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http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2011/11/20/video-battle-report-necron-phalanx-vs-land-raider-blood-angels/

Here we have the Phalanx against an assault Blood Angels list. This is a really good example of how to play this bad match-up for the Crons. (The points are a bit off on the Crons, but it was a casual game so no one cared).

Lists:

Necrons

HQ

Overlord Phaeron, Orb, Shifter, Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs 1 210

Cryptek Trans, Crucible, Tremor 1 55

Overlord Phaeron, Orb, Shifter, Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs 1 210

Cryptek Trans, Crucible, Tremor 1 55

Troops

Warriors 20 260

Ghost Arc 1 115

Warriors 20 260

Ghost Arc 1 115

Warriors 5 65

Elites

Flayed Ones 15 195

Fast Attack

Destroyers 5 200

Heavy Destroyers 3 180

Heavy Support

Annihilation Barge 1 90 Totals 75 2010

Blood Angels

HQ

Mephiston

Elites

Chaplain

Terminators x 10: Assault Cannon x 2

Priest

Priest

Troops

Assault Marines x 10: Melta, Flamer, Fist, Infernus Pistol

LRC: X-Arm, M.Melta

Assault Marines x 10: Melta, Flamer, Fist, Infernus Pistol

LRC: X-Arm, M.Melta

Heavy

Dreadnought: Assault Cannon

Are you rolling the glancing hit for the ghost arks when you make more warriors?
what exactly does mind shackel do?

Pretty cool playing done by Reece.

Pretty crappy blood angels list Imo, Im not sure why assault marines with fnp need 2 land raiders, Im also not sure why 10 terminators were walking across the board....because they arnt paladins lol.

Yeah, that does seem like a seriously noob Blood Angels list. Perhaps he was bored with his standby builds. I get that way once in awhile, with generally the same results.

Yeah, I was the Blood Angel player. It was a list composed of everything that I don't use, and performed as such!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Smitty0305
Yeah, we do roll the glancing hits on the Ghost Arks, an we have had them immobilize themselves so far as the worst result. Just waiting for that 6 and the thing wrecks itself!

Mind shackle scarabs work in the assault phase. A random model in B2B with the bearer rolls a leadership on 3d6, if it fails, it strikes D3 hits on its own unit at maximum effect. It is amazing, and if you position your models well, it means you can often get a sarge with a fist, etc. Against single model units, it is really brutal.

@Warpcrafter
It wasn't a tournament list by any means (And I usually do quite well in tournaments) but it had all the tools needed to take out Reece's list, for sure.

Hey, great report. Reece, thanks for taking the time lately to post all these batreps with commentary about the army. I had played 'crons before the new book came out, but it seems that their playstyle now is what it should have been upon release -- a resilient, shambling horde of undead robots firing death rays into their enemy's ranks.

I really like Phaeron upgrades in a block of warriors, and buying ghost arks for support is a great idea for keeping the block at full strength. I have hovered almost singularly towards the harbingers of destruction as my go-to cryptek choice for their s8 ap2 36" weapon...but it appears that those work best in smaller immortal squads. For these big blocks of warriors who glance vehicles on 6's, the anti-tank gun is much less of a necessity, but the assault denial the Harbinger of Transmogrification offers is far and away more useful, including the seismic crucible. I really love that list and I hope you don't take offense if i try it out myself.

I say I much prefer this type of build over the spyder/scarab swarm, to me it has more of a 'necron' feel, if that makes sense.

Keep the reports coming, I'll have a couple of my own up eventually. Thanks again for adding all the tactical insights to your videos, too!

Really solid report Reece. I think this list really highlights what Necron firepower can do. MINDSHACKLE. SCARABS. KILL. All the lists I'm building have them as an element.

Me and some others have been singing the praises of a Flayed One squad with Lord(s) with Mindshackle Scarabs. Even with rolling badly, this unit performed well. The Mephiston kill was comical. The mathhammer is showing them to be excellent at tarpits and they can grind down a squad. I'm also a fan of the Seismic Crucible/Tremorstave combo -- even without the C'tan making everything dangerous (Secretly I think the C'tan is just a 200+ target). I understand the BA list wasn't that optimized, but I think a huge fear of Necron players is that they are just going to be swamped in CC and instantly die. However, 20 warrior squads with Phaeron are blistering firepower. Combined with Destroyers and some tricks you can do a lot.

I think the mvp though was the Flayed Ones, and that slick-ass manuever you pulled with the Ghost Arks to regenerate that unit. That's some really awesome play. And notice: No scarabs in your list.

I think ALL potential and current Necron players can learn a lot about list building and what to do with your army (some nice things that work) by watching this report and seeing how to make a list that can do well against a potentially huge threat.

It was really said best (and one of the reasons people are having a problem Groking this Codex) that the Necron army is the sum of its parts, not any one part. If each part does its job, the whole comes together to do some pretty amazing stuff.

Cool report. Some of your commentary regarding the Necrons is very similar to what I'm looking at: the ability to manipulate my opponent's movement but combine it with Solar Pulses. I think if you can slow down your opponents army and deny them long range shooting, the Necrons have the ability to truly outshoot many armies. While many folks are writing off Heavy Destroyers, I think they are a great addition with this particular playstyle. It will be hard for opponents to get shots off them as a result of the above mentioned. Additionally, the Special Character that gives Tank Hunter (or other USR) to a unit can make a Heavy Destroyer quite useful.

Another great report Reece, I'm loving how quickly you're pumping out the reports in the new Necrons; brilliant job.

Another solid game by the phalanx too. Everytime I see the list I think it should struggle against Land Raiders and 2+ saves, but then it seems to manage anyway; really impressive performance. i guess the Gauss-glancing does make a big difference.

Great report guys with really well done tactical commentary, particularly at the end. I think Jason raised a really good point about the difficulty he faced with terrain actually, would've been another reason to get 2 additional assault squads instead of the Land Raiders IMHO.

I am consistently impressed by Mindshackle Scarabs in every game I've seen too; how much do they cost?

Great report again Reece.

Another great report Reece. MINDSHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKLE. SCAAAAAAAAARAAAAAAAAAAABS.

Those things are awesome, and I'm pretty sure for Lords accompanying squads they're mandatory at this stage.

Good stuff, I was just a bit confused with a few things...

One, did you say that the cryptek's tremor stave reduced the terminators assault move to 3, and then reduced the distance another d3 to 0? The tremor stave only works in the enemy movement phase though... Is it because the termies were reduced to 3 via the crucible and were 4 inches away, so the termies didnt move at all? Or did you stack both abilities by accident?

Two, this is more of a question about rules... while mind shackle scarabs let you use any abilities and penalties of the cc weapon, on page 50 it appears that the 'abilities' of a force weapon are that they are power weapons that grant the user one extra psychic power. The power itself, while granted by the weapon, is an ability of the model--just like mephistons s10 sword power. Thus, it seems to me you could not make mephiston use his force weapon's granted power anymore than you could make him use unleash rage and sanguine sword.

More on that topic, lets say you mind shackle a monstrous creature that has no close combat weapon. The scarabs only let you use the models strength, and the abilities and penalties of their WEAPON. Because this monstrous creature (say a trygon) is s6, he would inflict d3 hits at s6, but these hits appear to be normal, not power weapon, attacks because the powerweapon aspect of the MC is a unit type rule, not a cc weapon rule, and the scarabs do NOT attack like normal attacks following all cc rules.

Sorry for sidetracking the discussion with rules, its just I see the crons as very weak rules wise, and while I want to be encouraged by your batrep success, if mephiston doesnt kill himself via force weapon that misson would have been much, much harder on you. The termie assault with stacking tremor/crucible (if you did stack them, still not sure) is secondary because if mephiston was not killed then the termies would have been the least of your problems.

Dytalus wrote:Another great report Reece. MINDSHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKLE. SCAAAAAAAAARAAAAAAAAAAABS.

Those things are awesome, and I'm pretty sure for Lords accompanying squads they're mandatory at this stage.

They really increase the durability of even a typical warrior squad by a measureable factor. Plus, they are some of Necron's best defense against some of the nastiest CC in the game. Because with good positioning in CC you can turn that unit against its own squad. Even just sticking a single Lord with Mindshackle Scarabs (or two) with a squad of even something as simple as warriors can win you combat(s) against a surprising number of things. Now that being said we did see that the 20-man warrior squad is still vulnerable to being wiped. And if I had 1 piece of advice to Reece it might be to break up those bricks of warriors some. Everytime I've seen people run these really big squads, they just get wiped out and routed in CC.

That being said, 40 gauss shots on the move with relentless is a terrifying amount of firepower. So there is logic for having 80 mobile gauss shots that is solid. Just expect its dying/running if you get it in CC. Ghost Arks almost seem mandatory with those troop bricks.

@ Reese. Could you please do a battle report with two fine tuned armies at the 1500 point level (one of them Necrons of course) for some of us Grognards can see?

Thanks.

Great report Reece. Good job against Mephiston. If your minshackle scarabs didn't work, Mephiston really would've torn your army apart. I think that single incident was the turning point in the battle.

DevianID wrote:Two, this is more of a question about rules... while mind shackle scarabs let you use any abilities and penalties of the cc weapon, on page 50 it appears that the 'abilities' of a force weapon are that they are power weapons that grant the user one extra psychic power. The power itself, while granted by the weapon, is an ability of the model--just like mephistons s10 sword power. Thus, it seems to me you could not make mephiston use his force weapon's granted power anymore than you could make him use unleash rage and sanguine sword.

One thing of note here is that both Unleash Rage and Sanguine Sword are cast at the beginning of the Assault Phase and not at the beginning of each assault after assault moves have been made. Thus, when it comes time to use the Mindshackle Scarabs, it is already too late to cast UR and SS. Personally, I really don't see a problem with MS making a model force weapon his own unit, and I am a grey knight player. Just make sure you use up all your psychic powers so that you cannot use force weapon. That would mean GK players should cast Hammerhand and Mephiston should cast all 3 of his powers (Wings, SS & UR). S10 is all you need to insta-gib the overlord.

But this will probably require a FAQ for clarification.

DevianID wrote:
More on that topic, lets say you mind shackle a monstrous creature that has no close combat weapon. The scarabs only let you use the models strength, and the abilities and penalties of their WEAPON. Because this monstrous creature (say a trygon) is s6, he would inflict d3 hits at s6, but these hits appear to be normal, not power weapon, attacks because the powerweapon aspect of the MC is a unit type rule, not a cc weapon rule, and the scarabs do NOT attack like normal attacks following all cc rules.

For MC's, their close combat weapons are their normal monstrous attacks. Thus, they would ignore armour saves.

DevianID wrote:One, did you say that the cryptek's tremor stave reduced the terminators assault move to 3, and then reduced the distance another d3 to 0? The tremor stave only works in the enemy movement phase though... Is it because the termies were reduced to 3 via the crucible and were 4 inches away, so the termies didnt move at all? Or did you stack both abilities by accident?

It does appear as if the Tremor Stave was incorrectly used in that case. Reece mentioned that the Terminators rolled a 3 for their Difficult Terrain and that it was reduced to 0 from the Crucible. This is probably my fault as I mentioned the combo to Reece in a previous thread but I did not realize at the time that Tremorstaves only affect the Movement Phase. That said, I think the 20 man brick with 2x Crucibles could potentially do the same thing by hiding in Area Terrain.

DevianID wrote:Two, this is more of a question about rules... while mind shackle scarabs let you use any abilities and penalties of the cc weapon, on page 50 it appears that the 'abilities' of a force weapon are that they are power weapons that grant the user one extra psychic power. The power itself, while granted by the weapon, is an ability of the model--just like mephistons s10 sword power. Thus, it seems to me you could not make mephiston use his force weapon's granted power anymore than you could make him use unleash rage and sanguine sword.

The Mindshackle Scarabs allow the attacks to benefit from any abilities of the weapon. Since the weapon grants an additional psychic power, the use of that power is an ability of the weapon and can be used at the discretion of the player controlling the Mindshackle Scarabs. This seems incredibly powerful on the surface, but you have to remember that it's still limited by the number of psychic powers that the model can cast in any given turn, and with careful positioning one can keep their IC's from getting in combat. Place them at the back of the unit, or move the unit in such a way so that the closest model is the Phaeron, and your closest model is a standard grunt. Then move the rest of the unit as normal making sure to get the Librarian in contact with a standard Necron. Anyone who plays an assault army with any sort of tactical ability will know how to plan for this. Knowing which models you should and should not engage is key to an assault force, and knowing how you should position your unit to force this outcome is just as important.

DevianID wrote:More on that topic, lets say you mind shackle a monstrous creature that has no close combat weapon. The scarabs only let you use the models strength, and the abilities and penalties of their WEAPON. Because this monstrous creature (say a trygon) is s6, he would inflict d3 hits at s6, but these hits appear to be normal, not power weapon, attacks because the powerweapon aspect of the MC is a unit type rule, not a cc weapon rule, and the scarabs do NOT attack like normal attacks following all cc rules.

Mindshackle Scarabs simply allow the attacks to benefit from any abilities or penalties of the bearers weapons, but do not require that such weapons be present, nor do they state that the model's unit type does NOT affect the attacks. All attacks made by Monstrous Creatures ignore armor, and thus when the model attacks itself this will still be true.

"Instead of attacking normally, he inflicts d3 hits on his own unit when it is his turn to attack. These hits are resolved at the victim's strength, and benefit from any abilities and penalties from his close combat weapons."

I read the rule above as exhaustive. Meaning, take what you normally do, and throw that away. You do this instead of normal. You only do what it tells you and no more. Thus, d3 hits with the models base strength characteristic and with close combat weapon buffs. Normally, a MC ignores armor in close combat, but as above, we are not attacking normally. With scarabs, only your base strength and close combat weapons are used. Nothing else. MC buffs are not part of base strength and combat weapon.

Why else would they have worded the scarabs in such a way if not to put strict limits on what scarab attacks can do?

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback.

@tetrisphreak
No offense if you play the list at all, we're flattered you'd want to play it! It is fun, and like you said, it reminds me of the old school style of Necron play. Honestly, we see the Scarab farm list being the go to tournament build, which is fine, but not really what Crons are in the fluff, which is a shame.

Looking forward to seeing your reports!

@Drakkenj
Yeah, the flayed ones worked fine, honestly. I like the look of them too, which counts for a lot in a game of toy soldiers. With the Overlord, they were doing work. It's a shame they can't take a regular lord, or they'd be great. But with the Overlord's support, they basically won me the game. Charging the LR, even though they couldn't hurt it, just to block the door was game winning.

And yeah, blocking the retreat of the falling back unit to buff it back to strength was a move I got from Space Curves (ben Mohlie) and it is a great way to keep your boys in the fight.

@Sarigar
Yeha, the Heavy D's are good stuff! The list needs that extra long range punch, and Heavy D's are more survivable than Doomsday Arks. I think there is definitely a place for them. Giving them Tank hunters, would be awesome!

@Just Dave
Mind Shackle Scarabs are only 15 points! Such a steal for something that essentially levels the playing field against a lot of assault units, particularly single model assault units.

Thanks, we have a few more reports we're putting up, including one with a nails tournament list that will appeal to competitive players.

@Dytalus
Yeah, don't leave home without the scarabs!

@DevianID
You are right, the tremor stave only works in the movement phase, we misread it. Thanks for pointing that out.

I agree with Jy2 though, that you can have a model force weapon itself. And Monstrous creatures can only attack as a monstrous creature, therefore having attacks that ignore armor.

@Drakkenj
I agree that the big squads are vulnerable to HtH, but in our test games it hasn't happened that often. The only way (IMO) to really use the Ghost Arks is with those big squads as otherwise, they can get shot to death before they have a chance to regenerate. And as you said, that many bodies really makes Phaeron awesome, and gives them a chance to fight back in HtH through volume. The characters are what make the squad though, no doubt. You just have to be smart about keeping them out of combat.

@Adam LongWalker
We will do! I love 1500.

Hey Reecius, thanks again for the update. While I still disagree that mindshackle scarabs let you use any/all your enemy models special rules (instead of just the weapon bonuses as listed in the rules for mindshackle scarabs), with no FAQ its going to be a YMDC rules issue or a dice off for the time being.

What I really would like to know is if you would try the walker, maybe in place of the destroyers or heavy destroyers, at some point. With all your small arms shots, just the ability to twin link your army with its 100+ gauss shots would be pretty awesome. The 2 multimelta shots are really just gravy compared to the twin link ability I imagine.

Yeah, we were thinking the same thing.

My cousin in Oz tracked down an awesome conversion of the stalker: http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2011/11/19/necron-triarch-stalker-conversion/

He's getting a write-up on how to make it, so hopefully we will be able to reproduce it!

But yeah, the twin-linking of shots would be brutal. Plus, having 2 Multi-Melta shots is nothing to sneeze at in and of itself.

Reecius wrote:Yeah, we were thinking the same thing.

My cousin in Oz tracked down an awesome conversion of the stalker: http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2011/11/19/necron-triarch-stalker-conversion/

He's getting a write-up on how to make it, so hopefully we will be able to reproduce it!

But yeah, the twin-linking of shots would be brutal. Plus, having 2 Multi-Melta shots is nothing to sneeze at in and of itself.

That Stalker conversion is top notch! I really like it! If GW doesn't make a model for it I think I might have to give that a try so I'm definitely looking forward to the writeup!

Good rep! Surprising ending! I like the list, FOOTYCRONS ARE A GO!~!~!~!

Hey Reece, nice report awesome game!

Glad you guys liked it!