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OK so I know everyone loves the scarabs for necron fast attack choice.

but i dont want to talk about scarabs. I want to talk about the dark horse fast attack choice. I want to talk about tomb blades.

The way i see it a stock Tomb blade is almost as good as destroyer for almost half the points.

Add nebuloscope for BS2 and the particle beamers and they completely outshine the destroyers and wraiths for almost the same points.

i think 2 squads of 5 of these bad boys creates either a unit that can wreak serious havoc on all infantry or at least a high value target to keep other army essentials safe.

I'm i missing something? its seems like only reasson to take a destroyer at all would be for the heavy destroyer...

Without having played with them, they seem really good. Ah yeah, normal Destroyers are the readheaded stepchild of the fast attack slot.

150 points for 5 S6 blast is awesome.
12" move with 24" range, I'd reserve these guys.
The bust they throw out should put a good dent into an ork or IG infantry mob.
The one that leaves me scratching my head is heavy destoryers. It's not like the army is short on tank kiling power; 60 pts for 1 shot is pretty crappy.

-Matt

I'd actually keep them cheap. TL-Tesla Carbines without Nebuloscope have a better chance of getting 6s. I'm torn between Stealth and a 3+. They won't be using cover very much, but having a 2+ turbo-boost is really spiffy.

One idea would be 5 of them with blast weapon in a night sycthe. Deep strike drop bikes and blast away.

The Strange Dude wrote:One idea would be 5 of them with blast weapon in a night sycthe. Deep strike drop bikes and blast away.

Can you do that with jetbikes?

Garukadon wrote:

The Strange Dude wrote:One idea would be 5 of them with blast weapon in a night sycthe. Deep strike drop bikes and blast away.

Can you do that with jetbikes?

With the Night Scythe you can.

Oopps appears you can't deepstrike it as you can't buy them as a dedicated transport for the bikes.

I agree that keeping cheap with tesla is defenitely a practical choice.

Question tho, I'm not 100% on how turbo boost works but i assume it would require me taking the expensive 3+ save items.

If i take beamers, scopes and armor save would they become more points than they're worth?

I'd say scopes aren't worth it if you're taking beamers some they're blast weapons.

Actually blast weapons hit at roughly the same rate as their ballistic skill shows, once you take into account acceptable scatter. I don't know why people have this misconception that because it's a blast weapon you just rely on the 1/3 hit chance.

vs destroyers, you have to remember that the gauss cannon still has AP3 going for it.

AP3 is still a hugely important number with all the marines running around.

The upgrades on the tomb blades are all way too costly IMHO.

4 Blades with scopes, or 5 without.

With tesla weapons, my go to choice, obviously the extra shots are more important than the BS.

With particle beams, though, it goes from 4 or 5 to 6 or 7 without scopes. Obviously you only get 5/squad, but for math's sake we will stick at 6 to 7.

With BS 4, on the 66% chance that you dont roll a hit, you have a 17% chance of no scatter, and an 11% chance of a 1 inch scatter. So assuming that your blasts need to be on target for the blades to be worth it, that leaves us with a 52% chance that you will be within 1 inch of optimal. With 7 blasts total, that is 3.63 good blasts.

With BS 5, its a 28% chance of no scatter when rolling a miss, with an additional 14% chance of only 1 inch of deviation. So 61% that you will scatter 1 inch or less all together. That times 6 blasts result in 3.67 good blasts.

As this shows, you get .04 extra good blasts when taking scopes versus just more tomb blades. Because you lose all the other benefits of having another model in the squad, the .04 extra blasts to me seems completely pointless.

Edit: as an aside, if you only care about direct hits (on a deep striking squad for example where you would get 19 hits but only on a perfect shot) then 6 bs 5 blasts is identical to 7 bs4 blasts. Thus for perfect shots only the BS upgrade is worthless if you could instead just buy more tomb blades. [Whats that GW, making your squads more elite is not as effective as simply giving you more money for more models? Thanks!]

Arandmoor wrote:vs destroyers, you have to remember that the gauss cannon still has AP3 going for it.

AP3 is still a hugely important number with all the marines running around.

Marines may be abundant, but you can get two Tomb Blades for one Destroyer.
Two twin-linked Rapid Fire Gauss Blasters for one Gauss Cannon.

Three Tomb Blades for one Heavy Destroyer.
Three twin-linked Rapid Fire Gauss Blasters for one Heavy Gauss Cannon.

Can someone mathhammer out what is more effective against killing vanilla Marines? :3

2 twin linked tesla gives about 2.66 hits. 4 rapid fire gauss shots give 3.55 hits.
2 Gauss destroyer shots give about 1.33 hits. These hits go through armor though, so without cover are worth 4 tesla carbine/blaster hits.

As for rapid fire gauss blasters... if you are within 12 inches of the enemy, you are in assault range. Thus dead for many a necron unit.

So, IF and only IF you catch a marine unit out of cover, AND have taken no casualties on your necron unit, destroyers are better than tomb blades. Since this is pretty much never going to happen, we come to the conclusion that tomb blades are better than destroyers.

That is not an endorsement for tomb blades mind you... saying tomb blades are better than destroyers is like saying the sentinels are better than armored sentinels in the IG... the statement lacks the obvious "Both suck compared to the scarabs/wraiths of the crons or the vendetta of the IG."

DevianID wrote:2 twin linked tesla gives about 2.66 hits. 4 rapid fire gauss shots give 3.55 hits.
2 Gauss destroyer shots give about 1.33 hits. These hits go through armor though, so without cover are worth 4 tesla carbine/blaster hits.

As for rapid fire gauss blasters... if you are within 12 inches of the enemy, you are in assault range. Thus dead for many a necron unit.

So, IF and only IF you catch a marine unit out of cover, AND have taken no casualties on your necron unit, destroyers are better than tomb blades. Since this is pretty much never going to happen, we come to the conclusion that tomb blades are better than destroyers.

That is not an endorsement for tomb blades mind you... saying tomb blades are better than destroyers is like saying the sentinels are better than armored sentinels in the IG... the statement lacks the obvious "Both suck compared to the scarabs/wraiths of the crons or the vendetta of the IG."

Destroyers have better toughness and a better save, so that doesn't really paint the whole picture. I really don't think any of the FA slots in the Dex are bad, and the fact that you can shore up anti tank or anti infantry very quickly from the FA slot is a bonus for any army build. I'll never fully understand the interwebs mentality to make restrictive statements like A > B always and forever. I've designed 6 2K to 2.5K armies and have used scarabs in one of them and wraiths in one other. They are both good units, but auto-include they are not.

How do destroyers have a better toughness? Instant death doesnt matter, and the bikes make the blades t5. As for the armor save, if you really wanted the 3+ you can have it on the blades.

Also, it wasnt really a restrictive statement, but a fully qualified statement. I can define unique scenarios where destroyers are better, but if I can define 3 times the scenarios where another unit is better, how else would one say that destroyers are inferior to the other unit?

DevianID wrote:How do destroyers have a better toughness? Instant death doesnt matter, and the bikes make the blades t5. As for the armor save, if you really wanted the 3+ you can have it on the blades.

Also, it wasnt really a restrictive statement, but a fully qualified statement. I can define unique scenarios where destroyers are better, but if I can define 3 times the scenarios where another unit is better, how else would one say that destroyers are inferior to the other unit?

Good point on the toughness, but the destroyers DO have PE .

The destroyers are decidedly better at anti-tank (as an FOS), while the blades tend to be better anti infantry, however the destroyers excel against elite infantry. There is no way to properly quantify which unit will out perform the other without taking into account who you're facing and the rest of your armies composition. I realise you are attempting to do this, but it does not further validate your point any more then me saying the destroyer's .0222 wounds/volley/point spent against MEQ is amongst the highest in 40k validates mine.

ShadarLogoth wrote:There is no way to properly quantify which unit will out perform the other without taking into account who you're facing and the rest of your armies composition. I realise you are attempting to do this, but it does not further validate your point any more then me saying the destroyer's .0222 wounds/volley/point spent against MEQ is amongst the highest in 40k validates mine.

The rest of your army doesn't matter unless you are drawing on a direct synergy. No matter what else you take, the units will perform statistically the same. It doesn't quite matter what they're firing at, so long as you test their effectiveness against a broad range of generic opponents. Not only is it possible to quantify a unit's performance, it is the first step in forming an argument.

The second step is to apply that data. For instance, I could make note of the fact that everything the Tomb Blades are good against is already covered by your compulsory choices. This assertion can be validated by comparing the Tomb Blades' output to Warriors and Immortals. In all reasonable circumstances, you simply don't have room for Tomb Blades.

I could argue them either way, though I personally think they a functional unit. I just need to point out how wrong that statement is.

DarkHound wrote:]The rest of your army doesn't matter unless you are drawing on a direct synergy. No matter what else you take, the units will perform statistically the same.

That's not true, because the units perform different roles. TB's are a fantastic fast moving cover wall with 2" cover save. Ds (with HDs) provide one of the most sure fire anti-tank volley in the Cron Dex. You may need a fast moving wall of cover to protect some units, or need to shore up your anti-tank in your FA slot. Without the scope of the rest of your army, comparing the two in a vacuum is completely out of context.

It doesn't quite matter what they're firing at, so long as you test their effectiveness against a broad range of generic opponents. Not only is it possible to quantify a unit's performance, it is the first step in forming an argument.

Again, not true (well within the context of this argument). Units perform roles. Comparing two units that perform different roles in the same FOS can be tricky because they are shooting at different things.

The second step is to apply that data. For instance, I could make note of the fact that everything the Tomb Blades are good against is already covered by your compulsory choices. This assertion can be validated by comparing the Tomb Blades' output to Warriors and Immortals. In all reasonable circumstances, you simply don't have room for Tomb Blades.

Fair enough. I didn't mean to imply that such comparisons weren't theoretically possible, however the preponderance of interweb debate is filled with very poorly qualified "facts." Posters, whether intentionally or not, will completely ignore facts A, B and C that a unit is good at (or poor) and focus entirely and D and E that supports their argument. Units should be measured on Mobility, Resiliency, And Ability to kill stuffs (separated loosely into 3 categories, troops, heavy troops, and vehicles). Most theory crafters focus on the last part (Ability to Kill Stuffs) and largely ignore the first two.

My point is a true comparison has to take into account everything. Context matters.

The limit to this unit, IMO, is the 5 model ceiling. If the unit could be 10 models, I would see them as a great unit to keep behind a Monolith.

Unless they FAQ entropic strike, scarabs blow this Fast Attack choice out of the water.

ShadarLogoth wrote:That's not true, because the units perform different roles.

Actually, units don't perform roles. Units have their stats and attributes, but only when we apply those stats do the units have roles. Otherwise all units would do exactly the same thing every game. We can't know what those roles are until we make judgements on what the unit can do. You could go and play 100 games and take meticulous notation on each unit to see how they performed on average, or you can do math. I like the latter; it saves time.

My point is a true comparison has to take into account everything. Context matters.

Ignoring your inflexible doctrine, I'll explain this again. Once you find how effective a unit is (however you want), you compare it to another unit under the same criteria. You don't need context for this.

What you are describing sounds like: Vanguard Veterans are mobile counter-assault units, so they can't be compared to Assault Terminators which are spearhead units without knowing what the rest of the army composition is like and knowing the enemy's units and battleplan. This is not the case.

The important thing to remember here is that they perform different functions, as has been said. Tomb Blades are an effective screen, and capable of putting the hurt on infantry. Destroyers...well their name says it all (Heavy Destroyers destroy heavy things). So if your army is struggling to deal with MEQ's and lacks anti tank, Destroyers may be more useful to you that Tomb Blades. But I definitely think that Tomb Blades have uses, especially in smaller games when getting volume of models/targets becomes more important.

Question:
Am I crazy for thinking, if I buy BS 5 for all the Tesla Blades that it's worth it to re-roll all non-six to hit rolls. Given you only miss on a one, should I be taking every chance I get to triple the hits?

I wonder if it's worth 25 points per model.
The small squad size gets to me for some reason.

Lucre wrote:Question:
Am I crazy for thinking, if I buy BS 5 for all the Tesla Blades that it's worth it to re-roll all non-six to hit rolls. Given you only miss on a one, should I be taking every chance I get to triple the hits?

Don't think it works that way. Twin link only allows you to re-roll misses. It does not allow re-roll of hits.

-Myst

Poor Destroyers. They're actually quite good in a vacuum. They just happen to be in an army where everything else is better.