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I remember when 6e first came one of the most powerful builds was the Necron Airforce, basically putting all your units in Night Scythes and taking Doom Scythes for HS. This was back before any 6e codexes were out so no army had proper AA to deal with so many flyers.

But since some of the new Books have been out I've heard very little about the Necron Airforce, which is weird considering how many people (rightly) complained about it when 6e first came out. Is it still a powerful build or has it been mitigated by other books?

It is hard pressed against tau, but otherwise it still seems pretty powerful.

Not the best build anymore.
IMO the meta has switched Necrons over to a combined arms "Air Cavalry" army, with Assault, Heavy Shooting, and High mobility in equal measure

Something like this
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/582409.page

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It is hard pressed against tau, but otherwise it still seems pretty powerful.

In fairness, isn't every army hard pressed against Tau right now?

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It is hard pressed against tau, but otherwise it still seems pretty powerful.

In fairness, isn't every army hard pressed against Tau right now?

Pretty much, other than eldar, and I'm not sure about knights. Personally I think it's worse having and overpowered codex than an under powered. I loved the old one with all it's obscure, confusing rules and oldness. Now we have people playing tau, not because they like how they play or the fluff ect, but because they are WAC power-gamers who just want to win. That builds up hate against tau and you know who gets the brunt of that animosity, me and the other old tau players. [/rant]

Tau already had hate because we didn't charge into melee and were not grimdark enough.

True, but not quite to this degree. That, and to win with tau you often had to be a bit of a rule lawyer and use exploits. Most old tau players who were at all successful are better than average because tau used to be a very hard army to play, with a very steep learning curve.

I can attest to that, most of my victories pre-6th codex were only by one or two points vs Dark Angels/Guard, unless it was Orks for some reason.

On topic, Necron Air has evolved a bit and I don't think as reliable spamming it, unless you are fighting Imperial Knights. The Cron Air Cavalry looks like it would be far more effective against most armies now.

Eldar annihilate av10 flyers. Especially with all those st7 tl ignore jink serp shield shots...

It is and was an unbalanced list and has been since 6ed made them flyers. The biggest reason for it's reputation after 6ed was due to the knee jerk reaction to flyers that they were unstoppable. There was also the fact that games of 6-9 flyers and no AA are pretty boring if you play to win.

The current wraithwing, barge, and scythe build is much better balanced and much stronger for it.

It can still be pretty strong as many of the lists taken no longer bring AA to handle that many flyers as the knee jerk reaction is largely over and people have figured out that they don't need it.

The nightscythe is AV11 BTW. Serpents average less than 1 HP per serpent per turn on them. Not terrible but not great either.

Nightscythes are still a steal for what they cost and what they do, but they are no longer the be all end all of combat effectiveness since you have to take them with the rest of the necron codex, which sadly is just starting to show it's age compared to the newer 6th edition codices such as tau and eldar. Should be a pretty familiar situation for anyone who was been playing them since 3rd though, these things come and go in cycles. ;-)

That said they are still plenty viable, just have to use them to supplement your army rather than be the main focus.

Imo the biggest reason that Cron Air doesn't do as well as it did at the start of 6th has nothing to do with new armies having more AA tools and more damage output - its mostly because people know how to deal with fliers now. Once people realised that they could just move underneath the Scythes avoid being hit the list got much worse. Fliers have very limited manouverability, its rare that you can avoid them shooting you turn 2 (only really happens in Hammer deployment), but on turn 3 you can really limit their options and depending on your list you can remove them altogether. Their damage output if they get everything lined up is solid, but overall its pretty terrible because you only get it every second turn (nothing Turn 1, good Turn 2, limited to nothing Turn 3, decent Turn 4, limited Turn 5+ as you have to go for objectives as well). For Cron Air running 6+ fliers you have additional problems with board space because the fliers take up so much room, which makes it even harder to line up all the shots you need. The best thing about Nightscythes is still their ability to drop Troops out on to objectives late from the other side of the board, which is why the best Necron build has always been the Wraithwing build (supported by Barges and Scythes).

@ansacs. 1 HP a turn per Serpent is still pretty impressive, for your average Serpent spam list with 5-6 Serpents and a couple of Wraithknights you are still looking at dropping a couple of fliers per turn which is faster than Tesla will take out the Serpents in return.

@Neorealist. I'm not sure that the Necron codex is showing its age any moreso than it did at the start of 6th. Necrons are still a very solid army who can take on the top Eldar and Tau builds if played properly. You basically have to stick to a core of Wraiths, Nightscythes and Barges to do it, but really that has been the case almost since the book came out. If you look at the codex in terms of internal balance and number of viable builds then its pretty terrible, but that isn't something that has got worse over time.

Powerguy wrote:
@ansacs. 1 HP a turn per Serpent is still pretty impressive, for your average Serpent spam list with 5-6 Serpents and a couple of Wraithknights you are still looking at dropping a couple of fliers per turn which is faster than Tesla will take out the Serpents in return.

Actually in a straight comparison they come out almost equal at 1.1 HP stripped each. The serpent also has ~40% chance to miss with it's initial scatter laser and then not be TL for the shield. The serpent does however mostly win the showdown as it get's it's firepower every turn where it wants it. The night scythes can be flown off or targeted onto a different serpent but that isn't quite as good.


Also the codex has aged pretty well. The new additions to the game have actually made previously "bad" units very good with the gragantuan monstrous creatures and super heavies making haywire and marks important. The dex always had some pretty bad internal balance but even the bad units have interesting rules that can be fun to use. Overall a pretty solid codex.

To be fair at Turn 5 you don't have to have a good LOS as it is here that you really should have lined up to deploy for the objectives.

Powerguy wrote:
Also the codex has aged pretty well. The new additions to the game have actually made previously "bad" units very good with the gragantuan monstrous creatures and super heavies making haywire and marks important. The dex always had some pretty bad internal balance but even the bad units have interesting rules that can be fun to use. Overall a pretty solid codex.

I agree with this, with the possible exception of Flayed Ones I can't think of a single truly horribad unit in the current Necron Dex. Or at least a unit that is on par with Pyrovores, DA Flyers, and Mutilators as an all around fail unit that can't even do its niche properly (even Flayed ones can be just barely decent if you pair them up with Imotekh)

As Tau start to fade from the competitive meta (which is happening fairly quickly) the Necron flier list is starting to get better. It's also a good counter to Knights, if they start impacting things. It also avoids death stars, which are the current king (Seer Council, Beaststar, and Gravstar being the top dogs imo).

That said, it'll never be as strong as it was, as people know how to deal with fliers now. The best current Cron list is probably the "spider star" Basically abusing Zandreck (sp) and Oberon, attached to some Spiders, supported by Wraiths, Barges and Scythes.

 anonymou5 wrote:
The best current Cron list is probably the "spider star"

What makes you say that?
(Why do you think it is so good? I've yet to see it used in a competitive scene)

 skoffs wrote:

 anonymou5 wrote:
The best current Cron list is probably the "spider star"

What makes you say that?
(Why do you think it is so good? I've yet to see it used in a competitive scene)

In short, because it's built to fight the meta.

First, it has all the tools that made Wraithwing so potent earlier in the edition. So it still has Wraiths, ABs, and hyper mobile troops. Then you add in Zandrek and Oberon and attach them to some Spyders (usually with a DLord for extra 2+ saves). Now you have a T6 unit with a bunch of 2 ups, so it's pretty stout. It's also packing ST10/AP2 and Warscythes in close combat. This gives you a toolbox that is effective against deathstars. Zandrek can take away hit and run, which is huge. Say you face a Seer council, you lock it in place against some Wraiths, veil over, and then finish it. It has all sorts of interesting tricks, for example: you also gain some interesting reserve nonsense, being able to teleport your Wraiths on the board (remember they have deep strike) when your opponent brings in reserves. Thus you can charge on your turn, as you came in from reserves in your opponent's turn (assuming you have a good place to put the Wraiths). If you plan for this, you can veil the Spyders forward on the preceding turn, and have a bunch of threats in an opponent's face simultaneously and cross the board eating no shooting.

It's a great build, full of tricks, but also still banking on "traditional" Necron strengths.

 anonymou5 wrote:
Say you face a Seer council, you lock it in place against some Wraiths, veil over, and then finish it.

If you Veil over after the Wraiths have locked them in combat, you're still going to have them standing around with their thumbs up their collective metals asses for an entire round of turns before you're able to join that combat.
... unless your opponent happens to have something enter from reserves between the time the Wraiths engaged his unit, AND you hadn't used Zahndrekh's reserves-surprise magic trick yet.
Not saying it won't work, it'll just be dependent on a lot of things.

Have you actually tried this, or is it still in theoryhammer mode?
(genuinely wondering)

 skoffs wrote:

Have you actually tried this, or is it still in theoryhammer mode?
(genuinely wondering)

Check Werner Born's list from Torrent of Fire invitational. It's pretty relevant to this discussion (both on "spyder-star" and cron-air).

Well, I think that Necrons lost an edge when Eldar and Tau came out recently.

Before that, it was almost impossible to deal with a Necron air force. Now the situation changed a bit since Eldar and Tau both have ways to take down Necron flyers.

MLKTH wrote:

 skoffs wrote:

Have you actually tried this, or is it still in theoryhammer mode?
(genuinely wondering)

Check Werner Born's list from Torrent of Fire invitational. It's pretty relevant to this discussion (both on "spyder-star" and cron-air).

Damn, it won't let me look at his tactics article unless I login.
Oh well, at least I was able to find his list.
I can see how it's supposed to work, but it still seems pretty dependent on your opponent doing thing in a certain prescribed manner. If they do something you're not expecting, it would throw off everything (eg. Spyders sitting out in the open aften Ghostwalking with Obyron, not being able to join an engaged combat unit turn 3, etc.). I'm assuming the Scarabs are there to tarpit things until the Spyder-star can get in and smash.
I will say it does have interesting potential, though.

 skoffs wrote:

MLKTH wrote:

 skoffs wrote:

Have you actually tried this, or is it still in theoryhammer mode?
(genuinely wondering)

Check Werner Born's list from Torrent of Fire invitational. It's pretty relevant to this discussion (both on "spyder-star" and cron-air).

Damn, it won't let me look at his tactics article unless I login.
Oh well, at least I was able to find his list.
I can see how it's supposed to work, but it still seems pretty dependent on your opponent doing thing in a certain prescribed manner. If they do something you're not expecting, it would throw off everything (eg. Spyders sitting out in the open aften Ghostwalking with Obyron, not being able to join an engaged combat unit turn 3, etc.). I'm assuming the Scarabs are there to tarpit things until the Spyder-star can get in and smash.
I will say it does have interesting potential, though.

There are also Podcasts with Rob Madeley (british necron player) who talks about the spyder star in detail and how he uses it in tournaments.

Necron fliers are still extremely cost-efficient and reasonably durable for what they do, and there's still no other army that offers flying transports anywhere near as good at actually transporting things.

That being said, the air defence and air superiority capabilities of nearly every army have been improved substantially, so gone are the days of a nine (or even eighteen) night/doom scythe swarm blotting out the sun and zapping everything to death with impunity.

So I wouldn't say that cron-air is the build to have as it used to be, but I wouldn't say that Necron fliers are in any way out of the game. They're still excellent, if lacking in variety (but honestly, the two or three should you have IA12 Necron fliers are already so versatile that they don't absolutely need a lot of variety) and they're perfectly valid uses of your dedicated transport and heavy support slots.

You generally can't really go wrong with them, just don't expect them to dominate as they have before (the same goes for the vendetta).

salamanders4lyfe wrote:
There are also Podcasts with Rob Madeley (british necron player) who talks about the spyder star in detail and how he uses it in tournaments.

Don't suppose you have a link handy, do you?
(would save me some time trying to look it up)

A bit off topic, but I'm also interested in this Spyder-star stuff.

Would someone mind posting all the relevant information (Perhaps better in a new topic)

Thanks.

 skoffs wrote:

salamanders4lyfe wrote:
There are also Podcasts with Rob Madeley (british necron player) who talks about the spyder star in detail and how he uses it in tournaments.

Don't suppose you have a link handy, do you?
(would save me some time trying to look it up)

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=rob+madeley+necron+spyder+podcast


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This is the link to the 40k Global podcast - http://www.40kglobal.com/2014/01/14/episode-107-new-tyranid-codex/

11th company also did one and is easier to find.

salamanders4lyfe wrote:
This is the link to the 40k Global podcast - http://www.40kglobal.com/2014/01/14/episode-107-new-tyranid-codex/

This was enlightening, thank you.

Think it's time to start experimenting with battlescribe list building to see what kind of things might be possible.

I'd like to note that I didn't say necrons are fairing horribly in the newer meta, just that they aren't as dominant as they used to be. Nightscythes should be great vs. knights as someone else noted, and they still make for one of the best dedicated transports in the game.

The problem with 'crons isn't their fliers, it's the fact that apart from wraiths and annihilation barges a 'lot' of their toolkit is only situationally useful and they have less synergy between units to make more of your FOC slots relevant.

Sure I love a good death and despair kill squad as much as the next guy, but after that I feel the quality drops off markedly.

I see that someone has made Spyders useful again? I'm curious if someone could post those specifics here or in a new thread rather than linking to a 3rd party website.

Cron Air in my mind iplies that you're pretty much relying on the Necron bakery products.

My advice is to have Cron Air be a part of the strategy. Tau as has been said is a hard counter to Cron Air but its NOT a hard counter to Cron Air that isn't the only way you can win.

Balanced lists always seem to do better.