Transports

I know it is a kind of dated tactic, but I still love using suicide squads in rhinos, and now that I'm playing space marines and not Chaos, I also get access to drop pods. Double bonus.

I think I own about 8 or 9 rhinos which got shelved with the introduction of 6th edition. 3 of them never saw a lick of paint despite being pretty well modded. Looking at the new SM codex, it dawned on me that they could do a really effective alpha strike using marines in rhinos. With the scout rule being liberally doled out with the Ravenguard and White Scars chapter tactics, I think rhinos are a viable option. They're not as good as bikes but they can still quickly crowd the table with cheap marines, and deliver special weapons where they can do the most damage. For example, my melta squad can scout 12", drive another 6", disembark another 6", and fire their meltas with surgical precision at a target within that range (another 6-12"), all on the first turn. Multiply that by 8 squads with allies and you are talking a lot of pain being lain down before my opponent has time to react (assuming I get initiative which I often don't but that's another story).

The 1st turn alpha strike is the clincher for me. I've never been very interested in winning. 40k has always been about blowing things up. When things go kablooey, I'm happy. With Chaos, I always had to wait for my reserves to arrive before I could do any damage. 6th edition made it worse by penalizing outflank and deepstriking manoeuvres even more than they already were in 5th. In my last three games using my Chaos army, I got tabled without ever doing any damage thanks to the introduction of the Eldar and Tau codexes. Space marines have brought back the fun to 40k for me. Although I continue to lose almost every game, I get to deal out some punishment in heavy proportions as well.

Here are two of the finished rhinos. They saw some action under my Nurgle banners, but never had a paint job to show off their mods. The first is an old 2nd ed. rhino that I got when I traded a new rhino for 3 old ones. People seem to hate them but I like their style. With just a bit of effort, they can look pretty cool.

The second was tricked out when I did some trading with an Imperial guard player and got some armour plates that I didn't know what to do with.

And here is a sneak preview of the third and last rhino in the army. It's from Trumpeter. I wanted a tank like the one I saw in the film "No Man's Land" and this was the closest I could get. Absolutely brutal film, and the model was equally rough to assemble. What a nightmare! Tons of tiny parts. It took me almost a year to finish it because I kept getting discouraged. It's done now, with a few shortcuts. I'm just waiting for a nice day so I can basecoat it.