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The NFW ruling I wasn't so sure, but since that was how Reece thought INAT ruled it, I just went with it. Turns out Reece was mistaken, but that's ok. We both agreed to it at the beginning. If anything, it made it a more challenging battle which is what I like.

I think we started arguing over this in the prior battle report with the purifiers when someone brought that up though I don't think we ever settled on a conclusion. Just wondering what was the ruling anyway? and any idea on if the gloom prism would work with purifying flame or holocaust from some distance away?

Dissapointed to see a tailored palladin list...
while the Necron is an all rounder...

While Jy2 plays (and owns 2) Dreadknights, seeing it in the list immediately made me raise my eyebrows! To top it off, while the incinerator is great and all, 2 Psy-Dreads would still have been more efficient (S6 in hand to hand is plenty good enough against scarabs)!

Then I've still got to try out paladins in stormravens....

Stormadin lists! It is absolutely AMAZING! Even with the Stormraven being basically an elevated Chimera, you really don't care much for it as the content inside is twice as expensive as the delivery vehicle. I have had one game with Paladin Stormravens at 2500 and 3 games at 2000 and it was an absolute blast to play! I highly recommend trying out a Stormadin list!

the only thing i'm appaulled by is that NFW were being "turned off" by the gloom prisms. I don't see how taking a psychic test to active a buff targets an enemy unit in any way. (my thinking is that clicking on a lightsaber isn't exactly choking you out or lighting bolting you to death)

In the old Daemonhunter codex, the power was directed at a single enemy model (but then it was removed from the table period). In the new codex, it is nothing but a buff; so if it can be blocked, then hammerhands can be blocked in just the same way, and that is just play wrong.

On the other hand, had the paladins (5 man or 10 man units) had a commander leading them or had the force weapons been in effect there would have been no game to read about, just a crunching sound as something brakes under terminator boots.

Comments on the game:

Re-roll 1s to wound is really good, though I would have opted to take Scouting (due to the lack of area terrain) and applied heavy pressure on the Cron player on Turn 1.

Jy2 should have taken a librarian. That way he can crank it up to strength 6 and crush those scarabs.

While I don't think librarians are a must for Paladin lists, Sanctuary+Shrouding+Might and extra Hammerhands would have put a very quick end to the game indeed!

Thank you for the entertaining battle report!!!

Wow, good Battle report! Looking forward to a rematch sometime, when there is some average rolling, haha.

Definitely a well played game, done by two excellent players.

Blackmoor wrote:Well, that was interesting.

Jy2 should have taken a librarian. That way he can crank it up to strength 6 and crush those scarabs.

Also I am not sold on a pure paladin list. A Draigowing list is better with other units supporting it.

I would of also taken counter attack instead of re-roll "1"s.

The last thing is that I would have gone after the Necron objective with the 10 paladin squad and have everything else defend my objective. It is not about killing stuff, it is all about objective ownership.

Oftentimes, I run a librarian. However, I also usually play at 2K with my Driagowing as well. In order to add in more mobility (dreadknight), something had to give. So I shaved off the librarian and 1 dread from list. But even with the libbie, I was expecting at least half of my force weapons to go through. Even that would've done a lot of damage. Alas, all but 1 failed to get through. So much for the law of averages in this game.

I think a pure paladin list can work, though you need soladins as cheap scoring units. In a ways, I think they are even better than a 5-man strike squad. Cheaper, more sturdy to small-arms fire, easier to hide and the ability to threaten thanks/MC's with his hammer and hordes with Holocaust makes him actually a very good unit for the price. BTW, I totally forgot about Holocaust. Would've done wonders to those scarabs instead of firing his piddly stormbolters. And whereas you used interceptors for your mobility, here I used a dreadknight for mine, though I still have to test out the stormraven.

Counter-attack is overrated. Counter-attack on your deathstar? Who would want to assault them anyways? No, re-rolling 1's is much better, at least for my particular build. But I can see where counter-attack would be useful for your strikers or interceptors.

Originally, my plan was to go after his objective with my deathstar, but then when I saw Reece's strategy, I had to change mine as well. I don't think 700pts of my force would have survived against 1800pts of his army. Going for his objective with my big squad would have most likely ended up in a tie. I was playing for the win. Have Draigo and 1 soladin take out his 5-warrior unit on his objective and the rest of my forces to defend my objective. It would've been a solid gameplan had Immotehk's lightning not take out my soladin on his objective.

Good battle report. I especially liked the trick with Zahndrekh's Hit and Run on the Scarab unit-- that's a really nice synergy that I hadn't thought of in my readthrough and test games with the Necron codex. That said, there was one extreme error on the Grey Knight player's part, which ultimately cost him the win-- that objective should have gone on the third level of the multi-story building, where the Scarabs would have been unable to contest it thanks to their Beast movement. Even still, though, the Necrons did far better than I expected, especially against a pseudo-tailored list...

Great report(s) guys; brilliant job as ever! Between Reece's vid and jy's report I felt spoilt for choice!

Was a great battle, pleasure to watch; 2 nice armies, lovely terrain, great general's and lists, couldn't really ask for more.
I wasn't surprised at the out-come, with the 2 list's methods of capturing objectives I voted for a draw (I got one right!!!). I do think it was a good representation of the match-up for the 2 armies though, shows that Necrons can indeed stand up to Grey Knights, even if it may be an uphill battle.
Great report as ever; really fun and really informative.

Next stop for the Necrons or Draigowing; Janthkin's nids?

I have been watching all these reports with much interest...

@ Painnen... The scarabs can be out of coherency at end of turns. The owning player has to attempt to get back into coherency in his own movement phase.

What has me questioning the scarabs, after having seen the picture array... How do the scarabs not lose the 6" bubble with Spyders after doing 6" pile in moves post 2 combat phases? I will cafefully read the BRB and probably answer my own question. I would like to hear Reecius' explanation.

@Reecius... All these reports, your blog, and your store are good for the 40k/gaming community. Keep it up, we all appreciate the efforts and ability to see tactics in play. Thanks.

@Jy2 - Yeah I really wouldn't have been surprised if Draigowing had won, but I from what I've seen Necrons can now hold their own even against a great player with a great GK list as long as they have a competent general! So that kinda equaled out to me going Draw. I'm really liking 40K and you guys had a great video report!

Kinda figured the GK had it til you forgot the assault JY lol!

Great rep tho; SHows the holes in the necron list

Great report for what looked like a great game. Too bad about the crazy dice, but that'll happen. Thanks for putting this together, Reecius and jy2. I'm very interested to see how my Necrons will stack up against Draigo-wing now (fingers crossed, my Daemons already get smacked around enough)...

Clay Williams wrote:Blackmore - he didnt take counter attack because Nemisor Zanarack can take that away from him.

Actually, I hadn't even considered Zandrehk's ability to take away counter-attack. I just like the re-roll 1's much, much better. Mainly because who would want to assault my paladins anyways? Rather, against a majority of the armies, it's my shooting that does much of the damage.

sudojoe wrote:

The NFW ruling I wasn't so sure, but since that was how Reece thought INAT ruled it, I just went with it. Turns out Reece was mistaken, but that's ok. We both agreed to it at the beginning. If anything, it made it a more challenging battle which is what I like.

I think we started arguing over this in the prior battle report with the purifiers when someone brought that up though I don't think we ever settled on a conclusion. Just wondering what was the ruling anyway? and any idea on if the gloom prism would work with purifying flame or holocaust from some distance away?

There is no official ruling. I think the majority of players play it (the NFW) as a buff rather than a power that specifically targets the opponent. In order words, the NFW is more like Hammerhand in that it just changes the state of their weapons and does not directly target the enemy. However, there are people there that thinks it does target the opponent. You just have to talk about it with your opponent pre-game (like we did in this battle) and come up with an agreement.

Purifying Flame and Holocaust do have a target so they can be canceled out by the gloom prism.

Good report guys, I find that the battle demonstrated the risks/flaws in both builds. Soladins are a solid buy but one ID pot shot and your leaving an objective naked and that 2o man warrior mob can perform well but with out ghost ark support and in a rough combat (fortunate they were Terminators) that giant mob can easily be swept up. I think both lists are great though and it is always a balancing act when making a competitive list. Great read! Hopefully next time we will see Reecius play with some new dice! Burn those horrid old ones mate! I think someone put the curse of Nurgle on them! Haha

Hey, thanks for the feedback, guys. We really appreciate it!

Yeah, my games with Jim are always very tough, and fun.

Squad coherency rules are a lot more fluid than people think they are. You can be out of coherency often, as long as you try to get back in coherency in your turn, it's all good.

I eagerly await a ruling from the INAT FAQ about the gloom prism as that makes a huge difference in how you play the list.

The point though that I think really matters, is that even in a bad match up, you can still win or tie by playing to objectives and mitigating your weaknesses.

@Red Corsair
Haha, the dice were crazy. One turn I would roll all 5's and 6's, the next, nothing but 1's and 2's! I had some really good luck when I needed it a few times though, so ultimately I can't complain.

To be honest, the 'crons did far better than I expected. Well done Reece! That was a pretty awesome battle, and I'm happy you managed to pull a draw when I was sure defeat was certain.

Reecius wrote:Chronometron working for Imotekh? We don't know. We tend to go with conservative rules judgements when it is in doubt. We think it does allow the reroll. If it is rolled that it doesn't, we'll switch to tremor stave and sonic crucible which is arguably better.

If you tend to go conservative, why would you favor the interpretation that is stronger for the army? See also rerolling lightning strikes, having two Royal Court models in the same unit (albeit from different Courts), Gloom Prism working on NFW attacks, etc.

jy2:

When I was watching the video, I thought for sure that the turn after the Scarab's 1st Hit and Run (when they were lined up directly against the board edge) that you would shunt the Dreadknight over there and lay the template right across the Scarabs and pretty much obliterate them. I was surprised when you went after the Warriors instead. Now, I know I only have the video and pictures to go after, but to me it looked like the DK was on the same half of the table as them (so should have been within 36") and from your picture, it looked like after the shunt it was in range to lay the template down and pretty much take out all the Scarabs (looks from the picture like you could have touched at least 2/3-3/4 of them).

I realize it was also a big opportunity to knock down a bunch of troops, but it seems like your Paladin squad could have pretty easily dispatched the Warriors if they didn't have the Scarabs to worry about. I was just curious why you felt the Warriors were a higher priority than Scarabs in that case.

jy2 and Reecius:

I enjoyed the batrep! Both of you need to keep up the good work. I've been on hiatus from the game for a while, and between jy2's pictorial reps and Reecius's videos I really feel like I've been able to catch up on the state of the game very quickly. You guys do great work!

Awesome rep, the Necrons put up a good fight but none can withstand the mighty Grey Knights! Unlucky on the dice for close combat, or just the absence of luck on them? He did have grand strategy to re roll all 1's to wound. But after looking at the deployment I thought the game would prob end in a tie,but the Necrons surprised me a bit charging forwards for the victory.

Grey Therion wrote: While Jy2 plays (and owns 2) Dreadknights, seeing it in the list immediately made me raise my eyebrows! To top it off, while the incinerator is great and all, 2 Psy-Dreads would still have been more efficient (S6 in hand to hand is plenty good enough against scarabs)!

I think dreadknights are a good fit in either my Interceptor list or my Draigowing army. Their speed complements the fast Interceptors. It also plays off well with the much slower paladins. They draw a lot of fire, thus allowing my paladins to get ever closer. Honestly, I think dreadknights fit paladins better, but with the plethora of mech armies out there, you still need a psyfleman.

Stormadin lists! It is absolutely AMAZING! Even with the Stormraven being basically an elevated Chimera, you really don't care much for it as the content inside is twice as expensive as the delivery vehicle. I have had one game with Paladin Stormravens at 2500 and 3 games at 2000 and it was an absolute blast to play! I highly recommend trying out a Stormadin list!

Finally played my stormraven for the very 1st time against Janthkin's nids in our 5K Apoc battle. I'll incorporate it into my Draigowing army somehow, though without any redundancy, I probably won't use it unless I'm playing at 2.5K.

Did one of those triple-raven lists happen to be against my purifiers at the Ard Boyz Preliminaries.

Comments on the game:

Re-roll 1s to wound is really good, though I would have opted to take Scouting (due to the lack of area terrain) and applied heavy pressure on the Cron player on Turn 1.

While I don't think librarians are a must for Paladin lists, Sanctuary+Shrouding+Might and extra Hammerhands would have put a very quick end to the game indeed!

Thank you for the entertaining battle report!!!

I don't know about Scouting. I just don't see it as very effective for such a slow army. Outflanking isn't reliable either with just 1 fast unit. The only time I would probably take Scouting is in my Interceptor/Mordrak list. Otherwise, I think it's kind of meh.

With a shunting dreadknight, I am already applying pressure just by deploying him near the center.

The eternal struggle - more killiness or better mobility? Because my librarian didn't do much in my last few games, I decided to bench him this game to make room for my dreadknight.

Fetterkey wrote:Good battle report. I especially liked the trick with Zahndrekh's Hit and Run on the Scarab unit-- that's a really nice synergy that I hadn't thought of in my readthrough and test games with the Necron codex. That said, there was one extreme error on the Grey Knight player's part, which ultimately cost him the win-- that objective should have gone on the third level of the multi-story building, where the Scarabs would have been unable to contest it thanks to their Beast movement. Even still, though, the Necrons did far better than I expected, especially against a pseudo-tailored list...

Actually, originally, I did put it at the very top of the ruins. However, because I wanted to put my vendread in the building but not make him scoring, I decided the 2nd level was easier for my soladin to reach. And the reason I didn't make him scoring was because I wanted the re-roll 1's to wound. And the reason I needed access to the objective for my soladin was because I was planning to keep him in reserves for as long as possible with Psychic Communion. Wounding on 2's due to S5/6 and then with re-roll's means that practically all my hits are autowounds (against his scarabs).

Just Dave wrote:Great report(s) guys; brilliant job as ever! Between Reece's vid and jy's report I felt spoilt for choice!

Was a great battle, pleasure to watch; 2 nice armies, lovely terrain, great general's and lists, couldn't really ask for more.
I wasn't surprised at the out-come, with the 2 list's methods of capturing objectives I voted for a draw (I got one right!!!). I do think it was a good representation of the match-up for the 2 armies though, shows that Necrons can indeed stand up to Grey Knights, even if it may be an uphill battle.
Great report as ever; really fun and really informative.

Next stop for the Necrons or Draigowing; Janthkin's nids?

With solid tactics and a little bit of luck, anything can happen.

Interestingly enough, Janthkin just played Reece's scarab-farm today with his tyranids. Be sure to look out for their next video battle report.

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:
What has me questioning the scarabs, after having seen the picture array... How do the scarabs not lose the 6" bubble with Spyders after doing 6" pile in moves post 2 combat phases? I will cafefully read the BRB and probably answer my own question. I would like to hear Reecius' explanation.

By leaving a long line of trailing scarabs and putting new ones near the end when he generates more (and at maximum 2" coherency). It can be done. He did lose 1-2 spyders at times, but for the most part, they were firing away new scarabs almost every turn.

Good Report.

I hope there are plans for a rematch.

Purifying Flame and Holocaust do have a target so they can be canceled out by the gloom prism

I was thinking along the lines of

Spiders here
(oooooo) 3 in bubble with a scarab in it, (ooooo) 12 inches away is the tip of the scarabs line that you are targeting with the holocost template.

does the prism protect the whole swarp even though the models that are targeted are quite far from the spider?

sudojoe wrote:

Purifying Flame and Holocaust do have a target so they can be canceled out by the gloom prism

I was thinking along the lines of

Spiders here
(oooooo) 3 in bubble with a scarab in it, (ooooo) 12 inches away is the tip of the scarabs line that you are targeting with the holocost template.

does the prism protect the whole swarp even though the models that are targeted are quite far from the spider?

From the wording of the rule, I believe so. IIRC, it only requires the unit (ie, a model in the unit) to be within 3" of the Gloom Prism. I'd have to look at the 'dex again though, it takes me a long time to get familiar with new rules.

Reecius wrote:

Squad coherency rules are a lot more fluid than people think they are. You can be out of coherency often, as long as you try to get back in coherency in your turn, it's all good.

UNIT COHERENCY
When you are moving a unit, the individual models in it
can each move up to their maximum movement
distance –. So,
once a unit has finished moving, the models in it must
form an imaginary chain where the distance between
one model and the next is no more than 2".

No where in there does it say you can voluntarily move a unit out of Coherency. The word "must" means if you can do it, you have to do it. You can't choose to break your 2" chain because it restricts you from moving the farthest you are allowed. It's pretty clear that your new maximum distance is <= your highest movement rate with a restriction of being within 2" of an exhisting member of your unit.

As to creating or placing new models, there is no rules as written for that mechanic. I think placing models "in a unit" but not in coherency with that unit is against RAI. It can't be RAW because there is no rulebook rule I could find dictating where the new models must be placed. As to the spyder's ability, it too doesn't specify where the new models must be placed in reference to the targeted unit either. For all we know, you could place them in your opponent's deployment zone and the only rules governing it would be that you would have to spend your next movement phase moving you full movement distance towards the targeted scarab swarm. That's just wrong! Worse, is I see nothing different in that example as what you did with placing your new scarabs on the other side of that warrior unit.

any thoughts? this is not a rant but a detailed question for you Reece. (since i've been watching/reading your necron material for knowledge gain and i think you of all people are the best person to point to when ruling on these issues in the 3 FLGS that i frequent).

jy2 wrote:With solid tactics and a little bit of luck, anything can happen.

Interestingly enough, Janthkin just played Reece's scarab-farm today with his tyranids. Be sure to look out for their next video battle report.

Brrrrrilliant!

I must say I think both players got fairly equal luck this game though, so there it was a good representation at least IMHO.

Zid wrote:Kinda figured the GK had it til you forgot the assault JY lol!

Great rep tho; SHows the holes in the necron list

My "not winning" really wasn't that I forgot to assault. It was when Immotehk's lightning bolt blew away my soladin on his objective. My gameplan was to kill his grot squad and take his objective while contesting mine.

Red Corsair wrote:Good report guys, I find that the battle demonstrated the risks/flaws in both builds. Soladins are a solid buy but one ID pot shot and your leaving an objective naked and that 2o man warrior mob can perform well but with out ghost ark support and in a rough combat (fortunate they were Terminators) that giant mob can easily be swept up. I think both lists are great though and it is always a balancing act when making a competitive list. Great read! Hopefully next time we will see Reecius play with some new dice! Burn those horrid old ones mate! I think someone put the curse of Nurgle on them! Haha

Overall, his dice was pretty kind. Killing my soladin, stopping almost all of my force weapon attempts and leaving combat not once, but twice with an I2 unit. If any of this didn't happen, it would most likely have been my game.

Ironically, it was Reece who recommended his square dice to me and then I went and got a set of them.

Dytalus wrote:To be honest, the 'crons did far better than I expected. Well done Reece! That was a pretty awesome battle, and I'm happy you managed to pull a draw when I was sure defeat was certain.

Yeah, necrons did better than I expected as well. It just goes to show that never count any army out, especially if manned by a competent general. I had a similar uphill battle with necrons versus a solid battlewagon ork army and I was quite pleased with my performance as I didn't get tabled.

sirisaacnuton wrote:jy2:

When I was watching the video, I thought for sure that the turn after the Scarab's 1st Hit and Run (when they were lined up directly against the board edge) that you would shunt the Dreadknight over there and lay the template right across the Scarabs and pretty much obliterate them. I was surprised when you went after the Warriors instead. Now, I know I only have the video and pictures to go after, but to me it looked like the DK was on the same half of the table as them (so should have been within 36") and from your picture, it looked like after the shunt it was in range to lay the template down and pretty much take out all the Scarabs (looks from the picture like you could have touched at least 2/3-3/4 of them).

I realize it was also a big opportunity to knock down a bunch of troops, but it seems like your Paladin squad could have pretty easily dispatched the Warriors if they didn't have the Scarabs to worry about. I was just curious why you felt the Warriors were a higher priority than Scarabs in that case.

jy2 and Reecius:

I enjoyed the batrep! Both of you need to keep up the good work. I've been on hiatus from the game for a while, and between jy2's pictorial reps and Reecius's videos I really feel like I've been able to catch up on the state of the game very quickly. You guys do great work!

Thanks. Glad that our reports can help out the community.

I didn't go after his scarabs because honestly, I didn't really care about them. His true VIP unit was his scoring unit. I was planning to flame and then assault them with my dreadknight (but was just fractions of an inch shy). My eye was on the mission and not on his hyped-up units. In an objectives-game, without troops, the best he could do was tie. However, had I gone after his scarabs (and I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to take them all out), there was a chance that I may get tied up and let his troops sneak up for a victory. Anyways, in short, the scarabs are just a side dish. In an objectives game, the scoring units are always the main course, especially if his side dish lacked the necessary means to kill off my army.

Loved the pictures and walkthrough of the report, jy2! And I like Reecius' tactics in the game. Very close.

Love the BR. Yours are my favorite on Dakka, jy2!

A lot of posters wrote, "Good Batrep." Feh.

A few wrote, "Great." How about "Frakking Great!"?

So much action accounted for, commented on, and well shot.

It helps that the battle itself was noteworthy.

You guys do set an awesome standard for batreps and showing how to play 40k at higher levels.

Really glad you guys enjoy these as they do take a lot of effort!

@Fetterkey
We always try to play the rules the way we believe they are intended to function. We do get it wrong sometimes, but hey, we're human, you know?

If a rule is in question, and no FAQ, or errata addresses it, we make our best judgement call. As with Scarabs being added to a unit by Spiders, we play it that they cannot conga line all over kingdom come.

@extrenm(54)
I am always down for a rematch! It is good to practice those bad match-ups as it helps you to think laterally.

Awesome battlereport jy2 and Reecius!

It's good to see Spyders making becoming popular again. After glancing over the new Necron codex, I'm surprised how inexpensive Canoptek Spyders are in points. It reminds me of the Nids Tervigons spam tactic, but with more models and built in anti-vehicle mech mechanism.

GK Paladins would have been more effective if it weren't for the gloom prism. Other than that, they performed well, but were overwhelmed by the scarab hive machine.

Well played both of you. Thanks for sharing!

Love the long format video reports. The follow up pic reports are great too. thanks.