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Title pretty much says it all.
What do you use to hold enemy units in place before smashing them to pieces?

When I play crons, I always take 2 15-20 man Warrior squads at the heart of the army, each with a Semp/Scythe/Orb Lord for tanking, duelling and ressing. These put out a lot of small arms fire, are very hard to dislodge and take a lot of fire off other units, or are left to shoot/score freely. It's a win-win.

Throw in a Ghost Ark or two for even more ressing.

I cant think of a tougher core then a couple large-full squads of warriors with a lord with orb and scythe and a ghost ark backup. You can short range fire almost anything effectively, outduel most characters in CC, res and repair tons of causalities and score objectives.

I ahve shelved my necrons in favor of orks these days.. but I always favored mass warriors to the more expensive and "elite" troops like immortals and praetorians or lychguard

Warrior blobs as they are OS and pose a reliable threat to enemies at the same time.

I wouldn't call Deathmarks a bad choice.
My 'anvil' is the threat of getting blown to pieces, I make Denial zones.

"You go there? You get shot. Oh, you want to go there? You also get shot."
-"Then I'll stay here,"
"My Wraiths will join the party next turn!"

Yes, but Deathmarks tend to have a specific target they're after. Plus, after they hit what ever they're after, hopefully they've wiped them out or at least caused so much damage that they're no long a concern.
I guess after they take out their target they might be able to provide traffic direction, though.

Deathmarks are pretty good. Rapid firing 4+ wounds onto a wraithknight after they have killed their primary target is awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh. And rending.

Sniper weapons don't have rending anymore and instead just cause ap2 on to wound rolls of 6

Yeah, which basically means they have rending for non-Vehicles
I don't get why they removed Rending, it wasn't that strong.. Right?

I think they just wanted to remove the absurd amount of utility it had. It already is good against every type of non-vehicle in the game, it doesn't need to also be useful against vehicles too.

Ehm...Snipers were dead in 6th and were consequently nerfed in 7th for no reason.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Ehm...Snipers were dead in 6th and were consequently nerfed in 7th for no reason.

Because other units were better for the points, not because snipers are bad

Regardless, I still don't think Deathmarks make adequate anvil units.

So far it's looking like blob Warriors are winning... though, I guess they'd probably need backup in the unit in the form of a combat Res Lord or two to keep them from getting swept in combat.

Am I mistaken in thinking anvil units would be better if fast? (to quickly go and catch the target and hold them in place for a while so the hammer unit can get to them).
For that reason, I'd lean towards Scarabs, myself... but maybe I'm off on my thinking, here.

The classic hammer+anvil strategy cannot be fully applied to 40k - imo. While a staple in WHFB, it's different in 40k, especially with Necrons who have a vast arsenal of means of transportation to get your units where you want them to. Furthermore, I2 can really ruin your day when trying to tie up enemy troops. In 40k, mobility is the more important factor, seeing that most of the enemy , you want to capture objectives instead of trying to kill unit X of your enemy.

What adds to this is the extremely poor balance 40k currently has. Top tier armies don't really have any sort of hammer / anvil units, but spam the army's strongest pick.

If anything in 40k currently ressembles an anvil unit, then it's characteristic trait would be re-rollable high invulnerable saves.

I think that a large Warrior blob supported by a Ghost Ark can be quite durable if supported well. This is the outstanding option. The others? Well, not really.

Even with the lack of fearless?
I'd be concerned with losing my large investment of points in a sweeping advance... where as, if I threw 7 to 10 Scarabs at the same target, I wouldn't have the same worries, but for less than half the cost for the same amount of wounds.

Don't get me wrong, a blob with ResLord and GA is incredibly hard to shift off of something... but I'm not seeing how they would be better than a Scarab swarm in an anvil hold-them-here-until-the-heavy-hitters-can-come-and-deal-with-this-trouble-unit role...
*shrug*

 skoffs wrote:
Even with the lack of fearless?
I'd be concerned with losing my large investment of points in a sweeping advance... where as, if I threw 7 to 10 Scarabs at the same target, I wouldn't have the same worries, but for less than half the cost for the same amount of wounds.

Don't get me wrong, a blob with ResLord and GA is incredibly hard to shift off of something... but I'm not seeing how they would be better than a Scarab swarm in an anvil hold-them-here-until-the-heavy-hitters-can-come-and-deal-with-this-trouble-unit role...
*shrug*

Right.

The lack of fearlessness is the biggest concern for a Warrior blob. You have to back them up carefully.

 skoffs wrote:


Don't get me wrong, a blob with ResLord and GA is incredibly hard to shift off of something... but I'm not seeing how they would be better than a Scarab swarm in an anvil hold-them-here-until-the-heavy-hitters-can-come-and-deal-with-this-trouble-unit role...
*shrug*

As above - this isn't how anvils are supposed to work in 40k. In WHFB, you use anvil units to effectively take out the most dangerous enemy unit and bind it until the end of the game. In 40k, this is less desirable. In the current meta, melee units are no important factor to begin with as 7th, just as 6th, heavily favors shooting. Current top tier armies don't use melee units either. And last but not least, as VP don't count for much, tying up enemy units doesn't do much either unless you want to secure an objective - and in this case, I'd again take the Warriors because they have OS. And last but not least: you got your GA to support you, which is also OS. First rule, as always: don't let your Necrons get into melee. With 1-2 GA, it's easy to deny any charge, you got very mobile intercepting units on your own (CCB, Wraiths) and a Necron Lord to further boost the CC effectiveness.

But, wait, wouldn't the 40k equivalent of the Fantasy-anvil-to-hold-scary-CC-unit be tarpitting-a-powerful-shooty-unit-so-it-can't-shoot-you?
(which would, again, make Scarabs ideal, in that they are fast, have a ton of wounds for cheap, and are fearless?)
I'd assume a decent order of operations would be: Wraiths/Barge engages most dangerous unit -> Scarabs hold second most dangerous unit -> Wraiths/Barge finish off 1st unit and come by to start on unit Scarabs are holding in check.
(Obviously you're also free to just keep them tied up for the entire game instead while the Wraiths/Barge go take out lesser things as well, but it would depend on what else they're fielding).

Well, a perfect anvil unit is a squad of Warlocks with fortune (and thus a rerollable 4+ inv save).
It becomes a hammer unit with some decent cc character attached like Yriel or even Eldrad.
However, this was 5th edition.

 skoffs wrote:
But, wait, wouldn't the 40k equivalent of the Fantasy-anvil-to-hold-scary-CC-unit be tarpitting-a-powerful-shooty-unit-so-it-can't-shoot-you?
(which would, again, make Scarabs ideal, in that they are fast, have a ton of wounds for cheap, and are fearless?)
I'd assume a decent order of operations would be: Wraiths/Barge engages most dangerous unit -> Scarabs hold second most dangerous unit -> Wraiths/Barge finish off 1st unit and come by to start on unit Scarabs are holding in check.
(Obviously you're also free to just keep them tied up for the entire game instead while the Wraiths/Barge go take out lesser things as well, but it would depend on what else they're fielding).

In theory, you could tie up a dangerous shooty unit with a unit of Scarabs, the problem is that it is very unlikely to happen against a decent opponent. Even a full squad of 10 bases has trouble getting to its designated target and their vulnerability does not help them much. It's a good concept and you obviously know what you're doing, but I just don't see it as a concept fit for 40k :/

I did a test run in a 1v1v1 match 1k points each ( I know this isn't ideal) and I ran the blob with an overlord MSS WS RO, and I ran an A barge and D lord with wraiths and the death n despair unit. I basically put the blob out in the center and said do something about it. I moved my 6 inches every turn to get into range of something 24 inches ( or 12 inches to really blow something to hell) and kited back 6 if they had some melee coming at me. Any ten man squad/5 man terminator squad that came near me got blown off the table before they could do anything. Wraiths were okay but a 3 man with a d lord didn't produce anything for me against my opponents. Either way, I'll be sure to run that blob again

Also, I'm sure you guys are aware of, even without the ark, the 4++ was amazing. I ended the 6 rounds with 16 warriors plus my overlord. It's either you commit hard to killing the unit and leave my other things to wreck havoc or you have to poke at it and waste shots at something thats so durable that can still pump out some damage. Ark is in my next list

Well, yes, the didn't get assaulted. Had a dedicated CC unit made into contact with your blob, it might have been a completely different story. Count yourself lucky.
And, uh, for future reference, if you're only using 3 Wraiths, they're not going to be all that effective. With certain Necron units, you either go hard or don't even bother. Wraiths would definitely be one of these.

It was only 1000 points and I ran them with a D lord, plus i used all the models i currently had. probably would get hurt in melee, but there is still ~40 overwatch shots aand if someone is gonna b able to get in assault range on their next turn, I would probably use that unit to shoot at them. 10 space marines got out of a rhino, moved towards me with 12, I shot around 40 shots at them, killed about 5 and cleaned them up with the wraiths and D lord. The volume works.

I'm also thinking about running a triarch stalker and running it next to the ark/blob because of the special twinlinked roll, any ideas on that?

Your opponent tried to take a blob on one unit at a time? That's some bad tactics, right there.
Everyone knows massed rapid fire will mow down things like crazy... but unless they've got split fire, they can only focus on one thing at a time. To counter that, you should really present two threats at once. They can only shoot one, meaning the other one is getting through. And once they're locked in combat, their biggest threat (massed shooting) is gone. From there, lost combats, failed leadership tests, and sweeping advance will follow.
Luckily, it sounds like your opponent couldn't take advantage of this, so your blob did well... but I wouldn't rely on that happening every game.

If you're considering a Stalker, realize that it's a huge fire magnet, so don't anticipate having it long. Take that into consideration for strategy and it will help.
(they work best in pairs, btw. Redundancy, and all that).

Add two or three more Wraiths to that unit and see it become the wrecking ball everyone knows and loves.

Not Warhammer Fantasy. You don't set up hammer and anvils ><

 Goldphish wrote:
Not Warhammer Fantasy. You don't set up hammer and anvils ><

Yes, that's been pointed out already.
However, tying up shooting units in combat so they can't shoot, then having something else more combat proficient come along later to finish said tied up unit off is still a viable tactic in 40k.
eg. Riptide. Charged by 10 Scarabs. Overwatches at them, kills a few, then gets locked into combat. Next turn Wraiths and Destroyer Lord approach. No fear of being blasted by the Riptide because it's tied up. Join the combat, Riptide dead, minimal losses for the Wraiths.