So - I've been toying around with what was a Raven Wing-based army and is now starting to look more like a White Scars-based army. S'all good. No matter what, one of the central quirks of my army will be the fact that my troops will always be on Space Marine Bikes.
Then I got to thinking - do I gain any real benefit from this? Let's do the math hammer.
Full Squads Comparison
For this scenario, we're going to assume three different units. First we have Tactical Squad Alpha (TSA), which is a full unit of Marines (Sargent, 9 Space Marines). All armed with bolters. Nothing special here so far. Next we have Tactical Squad Derp (TSD), which is exactly the same as TSA, and Bike Squad Derp (BSD) which is a Biker Sargent, 7 Bikers, and one Attack Bike.
When TSA opens fire on TSD beyond 12 inches, they're going to have roughly 6.67 hits and half of those will wound. Finally we apply the armor save, and we see that about 1.11 hits actually make it through. At this rate, it would take 9 turns of shooting (assuming no one moves, and the Derp player never shoots at the Alpha player) to kill every model.
If TSA would fire upon the slightly tougher BSD, we see the wounds inflicted would be about 2.22, and about .74 of those would be unsaved. Again, assuming lab condition shooting this means 13.5 turns to kill.
Moving into Rapid Fire range, the volume of fire increases (yay) and so does our killing spree: TSD takes 2.22 unsaved wounds per turn, and 4.5 turns to eradicate and BSD takes 1.48 unsaved wounds, taking 6.75 turns to wipe off the face of the game board.
This all sounds great so far. Assuming these ideal conditions (ha) and all things equal, the bikers should easily out-last a similar unit of Marines. There is, however, the fact that you're paying 85 points MORE for the bikers. Let's try this again a little more equally.
Max Marines vs. Reduced Bikers
For this Scenario, we see the TSA and TSD at the same numbers, but now we're shooting at Bike Squad Gimp (BSG) which consists of the Sarge and 5 bikers. While BSG is 5 points cheaper than the Marine units, it is also shorter by 4 wounds. Will they fair better than their foot-slogging brethren?
BSG's survivability is most definitely reduced. At long range they can expect to last 8.1 turns, and at short a mere 4.01.
So at first look, they're not worth the cost savings after all.
Plasma: The Gift that Keeps On Burning
Here's the proverbial rub: remember that bikers get to move flat out, giving them a 3+ cover save wherever they go. This, at the very least gives them an extra round of survivability against AP1, 2, or 3 fire. Meaning that our Gimped squad is still only going to take .74 unsaved wounds vs. 3 & 1/3 wounds when targeted by 10 shots. And 20 shots? You just lost over half your tact squad, derpy while the Gimp'd unit only lost two guys at most.
Other Factors
There are, as always, other factors to consider. Tac Marines are a little more versatile, are better suited to terrain heavy boards, aren't slowed down by non-biker ICs, can bring a long a nice Transport, etc. etc. Bikers on the other hand can bring a nice multi-melta, zip around at insane speeds, and simply look cool. Bikers are also prone to wreaking on terrain and require a good point sink on your HQ (135 or 205) to use as scoring units.
All told, I do feel they're worth the slots. So have at it boys - speed is fun!
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