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Morris782 wrote:
This may have been covered in 158 pages of this thread, but I can't seem to find it:

Regarding MSS. Fear and Challenges both take place at "The start of the fight phase" so I am looking at wording for a priority. I figure since this is War40k it has already been argued to bits so maybe someone has a quick answer. Do I challenge the same turn I charge, and can I perform the fear test the same turn I challenge? Or do these occur on subsequent turns prior to fight phases? Currently we are playing where challenge is issued after charge before combat, but since MSS requires a challenge to provide fear, I am not sure if I am considered to have that at the start of the same phase I charge in. In short, can I charge -> challenge -> fear -> fight in the same turn using MSS?

If someone can clear that up it would be fantastic, I have a few opponents (Tau Farsight and Space Wolves) who have assault heavy Warlords and it would be nice to break their brains with bots.

Things that happen at the same time (for example, "at the start of the fight phase") happen in the order chosen by the player whose turn it is. So, if you charge in and assault, you can choose to declare the challenge and then have them take the Fear test. However, if you get charged, they will choose the opposite order. At least, that's how the GW FAQs explain it.

Also, keep note that Space Wolves have ATSKNF, which means they ignore Fear tests. Fear is a pretty bad rule against any army that's not Tau.

No, but seriously,
- Destroyer Lord with his T6 instant death-proof-ness
- Overlord with his rerollable RP 1s
Who is the better choice for Warlord (with 2+ Nightmare Shroud) in the aforementioned Double Destroyer Cult Decurion (DDCD) setup?
Still need to add Veil and Shroud (absolutely required) and anything to round out the points (ResOrbs, Voidreaper, Solar Staff, etc.), but who gets what depends on who the better Warlord would be.

I would tend to say that the Overlord is the better choice. That way you can use the inherent durability of the DLords as sponges to soak wounds without worrying about StW.

But if you make one of the DLords the warlord, you can use the other one the same way. That's probably better, overall. And then you can use the Overlord's better melee profile to eat challenges and what not.

Eh, the sponge Destroyer Lord can eat challenges just fine. Leave the other two for squad clean up.

HI all I am very slowly reading my way through the thread, I just started Necrons (I impulsively bought a Necron Battleforce on eBay for like $100) so all I really know is that the Decurion is great, the Wraiths are great, and playing the two together is likely to lose friends

How are Annihilation Barges (this may have been answered elsewhere, but 159 pages is a lot to read through!) and the Doomsday Ark? I like how they look and like the idea of a lot of firepower, so I'm thinking of an Annihilation Nexus as one of my formations, and probably a Judicator Battalion as the other (love how the Stalker looks, and the Praetorians look pretty cool too). I don't want to go TOO much into the cheese category since my GW plays strong, but not crushingly WAAC, lists from what I can see; like I haven't seen a Skyhammer, Knight spam or a War Convocation or Scatbike spam).

I kinda want to focus on two large Warrior squads as a bulwark, because I like very resilient gameplay. Backed up with an Annihilation Nexus and a Judicator Battalion? 10-man Immortal squad in a Night Scythe, maybe? I really don't know what works and what doesn't beyond Decurion. I really do like how Wraiths look but I hear they are insanely OP so I'm not sure of using them, and if I did maybe just 3 and not 6.

I'd rather take the Ark than a Barge now. I get the hit was necessary, but they're not much now for 120 points.

Taking three of those formations can be mildly valid though outside of facing IK lists.

Annihilation Barges got hit hard by the change to Tesla from 6th --> 7th (not getting extra hits on Snapshots). The price change was just fair. The combo took one of our best units to slightly better than junk. Doomsday Ark was seriously overcosted in the 6th codex. It is better now, but still sufferes from the fact that you can't fire the main gun if you've jinked (and not in the best profile if you've moved at all). Throw in C'Tan and the Monolith, there isn't much in the Necron Heavy Support that is worth taking in a CAD. I haven't played the Annihilation Nexus, but allowing the Barges defend for the Ark helps there... I just don't know how much.
Judicator is good. Harvest is good. Destroyer Cult is good.
For fun, I've been playing with 3 units of Flayed Ones (and Imotekh)... It's fun, flavorful and decently powerful. My community has a lot of new players, so there isn't a lot of WAAC here either.

To be fair, how often would an Ark move with that range?

Wayniac wrote:
I really do like how Wraiths look but I hear they are insanely OP so I'm not sure of using them, and if I did maybe just 3 and not 6.

... people still consider Wraiths "OP"?
How, exactly?
They're just a tarpit unit.

 skoffs wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I really do like how Wraiths look but I hear they are insanely OP so I'm not sure of using them, and if I did maybe just 3 and not 6.

... people still consider Wraiths "OP"?
How, exactly?
They're just a tarpit unit.

Have no idea, just what I hear that Wraiths are one of the "problem" units with Necrons along with the Decurion itself.

 Anpu-adom wrote:
Annihilation Barges got hit hard by the change to Tesla from 6th --> 7th (not getting extra hits on Snapshots). The price change was just fair. The combo took one of our best units to slightly better than junk. Doomsday Ark was seriously overcosted in the 6th codex. It is better now, but still sufferes from the fact that you can't fire the main gun if you've jinked (and not in the best profile if you've moved at all). Throw in C'Tan and the Monolith, there isn't much in the Necron Heavy Support that is worth taking in a CAD. I haven't played the Annihilation Nexus, but allowing the Barges defend for the Ark helps there... I just don't know how much.
Judicator is good. Harvest is good. Destroyer Cult is good.
For fun, I've been playing with 3 units of Flayed Ones (and Imotekh)... It's fun, flavorful and decently powerful. My community has a lot of new players, so there isn't a lot of WAAC here either.

I definitely want some flayed ones at some point, but i'm very unimpressed with the resin kits. If they bring out some metal ones for made to order, I will be all over that. Otherwise i'll just put a unit together off eBay once all my other stuff is painted.

Egyptian Space Zombie wrote:

 Anpu-adom wrote:
Annihilation Barges got hit hard by the change to Tesla from 6th --> 7th (not getting extra hits on Snapshots). The price change was just fair. The combo took one of our best units to slightly better than junk. Doomsday Ark was seriously overcosted in the 6th codex. It is better now, but still sufferes from the fact that you can't fire the main gun if you've jinked (and not in the best profile if you've moved at all). Throw in C'Tan and the Monolith, there isn't much in the Necron Heavy Support that is worth taking in a CAD. I haven't played the Annihilation Nexus, but allowing the Barges defend for the Ark helps there... I just don't know how much.
Judicator is good. Harvest is good. Destroyer Cult is good.
For fun, I've been playing with 3 units of Flayed Ones (and Imotekh)... It's fun, flavorful and decently powerful. My community has a lot of new players, so there isn't a lot of WAAC here either.

I definitely want some flayed ones at some point, but i'm very unimpressed with the resin kits. If they bring out some metal ones for made to order, I will be all over that. Otherwise i'll just put a unit together off eBay once all my other stuff is painted.

I've built my 30 flayed ones out of warriors. Rough torn paper strips attached with cyanoacrylate glue makes great flesh. Hand blades come off various weapons. I've posted some pictures on my P&M blog.

Wayniac wrote:

 skoffs wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I really do like how Wraiths look but I hear they are insanely OP so I'm not sure of using them, and if I did maybe just 3 and not 6.

... people still consider Wraiths "OP"?
How, exactly?
They're just a tarpit unit.

Have no idea, just what I hear that Wraiths are one of the "problem" units with Necrons along with the Decurion itself.

They're a problem unit for dealing with problem units.
(they're fast, hard to kill, and can hold deathstars without hit-and-run for the entire game... but they're not all that killy themselves. People just think they are. Use that to your advantage. Ie. "Oh no! I've brought Wraiths! They're soooo horrible! You better focus your entire army on them and completely ignore everything else I've got! ... ... ... btw, my Destroyers have just wiped out that unit... ... ... but OH NO, HERE COMES THE WRAITHS!!"

 skoffs wrote:

Have no idea, just what I hear that Wraiths are one of the "problem" units with Necrons along with the Decurion itself.

They're a problem unit for dealing with problem units.
(they're fast, hard to kill, and can hold deathstars without hit-and-run for the entire game... but they're not all that killy themselves. People just think they are. Use that to your advantage. Ie. "Oh no! I've brought Wraiths! They're soooo horrible! You better focus your entire army on them and completely ignore everything else I've got! ... ... ... btw, my Destroyers have just wiped out that unit... ... ... but OH NO, HERE COMES THE WRAITHS!!"

Is the command barge a better HQ choice then a regular Overlord? I just read chariot and it`s pretty good. On longe range weapon you chose if he hit your character or the vehicle and on close combat weapon they have to pen armor 13 since you always count front armor.

It`s 55 pts more and I play 1250 games more often then not so I'm thinking really hard over that one.

Honestly I hadn't used the CCB since the 6th codex when it could do that bad ass sweep thing. Yet Sammael is allowed to in a bloody Land Speeder...

Yeah, the good old days of 6th ed when you could play 4 decked out CCBs, 4 ABs and a couple of scythes, etc and just wreck face...those were good times...

I used mine at a GT last month. It was quite fun, in every game except Eldar it did something useful (though in the Tau game, "something useful" was just soak fire from the Stormsurges and do a couple wounds before Stomps).

Like the rest of our codex, it's amazing against mid- to low-tier codices and only moderate against top-tier books (and useless against Eldar). If you want another fast moving threat, it's actually pretty solid.

Actually I take that remark about Eldar back. It's really good at killing Warp Spiders and harrying Scatbikes. I just played against a Warp Hunter and it got D'd out immediately... because d3+1 D shots that don't need line of sight is balanced. The Invisible Wraithknight didn't help.

Actually just feth playing against Eldar.

Seriously, it needs the sweep attacks back. If fething Sammael can do it on a Land Speeder there's no reason that an Overlord with a long sharp stick can't do the same thing.

Hello fellow undead-space zombie-robot-laser shooting- loving friends! I'm a necron player for quite some time, although I stopped playing at the begining of 6th edition! I'm trying to collect as much information as I can to start playing again asap!

First of I'd like to start with a realisation/question. As I see it right now, at least the way it looks after some research, is that the only way to play necrons competitively is the Destroyer Cult+Canoptek Harvest (maybe some random Judicator Battalion instead, every now and then). All the lists I've seen follow the exact same idea: Reclamation Legion->Canoptek Harvest->Destroyer Cult+ either a lychguard unit or an orikan-destrolord-royal court deathstar.

Is there really no other way to do Necrons competitively? I feel so trapped only having to play Decurion. If there's any ideas out there I'd love to talk about them and I'll throw in mine after I see some interest!

Besides this, I have a question: Is there any limits, like being able to field each formation only 1 time? For example, is the Double D-Cult allowed to be played? If not, why?

Thank you for your time, will be back with a new post soonish with some personal ideas about necrons and list-crafting!


EDIT: If I were not to play Decurion and did CAD. In that case, if I field a D-Cult it would cut off all my 3 FA slots and I would not be able to field more wraiths. Am I understanding this right?


EDIT 2: I'm seeing a lot of units/things that are not inside the Codex. Is forgeworld now allowed in 40k tournaments? If so, where can I find the rules for that?

Also, I was thinking for some TAU allies to improve my shooting. Any suggestions (I have no deep knowledge about the new TAU codex yet)

EDIT 3: In a standard decurion (dcult+canoptek harvest) list, the DestroLord would join a unit of 10 warriors, not the Wraiths, correct?

EDIT 4: What does ITC mean, is it a rulepack or what?

EDIT 5: In the D-cult formation, can I have 2 Heavy Destroyers or do they also have to be 3 models at least?
SORRY FOR THE STUPID AMMOUNT OF QUESTIONS.

Well there's the Pylonstar. That's still pretty darn good. Not what I use though.

Lot to unpack here, first yes our most competitive builds are almost all variations on Reclamation legion/Destroyer Cult/Canoptek harvest, that's not too weird though because every army has a best build and that just happens to be ours. However it's probably worth noting that being competitive at your FLGS and competing with top ranked players to win big tournaments have very different levels of optimization required. Necrons have a good codex, which lets you get away with stuff at the local level, for instance I like my Monolith, and did a lovely job painting my Nightbringer, so I'll bring them when I can and still have a fairly good shot at winning. At tournaments all bets are off, I'll have a RL/DC/CH with either a lychstar or an Orikanstar to fend off the inevitable super friends list.

Even within the RL/DC/CH orthodoxy, there is a lot of wiggle room, one of our top players used a large number of tomb blades and opted for a Judicator battalion instead of a D-Cult. I've also seen list with deathmarks, and the occasional nightbringer. The thing all top builds have in common is they take a flexible approach, Necrons aren't going to be the best at anything we do (except being tough), so when we find ourselves outmatched in an area we can fall back on our other strengths. Fighting a CC heavy army, maul them with shooting, fighting a shooting heavy army, have three units in CC on the second turn. That's why while it's legal to take a double D-Cult (or harvest) you rarely see it in practice. If we focus too much on one aspect and run into an army stronger than us in that aspect, we are going to get rolled.

ITC is the International tournament circuit, which provides FAQs and points tracking for people inclined to participate. It's run by frontline gaming, and is a kind of odd advertising for them. They are somewhat controversial, in that their FAQs have sometimes included changes that weren't popular, but by enlarge I personally think it's good for the hobby. In the case of Necron armies the only real thing to worry about is that they limit sub formations to two per army, So you couldn't take 3 harvest to an ITC event. So you couldn't do the dumb stuff you didn't want to do anyway.

A decurion is made up of sub formations, and a CAD is made up of units, and they don't mix. So you couldn't take a Harvest or a D-Cult in a CAD, you could take all of the models, but they wouldn't get the bonuses from the formation.

Most Forgeworld is allowed in ITC, but outside of that it's dependent on the tournament. There is one store owner locally that doesn't allow them in tournaments because it's lost revenue for FLGS, most don't care though.

Necrons are the codex that uses allies the least, we don't have any holes in our roster, and the benefits from running an all necron force are quite good, so it hurts that allies can't benefit from them. It's also the reason you don't see necrons used as an ally much, some of our coolest abilities come from our formations, and without them we are Ok but not great. With that said I've been planning on trying out a Chaos sorc and some 1k sons so I can have a psychic phase, well that and the whole egyptian themes mesh pretty well.

In a standard RL/DC/CH the D-Lord and the O-Lord will join with the wraiths, veil of darkness near the enemies, and then tank an armies worth of fire power for a turn. Then they can split up to go after multiple targets, or stick together if there is something particularly nasty to take down. Same general idea if you take a royal court to get orikan, though you're much more likely to stick together. The final permutation is if you take lychguard, which is the way I tend to run, you have the lords join up with the lychguard, and then have both the lychstar and wraiths presented for a turn two charge. Drives Tau crazy.

 Grimgold wrote:
A decurion is made up of sub formations, and a CAD is made up of units, and they don't mix. So you couldn't take a Harvest or a D-Cult in a CAD, you could take all of the models, but they wouldn't get the bonuses from the formation.

It kinda sounds like you're saying you can't take Formations with a Combined Arms Detachment...

The only ally Necrons really take is an Assassin or Inquisitor.

 skoffs wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
A decurion is made up of sub formations, and a CAD is made up of units, and they don't mix. So you couldn't take a Harvest or a D-Cult in a CAD, you could take all of the models, but they wouldn't get the bonuses from the formation.

It kinda sounds like you're saying you can't take Formations with a Combined Arms Detachment...

That's exactly what I'm saying, A formation is a special type of detachment with specific requirements as to what it can consist of. It is not a part of another detachment, unless that detachment is a mixed type detachment (EG: Aspect host, Decurion, etc.), which are made up of a mix of detachments and possibly units.

Here is how an army is arranged in 7th...
You use detachments. There are many detachments, CAD, Allied, many codex specific detachments (like the decurion), and every Formation is its own Detachment.
ITC limits you to 3 Detachments. You can:
Take a CAD (Detachment #1)
Harvest (detachment #2)
Destroyer Cult (Detachment #3)
None of the rules of the detachments spread outside of the detachment. For example, the CAD gives Troops the Objective Secured Rule. Troops that you take outside of the CAD do not get that benefit, even if they are the same Army/Faction.

Anpu-adom beat me to it, but yes, you most definitely can take formations with a CAD (as outlined above).
Further more, the rules that apply to said factions are going to be in affect no matter when fielded (so Destroyers still get Extermination Protocols and Praetorians still get Move Through Cover, etc). This applies even when they're fielded in non Necron lists.
The thing they DON'T get is 4+ RP, as that's a benefit of the Decurion so only get that when fielded as an auxiliary choice for it (much like the aforementioned Objective Secured only extending to CAD Troops).

Yeah... Necrons really want to use the decurion, and there is almost no reason not to use it. The only reason I can see is to get some objective secured and have a cheap Destroyer Lord in a death star. I've run a Decurion paired with a CAD consisting of said Destroyer Lord and 2 units of 5 Tesla Immortals.

 Anpu-adom wrote:
Here is how an army is arranged in 7th...
You use detachments. There are many detachments, CAD, Allied, many codex specific detachments (like the decurion), and every Formation is its own Detachment.
ITC limits you to 3 Detachments. You can:
Take a CAD (Detachment #1)
Harvest (detachment #2)
Destroyer Cult (Detachment #3)
None of the rules of the detachments spread outside of the detachment. For example, the CAD gives Troops the Objective Secured Rule. Troops that you take outside of the CAD do not get that benefit, even if they are the same Army/Faction.

I did understand that far. The question is, if I were to field a Destroyer Cult would it take up the 3 FA slots from the CAD? Or would I be able to field more FA units (eg wraiths)?

The second question is: In the Destroyer Cult, the limitations are that I have to field 3 destroyers at least per unit. Must the Heavy Destroyers be 3 as well, or can I field 2 Heavy Destroyers in the Destroyer Cult Formation?

Thank you for the answers!

Also, something I only came to realise now.. Our warriors/immortals are not scoring units due to the Decurion? :/

 necr0n wrote:


I did understand that far. The question is, if I were to field a Destroyer Cult would it take up the 3 FA slots from the CAD? Or would I be able to field more FA units (eg wraiths)?

They are two separate things.

Think of it like a series of boxes. Your army is one big box. Inside that box is a series of smaller boxes. The CAD is one such box, and the Destroyer Cult is another. Units that go in one do nothing to the other. So your three units of Destroyers in the Cult exist only in that box, which is part of the bigger army box, but have no bearing on the CAD box. The CAD box has 3 FA slots, and none of them are used, because the Destroyers are in a separate box.

The second question is: In the Destroyer Cult, the limitations are that I have to field 3 destroyers at least per unit. Must the Heavy Destroyers be 3 as well, or can I field 2 Heavy Destroyers in the Destroyer Cult Formation?

That is... a good question actually, that I never thought about. We've always ruled it that the restriction was only for the Destroyer units and not the Heavy Destroyer units because they're different entries, so feel free to run 1-3 Heavy Destroyers.

Also, something I only came to realise now.. Our warriors/immortals are not scoring units due to the Decurion? :/

Welcome to 7th edition. Everything Scores, unless the entry says they don't (Tyranid Spores, for instance, can never score).

Everything scores, but some things score better than others. That's what Objective Secured is.