Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

https://www.google.com/search?q=vincent+black+shadow+solegends

There must have been a biker at Citadel at the time. What with Squats on bikes, the original SM bike was the Vincent Black Shadow.

As for suitabilty, look at Judge Dredd's Lawmaster. That is for urban use, and Space Marines do a bit of that.

 kronk wrote:
feth your bikes. Real men ride Segways into battle.

That is BEYOND epic!!!!!

SG

 the_Armyman wrote:
I think some of you are taking the knight on horseback thing too literally. A Space Marine on a bike doesn't need to have a lance or swing a sword to kill his enemy, both of which take supreme skill and balance. The bike and rider probably weigh nearly a ton, and they have no fear (see what I did there) of personal injury due to having power armor. Velocity and mass are the weapons. Drive by your target, stick a pauldron out or cant a leg to expose the kneepad. A hit to the torso or head kills from blunt force trauma. A hit to an extremity either tears it off or renders it useless by pulverising internal structures.

Modern riders don't have physics on their side and they don't have the same level of rider protection. They can easily kill at speed, but the bike is critically damaged and the rider dismounted and injured.

Most of the same would apply to something like a space marine bike however, they're broad, but have an absurdly low ground clearance and could still very easily be knocked over or off their bikes, or skid out and crash. Yeah, they'd be heavy, but the physics remain the same.

To say nothing of the absurdity of multi-round melee combat, a bike would be a deathtrap to remain on.

 kronk wrote:
feth your bikes. Real men ride Segways into battle.

HERESY

Lazy Marines ride barcaloungers with anti-grav.

 Yack Maniels wrote:
I just cant take Marine/Chaos bikes seriously. Superhuman soldiers in pretty much tank armor on motorcycles? Uhhh? Don't don't get me started on how impractical they would be. However, Orks kinda make sense, being the impractical beings they are. Eldar jet bikes seem more believable to me too. If I ever start an Astartes army, I could never bring myself to buy bikers, just out of principle.

I'm not the only one that feels this way, right?

With you 100%, strongly dislike the bikes. They look so stupid.

 the_Armyman wrote:

Yack Maniels wrote:I just cant take Marine/Chaos bikes seriously. Superhuman soldiers in pretty much tank armor on motorcycles? Uhhh? Don't don't get me started on how impractical they would be. However, Orks kinda make sense, being the impractical beings they are. Eldar jet bikes seem more believable to me too. If I ever start an Astartes army, I could never bring myself to buy bikers, just out of principle.

I'm not the only one that feels this way, right?

It sorta goes with the knightly theme, though: armored warriors on horseback. The bikes are overbuilt and chunky, so I don' t see a physical reason why it couldn't work. It'd be different if they were riding Harleys with ape-hangers and raked front forks, a la Easy Rider.

Rihgu wrote:The fact that my Grey Knights can't take bikes has been a sore spot for me since I got into the game...

[sarcasm]
Yeah, with grav guns. And they should have thunderfire cannons, Vindicators, and Centurions, too...
[/sarcasm]

One of the ways that you can keep guys in power armor distinct is by NOT giving them access to all the same gear. Besides, not that GW cares about its own fluff, but Grey Knights don't ride bikes. If they need to get somewhere fast, they teleport.

No. just the bikes. I don't care about anything else. I think Grey Knights ramping off of cliffs into the midst of Daemonic hordes with their sick silver bikes would be rad. If you think it's about wanting Space Marine Stuff because Space Marine Stuff is Good, you've leapt to an incorrect conclusion.

Speaking of fluff, check out page 36 of the 7th edition codex. "The fluctuating Warp energies generated by Lurgon and the plague prevented Draigo from teleporting directly into the Nexus Spire, for the risk that his Terminators would become lost in the Immaterium or rematerialise within the walls of the fortress was too great."
Sounds like teleporting isn't perfectly reliable (although we knew this, that's why Deep Strike Scatter and Mishaps exist, and what all fluff has said practically forever, especially when Daemons are involved). Sure seems like some bikes would have come in handy there, right? Teleport to a safe location with you bikes and use them to quickly get to where you actually need to go?

(before you bring up Land Raiders and Rhinos, they use them in the same story. They get destroyed before they get completely to their destination, partly due to the fact that Rhinos and Land Raiders are relatively large, lumbering giants easily blocked by tides of daemons, whereas bikes have enough maneuverability and the riders enough combat prowess to weave & cleave their way through the opposition)

Grey Knights on bikes would be awesome.

Yeah, I'll agree with most and say that marines on bikes looks kind of silly. It works with chaos because they sort of have to use whatever they can get their hands on, plus they're already insane so there you go. Orks are fine because they don't really worry about practicality. Plus, I think the ork warbikes actually look pretty cool. Hell, I actually finished painting another warbiker tonight.

Legion jetbikes were cooler.

What I wonder is: would bikes be more acceptable if the models weren't so hideous?

The Space Marine bikes are clearly analogous to heavy cavalry. The problem is the bikes are designed to look like modern bikes. If instead, you started from the ground up to fulfill the needs of a cavalry, you would get a very different vehicle.

For starters, the rider would not need to be completely independent from the vehicle. The bike/tank should provide the protection. Carapace armor with a helmet is probably good enough. You want the engine and important components in the middle, the rider laying on top of that, and armor covering the whole thing. Of course, you don't want a large plow on the front of the bike; it'll catch on terrain. For the same reason, the bike needs to have high ground clearance.

Now you can pursue the enemy. From there, it's not ideal to run them over because you'll probably mess up the bike. Better to have a dedicated weapon, like a lance or a blade, sponson mounted but driver controlled. I think a sponson mounted gun wouldn't be impractical. However, an even edgier idea is a turret controlled by a servitor. Space Marine laying in a tank with a corpse manning the gun above him. It might be best for the tank to be a quad-bike at that point.

Oh crikes, the faces on the front of the hover bikes... Almost as bad as the Mechanicus robots.

 Draco wrote:
Legion jetbikes were cooler.

These are Legion Jetbikes.

I have to admit. I like the astetics of the marine bike. Not the attack bike because the side car looks very weedy.

I just see it as each marine is riding around on their own mini tanks. Yes, HTH fighting on a bike is silly, but there is not shortage of other silly stuff in 40K. HTH in general being one of them.

 Portugal Jones wrote:
Oh crikes, the faces on the front of the hover bikes... Almost as bad as the Mechanicus robots.

They look like some kind of super goofy looking sharks.

 Swastakowey wrote:


Horses to me are fine for the backward worlds but everything else is just silly and realistically would be gunned down as they present huge targets.

Tsch. Some Space Marines are known to be very Skilled Riders, and they can actually dodge a psychic assault say, from an Eldar Farseer, using their motorcycle. They can also ride up walls and blow up vehicles by ramming their back armour with their tires.

This. Is. Astartes.

 Yack Maniels wrote:
I just cant take Marine/Chaos bikes seriously. Superhuman soldiers in pretty much tank armor on motorcycles? Uhhh? Don't don't get me started on how impractical they would be. However, Orks kinda make sense, being the impractical beings they are. Eldar jet bikes seem more believable to me too. If I ever start an Astartes army, I could never bring myself to buy bikers, just out of principle.

I'm not the only one that feels this way, right?

No, you are not the only one who feels this way. I loathe the idea, design and rules advantage of marine bikes and believe the world would be a better place if they were never created.

Fluffwise: They make no actual sense to be part of any astartes army. Speeders and jump pack units would be much more effective in a reconnaissance role, and regarding their effectiveness in straight up combat, well, there is a reason cavalry fell out of fashion. That said, they are more in keeping with the old GW style, before the grimdark really set in.

Crunchwise: Hell yes they are lame, as in lame to play against and rather overpowered. This is coming from a DA player with a 2k+ RW list. Having scout bikes for their speed and recon abilities might be forgivable, having power armoured bikes with T5 3+ save, and either WS or RW abilities which make them literal mini tanks, is not.

I like my bikes, but I started building the army before 6trh edition. Now with all the new shenanigans they are giving bikes I find it very hard to field them en mass anymore without feeling like that guy.

What I really want is a contemptor biker .

Drasius wrote:No, you are not the only one who feels this way. I loathe the idea, design and rules advantage of marine bikes and believe the world would be a better place if they were never created.

Okay not to be dense or anything, but you are being hyperbolic here? If not, while I understand not liking them, that's kinda extreme.

Dozer Blades wrote:What I really want is a contemptor biker .

Now that WOULD be a mini tank!
Reminds me of the thought I had of a Terminator Biker with 2 more Terminators, one in a sidecar on each side, towing a trailer with a Dreadnought in it.
And yet that would still be more sensible than Rough Riders, Thunderwolf Cavalry and Santa Grimnar.

 the_Armyman wrote:
I think some of you are taking the knight on horseback thing too literally. A Space Marine on a bike doesn't need to have a lance or swing a sword to kill his enemy, both of which take supreme skill and balance. The bike and rider probably weigh nearly a ton, and they have no fear (see what I did there) of personal injury due to having power armor. Velocity and mass are the weapons. Drive by your target, stick a pauldron out or cant a leg to expose the kneepad. A hit to the torso or head kills from blunt force trauma. A hit to an extremity either tears it off or renders it useless by pulverising internal structures.

Yes, but peak coolness can not be reached unless you have them swinging swords and lances etc. around, even if it is useless as feth. Everything for the rule of cool.