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 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I'm of two minds about it: one the one hand, I like the no-nonsense look of it right now, but it on the other hand, it doesn't scream ravenwing.

Uh, yeah, it currently screams "I am sitting on a Mars class cruiser". Have you considered removing the obvious macro cannons, fighter bays, etc.?

It's actually a Dictator, but I don't want to sound pedantic.

I was actually thinking about shortening the front end by one section. I actually enjoy the look of the fighter bays, as massive air intakes for the jet engine. Macro cannons, not so much. I might cut it off. What about the back? I have some of the feathered poles, but should I? I just don't know.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
It's actually a Dictator, but I don't want to sound pedantic.

I was actually thinking about shortening the front end by one section. I actually enjoy the look of the fighter bays, as massive air intakes for the jet engine. Macro cannons, not so much. I might cut it off. What about the back? I have some of the feathered poles, but should I? I just don't know.

Its a WIP, it won't always look like a SM riding his favorite childhood toy Dictator.

Any rate, I think it has lots of potential to be awesome. You should open a thread for this WIP so I can Sub.

Umm....

I actually like it. Kind of clever, very gothic....in fact, kind of cool.

However, shouldn't that be in one of the modeling threads?

Just askin....

He had mentioned that he was working on that, so I asked him to post his WIP. Because it was relevant to the thread talking about jet bikes. Sorry if you disagree, blame me if you wish.

No blame really....just an observation that the thread had gone a bit...on a tangent.

Perhaps think of it as me saying that I think the bike IS neat enough of a WIP to deserve its own thread in another forum?

Anyway....back to DA....
As a guy enamored with bikes - I am very interested in a new DA dex. I am curious as to what jet bikes would bring ....over bikes and at what cost (yes, I know tactically what they bring...).

I already have a sizable investment in bikes (oh, you don't want to know...) I welcome new stuff...but also am not always fond of the recent trend to make the newer models the best units in a dex.

I am however, especially interested new bike options, possible jet bike units (command squad? vets only?) and a new flyer/speeder thing...

I'd like to see jetbikes replace the attack bike or have a bunch of them in lieu of the landspeeder in the ravenwing assault squadron. Keep the support squadron full of landspeeder goodness.

A single jetbike with either a heavy bolter of multi-melta, just like it is right now, but with a single wound to compensate for the added mobility.

Then a few jetbikes with assault cannons, for some serious suppression fire.

Stickmonkey wrote:Troops:
Terminators
Tactical squad
Ravenwing Bike squad not sure how it differs from ravenwing assault squad. Current attack squadron 6 bikes 1 attack bike and a Land Speeder

FA:
Ravenwing assault squad
Ravenwing support squad Current support squad, 5 Land Speeders
Assault marines
Ravenclaw air superiority fighter

I believe Ravenwing assault squadron will be full jetbikes with min 3 max 5 or 10.

But jetbikes would count as scoring units? I don't seem them as a valid way of holding ground. I'm interested in your rationale though.

Stickmonkey mentions three types of ravenwing: bike squad in the troops, assault and support in the FA. I assume support squadron is the same full Land Speeder squadron and the bike squadron is the current attack squadron. Therefore the assault squadron should be the one with the jetbikes, it also fits the knight theme. I don't understand your question about the objective holding, can you clarify?

Stickmonkey wrote:Just a bit to clarify, as people are getting wild here...

Ravenwing Bike Squad (new troops marine bike squadRON of unknown composition)
Ravenwing Assault Squad (Seems to be the existing attack squadRON, i.e. 3 bikes base, add up to 3 bikes, add attack bike add landspeeder)
Ravenwing Support Squad (Seems to be the existing support squadRON i.e. up to 5 landspeeders)

None of these are even remotely space marines on bikes with jump packs.
And no one has said anything about any of these units being jetbikes.
Also no confirmation names are changing, from "attack" to "assault", just reported to me as "assault"

Cheers.

That's a bummer. So is jetbike rumor false or for another unit?

Good, whole jetbike thing would have been silly.

I don't think jetbikes were ever anything beyond wishlisting and conjecture based on Sammael.

Notice how SM did not confirm or deny jetbikes. His sources have just not seen or heard about them.

Edit: I wouldn't really hold my breath for them though

In a codex where bikers and terminators are now expected to be troops, you'd expect an 'elite' version of the two to still exist to further enforce the ideas behind the ravenwing and deathwing. I'm sorry, but just making bikers and terminators troops isn't enough in my opinion. Even if the goal is to move away from deathwing/ravenwing lists and back to dark angels lists, you'd still expect terminators and bikers to stand out in a DA list more than in Space Wolves or even Grey Knights.

Jetbikes would certainly do that. 'Jousting' Knights on bikes may do it too if we're to believe an assault squadron is designed around assaulting bikes. Especially with the new power lance and chariot rules. But a plasma cannon toting terminator? Going to need more than that.

As a Dark Angel player, I want to play Dark Angels. I'm not interested playing special-toys-bells-whistles-chapter which tries to be 'different' for sake of it. If I wanted that, I'd play Grey Knights or Space Wolves.

 Cyrax wrote:
Stickmonkey mentions three types of ravenwing: bike squad in the troops, assault and support in the FA. I assume support squadron is the same full Land Speeder squadron and the bike squadron is the current attack squadron. Therefore the assault squadron should be the one with the jetbikes, it also fits the knight theme. I don't understand your question about the objective holding, can you clarify?

It seems to be moot as the whole jetbike thing seems to have been kabashed, but here goes:

If there were going to be jetbikes, and those were going to be available as troops, would it not be weird, since troops are usually used to secure objectives, and jetbikes do not seem very well suited for that role. A real life example: None of the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi were really able to hold prisoners, or even a position for a long time.

Yes, that was humour. Sorry.

But since it would make more sense to have as either elite, fast attack, or not at all it seems, they I withdraw my objection, ladies and gentlemen of the court.

Agreed a guy on a normally bike can be expected to actually hold a objective or location by getting off of the bike should the need arise. If a jet bike is super rare and impossible to recreate they would risk losing the objective normally over losing the bike. The idea of jetbike troops really seem like wish listing and cool as it might be Im not sure I would like it.

Well, that is the thing. StickMonkey is a pretty good rumour-monger, but if we go to the rumour-tracking thread his hit rate is on the fair side of 50/50. So depending on where most of his rumours are coming from (assuming multiple sources and equal distribution from them) half of what he is reporting may be inaccurate (and he makes sure to point this out in his own posts). Despite conducting himself like a jackass, TastyTaste has pretty good track record (though a ton pending right now may upshift or downshift that by a fair margin). Given that knowledge TT's prediction of Jetbikes is a pretty solid one. We will still need to see, but Tasty is a bit more of a solid source. So if we have to compare and contrast based on track records then the Jetbike is actually looking likely (I had kind of given up on it, so this surprised me).

Could still be a load of bunk, but with Tasty saying something it lends an air of actual credibility to what simply seemed like baseless wishlisting. I suppose we will see.

Up to 5 land speeders in a squad sweet!

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
...If there were going to be jetbikes, and those were going to be available as troops, would it not be weird, since troops are usually used to secure objectives, and jetbikes do not seem very well suited for that role. A real life example: None of the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi were really able to hold prisoners, or even a position for a long time. ...

I didn't mean jetbikes would be troops. I've falsely assumed 6 bikes+attack bike+Land Speeder formation to be the troops and the assault squadron in the FA to be the jetbikes.

 Rex-Nine wrote:
Up to 5 land speeders in a squad sweet!

You can do that using the current codex.

@Cyrax: alrighty. We were in agreement, I had just misunderstood you.

Imo, it depends if they have a teleporter beacon or not, Sure, they grant T5 to the rider, but I just don't see a squad of them being that über unsupported. Hence I think it might be a bit more wishlisty than based in truth.

I would wish for them...

Although... It does reek of silliness... As was stated before: Sammael is supposed to have the last existing Imperial jetbike... Sooooooo...

Maybe they'll ret-con it like Hollywood did with Clash of the Titans... Pegasus was the last remaining winged-horse, and Pegasus was his personal name... NOT the name of the herd... Changed to, oh, look there are lots and lots of pegasi... And the stallion looks like a night-mare... Hmmmm...

I would still use them... And be thankful for the cool models...

Or maybe DA just lied about the existing jetbikes.

 Ronin_eX wrote:
Well, that is the thing. StickMonkey is a pretty good rumour-monger, but if we go to the rumour-tracking thread his hit rate is on the fair side of 50/50. So depending on where most of his rumours are coming from (assuming multiple sources and equal distribution from them) half of what he is reporting may be inaccurate (and he makes sure to point this out in his own posts). Despite conducting himself like a jackass, TastyTaste has pretty good track record (though a ton pending right now may upshift or downshift that by a fair margin). Given that knowledge TT's prediction of Jetbikes is a pretty solid one. We will still need to see, but Tasty is a bit more of a solid source. So if we have to compare and contrast based on track records then the Jetbike is actually looking likely (I had kind of given up on it, so this surprised me).

Could still be a load of bunk, but with Tasty saying something it lends an air of actual credibility to what simply seemed like baseless wishlisting. I suppose we will see.

Take a look at Tasty's longterm predictions. They are really low. Whereas Stickmonkey is about 50/50 on longterm. TT is boosted by him having the Chaos codex 3 months early and posting a ton of stuff from it. I still consider Stickmonkey's longterm better than Tasty's.

I guess this has been answered already but what's with this:

The new major unit for Dark Angels is something Games Workshop is currently in court over over with a certain other company that already made them. If that doesn’t ring a bell, let me say it is a unit that perhaps only the Masters of the 2nd Companies would know about.

What does that mean?

 Testify wrote:
I guess this has been answered already but what's with this:

The new major unit for Dark Angels is something Games Workshop is currently in court over over with a certain other company that already made them. If that doesn’t ring a bell, let me say it is a unit that perhaps only the Masters of the 2nd Companies would know about.

What does that mean?

It implies jetbikes. It seems like most people consider the inclusion of a unit of jetbikes at this point to be extremely unlikely.

I have been playing Ravenwing as my main army since 2nd edition, and I would give my left testicle for jetbikes