Topic of the Week: Land Raiders

[Lost Nemesis]

To start of a new series of the 'Topic of the Week' threads, I present to you a discussion about the heaviest tank in our arsenal, the Land Raider.

Prior to the new codex, we have had a choice between the standard Land Raider and the more assault based Land Raider Crusader, both frightening in their own right. With 5th edition came the introduction of a third official variant, the Land Raider Redeemer, another assault based variant.

This topic is a discussion on all three official variants, unofficial variants (Forge World, etc.). Which variant(s) do you prefer, and why? Do you like to use them primarily as transports or killy tanks in their own right? What place do they hold in your army?

Discuss.

[Grey2321]

I prefer to use my Redeemer over my Vanilla- slightly cheaper, and the Flamestorm Cannons and multi-melta you can give it make excellent complementary weapons to my Terminator TH/SS squad that typically rides to battle in it. I remember a game (2v2) where I powered it up a flank 12", killed 1 or 2 infiltrating tactical marines (At the extreme range of the flamer template, infiltrated due to Sicarius) next turn it moved up another 12", unloaded the terminators + LC captain, then shook an enemy vanilla raider. The terminators crashed into an assault squad while the Redeemer moved up 6", flamed a scout squad in cover killing off all but 2 scouts (Eliminating Telion) and then PotMS'ing the multi-melta at the vanila raider again.

[Pixie]

Given how I intend to have a lean Smurf army that focuses primarily on dropping from the sky (-maybe- with a scout bike squad to guide the first wave or other scouts lingering), and given how I find the Land Raider as a crude and unelegant box, there will be no use for my Chapter to have a Land Raider looming around.

[kevin vanrooyen]

As a guard player I love the sheer durability of all tanks that are LR's either land raiders or leman russes. I have yet to add a land raidert to my collection of marines but I have wanted a Redeemer for a period of time now.

The redeemer with it's unbeleivebly destructive flamestorm cannons, that ca both fire when moving 6" and annihilating anything short of terminators.

The crusader is a great anti infantry tank, with the machine spirit to fire the assault cannon, and the pintle storm bolter, and hurricane bolters counting as defencive weapons it can lay low just about anything with a low armour save even while moving 12" and carrying a squad of terminators.

The land raider is the best the Space Marines have in anti tank short of the terminus ultra (which is even a land raider) with the 2 tin linked lascannons and the pintle multi melta, hell even the heavy bolter can kill vehicles with it's good strength high number of shots. Or you could use the machine spirit to fire it at another target.

Whichever land raider you choose try to keep it in cover (even more so than your other vehicles). Don't let the armour fool you it can be destroyed and 250+ points is a lot to lose in a single shot. The Tau for example can put out S10 AP1 shots with multiple units and that will destroy just about any tank.

If you put an expensive squad inside try to have it deploy them ASAP and then act as a fire magnet. If the enemy is using 500 points trying to kill 275pts of tank over 5 turns then it has proved it's worth.

[jy2]

No matter which LR, all I can say is that Space Marine & Daemonhunter Power of the Machine Spirits rock! What other vehicle would let you move 6" and fire 2 LC shots or 12" and fire your hurricane bolters and multi-melta? I've always thought the LR was too expensive, but after trying it out, I'm sold on it and try to always include at least 1 regular LR for anti-tank purposes.

[Acez]

I generally use two land raiders in my fully mechanized army, or atleast 1. I prefer the Crusader still, being that I started out as a Templar player and fielding acouple as Dedicated Transports. I still enjoy that option now with the ability of the Terminators to take any land raider as a transport. For my Salamanders list, I usually populate the Crusader with my 5 TH/SS termies and Vulkan He'Stan while the Redeemer does his own thing close by, burning people as it goes.

As for the regular Land Raider, I don't think it's as useful as the others. While having acouple lascannon shots on a A14 tank is nice, there are cheaper option availible in the codex to make up for the firepower, such as two landspeaders with MM's for half the cost almost.

[spike12225]

agreed about usefulness of regular raider but not with durability small arms fire can hurt landspeeder and st6 higher make mockery land raider has best survival now thanks to 5th edition and putting it in cover gives you excellent survival hell master of forge on ruins land raider on bottom floor 3+ cover on av14 tank ouch.

[hellblade]

terminus ultra for me, being blood angel my company is fairly assault orientated, so i thought id chuck in a purley shooty tank into the mix,

I use it for its obvious purpose to completely annilate anything larger than a bike, and also to draw fire which it can mostly survive when on the move. Usually though i have it at the rear of my army so that the enemy have to role priority checks to be able to hit the tank. The only set back to the ultra is that if you role ones it is prone to go boom.

the reedemer looks cool, but i think il stick to the terminus ultra.

[Lost Nemesis]

Great responses so far, folks, keep it up!

Here's my tank on each of the official variants:

Land Raider: In prior editions I wasn't too excited about this guy, and ever since they dropped the defensive weapon strength down I still wasn't. However, with the increase of BS of PotMS (since it uses the LR's regular BS now, as far as I can tell) really makes this tank a useful choice. Being able to still move and fire both lascannons, and at different targets, is a fantastic rule and even puts it ahead of las-Predators in that regard. However, you really need to use it as a transport as well as with the firepower it can give for it to be made worthwhile, IMO. The Predators are significantly cheaper, and you can take at least two for every one Land Raider and without sacrificing too much in the way of durability.

Land Raider Crusader: The classic assault vehicle, personally I'm less excited about this tank than I was last edition. Admittedly the hurricane bolters combined with the assault cannon can put serious hurt on light infantry, the transport capacity strikes me as being a waste of time. I would personally only ever field units of 5 Terminators or 10 Terminators, no in betweens; you can only fit 8 Terminators in the tank, so really what's the point? No other squads will have more than 12 members in them (10 max plus two ICs), so why the 16 model capacity?

Land Raider Redeemer: I'm not sure what GW was thinking when they put this guy in the codex, but I'm glad they did. Not only is it cheaper than a regular Land Raider or LRC, but the flamestorm cannons are vastly superior to hurricane bolters IMO. When in close range (which is where it should be, with a nice squad of assault based troops inside) it will butcher anything from the lightest of infantry to nearly the heaviest of infantry. The transport capacity makes sense to me, since 12 is the max of a power armoured unit and 6 (8) is the max of a Terminator unit; I would never attach more than one IC to a 5 man squad of Terminators, so it fits for me.

Given the cost, even shaving off the few points that the LRR does puts it above the LRC in my eyes, especially considering its arsenal of weapons. Both other Land Raider variants have their uses, but for me the choice will almost always be LRR over LRC.

What type of squad builds would you guys put in your assault based Land Raiders? What about the original Land Raider, what type of squad would you place there, considering it's more of a shooty tank?

[kevin vanrooyen]

In the crusader or redeemer i'd put something very powerful that needs a reliable way of making it across the board such as a terminator squad, in the normal raider however i'd put something cheap and scoring and just plop it down on an objective in/close to my deployment zone.