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Ok I'm starting a necron army, and I have been told spiders are of little value, and in the whole it may be the case, but I saw a video of a battle that showed where a few cold have changed the course of the battle.

The battle was a force of necrons vs "daemon soup". The Opfors consisted of, as I recall.

Magnus the red.
Mortarian.
Ahriman.
like 2 daemon princes of Tzeentch.
a force of brimstone horrors as squatters.


Need I say the psychic phases went quite badly for the necrons?

looking at it, if the necron player had had a spider or two and managed to pull just one or two "Deny the witch" rolls, even using CP to reroll, he might have pulled out a victory just by saving some of his forces from the psychic phase.

So, yes, the humble spider may not be the most potent unit in the necron army, but when your enemy is fielding thousand sons, eldar or grey knights you may wish for a few...

Are there any other "useless" units in any armiesyou would like to advocate for?

Except the Spider has no protection. If you're out of LoS, I don't think you can deny, and if you're in LoS, you can be shot.

They're not useless, they're just far, FAR too fragile.

Yeah, if they were characters there would be a point in taking them.
And they sort of are characters, if you think about it. Iirc, their role in the Tomb complex is to direct the other canopteks and oversee repairs.

I wish we had canoptek troops and a canoptek HQ. Making a legal canoptek army sounds fun.

The spyder's deny has zero bonuses to make it more reliable. You're basically never going to deny anyone with a bonus to their psychic tests like Magnus or Ahriman.

I'd like to see the prism changed so that instead of just giving you a deny it makes casting the spell harder in the first place. That'd be far more useful and actually do something against the real psychic armies.

Pretty much no one can deny tsons psychic powers, they just overwhelm you. Magnus can get +4 to psychic tests, re-rolling any 1s

 p5freak wrote:
Pretty much no one can deny tsons psychic powers, they just overwhelm you. Magnus can get +4 to psychic tests, re-rolling any 1s

Other factions that don't have native access to psykers (such as World Eaters) have a stratagem that automatically denies on a 4+. Still a 50/50 but at least it's possible to prevent one power per phase from going off.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
The spyder's deny has zero bonuses to make it more reliable. You're basically never going to deny anyone with a bonus to their psychic tests like Magnus or Ahriman.

I'd like to see the prism changed so that instead of just giving you a deny it makes casting the spell harder in the first place. That'd be far more useful and actually do something against the real psychic armies.

Yeah, it would also be more like necrons.
Remember the "no psykers allowed" bubble that Pariahs had? That would cool. I want that.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
Pretty much no one can deny tsons psychic powers, they just overwhelm you. Magnus can get +4 to psychic tests, re-rolling any 1s

Other factions that don't have native access to psykers (such as World Eaters) have a stratagem that automatically denies on a 4+. Still a 50/50 but at least it's possible to prevent one power per phase from going off.

Wow, one power Tsons can easily cast 15 per psychic phase.

Denying a defensive buff for Magnus is worth a lot, especially when he has already failed one of them.

You can even re-roll the 4+ to deny with another CP, for a 75% chance to block -1 to hit or 3++, whichever one is more annoying for your army. I love having WE allies in 2vs2 games and they love having pox walkers eat smites for them

 p5freak wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
Pretty much no one can deny tsons psychic powers, they just overwhelm you. Magnus can get +4 to psychic tests, re-rolling any 1s

Other factions that don't have native access to psykers (such as World Eaters) have a stratagem that automatically denies on a 4+. Still a 50/50 but at least it's possible to prevent one power per phase from going off.

Wow, one power Tsons can easily cast 15 per psychic phase.

Remind me not to play against tsons with necrons. Watching my army be destroyed in the second psychic phase with me unable stop it would be boring as hell.

 p5freak wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
Pretty much no one can deny tsons psychic powers, they just overwhelm you. Magnus can get +4 to psychic tests, re-rolling any 1s

Other factions that don't have native access to psykers (such as World Eaters) have a stratagem that automatically denies on a 4+. Still a 50/50 but at least it's possible to prevent one power per phase from going off.

Wow, one power Tsons can easily cast 15 per psychic phase.

I know, isn't it embarrassing that that measly amount of psychic defense is still leagues ahead of what Necrons can do?

For someone who has no clue how 8th edition necrons work, what exactly is the issue?

Denies not being on characters?
Spyders just being terrible units that are not worth bringing for denies? If so, what exactly is the issue with spyders?

 Jidmah wrote:
For someone who has no clue how 8th edition necrons work, what exactly is the issue?

Denies not being on characters?
Spyders just being terrible units that are not worth bringing for denies? If so, what exactly is the issue with spyders?

Deny the Witch is an extremely unreliable system, especially when the psykers you really need to deny have bonuses to cast. A spyder is a bad model on its own with weak offense and poor utility (you get a d3 repair on your vehicles instead of the 1 repair you usually get, which means you have a 33% chance for the spyder to do nothing on a turn) and then you have to spend extra points for the gloom prism to have the deny. Put all this on the squishiest per-point model in the entire codex with no character protection so even if the enemy does consider the spyder a threat in some way they can remove it extremely easily.

Gotcha. So if spyders wouldn't suck (more damage/utility/less points), they would probably be a decent option since you can have a lot of them.

I dont feel like spyders are weak, they are overcosted, as usual with necrons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Deny the Witch is an extremely unreliable system, especially when the psykers you really need to deny have bonuses to cast.

TBF, it should be hard to deny tsons psychic powers, because they are masters of the warp.

 p5freak wrote:
I dont feel like spyders are weak, they are overcosted, as usual with necrons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Deny the Witch is an extremely unreliable system, especially when the psykers you really need to deny have bonuses to cast.

TBF, it should be hard to deny tsons psychic powers, because they are masters of the warp.

I agree. In a conflict between a "normal" psychic army and the Thousand Sons the boys in blue should have a serious edge in that phase. But Necrons from both a mechanical and a thematic standpoint need to have some sort of leg to stand on to protect themselves.

For the record we are currently talking about both of my armies so I'm not exactly biased either way in this discussion.

The gloom prisms themselves are cheap for what they do and would be taken in-bulk by any army with access to them.

It's the spyder itself which is not favoured - it's a toughness 6 flying techmarine that spits out free scarabs... but can't be screened and units can't multi-repair. Necrons also have one of the better psychic protections in the game in the form of reanimation protocols (a flat 5+ to unsmite yourself) that the spyder also lacks.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
(you get a d3 repair on your vehicles instead of the 1 repair you usually get, which means you have a 33% chance for the spyder to do nothing on a turn)

I'm not sure I follow this.

A.T. wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
(you get a d3 repair on your vehicles instead of the 1 repair you usually get, which means you have a 33% chance for the spyder to do nothing on a turn)

I'm not sure I follow this.

Looking at my codex again that was actually an error on my part. I was confusing the Spyder's repair ability, which does actually stack with the Living Metal heal that all Necron vehicles have, with the Canoptek Cloak Cryptek's heal, which replaces Living Metal with the larger d3 heal for the selected vehicle.

A.T. wrote:

It's the spyder itself which is not favoured - it's a toughness 6 flying techmarine that spits out free scarabs... but can't be screened and units can't multi-repair. Necrons also have one of the better psychic protections in the game in the form of reanimation protocols (a flat 5+ to unsmite yourself) that the spyder also lacks.

Its hilarious that spyders cannot repair other spyders in their own unit, because they are MONSTERS, not VEHICLES. Instead of using a spyder that spits out 1 scarab base you could use 5 scarab bases for the price of a spyder. One spyder could spit out 3 scarab bases, though, if there are 3 scarab units, and you roll 2+ for every unit.
RP isnt some kind of unsmite mechanic. First its easily denied by wiping out the squad. Second, its not like you automatically reanimate slain models from smite, you have to roll 5+. Spyders can reanimate with a stratagem for 2CP, but its not worth it. A spyder unit can only have 3 models.

Would it be so hard for Necron lords, crypteks, etc to take a gloom prism? Or maybe let some vehicles take one, like an annihilation barge taking an anti psyker device? The necrons would still have no offensive psyker abilities but the psyker phase isn't just an automatic "Well, I'll take away a quarter of your army this phase, and another quarter the next psychic phase. "

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Would it be so hard for Necron lords, crypteks, etc to take a gloom prism? Or maybe let some vehicles take one, like an annihilation barge taking an anti psyker device?

There is a warlord trait which lets you deny one psychic power.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

The necrons would still have no offensive psyker abilities but the psyker phase isn't just an automatic "Well, I'll take away a quarter of your army this phase, and another quarter the next psychic phase. "

It is for tsons.

Which isn't healthy for the game.
Unless the Tsons are terrible in every other phase, in that case its fine. Maybe a few more psychic defenses, as you don't get saves and hit mods against mortal wounds.

As is it looks like I might try to deep strike a unit of death marks 12" from an enemy psyker and rapid fire their guns, hoping to get some 6's to score MWs and kill him. Of course the DMs will died afterwards.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
As is it looks like I might try to deep strike a unit of death marks 12" from an enemy psyker and rapid fire their guns, hoping to get some 6's to score MWs and kill him. Of course the DMs will died afterwards.

Yeah, that's probably not going to happen.
If your opponent is smart they'll screen their psyker in such a way that you'll be out of rapid fire range.
Deathmarks are too expensive for what they can do. They probably need to be 17 or even 16 points.

I want to like deathmarks. They are my favorite model from the 5th ed necron range, even though they are a hassel to build.
Its just they aren't that good because of their price and terrible damage output. They need their marking ability back.

Honestly, they need to make the Spyder into the 'I've got to deal with this thing since it's making endless free units' threat again.

Imagine if, instead of reviving one dead scarab from an existing unit, it would make a new one every turn, no reinforcement point cost.
This one Scarab can then scuttle about, being a nuisance in denying deep-strikes, capturing objectives or locking vehicles in combat.

Doctoralex wrote:
Honestly, they need to make the Spyder into the 'I've got to deal with this thing since it's making endless free units' threat again.

Imagine if, instead of reviving one dead scarab from an existing unit, it would make a new one every turn, no reinforcement point cost.
This one Scarab can then scuttle about, being a nuisance in denying deep-strikes, capturing objectives or locking vehicles in combat.

I agree, there were multiple units back in the day that generated extra units (Tervigons, Spyders) and made them a true threat that had to be dealt with.

I get the "infinite generation breaks the game with free points" argument, thats why they nerfed poxwalkers. However, if you build it INTO the units cost knowing it will produce more models, it means the army is smaller in the beginning. Theres a lot of ways they could do it and make it more balanced, especially because these models don't have character protection usually.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
As is it looks like I might try to deep strike a unit of death marks 12" from an enemy psyker and rapid fire their guns, hoping to get some 6's to score MWs and kill him. Of course the DMs will died afterwards.

Yeah, that's probably not going to happen.
If your opponent is smart they'll screen their psyker in such a way that you'll be out of rapid fire range.
Deathmarks are too expensive for what they can do. They probably need to be 17 or even 16 points.

I want to like deathmarks. They are my favorite model from the 5th ed necron range, even though they are a hassel to build.
Its just they aren't that good because of their price and terrible damage output. They need their marking ability back.

Actually death marks can deploy within 9" of an enemy with their deep strike, and their SNs are range 24, rapid fire. So they can deploy within 12" and rapid fire their SN at a psychic character.

I with they made SDs extra harmful to psykers. That would make death marks more attractive.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
As is it looks like I might try to deep strike a unit of death marks 12" from an enemy psyker and rapid fire their guns, hoping to get some 6's to score MWs and kill him. Of course the DMs will died afterwards.

Yeah, that's probably not going to happen.
If your opponent is smart they'll screen their psyker in such a way that you'll be out of rapid fire range.
Deathmarks are too expensive for what they can do. They probably need to be 17 or even 16 points.

I want to like deathmarks. They are my favorite model from the 5th ed necron range, even though they are a hassel to build.
Its just they aren't that good because of their price and terrible damage output. They need their marking ability back.

Actually death marks can deploy within 9" of an enemy with their deep strike, and their SNs are range 24, rapid fire. So they can deploy within 12" and rapid fire their SN at a psychic character.

I with they made SDs extra harmful to psykers. That would make death marks more attractive.

No, they can't, because there's a screen. They can only rapid fire at 12" range. They need to be 9" away from an enemy unit when they arrive. If you opponent is smart he will put a screen of infantry some distance away from the psyker to push you out of rapid fire range.
Most characters have 4 wounds. The likelihood of you killing a 4 wound character with 10 shots that have no AP is really slim.

Really interesting read in this thread, spyders REALLY should be able to repair any <Necron> short of a C'tan shard unit, lets be honest. Why not make them count as characters when near scarab swarms? Would that be too much?

Also I played against Thousand Sons as my Kronos Tyranid lists (We both blind pick our armies and me my hvie fleet before meeting up, I didn't know he'd even take his TS and me my Tyranids) and his psychic phases were awful, Kronos Stratagems, the -1 to cast and the sheer amount of psykers I brought was glorious, killing ahriman by forcing 2d3 mishap is officially the best thing ever.

The Necrons nicely highlight the current problems of the Psychic phase to me. Necrons have OK screens with Scarabs, but the short-medium range nature of the army means getting in range of psychic powers is inevitable. They have no meaningful psychic defence. A single Deny form a Warlord Trait is fine against, say, a SM army with a Librarian, especially considering that Trait also makes your models immune to morale. Against anything with more than that, it's completely futile. The major problem is that Deny is such an unreliable mechanic, even having a bunch of it in the army is not going to help that much. Putting it on Spyders is laughably bad too, mainly because the unit is so terrible it's more of a liability to take it than not.

I've played Necrons against TSons and while it's certainly not an unwinnable game, it's an uphill battle. More than that, I just find the endless psychic phase with its stream of Mortal Wounds dull , unengaging and utterly uninteresting.