SM Bike Squad?

1249 Views 14 Replies 7 Participants Last post by Terminator, Jan 3, 2008

Terminator

Discussion Starter · Jan 1, 2008

Hello all!

Whether you're a White Scars player or not, looking for suggestions for incorporating a bike squad into my balanced Ultramarine list. I've been using attack bikes and I like their mobility (and the models themselves) so much that I'm thinking of getting a full bike squad and trying them out. Here's the setup I was thinking of:

1 Attack Bike w/ Heavy Bolter
4 Bikes, 2 w/ Meltaguns
1 Bike Sergeant w/ Powerfist & Teleport Homer
TOTAL POINTS = 265 (If my calcs are correct...)

Any thoughts? Good or bad? I picture a unit that can roll in and put down lots of bolter fire on infantry - but that can also shoot armor or assault if need be (meltaguns/powerfist) and another teleport homer spot for my termies.

Has anyone seen other effective setups for bike squads? All suggestions welcome. Thanks.

Save

1 - 3 of 15 Posts

Someguy

· #4 · Jan 1, 2008

I find that bike squads are inefficient to use in a combat role. You just pay too many points for each gun once you have taken the price of the bike itself into account.

You can have things like 3 man units with 2 melta guns but I think there are other options that are better for killing vehicles. I'd probably just take land speeders for my fast attack.

To illustrate this, your unit costs slightly more points than 3 land speeder tornados with assault cannons and heavy bolters. I can't really think of any situation where it would be preferable to have the bikes instead of the land speeders. I don't really see the bikes' ability to assault as an advantage, since it means they can be pinned in assault and taken out of the game. Their short range weapons makes that pretty hard to avoid.

Save

Someguy

· #12 · Jan 2, 2008

Terminator said:
what's not to love?

The price, really. You are paying more for this unit than for a terminator squad, a land raider or a pair of predators and you really are not getting anywhere near the power that you could get for the price. Bikes just cost too many points.

For a much cheaper teleport homer carrier try scout bikers.

Actually that probably won't work in the long term. I think that scout bikes will be missing from the next version of the codex. They aren't in the BT, DA or BA lists as I recall and you can't get the models any more.

Save

Someguy

· #14 · Jan 2, 2008

True. That is different from using a single unit in a space marine army though. In one case you have a balanced marine army (as the OP originally stated) and you are looking at what you could spend 250ish points on. In the other you are talking about an army of bikes.

I think that a marine army, if it was looking for a unit that could move fast, claim quarters and attack vehicles, would be much better off getting land speeders than bikes. Even if you just have 1 FA slot then I think a squadron of 3 tornados, maybe one with multi melta and hvy flamer and the other 2 with assault cannons and heavy bolters, would be far more effective than the bikes against any opposition.

If their main job is getting your termies up close then maybe a land raider crusader could work. On the other hand, my experience with terminators is that they work best walking forwards shooting stuff with their assault cannons and that there is usually no reason to deep strike. I'd probably spend the points on another terminator squad, as 15 terminators walking forwards and shooting 6 assault cannons is quite formidable.

See less See more

Save

1 - 3 of 15 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.

Top Contributors this Month