Summary
This post is to talk about how to get around one of the big problems with the C:
SM codex -- the fact that C:
SM TAC squads are very weak choices. Like the other post I made regarding the Land Speeder Storm, this is dedicated to finding ways to combat the weak C:
SM TAC squad.
I have played a C:
SM bike army for 2 years now and am very familiar with the workings of the army list.
C:SM TAC Squads Disadvantages
The fact is C:
SM TAC squads are arguably the worst of all the Troops choices for powered armor units. They do not have the required special/heavy weapons to be useful, and are not resilient enough to justify the point cost.
What Bikes Do
Bike Squads
As an alternative, you can go with bike squads for your troop choices.
For 7 more points a model, you can get the following.
*
TL Bolter
* The ability to move 12"
* The ability to turbo-boost 24"
* A T5(4)
* Relentless
As a squad you get the following
* 2 special weapons per squad
* 1 relentless
MM/
HB per squad
* Saving a
KP on the rhino
* Saving 35 pts for a rhino
Bike Squad Loadout
In my experience, I find that this is the best loadout for bike squads.
* Sergeant with
PF
* 2
PG/
MG bikes
*
MM attack bike
* 2 bullet catchers
Note : Modeling bikes is easy to do. Below I kit-bashed some ravenwing bikes, and normal bikes with assault marines. This gives each biker the ability to hold onto a bolt pistol or sword, and allows me to swap for various heads.
The overall effect on your army is impressive, and I highly suggest it.
If you go the plasma route, you get the following shots within 12"
- Four AP2
STR 7
- One AP1
STR 8 Melta
- 8
STR 4
TL
Going the melta route gives you 40% less firepower, but gives you a larger threat vs vehicles. Both options need the
MM bike, as the ability to roll
2d6 penetration gives every squad a viable threat at 12" to heavy armor.
This loadout gives a total of 6 models per squad, for a total of 7 wounds per squad. If you face a large number of
GK players, you might want to consider increasing this amount to absorb the incoming psycannon/psydread rounds.
If you run the math, you will see that vs
STR 4 shooting, 7 wounds at T5 is just as resiliant as 10 wounds at T4. This means your 6 man squad can take a decent amount of firepower before taking causalities.
Why Power Fists
Your squads will be in assault. There is nothing you can do about it. Your going to find cases where you shoot at a squad of purifers and discover that there is just 1 purifier left. Being able to assault with your
PF and bikes allows you to 'seal the deal' and finish that squad before it can either claim objectives or deny you that
KP.
Power fists also give additional options for bike squads, as you can assault vehicles that have stood still, and have a chance to auto-kill
ICs that have wandered to close to your squads.
Playing a Bike Army
Bike Army Weaknesses
Bike armies are mobile and pack a lot of shooting, however it is not without its drawbacks, namely high
STR, high
AP long range guns. These weapons don't care if you turbo-boosted, as your still getting your armor saves anyway. They simply will throw enough wounds on your squad to cause problems. Examples of this are
GK psydreads, chimera spam multilasers, eldar war walkers.
Bikes cannot climb stairs. Bikes take horrible losses when moving through difficult terrain. You can bet that your opponent will put his objectives on top of towers or other hard to get to places. Your bikes also have a hard time assaulting models in cover, as they will take losses on the way in due to difficult terrain.
A good way to help mitigate this is to use a land speeder storm, as described in
this post to grab/contest those objectives. Another way to help mitigate this is to bring scout snipers, or some scouts in a land raider. The goal if you want something that can move into cover or climb stairs to claim an objective.
Bike Army Strengths
Conversely, bike armies can tear armies that have low
AP shooting with few shots. An example of this are melta-vet squads. Bike armies can turbo-boost to be on them by turn 2, then tear open the sides of chimeras and assault the contents within.
Bike armies are FAST. This can be a strong advantage when a stormraven is shoved down your throat, you can simply move 24" away out of assault range. It allows you to re-position yourself on the board very quickly when required.
Bike armies are very resilient to barrage weapons. As you should always congo-line your squads, you will get hit 2-3 times by a large blast template. Being able to get a cover save vs them means you can shrug off most blasts.
If you are skimming the edge of the board, you become even harder to hit, as the blasts can easily deviate off the board.
Bike armies are good vs. foot armies that rely upon movement to escape. An example of this would be necrons. You can easily get into assault with them on turn 2, allowing your
PF to do a lot of work on the squads. Its important to NOT put your
PF in contact with a mindshackle scarab lord.
Note - be wary of wraiths, they will tear you up. Your best bet to to torrent of fire them down.
Bike armies are very good about reserve entry. If your opponent cannot block your entire board edge, you can reserve gambit some or all of your army to save the number of turns you can be shot at. This makes it easier to rack up a few
KPs and objectives
As bikes bring their own cover, you can and should place your objectives in the middle of the open. This makes it very hard for your opponent to camp that objective without sitting in the open, and allows you to turbo-boost to it without worries of terrain.
Bikes can also be devastating to vehicles. This image is from a game where I played and had one bike squad run complete havoc on an
IG gunline. I turbo-boosted up close, shot up side armor with the squad and multi-assaulted with the bikes and captain. All the vehicles in this picture were destroyed in the following turn.
Bike Army Support
Bike armies cannot do well without supporting fire. This is because moving up to an enemy vehicle to destroy it does not do any good if they models without pour out to assault you. An example of this would be purifiers or orks.
Instead, what you want to do is crack the enemy transports at range, and then utilize your bike squads inside to shred the infantry.
The tools you choose to use are optional. I perfer riflemen dreads and predators to do the job, but what you choose is up to you. So long as you can deal with the AV11 spam early enough you should be fine.
Models like land raiders are also decent with bike armies, as you can keep deep striking melta away from them through careful placing of the bikes. While mars pattern
LRs can be expensive,
AV 14 is very hard to crack at range. If you are willing to park the land raider on an objective, you can even keep the squad inside safe. This can be very useful if you must hold an objective in cover.
Look at the image below. Note how the bike army utilizes predators, riflemen dreads and typhoons for support. The goal is to make sure you can get those tanks open early!
Kahn or Bike Captain
Outflanking is very nice, and being able to outflank your entire army is very tempeting. Given the uses of combat tactics as described above, its hard to justify in games less than 2,000 points. At that point level, you can start outflanking
TH/
SS termie squads to great effect.
The base captain is also pretty beastly in combat. If you give him
LC pairs or a relic blade, he can deal out quite a bit of damage for 165 points.
Other matching options
If your not going to go with Khan, then Vulcan is another good matchup. You will need a land raider to house Vulcan and you lose librarian support -- but gain the ability to
TL melta and flamers.
When I did a bike army for someone on Dakka, we ran the math of
TL flamers, and they are actually quite good vs most targets. Being able to move 12" and fire the allows for optional placement, and the amount of wounds you will score is quite decent.
The only drawback with that solution is the heavy initial investment. Your looking at a 700 point death star to get that advantage. (Vulcan,
LR, Termies)
A librarian is an excellent addition to a bike army. If there is a squad of
TH/
SS termies, he can fit well into that squad, or be placed on a bike. The librarian gives you a psychic hood and either avenger or might of the ancients. The real strength of the librarian is 'Null Zone', which is arguably one of the best powers in the game.
There is More Than One Way to Do It
These suggestions are what I have found to be effective in the time that I have played a C:
SM bike army -- but are by no means the only way they can be played. I have seen some people tell me that 5 man squads with 2
MGs is what works for them, and if it does it might work for you too.
The best solution is to play test some games and see what works for you and your playstyle!
credit to The Painting Corps
Captain and Vet Squad'
In my experience, a command squad on bikes can be extremely expensive. If you kit them out with lighting claws and storm shields, you can very quickly get a 300+ point squad for 5 guys. While they do have
FNP, they are 1 wound models that are 50+ points each.
Compare that to thunder wolf calvary,who have the same role of fast assault units. The C:
SM command squad will get clobbered by psydreads or
ML, when the Twolves with a T5 can resist the hits. The wolves have twiced the attacks, a higher strength and toughness.
Other armies dedicated close combat units can also take down these bikes. Compare and see what a unit of 6 wraiths can do to these bikes. The wraiths are just as mobile as the bikes (minus turbo boost), and can move through terrain.
The point of this is you don't try and outwrestle the bear. Work with what C:
SM bikes strengths are, which is to out-shoot and outmanuver the enemy.
Another tactic is try utilize 4
PG in a command bike squad. This clocks in the command squad at ~280 points. While it does provide the
FNP save from 'Gets Hot', the squad is more expensive than a standard 245 bike squad. While it does provide more firepower output than an equal normal bike squad and is much better in assault, it does not have the durability of normal bike squads. There are no bullet catchers, so any wounds start causing loss of firepower Given the amount of
STR 8 shooting out there which ignores
FNP, this squad is fairly fragile, and can be wiped out with just a few bad dice rolls.
While some people may be able to make this kind of a command squad work well, at this time, I have not been able to make it justify the point cost.
Some people are able to make dual command squads work. I agree that with Khan, an outflanking command squad can be extremely effective against specific armies (Tau,
IG blobs, some Necrons). It also has a number of very bad matchups that really hurt the list (
SW,
GK, Mech'dar).
Strategy
Moving Fast
Bikes need to move. If your not shooting with your bikes, you need to be turbo-boosting. Its that simple. This lets you rapidly reposition on the battlefield and helps to absorb incoming fire. Turbo-boosting across your board edge for 3-4 turns is a perfectly valid strategy
Playing the Mission
Bikes can be surprisingly good at playing the mission. You can just move around the board for a few turns then turbo onto objectives. Its also very easy to deny a
KP by turboing behind a hill. The speed of your army is a great strength in this regard.
Area of Influence
Like in Chess, every model on the board has a range of what they can effect. This can be the assault range of boys in a battlewagon (21") or a
MM on a bike (36"). It's more than just how far a gun can shoot, but how far the model can move and shoot it.
Long and Short
This is a term used to describe your firepower. You want your armies firepower to be able to effect the entire board, which is something that large model bases with medium ranges have a hard time doing.
Instead to ensure that your firepower can maximize their area of influence, you want to use long range troops (like riflemen dreads) in combination with your bikes. This lets you shoot with everything at the same time, which can happen if your mid-ranged bike weapons cant reach their target.
The bottom line is a long and short list ensures that you always have a target in your area of influence.
Denial Strategy
Bikes are actually quite good at a denial strategy. A denial list is designed to prevent your opponent from killing you. It's goal is not to table the opponent, but to win the mission.
In some tournaments this is quite advantageous such as when your playing a win-loss game with all 3 5th edition objectives in play at the same time. Other times where tabling is the best strategy for winning denial lists fare poorly, such as games where all 3 missions are counted for battle points.
Bikes can accomplish two kinds of denial strategies.
Reserve Denial
Reserve denial is opting to go second, and then starting with your entire army in reserve. This gives a number of advantages
Alpha Strike
Reserve deployment gives you the alpha strike, as you can shoot on the turn your units move onto the board. This gives you an extra turn of shooting, as you can start shooting as soon as the bottom of 2, where their opponent can only start shooting at the top of 3. This also reduces the number of turns your opponent can shoot at you by 2, which can be significant in a 5 turn game, as that's 40% of his shooting!
Army Counters
Reserve armies also counter the first 2 turns of night fighting necrons. This helps when they bring the stormlord. Reserve armies are very good against daemon armies who then have no real targets to deep strike next to. Reserve armies are very good against drop pod armies for a very similar reason.
Deployment Surprise
Reserve armies also can come in on the table edge during spearhead, which can take people by suprise. Reserve armies also can come in where they want on the board edge, allowing you to take advantage of poor enemy deployment.
Going Second
So why go second? Well, it gives a considerable advantage on objective missions. It allows you to move to objectives when your opponent cannot respond.
In timed games it gives another strong advantage. Generally you know when your going to have 1 turn left to play, such as when there is 20 minutes left before the round is called. This lets you objective contest/grab knowing when you cannot be countered.
When not to Reserve
Do not reserve if your opponent is playing a fast assault army. You don't want to come onto the board if your opponent has 80 bloodletters waiting for you, or 3 BWs full of boys.
Do not reserve if your opponent can block off your table edge. This is any fast army with lots of models, such as orks,
DE, or some
IG. If you have some tanks in your list, you can tank shock a path for yourself. Just be wary and don't get yourself lose because you cannot get on.
KP Denial
KP denial is the strategy of abusing the
KP mechanic. Your goal is to kill a few of your opponents models and then have your
KPs be very hard to take. Bikes are very good at this, as they can easily hide when reduced to a few models by turbo-boosting behind a hill.
When running a
KP list, you want to bring hard to kill armor, such as land raiders for your tanks. These are extremely hard to kill at range.
Tactics
Displacement[/size]
One of the advantages of bike armies is the ability to relocate your troops at a moments notice. This is a huge advantage that can disrupt enemy plans. You can shift to one side of the board, and then when your opponent has committed, you can shift to the other side of the board.
In this image, you see that I have 4 squads conga-lined. (They also turbo-boosted on the previous turn). The
GK player moved his stormchiken up to threaten my squads. On the following turn, I turboboosted all 4 squads away from the stormchicken and shot it down with the rest of my army. When the death star toppled out of it, there was nothing for them to shoot. By simply moving my bikes I mitigated the majority of the enemy strategy.
Sealing the Deal
When you drop out of turbo-boosting with your bikes, you need to be able to use as much force on your target as possible to destory it. You don't want to just attack a squad of marines with 1 squad, you want to throw 2 or 3 squads at it, ensuring that it will be destroyed. The key is that you want to deploy 500-750 points to his 200-300 points to wreck it quickly.
When you do this, you might need to assault to 'seal the deal' and ensure you get the
KP. As such, I give
PFs to the sergeants and I expect them to do some heavy lifting. 2-3
PFs can usually clean up the 1-2 models that will be left after you are done shooting.
Once you are done bringing the hammer down, you need to go back into turbo boosting. Don't get tempted into a slug-fest, as bike armies will lose most of those matches. Your play style should be like flowing water that strikes and moves.
Combat Tactics and Bikes
Combat tactics is extremely powerful in bike armies. All the usual tricks become even more useful when you can fall back
3d6. Here are a few of them
* Auto-fall back when shot at before being assaulted. Fall back out of assault range.
* Go to ground when shot at to get a 3+ cover. Fall back and auto-rally.
* Auto-fail leadership test for combat and fall back out of assault.
Conga Lines
This is covered in this post here.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/447806.page
- 1000; 3-2-0 
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Mordian Iron Guard - Major Overhaul in Progress 
Sanguine Fist 
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