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Recently I have been looking at what weaponry I should add to my bikes and I was wondering to equip them all with meltas and melta bombs for vchles would be no match and they would be very hard hitting as well. However, should I consider adding in some grav guns or plasmas or not even using the melta guns at all?

My vote goes to plasma. Your mobility means that you should easily be able to get side/rear arc shots, so the extra AP ability of Melta loses out to the extra shots of Plasma.

Some will recommend Grav, but I'd rather be wounding nearly everything on a 2+ and have the ability to Pen vehicles than to be great against high-save stuff but next-to-useless against light infantry.

Melta gets my vote. Grav has it's place but there is so many other sources of devastating firepower and it doesn't have to be fast. Besides, how much 2+ is really out there in such numbers that a Lascannon Predator can't wipe it out? So 2x Meltaguns, a Combi-Melta and an Attack Bike with Multimelta while Bolter bikes can either be ablative wounds or a seperate Combat Squad off in another corner doing biker things.

 Paradigm wrote:
My vote goes to plasma. Your mobility means that you should easily be able to get side/rear arc shots, so the extra AP ability of Melta loses out to the extra shots of Plasma.

The advantage of melta is that you don't have to deal with gets hot, plus you get the Melta rule. Better for all-round vehicle destruction and survivability-extra shots with plas is just more chances at gets hot.

My vote is for either melta or grav. Depends on your plan for the squad-grav gives you a extra shots and some range, but melta offers the Melta rule and high (and importantly for a planning point of view, constant) strength. I'd probably run with a combination; two grav guns, a combi-melta and put a multimelta on the attack bike. Or, for a true all-rounder, switch the combi to a combi-flamer against the day you start getting overwhelmed by hoards.

How many bike squadrons are you running? I usually go a 50/50 mix between squads (either double melta or double grav with either a MM bike or a matching combi on Sarge). If you're only running 1 bike squad, I'd go either plasma for versatility or pick between grav and melta based on how they are designed to complement your army.

This is the army list I was thinking of:

White Scars 1000pt list:
HQ:
• Kor’Sarro Khan- 150pt: Moondraken
Troops:
• Bike squad- 169pt: 4x bikers, veteran sergeant, 2x meltas, attack bike with multi-melta
• Bike squad- 155pt: 5x bikers, 2x plasmas, melta bombs
• Bike squad- 125: 5x bikers, 2x meltagun
• Tactical squad- 225pt: 10x marines, flamer, missile launcher with flakk missiles, power sword, combi-melta, combat squads, mounted in a rhino
Fast Attack:
• Assault squad- 95pt: 5x assault marines, 2x flamer
• Assault squad- 90pt: 5x assault marines, 2x flamer

Grav every. single. time.

Think about it - there's plenty other places in the SM roster where you can put plasma or melta, but grav only has two realistic options: on grav centurions (really costly and usually overkill) or grav bikers (small, cheap, maneuverable and almost always make their points back)

The best thing about grav bikers is you always get the 3 shots per gun even if you move. So thats 6 shots + another 3 if you take a combi grav on the sarge.

9 shots fired at an MC is 6 hits, 4 wounds on Tyranid MCs and 2.66 wounds on daemon MCs. All from a 108 point unit in 1 turn of fire.

Depends on the rest of your list and meta. Sometimes flamers are better. For example, when you've run into a greentide. In a generic pickup game, i'd probably go for grav if you got no grav cents. As the chances of meeting a tough monster, something with 2+, 3+ or a vehicle are quite high. And Grav deals with all this stuff more or less reliably.

I like melta, but I run Salamanders so I'm in no way objective about the question.

For non-me armies, I would recommend either plasma or grav, depending on the loadout of the rest of your army, your local meta, and your general inclination. I myself would probably lean towards grav. Better number of shots.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Grav every. single. time.

Think about it - there's plenty other places in the SM roster where you can put plasma or melta, but grav only has two realistic options: on grav centurions (really costly and usually overkill) or grav bikers (small, cheap, maneuverable and almost always make their points back)

The best thing about grav bikers is you always get the 3 shots per gun even if you move. So thats 6 shots + another 3 if you take a combi grav on the sarge.

What he said.

Volume of fire + good at fragging hard to kill targets.

and against light enemies you can always use your tl-bolters. at rapid fire range, theyre not bad at all.

 Sir Arun wrote:
and against light enemies you can always use your tl-bolters. at rapid fire range, theyre not bad at all.

I often come upon "marines sux bolters sux" threads, though

 koooaei wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
and against light enemies you can always use your tl-bolters. at rapid fire range, theyre not bad at all.

I often come upon "marines sux bolters sux" threads, though

Not the case for bikes because they are fast enough and durable enough to get their bolters in rapid fire range and they are twin linked

I would go for 2x grav gun, combi-grav on sarge and multimelta on attack bike
however, i play BA so i can't use centurion and i would run a single not fully operational bike unit to crash the MC they all seems to using those days. Also, i got nice 3x melta ASM on pod for surgical anti-tank strike
it highly depend on what you're planning for your bikes: if you use them anti-tank goes melta. if you got a couple of centurions units goes for melta. if you use them for your primary anti-mc goes for grav
my two cents

Melta and grav, space permitting. In general, grav take the lead though. There are plenty of places to stick melta in your list, but very few for grav.

I haven't used biker spam army yet, but I tend to two Grav gun and combi-grav and Melta Bomb on all five man biker squads, and consolidate all MM on independent Attack Biker squads, if I am going to build a biker army. I think Bikers actually can switch to the TL bolters if they face something with less than 4+ armor save. If worried about hordes of greenskins, tyranids, or guardsmen, just incorporate TFC in backfield.

Keep the grav bikers 12" to 18" from enemy, drive into range in 1st turn and then just keep moving back and keep shooting, like what 13th century Mongolian cavalry do.

Since Grav and Plasma are Rapid Fire/Salvo, they benefit the most from the Relentless that the bikes grant, so I would go with them. There are other ways to get Meltaguns on a mobile platform(for Blood Angels especially, since you can put them on Assault Squads). I think Gravguns on bikes, go hunt heavy armor stuff.

Thanks for your points guys. I will probably go with meltas and plasmas because they are strong and tough and i enjoy using them. Although I will consider going to grav-guns at some stage for their rate of fire is great and they can smash MC

Gravs bikes and attack bike squadron with multimelta.

If you want plasma, how about allied black knights?

My White Scars army runs two squads with 2x grav guns and one squad with 2x flamers. The gravs have never disappointed, and even if you come across a horde army you still get either three shots from grav or you can easily get into rapid fire range for the twin-linked bolters.