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Naw, this is the real Therion.  That jackanape Brother Edward stole Therion's username during Dakka's last transition, so Therion is stuck with Therion-.

Well, having pm:ed Russ five or six times about the subject of getting my account restored I just kinda gave up and started posting with this one. Brother Edwin still controls "Therion".

TO BROTHER EDWIN

GIVE IT UP FOR THE REAL LIVE THERION!!!

Am the only person bummed that the first response to the thread wasn't simply "No"?

I agree though with a lot of the arguments so far.

In my opinion the top target priorities would be:

1.) Fast troops
2.) Flyrant
3.) slower big bugs ie. Dakkafexes, Zoeys, Shooty Tyrants
4.) time permitting, Gunfexes.


I think that if the crons can blast the little fast bugs first, they will be OK. The Warriors and Immortals can put out a crazy amount of flak, bwetween them you have 92 shots at 24" that will kill the little bugs very quickly, Geenestealers even easier as their are fewer of them.

Plus, the destroyers will add their firepower where needed.

The scarabs go charge either the flyrant or tie up a gunfex or the zoeys for a few turns, i think they will be critical to this list By eliminating the fire of either gunfex for a turn or tying up zoeys or even just screening the army from the fast bugs, i think scarabs will serve a vital role in this list.

Once the little bugs and Flyrant are nuetralized, it would just come down to backing up and throwing buckets of dice. The Nids will only outshoot the crons at <18", at longer range all the Nids will have will be three stranglers and three venom cannons. That is good, but against targets that put out a vastly larger volume of firepower and get back up 50% of the time, the Nids will have to try and engage to win.

The lord hangs near the front line and veils anyone who does get caught in HtH.

I agree that destroyers are a great unit, but for the points Immortals put out more firepower. Plus, as has been stated, they outrange most weapons that you commonly see in Nid armies.

Obviously this argument assumes a lot of things and is in no way foolproof, but i think it is at least probable that Crons coud take the win. A lot of this would come down to who goes first, and who fails more armor saves.

Posted By puree on 02/21/2007 6:39 PM

I doubt the dakka fexs are the issue, thats 1 dead fex before they get to shoot, the other 2 will only nail 2 or 3 immortals (after WBB) before dieing as well.

I wasn't trying to state that the Dakkafexes were the main threat in the Tyranid list, just when they get within the 18" range (also where the Choir really picks up), the coup de grace will occur.

 

While techincally the Immortals can move and shoot while staying out of the 18" range of the Tyranids, in practice mainting that 6" zone against opponents that are moving every turn is rather difficult, especially when trying to keep the units spread out to avoid Barbed Strangler casualties.

In fact, that is yet another issue with taking Immortals over Destroyers: You're going to have a hard time keeping them all spread out and the Barbed Stranglers inflict instant death (meaning the veil lord is going to have to stay put with the Immortals to use his Rez orb).

Destroyers (being less of them, and having bigger models) will have a much easier time staying spread out & they aren't insta-killed by the Strangler. Plus it really is that much easier to maintain a range differencial when the unit can move 6" more than it's pursuers and has a full 18" range advantage.

I don't understand why you'd say that. In Escalation, the Nids all have to start off the board, and even with some mediocre reserve rolls on the part of the Tyranid player the 36" range of the Destroyer is really going to dominate as the bugs try to march across the board to get within 18".

I would argue that the Destroyers are actually more useful in Escalation than they are in normal missions against Godzillas.

I seem to remember the strangler being str 8, and immortals being tough 5, i am at work, but i am incorrect in that? The venom cannon on the gunfexes should be the only thing that will instakill the Immortals.

however, perhaps it would be better to drop some warriors in favor of more destroyers...

No, you're right Reecius, my bad. I thought Immortals were T4. So you wouldn't need to be nearly as cautious about bunching up, but it's still probably something you wouldn't want to do.

I would have to say it is a fallacy that Godzilla is hurt by escalation. In my mind Godzilla has Stealers in the troop slots so synapse need is greatly reduced. Next the big bug shooters can come on the table in perfect firing lanes, already seeing where the enemy has deployed static heavy weapons.
It might be because here in Chicago we play the table edge for reserve deployment extends up the sides of the deployment zone so no one ever has to walk the full length of the table. This seems to be a regional rule and could have a great impact on how people view escalation vs. Godzilla.

Back to the Necrons vs. Godzilla. I have been playing Godzilla bugs since the codex first came out. I remember how it was treated as a one trick pony until the wins started picking up so I feel I have a good grasp of the army.
I have also started playing Necrons. I have a traditional Immortal foot army and I also have this little gem that I think would work well against Godzilla and not to shabby against anything else at 1850.

Deceiver
10- Warriors
10- Warriors
4- Destroyers
4- Destroyers
4- Destroyers
3- Heavy Destroyers
3- Heavy Destroyers
3- Heavy Destroyers

It looks to have no originality and a low phase out number, however 21 of the Necrons will almost positively have a WWB roll. The bikes can all get the first shot off against anything short of indirect fire ans the Deceiver should have a lot of fire directed at it and away from the Bikes.

If your looking for a more traditional and less fragile Necron army to work well against Godzilla would be this also at 1850.

Destroyer lord, Phase Shifter, Res Orb, Warsythe
Lord, Res Orb
8-Immortals
8-Immortals
10-Warriors
10-Warriors
3-Wraiths
3-Wraiths
2-Wraiths
2-Heavy Destroyers
2-Heavy Destroyers
2-Heavy Destroyers

The Wraiths and Destroyer Lord are ideal at removing Carnies in HtH. Keep them mostly together to maximize damage and WWB possibilities. Godzilla will almost assuridly have to throw the troops (gaunts or Stealers) into the Wraiths to clean them off of Carnies. A unit of 3 wraiths can also turbo-boost into the backfield to engage a lone heavy fex, sniping in the woods by itself. That's where the 16 Immortals come in. They need to clear those Tyranid Troop choices off at range. The Heavy Destroyers can either exchange fire with the Heavy Fexes or pick off a couple of elite carnies before the HtH begins. At the very least the HD's keep Tyrants very cautious in the beginning. I suppose 3 Immortal units of 6 would be better, but any fewer Wariths or HD's and I'd be worried about losing them all before WWB rolls are made.

That first list seems to be missing an HQ choice. . .

but it definitely would hurt a bunch of armies pretty bad.

Posted By yakface on 02/22/2007 8:13 PM

That first list seems to be missing an HQ choice. . .

but it definitely would hurt a bunch of armies pretty bad.

Deciever is the HQ

Those both seem like such fragile lists, do you have a lot of scuccess with them?

and the Heavy Destroyers, you have success with them? I suppose if you had 9 mobile lascannons you really cant go too wrong.

That is interesting, i didnt think of running the Crons in either of those configurations.

I'm going by recent (and not so recent posts) on the C'tan support group (I think biggest necron forum on the net right now), and in most tourney armies people are packing some heavy d's. 2-9 seems the general numbers on games over 1000pts. Six heavy destroyers will put the hurt on a nidzilla army - simply aim for the synapse and stay out of range.

Not an easy fight by any means, but one I think is pretty even.

Chuck

THaks for posting that link chuckyhol, there was a ton of good info there.

i always thought the Crons were sort of a broing force to field (as do most people I know) but looking at the seriously huge amount of different lists i saw, i don tfeel that way anymore.

SOme of those guys had some pretty crazy lists, and the bat reps from tournies prove they were fairly effective.

But, it was quickly apparant that the nids were deffinately the toughest opponant for the crons. they had a 6 page tactica on how to counter nids.

One guy used three scarab swarms to really neutralize fast nids, and the heavy destroyers do seem to be pretty damn effective.

I suspect that necrons of any shape are going to have a difficult time with a nidzilla list. Unless you show up with a ton of heavy destroyers and a c'tan, as a necron player you're in trouble.

The bottom line is that the necrons should be able to deal with the smaller stuff fairly easily, whether that stuff consists of gaunts, hormagaunts, genestealers or ripper swarms. Anything that is T6 2+Sv, though is a completely different story.

I've read a number of "bright ideas" but most of them rely on some fairly specific situations and lack feasibility. To me, as a necron player facing a nidzilla list your only chance of winning relies on two factors: killing all of the small stuff -- not to save your forces, but for the VP; and then using teleportation mobility to conserve your forces and seize objectives. In scenarios where objectives are not critical to victory, expect to have a very difficult time achieving even a minor victory.

I have played against niszilla list with my necrons two times. (to different armys)
both times it went in the favur of the necron player, the mission was recon on both games, and my army uses 2 monoliths (1500) and I just teleportet out of combat and against his deployment side with rerolls to wbb each turn.
this way my entire army got across almost unharmed, while I downed a couple of carnifexes.
In other missions is may not work out so well, but in recon the necrons are at an advantage.

what exactly do monoliths do to prevent being crashed by venom cannons and/or ap1 zoanthropes?

Nid army has about the easiest time short of Tau of killing monoliths, and that's a nice tasty 235pts.

well i havent seen a list like this so im gonna go ahead and grace the world with my simple mindedness:

Destroyer Lord, res orb, phylactery
4xNecron Warriors (20)
3xTomb Spiders
monolith

i see this army as the most pain in the butt necron army anyone could come up with...fortunatley no one has done it.Seriously..all you need in a necron army is necron warriors and tomb spyders. just making sure everyone is clear, necron warriors have wepaons that cause automatic wounds on rolls of 6, regardless of toughness, they also cause glancing hits regardless of armor. and because of the amount of warriors bearing down on enemy lines with impunity, they'll start freakin out, especially when half of the warriors the kill just get back up.
also, when they warriors get hit by weapons of ap 3 or less, the lord can bring those warriors back up.

Actually, even if I warrior gets nailed in the face with a plasmagun's AP 2 goodness he can still get back up all on his own. No need of a lord's orb.  Remember, ignoring armor saves only counts in close combat.

Posted By Longshot on 04/07/2007 10:20 AM
what exactly do monoliths do to prevent being crashed by venom cannons and/or ap1 zoanthropes?

Nid army has about the easiest time short of Tau of killing monoliths, and that's a nice tasty 235pts.

Warp Blast is AP2
It is only 18", so the 6" moving Zoans need to get in range first.
Warp Blast only hits 45% of the time.
Will glance about 7.5%, and Pen about 15%
Thus you have about a 12% chance of destroying a monolith with a WarpBlast attack. So if you have all 3 zoans, and all three have warp blast, and all three are in range; it will still take about 3 rounds to take out the monolith, and the Zoans have done nothing else that time.

Venom cannons on a fex, will hit once per turn per fex. Will glance 50% of the time, and will destroy about 8% of the time. So if you have 2 Fex with Venom Cannons, doing nothing but shoot at the  monolith, it will take about 6 turns to take it down. (Including the BS brings it down to about 5 turns.)

(Neither of these take into account immobilizing, destroying weapons, or even destroying the lith by multiple immobilizing rolls.)

I am pretty sure there are plenty of armies with much better Lith destroying methods than those available to the Nids.

"Venom cannons on a fex, will hit once per turn per fex. Will glance 50% of the time, and will destroy about 8% of the time. So if you have 2 Fex with Venom Cannons, doing nothing but shoot at the monolith, it will take about 6 turns to take it down. (Including the BS brings it down to about 5 turns.)"


A Vennom cannon carnifex has always an extra Bskill! So if two carnifexes are shooting venom at the monolith, it doesnt mean it gets killed in turn 5! with 4 vennom cannon shots each turn you got 2 hits and so 1 glancing hit per turn. so the monolith could be destroyed in trun 1. I think it is one of the best anti monolith gun you can find....

Its also nice if you immobilise the monolith in front of a bashing carnifex.... 8)

First, the BS I was referring to was the Barbed Strangler. I assumed the fex had Enhanced Senses.

Second, of course it is *possible* for the fex to take out the Lith in one turn, even with one shot. But that is true of any str 8 or greater weapon

But the reality is that with 2 fex firing, of those 4 VC shots, two will hit, one will glance; and you only have a 1/6 chance of killing the lith with a glance. So it will, on average, take 6 turns for those 2 fex to kill that one monolith.

Posted By coredump on 04/10/2007 1:08 PM
First, the BS I was referring to was the Barbed Strangler. I assumed the fex had Enhanced Senses.

Second, of course it is *possible* for the fex to take out the Lith in one turn, even with one shot. But that is true of any str 8 or greater weapon

But the reality is that with 2 fex firing, of those 4 VC shots, two will hit, one will glance; and you only have a 1/6 chance of killing the lith with a glance. So it will, on average, take 6 turns for those 2 fex to kill that one monolith.

Be wary of what you read into averages.  If you have a 1/6 chance of killing a lith per turn then over 6 turns (your 'average') you have a 66% chance of having killed the lith at some point in that time. As a general rough rule of thumb the 'average' (whole) number of shots will approximate to 65% chance of success, give or take a couple, as long as the individual chance isn't pretty high, say about 20% or less. e.g. a guardsman needs an 'average' 18 shots to kill a marine, that really means that he has ~65% chance of killing the marine in 18 shots. 

So for example the 3 zoeys you mention in the previous post will have somewhere in the region of 65% chance of killing the lith over 3 turns of shooting - actually thats wrong as you overestimated their chance of a kill, its actually 8.9% each per turn rather than 12% so the average is more like 4 turns of shooting (and probably 2 just moving in range).

You are not, however, any more likely to kill it on turn 3,4, 6 or whatever as you are on turn 1. All 3 zoeys have a 25% chance of a kill on turn 1 (if in range), and if they are still all shooting at it on turn 3 then they still only have a 25% chance of a kill.

As to the best nid models for 'lith killing at range, I believe they rank in this order:

Tyrant, +BS, toxin, twin-link VC = ~14% per turn

Fex, +BS, twin-link VC = ~12.2% per turn

Tyrant +BS, toxin, single VC = ~10.6% per turn

Fex +BS, VC/BS combo = ~9.5% per turn

Zoey warp blast = ~8.9% per turn.

Zoeys  win out on points efficiency, 55pts (65 with scream) is pretty cheap, and you get 3 for 1 org slot. Though of course they have the range  problem which the other don't suffer from.

Whilst other armies may have better stuff for killing 'liths, I think what makes the nids so good is that some of the above models are very common in nidzilla lists, 2 vc/bs fexs 3 zoeys is pretty standard and the the tyrant with single VC is also not to uncommon. That means a necron player against nids can expect to see 5 or 6 units that can kill the lith without the nid player even tailoring his list for the monolith.  If all 6 of those models are firing there is a ~45% chance per turn of killing a monolith.