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

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

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

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

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

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

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


General Thoughts:

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

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

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

HQ (690pts)

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

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

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

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

2x Night Scythe

10x Scarabs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alright, cool, so first things to consider.

Monolith
Keeping the C'tan alive


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's my concept

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

Harbinger of Destruction, Solar Pulse

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

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

Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark
Monolith

2000 on the dot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

C'Tan w/WW and Grand Illusion 260

Monolith 200
Monolith 200
Doomsday Ark 175

That brings my total 1980 (I think).

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

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

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

1850 points TESLA QUAKE

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

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

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

Heavy Support:
Annilation Barge
Annilation Barge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wow. lots to discuss.

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

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

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

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

Cons
Must remain stationary to be truly effective
Open topped

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Re: Halfpast's list

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

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

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

----

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for the input!

Moving on:

There's a lot to discuss.

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

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

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

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

In this build:

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

Looking forward to hearing thoughts on them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great stuff! Lets fight!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2000 Point Tremorcron List version 2

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

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

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

I would say something like

CC Barge Overlord
CC Barge Overlord

RC1
Pulse Tek, 4x Tremor Teks

RC2
Pulse Tek

C tan - Writhing Worldscape, Grand Illusion

5x Warriors
Night Scythe

5x Warriors
Night Scythe

5x Warriors
Night Scythe

5x Warriors
Night Scythe

5x Warriors
Night Scythe

Doom Scythe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Doomsday Arks really benefit from Grand Illusion, that's a synergy I didn't consider.

I prefer Ghost Arks for a C'tan/Stave list. It seems a waste of time in Scythe spam where either you're min maxing for as many Scythes as possible, or you're fielding costlier larger Immortal units and you don't necessarily want to Quake units that your Immortals are good for taking apart.

The best way to beat Ghost Arks is to close with them, in CC or Melta. Quake can throw a wrench in both.

5 Warriors in an Ark is not a slouch unit. Each Ark is effectively 5 Relentless warriors and it's hard to whittle down the firepower - close and it's 20 Guass shots per Ark.

Stalkers are great to add in (also AV13 and Twin link all that Guass). Doomsday arks, add range and AV13. Command Barges, AV13 and snipe Melta models..




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For comparison, here is Scythe Spam without Quake/C'tan (Yes it is YTTH but obvious build is obvious)

1 Overlord, 180 pts (Warscythe)
1 Catacomb Command Barge (Gauss Cannon)

1 Overlord, 180 pts (Warscythe)
1 Catacomb Command Barge (Gauss Cannon)

1 Royal Court, 55 pts
1 Harbinger of Destruction (Harbinger of Destruction; Eldritch Lance; Solar Pulse)

5 Immortals, 185 pts (Gauss Blaster)
1 Night Scythe (TL Tesla Destructor)

5 Warriors, 165 pts
1 Night Scythe (TL Tesla Destructor)

5 Warriors, 165 pts
1 Night Scythe (TL Tesla Destructor)

5 Warriors, 165 pts
1 Night Scythe (TL Tesla Destructor)

5 Warriors, 165 pts
1 Night Scythe (TL Tesla Destructor)

5 Warriors, 165 pts
1 Night Scythe (TL Tesla Destructor)

5 Tomb Blades, 100 pts (TL Gauss Blaster)

5 Tomb Blades, 100 pts (TL Gauss Blaster)

7 Canoptek Scarabs, 105 pts

1 Annihilation Barge, 90 pts (Gauss Cannon)

1 Annihilation Barge, 90 pts (Gauss Cannon)

1 Annihilation Barge, 90 pts (Gauss Cannon)

Total Roster Cost: 2000

Maxing the FA, Troops and HS gives me more confidence in a competitive army than losing a lot to squeeze in the Staves in the above Scythe list.

The Scythe list works better if everything is fast IMO. Doom Scythes over A. Barges is a better bet. Everything goes 12", nothing HAS to be on foot.

But back on topic. How does a defensive Tremor list deal with a static opponent which doesn't have to move? 3 Manticores, blobbed infantry screens with multiple lascannons and heavy weapon CCS/PCS in chimeras will be hard to budge.

1x C'Tan w/ Writhing Worldscape & Grand Illusion
260 pts

1x Harbinger of Despair w/ VoD
5x Deathmarks
155 pts

1x Harbinger of Despair w/ VoD
5x Deathmarks
155 pts

1x Overlord w/ Warscythe
1x Catacomb Command Barge
180 pts

1x Overlord w/ Warscythe
1x Catacomb Command Barge
180 pts

2x Destroyers
3x Heavy Destroyers
260 pts

1x Harbinger of Destruction w/ Solar Pulse
1x Harbinger of Transmogrification
5x Immortals w/ Tesla Carbines
170 pts

1x Harbinger of Destruction w/ Solar Pulse
1x Harbinger of Transmogrification
5x Immortals w/ Tesla Carbines
170 pts

1x Harbinger of Destruction
1x Harbinger of Transmogrification
7x Warriors
1x Ghost Ark
271 pts

1x Monolith
200 pts

Total = 2001 (ffffffffffffffuuuuuuu)

Here's my take on the TremorCrons:

Use Grand Illusion to place one or both Deathmark units back into reserve. This will mean that you could have up to 4 enemy units marked. I always use Deathmarks to take out pesky units like Long Fangs, and VoD the Deathmarks with reckless abandon (ironically, the only time I've ever actually suffered a calamitous mishap was the one time I actually tried a conservative placement). If there are no pesky units that need to be marked for death, then I send the Deathmarks after Troops choices. In objectives games, these guys will VoD onto an objective to contest it in the final turn.

I would then have the C'Tan hide in terrain (Immune to Natural Law is awesome on the terrain-heavy table my friends use) or else in the shadow of the Monolith. Nothing new here.

The Catacomb Command Barges are there to generally wreak havoc. Given their mobility, they could be a nightmare for victims of the Tremorstaves.

I prefer to use Immortals with Tesla Carbines over Warriors, because I think the ability to move and shoot in order to kite an opponent is key if you want to make the most out of the Tremorstaves. However, the one boat of Warriors is there to park on an objective if need be.

I don't think there is much point in putting more than one Tremorstave into a single unit, as its effects do not stack. However, by adding in the Lanceteks, each unit now has some anti-tank to it as well as a couple of Solar Pulses, that IMO are must-takes for Necrons.

I've used this list, and it worked quite well.

Well, I agree that Scythe Spam is a tough list (our version of Razor spam?)

My initial vision of this Quake list was more defensive (sit back and shoot), but it's pretty clear that it needs to be played somewhat aggressively. Deepstriking Deathmarks/Immortals, CCBarges, Heavy Destroyers and maybe a Doomscythe or two can really bring the hurt to an enemy that decides to sit back and wait.

So, a procedural question... when does an opponent need to make dangerous tests? Movement phase, and if they run during the shooting phase, and if they assault, right? What if they consolidate?

Can this type of list be run @ the 1500pt level? Or are too many points sunk into the HQ and C'Tan? If it can be done, what would said list look like?

Thanks!

Regarding the IG turtle, we have a solar pulse or two to get ourselves into a killing position - Artillery is not hard to wreck.

Doomsday arks combined with solar pulses are really the answer to a lot of those problems - by positioning ourselves at 60+ inches with a good vantage point - we can have up to 2 turns of unanswered shooting to take out the enemy's long range threats.

Unlike doom scythes, who have to chew their way through the lines of enemy defenses, the doomsday ark can immediately go for the center of the enemy force. It almost makes me want to play 3.

If the enemy wants to deal with your Arks, they need to move into range; and those units are the ones first hit with quake.

Against outflankers/deep strikers, we need units like scythes and tomb blades to be able to fall back into defensive positions to protect them.

Anything that moves within 12" of the enemy is in danger of granting the enemy a 6" assault move, which is doubly bad because then the enemy is locked in CC and can't be shot.

To really make a go of this quake thing, we have to be able to stay between 19"-24" of our enemies, safe from charges but within our shooting distance; forcing enemies to move every round to react to our positioning.

The quake list pushes enemies around; if they choose to remain stationary, that's a benefit, not a drawback, as you can get better firing positions, deny LOS, use cover while taking theirs away. A stationary army isn't assaulting you either.

In fact, a stationary army is giving you control of all 3 phases.
Movement phase - you dictate which units will be in range
Shooting Phase - you are free to cherry pick your tagets
Assault Phase - you decide when assault happens

So feth a stationary army, who cares; if you lose to it, it's your own damn fault.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chaplain Pallantide wrote:Can this type of list be run @ the 1500pt level? Or are too many points sunk into the HQ and C'Tan? If it can be done, what would said list look like?

Thanks!

C'tan, Overlord, 3 Stave Court, 1 Pulsetek, Orikan = 660
C'tan, Phaeron, Phaeron, 6 Staves, 2 Pulses = 770

You'll still have enough points for 4 troops, 2 transports, 2 doomsday arks, or some tomb blades, or a monolith, etc...

Ok I'm beginning to see the advantages. Superior fire-power at long range while maintaining mobile superiority. I still have some issues:

- You won't be able to stop all the vehicles in a cheap mechanized list. DE and IG are similar in this regard. They can both field a ton of cheap transports. If searchlights go off or if a few key units don't fail that Dangerous terrain test the Necron line will get fractured pretty quick. Target priority will be key for the Necrons in this match-up knowing which units pose the most threat and having something capable of taking them out. Relying on a 1 or 2 failed DT test seems unreliable. Something has to be able to hit hard at any threats that make it through. Now this said IG is probably easier to deal with. Not all their armour necessarily wants to be mobile. Knock out a few sacrificial searchlighting Chimeras and the job is done. DE is more of a concern. They generally want to get in your face (right where Necrons don't want them to be) and they have too many vehicles you have to deal with. Something to think about (will be doing that myself).

- All foot lists won't be as troubled. An all infantry gunline even less so. IG are really the only ones who do it well. But they can take a couple of turns of pulses and still pump out enough shots after 2 turns and hit back hard. Orks would struggle with mobile elements, but a Green Tide list would perhaps just roll right over into the Necrons deployment zone regardless of Difficult/ Dangerous terrain. That would need to be mitigated somehow. More Tesla seems key in that particular match-up.

Looking forward to more thoughts on the matter.

Vs. Mech armies -

Tesla Destructors can penetrate but have difficulty killing due to -1.
Gauss Gunlines can glance, difficulty killing.
Dangerous terrain tests can only immobilize.

So could use
1. Scarabs
2. Tomb Blades w/ Particle Beamers
3. Wraiths
4. Doomsday Arks (9-1 Large Blast)
5. Warscythes on CCB
6. Doom Scythes
7. Heavy Destroyers
8. A lance court

1 - Scarabs (150)
+ Cost effective Solution
+ Good mobilty
++ Most reliable anti-mech unit in codex
- - - Requires assault
(Can get stuck in assault)
(Having a target to assault can grant the enemy extra movement)

2. Tomb Blades w/ Particle beamers (150-250 for 5)
+ Highly mobile
+ Small blast marker is good for infantry and vehicles
+ Still cheap (150-200 for 5)
- - Only effective against light armor

3. Wraiths (most effective at 250 for 6)
+ Arguably the most cost effective unit in codex
+ Great multi purpose unit
+ Effective against vehicles and infantry
- - - Requires assault
(Can be locked in assault)
(Having models in assault can grant enemies extra movement)

4. Doomsday ark (175)
++ Superior range
+ Large blast is effective against all targets
+ AP1 for extra killyness
- Must remain stationary

5. CCB Scythelords (190 each)
+ Decent mobility
+ Hard, High priority target
++ Capable of wrecking more than 1 vehicle in a turn
- Requires close range
- Sacrificing phaeron and rezorb support for gunline
- Vulnerable to assaults + Grants free movement

6. Doom Scythe (175)
+ Incredibly powerful 10-1 shooting attack that does not scatter
++ Capable of wrecking more than 1 vehicle in a turn
+ Highly mobile
+ Effective secondary weapon can be fired as well
- Requires close range

7. Heavy Destroyers (180)
+ Good weapon range and Strength
+ Highly mobile
- Relatively expensive for damage output

8. Lance-teks (4 costs 140) (assuming we're using at least 1 already, and using 4 infantry squads)
+ Good weapon strength and range
+/- Attached to unit
- Requires transport for mobility





Automatically Appended Next Post:
This was much easier with the wraith wing.


Here's what I'm thinking so far based on what we've all discussed.

If we use orikan, we can deny at least some degree of alpha/beta striking and limit the advance of horde armies to a small degree.

If we use double courts, we'd ideally want 4-5 infantry squads so we can get maximum coverage with our staves and quake the front line of our enemy every turn. 6 Tremorstaves and 2-4 lances so we can also punch those units as well.

If we limit the front line movement, we force the enemy to either bunch up or spread laterally.

With a lateral spread, we want harassing units like scythes and tomb blades; with a bunched up enemy we want big blasts like doomsday arks.

Defending the C'tan is an afterthought, if we lose writing worldscape on round 3, it's not going to break us, the quake feature to reduce movement is what we're really looking at here.

Monoliths can be used as mobile terrain, but beyond that we have better choices in our heavy slot.

Doom scythes are very attractive, but they need to be used with adept precision and only on the very edges of the enemy line to reduce return fire.

So far tomb blades look good - but scarabs are still pretty compelling as a fast attack choice, and heavy destroyers, though not cost effective, are still attractive.

We're all about spreading out the hurt in this build, dealing with the entire enemy force as a single entity; but still aiming for high priority threats.

The gunline needs to be the heart of the army, but I'm still on the fence about warriors in ghost arks or Immortals.

Where's everyone else at?

I like your analysis on a unit by unit pro and con basis. Heavy Destroyers start to look particularly attractive with their range and mobility.

I would stay away from Scarabs. They have to advance to be effective and are much less effective vs vehicles that move 12", which is what people are going to be doing when you Quake them. They will go for positioning earlier as they may not get that opportunity late game.

Wraiths, while great, have the same issue. Any counter attack units your opponents have may be able to deal with them and give consolidate moves forward.

I would look at something like:

Overlord
Warscythe
CC Barge

Overlord
Warscythe
CC Barge

RC1
HoD tek w/ Solar Pulse
3x Quake teks

RC2
HoD tek w/ Solar Pulse
2x HoD teks
Quake tek

5x Warriors w/ Night Scythe
5x Warriors w/ Night Scythe
5x Warriors w/ Night Scythe
5x Warriors

2x Heavy Destroyers
2x Heavy Destroyers

Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark
Doom Scythe

Takes you to 1985pts. You have some harassment units, some sit back and shoot units and some solid counter punch if your opponent makes a move forward.

Bunching up and spreading out is now a concern for your opponent. Bunching up makes them vulnerable to Tesla arcs, the Doom Scythe and the Large Blasts. Spreading out means they lack support if you go for the throat with some of the mobile elements (Scythes and CC Barges) on a flank.

For me personally I'm still preferring the Scythes over Ghost Arks.

I think I'd take ghost arks in this list, as you can shoot tremor staves out of them.

I don't think the army needs Phaeron gun line to work.

2 Surfboard Lords with courts
C'Tan with spirit dust and WW.
MSU warriors in arks (180 each)
Maybe a unit of warriors on foot (seismic crucible if you do)
Monolith for the C'Tan to hide behind, earning a 3++.
Then Stalkers, scarabs,annihilation barges to round out the list.

Ha, completely forgot the Writhing Worldscape C'tan in my list. Scrap that then.

I don't think that night scythes are right for this list. It's kinda simplistic, but if your troops are loaded into the scythe, they can't shoot.

Here's my attempt at a 1500 list:
2x Plain Overlords
RC #1
Destructek w/Pulse
Destructek
Transmogtek
RC#2
Destructek w/Pulse
2x Transmogtek
3 units 5x Warriors + Ghost Ark
C'Tan w/WW and SS
4x Tombblades w/Particle Beamers
Doomsday Ark
1500 total

The Sentient Singularity just uses up 30 points I had left over... Dropping it to Entropic Touch and Warscythes on the Overlords might be better. It's not a satisfying list for me... it doesn't 'feel' right yet.

Maybe rely on the monolith for the mobility...
Anyway, at 1500 the list needs to be more defensive because we just don't have the points for the more aggressive components.

EDIT:Second attempt at a 1500 list
2x Overlords, warscythes and CCBarges
RC #1
Destructek w/Pulse
Destructek
Transmogtek
RC#2
Destructek w/Pulse
2x Transmogtek
3 units 5x Warriors
C'Tan with WW and Grand Illusions
2x Doomsday Arks
5x Tombblades w/gauss

I like this much better. Do you think it's on the right track?

I never said anything about having the Troops in the Scythes. They are a fast threat that can push and take advantage of any spreading out. And if your opponent castles you punish them for it with all the Blasts and the Doom Scythes Death Ray.

Now I'm going to think about this some more...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Back to the drawing board here. Take the essential units first:

C'tan - Writhing Worldscape and Grand Illusion
4x Quake Teks
1x HoD tek w/ Solar Pulse
5x Warriors
5x Warriors
5x Warriors
5x Warriors

That's now a base of 695pts with 4 Troops choices, 1 Elite and at least 1 Royal Court. Realistically we want a 2nd so the HoD tek can have a home too. Then we start to add:

Overlord
Warscythe
CC Barge

Overlord
Warscythe
CC Barge

RC 1 and 2 (combined)
4x Quake teks
2x Pulse Teks

Now that's 1110pts. Then you add the essential heavies (am going with conventional internet wisdom here):

Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark

Up to 1460. I guess this would be the "core" of a Quake list and anything above that would be at the discretion of the player. Tomb Blades, Scythes and H. Destroyers all have a place.

I like where this is going.

I definitely think we have a 4 infantry unit minimum because we want to maximize our quake saturation.

The only time troops should be embarked in night scythe is either for 1st turn placement or late game objective drops. They should never spend 2 consecutive turns embarked.

I'm tempted to agree though that 2 ghost arks isn't a bad choice. Though I'd want to kit it out with 2 small squads embarked in ghost arks, and two large phaeron squads supported by ghost arks.

I'm also tempted to say that heavy support should be 2 doomsday arks and one doom scythe for surgical strikes, or perhaps 2 doom scythes and 1 doomsday ark.

I'll get back in here with some numbers soon.

Perhaps 1 Doom Scythe and 2 CC Barges are enough of a threat first Turn? For sure they will be taking the brunt of the enemies firepower. In that case Night Scythes are perhaps unnecessary and points can be spent buffing up the squads a bit and maybe adding Heavy Destroyers.

So with that in mind:

Adding a Doom scythe, 2 Ghost Arks and 2 Heavy Destroyers take my list total to 1985.

I've liked the Tremorstaves/Writhe/Orikan thing quite a bit so far, though I've only been running two 'staves, as thus far my list is a bit scattered.

Watching this thread eagerly for ideas as well as looking to try a few of these ones. Glad people are thinking on this.

Okay so after a little playtesting, I've come to the conclusion that I really hate Min. Sized warrior squads.

They are almost completely useless, and for a slight price hike they can be tesla immortals and be highly useful anti-infantry models.

Also, murdering the deathstar posed a problem for me, so I came up with an anti-deathstar unit I'm going to try. Cracking armor, that's got to a job for a dedicated anti armor unit, and I kind of like the Heavy destroyers for that. S9 at 36" , not amazing but on jump infantry, I'll take it.

I want to fight and kill infantry, not get into drawn out shooting matches with vehicles. I want my enemies disembarked so they can be zzzzaped by tesla.

The 8 Scarab swarm can also be 2 more Heavy Destroyers. The two Night Scythes can be two annihilation barges, a doomsday ark, or a doom scythe - but I feel like in this set up, the two annihilation barges with underslung gauss are the best move.

The 10 Deathmark Squad gets the Phaeron and the VOD-Tek. Along with a Tremor-tek. Redeployment shennanigans with C'tan, and harassment from the flanks.

So, in the end the 5 infantry units get tremorstaves for quake saturation, 2 lucky immortal squads get pulse teks.

The Night Scythes are here to deposit 2 immortal squads and then feth off, harassing enemy lines, stun locking vehicles and softening infantry.

I left the Scythelord in CCB in as a kamikazi pilot; Sweep a vehicle, disembark, assault a vehicle. Die. Worth it.


Here's what I'm thinking:

HQ: 640
Warscythe-Lord in CCB
Phaeron with Resorb
5x Tremor-teks
2x Pulse-teks
1x VoD-tek

Elite: 450
C'tan - WW, GI
10 x Deathmarks

Fast Attack: 360
2x H. Destroyers
2x H. Destroyers
8x Scarabs

Troops: 540
4x5 Tesla Immortals
2 Night Scythe

4 Heavy Destroyers eh...

What about a stalker and some spiders instead? 1 Triarch Stalker, drop Gauss on it if you like (I wouldn't), and two spyders, maybe one with a gloom prism.

You'd have to shave a couple points somewhere, maybe a couple scarab bases. (you'll be able to create some anyway).

The destroyers are more mobile and have a better effective range than the stalkers - while the stalkers do have multi-meltas which are more effective, they should never be in melta range for this build (so the destroyers are actually better for getting those pens) as I never want to provide my opponent the free assault movement, and especially not to engage a Stalker that could potentially be tied up in cc for the entire game.

The scarabs are meant to be a disposable tarpit, anything the opponent has that can potentially reach ranks before it can be killed (enemy walkers, jump infantry, or hard armored targets) The only reason i'd add a 50 point spyder is to give them an extra 2" on the charge. If anything I'd want spyders armed with particle beamers, and in that case, I'd rather have tomb blades. Trading those scarabs out for another 2 h. destroyers is also a solid decision, I feel.

I think that I might do that for the next playtest.

The way I see it, orikan and the stormlord with a ctan and 2 tremor staves force your opponent to either full reserve to dodge lightning and orikan, or fully deploy and weather the storm so to speak. Thus, the rest of the list should try and take advantage of this.

Necrons cant really block board edges, as the scythe is a tall model like the vendetta so there will most likely be areas you can drive under. No other necron vehicle is fast enough to be blocking by turn 2.

This leads me to believe a cc list is the answer. 9 spiders with 12 wraiths and scarabs, if the enemy reserves, will assault them as soon as they come on. In addition, the scarabs will be huge on turn 3. Finally, cc lists dont care about night fight.

It depends on what it's going up against.

I just had a tremor list OBLITERATE a ravenwing bike list.

Dawn of war... he was forced to move most of his units onto the board because he didn't declare them in reserves... He lost 7 bikes and immobilized 2 speeders t1. From there it just went down hill for him.

So yes, it's viable vs certain lists, things that really come to mind are bike-based lists like ravenwing, and most Ork tactics since they revolve around horde and mech/bikes for the most part.

In the general case however, I don't think it would be a good idea to bring it to a tournament or anything like that. It's too fragile when it's going up against something it's not effective against (stationary armies, armies with lots of invuln saves, etc).

DevianID wrote:The way I see it, orikan and the stormlord with a ctan and 2 tremor staves force your opponent to either full reserve to dodge lightning and orikan, or fully deploy and weather the storm so to speak. Thus, the rest of the list should try and take advantage of this.

Necrons cant really block board edges, as the scythe is a tall model like the vendetta so there will most likely be areas you can drive under. No other necron vehicle is fast enough to be blocking by turn 2.

This leads me to believe a cc list is the answer. 9 spiders with 12 wraiths and scarabs, if the enemy reserves, will assault them as soon as they come on. In addition, the scarabs will be huge on turn 3. Finally, cc lists dont care about night fight.

IMO - and again, I could be wrong here but:

If I'm making a CC list, I'm not wasting my points on a C'Tan with WW and 6 Tremorstaves. I'm just going to use a wraithwing.
Blocking board edges is weak sauce, hard to pull off, and a miscalculation will let the enemy assault your entire line.
The point of a quake list is to keep your enemy away from you, reduce their tactical options by cutting mobility.
I'm not really feeling Imotekh at all in this build, we're already overpaying for a C'tan; buying a 225 HQ that has negligible benefit isn't a sound decision.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

WanderingFox wrote:It depends on what it's going up against.

I just had a tremor list OBLITERATE a ravenwing bike list.

Dawn of war... he was forced to move most of his units onto the board because he didn't declare them in reserves... He lost 7 bikes and immobilized 2 speeders t1. From there it just went down hill for him.

So yes, it's viable vs certain lists, things that really come to mind are bike-based lists like ravenwing, and most Ork tactics since they revolve around horde and mech/bikes for the most part.

In the general case however, I don't think it would be a good idea to bring it to a tournament or anything like that. It's too fragile when it's going up against something it's not effective against (stationary armies, armies with lots of invuln saves, etc).

The objective is to build a list that works well Against a stationary army, and use Quake to turn an opponent that you face into a stationary army.

Well i played my version, and found it to be very effective. Granted I was playing against a deathwing all termies list and 1000 points of howling banshees, I still felt it worked. Even with a ++3 and fnp, termies are still at risk to be killed by dangerous terrain. In the end, I fielded 2 squads of stationary immortals and 2 ghost arks. The arks had a lance each, and the stationary guys had the tremorstaffs. I found the staves to be worthless against vehicles, and not worth the shooting. They worked well against infantry however even as plain shooting weapons.

One important thing to remember is that enemies have to take difficult (and thus dangerous) terrain when assaulting. This means that you can pretty much count on the enemy failing to assault you from 12 inches, and if they even try to move (if they take the difficult test) they still have to take dangerous terrain. I spent the last 2 turns of the game backpeddling away a squad of terminators with my formerly stationary immortals, whittling them down to 2 models. My immortals then assaulted them with FC and killed both.

The list works if you can prioritize well. Transports are the first to go, then sniffer wiffles and poison, then AT. Then you can focus (around 3rd turn) on infantry, which is easy.

If I'm making a CC list, I'm not wasting my points on a C'Tan with WW and 6 Tremorstaves. I'm just going to use a wraithwing.
Blocking board edges is weak sauce, hard to pull off, and a miscalculation will let the enemy assault your entire line.
The point of a quake list is to keep your enemy away from you, reduce their tactical options by cutting mobility.
I'm not really feeling Imotekh at all in this build, we're already overpaying for a C'tan; buying a 225 HQ that has negligible benefit isn't a sound decision.

Well Junk, think about what you want writhing worldscape to do. You want to seal enemy movement, keep the enemy out of terrain, and punish turn 1 moves. Basicly, you are trying to control where and how the other player can play the game. Imotekh, with nightfighting and out of turn lightning that hits any unit on the table goes with this theme. Assault, with the nature of locking the enemies shooting, and the additional leadership penalties for losing a combat, also go with this theme.

So in the end, Imotekh seals their shooting. Orikan and the ctan with a few tremor crypteks seal their movement. 12 wraiths, 9 spyders, and 10 scarabs grown to 37 strong seal their assault. The crons have the tools to lock up the entire enemy force in every phase of the enemies own turn.

@junk I get the idea... It's just it's not points viable outside of like 2k+ Just to get it to be effective you need to spend over 200pts on the c'tan and another 180-something for orikan. And then at least another 50-100 more points on the crypteks... Leaving you with less than 1k points to actually put into real damaging units.

I personally just see taking wraith-wing or s8+ spam as being more cost effective. /shrug

At 2000, I was considering running

Squad 1
Imotekh the Stormlord
Orikan the Diviner
Harbinger of Eternity + Chronometron
Harbinger of Despair + Veil of Darkness
5 Lords 5x Warscythe, 5x Mindshackle Scarabs 1x Resurrection Orb
Ghost Ark (hop on 1st turn)

Squads 2 + 3
5 Warriors + Ghost Ark
Harbinger of Transmogrification

Squads 4
5 Warriors
Harbinger of Transmogrification

C'Tan Shard + Writhing Worldscape + Grand Illusion

Annihilation Barge

2x 5 Tomb Blades w/ Gauss Blasters


For the tremor-necrons to work, I agree that you need a threat that capitalizes on the opponent's lack of mobility. I do like the Doomsday Arks, but I decided to go a different route, RC Deathstar

The ICs plus most of the RC hop into an empty Ghost ark Turn 1, Squads 2, 3, Annihilation Barge, and the Tomb Blades can move up quickly or slowly to best snipe at ~21" away. Squad 4 and the C'tan would hang back for objectives missions, or advance slowly for annihilation. Turn 2, the RC Deathstar really shines, you can move the GA 12", open topped disembark anywhere around it 2" and still assualt 6". If you really need to squeeze a bit of range for a multi-assault, you can run also and even use the chronometron to reroll the run distance and only lose a little bit of shooting. The more they spread out, the more they have trouble converging on the RC. They closer they bunch, the more multi-assault options you have.

Ghost arks and Tomb blades bring a lot of mobile gauss weaponry to bear on the opponent. This (plus the tremor-staves + WW) is a strong suppression tactic.

Orikan + WW = 1/3 chance (not 1/6) of a no armor, no cover wound per model on deep strike turn 1. There was a lot of debate about this before the new necron faq, but I thought it was resolved now.

This list has some serious drawbacks, some of which are common to all tremor-necron lists, some are more specific.
1) Ordnance Barrage options are very strong against Necrons in general, and tremor-crons more than most. They laugh at your nightfighting and shoot you anyways. Manticores in particular, but many of the IG artillery options are bad news for this type of tactic.
2) Since I chose to use Imotekh + chronometron rather than HoDs and SPs for night fighting, I lose some shootyness. I must now worry about rolling to see to shoot things with my harassing squads.

I would not say this version is the best, but I do hope that I have given you a thing or three to think about. Will keep checking in, I do like this tremor-cron idea in general and think there is probably more than one way to pull it off. I don't think it will ever be as competitive as wraithwing or AV 13 spam, but in certainly has some very strong match-ups (DoW going 1st, vs any drop army, vs most light transport armies, vs most horde armies, etc)

One thing that really impresses me about the Necron codex... it relies on synergy.
If you simply take the best-in-slot choices you get an army that can win, but you don't get one that can dominate. It's a very flexible book, and we aren't likely to have only 2 dominant builds (like most codices). There will literally be 2-3 builds FOR EACH META.

Wraithwing (MTO) is really strong against a mech-heavy meta. Quake is going to dominate against an infantry-heavy meta. Phalanx Necrons will make a comeback at some point. Who knows what's going to happen with 6th edition around the corner, but there will be a Necron build to take advantage of it. Where ever there is a dominant army, those players are going to fear Necrons.

MTO and Wraith seem to be able to run lean... even down to 1500 points without too seriously reducing its effectiveness. Quake doesn't seem to be able to run that lean... 1850 is a struggle, and 2k seems to be where it has all the tools it needs.

That doesn't mean that I'm going to give up on it though. Killing your opponent on his turn is so powerful... maybe 6th will make games significantly faster and we'll be playing standard tournaments at 2250 or 2500. At that point, I have a feeling that Quake will have more staying power than WW or MTO (to explain, I think that the power of WW or MTO will be diluted by expanding the points that high, and the opponent will have more tools to counter it). Quake truly benefits from your opponent having more units on the board!




Of course, I could be completely wrong! I usually am.

Don't forget Scythe Spam...

Config2 wrote:
One important thing to remember is that enemies have to take difficult (and thus dangerous) terrain when assaulting.

I believe that Quake's effect is limited to your opponent's movement phase, but otherwise, great input!


Deviant: Interesting point. Using only short range shooting is walking a razor sharp line with the measurement game:
So I'm clear on this, you're saying that Quake/Worldscape is a worthwhile addition to a Necron CC army? I'd like to see your 2000. I'm open to it.


Fox: You're against Tremorcrons entirely, then? There's no way in your opinion for it to compete at the top levels?
- See, here's the philosophical element to it that leads me to believe that somewhere in this jigsaw puzzle there is a killer list - Dangerous Terrain Tests are Indiscriminate; they kill terminators and guardsmen alike, they cripple ork mobs and crash eldar skimmers; Necrons are the only army that can feth with rules of the game - Night fighting? Yeah we turn it on and off like a light switch. Teleportation, All day, pretty much any unit we've got; re-rolls, tesla, twin link everything... Is that unit dead? nope, its back. Out of all the wacky stuff necrons can do, Writhing Worldscape is probably the most comprehensive game changer there is; and if we can't figure out a way to exploit that, we might as well all just go play checkers.


Mortal: The Royal Deathstar - interesting, with Imotekh and Orikan to boot, 1 barge, and 2x5 Tomb Blades, 3 minimum scoring units and 2 ghost arks. I'll have to double check the codex, I'm not sure if your royal court unit distribution is legal, I'll get back to you on that, could be fine though. I see some difficulty with target saturation and vehicle disabling. The Deathstar wants to be in CC, the warriors and tomb blades dont. I think the CC Court works better under Nemesor's guidance; but I'm not on top of that one either... We'll have to do a mini one of these to talk about the Necron Deathstar tactic.

Anpu: I agree that it's tough to nail down Necrons, It's kind of why I've been so into the tactica. I'm still in love with my wraithwing, and it has yet to let me down. I'm also a big fan of scythespam. Scarab Farm is very impressive. Just about the only build I don't love is the Warrior Wall. Still trying to get a JumpCron list together as well - a build that takes advantage of Double D.Lords without spamming wraiths (using destroyers and praetorians), but that one is even harder than Tremorcron.


One of the things I'd like to throw in to invigorate this discussion is, If the c'tan were a little bit cheaper, I might throw Worldscape into all my necron games, if for no other reason than to prevent my opponents from taking advantage of area terrain. Most games have 25% of the map covered in terrain. Again, even without Orikan or Quake, that's 25% of the map that has just become a death sentance for 1/6 of your enemy's infantry, and a potential burial ground for his vehicles.

junk wrote:
Mortal: The Royal Deathstar - interesting, with Imotekh and Orikan to boot, 1 barge, and 2x5 Tomb Blades, 3 minimum scoring units and 2 ghost arks. I'll have to double check the codex, I'm not sure if your royal court unit distribution is legal, I'll get back to you on that, could be fine though. I see some difficulty with target saturation and vehicle disabling. The Deathstar wants to be in CC, the warriors and tomb blades dont. I think the CC Court works better under Nemesor's guidance; but I'm not on top of that one either... We'll have to do a mini one of these to talk about the Necron Deathstar tactic.

10 man RC, 5 Lords, 5 crypteks
3 crypteks split off, one to each warrior unit
2 ICs join remaining 7 man RC

Imotekh is a compromise. I wanted Orikan, that means only one RC. I wanted a CC deathstar, that means no points for doomsday arks as a threat. I needed night fighting to have a chance against gunline. Hence Imotekh. I think he and Orikan have complimentary stat-lines and make for a nice challenge to my opponent. Two 3++ models with up to 7 wounds between them to soak, a phylactery, a res orb, 5 MSS, 5 WS, a relentless trans-dimensional beamer, a destroyer staff, staff of tomorrow, gauntlet of fire, veil of darkness, abysal staff, and one reroll a phase from chronometron ... It's a pretty tough nut to crack, but it ought to be at its points cost. I thought the list I posted was the more balenced approach. I have a version that drops the AB and TBs for a 6-wraith squad

Junk, you've made a compelling case for including Heavy Destroyers.

May I make some suggestions in that vein? Why not include some plain-jane destroyers in that unit. Like one or two. They still have some reasonable shooting (2 S5 Ap3 24" Guass shots), and can take the first couple wounds in your unit. I'm thinking just one or two. Like, a dude to take a Krak Missle to the face for the team, instead of losing a 60point model.

If you're forcing an opponent to stay still, if he's mech heavy, the targets are going to be the Heavy Destroyers, IMO.

I still really like the idea of having a Triarch Stalker in the mix though. Even with a TL Heavy Guass. For interest, I'd playtest the S7 AP4 pie plate gun for +5 points, if you can get the TL bonus on a couple of different units (due to the size of the template), that can increase the effectiveness of the rest of your armies shooting (the tremor staves hitting, in particular). You'd still need an anti-mech option though...

So since you asked Junk, here is a sample list

Stormlord
Orikan
Chronometron Cryptek
2 Tremor Cryptek
Writhing Worldscape/Spirit Dust Ctan
3x5 warriors
12 Wraiths
10 Scarabs
9 Spyders

Now, with the scant points left at this point, you have a few options. You can add some minor upgrades to the wraiths for wound allocations, 1 gloom prism for spyders is basicly mandatory, or a few extra warriors for the Chrono/Stormlord/Orikan unit. The chrono can be used either to keep nightfighting around or align Orikan to Ctan status. With Orikan empowered, you have only 2 tremor units in the list that are not killy assault units.

I don't have my dex in front of me so this has to be fine tuned a bit, but if I was ever to go WW w/Orikan I would finagle something like this:
H-Q

Imotehk
Orikan
RC
Tremortek
Tremortek
VoidTek

ELITES
C'Tan WW/LoF
C'Tan (forget names but lazz canon and stealth)
C'Tan Gaze of Death/Large Pie Plate

TROOPS
20 Warriors (VeilTek
5 Warriors (one tremortek)
5 Warriors (other tremortek)

HEAVY SUPPORT
Monolith
Monolith

Pretty sure I'm over a tad, but you get the basic idea. Reserve one Mono so it can come in turn two with the help of Orikan and give the C;tan (preferably the Gazer) some mobility options. Hide the big boys behind the other lith as they move down the field, keeping the WW/LofF C'tan in the middle to keep him well out of LOS.

The 2+ turns of NF should give the big toys plenty time to get into position, and then its yum yum time with 4 nasty MCs.

DevianID wrote:
Stormlord
Orikan
Chronometron Cryptek
2 Tremor Cryptek
Writhing Worldscape/Spirit Dust Ctan
3x5 warriors
12 Wraiths
10 Scarabs
9 Spyders

Okay, I could see that working as a reason to include Imotekh.
Why spirit dust on the C'tan, if night fighting is up, I don't see the need for stealth. As usual I'd recommend Grand illusion to redeploy scarabs and wraiths as close to the enemy lines as possible.
9 spyders seems like a big investment; but we stick particle beamers on them, then at least they're useful outside of scarab spawning.
Killing 5 spiders allows for 2 ghost arks, and I'd kind of like to see one more stave in there.

Once the enemy is locked in CC, the Writhing worldscape loses value. So it wouldn't be a bad idea to just throw the Ctan into the melee as well; in which case Gaze might be a good upgrade for him.

---

Shadar, you're mad - I've never even imagined putting 3 c'tans into one list!
Realistically, the problem there is how slowly the c'tan actually move, but I guess if you're slowing down the opponent, this is probably the only way you're going to get them where you want them.
Strange, have you tried it?

Actually, I see some hidden synergies in Shadar's madness. The monoliths can be used to reposition the C'tan and the monolith's portal of Exile is much better against enemies that are mobility restricted. I don't agree with his C'tan power choices, but it's an interesting idea.

After my game last night, I see how minimum warriors are a problem without enough other threats on the board. They couldn't make much of a dent in a blob of IG troops (and I failed way to many RP rolls...)
It was just a 500 point league game, so I didn't get to test any of the other ideas.

Shadar's list is weird... it oddly relies of terrain and also having an open space for the Monoliths to land in.

foolishmortal wrote:Actually, I see some hidden synergies in Shadar's madness. The monoliths can be used to reposition the C'tan and the monolith's portal of Exile is much better against enemies that are mobility restricted. I don't agree with his C'tan power choices, but it's an interesting idea.

Yeah I'm not 100% sold on the choices either. I really like the Gazer coming out of the lith as I feel that C'Tan has tremendous potential once it gets stuck in CC. Second power for this one was more of a toss up.

Stealth on the TransThunderbolt so he can peak around corners of the Lith, sniping vehicles, and still get a 3++ against anything that gets some LOS on it.

Finally Lord of Fire on the WW C'Tan because I would like to keep him out of LOS as much as possible, and LofF keeps him somewhat cheaper and brings a bit of protection to the Lith.

Also, not sure if anybody caught this, but Orikan hanging with Imotehk will allow him to shoot the Transdimensional Beamer on the charge, could be fun.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Anpu-adom wrote:
Shadar's list is weird... it oddly relies of terrain and also having an open space for the Monoliths to land in.

I don't fear DSing onto terrain with the Lith, with good placement immobilise is not that big of an issue with the Lith, and it's only a 1/6 chance, not sweating it to badly.

It will invariably always immobilize when you really don't want it to.

Shadar, you're mad - I've never even imagined putting 3 c'tans into one list!
Realistically, the problem there is how slowly the c'tan actually move, but I guess if you're slowing down the opponent, this is probably the only way you're going to get them where you want them.
Strange, have you tried it?

Yeah I started slinging around the idea for funsies, haven't actually run it yet, but I feel as you pointed out that if they were going to thrive in any lists they would need A.) A couple Monos for LOS protection and mobility and B.) WW and lots of terrain shenanigans to keep stuffs locked in place so you can get to it and munch on it. and C.) Plenty of turns of night fighting to minimise pewpew until they can chopchop.

I need a third Shard to run it myself, been really playing around with different kit ideas on this one. Not sure how "competitive" the list will turn out, however you should be able to dictate the course of the of the fight, which generally means with good general-ship you'll win more then you'll lose.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

-666- wrote:It will invariably always immobilize when you really don't want it to.

Tru, Murphy's Law tends to trump statistics.

I played a 1500 list that included Orikan and WW C'tan earlier today. We rolled for deployment and mission - Dawn of War / Sieze Ground (4). Very shooty mechanized GK list for my opponent. He put two empty transports (with searchlights) on the board and said go, reserving nothing. I put 2 troops and Imotekh down, stole initiative, walked almost everyone else on (reserved a monolith) and said go. He asked me if I was going to shoot at him. I passed, tried not to giggle, and asked him if he had ever played against Orikan and WW before. He said no.

He lost 2 transports + their contents, all three of his dreadnoughts (1 to a dangerous terrain test, 2 from not being able to move them fully on the board). The two squads on foot both only came on 1" and suffered about 40% casualties from dangerous terrain.

The guy is a nice guy and it was a casual game. We called a mulligan and let him reserve his army. I ended up with a minor loss. I did not have enough threats in the list to take advantage of his lack of mobility and I failed to keep nightfighting going after turn 1. I have a few insights.

1) GK vehicles are very hard for necrons to suppress with gauss
2) If you are counting on your monolith to move your C'tan next turn, it will get melta'd this turn.
3) GK halbards are bad news for wraiths WCs
4) GK psychotropic grenades make me want to cry

Spirit Dust grants offensive and defensive grenades in addition to stealth. Defensive grenades are great for when you get charged by an enemy around other units--if they multiassault your ctan and scarabs for example, they would lose their charge bonus.

foolishmortal wrote:I played a 1500 list that included Orikan and WW C'tan earlier today. We rolled for deployment and mission - Dawn of War / Sieze Ground (4). Very shooty mechanized GK list for my opponent. He put two empty transports (with searchlights) on the board and said go, reserving nothing. I put 2 troops and Imotekh down, stole initiative, walked almost everyone else on (reserved a monolith) and said go.

What was your list?

Foolishmortal,
Thanks for the report.

I don't know enough about the GK vehicles... why would gauss have difficulty suppressing them (more than BA, or SM vehicles?)

Anpu-adom wrote:Foolishmortal,
Thanks for the report.

I don't know enough about the GK vehicles... why would gauss have difficulty suppressing them (more than BA, or SM vehicles?)

They have a living metalish psychic ability that if the pass the test they ignore shaken and stunned.

So it sounds like we need to make sure that we have enough s8, low ap firing. This is another area that we'll struggle with in low point games (when 2 Royal Courts are not an option).

Are there enough psychic powers that we need to be worried about that we need to include spyders? Will spyders give us enough protection from psychic powers that they become an auto-include?

Anpu, no there are not enough damaging or targeted psychic powers to make spyders an autoinclude. Mainly a lot of the better powers are buffs, like basicly all the GK book, a lot of Eldar powers, the most common BA powers, ect.

Now, jaws stinks still, and weaken resolve still hurts bad, and lash still has bite with the recent faq, but the 115 points for 2 spyders with a gloom add on is quite an investment for only those few matchups. Now, if it was automatic, or better than a 4+, then maybe. But for 115 you need to get more useage than just 50% to stop a power from messing with you.

Now, if you already have spyders, then its only 15 for a gloom. In that case, you should always have 1, because your cost of entry is only 15 points, and no additional FOC slot.

If we're going to talk about spyders, lets really talk about spyders...

Holy crap these things are cheap.

If you saw this unit on the Proposed Rules forum you'd probably say NO WAY, OP.

Why aren't tyranid players jealous! 50 points for a T6 Fearless MC with 3W? Top that, pain engine! For a paltry 25 points we get a range 24" twin linked S6 blast marker? Why am I not running 9 of these things? (because that would cost 675 points, idiot)

No I'd much rather get 3 of these bad boys, put a fabricator claw on one, a gloom prism on another, and maybe, maybe, maybe, use another 75 points on top to give them all scary effective guns. (Twin Linked!)

Obviously, everyone looks at them as scarab factories - but we all know from experience that scarabs last until turn three if we're lucky. Once the scarabs are done, these things become suicide MC's... or do they?

Lets take these things out of the box - Why not make them gun toting killing machines? Let me rephrase: Make them gun toting killing machines.

1500 Orikan + WW C'tan list, played in a casual game


Heavy Support: Monolith

Elite: C'Tan Shard + Writhing Worldscape + Grand Illusion

Fast Attack: Canoptek Wraiths + Whip Coil x3

Fast Attack: 5x Tomb Blades w/ GBs

HQ: Imotekh the Stormlord

HQ: Orikan the Diviner

: Royal Court
1 Harbinger of Eternity + Chronometron

Troops:
2x 10 Immortals w/ GBs

junk wrote:If we're going to talk about spyders, lets really talk about spyders...

Holy crap these things are cheap.

If you saw this unit on the Proposed Rules forum you'd probably say NO WAY, OP.

Why aren't tyranid players jealous! 50 points for a T6 Fearless MC with 3W? Top that, pain engine! For a paltry 25 points we get a range 24" twin linked S6 blast marker? Why am I not running 9 of these things? (because that would cost 675 points, idiot)

No I'd much rather get 3 of these bad boys, put a fabricator claw on one, a gloom prism on another, and maybe, maybe, maybe, use another 75 points on top to give them all scary effective guns. (Twin Linked!)

Obviously, everyone looks at them as scarab factories - but we all know from experience that scarabs last until turn three if we're lucky. Once the scarabs are done, these things become suicide MC's... or do they?

Lets take these things out of the box - Why not make them gun toting killing machines? Let me rephrase: Make them gun toting killing machines.

Against non-vehicles, I have found Spyders lacking in CC. I thought that the general feeling was that the gun was gak... maybe it is in light of scarab swarm lists. In my 500 point league game, I found my self wanting a template weapon to kill horde of foot guard I was facing. Same when I play 'Nidsl, and I think that Spyders may be the way to go.

When is the claw warranted? Is is only for wound allocation?
Gloomprism will help against force weapons... right?





Automatically Appended Next Post:
How did the game turn out, Foolishmortal?

Immortals in GB?

Against Non Vehicles, the spyders will stand their ground against MeQs provided there's no Power Fist in the mix. They need 4 to hit and 2 to wound, while the enemy needs 3 to hit and 6 to wound. They will kill one model per turn for 3+ turns.

The Claw is a handy upgrade on fast vehicles; like in scythespam lists when you want to repair some weapon desroyed tesla destructors; but I'd usually have one any time I have a few vehicles and spyders.

The way we play it locally, gloom prism, does not prevent force weapon activation because it doesn't target blah blah blah, but i've seen it played the other way.

So I had an epiphany last night and decided to look at something like this:

H-Q

Imotehk
Orikan
RC
Tremortek
Tremortek
VoidTek

ELITES
C'Tan WW/LoF
C'Tan Gaze of Death/Entropic Strike
17 Flayed Ones

TROOPS
20 Warriors (VeilTek
5 Warriors (one tremortek)
5 Warriors (other tremortek)

HEAVY SUPPORT
Monolith
Monolith

Because I started thinking, who could really benefit from a slowed opponent? The obvious answer was FO's. The first two C'Tan made sense, as they set-up the bookends, but the third one was just redundant.

If FOs were to ever shine, (and I've actually been doing quite well with them in my foot based Imo list) what better opportunity then a landscape where they can actually catch there pray, Imo for the pinpoint DSing and Orikan for the reserve RR? Or hell, just Infiltrate them. Make a 50" long congo line bubble wrapping your opponent at 18" away and close in for the full board turn two tie up.

Also, as far as the C'Tan powers go, I decided on Entropic strike on the Gazer. What am I smoking? Well, outside a couple of Ordies, Imos lighting and 20 phaeroned gauss shots I need any Anti Tank I can get, and Entropic Strike is a nice boost to the C'Tans vehicle munching prowess. Also, with all those FOs running around, Entropic Strike on an MS base makes the FOs Multi Wound model killers (The C'Tan should be able to remove and Armor Save at a higher initiative and then the FOs should be able to finish them off save free, well anything short of T8 at least). FOs only need 4 bases per wound no charge or 3 bases per wound with charge to chop up your bog standard TMC without a save.

Some numbers on Entropic Strike:
AV14 Combat Seed 0.3472 Popeped wo/ES or .486 w/ES

So ES translates into almost a 50% increase in anti vehicle destruction. Also, keep in mind that with all the tremor staves and WW going on the chances of coming across a vehicle who didn't move the previous turn are quite good.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Some other musings as I've considered the potential, a common reaction to both Imo and WW is to fully reserve first turn. This plays right into your hands with FOs and C'Tan. You could Infiltrate the FOs all over the their deployment zone and get the C'Tan half way up the field before the opponent even shows up. Then, when they do show up, it will only be half their army, which helps your Lith DSing (smaller opponent footprint) but also helps your survivability as well, half an army shooting through night fighting at AV 14 should work pretty well for the Cronies.

Note that this kind of list is the only way to get FO charging important targets. If you can judge distances.

At 11" away, the chances of the opponent making the charge on the FO is quite low if making DT tests. And anything the FO successfully charge is going to be in a lot of pain.

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but this theme might be the only one where FO are really worth trying.

The Grog wrote:Note that this kind of list is the only way to get FO charging important targets. If you can judge distances.

At 11" away, the chances of the opponent making the charge on the FO is quite low if making DT tests. And anything the FO successfully charge is going to be in a lot of pain.

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but this theme might be the only one where FO are really worth trying.

Right exactly, (well I tend to disagree with the "might be the only one where FO are really worth trying" part but I certainly agree this list highlights their advantages while minimising their weaknesses.

I've got a feeling that there are many versions that work well at 2k, but trying to scale it down to 1850, 1750, and 1500 are posing to be problems. Here's my attempts at 1500 and 1750

Core Quake
C'tan w/WW and Dust 235
Surfboard Lord 180
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Pulsetek 150

Add on
2x Annibarge 180
2x Spyders w/Fab Claw, Gloomprism, and 2x guns 175
5x Scarabs 75
5x Scarabs 75
Total 1500


Core Quake
C'tan w/WW and Dust 235
Surfboard Lord 180
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Pulsetek 150

Add on
2x Annibarge 180
2x Spyders w/Fab Claw, Gloomprism, and 2x guns 175
6x Scarabs 90
6x Scarabs 90
Total 1745

Hmmm the Flayed Ones Quake List seems interesting...I think I'll proxy some FOs and give it a shot Sunday.

Lets talk about flayed ones a little bit...

Here's my opinion - So inexpensive! Really, so very very inexpensive, it almost makes you want to use them. But why don't they have fleet?

I'm guessing these guys will be much better in 6e. Flayed ones are definitely under-utilized - for 260 points you could infiltrate, outflank, or deep strike a unit of 20 of these things and force your opponent to deal with them.

I think that people are afraid to invest the requisite points in the squad to actually take advantage of them. If only you could add lords and crypteks to them! The real issue I have with flayed ones is for the same cost, you can get 20 warriors, or 10 warriors in a ghost ark, or 9 immortals in a night scythe. Though they fill vastly different roles, the Immortals and Warriors can benefit from royal courts and score objectives.

Flayed ones can be a good tarpit, and they can do a lot of damage if they get the charge. Unless you're using them as outflankers, I don't really see them being helpful except as a sacrifice; and I'd rather use a shooting unit for that. Using the Nemesor's phased reinforcement ability, they can be a little more effective.

Still, for 260 to get 20 necrons, even if they don't have guns, that can go toe to toe with tactical marines and lay down that many attacks... that's a good deal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Anpu-adom wrote:I've got a feeling that there are many versions that work well at 2k, but trying to scale it down to 1850, 1750, and 1500 are posing to be problems. Here's my attempts at 1500 and 1750

Core Quake
C'tan w/WW and Dust 235
Surfboard Lord 180
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Pulsetek 150

Add on
2x Annibarge 180
2x Spyders w/Fab Claw, Gloomprism, and 2x guns 175
5x Scarabs 75
5x Scarabs 75
Total 1500


Core Quake
C'tan w/WW and Dust 235
Surfboard Lord 180
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Pulsetek 150

Add on
2x Annibarge 180
2x Spyders w/Fab Claw, Gloomprism, and 2x guns 175
6x Scarabs 90
6x Scarabs 90
Total 1745

1500: I'd like to see at least 1 more quaketek in there (nice name btw, that should stick); just to make sure that you're distributing enough of those quakes to justify the C'tan. Also, I get that dust is cheap, but with the low volume of anti-tank in there, I think he should have Transdimensional Thunderbolt. Finding the points for those two upgrades are going to be tough; obviously I'm really just looking for more Armor penetration in this list. More than that though, there's no psychological edge; the list lacks teeth. Your targets are right there for everyone to see; and without being able to impact vehicles more than a shaken result, you'll be torn apart my mech lists, even just Psyback Spam.

1750: You're overpaying for those spiders, pick one piece of wargear for each one, and add one more... however, this list is on it's way to being a scarab farm - which might not actually be that bad with Tremorcrons... Maybe we can come up with a QuakerFarm combination?

I see what you mean by missing AT, Junk. That was my major concern as I was writing the list. We can cut some of the scarabs and convert some of the immortals to warrior, but I'm worried that that gives up too much. It definitely needs the Pulsetek for the solar pulse and
See what I mean about a 1500 point list being hard to manage?

Quake Farm... sounds like an insurance company in California... I like it!

Wow, we still don't have a killer build, and we're at the end of page 3... This is sad.

I don't think the Quake-list is viable at 1500. Maybe a double monolith list with Imotekh and 3 quake teks, 20 immortals, 10 scarabs and 3 spyders? Everything hangs behind the monoliths with just the quake teks shooting through the cracks until night fighting fails, then unleashing scarabs, c'tan, and spyders on the enemy line? I suppose you'd want a cheapo upgrade for the c'tan like lord of fire?

Maybe a Double Phaeron phalanx? 40 foot slog warriors, 2 ghost arks, 2 Phaeron's with Resorbs, 2 mini courts in the ghost arks (1 pulse, 1 quake each, with another quake with each warrior squad), Gaze C'tan?

ShadarLogoth wrote:
Right exactly, (well I tend to disagree with the "might be the only one where FO are really worth trying" part but I certainly agree this list highlights their advantages while minimising their weaknesses.

The problem with FO is simple. They have no mobility once on the table, yet they lack the fearless/stubborn needed to accept charges. Even a 20 strong unit of FO has a measurable chance of breaking on the charge to a number of strong yet common melee units, despite a good chance of winning in the end if they don't break that first round.

Thus you have to stay away from those units, which are often faster, while hunting units you can kill, which are just as fast or faster. Even a deepstrike doesn't fix the problem, as anything nearby can simply choose to run away and the FO will have a hard time catching them.

So, you have to either slow those dangerous melee units so you can charge them, shoot them enough that you can win, or have Zhandrek phase them. Which may not help, since the enemy can still choose to move away or turn and charge.

If you are going to shoot enemies down, you are likely better off with a fast moving assault unit so you can charge them anyway. But if you are tremorstaving everything, FO benefit from charges a lot more than Wraiths or Scarabs.

Anpu-adom wrote:
How did the game turn out, Foolishmortal?

Immortals in GB?

Immortals with Gauss Blasters

like I said, he conceded turn one because he lost ~700 points in a 1500 point game when his army walked on the board in DoW turn 1.

I gave him a muligan and he he reserved all his troops. Minor loss for me turn 5. I had 1 objective, he had 2. if it had gone to turn 6 I would have major loss-ed. If my monolith had not gotten melta'd I might have tied or minor won.

The Grog wrote:[quote=ShadarLogoth
Right exactly, (well I tend to disagree with the "might be the only one where FO are really worth trying" part but I certainly agree this list highlights their advantages while minimising their weaknesses.

The problem with FO is simple. They have no mobility once on the table, yet they lack the fearless/stubborn needed to accept charges. Even a 20 strong unit of FO has a measurable chance of breaking on the charge to a number of strong yet common melee units, despite a good chance of winning in the end if they don't break that first round.

Thus you have to stay away from those units, which are often faster, while hunting units you can kill, which are just as fast or faster. Even a deepstrike doesn't fix the problem, as anything nearby can simply choose to run away and the FO will have a hard time catching them.

ShadarLogoth wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:
So I tweaked it a bit and now I'm looking at something like this:

H-Q

Imotehk
Orikan
RC
Tremortek
Pulsetek
VoidTek

ELITES
C'Tan WW/LoF
C'Tan Gaze of Death/Entropic Strike
15 Flayed Ones

TROOPS
15 Warriors (VeilTek
5 Warriors (one tremortek)
5 Warriors (other pulsetek)

HEAVY SUPPORT
Monolith
Monolith

I decided eve with Imo I really wanted to guarantee at least two turns of NF, so the Pulsetek. Also with Orikan and Imo in the squad of warriors I figure 15 should be sufficient, plenty of soak wounds to get the badboys in CC, and 15 Gauss shots it right around prefect to stun lock something should the need arise.

So 60 points left...
4 Scarabs?
2 TremorTeks in their own court?
TS with a claw?

Not sure, but I really really like the way its looking on paper, gonna try to get a game in this weekend.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/02/03 14:29:25

Dark Eldar are very prevalent where I play so c'tan shards do not always see their maximum value in games. I do think if you have terrain that blocks LOS (which monoliths are good for in this list) it can help them survive vs splinter fire that much longer. I fear lance weapons, as well, though so i hate spending 200 points on an AV12 monolith.

Let us know how your playtesting goes with this list, though. As for the 60 points remaining, just beef up your warrior brick & grot squads. Since there are no Ghost Arks or Rez Orbs in those units they'll need the extra numbers to help keep them alive.

Yeah that was originally my goal when I was tweaking last night (that has a strange connotation to it doesn't it?)

Then I get stuck with that 60 point number when Warriors operate best in blocks of 65. Damn You GW!!!

So I could add 4 and have 8 worthless points /shakes fist.

Or I could upgrade the smaller squads to Immortals, and then add Gaze to one and reduce charge distance thingy to the other. I actually kinda dig that idea. Stick them in cover and pump out gauss shots and quake/lance with relative immunity from assaults.

I think we are headed off into too many directions. We need to focus on what the core of the list is and what it brings to the table.

Here is the core of Tremor-crons (which I don't like as a name, because it sounds like a convention for fans 80-90's B Sci-Fi Movies).

@ 2000 points:
C'tan w/WW +1 other power
4-5 Troop choices with Tremorteks

Is there anything else that we need to add as 'core'? Remember, we are trying to force our opponents into making bad decisions.

I like Anpu-adom's core suggestions. I think the next most important decision is whether or not to take Orikan.

He's a game changer that can dramatically impact how your opponent deploys and plays turn 1.

He is not an overlord, thus limiting us to one RC.

So we do have some decisions about our HQ.

Our options are:
Orikan
Imotehk
Surfboard Lord
Phaeron Lord

Orikan Pros:
Relatively cheap
Temporal Snares - forces many armies into a bad choice.

Cons:
No Royal court

Immotehk Pros:
The storm - powerful, but unreliable. I don't see this forcing my opponent into making a choice that they wouldn't normally choose.
Nightfighting - a measure of protection in the early turns
Royal Court

Cons:
Expensive
Nightfighting - limits our shooting

Surfboard Lord Pros
Reliable AT
Early threat
Relatively cheap
Royal Court

Cons:
None?

Phaeron Lord Pros
Makes troops better, much better
Relatively cheap
Royal Court

Cons:
None?


Anything I miss?

ShadarLogoth wrote:

True, but some times just getting their target to move is plenty sufficient. Long Fangs and Dev squads don't like having to move. Rifleman Dreadnoughts don't like getting tar pitted for the rest of the game but generally start at the board edge so don't have a whole lot of running options if you make a B line for them. Plus, if your moving and running, and they are just moving, you'll catch up to them. If you get them moving and running as well, well, again, they are not doing any damage anymore, plus they are now moving in the direction you want them to move, which is a win. There's this mindset out there that a unit has to be able to kill X points throughout the game to be worth taking, but good strategy has never rooted itself in such notions.

That being said, I certainly agree with you that slowing the opponent down makes them much easier to use effectively.

Spending 200+ points in FO to make 100+ points in Long Fangs run isn't really a victory. If you have a unit that kills their points, that's not just a victory because they killed their points but because they went off to do other stuff. Even if that other stuff was just dying to something else. Also, since the running unit isn't dead yet if one of those strong melee units comes and kills the FO all you have done is stall.

Sometimes stalling is all you need. Sometimes you can position FO to make many units run so 200 in FO make 300 points of stuff run. But these situations are less common than 'this unit killed it's weight', which is something the FO can't claim as often as the other options for their role.

How I wish they were troops.

The Grog wrote:

ShadarLogoth wrote:

True, but some times just getting their target to move is plenty sufficient. Long Fangs and Dev squads don't like having to move. Rifleman Dreadnoughts don't like getting tar pitted for the rest of the game but generally start at the board edge so don't have a whole lot of running options if you make a B line for them. Plus, if your moving and running, and they are just moving, you'll catch up to them. If you get them moving and running as well, well, again, they are not doing any damage anymore, plus they are now moving in the direction you want them to move, which is a win. There's this mindset out there that a unit has to be able to kill X points throughout the game to be worth taking, but good strategy has never rooted itself in such notions.

That being said, I certainly agree with you that slowing the opponent down makes them much easier to use effectively.

Spending 200+ points in FO to make 100+ points in Long Fangs run isn't really a victory. If you have a unit that kills their points, that's not just a victory because they killed their points but because they went off to do other stuff. Even if that other stuff was just dying to something else. Also, since the running unit isn't dead yet if one of those strong melee units comes and kills the FO all you have done is stall.

Sometimes stalling is all you need. Sometimes you can position FO to make many units run so 200 in FO make 300 points of stuff run. But these situations are less common than 'this unit killed it's weight', which is something the FO can't claim as often as the other options for their role.

How I wish they were troops.

With there deployment options I would say if your not causing the latter to happen (300 pts run for 200 pts of FO) your doing it wrong. Every list has anti tank that isn't sparkling in CC, and if your opponent isn't clustering their anti tank that means they are separating it out in a way they will be further nullified by Night Fighting.

I don't mean to devolve in to tit for tat, but the point I'm trying to underline is the wide open deployment options for the FOs is there threat. Forcing your opponent to deal with them will always benefit the Cron General if used correctly. The only times my FOs have failed miserably is when I misjudged distance or did something to put them in and ineffective position, which of course sometimes is just bad luck, but no unit in the game is immune to bad luck. Like you mentioned earlier, their are some dedi assault units that can get the FOs to break assault before they've hung around long enough to win, while this is true, in a large squad its statistically unlikely. Just like a stray las cannon shot can knock out a 250 point LR. Statistically unlikely, but unlikely hoods make not a unit unviable.

The fact is you want them in assault, with what ever you can get them into assault with, even if its a "dedicated assault unit," because they themselves are a dedicated assault unit. They have contingency against power weapons (RP) a respectable base (4 S 4 T 4+ Sv) and an absurd amount of attacks for their point cost. Their only legitimate weakness is their speed, which if you make them threatening enough and your opponent chooses to attack them instead, has been effectively neutralised. (Also, going back to the topic at hand, WW list mitigates this weakness substantially).

The best reason I can see to use flayed ones in this build is because they WILL be able to catch enemies that have been quaked. The second best reason is because they have outflank, and further impact your opponent's deployment decisions, some synergy with orikan.

As far as HQ choices go, I see Imotekh and Orikan as the start of a good CC list. If you want a more shooty tremor-cron list, I would say two generic overlords.

The question comes... shooty or cc.

Shooty:
Strength of the codex
Gauss vehicle containment/ troops contribute directly to shooting
Less control over where your opponent moves.
Some armies outshoot us at range (tau, IG, some Marine builds)
Can use some under-utilized assets (Doomsday Ark, Stalker)

CC
Generally not strong
troop choices don't contribute CC well
Can use some under-utilized assets (Flayed Ones)

Alright, so lets optimize then for two variant builds and just hack them until we get it right.

An Orikan & Imotekh CC list at 2000
A double court shooting list at 2000.


Here's a jumping off point for a CC List - Kind of rough... probably needs some focus.

HQ:
Imotekh 225
Orikan 165
TremorTek 3 90
Rezlord 65
C'tan (Gaze, WW) 265
Monolith 200
10 Gaussmortals 170
2x5 Teslamortals 170
12 Wraiths (well kitted) 500
10 Scarabs 150

Here's how I see it -
Make a shooting blob with Imotekh, Orikan, the Rezlord, a stave, and 10 gaussmortals
Stick 2 more staves with Tesla mortals, use the monolith as a shield for advancing units that need to get inside NF range.
Ideally, on the turn NF ends, you're slamming into the enemy with healthy wraiths, scarabs, the c'tan and the spyder.
It's not mobile, it doesn't saturate with quake that well, but hopefully Orikan and Imotekh will score enough free kills to justify the expense of the c'tan.
I'll math it out eventually and see how it works statistically.



Who wants to open the bidding?

Junk, you wanna start on a CC build.
I'll jump on a double shooty list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's my thoughts on a 2k Shooty list

HQ
Necron Overlord, Phaeron, and Sempiternal Weave 125
Necron Overlord, Phaeron, and Sempiternal Weave 125
Royal Court #1
Harbinger of Destruction, Solar Pulse 55
Harbinger of Destruction 35
Harbinger of Transmogrification 30
Harbinger of Transmogrification 30
Royal Court #2
Harbinger of Destruction, Solar Pulse55
Harbinger of Destruction 35
Harbinger of Transmogrification 30
Harbinger of Transmogrification 30

Troops
5 Immortals w/gauss blaster 85
5 Immortals w/gauss blaster and Night Scythe 185
5 immortals w/tesla carbine and Night Scythe 185
5 Immortals w/tesla carbine and Night Scythe 185

Elite
C'tan Shard with Writhing Worldscape and Grand Illusion 260

Heavy Support
Monolith 200
Doomsday Ark 175
Doomsday Ark 175

Deployment:
The Phaeron Lords go with the gauss Immortals, along with 1 of each type of cryptek.
Tesla Immortals get one of each type of cryptek as well.
Deploy these units as far forward as practical, place objectives in or behind terrain. Pull them back by retreating or with the monolith as needed. Redeploy forward using Night Scythes if available.
Try and keep the Night scythes on the flanks, to minimize the fire that they take.
Redeploy Doomsday Arks with Grand Illusion if needed.
Hold Monolith and C'tan as a fall-back position. Deal with infiltrators and outflankers as needed.

Looks very nice, very delicate, but it's got sharp teeth.

Neither of us opted to use destroyers, A Barges, Tomb Blades, or death marks. I'm not sure if the monolith in your list is going to do as much as say a doom scythe or a third doomsday ark, but I think thats an issue playtesting will decide rather than theory hammer. I'd put money on the shooting quakers over the assaulting ones; because the assault list can be improved greatly by removing orikan and the c'tan and adding a destroyer lord with MSS, 2 more spyders, and 15 flayed ones.

My list is fragile... and that is a concern. A well placed blast template and some very good/bad dice rolls and I could lose a complete unit. I do wish that I could bring the Immortals to 10's, but there just aren't enough points for that if I want to include the Night Scythes.

The monolith isn't there for it's offensive punch (which it is quite a beast), but as a way to pull the bacon out of the fire and provide cover for the C'tan.

I went with Doomsday arks because of the Grand Illusion. If I dropped GI for another C'tan ability, the Doomsday arks would immediately change into Doom Scythes. 5 Scythes will provide quite the offensive punch.

Something else, I am dissatisfied with the double cryptek structure. If I pop a rhino (for example) I can't quake the occupants on the same turn with the same group of Immortals. That's frustrating. I do wonder if investing in some heavy destroyers might not be the way to go instead.

I resisted using Annibarges because I feel that my list needs something to reach out and smack ya. If they were fast, like a scythe or had a longer gun they would fit. But alas, it is not to be.

I would see Tombblades staying home to guard against infiltrators and outflankers. Really, the monolith and C'tan can serve that job just fine. If I feel the need for more guns, I could always pull an Immortal squad back there as well. Trying to play offensively with the Tombblades would mean giving up a Night scythe... I think I'd just rather have a Night Scythe.

As for the assaulty list, it really makes your opponent make some decisions (and most of them are bad). For example, in Dawn of War deployment, do you disembark your troops and HQ to avoid getting wiped out on terrian turn #1, and thus making yourself a better target for the lightning, or do you turtle up, or do you reserve everything, and come in piecemeal to get eating alive by scarabs, Spyders and wraiths and struggle to get to objectives? In that list, turn #1 is going to be a hell of a bad choice whatever way you look at it.

Would shooting a unit's Dedicated Transport while they're Embarked cause the Tremor effect?

junk wrote:


HQ:
Imotekh 225
Orikan 165
TremorTek 3 90
Rezlord 65 +MSS ? + WS ?
C'tan (Gaze, WW) 215 If we keep the monolith, I like Gaze. Without it, I like Grand Illusion or Thunderbolt
Monolith 200 I like the monolith for possible C'tan movement
10 Gaussmortals 170
2x5 Teslamortals 170 I would love to get a 3rd 5 man tesla squad in here
12 Wraiths (well kitted) 500 You can probably shave there down to 5 each w/ 4 WC (430-ish)
10 Scarabs 150
1 Spyder (for the extra 2" bump)

Maybe go 2 squads of Scarabs, 2 spiders, 1 wraith squad to free up points for 3rd Tesla Immortals?

Okay, so necron assault... it pretty much consists of
12 wraiths and 10 scarabs. So that's 650

Orikan, Immotekh and 3 quake-teks = 480
20 Immortals will cost us 340

The C'tan costs a minimum of 230 (my bad) Screw it, entropic strike, next...

We have 300 points left to get in and do some damage up front
15 flayed ones + 2 spyders?
A monolith and 2 Spyders?
Lose a Wraith and add 2 Doom Scythes?
Add 3 night scythes
Add 10 more Immortals, 2 quake teks, and a rezlord
Add 6 naked Spyders (or 4 with Particle Beamers)
Add 5 VB/PC Praetorians and 2 Spyders?
Add 5 Lychguard (included for completeness) and 2 spyders?
Add 10 deathmarks, a VODtek, and one QuakeTek?

junk wrote:Add 5 VB/PC Praetorians and 2 Spyders?

I feel like Praetorians just aren't good with their 1 attack until the next edition, when Assault Weapons (allegedly) give +1A on the charge. For now they just feel like a halfassed assault unit. 2 attacks if you remove their power weapon and good shooting attack, but we have Rending jump infantry already and they have 1 more Attack, Strength, and Wound, ignore cover, have crazy Invulnerable Saves, strike first...
I suppose you could be taking them mostly for the Entropic Strikes getting out there quickly, but I don't think they're worth it.
But then, perhaps I've missed something.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Anvildude wrote:Would shooting a unit's Dedicated Transport while they're Embarked cause the Tremor effect?

Only on the vehicle, I believe.

Nightbringer's Chosen wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Anvildude wrote:Would shooting a unit's Dedicated Transport while they're Embarked cause the Tremor effect?

Only on the vehicle, I believe.

Oh I missed that question. No. You can't affect a unit inside a transport with any ability unless the ability specifically allows you to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nightbringer's Chosen wrote:

junk wrote:Add 5 VB/PC Praetorians and 2 Spyders?

I feel like Praetorians just aren't good with their 1 attack until the next edition, when Assault Weapons (allegedly) give +1A on the charge. For now they just feel like a halfassed assault unit. 2 attacks if you remove their power weapon and good shooting attack, but we have Rending jump infantry already and they have 1 more Attack, Strength, and Wound, ignore cover, have crazy Invulnerable Saves, strike first...
I suppose you could be taking them mostly for the Entropic Strikes getting out there quickly, but I don't think they're worth it.
But then, perhaps I've missed something.

Nope, you've missed nothing. The reason to use Praetorians is because they are an elite choice rather than a fast attack choice. If I didn't think 10 scarabs was an auto-include, then I would just run 3x6 wraiths. With the VB+PC setup they get 3 rending entropic attacks on the charge, and 5 s6 shots leading into the charge; so they're not awful. They're not TH/SS termies, but they fit the build.

In this setup, with Orikan, quake staves, and Imotekh's night-light; theres a good chance that by the time you're ready to assault you won't be hitting full strength squads, you'll be closing in to wreck vehicles and finish off weakened units. Something that Praetorians are actually good at.

What I'd like to see is a full on Jump-Cron list, if anyone is feeling froggy. Double Destroyer Lords, Wraiths, Destroyers, and Praetorians, it seems like it could have potential - but I suppose that's for another thread.

My idea of a tremor-cron list is a fast, shooty one somewhat similar to that of Lukus' list. Shoot and immobilize the enemy and then get the hell out of dodge once they get close.


Necron Overlord - Mindshackles, Warscythe
Command Barge
4x Crypteks - 2x Lances, 1x Solar Pulse, 2x Tremorstaves

Necron Overlord - Mindshackles, Warscythe
Command Barge
4x Crypteks - 2x Lances, 1x Solar Pulse, 2x Tremorstaves

C'tan - Entropic Touch, Writhing Worldscape

5x Immortals - Tesla
Night Scythe
5x Immortals - Tesla
Night Scythe
5x Immortals - Tesla
Night Scythe
5x Immortals - Tesla

Annihilation Barge
Doom Scythe
Doom Scythe

2000

For counter-assault, I could use the c'tan, but there's really no need. Just get the hell out of there once enemies are within assault range.

For CC with Imotekh and Orikan, I like the idea of playing to their strengths and special abilities. You have a better than average chance of going 1st or stealing initiative. Turn 1, it will be dark and the opponent's mobility will be severely challenged. Turn 2, you can have a 75% chance of reserves coming in. What works here for teeth?

Wraiths
Scarabs
Monolith
Doom Scythe
Night Scythe

Much of the time these should start on the table, but having a large portion of your army able to deep strike adds potential flexibility. Even better, most of it can deep strike and then fire a big gun.

I Don't like the idea of more than 1 spyder per scarab squad unless we somehow fit in a 2nd monolith or give the C'tan a shooting attack.

Junk,
I really like the idea of trying out Flayed ones and a pair of spyders. I think that there are synergies with the rest of our list that we can't ignore.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
2k Hybrid (I don't have my codex with me, but I think the points are right)

HQ
Imotehk 225
Orikan 165
Royal Court #1
Harbinger of Transmogrification 30
Harbinger of Transmogrification 30
Harbinger of Transmogrification 30
Harbinger of Transmogrification 30

Troops
5 Immortals w/gauss blaster 85
5 Immortals w/tesla blaster and Night Scythe 185
5 immortals w/tesla carbine and Night Scythe 185
5 Immortals w/tesla carbine and Night Scythe 185

Fast Attack
2 heavy destroyers 120
2 heavy destroyers 120

Elite
C'tan Shard with Writhing Worldscape and Grand Illusion 260

Heavy Support
Doomscythe 175
Doomscythe 175
Total 2000

The change to 1 court was largely because you can't pop a transport and quake the unit on the same turn. Throwing in the heavy destroyers allows you to pop the transport first, and then quake it.

I was also under the (mistaken) impression that the quake lasted until the end of that players turn. It only happens in their next movement phase. We need to make sure that staying put is a bad option.

I think that Doomscythes and Imothek work well together. As far as seeing distance... you only need to see as far as the first marker (right?)

Grand Illusion might not be the power of choice for this list, but I'm at a loss for which one to choose.

Anpu-adom wrote:
Fast Attack
2 heavy destroyers 120
2 heavy destroyers 120

I think HDs will have more of a problem with seeing distance in nightfighting than Doom Scythes.

Wow, this thread seems to have really turned into something these last few weeks. Anyways, here's some of my thoughts:
I keep seeing alot of lists with Immortals in groups of five here, and my question is why not groups of ten? The way I see it, the Quake-lists are intended to bog the enemy down during their movement phase, but suppose at least one or two cc units do break through and go into assault. Since crons are not renowned for their cc capabilities, I would want to give the unit being assaulted more of a chance of survival, so they can at least keep that cc unit where it is. That being said, would it mess up the process if there were at least two Immortal units of ten models? To further expound upon this, has anyone ever considered the Storm-teks with Lightning fields at all, or is not as good in practice as in theory?
Also, to Anpu-Adom: I'm sure you've already checked this, but Destroyer Lords do not have the option of allowing a Royal Court. It's only Overlords and the named characters. Just a minor nit-pick, but I figure any bit of information would be helpful.

The main reason for the 5x immortal squads is to maximize quake-tek distribution, the goal being to quake as many squads as possible each turn.

If you're running 2 phaerons, than 2x10 Squads of gauss immortals become a very strong gunline choice, but you still need more infantry squads to house crypteks.

In a pure gunline list, ive had success with 5x8 immortals, 2xgauss and 3x tesla; but since we're dumping 800+ points into c'tan and royal courts, we just don't have the points to play that many immortals. Fast attack and heavy support are very important for necrons in any build, and we need to invest heavily into them to pull this build off.

I do think that the doom scythes work well with immotekh, especially if supported with tarpits like wraiths and scarabs to minimize return fire; but using doom scythes without splitting your opponents target priority is very risky as their close range means that return fire is a serious concern.

I'll stand behind my theory that scarabs and wraiths are the most 'dangerous' units we have access to, as they can deal well with almost any threat and guarantee that combat will extend beyond a single game turn, and if not win, then seriously weaken the squads they assault or multi assault.

As far as multiple spiders in my breakdown, if we're using immotekh, wE're not alpha striking, we're waiting a couple turns to engage, staying out of range and using various tricks to weaken our opponents while "aiming" our assaults. So using spiders to increase the swarm size isn't a one shot deal.

3 spyders over 3 turns will add 27 wounds to the squad.

foolishmortal wrote:

Anpu-adom wrote:
Fast Attack
2 heavy destroyers 120
2 heavy destroyers 120

I think HDs will have more of a problem with seeing distance in nightfighting than Doom Scythes.

Generally, I agree. 21" is statistically average for seeing during Nightfighting (without some way to reroll). I don't expect thunderstorms and night fighting to last past the 2nd turn. If it does, it may well do the job of the HD's anyway! Besides... the Heavy Destroyers are replacing Lanceteks, who would have had the same difficulty. In general, I'm happy paying a 25 point premium on being 1s higher, on a more mobile platform, and being able to pop the tank before quaking the unit inside.

Grand illusion is one of the coolest powers in the game, it lets you redeploy for maximum damage potential, or the best possible defensive placement. You can place your scarabs or wraiths with a perfect line of attack to your opponents most vulnerable units, or get your soft targets out of harms way. It also screws with your opponent's ability to deploy reactively, giving ÿöú, if nothing else, a psychological edge. Also, it's one more reason for your opponent to play from reserves, which is great for a list that wants to take an enemy on piecemeal.

Thunderbolt is always an option, but at range 24" it encourages ÿöú to put your c'tan into a dangerous position. Gaze is incredibly expensive but is the best CC support option for the c'tan; making a risky move more attractive.

So superbowl weekend I ran a 1500pt "tremorcrons list" against Daemons and got tabled. It went 6 turns, was annihilation and dawn of war setup.

I used:
Orikan, Regular OverLord with warscythe on command barge for my hq's. ( Orikan alone and waiting to power up, Overlord to take out tanks and characters )

C'tan with writhing worldscape and grand illusion for my elite's.

3 units of Immortals with tesla carbines, 5 man strong each. ( this was for anti-infantry )

3 Crypteks with Tremorstaves that went to each of the 3 Immortal units. ( to synergise with writhing worldscape )

2 Crypteks with Eldritch Lances just being the Royal court alone. ( to blast tanks and special characters )

2 Heavy Destroyers. ( to blast tanks and characters )

5 Scarab bases. ( to tar pit, erode tanks, distract my opponent )

1 Doom Ark. ( to blast infantry as the slowly made there way to its corner.

Setting up I put the Doom ark in one corner and surround it with the rest of the army.

My opponent had a daemon prince, the lord of change, a bloodthirster, 2 blood letter units and a blood crusher unit.

The only thing that was destroyed from deep striking was the blood crushers. The Big-uns came in 1st. He lost a few wounds to his blood letters due to dangerous terrain tests and all of his big stuff just had amazing armour saves the whole game.

As I said I got tabled, but I did manage to kill one blood letter unit, one daemon prince, dropped one blood letter unit down to one, put 1 wound on the lord of change, and put 1 or 2 wounds on his bloodthirster.

Doom Ark did okay, the immortals with tesla dissapointed, so did the eldritch lances ( this may be due to the insane armour saves he was making ). The scarabs tar-pitted the lord for a good portion of the game. The C'tan fell to blood letters and the blood thirster, but he took out some blood letters. Orikan powered up one turn and lost it the next : (
so when I charged him he did okay. His re-roll does come in handy.

The command barge did jack and so did the overlord. Both smashed by the blood thirster.

In hindsight, I thought this list could have been saved had I took the time to use the rest of my points ( I used like 1390 points and then rushed to play ) for lords with res-orbs and mind shackle scarabs. I think ill take out Orikan to have 2 royal courts, take another reg. Overlord.

I didnt use Wraiths because I didnt have the models, but ill just proxy next time and test out the revised list. Hope this info helps.

I stand by avoiding immotekh in a shooting list, and avoiding destroyers in an assault list, as out best assault units are fa choices.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Garukadon, I'd love to see the best 2 out of 3 results in that same match up; daemons are a tough match up because they're a decentralized assault army that fights from reserve. If you had your missing points, ÿöú probably would have had a better result... Thanks for the input!

junk wrote:I stand by avoiding immotekh in a shooting list, and avoiding destroyers in an assault list, as out best assault units are fa choices.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Garukadon, I'd love to see the best 2 out of 3 results in that same match up; daemons are a tough match up because they're a decentralized assault army that fights from reserve. If you had your missing points, ÿöú probably would have had a better result... Thanks for the input!

No problem Junk. I too would like to get that rematch in. I literally slapped that list together in 5 minutes during the game. I just started down scaling from a 2000pt list I had been working on, plus went off the models I had. I have my own table at home, so I need to remember that proxying at my house is okay

I really do think the game was a tad closer than I had anticipated, as he was down to just 3 models- the Lord of Change, the Blood Thirster and the lone Blood Letter. The rez orbs and mind shackle scarabs I thought would've made a fantastic difference. Also his losing the Blood Crushers due to deep strike mishap was lucky for me and im glad I didnt have those bearing down on me as well.

I was really concentrating on trying to get that Lord of Change out of there fast and concentrated about 85% of my firepower towards him that 1st turn, plus I thought the charge with the scarabs would finish him off too. In hindsight I should of concentrated on the Blood Letter units 1st, as they did more damage throughout the whole game.

Overlords on foot with units might be a better way to go than command barges. Being able to afford mind shackle scarabs along with his warscythe would've helped out units in CC tremendously. Also a rez orb would've increased survivibilty of units as well.

Once I revise the list, ill post it- the 1500pt and 2000pt version.

Garukadon wrote:So superbowl weekend I ran a 1500pt "tremorcrons list" against Daemons and got tabled. It went 6 turns, was annihilation and dawn of war setup.

I used:
Orikan, Regular OverLord with warscythe on command barge for my hq's. ( Orikan alone and waiting to power up, Overlord to take out tanks and characters )

C'tan with writhing worldscape and grand illusion for my elite's.

3 units of Immortals with tesla carbines, 5 man strong each. ( this was for anti-infantry )

3 Crypteks with Tremorstaves that went to each of the 3 Immortal units. ( to synergise with writhing worldscape )

2 Crypteks with Eldritch Lances just being the Royal court alone. ( to blast tanks and special characters )

2 Heavy Destroyers. ( to blast tanks and characters )

5 Scarab bases. ( to tar pit, erode tanks, distract my opponent )

1 Doom Ark. ( to blast infantry as the slowly made there way to its corner.

Setting up I put the Doom ark in one corner and surround it with the rest of the army.

My opponent had a daemon prince, the lord of change, a bloodthirster, 2 blood letter units and a blood crusher unit.

The only thing that was destroyed from deep striking was the blood crushers. The Big-uns came in 1st. He lost a few wounds to his blood letters due to dangerous terrain tests and all of his big stuff just had amazing armour saves the whole game.

As I said I got tabled, but I did manage to kill one blood letter unit, one daemon prince, dropped one blood letter unit down to one, put 1 wound on the lord of change, and put 1 or 2 wounds on his bloodthirster.

Doom Ark did okay, the immortals with tesla dissapointed, so did the eldritch lances ( this may be due to the insane armour saves he was making ). The scarabs tar-pitted the lord for a good portion of the game. The C'tan fell to blood letters and the blood thirster, but he took out some blood letters. Orikan powered up one turn and lost it the next : (
so when I charged him he did okay. His re-roll does come in handy.

The command barge did jack and so did the overlord. Both smashed by the blood thirster.

In hindsight, I thought this list could have been saved had I took the time to use the rest of my points ( I used like 1390 points and then rushed to play ) for lords with res-orbs and mind shackle scarabs. I think ill take out Orikan to have 2 royal courts, take another reg. Overlord.

I didnt use Wraiths because I didnt have the models, but ill just proxy next time and test out the revised list. Hope this info helps.

Don't get too down about the loss... Most Necron lists are going to have some serious problems versus any reserve army that is strong in melee. On top of this playing against daemons negated your anti armor units. Luckily daemons aren't all that popular these days. I would try your army versus some more conventional lists like IG Leafblower or Razorspam.

hey there I just finished a tournament using my tremorstave list and boy oh boy do I have a lot of feedback on such lists for you!

First off here was the list I ended up using.

HQ Imotekh the Stormlord = 225
HQ Orikan the diviner = 165

Troop Warrior x10 = 130
(Royal court) Cryptek = 25+5 = 30
Transmogrification

Troop Warrior x10 = 130
(Royal court) Cryptek = 25+5 = 30
Transmogrification

Troop Warrior x10 = 130
(Royal court) Cryptek = 25+5 = 30
Transmogrification

Elite C’tan Shard = 185+35+10 = 230
Lord of fire, writhing worldscape

Elite Triarch Stalker = 150

Fast Attack Canoptek Scarabs x10 = 150

Heavy Monolith = 200
Heavy Monolith = 200
Heavy Monolith = 200

= 2000

Now I just have to say that the tournament I went to was the very first chance I had to use my necrons and I lost all 3 games (including a dawn of war game which I should have destroyed him on).
So basically the plan was to really constrict my opponents movement, force him to reserve his stuff so that he wasnt killed by special abilities and the like and then have my guys that have been slowly moving up the field just pick them all off in pieces. And it worked for the most part except if you're going to use a list like the one I used I had to adopt a different playstyle.
But I'm gonna break it down by units for a few and describe what really worked.

1. The triarch stalker: this thing was so fail I couldn't even believe it. Not only does it crumple like tinfoil in assault, it really doesn't add a whole lot to a tremorstave army. You can't deepstrike it so there's no element of surprise like you'd have with the monoliths, it has a very short range and thus will be able to be shot back, and its open topped so if something does pen it you might as well kiss it goodbye. I'm literally going to drop this guy for a 2nd squad of scarabs.

2. Scarabs: Hands down the MVP of my games. These little guys were simply amazing at getting into position and eating every armored enemy in there way! Sure ironclad dreads gave them a little trouble but even losing 3 scarab bases in assault before they get to attack means you pretty much just spent 45 points to take down a 150 pt unit. Add night fighting and tremorstaves to limit the enemies shooting and mobility and these guys truly become epic win.

3. Monolith: Now I was using orikan's reserves ability to get these guys on the board, deepstriking them into enemy lines to kill vehicles and be a roadblock. This is not how you should use them at all it turns out! In my 3 games I fared far better when I did the risky thing and tried to suck up the beefy low str models that give tremorstave lists problems, this also lets you shoot the flayers and hopefully stun some vehicles at the same time. Nothing says screw you draigowing like 3 monliths landing in a triangle around them and sucking them up with ease (not to mention they need a 6+ to hit you on the next turn meaning that its highly likely you'll be able to suck even more in the next turn)! I had a game where I managed to suck up 3 obliterators and a defiler, and glancing 2 rhinos in one turn just by being a little risky. But imo that is how you should use them. Oh or to shoot at blobs of marines that's always fun too! (please keep in mind that although a particle whip has a 24" range you lose about 3" of range by simply measuring over the monolith hull itself, this really hurt me during my games).

4. Imotekh: Pure pimpsauce. Oh here's something you can do to really screw with your opponent on a tremor list. LET THEM GO FIRST AND THEN STEAL THE INITIATIVE! Having your opponent go first, especially during dawn of war will give them a false sense of boldness as they think, "well their c'tan is off the board! I'm gonna risk it and not hold things in reserve!" And then WHAM you steal it, move that pretty c'tan shard on the board and then they are really in the hurt. Dont rely on lightning though it barely hits, just focus on those statistical 2 turns of NF'ing and getting your units into position.

5. C'tan: With nightfighting you really have two choices with this guy. On non-objective games I always move him forward and try to assault something; though on objective games I've considered leaving him around the warriors for some added defense.

6. Warriors: they performed just like I'd hoped, holding back and waiting for the enemy to head to them while using the longer range of the staves to hit units that the warriors cant hit.

7. Orikan: Worth it simply for the first turn advantage, stick him with some warriors, try to take out some demonprinces with your gun; everyone always forgets that friggin awesome gun!

But yea that was from my experiences, deepstriking armies can be very hard to deal with, as well as demon princes who dont give a rip about difficult terrain, fly up to you and eat you.

If you're going to use doomscythes then please please use night fighting of some sort; otherwise you might as well toss them free kp's.

And then one last little quirp; if you're going to use a tremorstave army you have to have the offensive ability to deal with things in your opponents backfield, hence the tremorstaves should be defensive and the rest of your army should be offensive.

Wow. Great data!

Alright, your opinion of the triarch stalker is fairly in line with my own, you need to have a list that's really designed to work with it; and it's definitely wasted in a list with Imotekh. It's meant as gunline support and Imotekh doesn't play well with gunlines, forcing you to use it outside of it's preferred range. I'd stick a heavy gauss on it and use it as a back-field fire support option and little else.

I've had similar experience with scarabs; they either get wasted right off or they do something great. No surprise there.

Monoliths: You were the first player whom I've encountered that said the 'gate to Delaware' was the strong point; amazing that it worked so well for you, but I guess if you're running three, it's bound to come in handy. Syncing all 3 with Orikan's perfect timing was a great call - you must have gotten lucky with those scatter dice, I'm mishapping with those things a little too often for my taste.

C'tan; the way i see it, if he makes it into assault, he's already earned his points, you're looking at turn 3 minimum, which means he's survived long enough to have in impact, and every unit he kills in CC is just gravy.

Warriors, okay. Whatevs. They delivered quake for you, so great!

Orikan attached to a Phaeron like imotekh is a nice move, allowing you to shoot that weird ass gun and still move, so nice there.

How would you rearrange your list if you were up against the same match ups again?

Things I will add to the next list:

I think im goin to opt for 2 reg. Overlords, deck them out and have them join units.

Lords with Mindshackle Scarabs to hopefully turn the tied CC wise.

Veil of Doom Crypteks (2) so that 2 units can run away when enemy CC units come too close.

2 Seperate Royal Courts with Tremorstaves.

2 small units of Wraiths.

A larger blob of Scarabs.

Things I will take out:

Catacomb Command Barge

Heavy Destroyers.

Orikan, so that I can run 2 royal courts.

Still pondering the Doom Ark and Heavy choices that could replace it or just all together forget.

junk wrote:Wow. Great data!

Alright, your opinion of the triarch stalker is fairly in line with my own, you need to have a list that's really designed to work with it; and it's definitely wasted in a list with Imotekh. It's meant as gunline support and Imotekh doesn't play well with gunlines, forcing you to use it outside of it's preferred range. I'd stick a heavy gauss on it and use it as a back-field fire support option and little else.

I've had similar experience with scarabs; they either get wasted right off or they do something great. No surprise there.

Monoliths: You were the first player whom I've encountered that said the 'gate to Delaware' was the strong point; amazing that it worked so well for you, but I guess if you're running three, it's bound to come in handy. Syncing all 3 with Orikan's perfect timing was a great call - you must have gotten lucky with those scatter dice, I'm mishapping with those things a little too often for my taste.

C'tan; the way i see it, if he makes it into assault, he's already earned his points, you're looking at turn 3 minimum, which means he's survived long enough to have in impact, and every unit he kills in CC is just gravy.

Warriors, okay. Whatevs. They delivered quake for you, so great!

Orikan attached to a Phaeron like imotekh is a nice move, allowing you to shoot that weird ass gun and still move, so nice there.

How would you rearrange your list if you were up against the same match ups again?

Hmm lets see, if I was against the same matchups again... I'd have definitely dropped the stalker, added 8 scarabs and split the scarabs into 3 groups of 6 for an incredibly dangerous wall of threat, and then used the extra 30 points to change the c'tans lord of fire into the thunderbolt so he could do some dmg while lumbering across the field; because while he usually does make it to where he wants to go, the "lascannon" would have helped against the landraiders and dreads I fought.

*edit* actually this puts me 5 over I think, maybe the redeployment power?

Garukadon -

Sounds a little confused - Wraiths and Scarabs work well combined with CCB overlords, while the Phaeron Overlords you're suggesting favor large squads of Gauss Flayers or Gauss Blasters, supported by smaller squads of tesla immortals. In that set up I would use a minimum of 4 troop choices with a minimum of 4 tremorstaves, potentially 6, for full quake saturation. Losing Orikan means you don't auto-quake round one, so you need more quake to justify the c'tan. Small units of wraiths are harassers and tarpits, not the brutal squad killers that large units of wraiths are, but if you use them carefully and dont rush them in to fight full strength squads, then they should work for you. With a gunline list and no Imotekh nonsense, you can get away with using some of the big guns - Heavy destroyers, Doomsday arks; or killer squads like deathmarks and tomb blades. Anyway, I'm looking forward to your tweaked list and your next update!

TauTemplar -

3x6 scarabs is actually pretty interesting; you force your opponent to decide which squad to focus on (could backfire if he's got a large amount of blast or template weaponry) and should probably be supported by 3 spyders to keep the squads healthy, but that would mean dropping one of your 3 monoliths.

And wow, 3 monoliths - I've thought about it, but i've never tried it. We really need to hammer the crap out of that option to see how it stacks up to some of our other choices. There's something incredibly potent about combining the abilities of Orikan, Imotekh, and 3 monoliths that just screams "this is a real problem" for an opponent.

I'd like to hear other opinions about TremorCrons + 3 Monoliths from anyone who hasn't spoken up in a while; we've got a good brain trust going here, and I'd really like to hear some fresh input on this one.

Ok, here's my list of questions:

Does 2-3 Monoliths compensate for the weakness of MSU? It seems like it should... triple monoliths can dominate the center of the board, even immobilized and it can move MSU units that would get assaulted out of the way. Seems to me that we want dedicated assault units piling out of those Monoliths too (other than the C'Tan, of course).
Does the Monolith bring more to the list than 3-5 scythes (Night scythes AND doom scythes?)

Which secondary, C'Tan power? Lord of Fire seems a no-brainer but if we are planning on assaulting, Gaze of death is very attractive.

I tried mocking up a triple monolith list, and I just couldn't fit enough stuff in @ 2k. In particular, I wanted 2 small units of wraiths to pile out and eat things that get close to the Monoliths. I also wanted Immortals, rather than warriors. It's ok at 2 monoliths... Hmm...

2k Aftershock
Orikan
Overlord w/Phaeron, warscythe, MSS, SW
4x Tremorteks

3x8 Immortals tesla
9x Immortals, gauss

2 units 4x Wraiths, 2 whipcoils

2x Monoliths
1996

I love the title 'Aftershock'... double Monoliths landing is the quake, followed by the tremor staff goodness...

Started playing around with combining my Nemesor/Dlord super Triarch Praetorian wing with the WW list, but I'm thinking to get all the toys I want it would have to run into the 2500 range.

What I got so far:

400 TPs x 10 (VB/PC)
230 C'Tan w/WW (cheap w/LofF)
185 Nemesor
200 DLord (estimated point cost, haven't decided on toys but definitely an RO and SW, prob MSS)
150 TBs WIth Shadowlooms
150 TBs WIth Shadowlooms
200 Monolith

1515

Obviously need troops. Basically the idea is the TBs turbo boost first turn and provides a wall of cover for the TPs and Dlord. C'Tan Hides behind Mono and slugs it up the field. Nemesor needs a unit, probably a 10 strong of Tesla immortals. I really dig the super sized squad of TP's, they make a perfect target for Nemies buffs, stealth first turn, tank hunter the second, furious charge the third, etc.

Thing is, I've always wanted to go all out with this idea and add Obyron, some shield guard to the list.

So maybe something like:
160 Obyron
90 Lord WS/MSS/RO
400 10 LG
100 Night Scythe
170 10 Tesla Immortals
65 5 Warriors

To round out 2500. The idea behind the NS is to flat out it up first turn to give Oby and his death squad a pinpoint DS. Then with their opponents slowed the TPs and the LG should be able to make a suitable death sandwich. The lack of troops is obiviuosly a weekeness, thoughts are to trim the LG and TPs a tad to get more room for troops, or just say F it and run the Death Company style and just go for the table (plus theirs a considerable amount of threat overload on the filed, as I believe Junk would call it, so maybe the troops get ignored long enough).

Anyway, just something I've been kicking around a bit. I know one thing, if by turn 3 or 4 I could see all those monsters in CC it would be a pretty site.

Edit: Just realised I didn't pay for the shields, though with the RO not sure I absolutely need them.

Here's something that I've been thinking on for a while now.

What if there isn't an optimal list here? Just about any list (with the points to spare) can benefit from having a C'tan with Writhing Worldscape in it. Sure, we can add things like tremorstaves and Orikan to spread the love around some more. We can add units that benefit from slowed enemies (Flayed Ones, Lychguard, etc.)

We are having difficulty focusing on a build because this tool belongs in EVERY necron army.

Anpu-adom wrote:Here's something that I've been thinking on for a while now.

What if there isn't an optimal list here? Just about any list (with the points to spare) can benefit from having a C'tan with Writhing Worldscape in it. Sure, we can add things like tremorstaves and Orikan to spread the love around some more. We can add units that benefit from slowed enemies (Flayed Ones, Lychguard, etc.)

We are having difficulty focusing on a build because this tool belongs in EVERY necron army.

I do agree that pretty much every necron list can benefit from the c'tan but if you arent optimizing for such thing it seems like a waste of points. And @shadar, yes this list vastly increases in effectiveness at the 2500 level.

Why would it be a waste? With the amount of terrain that's slung around these days, WW is just useful to have, helping pick off little units wandering around in terrain, or letting you bunker better, knowing that the enemy will be taking Dangerous Terrain tests if they try to assault you.

Orikan, of course, makes it that much sweeter.

300 points is a big investment, considering that the C'tan itself doesn't play well with a lot of necron builds. The goal here is to optimize for WW, but it seems like the best we can hope to do is mash up a good build by jamming a 620 point core into it.

I think really to capitalize on the WW thing, we want a decent shooting army that can throw down a mid-field obstacle and react to outflankers and deep strikers, with some Anti-tank peppered in (scarabs probably)

Monoliths or Spyders cover the midfield as a road block.
Foot slogging immortals spread out to slow down approaching troops (should be tesla)

With A monolith, you want Orikan and a C'tan with gaze - essentially suiciding around turn 3 into CC - Times arrow or Entropic strike are also good options that save you points over gaze.

The Scythelords in barges are probably just too good to pass up, keep them lean, no excessive wargear - but you don't want to alpha strike with them - you want to play a defensive, reactive game, using them as weapons against anything that crosses the point of no return on the battlefield - vehicles you have failed to immobilize and the like.

Here's what I'm thinking.

Orikan 165 or Scythelord on Barge 180
Scythelord on Barge 180
1 Pulsetek or 2 pulseteks with second Scythelord 110
4 quaketeks (maybe a harp) 120-150
C'tan WW GI 260 or Gaze with Orikan (270)
(990ish)

10 Scarabs or 5 PC Tomb Blades or 3 Heavy Destroyers

4 min immortal squads 340
2 doomsday arks 350
1 monolith 200 or 3 Spyders w/ 2 PCs
(890)


Reasonably - the doomsday arks should be deployed in corners, unless your opponent has outflankers, then you want them outside of threat. You can pretty much sit back and shoot for 1-2 turns, protected by solar pulses, and then once your opponent has committed, use your monolith, c'tan, and scythelords to punish that commitment. If you force the enemy to play from reserve with orikan, then take center board as soon as possible.

If you don't want to play the long range shooting game, I think that scythespam or wraithwing are probably the next best options, followed by scarab farm. < all of these can work with or without the Immotekh/Orikan combo.

Remember that with an assault army, you're not optimizing for WW - because once models are engaged in CC, movement isn't a factor anymore. However, assault armies still benefit from the presence of a big face beater like the C'tan, so it's not a total waste.

junk wrote:

Remember that with an assault army, you're not optimizing for WW - because once models are engaged in CC, movement isn't a factor anymore. However, assault armies still benefit from the presence of a big face beater like the C'tan, so it's not a total waste.

I disagree with this a bit, the biggest knock against FOs and LG are they are too slow to catch their prey. WW solves this problem rather effectively.

That being said, I like your shooting list. I definitely think Doomsdays are another unit that could thrive with WW.

We made a Bell of Lost Souls Article. Basically a repeat of what we've decided here.

Other than the C'tan, Tremorteks are cheap.

Can be added to most other army lists.

Only above 1850.

His list is far from optimized, but really makes the point that you can combine elements of scarab farm, Wraith Wing, and Quake (thus supporting the main point of his article).

Nice post on BoLs, the comments section made me sad, as usual. I love how AP has to come smear his moron on every idea that doesn't fit into the preconceived notions he's developed for how the game should be played.


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I love how he has 20 3+/RP5+ and 20 4+/RP5+ troops, MUCH MUCH more then the bog standard MSU list, and one of those blocks is protected by a 3 wounds 2+/3++ with phylactery monster, and the haters all respond with "durrrr not enough troops durrrrrr."

Yeah... I was shocked by the sheer idiocy of a couple of the responses.
Necrons look bad on paper... they just do. We pay a premium for our RP roll, and seem ineffective in a unit by unit analysis. But we have so much synergy, even the most moronic 40k forum pundits must have tripped over some by now.

You can tell from the comments who's a necron player and who isn't. That being said, I didn't love his list as it seemed like a hybrid of the 3 main lists we've been discussing here, however I didn't hate it either.

I definitely get the sense that he based some of that on our discussion.

Still it seems a bit confused. A gunline that has to overcome night fighting, paired with a small scarab farm, and supported by only 6 wraiths and an annihilation barge. Nothing except immortals are being run in pairs, which means that target priority is pretty simple for an opponent to settle on.

The list lends itself to aggressive play, because of the 24" effective range and 4 close combat units; which negates the value of the stormlord. Still, It was an interesting hybrid list, and a good article, despite AbusePuppy's flames.

He had 12 Wraiths, although I did find myself scratching my head on the way he tricked them out. Really, my only big concern with the list is that the C'Tan would go down to fast. Other then that, I really dig the 20 warrior Imo + Orikan blob, and it seems that Wraiths and Scarabs are a good combo for his Special characters as they aren't hurt by Imo's NF and they are boosted by the static nature WW+Orikan forces onto opponents.

The two stranded Teks also a minor disagreement. Sheesh, the vitriol of some though...I think AP has a woody for bashing this guy.

Edit: NVM 6 Wraiths. Not sure why I thought I saw 12.

Alright, are we ready for some conclusions here? Or at least some that can be tested?

After 5 pages of this thread I think we've covered almost every permutation of this build and we're ready to start narrowing gak down.

What conclusions can we come to? Can tremorcron be competitive? Assault or Gunline? Is Orikan an Auto-include?

I'd like to move on to Jump-Crons, triple monolith, The Rebellion, and Iron-cron threads eventually, before compiling a full necron tactica.


Just so I have somewhere to put it down for now:

Triple Monolith: We've all considered it, how to optimize for it?

The Rebellion: Two royal yachts backed up by 2 phaeron'd warrior blobs and 2 full deathmark squads. Proposed and named as the anti-deathstar build.

Jump-Crons - fun list of mainly Jump Infantry - D.Lords, Destroyers, Praetorians, Wraiths - to complement scythe infantry.

Iron-Crons - Double Lychguard deathstars attached to Rezlords with scythes and MSS; backed up by monoliths - for a super tough list - thinking nemesor and illuminor here.

Here are my thoughts:

Issue #1. Is Orikan an auto include?
I believe that Orikan belongs in about 85% of Tremorcon lists. He forces your opponent to go into reserve or give up moving first turn... both things that the list should be able to capitalize on. I also don't think that it is necessary to have a 2nd royal court in these lists. There is room for other options, including double Surfboard Lords in a Scythespam list.

Issue #2 Gunline or Assault
I believe that the balance lies mostly on the side of assault. We are immobilizing a lot of vehicles, and that doesn't help our shooting one lick, but it does make a vehicle easy pickings for wraiths or scarabs. Granted... we will then have to deal with what comes out of the vehicle, but I think that we have the tools to deal with that.

Issue #3 Scythe spam
While I think that Scythe spam is one way to go with the list, I think that a pair of Monoliths offers us more. We need to take advantage of being more mobile than our opponents, but the monolith is capable of more gains in that area than Scythes.

I don't believe Orikan to be auto-include, but I do always put him in mine.

I definitely feel like Monoliths belong in the Assault version of this list, as they allow the C'tan and the C'tan form of Orikan get into combat, as well as protecting your advancing troops from gunfire. On the shooting side, I think Doomsday arks are the way to go.

I think scythespam lists are stronger as Pure scythespam lists, and don't benefit significantly from the tremorcron mechanic.

At 2000 points, are we competitive?
Here are our match ups:
Obviously at 2000, draigowing is a beast - stormravens can get right up on us, delivering paladin deathstars into assault

Missile wolves are pretty much the same at 1850 and 2000, and I think we match up well against them.

DoA is pretty ugly for us, as well as drop pod salamanders, any enemy that isn't impeded by our quake is going to have an advantage in points over us - as we're using ours for abilities that don't affect them greatly.

I think we'll do well against a lot of foot lists, especially orks and foot guard, we have a lot of blast markers and no shortage of tesla our disposal.

Mech Lists are harder for us - Psyback spam, Mech Guard, MechDar, etc...

Tyranids are a problem too, outflanking fleet troops that eat our flanks, monstrous creatures that aren't slowed by difficult terrain and don't care about dangerous terrain test, more bodies than we have guns...

what am I missing?

I supposed you should add Demons where you placed Nids and DOA (depending on the build).

I think the shooty list matches up better with lists that use their vehicles aggressively, like Dark Eldar and Razorspam.

I think the assault list matches up better with more defensive vehicle builds (Mech Guard).

Both lists eat foot lists for dinner.

As far as countering drop lists (DOA, Demons, and drop pods) we are going to have to deploy our troops into terrain... and a some Crucibles may earn their points.

A real problem will be those things that ignore terrain, (MC and opposing wraiths, etc.)

Wait, outside of the C'Tan, MCs don't ignore terrain right, they just get an extra D6?

Also, I would think, though haven't played one yet (with WW), we'd do well against drop lists like DOA and demons. 1/6th of their army will be dead the moment they arrive right? Then they will be stuck in sand where we can pick and choose our assaults (if we're CC based) or back pedal and pew pew.

I had an evil thought for the CC based tremor-cron list. Check out this recent post in YMDC http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/429234.page

If we include Orikan and they reserve everything, if we have 2 squads of Flayed Ones, we could block the whole back field edge. It makes for an interesting foil to a common counter strategy.

Yeah I've been thinking about that too. Full reserve makes their deployment zone the FOs playground.

I've been reading this list and maybe I missed it buy why Immortals over Warriors?

Ikonoklast wrote:I've been reading this list and maybe I missed it buy why Immortals over Warriors?

Immortals basically for this reason: Immortals work better than warriors in small units, and with teslas the Immortals can actually stay out of assault better than warriors.


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ShadarLogoth wrote:Yeah I've been thinking about that too. Full reserve makes their deployment zone the FOs playground.

Oh, oh... the cheese... I think I'm drowning in the cheese. But I love cheese. :-)

Yea the only problem with the flayed ones is that on dawn of war you can't infiltrate with them to block the back field, if you deepstrike them you cant line up to block the field very well, they die easy. They are cheap though which is nice. In a normal game they cant really do much either, they tend to just get slaughtered; imo rather have something with a gun.

So I came up with a 2500 list using the 3 monolith AND the melee deathstar strategy. Here's the list.

HQ Imotekh the Stormlord = 225
HQ Orikan = 165
HQ Royal Court (attached to Stormlord and Zandrekh)
Lord x5 = 650
Warscythe, mindshackle scarabs, phase shifter, sempiternal weave, 1x res orb, 1xlabyrinth
Cryptek = = 70
Eternity: chronometron, timesplinter cloak
Cryptek = 45
Transmogrification: crucible

Troop warrior x10 = 130
+Cryptek = 30
Transmogrification

Troop warrior x10 = 130
+Cryptek = 30
Transmogrification

Troop warrior x10 = 130
+Cryptek = 30
Transmogrification

Elite C’tan Shard = 265
Thunderbolt, writhing worldscape

Heavy Monolith = 200
Heavy Monolith = 200
Heavy Monolith = 200

= 2500

So obviously everything would start on the field except for the monoliths.

The uber melee HQ (which I've playtested to be extremely effective against other dedicated melee units) would stay in the middle of the warrior squads to kill any melee units that get close; also if you're rolling mediocre you can choose to either A: reroll imotekh's lightning, B: reroll orikan's "star's align" rolls, or if you're doing extremely well and are going to be assaulted reroll the crucible. It's extremely durable too with 6x 2+/3++'s, 1x T7 3++ save (given the right turn), a res orb that cant be picked off like zandrekh's, and they go faster than thunderhammers! yay!

The warriors are your typical shoot em up and foot slog.

I gave the c'tan lightning, cause, well... why the hell not? He's already a huge investment, might as well let him shoot something before he melee's stuff.

So what do you guys think? Sure its a little, "all eggs in one basketish", but I think it just might be extremely fun to play with for 'ard boyz, especially given that its an extremely durable, extremely annoying and can even commence primary ignition on the right units that get too close. (Actually I built this particular list as revenge on the demon player I fought and lost too in the last tourny; I'd like to see his demon princes get close to my deathstar!)

One thing to keep in mind about this entire thread is the idea of force multipliers. It was mentioned there are a few HQ options available, I just want to toss in some suggestions.

First, the points value, as was mentioned earlier, favor tremor crons at higher values. Why is this?
First, we have an initial investment cost of a 200+ point ctan with at least 2 tremor crypteks and potentially orikan. That investment runs over 400 points most of the time.
Second, besides the tremor crypteks, WW and Orikan hit the entire board. Thus, the more stuff on the board, the more effective, and conversely the fewer stuff on the board the less effective.

So obviously this stratedgy, which benefits from more enemies on the board and more points to make the initial cost of investment easier to manage, works best at 2500 points, the largest point value game played in tournies as far as I know.

Thus, with that in mind, where should we focus our efforts in developing this list? I propose that we look at 1500 and 2000 points. 2500 offers the greatest potential for the list, meaning testing at this level is of reduced value. 1500, on the other hand, is the lowest tourney range, and if the list works here then it can be said to work at any points level. 2000 is the popular (in my area) Nova format, thus after 1500 points this is where I would look.

So anyway, back to my idea of characters. The surfboard lord does nothing for force multiplication. So while he is strong, since we already know that 'tremor-crons' are a force multiplier effect the surfboard lord does not fit.

Conversly, the destroyer lord mixed into a wraith unit soaks up instant death hits, which is a force multiplier. However, like orikan who costs around the same, he is not a primary HQ due to lack of a royal court, meaning you have to decide if you want Orikan, who fits with the theme, or the destroyer lord. My money is on Orikan.

So after that, we need to look at a primary HQ. If the surfboard does not fit due to not being a force multiplier, then we need to look at Immotek, Nemesor, and a vanilla lord. Immotek's storm, combined with the whole board hitting ability, makes him attractive. In addition, he comes with night fight, meaning you dont need to buy a solar pulse.
Nemesor's special rules, IMHO, help the most on close combat units, both friendly and enemy. So he is a good choice to make your scarabs stronger and faster for example, or your s5 immortals tank hunting, which is really scary versus some opponents. However, you need a solar pulse, upping his cost to Immotek's level.
Finally we have the regular overlords. These seem of less value to me because Orikan is a really good secondary HQ, making double royal courts, and thus double overlords, a tough sell for this list's central concept. So while I would normally sing the praises of 2 overlords, 1 overlord and Orikan is much less useful to me.

With HQ aside, how many quake-teks do we want. While I posit that 2 is the minimum, should that be a higher number?

I am not sure on this. Obviously, you want to quake the entire enemy force. But, with a max of 5 quake tek's with 1 royal court, and the already stated concept that WW and Orikan are force multiplier effects, the rather linear quake-teks are not something that needs be spammed in large numbers. Since a viable 2000 point list is Draigo, Kaz, and 20 paladins, having 5 tremor crons ends up wasting some points. Likewise, versus a 10+ vehicle GK, IG, or spacewolf list means that you cant quake everything anyway.
This means we need enough quake to quake the largest MOVING threats in most tourney lists. Lists that come to mind are 2 stormraven or 2 landraider lists, the CC forward elements of the 10+ GK/spacewolf/IG list (which is usually 3 max, IG has straken, GK run 3 choppy squads that are not MSU most of the time, and spacewolves have maybe 4 big grey hunter squads, but usually less if any big squads) and blob units of guard or horde orks, which max out at about 4 for guard and 5 for orks.

Anyway, the final thoughts are still that 2 is the minimum for tremor-teks, while 5 is probably too much since versus MSU 5 isnt enough and more than 2 is overkill versus deathstar builds.

DevianID, +1

Fantastic post, way to zero in on the root of the build.
I'd like to think that 4 quake-teks should be the goal, giving us good front line coverage, and the ability to focus fire on large blobs when necessary and spread fire when we can afford to. In a single RC we have the option of adding a 5th utility cryptek if the list demands it, or keep it at a managable 120.

I'll stand by concept that the Stormlord is friendlier to assault based lists (wraith wing, scarab farm) and lists that aim for long range shooting (double doomsday ark) need 2 royal courts for 2 pulses (thus no orikan).

Orikan is a game changer. He forces your opponent to fight either from reserve or suffering 10-15% casualties during a turn 1 advance. Combined with Immotekh, he is doubly effective, as your opponent must advance to overcome the extended night fighting. The problem is that Immotekh also reduces the effective range of the quaketek's staves, meaning we're either playing a game in our backfield, or using the opponent's slowed advance to attack with our close range, highly mobile units (Wraiths, VB/PC Praetorians, Scarabs, Doom Scythes) - or using the night fighting to cover a ponderous advance (triple monolith or spyder wave)

2500 is a very rare competitive range; 1500, 1750, 1850, and 2000 are far more common.

Immotekh/Orikan seems like it starts at the 2000 range, below that you probably want to capitalize on the most cost effective build (scarab farm w/ warrior phalanx, AV13 Wall, or wraithwing/scythespam at 1850)

This might be a build that just doesn't scale.

I saw a killer tremorcron batrep over at warseer a few days ago that just looked nasty at 1750:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikmEQjmyeFQ&feature=plcp&context=C340f19cUDOEgsToPDskLIFDJ5fIW_3lHGNIWOFAq1

Madival's list
Overlord: warscythe, mind shackle scarabs,phase shifter
On Command barge
Orikan the divinar
3 harbingers of transmognification: 1 seismic crucible(with orikan's unit)
Ctan shard: writhing world scape, grand illusion
9 warriors: ghost ark
9 warriors: ghost ark
8 warriors: ghost ark
doomsday ark
doomsday ark

Vs.

A bad tempered dude running Blood Angels
Libby w/Bike, Sword, Shield
Libby w/Bike, Sword, Shield
5x TH/SS Terminators
Priest w/Jump Pack
Priest w/Jump Pack
10x ASM w/2x meltagun, PFist
10x ASM w/2x meltagun, PFist
5x ASM w/meltagun, power fist
8x Bikes w/meltagun, flamer, PFist, AB w/MM
5x Bikes w/meltagun, flamer, PFist, AB w/MM

I dont know if you can count the ba/necron game. I just watched it and the BA player's attitude appeared to hurt more then the necron army.

For example, he effectively said 'My only chance is to suicide my troops in this 5 objective game on turn 2.'

I mean... really? Thats your only chance? Lets forget about picking apart his list to make it better, he didnt combat squad and also fed the troops to try and kill doom arks. He didnt stay central to provide overlaping FnP coverage, and it seemed to me as if no play for the objectives was attempted. The Necron list was packing 2 anni barges, 1 overlord with a scythe ccb, and everything else in the list was s4 shooting. In combat he had Orikan and the Ctan besides his one lord.

Then, he was so terrified of terrain that he didnt even move his bike unit. I understand that potentially losing 1/3rd of your bikes can be rough, but by sitting back he just gave the necrons more time to kill troops. Which they did.

Anyway, we should try to come up with a 1500 point list that combines as much as possible of the core tremor-cron ideals while keeping a solid force. If that can be done at 1500, we know we have a winner. Like has been said, at 2000 you have enough points that adding WW and tremor is not too difficult.

So to start, how about
Orikan
Anraykr
Ctan
Solar Pulse-tek
3 tremor-teks
Chronometron-tek
3x5 warrior units
10 tesla immortals
~10 scarabs
3 anni-barges

In my mind, the minimum warrior units do a good job of being a meatshield for the tremor-teks. At 1500, the Traveler's mind in the machine and tachyon arrow, backed by a chronometron (and Orikan likes the chronometron as well), gives you your best chance for dealing with troublesome units like land raiders. 3 anni-barges are hard to beat for efficiency, which at 1500 is also important. The solar-pulse tek can either join a warrior squad making a tremor-tek solo, or solo himself. This lets you hide as needed, and if the pulse-tek is solo you dont have to worry about wasted shots from the warriors if you want to move around. Finally, your immortal squad is a bit beefier than normal, with counterattack/furious charge.

Wow! Thanks for the imput, DevianID! Way to get to the core of our problem.
My feeling here is that we need to run 4 Tremorteks whenever possible, but 4 isn't a reality at 1500.
Your anaylsis really does make Orikan an auto-include 2nd HQ. None of the other options stack up in my mind.

I'm uneasy with minimum warrior units. My personal experience is that they don't stand up to shooting, and they definitely can't stand up to assault.

In your list, I'm trying to figure out how you deploy the Royal Court. You only have 4 units of troops. I'm imagining Orikan, Anrakyr, and a Chronometron-tek with the immortals. Warriors get a tremortek. Do you have the Pulsetek wandering about in the backfield alone? I suppose... after turn 1, his main purpose has been served.

@DevianID -

I really like your list a lot and think it is a good template. The chronotek and Anraykr both bring a lot to the list... In particular the chronotek really helps out Orikan.

DevianID wrote:I dont know if you can count the ba/necron game. I just watched it and the BA player's attitude appeared to hurt more then the necron army.

Totally Agree, I think it's because the necrons and blood angels are such good friends, the blood angels just didn't want to hurt their pals.

devianID wrote:
Anyway, we should try to come up with a 1500 point list that combines as much as possible of the core tremor-cron ideals while keeping a solid force. If that can be done at 1500, we know we have a winner. Like has been said, at 2000 you have enough points that adding WW and tremor is not too difficult.

So to start, how about
Orikan
Anraykr
Ctan
Solar Pulse-tek
3 tremor-teks
Chronometron-tek
3x5 warrior units
10 tesla immortals
~10 scarabs
3 anni-barges

I don't know if the chronometron is the best use of those points. A single spyder will put another MC down on the board and give our scarabs an extra 2.5" of threat in the first couple of turns, and one of those annihilation barges should be a CCB for Anrakyr anyway, but otherwise pretty nice. What are you thinking for a secondary c'tan power? Thunderbolt?

What about
Orikan 165
Phaeron 110
3xQuakeTeks + 1 Pulsetek (145)
10 Gauss Immortals 170
2x5 Tesla Immortals 170
C'tan (WW, ES) 230
10 Scarabs 150
2 A.Barges
1 D.Ark

A Chrono enhances the Stormlord's special rules a lot. so long as he isn't in a CCB. So if you aren't doing so I think it's a good idea, especially if you can move the Chrono-tek over to Orikan's superpower rolls once you don't need nightfight anymore.

So the plan for the royal court at 1500 is this. With the idea that sacrifice must be made at 1500, and that the cron list is not bleeding kill points, the 5 man royal court will split 4 members out to the 4 troop squads. The 5th royal court will stay as an HQ royal court, operating as a 1 man unit. The solo-cryptek can be the destro-pulse tek if you dont value the s8 shot late game, as even if he dies turn 1 your pulse goes off. Not great points, BUT how the heck did the enemy see your 1 man necron in the first place? If he wasted a manticore, with nightfight, to kill a solo model, more power to the crons!

As for minimum warrior units, they are designed to hang back at 30ish inches firing quake-blasts. At 30ish inches the incoming firepower geared towards anti-infantry, at 1500 points keep in mind, is minimal.

Now, if you need the pulse shot more than the tremor shot, swap the tremor-tek in a warrior unit with the pulse-tek. You can still snipe around corners with the tremor-tek running solo, so its not like its easy to get to him assuming the table can block LOS to at least 1 infantry model.

The reason for the chronometron is that at 1500 I feel we really need to be using Orikan to his fullest. This means if we need him in CC, we need something to help align him. Thus the chronometron. Now, normally I like the stormlord as well, but at 1500 we have to cut points on the wraiths and spyders that I feel mesh well with the stormlord. Thus, in my opinion Anyrakr is the next best HQ to benefit from a chronometron. Mind in the Machine no longer works with a CCB, and like I posit above the CCB has much reduced value in tremor-cron lists. So with no CCB, Mind in the machine works just fine, and nicely benefits from the chronometron if that is what you need. Whats more, the tachyon arrow is a fantastic bit of wargear at 1500, where the chances of running into more than 1 landraider/monolith type vehicle is slim. And the chronometron also nicely enhances the tachyon arrow.

Finally, while I love me some scarabs backed by a spyder, in this list, which uses only 1 pulse-tek, but is also only 1500 points, I also value vehicle supression that is valid on turn 2+. The scarabs may get 5 extra inches and 2 extra models by turn 2 with a single spyder, but if the enemy has s6 cc weapons to kill scarabs then after the scarabs get 1 assault off they will be killed. This gives the spyder less value. Perhaps if there were 2 scarab units, and 2 spyders, but again at 1500 somethings gotta give. The anni-barge will be kicking but and taking names for a while when backed by quakes that prevent lead elements from closing into melta range (hopefully) so they seem a better long term value than a better but still single scarab unit.

I need some practice games obviously, and 1500 is not the common point value around here. What are everyones thoughts about larger than 1500 games? I assume that most of the list I posted is not portable into a game of 1850, for example, as those 350 points make other units more efficient.

First, let me say WOW, what a great thread, both civil and on topic! Maybe a first for Dakka.

I think that Junk raises a lot of valid points, and I think that DevianID is right on about the idea of force multipliers (I use the term "synergy").

While I think that Orikan is a good HQ choice, you must remember that he is a Cryptek and not a lord; he only has a 4+ save, isn’t a Phaeron, and can’t take a Royal Court. Not being able to take a Royal Court automatically relegates him to secondary HQ choice. In any game at 1250 and above, I use the Stormlord. His ability to control night-fighting is just too valuable to pass up in an army that has little to no long range weapons. Add in that he is a Phaeron and can steal the first turn on a 4+, he starts looking pretty good. Add a chronotron and a solar pulse or 2 and he really begins to shine (or is that dark?).

I also feel that 5 man units of warriors is a waste, especially if you plan to have them in the back field. They don’t have a lot of range, firepower, or durability. 2 heavy bolters could easily put down 5 warriors and leave that Cryptek crying for his mommy by him self. Why waste 65 points trying to protect (poorly) a 30 point Tremor-Cryptek? At least if you take immortals you add both firepower and survivability, and at only 20 points more initial investment. The Tremorstave is not a weapon that is going to cause massive amounts of damage on its own, you will still need the firepower of your troops to eliminate enemy units.


I think we also need to address why we are taking Tremor-teks in the first place. The difficult terrain test by itself is really just a hindrance most opponents will just ignore with out the C’Tan’s Writhing Worldscape. But those two alone will not win you the game, it’s just a gimmick unless used with a plan. Now we need to develop a tactic!

The two things we are trying to do are 1) force our opponent into difficult terrain and 2) force the units in difficult terrain to move. I’m going to assume that most difficult terrain offers some form of cover save, so really what we need to do is make our opponent fear high AP weapons and want/need the safety of cover saves. Tesla weapons just ain’t gonna cut it. Guns like the Gauss Blaster, Gauss Cannon, particle whip, and Doomsday Cannon all have low AP, sure to make enemy infantry dive for cover, just where you want them. But how to make them move around after you tried so hard to get them in there? That’s where the night fighting comes into play. Your opponent can’t shoot what they can’t see, forcing them to close the distance, putting them right where you want them: taking dangerous terrain test at medium range! The Tremor-Teks obviously don’t need to shoot at units that are already in difficult terrain, they are there to slow down those units that avoid it, priority going to assault threats. The key will be in finding the smallest number of Tremmor-Teks to get the job done, putting them in with the right unit, and at the right place at the right time.

Perturabo's Chosen wrote:Orikan only has a 4+ save

He has a phase shifter.

Perturabo, in games of 2k I run the Stormlord, so I do agree with you there. However, as others have said Stormlord for nightfighting is risky if you also plan on bringing shooting, like you suggest with immortals. IMHO, a better build for Stormlord is the max canoptek units. 9 Spyders, 12 Wraiths, 10 scarabs give you cc punch, and ignore night fighting woes.

Second, Orikan hits the entire enemy board turn 1 with difficult WW ctan boosted terrain. Depending on how many units your opponent has, this can easily number 10+ tremor teks worth of quake. Even versus the smallest unit count builds, you are looking at a guaranteed 2 quake hits, AND you reduce your reliance on needing to go first. Thus why I so heavily recommended Orikan if you are planning on running Writhing Worldscape in the first place. In addition, while putting units in reserve normally helps ignore Orikan and the stormlord, with 9 spyders you have a crazy amount of scarabs by the time the enemy does show up, all in striking position to multiassault every unit that arrives turn 2+ with wraith and spyder support right behind.

Also dont forget that enemy transports have issues going flat out now, as on a 1 or 2 they not only are destroyed by Orikans machinations, but their transported squad is destroyed as well.

Thanks for joining us, Perturbo...
You make very good points. I believe this list is all about giving your opponent tough choices to make, and using Gauss Immortals does push us more in that direction.
Is the threat of them on the board worth enough to reduce our own mobility (rapid fire vs. assault weapons)?

Ah, that's some more good point for taking Orikan, I didn't think about how he would affect enemy fast transports like Eldar and Dark Eldar. But I reiterate my point that he can only be a 2nd HQ as he cannot take a royal court.

While the value of each Tremor-Tek is finite, the larger the game, the more WW is effective (just like Vulkan), so scaling down will be much harder than scaling up. It seems that we have the core of the WW/tremor list down, with the rest being up to individual play-style; shooty, choppy, or a mix of both. Use Stormlord to taste.

I've had to boil this stuff down before in nearly army I've played and I've come up with a pretty simple bylaw that can accompany any list building effort:

Create more problems for your opponent than they create for you.

The problems we have to solve:

Razorspam - Like tony kopatch's tournament winning wolves, and countless other MSU armies; an army of 5+ cheap transports with good guns, containing scoring units with good assault profiles, usually supported by long range shooting (long fangs, riflemen, psyflemen, artillery)

In order to deal with razorspam we need the capacity to de-mech with impunity. But just demeching isn't enough; we need to demech and follow up with good anti infantry solutions - and still maintain a killer app to deal with other builds.

Iron Armies - The various 'wings', terminator heavy armies - deathwing, draigowing, our own wraithwing, etc... We should be planning our list to be prepared to receive 30 terminators, double deathstars, and small, tough, elite armies. Also may require the ability to crack armor 14, deliver ap2 wounds, and tarpit in order to manage target priority.

Hordes - Our best match up in some ways, our worst in others; hordes of giant blobs can be seriously hampered by quake; but hordes like Foot-dar, elite orks, and sisters create split priority targeting problems.

Fast armies - Armies that can close the distance, like Dark Eldar, Necrons, Blood Angels assault lists, mechdar, etc, they don't care at all, they are in our face with superior initiative on turn 2, and all the night fighting in the world isn't going to matter. They'll take their 10% Casualties and tie up our lines unless we have something to stop them - Scarab farms, monoliths, wraith spam. They work because you can't shoot them as well as they can assault you.

The turtles: Armored IG, Broadside/Missile Spam tau, some foot-dar lists, etc... we can shut them down with nightfighting, but without shock units like doomscythes, scarabs, wraiths, and tomb blades to get in there and disrupt their firebase, we're still outgunned and nightfighting just delays the game. Solar Pulses>Immotekh in a long range fight obviously.

Decentralized lists: Our biggest problem IMO - Daemons, Drop Pod salamanders, DOA... these guys don't care about movement, they don't care about night fighting; they place units capable of eating other units within close range, and usually they can weather a turn of return fire, as they're able to approach from several vectors at once, and one turn of shooting or assault can eat a squad.


Our dilemma, We need to have answers, at least to some degree to all of these problems, as well as presenting a threat that an enemy may be ill prepared to deal with - The killer app.

The Killer apps avaialble to necrons are numerous, thankfully, but finding the right one for us is tricky.

Doomsday Arks - There are only a handful of units in the entire game capable of returning fire on a doomsday ark. The threat to the doomsday ark is deep strike/outflank, followed by LasCannons/lances on mobile platforms, followed by tricky units like attack bikes and melta-speeders. It's a killer app, 9-2 Large blast R72". Hard to beat that in a gunfight.

Doom Scythe: A beautifully designed glass cannon - fast moving, as deadly as possible, capable of hitting the enemy from any angle, and hitting hard. Obvious problem, the giant bullseye on it's glass jaw. If this thing can deliver it's payload twice though, holy crap is it fantastic.

Monolith: For armies that have a hard time with big armor, the monolith is a nightmare. We're all familiar enough with it at this point to eschew the formalities; it's a powerhouse, and completely affordable.

Wraiths: The best unit in the codex as far as I'm concerned. 3 s6 Rending attacks on a 2W jump infantry model with a 3++ for less than a terminator? feth that, it's dynamite, it will shred infantry, tarpit terminators, eat all but the heaviest vehicles, sink a ton of firepower, and get where it needs to be in no time. The only reason I don't advocate 18 wraiths in every f'ing game is because 12 is a win condition. (not to mention the models go for $35 each on ebay now)

These are the units you want to deliver onto your opponent, the ones that let you tip the game in your favor, the problems that if your opponent is not prepared to answer, he will die from.

Whether a Royal Court deathstar or a royal yacht make the grade remains to be seen.

Now - answering problems:

Mechspam (chimeras, rhinos, razorbacks, etc) - Scarab farms, wraiths, or stunlocking with annihilation barges/night scythes. That answers the problem of the vehicles, with Scarabs taking the lead on dealing with heavy armor, wraiths or teslaspam winning out for dealing with infantry.

Hordes: Quake + Tesla is nice for limiting effectiveness, but we want more more more guns than in a hybrid list. Wraiths are less effective here, as they drop to high volume of attacks/small arms fire. Quake is really good here with Writhing Worldscape as the math shifts in our favor.

Iron Armies: Wraiths can tarpit, quake can slow, harrassment is usually the policy de jour for these lists, They hate sycthespam, jetbikes, etc... they couldn't care less about monstrous creatures and sub par assault units.

Fast Armies : ... I don't know.

Turtles: Obviously, double pulse-teks and doomsday arks or Immotekh and assault - we're already expecting our enemy to have a reduced mobility; just not to be optimized for it...

Decentralized lists: Fast response threats; wraiths again, tomb blades, praetorians... but we'll take a beating the turn that a drop pod with 5 twin-linked combimeltas lands next to our (insert thing you love here)

Obviously, the Kamikazi Surf lord is an answer to nearly every threat - and a big problem for the opponent himself, which is why it's considered a necron autoinclude - except in our list where it actually takes up a slot we may 'need' to fill with a named dude.

I don't know if this helps at all...

junk wrote:I don't know if this helps at all...

Quite a bit, I say.
Fantastic work you've done on this thread. Made me think a lot more about the army that my army has been leaning into.

Junk, to be fair tony kopach doesnt run razorspam, well he didnt when I played him. He runs cc grey hunters with njal if he has the points. Unless he changed his list.

Anyway, in regards to the doom ark, yeah the s9 ap1 large blast is sweet, but its mobility is zero. For 175, that is not an effective solution, and versus infantry good players will spread out limiting its damage to 3 models. So considering the higher entry cost of ww and tremor, this unit is cut in all but the 2500 point range. Other lists use this vee better.

Now, for the scythe, my issue is that you dont need to move when facing a scythe. Its assumed flight stand and low range mean anti tank weapons, which on the low range side are 24 inches, can still hit it. Now, in lists leveraging lots of threats this is mitigated, but again the startup costs of tremor crons eliminate the support necessary for this vehicle.

As for daemons, scarab farm is brutal to daemons. Consider, we have the charge range on furious blood crushers, and slaneesh cav can not deal with the 54 wounds scarabs have with just one spawn roll. They also dont have shooting, and daemons used to love terrain for the saves but dont now thanks to ww.

When it comes to termie armies, it's hard to compare them since they all play so different. A solution is to use lots of wraiths, stacked on one unit, but that won't work so well on draigo pallies for example. This matchup somewhat weakens the value of scarabs, and I don't envy spyders getting force weaponed. I think we need to play ww to its fullest here, by making his units need to move each turn, but at the same time the psycannons back to us will crumple any unit we have. That said, draigowing does this to almost everyone, so it's not like tremor cron are unique here.

Re: Kopach, No, you're right, it's CC Hunters in Rhinos backed up by 3 long fangs/razorbacks, led by Njal; but the clone netlists out there tend to run razorbacks instead. Our chances of running into Tony K in a competitive game while running tremorcrons is very unlikely unless we crack the code here.

---



Re: Doom Ark - The point is we're slowing them down with quake, and punishing them for standing in the open with this blast that they'll move to cover to avoid > what other list is better suited to this vehicle, because I don't really like it if it's not backed up by quake.

Re: Doom Scythe - the trick with this thing is not to suicide it - but agreed, not the most complementary coice.

As far as start up costs go, we're at what, like 420 minimum, with three quake teks, a plain overlord, and a cheap ctan? More reasonable to say our outlay is 650 for the concept, where we're at least getting use out of the HQs. Then to drop 270-340 in troops means we're eating 1000 points before we get our swiss army machete's on the board.

-----

Scarabs are actually decent against certain Wings, like Draigo and Deffwing, simply because of their Entropic Strike and huge number of wounds (though ID is a problem). By that measure, any unit with Entropic Strike would be dangerous, because they can strip that 2+ armour away from the enemy.

Entropic strike only helps versus multiwound models. So deffwing mega nobs and paladins like you said, with a problem. And the issue with both is that you make their save go away for the next round but your scarabs are instant deathed off the table this round. I mean, it's better than nothing I guess. But because deff and draigo are not paying a big premium for their second wound, even without their armor save they are deadly.

As to the doom ark, cover doesnt really help against the doom ark nearly as much as just spreading out, and you can deploy spread out so no movement necessary. Furthermore, as an anti vehicle weapon, it's just 1 hit that is not that accurate. For the cost other anti vehicle weapons are far superior. Since we are limiting our opponents mobility, I feel the stalkers shorter range but better guns and mobility would serve us far better.

Okay, we should keep the focus on 2,000 because I'm not sure how the build scales down; but I think we're all I agreement that wraiths, scarabs, annihilation barges, and monoliths are awesome sauce. It looks like immortals win out over warriors, and a single royal court will do the deed, so Orikan can stay
For now.

We seem to prefer 24" to Long range, and no one has mentioned ghost arks in a while. Can we make this work competitively? Can we squeeze in a couple night scythes? Are death marks and tomb blades out of the question? Are we abandoning destroyers?

And again, is this a viable build for competitive play or is our core pricing us out?

I played in a tournament yesterday and had been reading this string on Friday so it was fresh in my mind (considered a Tremorcron list but didnt feel ready). There was a player with a Immo max wraithwing list who beat two GK's and a weak Necron list to come in near the top.

My point I guess is that I think the 18 Wraith builds will be more popular just based on how dominating it was. How could this list compete with what may become a common build when the heart of the army ignores the main advantage?

No, I think that a dedicated wraithwing is simply superior to this build. 12 wraiths, 10 scarabs, or 18 wraiths, backed up by the other key necron units (ccb scythelords, destroyer lords with MSS, annihilation barges or night scythes, and/or monoliths [or accompanying a full scythespam or scarab farm] is just a better use of points in general. At this stage.

If this is a puzzle we need to solve, theres a chance that the answer lies in unit synergy; but we're nearly at the end of exhausting combinations, and none have stepped forward as clear winners.

My wraithwing is by far the winningest army I've ever played, and it's scary because Jy2's MTO list is practically the same thing but better (based on his batreps). With a 650 point anchor around my neck at 2000 points I think it's always going to be an uphill battle.

Doing things like 3 monoliths playing a shell game seems awesome, but is it better to run a triple monolith build without the quake plugged in? Maybe.

Is it better to run a scythespam list without quake? Probably.

Is it better to run a wraithwing without quake? I think, definitely.

The thing that you're running into here, I think, is that you're looking at something secondary as a primary consideration. Yes, Tremors are cool, and yes, they can slow down and potentially kill units and models. However, it's a force multiplyer, not a weapon in and of itself. Tremor-crons shouldn't be a list, but a portion, that can be plugged into other lists to help them control the battlefield.

When you come down to it, what is Tremor-crons? It's a wargear option in a Royal Court (because of the way they work, you don't really need more than one when you're looking at the Quakes alone) which means an Overlord or Character who can take a Court. It also includes one of the powers of a C'tan shard- leaving another slot open, letting you orient your C'tan towards mid-range, CC or long-range to go with the rest of the list. That's it.

It's like how you can make a hot-dog, and you can make a hamburger. They're two completely different foods. But you can put ketchup and mustard and onions on either of them, and those condiments enhance their flavor. Tremor-crons isn't an entree, it's a condiment, enhancing any list that it's put on.

I see people mentioning Orikans gun, i dont have the codex with me but i dont remember him having any ranged weapons unless i missed something?

Edit: nevermind! Transdimensional beamer! Thought it was a tesserect labryinth for whatever reason

Yeah, I understand that Quake/ww can be plugged into other lists; but the idea here is creating the best possible home for it. Kind of like how you can put mustard on a hot dog, or you can squeeze it into your milkshake.

To recap, we've covered the ideas of a fast, mobile army that becomes more effective by slowing down the opponent (tomb blades, scythes)

An assault army that uses the combined powers of Orikan and Imotekh to soften the opponent so the killer units (wraiths, scarabs) can get in and munch them, while shutting down shooting armies.

We've considered combining the tremor crons with an armor wall, either AV13 or Multiple monoliths.

We've considered an artillery based list that uses tarpits and quake to protect a back rank of doomsday arks.

We've considered some unorthodox builds (the multiple c'tan list particularly stands out in my mind)

We've considered a phaeron based phalanx list that just has torrents of fire, which combined with quake garauntees more turns of shooting on our terms.

The question is, which build is the best possible home for our Writhing Worldscape C'tan and harbingers of transmorgrification. Yes, it's a force multiplier, but which force is it going to most effectively multiply?

And before you say "it's a matter of personal taste" remember that this is a game of statistics; the best lists out there are already defined to some degree.


I'll run through these again:

The Fast Tremorcrons - Featuring troops with night scythe support, tomb blades or destroyers, and maybe teleporting deathmarks, supported by a c'tan with Grand Illusion for the double synergy; and either CCB Scythelords or Double Phaerons. Possibly supported by doom Scythes or annihilation barges. This list requires the most crypteks because we need two solar pulses to play it correctly, it doesn't snyergize with Immotekh because we can't shoot through our own nightfighting, and the list is highly dependent on targeted quake, so we need multiple tremorstaves (at least 4). It is most likely supported best by 2 phaerons attached to deathmarks or gauss immortals, rather than CCBs. Our objective is to skirt our opponent's effective range for 2 turns of shooting before closing in for clean up, making them move every turn to be able to return fire.

Assault Tremorcrons - Scarab Farm or Wraith wing, backed up by a CC C'tan (Gaze, ES, or Time Arrow) With a monolith, under the direction of immotekh and orikan. We can get away with a single small royal court, as we just need to slow down the units we're not ready to engage. This list operates by taking advantage of the cost effectiveness of wraiths and scarabs to offset the price of the ctan, and uses the c'tan and orikan as mid game sacrifices to inflict more damage in CC. The monolith or monoliths become mobile terrain that allow us to slingshot our army into kill range. Also presented was the idea of a Flayed Wall, I haven't done the math on this, but 40 flayed ones for 520 seems kind of awesome.

The Armor Wall works with WW by keeping melta units and Hammer/claw type dudes outside of effective range, forcing the opponent to devote heavy weapons to desperately try to penentrate our AV13/14 vehicles. Annihilation barges & Ghost Arks + CCB lords, and/or monoliths Immotekh.

The Quake Phalanx is great, it seems, 40 warriors and two phaerons with resorbs backed up by 2 ghost arks, a spirit dust or lof c'tan, 3 quake teks, 2 pulses is only 1400 - leaving us with 600 points of heavy support or fast attack to round out the list; (opens up the option of royal yachts, running 3 monoliths, 9 heavy destroyers, 10 Wraiths and 10 Scarabs) Or going balls out and playing 60 warriors and 4 arks with a full 8 tremorstave fusillade, advancing the writhing worldscape mechanic from force multiplier to force foundation.

They are cheap though which is nice. In a normal game they cant really do much either, they tend to just get slaughtered; imo rather have something with a gun.

For their price they do just fine in CC, they also eat bullets pretty efficiently, but to each there own.

I do like the Royal Court Star in your list though, and the triple Monos should provide some good LOS blocking for the C'Tan and some mobility.

I will be trying the following variant out this weekend. It is for an upcoming tournament that basically plays all three missions at once. Additionally, there is a restriction of 1 unique character.

Total Roster Cost: 1994

HQ: Overlord (190 pts)
+ Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs + Resurrection Orb + Phase Shifter

HQ: Orikan the Diviner (165 pts)

: Royal Court (485 pts)
1 Harbinger of Eternity + Chronometron
1 Harbinger of Transmogrification (usually with Immortals)
1 Harbinger of Transmogrification (usually with Immortals)
1 Harbinger of Transmogrification (usually with Immortals)
1 Harbinger of Destruction + Solar Pulse (usually with warriors)
1 Lord + Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs
1 Lord + Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs
1 Lord + Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs
1 Lord + Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs
1 Lord + Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs

Troops: Immortals (136 pts)
8 Immortals w/ TCs

Troops: Immortals (136 pts)
8 Immortals w/ TCs

Troops: Immortals (136 pts)
8 Immortals w/ TCs

Troops: Warriors (271 pts)
12 Warriors
1 Ghost Ark (Start empty for RC to hop into)

Fast Attack: Canoptek Wraiths (215 pts)
5 Canoptek Wraiths+ Whip Coil x4

Elite: C'Tan Shard (260 pts)
+ Writhing Worldscape + Grand Illusion

I'll let you know what works well and what falls flat.

So I finally got to play some games with my tremor crons to see the theory put in practice. It was 1850, I played against sisters and space wolves. My list was off, but more on that later.
Immotek
2 tremor cryptek, 1 chronometron cryptek
Orikan
Ctan, swarm and writhing world
3x5 warriors
2x6 wraiths
1x10 scarabs
2x2 spyders
1x3spyder, 1 gloom pris

So astute readers may notice that with swarm instead of a cheap power my list is 10 points over. I will fix this in the future, but if my gloom was missing these games the results would be identical.

Anyway, both missions rolled randomly to dawn of war. Both the sister player and wolf player were deathly afraid of rolling on turn 1 and dying thanks to orikan, so both players made me go first and reserved everything.

Edit for mini-report on the list/games:This turns out to be a great benefit of the list, probably the greatest strength of the tremor cron list. If you force your opponent to reserve then when they come on you have had 2 turns of spawning and running. Within 1 turn of their arrival you are in their lines messing stuff up. Whats more, the enemy arrives in pieces.

Now, in the game versus the sisters, my first game with this army ever, I found that moving the unwieldly scarab horde took more forethought than I originally planned. In addition, you may have numbers, but if you spread out like I did then you get bogged down in combat. So I had a charge on a sister unit, and it took my horde of 20-30 scarabs 3 combat phases to get rid of them. A tighter formation with the scarabs packed in for combat would have given me extra distance and many more attacks in round 1 of the combat, making it so I was not stuck. That scarab unit still went on to kill 1 rhino and 2 other sister troops, but I lost 1 charge turn at least to placement issues.

Next is the chronometron. Man, with Immo and Orikan, this thing is a beast! I kept both Orikan and Immo's buff where I wanted it for most of the game. The lightning and nightfighting did a real number on the sister shooting. Again bad placement caused this unit to miss on some of its potential, but it was my first game after all.

As for the tremor-teks, well they probably performed the worst in the army. Since the chronometron did his job and kept nightfighting up pretty much the entire game, when I did shoot them I either scattered off the sisters weakened squads, or more frequently didnt have sight thanks to night fighting. I would not put more than 2 in a stormlord list without also adding a solar pulse... 2 is still nice to disrupt lead elements (like that sister rhino that I quaked 2 times, who passed all its immobilization checks to turn my win on turn 5 to a contested draw turn 6)

The Ctan, well he was amazing. He took a charge from the jacobs DCA unit who were on their way to my objective to kill stormlord and orikan. With defensive grenades, the 6 DCA got 'only' 24 attacks, 12 hits, 2 wounds, 1 failed save. That was his only wound, as I attacked over that round and the next and broke the unit. So... amazing. Now, normally I would consider him a giant bullseye, but with nightfighting no shots could even come his way.

Last in this style list was the Wraiths. On my right side, my opponent killed 11 wounds of wraiths with 2 troop squads, when I failed 3/4 melta saves on his 4 total shots, and 5 out of 8 3++ saves from bolters. Here even 5 points would have kept 1 wraith alive thanks to would allocation, but honestly bad dice are bad dice. 1 Wraith would have done nothing. On the other side, I failed 2 of 3 melta wounds dealt, and 2 invuln saves, but after that no more attacks could see them. Those 3 wraiths proceeded to kill 2 exos, 1 MM immolator, and a dominion squad. Not bad for 3 guys, though the other 6 man squad still crapped out.

As for the space wolf game, this was much less interesting. He stays in reserve, and castles with his entire army in one corner of the board as the objective is kill points. He has 1 drop pod that has to come on turn 1--I kill it with wraiths and then hide from his oncoming reserves. So I have a 1 KP advantage, he is scared to get close to me as my army is hiding behind the LOS blocking terrain in the table center, and if he advances I kill him. Me on the other hand, if I advance into LOS his missiles and lascannons and melta can do lots of damage to my units, so with a KP advantage I also stay hidden. He makes 1 gamble, and when he rolls both his wolf scouts on, he assaults my Orikan/Stormlord/Chrono warrior unit in cover. He loses 2 models to dangerous, the Stormlord loses a wound to a melta shot, and his bolt pistols and regular attacks combine to kill all 6 of the warrior squad, chronometron included. No armor saves passed save 1, no RP were made. Bad dice. In return, I kill 1 with Orikan, as even with rerolls Immo deals no wounds. I pass my leadership, but with no chronometron Orikan does not get buffed and the lightning goes away. Crappy. So in my turn my ctan is too far away to charge in, Orikan dies to a pfist, and Immo fails an armor save, leaving him with 1 wound... its looking grim, but I pass my first RP roll with Orikan, and in my next turn after making some 3++ saves in his assault phase, Orikan powers up, the Ctan charges, and I wipe out all 7 remaining models in 1 turn. So in the end, his 2 KP scout to earn 3 KP of HQ and troop backfires, and I win the game with the KP win on turn 5, with the wolves facing down a charge in their corner from 45 scarabs if we did go to turn 6.

Nice, how did you do?

I also played 2 games today with my semi-tremorcrons. Not really optimized at all, it was more of an experimental army trying out different things. The first game was at 2K and the second, due to time factor and my opponent, was at 1750.

I brought at 2K:

Orikan
Tricked-out Overlord on CCB
4x Crypteks - 2x Lance-teks w/1x Solar Pulse, 2x Tremor-teks.

C'tan - Lord of Flame, Writhing Worldscape
Triarch Stalker

4x5 Warriors

10x Scarabs
5x Wraiths - 3x Whips, 1x Pistol
5x Tomb Bladess - Shadowlooms, Particle Beamers

Monolith


Played against an Imperial Fist army with Epistolary Librarian, 2x Rifleman dreads, Ironclad in Drop Pod, 3x Tact squads with Las/plas razors, 2x2 land speeder typhons and 3 dakkapreds. He had a very shooty army and I hardly had any shooting.


The second was against Mechdar. For 1750, I used (I was actually 20pts under):


Tricked-out Overlord on CCB
4x Crypteks - 2x Lance-teks w/1x Solar Pulse, 2x Tremor-teks.

C'tan - Lord of Flame, Writhing Worldscape

4x5 Warriors

10x Scarabs
6x Wraiths - 4x Whips, 1x Pistol
5x Tomb Bladess - Shadowlooms, Particle Beamers

Monolith


He brought somethine like this - Eldrad, Jetbike farseer w/5 warlock seer council, 5x fire dragons in serpent, 3x5 dires in serpent, 2x3 scatter war walkers 2 shuricannon war walkers. A very shooty army against my poor necrons who can't shoot worth a lick.


I would tell you what happens, but then that would spoil the battle reports that I'm working on (coming out probably this weekend). Let's just say that I miss either my very fast MTO necrons or a lot more shooting.

Junk--I edited my post to add in info from the games.

Jy2, I posted above that I felt that CCB, while normally awesome, do not work with tremor-crons as well, since Orikan takes up a spot and you also lose the second solar pulse from the second CCB lord.

Would you agree, after playing your games, with my theorycrafting?

In addition, in my opinion the tomb blades are bad for this kind of list, especially as you have them equipped. Do you feel that the 200 point blade unit would have been better as either 5 more wraiths/another monolith/4 spyders, or did they do well for you despite costing 200 points?

Edit: also, what would have Orikan done for you in the game versus the Eldar, had you kept him in the list?

@Devian - Thanks for the report. It's good to hear that you had success against smart players.

@Jy2 - It's nice to see you, and I can't wait to hear your opinions and see your battle reports.

Now, does Orikan's power work only First Turn, or when the enemy units First Move?

Orikan's ability only works on the first turn.

I finished a game last night with Tremor-crons vs Space Wolves. Mission was from an upcoming tourney and had 3 goals. I got the primary and secondary goal, while my opponent got the tertiary one.

The tremor/Writhing Worldscape combo accounted for about 1/3 of my opponents army, but it too so long. Between me with Storm lord, Orikan, 4 Tremor staves, and 5 Canoptek Spyders, and my opponent having to constantly make Difficult and Dangerous terrain test the game went very very long because of all the extra dice rolling.

I consider my opponent and me to both be "veteran" players with a good deal of experience with both armies. But I just can't see how to get through a full game in a tourney setting, especially if I had to play vs a nid or ork army. Seems like my opponent was having to roll dice just to roll more dice. Any ideas or would it be better to not bring so many things that require extra rolls.

airmang wrote:Orikan's ability only works on the first turn.

I finished a game last night with Tremor-crons vs Space Wolves. Mission was from an upcoming tourney and had 3 goals. I got the primary and secondary goal, while my opponent got the tertiary one.

The tremor/Writhing Worldscape combo accounted for about 1/3 of my opponents army, but it too so long. Between me with Storm lord, Orikan, 4 Tremor staves, and 5 Canoptek Spyders, and my opponent having to constantly make Difficult and Dangerous terrain test the game went very very long because of all the extra dice rolling.

I consider my opponent and me to both be "veteran" players with a good deal of experience with both armies. But I just can't see how to get through a full game in a tourney setting, especially if I had to play vs a nid or ork army. Seems like my opponent was having to roll dice just to roll more dice. Any ideas or would it be better to not bring so many things that require extra rolls.

Wow, I never even considered that. Have a lot of you been experiencing this? In my limited experience with this build I haven't really run into this problem, but then again, everyone in my arena is pretty quick in general.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Anpu-adom wrote:@Devian - Thanks for the report. It's good to hear that you had success against smart players.

@Jy2 - It's nice to see you, and I can't wait to hear your opinions and see your battle reports.

Cant wait to read Jy2's reports!
Devain, It doesn't seem like the WW had a huge in game impact for you, but it did force your opponent to play on his/her back from reserve, which isly awesome, but is it worth it? You got use out of the C'tan which is cool, and you really put those damn scarabs to work! Would you have been better off with just a pure scarab farm build?

DevianID wrote:Junk--I edited my post to add in info from the games.

Jy2, I posted above that I felt that CCB, while normally awesome, do not work with tremor-crons as well, since Orikan takes up a spot and you also lose the second solar pulse from the second CCB lord.

Would you agree, after playing your games, with my theorycrafting?

Surflords (Overlord on CCB) are always useful, no matter the necron build. That is because they satisfy a few roles that necrons are not particularly good at, especially many of the tremorcrons builds:

1) AT. The more tremorteks in the army, the less lanceteks you have. Thus, unless you take wraiths and scarabs, then the surfboard will help in this area.

2) Ability to take on heavy armor. Besides scarabs and the doom scythe, necrons are not strong against heavy armor. Surflords fill this niche as well.

3) Mobility. You can never have enough mobility. A tremorcron lists will most likely be on foot unless you invest in the more expensive ghost arks. In other words, it is slow.

4) Threat. The surflord is an actual threat that the opponent just cannot ignore.

IMO, the unit that you can actually do without is Orikan. He is just too random of a character. Sure, when he works, he may work great. But would I take him to a tournament and hope that my opponents immobilize a quarter of their army on Turn 1? Don't bet on it.

If anything, my HQ's of choice are double surflords. They're in it for the long haul and not just for Turn 1 shenanigans. And they come with royal courts as well!

In addition, in my opinion the tomb blades are bad for this kind of list, especially as you have them equipped. Do you feel that the 200 point blade unit would have been better as either 5 more wraiths/another monolith/4 spyders, or did they do well for you despite costing 200 points?

Edit: also, what would have Orikan done for you in the game versus the Eldar, had you kept him in the list?

Tomb blades were purely for experimental reasons. I like them in concept, though in practical application they are falling way short of what I was expecting. Though in all fairness, that is partially because for some inexplicable reason, they scare the bejesus out of my opponents who then focus way too much firepower against them. Oh...and I forgot that they had RP in my first 3 games with them.

They could work with the tremorcrons because shooting is what they need in such an army. Moreover, they provide the mobility that my slow army is sorely lacking. But whether are they the optimal choice in such an army? Probably not. Wraiths would have been better.....and in any list, not just tremorcrons. Not much in the codex beat wraiths in terms of efficiency.

Monoliths are meh. My monolith didn't really do much, but then again, that may have more to do with my inexperience in using them (and the fact that my opponents made almost every single cover save against its particle whip). These were my first 2 games with the monos.

Orikan wouldn't have done much against my mechdar opponent. He would've probably just stayed still and I wouldn't have been able to capitalize on it due to my lack of ranged AT. With their mobility, staying still on Turn 1 is nothing to them.

Staying still on turn 1 helps, but that is one of the things I like with scarabs+wraiths and immo/orikan. If you go first, move up after spawning, then you should have assaults on your turn 2. It only takes 3 scarabs to kill a tank that didn't move. So now that eldar army has to move, or go in reserve.

Yeah, Orikan works much better in your list. The combo of double-wraiths + mini scarab-farm goes well with almost any necron build and will always make them competitive.

However, I still have my reservations about Immo and Orikan. Both times, I've used them, they didn't really do much, which just underscores why I'm not really high on them. While others may have awesome experiences with them, my type of experience with them can be just as normal. It is this unpredictability (and thusly, inconsistency in performance) which I do not like.

So I played 2 more games with Orikan and Immotek, versus Rich (the sister player from before) who was running battlewagon orks and Nick running his new GK list.

For the game versus Rich it was pitched with KP, 4 battlewagons, nobs, 2 boyz squads, 2 grot squads, snikrot, ghaz, KFF. 1 rokkit buggy. Here, I missplayed and did not have my wraiths an inch up, allowing a waaagh fueled Snikrot to charge Immo/orikan and 2 warrior squads. Well, I figured not a problem, as I can beat on some orks still right, with chronometron help? Wrong... Snikrot deals 3 wounds to Orikan, fail 3 3++ saves, so he dies before empowering and going crazy. Stormlord kills 2, but I am left with 4 of 12 warriors. Both units break, even with chronometron, everything escapes and runs off the board. So... that is 2 times the weak warriors have cursed me by just laying down and dying. Granted it was my fault for positioning poorly which allowed the charge, but without powering up Orikan is such a chump.

After that, his mistake was underestimating the scarabs. Lightning Immobed 1 battle wagon, Orikan immobed the other, even with deffrolla reroll. Scarabs charged 1 and wrecked it. Boyz charged the scarabs through cover, and I killed all them before they swung. They went on to kill the 2 immobed wagons and both grot squads, plus help wraiths kill the other boy squad.

Needless to say, the ork player was not thrilled, and despite my mistake with stormlord, by not dedicating everything to the scarabs his mistake ended up being worse by 1.

In that game, the tremor teks continued to be of minor value, the spyders did ok, same with the ctan, considering that with no instant death I still put 13 wounds onto the diversified nobs--though I died in the end. What kills me is that the Wraiths are still not performing. The scarabs ate/contributed to 3 wagons, 2 boyz squads, 2 grot squads. The 2 units of scarabs combined got the buggy, 1 other wagon, and contributed with the scarabs to the boyz.

He charged ghaz into 1 Wraith squad, with no more Waaagh save bonus. 18 attacks, 0 wounds, though only 1 wraith died to his claw. In my turn, 2 spyders charged in to help out, did 3 wounds, and 15 Wraith attacks did nothing to ghaz. The spyders only took 2 wounds from ghaz. Then his nobs charge in, 6 more wraith attacks into ghaz, still no wounds. The nobs kill the spyders and wraiths. Ghaz then charges the other wraiths, engaged with boyz. First round, 3 swings, nothing, second round 3 swings and he finally dies. So yeah... I dont know if its just me, but so far Wraiths are looking to get shelved for 10 more scarabs.

In the game with the GK, it was pitched battle and 3 objectives. He had 4 strike squads, 8 DCA, 2 psyriflemen, 2 purifier squads in rhinos, 4 psyback razors, and a land raider redeemer. Coteaz and Inq with win grenades in with the DCA.

So I went second and started spawning scarabs. One unit of wraiths went on the flank with 1 objective, the rest of my army deployed to hold the side with 2 objectives. The lightning killed a dread, immobed 2 razors, and destroyed a rhino with purifiers. Nothing to sneeze at. Orikan t1 prevented the raider from moving. Nick rolled hypothetically, rolled a 1. My quakes saw through night fighting and quaked the raider turn 2. Again he didnt move, but rolled for lolz and rolled a 2. So regardless of outcome of the game, Orikan prevented the raider from moving turn 1 and quake prevented turn 2. Turn 3 I quaked again, but the scarabs were eating everything at this point, so he had to move, and of course rolls a 6 this turn. So the turn I win the game if the quaked land raider immobs itself, it doesnt work. His DCA with grenades multiassault anything they can touch, and his grenades only get 1 bad result the entire game. The poor scarabs got rerolled to hit on, and he wiped out 22 bases with me being unable to swing... boo. The wraiths had to attack themselves in the same combat. Next round he assaults 5 spyders. The 3 man unit of spyders were hit automatically, the 2 man he made init 1. Everything dies to straight wounds without attacks, except for 1 wraith and 1 spyder. Now, I realize that banking on immobing the land raider was wrong, I should instead have kept the wraiths back to counter assault and just sent the scarabs solo. Its not like the wraiths did anything this game. They helped kill some purifiers that scarabs also charged, which didnt matter all that much. They then died to a man to DCA. The other unit got shot to 4 wraiths, and I charged his flank with 1 wraith on the immobed rhino, 1 on the immobed razor, and 2 on the razor that moved 6 inches. I figured that this should be enough to seal his mobility on that side, but the 8 attacks on immobed vehicles did nothing, and the 8 attacks on the mobile vehicle did nothing. So that mobile razor went on to contest the mid objective, causing me to lose. Even if all 16 attacks went to that one razor, it still would have been fully mobile and contested the objective.

Maybe its just me, but wraiths have been poor performers in 4 games so far. I wont give up on them yet, but I do know for a fact that 4 scarabs on that mobile razor would have wrecked the hell out of it, where 4 wraiths would do nothing.

So anyway, long winded minireports done, my observations on the list so far.

Stormlord 4/4. In all 4 games the nightfight was great, and lightning did something. Chronometron helps this greatly. His failing in close combat bother me though.
Orikan 4/4. In the DoW games he made the opponent reserve--fantastic help! In the game with the wagon orks he immobed 1, but also died like a chump in combat. Versus the GK he prevented the raider from moving, a big help, and sat on an objective. In combat he was less useful in these games, as timing the powerup is hard with no mobility to speak of.

Ctan 4/4. So in all 4 games the Ctan was useful. Versus the DoW matches he, with Orikan, forced reserves. He prevented the GK from moving 2 turns, and if he did immob his raider on his charge turn I would have won that game handidly, seeing as the raider went on to contest the 2nd objective on my side. Versus the orks, the terrain was nice, and he also killed snikrot's unit. This match he made the least contribution, as he died to nobs thanks to no instant death, but even when he died the explosion causes some damage.

Chronometron 4/4. This guy is amazing. Love him. Going to run him every game, and I also am considering buying him a 3++ save in bigger games.

Tremor-teks 1.5/4. In the DoW games, the tremors were out of range, as the warriors dont want to advance. They quaked up the land raider, which was very nice, but it didnt matter in the end--though it could have won that game for me. Versus the orks one died before firing, the other hit a wagon, and with the reroll to terrain it didnt help much.

Warriors: 1/4. They charged 5 sisters and lost, needing spyders to bail them out, they had to hide in the other games, really they were only useful versus the GK. They are required, but in terms of contribution they did very little. Most games I would instead love tesla immortals or gauss immortals for Immotek, and the better armor save plus ability to move would be great. 6 points for that upgrade over 15 models means that something else has to give for me to try this out.

Scarabs 4/4. The scarabs dominated every game. Even when they didnt damage the space wolves, the scarabs at 45 strong were my insurance for a KP lead had the game went past 5.

Wraiths 2/3. The wraiths didnt pull their weight, but versus the sisters they did kill exos on one flank despite dying to bolters and meltas horribly on the other flank. Versus the wolves they got the drop pod and then ran away to safety, while also holding the middle of the table. Versus the orks, they killed a wagon and helped kill a boy squad, but did not really help win that battle at all. Versus the GK, they failed to seal the mobility of the GK and died to counter attack. Now in this game I feel had I played the wraiths differently they would have done better, but would they have done better than scarabs? Not sure. I need more games versus more opponents, as the S6 really hasnt mattered yet.

Spyders 4/4. They are really handy. Not bad in assault either. They got killed by GK grenades, but that is to be expected by the GK grenades ability to kill everything. Versus the Orks they grew the scarabs to a critical mass, and did 3/4 wounds to ghaz. They also hurt nobz, but versus the nobz with wound allocation they are not ideal. The number of spyders is still up for debate though. Would 6 still have done as well? What about the full 9?

DevianID wrote: So anyway, long winded minireports done, my observations on the list so far.

Stormlord 4/4. In all 4 games the nightfight was great, and lightning did something. Chronometron helps this greatly. His failing in close combat bother me though.
Orikan 4/4. In the DoW games he made the opponent reserve--fantastic help! In the game with the wagon orks he immobed 1, but also died like a chump in combat. Versus the GK he prevented the raider from moving, a big help, and sat on an objective. In combat he was less useful in these games, as timing the powerup is hard with no mobility to speak of.

Ctan 4/4. So in all 4 games the Ctan was useful. Versus the DoW matches he, with Orikan, forced reserves. He prevented the GK from moving 2 turns, and if he did immob his raider on his charge turn I would have won that game handidly, seeing as the raider went on to contest the 2nd objective on my side. Versus the orks, the terrain was nice, and he also killed snikrot's unit. This match he made the least contribution, as he died to nobs thanks to no instant death, but even when he died the explosion causes some damage.

Chronometron 4/4. This guy is amazing. Love him. Going to run him every game, and I also am considering buying him a 3++ save in bigger games.

Tremor-teks 1.5/4. In the DoW games, the tremors were out of range, as the warriors dont want to advance. They quaked up the land raider, which was very nice, but it didnt matter in the end--though it could have won that game for me. Versus the orks one died before firing, the other hit a wagon, and with the reroll to terrain it didnt help much.

Warriors: 1/4. They charged 5 sisters and lost, needing spyders to bail them out, they had to hide in the other games, really they were only useful versus the GK. They are required, but in terms of contribution they did very little. Most games I would instead love tesla immortals or gauss immortals for Immotek, and the better armor save plus ability to move would be great. 6 points for that upgrade over 15 models means that something else has to give for me to try this out.

Scarabs 4/4. The scarabs dominated every game. Even when they didnt damage the space wolves, the scarabs at 45 strong were my insurance for a KP lead had the game went past 5.

Wraiths 2/3. The wraiths didnt pull their weight, but versus the sisters they did kill exos on one flank despite dying to bolters and meltas horribly on the other flank. Versus the wolves they got the drop pod and then ran away to safety, while also holding the middle of the table. Versus the orks, they killed a wagon and helped kill a boy squad, but did not really help win that battle at all. Versus the GK, they failed to seal the mobility of the GK and died to counter attack. Now in this game I feel had I played the wraiths differently they would have done better, but would they have done better than scarabs? Not sure. I need more games versus more opponents, as the S6 really hasnt mattered yet.

Spyders 4/4. They are really handy. Not bad in assault either. They got killed by GK grenades, but that is to be expected by the GK grenades ability to kill everything. Versus the Orks they grew the scarabs to a critical mass, and did 3/4 wounds to ghaz. They also hurt nobz, but versus the nobz with wound allocation they are not ideal. The number of spyders is still up for debate though. Would 6 still have done as well? What about the full 9?

DevianID, thanks for the battle reports. Here's what I take away from your report.
Stormlord: I think he is an auto include in this list. It also means that we need to go with the more assault style list.
Orikan: Seems to me that a Monolith would help get a powered up Orikan into the fray a little more reliably. His ability to force the opponent into making difficult choices is great for this list, and I'm not ready to dismiss him yet.
C'Tan: I'm glad to hear that he was working for you, both for the gimmick and as a threat on his own.
Tremorteks: I'm hearing that they were effective when the other parts of the army were working. Would they have made a difference if there was less terrain on the board?
Warriors: They just suck in assault. In a sense, they are completely opposite of ork boyz.
Scarabs: 1 large unit of scarabs is going to be an auto-include in every list I make... They are such a threat to most lists, and even if they aren't my opponent over estimates their power.
Wraiths: I still think that they are most effective assault unit we have, but I too need to practice with them more.
Spyders: As J2Y said earlier, mini-Scarab farm and wraiths belong in every list. I'm really glad to hear that they were effective in assault. I've only played them against Tyranids and they went down to a squad of termagaunts (granted, with toxin sacs and Feel No Pain).


It's really too bad that we don't have any options for giving Crypteks more maneuverability... A Tomblade Tremortek would be quite an improvement for this list, for example.

Another thought... do we need tremorteks? Can this list do what it needs to do without spending those 30 points per Cryptek? Thoughtful objective placement and terrain control might be able to make the best out of the rest of our list. Thoughts on that?

Well after 4 games, the Tremors would get cut. But versus jump infantry, or bikes, I feel they would be better, so its a bit too early to call it I feel. Also, if the Land Raider DID get immoblized from the tremor, I would no doubt be raving about them, though they still would have scored a 2/4.

If I could add something right now, it would be a ghost ark for the stormlord's unit. Since they are mostly a cc unit, well once orikan powers up, and they also have relentless, the ghost ark would let them have a much improved threat range. Especially with Immoteks flamer or s6 ap1 line attack. The ghost ark would also boost the warriors if they take damage, keeping them in combat a bit longer.

This causes an issue... if I drop the tremor teks and a spyder, I have 115 points for the ark. Or I can downgrade Wraiths to Scarabs and drop a spyder, or just take Scarabs in units of 2x8 while keeping 7 spyders. No matter how I slice it though, tremor teks or wraiths will have to be dropped.

If I assume that the Ark was there in the 4 games I played, the Ark would have been good versus the sisters in place of either the wraiths or tremor teks. It would be no real change versus the wolf list. Versus the Battlewagons the ark would have been superior to either wraiths or tremor teks. Versus the GK, the mobility of the ark would have been good to get the drop on the DCA, but with the DCA's grenades I dont know if moving them closer would have been good.

Anpu-adom wrote:

DevianID wrote: So anyway, long winded minireports done, my observations on the list so far.

Stormlord 4/4. In all 4 games the nightfight was great, and lightning did something. Chronometron helps this greatly. His failing in close combat bother me though.
Orikan 4/4. In the DoW games he made the opponent reserve--fantastic help! In the game with the wagon orks he immobed 1, but also died like a chump in combat. Versus the GK he prevented the raider from moving, a big help, and sat on an objective. In combat he was less useful in these games, as timing the powerup is hard with no mobility to speak of.

Ctan 4/4. So in all 4 games the Ctan was useful. Versus the DoW matches he, with Orikan, forced reserves. He prevented the GK from moving 2 turns, and if he did immob his raider on his charge turn I would have won that game handidly, seeing as the raider went on to contest the 2nd objective on my side. Versus the orks, the terrain was nice, and he also killed snikrot's unit. This match he made the least contribution, as he died to nobs thanks to no instant death, but even when he died the explosion causes some damage.

Chronometron 4/4. This guy is amazing. Love him. Going to run him every game, and I also am considering buying him a 3++ save in bigger games.

Tremor-teks 1.5/4. In the DoW games, the tremors were out of range, as the warriors dont want to advance. They quaked up the land raider, which was very nice, but it didnt matter in the end--though it could have won that game for me. Versus the orks one died before firing, the other hit a wagon, and with the reroll to terrain it didnt help much.

Warriors: 1/4. They charged 5 sisters and lost, needing spyders to bail them out, they had to hide in the other games, really they were only useful versus the GK. They are required, but in terms of contribution they did very little. Most games I would instead love tesla immortals or gauss immortals for Immotek, and the better armor save plus ability to move would be great. 6 points for that upgrade over 15 models means that something else has to give for me to try this out.

Scarabs 4/4. The scarabs dominated every game. Even when they didnt damage the space wolves, the scarabs at 45 strong were my insurance for a KP lead had the game went past 5.

Wraiths 2/3. The wraiths didnt pull their weight, but versus the sisters they did kill exos on one flank despite dying to bolters and meltas horribly on the other flank. Versus the wolves they got the drop pod and then ran away to safety, while also holding the middle of the table. Versus the orks, they killed a wagon and helped kill a boy squad, but did not really help win that battle at all. Versus the GK, they failed to seal the mobility of the GK and died to counter attack. Now in this game I feel had I played the wraiths differently they would have done better, but would they have done better than scarabs? Not sure. I need more games versus more opponents, as the S6 really hasnt mattered yet.

Spyders 4/4. They are really handy. Not bad in assault either. They got killed by GK grenades, but that is to be expected by the GK grenades ability to kill everything. Versus the Orks they grew the scarabs to a critical mass, and did 3/4 wounds to ghaz. They also hurt nobz, but versus the nobz with wound allocation they are not ideal. The number of spyders is still up for debate though. Would 6 still have done as well? What about the full 9?

DevianID, thanks for the battle reports. Here's what I take away from your report.
Stormlord: I think he is an auto include in this list. It also means that we need to go with the more assault style list.
Orikan: Seems to me that a Monolith would help get a powered up Orikan into the fray a little more reliably. His ability to force the opponent into making difficult choices is great for this list, and I'm not ready to dismiss him yet.
C'Tan: I'm glad to hear that he was working for you, both for the gimmick and as a threat on his own.
Tremorteks: I'm hearing that they were effective when the other parts of the army were working. Would they have made a difference if there was less terrain on the board?
Warriors: They just suck in assault. In a sense, they are completely opposite of ork boyz.
Scarabs: 1 large unit of scarabs is going to be an auto-include in every list I make... They are such a threat to most lists, and even if they aren't my opponent over estimates their power.
Wraiths: I still think that they are most effective assault unit we have, but I too need to practice with them more.
Spyders: As J2Y said earlier, mini-Scarab farm and wraiths belong in every list. I'm really glad to hear that they were effective in assault. I've only played them against Tyranids and they went down to a squad of termagaunts (granted, with toxin sacs and Feel No Pain).


It's really too bad that we don't have any options for giving Crypteks more maneuverability... A Tomblade Tremortek would be quite an improvement for this list, for example.

Another thought... do we need tremorteks? Can this list do what it needs to do without spending those 30 points per Cryptek? Thoughtful objective placement and terrain control might be able to make the best out of the rest of our list. Thoughts on that?

I'll agree that warriors could be greatly improved by turning them into immortals, but I still wouldn't get them into assault without Anrakyr's or Nemesor's buff.

Dev, Your mini reports were welcome and very informative; I cannot believe that the wraiths didn't perform at all for you, 4 rending s6 attacks per base usually does something. At least they kept thraka busy.

Despite your success with Orikan/Immotekh, I'm still not in the 'autoinclude' camp.

Your results with scarabs are impressive, I find that scarabs take an early high priority bullseye and often get one good charge before getting removed, my regular opponents are familiar with the damage they cause and often scarabs win the prize.

Spyders are great, I like 1-3, as I often use my heavy support slots to pair something else. As I said earlier, I also don't mind paying to stick guns on a few of them.

The Tremorteks vs. immotekh dilemma is at the center of your list, you could deploy them closer by attaching them to immortals rather than squishy warriors or throw a crucible in to impede stampedes.

Nice that the C'tan isn't getting focused on early as was a worry we'd addressed in the early pages, he seems to consistently be able to get into a position of usefulness. How are you feeling about secondary powers? I've been anxious to try out gaze.

Also, I guess I'll have to withdraw my skeptecism about the chronotek, makes sense in your list, and apparently works well.

You can mobilize Crypteks with royal yacht, or attach a VoD, or stick them with deathmarks in night scythes.

You haven't seen how effective Tremorteks can be against assault lists, it's obscene how much they ruin your opponent's game. It screws a lot of foot lists over completely, like foot-draigo, deathwing, etc... The best way to deal with CC deathstars is to limit their mobility and avoid them... 1 tremortek can do that. You're not trying to 'win' with dangerous terrain tests, you're trying to win by stopping your opponent from getting where he wants to go.

Junk, I agree that Orikan and Immotek are not autoincludes, BUT for tremor+scarab farm, they have been working very well. Immotek has killed or wounded something every game, and Orikan's turn 1 movement has at least been useful.

Were I to drop Immotek, I would run Anrykr, as he also combo's well with the chronometron and is pretty beastly with his immortals as well--as I still feel that a single surfboard is not a good idea since we are still running Orikan.

If I drop Orikan, I would also drop the Ctan in a moment. I feel they are only useful together. I would LOVE those extra points, ill tell you. But at that point, the list is just a Scarab farm list, most likely with 2 surfboards. I am not convinced that tremor-crons as a build is weaker yet with just 4 games.

For guns on the spyders, 25 points is just too expensive. Also, I really enjoy running the spyders every turn, as they are my second wave assault units for moping up after the scarabs bust open all the vehicles.

In regards to scarabs, when you tried them did you have up to 7 spyders buffing them out? Those extra bases just demolish some units that normally could deal with 10 or so bases.

The Ctan's power I am convinced is swarm of spirit dust. The defensive grenades helped versus orks and sisters, and the 3+ cover helped versus the space wolves and GK. The GK player was really struggling to kill the Ctan with nightfighting for turns 1-3, and he survived to assault his land raider because I rolled 2 3's thanks to stealth. Sadly, I did not wreck the land raider, only stunned it with a 2 on the damage roll.

That said, if I were to drop the immotek/orikan/ctan/tremor/chrono combo I get 730 points. That is a lot of points...

It is a lot of points, sure, but the initial idea is that 4 quaketeks and a c'tan is a 400 point block that can be plugged in effectively to a shooting list. 2 phaerons and 2 pulseteks is another what, 330? Vs 390 for just immotekh and orikan.

4 quaketeks gives you coverage and the solar pulses don't impede shooting like immotekh does.

Realistically though, the barge lords are so good that it's a drag to build a list without them. So it's always a sacrifice for me to not play at least 1.

The real question is, immotekh aside, are we better off with two
Royal courts or one royal court and orikan?

As far as my experience with scarabs go, I love them as support units, but I don't like the giant scarab farm. Not because I don't think it's good, but because it takes the game out of your hands and it becomes a pure dice game.

Ok, I've started on my battle reports.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/jforum.page?module=posts&action=list&topic_id=431021&viewResults=true

First battle will probably be out tomorrow.

I just wanted to mention really quick, there was talk about tremor-crons being hard on the dice--aka lots of rolling on both sides.

I agree 100% with this. At least for my 4 games, the extra dice rolled are: night-fighting rolls with immotek to every unit wanting to shoot (friend and foe), extra terrain rolls, extra dangerous terrain rolls, random d6 lightning to every unit in the enemy force, night fighting continuation, orikan powerups, spawning spyder damage rolls, and the several hundred dice the scarabs put out in a combat phase.

The game has lots of timing specific rolls as well, requiring little breaks in the flow. I did ask my opponents several times if I had to roll all the attacks or if he would just pull the enemy. At first they said to roll them, later they just said the vehicles explode. So I guess it quickly got old.

I don't think you can argue the efficiency of making your opponent take dangerous terrain tests. A Space Marine shooting another space marine only has a 1/9 chance to kill them. A dangerous terrain test has a 1/6.
Granted... it will slow down games. You are supposed to take a roll, one at a time, for each model moving in/out/through dangerous terrain.