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.

This is a 2k list, and is meant to be a step away from my 8-tank standard 2k army. It is meant to be small, fast and mobile, and most of all, most components I already own or I can find in the Ravenwing box - I only need three more ravenwing boxes to complete this list - The idea is it will do exceptionally well against tanks, boasting between 11 and 12 fast moving and fairly tough S8 AP1 Melta shots, which are all effectively assault.

Forgefather Vulkan He'stan
190 points

Captain
Bike
Relic Blade
Meltabomb
170 points

Elites
Assault Terminators
5x Thunderhammer StormShields
200 points

Land Raider Redeemer
Multi-melta
250 points

Troops
Bike Squad
5 bikers
Attack Bike
2 Meltaguns
Multi-melta
210 points


Bike Squad
5 bikers
Attack Bike
2 Meltaguns
Multi-melta
210 points

Bike Squad
5 bikers
2 Flamers
Attack bike
190 points

Bike Squad
5 bikers
2 Flamers
Attack Bike
190 points
Fast attack

Land Speeder Squadron
2 Land Speeders
4 Heavy Flamers
120 points

Land Speeder Squadron
2 Land Speeders
4 Heavy Flamers
120 points

Attack Bike Squad
3 Attack Bikes
3 Multi-Meltas
150 points

Noone has anything to say for this list? I'd really appreciate the help.

Too many heavy flamers on those squadron. Attack bikes are not good when go alone as they will get wiped by a single tactical squad.

So drop attack bike squadron, switch to all typhoon land speeder as your can openers.

Add extra armor to land raider if you have extra points. Captain on bike going alone? Drop one bike squad and metal bomb. Take a command squad with 4 plasma.

So typhoon open the transport. Captain with command squad swoops in for the kill. Other bikes are there to pop vindicare or predator or storm raven. They can try to take out your raider or they can try to take out your bikes. Either ways, should be solid. Also watch out for fear of darkness from blood angel libby. 3d6 fall back first turn is not fun.

That made very limited sense to me.

What has too many heavy flamers?

The attack bikes are suicide squads... They pop a tank and die..

It doesn't matter where the captain goes. He doesn't need his own squad, and I'm not splurging on a command squad.

You don't honestly seem to know what you're talking about. Your advice makes little or no sense to me, and it seems you don't have the feintest idea of using a close range biker army. How're typhoons going to be effective in an army that does not keep its dostance? It's like asking it to be useless.

I guess I could spend time to explain myself but I am too hung up with your personal attack against me so meh.

There isn't a personal attack there. It seems to me you don't understand a close range bike list, since you're suggestong I use tml.

I run a Biker Army very simiolar to this. And I am only speaking from my personal experience with the army. I run almost the same exact set up, Except the following differences.

Same HQ's

I do run the Command squad with 4 plasma (For close range fire support, they are amazing!))

Troops
2 X5 With Melta and Attack Bike with MMelta, and Sarg with Combi Melta

1 X5 With Flamers Attack bike with MMelta and Sarg W/ Combi Flamer

3 Land Speeders with MM/HF

This set up has work very well for me. With the Speeders able to fly up an dpop tanks early, it makes it very easy for my Bikes to follow up and deal with the Infantry or what ever rides inside.

The only real difference is that I do not use Attack Buike Squads. They can be dealt with to easily, and it makes you take speeders in Squadrons of 2, making it even easier to destroy them. Now like i said, this is just my personal expreience.

As far as yoru list in a whole, it will do a great job of hitting hard the first turn or 2, but will suffer in a drawn out game, as well as Objective games. If you opponet is smart, (And they will catch on)) They will place their objective marker on the top of a building where your troops cannot reach it. So at most you could only contest their objective and never claim it.

You could melta spam more if you really wanted to. 3 full squds of bikers all with melta guns and multi meltas + 3 attack bike squads each with 3 multi meltas and a captian on a bike. Comes to about 1500pts right there and youve got 6 melta guns and 12 multi meltas all moving at 12 inches a round. got room for ur termies too.

I have a bike army that I have played for years, and I see a few possible issues with your bike army that you might want to address.
* Vulkan is awesome, but his ability overrides one of the best features of the bike army, combat tactics. In a bike army this ability is very useful. I would strongly advise putting aside Vulcan unless your heart is really set on it.
* You should bring all troops with your bikes, and no fast attack. You need to hold objectives, and thats the way to do it.
* Bike squads of 5 bikes go up quickly. Really, they do. Bring at least 6.
* Every attack bike should be a MM when possible. The MM is just as dangerous vs MEQ and much more vs vehicles.
* Flamers are great vs horde, but your going a bit heavy on them IMHO. Of course your mileage may vary.
* I see a lack of anti-trasnport fire. How will you take down razorspam? You might want to trade your landspeeders for typhoons and/or add some riflemen dreads.
* Your losing a librarian when your taking Vulcan. Null Zone is incredibly powerful and a hood helps greatly vs psychic armies -- which are much more common in today's meta.

Here are some overall concerns
* Rushing your bikes up and destroying a transport only means the troops inside will assault you. That's never a good spot to be in -- you need long range support
* I strongly suggest putting a PF on your bike sergeants. The reasons for this are long, and after years of playing I always put a PF on a bike squad. Its a great 25 point investment.
* Bike armies have taken a hit in power since the DA codex. GK are also a very hard match up for them, as psycannon spam will shred you before you can use your flamers.
* When 6th edition drops, bikes are rumored to get a nice boost, so its a good thing to look forward to.
-- Their rumored to be harder to hit at range
-- Plasma guns are rumored to be able to fire twice at 24" if standing still or relentless

Here are my strategy suggestions
* When playing bikes, you need to remember to focus on a water approach. Your goal is to hit the enemy hard and then move to a new target. You want to bring all 4 bikes squads onto 1 or 2 targets.
* Keep your termies back and use them for a counter assault. At 2k points you will see twolves and other heavy hitters. They are your counter to those. Resist the urge to push them forward to aggressively.
* Bikes are great for last turn objective grabbing. If facing an IG player, don't be afraid to spend the entire game turbo-boosting and then go and grab objectives on turn 6.
* Captains are actually pretty good in assault with a relic blade. Don't be afraid to throw them into the mess.

The summary is this. Bike armies are fun, cool looking, fairly effective vs many armies, and really cool looking on the table. They need support to be effective, and a few long range elements will dramatically increase the power of your army.

I respect the need you see for combat tactics, I understand it. But, as you can see, this list focusses alot on close range flame based weaponry. Don't hoestly consider this a competitive list (it will be played competitively.), but it is an experiement. Unlike a lot of players, I am willing to spend a bit of extra money if things don't work, so if my army goes down the drain, I am prepared to spend more to make it better.

I am stoutley saying no to the autocannon dreadnoughts. I understand their purpose, but I am coming from an army where I basically played a non-phase in the movement phase. In this army, I want evrything to be on the move, all the time. I want manueverring to be animportant feature of the army, not just a by-product of its capabilities. (to me, the best of my money's worth is when I play different ways and get the best experience.)

I originally had 4 TML speeders, but was told thatit would be innefective. That I'd either have to go for a medium ranged army or a short ranged army. As you can imagine, you're providing me with a conflicting view. (not that the seppeders will be a problem - they will be kagnetized to take TML regardless of their designations.

Now, you see, this I'd be more happy to accept. The 5 th edition is always using a minimalist's aproach - cheapest squads as posible. I would't mind dropping a squad of flamer bikers to give the other three an extra biker and a fist.

I am fine with loosing the librarian. I respect the reasoning you're giving me, but the army is psychically null, it's my fluff. As I said, the army is truly only semi-competitive, so that's a risk I am willing to take. My 'meta' if you can call it that has a pretty strong BA presence, with wolves and guard to suit. The whole issue of GK is only occasional, and even then, that's ot particularily competitive.

I know relic captain is good. Why do you think I'm so fond of vulkan!

And, you got the usefuleness of A.terms down to a pat. They aren't an aggression unit, they're reactive.

Scipio Africanus wrote:I respect the need you see for combat tactics, I understand it. But, as you can see, this list focusses alot on close range flame based weaponry. Don't hoestly consider this a competitive list (it will be played competitively.), but it is an experiement. Unlike a lot of players, I am willing to spend a bit of extra money if things don't work, so if my army goes down the drain, I am prepared to spend more to make it better.

I understand wanting a theme, and if you can make the Vulcan bike work, go for it. If you make your special weapons on the bikes magnetized, then you can just hot swap to your hearts preference.
Here are the reasons I keep combat tactics
* Smaller squads means you can choose to fall back more easily. If you take your 2 bullet catchers (ie, basic bikes) off in a round of shooting, you can fall back as you lost 25% of your models
* This means that its much more plausable to fall back out of assault range -- I do this all the time, and it suprises people. I fall back out of assault range, consolidate 3", then move back up and shoot them
* You can also go to ground (not when turbo boosting) when behind cover to get a 3+ save. This is useful if your hit by a demolisher cannon or the like. You can expect to lose ~2 bikes, fall back, rally, then able to move just fine. This also works when out of cover for a 6+ save.
* You have a chance to break out of a bad assault by auto-failing the break test.

Scipio Africanus wrote:I am stoutley saying no to the autocannon dreadnoughts. I understand their purpose, but I am coming from an army where I basically played a non-phase in the movement phase. In this army, I want evrything to be on the move, all the time. I want manueverring to be animportant feature of the army, not just a by-product of its capabilities.

This is understandable. For the first 8 months I played my bike army, everything was the same way. When I want to play fluffy and not competitive, I still play this way.

If you are playing in competitive play, the long range shooting is critical. Trust me. You can't rely upon MM's to do the work for you on cracking armor before the enemy gets to you. Let me put it like this -- a MG is awesome for destroying that LRBT, but it fails badly when destroying the rhino bull of bezerkers. The reason is that the bezerkers will just pour out of the wreckage on the following turn and faceroll your units. When you face orks this will be even worse, as they can just put so many boys in assault with your bikes you cannot escape the CC. As you don't have combat tactics, you can't even try to get out of combat.

The fact is dreads are the most mobile of the AV 11+ that you have. Predators can only fire one weapon on the move. If you wont take dreads, then consider AC/LC preads. One or two can really help give you the punch you need to crack those transports.

Scipio Africanus wrote:]I originally had 4 TML speeders, but was told thatit would be innefective. That I'd either have to go for a medium ranged army or a short ranged army.

That's rubbish.
Typhoons have a range of 48", and I would hardly call that 'short'. What you want to do is bring 3 of them and NOT take them in squadrens. Typhoons live a suprisngly long time in games, as they must sit back at the edge of the board.
Another option for you is to use your TL advantage and use MM speeders. A MM at 24" has a better chance of cracking AV 13 or less than a LC. You can take advantage of this and use 3 speeders at 24" away. At that range you will be out of a lot of fire -- but this has a drawback. Your IN range of psycannons, assault cannons, and other mid range weapons.
In a ultramarine army, I use the typhoons. If your going with Vulcan try both and see what works well. Let me know please

So what I do thats slighly different is I am a big fan of the plasma guns. The ability to move 12", and then double tap plasma shots is huge. As I bring a MM with my squads, each squad brings 5 AP1 or AP2 shots to fire, in addition to the 8 bolter shots. It brings a huge amount of firepower to a concentrated area. As the footprint of the bikes is small -- I congo line them as you see in the image above -- you can bring 2 squads to bear on 1 enemy squad. This is enough to wipe our or seriously whittle down any squad.

Here is the trick -- after that though, you need to be able to assault them and what I call 'seal the deal'. Thats why the captain and PF's are so important. If there is one or two models left in the squad you just shot at, you can bet that they will keep their MG around and you will lose a model to it. What you want to do is assault the remains and then finish them off.

Now, with flamers your playing a slightly different game. Your banking on the ability to move 12" and put them excally where they need to be to maximize your coverage. Your banking on being able to cover ~6 or so models under each template, and delivering 4.5 wounds per template to T4. This will kill 1.5 MEQ per template, which is as effective as a PG. Its also much more effective vs hordes. Honestly, making all your squads flamer squads with a MM is something to strongly consider if your playing Vulcan.

Overall I think you can make the vulcan bikes work. They will be slightly different than a vanilla bike list, but do-able. You might want to try all flamers on the bikes and MM speeders to see how they perform. Heck, you might even want to consider deep striking 3 dreads in pods to further take advantage of the flamer/melta rule Either way you cut it, it sounds like your onto some good ideas.

I'm afraid I'm not able to make changes to mylist (not near my desktop, using an iPad.), but I will look into these suggestions. Can I PM you the list when I am able to?

Maybe add a drop pod ironclad dread for the turn 1 deepstrike.