My first mistake was to believe the interweb....

[MrBo]

So i had a simple choice, I needed a 100ish point fodder unit to go with my chaos lord on bike, burning brand.
i had 2 choices at hand, 3 dark vengeance bikes that needed to be severely modded and painted or 2 boxes of raptors that needed to be painted.
After spending hours reviewing the forums of bols ,warseer ,3++ among others i came to the consensus that the raptors were a little behind the bikes in both offence and defense.(and thats putting it mildly,the majority of posters derided jump packs as nigh useless in 6th)

So after 4 weeks of lovingly modding the DV bikes into nurgle plasma gun bikes I was ready for the big game.

I won the roll off and deployment looked to be heavily in my favor,my opponent took a couple of chances and placed some land speeders to the front of his deployment zone,hoping to seize the initiative,but failed so i went first.
I had a plan, a real plan... my units were set up to take out most of his heavy hitters in the first turn, it should've happened that way.

But Alas The very first shot i fired from my army was the brand new, never fired before plasma gun bikes.
A dice roll of one...
then a one for the armor save,dead.
Then almost to a unit everything else failed to make a mark on the ultramarine scum, in the end i was only able to severely weaken some scouts.everything fired,4 scouts died it was demoralizing to say the least.
He switched his tactics to fit the scenario and eliminated the bike squad,earning first blood.
Needless to say i lost,but i don't feel bad, my opponent has had his marines for almost 20 years, this is my 3rd game with csm, but i gotta think that the raptors would have been a better choice even only as fodder.

We play a terrain heavy board, my bikes had a hard time navigating, raptors would have been able to traverse it easier.The 2 extra men instead of 2 plasmas probably would've fit the mission needs better.
And without the plasmas they probably would have been less of a target priority allowing them to use grenades turn 2.

Anyways , that's my thoughts on the subject, i will either be swapping out the plasmas on such a small unit, or taking raptors as fodder because all in all the bike lord with a brand is pretty frickin awesome and i will be keeping him XD.

rant=over

[Daemonette666]

If you go with the Raptors, change the Lord to a Jump Pack, as he will affect how the unit moves by inflicting the bike's movement limitations to the unit.

Also bikes are not slowed down by terrain, they treat it as difficult terrain, so you could move through it, and take the risk, or move around it.

[David Crossley]

Can you really take much away from one game?

[Deadlift]

I think what he did learn was to never ever read to much into net lists, which I think is a very good step to enjoying your games and buying the models you like, as opposed to the ones you think will work best :D
Good for you Bo.

[Wolfshade]

As Deadlift says, one game might be too soon to write them off entirely. Learn from the mistakes, what worked, what didn't. What did your opponent do well and badly. If you were to play them again, how would you exploit those areas with your current list.

I used to use a completely different list each game I played so I had no continuity in games so if I won I wasn't sure why it was and if I lost I wasn't sure why as sometimes the same unit was very effective and someimes useless. So instead I came up with a basic list that I liked. I then played about 10 games to understand how it worked, making notes about what worked and what didn't, was the issue the unit or how I was using it? Then after that period I was aware of what didn't work and what did and made small alterations to the list, then again played and reviewed and carried on.

[Magpie]

I'd be buying new dice before new units on the basis of that tale of woe ! :)

Having said that I've never really seen bikes perform to expectation.

[Sly]

I'd be buying new dice before new units on the basis of that tale of woe ! :)

Having said that I'v never really seen bikes perform to expectation.

I agree about dice being measured more than units by the story of that game.

As for bikes/raptors, there are two major and different points to be made:

1) Bikes are better. Clearly, and obviously. Except in a few scenarios, bikes are better on both offense and defense for the points, and also fit better with a Lord on a Bike (which you want him to have, to make it harder to kill him).

2) Bikes are NOT much better. What happens is that because they are clearly better by a small margin over Raptors, they are talked about as if they are way better than Raptors, and that's not the case. Raptors are pretty solid also, just not quite as solid. So let's not go overboard too far with the idea that Bikes are a no-brainer choice over Raptors. Yes, mathematically they are better, but sometimes the ability to jump over blocking models/terrain is a huge advantage in the Movement phase. So in the end, you should try both for SEVERAL GAMES and see whether you get enough out of the Raptors ability to go over models to make it worthwhile to get slightly less punch for the points, and to limit your Lord to T4 (or T5 if Nurgle).

Oh, and lastly... I personally like Spawn as Lord bodyguards, as I think the Plasma weapons don't match quite as well with the preferred targets for the Burning Brand.

[chicop76]

I say take allies with daemons and field flesh hounds which are better than both units with a khorne herald on juggernaught and some nurglings as troops.

[JxKxR]

I've been running raptors with mark of slannesh and that icon that gives them feel no pain. I also attach a sorcerer with jump pack. It's expensive but very survivable. I also keep it back with the rest of my army and move everything forward in a big block. I don't take advantage of there speed until it's time to spring the trap. You could kit out the bikes this way and use them to fold in a weak flank, but to make it worth taking the feel no pain I'd put more in the squad, otherwise I'd just put a MoN on them and call it day.

I don't know, it might work for you.

[GrauGeist]

Can you really take much away from one game?

He can learn to actually play the army - that might help.

There's more to netlisting than just the list.

[GrauGeist]

I've been running raptors with mark of slannesh and that icon that gives them feel no pain. I also attach a sorcerer with jump pack.

MoS Raptors are great, just to alpha-strike with I5 Power Weapons. I run a fodder-shredding Lord parallel to them, and it's great.