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Khan outflanking bikes is very good as well as nob bikers being a list to be feared. Bikes aren't too common because of the cash price to field them is pretty prohibitive. Space Marine bikers aren't exactly cheap and you need to get bits to convert them to what you need. Nob bikers also aren't exactly cheap either.

labmouse
you said: "turbo boost helps here..."
yeah but you have to drop out of warp speed to do anything... and then you're just a toughness 5 marine


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imo the only way to buy bikes is in the raven wing battle force. 15$ a piece is silly, but at $100 for about 1/4 of your army it's not too bad. Even though you don't get many models, you don't need very many to play that army either.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:To interject on the motorcycle conversation..... I own and ride a cbr 600 and I can tell you that it's perfectly safe to take your hands off the handlebars when you're doing anything over 30 mph. I've seen people stand up on their bikes and ride them like a surfboard while doing 60 and over. All together in combat the motorcycle would be as dangerous to the rider as to the target. Shooting would be both distracting and highly inaccurate, because even if they aren't moving, you are, and probably pretty fast. In close combat if you hit someone with your motorcycle it would probably throw you; if you tried to hit them with a sword or a lance, it would probably throw you. You'd get the guy you're trying to kill, but you'd get hurt too. If you rode through difficult terrain, at least on a modern bike, you'd get thrown off. In fairness though 40k bikes have very wide tires and look a hell of alot heavier than modern bikes, so as long as you didn't ride them too fast they could be used alot like horses. Ofcourse you'd have to have a way to control them with your feet, like knights did their horses, in order to make it useful in combat...

The turbo boost rules capture this situation pretty well all together.... once you pull the throttle back you're driving and not doing anything else.
AF

Well, think about how fast a running guardsman can move (at most 12 inches) How fast can a SM bike move if it is going to shoot? 12 inches. Hmmm I'm betting that they stop and take pot shots. SM bikes aren't very fast if you think about what a normal units movement is. Only 3 times faster than a guy walking even when going flat out? Its pretty obvious that the bikes movement is being slowed by terrain. I imagine Space marine probably don't even need handle bars, they can control their power armor through their skin, I imagine that they could have some sort of link to the bike. Maybe the handle bars are just relics of design, fail safe manual, or a convenient place to put the controls for subsystems.

I imagine that weapons could be designed to work better on the back of the bike, I imagine a power sword wouldn't meet much resistance (and transfer as much kinetic energy) There is probably other weapons that can avoid the pitfalls of large exchanges of kinetic energy and still be a lethal attack. Think of something like a cavalry saber (which flexes) or a lance (which is going to break if it hits something too hard) Chain (not chainswords, but actual chains) based weapons such as flails would work probably, unless they got tangled on your enemy and the biker tried to hold on. Keep in mind its a space marine doing the swinging. Or you could avoid all those pitfalls and assume in CC that the biker GET OFF and fight. Maybe they pick up the bikes and swing them?(to justify still having T5 in CC) Who knows, they are space marines, they could probably do it.

wow. silly comment.

You can turbo boost 24".

a jump pack can move 18", and generally not assault.

Bikes really cool think is that they are able to assault, meaning they can go as far as 18" in one phase, and still shoot.

more then a guardsman can do, eh?

Which is still pretty slow. Most peoples walking movement over clear terrain is 3 miles per hour (in combat you try to move quicker, but there are things in the way, so its a wash at best). So a biker moving as fast as it can in battle is going 12 miles per hour?

notabot

I suppose it's a strait comparison between their movement then the turbo boost should just let you pick up your bike and put it anywhere on the board you want..... maybe those big clunky bikes can't accelerate like a modern one can? For their movement though yeah, it seems like they could still travel 12" and stop to shoot....

for swinging with a weapon, anything that flexed would probably be ok..... yes it's the sheer amount of kinetic energy being transferred that makes these weapons so dangerous. Water is very yielding if you just touch it, but very hard if you slam into it at 100mph. Hitting someone with a sword while passing them at 60mph would be like swinging as hard as you can with a baseball bat at a telephone pole, only worse.... I can see the power sword just slicing through something like a light saber. I think the lance would transfer alot of energy before it broke, potentially lifting you off the bike... Then again you might not need a close combat weapon at all - if the bike is large and sturdy enough you could just run them over with it.

AF

You have to remember that Marines weigh something like 700-800 pounds fully armored. Being unseated by punching someone as you zoom by, or cleaving them in half with your chainsword isn't a major issue.

to Solon: I'm not sure what you ment by saying probably I think a "cavalry charge is cool", but whatever...

1. i am soooo tired of hearing what the Germans DID in WWII. the key word is "DID". modern armys dont use them anymore because other than for mobility purposes(ei. scouting, not fighting), they are not a good idea.

2. the whole spraying bullets argument about shooting from a bike (or a horse for that matter) is silly. anyody can pull a trigger while on the back of either. the reality is if you do it while moving you will not hit your target. think of the terrain in a battlefield enviornment. not exactly glass smooth.even on a "smooth road" while in a moving car, try aiming something. you will find it nearly imposible to stay on target. anybody with shooting (particularly military) experience knows that moving while shooting at anything beyond say 25 feet is barely even able to be called suppresive fire. M1s and other modern Main Battle Tanks can shoot while moving due to very hi tech and sophisticated gyroscopic stabilisation devices (and a dedicated gunner or TC) used to keep the gun steady. but even they miss. you can empty an entire magazine of any weapon by shooting from the hip, firing as fast as you can, but odds are you will not hit anything. spray and pray is the phrase that best fits but even it doesnt convey the extremly low likleyhood of hitting your target this way

in modern war the best use of a motorcycle would probably be to get you to the target faster. then you would dismount and fight on foot. That's what forrest did in the american civil war.... The actual combat usefulness of a motorcycle would be practically none. It would be more dangerous to the rider than to the enemy.

In 40k I think berserk geno-enhanced techno-knights are too cool

OK - anyone ever use the scout bikes? They sound cool - they lay mines (before the game) and can carry a grenade launcher and teleport homers. I was thinking of running a squad of 3 with a SM Pod army. Anyone have luck with these fellas?

Plus their job sounds like something motorcycles can actually do - recon & disruption.

Doesn't translate too well to the game.
They are generally used as a suicidal tool that will usually take out something the opponent doesn't want around early in the game.

They are a bit gimmicky and generally depend on a specific sequence of events to line up for them to do their terrible deeds.

IMO, if they scored with a biker captain, I'd be all over them... but they don't and take up a highly contested Fast Attack slot...just not my cup of tea.