It seems relatively common ground that land raiders are not cost effective in the standard marine list and are consequently difficult to use well. It is also an obvious weak point of the marine list that they have no real ranged macro-weapon attacks, meaning that they struggle against forces with lots of reinforced armour.

I don't suggest that land raiders get macro weapons but I think rather than recosting they could borrow the "lance" rule for the twin lascannons.

This might also mitigate the problem some posters have experienced against armies such as tyranids without overpowering the list in any way.

Some might consider this sacrilege. However the rule could be called "god-hammer lascannons" instead and could also be considered for the (turret mount only of the predator anihilator). It does not seem out of keeping with the background as the weapons clearly require far more power than a normal man-portable lascannon (equating to the five extra men that can be carried in a crusader in 40k)

Any thoughts?

Nah, Land Raider Lascannons don't have any special extra power over other Lascannons out there (like the ones on the Leman Russ, etc).

Opinions on how to fix them are generally either:

- Increase their Firefight stat.
or
- Make them cost less.


Either one is fine really, though I prefer the latter.

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Fair enough. I still prefer the long ranged weapon boost though as it seems most high firefight value units have weapons which are either more anti-personel orientated, short range ordnance type weapons or other very short range weapons powerful weapons such as multi-meltas. By contrast although a somewhat peculiar concept for a troop transport the configuration for a standard land-raider is primarilly a stand-off mid-range fire support unit.

You certainly can reduce cost I suppose but the lance rule (or alternative name) would help balance marines more with armies such as tyranids and perhaps allow a bit more flexibility in a tournament force.

Only an idea anyway

I'm definitely not in favour of them having "special" lascannons; they just don't.

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It's always worth airing new ideas, but this one's a little off.


The main power of Marines is actually in manuever and speed, so one good way to use those land raiders would be to move a fast formation like bikes or Land Speeders around behind the enemy, claim a Crossfire to give the enemy -1 armour save, and then open fire with the Land Raiders (hopefully sustaining fire) and cut down the enemy vehicles.

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That is all fair enough, its just a concept I thought up quickly and I can't say it would hold up to playtesting - although from the perspective of game balance alone it doesn't seem too far off.

Also I don't mean to suggest that you can't get around the tactical problems, although you would still have reinforced armour and war machine concerns unless you resort to titans or space craft. Space craft i can understand in a marine force but titans just don't fit in in terms of background. How do they deploy as they aren't carried by marine fleets? (I say this for consideration as I'm sure that one could envisage various scenarios, albeit not in keeping with the stereotypical tournament fleet-based rapid strike force.

As for special lascannons that is more of a concept i was throwing out for consideration. It all depends how you represent the twin linked nature. Incidently the background does depict them as consuming a lot more power than infantry portable versions or even other tank based ones, so it is a possibility (one that GW will probably bring into 40k if they thought it might shift a few more units. All things are relative, can change and often do, especially the fluff)

That is all fair enough, its just a concept I thought up quickly and I can't say it would hold up to playtesting - although from the perspective of game balance alone it doesn't seem too far off.

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My personal experience with land raiders is minimal and in all honesty when i first started playing marines i used to be land raider heavy " woahh i thought  4 x 4+  RA  with 8 dice at 4+  45 cm  thats a bargain! "  but the more i played with them the more i found them to be a very situational type of unit, yeah they can pump out some AT, and on sustained they can be qui8te scary,  but now i find that the 45 cm range is there down fall, they hardly ever get to sustain, they are fairly crap in FF and almost useless in assualts and shooitng at infantry, so now other than a AT killing transport  for 350pts for 4 models  they start to look a little over priced and to much of a specialised unit.  now days its rare i ever take landraiders in a game, i find they just get out ranged and shreded most of the time and with them only having las cannons and it being such a stock weapon of the universe it cant have its range altered (which would  be my choice of changes to the unit) and as others said lance which you can change either, the only other options are  points reduction, increase in FF ir CA, which personally neither would make me increase my usage of them. my only other option to change would maybe  be to give them a little more  AP fire ?
Either way im not a landraider fan and cant see that changing anytime soon, i can take a tac squad with a commander fo some kind and FF landraiders to kingdom come 90% of the time and i have way more options with a tac squad  over the period of a whole game, but thats just my 2 cents worth.


Cheers


Tim NZ

'Marine Champ' means Hena is the 'Marine Army Champion', and is in charge of coordinating the Epic Rules Committee's Space Marine rules development.


IIRC his suggestion is to use them with a Firefight rating of 4+.


The Epic Rules Committee is currently putting together an army book that will contain all of their recommended changes, plus lots of new army lists.

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As ever, the issue wuth the marines is as much down to how they are used. The main point is that the marines need to have good cover and infantry support if they are to use their armour well, while it is often easier (and cheaper) to leave the 'Raiders at home. Hena now swears by Predators while most players just swear at them, and I suspect the same is true for Land Raiders.

For example, I am experimenting with two Devastator formations each with 2x Land Raider upgrades, being dropped by planetfall in a Landing Craft. Using the LC for Cover and supported by a tactical formation or two, these make superb fire-points, and being dropped means that they can now sustain (getting over the issue of having to double).

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Oh I don't dispute that it wouldn't be a terrible weapon (AT4+, Lance, 45cm range sounds really useful!)... but a Lascannon has a very specific power stat in Epic, and a Twin Lascannon has +1 to-hit over that (so 4+ instead of 5+).

So if a change is to be made, it can't be made to the Lascannons...

Aye I noted that was one of the choices in my first reply.



Anyone know what the French ERC did?

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Dropped price of formation to 350 and upped FF to 4+, it seems.

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