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I'm going up against a friend of mine in an escalation league.

1500 points. Purge the alien. Battle forged

How will a biker army do up against an IG army?

Should I bring melta guns or grav gun his tanks down?

He usually brings that IG tank HQ with a 20 shot gun. And I'm guessing he's bringing his imperial knight

I am thinking about bringing:

MotF on bike with thunder hammer and conversion Beamer, May dump the TH due to the fact I would rather keep him back and fire CB. Or chapter master with TH, Storm shield Articifer Armor on a bike

Librarian on a bike, shield eternal level 2 psyker

Command squad with SS's with either Melta's or Grav guns. Definitely melta bombs too

Troops, two Six man biker squads with melta guns or grav guns.

Fast attack, storm talon with sky hammer

Imperial knight errant

I don't have to bring a biker army, I can go traditional but I kinda want to try my biker army.

Tips for bikes vs IG:

Hit hard and fast, focusing on force concentration. Don't try and engage his whole army at once, concentrate on one bit at a time and take him apart piecemeal.

Prioritise the high-damage and buffing units first, so in this case the Knight, the Tank Commander and any Psykers/Order-givers he has. I'd take Melta for the tanks, I don't like Grav, but that's largely preference.

In a 1500 game, if he's got a Knight and a Tank Commander, then you're looking at 7-900 points of other stuff. This will likely be a couple of Infantry Platoons (kill the Command squad to cut off orders) or a few Veteran Squads in Chimeras (pop the Chimeras and have another unit ready to finish them off, either in assault or shooting)

Play the mission. If it's Kill Points, and you have 1 bike left in a squad, get him out of there and deny the point rather than going for a last stand.

Hope that helps, the list looks solid to me.

What chapter tactics should I use? It's a generic bike army

If it's a homemade Chapter, White Scars all the way. They get a whole bunch of bonuses to bikes.

Ugh, he's bringing 2 imperial knights. Gonna have to ignore them and bike rush one unit at a time.

Knights are a problem for bikes, with their Battlecannon/Meltacannon. Still, bike squads with Meltas/multimelta attack bike/combimelta sarge should handle them OK. And meltas are superior to grav guns against vehicles generally, especially superheavies that cannot be immobilized.

I would also consider running Khan, as scout on bike units is rather handy.

i don't own Khan yet, and we're not allowed to proxy main characters. but I've definitely considered this option. i just have a ton of models I'm trying to finish before i buy more stuff.

There is no Khan on bike model, so proxy away.

You won't be in melta range anyway turn 1 so give him first turn and try to stay out of LOS. Then jink and turboboost everybody toward the tank commander. Waste him in assault and then usethe wreckage for cover. Troops will probably be flanked by armor so you should be able to assault them after pask is dead. Roll the line and try to pop out the other side to melt then hammer the knights.

Usually bikes are a shooting army but against squishy stuff like guard and tau I'd use jink to protect myself then get stuck in, as much to hide from his guns as kill him.

Move the shield eternal over to the master and drop the librarian. I don't always use khan but for this mission he will be good. You can go after the knights first also just hit the armor on one side, crunch it, then roll up the flank. You don't have to annihilate him either, once the armor is gone you can probably just run around grabbing objectives.

I would hide in melee combat as much as possible. You have zero chance, read, zero chance of beating an IG army in a firefight with bikers, even flamer bikers.

As noted above, take his army apart one by one.

Moved to 40k Tactics forum.

I suggest DA actually. pack as much melta as you can and throw in some black knights (alot of them)

Lol, well he won, he brought a list I wasn't expecting.

Command squad
2 vet squads
All in reserves

Allies Eldar,
Wraithknight
10 guardians with wave serpent
Farseer

2x imperial knight errants

We tied 7 - 7 but I lost because I stupidly flew my flyer off the board and he killed my two last command squad guys on bikes with his last imperial knight.