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So Had my first game of 8th ed 40k last night. The summary is my opponent brought a huge death company backed by buffs from 4 characters, and it was indeed super scary. They wiped out a 20 man warrior squad with 15 wounds to spare, then consolidated into my scythe guard, who got a piece of them killing 8 before being brought down by a silly amount of thunder hammer shots because he rolled a six which allowed him to activate them again. Then on my second turn the predictable happened, standing in the middle of my army without so much as an invul to be seen, the remaining 12 death company got shot to death in short order. The loss of the death company pretty much sealed the deal, after that it was just moping up sanguinary guard, his 4 characters, and a few tac squads in a rhino.

Pre-Game: The armies


Turn 1 Flesh teaers

I deployed my warriors forward to draw the deathcompany there, in hindsight they probably did not need the encouragement , and it cost me a turn of shooting. In any case his army advances like the vampire berserk horde they are. 4 Las cannon shots into my ghost ark only got him 1 wound on it. His scouts failed their charge, lost two to over watch for their trouble. wraiths caught a smite and took two wounds.

Turn 1 necrons

MWBD on the heavy destroyers, and they took out the dread in a single volley, ghost ark did not quite manage to finish the scouts, so had to have the warrior blob rapid fire them to death (If I had been thinking, I would have disembarked the warriors so they could have done it and the small unit could bubble wrap the big unit). wraiths and scarabs move into position to counter charge. Lychguard prepare to counter charge from the other side. Immortals and destroyers hammer a tac squad and prepare to deal with the sanguinary guard.

Turn 2 Fleshtearers the hammer falls

He got his tacs out of their razobacks, shot at the heavy destroyers, sanguinary guard failed a 9 inch deep strike charge, but their ancient got in and took 2 wounds in over watch for his trouble but failed to even slow down the destroyers. Deathcompany charges with 4 buffs on them, a psychic buff that adds attacks, a reroll misses buff, a reroll failed wounds buff, and a +1 str buff. they proceed to wipe the 20 man warrior squad with about 15 unsaveable wounds of overkill. They then consolidate into my scythe guards and my lord intervens to help, then he activates his hq but the immortals stand tough, loosing only 2 in the round. I activate my scythe guard, and they put 8 death company in the dirt. The death company get to activate again thanks to a character special rule and a roll of a six, and proceed to give the lychguard the same treatment they just gave the warriors. Lord is left standing alone, and unsurprisingly will decide to back up on his turn. also wraiths soaked 4 las cannon shots without a wound. He smites the wraiths, gets 4 wounds, removing the wounded and another wraith.

turn 2 necrons The revengeinators

The immortals get two back, and the lord falls back. The ghost Ark kills his apothecary, and the wraiths kill his librarian (revenge for the two smites they have taken). The heavy destroyers light up his company master but he makes three invuls. Crpytek, warriors, and destroyers finish off the death company. Scarabs charge and proceed to disapoint because of bad rolls.

Battle goes on for another turn but it's very clear it's just clean up, the blood angels player concedes after my next turn.

Conclusion
The death company with buff characters cost him almost half of his points, and were way too much offense for any unit in the game to survive a charge from them. However it was way too fragile for the investment. The only reason it even did as good as it did was because of a lucky roll.

Really interesting read, thanks for the write up and the photos!

Could the BA player have done anything tactically different with his list to perform better? Or was he too over-committed in the first place?

yeah he took the bait and charged my warriors, if he had charged my destroyers it would have been a much better exchange for him. Also if he had shot my heavy destroyers with his las cannons he could have ground them down despite cover and the proximity to the cryptek. Finally everyone of his units were dangerous in CC, he should have just piled on the two tac squads by the rhinos. Those would have made the game much closer, maybe even got him the win.

ultimately though he was fighting up hill, with no protection in CC for his death company, it was only a matter of time before I got them, and with buffing units that was half of his points. If he ahd two death companies and split the buffs it would have been a much harder fight for me.

Thanks for the great batrep!

As a fellow necrons player care to summarize what units worked best for you and what list changes you might make in the future?

Destroyers did work, as did the heavy destroyers, scythe guard would have done work save for a bad roll. Crytek did nothing, but that's not really his fault, immortals have the potential of being playmakers. Wraths seemed a little underwhelming, as did scarabs, but I didn't use them well and had some bad luck on my rolls. I'll try out this list again today and see if I come to any different conclusions.

yeah so got the second battle in, same thoughts as before, gonna ditch the wraiths and the scarabs.

Do you think there'd be any benefit in replacing the Lychguard with Praetorians?
1 more attack (because of the Rod shot before charging) for one less AP. Plus, no morale tests, and they can fall back and shoot.

But yeah, Wraiths are not looking like my go-to unit this edition so far (maybe once the actual codex comes out the "Canoptek" keyword will actually mean something useful)

Scytheguard are kind of in a league of their own, doing two damage per hit at s7 with a -4 rend is insane. In a straight fight I'd say lychguard every time, but they are slow, so their best use counter chargers. Because of the mobility aspect most people will get more work out of the Prats.

In the battles since this report I've move further and further away from mixed shooting and CC, with a smaller force it's hard to properly support both combat styles, and with no real standouts in CC (aside from scythe guard, which are hard to get in CC), I feel that moving towards a shooting primary list is probably where the necrons will end up. YMMV

Completely agree, shooting all the way.
Though it's still a good idea to have screening units for your shooters, so it's harder to charge them.
Right now that's Scarabs, but they're only used as cheap disposable charge sponges. I'm wondering if there's a better unit to use for screening that might actually be able to contribute something.

I really feel like warriors are our screening unit, they never fail to contribute, they are tough to get rid of, and almost as good as a tac marine in CC. At 240 points per 20 they are also cheap enough that losing them won't devastate your army.

But if Warriors are your screen, who are they screening for?
Would it not be better to have 20 Warriors shooting rather than in combat?
An extra 39 points of Scarabs, or even 105 points of Flayed Ones seems like a small price to pay for keeping 240 points worth of Gauss Flayers firing.

MWG suggested 10 warriors screening for 20 warriors, I have never thought about it, but why not

I am planning to run 3 squads of warriors, 15/15/10, the last in a ghost ark, 10 man immortals, Orikan, Imotek, and C'tan deceiver (for redeployment 12'' away), 3 heavy destroyers, and 2 5man squads of deathmarks. From your experience so far, what have you found that performs well that would fit for the remaining ~140 points?

Crons4Days wrote:
I am planning to run 3 squads of warriors, 15/15/10, the last in a ghost ark, 10 man immortals, Orikan, Imotek, and C'tan deceiver (for redeployment 12'' away)

What exactly are you redeploying with the Deceiver?

Regardless, some Tomb Blades for objective capturing wouldn't be a bad idea for that last 140 points. Otherwise you could drop an Immortal and take another couple Heavy Destroyers or Annihilation Barge.

For the Deceiver, most likely a warrior squad, the ark, and orikan on top of the C'tan. Seeing that the ability happens after full deployment, it would allow for possibly taking over objectives or deploying 12'' away from something that needs to die fast. I do like the idea of the Tomb Blades though.

Hmm, seeing as how you only get to redeploy D3 units, I can already see a problem if you only roll 2.
Basically a setup using the Deceiver wants to overwhelm the opponent on the first turn, otherwise you risk losing everything when they get to retaliate.

Well the theory behind it would be to deploy as you would want to, then roll. If a poor role occurs, the units can still be set up as normal and function the way they would have without the extra deployment.