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Playing for the second time in 9th edition tomorrow, my Necrons vs. Admech.

In making my army I have a unit of 7 destroyers (6 Lokhust + 1 heavy) and a unit of 6 Wraiths. I see a lot of people taking blast weapons/unit sizes into account when making lists, should I worry about it? I can easily go down to 5 man units if necessary, I'm just not sure how necessary it is.

Last time I played against this opponent he had 3 Dune Crawlers, a big chicken strider, and a bunch of shooty infantry. Our game ended in a draw after round three, as our first game of 9th was sloooooow. He said he may be bringing a knight tomorrow since he doesn't have access to all his models right now, if that makes any difference.

Blast isn't really something you need to worry about. MSU is the standard play right now because action economy dictates a lot of things in the game. Your 7 man squad is more likely to stand back up as necrons so I would look at larger squads as a benefit to you.

dreadlybrew wrote:
Blast isn't really something you need to worry about. MSU is the standard play right now because action economy dictates a lot of things in the game. Your 7 man squad is more likely to stand back up as necrons so I would look at larger squads as a benefit to you.

I wouldn’t rely on RP to do anything on a multi-wound unit. It’s not likely to occur.

Agreed, you should treat reanimation as non existent for multi wound models. Consider it a happy accident when it works. A smart opponent will only kill 1 or 2 models from your destroyers, making it nearly impossible to reanimate them.

I think you should be fine at the unit sizes you have, as blast only guarantees 3 shots against them. It hurts a bit with D3 shot weapons, but it the effect isn't as noticeable with D6 shot weapons (the average number of shots for a D6 shot weapon is 3.5).

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm going to keep the Destroyers together for Extermination Protocols, but split the Wraiths. We're playing Ransack and I decided to go with the All Fronts secondary. I figure with 2 units of Wraiths, a unit of scarabs, the Destroyers and my Warrior blob with Veil I ought to be able to zip around the board quite well.

Typically multiwounds models do suffer blast if taken in squads of 6+ models. D3 blast weapons are quite common; orks have rokkits and KMBs which are two out of the three more common anti tank weapons they use. All kinds of plasma cannons are also D3 shots and blast.

Weigh all the pros and cons.

I'd consider dropping the unit of 6 wraiths down to 5. As well as blast, you will also have to take into account the unit coherency rules (make sure you understand them). This is more of an issue for a melee unit than a shooting unit.

I'd keep the 7 lokhusts, but only if you are using enough buffs on them. The value of the bigger unit is you should be dropping 5++ invulnerable save, +1 to hit, re-roll all wounds, etc on them and getting efficiency from them to counter/beat the efficiency you give out to your opponent's blast weapons.

If your buffs are Aura based, (Skorpekh Lord, LL) you can MSU better.

Well, I lost pretty darn bad.

Before I say what I think went wrong let me share my 1500 point list:

Novokh Dynasty

Skorpekh Lord
Technomancer w/ Veil
Chronomancer

18 Warriors
5 Immortals
5 Immortals

1 Spyder
4 Skorpekh Destroyers

9 Scarabs
3 Wraiths
3 Wraiths

4 Lokhust Destroyers, 1 heavy

His list:

3 Dune Crawlers
3 Kataphrons
1 Ironstrider
2 units of Infiltrators
2 guys that repaired the Dune Crawlers
3 Serberys Raiders
Belisarius Cawl
A bunch of shooty infantry

We were doing the Ransack mission on a 36" x 48" table.

Here's my somewhat noobish insight, perhaps some of you could give more experienced insight:

My biggest mistake was letting him set up the terrain (again). There were plenty of small terrain pieces that clogged the board and got in the way of movement, but nothing that blocked line of sight. He could freely choose which of my units to shoot at with all his guns. On turn one he went first and took out about 400 points, which was a rough start to try to climb back from. After the battle I told him that next time we play there has to be some terrain that blocks line of sight. In general this was a good lesson, to not be passive about the terrain set-up.

Smaller mistakes included:

a) not remembering Wraiths are core, at one point I wanted my Technomancer to use Rites of Reanimation on a Wraith, but didn't
b) not knowing about Big Guns Never Tire, I tried to tie up a Dunecrawler with melee and got blown up
c) I found out afterwards I was doing Reanimation Protocols wrong, wasn't a huge factor since my Warriors still did great
d) I like the way Spyders look, and thought it would be fun to regenerate Scarabs, but I had to drop 2 Warriors and a Skorpekh Destroyer to include it. I suppose if I'm losing this bad I should cut out the "fun" models from the list.

Another thing was it seemed like most of his army had inv. saves. I felt that a lot of times my AP was wasted. Perhaps this was me choosing the wrong targets. His 5+ inv. rolling was crazy good.

Overall though, the biggest problem was the Dunecrawlers and Kataphrons. It seemed like every time he wounded a multi-wound model the damage was high, so my models fell rather quickly. I killed the Kataphrons, but barely dented the Dunecrawlers. The Dunecrawlers punished me in our first battle as well. In that battle I had a Doomsday Ark, but against the three Dunecrawlers (again with insufficient cover) it lost that shooting match. Even when my DA got one of them to a few wounds, the vehicle healer using some stratagem brought it back to almost full health. A spectator who plays Necrons suggested I bring more single model wounds, I am going to make more Warriors this week for sure.

I will certainly be playing this guy again, and he will probably bring 3 Dunecrawlers. As a Necron player how should I deal with them? I have a second Doomsday Ark I could bring.

Is the suggestion that I bring more single wound models a good one? In both battles so far my Warrior blob has performed well and been quite resilient. I could run a second 20 Warrior blob with another Technomancer.

I also have Lychguard I'm currently building that I would like to try out, but not sure if this AdMecvh foe is a good enemy to try them out against.

Any tips would be appreciated, thanks.

Terrain is a big thing-make sure it doesn't favor them over you.

Also, how experienced is your opponent? Don't be afraid to ask 'em to take a toned-down list, since you're just starting out in 9th.

Blast is absolutely something to worry about. Just because its not used right now doesn't mean its not there. So many weapons have the Blast keyword, its just you don't notice it. For instance, my Ork Rokkitz are D3 Blast. So if you take 6+ models, I get to increase my dmg by 50% (going from 2 shots to 3).

As someone already mentioned, MSU is a big thing right now, but thats because blast and other rules are so detrimental to big units right now.

Average armies usually have some blast weapons, and usually you want to avoid that dmg increase to the best of your ability. ON a D6 Blast weapon, you are upping them dmg from 3.5 shots on average to 6. That is a hefty bump for free. Hope that helped a bit.

Speaking of Blast, make sure he wasn't Big Guns Never Tire shooting you with Blast weapons since those can't be shot while the attacking model is in Engagement Range.

First of all, you are playing with a low tier against a top tier army, so its likely you wont be able to win.

Discodoggy wrote:

My biggest mistake was letting him set up the terrain (again). There were plenty of small terrain pieces that clogged the board and got in the way of movement, but nothing that blocked line of sight. He could freely choose which of my units to shoot at with all his guns. On turn one he went first and took out about 400 points, which was a rough start to try to climb back from. After the battle I told him that next time we play there has to be some terrain that blocks line of sight. In general this was a good lesson, to not be passive about the terrain set-up.

Yes, more LOS blocking terrain is very important.

Discodoggy wrote:

d) I like the way Spyders look, and thought it would be fun to regenerate Scarabs, but I had to drop 2 Warriors and a Skorpekh Destroyer to include it. I suppose if I'm losing this bad I should cut out the "fun" models from the list.

Reanimating scarabs with spyders make no sense. For the cost of a spyder you can add 4 scarab bases. The spyder needs to do more than just that. It can also repair vehicles with fabricator claws, like your DDA. If you add a spyder also add a DDA, and hide the spyder in range of the scarabs, and the DDA.

Discodoggy wrote:

Overall though, the biggest problem was the Dunecrawlers and Kataphrons. It seemed like every time he wounded a multi-wound model the damage was high, so my models fell rather quickly. I killed the Kataphrons, but barely dented the Dunecrawlers. The Dunecrawlers punished me in our first battle as well. In that battle I had a Doomsday Ark, but against the three Dunecrawlers (again with insufficient cover) it lost that shooting match. Even when my DA got one of them to a few wounds, the vehicle healer using some stratagem brought it back to almost full health. A spectator who plays Necrons suggested I bring more single model wounds, I am going to make more Warriors this week for sure.

You need more LOS blocking terrain, to hide your units. Then charge the crawlers and tie them up in melee with wraith. They cannot shoot with blast weapons if within engagement range. The wraith wont be able to kill them, but they will prevent them from shooting at other units.

Discodoggy wrote:

I will certainly be playing this guy again, and he will probably bring 3 Dunecrawlers. As a Necron player how should I deal with them? I have a second Doomsday Ark I could bring.

Necrons dont have good anti armour guns, DDAs are unreliable (two are better than one, helps to even the odds, its unlikely you will roll two 1s when rolling for number of shots, but it can happen), heavy destroyers die to a stiff breeze, triarch stalkers suffer from low range. Try to tie them up in melee.

EightFoldPath wrote:
I'd consider dropping the unit of 6 wraiths down to 5. As well as blast, you will also have to take into account the unit coherency rules (make sure you understand them). This is more of an issue for a melee unit than a shooting unit.

I'd keep the 7 lokhusts, but only if you are using enough buffs on them. The value of the bigger unit is you should be dropping 5++ invulnerable save, +1 to hit, re-roll all wounds, etc on them and getting efficiency from them to counter/beat the efficiency you give out to your opponent's blast weapons.

Coherency won't be much of issue. 6 wraiths? 3x2 formation and you get all into melee on narrower frontage(=less return attacks if enemy is big unit). 5 wide isn't really help in melee as 3 wide gives all into melee anyway.

Coherency is much bigger issue in AOS where everybody can't fight in 2 ranks regardless of base size.

I would cut 3 Lokhusts and 1 Spyder. Not sure what you got to replace

It's often worth it to cut one model from a 6-model unit as this also helps with coherency issues, which can be a boon when it comes to tactical model removal. There may also be some stratagems that are cheaper on smaller units, though I can't recall any that would apply for Necrons.

More generally, you need more LoS blocking terrain. Frankly, it sounds like your opponent is a typical TFG if they're setting up the terrain and always having it favour them, especially when he has a pretty shooty list and yours is leaning more into close combat.

if your still very new to 9th edition, why not consider playing a few 500 or 1000 point game to get the hang of things first? it reduces the amount stuff both of you have, and it might help you more than him. also, either take turns placing terrian or arrange for a neutral 3rd party to set it up semi fairly. so that thier plently of obscuring terrain to break up the sight lines.

Im not too familiar with what deep strike/deploy form reserves tricks necrons have, but look into those as a way to ensure your key units are not shot off the board until they've had a chance to act.