How should i kit out my Scourges?

So I am currently assembling the scourges and IM not sure what weapons to give them. I have heard that 4 Dark Lances and a 10 man unit works well. What would you give them?
Should I take smaller units?

The ideal option is magnetizing them, so that you don't have to chose.
If not :
- Haywire blasters are currently not viable (but might be so later, so...)
- Heat lance, same
- Blasters are okayish. You can move with them, they are cheaper than DL, but the D3 dmg feels weak for me.
- Dark lances are a ton of fun, and if you deepstrike into a tower/sniper position, you'll be hitting on 3's the whole game, making them better blasters.
- Splinter cannon is not an option, because it's the same price as another Scourge, which will add more HPs AND more firepower.
- The stock shardcarbin is really good, and can make for a cheapish good AI unit.

So blasters, DL, or stock.

I'd say Heat Lance is as okayish as Blasters, even though a tad expensive (5 pts less for them and 5 pts more for DL would balance it out nicely I think). Of course, most intended targets may be T7 and then the blasters are better, but against weaker vehicles (in a civil war for instance) heat lances are viable. But I also admit I'm biased, since I value the variation they offer. :-)

Edit: Oh, and I would not use larger squads then five.

HL is 10 points more than a blaster. You pay 10 points to lose 2S, gain 1 AP (meh, -4 is far enough), and the extra damage (very cool, but you'll never wound to begin with).
Currently there is no reason to take a HL if you can take a DL.

Haywire are decent now.
Quote from 1d4chan

1d4chan wrote:

23/07/2017 FAQ Update: FAQ confirms that a roll of 4+ is a guaranteed Mortal Wound regardless of if that 4 failed to wound. These are now very reliable at stripping wounds from vehicles that have invulnerable saves.

ref

But yeah, better magnetize.
If you can't, go for lances and / or blasters, and shard'carabin =)

Blasters are good for taking out those devastator squads in the back, but with only 18" range odds are Blaster Scourge are going to be a suicide squad. If you really need Blasters and can't afford a transport for Blasterborn this is the way to go. Basic Shardcarbines are good if you just have 70 points left and want some more poison dakka. Dark Lances are my personal choice, as I can pop them on a midfield or backfield objective and take advantage of a cover save.

Apparently Haywire is a decent choice now, it's more of a "safe bet" to reliably strip a couple wounds per turn as opposed to the gamble of taking 4-6 off with a Dark Lance.

I'm glad I bought magnetized Scourge secondhand...

I fail to see how Haywire is safer than DL :

Against every vehicle under T9, the DL is more reliable. Against non-vehicles, the DL is more reliable.
The only 2 good targets for the Haywire are Quantum Shieldings (best handled by dissies anyway) and Harlequin vehicles (the invulnerable messes with DL pretty hard).

They are super situationnal at best, and worse than a DL in almost every scenario. Their only purpose is being cheap, but it's still 125pts for a unit that will deal 1-2 wounds per turn to vehicles, and nothing at all to non-vehicles.

So either the codex modifies them (making them rapidfire would be interesting), or they are dead.

I disagree with haywire being good because they deal a single Mortal wound to vehicles on a 4+.

If they auto wounded vehicles on a 2+, did an extra Mortal Wound at 4+ and then D3 Mortal Wounds at 6+, maybe.

But the fact is that Vehicles now have far, far too many Wounds for Haywire to be more effective than a DL outside of the situations our good friend Mppqlmd has outlined.

(Does that name stand for anything btw? Or have any significance beyond 'string of characters'? Another language? A reference I'm not getting? I can't parse it out.

Ikol wrote:

(Does that name stand for anything btw? Or have any significance beyond 'string of characters'?  Another language?  A reference I'm not getting?  I can't parse it out.

It's an old joke from a RPG session 15 years ago, where the wizard was called MPPQLMD. At the end of the session he revealed that it meant "Magicien plus puissant que le MD", which means "Wizard more powerful that the DM". I kept it as my internet name ever since (i was the DM ^^).

Cool!

I'll remember that, it's neat!

Thanks

Haha that's where it came from x')

Dark Lances 100%!

I tried justifying to myself anything else but I can't do it without feeling ashamed. Dark Lances are just the best weapon for them imo.

I agree that dark lances are way better then haywire.
But haywire and blasters are more or less comparable when shooting at vehicles.
Vehicle without a ward save, the blaster wins, with a ward save of 4+ (5+ for t8) or t9+ the haywire does more. Which is why some people consider haywire "dependable" it does not matter what vehicle you shoot at, you will always have 50% to do one or more wounds. Unfortunately those things it kills nicely (high thoughness high ward save vehicles) are not that common and usually have crap of wounds, which means the 1 wound it deals is just not enough unless we get ways of spamming haywire. (haywire grenade comeback??)
That being said I completely agree, the haywire should have been rapidfire instead of assault. I think that alone would be enough to make it workable.

|Meavar wrote:

Unfortunately those things it kills nicely (high thoughness high ward save vehicles) are not that common and usually have crap of wounds, which means the 1 wound it deals is just not enough unless we get ways of spamming haywire. (haywire grenade comeback??)

Well then it's not "killing them nicely". It's "tickling them nicely". And that's the problem. In 8th edition the AT duty requires to deal many, many wounds. Haywire don't do that => they are useless.

Only reason I would take Haywire Blasters is if I knew I was fighting Necron vehicles as their quantum shielding does little or nothing to help them and they are low enough Toughness that S4 is not much of a handicap.

I also equip my Scourges with Dark Lances this edition. I've got a squad with Blasters but I'd give them Dark Lances too if I had more.

Never enough Dark Lances.

Let's do some math on this.

I'll base these calculations off of damage output to three vehicles: The Rhino, the Leman Russ, and the Land Raider.

We'll assume that the Scourges are taking four of these weapons.

Dark Lance - Stationary
Rhino: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> 1.78 Wounds -> 1.78 Unsaved -> 6.22 Damage Suffered.
Leman Russ: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> 1.33 Wounds -> 1.33 Unsaved -> 4.67 Damage Suffered.
Land Raider: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> 1.33 Wounds -> 1.11 Unsaved -> 3.39 Damage Suffered.

Dark Lance - Moved
Rhino: 4 Attacks -> 2 Hits -> 1.33 Wounds -> 1.33 Unsaved -> 4.67 Damage Suffered.
Leman Russ: 4 Attacks -> 2 Hits -> 1 Wound -> 1 Unsaved -> 3.5 Damage Suffered.
Land Raider: 4 Attacks -> 2 Hits -> 1 Wound -> .83 Wounds -> 2.92 Damage Suffered.

Blaster
Rhino: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> 1.77 Wounds -> 1.77 Unsaved -> 3.55 Damage Suffered.
Leman Russ: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> 1.33 Wounds -> 1.33 Unsaved -> 2.67 Damage Suffered.
Land Raider: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> 1.33 Wounds -> 1.11 Unsaved -> 2.22 Damage Suffered.

Heat Lance - Outside of Melta
Rhino: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> .89 Wounds (Ouch) -> .89 Unsaved -> 3.11 Damage Suffered.
Leman Russ: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> .89 Wounds -> .89 Unsaved -> 3.11 Damage Suffered.
Land Raider: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> .89 Wounds -> .89 Unsaved -> 3.11 Damage Suffered.

Heat Lance - Inside of Melta
Rhino: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> .89 Wounds -> .89 Unsaved -> 4.00 Damage Suffered.
Leman Russ: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> .89 Wounds -> .89 Unsaved -> 4.00 Damage Suffered.
Land Raider: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> .89 Wounds -> .89 Unsaved -> 4.00 Damage Suffered.

Haywire Blaster
Rhino: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> .88 Wounds -> 1.78 Mortal Wounds -> 2.22 Damage Suffered .(Massive Ouch)
Leman Russ: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> .44 Wounds -> 1.78 Mortal Wounds -> 2.00 Damage Suffered.
Land Raider: 4 Attacks -> 2.67 Hits -> .44 Wounds -> 1.78 Mortal Wounds -> 1.93 Damage Suffered.

Topping off the list is the Dark Lance, which, whether it moved or not, causes the most damage in the most versatile circumstances.

The Blaster causes considerably less, but given the lower Points cost, that's to be expected.

The Heat Lance suffers from its low strength, but deals a reliable number of wounds to every single class of target. Seriously, this thing can deal a consistent 3.11 or 4.00 Wounds to ANYTHING T7-T11 (Provided it doesn't have an Invuln.)

The Haywire Blaster brings up the rear in this, while being the cheapest option, and while it can deal 1.78 Mortal wounds to any vehicle, that's its main source of damage. 4 Haywire Blasters will take over four turns to kill a single Rhino.

So, in short:
Dark Lances are a versatile choice that will deal some serious damage to all manner of targets, but oftentimes, its available for similar point costs on other platforms.

Blasters can finish something off, but don't count on them destroying something on their own.

Heat Lances are hardly worth more than a Dark Lance, but they'll deal reliable damage across all classes of vehicles.

Haywire speaks for itself. I'm not even sure if it's worth 118 Points to deal with Necrons.

Hope this was helpful!

Thanks for the math, man, glad to see it support my weapon choices

I have 2 squads (4 Dark Lances and 4 Heat Lances) and one more squad to build... was going to go blasters but I think I might have to pillage my kabalites for more dark lances!

Thanks people. I built a squad of five with 4 dark lances. I can't scrape more dark lances up and si I'm not sure whether to fill out the unit with extra figures for ablative wounds or a second unit of 5 with 4 blasters?

I say go for blasters.

The dark lances sit at a safe vantage point and deal damage, the blasters are your mobile hunters destroying already wounded tanks that try to hide.

The math is here : even after moving the DL is better than a blaster. The only point of taking blasters is budget.

Mppqlmd wrote:

The math is here : even after moving the DL is better than a blaster. The only point of taking blasters is budget.

and my bitz box! I cannot scrape up another 4 dark lances!

I converted them all into Dark lances.
Adding to the tip of the cannon of a blaster/haywire blaster/heat lance with the left over missiles from the Razorwings (and a little bit of patience and imagination) : super good looking dark lances.