Im thinking about how this item seems really amazing (and ive seen it in a lot of lists) but how i dont think its a good use of points when other things are available. The Burning Blade of Chotec costs a score of points. This gives you an extra -2 AS and flaming. THis means with S5 you have a total of -4 AS. THat looks sweeet!! But then you think about the humble Great Weapon. It costs Khornes Number of points and gives you +2S. This means you have S7 and oh look a -4AS AND its easier to wound, AND you can autokill chariots. Yes there are negatives such as striking last (as saurus tend to do) and not being able to use a shield, but do these negatives really out do the extra points that you get which you can spend on other things? I personally think not. Discuss. P.S. I didnt put any points costs up, so am I not breaking copyright. Right?
Ok, it all comes down to what he will be fighting, how you want to use him, and how much you want him to destroy against how much you want him to live. If he's riding with Cold One Riders, I would heavily suggest Burning Blade because he can get up a 0+ save on Sacr-vet and -1 on Oldblood with the Enchanted Shield, but I'm talking about the Scar-Vet. My favorite combo right now is a Scar-Vet with the Burning Blade, Cold One, Light Armor, Shield of the Mirrored Pool so that he can run well with my units, kill regen monsters like Nurgle daemons, and reflects magic missles. Kool, right? However, on foot against armies like Ogres and Tomb Kings, where higher Strength plays more into what's going on, the great Weapon would be better, especially if you bring a Slann and give the Scar-Vet Jaguar Charm for a nice Bound cast 20" charge into some juicy chariots.
Remember that with the Burning Blade he also has magical and flaming attacks. This is increasingly more important with the rise of regeneration (DoC, Hydra, VC) and the increased numbers of ethereal units (VC) from the last few army books. I'd still favour the GW in most cases unless mounted on a Cold One (where the GW will only give you S6 ). Although, if on a Cold One I normally take a stock standard spear rather then the burning blade anyway.
Depends on what you're up to. If I'm up to daemons(which I usually am) I'd take the blade, ignores their ward and kills does pesky plaguebearers like flies(which they are!) If I'm up to goblins... GW, those goblins die on a 2+ still but anyway, those pesky chariots will flee in terror. TK? Then I'd take him on a cold one with the blade and shield for some hard hitting anti-char guy with some toughness! WoC? The blade, the blade! Striking before them and denying them ward saves is nice! so... it's even for me...
I cant see giving him the GW i would go for Chotec if these were my only 2 options. I typically prefer the Sword of might or striking. SoMight give you S6 so -3 armor and easy to kill for same points, and striking means you hit way more of curse striking is better suited as RnF killer which Vet's excel at so why not further their ability for combat Res. now if you could give a Skink a GW that would be great!!
With BBoC you can get a shield, which grants better armour save and if you are mounted, GW is just a dumb choice. Sure GW gives 2 higher S but if you mount your saurus on a cold one and give him the maiming shield and BBoC, he has armour of 0 or 1, a few extra (flaming) attacks, fear, stubborn, (stupidity rarely fails with coldblooded) and a higher movement. Ofcourse you cant give all your heroes the BBoC, so some saurus characters might end up cheaper and stronger equipped with the great weapon.
Claiming that scar vets on cold ones are stubborn is just a dumb choice (unless your army is centred around the horn which is rare indeed, though sneaky). GW's are not worthwhile when mounted, but they are excellent for scar vets on foot. I would only ever use a scar vet on foot if I wanted to use either the cold one hide or the jaguar vet, and the GW is particularly suited to the jaguar warrior due to its S7 chariot popping ability coming out of nowhere. Indeed for me a great weapon is the weapon of choice for the (item cost filled) cold one hide warrior too as he is so tough that I don't really mind him striking last, not that it makes a huge difference with such low I. To conclude I only ever use a GW for my Scar Vets on foot. One thing to note however is the certain humour in casting The Bear's Anger on a scar vet with the cold one hide, resulting in a T7 S7 beast with 7 attacks with a 3+ save, all for 144 points plus a slann.
For the sake of this discussion, lets assume we're talking about on-foot scar-vet only, since you'd be quite foolish to take a great weapon while mounted... With such precious few magical attacks available to combat oriented lizard armies, I think you'd be nuts not to take magical attacks on a character. But again for the sake of this discussion, I'll also assume you are going to take venom of the firefrog to boost yourself to str7 magical poison attacks. This puts the cost a little less than chotec, and takes magical out of the equation (since both are now magical). Str7 vs. Str5 (both at -4 to armor) Well, this would be a no-brainer of course. Higher is better and all. But how much better? When you get down to it, warhammer is predominantly a game with T3 models being the standard. If going against T3, both weapons will do roughly the same damage, with a few freebies from the great weapon's poison. T4 is common, but slightly less so. T5 and up becomes quite uncommon. The only reason exceedingly high strength is valuable (other than the odd chariot pop) is the armor busting capacity, which equals out with these two weapons. The standard heavy armor and shield trooper fighting to the front has 3+ armor, which -4 AS negates perfectly. Flaming vs. not Regeneration is becoming popular, and if you have a hero supporting a block of troops (at least, he SHOULD be if he is on foot), what happens when you get hit with a block of regenning troops? The hero with the flaming weapon will swing the tide of battle your way much more reliably by killing off rank and file. Being able to put some wounds on a hydra and striking fear into the hearts of flammable enemies is valuable as well. Flaming takes a few of those "what if" scenarios involving regen off the table. Defense! Ok, it is bad enough your scar vet is on foot without the armor bonus from a cold one... now you want to take his shield away too? He just becomes a little too squishy for my taste... T5 with 4+ armor... hmm those are the defenses on a gyrocopter! And that thing always gets blasted to #$@. You could put up with stupidity taking hide of the cold ones, but that's quite a price to pay for something that can be gotten with just riding a cold one (which grants mobility and a few other smaller benefits). A normal scar-vet on foot, I'd want to see carrying an enchanted shield, which is possible with a one-hander like the burning blade. Getting him that 2+ save is enough to start discouraging people allocating a lot of attacks and picking off those two wounds on the scar vet. Chariots Really, having a great weapon on your slow ground-pounder of a scar-vet will only give chariots one unit they can't charge to the front. Quite likely, it will just charge something else (or the side of the vet's unit), since it will be faster than M4 anyway. I think of it like the mirror shield... seems really cool to reflect all those missiles but the opponent won't cast at that unit knowing how bad it will go for him. There is of course value in altering the enemy's plan, and if you expect 2 or more chariots it might be worth it... Then again would those chariots really be charging a saurus unit frontally anyway? So you can guess my vote goes to BBoC, but the great weapon JSoD is still doable, as he's a one man suicide squad anyway. But for all traditional purposes, the BBoC is a great value for its points.