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EDIT: Since this has extended far beyond the initial question, I thought it was due for an update.
The original idea was to use the Sweep Attack and Gauntlet of Fire (reroll hit and wound) to snipe IC's and heavy weapons from units. While effective against lightly armored infantry, the loss of AT was too big for the small benefit. Heavily armored infantry and models would laugh off the attack, swarm the barge and kill the Overlord.

Since then, this thread is more about the effectiveness of the CCBarge and Overlord with Warscythe in general.



Original Post
On in my calculations, I'm assuming that you'll be going flat-out and hitting on a 4+ rather than a 3+.

In addition to the S4, AP5 Template shooting attack, the Gauntlet of Fire allows you to reroll your to hit and to wound. A hit from the gauntlet would glance AV10 on a 5 and penetrate on a 6, but remember that you are attacking on the rear armor of the vehicle. In most cases, I don't feel that you are giving up too much over a Warscythe in attacks against vehicles.

Were I see the Gauntlet of Fire outperforming the Warscythe is in attacking squads with IC's, heavy weapons, etc. Remember that the sweep attack allows you to choose the model hit on a roll to hit of a 6! While normally, you'd only have a 50% (1 in 6 times 3 attacks) chance of choosing your opponents IC if you use the gauntlets that goes up to 75% (1 in 6 plus 3 out of 18 on rerolls times 3 attacks). In addition, you have much better chances of wounding that IC because you get to reroll the damage. Assuming toughness for, you'll go from wounding on 50% of the hits to wounding on 75% of the hits.

So, in review. In exchange for the 7+2d6 armor penetration going down to a 5+1d6, you get a 56% chance to place at least 1 wound on an IC (up from 25%). Worth it?

In our current, vehicle heavy meta... I don't see it as much of a benefit. Should the meta change in a way that there are more IC's and units footslogging across the board, I would be seriously tempted to make this change.


PS: This probably requires a post in YMTC forum, but does the Sweep Attack circumvent normal wound allocation? Meaning, if you roll multiple 6's on your hits, do you get to assign those multiple hits to the same model? I think yes, but my calculations above didn't take that into account.

Edit: Edited to remove some of the meaningless rambling.

The Gauntlet is terrible, I'm not sure how you have managed to convince yourself that its better than the Warscythe. The underlying issue is that the Gauntlet does not ignore saves, so while you might be slightly more likely to hit/wound something anything of any value (no one cares if you sweep attack Grots) is just going to laugh at you with its 2+ or 3+ armour save and move on. The Warscythe is still going to be 2's to wound against almost everything in the game, so assuming you can get a hit or two against infantry you probably get a kill or two as well.

Its important to remember that Overlords really aren't that great in assault against infantry, their I2 and low WS and A means they can't take on other armies assault units effectively (apart from tarpit them I guess). Their biggest strength is the 2D6 pen against vehicles, which on the Barge makes them a huge threat against vehicles from a position of relative safety and as most vehicles aren't hitting back they can also assault out of it if they need to. The Gauntlet is a joke against vehicles from the Barge or otherwise, rather than having a high chance of completely destroying you get a slight chance of possibly temporarily disabling a vehicle which is a waste of time. Honestly I would never taking the Gauntlet, either take a Warscythe if you want him to do something, or just leave him with nothing if you are just trying to unlock a Court/get your required HQ.

Btw the Sweep attack can hit the same target multiple times, you resolve each attack individually, so can get a 6's to hit an IC etc then do the same with the next attack. It does make it important to actually always keep each attack separate though, as rolling 3 6's is often going to change who you allocate to (rather than 1 6's after another which you can't rely on).

The Warscythe always ignores armor saves, and wounds on a 2+ 99% of the time. I'd personally prefer this, as if I get that lucky 6, and get to pick out the pfist sarge and what not, he's not going to get his save. Since the Warscythe can do this AND take Vehicles out with ease, I personally think it would continue to be the better choice.

PS: This probably requires a post in YMTC forum, but does the Sweep Attack circumvent normal wound allocation? Meaning, if you roll multiple 6's on your hits, do you get to assign those multiple hits to the same model? I think yes, but my calculations above didn't take that into account.

I don't see any reason why you could not do this.

I always forget about the armor save. I've only a couple games under my belt, and this is the only game where my opponent gets 1 or 2 chances to negate 2 of my successes!

Powerguy... this does avoid the poor weapon-skill and low initiative of the necron lord against infantry. Granted, you need to figure out how to land so that you are out of range of an assault (maybe some nicely placed Impassable terrain).

Assuming an armor save of 3+ the Warscythe still gets to choose and kill an IC 14% of the time. The gauntlet gets to kill 16.5% of the time (Going flat-out, a toughness 4, and a 3+ armor save). Against something with better armor or an invulnerable save, and you are much better off with the Warscythe.

On the vehicle front, the warscythe will hit 50%, and penetrate AV10 96% of the hits, and wreck or explode 1/3rd of the penetrates for a total of 45% chance to wreck or explode the vehicle on a sweep attack.

The gauntlet will hit 75%, and penetrate AV10 1/6, and wreck or explode 1/3rd of the time. That gives it a 12.4% chance to wreck or explode the vehicle on a sweep attack. (The gauntlets wouldn't get to re-roll the armor penetration, would they?)
I was clearly wrong about not giving up too much on the vehicle damage.

I have a question about this and i also called Games Workshop back when the new codex first was released. the Three Special Attacks, means you only get 3 dice you don't get to use the Assault number of dice per attack. so from what i was told. when you do the sweep attack you roll 1 dice to see if you hit then resolve that, then roll 1 dice again and then a third time. you don't get to roll 3 dice resolve ,, then roll 3 more dice and resolve .. then finaly roll 3 more dice and resolve. but like i said thats what i was informed by the guy on the phone with games work shop.. is this indeed correct i've looked over the codex again and really its still not clear to me. any help on this?

Necronmike wrote:I have a question about this and i also called Games Workshop back when the new codex first was released. the Three Special Attacks, means you only get 3 dice you don't get to use the Assault number of dice per attack. so from what i was told. when you do the sweep attack you roll 1 dice to see if you hit then resolve that, then roll 1 dice again and then a third time. you don't get to roll 3 dice resolve ,, then roll 3 more dice and resolve .. then finaly roll 3 more dice and resolve. but like i said thats what i was informed by the guy on the phone with games work shop.. is this indeed correct i've looked over the codex again and really its still not clear to me. any help on this?

It is correct.

3 attacks. Resolve 1 attack at a time. On a six, you choose where that specific wound goes.

I don't think you'd get to re-roll your sweep attack misses with the gauntlet of fire.

loreweaver wrote:I don't think you'd get to re-roll your sweep attack misses with the gauntlet of fire.

I think it says that you get to use whatever bonuses, etc the cc weapon would have.

Moot point, really. The warscythe would be so much better in so many circumstances. The only time I can see an Overlord with the Gauntlet of Fire on a CCBarge would be if the normal Barge Lord died during an assault, and the Barge could get back and the Stormlord gets on... but what are the chances?

Anpu-adom wrote:
Assuming an armor save of 3+ the Warscythe still gets to choose and kill an IC 14% of the time. The gauntlet gets to kill 16.5% of the time (Going flat-out, a toughness 4, and a 3+ armor save). Against something with better armor or an invulnerable save, and you are much better off with the Warscythe.

Gauntlet while moving fast hits on 4+, and gets re-rolls.
So 3 attacks, 3/4 hit. That's 2.25 hits average.
Of these hits, you should over time see an even spread between 4,5 and 6's. So 1/3rd of the HITS are 6's.
.75 hits that let you single out a guy, 1.5 that do not.
Being S5 with re-rolls to wound, you would wound T4 8/9th, and with a 3+ save, you could assassinate a marine vet with about 22% of the time.

The problem with this is that you're putting a ton of points into trying to kill a 1 wound squad leader, when what you should be doing is wrecking high point tanks.
You kill the infantry by shooting the piss out of the whole unit, it's a waste of one of the best tank killing units to use it to try and single out vets.
As your math pointed out above, going with the Gauntlet, you do take a huge hit in the ability to kill tanks.

-Matt

rolling one attack at a time seems the same as rolling all three dice at once, there is no disadvantage or advantage to doing it either way, why not just save time and roll all of them at once?

bagtagger wrote:rolling one attack at a time seems the same as rolling all three dice at once, there is no disadvantage or advantage to doing it either way, why not just save time and roll all of them at once?

Real rules lawyers point out that rolling all three at once would 'prevent' you from placing multiple 6's on an IC. (I don't know what kind of TFG would would prefer you to take the time to make 3 separate to hits, followed by 3 separate to wounds, followed by 3 separate to saves... maybe someone losing in a tournament.) I guess another benefit would be if you smoke the IC on the first 6, you would not waste any following 6's on them and might be able to go after the heavy weapon, etc.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Anpu-adom wrote:
Assuming an armor save of 3+ the Warscythe still gets to choose and kill an IC 14% of the time. The gauntlet gets to kill 16.5% of the time (Going flat-out, a toughness 4, and a 3+ armor save). Against something with better armor or an invulnerable save, and you are much better off with the Warscythe.

Gauntlet while moving fast hits on 4+, and gets re-rolls.
So 3 attacks, 3/4 hit. That's 2.25 hits average.
Of these hits, you should over time see an even spread between 4,5 and 6's. So 1/3rd of the HITS are 6's.
.75 hits that let you single out a guy, 1.5 that do not.
Being S5 with re-rolls to wound, you would wound T4 8/9th, and with a 3+ save, you could assassinate a marine vet with about 22% of the time.

The problem with this is that you're putting a ton of points into trying to kill a 1 wound squad leader, when what you should be doing is wrecking high point tanks.
You kill the infantry by shooting the piss out of the whole unit, it's a waste of one of the best tank killing units to use it to try and single out vets.
As your math pointed out above, going with the Gauntlet, you do take a huge hit in the ability to kill tanks.

-Matt

i'm going to have to agree with hawaii Matt, this is prob one of the best Tank killing "single" unit in the necron codex. i'll have to try it some and see if it works out. think of this. this attack is in the movment phase then if you don't do anything you can always assult the tank in the assault phase and surely you will punch thru the armor during that turn. i don't know i'm just a huge fan of the war scythe. bumbs the strenght up by 2points then there is no armor save against it. plus you roll 2 d6 for armor pen and at strenght 7 it don't take much to reach av14 with 2 dice. i'm just saying

Yep.... much better off with the warscythe.... pretty much the conclusion I came to as well.

I have a 1500 pt game tonight against Space Marine Imperal fist.. i am changing my plan and going to use a CCbarge with Anrakyr on it. i'll keep you every one posted for this will be the first time i use a CCbarge. if i can remeber to take pics i'll post a Bat Rep tomorrow or something.

Wish me luck

Good Luck! Play him against tanks aggressively!

Here's hoping that your arrow hits and your quantum shielding holds!

ok last night was the first time i used CCbarge and Anrakyr .. i'm sorry but when your fighting tanks. or a heavy mech army, there is no replacment for the warscythe. don't forget people like i did, Anrakyr has Furious Charge so you add +1 to ini and strength. sooo the warscythe is strength 8 when you assault. yeah i forgot this as well.

I think I've been too gutsy with Anrakyr. I usually move him up and Turbo-Boost him. He typically kills one or two tanks a game, then my opponents get wise to him and smoke him around turn 3.

He's definitely part of a threat overload situation though, really distracts away from other units.

Turbo boost? i didn't think Fast skimmers could do that.. or are you just saying move flat out? i'm putting together a basic battle report from last nights game, but yeah Anrakyr survived the whole game. but we were playing the last installment of a campain we have been in. the mission was an old break out mission from 3rd of 4th ed big rule book. still fun though.

loreweaver wrote:I think I've been too gutsy with Anrakyr. I usually move him up and Turbo-Boost him. He typically kills one or two tanks a game, then my opponents get wise to him and smoke him around turn 3.

He's definitely part of a threat overload situation though, really distracts away from other units.

Lore,
Can you post your list? I'm interested in what you are running. I'm guessing that you don't have any ghost arks

HQ --

1. Anrakyr 165
Barge +80 (Tesla)
Royal Court
1xCryptek of Destruction = 35
1xCryptek of Destruction with Solar Pulse = 55
1xCryptek of Transmogrification with Seismic Crucible = 40
Total = 130
= 375

2. Destroyer Lord 125
Orb +30, Mindshackle Scarabs +20, Sepiternal Weave + 15
= 190

HQ Total = 565

Elites --

1. Praetorians with Void Blade and Particle Caster = 200

Elites Total = 200

Troops --

1. 10xImmortals = 170
2. 10xWarriors = 130
3. 10xWarriors = 130

Troops Total = 430

Fast Attack --

1. 8xScarabs = 120

Fast Attack Total = 120

Heavy --

1. Barge (Guass) = 90
2. Barge (Tesla) = 90

Heavy Total = 180

Army Total = 565 + 200 + 430 + 120 + 180 = 1495


----

Destro w\ Pulse Cryptek goes with Immortals. They shoot @ things.

Destro Cryptek w\ Warriors.

Transmog Cryptek with Warriors, camps an objective I've stuffed in area terrain (reduces charge by D3 and opponent has to make a Difficult Terrain check too).

D-Lord runs with Praetorians, can kill AV 14 if needed.
Anrakyr pops transports and kills things with Mind-in-the-Machine
Scarabs annoy people (Except when they get double lashed and plasma cannoned on the first turn! *laughs*)

Solar Pulse protects me from first turn shooting.

loreweaver wrote:
HQ --

1. Anrakyr 165
Barge +80 (Tesla)
Royal Court
1xCryptek of Destruction = 35
1xCryptek of Destruction with Solar Pulse = 55
1xCryptek of Transmogrification with Seismic Crucible = 40
Total = 130
= 375

2. Destroyer Lord 125
Orb +30, Mindshackle Scarabs +20, Sepiternal Weave + 15
= 190

HQ Total = 565

Elites --

1. Praetorians with Void Blade and Particle Caster = 200

Elites Total = 200

Troops --

1. 10xImmortals = 170
2. 10xWarriors = 130
3. 10xWarriors = 130

Troops Total = 430

Fast Attack --

1. 8xScarabs = 120

Fast Attack Total = 120

Heavy --

1. Barge (Guass) = 90
2. Barge (Tesla) = 90

Heavy Total = 180

Army Total = 565 + 200 + 430 + 120 + 180 = 1495


----

Destro w\ Pulse Cryptek goes with Immortals. They shoot @ things.

Destro Cryptek w\ Warriors.

Transmog Cryptek with Warriors, camps an objective I've stuffed in area terrain (reduces charge by D3 and opponent has to make a Difficult Terrain check too).

D-Lord runs with Praetorians, can kill AV 14 if needed.
Anrakyr pops transports and kills things with Mind-in-the-Machine
Scarabs annoy people (Except when they get double lashed and plasma cannoned on the first turn! *laughs*)

Solar Pulse protects me from first turn shooting.

Holly cow lore.. great minds do think alike.. my 1500 is pretty close to this very set up. i'll let you know how my battle went last night.

Only tweak I'm thinking of for a 1500 point setup is to swap out a 35 point Cryptek for a 60 point VoD Cryptek. Where to scrounge the extra 20 points though (I love the MSS too much on the D-Lord)

I like your list, but I think you need another aggressive unit to take the heat off of Anrakyr. Then again, maybe after 2 turns, he's done the damage that he needs to do. *shrug*

Most people don't like the Praetorians, How are they been working for you?

I do like having a minimum unit of Warriors with a VoD Cryptek... maybe you can drop one of the warrior squads to 5 to fit him in. With Night Shroud and the template weapon, you don't need a lot of shooting to push a unit off of an objective.

Well, this is my tourney list for the weekend. Tweak after several test runs with friends.

The Praetorian Unit's always been an average performer for me, the above game was an above average performance due to the D-Lord getting back up. *roar*

They usually kill a couple things in assault. The 5 S6 shots before charging in are nice too.

I have a VoD Cryptek, but I wanted to make sure I had enough (strong-ish) scoring units, so I opted for a 2nd S8 shot, which is good for anti-tank and anti-infantry.

I agree, I don't have enough threat overload on the board to take full advantage of Anrakyr's annoyance factor. Generally, he and the Scarabs take the heat of the D-Lord and Praetorians while the barges, Immortals, and Warriors help control the field. (Making a *thing* roll difficult terrain with the tremor staff is nice).

Anpu-adom wrote:I like your list, but I think you need another aggressive unit to take the heat off of Anrakyr. Then again, maybe after 2 turns, he's done the damage that he needs to do. *shrug*

Most people don't like the Praetorians, How are they been working for you?

I do like having a minimum unit of Warriors with a VoD Cryptek... maybe you can drop one of the warrior squads to 5 to fit him in. With Night Shroud and the template weapon, you don't need a lot of shooting to push a unit off of an objective.

I've grown attached to a group of 10 Gauss Immortals with a veil tek, although I trim it down at 1500 and lower. I love being able to DS late and punch anything, whether it be a vehicle or a horde, pretty hard in the face while I contest something.

I'm with Lore on the Praets, they are so fantastically versatile in that setup, you can really send them at anything and they should hurt it, although their primary focus tends to be tank hunting. Considering that most people don't pistol up their Wraiths the PT's actually make much better tank hunters then wraiths do (S6 pistols to slow it down, rending entropic blades to finish it off).

If you get lucky enough to immobalise the vehicle, all those S5 Rending entropic strikes hit automatically, all 15 of them. Ouch.

It was my 3rd read through the book that I noticed Voidblades were entropic strike AND rending. I thought, "How is that not 1000x better than the Rod of the Covenant?"

loreweaver wrote:If you get lucky enough to immobalise the vehicle, all those S5 Rending entropic strikes hit automatically, all 15 of them. Ouch.

It was my 3rd read through the book that I noticed Voidblades were entropic strike AND rending. I thought, "How is that not 1000x better than the Rod of the Covenant?"

Yeah I really really wanted to like the Rods, but they just need something more. Strength 6 with AP 1 would be cool, so you could at least use them to can open transports. They work ok with the rods if you just hang around with your phalanx and jump out and munch on anything that gets within 18", I'm just not crazy about that style of play. I want my assault aggressive, not defensive.

If anyone's interested, the above list placed 3rd overall in our local tourney, that combined with a sportsmanship bonus prize netted me enough cash to get a free Ghost Ark. It's the best kind of Ghost Ark, the one you don't have to pay for! *laughs* (all kidding aside, it's a wonderful kit, having lots of fun painting it)

--
Related to the OP

Related, Anrakyr popped a predator and a Landraider in one game, he then hopped out and assaulted the contents of another popped transport (against regular marines, 4 S8 attacks is pretty hot).

You could expect a very similar performance out of the Surf-Board-Lord. I think a competitive list has lots of room for the 180 point Lord w\ Scythe on a Barge.

Nice the game i played thursday night anrakyr pop every tank the imperal fist had. So what ur saying is im on the right track with building a good 1500 pts tourney roster.

Gratz, Lore! I'd love to see the battle reports (if you do them). I wish that I had room in my escalation lists to switch from a 'Surf-Board-Lord" as you put it to Anrakyr. Maybe I can squeeze the 65 points and a unit of immortals at 1250 points. Throw in a VOD Cryptek... hmm....