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Razerous wrote:I think a core of two or three Night Scythes + 2x5 Warriors will end up being a good core. They are quite potent, I agree - but they aren't too tough with AV11 when an enemy player starts rolling 5's or 6's. Also firepower of the TL-D + 5 gauss weapons is okay but it does not answer a few key threats.
That is why no more than 3 will be fielded as you will run out of points to do field the answers to those questions (Multi-wound, AV14 pie lobbers, hordes, TEQ's.). It's 495pts for 3 which leaves 1005pts for a HQ and the rest of the army. Not a bad bet.
I see myself running Immortals inside the Scythes and Warriors slogging it, fielding 2 Command Barges with Scythelords, probably a Cryptek with the str 8 ap 1 flamers inside the scythes and 2 Lance Crpteks on foot with Pulses with the warriors.
Um, yes it is? Having an army with a 24" threat range is a massive constraint, and even if you pretend that's not the case, a 24" threat range army without searchlights is still inferior to a >24" threat range army with searchlights in Night Fighting, to say nothing of Acute Senses or Blacksun Filters.
It still depends on who gets there first. It also depends on who benefits more. I think the main thing here is that Long Fangs, Psyfleman, Manticores ect. are generally hugging the backfield. If a Cron army builds around nightfight (Scarabs, Wraiths, Spyders) they are losing a whole lot less by not shooting than most other armies.
Would you rather have an army with searchlights or an army without searchlights? Searchlights mean that one sacrificial Rhino can allow the whole army shots at key units. I think people who are claiming Night Fighting (for both sides!) is a huge advantage if you tailor your list are advocating non all-comers lists and taking anti-night fighting equipment far too lightly.
Again, it CAN, but it doesn't mean it will. 21" is the average night fight roll. It also only allows 1 unit to get illuminated. If the Cron army is taking advantage of night fight, having the opponent move up to attempt searchlights is playing right into their hands. Scarabs and Wraiths will be thankful.
I guess you haven't played against good Tau players, then?
I'll admit, though I am a pretty experienced player, I haven't played an expert Tau player on a consistent basis. I still maintain that if Tau players all the sudden plan to drop things like the A.S.S, multi tracker, drones, and target lock for blacksun filters they are hurting themselves. Battlesuits outside of team leaders only get one support system. Wasting that for the off chance they are playing Necrons is just a bad decision (assuming people play TAC and don't tailor bc that's just lame).
Sure, vehicles can take them for 5 points, but a Devilfish is hardly scary and most Tau players are rocking Broadsides over Hammerheads anyway. I just don't expect it to be much of a factor. The cost/benefit is just a bad trade.
Solar Pulses are great. Solar Pulses are close to autoinclude tier. I would personally nearly always field two. One-sided Night Fighting is extremely powerful, and while it can be mitigated to an extent by anti-Night Fighting equipment, the solar pulses cost 40 points and they're on units you should be taking anyway, so even if the opponent comes prepared and rolls well enough to mitigate your Pulses, you've barely wasted any points at all. Overall, they will be more than worth it in a majority of games. On the other hand, taking the 225-point Imotekh and then radically constraining yourself by eliminating long-ranged weapons in order to dodge the nerf that he brings to your army's shooting is not. That's a significant chunk of points invested into something that may not pay off.
I think two is a bit cost prohibitive. The generic Overlord is decent, but unless there is a real plan there I don't know if two of them would be worthwhile. You have to consider that two Overlords with Warsythes are 200 points. Add in 2 HoD with Pluses (110) and you end up paying 310 points for that bundle. The Overlords don't really add much to the army in general. Imotekh is 225 plus 55 for the Pulse HoD. So, a 30 point savings. In turn, you get at least the same amount of Night Fight (you don't have to roll to continue). On average, an Imo/Pulse army will have 3-4 turns of Night Fight, 2-3 of these turns giving the added bonus of MSU crushing lightening strikes. Also, the 4+ to seize allows the Crons to go second, deploy accordingly, and then have a good chance to seize.
This all assumes that the Cron army is tailored around Imotekh though. I am taking mass Scarabs, Wraiths, Spyders, and maybe a C'tan. I'd agree that Imo would be prohibitive in a Mech-Cron build based on longer ranged shooting. For those builds, 1 Solar Pulse should suffice to ensure the alpha strike.
I'd mostly agree with you, people are making too big a deal about Night Fight. It's useful, but not game breakingly good. It can be mitigated. I'd also agree that most lists that are hamfisting Imotekh in will not benefit from his rules. Mech Crons don't need him at all. All this being said, 1 solar pulse is still and auto include. Night Fight is still valuable because the alpha strike can mean so much. 1 less turn of shooting from the opponents st 8 spam is pretty devastating with a mid range, AV13 based list. Foot Crons will be viable because of Imotekh. Multiple turns of avoiding enemy ranged firepower allows the list to get close and do work. The lightening strikes (though not reliable) should be doing damage to most of the tourney lists that people take. I know my Dark Eldar army with 12 vehicles at 2k does not want to face the wraith of a turn of high Imotekh rolling. Really, neither does a Chimera wall or Rhino rush. Side armor is generally pretty meh on most vehicles.
2nd Place 2015 ATC--Team 48
6th Place 2014 ATC--team Ziggy Wardust and the Hammers from Mars
3rd Place 2013 ATC--team Quality Control
7-1 at 2013 Nova Open (winner of bracket 4)
I think two is a bit cost prohibitive. The generic Overlord is decent, but unless there is a real plan there I don't know if two of them would be worthwhile. You have to consider that two Overlords with Warsythes are 200 points. Add in 2 HoD with Pluses (110) and you end up paying 310 points for that bundle. The Overlords don't really add much to the army in general. Imotekh is 225 plus 55 for the Pulse HoD. So, a 30 point savings. In turn, you get at least the same amount of Night Fight (you don't have to roll to continue). On average, an Imo/Pulse army will have 3-4 turns of Night Fight, 2-3 of these turns giving the added bonus of MSU crushing lightening strikes. Also, the 4+ to seize allows the Crons to go second, deploy accordingly, and then have a good chance to seize.
Excellent point. A lot of people are countering Imo with the two Tek options as if the Teks themselves and prerequisite Overlords were free.
I think each Cron HQ synergizes with different units and builds, differently, and the optimal choice is very dependant on the overarching scope of the rest of the army.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/11/17 16:44:49
GiantSlingshot wrote:I love the Destructor myself.
To score 8+ hits while firing the gun Once, incoming mathhammer:
Spoiler:
To answer the 8 hits question, it's a little roundabout to calculate
First, all of the shots must hit at all in the first place, (8/9)^4 chance, so, 62.4% chance.
From there, you have 4 results that can be a 3-6, so, there are 256 possible permutations.
6666,x666,6x66,66x6,666x,xx66,x6x6,x66x,6xx6,6x6x,66xx, where x is a number between 3 and 5 are all the useful results. A category that has 1 x could be 3 different results. 2 x's could be 9 different results
1x1 + 4x3 + 6x9 = 67, and 67/256 is 26.2% chance of 8 wounds or better when all of the dice hit. So, 26.2% Chance after a 62.4% chance is 16.3% Chance.
Though, for your purposes, it's possible to get above 8 hits with 1 shot still missing, you just have to get 3 6's on the other dice.
The chance of exactly one miss is 31.2%. After that, there is a (1/4)^3 chance that all of the hits were 6's, which is a 1.6% chance. So, 1.6% after a 31.2% chance is a .5% chance to get 9 hits with 1 miss. Add that to the chance to get 8+ hits on 4 successful dice is a total of 16.8% chance to score 8+ hits every time you fire the gun.
16.8% chance.
For reference, if you're spamming these guns, and can fire 6 of them in a turn, that's odds on for one of them to score those 8 hits.
I think if you take twin linking into account those odds are higher?
Taken into account with the 8/9 chance to hit in all the calculations.
I was at a tournament this weekend, and there were a couple necron players there. One tied in second with Dark Eldar, just after GK (This is in terms of generalship). This guy went (I believe) 4 Major Wins, 1 Draw, and a Major loss (to Dark Eldar)
The versatility of crypteks is - I think - key to your necron army. You have solar pulse, eldritch lance combo, the static field, the super flamer template, the difficult terrain large blast weapon. In combo with other stuff, it can make or break your necrons. It doesn't surprise me that one player came in 2nd and the other dead last. I will guess that the person who came in dead last didn't think synergy of choices whereas the person who came in 2nd did.
I've played a couple of battles recently with the new Necron codex. I can report the following general observations, to include how the battles turned out:
Necrons vs. Blood Angels 1500 pts.
This was a very close fight. My army list was as follows:
As you can probably tell, my friend and I weren't playing for objectives, but more a general "Let's blow everything up and see what's left standing" 1500 point free for all. I grouped my Overlords with Immortals to take hits with the idea they could split off for assault, left the Harbingers hanging in the back in a Devastator squad kind of roll, and had the Wraith tag along behind the C'tan. As I read the rules, the Wraith's whip coils lowering enemy initiative to 1 is synergistic with Time's Arrow (essentially, 5/6 chance to instagib an enemy model in b2b with both). The Annihilation Barges I took since they're dirt cheap, and I wanted to test this whole "Tesla spam hit" concept.
My friend took a fairly typical mech / assault force. Mephiston, psychic dred, two DC dreds, regular DC squads, Land Raider, Baal Predator. Remember, not playing for objectives here. More or less what I thought I'd prepared for with 10 S8 Harbinger lances. Well.
The Harbingers did Jack and Squat with a Diddley tossed in there somewhere. They messed up a DC dred a bit. A lot of that was poor rolling, but it's amazing how ineffective S8 is against some decent front and even side armor. With AP2, they would've been wonderful against Mephy... if he weren't such a frigging teeny model (for, you know, a Daemon Prince) that he could hide behind tanks and terrain. The Monolith lost its power crystal (somewhat miss it being indestructible), and spent several rounds trying to suck someone in through its portal (which didn't work), and shooting its gauss weapons (which also didn't work). My friend picked out the Wraith because he didn't know what it was for, but didn't like the looks of it, so the C'tan only managed to dice the wounded psychic dred before Mephy ate him. Mephy, typically, ate a lot of stuff since my specific counters didn't work. One of my Annihilation Barges was destroyed in the first round (I lost the initiative), and the Immortals were mediocre at best. However....
I said this was a close match, didn't I? The Scarabs ate the Land Raider. That's correct - 45 points of Scarabs ate a Land Raider in 2 rounds like it was made of paper, dirt, or whatever the Hell it is bugs eat. The remaining Annihilation Barge ate almost everything else. By itself. There was some impressive rolling involved, true, but factoring in Twin-Linked and 6 tesla shots (I didn't move it much so I could use the Cannon as well as the Destructor) I always ended up hitting more times than I fired shots. Miss one, roll three 6s - that sort of thing. In approximate order, it killed: 1 Baal Predator; immobilized the psychic dred; 1 DC dred; wounded Mephy; the other DC dred (which it had previously immobilized with a Tesla Arc); killed the last two DC infantry and Arced Mephy again before he flew it down. The Overlords managed to account for most of the DC infantry, mostly by hiding behind the Immortals for the initial assault and letting them soak most of the wounds (hid them right behind the Immortals to limit DC in b2b). Mephy managed to kill almost as much of my stuff as my Annihilation Barge killed of my friend's, to include running down and killing the Barge at the very end, but he costs three times as much and is reasonably broken. He was the only survivor with 2 wounds left at the end of the top round of turn 7.
Note that I didn't even think about using the fancy new (seemingly pretty crappy) Necron melee infantry, as I don't recall Flayed Ones being great even in 3rd edition, and am not thrilled with the looks of the Lychguard (aka Pariahs Mach 2), or Praetorians (aka Jetpack Pariahs). Lessons learned, it was time to try again:
Necrons vs. Orks 1500 pts.
I was a little leery about one, as the last time I'd played my friend's Orks he'd pulled an Imperial Armour Mekboy army on me. As such, I thought I'd give two of the more promising looking special characters the Necrons have been graced with a shot (since the C'tan - my old Nightbringer model - was still in Time Out).
tl:dr Having learned my lesson about the dangers of Harbingers as heavy weapon squads, and remembering that the Stormlord can't seize the initiative against Orks, I went with only one squad of Crypteks this time, and hooked them up with Transmogrification - not only were they a little cheaper, but I figured I could count on some kind of return for their hits even if I didn't score any penetrations. The Infinite Range bit seemed appealing against Orks, too, even though that meant they wouldn't come into play until Night Fighting from the Stormlord wore off. I thought of it kind of as keeping them in reserve. Note also that I'm the kind of player that, when he realizes some unit might be a little more cost effective in most situations than others, will spam that unit choice and nothing but until something cheesier comes along. Thus the Scarab and Barge spam. Again, not going for objectives here, but those aren't so hard on the Necrons anymore now that they have more than one expensive troop choice with an obnoxiously large minimum size (score one for the 5th edition dex). Worried about PowerKlaw nobs, I passed on a Monolith, even though it seems like a solid choice against most Ork unit types (that door certainly seems useful). (Side note on that - it seems that Monoliths are a huge Deepstrike Mishap waiting to happen, which seems like it limits their most potentially useful role? Sure were with the amount of terrain we use!) I went with the Flayed Ones to try them out, but primarily because the units I knew I wanted - the Scarabs and Barges - were so damned cheap I was left with points to throw around, but wasn't willing to throw them away on (Lychguard or Praetorians would've been a joke in CC if they got swamped, and they would've. Think 5 Lords might be a viable alternative since they can stand back up even if they're all knocked down?). /tl;dr
Anywho! My friend took a reasonably trendy Battlewagon with Kill Kannon, Flash Gitz squad, Big Mek w. the fancy gun, Warboss w. Mega Armor, Burna Boyz, 'Ard Boyz, Deff Dred, 6 Killa Kans, 2 Trikes, and about a bazillion of those obnoxious helicopter thingies - in other words, precisely not the swarm of Boyz I was expecting.
My friend got the initiative (of course), and with limited shooting managed to kill, you guessed it, an Annihilation Barge. You'd think he was paranoid or something. He did cover a disturbing amount of ground, though. In return I sat back and zapped him with Stormlord (not to be confused Swarmlord, Stormcaller, or any other recently original GW naming convention) lightning, immobilizing, and thus destroying, a Kan and, oh yes, the Big Mek hiding in the back (6 to hit, 6 hits, bunch of 6s to wound). Sniped some Koptas which had earlier knocked over a few screening Flayed Ones. A second round of mostly me sitting back, my friend charging, and a whole bunch of whiffing (even though Night Fighting, predictably, ended after only one round). Some ground pounders got shot on both sides, but half of mine got back up. Round 3 things started to get interesting.
So! That Command Barge thingie's pretty handy when the rider's got a Warscythe. Zoomed over a couple of Koptas and took one out. My Orky friend had managed to blast a decent number of models off their feet, but Necrons are still pretty darned resistant to shooting, and I traditionally roll well for WBB (I'd call it RP now, but when you say that quickly it sounds like an A and an E get added). So. When you read Anrakyr the Traveller's Mind in the Machine special rule, it tells you he can take over enemy vehicles and fire them off at the beginning of his shooting phase, but it never calls this a shooting attack. Going with that understanding, I fired both the special ability and his Tachyon Arrow off, both at different targets, just to frustrate the FAQ crowd. Just to frustrate me, I rolled a 1 and a 2. !@$$#$@ There still wasn't much melee going on, as I'd been maneuvering my Beastly scarabs to jump them whatever vehicles got into range, and consequently none had. The infinite range Crypteks messed up the Battlewagon a bit, and my Flayed Ones with Lord managed to jump an incautious Koptah squad which'd strayed an inch too close (thanks to some fine Difficult Terrain rolling on my part). Which, of course, was the start of a pretty nasty pileup that ended up drawing in 'Ard Boyz and Kans like a half-off sale for meat that's ready to expire.
Props for embedded Necron Lords with Warscythes that you can't pick out of a crowd - he and a few surviving Flayed Ones managed to walk away, but it was quite a few rounds before that mess sorted itself out. The Traveller's ride got taken out, leaving him, against the odds, on the ground with a wound. He got shot up and took two more, fell over and then got right back up the next turn with 1 wound. My surviving Annihilation Barges, all set to prove themselves again, zapped the living tar out of an armor reduced Deff Dred, two Kans, and Arced right back into the Traveller, who apparently hadn't received the message that metal bodies conduct electricity. Down he went again, but I think my Barge captains secretly tried to claim kill points for him anyway in a fluff PR coup that I'm sure you wouldn't be interested in.
So what was left again? Some Scarabs got shot up, a few got jumped by a lone Kan and were squished before they could fight back, and the survivors cowered on the front side of the immobilized Battlewagon, scant inches away from a now impotent Deff Rolla, and tried to present a difficult target to Burna Boyz who had the wagon jammed into some terrain getting in the way. The torched one of the bases anyway, but the two survivors finished eating the Battlewagon in my round (infinite range Harbingers backing up 12" assaulting Scarabs is a pretty nasty combo against non-melee vehicles). The Traveller got back up again, tried to take over a Kan weapon system, rolled a 2... again, and sat there crying as my now lone surviving Annihilation Barge fired right over his head in an effort to reclaim his kill points using some complicated triangulation bouncing shots off of the Warboss (taking its last wound in the process). I think someone shouted "Viva la Revolucion!" in a cold, metallic voice, and things sort of got hazy from there. Overall, a pretty significant victory for the Necrons.
Overall I like the new codex pretty well. I don't like what was done with Destroyers, or the new C'tan story fluff very much, but Destroyer Lords still seem to have a niche. What was lost in better WBB rolls and One Rez Orb to Rule Them All is reclaimed in dropping weaknesses to power weapons, double strength weapons (anyone else notice that these don't circumvent RP yet?), and Phase Out (which was sort of a mythic concern for me, as I never experienced it in 3rd edition, though things got pretty dicey now and then). I truly do view Lychguard and Praetorians both as the new Pariahs, but by a lesser margin - they're still not cost effective against most targets, but RP and better options are more than a replacement for the loss of the hard to capitalize on anti-psyker and leadership whammies; also, the models look nice. Overall, Necrons still don't measure up in melee, but they never really did (with a few C'tan exceptions), and the addition of embedded leaders that can't be IC picked out into regular squads make them more robust than they used to be. Most importantly, Necrons can now realistically compete over objectives, which they could not do with the 3rd edition codex.
It seems the new theme is that Necrons shoot pretty well, and still soak shooting better than any other army out there. The melee doesn't match up point for point in most cases, but in most cases you'll have suffered less shooting attrition by the time it reaches that point (presuming you capitalize on several excellent options to counter enemy transport vehicles, thus inhibiting their mobility). Scarabs are flat-out excellent for their potential for cost - 4 attacks in each base's basic profile with Entropic Strike built in? There's no reason not to sink at least two Fast Attack slots into 90 points worth of catchall vehicle counters. 5th edition gives vehicles some obnoxious advantages by older standards, but Necrons and Dark Eldar both have some outstanding anti-armor infantry options which tip the scales back severely (Necrons are a very heavily anti-armor army if you take time to read all of the rules). Codex Necrons is the first 6th edition codex after all, isn't it? (Prepped for the new rule set before it comes out, I mean). Necrons have a lot of instant kill special rules that can skirt around Eternal Warrior as well - I've only mentioned the Wraith / C'tan combo, but there are others, and if someone can get around the Monolith Deep Striking problem, those portals will eat Tau and spam 'Nids alive.
Not sure what to try out next - maybe the jetbikes. Still need a specific plan to counter DEDL /Blaster spam.
Pity you have so little to contribute, though. Two point snipes out of maybe three dozen assertions? The trolls are weak here. :3
Excuse me, but correcting a few mistakes on your part, does not mean I'm trolling.
You clearly don't know me either. I've contributed to a multitude of Necron threads.
So, how about instead of making ignorant statements about someone you don't even know, and making a jerk out of yourself, you keep those comments to yourself next time.
Pity you have so little to contribute, though. Two point snipes out of maybe three dozen assertions? The trolls are weak here. :3
Excuse me, but correcting a few mistakes on your part, does not mean I'm trolling.
You clearly don't know me either. I've contributed to a multitude of Necron threads.
So, how about instead of making ignorant statements about someone you don't even know, and making a jerk out of yourself, you keep those comments to yourself next time.
That's just the sort of thing that a troll might say...
Now, to SquatCodex5thEd: No, really, you played two elements of the game incorrectly, and given that the Lord in the squad of Flayed Ones seemed like a shining moment for your army, there's little that can be said other than "you can't actually do that", without repeating a month of discussion that is better researched by someone new than re-posted by someone tenured. I think you'll find many battle reports involving Necrons since November 5th here on Dakka, wherein the competitiveness of the Necrons has been debated hotly. If there is a specific question or inquiry you are seeking here, you should be straightforward with it, as surface observations of the Necrons has been discussed ad infinitum.
EDIT: That much aside, welcome to Dakka!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/12/10 23:25:50
As you can probably tell, my friend and I weren't playing for objectives, but more a general "Let's blow everything up and see what's left standing" 1500 point free for all.
This aspect makes it tough discern much from a competitive standpoint. 40k in a competitive sense is going to revolve heavily around troop choices because of the prevalence of objectives in the missions.
Ha! So I did.
Pity you have so little to contribute, though. Two point snipes out of maybe three dozen assertions? The trolls are weak here. :3
That's just the sort of thing that a troll might say...
As to these gems....clearly Sasori was not trolling. Pointing out that a list had illegal elements is a good thing to do. If you don't want to hear that, I don't know what to tell you...
2nd Place 2015 ATC--Team 48
6th Place 2014 ATC--team Ziggy Wardust and the Hammers from Mars
3rd Place 2013 ATC--team Quality Control
7-1 at 2013 Nova Open (winner of bracket 4)
JGrand wrote:As to these gems....clearly Sasori was not trolling. Pointing out that a list had illegal elements is a good thing to do. If you don't want to hear that, I don't know what to tell you...
<broadcast mode active: accusations of trolling are unlikely to contribute to the conversation; if you believe a post to be inappropriate, utilize the Yellow Triangle in the upper-right corner to flag it for moderator attention, and then MOVE ON>
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