Space Marines 101 - Land Speeders

Land Speeder Squadron


The Land Speeders are great choices for a space marine army. They can move fast, ignore terrain and deal a lot of hurt on anything the opponent can field. They aren't too durable however, and in certain setups they can cost quite a lot per speeder. This balances it out nicely, as you can still claim a 4+ cover save by moving flat out.

Even if the opponent manages to destroy a speeders weapons, you can always move up to 24" and contest the enemy objective. This is a useful tactic that can win or draw some games.

Wargear


There are several ways to equip a Land Speeder. The ones people tend to use in 5th edition are : The Tornado Heavy Flamer/Multi Melta Land Speeder or the Typhoon Land Speeder.

The Tornado HF/MM Speeder is a great choice when you need something fast to stop the enemies advance. You can move 24" towards the enemies transports on turn 1 and hope that the cover save keeps you alive. On turn 2 you can move 12" and shoot a multi melta shot into their tank. The key is having a 24" 2d6 melta threat range. The other use for this is to burn hoards of enemies in one go, as the heavy flamer is strength 5 and ap 4, and it ignores cover! This is great for taking down reinforced hoard units, like upgraded genestealers, 'ard boyz etc.

One of the main points about the HF/MM speeder is that you rarely want to fire both weapons at the same target, which means that you can move 12" every turn and still fire that one weapon.

The Typhoon Speeder is a more defensive version of the speeder, keeping range to stay alive. This is a totally different version than the HF/MM one as you have 48" range and can move 12" whilst firing it. You may only move 6" if you want to fire the heavy bolter, but most of the time speed is better than the heavy bolter. This version of the speeder is excellent at destroying light armor or shooting small blasts into hoards. Theres really no place for transports to hide from this speeder when it moves 12" and fires 48".

The idea is to stay just a round your max range taking pot shots at whatever is harassing your main force. The Typhoon is a expensive version of the speeder, as it costs more than your basic heavy bolter sponson predator, but the speed and range makes up for it all.

Other setups can be good, but point wise those two versions are the one that pack the most punch for the buck. One Tornado pattern speeder equipped with an assault cannon might not be the best, but three of them can shoot a rain of shots with the assault cannons and heavy bolters (12 assault cannon shots & 9 heavy bolter shots). This might not be the most competitive setup but it can be fun to play with it.