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Thought I'd ask here too:

I'm new to the game and am need a HQ choice for my CSM army. What I need from you guys is help deciding how to stat up the best HQ choice I can with the following parameters:

- Must include an Icon (Personal or Mark)
- Must have a bike
- Must be viable (friendly, not tourney) in small (750pt) forces
- Not dependant on fielding with a separate bike unit
- Please don't suggest a Demon Prince instead--kthx

Please tell me how you would cobble together such a HQ and, just as importantly, how you'd play him. Thanks.

(Yes, I recognize this request is definitely suboptimal. I may or may not end up building a bike squad. In either event, I *mainly want to model something I think is cool* but not completely nerf things so badly that he never sees playtime--hence my questions to you...)

Bike + MoK + Bloodfeeder.

teh_n00b wrote:Thought I'd ask here too:

I'm new to the game and am need a HQ choice for my CSM army. What I need from you guys is help deciding how to stat up the best HQ choice I can with the following parameters:

- Must include an Icon (Personal or Mark)
- Must have a bike
- Must be viable (friendly, not tourney) in small (750pt) forces
- Not dependant on fielding with a separate bike unit
- Please don't suggest a Demon Prince instead--kthx

Please tell me how you would cobble together such a HQ and, just as importantly, how you'd play him. Thanks.

(Yes, I recognize this request is definitely suboptimal. I may or may not end up building a bike squad. In either event, I *mainly want to model something I think is cool* but not completely nerf things so badly that he never sees playtime--hence my questions to you...)

Speaking of good modelling, a Khorne lord riding a Juggernaught would make a cool looking "biker boss".

Sorc, Slaaneshi Mark, Lash of Submission, Bike, Meltabombs. Lol, if you're new enough you won't get it, everyone else will. You'll get it later, anywho, speed him around where you need him, but don't turboboost him. You want him to Lash of Submission a squad of models and force them into a tight circular formation that perfectly fills the blast marker of your Defilers battlecannon or Vindicators Demolisher cannon. And a new cheese player is born!

Lord on bike, Mark of Nurgle, plaguebringer, melta bombs 185 pts.

Toughness 6 allows you to get stuck in and tie up a large unit and cut your way through it with your plaguebringer. Melta bombs give you the option to do some tank hunting. Decent survivable unit.

augustus5 wrote:Lord on bike, Mark of Nurgle, plaguebringer, melta bombs 185 pts.

Toughness 6 allows you to get stuck in and tie up a large unit and cut your way through it with your plaguebringer. Melta bombs give you the option to do some tank hunting. Decent survivable unit.

Downsides worth noting:
A. Can be insta-killed in one hit even with T6 on bike because it's only T4(6)
B. Not dangerous to walkers. Against a walker, he gets 1 melta-bomb attack which hits on 6+. On average, he'd probably have a 50% chance of destroying one walker if he rides over and slugs it for the entire game.
C. Chaos Bikers really aren't strong. Nurgle dudes on bikes can take a few hits, but they go down to large guns in a hurry. They also don't put out much firepower. Nob bikers get twice as many wounds, Feel No Pain which nurgle bikers don't get, a 4+ cover save which nurgle bikers don't get, more attacks than nurgle bikers, etc. etc. etc.

You'll have one very expensive unit that can be utterly obliterated in one shooting phase. So how do you avoid this? Hiding all game? Well then you're not swinging the battle by killing anything.

Take the generic double LashPrince + obliterators Chaos army. If you run this Nurgle biker unit against them, the prince can just lash the bikers so that they're 19-24" away in one bunch, then the obliterators can walk backwards away from them firing 3 plasma cannons per group into them. 3+ to kill any biker underneath the blast template, and he can put out 3-9 blast templates per turn.

That 185 point nurgle biker lord + 4 nurgle bikes and 1 champion can easily reach 460+ points and lose all 5 bikers in a single shooting phase. For those same 450 points someone could buy 6 Obliterators, which are far more survivable and far more dangerous.

Hell, a single defiler shot can wipe out that entire HQ unit. At that point it would be much stronger just to get 1 Daemon Prince w/ wings, nurgle, warp time. And 1 more Daemon Prince w/ wings, nurgle, warp time. And 1 Greater Daemon. Those 3 would probably take 12 wounds to kill because they can't be insta-killed. They're just as fast as bikers, way better against walkers and moving tanks, and able to engage 3 different targets at once if necessary.

Blood God, the same can be said about any configuraton (except MAYBE bare Lash Sorcs). If you come at it with that logic, everything will lead back to Double Lash.
Yes, it's the best build you can make, we get it. It's also not fluffy and not a lot of fun to play as victory is basically assured and no army presents a particular challenge.

EDIT: Sorry if that came out like I was railing on Blood God. I'm just tired of coming back to Double Lash.
Also! Another good biker build:
Lord, Bike, MoS, Dual LCs. You run around with an 18" charge bubble, hit on 3's against almost everything, re-roll wounds with your meh S4 and hit first. Winner!

DarkHound wrote:Blood God, the same can be said about any configuraton (except MAYBE bare Lash Sorcs). If you come at it with that logic, everything will lead back to Double Lash.
Yes, it's the best build you can make, we get it. It's also not fluffy and not a lot of fun to play as victory is basically assured and no army presents a particular challenge.

EDIT: Sorry if that came out like I was railing on Blood God. I'm just tired of coming back to Double Lash.
Also! Another good biker build:
Lord, Bike, MoS, Dual LCs. You run around with an 18" charge bubble, hit on 3's against almost everything, re-roll wounds with your meh S4 and hit first. Winner!

All of BloodGod's points are legit, especially considering bikers. A Demon Prince with wings has just as much mobility as the bike, cannot be instant killed and has beefier stats. Depending on the marks you give him, he can be a real beast. Tzeetch with Warptime and Wind of Chaos, or Nurgle with Warptime are pretty ridiculous.

Hmmm, biker Marine,....Here's my suggestion.

Chaos Lord
Bike
Mark of Tzeentch
Deathscreamer

He can assault, thanks to his daemon weapon, or he can stand back and shoot should that be necessary.

I was about to get to that, lol.
Yes, I've proxy played a Tzeentch Army, Deathscreamer is tons o'fun. Especially with TS's backing him. If you give him Mark of Tzeentch you might as well give him a Disc instead of a bike though.

A Daemon Prince with Wings does not have as much mobility as a Bike-mounted Lord or Sorcerer. The Lord or Sorcerer has Skilled Rider, making terrain a doddle, and they can Turbo-Boost (though not across terrain), taking that Personal Icon 24" away from where they started and with a cover save to boot.

For a 750pt game, I recommend a Biker Lord with a Mark of Tzeentch, a Combi-Melta, Personal Icon, and a pair of Lightening Claws. If you weren't set on a Bike, I'd suggest an alternate idea is a Disc of Tzeentch, for the extra attack.

Given him three pairs of arms, one set holding the handle-bars of the bike, one set holding the combi-Melta, and another set with Lightening Claws. Use milliput to give his bike wheels of flame, and give him that fancy Chaos Space Marine helmet with the fancy horns and Ahriman-like eye on the forehead.

Nurglitch wrote:A Daemon Prince with Wings does not have as much mobility as a Bike-mounted Lord or Sorcerer. The Lord or Sorcerer has Skilled Rider, making terrain a doddle, and they can Turbo-Boost (though not across terrain), taking that Personal Icon 24" away from where they started and with a cover save to boot.

For a 750pt game, I recommend a Biker Lord with a Mark of Tzeentch, a Combi-Melta, Personal Icon, and a pair of Lightening Claws. If you weren't set on a Bike, I'd suggest an alternate idea is a Disc of Tzeentch, for the extra attack.

Given him three pairs of arms, one set holding the handle-bars of the bike, one set holding the combi-Melta, and another set with Lightening Claws. Use milliput to give his bike wheels of flame, and give him that fancy Chaos Space Marine helmet with the fancy horns and Ahriman-like eye on the forehead.

Wat? You aren't serious, are you?


BTW, even then you could give him four arms. I've made chaos bikers that aren't holding on to handlebars.

Nurglitch wrote:A Daemon Prince with Wings does not have as much mobility as a Bike-mounted Lord or Sorcerer. The Lord or Sorcerer has Skilled Rider, making terrain a doddle, and they can Turbo-Boost (though not across terrain), taking that Personal Icon 24" away from where they started and with a cover save to boot.

For a 750pt game, I recommend a Biker Lord with a Mark of Tzeentch, a Combi-Melta, Personal Icon, and a pair of Lightening Claws. If you weren't set on a Bike, I'd suggest an alternate idea is a Disc of Tzeentch, for the extra attack.

Given him three pairs of arms, one set holding the handle-bars of the bike, one set holding the combi-Melta, and another set with Lightening Claws. Use milliput to give his bike wheels of flame, and give him that fancy Chaos Space Marine helmet with the fancy horns and Ahriman-like eye on the forehead.

Just so you know, terrain is far more of a hassle for a unit of bikers than it is for any flying squad.

His bodyguard bikers won't have Skilled Rider, and you roll a D6 for every one of them every time you enter Difficult Terrain because they're on bikes. Any rolls of 1 = dead biker. No armor save allowed. Hell, it's even possible the Lord could even take wounds from going through difficult terrain. You can lose half your overly-expensive Nurgle biker squad just passing through bumpy ground a few times. A flying model just flies over it and never takes damage. He also can take the shortest route since he can fly over instead of having to encircle a whole building.

For terrain being "a doddle", you're basically shooting your own unit every single time you pass through it. Sounds pretty dumb to me. As soon as the bodyguards are culled, the Biker Lord dies in one shot.

If you turbo boost, you can't enter difficult terrain at all, can't shoot, and can't assault. So it might be good for running away, but I don't see how it's going to kill anything.

You may want to read the original post then, to clue yourself into the riders that the original poster put on his request.

There's no bodyguard of Bikers to escort this HQ, and he has a Personal Icon. Turbo-Boosting is a great way of getting an Icon close to the enemy for 2nd turn Deep Strikes.

Nurglitch wrote:You may want to read the original post then, to clue yourself into the riders that the original poster put on his request.

There's no bodyguard of Bikers to escort this HQ, and he has a Personal Icon. Turbo-Boosting is a great way of getting an Icon close to the enemy for 2nd turn Deep Strikes.

Turbo-boosting an Icon was a time honored classic Demonbomb tactic with the 3.5 Chaos dex. Nowadays, it's not near as good since the lord isn't immune to instant death, can't get a 2+ inv from turboboosting, and doesn't really have any nasty demons to disgorge. (Lesser demons...oh noes?!??!) Basically, he will turbo boost, and then rely on his 3+ cover save to save him from getting splatted by a lascannon.

The demon prince doesn't have this problem.

Nurglitch wrote:You may want to read the original post then, to clue yourself into the riders that the original poster put on his request.

There's no bodyguard of Bikers to escort this HQ, and he has a Personal Icon. Turbo-Boosting is a great way of getting an Icon close to the enemy for 2nd turn Deep Strikes.

If you want to drive an icon right up to the enemy, don't use a single 120 to 150 point, minimum, model to do it. I hope that the OP isn't trying to do this, it won't work out very well most of the time.

But, even if you are I suggest either a Lord with MoS, Dual Lightning Claws on a bike or a Sorc with MoS, LoS on a bike. Both of those work out pretty well. I ran a MoS, LoS Sorc on a bike a long while back just to test it out. He was pretty good in lower point games. But as the points scale he becomes easier and easier to kill. The Lord would be 155, which is the same price as a MoS, LoS, Wings DP but not very effective in the same sense. The Lord would just turbo-boost into cover then do a long charge at an enemy squad and take it out with his 5 attacks at WS 6 with I 6 and T 5. The sorc would just be lashing all game but I don't know if that will be relevant to the OP's list.

OP, would you mind posting the rest of the list, or the theory, your planning on using with this biker?