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I've been playing around with Space Marines lately, and have been trying out bikes. I've never played bikes before, or seen them fielded, but I've completely fallen in love with them. So, I've been looking at putting together a bike list and was looking for some outside thoughts.


HQ -Space Marine Captain, Artificer Armour, Melta bombs, Bike.

Troops - 10 man Tactical Squad, Flamer, Plasma Cannon
- Dedicated Transport - Razorback, Twin linked Assault cannons.
Troops - 10 man Tactical Squad, Flamer, Plasma Cannon
- Dedicated Transport - Razorback, Twin linked Assault cannons.
Troops - 4 man Bike Squad, 2 flamers, Attack bike.
Troops - 4 man Bike Squad, 2 flamers, Attack bike.

Fast Attack - Attack bike, multimelta
Fast Attack - Attack bike, multimelta

Heavy Support - Devastator Squad, 4 Missile Launchers
Heavy Support - Devastator Squad, 4 Missile Launchers
Heavy Support - Predator Tank, Autocannon, lascannon sponsons

1,500 on the nose. Any thoughts?

(As an aside, any reason bikes aren't popular?)

Looks good, but the captain needs a power weapon in my opinion. I would also lose the attack bikes in the troop units and get some scout bikes, which work with your force and can really mess up units in your opponent's backfield, especially if you get first turn. I would also do something about the number of tanks you have, 2 light tanks and 1 medium tank will die pretty quickly to most armies, as all your opponent's AT will target them early in game. Most people don't run bikes because they are expensive, and die as easily as regular marines. They can work, but require more skill than mechanized.

Not a fan of flamers on bikes. I prefer plasmas, you can stay at range and still have some good fire power. Once you are in assault with bikes they are useless. They don't have the staying power or CC ability.

Its a pretty good list, but I don't really see bike list. I see Marines with a strong bike influence.

Agree, Captain needs PW at least.

I'm not sold on scout bikes, they seem like slightly crapper bikes, I would put them in a terminator list for the locator beacon but not for any thing else.

The list seems fine for shooting, the comander needs some cc wargear but if you want to go all shooting give the commander hellfire rounds.

I think your devastator squads have enough anti-swarm power so that you can drop the two flamers and stick metlaguns in your bike squads.
Plasma guns are all well and good for some LGS but if you have tough units like grey knights to kill then melta is the way to go. Plasma is more expensive, can't instant kill and can't tackle armour in the same way.

If you have someone pulling a killa can line you can pop an entire squad of cans in one round of shooting from your bike squads.

That's my two bits on it.

Ok, I am not sure what you have been playing against. But I think plasmas are so much better then meltas.

1) Plasmas have far better range. Being on bike gives you relentless, which alloys you to fire at 24 inches. That is so powerful for you.

2) Meltas have to be at least 12 inches away. Ie. Assault range. That is the last place you want to be with you bikes, unless it is a command squad then maybe CC is better.

3) How are Ap 2 and Ap 1 really different? Yes, The melta is str 8 so can instant kill something.

4) I am not sure how you are going to kill a whole squad of Kans an survive? There useally are 3 kans. You only have 2 meltas. Not to mention that I have a cover save from my KFF that is behind them.(I play Kan wall) Your example is flawed as you might kill one but then I am charging and probably killing most of those bikes for a 50 points kan. Cool you do that buddy.

I understand that a bike list has long range problems and Tank problems. Meltas on bikes are not going to fix that. If you want meltas take an Attack bike squad. At least you can fire a Str 8 weapon 24 inches away and get a +1 to damage chart. That is your best option other then speeders with TML's.

Thanks for the feedback, chaps. I'll give this a little bit more thought.

I'll probably need to drop something to fit a power weapon in. That'll probably give some room for either melta or plasma. I'll need to have a think about which is more useful in my club.

To be honest this doesn't really seem like a bike list. Aside from 2 bike squads and a captain probably only a third of this list is on bikes. I would drop both tactical squads for more bikes. You could definitely get 2 more squads and still have points left over for upgrades and the likes. A 4 man bike squad with 2 flamers and mulitmelta attack bike(bringing the total to 5 to become troops) is only 175 points. And although I would prefer meltas, it's still fairly cheap. You could still give razorbacks to the Devastators if you want more long range fire support. You could also consider taking a command squad for the captain.

I would also combine the attack bikes into one squad and make sure that each attack bike sergeant gets melta bombs, although in some cases powerfists might be better.