Bikes are extremely good at shooting in the game.
We all know the rules reason why, but why did GW make them that good at shooting.
Bikes seem to be the 40k equivalent of fantasy cav and are fun. I get that they get some sort of guns this makes them sifi and all instead of just wfb.
I just wonder why they are made into the best weapon platforms of the game, is there any historical, computer game, sifi movie / book or fluff reason for it ?
Making the fastest unit in the game also the sturdiest and the sootiest seems a bit of an odd choice.

They aren't better at shooting then infantry, they just aren't encumbered by Heavy Weapons because they are mounted on a large metal chasis. As a result bikes tend to just be using a better guns then foot soldiers (heck bikes even strap on two bolters instead of just 1 resulting in them being twin-linked)

The actual problem that you have missed is that most bike unit are undercosted on points. No one would think Scatterbikes are good if they were 100 pts per model.

The other issue is that other platforms are consistently mediocre or bad.

Forget about the durability difference between a Tactical Marine and a Biker Marine. The Tactical Marine squad can't double up on special weapons OR Heavy weapons. This makes them impossible to specialize at larger squad numbers, and at the same time costing more to take that damn heavy weapon. Meanwhile, Bikers are typically taken at 5 dudes but at least take two of the same special weapon. Their purpose can be defined. The Tactical Marine cannot.

See where I'm going with this?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The other issue is that other platforms are consistently mediocre or bad.

Forget about the durability difference between a Tactical Marine and a Biker Marine. The Tactical Marine squad can't double up on special weapons OR Heavy weapons. This makes them impossible to specialize at larger squad numbers, and at the same time costing more to take that damn heavy weapon. Meanwhile, Bikers are typically taken at 5 dudes but at least take two of the same special weapon. Their purpose can be defined. The Tactical Marine cannot.

See where I'm going with this?

Grav Cannon trumps this argument. It can be used as a Special Weapon as it can be fired on the move, it's also good against many target types, so no need to specialize. Grav Cannon uber alles.

 CrownAxe wrote:
They aren't better at shooting then infantry, they just aren't encumbered by Heavy Weapons because they are mounted on a large metal chasis. As a result bikes tend to just be using a better guns then foot soldiers (heck bikes even strap on two bolters instead of just 1 resulting in them being twin-linked)

The actual problem that you have missed is that most bike unit are undercosted on points. No one would think Scatterbikes are good if they were 100 pts per model.

What I observed from 3rd edition, is that bikes started to

1) progressively cost less, way less (this happened to Jump units too, to an extent)

2) progressively creep into troops (this happened to Jump units too, to an extent, see 5th ed BA)

In 3rd you took bikes with a specific role in mind but the slot and the cost made them not a win-all.
As if there was some design intent and vision back then, go figure.

They needed some buff, but as always GW went overboard.

Nobody knows really, other than GW wanted to sell more bikes and Jetbikes.

In reality, bikes would be awkward, fragile, and clumsy combat units, and would be atrocious as firing platforms, there's very little about them that bears any resemblance to anything that could possibly be considered a "stable firing platform". The idea that a bike should be Relentless is more than a wee bit silly.

40k for some reason sees the need to make them tougher and more capable at everything just because, while being dramatically cheaper than in previous editions. Between enhanced T, Relentless, twin linked basic guns, heavy weapons access, HoW hits, and Jink, theyve gone completely overboard, and on top of that theyve made them progressively cheaper.

This seems to cover a lot of the same ground as the thread I started over in proposed rules. Seems to me that bikes give a lot of advantages over infantry, yet without any representation of the drawbacks bikes would suffer compared to infantry.

Bikes are the equivalent of light cavalry in Fantasy. The way the morale rules are written there isn't any room in 40k (and barely any room in 8e Fantasy, for that matter) for shock/melee cavalry, so the designers are trying to make them a fast harassment/disruption/artillery-hunting unit, which means guns. And since the escalation in game scale keeps punishing small arms they've got to come with massed/accurate small arms and special weapons to stay relevant.

They aren't strictly speaking the best weapon platform around; they're fast and durable, yes, but they're expensive, come in small units, short ranged, and have a more limited selection of guns. Infantry can impact more of the field at a time (just looking at absolute threat range discounts infantry's ability to sit on an objective and still shoot things 36-48" away), vehicles can take more punishment (imperviousness to small arms is worth a lot).

The current situation wherein bikes are outright better than competing units is due to some mixture of miscosting and poorly-thought-out guns to ablative wounds ratios in most infantry units, not an inherent issue with the Bike type or game role.

 Nazrak wrote:
This seems to cover a lot of the same ground as the thread I started over in proposed rules. Seems to me that bikes give a lot of advantages over infantry, yet without any representation of the drawbacks bikes would suffer compared to infantry.

It's the same situation as MCs vs vehicles. GW needs to quit making unit A strictly better than unit B.

Honestly, the easiest fix would be to remove Relentless from Bikes and Jetbikes. Yes the platform is more stable, but you still have to position the whole darn bike to point where you need to shoot it. From what I can tell, most bike mounted weapons are fixed to the machine.

Having to sacrifice the movement for a turn is the trade off for carrying more weapons.
A potential problem is that this would throw certain bikes out of balance while trying to fix others. Scatterbikes would not be as good, but now you would see more Shuricannon bikes (cause those are Assault). Space Marine Attack bikes would be rubbish, while DA bike would pretty much be the same (since they always Jink anyway).

-

I don't know what people are talking about, because the OP is correct. Bikes are Relentless, and that makes them so good at shooting.

It really doesn't make sense, because a guy zooming around on a bike is going to be less accurate, not more. Non-skimmer vehicles in the game can't even move 12 inches and still fire at full, so it's not exactly reasonable for bikes to do this.

What IS important for the designers is the idea of the bikes shooting into things and then charging them. But the way they do this, by giving them Relentless, is very strange indeed.

Maybe attack bikes could keep full relentless and bikers could get a cheapo relentless that only lets them assault after firing rapid fire/salvo weapons. But firing those weapons follow the infantry rules.

Another key to this is the upgrade from T4 -> T5 is amazeballs and way better than the upgrade from T3 -> T4. This kind of nonlinearity is a serious problem in 40K and I'm sure GW doesn't think about it at all.

We'd still have to address how incredibly bad non-fast non-super heavy vehicles are at firing their weapons. A lot of vehicles need the old pseudo-fast the Tau had in 4th.

For me, the idea of a 10' tall, genetically altered super soldier riding a motorcycle into combat is ludicrous at best. There is a suspension of belief in reality when you play a table top game like 40K, but the bikes just don't do it for me. The rules for bikes just have nothing in common with the reality of riding a motorcycle. Street bikes go stupid fast, but if they even look at debris on the road, they are going to wreck. Dirt bikes can pretty much roll over everything, but they are slow. Mounting a weapon on a bike would just be... how would you aim it? Pop a wheelie and point? If the weapon is big enough, it's going to have mass and screw up the balance on the bike (which is pretty critical as a bike only has two wheels and is inherently unstable), not to mention the recoil. I don't care if it's a Space Marine or not- Sir Issac Newton had a few laws about mass, force, and action/reaction. The toughness of a bike is deceiving, as it's a mechanical device. It doesn't make the rider 'tougher', but it does add some to the durability of the bike and rider. But if a bike is ever shot, especially with some of the weapons in 40K, it should pretty much disintegrate.

What it comes down to is that bikes are under costed and have no bearing on how they would actually perform on a battlefield. If they ignore difficult/dangerous terrain, then they should be reduced in speed to 6", with a 1d6" turbo boost. Allow them to mount a heavy weapon, but there is no way they should have relentless. They should get +1 toughness, but an armor save of 4+ (instead of 3+ or even 2+). Then they will be costed about right.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The other issue is that other platforms are consistently mediocre or bad.

Forget about the durability difference between a Tactical Marine and a Biker Marine. The Tactical Marine squad can't double up on special weapons OR Heavy weapons. This makes them impossible to specialize at larger squad numbers, and at the same time costing more to take that damn heavy weapon. Meanwhile, Bikers are typically taken at 5 dudes but at least take two of the same special weapon. Their purpose can be defined. The Tactical Marine cannot.

See where I'm going with this?

Grav Cannon trumps this argument. It can be used as a Special Weapon as it can be fired on the move, it's also good against many target types, so no need to specialize. Grav Cannon uber alles.

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.

If I were rewriting this, I'd have different armor types confer a relentless property to different weapons. For example, I'd have power armor allow one to use boltguns relentlessly, but not lascannons. I'd let the guard have analogous armor with inferior protection. Since we have stabilization arms in real life.

Martel732 wrote:
If I were rewriting this, I'd have different armor types confer a relentless property to different weapons. For example, I'd have power armor allow one to use boltguns relentlessly, but not lascannons. I'd let the guard have analogous armor with inferior protection. Since we have stabilization arms in real life.

I feel like that gets a bit convoluted. It would be easier just to remove Relentless from the Bike Type and than add it back to certain units, like Attack Bikes. Maybe add a "catch-all" for bikes that start equipped with a Heavy weapon, or ones with 2 riders. That way Bikes that start with Assault or Rapid fire guns, then upgrade to heavy weapons do not get Relentless (hopefully helping to balance Scatter bikes)

-

In previous editions only the weapons mounted on the bikes were relentless. I know it was in 3rd, maybe 4th. This would give the TL’d bolter a nice perk (which was more relevant with the older rapid fire rules) and keep attack bikes working. But would take grav bikes down a peg.

Wouldn’t hurt scatbikes.

I think going to a 1-in-3 weapon option for all bikes would also help. It would tone down the pure spammy nature of a lot of bike lists. Marine bikes would either have to loose a special to keep 3 man MSU builds, or ramp up to 6 man squads to keep their firepower. Eldar would either have to hang back and have one scat do the work, or get in close for the cats to lend their fire. And they don’t want to get close.

Not to get too much into Design philosophies, but I'm a strong proponent of opportunity costs in 40k for movement. 3rd edition was a little too restrictive, as you either didn't move and shot full effectiveness, or moved and often didn't shoot at all, but the current system allows you to do too much with a unit during a turn.

As such, I like the idea of treating Bikes like mini-vehicles. If they move 6" or less it's full BS, and if they move more than 6" it's snap-shots only, but they're still otherwise "relentless".

 Yarium wrote:

As such, I like the idea of treating Bikes like mini-vehicles. If they move 6" or less it's full BS, and if they move more than 6" it's snap-shots only, but they're still otherwise "relentless".

Oh I kinda like this. But maybe say that they just lose Relentless if they move more than 6" period. Bikes that are designed for CC typically have assault weapons anyway (or if they have rapid fire weapons, they aren't worth firing before the charge anyway)

 Galef wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If I were rewriting this, I'd have different armor types confer a relentless property to different weapons. For example, I'd have power armor allow one to use boltguns relentlessly, but not lascannons. I'd let the guard have analogous armor with inferior protection. Since we have stabilization arms in real life.

I feel like that gets a bit convoluted. It would be easier just to remove Relentless from the Bike Type and than add it back to certain units, like Attack Bikes. Maybe add a "catch-all" for bikes that start equipped with a Heavy weapon, or ones with 2 riders. That way Bikes that start with Assault or Rapid fire guns, then upgrade to heavy weapons do not get Relentless (hopefully helping to balance Scatter bikes)

-

The game needs convoluted to make the units distinct. Having 80% of the units mopped up as if they were the same by a few sweet spot weapons sucks. Likewise, giving armor types some additional properties helps distinguish them.

 Vaktathi wrote:
In reality, bikes would be awkward, fragile, and clumsy combat units, and would be atrocious as firing platforms, there's very little about them that bears any resemblance to anything that could possibly be considered a "stable firing platform". The idea that a bike should be Relentless is more than a wee bit silly.

You're spot on considering the Relentless, but otherwise people have used bikes for a lot of really odd stuff. IIRC the French and Spanish armies have used bikes to carry recoilless rifles for AT work, for example. It is a fast and agile platform to get the gun where it needs to be, preferably aiming at the weakest armor facing of an enemy armored vehicle.

 Galef wrote:

 Yarium wrote:

As such, I like the idea of treating Bikes like mini-vehicles. If they move 6" or less it's full BS, and if they move more than 6" it's snap-shots only, but they're still otherwise "relentless".

Oh I kinda like this. But maybe say that they just lose Relentless if they move more than 6" period. Bikes that are designed for CC typically have assault weapons anyway (or if they have rapid fire weapons, they aren't worth firing before the charge anyway)

Haha, then you'd like what my idea actually is; make Bikes into Fast Chariots with 1HP.

Spetulhu wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
In reality, bikes would be awkward, fragile, and clumsy combat units, and would be atrocious as firing platforms, there's very little about them that bears any resemblance to anything that could possibly be considered a "stable firing platform". The idea that a bike should be Relentless is more than a wee bit silly.

You're spot on considering the Relentless, but otherwise people have used bikes for a lot of really odd stuff. IIRC the French and Spanish armies have used bikes to carry recoilless rifles for AT work, for example. It is a fast and agile platform to get the gun where it needs to be, preferably aiming at the weakest armor facing of an enemy armored vehicle.

IIRC these were not fired on the move, the bike was used to get into position, and then would be dismounted and fired from a tripod or something, and then remounted after firing to move to a new position. The scooters were just a transport for the gun, they didnt have any way to shoot from the bike if I recall.

That would be a good niche for bikes IMO. We need some more forethought required for the shooting units in the game. The last two editions have brought a glut of highly mobile devastating ranged options.

Do you think 40K is abstracting dragoons with the current rules? Or they are relentless "because".

I dont think 40k is abstracting Dragoons, dragoons would be dismounting and fighting on foot, while Bikers clearly do not do this.

Really theyre fundamentally based on Judge Dredd bikes, which kinda work within that universe of mad maxesque highway chases with small arms exchanges on limited angles of traverse due to being on roads and whatnot, but this doesnt really work at all for 40k really, and especially not with bikes sporting heavy weapons and fighting close combats.

 Yarium wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 Yarium wrote:

As such, I like the idea of treating Bikes like mini-vehicles. If they move 6" or less it's full BS, and if they move more than 6" it's snap-shots only, but they're still otherwise "relentless".

Oh I kinda like this. But maybe say that they just lose Relentless if they move more than 6" period. Bikes that are designed for CC typically have assault weapons anyway (or if they have rapid fire weapons, they aren't worth firing before the charge anyway)

Haha, then you'd like what my idea actually is; make Bikes into Fast Chariots with 1HP.

Wait, so 1 HP for the bike, 1 wound for the rider? What would the AV of the bike be? This is an interesting idea

 Galef wrote:

 Yarium wrote:
Haha, then you'd like what my idea actually is; make Bikes into Fast Chariots with 1HP.

Wait, so 1 HP for the bike, 1 wound for the rider? What would the AV of the bike be? This is an interesting idea

I'm guessing it'd be AV10, open-topped. Also would want to include a rule that the model is removed when destroyed and doesn't become a wreck.

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.

 Yarium wrote:

 Galef wrote:

 Yarium wrote:
Haha, then you'd like what my idea actually is; make Bikes into Fast Chariots with 1HP.

Wait, so 1 HP for the bike, 1 wound for the rider? What would the AV of the bike be? This is an interesting idea

I'm guessing it'd be AV10, open-topped. Also would want to include a rule that the model is removed when destroyed and doesn't become a wreck.

Also they can only explode d3 inches instead of d6. How much fuel can those things actually hold?

 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.

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.

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.

 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.

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.

 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.

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.

 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.

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.

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.

 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

 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.

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.

 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".

 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.

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

 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.

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

 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

-

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.

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?

 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.

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.

 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...

 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.

 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...

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 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.

Sorry if I'm missing something, but what exactly is wrong with a Marine army having Tac and Scout squads as its troops?

Arguably, there shouldn't be saves for dangerous terrain period. And since pretty much every non skimmer vehicle has access to dozer blades or equivalent , it seems dishonest to say that vehicles don't have a save.

I agree with Galef's idea to the problem (and I'm not just saying that because it would not effect my bikerboyz at all :V) , but that's the end of it. Any further change should be on a unit by unit change, and any suggestion for realism or immersion should just be thrown out. 40k is still an ABSTRACT wargame, so the imporant thing for rules writing should be whether an option is useful and competitive compared to other option. Not similarity to real life.

Keep in mind that I am saying this as an Eldar player who has played Eldar Jetbikes since when Dangerous tests didn't allow armour saves.

Also losing Relentless would not stop me from bringing Scatter bikes, despite them being Heavy weapons.
I would, however, also continue using Shuricannons, which are Assault. I like bikes and have played them YEARS before they were "OMG, you're TFG" good.
Losing Relentless would make me very happy as I could have my cake and eat it too.

But Marine Attack bike would need to have Relentless to remain functionally. Fluff-wise it would make since due to having 2 riders: 1 drives, the other shoots. Just give Bikes a side note that multiple riders grants Relentless. Easy-peasy Lemon Squeezy.

-

 Galef wrote:
Keep in mind that I am saying this as an Eldar player who has played Eldar Jetbikes since when Dangerous tests didn't allow armour saves.

Also losing Relentless would not stop me from bringing Scatter bikes, despite them being Heavy weapons.
I would, however, also continue using Shuricannons, which are Assault. I like bikes and have played them YEARS before they were "OMG, you're TFG" good.
Losing Relentless would make me very happy as I could have my cake and eat it too.

But Marine Attack bike would need to have Relentless to remain functionally. Fluff-wise it would make since due to having 2 riders: 1 drives, the other shoots. Just give Bikes a side note that multiple riders grants Relentless. Easy-peasy Lemon Squeezy.

-

So then Eldar just take Shuriken Cannons on everything instead, still vastly outperforming most units in the game?

You guys still aren't fixing anything and only creating worse situations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nazrak wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 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.

Sorry if I'm missing something, but what exactly is wrong with a Marine army having Tac and Scout squads as its troops?

Scouts are good. It is the CAD Tactical Marines that are bad.

I think if bikes lost relentless, it would fix a big giant fat issue in the game at the moment.....

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 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...

Except theyd still do everything a Tac does...but better. They still shoot better (TL guns), Hit harder on a charge, sport T5 over T4, have dramatically more mobility, and have on demand 4+ cover. They only lose the ability to shoot better and charge with an extra attack in the same turn. Some might call that a measure of balance...

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 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...

Except theyd still do everything a Tac does...but better. They still shoot better (TL guns), Hit harder on a charge, sport T5 over T4, have dramatically more mobility, and have on demand 4+ cover. They only lose the ability to shoot better and charge with an extra attack in the same turn. Some might call that a measure of balance...

Except they aren't doing everything better. The 4+ cover save destroys most of their firepower and doesn't help them survive an alpha strike. They'd be worse Tactical Marines when using Grav Guns. They're doing literally nothing special with Plasma Guns.

This is not differentiating them enough to the point that I would just go back to Scouts as my sole troops. I don't need SLIGHTLY better Tactical Marines. I want something besides them. Bikers and Scouts are that alternative. I'll just get my grav fix from Centurions and Plasma fix from Sternguard.

Next thing ya know, someone will suggest BS4/WS4 on scouts is broken.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:


Except they aren't doing everything better. The 4+ cover save destroys most of their firepower

Its better than being dead, and with TL'd guns allows them to fire at what is effectively BS2, better than units that have to go to ground.

and doesn't help them survive an alpha strike.

...in what way? unless theyre being hit with Ignores Cover weapons of AP3 or better, but thats not the definition of an Alpha Strike, which is much broader.

They'd be worse Tactical Marines when using Grav Guns.

In what way?

They're doing literally nothing special with Plasma Guns.

for the most part sure, aside having greater mobility to engage them successfully. Is that a bad thing though?

This is not differentiating them enough to the point that I would just go back to Scouts as my sole troops. I don't need SLIGHTLY better Tactical Marines.

If we're going to insist that T5, TL'd guns, insane speed, an extra charge attack at I10, access to Jink, and not being slowed by terrain is only "slightly" better, I dont think we are playing the same game.

If thats not enough differentiation from Tacs, then youre looking for an assault unit fitting an entirely different role from Tacs that Bikes should not be filling in the first place. Bikes arent supposed to be a heavy cavalry unit, theyve just been given so many buffs they ended up in that role.

I want something besides them. Bikers and Scouts are that alternative.

it sounds like you want a unit that does everything with no appreciable downsides over alternatives except lack of access to Deep Strike, for no appreciable cost premium after kit is factored in.

I'll just get my grav fix from Centurions and Plasma fix from Sternguard.

You mean...the units that are actually designed and intended to be those special weapons specialists? The horror!

Next thing ya know, someone will suggest BS4/WS4 on scouts is broken.

WS4/BS4 on scouts is nothing near the realm of what we are talking about here.

 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

-

I've been thinking more that Bikes should be Relentless only if the weapon is mounted on the Bike. Twin-Linked Bolters and weapons on Attack Bikes would remain Relentless, but special weapons held by the riders, like Grav Guns, would not. This wouldn't cut into the purpose of Attack Bikes, and would still allow Assault weapons to be fired effectively on the move and before a charge. IMO, Bikes should be able to drive fast, use a flamethrower, and then lop off someones head with a sword, as per the rule of cool. But where bikes breaks for me is that a Bike is somehow a more stable platform to fire a Grav Gun from, in comparison to a guy on foot. If firing Plasma and Grav from riders meant that the unit couldn't charge (and that the Grav only got two, shorter ranged shots) that would work better for me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nazrak wrote:

Sorry if I'm missing something, but what exactly is wrong with a Marine army having Tac and Scout squads as its troops?

Nothing. Slayer just doesn't grasp the beauty of the Tac Squad.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 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

-

I've been thinking more that Bikes should be Relentless only if the weapon is mounted on the Bike. Twin-Linked Bolters and weapons on Attack Bikes would remain Relentless, but special weapons held by the riders, like Grav Guns, would not. This wouldn't cut into the purpose of Attack Bikes, and would still allow Assault weapons to be fired effectively on the move and before a charge. IMO, Bikes should be able to drive fast, use a flamethrower, and then lop off someones head with a sword, as per the rule of cool. But where bikes breaks for me is that a Bike is somehow a more stable platform to fire a Grav Gun from, in comparison to a guy on foot. If firing Plasma and Grav from riders meant that the unit couldn't charge (and that the Grav only got two, shorter ranged shots) that would work better for me.

I am with you here in theory, but really this would only effect Grav & Plasma guns on marine bikes. All other weapons are either mounted on the bike or assault, so nothing would change for the most part. I am trying to make a blanket change that would tone down Scatterbikes

-

"Nothing. Slayer just doesn't grasp the beauty of the Tac Squad."

Or you don't grasp how terrible they are in 7th ed. And in 6th ed. And in 5th ed. Making bikes bad doesn't make them good, because even when bikes weren't this good, tacs were still bad.

Martel732 wrote:
"Nothing. Slayer just doesn't grasp the beauty of the Tac Squad."

Or you don't grasp how terrible they are in 7th ed. And in 6th ed. And in 5th ed. Making bikes bad doesn't make them good, because even when bikes weren't this good, tacs were still bad.

In what edition was the tactical marine terrible? Do you only play against necrons or something?

The tac marine is point for point one of the best obsec units in the game, in all ways except for maybe backline objectives, and even then having the ability to combat squad to 5 dudes with no special weapons and only filling up half a spot in an org chart is not terrible....

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:

Sorry if I'm missing something, but what exactly is wrong with a Marine army having Tac and Scout squads as its troops?

Nothing. Slayer just doesn't grasp the beauty of the Tac Squad.

Aw. I love a classic Tactical squad, me. Ten lads, flamer, missile launcher, cutting about in a Rhino.

 sfshilo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Nothing. Slayer just doesn't grasp the beauty of the Tac Squad."

Or you don't grasp how terrible they are in 7th ed. And in 6th ed. And in 5th ed. Making bikes bad doesn't make them good, because even when bikes weren't this good, tacs were still bad.

In what edition was the tactical marine terrible? Do you only play against necrons or something?

The tac marine is point for point one of the best obsec units in the game, in all ways except for maybe backline objectives, and even then having the ability to combat squad to 5 dudes with no special weapons and only filling up half a spot in an org chart is not terrible....

2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th are all editions where the tac marine is arguably worse than useless.

2nd ed killed them because the boltgun was worthless and armor save modifiers.
5th ed killed them because of leafblower, grey hunters, and the boltgun was worthless.
6th/7th has the rise of mass xeno firepower and boltguns are still worthless. They are only saved by free transports, which BA can't even get.

Furthermore, tac marines have always been helpless in CC for their point cost. The unit you are really praising is the grey hunter, which does all the things tac marines can't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nazrak wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:

Sorry if I'm missing something, but what exactly is wrong with a Marine army having Tac and Scout squads as its troops?

Nothing. Slayer just doesn't grasp the beauty of the Tac Squad.

Aw. I love a classic Tactical squad, me. Ten lads, flamer, missile launcher, cutting about in a Rhino.

I hope you like being ineffective.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:


Except they aren't doing everything better. The 4+ cover save destroys most of their firepower

Its better than being dead, and with TL'd guns allows them to fire at what is effectively BS2, better than units that have to go to ground.

and doesn't help them survive an alpha strike.

...in what way? unless theyre being hit with Ignores Cover weapons of AP3 or better, but thats not the definition of an Alpha Strike, which is much broader.

They'd be worse Tactical Marines when using Grav Guns.

In what way?

They're doing literally nothing special with Plasma Guns.

for the most part sure, aside having greater mobility to engage them successfully. Is that a bad thing though?

This is not differentiating them enough to the point that I would just go back to Scouts as my sole troops. I don't need SLIGHTLY better Tactical Marines.

If we're going to insist that T5, TL'd guns, insane speed, an extra charge attack at I10, access to Jink, and not being slowed by terrain is only "slightly" better, I dont think we are playing the same game.

If thats not enough differentiation from Tacs, then youre looking for an assault unit fitting an entirely different role from Tacs that Bikes should not be filling in the first place. Bikes arent supposed to be a heavy cavalry unit, theyve just been given so many buffs they ended up in that role.

I want something besides them. Bikers and Scouts are that alternative.

it sounds like you want a unit that does everything with no appreciable downsides over alternatives except lack of access to Deep Strike, for no appreciable cost premium after kit is factored in.

I'll just get my grav fix from Centurions and Plasma fix from Sternguard.

You mean...the units that are actually designed and intended to be those special weapons specialists? The horror!

Next thing ya know, someone will suggest BS4/WS4 on scouts is broken.

WS4/BS4 on scouts is nothing near the realm of what we are talking about here.

1.5 Bikers are a bit less than 10 Tactical Marines by maybe a Rhino. That 4+ is as good as another body. The durability difference isn't as grand as you claim for it to be. Rhinos also add a good amount of durability to Tactical Marines, but durability isn't their primary issue, is it?
2. I'm sure Martel could more easily explain to you why Rhinos are important against Alpha Strikes. For the definition of Alpha Strike, we got several choices: Skyhammer, Scatterbikes hitting you first, Skitarii Drop Pods (though we will see if this is a thing anymore once the FAQ is official), Raven Guard Vanguard charges, etc. I'm not sure if you're playing the game at all now, but that's important to counter against. Bikers don't live against these things because they're either weight of wounds or have enough AP2 for that 4+ cover save to crumble.
3. Because they wouldn't have a platform like a Rhino to keep them firing at max range. They could spam themail regular Grav gun more, but they'd be worse than the cannon option of the Tactical Marine rather than being on almost even footing.
4. Rhinos and Drop Pods already enabled that. The nice thing about Bikers was being able to do that and engage in melee, compared to the Tactical Marines being able to focus on shooting.
For the record it is also a bad move because you're hitting Chaos Bikers indirectly as well. Now they're forced into Melta Guns instead of having the option to do Plasma.
5. T5 is good and Jink is nice when it actually helps, but Tactical Marines get the option of creating two scoring units thanks to their transport.
6. No, the issue here is Tactical Marines don't have a niche for attacking. Hence why we have Bikers for real offense and Scouts for primarily scoring. The issue has always been Tactical Marines, not Bikers.
7. And then the Tactical Marines AND Bikers do nothing? I'm unsure if you actually care about Balance or just hate Bikers.
8. People complained when that happened because it made Tactical Marines worse off, but nobody was using them in the first place. I'm putting everything together to show Tactical Marines are the problem. Everyone is using them to balance against when they were always the worst off outside 4th when they could do two special weapons.

Rhinos, even ones that cost points, can ruin the most potent of alpha strikes. BA can hide jumpers/bikes behind them and then deploy in a manner to force the alpha strike to deep strike outside the rhino wall. In particular, grav can NEVER explode a vehicle, so rhinos are a pretty hard counter to that tactic. Skyhammer is there to punish greedy biker and Eldar lists.

Martel732 wrote:


I hope you like being ineffective.

Whatever mate. I like having fun with a game I enjoy rather than incessantly pissing and moaning about the same thing over and over again like a crybaby stuck record. Honestly I have no idea why you bother engaging with 40K given how irredeemably embittered you seem to be about it. Maybe try doing something you enjoy instead?

 Nazrak wrote:

Martel732 wrote:


I hope you like being ineffective.

Whatever mate. I like having fun with a game I enjoy rather than incessantly pissing and moaning about the same thing over and over again like a crybaby stuck record. Honestly I have no idea why you bother engaging with 40K given how irredeemably embittered you seem to be about it. Maybe try doing something you enjoy instead?

If I played in your group, I'd probably be fine with it. Since it has never been demonstrated to you )(in my case, again and again and again) how bad the flamer/missile launcher combo is. You can get away with it because you're not looking at having zero models by turn 4. I'm just guessing.

Maybe I'm burning out on playing for pure effectiveness, but that's what this thread is about. Effectiveness.

I'd be fine with losing relentless as a KDK player seeing as I only run melta bikes anyways, replacing the bolt gun not the pistol. It would make literally no difference to me.

Martel732 wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:

Martel732 wrote:


I hope you like being ineffective.

Whatever mate. I like having fun with a game I enjoy rather than incessantly pissing and moaning about the same thing over and over again like a crybaby stuck record. Honestly I have no idea why you bother engaging with 40K given how irredeemably embittered you seem to be about it. Maybe try doing something you enjoy instead?

If I played in your group, I'd probably be fine with it. Since it has never been demonstrated to you )(in my case, again and again and again) how bad the flamer/missile launcher combo is. You can get away with it because you're not looking at having zero models by turn 4. I'm just guessing.

Maybe I'm burning out on playing for pure effectiveness, but that's what this thread is about. Effectiveness.

Yeah the Flamer/ML loadout is pretty bad but it is super nostalgic for those of us that started with Battle For Macragge.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Yeah the Flamer/ML loadout is pretty bad but it is super nostalgic for those of us that started with Battle For Macragge.

ML/Flamer has been the stock tac load since the dawn of time, not just the Battle of Macragge. They were the weapons in the RTB01 box. They were the push-fits in the 2nd ed starter. 3rd edition and the return of multipose plastics? The only options in that box were ML/F. 4th starter, we can see the pattern...

I don’t know when the other specials were included in the tac box. I do remember buying a grey hunter box back in 3rd, just because the upgrade sprue had a meltagun! The first time a heavy weapon other then the ML was included in a multipart plastic tactical kit was the Mk. IV ones from BaC this year!

I may be a mediocre, jack of all trades loadout for tacticals, but it’s got a ton of history and momentum behind it. Which is why I generally try to include one in my lists. But I do it with my eyes open and low expectations of results.

Flamers are actually okay (automatically hitting and ignoring cover is money), but missile launchers are now a special kind of terrible. AP 3 is especially embarrassing in WarhammerAP2.

Another issue is that you want maximum Rhino/troop. So it's all 5-man all the time, so when a Rhino gets fragged (not if), your opponent strands 5 men, not 10. 140 points of tac marine on foot is 140 points you opponent can ignore.

The missile launcher was actually quite good in 2nd, it just cost a lot. Then 3rd came along and nerfed krak missiles into the ground.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

1.5 Bikers are a bit less than 10 Tactical Marines by maybe a Rhino. That 4+ is as good as another body.

If we're looking at them naked, maybe. Looking at them after full kit, the price differences manifest distinctly in the Bikers favor, especially if minmaxing. Going back to my earlier example, after kit for a ten man unit of each, the difference was what, 15pts? In a minmaxd unit, 5 bikers with 2 PG's and a powerfist is what, 155pts, while a 5man tac squad with a PG and combi+fist in a Rhino is 160?

Comparing the units on equal numbers with kit really shows how skewed stuff is. Part of that is because the Tacs basically require a transport, as they lack the mobility of the bikes and the T5 and 4+cover to mitigate damage.

The durability difference isn't as grand as you claim for it to be.

T5 with Jink and a far better ability to set the terms of engagement through mobility is huge, thats a pretty grand difference in functionality at the level of the units are are talking about.

Rhinos also add a good amount of durability to Tactical Marines, but durability isn't their primary issue, is it?

Not for the Tacs, but the T5 and Jink is a cornerstone of Biker bonuses that make Tacs seen as being pointless. Why take the Tacs when the same points will get you a more durable unit?

2. I'm sure Martel could more easily explain to you why Rhinos are important against Alpha Strikes. For the definition of Alpha Strike, we got several choices: Skyhammer, Scatterbikes hitting you first, Skitarii Drop Pods (though we will see if this is a thing anymore once the FAQ is official), Raven Guard Vanguard charges, etc. I'm not sure if you're playing the game at all now, but that's important to counter against. Bikers don't live against these things because they're either weight of wounds or have enough AP2 for that 4+ cover save to crumble.

In some circumstances, sure, I'd agree, but it all depends on what theyre being hit with. Being hit by scatterlasers or a full Centstar barrage, the 4+ wont matter, but theres a host of Alpha Strike stuff that will be dramatically mitigated by Jink, and against Scatterbikes the T5 will make a difference (not huge, but enough to be noticeable)

3. Because they wouldn't have a platform like a Rhino to keep them firing at max range.

How does a Rhino allow grav guns to always be fired at max range?

They could spam themail regular Grav gun more, but they'd be worse than the cannon option of the Tactical Marine rather than being on almost even footing.

and thats not a reasonable tradeoff for enhanced resiliency and mobility...?

4. Rhinos and Drop Pods already enabled that. The nice thing about Bikers was being able to do that and engage in melee, compared to the Tactical Marines being able to focus on shooting.

and being able to fire at full effectiveness, and charge, and get an extra CC attack at I10 to boot doesnt appear...excessive? Especially for a negligible points premium? Thats kinda what Im getting at, wanting to have a unit that does everything at full effectiveness with no meaningful tradeoff, at a negligible points increase, is a wee bit overboard.

For the record it is also a bad move because you're hitting Chaos Bikers indirectly as well. Now they're forced into Melta Guns instead of having the option to do Plasma.

I dont think CSM (or Eldar) bikers should be able to do all those things either. CSM bikers cant be made troops and form the core of an army the way SM bikes can, making the internal balance problem less pressing. Eldar Jetbikes also obviously need some significant toning down.

5. T5 is good and Jink is nice when it actually helps, but Tactical Marines get the option of creating two scoring units thanks to their transport.

You can combat squad bikes cant you? The option is there, you just need a full sized unit.

6. No, the issue here is Tactical Marines don't have a niche for attacking. Hence why we have Bikers for real offense and Scouts for primarily scoring. The issue has always been Tactical Marines, not Bikers.

Tacs have some functionality issues, but the answer to that shouldnt be a biker unit that just does more than what the tacs do and does them all better. Theres a lot of problems with 40k, and none of them exist in a vacuum, but while Tacs have their issues, Bikers (from all armies) are stupidly overcapable, especially for what they cost, and often in completely nonsensical ways.

7. And then the Tactical Marines AND Bikers do nothing? I'm unsure if you actually care about Balance or just hate Bikers.

I dont *hate* Bikers (though Im not a fan of their implementation as heavy cavalry), and Im not saying there shouldnt also be changes elsewhere, but the Bikers are really overcapable, and if the response to a potential nerfing is to use units that are actually supposed to fills the roles that Bikers overtook because they were overcapable, I dont see that as a bad thing.

8. People complained when that happened because it made Tactical Marines worse off, but nobody was using them in the first place. I'm putting everything together to show Tactical Marines are the problem. Everyone is using them to balance against when they were always the worst off outside 4th when they could do two special weapons.

Again, the two special weapons thing isnt that huge an issue. CSMs can take two specials, and most competitive CSM armies avoid taking any actual CSMs at all if they can. Im not opposed to SMs getting that option but I dont think thats really the core of the issue. The scale of the game gas bloated to the point where basic infantry is left behind, and units like Bikers and Scatterbikes just do everything better, while mechanics changes have hosed their versatility at the smaller levels. Allowing units to charge out of transports in the 5E style would make units like Tacs a whole lot more viable in general, and I think a lot more than just an extea special weapon.

I maintain that bikes without

a) massed heavy weapons
b) rerollable jink saves
c) invincible tanking ICs
d) invis

are not that big a deal. Even relentless grav guns only reach 18", allowing for all kinds of ugly return fire. Two grav guns aren't tabling anyone anytime soon either. Standard jink saves of 4+ are easily overcome as well.

Guys, guys. . . Tactical vs. Bikes, here it is:

Tacticals are better at taking a position, and holding it.

Bikes are better on the move, duh.

Both have a place.

But are Bikes weirdly a little too good at shooting on the move? Sure. Somehow driving a motorcycle makes it easier to fire a two handed weapon that requires stability to get maximum effect. I suppose this could represent them darting forward on the vehicle, then stopping, putting their feet on the ground and firing, but I'm not sure I go along with that idea, especially when they can assault right afterwards.

This is 7th ed. The best way to take a position for non-gladius lists is to kill the unit trying to take it from you. The bikes are 100% better at this task, which is people's problem.

Martel732 wrote:
This is 7th ed. The best way to take a position for non-gladius lists is to kill the unit trying to take it from you. The bikes are 100% better at this task, which is people's problem.

This is 7th Ed. If you're deciding not to use formations then you are playing a different game.

Ultramarine Gladius Tactical Squad, full Grav Loadout in a Rhino will be pumping out Grav with re-rolls to hit for three turns, and be three Ob-sec units. In a good position, once per game they will be firing 11 AP 2 shots, re-rolling to hit, and five of those re-rolling to wound. If you can't figure out how to make that work I've got nothing for you.

Bikes don't Doctrine as well as the Tacs, and their two Grav Guns is equivalent to the single Grav Cannon (since they don't re-roll to wound).

 Insectum7 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
This is 7th ed. The best way to take a position for non-gladius lists is to kill the unit trying to take it from you. The bikes are 100% better at this task, which is people's problem.

This is 7th Ed. If you're deciding not to use formations then you are playing a different game.

Ultramarine Gladius Tactical Squad, full Grav Loadout in a Rhino will be pumping out Grav with re-rolls to hit for three turns, and be three Ob-sec units. In a good position, once per game they will be firing 11 AP 2 shots, re-rolling to hit, and five of those re-rolling to wound. If you can't figure out how to make that work I've got nothing for you.

Bikes don't Doctrine as well as the Tacs, and their two Grav Guns is equivalent to the single Grav Cannon (since they don't re-roll to wound).

BA don't get grav cannons on tacs. Neither do SW on their tac-equivalents.

Gladius makes tacs good by giving them free stuff. That, in effect, is the same thing as giving a discount on the tac marines themselves. So at the gladius price point, yeah, they're fine. For BA and SW, they're trash.

Martel732 wrote:


BA don't get grav cannons on tacs. Neither do SW on their tac-equivalents.

Gladius makes tacs good by giving them free stuff. That, in effect, is the same thing as giving a discount on the tac marines themselves. So at the gladius price point, yeah, they're fine. For BA and SW, they're trash.

Then when you say "tacs suck", say "your tacs suck". Because I like mine. I build my armies to get the most out of them, and I can win battles against Bike armies.

Can you do it without the gladius? If not, that means the gladius is good, not the tacs.

Martel732 wrote:
Can you do it without the gladius? If not, that means the gladius is good, not the tacs.

Again, this is 7th, Formations are the way you build armies. A White Scars army is likely using some sort of Formation, and I'll be combatting it with an Ultramarine Formation. But yeah, before 7th I was using Tacs in Rhinos with Grav. 7th just allowed me to double down on it. If I were to go into a battle and my opponent didn't want to use Formations, I would go CAD and still use Tacs with Grav in Rhinos.

I guess it depends on how you view it. I see the power of the tac coming solely from the gladius, and having no power of their own. That makes the gladius good to me, not the actual tac marine. I guarantee you will beat me easily with your gladius, but with your 6th ed tac squads, your life will be much harder.

Tacs begin as reasonable troops. The current vehicle rules give them some more protection with Rhinos, and the introduction of Grav in 6th boosted their offensive output. The availability of the Grav-Cannon in 7th boosted them even further. UM Doctrines (6th and 7th) add some more, the Demi-Co further, and the Gladius even further. Full Battle Co doubles down on MSU and free Transports, and if you want, a UM Character like Sicarius or Centos make them even more reliable.

If you treat them as a tax, they are one thing, if you build your army around them, they are another.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Tacs begin as reasonable troops. The current vehicle rules give them some more protection with Rhinos, and the introduction of Grav in 6th boosted their offensive output. The availability of the Grav-Cannon in 7th boosted them even further. UM Doctrines (6th and 7th) add some more, the Demi-Co further, and the Gladius even further. Full Battle Co doubles down on MSU and free Transports, and if you want, a UM Character like Sicarius or Centos make them even more reliable.

If you treat them as a tax, they are one thing, if you build your army around them, they are another.

Again, they are back to garbage status without the gladius. See: BA and SW. Paying for your Rhinos makes up straight up lose to scatbikes.

Only if you only read half of the post, missing the Grav, Doctrines and supporting Characters, and are overlooking the additional options granted by Drop Pods.

SW and BA obviously build around different strategies, being more assault oriented chapters with either fast vehicles and more jump packs, or wolves and more CC weapons. Tacs should function differently in those armies, as their overall MOs are different.

Drop podding tacs is a lot less awesome than Xenos claim.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

1.5 Bikers are a bit less than 10 Tactical Marines by maybe a Rhino. That 4+ is as good as another body.

If we're looking at them naked, maybe. Looking at them after full kit, the price differences manifest distinctly in the Bikers favor, especially if minmaxing. Going back to my earlier example, after kit for a ten man unit of each, the difference was what, 15pts? In a minmaxd unit, 5 bikers with 2 PG's and a powerfist is what, 155pts, while a 5man tac squad with a PG and combi+fist in a Rhino is 160?

Comparing the units on equal numbers with kit really shows how skewed stuff is. Part of that is because the Tacs basically require a transport, as they lack the mobility of the bikes and the T5 and 4+cover to mitigate damage.

The durability difference isn't as grand as you claim for it to be.

T5 with Jink and a far better ability to set the terms of engagement through mobility is huge, thats a pretty grand difference in functionality at the level of the units are are talking about.

Rhinos also add a good amount of durability to Tactical Marines, but durability isn't their primary issue, is it?

Not for the Tacs, but the T5 and Jink is a cornerstone of Biker bonuses that make Tacs seen as being pointless. Why take the Tacs when the same points will get you a more durable unit?

2. I'm sure Martel could more easily explain to you why Rhinos are important against Alpha Strikes. For the definition of Alpha Strike, we got several choices: Skyhammer, Scatterbikes hitting you first, Skitarii Drop Pods (though we will see if this is a thing anymore once the FAQ is official), Raven Guard Vanguard charges, etc. I'm not sure if you're playing the game at all now, but that's important to counter against. Bikers don't live against these things because they're either weight of wounds or have enough AP2 for that 4+ cover save to crumble.

In some circumstances, sure, I'd agree, but it all depends on what theyre being hit with. Being hit by scatterlasers or a full Centstar barrage, the 4+ wont matter, but theres a host of Alpha Strike stuff that will be dramatically mitigated by Jink, and against Scatterbikes the T5 will make a difference (not huge, but enough to be noticeable)

3. Because they wouldn't have a platform like a Rhino to keep them firing at max range.

How does a Rhino allow grav guns to always be fired at max range?

They could spam themail regular Grav gun more, but they'd be worse than the cannon option of the Tactical Marine rather than being on almost even footing.

and thats not a reasonable tradeoff for enhanced resiliency and mobility...?

4. Rhinos and Drop Pods already enabled that. The nice thing about Bikers was being able to do that and engage in melee, compared to the Tactical Marines being able to focus on shooting.

and being able to fire at full effectiveness, and charge, and get an extra CC attack at I10 to boot doesnt appear...excessive? Especially for a negligible points premium? Thats kinda what Im getting at, wanting to have a unit that does everything at full effectiveness with no meaningful tradeoff, at a negligible points increase, is a wee bit overboard.

For the record it is also a bad move because you're hitting Chaos Bikers indirectly as well. Now they're forced into Melta Guns instead of having the option to do Plasma.

I dont think CSM (or Eldar) bikers should be able to do all those things either. CSM bikers cant be made troops and form the core of an army the way SM bikes can, making the internal balance problem less pressing. Eldar Jetbikes also obviously need some significant toning down.

5. T5 is good and Jink is nice when it actually helps, but Tactical Marines get the option of creating two scoring units thanks to their transport.

You can combat squad bikes cant you? The option is there, you just need a full sized unit.

6. No, the issue here is Tactical Marines don't have a niche for attacking. Hence why we have Bikers for real offense and Scouts for primarily scoring. The issue has always been Tactical Marines, not Bikers.

Tacs have some functionality issues, but the answer to that shouldnt be a biker unit that just does more than what the tacs do and does them all better. Theres a lot of problems with 40k, and none of them exist in a vacuum, but while Tacs have their issues, Bikers (from all armies) are stupidly overcapable, especially for what they cost, and often in completely nonsensical ways.

7. And then the Tactical Marines AND Bikers do nothing? I'm unsure if you actually care about Balance or just hate Bikers.

I dont *hate* Bikers (though Im not a fan of their implementation as heavy cavalry), and Im not saying there shouldnt also be changes elsewhere, but the Bikers are really overcapable, and if the response to a potential nerfing is to use units that are actually supposed to fills the roles that Bikers overtook because they were overcapable, I dont see that as a bad thing.

8. People complained when that happened because it made Tactical Marines worse off, but nobody was using them in the first place. I'm putting everything together to show Tactical Marines are the problem. Everyone is using them to balance against when they were always the worst off outside 4th when they could do two special weapons.

Again, the two special weapons thing isnt that huge an issue. CSMs can take two specials, and most competitive CSM armies avoid taking any actual CSMs at all if they can. Im not opposed to SMs getting that option but I dont think thats really the core of the issue. The scale of the game gas bloated to the point where basic infantry is left behind, and units like Bikers and Scatterbikes just do everything better, while mechanics changes have hosed their versatility at the smaller levels. Allowing units to charge out of transports in the 5E style would make units like Tacs a whole lot more viable in general, and I think a lot more than just an extea special weapon.

1. gak argument. Why are you buying a Power Fist for a unit you KNOW won't assault or can't assault well? When you pour points into useless upgrades, you get useless results. A Tactical Squad like that was NEVER meant to perform well.
2. T5 definitely helps vs small arms, but you're exaggerating how great Jink is. It is fairly easy for most infantry to get a cover save anyway. Bikers simply don't need the terrain at the cost of shooting performance.
3. Honestly, if your alpha strike list is countered by a mere T5 and a 4+ cover save, it wasn't a good alpha strike list to begin with. How many of the things I suggested earlier are actually countered by that? None.
4. Depends how far the Rhino moves.
5. Because Space Marine Bikers were wiping out squads with 2-3 S4 hits on the charge and then left with 1 attack if that fails? If you really think they're any good at melee you're already not changing your mind.
6. If you really think Chaos Bikers shouldn't be able to do that, you really don't understand the balance of the game. They don't have to be made troops either. You either take their equivalent of the Decurion for the OS, you pay a "tax" of MoK to get a bunch of them with Hounds.
If a Lord or Sorcerer unlocked them as troops if they take a bike, would you HONESTLY have issues? Also, everyone already knows Windriders are a separate issue.
7. Or is it that Bikers are JUST capable of the job, like Scouts, and there's a desperation to bring them down? I think it is this. Do we really want everything on the level of Tactical Marines? No. We need a fix for them instead.
8. Except they're just doing the role of what Tactical Marines should be doing. Nobody complains when Scouts are used to do the same things, and quite frankly that's ONLY because of Grav Guns. Those aren't even greatly dangerous anyway.
9. Chaos Tactical Marines are not used for several other reasons. The way they function makes more sense though. However, here's reasons why nobody uses them:
a. The mandatory champion tax
b. Plague Marines and Chosen get their special weapons fix FOR LESS
c. They lost their CCW's and have to buy them back at an expensive price
d. Cultists as the tax means more room for things that don't suck in the codex.
You ever use this pile of junk codex? I sure have.

Martel732 wrote:
Drop podding tacs is a lot less awesome than Xenos claim.

Hehe, but certainly a lot better than you claim.

I don't know. Podded units have a tendency to die really quickly. Non-gladius tac marines are just subpar from a objective standpoint. I tabled tac heavy list after tac heavy list in 5th ed. Before I got gimped by GW. Your obj sec doesn't matter if I table you.

The only response I can give you is to offer a game or two if we ever meet in person.

Would prove very little as i have ba who are inferior to vanilla marines in every way. I've 20 years of play informing my opinion of tac marines.

Martel732 wrote:
I've 20 years of play informing my opinion of tac marines.

Likewise.

That weakens your position considerably, actually. Anyone who thinks tacs were good in 2nd and 5th is not demonstrating an objective viewpoint. 6th and 7th I can understand for sure and 3rd and 4th kinda.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

1. gak argument. Why are you buying a Power Fist for a unit you KNOW won't assault or can't assault well? When you pour points into useless upgrades, you get useless results. A Tactical Squad like that was NEVER meant to perform well.

I'm comparing like for like and have seen people kit tac squads out with powerfists on 5man units before (or on units the intend to use combat squaded as 5man units). One also might not see such a setup much at 2k points, but at 750 such units are often rather common. Even if we take the Powerfist off the Tac squad, the Tac squad is worse in just about every way and is a mere 10% cheaper? Either way, it's an issue.

2. T5 definitely helps vs small arms, but you're exaggerating how great Jink is. It is fairly easy for most infantry to get a cover save anyway. Bikers simply don't need the terrain at the cost of shooting performance.

There's all sorts of places where Jink comes in handy, and as my primary armies are Guard and CSM, burning through T5 with 3+/4++cover isn't exactly the easiest thing in the universe the way it might be for the megabroken Eldar. One will notice most SM deathstars not built around SW's are instead built around T5 Jinking Bikers of one sort or another (either DA's or WS's).

3. Honestly, if your alpha strike list is countered by a mere T5 and a 4+ cover save, it wasn't a good alpha strike list to begin with. How many of the things I suggested earlier are actually countered by that? None.

If they're bringing enough firepower to kill anything that isn't a 700pt Deathstar, sure, but then lets acknowledge that for what it is, overwhelming firepower that will kill almost anything. If we're talking about something like a drop pod of sternguard with combiplasmas, or a flurry of IG pieplates, that 4+ matters a whole lot, and as noted, the T5 does take an edge off of things like Scatterlasers.

4. Depends how far the Rhino moves.

Same would hold true for the bikes then instead of them just always getting to fire at max effectiveness just because.

5. Because Space Marine Bikers were wiping out squads with 2-3 S4 hits on the charge and then left with 1 attack if that fails? If you really think they're any good at melee you're already not changing your mind.

I'm not saying they're amazing CC ultra killers, but being able to fire at full effectiveness with identical or better weapons than Tac's, with greater mobility and resiliency, and charge at the same time, with more attacks to boot, makes for a unit that can just do too much for what it pays, particularly next to its alternatives and counterparts.

6. If you really think Chaos Bikers shouldn't be able to do that, you really don't understand the balance of the game. They don't have to be made troops either. You either take their equivalent of the Decurion for the OS, you pay a "tax" of MoK to get a bunch of them with Hounds.
If a Lord or Sorcerer unlocked them as troops if they take a bike, would you HONESTLY have issues?

I have issues with bikes being overcapable, regardless of the codex. I don't think it's specific to any one army. Getting a T boost, Relentless, an extra I10 charge hit, Jink, 2-4x the speed and no slowing for terrain, with generally better weapons options than footslogging counterparts, for the tiny relative premium they pay, is pretty ridiculous regardless of codex.

Also, everyone already knows Windriders are a separate issue.

They're part of the whole "bikes simply do too much" issue. They're shootier, they're hardier, they charge harder, they're more mobile, etc and not requiring a transport means they ultimately end up no more expensive than their inferior counterparts, often less, it's hard to see a reason to take a footslogging alternative for the same points in most cases.

7. Or is it that Bikers are JUST capable of the job, like Scouts, and there's a desperation to bring them down? I think it is this.

So...I have some deep seated bias against Bike units for some strange unknown reason? I don't hate bikes, I'm not desperate to "bring them down" because they're "capable", I think they're overcapable and require little thought to use, which I see as a problem. They can shoot as well, or better in most cases, as infantry. They are an order of magnitude more mobile than their infantry counterparts. They are harder to kill then their infantry counterparts and don't have to rely on the use of terrain for damage mitigation if they don't want to. They hit harder on a charge than their infantry alternatives. They just do everything better than their infantry alternatives. And that's what I have a problem with, primarily as they don't really pay a meaningful amount for those bonuses and can just zip around the board doing everything without any trade-offs except with Jink (and even that is mitigated somewhat by TL'd guns).

8. Except they're just doing the role of what Tactical Marines should be doing. Nobody complains when Scouts are used to do the same things, and quite frankly that's ONLY because of Grav Guns. Those aren't even greatly dangerous anyway.

I'm not quite sure which of my responses this was addressed to.

9. Chaos Tactical Marines are not used for several other reasons. The way they function makes more sense though. However, here's reasons why nobody uses them:
a. The mandatory champion tax
b. Plague Marines and Chosen get their special weapons fix FOR LESS
c. They lost their CCW's and have to buy them back at an expensive price
d. Cultists as the tax means more room for things that don't suck in the codex.
You ever use this pile of junk codex? I sure have.

Yeah, I'm well aware of those issues, but ultimately, they can take two specials and end up about on par with Tac squads in terms of other capabilities for the most part for a similar price, but still aren't often used competitively (and even units like Plague Marines aren't often used much anymore, it's a Sorc, Belakor, Cultists and a bunch of Daemons). Double special weapons aren't making or breaking Tac's or CSM's, there are other structural scale and functionality issues that have a dramatically larger impact on that, and that affect other armies as well.

Martel732 wrote:
. . .6th and 7th I can understand for sure . . .

Then why are you complaining about them now?

 Insectum7 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
. . .6th and 7th I can understand for sure . . .

Then why are you complaining about them now?

Because I still think non-gladius tacs are trash. Try to take on Eldar or Tau with a tac-heavy non-Gladius list and let me know how that goes.

If they're going to use Formations then I'll bring mine. If they wanted CAD I'd be happy to do that too. At the very least Drop Podding Grav is a go-to answer for WK, and everything else is at least killable. Swarms of Scatbikes and Warp Spiders will sure be a tough hill to climb, but you know how it goes: Not-OP =/= trash.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

1. gak argument. Why are you buying a Power Fist for a unit you KNOW won't assault or can't assault well? When you pour points into useless upgrades, you get useless results. A Tactical Squad like that was NEVER meant to perform well.

I'm comparing like for like and have seen people kit tac squads out with powerfists on 5man units before (or on units the intend to use combat squaded as 5man units). One also might not see such a setup much at 2k points, but at 750 such units are often rather common. Even if we take the Powerfist off the Tac squad, the Tac squad is worse in just about every way and is a mere 10% cheaper? Either way, it's an issue.

2. T5 definitely helps vs small arms, but you're exaggerating how great Jink is. It is fairly easy for most infantry to get a cover save anyway. Bikers simply don't need the terrain at the cost of shooting performance.

There's all sorts of places where Jink comes in handy, and as my primary armies are Guard and CSM, burning through T5 with 3+/4++cover isn't exactly the easiest thing in the universe the way it might be for the megabroken Eldar. One will notice most SM deathstars not built around SW's are instead built around T5 Jinking Bikers of one sort or another (either DA's or WS's).

3. Honestly, if your alpha strike list is countered by a mere T5 and a 4+ cover save, it wasn't a good alpha strike list to begin with. How many of the things I suggested earlier are actually countered by that? None.

If they're bringing enough firepower to kill anything that isn't a 700pt Deathstar, sure, but then lets acknowledge that for what it is, overwhelming firepower that will kill almost anything. If we're talking about something like a drop pod of sternguard with combiplasmas, or a flurry of IG pieplates, that 4+ matters a whole lot, and as noted, the T5 does take an edge off of things like Scatterlasers.

4. Depends how far the Rhino moves.

Same would hold true for the bikes then instead of them just always getting to fire at max effectiveness just because.

5. Because Space Marine Bikers were wiping out squads with 2-3 S4 hits on the charge and then left with 1 attack if that fails? If you really think they're any good at melee you're already not changing your mind.

I'm not saying they're amazing CC ultra killers, but being able to fire at full effectiveness with identical or better weapons than Tac's, with greater mobility and resiliency, and charge at the same time, with more attacks to boot, makes for a unit that can just do too much for what it pays, particularly next to its alternatives and counterparts.

6. If you really think Chaos Bikers shouldn't be able to do that, you really don't understand the balance of the game. They don't have to be made troops either. You either take their equivalent of the Decurion for the OS, you pay a "tax" of MoK to get a bunch of them with Hounds.
If a Lord or Sorcerer unlocked them as troops if they take a bike, would you HONESTLY have issues?

I have issues with bikes being overcapable, regardless of the codex. I don't think it's specific to any one army. Getting a T boost, Relentless, an extra I10 charge hit, Jink, 2-4x the speed and no slowing for terrain, with generally better weapons options than footslogging counterparts, for the tiny relative premium they pay, is pretty ridiculous regardless of codex.

Also, everyone already knows Windriders are a separate issue.

They're part of the whole "bikes simply do too much" issue. They're shootier, they're hardier, they charge harder, they're more mobile, etc and not requiring a transport means they ultimately end up no more expensive than their inferior counterparts, often less, it's hard to see a reason to take a footslogging alternative for the same points in most cases.

7. Or is it that Bikers are JUST capable of the job, like Scouts, and there's a desperation to bring them down? I think it is this.

So...I have some deep seated bias against Bike units for some strange unknown reason? I don't hate bikes, I'm not desperate to "bring them down" because they're "capable", I think they're overcapable and require little thought to use, which I see as a problem. They can shoot as well, or better in most cases, as infantry. They are an order of magnitude more mobile than their infantry counterparts. They are harder to kill then their infantry counterparts and don't have to rely on the use of terrain for damage mitigation if they don't want to. They hit harder on a charge than their infantry alternatives. They just do everything better than their infantry alternatives. And that's what I have a problem with, primarily as they don't really pay a meaningful amount for those bonuses and can just zip around the board doing everything without any trade-offs except with Jink (and even that is mitigated somewhat by TL'd guns).

8. Except they're just doing the role of what Tactical Marines should be doing. Nobody complains when Scouts are used to do the same things, and quite frankly that's ONLY because of Grav Guns. Those aren't even greatly dangerous anyway.

I'm not quite sure which of my responses this was addressed to.

9. Chaos Tactical Marines are not used for several other reasons. The way they function makes more sense though. However, here's reasons why nobody uses them:
a. The mandatory champion tax
b. Plague Marines and Chosen get their special weapons fix FOR LESS
c. They lost their CCW's and have to buy them back at an expensive price
d. Cultists as the tax means more room for things that don't suck in the codex.
You ever use this pile of junk codex? I sure have.

Yeah, I'm well aware of those issues, but ultimately, they can take two specials and end up about on par with Tac squads in terms of other capabilities for the most part for a similar price, but still aren't often used competitively (and even units like Plague Marines aren't often used much anymore, it's a Sorc, Belakor, Cultists and a bunch of Daemons). Double special weapons aren't making or breaking Tac's or CSM's, there are other structural scale and functionality issues that have a dramatically larger impact on that, and that affect other armies as well.

1. If you play with people that kit out their units in a gak way, they get gak results. The issue is that Tactical Marines don't really HAVE an optimal loadout. They have several bad ones. Now, is that the fault of Bikers or the Tactical Marines. I also don't care what you see, I care about what is done competitively. You definitely won't see that at 750 either because it is an easy kill target for the points.

Like, what the hell goes on in your area? People just do what they feel like? It isn't any wonder why Bikers seem over capable.
2. You're playing with really crap codices. As someone that uses CSM I understand the pain. They don't have an easy time doing anything. That's the fault of poor codex writing courtesy of Phil Kelley though. Don't blame Space Marine and Ork Bikers for that.
3. IG already have bad internal issues, but one of their good pieces of artillery, the Wyvern, has NO issue killing bikes. The Russ will because Russes are garbage for the price.
Sternguard shouldn't that hurt going after the Bikers. They'll still get the kill, but it isn't the overkill you're expecting from them. I just do two Plasma Guns in a group of 6-7 to force jinks if the opponent is scared and then the 2+ round will force enough wounds to kill them.

Don't spend more than necessary.
4. Rhinos can allow firing at max range but will always provide cover. There's your tradeoff.
5. They don't have extra attacks unless you really do think HoW somehow matters. It makes a difference with Raven Guard and Scars, but otherwise it is a very minor bonus you'll sometimes not even remember. It is basically Fear that happens often.
It really isn't more attacks for the price, plus there's Chapter Tactics that mitigate those issues.
6. And you fail to address the alternative: is it that Bikers are over capable, or are Tactical equivalents under capable? Tactical Marines cannot specialize to hurt a specific target and be on the move. Ork Boyz are too easily wiped out without a force field (and then you have Ignores Cover being a thing). Eldar Guardians actually have a great gun, but getting into range to use it will never happen to the point you don't take them over Dire Avengers, who have better bonuses anyway if you didn't want Scatterlasers everywhere. Chaos Tactical Marines get their fix of special weapons for more than Bikers, Raptors, Plague Marines, AND Chosen and Havocs, two of those being able to become troops.

There's no equivalent for Guard outside Rough Riders but they're garbage so...

However, nobody complains about having Grey Hunters as troops. This is part of the reason why.
7. This is mostly addressed in #6. However, the ONLY Biker unit paying too little for these bonuses is Windriders.
Unless you think we should the way of old where Bikers where about 30 a piece and got little use because of it. I definitely never saw Bikers in 4th, when I started, outside a few games (and then there was Destroyers, worth their weight in gold).
8. You said Bikers were doing everything better than Tactical Marines, when the issue is that they have functionality issues. Scouts don't have issues. Bikers don't have issues. Grey Hunters definitely don't have issues.
9. That is because Vanilla Chaos Marines lost a bunch, including slightly okay LD, extra weapons, and they have to pay a tax for the Champion. I partially covered this in #6 as well, where you get Special weapons for cheaper elsewhere, plus two of those choices (Plague and Chosen) can be troops. In another post, I talked about how Bikers could pay a minimal tax of MoK and be taken in a Gorepack, which is awesome.
Why would you want Chaos Marines in the first place when you can just pay the Cultist tax or use other means to get special weapons and still be good at scoring?

Hammer of Wrath is actually BETTER than an extra attack, since it auto-hits. Against WS 4 guys, that's the equivalent of two bonus attacks.

The exception is if you have an actual weapon, in which case, it's much worse.

Haven't read through the entire thread, but I do know that motorcycles with mounted machine guns were used by the US in WWI and WWII

And bikes were ridden by US soldiers holding Tompson machine guns, which just seems ridiculous and horrible to do (having fire a tompson before that thing is heavy!)

And, they have been used in somewhat modern warfare as escort units.

So its not *that* far out there, but its still pretty stupid.

It makes sense that Eldar jetbikes get relentless because they seem extremely maneuverable and easy to pivot and shoot with.

But a space marine bike? Hell no. Although it is an important balancing factor, as it would nerf my precious fluffy swiftclaws to the ground if they lost it, it shouldn't make heavy weapons fire at full effectiveness.

Maybe rapid fire, then charge? But no heavy weapons bar attack bikes?

Just my %0.02

~Mikey

There's nothing wrong with Bikes of any kind that taking them out of the Troops category doesn't fix. That'd seem to be the way GW is going anyway. Codex: Dark Angels doesn't have the option of taking Ravenwing Bike Squadrons as Troops anymore. Instead, it has the Ravenwing Strike Force detachment. I expect we'll see similar revisions in future dexes.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
There's nothing wrong with Bikes of any kind that taking them out of the Troops category doesn't fix. That'd seem to be the way GW is going anyway. Codex: Dark Angels doesn't have the option of taking Ravenwing Bike Squadrons as Troops anymore. Instead, it has the Ravenwing Strike Force detachment. I expect we'll see similar revisions in future dexes.

Well...except for scatter bikes, they need to die in a fire. And moving them to Fast attack (where they belong) would definitely be good but then you would just see more abuse from the stupid formations that they get access to so they can spam those and Warp spiders still.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
There's nothing wrong with Bikes of any kind that taking them out of the Troops category doesn't fix. That'd seem to be the way GW is going anyway. Codex: Dark Angels doesn't have the option of taking Ravenwing Bike Squadrons as Troops anymore. Instead, it has the Ravenwing Strike Force detachment. I expect we'll see similar revisions in future dexes.

Well...except for scatter bikes, they need to die in a fire. And moving them to Fast attack (where they belong) would definitely be good but then you would just see more abuse from the stupid formations that they get access to so they can spam those and Warp spiders still.

People need to stop saying that Windriders need to be moved to FA. Guardian Jetbikes have been Troops for decades and form the backbone of an entire Craftworld amry (Saim-Hann). And the last time I checked, there are way more Eldar on a Craftworld than Space Marines in a Chapter. Saying Windriders need to be moved to FA is like saying Tactical Marines need to be moved to Elite.

Now if you want to move SCATTER bikes to FA, I would be cool with that.
Keep the traditional Windriders that can upgrade 1 per 3 Shuricannon as Troops, then create a Fast Attack choice (let's call them "Stormriders") in which any "Stormrider" can upgrade to a Shuricannon or Scatterlaser.
Then you can change the Windrider Host to include 2-3 units of Windriders, 1 Vyper unit and only 1 "Stormrider" unit.
That would more than half the number of Scatterbike you could take in any army.

-

 Galef wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
There's nothing wrong with Bikes of any kind that taking them out of the Troops category doesn't fix. That'd seem to be the way GW is going anyway. Codex: Dark Angels doesn't have the option of taking Ravenwing Bike Squadrons as Troops anymore. Instead, it has the Ravenwing Strike Force detachment. I expect we'll see similar revisions in future dexes.

Well...except for scatter bikes, they need to die in a fire. And moving them to Fast attack (where they belong) would definitely be good but then you would just see more abuse from the stupid formations that they get access to so they can spam those and Warp spiders still.

People need to stop saying that Windriders need to be moved to FA. Guardian Jetbikes have been Troops for decades and form the backbone of an entire Craftworld amry (Saim-Hann). And the last time I checked, there are way more Eldar on a Craftworld than Space Marines in a Chapter. Saying Windriders need to be moved to FA is like saying Tactical Marines need to be moved to Elite.

Now if you want to move SCATTER bikes to FA, I would be cool with that.
Keep the traditional Windriders that can upgrade 1 per 3 Shuricannon as Troops, then create a Fast Attack choice (let's call them "Stormriders") in which any "Stormrider" can upgrade to a Shuricannon or Scatterlaser.
Then you can change the Windrider Host to include 2-3 units of Windriders, 1 Vyper unit and only 1 "Stormrider" unit.
That would more than half the number of Scatterbike you could take in any army.

-

There is also an entire Ork Tribe that likes bikes and fast vehicles I think they MASSIVELY out number EVERY Craftworld combined by themselves. So shouldn't orks be able to take Warbikers (for cheaper because reasons) as troops as well?

SemperMortis wrote:

There is also an entire Ork Tribe that likes bikes and fast vehicles I think they MASSIVELY out number EVERY Craftworld combined by themselves. So shouldn't orks be able to take Warbikers (for cheaper because reasons) as troops as well?

Yes. 100%. Absolutely.

Just because GW takes a dump on 1 army, doesn't justify or necessitate dumping on another.


-

Galef wrote:
People need to stop saying that Windriders need to be moved to FA. Guardian Jetbikes have been Troops for decades and form the backbone of an entire Craftworld amry (Saim-Hann).

And there's a detachment that reflects this already. Windriders don't also need to be in Troops. Having them there dates to the 4th ed Eldar dex, when they were shifted to Troops because conditional FOC swaps weren't a thing yet, and Phil Kelly didn't want to invalidate Samm-Hann armies. Which is fine for then, but not for now. Everybody else is losing their conditional FOC-swaps. Heck, before the 4th ed Codex: Eldar came out, Dark Angels had an alternate FOC they could use where Ravenwing Bikes became Troops. Now, they don't have that anymore, they don't have conditional FOC swaps anymore, but they DO have the Ravenwing Strike Force. So your argument that Windriders shouldn't get shifted to FA because of the amount of time they've been Troops has no weight. There is absolutely no valid reason Eldar should get to keep Windriders as Troops any longer.

Just one question - what do people think about keeping bikes as troops, with the condition of having other troops unblocking them?

- You can select one Windrider troop for each unit of guardians, rangers or dire avengers.
- You can select one Space Marine bikers troop for each unit of scouts or tacticals

I see that people could be upset to lose a "fast" army theme, but transports are there for a reason...
Would these be considered "taxes" too high?

Just make the scatterlaser 20 or 25 pts and the scatterbike is fair and the rest of this doesn't matter. Appropriate pricing makes 90% of hang-wringing moot.

Don't try to be crazy Martel. Making Riders 4+ and Scatterlasers 15 on them is a perfectly reasonable fix.

That works too. But it doesn't fix the scatterlaser on all the other Eldar platforms.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:

And there's a detachment that reflects this already. Windriders don't also need to be in Troops. Having them there dates to the 4th ed Eldar dex, when they were shifted to Troops because conditional FOC swaps weren't a thing yet, and Phil Kelly didn't want to invalidate Samm-Hann armies. Which is fine for then, but not for now. Everybody else is losing their conditional FOC-swaps. Heck, before the 4th ed Codex: Eldar came out, Dark Angels had an alternate FOC they could use where Ravenwing Bikes became Troops. Now, they don't have that anymore, they don't have conditional FOC swaps anymore, but they DO have the Ravenwing Strike Force. So your argument that Windriders shouldn't get shifted to FA because of the amount of time they've been Troops has no weight. There is absolutely no valid reason Eldar should get to keep Windriders as Troops any longer.

I'm really in the camp where I think it's moot whether or not they're troops, since they're available in their own formation anyways. How much does it matter? I suppose they're Ob-Sec in a CAD, but it's just not that big of an issue to me. The standout issue remains the cheap and abundant Scatter Lasers.

Jetbikes being Fast Attack cuts down on the availability of other Fast Attack options in a CAD, though. Hawks, Spiders, Spears, Vypers and aircraft. I don't think that's good.

I am pretty jaded on this topic because I am a fairly new player and my friend has a DA army with Sammael in a Ravenwing Command squad getting librarian buffs crapping all over me every time we play. Bikes would not be a problem if certain factions/chapters did not have special rules pushing them over the top. You would be seeing people with bikes making tournament top 10 every time with something besides White Scar, Dark Angels, Eldar flavor of the edition lists if the bikes them self where the problem. They need to fix that before you start adjusting stats, taking away 1 toughness is not going to fix the issue of 95% of your army choices being uncompetitive. Building a gladius so you can bleed units or switching to one of the anointed factions should not be the answer given to new players. And who ever came up with 3+ rerollable jink saves needs to be slapped.

 gummyofallbears wrote:
Haven't read through the entire thread, but I do know that motorcycles with mounted machine guns were used by the US in WWI and WWII

And bikes were ridden by US soldiers holding Tompson machine guns, which just seems ridiculous and horrible to do (having fire a tompson before that thing is heavy!)

But in these cases the machine gun was usually bolted on a sidecar with a separate gunner (at least the German version) and Thompsons too were often mounted somehow, not fired from the hip while riding along at 80mph. Bike troops generally dismounted (or at least stopped moving) before they started shooting simply because they too liked actually hitting their targets.

SemperMortis wrote:There is also an entire Ork Tribe that likes bikes and fast vehicles I think they MASSIVELY out number EVERY Craftworld combined by themselves. So shouldn't orks be able to take Warbikers (for cheaper because reasons) as troops as well?

Here's a crazy thought:

Maybe we should just ignore fluff when we talk about game balance, given the fact that game balance is ultimately a matter of structural/mathematical mechanics, not fluff.

Martel732 wrote:
Appropriate pricing makes 90% of hang-wringing moot.

You're not wrong here. I don't really have a problem with Eldar being fast, manoeuvrable, and having crazy good guns; all those things are entirely in keeping with what Eldar should be about. The problem is that they aren't paying enough points for a horrifically effective unit.

Did a bit of maths: A scatter laser jetbike costs FEWER points than the guy in a tactical squad carrying a missile launcher (let's not get into whether or not he should have that missile launcher for now, hey?). The SL is significantly more effective than the missile launcher at killing more or less everything (the only exceptions to this are once you're dealing with AV12+). The statline's basically the same, bar S (and, let's face it if you're getting into CC with either of these guys you're doing it wrong). Yet the pointy-head gets all the benefits of being a jetbike. Not to mention that in their respective units, the jetbike can be joined by two of his mates, also with scatter lasers, for fewer points than the marines other four lads with bolters cost.

Now personally, I know some people have issues with the traditional tac squad loadout (and tac marines in general), but I think it'd be a shame to ditch it/them. What I have a problem with is that 1. a weedy little Eldar gets on a pointy bike and suddenly becomes a flying space marine, with absolutely zero drawbacks; 2. the stupidly low points cost of this guy when upgraded to having a horrifically effective weapon. Bump them to about 50+ppm and I think people would be a lot less mad about them, but they'd still be worthwhile taking in an Eldar list – they're that good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Don't try to be crazy Martel. Making Riders 4+ and Scatterlasers 15 on them is a perfectly reasonable fix.

Spent so long typing my response I missed this. Obviously if their base stats get dropped, then the points don't need to go up as much. But still, I think 32 points for a 4+ jetbike with a SL is crazy good. I'd say 35, absolute minimum. They'd still get taken at 40-45.

I think a big problem is the shooting aspect teamed with Kelly's inability for his models to be bad at anything.

SMs are relatively speaking ok at CC. Good armor teamed with T5 and S4 is not bad. # of attacks is a bit of a problem but hey whatever. They also get good weapons to put on those bikes to team with their BS4. So over all they are good at CC, good at shooting and Fast. Cost? 21ppm (7 more then basic Tactical marine)

Eldar are not as good at CC, Same armor as a SM, lower Strength and Toughness and their standard weapon is 12' shorter ranged...of course it has Bladestorm which is nice but not necessarily a huge boost. They do Have higher Initiative and can equip EVERY BIKE with a Scat laser. At BS4 this is devastating. Cost? 17ppm (4 more then standard Dire Avenger) Interesting to note, the bike gives +1 armor, +1 Toughness and TL weapon not to mention massive boost to movement and a 4+Jink save and Eldar players get that for 4ppm......

Orks are good at CC, not great but good. T5 is good but S3 is still a huge problem, even with 2 attacks base (3 w/CC weapons). 4+ armor is good (best ork boyz can get) but not nearly as good as the 3+ SMs and Eldar get. Gunz, here is where orks get a nice little boost. Dakkagunz are S5 AP5 Assault 3 TL. For a BS2 boy that means almost 2 hits per model each shooting phase, not bad. Range 18 is a problem (1/2 the distance of a SL) but Warbikers pack some decent dakka. Price? 18ppm (12!!!!! POINTS MORE then a standard boy)

So to put that in perspective the Eldar only loses 1 category to other armies and that is in CC, to balance that out so that it never is a problem, Windriders are Jetbikes which are significantly faster then every other biker out there. They also have the longest ranged guns. And even worse then all of that, they are the cheapest upgrade from a standard infantry model. 4ppm for Eldar, 7ppm for SM and 12ppm for Orks.

gunnr80 wrote:
I am pretty jaded on this topic because I am a fairly new player and my friend has a DA army with Sammael in a Ravenwing Command squad getting librarian buffs crapping all over me every time we play. Bikes would not be a problem if certain factions/chapters did not have special rules pushing them over the top. You would be seeing people with bikes making tournament top 10 every time with something besides White Scar, Dark Angels, Eldar flavor of the edition lists if the bikes them self where the problem. They need to fix that before you start adjusting stats, taking away 1 toughness is not going to fix the issue of 95% of your army choices being uncompetitive. Building a gladius so you can bleed units or switching to one of the anointed factions should not be the answer given to new players. And who ever came up with 3+ rerollable jink saves needs to be slapped.

I don't like rerollable jinks either. Thankfully if you're playing codex space marines we have access to the Pinion demi company which is able to spread plenty of Ignores Cover around with some scout squads. You can shut down that jinking and build an army with more flexibility than the battle company.

 Traditio wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:There is also an entire Ork Tribe that likes bikes and fast vehicles I think they MASSIVELY out number EVERY Craftworld combined by themselves. So shouldn't orks be able to take Warbikers (for cheaper because reasons) as troops as well?

Here's a crazy thought:

Maybe we should just ignore fluff when we talk about game balance, given the fact that game balance is ultimately a matter of structural/mathematical mechanics, not fluff.

Go and play a different game then.

pm713 wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:There is also an entire Ork Tribe that likes bikes and fast vehicles I think they MASSIVELY out number EVERY Craftworld combined by themselves. So shouldn't orks be able to take Warbikers (for cheaper because reasons) as troops as well?

Here's a crazy thought:

Maybe we should just ignore fluff when we talk about game balance, given the fact that game balance is ultimately a matter of structural/mathematical mechanics, not fluff.

Go and play a different game then.

Or god forbid, the idiots in charge take the fluff writers aside and work with them when writing rules. Instead of having 2 completely different universes. 40k Fluff where a SM is capable of taking out entire guard platoons himself, and 40k Game where a SM is taken as a tax because he isn't good unless taken in a stupid formation that lets him bring 400pts of free transports

pm713 wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:There is also an entire Ork Tribe that likes bikes and fast vehicles I think they MASSIVELY out number EVERY Craftworld combined by themselves. So shouldn't orks be able to take Warbikers (for cheaper because reasons) as troops as well?

Here's a crazy thought:

Maybe we should just ignore fluff when we talk about game balance, given the fact that game balance is ultimately a matter of structural/mathematical mechanics, not fluff.

Go and play a different game then.

The fluff is truly meaningless at this point. Nowhere in the fluff does it describe scatterbikes laying waste ti iks like chumps.

Nowhere in the fluff does it even mention jetbikes armed with scatterlasers as far as I can remember, much less units armed entirely with them

]The best fix would be that the TL guns can only fire in a straight line. They are fore mounted on the bike so why can they fire at any enemies in range? should also be able to blow them up. They have a big ass fuel tank right up front. Why a toughness hike? The bike would be an armor at best. My wife doesn't just get super tough when she sits on my bike. Honestly mobility should be the only buff a bike gives. Even run flat tires don't explain how the giant targets that they are makes a guy tougher. This dodge bike is the closest modern analog. Shooting it will feth the rider or bike up

 ThirstySpaceMan wrote:
The best fix would be that the TL guns can only fire in a straight line. They are fore mounted on the bike so why can they fire at any enemies in range? should also be able to blow them up. They have a big ass fuel tank right up front. Why a toughness hike? The bike would be an armor at best. My wife doesn't just get super tough when she sits on my bike. Honestly mobility should be the only buff a bike gives. Even run flat tires don't explain how the giant targets that they are makes a guy tougher. This dodge bike is the closest modern analog. Shooting it will feth the rider or bike up

The straight line shooting would add more complications. Since now jinking and whatnot have been introduced and the point cost reduced, too, probably there is no need of +1T.

Also, scatbikes have 3+. That is a collateral problem but has to go.

Spetulhu wrote:

 gummyofallbears wrote:
Haven't read through the entire thread, but I do know that motorcycles with mounted machine guns were used by the US in WWI and WWII

And bikes were ridden by US soldiers holding Tompson machine guns, which just seems ridiculous and horrible to do (having fire a tompson before that thing is heavy!)

But in these cases the machine gun was usually bolted on a sidecar with a separate gunner (at least the German version) and Thompsons too were often mounted somehow, not fired from the hip while riding along at 80mph. Bike troops generally dismounted (or at least stopped moving) before they started shooting simply because they too liked actually hitting their targets.

I stand corrected. Honestly, I just googled bikes used in warfare and got those results.

That was simply my firehowler fanboyism talking trying to justify vikings on space bikes

True the straight line shooting would complicate things. Perhaps arc of fire like any other vehicles. 1 hp av11 small blast when dies str3 ap0