Where would you put your flamer-armed bikers?

[ShinyRhino]

I'm thinking about adding another 5-man bike squad to my army list, armed with a pair of flamers, and a combi-flamer on the sergeant. Maximum of three templates in one go, two after that. They'd mostly be used to power forward into the enemy, and get the promethium flowing. Follow up with a charge if the target is sufficiently reduced.

 

Problem is, I'm not sure if I want these flamers on a Troop squad, or on a Command Squad. The Command Squad would allow up to four flamer templates instead of maximum three, has more base attacks, and FNP from the Apothecary. However, the Biker Command Squad I've been using has actually been sparkling as a melee unit, led by either Khan or a generic Captain. I'd hate to lose the only melee beatstick I have in my force to fit in some flamers.

Of course, using a flamer template from a bike means you are guaranteed to take a charge on the enemy's next turn. The flamer bikers end up as a suicide force.

 

So, flamers on a 5-man Troop slot, or as part of a Command Squad?

[KhorneHunter57x]

Are you up for a bit more converting? I would consider Flamer Bikers in a Command Squad, but I would think about taking advantage of the Command Squad's ability to take multiple special weapons and grab Meltaguns for the Flamer bikes. Although a bit on the expensive side, this will give you a versatile unit, capable of rushing up and pouring either 4 Flamer or 4 Melta shots into a target.

 

However, I don't think that you should sacrifice your best/only melee unit to get a couple more flamers in. I would probably go with a 5-man Troop squad.

 

Disclaimer: The entirety of my experience with bikers has been hypothetical, so take my advice with that grain of salt. No, not this grain of salt, that grain of salt.

[Ming]

Hmmm.....

 

Spreading around the threat is important. Flamers are important tools for bike squads. So is melta. So is plasma.

 

If taking plasmaguns and plasma pistols, keep them in the command squad for obvious reasons. FNP.

 

If doing melta vs flamers - I'd put three flamers and a melta in the command squad, and three meltas and a flamer in the regular bike squad (or whatever is allowed) - reason being it takes some of the threat from the command squad, increasing their surviveability. It then makes the regular squads more of a threat and useful tool for you. Its a win-win! As far as my tactics go - I try to make sure every squad has some anti-armor capability.

[ShinyRhino]

I'm not willing tomix-and-match the two special weaponsin the Trooper squads. Bikes need the redundancy of fire that dual-melta, dual-plasma, and dual-flamers bring. Combis on sergeants are helpful, but cannot be considered "redundant" because they're one-shot items. I need the melta Troop bike squads to have two meltaguns, so that at least ONE of them hits, barring bad luck.

Lately, I've been separating my Attack Bikes out into a dual-multimelta setup in a Fast Attack slot for the same reason, redundancy of rolls. One of them typically hits when you fire both, allow me to at least Stun most targets.

 

A lone flamer in athe Command Squad might be nice, though. I normally carry a lone Vanilla Vet as an ablative wound, and to add four extra attacks on the charge. Swapping him for a flamer-bearer would cost me a single attack on the charge, but get me a flamer template at the equivalent of Initiative 11 (pre-charge ;)).

Of course, then I'd need to find another slot to place the Stormshield Veteran into...

[Tech Brother Torgo]

I've been fielding a souped up bike command squad for a few weeks now, and it would be difficult to convince me to exchange their meltas for flamers. 4 meltas popping a transport followed by the bloody assault is priceless, and even when charging fairly large squads of troops the melta volley is enough to get a few kills before the claws and relic blade tally up the kills. While flamer is interesting, I think it would reduce the versatility of the bike command squad, diminishing its ability to threaten heavy infantry, MC's and vehicles.

 

On the other hand, a cheap 5-man squad with 2 flamers and a combiflamer could ride alongside them to add that extra punch you're looking for. With the command squad nearby they really don't need to worry about getting charged and they can peel off to claim any objectives once the combined force has taken out any opposing forces holding it. I'm not usually a big fan of less than max sized bike squads, but as a support for the command bikers it may be an interesting option.

[KhorneHunter57x]

I've been fielding a souped up bike command squad for a few weeks now, and it would be difficult to convince me to exchange their meltas for flamers. 4 meltas popping a transport followed by the bloody assault is priceless, and even when charging fairly large squads of troops the melta volley is enough to get a few kills before the claws and relic blade tally up the kills. While flamer is interesting, I think it would reduce the versatility of the bike command squad, diminishing its ability to threaten heavy infantry, MC's and vehicles.

What about adding a couple Flamers? Remember that Command Squad members can replace both their weapons for special weapons (so you can run all 4 with Melta AND Flamer, if you so chose).

[Paulochromis]

What's your second HQ (after the biker captain)?

A five-man bike (no AB) squad with 2 flamers and a combi-flamer sergeant makes for an interesting retinue for a biker librarian with avenger.

Now you get 4 templates first up, followed by 3 from then on. Of course, libby isn't cheap. But he has a power weapon for the subsequent charge.

 

I seem to recall you play with an assault squad, if they trail behind the biker squad, then the opponent's charge isn't so threatening.

[ShinyRhino]

What's your second HQ (after the biker captain)?

A five-man bike (no AB) squad with 2 flamers and a combi-flamer sergeant makes for an interesting retinue for a biker librarian with avenger.

Now you get 4 templates first up, followed by 3 from then on. Of course, libby isn't cheap. But he has a power weapon for the subsequent charge.

 

I seem to recall you play with an assault squad, if they trail behind the biker squad, then the opponent's charge isn't so threatening.

 

My second HQ is typically a Librarian with Avenger and Might, attached to a double-flamer Assault Squad. Might be that I don't really even NEED the double-flamer bike squad, though they do cost half the points of the Assault Squad.

[Tech Brother Torgo]

Do you find the assault squad adding enough CC punch to make them worth while? If not, I would consider replacing them with the 5 man flamer bike squad with attached librarian. With the turbo boost option they will be able to keep up with the command squad better than jump infantry, and the extra toughness combined with their proximity to the more expensive squad should offset the loss of bodies.

 

I've been less than satisfied by the performance of my max sized plasma biker squad (they keep burning themselves when it seems to matter), so I think I'll try replacing them with this combo myself. Not a bad way to add some psychic protection as well.

 

In terms of mixing special weapons, I'd have to agree that it's not the best idea. In most cases you're wasting half of your firepower and I don't like trusting 2 meltas to get the job done. All or nothing baby!

[breng77]

With flamer bikes if you flame something then you charge it (or you get charged). You need to hope that the flamers will do enough damage to allow you to hold your own in the fight. IF you win combat you can try to consolidate away from the opponent, if you lose combat, try to use combat tactics to run away (this is better to do on their turn if you can do it.)

[ShinyRhino]

The Assault Squad doesn't provide a whole lot of close combat punch, unfortunately. I like them because they're capable of contesting objectives in a ruin, or reaching the tops of buildings to chew on hardpoints with dedicated shooty units.

The thing about them that stinks is that they hit only half the time (against most opponents), and wound half of that. By the time you get to armor saves, you've only inflicted 5 or so wounds.

I largely include them in order to have a variety of unit types (bikes, speeders, jump infantry) instead of just one or two.

[Br0ther Rafen]

If you would really like to keep the Jump Packers in your list, you can go with vanguard. Even unupgraded, these bad boys will hit with 20 attacks on the charge for 5 guys, and 40 attacks on the charge for 10 guys. Now, 10 guys plus upgrades is expensive, but if you take five and then give one or two PW's, another one or two SS', etc, you can get a pretty hard hitting squad for a modest price. Or, go 10 guys with JP's only.

Hope this helps.

[Malthe]

If you want flamers on your bikes, I suggest you take the Command Squad.

The number one advantage of bikes, is your ability to whittle down the enemy at range and then only engaging in melée once you are able to absolutely destroy your target of choice without fear of retaliation.

Flamers, just can't do that...

 

Actually I can't think of a situation where giving bikes flamers is worth it...

I suppose if you are up against a horde army four flamers in a command squad might be worth it, as a way to kill of that one unit that is closing of your escape rout, but I can't really see it.

The bikes are going to get nuked on the enemy's next turn, and there are both cheaper and more efficient ways of fielding suicide flamers.

 

The thing is, bikes only wants to get close to units that are very weak (go figure...), so I imagine that flamers would actually be overkill in those situation, forcing you to face the enemy's shooting phase, rather than finishing off the unit you charged, in the enemy's cc-phase.

 

Nope, can't see it working well, unless you really wants to and field a Command Squad with four flamers and that Librarian with Avenger.

At least you can then flame the living daylights out of almost anything before being shot to pieces (you do have FNP, though)!

 

Nevertheless, I'd go with 2 MG and MMAB for antitank and 2 PG and HBAB for anti-infantry. Both works like a charm :)

[ShinyRhino]

Well, I'm thinking the flamers on a small bike squad makes for a highly-mobile applicationof templates. Ideal targets are gribblies like Boyz mobs, IG Blobs, and Gaunts. These are the sorts of targets that arrive in numbers, and are hard to take out in a single shooting phase.

30 Ork Boyz would require three full turns of PERFECT shooting from 5 bikers to kill. Problem is, they end up assaulted after ONE turn of rapid fire. When there are three such Mobs on the board, you can't kill them fast enough to actually win the game. You need bigger groups of hits that deny saves, hence the flamers.

I'm figuring that combined with a Heavy-Flamer speeder, I can put a significant dent in such gribbly units before a charge. The charge can wipe Gaunts, lock down Boyz, and nullify the shooting from Guard.

 

As for Melta/MMAB, yeah, it works. But it does jack against the flamer targets. I've spent 20 points on a pair of meltaguns that will kill two Boyz total per turn, AND leave me in charge range post-shooting.

The plasmagun/HBAB combo I've found to not work. The problem is that you put out 4 plasma shots per turn in 12", eight twin-linked bolter shots, and three heavy bolter shots (assuming a 5-man+AB setup). When I fire that many shots against smaller units, the plasma gets wrapped around onto the same model via wound allocation, and is wasted.

 

I've started stripping the Attack Bikes out of my Troops slots, and putting them in a squadron as a Fast choice. That way I have multiple heavy weapon shots going in a volley (two multimeltas hit and take effect more reliably than one :)). When crammed into the Troops slots, I found I was always debating whether to close to plasma/melta range, or stay back for the long attack bike shots.

[Ming]

Nice ideas!

[River Black]

In my bikes lists I normally have 4 bikes squads. 1 Flamer, 1 Plasma, and 2 Melta bike squads. Identical weapons in all of them. The Flamer Squad almost always has 8 bikes and a HBAB with it. The Plasma has 6 Bikes and a HBAB and the two melta squads are almost always 4 bikes and a MMAB. I have been considering swapping the Plasma Squad for a Plasma Command Squad. In stead of having 7 bikes with 2 plas and a HB ill have 5 bikes with 4 plas and an apoth. Ill lose a scoring unit however.

[Ookami_81]

In my experience command squad is not a good choice for flaming, that is, if you're tooling the unit to be the CC monster it can be. It's simply overkill over light infantry, can deny you a charge, and not effiscient enough against everything else. The CC command squad on bike can make good use of plasma or melta, and I prefer melta, cause it's S8 and therefore a good tool to kill pesky things like nobs. Better than plasma. Furthermore, when facing IG or tau, that's one more tank busting unit you'll need.

Flamers, on the other side, shines where your regular bikers are weak, that is CC. You don't want to enter CC with bikers. But sometimes, if you don't like to stick only to pansy jetbikers evading methods (that is refusing each and every fight till turn 5 and grab objectives), you'll eventually be in a situation where you cannot avoid CC. Here the rule is simple: facing orks, BAs, Wolves or any CC oriented army, you want to inflict so much pain in the shooting sequence before actually charging that this charge will be the only CC action of your bikers.

So I have dedicated anti-hordes biker units in the shape of 6 to 8 bikers, 1 HB AB, two flamers, one combi-flamer. With that amount of firepower any horde will suffer dearly before the unavoidable contact.

Three things are absolutely required in a biker army:

- this precise unit, along with the captain => anti infantry

- small melta biker squads => anti tank

- typhoons => anti transports and MCs

Two "nice to have"

- command squad in larger games

- tanks or support dreads