Bikers - Load out

[Seleucus]

OK, so I have 8 second hand bikes put together with enough super glue to complete a 2000pt army!

 

Whilst I am cleaning/rebuilding them I have been trying to work out how to arm them etc. I have searched on here and elsewhere, and, considering that they are seen as a 'must have' in a competitive CSM list, I can find relatively little info to help me decide on weapons, marks etc.

 

I  am building them as Black Legion, and will magnetise the champion's arms so I can swap out weapon loadout for him. There will also be magnetic icons to fit on one of the bikes to represent whatever mark I go for in each game.

 

I am also building a Biker Lord and Sorcerer on bike on top of the 8, giving 10 in total if run together. Again, both will have magnetised arms and icons so that they can be adapted to fit any mark and have any worthwhile weapon option.

 

At the moment, I have no Helldrakes or Fiends due to lack of funds so have to use the more standard options in FA and HS slots.

 

So, this leads me to my questions:

 

1. Which specials to take, and do I fit them to the bikes or have them hand held (I assume on bike?), and will the specials need to change depending on mark?

 

2. preferred load out on champion according to mark used and/or accompanying Lord or Sorcerer?

 

3. Preferred load out on Lord, depending on Mark?.

 

4. Preferred load out on Sorcerer depending on Mark?

 

5. Unit make up. - including viability of using both characters in the same unit?

 

6. Any other ideas?

[Sception]

I run six bikes unmarked with two meltas and a champ with a lightning claw, meltabomb, and combi melta as escort for a khornate bike lord with axe of blinding fury, meltabomb, combimelta, and 4++ save.  Has worked well for me, though the combimeltas are probably overkill, especially coming at the cost of a couple specialist attacks in close combat.  Mostly they're there for model reasons now, and I would have dropped them otherwise, though they have saved the squad's bacon a time or two when the regular meltaguns failed to crack a heavy transport, and they've come in handy when pointing the bikes at terminators.

 

While that's how I usually run bikes, I've also run three with two melta as a distraction/suicide unit (worked very well, but I'm usually running a bikelord and need a larger squad to escort him), and I've proxied a couple different mark and icon set ups.  Slaaneshi with plasma and fnp outflanking with a steed-mounted lord is pretty cool, and khornate bikes with the reroll charge icon seemed pretty decent with the lord mentioned above, but neither really seemed worth the cost to me.  Nurgle bikes are awesome, and I may be working out a way to represent them along with the standard fisticlaws & brand armed nurgle bikelord at some point in the future, but that's a long ways off.

 

I haven't run them with plasma in place of melta, but I get the impression that would work just as well if not better if you don't see a lot of high armor vehicles in your area.  Magnetizing for that might be worthwhile.

[Dam13n]

Well I have 5 Nurgle Bikes with:

- Champ - Combi-melta, Power Fist

- 2 Meltaguns

- 2 Standard

 

They've done OK for me, and seeing as I built them in 5th Ed, I love the massive points drop they took in 6th (280+pts to ~180pts).

 

- - - - -

 

If you're going for 2 Characters + 8 Bikes I would suggest something like this:

 

- Lord - armed with a bolt pistol and melta bombs and:

-- MoK and AoBF

-- MoN and Blace Mace (and Blight Grenades)

 

- Sorcerer - either unmarked or MoN, ML3 (w. max Biomancy), Familiar and Force Axe, you could add a BBoS as well as you won't be using Witchfire (because they pretty much all suck).

 

- 4 Bikers with Combi-melta Champ and 2 Meltaguns (swapping the T.L. Bolters to keep the +1A for 2CCW)

- 4 Bikers with Combi-plasma Champ and 2 Plasma Guns (as above)

 

This gives you a killy Lord and a Sorcerer who can augment the units/himself with blessings and still kill stuff, plus 1 unit for anti-mech and 1 unit for anti-M/TEQ.

If you give both characters MoN then I'd suggest giving it to the units too, if you don't then it might be best to leave them unmarked so you can place the characters with either unit depending on what you're likely to be facing.

 

Of course what you arm them with should depend on your local meta:

- Lots of hordes - Flamers, BBoS, Black Mace.

- Lots of vehicles - Meltas, Meltabombs.

- Lots of MEQ/TEQ - Plasma, AoBF, BBoS.

 

Last point is that, so long as you move you get a 5+ jink, so an Aura is pointless outside of combat. Sigil is expensive, but if you have the points left over, it's one of the things I would buy, particularly on the Lord as He'll be going into combat at some point, and cover won't save him there.

 

Laterz...

[derpasaurus]

I like the idea of running bikes with flamers or plasma. Melta, of course, is always a good idea, but I personally already have a few melta guns available. Flamers moving 12" a turn is pretty dangerous to blob units, and bikes are relentless so they can rapid fire plasma and then assault. 

As for marks, I'd think Khorne or Slaanesh if you want them geared for damage, Nurgle makes great sense as well, but is more expensive.