Tesla destructor and you?

[balordazul]

The Tesla Destructor is still a good weapon even if it might now be the auto pick of an earlier edition.  So my question is if you are going to take a Tesla Destructor into combat what form are you going to take it in a barge or scythe?

 

A-Barge

 

Pros:

Cheap w/ a all tesla load out of 146

Most shots per cost for a model that can take a destructor.

Unit does not degrade with damage.

Most flexible movement with no limitations on turning.

Can fallback and still fire.

Counter assault or chaff style charge to block shooting or preventing a charge.

Quantum Shielding 

 

Cons:  

Subject to being assaulted.

Only 8W and 4+ save

 

Scythe

Pros: 

12W and 3+ save plus Hard to hit rule.

Can't be assaulted unless the enemy has FLY

Can easily get into half range for Mephric with the given speed of the flyers.

 

Cons:

Scythes are more points.

Subject to movement limitations in distance and turn penalties forcing flyers to fly in a box pattern.

You will need to switch targets bases upon table location do to movement penalties.

No Quantum Shielding

 

If you like Scythe more than the barge now you need to pick Night or Doom.

 

Night

Pros: 

Cheaper

Inversion beam plus the stratagem that goes with it.

 

Cons:

No high -ap weapon

 

Doom

Pros:

Death ray (one of the strongest weapons nercons have)

 

Cons:

Costly

Death ray (it is good but you at best hit 50% of the time and it is a random shot weapon)

Better anti tank units in Destroyers and Doomsday Arks.

Stratagem is extremely situational and needing three Doom Scythes

 

In my opinion I'm leaning to the Night Scythe over the A-barge and D-Scythe for more survivability and troop deployment.  What is your thoughts on the Tesla Destructor, does it have a place in your army if so what form will it take?

 

Edited: to add a to pros and cons

[Tyriks]

I think with Scythes you really need multiples. Only having one means it's very easy to kill whatever it's carrying by taking it out (especially since now there are ways to cancel stratagems so you can't even rely on Emergency Invasion Beams). But it's unlikely, I think, to lose two or more in one turn.

 

So my thinking this far has been that if I have points for Scythes, I bring those. When I haven't, I might squeeze in the Barge. But lacking AP really hurts the Tesla Destructor since most things it wants to shoot at have decent armor. Mine has been great in my games against Orks but against marines, GK and the like it has left me disappointed. Mephrit will help, of course.

[balordazul]

Ok, I must have been under a rock how can you cancel someones stratagem now?

[balordazul]

 

Ok, I must have been under a rock how can you cancel someones stratagem now?

The new dark eldar codex has a stratagem for 3 CP that lets you cancel and refund on a 2-5 or cancel with no refund on a 6.

 

 

Thanks EnsignJoker!  I would have missed this one for a week or two.

[Bonzi]

One pro to add to the Annihilation Barge, though situational, is it's ability to tie a unit up in CC to prevent shooting. It has enough speed, doesn't suffer from damage tables and the fly keyword. This means you can tie up other vehicles or shooting based units for a turn before leaving to continue to shooting, and taking a few wounds in the process isn't the end if the world.

[Tyriks]

One pro to add to the Annihilation Barge, though situational, is it's ability to tie a unit up in CC to prevent shooting. It has enough speed, doesn't suffer from damage tables and the fly keyword. This means you can tie up other vehicles or shooting based units for a turn before leaving to continue to shooting, and taking a few wounds in the process isn't the end if the world.

That's a great idea!

[NTaW]

Worth mentioning is that the Barge has Quantum Shielding and the Scythe options don't.

 

Nothing really to say on tesla, if I could take gauss on my Scythe I would. Those 8 shots have been so consistently useless for me against such a wide variety of targets it's tainted my entire opinion of the weapon. Sure, add MWBD, Mephrit or some other buff and you get closer to useful but I'm fine leaving it out of my army entirely at the moment.

[balordazul]

Added shielding and the assault elements to the list.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

I like the annie barge. It's cheap, and it's easy to acquire model-wise. Also I love the aesthetics of it, as well as the lore behind them. Unsuspecting exploration team intruding on your tomb world? Now they're barbeque. I miss the arc rule they used to have, but accept that it was an ungainly rule to have (still very fluffly, though). Also, the Annie barge can dump more volume of tesla fire on anything short of a LoW, if given the tesla option. So much lightning! Weight of dice is very powerful, and the Annie barge can give, for a very small amount of points, a very large potential number of dice.

[Bonzi]

i just rolled an Anni barge with Tesla Destructor and a gauss cannon.  Results were fantastic.  I ran against an Alpha Legion cultist blob & traitor guard (3 Leman Russes)  2000pt list.

 

I played the barge with tomb blades as a spoiler/distraction formation, shooting as often as I could and constantly tying up the Russes in combat so they couldn't shoot.  As damage output the barge predictably bounced its shots off of the Russes, instead finding its biggest damage coming from targeting Alpha Noise Marines within 12" (no neg 1 to hit rolls for you sir...BTW, the tesla is -1 ap now).  I think it dropped about 5 Noise Marines in total.  It also punched the last wound off of a Leman Russ in close combat...pretty great moment there.  With the help of quantum shielding strat, battle cannon rounds mostly bounced off with the barg...taking a total of about 5 wounds over three turns and healing most of them back before my opponent conceded at the end of the end of my fifth round.

 

The speed/mobility combined with the fly keyword and quantum shielding makes this a great spoiler unit.  My opponent was gritting his teeth as his main anti-tank weaponry (missiles and lascannons) had to choose between trying to put wounds on the barge that was constantly tying up his tanks and using them against my destroyers which were well....destroying things.  If you take a barge don't think of it as a mainline tank, think of it as a peerless distraction unit.  Hard to kill and constantly underfoot, not worth the weapons it takes to bring it down, but impossible to ignore.  Pairs well with tomb blades.