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Scarabs reducing armour values is an awesome callback to the Necrons' original rules from '98, but it's also been the source of much grief towards Necrons, especially during their heyday after the codex first came out.

So, as an alternative to Entropic Strike, what would people say about giving them Haywire? It reduces their effectiveness against non-vehicles, and reduces their synergy with the rest of the army because it won't leave their targets vulnerable to small arms fire.

Haywire would probably be too OP for scarabs given how numerous their attacks are from a single base.

Right now a unit of 5 scarabs against a cruising speed land raider would reduce its AV to 8 and penetrate it on 6s which will probably gain you 2 pens and 2 glances on average.

If it had haywire, you'd only need 2 scarabs to glance / pen a land raider to death.

They're not very effective against infantry with entropic strike but there are those ones for anti-infantry called Charnel Scarabs with shred, rend and +1 WS.

I've never heard of anyone synergizing their scarabs for their entropic strike. They are, as far as I have always seen, been used as tank hunters. So this drawback won't really do much other than give Necron players a very clear 'best' choice when it comes to an anti-tank unit. Heck, this catapults them squarely into the best point-for-point anti-tank unit in the game.

Really? Nobody you know ever Entropics something then moves on and shoots it with something else the next turn?

So, how many points would you say would be fair to upgrade Scarabs to haywire? Are we looking at 10 points a base, nearly doubling their cost, or..?

Well, you need to consider how much upgraded scrabs are capable of. Already they are hugely mobile being beasts. They are also durable, not so much on an individual basis, but you can have a ton of them, they come with Stealth and a Spyder can pump out more of them. When I say durable, I mean it is difficult to remove that unit. Finally, with Haywire, a single base of Scarabs is quite likely to kill a Land Raider on the charge. 4 attacks on the charge, hitting on 3s, glancing on 2s. Even a Land Raider would be hard pressed to take one of those, let alone a unit of them. Heck, even now with Entropric Strike, a unit of Scarabs stands a more than decent chance of bringing down all but the most durable vehicle in a single assault.

Giving them Haywire is not so much a matter of finding the points cost for it, as it would add so much power to the unit that almost no point increase could justify it. It would become a situation where all other anti-armor tactics available to Necrons are sub-par compared to the vehicle-deleting carpet of Scarabs. Think about it this way; why would I ever take Heavy Destoyers or any other anti-tank in the Necron book when Haywire Scarabs are so much cheaper in points and so much more effective at killing tanks?

Why would you ever take Heavy Destroyers now? 60 points for a lascannon is just stupid.

Fine. How about a different tack: How do we make Scarabs useful against super-heavies without making Super-heavies pathetically weak against Scarabs?

Give them minihaywire.

Glances on a 5+ or a 6+ or whatever.