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Space Marine Bike Command Squad
Fri, 01/15/2010 - 17:43
Looking at a three day weekend during which I (mercifully) have little that I "have" to do, I'm thinking about a marathon plastic assembly session for the Ravenwing / Biker army I've been planning for a little while.
The plan is to build a force flexible enough to either be used as a true Ravenwing army, or a Codex Space Marine army with a bike mounted captain. Both armies give you different abilities and will allow the force to be changed up and not grow stale.
I soliciting opinions on the loadout for a marine command squad on bikes.
How much is too much?
A biker veteran with thunderhammer and stormshield costs 81 points, compared to a assault terminator with TH/SS at 50pts.
The terminator can deepstrike, run, be hidden in a landraider, and has a armor save of 2+.
The biker is faster, still has a twin bolter on his bike, is toughness 5, relentless, and has feel no pain.
I was thinking of a squad along the lines of:
Champion: Power Weapon, Combat Shield, Melta Bombs
Apothecary: Narthecium, Plasma Gun
Veteran: Company Standard, Plasma Gun
Veteran: Thunderhammer, Storm Shield, Melta Bombs
Veteran: Thunderhammer, Storm Shield
Plasma guns chosen over meltaguns because I figure they'll be attacking infantry alot and they'll have two shots before they charge.
This is obviously an expensive squad, but I'm wondering if it should be a little more expensive in order to improve its effectiveness.
I would anticipate it being accompanied by a character, either the company captain or a chaplain. The captain if points are tight, the chaplain if points allow and I want to improve their effectiveness in close combat.
In its end state, I want the force to contain:
Sammael
All available characters that can be bike mounted (captain, chaplain, librarian, techmarine/master of the forge)
Command squad on bikes / Ravenwing command squad
2 to 3 Ravenwing Attack Squads / 2 to Marine Bike Squads
3 Attack Bikes
Around 10 landspeeders (a mix of types)
Land Speeder Storm and 5 scouts
So, about 5 or 6 characters on bikes, 22 to 24 marines on bikes, 10 to 12 landspeeders, 5 infantry.
Tue, 01/19/2010 - 18:02
#2
Due to a weird set of rules in the Dark Angel codex that supercede the basic rulebook, Ravenwing Attack Squads split into 4 units (3 bikes, 3 bikes, attack bike, and speeder) that all count as scoring units (even the speeders).
Theoretically, you could jam 22 land speeders into a Ravenwing army (1 hq, 6 troop, and 15 fast attack).
So the Ravenwing army has an overabundance of small units that can move fast to zip in and claim objectives.
The Codex Marines bike army would have a lot fewer scoring units (probably two full bike squads, each split in two). That's why I'm attracted to a nice cheap little squat squad loaded up in a fast, skimmer transport.
I'll have plenty of other marine units if I want to do a more traditional force, the purpose of this particular batch of marines is to do a very non-traditional marine army.
Still, any opinions out there on how stupid a crazy, kitted out biker command squad would be?
Sounds cool.,my only thought is that 10 speeders might be too many as you may need more than 5 foot sluggers,.but then I love troops so maybe thats just me