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A friend of mine posted the following message on another 40k forum. He didn't get a whole lot of responses, so I figured I'd repost it here for him to see what the folks at dakkadakka have to say about it.

"I played a game last night against Necrons, and all I can say is Imotekh is crazy. I don't like the word cheesy, but wow. I won first turn, but he stole the initiative as I found out he does it on a 4+. He then implemented night fighting rules so 90% of my army could not shoot, and then did his lighting strike attack.

I was playing a balanced army, basically 2 platoons with 3 x 10 man squads and 2 x heavy weapon squads each. I had 2 vanilla LR tanks and 2 hell hounds, a valkyrie and a squad of storm troppers. With all the units in my army he rolled his required 6 several times each turn. In the last turn, (game only lasted 3 turns) he took out 2 hell hounds, blew the turret of a LR and killed 14 guardsman including all but 1 of a command squad.

Bottom line, this single character, not only prevented me from shooting most of my units throughout the game, he took out a total of 700 pts by the end of the game. The game was 2000 pts so he took out a huge chunk of my army!

Have many people on here went up against Imotekh? If so what tactics did you use? Only thing I can think of is rushing up a hellhound with a spot light and trying to wipe the unit out with concentrated fire. Not so sure even that would work so any input would be very much appreciated. Opponent was a good buddie so I am sure I will see lots more of this royal pain and the Ogryn's bottom!"

I'm the friend of his who played the necrons. It was a 2k point game, and I admit my dice were on fire when it came to the lightning rolls Oh and he already realized that he forgot he had searchlights on his vehicles (I didn't know they came standard now).

Anyway, any advice you could give him would be greatly appreciated.

Full reserve and give Imotekh the middle finger.

If you're running an Astropath, which is a fantastic idea in almost every case btw, your units should come on T2 on a 3+. After the first turn, it's 50/50 on whether or not Imotekh can sustain night fighting. Once he fizzles out, no more night fighting shenanegans and no more S8 everything-on-the-table nonsense.


Basically, just wait out the storm.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:Full reserve and give Imotekh the middle finger.

If you're running an Astropath, which is a fantastic idea in almost every case btw, your units should come on T2 on a 3+. After the first turn, it's 50/50 on whether or not Imotekh can sustain night fighting. Once he fizzles out, no more night fighting shenanegans and no more S8 everything-on-the-table nonsense.


Basically, just wait out the storm.

Most people seem to be packing a Chronometron with Imotekh now. It's not a 50/50 either on turn 2, it's a 3+. He just has to roll higher than the Turn Number.


What else is he running? Imotekh is only part of the list.

Pmslol. He should just be glad you aren't using a solar pulse cryptek as well as chrono+ Imotech. Out of curiosity, what was the necron list?

With regards to tactics, I'd suggest going full reserve where possible, and taking as many battle cannons as possible. Against necrons in general, DONT LEAVE YOUR TANKS STATIONARY WITHOUT BUBBLE WRAP! Scarabs and warscythes have an easy time as is, no point in making it easier for them.

You should probably try to be in cover as much as possible as this should somewhat ease the effects of the lightning. Assuming by good fortune you get first turn, make use of smoke launchers! 4+ cover makes your tanks more survivable, and infantry in cover should last a bit longer too. Use your battle cannons to try to eradicate the squad immo is attached to, thereby making it easier to snipe the bugger if he gets back up.

Suicide blobs may accomplish the same thing as a battle cannon assuming they survive long enough to cross the board.

Whoops... I guess my list would have helped. Here's the list I was using.

Anrakyr - 165
Imotek - 225
Harbinger of Despair w/ Abyssal Staff, Veil of Darkness - 60
Harbinger of Destruction w/ Eldritch Lance, Solar Pulse - 55
Harbinger of Eternity w/ Aeon Staff, Chronometron - 40
Harbinger of Eternity w/ Aeon Staff, Chronometron - 40
Harbinger of the Storm w/ Voltaic Staff, Lightning Field - 35
Necron Lord w/ Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Resurrection Orb - 90

5 Death Marks - 95

10 Immortals w/ Gauss Flayers – 170
10 Immortals w/ Tesla Carbines – 170
10 Immortals w/ Tesla Carbines – 170

4 Wraiths w/ 3 Whip Coils, 1 Particle Caster – 175
4 Scarabs - 60
4 Scarabs - 60

Annihilation Barge - 90
Monolith – 200
2 Tomb Spyders – 100

Imotekh, a chronotek and a lance tek go with the gauss immortals, while one tesla squad has Anrakyr, a chronotek and a veiltek, while the other has the res orb lord and stormtek. Deathmarks are used for command squad assassination, barge was for taking out the heavy weapon teams (which it did very well).

Two words:
Artillery, artillery.

Sure, you won't get to subtract your BS from the arty roll, but 1/3 times you hit and if you have 3 Manticores you will have plenty of juicey targets. The odds are good they wont get thunderbolted either.

Simply adding an Astropath can make it much less of a headache for any list to take on Imotekh, I think meching up might help cause you're gonna be walking on instead of deploying but the Astropath can help in a lot of ways without even meching up. You want to go second if you're going to use an astropath to walk on so Imotekh can't seize the initiative because you want to go second anyway, so you still get a 50% chance of going second instead of a 25% chance of going first, this is assuming your opponent now wants to force you to go first because they're the one who posted the thread and is presumably reading this. You want to go second because Imotekh's power happens during his shooting phase, and being fully reserved he doesn't get a shooting phase until the top of turn three.

Not only that but while rolling a twin linked 3+ and then a twin linked 4+ for the lightening will probably have it continue it still has a fair chance of ending before you even arrive on the board. If it's ended then you're happy, you get 2/3's of your army from anywhere along your board edge for precise placement of firing distances. So now if there's still lightening most of your forces at least have a 4+ cover save, infantry out of cover can use the Incoming! order to get a 5+ save and if they're in area cover they can get a 2+ cover save with the order, and Get Back in the Fight can bring them up the next turn. So after enduring a turn of lightening with mitigating cover saves to keep the lightening going your opponent needs to roll twin linked 5+. Cumulatively the chance of him succeeding on all those even with the reroll isn't very likely, albeit still possible. However seeing as the game ended at turn 3 last time, and Imotekh killed 700 points worth of your army, you'd endure 1/6 of damage you had last time with this set up (1/3 the number of turns being fired at dealing 1/2 the damage due to a 4+ cover save) and the lightening would likely dissipate before it could deal too much more damage.

Since you're playing at 2000 points, and assuming you have the models, an astropath could assist in outflanking Vendettas with plasmavets to hose off Imotekh in plasma, or an outflanking valkyrie has a spotlight for long range firepower, or Creed/Rahim outflanking a powerblob and try and take down the unit he's with. Curiously, is the Lightening considered a shooting attack? Since Imotekh is the one rolling for it can he still make the Lightening appear while locked in close combat? I realize this is more a YMDC question, but if it has an easy answer then it might make a difference, since if you can stop the lightening by locking imotekh and his unit in CC then that could be another option.

Yeah, Imhotekh gets to keep making the storm persist even in assault, it isn't a shooting attack it's just a check done at the top of every game turn.
Something I hadn't noticed until just now is the wording for not making your storm persist check isn't just that the storm ends but that '...night fighting rules cease to be in effect and are not used for the rest of the battle.' Does this mean nothing can re-initiate night fight rules, like solar pulses?

AFAIK the lightning is not any type of shooting attack - it just happens as long as you keep making the rolls for it to continue and Imotekh is alive. To stop the lightning for sure, kill Imotekh.

Solar pulses can be used to re-initiate night-fighting, but the lightning effect won't turn back on.

At least, this is my understanding of it...

IIRC the Necron codex specifies that the lightning doesn't work in night fight turns initiated by the solar pulse.

The FAQ on the GW site says that Lord of the Storm does not work in turns where a solar pulse was used to remove the effects of night fighting.

Actinium wrote:Yeah, Imhotekh gets to keep making the storm persist even in assault, it isn't a shooting attack it's just a check done at the top of every game turn.
Something I hadn't noticed until just now is the wording for not making your storm persist check isn't just that the storm ends but that '...night fighting rules cease to be in effect and are not used for the rest of the battle.' Does this mean nothing can re-initiate night fight rules, like solar pulses?

No, it is only referencing HIS night fighting rule(s). Solar pulse works as expected.

Tyr wrote:AFAIK the lightning is not any type of shooting attack - it just happens as long as you keep making the rolls for it to continue and Imotekh is alive. To stop the lightning for sure, kill Imotekh.

Solar pulses can be used to re-initiate night-fighting, but the lightning effect won't turn back on.

At least, this is my understanding of it...

That's correct, on both accounts. Though, there is still some contention about whether imotekh needs to be on the board or alive for the rules to work, considering the codex simply says "If your army includes Imotekh...." and not "If Imotekh is in play..." But, that is another discussion for another time.

Flavius Infernus wrote:IIRC the Necron codex specifies that the lightning doesn't work in night fight turns initiated by the solar pulse.

The FAQ on the GW site says that Lord of the Storm does not work in turns where a solar pulse was used to remove the effects of night fighting.

That's correct, nor will it work if you stop night fighting on your turn.

Duh, answered my own question....