Lately there have a been quite a few articles pop up on Land Speeder Tactics. I figured I would throw my hat in the ring on this front since I am running a pair of them in my current Space Marine list.
Time and time again the two Land Speeders have done me right. After a few games of running them they had become one of my favorite units in the entire army.
The way I have mine loaded out is for an all-comers list - Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer. This gives me some awesome tank popping ability as well as some anti-horde.
There are pros and cons of deep striking the Land Speeder. The biggest drawbacks are not being able to fire both weapons and the possibility of a bad scatter. I have negated both of these effects by sending in two drop pods on the first turn with teleport homers and the weapon combination on the Speeders usually means that only one weapon will do the job against the unit you are firing at.
Now that you have read my two bits on this subject check out what a few others around the net have to say on the subject -
Bell of Lost Souls - Landspeeder Tactica
Librarium Online - Tactica Land Speeder
Space Wovles - Land Speeder Tactics
This past weekend at a doubles tournament I had really good luck with my Land Speeder. I was only taking one in the list since each team-mate only had 1000 points but it served me right. The versatility of the Heavy Flamer or Multi-Melta really paid off. In the first game we played I was able to roast an entire 7 man squad of Fire Warriors. In the next round of shooting it shrugged off quite a few shots before it was destroyed.
In our second game I again used the Heavy Flamer but this time it was on some Tyranids. I actually got more than one round of shooting out of it in this game since the bugs diverted their firepower to other juicier targets.
In the last game of the tournament I was able to deploy the Multi-Melta to maximum efficiency - I popped a Chimera with it on the turn I landed. After that it went up in a ball of flame but it had done it's job.
For me this just drives the point home that splitting the unit between anti-horde and anti-tank is the way to go. Against any list I face it will be effective.