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I am hopefully going to be buying a bundle of Necrons off a local player soon that includes 5 Lychguard.

I was wondering if it is better to arm them with the Warscythes or swap to hyperphase swords and dispersion shields?

The ones I am buying are equipped with the shields but can easily be swapped when I buy a Lychguard box to make Crypteks.

I was thinking swords and shields to use them to take ap2 combat hits from the overlord and lord both with warscythes that will be in the unit.

Although 5 lychguard with scythes as well would be brutal.

Sword and board is the way to go if you are going to run them. The scythes are nasty to be sure but the truth of the matter is they are too slow to be shock troops, which is where'd you want the scythe anyway.

The sword and board make great bodyguards for lords and can be turned into a pretty nasty deathstar by adding multiple characters.

I was thinking that sword and shield is best for dealing with ap2 shots and combat attacks. Let the lord and overlord do the heavy hitting with the warscythes.

An overlord and a lord in that squad with a warscythe and MSS is nasty. Maybe think about trying to squeeze a tesseract into it. That wound test is awesome for wiping warlords. I can attest to how good buddha's sword and board lguard are. Watching Vulkan and a squad of TH/SS termies just melt away isn't fun haha.

To be completely honest, I doubt you'll end up wanting to play the Lychguard after you've taken them for a spin.

This happened to me once: I had 5 sword and board Lychguard, an Overlord with Warscythe, and Imotekh assault 2 Bloodcrushers (this was back in 5th edition when Bloodcrushers were still the shiznit). I rolled poorly to hit (WS4 across the board for all my guys), similarly bad to wound, and when the saves were rolled and the dust settled, failed to do a single wound to the Bloodcrushers. In return, they rolled almost as pitifully, but managed to get one wound through. Having lost the combat by 1, I rolled my leadership test...11. Guess who has an initiative of 2 and won't get back up after being swept in assault? 580pts of my guys...

Obviously, this is a worst case example for what can happen, but you get the idea. They CAN be ok, but the fact that they're not fearless AND initiative 2 is a horrible combo.

Is fearless one of the rules that zhandrekh can pass to a unit? that might be worth considering to help with them running from combat.

No zandrekh can only give counter attack, hit and run, furious charge, night vision, stealth and tank hunters. That would be incredible if he could give fearless though.

LG are bad. If you want to take them, take S&B, but overall, I can't recommend 'em.

 Voidwraith wrote:
To be completely honest, I doubt you'll end up wanting to play the Lychguard after you've taken them for a spin.

This happened to me once: I had 5 sword and board Lychguard, an Overlord with Warscythe, and Imotekh assault 2 Bloodcrushers (this was back in 5th edition when Bloodcrushers were still the shiznit). I rolled poorly to hit (WS4 across the board for all my guys), similarly bad to wound, and when the saves were rolled and the dust settled, failed to do a single wound to the Bloodcrushers. In return, they rolled almost as pitifully, but managed to get one wound through. Having lost the combat by 1, I rolled my leadership test...11. Guess who has an initiative of 2 and won't get back up after being swept in assault? 580pts of my guys...

Obviously, this is a worst case example for what can happen, but you get the idea. They CAN be ok, but the fact that they're not fearless AND initiative 2 is a horrible combo.

Sooo because you rolled poorly, Lychguard are a terrible unit?

OP:
Lychguard are a flavorful and awesome looking unit. Join them with an Overlord and a Lord or two with warscythes and they will melt the face of almost every other unit in the game. However, they are expensive, slow, and lack no efficient assault vehicle option to maximize their smashy effect. Further, it is tough to justify their costs in point-efficient tournament lists because of the availability of more versatile options for the same or fewer points (aka Wraiths).

Do I love running them for the fun of it? Yes!
Do they look friggin awesome? Yes!
Is it the best thing ever when you deflect a melta-gun shot back into your enemy? Yes!
Do I take them in many of my tournament lists? No.

 G. Whitenbeard wrote:

 Voidwraith wrote:
To be completely honest, I doubt you'll end up wanting to play the Lychguard after you've taken them for a spin.

This happened to me once: I had 5 sword and board Lychguard, an Overlord with Warscythe, and Imotekh assault 2 Bloodcrushers (this was back in 5th edition when Bloodcrushers were still the shiznit). I rolled poorly to hit (WS4 across the board for all my guys), similarly bad to wound, and when the saves were rolled and the dust settled, failed to do a single wound to the Bloodcrushers. In return, they rolled almost as pitifully, but managed to get one wound through. Having lost the combat by 1, I rolled my leadership test...11. Guess who has an initiative of 2 and won't get back up after being swept in assault? 580pts of my guys...

Obviously, this is a worst case example for what can happen, but you get the idea. They CAN be ok, but the fact that they're not fearless AND initiative 2 is a horrible combo.

Sooo because you rolled poorly, Lychguard are a terrible unit?

OP:
Lychguard are a flavorful and awesome looking unit. Join them with an Overlord and a Lord or two with warscythes and they will melt the face of almost every other unit in the game. However, they are expensive, slow, and lack no efficient assault vehicle option to maximize their smashy effect. Further, it is tough to justify their costs in point-efficient tournament lists because of the availability of more versatile options for the same or fewer points (aka Wraiths).

Do I love running them for the fun of it? Yes


Do they look friggin awesome? Yes!
Is it the best thing ever when you deflect a melta-gun shot back into your enemy? Yes!
Do I take them in many of my tournament lists? No.

Now I understand why GW doesn't use examples. I guess it's my fault for stating the true problem with Lychguard at the END of my post. I mean, who reads entire posts before quoting them and making snarky comments? Oh...I just did, and it appears that despite the flippant comment, Whitenbeard agreed that they're not a great option.

...

What are we talking about again?

Sweeping Advance is my nemesis. Every once and a while I try to create an assaulty Necron list and I end up getting swept. Against MEQ I4 guys, you have a 50% chance of your opponent not even needing to roll (1 or 2 and they beat you, on a 3 you tie if they roll a 1 and you still lose the unit). The other 50% of the time, your opponent has to roll. 50% of his rolls (4,5, or 6) and you lose because you lose the unit if he gets 8 or higher total (best you can get is 8). So 75% chance you lose the unit so far and only one of your dice mattered. The remaining 25% are broken down to 6 is a guaranteed win (he didn't roll higher than a 3, so 8% of the time, you win everytime), 5 wins 2/3s of the time (another 5%) and 4s win 1/3 of the time (call it 3%). So basically, you have a 1 in 6 chance of not being swept if you fail your leadership.

Tye_Informer wrote:
Sweeping Advance is my nemesis. Every once and a while I try to create an assaulty Necron list and I end up getting swept. Against MEQ I4 guys, you have a 50% chance of your opponent not even needing to roll (1 or 2 and they beat you, on a 3 you tie if they roll a 1 and you still lose the unit). The other 50% of the time, your opponent has to roll. 50% of his rolls (4,5, or 6) and you lose because you lose the unit if he gets 8 or higher total (best you can get is 8). So 75% chance you lose the unit so far and only one of your dice mattered. The remaining 25% are broken down to 6 is a guaranteed win (he didn't roll higher than a 3, so 8% of the time, you win everytime), 5 wins 2/3s of the time (another 5%) and 4s win 1/3 of the time (call it 3%). So basically, you have a 1 in 6 chance of not being swept if you fail your leadership.

That could be an odd use for the Chronometron... though it probably isn't worth the points as chances are still high that you get screwed... then lose more points. That is one painful aspect of being a Necron player... sweeping advance.

Sword and board guys make quick work of MEQs but they are not that amazing. I still like to run them. I find because you pay so many points for them you might as well give them a Rez orb.

Warscythe guys will make I1 terminators piss in their boots. I've had a five man blob chop up a hive tyrant with iron arm and another game kill 8 grey knight terminators before they swung back. I like the warscythe option because they hit harder than the sword guys.

If you are going to run them watch out for blobs everybody else they chop to pieces.

The unit had so much potential. IF the unit could mix and match weapons it would actually be playable. As is, the pretorians (same kit) are simply better for the role of heavy inf, and even then they arent great. LG lack good transport and the lack of inv at 40 points unless you sacrifice the one thing you buy them for really kills the potential. If you sword and board them, they only kill meq or worse and arent great there. With warscythe they are a terror, but die easily and suffer from getting knocked down before I2.

Often i see people just convert to crypteks. You get a lot of good bits to make them and the bodies are much the same. All you need to do is make a cloak.

 zephoid wrote:
The unit had so much potential. IF the unit could mix and match weapons it would actually be playable. As is, the pretorians (same kit) are simply better for the role of heavy inf, and even then they arent great. LG lack good transport and the lack of inv at 40 points unless you sacrifice the one thing you buy them for really kills the potential. If you sword and board them, they only kill meq or worse and arent great there. With warscythe they are a terror, but die easily and suffer from getting knocked down before I2.

Often i see people just convert to crypteks. You get a lot of good bits to make them and the bodies are much the same. All you need to do is make a cloak.

Wait, Sword and Board LG aren't great at killing MEq? What? Not sure how much better you can get then S5 AP3...



They are a foundation unit. Add the right combination of Crypteks/Lords/OLords and they become down right fearsome.

I really don't know what people are talking about with lack of good transport. NIght Scythe? Being able to be dropped anywhere on the board without scattering? That's a pretty good transport option. They'll eat bullets for a turn, which is why you get them the sword and board and the Res Orb, because T5 3+/4++ RP 4+ eats bullets rather well.

So for an assault unit go for the wraiths? I like Lychguard and believe that if you make good choices with who they are playing then they ae good. I have seen many batreps that shows them pwning. i guess i should proxy for them, but to my original question, are the wraiths better?

ShadarLogoth wrote:
Wait, Sword and Board LG aren't great at killing MEq? What?

...

 zephoid wrote:
they only kill meq or worse

Also,

ShadarLogoth wrote:
I really don't know what people are talking about with lack of good transport. NIght Scythe? Being able to be dropped anywhere on the board without scattering? That's a pretty good transport option. They'll eat bullets for a turn, which is why you get them the sword and board and the Res Orb, because T5 3+/4++ RP 4+ eats bullets rather well.

GOOD transport would allow them to avoid sitting there with their thumbs up their collective asses for an entire turn, thus avoiding that whole getting-shot-to-hell-before-you-can-even-get-into-combat thing.
As it stands, there is no way for them to reliably get into range and assault in the same turn apart from foot slogging (something many other codices have managed to mitigate via assault transport/special rules, neither of which Necrons have been gifted with)


But to answer rednecroncryptek's above question, yes, Wraiths are (almost) universally considered the better option if you want fast hard hitting assault.

 rednecroncryptek wrote:
So for an assault unit go for the wraiths?

Yes.

TP can also do well, just a bit worse than Wraiths and they absolutely need a Destroyer Lord.

I have had great successes with the Lychguard,... though i do not always take them below 1500 points,..

When i take em its shields and swords..
The shields provide a nice inv save while the swords are quite good power weapons as well.

When i played against Grey Knights i had a squad of 6 with Obyron and a lightningfield Cryptek with them. They got in combat with a fully kitted out Paladin squad including Lord Mordrak in turn one.
Combat lasted untill the game was over. (turn 6) Only 2 paladins remained and Obyron and 3 Lychguard were still standing. It was a brutal fight... While they didnt kill off the squad they kept a
fully kitted out death machine from the rest of my forces. And that led me to Victory..

I like them a lot and field them often,.. but i can see why people dont take them out as often as i do... They are expensive and not realy a death machine,.. but i dont think they were ever intended as such.. They are just as they are described... LychGUARD,... they keep attached lords alive for a long time or hold a piece of the terrain if you wish..

I would love it if they could ride in a ghost ark. Yeah it's no land raider but open topped allows you to assault out of it. That would make them much scarier I think.

Another good squad setup would be sword and shield guys with trazyn with a Rez orb lord. You can drop those guys on an objective and laugh as your opponent fails to take it back.

^
the problem I have with Trazyn is, if you had any other Lords, Crypteks, generic Overlords in your army, there's a slight possibility that Trazyn might reincarnate as someone else on the other side of the table, if he's killed, thus losing you a held objective.
(might still be contested, but if you manage to clear your opponent's forces off of it, your scoring HQ is now somewhere else entirely)

My main problem with Trazyn is that for his pretty considerable points cost, he brings nothing vs. most enemies. Not even having a power weapon is a huge downfall and I'd much rather take Zandrekh.

 skoffs wrote:

ShadarLogoth wrote:
I really don't know what people are talking about with lack of good transport. NIght Scythe? Being able to be dropped anywhere on the board without scattering? That's a pretty good transport option. They'll eat bullets for a turn, which is why you get them the sword and board and the Res Orb, because T5 3+/4++ RP 4+ eats bullets rather well.

GOOD transport would allow them to avoid sitting there with their thumbs up their collective asses for an entire turn, thus avoiding that whole getting-shot-to-hell-before-you-can-even-get-into-combat thing.
As it stands, there is no way for them to reliably get into range and assault in the same turn apart from foot slogging (something many other codices have managed to mitigate via assault transport/special rules, neither of which Necrons have been gifted with).

You can use a Ghost Ark as an assault transport for a Royal Court, since it's open-topped. Obviously that doesn't help the Lychguard, but the codex DOES have an assault transport/assaulty unit combo available (in addition to the CCB + Overlord option).

I think the Night Scythe is a perfectly viable option for Lychguard, though. The darn thing allows you to move and disembark the unit up to 42" on the table before they can be shot at. That's a huge distance, and while yes, they do have to sustain a turn of fire before they actually get to assault, the same is the case for most other transports in the game. The exceptions are stuff like the LR (230-270-odd points, Manticore/Railgun/meltas in a pod bait) and Stormraven (also expensive, great if it works, but Crash and Burn is brutal). The NS on the other hand is only 100pts, and allows you to put a very tough deathstar into the enemy's DZ with no scatter and start assaulting their backfield on turn 3. It can also be combined in a list with Wraiths following up.

They run very well when paired with wraiths, run a blob of lychguard, with Obyron and an Orb Lord, deep strike them up the field with wraiths barreling down on them.

Laugh as your opponent struggles with target priority.

 Mannahnin wrote:
You can use a Ghost Ark as an assault transport for a Royal Court, since it's open-topped.

Well, yes, if we're talking the A#1 most powerful assault unit we have at our disposal, then a fully tooled up RCDI in a pimp-mobile Ghost Ark is obviously the undisputed king, but as the topic was on Lychguard, I didn't bring them up.

As has been mentioned already, Lychguard are better served as assault deterrents for your more vulnerable units (eg. Warrior blobs), while the actual offensive pushes are best left to the faster options (Wraiths or Praetorians).
...
besides, we're a shooting army. CC should be used for cleaning up any survivors of our relatively potent firepower.

Ah; you made a general statement about Necrons not being gifted with any assault transports, so I thought you might not be aware of the option (or options, of course, counting the CCB) they do have.

I don't think I could justify spending the cost of Lychguard on a unit merely meant as an assault deterrant. I think their value is greater when used aggressively to disrupt the enemy backfield and force the enemy to react to them. They can still deter aggressive units from reaching your main forces by forcing them to turn around and deal with the LG ripping up their fire support and contesting their home objectives, though.

But wouldn't a Wraith/Praetorian unit be able to do that job (back field disruption/distraction) just as well, if not better?

Wraiths can't take a Night Scythe, so they can't reliably/safely (they can DS, but that's always risky) get to the backfield quite as quickly. But I certainly do think they make a great compliment to the LG. Between Wraithguard in FA and LG in Elite you can make a darn assaulty army. Wraiths press up and threaten the middle, and arrive on turn 2 or turn 3 to back up the LG and overwhelm some armies; especially ones with a lot of points invested in flyers.

Praetorians I'm not as big a fan of.

Lychguard unfortunately are not especially useable this edition, in either of their two forms. Let's look at each of them and see why that's the case:

Warscythe. This is still probably one of the best CC weapons in the game. AP2 S7 (Anyone who can take it is S5 normally) 2d6 penetration at Init? Are you kidding me? Sure it's I2, but that's better than the I1 that most nasty weapons go at. The problem here... is the dudes carrying the war scythes. Now T5 and 3+ isn't that bad in the normal scheme of things -- Plague Marines are like that (plus FnP...and like half the cost...you begin to see the problems). However, for 40 points a pop, they're not going to get across the field. Since you can't really use any assault transports for them, they're probably going to be shot off the field with stuff before they get into CC. One battle-cannon or bale flamer will destroy them. They'll carve gak up in combat, but they can't really take a hit. Interestingly, you'd actually prefer them fighting terminators vs. normal marines. They don't get a lot of attacks, and the marines will hit first, whereas the small number of attacks will probably still kill a bunch of terminators, and keep them from hitting back.

Warscythe lychguard were generally bad last edition, and this edition's reliance on shootiness didn't help them any.

Sword and Board: This was the viable build for them last edition. You got reasonable defenses, one worse than TH/SS terminators in both armor and invuln, but you could probably beat them (or at least do well, by forcing their 3++ before they strike) in a fight, and you could tank any really nasty shooting with your shields. They'll still die to torrent of fire just like the other lychguard, but your opponent will probably not shoot his nastiest stuff at it this time, and T5 does shrug off random bolter shots. You'd put a res orb lord with a warscythe with these guys, and they'd be a generally good assault unit. The lychguard provide defense and general kill, and the lord could carve up vehicles and stuff. Now here's the problem: the 6th ed nerf to power weapons. Now they bounce off terminators, and torrent of fire is huge this edition, instead of easily reflected melta.

So, we can see here that, despite the potential of the war scythe and the shields, they just aren't really a competitive unit, in the grand scheme of things. If you want an assault unit, wraiths are generally better, and fulfill the purposes that Necron armies want them to do better i.e. tarpit. Don't get me wrong, lychguard look amazing, but they just don't really fit into any normal necron army these days.

That's not to say that the box is unusable. What I'm doing with my lychguard box is converting them into Lords, and running a Royal Court Disco Inferno. I didn't want to spend money on crap finecast lords, so lychguard with some praetorian parts look amazing, and do the job with much less strain on my wallet.

 Thariinye wrote:
Lychguard unfortunately are not especially useable this edition, in either of their two forms. Let's look at each of them and see why that's the case:

Warscythe. This is still probably one of the best CC weapons in the game. AP2 S7 (Anyone who can take it is S5 normally) 2d6 penetration at Init? Are you kidding me? Sure it's I2, but that's better than the I1 that most nasty weapons go at. The problem here... is the dudes carrying the war scythes. Now T5 and 3+ isn't that bad in the normal scheme of things -- Plague Marines are like that (plus FnP...and like half the cost...you begin to see the problems). However, for 40 points a pop, they're not going to get across the field. Since you can't really use any assault transports for them, they're probably going to be shot off the field with stuff before they get into CC. One battle-cannon or bale flamer will destroy them. They'll carve gak up in combat, but they can't really take a hit. Interestingly, you'd actually prefer them fighting terminators vs. normal marines. They don't get a lot of attacks, and the marines will hit first, whereas the small number of attacks will probably still kill a bunch of terminators, and keep them from hitting back.

Warscythe lychguard were generally bad last edition, and this edition's reliance on shootiness didn't help them any.

Sword and Board: This was the viable build for them last edition. You got reasonable defenses, one worse than TH/SS terminators in both armor and invuln, but you could probably beat them (or at least do well, by forcing their 3++ before they strike) in a fight, and you could tank any really nasty shooting with your shields. They'll still die to torrent of fire just like the other lychguard, but your opponent will probably not shoot his nastiest stuff at it this time, and T5 does shrug off random bolter shots. You'd put a res orb lord with a warscythe with these guys, and they'd be a generally good assault unit. The lychguard provide defense and general kill, and the lord could carve up vehicles and stuff. Now here's the problem: the 6th ed nerf to power weapons. Now they bounce off terminators, and torrent of fire is huge this edition, instead of easily reflected melta.

So, we can see here that, despite the potential of the war scythe and the shields, they just aren't really a competitive unit, in the grand scheme of things. If you want an assault unit, wraiths are generally better, and fulfill the purposes that Necron armies want them to do better i.e. tarpit. Don't get me wrong, lychguard look amazing, but they just don't really fit into any normal necron army these days.

That's not to say that the box is unusable. What I'm doing with my lychguard box is converting them into Lords, and running a Royal Court Disco Inferno. I didn't want to spend money on crap finecast lords, so lychguard with some praetorian parts look amazing, and do the job with much less strain on my wallet.

Just sayin' Last time my sword and board Lychguard got into assault with assault terminators, with even numbers, they won.
Again, paired with wraiths to distract the nasty shooting after the deep strike turn 1, and get them into assault with a unit turn 2 that ISN'T an assault terminator...and it will die. Heck, if you have Obyron in there and another Lord with a WS, MSS, SW, and a RO, they will carve through terminators with ease too.

Why people compare them to terminators is beyond me? Similar cost perhaps, different role. They aren't as smashmouth as a 10 man TH/SS squad, they however used with finesse are plenty damaging. They absolutely decimate MEQ, and anything str 3 can barely scratch them.