The Space Marine codex is looking older and most Marine players have moved on to more red, grey or silver pastures; yet I think I have found some life still in it. This is the only “modern” codex to have bikes as an option for troops. Sure, the Ravenwing are the coolest bike army, but they are also the most expensive. I’ll take more stuff over cooler/ more expensive any day.
This leaves the White Scars as a template for a bike army list. I’ll go as many bikes as possible and see what 1500 points gets me.
First is the HQ and that has to be a Captain, since he unlocks bikes as troops. Thought about khan here, but since you have to buy him a bike that is stupid and expensive. I’ll go Captain and bike. I’ll throw him a relic blade for some extra close combat punch. Not super expensive and that is how I like my HQ.
The troops will be 5 man (minimum) bike squads. I think 5 bikes with two melta guns and a power weapon is descent. It is also only 175 points. Why not take two of these and fulfill my minimum force organization requirement. The HQ and two troops leaves 985 points for continued building.
Another bike squad that is will be 5 strong with an attached multi-melta attack will be next. Why not a have 24” mobile melta gun?
Along that line I’ll throw out another squad with 5 bikes and an attached heavy bolter. I really like the heavy bolter. Sure it is poo-pooed by everyone else. I love the idea and look of the weapon. That and a mobile multi-shot S5 gun is always a plus in my mind. That and it can be over looked since it is just a squad with a heavy bolter. Why bother right? This leaves 615 points in the kitty.
A fifth bike squad of 5 men and a power fist will round out the troop section. This is pretty cheap and can be where my Captain might attach. Holy crap 450 points left!
I could go with a scout bike squad. 7 scout bikes with three grenade launchers is 180 points. They can be used for harassment, outflanking shenanigans or clean-up of weaker units. The rapid firing grenade launchers look crazy fun to use, throwing out 9 blast templates or 9 strength 6 shots at 12” seems great. However, for those points I could take a pair of Typhoon class landspeeders in a squad. They have better ballistic and four krak missiles a turn seems a bit better. I wanted pure bikes, so I’ll throw in two scout bike squads. They might not be that tough, but they fit the list.
Well looking at stuff let me make some changes. The Scout bikes get knocked back to 5 men strong, thus giving more points. I’ll add another multi-melta bike to a squad for a bit of redundancy. I’ll up the Captain’s "attach to squad" up to 6 bikes. Then swap out a power weapon for a power fist in a squad. Finally add a melta gun to another squad. Hmmmmm…how many points left over? 40! Well there will be another squad getting bumped to 6 members. That leaves 15 points for a power weapon somewhere. I guess I’ll add it to a scout squad for silliness. If they are to mop-up guys, then one guy might need some extra umph!
HQ- Captain bike, relic blade 165
TROOP- Bike squad x5 melta gun x2, multi-melta, power weapon 225
TROOP- Bike squad x6 melta gun x2, power fist 220
TROOP- Bike squad x5 multi-melta, melta gun 200
TROOP- Bike Squad x5 heavy bolter 180
TROOP- Bike Squad x6 power fist 215
FAST- Scout bike squad x5 power weapon, grenade launcher x3 155
FAST- Scout bike squad x5 grenade launcher x3 140
1500 points
There we have it a Astartes pure bike army. It might work, but the doubtful. The scouts are really a weak link and landspeeders with multiple missiles would probably be better. However, this is pure bikes and such. There is enough melta to deal with the plethora of Rhinos. The speed of the list would be fun as well. Being able to always move 12” and still shoot/attack is pretty awesome. Having an army-wide toughness 5(4) is nothing to sneeze at either. A fun concept and probably done better by someone else by now.
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