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So there has been a thread focusing on Orikan's temporal snares ability coupled with a WW C'tan, but I haven't seen anyone talking about his reserve manipulation ability for an army that has a lot of Deepstrike/Fast units.

I mainly play a Blood Angels list of deepstrikers; I really enjoy reserve armies and the reactive style of picking apart at the weaknesses of an opponent's adopted strategy - a bit like playing with the black pieces in chess.

Generally you do need a bit of manipulation though to ensure you have a big impact on T2.

By taking Orikan, you do lose out on the Royal Court, and I think that may be why I haven't seen him in many builds?

Here's my 2000 points sketched out -

Orikan the Diviner.

5 Lychguard, Warscythes, Night Scythe,

5 Immortals, Tesla, Night Scythe
5 Immortals, Tesla, Night Scythe
5 Immortals, Tesla, Night Scythe
10 Warriors, Night Scythe

5 Tomb Blades
5 Tomb Blades

Monolith
Doom Scythe
Doom Scythe

Everything can deepstrike and/or is a 24" mover.

Thoughts?

It is an interesting idea, certainly worth testing. However, there are problems with it.

This list would work best if your opponent is somebody slow and has deployed waiting for you. Then you arrive with almost everything on the second turn due to the reroll and let the tesla rip. But, there are many armies that count on DS, so they will not oblige this way. It then becomes an issue of who goes first, which can go either way.

Overall, Orikan is too situational to appear in many lists. The combo with the Ctan will not work on DS armies as they are not there on the first turn. Gun lines don't need to move on the first turn, so the ability does not affect them either. He has a power weapon with reroll, but he is WS4 and S4, so nothing special. His ability to buff up is interesting but when he winds down, it can kill him, and besides, it will likely be on for just a turn or two.

A Nightscythe spam list with Orikan?
Interesting.
How exactly would you plan on using it?

(and a pro-tip: if you take Orikan, sometimes it's a good idea to stick a ChronoTek in his unit, just so you can reroll his transformation rolls... though, in your case, you'd have to work out some way to get an Overlord into the list... maybe ditch the Monolith? I mean, what was it even doing there in the first place?)

skoffs wrote:A Nightscythe spam list with Orikan?
Interesting.
How exactly would you plan on using it?

All reserve.

Where say, the Imotekh Scythe list I put up in the other thread was based upon a first turn alpha strike with scythes, this list is basically a turn two alphastrike with Scythes list.

The interesting thing with dropping your army in the bottom of turn two is that you cut out two turns of retaliation, shortened the game and will probably have more scythes left to contest enemy objectives on the 5th/6th while having aggressively targeted anything that has committed towards your own already.

I don't see a problem going up against other reserve armies with first turn. It eliminates the counter-deployment advantage Drop Pods and Deathwing Assault has, and there aren't many other armies that have some sort of manipulation that would give them an edge over your rerolls that would ensure you have numerical superiority from the start. Or in other words, I'ver never really had a problem when other armies have picked to go all reserve vs my DoA angels, and I'm pretty comfortable on how to play an army like this vs them.

The Monolith gets a lot of flak because of it's nerfs in the new codex, but all my playtesting with it it's been a good asset most of the time. It's effectively another scoring unit able to pull the necessary troops from anywhere which helps when you otherwise have 4 choices in 2000pts. It syncs up well with Tesla spam pulling in units left in reserve which don't have too difficult a time getting range on the disembark with 24" guns.

What I'm not too sure on is the Tomb Blades, Tesla seems the best choice with rerolls for extra 6's, Gauss does give the option though of being able to actually shake AV12+ which I think is a problem with this build. Heavy Destroyers were interesting but too expensive for this build I think.

A Chrono would be a nice to have, but necessitating an Overlord is such a pain in the ass. To get one I'd be looking at a Barge or a Phaeron in the Warriors for 24" Gauss shaking on the drop and probably dropping the Tomb Blades. Ultimately I'm not that invested in the Stars are Right rule to bring one in. It's still an unknowable factor for your opponent whether he will or won't pop into rage mode either way.

Another advantage to pairing Orikon with an Overlord is buying the CCB for Orikon to highjack. Can't argue with the chance to have a C'tan flying around on an Armor 13 fast vehicle with the sweeping ability, though luck has to be with you to pull it off.

Shortening the game by going full reserve generally does not fit well with the Necron playstyle. Most of the new codex is designed with the idea of grinding down the enemy by attrition which only Necrons can afford. There is a series of features that push you that way:
1) reanimation protocols, ever-living, res orb
2) ark repair for warriors
3) living metal on vehicles
4) scarab swarm from spyders
5) good saves and high toughness on many units, good invulnerable saves on critical units

As necrons, I almost always want to have a longer game, so I can outlast the enemy, and kill that last damaged vehicle that contests my objective etc. In return, the army is not as damage-dealing as others. We don't have easy, efficient access to meltas, lances, missile launchers, lascannons, etc. Many of our weapons tend to glance instead of pen, and tesla has AP-, so an additional -1 on the damage chart for vehicles. We have difficult access to massed PW, and we don't have PF.

So, cutting the game short will at best speed us to a draw.