Have you seen this unit? Part 7

Another overlooked Marine fast attack choice, is the Scout Bike Squad. There seems to be a bit of a theme with these posts lately, underused fast attack units. Anyway, the Scout Bikes don’t even seem to appear on player’s radar let alone their shelves or tables. They do not seem to get attention or play, why?



Well they are a bike unit so they get: Turbo Boost, a (+1) toughness, Relentless, Infiltrate and Scout. They have the best of the bike and scout worlds. They have Astartes scout stats with 4’s where it counts, WS 3, BS 3 and a 4+ save. They also get a sarge in the unit which adds leadership 9, 2 attacks and upgrade weapon options. These guys also run 5 points cheaper than regular Marine bikes. That seems great.

They run in a three man squad that can be bumped to ten. They come with all the typical grenades, a bolt pistol, shotgun and the twin-linked bike bolters (thus mitigating the BS 3 misses). Up to three members of the squad may replace their bike bolters for a grenade launcher. It is basically the same as the Imperial Guard version (rapid fire 24” S3 AP 6 blast/ rapid fire 24” S6 AP 4). They are not that expensive an upgrade, can give the unit wound allocation shenanigans (that people like) and can give a bit of versatility to the squad. They can also take cluster bombs.

These are used to booby trap terrain.  Only one bomb may be used per terrain piece. Any unit (friend/foe) moving in the trapped terrain suffers 2D6 S 4 AP- hits. Vehicles are hit on their rear armor. These are one use, but may be bought by any number of squad members. This seems like a “fun” option to have, but isn’t really that frightening.

The sarge gets the standard upgrades, combi-s, fist, power weapons, melta bombs and a locator beacon. The beacon can be useful for getting a deep striker closer to where they need to be. Especially, when used with the scout move or the infiltrate option. Being on the bike also gives a wider deep striking threat range than on regular foot scouts. This is a very handy upgrade to have, for falling reserve armies.

Now why are the scout bikes overlooked? Well for one, if you want bikes you pay the extra points and just get regular Marine bikes. This gets you better WS, BS, armor and weapon options. This makes Marine bikes a bigger threat with melta, plasma guns or an attack bike in the squad. The WS 4 is also better, since nobody likes to be hit on 3+ in close combat. They can also be made a scoring unit if you take a Captain on a bike.

The scout bikes don’t really compete with any other fast attack choice. Most “vanilla” Marine players seem to completely pass by the fast section, take speeders, or like the Vanguard drop and charge option. So why or how do we get this squad on the board?

You could make them a fast attack “troop option if…” unit. I think it is strange regular scouts are troops, bikes can be unlocked as troops, but scouts on bikes are just a fast unit? Why not have the Captain on bike unlock all Marines on bikes as troops? That might get these guys on the table. I can’t see the danger in that. Regular Marine bikes as troops (5 guys minimum to count) are potentially more killy and dangerous than a 5 man scout bike squad. I’m not sure why it wasn’t allowed. I guess they either didn’t play test it or it was somehow so broken that the writers couldn’t allow it.

This unit doesn’t need the just add melta option. They seem to be a fairly functional unit, which just suffers from their big brothers doing it a bit better. I could see them forming a fast harassment unit, a deep striking buffer/ placement helper, an anti-horde unit, or even shred/ suppress light/medium armor unit (needing max grenade launchers for these last two). Too bad nobody else seems to see it that way.