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I've had a bunch of half finished White Scars kicking around for years, and now that Apothecary White has unlocked speed painting, I'm finally going to build some arms this week. I'll run a group of 4-5 Company Vets on Bikes (Index) alongside some combination of TH/SS Captain, Chaplain, Ancient, and Khan to be the main target for the WS advance/shoot/charge stratagem.

How many additional Thunder Hammers do I want in the squad vs. Power Sword or other options? How many Storm Shields (and can the Sgt. even take one)? Should I throw in some ranged upgrades? I might even magnetize a couple of arms to experiment... I have the Black Knights box to work with.

All advice welcome!

With Bolter Discipline, I'd be inclined towards Storm Bolter + Storm Shield for a durable squad that can pour on the heat against hordes.

Bikes dont want to be in cc, they are not that good at it and dropping a lot of special weapons in a squad is asking for people to shoot at them.

If your going to do it then chainsword, stormshield on the normal guys and a thunderhammer on the srg is the best way, but you need to do a 5 man squad to make it semi cost effective.

Sadly the white scar chapter trait works better on assault marines. Ultramarines work better for bikers.

Yeah, these are details I've suspected. Hopefully WS get some updates at some point. For now, I'm committed to this chapter and will probably build along these lines, all on bikes:

Khan (for the WT & rerolls)
Chaplain (for the rerolls)
Apothecary (to stand expensive models back up)
Vet Sgt w/ TH
Vet w/ CS & SS
Vet w/ CS & SS
Vet w/ PS & SS

(Is a +1A from a chainsword worth saving 4 points and giving up the AP compared to a power sword? I had imagined PS being worth the points on S4 models who will usually fight first.)

I'll run a second knot of bikes with:
Captain w/ TH & SS (for the rerolls)
Apothecary (to stand expensive models back up)
Ancient (to get off extra melta shots)
3 Bikers: Melta/Melta/Combi-Melta
3 Bikers: Melta/Melta/Combi-Melta

And a third group:
Librarian
Scout Bikers (however many I can afford, for Dakka and to screen the Libby as he goes where needed)

I'll fill out the rest with Scouts, Scout Snipers, and Tacticals w/ AC Razorbacks (which should make up for the Stormbolters I don't take on the Bikes).

I'll play close range melta, turn one charges, volume of dice, and mobility/board control. Not super competitive, but fun, flavorful composed of models I own (but have to build), and quick to paint (low model count + contrast paints!).

Thanks for the thoughts, keep 'em coming!

So I counted bikes and I have three extra... should they be more Veterans tooled for melee, meat shields for the special weapons, or a third MSU bike squad?

Meat shields are useful. Especially since your not running dark angels, you can't rely on the 4++ save on those bikes.

One thing i have had a lot of luck with in the past were individual attack bikes with multimeltas. Fast enough to get in range, small enough to get easily ignored or overlooked, cheap enough that losing one isnt a huge deal, and effective once they stop moving. Or a heavy bolter bike, only 37 pts for 14" t5 4w, thats a pretty good cost to weapon comparison.

Removed.