I've said it before and I'll say it again. Grey knights are arguably the strongest army right now, especially against necrons. They will out-assault the crons and also out-shoot them as well. The only advantage the crons have over the knights is better mobility, and that's only with certain necron builds.

This will be a 2-part series of battle reports. The first will be my Maximum Threat Overload (MTO) necrons against my Draigowing. Both are very strong lists and both are undefeated so far. The second will be necrons versus my Crowe-Purifier grey knights, a build which I consider to be more balanced than and superior to my Draigowing (this battle would be at a later date). Actually, my Draigowing did lose once and that was to my Crowe-Purifiers in an 'Ard Boyz practice game at 2500pts. But they haven't lost yet at 2K, which is what I usually run.

Recently, my MTO doom scythe necrons have won against Sisters of Battle and a Leman Russ Imperial Guards army. They also have several victories where I didn't use the doom scythes. The strategy behind them is a fast and dangerous army that throws more threats at the enemy than they can handle, all at the same time.

However, Draigowing may be one of the very few armies that won't be phased at all by the necron "threats". They have both the resiliency to withstand multiple dangerous units assaulting them as well as the offense to wipe out any single unit that they come into combat with. Lately, my Draigowing has been on a tear, beating a very tough mechdar army (though this was due to sheer luck), a foot necron build and a very nasty fandex tyranid experiment. They also fought Reece's Scarab-farm necrons and SabrX's FNP Blood Angels to a draw.

I think this would be a true test for my MTO necrons. If they can beat Draigowing, then I think this build could be a tier-1 necron build.


-------------------------------------------------------------------


2000 Maximum Threat Overload Necrons vs Draigowing


2K Necrons



Anrakyr
Catacomb Command Barge
1x Cryptek - Harbinger of Destruction, Solar Pulse

Necron Overlord - Mindshackle Scarabs, Phase Shifter, Warscythe, Weave
Catacomb Command Barge
1x Cryptek - Harbinger of Destruction, Solar Pulse

5x Warriors
5x Warriors
5x Warriors
5x Warriors

10x Canoptek Scarabs
6x Canoptek Wraiths - 3x Whip Coils, 1x Particle Blaster (Raveners)
5x Canoptek Wraiths - 3x Whip Coils, 1x Particle Blaster (Raveners)

3x Canoptek Spyders - Claw Array, Gloom Prism
Doom Scythe (Vendetta)
Doom Scythe (Vendetta)



2K Grey Knights

Draigo
Librarian - Might of Titan, Sanctuary, Shrouding

10x Paladins - 4x Psycannons (2x MC), 2x MC-Hammer, Banner, Stave
5x Paladins - 2x Psycannons, Stave
1x Soladin

Stormraven

Psyfleman Dread
Psyfleman Dread


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Battle report will be up Wednesday.

er eh... if you're relying on doomscythes to start on table and accomplish much against IG Vendetta wings..well hmm it's good to dream.

They can simply turbo-boost, search light (as you don't have to be able to shoot to use them, you have to search to be bale to shoot) and then have the rear guard light up the 11 armor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
roughly same sort of deal with stormravens

BTW, the vendettas are proxies for the doom scythes. Also, GK vehicles don't come with searchlights. They are an optional upgrade.

Think it will depend on the mission, but two doomscythes have the power to vaporate that 10 man palladin squad in one go!!

Anrakyr hacking the stormraven and launching the antipsyke missiles can be quite painfull to...

I think this will be for the necrons.

On kill points the crons will be in deep trouble but if it goes to 5 objectives it's easy to spread out and just avoid the Pally unit of doom. I should mention that in every game(not just 40k but EVERY game I have ever played) palladins are allways bs and ridiculous.

Valek wrote:Think it will depend on the mission, but two doomscythes have the power to vaporate that 10 man palladin squad in one go!!

Not unless you play some very silly RAW, or the GK player lines up for you.

I think the Necrons are in with a chance though! I hope Anrakyr MitM's a Psyriflemen and it kills pallies...

Rooting for a Necron victory here, as there are plenty of things there to ruin the GK's day:
- S10 Death Rays causing Instant Death to the Paladins
- Mind in the Machine taking over his Psyflement
- Scarabs nom-nomming the Paladins' armour away.

I think the necron list has the tools to deal with the paladins in draigo's squad. GK's are tough, so it will be an uphill battle regardless.

Looking forward to the rep!

Hmm, honestly, i have little to no idea what the 'crons are capable of, but if the stories and rumors spread around on the interwebs are true,( Right, like that'll ever happen ) Then those pallies might have a bit of a tough time doing anything.

bagtagger wrote:
On kill points the crons will be in deep trouble but if it goes to 5 objectives it's easy to spread out and just avoid the Pally unit of doom. I should mention that in every game(not just 40k but EVERY game I have ever played) palladins are allways bs and ridiculous.

@ bagtagger, Very true and then when those pallies are just controlling 1 or 2 obj's is when the GK player will feel silliest for taking his Death star out for a jog.

Either way, this will be a glorious, albeit bloody, fight to the death! ( 'Course what else do you expect from WH40K? )

The stormraven getting taken over and then firing mindstrikes into the paladins would be comical.

I think that Draigowing prevails though.

PRE-GAME ANALYSIS:

Necrons:
Really, I'm not so sure how to take on the paladinstar. I think the Deathray may be my best shot, but I'll probably only get 1 shot each with them before he shoots them down. I could assault the paladinstar with both units of wraiths, but I think he will grind them down over time. Can I ignore them? I don't think so as they will be contesting in objectives-based games and shooting down stuff in annihilation. Besides, for me to get any real kills, I need to get up close against an army that is better than mine in combat. I think I will try to take down the support units first before the inevitable confrontation with his deathstar. Yeesh....even the 5-man paladin squad is dangerous.

I think necron's best chance to win is in Seize Ground. Although Draigowing can have up to 6 scoring units by combat squadding and making his dreads scoring with Grand Strategy, I can probably take out those dreads fairly easily with either strategically placed deathrays or by sweeping attack them with my command barges. Then I will spread out and force his not-very-mobile deathstar to have to travel between objectives. Capture and control may be a draw. I have multiple (and fast!) units to contest and my wraiths have the resiliency to survive in combat, at least for a few turns. He has the resiliency to last but lack the mobility to get to the objective if I am able to take down his raven. Kill points, as usual, will probably favor the paladins unless I can somehow manage to table him (Haha!).

As for deployment, my MTO necrons really don't care about the deployment type. In Dawn of War, I may lose 1 round of spawning for my spyders, however, my vehicles will be coming in flat-out for cover and I will get 1 extra turn of Night-fight. Then I have the speed to easily cover ground in Pitched Battle and Spearhead.

Overall, I feel that necrons will be the slight underdog in this battle. Fighting an army of 2+ units really isn't their forte.


Grey Knights:
Grey knights cannot take the MTO necrons lightly. They are a very fast and dangerous army with a dangerous amount of attacks. More importantly, they will control the Movement phase so will have the advantage in that department, though Draigowing will control the Shooting and Assault phases. You may think that gives the grey knights the advantage, but keep in mind that 2 out of the 3 mission types are objectives. In these missions, the Movement phase is arguably even more crucial.

Target priority is something the knights really need to take into consideration. Obviously, they will need to take out the doom scythes as those can do the most damage. Then the wraiths and command barges are both equally as dangerous. And in objectives-based games, even the warriors are a threat. Probably the lowest threat to the paladins would be the scarabs and spyders, but don't count them out. They are still a threat because they will most likely be going after the stormraven and dreads.

Annihilation definitely favors the paladins. In objectives-based missions, if they can reach the objectives, then they will probably do fine. Necrons will have a hard time trying to get them off.


-------------------------------------------------------------------


Mission: Seize Ground - 4 Objectives

Deployment: Spearhead

Initiative: Necrons


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Deployment:

Map of the terrain.

The terrain in the very middle - the Keebler Studios Tripple Can Candimonium Kit - I got from Reece's online store Frontline Gaming and I must say it turned out very well. They built and painted it for me at a very reasonable price. Check it out if you're looking for terrain. Highly recommended.

Anyways, back to the report.


2 objectives are here. Grey Knights intentionally place the 2nd objective close to the necron objective.


Necrons then place the 3rd objective far away to spread them out.


As for the 4th and last objective, grey knights place it near the center of the board and about 12" away from the other objective.

Basically, grey knights want the objectives to be closer together. Easier for them to reach and defend.


Necron deployment.


I deploy 2 squads of warriors, with 1 hiding behind the impassable hill. 2 units of warriors will be in reserves.


Grey knight deployment. Hopefully, the dread and ruins will be enough to give the paladins cover on the side with very little area terrain.

With Grand Strategy, Draigo makes both of the dreads scoring. Soladin will be walking on from reserves.


Overview of our deployment.

Draigowing fails to seize and we begin.


--------------------------------------------------------------


Necrons 1

Anrakyr moves flat-out 24".


Overlord moves flat-out as well. Doom scythe moves 12" in order to be able to shoot its deathray.


Necron movement. 1 spyder takes 1W from spawning (which I did at the beginning of the turn).


More necron movement. The other doom scythe moves 12" only as well.


Necrons then run.


1 doom scythe has a perfect view of the paladins without cover! I roll for distance and get 15", hitting 7 paladins!!! Librarian casts Shrouding anyways.

Lance-teks (crypteks with eldritch lance) fire at and shake the stormraven.


Out of the 7 hits, only 5 are wounded. Draigo makes his 3++ invuln and then 2 paladins make their 5++ invuln's! Only the hammer and 1 halberd is killed. Tesla destructors fail to do anything to the paladins.


The other doom scythe rolls for his deathray and also gets 15"!. It hits the dread and 2 paladins. Both paladins make their 3+ cover (from Shrouding) and the dread only gets stunned from a glancing deathray. Tesla destructors fail to do anything to the dread which was the primary target.

Finally, Anrakyr fails to take over the stormraven.

Wow....with a direct hit from the doom scythe and without cover, I was hoping to kill more paladins. Instead, I only kill 2 and do meaningless damage to the dread and raven, which will probably just get ignored next turn. Not very good at all.


Grey Knights 1
Solar-teks uses 1 of their Solar Pulses to make it Night-fight.


Both the dread and stormraven fortitudes off the stunned/shaken results (for the newer folks, that means they successfully cast Fortitude to ignore the shaken/stunned results). Grey knights then move. Stormraven moves 12"....


....and out disembarks the 5-man pallie squad, ready to kill some wraiths.


The paladins move as well.

Uh oh....huge mistake on the necron's behalf. I miscalculated the movement of my wraiths and just brought them into the paladinstar's assault range!


Psyfleman sees and fires at the doom scythe, immobilizing and stunning it.

Here is another mistake by my necrons - I totally forget that my spyder's fabricator claw array can try to repair the doom scythe's immobilization so never attempted to do so!


On the bright side, the other dread fires at Anrakyr's command barge but I pass my 2 cover saves.

5-man pallies fire at the 6 wraiths and causes 2W. Paladinstar don't fire at their target because they plan to charge.

And I almost forgot....the stormraven blows up the other doom scythe with its tl-lascannon and tl-multi-melta (it gets to fire both weapons thanks to Power of the Machine Spirit, or PotMS for short).


Both paladins make the charge!

Ironic, isn't it? It is the slower army that gets the 1st turn charge this game. LOL.


Amazingly, wraiths cause 3W to paladins and pallies fail to cause an unsaved wound in return. Wraiths win by 3 but paladins still pass morale.


The other combat doesn't go quite as well as the paladinstar wipes out the other wraiths. On the bright side, librarian takes 1W from Perils while trying to cast a psychic power and another paladin takes 1W from the wraiths.


Necrons 2

Overview of the top of Turn 2. I'm in a bad spot right now. Paladinstar is free and roaming around near my 2 objectives. Both doom scythes are practically disabled. 1 unit of wraiths is gone and the other will most likely be locked in combat for a while. How can I stop his paladinstar and can I turn the game around?


1 unit of warriors come in from reserves and goes after the far-left objective.


Another unit of warriors come in from the middle.


Spyders produce another 3 scarabs and takes another 1W for their trouble.


Anrakyr flies over the dread and wrecks him with his sweeping attack. He then disembarks and prepares to help out the wraiths.


The Overlord flies over the other dread, immobilizing and shaking it. He then disembarks as well.


Necron moves. Warriors actually move towards the paladinstar while scarabs/spyders move away from them.

I'm taking a big risk here. I'm trying to induce the paladins into going after the warriors instead of after the wraiths. This is what I mean by my warriors being a "threat". They're going to force the paladins to make a choice....either go after the more dangerous wraiths or try to take out the more squishy, objective-claiming warriors.


Spyders and scarabs move around the impassable (and environmentally-friendly ) terrain. Scarabs fleet and will go after the raven.

Now for shooting.


Anrakyr successfully controls the stormraven and fires upon the paladinstar. I forget about the mindstrike missiles!!! However, the lascannon and multi-melta does manage to kill 1 paladin. I then rapid-fire with 2 squads of warriors and the crypteks, killing another 1 paladin and putting 1W on Draigo.


Now for assault. Overlord charges dread and the scarabs assault the raven.


Anrakyr joins in the paladin-wraith melee.


The Overlord explodes the dread.


Scarabs manage to only strip down 3 points of armor from the raven. The raven is otherwise unharmed.


Finally, in assault, wraiths take out the warding stave and 1 sword paladin. Paladins in turn put 3W on wraiths, killing 1, and win combat. Anrakyr passes morale and wraiths make their No Retreat save.


Grey Knights 2

Overview of the bottom of Turn 2. Draigo uses Psychic Communion to delay the arrival of the soladin.


After deliberating for a bit, paladins finally decide to go after the scoring units. They prepare for a multi-charge. Gulp!


However, Draigo breaks off from the unit and goes to help out the other paladins. Double-gulp!!


Stormraven flies behind Anrakyr's command barge....


....and blows it up with a lascannon and multi-melta to the rear. Payback for the dreads!


Onto assault!


Draigo joins the wraith-paladin melee.


Paladins wipe out 1 squad of warriors, kill both crypteks and send the other unit of warriors running.


Here, we both rolling poorly and tie combat with 1W apiece - wraiths put 1W on an unwounded paladin and pallies kill a wraith with 1W remaining.

Finally, 1 of the crypteks gets back up due to Ever-living. I really needed that because now it means that the paladinstar needs to waste 1 more turn trying to kill the contesting cryptek.


Necrons 3

Overview of the top of Turn 3. Uh....it looks as if I may be off by 1 turn in the game.


Spyders spawn 3 more scarabs.


Overlord gets back into the barge and flies over the paladins. The ensuing sweeping attack puts 1W on another paladin.


Necron movement. Now here's where I'm not 100% sure if I played it right. I may post this question in YMDC if I don't get the answer here.

Since pallies killed the cryptecks and broke the warriors, I played the cryptek that got back up as its separate unit because it couldn't get back into coherency with another unit. Also, even if the warriors falling back were in range, not sure if the crypteks can join a unit that was falling back.

Anyways, at this point, I played the warriors as a separate unit than the crypteks. Because it is a unit of 5 (as opposed to 7 with the crypteks)and there were 3 left, I took the LD test to regroup and successfully regrouped them. If anyone thinks I played this wrong, please let me know and try to provide evidence why. I'd like to be sure. Thanks.


Other unit of warriors slowly creep up to the far-left objective.


Spyders and scarabs advance.


Rapid-fire by the warriors put another 1W on the paladins. Lance-tek misses.


Scarabs then multi-assault the raven and paladins locked in combat with the wraiths.


My sheer number of attacks wipe out 2 wounded paladins and wraiths put another 1W on Draigo (down to 2W left). Paladins and Draigo fail to do any damage in return.

Scarabs also explode the stormraven.


Draigo passes morale but paladin fails and falls back. As Anrakyr cannot consolidate into combat with Draigo, he breaks off from the assault and consoiidates towards the retreating paladin instead to keep him from regrouping.

Wow....I actually beat 5 pallies and Draigo!


Grey Knights 3

Overview of the bottom of Turn 3.


Soladin comes in by the GK objective. Other paladin continues to fall back.


Paladins are in a bind now. He needs to hope that Draigo can hold off the wraiths and scarabs, and then he needs to get rid of all the units contesting his objectives. He decides to multi-assault.


Despite my AV13 and flat-out cover save, paladins blow up the command barge with psycannons. The Overlord gets pinned in the ensuing explosion.


Paladins can't quite reach the 3-man warrior squad so settles for multi-assaulting the Overlord and cryptek.


He wipes them both out....


....but to his bewilderment, the Overlord gets back up! As the Overlord can get back up anywhere within 3" of where he "died", I place him so that he is contesting the objective.


Not only does Draigo survive another turn, but he also takes out 2 scarab bases and 1 wraith after combat and No Retreat saves.


Necrons 4

Overview of the top of Turn 4. Looks like I am off by 1 turn.


Anrakyr goes after the retreating paladin. I need to contest his objective.


Warriors converge onto the objective and paladins.


Spyders double-back to contest the other objective.


Finaly, my immobilized doom scythe has a target. The deathray hits the retreating paladin and then I roll a to wound. The testa-destructor also fails to kill him.


Rapid-fire from 2 warriors (and 1rapid-fire shot from a 3rd squad) downs 1 wounded paladin and puts 1W on the last unwounded paladin.


I then string the paladins out by attacking the 2 ends - 1 with my Overlord and the other with the spyders.


Anrakyr charges the fleeing paladin to try to pick up some extra movement.


He wipes out the paladin and consolidates to contest the GK objective!


Wraiths and scarabs finally put down the Lord of the paladins.


Librarian casts both Might and Hammerhand. Overlord mindshackles the non-hammerdin. Paladins force-weapon 2 spyders to death but fails to kill the Overlord. I might have put 1W on paladins, not quite sure, but paladins win combat. Spyder takes another 1W from No Retreat and Overlord passes morale!


Grey Knights 4

Not much left for grey knights to do. Soladin assaults Anrakyr. He needs to get rid of the contesting necron HQ and it's better than taking a Tachyon Arrow to the face and then getting assaulted next turn.


Soladin fails to hurt Anrakyr. The necron lord then causes 1W in return and breaks the soladin, causing him to fall back.


Again, the Librarian successfully casts both Might and Hammerhand....but this time, he perils on and kills himself! They wipe out the spyder and Overlord, but not before losing the warding stave and the sword.


Afterwards, paladins consolidate but only move 1". The right paladin actually had to consolidate away from the uncontested objective in order to get back into coherency! He may be out of claiming range.


Thinking that this was turn 5, I roll to see if the game continues and it does.


Necrons 5

Necrons go in for the kill.


Anrakyr moves towards the fleeing paladin. He fires his Tachyon Arrow but misses. No matter, the soladin will be off the table next turn.


Rapid-fire from 3 warrior units take out the hammerdin.


I then assault....


....and paladins are tabled.



Necrons are claiming 1 objective here.


And a 2nd objective here.



Victory to the Metallic Dead - Necrons!!!



Aftermath of the carnage.

If using BYO like you did in previous games I think will be a win for GK ,but if using rulebook random objectives I am guessing will end in a Draw as the GK will not be able to push through the wraiths,scarabs,spyders and warriors
Necrons have more mobility but I think here is an instance where paladins excel. The reason is they want to be engaged and their targets to get close. I think the librarian specifically can really hinder necron progress if can get pass the gloom prisms.

People keep underestimating the hitting power of the crons. Necrons are fast and hard hitting now, I guess it just takes a while for people to get used to that fact.

I think this fight comes down to a few key factors:

Can the Dreadnoughts knock the Doom Scythes down before the Scythes reach the paladins?

Will Anrakyr get his hands on that storm raven before the mindstrike missiles get dumped?

How many warriors can Scott the Soladin kill before succumbing to statistics?

How does the GK player handle the spyders and scarabs with so few units without getting tied up for a few important rounds?

Is it going to be a KP game?

Will Wraiths follow the same rules laid out in the tyranid FAQ regarding whip coils (lash whips) vs. wargear? If so halberd paladins will still attack wraiths first regardless of whip coils.

As usual, looking forward to the results.

The game has only one factor to determine who is going to win, the general.

Who is the general of the Necrons and who is the general of the GK?

In fact, perhaps the poll should have those as the questions cuz any betting man would need to know before choosing.

Having seen this army in action, I think it will surprise some people. This is going to be a tough match-up, and I am excited to see the outcome!

Also, keep your eyes open for some ultra-cool terrain made by our store!

MMM...... Not quite sure on this one, I want to say Draigowing, but rinning wraithwing myself I know how resiliant those wraiths are... guess it comes down to saves, and force weapons!

This is goin to be good. Id use Anrakyr and sweep attack a dreadnought and mitm the storm raven as already mentioned. Take out anything mobile 1st and then the dreads. After that concentrate on the palidans.

Valkyrie wrote:- Scarabs nom-nomming the Paladins' armour away.

That's not very effective. Hitting on 5's, wounding on 5's with a 2+ save means that I would only cause 1 unsaved Wound with every 54 attacks! That means 13.5 scarabs just to cause 1W. Meanwhile, paladin force weapons would hurt a lot. The 12-man paladinstar unit can easily wipe out almost 30 scarabs bases after No Retreat saves in just 1 phase of combat!

No, scarabs will only attack weakened paladin squads but preferably will go raven/dread hunting. Otherwise, the No Retreat saves they would have to take will probably also wipe out the wraiths in the multi-assault as well.

whitespirit wrote:If using BYO like you did in previous games I think will be a win for GK ,but if using rulebook random objectives I am guessing will end in a Draw as the GK will not be able to push through the wraiths,scarabs,spyders and warriors
Necrons have more mobility but I think here is an instance where paladins excel. The reason is they want to be engaged and their targets to get close. I think the librarian specifically can really hinder necron progress if can get pass the gloom prisms.

It will just be the book missions determined randomly as normal.

Clay Williams wrote:People keep underestimating the hitting power of the crons. Necrons are fast and hard hitting now, I guess it just takes a while for people to get used to that fact.

Oh yeah. I can't believe my wraiths and spyders went through almost 55 FNP assault marines in 1 battle against BA! They will kill all but the toughest opponents.

Unforunately, the paladinstar is probably the toughest opponent out there. The only other unit that can even come close is the Space Wolf Wolfstar.

junk wrote:
Will Wraiths follow the same rules laid out in the tyranid FAQ regarding whip coils (lash whips) vs. wargear? If so halberd paladins will still attack wraiths first regardless of whip coils.

As there really isn't any ambiguity in the necron codex regarding this, I don't think you have to refer to another codex's FAQ for precedence. They may well FAQ it like that, but judging from GW's inconsistency, you can't be sure.

The only ambiguity is when whip coils come up against Howling Banshees. Then I would look at another codex's FAQ to see how they would rule it. Otherwise, I just usually play according to the RAW in the codex.

Kwi wrote:The game has only one factor to determine who is going to win, the general.

Who is the general of the Necrons and who is the general of the GK?

In fact, perhaps the poll should have those as the questions cuz any betting man would need to know before choosing.

I will be playing necrons and Draigowing will be played by jy2.

However, Part II of the Grey Knight Challenge will most likely be played by someone else.

jy2 wrote:

junk wrote:
Will Wraiths follow the same rules laid out in the tyranid FAQ regarding whip coils (lash whips) vs. wargear? If so halberd paladins will still attack wraiths first regardless of whip coils.

As there really isn't any ambiguity in the necron codex regarding this, I don't think you have to refer to another codex's FAQ for precedence. They may well FAQ it like that, but judging from GW's inconsistency, you can't be sure.

The only ambiguity is when whip coils come up against Howling Banshees. Then I would look at another codex's FAQ to see how they would rule it. Otherwise, I just usually play according to the RAW in the codex.

Unfortunately, we've come across this argument before. The Lash Whips/Whip Coils reduce the Initiative value to 1, but the Halberd adds +2 initiative. The question of which piece of wargear takes precedence is still a valid one. The Precedent set by the tyranid codex noted that base initiative is reduced by the lash whip but it has no effect on wargear that modifies initiative on the defending model, such as the eldar mask. As a player of both GK and Necron I don't really care which way the faq falls, but RAW I would normally be tempted to rule in favor of the necrons; however the wording is comprable.

Lash Whip: Any model in base contact with a tyranid with one or more lash whips counts their initiative value as 1 until the end of the assault phase, regardless of their actual initiative value.
Whip Coils: Whilst any model in base contact with a model with whip coils they count their initiative value as 1 until the end of the assault phase, regardless of their actual initiative value.

Tyranid Faq:

Q: If a model with Lash Whips is attacking a model with an Initiative-boosting rule/piece of wargear (e.g. Furious Charge, an Eldar Banshee Mask etc.), which order are the Initiatives modified?
A: The Lash Whips will reduce an enemy model’s initiative to 1 before any other modifiers are applied. So, a model with Furious Charge that assaults a Tyranid with Lash Whips will strike at Initiative 2, and an Eldar with a Banshee Mask will strike at Initiative 10 in the first round of assault

Based on precedent, a GK player could argue that a halberd's +2 is factored after the whip coil's initiative value replacement.

Reecius wrote:Having seen this army in action, I think it will surprise some people. This is going to be a tough match-up, and I am excited to see the outcome!

Also, keep your eyes open for some ultra-cool terrain made by our store!

It's (the terrain) so cool I made it the centerpiece of the map.

junk wrote:
Unfortunately, we've come across this argument before. The Lash Whips/Whip Coils reduce the Initiative value to 1, but the Halberd adds +2 initiative. The question of which piece of wargear takes precedence is still a valid one. The Precedent set by the tyranid codex noted that base initiative is reduced by the lash whip but it has no effect on wargear that modifies initiative on the defending model, such as the eldar mask. As a player of both GK and Necron I don't really care which way the faq falls, but RAW I would normally be tempted to rule in favor of the necrons; however the wording is comprable.

Lash Whip: Any model in base contact with a tyranid with one or more lash whips counts their initiative value as 1 until the end of the assault phase, regardless of their actual initiative value.
Whip Coils: Whilst any model in base contact with a model with whip coils they count their initiative value as 1 until the end of the assault phase, regardless of their actual initiative value.

Tyranid Faq:

Q: If a model with Lash Whips is attacking a model with an Initiative-boosting rule/piece of wargear (e.g. Furious Charge, an Eldar Banshee Mask etc.), which order are the Initiatives modified?
A: The Lash Whips will reduce an enemy model’s initiative to 1 before any other modifiers are applied. So, a model with Furious Charge that assaults a Tyranid with Lash Whips will strike at Initiative 2, and an Eldar with a Banshee Mask will strike at Initiative 10 in the first round of assault

Based on precedent, a GK player could argue that a halberd's +2 is factored after the whip coil's initiative value replacement.

I agree with you and I hope that GW FAQ's it that way to be consistent with tyranids. But the way I would play it is that whip coils would supercede halberds, furious charge, etc. (with the exception of Banshee Mask) and let me tell you why. But first, I will start off with a little history.

When the 5th ed. space marine codex came out, they got 3++ storm shields. Everyone else - Dark Angels, Black Templars and Daemonhunters - even though they had the exact same wargear, only benefitted from a 4++ invuln that was only usable in close-combat. Now the wargear in the C:SM was more than just precedence, it was an actual, solid piece of rule that was published in an actual codex and not just a FAQ. So why couldn't the other marine codices use the more updated C:SM wargear? Hey, it's clear what GW's intent was, wasn't it? It wasn't until just a few months ago this year that GW officially said yes, all those marine variants can now use the new SM updated wargear.

Thus, my philosophy is that you cannot use another codex's rules, let alone their FAQ, to dictate how the rules in your codex works. You have to abide by the RAW from your own codex. The only time you should use precedence is if there is a conflict in your own rules that cannot be adequately covered by the codex or the BRB (or BRB FAQ's). In my opinion, the rules for whip coils is crystal clear. Halberds and furious charge may increase your Init by +1 or +X, but whip coils say that you still strike at I1 (no matter what your initiative is). The only conflict is when whip coils meet banshee masks, which says that banshees strike at I10. In this case, I would use the precedent set by the tyranid FAQ to resolve this matter.

So while I would like for whip coils to work just like lash whips for the sake of consistency, until GW says that I can do so, I can't.

jy2 wrote: text

That and:

Q: If a model with a Nemsesis force halberd has had his
Initiative reduced to a fixed number by an
ability/special rule, do they still get the +2 Initiative
from the Halberd? (p54)
A: No.

[Source: http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1830601a_Grey_Knights_v1_1.pdf ]

Mannfred wrote:
[Source: http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1830601a_Grey_Knights_v1_1.pdf ]

Wow. GW with the three pointer in it's own basket. Good find, wish i thought to look in the gk faq when I was on the other side of the argument.

Battle report started.

Mannfred wrote: That and:

Q: If a model with a Nemsesis force halberd has had his
Initiative reduced to a fixed number by an
ability/special rule, do they still get the +2 Initiative
from the Halberd? (p54)
A: No.

[Source: http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1830601a_Grey_Knights_v1_1.pdf ]

Nice find man. I didn't even think to look at the GK FAQ's for this one, though in all honesty, I didn't feel that I needed to yet.

junk wrote:Wow. GW with the three pointer in it's own basket. Good find, wish i thought to look in the gk faq when I was on the other side of the argument.

LOL.

AWESOME! can't wait to see the results of this ultimate showdown. *Pulls off an Epic fist pump for the win!*

I just looked at the deployment pictures and synopsis of the mission. Then i noticed that with spearhead deployment, there's only about 19.5" between deployment zones (edge to edge), factor in the 12" move and the 12" start line, the doom scythes will be able to hit no fewer than 2 (likelihood being they'll hit 5-8) paladins in that nice conga line deployment. Given the proper angle, they'll be saving vs instant death on only their 5+ invuln save.

Things aren't looking so good for the paladin star so far, unless i'm mistaken in my analysis.

jy2, don't forget that the doom scythes also have TL tesla destructors, and can still fire both after moving 12". That could have done a lot more damage to those dreads, and potentially arced into the pallies for an extra save or two. I didn't see any mention of them so I thought I'd throw out the reminder.

I am very curious to see why the necrons didn't opt to go second in an objective game where they are more mobile and have two pulses? Seems to me you could have denied the GK a turn and taken the last turn to contest.

tetrisphreak wrote:I just looked at the deployment pictures and synopsis of the mission. Then i noticed that with spearhead deployment, there's only about 19.5" between deployment zones (edge to edge), factor in the 12" move and the 12" start line, the doom scythes will be able to hit no fewer than 2 (likelihood being they'll hit 5-8) paladins in that nice conga line deployment. Given the proper angle, they'll be saving vs instant death on only their 5+ invuln save.

Things aren't looking so good for the paladin star so far, unless i'm mistaken in my analysis.

My doom scythe did manage to get a good look at his pallies (no cover) and good distance (15" hitting 7 guys). Unfortunately for necrons, he made his 5++ invuln saves.

The other doom scythe, which was farther away, also rolled 15" for distance but only shook the dread (which was later ignored via Fortitude) and hit 2 paladins, who both made their 3+ cover (from Shrouding).

Maelstrom808 wrote:jy2, don't forget that the doom scythes also have TL tesla destructors, and can still fire both after moving 12". That could have done a lot more damage to those dreads, and potentially arced into the pallies for an extra save or two. I didn't see any mention of them so I thought I'd throw out the reminder.

I forgot to mention it, but I didn't forget them. They did nothing to the dreads or paladins, though 1 did arc off and hit Anrakyr's barge 6 times. Lol. Couldn't do anything to it though.

I'll add that in the report later on.

Red Corsair wrote:I am very curious to see why the necrons didn't opt to go second in an objective game where they are more mobile and have two pulses? Seems to me you could have denied the GK a turn and taken the last turn to contest.

I did it in order to pick the deployment sides. I wanted to give paladins the side with the least amount of area terrain. I also wanted to pick the sides with the most objectives for the necrons.

jy2 wrote:

Maelstrom808 wrote:jy2, don't forget that the doom scythes also have TL tesla destructors, and can still fire both after moving 12". That could have done a lot more damage to those dreads, and potentially arced into the pallies for an extra save or two. I didn't see any mention of them so I thought I'd throw out the reminder.

I forgot to mention it, but I didn't forget them. They did nothing to the dreads or paladins, though 1 did arc off and hit Anrakyr's barge 6 times. Lol. Couldn't do anything to it though.

I'll add that in the report later on.

Yay for QS, I guess

Oof, big whiff by the Necrons on turn one. I think they've still got a chance, but it'll be uphill from here. Great batrep as always, eagerly anticipating the rest.

Man what in the world ... getting the wraiths into charge range of the pali squads??!?!

Moving wraiths vs enemy assault units is a delicate tap dance to try and assure they get the charge bonus. it's all too easy to misjudge and move a bit too far with them.

I'm eager to see the conclusion of this battle Royale.

Man, it seems Draigo scares the dice gods into submission... Wraiths continue to impress however, can't wait for second wave!

Screw the second wave, I just bought me some of those big snake doods from tomb kings in the fantasy range. Working out pretty sweet.

Isn't that a 50-60 dollar kit? I think they should just make the models already. Though that is a clever idea I think it is rather expensive for a counts as place holder. Although who knows, the new models may suck lol.

$54 USD if i recall correctly. $18 per model, which is probably right where a 3 model box will cost. Compare to a Trygon kit, which just makes 1 monstrous creature, and costs nearly $60.


GW is just getting expensive. My army expansion has greatly slowed in the past 2 years.

hmm I think going first as the crons was important for another critical reason:

preventing the stormraven from moving 6-12" and blasting the scarabs or whatever out the yazoo to dump all its anti-psycher missisiles (not let Anrakyr have his fun) and possibly preventing a Str8 Ap1 shot from the Potms onto one of the doom scythes.

Well I get 30% off, I work weekend at the flgs teaching paint.

I am pretty pissed second wave has not hit or even been given a date yet. Wouldnt it be nice for all these wraithwing lists?!

I'm not too jazzing for that to happen just yet myself. I own 18 old wraiths, 10 tomby spyders, ....er.. lots of scarabs... well over 200 necron warriors... er..lots of destroyers... a few destroyer lords... and hmm maybe ten or so necron lords and 15 pariah (now cryptech models).

oh. and 15 immortals.

I enjoy being able to use my stuff while I can because I'm sure I'm going to get screamed down at tourneys into using whatever new ghastly models they come up with.

oh... pro tip: use the ancient destroyer models (jetbikes) for doomblades. They're epic fun.

If I had 18 old wraiths I would not buy any of the new ones regardless of what they look like. I like the old ones and they will always be legal.

Yea I laughed when I saw the art for the tomb blades, my bro and I were disappointing that the artwork looked like the old models pitched forwards.

Kind of surprised this report hasn't progressed at all yet. Though the outlook looks pretty trivial now that the paladins have already dealt with the wraiths.

I apologize for the wait, but I came back very late today so didn't have time to work on the report. I will probably try to get in a couple of turns tonight before I go to sleep and finish it tomorrow morning.


As a little treat, I would like to introduce to you my new Wraith conversions (from the Tomb King Sepulchral Stalkers). 6 down....6 more to go.

The Dragon wrote:hmm I think going first as the crons was important for another critical reason:

preventing the stormraven from moving 6-12" and blasting the scarabs or whatever out the yazoo to dump all its anti-psycher missisiles (not let Anrakyr have his fun) and possibly preventing a Str8 Ap1 shot from the Potms onto one of the doom scythes.

Yeah, that's another reason (though a minor one) to go first. You want to make sure the doom scythes get first strike. Going second and you risk losing 1 as the stormraven can move 24" and PotMS one of the doom scythes to death or the opponent rolls high for their Night-fight.

No worries Now that I understand how you batreps work and get posted - theyre a lot of fun. I like the pre-game hype and analyses.

Those Wraiths blend in nicely with the Necron Feng Shui - especially their Warsythes.

Just gunna leave this here =)

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/421256.page

Clay Williams wrote:Just gunna leave this here =)

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/421256.page

Sweet! Me likey likey.

Epic wraiths

by the way do any of you have a clue when the triarch stalkers come out?
(I need two for 1500 point army)

Today is Thursday, well it is in my time zone!

How you finding the Wraiths?

I also wouldn't say Grey Knights are the strongest army at the moment. That award goes to Imperial Guard.

Battle report completed.

nurglerulesslaneshdrools wrote:Epic wraiths

by the way do any of you have a clue when the triarch stalkers come out?
(I need two for 1500 point army)

They're saying the next release, though no one knows when exactly that will be.

mercer wrote:Today is Thursday, well it is in my time zone!

How you finding the Wraiths?

I also wouldn't say Grey Knights are the strongest army at the moment. That award goes to Imperial Guard.

I guess people will never agree on the top armies. It's usually one of the 3 - IG, SW or GK. That's also why I usually preface these type of statements with "arguably", "possibly", "probably" and "perhaps".

Wraiths are just awesome. IMO, they are the best unit in the codex and the strongest necron lists will use some form of "wraithwing".

Wow. Great job even with those two big mistakes (Wraiths getting assaulted and forgetting to fire mindstrikes) you tabled the GKs.

Great game!

About those sepulcheral Stalkers, what part was a 'converson'? I know the actual models are big snakes, did you just take part of the bits and make them look submerged in the ground?(representing wraithflight, i like it if so).

It helped that the 5-man paladin squad and Draigo were failing in assault (and that my wraiths were making their saves) and also that 2 of my units (Overlord and 1 cryptek) actually got back up from Reanimation Protocols. That helped a lot.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

tetrisphreak wrote:Great game!

About those sepulcheral Stalkers, what part was a 'converson'? I know the actual models are big snakes, did you just take part of the bits and make them look submerged in the ground?(representing wraithflight, i like it if so).

Yeah, that's exactly right. I made them seem as if they were phasing/tunneling through the ground. Not really a whole lot of converting so it was quite easy to do.

Its great to see Xenos (Especially Necrons, who generally lack in CC) Wipe out paladins, I feel significant pride in being a Xenos player, and I hope that Eldar and Tau are as good as the new Necrons.

Lord Magnus wrote:Its great to see Xenos (Especially Necrons, who generally lack in CC) Wipe out paladins, I feel significant pride in being a Xenos player, and I hope that Eldar and Tau are as good as the new Necrons.

Seconded! I have a tau army that is gathering dust as i Paint up my necrons. I'd love to have 2 armies that are both worth putting on the table and using. I've lost all hope for my 'nids until 6th edition, and even then I'm not sure it'll help much.

jy2 wrote:Yeah, that's exactly right. I made them seem as if they were phasing/tunneling through the ground. Not really a whole lot of converting so it was quite easy to do.

I dunno, I know you have them all finished up at this point, but I would have liked to see more conversion in there. Right now they basically just look like Tomb Kings models in your 40k army.

Lord Magnus wrote:Its great to see Xenos (Especially Necrons, who generally lack in CC) Wipe out paladins, I feel significant pride in being a Xenos player, and I hope that Eldar and Tau are as good as the new Necrons.

I recon eldar will be better
tau good joke mate the only good tau combat units are kroot and even they are not that good

nurglerulesslaneshdrools wrote:the only good tau combat units are kroot

In this codex. I think the point is that there might be new and different units in the new one.

pretre wrote:

jy2 wrote:Yeah, that's exactly right. I made them seem as if they were phasing/tunneling through the ground. Not really a whole lot of converting so it was quite easy to do.

I dunno, I know you have them all finished up at this point, but I would have liked to see more conversion in there. Right now they basically just look like Tomb Kings models in your 40k army.

I don't see what else he could really do to make them more necron-y other than a head swap or something.

Honestly though Necrons ARE tomb kings with tech, so to me it fits the theme of the army just fine. I wouldn't have any problem with someone using those models to represent wraiths, especially while the kit is nowhere to be seen (hopefully 2nd wave).

Until i know for sure wraiths are or aren't getting a new sculpt, i'll just keep using my 6 that i have from the old codex. Not a true wraith-wing but a great counter-assault unit addition to any necron list.

nurglerulesslaneshdrools wrote:Epic wraiths

by the way do any of you have a clue when the triarch stalkers come out?
(I need two for 1500 point army)

They're saying the next release, though no one knows when exactly that will be.

thanks mate

tetrisphreak wrote:I don't see what else he could really do to make them more necron-y other than a head swap or something.

Honestly though Necrons ARE tomb kings with tech, so to me it fits the theme of the army just fine. I wouldn't have any problem with someone using those models to represent wraiths, especially while the kit is nowhere to be seen (hopefully 2nd wave).

Oh, I would have absolutely no problem playing against them. I think they look fine. They just feel out of place currently.

nice batrep but i'm not surprised that your "new necron list" won. i say this because there is a rather game changing rules issue that led to the Draigowing list being "target saturated" when it shouldn't have been.

now i'm no rules guru but how in the world do you rule that the necron warriors and ajoined crypteks don't remain one unit (under it's original deployed unit strength) just because one model has a rule that lets it stand back up? that kind of rules mongering is exactly why people stop playing against certain people who bend rules in their favor whenever it "can" benefit them. you can sight, "show me proof" but the same can be said against you...the burden of proof would be to show me how a model that joins another unit and cannot be seperated or distinguished from that unit (as an IC could) can somehow not count against a unit when it would matter? not only did you get an extra scoring unit out of the rules lawyering but you ended up with x2 scoring units when they should have just ran off the board! no need for killing, shooting, assaulting whatsoever.

I'm not entirely sure what effect it would have made on the game but not having those warriors rapid firing, swinging in CC, being in the way, etc make this game's resault void in my opinion. I think it could have been a draw at best for the GKs however.

The good and bad from the rep, in my eyes of course:

1) the flyers harrassed and getting first turn meant they got to do something positive other than harrassing.
2) the barges were not harassed and went on their merry way. very impressed with them. almost scared of them.
3) Draigo and paladins losing/tieing back to back combats vs. ID able targets is a laugher but not unheard of.
4) Mindstrikes should have been fired off by either player.
5) the ammount of 1's rolled by those Staves in CC had to of been horribly high.
6) good, close battle...all the more reason why the rules choice was a complete shame.

pretre wrote:

nurglerulesslaneshdrools wrote:the only good tau combat units are kroot

In this codex. I think the point is that there might be new and different units in the new one.

What he said.. If there are the Dwarvish type (Dwellar?) in the next codex it will add resilience to survive combat, and I believe there was some concept are that showed a type of large Vespid, those could be good as well. In the end, Tau will get better, I am willing to be in every aspect.

@Painnen: Wow. Overreact a bit there.

I'm pretty sure Draigo by himself is fearless so if he broke of and joined a losing combat, he wouldn't have to take a morale test.

i don't usually double post but this is a seperate train of thought.

you mentioned SW, GK, and IG as the top of the field right now. I can't disagree with that. What I'm finding from the necrons is that with builds simular to your JY2, that necrons are going to be very hard to BEAT. I do mean beat. I think necron lists in this manifestation are going to win/draw a whole whole lot more than they'll ever lose. Too many targets, too mobile, too high LD/fearless to reliably break.

I believe the rule in the book states that if the model cannot be placed into coherency with the squad it is destroyed. Since this squad was indeed still on the table (albeit falling back), if the 3" placement rule kept you from sorting the cryptek into coherency (and falling back as the rest of his squad) then he would have been removed from the table completely.

I'm at work so no codex or BRB near me at the moment but the above is how i believe the rule works from the codex entry. Anyone feel free to correct me on that one if they have the info.

Painnen wrote:nice batrep but i'm not surprised that your "new necron list" won. i say this because there is a rather game changing rules issue that led to the Draigowing list being "target saturated" when it shouldn't have been.

now i'm no rules guru but how in the world do you rule that the necron warriors and ajoined crypteks don't remain one unit (under it's original deployed unit strength) just because one model has a rule that lets it stand back up? that kind of rules mongering is exactly why people stop playing against certain people who bend rules in their favor whenever it "can" benefit them. you can sight, "show me proof" but the same can be said against you...the burden of proof would be to show me how a model that joins another unit and cannot be seperated or distinguished from that unit (as an IC could) can somehow not count against a unit when it would matter? not only did you get an extra scoring unit out of the rules lawyering but you ended up with x2 scoring units when they should have just ran off the board! no need for killing, shooting, assaulting whatsoever.

I'm not entirely sure what effect it would have made on the game but not having those warriors rapid firing, swinging in CC, being in the way, etc make this game's resault void in my opinion. I think it could have been a draw at best for the GKs however.

The good and bad from the rep, in my eyes of course:

1) the flyers harrassed and getting first turn meant they got to do something positive other than harrassing.
2) the barges were not harassed and went on their merry way. very impressed with them. almost scared of them.
3) Draigo and paladins losing/tieing back to back combats vs. ID able targets is a laugher but not unheard of.
4) Mindstrikes should have been fired off by either player.
5) the ammount of 1's rolled by those Staves in CC had to of been horribly high.
6) good, close battle...all the more reason why the rules choice was a complete shame.

I believe that when you make RP or Ever Living roll, you are supposed to remove the model a place a counter where it died. A model that isn't on the board does not stay with a unit, as he is effectively a casualty, and until you make his Ever Living roll to get back up he stays where he is. If you will a character off from a unit the unit is free and not bound, If the character came back, he would be outside of the unit, as he was removed from the table. I am not a master of, and don't like to argue with RAW, but my impression here was that jy2 played this correctly.

@tetrisphreak:

"At the end of the phase, after any Morale c hecks have been taken and fall back moves have been made, roll a D6 (blah) ... On a 5 or 6, a necron reassembles itself and continues to fight - return one of the slain models to play with a single wound, placed in coherency with a model from its unit that has not itself returned through RP this phase. Models returning from play in this fashion must be placed at least 1" from enemy models. If the model's unit is engaged in close combat, the model immediately piles in. Models that cannot be placed in this way do not return."

So basically, RP ignores range for rejoining the unit. THe only time you would not return if you succeed is if there is no way to place you in coherency with the remaining models in the squad and stay outside of 1" of the enemy. (i.e. your squad is completely surrounded by 30+ boys and all space within 2" of the models is covered by boyz.)

pretre wrote:@Painnen: Wow. Overreact a bit there.

if that came out harsh, it was unintended. i was just trying to be blunt when it comes to rules lawyering. i think that people in general (not you per say JY2) enjoy winning and in enjoying winning with their own creations (as everyone's individual lists are) are easily corrupted into lobbying for rules advantages when they could really REALLY use the ruling to go in their favor.

it happens all the time. i've seen it happen alot with necrons lately since people feel that w/out a FaQ that anything is possible as long as it cannot be 100% shot down by either codex or rulebook. it gets annoying. i only meant to play as the voice of reason and lay it out thick from outside the game, so that in the end everyone can see that that paticular ruling was pretty horrible.

Oh crud, Ever Living:

"If the model has joined a unit when it was removed as a casualty, and the roll was passed, it must be returned to play with a single wound, in coherency with that unit as explained in RP. "

It later says "If the model was locked in c lose combat when it 'died', and the combat is ongoing, then it must immediately pile in."

I would say the earlier passage overrides this though.

jy2 wrote:
I guess people will never agree on the top armies. It's usually one of the 3 - IG, SW or GK. That's also why I usually preface these type of statements with "arguably", "possibly", "probably" and "perhaps".

Wraiths are just awesome. IMO, they are the best unit in the codex and the strongest necron lists will use some form of "wraithwing".

No, not everyone will agree what is the top army. It depends what armies and lists are played in your area, there's a lot of mech Guard in my area and I played G.K for a small while, it's all those special weapons and tanks which do it for mech Guard. Though, I will say that G.K are definitely a top codex.

I don't think it matters if you put things in bold or italtics as you're still saying something, that's just a font effect . The best word to use is properly . Though, I do think Wraiths are a cool unit.

mercer wrote:

jy2 wrote:
I guess people will never agree on the top armies. It's usually one of the 3 - IG, SW or GK. That's also why I usually preface these type of statements with "arguably", "possibly", "probably" and "perhaps".

Wraiths are just awesome. IMO, they are the best unit in the codex and the strongest necron lists will use some form of "wraithwing".

No, not everyone will agree what is the top army. It depends what armies and lists are played in your area, there's a lot of mech Guard in my area and I played G.K for a small while, it's all those special weapons and tanks which do it for mech Guard. Though, I will say that G.K are definitely a top codex.

I don't think it matters if you put things in bold or italtics as you're still saying something, that's just a font effect . The best word to use is properly . Though, I do think Wraiths are a cool unit.

I would say the top tier army is tied between SW and Guard, Then GK, BA, DE, and Crons are right below them.

I find that it is tough to be 100% objective when playing against yourself. You don't fall for your own tricks and there is no human element (in that, there's nothing to catch you off guard, strange things you didn't account for, strange deployment - things that someone else might do that you're not used to).

I find that when I roll units against each other in a battle type setting, I find myself pulling for one side and that may affect the way I play, roll or make decisions.

Lord Magnus wrote:

I would say the top tier army is tied between SW and Guard, Then GK, BA, DE, and Crons are right below them.

I agree mostly with your assessment my good man. I would say Guard are the top army, Wolves, Angels and Knights all second and then D.E third and Necrons just a whisker behind.

puma713 wrote:I find that it is tough to be 100% objective when playing against yourself. You don't fall for your own tricks and there is no human element (in that, there's nothing to catch you off guard, strange things you didn't account for, strange deployment - things that someone else might do that you're not used to).

I find that when I roll units against each other in a battle type setting, I find myself pulling for one side and that may affect the way I play, roll or make decisions.

I agree with this. I probably test my own lists on my own once a month, there's no surprises or anything you cannot account for. All you can do is test units and see how effective they are and how your army list works. You get a good idea for things, but tactics are out the window. And of course you can be one sided, like when dice aren't working for one army and or you want your favourite one to win

Very good report as usual !

2 questions :
Why the 5 paladins from stormraven didn't used force weapon against your wraiths ?
And after why they did not hit the scarabs with force weapon to ?

His saves for the paladins were average to below average by a smidgen but his saves for those wraiths had to be psychotic! The only have 3+ at the end of the day yea its invulnerable but that's still 33% fail rate against ID force weapons.

I think given that the Paladins had a turn one assault, it was more prudent to charge the deathstar at the other wraiths and eliminate any assault potential on turn 2. Paladins just are not afraid of scarabs or spyders. That would have left the paladins able to shoot up the warriors for three turns. Yea that's right just camp 16 paladins on the two objectives on the middle and shoot up all his scoring units

Ok, with regards to the unit of warriors rallying, I've went ahead and posted this question in YMDC:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/421381.page#3756593

pretre wrote:

jy2 wrote:Yeah, that's exactly right. I made them seem as if they were phasing/tunneling through the ground. Not really a whole lot of converting so it was quite easy to do.

I dunno, I know you have them all finished up at this point, but I would have liked to see more conversion in there. Right now they basically just look like Tomb Kings models in your 40k army.

I'll see what I can do to make the 2nd batch of Sepulchral Stalkers more "necron-ish". I may well switch out the arms, as I had intended the spears to be weapons of entanglement (i.e. whip coils). I kind of like the heads so will probably keep those.

hyv3mynd wrote:I'm pretty sure Draigo by himself is fearless so if he broke of and joined a losing combat, he wouldn't have to take a morale test.

That was a mistake on my part. I'm so used to having Draigo + unit take morale tests that I forgot he was fearless. Lol.


-------------------------------------------------------


I'll respond more later, but right now, I've got a game to catch against my Crowe-Purifiers with SabrX. But there's a twist....I will let him decide which army he wants to play.

Interesting rep.... Those barges did a number on those dreads!

Did you embark the overlord and flat-out his barge during turn 3? Judging from the pictures, I'd say so. I wonder why it is so often played wrong.

The rest of the report was fine though; I especially enjoyed to see Draigowing fall.

Several things, in EL rules it says that the model with EL gets back up with his unit if it flees instead of where he died. Also you let your opponent pull a fast one on you, might of titans can only be cast durring the GK's assult phase, not durring your turn.

Zaephyr wrote:Did you embark the overlord and flat-out his barge during turn 3? Judging from the pictures, I'd say so. I wonder why it is so often played wrong.

The rest of the report was fine though; I especially enjoyed to see Draigowing fall.

Good call, it actually does look like he embarked and moved flat out over the Paladins in turn 3.

Painnen wrote:nice batrep but i'm not surprised that your "new necron list" won. i say this because there is a rather game changing rules issue that led to the Draigowing list being "target saturated" when it shouldn't have been.

now i'm no rules guru but how in the world do you rule that the necron warriors and ajoined crypteks don't remain one unit (under it's original deployed unit strength) just because one model has a rule that lets it stand back up? that kind of rules mongering is exactly why people stop playing against certain people who bend rules in their favor whenever it "can" benefit them. you can sight, "show me proof" but the same can be said against you...the burden of proof would be to show me how a model that joins another unit and cannot be seperated or distinguished from that unit (as an IC could) can somehow not count against a unit when it would matter? not only did you get an extra scoring unit out of the rules lawyering but you ended up with x2 scoring units when they should have just ran off the board! no need for killing, shooting, assaulting whatsoever.

I'm not entirely sure what effect it would have made on the game but not having those warriors rapid firing, swinging in CC, being in the way, etc make this game's resault void in my opinion. I think it could have been a draw at best for the GKs however.

The good and bad from the rep, in my eyes of course:

1) the flyers harrassed and getting first turn meant they got to do something positive other than harrassing.
2) the barges were not harassed and went on their merry way. very impressed with them. almost scared of them.
3) Draigo and paladins losing/tieing back to back combats vs. ID able targets is a laugher but not unheard of.
4) Mindstrikes should have been fired off by either player.
5) the ammount of 1's rolled by those Staves in CC had to of been horribly high.
6) good, close battle...all the more reason why the rules choice was a complete shame.

Because I didn't have my codex with me? My brother had borrowed it and still has it, thus I couldn't reference the rule.


But after asking in YMDC, it seems as if the correct way to play it would have been this:


Cryptek makes its Ever-living "save" and moves back into coherency with the unit falling back (no distance restriction here). The unit is now 4 models out of 7 and thusly, would have regrouped, with the cryptek as part of the squad again.

How that would have affected the game? I think necrons would have still probably won as they had a lot of units that could contest, though perhaps they wouldn't have been able to table the grey knights.

Painnen wrote:i don't usually double post but this is a seperate train of thought.

you mentioned SW, GK, and IG as the top of the field right now. I can't disagree with that. What I'm finding from the necrons is that with builds simular to your JY2, that necrons are going to be very hard to BEAT. I do mean beat. I think necron lists in this manifestation are going to win/draw a whole whole lot more than they'll ever lose. Too many targets, too mobile, too high LD/fearless to reliably break.

Yeah, agreed. Here you have an ultra-fast army that gets up in the enemy's face in just 2 turns. It's got good offense, great resiliency and units that won't break. It also gets protected from shooting with night-fight and by virtue of locking itself in combat. It gets free units every turn via spyders. Finally, it's got such a high mobility that probably only the fastest armies can get away from it.

This really is a tough necron build to play against.

Painnen wrote:
if that came out harsh, it was unintended. i was just trying to be blunt when it comes to rules lawyering. i think that people in general (not you per say JY2) enjoy winning and in enjoying winning with their own creations (as everyone's individual lists are) are easily corrupted into lobbying for rules advantages when they could really REALLY use the ruling to go in their favor.

it happens all the time. i've seen it happen alot with necrons lately since people feel that w/out a FaQ that anything is possible as long as it cannot be 100% shot down by either codex or rulebook. it gets annoying. i only meant to play as the voice of reason and lay it out thick from outside the game, so that in the end everyone can see that that paticular ruling was pretty horrible.

No worries. It's ok if people think my reports (or the results of my reports) is not good or if they voice out something they don't like...as long as they give reasoning behind it. I'm ok with that, even if sometimes, I disagree with or challenge back the poster. My main concern is that the readers don't repeat my mistakes (or at least that they are aware of it) so I would gladly admit my mistakes when I make them (and if I am aware of it). That is also the reason why I presented a situation I wasn't fully sure of to the readers to consider. I'm glad to have been proven wrong.

I don't really consider it rules-lawyering though. It is basically coming up with a decision based on what little information you have (as I didn't have the codex with me). Unfortunately, in a game against yourself, there is no other person to give a counter-perspective. Basically, this is how I thought it would've been played whether or not I was playing necrons or not. In other words, if I was to play against another necron player and this situation came up (and without the knowledge that I have now), I would've let him play it this same way as well.

But I do find it amusing that I would try to take advantage of myself.


------------------------------------------------------


Ok, I'm finding that a number of mistakes have been made this game, and I will address this.


Some of my mistakes, as pointed out by readers:

- Embarking onto a vehicle and moving flat-out afterwards.

- Casting Might of Titans in the opponent's Assault phase.

- Forgetting Draigo was Fearless.

- Forgetting to fire the mindstrike missiles.

- Messing up the turns (I skipped a turn).


Basically, these mistakes stem from me playing against myself. It's one thing when you just have to play 1 army. It's something else when you're trying to play both armies and play them competitively - yours and your opponents. You have to consider the best tactics for both armies, the best counter-tactics, how to achieve your mission objectives, how to stop your opponent from achieving his mission objectives, the rules for both armies intimately, etc., etc. I think I was so intent on the strategic part of the game when playing against myself that I overlooked a lot of the little stuff/rules.

For that, I apologize. I will try to do better next time. Playing against oneself is usually mainly done when you really want to test out a certain battle/scenario but no one else has the time, experience and/or army build to do it properly. Thus, on occassions, I may setup up test games such as this one.

Also, please take into consideration that people do make honest mistakes. I know I do it once in a while and so do many of my opponents, even the more experienced players. But I am glad when mistakes such as these are spotted in my battle reports. Hopefully, we can all learn from them. After all, to err is only human.

i didn't realize that you were in fact playing against yourself until others mentioned it.

as far as the teleporting back to coherency thing, yeah, i can see that. you should have also mentioned that in the YMDC, there were sentiments that said that the cryptek would not be placed with the unit if it was >5" away however.

until a faq, i'd be happy to play with your ruling but it is my opinion (and who really cares about that) that the crytek would go bye-bye since the warriors were too far away for the cryptek to join.

thanks for addressing the post! battlereps should be about information giving and recieving. it helps others gather needed info on an oppoenent that they might have little familiarity with but anticipate seeing much MUCH more often with new dex's popping up.

again, thanks for the reply.

puma713 wrote:I find that it is tough to be 100% objective when playing against yourself. You don't fall for your own tricks and there is no human element (in that, there's nothing to catch you off guard, strange things you didn't account for, strange deployment - things that someone else might do that you're not used to).

I find that when I roll units against each other in a battle type setting, I find myself pulling for one side and that may affect the way I play, roll or make decisions.

All so true. You can try to stay objective, but it is tough. People usually always have an army that they favor more.

However, if you're playing another good, experienced general, normally they won't fall for "tricks" as well. All I can say is that when playing both armies, play it strategically as if you want to win. Go for the throat with each army. Good generals won't rely on parlor tricks. They will force the opponents (even if themselves) to make difficult decisions.

Like my necrons offering up the warriors to the paladinstar. Go after the scoring warriors or help from your fellow paladins stuck in combat with the wraiths. In this case, I decided as the GK player that the best thing to do was to play the mission and go for the jugular by trying to take out the warriors. It turned out to be a good move for the necrons.

tetsuo666 wrote:Very good report as usual !

2 questions :
Why the 5 paladins from stormraven didn't used force weapon against your wraiths ?
And after why they did not hit the scarabs with force weapon to ?

I think either I cast Hammerhand or I forgot to activate the force weapon. I don't quite remember.

As for scarabs, I did activate the force weapon. It's just that I only managed to wound it once.

Red Corsair wrote:His saves for the paladins were average to below average by a smidgen but his saves for those wraiths had to be psychotic! The only have 3+ at the end of the day yea its invulnerable but that's still 33% fail rate against ID force weapons.

I think given that the Paladins had a turn one assault, it was more prudent to charge the deathstar at the other wraiths and eliminate any assault potential on turn 2. Paladins just are not afraid of scarabs or spyders. That would have left the paladins able to shoot up the warriors for three turns. Yea that's right just camp 16 paladins on the two objectives on the middle and shoot up all his scoring units

It was a combination of the paladins (and Draigo) whiffing in combat and my wraiths making their saves.

As the necron general, I was forcing "myself" to make a difficult choice - either go for the kill (wraiths) or go for the win (warriors). Either help out your teammates, or take away your opponents ability to win. I think as the GK general, I made the tactical choice that most prudent generals would have made - I was playing for the mission rather than just to kill the opponent. Of course, now looking back at it in hindsight, maybe the other choice may have been better. Still, IMO the good generals will always try to play the mission first.

Zaephyr wrote:Did you embark the overlord and flat-out his barge during turn 3? Judging from the pictures, I'd say so. I wonder why it is so often played wrong.

The rest of the report was fine though; I especially enjoyed to see Draigowing fall.

bagtagger wrote:Several things, in EL rules it says that the model with EL gets back up with his unit if it flees instead of where he died. Also you let your opponent pull a fast one on you, might of titans can only be cast durring the GK's assult phase, not durring your turn.

Thanks for pointing out some of my messups.

I really did pull a fast one on myself.

jy2 wrote:

Red Corsair wrote:His saves for the paladins were average to below average by a smidgen but his saves for those wraiths had to be psychotic! The only have 3+ at the end of the day yea its invulnerable but that's still 33% fail rate against ID force weapons.

I think given that the Paladins had a turn one assault, it was more prudent to charge the deathstar at the other wraiths and eliminate any assault potential on turn 2. Paladins just are not afraid of scarabs or spyders. That would have left the paladins able to shoot up the warriors for three turns. Yea that's right just camp 16 paladins on the two objectives on the middle and shoot up all his scoring units

It was a combination of the paladins (and Draigo) whiffing in combat and my wraiths making their saves.

As the necron general, I was forcing "myself" to make a difficult choice - either go for the kill (wraiths) or go for the win (warriors). Either help out your teammates, or take away your opponents ability to win. I think as the GK general, I made the tactical choice that most prudent generals would have made - I was playing for the mission rather than just to kill the opponent. Of course, now looking back at it in hindsight, maybe the other choice may have been better. Still, IMO the good generals will always try to play the mission first.

It's tough playing a game yourself and I think that is the main reason you hadn't assaulted the other wraith unit to be honest. I think it is playing the mission to eliminate the best threat to your own scoring units. Again I think if you were only playing the GK this choice would have been easier to make but juggling two hats makes you question the right decision in order to make the 'common decision" based on the scenario. Honestly I try not to self play as I find it doesn't make you better or really allow you to test things out properly as you are at war with every decision you make! Still seemed entertaining though.

I still want to see a MS scarab combat court take on that deathstar! I think it is a sub-par list overall but that it would be incredibly flavorful and entertaining. Who knows though I haven't seen anyone really test out a full strength court held together yet. Imagine two full courts veiling in for the kill! Would be devastating I bet!

Red Corsair wrote:It's tough playing a game yourself and I think that is the main reason you hadn't assaulted the other wraith unit to be honest. I think it is playing the mission to eliminate the best threat to your own scoring units. Again I think if you were only playing the GK this choice would have been easier to make but juggling two hats makes you question the right decision in order to make the 'common decision" based on the scenario. Honestly I try not to self play as I find it doesn't make you better or really allow you to test things out properly as you are at war with every decision you make! Still seemed entertaining though.

Agreed. I don't see any point in playing with yourself... Strategies, tactics are an important part of the game.

Isseyfaran wrote:Agreed. I don't see any point in playing with yourself... Strategies, tactics are an important part of the game.

Playing with yourself has many uses. Don't be so hard on jy2.

pretre wrote:

Isseyfaran wrote:Agreed. I don't see any point in playing with yourself... Strategies, tactics are an important part of the game.

Playing with yourself has many uses. Don't be so hard on jy2.

I've played with myself on many occasions.

Painnen wrote:as far as the teleporting back to coherency thing, yeah, i can see that. you should have also mentioned that in the YMDC, there were sentiments that said that the cryptek would not be placed with the unit if it was >5" away however.

And, as noted in the YMDC thread, those sentiments are wrong. There's no limit on the "teleport" into coherency as long as the unit is still completely standing. The "within 3"" rule only comes about if there is no unit to stand back up into.

until a faq, i'd be happy to play with your ruling but it is my opinion (and who really cares about that) that the crytek would go bye-bye since the warriors were too far away for the cryptek to join.

You're welcome to your opinion, but that would be against the rules, as noted.

I was also unaware that you were playing against yourself. I can imagine you don't get a lot out of the experience since when you play vs another opponent you don't know what they are thinking, what tactical hiccups ploys they have planned etc etc. That said I think Necrons had this quite easily. Doom Scythes were priority 1 to be dealt with, but with short range psycannons, night fight, low numbers and not a lot of support units it seemed they would almost be guaranteed a decent shot each. Combined with the fact Necrons did have a lot of support it put it easily in the Neconrs favour. At 2k my A. Barges are being replaced with Doom Scythes for the Alpha Strike capability.

Even with the mistakes (everyone makes them, wouldn't worry too much about it) it was a good read. Congrats on the win, lol.

I never thought mine eyes would see the day! Draigowing, TABLED! and by Necrons no less! I'd say Necrons are a high level army now! Just wait until second wave increases our strength! GLORY TO THE MACHINE!

It seems Draigo-wing was overwhelmed by the Necrons. Necrons chalks up another win.

I used to self play using a program that starts with a letter "V", but not anymore. I do admit it's much easier to self play on a table top game rather than MTG or games the revolves around secrecy.

I think this is the first time I've read Draigo-wing getting tabled.

Thanks for sharing!

Heh, not sure we can read too much into this result. It does appear if the game was a little biased towards the crons.

Given the position of the Doom Scythes, the paladin deployment was asking for a bunch of casualties first turn, got lucky with those first bunch of saves.

However, the main point for me that gave me the giggle was the bait offered by the warriors moving up to the star then being taken. Basically you baited yourself then took the bait. Hehe.

Maybe I am seeing the position wrong, the pictures are useful, but when you were making the decision t2 for the GK's of where to send the deathstar, they could have got a decent multicharge against the wraiths but with the majority of the paladins going into the scarabs. Between using your force weapons and s6+ stuff, im pretty sure that you could easily have won the combat by 20+ which would realistically meant that the wraiths went down to a manageable number to be wiped out the necrons turn.. Scarabs also may have survived with a base or 2 after fearless saves. This was only t2, there would have been plenty of time to hunt down the rest of the troops. You may even have been able to multicharge the wraiths, scarabs and the left most group of warrior with good positioning prior to the charge. Scarabs piling in would still mean you could direct the majority of the dins attacks at them to get that lovely combat res. I think that getting mixed up on the turns meant you forgot how early the bloodshed had begun and how much time was really left in the game.

To be honest, any game I have played against crons using wraiths and scarabs, it is difficult for the necron player to spread those out sufficiently to mitigate the multicharge due to footprint sizes and once this is achieved the wraiths crumble. No 2+ is a bit of a downer, mainly for taking a few wounds due to light arms fire on the way in and then for the fearless saves.

I am almost thinking your best unit in the codex is the CC Overlord in a barge. It just has wrecking ball written all over it. I have noticed that if planning the 12" sweep shenanigans, it can be quite logistically and physically difficult to place the model afterwards as they don't fly sideways.

Those Doom Scythes have a decent range! Very costly but could really deliver the initial punch needed to get the initiative. I would have difficulties here in the target priority between then doom scythes and the command barges.

Have noticed that the command barges tend to get quite a bit closer to your army early, albeit with a 4+ save. I think, with DE, I will pull back a little and focus all the fire on those puppies before pushing forward. They seem to like paper planes.

cmac wrote:However, the main point for me that gave me the giggle was the bait offered by the warriors moving up to the star then being taken. Basically you baited yourself then took the bait. Hehe.

I laughed when I read this

Red Corsair wrote:
It's tough playing a game yourself and I think that is the main reason you hadn't assaulted the other wraith unit to be honest. I think it is playing the mission to eliminate the best threat to your own scoring units. Again I think if you were only playing the GK this choice would have been easier to make but juggling two hats makes you question the right decision in order to make the 'common decision" based on the scenario. Honestly I try not to self play as I find it doesn't make you better or really allow you to test things out properly as you are at war with every decision you make! Still seemed entertaining though.

Actually, I did both. If you noticed, I sent Draigo to help out the paladins while the paladinstar went after the warriors. I thought that would be enough and it should've been, but the dice said otherwise. What can you do when the dice just doesn't go your way?

I was trying to have my cake and eat it too. Too bad the cake turned out to be poison and gave my paladins indigestion.

Red Corsair wrote: I still want to see a MS scarab combat court take on that deathstar! I think it is a sub-par list overall but that it would be incredibly flavorful and entertaining. Who knows though I haven't seen anyone really test out a full strength court held together yet. Imagine two full courts veiling in for the kill! Would be devastating I bet!

Me too! Pretty soon, I'm going to be "retiring" my MTO crons and experimenting with other builds. Tomb blades and the necron Royalwing are 2 of the units on the top of my list that I want to try out. They may not be the most competitive, but I think they could be fun as heck.

Isseyfaran wrote: Agreed. I don't see any point in playing with yourself... Strategies, tactics are an important part of the game.

Was gonna make a comment, but I see that others have beat me to it. Actually, even I would probably have beat myself to it.

pretre wrote:

Isseyfaran wrote:Agreed. I don't see any point in playing with yourself... Strategies, tactics are an important part of the game.

Playing with yourself has many uses. Don't be so hard on jy2.

Ok, would everyone please refrain from all the phallic jokes.

jy2 wrote:Actually, I did both. If you noticed, I sent Draigo to help out the paladins while the paladinstar went after the warriors. I thought that would be enough and it should've been, but the dice said otherwise. What can you do when the dice just doesn't go your way?

Yeah, but Draigo can link combats by himself?

It does sound like there were some freaky dice. One benefit, which is a huge benefit, is that you have identified areas where mistakes, rules stuff etc were made so you are aware of them for the future.

It's tough to find time with other commitments in life.

Maybe, I should get rid of the girls and start playing with my airplanes at home.

hehe very entertaining read so far but from everything I've seen of the new necrons now for the past few months since people are learning how to assault/use the night fights/ mind shackle/ mind in the machine, etc, it's definately setting itself up as a very top tier army.

I'm reasonably sure that unless you tune your list to be able to beat necron variations, the take all comers lists of today will fall behind fairly rapidly so I do not have much faith in the IG/GK/SW being top 3 anymore.

I just personally haven't found much to really achieve that yet while keeping my lists fairly well constructed vs all others.

Crowe lists are still where my heart is though and so far I've almost always had the most luck just bashing one necron unit type till it died completely before moving on to something else even on objective games. The doom scythes are very counter to that type of castle set up. I'm gonna have to do some wacky triangle formation I think in the future to be more effective after watching this bat rap.

Against necrons, due to RP, EL, and other spawning craziness, I just can't afford to not over-kill them but target priority is such a pain when everything is so durable and night fight really messes up triangle formations so I'm still working on some decent stragety counters and not so much on list constructions.

The results are interesting but since it was a self played game I can't attribute much to the results.

I love how people are still arguing that crons are not a tier one army. Myself, just gunna giggle when I see draigo wings across the table... Hell I already have a few times already.

Hell the palinstar got the charge on the crons and still people are doubting the results. Face it guys there is a new army in town and GKs should fear it.

I hate when people pigeon hole armies in general and claim some to be tier one and others not. Anything can happen, and I have found there to be a competitive army in every codex. That's why I feel it is important for people to experiment on their own and not just build net lists. I see new player fielding net lists all the time and they still lose to my "out dated" or "tier two" builds all the time. The difference is I play with no repetition when I can so I get better at playing every unit in my armies in every combination. A good general makes do with what he has.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jy2 wrote:

Red Corsair wrote: I still want to see a MS scarab combat court take on that deathstar! I think it is a sub-par list overall but that it would be incredibly flavorful and entertaining. Who knows though I haven't seen anyone really test out a full strength court held together yet. Imagine two full courts veiling in for the kill! Would be devastating I bet!

Me too! Pretty soon, I'm going to be "retiring" my MTO crons and experimenting with other builds. Tomb blades and the necron Royalwing are 2 of the units on the top of my list that I want to try out. They may not be the most competitive, but I think they could be fun as heck.

Yea I have come close to building crons just for the tomb blades/stalkers and doom scythes but have refrained. I need to finish painting my armies!

Lukus83 wrote:I was also unaware that you were playing against yourself. I can imagine you don't get a lot out of the experience since when you play vs another opponent you don't know what they are thinking, what tactical hiccups ploys they have planned etc etc. That said I think Necrons had this quite easily. Doom Scythes were priority 1 to be dealt with, but with short range psycannons, night fight, low numbers and not a lot of support units it seemed they would almost be guaranteed a decent shot each. Combined with the fact Necrons did have a lot of support it put it easily in the Neconrs favour. At 2k my A. Barges are being replaced with Doom Scythes for the Alpha Strike capability.

Even with the mistakes (everyone makes them, wouldn't worry too much about it) it was a good read. Congrats on the win, lol.

Actually, I feel that you can learn things, even when you're playing against yourself. I surprised myself with how well necrons did this game despite all the mistakes that they made. I also learned a few things like how to deploy (or how not to deploy) against a doom scythe list, how sometimes not to advance too aggressively (i.e. wraiths getting assaulted by paladins), how "weak" MSU troops are actually not so weak even when being targeted by the opponent, how vital the command barge lords are to my MTO strategy and how powerful and thus useless psycannons are sometimes (I was afraid that whatever I shot at with my paladinstar, I would wipe out or kill enough models to prevent myself from charging).

In short, I definitely felt that I got something out of this experience.

Exalted Pariah wrote:I never thought mine eyes would see the day! Draigowing, TABLED! and by Necrons no less! I'd say Necrons are a high level army now! Just wait until second wave increases our strength! GLORY TO THE MACHINE!

Yeah, I'm beginning to see how effective and powerful my MTO necron list and strategy can be. The results definitely was surprising, though I think the dice was a little on the necron side this game, with the lords killing almost everything they touched and my wraiths surviving combat against paladins and Draigo.

But they are definitely starting to prove that they belong with the other elite tournament armies.

SabrX wrote:It seems Draigo-wing was overwhelmed by the Necrons. Necrons chalks up another win.

I used to self play using a program that starts with a letter "V", but not anymore. I do admit it's much easier to self play on a table top game rather than MTG or games the revolves around secrecy.

I think this is the first time I've read Draigo-wing getting tabled.

Thanks for sharing!

Next stop, Grey Knight Crowe Purifiers! Now you can play V for Vendetta!

cmac wrote:Heh, not sure we can read too much into this result. It does appear if the game was a little biased towards the crons.

Given the position of the Doom Scythes, the paladin deployment was asking for a bunch of casualties first turn, got lucky with those first bunch of saves.

That was a mistake on the paladins part. I didn't think the doom scythes would have the "reach" to fire at me without cover. I guessed wrong.

However, the main point for me that gave me the giggle was the bait offered by the warriors moving up to the star then being taken. Basically you baited yourself then took the bait. Hehe.

This was a case of me forcing my opponent to make a tough decision. Good generals will do that. Also, my first inclination was to play the mission and go after the troops. However, I did send help to my other paladins by splitting off Draigo. I felt that Draigo + paladins should have been enough to deal with the wraiths. Unfortunately, that didn't pan out. Even now, I think that was the correct move.

Maybe I am seeing the position wrong, the pictures are useful, but when you were making the decision t2 for the GK's of where to send the deathstar, they could have got a decent multicharge against the wraiths but with the majority of the paladins going into the scarabs. Between using your force weapons and s6+ stuff, im pretty sure that you could easily have won the combat by 20+ which would realistically meant that the wraiths went down to a manageable number to be wiped out the necrons turn.. Scarabs also may have survived with a base or 2 after fearless saves. This was only t2, there would have been plenty of time to hunt down the rest of the troops. You may even have been able to multicharge the wraiths, scarabs and the left most group of warrior with good positioning prior to the charge. Scarabs piling in would still mean you could direct the majority of the dins attacks at them to get that lovely combat res. I think that getting mixed up on the turns meant you forgot how early the bloodshed had begun and how much time was really left in the game.

That was too tough a multi-charge to do. I didn't feel that the risk was worth it. And honestly, I didn't feel that the scarabs were really a high priority threat to my paladins compared to the warriors.

To be honest, any game I have played against crons using wraiths and scarabs, it is difficult for the necron player to spread those out sufficiently to mitigate the multicharge due to footprint sizes and once this is achieved the wraiths crumble. No 2+ is a bit of a downer, mainly for taking a few wounds due to light arms fire on the way in and then for the fearless saves.

It's not so bad. Against less assaulty armies, I don't really care but against more assaulty armies, just spread them out. Flank the wraiths to one side and the scarabs to the other. Or flank both wraiths and have the scarabs come up the middle. Don't assault the same unit unless you're pretty sure you can wipe them out and also watch out for counter-assaults. It's usually the counter-assault that's dangerous. As a tyranid player also who plays tervigon-spam, I find its not too hard to prevent multi-charges that you don't want.

I am almost thinking your best unit in the codex is the CC Overlord in a barge. It just has wrecking ball written all over it. I have noticed that if planning the 12" sweep shenanigans, it can be quite logistically and physically difficult to place the model afterwards as they don't fly sideways..

They are definitely good, but they won't be able to finish off entire units efficiently. They are more of a support unit used to open up vehicles and to provide your main force more hitting power when necessary.

And they don't fly sideways. They fly straight. It's just when they land, you can pivot them to any facing you want.

Have noticed that the command barges tend to get quite a bit closer to your army early, albeit with a 4+ save. I think, with DE, I will pull back a little and focus all the fire on those puppies before pushing forward. They seem to like paper planes.

Good idea! Take out those fast necron vehicles and the game will be much easier for DE.

So wait ... who was playing the netlist ...?

ah, I have a question. How the hell was Anrakyr EVER allowed to consolidate OUT of a combat?

I'm not getting that but haven't seen anyone else mention it so I must be missing something.

For reference, I'm talking about when he joined in with the Wraiths.

<text redacted; there are ways to handle rude PMs; posting rudely yourself isn't one of them --Janthkin>

Woo someone is mad.

Anyways ....

jy2 - Do you see a benefit to taking the doom scythes over 6 more spyders? It seems that you might miss out on a good amount of shooting due to most of your list being CC oriented. I know they cut through armor but so do the spyders even with them being pretty slow they serve the same purpose imo and are more survivable.

Clay Williams wrote:Woo someone is mad.

Anyways ....

jy2 - Do you see a benefit to taking the doom scythes over 6 more spyders? It seems that you might miss out on a good amount of shooting due to most of your list being CC oriented. I know they cut through armor but so do the spyders even with them being pretty slow they serve the same purpose imo and are more survivable.

Maybe you shouldn't PM me nasty messages then run to a mod when I respond to them? If you want to get a friendly game in sometime that's fine. If you want to air you opinion on a forum it will be discussed. Throwing a tantrum is not the way to handle it.

cmac wrote:It's tough to find time with other commitments in life.

Maybe, I should get rid of the girls and start playing with my airplanes at home.

My wife was out of town so I had a little more free time.

sudojoe wrote:hehe very entertaining read so far but from everything I've seen of the new necrons now for the past few months since people are learning how to assault/use the night fights/ mind shackle/ mind in the machine, etc, it's definately setting itself up as a very top tier army.

I'm reasonably sure that unless you tune your list to be able to beat necron variations, the take all comers lists of today will fall behind fairly rapidly so I do not have much faith in the IG/GK/SW being top 3 anymore.

I just personally haven't found much to really achieve that yet while keeping my lists fairly well constructed vs all others.

Crowe lists are still where my heart is though and so far I've almost always had the most luck just bashing one necron unit type till it died completely before moving on to something else even on objective games. The doom scythes are very counter to that type of castle set up. I'm gonna have to do some wacky triangle formation I think in the future to be more effective after watching this bat rap.

Against necrons, due to RP, EL, and other spawning craziness, I just can't afford to not over-kill them but target priority is such a pain when everything is so durable and night fight really messes up triangle formations so I'm still working on some decent stragety counters and not so much on list constructions.

That's the objective of this necron build - to force you into playing outside of your "comfort" zone. The doom scythes are especially good with this type of list. It forces you to deploy differently than you would normally like. My strategy of MTO is all about forcing you to make tough choices.

The reason it does well is because my list is good against mech lists and most of the tournament TAC armies nowadays are mech. I think the meta is changing slightly. Reecius sees it too, which is why he is playing footdar and his new leman russ-blob squad IG-blob build more. The current competitive meta is mech and these type of lists are thriving because they are "anti-meta" lists.

But honestly, I don't think the GK's need to tune their list to specifically beat necrons. I think a solid GK list should be able to more than hold its own against necrons. That's how good I think the GK's are. They definitely have the tools to be able to deal with both wraithwing and scarab farm, especially a Crowe-Purifier build. I may be a little biased, but I think they are the best all-around GK build if played properly.

Clay Williams wrote:I love how people are still arguing that crons are not a tier one army. Myself, just gunna giggle when I see draigo wings across the table... Hell I already have a few times already.

Hell the palinstar got the charge on the crons and still people are doubting the results. Face it guys there is a new army in town and GKs should fear it.

Necrons can definitely be very strong, though I wouldn't quite say that they are top-tier yet. There are still armies out there that I think may give them problems, including deathwing, DE venom-spam, assault terminator builds, Crowe-Purifiers, kan-wall green-tide orks, tyranids and perhaps even daemons. Until they show that they can compete with these armies, we shall have to get more data in.

Good thing in the upcoming weeks, I'll be testing them out against Crowe-Purifiers (battle report coming out tomorrow), assault-terminator deathwing, Frankie's Nurgle marines and Janthkin's tyranids. And after that, then I'll probably be retiring them.

Red Corsair wrote:I hate when people pigeon hole armies in general and claim some to be tier one and others not. Anything can happen, and I have found there to be a competitive army in every codex. That's why I feel it is important for people to experiment on their own and not just build net lists. I see new player fielding net lists all the time and they still lose to my "out dated" or "tier two" builds all the time. The difference is I play with no repetition when I can so I get better at playing every unit in my armies in every combination. A good general makes do with what he has.

Yeah, it's one thing to play a list that you see. It's another thing to really understand the intricacies of that list. Not everyone will be able to pull it off, which is why you will see good lists fail because they are not played properly and weaker lists succeed because the person playing them really understands his army and how it works.

Another person who plays his list with little repetition is Janthkin. His list lacks the redundancy you normally see in more "competitive" lists (besides 2x3 hive guards), but he is an expert in it and is able to milk it for all its worth.

The Dragon wrote:ah, I have a question. How the hell was Anrakyr EVER allowed to consolidate OUT of a combat?

I'm not getting that but haven't seen anyone else mention it so I must be missing something.

For reference, I'm talking about when he joined in with the Wraiths.

Because he wasn't able to get into base contact with Draigo after the wraiths piled in. When a unit cannot get into base with another unit after combat, then they just consolidate. BTW, he joined into the combat with the wraiths, but he is still a separate unit than the wraiths.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Clay Williams wrote:
jy2 - Do you see a benefit to taking the doom scythes over 6 more spyders? It seems that you might miss out on a good amount of shooting due to most of your list being CC oriented. I know they cut through armor but so do the spyders even with them being pretty slow they serve the same purpose imo and are more survivable.

I think in certain lists, spyders make more sense. In my list though, I prefer the doom scythes because they are a more imminent threat and greatly increases the pressure on the opponent. It's true that spyders are more resilient than the doom scythes. However, doom scythes are better at dealing with certain armies (like Draigowing, leman russ/land raider-spam or fast dark eldar vehicles) than spyders. Both units have their strengths and weaknesses and both units are great. I just think that doom scythes fit my strategy of Maximum Threat Overload better.

If you have a list in mind and are unsure which to take, you can PM me your list and I will critique it for you.

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Thank you

Thanks for the reply Jy2.

Still, I thought if an independent character joined into an assault with a friendly unit (even after that friendly unit was already in the combat before the IC jumped in) that he would be forced to join.

This certainly adds an entirely new dimension to necrons.

I tell you this is what I'm loving about this codex. The play modality requires tactics at an entirely different level. Fantastic.

It's a pity though that i'm having to dig deep into the guts of 5th edition all over again to have a fair go with the codex and that 6th ed is going to come a-knocking to toss me on my rules-rump in just a few months (from what I hear).

Really enjoyed the battle report Jy2. Thanks again.

That's the objective of this necron build - to force you into playing outside of your "comfort" zone. The doom scythes are especially good with this type of list. It forces you to deploy differently than you would normally like. My strategy of MTO is all about forcing you to make tough choices.

The reason it does well is because my list is good against mech lists and most of the tournament TAC armies nowadays are mech. I think the meta is changing slightly. Reecius sees it too, which is why he is playing footdar and his new leman russ-blob squad IG-blob build more. The current competitive meta is mech and these type of lists are thriving because they are "anti-meta" lists.

But honestly, I don't think the GK's need to tune their list to specifically beat necrons. I think a solid GK list should be able to more than hold its own against necrons. That's how good I think the GK's are. They definitely have the tools to be able to deal with both wraithwing and scarab farm, especially a Crowe-Purifier build. I may be a little biased, but I think they are the best all-around GK build if played properly.

I pretty much agree with you Jy2, but curious on what changes in tactics you perfer when say using MSU pruifiers vs the different necron builds?

I see as being popular and effective necron builds - >

a) scarab and wraith based fast assaulty

b) shooty long range with quake's/night fighting and barges, and some with stormlords too but not always

c) mid range power blobs and mind shackle protections

lists do have some variation but in general they tend to fall into one of the above categories with some form of protection/action flavor thrown in.

The Dragon wrote:Thanks for the reply Jy2.

Still, I thought if an independent character joined into an assault with a friendly unit (even after that friendly unit was already in the combat before the IC jumped in) that he would be forced to join.

No, you can never join a unit while you are in assault. You can only join a unit in your Movement phase so if you have 2 units in a multi-assault, you have to wait until the assault is finished before those 2 units can join each other in your following Movement phase.

The Dragon wrote:It's a pity though that i'm having to dig deep into the guts of 5th edition all over again to have a fair go with the codex and that 6th ed is going to come a-knocking to toss me on my rules-rump in just a few months (from what I hear).

Really enjoyed the battle report Jy2. Thanks again.

Don't worry. You and everyone else will have to relearn 40k again once 6th ed comes out.

And I hear 6th edition is going to come out maybe in the middle to 2nd half of the year.

sudojoe wrote:I pretty much agree with you Jy2, but curious on what changes in tactics you perfer when say using MSU pruifiers vs the different necron builds?

I see as being popular and effective necron builds - >

a) scarab and wraith based fast assaulty

b) shooty long range with quake's/night fighting and barges, and some with stormlords too but not always

c) mid range power blobs and mind shackle protections

lists do have some variation but in general they tend to fall into one of the above categories with some form of protection/action flavor thrown in.

Purifiers need to support each other. 5-man units are easy targets for the wraiths, but your counter-assault is what will hurt them. Have your purifiers nearby each other to help each other out.

I would use psyflemans to take out doom scythes and command barges first and then wraiths.

Use shooting to your advantage. Purifiers actually have good shooting. Shoot until you have no other option but to fight in combat. Necrons have changed the current meta. Now give almost all your transports searchlights.

Have your psyflemans close to your purifiers to protect them. Use them to tarpit both wraiths and even scarabs if you have to. Dreads are dual-purpose...to provide AT and to protect your troops with counter-assault and psychic defense.

Finally, in objectives-based missions, you have to play aggressively. Mobility is not your strong suit. You cannot afford to just sit and shoot. You have to make a play for the objectives starting on Turn 1.

Clay Williams wrote:I love how people are still arguing that crons are not a tier one army. Myself, just gunna giggle when I see draigo wings across the table... Hell I already have a few times already.

Hell the palinstar got the charge on the crons and still people are doubting the results. Face it guys there is a new army in town and GKs should fear it.

All things being equal, the Draigowing will easily beat Necrons.

Blackmoor wrote:All things being equal, the Draigowing will easily beat Necrons.

How can all things be equal when the 2 codex are already so different...

jy2 wrote:That was too tough a multi-charge to do. I didn't feel that the risk was worth it. And honestly, I didn't feel that the scarabs were really a high priority threat to my paladins compared to the warriors.

Scarabs and wraiths looking in throwing handbags range? Point wasn't the threat of the scarabs, but the ability to use them to kill the wraiths through fearless wounds, making the spyders basically redundant and also removing the pesk threat that is the scarabs.

Mainly, its a point im trying to make that scarabs can be a liability, watch it if you are playing crons, abuse it if playing against.

I agree that Draigowing is much stronger than Necrons. They have a counter to all the best units.

Warboss Gutrip wrote:

Valek wrote:Think it will depend on the mission, but two doomscythes have the power to vaporate that 10 man palladin squad in one go!!

Not unless you play some very silly RAW, or the GK player lines up for you.

I think the Necrons are in with a chance though! I hope Anrakyr MitM's a Psyriflemen and it kills pallies...

What silly RAW? The whole point of the doom scythe is that it has the power to do something like that - I don't see how you can argue that it only works if you play 'silly RAW'. Whether it's OP or not is a fair debate but there's nothing ambiguous in the rules that suggests the way it's written isn't what was intended imo.

Now, I didn't read the whole thread, but I've seen the battle report with Reece and now found this. Questions:

Both bunch up vs your army, which is built to tear down castles did you admit this yet in any of the posts or to them to help them out?

IE: Why did they bunch up when the Doom Scythes and massed combat units LOVE that?

This made be giggle, tempting fate. This is why the game is won in Deployment and movement fellas.


Why have 2 solar pulses? Your army is all close ranged stuff, and you only need 1 if you wanna deploy everything from the get go and prevent a IG Alpha Strike. Only reason I see the second one for is a probably silly attempt to guard the 5 man units in the back from being hit, but FYI: if your list is all about pressure, it should succeed in relieving those Warrior units of any fear of retaliation. I'm guessing that strategy isn't working well, so first signs the list needs work.

Do you reserve 2 units of Warriors and stick 2 units with Pulses hopefully behind some BLOS and just, hope for the best? Is that right?

Now onto the list, which IMO is suck:

Anrakyr on Barge - Common combo I've seen, which falls to any paired up melta/blasterborn kind of threats out there. Yes, his range is 24" (24+18 if you want to go in for the vehicle possession; and assuming you've used your Tachyon Arrow first turn while your army moves into position, which most of the time I bet you do) Threat range of a Melta team is about 21" The enemy WILL get him. He loses his mobility, and can die easily once on foot, he's not that scary.

Regular Lord on Barge - So many upgrades when all I have to do is take him out of his chariot to lessen my worries about him? Thanks for pouring points into him!

Doom Scythes are fun, but not begin on the board kind of fun. With AV 11 all the enemy has to do is aim a smidge of Autocannons their way and they got them as they try to move in for the kill -- and with a threat range of ~30" (Death Ray) its not much more than anything else really, just the Death Ray is random range so that's in no way to be "reliable anti-tank" unless your enemies do exactly what they've done here and not deploy/set up well vs your army. Again - Derp Deployments IMO. I may be wrong somehow but I never found a reason to castle up against Doom Scythes which have anti-castling kind of weapon...And CC units to boot who will hit multiple units at once....sigh. The Tesla Destructor is fun, I give you that, but you're not buying Doom Scythes for that alone, otherwise you'd have 3 Night Scythes instead of 2 Doom Scythes, now wouldn't you?

Warriors not doing much of anything but 2 are babysitting Lances and Pulses. +1 for trying to help the army with Pulse/Lance -5 for having the rest of the squad useless.

The Wraith dilemma - I find Wraiths to suck because they are CC, against a MSU list this really shows - they get shot at a bit (not much cuz of your Solar pulses/doom scythes that need to go down first), hit some expendable units (woo I killed 5 marines/a rhino Ma!) and get torrented next round end of that fairy tale.

Scarabs are fun but die to the same kind of retaliation as Wraiths. Maybe worse, because you know, Tank Shock+Blast/Flamer templates roast swarms. (IG should be able to do this just fine) Counter-Chargers can also work if the unit is weakened. If someone shoots the Scarabs before they hit or in range of a true threat, TBF I think they need work on their tactics (My 4 base scarab unit sits in Cover, sees some Ordnance blast come their way, oh 4 saves...2+ Cover via Gone To Ground, I didn't need to do anything that turn ANYWAY /troll'd The moment the opponent stops putting quality firepower their way is the moment they get back up to 3+ Cover and charge next turn. Easy Scarabs Use 101 for ya.

And the Spyders, which are clearly there to bump up the Scarabs to "scary numbers" and hopefully use their MC status to clear midfield after the rest of the army already does most of the work. /yawn?

Just my 0.02

ColdSadHungry wrote:What silly RAW? The whole point of the doom scythe is that it has the power to do something like that - I don't see how you can argue that it only works if you play 'silly RAW'. Whether it's OP or not is a fair debate but there's nothing ambiguous in the rules that suggests the way it's written isn't what was intended imo.

Are you trying to claim Death Ray hits every model in every unit the line crosses over? I didn't think there was anyone still arguing this interpretation. If so, good luck with that...

RAW states that the "units hit by the line suffer an amount of hits equal to the number of models in the unit under the line"

So say 2 models were hit in a unit by the line, then 5 another unit, it would be 2 for the first unit and 5 for the other unit...

I think it's pretty clear, people are just over-reading it.

Smurfy wrote:I think it's pretty clear, people are just over-reading it.

Agreed. Thanks for putting it more politely than I could.

What is a good necron list Smurfy, in your opinion?

I posted my list in Army Lists and will be willing to answer questions

whigwam wrote:

ColdSadHungry wrote:What silly RAW? The whole point of the doom scythe is that it has the power to do something like that - I don't see how you can argue that it only works if you play 'silly RAW'. Whether it's OP or not is a fair debate but there's nothing ambiguous in the rules that suggests the way it's written isn't what was intended imo.

Are you trying to claim Death Ray hits every model in every unit the line crosses over? I didn't think there was anyone still arguing this interpretation. If so, good luck with that...

Upon re-reading it, I can see that it actually means the number of individual models under the line - I was just recalling it from memory when I questioned the 'silly RAW' thing. Now I feel kind of sad that I wasn't as on the ball as you, Whig - at least you've got your finger on the pulse. What a guy!

I..do what I can..

Smurfy wrote:Now, I didn't read the whole thread, but I've seen the battle report with Reece and now found this. Questions:

Both bunch up vs your army, which is built to tear down castles did you admit this yet in any of the posts or to them to help them out?

IE: Why did they bunch up when the Doom Scythes and massed combat units LOVE that?

Because I wanted to be able to get to the necron objectives as quickly as possible. That's why I deployed several of my paladins as far forwards as possbile. I was hoping the central terrain would give me cover on the left side against the death ray and on the right, I used my dread to give my paladins cover. Unfortunately, I miscalculated it and the doom scythe was able to get a shot at my paladins without cover.

Basically, I deployed aggressively and took the gamble that necron shooting wouldn't do too much to my paladins due to cover.

Why have 2 solar pulses? Your army is all close ranged stuff, and you only need 1 if you wanna deploy everything from the get go and prevent a IG Alpha Strike. Only reason I see the second one for is a probably silly attempt to guard the 5 man units in the back from being hit, but FYI: if your list is all about pressure, it should succeed in relieving those Warrior units of any fear of retaliation. I'm guessing that strategy isn't working well, so first signs the list needs work.

You're absolutely correct. I'm beginning to see that I don't really need 2 Solar Pulses. In all my games so far, I've made it into assault by Turn 2 and never really had to weather too much shooting (unless my wraiths wiped out the squad they charged). What the 2nd Solar Pulse does is mainly to discourage my opponent from shooting into my backfield at my warriors.

I am considering dropping the 2nd Pulse-tek for another wraith, though I do like having an additional lance-tek around.

Do you reserve 2 units of Warriors and stick 2 units with Pulses hopefully behind some BLOS and just, hope for the best? Is that right?

That depends. If it is multiple objectives, leaving 3 units in reserves mean that they may not make it to the objectives in time. Thus, I would leave 2 squads on the board and 2 in reserves. The warriors on the board (with the lance-teks) would start advancing towards the far objectives while the warriors coming in from reserves can claim the near objectives. With C&C, I will deploy 1 or 2 units of warriors depending on whether I think I need their help or not, and in Annihilation, I usually leave 3 squads of warriors in reserves.

I never "hope for the best" with my warriors. They are an integral part of my army that helps to force the opponent to make more difficult decisions - go after the easier-to-kill/easy-KP's warriors and let the rest of my army wreak havoc, or go after the rest of my army and let my warriors slowly swarm the objectives. There is a purpose for every unit in my list.

Now onto the list, which IMO is suck:

Anrakyr on Barge - Common combo I've seen, which falls to any paired up melta/blasterborn kind of threats out there. Yes, his range is 24" (24+18 if you want to go in for the vehicle possession; and assuming you've used your Tachyon Arrow first turn while your army moves into position, which most of the time I bet you do) Threat range of a Melta team is about 21" The enemy WILL get him. He loses his mobility, and can die easily once on foot, he's not that scary.

Regular Lord on Barge - So many upgrades when all I have to do is take him out of his chariot to lessen my worries about him? Thanks for pouring points into him!

Doom Scythes are fun, but not begin on the board kind of fun. With AV 11 all the enemy has to do is aim a smidge of Autocannons their way and they got them as they try to move in for the kill -- and with a threat range of ~30" (Death Ray) its not much more than anything else really, just the Death Ray is random range so that's in no way to be "reliable anti-tank" unless your enemies do exactly what they've done here and not deploy/set up well vs your army. Again - Derp Deployments IMO. I may be wrong somehow but I never found a reason to castle up against Doom Scythes which have anti-castling kind of weapon...And CC units to boot who will hit multiple units at once....sigh. The Tesla Destructor is fun, I give you that, but you're not buying Doom Scythes for that alone, otherwise you'd have 3 Night Scythes instead of 2 Doom Scythes, now wouldn't you?

Warriors not doing much of anything but 2 are babysitting Lances and Pulses. +1 for trying to help the army with Pulse/Lance -5 for having the rest of the squad useless.

The Wraith dilemma - I find Wraiths to suck because they are CC, against a MSU list this really shows - they get shot at a bit (not much cuz of your Solar pulses/doom scythes that need to go down first), hit some expendable units (woo I killed 5 marines/a rhino Ma!) and get torrented next round end of that fairy tale.

Scarabs are fun but die to the same kind of retaliation as Wraiths. Maybe worse, because you know, Tank Shock+Blast/Flamer templates roast swarms. (IG should be able to do this just fine) Counter-Chargers can also work if the unit is weakened. If someone shoots the Scarabs before they hit or in range of a true threat, TBF I think they need work on their tactics (My 4 base scarab unit sits in Cover, sees some Ordnance blast come their way, oh 4 saves...2+ Cover via Gone To Ground, I didn't need to do anything that turn ANYWAY /troll'd The moment the opponent stops putting quality firepower their way is the moment they get back up to 3+ Cover and charge next turn. Easy Scarabs Use 101 for ya.

And the Spyders, which are clearly there to bump up the Scarabs to "scary numbers" and hopefully use their MC status to clear midfield after the rest of the army already does most of the work. /yawn?

Just my 0.02

You are quite entitled to your opinion. On paper, the list may not seem so good to some (like you), but seeing it and playing against it when run by a competent general are 2 entirely different experiences altogether. Theoryhammer oftentimes extrapolates data in a vacuum (i.e. well unit A can be countered by unit B, etc.) and usually doesn't consider the synergy of the entire army on the whole. Of course each unit can easily be taken down if it was the only unit your opponent has to be concerned about, but when that unit is supported by multiple other dangerous units, it becomes much harder to deal with.

Anyways, that's all I really wanted to say on this issue.

Misjudging the weapon? Is that the reason? Ok let me spell it out for people not familiar with how the Death Ray works:

12" range, choose any point in that range, then choose a direction, roll 3d6 and the line goes that direction.

This makes shapes like: I's, Ls,\/s, and |/s and so forth.

Pretty simple if you ask me, but there it is folks so you aren't confused and bewildered by it. Either way a interesting way to think about it.

But seeing as you played yourself here, I am guessing you gave yourself the benefit of the doubt and the enemy being fooled into thinking they can get LoS cover from it, which is pretty damn hard given it can shoot like that. I love this part of testing, BTW

What I would do as the Draigowing? I would be a better list first of all, and 2nd, wait for the Doom Scythes to move up and deal with them as they try to get into range. But alas, they'll be swamped in CC eventually because it IS a bad list because it can't deal with enough threats at once. I really liked reading Blackmoor's NOVA Battle Reports to show this weakness.

---

As for the list, I'm not theorying at all: You have 3 threats for the enemy to worry about the first half of the game, the CC threats aren't threats until they cross the table, and much less of a threat if the enemy moves. Ask yourself these question right now and stare me back in the face seriously:

"Will the enemy shoot the Scarabs and Wraiths or will they shoot the stuff closing in to shoot/possess/pass over and hope for the kill to de-mech them?"

"Do I have any ranged threats beyond 24" outside of Anrakyr and some lucky Doom Scythes?"

" Am I banking on my enemy not knowing my rules?"

"Can any army effectively not mind the effects of Night Fight?"

"What if the enemy moves toward me and shoots the Doom Scythes before they get to shoot anyway?"

Food for thought. I did not say "X will counter " if you read any of that blurb, rather practical tactics that I do in many games and many good generals do every game. I saw how Reecius played in the video report vs this list and am just appalled really, I still don't understand why bunch up.

Ok smurfy the more I read the more I think you are not very knowledgeable about the new necrons ... as well as not completely reading responses to your posts.

Everything in JYs army is a threat turn 2. There is no "moving away". Wraith are jump infantry and scarabs are beasts, the are assaulting on turn 2.

His 24" threats are 2 barges, scarabs, lance teks, and doom scythes (you forget they move then shoot).

There is moving away -

You let the Wraiths hit something expedable, same with Scarabs, and deal with them. You can wait on the Doom Scythes/CMD Barges as they have to move in to fire, and focus down the Infantry while the Doom Scythes are in the wings wondering what to do. Does a mech army really care it loses 4-5 Rhinos to Wraiths if the Wraiths are lucky?

This isn't hard even with night fight - He moves to mid or 6" from mid, you move to 6" from mid or mid, Night Fight won't save the Wraiths from being shot to pieces. Avg spotting distance in Night Fight is 21", and most of his army is only good at below that range.

2 Lance Crypteks HELP but dont DESTROY

Barges wont do anything till they can hop over a unit at 24" at most (You prevent this by, I donno, putting another unit behind the unit you don't want wack'd so he can't land?), Anrak can launch a Tachyon arrow, hopefully kiling a tank but smart people have Cover first turn from that.

Doom Scythes are fragile, and will die if they move up because they're part of target priority as their aim is to De-Mech the enemy, not Wraiths or Scarabs (Because Scarabs hit a few vehicles, and die to flamers in the wings, this is what IG does)

Or the vehicles move in first and you deal with them first.

Either way you're good and off to a good lead.

Too much theoryhammer.

- you let wraiths hit? wraiths can just as easily jump over that unit and hit what you want.
- You do not have to move in a straight line to use a barges ability, and 24" is a long long bit of movement.
- Why would both players be moving 6" from mid .. I usually don't just run my doods down the table and hope for the best.
- Then the doom scythes are doing what they are meant for, soaking up AA fire for the rest of the army.
- What do you mean by "die to flamers in the wings" I know scarabs are vulnerable to templates but I have yet to see a competent general let a flamer hit scarabs unless they meant for it to happen.

I am still failing to see your logic on how jys list is subpar when even after all theory hammer it has proven to be a stout all comers list.

What? I don't get this first point at all.

2nd point: What weighs more: 24 Tons of Gold or 24 Tons of Feathers? Same thing here.

3. CC Cron list (Like this ) has to move across the table. Wraiths wanna charge right? How are they getting there?

4. How do Doom Scythes soak up AA fire with AV 11?

5. Scarabs assault a expendable tank, then more flamers come down on them cuz they can't consolidate. Mech IG 101 especially because you can get free Hull Heavy Flamers

Never mind, this is going no where.

Smurfy wrote: Misjudging the weapon? Is that the reason? Ok let me spell it out for people not familiar with how the Death Ray works:

12" range, choose any point in that range, then choose a direction, roll 3d6 and the line goes that direction.

This makes shapes like: I's, Ls,\/s, and |/s and so forth.

Pretty simple if you ask me, but there it is folks so you aren't confused and bewildered by it. Either way a interesting way to think about it.

But seeing as you played yourself here, I am guessing you gave yourself the benefit of the doubt and the enemy being fooled into thinking they can get LoS cover from it, which is pretty damn hard given it can shoot like that. I love this part of testing, BTW

What I would do as the Draigowing? I would be a better list first of all, and 2nd, wait for the Doom Scythes to move up and deal with them as they try to get into range. But alas, they'll be swamped in CC eventually because it IS a bad list because it can't deal with enough threats at once. I really liked reading Blackmoor's NOVA Battle Reports to show this weakness.

You should try playing against a Draigowing list. Sure, they have their limitations, but they are a damn tough army as well as a very good one. I don't think you quite realize that.

As for the list, I'm not theorying at all: You have 3 threats for the enemy to worry about the first half of the game, the CC threats aren't threats until they cross the table, and much less of a threat if the enemy moves. Ask yourself these question right now and stare me back in the face seriously:

Only 3? You have seriously under-estimated this necron build. Every unit, other than the spyders and warriors, are a threat.

"Will the enemy shoot the Scarabs and Wraiths or will they shoot the stuff closing in to shoot/possess/pass over and hope for the kill to de-mech them?"

These are exactly the types of questions....no, dilemmas my army poses to the opponent.

"Do I have any ranged threats beyond 24" outside of Anrakyr and some lucky Doom Scythes?"

My opponent doesn't have the luxury of worrying about anything over 24" away.

"Am I banking on my enemy not knowing my rules?"

If you are insinuating that I have to resort to "suprises" or taking advantage of my opponent's ignorance in order to win games, then that tells me more about you than anything you say. Maybe that's how you play, but don't go assuming other people play the same way.

I always let my opponents know about each and every unit of mine if they are not already familiar with it. And in the case where something is controversial, I will discuss it with my opponent pre-game to avoid in-game disagreements.

"Can any army effectively not mind the effects of Night Fight?"

Don't really care. A good TAC list has to be able to take into account Night-fight now. Necrons have changed the meta somewhat. But even if my opponent has some way to deal with night-fight, my army doesn't really care.

"What if the enemy moves toward me and shoots the Doom Scythes before they get to shoot anyway?"

Good, that just makes it easier for my army to do what it likes to do. If my opponent goes first, I deploy my doom scythes further back (or maybe even DS them) and dare my opponent to try to shoot them under the protection of NF.

Food for thought. I did not say "X will counter " if you read any of that blurb, rather practical tactics that I do in many games and many good generals do every game. I saw how Reecius played in the video report vs this list and am just appalled really, I still don't understand why bunch up.

No you didn't, but you are also not taking into account what the rest of my army will be doing. That is where a lot of these "comparisons" go south. They are done in a vacuum without regards for the rest of the army. There really is no explaining about this. You just have to face such a list commandeered by a competent general to really know how tough it is. Nothing on paper or even what I say can really prepare as much as experience can.

I see, I ain't judging by paper though, if it was paper I'd not factor in movement at all, but I do, I digress:

I wait for a BR against someone who's MSU mech and knows how to use it. That's a common enough archetype.

Editting because don't wanna double post.

Draigowing suffers because it's a Deathstar, just like any deathstar, it can be focus-fired on or usually dealt with embarressingly easy. Apparently you didn't know your own rules for Doom Scythe, so somehow it got a IDEAL shot. I call foul on that BS, don't admit if you don't want. Necrons can't do it but any other army can attempt to Tank Shock the unit a good amount of times, even Ld 10 will fail (And if it's DE - Ld 9 with Torment Grenade Shocks, something I love to do myself.)

Nothing past the Tachyon arrow and the 2 Doom Scythes worry me till Turn 3. You can chew on my Rhino's all you like, as long as I get rid of the Death Rays the CC army faces the same problem as any other CC army against Mech MSU - You charged the transports, grats, you killed them, now the occupants kill you back. T4 and 3+ Save is nothing new, unless you expect someone to try Missile Launchers/Autocannons on the AV 13...

24" (outside the Doom Scythes) is a luxury. Someone can easily make two battle lines. Tau do this very, very well as well as well as DE, Eldar, and a myriad of other builds. Your CC masses hit the expendable transports, check, shoot them to pieces, what's new here? If you survive you can get to the rear lines which is, in a good list, not a big loss? Or are killing Long Fangs in a SW list = automatic victory? I must be mistaken...

Yes, I am insinuating your opponent is caught by surprise, like the Paladins in this report. Reinforcing the BR: Nigh-Ideal shot, against-self, "I think they have Cover, op they don't" doesn't fool me in the slightest. To me this is you assuming the enemy doesn't understand the Death Ray, and thereby you catching the opponent by surprise. That's the chain of logic right there. Maybe, if you Zig-Zag'd them you'd even just 2/3 (which is entirely possible in that kind of deployment) but no, we caught the enemy by "surprise" and got a shot we would have loved to see obliterate over half the "supposed king unit" Turn 1. Biggest hole in your arguments about this list so far, is why I'm grumpy about it.

Any Fast army or massed Transported unit army doesn't mind the effects of Night Fight if you play this kind of list -

He sits back if you hang back, you shoot with what? 2 Tesla Destructors and hit 1 thing a turn with each Doom Scythe if lucky?
You deployed further up like, on the deployment edge, in sight? - He moves up 12, unloads in middle of the board, and now is 12" away from your forward Wraith/Scarabs line. 3d6x3 to spot, I think he can roll a 4-7 on 3d6 pretty easy) Scarabs again, can be ignored as anything they hit would be hit on 6's and probably explode most vehicles they mangle up due to massed Penetrations regardless if you put too many in one place. Moment they come out to play, they're focussed down by the infantry with nothing left to do but hunt Warriors or them. Not like normal infantry can take on Spyders unless they have hidden Fists, yeah?

You deploy forward but out of LoS - Dance Dance Revolution - A matter of the waiting game and manuevering while you try to figure out what should hit with first, probably a all-in move with the first wave and hope to golly that Wraiths tarpit meaningful CC units (Unlikely), or charged transports (They care because?)

Hope you keep things like this in mind in future testing, thanks.

I, too, would like to get a game in against Reecius' Bjorn-Missile wolves or even IG-vendetta-chimelta army such as Christian's list, as those 2 are still some of the best tournament lists currently. I won't say with confidence that I will beat them, but I'm pretty confident that they can't say the same about my MTO crons as well. One thing I will say for sure though, it would be a great match against some fine tournament-winning generals.