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I'm not really one for relying on night scythes, they still have that lame one 90 degree turn per round and a 20" minimum move. The awkwardness of moving them around is made worse by the fact that if they fly off of the board they are destroyed. Death from the skies killed flyers in 7th ed, but flyers in 8th ed were stillborn.

Honestly though the scythe guard have two purposes in life, LoS on a 2+ and counter charging enemy CC units. They will never catch a vehicle unless it comes stupid close, and are unlikely to survive sustained fire. On the bright side they are pretty cheap, so if they don't do much you are not out much, and when they do work they can quite easily double or triple their points.

Well bear in mind that weapon facing isn't an issue anymore, so you don't need to turn your scythes to actually face whoever they're shooting, which as always the biggest reason to need to fly off the board. Without that, you can fly in a little square in the middle of the board all game long, and a hull plus 24 inch bubble of 8 S7 tesla shots should be fairly universally able to find something to shoot most of the time.

So the big concern is that flying in that little square looks ridiculous and isn't particularly good simulationism.

What's our best option against enemy fliers? I'm watching my girlfriend fight an IG army and her Space Marine planes are looking pretty scary; we're not great at taking out high wound units already and we don't have any way to shoot at fliers without penalty. I have a feeling that trying to punch a Stormraven out of the sky with flying assault units probably wouldn't work.

I don't think the Scythes are that bad at all. Sure 8 shots of Tesla each isn't the best, but it isn't the worst either at clearing out a screen of chaff. Three will get you a CP from the flyer detachment, you fly them up to a corner of the enemy army turn one, turn two a block of 20 Warriors jumps out of one capable of dealing 60 Str4 attacks (40 Shooting/20 Charge)

Instead of running a QS vehicle army, you run a no QS army.


Flyer Wing Detachment
Scythe
Scythe
Scythe

Spearhead Detachment
Destroyer Lord
3 Heavy Destroyers
3 Heavy Destroyers
Monolith
20 Warriors
20 Warriors

1975 points.

changemod wrote:
Well bear in mind that weapon facing isn't an issue anymore, so you don't need to turn your scythes to actually face whoever they're shooting, which as always the biggest reason to need to fly off the board. Without that, you can fly in a little square in the middle of the board all game long, and a hull plus 24 inch bubble of 8 S7 tesla shots should be fairly universally able to find something to shoot most of the time.

So the big concern is that flying in that little square looks ridiculous and isn't particularly good simulationism.

Could a horde army successfully block your path, or lead you towards a corner from which you couldn't make a successful 90 deg turn and still fly 20"?

torblind wrote:

changemod wrote:
Well bear in mind that weapon facing isn't an issue anymore, so you don't need to turn your scythes to actually face whoever they're shooting, which as always the biggest reason to need to fly off the board. Without that, you can fly in a little square in the middle of the board all game long, and a hull plus 24 inch bubble of 8 S7 tesla shots should be fairly universally able to find something to shoot most of the time.

So the big concern is that flying in that little square looks ridiculous and isn't particularly good simulationism.

Could a horde army successfully block your path, or lead you towards a corner from which you couldn't make a successful 90 deg turn and still fly 20"?

In theory. Staying near the middle when possible and huge max movement speeds makes that pretty unlikely.

Honestly it's only a -1 to hit and flying things can charge now, you're better off just killing it than trying to cover every single position it could move to.

changemod wrote:
Well bear in mind that weapon facing isn't an issue anymore, so you don't need to turn your scythes to actually face whoever they're shooting, which as always the biggest reason to need to fly off the board. Without that, you can fly in a little square in the middle of the board all game long, and a hull plus 24 inch bubble of 8 S7 tesla shots should be fairly universally able to find something to shoot most of the time.

So the big concern is that flying in that little square looks ridiculous and isn't particularly good simulationism.

I love it. Makes it seem like Flyers are an enemy Boss in 40k Arcade Mode!

 Nightlord1987 wrote:

changemod wrote:
Well bear in mind that weapon facing isn't an issue anymore, so you don't need to turn your scythes to actually face whoever they're shooting, which as always the biggest reason to need to fly off the board. Without that, you can fly in a little square in the middle of the board all game long, and a hull plus 24 inch bubble of 8 S7 tesla shots should be fairly universally able to find something to shoot most of the time.

So the big concern is that flying in that little square looks ridiculous and isn't particularly good simulationism.

I love it. Makes it seem like Flyers are an enemy Boss in 40k Arcade Mode!

40k is now space invaders. Thematically it actually sort of works for necrons

So Frontline Gaming has a discussion around Necrons (well, all the indices, but Necrons came up) and they confirmed that yes, tesla will go off on a 5+ wwith My Will Be Done. That makes every shot basically worth 1.5 hits - 10 Immortals with Tesla expect to fire 20 shots and hit 30 times. That's absolutely crazy!

Anyway, here's my current thinking:

2000 point Battalion:
HQ
Anrakyr the Traveller - 167
Illuminor Szeras - 143

Troops
10 Immortals, Tesla - 190
10 Immortals, Gauss - 190
20 Warriors - 240

Elites
C'tan Shard of the Nightbringer - 230
9 Deathmarks - 180

Fast Attack
5 Tomb Blades, Gauss - 210

Heavy Support
2 Heavy Destroyers - 150
2 Heavy Destroyers - 150
2 Heavy Destroyers - 150

I'm not super happy with this list yet. However, it is quite interesting I think - the heavy destroyers sit back and pound the enemy; if they aren't focused down, they can pop back up again too. I wonder if it's better to run 2 units of 3 or 3 units of 2 like this but my fear was that people will kill them once they target them, so overkilling a small unit might help keep the big guns alive. Tomb Blades are very fast, extremely deadly units - these 5 alone look fairly benign, but put out 20 S5 AP-2 shots at close range, plus move 14" a turn and reanimate if they aren't focused down. Deathmarks sound really dumb to be honest, but I'm banking on them against AM; I've got to imagine Straken in a blob of conscripts is going to be fairly popular, as will Harlequins and SM. They output a respectable amount of wounds VS characters, are quite durable and can drop onto objectives if needed. I'm not in love with them in all honesty, but I feel like htey pug a big gap. The Nightbringer I'm just interested to use at all.

That gives me:
8 T7 4+ wounds
24 T5 3+ wounds
10 T5 4+ wounds
33 T4 3+ wounds
20 T4 4+ wounds
...which in all honesty isn't that much. However, there's quite a lot of good quality firepower - 20 rapid fire S5 AP-2 shots, 20 S5 tesla shots, 20 S4 AP-1 shots, 6 S9 AP-4, a one shot S10 AP-5 shot, a S8 AP-4 shot, D6 AP-4 shots wounding on 2+ and 9 rapid fire sniper rifles. I don't really know how it'll fare - I suspect not that well, because it's not got any assault elements. We'll see.

Eyjio wrote:
I'm not super happy with this list yet. However, it is quite interesting I think - the heavy destroyers sit back and pound the enemy; if they aren't focused down, they can pop back up again too. I wonder if it's better to run 2 units of 3 or 3 units of 2 like this but my fear was that people will kill them once they target them, so overkilling a small unit might help keep the big guns alive.

I would imagine 2 units of 3 would be quite a bit better since you can split shots and RP brings back full wounds. I really like res orb with a 3-5 man unit of destroyers quite a lot.

Eyjio wrote:
So Frontline Gaming has a discussion around Necrons (well, all the indices, but Necrons came up) and they confirmed that yes, tesla will go off on a 5+ with My Will Be Done. That makes every shot basically worth 1.5 hits - 10 Immortals with Tesla expect to fire 20 shots and hit 30 times. That's absolutely crazy!

We were messing about with the new rules today at my FLGS and yeah I was averaging 18 or 21 hits just with the exploding Tesla shots, its not to be trifled with! Also Tesla works on Overwatch again That being said, I was missing the extra AP from Gauss. My army was just thrown together from random units though so the only Gauss I had was my 20 man Warrior squads, I think it'll balance out better when I throw in some Destroyers and/or Tomb Blades (man am I glad I didnt build those yet, I was going to put Particle Beamers on them D: )

Maybe I missed it but does MWBD help on overwatch?

OK, a little Mathammer. I was messing around with the idea of Vargard's Ghostwalk Mantle. As far as I can tell, there's nothing stopping the unit he teleports from charging - the limitations there are for units who deploy from reserve. It makes me wish that Necrons had better HtH, but I thought I'd see what could be done with what we have. I see two options - Lychguard and Flayed Ones. I decided to play around with the guard because the rest of the Necron list already does a pretty good job horde-stopping. So, what kind of buffs are available? There are three:

1. My Will Be Done... specifically for the +1TH - Lychguard hit on 2's at that point. Tasty.

MWBD goes off at the beginning of the turn, so it'll be in effect for the charge after Ghostwalking. Without any other buiffs a unit 10 Lychguard with Scythes, and Vargard will, on average, kill a T8 11W 3+ model (A Vindicator for example) on the charge. That's a 460 point unit, so it better be doing something.

Further buffs that matter:

2. +1S from Zeras (which you'll get 1/3 of the time). This would need to happen the turn before they teleport. Combined with MWBD that same unit will now, on average, Kill a T8 16W 2+ model (Landraider) on the charge. Not too shabby. Also, they get way better at slagging T7 stuff because they'd wound on 3's.

3. +1A from from Nemesor, can happen the same turn as teleport (also happens 1/3 of the time on his chart. Combines with MWBD the unit puts 16 wounds on the Landraider (without figuring Vargard in) and they'll drop 24 wounds on a T8 3+ model (again, not counting Vargard).

So, this makes me think that Nemesor and Vargard are a solid pairing, because they share a Dynasty and Nemesor gives you MWBD and maybe +1A. If there are ;points for Zeras too them cool, but given the synergy between Nemesor and Vargard that seems like the value play. Assuming you want to try and stack buffs. If you don't, then a normal Overlord will be cheaper and you'll still get MWBD.

With Nemesor, my plan would be to keep him within range of the Lychguard(w Vargard nearby) and a nice juicy unit of Tesla Immortals. If he rolls the +1BS then it goes on the Immortals, of he rolls +1A if goes on the Guard and they go hunting. Is this an expensive combo? Oh yes. It's about 900 pts for Nemesor, Vargard, a unit of 10 Lychguard, and a Unit of 15 tesla Immortals. But it's cool! And there are ways to make it less expensive. Anyway, That's what I spend my afternoon thinking about while I was at work.

 Fenris-77 wrote:
OK, a little Mathammer. I was messing around with the idea of Vargard's Ghostwalk Mantle. As far as I can tell, there's nothing stopping the unit he teleports from charging - the limitations there are for units who deploy from reserve. It makes me wish that Necrons had better HtH, but I thought I'd see what could be done with what we have. I see two options - Lychguard and Flayed Ones. I decided to play around with the guard because the rest of the Necron list already does a pretty good job horde-stopping. So, what kind of buffs are available? There are three:

1. My Will Be Done... specifically for the +1TH - Lychguard hit on 2's at that point. Tasty.

MWBD goes off at the beginning of the turn, so it'll be in effect for the charge after Ghostwalking. Without any other buiffs a unit 10 Lychguard with Scythes, and Vargard will, on average, kill a T8 11W 3+ model (A Vindicator for example) on the charge. That's a 460 point unit, so it better be doing something.

Further buffs that matter:

2. +1S from Zeras (which you'll get 1/3 of the time). This would need to happen the turn before they teleport. Combined with MWBD that same unit will now, on average, Kill a T8 16W 2+ model (Landraider) on the charge. Not too shabby. Also, they get way better at slagging T7 stuff because they'd wound on 3's.

3. +1A from from Nemesor, can happen the same turn as teleport (also happens 1/3 of the time on his chart. Combines with MWBD the unit puts 16 wounds on the Landraider (without figuring Vargard in) and they'll drop 24 wounds on a T8 3+ model (again, not counting Vargard).

So, this makes me think that Nemesor and Vargard are a solid pairing, because they share a Dynasty and Nemesor gives you MWBD and maybe +1A. If there are ;points for Zeras too them cool, but given the synergy between Nemesor and Vargard that seems like the value play. Assuming you want to try and stack buffs. If you don't, then a normal Overlord will be cheaper and you'll still get MWBD.

With Nemesor, my plan would be to keep him within range of the Lychguard(w Vargard nearby) and a nice juicy unit of Tesla Immortals. If he rolls the +1BS then it goes on the Immortals, of he rolls +1A if goes on the Guard and they go hunting. Is this an expensive combo? Oh yes. It's about 900 pts for Nemesor, Vargard, a unit of 10 Lychguard, and a Unit of 15 tesla Immortals. But it's cool! And there are ways to make it less expensive. Anyway, That's what I spend my afternoon thinking about while I was at work.

I thought you could only ghostwalk mantle to nemesor zandrekh?

 Klowny wrote:

 Fenris-77 wrote:
OK, a little Mathammer. I was messing around with the idea of Vargard's Ghostwalk Mantle. As far as I can tell, there's nothing stopping the unit he teleports from charging - the limitations there are for units who deploy from reserve. It makes me wish that Necrons had better HtH, but I thought I'd see what could be done with what we have. I see two options - Lychguard and Flayed Ones. I decided to play around with the guard because the rest of the Necron list already does a pretty good job horde-stopping. So, what kind of buffs are available? There are three:

1. My Will Be Done... specifically for the +1TH - Lychguard hit on 2's at that point. Tasty.

MWBD goes off at the beginning of the turn, so it'll be in effect for the charge after Ghostwalking. Without any other buiffs a unit 10 Lychguard with Scythes, and Vargard will, on average, kill a T8 11W 3+ model (A Vindicator for example) on the charge. That's a 460 point unit, so it better be doing something.

Further buffs that matter:

2. +1S from Zeras (which you'll get 1/3 of the time). This would need to happen the turn before they teleport. Combined with MWBD that same unit will now, on average, Kill a T8 16W 2+ model (Landraider) on the charge. Not too shabby. Also, they get way better at slagging T7 stuff because they'd wound on 3's.

3. +1A from from Nemesor, can happen the same turn as teleport (also happens 1/3 of the time on his chart. Combines with MWBD the unit puts 16 wounds on the Landraider (without figuring Vargard in) and they'll drop 24 wounds on a T8 3+ model (again, not counting Vargard).

So, this makes me think that Nemesor and Vargard are a solid pairing, because they share a Dynasty and Nemesor gives you MWBD and maybe +1A. If there are ;points for Zeras too them cool, but given the synergy between Nemesor and Vargard that seems like the value play. Assuming you want to try and stack buffs. If you don't, then a normal Overlord will be cheaper and you'll still get MWBD.

With Nemesor, my plan would be to keep him within range of the Lychguard(w Vargard nearby) and a nice juicy unit of Tesla Immortals. If he rolls the +1BS then it goes on the Immortals, of he rolls +1A if goes on the Guard and they go hunting. Is this an expensive combo? Oh yes. It's about 900 pts for Nemesor, Vargard, a unit of 10 Lychguard, and a Unit of 15 tesla Immortals. But it's cool! And there are ways to make it less expensive. Anyway, That's what I spend my afternoon thinking about while I was at work.

I thought you could only ghostwalk mantle to nemesor zandrekh?

Easy, just run him and deciever to get him out there.

Joeproton wrote:
Maybe I missed it but does MWBD help on overwatch?

It does not. Overwatch states that it ignores ballistic skill and the to hit role cannot be modified in anyway, it's just straight up 6's.

Yeah, the need to run a 180 point model out as bait is the downside. I was thinking about the Deceiver too. There's maybe some juice there with a whole bunch of redeploying shenanigans.

This is as tricky as I could get with Necron HtH. Which is too say not that tricky. Running Nemesor in an Ark might help too. Move him up the 12, get out the following turn and then pull Shenanigans. Sadly, to stack buffs from Nemesor you;re talking about a teleport of maybe 12". I might call it a leapfrog more than a teleport. It's the Trailer Park Boys version of the Veil of Tears.

If you want the long range version you're talking about buffing from Seras and then getting stuck in. And still using Nemesor as bait.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or drop him out of a Night Scythe I guess. that's got a little more range potential, and maybe means more for the teleport and charge thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Can I just say that the lack of counter punch in this Necron list is really taking the jam out of my doughnut. :(

I had hoped that MWBD might have some effect on the Vault and Obelisk, but alas. Just infantry. Our Super Heavies are a bit hit and miss - the massive strength of the Tesla Sphere and the fact that you get 20 shots is impressive, but the lack of any AP on the attack means that it is best used against hordes of light infantry.

On the other hand, the Vault will pretty reliably put 6 mortal wounds onto a single unit each turn until it starts to lose power uses to damage, and that isn't something to be sneered at. Napkin math says that the Vault will do about 10 wounds to a 3+ unit with 4 to 6 toughness on average, which is enough to wipe out minimum sized squads, but most of the successful wounds are going to be coming from anti-matter meteor.

The potential of sniping out an important character with Time's Arrow shouldn't be ignored, and having 3 chances to do so raises the chances quite a bit. And the Vault still has a chance of taking a big chunk out of your opponent's army, although the chances are greatly reduced from last edition.

Super viable? Probably not, but it feels like the Vault is at least worth taking now, and it has the potential to provide some unexpected spikes of damage. Probably best to pair it with a Stalker to add some reliability to the ranged attack, the more 6s you can throw the nastier the Vault becomes.

So second battle in the books, against a super annoying Tau list, I think he might have been cheating because the number of drones was insane. In anycase I won, but it was the blueballs of victory, right before I finished moving in to crush him after several annoying turns of marching my foot army across the board, time ran out and I won on points, having got first blood and killed 6 of his units.

The twenty man warrior blob stood up nicely to 3 turns of five marker light shooting, Hitting on 3's rerolling 1s, I think I can count the number of times he missed on one hand. Wraiths and scarabs didn't so much of anything, again, their offense seems less impressive at one wound a hit, and the lack of repair protocols makes them a liability. I know in theory they are both decent units from the mathhammer, but in practice they've been awful.

Spear head deployment was awful, my poor immortals never fired a shot because they were on a flank.

Having had two games against very different armies where the units performed similarly, I'm going to say nope to the canoptek units. scarabs and wraiths just aren't cutting the mustard. Destroyers are godly, 3 wounds a piece and packing enough heat to melt a tank, literally. Going to play with my list some and see what i can come up with.

Several issues with the Obyron + Zahndrekh + Lychguard (+ Szeras?) combo:

- Ghostwalk only works with Zahndrekh, now (really stupid design decision), so you need to get him out in front somehow. Only options are Monolith, Night Scythe, Ghost Ark or Deceiver. Of the four, I prefer the C'tan (why couldn't they just allow HQ to use the CCB as a transport again?)

- Szeras and Zahndrekh's buffs rely on random dice. Not very reliable (I can see that making thematic sense for Zahndrekh, but am kinda pissed they did it for Szeras).

- The order that buffs are given out if pretty awkward. If Ghostwalking, you've gotta have someone near them on one end of the table to grant MWBD at the beginning of the turn, then you've gotta have a Cryptek on the other side of the table already to give the a buff to RP when they arrive, but if you're moving them up to Zahndrekh then you can't give them his random buff in that same turn as that only happens at the beginning of the turn, so you can either charge without the buff, or wait to charge next turn with the buff.

- Actually, I don't know why Szeras even factors into this combo at all. He only grants buffs to Warriors and Immortals. Lychguard get nothing from him that they couldn't get from a regular Cryptek. Anrakyr, on the other hand, is PERFECT for them... problem being, he can't get transported up via anything but Deceiver.

I kinda like the way the Ghostwalk Mantle works now, working on the assumption we're getting the regular Veil of Darkness back. It better separates the two abilities rather than Obyron just being a second veil, and if you can get Zandrekh out there it's way better than other deep strike options since you can plop the unit so close to enemies. 9" charge is far from guaranteed but a 3" charge almost is.

A significant problem with the Necron list is that effective list building mitigates directly against accruing CPs. The Necrons mostly want to hit RP as hard as possible, and that means very expensive max troop units, which in turn means Necrons aren't dropping three or four Org Charts like AM can to collect CPs. Mostly the Necrons will be lucky to fill two, and mostly will be left with one, so maybe 6 Cps? Best case. I'd love to use those to reroll buff rolls to get combos off, but I din't really think Necroins have that luxury,

@skoffs - Jump in any time with a great idea,. We have a brand new 'Dex and a brand new game, there's going to be reading comp issues. Lotta balls in the air. The real question is are you going to part of the solution, or are you happy sniping from the peanut gallery? That sounds meaner than it was supposed to, I'm not trying to be confrontational on purpose. But hey, do drop any hot takes you might have...

 Fenris-77 wrote:

2. +1S from Zeras (which you'll get 1/3 of the time). This would need to happen the turn before they teleport. Combined with MWBD that same unit will now, on average, Kill a T8 16W 2+ model (Landraider) on the charge. Not too shabby. Also, they get way better at slagging T7 stuff because they'd wound on 3's.

How are you buffing the Lychguard with Szeras? Szeras says it can only buff Warriors or Immortals.

 Fenris-77 wrote:
A significant problem with the Necron list is that effective list building mitigates directly against accruing CPs. The Necrons mostly want to hit RP as hard as possible, and that means very expensive max troop units, which in turn means Necrons aren't dropping three or four Org Charts like AM can to collect CPs. Mostly the Necrons will be lucky to fill two, and mostly will be left with one, so maybe 6 Cps? Best case. I'd love to use those to reroll buff rolls to get combos off, but I din't really think Necroins have that luxury,

@skoffs - Jump in any time with a great idea,. We have a brand new 'Dex and a brand new game, there's going to be reading comp issues. Lotta balls in the air. The real question is are you going to part of the solution, or are you happy sniping from the peanut gallery? That sounds meaner than it was supposed to, I'm not trying to be confrontational on purpose. But hey, do drop any hot takes you might have...

Less CPs kinda 'balances' out that Necrons are easily the best CP army in the game.

We have the ability to re-roll a Quantum Shielding save after seeing the damage roll - if you flub a 6 on your opponent's 6 or 5 damage for example, you can re-roll that for a high chance of negating a 5 or 6 damage hit...no other army has that sort of thing for their vehicles. On the flipside, opponents can't effectively use CP to maximise their D6 damage rolls against QS vehicles.

We can take 20 strong units of Warriors or Flayed Ones, and autopass the morale check if they lose 15 models in a turn - not just guaranteed saving 5 models with those 2 CP, but potentially all 20. No other army can get that sort of value off a CP spend.

 Fenris-77 wrote:
A significant problem with the Necron list is that effective list building mitigates directly against accruing CPs. The Necrons mostly want to hit RP as hard as possible, and that means very expensive max troop units, which in turn means Necrons aren't dropping three or four Org Charts like AM can to collect CPs. Mostly the Necrons will be lucky to fill two, and mostly will be left with one, so maybe 6 Cps? Best case. I'd love to use those to reroll buff rolls to get combos off, but I din't really think Necroins have that luxury,

@skoffs - Jump in any time with a great idea,. We have a brand new 'Dex and a brand new game, there's going to be reading comp issues. Lotta balls in the air. The real question is are you going to part of the solution, or are you happy sniping from the peanut gallery? That sounds meaner than it was supposed to, I'm not trying to be confrontational on purpose. But hey, do drop any hot takes you might have...

according to the frontline gaming minutes, you can only take max 3 detachments per army, so we wont be too far behind overall?

So after some crunching here is my list, I'm going to miss the cryptek, but if this saves me from another slog it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

2000 Necron Outrider Detachment

-=HQ=-
Destroyer Lord 124 (157)
+Staff of light 18
+Phylactery 15

Catacomb Command barge 138
+Gauss Cannon 20
+Staff of light 18

-=Elite=-
10 x Triarch Praetorians 25 (350)
+ 10 x Rod of covenant 10

Triarch stalker 117 (181)
+Twin heavy gauss 64

-=Fast Attack=-
6 x Destroyers 43 (378)
+6 x Gauss Cannon 20 (120)

6 x Destroyers 43 (378)
+6 x Gauss Cannon 20 (120)

5 x Tomb Blades 24 (186)
+4 x Gauss Blaster 9 (36)
+2 x Nebuloscope 3 (6)
+3 x Particle Beamer 10 (30)

-=Heavy Support=-
3 x Heavy Destroyers 43 (225)
+ 3 x Heavy Gauss Cannon 32 (96)

 Fenris-77 wrote:
@skoffs - Jump in any time with a great idea,. We have a brand new 'Dex and a brand new game, there's going to be reading comp issues. Lotta balls in the air. The real question is are you going to part of the solution, or are you happy sniping from the peanut gallery? That sounds meaner than it was supposed to, I'm not trying to be confrontational on purpose. But hey, do drop any hot takes you might have...

My part of the solution is pointing out things that might not work when we see them.
Better we say something now rather than someone in the middle of a game finding out they can't do something they thought they could.
(and if you'll notice, over the last several pages I and many others have been trying to figure out interesting combos, the most notable being old BS10 equivalent shooting and the Deceiver Bomb. We're trying to come up with more but it takes a while to analyze things)

 Grimgold wrote:
So after some crunching here is my list, I'm going to miss the cryptek, but if this saves me from another slog it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

2000 Necron Outrider Detachment

-=HQ=-
Destroyer Lord 124 (157)
+Staff of light 18
+Phylactery 15

Catacomb Command barge 138
+Gauss Cannon 20
+Staff of light 18

-=Elite=-
10 x Triarch Praetorians 25 (350)
+ 10 x Rod of covenant 10

Triarch stalker 117 (181)
+Twin heavy gauss 64

-=Fast Attack=-
6 x Destroyers 43 (378)
+6 x Gauss Cannon 20 (120)

6 x Destroyers 43 (378)
+6 x Gauss Cannon 20 (120)

5 x Tomb Blades 24 (186)
+4 x Gauss Blaster 9 (36)
+2 x Nebuloscope 3 (6)
+3 x Particle Beamer 10 (30)

-=Heavy Support=-
3 x Heavy Destroyers 43 (225)
+ 3 x Heavy Gauss Cannon 32 (96)

I feel the res orb is better on the D/lord now than phlactery (when babysitting Destroyers), the orb will make its points back on the higher cost models quicker, and he is really just a big old buff for the destroyers these days.

The CCB, its really underwhelming. It's not a character, so it can get targeted immediately. The MWG batrep showed how durable QS can be, but i dont think this is enough to make a unit that is mainly around for CC and buffing survive long enough.

I feel our HQ's now should be left out of combat for the most part. The 12" command wave MWBD is good, but it doesn't affect the praetorians, who should be charging up the board too, leaving his buffing ability for noone really as you don't want anyone else in combat? And he doesn't put out that much dakka, and only a few CC attacks. I feel a cryptek babysitting the HD's would be better served?

Also, the stalker doesn't really synergise with the HD's as they arent really benefitting from it at all. Unless you wanted it just for its THGC? But for that price you can get 2 more HD's, which can move and shoot and have RP and being buffed.

Imagine a shooting nexus of HD's and Cryptek, with the D/lord and Destroyers out front shooting all midrange targets while the HD's take care of the big stuff. Thats a super reliable amount of dakka.

Realistically, the praets will be left out to dry by themselves charging up the board, with midrange the realm of the TB and destroyers, with the Stalker and HD's in the backline.

I would personally swap the CCB for a cryptek, swap the stalker for an anni barge, and then add in scarab bases as charge defense for the D/Cult?

The new matched play missions determine who goes first by who finishes setting up alternating units first, which is going to be the guy with the max size blobs and not the guy who is setting up 7 razorbacks separately from the MSU units they are attached to.
There's a lot about this edition we still need to come to grips with before we can even say what our most basic strategy on the board should be. Do we relentlessly march at objectives to try and push enemy units off them or do we rush for the harder to obtain cover bonuses to maximize our RP viability as soon as possible and only make for objectives in the late game? Is a gloom prism a borderline mandatory inclusion as our only way to interact with the psychic phase? Should we be including a small highly mobile unit to always be able to try and grab a last minute 'linebreaker' victory point? About how many command points is too few or too many? Do games even go to 5+ turns on average or does the new, bloodier, high-speed pace of matches favor immediate all in alpha striking?

I want to like Praetorians, but they just seem to be the most dud option available in the codex.

The only sort of buff option available to them is Szeras +1 to RP, and Anrakyr +1 Attack. Both of which are footslogging at best, and it destroys the point of Praets mobility to put them in a phalanx of guys- you might as well have 20 Immortals for the price of 10 with either of those HQs, they'll get waaay more out of both of them.

So I wouldn't mind them much then as a unit designed to operate alone; but then they have no innate deepstrike ability, despite having Jump Packs! WHY can they not reserve in first turn for a 9" deploy away, being able to shoot/charge? They'd be in danger of being good?

A unit that by design can't really benefit from buffs? Sounds like perfect synergy for our transport options (Nightscythe/Monolith) that can't transport a character alongside a unit. But wait, neither can transport Praetorians...

So they have to deploy normally and footslog. Well they have a 10" move which isn't exactly flash, but they can advance first turn and fire their 12" single shot weapons at -1 to hit due to assault...5 hits from a full 350 point unit...not great.

I'd rather invest in something like Tomb Blades who can scoot up 14" and unload 2 Gauss Blasters each. Sure they can't assault, but they can't be caught in assault to deny shooting either, they also <FLY>.

And even if we had the options to pull off a quick shoot+assault with them, a full unit of 10 for 350 points is putting out 'only' 10 shots and 20 melee 1 damage attacks a turn at S5 AP-3....that's just not that much for 1 damage attacks at their pricepoint. A full unit of Immortals at less than half gets 30 dice as well, so 20 Immortals is the same amount of wounds (but individually), double the dice a turn, and 40 S5 AP-2 shots over 10 S5 AP-3 within 12", with the option to actually shoot over that range. They hit this 'alright' spot of durability, melee, shooting but just mediocre in all compared to our other choices. Immortals or Bikes or Lychguard just blow them out in shooting, speed and melee and they can't be buffed.

I'd consider them at 40 ppm if their shooting weapon was Assault 2 or 3, and/or they hit on 2+/2+ to make up for the fact they can't be buffed, maybe even if they gave out a melee aura of rerolls to 1 on their targets like an version of a Stalker, so you could run a minimum unit and benefit, but their current iteration sucks.