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So I'm thinking about putting a mob of Nob Bikes in my 2000 point army. How many is a good size? I was thinking maybe 2 mobs of 5 or so. What kind of gear should I give them?

More than one mob will reduce your model count too much. So keep it at one mob.
I've been fielding five of them ever since I've started playing and have never had the urge to add more. Two PKs, a Waagh! Banner, a boss pole, a painboy and cybork bodies are mandatory, combi-skorchas and big choppas are good, but optional.

Do you take them with a biker boss to make them troops jidmah? Or do you just take them as elites?

Kind of curious as I've seen people run them both ways and was wondering if you really need them to be scoring when they're supposed to be kicking teeth in all game.

Always scoring, I often deploy the warboss with them to go separate ways at some point in the game, sometimes rejoining later on. Sometimes I have a warboss (or even Thrakka) doing something completely different than his "retinue".

The reason to field them as troops (besides more room for lootaz, burnaz and tanbustaz) is simple. If they survive till the end of the game (which they should unless something has gone horribly wrong) they can single-handedly tip the scales in your favor by charging and killing a unit holding an objective. That's a 6 VP swing right there, few games are not decided by that. Another option is simply turbo-boosting onto an empty objective. Not as impressive, but often still a game-winner.

There is no way you should spend a nob bikers worth of points on a single unit if they are not scoring.

Then the unit actually has a habit of staying alive until the end of the game.

Spend points on them. I agree on the klaw, bosspole, painboy, cyborg bodies as necessary. I would see the banner as a nice extra also a second bosspole is very useful.
I like 6 or so, you can spend too many points on them.

I would venture that the warboss should not go with the nob bikers, as he will get challenged.

Why are the cybork bodies necessary? It seems like a 4+ with permanent 4+ cover would basically handle things, while the 5++ seems like it would only get occasionally used.

I mean, if there are some THSS terminators in front of you, you're on BIKES for goodness sake. Just drive away and fire a huge cloud of twin-linked S5 shots at them.

 Ailaros wrote:
Why are the cybork bodies necessary? It seems like a 4+ with permanent 4+ cover would basically handle things, while the 5++ seems like it would only get occasionally used.

I mean, if there are some THSS terminators in front of you, you're on BIKES for goodness sake. Just drive away and fire a huge cloud of twin-linked S5 shots at them.

They're going to be in close combat eventually, and when they do, every power weapon, even mauls, will make it through their +4 armor. They don't get cover in combat (how awesome would that be) So they need something to eat those power weapon wounds. It means 1/3 times, you're ignoring outright a wound that should've gone through, and gives you a 1/3 shot of saving a flamer wound, an instant death thunder hammer wound, etc. Add in that unless it's S10, you still get FNP, and it goes a long way to keeping them alive. And when a barebones biker nob is something like 45pts, you may as well spend another 5pts to keep em around.

The fact that the upgrade is only like 5pts per guy as well helps, and since you're always taking the painboy, it's more a question of why WOULDN'T you buy it?

Put it this way, if you could buy cybork bodies for your ogryn at 5pts per ogryn, why wouldn't you make that tiny little extra investment to keep the loveable oafs around?

But ogryn are different.

Actually, the painboy makes it even worse. You have a 4+ save, a 4+ cover save AND a 5+FNP. With the exception of S10 close combat weapons, you're already covered against everything.

I mean, yeah, they're cheap, I guess, but we're talking about a T5 unit here that is very, very capable of keeping away from any serious close combat threat until after they've been whittled down to a very manageable amount, at least.

5 points for something that doesn't seem to be all that useful. On a squad that is already bankrupting your list. I think I'd rather save the points to buy a second klaw, or something.

Of course, I've never played nob bikers, but it doesn't seem clear to me why this is such an auto-include as people are making it out to be.

 Ailaros wrote:
But ogryn are different.

Actually, the painboy makes it even worse. You have a 4+ save, a 4+ cover save AND a 5+FNP. With the exception of S10 close combat weapons, you're already covered against everything.

I mean, yeah, they're cheap, I guess, but we're talking about a T5 unit here that is very, very capable of keeping away from any serious close combat threat until after they've been whittled down to a very manageable amount, at least.

5 points for something that doesn't seem to be all that useful. On a squad that is already bankrupting your list. I think I'd rather save the points to buy a second klaw, or something.

Of course, I've never played nob bikers, but it doesn't seem clear to me why this is such an auto-include as people are making it out to be.

Let's say you're taking the painboy anyways in a 5 strong unit of nob bikers.

You're only paying 25pts to ensure those 5 mean green killing machines have a +5 invuln. Why wouldn't you drop the points? There will be times you don't have cover and an armor save. For the amount of points you're paying, you may as well throw in another 5 to help keep those guys around. It's especially important in the event of a S10 weapon that ignores cover or armor, as the cybork will literally be the only thing that can save them at that point.

You're already dropping 300+pts on these guys, the mentality is that what's an extra 25pts to ensure that they'll always be able to shrug off 33% of the wounds that would kill them outright otherwise. Plus, if nobs aren't seeing close combat at some point in the game, I'm not quite sure you've picked the right army

I run 6 2 PK 3 big choppas waagh banner bosspole cybork armor and painboy. I think you need the 5+ invol for the close combat. I put a boss on a bike so even if he is challenged he has a good chance to survive and keep the nobs fighting. I know they are expensive but in my opinion with there versatility they are worth it. just dont get cocky with them because they are not invincible. necron shooting dose bad things in my experence

I have been fielding a pretty big group of nob bikers lately and i always include a warboss with them, warboss rides up front eating any str 10 hits that would instant kill nobz then when near an assault he usually breaks off to kill things on his own.

i tend to run

3 pk bikers, one with waagh banner, one with boss pole 3 kombi skorchas

3 big choppa nobz with kombi skorchas

3 regular nobz with kombi skorchas up front with the boss to look out sir wounds from him and eat wounds in assaults

then a painboy and all cybork bodies

it is 10 nob bikers which is alot of points but in 6th i have played plenty of games and they have not failed me yet and have yet to be completely knocked off the table

note when you can fan out and drop 9 skorchas on something it is beautiful... oh nice powerblob... that you used to have

 Ailaros wrote:
But ogryn are different.

Actually, the painboy makes it even worse. You have a 4+ save, a 4+ cover save AND a 5+FNP. With the exception of S10 close combat weapons, you're already covered against everything.

I mean, yeah, they're cheap, I guess, but we're talking about a T5 unit here that is very, very capable of keeping away from any serious close combat threat until after they've been whittled down to a very manageable amount, at least.

5 points for something that doesn't seem to be all that useful. On a squad that is already bankrupting your list. I think I'd rather save the points to buy a second klaw, or something.

Of course, I've never played nob bikers, but it doesn't seem clear to me why this is such an auto-include as people are making it out to be.

There are a lot of squads with armor-ignoring weapons like NFW, khorne daemons, daemonhosts, necron councils, etc, not even counting the units with dozens of rending attacks. The IoM and a lot of other armies can put an armor ignoring weapon in almost any squad, close to every independent character in the game has a power weapon, fist, warp scythe, bonesword or whatever. Nobz are also good at killing monstrous creatures, which inherently ignore armor. In addition the list for cover-ignoring AP4 weapons isn't exactly short, starting with your run-of-the-mill heavy flamer and it's variants and continuing on to whirlwinds, thunderfire cannons, hive guard, burna bommers and the like, plus a lot of psychic powers only allow invulnerable saves. And let's not forget the tau, who can simply remove your cover save altogether and start blasting you with rail guns.

Your Waagh! Banner carrier is 85 points already, only slightly ahead of the 75 point boss pole nob and painboy. 5 points is hardly an investment to add an extra layer of protection to such models from weapons you will definitely find in every single game.

If you have a huge investment of points in a unit then you do your best to protect them. They are huge target for the powerweapon sort of squads and the weapon that seems to define 6th edition the heavy flamer.

This does feel unorky, for example who takes 'ard boyz?

When building my list I will normally start with a 10 man unit with a Pain boy, 2 PK, BP, banner, all with bodies and BCs on the rest.
Then I will start cutting my list and the unit until it all fits in my point range.
Just make sure you have at least the Pain boy, 1 PK , 1 BP and banner.

I will chime in on the 5 man squad. Too many and you're ending up with too many eggs in one basket.

I run:
Waagh Banner
Painboy
PK/BP
PK
Big Choppa
Cybork x5

I take 6 myself. I like having a bit of ablative for slay the warlord/the painboy/BP/banner/PK nobs

2 PK (1 w/ BP, 1 with banner)
1 Painboy
1 Big Choppa (sometimes don't have points for BC)
2 Choppa

All cyborked, no kombi weapons (TL dakkaguns too excellent, I would rather use those points on giving my MANZ kombi skorchas personally)

Just my 2c


breaking the warboss off once near something juicy is something awesome as well.. and with the bike speed he can usually rejoin the bikers for FNP quickly unless one unit gets tarpitted.