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I propose that Bikes no longer provide +1 T.

What do y'all think?

This first came up because SM bikes are basically Tacs/ASM+1, whereas they should be mobile Tacs in open ground.

SMs, in their power armor, should be at least as resilient as their bikes. If it can pierce power armor, surely it'll ding the Bike just as hard. SM bikes would still be great, but not so stupid en masse.

For CSM, it just makes sense. Take Nurgle for toughness. Bikes for mobility. Why would a Tzeech marine on a bike be just as Tough as a Nurgle marine on foot? And Nurgle Bikers? A strange artefact of the current rules. Yes, they don't need a nerf, but it wouldn't be too big, and fits the fluff much better.
I don't think it'll affect Windrjders much. Clean shots with small arms at them would be even more deadly, but that doesn't seem to change much. Besides, they are kinda bonkers now.

Dark Eldar bikers die from any reasonable amount of firepower. Now, it takes marginally less firepower. Again, no real change.

Harliquin bikes don't need this nerf, but it won't affect them much either.

Orkz are the only faction that this would actually hurt. But Ork bikers already need love. I miss my speedfreak opponents.

So what do you think? Good idea/bad idea? What have I missed?

Bikes making their rider tougher is just one of the things that doesn't make sense in 40k.
It's just like the riptide being a MC and a dreadnought being a vehicle.

That said, I personally wouldn't want it changed. Doing so would mean that bikes would have to become cheaper to compensate, meaning a bike army would need more models to play.

I find the current state of the game on the big side of things already.

I do agree that bikes shouldn't give +1T and I think that Terminators should gain +1T instead.

Bikes don't need to be cheaper; they just need to be kicked out of the troops section.

SGTPozy wrote:
I do agree that bikes shouldn't give +1T and I think that Terminators should gain +1T instead.

Bikes don't need to be cheaper; they just need to be kicked out of the troops section.

Is this about the Eldar? Because White Scars marines are costed fine right now, and would deserve a price drop if you got rid of +1 T.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:

SGTPozy wrote:
I do agree that bikes shouldn't give +1T and I think that Terminators should gain +1T instead.

Bikes don't need to be cheaper; they just need to be kicked out of the troops section.

Is this about the Eldar? Because White Scars marines are costed fine right now, and would deserve a price drop if you got rid of +1 T.

No, its more about SM bikes for me as I hate how they are faster, have better guns (being TL) and have better survivability (+1T AND jink).

I just hate bikes so much (but that might just be because I play Tau and Tyranids; both of which suffer to them loads) and I think that they'd be fine without the +1T as they'll still have jink, 12" movement and TL boltguns.

Yes they are good, but they are not OP or anything.

If you want to remove +1T from them though I want them 4ppm cheaper. The loss in survivability is very noticeable. Things like plasma suddenly have instant death again, and makes things like command squads useless practically.

Right now Space Marines are using bikes as a crutch for pretty much any competitive scenario, and they STILL aren't even close to top dog. Don't kick our crutch from under us please!

Is this a bad thing? Maybe fluff-wise, but we all know how well GW does representing the Space Marine fluff in their game .

If you want to advocate a change because it "doesn't make sense" fluff-wise instead of mechanically then why don't we give all Space Marines T5 to represent them in the fluff?

Of course they're not OP but they are extremely annoying.

Another thing that I find silly is how a bike is T5 yet a Broadside is only T4 even though it is the size of a Dreadnought.

You'll still have Scouts (who came 2nd in a tournament didn't they?)

If Marines become T5 then everything in the game would need a boost of +1T and guns +1S etc since the game is balanced around marines.

Bikes have always been okay, but were still rarely seen outside bike-specific armies of Ravenwing, White Scars, and Siam-Hann. That all changed with jink. I think GW was looking for something, as for a while bikes got an Invul save when turbo-boosting, but lost all ability to shoot and charge. The current rules makes it so that bikes are really quite good, and are (for the most part) finally appropriately costed.

There's still clean-up to do (the "fire a weapon for each rider" doesn't make a lot of sense... as that's a modelling choice and not a codex option), but they're getting better.

Personally, I think Jink should go down to a 5+ instead of 4+, but that we're really close to idealized version for these units.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
Bikes making their rider tougher is just one of the things that doesn't make sense in 40k.
It's just like the riptide being a MC and a dreadnought being a vehicle.

That said, I personally wouldn't want it changed. Doing so would mean that bikes would have to become cheaper to compensate, meaning a bike army would need more models to play.

I find the current state of the game on the big side of things already.

WH40k in a nut shell. "things that doesn't make sense"
The rules, the fluff, the point costing, everything.. Just does not make sense. absolutely no logic.

I agree, bikes should be a speed upgrade not a "make the unit better in every conceivable way" upgrade. Jink is more than enough of a speed/dodge benefit, they don't need +1 T too.

I think a larger issue is how Eldar bikers are the only ones who inexplicably get a +2 bump to their armor save out of nowhere.

 Eldarain wrote:
I think a larger issue is how Eldar bikers are the only ones who inexplicably get a +2 bump to their armor save out of nowhere.

I agree, this is a really strange thing. It's just so clearly inconsistent... I really like symmetry in my game mechanics, a little too much, so when stuff like that comes up I start frothing at the mouth. When I read that Ork Painboys can still take Cybork bodies, I practically had a seizure.

How about everyone starts modelling bikers as wearing their bikes as armour?

Actually, there is a reason that bikes do get a boost to their toughness.

Toughness isn't necessarily how likely a model is to die from a bullet. It's whether or not getting hit by a bullet will hurt him enough that he can't fight anymore. Just because a marine gets shot up by a plasma gun doesn't necessarily mean he'll die.... he might just lose his legs, or lose his shooting arm, or pass out from loss of blood, not necessarily be completely dead. Wounded in action is still a casualty.

Compare now a biker to a walking marine. Shoot both of them in the leg. Who can still move around the battlefield just fine? Shoot off an arm.... who can still fire his bolter with one arm? Lose a lot of blood, who's going to pass out first.... the guy running around, or the guy sitting casually on his bike?

If you're able to sit down, not have legs, and only need 1 arm, while still being fully combat effective, you're considered to be harder to wound. Back to where I started, how does 40k represent a model's ability to keep fighting after getting shot? Toughness.

A dreadnought wrecked by autocannons doesn't mean the marine inside is dead, a wraithlord that had its shins punched out by terminators might just be crippled, and a terminator hit by an explosion not strong enough to penetrate his armor might have just been knocked out.

Casualty does not equal dead. Toughness defines how much you can take before you're out of commission.

A round snapping a critical gear in the bike would take an SM out of his squad just as readily as puncturing both hearts. But is probably no harder to do...

There is a reason cavalry didn't ride into combat much in the early-ish modern era...

 kingbobbito wrote:

A dreadnought wrecked by autocannons doesn't mean the marine inside is dead

Apart from kinda already being 'dead', but I digress.

Bharring wrote:A round snapping a critical gear in the bike would take an SM out of his squad just as readily as puncturing both hearts. But is probably no harder to do...

There is a reason cavalry didn't ride into combat much in the early-ish modern era...

But that's just it.... you don't need to puncture both hearts on a marine, you just need to take off a tac marine's leg and he can't fight anymore. Sure, if plasma hits a bike, it's going to rip right through it. But a bullet actually hurting a bike? Assume the bike is as armored as the marine.... will a bullet be more likely to hurt any body part that might render me useless, such as a leg (you can't charge someone on one leg), or is it more likely to damage a car engine? You're going to hit useless framework, or hit something solid.... a bullet that already lost speed going through armor is less likely to hurt an engine block than it is to hurt my leg.

We always assume that when a model "dies" in the game that you're ripping off all his limbs, staking his heart, and stuffing his decapitated head with garlic. Such is not the case. A bullet to the leg cripples a marine, period. Losing your leg puts you out of the fight if you're on foot. Where that same bullet now will do next to nothing unless it hits something vital on a bike. And the majority of the bike is useless framework, unlike a marine where a bullet anywhere hits stuff he probably needs. Hands, arms, feet, legs.... not dead, just incapacitated.

And the reason we don't use cavalry is that A) if we're talking horses, the answer is obvious B) our guys aren't wearing power armor and need the protection of an armored vehicle C) we don't use swords anymore. The whole premise of riding on a bike instead of a jeep rides on the fact that he can survive small arms fire, and that for whatever reason marines like to hit stuff with swords. If you're in a tank how can you punch stuff! Heck, at least half of the stuff we do in the future would be dumb using modern day equipment. I'm just waiting to see soldiers in the middle east flying around with jetpacks and swords!

Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:

 kingbobbito wrote:

A dreadnought wrecked by autocannons doesn't mean the marine inside is dead

Apart from kinda already being 'dead', but I digress.

Yep, never fully got the whole "in death I still serve" thing. So he is like, definitely, unarguably dead when they stick him in there? Or just "dead"?

Toughness defines how much you can take before you're out of commission.

I totally agree with your statement, but disagree on its application with bike toughness.

Riding a bike to battle is inherently more dangerous than fighting on foot, and so many more things can go wrong.

A marine could get shot in the leg but continue to ride, but at the same time his bike is vulnerable to mechanical damage, a blown out tyre, a combustable fuel source etc etc.

A shot or explosion that would knock a marine of his feet, is inherently more dangerous to a marine is traveling at high speeds on a bike.

 kingbobbito wrote:

Yep, never fully got the whole "in death I still serve" thing. So he is like, definitely, unarguably dead when they stick him in there? Or just "dead"?

The way I see it, you've got a marine who is so incredibly badly injured that, despite all the conditioning and bio-engineering, is going to die but isn't dead yet. He has centuries of battle experience and skill that can't be allowed to pass on, so you stuff him in a sarcophagus that will give him enough life support to keep his mind alive and then you wire that into a massive walking tank when you need him.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
A shot or explosion that would knock a marine of his feet, is inherently more dangerous to a marine is traveling at high speeds on a bike.

While I can agree with this, it's sadly too complex at that point to make it work in the rules. Against stray bullets a bike is more durable, against an explosion being on foot is better.... so they had to just pick one or the other. And to be fair, most of the explosions that would matter are already S7 or higher, as a frag grenade going off near a marine probably won't cause a reaction.

Throw in that there are rules to account for riding a bike to be hard, in that they need to take dangerous terrain tests. It'd just be a tad too much if explosions made them check dangerous too.

Also, I have always been curious, I wonder if you can blow out a space marine tire? Or would they have future tech to make harder tires, or even just use a solid rubber tire so you can't pop it?

 Eldarain wrote:
I think a larger issue is how Eldar bikers are the only ones who inexplicably get a +2 bump to their armor save out of nowhere.

this!

I want bikes to act more like flyers/FMCs, their attacks more like Vector Striking (though with an opportunity for the other side to hit back) and speed being their biggest strength. +1 Toughness isn't what irks me about bikes, it's the whole "ride right up to the enemy, stop, then sit on your bike and fight four rounds of combat". Bikers should either have to dismount to be locked in combat, or do their hits in a single charge like real cavalry.

If you don't think bikes add toughness, please do the following.

Walk into your local watering hole. The seedier the better.
Proudly and defiantly claim "Bikers aren't tough!"
Try to escape alive.

 Green is Best! wrote:
If you don't think bikes add toughness, please do the following.

Walk into your local watering hole. The seedier the better.
Proudly and defiantly claim "Bikers aren't tough!"
Try to escape alive.

In my country, people would probably either completely ignore you or just give you weird looks with the occasional shouting of something barely coherent about flags.

It all makes sense now!

I at least think they should at least lose the ability to Jink and instead pass that rule onto Jump Pack infantry instead. As is, there's very little reason to take Jump Packs over bikes given all the benefits they get with guaranteed HoW, 12" turbo boost, twin-linked weaponry and relentless.