Is there a consensus yet one preferred configuration?

I'm trying to decide how to build mine (with or without sidecar) and with what weapons if sidecar.

Magnets

I think you're better off building it with the sidecar. Either the 18 point weapon or the missile. Ion is just to expensive for what it does in the current meta.

BARC without the sidecar just seems bad (especially when we get clone counterparts with surge -> hit).

wait until Rex and don't build them. that is the consensus lol.

2 hours ago, Hawkstrike said:

Is there a consensus yet one preferred configuration?

I'm trying to decide how to build mine (with or without sidecar) and with what weapons if sidecar.

There was a post I saw (I think it was on this site) of someone who had used magnets. The magnets were not just for the sidecar, but also for the gunner. The legs of the gunner were glued down and there was a magnet inserted into the waist. The torso and guns just click into place from there as well as the sidecar itself.

So far I’m dry fitting the side car (at the connection points under the main body) and it’s been holding fine. And the connection at the torso of the rider is an easy swappable dry fit as well.

Magnets are awesome though. I might still convert mine someday.

My most difficult choice was to mount the Speeder centered without the sidecar or centered with it!? I guess that could be magnetized as well...

I opted for centered with the sidecar as I intend to run it with the 18pt weapon.

6 hours ago, GreatMazinkaiser said:

Magnets

https://i.imgur.com/d7xJlAW.mp4

Only 3x micro magnets per BARC speeder sidecar weapon configuration. Least amount of magnets ever compared to 40k.

Eventually, i will magnetize my General Grievous so i can change his configuration to any form.

On topic, i like BARC+Twin Laser Gunner. It hits hard. When used during perfectly timed flanks, can be devastating.

Next games, I'll be testing naked BARCs and see how well they do.

side car with rps gunner just looks cool so i just did its even though i prob won't be using rps gunner much

Build? Huh, I've just left 2 of my three in the baggies they came in, and I'm not sure if/when I will get around to building them.

When I do play the one I have, I do so naked. No use wasting points on a unit that'll be dead by round 3.

I just built mine with the side car. One with the rocket one with the gun.

This isn’t WYSIWYG so doesn’t bother me. I just wanted “rule of cool”. I can’t imagine not taking at least the 18 point twin gun sidecar if I’m not taking the rocket.

49 minutes ago, Alpha17 said:

When I do play the one I have, I do so naked. No use wasting points on a unit that'll be dead by round

Curious. How aggressive are you with your BARCs? I'm pretty cagey with mine and move them up around turn 3 or 4.

11 hours ago, JediPartisan said:

There was a post I saw (I think it was on this site) of someone who had used magnets. The magnets were not just for the sidecar, but also for the gunner. The legs of the gunner were glued down and there was a magnet inserted into the waist. The torso and guns just click into place from there as well as the sidecar itself.

This. Magnetizing the sidecar was the easiest magnet job I've done. I haven't done the gunner yet, but my plan was to glue the legs on and then switch the torso for whichever gunner I'm using. The way the body is, I don't think I will even need to use magnets for the gunner. I'm not going to magnetize the ion and twin laser gun, but they are similar enough that I am less concerned about that. (And let's be honest; when am I really going to use the ion gun?)

49 minutes ago, FastWalker said:

Curious. How aggressive are you with your BARCs? I'm pretty cagey with mine and move them up around turn 3 or 4.

I've played it both ways, doesn't seem to help. If I'm aggressive with it, it'll get a fire support or two and maybe help a bit, if I don't, my opponents usually hunt it down anyway, so it's just a blaster sponge. Both technically help other units, but I'm not a big fan of the second situation. I don't like fast cav units of any stripe, so they also have that working against them.

21 minutes ago, Alpha17 said:

I've played it both ways, doesn't seem to help. If I'm aggressive with it, it'll get a fire support or two and maybe help a bit, if I don't, my opponents usually hunt it down anyway, so it's just a blaster sponge. Both technically help other units, but I'm not a big fan of the second situation. I don't like fast cav units of any stripe, so they also have that working against them.

Fair enough. I too found my BARCs only lasting on average 2 turns once they enter the scrum. Opponents tend to focus on speeders first before any other target. As they should, because BARCs are more scary than Imperial speeders. Better attack pool, better defense, more options, and more Wounds for the same point cost. But I was actually happy when opponents focused on my BARC and not giving suppression tokens on my troopers.

There are times, I would shoot without Aiming as my first action, then move to get behind hard cover. This helped its survival a bit. But I did wish I had that Aim token. BARCs live on a a fine edge between life and death.

15 hours ago, FastWalker said:

Fair enough. I too found my BARCs only lasting on average 2 turns once they enter the scrum. Opponents tend to focus on speeders first before any other target. As they should, because BARCs are more scary than Imperial speeders. Better attack pool, better defense, more options, and more Wounds for the same point cost. But I was actually happy when opponents focused on my BARC and not giving suppression tokens on my troopers.

There are times, I would shoot without Aiming as my first action, then move to get behind hard cover. This helped its survival a bit. But I did wish I had that Aim token. BARCs live on a a fine edge between life and death.

Woah, woah. “...BARCs are more scary than Imperial speeders. Better attack pool, better defense, more options, and more Wounds for the same point cost.”

I really wish people would stop saying that the BARC is better than Speederbikes.

If you want to look at point for point, you should compare a naked BARC to naked Speederbikes as they’re both 75 points.

The BARC has red defense dice, so it has better defence, but that is only 1 extra side on a d6 (BARCs don’t surge to def, but Speederbikes do), or a 3-6 compared to a 2-6. That being said, BARCs only have 5 health to the bikes 6. Before you say, “the BARC doesn’t reduce in dice when damaged”, the BARC can be reduced in attack dice too, or have reduced actions or even reduced movement which will stop it from flying behind cover after an attack as you mentioned above.

As far as attack pools, the BARC has 1 red, 2 black and 1 white compared to the Speederbike’s 2r,2b,2w with Impact 2, clearly making the bike the better attacker.

Now look at the options. The Speederbikes can only take a Comms Upgrade where BARCs can take Comms and Crew, but the crew reduces speed by 1. The crew slots also adds 18 points (2b,2w, fire front & back), 24 points (1r,1b,1w Impact 2, fire F&B) or 28 points (3b,1w, Ion 1, Impact 1, Tap, fire F&B) making the BARC anywhere from 93-103 points. Though it’s nice to have options, at best the firepower of the BARC combined with Crew only equals the firepower of the Speederbikes. Yes, two of the crew options will give 1 extra die (total) than the bike, but the bikes still have better quality of dice (an extra red) all without passing the 75 point mark.

The naked BARC is inferior to the Speederbikes in almost every way. The BARC is simply over priced and naked, should probably be reduced by up to 10 points. That would put a BARC with crew from 83-93 points, still 8-18 points above the 75 points of the bikes. The benefits that the BARC may have over Speederbikes certainly isn’t worth the 18-28 points extra they currently need to pay.

Just sayin’.

5 hours ago, JediPartisan said:

Woah, woah. “...BARCs are more scary than Imperial speeders. Better attack pool, better defense, more options, and more Wounds for the same point cost.”

I really wish people would stop saying that the BARC is better than Speederbikes.

If you want to look at point for point, you should compare a naked BARC to naked Speederbikes as they’re both 75 points.

The BARC has red defense dice, so it has better defence, but that is only 1 extra side on a d6 (BARCs don’t surge to def, but Speederbikes do), or a 3-6 compared to a 2-6. That being said, BARCs only have 5 health to the bikes 6. Before you say, “the BARC doesn’t reduce in dice when damaged”, the BARC can be reduced in attack dice too, or have reduced actions or even reduced movement which will stop it from flying behind cover after an attack as you mentioned above.

As far as attack pools, the BARC has 1 red, 2 black and 1 white compared to the Speederbike’s 2r,2b,2w with Impact 2, clearly making the bike the better attacker.

Now look at the options. The Speederbikes can only take a Comms Upgrade where BARCs can take Comms and Crew, but the crew reduces speed by 1. The crew slots also adds 18 points (2b,2w, fire front & back), 24 points (1r,1b,1w Impact 2, fire F&B) or 28 points (3b,1w, Ion 1, Impact 1, Tap, fire F&B) making the BARC anywhere from 93-103 points. Though it’s nice to have options, at best the firepower of the BARC combined with Crew only equals the firepower of the Speederbikes. Yes, two of the crew options will give 1 extra die (total) than the bike, but the bikes still have better quality of dice (an extra red) all without passing the 75 point mark.

The naked BARC is inferior to the Speederbikes in almost every way. The BARC is simply over priced and naked, should probably be reduced by up to 10 points. That would put a BARC with crew from 83-93 points, still 8-18 points above the 75 points of the bikes. The benefits that the BARC may have over Speederbikes certainly isn’t worth the 18-28 points extra they currently need to pay.

Just sayin’.

BARC can use defensive surges to increase defense and can fire support full clone units, both of which actuallyh give it more value within the constraints of the clone army than merely porting speeder bikes would.

15 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

BARC can use defensive surges to increase defense and can fire support full clone units, both of which actuallyh give it more value within the constraints of the clone army than merely porting speeder bikes would.

Those are both good points (in particular I haven't seen anyone mention the token sharing aspect), but I still think they are the worst option by far for Clones. I think Bikes are a better option for Imperials than BARCs are for Clones.

29 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

Those are both good points (in particular I haven't seen anyone mention the token sharing aspect), but I still think they are the worst option by far for Clones. I think Bikes are a better option for Imperials than BARCs are for Clones.

Side by side, Speeder Bikes are much better, but also they are different armies. Unfortunately for the Clones, the BARC is a Repulsor Vehicle so it cannot share tokens with Clone Trooper types. That caught me off-guard when I first started running them. There are two Clones sitting right there, but oh well! BARCs are good for giving a Fire Support die pool that surge to Hit. I'll keep running 2x BARCs with Twin Gunner until we get new units.

I ran two Barcs last night with Ion and HQ uplink. Wow were they effective against droids. People are going to poo poo ion, but it is amazing when playing droids!

13 minutes ago, Mokoshkana said:

I ran two Barcs last night with Ion and HQ uplink. Wow were they effective against droids. People are going to poo poo ion, but it is amazing when playing droids!

Wait till we get our radiation cannon meat bags!

12 minutes ago, TheHoosh said:

Wait till we get our radiation cannon meat bags!

Haha I am actually a droid player. I only did half of two starters, but a friend who did two boxes himself wanted to run his droids as he'd never played them before. It felt gross command the clones initially, but once I started winning, I felt much better 😎

From the view of a causal player, but I like the barcs but I also like light faster flankers in my army. I also think the ion cannon is useful if u know your going to play against cis since it's the republics only ion option at the moment (honestly wouldnt take it otherwise) having said that once clones get more access to ion weapons I definitely dont see myself taking the ion cannon on barcs ever again.

@JediPartisan , good points. I was looking at the stats and forgot Imperial speeders come with 2 models.

On that note: If you add a sidecar to a BARC, wouldn't you think it would add at least +1 Wound to the unit? After all, you're adding a sidecar and another meatbag that could take damage.

5 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

BARC can use defensive surges to increase defense and can fire support full clone units, both of which actuallyh give it more value within the constraints of the clone army than merely porting speeder bikes would.

So we should pay for an ability the BARC doesn’t possess?

People keep also saying the BARC has Fire Support. That is not something the BARC does it is something clones do and the cost is baked in to that unit.

As well if a BARC can use surges it’s because they were garnered from elsewhere and I’m sure the points were baked into that as well.

I belive the consensus is that we don't take them as soon as we have the chance.

but aside from that. the side car clips in and.out with out having to do any thing extra.

I'm going to glue the legs down. and just play swaps with the too half of the gunner