Look, Santa left Rending Bio Plasma...

[Voice of Reason]

thanatos said:

I'm also shocked. If they ever made that bike rule universal it would completely kill ravenwing from competitive gameplay, as the units are soooo fragile that against close in armies like mine they can only hope to get 1 round of shooting off before dying off horribly.

The thing is that plasma gun bikes use their weapons the same as plasma gun infantry. they're supposed to be shorter ranged. you can still double shoot them at 12" like any other rapid fire weapon.
honestly, I never saw the wisdom of putting a "gets hot" weapon on a 30+ point, single wound model. that's a 1 in 18 chance (per double shot) that you lose the bike. odds are too high for my taste, thanks. I gave my bikes meltaguns.

As for them being too fragile, I disagree. they're less fragile than standard marines, T5, SV 3+. it's just you feel the loss more because the model is so expensive. fortunately, they have the speed available to them to avoid the things that would really tear them up. I use my bike squad as either Anti-tank, Anti-MC or sometimes even anti-troop. throw a bike chaplain in there, and a sergeant with a power weapon and things get ugly. consider that a jump squad can keep up with the bikes and you can put a serious amount of assault power anywhere on the board within 18" of their start point. that's a 36" diameter area of influence, and with the bikes, you can rapid fire the guns and STILL charge in. it's awesome.

Striogi can you point me to where it regards bike mounted weapons vs. bike carried weapons in the BGB? A simple page number would be good since I don't have the book on hand at the moment.

I'm at my desk at work, so I don't have the book in front of me. try checking under the Unit Types: Bikes section, they may mention stable weapons platforms there. since the rule is similar in function to Slow and Purposeful USR, you may want to check that section.

Note: it may no longer be called a Stable Weapons Platform, I may be porting that term over from a previous edition.

[thanatos]

So after reading the book and understanding the difference between a weapon 'mounted on a bike' and a weapon 'carried by a bike rider' I've come to the conclusion that you indeed cannot fire 24" while on the move with a rapid fire weapon.

When I meant fragile I meant exactly what you said, they feel the loss more. They may have physically tougher statlines but the lack of ablative wounds in the unit makes them less likely to survive a shooting phase compared to say a 6 man tactical squad unless its from small arms fire. Aside from ripper spinefist shooting my army has anything but small arms fire. It also makes it far easier to force torrent of fire on a unit, which is excellent when trying to single out pesky fist sargeants etc.

[optimuspyro]

I'm hoping santa leaves me a battle force. I need some more big guns

[iamnotamoose]

Bikes are fragile as hell ^^ I just ripped a 6 man ravenwing bike squad to pieces with 7 ripper bases

[Voice of Reason]

Let us consider:
7 ripper bases on the charge:
28 attacks, (hit on 4+) 14 hits, (wound on 6+) 2.3 wounds, and they have a 3+ armor save.
even if you gave them +Str, offering a wound on 5+, then you're still only causing 4.6 wounds on the round you charge.

the ONLY thing your 7 rippers have over them is the fact that he almost certainly didn't have a powerfist anywhere nearby and the fact that you could wear them down while they powered through your 21 wounds.

so really, you actually got very lucky.

[optimuspyro]

Does the battle force come with Rippers?

[hivefleetsurt]

Yes rippers a few rippers come on every gaunt and genestealer sprue.

[optimuspyro]

<mr. burns> Excellent </mr. burns> I'v been trying to build up my swarms.

[Overread]

In the codex, there are two prices listed, one for a normal fex, the second for if the fex has the toxin sacs upgrade, but this upgrade has no effect on the strength of the barbed strangler, as it fires at max strength off a carnifex without toxin sacs