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So now that's its been a little bit. Are the Eldar jetbikes really shaping up to be as game breaking as predicated by so many?

They're the best troop choice in the entire game now.

Everyone complained about white scar bikes when they came out, particularly with grav. A grav biker is 36 points. An eldar scatbike is 27 points and is every bit as good.

Pretty high praise so far.

In all honesty windrider units are one of the best troop units in the game right now. They are both extremely fast and damaging. However what many in the online community are not seeing or saying is that they are on the high end for pts cost for troops, have poor durability and morale (they are extremely easy to kill enough for a morale check and then they run 3d6"), they get no extreme MSU ObjSec option like IG or SM both have, and they don't have any assured alpha or beta strike ability (ie SM have an assured alpha strike for drop pod marines). They are perhaps undercosted but I like that GW are actually trying to make troops something other than a tax or grunts to hide in reserves until the spend a single turn alive on an objective.

As for the massive panic attack the online community had... They are not worth even a tenth of the whining from when they came out. Even against their ideal targets they deal marginally more damage than 6ed waveserpents used to and are a fraction as durable. The major reason that they freak people out about them is just a sheer lack of experience and double think. By double think I mean the jetbikes always have a 4+ jink, fire at full BS, never fail morale, stay 36"+ away but never within 3d6" of their board edge, never get alpha striked, etc. ALL at the same time. Admittedly it IS possible to make perfect matchups like greentide without a rerollable 2+ save IC to tank the shots or ironically foot skitarii without so serious reserves shenanigans (though TBH serpent spam was just as toxic to both builds and more some in most cases as you now get your cover saves).

Somewhat of a rant in the spoiler. In summary a lot of the hysterics are caused by not discussing specific lists and assuming abilities that wouldn't all fit within a 1850 pts army.

Ansacs, I'll just point out that little 3-man guardian jetbike units are like, the original obsec objective grabbers.

they get no extreme MSU ObjSec option

Are you being serious?

Even against their ideal targets they deal marginally more damage than 6ed waveserpents used to

Really? To get a 6th ed. serpent on the field you need to spend 200 points. Minimum squad of DA + the serpent and upgrades.
The serpent with scatter laser, shuriken cannon and firing the shield averages around 3.25 MEQ casualties per turn.

200 points gets slightly more than 7 bikes. 7 scatbikes deal 5.2 MEQ casualties per turn.

That is a 66% increase in damage for the same cost. It operates to full efficiency out to 36 inch range, and can be further buffed by guide.

Marginal increase? lol.

and are a fraction as durable.

This is debatable and highly dependent on your army.

If you don't have a good alpha strike or barrage weapons, then the bikes with the right terrain are practically untouchable.

Compare them to a space marine, the most prevelant unit analog and central balancing point, and you'll see just how miscosted they are. A Marine analog and an EJB have identical toughness and A couple of points removes your need for a transport, gives you obscene mobility, reduces your minimum point investment for a unit, gives you easier access to phenomenal heavy weaponry, gives you relentless, cannot be pinned, and gives you access to jink. And it doesn't cost much.

They are just as good as they were, and they were the single best troop in the game by a wide margin, but now they have limitless access to a cheap and phenomenal heavy weapon, which can be taken full advantage of with their mobility thanks to relentless. Where other armies are taxed by troops, Eldar would be silly not to include them.

Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

T4 Durability. Basic Troop. PA analog unit ie Marine is a troop in many codices(SM, DA, BA, SW, CSM, GK).

Comparing them to White Scars, an unbalanced Chapter Tactic applied in a single Dex, is bad when looking at the entire scope of the game where balance is concerned. Now, comparing them to Biker Marines does have merit, but using unbalanced White Scars as a general balancing point is not effective.

And it's also good to compare the Biker Marine to the Basic Marine as well. Good balancing comparisons can be made, but the PA Marine is the fundamental balancing point, it's the most common thread to tie the game together.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

I have two words for you: firepower, and mobility.

-Firepower

A GravBiker, as taken from a "Troops"* choice Biker squad, costs, IIRC, 36 points. ~10 points more than a Scatterbiker. In terms of armament alone, you'll trade a Grav-gun (18" range, 3 shots), and the TL Bolter (Rapid Fire/24" range), for a Scatter Laser (heavy 4, 36", S6). In terms of firepower alone, the GravBiker is, realistically, at a bit of a disadvantage to the Scatterbiker. Sure, Grav-guns can and will gak all over 3+/2+ armor units, but they also have to get close. And sure, a Biker gives that Grav-gun a Relentless platform, T5, and a 12" move for a total 30" threat range... but the Scatterbiker has a whopping 48" threat range, that they can technically move out of by JSJ'ing behind LoS-blocking terrain.

Which brings us to...

-Mobility

Scatterbikers are Jetbikes. More specifically, they are Eldar Jetbikes. EJBs have all the terrain-ignoring benefits of regular Jetbikes, on top of a JSJ move. Oh, and things like H&R, Skilled Rider, and S5 HoW? They require the White Scars Chapter Tactics and/or Korsarro Khan in order to gain those benefits.

What happens when I, for example, take Ultramarines, or Imperial Fists, or Black Templars Chapter Tactics? Or maybe the FW Raptors, Carcharadons, or Red Scorpions (the latter of which provides no benefit whatsoever to Bikes)? I don't get any of those bonuses- I mean sure, Iron Hands get 6+ FNP for everyone, and IF get some accuracy benefits for bolter fire and BTs get Crusader and AW... but how important are these benefits for Bikers, who want to be shooting things, are T5/3+, and have TL bolters anyways?

You're also ignoring that you do still need a Bikerboss to make SM Bikers a Troops choice- common as such a choice is, it's still a choice that must be made... and not all armies can make it; for example a MotF to bring lots of FW Relic vehicles along with a Librarian would prevent the use of a Bikerboss... and thus prevent SM Bikers from ever seeing any great use.

As an example, 6 Windriders vs 6 SM Bikers with Grav-guns, which is 162 points vs 157 points. Sure, the Windriders are more expensive... but they'll kill ~3.55 GravBikers per turn. From 36", even. In contrast, at 18", so as to be in Grav-gun range, the GravBikers will have ~2.67 kills from Grav-guns and ~0.59 from their bolters, for 3.26 dead Windriders. Which sounds great... until you realize that they have to do so from anywhere from 50-33% the range of the Windriders. In the two turns that the GravBikers need to get into range, the Windriders can pretty much render them combat-ineffective at best. Worst case? GravBikers get wiped.

People often talk about the fact that Windriders have poor leadership... but it's difficult to exploit that when they have a 48" threat range, and a JSJ move to hide behind cover.

Also, white scars have hit and run which is enormous and they have ATSKNF. Compared to LD8 that's a huge deal.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

Yeah, totally absurd to compare them to troop choices rather than FA squads that can only be troops if you buy a specific HQ. Also, bikes don't get increased S, cost more and have no long range option, can't turbo boost as far, can't fly over impassable terrain. And of course, everyone fears the D-weapon spam SM can bring to back it the bikes up...

Ejb's run by an at-least competent player are game-wrecking, and worth every iota of internet griping they get.

I mean, if you're a bad player, and you deploy them where they will get killed against an enemy army that has a decent method of killing them on turn 1, then no amount of brokenness from a unit is going to help you.

If you're decent enough to look across the table before you wildly throw them into your deployment zone, it's pretty easy to place them well or even just reserve them if you want to make sure they don't get bale flamer'd or battle cannon'd before they shoot. They have enough firepower that not being able to fire all 5 turns doesn't really hurt you all that much if it means guaranteeing that they get to shoot once before being hit, and they can simply kill the units that were hoping to kill them.

White Scar bikers are about the closest comparison to Eldar Jetbikes, and as demonstrated above they are still grossly inferior. Regular marine bikers are much lower on the totem pole, and spare a thought for Ravenwing, who pay almost the same as a scatbike for... well nothing really.

Simply put, scatbikes are the new black.

Cost-wise, they are an Assault Marine. Even using the chapter tactics that best suit assault marines, there's no comparison. And that's BEFORE factoring the heavy weapon on every last bike.

If I could bring Assault Marines as troops, and every single guy could bring a Melta Gun or Flamer, then maybe we'd have some Marine comparisons with the power level of Windriders.

Whiskey144 wrote:

People often talk about the fact that Windriders have poor leadership... but it's difficult to exploit that when they have a 48" threat range, and a JSJ move to hide behind cover.

Why people even say that windriders have low leadership? Its is good and solid 8, as much as marines have.

Windriders in fact do not have exploidable weakneses anleas we are talking about ignor cover/ap3 staff wich is not so common.

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

ATSKNF is a non-advantage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Reinokarite wrote:

Whiskey144 wrote:

People often talk about the fact that Windriders have poor leadership... but it's difficult to exploit that when they have a 48" threat range, and a JSJ move to hide behind cover.

Why people even say that windriders have low leadership? Its is good and solid 8, as much as marines have.

Windriders in fact do not have exploidable weakneses anleas we are talking about ignor cover/ap3 staff wich is not so common.

Because they so desperately want scatbikes not to be as good as they really are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

deFl0 wrote:
Also, white scars have hit and run which is enormous and they have ATSKNF. Compared to LD8 that's a huge deal.

No, it's not. Neither rule functions when you're dead. And scat bikes make you dead.

You know 30 eldar scatter bikes have a really hard counter that can kill it in one turn... 30 opposing eldar scatter bikes!

Everyone who wanted game balance is going to get it, we'll all just play eldar, because I'm sure as heck not going to put marines on the table against eldar I'd rather just sit there for 3 hours and do nothing.

Kisada II wrote:
You know 30 eldar scatter bikes have a really hard counter that can kill it in one turn... 30 opposing eldar scatter bikes!

Everyone who wanted game balance is going to get it, we'll all just play eldar, because I'm sure as heck not going to put marines on the table against eldar I'd rather just sit there for 3 hours and do nothing.

Ah come on, you'll get to do something. You'll get to pick up your models.... as I roll fist fulls of dice. On the bright side, it isn't going to take 3 hours.

Zagman wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

T4 Durability. Basic Troop. PA analog unit ie Marine is a troop in many codices(SM, DA, BA, SW, CSM, GK).

Comparing them to White Scars, an unbalanced Chapter Tactic applied in a single Dex, is bad when looking at the entire scope of the game where balance is concerned. Now, comparing them to Biker Marines does have merit, but using unbalanced White Scars as a general balancing point is not effective.

And it's also good to compare the Biker Marine to the Basic Marine as well. Good balancing comparisons can be made, but the PA Marine is the fundamental balancing point, it's the most common thread to tie the game together.

So now SM bikers are unbalanced as well and therefore invalid for comparison? Would you like to move the goalposts a little futher? Why you would consider the PA marine to be a better comparison than you know, another bike trooper is beyond me. I'm comparing apples to apples. You want to compare apples to gravitational anomalies.

Whiskey144 wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

I have two words for you: firepower, and mobility.

-Firepower

A GravBiker, as taken from a "Troops"* choice Biker squad, costs, IIRC, 36 points. ~10 points more than a Scatterbiker. In terms of armament alone, you'll trade a Grav-gun (18" range, 3 shots), and the TL Bolter (Rapid Fire/24" range), for a Scatter Laser (heavy 4, 36", S6). In terms of firepower alone, the GravBiker is, realistically, at a bit of a disadvantage to the Scatterbiker. Sure, Grav-guns can and will gak all over 3+/2+ armor units, but they also have to get close. And sure, a Biker gives that Grav-gun a Relentless platform, T5, and a 12" move for a total 30" threat range... but the Scatterbiker has a whopping 48" threat range, that they can technically move out of by JSJ'ing behind LoS-blocking terrain.

Which brings us to...

-Mobility

Scatterbikers are Jetbikes. More specifically, they are Eldar Jetbikes. EJBs have all the terrain-ignoring benefits of regular Jetbikes, on top of a JSJ move. Oh, and things like H&R, Skilled Rider, and S5 HoW? They require the White Scars Chapter Tactics and/or Korsarro Khan in order to gain those benefits.

What happens when I, for example, take Ultramarines, or Imperial Fists, or Black Templars Chapter Tactics? Or maybe the FW Raptors, Carcharadons, or Red Scorpions (the latter of which provides no benefit whatsoever to Bikes)? I don't get any of those bonuses- I mean sure, Iron Hands get 6+ FNP for everyone, and IF get some accuracy benefits for bolter fire and BTs get Crusader and AW... but how important are these benefits for Bikers, who want to be shooting things, are T5/3+, and have TL bolters anyways?

You're also ignoring that you do still need a Bikerboss to make SM Bikers a Troops choice- common as such a choice is, it's still a choice that must be made... and not all armies can make it; for example a MotF to bring lots of FW Relic vehicles along with a Librarian would prevent the use of a Bikerboss... and thus prevent SM Bikers from ever seeing any great use.

As an example, 6 Windriders vs 6 SM Bikers with Grav-guns, which is 162 points vs 157 points. Sure, the Windriders are more expensive... but they'll kill ~3.55 GravBikers per turn. From 36", even. In contrast, at 18", so as to be in Grav-gun range, the GravBikers will have ~2.67 kills from Grav-guns and ~0.59 from their bolters, for 3.26 dead Windriders. Which sounds great... until you realize that they have to do so from anywhere from 50-33% the range of the Windriders. In the two turns that the GravBikers need to get into range, the Windriders can pretty much render them combat-ineffective at best. Worst case? GravBikers get wiped.

People often talk about the fact that Windriders have poor leadership... but it's difficult to exploit that when they have a 48" threat range, and a JSJ move to hide behind cover.

Actually none of those things need Khan to run in an army, he's just for scout. Maybe you're not familiar with the army. Also the maximum number of bikers, ever, that can have grav guns is 2 in a troop squad, with 1 combi grav, or 4 in a command squad. So the 6 to 6 comparison is impossible in this ruleset. Again are you familiar with the SM army? The idea that you would take a MotF and librarin over a Smashmaster or Bike Captain... isn't seriously entertained at the competitive level. If you're talking about a friendly game then this entire conversation is moot. If you run a legal bike squad of 6, you'll find it's dramatically cheaper than the Windriders and compares well against them point for point in a shoot-out (although it will eventually loose, because it's cheaper) and absolutely savages them in assault. You also overlook that SM bikers are a serious threat to vehicles in assault, which is a great part of their utility. Windriders are pathetic in assault without a 50 point warlock upgrade who helps a little bit against vehicles and hardly at all against anything else. Compare this to SM bikers who can easily wreck squadroned russes or anything with AV-10-12 armor, which is most of the vehicles in the game. White scars ignore terrain, which is a hell of a lot better than a jetbike move, as EVERY time you JSJ with your dudes you're going to be taking 6 dangerous terrain checks, possibly more. You also assume that it will take two full turns of unopposed shooting before the bikers can return fire. Have you ever seen a 40k game? There isn't enough board space to avoid bikers like that. They can cover too significant a portion of the board, too rapidly. You have at most one turn before you start taking return fire. And that is pretty optimistic. If you manage to set that up somehow you can be pretty confident that not all the windriders were able to shoot as JSJing a 6 man unit in and out of LOS terrain is actually pretty much impossible on a normal board.

Mavnas wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

Yeah, totally absurd to compare them to troop choices rather than FA squads that can only be troops if you buy a specific HQ. Also, bikes don't get increased S, cost more and have no long range option, can't turbo boost as far, can't fly over impassable terrain. And of course, everyone fears the D-weapon spam SM can bring to back it the bikes up...

Nice try. Smashmasters are a default HQ choice even outside of the fact that they unlock all bike troops. And it's not a specific HQ, it's any captain or master with a bike, including special characters. SM bikers have St 4, Windriders have St 3, you are aware of this, yes? If you want to say SM bikers cost more, then fine, but then you don't get to assume that the windriders have any heavy weapons. In which case the SM bikers will absolutely SAVAGE them. Point for point unupgraded white scars run train on unupgraded windriders. Bikers can take attack bikes as part of their squads, giving them a long range weapon if they want, so you're wrong there. And Scars ignore difficult terrain check which is a million times more useful than being able to fly over the (extremely rare) impassible terrain pieces. A windrider squad used in the manner that most people are suggesting here with constant JSJing into terrain will loose a non-trivial number of riders to terrain checks over the game. Whereas scar bikers can ride over anything, no problem and therefore get the maximum benefit of cover and LOS screening on their way to assault.

SRSFACE wrote:Cost-wise, they are an Assault Marine. Even using the chapter tactics that best suit assault marines, there's no comparison. And that's BEFORE factoring the heavy weapon on every last bike.

If I could bring Assault Marines as troops, and every single guy could bring a Melta Gun or Flamer, then maybe we'd have some Marine comparisons with the power level of Windriders.

Outrageously false comparison. If you want to factor in a heavy weapon on every bike, then they aren't an assault marine cost anymore! You just gave them a free ten point upgrade in your comparison to assault marines, which even before this codex dropped were considered garbage for like 3 editions in a row. Transparent attempt at a strawman argument.

Martel732 wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

ATSKNF is a non-advantage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Reinokarite wrote:

Whiskey144 wrote:

People often talk about the fact that Windriders have poor leadership... but it's difficult to exploit that when they have a 48" threat range, and a JSJ move to hide behind cover.

Why people even say that windriders have low leadership? Its is good and solid 8, as much as marines have.

Windriders in fact do not have exploidable weakneses anleas we are talking about ignor cover/ap3 staff wich is not so common.

Because they so desperately want scatbikes not to be as good as they really are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

deFl0 wrote:
Also, white scars have hit and run which is enormous and they have ATSKNF. Compared to LD8 that's a huge deal.

No, it's not. Neither rule function when you're dead. And scat bikes make you dead.

Do you mind if I sig that? I think a lot of non-IOM players would find your belief that ATSKNF is not advantageous to be freaking hilarious.
By the way-- since these are such nonadvantages, why don''t you give every army you play against blanket ATSKNF and Hit and Run? I mean, they are weak, useless rules, so it shouldn't be any problem, right? Right?

Some people consider a Flyrant to be competitive.

Windriders have double range, are more mobile, are cheaper and are troops. 108pts of Windrider (16 BS4 shots non-twin linked) easily outshoots a single Flyrant, whose exact points currently escape me, I think they're usually around 240pts, right?

Eldar apologists seem to think that people will only take 2 squads of 3 when it's my understanding its more effective to build a list with multiples of 5.

The kind of unit that is good at removing jetbikes would pretty much have to be something that's good at wiping out most things, like a Heldrake, but scatbikes could potentially be so numerous that a single Heldrake hardly makes a dent.

I think it would be neat if every space marine bike could take an assault cannon, or destroyers could take tesla destructors.

 Silverthorne wrote:

Zagman wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

T4 Durability. Basic Troop. PA analog unit ie Marine is a troop in many codices(SM, DA, BA, SW, CSM, GK).

Comparing them to White Scars, an unbalanced Chapter Tactic applied in a single Dex, is bad when looking at the entire scope of the game where balance is concerned. Now, comparing them to Biker Marines does have merit, but using unbalanced White Scars as a general balancing point is not effective.

And it's also good to compare the Biker Marine to the Basic Marine as well. Good balancing comparisons can be made, but the PA Marine is the fundamental balancing point, it's the most common thread to tie the game together.

So now SM bikers are unbalanced as well and therefore invalid for comparison? Would you like to move the goalposts a little futher? Why you would consider the PA marine to be a better comparison than you know, another bike trooper is beyond me. I'm comparing apples to apples. You want to compare apples to gravitational anomalies.

Whiskey144 wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

I have two words for you: firepower, and mobility.

-Firepower

A GravBiker, as taken from a "Troops"* choice Biker squad, costs, IIRC, 36 points. ~10 points more than a Scatterbiker. In terms of armament alone, you'll trade a Grav-gun (18" range, 3 shots), and the TL Bolter (Rapid Fire/24" range), for a Scatter Laser (heavy 4, 36", S6). In terms of firepower alone, the GravBiker is, realistically, at a bit of a disadvantage to the Scatterbiker. Sure, Grav-guns can and will gak all over 3+/2+ armor units, but they also have to get close. And sure, a Biker gives that Grav-gun a Relentless platform, T5, and a 12" move for a total 30" threat range... but the Scatterbiker has a whopping 48" threat range, that they can technically move out of by JSJ'ing behind LoS-blocking terrain.

Which brings us to...

-Mobility

Scatterbikers are Jetbikes. More specifically, they are Eldar Jetbikes. EJBs have all the terrain-ignoring benefits of regular Jetbikes, on top of a JSJ move. Oh, and things like H&R, Skilled Rider, and S5 HoW? They require the White Scars Chapter Tactics and/or Korsarro Khan in order to gain those benefits.

What happens when I, for example, take Ultramarines, or Imperial Fists, or Black Templars Chapter Tactics? Or maybe the FW Raptors, Carcharadons, or Red Scorpions (the latter of which provides no benefit whatsoever to Bikes)? I don't get any of those bonuses- I mean sure, Iron Hands get 6+ FNP for everyone, and IF get some accuracy benefits for bolter fire and BTs get Crusader and AW... but how important are these benefits for Bikers, who want to be shooting things, are T5/3+, and have TL bolters anyways?

You're also ignoring that you do still need a Bikerboss to make SM Bikers a Troops choice- common as such a choice is, it's still a choice that must be made... and not all armies can make it; for example a MotF to bring lots of FW Relic vehicles along with a Librarian would prevent the use of a Bikerboss... and thus prevent SM Bikers from ever seeing any great use.

As an example, 6 Windriders vs 6 SM Bikers with Grav-guns, which is 162 points vs 157 points. Sure, the Windriders are more expensive... but they'll kill ~3.55 GravBikers per turn. From 36", even. In contrast, at 18", so as to be in Grav-gun range, the GravBikers will have ~2.67 kills from Grav-guns and ~0.59 from their bolters, for 3.26 dead Windriders. Which sounds great... until you realize that they have to do so from anywhere from 50-33% the range of the Windriders. In the two turns that the GravBikers need to get into range, the Windriders can pretty much render them combat-ineffective at best. Worst case? GravBikers get wiped.

People often talk about the fact that Windriders have poor leadership... but it's difficult to exploit that when they have a 48" threat range, and a JSJ move to hide behind cover.

Actually none of those things need Khan to run in an army, he's just for scout. Maybe you're not familiar with the army. Also the maximum number of bikers, ever, that can have grav guns is 2 in a troop squad, with 1 combi grav, or 4 in a command squad. So the 6 to 6 comparison is impossible in this ruleset. Again are you familiar with the SM army? The idea that you would take a MotF and librarin over a Smashmaster or Bike Captain... isn't seriously entertained at the competitive level. If you're talking about a friendly game then this entire conversation is moot. If you run a legal bike squad of 6, you'll find it's dramatically cheaper than the Windriders and compares well against them point for point in a shoot-out (although it will eventually loose, because it's cheaper) and absolutely savages them in assault. You also overlook that SM bikers are a serious threat to vehicles in assault, which is a great part of their utility. Windriders are pathetic in assault without a 50 point warlock upgrade who helps a little bit against vehicles and hardly at all against anything else. Compare this to SM bikers who can easily wreck squadroned russes or anything with AV-10-12 armor, which is most of the vehicles in the game. White scars ignore terrain, which is a hell of a lot better than a jetbike move, as EVERY time you JSJ with your dudes you're going to be taking 6 dangerous terrain checks, possibly more. You also assume that it will take two full turns of unopposed shooting before the bikers can return fire. Have you ever seen a 40k game? There isn't enough board space to avoid bikers like that. They can cover too significant a portion of the board, too rapidly. You have at most one turn before you start taking return fire. And that is pretty optimistic. If you manage to set that up somehow you can be pretty confident that not all the windriders were able to shoot as JSJing a 6 man unit in and out of LOS terrain is actually pretty much impossible on a normal board.

Mavnas wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

Yeah, totally absurd to compare them to troop choices rather than FA squads that can only be troops if you buy a specific HQ. Also, bikes don't get increased S, cost more and have no long range option, can't turbo boost as far, can't fly over impassable terrain. And of course, everyone fears the D-weapon spam SM can bring to back it the bikes up...

Nice try. Smashmasters are a default HQ choice even outside of the fact that they unlock all bike troops. And it's not a specific HQ, it's any captain or master with a bike, including special characters. SM bikers have St 4, Windriders have St 3, you are aware of this, yes? If you want to say SM bikers cost more, then fine, but then you don't get to assume that the windriders have any heavy weapons. In which case the SM bikers will absolutely SAVAGE them. Point for point unupgraded white scars run train on unupgraded windriders. Bikers can take attack bikes as part of their squads, giving them a long range weapon if they want, so you're wrong there. And Scars ignore difficult terrain check which is a million times more useful than being able to fly over the (extremely rare) impassible terrain pieces. A windrider squad used in the manner that most people are suggesting here with constant JSJing into terrain will loose a non-trivial number of riders to terrain checks over the game. Whereas scar bikers can ride over anything, no problem and therefore get the maximum benefit of cover and LOS screening on their way to assault.

SRSFACE wrote:Cost-wise, they are an Assault Marine. Even using the chapter tactics that best suit assault marines, there's no comparison. And that's BEFORE factoring the heavy weapon on every last bike.

If I could bring Assault Marines as troops, and every single guy could bring a Melta Gun or Flamer, then maybe we'd have some Marine comparisons with the power level of Windriders.

Outrageously false comparison. If you want to factor in a heavy weapon on every bike, then they aren't an assault marine cost anymore! You just gave them a free ten point upgrade in your comparison to assault marines, which even before this codex dropped were considered garbage for like 3 editions in a row. Transparent attempt at a strawman argument.

Martel732 wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
Why compare them to a tactical marine? That's absurd. Compare them to, you know, a biker marine. Which is also a troop choice. And has a St 5 HOW attack, twin linked bolters, increased S&T, improved jink, skilled rider, Hit and Run, and ATSKNF, probably the two most powerful special rules in the entire game. I play biker marines, and I wouldn't trade my Bike Squads for Windriders.

ATSKNF is a non-advantage.


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 Reinokarite wrote:

Whiskey144 wrote:

People often talk about the fact that Windriders have poor leadership... but it's difficult to exploit that when they have a 48" threat range, and a JSJ move to hide behind cover.

Why people even say that windriders have low leadership? Its is good and solid 8, as much as marines have.

Windriders in fact do not have exploidable weakneses anleas we are talking about ignor cover/ap3 staff wich is not so common.

Because they so desperately want scatbikes not to be as good as they really are.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

deFl0 wrote:
Also, white scars have hit and run which is enormous and they have ATSKNF. Compared to LD8 that's a huge deal.

No, it's not. Neither rule function when you're dead. And scat bikes make you dead.

Do you mind if I sig that? I think a lot of non-IOM players would find your belief that ATSKNF is not advantageous to be freaking hilarious.
By the way-- since these are such nonadvantages, why don''t you give every army you play against blanket ATSKNF and Hit and Run? I mean, they are weak, useless rules, so it shouldn't be any problem, right? Right?

Tom Kirby, get off the internet.

"Do you mind if I sig that? I think a lot of non-IOM players would find your belief that ATSKNF is not advantageous to be freaking hilarious.
By the way-- since these are such nonadvantages, why don''t you give every army you play against blanket ATSKNF and Hit and Run? I mean, they are weak, useless rules, so it shouldn't be any problem, right? Right? "

I'd be fine with that actually. Then they can behold ATSKNF in all its crappy glory. It wouldn't change the outcome of 90% of my games, which involve huge firepower lists making me pick up huge amounts of models. Who cares if the two remaining stragglers from a 10-man group automatically regroup? They'll be dead the next turn. The standard marine lacks firepower/pt efficacy in a game about firepower. The bells and whistles don't matter after that flawed concept. Why are grav cents good? They have good firepower for their cost.

I've done the opposite quite a few times; that is, turned off ATSKNF voluntarily upon Xeno complaining. They still shot me to death just like they did before. It matters not.

White scar bikes are powerful.
Eldar bikes are powerful.
Scatter lasers are powerful.

Each is a competitive entity in its own right. And each could receive nerfs that the 40k community as a whole would understand.

The problem with the new jetbikes is that they combined an already powerful unit that regularly saw competitive play, with a powerful weapon that normally saw competitive play.
Most people were expecting some kind of nerf, especially if you consider that harlequin bikes are 4+ save.

Problems are:

1) No heavy weapon limit: self explanatory.
2) 10 points per scatter laser is very good value. Its basically an assault cannon that swaps rending for +12 range. But costs 10 points less than SM pay for it.
3) 36 range synergises very well with 2d6 assault phase move.
4) Already the best objective capper in the game with an obscene movement speed.

Whitescar bikes are competitive, and more durable in a straight up fight. But the eldar bikes are categorically better when it comes to intelligent play.
Better damage output, better speed, better range, and if LoS blocking terrain is present then infinitely more durable.

Letting every SM bike take an assault cannon on their bikes for 10 points a model would make them a fair comparison.

 Truth118 wrote:
Some people consider a Flyrant to be competitive.

Windriders have double range, are more mobile, are cheaper and are troops. 108pts of Windrider (16 BS4 shots non-twin linked) easily outshoots a single Flyrant, whose exact points currently escape me, I think they're usually around 240pts, right?

Eldar apologists seem to think that people will only take 2 squads of 3 when it's my understanding its more effective to build a list with multiples of 5.

The kind of unit that is good at removing jetbikes would pretty much have to be something that's good at wiping out most things, like a Heldrake, but scatbikes could potentially be so numerous that a single Heldrake hardly makes a dent.

I think it would be neat if every space marine bike could take an assault cannon, or destroyers could take tesla destructors.

This.

Some people think flyrants are scary, but Scatbikes hugely outshoot them or Tyranid Dakkafexes for the same cost and can be spammed in far greater numbers. A tyranid player would need to start dipping into formations or additional CADs to get more than a handful of flyrants and even the Sky tyrant swarm comes with a two gargoyle swarm tax to get a single additional flyrant. An Eldar player can have up to six windrider squadrons before they need to look to more options to continue to get superscoring bikes.

Martel732 wrote:
"Do you mind if I sig that? I think a lot of non-IOM players would find your belief that ATSKNF is not advantageous to be freaking hilarious.
By the way-- since these are such nonadvantages, why don''t you give every army you play against blanket ATSKNF and Hit and Run? I mean, they are weak, useless rules, so it shouldn't be any problem, right? Right? "

I'd be fine with that actually. Then they can behold ATSKNF in all its crappy glory. It wouldn't change the outcome of 90% of my games, which involve huge firepower lists making me pick up huge amounts of models. Who cares if the two remaining stragglers from a 10-man group automatically regroup? They'll be dead the next turn. The standard marine lacks firepower/pt efficacy in a game about firepower. The bells and whistles don't matter after that flawed concept. Why are grav cents good? They have good firepower for their cost.

I've done the opposite quite a few times; that is, turned off ATSKNF voluntarily upon Xeno complaining. They still shot me to death just like they did before. It matters not.

Good rule on bad model is the issue imo. Auto-rallying unsweepable necrons, for example, would be terrifying.

 obsidiankatana wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Do you mind if I sig that? I think a lot of non-IOM players would find your belief that ATSKNF is not advantageous to be freaking hilarious.
By the way-- since these are such nonadvantages, why don''t you give every army you play against blanket ATSKNF and Hit and Run? I mean, they are weak, useless rules, so it shouldn't be any problem, right? Right? "

I'd be fine with that actually. Then they can behold ATSKNF in all its crappy glory. It wouldn't change the outcome of 90% of my games, which involve huge firepower lists making me pick up huge amounts of models. Who cares if the two remaining stragglers from a 10-man group automatically regroup? They'll be dead the next turn. The standard marine lacks firepower/pt efficacy in a game about firepower. The bells and whistles don't matter after that flawed concept. Why are grav cents good? They have good firepower for their cost.

I've done the opposite quite a few times; that is, turned off ATSKNF voluntarily upon Xeno complaining. They still shot me to death just like they did before. It matters not.

Good rule on bad model is the issue imo. Auto-rallying unsweepable necrons, for example, would be terrifying.

I usually would prefer my models to be swept, actually. That allows me to shoot the enemy on my turn. It does me no good to stay locked in combat with tactical marines.

Martel732 wrote:
I usually would prefer my models to be swept, actually. That allows me to shoot the enemy on my turn. It does me no good to stay locked in combat with tactical marines.

I'd say it varies based on the assaulting unit in question. Those that depend on varying combinations of Furious Charge / Rage / Hatred are unlikely to inflict measurable damage on the second round. Generally though - I see your point.

 jreilly89 wrote:

Tom Kirby, get off the internet.

My, what a sparkling conversationalist you are! Sit down, I don't want you to over-exert yourself mentally by having to stand and breathe at the same time.