Regarding bike sqds size

[Apothecary Orpheus]

I was thinking of making a bike army(you gotta love the ravenwing battleforce) and i was wondering

what seems to be the "optimal"size for a sqd.A 5man sqd totting meltas and a meltabike is an excellent tank hunter

and a good choice for fast attack,but multiple 5man sqds as troops,the minimum in other words,are effective

or do they die too easy?From your experience what seems to be an effective number for a sqd,6-7 maybe,

with or without an attack bike attached?

[ShinyRhino]

I run my squads in the full 8-man-plus-attackbike configuration. This is purely a killpoint denial tool, and allows me to take different configurations based on who I'm facing.

 

My two current bike squads are made up like this:

 

1x Sergeant with powerfist, 2x meltaguns, MM Attack bike.

1x Sergeant with power weapon and meltabombs, 2x plasmaguns, HB Attack bike.

 

I obviously also run a bike captain to make these guys troops.

 

What I like about the 8-man is the flexibility I get from Combat Squadding. Let's say I'm facing an army with a lot of fast, light armor (Trukk Boyz, Sentinel-heavy IG, Rhino Rush, etc). I then have the ability to combat squad to put a special (meltagun or plasmagun) in EVERY squad for the abilty to crack armor.

Am I facing a horde army? Combat squad all my boolter bikes into one combat squad, and put the specials and sergeant in the other one. Bolter squad can fire those twin-linked bolters to mass effect while the specials and sergeant hit harder targets (MCs, walkers, etc).

If it's a purely killpoint mission, I can also just leave them as a full squad for killpoint denial.

Combat squads also allow me to pick and choose who my Captain attaches to. Typically, I throw him in with either of the sergeants' squads to make use of their power weapon or fist by getting into close combat, where the captain shines.

 

If you're not worried about having rigid units, go for 5 plus attack bike. You can lose three models before requiring a Morale check, which is the BANE of biker armies. One lost morale check can put you off the table in a heartbeat withthat 3d6" Fall Back move. I once lost an entire bike squad, plus my Captain, to a roll of boxcars on the Morale check from shooting losses, and a 15" Fall Back.

[Jackelope King]

At least 4 bikes plus 1 attack bike (to qualify as troops), 5 bikes plus an attack bike being truly ideal, if you can make it work.

 

As for equipping them, multimelta on the attack bike, meltaguns in the hands of two of the bikers. If you have the points, give the sergeant a combi-melta. Unless you're talking about a Bike Command Squad, biker marines don't do close combat. Too few numbers, too few attacks. You waste far, far too many points gearing them up for close combat, which can be used to buy more bikes (your model-count in a bike army is scary-low). Never take plasma, either. Plasma can't deal with armor like melta weaponry can (AP 1 is manifold better than AP2), a little bit of added range is less consequential on a bike (which gives meltaguns a threat radius of 24" and that multimelta a 36" threat bubble), and plasma doesn't care that you're T5 when it fries you.

 

8 man bike squads + attack bike risk getting unwieldy, since they treat all difficult terrain as dangerous terrain. If you want to keep your bikes alive, screen then with a Bike Command Squad. You'd be surprised how wide you can stretch out a Bike Command Squad, and 3+ invuln from storm shields on 4 members, T5 and feel no pain can suck up a lot of firepower.

 

Finally, when you're playing with biker marines, your bikes attack as one. Pick a piece of the enemy line, drive over to it, and erase it. Then move on. Resist the urge to split your forces, because you will die. Turbo boost to avoid enemy fire. If you've got a good fire base (Typhoon-pattern speeders are the classic, but I prefer TL-Autocannon Dreads and Dakka Predators), engage and destroy the truly dangerous enemy torrent units (like Lootaz).

[Resv]

I say this pretty often when these threads pop up every now and then but I LOVE assaulting with my Bike units. A full unit of 8 with an attack bike puts out a TON of fire power, follow this up with an assault phase can clear units right off the board. Make no mistake these guys are fantastic at taking out Troops and Light Armor.

 

Things to get into the open:

1- These guys are not elites so don't treat them as such! A 5 man unit, while thrifty, really shouldn't be though of more as Heavy Infantry rather than out and out destroyers. They are just upgrades to standard Tactical Marines and while they have better toughness they don't have a better armor save. Simply put, they don't have the staying power of Terminators and as such they will still die pretty quickly. Sometimes a larger squad will last just that much longer, not falling as fast to special or heavy weapons fire.

 

2- A full unit of 8 Bikes with an attack bike can always be combat squadded should the need arise while an undersized squad will always be an undersized squad.

 

3- What is your local meta game like? If you are dealing with lots of hordes you might take larger squads for more bolter fire and ablative wounds. In a Mech heavy area, smaller cheap squads with Meltas and Power Fists might make the most sense. Take a look at your the winning lists of local Tournaments too.

[ShinyRhino]

I'd have to disagree with most of the below. Too many hard absolutes. Bikes are one of the most flexible units in the Codex, because of their range of special weapon options.

 

 

At least 4 bikes plus 1 attack bike (to qualify as troops), 5 bikes plus an attack bike being truly ideal, if you can make it work.

 

Five plus attack bike might be a nice, compact, number, but it lacks ablative wounds and the ability to combat squad. You have a total of three ablative wounds (two bolter bikes, and a spare on the attack bike) before you're losing a special weapon, your heavy weapon, or the sergeant.

That might not be a huge issue if you're spamming melta in the form of 5-man squads with MM attack bikes against a target with lots of vehicles. But it's a HUGE issue against everything else. One round of dedicated shooting from anything with a S4 weapon is going to cost you dearly.

I suppose this comes down to a playstyle argument. Some folks like the MSU (many small units) style. I personally do not. I want the tactical flexibility of combat squadding, and feel MSU is a liability in 40K due to killpoints.

 

As for equipping them, multimelta on the attack bike, meltaguns in the hands of two of the bikers. If you have the points, give the sergeant a combi-melta. Unless you're talking about a Bike Command Squad, biker marines don't do close combat. Too few numbers, too few attacks. You waste far, far too many points gearing them up for close combat, which can be used to buy more bikes (your model-count in a bike army is scary-low). Never take plasma, either. Plasma can't deal with armor like melta weaponry can (AP 1 is manifold better than AP2), a little bit of added range is less consequential on a bike (which gives meltaguns a threat radius of 24" and that multimelta a 36" threat bubble), and plasma doesn't care that you're T5 when it fries you.

 

Plasma isn't meant for armor killing. It's for TEQ killing. And if you park your bikes at 12" melta range and pop a transport, expect the very cranky squad you just dumped out to light you up in return, or charge your pants off in their turn. Remember, you only have a max of six models with your 5+1 bikers to absorb that charge or hail of fire.

If you're absolutely dead-set on using that tactic, you'll want a second bike squad nearby with a NON-melta weaopn set to put the hurt on the disembarked unit. Flamers or plasma will do that. Flamers roast light infantry, plasma hurts TEQ. Melta won't do jack against the dumped-out squad except give them another target to charge at.

 

8 man bike squads + attack bike risk getting unwieldy, since they treat all difficult terrain as dangerous terrain. If you want to keep your bikes alive, screen then with a Bike Command Squad. You'd be surprised how wide you can stretch out a Bike Command Squad, and 3+ invuln from storm shields on 4 members, T5 and feel no pain can suck up a lot of firepower.

 

Bike Command Squads are great. They have the potential to be the Swiss Army Knife of the biker list. So many options, but you also have to watch their points costs. A single pie plate can take every one of them down in a single round. Be careful with them. They're a fine-edged blade, not a hammer.

 

Finally, when you're playing with biker marines, your bikes attack as one. Pick a piece of the enemy line, drive over to it, and erase it. Then move on. Resist the urge to split your forces, because you will die. Turbo boost to avoid enemy fire. If you've got a good fire base (Typhoon-pattern speeders are the classic, but I prefer TL-Autocannon Dreads and Dakka Predators), engage and destroy the truly dangerous enemy torrent units (like Lootaz).

 

A few things to remember abut Turbo Boosting:

It's a 3+ cover save. That's a great cover save value, but don't overestimate it. You're running small squads, so even two wounds will hurt you. If you turbo boost to a spot where the enemy can focus fire on you, don't expect the 3+ to do a lot against the number of saves you'll be forced to take.

It will not save you from close combat. Check your ending position's range from enemy units that might charge you. Even a 10-man IG platoon can tie up your bikers for a couple turns, which is plenty of time for them to park heavy guns all around you, and obliterate your squad when they run down the last Guardsman. Beware of Tyranid Rippers and Necron Scarabs. If you get charged by these, you will be tied up for the rest of the game. You will not put out enough wounds per turn to kill them off, and they'll take down a bike every turnor two due to sheer volume of attacks.

 

Dreads do make all-star support platforms for Bikers. I have a list that uses a pair of Venerables as gun support for my bikes. If you go this route, be sure to take at least two more AV targets to force the opponent to choose what to shoot at with his anti-tank fire. I personally use a pair of tacticals in Rhinos.

This is because the easiest way to beat an all-biker army is to place objectives on a roof, high in a ruin, or even in difficult terrain. Bikes cannot move up levels of a ruin, and have to take dangerous terrain checks for entering and leaving difficult terrain. The tacticals not only give you armored target saturation, but also a foot-mobile unit that can climb to those elevated objectives.

One of your most reliable tactics in an objective game will be the Turn 5 Turbo Boost. You keep your bikes moving the whole game, and then scatter to objectives on turn 5. But, you can't turbo boost into difficult terrain. Tactic denied.

 

 

IMO, bikes give the best level of tactical flexibility in the Marine force. Speed, firepower, and the ability to tailor yourself to an opponent by using the Combat Squads rule.

[Giga]

I agree with Shinyrhino.

 

I feel a big bike squad with two meltaguns, mm attack bike, and a powerfist is the way to go, for all the same reasons Shinyrhino stated.

[Jackelope King]

At least 4 bikes plus 1 attack bike (to qualify as troops), 5 bikes plus an attack bike being truly ideal, if you can make it work.

 

Five plus attack bike might be a nice, compact, number, but it lacks ablative wounds and the ability to combat squad. You have a total of three ablative wounds (two bolter bikes, and a spare on the attack bike) before you're losing a special weapon, your heavy weapon, or the sergeant.

That might not be a huge issue if you're spamming melta in the form of 5-man squads with MM attack bikes against a target with lots of vehicles. But it's a HUGE issue against everything else. One round of dedicated shooting from anything with a S4 weapon is going to cost you dearly.

I suppose this comes down to a playstyle argument. Some folks like the MSU (many small units) style. I personally do not. I want the tactical flexibility of combat squadding, and feel MSU is a liability in 40K due to killpoints.

The ablative wounds certainly are nice, and I wouldn't disagree, but in the 5e mech environment, you want meltas. The extra few biker marines provide ablative wounds and some more benefit against foot armies, who are less prominent in 5e. This is mostly a matter of preference, honestly, and combat squadding can cover some of your issues, but I don't like sending melta-deficient squads out onto the field when I have my bike army, as I'll explain below.

 

As for equipping them, multimelta on the attack bike, meltaguns in the hands of two of the bikers. If you have the points, give the sergeant a combi-melta. Unless you're talking about a Bike Command Squad, biker marines don't do close combat. Too few numbers, too few attacks. You waste far, far too many points gearing them up for close combat, which can be used to buy more bikes (your model-count in a bike army is scary-low). Never take plasma, either. Plasma can't deal with armor like melta weaponry can (AP 1 is manifold better than AP2), a little bit of added range is less consequential on a bike (which gives meltaguns a threat radius of 24" and that multimelta a 36" threat bubble), and plasma doesn't care that you're T5 when it fries you.

 

Plasma isn't meant for armor killing. It's for TEQ killing. And if you park your bikes at 12" melta range and pop a transport, expect the very cranky squad you just dumped out to light you up in return, or charge your pants off in their turn. Remember, you only have a max of six models with your 5+1 bikers to absorb that charge or hail of fire.

If you're absolutely dead-set on using that tactic, you'll want a second bike squad nearby with a NON-melta weaopn set to put the hurt on the disembarked unit. Flamers or plasma will do that. Flamers roast light infantry, plasma hurts TEQ. Melta won't do jack against the dumped-out squad except give them another target to charge at.

Plasma's problem is that it has a very limited application: rock-hard troops. Melta deals with rock-hard troops, and it's one of the only effective ways of dealing with mech in 5e, which is extremely powerful. And bikes already come equipped against light infantry with twin-linked bolters. 3 melta weapons will deal with most any vehicle in one round of shooting. 40k rewards spamming of units, so your game-plan doesn't suffer with the inevitable losses you'll suffer during the game, so if you have to pick one thing to spam, it might as well be the most valuable.

 

As for winding up close to angry transport occupants, that's why bikes hunt in a pack. Pop the rhino with one squad, three others rapid-fire bolters and clean up. Pop the Land Raider, then three other squads fire meltaguns to fry the assault terminators, add in a few autocannon shots from Dreads, then hit them with the Bike Command squad. And for lighter transports, when no torrent units present themselves that need immediate removal? That's what autocannon dreads are for.

 

8 man bike squads + attack bike risk getting unwieldy, since they treat all difficult terrain as dangerous terrain. If you want to keep your bikes alive, screen then with a Bike Command Squad. You'd be surprised how wide you can stretch out a Bike Command Squad, and 3+ invuln from storm shields on 4 members, T5 and feel no pain can suck up a lot of firepower.

 

Bike Command Squads are great. They have the potential to be the Swiss Army Knife of the biker list. So many options, but you also have to watch their points costs. A single pie plate can take every one of them down in a single round. Be careful with them. They're a fine-edged blade, not a hammer.

Bikes have huge, long bases. You can stretch them way the heck out. If you get two wounds from a pie plate, your opponent rolled well.

 

Finally, when you're playing with biker marines, your bikes attack as one. Pick a piece of the enemy line, drive over to it, and erase it. Then move on. Resist the urge to split your forces, because you will die. Turbo boost to avoid enemy fire. If you've got a good fire base (Typhoon-pattern speeders are the classic, but I prefer TL-Autocannon Dreads and Dakka Predators), engage and destroy the truly dangerous enemy torrent units (like Lootaz).

 

A few things to remember abut Turbo Boosting:

It's a 3+ cover save. That's a great cover save value, but don't overestimate it. You're running small squads, so even two wounds will hurt you. If you turbo boost to a spot where the enemy can focus fire on you, don't expect the 3+ to do a lot against the number of saves you'll be forced to take.

It will not save you from close combat. Check your ending position's range from enemy units that might charge you. Even a 10-man IG platoon can tie up your bikers for a couple turns, which is plenty of time for them to park heavy guns all around you, and obliterate your squad when they run down the last Guardsman. Beware of Tyranid Rippers and Necron Scarabs. If you get charged by these, you will be tied up for the rest of the game. You will not put out enough wounds per turn to kill them off, and they'll take down a bike every turnor two due to sheer volume of attacks.

 

Dreads do make all-star support platforms for Bikers. I have a list that uses a pair of Venerables as gun support for my bikes. If you go this route, be sure to take at least two more AV targets to force the opponent to choose what to shoot at with his anti-tank fire. I personally use a pair of tacticals in Rhinos.

This is because the easiest way to beat an all-biker army is to place objectives on a roof, high in a ruin, or even in difficult terrain. Bikes cannot move up levels of a ruin, and have to take dangerous terrain checks for entering and leaving difficult terrain. The tacticals not only give you armored target saturation, but also a foot-mobile unit that can climb to those elevated objectives.

One of your most reliable tactics in an objective game will be the Turn 5 Turbo Boost. You keep your bikes moving the whole game, and then scatter to objectives on turn 5. But, you can't turbo boost into difficult terrain. Tactic denied.

 

 

IMO, bikes give the best level of tactical flexibility in the Marine force. Speed, firepower, and the ability to tailor yourself to an opponent by using the Combat Squads rule.

Agreed for the most part. Bike are really flexible, though they require a lot of finesse, as you said very well. I just find that meltas are so absolutely critical in 5e that I can't spare the room for things like plasma.

[ShinyRhino]

We'll have to biol it down to playstyle, J-King. My local metagame doesn't allow me to use meltaspam. Many players haven't swapped to full-mech lists yet, except maybe the Eldar guys. I'm seeing a lot of TEQ-spam of late (Wolves, Deathwing, Vulkan+Hammernators), so all-melta gets me assaulted in short order :P

 

All valid points for everyone.

[ShinyRhino]

Since I'm such a biker fanboy, I do have to share some bike-related love stories.

Last month at our shop's monthly tourney, I showed up to some new faces in the brackets. I was laying out my army on my board, and saw folks gazing across the room and pointing at me. Some of the folks wandered over and browsed my board.

 

Them: Wow. That's a lot of bikes.

Me: Yeah, two full 8-man units, plus attack bikes for each one.

Them: Sixteen?!

Me: Eighteen, if you count the attached attack bikes. That guy also makes them scoring. *points at Bike Captain who was a counts-as Khan for the day*

Them: Eighteen scoring bikes?

Me: Yeah.

Them: That's nuts.

 

People freak the heck out when they see you setting up that many T5 units with a 3+ armor save. Then you point out that they're Troops, thatthey have 2x specials per squad, and that they can move 12" and fire everything. :woot:

[Ming]

Not that I'm a biker fanatic....I'm not but....

 

Regular bike squads should be big enough and armed to take down a enemy mechanized squad in one turn. The question (hypothetical) is "can my nbike squad take out an IG squad and their Chimera in one turn".

 

Remember you can use a unit to assault the transported squad, if the transport was destroyed in part by shooting by that squad (more or less).

 

The best balanced bike squad can do this whether the target unit starts the turn in the transport or not.

 

The tactical norm would be:

 

1. move squad 12 inches to get within 6 inches of target.

 

2. Use melta guns or plasma to destroy the vehicle.

 

3. Enemy dismounts

 

3.a. Possible softening of now dismounted target byy other nearby unit(s)

 

4. Bike unit charges the survivors for the assault.

 

4.a. OK to have 1-2 target figures alive, so biker unit cannot be shot at during opponent turn.

 

5. Start of next trun, manuever to do it again.

 

I guess ideally, the bike squad hav to be large enough to shoot and destroy the chimera equivalent and wreck or better it in one shooting phase. mathhammer anyone? Say there are 8 survivors at the wreckage - how big of a squad do you now need to have to assault and kill them.

 

If your metagame is against mostly SME equivalents, play this test vs a rhino with 10 marines inside. 8 bikers with 3 melta or plasma might just do it. Looking at it another way, if the troops were already dismounted and adjacent o their transport, is your squad big enough to combined assault the infantry and vehicle and kill both by the start of your next turn...this means you need a fist to have a better chance on the transport.

 

Bike squads are not the best thing to use to target terminator equivalent or shielded squads that have a size value of 5 or more.

 

Assault bikes (trikes) IMHO are best for the tank hunting role. Nominally you'd maybe need them in groups of 3 to "guarrantee" they kill their target each turn. I have not done the "hammer" on them, but intuitively 2 would be cutting it close to the success line and rely more on luck.

[Sanctjud]

I wish I could write more, but am sick today.

 

Small squads vs. large squads. They both work. There's really no other answer but that. Each has pros and cons.

 

*I call small squads the MSU approach (multiple small units). These are the specialist squads, fitted for a specific role.

This means more special weapons and heavy weapons at the cost of less 'durability'. This means it tailors to players that want to engage early and get as much damage in a short time.

*I call large squads the Beefy appraoch (for have a '10' really 9 man squad. These are the generalist and best vs. infantry with that number of TL-bolters.

This means less special weapons and heavy weapons, but an increase in 'durability'. This means it tailors to players that want to kite and do later game maximum damage. In addition, to make up for the lower number of special/hvies, it allows you to combat squad, spreading fire and giving the unit more flexibility.

*Then there is the middle ground where it's just increase the 'durabiliy' with additional bikers, but not much else.

 

It comes down to how you want to play, or what role you want to the bikers to perform.

If you have the option of having multiple squads of bikers and you can mix and match. I find large bikers are good for concentrating on anti-infantry, while smaller bikers can concentrate on anti-tank or load up on plasma/MM and focus on cover fire.

 

I personally like the beefier squads, I've never had the problem of them being unwieldy...

 

8 Bikers, 2 meltas (used defensively), Fist, Hvy Bolter Attack Bike.

8 Bikers, 2 meltas (used defensively), Fist, Hvy Bolter Attack Bike.

8 Bikers, 2 flamers, Fist, Hvy Bolter Attack Bike.

 

Mind you I play for soft scores too and this has worked for me.

My Multi-Melta Attack Bikes reside in Attack Bike squadrons in the Fast attack section.

 

I have wanted to use something like:

2 Plamsa, MM Attack bike squad for a cover fire, but I haven't decided what squad size...most likely 8 again, so I can combat squad to divy up the plasma and MM if I need too. and still have bodies to shelter the specials/hvy.

But on the other hand for a few more points, I could have minimum squad sizes and FOUR plasma guns and TWO multi-meltas that can engage 2 targets. So both have pros and cons. It just depends on you.

[Jackelope King]

We'll have to biol it down to playstyle, J-King. My local metagame doesn't allow me to use meltaspam. Many players haven't swapped to full-mech lists yet, except maybe the Eldar guys. I'm seeing a lot of TEQ-spam of late (Wolves, Deathwing, Vulkan+Hammernators), so all-melta gets me assaulted in short order :P

 

All valid points for everyone.

The local scene certainly matters. I could probably get away with running a dozen one-ofs in my lists against some players who have much more casual lists or 4e-styled lists, but I've been trying to push my lists to be as competitive as possible lately. Mech is more competitive (if not as widespread just out of sheer player preference), so I gear up to be able to take down list.

 

The only one of my usual group who has gotten to deal with my bike list in a serious game faced a nascent version of my bike list a couple of months ago with his nids, and was... very unhappy when my Bike Squads swept out, wiped out his Warriors (his only Synapse on the flanks), and basically ended the game after one shooting phase.

 

I told him that I'd been upgrading it and now had broken my bikes up, bought more, and converted some attack bikes, so now I had 3 bike squads and a bike command squad.

 

Him: "So how many of those twin-linked guns can you shoot every turn?"

Me: "21."

Him: "And what about those melta guns?"

Me: "10 of the small ones, 5 of the big ones."

Him: "*expletive deleted*"

[Warp Angel]

ShinyRhino has already stated a lot of my opinions on bike squads. I personally wouldn't leave home without a Bike Captain and full squad of 8+attack bike in ANY Marine list.

 

I don't see a whole lot of point in larger games in breaking the squad down against anyone but guard, but I do see a role for smaller "Hunter" or Command squads in an army that has at least one full bike squad.

 

The limitations around small bike squads are all about RISK - as in how much are you willing to accept. In the hypothetical 4+attack bike model, you've literally got virtually every model being important to the unit's offensive capability:

 

Sarge - upgrade

Melta - upgrade

Melta - upgrade

Guy - not an upgrade

Attack Bike - upgrade

 

That means if you suffer more than one wound in a given phase, you MUST put one of your upgrades at risk of being destroyed. Losing a model with an upgrade significantly degrades the overall effectiveness of the unit in combat, before you start to worry about leadership issues.

 

And a bike squad that fails a morale test is in a fair bit of danger of running off table if they're in your first quarter of the battlefield. The average roll on 3d6 is 11", and all it takes is one of those bike bases to touch the table edge and POOF, they're all gone. Given how dispersed bikes can be, this is a bigger issue than you might think. Smaller squads mean that you're rolling against leadership more often and that means failing more often.

 

I can't usually justify small bike squads because of RISK (for more information on risk, click my link in the sig).

[Koremu]

I'm just going to quote a previous post on the subject of Biker Command Squads;

 

Regardless of who the Captain is, Bike Squads and Bikers Command Squads have very different roles. The Command Squad is a flexible unit that can be equippped into a number of roles, few of which duplicate the standard Bike Squads role.

 

In my opinion, any Biker Command Squad setup that simply mimics the standard Bike Squad role will be found lacking, as at the end of the day the standard biker squad can do it and be scoring.

 

There are two real divisions in how you look to set up a Command Squad - they can be broadly characterised as "Cataphract" and "Heavy Dragoon". The former exploits the Heavy-Cavalry-esque traits of the Command Squad - the availability of Storm Shields, the presence of Feel No Pain, and wielding Power Weapons - to form a hard hitting strike unit to act as a primary strike force on the battlefield. Doing this requires a hefy investment of points.

 

Heavy Dragoon setups meanwhile exploit the ability of the Command Squad to pack multiples of the same special weapon. This is generally the cheaper of the two Biker Command Squad setups, but is not by any means weak, as it is able to apply a devastating amount of firepower onto a wide area of the table at will. However, it does rely on either the Captain or a "Defender" Veteran to provide for and protect against enemy assaults.

 

It is possible to do both of the above in a single unit - there's nothing stopping you from arming all four veterans with Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield and Plasma Gun as well as a bike if you want - but it will generally be prohibitatively expensive (445 points, not including the Captain, for the above mentioned 5 man squad). Once you are at the point where you can buy 5 Assault Terminators *and* a Land Raider for the points cost, you might want to rethink your cunning plan.

 

The only thing I would add is that when using counts-as-Khan on a bike, The Cataphract setup is the way to go. Strength 5 / Initiative 5 Lightning Claws are not nice...

[Asrech]

You have to love bikes, there is just no other way :)

I have a "theme" list that I run every now and then at 2000pts consisting of cap+com squad on bikes ( expensive as heck as it's fully upgraded character wise and the two extra veterans run with hammers+shields, as my commander ), 3 squads of 5 bikes + attack bike (2x flamer + pw, 2x melta + pf, 2x plasma gun + pp ) 2x10 assault marines (2x flamers + pw, 2x plasma + pf ), a librerian with JP and 2 land speeders. So 24 bikes in total.

 

It's not the most hard-hitting list in the dark future, but there is pretty much nothing that can out-manuver it save a flying eldar army, as everything has a base move of 12" and most things can TB. Having squads of 5+1 makes them durable enought to soak up enemy fire, and still keep the spec weapons long enough to use them.

The way I usually play this list is simply to outmanuver the enemy, harrass his flanks with semi-close range fire for a round or two, then bring it up close and personal with the com squad and assault marines. Since the bike squads really aren't that hard in CC due to the fact that they only have 1 attack I tend to try and keep them out of reach, unless I feel that the damange that can be done with close fire ( rapids ) is worth the risk/can thin out the enemy enough.

 

As the bikes are troops, even a lone biker can in the last round TB to contest or claim an objective. The speeders who are usually shot down fairly quick are "hidden" in this list as they no longer stick out, there is simply too much stuff speeding around your army to fokus on them.

 

Overall people tend to drop their jaws a bit as I deploy, since the speed of the army becomes obvious really quick. The biggest downside of the list is of course that it doesn't have any heavy armour and has a fairly low body-count. Once bikers start dropping, I start hurting. But it's a fun theme list to play, and so far Ive had good feedback from the people facing it.

 

Cheers!

[Apothecary Orpheus]

It seems that bigger sqds are more practical considering that they take

fewer morale checks and can combat sqd if the need arises,ok you get fewer

special weapons,but you'll probably fire them for longer.

Another issue that I've been considering is wether it's better to attach

attack bikes to the sqds or to take seperate sqds of 2-3 attack bikes for more flexibility

and then,points permitting,upgrade your bike sqds with attack bikes.An attack bike though

gives the sqd 10 wounds in total the first of which is "free"regarding the sqds effectiveness.

[Jackelope King]

Bike squads should always get attack bikes. It's a "free" ablative wound before you start losing any firepower (since attack bikes get two wounds, and can lose the first without any issues), and it's a multimelta with a 36" threat-range that your opponent will have to consider.

 

If you have the models, attack bike squads out of the bike squads are certainly good too. I'm swinging back towards liking Landspeeders a little bit better for the FA slot, because you can take one with a heavy flamer and a multimelta, get some nice multipurpose bang for your buck, and it all costs only 60 points. The other reason I prefer the skimmers is because I also spam 3 Dakka Predators and 3 Rifleman Dreadnoughts in my bike army, so saturating things a little more with 4 extra tank- and infantry-hunting vehicles means that firepower is further split (nobody likes having to shoot through 3 AV13s, 3AV 12s, and still have 4 AV10s flying around zapping them wherever they're vulnerable). You can also spam Typhoon-pattern Landspeeders with missile launchers and a heavy bolter pretty cheap, and it can move 12" and not lose an ounce of (rather impressive) anti-infantry firepower. Pricey, but worth considering alongside heavy flamer / multimelta Landspeeders.