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Alright, I tried a siege War game today (WS vs UM) and got anihilated. my bikes were utterly destroyed by Perfect timing Centurions, and mine were nowere near the enemy. I didn't try scout moving this game so everything was out of order....


I don't think I know how to play bikes. i have 4 six man squads (flamer, melta and x2 grav) but it seems I lose half of my forces every turn in every game. I have no clue what to do or how to change my tactics, and my luck is some of the worst in the store.


I'm thinking of running 4 eight man squads after losing some points, but I still don't know if they will be survivable enough.

Yah one thing your gonna have to remember is bike armies are an elite army. Your not gonna have a lot of bodies so you need to protect them. Focusing your firepower is crucial. Know what needs to die and make sure it's dead before moving on. I find the more successful I get with bikers it's because I'm learning when to get aggressive and when to lay back. Use LOS blocking terrain as much as possible, and if you use white scars then lock your units into your opponents squishy units via close combat and then hit and run out on your turn.

In y bike army I run a chapter master, khan, 3 full bike units with grav and MM attk bike as the base then sprinkle from there. Typically I start with 1 bike squad + characters + 2xThunderfires on the board then outflank/reserve everything else. I hide that squad as much as possible and only push it where I can do damage while completely mitigating any return damage to my guys.

Bike Armies are hard. Hit Fast. Take advantage of terrain and take outr his army in small pieces, you can't engage his whole army at once. Also support your bikes. You'll get better, just practice.

Bike armies are a lot about the support you can bring. With the mobility and cheapness of the bikes they are great scoring and reasonably good in all the other phases. All of this for ~900 pts.

What support did you bring?

Did you manage to close with the opponent and were you fighting the opponent 2-3 pts to 1?

Were you able to close with the stuff you needed to kill or skirt around the cents to avoid their threat range?

How to play bike armies is super tough to teach or even describe on the internet as they depend on their mobility. Mobility means using the terrain and re-positioning to maximize advantage relative to the opponent.

 ansacs wrote:
Bike armies are a lot about the support you can bring. With the mobility and cheapness of the bikes they are great scoring and reasonably good in all the other phases. All of this for ~900 pts.

What support did you bring?

Did you manage to close with the opponent and were you fighting the opponent 2-3 pts to 1?

Were you able to close with the stuff you needed to kill or skirt around the cents to avoid their threat range?

How to play bike armies is super tough to teach or even describe on the internet as they depend on their mobility. Mobility means using the terrain and re-positioning to maximize advantage relative to the opponent.

Okay, lets answer the first question....

what do you mean by support?

For usual games recently I bring 2 typhoon speeders, a rifleman dread, a thunder fire cannon ( just got a second one) and now i'm bringing Centurions of my own. usually I bring a divination ally like a PFG libby, or Tigurius.

I'm sure this is about Space Marine bikes but I'll throw my ruinous two cents in. I love my bikers, I only have a single squad of four, but xmas is coming. I don't have a lot of decent options for Fast Attack slots (no one say helturkey) so two squads of seven bikes would compliment the Raptors nicely.

As far as how I use them? Well, let's just say that it takes practice. With CSM you get the option for T6 bikers, which people hate to see, but that is about it for power upgrades. You can stick an icon on the guy in the back and make them fearless, which is especially nice seeing as how with your jink save you won't really miss being able to go to ground. Sure you can kit your bikes out with flamers, meltas or plas weaponry but I can see an advantage to keeping the TL bolters. A lot of it is selecting targets as well. Currently I have a flamer and a plasma gun in my squad which is kind of silly if you ask me, losing a 20 point model to GH sucks, but with this loadout I can scare infantry a bit more. If you go with dual meltas you have a perfect tank hunter unit that doesn't break the bank.

Also, you may want to mess around with using Bikes as a reserve force. I find that when I pull reserves I often have a tough time getting them up the board in time to make a difference, maybe I'm just charging to quickly but oh well. The bikes come in from reserve and get a massive free 12" move, add on another 12" to 24" and you should be within firing range of at least something.

The best support to WS bikes IMO are land speeder typhoons in groups of 3. thats 6 str 8 ap 3 shots comming from them, while your bikes hog the enemy attention (plus some extra small arms fire)

Yah the typhoons also have heavy bolters 9str5 shots isn't exactly peanuts on top of the missiles.

What he means by support I think is two fold. There is the making sure your bikes are close enough together to focus on a threat to one or the other with both squads. The other is what's in your army list. If your bringing all grav bikers then you want that backed up by lots of anti infantry such as thunderfires, storm talons, etc... Make sure you have all the tools to deal wih varied threats/army builds.

Also don't forget that going flat out increases your inv save

@Chancetragedy
You pretty much nailed it.

For your support elements it seems that a fair number of your support cast cannot keep up with your bikes. For example Tiggy and the cents with no stormraven will mean a third of your army doesn't contribute when the rest of your army is. Bike armies are aggressive armies. They don't have the bodies to win a war of attrition. The dakka dread may be able to contribute but will be vulnerable as you cannot realistically make a defensive line.

TFC are great because they can shoot across the board and be placed in out of the way areas without LoS or board corners behind buildings against DS heavy armies, etc.

PFG libby's tend to be wasteful in most biker lists as prescience on 2 grav guns isn't really 100+ pts of value. Prescience on 5 grav guns could be but that is a grav biker star.

When you were playing did you always have 2-3x the number of points in any single combat/shooting range than the opponent or were you matched pretty much 1:1? If the answer is 1:1 then you are probably dispersing your forces too much. Against marines armies your individual models are not really any better (per point) in any single ability than their footsloggers except in mobility, so it is important that you maximize that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@joe_deman
No it increases your jink/cover save.

The key with bikes is using their incredible mobility to fight the enemy on your terms. There's an old 40K maxim - "Shoot the assaulters, assault the shooters," and it's never been more applicable than to a 6th edition bike force.

Never be afraid to use your turbo-boost to get where you need to - you're fast enough to run away from just about any assault unit, denying them close combat. You're also fast enough to rapidly close the distance with most shooting units to engage them in assault, where they are likely to be weakest.

Your mobility can also be useful for keeping the enemy off-balance. An entire bike force can redeploy in the blink of an eye, leaving enemy units without targets. Large, LoS-blocking cover is particularly useful for this - re-deploy behind it and suddenly half the enemy army will be left gasping like a stranded fish. The refused flank is a variation on this - you can sometimes completely invalidate your opponent's entire deployment in a single turn.

When you engage, pick and choose your targets based on three criteria:
- What can kill you?
- What can you kill?
- What enemy units threaten the mission?
Concentrate on the units that meet these criteria in order - your mobility should be sufficient to ensure that each one is reachable on the terms that best suit you.

When it comes to the mission bikes have a decided advantage too. You don't give away many kill points in Purge the Alien, and you're the only unit type that can move with The Relic outside the movement phase - as well as being able to pick it up in one turn from your deployment zone. As for the rest - you've got the movement to grab or contest an objective whenever you want to. You can sometimes hide your bikes for 3-4 game turns before a last-minute rush with your intact force which your opponent can't possibly kill fast enough to win.

To summarise:
- Fight the enemy on your terms
- keep them off balance
- Pick your fights
- Play the mission

If you want to see a full bike/speeder force in action the battle reports linked in my sig might give you some more ideas.

Hit and run, like a true white scar

I have a CSM list with 2 units of 10 bikers. I supplement them with various marks and ICs to make them a little more powerful.

Every time I have used them, it has paid off to turbo boost up the board to get into assault range as fast as possible. They face a lot of shots on their way up the board, but the eventual assault makes up for any lost models. With Hammer of Wrath, the extra attacks my HQ units bring, and other modifiers, they are capable of doing a lot more damage than they take.

Here are some tactics that have proved invaluable for me:

- Have the HQ separate from the bikers just before the assault to charge 2 units instead of one. This can be really important because large biker squads can wipe out other units in a single turn. If you can have your HQ tie up whatever would be shooting up the bikers afterwards, they become a lot more effective.

- You get points for killing other units, regardless of how tough they are. Target the weakest units first. By weakest, I mean the ones you are most likely to kill.

- Cover doesn't mean much with bikers due to the size of the models, and focused fire can do terrible things to your unit. Focus more on speed than cover. Spread them out to avoid the affects of template weapons.

- Unless you are tank-busting, larger squads are better squads. I know this does not apply to the hated Imperials, but you don't want to be doing morale checks because you lost 2 guys.

- Do not forget your Hammer of Wrath attacks. This is usually the difference between wiping out a squad versus killing all but one member.

- Bikers often represent 'the bigger threat' due to the way they move. Put them in front of other nasty units and use them as shields. They are good in this role.

- Do not be afraid to be charged with bikers. I know this sounds weird, but the increased toughness means they are going to be around a little longer than a standard marine. I have been in plenty of games where a couple bikers emerge from being assaulted to wreak havoc afterwards.

- My favorite biker tactic is to ignore whatever is in the front of an opponent's army and get them into the backfield. It doesn't always work, but there are a lot of opportunities to split up an opponent's forces with bikers. Just don't come into games with the mentality that you need to charge the first target that presents itself.

Most the advice so far has been good. I would say don't be put off by your loss.

Grav centurions which ignore cover are a pretty hard counter to bikes, and if a decent opponent prevents you from tying them up in cc then they will take a large toll. So take them out or get in cc asap.

In normal games however bikes are fairly simple to use and don't have too many counters due to high toughness, high saves and portable cover.

Just learn some tactics to deal with heldrakes (Using hit and run, correct spacing, PFG) and then you'll be set for most of your difficult games.

I love this thread because I've been dying to discuss biker stuff.

So some lessons I've learned from like 20ish games with a biker army so far.

-despite added toughness and generating their own cover saves bikes can be extremely fragile due to model count. So things like necron tesla spam, broadside spam, and even autocannon spam/psybolt spam can take them down quickly.
Solution - use terrain and scout moves(if taking khan) to your advantage. Keep the bikes out of LOS to most of the enemy. Don't be afraid to play defensively sometimes if you have to. Most biker players seem to want to play extremely aggressive at first. You can exploit this if your setup for it. What catches people off guard is reserve/outflanking everything you can and jus leaving minimum stuff on the table hidden.

-bikes hit extremely hard if you use all their rules. On paper bikes don't look like they can do much damage but when you start taking Into account guns+grenades+HoW+ close combat attacks bikes can put out a scary amount of wounds per turn.

-bikes can generate lots of wounds but you still don't want to ever leave a single squad unsupported unless you know 100% they will beat what they're facing.
-solutions - so 3 bikers can beat a squad of kroot or equivalent in shooting/combat but probably will struggle against anything beefier. Solution is to make sure a second and or 3rd squad is there to help out.

-bikes really don't like AP3 ignores cover(not that much does).
Solution - use close combat to make yourself unable to be shot in CC. Especially if using white scars, hit and run may be the single best aspect of their chapter tactics.

-bikes cannot be pinned and can't go to ground. This means you'll always be able to move and you'll never gain extra cover from GtG. So remember if you need the added survivability for a turn you'll need to turbo boost.

-bikes move real fast but their is a lot of stuff that is jus as fast so try and plan out where your opponent is going a turn ahead so you have a good idea where you would like to go.






Automatically Appended Next Post:
@tigergamer - if you want to take grav centurions in your list and want them to keep up with the bikers. Attach khan to them then scout them into position first turn and use the centurions as your anchor that all your bikes revolve around and suppor with their mobility. The bikes are your hammer to your centurion anvil.

Also other good list support ideas for bikes are scouts in speeder storms, telepathy librarians, land speeder typhoons, thunderfires, storm talons/ravens, drop pod sternguard, LotD squads, dual flamer assault squads in drop pods, and grav centurions with ML's.

Good allies are rune priests on bikes, bear lords on bikes, power field generator DA Libby's on bikes, DA black knights with rad grenade launchers, blood angels for fast vehicles, and tau kroot, riptides, broadsides and the like.

Double up the special weapons x2 meltas/flamers per squad.

That's a good one as well. And don't be afraid to give the sergeant a combi weapon of the same type too if you have the points. This just increases a biker armies ability to even out the numbers odds by adding that little bit of extra firepower for a very reasonable price.

I'm not such a fan of combi-grav, only combi-melta.

With a melta squad, you'll often have one "big" turn/target - like a land raider - and having the combi-melta can make the difference between exploding it and not.

But for a grav squad, you are more likely to want consistent firepower. And paying 10 points for 1 salvo doesn't seem so good compared to 15 points for 5-7 salvos.

I'm coming back from a 1 year hiatus, so I'm not sure if this works anymore... but a tactic that I've both seen and implemented to decent success was to use a land raider or two as mobile sources of LOS blocking goodness for your bikers.

do my fellow dakkites think this works in todays meta?

 Lord PoPo wrote:
I'm coming back from a 1 year hiatus, so I'm not sure if this works anymore... but a tactic that I've both seen and implemented to decent success was to use a land raider or two as mobile sources of LOS blocking goodness for your bikers.

do my fellow dakkites think this works in todays meta?

It works but really isn't all too good.

One thing I was doing for a while was putting two combi-gravs on a bike captain. I didn't put a combi on the sarge, though it would make for a pretty good punch.

Yes, I do take 2 special weapons per squad, Jackflash.

And I did the scout moving Centurions for a few games before, but my last game I forgot to scout move at all, so I screwed myself there X,X I would like to add a prescience PFG libby Or tigurius in the squad to make them better/broken.

how big are the bike squads? I have been running squads of 6 men. Should I bump them up to get more wounds? should I statr outflanking half of them?

I run mine 8+attk bike so I can combat squad them. But a lot of people like the msu approach with 5-6 man strong squads. It really comes down to which way works better for you.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Yes, I do take 2 special weapons per squad, Jackflash.

And I did the scout moving Centurions for a few games before, but my last game I forgot to scout move at all, so I screwed myself there X,X I would like to add a prescience PFG libby Or tigurius in the squad to make them better/broken.

how big are the bike squads? I have been running squads of 6 men. Should I bump them up to get more wounds? should I statr outflanking half of them?

Remember SM bike squads are bigger than ravenwing ones.

RW can be a max of 6 bikes. The attack bike is a separate unit.
SM bikes are a max of 8+ and attack bike in the same squad.

SM bikes squads should always be at least 5 men to make them scoring. Ravenwing ones can work with anything from 3-6. 6 is often a good number though as it lets you spread your army out more if you are using the devastation banner.

Now I play Ravenwing, and my advice to you is to almost never use outflanking. A dakka banner RW list is one of the strongest alpha strike lists available, and you are wasting some of its potential if you are leaving some of your units off the table for the first 1-2 turns.

As far as a librarian goes, yeah get one for RW. It will unlock another Ravenwing command squad, and ignoring cover or re rolls in cc are useful. Tigurus wouldn't work well, as he is not on a bike, kind of wastes the whole squad.

For context, this is a khan WS list (i'll edit it in on the top X-X) and I'm thinking of allies to make a centurion squad more killy.

Still stuck on TIgurius or a PFG libby though. Re-rollable powers or a solid 4+ all the time...
_____________

How big should the SM squads be? as I said, I've been running them at 6, but they die way to quickly it seems. And if given the option should I field more bikes or more support options like Speeders or tanks?

If you are not sure if you have got enough bikes...then you haven't got enough. Really for a bike list they should be taking up the vast majority of your points imo. Though there is a saturation point where their footprints become too large.

I would run 6 squads with 5 men in each to start with, this gives you the most special weapons and scoring options, and then create larger squads if you feel the need to.

Are you sure you want to run centurions in the list? What do they bring that your bikes do not? You already have cheap access to relentless grav weapons. I don't see the appeal in this kind of list.

Finally there is no 'right' answer for a DA librarian or tigurus, both are effective, tigurus more so, but of course he pays many more points for it.

The Centurions bring a way to pretty much delete a unit a turn, especially if they are buffed by a psyker. I have seen them work against me so many times, I think I can use them. Also, they don't seem to die as quickly as my bikes.

Well 1 model costs more than 3x that of a bike, they are slow unless you invest heavily in a transport or get lucky with a psychic power, and they have no inherent jink or invulnerable save.

Centurions buffed with Tig comes in at around the 400 point mark doesn't it? That's as much as 3 scoring 5 man bike squads with 2 grav guns each.

If a unit costs that many points, is relatively slow and has such a large weakness to units with no save, they had better be wiping a unit per turn, because otherwise it is not a good investment.

good points I'll keep in mind =D plus i got them at a discount now, and I don't have enough to spring for more bikes at the moment.

Although Maybe in the future I might go for DA black knights for fun.

My biggest recommendation is that you need to spam as many special weapon bikes as possible. Then you simply flood the opponent with targets and damage so they can't deal with it all. On turn 1.

I highly recommend Stormravens BTW. They are great hellturkey killers, can drop cents where needed, and cover a lot of bike weak spots. However, if you can get some more special weapon bikes that is the way to go.