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Am I missing something about Void Blades that makes them good?

Entropic Strike is great on Harp of Diss as you can reduce the armor of something at range. It's great on scarabs because you have so many attacks. But on a necron lord who has 2 attacks or Pratorians (again 2 attacks) they dont seem likely to eat too much armor. It's not like the rending is that great for vehicle destruction.

Rending is great but Void Blades are not power weapons so most of the time they are going to allow armor saves. Also most units that can take them are strength 5, wounding most things on 3+ which means that only 25% of the wounds will be rends, 75% will allow armor saves.

A Hyperphase sword is cheaper and ignores armor.

A Warsythe makes most models strength 7 and +2d6 armor penetration and ignores armor for the same cost. Who needs rending?



So in summary, why take Void Blades?

Well, I cause its nice to have entropic strike on a model that can get back up after death. Its also for free, IIRC.

The void blade is balanced against charging a whole squad at a vehicle that is AV14

Remember that the weapon merely has to *hit* the vehicle for Entropic Strike to trigger, it does not have to penetrate



and if you charge a squad against multi-wound models, and you inflict one rending wound it loses its armour save.

It's not as straight-forward as a power weapon that ignores armour, but it is a different mechanic. Game-wise it trades reliability against MEQ for better utility vs vehicles and multi-wound models

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Well, I cause its nice to have entropic strike on a model that can get back up after death. Its also for free, IIRC.

its 10 points, more than the power weapon but the same as a war sythe

Exergy wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Well, I cause its nice to have entropic strike on a model that can get back up after death. Its also for free, IIRC.

its 10 points, more than the power weapon but the same as a war sythe

Bah, not worth it then. I think I'll stick with scarabs.

severedblue wrote:The void blade is balanced against charging a whole squad at a vehicle that is AV14

Remember that the weapon merely has to *hit* the vehicle for Entropic Strike to trigger, it does not have to penetrate



and if you charge a squad against multi-wound models, and you inflict one rending wound it loses its armour save.

It's not as straight-forward as a power weapon that ignores armour, but it is a different mechanic. Game-wise it trades reliability against MEQ for better utility vs vehicles and multi-wound models

I understand but a war sythe has a pretty good chance to penetrate AV14. 7+2d6 and other than land raiders and monolyths everything in the game has lover than AV14 in the rear.


I understand about multiwound models. But there are not that many multi wound models out there, and those that do that you really want to kill might be better off trying to off with regular wounds rather than removing its save. Its all simo at the same inititive step so any loss of armor save wont take place until next turn right?

For the same 10 points would you rather have entropic strike or str 7+2d6 vs vehciles. against mech would you rather have rending, or ignore armor saves and +2 strength to wound most things on 2s.

With the Warscythe there, I would say no they're not good. With the amount of Entropic Strikes you could get with scarabs, I think having something that can blow up tanks or kill off other units easier is more important than 1-3 armor reductions

Now I think voidblades is the only good choice for Praetorians though

On an Overlord, I cannot think of any reason in a TAC list, why you would ever take anything but the Warscythe.

On Praetorians however, the Voidblade+Particle caster is the better choice. It's a shame that Praets are still so subpar though.

Honestly, if I have the choice to take the Warscythe, then it's a no brainer to take one. If not, then I'd be more inclined toward the VB.

Sasori wrote:On an Overlord, I cannot think of any reason in a TAC list, why you would ever take anything but the Warscythe.

On Praetorians however, the Voidblade+Particle caster is the better choice. It's a shame that Praets are still so subpar though.

Honestly, if I have the choice to take the Warscythe, then it's a no brainer to take one. If not, then I'd be more inclined toward the VB.

obviously Praetorians cannot take war sythes and their silly rod of covenant can only be used if you are in assault range and then your opponent is just going to remove models so you cannot assault and then charge you on his turn. You have to take the pistol/VB combo there.

Exergy wrote:

Sasori wrote:On an Overlord, I cannot think of any reason in a TAC list, why you would ever take anything but the Warscythe.

On Praetorians however, the Voidblade+Particle caster is the better choice. It's a shame that Praets are still so subpar though.

Honestly, if I have the choice to take the Warscythe, then it's a no brainer to take one. If not, then I'd be more inclined toward the VB.

obviously Praetorians cannot take war sythes and their silly rod of covenant can only be used if you are in assault range and then your opponent is just going to remove models so you cannot assault and then charge you on his turn. You have to take the pistol/VB combo there.

Few things here. One, you only have to be 1' away from enemy models at the end of your movement phase, if it's clear that they can remove casualties to the point they are out of assault range, then you shouldn't be firing the pistol or the Rod. However, considering with an average squad of 5, you are only likely to get 3 kills with the rod, that shouldn't be a problem. The Rod is also a better CC weapon than the VB, because it's a power weapon hitting at strength 5. The VB+PC just wins out, because it has a wider set of targets it can destroy, rather than the narrow amount of targets for the Rod.

The Rod really isn't a bad weapon, it's the Praetorians that are bad.

Void Blades are awesome against vehicles, particularly ones that are immobilised/stunned. Against a stationary target you can kill two vehicles per base with Triarch Praetorians armed with VB/PC. The key is having enough Gauss and Tesla in your list to present yourself with a plethora of such targets.

That being said, I agree with the other posters that the TPs are the only frame I would put them on. I can kinda see the logic of putting it on a lord in a group of warriors/immortals as an anti MC or walker contingency, lower the armour/remove the armour save and let the slugs finish it off, but I'm inclined to go with the WS more myself.