How on Earth would a Motorcycle Increase Your Toughness?

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**sing your life**

Where can get these awesome 2nd ed bike rules?

**Azreal13**

Erm, the 2nd Edition rulebook?

Likely at a friendly eBay vendor somewhere near you.

**sing your life**

I meant something like a PDF.

**Azreal13**

sing your life wrote:
I meant something like a PDF.

You're not asking for Dakka users to publicly violate copyright law are you? They don't like that round here.

**Selym**

sing your life wrote:
I meant something like a PDF.

But, that's piracy!

GW will have a number of lawyers knocking at your door any minute.

And then they shall REDACTED

**Vaktathi**

Selym wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
Realistically, it shouldn't. A bolter round hitting a bike would probably do unpleasant things to the bike, if nothing else potentially causing it to lose control, not to mention being a larger and much easier to hit target. Nothing about being on a bike should make them tougher.

Bikes in 40k don't really make any sense, it's best not to think about them. They wouldn't be good shooting platforms at all (bikes aren't really all that stable and trying to aim at anything specific with the way the guns are mounted would be impossible) They have the same problem with CC, someone on a bike isn't just going to drive up and start fighting hand to hand combat and sit there on the bike, they'd get murdered pretty quickly that way, whereas realistically they'd ride in, swing once, and ride through and away.

TL;DR 40k bikes are silly in the extreme and don't make any rational sense, think of them as remodeled WHFB cavalry and just accept the sillyness.

Except chaos bikes. Because warp.

Compared to the amount of bullpies that chaos spouts, bikers make sense

Chaos is, by its very nature, unreality and nonsensical. The Chaos stuff bothers me a whole lot less as a result when it's the physical manifestation of things that should not be.

ansacs wrote:Because I have been in 3 motorcycle accidents and I can tell you I am definitely +1 toughness after having ridden motorcycles than I was before I started riding them.

It is probably due to the fact that a projectile hitting the bike does a lot less damage than a projectile hitting you (mostly due to the aerodynamic shape of the bike which guides the projectiles around it rather than catching it).

Projectiles don't really work that way (at least if they have any sort of real momentum to be capable of hurting something in the first place), and SM bikes at least are probably the least aerodynamic vehicles in existence.

**AegisGrimm**

Believe me, +1 Toughness works much better mechanically than the 2nd edition bike rules. While I would gladly play some skirmish games that would involve a single bike alongside my forces, I would never, ever want to deal with a squad of them, worrying about which bikes have to go slower from getting damaged, combat versus fast speed, etc.

God forbid dealing with a guy whose bike gets trashed and simply tumbles free of the wreckage to fight on foot........

**Zognob Gorgoff**

jasper76 wrote:
So, motorcycles are probably amongst the most dangerous vehicles on the planet. Why on earth would riding a motorcycle give you a +1 to Toughness? If anything, I would expect a common-sense -1 to Toughness.

Its a game with space magic...its just a gamie mechanic im cool with it.

**McGibs**

Think of warhammer bikes less equivalent to modern road bikes, and more equivalent to modern ATVs. The similarities to actual motorcycles end at the two-wheels part. Other than that, theyre all purpose-made war vehicles, with armour plating to protect themselves and their rider.

**Piroko**

How is it that Blood Crushers can go up stairs but Thunderwolves can't? Why do super human soldiers who are meant to take down almost anything suffer a penalty when shooting at large flying creatures? The game is full of these sorts of things =/

Besides, bikes are heavily armored vehicles with large wheels to increase stability, in addition you have men in large suits of heavily plated armor. There you go, there's your answer.

**Dylanj94**

So we talkin' cigarette tough or bike-curious tough?

But in all seriousness I think its a bit of an overcompensation thing to have bikers in your army

Space marines- big bikes
Eldar - flying bikes
Orks - stolen bikes from either space marines or Eldar, then tricked out.

Imperial guard - no bikes only horses with massive balls like their own.

So your enemy sees you on a bike, feels inadequate and imagines that you are tougher when you actually aren't, and the non biker armies look less tough for not having bikes

Tyranids- basic troop t3 no bikes
Imperial guard -t3 again
Nercrons - t4 have bikes
Tau - t3 no bikes
Space marines t4 bikes
Orks - t4 bikes

Wait am I onto something here...will the games-workshop silencer van show up to my house while I sleep....dear god

**dementedwombat**

Dylanj94 wrote:
Tau - t3 no bikes

Don't need bikes. Got one better!

**pinecone77**

jasper76 wrote:
So, motorcycles are probably amongst the most dangerous vehicles on the planet. Why on earth would riding a motorcycle give you a +1 to Toughness? If anything, I would expect a common-sense -1 to Toughness.

Cool points, the universe does not dare to harm you.

**Zarynterk**

pinecone77 wrote:
jasper76 wrote:
So, motorcycles are probably amongst the most dangerous vehicles on the planet. Why on earth would riding a motorcycle give you a +1 to Toughness? If anything, I would expect a common-sense -1 to Toughness.

Cool points, the universe does not dare to harm you.

Cool points, and its a definite chick magnet... I ride a Harley nighttrain, and believe me I've been hit on more times by chicks riding my bike than i ever have driving my car lol.

**Ashiraya**

Zarynterk wrote:
pinecone77 wrote:
jasper76 wrote:
So, motorcycles are probably amongst the most dangerous vehicles on the planet. Why on earth would riding a motorcycle give you a +1 to Toughness? If anything, I would expect a common-sense -1 to Toughness.

Cool points, the universe does not dare to harm you.

Cool points, and its a definite chick magnet... I ride a Harley nighttrain, and believe me I've been hit on more times by chicks riding my bike than i ever have driving my car lol.

There just is something with bikes...

**minigun762**

jasper76 wrote:
So, motorcycles are probably amongst the most dangerous vehicles on the planet. Why on earth would riding a motorcycle give you a +1 to Toughness? If anything, I would expect a common-sense -1 to Toughness.

Yes, a thousand times yes!!

**Freman Bloodglaive**

dementedwombat wrote:
slowthar wrote:
Have you ever seen a guy who rides a motorcycle NOT look tougher? :-)
I know right.

Those are cool models. What are they from?

**jhe90**

Mobility, a moving target is harder to hit or bracket and fire on with ordinance from artillary or crew served weapons.

**jasper76**

jhe90 wrote:
Mobility, a moving target is harder to hit or bracket and fire on with ordinance from artillary or crew served weapons.

Yeah, but isnt that supposed to be covered by the Jink rule? So they are double-blessed by being hard to hit, but when they are hit, they get an additional (and to me nonsensical) bonus against that hit being a wound.

Best "suspension of disbelief" argument I've heard is that bikes in 40k are super armor plated and so forth and may be able to repel fire. I might be able to buy into this for bolter fire, but if your smacked dead-on with a s10 while driving on 2 wheels, I'm not buying it. I don't care how much armor that bike's got, you should end up on the ground.

(as said, this is just a minor "rules-aren't-internally-consistent" gripe, but does not bother me while playing games)

Automatically Appended Next Post:

minigun762 wrote:
jasper76 wrote:
So, motorcycles are probably amongst the most dangerous vehicles on the planet. Why on earth would riding a motorcycle give you a +1 to Toughness? If anything, I would expect a common-sense -1 to Toughness.

Yes, a thousand times yes!!

**Kain**

Because you need a reason to actually take bikes.

A -1 penalty to toughness would mean nobody would buy bikes ever.

**jasper76**

Kain wrote:
Because you need a reason to actually take bikes.

A -1 penalty to toughness would mean nobody would buy bikes ever.

Well, this is probably the actual reason

**Ashiraya**

jasper76 wrote:

Best "suspension of disbelief" argument I've heard is that bikes in 40k are super armor plated and so forth and may be able to repel fire. I might be able to buy into this for bolter fire, but if your smacked dead-on with a s10 while driving on 2 wheels, I'm not buying it. I don't care how much armor that bike's got, you should end up on the ground.

To be fair, if you are hit by S10 the +1 toughness never actually matters.

Unless you are a Warboss. And the bike of a Warboss is halfway to a tank already.

**Kain**

Ashiraya wrote:
jasper76 wrote:

Best "suspension of disbelief" argument I've heard is that bikes in 40k are super armor plated and so forth and may be able to repel fire. I might be able to buy into this for bolter fire, but if your smacked dead-on with a s10 while driving on 2 wheels, I'm not buying it. I don't care how much armor that bike's got, you should end up on the ground.

To be fair, if you are hit by S10 the +1 toughness never actually matters.

Unless you are a Warboss. And the bike of a Warboss is halfway to a tank already.

I'm waiting for the day when you can legally have a mega armored warboss on a bike.

Because feth everything.

**Wilytank**

jasper76 wrote:
Are there any rules for a motorbike crash? LOTR has rules for being dismounted fom cavalry, but I don't think any such analogue exists in 40k for bikes...it would be cooler if it did. Something like a thrown rider is an immediate casualty since he can't keep up with his unit...or something.

Yes. It's called treating difficult terrain as dangerous terrain.

**the shrouded lord**

Go look at the model.
See how wide the tire is, it's about |____0_0____| this wide right?
Tha thing is not falling over any time soon.

**purplefood**

Ashiraya wrote:
jasper76 wrote:

Best "suspension of disbelief" argument I've heard is that bikes in 40k are super armor plated and so forth and may be able to repel fire. I might be able to buy into this for bolter fire, but if your smacked dead-on with a s10 while driving on 2 wheels, I'm not buying it. I don't care how much armor that bike's got, you should end up on the ground.

To be fair, if you are hit by S10 the +1 toughness never actually matters.

Unless you are a Warboss. And the bike of a Warboss is halfway to a tank already.

The SM bikes have also been described as going through walls... They are kinda big...

**Gideon999**

And dont forget fluff! The bike entry in the codex actually says that experienced marine riders think nothing of riding at full speed through a concrete wall, and the bike wargear entry specifically states the tires are bulletproof.

Suspension of disbelief reinforced! :-)

**Selym**

Gideon999 wrote:
And dont forget fluff! The bike entry in the codex actually says that experienced marine riders think nothing of riding at full speed through a concrete wall, and the bike wargear entry specifically states the tires are bulletproof.

Suspension of disbelief reinforced! :-)

+1 to fluff saves!

**Desubot**

Clearly bikes make you tougher as it makes you manlier

in the same context as catachans abbs count as flak armor.

**stripeydave**

I still think Catachans should have no flak armour, but a 6+ FNP.

But seriously, Rough Riders might actually be worth taking if they got +1 T.

Sadly not.