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.