Tactica Landspeeder Tornado
by Interrogator Chaplain Ignacio

I thought I'd move into the next variant of the Landspeeder, the Tornado. 

The Tornado shares many tactical similarities with the standard patterned Landspeeder, but with some important differences. The first is that you are limited to one vehicle for each Fast Attack choice. This makes the burden on a fragile structure even heavier as you could lose between 75 - 100 points to a single Bolt round!

The second difference is in armament. The standard Tornado comes with a Heavy Bolter and a Heavy Flamer. The former may be upgraded to a Multi-melta and the latter to an Assault Cannon. This gives rise to many interesting weapons configurations. If you've all noticed, of the four weapons that the Tornado may be equipped with, only one has heavy anti-armour value. This would suggest that the Tornado is perhaps better suited to an anti-troop role, but it can be utilized just as efficiently for a broad spectrum of roles, which you will see in a while. 

Additionally, a second weapon means that the Tornado will not be just flying around doing nothing if you suffer a Weapon Lost result. If you've gone for an anti-troop role, you've got a reduction in firepower but you're still not completely helpless. If you've gone for the dual role, then, depending on the weapon lost, you can adjust the role of the Tornado with some flexibility.

There are good reasons for employing the Tornado in the anti-troop role. Firstly, equipped with a Heavy Bolter and an Assault Cannon, you've got for yourself a stand-off anti-troop platform that can travel anywhere with your Jump Packed troops and can give them valuable covering fire on the turns prior to their assault. In this role, you should expect to hold the Tornado between 20" - 36" from the targeted enemy squad depending on the kind of threat that squad can pose to you. For instance, if a small enemy squad has S4 weapons ranging up to 24" as standard, you can stand-off just outside of it to employ the Heavy Bolters.

On the other hand, if you're facing a Tau squad with Pulse Rifles, then it might be a better idea to drive the Tornado in closer. This might sound suicidal, but let me give you my reasoning. Their Pulse Rifles have 36" range, similar to that of the Heavy Bolter, so it makes no difference standing off getting 3 shots when you can drive it in closer to get 6. The chances of getting more kills is much higher when you employ both weapons, which in turn relates to a higher probablility that return fire is minimized.

As with the standard pattern Landspeeders, Tornados should also be employed along flanks where possible. This takes away a lot of threats to it simply by having it out of range to units in the opposing quarter of the board.

What is a major consideration, though, is movement. As the Tornado is equipped with two weapons, the choice is there to move <6" so that it can fire both, or <12" so that it fires one. This pretty much depends on the level of threat you're expecting to face in the next enemy turn. The first choice (<6") would put the Tornado at much higher risk, balanced against greater firepower; and the second choice enhances its survivablility but at a cost to its offensive strength.

This leads us to another consideration: make the Tornado dual-role. This is done by upgrading the Heavy Bolter to a Multi-melta. However, there are downsides to this option. If you leave the upgrade at that, the Tornado will then be armed with Multi-melta and Heavy Flamer. A single craft with AV10, however fast, is going to be fair game for many units in the enemy army. Its survivability is much compromised by the fact that it operates by itself and doesn't have wingmen to help spread the damage. 

Secondly, the Heavy Flamer is a very close range anti-troop weapon. While it is invaluable against T3 troops lurking in cover, employing it is not easy. Remember that even if you flanked the entire enemy army, getting into Flamer Template range usually means that you're in range of most of the enemy's guns in the next turn - something the Tornado is unlikely to survive. Possibly the only instance I believe the Heavy Flamer will come to its own is in Cityfight environments, where you can maneuver the Tornado to block LOS to the most threatening enemy units while you're turning the Heavy Flamer on an enemy squad.

So what about the Multi-melta / Assault Cannon combination then? It is very tempting as both are high powered weapons in their own specialised areas. The only drawback is that the cost of the Tornado now rises to 100 points, with no enhancements to its survivability. 

To utilize it efficiently, you would have to think of its role for the next two turns and maneuver accordingly. If the flank the Tornado is operating in is decidedly armour-heavy, you would want to zoom behind cover on one turn if possible, and slow down on the next to use the Multi-melta. If it is troop-heavy, you would want to stand off to engage them with the Assault Cannon (bolstering whatever firepower you have available on that flank) or redeploy to another area where you can engage armoured targets. This combination makes the Assault Cannon a secondary weapon to the Multi-melta since you cannot expect the lone vehicle to take down hordes of troops on its own.

As a matter of pure personal choice, I prefer 2 variants of the Tornado. The first is equipped with Heavy Bolter and Assault Cannon as this can be used as a gunship behind my lead flanking force of either Assault Marines or Attack Bikes, bolstering their fire. The second variant is equipped with Multi-melta and Assault Cannon and this is used for more direct anti-armour / troop support for the assault troops, but its cost has meant that I've steered clear of it for the moment and this role could possibly be better filled with Attack Bikes, depending on the kind of terrain you're fighting on.

Hope this has helped you all... thanks for all the feedback :)  Coming up soon will be my thoughts on the Landspeeder Typhoon!

by Interrogator Chaplain Ignacio