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Author Topic: best way to use bikes? need advice  (Read 492 times)

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Offline tomsev

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best way to use bikes? need advice
« on: September 5, 2011, 12:07:19 PM »
hi there.
i was wondering what are the advantages and disadvantages of having marines on bikes. captains on bikes how does assaulting work? whats the best weapon lay out on a bike?
should i go for a fully mobilize bike army???
 how is the best way to use them???
sorry for all the questions but i am intrigued by bikes and am thinking of getting some.

Offline Azash76

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Re: best way to use bikes? need advice
« Reply #1 on: September 6, 2011, 01:39:51 AM »
A full on bike army is one of the more expensive army's you can build with CSM; cash wise not points. However they are pretty darn good.

You can build a fairly generic biker list or you can go a Khan outflanking list. You wan work in SM bikes or Scout Bikes. The main thing about bikes is in assault they have toughness 5 so say your assaulting marines. Those marines need to roll 4's to hit and 5+'s to wound. So half there attacks will hit and only about 1/3 of those will actually wound and then your bikers have a 3+ (66%) chance to save. So in assault they don't really have more offensive power but they do a darn good job of staying up allowing them to tar pit infantry units and eventually whittle them down.

Also they are relentless in pure assault they are not so hot. But if you consider they get to Rapid fire TL bolters before they assault it's a damned site better than the typical bolt pistol barrage before you assault. So the odds when the bikes assault are usually pretty favorable to the bike squad. Then there is the obvious factor of there ability to move fast and take advantage of that 3+ cover save.

They have good weapons options for anti tank or anti infantry especially if you factor in the attack bike that you can add to the squads. The only downside to bike squads is they are expensive.

If your looking to bone up on some bike tactics and see what they are capable of try doing a youtube search for a particularly effective build called the Khan/Tigairius list. They don't scale down past 2000 pts very well but it's a pretty effective and vicious list. Khan gives all the bike squads outflank while Tigairius allows you to reroll your reserve rolls. The composition of the lists change slightly from person to person but they all have a few common themes.

Low Model Count - compared to a typical SM list it's low
CC oriented - everything is built around getting into rapid fire range cutting the opponent into ribbons and assaulting
Alpha strike - get the first shot on your opponent and then assault by coming off the nearest board edge in force

Some other biker lists work differently but those a good lists to study just to get a good feel for how bikes operate and what they can do.

Offline Anomander Rake

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Re: best way to use bikes? need advice
« Reply #2 on: September 6, 2011, 03:03:20 AM »
First off, I Personally love bikes so have that in mind when you read my post.

Advantages:
  • Mobility- they are one of the most mobile units in the game. It is very easy to change the attack vector and hit the enemy at a new location. Also the bike rule that you are not slowed down in difficult terrain give you new opportunities and can give you a surprise tactic against opponents who are not familiar with bikes (be aware that you might lose a bike or two from "bike test") and they have the option of turboboosting (giving them cover save and increased speed).
  • Increased toughness- The increased toughness attribute keep the unit alive a lot longer than "ordinary marines". It will help a lot in close combat and in shooting.
  • Firepower- every bike is armed with TL Bolters which combined with relentless make for a lot of accurate firepower. Combined with the mobility, you can often fire from within the "magic" 12" range for a lot of bolterhots (remember that the attack bike may also fire the twin linked bolter as well as the heavy weapon.
  • Special/heavy weapon add on- the ability to take two special weapons and a heavy weapon (with the attack bike) makes for a very nice convertablization. give this unit a multimelta and two meltaguns and you are ready to destroy any armor at close range. Two flamers and a heavy bolter and you are ready to wipe out infantry squads. Plasma guns add a bit more range and increased firepower against Heavy infantry as well as light armoured vehicles but at an added cost and risk. Personally I go for the melta version as I feel the squad already have enough anti infantry firepower. But again I currently only use one bike unit.


Disadvantages:
  • In the open- Bike units obviously have no transport to hide in, so they will be a bit more difficult to keep out of sight (depending on terrain).
  • Large model- Bike models are larger than normal footsie marines, so they can be a bit more difficult to hide behind cover. They cover a larger area on the board and they might have a bit of trouble in close combat if there are not that much space. On the plus side they will often get fewer hits from template/blast weapons and they can more easily screen units behind them giving them a cover save.
  • Expensive- A bike unit is a bit more expensive than a normal tactical squad (depending on outfits for the transport).
  • Buildings- Bikes have a bit of a problem climbing stairs ;)

All in all the bike squad adds a lot of versatility to a list. Include a HQ choice and you can have a very tough unit able to do shooting or close combat and win against most units...but as allways it depends on the rest of the army list and how you want to use it.

In terms of a all out bike army there are a couple of guides on this forum- just look at the guide section.
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Offline ~Iron Captain Softy~

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Re: best way to use bikes? need advice
« Reply #3 on: September 7, 2011, 04:39:00 PM »
I think the best way to make a biker army is to go basic and get as many bikers as you can. This means no command squad if you can help it. Next, I think equipping your bikers with plasma guns and a multi-melta attack bike is the wisest decision because of the range afforded and stopping power gained from this layout. It is no doubt an expensive configuration, but I believe in paying for what you get, and in this case, you're getting a lot.

As for tactics, Bikes are quite versatile. The standard operating procedure will be to hang back and shoot at whatever range you're comfortable with without being in range of getting charged (18" ~ 24"). With Plasma guns and a Multi-melta attack bike, this will be no problem. If, by chance, you are fighting an army that is inherently weak in close combat or chooses to go weak in close combat (Some dark eldar builds/IG/Tau/Some eldar builds/etc), then you can use your insanely high speed to close in and engage in close combat.

As for army-level tactics, taking advantage of your inherent mobility is key, as you must create situations of local superiority in order to systematically destroy key parts of the opposing force while exposing as little of your force as possible. This means things like isolating enemy forces via terrain, forcing enemies to close in to attack you because of LoS limitations via terrain, focusing your forces on a flank that has good cover from the other, etc. While these are things that any general must learn in order to master their army, it holds doubly true for Bike armies, for while bikes are relatively resilient when compared to other infantry, they are fragile indeed when you consider the weapons that are prevalent in 40k today.
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