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Hi, firstly, I apologise if this is the wrong sector of the forum to post this discussion, however I felt it was the best fit. I have recently began playing the game and have been involved in a quite a few discussions of late regarding the best use of Dark Angels bikers (the faction I play, and the main theme of my army lists). One camp firmly believe that small squads of 3 bikers with two pg and a combi-plasma on the sergeant is the most effective expenditure of points (squad would cost 120 points). The other camp believe that using the stat's and calculating averages takes a lot of the fun out of the game and stand firmly in the camp of using the Standard of devastation and packing the army with as many Bikes as possible for tl bolter fun. This is a more expensive route, but throws down a lot of fire.

My question is which do you believe to be best? What have your experiences been having either played, or played against this sort of tactic. Is Stat hammering frowned upon?

For Banner of Devastation, the bolter unit needs to be near the banner-carrying unit to be effective. You can only fit a certain number of units near the bearer before you're Pie-plate-bait.
For the same number of points as a biker + plasma gun, you could take a Black Knight - you lose 6" range, but gain Skilled Rider, Twin-Linked and an extra attack.
With the biker + plasma, you get the range and the possibility of being Troops, which may benefit you if you're tight for FA slots.

I don't believe one is vastly superior to the other, and which to take depends on the list.

Are you playing almost exclusively ravenwing? If so, one of the banners is better synergy for the army as a whole. If you're playing a more balanced force, I'd go with minimum sized, max special weapon bike squads as they fill a niche role in that force (particularly if you didn't buy Azrael to make them scoring).

Are you trying to kill Monstrous Creatures? Then take the plasma and leave the standard.

Are you trying to kill hordes? Take the standard and leave the plasma.

As people say it really depends on your list. The banner requires you to essentially build a large portion (if not your entire) list around its use. The plasma squads are simply an add on to any army.

Neither is strictly better than the other. The dakka banner will work well against big hordes and small elite forces (through weight of numbers), but not necessarily against a list with medium/heavy tanks or lots of MC. Plasma won't be great against horde armies, but works well against elite armies (teq), can do some light anti vehicle duty, and drop some MC.

Personally for the dakka banner list, I'd take a foot slogging HQ for the command squad and stuff them into a Land Raider for a bigger dakka bubble (6" from the hull instead of from the banner carrier) and better protection.

Thank you for the response, some very interesting points have been made. I like the idea of taking Azrael and a command squad with the banner and sticking them in a Land Raider, so may experiment with this. For the most part, I have largely been up against SM, CSM and Eldar. My army has been combi-wing with a bit of everything, though I have more bikes than any other troop choice, due to only possessing around 15 DW terminators and 15 Tactical marines. So there is room for development on that front. I think against marines, the plasma would work out a bit better, so that’s what I am going to go with for the time being. Thanks all, for your well-considered input .

With DA plasmagun bikers are a bit of a waste.

A better use of points would be to use them to get black knights - a much harder hitting plasmagun user at the same cost.

Use a codex to its strengths, If you want lots of bikes with special weapons then use whitescars. For DA they should be relying on dakka banner bikes and black knights.