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I am consistently impressed by the capabilities of the Newcron codex, and in the ongoing quest to hammer the crap out of the book, I present to you yet another build to smash to pieces.

Jumpcrons or Speedcrons

The dex features a lot of highly mobile units that, each in their own way, can deliver a fair amount of hurt to their enemies. I'd like to focus on spamming mobility and then seeing where it takes us. Jump infantry has the ability to dictate the terms of engagement and deliver shooting attacks from all angles, and I'd like to see if a jump list can hang in the current meta.

The units that may or may not become central to the build:

Destroyer Lords: Highly cost effective, resilient, and capable of hiding in other jump units or solo-wrecking av14 vehicles, going toe to toe with ICs and MCs, and weathering fistfights with msus. Naked, they don't seem bad at 125, but when bolstered with MSS or a Weave, they get pretty dangerous.

CCBLords: So cost effective, it would seem a shame not to consider them, highly mobile and highly deadly, great heat sinks, and cheap enough to employ as kamikazis to keep the fight where you want.

Triarch Praetorians: These things seem to constantly be floating in a state somewhere between excellent and terrible, we'll look at them armed with both weapon options to see if there's a way we can make them work.

Night Scythes: When it comes to mobility, you can't do better than a supersonic transport; it doesn't hurt that it has a killer anti-infantry gun that can stunlock vehicles, capable of firing on the move.

Destroyers/Heavy Destroyers: Another set of jump infantry that has dubious effectiveness, nice armaments though. Great nest for a destroyer lord, who can bolster them with a resorb before breaking off to countercharge/kamikazi.

Wraiths: What's left to be said about these things? Pure awesomesauce.

Tomb Blade: Faster than a speeding Destroyer, more shooty than a warrior phalanx, and cheap as dirt for a unit with Ressurection protocols, the only drawback these things have AFAIK is the fact that they take up precious fast attack slots.

Doom Scythe: A beastly alpha strike in a supersonic package, probably the biggest bullseye in the codex, maybe we can find a way to get them to last for more than 1 or 2 turns?

As usual, annihilation barges and the ubiquitous scarab farm may or may not have a place in this build. I'm sure we can figure it out.

The premise:
With superior mobility and a lot of shooting, we can put a stop to the average MSU list without breaking a sweat, avoid Assault armies and death stars, and stay out of the effective range of mid-range shooting lists like GK. The goal, a list that can harass and weaken enemy armies without putting itself in harms way, then close for a kill with some fast assault units.

Historical examples: The Mongolian Horse Archers that dominated asia, the Assyrian hurricanes on horseback, the Ethiopian and Zulu armies of antiquity that gave the greatest generals in history a serious run for their money.

I think the biggest issues with tomb blades is not the fast attack slot. Really I would have no issue using the fast attack slot, if the squad size was not a pathetic 5. That is the real issue. The upgrades are overpriced, the s6 blast is useful but only versus some armies and even then the enemy can spread out. But the base guys are awesome all the time with gauss, its just you only get 5 of them.

As for scarabs, if you are talking about speed I feel you must mention the 27.5 inch charge range scarabs with 1+ spyder have. Its potentially 50% greater than Wraiths 18 inch charge range. Now of course the Wraiths ignore terrain, which must be mentioned so we know the Wraiths have a guarenteed 18, while scarabs may only have 7.5 inches if they roll nothing but 1's for all their movement rolls.

Right, Wraiths and Scarabs are killer units. Does that completely preclude the option of taking Destroyers/tomb blades?

at 1850 you can field a small army of:
2 destroyer lords (well equipped)
5 praetorians
8 regular destroyers and 7 heavy destroyers
2 warriors in night scythes
1 immortal in night scythe

I really do wish that Destroyers were elites...

I think my issue with regular destroyers right now is that a royal court in an ark seems better if you want s5 ap3. 5 regular crypteks with a borrowed ghost ark is 240. You get everliving, and 15 s5 ap3 shots, plus the ghost ark is pretty good too. 6 Destroyers for 240 have a better range (24 versus 12), but not better speed really (12 inch move on both the ark and destroyers), and only get 12 s5 ap3 shots.

As for tomb blades, I think that they are better for smaller point games so the harsh cap of 5 doesnt matter, filling the role you would have wanted destroyers to do, but at half the cost. So at 1500, I can see running 10 scarabs and 2x5 gauss tomb blades, as this is only 350 points. If you only have 350 points and wanted wraiths, you get 10 naked, and at that point the rapid fire of the twinlinked gauss tomb blades + 10 scarabs for assault just seem better than wraiths.

The setup seems solid. if you want a proper speed-spam then take a look at this:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/431262.page

Nids, I have never seen a game played at that level, nor would I know where to find one. What's your local arena like?

In all the games I've played with the new codex, I fill every FA slot every time, no matter what kind of army I'm throwing on the table, mostly because the options are very flexible. Destroyers are pretty damn expensive, but in my experience have always paid for themselves against 3+ armor opponents. I recently stomped a Marine army using 2 units of 5 and a unit of 3 Heavy Destoyers, combined with a Tremorstave-WW based army(maximizing my mobility and denying my opponents). Taking a unit of Wraiths backed by a tricked out Destroyer Lord can tear almost anything apart, and can make it accross the table in one piece, plus make for an excellent distraction. Night Scythes are an iffy thing for me, you basically have to use turbo boosters to get where you are going, because if it gets blown up the unit has to come in from the table edge, or your very expensive floating target of a Monolith. As far as gunships are concerned, Annihilation Barges offer more firepower and better armor for 10 points less, but you do sacrifice that mobility. All in all, I think a mobile Necron army is possible, but it gets very expensive in points cost, and seeing how Necrons are already an epensive army to field, it takes careful consideration.

junk wrote:Nids, I have never seen a game played at that level, nor would I know where to find one. What's your local arena like?

I did say in the post i linked that I didn't intend to play the list. I made it as a pure "fill it all" speed spam list. My FLGS is 2000 - 2500 for an average game, 2250 for a tournament.

I'm going to get it out of the way now, and say Triarch Praetorians are pretty bad.

I tried a bunch of games with them. Both weapon configs, Dlord/No Dlord and came to the conclusion, that I'd rather take Wraiths, every time.


Wraiths pretty much Mititgate every issue the Praetorians have. I2? Whip Coils. Ap 1-3? Invul. Volume of fire? 2 Wounds.

I generally love the Dlord, but I only take him at 1500 or less. I think you really start wanting that second court when you get up in point levels. He is wreckingball, that's for sure.

I think Jy2's "MTO" Necrons is probably the best example of a speed based Cron list.

Sasori, its funny you say that, because recently I have been considering Praetorians instead of wraiths. Wraiths charging a vehicle has been a major letdown for me, bolter weapons and melta weapons both do more wounds to wraiths than Praetorians, and if I use Praetorians in place of wraiths I also get more slots for scarabs.

I understand that Praetorians are not amazing, but so far I have found that Wraiths are barely cutting the mustard. I need to play more games with my list to get a better feel for wraiths, but so far they havent added anything over scarabs despite costing more. And the second wound plus t4 constantly gets exploited via instant death.

I agree, Jy2's list is pretty stellar.

I can't really come to the defense of praetorians because they're made redundant by wraiths and destroyers. If they had an extra statline attack, or an invulnerable save, or they were 10PPM cheaper, I'd think they were incredible.

Still the need for a unit that fills that role arises once all the fast attack slots are full (and they fill up fast). I'm underwhelmed by the elite choices in the codex, with the exception of Flayed Ones and Deathmarks which most definitely have their uses in other builds.

I suppose this brings us to the question that can end this thread right now.

Is it worth NOT taking wraiths/Scarabs in order to take Destroyers/Tomb Blades?

If the answer is "Wraiths and Scarabs are just better" then we can pretty much jump ship on this idea, unless someone comes up for a justification for using praetorians.

As far as I can tell, an aggressive list like Scarab Farm / Wraith Wing, or scythe spam, or JY2's hybrid MTO list simply works better than any variant involving tomb blades and destroyers.

Still, 15 naked tomb blades is only 300 points, If I just wanted an enormous warrior phalanx, I might be tempted to run 15 tomb blades and 3 annihilation barges, 570 points I can easily write off, leaving a huge balance for troops and courts.

Wow, off topic, sorry.

Anyway, Anyone come up with a defense for Praetorians? Maybe a list featuring 20 praetorians and 2 RezOrb D.Lords?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ninja'd by DevianID.

There's a lot of different options to play with when using speed Crons.

Praetorians: Maybe their abilities aren't justified by their points cost. Their T5 is mitigated by poison weapons, no invulnerable, low I. Buffs include Fearless, RP (when combined with a res-orb even better) and rending entropic strike attacks. It seems Wraiths compete for the exact same role and perhaps the Wraiths are better at it.

Wraiths: Stars of the codex. Great all-comers. High S great for tank hunting. Many attacks great for hordes. Good inv. save, wound allocation, no diff/dan terrain tests. Need complementary units (I feel), or else they get hung out on their own and maybe get taken out if there are no other targets.

Night Scythes: Can't beat the mobility and damage output in my opinion. And if you attach Veilteks to whatever units are inside you don't lose the mobility once the vehicle is gone either.

Doom Scythes: I don't think there will ever be a situation where they aren't taken out Turn 1or 2. They are that dangerous. That said you can make it more difficult for your opponent by taking other fast threats. CC Barge Overlords work well here with Wraiths and others.

I personally prefer Pure Scythes at 1850pts over Wraiths, but that just works for me. I'm sure jy2's MTO Necrons are a great competitive list and I guess that comes down to a difference in playstyle.

As far as I can tell praetorians still make excellent anti-Msu units. A full squad with Rods can leap into killing range, unload a fusillade of armor piercing rounds and clean up in assault. They can handle small arms fire reasonably well thanks to their t5, and are somewhat effective on the charge thanks to their s5 and power weapons.

With vb/pc they can wreck both light and heavy armor with ease; either popping transports and eating the meqs inside or shredding av14 vehicles with 30 entropic rending attacks.

The flaw is that in order to do this, they need a 400 point investment, which means that the rest of the army has to be cheap enough to afford them. You'll also want to keep a Dlord with them to carry their resorb and lend some mss to the fight.

Now we can cheapen the army by running 15 tomb blades to provide mobile fire support- diversifying their loadouts for different duties - one with beamers, one with tesla, one with gauss. 300-350 points.

Annihilation barges also provide some excellent, inexpensive fire support, 270 points for a lot of firepower.

Just for argument's sake, what if we try 20 praetorians at 800 points, 2x175 point dlords, and 270 points worth of barges, 300 points in tomb blades, and 2 minimum warrior squads at 130. That's an 1850 list that is super aggressive, very well armed, and insanely fast.

Yay or nay?

DevianID wrote:Sasori, its funny you say that, because recently I have been considering Praetorians instead of wraiths. Wraiths charging a vehicle has been a major letdown for me, bolter weapons and melta weapons both do more wounds to wraiths than Praetorians, and if I use Praetorians in place of wraiths I also get more slots for scarabs.

I understand that Praetorians are not amazing, but so far I have found that Wraiths are barely cutting the mustard. I need to play more games with my list to get a better feel for wraiths, but so far they havent added anything over scarabs despite costing more. And the second wound plus t4 constantly gets exploited via instant death.

How are they not destroying Vehicles? At base strength 6, Wraiths should be wrecking most vehicles pretty hard, since the majority have AV 10 rear. I wouldn't throw them at a Land Raider, I have Warscythes for that.

Do you also use wound allocation? I've taken a lot of strength 8 fire on them before, but usually I can mitigate most of it, with wound allocation.

The big problem with Praetorians, is a single round of shooting, can kill a squad of them, without that much effort. The T5 helps, but it's only going to do so much. In close combat, they swing before Fists, but after almost everything else.

Voidblades are better at killing Vehicles than Wraiths, but they are worse at killing anything else. Wraiths have more attacks, better strength and the same WS, they also have the chance to swing first against a big chunk of the unit.
Then comes points cost, I can get a full wound allocation squad of 6 wraiths, for 250 points. 6 Praets would cost 240. I just get so much more for 10 more points.

I'm not saying to not give them a shot, but I did, and found them wanting. Wraiths have really done so much better for me.

Another point to consider is that by having an entirely meched army in Scythes gives your opponent nothing to assault, even if they blow-up your transport. Wraiths, while awesome, give S3/4 something to shoot at and while it may not be effective, they can still do damage and it's something dedicated assault units can hit on better than a 6.

For me when designing a fast list you should be utilizing every major strength that it grants you. This would include:

- running rings around a slower opponent
- late game contests in objectives
- able to keep damaged units away in KP missions

Praetorians shine against Walkers where Wraiths have a tendency to get bogged down, but unless it's a dedicated cc walker you may as well use scarabs. Would love to find a use for the Praetorians though. Perhaps in larger games with 30 Praetorians and 18 Wraiths?

I know Preatorians seem great on paper, but I have never SEEN nor HEARD of them doing anything more than doing poorly in assualt and/or being wiped in a turn of shooting.

Tomb Blades however, with twin-linked gauss of tesla, particle beamers, RP and the upgrades they can get, ROCK infantry(I'm not so sure about tanks) and will throw off an opponent that expects slow necrons

Heh, not sure who will be expecting a slow necron list. Its seems quick enough to me.

Have played half a dozen games vrs Crons with Wraiths and it is easy enough to whittle them down as Lukas says with the lower strength guns. They do need to be killed to the last one as even 1-2 can wreck havoc if ignored.

I can imagine this might be fun and effective;

D Lord MSS
CCB Lord
Cryptek w solar pulse
3 x Praetorians
2 x MSUwarriors in NS's
3 x Wraiths with wound allocation

Its a really simple recipe. 1 turn of NF to close, no HS to feed the points into the Wraiths and Praets, CCB is there for the efficiency and the pulse, as are the NS's which could be dropped or increased if troops is really worrying.

That may be MTO ;-P. The main part of the army is what Nids wish they could do.

Haven't got a codex, what would be the cost?

@cmac: At a glance, i'd say a solid 2000 point list, but alter warriors to immortals in NS's. they're just better

junk wrote:Anyway, Anyone come up with a defense for Praetorians? Maybe a list featuring 20 praetorians and 2 RezOrb D.Lords?

Hows this:
A list that runs two DS squads of 10 voidblade/particle caster Preatorians w/ a Rez Dlord will butcher anything, even a LR. The voidblades strike (1 attack base, 1 for charge, 1 for PC (its a pistol, pistols = offhands) ) so thirty attacks on a LR will lower its AV to say 8-10? A warscythe @ S7 2D6 amour pen will penetrate that.

if you pull this off landing behind some castled guard, he shouldn't drop AP3 templates for fear of scattering onto his own troops leaving you vs some flashlights and flamers (note- a Leman Russ will replace the Land Raider in this example)

Wraiths don't lower AV.

Waddya think?

I posted some of this in our WW thread, but this is the core I've been playing with some time for a fast jump list with TPs:

Nemesor
DLord w/MSS/RO/SW (190)
10 TPs VB/PC
2 Groups of TBs (4 to 5 each) with Shadowlooms (and probably Gauss, but depends on what is needed for the rest of your list)

General strat is turbo the TBs to create to two 2+ cover wall screens for the TPs+DLord, and then drop Stealth on the TPs+DLord.
They now have a 3+ cover safe to go along with T5, RP 4+ and the 2+ DLord save, making it highly unlikely they'll get wiped in one round of shooting.

The things that have been really driving this list for me (particularly going with TPs over Wraiths):

They are a huge unit, which means you'll get more mileage out of Nemies buffs then you ever could on 6 Wraiths. 30 Rending Entropic Attacks + 10 Pistol shots being buffed with Tank Hunter = Dead Tanks, and lots of them (not to mention what the DLord is swingin).

They don't use an FA slot, freeing up the TBs which I think are a fantastic unit thats only really knock is competing against Wraiths and Scarabs.

10 TPs screaming down the field with a DLord running point just looks real secsie.

To augment them I sprinkle in as much Tesla Destructors and Gauss as I can fit (to present the TPs and Dlord with as many imobed/stunned vehicles as possible), with plenty of AV 13 as I think the AV13 pseudo shares target saturation with the TPs T5 bodies. If I get a free sec at lunch I'll post my full 2K list, or at least what it currently exists as.

Thats something I wouldn't like to fight

Wow, good call on the stealth shield; I never considered that... I think you have just made me fall in love with tomb blades.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If a 2+ cover save is providing cover to another unit, does that unit also benefit from the 2+ or are they merely getting a 4+?

junk wrote:Wow, good call on the stealth shield; I never considered that... I think you have just made me fall in love with tomb blades.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If a 2+ cover save is providing cover to another unit, does that unit also benefit from the 2+ or are they merely getting a 4+?

No just a 4+, god that would be awesome if it worked that way, but what I meant to imply is they themselves would be a 2+ cover and they would provide LOS blocking so that the TPs could get Stealth from Nemie and get a 3+ cover.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So this is what I'm toying with at the moment:

HQ
185 Nemesor
190 DLord w/MSS/RO/SW

ELITE
400 TPs VB/PCs

TROOPS
115 GA
117 9 Warriors
25 StormTek

115 GA (Nemies Unit)
104 8 Warriors
65 DestroTek+SP+Gaze

115 GA
104 8 Warriors
25 StormTek

FAST ATTACK
120 4 Gauss Tomb Blades w/Shadowlooms
120 4 Gauss Tomb Blades w/Shadowlooms

HEAVY SUPPORT
90 AB
90 AB

1980.

The last twenty points have been a bit of a bugger. Options I've played with are, drop Gaze of the PulseTek and add another TB, upgrading 5 warriors to Immortals for a backfield claimer, adding the anti assault thingy to one of the stormteks and then ?? with the other ten?


Notice the use of the stormteks in the GAs. My thinking behind this is three fold, A.) Depending on how you rule vehicle movement, the Stormtek has an effective 25+" threat range, which should be plenty sufficient. B.) moving and disembarking in this fashion gets the GA's up the field in a hurry, which makes their fire power significantly more deadly, and make the warriors a target, which I think I like. Ideally I kind of want the warriors getting shot at, provided they are not getting wiped. C.) The Stormteks staff is ideal for stun locking vehicles, which plays perfectly into the TPs hands.

Well - I actually think this concept might be a wash because necron troops are always going to be an anchor unless they're crammed in night scythes. If necrons had a scoring jump unit that would make this a valid concept, but as it stands, there's nothing to this build other than trying to make praetorians work.

I'll try out 15 tomb blades and 20 praetorians with 2 DLords as a goof in my next game to see if there's anything to it, but I think we'd be better off exploring other options.

Warriors in GA's are reasonably manoeuvrable. The other bonus of the G's is they provide plenty of cover terrain to hide Tomb Blades behind once they have "delivered" their Triarch Praetorian cargo.

A Night Scythe delivering 10 rapid-firing Guass Immortals and a StormTek on top of a tank will definately stun-lock or even immobilise it.
If you get lucky even destroy it, but the the TP's need to go somewhere else.


Heres another idea. Have a 10-man unit of Lychguard w/ Shields march across to the enemy like a wall with the TPs walking behind it. Once the Lychguard get Assaulted, the TPs can just jump over the combat and kill the vehicle that the squad that assaulted the guard disembarked from

10 Lychguard + 10 Praetorians is still 800 points.
It would be more cost effective to use 2 monoliths instead of 10 lychguard.

yeah but that'd mean less AB's.

And 10 Lychguard with shields is 450.

I seriously need to think lower points than my FLGS standards don't I, cos none of my ideas have been cost effective.

Ha, yeah... Think 1850.

Right. Hide the TP in reserve and have a monolith spit them into the midst of things.

OR

Deep strike them

Since high mobility is the idea behind this, why not introduce veilteks into the equation. I think that would be something to consider.
The way I see it is your opponent would be focusing on trying to counter either tomb blades or DLords or Wraiths or what not. In the meantime, the veilteks would provide an element of chaos into the fray. Perhaps use a squad of Tesla immortals with a VoDTek as a distraction, and keep the opponent's focus divided, and use alternatively both as bait and as a contender within the army. Two of these units would cause potential havoc.
I apologize, as I haven't read all of the posts yet, and I haven't considered the point cost yet.