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Started 10+ years ago and closeted till a few weeks ago.

Captain on bike
Chaplain on bike
Techmarine on bike with servoarm
Full tac squad with rhino, flamer, lascannon, vet sarge with power fist.
Full scout squad with ccw, 2 sniper rifles.
Full bike squad with multimelta, vet sarge with power fist.
Predator with twin lascannon turret, heavy bolter sponsons.
Speeder with two heavy bolters.
Speeder with two heavy bolters.
Speeder with multimelta.

Now I have a smattering of special weapons (for the bike squad for instance), and a techmarine on bike and a command squad on bikes on the way, mostly so I can kitbash the rest of my bits out of the way. I could be swayed to drop a little more money on the army if it would vastly improve the effectiveness... Any thoughts on what that could be? I really want a razorback squad, but I'm worried about all the hubbub about flyers...

You need to invest a few dollars into some anti-air. Maybe a couple of storm talons. If you're looking to field an all troop army then buy an ADL with quad gun. That's the cheapest way (actually money that is) to counter aircraft and add a little bit of cover as well. Or just wait until the new C:SM comes out to upgrade your ML's to flakk. That might take a year or more though. Us vanilla marine players are stuck with ravens, talons, quad guns, and high volume of high strength snap shots which are all effective. Some better than others. And razorbacks are a SM's friend and usually better than a rhino. You don't want to transport your tac squad''s heavy weapon around. It can't fire from the fire points on the rhino so you're better off combat squading your tac squads setting up your heavy weapon in cover or sitting on an objective. Then tote your other squad in the razorback. This adds mobility of your special weapon and adds a TL HB to your list all for another nickel's worth of points.

Obsolete? Nah. There's a few random outfits but it could still work. From the sound of what you've got coming and what you have now, it looks like you are going for a biker style army like white scars. So I would suggest as an HQ choice, get a captain on a bike so then regular bikes become troops choices. With regards to the command squad, I would not take them as a command squad on bikes, rather just a normal bike squad you can attach your captain too. The command squads are expensive.
For the normal bike squads, I would go with MM attack biike + 2 plasmaguns in squads of 5ish (depends on how points work out). Then for the land-speeders, take the typhoon ML on them and leave the attack bikes to take hard vehicles. The scout squad works okay with the bikes since you can leave them in your deployment with sniper rifles. But the rhino TAC squad wou;d not fit in so well. In games of under 1000pts, I wouldn't take both a captain and chaplain since its a quarter of your army in 2 dudes, but he's an option for expansion.
In going with a mobile army, I wouldn't go with static air defence. Fliers are difficult for standard grounds guys to kill (par Tau) so if you think it'll be an issue the best option would be to get some stormtalons. They're cheaper (points wise) and can can handle other fliers well. If you don't want to fork out for them though, go see what your locals use. Not everyone is packing a bunch of fliers so it could be worthwhile and cheaper (money wise) to find out.

Im a bit indifferent to razorbacks as a whole. I've found that with only 5 guys, their effect is very small. Even with specials. Then in leaving the other half behind to fire a lascannon or whatever, if leaves 4 guys standing around achieving little. So I would say take a rhino, leave the heavy weapon out unless its a HB or something and go bolter frenzy. Leave heavy weapons to other units like bikes, tanks or sternguard.

Thanks for the input, and yes the storm riders are a successor of the white scars :p As you can probably tell I haven't so much as looked at a codex or rule book since third edition, when white scars had a few rules tweaks, one being bikes for troops. Do you think people would have a problem with me using my chaplain as a commander? Or the techmarine for that matter?

I'm definitely going to make the 5 guys into a command squad, with an apothecary, company champion, banner and two guys with some sort of gear. I like to create what i consider 'realistic' forces (read as: troop heavy, built on theme) After the army is finished it will mostly be a visual piece, and I think the veteran biker guys are a natural progression. That's also the reason I want the razor back, 4 types of troop squads! I really dont care for the look of either of the flyers, is there any way speeders could fill an antiaircraft role?

Kiwidru wrote:
I really dont care for the look of either of the flyers, is there any way speeders could fill an antiaircraft role?

If it doesn't have skyfire special rule it fires snapshots. So you'll need AC's and HB's rolling 6's to-hit and 4+ to glance and penetrate to down flyers. I'd go with ADL with a quad gun then. 100 points to give you anti-air and additional cover. Man it with a tac squad member for the BS of 4 instead of leaving it unmanned and BS2. That's the best way to combat anti-air with an all troop army for C:SM at the moment. A full flakk missile dev squad from a DA ally would be nice. Doesn't sound like the direction you wanted to go in with your army though. But it's an option.

What your going to be wary of is sometimes you need a hell of a lot more punch then Heavy Bolter's and Autocannons to even scratch some aircraft , the Birthing of 6th Edition led to 3 primary Aircraft that are extremely tough nuts to Crack ( Imperial Guard Vendetta , Chaos Space Marine Hell Drake and Stormraven's ) all of which have 12 armor which almost entirely negates the heavy bolters ( 6's to hit 6's to glance ) and autocannons ( 5's to glance 6 to pen ) which causes major issues for your army , im not trying to say that Flyers are going to be mandatory for shooting down other aircraft but it is going to be very difficult taking down the heavier armored craft with light weaponary -

If its just the look of the marine fliers that put you off you could try these:

http://puppetswar.eu/product.php?id_product=192

Its got a more of a landspeeder tempest look that you find on dawn of war, or forgeworld. Could run those as storm talons quite easily IMO.

Alright, finished the techmarine and a captain. Are heavy bolters and assault cannon both strength 6 now?

Honestly I can't see myself playing too much 40k in the future, perhaps against a like minded foe (bring a flyer or two, but dont spam them). I have no knowledge of the areas scene, however, if an apocalypse game comes along it would be nice to drop a useful force rather than rubbish on the table. I have never played in one, and i think it would be a fun activity to be a part of. I'm just gonna hope my teammates are taking care of that aspect of the battle!

I've just started playing a White Scars force - for an idea of how they do take a look here, here, here and here (with another due shortly).

Overall though you look fine - in particular 6th edition has been very kind to bikes, with substantial improvements to their survivability. The one thing I'd consider adding would be a bike-mounted Captain, that way your bike squad then counts as a troops choice...

Easy to glaze over, but I did end up making a captain on bike, so now I'm all trooped up! What would you bring for a thousand point list based on what I have?

Ah ha, the captain makes things a lot easier for you. All of your units are perfectly usable, although I think you'd be hard pressed to justify the chaplain or techmarine as well as the captain in a 1k list.

Just playing around in AB, you can easily get the following in 1,000 points:

- Captain on bike
- Full bike squad
- Full tactical squad
- Some outflanking scouts
- All three speeders

If you're looking to add more utility to the army after that, it's more a case of optimising your weapon choices - in particular the bikes could do with a couple of special weapons, and the scouts could do with more 2 more sniper rifles and a heavy weapon (so you can do two squads, one for each role).

Regarding the special weapons: last I played only the bike mounted bolters counted as stationary fire platforms, so the general consensus was melta all the way as the unit was rarely if ever standing still to gain the benefits of rapid fire... Is that still the case?

I like that list, but I would rather have the tank than the scouts. What about this:
Captain on bike, with relic blade and iron halo
Full bike squad with two meltas and a multimelta attack bike vet sarge with powerfist
Full tac squad with flamer, lascannon and vet sarge with powerfist
Predator with twin lascannon and sponson heavy bolters.
Speeder with multimelta
Speeder with twin heavy bolters

Unfortunately I won't have access to either army builder or a codex until I show up at the game store, and I'd like to have at least a list ready so I don't have to fuddle around with list building while I'm there and I can just focus on finding an opponent that wouldn't mind walking me through a game or two. Thanks for helping me with the pregame research!!

Not sure where the math is coming from but HB's are still str 5, and are useless against armor 12. With careful movement and positioning, you could try to get a rear armor shot on the guard fliers.

All bike mounted weapons count as being stationary - this means your TL bolters, attack bike MM or HB, and any special weapons can always fire. It also means you can charge after shooting them. Flamers and meltaguns are unaffected by this being assault weapons already, but plasma guns get a bit of a boost.

Your predator is at a little bit of a disadvantage - you can't split fire with it's shots, so either you're wasting your heavy bolters on heavy tanks, or wasting a lascannon on infantry. That said, there will still be targets for it, generally light vehicles and heavy infantry (e.g. terminators) who need lascannon to kill. And of course you can simply move and fire the lascannon on its own.

Oveall your list looks good - flexible, able to deal with most threats,a nd good mobility. You might have problems with some extreme lists, but from the sounds of it you're playing in a friendly environment anyway! I'm pretty sure I wouldn't stand up in a serious game either...

First things first, do you have a current codex and rulebook? Is this a list of what you want to run or just what you own? Do you know how many points you would like to play? An army isn't actually "obsolete" unless it has no rules support, like Squats.

Awesome, that is good news! I like the look of this list: two maxed troops, one hq, one heavy and two fast attack. I don't have access to any of the points values though, are there any small accessories that you would add and still fit within 1000?

Also I am in such a mood to paint these guys I'm in the process of making a bike librarian as well!

Lol, after that I am finally gonna tackle the centerpiece of the command squad on bikes... I have already constructed the bodies, but I'm slightly confused on what to equip them with... I want them to be my reserve heavy hitters in 1500, and kinda envisioned them being close combat oriented (kinda geared to taking out meq). I already have an apothecary, a company champion, and a banner guy made (although the banner could just be for show return than the upgrade), and two other veterans that I have modeled with sweet double blades swords I was gonna play as single lightning-claws. This was before the big change to power weapons, and I'm not really familiar with the new equivalences... I considered storm shields, but I feel that with the turbo boost and the apothecary I should be able to get a majority of the guys stuck in, so defensive items would be redundant when compared to weapons. What are your thoughts on that? I had originally planned to have a landraider with th/ss terms as my heavy hitters in a 2k list, if that changes what you think these guys could complement.


EDIT: this is what I have, plus a bits box of random weapons. I don't have the current rule book or codex, but I'm planning on picking at least one up when I go into the flgs on Thursday for 40k night.

Before getting too far ahead of yourself, get the codex.

SoloFalcon is right, what Codex. Your main choices are Space Marine and Dark Angels. Dark Angels will run a little cheaper, Space Marines will give you more non-bike options.

After reading everyone's comments

1st get the codex

2nd dump the command squad make it regular. As reccomended.

3rd: I would recommend you specialize the scout squads a little more. Place the snipers all in one unit so when you combat sway you have a good sniper squad. This will allow your CcW guys to do their thing.

Some of your units are not widely used. I would play a few games before you Change them. You can better understand their utility this way.

The meta has shifted, however practice will help you determine what you like.

Read up on the bike character , hit and run is really handy.

Congrats on finishing. God knows many dont't.!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
After reading everyone's comments

1st get the codex

2nd dump the command squad make it regular. As reccomended.

3rd: I would recommend you specialize the scout squads a little more. Place the snipers all in one unit so when you combat sway you have a good sniper squad. This will allow your CcW guys to do their thing.

Some of your units are not widely used. I would play a few games before you Change them. You can better understand their utility this way.

The meta has shifted, however practice will help you determine what you like.

Read up on the bike character , hit and run is really handy.

Congrats on finishing. God knows many dont't.!

I may get the codex, I may just browse the store copy for the rules pertaining to my units. I'm not terribly invested in 40k, although I finally have a painted 40k, fantasy, and warmachine army!! 13 year old me would be proud.

I still have 14ish bikers from a lot I won on eBay decade ago, and although another bike squad would be cool... I just don't know if I have it in me to tackle that beast again. If you count bikers as two models each (for painting purposes, like I do) then I've already painted 48 dudes and 5 vehicles, with another 10 on the way in the command squad... That's just a long time doing the same colors on armor...

I'll more than likely try to swap all my remaining bits and bikes to someone on game night for some speeders/attack bikes, or a razorback squad, or a flyer even... Idk.

I really appreciate the information and suggestions you guys are offering, thank you.

Really, what would help me most before Thursday when I go to the game store and look at the codex myself would be a total of what that army would break down to... I don't need the individual points values, just the total of the army and any suggestions on how to top it off to 1k.

I'll see if I can get some pics up here so you fellas can see who you're supporting!

I'm confused, are you playing or just painting the models?

Sorry, I didn't me to be confusing... I am definitely playing the game.

But I'm also thirty, and really only completed the army to spite my own sloth. It was convenient that I ran across the army when I had the creative juices on the same wavelength. My war gaming capacity is finite, and i have really grown to enjoy warmahordes, so the idea of dropping any kind of money to compete in 'todays version of 40k' is a huge upsale when I could happily toss it in a display case with my other armies as it is, and not worry about the designed obsolescences of the game.

That being said I'm willing to give it a shot... If I enjoy it my opinion could always change.

To be frank, a lot of the stuff you knew from 3rd is gone. You really do need to buy a codex and then get a base rule book to know what those new rules do and mean. If you can, see if one of the players there has a copy of the mini-rulebook out of Dark Vengence or Assault on Black Reach. These books come free with the box and have all the rules in it the big hard-cover book has... just not the 100 pages of fluff and painting guides. If not, Ebay might be an option as well and this could save you a lot of money. Your store might even have them for sale if they were doing bits selling.

Don't get the rulebook from black reach, you will bang your head against the wall alot if you learn the 5th edition rules and then decide to play with current, 6th edition rules.

Black Reach is 5th. Dark Vengeance is 6th. Find a Dark Vengeance one on Ebay. I'm sure someone will be selling it.

What is the big difference between biker c:sm and da? I dont really see a big difference other than access to flakk missiles.

Can you proxy your army as da?

Asmodai (unlocks bikers as troops)


Scouts with flakk missiles
10 Tac with flakk missile+ plasma (may just take 5 men & still be able to take 1 heavy)
10 tac with flakk missile+ plasma (maybe combat squad leaving heavy team & putting spec team in a razorback)

Full squad of bikes with meltaguns & attack bike mm (also unlocks a land speeder escort to occupy same fast attack slot. Must read rules to fulfill conditions)
Landspeeder, mm escort (this team will hunt landraiders & momoliths)

Landspeeder, hb
Landspeeder, hb

Pred,tl lc, side hb

Its the same army but with flakk missiles and an ic named asmodai. The list will cost more than 1000 though from all the flakk.

Sorry, thought AoBR came out at the start of 6th ed. I know it was from last year, must have been right before.

Good news everybody! I have taken all your comments into consideration and I'm currently negotiating for a mini rule book from dark vengeance, good call.

I also converted my sgt naaman model from ccw/bolt pistol to missile launcher, score!

Sorting out my bits box before I give it away, I realized I have enough parts for 6 more tactical marines... Which if you have been following falls right in with the razorback theorem. So I am sure I want either the twin lascannon, or the twin plasma/single cannon options, and I'm probably going to move the troops so it looks like this:

10 scouts: 2 sniper rifles, missile launcher, 7 ccw
10 man tac squad: Rhino, heavy bolter, flamer, vet sarge with powerfist.
5-6 man tac squad: razorback, lascannon, plasma gun.

I also found the parts for 5 assault marines with 2 plasma pistols, but they seem to be as popular as the bike command squad :(. So that's another unit that I'm going to make just out of opportunity... I guess I'll wait till I glance at the codex, I might even make them *gasp* vanguard vets for heroic intervention!

 BlkTom wrote:
Sorry, thought AoBR came out at the start of 6th ed. I know it was from last year, must have been right before.

AoBR came out at the start of 5th edition, 5 or 6 years ago.

Dark Vengeance came out last year.

So i went up to the store and looked at the codex... and i had seen it! So that helped because i was at last familiar with my units...

i ended up playing my first 6th game against a very nice salamander player who answered my questions and helped me learn the new rules.

I brought:
Commander on Bike with relic blade
Leadership trait: master of the vanguard! 2d6 run take the highest within 12" (not as cool as I originally thought)
Full bike squad: two melta, multimelta,vet sarge with powerfist
Full tac squad: Rhino, flamer, lascannon, vet sarge with powerfist
Min scout squad: missile launcher, 2 bp/ccw, 2 sniper rifles
Predator: twin lascannon, 2 heavy bolters
Speeder: 2 heavy bolters
Speeder: multimelta.

I dont know the specifics as he just cobbled something up to do my points lever, but basically he brought:

Librarian: dominate spell and some witch fire leadership test spell (i think default power and #1 power on telekenises.) personal trait: if he kills my warlord in a challenge he gets double vp
Full tac squad: missile launcher, flamer, sarge with bp/ccw
Full scout squad: 5 bp/ccw, 4 sniper, missile launcher
Min bike squad: melta gun, plasma gun, vet sarge with powersword
Min terminator squad: 5 th/ss
Min dev squad: 2 missile launcher, 2 lascannon


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The mission was a long board, with three objectives: one outside each deployment zone, and one in the middle.

I deployed first:
The attack bike took two regular bikers and a melta biker to form the small bike combat squad to the far left flank along with the multimelta speeder. The captain and other bike squad took position to the left center, the rhino was screened behind the tank in the middle, and the dakka speeder was alone on the far right.

He then deployed:
His librarian with tactical squad in some forest on the right side of his deployment near his objective. on the other side his Dev squad was on the second floor of a wall on the left-center in his deployment zone, with the bikes obscured on the ground behind the wall. His terminators were deep striking,

Infiltrators:
I put my scout squad on the objective outside my deployment, then he combat squades his scouts. This allowed him to place the shooters on the second floor of some ruins in the center of the board, and his combat squad in some forest to the far left of the ruins also half way up the board.

Top Turn 1: I advance every thing but the scouts and dakka speeder. The tank moves 6" out of the rhinos way and along with the scouts, captains squad, and dakka speeder kill 3 sniper scouts in the ruins. On the left the Attack bike squad and speeder kill 2 scouts in the woods.

Bottom Turn 1: he advances the bikes and tac squad towards the ruins, the combat scouts make a run for it, but are left out in the open. His dev squad drops a biker from the attack bike's squad.

Top turn 2: scouts tank and dakka speeder finish off scouts in the ruins, commander squad converges with attack bikes squad and melta speeder on the left side if the board near the central objective and finish the combat scouts and drop a missile dev. Rhino moves full ahead and deploys tac squad into the ruins.

Bottom of 2: no terms. His bike squad kills the rhino, with the plasma guy killing hisself in the process. The rhino blew up and killed his melta guy and 3 of my marines. The dev squad only takes down one biker in the captains squad after 2 jink saves!

Top of 3: melta speeder advances, attack bike's squad sits on the objective, and the command squad pulls around the corner setting up for a charge on this tac squad next turn. They all shoot into the dev squad and kill a lascannon guy and a missile guy. My tac marines advance through the rubble, and the dakka speeder moves up the right flank while the tank and scouts drop a couple of his tactical marines.

Bottom of 3: no terms. He dominates the captains squad with his librarian, the his tactical squad stretches towards mine. His dev lascannons a guy out of the captains squad and wounds the captain. finally, his bike sarge charges in, challenges my sarge, and slays him with a powersword!

Top of 4: captains squad fails leadership to move, and later fails leadership to shoot. Melta speeder advances into his deployment, while the attack bikes squad sits on the objective, they shoot into the devs for no casualties. The tac squad gangs his biker sarg to death. The tank and scouts remove his flamer and another guy from the tac squad, leaving the librarian to far away for look out sirs! The dakka speeder popped out and promptly gunned him down in a hail of heavy bolter rounds.

Bottom of 4: terms plop down right in front of the captains squad. Dev lascannons the dakka speeder, and his tac squad reduces my tac squad to only a flamer and lascannon. Terms run to block the captains squad.

Top of 5. Melta speeder kills his tac squad missile guy, captains squad does nothing to the terms, attack bikes squad does nothing to the devs. tank, scouts, and flamer reduce his tac squad to the sarg and 5 guys. Captains squad charges in be challenges, but no wounds either way. The rest of my bikers were turned into catfood by thunder hammers, with only the sarge taking a guy with him.

Bottom of 5: his signum dev misses my melta speeder, and his tac squad charges and kills my tacticals, then is able to consolidate onto his objective. Captain does nothing in the challange, but only takes a wound instead of being insta killed by the term sarg.

The game ended there.
Scars: kill the warlord, first blood, linebreaker, two objectives.
Salamanders: one objective.

Major win for the scars!! After seeing the devastation of th/ss terms on my bikes, I can't help but feel that the fact that they didn't show up till 4 is really what handed me the game, if they came in on 2 they concieveably could have crushed my entire left flank!

I didn't take any pics because I was focused on the game, but I'll probably play a few more in the near future and will take some then.