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This post might belong in Army Lists, but since I'm asking about the concept vs. an actual army list I'll post it here for starters.

Is a biker-heavy CSM feasible beyond "casual" games? I'm not even talking about competition level; I just want to know if it'll win me games. I'm toying around with the idea of a Noise Marine Biker army, but my options are fairly limited. Would it be simply better/easier to play "counts-as" with White Scars/Ravenwing? I can't compare them on a point-by-point basis as I do not own the Codex Marines book. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter. Am I missing anything?

CSM PROS:
- Bolt pistol/CCW per biker (for +1 Attack) standard.
- Various marks make the units tougher/better (Khorne for +1 A, Slaanesh for +1 I, Nurgle for +1 T).

CSM CONS:
- Bike only fit in the Fast Attack slot / No option for troops.
- No fast support units / fast skimmers (i.e. Land Speeders, Attack Bikes).
- Bikers compete with other Fast Attack Slots (i.e. Heldrake).

Codex Marines (White Scars counts-as) PROS:
- Access to Kosaro Khan.
- Access to all-biker army (bikers as troops).
- Attack bike in each biker squad, plus Attack Bike as seperate FOC option.
- Access to Fast Skimmers / Fast Fliers.

Codex Marines (White Scars counts-as) CONS:
- Equipment is fairly general (only way to upgrade is with meltas/plasma, limited CCW upgrades).
- Average in Close Combat.

Well if you are looking to field a full army of nothing but bikes, then you will have to go with the 'counts-as" army.

But if you want to have a strong force of bikes with some backup to it, the chaos bikes will be strong with the addition of a lvl 2 or lvl 3 sorcerer riding with them.

I'm not that familiar with the CSM codex but was planning on making a chaos biker allied detachment for my orks to ride with the warbikers. It looked like their would be some pretty nice option. You can also get them with some plasma guns for some better range

I think the question you really have to ask yourself is do you ONLY want bikes or other fast units, or do you want A LOT of bikes, but are willing to accept other units too?

If you're purely looking for a bike army, than it probably has to be SM because otherwise you'll not have any troops choices.

If you don't mind some infantry backup (CSMs in rhinos would fit as they're still mobile) then a Chaos biker force is perfectly viable - three big bike units still provides a lot of punch!

What I will probably do is build a hybrid army that can be played both ways. One with all bikes and speeders, ala "White Scars" and another with 2-3 Fast Attack bike squads backed up by either a static gunline of Blastmaster Noise Marines or more mobile Sonic Blasters in Rhinos.

So far I've only played it with a single, large unit of bikes led by a Sorceror. That's been fairly successful. If I went with Chaos, I'd probably have two units of Bikes, one led by the Sorc and the other by a Lord/Kosaro Khan. The other FA slot would either go to a Heldrake or another unit of bikes.

Chaos bikers are perfectly viable. Chaos gets the cheapest bikes in the game with a wide variety of options and playstyles on the field.

Khorne bikers provide a delivery system for a lord on either bike or juggernaut with axe of blind fury which will murder anything, though the unit itself will be relatively fragile.
Nurgle gives T6 bikers that can have defensive grenades, super tough to kill.
Slaanesh gets I5 bikers with fnp, and an attached sorcerer with the best options.
Tzeentch is probably the weakest. Not much they do especially well.
If you're going for big squads of bikes you'll either want a nasty Death Star with attached lord and sorcerer or 2 somewhat less nasty Death Stars with double lords. They're going to do most of the heavy lifting with champions taking the challenges.
Bikes are probably one of the best units in the codex and their only real weakness is from heldrakes. But then, theres a lot of things that get killed by heldrakes.

DMDaddy0 wrote:
This post might belong in Army Lists, but since I'm asking about the concept vs. an actual army list I'll post it here for starters.

Is a biker-heavy CSM feasible beyond "casual" games? I'm not even talking about competition level; I just want to know if it'll win me games. I'm toying around with the idea of a Noise Marine Biker army, but my options are fairly limited. Would it be simply better/easier to play "counts-as" with White Scars/Ravenwing? I can't compare them on a point-by-point basis as I do not own the Codex Marines book. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter. Am I missing anything?

CSM PROS:
- Bolt pistol/CCW per biker (for +1 Attack) standard.
- Various marks make the units tougher/better (Khorne for +1 A, Slaanesh for +1 I, Nurgle for +1 T).

CSM CONS:
- Bike only fit in the Fast Attack slot / No option for troops.
- No fast support units / fast skimmers (i.e. Land Speeders, Attack Bikes).
- Bikers compete with other Fast Attack Slots (i.e. Heldrake).

Codex Marines (White Scars counts-as) PROS:
- Access to Kosaro Khan.
- Access to all-biker army (bikers as troops).
- Attack bike in each biker squad, plus Attack Bike as seperate FOC option.
- Access to Fast Skimmers / Fast Fliers.

Codex Marines (White Scars counts-as) CONS:
- Equipment is fairly general (only way to upgrade is with meltas/plasma, limited CCW upgrades).
- Average in Close Combat.

VotLW vs ATSKNF. Very different

Without posting a "list", since this isn't the Army List forum, I'm looking at the something along the following:

Chaos Lord on Bike w/Mark of Slaanesh
Chaos Sorcerer (lvl 3) on Bike w/Mark of Slaanesh

Noise Marines with 2x Blastmaster
Noise Marines with 2x Blastmaster

5x Bikers with 2x Meltas, Mark of Slaanesh, Icon of Excess
5x Bikers with 2x Meltas, Mark of Slaanesh, Icon of Excess

5x Havocs with Autocannons.

Model count is low (always is with biker-themed armies), and the list doesn't have many answers to fliers or AV13+. I thought about squeezing in a Heldrake for the third FA slot, but I like to spread out my FOC to include Heavy and FA options, for the Scouring and Big Guns missions. If I did go with a Heldrake I might go with the Hades AC so I can swoop by enemy fliers and shoot into rear armor. It's kinda different, but the whole list is "kinda different". Thoughts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It occurs to me that I could trade out one big unit of Blastmaster NM for two Sonic Blaster squads to park on home objectives. That would free up enough points to either go with a Heldrake or some other option.

DMDaddy0 wrote:
Without posting a "list", since this isn't the Army List forum, I'm looking at the something along the following:

Chaos Lord on Bike w/Mark of Slaanesh
Chaos Sorcerer (lvl 3) on Bike w/Mark of Slaanesh

Noise Marines with 2x Blastmaster
Noise Marines with 2x Blastmaster

5x Bikers with 2x Meltas, Mark of Slaanesh, Icon of Excess
5x Bikers with 2x Meltas, Mark of Slaanesh, Icon of Excess

5x Havocs with Autocannons.

Model count is low (always is with biker-themed armies), and the list doesn't have many answers to fliers or AV13+. I thought about squeezing in a Heldrake for the third FA slot, but I like to spread out my FOC to include Heavy and FA options, for the Scouring and Big Guns missions. If I did go with a Heldrake I might go with the Hades AC so I can swoop by enemy fliers and shoot into rear armor. It's kinda different, but the whole list is "kinda different". Thoughts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It occurs to me that I could trade out one big unit of Blastmaster NM for two Sonic Blaster squads to park on home objectives. That would free up enough points to either go with a Heldrake or some other option.

why are you giving the sorcerer a mark. Do you really want slanesh powers?
Why not add more men to the bikes. The icon is a sunk cost, add more men!
Why not add VotLW to the bikes. rerolling to hit is awesome.

 Exergy wrote:


why are you giving the sorcerer a mark. Do you really want slanesh powers?
Why not add more men to the bikes. The icon is a sunk cost, add more men!
Why not add VotLW to the bikes. rerolling to hit is awesome.

Sorry, sorc will NOT have a Mark. Got a little ahead of myself.

At 1500 points I'm already limited in my anti-tank options, aside from the Blast Masters. Two squads of 5 bikers gets me 4 meltas. At larger point games I would probably add another unit of troops and then just increase the size of the biker units. That's my line of thinking at least.

Bikes do have veterans on them. I just wasn't going whole-hog with the details since this really wasn't in the "Army Lists" forum.

Use plague marines if you want something to sit in the back. They will just not die.
Keep your bikes either naked or just mark them if you must. The math is really not in favor of icon of excess being worth it at all. If you take out those icons alone you can fit a whole new squad.
Even though the hades is different on the Heldrake, it's completely outclassed by the baleflamer.

Here's a really good list I came across awhile ago:

165 for Lord: Bike, Sigil, Mark Khorne, AoBF, Gift
140 for Sorc: Bike, Mastery3, Gift
330 for 10 Bikers: VotLW, 2PG, LC, Gift, Mark Slaanesh, IoE
262 for 9 Bikers: VotLW, 2MG, LC, Gift, Mark Slaanesh
305 for 10 Bikers: VotLW, 2MG, Axe, Gift, Mark Khorne, IoW
250 for 50 Cultists
345 for 15 Havocs: 12 Autocannon
50 for Defense Line

Total: 1850