Topic: captain on bike

[tomsev]

is it worth having a captain on a bike in an army?
if so how is a good way to gear him up i was thinking something like:
captain:bike, relic blades, storm shield, hellfire rounds, and artificer armour.
but thats getting very expensive but looks rather good twin linked hellfire bolters seems cool

[Grand Master Lomandalis]

I run a captain on a bike all the time and the way I kit him out is really cheap, I just give him a relic blade.  165pts and you are good.  There really is no need to go overboard on how you tool him out.

[tomsev]

ok then thanks its just i got carried away with all those happy stats looks like that would be pretty hard to kill and annoying to have running round the enemy lines

[Grand Master Lomandalis]

Annoying yes.  Survivable yes.  Expensive and taking points away from your army that can be put to use elsewhere?  Absolutely.

[csjarrat]

does open up other troops options though, so can give you more scoring options. can be nice to just keep him cheap and dump him in a squad of bikes with melta guns. use them as mobile anti armour and late game objective hunters. tis quite nice!

[Hymirl, Space Machine!]

is it worth having a captain on a bike in an army?

Unlocking bikes as troops is a very useful option.

if so how is a good way to gear him up i was thinking something like:
captain:bike, relic blades, storm shield, hellfire rounds, and artificer armour.
but thats getting very expensive but looks rather good twin linked hellfire bolters seems cool

Over-equipping any character is generally a waste of points.

If you're looking for a unit to harass the enemy into dealing with it instead of concentrating on their mission objective the unit you use to harass must be annoying, not too easy to deal with and above all cheap.

Imagine you play against an IG army, who has a unit of veterans with meltaguns. They rock up and shoot those meltaguns at your captain... is he going to live? Maybe. Thats a lot of points to put on a 'maybe.'

A regular bike unit has more wounds, more firepower and will carry meltaguns and a multi-melta. And depending how to set it up can probably cost less... with their cover save from turbo-boosting have a good chance to get though firepower and start annoying enemy units from the sides or rear.

A mob of outflanking scouts can be quite annoying, and even steal objectives.

This is the sort of thing that works better to harass enemy units, not sending off a character like a glorified hunter killer missile.

[tomsev]

i was planning on putting him in a bike squad with 2 meltas and 1 attack bike w/ multi melta  and 2 other normal biker but was thinking if needs be he could always break of the squad to charge something....

[Mr Joe Moose]

I often use a captain on a bike with relic blade, storm shield, and artificer armor.  I leave him attached to a squad and I can break him off to hit a distant target if necessary.  He works well at charging anything not geared for assault.  His main job is to serve as a rapid response support unit.  He is a little nugget of 2+/3++ high strength goodness, and his bike lets him always be where you need him the most.  I don't think he matches the value of a Librarian's psychic defense, but he solves a lot more problems than any of the other Vanilla HQs.

[tomsev]

can a captain on a bike use hellfire rounds for the bike mounted twin linked bolters???

[Autarch Koval'andril]

Re-read the rules for hellfire bolts on page 100 of your Codex.

Why you would ever want to use hellfire bolts, though, I will never know, because they're a complete waste of points.

[tomsev]

wounding big heavy tyranid beasts and other high toughness things... why isnt it good?

[Autarch Koval'andril]

Largely because you're giving your Captain a complete gimmick that achieves very little in practice. You're going from one AP5 shooting attack to another AP5 shooting attack, and by the time you're in range for that shooting attack to do anything, you're either in a position to charge, or you're about to get counter-charged. Or both. Focus on a cheap and cheerful combat character, rather than weighing him down with crap.

Then again, you seem absolutely mesmerised by the idea of turning your Captain into an overpriced Green Torpedo, so you're probably going to plough on ahead regardless...

[tomsev]

no no i do listen and have been running a relic blade melta bomb captain on bike and its been working fine havent seen many high toughness stuff yet, i was just wondering thats all

[Swamp Rat]

I might suggest an Auxillary Grenade Launcher if you have the spare points. That way you can still wound the big beasts, and you also have a nice s6 hit to add to the rest of the unit. A Relic Blade, Meltabomb, and AGL is slightly more expensive than others, but is still cheaper than the hell beast you were making before.

[tomsev]

i am now using bike, storm shield, relic blade, melta bombs but am thinking of putting a combi melta or flamer not to sure, might try the grenade launcher could be good