Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Junk, you've made a compelling case for including Heavy Destroyers.

May I make some suggestions in that vein? Why not include some plain-jane destroyers in that unit. Like one or two. They still have some reasonable shooting (2 S5 Ap3 24" Guass shots), and can take the first couple wounds in your unit. I'm thinking just one or two. Like, a dude to take a Krak Missle to the face for the team, instead of losing a 60point model.

If you're forcing an opponent to stay still, if he's mech heavy, the targets are going to be the Heavy Destroyers, IMO.

I still really like the idea of having a Triarch Stalker in the mix though. Even with a TL Heavy Guass. For interest, I'd playtest the S7 AP4 pie plate gun for +5 points, if you can get the TL bonus on a couple of different units (due to the size of the template), that can increase the effectiveness of the rest of your armies shooting (the tremor staves hitting, in particular). You'd still need an anti-mech option though...

So since you asked Junk, here is a sample list

Stormlord
Orikan
Chronometron Cryptek
2 Tremor Cryptek
Writhing Worldscape/Spirit Dust Ctan
3x5 warriors
12 Wraiths
10 Scarabs
9 Spyders

Now, with the scant points left at this point, you have a few options. You can add some minor upgrades to the wraiths for wound allocations, 1 gloom prism for spyders is basicly mandatory, or a few extra warriors for the Chrono/Stormlord/Orikan unit. The chrono can be used either to keep nightfighting around or align Orikan to Ctan status. With Orikan empowered, you have only 2 tremor units in the list that are not killy assault units.

I don't have my dex in front of me so this has to be fine tuned a bit, but if I was ever to go WW w/Orikan I would finagle something like this:
H-Q

Imotehk
Orikan
RC
Tremortek
Tremortek
VoidTek

ELITES
C'Tan WW/LoF
C'Tan (forget names but lazz canon and stealth)
C'Tan Gaze of Death/Large Pie Plate

TROOPS
20 Warriors (VeilTek
5 Warriors (one tremortek)
5 Warriors (other tremortek)

HEAVY SUPPORT
Monolith
Monolith

Pretty sure I'm over a tad, but you get the basic idea. Reserve one Mono so it can come in turn two with the help of Orikan and give the C;tan (preferably the Gazer) some mobility options. Hide the big boys behind the other lith as they move down the field, keeping the WW/LofF C'tan in the middle to keep him well out of LOS.

The 2+ turns of NF should give the big toys plenty time to get into position, and then its yum yum time with 4 nasty MCs.

DevianID wrote:
Stormlord
Orikan
Chronometron Cryptek
2 Tremor Cryptek
Writhing Worldscape/Spirit Dust Ctan
3x5 warriors
12 Wraiths
10 Scarabs
9 Spyders

Okay, I could see that working as a reason to include Imotekh.
Why spirit dust on the C'tan, if night fighting is up, I don't see the need for stealth. As usual I'd recommend Grand illusion to redeploy scarabs and wraiths as close to the enemy lines as possible.
9 spyders seems like a big investment; but we stick particle beamers on them, then at least they're useful outside of scarab spawning.
Killing 5 spiders allows for 2 ghost arks, and I'd kind of like to see one more stave in there.

Once the enemy is locked in CC, the Writhing worldscape loses value. So it wouldn't be a bad idea to just throw the Ctan into the melee as well; in which case Gaze might be a good upgrade for him.

---

Shadar, you're mad - I've never even imagined putting 3 c'tans into one list!
Realistically, the problem there is how slowly the c'tan actually move, but I guess if you're slowing down the opponent, this is probably the only way you're going to get them where you want them.
Strange, have you tried it?

Actually, I see some hidden synergies in Shadar's madness. The monoliths can be used to reposition the C'tan and the monolith's portal of Exile is much better against enemies that are mobility restricted. I don't agree with his C'tan power choices, but it's an interesting idea.

After my game last night, I see how minimum warriors are a problem without enough other threats on the board. They couldn't make much of a dent in a blob of IG troops (and I failed way to many RP rolls...)
It was just a 500 point league game, so I didn't get to test any of the other ideas.

Shadar's list is weird... it oddly relies of terrain and also having an open space for the Monoliths to land in.

foolishmortal wrote:Actually, I see some hidden synergies in Shadar's madness. The monoliths can be used to reposition the C'tan and the monolith's portal of Exile is much better against enemies that are mobility restricted. I don't agree with his C'tan power choices, but it's an interesting idea.

Yeah I'm not 100% sold on the choices either. I really like the Gazer coming out of the lith as I feel that C'Tan has tremendous potential once it gets stuck in CC. Second power for this one was more of a toss up.

Stealth on the TransThunderbolt so he can peak around corners of the Lith, sniping vehicles, and still get a 3++ against anything that gets some LOS on it.

Finally Lord of Fire on the WW C'Tan because I would like to keep him out of LOS as much as possible, and LofF keeps him somewhat cheaper and brings a bit of protection to the Lith.

Also, not sure if anybody caught this, but Orikan hanging with Imotehk will allow him to shoot the Transdimensional Beamer on the charge, could be fun.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Anpu-adom wrote:
Shadar's list is weird... it oddly relies of terrain and also having an open space for the Monoliths to land in.

I don't fear DSing onto terrain with the Lith, with good placement immobilise is not that big of an issue with the Lith, and it's only a 1/6 chance, not sweating it to badly.

It will invariably always immobilize when you really don't want it to.

Shadar, you're mad - I've never even imagined putting 3 c'tans into one list!
Realistically, the problem there is how slowly the c'tan actually move, but I guess if you're slowing down the opponent, this is probably the only way you're going to get them where you want them.
Strange, have you tried it?

Yeah I started slinging around the idea for funsies, haven't actually run it yet, but I feel as you pointed out that if they were going to thrive in any lists they would need A.) A couple Monos for LOS protection and mobility and B.) WW and lots of terrain shenanigans to keep stuffs locked in place so you can get to it and munch on it. and C.) Plenty of turns of night fighting to minimise pewpew until they can chopchop.

I need a third Shard to run it myself, been really playing around with different kit ideas on this one. Not sure how "competitive" the list will turn out, however you should be able to dictate the course of the of the fight, which generally means with good general-ship you'll win more then you'll lose.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

-666- wrote:It will invariably always immobilize when you really don't want it to.

Tru, Murphy's Law tends to trump statistics.

I played a 1500 list that included Orikan and WW C'tan earlier today. We rolled for deployment and mission - Dawn of War / Sieze Ground (4). Very shooty mechanized GK list for my opponent. He put two empty transports (with searchlights) on the board and said go, reserving nothing. I put 2 troops and Imotekh down, stole initiative, walked almost everyone else on (reserved a monolith) and said go. He asked me if I was going to shoot at him. I passed, tried not to giggle, and asked him if he had ever played against Orikan and WW before. He said no.

He lost 2 transports + their contents, all three of his dreadnoughts (1 to a dangerous terrain test, 2 from not being able to move them fully on the board). The two squads on foot both only came on 1" and suffered about 40% casualties from dangerous terrain.

The guy is a nice guy and it was a casual game. We called a mulligan and let him reserve his army. I ended up with a minor loss. I did not have enough threats in the list to take advantage of his lack of mobility and I failed to keep nightfighting going after turn 1. I have a few insights.

1) GK vehicles are very hard for necrons to suppress with gauss
2) If you are counting on your monolith to move your C'tan next turn, it will get melta'd this turn.
3) GK halbards are bad news for wraiths WCs
4) GK psychotropic grenades make me want to cry

Spirit Dust grants offensive and defensive grenades in addition to stealth. Defensive grenades are great for when you get charged by an enemy around other units--if they multiassault your ctan and scarabs for example, they would lose their charge bonus.

foolishmortal wrote:I played a 1500 list that included Orikan and WW C'tan earlier today. We rolled for deployment and mission - Dawn of War / Sieze Ground (4). Very shooty mechanized GK list for my opponent. He put two empty transports (with searchlights) on the board and said go, reserving nothing. I put 2 troops and Imotekh down, stole initiative, walked almost everyone else on (reserved a monolith) and said go.

What was your list?

Foolishmortal,
Thanks for the report.

I don't know enough about the GK vehicles... why would gauss have difficulty suppressing them (more than BA, or SM vehicles?)

Anpu-adom wrote:Foolishmortal,
Thanks for the report.

I don't know enough about the GK vehicles... why would gauss have difficulty suppressing them (more than BA, or SM vehicles?)

They have a living metalish psychic ability that if the pass the test they ignore shaken and stunned.

So it sounds like we need to make sure that we have enough s8, low ap firing. This is another area that we'll struggle with in low point games (when 2 Royal Courts are not an option).

Are there enough psychic powers that we need to be worried about that we need to include spyders? Will spyders give us enough protection from psychic powers that they become an auto-include?

Anpu, no there are not enough damaging or targeted psychic powers to make spyders an autoinclude. Mainly a lot of the better powers are buffs, like basicly all the GK book, a lot of Eldar powers, the most common BA powers, ect.

Now, jaws stinks still, and weaken resolve still hurts bad, and lash still has bite with the recent faq, but the 115 points for 2 spyders with a gloom add on is quite an investment for only those few matchups. Now, if it was automatic, or better than a 4+, then maybe. But for 115 you need to get more useage than just 50% to stop a power from messing with you.

Now, if you already have spyders, then its only 15 for a gloom. In that case, you should always have 1, because your cost of entry is only 15 points, and no additional FOC slot.

If we're going to talk about spyders, lets really talk about spyders...

Holy crap these things are cheap.

If you saw this unit on the Proposed Rules forum you'd probably say NO WAY, OP.

Why aren't tyranid players jealous! 50 points for a T6 Fearless MC with 3W? Top that, pain engine! For a paltry 25 points we get a range 24" twin linked S6 blast marker? Why am I not running 9 of these things? (because that would cost 675 points, idiot)

No I'd much rather get 3 of these bad boys, put a fabricator claw on one, a gloom prism on another, and maybe, maybe, maybe, use another 75 points on top to give them all scary effective guns. (Twin Linked!)

Obviously, everyone looks at them as scarab factories - but we all know from experience that scarabs last until turn three if we're lucky. Once the scarabs are done, these things become suicide MC's... or do they?

Lets take these things out of the box - Why not make them gun toting killing machines? Let me rephrase: Make them gun toting killing machines.

1500 Orikan + WW C'tan list, played in a casual game


Heavy Support: Monolith

Elite: C'Tan Shard + Writhing Worldscape + Grand Illusion

Fast Attack: Canoptek Wraiths + Whip Coil x3

Fast Attack: 5x Tomb Blades w/ GBs

HQ: Imotekh the Stormlord

HQ: Orikan the Diviner

: Royal Court
1 Harbinger of Eternity + Chronometron

Troops:
2x 10 Immortals w/ GBs

junk wrote:If we're going to talk about spyders, lets really talk about spyders...

Holy crap these things are cheap.

If you saw this unit on the Proposed Rules forum you'd probably say NO WAY, OP.

Why aren't tyranid players jealous! 50 points for a T6 Fearless MC with 3W? Top that, pain engine! For a paltry 25 points we get a range 24" twin linked S6 blast marker? Why am I not running 9 of these things? (because that would cost 675 points, idiot)

No I'd much rather get 3 of these bad boys, put a fabricator claw on one, a gloom prism on another, and maybe, maybe, maybe, use another 75 points on top to give them all scary effective guns. (Twin Linked!)

Obviously, everyone looks at them as scarab factories - but we all know from experience that scarabs last until turn three if we're lucky. Once the scarabs are done, these things become suicide MC's... or do they?

Lets take these things out of the box - Why not make them gun toting killing machines? Let me rephrase: Make them gun toting killing machines.

Against non-vehicles, I have found Spyders lacking in CC. I thought that the general feeling was that the gun was gak... maybe it is in light of scarab swarm lists. In my 500 point league game, I found my self wanting a template weapon to kill horde of foot guard I was facing. Same when I play 'Nidsl, and I think that Spyders may be the way to go.

When is the claw warranted? Is is only for wound allocation?
Gloomprism will help against force weapons... right?





Automatically Appended Next Post:
How did the game turn out, Foolishmortal?

Immortals in GB?

Against Non Vehicles, the spyders will stand their ground against MeQs provided there's no Power Fist in the mix. They need 4 to hit and 2 to wound, while the enemy needs 3 to hit and 6 to wound. They will kill one model per turn for 3+ turns.

The Claw is a handy upgrade on fast vehicles; like in scythespam lists when you want to repair some weapon desroyed tesla destructors; but I'd usually have one any time I have a few vehicles and spyders.

The way we play it locally, gloom prism, does not prevent force weapon activation because it doesn't target blah blah blah, but i've seen it played the other way.

So I had an epiphany last night and decided to look at something like this:

H-Q

Imotehk
Orikan
RC
Tremortek
Tremortek
VoidTek

ELITES
C'Tan WW/LoF
C'Tan Gaze of Death/Entropic Strike
17 Flayed Ones

TROOPS
20 Warriors (VeilTek
5 Warriors (one tremortek)
5 Warriors (other tremortek)

HEAVY SUPPORT
Monolith
Monolith

Because I started thinking, who could really benefit from a slowed opponent? The obvious answer was FO's. The first two C'Tan made sense, as they set-up the bookends, but the third one was just redundant.

If FOs were to ever shine, (and I've actually been doing quite well with them in my foot based Imo list) what better opportunity then a landscape where they can actually catch there pray, Imo for the pinpoint DSing and Orikan for the reserve RR? Or hell, just Infiltrate them. Make a 50" long congo line bubble wrapping your opponent at 18" away and close in for the full board turn two tie up.

Also, as far as the C'Tan powers go, I decided on Entropic strike on the Gazer. What am I smoking? Well, outside a couple of Ordies, Imos lighting and 20 phaeroned gauss shots I need any Anti Tank I can get, and Entropic Strike is a nice boost to the C'Tans vehicle munching prowess. Also, with all those FOs running around, Entropic Strike on an MS base makes the FOs Multi Wound model killers (The C'Tan should be able to remove and Armor Save at a higher initiative and then the FOs should be able to finish them off save free, well anything short of T8 at least). FOs only need 4 bases per wound no charge or 3 bases per wound with charge to chop up your bog standard TMC without a save.

Some numbers on Entropic Strike:
AV14 Combat Seed 0.3472 Popeped wo/ES or .486 w/ES

So ES translates into almost a 50% increase in anti vehicle destruction. Also, keep in mind that with all the tremor staves and WW going on the chances of coming across a vehicle who didn't move the previous turn are quite good.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Some other musings as I've considered the potential, a common reaction to both Imo and WW is to fully reserve first turn. This plays right into your hands with FOs and C'Tan. You could Infiltrate the FOs all over the their deployment zone and get the C'Tan half way up the field before the opponent even shows up. Then, when they do show up, it will only be half their army, which helps your Lith DSing (smaller opponent footprint) but also helps your survivability as well, half an army shooting through night fighting at AV 14 should work pretty well for the Cronies.

Note that this kind of list is the only way to get FO charging important targets. If you can judge distances.

At 11" away, the chances of the opponent making the charge on the FO is quite low if making DT tests. And anything the FO successfully charge is going to be in a lot of pain.

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but this theme might be the only one where FO are really worth trying.

The Grog wrote:Note that this kind of list is the only way to get FO charging important targets. If you can judge distances.

At 11" away, the chances of the opponent making the charge on the FO is quite low if making DT tests. And anything the FO successfully charge is going to be in a lot of pain.

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but this theme might be the only one where FO are really worth trying.

Right exactly, (well I tend to disagree with the "might be the only one where FO are really worth trying" part but I certainly agree this list highlights their advantages while minimising their weaknesses.

I've got a feeling that there are many versions that work well at 2k, but trying to scale it down to 1850, 1750, and 1500 are posing to be problems. Here's my attempts at 1500 and 1750

Core Quake
C'tan w/WW and Dust 235
Surfboard Lord 180
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Pulsetek 150

Add on
2x Annibarge 180
2x Spyders w/Fab Claw, Gloomprism, and 2x guns 175
5x Scarabs 75
5x Scarabs 75
Total 1500


Core Quake
C'tan w/WW and Dust 235
Surfboard Lord 180
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Pulsetek 150

Add on
2x Annibarge 180
2x Spyders w/Fab Claw, Gloomprism, and 2x guns 175
6x Scarabs 90
6x Scarabs 90
Total 1745

Hmmm the Flayed Ones Quake List seems interesting...I think I'll proxy some FOs and give it a shot Sunday.

Lets talk about flayed ones a little bit...

Here's my opinion - So inexpensive! Really, so very very inexpensive, it almost makes you want to use them. But why don't they have fleet?

I'm guessing these guys will be much better in 6e. Flayed ones are definitely under-utilized - for 260 points you could infiltrate, outflank, or deep strike a unit of 20 of these things and force your opponent to deal with them.

I think that people are afraid to invest the requisite points in the squad to actually take advantage of them. If only you could add lords and crypteks to them! The real issue I have with flayed ones is for the same cost, you can get 20 warriors, or 10 warriors in a ghost ark, or 9 immortals in a night scythe. Though they fill vastly different roles, the Immortals and Warriors can benefit from royal courts and score objectives.

Flayed ones can be a good tarpit, and they can do a lot of damage if they get the charge. Unless you're using them as outflankers, I don't really see them being helpful except as a sacrifice; and I'd rather use a shooting unit for that. Using the Nemesor's phased reinforcement ability, they can be a little more effective.

Still, for 260 to get 20 necrons, even if they don't have guns, that can go toe to toe with tactical marines and lay down that many attacks... that's a good deal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Anpu-adom wrote:I've got a feeling that there are many versions that work well at 2k, but trying to scale it down to 1850, 1750, and 1500 are posing to be problems. Here's my attempts at 1500 and 1750

Core Quake
C'tan w/WW and Dust 235
Surfboard Lord 180
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Pulsetek 150

Add on
2x Annibarge 180
2x Spyders w/Fab Claw, Gloomprism, and 2x guns 175
5x Scarabs 75
5x Scarabs 75
Total 1500


Core Quake
C'tan w/WW and Dust 235
Surfboard Lord 180
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/Quaketek 115 and Nightscythe 100
5x Immortals w/ Pulsetek 150

Add on
2x Annibarge 180
2x Spyders w/Fab Claw, Gloomprism, and 2x guns 175
6x Scarabs 90
6x Scarabs 90
Total 1745

1500: I'd like to see at least 1 more quaketek in there (nice name btw, that should stick); just to make sure that you're distributing enough of those quakes to justify the C'tan. Also, I get that dust is cheap, but with the low volume of anti-tank in there, I think he should have Transdimensional Thunderbolt. Finding the points for those two upgrades are going to be tough; obviously I'm really just looking for more Armor penetration in this list. More than that though, there's no psychological edge; the list lacks teeth. Your targets are right there for everyone to see; and without being able to impact vehicles more than a shaken result, you'll be torn apart my mech lists, even just Psyback Spam.

1750: You're overpaying for those spiders, pick one piece of wargear for each one, and add one more... however, this list is on it's way to being a scarab farm - which might not actually be that bad with Tremorcrons... Maybe we can come up with a QuakerFarm combination?

I see what you mean by missing AT, Junk. That was my major concern as I was writing the list. We can cut some of the scarabs and convert some of the immortals to warrior, but I'm worried that that gives up too much. It definitely needs the Pulsetek for the solar pulse and
See what I mean about a 1500 point list being hard to manage?

Quake Farm... sounds like an insurance company in California... I like it!

Wow, we still don't have a killer build, and we're at the end of page 3... This is sad.

I don't think the Quake-list is viable at 1500. Maybe a double monolith list with Imotekh and 3 quake teks, 20 immortals, 10 scarabs and 3 spyders? Everything hangs behind the monoliths with just the quake teks shooting through the cracks until night fighting fails, then unleashing scarabs, c'tan, and spyders on the enemy line? I suppose you'd want a cheapo upgrade for the c'tan like lord of fire?

Maybe a Double Phaeron phalanx? 40 foot slog warriors, 2 ghost arks, 2 Phaeron's with Resorbs, 2 mini courts in the ghost arks (1 pulse, 1 quake each, with another quake with each warrior squad), Gaze C'tan?

ShadarLogoth wrote:
Right exactly, (well I tend to disagree with the "might be the only one where FO are really worth trying" part but I certainly agree this list highlights their advantages while minimising their weaknesses.

The problem with FO is simple. They have no mobility once on the table, yet they lack the fearless/stubborn needed to accept charges. Even a 20 strong unit of FO has a measurable chance of breaking on the charge to a number of strong yet common melee units, despite a good chance of winning in the end if they don't break that first round.

Thus you have to stay away from those units, which are often faster, while hunting units you can kill, which are just as fast or faster. Even a deepstrike doesn't fix the problem, as anything nearby can simply choose to run away and the FO will have a hard time catching them.

So, you have to either slow those dangerous melee units so you can charge them, shoot them enough that you can win, or have Zhandrek phase them. Which may not help, since the enemy can still choose to move away or turn and charge.

If you are going to shoot enemies down, you are likely better off with a fast moving assault unit so you can charge them anyway. But if you are tremorstaving everything, FO benefit from charges a lot more than Wraiths or Scarabs.

Anpu-adom wrote:
How did the game turn out, Foolishmortal?

Immortals in GB?

Immortals with Gauss Blasters

like I said, he conceded turn one because he lost ~700 points in a 1500 point game when his army walked on the board in DoW turn 1.

I gave him a muligan and he he reserved all his troops. Minor loss for me turn 5. I had 1 objective, he had 2. if it had gone to turn 6 I would have major loss-ed. If my monolith had not gotten melta'd I might have tied or minor won.