tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9593094697161551102024-03-12T20:58:41.722-07:00Hyperlogical StrategistNecron blog. Tactics, painting, and general discussion.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-56380873838112935302015-11-02T10:14:00.002-08:002015-11-02T10:14:59.455-08:00Resurrection Orb: I'm not dead!Oh right, this blog is something I have!<br />
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Apologies for not posting for a while. Had a new job, left it, started a new job, moved, and just general life got in the way.<br />
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But, I've been playing in a lot of one or two day tournaments lately and have been working on my hobby quite a bit! Necrons are still my jam (though my Daemons have seen some table time), and I'm looking forward to writing some more pieces on them going forward.<br />
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Per requests, I'll be doing a post on Necrons vs Daemons (possibly multiple posts to deal with multiple playstyles) and one on the Catacomb Command Barge. But, I also have some that I want to do, such as AV13 armies, using Sentry Pylons, and another piece on Allies and "gimmick lists".<br />
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So look forward to new posts and progress pictures going forward!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-77845031623553068202015-05-04T10:07:00.003-07:002015-05-04T10:07:46.454-07:00Necrons Vs TauSo quite a few people at my store play Tau. Not surprising, they're a popular army and have cool giant robots and stuff. Tau are a fun matchup for us, as a heavy shooting army with some big durable things as well as cheap, small guys, so there's no real one answer if they build a well rounded force. However, they do have downsides that you can exploit. After the break, let's take a look at stomping those little blue men under our metallic feet.<br />
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<u>Withering Firepower</u></div>
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Tau are probably the first or second best army in the game when it comes to just pure shooting. Now that the Eldar have massed Scatter Lasers and D weaponry, they might have overtaken our vaguely Communist enemies, but the Tau have been shooting strong for quite some time. To deal with this, you're going to need to do your best to match their damage output while also weathering the firepower that will be coming your way.<br />
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The Tau arsenal has a lot of long range firepower. Even their basic guns are 30" Rapid Fire, which handily puts them at a longer range bracket than all but a few of our guns. The guns on their basic Troops are S5, making them as strong as Immortals but longer range and cheaper than Warriors.<br />
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<u>Suits vs Fishy Dudes</u></div>
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There are two types of Tau things you'll be facing: Suits and Infantry (and Drones, but that's something completely different). Suits vary from Battlesuits to Broadsides to Riptides, and all of them are fairly durable with good saves and higher toughnesses. Infantry, on the other hand, are about as squishy as they come, generally T5 with only 4+ or 5+. You'll likely see a good mix depending on the Tau player you go against.<br />
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For suit armies, you obviously want to bring big guns. Sure, you can whittle down the Riptide with Warriors and Immortals, but you're realistically going to want to throw Heavy Destroyers and Nightbringer at it. Broadsides, Commanders, and Riptides are all in 2+ armor, so taking them down is going to be a bit of a test, not to mention that they're going to be pummeling you with firepower the whole time.<br />
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Infantry is much easier for us to deal with. We're not short on amount of fire unless you go too heavy on Destroyers and Elite options, and Assault units like Wraiths or Flayed Ones have easily enough attacks to tear through Fire Warriors in a matter of moments.<br />
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The main issue with Infantry is that they're going to be camping behind ruins or maybe even an Aegis Defense Line. While the Suits and Riptides might sneak out into the middle of the map to get objectives or into better firing positions, those Pathfinders and Fire Warriors are going to be plonked somewhere where they're always going to get a cover save and will probably be hard to reach with your Assaulty dudes.<br />
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<u>Fish Fry</u></div>
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So what units are good in this matchup? Well, unsurprisingly, most Assault units are good. A big Flayed One blob will tear apart anything in the Tau army short of Riptides, and even that they can wear down through sheer number of attacks. Troops and Battlesuits don't stand nearly as much of a chance. Wraiths are much of the same, with the added benefit of being slightly more survivable against the high strength/low AP shooting of the Tau.<br />
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Lychguard are actually a bit of a poor choice. They're best in the midfield, where they can challenge and kill anything that moves up. Tau rarely move up, and the things they move up with are mobile and durable Jet Pack infantry. Reaching things with the Lychguard can be difficult here, but anything they reach will be reduced to fillets.<br />
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Also, be careful Assaulting where multiple units are nearby, as they can Overwatch for one another.<br />
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You can easily return shooting with shooting in this matchup. Thanks to RP, we're the best army at just slogging forward under the barrage fire from the Tau, and then once we get in range to shoot back we can put some serious hurt on their much squishier units. Massed Troops will take the midfield and shoot back at any gunline in their range, which should turn out better for the Necrons on average.<br />
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Against gunline Tau, having mobility is very nice. Veil of Darkness or Obyron to jump up a unit into their face can be devastating and give the rest of your army time to do what they need to do. Wraiths moving up quick here are also great.<br />
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A big hitter for you in this matchup is the Catacomb Command Barge. I'm not a huge fan of it, but against Tau it's great. They have lots of S5 shooting, which he can just ignore, which means he's just going to charge in, ignoring all the shooting, and cut through all of the gunlines with his fast chassis. Just be wary of any anti-tank guns that you'll have to take on the Overlord, and particularly ask if any enemy unit is equipped with EMP grenades, which will kill your Barge in a matter of seconds.<br />
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A force with Wraiths and massed Troops seems pretty good. Lead it with a CCB and maybe include some Infiltrating Flayed Ones to screen for the rest of your army.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-36126096902863866902015-04-27T09:29:00.002-07:002015-04-27T09:29:47.569-07:00Necrons Versus XSorry I've been sorta dead in my posting habits lately. I haven't really had much to post about - I've been playing my Daemons quite a bit since I got my Blight Drones from Forge World, and I'm not really sure what to write about for Necron tactics.<br />
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I started writing an article about vehicles and the new AV13 walls, but it really just boiled down to "most vehicles are fairly bad except the Ghost Ark, Flyers, and CCB, which are cool". AV13 is great, but it doesn't mean much against actual anti-tank guns and the new D weaponry. And Open-Topped sucks quite a bit. Most vehicles have a place, but none of them are standout units like our Infantry is nowadays, in my opinion.<br />
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So instead, I'm going to work on some articles talking about our matchups against certain armies. And while Eldar are the new hotness/terror of the night, I'm going to include them too. Though, since I haven't played against them yet, it'll probably be later or mostly theoretical.<br />
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If you have any you want to read about specifically, let me know! I've played against most armies at least a few times, though there are a few I'm not super familiar with. In any case, I'll do my best to help you beat whatever army is giving you trouble at the time.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-36728213390101831292015-04-13T12:58:00.000-07:002015-04-13T12:58:33.029-07:00Wraiths - Everyone's Favorite Unit to HateGo on nearly any forum, blog, or podcast nowadays and the unit that people are complaining the most about in the Necron book is Wraiths. Wraiths - supposedly an invincible unit that kills everything in the game without breaking a sweat. Even the sight of them will cause people to let out exasperated sighs.<br />
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But, are they really that good? Does the inclusion of Wraiths forebode an immediate loss? Let's think about it a little bit.<br />
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We have to start by accepting that the statline of Wraiths is pretty awesome. T5, S6, A3, W2, 3++, Beasts - that's the sort of statline that should give people fits. Big and scary, hard to take down and strong enough to wound most things on 2s if they don't just insta-death them anyway (Eldar/DEldar/IG).<br />
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<b><u>Awesome, but not Perfect</u></b></div>
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But, as anything, they have downsides. Rending is great, but no flat AP on their attacks means that you're really relying on luck to hurt things with good saves. Even Marines can give them trouble with just 3+ saves. I've had many an experience where the Wraiths would run in and throw out a lot of wounds but only 1 or 2 Rends, only for them to save every armor save they were allowed.<br />
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Being a multiwound is great for the most part... until you hit S10, Force, or just general ID weaponry. Yeah, a 3++ is great, but any that you fail will take out an entire model. Each one suddenly feels like a huge loss, rather than your standard 1 wound down Wraith - because it is.<br />
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Their speed can also work against them. It's great for getting to where you need to go, but due to the DLord changing his move speed and the CCB being unable to attach to units, you can never add an Independent Character with them. Which means you can't give them fun bonuses like Preferred Enemy or rerolling saves of 1s unless you severely limit one of their biggest bonuses: their speed.<br />
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However, despite these downsides they're still a fantastic unit that finds their place in many an army.<br />
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<b><u>Harvesting Your Enemies</u></b></div>
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Now, to the point where I disagree with lots of people. One of the things that people tend to cry OP over is the use of the Canoptek Harvest formation. In this formation, if you don't know, a Spyder can give the Wraiths either Reanimation Protocols, Fleet, or Shred. Shred is nice, but they're mostly wounding on 2s anyway (though rerolling 1s into 6s is great) and Fleet is pointless because they have it already. But the big thing that people get hung up on is Reanimation Protocols.<br />
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Giving Wraiths RP is a huge boon. Makes them as tough as Shieldguard, but much faster and with Rending instead of AP3. However, I don't think this is as big of a problem as people try to make it out to be. I rarely run mine as it is, since everyone figures out the very obvious "trick" is to just kill the Spyder.<br />
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Look, the thing is only T6 with 3 wounds and a 3+. That's not exactly unkillable, it's like half of a Tyranid MC. Once it dies, there's no more RP on the Wraiths, and they just act like regular Wraiths. Still tough, still fast, but more killable. And, since the Spyder can't take more than 1 in the unit (still up for debate, but most people rule it this way), it's a prime candidate for First Blood and kill points to boot.<br />
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<b><u>Countering</u></b></div>
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Despite three attacks base, which is pretty good, the low model count of Wraiths opens them up to being tarpitted. Things with good saves can tie them up for quite some time, especially if you're very cold on your Rending rolls. Large numbers of fearless bodies will just hold them up pretty much indefinitely, since they're on average only getting 6 wounds against anything WS4 and T4 or lower.<br />
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And against similar models, they somewhat flounder. If a unit of Wraiths goes against a TWC star, they're horrendously outmatched. Oh sure, both sides have 3++ and multiwounds, but if they're toting Thunder Hammers the Wraiths are getting Instant Death'd and their Rending does nothing.<br />
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Volume of fire does them in as well. 3++ sounds scary, but that's still failing 1/3 of wounds if they don't have RP, and it only takes a handful of those for that big unit of Wraiths to turn into a much less scary small unit of ~3 Wraiths.<br />
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Armies with an abundance of high strength shots (like Tau), or Force weaponry (like GK), or any amount of S10 in general (Vindicators) will have no problem dropping Wraiths, even against armies that spam them heavily. I think this particular gripe about Necrons is going to fall by the wayside as people begin to realize that there is a lot more scary things in the book.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-71077771785080534462015-04-10T07:36:00.001-07:002015-04-10T07:36:05.179-07:00Destroyer Lord - The MC who's not an MCAh, Destroyer Lords. Last edition, the beatstick that you put with Wraiths to give people fits. Nowadays, that's a bit more difficult since he lacks the movespeed, but he's still quite good. He still passes out Preferred Enemy (Everything!) to any unit he joins, which is a huge boon. He's still a great beatstick and puts the hurt on anything that he can get his hands on.<br />
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But I've been thinking about another way to use him: as a pseudo Monstrous Creature. More after the break.<br />
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<b><u>What makes a Monstrous Creature so Monstrous?</u></b></div>
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Well, it's not just the size, that much is for sure. Just because something's big, doesn't mean it's powerful. And vice versa, small characters can often be the scariest. </div>
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No, for most MCs, the thing that makes them so scary is their ability to take punishment and shrug it off, and then kill things with impunity. It's <i>hard </i>to take down a good MC. They couple high toughness with decent saves and often have some way to get wounds back - be it FNP, Regeneration, IWND, or anything else of that nature. It's one of the things that make the Nightbringer so scary - he shrugs off a lot of fire and can get back Wounds he takes with Gaze of Death.</div>
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And when one reaches you, you better be careful. Even without scary Assault weapons with ID or anything like that, a MC can generally crush lots of things just by virtue of having high Strength and baseline AP2. Riptides are especially scary - their damage output doesn't come from being in Assault, they do it from a mile away.</div>
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<b><u>The Destroyer Lord MC</u></b></div>
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Consider this:</div>
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<b>Destroyer Lord</b></div>
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<i>Nightmare Shroud, Phase Shifter, Warscythe, Phylactery</i></div>
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205 Points</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(You can consider picking up a Res Orb for added durability)</span></div>
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Here's a statline: T6, 3W, 2+/4++, Reanimation Protocols, IWND, S7, AP2, Armorbane. Aside from a lower Wound pool, that's pretty darn reminiscent of good MC's stats. Even with only 3 wounds, he's bloody difficult to kill. Against non AP2 weapons, he ignores 88% of all wounds, 91% in a Decurion or with a Cryptek. Against AP2 weapons, he ignores 66% of all wounds, 75% in a Decurion or with a Cryptek. And the wounds he does take, he has a 1/3 chance to get back. </div>
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On anyone, that's tough. On a T6 body, that's darn near invincible to anything that's not another MC or something with a Power Fist/Thunder Hammer. And even then, you can't be ID'd without an actual Force weapon or other ID source. Expensive, but durable as anything and able to carve up nearly any enemy in Assault.</div>
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The best part though? You can attach him to nearly anything. That sound you hear is Tyranids being mad.</div>
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<b><u>Friends</u></b></div>
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So what to put him with? Well, the only unit he can join that shares his thrust move is other Destroyers, but that doesn't work since they don't want to be anywhere near combat and his PE(E!) means nothing to them. Sadly, this means his Thrust Move is almost always wasted. </div>
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You can attach him to 12" move units like Wraiths or Praetorians, but you end up having to string them along awkwardly to keep him up with them, and if his Thrust Moves are low, then they're going to outpace him quickly. Still, it's not a terrible idea, since they can escort him across the table rather quickly. </div>
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Putting him in a shooting squad that's moving up the table is probably the best in my eyes. Your Immortals or Warriors suddenly having PE(E!) is great, and he gives them a 2+/4++ tank out front. </div>
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Deathmarks and Flayed Ones work interestingly. Put him with them in Deep Strike Reserve, drop them somewhere. Deathmarks get to reroll 1s on their 2+ wounding first turn, and he synergizes very well with Flayed Ones for the next Assault phase. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(You can Deep Strike Praetorians as well, but I feel like the other two are more common to DS and it often doesn't work as well with Praetorians). </span>Deep Striking with 5 Flayed Ones is surprisingly a seriously solid choice - it's cheap (only 65 points, cheapest min squad in the codex aside from Scarabs), even if they die they grant him 5 extra wounds, and then he can stick with them to charge the next turn. Adding more is fine, but be careful that the squad doesn't become too big and mishap easily.</div>
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Saving the unit that I always praise for last, you can always attach him to an Orikanstar. With him in front, he has a 2+ rerolling 1s from Orikan and a 4+ RP, so he's basically unkillable. Anything AP2, he can shrug off to a Shieldguard. Marching that up the table will make your opponent try to pull his hair out.</div>
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<b><u>Who needs friends?</u></b></div>
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Here's a wonderful thing about the Destroyer Lord MC though - He doesn't particularly need to stick with a group to do well. As we talked about with his statline, he's basically a MC. If you get him into Assault, he can do just fine by himself.</div>
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One tactic is to escort him across the board in a unit, and then peel him off to charge a juicy target on his own later. Very useful with shooting units, as they'll appreciate the PE(E!), and by the time he goes off to do his own thing, they should be in Rapid Fire range, and he can jet off to hack up an enemy solo.</div>
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You <i>can try</i> to get him across the board by himself. It's more risky, but if you know the opponent isn't packing a lot of high strength/low AP weapons, he can shrug most of it off. And with Run + <span id="goog_1492623316"></span><span id="goog_1492623317"></span>Thrust Moves, he's zipping along at ~15-16" per turn on average. </div>
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There's also always the option of Deep Striking him by himself, where he can show up suddenly and be a nice, scary threat. A single model Deep Striking isn't particularly risky, and Run + Thrust means he should be able to get into a good position even if he Scatters a bit. <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Of course, you would want to do this in conjunction with a couple other Assault units, so he doesn't suddenly show up in the enemy's backline by himself and draw 100% of their fire)</span></div>
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There are some things that you're not going to want to charge by yourself. Anything that has AP2 weaponry, you're going to want friends. Assault Tarpit units like Hormagaunts or Boyz you're going to want friends just to clear out the sheer number of bodies and so he doesn't have to take all those wounds by himself. But, small or medium sized units, things that aren't packing special Assault weaponry? He should be able to tear apart by himself quite easily. </div>
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So yeah. The Destroyer Lord is a beast. He was last edition too, but with the way RP works now and the option to buy an Invuln and IWND, he's even more durable than ever before and possibly one of the hardest to kill Generic ICs in the game. Mine has brought low many an enemy, even once his retinue was all but spent. He's nasty and tough, so don't be afraid of running him around and murdering things with him solo. Just be aware of his low number of attacks and only 4++ invuln, so don't let him get tarpitted and don't get him in a challenge with a scary AP2 enemy.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-68420462949145215842015-04-09T09:14:00.000-07:002015-04-09T09:14:19.200-07:00AssaultcronsNope, I'm not dead! Just a bit burnt out after Adepticon, getting caught up with work and fiddling with my models (working on my Daemons, being tempted by other shiny armies, etc). But here today, I'm going to talk about Assault.<br />
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Necrons have, for a long time, been known as a shooting army. Last edition, we had exactly one good assault unit - the Wraith. Scarabs were ok, but Lychguard and Praetorians were way overpriced and Flayed ones, as noted previously, were just plain bad. But now? Now Necrons are possibly even better at Assault then they are at shooting.<br />
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<b><u>Why?</u></b></div>
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Well, a few reasons. We lots a lot of our good specialist shooting weapons when Harbingers were taken out. Our spammed vehicles (Night Scythes and Barges) got nerfed, and are less used now.<br />
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Meanwhile, every Assault unit in the book got better. Even the Wraith, which didn't particularly need it in the first place. Only the Scarab got "nerfed", and I'm pretty sure it was mostly a sidegrade since the auto-glance attacks make them surprisingly amazing at stripping Knights to size. They're still quite good, especially with some Spyder backup to keep them healthy.<br />
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A big thing that helps Assault units now is the durability granted by the new RP and the Decurion. Marching things up the table is no longer as scary as before. I regularly footslog my Orikanstar across the board, basically nothing can stop them, same with Wraiths. Flayed Ones sitting in Cover are tougher than Marines point for point by a long shot, and you can take a lot of them. Even without Drop Pods or Invisibility on our side, our Assault units have a good chance of getting to the fight without dying.<br />
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Maelstrom as well adds to this. You need to have a lot more board presence, and while our shooting units feel just fine in the midfield, once two armies start to come together on midfield objectives, Assault is nearly inevitable. Having good Assault options isn't a bad thing when your opponent might also have to get to that same objective. In fact, I think Maelstrom Objectives brought back Assault in ways that people haven't quite realized yet.<br />
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And of course, the meta. If you play competitively or regularly play against people that like to "netlist" or "tryhard" (however you want to take those terms), you're aware of what the big movers and shakers are when it comes to the metagame. I'm talking, of course, about things like Deathstars. Plague Drone Star, Thunderwolf Calvary, Screamerstar, Bikestar, even CSM gets in on the fun with their Juggerherald. If you see anything like that with any sort of regularity, having a good Assault option is paramount to intercepting and destroying it. Flayed Ones do so cheaply, and Shieldguard do so by tying them up and carting around scary characters.<br />
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Take all of this together, you realize that Assault is more prominent in 7th ed and our Assault units got better and cheaper while we freed up some points from shooting units. Easy to see why Assaultcrons are a thing!<br />
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<b><u>So, how do we do it?</u></b></div>
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I mean, obviously we still have a lot of shooting in our army. Troops are all shooting focused (and quite good), Destroyers and Tomb Blades are amazing now, and our vehicles are still pretty good if you go AV13 Wall. But, a lot of our units are Assault based. In fact, out of 36 (28 if you don't count vehicles) unit choices in the book, 17 at least in some way want to be in Assault. That's a good chunk, more than half of the non-vehicle units in the book!<br />
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Additionally, many of those Assault choices also do things outside of combat as well. Praetorians, C'tan, and CCBs have shooting attacks (as can Wraiths with upgrades). HQs usually bring other things to the units they're with, like a DLord granting PE to his Warrior unit or Obyron teleporting things around. Spyders can build more Scarabs or bring their nifty wargear. So even without getting to Assault, most of these things can contribute in some way or another quite easily.<br />
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The key is to use your shooting and Assault to complement one another. We're not Daemons, who basically have nothing but Assault. We're not Tau with gunlines that never want to engage. You have to use both to make the other stronger.<br />
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I keep going back to Lychguard, but it's because they're so good and versatile that it's hard not to point to them as a prime example. Using Shield Lychguard (with Orikan, hopefully) as a front line means that the opponent either has to deal with them, or they create a zone that no one will voluntarily walk in. You can use this to provide what is basically mobile cover for your shooting units. If they focus fire your shooters, not only are your Lychguard getting closer, but they're also giving mobile cover to your firebase.<br />
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Flayed Ones do something similar. Infiltrating one or two 10 man units of Flayed Ones creates a situation that your opponent has to respond to. Either they kill the FOs before they can charge, which lets the rest of your army get into position, or they fire on your shooters and the FOs get to rampage as they do.<br />
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Necrons on the whole don't have a lot of huge range shooting. Heavy Destroyers and Doomsday Arks are our "long range firepower", but even Heavies are only 36". Our army likes to operate in the 12"-24" range, which lends itself to mixing Assault with shooting. With our durability and units being what they are, I am of the opinion that the Necron army is designed to be a mix of Assault and Shooting, but can lean even heavier on the Assault side than most armies out there.<br />
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Every slot other than Troops has at least one Assault-capable unit, and most of them are pretty good. It's possible to even make a completely Assault army with only Warriors or Immortals camping objectives on your side of the board.<br />
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The only downside to this is that most Assault models are expensive, with the exception of Flayed Ones. They're well worth their points, of course - Shieldguard will take a stupid amount of fire and kill nearly anything in assault, as will Wraiths, and Praetorians can tear apart nearly anything that doesn't have at-initiative Power Weapons. But, it's very easy to make an Assault focused army only for it to suddenly become as small as a Grey Knights army.<br />
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And while that's not necessarily a bad thing (I'd pit Orikanstar, a Conclave, or a Flayed One blob against Grey Knights any day of the week), just keep in mind that a small army can't control as much board space as MSU or one with enough bodies to cover all objectives.<br />
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<b><u>So what was the point of all this rambling?</u></b></div>
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Well... I kind of lost it at some point haha. Basically, long story short, you have to change your perception of Necrons compared to what they were in the last edition. Last time around, Assault was a joke unless you were talking about Wraiths, Destroyer Lords, or (for a time) Catacomb Command Barges. Now, you can easily look at nearly half the units in the book and throw them into assault with impunity.<br />
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Heck, with Relentless in the Decurion, Warriors and Gauss Immortals are pound for pound a pretty decent Assault choice against anything that's not a dedicated close combat unit. Rapid Firing and then charging when you can't really die to most things is a boon, and Warriors/Immortals are actually great against things like Tactical Marines or other generic Troops.<br />
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So yeah. No longer do our immortal space robot skeletons fear a fight, but in fact we are now the ones that people will run away from if they see us charging. And that feels good.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-41475491498150866472015-03-30T10:03:00.000-07:002015-03-30T10:03:02.037-07:00Allies for the Necrons - what are our choices?So in a previous post I talked a bit about using Assassins as Allies. A neat trick, for sure, but what are our other options?<br />
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A good Ally fills out some requirements:<br />
1) It should fill gaps that the main army has. For Necrons, that's Special Weapons squadrons, long range artillery, hordes of bodies/tarpits, and Psychic power.<br />
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2) It should be easy to slot in, points wise. Sure, we'd all love to ally in a big Thunderwolf Calvary Deathstar, but then suddenly you have no points for the Necrons themselves. The things you want out of an Ally list should be cheap, easy to get, and efficient. If you need to invest half your points to get what you want out of an Ally, then you might just want to play that other army.<br />
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3) A good Alliance level. While there are some good Come the Apocalypse allies that I'll talk about below, they're also pretty problematic to utilize. Deployment becomes a pain, as does positioning if you have a Desperate/CtA ally and both are filling the same role. An Imperial Guard gunline standing next to a Necron gunline is going to have problems unless you place them carefully, and in a game where you want as much mobility and map control as possible, that can really screw with holding the right spots on the board.<br />
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<b>Battle Brothers</b><br />
Our only choice is ourselves, and while that works, there's not much to talk about and it's not very exciting. Still, putting a CAD next to a Decurion or Formations is a well known and good strategy.<br />
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<b>Allies of Convenience</b><br />
Here's where we start to get choices.<br />
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<u>Chaos Space Marines</u> - While not the best army in the game right now, the Spiky Marines bring a couple things that we lack. Necrons, for the most part, can't really bring together special weapons in any reasonable amount. Chosen can do that, and you can get lots of varied heavy weapons from Obliterators. Additionally, you can nab some Psykers from here, and even if they can't put Blessings on the 'Crons, they can weaken our enemies, give Deny dice, or even summon up some Daemons.<br />
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If you're looking to bring C'Tan, grabbing a Daemon Prince or Be'Lakor can take some heat off of your own MCs or other Deathstars. And FMCs are never a bad thing to have.<br />
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<u>Tau</u> - Tau are similar to Necrons in that we're both primarily a shooting army. But while Necrons have extreme durability and some dedicated Assault units (Wraiths, Lychguard, Flayed Ones), Tau instead have good range and more powerful firepower point for point.<br />
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Taking Tau allies might have some overlap, but you could also make a solid argument for doing something like a heavy Assault Necron list (Orikanstar or Wraiths) and instead of putting points into Necron shooting, put some Tau firepower behind them from Broadsides or Riptides.<br />
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<u>Renegades and Heretics</u> - A Forgeworld list, so see if your group will let you run them. Basically Chaos Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum, which means lots of cheap, weak bodies but also a lot of heavy guns on tanks or emplacements. There's not a lot of overlap between this book and our own - something very good when it comes to Allies. Our "cheap, weak bodies" are Warriors, 13 points per model. A Renegade is 3. And while they're completely worthless, with crappy guns and no saves before upgrades, you can put a massive amount of them on the table, and sometimes that's exactly what you need.<br />
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Another thing that they bring that we lack is Artillery. Our blast weapon choices are the Monolith, the Doomsday Ark, and Sentry Pylons. All of which are ok, but the sheer amount of downfield fire power you can get from the Heavy Support section for fractions of the cost in Renegades and Heretics is obscene.<br />
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Again, like Tau, you're both shooting armies primarily, but Necrons have pretty good Assault options. Getting them on the table and putting Renegades behind them with blobs of ObSec and lots of firepower could be a very, very interesting list.<br />
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<b>Desperate Allies</b><br />
A single choice here.<br />
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<u>Orks</u> - Orks are... well Orks. Like Renegades, you can get a lot of cheap bodies, but here you're looking at the Orks being the frontline while you stay behind with the big guns. Masses of Boyz or things like Meganobz in Trukks charging at the enemy while you put Warriors, Immortals, and Destroyers in firing positions could be quite effective. However, Orks aren't hugely awesome at the moment, and if you want a blob of Boyz, you might do well to just look at Flayed Ones in your own codex.<br />
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<b>Come the Apocalypse</b><br />
The rest of them.<br />
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<u>Space Marines (and Variants)</u> - Just gonna lump these together since I'm going to say much of the same thing. Necrons kind of play like variant marines already, with the obvious differences being there. Like CSM, they can bring a lot more special weapons to the table, while ours our mostly uniform across squads. But, being an "elite" army (that is, an army that needs substantial point investments per model), you'll find it hard to fit them alongside your Necrons in a reasonable list.<br />
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Due to the deployment/placement issues of CtA, the only sorts of lists I could see working here is something like Drop Pod heavy or Bike heavy, but then, why aren't you just playing Space Marines?<br />
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<u>Astra Militarum/Imperial Guard</u> - Just play Renegades and Heretics. If someone doesn't allow you to because "wah Forgeworld is so OP" (which is wrong), then this still doesn't work that well. Sure, you can do some of the same deals as R&H, but with all the drawbacks you'll confer doing so, is it worth the hassle? I think not, personally.<br />
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<u>Imperial Knights</u> - Now here's a CtA ally that I can get behind. Positioning issues are problematic depending on what Necrons you bring, but Knights are just so good that putting them in is probably worthwhile anyway. If you're not doing much Assault in your Necrons, stomping your Knight downfield is probably fine even despite the restrictions. A big, nasty target that will draw fire, kill at a range, and kill in Assault is a solid investment.<br />
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<u>Eldar</u> - I've seen it work. But I'm not a huge fan of it. If you want Psychic dice, you can get them from CSM. Eldar are another primarily shooting army like Tau and Necrons, but instead of being long range and killy like Tau, or durable like Necrons, Eldar take speed instead. Jetbikes, Wave Serpents, Swooping Hawks, Warp Spiders, all are fast and do good shooting.<br />
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However, we have our own fast units in Tomb Blades, CCBs, Wraiths, Scarabs, Night Scythes, etc. There are a few units that would make a decent addition that have no comparable Necron units (Swooping Hawks perfect deep striking in, Wraithknights, etc), but overall, like Space Marines, both require significant point investments and that's hard to work with.<br />
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<u>Dark Eldar</u> - Like Eldar, but more fast and fragile. This I could slightly see more acceptable than their Craftworld counterparts. Why? Webway portal. Perfect deep striking is great. Swooping Hawks have it, but the DE can give it to any unit - including a specialist unit with lots of special weapons, of which the Dark Eldar have lots. Plopping down a bunch of Haywire Blasters or Dark Lances exactly where they can do the most damage is easy to maintain and is something that we overall lack.<br />
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Still, you're taking away a lot of points from Necrons, and it totally isn't fluffy. Pass, imo.<br />
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<u>Chaos Daemons</u> - Lots of Psychic Dice. Lots and lots of it. Daemons are nearly completely Assault and Psychic, which actually kind of complements Necrons. You can even DS everything all the way down the table while your shooting base sits back. There's a possible list to be made here, something about mixing durable Necron shooting with cheap, Warp Dice laden Daemons. Just don't go too crazy into MCs on either side, or you'll run out of points faster than you thought possible.<br />
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<u>Tyranids</u> - Sorta like Daemons, except slightly different. Less Warp Dice, no mass DS, but throwing in Flyrants with Psychic, Devourers, and Fleshbane or Haywire Templates is scary. Like Knights, these sorts of allies are powerful no matter what army takes them, and are sometimes worth the problematic CtA restrictions. However, anything more than 2 Flyrants will start to eat at your points, so if you are the sort of person that just wants to throw Flyrants on the table, maybe you should just be playing Tyranids?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-5440914042784671852015-03-18T08:28:00.003-07:002015-03-18T08:30:47.293-07:00ProgressSorry posts have been low, been working on painting up my army for Adepticon. All that's left are 3 models and the basing, which will be done tonight! Some pictures after the break.<br />
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Sorry for the size, took them with a crappy camera and uploaded them to Imgur. Media guru, I am not!<br />
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C'Tan Shard of the Nightbringer (aka The Frozen One)<br />
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Nemesor Zahndrekh<br />
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Flayed Ones (Custom built out of Warriors)<br />
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Destroyer Cult<br />
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Really excited to see them on the table at the Championships!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-36983138164687173822015-03-10T12:38:00.001-07:002015-03-10T12:38:10.511-07:00Conclave of the Burning OneA big thing that you'll see many armies nowadays have are "Deathstar" units. A Deathstar unit is a big, expensive, powerful unit that is designed to scare the pants off anything that comes within its threat range, or to bring some other sort of utility that is worth a large price point. That threat range changes depending on what it is: a Shooting Deathstar has the effective range of its guns, while an Assault Deathstar has the threat range of Movement + effective charge distance. You'll see lots of different Deathstars, from the tough and killy Wolfstar, to the Psychicially powered Screamerstar and Jetbike Council, to the shooting ball of Centurionstar.<br />
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Well, the Conclave is a Deathstar - albeit one with only 3 models in the unit. Let's take a closer look at it after the break.<br />
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The Conclave of the Burning One is a Formation, so it lacks some of the customization of a true Deathstar. You can't add new ICs, but there are plenty of upgrades to be taken. The choice starts with which type of C'Tan you want to take.<br />
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<ul>
<li>The Nightbringer is extremely killy. WS6 and Fleshbane means he ends pretty much anything on the board, even GMCs aren't safe from him. Gaze of Death is a great supplement to shooting power, being one of the best things in the entire book. It can even be used in Assault, until a FAQ comes out saying otherwise.</li>
<li>The Deceiver is less straightforward killing than his coutnerpart, but brings other tricks. Redeployment means that you can counter-react to your opponents deployment if you deploy first, and if you deploy second, it means you can react to Scout moves. Hit and Run is also fantastic, as he's less of an Assault focus than the Nightbringer, it lets him pop out and get ready to shoot again if he wants.</li>
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Both are good choices, though I think the Nightbringer is better overall. Grand Illusion can be useful in certain situations, but it is rather situational, as is Hit and Run. Fleshbane is mostly situational as you're S8, but WS6 and Gaze of Death are always good. </div>
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Next, you have to kit out your Crypteks. Starting with weapons:</div>
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<ul>
<li>Staff of Light is the basic option, and is perfectly fine. S5 AP3 Assault 3 is a good gun, giving you a lot of damage with two of them.</li>
<li>Tachyon Arrow can be nice. As you are fairly slow on foot, it can let you try to pick off some things at a long range before you get there. Expensive, though.</li>
<li>Gauntlet of Fire is a pass. Staff is just so much better for a Cryptek. You're not dropping out of a Night Scythe, and you don't particularly need that much Overwatch. </li>
<li>The Solar Staff is a direct upgrade to your Staff of Light, giving you Blind (pretty good) and for one turn, you gain pseudo-Invisibility. Pseudo, in that it only works against shooting, so if they charge you you're still getting hit normally.</li>
<li>Gauntlet of the Conflagrator is an interesting item. One use S7 AP2 Flamer is a great item, but really wants to be taken on a faster moving model, or one dropped out of a Night Scythe.</li>
</ul>
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Arguably just sticking with the Staff of Light on both is probably the best option, unless you want to upgrade one to the Solar Staff, which is good. The others aren't worth much in my opinion.</div>
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Which brings us to Wargear:</div>
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<ul>
<li>The God Shackle is nearly mandatory. If you're not bringing it in another Mephrit Dynasty detachment, it needs to be here. T8 makes you immune to most small arms fire and relatively hard to kill against anything not S9 or S10. Put it on one of your Crypteks, 10 points is pocket change for this.</li>
<li>Chronometron grants you a 5++ save against all shooting. Not bad, but you can do better:</li>
<li>Phase Shifter grants a 4++ to the Cryptek. Taking two is double the points of the Chronometron, but it's also a hike in survivability and they work in Assault as well. </li>
<li>Solar Thermasite is an option from the Exterminatus book that boosts the Strength of your weapon by +1 and allows you to reroll saves of 1. A nice upgrade, but 25 cents is pretty steep asking price.</li>
<li>Mindshackle Scarabs are garbage for the most part</li>
<li>A Phylactery can be quite nice. If you're tanking shots on the Cryptek, you can regain some of those wounds back. Increases your durability, but with only 2 wounds a lot of times that Cryptek will be dead in one turn rather than getting the chance to try for the roll.</li>
<li>Nightmare Shroud grants the holder a 2+ Armor save. Pretty nice, makes your front Cryptek even more tanky.</li>
<li>The Veil of Darkness is really nice on this formation. Since it's just 3 models, we're looking at a very small footprint, so mishapping is fairly unlikely. The unit itself only has a 6" move, so any boost to mobility is a boon. </li>
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In my opinion, the Veil should be taken in nearly every situation. Getting them out there and in the enemy's face is tantamount to success. In the situation that you don't want to teleport across the board (like if there's 3 Knights waiting there or they're coming to you), then you can always use it to escape from a tarpit or jump towards a last minute objective. Adding that much mobility to an otherwise immobile unit is worth the price and minor risk.</div>
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Next I recommend adding some durability. Pick either one Chronometron or a Phase Shifter for one or both Crypteks. That step is all but mandatory in my opinion. Next, you have a choice of either the Solar Staff or the Nightmare Shroud + Solar Thermasite. The Staff is much cheaper, and more effective against heavy weapons. Against lots of small arms fire, 2+ armor rerolling 1s is fantastic, and doesn't only last one turn. However, once they start breaking out the AP2 guns, having one turn of Invisibility will seem really nice. </div>
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Whichever you take is up to you, my general setup is as follows:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Conclave of the Burning One </b><br />
Shard of the Nightbringer - 240<br />
"Shadow" Cryptek (Veil of Darkness, Phase Shifter, God Shackle) - 125<br />
"Solar" Cryptek (Solar Staff, Phase Shifter) - 105<br />
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470 points </blockquote>
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Keeping the God Shackle alive is important, so putting it on the Veil Cryptek is the normal move. That insures that it'll always be on the "inside" of the unit after Deep Striking. Putting the Nightbringer or Solar Cryptek out front depends on what's coming in. The Cryptek has a better save (4++/4+++ > 4++/5+++), but less wounds and can be Instant Death'd by S8 or higher shots. Additionally, the Nightbringer might have to be positioned to get the most out of Gaze of Death.<br />
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A fun part of this formation is that, since it's made up of 2 Independent Characters and one Character, you can Look Out, Sir! wounds around to mitigate losses for a while. This can be the difference between losing a Cryptek and taking a wound on the Nightbringer that he just gains back with Gaze of Death. </div>
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So overall, customization of your Conclave comes down to how expensive you want it to be. A kitted out tank Cryptek with Phase Shifter, Nightmare Shroud, and Solar Thermasite is pretty difficult to kill, but will also cost you a pretty penny. A super cheap Conclave with just flat Crypteks, a God Shackle, and a Chronometron will save you some points, but will also be much less variable and will be easier to kill. However, a cheap version with the Deceiver just as a support and backline defense unit doesn't need to be as expensive as a linchpin Nightbringer unit kitted out to kill things.<br />
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Decide what works best for you and your list. I think there are plenty of ways to run this, and all of them have their uses.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-48129612371330649402015-03-09T08:34:00.000-07:002015-03-10T08:43:16.228-07:00Cult of DESTROYI have not been subtle about my love of Destroyers. I loved the idea of them last edition and for them to be buffed in this edition for no price increase (and in fact a price drop for Heavies) was just my dream. They're rather fantastic now: able to shoot and scoot with Assault moves and super durable with the new RP and extra wound. T5 3+ was... pretty good before, but would die to any amount of focus fire. Now, T5 3+/5+++ and double the wounds, plus able to jump back into cover? That's fantastic.<br />
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The Destroyer Cult formation has been my favorite thing since I opened up the codex. Not only did my favorite unit get buffed, but they also got one of the best formations in the book, and indeed, one of the best in any base codex? Sign me the heck up. Move Through Cover means jumping in and out of ruins or over walls is easy as 1-2-3. Rerolling all wounds and pens makes their already fantastic guns crazy good. Heavy Destroyers go from pretty good anti-tank to armor-shredding monsters.<br />
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My standard setup for a Cult is what I showed in a previous post:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Destroyer Cult</b><br />
Destroyer Lord (Phase Shifter, Warscythe)<br />
Heavy Destroyers x3<br />
Destroyers x3 (One Heavy)<br />
Destroyers x3 (One Heavy)<br />
Destroyers x3 (One Heavy)</blockquote>
This brings 6 Heavies which are spread out and can threaten different angles, important for dropping Knights with their invulns. It also means that if you need to fire the regular Destroyers at another target, you can do so without redirecting too much AP2 shooting.<br />
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MSU seems to be the name of the game nowadays, and the Cult is definitely that. 4 units that can shoot and scoot, all with pretty long range shooting, means that you can spread out and threaten multiple zones simultaneously without sacrificing firepower. Each one is fairly durable (6 wounds with 3+ and RP, as well as nearly always a cover save), so it would take some serious focus fire or specific weapons to remove them from the board in any timely manner.<br />
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I'm surprised that people aren't scared of this. I get that we're all hung up on how good giving Wraiths RP with Canoptek Harvest is, but personally I feel that the Cult is the most dangerous formation in the book. Lots of high strength AP3/AP2 shooting, durable units, and both of the formation bonuses are fantastic. Every opponent that has gone up against it has told me how nasty it felt to face that much firepower and mobility, and I don't blame them. Even when playing with a CAD, I consider my Destroyers to be the backbone of my army. They do the heavy lifting, while Deathstars and Troops do the other stuff.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-27304489727369855912015-03-06T07:46:00.002-08:002015-03-10T08:43:23.194-07:00Assassin AlliesI speak quite a bit about the Assassin dataslate and how easy it is to fit into any army. And it's true, you just include one unit and gain all of the cool things they bring. For Necrons, this can be a real boon. Let's take a look:<br />
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<b>Vindicare</b></div>
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<u>THE </u>sniper of 40k. This guy has a range of yes, ignores cover, and uses a gun that can do basically whatever you want. Vehicles? S10 AP2 is nice for that. Need that extra wound to drop a MC or the like? 2+ auto wound. Annoyed with enemy making 3++ saves? Ignore invuln, no problem. Having everything be a Precision Shot means that you can easily pick out that Powerfist in the unit, or the guy holding the meltagun. He's like a toolbox full of ways to hurt things.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
The downside is that 150 buckaroos is a bit steep to take a single shot per turn. If you're not shooting at vehicles or using Hellfire for the 2+, then you're also only wounding on a 4+, which means if the game goes to 6 turns that's only 3 that went through (good as they are). That can be problematic, but at the same time, you can nearly always have the right attack for the right target. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Vindi is a pretty solid inclusion. You can set him in the backline or up in a tower and not worry about One Eye Open, and as long as he's in cover he's got a nice 3+ save.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Eversor</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Probably the weakest of the bunch. A bit of a black sheep, he's designed to mulch things in Assault. Which he can do... except against vehicles, or things that go before him, or things with good saves. And then, he's really only fantastic when he charges.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But, if he gets to charge against things that don't have 2+ saves, he's basically always hitting on 3s, should wound basically anything thanks to Fleshbane/Shred. That's good enough to be a blender against most non-terminators. Even MCs would give pause to that, except that if they survive, they're just going to crush him. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
T4/W3/4++/FNP is great, but on a single model without Eternal Warrior, isn't exactly top shelf. If you let him pick and choose his targets, he'll make his points back and then some. But, if they so much as look at him funny, he's going to be paste. For Necrons, Flayed Ones basically do what he does with more bodies. Pass.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Culexus</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A fantastic addition for us. Powerful anti-psyker in an army that lacks it completely. And with Infiltrate/Outflank, you rarely have to worry about his deployment shenanigans, though you still will have to be careful not to move into OEO territory.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This guy is slippery thanks to his semi-Invisibility, and a S5 AP2 gun that's shot in the Psychic Phase is pretty damn good for what it is. Despite being slightly less tough than the Eversor (lacks FNP), he's surprisingly harder to kill - 6s to hit him, and in Assault they're basically always going to be hitting on 5s. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Using one as an Infiltrating anti-Psyker bomb is a fairly good thing to add on to Necrons. Aside from Gloom Prism, we have no way to do anything to Psykers (and even that's poor). He stops things like Grey Knights or Daemons basically dead, which is something that we could desperately use.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Callidus</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Callidus (or Cally as I like to call her) is the all-arounder Assassin. Vindicare is a point and click damage output, Culexus is a Psyker killer, and Eversor is a blender.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Cally is farly decent in Assault, able to attack at either S4 AP2 that can ignore Invulns or AP- Poison 3+ Rending. Both have their uses, and she's able to switch to whichever one is best against the threat she's facing at the time. Her template gun is fairly good against most targets (AP2 wounding on 4+). She's not the type of Assassin who has one dedicated job, rather, she's adaptive and disruptive, which actually fits the lore really well.<br />
<br />
Nicely enough, she also gives you utility through rerolling to Seize (fantastic if you didn't get that as a Trait) and a -3 to the first enemy reserve roll. Against enemy lists with just one reserve item (a Flyer, or the 2-3 Drop Pod lists where only one stays in reserve), they have to come in on a 6, which can really be nice, but also has the capability to be bad if your Flyers come in first.<br />
<br />
On top of that, her Infiltrate and Outflank are on steroids, as she can start anywhere on the board she feels like, or can choose to come in on the enemy's board edge, and either way they can only shoot Snap Shots at her for the first turn. Surprise! This means you're never ever going to have to worry about OEO with her.<br />
<br />
It's likely better to do the mega-Infiltrate only if you're going first and do reserve run ons/Outflank if you're going second. If you go second, they'll have one shooting round of snap shots at her, and then one round of full shooting, which she can't survive. The best case scenario is for her to start out close to something she wants to kill, use the semi-invisibility to survive for a turn, and then charge the second turn she's on the table. Alternatively, you could just mega-infiltrate her in heavy cover and hope that she can Line of Sight most of the shots.<br />
<br />
So for Necrons, she brings super Infiltrate (nice for early game board presence), the Seize/Reserves shenanigans, and a AP2 template, the last of which is the only thing we can really duplicate, and then only with a 30 point one-use relic. That's fantastic.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Conclusion</b></div>
<br />
Except for the Eversor, any army could make use of one or more of these guys. If you want more long range firepower, the Vindicare has you covered. If you want protection from scary Psykers, the Culexus is your man. If you want utility and early game alpha strike, you could do a lot worse than the Callidus.<br />
<br />
If you find yourself with around 150 points left over, think about it. Play them with some proxies, see how you like them. I am very heavily of the opinion that using one is no bad idea, and you might find that there's one that fills whatever gaps your particular list might have! I know I'm heavily considering a Vindicare, as it's rather easy to just plop him on a backline objective and provide extra firepower to the rest of your army. Plus, a cool modeling opportunity for a Hero Deathmark!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-84286794336304595572015-03-05T07:36:00.000-08:002015-03-10T08:43:43.234-07:00An Army of Formations - but not a Decurion!As a follow up to yesterday's post, here's a thought I had:<br />
<br />
Could an army made of just Formations work? Including neither a CAD nor a Reclamation Legion required to make it a Decurion. As follows:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The Reclamation Legion, as I said before, is kinda lame because of the restrictive nature and the fact that it requires a lot of Troops but robs them of ObSec.</li>
<li>The CAD is nice, but is basic and doesn't bring the powerful addons of the Formations.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Our formations are fantastic, let's get that out of the way. Canoptek Harvest giving Scarabs/Wraiths/Spyders RP? Heck yes. Destroyer Cult making the already fantastic Destroyers more powerful? Superb. Deathbringer Flight making our pretty good flyers extra scary when they work in tandem? I mean, I'll take it, even if I wasn't particularly looking for it. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Both the CAD and the Decurion add an overhead to these. Not necessarily a bad overhead, don't get me wrong. ObSec is game changing. 4+ RP is golden. And the units, while not particularly overpowered, are useful in their own right. </div>
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<a name='more'></a><br /></div>
<div>
However, what if we considered using simply all Formations as a way of building the army? It would be a relatively simple venture, and there's a decent variety to choose from, especially if you add in Exterminatus for Conclave of the Burning One. (Though we're going to ignore the other 3 as they're basically full armies in and of themselves)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You're also not out of luck for Warlords - a Royal Court is easy to include, and the Destroyer Lord from the Cult gets a reroll on the Necron table. The Conclave also has 3 Characters, though they don't get a reroll of the Trait. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The only real issue one might have is with number of bodies. Our Troops (and Flayed Ones, to an extent) are our way of putting lots of models on the board. If you're looking to do that, well then you're not going to be pleased. The cheapest models in the non-Reclamation Legion formations are Scarabs in the Canoptek Swarm and Praetorians in the Judicator Battalion. So, this would be more of a "small/elite" type army, but depending on how you build it, you can create a fairly solid MSU list out of it.<br />
<br />
As a test run:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Destroyer Cult</b><br />
Destroyer Lord (Voidreaper and Phase Shifter) - 155
Heavy Destroyers x3 - 150<br />
Destroyers x3 (1 Heavy) - 130<br />
Destroyers x3 (1 Heavy) - 130<br />
Destroyers x3 (1 Heavy) - 130</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Conclave of the Burning One</b><br />
Nightbringer - 240<br />
Cryptek (Veil of Darkness, God Shackle, Phase Shifter) - 125<br />
Cryptek (Solar Staff, Phase Shifter) - 105</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Canoptek Harvest</b><br />
Scarabs x3 - 60<br />
Wraiths x6 (5x Whip Coils) - 255<br />
Spyder - 50</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Deathbringer Flight</b>
<br />
Doom Scythe - 160<br />
Doom Scythe - 160</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1850</blockquote>
Had to drop one of the Whip Coils to make room for a Phase Shifter. Let that one Wraith be the one that tanks things.<br />
<br />
We have 6 fast moving units, a cheap MC that buffs two of them, a powerful deathstar that can teleport, and two flyers that are effective against pretty much anything. That's not bad, not by a long shot. It's a bit light on bodies, but we can create more Scarabs and the units we have are fairly durable, the Scarabs and Crypteks being the only things below Toughness 5.<br />
<br />
It also lacks ObSec, which could be a death sentence against things like Drop Pod spam and Scouts. It's fairly durable against things like Hive Tyrant spam, but it might have trouble knocking them out of the sky. But I think overall, it's a fairly solid list that can weather most opponents and crush many things in either assault or shooting.<br />
<br />
How about it? 7th edition let us play building blocks with our detachments, and this is a new way to put an army together that I think could give a lot of very solid lists a run for their money.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-60175470567666072492015-03-04T11:25:00.000-08:002015-03-10T08:43:51.785-07:00List Building with Req: First SwingsSo 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.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2015/03/03/2015-40k-tournament-survival-101-a-rawdogger-rumination/">Rawdogger over at Frontline Gaming put out an interesting article</a> 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.</div>
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<a name='more'></a><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Mobility</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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. </li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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).</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Anti-Air</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<ul>
<li>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.</li>
</ul>
<li>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.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Knights</b></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I talked about this a bit in the anti-tank segment. Knights are very popular at tournaments, and you have to deal with them. <a href="http://reqcrons.blogspot.com/2015/03/removing-vehicles-necron-anti-tank.html">You can find my thoughts on our anti-armor here</a>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>2+ Cover Save Monstrous Creatures</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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. </li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Wave Serpents</b></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Conclusion</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-62303638907844823372015-03-03T11:44:00.000-08:002015-03-10T08:44:04.598-07:00Decurion or CAD?The new codices all have new detachments that give a bit of flavor. Dark Eldar have one that gives them cover saves, Grey Knights have a Deep Strike turn 1 thing going on, etc. Our Decurion is an interesting beast, a detachment of formations rather than Force Org Chart.<br />
<br />
It's quite powerful, I'll say that from the get-go. 4+ RP army wide, Vehicles ignoring Crew Stunned, and nearly all formations giving Move Through Cover (and some Relentless) is fantastic. It increases our already high durability by quite a bit and army-wide Move Through Cover means that we're going to have a surprising amount of mobility compared to other foot armies.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
However, it's quite restrictive. 1 Overlord, 2 Warrior units, 1 Immortal unit, and 1 Tomb Blade unit before you can buy anything else. And those are just base, so you'll probably want to put in more points into the Immortals and Tomb Blades to make them more useful. So you're already spending a bunch of points before you even take the things you want to take.<br />
<br />
The only units you can flat take without other prerequisites are Flayed Ones, C'Tan/Tesseract Vault, an Obelisk, or Deathmarks. To an extent, Monoliths and Lychguard as part of the Reclamation Legion have no prerequisites other than an Auxiliary Force, so you can probably count those too. But, if you want to bring Heavy Destroyers? You have to field a whole Cult. You want Wraiths? An entire Harvest is necessary. Praetorians? Need 2 units and a Stalker. Can't just bring 1 Doom Scythe, and you can't bring non-Dedicated Ghost Arks or Night Scythes.<br />
<br />
"Well, that doesn't sound so bad," you say. And you're not wrong. We don't really have a bad formation in the bunch, and most of the "required" units are good on their own rights. And for the most part, the points aren't that restrictive. Taking Wraiths only has a 110 point buffer on it for the rest of the Formation. But, when it comes to building a list specifically with the combination of units and models that you want, 110 points suddenly becomes a stopper that's hard to work around. If you just want 6 Wraiths with Whip Coils and can't afford to bring the rest, you're kinda out of luck if you want to run a Decurion.<br />
<br />
So, what does the CAD bring? First and foremost, Objective Secured. It's good. It can win games. And if you're spamming Warriors and Immortals, it's something that your opponent very much has to worry about if he doesn't have as much to match it. To me, ObSec is what makes our Troop choices. I don't really think that Immortals or Warriors on their own are special enough to perk my interest, other than the overall cheap cost and large squad sizes. The fact that you have to bring 3 Troops in the Decurion without the bonus that makes the Troops worthwhile in the first place is troubling to me.<br />
<br />
Secondly, the CAD lets you mix and match your favored units without worrying about prereqs. An army of Wraiths and Heavy Destroyers that don't include regular Destroyers or Scarabs? You can do that, just as you did before. Oh sure, you lose out on the fantastic bonuses of the Formation, but the thing is you have the choice.<br />
<br />
The place you'll see this be a big deal is when you deal with HQs. Specifically, if you want to take a Lord or Cryptek (or Special Character versions of either) as your HQ. In a Decurion, you need to bring an Overlord plus a full Royal Court (including another Overlord) if you want Orikan, Obyron, or Szeras in your army at all. That can be very problematic.<br />
<br />
Also take into account that with the way Detachments and Formations work now, a CAD doesn't mean that you're missing out on the Formations anyway. If you want to take a CAD and a Destroyer Cult, you can! The Destroyers miss out on the 4+ Reanimate from the Decurion, but otherwise they're just as good and don't have as big of an overhead cost to take.<br />
<br />
I am of the opinion that, unless you specifically go into list building wanting an Overlord, 2 Warrior units, an Immortal unit, and a squad of Tomb Blades, the Decurion is a poor option compared to the CAD. However, if you want those specific units in your army, and want specifically to take the Formations, then the Decurion might be worthwhile.<br />
<br />
I think that if the option was just between Ever Living and Objective Secured, the choice might be more difficult to make. That's a fairly even trade in my opinion. But with the restriction of the Reclamation Legion tacked on, taking the Decurion is a very specific choice that you have to think about and weigh your army by.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-58536294249453255022015-03-03T08:57:00.000-08:002015-03-10T08:44:16.617-07:00Warscythe Lychguard - Obyronstar?Obyron leading Warscythe Lychguard will remove anything from the board in a round or two. Knights? Gone. Baneblades? Bye bye. Terminator sqauds? Not even an issue. Even going at I2, the amount of Warscythe attacks being thrown out by this unit will shred anything to bits in ways that would make Khorne proud.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
I've already talked previously about Shield Lychguard and their uses. The deathball is something special, and has a place in many armies. Warscythe Lychguard are a completely different monster. They're just as durable to AP4 or worse, but die much more easily to AP3/2/1. You can supplement this with a Chronometron Cryptek, who gives them a 5++ against shooting. Against anything but AP3 specifically, this makes them tougher than Terminators until they reach Assault, where they're still about the same, but much cheaper and, imo, more powerful than Assault Terminators. <br />
<br />
The issue is getting them there. There's an argument to be made for Night Scythes, but then you're fairly reliant on Reserves for your choppy unit. Not bad, but then you're looking at a turn 3 charge at the earliest.<br />
<br />
Zahndrekh can provide an option. <span style="background-color: #e06666;">Start Zahndrekh near the edge of your DZ, move him up 6", then teleport Obyron and 10 Warscythe Lychguard 12" ahead of him. That's an 18" move (plus Running) on turn 1, which is most of No Man's Land, and in fact all of it if you manage to get that 6" run. That's 11 Warscythes on top of or in your enemy's DZ, ready to charge turn 2. That should be flat out terrifying.</span><br />
It has been pointed out to me that Ghostwalk Mantle has to be used before the rest of Movement, meaning it's only 12" to the middle of the board by this strategy. Still, you could do it Turn 2 or just use the 12" move as is.<br />
<br />
With T5/3+/5++/4+++ on them (bump that to a 2+ on Obyron), that's pretty darn hard to remove from the board. To remove just the Lychguard, that's 60 wounds at AP4 or worse. Only 30 at AP3 or better, but that's still a lot of shooting just to remove a single unit. Obyron + Chronotek + 10 Lychguard is 460, not a bad price for one of the most destructive Assault units to see the tabletop with fairly good tanking power.<br />
<br />
Take for instance: fighting a Knight. Assuming they get into combat without taking losses, and they get the charge, they lose 2 Lychguard and deal 10.1 Hull Points (before taking into account any extras from Explodes! results). If they get charged by the Knight, they lose 3 Lychguard and deal 6.5 Hull Points (before Explodes!).<br />
<br />
The issue with this unit is if they face AP3 or better weaponry that goes before I2, they might lose a few before going. But with RP, they're still saving 1/3 to 1/2 of those. Something like Thunderwolf Calvary squads are hard to take down with their 3++ shields and AP2 weapons, though given that the Obyronstar would still be saving plenty of those on RP and dealing plenty of their own,<br />
<br />
Overall, compared to the Shieldguard deathstar, this version is much more killy, but also easier to kill against many things. Is there room for it in a Necron army? Possibly. They have their ups and downs, just like most units in the game. They lack the mobility and durability of Wraiths, but bring better actual combat. They lack the stubbornness of Shieldguard, but again, kill much better. In today's meta, the durability and mobility is probably more valuable, but if you think you can utilize them in a way that they can get enemies, they'll remove things for you.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-76166043543017652222015-03-02T09:29:00.000-08:002015-03-10T08:44:38.618-07:00Removing Vehicles: Necron Anti-Tank OptionsWhen it comes to building a list, there's a lot of things to take into account. How fast can I move across the board? How do I deal with Flyers? What do I have to protect against Alpha Strikers?<br />
<br />
Today we're going to focus on Vehicles. "But Req!" you cry, "We have Gauss! We're the anti-vehicle army!". Bah, I say, Gauss is unreliable. a 1/9 chance to Glance is nothing when our army lacks Melta and Haywire. Last edition was different, 3 Stormteks with Night Scythes in an army and you were golden. No vehicle would come within 42" of your table edge lest they take 4 Haywire shots to the face.<br />
<br />
But we live in a world where Knights exist, and can be slotted into any army. A world where Eldar lists can very realistically contain 5 or even more Wave Serpents. And vehicles in other armies, though not as heavy, still have to be dealt with effectively.<br />
<br />
With the new codex changing units and losing Haywire, we have to think about what we have that can remove vehicles from the board, and do it effectively.<br />
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<u>Gauss</u></div>
<br />
I know what I said. It's still not reliable. But, if you put enough of it on the table, it can become so. Big blobs of Warriors and Immortals, especially in Rapid Fire distance, can start to be a very effective shooting unit. Dropping 10 Immortals or 15 Warriors near anything with Hull Points is scary, but getting them there is a problem. 15 Warriors in Rapid Fire range do 3.3 HP. 15 Warriors not in Rapid Fire range do 1.6 HP. That's the difference between removing a vehicle and just upsetting it slightly.<br />
<br />
Obviously Gauss has to be taken into account, because any squad with Gauss that doesn't have a priority target can always be pointed at a low HP vehicle in the hopes of plinking off the last one. But it shouldn't be relied on.<br />
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<u>Tesla Destructors</u></div>
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S7 with 4 Twin Linked Tesla shots is still pretty good. It can glance AV13, so it's ok there, but against lower AV vehicles it's downright terrifying. Unfortunately, two of the vehicles with them got significant price hikes, though the Doom Scythe is cheaper.<br />
<br />
Again, S7 AP- is like Gauss. It shouldn't be relied upon. Against heavy vehicles and things with saves, it's not hugely fantastic. However, you're likely going to have at least a Night Scythe or two in your army, so, like Gauss, you're going to have it around as a "light anti-tank" option.<br />
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<u>Doomsday Ark</u></div>
<br />
The new update gave it a better gun and allowed it to ignore Crew Shaken (and Stunned in a Decurion). Both of these things are good. A slight price drop is nice too, but it wasn't enough to make up for the fact that it's still really expensive. Still, it's a very powerful gun now. S10 AP1 (Primary Weapon!) blasts are never a bad thing, and even when moving it has a Battle Cannon style gun as well. Both of those are powerful enough to make lighter vehicles quiver in fear, and the Stationary version is enough to give even the heaviest armor pause.<br />
<br />
Still, I don't know how good it is overall. It's not Barrage, so it needs Line of Sight. It doesn't Ignore Cover, which isn't overly bad, but it does often suck on a one shot gun, especially one that can't move if it wants maximum firepower.<br />
<br />
It's our only source of S10, and the longest range gun in our book (other than Tachyon Arrow), which might be enough to make it worth taking, or at least considering. Not a top choice, though. Especially when you consider the next option...<br />
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<u>Doom Scythe</u></div>
<br />
A favorite from the last codex, it lost the oddly worded laser profile and gained a small blast version of the Doomsday Ark gun, though minus the Primary Weapon and plus Lance. On a Flyer. For 10 points less.<br />
<br />
I mean, sure, it's shorter ranged, and it starts in reserve, but all in all it's probably a better version of the Doomsday Ark in a lot of ways. If you're thinking of taking 2 or 3, you can even spare yourself the HS slots and put them in the Formation to gain a moderate shooting bonus and debuff.<br />
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<u>Triarch Stalker </u></div>
<br />
Our cool walker got a nice change in this edition. First of all, a rather significant point drop is always nice. Secondly, the buff it got is different but I think overall better. BS5 isn't as good as Twin Linked, but now nearby units just have it rather than having to shoot at the same target. This gives a lot more flexibility, especially when you want to split your fire up.<br />
<br />
As an anti-tank option, it works quite well. The Heat Ray is probably overall the best option, given that it doesn't cost anything, has 2 fire modes, and does good damage. A 2 shot S8 AP1 gun, even outside of Melta Range, is fairly scary to anything under AV14. Within melta range it's downright amazing for the cost, though you're never actually going to get this thing within 12" of a vehicle.<br />
<br />
Still, it's a good anti-tank gun that brings a buff to your army, particularly Destroyers who it essentially makes Twin Linked. It has the downside of being a heavy fire magnet ("That's buffing his things? Kill it!") and Open Topped means it's at least somewhat likely to explode against anything that can pen it.<br />
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<u>Heavy Destroyers</u></div>
<br />
Here we go, my favored option in the book, especially when part of the Destroyer Cult. S9 AP2 with rerolls To Pen? How many things can stand up to the likes of that? Not much, trust me. And with Jet Pack JSJ, they're likely to be out of Line of Sight of any retaliation that might come their way.<br />
<br />
Outside of the Cult, they're still a pretty good option. It's a 50/50 to get a hull point off of AV13, and lighter vehicles are basically just going to roll over. Not to mention they're still good at picking off Terminators and Monstrous Creatures.<br />
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<u>C'Tan</u></div>
<br />
Unreliable, but reliable. If that makes sense. 2 of the 6 powers (Time's Arrow and Transdimensional Thunderbolt) are fairly hard anti-tank. 2 other ones (Sky of Falling Stars and Antimatter Meteor) can still take a HP or two off of AV13 if you roll well. Seismic Assault is pretty great against AV12 or lower, though you don't see that very often.<br />
<br />
In Assault, we're looking at 4 S7 Attacks, which will crush most Rear Armors. It can't do particularly a lot against Knights, but again, what can? If you give one a boost with the God Shackle (you should, it is that good), S8 will make short work of anything it can reach.<br />
<br />
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<u>Assault</u></div>
<br />
Necrons actually have a handful of Assault options that can wreck vehicles. Warscythes being the obvious - S7 Armorbane destroys any vehicle it touches. Unfortunately, our Warscythes also have the issue of being on very slow bodies. Lords, Overlords, and Lychguard are not nearly fast enough to threaten most vehicles, unless they drop out of a Night Scythe. DLords are slightly faster, but have trouble attaching to any sort of retinue.<br />
<br />
A Warscythe CCB is a good option. It can get to backline vehicles and open them up like that's it's job. Unfortunately, that doesn't really work against something like Knights or Assault-focused Walkers, who are just going to kill it before it does anything.<br />
<br />
Wraiths and Scarabs also can destroy vehicles. With Rending and Entropic Strike respectively, and both having a high number of attacks, they can tear down a vehicle with decent reliability, though you're still beholden to rolling those 6s to get there. But, while it's unreliable compared to something like Warscythes, both of these units can get across the board and onto their targets much easier.<br />
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I rather think shooting is a better option for Necrons when it comes to removing vehicles from the board, but there's a high likelyhood that you'll have some of these options on the table anyway, so keep them in mind.<br />
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<u>Allies</u></div>
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Again - we live in a world of Allies and Detachments. And there are some very decent options if you want to call an audible and bring in some non-robot tank killers.<br />
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Tau, again, are fairly easy to slot in. And with things like Broadsides, Riptides, and Hammerheads, they have a lot of anti-tank options that they can provide our army with.<br />
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Orks are a funny option that can put in things like Rokkit spam, though I wouldn't call Ork allies reliable by a long shot.<br />
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CSM are our other AoC option... and they don't really bring that much in that department which we don't have a better version of. Obliterators? Pale imitations of our Heavy Destroyers.<br />
<br />
Assassins are easy to slot into an army, and the Vindicare is a pretty solid option if you want one. A bit on the expensive side, but you can just plunk him on any sort of objective or back line placement and fire at anything within 72" (read: most things on the board). S10 AP2 Ignores Cover is a pretty decent gun for shooting at vehicles, though it always has the likelyhood of not doing anything in particular. Take at your own risk.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Conclusion</u></div>
<br />
Knights exist. Wave Serpent spam is a thing. Perhaps not in your local meta, but in a general scale, these are things that have to be thought of when it comes to building a list. While it's not necessary to make your entire army anti-vehicle, including a few redundant options is always a decent thing to do. I personally thing Heavy Destroyers are the way to go - they're durable, mobile, and can strip most vehicles to husks with relatively little effort. Doom Scythes place next for me, since Flyers that can erase vehicles from the board are never a bad thing to have.<br />
<br />
However, you might find success with other options. In a vehicle heavy list, Doomsday Arks and Stalkers are killer. If you have enough of them and can get them from A to B, Warscythe Lychguard will kill nearly anything on the board with ease. There are a lot of choices in the new book, so try them out and see what works for you.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-81963279141392652932015-02-28T12:48:00.000-08:002015-02-28T12:49:54.604-08:00Orikan and Lychguard: How to Make Your Opponents Hate YouSo 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.<br />
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<u>Surprisingly Killy</u></div>
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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.<br />
<br />
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).<br />
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<u>The Toughest Bodyguards</u></div>
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What is a Character without a good retinue? Dead meat, that's what. And Orikan brings one of the best in the game.<br />
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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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>The Numbers</u></div>
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A Shieldguard with no boost to his Reanimate ignores 7/9 (77.78%) of all wounds<br />
With a boost to Reanimate from the Decurion (or a normal Cryptek), that jumps to 5/6 (83.33%) saved<br />
Orikan giving Rerolls to 1s boosts that to 8/9 (88.89%) saved<br />
If you're part of a Decurion and the Overlord is nearby to reroll RPs of 1, that's a<br />
<br />
Shieldguard, no Decurion, no Characters: 7/9 (77.78%) saved<br />
Shieldguard, 4+ RP, no Characters: 5/6 (83.33%) saved<br />
Shieldguard with Orikan: 8/9 (88.89%) saved<br />
Shieldguard with Orikan and Decurion Overlord: 49/54 (90.74%) saved<br />
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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.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>The Cost</u></div>
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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.<br />
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<u>Downsides and Strategy</u></div>
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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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-75452920000118462412015-02-27T07:45:00.000-08:002015-02-27T07:45:05.190-08:00Flayed Ones are the New Hotness<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>The Past</u></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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?<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>The Present</u></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>The Future</u></div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
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!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>The Bosses</u></div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
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. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
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. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
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. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
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.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Stratagems</u></div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
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. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
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. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
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.<br />
<br />
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 <i>not</i> getting shot, which is good.<br />
<br />
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.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-24181508337657508252015-02-26T09:39:00.002-08:002015-02-26T09:39:17.429-08:00Zahndrekh's Bag of Tricks Part 2: The Right Tool for the Right Time<br />
Decided to split this up into two because the other section got so long. Zahndrekh really is that good.<br />
<br />
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 <i>choices</i>. 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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<b>Necron:</b><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: blue;">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. </span></li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">Reserve Manipulation. Obviously good... if you have reserves. Scythe are still pretty good, so you will probably have them.</span></span></li>
<li>12" Relentless and Crusader bubble. Suddenly you can Rapid Fire and Charge. Not bad by any means, but again, very situational.</li>
<li>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.</li>
</ol>
<b>Tactical (skip if playing Eternal War):</b><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Generate an extra card on your first turn. Can't use this.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Can discard and redraw all cards on your first turn. Can't use this.</span></span></li>
<li>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.</li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">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.</span></span></li>
</ol>
<b>Command:</b><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">12" bubble of use Warlord leadership. *Looks at Necron book.* *Everything LD10* *Pass*</span></span></li>
<li>Enemies within 12" use lowest leadership instead of highest. I mean, super situational. If it's <i>very</i> important that the opponent fail the Morale test and it's a <i>very</i> big difference between the highest and lowest LD, maybe consider it. But picking this over other options is pretty iffy.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">12" bubble reroll 1s to hit in shooting. This will probably be your biggest go-to trait.</span></span></li>
<li>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.</li>
</ol>
<b>Strategic:</b><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="background-color: white;">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.</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">First turn is Night Fight and your dudes have Night Vision. First turn Warlord traits do nothing, and Night Vision does even less.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Warlord and 3 non-vehicle units have Infiltrate. See above.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">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.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">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.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">d3 Pinning tests on the enemy's first turn. As #2 and #3 here, can't use this.</span></span></li>
</ol>
<b>Personal:</b><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Warlord has Counter Attack. Hahaha no.</li>
<li>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.</li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000;">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.</span></li>
<li>+1VP per character he kills in a challenge. Guess. (Hint, it's really bad)</li>
<li><span style="color: #cc0000;">Warlord has FNP. RP is better in every way, every time.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: blue;">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.</span></li>
</ol>
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>The Robot, the Myth, the Legend</u></div>
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-65335850054090767172015-02-26T08:32:00.000-08:002015-02-26T08:32:21.922-08:00Zahndrekh's Bag of Tricks Part 1: All your USRs are belong to usNemesor 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.<br />
<br />
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).<br />
<br />
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:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Counter Tactics Targets</u></div>
<br />
<b>Counter-attack </b>- All Space Wolves, Mark of Khorne CSM, Termagants near a Tervigon<br />
<b>Furious Charge</b> - All Blood Angels, Khorne Daemons, some Khorne CSM, Dark Eldar PFP units Turn 4 or later, Orks, Tyranids with Adrenal Glands, Eversor Assassin<br />
<b>Hit & Run</b> - Dark Angels bikes, White Scars, Cypher, Callidus Assassin<br />
<b>Split Fire</b> - Centurion Devestators, Deathwing, Long Fangs, Inquisitor with Liber Heresius, Illic Nightspear, Cadre Fireblade<br />
<b>Stealth </b>- Dark Eldar vehicles with Night Shields, Rangers, Vindicare Assassin, Stealth Suits, Eldar/Harlequin Psychic Powers<br />
<b>Tank Hunters</b> - Imperial Fist Devestators, Tau with an Artifact (Puretide), Tau Fire Support Cadre, Longstrike<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Utilizing Your New USR</u></div>
<br />
As this only affects Zahndrekh's unit, you have to somewhat prepare his squad if you want to make use of this.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Counter Attack and Furious Charge </b>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.<br />
<br />
<b>Hit and Run </b>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.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Split Fire </b>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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<b>Stealth </b>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.<br />
<br />
<b>Tank Hunters </b>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.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>The "Gimmick"</u></div>
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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).<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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 <i>harder </i>to kill, if you can imagine that. So there are plenty of lists to be made here, just waiting to be hashed out.<br />
<br />
<br />
Part 2 will focus on Adaptive Tactics, and why having a big toolbox is really, really good.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-13057105473027527792015-02-06T16:08:00.001-08:002015-02-06T16:08:34.406-08:00MSU for the NecronsSo, 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.<br />
<br />
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?<br />
<br />
<u><b>3 man Destroyer Squads with 1 Heavy (or 3 man Heavy Destroyers)</b></u><br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Praetorians </b></u><br />
<br />
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).<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
<u><b>Shield Lychguard</b></u><br />
<br />
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).<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
<u><b>Immortals</b></u><br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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. <br />
<br />
<u><b>Tomb Blades</b></u><br />
<br />
Tomb Blades with Shield Vanes are Immortals on speed. Literally. Jokes.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
------</div>
<br />
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:<br />
<br />
5 Praetorians<br />
5 Praetorians<br />
<br />
5 Tomb Blades<br />
5 Tomb Blades<br />
<br />
3 Heavy Destroyers<br />
3 Heavy Destroyers<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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:<br />
<br />
Orikan<br />
Overlord (Warscythe)<br />
<br />
5 Praetorians<br />
5 Praetorians<br />
5 Shield Lychguard + Scythe<br />
<br />
5 Tomb Blades<br />
5 Tomb Blades<br />
<br />
3 Heavy Destroyers<br />
3 Heavy Destroyers<br />
<br />
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.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-959309469716155110.post-18103170142969684412015-01-30T08:49:00.003-08:002015-01-30T08:49:58.555-08:00Tomb World AwakeningSo this is a blog! I've been very excited for the new Necron codex to come out, and now that it is for the most part, I'm even more excited to actually play with it and finally finish building and painting my Necrons. I figured, this is as good of a place as any to talk about them. My thoughts on the units, post some progress on my Dynasty, and Battle Reports once I get some games under my belt. I also collect Daemons and a smattering of other armies (a Knight, some Scions, a squad or two of other things), so they'll pop up from time to time as well.<br />
<br />
From what I've seen of the codex so far, I'm liking the 7th edition 'Crons. Yes, our cheesey units have gotten nerfed, but that's about expected. I'm more excited for all of our other units getting buffed and seeing what new things we can put on the table that was just not workable before.<br />
<br />
So yeah, this is a place for me to talk about our Egyptian Space Terminators. If you like that sort of thing, welcome! If not, well you can stick around too, I suppose.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09836233286443441080noreply@blogger.com0