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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DevianID, +1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Madival's list
Overlord: warscythe, mind shackle scarabs,phase shifter
On Command barge
Orikan the divinar
3 harbingers of transmognification: 1 seismic crucible(with orikan's unit)
Ctan shard: writhing world scape, grand illusion
9 warriors: ghost ark
9 warriors: ghost ark
8 warriors: ghost ark
doomsday ark
doomsday ark

Vs.

A bad tempered dude running Blood Angels
Libby w/Bike, Sword, Shield
Libby w/Bike, Sword, Shield
5x TH/SS Terminators
Priest w/Jump Pack
Priest w/Jump Pack
10x ASM w/2x meltagun, PFist
10x ASM w/2x meltagun, PFist
5x ASM w/meltagun, power fist
8x Bikes w/meltagun, flamer, PFist, AB w/MM
5x Bikes w/meltagun, flamer, PFist, AB w/MM

I dont know if you can count the ba/necron game. I just watched it and the BA player's attitude appeared to hurt more then the necron army.

For example, he effectively said 'My only chance is to suicide my troops in this 5 objective game on turn 2.'

I mean... really? Thats your only chance? Lets forget about picking apart his list to make it better, he didnt combat squad and also fed the troops to try and kill doom arks. He didnt stay central to provide overlaping FnP coverage, and it seemed to me as if no play for the objectives was attempted. The Necron list was packing 2 anni barges, 1 overlord with a scythe ccb, and everything else in the list was s4 shooting. In combat he had Orikan and the Ctan besides his one lord.

Then, he was so terrified of terrain that he didnt even move his bike unit. I understand that potentially losing 1/3rd of your bikes can be rough, but by sitting back he just gave the necrons more time to kill troops. Which they did.

Anyway, we should try to come up with a 1500 point list that combines as much as possible of the core tremor-cron ideals while keeping a solid force. If that can be done at 1500, we know we have a winner. Like has been said, at 2000 you have enough points that adding WW and tremor is not too difficult.

So to start, how about
Orikan
Anraykr
Ctan
Solar Pulse-tek
3 tremor-teks
Chronometron-tek
3x5 warrior units
10 tesla immortals
~10 scarabs
3 anni-barges

In my mind, the minimum warrior units do a good job of being a meatshield for the tremor-teks. At 1500, the Traveler's mind in the machine and tachyon arrow, backed by a chronometron (and Orikan likes the chronometron as well), gives you your best chance for dealing with troublesome units like land raiders. 3 anni-barges are hard to beat for efficiency, which at 1500 is also important. The solar-pulse tek can either join a warrior squad making a tremor-tek solo, or solo himself. This lets you hide as needed, and if the pulse-tek is solo you dont have to worry about wasted shots from the warriors if you want to move around. Finally, your immortal squad is a bit beefier than normal, with counterattack/furious charge.

Wow! Thanks for the imput, DevianID! Way to get to the core of our problem.
My feeling here is that we need to run 4 Tremorteks whenever possible, but 4 isn't a reality at 1500.
Your anaylsis really does make Orikan an auto-include 2nd HQ. None of the other options stack up in my mind.

I'm uneasy with minimum warrior units. My personal experience is that they don't stand up to shooting, and they definitely can't stand up to assault.

In your list, I'm trying to figure out how you deploy the Royal Court. You only have 4 units of troops. I'm imagining Orikan, Anrakyr, and a Chronometron-tek with the immortals. Warriors get a tremortek. Do you have the Pulsetek wandering about in the backfield alone? I suppose... after turn 1, his main purpose has been served.

@DevianID -

I really like your list a lot and think it is a good template. The chronotek and Anraykr both bring a lot to the list... In particular the chronotek really helps out Orikan.

DevianID wrote:I dont know if you can count the ba/necron game. I just watched it and the BA player's attitude appeared to hurt more then the necron army.

Totally Agree, I think it's because the necrons and blood angels are such good friends, the blood angels just didn't want to hurt their pals.

devianID wrote:
Anyway, we should try to come up with a 1500 point list that combines as much as possible of the core tremor-cron ideals while keeping a solid force. If that can be done at 1500, we know we have a winner. Like has been said, at 2000 you have enough points that adding WW and tremor is not too difficult.

So to start, how about
Orikan
Anraykr
Ctan
Solar Pulse-tek
3 tremor-teks
Chronometron-tek
3x5 warrior units
10 tesla immortals
~10 scarabs
3 anni-barges

I don't know if the chronometron is the best use of those points. A single spyder will put another MC down on the board and give our scarabs an extra 2.5" of threat in the first couple of turns, and one of those annihilation barges should be a CCB for Anrakyr anyway, but otherwise pretty nice. What are you thinking for a secondary c'tan power? Thunderbolt?

What about
Orikan 165
Phaeron 110
3xQuakeTeks + 1 Pulsetek (145)
10 Gauss Immortals 170
2x5 Tesla Immortals 170
C'tan (WW, ES) 230
10 Scarabs 150
2 A.Barges
1 D.Ark

A Chrono enhances the Stormlord's special rules a lot. so long as he isn't in a CCB. So if you aren't doing so I think it's a good idea, especially if you can move the Chrono-tek over to Orikan's superpower rolls once you don't need nightfight anymore.

So the plan for the royal court at 1500 is this. With the idea that sacrifice must be made at 1500, and that the cron list is not bleeding kill points, the 5 man royal court will split 4 members out to the 4 troop squads. The 5th royal court will stay as an HQ royal court, operating as a 1 man unit. The solo-cryptek can be the destro-pulse tek if you dont value the s8 shot late game, as even if he dies turn 1 your pulse goes off. Not great points, BUT how the heck did the enemy see your 1 man necron in the first place? If he wasted a manticore, with nightfight, to kill a solo model, more power to the crons!

As for minimum warrior units, they are designed to hang back at 30ish inches firing quake-blasts. At 30ish inches the incoming firepower geared towards anti-infantry, at 1500 points keep in mind, is minimal.

Now, if you need the pulse shot more than the tremor shot, swap the tremor-tek in a warrior unit with the pulse-tek. You can still snipe around corners with the tremor-tek running solo, so its not like its easy to get to him assuming the table can block LOS to at least 1 infantry model.

The reason for the chronometron is that at 1500 I feel we really need to be using Orikan to his fullest. This means if we need him in CC, we need something to help align him. Thus the chronometron. Now, normally I like the stormlord as well, but at 1500 we have to cut points on the wraiths and spyders that I feel mesh well with the stormlord. Thus, in my opinion Anyrakr is the next best HQ to benefit from a chronometron. Mind in the Machine no longer works with a CCB, and like I posit above the CCB has much reduced value in tremor-cron lists. So with no CCB, Mind in the machine works just fine, and nicely benefits from the chronometron if that is what you need. Whats more, the tachyon arrow is a fantastic bit of wargear at 1500, where the chances of running into more than 1 landraider/monolith type vehicle is slim. And the chronometron also nicely enhances the tachyon arrow.

Finally, while I love me some scarabs backed by a spyder, in this list, which uses only 1 pulse-tek, but is also only 1500 points, I also value vehicle supression that is valid on turn 2+. The scarabs may get 5 extra inches and 2 extra models by turn 2 with a single spyder, but if the enemy has s6 cc weapons to kill scarabs then after the scarabs get 1 assault off they will be killed. This gives the spyder less value. Perhaps if there were 2 scarab units, and 2 spyders, but again at 1500 somethings gotta give. The anni-barge will be kicking but and taking names for a while when backed by quakes that prevent lead elements from closing into melta range (hopefully) so they seem a better long term value than a better but still single scarab unit.

I need some practice games obviously, and 1500 is not the common point value around here. What are everyones thoughts about larger than 1500 games? I assume that most of the list I posted is not portable into a game of 1850, for example, as those 350 points make other units more efficient.

First, let me say WOW, what a great thread, both civil and on topic! Maybe a first for Dakka.

I think that Junk raises a lot of valid points, and I think that DevianID is right on about the idea of force multipliers (I use the term "synergy").

While I think that Orikan is a good HQ choice, you must remember that he is a Cryptek and not a lord; he only has a 4+ save, isn’t a Phaeron, and can’t take a Royal Court. Not being able to take a Royal Court automatically relegates him to secondary HQ choice. In any game at 1250 and above, I use the Stormlord. His ability to control night-fighting is just too valuable to pass up in an army that has little to no long range weapons. Add in that he is a Phaeron and can steal the first turn on a 4+, he starts looking pretty good. Add a chronotron and a solar pulse or 2 and he really begins to shine (or is that dark?).

I also feel that 5 man units of warriors is a waste, especially if you plan to have them in the back field. They don’t have a lot of range, firepower, or durability. 2 heavy bolters could easily put down 5 warriors and leave that Cryptek crying for his mommy by him self. Why waste 65 points trying to protect (poorly) a 30 point Tremor-Cryptek? At least if you take immortals you add both firepower and survivability, and at only 20 points more initial investment. The Tremorstave is not a weapon that is going to cause massive amounts of damage on its own, you will still need the firepower of your troops to eliminate enemy units.


I think we also need to address why we are taking Tremor-teks in the first place. The difficult terrain test by itself is really just a hindrance most opponents will just ignore with out the C’Tan’s Writhing Worldscape. But those two alone will not win you the game, it’s just a gimmick unless used with a plan. Now we need to develop a tactic!

The two things we are trying to do are 1) force our opponent into difficult terrain and 2) force the units in difficult terrain to move. I’m going to assume that most difficult terrain offers some form of cover save, so really what we need to do is make our opponent fear high AP weapons and want/need the safety of cover saves. Tesla weapons just ain’t gonna cut it. Guns like the Gauss Blaster, Gauss Cannon, particle whip, and Doomsday Cannon all have low AP, sure to make enemy infantry dive for cover, just where you want them. But how to make them move around after you tried so hard to get them in there? That’s where the night fighting comes into play. Your opponent can’t shoot what they can’t see, forcing them to close the distance, putting them right where you want them: taking dangerous terrain test at medium range! The Tremor-Teks obviously don’t need to shoot at units that are already in difficult terrain, they are there to slow down those units that avoid it, priority going to assault threats. The key will be in finding the smallest number of Tremmor-Teks to get the job done, putting them in with the right unit, and at the right place at the right time.

Perturabo's Chosen wrote:Orikan only has a 4+ save

He has a phase shifter.

Perturabo, in games of 2k I run the Stormlord, so I do agree with you there. However, as others have said Stormlord for nightfighting is risky if you also plan on bringing shooting, like you suggest with immortals. IMHO, a better build for Stormlord is the max canoptek units. 9 Spyders, 12 Wraiths, 10 scarabs give you cc punch, and ignore night fighting woes.

Second, Orikan hits the entire enemy board turn 1 with difficult WW ctan boosted terrain. Depending on how many units your opponent has, this can easily number 10+ tremor teks worth of quake. Even versus the smallest unit count builds, you are looking at a guaranteed 2 quake hits, AND you reduce your reliance on needing to go first. Thus why I so heavily recommended Orikan if you are planning on running Writhing Worldscape in the first place. In addition, while putting units in reserve normally helps ignore Orikan and the stormlord, with 9 spyders you have a crazy amount of scarabs by the time the enemy does show up, all in striking position to multiassault every unit that arrives turn 2+ with wraith and spyder support right behind.

Also dont forget that enemy transports have issues going flat out now, as on a 1 or 2 they not only are destroyed by Orikans machinations, but their transported squad is destroyed as well.

Thanks for joining us, Perturbo...
You make very good points. I believe this list is all about giving your opponent tough choices to make, and using Gauss Immortals does push us more in that direction.
Is the threat of them on the board worth enough to reduce our own mobility (rapid fire vs. assault weapons)?

Ah, that's some more good point for taking Orikan, I didn't think about how he would affect enemy fast transports like Eldar and Dark Eldar. But I reiterate my point that he can only be a 2nd HQ as he cannot take a royal court.

While the value of each Tremor-Tek is finite, the larger the game, the more WW is effective (just like Vulkan), so scaling down will be much harder than scaling up. It seems that we have the core of the WW/tremor list down, with the rest being up to individual play-style; shooty, choppy, or a mix of both. Use Stormlord to taste.

I've had to boil this stuff down before in nearly army I've played and I've come up with a pretty simple bylaw that can accompany any list building effort:

Create more problems for your opponent than they create for you.

The problems we have to solve:

Razorspam - Like tony kopatch's tournament winning wolves, and countless other MSU armies; an army of 5+ cheap transports with good guns, containing scoring units with good assault profiles, usually supported by long range shooting (long fangs, riflemen, psyflemen, artillery)

In order to deal with razorspam we need the capacity to de-mech with impunity. But just demeching isn't enough; we need to demech and follow up with good anti infantry solutions - and still maintain a killer app to deal with other builds.

Iron Armies - The various 'wings', terminator heavy armies - deathwing, draigowing, our own wraithwing, etc... We should be planning our list to be prepared to receive 30 terminators, double deathstars, and small, tough, elite armies. Also may require the ability to crack armor 14, deliver ap2 wounds, and tarpit in order to manage target priority.

Hordes - Our best match up in some ways, our worst in others; hordes of giant blobs can be seriously hampered by quake; but hordes like Foot-dar, elite orks, and sisters create split priority targeting problems.

Fast armies - Armies that can close the distance, like Dark Eldar, Necrons, Blood Angels assault lists, mechdar, etc, they don't care at all, they are in our face with superior initiative on turn 2, and all the night fighting in the world isn't going to matter. They'll take their 10% Casualties and tie up our lines unless we have something to stop them - Scarab farms, monoliths, wraith spam. They work because you can't shoot them as well as they can assault you.

The turtles: Armored IG, Broadside/Missile Spam tau, some foot-dar lists, etc... we can shut them down with nightfighting, but without shock units like doomscythes, scarabs, wraiths, and tomb blades to get in there and disrupt their firebase, we're still outgunned and nightfighting just delays the game. Solar Pulses>Immotekh in a long range fight obviously.

Decentralized lists: Our biggest problem IMO - Daemons, Drop Pod salamanders, DOA... these guys don't care about movement, they don't care about night fighting; they place units capable of eating other units within close range, and usually they can weather a turn of return fire, as they're able to approach from several vectors at once, and one turn of shooting or assault can eat a squad.


Our dilemma, We need to have answers, at least to some degree to all of these problems, as well as presenting a threat that an enemy may be ill prepared to deal with - The killer app.

The Killer apps avaialble to necrons are numerous, thankfully, but finding the right one for us is tricky.

Doomsday Arks - There are only a handful of units in the entire game capable of returning fire on a doomsday ark. The threat to the doomsday ark is deep strike/outflank, followed by LasCannons/lances on mobile platforms, followed by tricky units like attack bikes and melta-speeders. It's a killer app, 9-2 Large blast R72". Hard to beat that in a gunfight.

Doom Scythe: A beautifully designed glass cannon - fast moving, as deadly as possible, capable of hitting the enemy from any angle, and hitting hard. Obvious problem, the giant bullseye on it's glass jaw. If this thing can deliver it's payload twice though, holy crap is it fantastic.

Monolith: For armies that have a hard time with big armor, the monolith is a nightmare. We're all familiar enough with it at this point to eschew the formalities; it's a powerhouse, and completely affordable.

Wraiths: The best unit in the codex as far as I'm concerned. 3 s6 Rending attacks on a 2W jump infantry model with a 3++ for less than a terminator? feth that, it's dynamite, it will shred infantry, tarpit terminators, eat all but the heaviest vehicles, sink a ton of firepower, and get where it needs to be in no time. The only reason I don't advocate 18 wraiths in every f'ing game is because 12 is a win condition. (not to mention the models go for $35 each on ebay now)

These are the units you want to deliver onto your opponent, the ones that let you tip the game in your favor, the problems that if your opponent is not prepared to answer, he will die from.

Whether a Royal Court deathstar or a royal yacht make the grade remains to be seen.

Now - answering problems:

Mechspam (chimeras, rhinos, razorbacks, etc) - Scarab farms, wraiths, or stunlocking with annihilation barges/night scythes. That answers the problem of the vehicles, with Scarabs taking the lead on dealing with heavy armor, wraiths or teslaspam winning out for dealing with infantry.

Hordes: Quake + Tesla is nice for limiting effectiveness, but we want more more more guns than in a hybrid list. Wraiths are less effective here, as they drop to high volume of attacks/small arms fire. Quake is really good here with Writhing Worldscape as the math shifts in our favor.

Iron Armies: Wraiths can tarpit, quake can slow, harrassment is usually the policy de jour for these lists, They hate sycthespam, jetbikes, etc... they couldn't care less about monstrous creatures and sub par assault units.

Fast Armies : ... I don't know.

Turtles: Obviously, double pulse-teks and doomsday arks or Immotekh and assault - we're already expecting our enemy to have a reduced mobility; just not to be optimized for it...

Decentralized lists: Fast response threats; wraiths again, tomb blades, praetorians... but we'll take a beating the turn that a drop pod with 5 twin-linked combimeltas lands next to our (insert thing you love here)

Obviously, the Kamikazi Surf lord is an answer to nearly every threat - and a big problem for the opponent himself, which is why it's considered a necron autoinclude - except in our list where it actually takes up a slot we may 'need' to fill with a named dude.

I don't know if this helps at all...

junk wrote:I don't know if this helps at all...

Quite a bit, I say.
Fantastic work you've done on this thread. Made me think a lot more about the army that my army has been leaning into.

Junk, to be fair tony kopach doesnt run razorspam, well he didnt when I played him. He runs cc grey hunters with njal if he has the points. Unless he changed his list.

Anyway, in regards to the doom ark, yeah the s9 ap1 large blast is sweet, but its mobility is zero. For 175, that is not an effective solution, and versus infantry good players will spread out limiting its damage to 3 models. So considering the higher entry cost of ww and tremor, this unit is cut in all but the 2500 point range. Other lists use this vee better.

Now, for the scythe, my issue is that you dont need to move when facing a scythe. Its assumed flight stand and low range mean anti tank weapons, which on the low range side are 24 inches, can still hit it. Now, in lists leveraging lots of threats this is mitigated, but again the startup costs of tremor crons eliminate the support necessary for this vehicle.

As for daemons, scarab farm is brutal to daemons. Consider, we have the charge range on furious blood crushers, and slaneesh cav can not deal with the 54 wounds scarabs have with just one spawn roll. They also dont have shooting, and daemons used to love terrain for the saves but dont now thanks to ww.

When it comes to termie armies, it's hard to compare them since they all play so different. A solution is to use lots of wraiths, stacked on one unit, but that won't work so well on draigo pallies for example. This matchup somewhat weakens the value of scarabs, and I don't envy spyders getting force weaponed. I think we need to play ww to its fullest here, by making his units need to move each turn, but at the same time the psycannons back to us will crumple any unit we have. That said, draigowing does this to almost everyone, so it's not like tremor cron are unique here.

Re: Kopach, No, you're right, it's CC Hunters in Rhinos backed up by 3 long fangs/razorbacks, led by Njal; but the clone netlists out there tend to run razorbacks instead. Our chances of running into Tony K in a competitive game while running tremorcrons is very unlikely unless we crack the code here.

---



Re: Doom Ark - The point is we're slowing them down with quake, and punishing them for standing in the open with this blast that they'll move to cover to avoid > what other list is better suited to this vehicle, because I don't really like it if it's not backed up by quake.

Re: Doom Scythe - the trick with this thing is not to suicide it - but agreed, not the most complementary coice.

As far as start up costs go, we're at what, like 420 minimum, with three quake teks, a plain overlord, and a cheap ctan? More reasonable to say our outlay is 650 for the concept, where we're at least getting use out of the HQs. Then to drop 270-340 in troops means we're eating 1000 points before we get our swiss army machete's on the board.

-----

Scarabs are actually decent against certain Wings, like Draigo and Deffwing, simply because of their Entropic Strike and huge number of wounds (though ID is a problem). By that measure, any unit with Entropic Strike would be dangerous, because they can strip that 2+ armour away from the enemy.

Entropic strike only helps versus multiwound models. So deffwing mega nobs and paladins like you said, with a problem. And the issue with both is that you make their save go away for the next round but your scarabs are instant deathed off the table this round. I mean, it's better than nothing I guess. But because deff and draigo are not paying a big premium for their second wound, even without their armor save they are deadly.

As to the doom ark, cover doesnt really help against the doom ark nearly as much as just spreading out, and you can deploy spread out so no movement necessary. Furthermore, as an anti vehicle weapon, it's just 1 hit that is not that accurate. For the cost other anti vehicle weapons are far superior. Since we are limiting our opponents mobility, I feel the stalkers shorter range but better guns and mobility would serve us far better.

Okay, we should keep the focus on 2,000 because I'm not sure how the build scales down; but I think we're all I agreement that wraiths, scarabs, annihilation barges, and monoliths are awesome sauce. It looks like immortals win out over warriors, and a single royal court will do the deed, so Orikan can stay
For now.

We seem to prefer 24" to Long range, and no one has mentioned ghost arks in a while. Can we make this work competitively? Can we squeeze in a couple night scythes? Are death marks and tomb blades out of the question? Are we abandoning destroyers?

And again, is this a viable build for competitive play or is our core pricing us out?

I played in a tournament yesterday and had been reading this string on Friday so it was fresh in my mind (considered a Tremorcron list but didnt feel ready). There was a player with a Immo max wraithwing list who beat two GK's and a weak Necron list to come in near the top.

My point I guess is that I think the 18 Wraith builds will be more popular just based on how dominating it was. How could this list compete with what may become a common build when the heart of the army ignores the main advantage?

No, I think that a dedicated wraithwing is simply superior to this build. 12 wraiths, 10 scarabs, or 18 wraiths, backed up by the other key necron units (ccb scythelords, destroyer lords with MSS, annihilation barges or night scythes, and/or monoliths [or accompanying a full scythespam or scarab farm] is just a better use of points in general. At this stage.

If this is a puzzle we need to solve, theres a chance that the answer lies in unit synergy; but we're nearly at the end of exhausting combinations, and none have stepped forward as clear winners.

My wraithwing is by far the winningest army I've ever played, and it's scary because Jy2's MTO list is practically the same thing but better (based on his batreps). With a 650 point anchor around my neck at 2000 points I think it's always going to be an uphill battle.

Doing things like 3 monoliths playing a shell game seems awesome, but is it better to run a triple monolith build without the quake plugged in? Maybe.

Is it better to run a scythespam list without quake? Probably.

Is it better to run a wraithwing without quake? I think, definitely.

The thing that you're running into here, I think, is that you're looking at something secondary as a primary consideration. Yes, Tremors are cool, and yes, they can slow down and potentially kill units and models. However, it's a force multiplyer, not a weapon in and of itself. Tremor-crons shouldn't be a list, but a portion, that can be plugged into other lists to help them control the battlefield.

When you come down to it, what is Tremor-crons? It's a wargear option in a Royal Court (because of the way they work, you don't really need more than one when you're looking at the Quakes alone) which means an Overlord or Character who can take a Court. It also includes one of the powers of a C'tan shard- leaving another slot open, letting you orient your C'tan towards mid-range, CC or long-range to go with the rest of the list. That's it.

It's like how you can make a hot-dog, and you can make a hamburger. They're two completely different foods. But you can put ketchup and mustard and onions on either of them, and those condiments enhance their flavor. Tremor-crons isn't an entree, it's a condiment, enhancing any list that it's put on.

I see people mentioning Orikans gun, i dont have the codex with me but i dont remember him having any ranged weapons unless i missed something?

Edit: nevermind! Transdimensional beamer! Thought it was a tesserect labryinth for whatever reason

Yeah, I understand that Quake/ww can be plugged into other lists; but the idea here is creating the best possible home for it. Kind of like how you can put mustard on a hot dog, or you can squeeze it into your milkshake.

To recap, we've covered the ideas of a fast, mobile army that becomes more effective by slowing down the opponent (tomb blades, scythes)

An assault army that uses the combined powers of Orikan and Imotekh to soften the opponent so the killer units (wraiths, scarabs) can get in and munch them, while shutting down shooting armies.

We've considered combining the tremor crons with an armor wall, either AV13 or Multiple monoliths.

We've considered an artillery based list that uses tarpits and quake to protect a back rank of doomsday arks.

We've considered some unorthodox builds (the multiple c'tan list particularly stands out in my mind)

We've considered a phaeron based phalanx list that just has torrents of fire, which combined with quake garauntees more turns of shooting on our terms.

The question is, which build is the best possible home for our Writhing Worldscape C'tan and harbingers of transmorgrification. Yes, it's a force multiplier, but which force is it going to most effectively multiply?

And before you say "it's a matter of personal taste" remember that this is a game of statistics; the best lists out there are already defined to some degree.


I'll run through these again:

The Fast Tremorcrons - Featuring troops with night scythe support, tomb blades or destroyers, and maybe teleporting deathmarks, supported by a c'tan with Grand Illusion for the double synergy; and either CCB Scythelords or Double Phaerons. Possibly supported by doom Scythes or annihilation barges. This list requires the most crypteks because we need two solar pulses to play it correctly, it doesn't snyergize with Immotekh because we can't shoot through our own nightfighting, and the list is highly dependent on targeted quake, so we need multiple tremorstaves (at least 4). It is most likely supported best by 2 phaerons attached to deathmarks or gauss immortals, rather than CCBs. Our objective is to skirt our opponent's effective range for 2 turns of shooting before closing in for clean up, making them move every turn to be able to return fire.

Assault Tremorcrons - Scarab Farm or Wraith wing, backed up by a CC C'tan (Gaze, ES, or Time Arrow) With a monolith, under the direction of immotekh and orikan. We can get away with a single small royal court, as we just need to slow down the units we're not ready to engage. This list operates by taking advantage of the cost effectiveness of wraiths and scarabs to offset the price of the ctan, and uses the c'tan and orikan as mid game sacrifices to inflict more damage in CC. The monolith or monoliths become mobile terrain that allow us to slingshot our army into kill range. Also presented was the idea of a Flayed Wall, I haven't done the math on this, but 40 flayed ones for 520 seems kind of awesome.

The Armor Wall works with WW by keeping melta units and Hammer/claw type dudes outside of effective range, forcing the opponent to devote heavy weapons to desperately try to penentrate our AV13/14 vehicles. Annihilation barges & Ghost Arks + CCB lords, and/or monoliths Immotekh.

The Quake Phalanx is great, it seems, 40 warriors and two phaerons with resorbs backed up by 2 ghost arks, a spirit dust or lof c'tan, 3 quake teks, 2 pulses is only 1400 - leaving us with 600 points of heavy support or fast attack to round out the list; (opens up the option of royal yachts, running 3 monoliths, 9 heavy destroyers, 10 Wraiths and 10 Scarabs) Or going balls out and playing 60 warriors and 4 arks with a full 8 tremorstave fusillade, advancing the writhing worldscape mechanic from force multiplier to force foundation.

They are cheap though which is nice. In a normal game they cant really do much either, they tend to just get slaughtered; imo rather have something with a gun.

For their price they do just fine in CC, they also eat bullets pretty efficiently, but to each there own.

I do like the Royal Court Star in your list though, and the triple Monos should provide some good LOS blocking for the C'Tan and some mobility.

I will be trying the following variant out this weekend. It is for an upcoming tournament that basically plays all three missions at once. Additionally, there is a restriction of 1 unique character.

Total Roster Cost: 1994

HQ: Overlord (190 pts)
+ Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs + Resurrection Orb + Phase Shifter

HQ: Orikan the Diviner (165 pts)

: Royal Court (485 pts)
1 Harbinger of Eternity + Chronometron
1 Harbinger of Transmogrification (usually with Immortals)
1 Harbinger of Transmogrification (usually with Immortals)
1 Harbinger of Transmogrification (usually with Immortals)
1 Harbinger of Destruction + Solar Pulse (usually with warriors)
1 Lord + Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs
1 Lord + Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs
1 Lord + Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs
1 Lord + Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs
1 Lord + Warscythe + Mindshackle Scarabs

Troops: Immortals (136 pts)
8 Immortals w/ TCs

Troops: Immortals (136 pts)
8 Immortals w/ TCs

Troops: Immortals (136 pts)
8 Immortals w/ TCs

Troops: Warriors (271 pts)
12 Warriors
1 Ghost Ark (Start empty for RC to hop into)

Fast Attack: Canoptek Wraiths (215 pts)
5 Canoptek Wraiths+ Whip Coil x4

Elite: C'Tan Shard (260 pts)
+ Writhing Worldscape + Grand Illusion

I'll let you know what works well and what falls flat.

So I finally got to play some games with my tremor crons to see the theory put in practice. It was 1850, I played against sisters and space wolves. My list was off, but more on that later.
Immotek
2 tremor cryptek, 1 chronometron cryptek
Orikan
Ctan, swarm and writhing world
3x5 warriors
2x6 wraiths
1x10 scarabs
2x2 spyders
1x3spyder, 1 gloom pris

So astute readers may notice that with swarm instead of a cheap power my list is 10 points over. I will fix this in the future, but if my gloom was missing these games the results would be identical.

Anyway, both missions rolled randomly to dawn of war. Both the sister player and wolf player were deathly afraid of rolling on turn 1 and dying thanks to orikan, so both players made me go first and reserved everything.

Edit for mini-report on the list/games:This turns out to be a great benefit of the list, probably the greatest strength of the tremor cron list. If you force your opponent to reserve then when they come on you have had 2 turns of spawning and running. Within 1 turn of their arrival you are in their lines messing stuff up. Whats more, the enemy arrives in pieces.

Now, in the game versus the sisters, my first game with this army ever, I found that moving the unwieldly scarab horde took more forethought than I originally planned. In addition, you may have numbers, but if you spread out like I did then you get bogged down in combat. So I had a charge on a sister unit, and it took my horde of 20-30 scarabs 3 combat phases to get rid of them. A tighter formation with the scarabs packed in for combat would have given me extra distance and many more attacks in round 1 of the combat, making it so I was not stuck. That scarab unit still went on to kill 1 rhino and 2 other sister troops, but I lost 1 charge turn at least to placement issues.

Next is the chronometron. Man, with Immo and Orikan, this thing is a beast! I kept both Orikan and Immo's buff where I wanted it for most of the game. The lightning and nightfighting did a real number on the sister shooting. Again bad placement caused this unit to miss on some of its potential, but it was my first game after all.

As for the tremor-teks, well they probably performed the worst in the army. Since the chronometron did his job and kept nightfighting up pretty much the entire game, when I did shoot them I either scattered off the sisters weakened squads, or more frequently didnt have sight thanks to night fighting. I would not put more than 2 in a stormlord list without also adding a solar pulse... 2 is still nice to disrupt lead elements (like that sister rhino that I quaked 2 times, who passed all its immobilization checks to turn my win on turn 5 to a contested draw turn 6)

The Ctan, well he was amazing. He took a charge from the jacobs DCA unit who were on their way to my objective to kill stormlord and orikan. With defensive grenades, the 6 DCA got 'only' 24 attacks, 12 hits, 2 wounds, 1 failed save. That was his only wound, as I attacked over that round and the next and broke the unit. So... amazing. Now, normally I would consider him a giant bullseye, but with nightfighting no shots could even come his way.

Last in this style list was the Wraiths. On my right side, my opponent killed 11 wounds of wraiths with 2 troop squads, when I failed 3/4 melta saves on his 4 total shots, and 5 out of 8 3++ saves from bolters. Here even 5 points would have kept 1 wraith alive thanks to would allocation, but honestly bad dice are bad dice. 1 Wraith would have done nothing. On the other side, I failed 2 of 3 melta wounds dealt, and 2 invuln saves, but after that no more attacks could see them. Those 3 wraiths proceeded to kill 2 exos, 1 MM immolator, and a dominion squad. Not bad for 3 guys, though the other 6 man squad still crapped out.

As for the space wolf game, this was much less interesting. He stays in reserve, and castles with his entire army in one corner of the board as the objective is kill points. He has 1 drop pod that has to come on turn 1--I kill it with wraiths and then hide from his oncoming reserves. So I have a 1 KP advantage, he is scared to get close to me as my army is hiding behind the LOS blocking terrain in the table center, and if he advances I kill him. Me on the other hand, if I advance into LOS his missiles and lascannons and melta can do lots of damage to my units, so with a KP advantage I also stay hidden. He makes 1 gamble, and when he rolls both his wolf scouts on, he assaults my Orikan/Stormlord/Chrono warrior unit in cover. He loses 2 models to dangerous, the Stormlord loses a wound to a melta shot, and his bolt pistols and regular attacks combine to kill all 6 of the warrior squad, chronometron included. No armor saves passed save 1, no RP were made. Bad dice. In return, I kill 1 with Orikan, as even with rerolls Immo deals no wounds. I pass my leadership, but with no chronometron Orikan does not get buffed and the lightning goes away. Crappy. So in my turn my ctan is too far away to charge in, Orikan dies to a pfist, and Immo fails an armor save, leaving him with 1 wound... its looking grim, but I pass my first RP roll with Orikan, and in my next turn after making some 3++ saves in his assault phase, Orikan powers up, the Ctan charges, and I wipe out all 7 remaining models in 1 turn. So in the end, his 2 KP scout to earn 3 KP of HQ and troop backfires, and I win the game with the KP win on turn 5, with the wolves facing down a charge in their corner from 45 scarabs if we did go to turn 6.

Nice, how did you do?

I also played 2 games today with my semi-tremorcrons. Not really optimized at all, it was more of an experimental army trying out different things. The first game was at 2K and the second, due to time factor and my opponent, was at 1750.

I brought at 2K:

Orikan
Tricked-out Overlord on CCB
4x Crypteks - 2x Lance-teks w/1x Solar Pulse, 2x Tremor-teks.

C'tan - Lord of Flame, Writhing Worldscape
Triarch Stalker

4x5 Warriors

10x Scarabs
5x Wraiths - 3x Whips, 1x Pistol
5x Tomb Bladess - Shadowlooms, Particle Beamers

Monolith


Played against an Imperial Fist army with Epistolary Librarian, 2x Rifleman dreads, Ironclad in Drop Pod, 3x Tact squads with Las/plas razors, 2x2 land speeder typhons and 3 dakkapreds. He had a very shooty army and I hardly had any shooting.


The second was against Mechdar. For 1750, I used (I was actually 20pts under):


Tricked-out Overlord on CCB
4x Crypteks - 2x Lance-teks w/1x Solar Pulse, 2x Tremor-teks.

C'tan - Lord of Flame, Writhing Worldscape

4x5 Warriors

10x Scarabs
6x Wraiths - 4x Whips, 1x Pistol
5x Tomb Bladess - Shadowlooms, Particle Beamers

Monolith


He brought somethine like this - Eldrad, Jetbike farseer w/5 warlock seer council, 5x fire dragons in serpent, 3x5 dires in serpent, 2x3 scatter war walkers 2 shuricannon war walkers. A very shooty army against my poor necrons who can't shoot worth a lick.


I would tell you what happens, but then that would spoil the battle reports that I'm working on (coming out probably this weekend). Let's just say that I miss either my very fast MTO necrons or a lot more shooting.