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I'm debating whether or not to use them in my army. I don't know if they're useful enough to take up muh points.
What say you?

Scarabs eat vehicles and MCs. If a big model is in charge range of a pile of scarabs, it's a goner. They are amazing, but they take up the same slot as Wraiths which are also amazing. Luckily you can just take Spyders to spawn them in massive hordes, but Spyders compete with a lot of also really, really good heavy support slots.

It's your call honestly.

MCs? Really? I'm skeptical about that.

MCs tend to kill scarab bases in one hit, and scarabs barely wound them in return. If the MC were S5 then I could understand, but they are usually S6+

I've lost too many stonecrushers to scarabs eating their armorsaves away. :(

I look at them as the cheaper alternative to Wraiths. Often Wraiths serve as little more than an escort for my D. Lord and Scarabs can serve the same function. However their weak toughness, poor save an vulnerability to blast makes them die hard if your opponent focuses on them. They work best in tandem with multiple threat army builds, as you opponent will split it fire up enough to keep your units relatively in tact, or kill all your Scarbs while your wraiths move into position to charge.

 Kain wrote:
I've lost too many stonecrushers to scarabs eating their armorsaves away. :(

Those are carnis right? Yeah, I could see how that's possible. That I1 really hurts them, even with S9-10 attacks.

I have found that one of the best advantages to Scarabs is that the can kill even the toughest vehicles, and all at the same time, kill the guys inside.

Here is how it works. Say you've got a Land Raider and its got 5 TH/SS Terminators in it. If your Scarabs surround the vehicles and reduce it to 0 armor on all sides, the vehicle is wrecked and therefore the passengers must disembark, but since the Scarabs have surrounded the vehicles, there is no where for them to go and they die because they cannot be placed. So, with 150 points of Scarabs, you just killed 250 point Land Raider and 200 points of Terminators. Super win!

 TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
I have found that one of the best advantages to Scarabs is that the can kill even the toughest vehicles, and all at the same time, kill the guys inside.

Here is how it works. Say you've got a Land Raider and its got 5 TH/SS Terminators in it. If your Scarabs surround the vehicles and reduce it to 0 armor on all sides, the vehicle is wrecked and therefore the passengers must disembark, but since the Scarabs have surrounded the vehicles, there is no where for them to go and they die because they cannot be placed. So, with 150 points of Scarabs, you just killed 250 point Land Raider and 200 points of Terminators. Super win!

good point, but what are the chances of that happening? Very small I believe.

 TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
I have found that one of the best advantages to Scarabs is that the can kill even the toughest vehicles, and all at the same time, kill the guys inside.

Here is how it works. Say you've got a Land Raider and its got 5 TH/SS Terminators in it. If your Scarabs surround the vehicles and reduce it to 0 armor on all sides, the vehicle is wrecked and therefore the passengers must disembark, but since the Scarabs have surrounded the vehicles, there is no where for them to go and they die because they cannot be placed. So, with 150 points of Scarabs, you just killed 250 point Land Raider and 200 points of Terminators. Super win!

I was able to do this last month. Friend had Kharn and some termies that couldn't disembark and were removed as casualties. 60 points of scarabs removed over 600 points. He told me he's not playing me again, and threw his rulebook across the room. So I don't know if scarabs are worth it OP, though I will say they are when not playing with complete babies.

How could 4 scarabs surround a LR?

There were more because of scarab farm but I had only spent 60 points on the unit

Sounds like a bad friend.

It's very doable, but you have to be positioned just right and in my experience have an opponent with bad tactics or low experience who leaves a LR unguarded.

Right now we don't see many vehicles let alone AV14 tanks, but in or first round of the spring league I did have and IG opponent with 1 Basilisk, and three Leman Russ tanks and my scarabs devoured them all. However I attribute that to getting an early weapon destroyed result that managed to take out the earth shaker cannon and the rest was my ability to leap frog from combats and make good use of cover to rip apart the tanks, usually the die quickly against most opponents.

My usual necron opponent end up giving me first blood a lot because he takes scarabs. Ive also had his scarabs charge me, lost a broadside but punked the remaining scarabs in CC.

I think his biggest problem is that he doesnt take a big enough squad of them, usually no more than like 5, and so they die pretty easily

Wolfnid420 wrote:
My usual necron opponent end up giving me first blood a lot because he takes scarabs. Ive also had his scarabs charge me, lost a broadside but punked the remaining scarabs in CC.

I think his biggest problem is that he doesnt take a big enough squad of them, usually no more than like 5, and so they die pretty easily

Yeah, the most effective lists I've seen with Scarabs in them really commit to them. Either large squads, smaller squads with spyders, or both.

From these replies I'm gathering that with them you can get a few lucky 'big kills' but it rarely happens.
I think I'll stick with wraiths unless I get convinced otherwise.

They still work as a solid fearless unit that is 30 wounds strong and can do well being hidden and used to counter assault or tarpit. Also for only 150 points you can nicely draw fire with them. The tandem D. Lords I run work well in combination with1 squad of Wraiths and 1 squad of Scarabs as I can deploy them in different configurations depending on my opponent or they are fast enough to change up during game play.

They work well in conjunction with Imotekh or Crypteks laying down night fighting. A good cover save will keep them alive to reach the enemy lines, where they'll want to multi-assault and either mess up vehicles, tie up units all game, or try and take that pesky 2+ armor save away from annoying units like dreadknights and riptides.

You do either need to go big or support them with spyders if they're going to do their job properly. Fearless blobs need to actually be a blob, their main strength is being difficult to completely wipe out.

There's also psychological value in them. Once you munch a land raider in one round of combat with a swarm of them, your opponent will focus far more firepower than they deserve in later games.

Lastly, there's always the Maynarkh list in the newest Imperial Armour. It lets you take special scarabs that switch out entropic strike for rending.

I've started running scarabs with spyder and it will either make a tarpit from hell or munch vehicles (om nom nom your super pricey tank is dead). They are dead cheap, normally cheaper than any half decent wraith squad. Sure they prevent total wraith spam but you can still take 2 D.Lord/Wraith units, your opponent will ignore those at his peril whilst your scarabs run around causing mayhem, particularly if you can keep a spyder or 3 in 6" range. So I'd say yes they are.

They work really well with Zandy, who can give them furious charge. They are fast and absolute death to vehicles (and if you give them furious charge, removing the armour save from a multiwound model is quite achievable).

I find that at 8 base size the unit is highly flexible, easy to hide and with the FAQ on vulnerable to templates, quite survivable if you are careful.

Only caveat is - don't send them up the board by themselves unless you are running a scarab farm.

MarkCron wrote:
They work really well with Zandy, who can give them furious charge. They are fast and absolute death to vehicles (and if you give them furious charge, removing the armour save from a multiwound model is quite achievable).

I find that at 8 base size the unit is highly flexible, easy to hide and with the FAQ on vulnerable to templates, quite survivable if you are careful.

Only caveat is - don't send them up the board by themselves unless you are running a scarab farm.

Exactly, couldn't put it better scarabs have a place both in the fluff and on the table in crons, and this is how, imho, is how it should be done

 poppa G wrote:
From these replies I'm gathering that with them you can get a few lucky 'big kills' but it rarely happens.
I think I'll stick with wraiths unless I get convinced otherwise.

Luckily Spyders let you have scarabs without competing with Wraiths for FA slots.

 Kain wrote:

 poppa G wrote:
From these replies I'm gathering that with them you can get a few lucky 'big kills' but it rarely happens.
I think I'll stick with wraiths unless I get convinced otherwise.

Luckily Spyders let you have scarabs without competing with Wraiths for FA slots.

Unfortunately not. You need to place the spawned bases within unit coherency of a base that was not spawned in this turn. You can't create a new unit.

I find that 2 units of wraiths are enough (with 2 anni barges) in most lists.

I'd like to bump this and ask a question. Totally new to 6th edition and building my corn army as we speak. Can I put a d lord with a swarm of scarabs?

Yes however they lose fleet when you do. They do gain PE though.

What is the rule that allows them to join? Is it worth it maybe to have the look out sir to help them survive a little better? Thinking of using the 11 I have in a 1500-2k point list

Too many ubiquitous hard counters to them - Manticores, Heldrakes, S6 fire from Riptides and Wraith Knights, scatter lasers, etc.

KRUDD wrote:
What is the rule that allows them to join? Is it worth it maybe to have the look out sir to help them survive a little better? Thinking of using the 11 I have in a 1500-2k point list

See independent characters joining units.

The "in" build is 2 Destroyer lords, 3 wraith units and 3 a-barges with several warriors in scythes flying around. That leaves no room for packs of scarabs or tomb spiders to spit them out.

 lambsandlions wrote:
The "in" build is 2 Destroyer lords, 3 wraith units and 3 a-barges with several warriors in scythes flying around. That leaves no room for packs of scarabs or tomb spiders to spit them out.

Thanks man, i was trying to avoid wraith units and scythes for my friendly list. It seems inevitable that I will need to build a cheese list to be competitive though...


By the way, thank you to whom ever advised to read independent characters joining units!