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I'd say the original question got answered pretty thoroughly well before page 7.

Then why dont we rename this thread:

"nob bikers; The sky ISN'T falling."

I guess so, someone needs to type a tactica for nob bikes, with all races in it

My guess is if you are facing someone who needs 2 nob biker squads to win at 40k, write "how to win with nob bikers, see other side" on both sides of a sheet of paper, and hand it to him.

wait out your round, then draw an opponent who will actually THINK after his models are on the board.

The people who came up with the idea of nob biker squads was being quite clever - as is the tactics used with them. Its not a simple thing to do. When each model in your army costs about 60-80pts its not hands down simple.

I dont think I could beat using a nob biker squad.. but maybe Im just reeeally thick.

Basically, theres no need to be spitefull.

Just roll to hit and wound with AP 1 weapons

0ldsk00l wrote:My guess is if you are facing someone who needs 2 nob biker squads to win at 40k, write "how to win with nob bikers, see other side" on both sides of a sheet of paper, and hand it to him.

wait out your round, then draw an opponent who will actually THINK after his models are on the board.

Ya know I had plenty of people say similar things about some stuff I put together, frankly I think what you typed is unsesscary. These types of armies take a lot to work with and deserve more credit than you are giving them.

apologies if it sounded harsh. I just haven't been terribly inpressed with people who buy the broken new hotness in the past.

I am sure there are people who run lists like this who are capable gamers, but I havent played one yet.

As long as people make their lists individually, and don't just copy lists right of the net I'm cool with them. Even then, if they use the lists simply as a way to learn new tactics, I won't be irritated playing against those who use them, as long as they start showing their own individuality in their play style/ future army builds. No offense, but if someone is not that great a player and just pulls a list offline, it shouldn't be unstoppable.

Now this is a bit of a tangent, but I first started my battlewagon list because I wanted to get a few games in with my Orks and didn't have enough time to make the 130+ models for the horde army I was originally planning. Funnily enough, it turned out to be absolutely brutal, and appealed to my love of mechanized armies and my love of fielding tons of models simultaneously. Now, when I am playing just for fun, I try all sorts of random things around the core of my Battlewagon list (tons of buggies, tankbustas in trukks, deffcoptas). But when I am preparing for/ in a tournament, I will field the most brutal battle wagon list I can. Don't blame me when the only anti tank you have in a 1,500 point list is a single melta and two rocket launchers, and don't call me cheesy when you line up those 45 lootas in the backfield.

While Nob bikers are a bit more point and click then my particular list they still need some finesse to use effectively versus good players, and as people said, they do have weaknesses that can be exploited. Especially if you are playing in local tournaments @ the FLGS; usually the people you find to practice against are also going to be participating in the same tournaments, and you could learn a lot about your store's meta-game by watching other games. If you know a player or two is going to field nob bikers, make sure your list can handle them if you get paired up with them; I don't mean make your list only able to effectively counter them, but have contingency plans when you face them. I know I do when I face an army with 28 meltas !

Long story short: Don't shut down when you see a certain list. If you give up before the game even starts, what's the point of playing?

@Mekniakal-QFT

Mekniakal wrote:While Nob bikers are a bit more point and click then my particular list they still need some finesse to use effectively versus good players, and as people said, they do have weaknesses that can be exploited.

Long story short: Don't shut down when you see a certain list. If you give up before the game even starts, what's the point of playing?

Love it.

As a Tau player, let me throw in my two cents.

In regard to the post the claimed Crisis suits countered Nob bikers with the same level of effectiveness as Assault Terminators in a landraider, I would dearly like to know how. I have used Crisis suits against bikers on several occasions, and they simply get butchered. The only two weapons that have any effect on the bikers, the plasma rifle and fusion gun, must be within 12" to be effective, which always puts the crisis squad in charge range. The suits never have enough firepower to down the Nob bikers in one go, and engaging them always results in the squads death. This is even true with markerlight support, which is necessary to remove the cover save. Also, the markerlight carriers are usually pathfinders, which cannot deepstrike and cannot use the markerlights the turn they come in from reserves.

As far as my opinion on the Nob bikers themselves, I think they are a stupidly overpowered unit that is game breaking, and the need to be hit with the nerf bat so hard that they are launched into the sun. Yes, I know that with the proper list design and tactics, they can be beaten. This is, however, difficult to do in practice and it is not particular fun to play games in which your army is systematically wiped by a unit it can neither kill nor outmaneuver.

With Nob bikers, you are looking at a unit that is faster than most if not all units on the field, nearly invulnerable to destruction at range, and immediately lethal in assault. Its got 20+ wounds, T5, LD9 rerollable, every save type and can engage any unit on the board successfully and counts as troops for scoring. In can withstand nearly every type of attack and perform nearly any function required by the ork player without any support from other units. This universal utility is so extreme that apparently tournemant players can bring an army that is almost nothing but Nob bikers and expect to win, as other posters have pointed out.

Maybe I missed the memo from GW, but I was under the impression 40k was about armies engaging other armies, not an army engaging a pair of nearly invicible doom units. When your entire army is losing a single unit, something has gone wrong with the game balance. I know that the point cost is used to counterbalance other features, but I don't think such a super-powerful, super-expensive unit like Nob bikers belongs in the game outside Apocalypse. After all, baneblades a presumably balanced by point cost, but they are kept out of normal 40k games for a reason.

Surely, with a few markerlight tagged on a nob squad, dropping in 3 suits with fusions & plasma rifles @ 12'' will kill about 2-3 models, adding in a few more wounds too.

You then loose your 150pts worth of squad. Lets say 200pts. How many damage have you dealt? Whats the problem? You dont have such a large singular beatstick?

So far, after 10 pages.. it seems that people have problems about not being able to field a singular unit that can combat a nobz biker squad toe to toe.. because of their crazy high point cost, you just dont need to. So why bother trying?

And as a side note, lots of talk about crazy fastness. Just stop (A whole 2 units. not 5. not 10. Just 2) those guys from moving fast.

Your forgetting the complex unit rules that the Nob Biker player will abuse. Assuming you manage 5 marker hits for the squad(doesn't always happen, pathfinders have to test for BS to assign the counters) to achieve BS5 and remove cover entirely, and a 3-man suit squad with all plasma and fusion, your looking at 2 fusion wounds and 4 plasma wounds. A fusion wound wil be taken on the warboss, you will instant kill one nob, and the other 4 wounds will be spread amongst the squad. Then you kiss the squad goodbye on the ork player turn, which is a minimum of 186 points.

There are two problems with this approach though.
1.) You have to engage the Nob bikers on your terms, which can be difficult because they can outmaneuver the suits. Also, you need a decent markerlight rolls or your attack will be far, far less effective. If deepstriking, the reserve and scatter rolls must also be favorable.
2.) This suit configuration is one of the more exotic and difficult to use configurations, and consequently, their is usually only going to be one set of plasma/fusion suits in the Tau army. If you could make an arbitrary number of trade-offs, this might work. However, like many posters have criticized, such a tactic relies on you custom tailoring your list to fight Nobz and forgeoing other suit configurations.

I also don't understand your other criticism, people have been talking about using combinations of units since the beginning of the threads. And there isn't anything you can do that can simple stop the Nob bikers, or any unit for the matter, from moving, except for pinning which is gimmicky and unreliable.

Personally, I am opposed to the notion that a unit that can singlehandedly perform any and all functions is ok as long as the point cost is high enough. Units should have other shortcomings and weaknesses besides cost, otherwise you start undermining the whole notion of a tactical strategy game. Individual units should have to work together to cover each others strengths and weaknesses, while attempting to cripple the cohension of the enemy force by targeting key units. When you create a super unit that can do everything without support, like the Nob bikers, you throw these concepts out the window entirely. The nob bikers don't need to work together so much as kill everything in different regions of the board, because they have no weaknesses they need to overcome. Similarly, they enemy has no real choice when determining how to cripple the Ork player, he can either target the Nob bikers, or the other Nob bikers.

Phanixis, I humbly disagree. I quite often run the combination you just mentioned to great effect against SMs, not just orks. It isn't breaking my army it is my army.

I feel once again people are looking at this sqaud by squad rather than army vs army. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. Yes, a 200pt squad isn't going to kill an 800pts one in one turn. That leaves you 2 more 200 pt squads plus the PFs. That still leaves you 900 pts to use elswhere. Personally, I'd use it on the weaker stuff. Especially in the first turn before he waaaggghhhs.

Meeting the orks on your terms isn't as hard as you think. He's running what? 3 maybe 4 squads. He has to charge you fast and hard to cut down on your shooting. They're just not going to take the time to finesse move the way some of you say they will.

You know their movement. You know how far in they set up. Do the math. Then add in a couple of well placed screening units to hide behind(I find a coordinated gun drone/crisis JSJ can effectively screen the suits for an extra turn). Yes, you will get assaulted. Your playing Tau, It happens.

Just my opinion


Edited for spacing

Phanisix : Im sorry to say this but by the second line you got somthing wrong. Those cover saves will have to be reduce by 1-2 depending on where-ever he turbo-boosts or not, As the invunerable im sure they have it a 5++. Thats 3-4 ML hits.

focusedfire: 'Quasi'QFT -as im only doing it in spirit and not actually quoting as you wrote lots..

Why plasma rifles and not flamers? A probable Two hits that will probably wound vs lots more hits that get thier 4+ sv. FNP. Hmm okay. Woo plasma rifles!

Howsa abouts pinning them hmm? Tau should do that nicely. Granted they can re-roll whatever LD you make them take but theres only 1-2 squads!

Phanixis, I humbly disagree. I quite often run the combination you just mentioned to great effect against SMs, not just orks. It isn't breaking my army it is my army.

I never said Tau didn't use the Helios(Plasma/Fusion/Multitracking) combination, I said its unlikely they would use more then one. Using the above math hammer, which actually overestimates their average kills because I forgot to include the 5+ invulnerability save, you would need 3 squads of 3 helios in a 1750 army. I have NEVER seen this army composition played, and my guess is that you are only using one helios squad and not 3 in your army as well.

I feel once again people are looking at this sqaud by squad rather than army vs army. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. Yes, a 200pt squad isn't going to kill an 800pts one in one turn. That leaves you 2 more 200 pt squads plus the PFs. That still leaves you 900 pts to use elswhere. Personally, I'd use it on the weaker stuff. Especially in the first turn before he waaaggghhhs.

If you pay attention to the previos post, most are not looking at this squad by squad. People have been talking about using the whole Eldar army, combining assault units with transports with shooty units with transports with pychic powers to bring the nobs down. Now, the effectiveness of individual squads attacking the bikers still have to be evaluated before the performance of the army as a whole against them can be determined, that is what people are talking about.

In my case, the only reason I mentioned the Helios suits is because someone had previously claimed deepstriking crisis suits will wipe Nob bikers, and the effectiveness of the Helios was comparable to that of assault termies. Well, unless you are running nothing but Helios, that is not true. The fact that Helios don't singlehandedly wipe Nobs was not the basis of my claim that the bikers were broken.

I claim the bikers are broken because they can single handedly perform every function needed by the Ork army without the support of other units. A unit like this does not belong in a tactical strategy game like 40k. This is my claim against them.

Phanisix : Im sorry to say this but by the second line you got somthing wrong. Those cover saves will have to be reduce by 1-2 depending on where-ever he turbo-boosts or not, As the invunerable im sure they have it a 5++. Thats 3-4 ML hits.

Good point, reduce a markerlight supported Helios strike to causing 3 plasma wounds, a wound on the Warboss and an Instant Death, were it is more likely than not either the Warboss will not suffer a wound or the Nob biker instant death won't occur because of the 5+ save.

Why plasma rifles and not flamers? A probable Two hits that will probably wound vs lots more hits that get thier 4+ sv. FNP. Hmm okay. Woo plasma rifles!

Tau flamers do nothing to negate any of the defenses the Nob bikers have, only wounding on 5+ and allowing for 4+ armor and 4+ FNP. That means to average a single wound, you would have to cover 12 biker nobs with the flame template. Of course your likely to only cover 6-8 at most. Plasmas are str 6, bypass FNP, and bypass the armor and cover if markerlights are used, allowing only a 5+ invulnerability save. That is why they are being used

Howsa abouts pinning them hmm? Tau should do that nicely. Granted they can re-roll whatever LD you make them take but theres only 1-2 squads!

At leadership 9 with rerollable leadership checks, their is a 1 in 36 chance of pinning the bikers, and thats assuming you can get a pinning wound to stick. Except against certain armies, pinning is a absolute joke in this game, and certainly not answer to a rock solid unit like the Nobs.

Most things combating nobz will get stompety squished by nobz - the idea is though, you should hopefully deal points worth of damage in wounds/models lost (and to be fair, putting wounds on the squad is good.. because they will start loosing thier wounds threshold) compared to the points in the unit dealing the damage.

Pinning.. Markerlights. Hence the usefulness of sniperdrones, gun drones, pulse carbines. Anything else? Unsure. a LD4 re-rollable isnt so good. As an example.

You could just plink off nobz with railguns slowly.. and focous entirely on keeping them pinned. two sets of 3-4 markerlights for two different batch of pinning squads. Again, just as an example. The box needs be thought at from the outside.

Razerous wrote:Most things combating nobz will get stompety squished by nobz - the idea is though, you should hopefully deal points worth of damage in wounds/models lost (and to be fair, putting wounds on the squad is good.. because they will start loosing thier wounds threshold) compared to the points in the unit dealing the damage.

Pinning.. Markerlights. Hence the usefulness of sniperdrones, gun drones, pulse carbines. Anything else? Unsure. a LD4 re-rollable isnt so good. As an example.

You could just plink off nobz with railguns slowly.. and focous entirely on keeping them pinned. two sets of 3-4 markerlights for two different batch of pinning squads. Again, just as an example. The box needs be thought at from the outside.

Do you have any idea how unlikely it is to accomplish what you're suggesting? Just getting a pulse carbine wound on the Nob squad is a 1/16 proposition, never mind actually inflicting a casualty with one.

The better option would seem to be sniper drones, but even then you are looking at max 3 wounds that would be spread amongst 3 different models, not causing a casualty, unless done later in the game, at which point the squad has probably done a fair bit of damage anyway

P31 of the BGB - an unsaved wound from a pinning weapon = a pinning test.

Granted you will need a reliable means to get a good couple of pinning hits in to get that lonsome wound and with that pinning-delivery-system you stack up your markerlight hits & go crazy. You do not need to cause a casualty with this method, simply one wound.
Yes I know it causes the squad to go to ground granted +1 to that 4+ cover save but you know can either pour shots into the squad and keep it pinned or spend your marker light hits to stop the unit using a 3+ (i.e to 5+) save. So really.. you only need 4 markerlight hits to reduce 3+ to 5+ and then the rest can stay keeping it pinned. Im pretty sure its doable with 600 points.

Pinning half a guys army in one go - theres a weakness of the nob bikers. Tis a shame tau lack variety on the pinning scene.

Unfortunately, that weakness only exist against a single army, and even then, only particular builds of Tau will be able to exploit it. You really need an army that has abundant markerlights, probably in the form of a pathfinder squad, and abundant railrifles, which require at least 12 railrifles, on average, to cause a pinning wound without markerlight aid beyond leadership reduction. Alternatively, a second squad of pathfinders might be included to provide marker aid beyond the leadership reduction for the railrifles, allowing fewer to be fielded. Pinning wounds can also be caused with pulse carbines, but you cannot bypass any of the biker defenses because of the high carbine AP and need to be relatively close to use them. And if you are going to rely on this strategy, you probably need to go beyond the bare minimum, adding additional markerlights and pinning weapons.

There are still several problems with this strategy:

Once again this results in an exotic army construction that would not be played in a take all comers setting. I don't think I would ever see 12 railrifles in a take all comers list.

Its not particularly reliable. So many things could go wrong. The pathfinders could get poor markerlight rolls, so you have insufficient counters to create a severe enough leadership penalties. The pinning weapons fail to wound. The orks pass their leadership test despite markerlight penalties. In this case, they will charge you as normally, but with greater strength as less fire was focused on killing the in an attempt to pin them.

Even on success, you have only temporarily disabled them for a turn. The real work, killing the squad, still must be done by the remainder of your army.

The railrifles and markerlights needed for pinning the bikers directly compete for the markerlights and railguns needed to kill the nob bikers. At least one heavy support slot is going to be needed for sniper drones, leaving two max for railguns. Markerlights used to cause leadership penalties or guide railrifle shots are not being used to guide the big guns, so railgun and fusion blaster rounds are missing their targets or failing to overcome cover saves because they don't have marker support. Thus, nob biker killing suffers as a result of designing an army for Nob biker pinning.

A considerable portion of the army has to be devoted to merely pinning the Nob bikers. Mathhammer will reveal that the pinning portion of your army will likely only cause 1-2 wounds each round, leaving the actual nob biker killing to the rest of your army. If I were to build a list to pin Nob bikers, I would take at a minimum 2 full squads of pathfinders and 3 railrifle squads. This is 500 points devote to stunning a single biker Nob unit, with an additional 200 needed for devilfish. Its getting to the point were half the army is devoted to merely pinning the bikers. This means that in effect, all that has been achieved is the problem of whole army vs. 2 bikers is reduced to half army vs. 1 biker, same problem, half the scale. Except the others biker squad might get a lucky roll vs. pinning and then suddenly its half your army vs. 2 bikers.

Ultimately, your asking me to use a unreliable and gimmicky rule to counter a unit that is an absolute terror. This is an unsatisfying proposition.

In summary, I will simply say this. I will believe this approach works when I see a Tau army beat dual Nob bikers in a competitive game using this tactic. By simply discussing this strategy, I am getting a feeling this approach would be an absolute nightmare to actually execute in a competitive game. Remember, the most reliable strategies are the simplest, and this approach seems horribly complicated.

I think there are a fair few ways to get a fair few markerlights into a tau army, fairly cheaply. Tau can use markerlights, so a list built around them isnt gimmicky, its a good idea. two squads of pathfinders, loaning tanks to firewarriors, with a stealthsuit marker team.. costs about 980ptds. You need a hq, but besides that youve got a good solid base. About 450pts give or take on a hq to spend on either more troops, heavy support one fast attack or elites.

Check some of the posters of dakkas ideas on tau - some fairly inspired thinking going around.

Markerlights.. gimmicky. Lols.

Tis like saying drop pods are gimmicky.

I never said markerlights were gimmicky, I said pinning was gimmicky. I also said such a list typically wouldn't appear in a take all comers setting, because of the excessive amounts of railrifles needed(ok 9 is not so bad with 2 pathfinder squads, but you might want to bring a few more to ensure this tactic really works), not because of the large number of markerlights needed. Please stop misrepresenting my statements.

So......Tau=Eldar?

I've been just as guilty of the Tau off-topic, heck I probably started it. Think we should maybe start a separate thread for Tau tactics.

Sowie...

Thought of the day.. Prisms!

Shep wrote:In fact, I bet Phil Kelly walked into Robin's office and said "hey mate, I created a monster, please help me kill it.... here's how."

I bet it has never occured to anyone at the studio to do something so "beardy" as have two units of them and if they even took one it wouldn't have more than 2 or 3 Klaws.

If every Nob was different it would almost certainly because they like them to be different and interesting, not to take advantage of a rule.

Don't give these guys too much credit, they don't know much of anything about competitive 40K. That isn't the Brand image GW is selling.

Razerous wrote:Sowie...

Thought of the day.. Prisms!

4+ cover save.

Personally, the only really destructive tactic is a suicide LR Redeemer. Cruise up, POTMS them with a flamestorm cannon. Wounds on 3s, ignores armour and cover saves.

However their PKs will completely destroy it on their assault phase.

so yeah, they're stupidly powerful.

ungulateman

ungulateman wrote:
Personally, the only really destructive tactic is a suicide LR Redeemer. Cruise up, POTMS them with a flamestorm cannon. Wounds on 3s, ignores armour and cover saves.

However their PKs will completely destroy it on their assault phase.

Land Raider moves more than 6".

Nobs need 6s to hit it. Nobs need 6s to pen it.

36 attacks to get, on average, one penetration result.

And that's if the Assault Terminators inside don't get out and begin to WTFPWN the nobs with their instant death attacks. Land Raiders and Assault Terminators are one of the surest-fire ways of killing Nob Bikers.

No no.. they get specail PK which dont use the same mathhammer they apply to everything else..

Those LR's still allow a FNP roll... where as prisms allow a cover save.. not much diff there except range and size of template. Oh and the prisms vap nobz.