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Do they serve any useful function?

I'm building an army with fair drop pod capability, so there's one obvious benefit for me... and my chapter is supposed to be scout heavy... so they're consistent with my theme.

But other than the obvious mentioned above, will they do me any good? Not even sure how many I have to field (don't have a dex with me).

Thoughts?

I've been field testing a max size squad of scout bikers, tricked out with 3x astartes grenade launchers and a power fist. at 265 points, its a hefty cost, but they often work out fairly well for me.

1) if your playing spearhead, infiltrate + scout turbo boost means you can get to the enemy flank on your first turn.

2) infiltrate + turbo boost decimates mechanized armies if you get first turn. you can get a first turn charge with several krak grenade shots off. A tactic i'm working on for anti-mech guard, if I have first turn- setup the scout bikers so I can get a first turn charge on their chimera wall... use long range typhoons to pop one of the chimeras of the wall. declare a charge with the scout bikers on the now disembarked unit, putting ONE scout on that unit, and the rest on surrounding chimeras. pop the chimeras with grenades + fist attacks, the one bike on the infantry probably won't do any wounds, you will probably draw combat, and be stuck in. Next turn, you'll win combat, break out, and be free to move in your turn.

3) They are every bit as durable against shooting as regular bikers if turbo boosting

4) They are every bit as durable against monstrous creatures in assault phase (good at killing daemon princes on the first turn... rapid fire, then charge with fist. normally does a fair deal of damage).

5) They can outflank... if you have second turn against a shooty opponent, you can hold your entire army in reserve, and hopefully the scouts come in with the majority of your army, buying time for you to get into position while they engage in hand to hand with the enemy.


The bottom line is that scout bikes are pretty much as durable as tac marines in hand to hand +1 toughness kinda balances against +1 Sv, though poisoned weapons from nids destroy them. against shooty armies, like guard and tau, not much can really trouble them in hand to hand, and if you focus them at the enemies weakest point, they can do a good job. They sew a lot of confusion and distruction in the enemy lines.

I have used the cluster mines and had good results useful for obvious terrain or terrain people need to go through but a bit random and unreliable to use in a proper plan.

Hmmmm... thanks guys... very helpful. What is min/max squad size?

min size is 2+sarge, max size is 9+sarge

cost can range from 90-210 pts, plus options.

Eminently dooable.... thanks!

Especially since I have about 7 of the original RT space marine jet bikes... perfect to set the scouts aside from regular bikers.

I never had luck with scouts, they always just got killed instantly

Then again, I haven't played a SM game with the 5th ed codex so they might have changed for the better since then