Howling Banshees or Striking Scorpions?
Thursday, February 12th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
This is a question I see pop up constantly on 40K forums. Which is the better Eldar close combat option? Scorpions or Banshees? And you often get a few people that swear by one, then a few for the other. So, which is it?
And the answer is: It depends. Love those vague answers, don’tcha? Allow me to elaborate…
Banshees hit like a ton bricks. With fleet they will easily make assault. Even if they need to pile out of a transport that’s had to sit in front of the enemy for a turn they can still make it in without much trouble. On the charge they will strike first, with the only exception being other banshees that would strike at the same time. They ignore armor saves with every attack, making them downright evil against most elite close combat units. And you can even give the exarch powers like counter-charge.
Banshees are also made of glass. They have mediocre armor and a low toughness stat. If the banshees don’t kill what they attack, they’re probably going to get hurt back. Hard. This makes supporting them essential to their success. Farseers with Doom helps overcome Strength 3, and some good shooting units can soften up charge targets for them to ensure they do, in fact, plaster the foe on the charge.
Scorpions have a lot of attacks. A lot. And they have good armor saves. And grenades, which isn’t as nice as a banshee mask for combat but can really help in a pinch against some vehicles. They also have higher Strength. The result is that they will deal a lot of wounds, forcing a lot of saves, which is ideal vs. guardsmen, tyranids, orks, or other poorly armored saps. Scorpions can also get Move Through Cover and Infiltrate, so you can Outflank with them.
Scorpions don’t have as big a bite. Without Fleet to insure a charge under more diverse conditions they’re not as reliable about getting to the enemy before they get to you and they don’t have any counter-charge abilities. With the exception of a Scorpion Claw (basically a power fist) the scorpions have no way to ignore armor, making them far less effective against many assault specialists.
In short:
Banshees are a scalpel, able to inflict deadly blows to the enemy if you’re careful and provide proper support. But without the support they are flimsy and will snap under pressure.
Scorpions are a monkey wrench, able to act with little support and capable of sneaking behind enemy lines to hit squishier targets, contest objectives, and make a general nuisance of themselves, but they’ll typically have a hard time of it if faced with a real assault specialist unit.
So, do you need someone to kill nasty enemy stuff? Banshees.
Need to muck with enemy plans? Scorpions.
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