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Why don't more people put Lychguard into their lists? The option to add a hyperphase sword (power weapon) and a dispersion shield (allowing you a 4+ invul. save) makes you practically invincible. These options put a troop of 5 lychguard at 250pts. giving them 3 saves: a 3+ sv. 4+ invul and 5+ reainimation protocol (4+ w/ res orb) I feel like they're an essential ground unit in any 1000+pt army.

Not to mention that any shooting attack made against the dispersion shield has a chance to hit an enemy unit within 6"

Thoughts? Am I reading this wrong?

The fact of the matter is there are cheaper and better options than lychguard that can fill this role better. The bounce back shots is not that great, sometimes it works, but its not that useful. A 4+ invul is average, not great. The unit dies very quickly because they get a lot of attention payed to them and will die quickly.

I think of them as more of a fun unit than a competitive unit, however they can certainly do some real damage if left unchecked.

Also, they used to be used as anti terminator unit, now they no longer pierce 2+ armor with that setup and are no longer good for what people were using them for, 6th ed kind of killed them. I like them, i just save them for bigger games, i have used them so i really can say this in all honesty and experience.

Yeah, the whole AP3 swords kinda killed the sword and board thing. Originally you were meant to be able to take on anything with those power weapons specifically enemy HQs and retinues imo. Best way now seems to run lychguard with your overlord and res orb. Shields are alright but at what cost? You lose your warscythe which makes quick work of anything. If you want them to do well you really have to take a larger squad of them as their 3+ save doesn't make them as durable as termies despite their higher T. Still, I love em. I like to stick Nems in with them and a Veil-tek (or Obyron) and pop them around. It's no deathstar but if you know where to move them to (a weakly defended flank or rear) you can cause some damage, while the rest of your army pushes from the opposite side.

I run lychguard myself, when points allow.
What people are trying to point out, is that wraiths are more resilient, as well as cheaper, and more effective in assault.

So, that being said, I use my wraiths against assault troops, and they do their job admirably, they soak fire, and wreck havoc on whatever they charge.

Now, what do we use our lychguard for?
I use them to hunt long ranged backfield squads like longfangs, snipers, tactical squads, grey hunters, or anything shooty that relies on the 3+ armor save or cover saves to stay alive.
.
I give them Obyron (who provides plenty of AP1 attacks against TEQ, and then rely on the Sword and Board to soak anything Obyron's 2+ can't handle via Look our sirs.

Basic game plan looks something like this.
Turn 1, Lychguard and obyron deep strike across the board, behind the enemy army, Wraiths move and run at the closest thing to them, and the rest of the army opens fire.
On my enemy's response, they have a few options

Focus the wraiths, leaving a untouched squad full of power weapons in their backfield
Focus the Lychguard, This may or may not kill them, the T5, 3+ armor 4+ invuln with 2+ armor from Obyron to soak shots helps, leaving the WRAITHS untouched.
Split fire on both unlikely to deal with either threat, and the best of both worlds.

Either way, you will end up with a strong assault unit turn 2, ready to charge and an army full of shooty goodness left.

The other option is put them in a night scythe, and use them late game to assault stubborn units off objectives (they are really really REALLY good against plague marines squatting on a late game objective, as it negates their armor, reducing them to their FNP saves (Hitting on 4's, wounding on 3's, 5+ FNP save)

This squad is also decent against monstrous creatures like Tervigons, as their str 5, along with Obyron's str 7 attacks will wound easily enough, and ignore their armor, you should be able to down a monsterous creature a round this way, if they don't get shot to hell by gaunts lol

I think the Night Scythe option is the best for them. And, I think they really shine as a guard for an Overlord, Nemesor and Trazyn in particular. Trazyn plays really nice in this unit, as he gives them solid anti-horde with his staff, makes them scoring, and they in turn give him a bunch of bodies to hop around in. He also has MSS which can help turn the tides against Termies. One thing to keep in mind against Termies is a Sword and Board LG with a res orb is "save" 75% of their wounds, and take 16.7% less wounds against all the Terms that strike before them (LC,Maul, Sword), so really they end up being pretty close to each other in resiliency, depending on the weapon. The advantage the LG have is they can shore up any deficiency with their Overlord and court.

I personally have never tried it, but I could see a deathstar like this being downright nasty:

100 Night Scythe
165 Trazyn (might be off here, been awhile since I checked his points)
450 Lychguard Sword/Board
75 Lord w/WS/MSS/SW
40 Tremortek w/anti assault thingy (I could also see a Lancetek w/gaze, a Veiltek for redoployment once out of the Scythe, Chronotek to help ratchet up Nemies survivability, or another Lord here...the idea with tremortek is to allow the unit to dictate the assault against other DStars and also help it run down other units).
185 Nemie

915 Total

Real expensive for sure. However it can be deployed anywhere on the battlefield, is resilient as can be, and scores. The rest of the list I would imagine would spam MSU Immortal squads with 2xCourt members (Lanceteks?), and probably 3xABs...maybe Heavy Destroyers/Destoyers as the heat will be on the LG squad and they would be relatively safe blasting away from the backfield?

Anyway, the price tag of the unit certainly is a bit hard to stomach, but I think it would absolutely throttle most things it came into contact with, and would be a general nightmare for most armies to deal with.

I would have to disagree ShadarLogoth
Having a squad like that needing to wait on their transport to come in will limit the damage they can do. For cheaper, you could give them a lord w/ scythe, mss res orb, and a cyptek (from a different court) with veil of darkness, they'd be more mobile and effective yet with obyron. (Seems like a match made in heaven to me)

160- Obyron
450- Lychguard
(Optional)
90 - Lord w WS, Orb, MSS)
= 700 points
Its more mobile, and can deep strike turn 1, then assault turn 2 strike turn two, for less points, with more warscythe attacks


Heck, focus your army around Nemsor, but have him on the board elsewhere, and give them furious charge, then remove counter attack from whatever you wanna attack.

You might be right, I really haven't played with them much either way. The precision placement via beams is what intrigued me most about the Scythe option, basically allowing you to stick those bounce shield right in something important's face and just dare your opponent to shoot them. The Oby combo does get into the action faster though, and Oby does ratchet up the hitting power of the squad. Maybe Oby, Trazyn, and Nemie somewhere else ? I'm pretty in love with the idea of making this giant CC brick scoring.

Thats fair lol, if they survive the attempt, the ability to hold backfield objectives is pretty handy.

I guess i hadn't thought of the precision aspect of it, but it has its merits as well

The Power Weapon nerf made them overcosted. I am not going to buy a squad that cannot do anything vs. terminators if the squad itself is the cost of terminators.

 Sigvatr wrote:
The Power Weapon nerf made them overcosted. I am not going to buy a squad that cannot do anything vs. terminators if the squad itself is the cost of terminators.

Truth spoken here. Lynchguard cannot deal with Termies. There are better options here like Wraiths with whip coils led by a tooled up DLord.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
The Power Weapon nerf made them overcosted. I am not going to buy a squad that cannot do anything vs. terminators if the squad itself is the cost of terminators.

Truth spoken here. Lynchguard cannot deal with Termies. There are better options here like Wraiths with whip coils led by a tooled up DLord.

I wonder if lychguard are bad or if wraiths are just too good? but yes, wraiths are clearly better.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
The Power Weapon nerf made them overcosted. I am not going to buy a squad that cannot do anything vs. terminators if the squad itself is the cost of terminators.

Truth spoken here. Lynchguard cannot deal with Termies. There are better options here like Wraiths with whip coils led by a tooled up DLord.

If you take them with the scythe they can deal with termies. They might not all survive the combat, but you'll be able to kill termies. Also that is why you have an overlord/lord with a rez orb and MMS to take on challenges. Against regular termies or TH/SS they should do decently. Not sure how they'd fair against dual lightning claws though.

 Exergy wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
The Power Weapon nerf made them overcosted. I am not going to buy a squad that cannot do anything vs. terminators if the squad itself is the cost of terminators.

Truth spoken here. Lynchguard cannot deal with Termies. There are better options here like Wraiths with whip coils led by a tooled up DLord.

I wonder if lychguard are bad or if wraiths are just too good? but yes, wraiths are clearly better.

The wraithe were better then the Lynchguards in the 5th.
Now they nerfed the Lynchguards powerweapons and buffed wraiths with Hammer of wrath. Also gave them prefred enemy with the destroyer lord, making the difference even bigger.

If only they could make you mix warschytes and shields in the unit...

 WhiteWolf01 wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
The Power Weapon nerf made them overcosted. I am not going to buy a squad that cannot do anything vs. terminators if the squad itself is the cost of terminators.

Truth spoken here. Lynchguard cannot deal with Termies. There are better options here like Wraiths with whip coils led by a tooled up DLord.

If you take them with the scythe they can deal with termies. They might not all survive the combat, but you'll be able to kill termies. Also that is why you have an overlord/lord with a rez orb and MMS to take on challenges. Against regular termies or TH/SS they should do decently. Not sure how they'd fair against dual lightning claws though.

Uhm? Put a OL in that squad and you got an extremely expensive squad that can do very little. You know what can also kill termies? Wraiths. Every 6 on a to-wound roll is a dead terminator. And Wraiths have a better save (3++). And Wraiths are cheaper. And Wraiths do not need an OL to be effective. I'd take Wraiths + DL over LG + anything anytime!

To be honest, it really is a circle discussion. Someone suggests using LG, someone else jumps in and says that Wraiths are better. And yes, they are. That doesn't make LG bad, they simply are a mediocre unit that costs too much compared to what you gain by using them. It's simple as that. They certainly have their use, that being defensive assault units, but using LG in the offense is a massive waste of points as they utterly lack offensive potential.

So...whatever floats your boat I guess. Wraiths are better, yes, but we don't need to state that over and over

 Sigvatr wrote:

 WhiteWolf01 wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
The Power Weapon nerf made them overcosted. I am not going to buy a squad that cannot do anything vs. terminators if the squad itself is the cost of terminators.

Truth spoken here. Lynchguard cannot deal with Termies. There are better options here like Wraiths with whip coils led by a tooled up DLord.

If you take them with the scythe they can deal with termies. They might not all survive the combat, but you'll be able to kill termies. Also that is why you have an overlord/lord with a rez orb and MMS to take on challenges. Against regular termies or TH/SS they should do decently. Not sure how they'd fair against dual lightning claws though.

Uhm? Put a OL in that squad and you got an extremely expensive squad that can do very little. You know what can also kill termies? Wraiths. Every 6 on a to-wound roll is a dead terminator. And Wraiths have a better save (3++). And Wraiths are cheaper. And Wraiths do not need an OL to be effective. I'd take Wraiths + DL over LG + anything anytime!

To be honest, it really is a circle discussion. Someone suggests using LG, someone else jumps in and says that Wraiths are better. And yes, they are. That doesn't make LG bad, they simply are a mediocre unit that costs too much compared to what you gain by using them. It's simple as that. They certainly have their use, that being defensive assault units, but using LG in the offense is a massive waste of points as they utterly lack offensive potential.

So...whatever floats your boat I guess. Wraiths are better, yes, but we don't need to state that over and over

I'm not saying LG are better than wraiths, I'm just saying that they have the potential to deal with terminators. I'm pointing out the fact that sword and board isn't the end-all-be-all of LG. Also if we go by your logic that on a 6 a wraith kills a termie, than on a 2 a LG with a scythe kills a termie. The problem with LG is they don't have the speed or number of attacks that wraiths do and since 40k is a lot about out maneuvering your opponent, LG lose out.

You need to be exact when comparing units.

Offensive potential vs. TEQ goes like:

LG w/ Warscythes > Wraiths > LG w/ S&B

I do not disagree here, S7 AP1 attacks surely kick some serious ass. But you seem to have forgotten about the defense - normaly LG with Warscythe can only rely on their normal 3+ armor save whereas Wraiths have a 3++.

I did not want to state that you said LG were better than Wraiths and apologize if you were offended / felt that way, I did not intend to do so. I do like the LG s&b models but the 6th nerf hit them pretty hard and while in 5th, they were better vs TEQ, they now lose all-out vs Wraiths. Their only upside is that they use an elite slot that's filled with a lot of "meh" to "pure crap" choices whereas Wraiths are part of the "Oh,oh, take me!" Fast Attack slot.

The thing is: even a full squad of Necron Warriors at 260 points has good chance of killing terminators just by the sheer number of attacks...and it is more versatile too.

In the end, it's all about point efficiency and, unfortunately, this is where LG falls short in 6th.

See, I dont understand why everyone keeps trying to compare Lychguard and Wraiths vs. TEQ, i don't use them for that, and in all honestly, i'd let my gunline light up terminators, rather than have my lychguard attack them, or my wraiths attack them.
Assaulting them would be my last choice, and if i had to do so, it'd be with wraiths.
Lychguard should be hunting anything with a 3+ save, give them Obyron and they're MORE mobile than wraiths, and can even deal with vehicles, and even with swords they are pretty good against monstrous creatures with the 5 str, then ignoring armor.
They serve different roles guys, one is a shock assault unit, and the other is a counter-assault or backfield clearing unit.

 iGuy91 wrote:
See, I dont understand why everyone keeps trying to compare Lychguard and Wraiths vs. TEQ, i don't use them for that, and in all honestly, i'd let my gunline light up terminators, rather than have my lychguard attack them, or my wraiths attack them.
Assaulting them would be my last choice, and if i had to do so, it'd be with wraiths.
Lychguard should be hunting anything with a 3+ save, give them Obyron and they're MORE mobile than wraiths, and can even deal with vehicles, and even with swords they are pretty good against monstrous creatures with the 5 str, then ignoring armor.
They serve different roles guys, one is a shock assault unit, and the other is a counter-assault or backfield clearing unit.

In a way they are more mobile than wraiths, but not neccesarily better. When you use the ghostwalk mantle to jump across the board you put your unit at serious risk. Risk of mishap, risk of template/blast weapons(very dangerous to a unit that has DS), and risk of being assaulted by a harder unit, or a tarpit unit. Wraiths are much better at dictating the who what when and wheres of combat due to their faster normal movement, plus if you need to get into the enemies zone you can just reserve them and DS in anyways since they are JI, so you should probably just take the DS thing out of the equation.

 iGuy91 wrote:
I run lychguard myself, when points allow.
What people are trying to point out, is that wraiths are more resilient, as well as cheaper, and more effective in assault.

So, that being said, I use my wraiths against assault troops, and they do their job admirably, they soak fire, and wreck havoc on whatever they charge.

Now, what do we use our lychguard for?
I use them to hunt long ranged backfield squads like longfangs, snipers, tactical squads, grey hunters, or anything shooty that relies on the 3+ armor save or cover saves to stay alive.
.
I give them Obyron (who provides plenty of AP1 attacks against TEQ, and then rely on the Sword and Board to soak anything Obyron's 2+ can't handle via Look our sirs.

Basic game plan looks something like this.
Turn 1, Lychguard and obyron deep strike across the board, behind the enemy army, Wraiths move and run at the closest thing to them, and the rest of the army opens fire.
On my enemy's response, they have a few options

Deepstrike turn 1? How is that possible? I think you mean ghostwalk...forgot about that

Ministry wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:
I run lychguard myself, when points allow.
What people are trying to point out, is that wraiths are more resilient, as well as cheaper, and more effective in assault.

So, that being said, I use my wraiths against assault troops, and they do their job admirably, they soak fire, and wreck havoc on whatever they charge.

Now, what do we use our lychguard for?
I use them to hunt long ranged backfield squads like longfangs, snipers, tactical squads, grey hunters, or anything shooty that relies on the 3+ armor save or cover saves to stay alive.
.
I give them Obyron (who provides plenty of AP1 attacks against TEQ, and then rely on the Sword and Board to soak anything Obyron's 2+ can't handle via Look our sirs.

Basic game plan looks something like this.
Turn 1, Lychguard and obyron deep strike across the board, behind the enemy army, Wraiths move and run at the closest thing to them, and the rest of the army opens fire.
On my enemy's response, they have a few options


Deepstrike turn 1? How is that possible? I think you mean ghostwalk...forgot about that

Same mechanic, different name
But yes, you'd be suprised what people do when they have wraiths charging at them from the front, and lychguard in their backfield turn 1, with a solid gunline to back them up!

I agree with the criticism on the TEQ comparison. Neither do I use Wraiths to kill TEQ, at least not unless I can avoid doing so. But when a Land Raider vomits its terminators out, I am glad to have these guys around.

Anyway, I mainly use my Court to take those TEQ out, along with my Heavy Destroyers.

Wraiths do serve a different purpose and I prefer mine to serve as infiltrators...of some sort. I force my enemy to decide on whether he goes in cover in order to avoid my shooting but getting charged by my Wraiths in return or avoiding them and getting shot at.

Placing your Wraiths at like 15'' around the corner of a building / barricade etc. your enemy has to pass works like a charm. He can take another way...sure. 1-2 more rounds of shooting. Or...he can test his luck and go for the Wraiths.

I play my Wraiths like haunting spirits of some sort...I let them wander around the battlefield, trying to get in the enemy's flank or even back, patiently waiting for a chance to attack...and then lunge at them like a hungry predator, ready to devour its meal. I rarely lose my Wraiths and I have not had a single game where they did not make their points back.

One thing that often gets overlook with the Wraith comparison are the LG are much better at eating bullets. T5 3+/4++ (that hurts people when it saves) and RP 4+ is better then T4 2W 3++ against pretty much every weapon in the game, except plasma, which is slightly in the Wraiths favor. Wraiths can't take Night Scythes, so are left either zooming up the field and eating Missles the whole way, or DSing. Also, LG can take RC's, which can be used to fill in any gaps in the units performance (like say against Terms).

That being said, Wraiths are super fast, ignore cover when moving, and tend to strike first, and role quite nicely with a DLord (although TPs perform this role better). Their just a different unit.

Oh and for 6th edition changes, while they are weaker against Terms, they are also stronger against every power weapon except Swords and LC's, as either they get their Armor Save now (mauls) or Strike first (Axes). Worth noting as most people are going with one or the other instead of swords (not a trend I particularly agree with, but it is what it is).

Lychguard seem to have some synergy with Trazyn as a durable scoring unit. Either a max unit with warscythes, Trazyn, and a Lord with res orb, or a min unit with Dispersion Shields, Trazyn, and Veiltek.

With the increased importance of objectives in 6th, this seems like it could add considerable value to an army beyond whether or not it can beat a unit of terminators in an arm wrestling match.

The point of the mattee is that lychguard arent terminators, and dont fill the same role, nor are they dedicated assault troops. They fill a unique niche in the necron army, you need a plan for them other than "assault things." Doing so will, of course, under utilize them. You need to have a game plan to use these guys, and if you do, they perform as expected. Ive only regretted taking my lychguard once, and i used them reklessly. Every other time they've gained their points back in kills, ect.