Land speeder vs Wolf Scouts - Sticking up for the Little Guy(s)

I read this post last night by Adam from the Space Wolves Blog. It's started a strong debate in the comment form about land speeders being superior to Wolf Scouts. I was originally going to join in the debate on the comment form but then I found I was writing far too much so here I am.

As you tend to find with most debates on t'internet about 40K, they focus around a single situation and then argue about which unit is better. What I'd like to do is explain the pros and cons of both so that you can make a proper decision and not just go with the crowd. I'll try not to show any bias but I think it'll be clear which I prefer (though I often take both).

For starters to anyone not so familiar with the Space Wolves army it may seem like a strange debate. Why are we comparing an elite choice which in other armies gets used as cheap firepower to a fast attack choice which is often a deep striking anti-tank platform? Well the Wolf Scouts (unlike any other SM scouts) get to outflank behind enemy lines (OBEL) which gives them the opportunity to come in behind your opponents line of tanks and hit the rear armour. Hopefully you're still reading if you found that a bit patronising.

Equipment and Costs

So people tend to equip the land speeder with a combination of heavy flamer and multi-melta for a piffling 70pts. This means that you can nearly always squeeze a land speeder in without sacrificing anything else. Very few people use the other Fast Attack options (but I'll discuss them in another post anyway). The scouts on the other hand have to compete with some rather nice units for their Elite slot (the likes of terminators, dreads and lone wolves). If we're going to use the scouts in an anti-tank role (and I'll discuss other options too) I'd use the following loadout:

5 scouts w/ meltagun, plasma pistol, mark of the wulfen and 4x melta bombs.

= 135pts

Clearly that's nearly double the cost of the land speeder so the scouts lose out in this round! It's worth noting that since they already have krak grenades the melta bombs aren't essential but they're nice to have incase you need to wreck a land raider. However, let's now consider what may happen in a game situation. I'm not going to mathammer since I've already expressed my opinions on that but I will briefly mention some probabilities because it's unavoidable in a game based on dice rolls.

Getting to the target

Equipped as they are you're pretty much always going to deep strike the land speeder and OBEL the scouts. Depending on density of terrain (and we use quite a lot) the land speeder may struggle to get in at all. It has a 2/3 chance of scattering which potentially could put it out of 12" range to make the most of the multi-melta.

The scouts have a 2/3 chance of coming on from any table edge of your choice. Most of the time if you roll a 1 or 2 then there's a chance you'll find a target providing it's early on in the game. The scouts must walk on from the table edge meaning the target has to be less than 12" from the edge for the melta gun to be effective and for any assault to be possible.

Bring it down!

The land speeder that's just deep-striked (deep-struck?) can only use one of his weapons thanks to his speed. If you're near a tank then it's obviously going to be the multi-melta. I don't know about you but whenever I roll a melta shot I feel like I'm going to miss and indeed you have a 1/3 chance of doing so. There's nothing you can do if you miss except die a little inside.

The scouts come in and assuming they're in range they also have a 2/3 chance to hit the target and the same chance of blowing it up but again it's wasted if we miss. The difference is we also gave them a plasma pistol which against AV10 (like the rear of a lot of tanks) you have quite a good chance of doing some damage. Let's assume for the sake of argument that we fail with our shooting. This is where we have an advantage over the land speeder, because we were in range for the melta shot we know we can charge too. That gives us 4 melta-bombs and potentially 8 Wulfen attacks that could rend. If we didn't take the melta-bombs the krak grenades will have a 50/50 chance of hurting AV10 rear armour. Bear in mind that if there's two tanks close by or a unit of tanks then you might be able to kill more than one!

The other advantage here is that should we find ourselves behind a tank with occupants e.g. an eldar falcon and we manage to blow it up with the shooting we can possibly charge in and make a mess of the occupants too. The land speeder won't have that option and may take hits from the no doubt angry occupants.

Living to Fight Another Day

Both units will aim to pick something juicy and pay for themselves by blowing up more than their points value. Clearly this is easier for the land speeder as it's so cheap. Successful or not it'd be nice to move on and cause some havoc but your opponent get's a turn before we can do that. Both units will attract some attention especially if they're just blown up your opponent's trophy tank. This isn't always a bad thing as it can draw attention away from your other units and it's surprising how much punishment both units can take sometimes.

The land speeder that dropped out of the sky will gain no advantage against shots but will only be hit in combat on 6s. If you picked your target well there'll hopefully be no troops around to cause a problem but if there are (or some angry occupants like I mentioned) then they're likely to have some S4 or better shots at you. With AV10 all the way around it's unlikely this will go well as most damage table results go against you. The only result that isn't a total loss is Crew Shaken which allows you to move away. Obviously we need to factor in cover but since you're probably in the middle of their army most things will make a mess of you. Your opponent may even try a charge if he's got a unit with a decent number of attacks or a power fist etc. If you do survive then your impressive speed means you can either blast across the board at full tilt and get yourself a cover save as you move to another target or maybe move a full 12" and be in range of something else that's juicy.

It's a bit more complicated for the scouts. If you were forced to charge in, or you were particularly close when you shot, then there's every chance you were caught up in an explosion. It's quite likely that one of your scouts will be claimed by it. If you lose a couple then you might run away. If there wasn't a big bang then you're gonna take some hits from the rest of the army. You may be in cover (since you're able to pick where you come on) but again you're unlikely to have much left. There's a lot of things that can punish a unit with T4 and a 4+ save. In combat at least you might counter-attack and do some damage which obviously the land speeder can't do but you may get annihilated or be stuck in combat for a while. If you survive then you better hope there's another target nearby (which there should be if you picked your spot right) because if not it could be a long and treacherous walk to your next target.

What if there aren't any tanks for me to hit?

The land speeder is equipped with the heavy flamer for just this reason. It can make a mess of bit hordes of orks/guard/nids and gives you an alternative against armies that don't have a lot of tanks.

The scouts on the other hand can really excel even when there aren't tanks. A lot of armies have heavy weapons teams (devastators, broadsides, lootas etc) which you can disrupt with a well time assault. The land speeder might be able to flame them but the survivors will still shoot whereas the scouts can keep them locked in combat.

Both units have a good shot at contesting objectives too but the land speeder's ability to cover ground makes it better in this situation.

Final Thoughts

This has turned into quite a wall of text so I best draw to a close. As I've said before the units you take are dictated by the way you like to play. Both of these units complement an army which assaults or one that sits and shoots. As I mentioned in my list building post they're the kind of units which distract your enemy. They mean that your opponent will see them on your list and play differently because they're there. If they've got any sense they'll space out their tanks and in the case of the scouts they'll probably try and keep them away from the table edge. This means you're more likely to be in range with your long fangs which is good.

At the end of the day both units have their advantages and both can easily slide into to your army. I like both of them for different reasons. Your list will be a lot more potent with at least one of them involved. It's also worth thinking about what you could do with the spare 65 points you'd save by taking a speeder instead of scouts. Either way these units are a bit of a glasshammer. They might do a lot of damage but they won't last long after that.

The important thing to remember though is to try them for yourself and not rely on what I say (or anyone else says). If they don't suit you then don't use them but I'm not going to say either is pointless. We probably all have a set of scouts since I suspect most of us who've only recently got into SW bought the Battleforce so give them a go!