Orikan and Lychguard: How to Make Your Opponents Hate You

So I did a two parter on why Zahndrekh is awesome. And he is, he's flexible and has a toolbox that lets him have the right tool at the right time. But Orikan gives him a run for his money when it comes to being the best Named Character in the book.

Surprisingly Killy

Orikan, surprisingly, is probably the best Assault character in our book. While that's supposed to go to Obyron, it just patently doesn't. Orikan in his non-empowered form is nothing special, just a Cryptek with an extra attack and a Phase Shifter. But then you look at his weapon. SUser AP2 rerolling all hits is pretty good, at his normal statline of A2/WS4 that's pretty great at murdering even Terminators. And then once he Empowers, it's even better. Empowered Orikan can pretty much murder anything that he gets to, 4 AP2 attacks rerolling to hit at WS5 and S7 claims the life of all but the most dedicated enemies. Even Obyron with his Counterblow only comes close to that amount of damage output, but he doesn't have an Invuln save.

But then you move on to the next part of his kit. Master Chronomancer gives the normal Cryptek +1 to RP, but also gives rerolls to all Saving Throws of 1. That's right, not just Cover or Armor Saves, but all Saving throws. Including his own, so naturally he has a 4++ rerolling 1s and a 4+ RP, which is only slightly worse than a 3++/4+++. So, relatively survivable and with high damage output, though you really want him to be Empowered so he doesn't instantly die to S8 Thunder Hammers (assuming he's not your Warlord).

The Toughest Bodyguards

What is a Character without a good retinue? Dead meat, that's what. And Orikan brings one of the best in the game.

Dispersion Shield Lychguard by themselves are pretty good. T5 with a 3++ plus RP is darn hard to kill. And then Orikan amplifies that. 3++ rerolling 1s followed by 4+ RP is near impossible to remove from the board. And of course, 2 attacks each at S5 AP3 is nothing to sneeze at. Like Orikan himself, the Shieldguard are surprisingly killy and tough.

Orikan plus 10 Shieldguard marching up the board is a massive blocker that people will have to deal with or die. Throw an Overlord, Lord, and/or Destroyer Lord in there with them for Warscythes and they'll cut down everything in their way. Zahndrekh can give them a 2+ rerollable and Zealot. It's an extremely variant and powerful unit, but it can get expensive fast.

The Numbers

A Shieldguard with no boost to his Reanimate ignores 7/9 (77.78%) of all wounds
With a boost to Reanimate from the Decurion (or a normal Cryptek), that jumps to 5/6 (83.33%) saved
Orikan giving Rerolls to 1s boosts that to 8/9 (88.89%) saved
If you're part of a Decurion and the Overlord is nearby to reroll RPs of 1, that's a

Shieldguard, no Decurion, no Characters: 7/9 (77.78%) saved
Shieldguard, 4+ RP, no Characters: 5/6 (83.33%) saved
Shieldguard with Orikan: 8/9 (88.89%) saved
Shieldguard with Orikan and Decurion Overlord: 49/54 (90.74%) saved

That's pretty crazy. I mean, statistics are dirty lies sure and you could roll a bunch of 2s in a row, but numerically it should take ~108 wounds to remove 10 Decurion Lychguard with the Overlord and Orikan. And they always get 4+ RP, even against ID, thanks to Decurion bonus plus Orikan bonus.

The Cost

Of course, there's downsides to this. The 10 Shieldguard + Orikan + Overlord unit costs 500 points before upgrades to the Overlord, and since it's a Decurion that's also 399 required points from Warriors/Immortals/Tomb Blades in the Reclamation Legion and 50 + 80 for the Lord/Overlord in the Royal Court needed for Orikan (and that's before upgrading them). Both of the Overlords and the Lord probably want Warscythes, so that's 60 more.

So you're looking at 1089 baseline to make this run. And even then, you'll probably want to throw on Phase Shifters for the Overlords, maybe you'll want to upgrade one to the Voidreaper. The Immortals you'll probably want to bump up past their min squad of 5, and 3 flat Tomb Blades aren't worth much either.

Auxiliary forces you'll need to add in as well, though that can vary from a min squad of Flayed Ones for 65, to a kitted out Destroyer Cult for easily over 700.

You can run plenty of other variants, of course. A squad of 5 with just Orikan is less durable, but much cheaper and can be run in a CAD so you aren't shackled to the Decurion for list building. Or it can be run in a minimum suqad size for 150 points cheaper, which leaves more wiggle room on the rest of the army.

Downsides and Strategy

The unit has the obvious downside of being an Assault unit that has no real mobility. 6" move without Fleet and only with Move Through Cover if they're part of a Decurion or Orikan is from a Royal Court (or if Zahndrekh gives it to them with Traits). They really rely on their durability to be able to march across the table without taking massive casualties in the process.

You can possibly combat this by putting them in a Night Scythe, which can put them anywhere up the table 42" (36" move, 6" disembark) the turn they come in. It has the obvious downside of being beholden to Reserve rolls, but that's always a factor to take into consideration.

You can also consider giving them a Veil of Darkness, though that has inherent problems with scatter, especially if you're taking a big 10 man unit plus Characters. A better option is to consider Obyron, as he gives them a great Warscythe and also combos with Zahndrekh if you have him moving on the other side of the table.

While a 10 man Deathstar with Orikan, Zahndrekh, a Warscythe Lord, and a Voidreaper Overlord might sound fun and enticing, it might be more reasonable to just have a moderate amount of Shieldguard with Orikan, and have them Run onto an objective and hold it until anything they can kill gets close. Even an objective in the open will be hard to take from them, as an Orikan unit of Shieldguard needs 9 Wounds per Lychguard to kill. They can stand on something all day and never die. Even just a 5 man unit with Orikan will be hard to budge and relatively cheap, and something that any non-vehicle unit will be wary to get in Charge range of.

I think that's probably the best idea, to less rely on them as a super expensive linchpin unit, and more as a blocker unit that gives insane area control and will eat more focus fire than Wraiths, point for point.

There's a bunch of different ways to utilize this squad, and I'm sure we're just seeing the tip of the Iceberg when it comes to Orikanstar. What have you found to be effective?

Flayed Ones are the New Hotness

The Past

Let's get it out of the way: last edition, Flayed Ones sucked. Period. But why were they so bad? 3 attacks each on a relatively sturdy body that could Infiltrate, Outflank, or Deep Strike isn't bad, is it? And cheap, 13 ppm with a min squad of 5 is simple to put on the board. So why the stigma?

Well, easiest answer - they couldn't do what they were supposed to do. Yeah, they had 3 attacks each, but at I2 they went only before Unwieldy. They died in droves before they could attack. It mainly hinged on how Reanimation worked. Because it wasn't until the end of the phase, any that went down didn't get to attack even if they all stood up at the end. And given that they went down, there was a decent chance that they didn't get to stand back up because they probably lost combat and ran away, losing all the tokens.

Not to mention that 3 attacks each at WS4 S4 isn't terrible, but it's also nothing overly special. With no modifiers or rerolls of any kind, they didn't really do as much damage as you'd think. 

The Present

Things are different now. Reanimation nearly singlehandedly saved Flayed Ones from being the same as last edition. Now that it's taken right after the wounds, there's a 1/3 to 1/2 chance that they'll actually get to fight at their Initiative, meaning you'll get way more attacks in than you would last edition. It also means that even if you lose combat, it'll be by far less than previously, so you're more likely to continue to stay in, which is great.

Not to mention that getting a 4+ reanimate is easy now with the Decurion, when before you would have to sacrifice Infiltrate to put a Lord/Overlord in with them.

And on top of that, they gained an extra attack and Shred per model, all while retaining the same cost. Buffs on top of buffs! So not only did RP fix what they did, the Flayer Claws made them better at it. The inclusion of Fear isn't that big (considering the prevalence of ATSKNF or Fearless), but it is a free USR for nothing!

3 attacks at WS4 S4 was only .75 wounds per Flayed One against a Space Marine, so .25 after 3+ saves. Now, 4 attacks at the same statline with Shred is 1.5 wounds per Flayed One against a Space Marine, .5 after 3+ saves. Double the effectiveness for the exact same price. That's amazing!

The Future

Let's face it, cheap Infiltrate was never a bad thing. But now that those cheap Infiltrators are actually good at what they do, it's even better. Seeing Flayed Ones in lists is going to be a thing as people figure this out. Cheap, effective Assault troops are never a bad thing to have.

A squad of 5 is one of the cheapest min squads in the book (only Scarabs, a single Destroyer, and a single Lord are cheaper) and can be placed right in the middle of the board with Infiltrate. Starting them in any terrain, especially on Objectives, creates a veritable minefield that anything non-vehicle moving across needs to be aware of. Sure, they don't have ObSec and they can't charge Turn 1, but suddenly you have lots of early game map control that your opponent can't easily remove.

If they're part of a Decurion (which I think is best right now), they have a 4+/4+++ and whatever Cover Saves they start out in. Though they can't charge turn 1, they're going to be extremely hard to remove if they Infiltrate correctly. Plus, since they can't charge Turn 1 anyway, they can just Go To Ground for a 3+ Cover in Ruins!

The Bosses

Flayed Ones also gain a bit of help from some of the HQ choices. Imotekh is the obvious one. If you Deep Strike a squad or two of them, revel in your rerolls. If you Infiltrate them, enjoy the free Stealth in your cover. 

Zahndrekh can help too. Switching Traits to Conquerer of Cites gives them Move Through Cover (which they don't get from the Decurion) and Stealth in Ruins. For boards with lots of ruins, they're going to be much, much more dangerous. Additionally, if he joins one, having Zealot/Fearless in an Assault squad is pretty good, as is the Reroll 1s to Hit in Assault. 

Getting an HQ with them to Infiltrate is impossible unless you have a generic Warlord that rolls Master of Ambush. However, you can give an HQ the Veil of Darkness and Deep Strike with them, which gives them the option to have a Cryptek, Lord, or Overlord, any of which could be fairly useful overall. 

If they choose to Outflank, you can put any HQ with them, which could be a decent way to get certain things across the board, or get Warscythes into the back line fairly easily. 

Popping in a DLord with them might be the best option. He gives them a lot: Preferred Enemy, a 4++ to tank on, and probably a Warscythe and Artifact. He can Deep Strike with them or join them for Outflank. It's very solid.

So, you have to jump through some hoops to get one to join the squad. It might not be worthwhile, but since you decide how to join ICs during deployment, it might be in certain games. Plus, if the IC is from a Decurion or just one of the Formations, he gives them Move Through Cover. Solid.

Stratagems

The big thing that Flayed Ones bring, other than solid Assault power and durability, is Flexibility. They have all the different Deployment options other than Scout (Deep Strike, Infiltrate, Outflank), so every game you use them you can look at the situation and decide what would be the best way to put them on the board. Deployment is Hammer and Anvil and enemy is camping in a corner? Outflank is great. Dawn of War gives lots of room to Infiltrate. If there's lots of open area, put some in Deep Strike. If you're expecting an Alpha Strike of Drop Pods or the like, just putting them in your Deployment Zone to charge anything that comes in early is viable too. 

Cheap, effective, and flexible. I wouldn't run them in big blobs of 20 (though it is amusing to put out 100 attacks on the charge with Shred), probably in squads of 5-10 to have a lot of board presence and MSU viability. 

While Lychguard are tough as nails and good bodyguards, Wraiths are great shock troopers with their speed, and Praetorians are interesting 2+ save killers, I think Flayed Ones have a space as a very viable Assault choice in our book. They're really only really hindered by mobility - like Lychguard, they're only 6" move per turn and don't have Fleet. If the opponent wants to keep distance and shoot them down, they very well can.

But, as I said, being one of the cheapest options in the book means that they can be expendable and just spend several turns camping an objective or just being general area denial to basically anything that's not T8 or a vehicle. If they get shot to death, your more expensive, powerful options are pointedly not getting shot, which is good.

Going back to my MSU post, I didn't include Flayed Ones, but I think peppering two or three 5-man packs is cheap, easy, and puts lots of threats on the board that can't be ignored. I would highly recommend checking them out.

Zahndrekh's Bag of Tricks Part 2: The Right Tool for the Right Time

Decided to split this up into two because the other section got so long. Zahndrekh really is that good.

The big thing that people are fascinated by is his ability to choose a Warlord trait. Good set Warlord Traits are good to come by. Being able to choose from the army's list is even better. Better than that? Being able to choose from the BRB lists. Oh yes. Even though you can't use the same one twice, and Turn 1 you're using Zealot, but from Turn 2 onwards you have choices. Make use of them. You're not going to use every one every single game, and some you may never use in your entire life, but know what you have.

Red indicates something actually useless for one reason or another. Blue ones are going to be ones you'll use very often. Everything else has a use, sometimes rather situational though.

Necron:

1. Eternal Warrior. Good when it comes up. Zahndrekh wants to be as far away from Assault as possible, and he should have a retinue to keep those pesky ID guns away from him, but occasionally he'll need it. And you'll want it when you need it, a one shot Warlord sucks. 
2. Zealot. Not terrible, though if you want to keep it you'll need to hold onto it and not switch, which can be limiting. If he's part of a Lychstar or hanging with Flayed Ones for some reason, it's a good option.
3. Reroll Fear/Pinning/Morale bubble. Pretty good again, but LD 10 means you should be passing these more often than not. Though, if he's not in combat but a unit in the bubble is, he can give this to them so they don't run.
4. Reserve Manipulation. Obviously good... if you have reserves. Scythe are still pretty good, so you will probably have them.
5. 12" Relentless and Crusader bubble. Suddenly you can Rapid Fire and Charge. Not bad by any means, but again, very situational.
6. Must always issue/accept challenges, gets rerolls in a challenge or Hatred. Hahaha no. If you need help in Assault, there's other options. I can't think of a time where I'd want this over Fearless/IWND, reroll 1s in Assault, or even Furious Charge or Counter Attack.

Tactical (skip if playing Eternal War):

1. Discard 2 Cards per turn instead of 1. Not bad if you want to, you know, discard 2 of your Cards. VPs win games, and sometimes getting a better hand is better than getting a buff or USR.
2. Force your opponent to discard a card. Awesome! But, if you think about it, it's pretty happenstance. You need to know that they have a card that they will for sure achieve the next turn and will give them an advantage, and then they might draw a good card anyway. If you know for sure they have a d3 (or 2 VP in Tournaments) card that they're likely to achieve next turn, it might be worthwhile.
3. Generate an extra card on your first turn. Can't use this.
4. Can discard and redraw all cards on your first turn. Can't use this.
5. Reroll dice for d3 victory point cards. Not bad, but many (if not most) tournaments have been ruling all d3 victory point cards as 2 VP. And these are very rare and hard to achieve anyway, usually getting discarded or scored as the 1VP version. So... meh.
6. Gain an extra VP if the warlord scores a "Secure Objective X" card. This is pretty good, probably the easiest one to take advantage of on this table.

Command:

1. 12" bubble of use Warlord leadership. *Looks at Necron book.* *Everything LD10* *Pass*
2. Enemies within 12" use lowest leadership instead of highest. I mean, super situational. If it's very important that the opponent fail the Morale test and it's a very big difference between the highest and lowest LD, maybe consider it. But picking this over other options is pretty iffy.
3. 12" Move Through Cover bubble. I mean, it's good, but if you think it's really that important you can just be a Decurion or take Zahndrekh as part of a Royal Court. If you want a straight CAD, it might come up more.
4. Add 1" to Run or Charge in a bubble. Nice, if you're running something Assault oriented such as Lychstar. Not so much for shooty Crons though, but nice if you want to assure getting to an objective.
5. 12" bubble reroll 1s to hit in shooting. This will probably be your biggest go-to trait.
6. 12" bubble of reroll 1s to hit in assault. If you're in Assault, yes. It's good. But then, you also need to weigh it against Fearless, Eternal Warrior, etc. So not go-to, but highly, highly likely to come up.

Strategic:

1. All units have Move Through Cover and Stealth(Ruins). Not terrible, but as above, giving out Move Through Cover is easy to get if you really want it. Army-wide Stealth is pretty rad, though, so you might take it a lot just for that.
2. First turn is Night Fight and your dudes have Night Vision. First turn Warlord traits do nothing, and Night Vision does even less.
3. Warlord and 3 non-vehicle units have Infiltrate. See above.
4. Reserve manipulation. Goodness again depends on your number of reserves, but overall good. Note: statistically this is better than the Necron one, since 3+ rerolling is better than 2+, but the Necron one also helps you delay if you want the -1. Both are good in their own ways.
5. Enemy has a -1 to Reserve Rolls. Read above, but replace "your" with "the enemy's". Good depending on your opponent's level of reserves.
6. d3 Pinning tests on the enemy's first turn. As #2 and #3 here, can't use this.

Personal:

1. Warlord has Counter Attack. Hahaha no.
2. Warlord has Furious Charge. See #1. I mean, for both, I'm sure you can find a situation where getting +1S or an extra attack might be useful, but for the most part you're never going to pick this over other stuff.
3. Warlord has Outflank. You can't choose to go into Outflank reserve unless you have it before the game starts, so this is 100% useless.
4. +1VP per character he kills in a challenge. Guess. (Hint, it's really bad)
5. Warlord has FNP. RP is better in every way, every time.
6. Fearless and IWND. Fearless for a blob is good, IWND is nice but hopefully you won't need it. Still, Fearless is one of the best USRs in the game and if you switched away from Zealot and need to stay in combat, this is your guy.

Again, not everything in black is going to come up, and in fact some of them suck. But, there's always fringe cases, and having them is better than not having them.

In most games, you'll likely jump to one of the Reserve traits on turn 2 (either to deny the opponent or to boost your own), and then go to reroll 1s in shooting for most of the game unless you need a buff like Fearless, Charge distance, or Stealth.

As was brought to me by another poster, the strength isn't that any of these Traits wins the game by themselves, the strength comes from having the one you need for the right situation. You're almost never going to need to force your opponent to discard a card, but it might suddenly let you win by 1 point in a game. And you'll be glad you had it then.

The Robot, the Myth, the Legend

Zahndrekh's power comes from planning and thinking ahead. List creation with Allies can take Counter Tactics from a nice boost to something that shapes your army. Looking at the next turn and picking the right Trait can tip the scales in your favor, even if it's only a little bit. But a little bit might be exactly what you need.

And of course, this isn't taking into account the fun things you can do if you have Obyron, the amount of board control and mobility the two of them can bring together is pretty crazy. Overall, Zahndrekh is an amazing HQ, probably the best in the book if you use him right.

However, there is the very real chance that some of these traits will never come up, and he just sits on Command #5 all game for the rerolls. Other Characters have strengths that you can rely on. Orikan's rerolls and powerful Assault weapon are always going to be useful. Szeras' Eldritch Lance is always going to be good for something. Anrakyr will always make a squad of Immortals a hero squad. You can plan an army around these, while you can never plan for Zahndrekh picking Furious Charge to win you the game.

Flexibility can win games. But so can a kitted out Overlord with an Artifact. Figure out what your playstyle is and what you want your army wants to do. Zahndrekh can slot into any Necron army, period, but occasionally the right tool for what you want to do might already exist in another HQ choice.

Zahndrekh's Bag of Tricks Part 1: All your USRs are belong to us

Nemesor Zahndrekh was my favorite character last edition, and he's shaping up to be fantastic in this edition as well. His tactical flexibility has the capacity to be huge, and his loadout isn't anything too horrible either.

To start, he got cheaper, which is always good. He's got an Overlord statline as expected, which means his WS/BS were buffed. He retained his 2+, but of course, Phase Shifter is only 4++ now. Not that it's a huge deal, T5 with LO,S! and Reanimation means he's as tough a nut to crack as ever. In fact, even harder, as Reanimation Protocols means that, like all other multi-wound models, he's actually tougher than before. Staff is still pretty mediocre simply due to range, but you're not bringing him for his shooting power (if you want that, look towards Szeras).

But his special rules are where he really starts rocking. Sadly, he can no longer remove enemy special rules, and he copies powers instead of just giving your Troops Tank Hunter, but it's still never bad, and he can give multiple rules to your guys in those fringe cases. I've made a quick (and by no means comprehensive) list of units to look out for to snag rules from:

Counter Tactics Targets

Counter-attack - All Space Wolves, Mark of Khorne CSM, Termagants near a Tervigon
Furious Charge - All Blood Angels, Khorne Daemons, some Khorne CSM, Dark Eldar PFP units Turn 4 or later, Orks, Tyranids with Adrenal Glands, Eversor Assassin
Hit & Run - Dark Angels bikes, White Scars, Cypher, Callidus Assassin
Split Fire - Centurion Devestators, Deathwing, Long Fangs, Inquisitor with Liber Heresius, Illic Nightspear, Cadre Fireblade
Stealth - Dark Eldar vehicles with Night Shields, Rangers, Vindicare Assassin, Stealth Suits, Eldar/Harlequin Psychic Powers
Tank Hunters - Imperial Fist Devestators, Tau with an Artifact (Puretide), Tau Fire Support Cadre, Longstrike

Like I said, it's not everything, but just remember at least the big ones, and you won't have to ask your BA opponent all the time if you're getting Furious Charge from him.

Utilizing Your New USR

As this only affects Zahndrekh's unit, you have to somewhat prepare his squad if you want to make use of this.

Counter Attack and Furious Charge are kinda fire and forget. In shooting units (Warriors, Immortals) you'll like when you have them, but it won't make them superstars. In an Assault unit (Lychguard, maybe Flayed Ones) they're fantastic to have, and still fire and forget. You have it, no need to play differently, just gain bonus for nothing! Always make sure you're keeping track if you get these or not, but you don't really need to change your playstyle if you do.

Hit and Run is interesting. Seems useful to have, but any squad Zahndrekh's a part of is I2 for the most part except for Orikan Empowered. That's... not fantastic. But still, something worth noting. If you can fall back after being charged by Ravenwing or White Scars, it's a bonus.

Split Fire doesn't do anything in most cases, as most of our squads have a single gun type. We're not Space Marines with one Lascannon hanging out in a squad of Tacticals, the most we'll get is a character's weapon, like a Staff of Light, Imotekeh's Staff of the Destroyer, or Szeras' Eldritch Lance.

The two main exceptions to this are first when you have a squad of Destroyers and one Heavy, as you often want the Heavy to fire at one target and the Destroyers to fire at another. And second, Tachyon Arrow on a Lord/Overlord that you want to shoot at a backline model while not wasting the rest of the squad's shooting.

The main draw of Split Fire to me is the ability to pour a lot of fire into one unit and then charge another. If you have a blob of 20 Warriors (in a Decurion for Relentless, of course) and two enemy units nearby, you can fire 19 into one of them and then one single Warrior into the second, and charge the second. This lets you get a lot of firepower into one squad (hopefully killing or crippling it) and then charge another that you didn't shoot out of range.

Stealth is Stealth. Keep track, gain Cover, etc. Again, it's a nice bonus but you're not suddenly going to change your playstyle except maybe to keep track of moving from cover to cover more closely, which you should probably be doing anyway.

Tank Hunters is great. It turns Gauss from a nice bonus to have to actually fairly reliable at killing vehicles. Warriors and Immortals made vehicles wary, but now they should be full on scared. Even if some of the other ones slip your mind, always make sure if you're getting this. Ask your opponent. Look at their army list. If you can walk up to Longstrike and use his own Tank Hunters against him, you basically have full rights to giggle uncontrollably and drink in his tears.

The "Gimmick"

I put gimmick in quotes because, well, it's not really a gimmick. Gimmick implies something that only works once as an abuse of rules or as a surprise tactic. This is not.

As you've probably seen around the internet, Zahndrekh + Allies = fun times. Any non Battle Brother allies (read: everything but other Necrons) are considered enemies for the purposes of special abilities. That includes Counter Tactics, which means any Allies you bring in are possibly going to boost Zahndrekh as well. And it's not that hard to include them in many cases. Tau are AoC, and give a lot of decent rules. Putting small CtA allied squads on the edge of his CT bubble is pretty easy. And including Assassins or an Inquisition Detachment is super easy and relatively cheap.

Tau is an easy one to focus on, since they're AoC and support Necron shooting with... more shooting. But different shooting. You could even focus on an Assault based Necron army (since Wraiths, Lychguard, and Flayed Ones are all amazing) and support it with a Tau gunline.

Cadre Fireblades give you Split Fire if you can use it, and a Commander who takes the Puretide Chip gives you Counter Attack, Furious Charge, or Tank Hunter as you need them (and to his squad as well). Kroot give you Stealth(Forests) and Stealth Suits give you Stealth(Yes).

Your other AoC choices are Orks and CSM. Both give you Assault boosts in Counter Attack/Furious Charge, so bringing them to boost up a Lychguard-star is decent if you want to do that. But if you're looking for ease of use, Tau rank highly, and situationally Assassins/Inquisition.

If you know you have Split Fire (from Fireblade or an Inquisitor), the Destroyer squad I discussed before is a cool idea, also tough enough to bodyguard Zahndrekh as well. Bringing Stealth Suits suddenly makes you even harder to kill, if you can imagine that. So there are plenty of lists to be made here, just waiting to be hashed out.


Part 2 will focus on Adaptive Tactics, and why having a big toolbox is really, really good.

MSU for the Necrons

So, I've been thinking about MSU. In our last codex, MSU was simple - 5 man Troops with a Royal Court member, usually in a Night Scythe or maybe a Ghost Ark. But we can't really do that anymore, with the changes to Warriors to base 10 models and now that Crypteks and Lords are more expensive and lost all their cool Harbinger gear.

10 man Warriors are still fairly cheap, and 5 man Immortals are tough against anything not AP3/AP2. But they can't bring threats like before, no more Haywire sticks or multiple Eldritch Lances. Our HQ options to stick with the squads don't really bring special weapons (Staff of Light or Flamers), so it's really not the same as 5e Royal Court fun. So, what are our MSU choices?

3 man Destroyer Squads with 1 Heavy (or 3 man Heavy Destroyers)
Why 3? That's 130 points for the Destroyers or 150 for the Heavies. Relatively cheap,  6 wounds with 3+ and RP. Plus, the Destroyer Squads in the Destroyer Cult have to be 3 man at a minimum, and after thinking about it, it felt about right. Once you start to max out the squads, it's a lot of points in one place.

Taking the Destroyer Cult for example, given that you have three 2 Destroyer/1 Heavy squads and one 3-man Heavy squad, that's relatively reasonably priced for Lascannons that can shoot at 4 different targets. Adding on more regular Destroyers is good, as AP3 is never a bad thing, but not necessary if you're just bringing them for the special weapons. Once you get to 200 points per squad, it's starting to get a bit expensive. I think running it like this, with extra points to pass around the army, is a fairly good strategy.

Praetorians

Praetorians are quite a bit better than last edition. Cheaper (though still fairly expensive), with both weapon options being worthwhile, though I'm more a fan of the Rod of the Covenant. A min squad of 5 has the mobility to get to where they need to be, and they can be variable threats in both Shooting and Assault. If taken as part of the Formation, they gain Move Through Cover, which makes them nearly as mobile as Wraiths (though they lack Fleet).

However, while T5/3+/Reanimation is relatively tough, they're still fairly expensive for single wound models and will go down easily to focus fire and AP3 or lower weaponry. To combat this, they have Fearless, so even losing 2 out of the 5 won't force a Morale test. It makes me feel that they should be taken in slightly larger squads, but 140 for the base 5 is about the right points for a MSU squad.

Shield Lychguard

Obviously suffers from the stigma of being a slow Assault unit with no shooting. But, with the 3++ they're extremely hard to remove from the board. Give them Orikan to reroll 1s and have a 4+ Reanimation even without the Decurion, and you'll have a squad that's saving something like 89% of wounds. If taken as part of the Reclamation Legion and put with the Overlord from that, it's more like 91% of wounds via rerolls of 1 on Reanimation. (If my math isn't horrible, that is).

A Veil can move them where they need to be, but that's unreliable. Stick em in a Night Scythe and put Orikan and an Overlord with them. Even if they're not part of a Decurion, having a Warscythe or Voidreaper with them is never a bad idea. Or a Solar Staff if you really want to screw over shooting.

Immortals

Not bad for MSU, but not fantastic either. They don't have special weapons like last edition, and their Transport got more expensive. But hey, Reanimation made them tougher now and 3+ saves are always good. Gauss Blasters and Tesla Carbines aren't bad guns, but they're not really threats to many things that aren't Infantry. Gauss can threaten Vehicles sure, but I don't think my opponent would be particularly scared by 4 Squads of 5 man Immortal teams.

If you attach Szeras to them for the boosted Stats and Eldritch Lance, they make a good MSU squad, but that's just one, and it'll really suck if you get the +1S.

Tomb Blades

Tomb Blades with Shield Vanes are Immortals on speed. Literally. Jokes.

The issue with running Tomb Blades in smaller unit sizes is that T5/3+/RP will only last you for so long. Focus fire, or AP3 or better shooting - 3 models won't stand up to that for very long. In the Decurion, they have Move Through Cover, so that helps by giving Cover saves even without Jinking, but 3 Wounds is nothing in the long run. 3 Destroyers can stick it out because they have 2 Wounds each, but 3 Tomb Blades are just asking to give up First Blood. Bump it up to two squads of 5, though, and we might be talking. Better than 5 Immortals, at the very least.

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There's a solid list to be made here. Tomb Blades, Praetorians, and Destroyers make up a fast, resilient, MSU army with lots of 3+ saves on T5 bodies. Putting them all into one list would take some crunching - Blades and Destroyers are both Fast, and if you take either of the Formations with them (Reclamation or Cult, respectively), they both have some tax. Well, I suppose you could do something like:

5 Praetorians
5 Praetorians

5 Tomb Blades
5 Tomb Blades

3 Heavy Destroyers
3 Heavy Destroyers

And use Heavies in the Heavy slot, you really want the Lascannons over the Fast Attack anyway. That's only 800 points (assuming Shield Vanes and Nebuloscopes on the Blades) for 6 decent squads before HQ tax, Troops, etc. Not terrible.

I'm very much in love with the idea of Lychguard with ICs as a tough, killy squad, but it's not inexpensive - 5 Shieldguard and a Scythe are 280 before adding in the HQs - not a price you can easily ignore. But, you do still get a Scythe, and an Assault squad that can land anywhere and threaten a Turn 3 charge (assuming good Reserve Rolls), so maybe it's not impossible to make work. Adding to the above list, something like:

Orikan
Overlord (Warscythe)

5 Praetorians
5 Praetorians
5 Shield Lychguard  + Scythe

5 Tomb Blades
5 Tomb Blades

3 Heavy Destroyers
3 Heavy Destroyers

That's 1300. For an 1850 list (assuming general Tournament stuff), that leaves 550 for Troops, support units, and upgrades to the Overlord. I think that's somewhat workable.