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Unless your sacrificial speed bump was literally spread across the entire board edge, those Nobs could multi charge any unit that they were within 18" of at the beginning of their turn. To block that large a charge range you need so many points of sacrificial speed bumps that they begin making up the bulk of your army.

I'm not sure how people deploy, but muti-charge doesn't threaten a defensive setup. What kind of terrain are people playing in?

Blackarandras wrote:I'm not sure how people deploy, but muti-charge doesn't threaten a defensive setup. What kind of terrain are people playing in?

What do you mean by defensive setup?

The only way to do it reliably against nob bikers (by that I mean to prevent your opponent from simply moving around it) is to essentially create "shells" around the unit(s) you want to protect. Each layer has to stretch from a board edge to a board edge (so you'll usually see semicircles on a single board edge, or quarter-circles in a corner. ) or completely surround a protected unit.

Elite armies can prevent the multi-charge by spreading out, but you limit their areas of influence and they wont overlap anymore.

Elite armies arent so great against bikernobs anyway.

Whatever....I'm drunk.

Haven't played for years, but what about using a squad of warp spiders to hop behind the bikes? They can't charge in two directions at once. The Str 6 is good, and the lack of AP is irrelevant for once. I doubt they'd survive long in combat if the bikes turned and charged, but if they have to charge back to where the spiders have hopped to, wouldn't that kind of defeat the point of the bikes?

Fifty wrote:Haven't played for years, but what about using a squad of warp spiders to hop behind the bikes? They can't charge in two directions at once. The Str 6 is good, and the lack of AP is irrelevant for once. I doubt they'd survive long in combat if the bikes turned and charged, but if they have to charge back to where the spiders have hopped to, wouldn't that kind of defeat the point of the bikes?

Full squad of 10 Warp Spiders = 20 shots. 14 hits, 9 wounds, 4.5 cover saves, 2.25 FNP...so three wounds total.

Nob bikers can safely ignore them.

Has anyone done the maths for an autarch with Maniblaster, power weapon and avatar charging them?

I can't visualize how with deploying well and terrain,ruins, hills,forest,etc., with turn 1 or not the bikers can engulf your army. You'll still get your shooting in and should be able to charge. Not that I would have much in reserves against nob bikers, but that is an option. Deep strike and outflank

One squad, infiltrating is a great speed bump.

Another squad, behind that by a few inches (2-10) also infiltrate also being a great speed bump.


Main groups of armies, yes. Multi-charging is a possibility (but ofc should be denied where possible)

But the most recent discussion is about infiltrating speed bumps. (Edit: Damn, that was a few quick posts.)

If im spreading my units out then I have to take difficult terrain tests. You have to take dangerous terrain tests. Fine by me.

The nob biker army has some inherent weaknesses such as low unit count in objective based games. Low model count only helps them in KP missions and then it is a big advantage for this army. Chances are though that you will play them in an objective based mission. Typically there are only three to four total units in a nob biker army. You have to focus on the two squads of nob bikers which takes the heat off of the other ork units.

From a power armor perspective using transports to mechanize your army helps and I would also use this approach with eldar. If your army is mechanized this forces the nobs to deal with your armor first. Once a squad of nobs has charged a transport to destroy it in close combat this leaves them exposed to both shooting without the 3+ cover save and counter assaults. You want to make sure you charge the nobs for the +1 attack bonus and anything else such as furious charge (Harlequins).

I would consider using fire dragons so that you can insta kill nobs with shooting. Also charge them with shining spears so that the exarch can insta kill nobs with the star lance at initiative. I would use fire prisms to kill the non nob units such as lootas. Once you have inflicted some losses into the nobs they have been whittled down... still tough as nails but now they are more vulnerable to failing leadership tests. You should concentrate on first killing the warboss in close combat first which is possible with a lot of high strength attacks. Once you kill the warboss the remaining nobs are even more vulnerable to leadership tests.

Another tactic is to kill one bike squad first... as a single squad of nob bikers is not half as good as two. Now mobility is on your side and the other one or two ork units are much more exposed.

G

Centurian99 wrote:

Fifty wrote:Haven't played for years, but what about using a squad of warp spiders to hop behind the bikes? They can't charge in two directions at once. The Str 6 is good, and the lack of AP is irrelevant for once. I doubt they'd survive long in combat if the bikes turned and charged, but if they have to charge back to where the spiders have hopped to, wouldn't that kind of defeat the point of the bikes?

Full squad of 10 Warp Spiders = 20 shots. 14 hits, 9 wounds, 4.5 cover saves, 2.25 FNP...so three wounds total.

Nob bikers can safely ignore them.

I wouldn't suggest they can deal wth them alone, nor in one turn, but 10 Warp Spiders is 220 points, and a tooled up bike unit even without a warboss is going to be in the 500+ region. They can be enough of a nuisance to be worth it, I'd think. If they don't distract the bikers with the first hop in behind them, they are free to go after the bikers again if they don't get into combat, or go rampaging at the grotz/boyz hiding in the corner.

Fifty wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:

Fifty wrote:Haven't played for years, but what about using a squad of warp spiders to hop behind the bikes? They can't charge in two directions at once. The Str 6 is good, and the lack of AP is irrelevant for once. I doubt they'd survive long in combat if the bikes turned and charged, but if they have to charge back to where the spiders have hopped to, wouldn't that kind of defeat the point of the bikes?

Full squad of 10 Warp Spiders = 20 shots. 14 hits, 9 wounds, 4.5 cover saves, 2.25 FNP...so three wounds total.

Nob bikers can safely ignore them.

I wouldn't suggest they can deal wth them alone, nor in one turn, but 10 Warp Spiders is 220 points, and a tooled up bike unit even without a warboss is going to be in the 500+ region. They can be enough of a nuisance to be worth it, I'd think. If they don't distract the bikers with the first hop in behind them, they are free to go after the bikers again if they don't get into combat, or go rampaging at the grotz/boyz hiding in the corner.

10 Firedragons are 160 pts and do alot more damage then your warpspiders. 10 Dire Avengers with bladestorm are about 140 points and do almost as many wounds as the warpspiders. The warpspiders are a waste against the bikers. Not to mention that depending on how far away you jump from the bikes, they may be able to conga line a multi-charge that includes the unfortunate warpspiders and another unit in front of them.

Green Blow Fly wrote:The nob biker army has some inherent weaknesses such as low unit count in objective based games. Low model count only helps them in KP missions and then it is a big advantage for this army. Chances are though that you will play them in an objective based mission. Typically there are only three to four total units in a nob biker army. You have to focus on the two squads of nob bikers which takes the heat off of the other ork units.

The sheer survivability of the nob bikers and the fact they're troops, goes a long way towards minimizing that disadvantage, to the point that its almost an advantage. Except for some esorteric combos and terminators, there's no single unit in the game that can meet them head to head, and very few of comparable points that can do so either. Most of those are mutual-death situations, where you're going to lose whatever you throw at them, even if you kill of the bikers.

Having objectives in a lot of ways works in the Ork player's favor...because objectives, by their nature, tend to tie down an army. Even if you want to stay mobile, you've got to keep your units within the range that they can move in on turn 4/5 and secure the objective, which means that they have a relatively limited zone that they can operate in.

Green Blow Fly wrote:
From a power armor perspective using transports to mechanize your army helps and I would also use this approach with eldar. If your army is mechanized this forces the nobs to deal with your armor first. Once a squad of nobs has charged a transport to destroy it in close combat this leaves them exposed to both shooting without the 3+ cover save and counter assaults. You want to make sure you charge the nobs for the +1 attack bonus and anything else such as furious charge (Harlequins).

Really, the only time I think transports actually hurts the nob bikers is when the things inside are credible, effective threats against them...namely, units such as fire dragons (en masse), sternguard with combi-meltas, terminators with thunder hammers, abaddon, etc. Otherwise, all the transport player is doing is delaying, and when their transports are cracked, their ability to secure objectives goes down the tubes.

Green Blow Fly wrote:
I would consider using fire dragons so that you can insta kill nobs with shooting. Also charge them with shining spears so that the exarch can insta kill nobs with the star lance at initiative. I would use fire prisms to kill the non nob units such as lootas. Once you have inflicted some losses into the nobs they have been whittled down... still tough as nails but now they are more vulnerable to failing leadership tests. You should concentrate on first killing the warboss in close combat first which is possible with a lot of high strength attacks. Once you kill the warboss the remaining nobs are even more vulnerable to leadership tests.

Good basic points, GBF, but you forgot one key thing: unless you're Tau and have access to markerlights, or Guard with access to Hellhounds, or have some other way of ignoring cover saves, taking down nob bikers with non-massed S8 shooting is an invitation to Epic Fail.

Green Blow Fly wrote:
Another tactic is to kill one bike squad first... as a single squad of nob bikers is not half as good as two. Now mobility is on your side and the other one or two ork units are much more exposed.
G

Absolutely. Of course, you still have to be able to kill one, and relatively quickly. If you can't kill a sqad of nob bikers until turn 4, you've lost, because those nob bikers have spent 3 turns in assault and probably killed off 75% of your army.

I was crunching some numbers in my head and how is this unit for anti nob bikers (and my apologies to the OP, this is for marines, not Eldar)

A unit of Vangaurd vets, all with power weapons, a chappy and Khan, all in a LR.
comes out to 880 points which is no small chunk of the army, but neither is a squad of fully kitted bikers.

On the charge (and you should get the charge, longer reach and a nob biker squad is easy to hit).

You would put roughly 12 unsaved wounds on the squad and in return take about 8 unsaved wounds depending on the amount of claws which would most likely result in the nobs breaking. This pretty much wipes out your squad as well, but on the points echnage and KP exchange you come out ahead. That unit isnt just a Nob Biker killer either, it will beat the snot out of anything baring vehicles that it hits.


As for Eldar, you could potentially run a screening unit of gaurdians to screen your army. 20 of them can cover a lot of space. You take an avatar to keep them in the fight (hopefully) and then counter with everything you have. With enough focus fire from dragons, avengers and a combination charge of WL's the avatar and harlies, maybe with some warlocks to absorb claw attacks, you could pull it off...against one squad.

Phill Kelly, come on buddy! You always let one uber unit slip through

Reecius wrote:I was crunching some numbers in my head and how is this unit for anti nob bikers (and my apologies to the OP, this is for marines, not Eldar)

A unit of Vangaurd vets, all with power weapons, a chappy and Khan, all in a LR.
comes out to 880 points which is no small chunk of the army, but neither is a squad of fully kitted bikers.

On the charge (and you should get the charge, longer reach and a nob biker squad is easy to hit).

How the heck are you putting Khan in a Land Raider?

Forgetting Khan, vanguard + chaplain gives you 44 attacks. 33 hit, 11 wound, about 4 saves from the cybork bodies, so you probably don't remove a single model.

Nobs strike back at I3 with 16 attacks, 11 hits, 5 wounds, and we'll say two failed saves. Nobs and warboss strike at I1, with 16 attacks, hitting with 11, wounding with 9, each kills. Let's say you get lucky and put a powerklaw attack on the chaplain. Chaplain's now all on his lonesome, having lost the combat by 4, so he gets to make 4 saves.

I can't see any character making a difference. Even Pedro, with +1 attack, nets the squad an additional 11 attacks, 5.5 hits, ~1.75 wounds, so if we're generous, we give him 2 more wounds. When pedro strikes, he probably inflicts another 2 wounds, but since he strikes after the I4 guys, his attacks get placed on a previously wounded model.

So at best, we're talking a statistical draw, with Pedro and the chaplain locked in a combat.

Reecius wrote:
As for Eldar, you could potentially run a screening unit of gaurdians to screen your army. 20 of them can cover a lot of space. You take an avatar to keep them in the fight (hopefully) and then counter with everything you have. With enough focus fire from dragons, avengers and a combination charge of WL's the avatar and harlies, maybe with some warlocks to absorb claw attacks, you could pull it off...against one squad.

Let me repeat again, for the nth time...shooting weapons that are less than S8 is a waste of time, unless you have some way of removing the cover save or negating the feel no pain (preferably both). The army Does Not Exist that can attrit the nob bikers to death without getting charged and wiped out, unless you can fulfill at least one of the following conditions for your shooting:
A) Massed S8+ weaponry (i.e. multiple S8+ weapons in the same unit, or the reliable potential for multiple S8+ hits)
B) Ignore/negate the FNP Save
C) Ignore/negate the Cover/Armor Save.

Anything less Will Not Work with any kind of reliability. That's the simple, brutal math of it.

S6 fire? From a BS 3 shooter, you need 12 shots to reliably cause a single wound. To get the 12 wounds you need to reliably remove a model, you would need 144 S6 shots.

S5 fire? 192 S5 shots from BS3 or 144 from BS4.

S4 fire? 256 S4 shots from BS3 or 216 from BS4.

None of those numbers, by the way, takes the 3+ turboboost cover save into consideration.

Dear Reccius,

Just a couple of questions. 1. 12 unsaved wounds-unless you send your chappie and Khan against the warboss and kill him, 12 unsaved wounds kills what, ONE nob?? Does he get FNP for that nob? 2. Is he actually LIKELY to break, or is it less than 50-50 with the WBoss still alive using his LD? 3. Maybe he wants to break, unless you've found a way to surround him-he rallies back further than you are likely to reach, and then he has TL Dakka Gun fun with your survivors..... I think SM need Terminators to take on NBikers-you have to have strength 8 weapons IMO.

Destructor SMs? if you can get a librarain within 24 inches of NB's you could get rid of their cover save with flamers, and their Invulnerable save as well. Leaves you 'to wound' and 'FNP' to fight through....


What's the math on 2 Wraithlords vs. a NBS, or 2 WL with an Avatar. Flamers on the way in, assume doom and fortune?? Couple with skyleaping SH unit to take out accompanying grots without fear of return fire...

Centurian99, I consider everything you say because you back it up with your reasoning. However, I wonder if your motivation for your comments are because, you favor the Orks over the Eldar. Or would you say it's based off of pure logic(numbers)? The reason I ask this is because you have had little to say in favor of the Eldar. Despite the fact that the Nob Bikers are brutal, are there any combinations of Eldar that you think could stand up against the Nob Biker list?

mikeguth wrote:
What's the math on 2 Wraithlords vs. a NBS, or 2 WL with an Avatar. Flamers on the way in, assume doom and fortune?? Couple with skyleaping SH unit to take out accompanying grots without fear of return fire...

2 wraithlords kill 3 nobs. Actually, now that I think of it, adding in an Avatar hurts or flaming beforehand actually hurts, because the wounds caused by the avatar are used to keep nobs from getting 2 for 1 with instant death. Return attacks by the nobs should be enough to kill both wraithlords.

If you go with 3 wraithlords, then you've got 12 attacks, 9 hits, 8 wounds, inv saves 1/3, so either 5-6 wounds. If we say 5, then all the PKs are still alive. What happens next depends on how the orks counter-charged. If they pile in the warboss and 2 bikes on 1, and one on the others, one wraithlord dies, and the others take one wound on average. If they're spread out, its entirely possible that none die. The warboss may be able to kill a wraithlord by himself, but its by no means certain, and to get a reliable kill, you need to pile 3 powerklaws on 1 wraithlord. So in a pile-on situation, the orks do 5 wounds, and lose the combat, testing at -5.

Spread out, (2 pk nobs on a wraithlord, and the warboss by himself) the orks do 2 wounds on each wraithlord the pk nobs are engaging, and the warboss gets 4 attacks, 2.66 hits, ~2.25 wounds. Maybe he kills the wraithlord outright maybe he only does 2. Either way, orks lose by 3 or 4, which means that its possible they stay locked in combat. If there are 3 wraithlords left, the orks probably end up losing. If there's only 2, the orks could end up winning, at the cost of the squad essentially being destroyed.

Not a bad trade, if you consider that three wraithlords with wraithswords are 300 points.

The other thought, if you equip the wraithlords as I'm planning to (with a bright lance), that gives you a halfway decent chance of killing one or two bikers before the assault begins. Which makes a significant difference, as it starts to cut into the number of power klaw attacks coming back. Mindwarring a model in the unit can also help.

Well, less than S8 shooting may be statistically negligible against Nobs. It does take a lot of firepower to take them down, especially getting past that T5/3+/4+. It happens, though, as my Plague Marines can attest to.

And of course, most armies don't have all S8 shooting, but rather have lots and lots of less than S8 shooting. Where else, in a Nob biker army, are they going to invest these shots? Given 3 units, two of which are nob bikers and one of which is GTG grots, you might as well shoot at the nobs and hope to get lucky. Reliable? No, but you might get a few wounds on them, and against Nobs every little plink helps.

Centurian99, I've already stuck my foot in my mouth.

Blackarandras wrote:Centurian99, I consider everything you say because you back it up with your reasoning. However, I wonder if your motivation for your comments are because, you favor the Orks over the Eldar. Or would you say it's based off of pure logic(numbers)? The reason I ask this is because you have had little to say in favor of the Eldar. Despite the fact that the Nob Bikers are brutal, are there any combinations of Eldar that you think could stand up against the Nob Biker list?

I've got some theories, but since my Eldar are still being built/painted, they're only theories. (BTW, the day I play Orks under this codex is the day I give up the hobby).

Basically, I think there's a couple of things that Eldar can do. The problem is that most of them are fairly abusive. Things like Karandas+warlocks, and massed wraithlords are probably the best options, in terms of statistical reliability. The trick with both of them is bringing them into play on your terms, which is where the tactical abilities come into play.

Other options involve a lot of one-two combos, mostly starting with 2 squads of 10 fire dragons. Each squad inflicts about 6 wounds before cover saves, which means that your opponent has to either put wounds on his warboss or the power-klaw nobs. Either way, he probably loses about 5-6 nobs from those two squads, which allows banshees, harlequins, or warlocks to get in there and really do a number, assuming the squad is doomed.

Even though its not 100% certain (since the cover saves can be taken against it) mindwarring the painboy is almost mandatory, if you plan to use anything in your army that doesn't ignore armor saves.

An interesting thought I just thought up was to turn the tables with 3 squads of shining spears. 3 exarchs with startlances will probably destroy the nobs almost completely. The question is how viable is a 3-shining spear army against other armies?

Let me expand on the above thought.... What are the Nobs bringing with them? Boyz, or only a couple of units of Gretchin? Does it matter? Swooping Hawksx2 to skyleap, grenade them for 5 turns. Now the Orks have two scoring units-the Nobs, and unless the FAQ has changed they can't kill the Hawks.

An Avatar with 3 Wraithlords is less than a Nob Biker squad. In fact, you get two farseers as well......

How about Wraithguard as troops? Now the powerklaw attacks no longer inflict instant death, even the big choppa will not inflict many wounds...

Of course it might be hopeless against anything else.....

mikeguth wrote:Let me expand on the above thought.... What are the Nobs bringing with them? Boyz, or only a couple of units of Gretchin? Does it matter? Swooping Hawksx2 to skyleap, grenade them for 5 turns. Now the Orks have two scoring units-the Nobs, and unless the FAQ has changed they can't kill the Hawks.

An Avatar with 3 Wraithlords is less than a Nob Biker squad. In fact, you get two farseers as well......

How about Wraithguard as troops? Now the powerklaw attacks no longer inflict instant death, even the big choppa will not inflict many wounds...

Of course it might be hopeless against anything else.....

Wraithguard have one wound. :(

The big thing, is that a standard "balanced" eldar list will simply get murdered. That's not an eldar-specific thing... lots of other "balanced" listed from other codexes will also get murdered. Daemons, SM, and maybe Chaos Space Marines don't really have to visibly tool up to take on the nob bikers...almost everyone else does.

How do you put Khan in a land raider? Simple, you attach him to the squad. He does not come with a bike. you have to pay to give it to him, plain as day in the codex.

He gives the squad furious assault, obviously, and that vastly improves the hitting power of the squad.

And do the math for yourself, if a squad wins by three or more kills that gives the Nob squad a break test on a 6 or worse if they have a warboss, which is quite a bit less than 50/50 even with the bosspole.

If you throw in two storm shield powerfist combos in there they improve those odds even more and can potentially absorb a few claw attacks.

10 man vangaurd squad, 8 power weapons and two power fist storm shield combos, plus chappy and Khan.

32 WS4 St5 attacks, 24 hits, 12 wounds, 8 unsaved.

Khan Plus Chappy, 9 WS5+ attacks, roughly 8 hit, 4 wounds, roughly 2 unsaved.

6 WS 4 Power fist atacks, roughly 5 hit, 4 wounds, 3 str 8
unsaved wounds.

That gives you one wound on the warboss, three dead nobs and the rest all with one wound.

Then you have a 2/3 chance of stopping two klaw attacks. It is very likely you win combat by a large margin and the nobs break and you run them down.

I am not proposing that it is a no lose situation, just some brainstorming.

As for less than str 6 shots being worthless then what do you propose? To give up? With the nob biker army we are looking at there is nothing else to shoot at and the eldar simply dont have tha tmuch str 8 in their arsenal. Is it screaming efficiency? No, but it helps to whittle them down and if its all you have then hell, you shoot it.

My point was not that massed small arms fire wins the combat, it was that you throw everything you have at them the turn they come within range and hope the dice fall in your favor. Other than that, what? Run 30 firedragons behind a gaurdian screen with 3 WL's and an avatar? Its an uphill battle without a doubt.

Like i have said several times, nob bikers are the devil.

edited for spelling and forgot one point.

Actually now that I think about it 30 firedragons might not be a bad idea.

A 20 man gaurdian screen runs 165 points with a shuriken cannon. That can effectively screen the entire army.

Run 30 Fire Dragons behind that, with Eldrad, the Avatar, 3WL's with wraithswords 2 EML's, and a squad of pathfinders to sit on your objective gives you about 1500.

Advance and shoot using the guardians as a screen.

30 Guided fire dragons will hit roughly 17 times (assuming they are all in range of course), wound 14 times, kill 6 bikers and put one wound on the warboss. That aint bad.

The Wraithlords and avatar shoot and charge in to run mop up. You can effectively take out one squad, after that though its not looking so hot vs the second squad unless you have your big boys in a position to take the charge to allow for another fire dragon strike.

Is that army worth a hoot vs anything else? Who knows. But its something.

Yeah, Nob bikers are pretty blatantly rediculous.

Reecius wrote:How do you put Khan in a land raider? Simple, you attach him to the squad. He does not come with a bike. you have to pay to give it to him, plain as day in the codex.

He gives the squad furious assault, obviously, and that vastly improves the hitting power of the squad.

For some reason I thought he always came with the bike. My bad.

Hmm....
So now we've got:
44 S5 WS4 PW attacks, and 5 S5 WS6 PW attacks.
37.44 hits.
18.72 wounds
12.48 wounds past the saves.

Lets round that up to 13, to account for the potential of khan getting an instant death. 2 nobs have been killed. There's a chance that a power klaw bought it, which is tough to calculate, so I'll figure it with 4 klaws and with 3 klaws. We'll assume the painboy lives.

4 Klaws remaining.
I3: 11 attacks, 7.33 hits, 3.66 wounds, 1.22 past the armor save.
I1: 16 attacks, 10.66 hits, 8.88 wounds.

Orks lose combat by 3, so testing on 6. 42% chance of making it, if the bosspole is still alive, there's a 66% chance of making it.

Looks like you've got a winner... Of course, now you have to deal with the second biker squad. :(

What you've come up with is quite nasty, and fulfils 2 of the 3 qualifications I listed before - ignoring armor/cover, and ignoring FNP.

Reecius wrote:
As for less than str 6 shots being worthless then what do you propose? To give up? With the nob biker army we are looking at there is nothing else to shoot at and the eldar simply dont have tha tmuch str 8 in their arsenal. Is it screaming efficiency? No, but it helps to whittle them down and if its all you have then hell, you shoot it.

Nothing wrong with doing that. Just don't expect it to actually succeed.

Reecius wrote:
My point was not that massed small arms fire wins the combat, it was that you throw everything you have at them the turn they come within range and hope the dice fall in your favor. Other than that, what? Run 30 firedragons behind a gaurdian screen with 3 WL's and an avatar? Its an uphill battle without a doubt.

Actually, I'd probably go with 20 fire dragons and 10 banshees or harlequins. As the squad gets smaller, they become much more susceptible to "whittling", because the fewer rolls you're making, the greater chance of a statistical anomaly, and also because it becomes much harder for the ork player to spread wounds around. 10 PW wounds on a 10-man squad means 10 nobs left. 10 PW wounds on a 6-man squad means 2 nobs left.

I think with Eldar, what you have to plan on doing against nob bikers is twofold. One you need a tarpit unit...something that can get stuck in and realistically hold up one of those nob biker units. The only way I realistically see that happening is to either send multiple fearless units into HTH (where they'll hopefully last for two turns), or send fortuned warlocks in there. Meanwhile, you need a hammer to hit the other biker squad with, and actually do damage. Multiple wraithlords, fire dragons backed by some killy HTH unit, massed shining spears, or karandas and some sacrificial lambs will all do the trick. Eldar probably have the most reliable way of negating FNP, through the use of mindwar.

Reecius wrote:Like i have said several times, nob bikers are the devil.

Agreed. Hey any unit that makes someone tell me, "Well, those eight bloodcrushers are nasty, but at least they're not nob bikers"...

I agree, and this thread has been awesome because as I believe you said, I too am building an eldar army at the moment with the posibility of tournament play.

I agree though, 20 dragons and 10 harlies is not only more effective but also more valuable in pretty much every other situation that I can think of.

I think the 20 man Gaurdian squad with a warlock with conceal is a good all purpose tar pit unit. Its a bit pricey but it is fairly resiliant with fortune and the Avatar around to keep them fearless, plus you can always park them on an objective and go to ground. Even if they get munched in one turn they prevent the bikers from hitting the meat of your army, and then you throw the kitchen sink at them.

As for the marines, I was bating around some math and assault termies are actually far more cost efective than the mega vangaurd squad. 7 of them (5 claws and 2 hammers or all claws) with a chappy and Khan hits as hard, is more resliant and is a lot cheaper, plus still hits anything on the board like a ton of bricks.

7 assault termies with claws hits 21 times, wounds 16, leaves 11 unsaved wounds.

Khan and the chappy still put out 2 wounds (and as you said leave the possibility to instakill one of them).

If you have two t.hammers, that gives you 9 str 5 unsaved wounds and 3 str 8 unsaved wounds. Same odds as the vangaurd squad with far less points spent and more of your boys survive, making the wounds defecit swing heavily in your favor. You would almost assuredly break the orks.


=edited once for mistake in my math=

If I decide not to use my twin Lash army this year and keep playing my very enjoyable Eldar army I might be able to beat them by stringing out my squad of 13 bikes to keep the Nobs away for one turn. This would be really good if I went first for a free but salvo of 9 shots I would still get two rounds of shooting with my whole army except for the bikes if I went second. Anyone want to crunch the math? I'm assuming all 15 Str 8 shots can be fired for two turns.


3 Scatter Walkers
3 Missile Walkers
Falcon Bright Lance, Holo, Stones

9 Dire Avengers 2x Catapult Bladestorm
9 Pathfinders
12 Jetbikes 4 Cannons, Warlock with Spear and Embolden

5 Fire Dragons Tank Hunter

Eldrad
Jetaurch Lance Fusion Gun

Dear Centurion,

Wraithguard only get one wound, but ditto for Terminators faced by a power klaw. Wraithguard with fortune, reroll saves, which means that only 1/9 hits is a kill. And, you still have to hit them (they can be WS 5), and wound them. I think about 1/20 attacks will wound......It's not a win, but it is a potential tarpit, while the Wraithlords and Avatar, or perhaps Wraithlords and Shining Spears beat up on the other Nob Bikers....

Centurian99 wrote:
Forgetting Khan, vanguard + chaplain gives you 44 attacks. 33 hit, 11 wound, about 4 saves from the cybork bodies, so you probably don't remove a single model.

Khan comes on foot unless you buy a bike, so he is able to do this. secondly, he gives Furious charge, which makes that closer to 16 or 17 wounds (as power weapons) which means that an 8-man nob biker unit has to double-up the wounds before making saves (10-man unit gets a few less double-ups, but still several) meaning that each of the individually allocated bikers needs to make 2 5+saves each, MEANING that there will be quite a few who will fail both, pulling a whole model. Add in a IC with 5 S5 powerweapon swings that kill off a whole biker on a 6 to wound, and this becomes a dcent solution to the bikers.

That being said, I wouldn't bother ever taking khan without his bike. A khan-led command biker squad with powerweapons and tagalong chaplain is less dead bikers, but a heck of a lot less points, and a better unit to take in an all-comer list.

Edit: bah! beat to it! thats what I get for trying to respond before getting to the bottom of the page.