I'm having trouble wanting to use crabjacks...

[Faex]

I've been playing for a good 6 months, but I have never used one of the crabjacks nor really had the will to use one. I know people talk up the Harrower or Leviathan a lot but I just can't seem to find a place for them or what to use them against.

Any advice?

[PG_seraphsong]

Leviathan + Deneghra1 = Win.

Harrower + Mortenebra = Win.

Leviathan + Skarre2 = Win.

Harrower + Goreshade1 = Win.

Just a few suggestions

[Adurot]

Leviathan with eBastard is pretty win as well.

[Decade]

Well, in general, you take a crabjack if you want something durable, and mobile. Crabjacks are slower than the slayer chassis by 1 spd, but their innate pathfinder, amphibious and steady makes them much more mobile than their speed might initially lead you to believe. They also have some of the best in faction guns.

Since you didn't actually tell us who you're using, here's my take on them with Mortenebra.

Harrower + Morty = giant middle finger to infantry. Terminal velocity + thresher + overrun can blow open infantry formations. And the mortifier canon is great at taking out screened UAs or support pieces, as well as triggering overrun for another jack. I always take at least 1 harrower with Morty.

Desicrator + Morty = possibly 1 turn caster kill. Terminal velocity + feat + crit shred. Auto boosted vivisector swings w/ rerolls dramatically improve your chances of landing a crit, which leads to a second, free attack, which can lead to more crits and more buzz-saw mayhem. With a little focus from Morty or a siren, the thing can buy more attacks if it needs to. And its plague bringer can screen Morty from single wound, non-reach melee infantry by making a death zone that she can park herself in.

Leviathan + Morty = sniper. Interface the Levi with Morty, and use her focus to buy & boost shots. The gun's also got a pretty good range to it, and can perforate large based models thanks to burst fire. Also, the Levi's claw is the same P+S as the desicrator's saw, meaning it will put the hurt onto most things it can snag with it.

[Ulli]

The Leviathan with Mortenebra is also really good. With the extra FOC from a WWS and Interface from Mortenebra you can get up to 3 fully boosted shots.
On top of that, you have all rerolls thanks to the feat.
You can kill casters with it (not all, but many and it is nice to have this option).

I think the Harrower could be also good with Skarre1 (Dark Guidance with Thresher. Mjammm).

[2LiveIs2Die]

Step 1) WWS allocated a focus to a jack and the levithan.
Step 2) Deryliss casts overrun on the jack with a focus.
Step 3) Mortenebra feats and moves into position (possibly needing to do a failed charge to get there).
Step 4) The jack with overrun moves and kills something triggering overrun.
Step 5) The leviathan moves out of activation into base to base with mortenebra and within 13" of their caster.
Step 6) 3 fully boosted RAT 7 POW 13s on their caster, with rerolls.


Also skarre1's theme list lets you get two advance deploy harrowers, which is insane since on turn two they will be messing people up with P+S 21 threshers.

[PG_Tionas]

When I started playing oh so long ago, I took the Slayer-chassis jacks pretty much exclusively. Now, I try to drop a leviathan in every army. In addition to being a bullet machine, which is great, its also a denial piece. with one focus, this monster can have an 18" threat range at pow 13+. That'll make people very wary. with two or three focus, it becomes just hateful, either two boosted shots (hit or damage, as you need, dictated by circumstance) or one fully boosted attack, OR three shots. Its just a good piece that people have to account for.

[usbprime]

In recent games i've taken the desecrator, and it's quite possibly my favorite new jack. If you have banes, it can run nearly on it's own. I have been running my battlegroup and usually 1 unit on one side of the board, and i run a unit of knights, the desecrator, and a WWS up the other side in a sort of flanking setup, and it's been pretty successful. Every round, i give the desecrator 1 focus, then activate him next to a bane, and move him up and lob a scather. If i get a crappy deviation and it lands on top of an enemy, they i use the focus to boost damage to make sure that the models or most of the models that are hit die. I haven't fielded the harrower much, but that was mainly because the metal model drove me nuts, but now that i have the plastic(and yes i magnetized it) i can drop one of them down more often.

[Admiral_Arzar]

I've been playing for a good 6 months, but I have never used one of the crabjacks nor really had the will to use one. I know people talk up the Harrower or Leviathan a lot but I just can't seem to find a place for them or what to use them against.

Any advice?

They just aren't good in the majority of cases. Congrats on figuring this out .

[zeezok]

Besides Morty, Coven can run the Leviathan pretty well since they have 9 focus, eSkarre also runs it really well since you can boost after seeing the results of your roll with Seas of Fate. I haven't used a Desecrator yet but it seems like it could be a great piece, especially in scenario games, due to the Scather template. Harrower is great for mulching infantry and the oddball Ghost Shot at a caster trying to hide in the rear with the gear.

Generally, I take Leviathan when facing somebody with low def / high armor since I like to spend my focus on additional shots instead of boosting to hit, Khador is a prime target, Menoth is also good but beware the Choir. Harrower can be used in many lists but I tend to look at it as mostly an infantry lawnmower. I can't give you much info on Desecrator since I haven't fielded it yet but if you run Banes then I could see how it can be a pretty solid choice, especially in scenario play.

[PG_Tionas]

They just aren't good in the majority of cases. Congrats on figuring this out .

I find this to be generally incorrect and misleading. Guns, more and more, are becoming a necessity of the game, and Cryx has the possibility of having some of the best shooting around. The reason we have guns that lack standard "oomph" is because as a faction, we can make anything awesome. A vast majority of our casters have ways to increase the damage output of anything they are near. For a single focus, A leviathan can make two rat 9 pow 19 attacks against something 18 inches away. That's devastating. Its only one turn under denegrah, but the point is there.
what does your all melee list do against Captain Haley? Epic Lylyth? Kara Sloan? Seige? They are all casters that can pick apart melee-only forces. Maybe its just all the People I play, but a monopic army build will get you crunched.

14 casters.
Armor: Epic Goreshade, Coven, Denegrah, Epic Denegrah, Asphyxious, Epic Asphyxious
Defense: Epic Skarre, Scaverous
Neither: Skarre, Goreshade, Terminus, Mortenebra, Venethrax, Asphyxious 3

[raptor1313]

They just aren't good in the majority of cases. Congrats on figuring this out .

Hilariously incorrect.

Skarre2 and black spot allows a Leviathan to mulch up to a half-dozen infantry in a turn at range (as black spot's -2DEF helps you hit, and ROF3 and black spot's additional attack ignoring ROF lets you max out at 6 shots).

Goreshade2 and Phantom Hunter make the Leviathan a nasty ranged threat that ignores everything but Stealth when shooting.

Terminus loves a couple of Leviathans to feed focus to/screen. Contrary to popular belief, if you have undead around you and no one's whipping spells at you, you don't actually NEED to sit on your focus unless someone's about to punch you.

Seriously, if you like direct damage with spells, compare it to a Leviathan. You're usually firing off FOCUS7, but you're burning 3 focus for ONE shot. The Leviathan can crank out 3 POW15s against a heavy target for all of 2 focus.

Harrowers excel at mulching infantry, and with souls + focus they become a hell of an assassination threat if the enemy doesn't screen against tramples. Or they'll just start ruining things in general. Also, as pointed out, they can laugh off some screens with the gun.

Honestly, it's been a while since I've had the urge to run something like a Seether or Slayer outside of specific circumstances. Anyone with one good boostable gun can cripple an arm on that whopping ARM17, and then you lose out on the combo strike / chain attack of death. The Reaper gets a pass because it's tricky with Drag and has reach, but yeah, I'm not sure I want to dump 9 points on an ARM17 jack that can lose out on its nastiest piece of kit.

[PG_Tionas]

I'm in the same boat. I bring my Troops for Melee-death. the Seether/Slayer tends to stay in my bag. My Jacks tend to provide fire support, while my army gets into the juicy bits. Solo's providing the extra support thats needed with what I'm pulling in.

I've found that spells, while good, are more focus-intensive than I can really afford to toss out more than one.

Along the same vein: I tend to run Defiler/Nightwretches as well. Clutch sprays and pow 14's have really been a boon.

[raptor1313]

I'd hazard that a fair number of folks forget what our Arc Nodes can DO, because their experiences tend to be "Ok, that just channeled a debuff. KILL IT!" and the node tends to die a gruesome death or get crippled.

I do like the Deathripper when there's a MAT buff available or an ARM debuff, as then that little Sustained Attack starts getting funny.

[PG_Tionas]

No kidding! I find that a lot of the times, my arc nodes survive because I'm not willing to sacrifice them early game for little or no gain. Maybe I need assistance in figuring out how to get the best out of them "disposable" style, but I never end up feeling that it was worth it.

[Faex]

Sorry for the late reply but thanks for the responses. My question was just in general as I tend to skip around on warcasters with p/eSkarre being my favorite. I guess I'll have to buy the new kit and try them out!

[various]

Crabjacks are pretty decent: probably have best guns in the Cryx list, are a bit sturdier, and have Pathfinder (which is something we don't exactly gave a lot of). Personally i'm surprised that i haven't seen more love for the Desecrator due to it having Affinity with Banes which gets it a free Focus if it starts within 3" of a them. Got one today and keen to try it out. i'm definately in favour of the Crabjacks. Give them a go: you won't regret it.

[Gutterrkraw]

The the Desecrator is an awesome jack its 4" aoe can hit a suprising area and makes hitting squishy support models behind large targets really nice. He can also get his focus off BLT since hes also a bane, so if hes following a unit of your banes and hes too far away from them check his distance from BLT he might be close enough to give him a focus.

[lastspartacus]

2 Leviathans in a Terminus brick + WSC. Its pretty amazing and really levels out the list.

[Teej]

wow crab jacks are pretty cool, this is embarassing to say since ive been playing cryx for 7 months almost and i never realized that they were awesome lol, when i see them i think they look fragile