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...maybe I am...

I've been playing heavy cc with my necrons running more wraiths with DLords than you can shake a stick at up until recently. I've finally succumbed to the new meta of shoot first and often. To that end I started running a lot of ABs and scythes in order to get the TL destructors. I've been running into to many stinking tau players recently (me about to be one of them so I'm throttling back on the cronair I'm currently running. So now I'm reevaluating all of my units for maximum shootiness and ability to apply pressure, etc.

I have to admit I never really considered TBs to be a decent unit until I started looking at it through the shooty lens. 5 TL Gauss blasters on jet bikes....hhmmmm....so I guess I'm curious is this a sleeper unit within the Necron codex? I've never seen one of these played - ever. They're half the cost of destroyers and can potentially move twice as fast. Heavy destroyers are another story but compared to normal destroyers...admittedly the destroyers gauss cannon is very nice but that's only against MEQs. Against everyone else it's similar enough guass blaster (ok, sort of). Thoughts?

They are....ok. Unfortunately, they compete with wraiths, which are OMGWTFBBQ fantastic.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
They are....ok. Unfortunately, they compete with wraiths, which are OMGWTFBBQ fantastic.

This. Tomb Blades are definitely worth the points. But, they are not worth a slot when you could take Wraiths. So maybe for a fun game, they surely won't hurt you, but in a tournament, they just arent as good as wraiths.

 jifel wrote:


Tomb Blades are definitely worth the points. But, they are not worth a slot when you could take Wraiths. So maybe for a fun game, they surely won't hurt you, but in a tournament, they just arent as good as wraiths.

This has been my experience with them as well. For me, TBs with Particle Beamers are better AI than Wraiths; however, are not as good at addressing vehicles and higher toughness models. TL Gauss Blasters work the same as other Gauss weapons against vehicles but I prefer to not depend solely on such for anti-armor.

So yes, they are good for the points; however, there can be better options for AI. I wouldn't take them for AA. In my opinion, they are a good unit that is overshadowed by great units and limited slots.

Issue I see with this, is if your going to run into a lot of Tau, TB are not going to fair any better. Since they can pull your cover saves away ( negating upgrades if you take them) and with more than enough weapons with ap4 you have to look at the 3+ save, so you are at 200 pts for the unit.

I would go with the particle beamers over guass, simply so you can drop lots of blasts into their troops hoping to kill a fair amount before something puts you down.

With only 1 wound each, a riptide fairs a good chance of pretty much wiping the squad on its own. Enough SMS HYMP action would also likely put that unit down.

Tomb blades in my opinion should be ran cheap as possible. 100 points for an ultrafast unit to pound backfield objectives I'm cool with that, and if they survive they easily score line breaker I'm down with that also. They are cheaper than wraiths and get stand ups which is the bees knees. Definitely an overlooked unit, my only complaint is that the models are a pain to store, paint and put together.