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If you take a warscythe you should dedicate that lord to taking out vehicles. Otherwise, the Assault 3 Str 5 AP 3 weapon (one of only three weapons with AP that low) is a giant boon to give up considering the staff of light is already a power weapon (the only one in the army, not counting c'tan). Basically, you're not gaining any advantage over the majority of regular troops that don't have an invul save and you're giving up 3 potential killing shots on MEQ.

Personally to me, it's far more advantageous to keep the staff of light and just use weight of fire to bog down vehicles instead of upgrading to the warscythe.

Kevin949 wrote:If you take a warscythe you should dedicate that lord to taking out vehicles. Otherwise, the Assault 3 Str 5 AP 3 weapon (one of only three weapons with AP that low) is a giant boon to give up considering the staff of light is already a power weapon (the only one in the army, not counting c'tan). Basically, you're not gaining any advantage over the majority of regular troops that don't have an invul save and you're giving up 3 potential killing shots on MEQ.

Personally to me, it's far more advantageous to keep the staff of light and just use weight of fire to bog down vehicles instead of upgrading to the warscythe.

I would only take the Warscythe for a Destroyer Lord, as he is most likely not going to shoot and more likely to engage in CC. Foot slogging Lords will probably never really use the Warscythe unless they get lucky.

WarOne wrote:

Kevin949 wrote:If you take a warscythe you should dedicate that lord to taking out vehicles. Otherwise, the Assault 3 Str 5 AP 3 weapon (one of only three weapons with AP that low) is a giant boon to give up considering the staff of light is already a power weapon (the only one in the army, not counting c'tan). Basically, you're not gaining any advantage over the majority of regular troops that don't have an invul save and you're giving up 3 potential killing shots on MEQ.

Personally to me, it's far more advantageous to keep the staff of light and just use weight of fire to bog down vehicles instead of upgrading to the warscythe.

I would only take the Warscythe for a Destroyer Lord, as he is most likely not going to shoot and more likely to engage in CC. Foot slogging Lords will probably never really use the Warscythe unless they get lucky.

Yes, but footslogging Lords are only likely to get one or two rounds of fire with it either before melee starts. Same reason I avoid putting PPCs in my Spyders.

I'd still rather have those 3 shots of AP3 plus the 3 (or 4) melee attacks instead of only 3 (or 4) melee attacks. BS 4 hits more often than WS 4 against MEQ and the staff wounds the same in or out of CC since the str is the same as the models. I've just really never found it terribly useful to take the warscythe for infantry fighting as anything with an invul save will completely destroy the necron lord and anything w/o an invul save will still get no armor save in CC against the standard staff of light.

Warscythe is just only good for vehicle hunting and it's only OK at that as even with 2d6 for pen you still need 6-10 on the roll for a pen result (depending on what you're hunting). Yes, better than only 1d6 for sure. And yes, perfect for a destroyer lord.

I have PPC's on both my tomb spyders (only have two currently) and it's served me well.

I agree for the Lord, I was just saying that you aren't likely to get many turns of fire out of it.

I don't much care for Spyders period in 5th. If you could get TL PPCs I would be more interested.

Ya, I don't care much for spyders either, honestly. I rarely take them and when I do they just die horrible deaths to the mass amounts of str6+ weapons or get assaulted. Too much of a liability for not much return.

Though it's worth it to note that I'm mostly fighting MEQ (BT in particular).

Sigh, they used to be decent for supporting Warriors and Immortals in melee against them

Back when the phalanx was a viable tactic, they worked well to help keep the lines intact, but these days not so much.

Well, I'm doing a casual/fun game vs. Darkhound. And this thread has inspired me to mess around with Necrons.

I'm running a 7 second Necron list as follows:

Deceiver
4 Pariahs
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
3 Wraiths
10 Scarabs
10 Scarabs
2Tomb Spyder.
2Tomb Spyder.
2Tomb Spyder.
1500

Gonna see what I can do with them

What are you playing against Sanctjud? Just a heads up, ork mob and leaf blower will annialate that list so I'm hoping it s not either. For the 300 points of tomb spyders id max out a squad of warriors take a vod lord with resorb. Imho...

Well it's supposed to be a wonky/stupid list .
I'm going up against infantry spam Dark Eldar.
We are done with Turn 1 so far, just gotta finish it .

I'm just testing the waters for 2 specific things:

Spyder spam and the Pariah/Deceiver combo.

Everything else is just filler.

@Dash

Nah you didnt table me Well, almost^^

Concerning your lord:

I think he did a good job although you rolled badly for him.

Concerning spyders:

I think we did this right, if you have scarabs in front and mange to move so that only scarab gets through terrain you strike at initiative, becuase you didnt test for difficult terrain.

I would be curious how your army performs in the future. I was always interested in tomb spyder spamming. In our mission you had mission and matchup in your favour, it was next to impossible to punch through the spyders and you made good use of the terrain.

But I made a big big mistake when I charged the scarabs in order to zip off the lord and I kept the raiders behind... . I should have stuck to my guard lessons and should have kept moving 12" leaving the whole monstrous junk scratching on fast moving adamantium and kill the decisive stuff instead (necrons...). Never go for early kills, you pay for it later...
I wasnt really concentrated that game
But nevertheless, I think spyders>wraiths.

Scarabs created by spyders still have to test for terrain as they are one unit and have to move at the spyders pace, which is 3d6 through cover.

@Kevin

Right you are! We missed that. Always move at speed of the slowest model, yep.

Yup, we followed that in our game (Cities of Death one off game, I know old).

Spyders are pretty cool, you can add to charge range when it poops out a scarab swarm.

Quite cheap for T6 MC in my eyes.

I've been mostly running this:

HQ: Deceiver
HQ: Destroyer Lord + Warscythe, Phase Shifter, Rez Orb

Troop1: 11 Warriors
Troop2: 12 Warriors

Fast1: 3x Wraiths
Fast2: 3x Wraiths
Fast3: 3x Wraiths

Heavy1: Monolith
Heavy2: Monolith
Heavy3: Monolith

I wish I could do something with the 54 points in extra warriors, but I don't see any way to spend it.


Couple of things I've learned in my games so far.

1. The Deceiver is a tricky model to use. I didn't know that he wasn't immune to instant death; I'm going to have to start looking for force weapons. I assaulted a Swarm Lord thinking that I was going to toast them all, and he reduced me to I1 and then instant deathed me. Poof. Fortunately, he didn't really have any anti-monolith weaponry. =p

2. Also, his 4+ invulnerable save isn't that hot. He took 3 vendettas to the face in one game and fell over dead, and last night took 7 wounds from a unit of 15 Lootas and failed 5 of them, falling over dead.

3. With practice, I see him being incredibly useful. Hiding behind my monoliths as they advance, and then moving up to assault / counterassault. I just discovered how useful his ability to leave combat is - I can assault a unit to protect me from shooting....then on the enemy turn consolidate 2d6 towards something else, followed by a 6" move, 6" assault - literally letting the C'Tan bounce across the board in combats if the opportunity presents. I don't see Grand Illlusion ever doing much; I can stick him as a bait unit in a corner, or put something in a corner as bait and then redeploy it, but not seeing much utility in that ability. If anyone has some awesome thoughts on Grand Illusion I've missed, key me in on them.

4. Monoliths are interesting. Coming from Orks, where I reroll all dangerous terrain, I'm going to have to be more careful. I've immobilized a monolith on my own in a couple of games now. In a game last night, I landed in a tiny crater and immobilized myself. That's a weakness I don't like. I like the particle whip, but my army is close combat oriented...and with so few models, I keep finding myself having to teleport models through the monolith for a second WBB roll - not to mention that pulling myself out of combat to get a charge bonus again is very nice. I'm going to have to contemplate that - my only ranged anti-tanks are those three particle whips, and while conventional wisdom says to ignore Monoliths and go for a phase out, in reality those monoliths keep from FROM phasing out....and they're precious to me.

5. Wraiths continue to be my MVPs.

In a 2,000 point game last night against 2,500 points of Orks (Kan-wall backed by 120 boyz and 45 Lootas - he didn't know he was over points until today when he was looking at his list), I had 6 wraiths and a destroyer Lord attack a unit of 30 boyz. I killed a bunch, and on the return swings, he killed all but one wraith (phew), while the destroyer lord took a wound. That single wraith let me take WBB rolls on the dead unit and his two compadres. I think 3/5 got back up, and I pulled the whole thing through a Monolith to try for the other two and got one of them. 1 dead wraith, 50% dead boyz squad.

My destroyer Lord and 5 wraiths then went and assaulted another unit of 30 boyz and multi-assaulted a KFF and 15 Lootas. Again, that single wraith survives (and the destroyer lord), to win combat. I killed 6 Lootas, leaving the KFF and 9 Lootas at Ld10, losing by 9, and running off the board, while 8 more boyz die. That single wraith lets me WBB, and 4/5 get up. I teleport through a monolith and the 5th gets back up.

This time, the destroyer lord breaks off from the wraiths and assaulted one the first boyz unit while the 5 wraiths assaulted the other boyz unit (now one wraith squad instead of two) and wiped them both.

I killed 60 boyz, a KFF Big Mek and 15 Lootas while losing 1 wraith. All because of a single wraith's unwillingness to fall over dead. Wraiths are awesome. The other wraith squad was tied up in combat with a unit of kans, keeping them away from my monolith while my Deceiver ripped up another kan unit and then bounced into a boy squad and sat there munching on them.

Uhm, how did your opponent not know he was over by 500?

And did you win? Sorry, it just wasn't clear.

EDIT: Now you've made me start necrons... my friend has a bunch of models he's not using though he doesn't have any warriors.

Yes, I still won.

Dash:

Deceiver is a great model. Just make sure to protect him.

Are the opponents you are facing aware of what a Necron army can do? Your weaknesses, ect.?

yeah, that's pretty much how you have to use the Deciever, and why he's so much better than the Nightbringer.

Grand Illusion is best for pushback deployments and creating/unmaking a refused flank deployment.

You seem to be doing unusually well with WBB on those Wraiths. One of the reasons I don't like them is their vulnerability to small arms fire. A volley of rapid fire boltguns (~18 shots) nets 1 (real) casualty and a break check, and until you have amalgamated them into one unit they often suck up portal time.

The Grog wrote:yeah, that's pretty much how you have to use the Deciever, and why he's so much better than the Nightbringer.

Grand Illusion is best for pushback deployments and creating/unmaking a refused flank deployment.

You seem to be doing unusually well with WBB on those Wraiths. One of the reasons I don't like them is their vulnerability to small arms fire. A volley of rapid fire boltguns (~18 shots) nets 1 (real) casualty and a break check, and until you have amalgamated them into one unit they often suck up portal time.

The saving grace to any unit with a vulnerability is that an experienced player can remove such problems by using terrain and cover to keep the Wraiths from getting pin cushioned by Rapid Fire volleys.

Dashofpepper wrote: I don't see Grand Illlusion ever doing much; I can stick him as a bait unit in a corner, or put something in a corner as bait and then redeploy it, but not seeing much utility in that ability. If anyone has some awesome thoughts on Grand Illusion I've missed, key me in on them.

Just do not forget to use it if (you or) your opponent steals the initiative. I see too many get flat-footed when it occurs--I am 6-8 in my recent tourney games in rolling that 6.

I would check the wording on it, as I have the older printing and do not trust it for nitpicking any longer.

Grand Illusion vs. Stealing the INitiative? Explain?

Wouldn't Grand Illusion be used after deployment, before seizing?

In terms of my wraiths falling to small arms fire, I keep them behind my monoliths until they have something to assault. Then they pop up and are like "SURPRISE!"

Mine reads, "after the enemy army has deploy but before the first move. . .after all infiltrators, scouts, ect have moved". Emphasis mine.

With no explicit timing delineated otherwise, there seems no reason to say no to after the roll.

But again, check your codex, iirc mine is the older printing.

Always seemed like the best use to me.
Would be nice to know if I should not suggest it.

heh

Yay for Monoliths, the all-purpose mobile cover your other armies wish it had.

I have Land Raiders, take that!

Not quite sure what all the Wraith bashing is about. IMHO Wraiths are probably the best CC unit that Necrons have. Wraiths get 4 Str 6 Attacks on the Charge at Init 6 with a 3++ save. I have done the math and even done the rolls to check the math statistically speaking 9 Wraiths in CC with PF Termies or TH/SS Termies will kill on average 6-7 of them leaving only 3-4 left and that includes the crappy Term Seargent who only has a Power Sword which means you will kill probably close to 2 maybe and then if a lord is nearby 1 of those will get back up. Congratulations you just traded 280pts for 35pts. I think Wraiths are awesome or at the very least WAY BETTER than Immortals.

Monoliths are a must have in a Necron army. At least 2 of them. Nothing pisses me off more than when I have 2 squads of Assault Marines or Terminators in combat with seperate squads of Warriors who are near a lord and a Monolith and suddenly they get WBB and then they get ANOTHER WBB and get to zip out of combat and shoot the out of me next turn. I understand there a point sink but the Warriors you will save will definitely make up for it.

I do however agree that you should have between 50-60 Necron Unit Types in your army just to avoid phase out. To often I have seen Necron players phase out because they don't take enough units and one round of CC makes them dissapear.

1 kill takes 6 wounds takes 7 hits takes 14 attacks. 3 Wraiths charge for 12. So you kill a little less than 3.

That leaves 6 termis, at equal points. 12 attacks, 6 hits, 5 wounds, a little less than 2 casualties.

Not exactly a crushing victory. And Termis are very much not meant to fight Wraiths. If the target in question was, say, an Assault Squad or Grey Hunters ...

Contrast with Scarabs. 1 kill takes 6 wounds takes 9 hits takes 18 attacks. But 10 Scarabs charge for 40. Admittedly, you take ID wound back and would have trouble getting 30 Scarab bases into combat properly. But they do more damage than Wraiths against most targets.

Sanguinis wrote:Not quite sure what all the Wraith bashing is about. IMHO Wraiths are probably the best CC unit that Necrons have. Wraiths get 4 Str 6 Attacks on the Charge at Init 6 with a 3++ save. I have done the math and even done the rolls to check the math statistically speaking 9 Wraiths in CC with PF Termies or TH/SS Termies will kill on average 6-7 of them leaving only 3-4 left and that includes the crappy Term Seargent who only has a Power Sword which means you will kill probably close to 2 maybe and then if a lord is nearby 1 of those will get back up. Congratulations you just traded 280pts for 35pts. I think Wraiths are awesome or at the very least WAY BETTER than Immortals.

Monoliths are a must have in a Necron army. At least 2 of them. Nothing pisses me off more than when I have 2 squads of Assault Marines or Terminators in combat with seperate squads of Warriors who are near a lord and a Monolith and suddenly they get WBB and then they get ANOTHER WBB and get to zip out of combat and shoot the out of me next turn. I understand there a point sink but the Warriors you will save will definitely make up for it.

I do however agree that you should have between 50-60 Necron Unit Types in your army just to avoid phase out. To often I have seen Necron players phase out because they don't take enough units and one round of CC makes them dissapear.

My biggest problem is that Wraiths are only 3 to a Fast Attack slot. Wipe the squad without a supporting model to get them back up, and that is one unit of Wraiths gone.

Keep in mind Dash's list eliminates some of that problem by adding in two more fast attack slots worth of Wraiths, and even with all those slots invested into Wraiths, the point total used is less than a fifth of a 2000 point army (if I did the math correctly).

Warriors are an asset rather than a liablilty. The worst thing that can happen is an opponent catching your Warriors in combat with a good CC unit and grinding that unit of Warriors into paste. Outside of that, Warriors are just about as hard to take down in CC. Not as good as a unit of Plague Marines mind you, but still something that can get back up twice even after it gets knocked down.

WarOne wrote:
The saving grace to any unit with a vulnerability is that an experienced player can remove such problems by using terrain and cover to keep the Wraiths from getting pin cushioned by Rapid Fire volleys.

To a point. Wraiths do it well with wraithflight, but they are still excellent targets for things like Land Speeders with HBs/HFs or Tac squads piling out of their Rhinos for a turn. TLOS makes this harder than it used to be, and a skilled opponent will specifically hunt the Wraiths with those units since there is little point in shooting Monoliths, C'tan, or really even Warriors with that stuff.

The 3 to a FA slot is a big problem. If they came in 6s I'd field them more often. 3 Wraiths alone just don't accomplish much.

I just don't believe in Warriors being an asset. All you have to do is lose once and fail that break check.