Librarium Online Forums banner

Biker Gang Army

2K views 15 replies 8 participants last post by  Cheredanine 
#1 ·
So, i've started putting together a nearly all-biker army...

the thought is to have a minimal ground-pounder force (a unit of maybe rangers or scorpians, and a unit of Harlequins.. both with transports)
to try and make an uber-fast army...


then it dawned on me... i can have a squad of "Fleet of Jetbike" Warlocks pimpin with witchblades or singing spears, and more psyker power than you can shake a boomstick at...

not that i plan to use the fleet part...

but is the 10 man, high-speed jetbike party as cool as it sounds?



yes, i realize, it's ALOT of modding... but that's kinda half the point of this army, everythings gona get some mod work anyways...
 
#2 ·
I don't know about it, to be honest. Sounds cool, and would look pretty freakin awesome (I can see it now - Warlocks decked out in leathers with chains wrapped around their fists, tyre irons for witchblades...)
but as for battlefield effectiveness, i'm not so sure.
Yeah, it would be pretty cool but as far as psychic powers go it would be pretty limited (although there would be a lot of destructor templates) and the combat effectiveness of it would be rather limited - I feel that spears would be the better option.
But hey, it would be a ballsy unit and I say go for it anyway
 
#3 ·
It would be very effective but also very expensive. They really don't have that many attacks but are really good at making the few they have count. What really gets them in combat is there few attacks coupled with the lack of power weapons. Most armies have good saves and against them you will have difficulty in combat. But a squad full of destructers would be a sight to see.

Don't forget in a bike army you can have vypers and even shining spears. If you relax your rules a little you could have falcons and fireprisms. There are many people who play Sim-Hann.
 
#4 ·
What really gets them in combat is there few attacks coupled with the lack of power weapons.
What? Isn't wounding on 2+, and tripling strength versus vehicles enough for you?
 
#7 · (Edited)
Saim Hann armies played right are extremely deadly and if you play an army of khorne berserkers no one dies while the berserkers and their rhinos get shot to ribbons. fun.
A seer counsil on bike wouldnt be a very effective unit point for point but it would be very fun to play with, although i reccomend that you buy 20-30 bikes before you go into the fancy stuff.
Redant do take into account that as both units should always get the charge, they still kill a similar amount each but the points difference is significant, a bike counsil would cost about the 500 mark while the banshees cost around 300 (wave serpent obviously).
 
#8 ·
A warlock bike gang is not efficient, its poitns cost is absurd, things like destructor have limited efficiency because after the third shot you have killed what you can, there ois nothing else in template and you can no longer charge.

In combat, 10 warlocks = 30 attacks on the charge, or 20 if you are using spears (will deal with both extremes)
Against the ubiquitous SM tac squad that is 15 or 10 hits, that is 12 or 8 wounds, that is 3 or 4 dead first turn, but subsequent turns 3-2 kills, it takes you 3-4 rounds of combat for your 500+ points unit to take down 150 points of marines, and be prepared for the strike back because they are not that far off killing you at the same rate.

the unit is just too expensive for what it achieves, compaire it to the Autarch on a bike and shining spear squad, which is atleast 150 points cheaper and delivers 17-18 hits on the charge, all at str6-8 and ignoring armour, far more lethal, they will cut down that same meq squad in 1 round
 
#9 ·
I completely agree. It is good to know someone else makes sense around here. The spears are deadly in combat when they have an autarch to help them out and while they cost a lot, it isn't as bad as the ludicrously expensive biker council squad. I don't care if you always wound on a 2+, with all that strength they can't even kill a carnifex on average because they don't ignore saves. Comparing the biker squad to a unit of banshees isn't even close because the banshees cost so much less, and still kill more(though I don't take banshees anyway). Spears would fit the bike theme and be better overall. How could you not want s6 power weapons?
 
#11 ·
not as expensive as you'd think, thanks to the 10 bike boxed set they've got in the online store...

I ordered one, it's destiny is to become a pair of warlock lead Guardian squads, a seer, and an autarch...

and if it's as impressive as I'm expecting, I'll prolly order a second to build a warlock crew and flesh out the guardians...


tho, it comes with Vipers, and i'm not sure how well those will perform...
 
#13 ·
I think, Cheredanine, that you should test out the squad before you make up your mind. I have played the squad in question and it doesn't appear that you have unless I missed your saying that you have. I do have experience with them.

The seer council with or without bikes have always been resilent, that aint the issue, with bikes they are to all intents and purposes, marines with invulnerable saves, however, most of my own armies rely on volume of hits against marines to take them down, against that the inv save is pointless, again the squad is harder but no by much, than an SM tac squad
Well perhaps except they hit on 3's, reroll saves and leadership checks, move 24", have init 5, 4++/3+ saves and always wound on 2's, then yes I guess they are sort of like marines in that they are T4. :) However, I see them more like termies except they are far better.
As for killing, we just did the maths hammer, it is a pretty neat indicator, and infact it is over exadurating the prowess of the seer council on bikes, bikes come with large flying bases, you will not get 10 in combat, you will be doing well to get even 8 of them engaged, you say you have killed stuff in 9 games, but was that stuff IG? Tau? if so you can kill more with 80 points of storm guardians
It was against mech tau, IG, Sisters, Marines and chaos. Thats a pretty fair samplng in my opinion. Mech Tau is by far the toughest because they had troops in fish and they simply shoot far better than eldar do with arrays and SMS.
if you are talking about MEQs then as above the fact you are lucky to get 2/3rds of your squad into combat, the fact you only hit half the time, the saves stopping 2 out of 3 wounds, if you are killing MEQs to any great degree you are either rolling very well or your opponent is rolling badly, either way not a sound basis to give advice on
First off, it can be disputed that you are required to use the same flying bases as a skimmer tanks use. My Reaver jet bikes came with small bases. If you look in the codex, you will see both guardian and spears pictured on small bases. They are not vehicles, they are similar to jump infantry.

However, I did the most conservative math hammer in that the squad is locked. As you are a vet player, you would agree that all of the unit would have been in combat from the pile in move.

yes as above, seers are far more resilient, but spears are not there to hold objectives, spears are there to wipe out your opponent, there resilience comes from the fact they kill three times as many as the warlocks do,
I thought that way too until I actually played the unit in question. I found that in the majority of my games, the council wiped out the squad in most cases one single combat. They shoot and charge and then the CC phase rarely lasted more than 1 or two phases.

yes however if you choose what to charge your spears at based on the fact you out manouver him hugely, then you can avoid invulnerable saves and in either case what are you talking about? temies? they wont survive the charge, their inv save is too light, I can only assume you are charging some huge squad all with pretty good inv saves?
Ever charge wyches locked in CC? Old chaos daemonettes? See below for a head to head encounter.

But they are not there to stay, mobilitiy armies can not be static, they can not hold territory, basics of fire and monouver warfare!
That seems fairly obvious. However, you miss the point. Your spears and council alike will both take fire on turns with which they charge and wipe out their targets. With a wealth of ap3 in 4ed, how do the spears fair? I'll take 4++ rerolled saves anyday.

The spears are only 6 strong the warlocks 10 but the spears kill three times aas many on average and the exarch and autarch vasty increase that proportion
Ah lets take the squads head to head. Spears charge council. Spears get 8 S6 attacks from the squad hitting on 4's. Thats 4 hits and 3 wounds. The exarch 3 attacks hitting on 4's also (WS5 on the council) will net 1.5 hits so lets call it 1 wound and it doesnt matter its S8. The autarch hits 5 attacks, and he hits on 3's. So 3 hits 2.5 wounds. All told we have 6-7 armor saves. Now the council will save half and then half again with 4++ rerollable saves. At most 2 casualties. Now keep in mind, the council has 17-18 attacks (as they are being charged), 12 hits, 9.96 wounds. You fail 3 which would equate out to 3 dead spears. You lost combat. Keep in mind the locks hit simo with the spears. Only the Autarch/exarch swing first.

Now lets charge the spears. Autarch gets 4 attacks if he is in BTB. I wouldn't give him the chance. The Exarch would get 2 attacks and possibly 1 wound. However its not a power weapon so the council would be making double +3 saves. The rest of the spears make 4 attacks at S3. They hit on 4's and wound on 5's. That equates to 2 hits and maybe 1 wound. The council would be making 28 attacks hitting on 3's (better ws than spears) that means 18 hits and 14 wounds. You would lose 4 spears. Unit no longer scores and you lose combat.

So just how are spears better? They would lose in head to head with the OP's squad.

that is hugely niaive, most armies can pur firepower out at the rapid fire range, forcing you to take and fail saves, for example, my good old war walker squad, 180 points, farseer with guide, bike spear, 108, only half the price of your lock squad, one round of shooting and you are well below half strength
You didnt read what I said. I told you that I thought the same thing until I played an extremely nasty mech tau list with 4 fish, 6 suits and 2 rail heads. Ive played this list 3 times now and even with concentrated firepower, the tau player was unable to take the council out of scoring.
Sigh, it is called tactics and skill, you use the manouverability of your army to isolate your opponents unti, then you swoop in and kill and pull back out of range or LOS, more commonly you get the parts of your army to opperate together, (not really a paradign shift, more like Eldar 101) and have a more resilient unit pin your opponent in combat, commonly scorpions or in your case you warlocks on bikes, you pile in with the spears, hit and pull back behind the combat, blocking LOS
I know tactics, I explained the concept of my original intention. How well do scorpians pin down mech eldar or Tau? Not so much in my experience. I know all about hit and run and hiding in combat. I use it to effect every time I use my Seraphim or my Spears. However, the fact is all it takes is a lucky round of shooting or CC and all of a sudden your spears are stuck out in the open and extremely vulnerable. That was my point. The council doesnt worry about that. Whats better, if the council consolidates into another enemy, they don't lose effectiveness. Spears do as they are just like rough riders, they only get the high strength power weapons on the charge.

Reaver jetbikes are an entirely different kettle of fish mainly due to their weapons options
Yes and no. They arent quite as good as spears on the charge but with an agonizer and combat drugs, they can do just fine. Or toss in an archon with PW, tormentor helm and drug dispensor they can get s6 powerweapons with rerollable hits.

my thoughts on destructora you are entirely at liberty to disagree with, they are after all only based on about 25 years of experiance with eldar as well as SOB drive by flamer squads, however, if you had actually read my thoughts on destructors you would see I wasnt saying they were useless but that more thanabout 3 were useless as by that point you wipe out everything in template range, you cant shoot anything else with the rest of them and you are left with nothing in charge range, I know you seem to think invulnerable sabes are, well, invulnerable, but they are not
Yes, I apologize. You did indeed say that and you are right. Over two templates are diminishing returns.

Look I am sorry if all that seems a bit harsh but you seem to be basing your army on one fulls sized unit that has 3+ inv saves, but to win games you wil loften find you have to kill stuff, and with the more than 500 points you have spent on this "uber unit" your opponent can buy enough guns to force you to take so many saves that you die.
No apology needed. I didnt take it as a nasty flame. I thought exactly the same until I tried them out. They really surprised me with their effectiveness. The paradigm shift wasn't about tactics, it was about me seeing that a 500 point squad can be worth every penny. Every time your enemy wastes a volley on the council, means other units are not taking fire.
Again, sorry if this sounds harsh but you are, IMHO giving terribly bad advice
Actually, I never gave any advice at all. You are giving advice. All I did was to correct Frozen core's statement ,"But seriously, they can't kill marines for crap because they have so few attacks and no power weapons. " He was wrong, the squad can kill marines just fine. Wounding on 2's makes the attacks as good as power weapon's if the volume is high enough. Whats more, you really dont care what the target's T value is. It doesn't matter to the council. In the new eldar list, volume of fire wins games. Scatter lasers and shur canons, warp spiders all work on this principal.

However, I never told anyone to go out and build this unit. I showed how it can kill marines and I told of my experiences using this unit. You are wrong saying I am giving advice. You are skeptical and thats fine. i was pretty skeptical too until I played the games and got the experience. I figured I would make the bikes into fancy guardian JB squads after trying out the council. Now I am thinking I want to dump the spears in favor of two 6 lock squads with GJB's backing them up using the tactics you mentioned above.
 
#14 ·
Well perhaps except they hit on 3's, reroll saves and leadership checks, move 24", have init 5, 4++/3+ saves and always wound on 2's, then yes I guess they are sort of like marines in that they are T4. :) However, I see them more like termies except they are far better.
Sure, they are like termies, except they only have a 3+ armor save, which means they will die from volume fire. Turbo booting means they can't assault, and are ripe pickings for a psycannon. They trade resilience for mobility, which is a common eldar theme, unfortunatly they "lose" 2+ armor to termies and cost much more.

Ever charge wyches locked in CC? Old chaos daemonettes? See below for a head to head encounter.
Why would spears charge these units? There are better targets for their power weapons.

Ah lets take the squads head to head. Spears charge council. Spears get 8 S6 attacks from the squad hitting on 4's. Thats 4 hits and 3 wounds. The exarch 3 attacks hitting on 4's also (WS5 on the council) will net 1.5 hits so lets call it 1 wound and it doesnt matter its S8. The autarch hits 5 attacks, and he hits on 3's. So 3 hits 2.5 wounds. All told we have 6-7 armor saves. Now the council will save half and then half again with 4++ rerollable saves. At most 2 casualties. Now keep in mind, the council has 17-18 attacks (as they are being charged), 12 hits, 9.96 wounds. You fail 3 which would equate out to 3 dead spears. You lost combat. Keep in mind the locks hit simo with the spears. Only the Autarch/exarch swing first.
That is some terrible math hammer.

Exarch and Autarch go first with 3 attacks and 6 attacks(mandiblasters) and kill 2.3 by themselves. Then the rest attack at the same time. 15.4 attacks back for the warlocks (not counting the fact that the whole squad can't be in CC, also I am assuming that it is a squad of 10) if none of them have singing spears, which means 10.3 hits, 8.56 wounds, and 2.85 dead spears. Spears attack simultaneously, with 8 attacks, 4 hits, 3.3 wounds, 1.67 casualties.

Bringing the total to 4 dead Warlocks bikers, and 2.85 dead spears. Spears win combat. See how all that rounding you did really changed the outcome of the fight? Interesting that your rounding seemed to be in favor of the squad you were defending.

Points lost due to casualties: Warlock squad = 180, Shining Spears = 100.

Real combat scenario where the charged unit is spread out more and actually on bases (and lets go with your small flying bases) means only 7 or so are actually capable of fighting depending on how spread out they are, but I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. That means there are only 4.7 left in the kill zone. That makes 9.4 attacks back, 7.83 wounds, 2.61 dead. Not a big difference, but it only gets bigger if your unit isn't packed nicely together when they get charged or if the charger hits a side that doesn't have as many models. I often see people forget to take base size and unit spread into account when they to CC mathhammer.

The real question here is, why are the spears charging the warlocks anyway? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this wouldn't be the best idea because of the invul save. Not to mention the fact that the Shining spear squad with autarch only costs 317 points and the warlock squad costs 500. It is easy to "win" combat when your unit costs over 1.5 times that of the other.

How about we have the two units charge some regular marines? Or terminators?
The spear squad kills 8.3 marines and 5.5 terminators.
The warlock squad kills 5.5 marines and 2.8 terminators.

Which squad can actually get rid of their kill zone? Which squad has the tactical flexibility to take out terminators, which is something that is normally lacking in an all-jetbike list?

I have actually used the squad before. I had a squad of 6 with a fortune-seer, and I admit it was quite resilient. I used it in a few games for fun, but eventually people just stopped shooting at it. The squad runs around 600 points, and I did not feel that its performance justified that price tag. In a 2000 point game that is over a quarter of your army in 1 unit, that is not how I like to play the game.
 
#15 ·
Heh, this has really gone in some wild directions. :) I think my math is accurate and that you made a couple of mistakes not factoring in fortune nor the terminator 5++ saves.

That is some terrible math hammer.

Exarch and Autarch go first with 3 attacks and 6 attacks(mandiblasters) and kill 2.3 by themselves. Then the rest attack at the same time. 15.4 attacks back for the warlocks (not counting the fact that the whole squad can't be in CC, also I am assuming that it is a squad of 10) if none of them have singing spears, which means 10.3 hits, 8.56 wounds, and 2.85 dead spears. Spears attack simultaneously, with 8 attacks, 4 hits, 3.3 wounds, 1.67 casualties.

Bringing the total to 4 dead Warlocks bikers, and 2.85 dead spears. Spears win combat. See how all that rounding you did really changed the outcome of the fight? Interesting that your rounding seemed to be in favor of the squad you were defending.

Points lost due to casualties: Warlock squad = 180, Shining Spears = 100.
With Mandiblasters autarchs only get 5 attacks on the charge. A spear is a 2h weapon so pistol doesn't gain you a benefit. Where does the 6th attack come from? Also note that I didn't figure in the farseer's attack into the equasion. I would have but didnt to keep the squad purely locks.

Autarch: 5 attacks at ws 6 is 3.3 hits thats 2.1 wounds.
Exarch: 3 attacks at WS 5 means he hits on 4's, thats 1.5 hits and 1.2 wounds.
Grand total is 3.3 wounds. With 4++ save, that drops down to 1.67 and with the reroll drops down further to .83 wounds.

Squad has 8 attacks that hit on 4's for 4 hits, 3.32 wounds. With saves 1.66 and reroll .83

So rounding up, two casualties. You failed to account for fortune and rerolls.
The real question here is, why are the spears charging the warlocks anyway? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this wouldn't be the best idea because of the invul save. Not to mention the fact that the Shining spear squad with autarch only costs 317 points and the warlock squad costs 500. It is easy to "win" combat when your unit costs over 1.5 times that of the other.
Its a head to head comparison. Whether you would choose to do the charge is debatable. Whats interesting is you seem to suggest you would have to be more particular with your targets. The Council doesn't. It can nail a tank in one turn, survive being out in the open and then move on to shoot/charge something the next turn. You have to be much more careful with the spears as they don't have the inv saves.

As far as easy to win, I look at it in the bigger picture. Will the squad still be scoring? Will the squad be able to go on and destroy another unit? In my experience, yes. To date my spears haven't come close to performing that well.

Look, what it comes down to was you were stating that the squad can't dish out the punishment because it doesn't have power weapons. I have shown this is not the case.

Your terminator numbers look off to me. I think you forgot the 5++ save.

Autarch: 5 attks 3.3 hits and 2.79 wounds
Exarch: 3 attks 1.98 wounds
Squad: 8 attacks 4 hits 3.32 wounds
total :8 wounds for 5 dead terminators

Locks 28 attacks, 18.48 hits, 15.3 wounds. With the 2+ save, 2.6 dead terminators. So roughly half of the spears effectiveness.

Ah but what happens if you opponent is wily and pulls base to base before the squad can swing in initiative order? You may not get those squad hits and you cant sweep if you arent in base. Its not always so cut and dried.

Of course things could change a great deal if the terminators are in cover. Dangerous terrain checks are bad for bikes.

I have actually used the squad before. I had a squad of 6 with a fortune-seer, and I admit it was quite resilient. I used it in a few games for fun, but eventually people just stopped shooting at it. The squad runs around 600 points, and I did not feel that its performance justified that price tag. In a 2000 point game that is over a quarter of your army in 1 unit, that is not how I like to play the game.
Im not sure what your getting at. I agree its expensive. :) Its also a unit that can survive an amazing amount of firepower. Think about how much you spend on a glass canon spear squad(and yes they are very much glass canons).

I think you numbers are a bit off. I am running 9 lockes and a farseer and its 632. That was my test bed and I know I can probably trim off 70 points from that by getting rid of some fat on the seer and a from the squad as I fine tune it. The 6 lock/seer squad I am contemplating is 449. What are you using the other 151+ points on?

As I said before, Im not advising anyone to use the squad. I am however giving my experience using said squad and shedding light on a few comments that I think are inaccurate.
 
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