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I think scarabs are a good unit for necrons that may often be impaired by GW's refusal to make them available in a reasonable way.

They're fast, not expensive (points wise) wound even the toughest targets on a 5+ , can hide behind even low walls, have the fly rule, can engage targets that are only capable of being assaulted by flyers, are good at taking objectives, can be deployed in small units spread out on your flanks to push back deep strike units, they can self destruct with a strat to inflict mortal wounds and a tomb spyder can replenish them.

And of course they make good objective takers, which may be their most important use since 8e is about taking objectives.

The down side is mainly availability, you only get them in warrior sets and only 3 bases, or 4 if you mount them 3 to a base. Of course it's pretty easy to make putty scarabs if you have basic manual dexterity and some putty. But you get the "OHIMIGOD YOU'RE STEALING FROM GW WHEN YOU DO THAT IF YOU WANT LOTS OF SCARABS JUST BUY LOTS OF WARRIOR BOXES OR DON'T USE THEM!!!" crowd.

I plan on 18 bases, so I can deploy maybe 2 full size swarms or 3 6 base swarms. (Yes, about 2/3 of them will be putty). Also when setting terrain I will likely add some 1" walls for them to use to block LOS.

I don't see lot of them used in batrep videos, is that mainly due to gw not making them available in a reasonable way? (Yeah I know, I used GW and reasonable in the same sentence.)

I'm looking for tactics for them from more experienced necron playhers.

Ill preface by saying that I've never faced scarabs or owned a Necron army, so this is just theory-hammer.

But to my mind they're simply don't have enough benefits to be worth it.

They're not troops, so that means they cant be used to fill out detachments and generate CP. So they have to rest on their combat merits. Their damage is all relegated to CC, and is pretty meagre to begin with really, although the suicide bomber stratagem is interesting.

Durability I can see being a problem in the current meta of easily accessible mass dakka, sure hiding behind walls could work, but in any other other situation they're basically butter with their T3 and 6+ save. Compared to the closest Imperium equivalent, the Guardsman, theyre more expensive per wound, far less powerful offensively, and far less durable against most weapons due to saves and multi-wound models. They're not even much faster when you consider shenanigans with the Move-Move-Move order.

Fly Keyword - true that's a good rule, but without the firepower to back it up its less useful, great to be able to charge flyers but you're really unlikely to scrape more than a few wounds off even with multiple squads of scarabs. They can potentially charge and tie stuff up over screens, but they're likely to then die the next turn, so it just doesn't seem like much of a good deal to me.

As a cheap, easily hidable objective sitter, or counter charge suicide bomber, I would conceivably bring a min sized squad or 2. But as far as bringing masses of them, I think a Necron army could do better with more stuff that actually contributes to the fighting in a meaningful way.

If they were troops we'd be all over them. As it is, they're smite screens and objective grabbers. They're good for filling out a Vanguard detachment, which we often need as a lot of our good units are fast attack.

Damage output isn't too bad if you play them as Novokh apparently. Never tried it myself though.

They fall into a category a fairly large amount of 40k units do - "better than troops, but not better enough to take instead, and not different enough to take in addition."

GW has had a hard time in 8th edition finding a way to make non-elite (as in power level, not as in elite slot) units that aren't troops worth taking. I suspect in 9th you will see a rework of the way command points are generated to encourage people to take a wider variety of units, particularly these kinds that right now are pretty much ignored in most lists.

I really like the idea of taking like a cryptek and some scarabs (and maybe wraiths) as a detachment from an ally using the Novokh rules. Plus it's a free CP. That's one I'm going to try when I can.

I see it as a valid idea, I mean a dynasty fighting a common enemy might call for aid from an allied dynasty and they send a cryptek and some canoptek units to honor their obligation to aid their fellow necrons against the common enemy.

 Matt Swain wrote:
I really like the idea of taking like a cryptek and some scarabs (and maybe wraiths) as a detachment from an ally using the Novokh rules. Plus it's a free CP. That's one I'm going to try when I can.

I see it as a valid idea, I mean a dynasty fighting a common enemy might call for aid from an allied dynasty and they send a cryptek and some canoptek units to honor their obligation to aid their fellow necrons against the common enemy.

Problem is that cryptek is an 80pts tax, since he won't be able to buff anything else if the rest of your list isn't Novokh. And Necrons can't afford 80pts of dead weight at the moment. Sadly almost all our characters/HQs are taxes. I'd recommend a destroyer lord, but he's so inferior to what other factions get for the same or cheaper.

Scarabs fill empty slots of outrider detachments with wraith, destroyers, tomb blades. There is no good HQ support for them. A canoptek spyder is support for them, but unfortunately the spyder itself is bad, and not worth using. Better use more scarabs for the points of a spyder.

Scarabs are useful enough at only 39 points for a unit. I use them to screen for Smites and prevent Deep Strike as well as filling Outrider detachments. As long as you don't except them to kill anything (or even hold anything up) you won't be too disappointed!

IanVanCheese wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
I really like the idea of taking like a cryptek and some scarabs (and maybe wraiths) as a detachment from an ally using the Novokh rules. Plus it's a free CP. That's one I'm going to try when I can.

I see it as a valid idea, I mean a dynasty fighting a common enemy might call for aid from an allied dynasty and they send a cryptek and some canoptek units to honor their obligation to aid their fellow necrons against the common enemy.

Problem is that cryptek is an 80pts tax, since he won't be able to buff anything else if the rest of your list isn't Novokh. And Necrons can't afford 80pts of dead weight at the moment. Sadly almost all our characters/HQs are taxes. I'd recommend a destroyer lord, but he's so inferior to what other factions get for the same or cheaper.

Eh, i might just take a detachment of nothing but novohk scarabs then and take a -1 cp penalty then, especially if I thought had a chance to drop them on a tank that had pathetic close combat ability. The rerolls for novokh could help bracket it sooner. Plus I'd definitely looking at wraiths with the novoch dynasty rules as the can charge, attack, fall back nect turn, then charge back and get the reroll with that attack too.