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Im running a White Scar list made entirely of bikes and a Redeemer as a transport. A tactic i want to try is committing all of my forces to one quarter of the table edge, rather than spreading them out lie most players seem to do. The idea is to use scout move (thanks to Kor'Sarro ) and throw my force at a weak flank and hammer it, using the Redeemer as an expensive distraction (though with scout move and my first turn, it will HAVE to be dealt with) up the middle. Was wondering if anyone has tried this before? On paper its a great idea and i haven't had a chance to play test it. Yes, i realize i will be subjected to a turn of rapid fire.


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Oh, it fluctuates between 1750 and 2000 points, so its a big army

This is the standard operating procedure for Khan led white scars. There are several reasons this may not work but this should always be plan number 1.

The reasons to split up and spread out;
1) servo skulls blocking scout moves. This can make it impossible to concentrate like you might want to.
2) Weapons ranges. If you concentrate on one corner and the other side is all artillery with 180" range and S6 AP3 ignore cover you are dead. Often the weapon ranges means that enemies on one side can shoot you on the other side (serpents are notorious for this). Therefore it is better to just scout forward as close as possible and go for early damage and assaults against a more shooty foe.
3) Objectives. Most games are objectives games. You might have to split up to capture them. Hopefully you have concentrated on one side at a time to reduce enemy numbers before this but sometimes the rolls just don't go your way and the opponent still has the numbers.
4) Army foot print. I think you will find that actually deploying an army with bike bases so it does not die en mass to blasts within a single quarter of the table is just not possible. Once you get 30+ bikes the foot print of the army is sizable.

Overall though the basic strategy for fast armies is encirclement and divide. So find a small portion of the opponent's army, crush it with overwhelming force, and move on to the next portion. Also remember to always charge a shooty foe and shoot a choppy foe. You have HnR so you can always bounce out of combat before your turn and gain a bit of extra distance to your movement.

I admit, there are a lot of variables to consider and adjust to. Its been my experience that most players set their armies the same : Good/important units in the middle and then the closer to the corners you get, you usually get weaker units. Exposing their weaknesses and even just the shock of being assaulted turn one ( Scout move can assault if its the bottom of the turn FAQ) Any one else have any speed tactics to throw the enemy off?

Unfortunately gunline type armies are all pretty much the same. They setup in a corner turtling cheap stuff around expensive stuff sometimes with expensive stuff in the middle to buff the rest and sometimes with tanks on the flanks. Your response is always going to be shift towards the expensive stuff and charge the the shooty chaff if you cannot kill something expensive instead. Gunlines are just not interesting to plan as or against.

Here are some fun tactics for if the opponent is also playing something relatively aggressive. (I named them for fun purposes only, feel free to call out a technique name)

"Do the Shuffle"
This is for aggressive armies who you don't necessarily want to charge and you were forced to go first. Place your guys all in the middle of the board then when they setup across from you you pick up all your units and shuffle them to one side of the board. You can then concentrate one flank down for a large horde type army and they will have trouble getting into combat with you. This is normally orks or nids.

"The River Splits"
This is for small elite armies who are better in melee than you (or have a squad that is better aka draigowing but slower than you). If you go second then you setup in a sort of ring ~18-24" from the threatening squads. Using your scourt moves to further the envelopment. If you go first then setup in the middle of the board and then use the scout moves to split into two sides. You want to keep enough distance between squads to make them difficult to multicharge. Keep in mind you might e better off to just ignore a death star and go after the support elements.

"Scatter"
This is essentially an anti jetseer council and screamer star strategy which assumes you will have difficult killing them. If your squads can combat squad then do it as you want extreme MSU. I usually deploy just outside of charge range of the council (make them waste a turn turbo boosting). You can then use the scout moves to push your units that are already significantly away from the deathstar into the opponent's deployment zone. The squads that may be too close can be better adjusted. The idea is to overwhelm the opponent's supporting elements. If you will survive 2 turns of assault with it feel free to charge and use the supporting elements to bounce further away from the deathstar. What you want is for the deathstar to have to bounce around the board chasing your army down while you kill all of his troops and any threats to your troops. In my experience my white scars army is a terrible match up for either of these deathstar armies as I just have to many mobile scoring units for them to handle. I also use a stormraven to kill the helldrake the screamer star seems to like.

I can probably think of more but so many armies are essentially gunline turtles so it is hard to remember the exceptions.

I like the shuffle one, as I was just thinking what to do if I go first. It really comes down to play testing. My attitude is making the enemy play my game, rather than the other way around. White Scars can be good at that since the game hasn't done much to counter speed. With all the flame weapons I run, I look forward to units that stand still or bunch together.

Biker armies are great because their mobility and relentless lets them play a much more board spanning and reactive game. The look on your opponent's face can be great the first time your entire army shifts to one half the board.

BTW if you are not already I would squeeze a TFC (or whirlwind could work but not as well) or two into your list. This helps to add a blast marker and barrage to your list and forces the opponent to spread their troops out. This means gunlines become more spread out and vulnerable to your concentrating on one part of them and aggressive hordes have a harder time moving past their casualties.

Another fun unit to put into biker lists is the stormraven+grav cents. The stormraven comes on blows a flyer out of the sky or takes out a tank (and sometimes manages two of the above in the same turn). The cents drop out and annihilate one nasty unit. Pretty good and very cinematic.

I sometimes use a land raider crusader but only in my dark angels army with a banner of devastation in it. I could see the benefit of a redeemer and even more so for a launch pad for some grav centurion love on the opponent's riptide, etc. At 1500+ pts your bikes already become to many to easily deploy so you kind of need to put more point/space concentrated units into the list.

Commit heavy works like a charm (I think the oficial name for the tactic is dened flank or something like that. i've done it myself and mopped up enemies Theidea is to overwhelm a flank early taking little to no damage while the rest of their army is forced to scrable to you by which time, you have twice the power they do and can pincer them. Great if you leave back a single ordinance to hammer the other flank a they scramble across open field to reach you.

Generally, it is best to only do it when your opponent gets the first turn. If you deploy firs and do it, they can just set up to counter it.


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BTW assault or CC heavy armies clean house with this strategy evry time, even in this edition.

I tried whirlwinds in past bike armies and wasn't impressed with what they did. By turn two they only had one or two targets because I was in CC. On paper it was great two whirlwinds anchoring my army, but the 150 could've been better spent. Although, that was three years ago, haha. Maybe they've gotten better

with the tactic we are talking about, you would only be in combat on one flank and the rest of their army would be fair game for at least another 2 turns afte the first. Not to mention that in one of the scenerios, heavies count as scoring units if you have an objective in your deployment zone.

TheNewPenguin wrote:
I tried whirlwinds in past bike armies and wasn't impressed with what they did. By turn two they only had one or two targets because I was in CC. On paper it was great two whirlwinds anchoring my army, but the 150 could've been better spent. Although, that was three years ago, haha. Maybe they've gotten better

TFC are much better but that is not the important part.

Also if you outnumber your opponent with a bike army then the opponent is doing something really wrong or is playing draigowing and you are loosing whatever charged the paladin unit. There should be targets outside of CC for most armies.

It is a positional strategy element. The point of blast/barrage weapons in a bike army is to force horde style (gunline or assault) to space their models out to max coherency. For a gunline this increases the foot print and puts more of the anti infantry firepower out of range. It also forces their front line closer to you. For an assault based horde army having to space out their army means that any casualty is going to put them further out of charge range. A bunched up assault army can take ~3 times the casualties and still get into melee that a fully spaced out assault army can. If either army doesn't space out then they suffer significantly more casualties.

Finally, your bike army needs to concentrate down the opponent's army. Do you really want to send enough bikes to kill a 5 man scout unit off an objective in the opposite corner to your opponent's fire base or do you want to spend 1-2 turns of shooting with your barrage weapon to do it?

This all ignores barrage sniping which is a very viable answer to taking out special weapons, upgrades, and sarges. There is also the fact that unless you take flamers barrage is your best shooting option against ADL gunlines.

I love whirlwinds, I do. The part of support vehicles goes to a squadron of Landspeeders. (Tactically viable or not, they are what I had and what I could afford) they are each kitted out with multi-meta and Heavy flamers. My army favors meltas and flamers as support weapons, obviously. When they survive, they do a great job. I do have 200 points of flux, maybe a whirlwind might make it in for a play test

Yeah, give it a whirl (pun intended). I'm sure if you explain the reason, opponents wont mind you substituting another rhino chassis model till you make up your mind about whether you like/want to buy/convert one.