I love bike lists. 6th edition made them stronger with hammer of wrath, T5 to protect attack bikes from ID and most importantly pre-measuring. I can now with certainty stay in that magic 18.1” bubble and pour shot after shot into my opponent. Bikes have hard counters but they are just so much fun to play if you enjoy thinking 2-3 turns a head and dictating the movement phase of a game.
Shooting: A
This list thrives in the shooting phase with numerous high strength AP2 and AP1 shots, mass rapid fire and twin-linked weapons, and great anti-hoard shooting that can out range almost every other gun on the table. Telion on a quad gun can pretty reliably crack any light vehicle or single out any 1 W 3+ armor guy I want dead. The list doesn’t look all that powerful due to the relatively low shot count but by concentrating fire (which is relatively easy given the mobility of the list) you can pretty much down anything you need to. This list literally has a tool to deal with any type of target.
Assault: C+
Bikes are just normal 5T marines. Even with hammer of wrath the units have to few bodies and no ability to survive AP3 power weapons in CC. You never want to be in combat unless you are hiding from something like a Helldrake and then you need to pick your spots very carefully. Combat Tactics mitigate this problem somewhat if I’m fighting a lot of CCs I’m probably losing the game.
Survivability: B+
Sure I have a relatively low model count, but T5 marines that bring their cover save with them pretty much ignore small arms fire. Seriously it take roughly 37 lasgun shots to kill one biker and 14 Bolter shots. There are plenty of lists that can bring this kind of firepower but it often only works in the less than 12” range and I can effectively ignore that. Thunderfire cannons bolter ruins and benefit from T7 and potentially a 2+ armor save if I position the Techmarine that way. Telion’s squad boasts a 2+ cover save as well. Finally the command squad has the captain who can tank wounds on 2+/4+ with FNP and doesn’t have to worry about ID. It’s hard to shoot this army off the board, it’s possible but hard.
Movement: A-
The only thing stopping this list from having an A rating is having to take dangerous terrain tests (which aren’t so bad anymore with normal saves being allowed) and the rules about entering upper levels of ruins (nothing I can do about that) Being allowed to move almost all of your scoring units and a denial unit 24” whenever you want is amazing. Bike lists are almost as good as it gets as far as the last minute objective grab and contest. Pre-measuring puts the onus on me to make sure I always am where I need to be in turns 4-7.
Intangibles: B+
Bike lists are relatively rare (though we will see if this changes with ravenwing) so I find my opponents often don’t appreciate what my list can do. The army has mass scoring units that are highly mobile making this army strong in objective games. 10 KP is not great but the list doesn’t have very many “easy” KP. The static and mobile parts of the army synergize well as both require more attention to deal with than people expect which frees up the other part of the army to do their thing. This list can do a good job of playing board denial against deep strikers and flyers and has effective if not voluminous anti-flyer shooting.
Bad Matchups:
This list has 2 bad match ups and 1 semi bad matchup from my experience. Screamer and Flamer Spam (though this appears to be over starting next tounrnament) and triple Helldrake lists. AP3 flamers simply ruin my day. To get around this I have to get a little luck with my quad gun, and be really smart about positioning and finding ways to hide. The other bad match up I find is Nid psycic choir, Doom hurts a lot and with no Psychic defense once they get their powers going it can be really hard to kill the big bugs. I understand the value of the GJB squad and Farseer ally but my meta has few nids and plenty of TEQ so I went with the command squad. We will see if I pay the price.

So the Dallas meta is largely MEQ, with the new chaos dex has become more popular, and some but not a lot the Xeno and Guard. I’m expecting a field of about 50 with roughly 10or so Chaos players (hopefully not to0 many triple Heldrakes), 3-4 Daemon players (with all their cheese), 20+ or so MEQ, and the remaining 15 being a smattering of Guard and Xeno armies. The Daemon list will give me problems, and certain Chaos build will give me problems. Rail head rumble is run a bit differently than other GT. The first day is a 4 round straight win/loss power paired day that divides players into brackets. The two brackets then play 3 rounds with Battle points. The brackets have separate prize support and “champions” though obviously the top player in the top bracket “wins”. I think my army is probably a 5-2 type army given the matchups I know I will probably encounter at least once. If I encounter my “Bad” match ups on day 1 and go into the lower bracket I could see myself wining that. If I dodge those armies on Day one I’ll probably go into the higher bracket and will encounter them there where I might struggle. The missions for the tournament are sort of like the BAO in that there are several missions that can earn you points, they are mostly modified book missions, some of which help and some of which hurt me. Should be a fun event and I expect the Bikes to make a good showing and maybe even pull out something great if the pieces fall right.