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Which would you use for a White Scars Army list: Khan or Regular Captain on a bike?

I am leaning towards a regular captain because I do not see any use for outflank for me other than scouts bikers that already have it. However, I do love the furious charge and hit and run that Khans offers.

What do you say, what do think are the pros and cons to either?

Captain, Khan isn't worth what he gives you in points and your more likely to get knocked for comp for taking a SC.

Outflank would allow regular squads to engage as you need them. Since your squads are going to cost 25% or so more than normal this extra edge might be critical.

Outflanking Furious Charging bikes are scary dangerous, but only moderately more so than outflanking fleeting Assault Terminators led by Shrike.

whitedragon wrote:Outflanking Furious Charging bikes are scary dangerous, but only moderately more so than outflanking fleeting Assault Terminators led by Shrike.

Also, don't forget that Kahn will also let Assault Termies outflank in their dedicated LRR...scary indeed

I think he is very much worth his points, not just because of the outflank ability (which I feel is better than Combat Tactics for a speed based army), but he scares opposing chracters and MCs to no end. The ability to instagib anyone on a 6 is pretty nice...not a main reason to take, him, but is a very nice bonus!

Edit: (I personally have lost both a warboss and an Eldar WL to him...I really hate his sword )

I actually disagree. Your paying 45 more points for a weapon that can instant kill: WL's, Marines, and Ork Warbosses. Where as a captain might not be able to outright kill the 3-4 units that Khan has a chance at but he will be able to wound better and more consistantly against almost everything in the game.

If your playing a biker army your already down so many models why would you:

a) start with anything bike based off the table with a random show up and random side appearance?

b) want to stay in combat taking extra wounds when you fail leadership tests instead of being able to fall back?

A captain gives you a lot of hitting power for 20% less points. You can still outflankers in the form of LS Storms/scouts or Scoutbikes. Why do you need your big units to use it?

Oh, and almost every MC out there is immune to instant death at this point. The exceptions being WL's and Carnifexes that aren't in synapse range.

1 Captain Brond James Westonthall 200

-S.M Captain, Bike, TH & SS, Melta bombs, Artificer armor

This how I run my bike captain in my 'Firescars' chapter list. He's dead hard. I've yet to lose him in a game. The TH can ID most things that Khan can, and the SS gives an added surviveability to his T5 that has to be seen to be believed. Artificer armor helps keep this guy alive against massive amount of attacks, so he can survive hitting units much larger than his, or when I run him alone. I also run Vulkan for the MC TH. Without Vulkan I would Drop the Melta bombs (which are just there to fill out my points to 1750) and add Digiweapons.

The extra 40 points is the only drawback, and one I'm happy to deal with.

As much as I don't want to give any dirty loyalists solid advice... losing combat tactics is way too big of a hit.

Also, when my opponent outflanks units against me I feel like I'm that much closer to winning. Outflank 4tl.

All I'm going to say is that outflanking landspeeders with typhoons and multimeltas can hit virtually anything on board when they come in, and can hurt anything short of a monolith. I think it's worth it for Khan.

To agree with the other posters, outflanking is insane.

You're really not thinking of the full potential of outflank if you think it's not worth it.

With units with high mobility, outflank is atually pretty useful. the only way for an opponent to deploy to mitigate outflank really only hampers him more in the long run. Additionally, deploying off-board is usually necessary for bikes, because losing first turn is so critical, and can lose you a game outright (no TB=no good). It can work against you, but so can anything else, and frankly, outlfank is a heck of a lot more reliable than DS or most other means of delayed deployment.

Khan himself is stupidly effective. A bike army is full of a lot of fast, resilient close range shooters. What it isn't full of is effective assaulters. Bikes will win an assault through attrition against most enemies, and that is not an effective way to run bikes. What khan offers is a way to turbo-charge a bike command suad into an effective killing unit. FC+hit and run, coupled with some powerweapons/claws and a fist makes for what will likely be the strongest assault unit in your army (unless you are outflanking TH/SS termies in a crusader...).

Asmodeus wrote:To agree with the other posters, outflanking is insane.

You're really not thinking of the full potential of outflank if you think it's not worth it.

Unless you have an ability to manipulate reserve rolls, you're still coming on on reserves. If you outflank a large portion of your army, your opponent can easily counter by deploying heavily to one flank. This ensures that a unit that outflanks will either:

1. End up too far from the fight

2. Have to face the bulk of the enemy army.

That being said, bikes are the best unit to outflank, but that still doesn't make outflanking good.

I full expect a lot of people to disagree with me because "outflanking" sounds cool and lets players think they're using "stratergy," but in reality it's an underwhelming tactic unless you have a very specific goal to achieve with an outflanking unit, and are willing to take the risk of showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time to achieve it.

All I'm going to say is that outflanking landspeeders with typhoons and multimeltas can hit virtually anything on board when they come in, and can hurt anything short of a monolith. I think it's worth it for Khan.

Too bad Khan doesn't grant outflank to speeders. He only gives it to units with combat tactics and dedicated transports. Speeders are neither.

What khan offers is a way to turbo-charge a bike command suad into an effective killing unit.

I'd rather take all those extra points getting FC and hit and run and take storm shields -- and still be able to combat tactic with your bike squads. YMMV.

speeders can still reamain in normal reserves and come on close to your outlfanking bikes. if you take the typhoon variant, range is less of an issue.

with outflank, you still get the side you want 66% of the time, and even if you get the wrong side, there it's still not the end of the world; 24" move means that you still end up in the fight a turn or 2 later anyway. in objective games, you can still hop or contest objectives on the opposing boardside, and in KP games, you are out of LOS with a 3+ coversave otherwise.

In general, with outflanking bikes you are playing truncated games anyway. come on turn 2 and 3, blasting and assaulting, secure objectives in turn 4 and 5, and work out contesting with speeders and combat squads from that point forward. Bikes do better in shorter games. your model count is low enough that extetended exposure will wear you down, but most of your advantages (high toughness, cover-at-will, access to strong short ranged weaponry) benefit greatly from shorter games where your opponent has less time to react to your arrival. again, your mileage may vary, but anytime you give someone 6 or so turns to blast apart your 30-40 models, he will do his best to do just that.

I find furious charge and hit and run are the main things you end up appricating when you pay for Khan, thats where the extra points go and thats where they get paid back. If you spash on the bike command squad with a a couple of powerweapons and powerfists you'll be able to deal pretty horrific damage to MEQ before they get to blink, and avoid getting stuck somewhere. Hes pretty good at helping out a standard squad compared to a normal captian too, hit and run is a lot more reliable than waiting until you lose combat and can escape without being caught.

willydstyle wrote:Unless you have an ability to manipulate reserve rolls, you're still coming on on reserves. If you outflank a large portion of your army, your opponent can easily counter by deploying heavily to one flank. This ensures that a unit that outflanks will either:

1. End up too far from the fight
2. Have to face the bulk of the enemy army.

Outflank works well when lightly used, having a unit or two at most as a roaming threat can have an opponent always watching his flanks.

In my experience people rarely stick to a flank for fear of the risk that a unit will come on in the middle of their army and blast a target of choice to tiny bits. True it might not happen but thats risk for you, theres lots of chances that you take in 40K.

Ending too far from the fight generally isn't a problem, lighting up the boosters means they're there the turn after, annoying but not the end of the world.
And they'll never face the bulk of the enemy army alone because when they do arrive at the right place they're there to back up the rest of the army that is leading at attack. In fact one of the best uses of outflank is to have a unit play bait along the edge of the table to draw an enemy in, its just important to make sure that if the unit doesn't come on in time that you have a backup available, but the best plans are ones that are flexible and thats what outflank is, not a magical all conquoring trick, just an extra tool.

I full expect a lot of people to disagree with me because "outflanking" sounds cool and lets players think they're using "stratergy," but in reality it's an underwhelming tactic unless you have a very specific goal to achieve with an outflanking unit, and are willing to take the risk of showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time to achieve it.

Thats cute, add a disclaimer to say that everyone disagreeing with you is wrong. I guess that means you don't need to come up with any good reasons to defend your argument.

Outflanking can be HUGE in a fast army...even more so if you go second. Your opponent knows that if you deploy on the table you can hit him hard and fast, if you live long enough; this means that he needs to setup good fire lanes to start. However, knowing that you CAN outflank with great speed will force him to setup away from the edges, if he wants to protect his shooty units...this combination really messes up his deployment. After seeing how he sets up, you then get to choose to outflank or not, completely screwing up his deployment plans.

If you go first, it still has uses. You can set up your army in the best position to advance. Then your opponent's deploymeny must react to that, while also considering the 2-3 units you kept in reserve, ready to outflank.

Either way, having access to fast outlanking units can really help out in the early game, beacuse of how it forces your opponent to deploy. Then, you get the added benefit of taking advantage of the firepower/ assault capabilities of those same outflanking units in the late game, when they actually hit the table

Hymirl wrote:not a magical all conquoring trick, just an extra tool.

I guess you missed the "unless you have a specific goal to achieve" part of my post? I didn't say it was worthless... although I do think it is nearly so, and not nearly as good as combat tactics, which in effect can give hit & run to your whole army instead of one unit.

Here's the big thing though. The earliest an outflanking unit will be showing up to fight is turn two. IF you make your reserves roll, and IF the unit comes on the side of the table you want (approx 1/3 chance of succeeding both rolls on turn two) then the outflanking unit gets to fight on turn two.

With their 24" turboboost, if you'd just left the bike unit on the table, they'd be fighting by turn two (or sometimes turn one) anyways, and since you have more of your army on the table, your opponent has a harder time focusing on specific targets of yours.

Bikes are THE best unit to outflank with, and it's still not a good tactic to use 80% of the time. I'd say the only really good time to do it is if your opponent has super-long range weapons and is playing a split deployment against your bikes. So hooray, it's good against Tau, if they're playing poorly, and Tau are already easy enough to beat with a biker army.

willydstyle wrote:...not nearly as good as combat tactics, which in effect can give hit & run to your whole army instead of one unit.

For leaving combat it doesn't even come close, bear in mind that if you're heavily losing combat the marines are likely to try to run anyway, plus you still have the whole escaping thing and not to mention the fact that after losing the combat its likely that your bike unit has taken a mauling (you don't get that many of them remember).

What it is great for is falling back in the shooting phase to avoid being assaulted at all, because thats where there aren't any modifiers and the option to auto-fail really works. Don't get me wrong its good, but bikes fall back so far you tend to spend all your movement getting back to where you where again if you're still keen on pressing the attack.

With their 24" turboboost, if you'd just left the bike unit on the table, they'd be fighting by turn two (or sometimes turn one) anyways, and since you have more of your army on the table, your opponent has a harder time focusing on specific targets of yours.

Unless they lose a couple of guys and fail a morale check , potentially even zipping off the table if its turn one. Starting on the table is more reliable but its not a garantee either, I consider the outflank to be useful for what its useful for, making people paranoid about some 'sneak attack unit' and have less concentration on whats kicking their faces in right away.

Of course the way to have your cake and eat it is to have a vanillia bike captian and include some scout bikes. Which is also an option, one that I intend to give a try to - mostly out of a wish to put some scout bikes to more use than paper wieghts on the model shelf which is their customary home! (Although I admit I don't have high hopes).

Hymirl wrote:

Unless they lose a couple of guys and fail a morale check , potentially even zipping off the table if its turn one. Starting on the table is more reliable but its not a garantee either, I consider the outflank to be useful for what its useful for, making people paranoid about some 'sneak attack unit' and have less concentration on whats kicking their faces in right away.

That is exactly why I bother to keep a unit to outflank. The fact that a large percent (ide go up to 65%) is mental it gives outflanking some merit. Yes you have to tell your opponent what is outflanking (you have to tell him your terminators are DS anyway) so its not a big deal to me. Its fun watching my friends try to stay away from the table edges usually helps out my army (not WS or SM for that matter). Yes its risky, yes it can backfire but so can rapid firing and rolling lots of 's.