Necron Triarch Stalkers and Judicator Battalion

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**Kharne the Befriender**

Is the battalion worth taking? If so, what other formations go well with it.

The Triarch Stalker itself, is that worth taking in a CAD or an AD?

how you use the Stalker, I'm confused Dakka

**Ffyllotek**

This is an excellent formation and I can't recommend it enough, especially against marines with armour 2 or 3 as standard (TEQ, MEQ).

I'm going to be overloading my formation as 2 x 10 units of RoC praetorians and 2-3 stalkers as a unit. The stalkers effectively act as a seperate role, boosting your forces (you can do some excellent combinations) whilst your praetorians whiz off and kill, kill kill. Just check your enemy isn't an ass before you play and lets you use those RoC's correctly.

I regard the formations to be graded in the following order as part of the decurion:

1) Reclaimaton Legion
2) judicator bn
=2) destroyer cult
3) harvest
4) death bringer

Tomb blades gunning a quad gun, with destroyer lord leading, next to stalker. You get 2+ to hit, rerollable, 2+ to kill (usually with S9), rerollable, with Ap2 and ignores cover. Bye by enemy air.

**Slayer-Fan123**

If you want to use either in the first place, take it with the bonuses or not at all. I know Praetorians got an amazing buff, but units like those in the formation need redundancy to be effective anyway. You might as well get a bonus for it, right?

**Kharne the Befriender**

I'll post a 2000 point list tomorrow with such info, thank you, you have been a wonderful help

**skoffs**

If you take the J.Battalion it may be worth it to give your Praetorians Night Scythes.
Now, the rules state the Praetorians can't get inside their transport (!?), but that's okay, they're fast enough that they don't really NEED a ride, so you can just start them on the board, or even deep strike them if you feel the need.
The thing is, though, the Night Scythes are part of the formation, so get to benefit from the reroll to pen buff as well.
Twinlinked S7 that gets to reroll pens? This is very much worth it.

**KurtAngle2**

skoffs wrote:
If you take the J.Battalion it may be worth it to give your Praetorians Night Scythes.
Now, the rules state the Praetorians can't get inside their transport (!?), but that's okay, they're fast enough that they don't really NEED a ride, so you can just start them on the board, or even deep strike them if you feel the need.
The thing is, though, the Night Scythes are part of the formation, so get to benefit from the reroll to pen buff as well.
Twinlinked S7 that gets to reroll pens? This is very much worth it.

No, it doesn't apply to Dedicated Transports

**skoffs**

And why is that? They are a unit in the formation, are they not?
(everyone else seems to have no problem playing it that way)

**Ffyllotek**

All formation rules apply to all units in that formation - including dedicated transports. A DT is just like any other upgrade.

**Neophyte2012**

I do think the Stalker is a very good unit, a gunline of Necron Warriors or Immortals under the support of a Stalker and optionally a Ghost Ark is terrifying.
But I am not so sure about the formation, since the Praetorian lack an proper invun save, so only the 5+/4+ RP can save them from MCs in close combat, while their S5 Ap2 shooting and close combat profile is deadly vs Terminators, they only wound most MCs on 5s...... Generally speaking I think sword and broad Lychguard is better for defensive close combat units which protects the gunline warriors. While aggresive assault role is better served by Wraiths in Canoptek formation. As for Praetorians, it is hard to give them a solid role in the army except anti Sv2+ unit.

**skoffs**

Well, what's the prevalence of 2+ saves in the current meta?
How often should we be expecting to need to crack elite armored infantry?
Terminators: not too common any more
Centurions: okay, yeah, these will be pretty common, but most times it's the invisibility you have to worry about
Dreadknight: yeah, still a concern
Broadside: probably about to become super common again
Riptide: definitely a concern
Etc.
There's definitely still use/need for fast elite unit hunters that can bypass 2+ saves with higher wound output than Heavy Destroyers can deliver.

**Slayer-Fan123**

I actually think a squad each of Voidblade and Rod is decent if you want the formation. It has a TAC feel, and they actually fulfill different functions based off what's needed at the time.

**ShadarLogoth**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I actually think a squad each of Voidblade and Rod is decent if you want the formation. It has a TAC feel, and they actually fulfill different functions based off what's needed at the time.

I agree with this. I guess if you insist on playing someone who is being a chode about RoC, take VB/PC on both. I personally simply wouldn't play someone who so obtusely reads the rules.

I really like Skoff's suggestion, though. I don't know why I hadn't thought of that yet. Very savvy way of getting some more bang out of your buck by adding NS to the formation.

**Ffyllotek**

Vbpc I find very expensive for what it is. Praetorians are fast cc troops. Lychguard with scythes are all killing but not too fast. Depends who you're playing.

**Nadir**

Personally I like playing with the Judicator Battalion due to its flexibility. I really felt the lack of speed and AP2 - AP3 in my Necron army. True enough Praetorians lack the durability of the Wraiths or the Lychguards, but they are so much flexible then both of these. They can shoot at TEQ and MEQ to deny their armor saves, or eat up in CC MEQ or other squishy infantry. The Stalker is a good support choice, giving nice boost to shooting and capable of delivering a punch.

**hazal**

I have been runing non-wraith decruions for awhile now. The Judicator Battalion is the way to go IMO.

On my opinion here are the best parts

- walk to stalker with 2 Arks full of warriors, letting the guys inside shoot out at BS5.

- If waiting on deepstriking the Pratorians, remember you can use the target priority to let the Stalker just reroll wounds/hits vs his target. This is very good with his 2 shot melta, even at long range.

- Praetorian are just cool fluff wise!

- For the Praetorian loadout, the voidblade/ccw variant is cool, but the rod of the covenant is just a better performer IMO. The target priority rerolls only work on shooting so the rod does a little bit more work, and it adds a whole bunch of AP2 to your army... something you usually lack.

- Make sure to abuse cover for the formation. Stalker behind Arks and Pratorians deepstriking/moving into cover (abuse that move through cover!).

- I never thought about using the Night Scythe in conjunction with the formation rules, but that does add a lot of potential damage.

**skoffs**

Problem is, a fully optimized J.Battalion gets preeeeetty expensive: 1080 points, if going for 20 Praets, 2 NS, and 2 Stalkers (one with HGC).
That's pricier than your average optimized Destroyer Cult (3x 1HD/3D, 3HD, and DL with PS and WS comes to 815).
Question then is, which one is superior? (both at killing and lasting long enough to be considered useful).

**hazal**

On the flip side they have similar minimal costs, I play MSU so I would view the JB as 'optimized' at its minimum size.

405 for Judicator Battalion, vs 470 for the cult.

**skoffs**

True, though the D.Cult isn't all that great at it's bare minimum.
Where it really shines is it's Heavy Destroyers, so they're worth the extra investment.
The J.Battalion, on the other hand, is still pretty decently deadly with just 2x5 RoC Praets and a Stalker (assuming you have more than one other vehicle in the list, otherwise you're probably going to lose the Stalker almost immediately, seeing as how your opponent's entire anti-AV contingent will only have one target).

**vipoid**

Ffyllotek wrote:
This is an excellent formation and I can't recommend it enough, especially against marines with armour 2 or 3 as standard (TEQ, MEQ).

I'm going to be overloading my formation as 2 x 10 units of RoC praetorians and 2-3 stalkers as a unit. The stalkers effectively act as a seperate role, boosting your forces (you can do some excellent combinations) whilst your praetorians whiz off and kill, kill kill. Just check your enemy isn't an ass before you play and lets you use those RoC's correctly.

Wouldn't it be better to split that into 2 Judicator Formations - with units of 5 Praetorians?

**Kharne the Befriender**

So I decided to make a 3000 point list instead, here it is.

KINGS JUDGEMENT-2997pts

Reclamation Legion-1377pts
-Bargelord-135pts
-10 Immortals/gauss-170
-10 Immortals/gauss-170
-10 Lychguard/sword and shield- 300
-3 Tomb Blades/gauss/scopes/vanes-66
-3 Tomb Blades/gauss/scopes/vanes-66
-10 warriors/ghost ark-235
-10 warriors/ghost ark-235

Judicator Battalion-805
-10 Praetorians/ROC-280
-10 Praetorians/ROC-280
-2 Triarch Stalkers/ Heat ray-250

Judicator Battalion-805
-10 Praetorians/ROC-280
-10 Praetorians/ROC-280
-2 Triarch Stalkers/ Heat ray-250

This is a slap together list, any and all comments are welcome.

**vipoid**

My thoughts:

1) I'm dubious about Lychguard, and I certainly wouldn't want to run them without a character inside.

2) I don't see the point of the extra immortals.

3) Personally, I'd split those 2 Judicator Battalion formations into 4 - each with a single stalker and units of 5 Praetorians. I'd also have maybe 10-20 of them with the pistols and voidblades, so that you have some anti-vehicle melee stuff.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Lose the Lychguard gland get more Tomb Blades. Make two of the squads of Praetorians equipped with Void Blades. That should fix any glaring problems.

**Kharne the Befriender**

So ditch the lych guard for more tomb blades and use 4 Judicator battalions and then equip half of all praetorians with VB, got it.
those lychguard free up some room, should I perhaps add a squad of warriors on foot?

**vipoid**

Do you have enough points to add a Canoptek Harvest?

Otherwise, yeah go with the warriors.

**Kharne the Befriender**

Just a list I whipped up for fun. All I do is make lists, I haven't quite gotten into the gaming portion do to the area I am in. I'm using necrons as a test army so to say, but they're really good. I will probably switch to Tau for competitive play.