Which Land Raider should I take?

Well still going with the rather easy posts for the moment guys, sorry! On Warseer recently there’s been some discussion on why Crusaders are seen more than Redeemers. So I thought why not discuss the Raider variants so we can really break it down. We’ll cover Chaos LRs as well (so basically laugh at them) for completeness’ sake. Firstly, Land Raiders are expensive and one of the most survivable units of the game. However, they don’t like meltaguns (the avg. pen roll of a meltagun in melta range is a pen) as it essentially bypasses their expensive armor. This makes them great early mech train leaders as they protect the smaller chassis’ behind them and are much more likely to survive. Once you get close to meltaguns though, their survivability advantage diminishes quickly. However, their primary role is throwing an assault unit (specifically Terminators) down your throat and to do this they must get close.


From this understanding the Godhammer (standard Land Raider) seems a waste of points. Your main guns have a 48” range and would rather take advantage of this & it’s impressive AV to simply sit back and shoot. Unfortunately, this is a gross underuse of points. Yes it can be made scoring with a small tac/scout squad but like the Monolith, it doesn’t have enough potential damage output for its points. This is also the problem with the Chaos Land Raider but is further exacerbated by having no PotMS. That’s what you get for loving the Chaos gods! Normal Raiders can take advantage of PotMS to put a lascannon into separate targets but they aren’t railguns so are unlikely to get a double kill.

What about the other two then? They both take advantage of being a heavily armoured terminator transport (with frag launchers! Very, very important at times) with short ranged guns but still squeal like little girls at meltaguns; this really cannot be avoided. We’ll look at the Crusader first. First thing is this baby can take more passengers than any other variant. The extra capacity to fit in multiple ICs or more terminators can be very important in certain builds but isn’t really a decision changer unless you’re running one (...why?). However, this platform is a very capable dakka platform from 24” so is generally impacting on the field quite early and gets better as you get closer (rapid fire range and melta range for MM). This is really the key point. If an early immobed result gets slapped onto a Crusader (or it gets blocked), it can still significantly impact upon the field of battle. It is also capable of anti-tank and anti-infantry duties through the MM/TL-assault cannon. Add in PotMS for the MM and it has a decent chance of dropping a tank whilst still pumping out anti-infantry fire. The ability to move 6” and fire all of its guns also means it is more mobile than the other variants and coupled with its decent range doesn’t have to be in your face all the time to do this.

The Redeemer is the other “assault” transport with Frag launchers and short-ranged weaponry. The flamestorm cannons are really scary, no one likes S6 AP3 templates and this baby has two of them. This generally puts the Redeemers potential output and perceived threat as much higher than the other variants and is often thought of as much a threat as what it actually carries. This is a double-edged sword as more firepower will be focused here. If you have two raiders it can be a good idea to have on as a Redeemer to distract firepower from your other Raider or the rest of your army. However, the nature of this weaponry is also the Redeemer’s downfall. An early immobed result renders the Redeemer effectively useless. Unlike the Crusader who can affect the battlefield significantly from their immobilised position, the Redeemer becomes a big “go away” rock due to its limited ranged and can really be ignored from that point forward. This makes it significantly more “vulnerable” than the Crusader or Godhammer in terms of survivability.

Overall, the Crusader is the most reliable and balanced choice. The Godhammer suffers from a mismatch of roles whilst also suffering from a lack of general firepower. 250 pts for 2x TL-LCs + a TL-HB? Eh no thanks. Whilst the Crusader and Redeemer often run into meltarange, they both have significant output themselves and are an excellent delivery system for Terminators. Whilst the Redeemer is scary in its own right, the Crusader is more capable of affecting the battlefield from midfield whilst the Redeemer needs to be a lot closer. The combination of these two factors often makes the Redeemer less useful over the course of multiple games.

However, when running two Raiders the argument can be made for a Crusader/Redeemer line-up. The Redeemer is more likely to take early firepower due to the flamestorm cannons so more can be packed into the Crusader (i.e. ICs) to force your opponent to suffer the Flamestorm cannons or more combat ability once they hit your line. Otherwise I’d stick with 2x Crusaders and leave the Godhammers at home for the moment.

P.S. click the photo, that Raider is awesome. It lights up. Kudos to Johnny Worthen.