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Well, seeing as how we beat the wraithwing into the ground and decided, 'Yay, it is good'.
I'd like to start the discussion on another necron build that's been popping up since the faq, TremorCron or TremorSpam.

This tactic takes advantage of the synergy between the C'tan's writhing worldscape ability and the use of Tremorstaves to force enemy units to take dangerous terrain tests during their movement phase.

I am going to make the following assumptions, and hope throughout the course of this thread that we can either confirm or sufficiently refute them.

1. TremorCrons has the potential to be a viable competitive build at 2000 points.
a. The arbitrary selection of point cost is to give us a basis for comparison.
b. This is further based on the assumption that Dangerous Terrain tests are an indiscriminate way to weaken any unit, thus a sufficient support tool.

2. The Actual Mechanic of the Tremorstave tactic, when supported by a sufficiently mobile army, will justify the investment in wargear and the c'tan by sufficiently injuring/hampering the opponent enough so that the remainder of the necron list can operate at a high enough effectiveness to win.
a. Assuming the minimum investment is 2 Royal Courts (therefor two overlords) and A C'tan with WW, or Orikan and an Overlord with at least 4 tremorstaves.

3. The most effective configuration for a Tremorcron build is at least four separate units armed with a tremorstave, complemented by an army that can take advantage of the enemy's restricted mobility.
a. This suggests that the dangerous terrain tests themselves are not enough to justify the tactic, but combined with the difficult terrain tests, might be.

4. The ideal tremorcron build will not be dependent on the Tremor tactic to be successful, but will be designed to exploit it.


General Thoughts:

I'm going into this with the following prejudices:
1. I don't believe that Orikan is worth a damn, his denial of a second court outweighs the potential benefit of his turn 1 effect.
2. I believe that the Tremor-crons should be a predominantly shooting based list, eschewing units like destroyer lords and wraiths.
3. I think that the increased shooting strength and armor save of immortals justifies the extra point cost over warriors in a shooting list.

I'd like to also weigh the benefit of the following units specifically in this build:
Doomsday ark
Deathmarks
Tomb Blades
Scythes (both varieties)

Here's a very generic Tremorcron list It's intentionally bland, so that we have a jumping off point to start the discussion.

HQ (690pts)

Necron Overlord - Phase Shifter, Resurrection Orb, Staff of Light, Phaeron
1x Harbinger of Destruction (solar pulse)
4x Harbinger of Transmogrification

Necron Overlord - Resurrection Orb, Sempiternal Weave, Staff of Light, Phaeron
1x Harbinger of Destruction (solar pulse)
4x Harbinger of Transmogrification

Elites (450pts)
C'tan Shard - Grand Illusion, Writhing Worldscape
5x Deathmark
5x Deathmark

Troops (710pts)
10x Necron Immortal, Gauss Blaster
10x Necron Immortal, Gauss Blaster
10x Necron Immortal, Tesla Carbine

2x Night Scythe

10x Scarabs

The distribution of Royal Courts should be such that Each of the 5 infantry squads has at least 1 tremorstave, and the 2 gauss immortal squads have lances as well. The Gauss Squads should also be joined by the Phaerons to maximize their effective range, but remain effective at close range as well thanks to both rapid fire and staff of light.

Grand illusion allows for the redeployment of units at maximum effective range, and/or Hunters cheese depending on initiative results.

Obviously this is a very middling list, and expect we should be able to improve upon it pretty quickly.

Junk,
I'm willing to ponder this with you.

I ran the stats a while ago, and 2 rounds of dangerous terrain will kill an average of 11 out of 20 ork boys (and that's without any wounds from the actual tremor staff or warrior shooting)! Granted, my calculations may be wrong, but that is quite a force multiplier.

I believe minimum sized units would be a good place to start, simply so that they are easier to hide in terrain.

I think that Monoliths may have something to contribute to this list. First, they are large enough to provide mobile cover for the C'tan. Secondly, they contribute a lot of shooting. Finally, they add a lot to the mobility.

I'm still very new to 40k, but aren't there some units (like Wraiths) that ignore terrain? Walkers seem to pop to my mind.

I think the Achilles heel of the army build is the 260 point C'tan. 260pts is a hefty chunk to hide/ baby all game but the C'tan's survival is crucial to the list.

Not saying its a bad idea, and I'm am 100% sure a person who has practiced over and over with the list can, and will make it work. Its just that hiding or babying a 260pt MC is a bit off putting for me and my personal play style.

I am quite eager to see what people come up with after the success of the Wraith wing thread. And I do love quirks and combos, its nice to see them being considered for the competitive scene.

Alright, cool, so first things to consider.

Monolith
Keeping the C'tan alive


Monoliths -
General Pros and Cons
Pro:
AV14 all around
Resistant to shaken/stunned
Relatively resistant to Weapon Destroyed
Can bring reserves in reliably
LOS blocking hunk of mobile terrain
Nice close range fire support
Nearly impossible to move off an objective it is contesting
Slight chance of sending enemies to Delaware

Con:
Slow moving
Gigantic deep strike footprint makes mishaps a serious concern.

Specific applications in this list:
Present a hard target that further limits enemy mobility
Provide cover/concealment for valuable units (c'tan)
Heat Sink high strength weapons to protect more vulnerable targets

Not bad. The limited mobility isn't a terrible drawback considering it also limits enemy mobility if deployed strategically; but it does give opponents an opportunity to get a 6" assault move even if they can't hurt it in CC
Blocked LOS works both ways, often the units you want to block are the same ones you want to shoot.

I say it's worth a shot in a 200 point list; we're not using the gate really as we want all our infantry on the table to house staves.


Keeping the C'tan alive -
First things first, it's a T7 model with 4 wounds, 4++ and eternal warrior, so it's not exactly a soft target. High strength weapons can wound it, as can poisoned weapons; so those are obviously (as they usually are) at the top of the target priority list.
Keeping it out of CC with TH/SS terminators and their ilk is also a goal, but seeing as how the entire list is designed to cut enemy mobility, this is less of an issue.

Finally, we have our selection of secondary C'tan powers; Spirit dust to add stealth for a potential 3++ to replace the 4++, Gaze of Death for the regeneration potential, or Sentient Singularity to reduce the risk of deep strike murderers and assault vehicle deposits.

Ultimately, I don't think sentient singularity does what it's supposed to as the 6" range on it isn't really sufficient to protect unless your opponent scatters or miscalculates his measurements.

Swarm of spirit dust doesn't really help, as it's hard to get cover saves for a giant model like the c'tan in the first place.

Which leaves Gaze of Death. Gaze of death is kind of interesting, but it requires your c'tan to actually get his spectral hands dirty in CC, which, in all fairness is actually a good place to keep him. Provided you're up against the standard MeQ or GeQ squad, the c'tan can certainly relax in the relative safety of an assault, even if there's a power fist in there. WS 5 and T7 means, usually its 4+ to hit him and 6+ to wound him. Even a 5 squad of paladins with a pair of daemon hammers will have a hard time knocking him down; not a very hard time, but a hard enough time that the gaze of death might actually work turn the tide.

Actively attempting to get your C'tan into a CC he can hang out in for a while might be tricky, as he's got the normal 12" threat, and you don't want him falling short and sitting out in the open.

Monolith actually makes sense as a partner unit for the ctan; you can also move him between ghost arks or A. Barges. We have yet to see if triarch stalkers, tomb blades, or scythes will be able to protect him. If you do choose to run him between a pair of barges, then swarm of spirit dust or transdimensional thunderbolt become acceptable choices.

When I ran this I gave the C'tan Lord of fire to go with world scape. It is cheap and gives the monolith some melta protection.

assuming you hit with tremor and they are not already moving through dangerous terrain.

20 boys move 3.3 die to dangerous terrain. Turn 2. 17.7 boys move and they lose just short of 3 more boys. So you are looking at 6 dead boys for 2 turns throw in a run and a charge you could get to almost 11.

The problem is the range is 24" If our tanks get stunned or go down I would not want to place any bets on 10 boys facing a small unit of warriors.

You could add wraiths as a counter assault unit and it is still missing some anti-tank replacing a few tremor stave with lances and you just end up with another list.

Do vehicles count as " units" for the purposes of the Quake special rule ?

junk, I must say that I am glad someone like yourself is giving tremorteks some serious consideration. I actually had contemplated using them in conjunction with WW before, but this was for a 1250 pts list, as I have yet to amass enough models for larger games yet. That being said...
My two cents about it:
If the goal is to maximize your army's mobility while crippling theirs, one thing I would suggest is having at least one Veiltek in this list. This way, one squad of Immortals with a Veiltek and Tremortek can zip around the battlefield and make sure units out of the normal 24" range is muddled up in difficult terrain. Granted, the shot may not necessarily hit, but at least it will give the immortals something to shoot at (the tesla units at least).
Also, I think I must agree with deviant cadaver. Lord of Fire would be a good secondary upgrade for the C'tan.
Oh, and here's the list I posted up. I would be grateful if one of you guys would c&c on it.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/423741.page

Read this thread, and while waiting for family to finish a movie pondered it.

I think including Large Blast weaponry has merit in this type of list. The opponent's army is going to want to avoid natural difficult terrain, and if no other template weapon is fielded, it makes sense to clump most units in deepstrike formation so that scattering tremorstave blasts have a high chance of missing completely. Large blasts counter this by punishing deepstrike formation, and if units spread to max coherency Staves have a high chance of forcing terrain tests by clipping at least one model. Complementary.

Here's my concept

Nemesor Zandrekh (Because why not in a shooty list where we don't need a CC Lord. Can give the C'tan Str 8 I5 on the charge, or Stealth, etc.)

Harbinger of Destruction, Solar Pulse

5 Warriors, Ghost Ark (Harbinger of Transmogrification, Harp of Dissonance)
5 Warriors, Ghost Ark (Harbinger of Transmogrification)
5 Warriors, Ghost Ark (Harbinger of Transmogrification)

Triarch Stalker, Particle Shredder
Triarch Stalker, Particle Shredder
C'tan, Writhing Worldscape, Moulder of Worlds.

Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark
Monolith

2000 on the dot.

So an AV13 wall (x7) with an AV14 monolith and a T7 MC presents all hard targets. 6 Large Blasts, 3 Staves, and some Gauss arrays for stunlocking and cleanup.

Plenty of variation in Lith and C'tan tactics. Can auto drop the Lith on opponent's turn and auto bring in the C'tan on your subsequent one, can walk the C'tan behind the 'Lith, split sides so the C'tain threatens to counter on both flanks, etc.

You can just throw the C'tan and some tremmor staves into a regular list. The C'tan is not bad by itself.

What I am afraid of is if you die horibly when you meet a shooting gallery that just stands there.

I would really like to see tremo-crons work, it is a very unique build.
My problem lies in the fact that tremorstaves' utility is against infantry and what this combo could achieve, a couple units of tomb blades with particle beamers would do better (and at much lesser cost).
I mean it is usually better to kill more than hinder their movement.
...or I am just a noob and I could be wrong

I'm really liking that a lot of people have many variations on this list already!

deviant cadaver wrote:
Do vehicles count as " units" for the purposes of the Quake special rule ?

I don't see why the wouldn't... they follow the normal movement rule, except that they'll immobalize on a 1 or 2 instead of die on a 6.

My points might be off, and I am grouping like models together (ie, my Royal Courts aren't split out right).

2x Overlord, Pheron and Res Orb 320
5x Harbingers of Transmog, 2 have crucible 170
2x Harbinger of Despair 120

3x 5x warriors 195
2x 10x Immortals (gauss)

C'Tan w/WW and Grand Illusion 260

Monolith 200
Monolith 200
Doomsday Ark 175

That brings my total 1980 (I think).

Basic tactic is a staggered retreat to a corner or board edge.
Overlords ride with the Immortals, and the Veiltek and the Crucible Transmog tek. Other transmogteks join the warriors.
Deploy as far forward with the warriors, (Even pushing the line with the immortal squads. Pull them back with Grand illusion.)
Use the Monoliths to plug any holes in Terrain, forcing your opponent to move through even when not hit with a tremor staff.
When an opponent gets into assault range of a warrior squad, pull them back with a Monolith (Keep the door to a side or behind the monolith).
The immortals have the Veil and overlord to put pressure on the guns that don't move or to claim objectives.

Woot! A topic I actually have a bit of experience with! For the last month or so I've mentioned I've been running a what I call a Tesla/Quake List that basically takes advantage of temor staves, c'tan, and Orikan, and lots of Tesla weaponry for maximum wound overload. My list goes like this:

WARNING! WALL OF TEXT ALERT! HIDE YER KIDS, HIDE YER WIVES!

1850 points TESLA QUAKE

HQ:
Orikan The Diviner
Imohtek the Stormlord
Royal Court
-Tremor Staff, Seismic Cruicible
-Tremor Staff
-Lord w/sycthe, rez orb, mindshackle

Elites:
Stalker
Stalker
C'tan
-Wraithing Worldscape
-Gaze of Death

Troops:
Warriors x16
Imortals x10
-Tesla Carbines
Immortals x10
-Tesla Carbines

Heavy Support:
Annilation Barge
Annilation Barge

Composition---------
Set-up is placing Orikan and Imotek both into the warrior squad with the Lord and forms the back bone of my force. It's is surprisingly durable and powerful in melee and can move and shoot at 24 inches. This squad marches up the battlefield and begs to be assualted. Orikan is a beast in melee with his Staff of Tommorrow he is dangerous, but just gets better usually mid-game when he goes all MUMRAH! THE EVERLIVING! and turns into a C'tan equivilent. Immotek basically garuntees a few extra wounds with his gauntlet of fire, but being able to move and shoot means I usually get to use his staff laser thingy most games.

Immortals and Stalkers pair off and move up giving the Immortals mobile cover. Immorta's Tesla carbines have no AP anyway, so I don't care if they have cover. (except for big soft targets like ork mobs, then I change it up) Stalkers vehicle hunt whatever they can reach, but usually light up a squad for the Immortals. This small combo absoutely destroys terminators and I love it to fight my shop's local meta of 2+, 3++ spam and monsterous creatures.

Anniliation Barges fill the gap, killing skimmers or transports, or just providing more wounds at whatever the Immortals are trying to kill. Could cash them in for my monolith, but I prefer these guys.

Finally the C'tan basically gets played differently depending on the opponent and mission. Sometimes he follows the warrior squad in and starts eating squishy targets in melee with gaze of death if there isn't alot of small calibur shooting. (Orks, other necron, swarmy nids). Most games though he hides back with the Annilation Barges or cover and severs as a powerful counter charge unit. Many times he's been able bail out my warriors or an immortal squad during my assualt phase that survived the inital assult.

Strategy---------------
At first it doesn't look like much. Only 2 tremor staves doesn't seem like enough does it? After many games with testing things out I found that 2 tremor staves are more than enough at 1850. Most of the time an enemy will only be able to get 2-3 assualt units into a threatening range, and if an opponent wants to spam those types of units (say Ork trukk boyz) then an extra staff or two isn't going to help anyways. With those two staves (with the Immortals btw), I target the highest priority melee targets and try to kite them the best that I can. Any dangerous terrain tests they fail is just icing on the cake. The biggest thing is slowing them down, and keeping the bulk of their army out of cover when marching up the field.

Your probably wondering, what happens when you face a shooting list like Imperial Gaurd or Tau? Well I can't speak too much for anti-tau strategies just yet with this list, but againt a mechanized Imperial Gaurd list that is where Imohtek comes in. Having on average two turns of night fighting has always bought me enough time to get into position (within 24 inches) to start blasting away with the Stalkers and the warriors, or get into melee with Orikan and the C'tan. The lighting storm ability is again a pleasent bonus when it goes off, but I NEVER count on it.

You probably also thinking: doesn't Imotek's night fighting rules mess up my shooting? Yes and no. I have no shooting beyond 24 inches and the scenario plays out differently depending on which army style I'm facing. Shooting line, it is a slight hinderance, but buying myself 2 turns of avoiding incoming fire outwieghs the possible 1 or 2 shots from my Stalkers. For an assualting army they are coming to me any way so I step up and only need to roll a 6 or 7 or nightfighting which is average anyway.

Does it work? -----------
Now that I'm down talking about how I play with the army, let's actually get into the bread and butter of the thread. Does messing around with your opponent's movement phase work? Yes absolutely. It is important to remind yourself you are not going to kill your opponent with failed Dangerous Terrain tests. Many times the dice have gone cold for me and 20 ork boyz don't roll a single 1. Sometimes he rolls snake eyes on his Paladin squad and looses a guy after a bad invulnerable saves. These wounds are never to be counted on, but instead work in a different way.

What it does do is force your opponents to actually think during their Movement Phase. Usually this is something they never had to do before. Failing a dangerous terrain saves can really make a player gun shy about moving his units. When your expensive elite unit starts to loose a guy or two simplely beacuse you are moving, it really forces you to weigh if moving that unit or not is worth it. This gives you the flexibilty to control the board and be a little more bold in your set-up than normal. Area terrain and ruins become your best friend. Assulting into them becomes incredibly dangerous for your opponent and garrisoning up in terrain themselves becomes a gamble.

Vehicles are even effected by this pyschological warfare as well. As long as a tremor staff HITS them, they are considered to be in difficult terrain, which for vehicles always treat as dangerous terrain which because of the C'tan become immobilized on a 1 and 2! That first turn with Orkian can really mess up an opponent's day when a third of his transports suddenly become immobilized beacuse they tried to move!

For me Orikan really is the star of this list though. As I mentioned that first turn of the game for your opponent can make or break their entire game. Do they risk it and move their units forward to get into assualt by turns 2-3 like normal? Or do they hold off for a turn and now suddenly might not make it until turns 3-4. Dawn of War set-ups are all sorts of crazy for your opponent as well. Orikan forces you to take the lower of the difficult terrain test dice results, which means that things like terminators might not actually make it on the board. Friendly games I never enforce this, but in a tournament setting where cheese is the name of the game I suddenly don't feel as inadiquent against endless Grey Knights lists!

Conclusion
By this point point I've rambled enough, but I'll summerize what I've discovered while playing this basic list since late November:

1. This type of list not for everyone. It requires a degree of planning and is not set it and forget it.
2. Never count on your dangerous terrain rolls to defeat your opponent! They are a bonus!
3. It forces your opponent into an odd gambling situation in their Movement phase giving you the upperhand in manuvering!
4. The core of C'tan, Tremor Staves, and Orkian (if you like) is quite modular. I love Tesla so my list is built around that, but no reason you can plop this core into Phalanx, Wraith-wing, or even scarab farm if you like!
5. Gun line is your hard counter. Bring something to stop it! (scarabs, night fighting, overwhealming numbers)

Hope my random thoughts and list can add to the discussion!

Wow. lots to discuss.

Doomsday Arks are popular choices
Good argument for Orikan
Why Tremorstaves over Particle weapons
Some good lists popping up.

I'm just going to focus on the Doomsday ark for a minute here because I feel like there's a lot to discuss in it.

175 points for arguably the best gun in the book - the doomsday cannon; on a (essentially) AV 13 Open Topped skimmer.

General Pros & Cons
Pro
Serious firepower with impressive range makes it a highly dangerous artillery unit.
Av13 means it's immune to the ubiquitous s6 spam many lists rely on

Cons
Must remain stationary to be truly effective
Open topped

Committing 175 points and a heavy support slot to a Doomsday ark means that we MUST take advantage of it in order to justify it; inadvertantly presenting yet another argument for including grand illusion. (Since we would like the Doomsday ark to remain stationary as much as possible, redeploying it reactively with grand illusion is a good way to start it off in the most favorable position.)

Doomsday arks need to be concious of deep striking and outflanking enemies, as a turn spent moving them away from threats is a turn we're not using it for the reason we bought it; Tomb Spyders make good companion units as they can both repair it and protect it from assault; however as both require HS slots, we'll forgo the spiders for now.

Doomsday arks suggest to me that they work best in pairs; if you can take advantage of one, you can probably benefit twice as much from two; cover more of the board with direct LOS, and saturate deathstars.

In this build: Doomsday arks seem like a great choice because they are dual purpose AV/AI, your enemy is going to have a harder time getting close to them due to quake, and like Dangerous Terrain tests, they have an equal chance of wounding anything.

My myopic theoryhammer approves of the Doomsday ark, but not in a vacuum. Doomsday arks become Target #1, and they need to be defended, which is going to mean reactive reserves like deathmarks (to counter deep strikers) or nemesor's special ability; Or fast moving interceptors like Scythes or tomb blades to come to their aid. I don't think wraiths move quite fast enough to serve in their usual frontal assault role and also cover rear defense; so It does seem like tomb blades might be the chosen FA complement to protect DAs.

We should definitely hammer that out; I feel like the DA is a nice fit in a quake list.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I definitely want to get into a lot of the other points people have raised (nice post, Kowbasher), but at the moment I have to actually work, so I'll jump back in soon.

In regard to the Doomsday Ark, I found when play testing the Eldar Night Spinner extensively after its release, you can run into template saturation, where adding more template weapons you will start to see diminishing returns.

Ex. When I ran Night Spinners in combination with 3 Flamer Storm guardian squads all enemy units on foot were already spaced out to maximum coherency limiting the damage the Guardians could do. I found that backing off the templates and including Dire Avengers in place of the Guardians yielded much better results.

Not saying this is the case, as the tremor staffs don't use the blast to inflict their damage, but as most opponents spread out in order to reduce casualties from blasts the Doomsday Ark might see limited AI effectiveness. Even more so if a monolith is thrown into the mix.

I feel a healthy mix of templates and direct shooting is required as the whole goal of this army build is limit enemy movement in order to eliminate them at range.

In that context I think the Doomsday Ark is a poor choice in this build and would explore other options as a way to include high quality shooting into the list.

alspal8me wrote:In regard to the Doomsday Ark, I found when play testing the Eldar Night Spinner extensively after its release, you can run into template saturation, where adding more template weapons you will start to see diminishing returns.

Ex. When I ran Night Spinners in combination with 3 Flamer Storm guardian squads all enemy units on foot were already spaced out to maximum coherency limiting the damage the Guardians could do. I found that backing off the templates and including Dire Avengers in place of the Guardians yielded much better results.

Not saying this is the case, as the tremor staffs don't use the blast to inflict their damage, but as most opponents spread out in order to reduce casualties from blasts the Doomsday Ark might see limited AI effectiveness. Even more so if a monolith is thrown into the mix.

I feel a healthy mix of templates and direct shooting is required as the whole goal of this army build is limit enemy movement in order to eliminate them at range.

In that context I think the Doomsday Ark is a poor choice in this build and would explore other options as a way to include high quality shooting into the list.

I'm not really seeing the downside here, Diminishing returns means that the first and/or second blast were sufficiently effective that the squad no longer needs to be targetted by the same weapon and I can move on to other targets. A S9 AP1 large blast marker is going to cause casualties, and its going to wreck vehicles. I think it complements a gunline, either gauss or tesla, that can clean up softened squads and/or stun lock low priority vehicle targets.

Also, forcing units to move out of the doomsday ark's firing solution, if even to spread out, will trigger those dangerous terrain tests that will further diminish enemy units.

Let's just completely write off the actual killing power of the tremorstave's blast for a moment, and treat them as a special ability we're adding to infantry squads. Linked up with a gauss squad attached to a phaeron, we have a nice 24" zone of coverage that can be effective against any vehicle armor and (in the case of immortals) will lay a lot of wounds down on T4 troops. If the unit remains stationary to avoid the dangerous terrain tests, then we have lost nothing, as we are free to shoot again and attempt to weather return fire with our RP rolls. Using a doomsday ark to deal an initial hit to our target squad will also reduce their potential to return fire by the best possible means, killing models.

I'm still fairly convinced that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, but I'd love more arguments against the Doomsday arks.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, so I've got a minute, so I want to jump into KowBasher's post.

First of all, looking at this list, the first thing that jumps out at me is the pair of stalkers. I always try to squeeze stalkers into a list, but I always end up swapping them out in the end. I like the targeting ability, but I find it to be redundant; the 2 multi-melta equivalent shots are the draw here, but you're paying a premium to have them on a walker when I'd rather have them on a vehicle that can't get locked in combat. Considering they are kind of weak sauce for a walker in melee, it's totally reasonable that they might get tied up by a squad you'd rather be shooting at.

Twin linking everything in the army is appealing, but I think I'd just rather have 150 points worth of guns that are capable of spreading the love around.

Only 2 Tremorstaves - Despite how effective 2 staves may be, I'll contend that in order to justify the cost of the c'tan, we really want to be saturating the entire enemy force with quake. If we take a piecemeal approach to it, we're letting the pressure off and allowing them to move alternating units with impunity. I'd rather force the opposing general to concede that he is going to lose models every turn and force him to play on his back, rather than make his goal to remove the two offending staves with concentrated effort.

Imotekh.
I'll admit I just don't like him. I've tried using him in a few games with a few different builds and while his lightning storms are a cute bonus, I really don't like paying so much for them; nor do I like taking nightfighting checks with my own shooting list. I like to be at the very edge of my firing distance whenever possible, and that means I'm reducing my own effectiveness and paying to do it. In a Necron shooting list, I want 2 solar pulses, I want nightfight to be a weapon under my control, not a just battlefield condition.

In a pure CC necron army, 12 wraiths and a scarab farm, lychguard or praetorians, etc... Imotekh makes sense, he's actually a bargain, because you can get 3+ turns of NF out of him and still bring along a pulse or two to keep it going. In a list relying on shooting, screw him.

Orikan - I opened by admitting a bias against orikan, and I'm going to defend that bias here.
1. He's not an independent character, which means he can't hide in a squad, can't benefit from a resurection orb, so he's just a target.
2. He has a crap statline for a 165 point HQ (T4 and W2, really?) and despite his 3++, he's pretty easy to one-hit off the board.
3. In this list, we don't want to run a lot of reserves because we want to dictate the flow of the battle, making his reserve ability less useful.
4. The ability to transform into Super Saiyan Orikan is cute, but totally unreliable - at his cost, he should just have the pimptastic super statline.
5. Finally, Temporal Snares: this is the real and only reason we would consider including orikan in this list, and it is in fact a good reason. Across the board, any units your opponent has on the table that want to be effective are going to have to move at a variable movement speed, and potentially take some critical wounds as they do it. This could really screw up your opponent's plan, immobilize his vehicles, kill TeQs, screw up drop pod assaults. It's a big deal, but is it all worth it?

Orikan with Writhing Worldscape is clearly the combo that best exploits the principle of this list, but it's only once. If we assume a 2000 point game and we take a pure math approach, then here's what we come up with.

Orikan + C'tan with WW (and the cheapest secondary ability) comes to 395 points. Lets look at the most favorable possible circumstance: Assuming your enemy reserves nothing, and chooses to move every unit in the first turn and his entire army consists of infantry models, than statistically you have done 333 points of damage, and reduced his movement by an average of 2.5". Not a bad slapdown for turn 1, and the dice can push that a lot further in your favor; but overall, I'm not seeing that as 'the move' to take advantage of WW.

I'd rather have a second royal court, and rely on tremorstave spam to make up the cost of the c'tan, especially because, as I threw down earlier, I'd really like 2 solar pulses in here.

Then again, I could be totally wrong. Please, what are the best arguments in favor of Orikan and Imotekh?

Seems like someone else is thinking about this as well. Fritz posted an article at BoLS, and it's worth a read.
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2012/01/40k-tactics-out-of-sequence-necrons.html

It's been popping up a lot since the faq, but I think that here at dakka we have a pretty good brain trust of smart players with a lot of original ideas, so If there is a competitive list to come out of this build, it will happen here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Re: Halfpast's list

Again I think I'd rather have more guns than the two stalkers, but I always like trying to cram the nemessor in. And in your list, the armor wall tactic is actually pretty cool.

What I don't like is 3 ghost arks. Knocking those down to 2 lets us brick up a big ass warrior squad that can be supported by 2 ghost arks and a ressurection orb to pretty much be un-killable.

The ghost arks don't actually add much in the way of mobility or firepower, neither do the stalkers; I think they're both soft options in a list that needs really sharp teeth.

----

That being said, I'd like to get into the more aggressive options - Tomb Blades
Annihilation Barges
Doom Scythes
Night Scythes

Junk, Orikan is an Independent character. It's listed under his special rules on page 88.

I think that it's interesting that Necrons even have the option to kill things during your opponents turn. I'm all about fighting asymmetrical battles. (TBH, this is much more my style than WW, because I'm naturally more defensive.)

I don't really care for Orikan either (same reasons as Junk, really). It would be really nice to see half of someone's LR spam army get destroyed because it can't roll onto the table, but I don't put the odds very high. (Besides, a smart player will easily work around that... deep striking terminators, etc).
I think that we need to have at least 4 Transmogteks, and the utility of having other Royal Court members with those same units.

Imotek's lightning aside, he really seems to benefit using large blocks of troops and the night-fighting is counter productive for the amount of shooting that we have. Using the solar pulses to counter that really seems to be throwing good points after bad (I could be wrong there).
I could see Imotek and a large unit of warriors deterring infiltrators and outflankers in the backfield (maybe with a Veil), but how to use them against an army that doesn't have those units?

junk wrote:
Orikan - I opened by admitting a bias against orikan, and I'm going to defend that bias here.
1. He's not an independent character, which means he can't hide in a squad, can't benefit from a resurection orb, so he's just a target.

Don't have my codex on me at work. Not sure what this referancing? By my knowledge I always assumed he was an IC like everyother Necron HQ choice. Did I skip something?

junk wrote:Then again, I could be totally wrong. Please, what are the best arguments in favor of Orikan and Imotekh?

Unfortuantely math has never been a strong suit for me and I've always been jealous your guys' ability to mathhammer out average kills per turn and how many points to expect back from an ability or a unit to kick back its worth.

I guess my only defense of Orikan/Imotekh combo is table top experience. They have rarely failed do the job I sent them out to do, (basically be the Tank role of my army if you can forgive the MMO terminolgy ) and generally be a pain in the ass to wipe out. Rarely they get destroyed by a sweeping advancement and that only happens when I loose a combat so terribly they should have been killed anyway! They plus the C'tan are very expensive for the points, clocking in well over 500, and rarely make their points back directly. Instead I feel they bring to the table enough crazy abilites to be tacticlly flexible and allow the rest of my army to do their jobs far more effectivly.

Originally the list only had Orikan and another random HQ like Anaykr pre-nerf. At that time I played him very defensivily, sitting in the back of my deployment with a big mob of warriors on some objective hoping someone would assualt him when he was "super saiyan" . What I found is that he would typically take his steroids and just stand there screaming into the wind.

I cut him a few times thinking he was just useless until I played a match against a fellow Necron player who was running big blobs of warriors and Ghost Arks. After 2-3 turns of exchanging short ranged fire I relized there was no way I was gonna win by shooting alone. His army was too tough and resliant and even my tesla spam was being out done by really good rez orb rolls. So on a whim I had him join a group of Anakyr's Eternals and run up the board and just assult the damn mob. The stars aligned and I easily wiped out the squad and it clicked in my head that Orikan should be used to smack things in the head.

Of course warrior mobs are incredibly easy to destroy in an assault why anything specilized in melee combat, but it got the cogs turning and I kept running him up field in other games with those Eternals (who never killed much themselves) and found that more often then not my opponents spent too much time trying to kill that kamikazi Orikan before he could hit them a half second in the future. While he laughed at my opponents, my army could do what it needed to do.

I added Imotekh after being absolutely blown to pieces by an Imperial Gaurd gunline list, and relized that night fighting would be groovy to get up the field. It was also easier model wise to toss another lord into the list, then have 1 or 2 Crypteks of Destruction running around on their own. As I phyiscally only had 3 troop choices in the list. (always been a fan of fewer but maxed out troop choices over more smaller ones...ork player at heart )

Though lacking in the melee department, Imotekh grew on me the last 4 games or so. His Phearon ability allowed me to bring a larger mob of warriors without sacerficing firepower and the assault that his buddy Orikan needed. Points wise, he brings alot of cool wargear along for the ride too including a Phase Shifter and whatever that 2+ save is called; essentially allowing me to soak up some higher strength hits along with Orikan as they spearhead my frontline.

I know that my list isn't optimized by a long shot, and I haven't ran it in a tournament yet. (waiting on those Stalker models next month! ) But I've been having an absolute blast playing with this list and have won more matches than I've lost/tied. I really should do a battle report one of these days for science!

junk wrote:
First of all, looking at this list, the first thing that jumps out at me is the pair of stalkers. I always try to squeeze stalkers into a list, but I always end up swapping them out in the end. I like the targeting ability, but I find it to be redundant; the 2 multi-melta equivalent shots are the draw here, but you're paying a premium to have them on a walker when I'd rather have them on a vehicle that can't get locked in combat. Considering they are kind of weak sauce for a walker in melee, it's totally reasonable that they might get tied up by a squad you'd rather be shooting at.

Oh I agree quite completely with their lackluster ability in hand to hand! You just have to be smart when and what you engage with. With 13 front armor these guys make great tarpits to average strength units. Several times I've stuck them in some natural "canyons" between area terrain or buildings on the board and forced my opponent to take their large swarm of hormagaunts through the terrain or around buying me a turn or two. If they have powerfists I tend to pull them back behind their Immortal screen and try to focus them down with shooting before they hit my line. It's all very situational of course.

BTW I love these types of threads Junk and thanks for asking the tough questions and actually bringing some knowledge and thought to the Necron Tactica! Too many "these suck, tell me y" posts the last few weeks, lol.

Alright, My bad on the Orikan Independent character thing; totally glazed over where it says independent character in his special rules for some reason; for some reason I just accepted it and never checked again (I also, mistakenly assumed that Orikan Empowered was an MC, thus justifying what I thought was a strange rule).

That being said, he's less crappy than I thought.

Field experience is definitely the best measure of a units effectiveness once you pass the 10 game threshold and reality starts catching up with statistics. I've never used Orikan, so I can't really compete with your argument on that front. I concede to your experience.

Assuming Orikan is a given, then we have to consider our other HQ slot. We need a royal court, so that means Overlord - either vanilla, Imotekh, Nemesor, Trazyn, or Anrakyr.

Imotekh - I've used him enough to know I don't need his lightning storms and that I prefer to have control over night fighting, rather than just letting it happen; but if we're not using doomsday arks, and we're staying at the 12"-24" range, counting on the tremorstaves to stop us from getting charged, I guess it's not too big of a hinderance; and as you say, it does restrict enemy shooting. 225 points for a phaeron with a phase shifter and semipeternal weave that can sieze on a 4+ and gives potentially game long night fighting. Is it worth it? Maybe. It's one more thing we have to build an entire list around rather than just plug and play on merit. I do like the Sieze though, this is an army you want to go first with.

Anrakyr - The nerf doesn't bug me at all. Anrakyr is still my personal favorite; but anrakyr doesn't really belong here, none of his rules particularly apply. I love Eternals, and I run them in my wraith wing; even have them all specially painted and stuff.

Nemesor - Fun choice, but lacks phaeron. We're not necessarily going to take advantage of the phased reinforcement, but with a 2+/3++ and an orb, he's well priced; since he comes without phaeron - tesla immortals?

Trazyn - Not really sure what he's supposed to do except claim objectives. Anyone use this guy for anything?


In the end i still think it's going to be 2 vanilla overlords with 2 royal courts that make this build deadly; regardless of the final decision individual generals make, lets just put aside 500-600 points for our HQ block and tinker with some of the other parts of the list to see what comes up.

This tactic will not work against any stand and shoot army ( Tau , Missile Wolves) you will just make them in DT and theyll keep shrugging it off while popping your tanks with misiles. Also, the CTan has to be on the field for writhing worldscape so once he goes down your amry tactic is gone.,

Defeatmyarmy wrote:This tactic will not work against any stand and shoot army ( Tau , Missile Wolves) you will just make them in DT and theyll keep shrugging it off while popping your tanks with misiles. Also, the CTan has to be on the field for writhing worldscape so once he goes down your amry tactic is gone.,

That assumes that the Necrons are going to stand and shoot. I think that's a bad assumption.

Defeatmyarmy wrote:This tactic will not work against any stand and shoot army ( Tau , Missile Wolves) you will just make them in DT and theyll keep shrugging it off while popping your tanks with misiles. Also, the CTan has to be on the field for writhing worldscape so once he goes down your amry tactic is gone.,

Not so. This tactic functionally reduces the enemy's ability to move; but a good build should not be dependent on it, just take advantage of it.
Missile wolves are not a 'stand and shoot' army; they just have units that remain stationary; the rest of the army is highly mobile.
Tau are VERY mobile. JSJ is the cornerstone of most Tau lists, the most common upgrade for broadsides is A.S.S.
The only real list that can win without mobility is IG artillery spam.

Yes, the C'Tan is a key unit, and we're trying to build the list with that in mind.

Thanks for the input!

Moving on:

There's a lot to discuss.

I'd like to hear from anyone that has first hand experience with Tomb Blades.
I've never tried them, as all my fast attack slots are usually filled with wraiths and scarabs; but in this build they seem to be a great choice.
Let's hammer the crap out of them!

I'll open with the standard Pro/Con split:

Pro:
For 20 PPM, they are bargain priced for their statline
They come standard with the same weapon choices as Immortals, but twin linked
Great upgrade options (+1BS, -1 Save, Stealth, Particle Beamers)

Cons - actually, these aren't really cons, just eh...
Standard armor save is only a 4+
Kitting out the unit can get expensive, especially if you want Stealth and Blast.
Max Squad size is 5

In this build:

Tomb Blades seem like a great idea
2x5, one with TL gauss blasters and one with particle beamers or tesla. So 200 or 250, with the option of stealth if the points allow.
Apropos of what we're discussing, the goal of the tomb blades is to get in on those units that don't need to move to be effective - broadsides, long fangs, artillery
As usual, I'm going to continue to advocate using the last FA slot for a pile of scarabs.

Looking forward to hearing thoughts on them.

I played the Orikan Tactic, and it doesn't work as well as it seems. Hell, I played it in Cities, where there is a lot of terrain anyway.
It is only a one in 6 chance, and while that works on Orks and the like, it is unlikely that a razorspam blood angels will even move the first turn (they can spare a turn of lascannon shooting or even inactivity).
With the high mobility of "today's" armies, this list seems to work, as it cripples that crucial aspect. I am wondering why nobody has said that crucibles may work here. You can always count on a -1 assault range, whereas your opponent may be planning on abusing his 12". This keeps you out of assault for another turn.

Another Possibility that you have not considered is TH/SS termies. This list has no way to defeat them except for Volume of Fire (even with the dangerous terrain). That is why some Doomsday Arks would work. I would certainly rather have them than Orikan.

The deathmarks are an "interesting" choice. They don't seem to synergize with the rest of the list, nor do I find them particularly effective without an abyssal staff. I would drop them to take the following warrior squads

I would drop the Scythes for some 6 man warrior squads with Ghost Arks. They are infinitely better for objective holding and fire suppression. Plus they can screen the foot slogging immortals if necessary.

The monolith contention is an interesting one, but runs into the same problems as the list already has. Namely the lack of AP2. I will be testing my version tomorrow and will get back with its success or failure.

Edit: I was ninj'd by the OP! I think the tomb blades might be a good choice, The list has plenty of blast, so the kitting would probably have to be Gauss blasters. The 10 of them would be costly though, coming in at a min of 200, and an effective value of 400.

Config2 wrote:I played the Orikan Tactic, and it doesn't work as well as it seems. Hell, I played it in Cities, where there is a lot of terrain anyway.
It is only a one in 6 chance, and while that works on Orks and the like, it is unlikely that a razorspam blood angels will even move the first turn (they can spare a turn of lascannon shooting or even inactivity).
With the high mobility of "today's" armies, this list seems to work, as it cripples that crucial aspect. I am wondering why nobody has said that crucibles may work here. You can always count on a -1 assault range, whereas your opponent may be planning on abusing his 12". This keeps you out of assault for another turn.

Another Possibility that you have not considered is TH/SS termies. This list has no way to defeat them except for Volume of Fire (even with the dangerous terrain). That is why some Doomsday Arks would work. I would certainly rather have them than Orikan.

The deathmarks are an "interesting" choice. They don't seem to synergize with the rest of the list, nor do I find them particularly effective without an abyssal staff. I would drop them to take the following warrior squads

I would drop the Scythes for some 6 man warrior squads with Ghost Arks. They are infinitely better for objective holding and fire suppression. Plus they can screen the foot slogging immortals if necessary.

The monolith contention is an interesting one, but runs into the same problems as the list already has. Namely the lack of AP2. I will be testing my version tomorrow and will get back with its success or failure.

Edit: I was ninj'd by the OP! I think the tomb blades might be a good choice, The list has plenty of blast, so the kitting would probably have to be Gauss blasters. The 10 of them would be costly though, coming in at a min of 200, and an effective value of 400.

Great stuff! Lets fight!

Glad to hear a dissenting argument against Orikan, as I'm in the camp that he is not auto-include. However, despite the few armies that can ignore the turn 1 restriction, do you think that the inclusion of Orikan justifies the loss of access to a second royal court?

TH/SS is definitely an issue; a 5 man squad is not statistically likely to lose a model to DT tests - so the real option is to restrict mobility with quake, deny them assaults, and devote a lot of firepower to forcing saves. I'm with you on the Doomsday ark thing, I have yet to hear a convincing argument against them.

Monoliths: So far the biggest reason to play Monoliths in this build is as mobile impassible terrain; we're ideally not going to need the Gate.

Warriors Vs. Immortals - I think the higher strength shooting and better armor save is favorable to the slightly higher body count; and I love the night scythes as supersonic transports/tesla destructor batteries - but The increased armor of the Ghost Ark, along with the ability to repair warrior bricks is definitely not to be ignored. This one really needs to be studied.

As I've said in multiple threads, I think that night scythes are way undervalued around here. Supersonic Transport that can deep strike and comes armed with a bad ass gun it can fire after moving 12". AV 11 all around isn't exactly amazing, but it's not open topped and still got living metal.

Ghost arks are nice, AV 13 is hard to crack, hard to even glance, so a scoring unit embarked on one can hold an objective during those crucial final turns. Also, ghost arks make for decent target denial, intervening between small arms squads and soft warrior targets, further supporting them by 'repairing' squads. Reecius's Warrior Phalanx supported by double ghost arks from his immotekh scarab farm has won him a few bat reps on Front Line Gaming.

I still have it in my head that we want to maximize mobility to further exploit the mobility limitations we're placing on our opponent, so I'm all for sinking points into transports, but at this point, i'm not 100% convinced that ghost arks are a better choice.

My rational for death marks wasn't their killyness, it was the forced target priority. You can't ignore a squad of deathmarks that have marked your unit. Remember that at least 1 tremorstave is in that squad, likely 2, so a pair of small blast markers, even with no AP, that wound on a 2+ will still cause a lot of wounds. Forcing an enemy to divert attention to the deathmarks takes the heat off your gunline. It's not a strong tactic, as I don't think the initial list is a strong list in general, but that was the rationale there. Depositing them with the night scythes attached to the phaeron overlords also allows for some nice target saturation between their 2+ wounding/pinning and the tesla destructors shooting; but it's at best a harassment unit as it can only really be safely used on the very edges of the enemy deployment. It makes no difference to me if they're deathmarks, warriors, or immortals though.

Now, I'd love to be convinced that Ghost Arks are the way to go - bring it on!

Now I know I'm going off on a tangent here (off Tremor Staves completely) but I figured I would put my thoughts out there on the Deathmarks and Scythes.

I started off tuning my Necrons with Wraiths and gradually moved away to a pure shooty list. This was where I discovered the Scythes and haven't looked back. Sure they are easier to deal with than AV13 but there are benefits:

- Mobility. They can go 12" and fire their tesla destructor. This keeps them mostly safe from CC attacks and even better if the transport is popped in the case of fragile Troops they just go straight back into reserve. This is a potential life saver if there are assault units nearby.

- Tesla Destructors. In my mind these are one of the best weapons Necrons have access to. Spamming them is a no-brainer.

- It's not open topped. Something that's overlooked a lot of the time. Everything with Quantum Shielding IS open topped. A melta weapon within 2D6 range is going to most likely destroy whatever it pens if it is getting +2 on the chart. +1 is not a guaranteed kill.

- 36" move. Great at contesting. Great for escaping to another part of the battlefield for a reprieve. This perhaps should be in the mobility point but I figured it's worth individualizing since it's that important.

- Price. At 165pts for 5 Warriors and a Scythe it's hard to get a better deal. Not impossible since you get the A. Barges cheaper individually, but when you combine the other perks, the fact they don't compete for the same slot and you can get up to 9 of them (points allowing) it's still solid. I personally prefer Doom Scythes over A. Barges the reasons for which I will go into momentarily.

Now I know anecdotal experience is less valuable than other types, but I figured I would put it out there. I haven't lost a game yet with my Scythe spam. I would like to say that it's entirely due to my Generalship of the army, but that probably isn't the case. I have played vs experienced Generals (Cmac and ShotgunFacelift from Dakka) with some of the roughest armies they could bring (Mech DE and Razorspam+ Long Fangs respectively). Admittedly the SW game was a draw but had it gone to Turn 6 it was a solid victory for the Crons.

Now onto the theory (which has worked in practise so far). At 1850 I run 2 CC Barges, 2 Solar Pulse Teks, 4 Abyssal Staff teks, 5 Night Scythes (3x Warriors, 2x Deathmarks) and 2 Doom Scythes. The idea is to overwhelm your opponent with threats and mobility. CC Barges and Doom Scythes work great in tandem to de-mech an opponent. While they may kill 1 or 2 of these most armies will struggle to deal with all 4 before they make a serious dent, especially with Night fight in play. Originally I was playing without the Deathmarks and just using more Troops but adding them in makes sense, especially with 2 Abyssal Staff Teks in tow per squad. It's another threat that cannot be ignored, especially for the units they marked. If these get focussed on you are again improving the chances of the Doom Scythes and CC Barges of fulfilling their purpose.

I must stress I haven't ever played with Ghost Arks and don't plan to, but for an aggressive army build I can't see them holding a candle to spammed Scythes. Perhaps for a more defensive build they would work better with plenty of Warriors on foot. I just don't like the idea of being vulnerable to assaults, but perhaps that can be mitigated sufficiently with Tremor Staves and Writhing Worldscape. I guess playtesting is the only way to tell.

Okay, so based on comments thus far, here's some more food for thought:

2000 Point Tremorcron List version 2

Orikan
Overlord (phaeron, Rezorb)
4 Tremor-teks
1 Lance-Tek + Pulse
C'tan (writhing worldscape, grand illusion)
2x4 Tomb Blades (Gauss)
2 Doomsday Ark
10 Gauss Immortals
5 Tesla immortals
5 Tesla immortals + Scythe
5 Warriors + Scythe
5 Warriors + Scythe

(Ghost arks vs. Scythes?)
(do we need a monolith)
(should the Overlord be the Nemesor?)
(Should we shrink the 10 man Immortal squad to fit more units?)
(Can we protect the c'tan?)

If you plan on using Tremors extensively I would suggest keeping as many things in your army mobile as possible. Not only are you forcing your opponent to move slowly and dangerously, but you are also decreasing the chances the chances of being able to successfully hit you once they get there, if they even get there at all. Decrease their mobility and use yours to pick an army apart.

I would say something like

CC Barge Overlord
CC Barge Overlord

RC1
Pulse Tek, 4x Tremor Teks

RC2
Pulse Tek

C tan - Writhing Worldscape, Grand Illusion

5x Warriors
Night Scythe

5x Warriors
Night Scythe

5x Warriors
Night Scythe

5x Warriors
Night Scythe

5x Warriors
Night Scythe

Doom Scythe

Orikan could be used in place of a CC Barge, but I find them too useful to discard personally. The list above is 1850, but can be taken to 2k pretty easily.

Scythes would be run empty with boots on the ground. Thus you have a huge amount of units to be dealt with that can flank, contest, hit sections and back off etc. Imagine hitting 1 side hard while Tremors stop the units on the other side moving up to help out? Nasty.

I think that scythe spam is actually stronger without the Quake component; as cutting the c'tan and the tremorstaves would free up the points necessary to run the full 3 doom scythes.

What I'm saying is, I think you've gone too far.

In a quake list, I think that Doomsday barges are preferable to doom scythes.

Doom Scythes are aggressive units, and belong in lists where aggression is rewarded. A quake list is a defensive list, you want to stay at the edge of your range and shoot.
For necrons that means 24".

In an aggro list, like wraithwing or scarab farm, doom scythes are protected at close range by confusing target priority.

In this build, there's nothing to protect them. In short, they're too close range. There's nothing stopping them from being focus fired and brought down.

Spamming warriors without phaerons and/or ghost arks also limits either range or mobility. Hence tesla immortals, who can hang at 22" and relax, weathering return fire with their superior armor save.

At the moment I'm not going off of experience so I'm just theory-hammering stuff out. I agree Scythes are stronger without the Tremor element, but I was also trying to see how to make full use of the Staves. Keeping your opponent immobile is half the story. Staying very mobile yourself is another component. Is it necessary though, and does it diminish your damage output? I don't actually know.

Looking at the basics we see Tremors, Writhing Worldscape and Orikan impede enemy mobility. What can capitalize on that?


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I guess we are looking at 2 different approaches. I'm looking at an aggressive playstyle vs your defensive.

I will try to give you an idea of my point of view. Say I go the Scythe approach. I am now maximizing my mobility and am having a detrimental effect on my opponents. Vs a shooty, stationary list (mech IG springs to mind) he doesn't care about mobility really, but with Scythes of both types in the list castling up is risky. Spreading out seems sensible, but then I have the mobility to hit a flank hard and stop the other elements coming in for a counter attack. If I'm going up against a mobile army (Mech DE) I have that 36" essential range, each time he moves he takes Dangerous terrain checks and I know from personal experience Tesla Destructors are great vs DE vehicles.

If you play more defensively you aren't getting any bonus from an immobile enemy, will have trouble getting to objectives yourself, and be outranged by certain enemies. I personally don't rate Doomsday Arks all that high. Large blasts aren't all that accurate and the fact it becomes significantly worse if it moves just takes away competitive value IMO.

I would appreciate it if you could show me a defensive style of play that works well. I guess since I am originally a Nid player the best defence is a good offence in my book.