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Some editions ago, before C’Tan were reduced to shards, I ran a Necron army that was based on Destroyers. Min Warriors, Max Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers and a pair of Destroyer Lords. I know the new book is shaking up the Destroyers, introducing new types and such. How do they run now? How possible is it to run all, or nearly all Destroyers? How much of those old models are still useable? Ect?

Destroyers took a huge nerf in how RP affects them. They are, imo, almost unusable.

One of the great things of the new codex is that it included 3 new destroyers units: a very good HQ, a decent elite and a not very good fast attack.

If you pair that with the actual (pretty overpriced) destroyers and heavy destroyers, that's at least 1 destroyer option in every role except troops.

So yes, in theory you can make an entire army made of destroyers by taking like a spearhead or other non-batalion options. Is it good ? no really, you're losing on quite a lot of good options, command protocols and 3CP, but it can be done.

Well, since you can field detachments of nothing but 1-2 HQs (destroyer lords) & either 3-6 elite, fast, or heavy choices (all other stuff being 100% optional), and you can run multiple detachments, fielding an all destroyer force completely possible.

I agree that their reanimation took a hit. Much harder to pull off with multi-wound models. But destroyers are still tough & kick out the damage....
So I will not agree that they're nearly unplayable.

Lokhust destroyers do a job, they certainly aren't optimal but they work just fine

The original Destroyers (now called Lokhust Destroyers) are not that great any more. They're far too expensive now as they seem to still be priced as if they had the old RP. The Heavy Lokhusts are OK, but probably outclassed by the Canoptek Doomstalker.

Ophydians seem pretty bad as they're too expensive for pretty poor survivability. Skorpekhs are pretty good though. they kill heavier infantry pretty well and they have a fantastic strat to keep them alive.

A full Destroyer list is possible for Necrons but I don't think it'll be very good. You have a couple of Destroyer HQs, but neither of them are Nobles, which is important for Protocols. Your units are very limited and only one is really good and you'll also lack CPs since you won't be taking a Battalion.

I don't really like the Destroyers and HD now. They look decent on paper but they're clearly overpriced.

The HD is the greater offender imo. One one hand you have a badly designed multishot weapon. You either fire at a big blob of chaff but the S7 is completely wasted, or you fire at anything else but you get average 6 shots AP1 D1...

On the other hand, the AT weapon itself looks pretty good on paper (S10 AP4 3d3D looks juicy), but you only get one shot, one opportunity. I'm not really a fan of buying a unit 70pts and see do nothing. Granted BS3 rr1 is pretty precise, but they have about no way to bump that while enemies can easily have -1 to hit and then you'll miss about half your shots. I'm not one who likes to rant about a unit because it could potentially crit fail all the time, but this one is clearly a all-or-nothing and it rubs me the wrong way.

None of these units are terrible, but they are not great either, both internally with the codex and externally with other armies.

As others have said, lokhust destroyers took a hit in the new book, as they key stratagem of 8th edition which let them reroll all hits and wounds was made more expensive and only works on wound rolls now.
In addition, you have to be mindful what you shoot at. Due to the D d3 you are likely to waste additional shots on 2W models, which is all marines. Premium target therefore would be light vehicles or other multi wound modles with more than 2W and toughness <= 6.

Regarding the reanimation protocols, I do not agree at all. The forum is filled with posts, whining about never even having the chance to roll for RP in 8th edition. And how squishy destroyers are, despite being T5 and 3W. Now, you hat least have the chance to roll RP for them. And while the odds are terrible to bring one back if exactly one is killed, they get considerably better for multiples. On average, you will bring back 1 for every three destroyed.
So you losing 5 destroyers and then getting 1-2 back due to RP in 8th was nowhere as good, as having the opportunity to roll for these destroyed models outright now. Imho.

But since they still have only 24" range and no way to boost survivability beyond that like the other destroyers or vehicles, and they lost fall back and shoot, you have to work much harder to get something out of them. Right now, their points are probably too high for what they can do, compared with the new or updated units in the codex.

savemelmac wrote:
As others have said, lokhust destroyers took a hit in the new book, as they key stratagem of 8th edition which let them reroll all hits and wounds was made more expensive and only works on wound rolls now.
In addition, you have to be mindful what you shoot at. Due to the D d3 you are likely to waste additional shots on 2W models, which is all marines. Premium target therefore would be light vehicles or other multi wound modles with more than 2W and toughness <= 6.

Regarding the reanimation protocols, I do not agree at all. The forum is filled with posts, whining about never even having the chance to roll for RP in 8th edition. And how squishy destroyers are, despite being T5 and 3W. Now, you hat least have the chance to roll RP for them. And while the odds are terrible to bring one back if exactly one is killed, they get considerably better for multiples. On average, you will bring back 1 for every three destroyed.
So you losing 5 destroyers and then getting 1-2 back due to RP in 8th was nowhere as good, as having the opportunity to roll for these destroyed models outright now. Imho.

But since they still have only 24" range and no way to boost survivability beyond that like the other destroyers or vehicles, and they lost fall back and shoot, you have to work much harder to get something out of them. Right now, their points are probably too high for what they can do, compared with the new or updated units in the codex.

I don't really agree with that. RP isn't worthless on them, but it is highly improbable you will bring back more than one in a single game, and there is a solid chance you won't rez any at all.

So, on paper, that's:

- less than 4% chance to rez if 1 dies
- about 30% chance to rez 1 if 2 die (and 0.13% to rez both)
- about 62% chance to rez 1 if 3 die and 4.2% chance to rez 2

So to have a decent chance to rez 1, you need multiple casualties made by the same unit in the same turn. So unless your enemy is a braindead monkey who didn't read the memo about split-firing when shooting at multi-wound models in 9th for RP, your chances are slim. And that's not even accounting casualties done outside of shooting and fighting phase.

Meanwhile, in 8th they were clearly not in a bad situation for RP. With a cryptek on their side i've seen many times several destroyers each turn because the enemy didn't manage to wipe them out all in a single turn. So yes, it is definitely a nerf.

The models aren't under production, either. Correct?

SecondTime wrote:
The models aren't under production, either. Correct?

Eh? They're still in production. They just had stock issues for much of this year (but so did over half the necron range- they're finally catching up to some, but not all of it.)

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Necron-Destroyer-Squadron-2020

Note the 2020 as part of the url.

Voss wrote:

SecondTime wrote:
The models aren't under production, either. Correct?

Eh? They're still in production. They just had stock issues for much of this year (but so did over half the necron range- they're finally catching up to some, but not all of it.)

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Necron-Destroyer-Squadron-2020

Note the 2020 as part of the url.

Okay; my knowledge is a bit dated. I know my friend had a problem getting them a couple years back.

Voss wrote:

SecondTime wrote:
The models aren't under production, either. Correct?

Eh? They're still in production. They just had stock issues for much of this year (but so did over half the necron range- they're finally catching up to some, but not all of it.)

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Necron-Destroyer-Squadron-2020

Note the 2020 as part of the url.

Destroyers had stock issues mostly due to reworking the sprue to include rods so they could drop the clear plastic ones.

 Platuan4th wrote:

Voss wrote:

SecondTime wrote:
The models aren't under production, either. Correct?

Eh? They're still in production. They just had stock issues for much of this year (but so did over half the necron range- they're finally catching up to some, but not all of it.)

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Necron-Destroyer-Squadron-2020

Note the 2020 as part of the url.

Destroyers had stock issues mostly due to reworking the sprue to include rods so they could drop the clear plastic ones.

Ah, I see. Didn't know that. Not sure I'd pay the new price, though. Pointswise, I mean.

 Mr Raptor wrote:

savemelmac wrote:
As others have said, lokhust destroyers took a hit in the new book, as they key stratagem of 8th edition which let them reroll all hits and wounds was made more expensive and only works on wound rolls now.
In addition, you have to be mindful what you shoot at. Due to the D d3 you are likely to waste additional shots on 2W models, which is all marines. Premium target therefore would be light vehicles or other multi wound modles with more than 2W and toughness <= 6.

Regarding the reanimation protocols, I do not agree at all. The forum is filled with posts, whining about never even having the chance to roll for RP in 8th edition. And how squishy destroyers are, despite being T5 and 3W. Now, you hat least have the chance to roll RP for them. And while the odds are terrible to bring one back if exactly one is killed, they get considerably better for multiples. On average, you will bring back 1 for every three destroyed.
So you losing 5 destroyers and then getting 1-2 back due to RP in 8th was nowhere as good, as having the opportunity to roll for these destroyed models outright now. Imho.

But since they still have only 24" range and no way to boost survivability beyond that like the other destroyers or vehicles, and they lost fall back and shoot, you have to work much harder to get something out of them. Right now, their points are probably too high for what they can do, compared with the new or updated units in the codex.

I don't really agree with that. RP isn't worthless on them, but it is highly improbable you will bring back more than one in a single game, and there is a solid chance you won't rez any at all.

So, on paper, that's:

- less than 4% chance to rez if 1 dies
- about 30% chance to rez 1 if 2 die (and 0.13% to rez both)
- about 62% chance to rez 1 if 3 die and 4.2% chance to rez 2

So to have a decent chance to rez 1, you need multiple casualties made by the same unit in the same turn. So unless your enemy is a braindead monkey who didn't read the memo about split-firing when shooting at multi-wound models in 9th for RP, your chances are slim. And that's not even accounting casualties done outside of shooting and fighting phase.

Meanwhile, in 8th they were clearly not in a bad situation for RP. With a cryptek on their side i've seen many times several destroyers each turn because the enemy didn't manage to wipe them out all in a single turn. So yes, it is definitely a nerf.

Yes, because my braindead monkey opponents always have 6 units in place, who all can see and shoot at my destroyers and are capable on averaging exactly one destroyer each phase. I might have lost the game at that point anyway, no?
Sorry for being sarcastic, but these type of arguments do not really lead to a fruitful discussion. Why bring tanks when the other side has lascannons? etc.
The hoops my opponent then has to jump through to cleanly deal with them are much smaller and higher than before. And if the opponent has to pick them off one by one over more than one shooting phase, that means I get to shoot with them multiple times.

If you feel the current rules are a downgrade, that is fine. But for me, the fact is that you at least get to roll if your opponent has multiple units shooting at them, and you do not have to simply hope, they leave one left alive for you to have 1 chance on RP working. And if it is in one big swing, your basically in the same situation as before. More often than not I´ve lost mine to one round of shooting entirely. And if I didn´t and then brought 4 back, my opponent felt cheated.

So for me:

One big unit shooting - roughly as in 8th

Picking them off one by one - worse than in 8th, but very unlikely

Anything between the above - better than in 8th

I didn't mean to try and sound condescending.

But people arguing about RP pre-9th being useless are saying that because enemies could load their entire army's worth of shooting to wipe the unit in 1 turn, which prevents any RP from happening.

It is not a matter of tailoring list or using X that is effective against Y so Y is useless. It is about allocating resources to better kill the enemy without letting him use his special toy to recover.

If an enemy can command half his army to focus down a unit of destroyers, it can just as well split fire to minimize the number of death each unit deals. It requires more tactical thought I admit, but it's completely possible, and when you're talking about a unit with a 24" gun that also needs line of sight, either you're able to shoot at it with most of your army or it doesn't have much targets itself.

So yes, before you had to focus down, now you have to split fire. It's just a change of tactic. If your enemy wasn't focusing down units in 8th he was in for a bad surprise, why is it different here ?

All good.

It is not a matter of tailoring list or using X that is effective against Y so Y is useless. It is about allocating resources to better kill the enemy without letting him use his special toy to recover.

Maybe we play different points, different armies, with more/less terrain, but for me and my usual opponents it sure is not easier than before. But everybody I play with has a much harder time to effectively remove them, so I am guaranteed to not get anything out of my "toy". However, the more LP we discuss, the worse it gets, obviously. Spiders and Heavy Lokhust destroyers might as well not have it.

All in all I am quite happy how they changed it. And given that we now have easy access to Chronomancers, the possibility for a one-off reanimation via Cryptek and the buff to a res-orb, they are not worse off durability wise, in my opinion.

As a unit as a whole however, they clearly lost if compared with 8th edition.

Both the regular and the heavy Lokhusts are overpriced by about 10 points per model. I think the units are fine, just way too expensive for what they actually are.

Cynista wrote:
Both the regular and the heavy Lokhusts are overpriced by about 10 points per model. I think the units are fine, just way too expensive for what they actually are.

I might pay 60 for the heavy destroyer. 60 is much closer, anyway.