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 necr0n wrote:
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?

Destroyer Cults can have 0-1 Heavy Destroyer units, which can consist of 1-3 Heavy Destroyers.
When people include them the typical load out is 2 Heavies.

So the "Offical" FAQ is out, I was browsing it and came across this 180 on page 15:

Q: Does a unit that is embarked on a Transport that Jinks also
count as having Jinked?
A: No.

Q: Are passengers in Jinking Transports forced to fire
Snap Shots?
A: No.

So I guess the Ghost Arc is back from the dead (hehe), and night scythes are a bit better. I think I might have to adjust my standard list again. It also strengthens the judicator battalion because you'll have more than 1 vehicle on the board now, making the stalker a little less of a target.

My immediate thoughts exactly.

Any other notable changes?
Did they take into account any of the suggestions we made on the FB post before?

[edit]
Gave it a brief skim.
Some clarification on Ghost Ark passengers-
Yes, they don't have to snapfire if the it jinked, but they do still have to if it went fast.

Q: Must the passengers of a Fast Skimmer fire Snap Shots if their Transport moved more than 6"?
A: Yes.

We'll see how the codex specific one turns out.

Nothing in here for Necrons other than that. Our army specific one wasn't even that big iirc, but we'll see if anything has changed.

It's weird because even fast skimmers have that 6" snapfire rule,You figure since fast vehicles can fire two weapons while in cruising speed, that their passengers wouldn't have to snapfire, but nope. Though in all fairness that isn't really a new change since it's RAW. I can't help but feel this was them tossing us a bone, because it's us and the dark eldar who have open topped skimmers, and only we can use them as mobile AV 13 pillboxes that can double the firepower of the people inside and jink with impunity. It's less valuable to the dark eldar because AV 10 is bolter bait.

Based on the standard Decurion which is based on killiness(yes, i said it. Destroyer lords hurt.)/toughness of wraiths and shooting of destroyers, paired with the tough as nails core army, I made a new list taking advantage of the jinking Ghost Arks (and my irrational love of tesla, even after all the nerfs). I present to you the Tesla-Cult:


Besides the wraithstar being the biggest threat (and hopefully bullet magnet), there's the D-Cult with all the sweet rerolls and 5 AV 13 Vehicles who also happen to be skimmers (for jink saves). Obviously, the Arks will be jinking just about every round and still allow the warriors to unload and move for objectives ( Arks are really improving the sluggish behaviour of Decurion -on foot- warriors.) Obviously, we're trying to avoid jinking on Annihilation Barges, but when need be, we do, it's okay, there's still more shooting going on. After all, I expect high strength/low ap shooting to be targetted towards my destroyers/wraithstar. Tell me what you think about it.

... why does the Lord have the Solar Staff?
What is he attached to?

 skoffs wrote:
... why does the Lord have the Solar Staff?
What is he attached to?

he'd clearly be attached to the Wraithstar and pop the staff for a turn of protection.

It really isn't rocket science ya know.

Explain the anticipated first three turns with this setup, if you could, please.

It's quite clear, I believe. I haven't played it yet, tbh, but it's a typical shooting army (the likes of which we all played in 5th-6th) with a bonus tarpit (actually, way more than just a tarpit) unit.

Typically, you want to get to midrange, take advantage of cover saves/jinks with your vehicles and hide your destroyers behind your own vehicles when there's no terrain available.

Use your wraiths to tarpit Deathstars. When there's no deathstars, kill the killier units. When there's no good target, try to get them in the middle and in your opponent's face just to soak up shooting.

Besides that, just use the jet pack rules, jink saves and cover saves as much as possible while you deliver quite a lot of shooting. (way more than a typical decurion for sure).

Basicly, it's a shootier version of the decurion, admittedly more fragile (although, more mobile too). With smart play and not terrible rolling, I believe it to be quite survivable too.

While it all sounds good in my head, testing has to be made. And, tbh, I also don't exactly own the meta, my knowledge is limited to just reading stuff online mostly. Feel free to make any questions or suggestions!

Generally there are two cases to bring the solar staff, first you are fighting Tau or Necrons, because the blind checks have a good chance of going through. The second being that you have a royal court and take it on a necron lord with an overlord with the nightmare shroud, so you turn one teleport behind enemy lines, use the solar staff to not get shot at, and then get your second turn charges on.

The only other thing I'd mention is that annihilation barges are so so, Because when you jink tesla no longer multi hits on a 6, you also can't shoot after moving more than 6". I've found units of tomb blades with gauss to be a fair substitute, but I imagine since you're just getting into it this is a playing with what you got list. with that in mind they work great against light armored vehicles, like rhinos, falcons, trucks, etc. No AP means they are so so against MEQ, but most other infantry should have a healthy respect for them. The trick is going to be to decide when to jink, My personal rule of thumb for CCB and other Quantum shielding units, is if it will pen on a 5 or less, you should jink, the worry is that any pen will drop the shields, and then you're really in a bad way. For Ghost Arks that will be a bit different, because they can jink without loosing much effectiveness since the passengers are not affected by the jink.

 Grimgold wrote:
Generally there are two cases to bring the solar staff, first you are fighting Tau or Necrons, because the blind checks have a good chance of going through. The second being that you have a royal court and take it on a necron lord with an overlord with the nightmare shroud, so you turn one teleport behind enemy lines, use the solar staff to not get shot at, and then get your second turn charges on.

The only other thing I'd mention is that annihilation barges are so so, Because when you jink tesla no longer multi hits on a 6, you also can't shoot after moving more than 6". I've found units of tomb blades with gauss to be a fair substitute, but I imagine since you're just getting into it this is a playing with what you got list. with that in mind they work great against light armored vehicles, like rhinos, falcons, trucks, etc. No AP means they are so so against MEQ, but most other infantry should have a healthy respect for them. The trick is going to be to decide when to jink, My personal rule of thumb for CCB and other Quantum shielding units, is if it will pen on a 5 or less, you should jink, the worry is that any pen will drop the shields, and then you're really in a bad way. For Ghost Arks that will be a bit different, because they can jink without loosing much effectiveness since the passengers are not affected by the jink.

Ι honestly just found the solar staff to be a great gimmick for any weird situations and really worth its points. I'm not using it with the teleport way, (although I'm not sure wether he can join the deathmarks so maybe I could try it?) just didn't want to invest too hard on another HQ since I already have my warlord from the Destroyer Cult. For 65 points, I get the required HQ for the CAD, an overall okay character with a pretty fun, gimmicky ability. I'm probably slinging him with the wraiths, or I could possibly try the Heavy D.s. The Annihilation Barges are not only remains of what once was, I legit actually chose them to be in my list again, they were chosen on purpose to fullfill a role. They are AV13 saturation, paired with somewhat unreliant but occasionally really good shooting. When the Barge is not jinking, you remember the firepower the Tesla Destructor brings. Basicly, what I'm hoping for is overwhelm my opponent with threats. Where he points his big guns I'm gonna jink or Solar pulse. And the rest is just going to work. If he points his big weapons on the Barges I just jink and fight back with the Destroyers and threaten with the wraiths. If he goes for Wraiths or Destroyers instead, I'm going to punish him with shooting from 3 Tesla Destructors. Again, though, this is not something I tested.

I think there's a small gap in the meta. People tend to bring more anti-light-vehicle/anti-big-troop weapons like plasma and not focus on bigger weapons that can hurt AV 13. Exept, they bring the bigger weapons too, but in smaller portions. What I'm suggesting is, I go for the jink/RP/invuln on the big weapons and let the smaller ones not be able to kill the vehicles. I know everybody knows that AV13 spam is really bad for necrons this edition, which is kind of why I think it might be a little anti-meta. Although, again there's a lot of pods with meltas going arround and only 1 unit of deathmarks wont do that much. It's just an idea I brought to the forum for discussion, I'm not suggesting it's the most competitive list.

Solar staffs are great against alpha strike armies.

I meant the first three turns with the Lord attached to the Wraiths with the Destroyer Lord.
He's going to be a slow anchor on a fast moving unit that is already plenty survivable. I'm trying to see what the plan is and whether it would be better than adding a second Destroyer Lord.

I don't know if that gap in the meta exists, not against the armies that you will have to worry about. Marines have grav, which basically functions like Gauss weapons +1, first hit they do a hull point and immobilize you, then they hit and blow you up because 1 point from the hit and a bonus hull point from the second immobilize. They don't care at all about your armor value, and your only defense is jinking.

For eldar I've yet to see an eldar army without a few bright lances, which are str 8 and treat av 13 as av 12, effectively making them las cannon equivalents for annihilation barges. Beyond that they have a lot of tricksy units like warp spiders that will get your back armor without issue, and a silly amount of Str D weapons. Tau pack enough high str firepower that even super tough units like land raiders, knights, and monoliths are pretty easy prey for them. Rip tides in particular will shred Annihilation barges like a non-issue. Every army will have melta equivalents, which will blow up an Annihilation barge on a single 4+ roll on the vehicle damage table (open topped vs. AP 1). All of these reasons are why vehicles are considered subpar in this edition, and Monstrous creatures are the kings of tough and powerful, well that and MCs get armor saves, and FnP.

 Grimgold wrote:
I don't know if that gap in the meta exists, not against the armies that you will have to worry about. Marines have grav, which basically functions like Gauss weapons +1, first hit they do a hull point and immobilize you, then they hit and blow you up because 1 point from the hit and a bonus hull point from the second immobilize. They don't care at all about your armor value, and your only defense is jinking.

For eldar I've yet to see an eldar army without a few bright lances, which are str 8 and treat av 13 as av 12, effectively making them las cannon equivalents for annihilation barges. Beyond that they have a lot of tricksy units like warp spiders that will get your back armor without issue, and a silly amount of Str D weapons. Tau pack enough high str firepower that even super tough units like land raiders, knights, and monoliths are pretty easy prey for them. Rip tides in particular will shred Annihilation barges like a non-issue. Every army will have melta equivalents, which will blow up an Annihilation barge on a single 4+ roll on the vehicle damage table (open topped vs. AP 1). All of these reasons are why vehicles are considered subpar in this edition, and Monstrous creatures are the kings of tough and powerful, well that and MCs get armor saves, and FnP.

Truth was spoken that day.

Although, I just don't like lacking so much power in the Decurion. Its shooting is really, really sub-par. I feel like the Canoptek Harvest is just not working because the 1 Spyder is just amazingly easy to die and the wraiths will just never be able to benefit from the RP. As a result, in my head Spyder+3 Scarabs are just a tax for the Wraith unit, which earns nothing by being in the formation (exept for the RP roll, which it should rarely get, due to spyder not being able to follow/dying). Then again, besides lacking any actual good shooting (please, just compare decurion to any shooting tau/eldar list) with just 2 non-TL Str9 shots and then just str5 and less, it's also not mobile at all, as to be able to play the objective game that well, because the only fast unit (tomb blades) will just die on the first round. (Well, we don't really have that many scary units for the opponent to target, so he might as well kill our only chance of winning)

So, basicly the only reason to add the Canoptek Harvest is because you want the wraiths, but the formation adds nothing to your list, you're only doing it so the rest of your army benefits from Decurion. Big, big tax. Then again, the Immortals themselves are another tax to the Decurion. So you're basicly giving up all your points to tax units in order to just buff your 20 warriors and Destroyers with better RP. In the end, you have a slow, harmless (no real shooting threats, no real assault threats exept if wraithstar, and that's just 1 unit) army who's only going to win by not dying and hoping objectives are near the deployment area. I really struggle to just fix something deadlier, even if it means reducing its toughness and reliability. I'm really, really wanting to not field Decurion, I just dislike the taxes and limitations, not to mention I don't like everyone knowing my list before I even show up at the table. But, I struggle to find a way to do it effectively. I thought high AV saturation was the way, but you're right Grav-guns and melta pods really ridicule that list(Although, that's still probably the list I'm bringing, I still want to see how it goes). And just about 1/3 of the people in the world play Marines. So, then what. In fact, I do have a small idea, I'm going to propose soonish, but I'd love to hear some more original/crazy/weird ideas even if it might not work against all armies. Maybe something that loses horribly to Marines but just is the anti-eldar list or anything out of the box. I really enjoyed the LVO 7th place Decurion with the Obelisk/Monolith/16 Deathmarks. Cheers.

For Decurions that don't rely on Wraiths and Destroyers,
You could always consider Silver Tide (loaded up on Tomb Blades and sprinkled with Flayed Ones and Deathmarks).

For non-Decurion alternatives,
The S9 spam list was pretty ridiculous.
And there's always Scarab Farm.

 skoffs wrote:
For Decurions that don't rely on Wraiths and Destroyers,
You could always consider Silver Tide (loaded up on Tomb Blades and sprinkled with Flayed Ones and Deathmarks).

For non-Decurion alternatives,
The S9 spam list was pretty ridiculous.
And there's always Scarab Farm.

What do you think about the preatorian/stalker formation to help out with silver tide?

Well, if you're taking multiple Warrior units they're not all going to be able to benefit from the Stalker(s) unless they ALL stick close by... which would be a little counter productive (plus, one or two vehicles in a 90% infantry list are not going to last long).
Yes, the AP2 of the Praetorians might come in handy in certain circumstances but the strength of the list comes from overwhelming numbers of Gauss shots. Two units of Praetorians would mean that many less Warriors. I don't know if the trade off would be worth it (someone will have to run the numbers).

Ideally a Silver Tide wants to avoid big individual units of Warriors and instead get as many units as it can on the table. That way if one unit gets engaged in combat you don't have to worry about losing a massive chunk of your shooting. With Flayed Ones there as assault deterrents it will help keep your vulnerable Warriors safer for cheap (say one FO unit for every two Warrior units). And with multiple Tomb Blade units that have more than the minimum (say 5 each?) you should be able to have them run around capturing whatever needs to be got without too much worry of losing them too easily.

The question is whether Warrior units would be fine at 10 models each, or if it'd be best to bump them each up slightly.
[edit] a quick calculation suggests 13 would be the magic number of Warriors (would require 4 wounds to be done before needing to test).

Being the case, how ridiculous would the following be?: With 114 guys on the table it's quantity over quality... that's a lot of wounds to get through, especially when they all have 4+++.
March up the table, keeping FOs between Warrior units in case something charges.
Overlord and Immortals can Veil somewhere when necessary (eg. remove some Marker Lights).
Tomb Blades do their thing.
Deathmarks are insurance.
Any glaring downsides?

 skoffs wrote:
For Decurions that don't rely on Wraiths and Destroyers,
You could always consider Silver Tide (loaded up on Tomb Blades and sprinkled with Flayed Ones and Deathmarks).

For non-Decurion alternatives,
The S9 spam list was pretty ridiculous.
And there's always Scarab Farm.

Just about 90% of all Decurions play with 2 squads of MSU warriors and 5 Immortals. Added to that are either 3 bikes, or 6. What kind of a tide is exactly 30 models. Not to mention with only 2 warriors units, you can't split fire, you can only shoot 2 targets. And, tbh, even if all of that shot a Stormsurge for 6 rounds it still probably would not die.(no real math involved)

Just because Gauss weapons wound/glace on 6s, doesn't mean that 28 gauss shots are any real threat to anything, besides a single Vehicle, with no cover save (or any other save of any kind). And if your entire "silver tide" army only shoots on a single vehicle (maybe a razorback/rhino?) and doesn't even manage to kill it, it's not like your shooting is really impressive. We called it silver tide back in 3rd edition when our army was legit couple of monoliths + 50 or so necron warriors.

There really isn't enough space in a 1850 list to fill it with warriors and the 2:1 FO units you want. (Guess why. cause you're paying the tax for decurion/canoptek harvest)

The S9 spam list is really interesting. I do like and I would perhaps play it. It would have some problems versus MSU MEQ (3~ rhinos, 3+ Razorback, 2 devs) just cause they have enough volume of fire to split shoot on every single h.destroyer.

The scarab farm is absolute trash, afaik. I don't even comment on it right now. (Although, if someone has different experience playing it or anything I'm open to discussion. My personal experience is that, it's probably one of the weakest lists necrons can bring to the table, if not the weakest)


This is the Decurion I would field if I played Decurion though.(And it's also the closest I can see Decurion getting to Silver Tide)

 necr0n wrote:
Just about 90% of all Decurions play with 2 squads of MSU warriors and 5 Immortals. Added to that are either 3 bikes, or 6. What kind of a tide is exactly 30 models. Not to mention with only 2 warriors units, you can't split fire, you can only shoot 2 targets. And, tbh, even if all of that shot a Stormsurge for 6 rounds it still probably would not die.(no real math involved)

Just because Gauss weapons wound/glace on 6s, doesn't mean that 28 gauss shots are any real threat to anything, besides a single Vehicle, with no cover save (or any other save of any kind). And if your entire "silver tide" army only shoots on a single vehicle (maybe a razorback/rhino?) and doesn't even manage to kill it, it's not like your shooting is really impressive. We called it silver tide back in 3rd edition when our army was legit couple of monoliths + 50 or so necron warriors.

There really isn't enough space in a 1850 list to fill it with warriors and the 2:1 FO units you want. (Guess why. cause you're paying the tax for decurion/canoptek harvest)
[...]
This is the Decurion I would field if I played Decurion though.(And it's also the closest I can see Decurion getting to Silver Tide

...
So you're just going to completely ignore the Decurion Silver Tide list with 114 models for 1846 that I just posted above, then?

 skoffs wrote:

 necr0n wrote:
Just about 90% of all Decurions play with 2 squads of MSU warriors and 5 Immortals. Added to that are either 3 bikes, or 6. What kind of a tide is exactly 30 models. Not to mention with only 2 warriors units, you can't split fire, you can only shoot 2 targets. And, tbh, even if all of that shot a Stormsurge for 6 rounds it still probably would not die.(no real math involved)

Just because Gauss weapons wound/glace on 6s, doesn't mean that 28 gauss shots are any real threat to anything, besides a single Vehicle, with no cover save (or any other save of any kind). And if your entire "silver tide" army only shoots on a single vehicle (maybe a razorback/rhino?) and doesn't even manage to kill it, it's not like your shooting is really impressive. We called it silver tide back in 3rd edition when our army was legit couple of monoliths + 50 or so necron warriors.

There really isn't enough space in a 1850 list to fill it with warriors and the 2:1 FO units you want. (Guess why. cause you're paying the tax for decurion/canoptek harvest)
[...]
This is the Decurion I would field if I played Decurion though.(And it's also the closest I can see Decurion getting to Silver Tide

...
So you're just going to completely ignore the Decurion Silver Tide list with 114 models for 1846 that I just posted above, then?

I did not see your edit. I do in fact like your list. I feel this is what Decurion should mostly look like. Every single one of those models benefit of the rules, there's no tax and I don't think you're missing the Destroyers shooting. Only thing is I feel wraiths would improve it a bit, cause Assault/big scary units might be a bit of a problem. The general idea is good, although there surely is room for a little shaping up/improvement. I hope you play it and post about it to tell us how it went!

Wraiths are not always necessary. They're just tarpit. Bubble wrap speed bumps can serve similar purposes in preventing CC things from reaching your shooters (and even if a Warrior unit gets engaged, you've got several more. Redundancy is strong in this list).
Additionally, if absolutely necessary, TBs can rush up to engage something to buy enough time to get FOs into position.
It's a move that the majority of Necron players don't often think to use and most opponents fail to see coming. (Devastators/Long Fangs/Obliterators/Broadsides/etc. giving you trouble? Crash some TBs into them. Now they've got to waste a couple turns chewing through your cheap guys before they can become useful again, and by that time you might be in a significantly better position).

We do still have access to the Mephrit Dynasty Cohort from the Shield of Baal Exterminatus book.
For those who are unfamiliar with it, you are required to take an HQ and 3 Troops. You can do a normal 0-3 Fast Attack, 0-3 Elites, and 0-3 Heavy Support in addition to up to 1 Fortification and 1 Lord of War. You have to option of taking up to 5 more troops choices (for 8 total), and this is where the detachment shines in my book. In addition to rerolling your warlord trait, your troops choices reroll Reanimation Protocol rolls of 1.
So, you could do something like this:
2 Cryptek with Phase Shifter and Staff of Light
10 Gauss Immortals
10 Gauss Immortals
10 Warriors + Ghost Ark
10 Warriors + Ghost Ark
10 Warriors + Ghost Ark
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
Monolith
That would give you another 35 points to play with. Maybe a Nightmare Shroud on one of the Crypteks.
You'd have 20 Immortals, 60 Warriors, and 4 Tough Vehicles. The immortals would have 3+ and 4+ RP because of the Crypteks (and will be rerolling 1's because of the Detachment bonus).
Not saying that it is the best, but that is how I'd do a Silver Tide.
If you can replicate Detachments (non-ITC), then look at the Mephrit Dynasty Recursion Decurion. You have 2 units of Immortals, 2 units of Warriors, and a Monolith. The Monolith can choose to repair a squad of either Immortals (1d3) or Warriors (1d6) each turn. I've always thought that there is a way to break that.

The main issue is that the bonus is just for Troops and not much of a jump in survivability in exchange losing OS. Absolutely not worth the bonus. We take multiple HQ's anyway so you can take a second CAD as necessary.

If it's between army wide 4+++ and simply troops rerolling their 1s, I'm afraid it's no contest.
Unfortunately GW really screwed up there, making one detachment so strong as to render all others practically obsolete.

Btw, once the final codex FAQ drops we really should start a new Necron tactics thread. Any new players hoping to find help on how to play the army are going to have to wade through a hundred pages of garbage and useless YMDC arguments before they get to anything relevant. Better to start off fresh with all the most important information right at the front.

I've thought about that as well, lots of old info as well as pages and pages of (pointless) rules debates. Maybe we can toss in a start collecting section, and a 1d4chan style why play necrons. Perhaps we should just update the 1d4chan listing while we are at it, it's old enough to have moss on it, and a lot of the recommendations weren't red hot to begin with.

I'd be down for a new thread. Maybe I can actually contribute.