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 Sigvatr wrote:

 astro_nomicon wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Too expensive. New points cost would be ok with the old AB, but the additional nerf to Tesla and the resulting nerf to its anti-air capabilities was too much.

Nooo. Just no. 120 points for an AV13 skimmer that can jink and fire just as effectively at ground targets and air targets would still be too low.

Look at the Mortis Dread: 180+ points for an AV 13 walker with a 5++ that must remain stationary to gain skyfire. . . with S6 weaponry.

The AB is NOT a AV13 skimmer. It's one of the biggest misconceptions people have. It's AV 13 before the first penetrating shot - and on top of that, it's Open-Topped. And come on:

fire just as effectively at ground targets and air targets

That's a lie and you know it.

It 's an AV 13 skimmer for the purposes of A LOT of weaponry in the current meta, especially in the age of HP stripping.

Okay so I overstated it's efficacy as an AA platform a *little* bit. I forget the mathhammer comparison people worked out, but wasn't it on par with TL BS3 shooting?

It's not really overcosted for what you get.

It puts out an average of 1.2 st7 hits a turn (not incl secondary gauss weapon) against flyers. Which is not bad, but not really good either at st7.
A mortis dread on the other hand for similar points cost puts out 3.6 st7 hits a turn against flyers.
The anni barge gets more hits against ground targets due to tesla.
The armour is comparable, av12 all the time vs av13 until first pen.
The anni barge gets more movement and jink (albeit both at reduced accuracy), and can hop over impassible terrain in the way.
Whilst the mortis gets a meagre close combat potential.
All in all I'd say they are pretty close.

Although you do have to bear in mind that many consider dreads as sub-optimal, whatever that means for the anni-barge in this comparison people can draw their own conclusions.

The annihilation barge is an excellent unit at 120 points. At 90 it was severely underpriced to the point it made all other heavy support choices a non option.

 schadenfreude wrote:
The annihilation barge is an excellent unit at 120 points.

What exactly is it excellent at ?

 adamsouza wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
The annihilation barge is an excellent unit at 120 points.

What exactly is it excellent at ?

It's still decent at anti-infantry duty? (though, Necrons aren't exactly lacking in that department at the moment. Plus, with the removal of Arc, it's not even quite that good at it...)

I'd rather throw in 10 more points and field 10 more warriors. They'll likely last longer, generate as many hits, and do better in assaults, and might even have Ob Sec.

 adamsouza wrote:
I'd rather throw in 10 more points and field 10 more warriors. They'll likely last longer, generate as many hits, and do better in assaults, and might even have Ob Sec.

Well, the Decurion makes warriors better. Outside the Decurion in a CAD, the A Barge might have a chance, but the Decurion makes footslogging crons solid.

 adamsouza wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
The annihilation barge is an excellent unit at 120 points.

What exactly is it excellent at ?

Killing light vehicles. War Walkes, Vypers, Raiders, Ravagers, Venoms, Sentinels, Rhinos, Razorbacks and to a certain extent Wave Serpents, Chimeras, Stalkers and Hunters.

People might still bring it, either in the Nexus Formation or in a CAD.

It's still pretty cheap - and you do ignore Crew Shaken with Living Metal automatically now, so you don't have to Jink?

Not as spammable as before, but it's still quite good for the price.

Its only a death toll for the auto take 3 in each army list.

Now they are still good, however they are not a mandatory selection anymore.

Okapi wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
The annihilation barge is an excellent unit at 120 points.

What exactly is it excellent at ?

Killing light vehicles. War Walkes, Vypers, Raiders, Ravagers, Venoms, Sentinels, Rhinos, Razorbacks and to a certain extent Wave Serpents, Chimeras, Stalkers and Hunters.

Its not excellent at any of those. At best it is okay at that. That being said just about every other non CC choice in the Necron book would be better at killing those then the Abarge.

Heck the Ghost Ark is probably better in every way that the Abarge is good while being cheaper and a transport and a repair barge and more durable.

Personally I won't include them out of principal. Had GW not heavy nerf hammered them I'd still use them. But all the changes smack of "thanks for buying those models now buy something new to replace those."

With the new cost, I don't see the point of the Annihilation Barge over the Nightscythe.

The 'scythe is a outstanding dedicated transport, so can be taken in the Decurion or elsewhere without using up a slot, and can put a lot of hits on both air and ground units.

Meanwhile, the Annihilation Barge is either a HS unit, or requires a pain-in-the-ass formation (if using Decurion). It has a secondary gun that will be snapshotting virtually all the time (since you can't move and fire both, and lack the range to just sit and pivot). And, unlike the Nightscythe, it can only put a lot of hits on ground units. Because, for some stupid reason, every non-aircraft in the 41st millennium is using WWII-era targetting computers.


Also, on the same subject, I feel that the Nightscythe is now the *only* tesla-vessel from the 5th edition book that's still worth using. With everything else, I don't see any reason at all why you wouldn't just use Gauss (or, in the case of the Barge, just drop it altogether).

The A-Barge does enormously more damage to high-T targets (5+) than the gauss flayer array does. The latter does more damage to low-T, poor-armor save infantry.

It's too expensive these days for it's range.

120 pts for a 24" gun is too much with it's nerfs. It is no longer good at shooting at flyers, you can no longer move more than 6" and fire effectively. That last point is huge, the A.Barge used to be able to re-position itself very quickly(12 inches) and still fire at 75% effectiveness. Now the Barge can only move 6" to shoot well and it only has a 24" gun leaving you with a small threat range.

It is still durable being AV13 but I think for the costs, you should just get a ghost ark; it's cheaper, it threatens all targets, it has the same threat range and it has utility for your army.

The biggest problem with the A.Barge and really the tesla destructor now is that they aren't good at AA and aren't a requirement for taking out high toughness enemies since the gauss buff makes our troops able to threaten high toughness creatures. The A.Barge just lost it's niches with other units being able to fill them.

The Night Scythe however is still very good as it is still a great transport and our best source of AA.

 vipoid wrote:
With the new cost, I don't see the point of the Annihilation Barge over the Nightscythe.

The 'scythe is a outstanding dedicated transport, so can be taken in the Decurion or elsewhere without using up a slot, and can put a lot of hits on both air and ground units.

Meanwhile, the Annihilation Barge is either a HS unit, or requires a pain-in-the-ass formation (if using Decurion). It has a secondary gun that will be snapshotting virtually all the time (since you can't move and fire both, and lack the range to just sit and pivot). And, unlike the Nightscythe, it can only put a lot of hits on ground units. Because, for some stupid reason, every non-aircraft in the 41st millennium is using WWII-era targetting computers.


Also, on the same subject, I feel that the Nightscythe is now the *only* tesla-vessel from the 5th edition book that's still worth using. With everything else, I don't see any reason at all why you wouldn't just use Gauss (or, in the case of the Barge, just drop it altogether).

Agreed on all points.

Alcibiades wrote:
The A-Barge does enormously more damage to high-T targets (5+) than the gauss flayer array does. The latter does more damage to low-T, poor-armor save infantry.

It really doesn't. It still averages less then 1.8ish wounds. The GA averages 1.2ish wounds. So not really significant.

Alcibiades wrote:
The A-Barge does enormously more damage to high-T targets (5+) than the gauss flayer array does. The latter does more damage to low-T, poor-armor save infantry.

Comparing the Shots Assuming 1 side of the ghost Ark shoots, so ignoring half the ghost arks potential shooting and ignoring it's AP5 which won't do much most times but could potentially be useful in other times the simple math is;

Shooting A.Barge does 5.22 Hits While Ghost Ark does 6.66 Hits

Against T5 A.Barge 4.35 Wounds, Ghost Ark 2.22 Wounds

Against T6 A.Barge 3.48 Wounds, Ghost Ark 1.11 Wounds

Against T7 A.Barge 2.61 Wounds, Ghost Ark 1.11 Wounds

Against T8 A.Barge 1.74 Wounds, Ghost Ark 1.11 Wounds

Against T9 A.Barge 0.87 Wounds, Ghost Ark 1.11 Wounds

So the A.Barge does out perform the Ghost Ark slightly against most High toughness creatures, however the Ghost Ark is cheaper, more durable, is a transport and can replace models while not taking up a FOC slot. Also if you are in a position to fire both sides of the ghost ark then the difference in performance is negligible.

Personally I would just field Ghost Arks over A.Barges the utility is worth more and they are less of a first blood risk.

The other aspect is that whilst the AB's damage output against high toughness targets is better than the Ghost Ark's, it's still not very impressive.

At best, you're doing a wound to a T6 Tyranid MC with a 3+ save. As soon as you start getting higher toughness, 2+ saves and/or FNP, it's just not worth the effort. And, the Wraith Knight, Dreadknight and Riptide (arguably the best MCs in the game at the moment) have at least one of those each. Well, at least it's good against Flyrants... oh, nevermind.

To put it another way, whilst it is better against those high-toughness targets, it's nowhere near good enough to be worth including for that role.

Punisher wrote:


The biggest problem with the A.Barge and really the tesla destructor now is that they aren't good at AA and aren't a requirement for taking out high toughness enemies since the gauss buff makes our troops able to threaten high toughness creatures. The A.Barge just lost it's niches with other units being able to fill them.

The Night Scythe however is still very good as it is still a great transport and our best source of AA.

Well, if we have an a-barge shooting at a carnifex, and a blob of 20 warriors shooting at one in RF range, the barge inflicts an average of 1.086 wounds and the warriors 1.481. But the warriors cost over twice as much. Due to the weirdness of the 40K wounding system, the warriors do more damage to a Talos though despite it having higher T.

Personally I'm going to use 2 in the Annihilation Nexus, because I love the idea of death machines floating slowly over the ruins, obliterating anything that dares raise its head.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Personally if I were GW I would have given Tesla Ignores Cover or something, maybe make it a small blast, to differentiate it positively more from Gauss. Now it's only really better if you are staying 12"-24" away from the target (which come to think of it is fine -- maybe you don't want to get close. That's far out of melta range, and out of RF range of almost everything.).

I'm going with two doom arks. If the Nexus gave something useful like tank hunter to the formation I'd be all aboard. As it stands its effect just kills your abarges more quickly. Focus AT on the doom ark and either you fix the doom ark and make the abrges AV11 and made of tin foil or you don't use the ability and just wasted points on the abarges.

You are sooo much better off with a judacator battalion with NS praetorians.

I see no ragequit issues with the Annihilation Barge costed at 120.
You're still getting a decent TL weapons platform with QS and the ability to Jink. (Wave Serpents deal with it just fine)
Also, an effective armor value of 13 still gives a lot of armies issues with scoring penetrating hits.

The sky is not falling.

 House Griffith wrote:
I see no ragequit issues with the Annihilation Barge costed at 120.
You're still getting a decent TL weapons platform with QS and the ability to Jink. (Wave Serpents deal with it just fine)
Also, an effective armor value of 13 still gives a lot of armies issues with scoring penetrating hits.

The sky is not falling.

Jinking now robs it off most of its fire power, making it an even less attractive option.

 House Griffith wrote:
I see no ragequit issues with the Annihilation Barge costed at 120.
You're still getting a decent TL weapons platform with QS and the ability to Jink. (Wave Serpents deal with it just fine)
Also, an effective armor value of 13 still gives a lot of armies issues with scoring penetrating hits.

The sky is not falling.

Sky may not be falling, but overall a good, borderline OP option became borderline useless. If the Abarge jinks it goes from the option of 4+ hits to guaranteed max of 4+ for ap-, which makes it kinda useless. The ability to jink and still be useful is what made it great, now kinda has no roll, their niche can easily be filled by multiple other options, such as ghost ark that is talked about above.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 House Griffith wrote:
I see no ragequit issues with the Annihilation Barge costed at 120.
You're still getting a decent TL weapons platform with QS and the ability to Jink. (Wave Serpents deal with it just fine)
Also, an effective armor value of 13 still gives a lot of armies issues with scoring penetrating hits.

The sky is not falling.

Jinking now robs it off most of its fire power, making it an even less attractive option.

Yea the double whammy of the price bump and the tesla nerf makes them suck. You are better off putting the points into Destroyers or Tomb Blades.

 House Griffith wrote:
I see no ragequit issues with the Annihilation Barge costed at 120.
You're still getting a decent TL weapons platform with QS and the ability to Jink. (Wave Serpents deal with it just fine)

The WS is also a dedicated transport, a Fast skimmer, has 12"+ of range over the AB, one of its weapons ignores cover, and it doesn't rely on a fancy mechanic to get a reasonable number of hits (if it got ~11 TL shots, like the WS, then I imagine people would have fewer problems with it snapshotting).

 House Griffith wrote:

Also, an effective armor value of 13 still gives a lot of armies issues with scoring penetrating hits.

The monolith is AV14 - which is even harder to penetrate. Oddly enough, I don't see people queuing up to use them, either.

Even had the old AB survived (points, teams, jink) I think it would be a hard choice. The death ray works now, and upgrades to doomsday ark and new heavy destroyers would make competition tough.

Ffyllotek wrote:
Even had the old AB survived (points, teams, jink) I think it would be a hard choice. The death ray works now, and upgrades to doomsday ark and new heavy destroyers would make competition tough.

If it had gone up to 120pts, but Tesla had stayed the same, I'd have had little issue with it. I'd have probably used it sometimes but, with all the competition you mention, it would have been a hard choice and certainly not the auto-take it once was.

However, with a 33% point increase *and* Tesla being crippled when snapshotting, I just don't see the point any more.

If tesla didn't get nerfed so hard, or no point raise then it would actually have to compete with the other HS choices. Now kinda seems like turn to CCB or just keep on the shelf


Edit: Looks like vipoid beat me to the punch

If tesla destructors had even kept the arc mechanic in some useful form I would probably continue to run them. Or if they had became fast or could be taken in squadrons. Anything other then more expensive and significantly weaker.

Another point to bring up is for 5 to 15 more points you can take a Triarch Stalker that is as durable and mobile but more more effective and versatil. An also brings synergy with the rest of the army.

Ask a space marine player why they don't use predators. With the lascannon sponsons it costs about the same as the A.barge, same number of shots trading extra hits for more str, it has double the range and yet I don't see many. For similar reasons I doubt we'll see many A.barges.