Marine Command Bikers?

[DevianID]

So, with command squads starting out pretty good, and the bike option+storm shields+2 weapons each+feel no pain all combining, why have we not heard more about space marine bike superlists, along the same lines as ork nob bikers?

 

Is it because, while nob bikers cost more, they can have bigger squads with 2 wounds each? I mean, the weakness of nob bikers (instant death attacks) doesnt apply to marine bikes, and with a 3+ invuln save thanks to storm shields, all the armies out there stacking anti nob biker attacks will have issues getting around the invuln save I would think. For 385, you get either 4 plasma guns/4 LC/4 storm shields +khan for MEQ and TEQ smashing, or 4 flamers/4 powerfists/4 storm shields +relic captain for general balance (flamers for horde, fists for vehicles and nobs)

 

So where are the captain/khan dual biker command squad lists? Does the glitter of special characters like Pedro Kantor and Vulkan Hestan steer so many people away from getting a captain that no one has bothered with tooling out command squads? We already know that super bikers work well (thank you nob bikers and biker seer councils)

[Koremu]

Is it because, while nob bikers cost more, they can have bigger squads with 2 wounds each? I mean, the weakness of nob bikers (instant death attacks) doesnt apply to marine bikes, and with a 3+ invuln save thanks to storm shields, all the armies out there stacking anti nob biker attacks will have issues getting around the invuln save I would think. For 385, you get either 4 plasma guns/4 LC/4 storm shields +khan for MEQ and TEQ smashing, or 4 flamers/4 powerfists/4 storm shields +relic captain for general balance (flamers for horde, fists for vehicles and nobs)

 

Holy Overspendy....

 

Like many things in the Marine army, it's far too easy to overspend on a Command Squad. You are generally best off using them only if you need something specific that they can do and nobody else can.

 

Firstly, not taking any spare wounds means that you are going to bleed expensive model very easily. I'd certainly not be willing to spend 63 points per model on wargear.

 

The best thing to do with a Command Squad is keep it cheap and specialised.

[Resv]

I am a huge advocate of Bike Armies in 5th Edition and have tackled the topic of Bike Command Squads over in another thread.

 

Anyway, it is really really easy to over spend on your Command Squad. I would say first you should honestly rethink the role of your Command Squad. Your command squad should keep up with your Captain (Khan is over priced when on a bike, you can have a Bike Captain with WAY better kit for less points and digital weapons). Marines don't have the luxury of cheap units to off set the massive unit cost and you can end up losing a huge chunk of points with a few lousy dice rolls.

 

All of this aside, a suped up Mounted Command squad can hand out the pain at a dizzying speed. While not immortal, a Storm Shield equipped squad turbo boosting will walk away with +3/+3/+3/+4 in saves.

 

The last point to make is this, if you aren't going to take Bikes as troops, for the price you might as well take a CC Terminator Squad and have a full 10 man unit.

[DevianID]

Yeah 385 is fairly spendy, but cost is not the factor with bike superunits, as seen with eldar superunits and nob biker super units--quality is the factor... and the quality is undeniable.

 

And yeah you can get 9-10 assault terms for the price of 5 superbikers, but you are much slower and have no shooting--and man what shooting command squads get!

 

Dont get me wrong, I am not saying that command bikers are the best thing ever, but they are really good; yet we havent seen them at all, and I was wondering why that is. My guess was all the shiny HQ special characters that dont allow command squads turn people off from the idea.

 

On a side note, someone thinks Khan is overpriced? Khan is amazing! Furious charge + hit and run, yes please! Sure, he only has a powersword, but its a ws6 s5 i6 power sword with 5 attacks on the charge! Also, the force multipliers he brings a squad is very impressive... bike or no bike. I saw Brother Tual's posts where he pairs Khan + grey knight termies... scary stuff indeed!

[Iron_Chaos_Brute]

The Nob Bikers are troops, have 2 wounds each, a cover save, feel no pain, furious charge, WS 5 (with banner) and play merry hell with wound allocation rules and aren't much more expensive.

 

You say a 385 pt. command squad?

5 guys. 5 wounds.

 

For the same points, I get

 

6 Nob Bikers

Nob 1-PK, Bosspole

Nob 2-PK, Shoota/Skorcha

Nob 3-Waagh Banner

Nob 4-TL Shoota

Nob 5-Shoota/Skorcha

Nob 6-Painboy

6 guys. 12 Wounds, but it takes 7 to kill even 1 biker.

[DevianID]

And the marine bike squad could wipe the 6 bikers in one round of combat...3+ invuln save, more powerfists, better armor while keeping Fnp, ect. If the orks get the charge (They have no mobility advantage) then they can pump out 20 s5 ws5 attacks, which kills 1! biker. Then the 3 remaining marine fists (4 if the apoth died) procede to smash the orks faces killing ~3 (6 wounds thanks to good old instant death) while the 8 ork fist attacks will claim 1.5-2 bikes. Thus marines win by about 3 wounds, and orks need to roll LD 4 or be swept. I also gave the orks more attacks than your senario allows, because they each are equipped differently thus at least 2 orks lost their bonus choppa attack.

 

So I hope that shows that in the best of times for the orks (they get the charge), equal point command squads still beat them. If the marine bikes are in cover, forcing the nobs to roll dangerous terrain and be slowed to init 1, then the nobs have zero chance in a fist fight.

 

Edit: as a side note, marines already have the best anti-nob squad in the game--the terminator. Thus, if you are metagaming versus orks, your list will include 10 terminators with 2 cyclone missiles backed up by pedro kantor. The command squad bikers, while capable of dealing with nob bikers, are ment to be more all around units, so proving that nob bikers can be beat by command bikers is not really fruitful.

[Resv]

I totally didn't intend to re-state everything the Devian just wrote! Umm, I will edit down this post now.

 

Khan is over priced, but can be a great unit, however he is a very contradictory unit. On foot I would say he is a steal though but tack on that pricey bike and it starts to lose its luster. I don't think he is worth it but you might and there is nothing wrong with that at all!

 

Anyway! With a suped up command squad vs 6+ Nob Bikers the secret is this: power weapons, timing, and speed. I have seen a nob biker squad taken out VERY fast by players on several occasions. Remember FNP doesn't work when hit with anything that is Twice your toughness or AP2, plasmas/meltas can rip a hole in them pretty easily. On the assault you should then have Power Weapons out because again FNP doesn't work against Power Weapons. Lightning Claws are great in this because you can re-roll wounds or Power Fists for instant kills (the added Toughness from their bike doesn't count toward instant death). On their attacks you will be relying on your superior saves and the fact that only two of them have Power Klaws (I can't say this enough, I know they are pricey but Storm Shields are you friends).

 

Remember this: Command Bikers and even Standard Bikers can out shoot Nobs and in the shooting phase will deal out far more damage even before you enter CC. As well as this, even though they have Furious Charge your Captain or Khan has better Initiative so Khan's fancy sword or a much stronger Relic Blade (Digital Weapons are fun with this too!) you can lay in some serious damage.