List Building with Req: First Swings

So I'm building a list for a tournament that will be here in a couple weeks. I know I'm cutting it a little close, but with personal stuff and the new Codex, it's been a bit tight on time.

Rawdogger over at Frontline Gaming put out an interesting article about his experiences with tournament lists and what to expect. I've decided to take a look at his points and put a Necron spin on them.

Mobility

I could tell you this from the get-go. Objectives win games, especially in the Maelstrom missions. Getting to where you need to be is tantamount to victory, even before killing things. Mobility is killer because of the way that Maelstrom works - you might draw two objectives that are on opposite sides of the board from where your army is. Sometimes you have to just cede a point because you can't reach it, but that's much less if you have mobile units. Let's take a look at ours.

• Tomb Blades: A lot of people are screaming and raving about these now. There are those that say Jetbike is the best unit type in the game, and ours are relatively cheap and have good, cheap upgrades. I would use more if I could just freaking find some at a store.
• Wraiths: Beasts are the fastest non Bike/Jetbike/Vehicle type units in the game. Plus, they ignore all terrain, so running through walls to get to where they need to be is a cinch. 
• Scarabs: See above, but without ignoring impassable terrain and much easier to kill. Still, not bad, as they will largely go ignored and can hold objectives.
• Ghost Arks: Worth a consideration. ObSec and durable, they can take Warriors around the board at a pretty decent rate if you forgo shooting, and even if you go Cruising for 12" per turn that's 20-40 shots snap firing (depending on Rapid Fire range and if you can get both Arrays to hit something).
• Night Scythes: While they can't capture objectives on their own, dropping something 42"+ from the board edge is a pretty significant zone to put down models in. Even if the Scythe itself gets dropped by Interceptor, taking an objective that you were nowhere near a few seconds ago is huge.
• Destroyers: While they're only a 6" move now, with Thrust Move that's an average of 12.5" per turn. And you still get to shoot! That Thrust can be moved to get to an objective, or to get back into cover, so all around, the amount of mobility put out by these guys is pretty solid.
• Veil of Darkness/Obyron: Unreliable (other than Obyron's interaction with Zahndrekh), but usable. Teleportation can give you a decent amount of board presence, depending on what you take where.

Anti-Air

He talks a bit about Hive Tyrants, and they're a very real threat. There are other flyers that you have to watch out for as well, so let's look at what we have.

• Night Scythes: Probably the easiest to include. A Dedicated Transport with a good gun that also happens to shoot flyers. The Tesla Destructor can damage most if not all Flyers and wounds many FMCs on 3s or better. That's fairly solid.
• Doom Scythes: A bit more expensive, and actually not any better at removing Flyers, as the Blast can't even hit them. If you're bringing a Doom Scythe, it's probably to destroy ground targets, but it can double as anti-air if those targets are more necessary.
• Fortifications: I'm not going to go through all of them, but suffice to say that buildings and Defense Lines can take one of two anti-air guns. They're pretty solid, but with how much the focus of the game is on moving around and board control, I'm loath to leave more than a few units in a stationary position.
• A cool thing is that if Tomb Blades with Nebuloscopes (or a Vindicare Assassin) use the gun, it retains their Ignores Cover, which helps against those annoying Jink saves.
• Sentry Pylon: A Forgeworld unit, a two shot Lascannon with a stupidly long range and Skyfire/Interceptor. Used to be amazing when that meant it could hit ground targets, now I struggle to rectify a 135 point model that can't hit anything but FMCs, Flyers, and Skimmers. They're prevalent, sure, but enough armies don't have them that it's hard to make that call. But as anti-air, they're among the best. Tough, long range, powerful, good shooting.

Knights

I talked about this a bit in the anti-tank segment. Knights are very popular at tournaments, and you have to deal with them. You can find my thoughts on our anti-armor here.

2+ Cover Save Monstrous Creatures

Yep. This scares me. We don't have anything in particular to deal with this. Our Ignores Cover unit (Tomb Blades) don't have AP3 or high enough strength weapons to deal with these sorts of things. I think our big way to deal with this sort of enemy is with proper Assault units, or to apply lots of focus fire into the Malanthrope.

• Orikanstar: Probably one of the best ways to deal with a Barbed Hierodule or equivalent. Since most of them don't have Strength D attacks, the 'Star can tank while Warscythes do their thing. Additionally, if you take the Voidreaper, you can wound that sucker on 2s.
• Obyronstar: You're going to lose a good number of these guys to a MC or GMC. But, again, that many Warscythes are wounding on 5s with no saves. Ditto above with the Voidreaper for extra fun. 
• Wraiths: Not bad here. Durable enough to weather the storm (though any hit is going to be ID if you fail that 3++), and Rending both auto-wounds and ignores the armor. You're praying for Rending, but that's not necessarily a bad thing if you can tie it up.
• Scarabs: Should never voluntarily charge an MC by themselves. But, if they do get to join Wraiths or Lychguard in the combat, then they can auto-wound on 6s with 4 attacks per base. That's not bad, can force some more saves.

Wave Serpents

See Knights. Put enough anti-armor into these things and even with Jink they'll fall down. Heavy Destroyers are your friend, and so are any other choices from our anti-armor section. Again, Nebuloscope Tomb Blades can ignore the Jinks, but still only Glance on 6s against all but the Rear Armor. Not reliable.

Conclusion

So, what can we glean from this about how Necrons deal with the current meta? Wraiths are still pretty solid. Obviously, having a fast, durable, moderately good damage unit is never going to be bad, so taking a squad is always a pretty good decision. 

Destroyers, particularly Heavies in the Cult, are great options. Two of the biggest threats are vehicles, and the mobility granted by Thrust Move makes them a variant threat that also can hold down lots of board space.

Night Scythes, despite their points increase, are probably still fantastic. Putting units on the board more or less wherever you feel like is good, as is shooting down flyers and glancing most vehicles. Doom Scythes are decent alternatives, though they don't grant as much board control as they can't hold objectives or transport units. 

Lychguard are a pretty solid unit, depending on how you deck them out and what Characters you put with them. Both versions have their uses, either as meatshields or as blenders. They should be fairly well considered no matter what type of list you're running.

Consider the Vindicare Assassin. It's not difficult to slot into Necrons just given his range and Ignores Cover, and he helps a lot when it comes to dealing with some of these threats. He has a pretty good shot at damaging vehicles, he can near-autowound important targets, and he can hold backline objectives while you move the rest of your army towards the midfield, which I think is where our strength lies.

I think the new Necrons can hold their own in the tournament scene, but it will take a while to hammer out what works best. We're no longer a codex with only a handful of good options, so many things are well priced and effective now. It's no longer "Spam CCBs/ABarges/Scythes", but I still think we can roll with the big dogs if it comes down to it.