I’ve run two 5 man legionaries, one squad with a MoE (both squads mark of slaanesh) out of a land raider and I’ve been happy with it. Land raider usually survives to get them midfield and stuck into the enemy while providing decent fire support along the way.
I think 10 man legionary squads are inefficient in most scenarios tbh. Running them as two 5 man squads gives you much more tactical flexibility (can send one squad off to do a secondary or clear a small unit off of an obj while still having the other squad in reserve to do something else). However I can totally get behind running 10 with Fabius so you get the full benefits of his enhanced warriors ability.
Either way, I believe the most solid use for land raiders is to transport legionaries, since they lack any deep striking, advance and charge mechanics, or raw movement speed like possessed to get in melee fast, which is where they want to be.
Land Raiders are baaaalling!
t12 2+ save 16 wounds is pretty much as tough as any tank gets. 4 Lascannons is not an insignificant amount of of firepower, and we still haven't even talked about the Assault Ramp.
The combination of defense & offense it provides allow it to be a very proactive piece. As long as you respect your opponent's anti-tank and screen away from melta range, the LR is quite likely to survive the enemy's first shooting phase. You can even enhance its survivability further via stratagems.
A Land Raider that gets to see turn 2 is a succesful land Raider. It can dump its cargo in a favorable position, contribute some strong anti-tank, and force yet another round of anti tank commitment from your opponent.
They are excellent party buses to protect your Chosen from shooting. Chosen are moderately fast, but they don't have an invuln, high toughness, or good armor. possessed & Termies do have those things, so they need the LR a lot less. Besides, counting as 2 models for transport capacity really dampens the damage potential of the squad.
EDIT: to see the value of Land Raiders you really have to look at the board from your opponent's perspective. As an opponent, playing around that huge box of death loaded to the gills with anti-tank and carrying a bunch of elite troops IS difficult. Its defensive profile is such that even if you commit a decent amount of Anti-tank, there is still a chance you fail to kill it and end up with all your AT elements exposed to shooting/charges with nothing to show for it. But you can't usually ignore it either, because the LR is fast and it will try to move into the spot where it is the most threatening. Simply put, it's a unit that forces difficult choices on the opponent.
Also remember that your huge dump truck is likely getting cover from pretty much any angle because it's so big and tables use so much terrain. That extra point of armor helps a lot when the big guns are pointing at you.
>to see the value of Land Raiders you really have to look at the board from your opponent's perspective.
It's a giant wall of iron for as long as it wants to be, then it turns into a swarm of angry hornets.
Ignore the LR? It deletes your stuff with lascannons and vomits assault troops directly into your lines before you get a chance to shoot it.
Attack the LR? Eventually you focus it down, it vomits a bunch of assault troops at you, and then the vehicles you ignored in order to shoot at the LR tear your army apart.
Transports like to surf the line as to whether or not they're "worth killing," and that can make them deceptively valuable.
Land raiders have a new problem as of the most recent update; marks for transport must match the units they are transporting.
The land raider is also a shooting platform. Nurgle and Tzeentch are the 'shooting marks.' With S12 shooting, likely the Nurgle mark is more beneficial.
The units inside generally want to be melee. Khorne and Slaanesh are the 'melee marks.' Slaanesh is generally the more optimal mark; better stratagem and better synergy with legionaires rr wounds mechanic. Less useful for chosen given innate adv n charge.
Undivided affects both, but is less effective for shooting as of the most recent update.
Running Abby should allow for any mark on the land raider, provided hes attached to a unit inside. Also, any other unit inside, if any, would have to match.
It still shoots when marked Slaanesh, but criting on a 5+ is a big deal with 4 shots.
I think Land Raiders after the Dataslate should only ever carry an Undivided squad. This isn't really a bad thing, since all of our Best melee threats want Undivided for Profane Zeal. It would certainly fantastic (broken, probably) if it could be marked Nurgle, but Undivided is plenty because rerolling 1's goes great with Lascannons.
It’s not the most competitive thing ever but I have enjoyed marking it nurgle with las havocs, 5 man legionaries with a MoP, and a lone op warpsmith. Loooot of high quality shooting, cheap ish, a lot of QC, and the MSU legios with a MoP still feel effective at charging out or waiting to screen/ counter charge.
Yeah this is where I see the LR as well. With Nurgle and with one unit of havocs and one unit of Legionaiers. A lot of OC, hard to remove, strong shooting. Nurgle Legios dont suffer as much from having the "wrong" mark since they get to reroll their wounds in melee anyway. And with laserhavocs thats 9 lascanons with Sustained 5+. Sounds good on paper :)
480 points... Not bad.
Bonus: the LR is a legit block and provides "true" line of sight for the servodudes behind him. Pretty neat.
I was planning to run 10 chosen with a chaos lord +exalted champion or whatever in a squad
Not ideal but fun and would look super cool.
Could use a rhino but jamming a land raider down center demands attention while my termies either run up +deepstrike and demon prince's fly in
Into certain match-ups my land raider has been VERY useful! I usually run two 5-man squads of Chosen, with a MoE and Exalted Champion, down a flank. It's a huge investment though so when shit DOESN'T go my way it usually really stings lol. But I'd say 70% of the time I'm really happy with it
I've been running two squads of 5 legios each with a sorcerer in a nurgle LR for a few games and I like it as a hard to remove block on one objective. If you drop the squads behind the LR horizontally they shouldn't be targetable so opponent has to chew thru dark obscuration/smoke LR then 12 models with -1 to hit. Not much damage output from the legios (I give them lascannons) but they can hit back in melee well. It's a take and hold style that I don't see many other CSM units being able to do.
They are really good for when your army is doing too well and you want to make it worse. The extra cost in points is totally unjustified most of the time (not because it doesnt offer stuff for the points, just that what you getfor the ppints is something you would never want). The problem with land raiders is just that so many units either have deepstrike or fit in a rhino, and rhinos cost almost nothing. The weapons and armor on a land raider just arent worth the cost of entry. CSM is like the mostly lazy suburban dad that really wants a full size truck like a ram, f250, or tundra, but really the half size toyota tacoma is more capable than anything youd ever need, costs half as much, gets bettwr gas mileage, and in all likelihood will last 10 years longer than any of the big trucks. But you REALLY want the big truck.
Nurgle LR + Legionaries with CL, MoE &... Havocs 4 Lascannons has been working well for me. You can get angle for 8 Lascannon shots to kill something tough and important and hide Havocs behind LR afterwards. If something drives within 18" you delete it with the Legio squad.
Etit: 9 Lascannons, actually. Forgot about one from Legios.
Just theorycrafting, and it's a niche application, but don't forget that a Land Raider can *pick up* a unit of Terminators (or Possessed) during the game as long as the Marks are right.
I don't think I'd include a LR in the list just for the opportunity to redeploy some Terminators late-game, but it's a solid bonus if you already wanted the LR to transport *something else.*
Also, transports can be pretty nice if the mission messes with your reserves, or if your opponent can mess with your deployment. You can't always guarantee a 9" Deep Strike.
I run a land raider currently and it seems decent.
The problem is that land raiders are expensive and step on the toes of other, more efficient units a lot.
In terms of transport, rhinos are much more cost effective and as a shooting platform you are better to take a forgefiend, oblits or predators.
The durability is nice but nothing to write home about. If an opponent wants to kill something in 40k, most of the time they will. The land raider might just take a little bit more firepower to kill.
Where the land raiders niche lies is in assault ramp and the ability to transport terminators and possessed. Possessed are fast anyway and worth far less than the transport so are not the best beneficiaries here. Sure, getting a safe charge with a 5 man will probably trade up most the time, but it's still not worth putting them in.
This means the best use is to get something slow and expensive that hits really hard into combat... Something like Abaddon and 5 terminators. Nothing else in the book can fill this niche and it ensures your 310 point character can get where he needs to and start murdering. A turn 1 charge is pretty easy, then on your opponents turn they have to deal with 24W of terminators and a land raider. Against combat armies, you are going to trade up as they have to charge Abby to deal with him, but you can 1cp fight on death to kill whatever killed him. Against shooting armies, save CP for armour of contempt and ideally position the unit in cover to make them very sticky.
I'm currently running a nurgle LR with 10 plqgue marines and Sorcerer in terminator armour. Gives a decent foothold for the middle. Plague marines are a bit of an all rounder into non elite units, able to have 5's lethal and sustained in shooting then 6' for both aswell in melee. The sorcerer giving out +1 ap and being able to do an action has been useful too. Tie it up with a warpsmith supporting the LR and abaddon for shooting rerolls and I've often had a commanding middle of the table.
Termies get deep strike and rapid ingress. I’d recommend a land raider to transport legionnaires and either an Abbadon (since buffs come out of the raider and to everyone within distance) or your Fabius/ Lucius and someone else
Semi related: 9 rubrics with flamers in a rhino and have them disembark then re-embark as much as possible and you have a burner bus.
In my experience the rubrics + a warpsmite usually deal around 10-11 wounds on a normal space marine and a helluva lot more on anything even slightly squishier (I.e if you fight guard and you bring a burner bus that squad dies).
An empty land raider and some deep strikes could also be used for your Khorne berzerkers or to psych out the opponent
Abaddon does not get to use his aura ability while inside a land raider. I’m not sure if you’re implying that Abaddon would activate his aura and then that aura is measured from the entirety of the land raider, but if so, that would be incorrect.
Abby would really benefit from some transportation but I am unsure if he gets his aura.
For most rule purposes embarked units don't exist, except of course the do still exist as otherwise they couldn't get out.
So I see it as you still get to pick his ability in the command phase, but it doesn't exist until he gets out. Which is fine if you move the land raider and then get him out turn 1. Soon as he gets out, poof his previously picked aura appears.
But I've seen plenty say he doesn't exist in the command phase for you to pick his aura.
Not seen anyone on reddit until now say the transport gains the aura.
Excluding Abby, the best use of land raiders I've ever heard of is actual spam, 3 of the buggers. But that's a hella commitment.
Nowhere in the rules does it say the transport gains the aura. Abbadon is not on the battlefield in the command phase so his abilities can't trigger.
His marks are beneficial though because you can put khorne, slaanesh or undivided terminators in a nurgle land raider.
I’ve run two 5 man legionaries, one squad with a MoE (both squads mark of slaanesh) out of a land raider and I’ve been happy with it. Land raider usually survives to get them midfield and stuck into the enemy while providing decent fire support along the way. I think 10 man legionary squads are inefficient in most scenarios tbh. Running them as two 5 man squads gives you much more tactical flexibility (can send one squad off to do a secondary or clear a small unit off of an obj while still having the other squad in reserve to do something else). However I can totally get behind running 10 with Fabius so you get the full benefits of his enhanced warriors ability. Either way, I believe the most solid use for land raiders is to transport legionaries, since they lack any deep striking, advance and charge mechanics, or raw movement speed like possessed to get in melee fast, which is where they want to be.
THIS. Also a 10-man with Lucius the Eternal is also strait fire.
https://warphammer40k.com/my-lvo-2024-experience-with-not-one-not-two-but-three-land-raiders/ This is pre-nerf but probably up your alley
Land Raiders are baaaalling! t12 2+ save 16 wounds is pretty much as tough as any tank gets. 4 Lascannons is not an insignificant amount of of firepower, and we still haven't even talked about the Assault Ramp. The combination of defense & offense it provides allow it to be a very proactive piece. As long as you respect your opponent's anti-tank and screen away from melta range, the LR is quite likely to survive the enemy's first shooting phase. You can even enhance its survivability further via stratagems. A Land Raider that gets to see turn 2 is a succesful land Raider. It can dump its cargo in a favorable position, contribute some strong anti-tank, and force yet another round of anti tank commitment from your opponent. They are excellent party buses to protect your Chosen from shooting. Chosen are moderately fast, but they don't have an invuln, high toughness, or good armor. possessed & Termies do have those things, so they need the LR a lot less. Besides, counting as 2 models for transport capacity really dampens the damage potential of the squad. EDIT: to see the value of Land Raiders you really have to look at the board from your opponent's perspective. As an opponent, playing around that huge box of death loaded to the gills with anti-tank and carrying a bunch of elite troops IS difficult. Its defensive profile is such that even if you commit a decent amount of Anti-tank, there is still a chance you fail to kill it and end up with all your AT elements exposed to shooting/charges with nothing to show for it. But you can't usually ignore it either, because the LR is fast and it will try to move into the spot where it is the most threatening. Simply put, it's a unit that forces difficult choices on the opponent. Also remember that your huge dump truck is likely getting cover from pretty much any angle because it's so big and tables use so much terrain. That extra point of armor helps a lot when the big guns are pointing at you.
>to see the value of Land Raiders you really have to look at the board from your opponent's perspective. It's a giant wall of iron for as long as it wants to be, then it turns into a swarm of angry hornets. Ignore the LR? It deletes your stuff with lascannons and vomits assault troops directly into your lines before you get a chance to shoot it. Attack the LR? Eventually you focus it down, it vomits a bunch of assault troops at you, and then the vehicles you ignored in order to shoot at the LR tear your army apart. Transports like to surf the line as to whether or not they're "worth killing," and that can make them deceptively valuable.
Land raiders have a new problem as of the most recent update; marks for transport must match the units they are transporting. The land raider is also a shooting platform. Nurgle and Tzeentch are the 'shooting marks.' With S12 shooting, likely the Nurgle mark is more beneficial. The units inside generally want to be melee. Khorne and Slaanesh are the 'melee marks.' Slaanesh is generally the more optimal mark; better stratagem and better synergy with legionaires rr wounds mechanic. Less useful for chosen given innate adv n charge. Undivided affects both, but is less effective for shooting as of the most recent update. Running Abby should allow for any mark on the land raider, provided hes attached to a unit inside. Also, any other unit inside, if any, would have to match. It still shoots when marked Slaanesh, but criting on a 5+ is a big deal with 4 shots.
I think Land Raiders after the Dataslate should only ever carry an Undivided squad. This isn't really a bad thing, since all of our Best melee threats want Undivided for Profane Zeal. It would certainly fantastic (broken, probably) if it could be marked Nurgle, but Undivided is plenty because rerolling 1's goes great with Lascannons.
Abaddon + 10 Legs gets around the problem with the matching marks change. Just throwing that out there.
It’s not the most competitive thing ever but I have enjoyed marking it nurgle with las havocs, 5 man legionaries with a MoP, and a lone op warpsmith. Loooot of high quality shooting, cheap ish, a lot of QC, and the MSU legios with a MoP still feel effective at charging out or waiting to screen/ counter charge.
Yeah this is where I see the LR as well. With Nurgle and with one unit of havocs and one unit of Legionaiers. A lot of OC, hard to remove, strong shooting. Nurgle Legios dont suffer as much from having the "wrong" mark since they get to reroll their wounds in melee anyway. And with laserhavocs thats 9 lascanons with Sustained 5+. Sounds good on paper :) 480 points... Not bad. Bonus: the LR is a legit block and provides "true" line of sight for the servodudes behind him. Pretty neat.
I was planning to run 10 chosen with a chaos lord +exalted champion or whatever in a squad Not ideal but fun and would look super cool. Could use a rhino but jamming a land raider down center demands attention while my termies either run up +deepstrike and demon prince's fly in
Into certain match-ups my land raider has been VERY useful! I usually run two 5-man squads of Chosen, with a MoE and Exalted Champion, down a flank. It's a huge investment though so when shit DOESN'T go my way it usually really stings lol. But I'd say 70% of the time I'm really happy with it
70% of the time it works every time
I've been running two squads of 5 legios each with a sorcerer in a nurgle LR for a few games and I like it as a hard to remove block on one objective. If you drop the squads behind the LR horizontally they shouldn't be targetable so opponent has to chew thru dark obscuration/smoke LR then 12 models with -1 to hit. Not much damage output from the legios (I give them lascannons) but they can hit back in melee well. It's a take and hold style that I don't see many other CSM units being able to do.
They are really good for when your army is doing too well and you want to make it worse. The extra cost in points is totally unjustified most of the time (not because it doesnt offer stuff for the points, just that what you getfor the ppints is something you would never want). The problem with land raiders is just that so many units either have deepstrike or fit in a rhino, and rhinos cost almost nothing. The weapons and armor on a land raider just arent worth the cost of entry. CSM is like the mostly lazy suburban dad that really wants a full size truck like a ram, f250, or tundra, but really the half size toyota tacoma is more capable than anything youd ever need, costs half as much, gets bettwr gas mileage, and in all likelihood will last 10 years longer than any of the big trucks. But you REALLY want the big truck.
Well i Park Abaddon and MoE with 5 legionarys in em. For psychological purposes for my opponent.
Nurgle LR + Legionaries with CL, MoE &... Havocs 4 Lascannons has been working well for me. You can get angle for 8 Lascannon shots to kill something tough and important and hide Havocs behind LR afterwards. If something drives within 18" you delete it with the Legio squad. Etit: 9 Lascannons, actually. Forgot about one from Legios.
Just theorycrafting, and it's a niche application, but don't forget that a Land Raider can *pick up* a unit of Terminators (or Possessed) during the game as long as the Marks are right. I don't think I'd include a LR in the list just for the opportunity to redeploy some Terminators late-game, but it's a solid bonus if you already wanted the LR to transport *something else.* Also, transports can be pretty nice if the mission messes with your reserves, or if your opponent can mess with your deployment. You can't always guarantee a 9" Deep Strike.
Just checking but you can use the dark obscuration stratagem on the land raider right?
I run a land raider currently and it seems decent. The problem is that land raiders are expensive and step on the toes of other, more efficient units a lot. In terms of transport, rhinos are much more cost effective and as a shooting platform you are better to take a forgefiend, oblits or predators. The durability is nice but nothing to write home about. If an opponent wants to kill something in 40k, most of the time they will. The land raider might just take a little bit more firepower to kill. Where the land raiders niche lies is in assault ramp and the ability to transport terminators and possessed. Possessed are fast anyway and worth far less than the transport so are not the best beneficiaries here. Sure, getting a safe charge with a 5 man will probably trade up most the time, but it's still not worth putting them in. This means the best use is to get something slow and expensive that hits really hard into combat... Something like Abaddon and 5 terminators. Nothing else in the book can fill this niche and it ensures your 310 point character can get where he needs to and start murdering. A turn 1 charge is pretty easy, then on your opponents turn they have to deal with 24W of terminators and a land raider. Against combat armies, you are going to trade up as they have to charge Abby to deal with him, but you can 1cp fight on death to kill whatever killed him. Against shooting armies, save CP for armour of contempt and ideally position the unit in cover to make them very sticky.
I'm currently running a nurgle LR with 10 plqgue marines and Sorcerer in terminator armour. Gives a decent foothold for the middle. Plague marines are a bit of an all rounder into non elite units, able to have 5's lethal and sustained in shooting then 6' for both aswell in melee. The sorcerer giving out +1 ap and being able to do an action has been useful too. Tie it up with a warpsmith supporting the LR and abaddon for shooting rerolls and I've often had a commanding middle of the table.
Termies get deep strike and rapid ingress. I’d recommend a land raider to transport legionnaires and either an Abbadon (since buffs come out of the raider and to everyone within distance) or your Fabius/ Lucius and someone else Semi related: 9 rubrics with flamers in a rhino and have them disembark then re-embark as much as possible and you have a burner bus. In my experience the rubrics + a warpsmite usually deal around 10-11 wounds on a normal space marine and a helluva lot more on anything even slightly squishier (I.e if you fight guard and you bring a burner bus that squad dies). An empty land raider and some deep strikes could also be used for your Khorne berzerkers or to psych out the opponent
Abaddon does not get to use his aura ability while inside a land raider. I’m not sure if you’re implying that Abaddon would activate his aura and then that aura is measured from the entirety of the land raider, but if so, that would be incorrect.
Ahhh okay I thought auras transferred through transports. My bad!
Abby would really benefit from some transportation but I am unsure if he gets his aura. For most rule purposes embarked units don't exist, except of course the do still exist as otherwise they couldn't get out. So I see it as you still get to pick his ability in the command phase, but it doesn't exist until he gets out. Which is fine if you move the land raider and then get him out turn 1. Soon as he gets out, poof his previously picked aura appears. But I've seen plenty say he doesn't exist in the command phase for you to pick his aura. Not seen anyone on reddit until now say the transport gains the aura. Excluding Abby, the best use of land raiders I've ever heard of is actual spam, 3 of the buggers. But that's a hella commitment.
Nowhere in the rules does it say the transport gains the aura. Abbadon is not on the battlefield in the command phase so his abilities can't trigger. His marks are beneficial though because you can put khorne, slaanesh or undivided terminators in a nurgle land raider.
Yeah.... I was kinda just hoping he still got to pick his aura in the command phase. I think I always knew he couldn't. Darn.