Don't forget sponsons on the leman russ. Twenty points for two heavy bolters at BS 4, that can be fired after moving 6" because of lumbering behemoth, bringing the total up to
three heavy bolters and a fuckhuge gatling gun, for
29 S5 shots, of which two thirds will hit on average, causing an average of 16 wounds against a T3 target, twelve wounds against a T4, ten against a T5, six against a T6, and three against a T7, before saves (nine of the shots will be AP4, the rest are AP-). It's a nightmare against infantry, and even poses a threat to monstrous creatures (remember that most things can't even scratch them). It'll even scratch up light armor, so long as it can hit a facing with 11 or less armor, against which it should score a few glancing hits, and against armor 10 it'll even get a few penetrating shots in, hopefully (it will suffer on the damage table though, due to the AP-). It's not as good as most other Leman Russ patterns against armor and large targets (with the exception of lone monstrous creatures with multiple wounds, since a blast can only hit them once...
), but it's not like it's useless against them, either. Multimelta or plasma cannon sponsons can give it a bit more bite against big targets, but both are expensive, the former has a range of 24", and the latter is a blast weapon, and so has a good chance of missing the target.
The stubber/stormbolter isn't worth it though, unless you've got absolutely nothing better to spend those ten points on. Ten points will buy a veteran squad two grenade launchers, an autocannon, heavy bolter, or melta, or two thirds of a plasma gun.
On a completely unrelated note, that reminds me of how much I always hated the implementation of rock-paper-scissors style units in RTS games, most noticeably C&C generals (where I actually made the observation), where anti-infantry weapons do normal damage to infantry, and anti-tank weapons do only the tiniest amount of damage to them, despite being
giant fucking guided rockets, which fired as fast as rifles no less (seeing a soldier walk through a barage of dozens of rockets, each of which hit his feet, was particularly jarring), and how much it pissed me off they couldn't have come up with a better way to do it. Bullshit like that really makes me appreciate how it's handled in 40K, where anti-tank weapons tear the living shit out of infantry, but are slow, big ass guns that can't handle masses of infantry. Except plasma weapons, which are rape everything (including the firer) guns (an S7 AP2
rapid fire gun?
).
Also, I meant to say "only a third of their shots will hit" in regards to the conscripts. BS2 is one third, BS3 is half, BS4 is two thirds, and BS5 is five sixths. Above that you only get about a 3% better chance per BS rank, since it's adding sixths of of one sixth. And the roll to wound is 4-(S-T), with the exceptions that a result of seven (target's T is three higher than attacker's S) counts as 6+, and that the minimum to wound is 2+.