What's with Razorback spam?

[DarkLink]

Vanilla Marines don't really do razorback spam very well. The other Marine codices have more special rules that make the small units useful.

In general, you're going very minimal on upgrades, so no powerfist. You're already in trouble if you get into CC anyways, so most people don't bother throwing points on a bad bet.

But just for comparison, look at a SW spam list:
5 Grey Hunters, meltagun, Wolf Guard with combi-melta, Razorback with Lascannon/TL Plasma rifle.....178

You get 6 guys, 2 meltaguns, a TL plasma rifle and a Lascannon. Take 4, two with melta and two with flamers, and that's some pretty solid firepower. In just troops, you've got enough firepower to kill vehicles from across the board, really kill light vehicles and/or units with 2+ saves, and you have 4 units that can spread out and claim objectives while your opponent is busy dealing with your more aggressive units like Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Maxing out each squad forces you to take Rhinos instead of Razorbacks, so you pay points in order to lose a lot of your flexibility only to gain a few more bodies and an extra special weapon (which doesn't make up for the ones you lost downgrading your Razorback).




Those 4 units cost ~700pts. 3 units of 9 with a standard and wolf guard with powerfist and combi weapon costs 600pts. Razorback spam gets you 4 rhino chassis, 24 guys with four special weapon, four combi weapons, four lascannons and four TL plasmaguns for 16 special weapons total. Non-spam gets you 30 guys, 3 vehicles, and only 6 special weapons instead of 16, though you do get powerfists.

See the difference?

[w7west]

Razorbacks are good because they are cheap and each army has options to make them excellent heavy weapon platforms.

Blood angels have fast razorbacks iirc. This is balanced because they are not immune to shaken and stunned.

GK razorbacks are immune to shaken and stunned and have tw heavy bolters at str 6. This is balanced because they are not fast.

Wolf razorbacks are easy ways to get lascannon + twinlinked plasma guns. This is balanced because space wolfs can only take three longfang squads.


The reason why they are really good is you can put purifiers inside of them. Who cares what the transport does, these guys are gonna win anyway, its what they do!!

Now objectively speaking, I would say the true strength of the razorback is simple and is a result of a different facet of this game right now. MSU is the best way to go since many armies can spam good weapons in small squads and still be effective and able to score while being cheap. Obviously they will want a transport so that their small number is not much of a weakness.

So the choice is either take a rhino, or a razorback. Rhinos are neat and have fire points. Razorbacks are like 15 points (could be 20? sounds expensive for a Ward codex tho) more for three twinlinked bs4 str 6 range 36" shots that ignore 1's and 2's and can still carry your MSU's around. So does exact same thing as rhino just you get another heavy weapon to shoot at the other guys razorbacks.

If you are wondering, yes the game is currently focused on who has the best tactics for killing razorbacks with their razorbacks. These years will be known as the Ward ages and will be a mark of shame in the long history of the 40k universe.

is a small point increase worth

[DarkLink]

Uh-huh. Yeah, razorback spam is pretty good, but it's not that good. It's only one of a half dozen viable SW/BA builds, and the defining feature of razorspam GK list aren't razorbacks, they're Purifiers who happen to have some razorbacks.

You cannot complain about Ward's codices causing razorspam, because the premier razorspam army (space wolves) is Kelly's work, and all of Ward's codices have an extremely wide variety of very competitive lists, far be it from the supposed end-all of razorback spam.

[Denied]

So, the question is are you set on playing generic codex space marines for some reason? It sounds like you need to buy and build a bunch of guys as it is, and if you want to create a competitive list (ie Razor spam) you are better off building a Blood Angels, Space Wolves, or Grey Knights (I am a fan of the last one myself).

[Xenith]

They cost more than Razor Backs but are tougher, carry more troops and hit as hard.

The key thing is the cost: You can get 2 las/plas razors for the same cost as a single serpent.

[DarkLink]

And not only does a wave serpent not carry more troops or have more firepower than two lasplas razorbacks, but in order to be more durable you really need to turboboost, preventing you from doing anything else at all.

[Old_Paladin]

Actually,
The serpent can carry 12 troops; so it's equal to 2 razorbacks capacity.
The serpent is AV 12 on the front and the sides, plus it has the energy field special rule; all that and holo fields means it doesn't need to be moving flatout all the time to be safe.

The razorback has the weakness of only being able to fire a single weapon, unless it says still (except the blood angels version), the serpent doesn't have that problem. And the range of weapon loadouts for the serpent means you can tailor it to its cargo and your play style a lot better then the razorback.

I'm not saying either is better; they're both built differently and play differently, even given similar roles.
I'm just saying don't sell the one short.

[DarkLink]

First off, I said that wave serpents couldn't carry more than two razorbacks, not that they had a smaller capacity.

Secondly, whether or not one AV12 chassis is tougher than two AV11 ones is situational, and of course offense is the best defense in many cases so the razorbacks have an advantage there. It's cover saves and fortune that makes Eldar vehicles so notoriously tough.

Thirdly, two moving razorbacks have as much firepower as a stationary wave serpent. This is especially true in that Eldar rely heavily on mobility, whereas Marines don't. It's fine for a couple of razorbacks to sit still or only move 6" for significant portions of the game in most Marine lists. Mech Eldar need to be constantly zipping around to take advantage of their mobility, limiting their firepower just as often as you might with the razorbacks.


So, yes, wave serpents are faster. But they're not necessarily tougher, and they don't have as much firepower.

[Old_Paladin]

I still think serpents are more offensive then razorbacks.

The serpent can move 6" then throw down 7, S:6 shots, 4 of which are twin-linked (or move 12" and not take the additional 3 non-linked shots). That's a nice, well-rounded piece of firepower; lots of shots, good strength, can be used against light-vehicles or infantry.
The closest razorback that comes to that level of firepower is 'assault cannon' back, and those aren't that popular (except maybe with GK's).

Part of offense is the troops the transports can carry; and really, 5-6 marines aren't that offensive (and aren't overly survivable once their paperbox gets popped).
10 direavengers, with bladestorm and a farseer with guide and doom, are offensive.


The razorback also has the problem that it cannot build many synergies or combo's (you don't see any 5-man vanguard squads with a chappy in a razorback; or 5-man sternguard with a hellfire round equipped Captain).
You build one type of team and then have to take 3-4 of them to get the job done, as one alone will never really accomplish anything. They can end up being very tactically inflexable.

[DarkLink]

And two lasplas razorbacks can throw down 2 str 9 and 2-4 str 7 shots, all at AP 2. And they're BS4. And half of them are twin-linked.

And if we're comparing the dudes inside with Dire Avengers, then we can make an appropriate comparison. Two razorbacks means twelve Marines, two meltaguns and two combi-meltas (or flamers instead of melta, as appropriate), to use my example earlier. Blood Angels would get Marines with FNP, and have Fast vehicles as well. Grey Knights would have Purifiers, and we all know how that goes.

Against a horde of orks, yes, the wave serpent with dire avengers is better. Against armies with lots of vehicles and/or MEQ (aka most competitive armies) I'd take the dual razorback squads.


Not saying that wave serpents are bad, though they are a bit overpriced, but razorbacks with Marines are more flexible, better against the majority of armies in the game, and in general have better units in their armies to back them up. That's the important thing to remember, that there are other units in the army. We're not just looking at one wave serpent full of dire avengers versus two razorbacks full of Marines here. We're comparing a small part of two armies. In the case of razorbacks, we have some very potent strengths (tons of high strength and high ap shooting for very cheap), and any weakness can be covered by other supporting units in the army, such as THSS terminators in a Land Raider for counter assault. Simply from the state of competitive play, we can see empirical evidence that wave serpents and dire avengers generally lack the support to back them up the same way as with razorspam.