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Yep, so they need a character buff to win off probability.

They can get reasonably close enough that a bit of a statistical deviation can hand them a victory though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Now, let's redo this with some more realistic assumptions:

Assumptions:
1. The combi-flamer sergeant fires both the flamer and the combi-gun.
2. The heavy bolter does not move, and hits on 3s.
3. Flamers are strength 4, -0AP, 1 wound, with D6 hits.
4. All boltguns are in rapid fire range.
5. The rapid fire combi-flamer boltgun portion hits on 4s.
6. The TAC squad shoots first.
7. The Necrons are allowed to fire Rapid Fire, and fire 2 shots each.
8. No one is in cover
9. I will round normally.
10. Necrons only reanimate on their turn.

Turn 1 Marines. Marines deal 5 wounds.
Turn 1 Necrons: Necrons deal 5 wounds, and regenerate to 17.
Turn 2 Marines: Marines deal 3 wounds.
Turn 2 Necrons: Necrons deal 4.67 wounds. We'll call it 4. Necrons regenerate to 17.

marines are basically dead.

Try the grav cannon devs + combi plasma sarge and meat shields. I think it's a lot closer of a match if the crons don't charge, like if they don't want to leave an objective.

Failing that I don't think any of the standard infantry units in marines have a prayer without a character.

Grav cannon dev squad fires 12 boltgun shots and 16 grav cannon shots per round. The expected wounds this deals to the Necron warriors is 9.

Assuming the Necron player doesn't fire back because he just doesn't even care to.

Turn 1: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 4 necrons (15 total)
Turn 2: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 7 necrons (13 total)
Turn 3: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 8 necrons (11 total)
Turn 4: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 9 necrons (11 total)

stable state.

So the expected outcome is that the grav dev squad is unable to kill 20 warriors.

Again, I don't know how battleshock affect Necrons & their RP

And, again, if the Necrons fire first, they're going to win even against grav dev squad handily.

it's also worth pointing out that it would really be 40 necron warriors equivalent to cost of the grav squad, lol.

The crons are ld10 and respond to morale just like everyone else. However the cron player is exceedingly likely to use 2 cp to stop a unit from losing more than a dude or two, or especially the last of a unit. Any battleforged army can be expected to have at least 6 cp, or more if they have important uses for them like this.

And their RP responds to "fleeing" models exactly as if they died....somehow.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Yep, so they need a character buff to win off probability.

They can get reasonably close enough that a bit of a statistical deviation can hand them a victory though.

We're talking about killing a 240 point unit.

If I send a fully loaded 10 man devastator squad, a rhino AND a captain (who will need ANOTHER rhino if he wants to accompany that 10 man devastator squad) to MAYBE kill one 240 point unit, was it really worth it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Really, the only answer I can see as a marine player is "play to the objectives."

Kill the transports early. Force the necrons to footslog 5 inches at a time. Deny them their 24 inch range. And hold the objectives.

Somehow, that strikes me as deeply unsatisfying.

to be fair, the grav squad is 242 without handing the sarge any gear, which it doesn't look like he math'd in the combi-plas that I suggested, so that's actually a very close matchup that could be nudged over by a cp reroll or slightly above/below average rolls.

Also we're looking at marines.

How do you think Orks will fare against Necrons? Or Imperial Guard?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
to be fair, the grav squad is 242 without handing the sarge any gear, which it doesn't look like he math'd in the combi-plas that I suggested, so that's actually a very close matchup that could be nudged over by a cp reroll or slightly above/below average rolls.

Also assuming the marine squad fires first, doesn't pay a penalty for moving the grav devs, and doesn't get charged by the Necrons, who can move without penalty.

If the Necrons fire first from outside rapid fire, that's expected 3.34 marines dead, drops them to 7, leadership of 7 means if you roll a 5 or 6, the marine player is losing additional models to battleshock. Let's assume he passes.

The grav devs would fire back and kill 7 necrons. If their LDR is 10, then that means they're losing 1 necron on a 4, 2 on a 5, and 3 on a 6. let's say they roll a 6. Drops the loss to 10.

Necrons advance further. At this point, they should be in rapid fire range. That's 20 shots. 3 more marines die, dropping their strength to 4, just the grav devs, no sergeant. Necrons would regenerate to 15.

Grav devs kill 7. Necrons lose 3 more. Drops them to 5.

Necrons fire 10 shots, killing 2 grav devs. Why they wouldn't charge at this point I don't know.

Again, theorycraft, but the necrons are the better unit.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
to be fair, the grav squad is 242 without handing the sarge any gear, which it doesn't look like he math'd in the combi-plas that I suggested, so that's actually a very close matchup that could be nudged over by a cp reroll or slightly above/below average rolls.

And the captain is a minimum 72 points.

So it's 314 vs. 240.

And again, do you expect the grav squad to walk?

72 points EACH minimum for 2 rhinos (one for the captain; one for the grav squad).

458 points vs. 240, and even then, the necrons still probably won't die.

Just admit it, niv-mizzet:

GW dropped the ball on this one.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

And their RP responds to "fleeing" models exactly as if they died....somehow.

Phase out is back, it seems.
The justification for phase out was that once the necron army detects that it has no chance of winning, it will determine the most logical course of action is to retreat to save on repairs.
You can use the same rationale here, that some necrons logic circuits determine that its irrational to continue fighting, so they just go home.

 Traditio wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Yep, so they need a character buff to win off probability.

They can get reasonably close enough that a bit of a statistical deviation can hand them a victory though.

We're talking about killing a 240 point unit.

If I send a fully loaded 10 man devastator squad, a rhino AND a captain (who will need ANOTHER rhino if he wants to accompany that 10 man devastator squad) to MAYBE kill one 240 point unit, was it really worth it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Really, the only answer I can see as a marine player is "play to the objectives."

Kill the transports early. Force the necrons to footslog 5 inches at a time. Deny them their 24 inch range. And hold the objectives.

Somehow, that strikes me as deeply unsatisfying.

I've been playing against them. (As somehow every other person I've ever gotten into the game freakin' loves necrons.)
Good times come up when they split up units and you can pounce with deep strikers/mobile guys plus long range shooters and focus the isolated units down without suffering a return offensive on your compromised positions from his other forces...

...HOWEVER, if the mission just doesn't force him to split up, there's not a lot you can do. Have your entire force plow into two-ish units, try to survive the counter, plow into the next ones, and then hope you can deal those all important last wounds to units before you run out of dudes yourself.

God help you if you're playing kill point mission though. Their mechanics make it so that they will have a low unit count, which means two things: They will almost always have first turn (except against like...knights,) and kill points is a big advantage for them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
to be fair, the grav squad is 242 without handing the sarge any gear, which it doesn't look like he math'd in the combi-plas that I suggested, so that's actually a very close matchup that could be nudged over by a cp reroll or slightly above/below average rolls.

And the captain is a minimum 72 points.

So it's 314 vs. 240.

And again, do you expect the grav squad to walk?

72 points EACH minimum for 2 rhinos (one for the captain; one for the grav squad).

458 points vs. 240, and even then, the necrons still probably won't die.

Just admit it, niv-mizzet:

GW dropped the ball on this one.

Uh what are you talking about? Scroll up to my previous posts. I've been saying that they're a bit too good already.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:

And their RP responds to "fleeing" models exactly as if they died....somehow.

Phase out is back, it seems.
The justification for phase out was that once the necron army detects that it has no chance of winning, it will determine the most logical course of action is to retreat to save on repairs.
You can use the same rationale here, that some necrons logic circuits determine that its irrational to continue fighting, so they just go home.

I was more referring to how they flee/warp away etc, and then those guys reanimate. I guess they walk back or telly back in?

For the record:

I want to point out that while necrons are 12 ppm, dire avengers are 17 ppm.

Ponder that.

Reanimation in its current form should never be better than 5+. it should be base 6+, and enhanced to 5+.

Edit: code had a bug and the results here are not accurate

I agree with the general principle that you want to be thinking more about expected outcomes than rare possibilities, and I also suspect that you're really just not going to find something that beats a 20-man Necron blob for the same price. But: it is probably important to consider probability distributions rather than just averages when we're talking about this sort of back-and-forth firefight, especially with the Necrons standing up again each turn. Because the number of Necrons that go down in the first volley affects the number that get to shoot back at the Marines and affects the number that stand back up, etc., there's the potential for massive noise amplification. Ultimately what the marines are looking for is a bad RP roll for the Necrons and then a lucky round of shooting to hopefully wipe the squad.

I also wonder if Marines might not do better trying to get into CC quickly. In trying to deal with RP what you really need is to do damage quickly, and in CC marines get 3 attacks per game round, including their pistol. I just did a quick simulation of 18 naked Marines exchanging rapid fire volleys with a 20-man Warrior blob with 5+ RP, and the Marines win about 15% of the time. If you round up to 19 Marines they win 25% of the time. This is up from 8% and 13% if they're standing at 24". I guess this breaks the "outfit only a single 10-man tac squad" rule but it's equal points. I'm going to see how CC looks.

Also Marmatag - you're using 50% for RP, right? Are we just assuming a Cryptek?

If a cryptek is involved use snipers. Sniper rifles actually act like sniper rifles this edition, and they inflict mortal wounds AND normal damage as well. So a wound roll of a 6 actually deals 1 wound + 1 potential wound.
Crypteks only have a 4+ save, 5+ invul and 4 wounds, with no RP.
Warrior shooting is still more painful than their melee, so engaging them in CC would be a good idea.

Dionysodorus wrote:I also wonder if Marines might not do better trying to get into CC quickly.

Even assuming that the marines are only armed with bolters, it would still be a Pyrrhic victory at best, because it means that you've used a more expensive unit to tie up a less expensive unit.

At current necrons model cost, it's just not worth it.

Also, falling back is a thing now.

The marines that charged are going to get shot to pieces on the next player turn.

Dionysodorus wrote:
I agree with the general principle that you want to be thinking more about expected outcomes than rare possibilities, and I also suspect that you're really just not going to find something that beats a 20-man Necron blob for the same price. But: it is probably important to consider probability distributions rather than just averages when we're talking about this sort of back-and-forth firefight, especially with the Necrons standing up again each turn. Because the number of Necrons that go down in the first volley affects the number that get to shoot back at the Marines and affects the number that stand back up, etc., there's the potential for massive noise amplification. Ultimately what the marines are looking for is a bad RP roll for the Necrons and then a lucky round of shooting to hopefully wipe the squad.

I also wonder if Marines might not do better trying to get into CC quickly. In trying to deal with RP what you really need is to do damage quickly, and in CC marines get 3 attacks per game round, including their pistol. I just did a quick simulation of 18 naked Marines exchanging rapid fire volleys with a 20-man Warrior blob with 5+ RP, and the Marines win about 15% of the time. If you round up to 19 Marines they win 25% of the time. This is up from 8% and 13% if they're standing at 24". I guess this breaks the "outfit only a single 10-man tac squad" rule but it's equal points. I'm going to see how CC looks.

Also Marmatag - you're using 50% for RP, right? Are we just assuming a Cryptek?

Oh hey that's a good catch. I didn't notice he was using 50% RP and not 33.

That most likely means that the grav spam squad would win the fire fight without characters on either side. T4 4+ save is of course one of grav's sweetest targets.

Warriors are still really impressive for their points though.

 Traditio wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:I also wonder if Marines might not do better trying to get into CC quickly.

Even assuming that the marines are only armed with bolters, it would still be a Pyrrhic victory at best, because it means that you've used a more expensive unit to tie up a less expensive unit.

At current necrons model cost, it's just not worth it.

A warrior unit is at least 120 points. 10 warriors is fairly easy to eliminate, so it will usually be more than 120.
A tac squad is at most 130.
Don't you mean a less expensive unit to tie up an expensive unit? Can tac squads be taken in blobs of 20?

CthuluIsSpy wrote:A warrior unit is at least 120 points.
A tac squad is at most 130.
Don't you mean a less expensive unit to tie up an expensive unit? Can tac squads be taken in blobs of 20?

It's simple math. Marines are 13 ppm without upgrades. Necron warriors are 12 ppm, and have a pretty decent gun.

Point for point, it's just not worth it.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

Oh hey that's a good catch. I didn't notice he was using 50% RP and not 33.

That most likely means that the grav spam squad would win the fire fight without characters on either side. T4 4+ save is of course one of grav's sweetest targets.

Warriors are still really impressive for their points though.

Oh, Warriors only have a 4+ save. I remembered the -1 AP on their weapons but not that.

In that case if they're standing there rapid-firing each other, and the Marines go first, 18 Marines win about 65% of the time and 19 win about 75% of the time, up from 45% and 58% standing at 24". So, highly artificial obviously and not a real situation, but in "stand and shoot at each other" world Marines actually do expect to win for cost if they go first.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh wow. Nevermind, I had a stupid bug and the Necrons weren't actually reanimating. Now it's 2% with 19 Marines rapid-firing.

Dionysodorus wrote:

In that case if they're standing there rapid-firing each other, and the Marines go first, 18 Marines win about 65% of the time and 19 win about 75% of the time, up from 45% and 58% standing at 24". So, highly artificial obviously and not a real situation, but in "stand and shoot at each other" world Marines actually do expect to win for cost if they go first.

Can you check this math or share how you did it? because this massively conflicts with my findings that i shared earlier.

 Marmatag wrote:

Can you check this math or share how you did it? because this massively conflicts with my findings that i shared earlier.

Yes, sorry, I caught the bug pretty quick but it was too late. They weren't reanimating. I get about 2%.

Did you find that the tooled up one from 24" was better than just firing bolters? I may try to simulate that if you haven't already, to see how often it can pull out a win.

 Marmatag wrote:

Grav cannon dev squad fires 12 boltgun shots and 16 grav cannon shots per round. The expected wounds this deals to the Necron warriors is 9.

Assuming the Necron player doesn't fire back because he just doesn't even care to.

Turn 1: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 4 necrons (15 total)
Turn 2: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 7 necrons (13 total)
Turn 3: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 8 necrons (11 total)
Turn 4: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 9 necrons (11 total)

stable state.

So the expected outcome is that the grav dev squad is unable to kill 20 warriors.

Again, I don't know how battleshock affect Necrons & their RP

And, again, if the Necrons fire first, they're going to win even against grav dev squad handily.

it's also worth pointing out that it would really be 40 necron warriors equivalent to cost of the grav squad, lol.

Your math is way off here.

Turn 1: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 3 necrons (14 total)
Turn 2: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 5 necrons (10 total)
Turn 3: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 6 necrons (7 total)
Turn 4: 9 wounds
Regenerate: 9 necrons (11 total)
Necrons are wiped out.

Remember that (without character support) Necrons only revive 1/3 of their lost models - not half as your math would seem to indicate.


That aside, what strikes me here is that these scenarios basically rely on the marine player playing completely into his opponent's strength. There was an old saying - you don't use 250pts of your army to kill 250pts of your opponent's army - you use 500pts of your army to kill 250pts of your opponent's army.

In essence, you don't just have each squad in your army shoot a different unit in your opponent's army. Instead, you focus on taking down just a few units with the whole of your army. This is true against most armies, but even more so against Necrons.

 Traditio wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:A warrior unit is at least 120 points.
A tac squad is at most 130.
Don't you mean a less expensive unit to tie up an expensive unit? Can tac squads be taken in blobs of 20?

It's simple math. Marines are 13 ppm without upgrades. Necron warriors are 12 ppm, and have a pretty decent gun.

Point for point, it's just not worth it.

You are missing the point that warriors HAVE to be taken in squads of 10. You have to pay 120 points to field them minimum.
Marines can be fielded in squads of 5 minimum. You have to have pay 65 points to field them minimum.
The marine squad will usually be cheaper than the warrior squad in practice.

You also seem to be forgetting that necron warriors have a 4+ save. In a shooting match, 10 warriors against 10 marines, they should come out even because they are using fighting against the same stat line effective, and that's assuming bolters only with no grenades or special / heavy weapons.
In combat though marines have the advantage, as that -1 to their armor save does not apply.

Also, do you want to know what you're paying that extra point for? You're paying it for a sergeant, frag, krak grenades and a pistol.
So this is what they can do that necron warriors can't with base equipment
- Get an extra attack in CC from the sergeant
- Give the sergeant a better CC weapon for free
- Get D6 S3 shooting attacks
- Get a S6 AP-1 D3 damage attack
- Shoot in CC

You aren't just paying for resilience, you're paying for utility. They can do a lot more than warriors.

RPs strength comes from the persistent turn after turn rolls more than it being 4+ instead of 5+, they still stabilize the lower you get them. The part that's unrealistic though is that a giant necron blob will just be hit by a set damage every turn forever without ever being focused down. The more common order of events will be the 2 armies approach each other (slowly in the case of the necrons) dropping a couple guys from a couple units then as shorter range weapons come into play multiple units will focus down all 15-17 remaining warriors in a unit rather than try to 1v1 each unit separately. The untouched warrior units will do damage back on their turn, because it is a game with 2 sides and they are allowed to roll dice too, and at the end of the game you will count things and declare one player the winner.

Getting in a short range firefight battle of attrition with the unit that is probably the best in the game at short range firefight battles of attrition is a bad idea. Running at genestealers is also normally a bad idea.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:You are missing the point that warriors HAVE to be taken in squads of 10. You have to pay 120 points to field them minimum.
Marines can be fielded in squads of 5 minimum. You have to have pay 65 points to field them minimum.
The marine squad will usually be cheaper than the warrior squad in practice.

Why would you throw a footslogging 5 man marine squad at a necron squad? That would be suicidal.

No, let's compare something closer:

5 man tactical squad (with bolters) + rhino (137 points) vs. 10 man warrior squad (120 points).

Assuming dawn of war deployment and that rhino and warriors are at the closest possible deployment to each other and are directly opposite to each other with no terrain intervening, here's how that plays out:

Turn 1A: rhino charges and advances 15 inches (roughly 9 inches from the necrons). Rhino throws up smoke.

Turn 1B: footslogging warriors retreat 3 inches and rapid fire at the rhino, dealing it, on average, about 2 wounds.

Turn 2A: marines deploy and move about 3 inches from the necrons. Rhino moves to a little over an inch away from the warriors. Both squads fire on warriors, knocking down, on average, two warriors. Rhino charges warriors, sustaining on average, in between 0-1 wounds to overwatch. Marines then charge. Rhino and marines strike first. Rhino likely misses. Marines knock down, on average, one additional warrior. Necron warriors cannot possibly lose any models to leadership (6+3=9). In turn, necron warriors, on average, deal 0-1 wounds to the marines in close combat. At the end of the turn, assuming no buffs to RP, one necron warrior gets back up.

Rhino now has 7 wounds and marine squad is at full strength. Necron warriors still have 8 models left.

Understand that the rhino rush is the best case scenario. If marines don't disembark, rapidfire and charge, marines fare much worse.

In fact, if the necron warriors, instead of retreating to the 12 inch mark, approach the rhino, rapidfire, and charge, the rhino and marines fare less well off.

Again, it's just not worth it.

 Marmatag wrote:
Also we're looking at marines.

How do you think Orks will fare against Necrons? Or Imperial Guard?

I think Orks might have it better. 40 slugga boys. You will probably lose about half on the way in but once they connect they will start doing a number on the Necrons.

I think though the conclusion is that Necron Warriors are hard to kill in 240 points vs 240 points. I am not sure this is a major issue though because on their own they are not that lethal.
In a regular game you will more easily be able to focus a larger amount of points and kill them in a turn or two.

Did you use just bolters, or did you use the krak grenade that all tac squads are equipped with? Or the frag grenade?
You still killed more warriors then they killed marines, they are now stuck in combat and if they fallback they can't shoot leaving you to shoot them again. And even if they don't fallback you can still shoot them in your turn. Those warriors are now stuck there for about 2-3 turns, possibly longer because of the rhino.
RP is done at the beginning of the necron turn, btw.

 Marmatag wrote:
Also we're looking at marines.

How do you think Orks will fare against Necrons? Or Imperial Guard?

Uhh... Manticores and Conscripts?

Big Blob o' Conscripts [150], Platoon Commander [20], Commissar [30] vs. 20 Necrons:
Conscripts fire: 11 wounds. Battleshock for 4 more.
Necrons Re-animate, regain 5.
Necrons fire: 8 wounds. Battleshock for 1 more.
Conscripts fire, 9 wounds, Battleshock for 2 more,
No more Necrons.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Also we're looking at marines.

How do you think Orks will fare against Necrons? Or Imperial Guard?

Uhh... Manticores and Conscripts?

Big Blob o' Conscripts [150], Platoon Commander [20], Commissar [30] vs. 20 Necrons:
Conscripts fire: 11 wounds. Battleshock for 4 more.
Necrons fire: 1 wound. Battleshock for 0 more.
Necrons Re-animate, regain 5.
Conscripts fire, 11 wounds. No More Necrons.

Well that just doesn't seem right to me. (My basic "mathhammer" says more likely 5 ish.
So I doubt all the numbers there

Jbz` wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Also we're looking at marines.

How do you think Orks will fare against Necrons? Or Imperial Guard?

Uhh... Manticores and Conscripts?

Big Blob o' Conscripts [150], Platoon Commander [20], Commissar [30] vs. 20 Necrons:
Conscripts fire: 11 wounds. Battleshock for 4 more.
Necrons fire: 1 wound. Battleshock for 0 more.
Necrons Re-animate, regain 5.
Conscripts fire, 11 wounds. No More Necrons.

Well that just doesn't seem right to me. (My basic "mathhammer" says more likely 5 ish.
So I doubt all the numbers there

I corrected it. It's 8.

The point is academic though, considering that the conscipts and their support is 40 points less than the 'crons.

if the Tac marine is to be the measure of all things, lots of units are going to need nerfing.

 Grimgold wrote:
if the Tac marine is to be the measure of all things, lots of units are going to need nerfing.

Tacs and warriors are directly comparable. They fit basically the same army role.

 Traditio wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
if the Tac marine is to be the measure of all things, lots of units are going to need nerfing.

Tacs and warriors are directly comparable. They fit basically the same army role.

Tac's have better support options. Units don't fight in a vacuum.