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So my friend likes to bring a squad of 10 paladins, with apoth, lib, and Kaldor Draigo.

Any ideas on beating this roughly 1k point death star in a 2000 point game? I tried necrons, 3 scythes, 3 barges, 1 triarch stalker, i averaged a little over 14 wounds every turn while he had invis up..still didn't wipe it out.

 KingCorpus wrote:
So my friend likes to bring a squad of 10 paladins, with apoth, lib, and Kaldor Draigo.

Any ideas on beating this roughly 1k point death star in a 2000 point game? I tried necrons, 3 scythes, 3 barges, 1 triarch stalker, i averaged a little over 14 wounds every turn while he had invis up..still didn't wipe it out.

Invisible Paladins, yep.... Be glad he's not running two units.

A few things that can help:

Death Rays: They target a point on the battlefield with a S10 AP 2 hit. Especially deadly if you use a Sentry Pylon... But a Grey Knight player will alpha strike a sentry pylon so maybe just stick to the doom scythes.

Wraiths: Hammer of Wrath is an S6 auto hit, followed by tons of attacks on the charge. Works far better with invisible foes who don't have a 2+ save... But it's something.

Allied Culexus Assassin: The hard counter to both Grey Knights and to Invisible units. Turn off all psychic buffs. Fire in the region of ten AP2 shots, toss a Perils causing grenade and charge in for instant death attacks. Laugh. Bonus points for modelling him as a Necron Pariah.

Allied four assassin formation: Have the Culexus turn off the buffs, then have the Vindicare kill the Librarian with a Turbo Penetrator round. Shoot and charge the other three in.

Culexus, as mentioned above, will help a lot if you get it within 12".

If you want to stay pure Necron, what about spamming Flyers, ignoring his paladins and just getting objectives? I can only imagine him having a limited amount of AA left in his remaining 1000 points.

Or bring a Knight and just stomp him and laugh as Draigo's Eternal Warrior is ignored.

GrafWattenburg wrote:
Or bring a Knight and just stomp him and laugh as Draigo's Eternal Warrior is ignored.

Harder to make a Knight fit Necron fluff than Assassins without building an extensively converted walker. But you could always shuffle a C'tan shard model and copy of Escalation onto the table and say "So I notice you're using a Lord of War..."

Best way to deal with Paladins (or any other t4 multi-wound model) is s8, ap1/2 weapons. I'm not sure what the Necrons get for that other than the doom scythe and the night shroud bomber (from FW).

 Mulletdude wrote:
Best way to deal with Paladins (or any other t4 multi-wound model) is s8, ap1/2 weapons. I'm not sure what the Necrons get for that other than the doom scythe and the night shroud bomber (from FW).

It's the Invisibility that's the problem, not the Paladins.

changemod wrote:

 KingCorpus wrote:
So my friend likes to bring a squad of 10 paladins, with apoth, lib, and Kaldor Draigo.

Any ideas on beating this roughly 1k point death star in a 2000 point game? I tried necrons, 3 scythes, 3 barges, 1 triarch stalker, i averaged a little over 14 wounds every turn while he had invis up..still didn't wipe it out.

Invisible Paladins, yep.... Be glad he's not running two units.

A few things that can help:

Death Rays: They target a point on the battlefield with a S10 AP 2 hit. Especially deadly if you use a Sentry Pylon... But a Grey Knight player will alpha strike a sentry pylon so maybe just stick to the doom scythes.

Wraiths: Hammer of Wrath is an S6 auto hit, followed by tons of attacks on the charge. Works far better with invisible foes who don't have a 2+ save... But it's something.

Allied Culexus Assassin: The hard counter to both Grey Knights and to Invisible units. Turn off all psychic buffs. Fire in the region of ten AP2 shots, toss a Perils causing grenade and charge in for instant death attacks. Laugh. Bonus points for modelling him as a Necron Pariah.

Allied four assassin formation: Have the Culexus turn off the buffs, then have the Vindicare kill the Librarian with a Turbo Penetrator round. Shoot and charge the other three in.

I didn't think of the Culexes assassin, didn't even realize I could ally into it let alone what it's capable of. I for sure like this idea, but in the end it is relying on one unit which I hate doing.

 KingCorpus wrote:

changemod wrote:

 KingCorpus wrote:
So my friend likes to bring a squad of 10 paladins, with apoth, lib, and Kaldor Draigo.

Any ideas on beating this roughly 1k point death star in a 2000 point game? I tried necrons, 3 scythes, 3 barges, 1 triarch stalker, i averaged a little over 14 wounds every turn while he had invis up..still didn't wipe it out.

Invisible Paladins, yep.... Be glad he's not running two units.

A few things that can help:

Death Rays: They target a point on the battlefield with a S10 AP 2 hit. Especially deadly if you use a Sentry Pylon... But a Grey Knight player will alpha strike a sentry pylon so maybe just stick to the doom scythes.

Wraiths: Hammer of Wrath is an S6 auto hit, followed by tons of attacks on the charge. Works far better with invisible foes who don't have a 2+ save... But it's something.

Allied Culexus Assassin: The hard counter to both Grey Knights and to Invisible units. Turn off all psychic buffs. Fire in the region of ten AP2 shots, toss a Perils causing grenade and charge in for instant death attacks. Laugh. Bonus points for modelling him as a Necron Pariah.

Allied four assassin formation: Have the Culexus turn off the buffs, then have the Vindicare kill the Librarian with a Turbo Penetrator round. Shoot and charge the other three in.

I didn't think of the Culexes assassin, didn't even realize I could ally into it let alone what it's capable of. I for sure like this idea, but in the end it is relying on one unit which I hate doing.

Then don't hinge all your hopes on it. Take it, watch him scramble to kill the thing, then hit him with your three Doom Scythes.

I'm assuming you didn't glue the Night Scythe's portal thing in place, right? It and the Death Ray hold in place firmly without needing magnetised.

changemod wrote:

 KingCorpus wrote:
So my friend likes to bring a squad of 10 paladins, with apoth, lib, and Kaldor Draigo.

Any ideas on beating this roughly 1k point death star in a 2000 point game? I tried necrons, 3 scythes, 3 barges, 1 triarch stalker, i averaged a little over 14 wounds every turn while he had invis up..still didn't wipe it out.

Wraiths: Hammer of Wrath is an S6 auto hit, followed by tons of attacks on the charge. Works far better with invisible foes who don't have a 2+ save... But it's something.

Allied Culexus Assassin: The hard counter to both Grey Knights and to Invisible units. Turn off all psychic buffs. Fire in the region of ten AP2 shots, toss a Perils causing grenade and charge in for instant death attacks. Laugh. Bonus points for modelling him as a Necron Pariah.

Don't try and fight Paladins in close combat. You will lose that battle. And, no, the Culexus won't help you much other than to stop invisibility (which admittedly is a big deal). Grey Knights really only use psychic powers for assault buffs, and Paladins will beat you in assault handily anyways. I guess I should say, yes, Culexus is good at stopping Invisibility, but no, it's not anything like a hard counter to Grey Knights just because they're psychic. Plus... get close enough to block Invisibility and they will kill the Culexus.

GrafWattenburg wrote:Culexus, as mentioned above, will help a lot if you get it within 12".

If you want to stay pure Necron, what about spamming Flyers, ignoring his paladins and just getting objectives? I can only imagine him having a limited amount of AA left in his remaining 1000 points.

Or bring a Knight and just stomp him and laugh as Draigo's Eternal Warrior is ignored.

You'll lose the Knight. One Knight on its own and Paladins will beat it. You need to roll 6's to hurt Draigo, otherwise you'll just bounce, and Draigo gets to hit first and his odds of killing a Knight on his own aren't terrible. Even if you do get lucky enough to Stomp him, the rest of the Paladins will cut you apart. It's multiple Knights that Grey Knights can't really deal with.

Grey Knights don't have anything to deal with Flyers, beyond Storm Ravens and weight of psycannon fire. Shoot everything but the Paladins, and just stay away from them. Paladins aren't good at grabbing objectives, and Necrons are a lot more mobile. He'll get to shoot you with Psycannons, and that's it. He'll want to try and get in assault, so bait him to draw him away from said objectives. Sacrifice something to get him to charge and get himself out of position and waste time. Even if Draigo uses Gate of Infinity to get back to the center of the board, that's just another turn where all the Paladins can do is shoot, and they'll be nice and clumped up for Doom Scythes.

changemod wrote:

 KingCorpus wrote:

changemod wrote:

 KingCorpus wrote:
So my friend likes to bring a squad of 10 paladins, with apoth, lib, and Kaldor Draigo.

Any ideas on beating this roughly 1k point death star in a 2000 point game? I tried necrons, 3 scythes, 3 barges, 1 triarch stalker, i averaged a little over 14 wounds every turn while he had invis up..still didn't wipe it out.

Invisible Paladins, yep.... Be glad he's not running two units.

A few things that can help:

Death Rays: They target a point on the battlefield with a S10 AP 2 hit. Especially deadly if you use a Sentry Pylon... But a Grey Knight player will alpha strike a sentry pylon so maybe just stick to the doom scythes.

Wraiths: Hammer of Wrath is an S6 auto hit, followed by tons of attacks on the charge. Works far better with invisible foes who don't have a 2+ save... But it's something.

Allied Culexus Assassin: The hard counter to both Grey Knights and to Invisible units. Turn off all psychic buffs. Fire in the region of ten AP2 shots, toss a Perils causing grenade and charge in for instant death attacks. Laugh. Bonus points for modelling him as a Necron Pariah.

Allied four assassin formation: Have the Culexus turn off the buffs, then have the Vindicare kill the Librarian with a Turbo Penetrator round. Shoot and charge the other three in.

I didn't think of the Culexes assassin, didn't even realize I could ally into it let alone what it's capable of. I for sure like this idea, but in the end it is relying on one unit which I hate doing.

Then don't hinge all your hopes on it. Take it, watch him scramble to kill the thing, then hit him with your three Doom Scythes.

I'm assuming you didn't glue the Night Scythe's portal thing in place, right? It and the Death Ray hold in place firmly without needing magnetised.

I made my night scythes with the Death Ray under it, It just looks cooler, and decide at the beginning of the game of what it's being used as.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkLink wrote:

changemod wrote:

 KingCorpus wrote:
So my friend likes to bring a squad of 10 paladins, with apoth, lib, and Kaldor Draigo.

Any ideas on beating this roughly 1k point death star in a 2000 point game? I tried necrons, 3 scythes, 3 barges, 1 triarch stalker, i averaged a little over 14 wounds every turn while he had invis up..still didn't wipe it out.

Wraiths: Hammer of Wrath is an S6 auto hit, followed by tons of attacks on the charge. Works far better with invisible foes who don't have a 2+ save... But it's something.

Allied Culexus Assassin: The hard counter to both Grey Knights and to Invisible units. Turn off all psychic buffs. Fire in the region of ten AP2 shots, toss a Perils causing grenade and charge in for instant death attacks. Laugh. Bonus points for modelling him as a Necron Pariah.

Don't try and fight Paladins in close combat. You will lose that battle. And, no, the Culexus won't help you much other than to stop invisibility (which admittedly is a big deal). Grey Knights really only use psychic powers for assault buffs, and Paladins will beat you in assault handily anyways. I guess I should say, yes, Culexus is good at stopping Invisibility, but no, it's not anything like a hard counter to Grey Knights just because they're psychic. Plus... get close enough to block Invisibility and they will kill the Culexus.

GrafWattenburg wrote:Culexus, as mentioned above, will help a lot if you get it within 12".

If you want to stay pure Necron, what about spamming Flyers, ignoring his paladins and just getting objectives? I can only imagine him having a limited amount of AA left in his remaining 1000 points.

Or bring a Knight and just stomp him and laugh as Draigo's Eternal Warrior is ignored.

You'll lose the Knight. One Knight on its own and Paladins will beat it. You need to roll 6's to hurt Draigo, otherwise you'll just bounce, and Draigo gets to hit first and his odds of killing a Knight on his own aren't terrible. Even if you do get lucky enough to Stomp him, the rest of the Paladins will cut you apart. It's multiple Knights that Grey Knights can't really deal with.

Grey Knights don't have anything to deal with Flyers, beyond Storm Ravens and weight of psycannon fire. Shoot everything but the Paladins, and just stay away from them. Paladins aren't good at grabbing objectives, and Necrons are a lot more mobile. He'll get to shoot you with Psycannons, and that's it. He'll want to try and get in assault, so bait him to draw him away from said objectives. Sacrifice something to get him to charge and get himself out of position and waste time. Even if Draigo uses Gate of Infinity to get back to the center of the board, that's just another turn where all the Paladins can do is shoot, and they'll be nice and clumped up for Doom Scythes.

The thing is, I can take him in any objective based game, it's not even a contest, but when he rolls to get "Purge the Alien" it's a huge pain in my rear. out of his squad of 10, I only managed to burn him down to 4 paladins...

I usually unleash fire from the 3 Scythes, Im thinking of bringing a 4th one. I also stack 3 barges. I feel the assassin will allow me to get in a sense more shots in one turn, even if it will be used as a throw away VP, it may also allow an opportunity for my wraiths to do some serious damage if they're packing whip coils.

changemod wrote:

Harder to make a Knight fit Necron fluff than Assassins without building an extensively converted walker.

I thought you have some guy that can 'possess' vehicles.

 DarkLink wrote:


Don't try and fight Paladins in close combat. You will lose that battle. And, no, the Culexus won't help you much other than to stop invisibility (which admittedly is a big deal). Grey Knights really only use psychic powers for assault buffs, and Paladins will beat you in assault handily anyways. I guess I should say, yes, Culexus is good at stopping Invisibility, but no, it's not anything like a hard counter to Grey Knights just because they're psychic. Plus... get close enough to block Invisibility and they will kill the Culexus.

Yes, the Pariah is dead when he's in invisibility range.

That's why you use him as a guided missile to kill some of them with his higher initiative and instant death before they charge him and he does even less.

By which point between his psychic phase shooting, the rest of the army's shooting and his combat damage, your guided missile will ideally have crippled the unit.


Another idea is the various test characteristic or be removed from play abilities Necrons have. Little hard to apply many of those here though.

Surely invisibility isn't guaranteed? He shouldn't be getting it every game?

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:
Surely invisibility isn't guaranteed? He shouldn't be getting it every game?

Not guaranteed, but a decent chance and it turns the unit from a nasty pricey deathstar to a nigh-invincible deathstar needing a catered list to defeat.

I normally hate catering lists to fight a specific opponent. Seems unsporting... But after one game against someone with dual paladin-librarian-apothecary deathstars I figured in that specific case if he's not going to be sporting, neither will I.

With ML3 + Liber Daemonica allowing an additional power, you will get Invisibility more often than not.
Yeah, GK Libbys are kinda powerful.

 SkrawnyNob wrote:
With ML3 + Liber Daemonica allowing an additional power, you will get Invisibility more often than not.
Yeah, GK Libbys are kinda powerful.

The Liber Daemonica allows an additional Sanctic power, not an additional generic power. A Libby with Liber is no more likely to roll Invis than a Libby without.

SJ

Just ignore it - that unit is packing, what? A couple of psycannons and a bunch of storm bolters? La di frikkin-da. Who cares? One thousand points for as much firepower as your average marine tactical squad plus an extra heavy weapon. Sure, it obliterates whatever it manages to charge, they move 6 inches a turn and they can't assault on turns when they use gate of infinity. Kill the rest of the list and take objectives. Even in purge the alien missions, just get kill points elsewhere and ignore the deathstar at all costs.

I mean, if he fails to get invis off - sure take a few shots - but otherwise just play the mission.

Belac Ynnead wrote:
Just ignore it - that unit is packing, what? A couple of psycannons and a bunch of storm bolters? La di frikkin-da. Who cares? One thousand points for as much firepower as your average marine tactical squad plus an extra heavy weapon. Sure, it obliterates whatever it manages to charge, they move 6 inches a turn and they can't assault on turns when they use gate of infinity. Kill the rest of the list and take objectives. Even in purge the alien missions, just get kill points elsewhere and ignore the deathstar at all costs.

I mean, if he fails to get invis off - sure take a few shots - but otherwise just play the mission.

So when we manage to roll for purge the alien, I should lay down and die...lol

No - just purge the rest of the aliens. There are what, 4 kill points wrapped up in the deathstar? Get the rest of them. He'll also have a dreadknight or two - maybe a storm raven or some other terminators or interceptors. Just kill all those units and play keep away from the deathstar. There are only 4-6 opportunities for him to assault, and tick one off for each time he uses gate of infinity.

Just be careful of the incinerators. Str6 ap4 is not kind to the necron.

Well, it's a nasty unit.
How about three Doom Scythes as their death rays ignore invisibility.

Necrons get pretty shafted when dealing with psykers. Consider grabbing a Culexis to purge Invisibility, after that anything S8+ AP2 or 1 is going to rip them up efficiently. Consider actually building a Doomsday Ark, it's not optimal most of the time but when you're fighting Paladins an S9/AP1 Large Blast is a steal for its cost.

That or play Flying Circus and leave everything in the air where he can't touch them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:
Surely invisibility isn't guaranteed? He shouldn't be getting it every game?

43% odds of getting it. Not perfect (thank God) but reasonably likely.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Necrons get pretty shafted when dealing with psykers. Consider grabbing a Culexis to purge Invisibility, after that anything S8+ AP2 or 1 is going to rip them up efficiently. Consider actually building a Doomsday Ark, it's not optimal most of the time but when you're fighting Paladins an S9/AP1 Large Blast is a steal for its cost.

That or play Flying Circus and leave everything in the air where he can't touch them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:
Surely invisibility isn't guaranteed? He shouldn't be getting it every game?

43% odds of getting it. Not perfect (thank God) but reasonably likely.

Lol@flying Circus. Cheese to combat cheese, I love it.

 KingCorpus wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Necrons get pretty shafted when dealing with psykers. Consider grabbing a Culexis to purge Invisibility, after that anything S8+ AP2 or 1 is going to rip them up efficiently. Consider actually building a Doomsday Ark, it's not optimal most of the time but when you're fighting Paladins an S9/AP1 Large Blast is a steal for its cost.

That or play Flying Circus and leave everything in the air where he can't touch them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:
Surely invisibility isn't guaranteed? He shouldn't be getting it every game?

43% odds of getting it. Not perfect (thank God) but reasonably likely.

Lol@flying Circus. Cheese to combat cheese, I love it.

At least Invisibility wasn't around when Musical Wounds were a thing.

Belac Ynnead wrote:
No - just purge the rest of the aliens. There are what, 4 kill points wrapped up in the deathstar? Get the rest of them. He'll also have a dreadknight or two - maybe a storm raven or some other terminators or interceptors. Just kill all those units and play keep away from the deathstar. There are only 4-6 opportunities for him to assault, and tick one off for each time he uses gate of infinity.

Just be careful of the incinerators. Str6 ap4 is not kind to the necron.

in fairness he's proably running a nemisis strike force so that deathstar is dropping in his face turn 1

BrianDavion wrote:

Belac Ynnead wrote:
No - just purge the rest of the aliens. There are what, 4 kill points wrapped up in the deathstar? Get the rest of them. He'll also have a dreadknight or two - maybe a storm raven or some other terminators or interceptors. Just kill all those units and play keep away from the deathstar. There are only 4-6 opportunities for him to assault, and tick one off for each time he uses gate of infinity.

Just be careful of the incinerators. Str6 ap4 is not kind to the necron.

in fairness he's proably running a nemisis strike force so that deathstar is dropping in his face turn 1

Yep, that's exactly what happens most of the time.

well one idea might be... not to try.

Spread your forces out and objective steal etc. a 10 man squad of warriors is what ~150 points? you should be able to get a fair bit of them. grey knights are man for man, among the most potent armies on the table. but they pay for that. if he's running a squad of 10 with an apoc, lib and dragio,

that death star costs 950 points minimum (proably more accuratly is 1000+ points) that's a LOT of points which means he's gonna struggle to control the field,

you might be able to just outscore him

BrianDavion wrote:
well one idea might be... not to try.

Spread your forces out and objective steal etc. a 10 man squad of warriors is what ~150 points? you should be able to get a fair bit of them. grey knights are man for man, among the most potent armies on the table. but they pay for that. if he's running a squad of 10 with an apoc, lib and dragio,

that death star costs 950 points minimum (proably more accuratly is 1000+ points) that's a LOT of points which means he's gonna struggle to control the field,

you might be able to just outscore him

I outscore fairly well with objective based games, it's just when it comes to purge the alien, my arse gets handed to me. I feel the Transcendent C'tan can do some serious damage though.

changemod wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:


Don't try and fight Paladins in close combat. You will lose that battle. And, no, the Culexus won't help you much other than to stop invisibility (which admittedly is a big deal). Grey Knights really only use psychic powers for assault buffs, and Paladins will beat you in assault handily anyways. I guess I should say, yes, Culexus is good at stopping Invisibility, but no, it's not anything like a hard counter to Grey Knights just because they're psychic. Plus... get close enough to block Invisibility and they will kill the Culexus.

Yes, the Pariah is dead when he's in invisibility range.

That's why you use him as a guided missile to kill some of them with his higher initiative and instant death before they charge him and he does even less.

By which point between his psychic phase shooting, the rest of the army's shooting and his combat damage, your guided missile will ideally have crippled the unit.


Another idea is the various test characteristic or be removed from play abilities Necrons have. Little hard to apply many of those here though.

Paladins are still extremely durable even under normal conditions, and he'll shoot the assassin to death before it ever gets to charge. The best you should be hoping for is blocking invisibility for one single turn and killing one of his other units so you won't give up first blood. Plus, Draigo can challenge the assassin and prevent you from killing any Paladins even if you do manage to charge.

 KingCorpus wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
well one idea might be... not to try.

Spread your forces out and objective steal etc. a 10 man squad of warriors is what ~150 points? you should be able to get a fair bit of them. grey knights are man for man, among the most potent armies on the table. but they pay for that. if he's running a squad of 10 with an apoc, lib and dragio,

that death star costs 950 points minimum (proably more accuratly is 1000+ points) that's a LOT of points which means he's gonna struggle to control the field,

you might be able to just outscore him

I outscore fairly well with objective based games, it's just when it comes to purge the alien, my arse gets handed to me. I feel the Transcendent C'tan can do some serious damage though.

Remember two things I guess:

Most of the Tran C'tan's weapons are templates and the one that isn't is AP3.

It's not a Character. This is important, because you don't want Draigo challenging you then tanking everything that isn't a stomp with his 3++ and
Eternal Warrior after your sixes to hit.

...Actually, honestly this Deathstar stands a chance of beating the C'tan, forcing you back to square one.

Oh, the TCtan will table him in like two turns, because it's bs broken and GKs don't have any superheavies.

If you're winning in objective games but losing in purge, that's about the best you can expect. Play different missions or something. If you're not having fun, then keep in mind bringing the TCtan won't let your opponent have any fun either.