Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I was wondering if anyone out there had any suggestions for dealing with nob bikers or blood krushers (which from my perspective are essentially the same... high toughness, multi-would, fast, nasty H-t-H machines).

I never seem to be able to pour enough firepower into them to stop them (figuring usually only 1 turn of shooting before they're on top of you) and they have a tendency to destroy anything they come into contact with in hand-to-hand. We have two very good players locally that use one or two groups of each (depending on the size of the game) and I'm just kind of helpless... If I pour enough fire into these units to weaken them enough that I can deal with the assault, I've ignored the rest of their army which eats me. If I try to ignore these units in order to deal with the rest of the army, they're so fast & mobile that in the hands of good players are able to slam into something valuable and *they* eat me.

I have orks and vanilla space marines, (also eldar but I haven't played them yet under 5th ed). I don't have my own nob bikers yet for my orks (may get them eventually but there ares sooo many other things to paint first). I guess I'm looking more for strategies as to how to approach the problem than "use weapon X in squad Y", but I'll take any advice I can get. The guys who play these armies have tried to help me but there's a lot of head-scratching and shrugging involved... probably due to my lists... but at this point I'm wide open for any and all suggestions.

Thanks

With Marines, I'd consider Assault Termies led by a Librarian with terminator armor, storm shield, and nullzone.

wuestenfux wrote:With Marines, I'd consider Assault Termies led by a Librarian with terminator armor, storm shield, and nullzone.

Or, if you want to tarpit the bloodcrushers forever, and Ironclad dreadnought will keep them busy while you pick apart everything else.

Cool, I can do both of those things.... anyone else?

land speeder typhoons will devastate both units... they instant kill nob bikers, and they ignore the invulnerable save on bloodcrushers with their krak missiles. against bloodcrushers, you want to stay out of hand to hand at all costs... even thundershield terminators can't withstand firepower of that magnitude, because the crushers swing first with power weapons. You'll fail 3+ saves when they make you take 10 of them.

Terminators can take on nob bikers with ease, because of the instant kill factor. even if only 1 terminator survives, odds are good you'll have killed enough nob bikers to cause them to fail morale, flee, and probably be under half strength and never to regroup again.

against crushers, remember that at most they have 20 3+/5+ saves. This means, if you can inflict 60 wounds, statistically, they should die. You can easily accomplish this with an alpha strike from pretty much any basic marines army (if your ENTIRE army shoots at nothing but the crushers for a turn).

Another way to survive is to simply block their charges with rhinos / sacrificial units. I play biker marines, so when possible, I combat squad my bikes. I take a 5 bike combat squad, with no special weapons, and throw it in the way of a squad coming at me. They can either ignore it and move around, or assault it. Either way, they aren't getting to me this turn, and I have another turn of shooting.

of those two units, the bloodcrushers are more dangerous, IMO. They may be slower, but their harder to kill, and can't be insta-gibbed, PLUS they all have initiative 4 power swords... meaning your hammer terminators may never attack, and your lightning claw terminators certainly won't survive. Dreadnoughts are an excellent suggestion though. Doesn't have to be ironclad, any dreadnought can stonewall crushers.

Krak missiles don't ignore invulnerable saves on bloodcrushers, and nob bikers always have a 4+ cover save from their bike's smoke. MEQ krak will hit 2/3 times, kill 5/6 times, and get past cover 1/2 the time. Mathhammer says 10/36 krak missile shots will kill a nob biker, so it takes 3.6 MEQ krak missiles to drop 1 biker.

The real problem with nob bikers is they always have a 4+ save. There is no AP2 or STR8 shooting attack that ignores cover so they will either receive a 4+ cover save or FNP.

On the charge blood crushers are actually STR5 I5 and WS5 with 4 attacks each, but no power fist so even an IG armored sentinel can tarpit them.

Blood crushers are a real pain to deal with and sometimes they really can seem like an unstoppable unit. But that is not the case. A very simple way to shut them down with a SM army of almost any type is to take dreadnoughts. Keep a dreadnought, of any type really, in your line and thrown it at the bloodcrushers. Even if they have the rending upgrade, the odds are you will tie them up the whole game and eventually kill them. This is probably your best bet. While other units are also more than capable of taking them on, dreadnoughts are the cheapest investment to do so.

Orks have several ways to shut these things down as well. Again, the simplest being walkers. Kans or dreads both pose a serious threat to bloodcrushers because there is no easy way to kill them.

Now lets talk briefly about Nob Bikers. They are truly a MEAN unit, and my experience with them has been that you opponent can either has a good counter to them and he shuts them down for the most part, or he doesn't, and you table him.

With Marines of any type, a very hard unit to beat with Nob Bikers are terminators. Power fists can bypass the 2 wounds, T5, and feel no pain that make bikers so awesome and while you might lose the terminators in the process, the bikers will die. Here again, dreadnought, especially Ironclads are a big problem for nob bikers.

Same thing with orks. Kans and dreads will stomp on Nob Bikers.

I hope that was helpful.

Nullzone to force invulnerable save rerolls
Vindicators for instant death
Assault cannons for rending hits, wounds on 3+
TH/SS terminators
Venerable dread, Ironclad dread (tarpit bloodcrushers only)
Krak missiles, meltas (instant kill vs. nobz)
Flamestorm Cannons (negates cover, armor, multiple hits)

I am a Daemon player. Let me tell you some well placed Plasma Cannons or Grotzukas make my Bloodcrushers cry.

As an IG player i found the nobs constant coversave to be no big deal when you throw enough pie at them

As for crushers they can't be instagibbed that way but are slower and have a weaker save.

So yea you need yourself some demolishers (this my be my inner gun nut talking)

schadenfreude wrote:Krak missiles don't ignore invulnerable saves on bloodcrushers, and nob bikers always have a 4+ cover save from their bike's smoke. MEQ krak will hit 2/3 times, kill 5/6 times, and get past cover 1/2 the time. Mathhammer says 10/36 krak missile shots will kill a nob biker, so it takes 3.6 MEQ krak missiles to drop 1 biker.

The real problem with nob bikers is they always have a 4+ save. There is no AP2 or STR8 shooting attack that ignores cover so they will either receive a 4+ cover save or FNP.

On the charge blood crushers are actually STR5 I5 and WS5 with 4 attacks each, but no power fist so even an IG armored sentinel can tarpit them.

extrenm(54) wrote:Blood crushers are a real pain to deal with and sometimes they really can seem like an unstoppable unit. But that is not the case. A very simple way to shut them down with a SM army of almost any type is to take dreadnoughts. Keep a dreadnought, of any type really, in your line and thrown it at the bloodcrushers. Even if they have the rending upgrade, the odds are you will tie them up the whole game and eventually kill them. This is probably your best bet. While other units are also more than capable of taking them on, dreadnoughts are the cheapest investment to do so.

Orks have several ways to shut these things down as well. Again, the simplest being walkers. Kans or dreads both pose a serious threat to bloodcrushers because there is no easy way to kill them.

Now lets talk briefly about Nob Bikers. They are truly a MEAN unit, and my experience with them has been that you opponent can either has a good counter to them and he shuts them down for the most part, or he doesn't, and you table him.

With Marines of any type, a very hard unit to beat with Nob Bikers are terminators. Power fists can bypass the 2 wounds, T5, and feel no pain that make bikers so awesome and while you might lose the terminators in the process, the bikers will die. Here again, dreadnought, especially Ironclads are a big problem for nob bikers.

Same thing with orks. Kans and dreads will stomp on Nob Bikers.

I hope that was helpful.

I'd go with these two posts, and ignore anything else. Essentially, Dreads of all kinds can tarpit bloodcrushers, and Ironclads do it even better. Ironclads are also much more difficult for Nob Bikers to destroy. And, TH/SS terminators with a Librarian with Null Zone will seriously shut down both Bloodcrusher and Nob Bikers. Take a unit of 10 TH/SS terminators for extra awesomeness, and your Demon/Ork opponent will be none too pleased.

As one who plays against nobz I have found this very helpful. Thanks to everyone.

I concur, thank you everyone... have a lot to work with and consider now. Thanks!