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The night fight rules are pretty powerful for Tau. Because of black sun filters we can ignore night fighting while gaining all the advantages of it. I have noticed that games that start with night fight significantly increase Tau's win percentage. Another huge factor in winning with tau is going first. We are a bit of a glass cannon at times and going first lets us to do an alpha strike removing the opponents threats. The combination of going first and night fight means we can alpha strike and let the night cover our weaknesses. I can only think of one game I didn't win that I went first and had night fights (we tied).

So because night fight and going first are so important to us. I am thinking of taking Imotekh the storm lord as an ally. This means we will always have night fight and there is a 75% chance of always going first (50% at the begining and 50% of stealing the initiative) But is this worth 225 pts? Besides starting first and night fight his stats are not great. lightning is extremely random and his weapons are not great.

Also what other necrons would I want to bring? A squad of warriors would be nice as they can take objectives better than firewarriors but what else? I was thinking wraiths might be good at cleaning up a back line. Or scarabs might be good at tying things up for turns.

Do you guys think necron allies is worth it and if so what should I bring?

I'm using this at the first possible opportunity! It sounds pretty awesome.

Unless I'm mistaken then Imhotek's storm will also roll to hit your Tau.

That said, it doesn't seem too out of the ordinary. You could easily bring a regular Overlord and use the Royal Court to get a Harbinger of Destruction with Solar Pulse - which is awesome because you can activate night fighting for a single enemy turn with it. I think that Tau would definitely benefit from a unit of Wraiths being allied with them as they are a fierce CC unit for their price.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I'm using this at the first possible opportunity! It sounds pretty awesome.

It seems good on paper but I don't know how it will actually work. The problem is that tau is such a synergy based army that if you take points away from one place it hurts all your units. This is much different than say a marines codex where each unit is equipped to deal with most every threat and are not effected by other units you take with you. So 225+ points of necrons means less marker lights, or less plasma rifles etc.

But one of the things that does make me want to combine the two would be the idea that Tau modified the necrons, I would paint them tau colors and maybe put a tau helmet on them or something. Seems kinda fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Budikah wrote:
Unless I'm mistaken then Imhotek's storm will also roll to hit your Tau.

That said, it doesn't seem too out of the ordinary. You could easily bring a regular Overlord and use the Royal Court to get a Harbinger of Destruction with Solar Pulse - which is awesome because you can activate night fighting for a single enemy turn with it. I think that Tau would definitely benefit from a unit of Wraiths being allied with them as they are a fierce CC unit for their price.

I was thinking about this also, as the harbingers will actually do more damage than imhotekh and it is basically 20pts for a night fight turn.

I am not a necron player but how would you outfit a necron court for 2-3 solar pulses,

Each Overlord taken allows for up to five Crypteks and Lords. You can get five Harbingers of Destruction but only one per Royal Court can take the special wargear. This means that you get one Solar Pulse per Royal Court. Max you can get is two enemy turns with two Overlords.

So for a Necron detachment with 5 Warriors, stock Overlord, and Destructec with Solar Pulse for 210. If you want two Overlords you are talking 355 minimum.

if you want 2 Overlords, you are talking 2K+, as you can only take 1 HQ in an allies list.

What I would bring in this scenario is:

Overlord (WS SW PS RO MSS) - 205
PulseTek - 55
10 Warriors - 130
Night Scythe - 100

Total is 490 points, a fairly low number, but what you have is:

a guaranteed Nightfight for a turn, pop on turn 2 if you roll NF at the start of the game
a Decent Flyer
some durable troops
a model that will wreck most things in CC

the only thing you are missing is the 4+ Init steal, which wouldnt work anyeway, as he has to be your Warlord for it to work

I like what IHatesNids recommended. I would only change: take 10 guass immortals instead of 10 warriors (+40 pts) and drop the 3++ save on the Overlord (-45pts). The huge bonus to Tau is that a unit of 10 immortals and overlord and easily secure an enemy objective in the late game by flying over his lines with the scythe. The only tricky thing is you probably have to deploy the solo pulsetek somewhere since I'm pretty sure he has to be on the table to active his pulse.

You also have a fast slot open to add a unit of wraiths as well. I also like the idea on the table, effective the necrons aren't really fighting side by side the with Tau but just flying in and nabbing an objective off on their own.

Imotehk will roll to hit any Tau units, but it is only on a 6 and you get saves against the wounds caused, for the majority of Tau units as it is only ap 5. The Tau as an allie actually fair better than most other allies with Imotekh because they have enough bodies to make up for the small percentage of causalities you may take from lightning. Edit: Avoid vehicles in this combo as the lightning could easily take those down if you are unlucky and roll a 6 on them, and they have a decent armour save so all but units like Kroot will be able to save against the wounds. You definitely need to build an army with this strategy in mind, but I believe it will do very well in the right Tau General's hands.

If for some bizarre reason you don't mind potentially losing some of your units to comrade Imotekh's random lightning striking them, I would also recommend taking a Harbinger of Eternity equipped with a Chronometron.
The ability to reroll to keep night-fight going is well worth it.
...
though, really, allying with Imotekh is just asking for trouble.

I don't know about Imotekh (although he could be really good with a mass outflanking/deepstriking army). But necrons in general offer the Tau a lot of things they need:

Decent Flyers - One of the most disappointing things about the new Tau codex is the flyers are rather lacking and they compete with marker drones and pathfinders for space. Bring Necron flyers instead, not only are they better, but you can take just as many Necron flyers as Tau flyers, and still have all three FA slots available for pathfinders while taking a full compliment of flyers.

Objective Grabbing Troops - More durable troops with a far superior transport (which happens to double as your flyer - oh, and its only 20 points more than your devilfish IF you haven't upgraded your devilfish) greatly helps shore up this Tau weakness.

Heavy Armor Killers - Necrons eat armor for breakfast, which is good because Tau lost their best AV unit. Now two of your basic troops can glance any tank in the game to death.

Add any other shenanigans as you see fit.

Overall, its a match made in heaven (or hell, seeing how its 40k and all). I am currently looking to make scratchbuilt drone troops and custom built flyers to represent Tau versions on necron units (because I hate the necron aesthetic) for necron allies.