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skoffs wrote:

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
So, after being unimpressed by our vehicles, and Anni barges in particular, I decided to write a QS heavy list to see what it looks like. Actually seems like it might be ok...

Spoiler:

Orikan

20 Warriors
10 Gauss Immortals
10 Tesla Immortals

3x H.Destroyers

T.Stalker
Anni barge
Anni barge
Anni barge
DDA
DDA

2000pts, 4CPs

Pretty good anti-tank for a Necron list and a lot of dakka. Still has a decent phalanx to hold the mid field and the Anni barges are pretty fast moving if they need to grab an objective.

Might be a good idea to take a second Stalker. That's your only force multiplier, so it'll be targeted immediately.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Huh.
Actually, thinking about it,
A HGC Stalker is 181 points.
2 HDs are 150 points.
That's not too much difference.
They've got the same amount of firepower, but one's got QS and the other has multi wound RP.
...
Who's more survivable?

Depends? The stalker is pretty survivable, but is hard to claim cover on. Same speed until really hurt, and better in melee. The Stalker isn't... bad? Except for the Heavy + moving thing which still sucks.

Pyrothem wrote:Here is a list using the Deceiver to port Stormlord and Orikan over 12 away then the FO pop with enough bodies to get their bonuses and still try to take on something juicy.

Type Name Cost
HQ 1 Stormlord 228
HQ 1 Orikan 143

Troop 19 Warriors 228
Troop 10 Tesla Imm 170
Troop 10 Tesla Imm 170

Elite 1 Deceiver 225
Elite 1 T Staker 171
Elite 20 Flayed Ones 420

Heavy 1 DoomArk 203

Fast 3 Scarb 39

Total
1997

Thoughts?

It's a fun gimmick, for sure. If you fail that charge though... you're going to be in tears haha.

punisher357 wrote:

Shadar_Logoth wrote:

I really don't believe you can create sufficient durability in a rule that can be hamstrung so easily.

It's really not easy at all to drop 20 Warriors in one turn. The volume of fire on the table has gone down substantially. Also, you can still use 5th edition shenanigans like anchoring your blobs behind LOS, like a Mono.

The loss of gauss doesn't help either. It's not that we lost gauss, it's that we lost an edge. The mechanics of 7th made it so that our lack of high strength shooting volume wasn't so glaring. Gauss made our volume viable, while our durability kept our volume up.

Getting -1 (or-2 ) AP for basic weapons on troops more then makes up for this. Now we are wounding light to medium vehicles on 5s and heavy vehicles on 6s, and dropping their save at the same time.

It hurts us very badly that crypteks and overlords have no RP

The fact that Character can no longer be shot at makes this largely a non issue. For the most part, the only damage they will take is a random wound here and there from snipers (which living metal will neutralize), or maybe some in CC.

I totally disagree. Focus fire warriors and get them to 7 casualties and morale starts taking effect. Toughness 4 with a 4+? Nothing special. Once people realize all you need to do is focus fire and wipe a unit to deny RP, it will become the tactic. Remember, everything wounds now.

Gauss was way more effective than the current weapon stats due to the game mechanic for durability being different. Vehicles generally had 3-4 hp and no save. Glances were an easy way to dispatch them.

Once everyone has played a few games, these deficiencies become very obvious....especially our reliance on unimpressive and expensive characters that have no rp

Very unimpressed by RP now, but them's the breaks. 20 man blobs don't feel that important to me, they're expensive and don't have as much impact on the game as 10 man Immortal units. I'm really only considering Warriors if I want to do Ghost Arks, which actually doesn't seem that bad now. On the other hand, Night Scythes + Immortals is more expensive, but I think potentially better in the long run. Dropping 10 Gauss into Rapid Fire range and supporting them with the Destructors is a pretty solid amount of damage.

Thinking something like:

Overlord - Warscythe
Cryptek

Immortals x9 - Gauss
Immortals x9 - Gauss
Immortals x9 - Tesla
Immortals x10 - Tesla

Deathmarks x5
Deathmarks x5

Night Scythe
Night Scythe

Destroyers - 2x Regular, 1x Heavy
Destroyers - 2x Regular, 1x Heavy
Destroyers - 2x Regular, 1x Heavy

1996/2000, 6 Command

Lots of decent strength shooting, not the most bodies but also not a super low amount. Lack of screening hurts a bit, but I think there's enough mobility and damage output that eating an early charge won't be the worst thing in the world.

I'm really warming up to Tesla. Doubling the shots on the big ones, letting them "snapshoot" with the bonus, and being able to fall back from combat and still shoot makes them pretty appealing. AP0 sucks, but it's honestly a lot, lot of dice. It's almost to the point where I'm considering the Obelisk - still stupid expensive, but you can potentially put out a really dumb number of wounds in one go, has a lot to chew through, and can't be locked down.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

punisher357 wrote:


Oh right! I forgot it isn't +1 to hit
Yeah, I'm pretty disappointed with this edition so far....too many flash backs to the 5th/early 6th edition codec.

However, I am really looking forward to using the monolith! Being able to put all those shots on one target is a substantial amount of fire power.

Yup. I remember 5th edition when half our codex was useless. Guess we're back to that. I'm super disappointed too.

And the monolith still isn't worth it. You can get more Gauss shots from a unit of immortals, and they have the same strength and AP. And the particle whip is also lame at only AP-2, and the model is BS 4+ now, which is terrible.

The Monolith is supposed to be a durable support vehicle in addition to having weapons.

It can deep strike safely and then bring units super close to the enemy safely. It isn't always about the weapon crunching.

For a "support" vehicle it doesn't have any support functions. No buffs or extra reanimation or anything, just the ability to teleport in. Except you can't teleport from it if they just kill it or surround it. So... it's an expensive Drop Pod that works sometimes and doesn't give much shooting. Not sure what to think of that.

Requizen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

punisher357 wrote:


Oh right! I forgot it isn't +1 to hit
Yeah, I'm pretty disappointed with this edition so far....too many flash backs to the 5th/early 6th edition codec.

However, I am really looking forward to using the monolith! Being able to put all those shots on one target is a substantial amount of fire power.

Yup. I remember 5th edition when half our codex was useless. Guess we're back to that. I'm super disappointed too.

And the monolith still isn't worth it. You can get more Gauss shots from a unit of immortals, and they have the same strength and AP. And the particle whip is also lame at only AP-2, and the model is BS 4+ now, which is terrible.

The Monolith is supposed to be a durable support vehicle in addition to having weapons.

It can deep strike safely and then bring units super close to the enemy safely. It isn't always about the weapon crunching.

For a "support" vehicle it doesn't have any support functions. No buffs or extra reanimation or anything, just the ability to teleport in. Except you can't teleport from it if they just kill it or surround it. So... it's an expensive Drop Pod that works sometimes and doesn't give much shooting. Not sure what to think of that.

Quoting myself, but that said, I think I'm gonna try it more. Moving assault units with it is dumb, but Warriors or Immortals coming out it it might not be too bad. Just depends on the army you're facing.

I would buy a Tesseract Vault or Pylon in a heartbeat if they were worthwhile. I have a Tomb Stalker I never built because they were just terrible in 6th/7th.

So something we haven't discussed yet - fortifications.

Normally Fortifications aren't really for Necrons. They're for armies that have extreme range weaponry on troops and don't care about moving (Tau, Devastators, Guard), but now with Tesla Immortals being extremely good, they might be worth a shot.

An Aegis Line with an Icarus Autocannon in front of 10 Immortals and an Overlord gives you a solid 2+ shooting unit anywhere your choice in your DZ, for 100 points (105 with Quad). The gun is a bit crap, but plenty of things have the Fly keyword now, so not all that bad.

A VSG is 190 and gives a 4++ to everything within a foot. Hello invuln HDestroyers, Doomsday arks, and Annihilation Barges! Expensive, though.

A Skyshield is only 110 and gives anything on top a 5++. You can easily fit two DDArks on there, though I'm not sure they need the Invuln given QS.

The Defense Line is probably the best option, able to cover two units of Immortals easily. You can get 2+ in any cover, sure, but the line lets you place it where you need, say on an objective or in firing range of midfield objectives.

I'm starting to wonder if a more fast elite style force is better. Tomb Blades, Praetorians, Destroyers, and Wraiths are all T5 multiwound models that move fast and (aside from the Wraiths) have good damage output. With a couple DLords to keep up with them you can easily take a very fast force that will almost never be wounded on 2+ (very few S10 guns in the game).

T5 multiwound, I think, is going to be a big part of the meta. TWC, Bikes, Wraithguard, etc. All of those units fit that profile and also are pretty good at killing those units: AP-3 damage on both Praets and Destroyers, shooting and combat on the former and d3 damage on the latter. And Tomb Blades put out a pretty silly number of shots.

skoffs wrote:

Requizen wrote:

Spoiler:

Overlord - Warscythe
Cryptek

Immortals x9 - Gauss
Immortals x9 - Gauss
Immortals x9 - Tesla
Immortals x10 - Tesla

Deathmarks x5
Deathmarks x5

Night Scythe
Night Scythe

Destroyers - 2x Regular, 1x Heavy
Destroyers - 2x Regular, 1x Heavy
Destroyers - 2x Regular, 1x Heavy

1996/2000, 6 Command

Looks similar to what I've been toying with, though you may want to consider adding a D.Lord there (would you give a Outrider detachment)

Requizen wrote:
I'm starting to wonder if a more fast elite style force is better. Tomb Blades, Praetorians, Destroyers, and Wraiths are all T5 multiwound models that move fast and (aside from the Wraiths) have good damage output. With a couple DLords to keep up with them you can easily take a very fast force that will almost never be wounded on 2+ (very few S10 guns in the game).

T5 multiwound, I think, is going to be a big part of the meta. TWC, Bikes, Wraithguard, etc. All of those units fit that profile and also are pretty good at killing those units: AP-3 damage on both Praets and Destroyers, shooting and combat on the former and d3 damage on the latter. And Tomb Blades put out a pretty silly number of shots.

Also what I was thinking. The struggle there is, with the price points of those models, you're not going to be able to fit many in a list... I guess you could just skip making a Battalion and just make Outrider and Vanguard detachments? (will make a very small model number army, though)

I made a test army out of pure Destroyers (with some pet Scarabs) just to see what it would look like.

Spoiler:

D.Lord (Staff, Orb) : 177
D.Lord (Staff, Orb) : 177
3 Destroyers + 1 Heavy : 264
3 Destroyers + 1 Heavy : 264
3 Destroyers + 1 Heavy : 264
3 Destroyers + 1 Heavy : 264
3 Destroyers + 1 Heavy : 264
3 Destroyers + 1 Heavy : 264
4 Scarabs : 52
= 1990

... :/

Losing Battalion is fine. CPs are good but they're not the end all be all, and we can take a unit or two of Troops if we need them.

Grimgold wrote:

 Kharne the Befriender wrote:
Just found this gem of a thread, so sorry if I post an idea already covered.

I've been limited to small games of 8th while I try to learn all the rules, but I came across a pretty potent combo.

Take a Cryptek, an Overlord, a 10 man Immortal unit, and a Triarch Stalker.

Stick the Overlord/Cryptek behind the Immortals and the Stalker somewhat close. Nominate the Immortals for the Overlords 'My Will Be Done'.

Pick a unit in range, than shoot at it with the Stalker, then the Immortals, if you hit with the Stalker the Immortals will have 20 shots hitting on 2+ re-rolling 1's.

This works well when you take 2 Night Scythes and 2 warrior blobs, take the night Scythes and move them the full 60" up, if they survive a turn of shooting you can drop the 20-40 warriors behind or in front of the enemy. This also works well with 2 units of Praetorians.

Just my 2 cents

Yeah stalker and Overlord buffs make tesla immortals pretty OP. Also welcome to the thread, we are in an unusual state at the moment as we wrestle with the implications of 8th ed, normally we are a bit more focused and a little less "Oh Shiny!".

Someone may come along and make me a liar with some awesome lists, but for now tomb world deploy probably is not worth the risk. No other transports have the gotchas ours do, if you blow up a rhino you might loose one in six, if you blow up a night scythe it is a 100% kill without another portal. You have to bring in the units at the beginning of your movement, Which means all of our disembarking happens at turn two at the earliest. The final nail in the coffin is that you can also only do one unit per turn per night scythe/monolith. It's aggravatingly lame in comparison to the deep strike/transport options the other armies have. If you want to move your units around and be clever with deployment you'll need to take deceiver.

Tomb World deploy is ok if you bring multiple sources. Multiple Scythes isn't even bad.

 Grimgold wrote:
Yeah skoffs just follow these instructions:

Go to: https://github.com/BSData/wh40k/tree/40k8eprep
Click on clone or download, download the zip. Once it's down, open the zip and extract it to your battlescribe data folder (Mine was located at C:\Users\randa\BattleScribe\data, you will replace "randa" with the name for your windows user) and bam 8th ed in your battle scribe on PC.

Also I just had a match you guys are going to call me a freaking liar for winning, with this List I just tabled an army of four renegade knights with magnus. So here is the setup:

In deployment I spread out in my deployment zone, setup in the back of my deployment area, most of his knights are set up for close combat, so he spreads out to match my deployment. Set magnus on the left side matching where I deployed my destroyers and my D-lord screened by immortals. He has a knight right by magnus on the left side, and the other three knights are mid board to right side. He goes first, and magnus is in my face turn 1, offs all of my tesla immortals but can't consolidate into my destroyers. There is some shooting but it gets two warriors and a wound that heals on the ghost ark.

It's my turn now, roll a 3 for deceivers grand illusion power, and take the entire left side of my board and place it behind magnus. magnus was stupid tough, and he finally dies in the assault phase finished off by a charge from the deceiver. 20% of his army is gone, and I've lost a unit of immortals and 4 or so warriors from my 20 man blob.

What follows is four turns of me killing his knights one at a time, and him making some mistakes like using his sword instead of stomping my warriors. By the end of the game, I'd lost the ghost ark, half my warriors blob, a squad of immortals, the deceiver and my D-lord. Proudest moment was when the warriors finished off the last two wounds of a knight in CC. He charged me and thought I'd fall back, but a quick math hammer said It was just outside of likely that i could finish him with my warriors.

Unfortunately, you inadvertently cheated. The Deceiver's power happens before the first Battle Round, which means before the first player's turn. Battle Rounds are comprised of both player's turns, so you would have had to redeploy before his turn, meaning an alive Magnus.

Sorry

 skoffs wrote:

Halfpast_Yellow wrote:

Spoiler:

Battalion +3CP
Overlord with Hyperphase Sword (Deploy with Tesla Immortals)
Destroyer Lord with Hyperphase Sword, Res Orb. (Deploy with Destroyers/HDestroyers)

10 Immortals - Tesla
10 Immortals - Gauss - (reserved)
10 Immortals - Gauss - (reserved)

4 Destroyers
3 Heavy Destroyers
3 Heavy Destroyers

Flyer Wing +1CP
3 Night Scythes

2000 points

I like it.
Though, personally, I'd try to find some way to fit some Scarabs in for screening the Destroyers/grabbing Objectives.


Need some confirmation, though:
Flyers that leave the table in 8th do NOT come back on in later turns, right? (count as destroyed)


And mathhamer question:
How do 10 unaccompanied Immortals and 5 naked Tomb Blades compare for damage and survivability?
(yes, I realize the points would be closer if it were 4 TBs, but this is closer for wounds and shots)

Tomb Blades are only 4+ unless you take an expensive upgrade. T5 helps. But they can't claim cover as easily, and you can stick the Immortals in Ruins after they come out for 2+. But the Blades can Fall Back and shoot if they survive,

Similar. Requires testing. I have trouble with Tomb Blades - they're freaking expensive as all get out, but they also pack a whallop and are fast. They're not too easy to kill, but also not too hard. Can't take buffs. They get less RP chances (less models, higher chance of getting wiped by D2+ weapons), but each passed RP is more powerful.

Need more games.

Remember, one of the nice things about the Deceiver is that you just redeploy him plus 1d3. They don't have to go together, and they don't have to go exactly 12" away. You can use it to just redeploy Gauss Immortals in ruins in the middle of the map, or shift a unit out of Line of Sight from something that counterdeployed.

If he doesn't use the redeploy himself, he can also charge, so you can also leave him in your DZ with some Wraiths and Scarabs to follow up the redeploy with melee.


As for general deployment shenanigans, the Night Scythe can be a tricky low-drop tool. Think about this: put 2 Night Scythes on the table, 4 Immortal units on the Tomb World. On T1, before moving, just plop 2 units of Tesla Immortals in Ruins on your side of the map. You just saved 2 Deployment drops and got the same result as deploying them.

Since Heavy Destroyers are also Infantry and generally just set up in the backfield, you can put them up in the Tomb World and then drop them out of whichever Scythe is best on T1.

torblind wrote:
Don't reserves count towards the unit deployment drop?

Not when you put them in the Scythe. You can deploy as many units on the Tomb World as you want at the same time that you put down the flyer (or Monolith for that matter)

 skoffs wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Remember that one is allowed to disembark up to 3" away from the vehicle, so its not a 9" charge but more of a potential 6" charge.
Its not that bad, really.
You'll never be able to get a first turn charge with the monolith anyway; you deploy the monolith at the end of your movement phase, and units are deployed from the monolith before it moves.

That applies to a Monolith coming in via "deep strike", or whatever we're calling it now.
The method of use for the Deceiver Bomb has it on the table on the first turn already, then moved up with the Grand Illusion power, at which point the unit in waiting "disembarks" and moves up, getting into position to charge. Or at least that USED to be the plan, until it was realized that because it and the Night Scythe lack the Transport keyword it means any units coming out of them would have counted as having moved, despite coming in exactly like a units getting out of a transport would have. Without this extra penalty a first turn charge from a Monolith redeployed via Grand Illusion would have totally been doable. As is, yeah, it would be a 9" charge (12" away via Grand Illusion minus 3" closer when stepping out of the Monolith).

So yeah, looks like Obyron bringing a single unit of Scythe Lychguard is the only reliable first turn charging we can do. All the rest of a Deceiver Bomb's alpha strike is going to have to be shooting.

I think the best Deceiver Bomb is with a Ghost Ark holding Zahndrekh and an understrength unit of Warriors + Obyron/Scytheguard. I'm still not a huge fan of "gaming" the Understrength rule, but it is really good in this situation, as you can use it to get good shooting midfield + get a melee bomb off.

Deceiver is still a pretty good option if you're running Gauss Immortal units (for hopefully obvious reasons) or QS spam. Plopping a Heat Ray Stalker or two in the middle of the table is hard to shift (especially if there's big enough cover to block it), plus Barges/DDArks in the backfield to support them, is quite powerful. Get the Stalkers in range shoot the Heat Ray without moving, and if they get charged they're actually not too bad in combat with 3+/AP-1/Dd3.

You can get 14 Flayed Ones for the price of 10 Scytheguard. Quick math:



Didn't do invuln saves because just napkin math.

Equivalent points of Warscythes do better against 4+ armor or better at all ranges, against 5+ armor at T5/T6/T8 (but that's a pretty rare statline), and never at 6+.

Flayed Ones are a better choice for T4 5+/6+, which is pretty much just tarpit stuff.

If you want to blob it out to 20, those numbers might change a bit, but I'm honestly not expecting them to outpace too hard. And you're right, getting them all in the bubble and also all in range to attack is probably a challenge.

14 FOs also have less Wounds and Effective Wounds via worse Save and Toughness. I would say the Lychguard are better in any situation that matters. Except maybe against Tyranids, where you'll want the Flayed Ones to clear out small bugs and then use heavy guns on the big ones.

 Anpu-adom wrote:
Flayed Ones add the ability to react to your opponents deployment or first turn... something you don't have with Lychguard unless you take a Night Scythe with them.
Yep, charging units no longer get the +1 attack, now you get to attack first and hopefully remove some of the opponent's ability to hit back.
This game is not going to be won at list building... it could be lost at list building though. Tactical Flexibility is something that is going to matter.

Still think Flayed Ones are too expensive for what they are. Sure, they may be better at punching out weaker 1W models, but honestly, have we ever struggled with that? We can do that with Tesla, or even just massed Warriors/Immortals/Ghost Arks.

Scythe Lychguard are great because they let us punch through tougher units. TWC is going to still be a thing. People will still take Riptides and Wraithknights even though they went up in cost. 3 Imperial Knight armies are going to be a thing. Flayed Ones have no place against those units, other than maybe popping up on an objective and trying to cap it. Warscythe Lychguard, if they get in, are potentially the best units available for dropping them in a single round or so.

The only other things we have to take those types of targets out reliably are Heavy Destroyers and Doomsday Arks, but with the high number of attacks, I think the Lychguard will overall more reliable, and Knights only get their 5++ against shooting as well.

skoffs wrote:So WS Lychguard would appear to be the better choice, with all the accompanying shooting taking out the single wound stuff.

What else would be good to support a Deceiver Bomb?
Unfortunately the main components (Deceiver, Zahndrekh, Obyron) take up 556 points of your army, 856 including the LG. That doesn't leave a lot of room for extra toys.
Ghost Ark + Warriors, that's going to be another 290, which already puts it over a thousand (1146, to be precise).
What do you get for the last 850-ish points?
Monolith + Immortals? (lot of AP-2 shooting)
A bunch of Deathmarks? (get rid of enemy support characters first to make killing the rest easier)*
More HQ? (eg. Anrakyr or Orikan to buff your guys)
Some Night Scythes? (for mobile Tesla Destructors)
The aforementioned Stalker with maybe Doomsday Ark down your side?
Something else? (Flayed ones for counter assault deterrent)

Probably Tesla Immortals and maybe an Annibarge or two. With the bomb you'll have 2 units plus an Ark and some Characters up close right off the bat, so you Tesla being able to do great from 24" is nice plus it can clear out small stuff and tarpits.

*If Tesla procs on a 5 or 6 on Immortals if they have been buffed with MWBD, does that mean Deathmarks on MWBD would generate bonus mortal wounds on a 5 or 6 as well?

No, because it's a Wound roll of 6+.

Pyrothem wrote:Queston about knights:

Is their speed high enough that you will never get to hit them more than once with a deep strike like attack? At a 5" move they will never get to anything that does not want to be got.

Possibly, but 10 Warscythes statistically deal 8.88 wounds on the charge (11.11 if they get MWBD) so they're pretty likely to cripple the thing before it gets a chance to back out. A Knight hitting on 4s is much less scary.

Fragile wrote:You cant lock Knights in CC, they can just stomp off. But Knights can rarely ever kill a QS model in CC since they do 6 damage per hit.

I think at that point they're more likely to use their feet which do more hits at D1 each.

 Hakumei wrote:
Could the Catacomb Command Barge be a worthwhile option to use in order to chase knights around? Also, what are your guys' opinion on sword and board lychguard vs warscythe lychguard?

Eh, it doesn't put out enough damage to really threaten a Knight and will die to the retaliation. We're better off trying to shoot it to death or instagib it on the charge with Lychguard.

Just asked on the Frontline Gaming stream, sounds like either they or GW will FAQ Understrength Units to not be voluntary or something similar (maybe just not in Matched Play or tournaments). So no Zahndrekh + 9 Warriors.

Thanks GW.

 Grimgold wrote:
I got the feeling that understrength units were so they could be nice to people just getting started that may not have enough models for a particular unit. As soon as people saw a rules advantage , they were like "yeah, guess not in matched play".

Also watched the miniwargaming faction focus batreps for necrons, the public one was kind of meh, and an object lesson on why we don't use sword and board lychguard anymore. But the one in the vault was pretty decent, and featured scytheguard taking apart Cawl.

Was considering subbing for this 8th ed launch month just to get more 40k content, is it worthwhile?

torblind wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
I got the feeling that understrength units were so they could be nice to people just getting started that may not have enough models for a particular unit. As soon as people saw a rules advantage , they were like "yeah, guess not in matched play".

Also watched the miniwargaming faction focus batreps for necrons, the public one was kind of meh, and an object lesson on why we don't use sword and board lychguard anymore. But the one in the vault was pretty decent, and featured scytheguard taking apart Cawl.

Would warscythes on the lychguard have made a very big difference though? the terminators had 3++ save anyway, and you were wounding them on 3+ all the same. There is twice the damage though would have made every wound inflicted count double, but they would have withered down faster. But I feel the warscythes are somewhat wasted on 3++,

Killing a Termie per fail is a big difference. There's a massive divide between a wounded terminator with TH/SS or PF/SS and one that's dead.

torblind wrote:
Perhaps 10 deathmarks is a reasonable priced speed bump for deepstriking terminators? The termies can hardly ignore them,, would take perhaps 3-4 casualties and would be kept busy in cc for a turn or two


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Odrankt wrote:

So do deathmarks though, and they have a great chance of inflicting them through sheer numbers

I wasn't comparing Deathmarks to Wraiths. Only stated that Wraiths can deal Mortal Wounds as well.

I think Deathmarks are great. I really like them in 2 units of 7-8. Only problem with Deathmarks is that their Disintegrator has no AP value while the Wraiths T.Beamer is AP -3.

Wraiths can be good though. 52pts per model if equipped with the T.Beamer and Vicious Claws which isn't too bad with M:12" T:5 W:3 and 3++. They will hit on 4+ with the T.Beamer if they move due to it being a Heavy Weapon but if your going for Mortal Wounds then that isn't an issue.

Just so there is no misunderstanding, T. Beamer need to wound on a 6+, not simply hit on a 6+. Fewer hits (for instance if wraiths move), certainly reduces mortals wound outcome


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If I were to kit out the wraiths, with what I know so far the pistol seems the only meaningful option

Remember it's d3 shots, so average 2. 6 Wraiths get more shots on average than 5 Rapid Firing Deathmarks. Deathmarks get to do it before being shot, of course.

torblind wrote:

Odrankt wrote:

If I were to kit out the wraiths, with what I know so far the pistol seems the only meaningful option

At 4 points for the pistol vs 14 points for the Beamer the pistol does win but its only 1 s6 ap0 d1 shot vs 1-3 shots s4 ap-3 d1.

I still think the Beamer is better. While its 10 points more and goes to a 4+ to hit(thank you for clearing that up) if moved, it has a chance to do more shots at 4+ and reduce a save. I rather my opponent take a 5+ save rather then a 2+ save. Even if the odds are not that good it's always nice to roll more dice.

It will all depend on your local meta though.

I would say to try everything out a few times before we decide what options are the best.

Also consider the pistol is an assault weapon that they can fire when advancing, and while they are tarpitting someone in cc

Pistol and Assault are not the same thing so no you can not Advance and shoot. They're cheap but it's nothing special, at most 6 AP0 shots might plink off an extra wound but that's not really game changing.

After a reasonable amount of list crunching I think the closest things we get to Deathstars this time around are Zahndrekh bomb (dubious usefulness once Understrength is FAQ'd) and Wraithstar.

Wraiths now have 3 decent Characters to cart around - Destroyer Lords and the two C'tan. DLords are cheaper (and therefore will end up with more attacks/wounds), and can hang out in cover for 2+. Deceiver can affect your army, allowing you to place Infantry up the field to keep up with the Star even without vehicles. And the Nightbringer, well he's a beast with essentially Fleshbane on his weapon and a decent (if unreliable) shooting attack.

While the C'tan are powerful, their high expense and relatively low save (can't get them 3+ in combat, which is painful) makes me want to try Destroyer Lords. Here's an attempt:

Battalion

Destroyer Lord, Warscythe, Phylactery (Warlord)
Destroyer Lord, Warscythe

Immortals x10, Tesla
Immortals x10, Tesla
Warriors x18

Heavy Destroyers x3
Doomsday Ark

Outrider

Destroyer Lord, Warscythe

Wraiths x4
Wraiths x4
Wraiths x4
Wraiths x4

With proper positioning, the opponent should have to chew through 16 Wraiths to get to a single DLord. Once they get into combat, the Wraiths can tie things up across the map while the DLords hit preferred targets and the Infantry/Heavies/DDArks lie down supporting fire.

That may be a bit heavy on Wraiths, they're still not the killiest things in the game, after all. However, they do attract a lot of fire, which is good. To cut down on Wraiths, one could drop a unit of 4 and take two units of 15 Warriors instead of one unit of 20, which potentially will have better midfield control.

This really hinges on the 3 DLords being quite killy, which they potentially are. If they all hit a target together, that's 12 Warscythe hits rerolling 1s. With 6 Wounds and 4++ on each, they're quite capable of surviving even Lascannons once they're out from behind their screen. However, it still doesn't hit as hard as something like a TWC star or anything like that, so don't expect a smashy hammer of doom walking across the board and tabling opponents. More like a mass tarpit that can cut down choice units.

arhurt wrote:
Can someone point meas to why the deceiver-bomb with monolith doesn't work? I've seen it stated previously but must have missed an explanation somewhere.

I mean having a deceiver with a Monolith/Scythe and Zandrekh + Obyron. Redeploy the Monolith/Scythe, walk out with Zandrekh and Veil away the Lychguard (or choice of unit).

That way we can cut down the distance by:
Redeploy Mono/Scythe: 12''
Gate in Zandrekh: 9''
Veil Oby+Crew: 3''
Charge 2''

That is a valid move, correct?

It does work as a telport bomb, but there are other downsides to it as an army build.

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:

 buddha wrote:
Can the deceiver move a ghost ark filled with warriors?

If you could guarantee two units then it would he perfect but I'm trying to think how to play for only rolling one.

Use a command point re-roll, that gives a 1/9 chance of only being able to move one unit. Any plan with the Deceiver should be made around shifting two units, 3 is gravy, 1 is unlikely to happen.

You can't really do averages on one dice, even with the reroll. Better to have your list with a good 1 redeploy option. Ghost Ark with Warriors is a good pick, or a Stalker isn't bad either.

Malygon wrote:
Why do we put Zahndrekh in a Ghost Ark for the Deceiver Bomb anyway?

If we hope for the re-roll for the deceiver to port at least 2 units we could port Zahndrekh and some Warriors or Immortals. He can then buff those infantry with MWBD and Transient Madness. The infantry can definitely get into rapid fire range. Zahndrekh will be, let's round up, 13" away. Even if he doesn't advance and shoots his staff without penalty he will end up 8" away from the enemy. Enough so that Oberyn and his Lychguards can ghostwalk to within 2" of the enemy, making that charge a sure thing.

We lose: The Ghost Ark's fire power. Zahndrekh in melee. We gain: Buffed up infantry.
It's a lot cheaper, too.

I am a bit afraid of my main enemy who will play Astra Militarum. We will start with pretty low point games but I know he already has a Manticore, a Basilisk and a Wyvern ready. How can we best deal with hidden vehicles like that? A deceiver bomb is a bit to expensive for low point games and I don't really see anything that can quickly deal with those. Some regular, not bomb, Deceiver shenanigans might help and a squad of 10 flayed ones can put a surprising amount of wounds on a 7T vehicle, but relying on a 9 for your charge roll seems a tad risky. Any ideas?

You do it for the extra range, protection (harder to kill the Ghost Ark than Warriors, generally), and the fact that it still works even if you roll a 1 for Deceiver. It also allows you to cover a larger area - if you go second and the opponent spreads out, being able to disembark 3" away from any point on the Ghost Ark plus move means your Lychguard have a massive section of the board that they're nearly guaranteed to charge into.

Though I'm not sure about the whole thing anymore. Is it amusing? Totally, a T1 charge with Warscythes is awesome. But... they still suffer after that. If they get tarpitted (hello Conscripts, Boyz, Termagants, Brimstones, Cultists, Scarabs, etc), that's a lot of points that you're out for a few turns. Screening units are going to be a big thing in most lists for this exact reason - lots of armies now can just blast out T1 Alpha Strikes or insanely quick (T2 with little issue) melee pushes. While we won't have a terrible time clearing out those types of units with Tesla and massed Flayers, it's still going to be quite common to just put a stopper on that sort of thing.

Not to mention once you kill that first unit, everything else is going to be spreading out, and Lychguard aren't known for their ability to keep up with the flow of battle that easily. Especially if, say, the unit you charge either dies or Falls Back and then they light up the Lychguard with very little problem. T5 W2 3+ is tough against small arms fire, but Plasma and Autocannons and things of that nature will cut them down without a whole lot of problem.

I dunno. I'm just seeing a lot of the same weaknesses as before. I need to play a game or three with them to get a feel for the state of the game. If this was 7th and we suddenly had a way to nearly guarantee a T1 charge with the Lychguard, I'd say it wasn't that great given the prevalence of BatCo, Scatbikes, and Deathstars. Nowadays, maybe it's not as big of a deal given those are dead, and they can actually fulfill their job. Depends a lot on what other armies bring, honestly.

Yeah I think the Deceiver is better with lots of Infantry. The Deathstar is great but a bit all in, plopping big Warrior units or even in-cover Immortal units down much further up the table than normal is probably better.

Night Scythes can deploy Destroyers.

I don't know what to do with this information, I only know that I have it.

Also a Destroyer Lord can fit in a Ghost Ark, giving him 13" move when he Disembarks.

Again, probably not useful, but noteworthy.

I was thinking about builds this morning, since I have a game tonight.

I think the issue is that we don't have a power unit or combo. We have above-average stuff and some tricks, but we don't have a unit or crushing star to build an army around. A lot of armies are built around that something that's like, "once this gets in range I'm in a good spot". This used to be Deathstars, or Riptide Wing, or Drop Cents or whatever. Those being gone in 8th is nice. But you still see these builds with like Ravenwing Darkshoud/Sammael/Black Knight stars, or having a Knight or 3 or something like that. Building your army around one or so really powerful units that can control a game once they get going.

Necrons don't have that. Wraithstar is tough and fast, but we don't have a killy core to go with it and do the punching. Lychguard are fairly choppy, but have a suite of downsides and require a looot to get going. Destroyers are pretty shooty, but are prohibitively expensive and aren't generalist enough shooting, you want to remove or at least heavily cripple at least one unit per turn.

While being slightly harder to grind down than average is great, a truly strong list has at least one, maybe two power options to just start removing things. At the end of the day, you can't score objectives unless you've killed the baddies off of it, and you don't get kill points that well by cutting down a bit at a time.

So what are our power units? Well... Scytheguard with the teleport are pretty good, but again, very noteworthy downsides. Our characters are pretty punchy, but slow other than the DLord and not cheap enough to spam. C'tan are killer, but price again makes it a bit difficult and one by itself doesn't do much just due to number of attacks per price.

Really you want something like Assault Terminators or TWC for melee, things that are tough with good invuln saves but also really killy. Unfortunately, Lychguard have to pick between the two options. Wraiths are the right amount of tough, but 3 attacks, even at S6, aren't topping the charts in punching.

I suppose you could consider multiple DDArks as a power shooting. If you take 3 (because you're a bad person or something) you can put out a pretty obnoxious amount of shots into anything that needs to die and it'll be hard to wipe out all at once. ABarges and NScythes also put down a fairly nasty amount of bullets, though they struggle on harder targets.

Maybe we move more into a mechanized force that uses Troops/Scarabs/minimal Wraiths to screen and objective grab while our shooty vehicles do the lion's share of the work.

 skoffs wrote:
Honestly, though, what exactly would our "fun stuff" be?
Everything I can think of that might fit that description is either meh in performance or too cost prohibitive to take in any meaningful way.

Fun is subjective. I think Flayed Ones are fun, and Characters paired with Shieldguard.

If the army doesn't seem fun anymore, that's not necessarily a bad thing. There are plenty of other forces to try in the game.

Rezolut wrote:

Requizen wrote:
I was thinking about builds this morning, since I have a game tonight.

I think the issue is that we don't have a power unit or combo. We have above-average stuff and some tricks, but we don't have a unit or crushing star to build an army around. A lot of armies are built around that something that's like, "once this gets in range I'm in a good spot". This used to be Deathstars, or Riptide Wing, or Drop Cents or whatever. Those being gone in 8th is nice. But you still see these builds with like Ravenwing Darkshoud/Sammael/Black Knight stars, or having a Knight or 3 or something like that. Building your army around one or so really powerful units that can control a game once they get going.

Necrons don't have that. Wraithstar is tough and fast, but we don't have a killy core to go with it and do the punching. Lychguard are fairly choppy, but have a suite of downsides and require a looot to get going. Destroyers are pretty shooty, but are prohibitively expensive and aren't generalist enough shooting, you want to remove or at least heavily cripple at least one unit per turn.

While being slightly harder to grind down than average is great, a truly strong list has at least one, maybe two power options to just start removing things. At the end of the day, you can't score objectives unless you've killed the baddies off of it, and you don't get kill points that well by cutting down a bit at a time.

So what are our power units? Well... Scytheguard with the teleport are pretty good, but again, very noteworthy downsides. Our characters are pretty punchy, but slow other than the DLord and not cheap enough to spam. C'tan are killer, but price again makes it a bit difficult and one by itself doesn't do much just due to number of attacks per price.

Really you want something like Assault Terminators or TWC for melee, things that are tough with good invuln saves but also really killy. Unfortunately, Lychguard have to pick between the two options. Wraiths are the right amount of tough, but 3 attacks, even at S6, aren't topping the charts in punching.

I suppose you could consider multiple DDArks as a power shooting. If you take 3 (because you're a bad person or something) you can put out a pretty obnoxious amount of shots into anything that needs to die and it'll be hard to wipe out all at once. ABarges and NScythes also put down a fairly nasty amount of bullets, though they struggle on harder targets.

Maybe we move more into a mechanized force that uses Troops/Scarabs/minimal Wraiths to screen and objective grab while our shooty vehicles do the lion's share of the work.

i dont think this stars will dominate in 8th edition. for example 200 conscripts in catachan mode (harken, comissar etc) with support from basilisk, manticore and wyverns (all indirect shooting) eat this alive, 200-800 lasguns shot is very nasty in 8ed and that what fear me most, We have no real power against this shoting horde armies. 8 edition necron are hard core AS remove army, our biggest chances are against small elite armies and pseudo star. Our warrior change terminators on tactical marines, immortal change tactical marines on guardsmen. Thats our main strength mid range AP shooting. Big hordes and indirect shooting - that especialy cos no chance to hide our damaged units for RP restoration are the worst enemies of necrons in 8th edition. Nightbringer will shatter TWC and all this kind units and HD will destroy dread and vehicle armies. But what you will do with 200 conscripts or 200 orc or 200 hormagaunts ? :-/

I think that's why we have to utilize vehicles. ABarges and NScythes pump out lots of shots to chew through blobs, and the Night Scythe can dump 20 Warriors in Rapid Fire range to chew through them as well. DDArks don't do a lot to them, but they have a lot of wounds and can roll up into Flayer range, and are hard to put down with horde weapons.

Edit: if shooting blobs become a thing, the Obelisk may become a decent pick. Points per shot, it's still a worse buy than ABarges, but way harder to kill and can stand in front of them as a big ol moveblocker.