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Hello dakkalites, you are probably thinking "oh another one of these threads" and you might be right, but Im going ahead regardless.

I recently had a discussion with one of my regular opponants (who will remain nameless, until he names himself) which boiled down to him almost refusing to play my Necrons with his latest Chaos list (Marines & Daemons; 3 FDPs, obliterators, contemptor, plaugebearers, lots of cultists AFAIK) because of these little things, on the grounds that they stop his list from functioning properly. Now mathmatically, MSS only work one half of the times they are used, against the majority of the units he bitches about them being used on. Avg roll across 2D6 is 7. 10 - 7 is 3. 3 incorporates half of the third die, so theres a 1/2 chance to fail the test, on average rolling. And even if the test is failed, its D3 attacks your way not my way, that is all. You are very unlikely to do yourself lasting damage, unless you are unlucky as hell.

Now, we all know that MSS should be 20 points a pop if not more for what they do, not 15. but is it any different than a space marine sergeant with a Lightning Claw shredding a Commissar before he gets to swing? Or Abaddon single handedly wiping a unit out wholesale with a possible 12 S5AP2 attacks at WS7 and I5?

Is this the most hated peice of wargear around, or is it just my mate being on the end of too many bad dice rolls?

I would like to point out that MSS are designed to stop your characters getting bitchslapped by anything moderately viable in combat, unless you are prepared to invest almost double the cost of the model itself into wargear with the simple purpose of protection, before weapons or support equipment (res orbs in Necron case)

Is my mate in the right here, to write up a different list that minimises MSS impact, or to demand I use my secondary army in order to fight his triple Daemon list? (Spoilered quotes from the conversation to back that up)



What do you think internet? Am I the bad guy for running something that has a counter to getting 3 units wiped out a turn?

First things first. This is a game, and it should be about fun for all. Clearly your friend is frustrated and if you have another army list handy why not switch it up in order for your friend to have fun again?

I only just got back into this a few months ago and I have exactly 1 army, Necrons. and I run with MSS, and as much as I love it, if my friend told me he didn't want to play because of that piece of wargear I would remove it from the game so he could have some fun. I would probably mock him for being afraid of a leadership test but I would keep it light. If he's not having fun, I'm not having fun.

Ask yourself would you really have any fun playing your friend if you knew he wasn't having any fun?

But its not a leadership test. Its a test on 3D6 which even in a best case situation still fails 50ish % of the time.

Its 15 point piece of wargear that completely nerfs 275 points of Logan Grimnar. In fact its worse than that because not only does he strike himself, the necron lord still gets to swing with all of its weapons. Good weapons at that. Thus pretty much saying that Logan has a 50% chance of just laying down and dying just for trying to do his job.

Nobody would probably have an issue with MSS if they didn't effect HQ options. Sure, control a sargent/grunt what ever. But when your expensive HQs - many whos only function is CC suddenly are not allowed to do their job half the time by a piece of wargear a fraction of their points costs. It rubs people the wrong way.

Being ineffective in assault? Fearing a tough unit?

This is how armies that don't have deathstars or uber characters feel.

Or how tau or guard feel every game.

I have played against them, and honestly I think of him as just another dragio, or big nasty demon with a 2++ or honestly, like one of the new chapter masters with the shield eternal and other stuff.

There are tons of big nasty units out there that someone else specifically feels is "impossible" or "breaks their list".

Regarding the cost, I encourage other players to actually look at the necron codex - notice their significant lack of anyone who is good at CC.

The key is not trying to fight every nail with your hammer - some are just going to be different. Sure, I did not like that last time I faced a cron lord wtih MSS...but I also did not like the last time I faced mephiston, or dragio wing.

I know some people are going to read my post and say "but..." or "you are wrong...". I challenge those people to think a bit differently - and think about the game differently - it will make you a better player when maybe one of your "go to" models can't excel at everything.

Don't go against the strengths of an enemy, go against their weaknesses.

It's like the lash thing in 5th. It's not just about how good it is, it's more about the mechanic. It doesn't feel like your badass combat HQ character dude gets beaten fair and square, it feels like you've been cheated.

Basically, it's like having someone slap you in the face with their dick and you can't do anything about it.

 Jayden63 wrote:
But its not a leadership test. Its a test on 3D6 which even in a best case situation still fails 50ish % of the time.

Its 15 point piece of wargear that completely nerfs 275 points of Logan Grimnar. In fact its worse than that because not only does he strike himself, the necron lord still gets to swing with all of its weapons. Good weapons at that. Thus pretty much saying that Logan has a 50% chance of just laying down and dying just for trying to do his job.

Nobody would probably have an issue with MSS if they didn't effect HQ options. Sure, control a sargent/grunt what ever. But when your expensive HQs - many whos only function is CC suddenly are not allowed to do their job half the time by a piece of wargear a fraction of their points costs. It rubs people the wrong way.

I find it funny that a space wolf player is complaining about an ability that requires being in close combat, in base to base contact, and randomly affects models unless you accept a challenge, still having to fail the 3d6, and fail the saves, when space wolves can spam jaws which has a 24" range, can snipe characters with no saves allowed, and absolutely decimates I2 necron models. Seriously.

First, it's not D3 attacks, it's D3 hits.
Between that and the inevitable Warscythe, and the fact that whatever has the MSS can challenge, you're essentially guaranteed to kill whatever CC beat stick you find.

It means the 300+ point demon prince has to run like a coward from anything with an MSS.

rigeld2 wrote:
First, it's not D3 attacks, it's D3 hits.
Between that and the inevitable Warscythe, and the fact that whatever has the MSS can challenge, you're essentially guaranteed to kill whatever CC beat stick you find.

It means the 300+ point demon prince has to run like a coward from anything with an MSS.

Or he can not suck at the game, lol.

When I play against Necrons with my Circus, I charge the MSS unit with say, Dogs first and surround the character. Then I follow it up with the Prince. I choose the order of operations on my turn, thus MSS goes before challenge. A random Flesh Hound bites himself and my DP kills a DLord.

Then he gets back up and I fail at life, =)


MSS is annoying but there are ways around it. To play a power list like the Circus and have the audacity to complain about someone elses build is insane.

 disdamn wrote:
First things first. This is a game, and it should be about fun for all. Clearly your friend is frustrated and if you have another army list handy why not switch it up in order for your friend to have fun again?

I only just got back into this a few months ago and I have exactly 1 army, Necrons. and I run with MSS, and as much as I love it, if my friend told me he didn't want to play because of that piece of wargear I would remove it from the game so he could have some fun. I would probably mock him for being afraid of a leadership test but I would keep it light. If he's not having fun, I'm not having fun.

Ask yourself would you really have any fun playing your friend if you knew he wasn't having any fun?

This! if its for a fun game and your friend isn't having fun what's the point. I suck at Madden Last time I played my friend went 100 plus points to 0. That's with me playing an all star team and him using the worst one. If its not fun then its not fun.

Yeah, but if you deny the challenge then your beatstick CC HQ has to sit out while the D lord rampages through the combat. If you answer the challenge with your regular unit champion, he's going to hit himself in the face with his specialist weapon and almost certainly die. And don't pretend you can 'avoid combat' with a Dlord and his unit of oh so balanced wraiths. I have to take Sam in my ravenwing army. I don't really have a choice. And I can choose between either using him as a 200 point plasma cannon on the board edge, or him getting murdered by the Dlord without every getting a chance to swing. So fun! Then again the necron army has never been fun to play against in any edition.

 BarBoBot wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:
But its not a leadership test. Its a test on 3D6 which even in a best case situation still fails 50ish % of the time.

Its 15 point piece of wargear that completely nerfs 275 points of Logan Grimnar. In fact its worse than that because not only does he strike himself, the necron lord still gets to swing with all of its weapons. Good weapons at that. Thus pretty much saying that Logan has a 50% chance of just laying down and dying just for trying to do his job.

Nobody would probably have an issue with MSS if they didn't effect HQ options. Sure, control a sargent/grunt what ever. But when your expensive HQs - many whos only function is CC suddenly are not allowed to do their job half the time by a piece of wargear a fraction of their points costs. It rubs people the wrong way.

I find it funny that a space wolf player is complaining about an ability that requires being in close combat, in base to base contact, and randomly affects models unless you accept a challenge, still having to fail the 3d6, and fail the saves, when space wolves can spam jaws which has a 24" range, can snipe characters with no saves allowed, and absolutely decimates I2 necron models. Seriously.

I just picked a random guy who is a beat stick over 250 points. Choose Gazzy, Abby, Vect, Calgar... the list goes on and the feeling of unfun propagates. Also people can say fight smartly, but as the necron player, you can be pretty agressive with it too. After all there is little downside of sending your destroyer Lord enemy HQ hunting.

I agree that the Mindshackle scarab thing sucks. (My most frequent opponent is a Necron player who is in love with the freaking things.) But I don't think it's broken by any stretch of the imagination. It's just one of the most frustrating aspects of its codex. All codexes have them. Every time someone complains about Mindshackle Scarabs, I remember what Monoliths were like in the last codex, and feel kind of like an ex-con who's stuck in traffic. Sure, this traffic jam sucks, but it beats a couple of years ago when I was getting held down and shanked in the shower.

As a tau player-MSS is horrid and should be removed from the game.

Seriously, you can stick anywhere, even on already powerful CC guys. its annoying.

To me, it's just one more annoying opponent ability to play around. Tau ignore cover, Space Marines ignore morale rules, the list goes on. The design philosophy that appears to be in play is the idea that everyone is overpowered in their own way to create balance. If GW was better at it, we wouldn't be having these complaints.

The main problem with MSS is how blatantly cost effective it is at what it brings to a low point value, necron army...

Take the Royal Court for instance... You can give them all MSS and Warscythes, then have them all march across the field in units and instantly, you've become a walking HQ counter force that effectively negates high point cost Models and Characters.

For champions like the Swarmlord / Abaddon, this is HUGE... 265 / 340 point Models like the Daemon Prince literally killing themselves every turn because of a 15 point upgrade.... That's game breakingly OP.... Not to mention the Warscythe was FAQ'd to be even better, so once you've smacked your own face, the Lord gets to lay in on you as well...

I dislike the mechanics of the upgrade all together as I think it was deliberately under costed and over enhanced throughout it's testing.... If you had to declare you were using it and subsequently weren't allowed to attack that same turn, I would think it would be slightly less disgusting. Or better yet, increase it's cost to 35 points and simply revert the Warscythe FAQ / make the Leadership Test 2D6. Or you know, let the Character affected strike regardless along with also taking 3 Hits....

There are soooooooo many options for balancing MSS that it's almost absurd no FAQ was released to do so... 15 points should not counter an entire army from the get go. It should at most, give you a 1 combat boost to survivability.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Sure, this traffic jam sucks, but it beats a couple of years ago when I was getting held down and shanked in the shower.

That's quite the analogy...

 Jimsolo wrote:
I agree that the Mindshackle scarab thing sucks. (My most frequent opponent is a Necron player who is in love with the freaking things.) But I don't think it's broken by any stretch of the imagination. It's just one of the most frustrating aspects of its codex. All codexes have them. Every time someone complains about Mindshackle Scarabs, I remember what Monoliths were like in the last codex, and feel kind of like an ex-con who's stuck in traffic. Sure, this traffic jam sucks, but it beats a couple of years ago when I was getting held down and shanked in the shower.

I dont quite see the similairty between MSS and getting violated in the prison shower but I do see your point. So I actualy find myself agreeing with you.

I have a question , when a csm DP hits himself with a darkmace does the mace ID test aoe spread to the csm units or to the necron ones ?

The problem with MSS is that it's one of those rare items or abilities that gets better as your opponent gets better.

Used against a SM squad sgt? No one's really going to complain too much. But used against a daemon prince? Suddenly that hugely expensive model is not just useless - it's actually fighting for the enemy.

People have paid points - often a lot of points - for their close combat characters. To see that investment not just negated but actually turned against you, all because of a 15 point wargear item, is the ultimate exercise in frustration and annoyance.

Unfortunately Necrons just seem to play this way - a lot of their abilities work by stopping the enemy doing their things, which often makes for dull and frustrating games.

I don't think the MSS upgrade is that bad.
It is one of the few things in the Necron army that is a threat in close combat.
There are far nastier things in almost all other armies.
Almost everyone has a cc unit that will tear through most of a Necron unit without slowing down, or a shooting unit that will blast it off the table.

 marv335 wrote:
I don't think the MSS upgrade is that bad.
It is one of the few things in the Necron army that is a threat in close combat.
There are far nastier things in almost all other armies.
Almost everyone has a cc unit that will tear through most of a Necron unit without slowing down, or a shooting unit that will blast it off the table.

Well yeah but then again cc units are hyper specialized to cc usually and lack pretty much any other ability. Kinda like your wraiths actually. Really nasty in cc but that is all they are really worth. No shooting, actually they themself are more of the cleanup crew (still terrifyingly good). Also tearing through a necron unit doesn't help (we cc players tend to like being stuck in cc until the end of your turn~). Also the same can be said for pretty much every faction. SM are the everyman guys and nowadays ATSKNF arguably works more against them then for them. They cost a lot of points for a armor save that has become decreasingly reliable, most enemy units can blast it off the table or easily sweep them in cc. Heck, for the most part that can be said for almost anything. The problem with MSS is it is so cheap for something that really feths over armies. Even at the highest leadership (and trust me several armies aren't. One of the big 3 cc armies is daemons whom nowadays at best have ld9 models) armies will only have a 50% chance of it failing. It allows a lord to isolate an important beatstick (due to how the challenge rules work), and then giggle as their 15 point item has a 1/2 or better chance of making the enemie's beat stick whack himself to death. The biggest problem comes down to it scaling too well. It's meh against a sergeant. Likely going to get him to whack himself apart but hey it is just a sergeant. The problem comes from when a cc specialized unit starts beating his face in with his own weapon when you payed several hundred more points on your dude (abbaddon, any chaos daemon, even tyranids) also how does a mss clamp onto a daemon exactly? Then d3 hits to themself and on top of that you actually have a good cc weapon with a great ap and very solid S value that will add extra pain. Honestly it's not the worst thing ever. There are far more broken cheesy things out there. That being said, it is an anti-fun item that is irritating, grating, bothersome, and all around underpriced just maybe not as much as some other ones (granted this is in part because the current meta is largely dominated by shooting)

Quite frankly, if you're throwing your close combat monster high point Hq at a Necron model that you know (or suspect) has MSS, then it's not really the fault of MSS that your point sink character got splatted.

Frankly, I find the res orb more annoying. You spend all that effort to kill the Lord and it just stands up half the time (barring sweeps).

GoliothOnline wrote:
The main problem with MSS is how blatantly cost effective it is at what it brings to a low point value, necron army...

Take the Royal Court for instance... You can give them all MSS and Warscythes, then have them all march across the field in units and instantly, you've become a walking HQ counter force that effectively negates high point cost Models and Characters.

For champions like the Swarmlord / Abaddon, this is HUGE... 265 / 340 point Models like the Daemon Prince literally killing themselves every turn because of a 15 point upgrade.... That's game breakingly OP.... Not to mention the Warscythe was FAQ'd to be even better, so once you've smacked your own face, the Lord gets to lay in on you as well...

I dislike the mechanics of the upgrade all together as I think it was deliberately under costed and over enhanced throughout it's testing.... If you had to declare you were using it and subsequently weren't allowed to attack that same turn, I would think it would be slightly less disgusting. Or better yet, increase it's cost to 35 points and simply revert the Warscythe FAQ / make the Leadership Test 2D6. Or you know, let the Character affected strike regardless along with also taking 3 Hits....

There are soooooooo many options for balancing MSS that it's almost absurd no FAQ was released to do so... 15 points should not counter an entire army from the get go. It should at most, give you a 1 combat boost to survivability.

Thing is how much would a court cost and what would happen if it was to be hit by let's say a... Battlecannon

 marv335 wrote:
Quite frankly, if you're throwing your close combat monster high point Hq at a Necron model that you know (or suspect) has MSS, then it's not really the fault of MSS that your point sink character got splatted.

This reminds me a lot of people that were going on about how I shouldn't lob my pink horror magic at a 5+ fnp wave of about 20 plagues. Yeah I know it is a bad idea. But here's the problem, a, limited models, b everything else was dead xD (I won actually by weight of numbers by charging with horrors of all things xD). I'll still blame the MSS simply because... how is it that a 15 point item can hard counter units that usually end up costing a truck ton of points? I really don't think it is the worst thing that 40k has brought out. There are things far more underpriced and preposterous than this one specific thing. Really it's more of an irritation to me as a player. It's like well I guess I won't be attacking them in cc time to bast the rest of their army to bits. That being said, I still argue that it is an anti-fun item that really doesn't fit in (let alone it really doesn't make sense how it works on so many people xD)

 marv335 wrote:
Quite frankly, if you're throwing your close combat monster high point Hq at a Necron model that you know (or suspect) has MSS, then it's not really the fault of MSS that your point sink character got splatted.

Yeah it's totally impossible for the Necrons to charge, eh?

 anonymou5 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
First, it's not D3 attacks, it's D3 hits.
Between that and the inevitable Warscythe, and the fact that whatever has the MSS can challenge, you're essentially guaranteed to kill whatever CC beat stick you find.

It means the 300+ point demon prince has to run like a coward from anything with an MSS.

Or he can not suck at the game, lol.

When I play against Necrons with my Circus, I charge the MSS unit with say, Dogs first and surround the character. Then I follow it up with the Prince. I choose the order of operations on my turn, thus MSS goes before challenge. A random Flesh Hound bites himself and my DP kills a DLord.

Then he gets back up and I fail at life, =)


MSS is annoying but there are ways around it. To play a power list like the Circus and have the audacity to complain about someone elses build is insane.

Didn't take long for the first L2Pnewb post. 8 posts. Mostly kdding.



MSS are irritating, but meh, not game breaking. I try not to throw any close combat badass at things i suspect might have them (which is way easier said than done, i will totally admit that).

That said, if i was playing something and buddy said to me something along the lines of "no, i'm not taking the list i was going to play against (that), because i'm not sitting here being bored with a crappy game for the next two hours", i'd probably switch my list up.

This actually has happened before, and i accomodated my friend - I was using alarielle in Fantasy a lot, and a friend actually asked me if i could table her for a game because he was sick to death of facing her every game. I was more than happy to put her away for a few games. THis is a good friend, my most often fantasy opponent. I want him to have fun too.


... tournament ? Different story. Tough noogies, in go my mind controlling undercosted, stacked leadership MSS, or my ultra bs elf queen.

 anonymou5 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
First, it's not D3 attacks, it's D3 hits.
Between that and the inevitable Warscythe, and the fact that whatever has the MSS can challenge, you're essentially guaranteed to kill whatever CC beat stick you find.

It means the 300+ point demon prince has to run like a coward from anything with an MSS.

Or he can not suck at the game, lol.

When I play against Necrons with my Circus, I charge the MSS unit with say, Dogs first and surround the character. Then I follow it up with the Prince. I choose the order of operations on my turn, thus MSS goes before challenge. A random Flesh Hound bites himself and my DP kills a DLord.

Then he gets back up and I fail at life, =)


MSS is annoying but there are ways around it. To play a power list like the Circus and have the audacity to complain about someone elses build is insane.

how can MSS go off before a challenge, when a challenge is the first thing done in combat?

MSS are overpowered though, and necrons who insist otherwise are idiots. It either should be a normal leadership or straight up not affect fearless models. Since its not a morale check, fearless has no effect on it. Ld10 on a 3D6 is very easy to ignore, and it completely nullifies the target rather than strip 1-2 attacks. Its the kind of balance i loathe, the army in general is pretty meh outside MSS, which is just on an insanely different level of strong compared to the army. Why do they even have it? Theyre not an assaulty army, they have 1 unit thats good at it (wraiths) and happen to have an HQ that can too.
Used to play against a Necron guy all the time, i believe in about 15-20 games he actually failed MSS twice or so. And as an Ork army, the likeliness of me shooting wraiths out before they meet my forces. MSS would single handedly make him win the game because either he outshoots me, or i try to get around the wraiths which is impossible since theyre even faster than bikernobz, since they ignore walls when they move around.

It's specifically nasty against builds that rely on big heavy hitters (Flying Circus, Tyranids, etc..). Not every list has expendable units to feed into the lord.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
how can MSS go off before a challenge, when a challenge is the first thing done in combat?

Because they actually happen at the same time, and the rules say that the active player decides the order they occur in - so if you're charging, put your beatstick in b2b with someone else, trigger MSS, issue the challenge.
If the Necrons are charging you, they issue the challenge then trigger MSS.