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Actinium wrote:I'd never run 2 or 3 though. You can hide from multiples just as well as 1 and because of the immobility you rarely get to combine firepower you just cover more vision, and the points investment is astronomical.

I'm really not sure why people are getting so hung up on the Doomsday Ark's "immobility". You can still move 6" and fire the main gun on its reduced setting, which STILL insta-gibs your average Spess Mahreen. As the Gauss Flayer Arrays are defensive weapons (S4), you also get to fire those even if you move 12" (I think - don't have the rulebook on me atm). So you're far from defenseless even on the move.

Yeah, fielding 2 or 3 is a big investment - that's why I only do it in 1750+ games. But if you spread them across your end of the field (and you're not playing Spearhead, which will screw your deployment) you force your opponent to hide directly behind wide cover that also blocks LOS if he wants to stay away from your Arks. That's when you send in the CCB's, Wraiths, Scarabs, Spyders, Lychguard, or what have you.

PrinceOfMadness wrote:

Actinium wrote:I'd never run 2 or 3 though. You can hide from multiples just as well as 1 and because of the immobility you rarely get to combine firepower you just cover more vision, and the points investment is astronomical.

I'm really not sure why people are getting so hung up on the Doomsday Ark's "immobility". You can still move 6" and fire the main gun on its reduced setting, which STILL insta-gibs your average Spess Mahreen. As the Gauss Flayer Arrays are defensive weapons (S4), you also get to fire those even if you move 12" (I think - don't have the rulebook on me atm). So you're far from defenseless even on the move.

The thing is, if you move, then the Annihilation Barge is simply better in every respect.
(and its gun becomes AP4 at this point, marines get to save against it)
You get the Doomsday Ark for killing Tanks (and Deep-striking terminators who decide to shoot rather than run); if you have to move it, then you've wasted 85 points.

a 24" ap4 small blast so a short range frag missile, there is never a time you want to use that instead of standing still, there is never a time you want the doom ark that close to people unless the cannon is already destroyed and your'e just broadsiding flayer arrays. And the number of units that can move and kill it may be a short list but they exist, something like broadsides can just wait out the night fight behind a building then waddle out and pump out 3-9 twin-linked multi targeting railgun shots and clear out an entire third-fourth of your army if you run 3 at 1500-2000.

My list has a squad of tomb blades(particle beamers) and wraiths to take out any units that bunch up in cover to avoid my twin-doom arks, named "Genesis Ascendant" and "Subjagator of Ends" now, if I only I could come up with an awesome paint job...

The big problem with the doomsday ark is it doesn't synergize well with the stormlord BS that some necron players try to pull.

AV13 + night fight + 24" range=reasonably well protected.

AV13 + night fight + long ranged weapon= very well protected, and imo better protected than a land raider in the current meta.

Kevlar wrote:The big problem with the doomsday ark is it doesn't synergize well with the stormlord BS that some necron players try to pull.

If they are using Imohtek for the lightning effect, then no, but there are plenty of other builds that don't use Imohtek, and a couple of solar pulses will still give you two turns of putting your opponent in the dark while leaving you free to shoot on your turn.

I'll be the 1st one to love an underdog. However, the Doomsday Ark configuration is a stinker. I've used the Arks several times, and everytime, even when I ran 2-3, they always underperformed for me. The major reason why, is actually a funny thing.

If I had MASSIVE DOOMSDAY weapon, where would I want to put it? A tank? A jet? A battleship? No, I want to put inside a 1978 Ford Pinto.

40k and warfare in general, is a psychological game. In 40k I want my most deadly units to be on the board and firing for as long as possible. You do not want to put your MASSIVE GUN OF DOOM inside a vehicle called a DOOMSDAY ARK, with a cannon that is arguably the biggest gun among the 40k model range (non Apoc). People are going to target this first, because it has a scary name, a scary gun, and a scary model. People attack things they are scared of. It is human nature.

To a lesser extent, the Doomscythe suffers from this. The only difference is, the Doomscythe's gun is freaking amazing and even if it gets one turn of shots off, it does terrible damage. It also, is the same points. If I fire my DOOMSDAY ARK, am I going to get the same result? Sure, if my blast connects, I am going to wreck stuff. If it misses I am gonna be real unhappy. The Ark is good, it is just literally hit or miss. And with how "scary" it is, you can promise it will be a primary for your opponent.

Now you can use this to your advantage. If they are shooting at your Arks, they are ignoring other threats. But at the cost of an Ark, I am not sure I want to use them as an expensive decoy.

Lastly. Notice how many times I highlighted DOOMSDAY in this post? This is 2012. People are already scared of the Apocalypse. Running a DOOMSDAY ARK in 2012, is just bad for a lot of reasons -- all of them purely psychological.

It'd be better served if it just wasn't open-topped....

Thing is you cant look at a unit, especially in the necron book, in a vacuum, think about how it would work with other units. I see myself putting it in opposite corners(altered depending on terrain) and the amount of board coverage would be really good. It would make it very hard to hide from both of them at the same time. Another thing I learned was from watching a skaven player. How often is someone going to line up directly across from your doom weapon? Not likely so take that first turn to get a better position a little further up. Now if they have outflankers that is a different scenario you would have to adapt too. Everything is about adjusting in your deployment or things of that nature. However I see two in conjunction with other aspects of your list being quite powerful.

Also, for those of you who claim that a single Weapon Destroyed result is a vehicle ruiner... keep in mind that Fabricator Claws repair weapon destroyed results. Would it be tactically feasible to keep Spyders and Doomsday Arks close? Perhaps.

I could see using two Arks in the corners to control the table. In fact... I might do that. Not the whole table, but you know. Some of it. Make your opponent worried.

The spyders can make scarabs until the ark need repairing and they arent exactly push overs in CC either so flankers would have a problem, especially after some gauss array volleys....might need to pick up spyders now...

Exalted Pariah wrote:
But your opponent gets to choose which weapon gets destroyed... on a Doomsday Ark it's not a hard choice which weapon I'm going to pick... it's not even like you can tank shock somone... at best, you can try to ram at 6" a turn.

I never noticed that opponents get to choose, thanks for pointing that out. Rather new to the game still.

On the subject of deep striking units to kill the Ark: great! I love that I can predict where the hammer is going to fall. My orky friend was running with commandos led by Snikrot (if I remember his name correctly) with a big mek. I didn't have to wonder where the commandos were coming from, as the ark was the obvious target.

I can also see using Doomsday Arks with a C'Tan. Combine withering worldscape and Grand Illusion, to really make your opponent wonder and make going into terrain almost as bad a choice as staying in the open.
I like including spyders for 2 reasons... first, they can do the repair. Second... scarabs. If your opponent has outflankers, you can deny them the board edge. There are two downsides, with the current FOC, we can't use spyders to protect the opposite corners, and if your scarabs are lining board edges then they aren't aggressively eating stuff.

Edit: Bolded phrase for emphasis.

The problem is, Spyders and Doomsday Arks take up the same FOC slot space... so if you take two Arks, you can't just take a couple Spyders to protect each.

Now, if only Spyders could repair the Quantum Shielding too...

The thing is, it should be possible to minimize the amount of fire any one of them takes, Basing your strategy around them taking lots of damage is probably not a good one. The rest of the list has to also be a threat as well, make it a mistake to dedicate so much fire power to the destruction of the doom ark. Also remember it has a relatively narrow front and it should not be to hard to give it a cover save with terrain or another vehicle

Leth wrote:Also remember it has a relatively narrow front and it should not be to hard to give it a cover save with terrain or another vehicle

How do you get that cover save w/another vehicle to work for you? I'm asking, I just don't know.

This is a global Necron model problem. All our vehicles have low-slung weapons and high profiles, the opposite of the ubiquitous Rhino/Razorback configuration. I mean, okay, the AB has it's main gun mounted fairly high, but even it can't fire over our arks.

Gah, hijacking the thread, sorry.

For the first game turn, I try to park my AB/CCB in front of the ark. That should give cover saves against the first volley, or your opponent will target the cheaper units. Just have to be careful to not block the Ark's LOS.

Sort of a "You make da call" question, but just figure I'd better double check. Turning in place is described as not counting as moving, so I may fire the stationary version of the Ark's gun, yes?

Yep, he shoots as if stationary if he just turns.

So I guess it would be worth it to give these guys an AB "escort" to block fire from one side. I like the idea of having a long range weapon platform, but I've also had the impression that they have so much firepower in their "defensive weapon" gauss flayer banks that it might be best to use them pushed forwards. Agree with drakkenj though - nothing with the word "Doom" so many times in it's profile is going to have a long life at anything but extreme range.

I'm a newbie to the whole 40k thing (being playing about a year now). I'm in an escalation league playing Necrons and last week I played a game with a Doomsday Ark and it managed to hang in there the whole game. It took some fire but not enough to make a dent in the paint. Now my list is running Imotek and a chronotek to keep the storm going as long as possible.

In a game yesterday where I didn't have the Doomsday Ark but was running Imotek+chronotek by the time the storm would have passed (I'm guessing on average on turn 4 - we stopped playing at turn 4) I had over 20 scarab bases, 2 x 6 wraiths and 2 x 3 spyders breathing down my opponents back (actually in assault I didn't wait for the storm to pass). By then the other guy has a lot more to worry about than a really big gun and sees them approaching - not like it's a shock or anything. And that's at 1500 points. When we hit 2000 points next month I'm throwing in a C'tan with WW and some tremorstaves. So, let's see - night fighting for 3+ turns with lightening everywhere, everything is difficult terrain unless I happen to pop you with my t-stave then it's dangerous. Meanwhile you're being popped by the biggest gun in the game and you can't shoot it because it's too far away. And, oh yeah, there's a horde of bugs about to run you down and eat your tanks followed by a bunch of rending wraiths followed by more bugs...can't wait until next month...

So yeah, Dooms Day Ark is scary but so is everything else I think...

We are not saying anything like it is better than those choices, however it is a viable option that people tend to overlook.

Maelstrom808 wrote:

Kevlar wrote:The big problem with the doomsday ark is it doesn't synergize well with the stormlord BS that some necron players try to pull.

If they are using Imohtek for the lightning effect, then no, but there are plenty of other builds that don't use Imohtek, and a couple of solar pulses will still give you two turns of putting your opponent in the dark while leaving you free to shoot on your turn.

Double court double overlord double warscythe commande barge double solar pulse av13 spam is a popular build that a doomsday would synergize well with.

If you used a C'Tan with Writhing WorldScape then your opponent would avoid terrain. This would allow your Doomsday Arks to annihilate your opponents army that's sitting out in the open.

Anpu-adom wrote:

That's 2/6(strikes on the scatter die) + 15/36 (less than a 6 on the combined dice) which means 75% of the time you'll hit our 'kill zone' without rerolling.

Rerolling anything outside our 'kill zone' has the same chances to land in the kill zone, but brings our overall landing percentage to (75% to hit on the first time +(25% miss the first time around * 75% hit the second time)) 93.75%.

Sorry to bring down the mathammer (I giggled), but you forgot to multiply the 15/36 by the 2/3 chance you scatter bringing that down to 5/18 or .27777. Add 1/3 and you get 11/18 or .61111 repeating. Twin-linked gives you 275/324 or 84.88%.

Andilus Greatsword wrote:I don't play Necrons, but if I did then I don't see why one wouldn't run 2-3 Doomsday Arks on top of high cover and just blast away. Is it just a case of being outclassed by the other HS choices?

I don't think skimmers can go on top of Ruins or high cover can they?

they would have to take a difficult/dangerous terrain test but as long as the thign it is sittign on is not Impassable terrain it should be able to park on top of it.


I think.

deleted because it is now obvious that I misunderstood the comment.

Read the rules for Ruins though and it lists the models that can move up and down levels in ruins. Skimmers are not listed as ones that can?

no but skimmers can ignore terrain. if they start or end their move in difficult terrain they take a dangerous test. Ruins that can be moved in/out of count as terrain, therefore a skimmer can park on it.

it is a different issue for infantry as they move inside the ruins, where a vehicle will not.