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I think it's a settled point that Bikes got a big boost in 6th Edition. Now with the DA codex I think people will start to see more and more bike armies out there. I'd like to start a disscussion for all the biker gnerals out there on how to build, fight and dominate with biker armies from either C:SM or DA.

To get the ball rolling I thought I would share my 1850 C:SM bike list that I have experienced pretty great results with and what I've found to be the inherient strenghts and weaknesses of the list. The list:

HQ
Captain on bike with lightning claw and artifice armour 165
Command squad on bikes w/4 plasma's 265

Troops
Bike squad +2 bikes, 2x plasma attack bike with multi melta 220
Bike squad +2 bikes, 2x plasma attack bike with multi melta 220
Bike squad +2 bikes, 2x plasma attack bike with multi melta 220
Bike squad +2 bikes, 2x melta, attack bike with multi melta 210
5 sniper scouts, telion cammo cloaks missile launcher 150

Fast
2x Attack Bikes with Multi Meltas 100

Heavy
Thunderfire cannon 100
Thunderfire cannon 100

Fortification
Ageis defense line quad gun 100

As you can see my list is pretty much 100% shooty. As C:SM the only ability to have a biker CC unit is a fully kitted out command squad (mixes of power weapons and SS), unfortunately to do that your clocking in at around 300pts that IMO is still to squishy and not dominate enough in CC to justify the point costs. Ravenwing players can chime in on the effectiveness of their knights but for C:SM all shooty is the way to go. Telion on a quad gun with cammo cloacks requires 30 wounds to eliminate the base objective scoring squad and he will give you 4 hits with the quad gun every round which will ruin all AV 11 fliers and does decently agains the new AV 12 models. The Thunderfire cannons are just an amazing unit from the C:SM dex that helps conpensate for the low damage out put bike lists from C:SM can suffer from (no Dakka banners for us ) And of course you get to take advantage of mixed toughness value rules and the Techmarines 2+ armour and bolstered ruins (with proper positioning heldrakes have to get lucky to hurt this unit).

This army like most Biker lists I've seen wants to opperate in that 18.1-24 inch bubble and use concentrated fire to eliminate a threat or 2 a turn untill the end of the game when we can turbo boost to grab and contest objectives.

Hard counters include Deamon flamer spam and dual or tripple heldrakes with baleflamers. My counter is spacing and board control to dictate where my enemy has to send these units units have to go. Find squishyh parts of your opponet's army to jump in and out of combat to hide. Agianst these armies it's an uphil battle for sure, but with some luck I think you can manage.

Hopefully we can generate a good discussions of the ins and outs of tactics for biker lists.

Orks are still king of the bike meta

@davou
I've experienced the ork nob bker deathstar of course, but I've never seen an ork army that I would classify as a bike army. Have you?

My experince with the Biker nobstar is you have 2 options 1)slowly feed it units, while my support elements hopefully shoots off what I need to to control more objectives or 2) set up a situation where you get 1 turn of my whole army shooting at the death star hopefully crippling it and still leaving me with enough time/ shooting left (cause the rest of the ork army is doing their thing) to pull out a win. potentialy 28 S7+ ap2/1 shots plus all the small arms fire and thunderfires is nothing to laugh at even if you are an Ork nob.

Nobstar can be counted on to chew pasrt anything you give it in short order, but even regular warbikers get an enourmous boost to survivability and dakka given their cost. If the rumors abour ar,ywide 6+fnp for orks is true, warbikers will be a great troop choice

I've been playing bikes for a while now. Here are some thoughts:

One huge thing to keep in mind is that you can premeasure. Yes, yes, everyone can do that, buy you can move 12" in the movement phase and difficult terrain does not slow you down. No random dice roll. Sure, you might take a dangerous terrain test, but the key is that you can figure out where you need to be and get there. Keep Space Wolf Cav at exactly 23½" for example.

Turboboosting is now in the Assault Phase. A bit annoying that you have to move the bikes twice now, but it adds options. Line up several Combat Squads of bikes, fire away, and if the last few don't need to fire because you got a hot hand with the dice, move them. Get the full value out of bike movement.

Attack Bikes are sweet. Now that some random Missile or Psy-Autocannon can't double their toughness and insta-kill them, they are well worth their points.

Another point about your speed... now that you generally kill the closest model people have addapted and put fodder on the front line. Sometimes you have enough movement to get on the sides of squads and chew into the model that you realy want to get.

Last point... bikes are expensive which leads to low model count. Keep them together so they can support each other and do not spread yourself too thin unless you know you can handle it. I still struggle with this!

Sorry, My last reply was from work on my tablet, so a bit curt.

Bikes have a ton of advantages; for instance, in the relic mission, you are almost garuntee'd to win if you can field a very tough unit on bikes that can score; since the relic mission places no restriction on flat out moves, nob bikes become highly mobile and more than capable of pulling the relic into a zone where you've got a handle on the board even if the nobs are obliterated.

Not to mention that in normal missions, bikes give you a quick way of snatching linebreaker at the end of the game should it be necissary.

warbikers also have a stupid amount of med strength dakka, and they dont lose their slight edge in CC for it either.

If your opponent castles, then sure, going zerg into his lines with bikes will cost you allot of edge, but at the same time, if he chooses to squat, then let him. You can probably weather the slaps he manages with your high T and decent saves, and you have the mobility to do what you want with the rest of the board.

If he does the opposite, and spreads out, then you just have to be careful about choosing where to bully. Finding the straggler and popping it with a fast unit that has a ton of firepower should be relatively easy; and while bikes arent cheap, they aren't lynchpins either. If you see the opportunity to trade your rook for his queen, take it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wildstorm wrote:

Turboboosting is now in the Assault Phase.

Sure it was just a slip mate; but I thought I would clarify incase anyone tries to think up shenanigans. Turbo-boost is in the shooting phase.

They did get a lot better. This is a bike tactica I wrote for 5th edition. Much of it will still apply in 6th.
http://the11thcompany.freeforums.org/tac-squads-alternatives-bike-armies-t3582.html

Here are a few key differences.
* Conga-lines can now work against you. They are still good for limiting LRBT large blasts, but for normal play they are not as good.
* PF sergeants are no longer auto-take. They have a nasty habbit of getting sniped in a challenge. Now what you can do is challenge with the punky sergeant and then use combat-tactics to auto-fall back.
* Artificer armor on bikes has gotten a lot better. I would strongly consider dual artificer armor captains. Otherwise you want to run a librarian and captain.
* Relic blades are weaker. Now you want to bring a PF/LC combo on your bike.
* As mentioned mobile 2+ saves are stupidly good in this edition. I would even consider a techmarine on bike for that reason. This is because if your assaulted by DCAs or something similar, you can take all the AP3 hits on your techmarine instead of chewing through bikes.
* You can no longer reserve your entire army.
* Bikes are a lot more deadly to vehicles. Every bike has krak gerandes that hit on a 3+, and melta bombs are cheap and highly effective.

PF/LC is a nice combo but then thecaptain really starts pushing the points.

I think melta bombs arnt that efficient bike list pack enough melta shots that there really is no reason to assault and you don't want to be to close to Anything in that land raider. Some people like storm shields I'm not sold on the pints for 1+ invunerable. What do you think?

With the arrival of the new SM codex and the uniform praise of the point reduction for bikes has gotten as well as the now amazing chapter tactics for White Scars I wanted to revive this Thread. It's exciting to think that a lot more players are going to start fielding Bike armies, but from my own experience Bike armies are not the simplest army to play.

Hopefully this thread can become a place for people to share their experiences using bikes and bike armies, and provide and get good advice on how to improve your play with bike armies.

I was thinking two Iron Hands Chapter Masters, giving them 2 Orbital Bombardments, 4 wounds, 4++, T5, 6+ FNPs, and It Will Not Die to anything else with multiple wounds or hull points you want to tag along would be a vicious base to start from.