Space Marines: How good are bikes / attack bikes?

[Stormwind]

I just won 8 attack bikes on eBay.

Normal metal bikes are quite expensive it seems and I missed a cheaper auction of them.  There's no extra points cost ofr swapping normal bike stands for attack bikes - should I be trying to get normal bikes or are attack bikes fine by their own?

[captPiett]

Definitely get ahold of regular bikes. Attack bikes are quite useful for laying blast markers as the fm moves up. A good thing to have for prepping assaults. However, they are LVs (making the whole fm t-bolt bait) and don't have as good engagement values as a regular bikes (cc or ff). So I usually only field 1/fm. Many will advise not to use attack bikes at all, but I recommend building several to maintain list flexibility.

[Stormwind]

Bugger.  Oh well!  Anyone want to trade Attack Bikes for Normal Bikes? x-D

[Jimmy Zimms]

I've picked up a whole pile of attack bikes from 3rd edition that I use as bikes. Back then they came in two parts so just leaving off the side car should work fine as a modeling perspective. Admitting that they may of become uni-cast in fourth edition. You might want to see about doing that yourself.

There's various lists that use bikes to a greater and lesser extent. A good rule of thumb collection wise is to fill out your formation with enough bikes to field them straight and an extra attack bike stand just in case. If you're really on the game you'll probably want one extra with a character, most likely a chaplain as they work well together.

Tangentially, Predator Destructors synergize very well with bike formations so keep on the lookout for those as well. They're good T3 objective snatchers and provide great FF supporting fire for your bikes. Advance and prep target with BMs (and hopefully some kills), retain and assault with bikes making sure your predators are within range to provide those extra supporting FF rolls.

[Stormwind]

OK, ha ha, guess that I'll be keeping them in the bag for a while, then. =-/

What about drop pods? There's a guy on eBay with some now and I'm wondering if I should have a go at them.  I've only got 1 thunderhawk and 1 thunderhawk transporter at the moment.

[captPiett]

Drop pods are nice to have, but not essential. They're basically markers that get removed after the dropped FMs have been placed. I advise not to spend a lot on them.

[kyussinchains]

my big beef with bikes is that there are too many of them to fit anything else inside a thunderhawk with them, but too few to be really effective....

If you can manage it, I've found them best as a T3 air-assault formation in a thunderhawk, refrain from engaging and fly the thawk around shooting stuff up, then on T3 it stands a fair chance of nabbing an objective with a timely air-assault, especially if they have a chaplain