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

Chaos Biker Bomb
1 Khornate Lord w/ daemon weapon
4/5 Bikes with aspiring champion
Give bikes either mark of nurgle or tzeench to taste.

First turn run balls out to the first squad that you want to die. Make sure to turbo boost.
If you took the mark of tzeench then you'll be looking at 5 models with 2+ inv.
Nurgle has some promise but won't fair as well against lascannons. (Though it will
do excellent against any thing else.)


A friend of mine dropped this right in the middle of my IG gun line.

Edit: I left out the other fun part. My friend had a greater daemon that he'd pop out of his biker squads. I know escalation could be a problem but could this be the new from of daemon bombing?

No. Simply because of Escalation. No icons on the board = Daemons die.

So that aside I'm surprised you don't think much of the lord and the retinue.

I'm not a fan of the Khorne lorde w/weapon...1/3 chance every turn he sits there and looks stupid. if he doesn't, he likely wipes out the squad he's fighting and is left in the open to get shot to pieces.

He could easily have Icons on the table. He has to take troop choices which can have an Icon. As long as you don't give them a transport, they'll be on the table. I also don't think Escalation will be the same (or exist at all) come 5th edition.

I don't see the Khorn Lord wiping out an entire squad alone. Unless the squad is small and bunched up, the kill zone should prevent the wipe out. Most likely the Khorne Lord won't be in b2b, thus can not perform a sweeping advance. Additionally, with the bike, you should be able to get your Khorne Lord set up so he can't kill an entire squad on the charge.

With a Demon bomb style army, I believe the lesser demons are still viable for thier points. Most people won't hear of it as they are still fuming over the loss of their previous demons. But, the lesser demons are not a bad buy.

Lesser Daemons aren't bad. It's just that the delivery system has to change.

Maybe if the Daemons grow teeth again (Codex Daemons) it would be great. 15pts for marine states with a 5+ save just doesn't entice me to try the old D-bomb again.

They're less than 15 points.

My bad. I was just comparing them with Daemonettes in my mind.

Yeah, Daemonettes don't exist any more, but I've crunched the numbers, and point for point, a squad of daemons will beat a squad of any other assault-type squad except for Genestealers. They are still pretty effective.

The way I see it if you want to go daemon bombing you need:
1: A fast army.
2: Safety squads for your daemons to pop out of in case of escalation.
3: A strong close combat punch that doesn't rely on daemons.

The reason the biker lord and ret seemed so novel to me is that they are fast, tough, and have a lot of punch. Raptors with mark of Khorn make for great support. These units can smash into an opponent's lines and start murdering things with or with out the aid of daemons. If you get lucky though you'll start to summon packs of them along with the greater daemon right before or after assault. Essentially it turns into a gift that keeps on giving. You can use the packs to reinforce your own assault, or you can toss them into a squad of terminators to hold them up for a round or two. Most of you have made the observation that lesser daemons aren't marines. It's true. I wouldn't send a pack of daemons to fight striking scorpions or hormagaunts, but I would fight terminators, gene stealers, and banshees with them. Lastly daemons extra attacks and warm bodies can help brake and massacre a unit letting your real close combat monsters move on.

The greater daemon is a tricky beast. He relies on your investing in aspiring champions to be useful. However if you don't waste points on gear then you can think of the 15 points as a icon that only works to summon greater daemons. Being able to drop a greater daemon in someone's lines might be just enough of a reward for the investment.

The last concept I'd consider crucial to a list that made use of daemons. You need some units that will always be on the board to avoid loosing you packs to unlucky reserve rolls. Personally I think chosen are a good choice. If you do end up playing escalation then you'll get to infiltrate your chosen. Place them somewhere's close enough to your enemy with out being stupid about it. Hide them and move them into position as you get some reinforcements. I'd equip them with maybe a lascannon so that in alpha and gamma missions they aren't just standing around .

From my own personal complaint though I wish GW would of given dedicated squads (i.e. deathguard berserkers ect) the ability to summon daemons.
Though I think if you could pack in enough antitank via oblits or havoc squads you might have a decent list. I'll fiddle around and see what I can draw up.

If/when Escalation goes away, it'll definitely be a viable army again. As it stands, you really want Chosen or something to help get the daemons close in Escalation missions, but you're still going to be outnumbered badly on turns 1 and 2 because your bikers (and possibly other support units) aren't where you need them to be.

True,
I'm trying to make it work though. I know I can't make escalation not suck as far as daemon summoning goes. But i'd like to minimize it. In that spirit it's probably better for the poor guys to get swamped then to not have them at all.

While I appreciate your attempt to revive the old word bearers your attempt is kinda misguided. Daemon just are not as good as they use to be.
What I say is drop the daemons and then maybe, MAYBE you might have a somewhat decent CC chaos marines.
Revise your ideas and then we'll talk.

Those crappy demons are fearless now too which is a slight bonus over CSM.

skyth wrote:Yeah, Daemonettes don't exist any more, but I've crunched the numbers, and point for point, a squad of daemons will beat a squad of any other assault-type squad except for Genestealers. They are still pretty effective.

Aye - this was covered a while ago. I think to many people see they aren't as good as they were so think they are bad, rather than look at what you can do with them. They are actually quite good and can beat a lot of stuff in CC. There is the issue of making sure they arrive where you want in escalation - which I don't have a problem with. I like escalation as it provides a different scenario that everyone has to think about.

gdurant wrote:From my own personal complaint though I wish GW would of given dedicated squads (i.e. deathguard berserkers ect) the ability to summon daemons.

What do you mean?, 5pts gives you the ability on the cult units (peronal icon).

puree wrote:

skyth wrote:Yeah, Daemonettes don't exist any more, but I've crunched the numbers, and point for point, a squad of daemons will beat a squad of any other assault-type squad except for Genestealers. They are still pretty effective.

Aye - this was covered a while ago. I think to many people see they aren't as good as they were so think they are bad, rather than look at what you can do with them. They are actually quite good and can beat a lot of stuff in CC. There is the issue of making sure they arrive where you want in escalation - which I don't have a problem with. I like escalation as it provides a different scenario that everyone has to think about.

gdurant wrote:From my own personal complaint though I wish GW would of given dedicated squads (i.e. deathguard berserkers ect) the ability to summon daemons.

What do you mean?, 5pts gives you the ability on the cult units (peronal icon).

Your right, i just never clicked for some reason.
thanks for the correction.

I think the biggest problem with turbo boosting bikers to in front of the enemy is not be shot at with your 2+ invulnerable save, it is being assaulted by the enemy. Chaos bikers just aren't as powerful in assault as they used to be.

Now lesser daemons are a good unit. They would be good in alsmot any type of chaos army. At the very least, 65pts gets you a 5-man fearless scoring unit that can hold/contest table quarters or get into deployment zones and hide.

An army with a huge wave of lesser daemons is viable.

Sorcerer, bike, icon, meltabombs, mos, lash

6-chosen with icon, 1 meltagun, 1 flamer
6-chosen with icon, 1 meltagun, 1 flamer

5-man troop, meltagun in rhino
5-man troop, meltagun in rhino

5-man Tzeentch bike squad w/ 2 meltaguns

2-oblits
2-oblits

10-man daemon squads
10-man daemon squads
10-man daemon squads
10-man daemon squads
10-man daemon squads

Either the chosen infiltrate or the bikes and sorcerer start on the table and are available to turbo boost near the enemy. 50 lesser daemons is a great anti-horde weapon so load up on meltaguns and 4 oblits to keep armor honest. I'm not sure if five 10-man or ten 5-man daemon squads are better, maybe a mix of both.

Bikes are just as powerful as they used to be in assault.

In and of themselves bikes are a little under welming. Though tack on MoT or MoN and the bastards become
indestructible. The become a delivery platform for thing you actually want to get in to combat like a:

- Biker Khorn Lord w/ daemon weapon.
- Biker sorcerer w/ warptime.
- Lesser daemons.
- Greater daemon.

The bikers themselves aren't great in combat but they can take a round or two before they wipe out. Use them to drop of your cargo the claim an objective or something.

skyth wrote:Bikes are just as powerful as they used to be in assault.

Didn't they used to have 2 attacks each and now they have only one or am I mistaken?

You are mistaken. They have the same number of attacks.

skyth wrote:You are mistaken. They have the same number of attacks.

I don't have my old Codex: CSM anymore, but didn't the old Chaos Bike add +1 attack, due to the spikes, etc. that were on it?

If someone who kept their codex would look that up, it could save some hassle for those in this conversation.

That one attack would make a big difference.

Eric

MagickalMemories wrote:

skyth wrote:You are mistaken. They have the same number of attacks.

I don't have my old Codex: CSM anymore, but didn't the old Chaos Bike add +1 attack, due to the spikes, etc. that were on it?

If someone who kept their codex would look that up, it could save some hassle for those in this conversation.

That one attack would make a big difference.

Eric

Yes old bikes got one extra attack on their profile due to spikes. However they couldn't use the ccw/pistol +1 attack so that sort of cancels out.

Chaos bikes are armed with CCW/BP giving them +1 attack in close combat. But yes, it's an easy oversight to make.

If you don't like the idea of an entire squad bearing down on you, firing their bolters and fighting with two weapons you can always consider them to counts as the spikes and blades they always had that the Imperials overlooked attaching to their own bikes XD.

The problem I see with the bike bomb is:

Most armies will just move away from you.

You can still shoot down bikes that get cocky and don't try to hide.

Anyone with an assault unit that can get to you is a serious threat to your bikes.

Morale. Kill 2, they might run off the board.

Lesser demons don't really scare anyone.

CC able armies will just make them take alot of 5+ saves and die.

Shooty armies will feed you a unit or two, then open fire and eliminate your demon units that way.

Anyone in a ALL mechanized army list will just rip you a new one, esp if they are fast and/or skimmers...

Stelek wrote:The problem I see with the bike bomb is:

Most armies will just move away from you.

You can still shoot down bikes that get cocky and don't try to hide.

Anyone with an assault unit that can get to you is a serious threat to your bikes.

Morale. Kill 2, they might run off the board.

Lesser demons don't really scare anyone.

CC able armies will just make them take alot of 5+ saves and die.

Shooty armies will feed you a unit or two, then open fire and eliminate your demon units that way.

Anyone in a ALL mechanized army list will just rip you a new one, esp if they are fast and/or skimmers...

Generalship can take care of most of the problems you've listed. Mech lists are a pain though. Unless you can reliably crack open a transport or two you have nothing to assault. Tough times.