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I was browsing through the GW site and saw the tomb spyders. I cocked my head to the side, thought hard for a moment to remember what they're good for, and drew a blank. There's something good about them, isn't there?

Does anyone use these guys at all?

Um... they get 2D6 for armour penetration?

Other then that, nothing. They look kind of cool though.

They can't help you reroll WBB or anything special or interesting or even remotely useful?

They make babies

Well, he can make scarabs... but that's not worth a heavy support choice when you consider that Heavy Destroyers and Monoliths are much better and in much higher demand.

Oh, and they have hover, an awesome rule that... does absoletly nothing. Literally. It was put in to say just how unremarkable they were. That's probably the only really noticable thing about them.

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I know in fourth ed some people used them as a counter assault option, though given the brutal nature of assault in 5th ed I can't imagine they have any use in that role anymore, and whilst creating Scarabs doesn't destroy their toughness anymore its still risky. I agree that they are a waste of a heavy slot, and I would also contend that a single destroyer is infinitely more useful as well as being 5 points cheaper.

Yup, not very useful in 5th Ed - a shame as they're such a cool idea - they'll surely get a rules rewrite for the next Necron codex and will hopefully become useful again...

Oh, they can be very useful if used correctly. However, most people do not have the army required to use them to their max benefit. If you are going to take them, take them in conjunction with 30 scarabs, and then take 9 tomb spyders. summon scarabs like crazy and run forward. Its a crazy army, but it works.

They have their uses. One of the biggest ones is allowing the Necron army to spread out more without the fear of having a unit phase out due to lack of similar models nearby.
The new rules for MC's means that the scarabs and them make for a great unit. They also deter the enemy from assaulting the cron lines.

Iago wrote:They have their uses. One of the biggest ones is allowing the Necron army to spread out more without the fear of having a unit phase out due to lack of similar models nearby.
The new rules for MC's means that the scarabs and them make for a great unit. They also deter the enemy from assaulting the cron lines.

This is the correct answer. They allow you to take multiple squads of relatively small size, such as destroyers, heavy destroyers, or wraiths, and still get your WBB rolls even if the squad is wiped out, without constraining your army to one small area of the table.

I would get around to building an army with nine of them if not for the frequent rumblings of a new Necron Codex, and my belief that it would make them something more along of the lines of a single larger Dreadnaught/Carnifex type bugger with a cool new plastic kit.

Aduro wrote:I would get around to building an army with nine of them if not for the frequent rumblings of a new Necron Codex, and my belief that it would make them something more along of the lines of a single larger Dreadnaught/Carnifex type bugger with a cool new plastic kit.

Woo like a Tomb Stalker?

extrenm(54) wrote:Oh, they can be very useful if used correctly. However, most people do not have the army required to use them to their max benefit. If you are going to take them, take them in conjunction with 30 scarabs, and then take 9 tomb spyders. summon scarabs like crazy and run forward. Its a crazy army, but it works.

Well in 5th the scarabs are 'vulnerable to blast templates' so they suffer 2x the wounds... Has that had an effect on people using them?

Grunt_For_Christ: Well in 5th the scarabs are 'vulnerable to blast templates' so they suffer 2x the wounds... Has that had an effect on people using them?

   It's been a wash for me, due to the newly clarified cover rules.
      Since scarabs are so short, often they can't be seen if you place them correctly.
      Also the increased cover save is great. Most of the time my scarabs have a cSv:3+.

Tomb Spyders are very good as long as the spyder makes no more than one scarab child-base.
With that child-base you can:
   Get 3 extra T:6 wounds against small arms fire.
   Hide them to give the Tomb Spyder a cSv:4+ verses high strength fire. (since half the unit is not in line of sight)

So if the spyder spawns a child it's T6 instead of its regular T3? That puts a bit of a twist on things. I can see if you had 6 spyders creating a bunch of T6 bases. That would be pretty horrendous in CC if they were T6.

Grunt_For_Christ: So if the spyder spawns a child it's T6 instead of its regular T3? That puts a bit of a twist on things. I can see if you had 6 spyders creating a bunch of T6 bases. That would be pretty horrendous in CC if they were T6.

      You can only create one T6 base per spyder, which is a 2 model unit, in order to do this.
      A unit has one toughness value used, even if there is multiple Toughness values.
      It defaults to the most represented value. Then to the highest value.
      so 2x T:3 & 1x T:6 = T:3 unit
      and 1x T:3 & 1x T:6 = T:6 unit
      *edit* though this does not protect the scarabs from instant death, as the models themselves are T:3

Also since the scarabs are not monstrous and they are half the unit, it becomes very easy for the sypder to circumvent the difficulties that monsterous creatures have in regards to gaining cover saves.

So a grand total of 1 base per spyder and they're not actually T6 most of the time... I see the limitations now. Being able to gain cover saves from these little ones is nice though. As one who will field 5 or 6 TMC's in large games I'm well aware of how hard it can be to hide big guys.

Cheap pts for a Monstrous Creature, S6, T6, 3 atks. 3 in a squad. 2 wounds.