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There are plenty of squads that bikers will run over. Let's face it, very few squads need a charge from the DC to kill.

Here is a nice little death star.

Dante
Librarian, ML2, Bike, force axe
Priest, bike, powerfist
8 bikes, 2 grav, vet sarge with powerfist.

668pts

Libby casting quickening on Dante of course. 1/3 of a chance for unleash rage.
Priest and sarge provide 6 st9 ap2 attacks.
Libby has 4 st6 ap2 attacks.
Dante with average 8 st7 ap2 attacks at initiative.
7 bikers with 14 st5 attacks.
Everyone with +1 attack if they get rage.
10/11 HoW hits.

All at +1I and +1WS. Hit and run. Grav to soften ap2/3 targets, bolters to soften up horde.

A lot of points, but not easy to kill.

Run with an army looking like this maybe:

Dante

Libby, ML2, bike, force axe

Priest, bike, powerfist

5 scouts
Bp & ccw, mbs

5 scouts
Bp & ccw, mbs

8 bikes
Vet sarge, powerfist
2 grav

5 DC
1 powerfist
Jps

5 DC
1 powerfist
Jps

5 DC
1 powerfist
Jps

5 DC
2 powerswords
Jps

Landspeeder (Deepstrike)
2 multimeltas

Landspeeder (Deepstrike)
2 multimeltas

Predator
Autocannon, lascannons, overcharged engines

Sicaran
Schism of mars

Stormraven
Tl AC, tl MM.

2000pts

Going MSU takes away the feeling of excessive cost for the star.

Putting Dante in the bike squad takes away one of it's big bonuses, very quick redeployment with turboboost. The bike squad doesn't need Dante, leave it at full squad size with a priest and move on to spending points else where. Its effective enough that way and tough as nails still, but you are overspending on one unit.

If it has not already been said 18 times, it simply comes down to the troop tax. Every other point is secondary.

Making a biker army or including a large bike presence, Vanillia White Scars do it best. If you wish to field a BA bike squad, sure. However attempting to get benefit from +1I, Furious charge (which str5 HoW trumps anyway), +1WS, FnP will result in a poorer army than is easily possible with BA.

My thoughts.

I think bikes are definitely worthy of one of our coveted Fast slots. I wouldn't take more than one though (note I'm talking about bike squads, not Attack bike squads, there should always be room for a unit of 2 or 3 attack bikes). They're a nice little unit to deliver some decent special weapon shots, as they can be slightly more resilient than suicide drop assault squads, and make the most of Grav weapons. You also have the option of a super cheap disruption unit, for less than 100 points you can get a squad with 2 gravs/plas to cause havoc and needs a reasonable requirement of force to put down.

D

Ghost_Raptur wrote:
See my post here with my experience with bikes with BA so far:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/210/626355.page#7428941

To go along with this, I've played my share of White Scar bikes and loved them. With BA though, you can play bikes differently that makes them fun too. You really want max squads to fully take advantage of attached priests, with vsgt and LC/power fist.

As to why you want to assault? Because with BA they can do well. 12 move, HoW, T5, furious charge, WS5, I5, FNP (much of this has been stated before). Against Meq types that's about 6 kills before they swing.

Pretty much, one of my initial observations of the BA dex was that, unless you're building an army around them, there is very little incentive to take ASM over Bikes. Sure, White Scars do them better, but who cares? If you're pulling ally shenanigans then it might be an issue, but it's not like it's a night and day difference that makes BA Bikers completely useless...

Poly Ranger wrote:
Who says compete anyway? Why not take both?

Duh.

I love the idea of the biker libby with biker priest and 5 bikes with grav. Might actually have to try it out over my assault marines.