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Hi all!

I have a question for you: ¿can motorbike pilots use two handed weapons in close combat?

I read in a FAQ that they were allowed to buy them, but that they couldn't use them if they have moved, because they needed one of their hands to control the bike. But this might be a 4ed FAQ, I don't remember it very well. Maybe in 5ed things have changed. Researching Dark Eldar stuff I've seen than many players choose Archons and Drachons and give them Punishers and Reaver jetbikes. Punishers are listed in DE Codex like two handed weapons. So... are we allowed to do that?

Maybe a silly question but I think I'm mixing data from different editions and I have a mess in my head

Thanks all!

Erasoketa wrote:I have a question for you: can motorbike pilots use two handed weapons in close combat?

Yes.

Erasoketa wrote:I think I'm mixing data from different editions and I have a mess in my head

Yes, you are

Oh wow, THAT is a fast response!

Thank you very much, good tr... Sir!

Although if I recall correctly having to keep one hand on the handlebars was never an official rule, but was alluded to be the white scars rule 'Born in the saddle' and thus created the confusion

I think of it like this. On a horse, you can use a lance one-handed, but on foot it would be extremely unwieldy even in two hands. Same for lances, etc...

Being on horseback/bikeback gives you a different technique that allows you to use some two-handed weapons in one hand.

Of course, that is not rules, just how I just handle the rules (as referred to by the OP and Gwar!) in my own head.

Erasoketa wrote:Oh wow, THAT is a fast response!

Thank you very much, good tr... Sir!

61 seconds? Gwar must be slipping up. I think he must have YMDC on a 5-second auto-refresh...

Volkov wrote:Although if I recall correctly having to keep one hand on the handlebars was never an official rule.

Oh, it was in older codex books. CSM bikers were famous for only being allowed to use one weapon in CC, for example. There was a lot of posts on it when the then-new Codex: Space Marines came with bikers that knew how to use two weapons from the saddle.

"because they needed one of their hands to control the bike"

Which rulebook tell you that?

Remember that the body structure of aliens (e.g. orks) may be totally different from human. An ork boy think his bike could move, so it move.

Cheexsta wrote:

Erasoketa wrote:Oh wow, THAT is a fast response!

Thank you very much, good tr... Sir!

61 seconds? Gwar must be slipping up. I think he must have YMDC on a 5-second auto-refresh...

Nah, that wouldn't let him time for writting FAQs It must be some kind of spider sense.

tokugawa wrote:"because they needed one of their hands to control the bike"

Which rulebook tell you that?

Remember that the body structure of aliens (e.g. orks) may be totally different from human. An ork boy think his bike could move, so it move.

I remember it from FAQs, maybe a WD, maybe a .pdf. As they said before, maybe from older SM FAQs. If an ork paints his body red, would he be able to annwer as fast as you guys?


Thank you very much for your help!

tokugawa wrote:"because they needed one of their hands to control the bike"

Which rulebook tell you that?

Remember that the body structure of aliens (e.g. orks) may be totally different from human. An ork boy think his bike could move, so it move.

It was in the third edition rulebook (IIRC), and almost every codex from that era that featured bikes reprinted the rules, then throughout 4th edition it slowly phased out.

Dark Eldar do have a rule to this effect in the codex, but the errata GW published replaced the entire jetbike entry with one that does NOT have the restriction.