying regular marines, but I'm having a hard time thinking about what comes in squads bigger than 10. Assault ramp to charge after disembarking would be a cool trick to add on, but again most SM assault units except Assault Intercessors are natively fast. I definitely think that just making terminators unable to deep strike would go a long way towards a Land Raider have clear purpose and be a desirable choice. Honestly, going trans 12, charge after disembark [maybe without further movement to prevent T1 charges], terminators lose DS would make the Land Raider pretty attractive.

Loyalists don't really have anything beyond 10. Chaos space marines can be in squads of up to 20. Not that anyone ever goes beyond 10 since so little is gained.

I have a Chaos Land Raider that I have never used. To be fair I got the model as part of a Dark Vengeance expansion box or something. I just haven't had any need of anything it brings and like more infantry just in general. Like Inquisitor Lord Katherine said, my Chaos Terminators usually deep strike. The times they don't are due to me wanting their firepower right away, and I rather rely on their armor and have more of them than add a Land Raider. Since I play Black Legion, worse comes to worst I can change their bolters to Assault or maybe use Warptime. The Land Raider might be a little more attractive if my Chaos Terminators loss teleport, but I think it would have me cutting back on Terminators and looking into more CSM, Chosen or even Raptors/Warp Talons then. Note: Don't get me wrong, I am not all that tied to teleport for terminators. If it went away or to a stratagem, I would still run Chaos Terminators. I just would alter their role to better fit foot slogging more than look to add Land Raiders.

What I want to use my Chaos Land Raider for is a command vehicle (fluff command vehicle, not rules command vehicle) for my Chaos Lord, his Chosen guard and maybe an Exalted Champion. However, the Land Raider is too many points for not enough protection and don't really offer much of a speed increase due to its size and way transports work. A nice 12 Move with the ability to charge would be just what the doctored ordered.

I've been using LAs for a long time, though I only have two and they are both magnetized to keep up with what I need to field.

I only had slight opposition to using them in 8th, though that was because I played very few matches that warranted the need for one, or both of them. GKs have always been a rather points intensive elite army, so if you can't find spare points in one area, then you are going to make them up somewhere else. And even as I think about it, 9th has been incredibly kind to my army. Being able to Gate you LR directly in front of your opponents front line, while cheesy, is highly effective.

Used correctly you are bound to see more than one from time to time. But it mostly still boils down to whatever army you're playing at that point and what the preference of the player is exactly.

LR can be fixed in many ways.
If you want exalt its transport capacity, give it back the possibility to assault disembarking from it if moved no more than 6’.
Reintroduce extra armor to have more resilience, Machine God Spirit for other utility.

aNyway, is the overall rule set that is unbalanced towards offense power, and the more a unit costs the more will it suffer from it

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:


Loyalists don't really have anything beyond 10. Chaos space marines can be in squads of up to 20.

What I want to use my Chaos Land Raider for is a command vehicle (fluff command vehicle, not rules command vehicle) for my Chaos Lord, his Chosen guard and maybe an Exalted Champion. However, the Land Raider is too many points for not enough protection and don't really offer much of a speed increase due to its size and way transports work. A nice 12 Move with the ability to charge would be just what the doctored ordered.

Pretty much this, although Templars have crusader squads that can climb over 10. Wolves may be able to hit 11 or so depending on their Battle leader mechanic. But the point of more than 10 is usually adding some characters.

And one of the hidden costs of transports is the “lost” turn(s). Shooty units rarely need a transport, Not being able to charge after moving generally costs you at least one turn of punchy unit availability. So in addition to 300ish points of Land Raider, you’re paying another 100ish points of Terminators and character Death Star points (figure 20-25% for losing one of four-ish potential working turns” from your hammer while it’s inside the iron box)

No. Land Raiders with their current capabilities shouldn't be more than 150 points with weapons included. They're slow, poorly armed and their transport capacity is meh for what you're paying for. The scope of the game has changed drastically while the LR has had the same rules and capabilities for like 20 years.

At 250 they should have a transport capacity of 20 MEQ/10 TEQ. I would consider them then, for death star lists. Might also make big crusade squads or CSM blobs worth taking.

The Custodes version is somewhat better, but only by a tad. It's also Custodes ONLY transport outside of FW. With that in mind, the LR needs the Assault Vehicle rule back, and be cheaper. Dropping 5 Custodes off isn't exactly a "deathstar", and you'll end up paying nearly 300 for the unit PLUS the LR. Not worth it, although it should be.