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I play mainly against Tyranids, Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Guard, and Chaos. Here's what I was initially thinking about putting together:

HQ: Master; Bike, 2 Lightning Claws, Terminator Honors, Teleport Homer- 155
Elites: 5 Terminators; 2 Assault Cannons- 240
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun- 115
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun- 115
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun- 115
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun- 115
Fast Attack: 3 Attack Bikes, 3 Multi Meltas- 195
Fast Attack: 3 Attack Bikes, 3 Multi Meltas- 195
Fast Attack: 3 Attack Bikes, 3 Heavy Bolters- 150
Heavy Support: 6 Devastators, 3 Heavy Bolters- 135

But I'm not very convinced that the Terminators will be worthwhile. In a vacuum, I can definitely see why they're excellent for their points cost, but not so sure about their effectiveness in-game. Next I came up with:

HQ: Master; Bike, 2 Lightning Claws, Terminator Honors- 150
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun- 115
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun- 115
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun- 115
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun- 115
Fast Attack: 3 Attack Bikes; 3 Multi Meltas- 195
Fast Attack: 3 Attack Bikes; 3 Multi Meltas- 195
Fast Attack: 2 Attack Bikes; 2 Multi Meltas- 130
Heavy Support: 8 Devastators; 4 Heavy Bolters- 180
Heavy Support: 8 Devastators; 4 Heavy Bolters- 180
1,490 points, 59 Wounds

The main concern I have is the Attack Bikes being assaulted first turn, so I usually place them behind cover and either turbo-boost first turn or make a standard move and shoot. The Devastators are excellent against 'Nids and DE especially, but should I give them Infiltrate?

I haven't played against Tau yet because the player who owns them has been playing his Eldar army, but how would a list like this fare against them? I'm also not so sure this list could beat a good Chaos list, even shooting all its heavy weapons at the Daemon Prince and Lord, and trying to assault oblits/ havocs with my Master.

I do feel comfortable against Eldar, DE, and Guard, but have no idea what I would do if the Eldar started fielding jetbikes.

Any advice is appreciated.

What exactly do you have against Terminators? The Assault Cannons are excellent against light infantry, great against harder to crack targets, and excellent vs. vehicles. In combat you have 10 Powerfist attacks.

What I'm more concerned about is the attack bikes. For 45 fewer points than the Termies you have a unit that isn't as versatile, is if anything more fragile (as they start on the board and are essentially finished if they get locked into combat) and doesn't want to get into combat. I mean sure, they can turbo-boost and then get an invul. save, but then they're not shooting, your Termies would have a save at all times.

I also just don't understand the function of those units in your army. It basically looks like you're going for a SAFH, but those bikes will need to be closer to the enemy than any unit in your army due to their range, which is not a favourable place for them. You have a master on a bike but there's no unit that exists in your army that can actually give him decent support in combat. What if he gets locked into a strong unit with a fist? Or a unit of Harlies? I assure you he's not going to be a factor, and once he's done there isn't a single close combat weapon in this list without the Termies.

My advice would be to drop some Attack Bikes, buy at least a unit of Termies, though two would be better so that when you need combat support you've got it, reliably and you have some units that can deploy almost anywhere on the board you need them to.

If losing the Meltas on the bikes concerns you and you aren't confident in rending rolls on shooting then I'd recommend that you not drop one of the Dev squads like you've got planned in the first list, and upgrade one to Missile Launchers to take back some of that AT.

I have no idea how you could question the utility of terminators and then go and spend 65pts on a 3+ save lascannon bait bike.

Assault marines are a much, much better use of the FA slot anyway. Even Tornado speeders singleton would be better.

Longshot wrote:I have no idea how you could question the utility of terminators and then go and spend 65pts on a 3+ save lascannon bait bike.

Assault marines are a much, much better use of the FA slot anyway. Even Tornado speeders singleton would be better.

I guess I didn't realize that 2W, 3+ Invul Save was considered fragile. Sure they're not nearly as versatile as Terminators, but why is versatility so important within one unit? It's obviously important within the entire army, but isn't it better to have squads specialized for a single role than fewer squads who are decent at more than one role? I hope my opponent shoots at these guys with their Lascannons.

It's not too important to consider what happens to them when they get into cc, because by then they've had 2 turns of shooting, and have hopefully made their points back.

The Master's sole purpose is to engage the enemy's shooty squads ASAP, so he turbo boosts turn 1. Even if he doesn't win that combat, he's still tying up that squad for 1-2 turns. I don't worry much about what would happen if he found himself in combat with a Harlequin squad because again, why would that happen?

Like I said before, they seem nice and durable with that Invul save, but if they've got it then they weren't shooting, and what's the point? And I question your opponents if they haven't figured out how to force enough small arms fire on you to make you fail saves, invulnerable or no, especially on the Master if he closes to within rapid fire that fast.

I think the important part to realize here is that you can justify the use of those bikes all you want, but they're not as good (at all) against horde units and especially 4+ save infantry as the Termies are, aren't that much hotter than they are in anti-tank, and can't fight well in combat (just like, well, your entire army list). If that works for you in your gaming group for whatever reason that's great, but we're just trying to tell you that point for point the unit you're so hesitant to place in your list is much better at filling in the holes of your army than units you're currently spending a surfeit of points on.

Put more simply, if you want to tell us the reason you're taking bad list choices is because they work fine against the mediocre lists or play of your group, then that's great, and it's nice to see people having fun with less common units, but I wonder as to why you even posted a list on this forum in that case.

Turtle wrote:Like I said before, they seem nice and durable with that Invul save, but if they've got it then they weren't shooting, and what's the point? And I question your opponents if they haven't figured out how to force enough small arms fire on you to make you fail saves, invulnerable or no, especially on the Master if he closes to within rapid fire that fast.

I think the important part to realize here is that you can justify the use of those bikes all you want, but they're not as good (at all) against horde units and especially 4+ save infantry as the Termies are, aren't that much hotter than they are in anti-tank, and can't fight well in combat (just like, well, your entire army list). If that works for you in your gaming group for whatever reason that's great, but we're just trying to tell you that point for point the unit you're so hesitant to place in your list is much better at filling in the holes of your army than units you're currently spending a surfeit of points on.

Put more simply, if you want to tell us the reason you're taking bad list choices is because they work fine against the mediocre lists or play of your group, then that's great, and it's nice to see people having fun with less common units, but I wonder as to why you even posted a list on this forum in that case.

As I wrote, the plan for the Attack Bikes is to set them up behind cover, and use turbo boosters my first turn so they make it to my second turn when I'll use their meltas on the tanks I boosted towards. I'm not using them because I need an expensive, versatile unit that's as good in close combat as they are in shooting (i.e. Terminators) but because I feel that they're an efficient way to reliably deal with enemy tanks.

Sure, my opponents can "force enough small arms fire" on the Master to make him fail saves, but how much fire is that exactly? It's surely enough that he's still fulfilling his role of tying up that shooty squad- whichever squad(s) it may be that end up shooting at him the turn before he's in close combat. I'll admit that he's a pretty poor unit and I definitely wouldn't field him if an HQ wasn't required.

Of course I'd never argue that Attack Bikes equipped with Multi Meltas were better than Assault Cannons against Sv 4+ infantry, but why even bring that up? That's obviously not what I'm shooting at with them. As stated, I'm using them to take out tanks, where they are substantially better than Assault Cannons, and I don't believe that can be argued.

Obviously they can't fight as well in combat, but I'm not trying to make every unit in my army good at everything. They have their purpose, and another unit will have the purpose of being a strong close combat unit. Admittedly that is exactly what my army's lacking, but I'm fairly sure Terminators aren't the answer.

The last part of your post I take an issue with. This is obviously an untested army. That's why it's posted here. If your prerogative is to draw a (wildly unfounded) conclusion based on very little information in an attempt to somehow insult someone you've never met, I am sorry.

So let's start again. I'm trying to put together an army list to be played against Nids, Eldar, DE, Tau, Chaos, and Guard. Against Eldar, Tau and Guard especially I've found myself having a hard time reliably dealing with tanks before they have had a chance to do considerable damage. My army will probably contain a stronger shooting element than it will as far as assaults are concerned based upon the "assaulty" nature of the armies I tend to play against. Devastators with Lascannons are prohibitively expensive, so I'm considering Landspeeders and Attack Bikes.

I realize many SM lists at this points level contain a unit of Terminators, but in my experience, although they've been pretty good at shooting and drawing fire I think there may be better choices considering the points cost. For 240 points, I would prefer to have 2 Landspeeders with Assault Cannons and add Veteran Sergeants with Power Fists to some of my squads, so I can maximize each unit's effectiveness at a particular combat role rather than have one unit that's relatively strong at several roles (but not the best).

I probably went a little bike crazy in my first list, but definitely believe that a few Attack Bikes can be an effective way to deal with enemy tanks (even if there are better choices for shooting at anything else). I plan to start again with something like this:

HQ: Clueless, suggestions?
Elites: 6 Devastators; 4 Missile Launchers, Tank Hunters- 188
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun- 115
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun- 115
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun- 115
Fast Attack: 2 Attack Bikes; 2 Multi Meltas- 130
Heavy Support: 6 Devastators; 4 Heavy Bolters- 150
Heavy Support: 6 Devastators; 4 Heavy Bolters- 150

That's a pretty strong shooting core, and leaves about 550 points for some close combat oriented units. I'm also considering a Squad of Veterans with the Infiltrate skill or maybe an HQ character with a command squad that infiltrates as a means to tie up enemy shooting squads. Any suggestions for those units would be appreciated.

I think your pick of a commander was a great choice for HQ, especially with all the shooting units and you need some small amount of assault punch anyway.

TL LC + Terminator Honours + Bike is a great combo, and it's even better if you can find 20 points to give him a 2+ save. Twice as good as a 3+ it's like giving him 6 wounds instead of 3 (power weapons and other nastiness notwithstanding). You even get TL bolters on the bike you can shoot with to make sure you can charge the target you want to charge.

The problem is that multi-melta bikes are not cost effective. Look at your 3-bike squads. Unless they're killing a landraider, they aren't making their points back before they get killed.

Lets take your opponents one at a time.

Nids: you zoom up, shoot a 165 point carnifex for 1 or 2 wounds, then get swamped and die to CC nasties. Net win: Nids, by about 100 points. He may even thank you for the extra movement, and protection from shooting.

Eldar: Fast skimmers with spirit stones just means that they cant shoot you for the next turn. While that's nice, if you're going up against falcons the cargo is what's important. They'll unload some CC ability (or a few Fire Dragons) and kill your bikes easily. And don't think you can block the doors, you'll just be tank-shocked out of the way. Net gain: Eldar, by about 170 points.

Dark eldar: These guys will either blast you with warrior Dark Lances, or assualt you. Either way you die quickly and easily. You only have a 50% chance per pen of downing a ravager, since all hits are downgraded to glancing. Net gain: even if you kill a ravager, Dark Eldar still make out by 80ish points.

Tau: Ok, here it might acually be worth it. There's a good chance you can stun a hammerhead, and with no real CC threat and few high S low AP shots outside of tanks, you'll very likely have a second round to shoot it down. The tanks also expensive enough that you'll only take a minor loss in points, which you could make up by assualting. Winner: Space Marines.

Chaos: Zoom up, kill a pred, get assualted. Likely even get assualted before that, if you're not careful. Winner: Chaos.

Guard: Like Tau, it might actually do ok here. Unfortunately, here you might get charged by Rough Riders or even just an infantry squad to pin you unil your invulnerable goes away, then get shot up. A good Guard commander will make it difficult for you to make a kill. Net Gain: IG, probably averaging out to 50ish points or so.

I am inclined to agree with the general opinion that Termies >>> Attack Bikes.

The other night I played against Voodoo Boyz's Kult of speed list with the 3 battle wagons. all 3 speeders managed to penetrate against AV 14 with assault cannons. Now if you can claim that multi meltas are better than assault cannons for high armor hunting I think you are mistaken. Assault cannons are effective at up to 24" with 4 shots, multi meltas are at 1/2 effect at 24" and fully efective at 12" with only a single shot.

All in all Terminiators are a much better choice than the attack bikes as well as landspeeder tornadoes. I would look into using those 2 unit as your primary multi role unit.

Negativemoney wrote:Now if you can claim that multi meltas are better than assault cannons for high armor hunting I think you are mistaken. Assault cannons are effective at up to 24" with 4 shots, multi meltas are at 1/2 effect at 24" and fully efective at 12" with only a single shot.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really make sense to compare assault cannons and multi meltas like this. Sure, I would rather have 1 Assault cannon than 1 Multi Melta. However, if you're fielding Terminators, the minimum you're paying for your assault cannons is 120 points. An Attack Bike with a Multi Melta costs 65 points, just about half the cost of one assault cannon in that unit. For the express purpose of tank hunting, I'd absolutely prefer 2 multi meltas to 1 assault cannon. I do agree with you that Termies are better than attack bikes with multi meltas (if they weren't, why would so many people use termies and nobody use attack bikes) but they aren't better at killing tanks. Better at everything else maybe, and better overall definitely, but not better at killing tanks.

That was a nice analysis mnemoch, but it's really just a bunch of worst case scenarios. Against armies like DE, they aren't going to work out like you said. Say they get turn 1 and move some raider squads as far forward as they can. I'm going to pop out from behind the cover I set up behind, move 12", and shoot 3 melta shots at that raider. I'm obviously not using the turbo boosters to boost up and get assaulted.

Against Chaos, if a squad of 2 bikes zooms up and kills a predator, they've made their points back and fulfilled their purpose. I'm not going to send them all up if the chaos player isn't fielding a land raider, actually.

Against Tyranids, they're the weakest, but that's only 1/6 of the armies I play regularly.

Also, these squads making back their points isn't as important as it is for other units. Killing tanks is something my army has had a hard time with. If my opponent comes out ahead by 50 or so by trading tanks for bikes, I'm just fine with that result because I know the rest of my army is a lot better at killing the rest of his army.

I think I'm going to drop down to 2 squads of 2 bikes- 260 points total, 20 more than 5 terminators, 4 melta shots, 8 wounds, much more mobile. I don't see how anyone can argue the terminator squad would be better for tank hunting than those 2 squads for a similar total cost. I'm definitely going to consider landspeeders as well. If melta shots aren't effective against falcons, what are?

Firstly,

I want to congratulate you at being the only other person I know that actaully has that many attack bikes.

Very impressive.
I suppose this discussion would be obsolete if attack bike could just take assault cannons or plasma cannons,
but oh well.

I do like the 4 attack bikes for a couple reasons.
1) THEY LOOK AWESOME (this by far is the best thing about them!!)
2) they are far more maneuvable than terminators
3) if people do shoot at them it is protecting the bulk of you force.

I do have 1 question for you.

Why so cheesy with 3 6 man las/plas squads,
do you need the lascannons with 4 multimelta's and 4 missile launchers?

I agree with the others that points would be well spent on a tornado, but I would suggest putting heavy bolter in the squads and dropping a dev squad (7 heavy bolters rather than 8) and you've saved a heap of points you can put into other stuff.

But, Where is your counter attack,
I mean, really??

I would do something like:

HQ: Anything really - about 120 points
Elites: 6 Devastators; 4 Missile Launchers, Tank Hunters -188
Elites: 5 Terminators; 2 Assault Cannons- 240
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Heavy Bolter, 1 Plasma Gun -105
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Heavy Bolter, 1 Plasma Gun -105
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun -115
Troops: 6 Marines; 1 Lascannon, 1 Plasma Gun -115
Fast Attack: 2 Attack Bikes; 2 Multi Meltas -130
Fast Attack: 2 Attack Bikes; 2 Multi Meltas -130
Fast Attack: Landspeeder Tornado -100
Heavy Support: 6 Devastators; 4 Heavy Bolters- 150


A few more marines should help you in hth, but you still don't have much hth.

You could drop 2 attack bikes for a pred, or a unit of marines for a pred or both really for 2 preds (I like this option but not having any real tanks is an advantage at the moment)

Good luck with the list!!

Did someone say las/plas is cheesy? lol

First, there is no cheese in 40k. This isn't herohammer.

Second, las/plas isn't as good in gameplay as it is on paper.

Three, who puts HB into tactical squads? Come on now.

6 man las plas is such a mainstay unit for any marine army. It is the only way one should take a tactical squad that is not podding.

Terminators w/ assault cannons add much more survivability to your fire base than the attack bikes. A single lascannon wound and you are down 1 multi melta where as with the terminators it will take 5 lascannon wounds on average to take a way a single assault cannon. Now which one would you say is better? Also please note that the a multi melta is on average slightly better than an assault cannon against AV 13 and 14 at ranges 12" and under. It also is not as effective at ranges over 12". I will see if I can find the calculations that have been done for the assault cannon compared to any other weapon that the space marines can field.

I prefer versatility and surviveablity to a unit that servers only one purpose. It just does not make any sense to take a unit that will not be effective against all opponents.

Keep ringing that bell, guys. Someday, the gods will hear your 'las/plas is best' cry and come to your aid. I'm glad my smurf marines refuse to use both and remain unsullied.

At least the comments on the multimelta are spot on.

I think yesterday I lost my first vehicle to a multimelta in years of watching them flail around. Even a blind pig finds it way to the truffles, right? lol

Stelek can you list a single tac swuad configuration that is more efficent and cost effective than the 6 man Las/Plas squad?

Negativemoney wrote:6 man las plas is such a mainstay unit for any marine army. It is the only way one should take a tactical squad that is not podding.

Terminators w/ assault cannons add much more survivability to your fire base than the attack bikes. A single lascannon wound and you are down 1 multi melta where as with the terminators it will take 5 lascannon wounds on average to take a way a single assault cannon. Now which one would you say is better? Also please note that the a multi melta is on average slightly better than an assault cannon against AV 13 and 14 at ranges 12" and under. It also is not as effective at ranges over 12". I will see if I can find the calculations that have been done for the assault cannon compared to any other weapon that the space marines can field.

I prefer versatility and surviveablity to a unit that servers only one purpose. It just does not make any sense to take a unit that will not be effective against all opponents.

While I doubt that Assault Cannons are more effective than Meltas against AV 13+, I won't go any further with that until I've worked it out mathemetically.

However, why does everyone keep ignoring the fact that I'm not comparing one assault cannon to one multi melta, but rather 1 cannon to 2 meltas? 2 Assault Cannons = 240 points, 4 Multi Meltas= 260 points.

I understand what you are comparing. How ever you also need to look at it this way.

2 Meltas gives you 4 wounds in total and at 2 wounds you loose the melta. With S8 or above each wound causes you to loose a single melta. When it comes down survivability you can't beat the 4 wound buffer you have in a terminator squad. That means that it will take 4 failed wounds (after all saves) before you loose your first assault cannon. Also the number of S8+ weapons that won't penetrate the armor of a terminator increases.

In the end it all comes down to survivability.

For the math of the Assault cannon VS Melta it is as follows.

Assault cannon
4 shots at 2/3 hits gives us 8/3 will hit
8/3 hits with 1/6 rend. 8/18 of those rending 2/3 will penitrate AV 14 and 5/6 will pen AV 13 this gives us a ratio of 16/54 for AV 14 and 40/108 at AV 13

So for the Assault Cannon you have 29% pen rate against AV 14 and 37% pen rate against AV 13

For the Multi Melta at 24"
1 shot at 2/3 hits 1/6 of those pen on AV 14 and 1/3 will pen on AV 13. whis gives us a pen rate of 1/9 for AV 14 and 2/9 for AV 13

So for the Multi Melta >12" is a pen rate at 11% for AV14 and 22 at AV 13

Closer than 12 we see that it goes up.
2/3 hits with 26/36 penatrates on AV 14 and 30/36 pen at AV 13. This gives us a ratio of 52/108 for AV 14 and 60/108 for AV 13

So For the Multi Melta <= 12" is a pen rate at 48% for AV 14 and 55% for AV 13

At Ranges > 12" (outside normal assault range) The assault cannon is supperior to the Multi Melta. At ranges < 12" the multi melta will have a better percentage.

Does this mean that the multi melta is better, I wouldn't say so. The fact that it needs to be so close to the enemy units to inflict maximum damage puts it at risk. More often than not Terminators kill more than their share of points. I don't think your bikes can do the same.

Negativemoney wrote:
Assault cannon
4 shots at 2/3 hits gives us 8/3 will hit
8/3 hits with 1/6 rend. 8/18 of those rending 2/3 will penitrate AV 14 and 5/6 will pen AV 13 this gives us a ratio of 16/54 for AV 14 and 40/108 at AV 13

So for the Assault Cannon you have 29% pen rate against AV 14 and 37% pen rate against AV 13

Piccies are so much better. Graph of chance of hurting various AVs for both weapons. Note it includes the AC glance chance as well, not just penetrate. Also note I'm going by probability of doing something, not average hits per turn, for the AC that means you are looking at the chance of 1 or more damaging hits per turn.



Column X was just a spacer between the 2 weapons.

That graph looks fairly good. As you can see the Assault cannon is a much better choice when it comes to Tank Hunting if you are unsure that you will be able to constantly put pressure on your opponent by being within 12" of his vehicles.

Negativemoney wrote:
2 Meltas gives you 4 wounds in total and at 2 wounds you loose the melta. With S8 or above each wound causes you to loose a single melta. When it comes down survivability you can't beat the 4 wound buffer you have in a terminator squad. That means that it will take 4 failed wounds (after all saves) before you loose your first assault cannon. Also the number of S8+ weapons that won't penetrate the armor of a terminator increases.

A few things:
I was comparing 2 Attack Bikes with Multi-Meltas to a squad of 5 Terminators (not 6) with 2 Assault Cannons. Terminators have to be standing there, very likely visible to more than one unit.

The Attack Bikes are either

1. Not visible at all, because my opponent got the first turn,
2. Visible, but have an Inv 3+ save, or
3. Visible, and have no Inv 3+ save, but have already taken their shots at the enemy tank I wanted them to destroy

Because I understand how to use them properly. This is a little more difficult to work out the math for, but I'll give it a try:
4 Lascannon shots with BS 4 = 2.67 hits = 2.22 wounds = 1.48 unsaved wounds (Terminators), = .74 unsaved wounds (Turbo-Boosted Attack Bikes)

Note that Turbo-Boosted Attack Bikes represent the only meaningful comparison because the other possibilities involve the Bikes not being visible, or having already fulfilled their purpose. I could twist it to say that Attack Bikes are twice as "survivable", but of course that would not be justified by the above figures. That .74 unsaved wounds means I lose an entire Bike because of Instant Death, but I have 3 remaining if I am using a number of Attack Bikes equal in points to the Terminator squad.

Negativemoney wrote:
For the math of the Assault cannon VS Melta it is as follows.

Assault cannon
4 shots
For the Multi Melta
1 shot

Hmm. You said you understood what I was comparing, but forgot (?) between when you said that and when you wrote this. I'm comparing 2 Assault Cannons to 4 Multi Meltas, because they are close to being equal in points cost. I am not comparing one Multi-Melta to one Assault Cannon.

8 Assault Cannon shots = 5.33 hits, S6 + 4.08 (3.5 being the average of 1D6, the additional .58 representing the 1/6 times a 6 is rolled, adding an extra 3.5 from the additional D6 from rending)
4 Multi Melta shots = 2.67 hits, S8 + 7

4 Multi Meltas are better than 2 Assault Cannons at killing AV 13+, or 2 Multi Meltas are better than 1 Assault Cannon.


EDIT: Just read all the posts between this one and the one I quoted.

I made a mistake. Not in my math, but I didn't realize that Melta weapons only added the D6 when within half range. I couldn't for the life of my understand how you guys were arguing that AC's might be better (assuming Melta Weapons worked as I thought). Sorry for all the arguing

Terminizzle wrote:

EDIT: Just read all the posts between this one and the one I quoted.

I made a mistake. Not in my math, but I didn't realize that Melta weapons only added the D6 when within half range. I couldn't for the life of my understand how you guys were arguing that AC's might be better (assuming Melta Weapons worked as I thought). Sorry for all the arguing

Not withsatnding that, I don't think the bike MM is bad compared to the termie AC for what you are wanting. The bike has a 12" move compared to the termie 6" move. so the half range still gives you a nasty 24" threat range for the bonus dice, and at a max range of 36" you outrange the AC (30"). There is really only a 6" gap between 24" and 30" that an AC is better than even 1 MM against anything other than AV 10. So for the vast the majority of the situations your 2 MMs will be a lot better than the AC at tank hunting.

Thats not to take away from what the others said. Termies + AC is a very good all round unit, and probably more survivable than the bikes.

What you are talking about are apples and oranges. you say 4 attack bikes w/ Mulit Meltas vs. 5 Terminators w/ 2 Assault cannons is a poor comparison to say the least All you are doing here is focusing on killing a single model (if that) then letting the bikes die. I for one do not want to see any of my units die and will do what ever I can to protect them.

In your example you show that from 4 lascannons 1.5 Terminators die and only .75 Attack bikes die if turbo boosted. I say to this those bikes did not shoot and took las cannons to the face. when one dies you loose a multi melta. with the terminators 2 might die but you still have your assault cannons and you were able to use them the turn before.

There is no escaping the fact that Assault cannon Terminators and even Tornadoes are far superior to Attack Bike w/ Multi Meltas. There is more utility in each squad and there is more surviveablity between the terminators and the attack bikes. I all of my experience any bike equiped Mulit melta has not made it close enough to my (or any one else's for that matter) to do any serious damage. The 12" zone is a tricky place to be and when you get that close and don't kill your mark you will be left with a scoring unit that is easily enough killed by mass small weapons fire.

Now if you were running those attack bikes in bike squadrons w/ atleast 4 other bikes I would say you have a solid unit as you can suffer wounds and still keep your special weapons alive.

Negativemoney wrote:What you are talking about are apples and oranges. you say 4 attack bikes w/ Mulit Meltas vs. 5 Terminators w/ 2 Assault cannons is a poor comparison to say the least All you are doing here is focusing on killing a single model (if that) then letting the bikes die. I for one do not want to see any of my units die and will do what ever I can to protect them.

In your example you show that from 4 lascannons 1.5 Terminators die and only .75 Attack bikes die if turbo boosted. I say to this those bikes did not shoot and took las cannons to the face. when one dies you loose a multi melta. with the terminators 2 might die but you still have your assault cannons and you were able to use them the turn before.

There is no escaping the fact that Assault cannon Terminators and even Tornadoes are far superior to Attack Bike w/ Multi Meltas. There is more utility in each squad and there is more surviveablity between the terminators and the attack bikes. I all of my experience any bike equiped Mulit melta has not made it close enough to my (or any one else's for that matter) to do any serious damage. The 12" zone is a tricky place to be and when you get that close and don't kill your mark you will be left with a scoring unit that is easily enough killed by mass small weapons fire.

Now if you were running those attack bikes in bike squadrons w/ atleast 4 other bikes I would say you have a solid unit as you can suffer wounds and still keep your special weapons alive.

This makes me think that you haven't read any of my other messages. I've stated explicitly and repeatedly that I'm having a hard time killing tanks and am looking for a unit that will do that reliably and isn't planned to serve any other purpose. I'm not going to respond to any of your other points because I've definitely already answered them all more than once in this thread.

I know Terminators are a better overall unit- I found this forum, I can click the threads and see that nobody else uses Attack Bikes and that everyone else uses Terminators.

Just for the heck of it - the comparison of 4 MM vs 2AC getting 1 or more good hits vs armor.




In terms of pure AT firepower 4 MM out performs 2 AC in most situations, only where the tank started 25-30" away against AV14 are 2 AC better than 4MM, and that assumes it isn't a lith.

Also the 4 MM can split into 2 or 3 units so that they can observe the fire of a previous bike and target other stuff accordingly. The MM also has the advantage that barring SMF or the like it is always penetrating whereas the AC sometimes only glances.

The problem with MM bikes is when your opponent takes no tanks or the tanks are skimmers, they are useless.

I don't know about you but down here, that describes almost every game. Either there are no tanks, hammerheads or falcons.

In any of those cases tankhunting terminators are superior point for point.

Oh I don't know, lots of players still run lots of vehicles.

It is viable, you are just disadvantaged compared to skimmers.

Stelek,

In the other thread you just got done telling Longshot how rhinos aren’t very good and how most non-skimmer tanks suck. Longshot says Assault cannons are a superior weapon to multimelts. And you come back with “Oh I don't know, lots of players still run lots of vehicles.”

What? So in your opinion if a lot of people take substandard choices (ie non-skimmer vehicles which you have consistently decried), it’s better to take a substandard weapon?

I know you are too smart to recommend attack bikes (and they’re not even cheap dark angel attack bikes, which would have lent a little credibility to the argument) over assault cannon terminators and landspeeders. I mean seriously, I take out the points he spent on attack bikes and spend that on terminators with tank hunting assault cannons and landspeeder tornados. Who has the stronger list? I mean this is bleedin’ obvious to me, as I’m sure it is to you.


post edited to remove flame. --yakface

Wow. Talk about obvious flaming, good job Ebon.

I didn't say anything about AC or MM.

I think 3 tanks (without anything else reasonably close to being called a tank) on the board that are only AV13 is asking to get them punked.

I think however if you run alot of vehicles that either contain credible threats or are threats themselves, you can live with the fact that your vehicles are all pretty fragile.

I don't think Chaos Rhinos are very good when I view them in total with the army list itself.

I can't really comment on the rest of your post, it seems a bit rude.

Here are links to vehicle heavy army lists:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/205557.page

Here's the Chaos version:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/205684.page

I'm still not really in favor of running Chaos Rhinos for no purpose other than as bunkers/hills, but as a cohesive army list I think it's got it's own kind of place in the grand scheme of things.

Not just talking out my ass about all-vehicle armies, after all. I can pop out a IG one that's just a serious pita to play against if you really want.

Terminizzle wrote:I play mainly against Tyranids, Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Guard, and Chaos.

By the way, ALL of those armies can knock out 3 non-skimmer Predator style tanks PDQ.

If you don't have alot of vehicles on the board, why wouldn't they get shot at and destroyed?

Guess I don't get the anger. Oh well.