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First and foremost this is supposed to be a math index and strategy talk. If you want to talk about OP and balance then post in the 100 other threads about it. If you want to talk strategies, math, and examples so that these units can be analyzed both how to play against them better and play them better than this is the thread for you. I will mostly be discussing these units in the context that I usually play, ie with ITC style score as you go missions and several generous LoS blockers on the board. I also tend to play reach out and touch the person lists that can strike anywhere on the board turn 1. For most of the lists I play scatter laser windrider (scatbikes) [the joke is intentional, some juvenile humor] are less durable than a devastator would have been (they have ATSKNF to auto regroup if they run and don’t run as far). The biggest difference is in their scoring objectives, which is quite good. So I am entirely focused on the best ways to use them and strategies to counter them (weapons is in another thread). List of weapon systems that counter jetbikes

I will apologize right now for how ridiculously long this post is. Thanks to those of you who read it.

For essentially the rest of this article I will consider the following unit configurations for comparison;

*The infamous Scatter Laser Windriders 5 bikes (135 pts); 20 BS4 S6 AP6 shots, T4, Sv3+, Ld 8, elder jetbikes.

*The much less infamous Shurican Cannon Windriders 5 bikes (135 pts); 15 BS4 S6 AP5 Bladestorm(ie pseudo rend) shots, T4, Sv3+, Ld 8, elder jetbikes.

For the windriders I did not consider guide or prescience as 1) they are NOT guaranteed and 2) that is an extra 100+ pts unit for each guide and/or prescience. I will add some of the guide info for snap firing (as it doesn’t really make sense to snap fire without it) but if you want numbers for guide you can multiply my usw number by 1.33 and get a number very close to what it should be (really only rounding errors).

*Last Editions top contender the Waveserpent w/ Shu Can, SL, holofield(145 pts); BS4 TL (99.98% of the time) - 4 S6 AP6 shots + 3 S6 AP5 Bladestorm shots + Avg 5 S7 AP- ignore cover shots [I will ignore the units being transported as 1) they normally contributed as much as their pts in 3 man jetbike units or warp spiders would have by acting as maelstrom Obj snatchers and charge blockers and 2) it severely complicates the math and discussion as on some of the comparisons the dire avengers do more damage than any of the compared units] This unit will be my “standard” not for any balancing or measure of OP but as we all understood this unit and how to play with and against it very well. IMO this unit largely invalidated several very nasty top tier lists by itself; ie 3x drop pod grav centurions, ADL artillery + Daemon Factory, and freak show being some of them. This was also more or less the golden standard unit for competitive play.

So for the damage numbers in average number of unsaved wounds for 1 round of shooting.

I have a google spreed sheet with a very complete set of calculations located; Here. Feel free to take a copy of the spreed sheet if you want.

Typed Out Data:
T3/4

T5

T6

T7

T8


Snap Firing or ie Flyrants and psyker DP’s with guide in [#.##]


AV10 w/ cover saves

AV11 w/ cover saves

AV12 w/ cover saves


Conclusions



So now for damaging the windrider units. How do some of the common units I like to use stack up when they shoot those filthy faerie bikers. First an important aspect of shooting at units like windriders is morale. Windriders are Ld8 which gives them a 27.77% chance to fail a Ld test without any modifiers. There are several ways for windriders to get fearless for a turn but the cheapest of them are 50 pts (warlocks) and they are all inconsistent or very expensive (avatar, phoenix lord, or shard autarch). The other factor is jink. This ability can turn a dead unit into an alive unit and I will include jink numbers in my calculations if they make sense and are applicable.

I also only consider units here that have a method to come to grips. A unit of Ork Boyz without infiltrate or outflank is unlike to meaningfully effect the windriders other than to give them something to kill and act as area denial while they live (not long unless they GtG behind an ADL).

Some Examples


Strategies for Scatbikes


Strategies Against Scatbikes



Side Note


Thank you very much if you managed to read down to this. Please let me know your thoughts on strategies for and against scat packs.

Haven't read too closely yet, but thanks for doing the data analysis!

If you've done the math in a program, it might be cool to do some sort of visualization. It might help to make certain analytical conclusions more obvious -- rather than seeing the raw data.

please stop calling them scatbikes.

Thariinye wrote:Haven't read too closely yet, but thanks for doing the data analysis!

If you've done the math in a program, it might be cool to do some sort of visualization. It might help to make certain analytical conclusions more obvious -- rather than seeing the raw data.

I'll see about making some graphics. It will depend on if I get the time.

Belly wrote:please stop calling them scatbikes.

Why the word works on so many levels.

scat

Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
intransitive v. Informal To go away hastily; leave at once.
n. Jazz singing in which improvised, meaningless syllables are sung to a melody.
intransitive v. To sing scat.
n. Excrement, especially of an animal; dung.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
n. A tax; tribute.
n. A land-tax paid in the Shetland Islands.
n. Animal excrement; dung.
n. Heroin.
n. Whiskey.
n. Coprophilia.
n. A shower of rain.
n. Scat singing.
v. To sing an improvised melodic solo using nonsense syllables, often onomatopoeic or imitative of musical instruments.
v. To leave quickly (often used in the imperative).
v. An imperative demand, often understood by speaker and listener as impertinent.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
n. Tribute.
n. A shower of rain.
interj. Go away; begone; away; -- chiefly used in driving off a cat.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Be off; begone: addressed to cats and other small animals.
To scare or drive away (a cat or other small animal) by crying “Scat!”
n. A tax; tribute; specifically, a land-tax paid in the Shetland Islands.
n. A brisk shower of rain, driven by the wind.
n. Damage; loss.
n. See skat.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
v. flee; take to one's heels; cut and run
n. singing jazz; the singer substitutes nonsense syllables for the words of the song and tries to sound like a musical instrument

If you're looking at alpha striking, it might be worth looking at the effects of Shred with the shurikens.
Yes, you'll only get it in the initial volley, but I'd expect all firepower to be reduced after turn one, as you'll be taking losses.

Also, I find it odd that you count failing Ld8 as a viable tactic for bike removal. Another way to look at it; roughly 3 out of 4 attacks to break them fail.
You're far more likely to leave smaller bike units which are objective secure all over the table than actually deal with the issue.

Cheers for running the math, very helpful.

HawaiiMatt wrote:If you're looking at alpha striking, it might be worth looking at the effects of Shred with the shurikens.
Yes, you'll only get it in the initial volley, but I'd expect all firepower to be reduced after turn one, as you'll be taking losses.

Also, I find it odd that you count failing Ld8 as a viable tactic for bike removal. Another way to look at it; roughly 3 out of 4 attacks to break them fail.
You're far more likely to leave smaller bike units which are objective secure all over the table than actually deal with the issue.

I could run the shred numbers but it requires me to do all of the shubike calculations again (really it is the writing it down that is annoying). Plus those are without ObjSec which is a lot of what makes windrider units game winning. (otherwise they are much more comparable to warp spiders than scatbikes or serpents).

Ld8 is not a strategy. Ld8 morale checks are something that has to be understood just like Sv3+, jink, and the reduction of damage with every lost model.

As for strategy to deal with scat packs. Specific strategy is of course specific to army. However a general outline to dealing with scat packs is;
1) Mitigate the alpha strike. Whether this means DSing in, reserving your army, or taking an ADL I have pointed out several different strategies in the article above. As can be seen from the damage tables above things like riptides, cheap or high toughness units behind ADL, AV12+ vehicles (AV12 with cover or AV13, obviously) are all durable against scat pack fire.
2) Recognize that windrider units become less effective the more wound you put on them. Unlike serpents which tended to fire to full effect until destroyed or wraithknights which do the same every USW on a scat pack reduces the damage output by 4 shots and makes forcing morale checks easier. Therefore if you can start a battle of attrition where you are at an advantage you can win as opposed to serpent spam or riptide spam where wound attrition is meaningless for several turns.
3) Use the limited board space and your follow up to finish the fight (if it actually needs finishing).

Why don't I mind a bunch of units of 1-3 scatbikes on the board after my alpha strike? Well 1) I usually bring MSU ObjSec units of my own to hold objectives. So they cannot win the game and scatbikes are really bad in melee. If they want to dash in bottom turn 1 or top turn 2 next to pretty much any unit and steal an objective then they are free to. It will be a short game. 2) Did you expect to kill all your opponent's ObjSec units on turn 1? That would be a really sad game, I would feel sorry for my opponent. 3) None of this happens in isolation on an island. This is both good and bad for the scat pack. As you may notice I don't list AV13 anywhere...that is because scatbikes have no reason to target it. In return a 30" threat range unit deployed centrally on a 4'x6' board covers 82% of the boards surface. Multiple of these units means that scatpacks are unlikely to completely escape the threat range of these units and instead must limit the number of them that can get hit a turn.

Allow me to expand an example above. Though IMO scat pack with 30+ bikes is probably not going to be a major contender. The scat pack with 5 units of 3 scatbikes with proper support is massively more balanced and powerful. Scatbikes are much scarier when they can come in from reserves, rock your world, and then jump on objectives without having to worry about a drop pod falling on them or 30+ other scatbikes getting in their way so they cannot flee properly.
1) Imperial Fist Drop Pod TAC squad
If you shoot the Imperial Fist Drop Pod TAC unit at only a single scatpack you will under kill the unit leaving you with a 1 scatbike unit with and 1 untouched unit (assuming 3 of these pods entering turn 1 and 6 scatpacks deployed). Also that would only be 1 morale check, which you are right is Ld8 and has a 72% chance to make the morale check, which is unlikely to cause the unit to flee. By shooting 2 different units you can average a failed morale check. On average you should have 1 unit fail morale and 1 unit jink, if you are lucky the unit that jinked will be different than the one that fails morale. Either way on 2 of 3 deployment types or with even a modicum of cramped deployment (ie 30 scatbikes is pretty cramped if they don't spread out turn 1) the failed morale check will likely cause a destroyed unit. If the opponent spreads out so their failed morale checks don't cause a destroyed unit then you can DS your models onto objectives and still shoot to the exact same effect as above just without failed morale checks causing death. This largely saves your units from a significant portion of the beta strike from the scatbikes (you will average effective firepower from 3/10 scatbikes...ouch) and those scatbikes that can return fire may opt to flee instead of shoot as that will get them out of range of your pod units effective 30" threat range (though 3 pod units vs 6 bikes leaves 210 pts for the SM to spend, that is an entire additional pod unit to follow up turn 2 and finish the job). Note that the 3/10 scatbikes could be a high or low estimate depending on which units fail morale. So we have looked at damage on this exchange but what about positioning? The drop pods should land as close to Obj as they can while still within 18" of 2 bike squads (optimal) this is easy if your opponent fields the 6 scatpacks of 5 scatbikes people have been talking but if they field 3 units of 5 scatbikes then you will have to use some of that plasma on a wraithknight or wipe out a scatpack rather than force jink and morale. BTW return fire for the remaining scatbikes will amount to an average of 6 usw on the TAC marines assuming all the fled scatpacks regroup or if they all get fearless next turn 10 dead TAC marines, which is acceptable for drop pod marines.

The reason I decided to use the Imperial Fist drop pod marines is that they are NOT a counter to scatbike spam. They are a TAC army that does okay but not great in competitive play. They are an example of an entirely strategy based counter to scatbikes. Any DS type army can accomplish much the same thing. They are just a poster boy of one of the two strategies I recommend against scatpack spam. ie damage denial alpha strikes or high probability alpha strike.

I am also pointing out a shift in strategy against CWE is necessary. In the serpent years you took it on the chin and cover essentially didn't matter. There was a threshold where you would sacrifice quality to increase quantity to overwhelm the serpents target priorities. It was also very difficult to shut down serpent firepower other than kill whole "units" ie destroying the serpent. This same dynamic actually largely exists intact for units like riptides, wraithknights, imperial knights, SM grav bike units (which can loose 3 models before you get to the bikes), etc. Thus in the Drop Pod example against these opponents you would have dropped in and if you didn't reach the magic 3 HP on the serpent (which required a heck of a lot more than a SM TAC squad) you would have been decimated at full strength as if you never got an alpha strike.

In direct contrast to this scatbikes deal massive damage to quantity units while their firepower is significantly reduced against quality. Cover, even a 4+ cover on your AV12 vehicles can let you survive that turn 1 alpha strike and you can largely neuter it with a properly placed ADL. If you can survive or avoid the alpha strike of the scatpack then you will find that every usw will reduce the scatpack's firepower and will quickly translate to morale checks which means both a further reduction in firepower and will usually mean that the last 25% of wounds will not be necessary as the unit will break and not regroup. Actually there is a pretty good chance that some of your opponent's units will run off the table just from high flee rolls.

I am also leaving aside melee for now as talking about it with diagrams is pointless. In chat board communication scatbikes cannot ever be charged as communicating the geometry of 10+ units on a board turn 2 of a game would require massive posts.

Ratius wrote:Cheers for running the math, very helpful.

No Problem. I will see about shred numbers and graphs Sunday.

Thanks for sharing Ansac.

Belly wrote:
please stop calling them scatbikes.

Why should he? I see nothing inappropriate about the nickname.

If a fearless IC joins a gone to ground unit, the unit un-pins.

However, it also can't move any further. You can move a unit, then join an IC to it, but if the IC joins first, the unit can't move after.

 Spellbound wrote:
If a fearless IC joins a gone to ground unit, the unit un-pins.

However, it also can't move any further. You can move a unit, then join an IC to it, but if the IC joins first, the unit can't move after.

Where in the BRB does it say this?

As far as I understand the rules movement is on a model by model basis. So if an IC joins a unit the IC cannot move anymore but the rest of the unit can still move.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jy2 wrote:
Thanks for sharing Ansac.

Thanks for sharing all your nids material. IMO nids got a lot better as an army with the nerf to serpent shields and general lessening of the quality of ignore cover weapons and units in the most recent codex releases (ie -1 cover save or limited ignore cover shots rather than 30+ ignore cover wounds a turn). I am glad as many of the nids units needed a buff to their durability.

I think the major issue with scatbikes (and yes, pun intended, I'm sure that will be their name now, so try to get used to it!) is their physical size.

I actually have 30 jetbikes. Really. And they are huge stand up high and have ginormous bases for troops. when I see lists of 6 x 5 scatbikes I just roll my eyes. There ain't enough cover on ANY board to allow them to not be cannon fodder to blasts, small arms, volume fire.. I say this with some actual experience
They have a huge alpha strike vs infantry there is no doubt but I suspect 6 vypers with two shuriken canon each are better point for point (and yes, I have those too)

Superb work. I appreciate the degree to which you have dealt with this as a tactical, rather than strategic problem.

It seems that the proliferation of blast weaponry, D-strength assault elements, and objective nabbing has put fliers back at the forefront of meta-countering goodness. Your thoughts?

 ansacs wrote:

 Spellbound wrote:
If a fearless IC joins a gone to ground unit, the unit un-pins.

However, it also can't move any further. You can move a unit, then join an IC to it, but if the IC joins first, the unit can't move after.

Where in the BRB does it say this?

As far as I understand the rules movement is on a model by model basis. So if an IC joins a unit the IC cannot move anymore but the rest of the unit can still move.

ICs are joined at the end of the movement phase

ConanMan wrote:I think the major issue with scatbikes (and yes, pun intended, I'm sure that will be their name now, so try to get used to it!) is their physical size.

I actually have 30 jetbikes. Really. And they are huge stand up high and have ginormous bases for troops. when I see lists of 6 x 5 scatbikes I just roll my eyes. There ain't enough cover on ANY board to allow them to not be cannon fodder to blasts, small arms, volume fire.. I say this with some actual experience
They have a huge alpha strike vs infantry there is no doubt but I suspect 6 vypers with two shuriken canon each are better point for point (and yes, I have those too)

I largely agree. If you have any experience with bike lists then you know that 30+ bikes take up your entire deployment zone. Without scout starting all those bikes on the board is suicidal. However I could see a very nasty reserves list based around vauls support batteries, an autarch, and an ADL w/ comms relay. Let the opponet waste firepower on a 2+ cover save T7 30 pts for 4 wounds unit while you setup for a nasty beta strike. However this doesn't leave a whole lot of pts for anti tank at 1850 pts.

I am pretty convinced that the scat pack 30 is a baby seal club and not a serious contender. 4-6 units of 3 scatbikes is much scarier IMO, especially seeing as how they can never be killed to below 25% thus necessitating the full death of the unit most times. I could however also see several units of 5 scatbike with warlocks for 2+ cover bikes supporting the seer council formation for the extra warp charges.

Ether wrote:Superb work. I appreciate the degree to which you have dealt with this as a tactical, rather than strategic problem.

It seems that the proliferation of blast weaponry, D-strength assault elements, and objective nabbing has put fliers back at the forefront of meta-countering goodness. Your thoughts?

It is actually an interesting problem. Scatbikes are a much different unit than pretty much any troop seen in the game before. They are high damage but relatively fragile when compare similar units. They are exceptionally fast but want nothing to do with melee, which makes strategy using them a bit different.

I actually don't think flyers are the answer to the meta. If we talk about a completely unlimited meta with full ranged D, 2+ rerollables, etc. then I think there are essentially 2 types of lists that will do well.
1) Ensured alpha strike with absolutely devastating knock out potential; ie something similar to my coteaz + assassin idea + massive amount of IG artillery w/ orders or a list I actually play right now; 3 units of drop pod grav cents, + drop pod culexus, + tiggy and librarians.
2) Extreme MSU with a couple of ensured damage deals to kill particularly important units. That or Renegades of Vraks Unending Host.
Honestly with unregulated D weapons games tend to be short affairs where one player kills the other player's D slinger. That or one player plays to the mission and ceases to meaningfully interact with the other player (extreme MSU).

Flyers were an effective counter at the start but the most dangerous flyers have been largely toned down and player now know how to mitigate them. Even a 5 flyrant list usually only gets 3/5 turns of full use out of their flyrants even if they survive the whole game.

This is part of why I wouldn't do something like this for D weapons. Because the small numbers of rolls and 6 result being so disproportionate makes them difficult to really counted with tactics. You can use cover to mitigate them but sometimes a 6 will just finish the game. Things like scatbikes roll enough dice that they will stay semi close to statistical averages (actually a scatpack of 30+ bikes will be very close to statistically average within 10 or so games and should be statistically average within 100 games).

CrownAxe wrote:

 ansacs wrote:

 Spellbound wrote:
If a fearless IC joins a gone to ground unit, the unit un-pins.

However, it also can't move any further. You can move a unit, then join an IC to it, but if the IC joins first, the unit can't move after.

Where in the BRB does it say this?

As far as I understand the rules movement is on a model by model basis. So if an IC joins a unit the IC cannot move anymore but the rest of the unit can still move.

ICs are joined at the end of the movement phase

Ah, thank you. I will have to amend this tactic. It is something I have a lot of experience with either fearless bubbles or artillery units but never needed for my melee armies.

Belly wrote:
please stop calling them scatbikes.

How about "Jerkbikes"?

I love all the math here and I'm probably going to show this to my students to demonstrate how we use math in life. Thank you, sir.

Since I know a lot of people are still debating which weapon to use, I'll add that in games with mysterious objectives the extra 12" range can become invaluable for taking advantage of bonuses. When objectives like skyfire nexus, targeting relay, or scatterfield (80% sure on the names of those) are revealed, the longer range allows you to take more advantage of those while still hitting the targets you want. I always make it a point to capitalize on these bonuses and with the windriders' mobility and the scatterlasers' range, they're one of the best units in the game for jumping to the objective and shooting down a flyer or other unit with their bonus. Shuriken cannons can do it too, but they threaten less of the table so have less opportunities to hit the targets you want while in a position that may not be ideal.

Crimson Devil wrote:

Belly wrote:
please stop calling them scatbikes.

How about "Jerkbikes"?

See Scatbikes works on a number of levels as it refers to;
1) the scatter laser weapon
2) the ability to "Flee rapidly"
3) their firepower is like "A brisk shower of rain, driven by the wind." hits extremely hard and then quickly decreases if you return fire.
4) they can be considered a "Tax; tribute" to unlock different CWE detachments
5) they are addictive as "Heroin"
6) you may need "Whiskey" afterward if you don't know how to fight them
7) their alpha strike is like "an imperative demand" telling you to loose
8) they can inflict a great deal of "Damage; loss"
9) finally a full scatpack could cause unprepared player "To leave quickly"

Most importantly though it is not insulting. This is a game after all, have some fun.

Of course some people may find their cost and rules to be "Animal excrement; dung."

So that is at least 10 ways that this name suits the unit.

lessthanjeff wrote:I love all the math here and I'm probably going to show this to my students to demonstrate how we use math in life. Thank you, sir.

Since I know a lot of people are still debating which weapon to use, I'll add that in games with mysterious objectives the extra 12" range can become invaluable for taking advantage of bonuses. When objectives like skyfire nexus, targeting relay, or scatterfield (80% sure on the names of those) are revealed, the longer range allows you to take more advantage of those while still hitting the targets you want. I always make it a point to capitalize on these bonuses and with the windriders' mobility and the scatterlasers' range, they're one of the best units in the game for jumping to the objective and shooting down a flyer or other unit with their bonus. Shuriken cannons can do it too, but they threaten less of the table so have less opportunities to hit the targets you want while in a position that may not be ideal.

very good. I put up my spreed sheet and organized it (hopefully the organization didn't break anything). Note that I had to make assumptions on this math. I took an average number of serpent shield shots at 5 (this is always an integer so I rounded up). I also had to change formula at certain intervals as the jump from T4 to T5 with a serpent shield doesn't calculate easily in a spreed sheet (I didn't want to get too far in the rabbit hole with if/then statements).

Personally I will magnetize what I can. IMO 15 scatbikes with 5 units of 3 is the optimal configuration for most lists. If you want to get more then you might want to consider the windrider formation as the shubikes in the formation are pretty good at taking down MC.

The bikes are the most fearsome when at full strength, as the game goes on they will get worse...assuming the enemy has the firepower to kill them A strategy for eldar players might be to keep the bikes in reserve if playing against an alpha strike army, and take a comms relay on the ADL that's shielding your Vaul's Wrath battery or wraithknight. That way you guarantee at least one turn of full strength (ie 20 s6 or 15 S6 bladestorm) shooting at your targets when your bikes come in. Simple, but easily overlooked.

 greyknight12 wrote:
The bikes are the most fearsome when at full strength, as the game goes on they will get worse...assuming the enemy has the firepower to kill them A strategy for eldar players might be to keep the bikes in reserve if playing against an alpha strike army, and take a comms relay on the ADL that's shielding your Vaul's Wrath battery or wraithknight. That way you guarantee at least one turn of full strength (ie 20 s6 or 15 S6 bladestorm) shooting at your targets when your bikes come in. Simple, but easily overlooked.

I totally agree. Though I prefer the Autarch for this purpose as he contributes throughout the game and his ability works from reserves, thus the opponent cannot just kill the units around your comms relay.

Also the ADL will provide nothing to a wraithknight, it is too tall. It makes vaul support batteries extremely hard to kill though.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

Belly wrote:
please stop calling them scatbikes.

How about "Jerkbikes"?

Yeah well, the Jerkstore called . . .


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ansacs wrote:

ConanMan wrote:I think the major issue with scatbikes (and yes, pun intended, I'm sure that will be their name now, so try to get used to it!) is their physical size.

I actually have 30 jetbikes. Really. And they are huge stand up high and have ginormous bases for troops. when I see lists of 6 x 5 scatbikes I just roll my eyes. There ain't enough cover on ANY board to allow them to not be cannon fodder to blasts, small arms, volume fire.. I say this with some actual experience
They have a huge alpha strike vs infantry there is no doubt but I suspect 6 vypers with two shuriken canon each are better point for point (and yes, I have those too)

I largely agree. If you have any experience with bike lists then you know that 30+ bikes take up your entire deployment zone. Without scout starting all those bikes on the board is suicidal. However I could see a very nasty reserves list based around vauls support batteries, an autarch, and an ADL w/ comms relay. Let the opponet waste firepower on a 2+ cover save T7 30 pts for 4 wounds unit while you setup for a nasty beta strike. However this doesn't leave a whole lot of pts for anti tank at 1850 pts.

I am pretty convinced that the scat pack 30 is a baby seal club and not a serious contender. 4-6 units of 3 scatbikes is much scarier IMO, especially seeing as how they can never be killed to below 25% thus necessitating the full death of the unit most times. I could however also see several units of 5 scatbike with warlocks for 2+ cover bikes supporting the seer council formation for the extra warp charges.

Ether wrote:Superb work. I appreciate the degree to which you have dealt with this as a tactical, rather than strategic problem.

It seems that the proliferation of blast weaponry, D-strength assault elements, and objective nabbing has put fliers back at the forefront of meta-countering goodness. Your thoughts?

It is actually an interesting problem. Scatbikes are a much different unit than pretty much any troop seen in the game before. They are high damage but relatively fragile when compare similar units. They are exceptionally fast but want nothing to do with melee, which makes strategy using them a bit different.

I actually don't think flyers are the answer to the meta. If we talk about a completely unlimited meta with full ranged D, 2+ rerollables, etc. then I think there are essentially 2 types of lists that will do well.
1) Ensured alpha strike with absolutely devastating knock out potential; ie something similar to my coteaz + assassin idea + massive amount of IG artillery w/ orders or a list I actually play right now; 3 units of drop pod grav cents, + drop pod culexus, + tiggy and librarians.
2) Extreme MSU with a couple of ensured damage deals to kill particularly important units. That or Renegades of Vraks Unending Host.
Honestly with unregulated D weapons games tend to be short affairs where one player kills the other player's D slinger. That or one player plays to the mission and ceases to meaningfully interact with the other player (extreme MSU).

Flyers were an effective counter at the start but the most dangerous flyers have been largely toned down and player now know how to mitigate them. Even a 5 flyrant list usually only gets 3/5 turns of full use out of their flyrants even if they survive the whole game.

This is part of why I wouldn't do something like this for D weapons. Because the small numbers of rolls and 6 result being so disproportionate makes them difficult to really counted with tactics. You can use cover to mitigate them but sometimes a 6 will just finish the game. Things like scatbikes roll enough dice that they will stay semi close to statistical averages (actually a scatpack of 30+ bikes will be very close to statistically average within 10 or so games and should be statistically average within 100 games).

CrownAxe wrote:

 ansacs wrote:

 Spellbound wrote:
If a fearless IC joins a gone to ground unit, the unit un-pins.

However, it also can't move any further. You can move a unit, then join an IC to it, but if the IC joins first, the unit can't move after.

Where in the BRB does it say this?

As far as I understand the rules movement is on a model by model basis. So if an IC joins a unit the IC cannot move anymore but the rest of the unit can still move.

ICs are joined at the end of the movement phase

Ah, thank you. I will have to amend this tactic. It is something I have a lot of experience with either fearless bubbles or artillery units but never needed for my melee armies.

Extreme MSU? Aka Unbound? Sounds fine to me.

 PipeAlley wrote:
Extreme MSU? Aka Unbound? Sounds fine to me.

Extreme MSU doesn't have to be unbound. I often play extreme MSU with 18+ scoring units. Drop Pod SM are an example of extreme MSU (18 ObjSec units). The strength of these types of lists is the firepower waste the opponent has to endure and the sheer number of targets they have to engage. Some of the armies that do extreme MSU in the ITC format well are; SM, BA, SW, Nids (lictor shame), Daemon Summoning, SoB, Renegades and Heretics, Khorne Daemonkin. None of these needs unbound to do this well. Actually often times the strength of extreme MSU is actually in the ObjSec status of their units...which they don't get from unbound.

 ansacs wrote:

 PipeAlley wrote:
Extreme MSU? Aka Unbound? Sounds fine to me.

Extreme MSU doesn't have to be unbound. I often play extreme MSU with 18+ scoring units. Drop Pod SM are an example of extreme MSU (18 ObjSec units). The strength of these types of lists is the firepower waste the opponent has to endure and the sheer number of targets they have to engage. Some of the armies that do extreme MSU in the ITC format well are; SM, BA, SW, Nids (lictor shame), Daemon Summoning, SoB, Renegades and Heretics, Khorne Daemonkin. None of these needs unbound to do this well. Actually often times the strength of extreme MSU is actually in the ObjSec status of their units...which they don't get from unbound.

Good follow-up post. I don't know Lictor Shame though. Obsec Drop pods with combat squads seems great. Orks can do it with multiple CADs, if TO's and Opponents allow that.

 PipeAlley wrote:
Good follow-up post. I don't know Lictor Shame though. Obsec Drop pods with combat squads seems great. Orks can do it with multiple CADs, if TO's and Opponents allow that.

Lictor Shame is essentially lots of lictors acting as cheap harassment and scoring units. It is hard to deal with a good player with this list.
http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Sean-Nayden-1st-Best-Overall-Las-Vegas-Open-2105.pdf

Orks can make some good MSU style lists. Warbikers and Tank Bustas are both excellent for this. I forgot

I fixed an error on the spreedsheet where I forgot to account for AP on the weapons. This wasn't a problem for the typed out version but the spreedsheet was wrong for those numbers (usually a very small difference).

Anyways, it is fixed now.

very nice.

would like to see the reverse with the survivability of bikes compared to a wave serpent with a holo field in cover.

I think that scatter bike spam will not be as nearly as successful as wave serpent spam.

their ability to ignore cover and their survivability and the fact that their fearless compared to ld 8 made them the better option.