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Overview
There has been a lot of talk lately about how "Spawn are the new black" While spawn are very good, the CSM biker has been overlooked. This post is to compare how well the spawn stack up next to CSM bikes.


Points per Wound
The biggest point people are brinigng up is that the spawn are 30 points for 3 wounds. This equates to 10 points a wound. Bikes cost 20 points a wound -- so on the surface the spawn appear to be twice as cheap for the same amount of wounds.

The spawn lack an armor save, however, so they will be taking additional wounds that the bikes save from. In the case of any weapon that gives a save, the bikes will be taking 1 wounds for every 3 that the spawn do. In other words, for every 20 point bike that dies, a 30 point spawn will die.

Wounds caused by weapons that provide no save are a different matter. Bikes can jink 1/3 of those saves normally, or 50% of them when moving flat out. This means when moving flat out, the bikes will take 1 wound for every 2 the spawn do -- or an equal point to point ratio of attrition. When shooting their guns, the bikes fall behind in the attrition race from AP3 or lower shots.

So before adding marks, the CSM bikes are actually cheaper points per wound than spawn.



Getting There
Beasts and bikes both move 12" during the movement phase.
During the movement phase, bikes can move an extra 12", where beasts will move an extra d6" inches. Beasts can reroll this with fleet.

Bikes are never slowed by difficult terrain (but suffer wounds 1/18 of the time) where beasts get move through cover.

Bikes and beasts charge moves are not slowed down by difficult terrain. Beasts have fleet, so will have on average a 2" greater assault range.
Note : Sticking a model without fleet with beasts causes the entire spawn unit to lose the fleet benefits.

For purposes of movement, bikes have the advantage. While beasts can assault slightly further than bikes, the bikes can reasonably expect to assault anywhere on the board on turn 2. The beasts may roll like crap on their run and not be in assault until turn 3.



Assault Effectiveness
For the purposes of point costs, this section will equate 3 bikes to 2 spawn. Both sets base cost 60 points. The most common enemy toughness is 4, so this comparison will use that as a baseline.

When spawn assault, they have random effects.
1/3 of the time, the spawn will be able to re-roll their attacks, changing the average roll from 3.5 to 4.5. This means that normally the two spawn will have 9 attacks, with 13 on the charge. 50% of these will hit WS 6 and lower, and 2/3 will wound T4.

1/3 of the time, the spawn will have poisoned weapons, causing their chance of wounding T4 to go from 2/3 to 8/9. Their attacks from 2 normally.

1/3 of the time, the spawn have no additional offensive capacity.

Normal
..hit.......wound..attacks......mutated....total
50.00% × 66.67% × 9 × 33.33% = 0.00, plus
50.00% × 83.33% × 7 × 33.33% = 0.00, plus
50.00% × 66.67% × 7 × 33.33% = 0.00,
This gives a total of 2.74 wounds delivered from 2 spawn.

Charge
..hit.......wound..attacks......mutated....total
50.00% × 66.67% × 13 × 33.33% = 0.00, plus
50.00% × 83.33% × 11 × 33.33% = 0.00, plus
50.00% × 66.67% × 11 × 33.33% = 0.00,
This gives a total of 4.19 wounds delivered from 2 spawn when the spawn charged.

Bikes are a lot more predictable. Bikes have one attack base, with an extra CCW. At base, 3 bikes will have 6 attacks.
When charging they get one extra attack, with hammer of wrath hits. One can expect ~3 bikes to get hammer of wrath hits. I state this from playing a bike army for years. You cant expect to get more in base on your first round -- while it happens sometimes its not something you can plan on.

Normal
..hit.......wound..attacks......total
50.00% × 50.00% × 6 × = 1.5 wounds
This gives a total of 1.5 wounds delivered from 3 bikes.

Normal
..hit.......wound..attacks......total
50.00% × 50.00% × 9 = 2.25 wounds plus
100% * 50.00% * 3 = 1.5 wounds
This gives a total of 3.75 wounds delivered from 3 bikes.

This means point for point, the spawn are better in assault. The round of assault, the gap is not much different but over protracted combats the bikes deliver 48% of the wounds!

However, both of those values do not equal much killing in assault. 2 spawn will kill less than one MEQ on average per turn in protracted assault, probably wont kill 2 on the turn they assault. 10 grey hunters + terminator wolf guard can bog down the both squads.

Bikes do have a few advantages in assault. They strike at a higher init, and require a WS 9 opponent to hit on 5s, were a WS 7 will cause spawn to hit on 5s. MEQ striking back at spawn will hit on 3s.

As such, both squads rely heavily on a strong IC/sargent to sway the battle. A CSM seargent with a PF will be doubling the unsaved wounds to MEQ, and a IC with a daemon weapon can completely change the battle. As such, both bikes and spawn can be viewed as delivery mechanisms for ICs!



Guns Guns Guns
CSM bikes can take up to two special weapons per squad. Even taking two flamers for 10 points can make a huge difference to the squad as a whole. Alternatively the CSM can take melta weapons to deal with enemy armor or PGs to take down enemy MEQ.

Given the assault nature of CSM bikes, I would go with flamers and melta bombs for the champion. This lets the bikes threaten both targets equally well.

What can 2 flamers and 8 TL bolters do? Assuming on the turn the CSM bikes will be assaulting they can get 4 models under each flamer...
..hit.......wound..attacks......total
83.33% × 50.00% × 16 = 6.67 wounds plus
100% * 50.00% * 8 = 4 wounds
Or they will do 10.67 wounds to MEQ from shooting. This helps improve their overall assault capability by inital fire.
Note : Do NOT do this vs any unit with combat tactics or they will fall our of assault range.

The bikes also get overwatch -- allowing them to do ~3.9 wounds to MEQ during overwatch. (assuming the squad has dual flamers). This is due to bikes having TL guns and flamers doing d3 hits. While this will not do much good to MEQ, it will have a significant impact on units like dark eldar wytches.

Bolters can also be used to make FMCs make grounding checks. They can also be used to snipe off wounded squads during late game. Simply put, the bolters give options that the spawn do not have for late game contesting/quarter control.



Marks
This is where spawn pull ahead. Since there are half as many models to mark, the marking bikes costs twice as much. This is a difference of 30 points when your putting a MoN on both squads.

CSM bikes benifit the most from Khorne or Nurgle.
Khorne gives rage and counter-attack allowing the bikes to still get more attacks when assaulted. Nurgle makes the bikes tougher to bolter fire.

Spawn have more options. Nurgle helps to improve their survivability. Slaanesh means they hit at the same time as MEQ. Khorne gives them counter-attack.

Spawn have better effects from marks simply due to the price discount on marking up the spawn.



Everything Else
Spawn are fearless. Bikes need to utilize an icon to gain this.

Spawn cause fear. Bikes of nurgle can pick up an icon for this. Fear is useless in either case.

Bikes can pick up icons if desired. Icon of Wrath is useful -- giving the a greater assault range. Icon of Excess can give FNP increasing durability.

Bikes have a champion of chaos, which is an advantage for punking weaker champions for easy boons. They also have someone they can feed to a MC or IC for a turn, when required.

Bikes can take "Vets of Long War", which increases the number of wounds the CSM cause in assault on round one vs MEQ. This can be very useful, depending on your meta.

Bikes have a larger game footprint than the spawn do. Their bases are larger, and there are more in a squad. This can allow you to threaten more targets at once with them, but also makes them more vulnerable than spawn to enemy fire -- as more enemy models will be able draw LoS to some of them.

You can invest more of your army points in bikes, as each squad can have up to 210 points invested in bikes, where spawn units are limited to 150 points per squad. When pushing hard for an assault army, this can be an advantage.


Summary
Both units are excellent transports for an IC, and serve this job quite well.

Both squads have advantages and disadvantages over each other. They are both valid units for roughly the same point cost.

I thought Bikers were cool last edition, so this is just gravy. I hear just as much "Nurgle bikers are our new super unit" as I hear "Spawn is the new black."

I'm looking more at Khorne bikers over Nurgle bikers personally. Let me explain why.

Your bikes should be in assault on turn 2. If they are not, something has gone horribly wrong. This is due to their 41" threat range they can have by turn two.
* 12" Turn one movement phase
* 12" Turn one shooting phase
* 12" Turn two movement phase
* 5" solid chance of charge

The Khorne mark means that you can still deliver a good blow if your assaulted to due counter-attack. The mark also gives you an extra attack, which significantly increases their effectivness in that first round of assault. Combinding this with VotLW, you can have a good impact on the first turn vs MEQ.

The Nurgle mark makes your bikes more resilient. Nurgle bikes are literally twice as resilient to STR 4 attacks than Khorne bikes.
The problem is power fists and psydreads don't care about nurgle marks. Thats where the majority of wounds come from in my experience. I played a C:SM bike army for most of 5th edition so I explain what has killed most of my bikes.
That's all personal choice though, all are good options.

This is very exciting for the Chaos player and SMurf Biker player in me........... more horrible cross breeding ftw?

I'm looking at MoN bikers, MoS bikers, and actually stock no mark Bikers as well. Maybe take 1-2 of those biker options, have a solid troop base of plaguemarines in rhinos and get some ranged cover fire and it should be mucho bueno.

On topic, thx Labmouse for the low down on these options.
I think the Spawn are very "throw them in" with their cost effectiveness, while Bikers need a more clear role/usage mainly because they are more flexible and/or specialized.

As spawn (and bikes) ignore cover for movement, and spawn really have no downside to being in cover for movement they can get a cover save. That cover save helps them a lot in making those 3 wounds last longer.

On the flip side, spawn can be ID. GK and Str10 make a mess of spawn, unless they are MoN in which case just GK.

Bikes have a lot of options, but they get expensive fast, i actually think spawns lack of options might make them attractive as you avoid the point sink.


For me I am planning on 1 unit of spawn, 1 unit of bikes, and 1 unit of raptors. I agree both are better than raptors but i like the models and i want variety. spamming things isnt fun to play or play against. At some point I will either get very rich or find a way to model up a helldrake and swap either the spawn or the raptors for the drake.

Sanctjud -- I agree that the CSM bikes make my happy.

The CSM bikes are everything that I wanted from the C:SM bikes. They are cheaper. They have an extra CCW. They swap their TL bolter for a special weapon. They have more options with marks and icons.

While C:SM bikes do get an attack bike, ATSKNF, and combat tactics - I think the CSM bikes beat them hands down.

Another reason I'm thinking Khorne is because I can put a lord on a juggernaught with an Axe of Blind Fury. He has 6+d6 STR 7 AP2 attacks when he assaults. It would make an incredibly cool looking model that can wreck face. Unlike the daemon Jugg, the CSM one counts as calvary, so he can keep up with the bikes.

This is a great post. I plan on running bikers a few ways. The main list I plan on running will have 5 bikers with MoK/Icon of Wrath escorting a Khorne lord on a Juggernaut with the Axe of Blind Fury. it should be quite hard hitting. If I get some spawn, I may run the lord with them and let the bikers do their own thing.

The utility of either unit is completely contextual....

Want a unit to shepard a character intp HTH? Spawn take a turn longer but do the job cheaper than bikes.

Do you want a fast and shooty unit? Well, that would be bikes.

Want a shooty and hitty unit? Bikes..or course, tooling them up for both throws off the points per wound calculations.

Bikes are great for chaos because they offer fast and heavy hitting firepower. That sets them apart IMO..many chaos units are great in CC but few are as fast and shooty like bikes. If you are depending on bikes for HTH I think you may be missing the boat on other units.

Also, you have to consider your opponent...lots of plasma? Spawn are just as good as bikes at taking wounds (maybe better considering wounds per points cost). Flashlights? Spawn are way worse.

I suggest considering your own needs for your army and the local meta before deciding what unit is best for your army.

ender502

Or just take both, since they serve reasonable different functions but just occupy the same slot.

I would personally only take spawn if they were nurgled, otherwise bikes all the way. Khorne on spawn does nothing, they already have rage, tzneetch simply gives them a 6+ invul, which does nothing, and slanessh has them up to int 4, but still no grenades!

Just brainstorming here, but it seems like spawn is a great place to store my juggernaught lord. same toughness, same movement, and they're wound sacks anyways... and cheap!

ender502 wrote:Want a unit to shepard a character intp HTH? Spawn take a turn longer but do the job cheaper than bikes.

Correct. 4 spawn with MoN are 22 points cheaper than 6 bikes with MoN. Your looking at 144 to 166 points.
The question is -- how much flexability does that 22 points give you? That is part of the question, and part of the reason for the post. Is that 22 points worth having a character, having guns, etc...

Leth wrote:Or just take both, since they serve reasonable different functions but just occupy the same slot.

If you read the post in more detail, you would have seen that the point is to explain how both can be used for the same role -- IC delivery system. Look for the underlined part.

Gangrel767 wrote:Just brainstorming here, but it seems like spawn is a great place to store my juggernaught lord. same toughness, same movement, and they're wound sacks anyways... and cheap!

Look for the underlined part. That was the entire point of the post.

Edit :
I don't want to sound like the overseer of 40k knowledge. I have played bikes for most of 5th edition, so I have a good understanding of how that army type works. However, I have not played with spawn at this time. This image can easily describe myself (and many others who post online)

My plan is to run a big unit of spawn (got four so far, probably add one more) with a Lord on Juggernaught (with black mace) attached. I modelled one up as a lord riding a huge spawn, should be awesome. I make up for the lack of saves by running an ADL, deploying it in the center of the board, and then running the spawn behind it first turn to grab the 4+ save.

Sadly I can't make the Spawn Nurgle, but if you think about it it pays for another spawn almost if you don't put the nurgle on it. I figure if I'm being shot by bolters wounding on a 5+ isn't so bad, and if I'm shot by plasma I'd rather just have more wounds packed on. I don't bother putting the mark of Khorne on them, since they have rage and they get counterattack from the Lord.

Outflanking with a Slaanesh Lord wielding a Murder Sword accompanied by five Spawn... *DROOL*

 TheDevo wrote:
Outflanking with a Slaanesh Lord wielding a Murder Sword accompanied by five Spawn... *DROOL*

I would definitely think about using the burning brand of skalathrax on that one.. since you can't assault when you come in from outflank, usually you are threatening backfield units camping on terrain.

I'm building a bike squad to run with my Slannesh lord. Fun little group; their job is to mulch infantry while my Maulerfiend charges at their biggest tank. If that plan works, they dive into close combat, a MoS almost guaranteeing they strike first. I am packing the Burning Brand simply because it suits the role of that group, which is to provide cover for slower tactical groups and scoring units.

Spawn seem the better option for character delivery. More wounds means more look out sir rolls.

Bikes do a good job as well, but bikes also have more tactical uses outside of character delivery with their cheap and fast melta/plasma. Relentless plasma at that.

Both are very nice, and to me much more useful than the helturkey or jump packs.

Nice write-up. The part it really doesn't get into in the durability analysis is how much tougher Slaanesh bikes with Icon of Excess are against most firepower as compared to either spawn or even Nurgle bikers. They do get pricey, though. Close to 300pts, well-equipped, as opposed to the cheap nurgle spawn. Once I get some more modeling done I expect to run one IC with Spawn and one with Bikes; with the option to go Steed of Slaanesh / Burning Brand on one to go with bikes, for Outflanky goodness. Burning Brand on a Nurgle character with Spawn can be quality too, though, particularly in a list with Epidemius allied in.

Kevlar wrote:
Spawn seem the better option for character delivery. More wounds means more look out sir rolls.

Whilst I don't want to argue, I would warn that the spawn lack one major advantage that the bikes have for Character Transport, and that's spawn have no champion. Meaning you will have the awkward moment where you charge a unit with a sergeant and a tough HQ, the opponent has the ability to challenge the lord with the sergeant or if he thinks his HQ will beat yours then he'll challenge with the lord. As highlighted above the Spawn or the Bikes don't have aggressive kill ratio against MEQ. So giving your opponent the option to have all the options by using challenge against you... I'm waffled enough!

Second thought I never thought I would ever say this: "Spawn are very reliable". What I mean by this is if we take instant death out of the equation, say there MoN etc. You can put that unit on an objective and be sure that it will contest it until it has lost all it's words. Fearless is useful, but having no save means it relies on wounds. So you can assault a unit of terminators, the terminators get 10 attacks total, you charge them with 15 wounds worth you know that even if you fluff EVERYTHING you will always survive to contest next turn. While the bikes having a save means that you might get unlucky and fluff everything and run away.

I might be thinking about it the wrong way, but I see spawn as the most reliable tarpitts in the game! They are fast, tough and just so consistent for a very fair points cost. But I honestly feel that they should be used to tie up things like Terminators or monsters or anything that have minimal attacks at high strength or lots of low strength attacks etc they are great vs. howling banshees as you can ignore the fact that they have power weapons etc. But I don't think they are reliable for a unit that you NEED/WANT to kill stuff and for that reason HQ works better in more aggressive units such as bikes.

Enough of my ramblings!
C.Hydra

Spawn are good tarpits, but not the best in the game IMHO. I give that hat to Necron wraiths/spyders or CD nurglings. 15 T5/6 with no armor save is not enough to tarpit for long. That squad of 10 TH/SS termies will tear through the spawn in 1 full game turn. 6 wraiths, on the other hand, will tie those terminators up for the entire game with their 3++ save. 10 nurglings can do the same thing.
If a CSM player wants to tarpit, 35 plague zombies will slow any unit down for a few turns.

Don't get me wrong, spawn are good, but they have a big achilles heel -- high STR weapons with poor AP values. A single psydread can expect to throw 4 wounds on the spawn squad. Spawn also do not have IW, which means they can suffer instant death from force weapons, or special attacks like Khan or Skulltaker.

Spawn also just don't deliver the goods in assault. Even on the charge, a squad of 5 spawn can only expect to deliver ~10 wounds to a squad of T4 targets. This means only 3 MEQ will die. In that same round 10 GH can expect to deliver 6.5 wounds to the spawn excluding overwatch fire.

So what is the best role for a spawn? They fill three roles
- Assaulting weak units like long fangs
- Assaulting light transports with AV 10 rear.
- IC transport.
A khorne lord on a jugg with an Axe of Blind Fury. He has 6+d6 STR 7 AP2 attacks when he assaults. That changes the earlier result from 3 GH dead to the entire GH squad removed from the table (possibly even before they get to swing!). The chaos lord with VotLW means his inital round has a 8/9 chance to hit and 5/6 chance to kill with up to 12 attacks. Owch!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Nice write-up. The part it really doesn't get into in the durability analysis is how much tougher Slaanesh bikes with Icon of Excess are against most firepower as compared to either spawn or even Nurgle bikers

We just calculate the 'cost per wound' ratio for the slaanesh bikes.
The icon is 3.5 points per model, and the mark is 2 points per model, for a total of 25.5 points per wound.

Slaanesh bikes vs non-marked Spawn
A bolter has a 1/3 (failed armor save) * 2/3 (failed FNP) chance of causing a wound, or ~22.2%. Thus it takes 4.5 bolter wounds to kill one slaanesh biker.
In comparison, 4.5 bolter wounds will kill 45 points of non-marked spawn. Thus for every 25.5 points of slaanesh bikers, that die, 45 points of non-marked spawn will die, or a point ratio of 1 to 1.76
For non-marked bikes compared to non-marked spawn the ratio is 1.5.
In summary marking your bikes with slaanesh with an icon makes them even more point-resiliant than non-marked spawn.


Slaanesh bikes vs MoN Spawn
When comparing them to nurgle marked spawn, we can no longer just compare them as 'wounds delivered' since one unit has a T5 and the other has a T6.
A bolter hit has a 7.4% of killing a slaanesh biker (1/3 wounding, 1/3 failed armor save, 2/3 failed FNP). This means it takes ~13.5 bolter hits to kill a biker.
A MoN spawn hit by that bolter has a 1/6 chance of wounding the spawn. That same 13.5 bolter hits will deliver 2.25 wounds to spawn, or 27 points of wounds.
This means that for 25.5 points of slaanesh bikes killed, 27 of MoN spawn are killed, or a ratio of 1.08.
In summary marking your bikes with slaanesh with an icon makes them even about even vs MoN spawn.

As a side note, this does not include high STR weaponry like autocannons or lascannons. When your getting shot at by those, the Slaanesh bikes pull way ahead of spawn because of the 3+/4++ jink save and 5+ FNP. The MoN only really helps with STR 6 and below weapons.


Nurgle bikes vs non-marked Spawn
A bolter hit has a 1/18 of killing a slaanesh biker (1/6 wounding, 1/3 failed armor save), or 18 bolter shots to kill a MoN biker.
Those same 18 bolter hits will kill 2 non-marked spawn.
This means for for every 26 points of bikers killed, 60 points of spawn are killed, or a ratio of 2.3
In summary marking your bikes with nurgle makes them extremely resiliant vs bolters!

Nurgle bikes vs MoN Spawn
A bolter hit has a 1/18 of killing a slaanesh biker (1/6 wounding, 1/3 failed armor save), or 18 bolter shots to kill a MoN biker.
We know that a bolter hit has a 1/6 chance of wounding a spawn.
Therefore, for every 1 MoN biker killed, one spawn will be killed. This gives us a ratio of 1.38
Marking spawn with MoN makes them much tougher. While being more point-effectivethan non-marked bikes, the MoN bikes are still more effective.


What does it all mean?
* Point for point, bikes are more resilient than spawn
* Slaanesh bikers are more resilient to STR 7+ weapons than MoN bikes
* MoN bikes are more resilient to STR 4-6 attacks than MoN bikes.

So the question is, what do you expect your bikes to be hit by? If your worried about GH hitting them and incoming bolter fire, MoN is better. If your more worried about the autocannons MoS is better.

Sorry, I meant a 5 man terminator squad not a 10 man... I wouldn't actually attack one of those in combat.. that's a run away from them/kite them around the board job like you deal with any deathstar...

5 man is 10 attacks
6.6 hits
5.5 wounds, so to kill a full unit it will take 3 turns to cut through them.. which is pretty good as they'll probably take some of them with them depending on saves etc.

Problem Wraiths have is they get instagibbed by the termies so it's just a case of hoping you pass your saves and rolling badly, failing 2 out of 3 which happens all the time is majorly bad as you lose two wraiths.

Your right the spawn does suffer vs. high str low ap as they usually compensate by having lots of shots assault cannons etc and just work well vs the spawns weakness.

The main reason I rated the spawn as so good was simply they have the speed to entrap units that could be a threat, while chasing down enemy units with a unit of zombies is a lot less practical though I concede they both have strengths that different players will value differently.

seriously..this isn't complicated. Not at all.

Your math hammer is nice and all but in no way takes in the complexity of how you choose a unit....

It isn't "Biker versus Spawn" It is "Biker versus Terminator" vs "Spawn versus Terminator"

Bikes are more durable than spawn..so would you send them at powerfist wielding terminators? Uhhh...No.

All your math compares the two units...not the two units versus possible opponents. That is the only comparison that actually matters.

As i said before..consider your army's role for the unit and your possible opponents. Then choose.

ender502