8th Ed. other uses for swarms

[THE_LAIR]

we now know that swarmss can be usefull in specialised lists. using the arc of sotek.

but could swarms also be used for shielding ur dino's from canons as hey have the same ammount of wounds as a dino but cost only 70 pts for a shield

do you guys find this to be effectice ?

 

[Haemoglobin]

If I'm not mistaken, Swarms cant block cannons because of their size? I don't have the BRB on me right now but I think they have a rule where they don't block LoS of anything. Doesn't make sense to have a couple of smallish lizards being able to block a cannonball

 

[Chunk]

As far as I can recall, only Monstrous stuff (Beasts, Cavalry, Infantry, Monsters) can block cannonballs, sadly Swarms cannot.

 

[rychek]

I thought any model that gets hit, but not killed by a cannonball stops a cannonball (my meta is 90% cannon free, so I may very well be wrong). So unless swarms cannot be hit by a cannonball, period, they could be used to protect a larger target from them.

EDIT: grammar

 

[Mahtis]

From Brb p. 113.

However, if the monster or monstrous infantry/beast/cavalry model is not slain, the sheer bulk of the creature robs the cannonball of all momentum and the shot travels no further.

So swarms cannot "catch" the cannonball for our stegadon/carnosaur/bastiladon.

 

[rychek]

So sub a razordon for the swarm and you've got an effective catcher.

 

[lizardmek]

also terradons would be good being monster cav

 

[MI_Tiger]

But they only stop the cannonball if they aren't killed. So using a 2 wound terradon doesn't seem like the best choice.

 

[Dreadgrass]

Off-topic but yay for mathammer! Presuming no prior damage, there is ~ a 31% chance for a terradon to catch and stop a cannonball. (1/6 chance of not wounding, 1/6 chance of causing <2 wounds) where a Razordon/ Sallie has ~ a 63% chance (1/6 chance of not wounding, 2/6 chance of using a handler as a catching mitt, 2/6 chance of causing <2 wounds).

Back to swarms, Im planning on running 2 units of them, primarily for "They're Everywhere!" shenanigans, but I am wondering if an ark supported unit, 1 wide by X deep could be a decent tarpit against enemies that throw out low(ish) numbers of high quality attacks, as anything over S4 is wasted on them. Also, they could be handy against enemies that rely on hatred/ impact hits or the like by taking a charge with enough wounds to soak up the damage.