DIY Librarian

I saw this back when it was originally posted, but thought nothing of it. Then I started to work on my Marine army and, given that I plan on having a lot of Marines (and I DO have a lot of books) I thought about doing a Librarian conversion but wasn't quite sure how to do the psychic hood.

So special thanks to Heretic over at Rites of Battle for linking it today :)

Bikers vs. Foot Marines - worth it?

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!

First Strikes: The Dark Angels Battleforce

OK - since I plan on using a great number of Bikes and Attack Bikes, it only makes good sense to invest in the Dark Angles Battle Force. But before I go there, let me digress a bit...

As I began looking towards this army, I did my research a little backwards... I went out through various other websites with army lists and made an effort to find an army list (and thus army) that matched what I wanted:

1. Marines
2. Fast
3. Lots of Bikes
4. Semi-Competitive

And from there that lead me to the Ravenwing. That all said - I was lost. Confused. I had no idea how I could do things looking at the model, such as add on flamers and plasma guns. Keep in mind I've never played any sort of Marine before, so my confusion was enhanced.

So I went to a few other Marine players I know, and their advice all centered around the same confusion I had: that the twin-linked bolter on the front of the bike was where the upgrades went. Finally, as I was speaking to an... acquaintance he began steering me away from Dark Angels and towards Codex Marines. It was there I got my answer and saw that the upgrade weapon was indeed equipped on the Marine, not the bike.

Moving on, the Dark Angles box set is surprisingly incomplete. Do not misunderstand - the models are complete, including the gorgeous upgrade sprues. But I thus far have not been able to find the bolt pistols, much less the weapons upgrades for the Bike Sergant or Bikers. Granted I've not looked the hardest, but it is an issue.

OK. Now onto modeling the bike and lessons learned:

First, assemble and paint things separately as much as you can. In my mind this should be the order:

1. Assemble and paint the wheels.
2. Prime the main body. This is the two halves and the undercarriage (where the foot pedals are).
   
3. Assemble the two halves of the main body of the bike. Roll the bike around while the glue sets to ensure you wheels spin after the glue dries :D
4. Add the undercarriage (foot pedals bit)
5. Paint the bike
6. Prime the front armor plate and the twin-lined bolters
   
7. Paint the bike and the front armor plate.
8. Glue the front armor plate and guns to the bike.
9. Prime and assemble the rider
10. Glue the bike to the base*

*Or magnetize it to the base, so when you're not playing you can zoom it around like a really expensive Hot Wheel :-D

My only other thought concerns the autocannon v. meltagun options on the landspeeder and attack bike: Looks like these things just snap on, making it very easy to change options as I want.

The Unforgiven Angels

Yeah I seem to open more blogs up than is neccessary. Today I'm starting a blog for my Ravenwing army for Warhammer 40k, which more often than not I may just model/paint Ravenwing and play as Codex Marines.

About my angels:

I'm going to be playing fairly heavy Ravenwing style: mostly bikers, play it fast and play it hard. If I'm not wiped off the board or I haven't won by turn 3, then I'm doing something wrong. I plan to run a few different vairants on the same army them, as I buy the models:

Fast
This variant will emphasisze speed over everything else. In my mind it's going to be an HQ slot plus 6 slots of three bikers and 3 fast attack slots of attack bikes for SM or for DA just do 6-9 slots of Bikes + 1 attack bike. Six bikers with Plasma, Six with Plasma. Attack bikes with Multi-Melta.

Hard, Fast, Kinda reckless. As I move up in points in this army style I'll likely end up playing DA over SM, so I can bolster each unit up to six bikes, then add on a Landspeeder which for DA would count as a scoring unit. Mech on an objective baby.

Fast & Hard
As above but this time I'm looking at scaling down some of my bikes and adding in a unit of Terminators. The bikes engage quickly and violently, but when the Termiantors come on the teleport to a hot zone around the bikers and wreak havoc.

Heavy Guns
Ahh.. this is where it can get fun. Adding in two land raiders with multi-meltas gives me three major benefits:

1. I give my opponent some big & scary AV 14 to waste time shooting at.
2. I can close off traffic lanes to enemy movement
3. I can give my bikes some nice cover.

The plan in this scenario is to park the tanks in the middle of the battle field near an objective, preferably with the objective behind the tanks! If I'm playing Codex SM two taking one of each of the terminator squads will still allow my teleport backup (as above) and still give me flexibility. As I go into the game, I simply ask if they have anything to screw up deep strike and if they do, the termies deploy in their dedicated transport. If not, then they teleport in with the transports starting on the board Turn 1, along with everything else but the terminators.

Fast, hard, and relentless. Like I said I expect no game to last beyond Turn 3.