Anti-tank Scourges, blasters and the haywireblasters

8th edition codex has landed and I do not need to tell you - it is huge. Lots of new options, many weapons revised. I decided to start with a quick look at my favorite Drukhari unit - Scourges.

I like to use them both as Tank hunters and as Character snipers but for the purpose of this post I am gonna focus at the 2 anti-vehicle options that look really appealing to me - new d6d Blasters and new Haywire Blasters. The buffs to Heat lance look fine but then again... you enter >9" from an enemy with your 6S shot and that ridiculous AP5 (which negates 2+ armor but you wound on 5s - not the best deal at all).

I did my calculations for 3 types of Vehicles. A Rhino Equivalent (T7, Sv3+), a Land Raider equivalent (T8, Sv2+) and an unfriendly Raider (T5, Sv4+/5++). 

We have to remember, that a Blaster scourge costs almost 50% more than HWB scourge. I adjusted the %chance to the cost and here you have it:

Blaster and Haywire blaster

vs a Rhino

vs a Landraider

vs a Raider

the X-axis shows damage dealt (Well, theoretically 1 hwb can do even 12 dmg, but probability of it doing  7+ is ~0,5% against a Raider)

the Y-axis shows probability of doing that much dmg

By looking at those graphs we can easily tell that the haywire blaster is better at shooting vehicles. It is the best weapon if we want to strip a Tank from last few wounds. A hwb doesn't care about invs, quantum-shielding and spirit stones but it is next to useless at sniping characters and killing non-vehicle opponents.

Tho a Scourge with a Haywire blaster has >50% chance of getting at least 1 wound on a Landraider (a blaster equipped one <28%) it cannot benefit form CP reroll that well - we all know and we all love that sweet sweet dmg roll of "6" on a blaster shot from a cheap winged Drukhari.

Conclusion

When playing against a Vehicle heavy opponent Haywire is a useful tool at getting that killing blow on a Tank but it cannot and should not serve as a primary AT option for our army.