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When attacking Scarab Swarms with an Imperial Guard Grenade Launcher should you use Frag or Krak Grenades? The S6 Krak would instantly kill them but you have a 50% chance of missing. The Frag won't be as powerful but being a blast they would cause two wounds if they hit and might hit multiple bases.

Which should you use? And would your pick differently if you have only 1 Grenade Launcher or multiple (blob, command, special weapons squads).

Hum... Ignore this post ?

I would go for the krak unless they were really bunched up for some reason, 50/50 on the die roll to hit, but 2+ to wound and you ignore their armor, and you will take 3 wounds for each shot that goes though. The frag has a better chance of hitting something, but with the size of scarab bases probrably not more the 2 or three, they only get 4+ to wound and still get armor.
If they had cover i might go for the frag instead, as VS. 3+ cover "quantity has a quality all it's own"

edit spelling

I vote krak. Nothing to back it up, just it "feels" right.

A hit from krak generates 5/6*3=5/2 wounds and a krak shot is half a hit. A frag hit generates 1/2*2/3*2 = 2/3 wounds and a frag shot produces a difficult to predict number of hits but it's already obvious that you should only use frag if you have a reasonable chance of scoring multiple hits. About 1.5 hits if no cover and less in cover (presence of cover means both allow the same saving throw) are needed for rough parity with krak. If the opposing player spaces his models at or near full coherency from each other then frag obviously loses since it will only score multiple hits on the odd lucky scatter. Things get more interesting when the models are closer together so you can place the marker such that the hole is over one base and the edge touches another. Guard players should already be familiar with the 1/3+2/3(3/36)=39% chance of hitting dead on with a blast, meaning that 39% of frag shots in this situation are guaranteed two hits. A few scatters will also give you two hits, more will get you one, and more will hit neither of the originally targetted models. 2*.39+2*?+1*?+0 wants to exceed 1.5, we already have a base of .78 hits out of 1 shot from unscattering scatters and we need at least an additional .72 hits out of the remaining 61% of shots. This means 11% of all scatter rolls +2% for each % chance of no hits must be a favorable scatter. In a 2-model situation you can't scatter more than 1 inch and still hit both unless the models are less than 7/10" apart, and even then it's unlikely. 1/18 (6%) of all scatter rolls scatter exactly 1" and of these less than half will hit twice. Long story short don't shoot frag if you can only touch two bases with the marker with the possible exception of a really big unit in cover.

If you can touch 3 bases with the marker then that 39% chance of hitting dead on times 3 hits will get you an average of 1.17 hits per shot even if you discard all scatters and the results on those should be reasonably favorable. Definitely use frag if they're in cover and you can touch three bases, and probably still use frag if they're out of cover.

Similar math applies to other targets. If you're shooting Space Marines the answer is 3 regardless of cover.

aren't Scarabs Swarms, and therefore immune to Instant Death by the Krak 'nades?

Erm, no? Swarms are not immune to instant death, I don't know where you could've gotten that idea from myself...

The Swarm rule only gives them the 'Stealth' and 'Vulnerable to Blasts/Templates' USRs, a krak grenade will still ID one scarab base exactly as described on pg 26 in the penultimate paragraph of the section titled 'Units of Multiple-Wound Models'.

Avatar 720 wrote:Erm, no? Swarms are not immune to instant death, I don't know where you could've gotten that idea from myself...

The Swarm rule only gives them the 'Stealth' and 'Vulnerable to Blasts/Templates' USRs, a krak grenade will still ID one scarab base exactly as described on pg 26 in the penultimate paragraph of the section titled 'Units of Multiple-Wound Models'.

I think we may actually see the beginnings of people mixing up the leaked 6th pdf rules with the actual rules, as Swarms actually DO get Eternal Warrior (1) in the leaked pdf.

On topic, I'd probably go for krak. Removing an entire base is better than simply inflicting 2 wounds.

I have fought a necron player quite a bit and I have had the most success with the krak. It will insta kill each base. Over the course of the game, it is worth just killing off one base at a time. If they have a spider making swarms, kill it asap. They have a trick that will make a string of swarms all the way across the board that will make your life hell.

aquilaenet wrote:I have fought a necron player quite a bit and I have had the most success with the krak. It will insta kill each base. Over the course of the game, it is worth just killing off one base at a time. If they have a spider making swarms, kill it asap. They have a trick that will make a string of swarms all the way across the board that will make your life hell.

No. That tactic is no longer viable I believe.
The FAQ made the scarab farms impossible.

CthuluIsSpy
No. That tactic is no longer viable I believe.
The FAQ made the scarab farms impossible.

If that is the case I need to look into the FAQ so I can stop it. It is a pretty lame tactic.

edit: Dammit Cthulu

And I'd go krak shot, ID is too good to pass up in this case.