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Aldarionn has it.

In a 5 man unit, with 1 hammer, 2 hlabreds and 2 psycannons, force weapons would only account for 4 attacks! The hammer already casues ID, and the cannons don't benefit from it.

Cleansing Flame would have been the better choice.

And sorry, Fuegan17, NFW is different than normal FW. My mistake! Cleansing flame is still the better choice, IMO. It would cause more total wounds to a bigger squad.

@Darth
Ah yes, well that is still very flattering, but probably a lot more accurate!

The Berzerker list is not at all competitive. It's fun to play for sure, but it's not a hard list.

I will play against will with my Wolves. That would be a really tough match.

@Valek
A Destroyer lord or Flayed ones isn't a bad idea, actually. We will have to try that.

@Jy2
2 units of Wraiths? We'll have to give it a go. It may be the better build as it gives more reach. It's just that the build is trimmed of fat, there isn't a lot of room to wiggle. We'd have to make some tough calls to fit that, but we'll give it a try for sure.

@mstersmith
I like the list, but I'd take 9 spiders. You really need that critical mass to get the most out of it, IMO.

@junk
The Scarab farm will be playing Jy2's Draigowing on Thursday. That will be a great game! Jim is a top notch player and our games are always fun. Plus, a lot of people seem to think the Scarab farm won't stand against Draigowing, so I will be interested in trying to prove that opinion wrong! I love a challenge like that, always makes for a highly engaging game.

FWIW, INAT lists force weapon activation as a targetted power (GK chapter) so it could in fact be blocked by gloom prism.

Wow I was completely shocked to see those scarabs rape the Grey Knights. I suppose the fact he failed cleansing flame each turn didn't help. But I have seen Grey Knights take down tons of other swarm lists no problem. Perhaps this Grey Knight commander is not as good as you originally claimed in the video or perhaps the dice were just incredibly terrible? It is hard for me to tell b/c all the shots were of you and not the board lol But thats already been addressed. Either way it's just to unbearable to accept Grey Knights losing out like that :( Good batrep though, besides those minor camera issues.


Edit*

Ok just saw that you will be playing JY2 and his Grey Knights, now there is the Grey Knights I have been waiting to see the Necrons face! No offense to the Grey Knight player you went up against in the video, but I recognize JY2 as a top notch Grey Knight player. I have full confidence in him smashing those bugs!

hyv3mynd wrote:FWIW, INAT lists force weapon activation as a targetted power (GK chapter) so it could in fact be blocked by gloom prism.

The rules are decidedly unclear on this one. Because the attacks themselves are targeted I guess the argument could be made that the power targets the target of their attacks, but at the same time, NFW's work differently than regular Force Weapons, especially with units, and the target of their attacks can be multiple models across multiple units. Would you then roll for every unit struck, or once for the whole thing?

I'm not so certain INAT got it right with that one, but then again I've never agreed with 100% of everything that's in the INAT. It's consistent, but it's not officially recognized and some of the calls are against RAW (sometimes with good reason and sometimes without). I'd leave it up to a tournament judge or a roll off if it ever came up in a game.

Reece, I've been watching your videos for a long time now and have really enjoyed all of them...keep up the good work, oh and BTW, even though it isn't super competitive, i would like to see the scarab farm take on the tyranid tervigon spam

I'd also like to see the Scarab farm take on your footdar. Perhaps the scarab farm is not as hard to deal with when you don't have to worry about protecting your mech

Reecius wrote:@Jy2
2 units of Wraiths? We'll have to give it a go. It may be the better build as it gives more reach. It's just that the build is trimmed of fat, there isn't a lot of room to wiggle. We'd have to make some tough calls to fit that, but we'll give it a try for sure.

Such a list would have to be redesigned from scratch. It is a list that I will be working on and it won't really work with the current list you have right now. It is based off of the 9-spyder scarab-farm with 2 full units of wraiths. It then uses MSU 5-man troop choices (4 or 5 of them). Lastly it will use 2 overlords (perhaps one could be Imotehk) and 2 shooty royal courts, though you probably could get away with only 1 royal court and a destroyer lord to replace one of the HQ's.


At 2K, this is what I am thinking of running:


Overlord w/Warscythe on Command Barge
4x HoD Crypteks - 1x Solar Pulse

Overlord w/Warscythe on Command Barge
1x HoD Crypteks - 1x Solar Pulse

5x5 Warriors

10x Scarabs
6x Wraiths - 3x Whip Coils, 1x Particle Caster
6x Wraiths - 3x Whip Coils

3x Spyders - 1x Prism
2x3 Spyders

2000


You have 5 fast threats to control board positioning, protected by 2 rounds of Night-Fight. You have 5 troops which is better for multiple-objective games. You have good assault/counter-assault and of course, you still have your scarab-farm.

darkcloud92 wrote:
Ok just saw that you will be playing JY2 and his Grey Knights, now there is the Grey Knights I have been waiting to see the Necrons face! No offense to the Grey Knight player you went up against in the video, but I recognize JY2 as a top notch Grey Knight player. I have full confidence in him smashing those bugs!

Did I hear someone mention my name?

Honestly, I doubt I will be smashing too many bugs. They should be trying to avoid me. And the only thing that will assault me will be his wraiths, and that is only to tarpit my paladins (or pick off my weak units). Barring annihiliation, I think this match will be won in the Movement phase.

I will provide a Pre-game Analysis to our match a little later on.

@ChaosFanatic#1
Thanks! We appreciate the support as the videos are time consuming to make.

Tervie spam vs Scarab Farm would be crazy! That game would take ages! hahaha

@darkcloud92
I assure you, Feugan17 is that good. He has played against top players and held his own on a number of occasions. He is one of the best players in our area and has beaten me and the other members of the team (he himself is on our team) many times.

My game with JY2 will be good fun! Hopefully his luck stream against me doesn't continue! haha

@Pony Law
We can do that. I love playing my Footdar and I think it would make for an interesting match. The key would be to get the Avatar, and Wraithlords into the Scarabs for a multiassault. With Fortune, I should be able to chop the Scarabs up fairly easily. War Walker shooting will also be a huge threat to the little bugs. We'll see, that woul dbe an interesting match-up. A lot would depend on Imotekh's lightening power while both armies moved into close range to engage.

@Jy2
I agree. Too many people theory hammer out unit on unit actions in a vacuum. The game isn't about smashing two things together when the outcome is largely known. That is foolish. Good players dictate combat on favorable terms, if at all possible.

I look forward to the game!

And on top of all that:

purifier spam = it slike all the purifiers on the empire, pretty much the most unfluff army you will see around anywhere...

Scarab farm = you know what necrons call "disposable"?

Idk what you're talking about, its 24 purifiers and crowe. Yes its a large contingent of them but hardly all of them; my army is entirely fluffy.

Crowe is leading a battlegroup of purifiers, along with a group of trainee purifiers to test their mettle in the heat of battle(strike squad) and supported by purifiers whose bodies have been destroyed but spirit is still strong and willing to fight(venerable dreadnoughts).

drop the idea about the flayed ones, you cant add court members, so no deepstriking if you would attach a normal lord... would have been to op i reckon

Hey Reecius
I have been tuning in and watching all of your battle reports. The long format is great. dont change a thing. I realise that the longer format takes more time but i get a lot more out of it than the shorter reports i have seen. New crons, (though i hate the fluff) are actually starting to appeal to me. anyways, nice work and keep it up.

Aldarionn wrote:

hyv3mynd wrote:FWIW, INAT lists force weapon activation as a targetted power (GK chapter) so it could in fact be blocked by gloom prism.

The rules are decidedly unclear on this one. Because the attacks themselves are targeted I guess the argument could be made that the power targets the target of their attacks, but at the same time, NFW's work differently than regular Force Weapons, especially with units, and the target of their attacks can be multiple models across multiple units. Would you then roll for every unit struck, or once for the whole thing?

I'm not so certain INAT got it right with that one, but then again I've never agreed with 100% of everything that's in the INAT. It's consistent, but it's not officially recognized and some of the calls are against RAW (sometimes with good reason and sometimes without). I'd leave it up to a tournament judge or a roll off if it ever came up in a game.

Well on page 54 of the GK codex it specifically states that:

"If a unit is striking at different Initiative orders, take the Psychic test to 'activate' the force weapons immediately after the first unsaved wounds are caused. Any further wounds caused by the unit's Nemesis force weapons that phase will be bound by the result of that Psychic test"

Pretty clear if you ask me in that they do not want you rolling for every unit.

Also, if you look at the scarabs and spider rules where you are adding extra bases - meaning that the unit is getting larger and you can in fact daisy chain them all the way from the front attacking units all the way back to the mother spyder, you can then imply that any psy attack hitting the scarabs are still within coverage of the 3' field for the spyders which may be more than 20' away depending how long your chain may be since the whole mass of the scarabs are still counted as unit so the tail can then give coverage to the head essentially.

I think to block the purifying flame with that kind of daisy chain could be argued as kind of against RAI but still legal as RAW. But to also block a nemesis force weapon from that far away would be pretty bad call by any TO especially as that is not even clearly indicated by the RAW with past examples of accepted use of powers such as vs force weapons vs Kharn and that guy is immune even!

As another aside question, does each base have 3 wounds or is each base 1 wound?

Each is 3 wounds.

jy2 wrote:

Reecius wrote:@Jy2
2 units of Wraiths? We'll have to give it a go. It may be the better build as it gives more reach. It's just that the build is trimmed of fat, there isn't a lot of room to wiggle. We'd have to make some tough calls to fit that, but we'll give it a try for sure.

Such a list would have to be redesigned from scratch. It is a list that I will be working on and it won't really work with the current list you have right now. It is based off of the 9-spyder scarab-farm with 2 full units of wraiths. It then uses MSU 5-man troop choices (4 or 5 of them). Lastly it will use 2 overlords (perhaps one could be Imotehk) and 2 shooty royal courts, though you probably could get away with only 1 royal court and a destroyer lord to replace one of the HQ's.


At 2K, this is what I am thinking of running:


Overlord w/Warscythe on Command Barge
4x HoD Crypteks - 1x Solar Pulse

Overlord w/Warscythe on Command Barge
1x HoD Crypteks - 1x Solar Pulse

5x5 Warriors

10x Scarabs
6x Wraiths - 3x Whip Coils, 1x Particle Caster
6x Wraiths - 3x Whip Coils

3x Spyders - 1x Prism
2x3 Spyders

2000


You have 5 fast threats to control board positioning, protected by 2 rounds of Night-Fight. You have 5 troops which is better for multiple-objective games. You have good assault/counter-assault and of course, you still have your scarab-farm.

darkcloud92 wrote:
Ok just saw that you will be playing JY2 and his Grey Knights, now there is the Grey Knights I have been waiting to see the Necrons face! No offense to the Grey Knight player you went up against in the video, but I recognize JY2 as a top notch Grey Knight player. I have full confidence in him smashing those bugs!

Did I hear someone mention my name?

Honestly, I doubt I will be smashing too many bugs. They should be trying to avoid me. And the only thing that will assault me will be his wraiths, and that is only to tarpit my paladins (or pick off my weak units). Barring annihiliation, I think this match will be won in the Movement phase.

I will provide a Pre-game Analysis to our match a little later on.

Wowza, I REALLY like that list JY! Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... I just might steal it; of course, with my twist to it

I'm curious how you played the staff of the destroyer, when you were explaining all the stuff you could kill it seemed like a bit much for a hair thin line. Were you by chance assuming it caused wounds based on number of models in a squad hit, or number of models hit by the line in a squad.

@Valek
Yeah, it'd have to be an Overlord, which is what I thought you were referring to originally. That is how we have run them and it works out pretty dang well....as well as Flayed ones will ever work out! haha.

@sennacherib
Thanks! We really appreciate the encouragement.

@08ak1
I thought it hit every model in the squad, but we corrected that. We missread it. I swear we even reread it and all of us thought the same thing! Haha. We played it correctly and it killed not a single marine. Doh!

Here's the math on force weapons versus Cleansing Flame against Necron Scarabs:

Each force weapon attack hits on a 3+ and wounds on a 4+, so has a 1/3 chance to wound a Scarab base. If you pass your force weapon test, each wound is tripled, finishing off a base-- so passing a force weapon test inflicts 2 additional wounds per 3 force weapon attacks, or 2/3 of a wound per attack on average.. On the other hand, Cleansing Flame inflicts 2 additional wounds per 6 Scarab bases, or 1/3 of a wound per Scarab base on average.

So you have to weigh your number of attacks versus their number of Scarabs-- if you have more attacks than half their Scarab base count, force weapons are superior, while if the Scarab base count is more than 2x your number of attacks, casting Cleansing Flame is superior.

sudojoe wrote:

Also, if you look at the scarabs and spider rules where you are adding extra bases - meaning that the unit is getting larger and you can in fact daisy chain them all the way from the front attacking units all the way back to the mother spyder, you can then imply that any psy attack hitting the scarabs are still within coverage of the 3' field for the spyders which may be more than 20' away depending how long your chain may be since the whole mass of the scarabs are still counted as unit so the tail can then give coverage to the head essentially.

I think to block the purifying flame with that kind of daisy chain could be argued as kind of against RAI but still legal as RAW. But to also block a nemesis force weapon from that far away would be pretty bad call by any TO especially as that is not even clearly indicated by the RAW with past examples of accepted use of powers such as vs force weapons vs Kharn and that guy is immune even!

This might buy a turn but only during their turn, then you pile in and are out of range and they finish you off in your turn which is worse. I think it's bad board position to daisy chain and plan for the charge. As a side note, I think I would practice without the "daisy chain" as you so eloquently put it. I am positive this gets errata-ed in the near future.

@Reecius- It's up to you to MS scarab Draigo into ID'ing his entourage lol... I think tremor stave's are the way to combat death stars as well, as you can bog them down quite well. Should be interesting, he obviously has the edge in annihilation but i could be wrong there. Can't wait for it either way.

Will it be a Frontline video report or jy2 written format?

"daisy chain" as you so eloquently put it. I am positive this gets errata-ed in the near future.

Would you perfer "Conga Line" instead?

actually you are right, I misused daisy chain as that would imply a circuit and not an actual line.
I think I was thinking the scarabs swarm would be like a massive necron death star vs armor so it would have been "da bomb" and thinking daisy cutter but somehow got conga line mixed in there



+



not quite equals



>_<

@Fetterkey
Don't forget in your mathhammer, that only 2 models in the Purifier squad benefit from the NFW. 2 have psycannons, 1 has a hammer. Only the halbreds benefit form it.

@Red Corsair
Yeah, we agree. We don't play the daisy chain method as it seems so clearly over powered.

As for the showdown between Jy2 and I, I think we may combine forces to do a written report and a video bat rep, unless Jim just wants to do a video bat rep. Either way is fine with us.

Reecius wrote:@Fetterkey
Don't forget in your mathhammer, that only 2 models in the Purifier squad benefit from the NFW. 2 have psycannons, 1 has a hammer. Only the halbreds benefit form it.

Yeah, that's why you have to weigh the situation by comparing force weapon attacks to Scarab bases rather than just comparing by modelcount. For Purifiers, different wargear configurations produce radically different results when engaging Scarabs. In a way, I appreciate that kind of interaction-- it makes "mathhammer" a lot more complex and can lead to some tough calls, especially when multiple units are engaged.

To reiterate, in order to determine whether to use force weapons or Cleansing Flame, you need to compare the number of non-hammer NFW attacks from your Purifier unit with the number of Scarab bases you are engaged with. If the number of Scarab bases is more than two times the number of NFW attacks, you should use Cleansing Flame-- otherwise, you should use your force weapons. One other interesting thing to note is that rad grenades make it so that normal attacks ID Scarab bases, so if you have rad grenades in effect, you don't need to use force weapons and should always stick with Cleansing Flame.

I agree. You have to determine which will net you more wounds as then, you kill even more through fearless saves.

Here is a tutorial on making Wraiths and Scarabs out of extra bits that we did you guys might be interested in: http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2011/11/30/40k-modeling-cheap-and-fast-necron-wraith-and-scarab-conversions-tutorial/

I actually also have the knight of flame with a regular sword ;P. so THREE models benefit from FW funsies! ahhaha, it's not like he perils or anything....oh wait.....

I think you mean Spyders, not Scarabs-- but that is a sick tutorial!

Red Corsair wrote: @Reecius- It's up to you to MS scarab Draigo into ID'ing his entourage lol... I think tremor stave's are the way to combat death stars as well, as you can bog them down quite well. Should be interesting, he obviously has the edge in annihilation but i could be wrong there. Can't wait for it either way.

Will it be a Frontline video report or jy2 written format?

I'm thinking it'll mainly be a Frontline video batrep, which I will then supplement with a more detailed, traditional written battle report. So you're going to get the best of both worlds.


Sorry that I'm going to threadjack this batrep for a moment, but this seems like an appropriate place to set the scene for Reece's next battle against the Grey Knights.


PRE-GAME ANALYSIS:

Grey Knights:
I am taking my Draigowing Grey Knights list up against Reece's Necron Scarab-farm list and I am going to lay the smackdown on his spydercrons. I have a hypothesis and that is Draigowing will be a nightmare for necrons to face, just as Assault-Terminator-Deathwing was a nightmare for my Crowe-Purifiers to face. This is a rock-papers-scissors matchup and IMO Draigowing is a rock to the Scarab-farm's scissors. In order for necrons to pull it off, they must out-maneuver the slower paladins and play very tactically. And if it's annihilation, well, they're going to have to rely on a lot luck/favorable dice as well.

The army that I will be bringing will be a slightly different build from the one I used in my previous battle against footcrons (battle report here). It will incorporate more mobility as I felt that was one of my biggest weaknesses in that battle. As a matter of fact, it's going to look more like my 2500 list found in my battle against fandex tyranids (battle report here), only scaled down to 2K. I may or may not swap out 1 dreadknight for a stormraven, but in any case, there will be some mobility to complement the much slower paladins.

Paladins just have the tools to take on a scarab-farm list. Why? Because paladins play well off of the scarab-farm play-style. One of the tactics of the Necron scarab-farm build is that it needs to pressure the opponent with oodles of scarabs, backed by 9 monstrous creatures. Well, that is no threat to paladins as they will easily kill off these units. As backup, necrons will rely on their large block of relentless S5 rapid-firing troops. Paladins will shrug this off easily as well, and their return-fire will do even more damage to the warriors, even with their 4+ RP saves (incidentally, a 4+ save with 4+ RP is equivalent to a 2.5+ save). What will hurt pallies are the lance crypteks, which is why I advocate 2 royal courts with HoD crypteks in a competitive necron list (also for their AT). Though tremorstave/crucible crypteks are decent, paladins don't necessarily have to assault to be effective. Many people underestimate the firepower of 16 psycannons shots backed by S5 stormbolters. There isn't anything in the necron army that paladins can't torrent off eventually (though a large block of res-orb warriors in cover will take time).

Where necrons will have the advantage:

1) More units. Thusly, I will have to prioritize my shooting well. This is an inherent weakness of Draigowing that armies can always be exploited, especially if their opponent spreads out. But if my opponent castles up or keeps his forces together, then it's going to play in my favor possibly. And if the mission turns out to be Annihilation, then this becomes a grey knight advantage instead.

2) Mobility. Wraiths and scarabs can outmaneuver paladins. But I will address this deficiency at the expense of some ranged shooting and army buffs. There will be some mobile units in my army.


Where paladins will have the advantage:

1) Resiliency. Paladins are one of the most resilient units in the whole 40K. Necrons, ironically like the grey knights, just lack the volume of low-AP weaponry to deal with such a build, at least not without resorting to tailoring (i.e. 9 heavy destroyers, 10 lance crypteks, etc.). In a Scarab-farm Necron list, just like in a Crowe-Purifier GK list, you just won't see a whole lot of low-AP weaponry.

2) Assault. As inherent to the necron army as low-model-count is to a Draigowing army. Mindshackle scarabs will help somewhat, but what necrons really need to do is 1) screen, 2) tarpit and 3) get the hell out of dodge. Basically, they can avoid assault by splitting up as well (or rather, to minimize assault).


With regards to the Missions, Annihilation inherently favors Draigowing no matter the matchup. Due to lack of mobility for the paladins, Capture and Control may well be a draw. And believe it or not, the low-model-count Draigowing will have the advantage in Seize Ground due to Grand Strategy as almost all of my units may be scoring.


Necrons:
Well, I guess I'll let Reece share his thoughts here on the upcoming matchup if he is so inclined.

Reecius wrote:I agree. You have to determine which will net you more wounds as then, you kill even more through fearless saves.

Here is a tutorial on making Wraiths and Scarabs out of extra bits that we did you guys might be interested in: http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2011/11/30/40k-modeling-cheap-and-fast-necron-wraith-and-scarab-conversions-tutorial/

Wow; that tutorial is friggin sick. Those Wraith conversions look like something out of a nightmare; I totally dig em! It looks like you can make a full squad using 2 boxes of Praetorians...?

For every 10 praetorian, you can make 5 Wraiths.

Glad you like them! We were messing around with extra bits and came up with the ideas, they look really good in person, too.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Jy2

I am going to bend you over me knee and spank you like a naughty child, son!

Haha, just kidding. Jim has hit on the main points well. The Palandins will beat me in a straight up fight, which is why that won't happen if I can help it. In a bad match up, you don't allow your opponent to dictate what happens. Playing into his game is foolish and leads to defeat.

I will use every trick in my shiny Necron arsenal to defeat the Mat Ward bastard children!

Grey Knights are a crutch for the weak, muahahaha!