Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have not really played alot of 6th edition but from what I have seen it really looks like Space Marines are kinda the underdogs right now. Their lack of speed and long range heavy fire makes the battle a up hill one against most armies, so I have thought of throwing together a biker list since that will give me speed and the higher toughness would be sweet as well. Question is do I go for White Scars or the new Dark Angels? I'd like to here what each army has that the other does not and what kinda strengths/weaknesses I can expect from running a almost pure biker list.

Please and thank you! EIS

Expect to be tabled in 2 turns if playing against a 3 helldrake list!

Bike lists need to have anti-flyer somehow so you need to take other toys - such as stormtalons, empyrius turrets and the like. The pure bike list has too many bad matchups.

Well I did say ALMOST pure, I expect to take a few sit back units and a quad-gun to fight the air. Maybe even use some flying units of my own

Actually an all bike MSU style army would do ok against Heldrake spam simply because with proper spacing a heldrake can really only ever hit 3 bikes at a time and wound on a 3+ so only typically kill 2. Bikes make it easy to avoid multiple turns of heldrake shooting.

As for which is better it does not have to be either or, but If you were I think vanilla marines might have an edge.

Why the vanilla marines? They are the ones I'm leaning towards but that is cause I have their codex and can readily read all they have to offer

 Ecstasy in Service wrote:
I have not really played alot of 6th edition but from what I have seen it really looks like Space Marines are kinda the underdogs right now. Their lack of speed and long range heavy fire makes the battle a up hill one against most armies, so I have thought of throwing together a biker list since that will give me speed and the higher toughness would be sweet as well. Question is do I go for White Scars or the new Dark Angels? I'd like to here what each army has that the other does not and what kinda strengths/weaknesses I can expect from running a almost pure biker list.

Please and thank you! EIS

I would go for a White Scars flavor. The storm talon is a great compliment and you still have access to one of the best anti-infantry platforms in the game in the Thunderfire cannon. You could very easily run a list with mounted captain, mounted librarian (on biomancy for boosting the bikes or telepathy for invisibility), two maxed out bike squads, a thunderfire, a devestator squad, two storm talons, and an ADL in the 1500 point range. That gives you a solid fire base for popping transports, intercepting flyers and opening gaps in infantry screens for the bikers to exploit and then lots of fast, tough scoring units to take the fight to the enemy. The storm talons are particularly fluffy for White Scars (the book entry describes White Scars doctrine as opening holes in enemy ADA for the talons to exploit for the killing blow). It also lets you take advantage of combat tactics to pull away from the enemy when needed.

 Ecstasy in Service wrote:
Why the vanilla marines? They are the ones I'm leaning towards but that is cause I have their codex and can readily read all they have to offer

Vanilla gives you Stormtalon and Thunderfire support, which is pretty hard to beat. Also, Vanilla attack bikes can attach to squads rather than riding independently and being First Blood bait (as is the case with Ravenwing attack bikes). I'm not sure which of the two I favor, but those are some of the more common arguments I've heard for Vanilla over DA.

Vanilla Marines are actually very strong in 6th, far from being underdogs (although it seems that way given how few people actually play them). I could see the list Panzer suggested performing respectably even in a tournament setting.

 ruminator wrote:
Expect to be tabled in 2 turns if playing against a 3 helldrake list!

Bike lists need to have anti-flyer somehow so you need to take other toys - such as stormtalons, empyrius turrets and the like. The pure bike list has too many bad matchups.

In fact, Helldrakes are a pain against biker armies. Think about units that can intercept flyers and an ADL.

As far as a bike army it is right now no contest... Ravenwing is far superior. The only thing that Vanilla has going for it is Khan is better than Sammiel.

1. Scout move the whole army.
2. H&R for the whole army with standard.
3. Torrent of fire with Banner of Devastation
4. FNP for virtually the whole army with Banner of Fortitude.
5. Black knights for anti-air, anti-personnel.

They are just going to be more flexible due to unit options.

I like Vanilla marines primarily because you don't need to take a special character. Captain on a bike is great and can be cheap.

Furthermore, Combat tactics is great for bike lists (very easy to fall out of assault range after being hit).

Better supporting units (Storm Talon, TFC, Storm Raven)

Biker Command Squad is essentially Drake immune (T5, 3++ save, FNP) and good in the assault/very shooty.

Looking at the above, so we have H&Run with a standard, Torrent of Fire with a standard, Fnp with a standard. Pretty sure you can only take 2 of these, and even then you are sinking tons of points into fragile units that die to heldrakes.

DA have more toys but bikes don't win games with toys.

All that said I can see running a list of nilla Marines + DA allies.

I do think Drakes are a big concern. I also think having a low model count army is a big concern as well.

If you want balanced Ravenwing, you could always take Azreal, a Guard blob, Primaris Psyker, and a Vendetta along. Though the blob is a bit overdone at this point, there is a reason why. It mitigates the weakness of MEQ very well--even more so when your MEQ are on Bikes and cost a good deal more.

I don't think Khan is that much better than Sammael. Sammael is a T5, jetbike character with an AP2 power sword, eternal warrior, and a BS5 plasma cannon that can join a squad of bikes. He makes all your Ravenwing scoring troops too, and with their scout rules, hit and run, and grim resolve, they can put a lot of pressure early. He is expensive, yes but I think he is also a stronger character.

If you can't decide, why not roll both SM and RW? I would suggest doing all RW with Sammael as the main that way you get lots of bike troops and then maybe a captain on bike + bike squad, then an anti air backup unit perhaps?

I am biased bc I play Ravenwing, but I would much rather have RW than regular SMs. Their special rules just make them so much more threatening as a bike army in my opinion. The strength of SM is going to come from their support options.

Thanks for asking this. I was actually about to. I think with a bike list at 1,000 points you will have mostly bikes and 2 land speeders. While at 1500 you can fit it two sniper scout squads behind an aegis with a quad gun. And maybe a storm talon if you move some of your things around.

Breng77 wrote:
I like Vanilla marines primarily because you don't need to take a special character. Captain on a bike is great and can be cheap.

Furthermore, Combat tactics is great for bike lists (very easy to fall out of assault range after being hit).

Better supporting units (Storm Talon, TFC, Storm Raven)

Biker Command Squad is essentially Drake immune (T5, 3++ save, FNP) and good in the assault/very shooty.

Looking at the above, so we have H&Run with a standard, Torrent of Fire with a standard, Fnp with a standard. Pretty sure you can only take 2 of these, and even then you are sinking tons of points into fragile units that die to heldrakes.

DA have more toys but bikes don't win games with toys.

All that said I can see running a list of nilla Marines + DA allies.

So say you both get about 24 bikes plus other goodies... You can have 24 bolter shots and I will take my 96 bolter shots... So I take a RW command squad filled with plasma guns and a GL that reduces the T of the enemy.... I think that DA will kick any Vanilla bike list into the dirt. The only thing in favor of vanilla is the relative low cost of a SM captain on a bike.

BTW tell me what army of MEQ you are not going to have die in droves to heldrakes??? I think your Vanilla bikes are going to be as crispy as RW bikes or counting on lucky 6s to kill them.

DAaddict wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I like Vanilla marines primarily because you don't need to take a special character. Captain on a bike is great and can be cheap.

Furthermore, Combat tactics is great for bike lists (very easy to fall out of assault range after being hit).

Better supporting units (Storm Talon, TFC, Storm Raven)

Biker Command Squad is essentially Drake immune (T5, 3++ save, FNP) and good in the assault/very shooty.

Looking at the above, so we have H&Run with a standard, Torrent of Fire with a standard, Fnp with a standard. Pretty sure you can only take 2 of these, and even then you are sinking tons of points into fragile units that die to heldrakes.

DA have more toys but bikes don't win games with toys.

All that said I can see running a list of nilla Marines + DA allies.

So say you both get about 24 bikes plus other goodies... You can have 24 bolter shots and I will take my 96 bolter shots... So I take a RW command squad filled with plasma guns and a GL that reduces the T of the enemy.... I think that DA will kick any Vanilla bike list into the dirt. The only thing in favor of vanilla is the relative low cost of a SM captain on a bike.

BTW tell me what army of MEQ you are not going to have die in droves to heldrakes??? I think your Vanilla bikes are going to be as crispy as RW bikes or counting on lucky 6s to kill them.

But that's not his point. The major difference is while they both can take 24 bikes, the C:SM support is more reliable then the DA. The dark angels support is essentially the banner, which is not hard to take out while the marines get TFC'c and storm talons/ravens which are much harder targets IMO and make up for the difference in bolter shots. Heck the marines can DP a stern guard unit or iron clad and snipe the banner pretty easily, or use telion for this. Te banner is just too unreliable for my taste, but I do agree if you can manage to keep him alive they dump tons of dice.

DAaddict wrote:
As far as a bike army it is right now no contest... Ravenwing is far superior. The only thing that Vanilla has going for it is Khan is better than Sammiel.

1. Scout move the whole army.
2. H&R for the whole army with standard.
3. Torrent of fire with Banner of Devastation
4. FNP for virtually the whole army with Banner of Fortitude.
5. Black knights for anti-air, anti-personnel.

They are just going to be more flexible due to unit options.

Quantity or quality?
RW gives some nice quality as quoted above. They're a great army.

If you're really concerned about the BoD getting sniped, throw it in a LRC to roll with your bikes.
I'm also going to add that our Typhoons are a steal and fitting a bunch of them in a list is easy.

Buy 2-3 Dark Angels battle forces, Sammael, and you've got a solid base.

DAaddict wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I like Vanilla marines primarily because you don't need to take a special character. Captain on a bike is great and can be cheap.

Furthermore, Combat tactics is great for bike lists (very easy to fall out of assault range after being hit).

Better supporting units (Storm Talon, TFC, Storm Raven)

Biker Command Squad is essentially Drake immune (T5, 3++ save, FNP) and good in the assault/very shooty.

Looking at the above, so we have H&Run with a standard, Torrent of Fire with a standard, Fnp with a standard. Pretty sure you can only take 2 of these, and even then you are sinking tons of points into fragile units that die to heldrakes.

DA have more toys but bikes don't win games with toys.

All that said I can see running a list of nilla Marines + DA allies.

So say you both get about 24 bikes plus other goodies... You can have 24 bolter shots and I will take my 96 bolter shots... So I take a RW command squad filled with plasma guns and a GL that reduces the T of the enemy.... I think that DA will kick any Vanilla bike list into the dirt. The only thing in favor of vanilla is the relative low cost of a SM captain on a bike.

BTW tell me what army of MEQ you are not going to have die in droves to heldrakes??? I think your Vanilla bikes are going to be as crispy as RW bikes or counting on lucky 6s to kill them.

Except I have Storm Talons to Try to kill drakes, my goodies are not all tied into bikes (like your banner that dies as soon as the drakes hit the table.

It is not all about can your bike list kill mine, it is about can mine beat other armies better than yours.

I like how we all assume that everybody plays Chaos Marines and all Chaos Marine players bring Helldrakes all the time.

What about other threats?

HQ Sammael 200
HQ 5 Cmd Squad: Apothecary, Banner of Devastation 295
Troop 6 Bikes: 2 Melta, Attack Bike w MM 236
Troop 6 Bikes: 2 Melta, Attack Bike w MM 236
Troop 6 Bikes: 2 Melta, Attack Bike w MM 236
Troop 6 Bikes: 2 Melta, Attack Bike w MM 236
Troop 3 Bikes: 2 Melta, Attack Bike w MM 155
Fast 6 Black Knights 252

HQ Captain: Artificer Armor, Bike, Hellfire Rounds, Relic Blade 190
Troop 8 bikes: 2 Melta, Attack Bike w MM 285
Troop 8 bikes: 2 Melta, Attack Bike w MM 285
Troop 8 bikes: 2 Melta, Attack Bike w MM 285
Troop 8 bikes: 2 Melta, Attack Bike w MM 285
Troop 8 bikes: 2 Melta, Attack Bike w MM 285
Fast Storm Talon 115
Fast Storm Talon 115
1845

Number of troops: Sammael + 37 Bikes + 5 Attack Bikes
Captain + 32 Bikes + 5 Attack Bikes + 2 Storm talons ( I apologize if the cost of these is wrong. Didn't buy the GW moneygrab)

I think the choice comes down to do you live with the one bad matchup - Triple helturkeys. While stormtalons are a better answer the RW still has 2 units of Black Knights to shoot them down so not impossible. The RW can offer mass TL plasma shots even if the Banner gets destroyed so it will still outperform vanilla bikers. Sammael vs the SM captain the captain is slightly superior but cost wise is a break even... The Black Knights can possibly do some dirty work in HTH with the corvus hammers --- esp when you consider they can shoot them up with plasma fire first.

Ravenwing are a little more versatile I believe since you can break them into three man combat squads and still have the attack bike wander off on its own. But really, I don't understand why you have to choose. Take DA as your main with SM as allies and you can have RW troops with a stormtalon. Hell, throw a stormraven in there for the talon to escort if you want more of a flyer presence. Take a bare bones HQ with sniper scouts to man an ADL with a quadgun and now you have effective Anti air/infantry.

Bing Bang Boom.

DAaddict wrote:
HQ Sammael 200
I think the choice comes down to do you live with the one bad matchup - Triple helturkeys. While stormtalons are a better answer the RW still has 2 units of Black Knights to shoot them down so not impossible. The RW can offer mass TL plasma shots even if the Banner gets destroyed so it will still outperform vanilla bikers. Sammael vs the SM captain the captain is slightly superior but cost wise is a break even... The Black Knights can possibly do some dirty work in HTH with the corvus hammers --- esp when you consider they can shoot them up with plasma fire first.

How is the captain better than Sammael? Sammael has ap2 and one more attack (one handed weapon), captain has ap3 (but higher strength). Sammael has superior ranged weapons (BS5 plasma cannon) and superior mobility (jetbike). He is also Eternal Warrior. His downside would be a 3+, 4++ as opposed to the 2+ 4++ of the captain and str 4 instead of str 6. Honestly, they are pretty even, just better in different ways.

Needless to say, having a combined army is probably still a good way around the flyers troubles. Land Speeders typhoons could potentially get lucky too, but it's not the most reliable way to take down most flyers.

 VardenV2 wrote:

DAaddict wrote:
HQ Sammael 200
I think the choice comes down to do you live with the one bad matchup - Triple helturkeys. While stormtalons are a better answer the RW still has 2 units of Black Knights to shoot them down so not impossible. The RW can offer mass TL plasma shots even if the Banner gets destroyed so it will still outperform vanilla bikers. Sammael vs the SM captain the captain is slightly superior but cost wise is a break even... The Black Knights can possibly do some dirty work in HTH with the corvus hammers --- esp when you consider they can shoot them up with plasma fire first.

How is the captain better than Sammael? Sammael has ap2 and one more attack (one handed weapon), captain has ap3 (but higher strength). Sammael has superior ranged weapons (BS5 plasma cannon) and superior mobility (jetbike). He is also Eternal Warrior. His downside would be a 3+, 4++ as opposed to the 2+ 4++ of the captain and str 4 instead of str 6. Honestly, they are pretty even, just better in different ways.

Needless to say, having a combined army is probably still a good way around the flyers troubles. Land Speeders typhoons could potentially get lucky too, but it's not the most reliable way to take down most flyers.

That seems like a sub-par SM captain build. My bike captains runs around with TH, SS, and Artificer Armor for T5, W3, 2+/3++, and S8 AP2 melee attacks. That clocks him in at 195 points which I believe is on par with Sammael.

The salient issue is where you strike the balance. I think C:SM offers better support options that supplement the bike's weaknesses that CA has trouble matching. The storm talon is the most cost efficient anti-flyer in a MEQ codex and I doubt there is another heavy support choice as cost efficient as the TFC. A vanilla bike army has more useful support choices than a pure Dark Angel one.

Sorry I just don't buy the Black Knights as an answer to heldrakes, mostly because if I spam heldakes they die the turn I arrive. The other difference in the lists is nilla = 32 scoring bikes, whereas RW only has 25. Not saying that definitely makes it better, and they play differently. I just see that RW list having a few more points of failure.

That said neither of those lists are one I would run as competitive as they have too few answers for things in the meta.

 Wilytank wrote:
I like how we all assume that everybody plays Chaos Marines and all Chaos Marine players bring Helldrakes all the time.

What about other threats?

we assume that because everyone actually does play CSM with triple drake.

 Exergy wrote:

 Wilytank wrote:
I like how we all assume that everybody plays Chaos Marines and all Chaos Marine players bring Helldrakes all the time.

What about other threats?

we assume that because everyone actually does play CSM with triple drake.

Where did all the Necrons and Grey Knights go?

Besides, I know how to handle triple drakes at 1500:

I really think you need to think of something other than Heldrakes to compare these things to. Wraithwings will eat these

alongside a fair few others I cant really come up with names for, but 3x Riptides, anything IG and Deldar all spring to mind

DAaddict wrote:

I think the choice comes down to do you live with the one bad matchup - Triple helturkeys. While stormtalons are a better answer the RW still has 2 units of Black Knights to shoot them down so not impossible.

I dont buy this. The helturkeys are going to come in and kill the units of black knights second turn. The rest of the bikes can get into position to kill them with Melta potentially but they are going to use all the shorts to take 2 of them down. On third turn the third drake will come in and kill more bikes, which have probably had to clump a bit to try to take down the first 2. 3 Turkeys also only costs 510 points, so the rest of the chaos army might be able to do something.

DE can also be a particularly bad matchup for bike armies.

Every army has tough matchups and being spammy usually doesnt help against those tough matchups.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wilytank wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 Wilytank wrote:
I like how we all assume that everybody plays Chaos Marines and all Chaos Marine players bring Helldrakes all the time.
What about other threats?

we assume that because everyone actually does play CSM with triple drake.

Where did all the Necrons and Grey Knights go?

]

Necrons became Necrons with CSM allies or CSM with necron allies

Both Vanilla marine bikes and DA ravenwing builds are good. They have different strengths and the same weaknesses.

I play vanilla marines because I believe they have superior support options. IMO DA builds are too reliant on the devistation banner for damage output and to really make the banner (and your other troops survivable) you need to max out that command squad (powerfield generator on a tech marine, apothrocary, ect. This is nice but makes that unit expensive and you end up not having enough bikes.

Both armies suffer from some hard counters. Helldrakes obviously, but also bikernobz and DE.

@Exergy every tournament I have been to in the last 3 months has lots of helldrakes all over the place. If you are playing bikes in these tourney you will hit a helldrake list. Also it really only takes 1 to ruin your day because a Heldrake can effectively kill a bike unit a turn.

Stormtalons are ok as anti flier but really you need to have 2, and hope the rolls work out so you are not shot out of the sky before they can down the enemy's fliers.

 Exergy wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wilytank wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 Wilytank wrote:
I like how we all assume that everybody plays Chaos Marines and all Chaos Marine players bring Helldrakes all the time.
What about other threats?

we assume that because everyone actually does play CSM with triple drake.

Where did all the Necrons and Grey Knights go?

]

Necrons became Necrons with CSM allies or CSM with necron allies

Where? All the Necron players I've seen just do pure 'cron outside of doubles tournaments (where we are only allowed 1000 points per player anyway). Probably because Necrons don't need any help.

I'm currently in the process of building a pure White Scars force, and currently have three games under my belt. If you want to see how I've been doing my battle reports are in the Battle Reports forum here, here and here.

So far I'm enjoying the challenge, and it helps that I've built them primarily because I like their background. Also note that I'm not playing in a competitive / tournament environment!