Land Raider and Techmarine

[ElectricPaladin]

I'm coming to Space Marines from Blood Angels, where Techmarines are far less useful owing to their lack of the Independent Character special rule, so I have a lot of questions about the use of Techmarines and Servitors. I've also been focusing on my Blood Angels as a drop army, with lots of Assault Squads and a Stormraven. Land Raiders, on the other hand, can't be taken except as a dedicated transport, so I haven't bothered with them and I'm curious about how they are used, too.

Here are a few of my questions. I'd love to hear your answers:

1) Can the Land Raider be used as an enormous, durable tank, or is it a waste not to make use of its transport capability? Which Land Raider variant(s) is best in the "big-*** tank" role, and which is best in the transport role?

2) Is it worth the points to put a Techmarine or Master of the Forge and a squad of Servitors in the Land Raider to keep it in good repair?

That's all for now. I'll post more questions if/when I have them.

[Foxdonut]

The land raider crusader was my first model back when daemon hunters existed and grey knight termies were better than current paladins. sadly they realy depend on your army and your oponents army as they will either be unstoppable or worthless. the one new advantage they have now is that they are scoring in one mission but thats not worth the loss of the old put a tactical squad in it tactic.

1)Achillies is the big*** tank (from forgeworld), crusader is best transport by far(free grenades and 16 trans capacity) . but with hull points dont expect the land raiders to survive past turn one or two except against orks where you pretty much have immunity at range.
other wise once you add a multi melta you have pretty much reached the cost of two and a half predators so its all about making sure one of your squads gets shot by a manticore one time less than normal.
2) problem is you cant repair a destroyed land raider, AP1 weapons have a 50% chance to explode it, and 4 glances in a single turn are pretty easy, codex landraiders are for transport purposes, the land raider dies turn 1 maybe turn 2 so the squad inside dosent i love them but 250 points is too much for just the guns on any variant. (except the achillies which is awesome and worth it like nobodies bussiness though its a wee bit more than 250)

throw in the techmarines if you want, the game is about what you find fun, but do it in a long range fire support variant.
personaly i love the crusader vs orks or when i am using allied paladins who fear ordinance, but with loss of defensive weapons its a sad little BS1 gunboat.
oh and never use chronus he was a fun joke when glances stoped you from shooting and def weapons existed, now he does nothing.

[Denzark]

I have always thought that the primary task of the LR is to get what ever is inside, into combat at a place and time of your choosing - often 1st turn if you could work it.

YMMV in 6th. Clearly you want to protect something expensive in it for maximum benefit.

I would say in vanilla marines this means Assault terminators.

[Brandoncbaker]

Don't forget that BA land raiders can deep strike which is nice for survival/putting some hurt on.plus the image of a land raider plummeting thru the atmosphere would be sick