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Hey Dakka, apologies if this is a dumb question, but i was curious which army would make an effective bike army that specializes in melee. I was checking the Vanilla marines codex and basically only the sergeant would get a melee item. I kind of wanted to make an army that charges in with weapons held high and tears down the inferiors. That was the idea. One idea I was thinking was Sanguiniary Priest on bike with blood angels. i was curious if any marines codex made particuraly good melee bike armies. Or shall i be forced to run *gasp* Thunderwolf Calvary to get my satisfaction of a long range charge?

The bike armies I've seen all use the vanilla codex. (Usually with Khan in the lead, but occasionally with Vulkan along for the ride.) They do pretty well in melee, since that toughness of five tends to balance out the loss of an attack. They aren't purely melee per se, but they do manage to provide a satisfactory hand-to-hand combat thrill for those in need of it, as long as you remember to soften your target up with your ranged weapons first. I've been running with a friend's bikes for a while, to get the feel of them (before committing to the obscene costs of a bike army) and I like them so far.

Thunderwolf cavalry don't exactly have a long range charge.

@ph34r: 6" move, fleet, 12" charge isn't a long range charge? If playing against a foolish/new opponent, it is possible to get a first turn charge with them-that's a pretty long range charge distance.

And, for a bike army with multiple CCW options, I'd say vanilla with 2 command squads on bikes (2 captains) plus regular bikes, or, surprisingly, Black Templars-they get up to three power weapons/fists/meltas/plasmas per squad, however you want to arm them. Only problem is you are limited to 5 bikers per squad, plus an attack bike. That's not a lot. But it is do-able. Mix those with crusader squads in razorbacks for long range punch and some vindi's and possibly tech marines for additional bodies/wounds, and you're good to go (they have more punch than marshals/castellans and are about the same points).

Bike armies should stay out of melee as much as humanly possible. They're no more killy in hand to hand than Tactical Marines, and lose their greatest asset when they charge - speed. If you're not kiting enemy units or using them to make consistent surgical strikes, regular Marine bikers aren't being used to their fullest. The only exception are bike command squads, which can be loaded up with some shields and fists, and IIRC can get hit and run with Khan.

Biker command squads can take a goodly number of storm shields, lightning claws, and power fists. Those are your best bet for a HtH bike army. Plus the Captain with a relic blade (remember he can join some other unit, with its own powerfist-toting vet sgt). And you can take a second HtH character on a bike and again have him join a unit with a fist-equipped sgt. That gives you four bike units with 2 or more good special HtH weapons.

You might want to consider Chaos Space Marines? You can't take bikes as troops, but you can take big squads of them, and, if I recall correctly, they have bp/cc so 2 base attacks instead of just 1 for the loyalist. Then if you give them an Icon of Khorne on top of that, you're looking at three base attacks and four when you charge.

I've run units of 8 Khornate bikers, and, it's really expensive, but the charge is quite satisfying!

CC bikes is a TALL order, given that basically 100% of the extra points you spend is to make them better in shooting. I mean, with an icon of khorne, perhaps they might stand a chance, but bikes are really too expensive, and too lacking in good CC options in the most part to be a credible CC threat to anything except that which is already crappy in CC...

Plus, you have to put up with all the bike obnoxiousness, like not being able to turbo-boost through terrain, and having to make dangerous terrain tests everywhere. It's not too difficult to decrease the effectiveness of a CC army by nearly 17% by simply sticking things in cover.