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morning dakka,

I'm building a C:SM captain and command squad mounted on bikes for my salamanders army. after looking over the models available, I'm not sure if i'm better off going with the ravenwing bike squad kits or the individual space marine bike kits. I want 6 bikes total, so it's either 2 ravenwing kits or 6 SM bike kits. the cost difference between the two is negligible. what makes me hesitate about going with the ravenwing kits is that, from the photos I've seen, I can't tell how much filing/cutting/greenstuffing I'm going to have to do to remove all the dark angels iconography.

the wings on the bike fairings are fine (I rather like that detail, actually). I'm pretty sure the eagle head pole thingie in the back of each bike is a separate bit that I can just leave off. I can't tell if the dark angles symbol on the front fender is a separate bit that I can leave off or not. what other detail is on the bikes and/or riders that I'm going to have to deal with? shoulder pads? helmets? weapons? breastplates? is it worth the effort to convert the ravenwing bikes or should I just go with the standard space marine bikes instead?

cheers

I could be wrong, so take this with a grain of salt:

From looking at the pics on GWs site, it looks like the Ravenwing bike squadron

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat860011a&prodId=prod1060240

is just 3 SM bikes boxed with the ravenwing accessory sprue. The line "This set also includes additional components that enable you to convert a Space Marine Landspeeder into a Ravenwing Landspeeder." sends that as a clear message.

It looks like the battleforce is the same way, old bikes with the old upgrade sprue(s).

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat860006a&prodId=prod1830082a

Now the ravenwing command box look to have more of the stuff just built right onto the kits. Removing it would probably be a pain. Picts of the sprues are at GW.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat860011a&prodId=prod1830080a

This is all from looking at the website, I'll defer to anyone who actually bought the kits and checked them out. On my "things to do" list is to get a bike captain and 2 squads, so I've done some research on this. But am still in the theoretical stage...

ah, that's a good bit of insight there. makes the ravenwing kit a much more attractive option if that's the case

Raven wing bikers do indded come with all of the standard bike, plus ravenwing upgrade sprue.
Withoutlooking at the prices, you might find the ravenwing battleforce box to be of good value; 6 bikes, 1 attack bike plus a speeder and some ravenwing upgrdae sprue goodness(which equates to a single 10man ravenwing squadron )

edit; ravenwing comman/black knights box is rather different, for a start it only comes with twin linked plasma weapons for the bikes (they called it a plasma talon) and a single ravenwing grenade launcher, which makes them unsuitable for all other codexes really.

am I correct in thinking that the contents of the DA battleforce box, in terms of actual sprues, are identical to two ravenwing bike squad boxes, an attack bike box and a landspeeder box?

Yeah thats about the size of it. I've not looked at pricing but if you find a good discount you might be able to wing a free landspeeder or something out of it.
edit; its been a good couple of years since i got one, but the ravenwing battleforce boxes landspeeder was not the same as the one in a seperate box.
There was no underslung heavy flamer, and the top was one large piece, iirc its the older design that looks the same once built but the newer kit was easier to actually build. Not a huge deal tbh but worth noting.