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Hey everyone,


Just wondering what people around here think about Nob Bikers in the competitive environment. I had an interested encounter at my LGS where most of the people seem to think Nob Bikers are extremely over-powered.

I just started Konvertin' some Deffkoptas into Nob Bikers, and I decided to go down to my LGS to see if anyone might have some helpful opinions or advice about converting, or perhaps some nifty ideas on how to improve the overall ideas I had. Almost everyone there seemed to think they were really cool and I was doing a great job, and few people even had some helpful suggestions.

Then this "painter/Hobbyist" guys comes in and starts talking to one of his friends. After a few moments, he looks over at my table and made and said...

"Are those some kinda Bikes you're making?"
"Yeah, they're Nob Bikers, I'm converted from Deffkoptas'

He narrowed his eyes and gave me a stern, disgusted look and said, "Why you little Cheese-Dick!" as if I had just committed a Capital Crime or killed his Dog!
I was a little puzzled..."What?'...(as in What's the big deal?)

He then proceeds to go on some rant about how Nob Bikers are the unit that single-handedly Screwed up the whole 40k Environment because of their multi-wound brokeness and how anyone who even thinks about playing those broken, Unbalanced GOD units should be smacked for being a total douche.

The next 30 min was me trying to explain to him that, while Nob Bikers may be nasty, they certainly aren't invincible, and they're are a lot of things that can take them out pretty easily. I even gave him an example of how a group of 8-10 Termies, Abbadon and a Greater Deamon took out my Nob Bikers the night before because of all their Power Weapons and Insta-Death attacks.

He didn't want to hear any of it. He just said "Good for him, you deserve to have that happen for playing Nob Bikers, just because you failed and don't know how to run them doesn't mean they're NOT Broken!!"...and went on about how they're only vulnerable for the first turn in which they can Turbo-Boost. Afterwards, they slaughter anything they come into contact with and can pretty much take down a whole army on their own. Obviously, this results in them being on every tournament list and winning because of the Nob Biker Spam. Unfortunately, this year's Adepticon made it hard for me to say otherwise, but I know there are a lot Tournament lists that don't have Nob Bikers and a lot times they don't win.

He then proceeded to walk about the store and ask several other people he knew if Nob Bikers were not super-cheesy and broken. The guy working the counter just said, "Yeah, they're Cheesy, but Darkzephyr likes running cheesy stuff, there's nothing wrong with that.'

At some point during the "debate", some of the bystanders told me I was just digging myself into a deeper hole. I tried to explain that a lot of times Nob Bikers can get wiped out before they even get to hit, due to their low initiative or striking at Init 1 with Power klaws.
Some old guy sitting next to me said. "You just need to use your Waagh correctly, since it doubles their initiative."
I was a bit stunned.
"Firstly, Nob Bikers don't even get Waaugh, and it does NOT double their initiative, it just gives them Fleet".
He then told me that it does indeed double their initiative and in a rather loud voice said "YOU need to read you own CODEX!!" We finally got a copy of the Ork Codex (I almost ran out to my car to get mine) and he looked it up and didn't say anything after that...

So yeah, I admit Nob Biker are fairly Nasty, but I think every other codex (especially the recent ones), has stuff equally nasty, and for the points they cost, they can still be a huge risk if they come up against High Str, low Ap and Power Weapons. I also think that most of the people around my LGS are more of the Hobby variant and haven't played 40k, so they probably are still spouting information from ages ago when perhaps Nob Bikers were completely broken. Or perhaps they just have a grudge against them or are basing their statements off what they hear and see on paper, as opposed to actual gaming experience.

So What do you guys think? Do Nob Bikers just have a nasty reputation or are they really "THAT" Broken?

P.s. Sorry about the long post, just wanted to get that little incident off my chest and see what people think.

I used to think they were broken.

then I saw thunderwolf calvalry. I don't think their as broken anymore.

Still, it depends how many nob bikers your running. If your fielding a full 10 man squad, with every biker kitted out differently, yes, its a cheesy squad (deathstar squad). If your fielding a squad of 5 converted bikers with a warboss, then no, its not that bad.

Well, I'm fielding 8 for 'Ard Boyz kitted out differently with at least 3x Power Klaws. I usually run only 6, but I wanted to up the Ante since it's a pretty competitive tournament.

What exactly does "Death Star" unit mean? Something really powerful that has a weak point or something like that?"

a death star unit is a unit that costs SO many points, that if it dies, your army stands no chance of winning. an 800 point unit of nob bikers in a 1500 point game is a deathstar unit.

at 'ardboyz, as you can field multiple deathstar units at that points level, you really can't be blamed for taking one. A 10 man squad of nob bikers in a sub 2k point game is a dick move. Above 2000 points, every army has viable counters to it, and its their fault if they don't take them.

Death Star are units are powerful and expensive units that have a glaring weakness (in this case, Nob biker's horrid leadership and low Initiative). So ya, you hit it on the nail.

The old guy was thinking of 3rd edition, BTW.

You should've told the guy that was pissing and moaning at you LGS to go back to 2008 where he belongs.

They are seriously tough. And extremely frustrating to play against.

Not broken though.

Nob Bikers were broken, but then two things showed up on the competitive scene: Psyker Battle Squads, and mass S8+/AP2 weaponry.

Darkzephyr wrote:Hey everyone,


Just wondering what people around here think about Nob Bikers in the competitive environment...

I missed that.

It's competitive, it has to be legal, it doesn't have to be "fair".

Play to win, that's the only thing the rules set cares about.

Anything else is secondary, including bathing supposedly. Heh.

If it was me in that situation and someone called me a cheese dick, I would have told him to screw off and grow up, end of convo. Next time you see him at the store if he starts complaining again, tell him to put his big girl panties on and act like a grownup, and if he can't do that, he should go play with the rest of the 14 year olds, because obviously he must be new to the game if he can't counter a squad of nob bikers.

I mean really, nob has toughness 4 correct? Anything with STR 8 and over can insta-gib them in one hit, and most weapons that are STR 8 and over have blast templates, as mortified penguin has already mentioned. That or get some weapons with high AP and alot of hits and go to town on them. Personally I can't stand people who complain about broken units....im sure if they dug through their rule book they'd find 'broken' units as well, and im sure they field them quite often and snicker just as much when people show despair when they have trouble with their unit. I find people who complain about that sort of thing are usually the people who either want to play to beat everyone at all costs, or they themselves have an ownage unit, and then see someone else who has a unit who can beat theirs, and cry like babies because of it.

I think they are a very powerful unit, and their power level is above many other units. However I don't think having nob bikers is an auto-win. There's plenty you can do to neutralize them. One way is is to focus fire. They are the scariest unit on the board so take them out turn one. Weight of fire will eventually kill anything.
That said look at this:
Nob -------- 20pts
Bike ------- 25pts
power claw 25pts
Eavy Armor 5pts

That's 75 points per model and as such 225 pts for the MINIMUM unit.
Even w/o the eavy armor it's expensive.

Now let's up that to a unit of 5 - that's 375 points
make one a pain boy for FNP (30 points) and you have a 405 point unit.
In a standard game of 1850 points that's 22% of your army, over 1/5 of your entire force is in one unit that can be pinned / made to run away.
If you want a 10 man unit (For extra power & ld 10) it becomes an 850 point unit - 46% of your army.
Assuming a 10 man squad that's 20 wounds at T5 with a 4+save and FNP or a 3+ cover save if they turbo boost. So yes it will be hard to kill but when it's dead it will be 46% of their army dead, the equal in points of killing 5 10 man tac marines with flamer / ML.

So yes while they are very powerful they are very costly and if you focus all your fire on them then you can either kill, or severely hurt them on turn one and god forbid you can pin them/ make them run that's almost 1/2 your opponents army useless for a turn.

tl;dr I'm sick of people whining about them, they are VERY tough to break but for their point cost they SHOULD be. Just focus your fire and kill them, it's an age old strategy of kill the biggest threat with everything it takes then reassess & find the next biggest threat.

/agree Gorgarak

Get so pissed off with talk of cheese dick, beardy units, cheat overpowered units. I dont want to draw up my army list that I think will work well and then think "oh no these units are too strong, my opponent may think I'm not playing in the spirit of the game. I'd better make them crapper".

I dont play to win at all costs but If I want to try out any unit you can legally make then there should be no whining at all imo. No unit is unstoppable and FFS a full squad of nob bikers is like 800 points or something, I bloody well hope it is a powerful unit at that cost. All armies have good units that opponents hate to face, that doesn't mean they're broken or the player is cheating for using them, because thats what these guys are really implying

mikeyboyj wrote:FFS a full squad of nob bikers is like 800 points or something

850 for the way most people run them (See above )

@ Shas'O Dorian:
-'Eavy Armor is useless (except for differentiation) because bikes give them the 4+ save.
-Most people don't put a Power Klaw on every model so you have at least some models hitting at initiative.
-If they turboboost they can't be pinned.
-They always have a 4+ cover if not the 3+ from turboboosting.

Not sure exactly where I'm going with this, just wanted to bring up/correct those points.
However, I agree they can be a huge waste of points if your opponent knows what he's doing.

I dont think marines ca make a unit with that may points....

EagleArk wrote:I dont think marines ca make a unit with that may points....

Aww...you must not know about dual thunderhammers. You can fit 27,000 points into a single SW FoC.


@OP:

In your shoes, faced with such absurdity, I would tell your opponent to stop whining about their inability to deal with a particular codex and get onto the table so that you can illustrate....have them build a nob biker list and build pretty much any competitive list from one of the other codexes and beat on him with it. Or with them in multiple succession.

Make an IG parking lot, put a PBS into one and nuke them (weaken resolve, how fun!). Take the oldest codex in 40k (Dark Eldar) and build a typical list; the dark lances and horrorfexes will be tremendously fun. Build a SW list - you can fit one heck of a lot of missile launchers in any point value. Blood Angel Baal Predators with flamestorm cannons...mmmmm. Vanilla marines with a demolisher or two. Chaos with a couple battle cannons. Any decent list in any codex has a good bit of anti-tank since this IS the mechanized era, and all that anti-tank weaponry can be turned to dealing with nob bikers just fine.

Put him on the table, give him the nob bikers, and then mercilessly stomp him. Not joking, I would be like, "Dude, cease fire. Don't rage at me because your tactical incompetence has left you unable to build a well-balanced list capable of handling different codex offerings. Why don't you play nob bikers and I'll illuminate you on how to deal with them."

^^Fair point.

Nob bikers are nasty when used right, but there are dozens of ways to mitigate them. Every codex has several ways to deal with them. Don't let one jerk convince you otherwise. If you get to play him, you damn near have the game already won because he's so psyched out about your stinking nobz.

Namecalling and giving someone a bad attitude regarding their choice of which toy soldiers to use is never justified.

“Wound abuse” does seem to be a bit of an unintended hole in the 5th ed rules, and while I think using it is fair, I am sympathetic to people who don’t like it. Nob Bikers are a tough unit, and while some more recent books have more counters to them, they can certainly be scary and seem broken to people who don’t really play in a very competitive environment. But that doesn’t justify acting like a jerk toward you.

Dashofpepper wrote:

EagleArk wrote:I dont think marines ca make a unit with that may points....

Aww...you must not know about dual thunderhammers. You can fit 27,000 points into a single SW FoC.


@OP:

In your shoes, faced with such absurdity, I would tell your opponent to stop whining about their inability to deal with a particular codex and get onto the table so that you can illustrate....have them build a nob biker list and build pretty much any competitive list from one of the other codexes and beat on him with it. Or with them in multiple succession.

Make an IG parking lot, put a PBS into one and nuke them (weaken resolve, how fun!). Take the oldest codex in 40k (Dark Eldar) and build a typical list; the dark lances and horrorfexes will be tremendously fun. Build a SW list - you can fit one heck of a lot of missile launchers in any point value. Blood Angel Baal Predators with flamestorm cannons...mmmmm. Vanilla marines with a demolisher or two. Chaos with a couple battle cannons. Any decent list in any codex has a good bit of anti-tank since this IS the mechanized era, and all that anti-tank weaponry can be turned to dealing with nob bikers just fine.

Put him on the table, give him the nob bikers, and then mercilessly stomp him. Not joking, I would be like, "Dude, cease fire. Don't rage at me because your tactical incompetence has left you unable to build a well-balanced list capable of handling different codex offerings. Why don't you play nob bikers and I'll illuminate you on how to deal with them."

But that's the Thing Dash, he wasn't my opponent, I wasn't even playing with Nob Bikers. I was simply sitting at a table chopping Deffkoptas and Convertin' them to Nob Bikers and he noticed it out of the corner of his eye while he was talking to someone else at the table and started giving me all kinds of grief. I could understand his attitude a bit more if I was actually playing against some noob with a small or weak point list, or even playing against him. But NO, just minding my own business trying to create some cool conversions.

Also, I don't think this guy has even played 40k recently, or at least not regularly. I don't see him around much except on certain nights when people are hanging out painting stuff, and I believe he plays other games, like Infinity or WH Fantasy. Therefore, I believe his perception is a bit skewed from probably years ago when there was supposedley a big uproar about how unfair the wound allocation of Nob Bikers was. I'm guessing it's the intial reputation that has somehow made it's mark and lots of people don't seem to realize they aren't as Nasty as they once were.

Take opponent out of it then.

Didn't mean to put it in context of a game....but all the same points still apply.

Dashofpepper wrote:Not joking, I would be like, "Dude, cease fire. Don't rage at me because your tactical incompetence has left you unable to build a well-balanced list capable of handling different codex offerings. Why don't you play nob bikers and I'll illuminate you on how to deal with them."

Right there.
That is EXACTLY how you respond to this.
Make sure you do it loud enough so that everyone hearing him whine also hears your challenge.




When he refuses, counter that his opinions mean nothing if he's not man enough to take it to the table.

When he continues to spout his bullsh**, your only response should be "put up or shut up."


Eric

I plan to buy the megaforce box and convert all nine with a warboss. If you would rather cry and insult me at a tourney than play go for it. Your insults ensure my victory. Honestly I would have simply told that guy to STFU the moment he called me a cheese dick. Seriously if you cant take the meta game you should not be playing competitively. I am also the guy who WOULD run them in a sub 2k game. I am in it to win it.

I find it a little bit hard to believe that any unit worth 550 points that could lose half of its models to one battlecannon blast could be called "broken." It's all about countering. Throw them at a footsloggin' guard army and they only fail to make back their points because they can only kill so many little guys. Introduce them to TH/SS Terminators...you get the picture.