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Raptors or Bikes? - Eiran Cooper | |
| What is the ultimate question asked by all Chaos Space Marine players? Hmmm, how many points will I spend on my Lord, and should I give him 5 or 6 daemonic gifts? No - actually the question is far more fundamental than that. We all know what troops we want, and after choosing what weapon combinations to give our HQ or what vehicles to have, we are faced with the question of raptors or bikes? For many this is an easy question to answer, they know what style of play they favour or what terrain they will be playing upon. If, like me, you tend to like an army which sets up killing field with shooting and mops up in assault, then the bikes do seem a definite option. However, for many the points costs of the bikes make them irredeemable. Nevertheless, standard equipment for raptors tends to be the veteran skill Furious Charge. This makes them 2 points per model cheaper than bikes. The question all boils down to whether the raptors special rules outdo the fact that the bikes are tougher, and therefore more resilient, and much more shootier with the same amount (but not quality) of attacks. Believe me, I have looked over this a number of times before and for a tournament game I really can’t decide. We’ll take a look at the respective strengths and weaknesses. Bikes are, for a start, tougher than raptors but they are more expensive by 5 points per model. However they have the same amount of attacks in close combat - raptors have 2 close combat weapons while bikes have spikes! Moreover bikes are much better at shooting with both range and quantity of bolter shots as seen below 5 bikes at 12” range Rapid fire whether they moved or not – 10 bolter shots with re-roll to hit 5 raptors at 12” range – 5 bolt pistol shots. Raptors, on the other hand, have frag and krak grenades as standard kit and the Daemonic Visage and hit and run special rule make them formidable in assault, especially when coupled with the almost mandatory Furious Charge. With the hit and run special rule the raptors can make a charge nearly every turn and therefore Furious Charge for them just becomes ridiculous. They will never get bogged down in combat and strength and initiative 5 are never to be balked at. Daemonic Visage also means should you really mess up low leadership troops like Imperial Guard, then they are very likely to break and you can therefore roll up his entire flank with a few good (or depending on your perspective, bad!) dice rolls. I would argue that raptors, when coupled with Furious Charge are much more valuable in assault, than the bikes even though they have a similar attacks characteristics. Also the fact that your raptors are going to be in combat most of the time means that their lower toughness won’t be all that telling because your opponent won’t be able to shoot at them very often. It should be noted this requires a good deployment and sound tactics, not something someone can achieve in every game! In my opinion the only way I can make a choice between raptors and bikes is by reference to the terrain I will be playing on. I really like bikes because of the quality of shooting they can deal out, but in a cityfight game, the amount of terrain makes raptors invaluable. On (slightly) more open ground bikes are more useful because you can use them to help set up killing fields before charging in to finish the unit off. Either way both raptors and bikes are very expensive units, and should be used very carefully to provide support to your marine squads. | |
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