Outnumbered! Codex Space Marine Bike Armies.

Keeper of the Fortress

Welcome to the next installment of Outnumbered! This time we are looking at the Space Marine Codex Bike armies. Its a different enough army compared to Ravenwing to get its own entry.

This is your White Scar and equivalent armies. What I mean by a biker army is of course biker troops and commander. And the rest of the army is other bikes and landspeeders. That's about it. I will get into a bit more detail about some tactica with these armies.

Alright so firstly you need to know your wargear. I am not going to give out much detail on stats or what not. Buy the codex and learn it if you want to run this army. This is true for any army you may play. Know your wargear. Some pointers for bikers. twin linked bolters on the bikes. Bikes confer the relentless rule so plasmagunners or attack bikers can still shoot at full range.

Alright so Firstly with these armies is HQ. Any HQ can go on a bike but the mandatory one you need for this army is a Captain on a bike. He of course makes Space Marine Bikers a troop choice. Now with this codex the bikers have to be atleast 5 man strong to be a troop choice. For the rest of the HQ choices can also go on bikes. But if you want a nice support biker I would suggest either a Master of the Forge on a bike or a Librarian on a bike. A biker with conversion beamer can help this army out with long range anti-tank. Also a Biking Librarian is relentless so Vortex of doom can be cast after moving and the other abilities are nice. Also command squads can be put on bikes should you wish.

Ok so after HQ is troops. Bikers squads are your troops of atleast 5 or larger. I would always give the sergeant a powerfist as he replaces his bolt pistol for a melee weapon. These units however are not meant for the assault really. There space marines yes and with a higher toughness but anytime you charge into cover you need to roll dangerous terrain. Also there strengths are in the shooting. The ability to shoot your twinlinked bolters full range or plasmagun full range makes it a fast mid range shooting squad. If you move then shoot that give you range on things 36 inches away before you moved.

Alright after troops you should supplement your army with fast attack choices. You have Land Speeders, Attack Bikers or Scout bikers. The scout biker squad is an interesting option should they fit into your play style. Most people go with attack bike squads equipped with multi meltas. This is a good option to deal with vehicles and monstrous creatures. Others go with land speeders which are also good. The assault cannon configuration is still good but the changes to defensive weapons and rending made this configuration less popular lately. My favorite from this codex is the missile launcher land speeder. It shoots twice with a missile launchers stats. This is good for longer range anti vehicle but it really shines in dealing with hordes. Fire 3 frag missiles with the heavy bolter into a ork horde or gaunt brood and just thin them out.

So that is what the army contains. But now its time to talk about the one special character that matters for this army for a moment. Korsarro Khan. He can be put on his special bike and lead a biker army. He is from the White Scars but you could easily counts as him with your own army. He has a special ruling for his power sword and for his bikes. His other rule gives him furious charge and hit and run that is conferred to a squad he joins. His Chapter Tactic give the army outflank. This makes the army highly mobile coming in from the sides. He is a good hq option but do not be afraid to make your own HQ captain. You can make a captain with better saves and a str 6 weapon for 5 to 10 points more. So it depends on what you want your army to do. Naturally if you want to outflank you should use the Khan.

Now these biker armies are difficult to play. You are a very fast mobile army that your speed can work against you if you get to split up. What you do depends on what your fighting but generally you should maximize your shooting and assault things that out shoot you like Tau or things that shoot high str weapons like Lootas. Remember your going to be outnumbered more so then normal marines. The good thing though is that units like attack bikes can quickly make there points back by killing vehicles.

To review. Do not let your speed fragment your battle line. Since you are a fast small army you can spearhead into specific spots of the enemy so that your enter army can hit parts of the enemy.

So that is about it. I will go into more detail on biker armies with the Ravenwing so we don't have to read the same thing twice. I touched the parts that are different here. When I discuss Ravenwing and how they differ the tactics for both will be flushed out some more.

Until then the key thing to know for any army is to have your codex for that army and have it with you when you play a game. Also know your wargear or rather at least know the key wargear (example: bolt gun, missile launcher, heavy bolter for marines). The more you know about your army the better you can think about how to play them. Until next time.

And it's name was Apollo

Hey everyone. Just thought I would make a little update post. Still working on finishing a tactical marine for crusade Thousand Sons. Once that is done ill work on my Orks for the Random 40k challenge and share them as I go.

However my last post I stated I had another project that I did not mention. Here is one image:


And it's name was Apollo.... Yep I decided to treat myself. Its a Mars Pattern Warhound. This is going to be a long term side project. I have plans for it but for now you will only know its name.. Apollo. When I do make progress with it I will let you know and talk about building it. Giving tips as I go. I will hopefully be having help myself. Well that is it for now.

Do not worry I will do the next installment of Outnumbered! soon. Other stuff to come as well.

Gotta love fearless

Hey all. This will be a minor update on whats is going on on my end followed by my views on Fearless.

Firstly the updates. Still working on my Pre heresy Thousand Sons I am trying to fill out the tactical squads and will post progress as I make them. I have plans for my Angels of Fury but they are taking a second seat as of now because the local game store is doing a Heresy era type thing in the summer and I want to make sure I get my Thousand Sons done. I got two other home made chapters on the drawing board; The Iron Ravens and Bone Scorpions. Once i get model done for them I will post more on them. I also have plans for other official space marine chapters and to expand my Dark Angels. My Goal for the Dark Angels is a full 5th battle company, full Deathwing company and full Ravenwing company. Anyways I also got some other stuff that I wont spoil including a huge side project. More on that later.

The Legends of War Event (aka the random army thing my friends and I are doing.) We started part 2 which is to build just one troop choice squad. Rules are that no transports are allowed yet and they must be fully based and painted. So if you remember I was doing Orks. I used a counts as Ghazkull for Grax Dakka Goldteef. He needs some big mean Orks and since he is a warboss I can do that. So for my first troop choice im going with 5 meganobz with kombi-scorchas. They will be called the goldtoof guard. I haven't started them yet but I have the models so they will take priority after I finish up some painting I started. I will post progress of them as well.


Alright that was a bit long now onto the heart of the matter. The Special Rule Fearless. Now I know the new kid on the block is Stubborn because it has changed from the prior edition and is really good. I will talk on Stubborn another time.

We all know fearless. Automatically pass morale and pinning checks and you never fall back. Also if the unit somehow becomes fearless they autoregroup regardless of size. Sounds great!.. and it is great. However the downside comes to close combat. If a fearless unit loses close combat they don't roll morale they stay in but take a number of armor saves equal to the number of unsaved wounds they lost by. Now this itself is also a blessing. If you can survive losing the combat and the extra saves you keep a unit tied up in close combat which has many advantages like blocking line of sight keeping that unit tied down etc.

Now while that sounds like a harsh drawback it really isnt. Here is why the vast majority of fearless units have a small squad size. Greyknights are kept small due to point cost, Deathwing and Ravenwing are small squads. Deathcompany is small. Why does this matter? Well lets look at deathwing. They are 5 man terminator squads that are fearless. If they lose close combat chances are they are either wiped already or took a small amount of casualties. Even if you lost the other 4 chances are you will make those saves. This is relying on good rolls but you get the point. a 5 man squad cannot lose close combat by a large amount of unsaved wounds.

Now I know there are Ork players wondering how this helps there horde. Well yes it does stink for those large Ork squads and I am sure ill feel its effects with my Orks once I get the army built. But I Will not worry about it. Firstly the ork boyz be they shoot or slugga go up to 30 models and its not impractical to field a few squads that size. Also they are both fine in close combat especially if they charge. Lastly its fluffy for orks to die in large numbers. Now the latter only applies to people who actually care about fluff. I happen to care about it so I like that fact. In the case of Ork hordes it comes down to the player being smart. For example you may be a 30 sluga boy strong unit with many attacks but do not let them steal the charge. Also do not go after the opposing armies specialist assault forces with your troop choice. That is what nobz and the hq are for. What should you not assault or let assault your large fearless troop choice? Here is a rough list: berserkers, assault marines, vanguard marines, assault terminators (maybe), grey knight terminators, Striking scorpions, Death company, Genestealers and arco flags to name some off the top of my head. Now does this list mean never? No of course not just be careful because they are assault oriented and can mess up your ork boy mob without counting the possible hq attached to it. You cannot complain if you let the assault oriented elite or fast attack choice with many attacks get your squad and proceed to wipe them out because that is the nature of the game anyway.

So are large ork mobs useless? Not at all. Lets face it there saves in general are terrible and objectives are important. IF you can get a 20 or larger ork boy squad with shootas on a objective in cover that is one tough squad to remove from the objective.

Oh and do not forget the last part about if the unit becomes fearless it auto regroups. The only army I can think of that can do this regularly are witch hunter sisters of battle with faith. if your faithful model in your squad is still alive you can regroup your retreating small unit to contest or even take an objective.

Bottom line in my opinion is Fearless is very powerful and as such has a drawback that hurts. Do not forget that independent characters lose this rule if they join a non fearless unit (Chaplains are an exception of this. There may be others I just cannot think of any). If you keep in mind the pro's and cons of this or any rule you can use it better. It also comes down to of course knowing your army. Also there are some special abilities in the some armies that force a moral check regardless of fearless or not. I did not touch on that because that is army specific I just wanted to talk about fearless in general.

That was longer then expected. Again I am stating things that many people know already but I feel it is good to get it out into the open. Coming soon is the next installment of Outnumbered! plus other progress reports and some tutorials in the future. Until then.

Teleportation Successful

Hey all hope the new year went well. I got some painting done. I decided to paint the snap terminators from the Black Reach box for my deathwing. So here they are

There nothing fancy. What I did do different with this batch is i used a foundation paint brown instead of my normal graveyard earth undercoat for the armor. The Deathwing decals are from the vehicle transfers..

A little rant on the deathwing transfer. Games Workshop really needs to make a new decal sheet with these on it. The Deathwing symbol only is available on a vehicle sheet and there is only one on it. It is not like these are an obscure decal or something. But its all good as they did make terminator pads for the deathwing.

Well enjoy.. Until next time.