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Talking with some other players as well as reading army list after army list here on dakka; I have noticed a disturbing trend in space marine army lists ; Lack of scout bike squads.


Let's look at what you get for 275 point full ten man squad.

10 Bikes w/ 3 Astartes launchers w/ Sgt w/ P.F. ; Cluster Mines ; Locator Beacon.


A unit that can always start the game with a 3+ invulnerable, and has the abilites to charge units on the first turn. With infilitrate and the ability to turboboost for a scout move you are able to move forward 24 inches ( which by the way includes into your opponents deployment as long as the move ENDS with the models not being more than within 12 inches of a enemy model).

With the new rules for templates ; you calculate hits after firing and roll to wound. Astartes Launchers rapid fire STR3 blast templates ; even against MEQ you are going to force a lot of saves. Second The bikers themselves have low ballistic but their rapid fire bolters are able to reroll misses.


Toughness 5 who cares if they have armour 4 they're in hand to hand combat , charging a unit of 30 orks will still benefit as they need 6's to wound.


Locator beacon; Fantastic who needs drop pods when your librarian with gate can teleport with in 6 inches of the sergeant with a 10 man sternguard squad on the first turn or hell just drop them in a Drop pod and move on.

Staying 12 inches away puts you 6 inches forward with a drop pod into your opponents deployment.

Vanguard a reason to use them tie up a squad of troops deliver vanguard into your opponents.


Outflank- don't want to set up fine outflank with them and devastate vehicles rear armour with a str 6 ap 4 rapid fire weapon, thats 6 STR 6 hits on rear armour of a vehicle.

Cluster Mines ; for ten points you get to booby trap terrain with 2D6 STR4 hits ; not a bad little surprise when you combine it with another squad of scouts sitting in the terrain with 3+ invulnerables. The best part is that it hits rear armour ; other than a few select vehicles most have rear armour of 10 so you may be able to at least receive a glancing.

Anyway I just don't see a lot of lists with this squad and its very disappointing to me as I feel their one of the most underused army list.




What are some of your combos ?

Personally I like Scout bikes w/ just a basic Vanguard Squad of 5 w/ Relic blade

Whoa boy...

Hollismason wrote:

Let's look at what you get for 275 point full ten man squad.

10 Bikes w/ 3 Astartes launchers w/ Sgt w/ P.F. ; Cluster Mines ; Locator Beacon.

For 275 points, I can get a 20 Boy squad with a nob/pk and a AV 14 battlewagon with a deff rolla, and a red paint job. I like were this is going.

A unit that can always start the game with a 3+ invulnerable, and has the abilites to charge units on the first turn. With infilitrate and the ability to turboboost for a scout move you are able to move forward 24 inches ( which by the way includes into your opponents deployment as long as the move ENDS with the models not being more than within 12 inches of a enemy model).

The thing is, if your put your bikers within 12" of one of my units, I guarantee they will be charged, and they will be horribly slaughtered. For example, the above mentioned 20 boyz in a battle wagon has an effective charge range of at least 21" before waaagh! (13" movement, 2" deployment, 6" charge). Put them that close to me, and they will die.

With the new rules for templates ; you calculate hits after firing and roll to wound. Astartes Launchers rapid fire STR3 blast templates ; even against MEQ you are going to force a lot of saves. Second The bikers themselves have low ballistic but their rapid fire bolters are able to reroll misses.

Astartes Launchers are good, but aren't great. If a player spreads his marines out, you might hit 3-4 with each of your blasts (if they don't scatter too much) You'll probably wound 3, and kill one marine. You are paying way too much for far too little damage output.

Toughness 5 who cares if they have armour 4 they're in hand to hand combat , charging a unit of 30 orks will still benefit as they need 6's to wound.

That's if the player sets up so you can get a charge off. If they (the orks) charge, they need fives to wound, and only threes to hit. In fact, thanks to you weapon skill of three, they kill more scout bikers then normal marines a turn. If they have to roll sixes, they actually kill just as many bikers as they would kill normal marines a turn.

Let's math hammer this out, and pretend 20 my twenty shoota boys shoot and charge you bikers.

Shooting:
40 shots, 13 hit, 4.5 wound, and 2.25 die. Let's just say two die.

The assault:
You get 7 attacks (power fist is I1), 3.5 hit, and 1.75 wound. Let's just say you kill two orks.

I get 51 attacks (power klaw is I1), 33.3 hit, 11.3 wound, and I roughly kill 5.6 models. Let's round that up to 6.

Your power fist kills 1 more model, and my Power Klaw kills your last dudes.

Final kill tally: 3 orks versus 10 bikers.

I just lost 18 points, and you just lost 275. That isn't a great trade off.

If you some how magically get the charge off with a full strength unit that somehow magically hasn't been damaged at all, and for some reason I didn't keep them in their wagon, and let them sit out in the open, you will kill an average of five orks, and then they will kill an average of 1 biker. Your sergeant will kill 1 more boy, and my klaw will kill two more bikers. I just lost six boys, and you lost 3 bikes. Those are great numbers for me, especially if I have a trukk squad nearby (I will).

Locator beacon; Fantastic who needs drop pods when your librarian with gate can teleport with in 6 inches of the sergeant with a 10 man sternguard squad on the first turn or hell just drop them in a Drop pod and move on.

Staying 12 inches away puts you 6 inches forward with a drop pod into your opponents deployment.

Vanguard a reason to use them tie up a squad of troops deliver vanguard into your opponents.

This is actually pretty nifty. This is a good use of a bike squad. Just be careful, since good players will see this coming from a mile away and will act accordingly (I.E. the bikers will die.)

Outflank- don't want to set up fine outflank with them and devastate vehicles rear armour with a str 6 ap 4 rapid fire weapon, thats 6 STR 6 hits on rear armour of a vehicle.

This is nice, but not too powerful. Unless you have a bunch of scout bike squads, the damage from one can be easily mitigated.

Cluster Mines ; for ten points you get to booby trap terrain with 2D6 STR4 hits ; not a bad little surprise when you combine it with another squad of scouts sitting in the terrain with 3+ invulnerables. The best part is that it hits rear armour ; other than a few select vehicles most have rear armour of 10 so you may be able to at least receive a glancing.

This is pretty useful, but the problem is that it is one use; you will get an average of seven hits. Against things like orks, that means you will kill probably 3 boys (an acceptable number of losses for me; I kill more by accident!) and marines, maybe 1. It isn't the greatest area denial.

Also, just remember, turbo boosting gives you a 3+ cover save, not an invulnerable; a heavy flamer/scorcha will cut right through that, and deny you armour saves. Also, if they charge you, you only get your 4+ save. Also, if all you are doing is turbo boosting with them, you have 275+ points that aren't getting their points back.

Scout bikes are a fun unit, but they are not super powerful. A 10 man squad with all the fixings is just too expensive for what you get. I'd suggest getting only a minimum squad w/ a locator beacon so you can use their synergy with deep striking units. For 275 points, you can get a land raider and then some.

Thing is you can buy a full normal biker squad for about the same cost, get access to many meltas, better BS, WS and armor save. Normal bikers can do most of those things, if not better.

infiltrating, scouting and acting as a homer is what these units are good at, but you have to pretty much build your list around using them for that to be worthwhile. In That case, you are better off buying a much smaller squad to minimize cost, as after they have been used to homer in off of, they are likely not going to contribute much, certainly not as much as regular bikes will.

Obviously you want to use tactics and not just blast forward ignoring all. Having the first turn helps as going first allows you to set up in your opponents deployment.


Layout for most squads is the following

5 Bikers w/ Cluster Mines, Astartes, Locator Beacon, Combi Melta , Melta Bombs




Of course when comparing to biker's squads they do not get the melta potential. However.

Using a list not designed based around them but to suplement the army.

I like the idea if just 3-5 bikers with 3 grenade launchers and a homing beacon. Cheap and useful.

Obviously you want to use tactics

My favorite line!

This is a game of probablilities. There is no tactic that will make the scout bikers (or any unit for that matter) perform better than their stats allow. You cant give them an inspiring speach or flank an army with brilliant maneuvers or feints. I would love to be proven wrong but the only tactics in our game that I see are picking the right troops and putting them in the right place. The tactics involved in the game are not the what I think a lot of people imagine they are. Look at the best armies over the years, they are mostly all brute force. Rhino Rush, Nidzilla, Tri-Falcon Eldar, Nob Bikers, etc. They all rely on statistical advantage. Tactics wont allow scout bikers to destroy nob bikers.

Tactics only makes an appearance between two equal armies, a lot of it is luck but a lot of it is also positioning. Inferior units simply cant compeat with superior units no matter what the fluff says.

This isn't the Desert Fox vs. Paton, its a game with little groups of probabilities moving around in a finite space for a finite amount of turns. Tactics usually boil down to manipulating the system in order to gain an advantage. In order to win you have to pack in as much kill power as you can to oeprate within those boundaries, so things like tactics really do take a back seat to list building.

Sorry for the rant, but 40K is not the best simulation of real warfare or tactical manuevering, in my opinion. I still love the game, but it is what it is.

However, I agree that scout bikers are really useful. But not in a 10 man squad in my opinion. I think a 3 man squad with a beacon and melta boms for the sarge (100 points) is great.

You can use the squad to bring in pods, gating libbys, vangaurd vets (if anyone actually uses these guys) etc. They can also zip around to contest objectives. They are a utility unit in my eyes, not an actual fighting unit. As a matter of fact, I keep mine as far away from anything shooty or choppy as I can unless I am using them to bring in a deepstriking unit.

I have been using them since last edition and I really like them. They have gotten better this edition without a doubt and a clever player can use them as a force multiplier, but I don't think they are a game winner. I would love to be proven wrong though, as they are a very cool unit.

Hollismason wrote:A unit that can always start the game with a 3+ invulnerable

Actually, turbo-boosting gives you a cover save now.

Just to point it out.

::EDIT:: Oops. Mek already noted that. This was kind of a useless post then.

Well, just to say something, deepstrikers don't come down on the first turn anyway, so it doesn't seem like infiltrate much of an asset in that case.

Its still good if they come in turn two, just move the bikers where you want them on turn one.

Also, you can use it for a gating libby squad.

10 Termies with two assault cannons or heavy flamers and a libby with avenger coming in where you want them with no scatter on turn one....nice edit: assuming of course they start on the board.

Also, the rules state that you can make a normal move as a scout move, I am reading that as no turbo boost as that is not a normal move. Has there been any ruling or FAQ on that point?

Yes it is a errata in the faq that models may turboboost in their scout move.


Also, I think really people just don't use them as they view them as "useless" simply because they do not have a 3+ save.


Sure Space Marine Bikes may take meltaguns.


Here is something people forget is that they go well in a all bike army. Your able to put your normal bikes as troops and still take one of these as a fast attack if you are using a space marine commander on a bike.


Even without Khan they have the ability to outflank.


I'm working on a Scout army right now which will incorporate probably 2 small units of these and Il lse how it plays.

I can see one use for Scout Bikers. Minimum size with a Locator Beacon to ensure your droppoddng Sternguard and Ironclads land where they can do the most damage.

Then the Scout Bikes can go pick flowers for all I care.
Actually they can be given the honourable duty of escorting broken enemy units off of the table.

Thanks for clearing that up for me Hollismason.