Double BikerNob lists...can our tourney lists survive 'em?

[Deadshane]

Hypothetical Situation:

 

You've gotten to your table in whatever round of a GT, your opponent comes up. You see in his hands an army that fills other tournement goers with dread right now.

 

Another dual bikernob list.

 

two warbosses on bikes with powerklaws

two units of up to ten bikernobs with up to 5 powerklaws in each unit, full wound distribution abuse in effect.

Whatever else he has points for...basically a worthless unit or two when faced with the rest of the army.

 

Something like 5-6 killpoints availiable to get out of his list.

 

What do you do, you have a tournement list, not one "kitted out" to fight this....what do you do?

[Melissia]

Well, perosnally I'd pelt them with Exorcist Missiles and watch them rue the day they brought a biker list against a Sororitas list. Then depending on my luck, I'd set a trap for the surviving bikers. i'd try and get them to assault one unit, then let that unit fall back (you can choose wether or not the Book of St. Lucius comes into effect, as it says you may use the bearer's Ld). Then pelt them with enough bolter rounds to make them regret doing so. The REAL problem would be the Boyz that come after, not the bikers... boler shock and flamers of course, but they might arrive at a bad time if the bikers don't fall for the trap.

 

edit: Oh. You're just discussing Grey Knights. Blah.

[Deadshane]

Thats a good response though, feel free to come in and say what you'd hit 'em with.

 

Exorcist missles might soften up one unit, but after they turbo to your location they're going to have a 3+ cover save, and the unit will have 2 wounds it will be able to take (from seperate exorcists of course) on the warboss as his toughness is 5 normally, Exorcist missles will not kill him.

 

Small arms fire, or bolters, even with faith, arent going to do that much of a job on them.

 

I opened up on a nobs unit much like the currently used biker nobs with my sisters during the 'ard boyz tournement. 10 Nobs with full wound dispersal abuse and a warboss, all with cybork armour and a painboy. This unit took two full turns of firepower from 2 celestian units (melta, heavy flamer), two flamer immolators, and two 10 girl sister units with flamer/H. flamer, all kicking faith.

 

....second round they were finally finished off by 3 rockets from my exorcist....barely....and this unit wasnt on bikes, it was a battlewagon assault.

 

You really have to go up against the unit to appreciate its resiliancy. Beleive me, they arent that afraid of sisters firepower, barring the Exorcist which they should have a 3+ cover against until they get close enough to multi-charge it along with a couple of units and knock it out with a powerfist. Plus, there is the fact that not only is the unit so resiliant it can take almost any sort of firepower for a turn or two....but there are two units we're talking about, not just one.

[Melissia]

Well, then my suggestion would be to screen the Exorcists with Battle SIsters squads so that they literally cannot assault the Exorcists without gettin through the Battle Sisters first. Then let the Sisters flee, use Light of the Emperor on them if you want, and pelt them again. Yay for no more consolidating into an assault.

 

But yeah... any Exorcist-based strategy depends a lot on luck. But the potential for 18 S8 AP1 shots (if such good rolls are made for number of shots, on average 11.88 will hit) means that any biker squad can qutie possibly not only be killed, but overkilled.

[Aidoneus]

Having never faced such a unit, I can't say whether or not this would work. But it's what I would try.

 

My best all-'round GK list is 1750pts (not sure what GTs are), has 2 Raiders, a Crusader, BC with Storm Shield/Psychic Hood, 7 ISTs with melta, and three squads of 8 PAGKs, one with an incinerator and the other two with dual psycannons.

 

I'd make him set up first. He's either going to set up a strong flank, in which case I'll be on the other flank, or he'll try to spread out, in which case I'll pick the weaker flank and take his force a little at a time. My psycannon squads and their raiders would be as far back as possible, while the incinerator squad and crusader would be forward a bit. BC with the crusader, ISTs in reserve, as normal. If he wasn't behind too much cover, I'd probably try to seize initiative.

 

If I got initiative, I'd take potshots with my Raiders and psycannons, and otherwise do nothing. His first turn he boosts both bike squads towards me. My turn I walk back the crusader squad to around 20" away, just so he can't charge me, and fire everything I've got into his closest unit. Next turn he either boosts towards me again, or moves 12" and fires. My next turn I hop the crusader squad into the crusader, move 12" away from his furthest bike squad, and open fire on his closest with the hurricanes and assault cannon. If any nobs are within 18" of my back to squads or their raiders, I walk away and fire. If I need to move more than 6" to keep everything safe, I mount up first and rely on machine spirit. His next turn he's gonna charge something, but it's gonna be an AV14 raider that has moved more than 6", so that's 6's to hit and still not easy to pen, and only a 1/3 chance to kill. Things might go badly, but I should be all right.

 

At this point, it depends on how much of his squads are left. I will stay in the raiders as long as it takes to whittle them down to the point I think I can take them in assault. When I do assault, it will be with at least two, hopefully all 3 PAGK at once, it will be followed by the single most powerful turn of shooting (everything shoots, rapid-fires, flames, etc), and hopefully I can overwhelm them.

 

As I said, don't know if it would work out, but that's what I would try, as I think it gives me my best chance.

[Deadshane]

Good to hear this from one of the masters....:)

 

This is pretty much what I was thinking. Originally I was thinking about splitting up my forces so that not everything could be engaged in HtH at once....

 

Then I thought...powerclaws dont pry open LR's that well. I've been thinking that sticking together and taking long range lascannon shots for as long as possible then relying on machine spirit until the time is right would be the ticket.

 

I'm also using a Holy relic in my list nowadays with a LARGE unit of terminators (you've seen the list from my last battle report Aidoneous) My countercharge should be enough to EASILY gut a single fresh unit of bikers, maybe not kill, but hamstring.

[Doomaflatchi]

Ouch... these lists are harsh. I've has the misfortune of facing one once, and it was one of the hardest matches I've ever had. My advice would be to keep moving at all costs, because that's where you have the greatest comparative advantage.

 

When the Bikers are using their Turbo Boost, they can't shoot or assault, which means that despite the 3+ cover save they get, they're still at a disadvantage because they can't kill any of your units. Thus, they will use this to cover ground, and will abandon it once they get within assault range (since their guns are meaningless against AR14). During this part of their approach, you can blaze away at them with impunity - it's the only phase of this kind of game where you're invulnerable, so make the most use of it by getting in as many shots as possible, and falling back to make this take as long as you can. Move as little as possible (while still falling back) so that you get as many shots as possible. This will last until they come within 18" of you.

 

When the Bikers are not using their Turbo Boost, always move more than 6", so that the Bikers only hit on 6's. This continues to keep your comparative advantage, as it keeps your units more relatively lethal than his are.

 

Ultimately, however, you can't win a game with just the pot shots from your Lascannons. Since he can't kill anything with his guns, he'll use Turbo Boost to get those Power Klaws into melee as fast as possible. Use this to your advantage - use his initial deployment combined with the fact that Bikers can't Turbo Boost through Difficult Terrain to pull him out of position. Chances are, he'll be more anxious to get at you and start rolling some dice of his own than he will be to keep his force together. When he over-extends one part of his force, fall upon it with everything you have, and engage a fraction of his army with the entirety of yours. Tank Shock them (preferably from more than 6" away), disembark, shoot, and assault, thereby applying the maximum lethal potential of your entire army against just one unit of his bikers. Then, as soon as you clear the assault, immediately re-embark and begin the whole process again with his next most strung-out unit.

 

It's not a perfect plan, and there are a lot of ways for it to fail (lucky rolls from those Klaws can easily take out an entire Raider), but it's the best method I've found to deal with this kind of force. Ultimately, just make sure that you've always moved more than 6" the turn before he assaults to maximize the survivability of your Raiders - if you don't, those Power Klaws quickly become Kan Openers. <_<

[Refyougee]

Incinerators are pretty interesting against Nobz seeing as how all you have to worry about is FNP and wounding. With a bit of luck an Incinerator can get a couple of wounds in on a squad of Biker Nobz; a LR unloading two of those is bound to put a hurt on them.

 

Luckily tri-raider lists are probably going to force a bum rush from the Orkz as otherwise you will be picking off his Nobz, 1-2 a turn. You will also most likely get first strike; a squad of GK Termies will put a huge hurt on them. If you're lucky you will also probably Force Weapon the Warboss if you have a GM.

 

Now this isn't GK pure but an Eversor is a pretty cool unit to use against Nobz as well, what with a 12" assault and the potential to get 10 PW attacks that wound on 4+.

 

While we're talking non-GK options a line of cheap inducted guardsmen could provide a very useful screen, forcing your opponent to either go around them (Losing valuable movement) or charge into them, losing his Cover Save (Because we know they will die). 160 points will get you 25 bodies, enough to easily block at least half of the board off

 

I agree that Tank Shocking is a good option to use in conjunction with Incinerators, but I am personally always afraid of a lucky power klaw hit, then turning into a lucky glance and then a lucky Immobilized result.

 

It's going to be a hard-fought battle but I think GKs are well equipped to deal with biker Nobz.

[SamaNagol]

Out of everything, I think GK are best suited to dealing with the 2 Tournament spam lists. 2xLash and 2xNobz Bikerz w/ Warbosses. Incinerators and Pyscannon come into their own against T5 4+/5++/3+Cover units. And the S6 Power Weapons en masse hitting first are great too.

 

I'm going to start trying out pure GK against cheese. See how it does. They seem like the logical scissors to the low model count elite 'paper' of 2Lash Prince/9Oblits and 2 Biker Warboss and FNP Nobz Biker lists.

[Deadshane]

Incinerators and Pyscannon come into their own against T5 4+/5++/3+Cover units. And the S6 Power Weapons en masse hitting first are great too.

 

Incinerators arent bad but they dont really have enough "oomph" to kill off the 2 wound models....specially not when you're wounding on a 4+. Psycannons cannot get past the 3+ cover save, and neither weapon ignores the FnP save that the Nob Bikers recieve.

 

The STR 6 powerweapons are great, but unless an entire Grey Knight army is assaulting a single bikernob unit, its doubtful that they can close the deal on a single unit. Normally when we charge, we decimate units before they can even attack back, either that or their same initiative reprisal isnt going to be THAT terrible. We're talking about units here that possibly have up to 23 wounds distributed amongst up to 11 models that each take full advantage of the new wound allocation rules. (a sort of resiliancy in and of itself). Starting with a Toughness of 5, you have a 4+ save, 5+ invuln, 4+ cover (or 3+ when boosting), with a 4+ FnP roll. Arguably the most resiliant unit in the game right now. Also, it retains its full combat effectiveness after taking 12 wounds. Inflicting 12 wounds against a unit like that is hard enough, but it doenst start removing models until the 13th wound. (Of course if we're talking about lascannon fire, models begin to get removed after the 3rd shot gets past the defenses) Oh, and dont forget, there are TWO units. Makes incinerators look like fairly useless suicide attacks doesnt it?

 

Offense consists of several basic attacks including a small amount of poison. (whatever) However, up to 25 powerklaw attacks at WS 5 can be inflicted on the charge as some of the top armies are using 4-6 powerklaws in these units. Warboss of course is 5 or 6 of these and his str is 10 rather than 8.

 

......................................................................

 

Something I was thinking about last night. With this list and lash spam being a very real threat during this GT season (I personally experienced a grand total of 6 psykers in the baltimore GT in 2008 over the course of 5 games), I'm wondering if a slight change might be in order. I'd be deviating from the "pure" grey knight list however...which I'm loathe to do.

 

My Idea is this, drop several terminators and replace their firepower with cheaper PAGK Psycannon (again, something I dislike as they reward non-movement on our PAGK's). Then purchase either a lord or Elite Inquisitor. I'll be giving him a deck of cards, probably a pychic power or two, and a pair of mystics. THEN (the real reason for this change) a Culuxes Assassin.

 

Against BikerNobs his mission is simple. Take cover behind the LR's keeping up by running if needed. When the Nobs get close move the assassin up within 12" and tank-shock them off the board, simply escorting the bikes off by maintaining close range with the land raiders denying the regroup if possible. Even with the leadership RR that the Nobs can get their leadership is still only a 7 due to the assassin's "souless" rule. Not bad?

 

Against Lash lists and other lists featuring powerful psykers, the assassins value is obvious.

 

Against Chaos Daemon lists, which are becoming increasingly popular at GT's, the Inquisitor presents an opportunity to exploit the "Sanctuary" power when mounted in a LR.

 

I may playtest this idea a bit.....tell me what you guys think.

[iamnothere]

Having never faced one of these list yet the following is all theory hammer.

 

Facing these lists with GK should be a tactical challenge but like us he will be short on scoring units. If he's picked weaker troop units to accompany the bikes then hes' not picked any other nasty stuff as all his points are in 2 super units.

 

These weaker units are the ones to watch as they will be claiming objectives. As for the NObs, weight of fire is the way to go with these, although multimentas and lascannon will help instant death a few.

 

Classically pure GK play well as a refused flank so in DoW I'd hold everything off the table until T1 and DS my GKT later in the game (weaker units). This way I can choose to be close or near to him. Then, it would be a matter of bringing as many guns to bear onto the closest enemy unit available until it was gone. If with 2 Crusaders, a Phobos, 18 SB & 2 PsyCan I can't cause enough for at least morale check then somthing has gone seriously wrong. I would have targetted a flank and made sure that the other biker squad was too far away to fire at my PAGK or assault my LR in the next turn.

 

As I said, theory hammer until played but pretty standard GK tactics of limiting your opponents options by denying them targets should work well.

[Refyougee]

Deashane: Using an Inquisitor is a very good idea as the opportunities he brings to the table are numerous; putting him in a Land Raider is also an interesting choice because it really extends the range of your Mystics and of Sanctuary.

 

Interesting take on the Culexus, but remember that the Bikers will have at least a couple of Bosspoles. This makes it very hard to rout them. I prefer the Callidus because of her ability to potentially throw them into terrain to halt the Turbo Boost for a turn. With such a large presence on the battlefield it's quite possible to do this.

[Deadshane]

I prefer the Callidus because of her ability to potentially throw them into terrain to halt the Turbo Boost for a turn. With such a large presence on the battlefield it's quite possible to do this.

 

VERY sneaky...I like. Good point.

[Apogee]

You guys are gonna hate me for saying this, but in my mind the logical counter is Repentia. That's right, Repentia.

 

They charge at you, boosting over, on your turn, you assault them with the repentia. You all strike at I1, and if you're smart enough to attach a priest, you get to re-roll your 2 S6 hits per sister. You'll probably get mushed right back (maybe a small respite from I5 and I4 on the Mistress and Preist power weapons), but it will make those nobs evaporate. I'm not sure how much a nob biker mob costs, so I don't have an idea how cost effective this would be.

[Warp Angel]

I'm an Ork player, and I've "experimented" with this sort of abuse of the ork list.

 

I find it abhorrent to actually field against someone I like. It's buhroken.

 

Bikes get a stupidly good cover save against shooting. I believe it's only 4+, not the 3+ that others mentioned, but I don't have my codex here, and I haven't "tested" that list recently.

 

They have a 5+ invuln from Cybork Body, meaning that they're going to ignore 1 out of 3 power weapon wounds in hand to hand.

 

Base toughness for anything except instant kill is 4(5), so you're not going to wound frequently with stormbolters, and S6 is no longer a 2+ wound.

 

And anything that isn't AP 1, 2, or S 8 isn't going to hurt them. Feel No Pain means that fully half of the wounds that your army does are going to be ignored unless they are the right kind of weapon. 2 wounds each doesn't help either, with the wound distribution rules.

 

They're fast. They have 3 attacks base, 4 on the charge.

 

And the Warboss is better in just about every way than the Nobz.

 

 

That said, there ARE weaknesses that can be exploited.

 

1) The painboy in each unit provides the Feel No Pain. If you can eliminate him, you've gained a 50% wound upgrade (give or take). A Vindicare Assassin could do it, but he still has to deal with the pesky cover save.

 

2) The large model size allows you to clump the enemy up by using terrain features or vehicles, giving your flamer weapons an increase in effectiveness over what you might otherwise expect. You just need to avoid combat with them in order to use the flamers and template weapons. It's tricky, but it can be done. Additionally, the large model size means that multiple bike squads tend to get into each other's way. A Callidus Assassin can totally muck up their deployment and either buy you more time to shoot, or force both squads to engage in the same area.

 

3) Low leadership. The small squad size means that when they take casualties, they don't usually benefit from the Mob rule.

 

4) Building on 2 and 3, you MUST concentrate firepower from as many units as possible into the same bike squad. This means deploying in what is, against most armies, a suicidal posture. Clump yourself up and don't deep strike, since you'll want all of your firepower in one place, at one time. From a Killhammer perspective, this means reducing D2 as much as possible by applying as much firepower as possible in one place.

 

5) Charge them. Every time. With every unit that's in range, if it has sufficient weapons that can be used to shoot and assault. You mitigate a massive amount of effectiveness. If you can't charge them, make it so they can only charge one squad of your choice. It's probably going to die, but that's the point. Hope they wipe it on their turn, so that you can unleash holy heck on them during shooting next turn. Before you start saying "charging is suicide", I'm going to agree with you. But suicide against 15 S8 PF attacks is better than letting yourself be murdered by 20 S9 PF attacks. EVERYTHING dies in this game. It's up to you to decide which of your units will be fed into the grinder. Even winning combat by 1 may be enough to send them running, so it's worth creating the world's biggest tidy bowl of death. If you don't get them early in hand to hand, you're probably not going to win a protracted fight. CC is where these Ork units shine, so making it unpleasant for them is making it unpleasant for your opponent. He literally has all of his eggs in one basket.

 

6) If you're using Land Raiders, Tank Shock. Tank Shock. Tank Shock. Remember that Low Leadership and Channeling the enemy to make template weapons more effective that I mentioned above? Tank Shocking does both. And if they're stupid enough to go for it, their odds are something like 1 in 32, even for the Warboss with the S10 PK. Forcing a leadership check is always nice. And you still get to shoot some weapons at them. This tactic can be made more effective if you've got a Culexex Assassin, since their already poor leadership gets severely depleted.

 

I hope I'm not getting my rules confused with 4th, and that the enemy still takes a leadership test for being tank shocked....

 

--------------------------

 

For a reference - Assuming 1 Warboss with PK and Attack Squig, 5 Nobs with Power Klaws, 1 Painboy, 4 Nobs with Choppas against MEQ

 

My rounding is included with wounds/saves balanced as best I can and estimated on both save and wound sides

 

Charging (Init 3): 6 Attacks at S10 PK, 20 Attacks at S9 PK, 5 attacks with 4+ Poison, 16 Attacks at S5.

Hitting: 4, 10, 3, 12 respectively.

Wounding: 2, 8, 2, 9

Saving: 0, 0, 1, 7

Losing: 10-12 MEQs

 

Reduce casualties by 3-4 if you deny them the charge. (Significant, ain't it?)

 

But that assumes that they come in at full strength. They have lower Init than you.

 

10 man Tactical Squad w/PF

Shooting: 10 Bold Pistol shots, 4 wounds, 2 saves 1 FNP

Charging Them First: 3 PF attacks, 18 normal.

Hitting: 1, 9

Wounding: 1, 3

Saving: 0, 1

FNP: 0, 0

Losing: 2 models, reducing their number of attacks by 3 and saving another casualty.

 

Orks are winning 6:2

 

However, 3 tactical squads supported by a character should actually WIN combat.

 

3 Grey Knight squads should WRECK the Nobz if they charge, and 2 just might win as well.

 

But if you allow them to defeat your units in detail, you'll be defeated.

 

You kill only 1.

[Refyougee]

The Nobz get a 3+ Cover Save when they Turbo Boost; using a Callidus will help counter this somewhat because you can force one of the squads into some terrain (Even one Biker will do the trick) and will give you a much better chance of taking them one at a time.

 

I believe that going first against the Nobz is probably best; either he foregoes his Cover Save for the first turn (unlikely) or he starts in Reserves and you have a good chance of taking his army on piecemeal. (More likely) Using Emperor's Tarot on your Inquisitor is bound to make that easier; with a Callidus assassin it really opens up a lot of possibilities.

 

If you can snipe a couple Nobz out of the squad the Callidus also gets a good shot at using her AP1 "flamer". Get them down to LD 8 and you're wounding on 4+ ignoring everything except the Invulnerable save. Seeing as she has Polymorphine chances are you won't have any trouble getting her into position.

 

That's about 170 points though (Assassin, Elite Inquisitor w/o gear, Tarot, 2 Mystics). Luckily I think this is useful against pretty much any army so I don't think the points will be wasted.

 

As I said before though I do not think that Tank Shock will succeed in routing the Orks because of the bosspoles. It's useful for setting them up in a line so you can fry a bunch of them but otherwise it is not all that great. On the upside it is unlikely your opponent will even try a Death or Glory attack because odds are even a Warboss will die.

[Warp Angel]

As I said before though I do not think that Tank Shock will succeed in routing the Orks because of the bosspoles. It's useful for setting them up in a line so you can fry a bunch of them but otherwise it is not all that great. On the upside it is unlikely your opponent will even try a Death or Glory attack because odds are even a Warboss will die.

 

Any time you can force a leadership check against Orks, it's a good thing. Don't rely on it, but don't forget it's in your toolbox, and is often more effective than shooting such a tough target would be.

[benmothershaw]

Typical 1500pts orks, 2 biker nob (full) 2 units of orks?

 

I've decided to bait a squad using stormtroopers to split the two biker units up.

 

Then attack one of the units with all LR+GK combos.

After that One LR+GK will split to save Stormtroopers (who will go on level of building) And the other LR+GK go to capture/contest enemy objective.

 

I can see it working, yet if he doesn't take the bait i'll be forced to flank ;).

[SamaNagol]

I most definitely wasn't advocating wandering idly forwards and trying to spray them with Incinerators, but damn it if they aren't at least wounding on 4s and only being saved on 4's from FNP. And the Psycannon wounds on 3s and is saved on 3s. Better than most squad special weapons out there. That and the S6 Power Weapons hitting at I. GK could do more damage than pretty much any other Marine unit piling out of an LR that is feasibly going to cause 2 casualties on it's own just from shooting.

 

I've already tried to wrangle some type of counter from my BA and it takes about 1200pts of CC units getting the charge to pull out the win, so these are favourable odds!

[Doomaflatchi]

Also, it retains its full combat effectiveness after taking 12 wounds. Inflicting 12 wounds against a unit like that is hard enough, but it doenst start removing models until the 13th wound.

This isn't actually correct - in 5th ed, when dealing wounds against units of multi-wound models, you must consolidate the wounds and remove as many whole models as possible at all time (p.26 in the Core Rule Book).

[number6]

Also, it retains its full combat effectiveness after taking 12 wounds. Inflicting 12 wounds against a unit like that is hard enough, but it doenst start removing models until the 13th wound.

This isn't actually correct - in 5th ed, when dealing wounds against units of multi-wound models, you must consolidate the wounds and remove as many whole models as possible at all time (p.26 in the Core Rule Book).

Strangely, I haven't yet faced the new Orks codex since it was released almost a year ago. Is it possible to construct a nob biker unit such that every model is different "in gaming terms"? Because if you can, then the wound allocation rules can conceivably let you spread wounds around in such a way that you can inflict numerous wounds, have many of them unsaved, and yet still not eliminate a single model because each Nob has 2 wounds apiece!

 

For example, picture a Warboss and 5 nob biker unit. Assuming every model is distinct in gaming terms, and you inflicted 12 wounds, you'd put 2 wounds apiece on each model. However, every model would get to roll its own set of 2 dice for its own armour saves, as each model makes up its own "unique group of like models" in the unit. Which means each model would have to fail both armour saves and feel no pain tests (assuming that none of the wounds inflicted would ignore FNP) before any one model is removed. Even inflicting twice as many wounds on such a unit would still require a pretty good string of luck before you can be reasonably assured of actually killing anything. Daunting!

[Warp Angel]

Strangely, I haven't yet faced the new Orks codex since it was released almost a year ago. Is it possible to construct a nob biker unit such that every model is different "in gaming terms"? Because if you can, then the wound allocation rules can conceivably let you spread wounds around in such a way that you can inflict numerous wounds, have many of them unsaved, and yet still not eliminate a single model because each Nob has 2 wounds apiece!

 

For example, picture a Warboss and 5 nob biker unit. Assuming every model is distinct in gaming terms, and you inflicted 12 wounds, you'd put 2 wounds apiece on each model. However, every model would get to roll its own set of 2 dice for its own armour saves, as each model makes up its own "unique group of like models" in the unit. Which means each model would have to fail both armour saves and feel no pain tests (assuming that none of the wounds inflicted would ignore FNP) before any one model is removed. Even inflicting twice as many wounds on such a unit would still require a pretty good string of luck before you can be reasonably assured of actually killing anything. Daunting!

 

You have a Warboss.

You have a Pain Boy.

You have 9 Nobz.

 

If you take those 9 Nobz and give 5 Power Klaws, and 4 choppas, you've got two groups.

Now, if for each of those groups, you give different shooting weapons (twin linked shoota, slugga, kombi-flamer, kombi rokkit launcha, etc), you've effectively made each of them unique. There's also bosspoles, big choppas, and other options to mix things up if you get bored.

 

So yeah, it can be done.

 

Like I said, I'd never play that list against someone I liked.

[Deadshane]

It IS a tournement list however, and WILL be seen this year just about everywhere as its an easy recipe for victory and the army is totally point and click.

 

It's just so darned hard to get past, I dont think I've ever seen a list that needs so little tactical expertise and yet has such destructive capabilities and resiliancy.

 

....and it really presents a problem to lists that feature multiple stormbolters.

[SamaNagol]

Even if you don't go to the hassle of equipping each model differently, they will still remove the 4 Big Choppa boys first who are not the teeth of the unit anyway. It really is horrible to face. Unless you can make them take leadership tests somehow then good luck. The GM S6 Force Weapon attacks on the Warboss are the only thing that give me any sort of solace.

 

Killing the warboss 75.6% of the time with the GM puts a smile on my face at least. It's the other 5 power claws you have to worry about swinging back 20 times.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Something that came out of the Adepticon 2009 FAQ was that storm shields can essentially absorb all the attacks of a single model. So, if you wanna go as 'all-out' as him, do the following:

 

Grandmaster, storm shield, NFW

7 x GKT's, TH+SS

(477 points)

 

BC Stern

8 x GKT's, TH+SS

(509 points)

 

Each of the Biker Boss+Biker squadrons is 500 points (give or take), so you're pretty evenly matched. Just send one after each Biker squad. Take IST's to fill your mandatory slots, SoB in the others so you keep costs down. You really just need anti-infantry to clean up the token Shoota Boyz squads he'll have following the Biker rush, maybe an Eversor or some DCA's to take out Lootas or whatever.

 

Each squad will lose about 3 guys, but you'll win combat in two rounds (one if Stern and the GM pull off their 'brain-fry' ability to kill the Warboss). Then you just chase after the remaining Boyz until they're all dead, moving the IST's/SoB onto the objectives.