Spacecurves’ Tactics Class : The Defensive Land Raider

Land Raiders are typically used to transport assault troops up the board and into enemy lines. This makes good use of their “assault vehicle” rule and they provide the best protection points can buy for whatever is riding in them.

The prevalence of this tactic has led to most people using Crusaders, or Redeemers, and leaving behind the old godhammer pattern lascannon vanilla Land Raider. This article will show one way to effectively use a godhammer Land Raider to protect other shooting units.

One of the best attributes a land raider has is its size. Land raiders are big, solid models, and they can be used to block line of site to other units. Another of their best attributes is the “power of the machine spirit” rule, which allows them to fire more weapons than a normal tank. The combination of these two factors creates opportunities.

Picture 1 below shows today’s scenario.

Picture1: Brunhilde Protects

In this scenario I’m using the Space Wolves, and the enemy has Salamanders. I’ve got the vanilla pattern Land Raider “Brunhilde” and a long fang squad in the center of the board. The Salamanders have two typhoon pattern Land Speeders, a thunderfire cannon, and some long range combat squads.

If I deploy the long fangs and the Land Raider separately, all the bolter rounds and cannon shells will destroy the long fangs in one turn. However, if I deploy as shown in picture 1, Brunhilde can protect them. Brunhilde is blocking LOS to the long fangs from all the enemy forces. They can shoot at the Land Raider, but have a small chance of inflicting serious damage. This is usually the case. Even if the enemy has a lot of lascannons, it takes an impractical number of shots to kill a Land Raider. (it takes on average 27, BS 4 lascannon shots to kill a Land Raider, if the raider is in cover, double that!) A Land Raider’s only natural predator is melta weapons. If you are crashing your Land Raider down your enemy’s throat, they will get lots of chances to use meltaguns on you. If however, your Land Raider is sitting back and shooting, it becomes much harder to get within melta range.

So in effect what we have done by the arrangement in picture 1 is to keep both my units safe. The Land Raider is very durable to enemy long range fire, and the long fangs can’t be seen.

All that is well and good, but keeping my long fangs safe doesn’t help if they can’t see anything to shoot at! Here is where the power of the machine spirit becomes important.

Let’s return to the scenario and say it is the start of my movement phase. I pivot the Land Raider slightly, and move a couple inches, so the Long Fangs can now see the right hand Land Speeder typhoon.

Picture 2: Brunhilde shifts so the Long Fangs can destroy the right typhoon

Everything but the right hand typhoon is still out of LOS of the long fangs. The idea here is to open up LOS only to the targets you are going to destroy that turn. The long fangs fire at the typhoon, and the Land Raider can still fire both its lascannons thanks to power of the machine spirit. Let us say, as is reasonable, that the right hand typhoon is destroyed by this firepower.

The right flank threat has been neutralized, so I move Brunhilde combat speed over to the right. Picture 3 below shows the board after my second movement phase.

Picture 3: Brunhilde shifts so the Long Fangs can destroy the left typhoon.

I position the Land Raider so LOS is still blocked between my long fangs and the central enemy forces, and such that the long fangs can now see the lefthand typhoon. Just like last turn, they blast the only enemy target that can see them, leaving them again safe at the end of my shooting phase. Brunhilde can fire away with her two lascannons thanks to the power of the machine spirit, and the 180 degree fire arc of her sponsons.

This tactic can be applied to any long range shooting unit in combination with a large vehicle who’s shooting capability isn’t seriously affected by moving combat speed. To summarize the overall concept, only expose your vulnerable squad to an enemy unit right before you destroy it.

The best counter to this tactic is to outflank the Land Raider with speedy long range shooting units. If the Salamander player was smart, they would have been zipping those typhoons around my flanks to get LOS on the long fangs rather than bouncing krak missiles off of the Land Raider.

Homework Question #1: What other combinations of units can you envision using this tactic with?

Homework Question #2: Besides sidestepping with the typhoons, how else could the Salamander player have attacked the long fangs in this scenario?

Class dismissed!