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Right now im looking at my bikes and im wondering if they are viable as troop choices.
I know they have to be 5 strong and they are expensive but are their any upsides?

Bikes as troops is one of the more competitive ways to run SM. You can get double or triple melta in a mobile unit worth only 1KP. Against antitank firepower you can turbo. Against antiinfantry firepower your T5 makes a significant difference.

Mannahnin wrote:Bikes as troops is one of the more competitive ways to run SM. You can get double or triple melta in a mobile unit worth only 1KP. Against antitank firepower you can turbo. Against antiinfantry firepower your T5 makes a significant difference.

So like what?
2 squads one with 2 meltas and multi melta attack bike?
one with plasma and heavy bolter?

Generally, you only want the multi-melta on the attack bike.

I like 2 squads with melta/plasma/multi-melta, and one with 2 flamers to join my bike captain and a librarian, points allowing.

It's a lot more fragile than a regular tactical marine list (no armor to absorb the first few hits and far fewer wounds), but also better at shooting, especially versus heavy infantry like terminators. Keeping some anti-horde capability in the list is important, because a 5 bike squad won't put out enough normal firepower to put a dent in a Boyz squad, and will get creamed in assault.

hotsauceman1 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Bikes as troops is one of the more competitive ways to run SM. You can get double or triple melta in a mobile unit worth only 1KP. Against antitank firepower you can turbo. Against antiinfantry firepower your T5 makes a significant difference.

So like what?
2 squads one with 2 meltas and multi melta attack bike?
one with plasma and heavy bolter?

I can't ever see myself paying 40 pts for a heavy bolter.

When you go with bikes as troops you either go big, or don't do it. 2 squads isn't bad to supplement your normal force, but its not going to have the same impact as 4-6 squads of bikes have.

hotsauceman1 wrote:Right now im looking at my bikes and im wondering if they are viable as troop choices.
I know they have to be 5 strong and they are expensive but are their any upsides?

Bikes are still decent troops and can make a decent C:SM. They have lost some of their punch since DE and GK came out, but they still are not a bad army, just an OK one. Your bad matchups are GK with tons of STR 5 storm bolters or venom spam. Your good matchups are guard or vulcan SM.

Combat tactics is your friend with this army.

As has been mentioned, smaller squads tend to do better as its the special/heavy weapons that do the real heavy lifting of your squad. I bring 2 PG/MG, 1 MM attack bike, 1 PF and 2 bullet catchers per squad. You need to play around until you find the ratio that works best for you.

Bike armies also need support. Throwing 40 bikes on the table will hurt you more than help you. You need long range support like dreads, preads, typhoons, etc. Drop podding sternguard are another nice option for the bikes. Basically what your want to avoid is having to many short ranged weapons in to confined an area -- and a bike army is a short ranged army.
To illustrate this point, I bring 3 bike squads in a 1k point game, and I bring 3 squads in a 1750 game. In 2k games an above, I bring 4 squads.

Go with scout bikes to alpha strike their armor and then use plasma bikes to mop up their infantry, I think this is the more solid approach. Scout beacons also allow you to drop in a couple poded iron clads....

It really depends on preference and points...

Here is a decent way to run bikes

http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2012/02/space-marine-bikers-where-are-they-now/

Nungunz wrote:Here is a decent way to run bikes

http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2012/02/space-marine-bikers-where-are-they-now/

While normally I disagree with this blog writer, he has a few nuggets of ideas here.

While I cannot disagree strongly enough with taking stubborn (lets keep our 5 man bike squads in assault forever, shall we), and he has way to many meltas to be practical (meltas kill 1 MEQ, a PG kills 2), the general idea has some merit.
By removing all your armor, your limiting your opponent to shoot at your bikes instead of armor, which while they are still 25 points a model, are not to bad. While normally I would say marine devistators are horribly overpriced, what has been put down there might do well. I may give it a whirl next week to just test it out.

labmouse42 wrote:and he has way to many meltas to be practical (meltas kill 1 MEQ, a PG kills 2),

note that I dont play bikers, but In my eyes the bigger deal is that bikers being relentless can move and shoot the plasma gun 24 while the melta guns have a max range of 12 I can see a biker unit tagging an assault squad over and over while never letting them close to 12"

Grundz wrote:note that I dont play bikers, but In my eyes the bigger deal is that bikers being relentless can move and shoot the plasma gun 24 while the melta guns have a max range of 12 I can see a biker unit tagging an assault squad over and over while never letting them close to 12"

When I started with bikes I would use 2 squads of melta and 1 squad of plasma. At the time I had a bunch of plasma pistols I converted to guns, but only a few melta guns, so I just played what I had.

When I started playing I learned a bad lesson. I would move up, melta the ork battlewagon (chaos rhino,SW razorback, etc) and blow it up. Then the troops would come out and assault the crap out of me. Sometimes they would shoot first and I could fall back out of range, but usually I was just screwed. The problem is bikes just don't pack enough punch in assault. The captain helps, but he can't be everywhere at once, and is countered by another IC.

However, when I used a long range weapon to take down the transport I saw vastly different results. My guys could shoot at troops and instead of armor. I found I kiilled 2-3 MEQ and then was assaulted and cleared. Damnit! This was a big problem. Once I tried putting that PG squad and a MG squad onto one enemy squad. It was vaporized. I then experemented with 2 PG and 1 MM in a squad and firing of them on 1 MEQ squad. Vaporized. I found that 5 AP1/2 shots per squad was enough to put some serious hurting.

I then gave the squads PFs, so after I could assault the one lone guy left in the squad I jsut shot to pieces. 2 PFs assaulting would finish the squad, and then I could move on.
That is why I suggest 2 PG and 1 MM in a bike squad. (with a PF). After many, many games and expermenting that's the best combination I found. I also add 1 extra body for a total of 7 wounds in the squad.

Well i have enough to make 2 full blown bike sqauds(5 strong with and an attack bike each and 2 models with PG and Melta each.)
So maybe use those with some of my heavy armor like Predators and whirlwinds.

I find it best to run my bike units in tandem - 1 to pop tanks (meltas, multimeltas and powerfists), 1 to clean up the mess afterwards (flamers and power swords). I find this has a lot of flexibility...especially in a Vulkan list.

I run 8 bikers, combimelta on srg, 1 meltagun, 1 plasmagun, 1 multimelta attack bike. I attach one Sang. Priest on a bike and I take a Librarian on a bike. Give the Librarian Epistolary, Blood Lance and Shield of Sang.

No you have a squad that can go 12" shoot 2 plasma shots, 1 meltagun(Combi adds 1 second shot), 1 multimelta (with penn. bonus) and the blood lance (lance type), which is ALSO has plus 1 toughness, Feel No Pain AND a 5+ invulnerable save AND can soak up 6 wounds before loosing special or heavy weapons or a character.

Or you can go flat out and still have FNP and Invuln.

What do you guys think ?

~Lion~

bubbinski wrote:I find it best to run my bike units in tandem - 1 to pop tanks (meltas, multimeltas and powerfists), 1 to clean up the mess afterwards (flamers and power swords). I find this has a lot of flexibility...especially in a Vulkan list.

Vulcan bikes are an interesting mix, and it works for some people.

You give up your combat tactics, and you have to run a death star -- which can be tricky at 1750 or less. This means you don't have any supporting units such as dreads to crack transports. Your bikes are stuck doing the heavy lifting. You have the TL melta and flamers to do this.

Personally I perfer not to use a deathstar until 2500 points, but I can see that as a valid method of play.

labmouse42 wrote:

bubbinski wrote:I find it best to run my bike units in tandem - 1 to pop tanks (meltas, multimeltas and powerfists), 1 to clean up the mess afterwards (flamers and power swords). I find this has a lot of flexibility...especially in a Vulkan list.

Vulcan bikes are an interesting mix, and it works for some people.

You give up your combat tactics, and you have to run a death star -- which can be tricky at 1750 or less. This means you don't have any supporting units such as dreads to crack transports. Your bikes are stuck doing the heavy lifting. You have the TL melta and flamers to do this.

Personally I perfer not to use a deathstar until 2500 points, but I can see that as a valid method of play.

With Vulkan - I prefer to use bikes as a partial troop selection. I like long-range fire too much to give up on other options entirely. My army (generally play 1850-2000) looks something like below...I don't know if it's the most competitive use of Vulkan...but it is a really fun army for me to play.

Ironclad in Drop Pod
Captain on Bike
4 man Bike Squad plus attack bike (Flamer, PW, MM or Heavy Bolter on Attack bike)
4 man bike squad plus attack bike (Melta, PF, MM on Attack Bike)
Tactical Squad in Rhino - Flamer, PW, Lascannon (combat squad if not annihilation mission)
Tactical Squad in Rhino - Melta, PF, Lascannon (combat squad if not annihilation mission
Dreadnought - TLC/ML
Devastator Squad - 5 man with 4 missile launchers
Vulkan with as many sternguard with combimeltas and combiflamers as I can afford...usually in a rhino as well

If I play larger games I add Terminators to Vulkan, sometimes putting in a Landraider. I've also played around with command squads...putting on bikes with the captain, or just adding them to Vulkan.

Looks pretty good.

The last nasty bike-centered list I faced was at The Conflict GT, against Eric from the White Scars blog. The list he ran at 1750 was, roughly:

Pedro
Biker Captain w/relic blade or fist, artificer, storm shield.
Assault terminators in LR w/Pedro.
5 Sternguard w/2 Lascannons
5 Sternguard w/2 Lascannons (these squads gave fire support and held objectives in his own side of the table, as Pedro makes them scoring).
Squad of 5 bikes with double melta & melta attack bike
Squad of 5 bikes with double melta & melta attack bike
Squad of 5 bikes with double melta & melta attack bike

It's got speed, five scoring units, lots of melta + a bit of fire support, and some nasty assault abilities. The bikes allow him to screen the LR from early deep strike melta, so it's really only vulnerable against Tau or lucky lascannon shots.

IMO the only gap in this list is lack of psychic defense; if you wanted you could swap Pedro and one of the Sternguard units to get a Librarian and some Scouts or Tacticals, or another squad of bikes.