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I have hated scarabs for along time, a super cheap and effective unit that can zoom across the board and Tar-pit HW squads and stop them firing (very annoying in a SM Gunline army or an IG gunline). Yes they are vulnerable to Blast, so if you can get the Frags to hit, but with Turbo-boosting cover save etc, they are bloody annoying.

So what has the new codex done to them? Emasculated them, or beefed them up... Or have they been left alone?

mwnciboo wrote:I have hated scarabs for along time, a super cheap and effective unit that can zoom across the board and Tar-pit HW squads and stop them firing (very annoying in a SM Gunline army or an IG gunline). Yes they are vulnerable to Blast, so if you can get the Frags to hit, but with Turbo-boosting cover save etc, they are bloody annoying.

So what has the new codex done to them? Emasculated them, or beefed them up... Or have they been left alone?

From what the rumors are saying, they're quite a bit more useful now. Not so much "beefed up" but they've been given some special rules making them a potent anti-vehicle unit in addition to their tarpitting abilities. Also, they're probably going to be reasonably effective at softening up things like Paladins and Thunderwolves.

Can't post stats, naturally... but....

Well, they aren't jump troops/skimmers (can't remember which) anymore, but now they are beasts.

But the fact that they have the entropic strike ability is the scariest, really. For non vehicles, if a model takes a wound from them and does not die, they permanently lose their armour save.
For vehicles, for each successful hit, the necron player rolls a dice. On a 4+, ALL facings of the vehicle are permanently reduced by -1. This can take the armour below 10. Reducing any facing to 0 wrecks the vehicle.

Scarabs are a lot scarier now, despite losing the ability to turbo-boost.

I can see them as one of the Necron's answers to AV 13-14.

A few good hits is all you need to take that Land Raider down to AV 10 on all sides.

For that very reason, they'll also be huge fire magnets. Since they can charge 19-24 inches on a turn (6" move, 1-6" fleet, 12" charge) and can strip armor like that, everyone will want them dead very quickly. But with their high wounds (5, IIRC) and their WBB, they're not going to be incredibly easy to remove either. You'll have to dedicate lots of templates and blasts to get rid of them before they cause some truly horrific damage.

I have to say, I like 'em.

Lokas wrote: But with their high wounds (5, IIRC) and their WBB, they're not going to be incredibly easy to remove either.

They don't actually have the new WBB. I was mistaken as well, but I just double checked.

Only three wounds, though, not five

The thing is, if you're looking for cc anti-tank, the warscythe gives +2 Str and 2d6 armor pen. Pretty much everything that can take one is S5 to begin with, so you could have a lot of mini MC's running around killing vehicles.

Lokas wrote:Scarabs are a lot scarier now, despite losing the ability to turbo-boost.

I can see them as one of the Necron's answers to AV 13-14.

A few good hits is all you need to take that Land Raider down to AV 10 on all sides.

For that very reason, they'll also be huge fire magnets. Since they can charge 19-24 inches on a turn (6" move, 1-6" fleet, 12" charge) and can strip armor like that, everyone will want them dead very quickly. But with their high wounds (5, IIRC) and their WBB, they're not going to be incredibly easy to remove either. You'll have to dedicate lots of templates and blasts to get rid of them before they cause some truly horrific damage.

I have to say, I like 'em.

They have 3W actually, but 4A. Individually they will die easy, but as a swarm it might be a harder proposition.

The ability to strip armor makes them really scary when you run some tanks. Even Land Raider pattern tanks will lose their reliability if they get charged by Scarabs.

Let's start with what makes them what they are now, their Entropic Strike.

For every hit Scarabs get, you roll a D6. On a 4+, the Vehicle loses 1 Armor Facing on ALL Facings. IF any facing is reduced to 0, the vehicle is wrecked.

Now, the big thing is, that this rule comes into play, before Pen rolls are made. So, while he STR 3 on the scarabs may seem worthless on it's own, it starts to get scary as most tanks start with Rear armor 10. A few strikes later, and your looking at something much lower, if it's not outright wrecked.

These suckers get 5 attacks on the charge, per base. They are a Vehicles worst nightmare.

They also are beasts now, so they get fleet, and the 12' assault, almost always ensuring that they get the charge.

They are quite nasty now.

Doing some mathhammer (guitar solo!)...

A basic squad size of three scarab bases attacks a landraider.

If the landraider moved at cruising, on average it will have its armour facings permanently reduced by -1 (to 13 all around)

If the landraider moved at combat speet, on average it will have it's armour facings permanently reduced by -4 (to 10 all around)

If the landraider stayed stationary, on average it will have its armour facings permanently reduced by -7 or -8 all around (to an armour value of 7 or 6 all around!)

And considering that three bases is the minimum squad size... it can only get worse from there.

Soooo... yeaaaah... hot target priority right there.

Scarabs with entropic strike are a quick way to take down a vehicle - an absolutely scary unit.

My bad, I was thinking razorwing flocks with the 5 wounds, and I'm not a necron player so I didn't have the codex to consult So they won't be as durable as I thought. Good. That was the one thing that worried me.

That being said, yes, there are alternatives to CC vehicles in the Necron codex. But I could see Scarabs working well with a footslogging list. They're fast enough to run forward, strip some armor off the big stuff and then die to templates and blasts while the rest of your army slowly advances.

And suddenly, your immortals strength 5 weapons are starting to look awfully nasty to that 10 all around Land Raider.

Lokas wrote:My bad, I was thinking razorwing flocks with the 5 wounds, and I'm not a necron player so I didn't have the codex to consult So they won't be as durable as I thought. Good. That was the one thing that worried me.

That being said, yes, there are alternatives to CC vehicles in the Necron codex. But I could see Scarabs working well with a footslogging list. They're fast enough to run forward, strip some armor off the big stuff and then die to templates and blasts while the rest of your army slowly advances.

And suddenly, your immortals strength 5 weapons are starting to look awfully nasty to that 10 all around Land Raider.

Land Raider with AV 10. Lol.

They are still T3, right?

Illumini wrote:They are still T3, right?

Yes.

Ok, then they aren't OP, S6 is easy to come by for most armies. Sounds like they will be useful, but fragile

They are also still T3 so that they can be instantly killed by S6 (or higher) spam.

Are they still vulnerable to blasts? My friend said he reckons given the proximity of 6th edition, we might be surprised by new vehicle rules. I however am not so sure...We shall see.

mwnciboo wrote:Are they still vulnerable to blasts? My friend said he reckons given the proximity of 6th edition, we might be surprised by new vehicle rules. I however am not so sure...We shall see.

They still have the Swarms special rule, so yes indeedy.

mwnciboo wrote:Are they still vulnerable to blasts? My friend said he reckons given the proximity of 6th edition, we might be surprised by new vehicle rules. I however am not so sure...We shall see.

Still swarms, so yes.

The one army against which they might br a bit rubbish is Tyranids... although a few MCs (Hive Tyrant?) might be annoyed at losing their armour save.

Flashman wrote:The one army against which they might br a bit rubbish is Tyranids... although a few MCs (Hive Tyrant?) might be annoyed at losing their armour save.

Dito against mech Eldar with S6 spam weapons. They'll get killed at first sight.

Grey knight incinerators? I think I may have just found another use for you. Insta-gibbing and doubling the wounds because they are swarms....a tomb scarab's worst nightmare.

If you can see them with the Night-Fight Necron lists. And if they arent in cover ... and if a tomb spyder dosnt beef them up, generating a bunch per turn with the ability to take a squad over its starting number and over any squad limit.

jy2 wrote:Grey knight incinerators? I think I may have just found another use for you. Insta-gibbing and doubling the wounds because they are swarms....a tomb scarab's worst nightmare.

If you are insta gibbing, there is no point to double wounds

Sasori wrote:

jy2 wrote:Grey knight incinerators? I think I may have just found another use for you. Insta-gibbing and doubling the wounds because they are swarms....a tomb scarab's worst nightmare.

If you are insta gibbing, there is no point to double wounds

This may be more for YMDC, but wouldn't you double the wounds first? 1 S6 wound becomes 2 S6 wounds, then apply instant death? I could be wrong.

Also no armor and no cover saves for them from the incinerator.

This may be more for YMDC, but wouldn't you double the wounds first? 1 S6 wound becomes 2 S6 wounds, then apply instant death? I could be wrong.

Also no armor and no cover saves for them from the incinerator.

In my understanding, this is correct in this case. IE: My land raider redeemer finds itself able to flame a scarab unit, hits three of the five. It would then take 6 ID wounds. Six bases go away.

Even Land Raider pattern tanks will lose their reliability if they get charged by Scarabs.

Skimmers, and vehicles moving 12 (Which a land raider will) will be hit only on 6s, and entropy only half of THOSE. Even accounting for the buckets of attacks a charging scarab swarm will get, it doesn't impress me very much. It's a nice handy thing to dump on IG stationary parking lots though.

Against dreads (Or even sentinels!), it just gets flat out hilarious. Even without a DCCW, the scarab bases are taking S6 on a 5+ save, and no retreat, and swinging last.

And this is competing with the other lovely things in the FA slot? Yeaaa....I don't think I will field these unless I just have nothing else in the armory/points filler.

SOFDC wrote:

This may be more for YMDC, but wouldn't you double the wounds first? 1 S6 wound becomes 2 S6 wounds, then apply instant death? I could be wrong.

Also no armor and no cover saves for them from the incinerator.

In my understanding, this is correct in this case. IE: My land raider redeemer finds itself able to flame a scarab unit, hits three of the five. It would then take 6 ID wounds. Six bases go away.

Even Land Raider pattern tanks will lose their reliability if they get charged by Scarabs.

Skimmers, and vehicles moving 12 (Which a land raider will) will be hit only on 6s, and entropy only half of THOSE. Even accounting for the buckets of attacks a charging scarab swarm will get, it doesn't impress me very much. It's a nice handy thing to dump on IG stationary parking lots though.

Against dreads (Or even sentinels!), it just gets flat out hilarious. Even without a DCCW, the scarab bases are taking S6 on a 5+ save, and no retreat, and swinging last.

And this is competing with the other lovely things in the FA slot? Yeaaa....I don't think I will field these unless I just have nothing else in the armory/points filler.

Why would the Double wounds apply first? it can't make it's save vs it, so should take instant death right away. Killing six bases, after only hitting 3, would seem absurd to me.

As for your land raider, so what if it hit's on 6's? with five attacks on the charge, per base, All you need is a few entropic hits, to tune it down. an Av 11 Land raider isn't that scary.

Walkers are really not the best thing to throw Scarabs at, I think we have better options in the Codex to deal with those.

No, you don't double the amount of wounds before rolling to wound. Its that simple. If you flame a unit of scarabs with a S6 weapon and score 3 hits, you roll three to wound rolls. All 2+ kills a swarm because of instant-death.

If it were below S6 you'd hit 3, roll 3 to wound, and all wounds causes would count as 2. If 2 wound then 4 wounds are caused.

So, S below 6 = two wounds instead of 1 for each successful to-wound roll. S 6 and above you dont get 2 wounds each, you die from instant death.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, Every single S6 shot that goes into taking down the AT threat of scarabs are NOT used against the rest of the army.

So to you who immediately think "hey, they're easy to deal with, i just S6 spam them!" remember that those are vital S6 shots not used to blow up transports and target other things that after all are racing across the board to get to grips with you

Sasori wrote:Why would the Double wounds apply first? it can't make it's save vs it, so should take instant death right away. Killing six bases, after only hitting 3, would seem absurd to me.

As for your land raider, so what if it hit's on 6's? with five attacks on the charge, per base, All you need is a few entropic hits, to tune it down. an Av 11 Land raider isn't that scary.

Walkers are really not the best thing to throw Scarabs at, I think we have better options in the Codex to deal with those.

No, it is not applied before ID. It is applied simultaneously with ID. The "Vulnerable to Blasts/Templates" USR doesn't care about models and ID. All it cares about is wounds. One unsaved wound = 2 wounds. If the hit was S4, the swarm would suffer 2 S4 wounds on a failed save. It's just in this case, the hit is S6 so the swarm would take 2 S6 wounds. Now it just happens that the first S6 wound would ID it and then there is another 1W to spread among the unit.

Yes, it is absurd, but that's the RAW of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tjolle79 wrote:No, you don't double the amount of wounds before rolling to wound. Its that simple. If you flame a unit of scarabs with a S6 weapon and score 3 hits, you roll three to wound rolls. All 2+ kills a swarm because of instant-death.

You're right, you don't double the amount of wounds before rolling to wound. You roll to wound, take your save (if you have any) and if you fail, then you double the number of wounds. The "Vulnernable to Blasts/Templates" USR is independent of ID. It doesn't even care about how many/which models die. All it cares about is the wounds.