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Ive been experimenting with nob biker squads for the first time, in fact an army entirely themed around them. My question involves the optimal equipment when running them. I take a painboy, cybork, waagh banner, and bosspole as standard. I've recently been turned on to kombi skorchas, and Im curious as to how other people run their squads. I don't like big choppas, so its mainly pks and kombis I want numbers on. In a squad of 9, I've been debating between 2 and 3 pks, and between 3 and 5 kombis. I would prefer to run kombis on pks as they don't lose an attack like slugga choppas do. This seems like it might present a problem however, since I run pks in the back middle to hide them, and you can't flame through your own models. I also like to charge them in last so that the bare nobz are in btb and are the first casualties.

Also, on a pk warboss, attack squig is nice, but when squeezing the last few points out of a list, is it really worth something like 3 kombis?

I like to keep them cheap, just so that it isnt most of my army. By all means, if thats what you want, then run lots of nobs

Warboss - Bike, Cybork, Power Klaw, Attack Squig
Nob - Bike, Cybork, Painboy
Nob - Bike, Cybork, PK, Waagh banner
Nob - Bike, Cybork, PK, Bosspole
Nob - Bike, Cybork
Nob - Bike, Cybork

Thats 500 points if I recall correctly. The dakkaguns give you a really hefty amount of firepower, so I wouldn't bother with skorchas (probably squeeze in 1-2 if I had points), you have two bullet sponge nobs to roll up front, using the warboss to tank S10 shots. That squad is dead fast, can look after itself in shooting and cc, and doesnt use up an awful lot of room on a game board.

The scorchas are mainly point sinks if you have a spare 5-15 pts lying around. Its great for the Pklaw guys (or bigchoppa if running them) since the Slugga is worthless for the additional attack when you have a Bigchoppa or Pklaw anyway.
Bigchoppas arent bad, pt for pt theyre actually pretty good. But if i needed 5pts here or there, i'd probably cut the bigchoppa out before something else.

You should never need more than 2 pks on the nobz. These cannot be challenged out so long as you dont get plastered by fire or put your pklaws up front during a charge you SHOULD get both their attacks in, which will realy, really hurt whatever youre attacking. Personally i think 2 is better even if 1 is really all you need because Precision attacks will focus fire the lone pklaw nob to hell, least this way you got a backup.
Not to mention the boss will have one. Biker boss or not, he still has one and you should have him to make these guys troops.

Most of my lists include a squad of 6 biker nobz. I wouldnt use more than 2 pks in a sinlge unit of bikers no mater the size, its overkill.

I don't usually run kombi weapons because i find in almost any case i'd rather fire the twin-linked dakka guns. plus any enemy that flamers would be better against i'm usually not sending nobz to attack.

I love my nob bikers, they are brutal and fun to field. Waaaagh!!

Well this list is just nob bikers and bike bosses, so I feel like I need all the antihorde I can muster in the form of flamers. Maybe you're right about the pks, and ill go a little lower end on the number of them. Still debating attack squig bosses.

Sometimes if your crafty you can split your HQ off from the Bikers and hit two units at once. This may be ideal if your looking to tarpit or if the main force your assaulting may have another HQ that will wipe your Warboss in the first round.

That's a good idea, but I'm gonna have to become more adept at pulling it off. Warboss losing feel no pain makes him substantially less resilient.

< Taken by the void dragon. >

Still debating setups before I commit and start building. Decided to squeeze a squad if grots into the list for backfield objectives. Go to ground in area for 3+ means wasted shots not going to my bikes. As for attack squig on the warbosses, the more I look at one extra attack vs 3 skorchas on my pk nobz, the less impressed I am. Sure, it might make a difference when he's toe to toe with another ic, but 3 extra heavy flamer templates could decimate an entire squad.

Problem with the Skorchas is you typically want to get into assault with things, and they will burn a lot of models away from them, really why focus on shooting with a unit whose best offense and defense are close combat (and who already has brutal shooting to start with)?

You should stretch your points to make the unit 6 Nob Bikers, max 2 PKs, waagh banner, Painboy cybork mandatory, anything else is to taste but should be CC oriented, like Big Choppaz.

Well, I haven't used nob bikers enough to figure out if I would really want the skorchas or not, but my reasoning would be this.

Biker nobs do not like fearless hordes. Things like another boyz mob, or a mob of gaunts would be a major pain in the arse for them. Those skorchas would let you kill off a huge amount of them before finishing them off with a charge. You're on bikes, so you should be able to get extremely close on the turn you feel like charging.

You could also decide to only fire off one or two skorchas, if you feel like you want to save some for later, or not knock yourself out of charge range.

And of course, automatically hitting overwatch is nice too if that mob of gaunts get the charge on you, since the scorchas will do a bit more damage than the dakkaguns to cannon fodder units;