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Mission and Board
This was a spearhead deployment with annilation as the objective. My opponent won the roll to go first, and he chose to deploy and go first.
The board is shown below. This is a 'Mars Board' built by our FLGS, and was a pleaure to play on. There was limited cover for both sides.



Army Lists 1500
I brought the following army. We both had to proxy a little bit, but not much.
Marine Army
Captain w/Relic Blade and Bike
2 Squads with 2 PG, 1 MM and Seargent with Power Sword (9 models total)
1 Squad with 2 MG, 1 MM and Seargent with Power Fist (9 models total)
1 Squad of bikes, 1 HB, and Seargent with Power Fist (6 models total)
3 Attack HB Bikes
1 Landspeeder with MM

Chaos Army
Ahriman
2 Squads of 1k sons in a Rhino
6 Oblits
1 Defiler
In hindsight, I believe he used 4 heavy support choices in his army, as he had his oblits in 3 squads of 2 each, instead of having 2 squads of 3 each. As it was a friendly game, I am OK with this error.


Turn One
CSM
The traitor legion deployed in the back corner of their spearhead, trusting in their long range weapons to kill the marines before they could get close.
This strategy is very imperial guard, and I think this is what cost him the game. He moved into the mindset of 'pillbox firing', instead of using his defiler offensively when I was close. Were I him, I also would have strove to get Ahriman into the fray.

Marines
The marines stayed in reserve, and did not enter the battle. The sound of roaring engines filled the air.



Turn Two
CSM
The chaos player did not move his army at all.

Marines
The marines began coming onto the board. 3 full bike squads and the attack bike squad rolled their reserve rolls and roared onto the board. I used the congo-line method to limit the number of target the battlecannon would get. This worked very well, as the plasma cannons were getting 1 target under the template, and the battlecannon was only getting 3 under the template.



Turn Three
CSM
The chaos player began firing. His obliterators opened up firing plamsma cannons into the marine bikers, and the defiler fired a thundering battle cannon shot at the bikes. As the marines were relying upon their speed to protect them, only 3 were killed by the heritical forces. One plasma cannon overheated, causing a wound to an oblit.
When I rolled the morale test for the squad that was hit -- the middle squad -- they failed their break test. Falling back 3d6 inches caused the entire squad to race off the board! In one round of shooting, I lost over 300 points of troops due to a failed morale test.

Marines
The melta gun squad turbo-boosted closest to the chaos players, giving my other squads cover.
The landspeeder dropped from the sky in a deep striking tactic with the goal to take out the defiler. The landspeeder missed its shot.
The final bike squad turbo-boosted onto the board.
The attack bikes and one bike squad fired into 2 oblitrators. They killed one of them, and delivered a wound to the other.



Turn Four
CSM
Ahriman drew the powers of the warp around him in a warptime effect.
The chaos player fired his weapons again. Two oblits used twin-linked plasma guns to shoot at the landspeeder, and failed to even penetrate the armor. The lone defiler shot a las-cannon at the landspeeder, and shook the crewmembers. Desperate to get another VP, the final 2 oblits shot lascannons at the landspeeder, destroying it in a ball of flame.
Ahriman fired 6 shots at the speeding marines, killing one of them. The rest of the thousand sons fired their bolters at the bikers, but to no avail.

Marines
The marines pushed their luck even more, and the MG squad moved forward another 12" closing on the defiler. The other bike squads moved forward. The attack bikes stayed hidden behind cover.
The remaining bike squad with plasma guns killed the 2 oblitrators. This goes to show that 2 plasma guns under 12" range, combined with a MM attack bike can provide a very dangerous prospect. This earned the first VP for the marine army.
The 3 heavy bolters fired into the last oblit, inflicting 5 wounds on the target. The lucky oblitrator saved every single hit. The small bike squad also fired into this oblit, who made another 4 saves. Against the odds, that last oblitrator just refused to die.
The bike squad that rushed forward fired its meltas into the defiler, destroying the battlecannon.



Turn Five
CSM
The chaos player moved his thousand sons troopers into 'double tap' range. Both Ahriman, and two squads of 1k sons fired into the MG squad killing 5 of them. The surviving oblitrators fired into the other bike squads to no effect. Due to overzealous shooting, the 1k sons killed all the bikes that were in assault range of the defiler, preventing it from getting into the assault this turn.
The bike squad passed it's morale test with flying colors.

Marines
The damaged bike squad turbo boosted away from the battle to prevent the chaos player from gaining any mor VPs.
The plasma squad decended on the thousand sons squad and opened fire on them. It's impressive what 14 bolter shots, 4 plasma gun shots, and 1 multimelta shot can do to a squad of 1000 sons. 5 of them were killed in shooting, leaving 3 left.
The smaller bike squad closed on the last defiler. Suprisingly the defiler lived through another volley of attack biker fire, yet finally fell to massive bolter fire from the small squad -- giving a second victory point to the marines.
The captain and his bike squad assaulted the 3 remaining 1000 sons and killed them to a man.


After a dice roll the game ended on turn 5!

Game Summary
He got 2 VPs, one for the squad he routed on turn 3, and the other for the landspeeder.
I got 3VPs, one for the squad of 1k sons, and two squads of oblits. Had he not made the error with his oblit squads, it would have been a tie game.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable game, and my opponent was a pleasure to play with.


Game Thoughts
* He should have moved his defiler more -- especially after the battle cannon was knocked off. He got into his mind that the defiler was stationary firing platform that he forgot to fleet it forward and assault my marines with it.

* Were I him, I also would have been more aggressive with my 1k sons troops, as the AP3 weapons are deadly. Of course, seeing how easily that one squad was wiped -- maybe he played it right keeping them in cover.

* The chaos player should have moved his defilers up a little bit. On turn five, he was unable to fire 2 defilers because he blocked their LOS with a rhino.

* As in my other games, the plasma gun bike squads have proved very worthwhile. Its hard to bring more melta guns than plasma guns when I have multimeltas already in the squad. I think Ill be moving to a 50/50 ratio.

* Marine bikes are built horde tough. That T5 and turbo-boosting really goes a long way to preventing casualties.

* The congo-line pattern worked very well with bikers. I was able to deliver the special weapons where needed, and minimized hits from plasma cannons and battle cannons.

* The landspeeder's performance was lackluster at best. I'm not sure if I will keep them in the army.

A good read, nice board. You have a typo on turn 4 "the final 2 defilers" should be Obliterators, but good job otherwise.

defilers don't get lascannons, hope this was an error on your part

Good game tho. Ahriman is pretty over rated, but I guess because he was going shooty, not that bad I suppose.

Zid wrote:defilers don't get lascannons, hope this was an error on your part

Good game tho. Ahriman is pretty over rated, but I guess because he was going shooty, not that bad I suppose.

Check out p.101 of the CSM codex. Yes defilers DO get lascannons, twin linked ones at that!

Ahriman is awesomely fluffy and a lot of fun for a friendly game like this.

Defilers can get lascannons but you said it died to mass bolter fire so I assume it was an Oblit as the Defilers front armour was facing you.

I like the speed army.

aflax1 wrote:I like the speed army.

The army works well, but there is room for improvement.
Powerfists are better than powerswords. I just use powerswords because thats what the models have.
Boys before toys also applies here, as the more bikes you field, the more intimidated your foe will be.

Hello there labmouse42:

Congratz on the win regardless of FoC slots.
I’m glad you liked the conga line, I’ve been using it ever since the new codex came out.
Glad you applied what you saw in that thread about the orks and their conga line.

I understand the horrors of early failed morale checks, but that’s why you turbo towards the middle of the board instead of snaking around the way you did, with the tail end a handful of inches from the edge.

From the picture of the 3 conga lines, I do not think you needed to do it that way.
You could have gone full tilt and come in much closer and still maintained a decent spread.

Generally, how do you feel about plasma on bikers?
Yes, boyz before toys, but the bikers are still low in numbers.
Would you rather have MM’s in the attack bike squad, rather than committing a whole squad to shooting their specials and hvy weapon at tanks rather than infantry?
A Side note: cool board.

In addition, don’t forget Arhiman can only shoot one power from his selection. He can use 3 powers, but only one can be shooting. He was shafted that bad with the Chaos FAQ.

My 7 Cents.

Actually no, Ahriman wasn't shafted by the Chaos Space Marine FAQ. He can cast multiple iterations of non-shooting powers, so Gift of Chaos up to three times for example, but "powers that are psychic shooting attacks can only be used once per turn". The Black Staff of Ahriman rules explicitly state that Ahriman can use several psychic shooting attacks per turn.

So Ahriman can:

1. Cast Gift of Chaos or Warptime up to three times.
2. Cast Doombolt, Wind of Chaos, and Bolt of Change each once.

Always nice to see a battle report with pictures though.

@Nurglitch:
He was shafted when they said no to:
3 Bolt of Changes.
3 Castings of Doom Bolt.
3 Castings of Wind (or 2 winds and warp).

As to triple gift, I know he can do that, but it's not shooting and I was only addressing shooting.

Doombolt/Wind/Bolt, that I will admit I completely missed.

But what made me bring it up was this:

Ahriman fired 6 shots at the speeding marines, killing one of them.

Doombolt + wind + bolt is at most 5 shots right?

So my thinking is he shot doom bolt twice or something...I don't know.

My 7 Cents.

Ah, I see what you're saying. I wouldn't call that 'shafted'. Being able to cast three of each power is just ridiculously powerful, and well beyond 250pts worth.

Also, I figure using one psychic shooting attack would disqualify him from using his bolt pistol.

Six shots does sound like a Warptime plus two Doombolts...

Sanctjud wrote:I understand the horrors of early failed morale checks, but that’s why you turbo towards the middle of the board instead of snaking around the way you did, with the tail end a handful of inches from the edge.

Generally, how do you feel about plasma on bikers?
Yes, boyz before toys, but the bikers are still low in numbers.
Would you rather have MM’s in the attack bike squad, rather than committing a whole squad to shooting their specials and hvy weapon at tanks rather than infantry?
A Side note: cool board.

Always a pleasure discussing 40k with you Sanctjud.

That's a good suggestion on moving more to the middle of the board. I will try that more in the future. The biggest challange I had was that the congo-line was quite long as the squads were not combat squadded. Instead of snaking the congo-lines to the end of the board like I did, I should have pushed the entire line forward.

Overall for bikes the congo-line is powerful. It delivers the special weapons you need where you need them. As the special/heavy weapons are what can be very scary in bike squads, its a great tactic. Furthermore, with a 12" move, when you need to close and 'seal the deal' on a squad, the entire squad can still get in double tap range.

I have found good success with plasma on bikers. In this battle, the plasma killed 2 oblits, and helped to deliver a decisive blow to the 1k sons. In both cases, the plasma guns were in double tap range, giving 4 shots per round. I had once case of getting hit, and make the saving throw. Meltas would have been equally effective on the oblits (providing an instant kill) they would have been less effective vs. the 1k sons.
My plan is to run with a 1 to 1 ratio of plasma to melta guns on bikers. I feel that with the MM bikes, this ratio still gives a solid amount of AT.

I have been keeping the MM in the bike squads under the principal that I am giving a nice AV tool to the bike squad. If they are combat-squadding, then I have a unit which can take down vehicles. I have found that a squad of MM bikes, while quite powerful makes an easy target. Having the extra 3 bikes to absorb wounds has helped in the past (assuming the bikes were combat squadded).

As the attack bikes can fire 2 weapons, I do not feel that the entire power of the MM is lost when shooting at infantry with the MM squad. In the combat squad of 3 bikes + 1 MM bike, four TL bolters are firing and 1 MM is firing. This is a net loss of 2 shots compared to a HB attack bike, and the MM does not give armor saves for MEQ. I do not have time to do mathammer right now, and I wonder the difference in killing MEQ with MM vs. HB.

In summary, the MM bike in the combat squad lowers the effectiveness against horde. It does not lower the effectiveness vs. MEQ by a significant amount.
It adds a strong anti-tank element to the unit, and costs 10 points more. It seems to be to be a good option.

In the squadron with 3 bikes, I like the HB option, as I can either keep the bikes at long range to snipe, or they can also fire their bolters at the same targets. In one game, they sniped a lash DP, and have never failed to perform well. One challenge with MM bikes is moving them up to 12" away to deliver the 3 MM shots, this attracts a lot of attention from the enemy, and usually winds up with me losing 3 MMs quickly.
Few people really give much credit to 3 HB attack bikes, even though they can deliver 9 HB shots and 3-6 TL bolter shots, and I can keep them at 24" range to get their shots.

The thing is you don’t have to be a ‘real’ conga line. You can loop it up at some point, or like a light bulb to be less of a line.
The reason the orks did a conga line was to remain in terrain/cover.
Bikers do not have this luxury, spreading out (even in a line) is to minimize the termplates and fool around with LoS so that half the squad is visible when not turbo boosting.

That line of sight trick doesn’t always work with a line, and can work as a bunched up portion of the line, or just clustered at the end.

I should have pushed the entire line forward.

In this game/condition/instance I would agree.

In addition, the bikers are easier to pull of the “Light Bulb Assault”. To maximize the 2 round combats against GEQ units that will most likely die/run away allowing the enemy to shoot the bikers point-blank.


Plasma Bikers: I’ve been tempted, but overheats are (in my book anyway) such a turn-off. But their Range/Rate of Fire/decent Stats are somewhat desirable.

I suppose it’s a personal choice in where MM’s go on bikers.

As to the math vs. MEQ

1 MM shot, 2/3 to hit, 10/18 to wound, 10/36 if in cover.
3 HB shots, 6/3 hits, 6/9 wounds, 6/27 passes armor in or out of cover.

So MM’s will prob. kill MEQ’s, which makes sense, while HB will not. Nothing new here.
HB have 3 areas they are better:
Cheaper, longer range, better at all other infantry not in power armor.

So…like the age old line: “they are different”.

HB’s are still better at anti-not in power armor or termy armor.
While MM’s are still good at punching armor and really armored infantry.

As for HB attack bikes, I use them too, but for some reason they always shoot as if they had BS5 or 6, they never seem to hit.
But they enjoy pwning eldar pathfinders, storm guardians, and IG hvy weapon squads, lots of lolcakes there.

My 7 Cents.

Hey all, I'm the guy that labmouse42 was playing this game against. This being game number 10 (give or take) for me I want to say that labmouse42 is a great player who has been very gracious while I've been learning the ins and outs of this system. It's been a pleasure and an education watching him test and fine tune this bike army.

Sanctjud> Thanks for pointing out the FAQ entry about Arhiman's Black Staff. I had actually never seen that before.

The congo line formation was a great and creative move for labmouse42 to use as it made several of my plasma cannon and battle cannon shots miss completely. I understand that the same maneuver has been used with orcs and I was wondering what y'all thought of its effectiveness for foot sloggers?

Thanks to the conga-lines, I found that I was getting far better results with the oblits when I used the TL plasma guns over the plasma cannon and even the defiler's battle cannon. Aiming deep into the line seemed to help a bit as did aiming at the center line rather than one of the outer lines of bikes, but that conga-line still gave him some pretty good protection.

In retrospect, I should have brought the third pair of oblits closer to the center pair when most of the bikes were on the map so that I could have made better use of their weaponry. I also should have had my defiler Fleet in and engage in melee as soon as the bikes got close, although the fact that there were only three more turns gave me a very small window of oportunity to do so. I probably would have had to move the defiler up in turn 4 to take advantage of it.

@UselesswizarD:

For footsloggers….it depends.
I remember running a plague marine spam army at 1250 for a fun doubles tourney.
I ended up conga lining a 20 man squad to claim 2-3 objectives…………so that was nice.

I have not problems with that situation cause the plague marines didn’t need to actively engage the enemy and had run moves.

Foot slogging conga lining is a double edged sword as that ork topic boiled down to. You get pros and cons.
Mainly, two bad run moves and it’s not as good.

That’s a good observation. Blast weapons are good, but solid shots have always been the bread and butter.