[christopher.dean]

I know bike lists are boring and "been-there-done-that", but they are still really good. So I'm looking to make it competitive so it needs to stand up to all the regular customers like Knights, Flyrants, and drop pod Centurions. Help me out as I'm not very well read on things like Tau or Harlequins.

White Scars
150 Khan
255 Chapter Master (Bike, Artificer, Shield Eternal, TH, Auspex)
210 Command (Bikes, Apoth, 4x Grav)

156 6x Bikes (2x Grav)
156 6x Bikes (2x Grav)
156 6x Bikes (2x Grav)
156 6x Bikes (2x Grav)
159 4x Bikes + Attack Bike (2x Melta)(MM)
159 4x Bikes + Attack Bike (2x Melta)(MM)

145 Stormtalon (Typhoon)
145 Stormtalon (Typhoon)

=1847

 

[ntaw]

I had to look up what an Auspex does...can't say I'd even considered them, but that's kinda fun.

Eldar I have never faced, but as for Tau...well, my experience is that a lot of the weapons you want to Jink against deny cover and Riptides can fuck right off with their T6 2+/4++. Move fast and stay out of LoS as best as you can. Your list is tight, not much room for tweaking without altering what units you're taking and there's plenty of mobile firepower already.

 

[christopher.dean]

I figured since the CM is running with a shooty unit anyway, the auspex would increase the wound count drastically on a beatstick character. I'd hope to pincer Knights with melta and a solid grav threat to the front and mess up that 4++. Dedicated CC units are going to be a pain in the ass. Tau with their marker lights will also be a pain. I'm just hoping I have enough of what I need that they can't kill it all before I get there. Eldar aren't that bad with this type of list. The 4+ save models die to twin-linked bolters and the wraith units die to grav. Wave serpents fall apart when CC'd by S5 HOR and krak grenades, but still manage to do their job and deliver their units. There's nothing I can do about the psyker phase. But now that Harlies have their own book, I bet the comp scene sees them with armies that just don't make sense like Nids or IG or something crazy like that. I was really trying to make something that was truely all comers, I just see bad matchups like Nid flyrant spam and such. I also see Cron formations with a 4+ reanimation being an issue since the best way to kill them is to sweep, but their Ld 10 and I'm running small units. Especially with Immortals. I guess I'm just looking for what to expect to face in a comp environment that can totally trash what I've got. If I'm going to lose, I'd at least like it to be close. Unless of course there's that player that just completely outplays me with any given list; which is what I love and hate about 7th Ed competitive. I've got decent in-game tactics, I just have to make sure I have the right tools to deal with "whatever". What's the worst you've seen? I know you don't normally to comp, but you've played one recently. What kind of cheese did you face?

 

[Mossy Toes]

Hmm. Just off the top of my head, I know that my current favorite Daemons list--melee heavy, very mobile, sans any armor save, heavy on psy--would enjoy this matchup. I mean, it's still a lot of bikes to kill, and definitely not a foregone conclusion... but 2+ cover saves, Invisibility, and Grimoire would make your day not too fun.

One possible anti-psy option is dragging in a Culexus, though he'd cost almost an entire Bike Squad for a loner with W3 T4 you have to snap shots against.

...huh, that auspex is pretty fantastic for a highly mobile melee beatstick character in a shooty squad. I haven't paid attention to auspexes since they fiddled around with Infiltration, or something, but... interesting.

 

[christopher.dean]

I wanted to fit that cullexus in there so bad! I was pulling models off of shelves to put this one together and my thunderfire cannons and assassin got pulled, but never made it into the final list.

And yeah... that daemon list would put it on me. I don't have to have 6 man bike squads. That can open up 84 points, plus the 3 that I'm short. But what do you do with 87 points that would have the most impact? I tossed around ideas for CC weapons and such, but settled on more bikes. Boys before toys and all.

And yeah, the auspex can really shift the results of a shooting phase. It's nothing world ending by any means, but for 5 points that tac squad holding the objective having to rely on cover to survive a round of grav can get rooted out pretty quick.

 

[ntaw]

But what do you do with 87 points that would have the most impact?

Do you need the attack bikes given that every unit you have in the army has anti armour capabilities? Swapping them down to normal bikes could work toward a Stalker tank for help against FMCs, a third Stormtalon, or even the Culexus depending on your nudging capabilities.

As a side note, is playing one unit (ish) armies like this fun or is it just about being as competitive as you can be? I know the fluff can/does support a full on bike army like this, I've just never spammed a unit this hard to know. It sure seems to make remembering the rules for your army easier for you and your opponent, I'd guess I'd just be worried about making it easy on them only really needing to deal with one unit type. I know this many bikes is hard to deal with no matter what, but a couple units with Ignores Cover and AP3+ and your day goes downhill faster than if you had more diversity in your list....I think anyway. Not trying to knock the list or anything, I'm really just curious as I've never been able to field an army like this. One day I do indeed hope to have a small bike army to function as allies/small point level games but I don't know if I could ever take it this far.

 

[christopher.dean]

I tend to run "spam" type lists a lot. Even if it's not a spam list, I'm a big fan of bringing at least two of everything. That being said, this particular army is indeed about being as competitive as possible. It's still fun because, well aside from winning being fun, it's fast and mobile. You are right about low AP templates. Flamestorm cannons are definitely scary. I think the heldrake and a few other things have those low AP templates. I'm just taking a risk as to how many competitive armies will bring enough of them to really destroy my army. Hopefully I could outrun most of those, but chem cannons and eldar wraith templates would catch me no matter what. Even if it's not AP3+ or ignores cover, bikes will still go down to massed firepower. Pask punishers or numerous squads with maxed dakka will still make me fail saves. If I had to say though, the think I don't like most about this list is, instead of "shoot it til it's dead" a good player would just "shoot it til it jinks" and leave me lacking in firepower the whole game.

 

[ntaw]

To be sure, when I say 'spamming a unit' I mean 4+ copies of that unit. Two happens all the time and three can be pushing it with certain units, but 4+ is definitely pushing it all out. I guess wording it like that wasn't actually what I was asking, more is playing mono-builds like this still as fun as playing a varied force where units are more integrated together. Of course playing this game is always going to be fun! :laugh:

I've been torn between pouring firepower into Jinking squads and just forcing a Jink then moving on, I think facing this many units with that I might be tempted to spread out the Snap Shot mayhem a little bit. After gaming in the League I'm involved with for the last month or so I've been adding more and more template stuff that ignores cover just for instances of multiple jinking units, I've even considered actually playing the flame version of the Baal Predator(!).

Given any thought to dropping the 6th bike in each unit plus dropping the two Attack Bikes down to normal Bikes to see if you can dangle in a Culexus? You'd be looking at an extra 68 points plus the 87 you mentioned earlier which puts you at 155. I just don't know what to do with those extra 15 points.

 

[christopher.dean]

I did toy with the math on that. I'm a little nervous about running the even smaller bike squads and very nervous about dropping my multi-meltas. I just can't afford to get stuck in CC with a knight. And combi-meltas are out of the question because they aren't points efficient at all. Of course now I'm torn, because I want some psyker defense since GK, Daemons, Nids, and Eldar can all be very psyker heavy and that culexus is so win.

A Baal Flamerator? Say it ain't so! lol.

I have a very large collection of minis because I'm addicted to ebay. So it went from "themed" lists, to spammed lists. I can't say I don't have fun with it. I can't remember the last time I used a balanced list of units. Instead I run 4+ of the same units and kit their wargear out to help balance it. I love my jump pack flesh tearer's army that I posted a while back, I run las/plas razors with space wolves and iron hands like I'm stuck in 5th edition, and in IG I rarely don't take the Steel Host formation so I can spam Leman Russes. It is really easy to remember your rules so it can speed up play, and it spamming can eliminate half of your opponent's army. In this bike list and my jump pack list, any melta or other anti-tank becomes overpriced and nearly worthless. With tank spam, anti-infantry becomes harder to use, but not worthless since there will always be some infantry. I guess to each their own on that one. Sociofield (however you spell it) likes to give me crap about my spammy lists. I enjoy it. It's just really hard to pull off if you don't have a big collection of used models. I could never afford to or have the time to put lists like this together myself since most of my modeling is wargear upgrading and repainting.

 

[christopher.dean]

Had some more thoughts about this list. My friend who plays dark eldar, while he didn't really support the change, unwittingly pointed out that I need some ignores cover in this list aside from just charging things. Xenos with their AP and initiative can school my bikes in cc and generally rely on cover. so...

255 Chaptermaster
150 Khan
210 Command squad with apoth and 4x grav

2x 5-man bike squads with 2x grav each
1x 6-man bike squad with 2x grav
2x 4+1 bike squads with 2x melta and a MM each

2x Typhoon Stormtalons

2x Thunderfire Cannons

Less bikes, but now I have some tough static objective holders for my deployment zone and long range shooty. Thoughts?

 

[Mossy Toes]

Careful--chop out much more of your repetition in favor of versatile units that excel in their areas and you might end up with a list of *shudders* balanced units.

 

[ntaw]

While being less bike oriented oriented, this is more capable of being an all-comers list I'd wager.

Edit: ^:laugh:

 

[christopher.dean]

Don't you put that evil on me Ricky Bobbi! I'm still king of the treat-meat. But instead of spam, I prefer to call it "extraordinarily themed". I do feel a bit more comfortable with this build. I just hate that extra bike. It doesn't fit in neatly.

 

[christopher.dean]

So my buddy that didn't like the Thunderfire Cannons because he didn't think they were good enough (even though I think it's because they'll turn his DE to mush) decided to rewrite the list himself. He didn't do a bad job. I had to help him with points costs and unit choices and such since he's just now getting into space marines, but he wanted me to post the list just to see what you guys would say. He's already gotten my two cents, but we did a quick game against one of my Iron Hands Razorspam builds and he did pretty good. We only did three turns but both armies were pretty mangled. I just didn't run any fliers and I should have. But it ended in a draw anyway. Well here's the list.

White Scars
150 Khan

135 5x Bikes (2x Grav)
135 5x Bikes (2x Grav)
135 5x Bikes (2x Grav)
125 5x Bikes (2x Melta)
125 5x Bikes (2x Melta)

Champions of Fenris Detachment
160 WGBL (TWM, Runic, SS, WC)

130 Dread (TLLC, ML)
130 Dread (TLLC, ML)

160 4x TWC

165 6x LFs (5x ML)
165 6x LFs (5x ML)
135 5x LFs (4x ML)

=1850

I don't care if you brighten his day or rain on his parade, he'd just like to have some feedback on it. His tactics are scouting bikes and TWC (with Khan) and using the dreads and fangs as hometown fire support obviously. His flier defense is "shoot everything at it" or ignore it.

 

[Mossy Toes]

With that many ML, grav and melta, I'd be tempted to just go Rifleman on those Dreds, myself--you could use the high number of S7 shots, I think: they fill in the middle ranges a bit more.

Would kinda like to get some Attack Bikes with those meltabikers, since when I play CSM, I know it's the multi-melta whose absence makes itself felt.

Interesting that he chooses to replace Unkillable Beatstick Chapter Master and the Storm Talons with TWC. Be interested to hear how that plays out for him, on the balance...

I will admit, compared to a Wyvern, a Thunderfire Cannon ranks up at second best. So much cheaper, Shred, and twin-linked more than make up for the 2S lower main blast, or 1S lower fellow Ignores Cover shot--against anything not T8, at least.

Still, understand that it's kinda hard to fit in an AM detachment.