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CSM juggerlord escort: spawn or bikes?

13K views 93 replies 23 participants last post by  neferhet 
#1 ·
Hey fellow loyalist slayers!

When I read about 'juggerlords' I see a consensus that there are only two realistic options for a unit to attach to: spawn or bikers. Spawn appear to be the more popular choice. I was wondering why this is the case. I'm a total scrub newbie, so feel free to explain as if to a child.

Why not bikers? How does one effectively use either alongside a juggerlord?
 
#2 ·
Personally i have only run bikes as a escort in my games, as I like the wargear options I can give them. I can make them just the way I want them and give them the role that I need in my setup. A retinue of 5 Nurgle bikes alongside my HQ makes it a fast, endurable and scary unit that can deliver him as the deathblow to any unit the way I need.

The spawns I have never used, as I am the same position as you; I don't quite see why I would use them instead. As such, I will be following this thread intrigued to see peoples replies!
 
#3 ·
If you use bikers to escort the juggerlord you will have the bikes with a cover save and the lord without. this ensue the focused fire from the enemy and a dead lord. spawns are better for this.
 
#4 ·
Still, a 2+ LOS! save means the Lord won't be in too much danger, as will some clever placement around terrain and the like. Additionally, the Bikers can go flat out to zoom forward, stringing out with the Lord running behind, to get a charge almost anywhere on the board and drag the Lord there with consolidations. Spawn don't have that mobility. Additionally, melta or plasma plus a number of twin-linked bolters give bikers a solid amount of (relentless) shooting.

Spawn do, however, have the added advantage of being very cheap for the sheer number of wounds you get, making the Lord's unit much more tanky (at the cost of no armor or jink saves). All the better if they're Nurgle spawn for no ID. And you know that the enemy are going to be unloading a crapload of firepower into this unit, so you might as well make it damned tough. The only loss of mobility is the loss of turbo-boosting. Make sure that any Lord accompanying them has a solid anti-tank option, though, as bikers have more AT options than spawn--that is to say, they have some.

I haven't tried running Spawn, to be honest, but I want to. It's high on my "to try" list...
 
#5 ·
Spawn are the best unit to guard an ic because they synergize so well with our strengths.
Our sorcerers can innately access Biomancy and Telepathy, the first can give the squad feel-no-pain, the second can give shrouded and stealth. Both make the spawn the superior recipient due to having more wounds to take FnP on, and the easy access to terrain to counteract not having a save. I've never had a game where spawn haven't delivered the payload ic where it needs to be.
Bikers, on the other hand, are superior at being more tactically forgiving, they dont hit as hard but have lots of saves, more movement, and firepower. They are excellent flankers and transport-removal. That being said, they aren't scary at all in melee. They're just decently tough. Whereas the spawn(With a buff or two) are point-for-point three times as tough and much much more deadly combatants(s5 and an average of 5.5 attacks on the charge is fucking goofy).

They seem nearly equal, they just do different jobs. The bikers do better at cracking things like terminators and heavy transports. Spawn rip apart infantry like gorillas rip apart puppies, and they shred rhinos/chimeras like nobodies business. They just take a lot more planning and care to use.
 
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#7 ·
I guess every one's "metagame" (I hate that term) is different but everytime I have faced Spawn they have been wiped out in pretty short order.
 
#10 ·
I dont believe the Iron Arm (or whichever one gives Feel No Pain) psychic power affects the squad. I think it only affects the Sorceror. So the spawn are still left without that save, although Shrouding would still work.

I've never been a fan of spawn though. The lack of a save is just too debilitating to me. A few luck bolter shots can kill a spawn. That's not a worthwhile investment in my eyes.

Go for bikes. They don't have to be all that offensively scary because that's what your lord is there for.
 
#12 ·
Personally I'm just happy that spawn are even considered at the list building stage now as before the new codex they were my book stops :(
But the focus fire is an issue for me as i have been caught out by a one at the wrong time and cant roll power armour saves anyway so the bikers main bonus is kind of moot for me :p

Bikers are hardly slouches in melee though with the mark of khorne and icon of wrath but it can be hilarious when khorne spawn roll a 6 for their attacks :laugh:
 
#13 ·
Why is it that people keep discrediting spawns for not having a save? They have a 1 in 3 chance of a 4+ save in CC. And if we are talking about shooting, why is it your 12" moving, terrain ignoring spawns with fleet don't have a cover save? Are you playing on bare tables or are you just stupid? Seriously though, if all you need is an escort for your juggerlord spawn really are the way to go. They are cheap, fast and often much more survivable than bikers.

Of course, if you want some more utillity, extra tank hunting capabilities or really like the extra shooting bikers are very good. But if all you need is a delivery system spawns are cheaper and tougher. Also spawn hit like a tonne of bricks on the charge. There are few things more satisfying than ramming a juggerlord with spawns into a bunch of terminators. Your opponent eagerly feeds the champ to the lord only to lose half his squad to those stupid looking bulletsponges.
 
#15 ·
Standard? 3.
Expecting heavy shooting? 5
Mark of Nurgle almost mandatory for Nurgle or unmarked Sorc/Lord.
 
#18 ·
Played against an Iyanden army today, using 5 khorne marked bikers to deliver my juggylord. The bikers unfortunately got wiped in combat and missed all their melta shots/combat attacks, but the lord did some splattering and survived quite nicely until a Wraithknight stomped him out. I didn't do such a great job with positioning my minis, so next time I might do even better!
 
#19 ·
Wraithknights are troublesome unless you, say, charge a badly injured one with a Daemon Prince with the Black Mace and kill it before it gets the chance to splatter you back, or something. Alas, my kingdom for Eternal Warrior. (Black Legion don't count)
 
#20 ·
Well, if those stupid wraith constructs are a big problem just ally in some daemonettes/seekers and watch them die horribly to a bunch of cheap, strenght 3 models.
But if you have to rely solely on your CSM those bastards can get quite troublesome. Havocs and obliterators should be your main men for this sort of thing.
 
#21 ·
I had 3 obliterators which didn't survive past turn 3, as he focused on them with his plethora of guns. Didn't roll too well with my first burst of lascannon shots, unfortunately.

I had plenty of useless wargear, as well. MoK on my cultist objective holders, MoK + IoW + ccw on a space marine squad that died by the end of shooting of turn 1 , and so on. My terminator squad rolled deep strike in such a way that my opponent placed them in the far corner of my deployment zone, making them practically useless.

I've eliminated some of the stuff that didn't really seem to matter during the game, enough points to add 2 more nurgle marked obliterators. 2 more heavy shots a turn sounds nice. I could add a lascannon predator instead, but I imagine the obliterators are more survivable. Havocs are an option but I dunno yet. I'll think about it.
 
#22 ·
I played a game tonight with the jugger lord with the axe of blind fury, i had 4 spawn with mark of khorne and one black legion lvl3 sorcerer on bike to boost the squad...

I took telepathy and got invisibility, puppet master and hallucination...i also had the last memory of the yuranthos power....which i like a lot.

That whole unit killed, 6 necron wraiths, a whole lot of scarabs, three canoptek spiders (the ones that creates more scarabs), and on top of that, it killed a lot of immortals, the Necron lord and another character..can't remember...

Let's just say that it killed a lot of models.....that being said, invisibility goes a long shot in protecting spawns....

I played that as a test tonight and god it was very conclusive.....spawns all the way
 
#23 ·
My lords escort is 25 cultists, but that's just because I'm weird (Still gets him where I need him to go most of the time, mostly because I deploy the unit far up and keep running them.)
 
#24 ·
Not a bad idea, Luke. I'll have to try that some time.

Tried the biker escort once and it worked fine, gonna try it again this week hopefully a couple of times.

I decided to use juggernauts as my khornate spawn. Dunno why it took me so long to come up with that idea. Not exactly the random tentacle-armed spawn one might think of, but I find them waaay cooler! Also turned out to be a better deal in terms of dollars.
 
#25 · (Edited)
To add another update to this subject:

I've been using my bikes steadily as my Juggylord's escort. Tactically, I've been making blunder after blunder, and they end up dying before getting to use their special weapons. Chalk it up to being a new player and not thinking things through before deploying/moving.

However, in every situation they've (Khorne marked) survived long enough to deliver the lord to his targets.

Yesterday I played an Ultramarines army loaded with lascannons and tactical squads split into combat squads. Only 2 bikers out of 6 survived long enough to escort the lord into combat, but once he made it he proceeded to wipe out unit after unit, including the enemy warlord (chapter master). Eventually, the bikers died from an insane amount of bolter fire and Look Out Sir! rolls, and the Juggylord himself succumbed when attempted to charge the final squad of marines holding the objective, supported by like... 5 remaining twin-linked lascannons on the table.

I'll have some spawn soon enough, planning to run a group of 4 with the juggylord. We'll see how they do. I'd love to mark them with Nurgle, but with a Khorne marked AoBF lord, that won't be possible due to conflicting marks. I guess I'll just have to rely on T5 and a 12 wound pool to get him there. Plus 4 for the lord.
 
#26 ·
A Tau gunline was the first situation that prevented me from escorting the lord to combat. The bikers all died to shooting before the lord got to charge a squad of kroot. He rolled a 1 on the charge with his axe, and failed the save. Then after wiping them out, he died to shooting the next turn.

I finally stopped being lazy and made a lord on a bike with the AoBF. With the ability to turbo-boost, I'm really excited to see just how fast I can get into combat and how many bikers can survive to get there with him. I'll be bringing 7 of them with the lord. Overkill?
 
#27 ·
Overkill?
Against tau, it is not! When he understands how fast you are with that unit he will shoot at it even with crossbows and waterguns.
 
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