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Necrons were my first army way back in the dark ages of 3rd Editon. I quickly abandoned them when I realized there were practically no options for them.

Now I have finally given them another chance and I am curious as to which unit is more useful, Praetorians or Lycheguard? I think they both look good and I am wondering which I should look at first?

Thanks

Neither there are better options then both. The only time I field them is if I need a distraction.

Also probably wrong forum. Tactics is my guess.

Tactics it is!

tremere47 wrote:
Necrons were my first army way back in the dark ages of 3rd Editon. I quickly abandoned them when I realized there were practically no options for them.

Now I have finally given them another chance and I am curious as to which unit is more useful, Praetorians or Lycheguard? I think they both look good and I am wondering which I should look at first?

Thanks

It depends on your Area. Neither of those, are the most competitive options in the book, but for the average group, they should be fine.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I prefer Praetorians myself. They are quicker, have good shooting, fearless, and benefit a lot from a Dlord. This is assuming the RoC build. The Voidblade build isn't really that useful anymore.

Lychguard suffer from several issues. They are slow, for one. They can either go for a more offensive build with Warscythes, or Defensive with the Shield and Sword. They will wreck most things they come in close combat with, but this likely won't happen till turn 3 at the earliest.

With the Praetorians, if you are running them you should saddle them with a Destroyer lord. They benefit a ton from PE, as well as having the Orb and the the Dlord to tank a lot of shots. Lychguard also want an Orb carrier with them, usually an attached lord or Overlord. Either way, you want to have an Orb in a squad, as at their point value they benefit from it greatly.

In a CC configuration Lychguards can be swept too easily I find, as they have neither stubborn or fearless and only inititive 2.

I run 5-8 praetorians with a destroyer lord. Your opponent must kill that squad down to the last model, there is no running away for them, you cant run from them and whatever they get into CC with is screwed. I have taken mine vs hammernators, dreadnaughts, daemonettes, MC's and they come out alright.

I'm in the process of testing out Lychguard as I've stayed away from them for the past year or so due to how slow and expensive they are. I've been trying them with both Warscythes and sword/shield. Based on about 10 test games against different armies, here's my thoughts on them.

They are too expensive for what they can do. Warscythes are great; however, I2 and no invulnerable save means they usually die before the warscythes can be useful. For survivability, they need to have a 2+ Overlord, Lord, or D-Lord in front in order to help keep them alive until they can get into close combat. Also, a Night Scythe is almost an auto-take just so they can get into position before turn 3 or 4. Furthermore, at the cost per model, you also need to have a res orb in the unit.

Sword and Shield combo is a little bit more resilient thanks to the 4++ save the shield gives. The whole reflecting of shots special rule sounds great on paper but 6" isn't all that good. In once instance I reflected back an overwatch shot, killing a model in the unit I was going to charge and then failed the charge by the 2 inch increase from the model dying.

In both instances, the best combination that I've been able to find thus far is D-lord with weave and orb leading the lychguard in a night scythe. Having an overlord on the table so you can give the unit a chrono-tek also helps out as well so that they can reroll 1 failed resurrection protocol roll per phase. This setup is stupid expensive those, clocking in around 700pts after factoring in Overlord, D-Lord, 5 Lychguard, Chrono-tek, and Night Scythe. Just too expensive though when they survive to wing in close combat, things fall down - especially when swinging warscythes and having Preferred Enemy. The one instance where I find myself using Lychguard is in known scenarios where there are buildings involved.

Praetorians, in my opinion, are the better of the two units. I have had 0 luck with the rod of covenant. With a 6" range, it's worthless in my opinion and with the FAQ making it unwieldy, it doesn't give the close combat power that the void blade/pistol combo give. Being jump infantry, they can use a destroyer lord to a fuller extent. The two things that lychguard have over praetorians is that praetorians cannot take a RC member nor a night scythe. Praetorians have been better at dealing with MEQ than TEQ and even better at GEQ.

Competitively though - both are greatly outshined by Wraiths. Granted Wraiths are fast attack and not elites but just the same, they are cheaper, more resilient, and better at close combat than either lychguard or praetorians. Fun games both Lychguard and Praetorians works well but until they get tweaked (ether cheaper or more wounds or something) you probably won't see them in a competitive list.

Of these two elites, the only significant competitive use I've gotten out of them is with Lychguard blocking shots and serving as Surrogate Hosts for Trazyn.

Maybe I'm not the best player, or maybe I haven't quite figured out how best to use them, but so far everytime I've put Praetorians on the board they got wiped out without putting much of a dent into anything.

jasper76 wrote:
Of these two elites, the only significant competitive use I've gotten out of them is with Lychguard blocking shots and serving as Surrogate Hosts for Trazyn.

Maybe I'm not the best player, or maybe I haven't quite figured out how best to use them, but so far everytime I've put Praetorians on the board they got wiped out without putting much of a dent into anything.

I'm still going through and experimenting with different builds but in both Lychguard and Praetorians...i have yet to play a game where that unit pays for itself. However I'm still trying to find where they fit at this point. Granted they may fit into a place that's better suited by another unit but at this point I just am trying to figure out how I would use them in general.

The Lychguard can be used with a wraithwing army. I've done so before to good effect. They are expensive, and take some finesse.

Take Obyron, and ghost walk them across to your enemy, while 18 wraiths bum-rush their front lines, and be amused as they struggle with target priority.
Throw Zandrehk into the army somewhere, and you can give them special rules as well, or take away an enemy's counter-attack.

Meanwhile, I have barges and troops raining fire on anything that my shock assault can't reach turn 2, or soften targets up.

The most common mistake people make when fielding Praetorians or Lychguard is to view them as a good foundation for a deathstar. while they have an impressive statline, both units suffer from a measly 3+ save. wraiths with a D-lord are a much better, and much more common deathstar build. Of the two, Lychguard with sword and shield will be the more surviveable on account of the 4++ save, Lychguard with warscythes will hit harder on the charge with their 3A each and S7, but praetorians benefit from their fearless, have a lethal, albeit short, shooting attack, and are jump infantry which makes them more mobile.

Lychguard need a way to deploy, be it a nightscythe, or a VoD, while praetorians are fairly mobile on their own and both units absolutely need a Res orb because there is a big difference between a 5+ and a 4+ reanimation protocols. both units will have a smaller footprint than wraiths, as well as being shorter, which means they are much harder to shoot. but they will die quite easily to shooting attacks if you allow the enemy to concentrate fire against them.

I favour Lychguard over praetorians, and usually field units 5 strong sword and board, with a lord/overlord with a 2+ save and MSS as well as a cryptek with a VOD. keep them out of harms way for a turn, perhaps two, and then use the VOD to deepstrike them into the enemy backfield where they can go to town on the enemy objective holders, and any heavy support they may have. its quite easy to throw your opponent offguard. i prefer to deploy them on the board, and they can make quite a mess out of drop pod assaults when you counter charge them. just be sure to avoid enemy deathstars and TEQ's because they will chew up and spit out this unit, but thats why you go hunting their backfield.

Lychguard with warscythes and praetorians can handle TEQ's, the lychguard i feel are a bit better once they get into combat, but they arent exactly fast. the paetorians are faster, they get to shoot first, HoW attacks, and 2A at S5 on the charge, its not as hard hitting as lychguard, but again, praetorians are fearless so you can use them to tie down units without them breaking, and as long as the Destroyer lord you should be leading them with survives, his res orb will, so you will only lose 50% of your guys when they become casualties.

Again, it has to be said that neither unit is quite as effective as wraiths are, but if wraiths weren't in the codex, they would both be competitive units. but they also compete with deathmarks, and deathmarks led by crypteks with the abyssal staff are just incredibly abusive in their own right.

Both Lychguard and praetorians are also hilariously funny if you run trazyn, as your opponent will have to kill trazyn, all your lords and crypteks, and all your praetorians and lychguard to put him down for good!

The corner stone of both units is RP and a Res Orb. With both of these functioning, they are more resilient then Wraiths (yes, they are. No, I understand Wraiths have 2 wounds and a ++. They also have less T, insta death to S8+, and can't grow their resiliency profile as readily threw mechanics like Res Orbs and Night Fighting). My main list runs 10 TPs and 6 Wraiths, and I can say after 2 years of games, the TPs ALWAYS eat more bullets/base. Always.

Anyway, the key is RP. Anchor your units. By that, I mean, keep on base out of LOS at all costs (until you get into assault range, that is). On top of this, make them as big as you can afford. The bigger their RP threshold, the more mileage you get out of it. It's that simple. Play the RP mechanics to your favor, and it is a wonderful resiliency buff. Play them poorly (ie, allow 200 points of TPs or LG to get wiped before one roll) and you will hate both of these units. The good news is, the power here is largely in your hands.

Having trouble keeping a single base out of LOS? First, talk to your local game board terrain provider. They are failing you miserably. There is simply no excuse for there not to be at least one infantry model size piece of LOS terrain on both sides of the board. Second, consider investing in a Monolith. It's a giant, mobile, RP anchor. It works phenomenally in this role.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and another thing. I know this goes for TPs, and I would assume it works for LG, although admittedly I haven't played nearly enough with them. SPREAD OUT. 2" maximum coherency at all the times! Seriously, spread out. The more you spread out, the more board you are threatening at once. If I ever ran LG, I would put 10+Trazyn+RC (or two) in a Night Scythe, and the turn they deployed I would sling down a 36+" line of death around that Night Scythe. Force your opponent to deal with them. Force them to get shot at. Force them to run away. Exert their presence as much as you possibly can.

ShadarLogoth wrote:The corner stone of both units is RP and a Res Orb. With both of these functioning, they are more resilient then Wraiths (yes, they are. No, I understand Wraiths have 2 wounds and a ++. They also have less T, insta death to S8+, and can't grow their resiliency profile as readily threw mechanics like Res Orbs and Night Fighting). My main list runs 10 TPs and 6 Wraiths, and I can say after 2 years of games, the TPs ALWAYS eat more bullets/base. Always.

Sorry to tangent, but let's look at the resiliency of Praetorians and Lychguard vs Wraiths.

T5 3+ for both Elite units.
Assuming 12 shots, at BS4, AP4 or worse, 4+++ RP:
S4 will do 0.889 wounds, killing no models after RP.
S5 will do 1.333 wounds, killing no models after RP.
S6 will do 1.778 wounds, killing no models after RP.
S7+ will do 2.222 wounds, killing one model after RP.

Assuming 12 shots at BS4, AP2/AP3, no invuln, 4+++ RP:
S4 will do 2.667 wounds, killing one models after RP.
S5 will do 4 wounds, killing two models after RP.
S6 will do 5.333 wounds, killing two models after RP.
S7+ will do 6.667 wounds, killing three models after RP.

Assuming 12 shots at BS4, AP2/AP3, 4++ Shield Invuln, 4+++ RP:
S4 will do 1.333 wounds, killing no models after RP.
S5 will do 2 wounds, killing one model after RP.
S6 will do 2.667 wounds, killing one model after RP.
S7+ will do 3.333 wounds, killing one model after RP.

T4 3++ 2W for Wraiths.
Assuming 12 shots, at BS4, AP is irrelevant:
S4 will do 1.333 wounds, killing no wraiths.
S5 will do 1.778 wounds, killing no wraiths.
S6-7 will do 2.222 wounds, killing one Wraith.
S8+ will do 2.222 wounds, killing two wraith.

Against traditional S4/S5 AP4 or worse small arms fire, Praetorians/Scytheguard are equally tough as Wraiths, model for model.
Against S6+ AP4 or worse fire, Praetorians/Scytheguard are marginally better than Wraiths. Psyflemen Dreads are more effective against Wraiths than Necron Elite guard.
Against any kind of AP3 or better fire, Wraiths perform significantly better against Praetorians/Scytheguard, and about even with Sword&Board. Plasmaguns, Lascannons, Meltas, Wraithcannons, Dark/Bright Lances, Battlecannons, Blastmasters, Baleflamers, Ion Accelerators, all hurt Wraiths less.

Wraiths are 35 points whereas both elite units are 40 points. Both will in practice have the support of an HQ model, a DLord for Wraiths or a Res Orb Lord or DLord w/ Orb for Elites. We have ignored the DLord's tanking effects on the Wraith's survivability, as well as either HQ model's effects on the offensive or mobility output on the units in question.

If your TPs are always eating more bullets per base than your wraiths are, your TPs are either performing somewhat statistically better than average, or your opponents tend to bring a lot of Psyflemen Dreadnoughts or equivalent. This applies even with 4+++ RP functioning. Wraiths are, model for model, usually as good as TP/Lychguard are at surviving, save five points per model in cost, and save 30 points per unit on Res Orb.

Nevertheless, TPs and Scytheguard are still useful, and Wraiths aren't seeing as much use now, because more and more people are bringing S6-7 AP4 or worse fire to the table these past few months, in the form of either Missile Pods, Scatter Lasers, and Serpent Shields. Sword and Board Lychguard are actually reasonably survivable in these kinds of environments, since you still see a lot of AP2 shots going around.

I'll totally second the tactical and terrain tips though, ShadarLogoth, keeping a model out of LOS to keep the unit alive for RP (provided you make the Ld role, which I always fail with my Necrons) is critical. Nightfight helps when you don't have the 3++, and getting your club to put more LOS-blocking terrain on the tables solves so many problems that CC units have. Spreading out is also great in almost all situations if possible as well.

Good post Thariinye, but some of your assumptions kind of gloss over the finer points in the math.

Take small arms, for instances. It takes (on average) 21 BS 4 Bolter Shots to kill a TP after RP (no res orb), while it takes (on average) 18 bolter shots to kill a Wraith.

21(2÷3)(1÷3)(1÷3)(2÷3)=1.04
18(2÷3)(1÷2)(1÷3)=2

And that's just the baseline. Add a Res Orb to the TPs and it jumps the 28 bolter shots on average:

28(2÷3)(1÷3)(1÷3)(1÷2)=1.04

Pretty much anything S3 through S6 and AP 4 or worse will follow that trend. Which is to say, the vast majority of both shooting and CC weapons in the game.

The weapons on the other end of the spectrum largely depend on what cover mechanics the TPs have at their disposal. Basically, any event that sees the TPs Shrouded (because of Night Fighting) will show them with pretty serious advantages over their Wraith cousins. On the flipside, anything that is AP 3 and ignores cover will favor the Wraiths pretty heavily, unless it's S8+, in which case it will still favor them, but only by a smidge.

The point value argument you make is a valid one, but remember, almost no one runs naked Wraiths. You generally see at least 2 whips/5 or 6 models. This largely closes the point disparity. Furthermore, the DLord himself almost completely justifies the cost of the Res Orb (if it was 20 points and only effected the DLord, would you take it? I would seriously consider it. I think there are already some pure Wraith Wing generally that Res Orb their DLord, even if he is the only one benefitting from it). Point being, while the Whip Coil cost is inseparable from the Wraiths, the Res Orb cost is a little harder to tack on in the TPs case. Probably less so for the LG, though, as their Res Orb generally stays with them. In my list, however, for example, I have a 20 brick of Warriors, 10 TPs, and a 20 brick of Flayed Ones. That Res Orb is likely to see action in at least two, if not all three of those units throughout the game. Point being, it will have "payed for itself" many times over, to the point where the actual cost is almost completely negligible when I'm rating out each unit in post game analysis.

Your math checks out, good points!

I actually never use Whip Coils on my Wraiths, for the exact reason that it makes their point-to-survivability ratios worse. I found their killing power acceptable even without the Coils. I do actually run them with a Res Orb DLord, so your point stands in that regard. The DLord adds a lot to the unit, and the Res Orb seems worthwhile even on just himself (although I never manage to make the roll whenever he needs it).

I've always been somewhat underwhelmed with the number of attacks that Praetorians get, do you find that the Voidblade/Caster gets them up to enough attacks to be effective? The incredible offense buff that Wraiths get from Preferred Enemy always surprises me with how good it is, do you feel it works well enough on Praetorians with the one less attack?

Yeah, I agree on the Whip Coils. I bring one, just because it can be great when MC hunting and the like, but Wraiths struggle getting to CC, not performing in CC when the get there.

I feel you on that Res Orb roll too. I'll pass that sucker all day long with everything else, but the DLord NEVER ROLES A 4! lol. Like...seriously!!

Yeah, with PE from the DLord, I find VB/PC have plenty of offensive power once they get within their threat range. That S6 pistol shot, and HofW (when I'm really close) can help out quite a bit there as well. But, lets face it, more often then not it's Fire Warrirors or Kroot or Wave Serpents or something like that they end up in CC with. If anything, I want them to take their time a bit against targets like that (ideally two turns, anyway).

They just shred vehicles though, and badly. 3 VB/PC TPs will wreck any rear AV 10 they touch (with a considerable amount of cushion), or 4 if you are multi-assaulting. Not to say Wraiths are bad against these targets, but the TPs just completely dismantle them. 5 VP/PCs will handle any vehicle in the game they come into contact with.