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I currently run a termie captain with a 5-man termie tac squad and it's been a very underwhelming unit so far. no assault on the turn they arrive, high risk of scatter if you deep strike them close enough to be able to assault the following turn, only bolter shooting (I'm using aobr termies, so no special/heavy weapons in the unit), and really slow once deployed. pretty meh, frankly.

I have a command squad box sitting on my shelf at the moment, and I got to thinking that maybe a biker captain w/command squad would make for a better HQ unit. it's expensive, but the mobility, better shooty weapons and FNP appeals to me. to support them, I'd probably run a second biker unit w/attack bike.

what are dakka's thoughts on this? how would you kit the captain and command squad out? also, since biker captains turn biker units into scoring units, does the command squad count as a scoring unit if they're on bikes? I'm assuming not, but wanted to double-check.

Generally speaking, terminators need a landraider to reach assault. Without it, they tend not to unless you're army can support them they turn they arrive.

A biker captain is reasonably deadly in melee, however command squad bikes are less so. True, you can give each one except the apothecary a power weapon or whatever, even storm shields if you like, but they get expensive. Very expensive.

If you like the idea of having that unit and only that unit getting shot turn 1 and maybe 2, then after they charge everyone going into terrain needs dangerous tests, then when they pile in they need dangerous tests again, then go for it.

Also bikes can't go up ruins.

I use a command squad with 3 LC and champ, with attached biker captain. It tends just to zip around wackin non-melee focus enemy units. If you want death from your command squad on bikes, take 4 plasma guns and that's it. Zip around firing 8 rapid fire shots of doom.

I've thought about a bike command squad for my White Scars, but decided it was simply too expensive, certainly in the context of an all-bike/FA list with a low model count. They also can't score - a biker captain only makes standard bike squads of 5+ models scoring...

good to know about not being scoring. I figured as much, but didn't have my codex handy.

the list i run now is roughly (1000-1250pts):

termie captain w/5-man tac termie squad
3x 10-man tac squads w/2 rhino/razorbacks
land speeder
ADL

in the very near future, I'll be adding a drop pod, auto/las predator and a stormtalon to bring the list up to around 1500pts. I was thinking of replacing the termie captain & termie squad with a biker captain and bike command squad and then adding a second unit of 5ish bikes to give me more mobility on the board. I like the idea of the command squad because it grants FNP and it doesn't take up a FA slot (I plan to add a second stormtalon down the road and I LOVE my land speeder). an alternative would be to just attach a biker captain to a regular bike squad; much cheaper, but not quite as survivable. either way, I'd be trying to keep the bikes out of close combat with anything that wasn't a pushover. the T5 is nice, but C:SM just don't do close combat well.