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MarkCron wrote:I'm confused. This comparison of Flayed Ones to GH is underlining the stupidity of writing them off based on unrealistic comparisons.

Step 1 : Playing Necrons
Step 2 : Need a unit that can infiltrate/deep strike and has a packet load of attacks.
Step 3 : Get Grey Hunters??????

Seriously, the arguments over flayed ones HAVE to be in comparison to units that are actually IN the NECRON Codex.

Otherwise I'll just have CCBs, scarabs, Wraiths, Genestealers, Anni Barges and some Long Fangs.

LMAO i roared out in laughter at reading this, you made my day, and gave my wife a heartattack

I said the lists would gravitate towards similarity once points effectiveness had been discovered. About the tournament results you mentioned I'll say it's either a result of custom missions that favour wacky lists, or believe it or not the general level of competition being average or below average which naturally allows mediocre lists played by good generals to have success. This has nearly always been the case in every edition of the GW game systems. I think the only edition in either game where the tournaments were practically always won by real power lists was in the previous edition of Warhammer after the Daemons of Chaos had come out. Lastly, don't forget that it's a common practise (atleast here) for generals who believe in their abilities to intentionally take a weaker list to a tournament just to prove that they don't need to play the cutting edge razor sharp lists that are often labeled 'cheesy' by the masses to be able to take the top prize.

Yes but all tournaments have there idiosyncrasies that are going to favor certain units. That's why the notion of certain units that are always going to be the bestest in all possible scenarios (what a lot of people imply when they use words like "competitive" and TAC) is built on faulty assumptions.

Take the case at hand. I guarantee you, there are units that Flayed Ones fair better against in CC then Wraiths (TH/SS termies being the prominent example here, Halberd wielding GK another good example). Having both is going to add tactical flexibility that quite simply does not exist in a homogenized list.

It's certainly true that lists gravitate towards similarity at least to some extent-- almost nobody takes true dud units like Mandrakes, Blood Claws, or Swooping Hawks-- but I think there's still lots of variation even within the bounds of "standard" or "acceptable" choices.

I guess my question then would be simple-- how do you distinguish what is and isn't a "serious tournament list" if you believe that the general level of competition at tournaments is low and that good generals often take unserious lists on purpose to prove their skills? In other words, what metrics and means of evaluation do you use to assess what makes a good list, if not what lists win events?

Fetterkey wrote:It's certainly true that lists gravitate towards similarity at least to some extent-- almost nobody takes true dud units like Mandrakes, Blood Claws, or Swooping Hawks-- but I think there's still lots of variation even within the bounds of "standard" or "acceptable" choices.

I guess my question then would be simple-- how do you distinguish what is and isn't a "serious tournament list" if you believe that the general level of competition at tournaments is low and that good generals often take unserious lists on purpose to prove their skills? In other words, what metrics and means of evaluation do you use to assess what makes a good list, if not what lists win events?

Same way as an established race car driver with multiple trophies and a long win streak would evaluate his team's new car. How well the driver does with it in races is one thing of course but also how easy it is to drive the car, how does the car feel, how fast but also how reliable it is, how well it adapts to changing weather and various types of race tracks, how it matches against the current level of competition, and so on. In the end it'll always be the subjective opinion of the players themselves and you can't just put one criteria on judging an army list or a unit. Personally I weigh the list against the most fearsome lists I can design out of all the other competitive army books and see if I could reasonably expect to have success against all of those with the same list in various missions and deployments and rolls of who goes first. The objectivity of the opinion comes when multiple similar players with similar records agree about the findings and their results already or eventually validates their opinions in the public's eyes. Like I said, it always takes some time but in the end 'what's good' in any given book becomes more or less 'common knowledge' labeled as fact instead of opinion.

Same way as an established race car driver with multiple trophies and a long win streak would evaluate his team's new car. How well the driver does with it in races is one thing of course but also how easy it is to drive the car, how does the car feel, how fast but also how reliable it is, how well it adapts to changing weather and various types of race tracks, how it matches against the current level of competition, and so on. In the end it'll always be the subjective opinion of the players themselves and you can't just put one criteria on judging an army list or a unit. Personally I weigh the list against the most fearsome lists I can design out of all the other competitive army books and see if I could reasonably expect to have success against all of those with the same list in various missions and deployments and rolls of who goes first. The objectivity of the opinion comes when multiple similar players with similar records agree about the findings and their results already or eventually validates their opinions in the public's eyes. Like I said, it always takes some time but in the end 'what's good' in any given book becomes more or less 'common knowledge' labeled as fact instead of opinion.

I think in a perfect world filled with rational, epidemiologically precise players who have unlimited funds and can go to tournaments every day you could generate the required amount of data to fulfill your requirements and still come up with precise well tested conclusions.


However, reality is far from this army list generating utopia.


For financial and cosmetic reasons, the vast majority of players, particularly competitive players, are simply not going to give many units the time of day. They have good reason to have incredibly limiting criteria, they want to win and they want to win now. So with the dawn of each new codex, the vocal minority of power players flood the discourse with the most obvious choices. Then memetics, arbitrary conservatism, and game theory take over. A power gamer that has dumped a grand into what they initially considered the most competitive list/play style is going to be very resistant to concede the notion that they may not have made the right choices, even if it turns out that they simply made good, yet not truly superior, choices.

Take baseball for example. The sport operated for over a hundred years are some incredibly flawed premises of what made a truly cost effective competitive team. By comparison, in terms of time and resources invested into it, 40k is in its infancy, which is further complicated by the fact the aggragate meta is tweaked with every codex release, and completely altered with each edition.

I'll agree that they do present a problem , but my Guard army has never had problems dealing with Flayed ones , i simply pump you full of plasma shots and drop a Battle Cannon on your Necron with a Ressurection orb .......easy

I'll agree that they do present a problem , but my Guard army has never had problems dealing with Flayed ones , i simply pump you full of plasma shots and drop a Battle Cannon on your Necron with a Ressurection orb .......easy

My Necron with a Res Orb has T6, 3W and a 2+ armor save so....

Fetterkey wrote:

Therion wrote:Every unit always offers something -- Most of them just don't offer enough, and eventually after the pioneers have separated the wheat from the chaff all serious tournament lists gravitate towards the most points efficient spam possible.

I'm not sure that's true. The typical "most points efficient spam" lists don't tend to actually win major events here in the US. I don't know of any major event that has ever been won by a Razorback spam for instance, though I think Stelek came close once. On the other hand, unusual lists like Footdar or Mike Brandt's Straken Guard have done fairly well for themselves. It's my impression that the "most points efficient spam" lists are a good way for a new or mid-level player to get better quickly, but truly advanced and experienced players are better served by taking units that fit their playstyle and making use of unexpected or underestimated choices.

This needs to be addressed ASAP.

First, Brandt's Straken Guard is mostly meltavets in Chimeras, Vendettas and an outflanking Al Raheem unit, all of which I would say are commonly held as effective and good by the majority of guard players. The only part of that list that I would say is very unique is the inclusion of Straken as a counter attack unit. Aside from that it still spams AV12. So you brought up a really, really poor example of a non-spam list. The list is very usual, it simply spends a little extra on the HQ to have some sort of CC ability.

Tony Kopach's dominant Space Wolf list is the best units in the codex, spammed over and over. The base of that list is almost all GH's, Razors, Long Fangs and Scouts. All of those are incredibly efficient and generally thought to be good units.

Look at the top 16 at Adepticon. Half the lists are henchman spam. Look at NOVA last year, the invitational winner brought a spammed out razor list. Stelek also won one of the top brackets in the Open, a 256 man tournament. I had a few friends in the upper brackets and most of the lists they faced were VERY redundant lists.


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ShadarLogoth wrote:

Same way as an established race car driver with multiple trophies and a long win streak would evaluate his team's new car. How well the driver does with it in races is one thing of course but also how easy it is to drive the car, how does the car feel, how fast but also how reliable it is, how well it adapts to changing weather and various types of race tracks, how it matches against the current level of competition, and so on. In the end it'll always be the subjective opinion of the players themselves and you can't just put one criteria on judging an army list or a unit. Personally I weigh the list against the most fearsome lists I can design out of all the other competitive army books and see if I could reasonably expect to have success against all of those with the same list in various missions and deployments and rolls of who goes first. The objectivity of the opinion comes when multiple similar players with similar records agree about the findings and their results already or eventually validates their opinions in the public's eyes. Like I said, it always takes some time but in the end 'what's good' in any given book becomes more or less 'common knowledge' labeled as fact instead of opinion.

I think in a perfect world filled with rational, epidemiologically precise players who have unlimited funds and can go to tournaments every day you could generate the required amount of data to fulfill your requirements and still come up with precise well tested conclusions.


However, reality is far from this army list generating utopia.


For financial and cosmetic reasons, the vast majority of players, particularly competitive players, are simply not going to give many units the time of day. They have good reason to have incredibly limiting criteria, they want to win and they want to win now. So with the dawn of each new codex, the vocal minority of power players flood the discourse with the most obvious choices. Then memetics, arbitrary conservatism, and game theory take over. A power gamer that has dumped a grand into what they initially considered the most competitive list/play style is going to be very resistant to concede the notion that they may not have made the right choices, even if it turns out that they simply made good, yet not truly superior, choices.

Take baseball for example. The sport operated for over a hundred years are some incredibly flawed premises of what made a truly cost effective competitive team. By comparison, in terms of time and resources invested into it, 40k is in its infancy, which is further complicated by the fact the aggragate meta is tweaked with every codex release, and completely altered with each edition.

I just cannot agree with this at all. I don't base my opinions of a unit on anything I read or hear from another player. In fact, when a new codex comes out I usually analyze it and am able to come to conclusions that the people I game with also come to, far before we ever discuss the codex. I think a simple look at a codex can illuminate what is obviously good and what is obviously bad.. Everyone knows that GW is pretty poor in their ability to write balanced codexes which is why there are so many units that are simply not up to par.

Almost all games suffer from this. Take video games for example. Most RPG's feature obviously good and exploitable powers/builds. Shooters often suffer from similar problems by featuring overpowered weapons. Other hobby games such as MTG also suffer from this. I'd venture to guess that ~50% of the cards MTG releases do not see competitive play because they are obviously worse than the power cards. I find 40k to be no different. Every codex has no-brainer units and they tend to be no-brainers for good reason. They tend to perform their roles at a very efficient cost.

LValx wrote:First, Brandt's Straken Guard is mostly meltavets in Chimeras, Vendettas and an outflanking Al Raheem unit, all of which I would say are commonly held as effective and good by the majority of guard players. The only part of that list that I would say is very unique is the inclusion of Straken as a counter attack unit. Aside from that it still spams AV12. So you brought up a really, really poor example of a non-spam list. The list is very usual, it simply spends a little extra on the HQ to have some sort of CC ability.

The overall flow and composition of the list is totally different, especially since it entirely skips the Heavy Support section of the Codex. Further, spamming a certain armor value is very, very different from spamming only conventionally accepted units and tactics.

LValx wrote:Tony Kopach's dominant Space Wolf list is the best units in the codex, spammed over and over. The base of that list is almost all GH's, Razors, Long Fangs and Scouts. All of those are incredibly efficient and generally thought to be good units.

And yet Kopach's unit configurations and choices confused many when his lists first came out-- larger GH squads? Njal? None of these things were standard.

Do I need to start talking about Hulksmash winning events with 60 GKSS guys on foot? I figured I would stick to lists that are well-known and unambiguously successful so that we wouldn't have to play the "level of play" game.

I just cannot agree with this at all. I don't base my opinions of a unit on anything I read or hear from another player. In fact, when a new codex comes out I usually analyze it and am able to come to conclusions that the people I game with also come to, far before we ever discuss the codex. I think a simple look at a codex can illuminate what is obviously good and what is obviously bad..

I'll agree with you that good players can independently come to conclusions about what is obviously good however:

Everyone knows that GW is pretty poor in their ability to write balanced codexes which is why there are so many units that are simply not up to par.

Is a faulty assumption, and everyone certainly doesn't know that. Now, know one is surprised when there are a few unpopular units, but to operate under the assumption of "once I've isolated the obviously good units, I can eliminate the others as obviously bad because GW, despite investing millions, can't do the basic maths that I can" is just poor reasoning. Any unit that is elevated through proper synergism is intrinsically resistant to such knee jerk first codex read through unit appraisals.

Also, despite your independent read through, don't think that you are going into it without the same pre concieved notions as the rest of your playing group, or the "consensus" of power gamers (MSU is king, Mech is king, DS sucks, reserve rolls suck...so forth and so on). Their are several assumptions people carry around when looking at new codices that may have been true for a previous codex, and may have been true for certain styles of play, but certainly aren't grounded in any objective reality. Just because apples are good, doesn't mean oranges are bad.




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Fetterkey wrote:
Do I need to start talking about Hulksmash winning events with 60 GKSS guys on foot? I figured I would stick to lists that are well-known and unambiguously successful so that we wouldn't have to play the "level of play" game.

Exactly.

In fact him and Dash's blog and tournament records are standing testament that pre-concieved notions and "interweb consensus" are filled with faulty assumptions. Dash had tremendous success, as a relatively green player when first hitting the scene a couple of years ago, with two 3rd edition codices (DEldar and Crons) that 95% of the internet had written off.

So either A.) the man is an unprecedented Mensa that found the Rosetta Stone of those codices that was alluding others for 8 to 10 years or B.) he was simply new enough to the game and independent thinking enough to not get bogged down by the pre-concieved notions of others.

Personally, I'll go with B.

LValx wrote:First, Brandt's Straken Guard is mostly meltavets in Chimeras, Vendettas and an outflanking Al Raheem unit, all of which I would say are commonly held as effective and good by the majority of guard players. The only part of that list that I would say is very unique is the inclusion of Straken as a counter attack unit. Aside from that it still spams AV12. So you brought up a really, really poor example of a non-spam list. The list is very usual, it simply spends a little extra on the HQ to have some sort of CC ability.

And skips Manticores and Hydras. Vet spam is pretty common, but Mike's list does drop some IG standbys as well as taking Straken.

LValx wrote:Tony Kopach's dominant Space Wolf list is the best units in the codex, spammed over and over. The base of that list is almost all GH's, Razors, Long Fangs and Scouts. All of those are incredibly efficient and generally thought to be good units.

IIRC there are only two or three razors. More Rhinos, because of the larger squads. Before he did it, the internet echo chamber was full of razorspam. It's quieted down a bit and more focus has gone to GH in part because of Tony's list.

LValx wrote:Look at the top 16 at Adepticon. Half the lists are henchman spam.

No. 7/16 of the qualifying players (8/16 of the guys who played, as an Ork player had to drop and a GK was first alternate) were Grey Knights. Only a one or two of them spammed henchmen. There was actually a surprising amount of variety in the GK lists which qualified for the finals. Henchmen + Purifiers (Brad), pure Purifiers (the guy who knocked me out Friday), Paladin-heavy (Paul Murphy), and a very interesting nontraditional mixed list from Joachim were all present, to my immediate recollection.

I like flayed ones. only tried them once as a outflanking unit with furious charge. Worked ok. I need to try em with a warscythe orb overlord in there with a phase shifter to eat some of the higher strength shots have em join up after infiltrating.

I can see using a small unit of outflanking flayed ones to pick back field shooting units like devastators or a manticore, or a back field scoring unit.

I'm not sold on large units. A large unit of flayed one is 1 bad morale test away from annihilation. Let's use a 4 wound combat resolution as an example. Wraiths, scarabs, and sypders can all take 4 wounds from a bad round of CC, but a 20 block of flayed ones +destroyer lord have a 58.3% chance of breaking, being denied RP, and being run down because of their I2. The single failed morale test ending a 400+ point unit (260 for the flayed ones + 140+ for a HQ) is a deal breaker for me.

This was an interesting thread, and made me think about Flayed Ones. A couple points about "most efficient units" in general and for Necrons -

First, of course you have to make decisions based on your own codex, and I think LVatx has already been taken to task a bit for the Grey Hunters comparisons, but just to be clear - the only thing that matters in deciding whether to include Flayed Ones is whether it makes your list "better" (for some value of "better") as compared to other units you might include. And we're pretty sparse on good units in the Elite FOC slot.

Then, realize that any Necron army above a certain point threshold is going to fully populate its core HQ, FA and HS slots. The real question becomes what to do with the leftover points. For some lists, the "leftover points" can be virtually nil - the reason Therion's so adamant about skipping FO's is that he's made decisions for his core HQ, FA and HS units that are about the priciest possible. He's got the typical dual CCB or Imo/CCB, then two Wraiths and one Scarab for FA, then two Spyder and one DoomScythe for HS, iirc. That's about 1450-1550 pts, depending on whether he want's to kit the OLords for CC, initial Scarab count, etc. It's a bit more if he's going the Imotekh route (which I believe he is), but whatever - the point is his core 8 units aren't leaving enough points to afford a marginal unit.

If instead a Necron player goes 1 Wraith 2 Scarabs and substitutes an Annihilation Barge for the DoomScythe (both very viable alternatives), his core 8 units are about 200pts cheaper. Points are left over, and the only thing left to spend them on are Elites and Troops. Therion's otherwise logical objections aren't as relevant. If our hypothetical Necron player is also planning on some sort of MTO strategy and plans to swamp the opponent with targets *anyway*, then Flayed Ones eating a turn of fire before engaging isn't much of an issue. At this point he's asking himself - why not take them? What do we have that's a clearly better alternative?

TL;DR - you can make an argument.



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schadenfreude wrote:I'm not sold on large units. A large unit of flayed one is 1 bad morale test away from annihilation. Let's use a 4 wound combat resolution as an example. Wraiths, scarabs, and sypders can all take 4 wounds from a bad round of CC, but a 20 block of flayed ones +destroyer lord have a 58.3% chance of breaking, being denied RP, and being run down because of their I2. The single failed morale test ending a 400+ point unit (260 for the flayed ones + 140+ for a HQ) is a deal breaker for me.

This is the problem with all Necron infantry blocks, our stoopit initiative. It's even worse for clumps of Warriors backed up with a Ghost Ark and a Res Orb. You've spent all those points to make a resilient unit that'll Get Back Up and spawn replacements from the Ghost Ark, but one bad CC result and they're gone. It's even worse for them in that it's more likely you'll get a 4-wound differential - the one thing you can say about Flayed Ones is that they'll dish out some CC damage, likely reducing the CC wound differential to something more manageable.

Btw, 58% morale failure translates to 48% swept chance against an I4 opponent. Still not good.

Mannahnin wrote:

LValx wrote:First, Brandt's Straken Guard is mostly meltavets in Chimeras, Vendettas and an outflanking Al Raheem unit, all of which I would say are commonly held as effective and good by the majority of guard players. The only part of that list that I would say is very unique is the inclusion of Straken as a counter attack unit. Aside from that it still spams AV12. So you brought up a really, really poor example of a non-spam list. The list is very usual, it simply spends a little extra on the HQ to have some sort of CC ability.

And skips Manticores and Hydras. Vet spam is pretty common, but Mike's list does drop some IG standbys as well as taking Straken.

LValx wrote:Tony Kopach's dominant Space Wolf list is the best units in the codex, spammed over and over. The base of that list is almost all GH's, Razors, Long Fangs and Scouts. All of those are incredibly efficient and generally thought to be good units.

IIRC there are only two or three razors. More Rhinos, because of the larger squads. Before he did it, the internet echo chamber was full of razorspam. It's quieted down a bit and more focus has gone to GH in part because of Tony's list.

LValx wrote:Look at the top 16 at Adepticon. Half the lists are henchman spam.

No. 7/16 of the qualifying players (8/16 of the guys who played, as an Ork player had to drop and a GK was first alternate) were Grey Knights. Only a one or two of them spammed henchmen. There was actually a surprising amount of variety in the GK lists which qualified for the finals. Henchmen + Purifiers (Brad), pure Purifiers (the guy who knocked me out Friday), Paladin-heavy (Paul Murphy), and a very interesting nontraditional mixed list from Joachim were all present, to my immediate recollection.

He foregoes the Heavy Support, sure. But Mike still takes units that are efficient for their points (Vets, Chimeras, Vendettas). He also spams them out for redundancy, something that most good players build into their lists. I get that Mike eschews some IG "auto-includes" but that codex has so many that it is nigh impossible to fit them all anyway. My point is that he does not handicap himself by taking a dud unit, which I feel that the Flayed Ones are.

The same goes for Kopach. His list may not be MSU but it spams the most effective troop choice in the game and floods the table with them. My point is that the better lists out there generally leave dud, or inefficient units by the wayside in favor of things that are purely efficient.

Hulksmash takes a fairly different list, but if you look at his list he still doesnt take any dud units (I don't think there are very many in the GK codex which is why i'd say that it is a little bit OTT). Sitting there and referencing Dash has two sides to it. Have you seen his 5th Ed. Dark Eldar? That list is spammed to hell and takes the units that essentially everyone agrees are good from the codex. His old one did the same thing. His Orks also took efficient units.

I have definitely seen some top tier players take some units that I find to be inefficient but I haven't seen real dud units taken (mandrakes, swiftclaws, praetorians, etc). But I would say that most of them completely forego taking units that are obviously inefficient. I think the Flayed Ones fall into that category which is why I think you won't see any top players or top lists with them in it.


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As for Adepticon..

Joakim played a list that took Coteaz, Draigo, Paladins, Henchmen with Razors, Dreads, Vindicare and Dreadknight.

Paul Murphy took Draigo, Paladins, Henchmen with Razors, Dreadnoughts and a Dreadknight.

Ankarlo took Purifiers in rhinos and razors with Dreads.

Cook took Henchmen in Razors, Dreads, Purifiers and Coteaz.

Grippando took Coteaz, Libby, Techmarine, Purifiers and Henchmen in Rhinos/Razors, Dreads and a LR.

Nick Nanavati takes Strikes in Razors, Purifiers, Dreads, Coteaz and Henchmen in a LR.

So what you see here is almost all the players pulling from the same relative pool. Almost each list took some form of henchman spam. I think it says something when 6 of the top 16 players take things that are very very similar. And the GK codex is probably one of THE most flexible codexes. The only "odd" units taken in these lists were the Vindicare and Dreadknight. The Vindicare I would put as unfavorable but I would hardly say he is a dud unit. The Dreadknight is probably one of the best MC's in the game and because of the relative cheapness of Henchmen, I think GK's can afford to take some things that may be a little overcosted, i.e., Land Raiders. The Dreadknights were also only taken in lists with Draigo which makes sense as he can allow them to easily get into backfield (outflank) or can make them score, thus making them far more flexible and efficient.

I also think you can't give Hulksmash's GK list too much credit, the GT he won was a much smaller event. He didnt do nearly as well at Adepticon.

I think the better lists tend to take the better units. Whether or not they take it in MSU form or not is not something that I am arguing. I am simply saying that good players realize what units are good and tend to take them. This may result in some non-traditional lists, i.e. Hulksmash's Footwolves but these lists still tend to take units that are generally perceived as "good" even if the list is built in an unconventional form, or takes some less conventional units. I generally try to build my lists in a similar manner.

oops


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Randall Turner wrote:This was an interesting thread, and made me think about Flayed Ones. A couple points about "most efficient units" in general and for Necrons -

First, of course you have to make decisions based on your own codex, and I think LVatx has already been taken to task a bit for the Grey Hunters comparisons, but just to be clear - the only thing that matters in deciding whether to include Flayed Ones is whether it makes your list "better" (for some value of "better") as compared to other units you might include. And we're pretty sparse on good units in the Elite FOC slot.

Then, realize that any Necron army above a certain point threshold is going to fully populate its core HQ, FA and HS slots. The real question becomes what to do with the leftover points. For some lists, the "leftover points" can be virtually nil - the reason Therion's so adamant about skipping FO's is that he's made decisions for his core HQ, FA and HS units that are about the priciest possible. He's got the typical dual CCB or Imo/CCB, then two Wraiths and one Scarab for FA, then two Spyder and one DoomScythe for HS, iirc. That's about 1450-1550 pts, depending on whether he want's to kit the OLords for CC, initial Scarab count, etc. It's a bit more if he's going the Imotekh route (which I believe he is), but whatever - the point is his core 8 units aren't leaving enough points to afford a marginal unit.

If instead a Necron player goes 1 Wraith 2 Scarabs and substitutes an Annihilation Barge for the DoomScythe (both very viable alternatives), his core 8 units are about 200pts cheaper. Points are left over, and the only thing left to spend them on are Elites and Troops. Therion's otherwise logical objections aren't as relevant. If our hypothetical Necron player is also planning on some sort of MTO strategy and plans to swamp the opponent with targets *anyway*, then Flayed Ones eating a turn of fire before engaging isn't much of an issue. At this point he's asking himself - why not take them? What do we have that's a clearly better alternative?

TL;DR - you can make an argument.



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schadenfreude wrote:I'm not sold on large units. A large unit of flayed one is 1 bad morale test away from annihilation. Let's use a 4 wound combat resolution as an example. Wraiths, scarabs, and sypders can all take 4 wounds from a bad round of CC, but a 20 block of flayed ones +destroyer lord have a 58.3% chance of breaking, being denied RP, and being run down because of their I2. The single failed morale test ending a 400+ point unit (260 for the flayed ones + 140+ for a HQ) is a deal breaker for me.

This is the problem with all Necron infantry blocks, our stoopit initiative. It's even worse for clumps of Warriors backed up with a Ghost Ark and a Res Orb. You've spent all those points to make a resilient unit that'll Get Back Up and spawn replacements from the Ghost Ark, but one bad CC result and they're gone. It's even worse for them in that it's more likely you'll get a 4-wound differential - the one thing you can say about Flayed Ones is that they'll dish out some CC damage, likely reducing the CC wound differential to something more manageable.

Btw, 58% morale failure translates to 48% swept chance against an I4 opponent. Still not good.

IMO, it'd at that point be better to take some toolbox Crypteks (which get very, very expensive quickly) and build some very solid troops choices, which is not cheap at all. It is very very easy to spend ~600-800 on troops (with the leftover points you could also get 2 Night Scythes which I would say is far far better than 15 Flayed Ones).

LValx wrote:IMO, it'd at that point be better to take some toolbox Crypteks (which get very, very expensive quickly) and build some very solid troops choices, which is not cheap at all. It is very very easy to spend ~600-800 on troops (with the leftover points you could also get 2 Night Scythes which I would say is far far better than 15 Flayed Ones).

<shrug> The point is that you're no longer discussing swapping out obviously better FA/HS choices - you're now considering troop blocks or big flying AV11 "shoot me" targets.

The point is even after maxing out hq, fa and hs there are still better choices, scythes being one of them. I'd say armor saturation is always a good thing. And scythes will require high str shooting to take down, the same type of shooting generally required to effectively hurt barges, wraiths, scarabs and spyders.


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Reecius' footdar and dash's old crons were both incredibly tough lists because of the synergistic relations between the units. Ive challenged the op multiple times to post an example list that uses FOs and he still has yet to do so.

ShadarLogoth wrote:

I'll agree that they do present a problem , but my Guard army has never had problems dealing with Flayed ones , i simply pump you full of plasma shots and drop a Battle Cannon on your Necron with a Ressurection orb .......easy

My Necron with a Res Orb has T6, 3W and a 2+ armor save so....

Im , My normal Infantry body has 24 Plasma Guns (about) , Strength 7 AP 2 your Armor save is pointless and anyway out of 24 plasma guns almost more then half will hit , out of the sheer number of shots you'r going to die , but interms of the Battle cannon , Strength 8 AP 4 i think ( can't recall right now ) you would be hard pressed to get even close enough to use your flayed ones muhahahahaha

Kasrkin229 wrote:Im , My normal Infantry body has ...[waffles on about army]... you would be hard pressed to get even close enough to use your flayed ones muhahahahaha

cool story, bro

That's cool you just spend nearly all your shooting on one unit. My wraith units now charge untouched. Vacuum is still a vacuum

I would never attach a Destroyer Lord to FO. As noted if you lose combat then the odds are that you'll lose him by being sweeped. If FO were fearless then it might make sense. There are so many better units to take that I don't see any competitive any Necron army fielding them... They are too much of a detriment to the army as a whole.

-666- wrote:I would never attach a Destroyer Lord to FO. As noted if you lose combat then the odds are that you'll lose him by being sweeped. If FO were fearless then it might make sense. There are so many better units to take that I don't see any competitive any Necron army fielding them... They are too much of a detriment to the army as a whole.

Thats the thing. I use FOs quite often (I have 22 of the old models) and would never run them without a DLord. They mitigate many of the problems FOs have (no pw access, no rez orb) without taking away their ability to DS (if that is your thing). About the only problem it doesnt in any way solve is the problem if I2 which is a problem the entire army has. The DLords warscythe goes a long way toward evening out the combat rez. The FOs are still getting 3 attacks each (assuming no charge bonus) which with a decent size squad is nothing to sneeze at. IMHO FOs should have stayed at I4 but thats neither here nor there.

Are they the best or easiest to use unit in the dex...no they arent. Can they still be used to great effect in the hands of someone who knows how to utilize what they can bring to the table...absolutely!

Shake Zoola wrote:

-666- wrote:I would never attach a Destroyer Lord to FO. As noted if you lose combat then the odds are that you'll lose him by being sweeped. If FO were fearless then it might make sense. There are so many better units to take that I don't see any competitive any Necron army fielding them... They are too much of a detriment to the army as a whole.

Thats the thing. I use FOs quite often (I have 22 of the old models) and would never run them without a DLord. They mitigate many of the problems FOs have (no pw access, no rez orb) without taking away their ability to DS (if that is your thing). About the only problem it doesnt in any way solve is the problem if I2 which is a problem the entire army has. The DLords warscythe goes a long way toward evening out the combat rez. The FOs are still getting 3 attacks each (assuming no charge bonus) which with a decent size squad is nothing to sneeze at. IMHO FOs should have stayed at I4 but thats neither here nor there.

Are they the best or easiest to use unit in the dex...no they arent. Can they still be used to great effect in the hands of someone who knows how to utilize what they can bring to the table...absolutely!

A DLord by himself contributes 2 to 3 casualties. A large enough group of FOs should generate at least 2 or 3 themselves. The list of CC units that are actually taken that can inflict more then 4 to 6 cassualties in one round against Flayed Ones is very very small.

Edit: I like this pic better.


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They are too much of a detriment to the army as a whole.

Detriment? Do they make the other units worse?

ShadarLogoth wrote:

They are too much of a detriment to the army as a whole.

Detriment? Do they make the other units worse?

I think he was referring to the fact that you have to spend points on them that could have been put to (potentially) better use elsewhere.

skoffs wrote:

ShadarLogoth wrote:

They are too much of a detriment to the army as a whole.

Detriment? Do they make the other units worse?

I think he was referring to the fact that you have to spend points on them that could have been put to (potentially) better use elsewhere.

Yeah I figured he meant the opportunity cost. The wording was a bit odd though. Like the Flayed Ones might turn around and start stabbing the warriors .

Why I'm not a fan of the 20 block, let's start with GK

Crowe alone versus 20 FO + Dlord

Crowe positions goes into shield of blades defensive stance forgoing all attacks to reroll his 2+/4++ saves. His blade rends on a 4+, which means when it auto wounds from mind shackle scarabs it's not a rend and Crowe gets a 2+ with a reroll for his save. The Dlord and FO won't do much to Crowe while he has shielf of blades up.

Math hammer FO V Crowe 1/2 hit 1/2 wound 1/6 fail armor save 1/6 fail re roll to armor save= 1/144 attacks do a wound to Crowe while shield of blades is up.

Crowe does purifying flames dropping 10 wound and 5 unsaved wounds against the FO.

About a 50/50 chance that Crowe does 2 wounds to himself from mind shackle, non rending, each with a 1/36 chance of him failing his armor save, so it's pretty much the same as 4 FO attacks.

15 FO with 4A each + the equivalent of 4 more from MS for 66 attacks each with a 1/144 chance of wounding Crowe=0.46 wounds

Dlord 4A 1/2 hit 5/6 wound 1/2 fail invo 1/2 fail re roll to invo=20/48= 0.41 wounds

Grand total for Combat resolution
Crowe generated 5 wounds
FO +Dlord generated 0.97 wounds round up to 1
Crowe wins by 4 wounds
400+ points of necrons now have a 58.3% chance of breaking, being denied RP, and being run down by Crowe who has an I6.

By attaching the DL to the FO you are placing him in harm's way and losing the advantage of him being fearless.

-666- wrote:By attaching the DL to the FO you are placing him in harm's way and losing the advantage of him being fearless.

Uh the lord isnt fearless...

I see your Crowe against a unit of flayed ones and raise you 4 lancetek wounds to the face.