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For the past few days, I've been suggesting to others that they take, bikers, jump infantry, and other fast moving, but relatively weak close combat squads. These units would be tasked with dashing around the board, and giving just enough support to the normal CC squads for them to win whatever assault/defense they are tied up in. It seems like a good strategy to me, the units can fill multiple rolls, including flankers, tank hunters, and the aforementioned support close combat unit.

So here are the things I would like your suggestions on

1) Is this a good strategy to begin with?

2) what units would you suggest for this role?

3) how would your competition army handle these units?

Thanks for reading, and thanks for answering

1: i like the idea, but using cover would play a majour role in survival for em.

2: attack bikes, landspeeders, assult marines.
kit the bikes out with multi melta's, same with the speeders.
give the assult marines a sgt with power fist and melta bombs, then thats 3 anti tank units, or, take the speeders as tornado's, then they have the assult cannons for troops and a multi melta for tanks.
and the speeders and bikes are fairly cheap when it comes to points.

3: i collect tau, so fire as much at the units as possible untill the threat is gone lol.

JD21290 wrote: i collect tau, so fire as much at the units as possible untill the threat is gone lol.

Well with speeders, their maneuverability, and armament allows them to dodge what they can't kill, and kill what they can't dodge, especially against tau. While tanks would easily destroy them, if your forced to spend that kind of power on a landspeeder, your in trouble. The ideal for taking down those weak units is lots of small arms fire. But 3 speeders with heavy bolters and assault cannons can move within 24 inches and blast the entire squad to hell according to math hammer. Against fire warriors, they score 11 5/6 kills. Missile pods, and Kroot guns are about the only thing the tau can feasibly use against speeders.

Your question is wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too broad.

3 Speeders with HB/AC is 240 pts.

Against any competent Tau player, you're not going to get clean shots against their fire warriors. They'll either be in cover (which cuts your kills down to 6) or in a Fish the 1st turn.

There is no way a 240 pt squad of 3 AV10 vehicles is a good investment against an army with a bajillion S5 guns. Fireknife/Deathrain suits also down speeders fast. You will get one turn of full shooting with the speeder squad, max.

You can buy an assault squad with powerfist for that kind of points. Which is what I'd suggest against Tau.

sorry, I got off topic, about the speeders, (in my own discussion!)

Landspeeders are a moot point, they don't fill the role of CC support squads, because they can't fire into close combat.

I would really like to respond to MarvinGayeIsMyDaddy, but that would put this discussion even more off topic than I made it. I don't mean to be rude to either Mr. Gaye, or JD21290, I just want this discussion to answer the question I posted.

Kay, back to the original topic. I think you have to be more specific about what units you are talking about. A suicide attack bike/speeder here and there for tankhunting is okay. Assault/bikes squads of 5 get gunned down very quickly though.

erm, fire warior pulse rifles are Str 5, they can take down a speeder fairly easily, especially if your within 15" so i can rapid fire.

and a nice sub. shot fom the rail gun of a hammerhead could easily kill all 3 if they are close enoug together.
if not then an ion cannon can do the job instead.

"A suicide attack bike/speeder here and there for tankhunting is okay. Assault/bikes squads of 5 get gunned down very quickly though."

Well biker squads have that very smexy turbo boost, and that +1 to their toughness. cover hugging would be a must for these squads. I think that their small size would lead them to be ignored by the bigger squads, especially if you made it relatively difficult to shoot at them. With these squads, their survival would come down to positioning. Put them in one spot, they become the focus of heavy fire, put them in another and they are mistaken as being a relatively small threat.

I think that these squads would, at best, rarely make back their points directly. But that isn't the point of a support squad. They are put on the battle field so that they can allow the core of the army to perform better than they could otherwise

if you want 2 solid support squads go for:

6 bikes, 2 with melta's, SGT with either a power weapon or fist, they should survive pretty well.

and the other one, 9 man assult squad, SGT with lightning claws and melta bombs, with a chaplin with jump pack.
that should hit very hard, and its mobile.
can even kill a tank now and again.

Yup... I like it, and it works well with my counter attack tactical squads WOOT.

Now, how would you kill those guys?

with stingwings, and massed fire with low AP weps and large blasts.

stingwings would kill thier armour save, and with the nice S5 should kill every 7/10 they hit.
more rail and ion shots if needed.
i wouldnt want that comming towards my tau fire line.

Um, your math is off. As always, I hate arguing with the people that are giving me advice so I'll just say that I'm... I don't know... discussing what you have said?

str5 vs T 4 is 2/3 of a wound and you hit 1/2 of the time so your getting 1/6 of a wound with each shot. This means that an Assault squad could out shoot you with pistols, or if they had a flamer... .While rail gun submunitions would be great against speeders, a shot would probably be able to hit about 6 marines ( taking into account that the pie plate has an area of 19 2/3" and the maximum spread to keep unit coherency is 2 inches from any model. )

So a submunition is wounding about 5/6 of the time and breaching armor about 1/3 of the time so with a submunition shot that HITS it gets 5/18 of a wound, almost 1/3, not bad, but not great considering that your firing at a support squad with a tank. Also, if you don't take for granted that it is going to hit, then you have a 1/3 chance of it hitting dead on, and a 2/3 chance of it scattering 3 inches away.Ion rounds are probably the best bet, but still you hit 1/2 pf the time, wound 5/6 of the time and you get a total of 5/12 of a wound with each shot.

Again, I don't mean to argue, and it seems that I've done just that, but my points are valid.

sorry if I've offended any future/past givers of advice