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I have partly built my doom/night scythe model and am yet to attach the weapons and also have a box of immortals/deathmarks to decide what to do with.

My initial thought was to go straight for the doom scythe however I read on the forums about using a dispairtek with the deathmarks so that the staff wound on 2+ instead of the leadership value.

In regards to the games i have played (which are very limited!) i haven't struggled with armour but marines/terminators.

I wanted to ask people's opinion as to the effectiveness/points value of the two options and which is known to work better.

Thanks in advance!

I faced the deathmarks / despairtek a few times, they are completely and unquestionably brokenly good
The rules for Deatkmarks thingys should simply read "Deathmark models wound marked units on a 2+"
As it is now, there is no reason not to take this combination, as it is deadly against everything, even against hordes where it'll hit a sizeable chunk of the units with the 30" + template threat range when they come in
And you can put 2 despairtek in each deathmark unit

Just before a but hurt player shows up that doesn't like Necrons.

Q: Do models from a Royal Court that are attached to a Deathmark
Squad benefit from the Hunters from Hyperspace special rule? (p90)
A: Yes.

Doom Scythes got nerfed, unfairly in my opinion but w/e, so the Death Ray can't hit flyers. As a consequence not many people are taking them. Necron don't need a S10 Ap1 3d6 line weapon to take out tanks, sure its great to have but mass Gauss or the Harbinger of the Storm is much better at taking out amour of any value.
So that leaves the Doom Scythe as a anti TEQ killer, which is does adequately though good positioning and units in cover will reduce the amount of casualties. Being a flyer that can only zoom also limits the Doom Scythe in this role.

Deathmarks with a Harbinger of Despair in a Night Scythe is a true threat to TEQ/MEQ and to an extent hoards. Being able to zoom 24'' drop the squad with the HoD in position to get the maximum amount of units under the AP 1 temple is a death sentence to most units. Added to the fact you have the rapid fire from the Deathmarks and even the Nights Scythe considerable fire power. If the target survives and try to get into CC you have D3 flamer hits and the HtH rule works in CC so you will be wounding on +2.
This unit will reliably kill one unit only as the Hunters from Hyperspace works on one unit and the HoD will need 6's to wound most of the time. For 125 points it is very cheap for what it can do.
Note even though it is labeled as S8 it can never cause ID since it wounds on Leadership. TBH I don't even know why it has a Strength value unless there is a unit with Ld 4 which I don't think there is.


The only limiting factor is you must a Overlord to unlock a Royal Court, if like me you run D.Lord this can be annoying. The Overlord is at best a baby sitting unit, which doesn't synergise well with troops units. Since the Command Barge got ruined by becoming a Chariot the best place to have a Overlord is in a Block of 20 warriors backed by a Ghost Arc or two.

I'd say the death and despair combo was the way to go 4/5 times.
That, or night scythe with 6 warriors and a stormtek as a cheap tank hunting unit.

Thanks for the feedback guys; I think I will be using the Deathmarks instead of the Doom Scythe. For what they cost and can do they sound great and the Night Scythe has the Tesla Destructor aswell!

I run an overlord at the moment too so that's not a problem. I do ultimately want to introduce a destroyer lord and some wraiths as well as some normal destroyers but I think i'm going to get me a ghost ark next. At first I didn't fancy them (no small part to the amount of time it may take to paint!) but i've read a lot of good things about them.

1 vote for Night Scythe / Death and Despair combo.

Most people reading probably hate seeing me type this but taking Doom Scythes prevent you from taking more Annihilation Barges. Annihilation Barges, IMO, are the best unit for its cost in the game just behind the Vendetta. I just love that unit. I, predictably, love the Night Scythe too, because its a flying Barge with two less armor, transport capacity and no secondary weapon. If there was no force org conflict, I'd say Doom Scythes are pretty sweet.

I would like to stand up for my Tank Hunter.

I have brought 2 Doom Scythes to a table very often, and while yes, both rarelky make it to the end of the game, I havent yet had a game where they havent earned their points back.

First game I took it in (pre-nerf): Death Ray took out 2 Vendettas in a single shot.

I have also zoomed on and cut a pair of Predators in half, again with the same shot, about 4 times now.

EDIT: While yes, it isnt the be-all-and-end-all of Tank Hunters from our codex, I find none are more cost efficient or resilient, until you start investing SERIOUS amounts of points into a single unit.

 IHateNids wrote:
I would like to stand up for my Tank Hunter.

I have brought 2 Doom Scythes to a table very often, and while yes, both rarelky make it to the end of the game, I havent yet had a game where they havent earned their points back.

First game I took it in (pre-nerf): Death Ray took out 2 Vendettas in a single shot.

I have also zoomed on and cut a pair of Predators in half, again with the same shot, about 4 times now.

EDIT: While yes, it isnt the be-all-and-end-all of Tank Hunters from our codex, I find none are more cost efficient or resilient, until you start investing SERIOUS amounts of points into a single unit.

Oh I agree with you that they have their place in a list. But again, I look at it this way: I love the Hellhound and I would probably field 2 in my Guard list regularly... if the Vendetta were not a choice. Because it is, I find that I want two of them and then in turn, can only take one hellhound. But since, when I play against people that a Hellhound could generally hurt (footdar, necron warrior spam, zombies), they prioritize my one hellhound and it does down early. So I stopped using my one Hellhound and instead switched to a couple of outflanking Sentinels.
List building for me is a give-take. And in this case, I think I can't pass up on Annihilation Barges, so I don't and leave the Death Ray at home. My anti-tank falls to massed tesla shots for anything AV13 or smaller (with the help of Tank Hunters from Zahndrek), or crunching from Scarabs/Wraiths/D-LordwithStick.

I run a list which employs a Death & Despair squad and "Storm Troopers" (5 Warriors + a Storm-tek), both units embarked on Nightscythes.
These units usually have my anti-tank and anti-deathstar covered.
However, I also include a Doomscythe in the list for redundancy purposes, seeing as how, if something were to happen to either one of my primary units, the Doomscythe would be able to come in and pick up the slack, regardless of the role required.

From a modeling standpoint, there's absolutely no reason why you need to choose one or the other. Because of the way the death ray and gateway mount to the hull, you can simply not glue them in, and swap them out as needed. You don't even need magnets!

wfischer wrote:
From a modeling standpoint, there's absolutely no reason why you need to choose one or the other. Because of the way the death ray and gateway mount to the hull, you can simply not glue them in, and swap them out as needed. You don't even need magnets!

Perfect! I was thinking of getting some magnets so that in the long run I do have access to both but now I know that they don't need magnets or glueing in I won't bother!