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First off, I'm sorry if this has already been posted/discussed. I checked 4 pages deep in the tactics threads, didn't see any, but it certainly could have been deeper.

I like the look of the Necron Royal Court played without upgrades. 5 Necron Lords + 5 Crypteks comes to 300 points.

They pump out 30 bs 4 staff of light shots, and have power weapons for some minor combat ability. That's preferable, in my opinion, to the fighting/shooting balance on Triarch Praetorians and Lychguard. Further, they can drive a Ghost Arc if the warriors get out.

So I figure in another ~150 points for the min warriors and their ride, then another ~50 points if you want to throw in a bit of wargear in the court. For this you get a tiny scoring unit to walk on from reserves and sit on your closest objective, going to ground if shot at in the typical scoring unit manner. Then you get the court itself in an arm 13 open topped skimmer that's hard to shake/stun. The whole module comes for about 500 points, similar to terminators in Land Raider.

I believe that this would be just about the best unit in the book, particularly in terms of flexibility. You could move 6", fire everyone out of the vehicle and broadside with the vehicle itself at enemy vehicles to shake them. Or you could move 12", hop out the court for the old shoot and charge.

Anybody tried anything similar? Any good results to report?

Where are the power weapons coming from? Staves of light are no longer power weapons as far as I know.

I have never run a court by itself as I feel the court is better utilized to improve the other units you are taking...

The Staff of Light is no longer a power weapon. It is a regular CC weapon that fires as S5 AP3 Assault 3. IMO, the fact that there isn't anything better as a ranged weapon for Lords/Overlords is a huge failure on GWs part.

Honestly, running 5 Harbingers of Destruction is better than an un-upgraded Cryptek court. I really like the Eldritch Lance, and in >1k point lists I run two full Harbinger of Destruction Royal Courts. You can't really beat five S8 AP2 shots per court. It's just awesome. Well, to me at least. I liek shooting things, so those weapons are a godsend to me.

I wish my opponents would place all of their high-value units in a neat little package like that. It'd be just like fighting a Draigowing, with none of the survivability.

Azazel has got this just right.

I like how your thinking 40kenthusiast, but I don't think this'll work as well as you think.

3 Problems I see right away. (Besides the Ghost Ark and <= 10 warriors now on foot).
1) 415 points all in one slow moving, squishy target.
2) Short 12" Staff of Light Range, requiring you to be in Melta distance (or CC distance), if you're shooting, you have to move only 6"
3) As someone pointed out, Staves of Light are no longer power weapons. (If they were, this unit would *rock*)

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I think you might feasibly be able to run a "Court in Ark" tactic with a slightly lower cost Necron Deathstar Unit. An Overlord (2+/3++ guy with an Orb maybe?) with 5 Scythe Lords (225 points) You might even be able to drop some mindshackle scarabs in there!

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A similar concept to your's (Shooty out of barge), you could do 5 warriors and 1 or 2 Crypteks of the Storm with their voltaic staves. That'd be fun.

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I'm running my Arks with MSU + 1-2 Crypteks of Destruction

azazel the cat wrote:I wish my opponents would place all of their high-value units in a neat little package like that. It'd be just like fighting a Draigowing, with none of the survivability.

Actually, with a Res Orb, they have a bit of survivability. Also, if we were to play a 2k point game, you'd also have to contend with 3 annihilation barges, 2 full squads of Tomb Blades, a Triarch Stalker, and a few squads of Immortals. There's putting all of your eggs in one basket, then there's putting a few eggs in a basket and surrounding it with other baskets with eggs in them. And all of the baskets have guns, too.

McNinja wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:I wish my opponents would place all of their high-value units in a neat little package like that. It'd be just like fighting a Draigowing, with none of the survivability.

Actually, with a Res Orb, they have a bit of survivability. Also, if we were to play a 2k point game, you'd also have to contend with 3 annihilation barges, 2 full squads of Tomb Blades, a Triarch Stalker, and a few squads of Immortals. There's putting all of your eggs in one basket, then there's putting a few eggs in a basket and surrounding it with other baskets with eggs in them. And all of the baskets have guns, too.

None of those Immortals have any CC ability or rez orbs, so they're Faberge eggs by your analogy. And there are no Solar Pulses in this list, so anyone with some anti-tank that can shoot farther than 24" is going to ruin your day on the first turn.

Here's how I'd attack this list with my Space Wolves (I know they're overpower, so I'l use another example afterwards):

Turn 1: 4x TL Lazorbacks fire at the Stalker and the Royal Barge, then Bjorn & 2 Ven Dreads fire plasma into the Immortals, followed by 3x units of ML Long Fangs firing into the Immortals. There should be no more Immortals left now, but let's say that there is one unit of Immortals left at half strength.
Turn 2: Repeat.
Turn 3: Circle the wagons and sit on a single objective. You've got no troops left, so I only have to play defense now, with a SW gunline list. Best of luck!

However, I know that SW are arguably the strongest army now, and aside from Bjorn & the Venerables, my list is pretty cookie-cutter. So here's what I would do with my Necrons against your army:

Turn 1: 6x Heavy Destroyers target the Royal Barge and the Stalker. Two squads of Deathmarks + Despairtek marks two units of Immortals, VoD's there, and probably wipes a squad. 6x Lanceteks (in 3 Immortals units) fire at any of your Immortals that survived the Deathmarks. You should only have one or two units of Immortals now. Let's say two. I Solar Pulse on your turn.
Turn 2: 6x Heavy Destroyers and 4x Destroyers shoot your remaining Immortals. You have no troops left, so I only have to play defense now and continue to kite your army with my superior range, and Solar Pulse on your turn one more time. Oh, and without that Stalker, your anti-tank is now gone. best of luck dealing with my CCB and 2x Annihilation barges

The point I'm trying to make is that the list doesn't have enough anti-tank, and its really strong killer unit is too defensively soft and just doesn't have the range to become a potent threat until your opponent has had enough time to remove the more serious threats. You need your army to be able to hit hard and all at once, or else target prioritization is just too easy for your opponent.

I dunno, in a 2000 pt game, I could see 5 Lords with Scythe and Scarabs, maybe one with an Orb, assaulting out of a Ghost Ark on Turn 2. It'd be swanky. 330 points is expensive, but if it's backed up by Anrakyr doing his thing and Scarabs, D-Lord w\ Wraiths, Triarch Stalker...

A 5 Mindshackle Scarab Lord unit would *murder* any small-ish sized assault unit. Like 5 TH/SS guys. (Anrakyr can pop the ride for 'em)

McNinja,
I don't see it working out well.

In my opinion, Necrons come in one of two flavors... very aggressive or very resilient. I can't see that unit fitting either role.

Beyond what the others have already said, a royal Court only benefits from the AV of the ghost ark, and none of the reasons it costs more than a razorback.

The unit is moderately resistant to shooting, and puts out good firepower.

But it's slow, short ranged, and just as prone to being swept as anything else in the army since Staves give no CC benefit at all for some reason.

You are heavily depending on that Ark to shelter the Court from melee and shooting, but you are going to end up in melta range to do anything with the Court.

I think, in essence, you are basically buying Destroyer-equivalents once you factor the Ghost Ark cost into things. And the Destroyers are more resilient, faster, and longer ranged. A full 10 + Ark is 415. You get 10 Destroyers for that.

I think the lack of power weapons kills this idea. Having 5 Crypteks with Lances in an Ark is a more attractive option, imo.

The Grog wrote:The unit is moderately resistant to shooting, and puts out good firepower.

But it's slow, short ranged, and just as prone to being swept as anything else in the army since Staves give no CC benefit at all for some reason.

You are heavily depending on that Ark to shelter the Court from melee and shooting, but you are going to end up in melta range to do anything with the Court.

I think, in essence, you are basically buying Destroyer-equivalents once you factor the Ghost Ark cost into things. And the Destroyers are more resilient, faster, and longer ranged. A full 10 + Ark is 415. You get 10 Destroyers for that.

I think the lack of power weapons kills this idea. Having 5 Crypteks with Lances in an Ark is a more attractive option, imo.

One thing to keep in mind is any one of the staves on the lords can be swapped for a PW for no cost. So, keeping some what with what he's going with here, swap a couple staves on the lords for PWs, and upgrade one to a WS with RO and MSS. Now your looking at just 55 points more but you've got 4(6) ST 5 PW attacks and 2(3) ST 7 PW attacks, plus an MSS and the teks/lords all nabbing 4+ RP. You'd have to play pretty aggressive early though too make sure your GA doesn't get popped before you're in comfortable range, but even with the weapon swaps your still looking at 21 ST5 AP 3s coming out of the unit, you're still laying down a MSU MeQ a turn even if they are in cover, not bad at all.

In an AV 13 spammer I think it's got some potential if tweaked correctly.

Depending on the deployment, you should be able to charge on turn two. If you're spearhead and your opponent has dudes on the same corner you do, you only actually start 16" away.

Anyway, hop in, 12", next turn, 12", disembark 2", charge 6".

You need other threats on the board should this not work out so well. :-)

oooo... I know. You have Zandrekh in the Ark with the court, then Obyron ports a unit of Lychguard with shields (or something) after the Ark moves up? Huzzah! Lots of scary stuff right there. Then you could actually take destroyers and have them not suck! *laughs* *laughs at the terrible destroyers*

McNinja wrote: There's putting all of your eggs in one basket, then there's putting a few eggs in a basket and surrounding it with other baskets with eggs in them. And all of the baskets have guns, too.

While I don't particularly agree with your analysis of the unit, I do love this quote, and it would get sigged if I had the room

ShadarLogoth wrote:
One thing to keep in mind is any one of the staves on the lords can be swapped for a PW for no cost. So, keeping some what with what he's going with here, swap a couple staves on the lords for PWs, and upgrade one to a WS with RO and MSS. Now your looking at just 55 points more but you've got 4(6) ST 5 PW attacks and 2(3) ST 7 PW attacks, plus an MSS and the teks/lords all nabbing 4+ RP. You'd have to play pretty aggressive early though too make sure your GA doesn't get popped before you're in comfortable range, but even with the weapon swaps your still looking at 21 ST5 AP 3s coming out of the unit, you're still laying down a MSU MeQ a turn even if they are in cover, not bad at all.

In an AV 13 spammer I think it's got some potential if tweaked correctly.

Every staff traded cuts your shooting substantially, and shooting is the whole point of the unit. At this point, you aren't even doing more damage than the 10-destroyer equivalent while being shorter ranged, slower, and unable to split fire.

The Grog wrote:

ShadarLogoth wrote:
One thing to keep in mind is any one of the staves on the lords can be swapped for a PW for no cost. So, keeping some what with what he's going with here, swap a couple staves on the lords for PWs, and upgrade one to a WS with RO and MSS. Now your looking at just 55 points more but you've got 4(6) ST 5 PW attacks and 2(3) ST 7 PW attacks, plus an MSS and the teks/lords all nabbing 4+ RP. You'd have to play pretty aggressive early though too make sure your GA doesn't get popped before you're in comfortable range, but even with the weapon swaps your still looking at 21 ST5 AP 3s coming out of the unit, you're still laying down a MSU MeQ a turn even if they are in cover, not bad at all.

In an AV 13 spammer I think it's got some potential if tweaked correctly.

Every staff traded cuts your shooting substantially, and shooting is the whole point of the unit. At this point, you aren't even doing more damage than the 10-destroyer equivalent while being shorter ranged, slower, and unable to split fire.

Well, it's one more 5/3 shot. But it's not slower (at least till the GA gets popped), and it's much more resilient, and it's capable of handling itself quite well in CC, something the destroyers won't do as well in (although with their range that generally isn't an issue). In fact, the unit has enough punch to get stuck dep into enemy lines. It's a tad pricey, but I think it would do well if used properly.

loreweaver wrote:
oooo... I know. You have Zandrekh in the Ark with the court, then Obyron ports a unit of Lychguard with shields (or something) after the Ark moves up? Huzzah! Lots of scary stuff right there. ...

Oh!!! That's mean. I'd go with shields on the Lychguards... being able to reflect anything nasty back at the enemy.

Namsor Zandrekh
Vanguard Obyron

1 orblord to go with Lychguards and Obyron
4 scythelords to hijack the Ghost Ark

10 Lychguard w/Hyperphase Sword and Dispersion Shields

5 warriors w/Pulsetek (just because) and Ghost Ark
5 more warriors to flavor (just so you have a basic army)

That's 1500 points of face smashing.

What do you all think of changing to a Night Scythe instead of a Ghost Ark?

5 crypteks come out to 125 points and let loose an awful lot of space marine death. The Ghost Ark is doing an awful lot more for it's points when it is turning a warrior squad marching along near it into an untenable mess your opponent would rather not invest fire into (and assault if accompanied by any number of mindshacklers).

Now that we are done discussing the highlights, this sort of tactic is very good at gunning down infantry, but that is something you shouldn't have to be investing in tricks for as necrons. It also takes some weird coordination and as many have said, brings you to places that might be a little risky (less so with warriors or arks running various sorts of interference for the other).

The poor necrons also have a really loaded HQ selection (and fast attack but that doesn't matter here). You will find choices in this section ripple through your list and determine what it can do efficiently. Some idiot decided that cramming your efficient firing solution into one of these army-mutating, flavour slots would be a good idea, and so we've got some non decisions.

I commend you for trying to do it though! I love the idea. It's also just a really slow option. Frustrating ain't it? It's the little things that add up. Lots of cumbersome little problems.. so we end up with a lot of raider and longfang spam in vogue, simple things without complication!

If you figure out a way to let those staves of light loose on marines while consistently popping transports let us all know! It sounds like a really neat trick!
Very close to new destroyers though.

Hey, just wanted to put my .02 in on these two things:

40kenthusiast wrote:...I like the look of the Necron Royal Court played without upgrades. 5 Necron Lords + 5 Crypteks comes to 300 points. ...

I like the Idea, I've been playing around with 5 scythlords with weaves and mss and a single orb and an overlord (scyth, weave, mss). 3 games in I feel it's amazing in cc, perhaps too good. These 6 guys on average wipe whatever squad they are fighting the turn they charge out of an ark (sometimes assisted by whip wraiths). Normally I'd be all for that, except that leaves them vulnerable to anything that ignores armor, dropping your squad to half if they all die (with the orb half will get up even if the entire squad is wiped out). If you made them about a quarter as good (not removing mss, thats what keeps them alive in cc from what I've seen, mss any ic, mc, or pw in the squad, not so they kill themselves, but so they don't kill you as you eat face) they might end up winning combat on your opp assault phase leaving you free from shooting.

I have yet to find a way to make them less effective without totally gimping them, so I started looking into Lychguard, Slightly less killy with sword and board, but that was the whole Idea, and you get more of them.

Then I saw this:

Anpu-adom wrote:

loreweaver wrote:
oooo... I know. You have Zandrekh in the Ark with the court, then Obyron ports a unit of Lychguard with shields (or something) after the Ark moves up? Huzzah! Lots of scary stuff right there. ...

Oh!!! That's mean. I'd go with shields on the Lychguards... being able to reflect anything nasty back at the enemy.

Namsor Zandrekh
Vanguard Obyron

1 orblord to go with Lychguards and Obyron
4 scythelords to hijack the Ghost Ark

10 Lychguard w/Hyperphase Sword and Dispersion Shields

5 warriors w/Pulsetek (just because) and Ghost Ark
5 more warriors to flavor (just so you have a basic army)

That's 1500 points of face smashing.

What do you all think of changing to a Night Scythe instead of a Ghost Ark?

I'm sorry, but I'm stealing this list (sort of). I play at 2k, so I had to make some alterations, but It solves my too killy problem, and the getting them where they need to go problem, as well as after I up it to 2k some at problems. If anyone cares here is the alteration:

Zahndrekh
Obyron
5x Lords (1 orb, 6x mss, 6x weaves, 6x scyths)
10x Lychguard with sword and board
10x warriors with ark
10x warriors
doomsday ark
10x scarabs
2x spyders
2k even

My thinking for this is if he kills the scarabs he will loose a turn of shooting at my big stuff, if he ignores the scarabs, he looses a lot of tanks. Also the doomsday ark is a little bit of horde deterrent. I contemplated dropping Zahndrekh because there's a bit of a chance that my lychguard will be lost on my half of the table with no transport if my opp gets lucky and charges, but the thought of giving those ds Lychguard counter charge or furious charge (depending of course) was too good to pass up.