Nick speaking,
Well, from what I have seen and read, the Scarab farm has pretty much been written off in 6th Edition. I am not talking about a few Scarabs and Spyders here and there in a list, I am talking about using three maxed out Scarab units backed up by as many Spyders as you can get! I was reading an excellent article over on
3++ by Kirby a while back about the
Metatransition of the Scarab Farm. The article was discussing how 6th Edition has effected Scarabs and the best way to use them now, which got me thinking about my old 5th Edition Scarab Farm list and how I could possible find a way to use my 60+ Scarabs now in 6th!
Kirby wrote...
"Right so let's look at what changes we have specifically for Scarab Farm...
- vehicles are hit on a 3+ at worst. Scarabs chew through vehicles
now. Think the Mummy series and imagine those human beings are tanks
and those scarabs are...soulless scarabs. Ya, vehicles hate combat now
and Scarabs are one of the best at it.
- Fearless rocks - Fearless sucked before for Scarabs as they would
often lose combat and then lose several more bases for their efforts.
Anything which could ID them would wipe out entire farms in a matter of
seconds but now, well now they are a great tarpit. They aren't going to
kill infantry still but they can at least stick around and annoy the
crap out of them.
- movement & charge changes make Scarabs faster over a period of
turns thanks to a 12" move plus RCL (Random Charge Length) but in a
given turn, RCL reliability can bite Scarabs on the bottom. They
generally aren't engaging infantry units though so Overwatch isn't that
scary despite their poor statline.
- Cover changes hurt Scarabs a lot - they used to be cheap with an
annoying durability but now getting such a good cover save is harder.
Still possible but harder.
- And Night Fight is no longer what it was. Although most armies
generally had a counter to Night Fight through things like Searchlights,
it's a lot easier to completely IGNORE Night Fight on some very
specific units. You know, like a building Scarab farm which coupled with
the above change, makes growing the farm a lot harder to do.
- Spyders are scarier with RCL however since they got potential
movement gains though cover reduction hurts them as well - they were
pretty easy to get a 4+ for before base on 50%.
And then of course you have all the awesome changes for
Necrons in general with Gauss & Tesla loving Hull Points, fake AV13,
Jink saves, etc. So what's this mean for Scarab farm?
So if you were really looking to add something like this to your
army, I'd be looking at keeping it as simple as possible. Scarabs have
some pretty nice upsides in 6th edition and make a nice tarpit unit for
your normal Necrons but if you go for a full farm you're losing a lot of
extra firepower by not taking the Barges. Rather than consider this an
army template, I'd more think of it as a plug-in for a basic Necron
army. Hell, it could even be used as an Ally plug-in though you'd
obviously only have one Fast Attack unit.
2x8x Scarabs
3x Spyders, 1 w/Gloom Prism
Totals: 395 points
You don't want Imotekh as he stops your own shooting. You
don't want mass Spyders as that takes away from Annihilation Barges. You
want two Scarabs so you have a 3rd Fast Attack slot for Wraiths if you
want and you have a second layer of Scarabs. One works as well though,
particularly if you're running it as an Ally plug-in. You're not
fiddling around with all the extra goodies Necrons can get like a
Writhing Worldscape C'Tan + Tremorteks (Crypteks with Tremor staves)
because that takes points away from things which actually drop crap dead
in the Necron codex. It's a simple mini-farm which can plug into lists
if you're looking for a screening option and back-up MCs all for less
than 400 points. Hell, the Spyders aren't even needed - I'd still rather
another Annihilation Barge and let the Scarabs do their thing - pop
some vehicles, delay the opponent."
Most of what Kirby said what pretty much spot on, but even so, it doesn't mean I can make a full farm list work, does it? Well lets have a look at what I can come up with. First up, I am going to ignore my previous list, which rightly so, included Imotekh. As Kirby said the Stormlord list concept isn't going to work like it used to. So, with that said a new army build template is required, and I think a Wave template fits in perfectly for a Scarab Farm army and that it the direction I am going to go...
My list is going to be for 1750 points as that is the main level I play at, I have found that six Spyders is about the maximum that I can fit into the Farm at this points level and still have enough points left over for everything else needed, plus I only own six Spyders anyway! So the front Core of my army will be three groups of ten Scarabs, backed up by three groups of two Spyders. Back to the Scarabs themselves and the biggest benefit they now have is being Fearless, no more Fearless wounds means these guys will be around much longer, so Scarabs in numbers is what we are after...
Turn one and two will be used to bolster two units of Scarabs as the full Phalanx moves forward. These two large Scarabs units will be the first wave in the list and will probably end up out of range of the Spyders, so the Spyders will start to boost the numbers of the third group from turn three ready to send them out as the next wave. All three groups of Spyders will make the next wave behind them, spawning as many bases as robotically possible. So that's the Farm section of the list out of the way, and obviously I don't expect any of it to still be around at the end of the game, it's job is to push forward to kill and hold up as much of my opponents army as it can for as long as it can!
Running behind the Farm will be the next wave, sixteen Warriors and a Jacked up Overlord. I have had a huge success with this unit so far, with the Overlord being amazing in Challenges with Mindshackle and Labyrinth doing what they need to do very well, whilst his Resurrection Orb helps to keep the Warriors alive for longer. I have also added a Stormtek to the unit to help with any challenge issues. I don't want the Overlord attacks wasted due to being tied up in a challenge with a nobody! Following up at the rear, is the last Wave of three groups of ten
Warriors. There main job it to offer some mid range fire support and to
take any mission objectives at the end of the game...
The last wave is going to be nine deep striking Deathmarks. They will be wave two, three or four, depending on when they arrive from reserve, and they will be aiming to come down near or in my enemies deployment zone offering a wave from a different direction!
So what about Flyers? Well, I am not seeing many Flyers in my gaming group at the moment so I am not too concerned with them, if one turns up I will have to hang on and hope that the Warriors will throw down a lot of sixes! If I do find it becomes an issue, I can always group the Spyders into two sets of three and then drop some Warriors for an Annihilation Barge, or maybe even take an Aegis Defence Line with a Quad Gun.
Here is my final Scarab Farm Wave list and army deployment strategy. Of course it all depending on circumstances, but at least I will be going to the table with a plan of some sort...
HQ
1 x Overlord/Scythe/MSS/Weave/Labyrinth/Orb (180)
Royal Court:
1x Stormtek/Lightning Field (35)
TROOPS
10 x Warriors (130)
10 x Warriors (130)
10 x Warriors (130)
16 x Warriors (208)
ELITES
9 x Deathmarks (171)
FAST
10 x Scarabs (150)
10 x Scarabs (150)
10 x Scarabs (150)
HEAVY
2 x Spyders/Gloom Prism (115)
2 x Spyders (100)
2 x Spyders (100)
WAVE 1 (turn 1 and 2)
10 x Scarabs (16x after Spawning!)
10 x Scarabs (16x after Spawning!)
WAVE 2 (turn 2, 3 or 4)
9 x Deathmarks
WAVE 3 (turn 3)
10 x Scarabs (16x after Spawning!)
WAVE 4 (turn 3 or 4)
2 x Spyders
2 x Spyders
2 x Spyders
WAVE 5 (turn 5)
1 x Overlord
16 x Warriors
WAVE 6 (turn 6+)
10 x Warriors
10 x Warriors
10 x Warriors
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