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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






Los Angeles, CA

Centurian99 wrote:
IG is totally screwed against the nob bikerz. 3 demolishers and 3 hellhounds may, possibly, be able to deal with one squad. Against two, I simply don't see any viable method for guard to deal with them.


my apologies to the OP for taking the thread off topic for a second....

Actually, non-dropping IG annihilate nob biker armies. You're either facing the 'one big nob biker unit with a regular ork army behind it', or the two big nob biker units and 2 grot units.

3 leman russ pies and 4 lascannon hits per turn on a nob biker unit hurts. And there isn't a unit worth more than 100 points that they can get to on the table. So you have an insane number of turns to lob pie at them as they consolidate.

I have a huge vostroyan army, and I play constantly against my friend who is hot on nob bikers right now. Warboss can only gobble one of those pie wounds per turn, plus he's trying to intercept the lascannons too. It seems like each time we play, his warboss loses two wounds early, and then he has to start allocating battle cannon and lascannon to nobs.

If he's running the one big nob unit. It gets killed or completely ruined by the end of turn 3. Then he has to brave the hellhounds he didn't pop with his small amount of lootas with his remaining small boy units.

If he is running the 1500 points of nobs, and 250 points of grots list, I'll kill off one nob unit, and then use the rest of my long range shooty units to scare the grots off table once they come in from reserve. He can do whatever he wants with his lone second nob unit. I'll keep shooting at it and eventually he is going to have to find an objective to sit on with it.


But alas, this thread was about eldar... it has been very useful to me, since i didn't have the answer going into it.

After sifting through all of the ill-conceived ideas that weren't really run through the math-hammer, I would have to say... A warlock unit with fortune and mind-war, joined by karandras, sounds like a solid answer. The warlock unit smothering power klaws for a wraithlord seems a lot tricker, but it works on paper. In a pinch, fortuned harlequins could be a combination smotherer and killer, especially if they were escorting karandras, or a wraithlord.

Since a combo harlequin/wraithlord with a nearby eldrad is the most likely candidate for being fielded, I am going to explore this a little more. Also, karandras is quite an impressive fighting character against other armies as well. So fielding him in an all comers eldar list is a possibility. Especially since I'm starting to feel that eldar need to be using serious CC threats in all of their tourney lists to have the tools to beat the big 5th ed. lists.

btw, if anyone is on the fence about harlequins, get off the fence! They are still top notch assault units, they can beat assault terminators and give demons fits.

Please check out my current project blog

Feel free to PM me to talk about your list ideas....

The Sprue Posse Gaming Club 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka






San Jose, CA

Shep wrote:
Centurian99 wrote:
IG is totally screwed against the nob bikerz. 3 demolishers and 3 hellhounds may, possibly, be able to deal with one squad. Against two, I simply don't see any viable method for guard to deal with them.


In non-Kill Point missions, Actually, non-dropping IG annihilate nob biker armies. You're either facing the 'one big nob biker unit with a regular ork army behind it', or the two big nob biker units and 2 grot units.


While I hate doing it, modifying your quote was the easiest way to amend your statement. (Of course, it goes almost without saying that IG are hosed in KP missions. But if we KEEP saying it, maybe GW will fix it with the new Codex.)

btw, if anyone is on the fence about harlequins, get off the fence! They are still top notch assault units, they can beat assault terminators and give demons fits.


You think so? My Genestealers have been having a rough time under 5th, as they bounce off units they would have murdered in 4th (e.g., Carnifexes, Obliterators, and the humble Plague Marine); my Daemonettes are sulking the edition away. Harlies are a little more mobile, but seem awfully frail w/their T3 & S3.

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Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






Los Angeles, CA

Janthkin wrote:
Shep wrote:
Centurian99 wrote:
IG is totally screwed against the nob bikerz. 3 demolishers and 3 hellhounds may, possibly, be able to deal with one squad. Against two, I simply don't see any viable method for guard to deal with them.


In non-Kill Point missions, Actually, non-dropping IG annihilate nob biker armies. You're either facing the 'one big nob biker unit with a regular ork army behind it', or the two big nob biker units and 2 grot units.


While I hate doing it, modifying your quote was the easiest way to amend your statement. (Of course, it goes almost without saying that IG are hosed in KP missions. But if we KEEP saying it, maybe GW will fix it with the new Codex.)

btw, if anyone is on the fence about harlequins, get off the fence! They are still top notch assault units, they can beat assault terminators and give demons fits.


You think so? My Genestealers have been having a rough time under 5th, as they bounce off units they would have murdered in 4th (e.g., Carnifexes, Obliterators, and the humble Plague Marine); my Daemonettes are sulking the edition away. Harlies are a little more mobile, but seem awfully frail w/their T3 & S3.


Yeah, spot on for the guard... unplayable until they get a new book as far as annihilation is concerned. They are far far far from being any good. But lots of lascannons and lots of battle cannons, which are pretty underwhelming against other modern lists, happen to matchup well against the atypical nob list. To summarize, I hate my guard codex with a passion, and May seems like eons away.

As far as harlies. They certainly aren't the terror they were in 4th. But I've seen them used to counter assault terminators (you can trade point for point if you can't pop their land raider, if your bright lance opens up the raider, charging harlies scoop termies) and bloodcrushers (fortune/doom/charge scoops bloodcrushers)... the math doesn't like their match against nob bikers, you just need to make sure you've invested more into them than you used to. 6 used to be able to get the job done, now it seems like you need to start with 8, and 10 is better. I don't have any compunctions about cutting kisses off of the unit if I need points.




Please check out my current project blog

Feel free to PM me to talk about your list ideas....

The Sprue Posse Gaming Club 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






Los Angeles, CA

ooh, forgot to add...

nob bikers are one of the rare units in 40k that can't climb to the second level of a ruins.

rangers on floor 2 of a ruins are almost completely invulnerable to a 2x nob biker, 2x grot army.

If you want to be really tricky, you could put a harlie unit directly under the rangers in the ruins, and they couldn't legally be charged... (nobs would have to get within an inch of the rangers, which they can't get into b2b with)

Not gonna make any friends using the second trick... and not every judge is gonna jive with it either...

Please check out my current project blog

Feel free to PM me to talk about your list ideas....

The Sprue Posse Gaming Club 
   
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Awesome Autarch






Las Vegas, NV

Shep, I completely agree with you.

IG suck with kill points (ill beat that horse until nothing is left) but they do have answers for Nob bikers. Even dropping IG can get it done with melta and plasma squads, as long as the army isnt all drop troops, which is what I think you were implying.

As long as you retain units to sacrifice to the nobs to protect your tanks, you will shoot the hell out of the nobs withe weapons that ignore feel no pain.

As for Eldar, Harlies still are brutal and used in conjunction with a tougher unit such as a WL or two, would be a serviceable response. It is a tough go for the pointy ears though.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2008/12/29 22:14:59


   
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Longtime Dakkanaut







Shep, really? Aside from using buildings I'm just not seeing it. getting enough wounds past a 3+ cover save could be problematic. You get one turn to shoot, then the ork player multicharges as many units as he can.

Not saying it can't be done...but I'm not seeing it reliably taking them down. One squad...maybe. Two squads?

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Made in us
Fixture of Dakka






San Jose, CA

Centurian99 wrote:Shep, really? Aside from using buildings I'm just not seeing it. getting enough wounds past a 3+ cover save could be problematic. You get one turn to shoot, then the ork player multicharges as many units as he can.

Not saying it can't be done...but I'm not seeing it reliably taking them down. One squad...maybe. Two squads?


I think his point is that the IG player can field 8 scoring units for the cost of 1 Nob biker squad (or 4 mechanized scoring units). Mix in Drop Troops/Light Infantry to keep some of them off the board for a while, and the Nobs just can't do *enough* to a Guard army in a non-KP scenario. If you can kill off 1 squad, great; your drop troops/outflankers/long range fire should scare off the grots, and leave the Orks short on scoring units.

I don't think he's wrong, given the "no KP" caveat: if there are 1400-1600 pts in Nobs on Bikes headed your way, you can cheerfully sacrifice a LOT of Guardsmen, and the Russes/Hellhounds never have to stop shooting. Avoiding too many multicharges will complicate things a bit, but terrain is a helper here - enough Dangerous Terrain tests will continue the job started by your Hellhounds.

The problem is that such a Guard army is looking at 20+ KPs, which is frankly untenable in a tournament situation.

I like the 2nd floor reminder. But always put your objectives as deep into terrain as you can against a biker list. (Also, IIRC, "Dangerous Terrain" calls for tests on a per model basis, so the Ork player has no control over which models take wounds.) And keep those objectives as far apart as practical, to maximize the problem for an army with so little in the way of objective-holding ability.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2008/12/29 22:45:02


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Infiltrating Oniwaban






What about a mech Eldar army with 4-5x lance-armed Serpents, 2x Prisms and 1x Bike Council with Fortune Seer and lance-armed Autarch? I'm thinking that playing keepaway with a single Nob Bikes unit shouldn't be too hard while the Prisms etc. soften them up.

2x Nob Bikes would be more difficult. Perhaps unload the rest of the army on Nob Bikers #1 while the Prisms and Council take on Bikes #2?

I was going to question whether Yriel might be better than Karandras because Yriel has an invuln (re-rolled with Fortune of course) and the Eye for high first-round wound output. However, I then realized that a single klaw hit will splat Yriel, and the Eye will of course kill at least one Seer and not hit enough (large-base) nobz to matter.

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Devastating Dark Reaper



Geneva,Switzerland

Savnock wrote:What about a mech Eldar army with 4-5x lance-armed Serpents, 2x Prisms and 1x Bike Council with Fortune Seer and lance-armed Autarch? I'm thinking that playing keepaway with a single Nob Bikes unit shouldn't be too hard while the Prisms etc. soften them up.

2x Nob Bikes would be more difficult. Perhaps unload the rest of the army on Nob Bikers #1 while the Prisms and Council take on Bikes #2?

I was going to question whether Yriel might be better than Karandras because Yriel has an invuln (re-rolled with Fortune of course) and the Eye for high first-round wound output. However, I then realized that a single klaw hit will splat Yriel, and the Eye will of course kill at least one Seer and not hit enough (large-base) nobz to matter.


Thats just it IMO. Yeah I like Karandas however over the long haul of a tourney the autarch gives you more options for deployments to face other armies. At least you might be able to join the yriel with the warlock unit and have fortune cast on him.
   
Made in us
Widowmaker





Virginia

Just attack them with a smaller squad that can do as much damage as it will take and some big crap to actually kill guys. 8 Harlies and 2 wraithlords should work out fine. The Harlies do around 4-6 wounds, die and then the wraithlords do another 3 wounds which are doubled 'cause of the smush and the eldar should win with the wraithlords taking zero wounds. Doom is a must though.

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Awesome Autarch






Las Vegas, NV

how about a fortuned Asurman? I would normally never even consider taking him, but in this case, he has a rerollable 4++, eternal warrior and any wound he causes has about a 50% chance of killing the nob outright. He would be more for absorbing wounds than causing damage, but hey, its a thought.

Well, actually, a seer council would do the same thing more effectively when I think about it.

Although, with defend, he also limits the amount of attacks coming in which is a big help.

   
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Charging Wild Rider





Canada

Shep wrote:
Centurian99 wrote:
IG is totally screwed against the nob bikerz. 3 demolishers and 3 hellhounds may, possibly, be able to deal with one squad. Against two, I simply don't see any viable method for guard to deal with them.


my apologies to the OP for taking the thread off topic for a second....

Actually, non-dropping IG annihilate nob biker armies. You're either facing the 'one big nob biker unit with a regular ork army behind it', or the two big nob biker units and 2 grot units.

3 leman russ pies and 4 lascannon hits per turn on a nob biker unit hurts. And there isn't a unit worth more than 100 points that they can get to on the table. So you have an insane number of turns to lob pie at them as they consolidate.

I have a huge vostroyan army, and I play constantly against my friend who is hot on nob bikers right now. Warboss can only gobble one of those pie wounds per turn, plus he's trying to intercept the lascannons too. It seems like each time we play, his warboss loses two wounds early, and then he has to start allocating battle cannon and lascannon to nobs.

If he's running the one big nob unit. It gets killed or completely ruined by the end of turn 3. Then he has to brave the hellhounds he didn't pop with his small amount of lootas with his remaining small boy units.

If he is running the 1500 points of nobs, and 250 points of grots list, I'll kill off one nob unit, and then use the rest of my long range shooty units to scare the grots off table once they come in from reserve. He can do whatever he wants with his lone second nob unit. I'll keep shooting at it and eventually he is going to have to find an objective to sit on with it.


But alas, this thread was about eldar... it has been very useful to me, since i didn't have the answer going into it.

After sifting through all of the ill-conceived ideas that weren't really run through the math-hammer, I would have to say... A warlock unit with fortune and mind-war, joined by karandras, sounds like a solid answer. The warlock unit smothering power klaws for a wraithlord seems a lot tricker, but it works on paper. In a pinch, fortuned harlequins could be a combination smotherer and killer, especially if they were escorting karandras, or a wraithlord.

Since a combo harlequin/wraithlord with a nearby eldrad is the most likely candidate for being fielded, I am going to explore this a little more. Also, karandras is quite an impressive fighting character against other armies as well. So fielding him in an all comers eldar list is a possibility. Especially since I'm starting to feel that eldar need to be using serious CC threats in all of their tourney lists to have the tools to beat the big 5th ed. lists.

btw, if anyone is on the fence about harlequins, get off the fence! They are still top notch assault units, they can beat assault terminators and give demons fits.


Phe hell hounds are where its at, str 5, ap 4, no cover save. lets fry us some ork bikers.

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I've been thinking more about this since I posted.

Since we're really talking about the tourney scene here, we need a solution that will also do well against other tourney builds. An army tuned _just_ to defeat nob bikes may fail against other opponents. We need a solution that is not only adaptable to other fights, but strong there.

My first instinct was to make do with what I usually field. That's not gonna work, it seems: all the BLs and the Prisms won't soften the Bikes up enough if there's two units of the buggers.

Now that I think about it, I think my standard mech build (BL Serpents, 2 Prisms and a bike council) will adapt well to fight bikers if I drop the Prisms in favor of 2 more Serpents packing 6x Dragons with flamer-bearing exarch. This will also be decent anti-armor and hit heavy infantry hard, albeit at much closer range. With a unit of Banshees and a bike Council, the army will basically play like a Swordwind with tons of meltas. Against nob bikerz, playing keepaway while putting out that many heavy shots over 2 rounds should either eliminate one large biker unit or soften two smaller ones to be handleable by the Council and Banshees, even with turbo saves, if I reckon correctly.

The two bikerz scenarios someone else helpfully pointed out earlier are (a) 1-bike-unit plus lotsa other Orks armies and (b) 2-bike-unit and little else armies. I'm actually more worried about the first variety, as Lootas are the bane of my Serpents when I'm unable to concentrate fire and eliminate them right away. That's where I'll really miss those Prisms. Hmm.

So what do y'all think- will that build have a chance against the bikerz tide? Opinions from players of the wheelie death army especially appreciated.

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Golga wrote:Phe hell hounds are where its at, str 5, ap 4, no cover save. lets fry us some ork bikers.


The Hell hounds are useless. The orks will still get their 5+ Inv Cybork Body save and then get their 4+ FNP save.

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All over the U.S.

Any body consider a full squad of War Walkers kitted with Miss Launchers? Along with 2 Prisms and Jetseer council, then finish build from there.

Just an idea for a flexible build.





edited for spelling

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2008/12/30 20:24:16


Officially elevated by St. God of Yams to the rank of Scholar of the Church of the Children of the Eternal Turtle Pie at 11:42:36 PM 05/01/09

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Regular Dakkanaut






I run a similar list:

4 serpents with lances
2 prisms
6 dragons w/exarch
20 guardians w/2 scatter lasers
10 DAs exarch with bs/defend and shimmer/PS
Seer Council on bikes
Autarch on bike with fusion and lance and mandiblaster

I'm pretty sure 4 lances will knock out at least one nob. Seer uses doom and fortune, cut loose with 4 destructors 1 fusion gun and 6 tl shuriken cats then charge in with ws 5 and ini 5 from enhance it is very likely that the orcs will get routed. Granted I still have to make it past two saves but the 6 autarch attacks bypass FNP and at WS 7 from enhance he's going to hurt something.

This is taking into account that I've used my Dragons, bladestorming avengers, guardians with lasers and locks, and prisms at other targets. Possibly another bike squad. Granted they wont do nearly as well unless I get off some lucky prism shots.

The problem isnt dealing with the nobz, it's dealing with the nobz + the rest of the army. The other issue is wound allocation abuse.

I have no issues with orc elites with 2 wounds, or 2 saves, or a constant cover, or WS 5, or T5, or STR 8/9/10, or being a scoring unit.

.....but put it all together and multiply it by 10 and then its a little much. But that's semantics, i'll still always rumble a good orc player bike nobz or not.
   
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LucasLAD wrote:
I'm pretty sure 4 lances will knock out at least one nob. Seer uses doom and fortune, cut loose with 4 destructors 1 fusion gun and 6 tl shuriken cats then charge in with ws 5 and ini 5 from enhance it is very likely that the orcs will get routed. Granted I still have to make it past two saves but the 6 autarch attacks bypass FNP and at WS 7 from enhance he's going to hurt something.


Some buddies and me ran the numbers of that situation, and although we didn't include the jet-tarch, I don't think he changes the numbers significantly, In essence, the magic number of models hit by the destructor was 7 or 8, I believe. If the destructors could average 7-8 hits, then enough wounds would get through the 5++ and 4+FNP saves to allow the charging jet council to do enough damage in HTH that the orks lost the combat. If only 4 models were hit on average, the jetseer council got owned.

If the jetbike council got charged, they got owned.

Additionally...we ran the numbers with 8 warlocks+farseer. No sure what your jetbike council is comprised of, but 8 warlocks + farseer is almost 600 points right there...

You're right on the lances thing, though. 4 bright lances from wave serpents equals 3 hits, 2.5 wounds, and either 1.25 saves or ~1.66 saves. So one wound is right. Kinda unimpressive, eh?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2008/12/30 22:13:17


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Twisting Tzeentch Horror




Golden, CO

Well, that one wound has to go on the Warboss, or they lose a guy (since it's S8). Do it enough times, they start losing the ability for the warboss to soak those wounds. Note that also applies to EML as well, so if you're not tooling for LR spam you can save some points here and there.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2008/12/30 23:39:24


 
   
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Devastating Dark Reaper



Geneva,Switzerland

Savnock wrote:I've been thinking more about this since I posted.

Since we're really talking about the tourney scene here, we need a solution that will also do well against other tourney builds. An army tuned _just_ to defeat nob bikes may fail against other opponents. We need a solution that is not only adaptable to other fights, but strong there.

My first instinct was to make do with what I usually field. That's not gonna work, it seems: all the BLs and the Prisms won't soften the Bikes up enough if there's two units of the buggers.

Now that I think about it, I think my standard mech build (BL Serpents, 2 Prisms and a bike council) will adapt well to fight bikers if I drop the Prisms in favor of 2 more Serpents packing 6x Dragons with flamer-bearing exarch. This will also be decent anti-armor and hit heavy infantry hard, albeit at much closer range. With a unit of Banshees and a bike Council, the army will basically play like a Swordwind with tons of meltas. Against nob bikerz, playing keepaway while putting out that many heavy shots over 2 rounds should either eliminate one large biker unit or soften two smaller ones to be handleable by the Council and Banshees, even with turbo saves, if I reckon correctly.

The two bikerz scenarios someone else helpfully pointed out earlier are (a) 1-bike-unit plus lotsa other Orks armies and (b) 2-bike-unit and little else armies. I'm actually more worried about the first variety, as Lootas are the bane of my Serpents when I'm unable to concentrate fire and eliminate them right away. That's where I'll really miss those Prisms. Hmm.

So what do y'all think- will that build have a chance against the bikerz tide? Opinions from players of the wheelie death army especially appreciated.


Sav- that was the conclusion I reached a while back and dropped the Fire Prisms. I have run a similar build to what you mentioned using Yriel as my Autarch and it has worked out well against my opponents. I have pretty much played all armies with this build except the DA witch army and faired well. At the end of the day you still need luck to roll your way and contrary to some of the nay sayers (though I can understand their reasoning) the banshees with council and autarch have worked well agianst the bikes (Doom and fortune from farseer) But you need some events to go your way. End of the day it also very much depends on your opponents. A vetern Ork player will challenge you to get the right situations set up. So maybe you might have to settle for a draw. I worked this army out on numerous nurgle armies and than worked my way up to orks. Currently I am trying to figure out how to include a walker unit with scatter/starcannons.
   
Made in us
Dominar






Shep wrote:

Yeah, spot on for the guard... unplayable until they get a new book as far as annihilation is concerned. They are far far far from being any good. But lots of lascannons and lots of battle cannons, which are pretty underwhelming against other modern lists, happen to matchup well against the atypical nob list. To summarize, I hate my guard codex with a passion, and May seems like eons away.



I honestly don't think enough people give Guard credit; even other Guard players. Admittedly they are *hard* to wield in lower than 1500 point missions, but at 2,000 I think Guard are really quite good. Although the KP issue hoses Guard hard, it's not impossible to table your opponent. Especially if you're playing against Marines, and especially if those marines are addicted to ultra expensive HQs and Terminators. If the new codex brings the Leman Russ Exterminator back, I think Guard will go from somewhere in the middle (that's right, the middle) to up near or on the top.
   
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Fireknife Shas'el




All over the U.S.

They were talking about the nobs on the Tau sniper drone thread. After thinking about it I came up with a tactic that I now want to playtest.

Please bear with me here. This comes from a Tau point of view and because we have no true snipers.

Nob bikers are sort of like facing the 'Crons Deciever in that they're both tremendous bullet soaks. Because they are big and bad with the nobs being fast also, we think that we have to direct all of our heavy firepower at them. A couple of years back I asked a friend how he dealt with the C'tan, his very enlightening reply was "why fight a god if you don't have to?........(Translate) Why give your opponent what he expects? He' begging you to ingnore the other part of the army and waste your limited fire power on the nobs.

This is how I see these Biker nob lists. They are like slight of hand. Here, look at the big interesting thing as I try to slip this little thing past you. Question. How long before bikers get to you if your highly mobile? 2 Turns? The weakness with this build is that they can't fill the board, thus leaving manuevering room.

Now, What happens if you use those first 2 rounds to kill transports and the rest of the army? How many squads does he have left? How many squads can the bikers kill in 3 to 4 turns? Remember in two-thirds of the missions they have to objective sit so it's more like 2 turns. If they do charge you, just lead them away from the objective.
Then if you focus all the big fire power and tough units on one squad for those 2 turns. Chances are he has only one unit left. You have enough left to control one of the objectives and still challenge the other or others.


What would you take as an all round balanced army that has the speed and fire power(Blast temps?) to attempt this strategy?........Let me know what you think

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2008/12/31 02:38:00


Officially elevated by St. God of Yams to the rank of Scholar of the Church of the Children of the Eternal Turtle Pie at 11:42:36 PM 05/01/09

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Devastating Dark Reaper






Tzeentchling brings up a good point. (Instant death), is something that the Eldar are very good at with range. Mindwar the painboy and shoot away. TL bL on a serpent or two could help out alot to compliment your heavy support options. Nob bikers are a neat squad and demand anyones attention, however, I think they're more new than scary. EML can be instant death or pinning, which pinning from an EML or not is essential.

 
   
Made in us
[ARTICLE MOD]
Longtime Dakkanaut







focusedfire wrote:
Nob bikers are sort of like facing the 'Crons Deciever in that they're both tremendous bullet soaks. Because they are big and bad with the nobs being fast also, we think that we have to direct all of our heavy firepower at them. A couple of years back I asked a friend how he dealt with the C'tan, his very enlightening reply was "why fight a god if you don't have to?........(Translate) Why give your opponent what he expects? He' begging you to ingnore the other part of the army and waste your limited fire power on the nobs.


That's a poor analogy. First, because with two units of those nob bikerz that count as troops (because you've got two warbosses), you simply CAN'T ignore the bikers. Second, you can't delay, because those bikers are guaranteed to be on top of you on turn 2. 24" turbo-boost on turn 1 (giving them a 3+ cover save), followed by a 12" move and 6" assault. To not get charged on turn 2, you have to deploy 36" away from them...which is tough (but not impossible to do. Especially since the vast majority of weapons need to be within 36" to fire, with a few exceptions.

focusedfire wrote:
This is how I see these Biker nob lists. They are like slight of hand. Here, look at the big interesting thing as I try to slip this little thing past you. Question. How long before bikers get to you if your highly mobile? 2 Turns? The weakness with this build is that they can't fill the board, thus leaving manuevering room.


At most, you get 3 turns on a 4x6 table. 24" turbo boost to get to the middle of the table, another 24" to towards wherever you're hiding, and then 12" move 6" assault. And that kind of assumes your ork opponent is a moron. See the example at the end.

focusedfire wrote:
Now, What happens if you use those first 2 rounds to kill transports and the rest of the army? How many squads does he have left? How many squads can the bikers kill in 3 to 4 turns? Remember in two-thirds of the missions they have to objective sit so it's more like 2 turns. If they do charge you, just lead them away from the objective.

Then if you focus all the big fire power and tough units on one squad for those 2 turns. Chances are he has only one unit left. You have enough left to control one of the objectives and still challenge the other or others.


The "rest of the army" you describe is probably a single squad of boyz or grots. Which sit in cover, in a 4+ save, and since you're trying to stay away from the bikes, is most likely out of range. If you shoot at them, they go to ground and get a 3+ cover save.

The simple fact is you're relying on ridiculous amounts of luck to take them down with shooting, unless you have some means of ignoring cover saves. Getting enough wounds past a 4+ or 3+ cover save, when the targets are T5, and especially when they have FNP, is simply the next thing to impossible.

The one saving grace is that the nob bikers have a sweet spot - that's between 1750 and 2000 points. at 1500, those nob bikers are only 7 or 8 bikers strong (including the warboss) which means its easier to use massed shooting to kill models. Over 2000 points, many armies have enough firepower, or can swarm them with enough HTH units, that they can get the S8 attacks they need to take them down.

But at 1750, countering the bikers is a cast-iron dog.

Anyway, spread out 20 bikers in a line, and put about 6" separating the squads, with maximum separation between models. At minimum (with 1" wide bases) the nob bikers now have maximum dispersion against blast weapons (small blasts likely only hit a single model, large blasts hit at most 3), and the two squads cover 62" of table. No matter where you try to hide, you're getting charged on turn 2. If you move a farseer up to mindwar the painboy, you lose the farseer next turn, unless he's with a silly number of warlocks.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2008/12/31 04:28:10


"I was not making fun of you personally - I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea - a practice I shall always follow." - Lt. Colonel Dubois, Starship Troopers

Don't settle for the pewter horde! Visit http://www.bkarmypainting.com and find out how you can have a well-painted army quickly at a reasonable price. 
   
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Fireknife Shas'el




All over the U.S.

I understand the difference between deciever and nobs. Was just making point that they have a God-like ability to soak damage.

36" deployment was why I suggested a guardian, warwalker ML theme. Also Warwalkers hav scout/flank ability.

Wasn't suggesting ignore. Just clear out the extra stuff to give you maneuvering room.

As to blast temps once cc begins they're packed together afterwards.

As also a tau player I'm used to having to rely on rediculous amounts of luck to take things down with shooting.

Unless in area terrain cover save is limited to a certain arc of effectiveness.

Tau are used to speed bumping fast armies. Remember that 2 squads cant go every direction at once. Some star engines to boost right past the nobs Yes I said past.
Use mobility to break up his line. Stay on the edges to draw him away from the objectives. Spread out to where he can charge only one unit at a time. Cheap sacrificial squads to speed bump and consolidate them for your next round of firing.

Ridiculous amounts of luck or applied tactics. Stategy doesn't stop when you put the pen down.


Edited for spelling

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2008/12/31 05:11:24


Officially elevated by St. God of Yams to the rank of Scholar of the Church of the Children of the Eternal Turtle Pie at 11:42:36 PM 05/01/09

If they are too stupid to live, why make them?

In the immortal words of Socrates, I drank what??!

Tau-*****points(You really don't want to know)  
   
Made in us
Devastating Dark Reaper






If the nobs were spread across the board they would be easy to kill. Centurian99, what do you think about the jetseer mindwaring the painboy then dooming the unit? Then another Farseer in the back guiding the shooties. It wouldn't bother me if I lost the jetseer either. I'm not sure about the math-hammer but it seems this would greatly increase the odds in your favor(Eldar).

 
   
Made in us
Prospector with Steamdrill




I say there is nothing you can do the orks rock.

2500 pts
Dwarfs 4000pts
 
   
Made in us
Fireknife Shas'el




All over the U.S.

(Off-topic) It's sad how many parents just let their kids loose to wander the web. Unsupervised they get into trouble start hanging out with unsavory Ork types. It's just a cryin' shame, I tell ya.

Officially elevated by St. God of Yams to the rank of Scholar of the Church of the Children of the Eternal Turtle Pie at 11:42:36 PM 05/01/09

If they are too stupid to live, why make them?

In the immortal words of Socrates, I drank what??!

Tau-*****points(You really don't want to know)  
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




FAQ says coversave applies to mindwar. Also, these wounds can be FnP'd. kinda nerfs that idea.
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut






Springhurst, VIC, Australia

too bad you can take 3-4 vortex grenades lol

DC:90+S++G++MB+I+Pw40k98-ID++A++/hWD284R++T(T)DM+

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Towering Hierophant Bio-Titan



UK

0ldsk00l wrote:FAQ says coversave applies to mindwar. Also, these wounds can be FnP'd. kinda nerfs that idea.


These wounds that are caused by str 7 or lowerr can, Yes. Cover? Yus. it can. Everything bar cc gets a cover save nowadays unless your:

On your own, in the open, not gone to ground, without any special wargear. So I can deal with the cover save. The jetseer squad can always detatch and leave the mindwar seer to jet around & live another turn.

All this turboboosting, I bought this up in the tau stealthfield thread - You cant turboboost (as a nobz bike) through a unit and if you dont travel more than 18'', you just get a 4+

If you travel through difficult terrain while turboboosting (or just normally on bikes?) you aquire wounds for the entire squad, indvidually per model. No allocation. --This is what Im assuming people are prepared to recieve as theyve been able to boost to every corner of the map.

But, how I see it, just as you block lanes of fire with units.. you can block lanes of travel with units & as ive mentioned, some arent quite so sacraficial as they can easily do thier points in damage. Also if you do pump enough wounds into a nobz squad after the nth one, you start loosing nobz so thier not immune to mass str 7 > firepower.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2008/12/31 16:07:25


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Friend of mine just sent me this:

"The Tyranid Codex, where I learned the truth about despair, as will you. There's a reason why this codex is the worst hell on earth... Hope. ."
Too be fair.. it's all worked out quite well!

Heh.  
   
 
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