[Response] Is a single Land Raider Viable?

In response to an article over at YTTH Drop Pods: The YTTH Way. Gotta kinda ignore the title as the discussion broke down to single Land Raider discussion real quickly. Like not having duality in every single facet of an army makes you lose?

I still think one LR can be viable. Games are not played in bubble land where everyone can easily take out a LR and it’s not always the most immediate threat. With wolves now able to easily have 16 guys in a Crusader and a bunch of supporting units can make the LRC a strong unit that is not the main focus. Balance must be reached and being able to shoot, move an assault are all parts of this game. Having enough units to threaten the opponent is also very important. I think there are too many people playing in the 4th ed idea that smashing your opponents army is the only way to win.

Another thing is that if you have one LR and it is not the main essential part of your victory conditions, then it becomes less of an issue when you lose it. And even with melta, it’s still not an easy vehicle to destroy. You still need to hit average rolling with 2d6 and again average with a single d6 to wreck it. I personally never expect to make 2x average rolls in a row though it’s nice when it happens. They are both 50/50 so one should pass and the other fail simple as that on a day when probability works.

One land raider can be very tough indeed.

I face threed single land raider lists at TSHFT with my mech IG, and it was rough going.  I pulled off two draws and a loss against these lists. My firepower was considerable, but just not enough to stop a smoked land raider with assault troops.  It generally took me a while to get rid of the land raider and they were a huge distraction, not to mention they were able to deploy their payloads generally on turn 2.

Single land raiders don’t impress me much.  The meta game around here has most people fielding just one and it’s not that intimidating, honestly. 

I just swarm them with Power Klaws and Killa Kans!

This, like all discussions of particular units, is largely dependent on what else the army is fielding aside from the LR. As a focus for an enemies battleplan I’m less threatened than if they’ve got 1000-1750 other points of killy stuff that the land raider is designed to draw attention from…

Though, like Chaosgerbil says, a LR can be popped with the first shot, or it can survive all game and wreck shop.  I think the problem with the unit is when its relied upon as a lynchpin for a battleplan, which can be much too fragile at times to rely upon.