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Thinking of putting some bikers into my list. I play BA and still don't know if bikes are good or not. I like attack bikes because they have two wounds, but to me a bike is just an assault marine with a slightly better weapon. Am I wrong or right?

Thanks,

B.D.

A bike is very little like an assault marine. The bike is a shooting platform, they have much better mobility, and they don't like close combat. Bikes are a nice platform for melta weapons. The attackbikes are especially nice with their multimeltas. You can reliably take out enemy armour in turn 2 with attack bikes.

BA's have one advantage over normal marines on bikes, they can take a priest and get FNP. Then you get plaguemarines with pretty much the best movement in 40k, but they are not scoring, so they quickly take up too much pts for a non-scoring unit.

I would advice attackbikes for starters, they are nice in pretty much any army. A bike unit on the other hand, is a much bigger investment, and might not be worth the pretty high cost when they're not scoring.

Do you know what fluff means? I wouldn't take bikers, no.

Attack bikes are only good when buried in Bike squads as they can be IDed.

that said a Melta squad is a good thing.


4 bikes and attack bike. 2 melta guns and a MM. zoom up to a LR or Lemun Russ squadron and fry those suckers. expect them to die, but they will have done their job.

gurgle wrote:Do you know what fluff means? I wouldn't take bikers, no.

?? They have the option in their codex, and fluff says that assault marines are trained with both bikes and jump packs. I see no fluff issue in using bikers in a BA army. Besides, this is the tactics forum, not the fluffy forum. Begone ye fluffbunny

Attack bikes are only good when buried in Bike squads as they can be IDed.

Very false. 2xAB squads are easy to hide, especially so in an army that has so many fast vehicles you can hide behind the first turn, then you can hit your enemy in the second turn. Worst case scenario, you will at least have a 3+ coversave, so your opponent will have to dedicate a decent amount of S8 to take them out.

4 bikes + AB with 3x melta is a decent squad, but I still prefer AB's if you're not going full hog with a biker list. (and then you can't play BA)

Illumini wrote:

Attack bikes are only good when buried in Bike squads as they can be IDed.

Very false. 2xAB squads are easy to hide, especially so in an army that has so many fast vehicles you can hide behind the first turn, then you can hit your enemy in the second turn. Worst case scenario, you will at least have a 3+ coversave, so your opponent will have to dedicate a decent amount of S8 to take them out.

4 bikes + AB with 3x melta is a decent squad, but I still prefer AB's if you're not going full hog with a biker list. (and then you can't play BA)

Exactly this. Two attack bikes have a smaller footprint than 5x bikers, and are easier to hide, and maneuver. The 3+ cover save from Boosting a 2xAB squadron can actually deter a lot of folks from shooting at them first, only relegating spare shots, or going whole-hog on them to ensure they die.

I play Ultramarines, so I have the luxury of taking 8-man biker squads with attached ABs as troops (with the captain on bike, obviously). I'm not a huge fan of 5-man squads myself, but that's because I have this odd luck with Morale tests near my board edge.

Bikers in a Blood Angels list would be a nice way to turbo-boost onto late-game objectives when the rest of your army is tied up in close combat. Bikers benefit a TON from the Red Thirst rule. Fearless allows you to ignore all shooting losses (which are the bane of Bikers, since they fall back 3d6").

A scout biker squad of 3 bikes with giving the sergeant a power fist comes in at 95 points...and can be a very nasty alpha strike unit if your area plays that first turn cc on vehicles is an auto hit.

The bikes can infiltrate, and they can also do a 24" turbo scout move. Then they can move another 12" on the first turn and assault 6". Three str8 auto hits onto rear armor isnt too shabby, and their threat range is huge.

BA can do a bit better, if they use sang priests. Its easy enough to take an assault squad, add a priest w/jump pack and move them forward 12" on the first turn while moving the bikes in a tandem line so that the bike units is barely within 6" of the priest at the start of the assault phase. This gives the bkies furious charge...so it will be three str9 hits onto the vehicle. This makes even LR a very viable target. Also, if the BA player is taking sang priests, he can take Brother Corbulo and increase his chances of going first. Works out to the BA plyer going first about two thirds of the time roughly.

And the really nice part of it is that for another 5 points the sergeant can be given melta bombs. This means that if he tries to take out a LR and fails, the LR is still going to be blocked since it wont want to tankshock into a melta bomb death or glory.




Sliggoth

I just finished building a 6x bike squad with 2x melta-guns, and a combi-melta for the sarge. No attack bikes yet; I have one but haven't had the time to build him as of yet.

I have not yet played these guys, but I am definitely looking forward to it. I typically used mechanized troop heavy armies, that have lately required a bit more fast and anti-mech, and it seems like these boys will fill that role nicely.

may i remind you guys that bikes are relentless? i fielded a squad of 3 heavy bolter ABs and they sure did scare off any gaunts, firing the heavy bolter and the twin linked bolter (at max range) while moving. I also find a Command squad with Captain on bike with a combi melta and meltabombs, an apothacary on bike and 4x marine on bike with meltaguns an interesting choice (i have never used them) to take, they can assault after firing their meltas, they have FNP, and their fairly fast, not to mention good ol toughness 5 3+ save and a cover save now and then. If you want to kill a tank short of drop podding, use bikes.

I consistently field two Ab squadrons. One is 3x Heavy Bolters and one is 3x Multi-Melta. The HB squadron does well against MEQ through sheer volume of fire (15 shots inside 12 inches) and absolutely crushes light/medium infantry. I usually use them behind my main line in a mobile fire support role at first and then use their speed to reposition for a counterattack by fire at points my opponent either threatens to break through or outflanks. The MM bikes are my best mobile tank hunters. Small enough that they can usually benefit from cover saves and deadly with a 36 inch threat range against AV12 and under where they don't really need the second dice.