Why are bikes in 40k this good at shooting ?

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**Vaktathi**

Luke_Prowler wrote:
Bikes having relentless probably doesn't have anything to do about accuracy, considering any kind of movement make a weapon inaccurate from a realistic standpoint. When you consider why a weapon is heavy or not, it would require set up, and the reason for the set up is not because it would be harder to hit the target, but because the recoil would knock you straight on your ass, send the weapon flying out of your hand, or rip your arms off (or all three!) if you tried to hip fire it. A bike then provides a mount for the weapon that can take the recoil and be able to move it. This is not completely realistic, as everyone has post above has said, but this is also the same game where all closed topped transports seem to come equipped with stasis modules which keeps their passengers safe from safe unless it explodes

As for if the SHOULD have relentless? I would say yes (as well as the added toughness). Bikes need to be a competitive choice compared to vehicles (yeah yeah, I know vehicles aren't that hot, but that's not going to be fixed by removing relentless on bikes), and without it they lean closer to shooty version of jump pack units, which aren't taken outside of formations that require them. Extra movement is not worth it on its own then transports can give your that movement and several other bells and whistles for roughly the same cost.

the issue is that Relentless, on top of mostly TLd weaponry, the speed, Jink, and T increase all make for a monumentally more capable unit, for a rather absurdly small price premium. 5 or 6ppm over Tac Marines? No wonder nobody wants Tacs. To boot, none of these bonuses even make sense for a bike aside from the speed element. Jetbikes get even worse, as then they have more terrain avoidance, an extra move, a better save over ground pounding equivalents, and quite frankly offensive heavy weapons access.

The speed alonr may not be worth 5ppm, but the speed in conjunction with a slew of powerful and largely nonsensical bonuses is neither appropriate nor balanced.

**Traditio**

There is a precedent for it in the Judge Dredd comics.

Importantly, we know for a fact that Judge Dredd is one of the sources from which GW freely borrowed (though they seem to hate it when other people "borrow" their ideas...the hypocrites).

The common way that the street judges travel around is on their Lawmaster bikes. Each bike, among other things, is armed with a bike cannon which, depending on the comic or film, ranges anywhere from fully automatic machine gun fire to actual explosives which can blast through walls. I'm not sure how accurate they're supposed to be, but Dredd generally doesn't have trouble hitting his targets with it.

Driving around on their Lawmasters also doesn't seem to impede their accuracy when firing their Lawgiver pistols.

You can really see this in the Judge Minty strip.

[The beginning of the Judge Minty fan film is worth watching.]

The opening chase scene of Dredd 3D is also worth watching.

That said, I fully agree that bikes are OP/undercosted.

**Alcibiades**

I suspect that bikes are priced the way they are because GW thinks that increased chance of falling back off the table is a big negative.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Vaktathi wrote:
Luke_Prowler wrote:
Bikes having relentless probably doesn't have anything to do about accuracy, considering any kind of movement make a weapon inaccurate from a realistic standpoint. When you consider why a weapon is heavy or not, it would require set up, and the reason for the set up is not because it would be harder to hit the target, but because the recoil would knock you straight on your ass, send the weapon flying out of your hand, or rip your arms off (or all three!) if you tried to hip fire it. A bike then provides a mount for the weapon that can take the recoil and be able to move it. This is not completely realistic, as everyone has post above has said, but this is also the same game where all closed topped transports seem to come equipped with stasis modules which keeps their passengers safe from safe unless it explodes

As for if the SHOULD have relentless? I would say yes (as well as the added toughness). Bikes need to be a competitive choice compared to vehicles (yeah yeah, I know vehicles aren't that hot, but that's not going to be fixed by removing relentless on bikes), and without it they lean closer to shooty version of jump pack units, which aren't taken outside of formations that require them. Extra movement is not worth it on its own then transports can give your that movement and several other bells and whistles for roughly the same cost.
the issue is that Relentless, on top of mostly TLd weaponry, the speed, Jink, and T increase all make for a monumentally more capable unit, for a rather absurdly small price premium. 5 or 6ppm over Tac Marines? No wonder nobody wants Tacs. To boot, none of these bonuses even make sense for a bike aside from the speed element. Jetbikes get even worse, as then they have more terrain avoidance, an extra move, a better save over ground pounding equivalents, and quite frankly offensive heavy weapons access.

The speed alonr may not be worth 5ppm, but the speed in conjunction with a slew of powerful and largely nonsensical bonuses is neither appropriate nor balanced.

You know darn well the reason people aren't taking Tactical Marines is because they cannot specialize. If they were allotted to double up on special OR heavy weapons they'd see use outside the Gladius.

**Traditio**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:You know darn well the reason people aren't taking Tactical Marines is because they cannot specialize. If they were allotted to double up on special OR heavy weapons they'd see use outside the Gladius.

This is complete bullgak and I've called you on this before. Your only answer to it then was: "BUT I LIKE TO PLAY FLUFFY!"

Ruleswise, this is a non-issue. This stopped being an issue in 6th edition. In 5th edition, you unlocked heavy and special weapons when you took a full squad of 10. You had to bring 10. One of them had to be a heavy weapon. The other one had to be a special weapon. And the free heavy and special weapon were a flamer and a missile launcher.

However, this didn't stop specialization, because even then, they had combat squads. So heavy weapon squad stays behind; special weapon squad gets in the rhino and moves forward.

In 6th edition, the rules changed. 5 marines unlocks 1 heavy OR special weapon. 10 marines locks one of each.

You don't need for marines to be able to specialize. Just take minimum sized squads with the weapons you want, and you get the same result.

This is a HUGE problem for chaos space marines. Because the CSM codex says you can take a special weapon with a 5 man squad, and you can get an extra heavy or special at 10 men. And you can't combat squad.

But this is not an issue for vanilla marines.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Traditio wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:You know darn well the reason people aren't taking Tactical Marines is because they cannot specialize. If they were allotted to double up on special OR heavy weapons they'd see use outside the Gladius.

This is complete bullgak and I've called you on this before. Your only answer to it then was: "BUT I LIKE TO PLAY FLUFFY!"

Ruleswise, this is a non-issue. This stopped being an issue in 6th edition. In 5th edition, you unlocked heavy and special weapons when you took a full squad of 10. You had to bring 10. One of them had to be a heavy weapon. The other one had to be a special weapon. And the free heavy and special weapon were a flamer and a missile launcher.

However, this didn't stop specialization, because even then, they had combat squads. So heavy weapon squad stays behind; special weapon squad gets in the rhino and moves forward.

In 6th edition, the rules changed. 5 marines unlocks 1 heavy OR special weapon. 10 marines locks one of each.

You don't need for marines to be able to specialize. Just take minimum sized squads with the weapons you want, and you get the same result.

This is a HUGE problem for chaos space marines. Because the CSM codex says you can take a special weapon with a 5 man squad, and you can get an extra heavy or special at 10 men. And you can't combat squad.

But this is not an issue for vanilla marines.

Tactical Marines weren't good back then either, so I don't understand your point.

The heavy weapon doesn't work for Tactical Marines, simply put. They want to move. The Rhino will blow up and that heavy weapon Marine will lose firepower the moment he drops from a Pod.

**NInjatactiks**

Unless they take grav cannons. As evil as they are, grav cannons are the perfect fit for marines on the move. Sure salvo cuts the range in half and reduces the number of shots, but it's still 3 shots and you'll probably be in rapid fire range eventually. Also it's pretty annoying to park a rhino with a grav cannon mid field and walking in front of its lane of fire.

**Slayer-Fan123**

NInjatactiks wrote:
Unless they take grav cannons. As evil as they are, grav cannons are the perfect fit for marines on the move. Sure salvo cuts the range in half and reduces the number of shots, but it's still 3 shots and you'll probably be in rapid fire range eventually. Also it's pretty annoying to park a rhino with a grav cannon mid field and walking in front of its lane of fire.

And it is a 35 point weapon to do that, AND nobody is doing that unless they're getting their Rhinos for free.

**NInjatactiks**

I've mostly stuck to 1CAD games so it's a hard pill to swallow at first, but I think it's worth it considering my meta and it's definitely been an annoying deterrent for my opponents. Then again, I'm not planning on winning any tournaments because I might as well play Taudar.

**Vaktathi**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
Luke_Prowler wrote:
Bikes having relentless probably doesn't have anything to do about accuracy, considering any kind of movement make a weapon inaccurate from a realistic standpoint. When you consider why a weapon is heavy or not, it would require set up, and the reason for the set up is not because it would be harder to hit the target, but because the recoil would knock you straight on your ass, send the weapon flying out of your hand, or rip your arms off (or all three!) if you tried to hip fire it. A bike then provides a mount for the weapon that can take the recoil and be able to move it. This is not completely realistic, as everyone has post above has said, but this is also the same game where all closed topped transports seem to come equipped with stasis modules which keeps their passengers safe from safe unless it explodes

As for if the SHOULD have relentless? I would say yes (as well as the added toughness). Bikes need to be a competitive choice compared to vehicles (yeah yeah, I know vehicles aren't that hot, but that's not going to be fixed by removing relentless on bikes), and without it they lean closer to shooty version of jump pack units, which aren't taken outside of formations that require them. Extra movement is not worth it on its own then transports can give your that movement and several other bells and whistles for roughly the same cost.
the issue is that Relentless, on top of mostly TLd weaponry, the speed, Jink, and T increase all make for a monumentally more capable unit, for a rather absurdly small price premium. 5 or 6ppm over Tac Marines? No wonder nobody wants Tacs. To boot, none of these bonuses even make sense for a bike aside from the speed element. Jetbikes get even worse, as then they have more terrain avoidance, an extra move, a better save over ground pounding equivalents, and quite frankly offensive heavy weapons access.

The speed alonr may not be worth 5ppm, but the speed in conjunction with a slew of powerful and largely nonsensical bonuses is neither appropriate nor balanced.

You know darn well the reason people aren't taking Tactical Marines is because they cannot specialize. If they were allotted to double up on special OR heavy weapons they'd see use outside the Gladius.

Hrm, I don't think I know that, a single extra special weapon isn't going to cover that gap. Bikes being 5ppm more though for T5, Relentless, TL'd guns, Jink, 12" move + Turboboost, and Hammer of Wrath, *AND* the ability to take double specials, kinda makes Tac's rather pointless if we're talking best Troops.

The only real advantage Tac's have is being able to take a pod and DS in right next to their target.

Aside from that, point for point, even allowing for double specials, I don't see much reason not to go with the Bikes. After kit, upgrades, and transport, the Bikes are generally only what like 15pts more for the whole unit than the Tacs (say 240pts for 10 tacs, a rhino, double plasma, and a powerfist vs what, 255 for bikes kitted out the same way), and dramatically more resilient, mobile, durable, and harder hitting. No contest as to what the better unit is.

**MarsNZ**

AnomanderRake wrote:
Bikes are the equivalent of light cavalry in Fantasy.

No, cavalry is the 40k equivalent of cavalry. Some, like roughriders are just awful, others such as thunderwolves are just a stupid concept that doubled down on the stupid when it came to execution. Bikes are a spearhead in this game for some random reason, tougher than regular troops with much more firepower and mobility, basically small battle tanks and bizarrely a straight upgrade from assault troops in an assault.

**Insectum7**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

No, the Grav Cannon can sorta fire on the move as once it moves it is 12" range.
There's a reason it doesn't work outside of Skyhammer Devastators on PA Marines ya know.

Right. The Grav Cannon on the move is still arguably better than every special weapon. The Grav Cannon is lovely outside Skyhammer. In fact I've never used the Skyhammer, and I have eight of those Grav Cannons in my competitive list. Grav Cannons compete favorably with Specials on the move, and standing still they're one of the most effective weapons out there.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

And it is a 35 point weapon to do that, AND nobody is doing that unless they're getting their Rhinos for free.

Frankly, 35 points is a bargain. Even on Tacs.

**Thousand-Son-Sorcerer**

I think the problem is that bikes are treated like cavalry when they are actually a vehicle. Making them 9 all around open topped with 2 HP and give them relentless when moving 6 inches or less.

This would make them feel more like a bike as it would make them slightly less vulnerable to small arms fire but WAY more vulnerable to anti vehicle weaponry.

**koooaei**

Because noone was running bikes before 5-th. Than they got progressively better to push sales.

**Nazrak**

I'm not that fussed about the shooting side of bikes; I'm willing to accept Rule of Cool trumps realism when it comes to riding along firing guns all over the place, Judge-Dredd-style. It's the fact that you can then wade into combat and be more effective than foot troops, despite the fact that being on a bike is going to be much more of an encumbrance than anything once you're bogged down in close-quarter fighting. Sure, the initial charge should be pretty devastating, but after that I feel like bikes should have some sort of penalty in CC. Also, I'm still far from convinced the Toughness boost is warranted.

**Kaiyanwang**

Nazrak wrote:
I'm not that fussed about the shooting side of bikes; I'm willing to accept Rule of Cool trumps realism when it comes to riding along firing guns all over the place, Judge-Dredd-style. It's the fact that you can then wade into combat and be more effective than foot troops, despite the fact that being on a bike is going to be much more of an encumbrance than anything once you're bogged down in close-quarter fighting. Sure, the initial charge should be pretty devastating, but after that I feel like bikes should have some sort of penalty in CC. Also, I'm still far from convinced the Toughness boost is warranted.

The toughness boost is a legacy of when they couldn't boost or jink and bikes were 35 or more points a piece.

**Nazrak**

Oh aye, I'm aware it's been kicking about since 3rd edition; it's never really made any sense to me though. Particularly with Eldar and Orks getting a Toughness boost AND an improved save.

**Kaiyanwang**

Nazrak wrote:
Oh aye, I'm aware it's been kicking about since 3rd edition; it's never really made any sense to me though. Particularly with Eldar and Orks getting a Toughness boost AND an improved save.

Oh is just an observation on the GW team's design principles. 40k is "legacy mechanics: the game".

**Nazrak**

Kaiyanwang wrote:
Nazrak wrote:
Oh aye, I'm aware it's been kicking about since 3rd edition; it's never really made any sense to me though. Particularly with Eldar and Orks getting a Toughness boost AND an improved save.

Oh is just an observation on the GW team's design principles. 40k is "legacy mechanics: the game".

I guess it's kind of unavoidable to some extent if you want to keep new core rules backwards compatible with codices from previous editions. Particularly tricky I suppose when it's something like bikes which affects multiple factions.

I dunno, maybe the best way to address bikes completely outclassing infantry in every respect is to just crank the points value up, but I'm still not personally a fan, as I find the weirdness of the rules really immersion-breaking.

**SickSix**

Bike platforms should has a -1 BS modifier. I think that would balance them all out.

**Kaiyanwang**

Nazrak wrote:
Kaiyanwang wrote:
Nazrak wrote:
Oh aye, I'm aware it's been kicking about since 3rd edition; it's never really made any sense to me though. Particularly with Eldar and Orks getting a Toughness boost AND an improved save.

Oh is just an observation on the GW team's design principles. 40k is "legacy mechanics: the game".

I guess it's kind of unavoidable to some extent if you want to keep new core rules backwards compatible with codices from previous editions. Particularly tricky I suppose when it's something like bikes which affects multiple factions.

I dunno, maybe the best way to address bikes completely outclassing infantry in every respect is to just crank the points value up, but I'm still not personally a fan, as I find the weirdness of the rules really immersion-breaking.

I could be ok with the rules if they kept the roles separated. You know, in the italian version of the game, Fast Attacks and Heavy Support are called Supporti Leggeri and Supporti Pesanti (Light Support and Heavy Support). What does "support" mean?
It means that such units should not be the backbone of your army, but should be acquired with a role in mind to support the main strategy and basic troops.

**koooaei**

Or we could just rename them Troop support and Heavy core, Fast core, HQ core...

**Galef**

SickSix wrote:
Bike platforms should has a -1 BS modifier. I think that would balance them all out.

Nah, just drop Relentless from Bikes, that way if they move with a Heavy weapon, they snap-fire
If they shoot with Rapid-fire or Heavy weapons, their attention was devoted to firing said weapons and thus they are not prepared to launch an assault, since that action requires some mental prep time to properly steer the bike into combat.

Controlling a bike should occupy a large part of the rider's concentration, thereby making it difficult to shoot non-assault weapons AND prepare for a charge in the same sequence.
This change would also make pistols less redundant on bikes. I believe Marine biker come with pistol but Relentless makes that pointless (especially since they don't also have CC weapons). Dropping Relentless would solve multiple problems

-

**koooaei**

I agree with Galef here.

But what's more problematic than shooting is bike interaction with terrain. It's just insane how a bike can ride over walls to the 2-d floor of ruins or go flat out inside a wood with only 1/6 chance + armor + fnp of being stopped. If something, there should really be no armor or fnp for dangerous terrain tests on bikes. You know, like for all the other vehicles on wheels that bikers are not for some reason.

**Galef**

I remember prior editions did not allow armour saves from dangerous terrain tests. That needs to come back.

So the question now: Are Bikes more balance if Relentless is removed and armour saves were not allowed against failed Dangerous terrain tests?

**Slayer-Fan123**

Galef wrote:
SickSix wrote:
Bike platforms should has a -1 BS modifier. I think that would balance them all out.

Nah, just drop Relentless from Bikes, that way if they move with a Heavy weapon, they snap-fire
If they shoot with Rapid-fire or Heavy weapons, their attention was devoted to firing said weapons and thus they are not prepared to launch an assault, since that action requires some mental prep time to properly steer the bike into combat.

Controlling a bike should occupy a large part of the rider's concentration, thereby making it difficult to shoot non-assault weapons AND prepare for a charge in the same sequence.
This change would also make pistols less redundant on bikes. I believe Marine biker come with pistol but Relentless makes that pointless (especially since they don't also have CC weapons). Dropping Relentless would solve multiple problems

-

And then the only troops people will take are Scouts and Gladius Tactical Marines. Nobody wants a non-Relentless bike.

**Vaktathi**

Theres plenty of purposes for bike units that could still function perfectly well without Relentless. Losing Relentless isnt going to kill Bike utility. Model for model and point for point theyll still shoot better than Tacs as their weapons are twin linked, they just dont get to shoot better and assault afterwards or fire a heavy weapon after jetting 12" around the table. Hardly a crippling loss for what the units cost relative to the capability of their alternatives.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Vaktathi wrote:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
Luke_Prowler wrote:
Bikes having relentless probably doesn't have anything to do about accuracy, considering any kind of movement make a weapon inaccurate from a realistic standpoint. When you consider why a weapon is heavy or not, it would require set up, and the reason for the set up is not because it would be harder to hit the target, but because the recoil would knock you straight on your ass, send the weapon flying out of your hand, or rip your arms off (or all three!) if you tried to hip fire it. A bike then provides a mount for the weapon that can take the recoil and be able to move it. This is not completely realistic, as everyone has post above has said, but this is also the same game where all closed topped transports seem to come equipped with stasis modules which keeps their passengers safe from safe unless it explodes

As for if the SHOULD have relentless? I would say yes (as well as the added toughness). Bikes need to be a competitive choice compared to vehicles (yeah yeah, I know vehicles aren't that hot, but that's not going to be fixed by removing relentless on bikes), and without it they lean closer to shooty version of jump pack units, which aren't taken outside of formations that require them. Extra movement is not worth it on its own then transports can give your that movement and several other bells and whistles for roughly the same cost.
the issue is that Relentless, on top of mostly TLd weaponry, the speed, Jink, and T increase all make for a monumentally more capable unit, for a rather absurdly small price premium. 5 or 6ppm over Tac Marines? No wonder nobody wants Tacs. To boot, none of these bonuses even make sense for a bike aside from the speed element. Jetbikes get even worse, as then they have more terrain avoidance, an extra move, a better save over ground pounding equivalents, and quite frankly offensive heavy weapons access.

The speed alonr may not be worth 5ppm, but the speed in conjunction with a slew of powerful and largely nonsensical bonuses is neither appropriate nor balanced.

You know darn well the reason people aren't taking Tactical Marines is because they cannot specialize. If they were allotted to double up on special OR heavy weapons they'd see use outside the Gladius.
Hrm, I don't think I know that, a single extra special weapon isn't going to cover that gap. Bikes being 5ppm more though for T5, Relentless, TL'd guns, Jink, 12" move + Turboboost, and Hammer of Wrath, *AND* the ability to take double specials, kinda makes Tac's rather pointless if we're talking best Troops.

The only real advantage Tac's have is being able to take a pod and DS in right next to their target.

Aside from that, point for point, even allowing for double specials, I don't see much reason not to go with the Bikes. After kit, upgrades, and transport, the Bikes are generally only what like 15pts more for the whole unit than the Tacs (say 240pts for 10 tacs, a rhino, double plasma, and a powerfist vs what, 255 for bikes kitted out the same way), and dramatically more resilient, mobile, durable, and harder hitting. No contest as to what the better unit is.

1. Bikes are 7 more. The difference between 19 and 21 is fairly important.
2. The second advantage is taking a Rhino to survive alpha strike lists. Even with Jink Bikers won't do that. The third advantage is that Biker sergeants are only getting one upgrade. That can be fairly important if you liked running double combi-weapons.
3. You're purposely taking a bad loadout. Why would I take two Plasma guns with a Power Fist when I know Tactical Marines won't charge after the landing? Something better might be a Combi-Plasma and such. If I was anticipating to charge and wanted a Power Fist for whatever bizarre reason, why wouldn't I take a Combi-Melta and Melta Bomb to synergize.
There were several reasons not to take the Tactical Squad you created...

**Yarium**

Galef wrote:
I remember prior editions did not allow armour saves from dangerous terrain tests. That needs to come back.

So the question now: Are Bikes more balance if Relentless is removed and armour saves were not allowed against failed Dangerous terrain tests?

Well, if they can't get armour saves, then neither should anything else going into Dangerous Terrain (like Jump packs into difficult terrain). From what I remember, it made using Jump Packs and Bikes absurdly challenging, because any squad of guys was very likely to lose at least one model every time they moved through terrain. Personally, I'd rather that difficult terrain not be lethal to such units, but rather import some kind of other penalty. Like maybe Bikes, Cavalry, Jump, and Jet units only can move up to half their maximum distance and can't turbo boost if any part of their move is in difficult terrain (which counts starting or attempting to end your move in difficult terrain), since they're being very careful to avoid obstacles.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Vaktathi wrote:
Theres plenty of purposes for bike units that could still function perfectly well without Relentless. Losing Relentless isnt going to kill Bike utility. Model for model and point for point theyll still shoot better than Tacs as their weapons are twin linked, they just dont get to shoot better and assault afterwards or fire a heavy weapon after jetting 12" around the table. Hardly a crippling loss for what the units cost relative to the capability of their alternatives.

Outside of losing the ability to charge after firing Grav or Plasma, or Attack Bikes losing every sense of purpose...