2 Landspeeders or 3 Attack Bikes

[pryor]

In my tournament list that I'm putting together I have room for either 2 Landspeeders with Multi-melta/Heavy Flamer combinations or 3 Attack Bikes (2 with Multi-meltas).

Now this is my only Fast Attack in the list and I obviously want the power of fast melta but are skimmer movement & armour better than lower profile & wounds?

Just so people know what consists in the list to better form their opinion there is a 6-man Terminator squad with Librarian, 2 Dreadnoughts & 2 Tacticals in Rhinos.

Also I enter the tournaments more for game time than to win at all costs but I don't want a unit that is set up to fail.

[Jackelope King]

In general, Speeders have a slight edge over Attack Bikes (having an armor value makes small arms fire less of a threat, and they can move much more freely than Bikers can thanks to the skimmer rule) for a modest increase in price (20 points matters, period). Skimmers also have the advantage of being able to fall back on Heavy Flamer shots when you need to. Personally, I'd take the Speeders over the Attack Bikes, and I'd put them in two squads, not one. Yeah, you can play cover tricks when you have a unit of Speeders, but operating at close range like you will be, it's not worth it for making your fast melta more fragile or sacrificing the ability to threaten multiple enemy units every turn with them.

[Ookami_81]

I'm not a tounament god, very far from that, but in my personal experience, both are good choices. It depends on what you want.

 

IMHO bikes are more durable (2 HP plus a easier cover save vs very weak armour), but less mobile. Plus with landspeeders you can deep strike for rear armour shots.

 

You seem to be in a 1000 pts-ish range list. Do you expect land raiders in your local meta at this point range ? (Not that it's impossible, but....) If it's not the case, have you considered using Typhoon landspeeders ? Much better life span (keep them at long range) than HF MM ones, and they are good at killing transports like truks and rhinos ?

 

How do you equip your dreads ? AC + DCCW + HF ? DLLC + ML ? Rifleman ? (I suppose your TDAs are shooty ones and that you're using them together with the dreads, but there's no way I can be sure). If you use riflemen maybe in that case Typhoons are redundant...

[pryor]

You seem to be in a 1000 pts-ish range list. Do you expect land raiders in your local meta at this point range

 

The tournament was 1250 last year & the year before so I can probably expect the same again & last time the only armour 14 I went up against was a singe Leman Russ.

 

How do you equip your dreads ? AC + DCCW + HF ? DLLC + ML ? Rifleman ? (I suppose your TDAs are shooty ones and that you're using them together with the dreads, but there's no way I can be sure).

 

I have the dreads identically armed with Plasma Cannon/DCCW/SB mainly to cover my lack of any AP2 & act as counter-assault/deep strike which kind of rules out my Riflemen.

The Terminators are tacticals with the Cyclone Missile Launcher.

Typhoons would be nice but I just can't fit them in & also don't have any of the models just yet

[Ookami_81]

You've got pew pew termies with CML, a rather good mobile support choice. Not as effiscient as Typhoons or Riflemen IMHO, but really good, even more if you cover them with your dreads in counter-charge.

 

So I think now that you don't really need Typhoons. Well, I'm a Typhoon believer, so I think "the more the better", but let's assume their role is covered by your TDAs.

 

In that regard, phasing out typhoons, I suggest you take MM assault bikes. I find them more resilient to enemy fire than short range "suicide landspeeders". Their armour 10 can be glanced to death even by regular bolter fire ! Here with ABs, your models are 2 HP each, and you've got an ablative wound (2 in fact) with your HB AB.

 

Even if mixed armed ABs are not an optimal choice, I use sometimes the 1 HB 2 MM combination, because I don't have the points to own 3 MMs. And in that case their role is slightly modified: I try to shoot rear or side armour of tanks, and it happens that the humble HB is glancing... And 2 glances are sometimes better than 1 pen ! In the same way, when you don't really have tanks to shoot at, heavy infantry logically tend to suffer more with that combination rather than the pure melta.

[rat of vengence]

Conflict list?

 

I found I got by without either attack bikes or normal speeders, but my Landspeeder Storm was gold :angry:

 

That said, AV14 would have really troubled my list.

 

With the restricted board (4x4) and not a great deal of terrain, you wont have anywhere much to hide your speeders, but bikes are more easily screened. That said, a MM on a speeder on the small board is a threat to a large part of the game :)

 

RoV

[Sanctjud]

Bikers...come on, it's the far Grimdark future and they still have motocycles...

Seriously, take both. It's not like each are crazy expensive.

 

Both have pros and cons. Stuck in combat can be a blessing and a curse.

The rest of the list and what you hope to do with the unit in question have a heavy bearing on what you'd rather take.

 

-Sanct.