Razorback

My brother and I were talking this morning about the wonderful little Razorback. For just 40pts you can have one zipping around as a dedicated transport armed with twin-linked Heavy Bolters. Because of the high BS of the vehicle it will most likely hit and the rerolls are awesome, but the Heavy Bolter doesn’t have the most stellar armor penetration value.

His question to me was would you go with the upgrade of Twin-linked Lascannon. It slightly improves the range of the weapon and makes it more of an anti-tank weapon. The Lascannon nearly guarantees you a wound if you shoot a model with its Strength 9. But spending 35pts on one shot seems a little expensive. If I want an anti-tank option for the Razorback I would just add a Hunter Killer missile for 10pts.

The thing that makes me really like the Razorback is the fact that it is really cheap. It is not the most durable vehicle on the list, and in a smaller type game where you are not fielding many tanks it is easily singled out and blown up. If you are playing in a large battle where your opponent is forced choose where to allocate his heavy weapons fire, I would see upgrading the model for some extra killing power.

In response to my brother’s question though- I would skip the Lascannon. If you are going to be hanging back playing an anti-tank Razorback the single Lascannon and Twin-linked Plasma Gun is a better option. This build let’s you stay put easier because of the range you have. One Lascannon shot if moving only six inches, but if anything is within the range of the Plasma Gun you get more shots. All of which will own TEQ troops. The big gun hits on a 3+, the smaller but dramatically powerful Plasma Gun allows you one shot at 24” and two shots within 12”. The Get’s Hot rule only comes into play if you roll back to back 1’s on your To-Hit rolls because it is linked, so shouldn’t be too bad. If you are moving you are going to be firing the more powerful Lascannon.

What I really like doing is blowing up Troops and Infantry with the Razorback. My devastator squad can blast the enemy’s vehicles to bits from across the board. If we are going to field a mobile mini-tank let’s do something cool. The Razorback has some additional choices as well. Twin-linked Heavy Flamer allows you to re-roll you wound and armor penetration rolls. It will bake whatever lies under the template if you are facing GEQ troops, but still is fail against heavily armored opponents. You have to rush your enemy or sneak into combat range though because the template is such short range.

No, my money and points fall easily to the Twin-linked Assault Cannon. You are still looking at 75pts because it costs as much as the Lascannon upgrade, but you can move 6” and fire four shots within 24”. Reroll misses on a 4 BS means a lot of them will hit. The Assault Cannon has the rending special rule so every 6 on the To-Wound rolls bump the AP up to 2. It is already AP4, but will do better at taking out troops in general thanks to Rending. I know there aren’t tons of models out there with T3, but I am an Eldar player so Instant Death against models with more than one wound is possible, but not entire likely or necessary.

Of course and this is how I would really sell it to my brother. For an extra 25pts, the coolest thing about the Twin-linked Assault Cannon is it looks awesome. Having a pair of Gatling guns mounted on your turret is just going to shine. I know the kit doesn’t include one, but there is a great article on Spikey Bits that shows the easiest conversion (link). Here is an example: