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Hmm, query:
In a setup like the above (running Retribution Phalanx and a bunch of Destroyers), what ends up working best for your army- Orikan or a Void Shield Generator?
• Orikan is probably better at keeping your Overlords alive, and as that's the most important thing in a Ret.Phal, that's good. Problem is, he doesn't do much else for the rest of your army.
• a VSG with two or three shields will obviously help keep your more vulnerable units like the Stalkers and Destroyers alive for longer, and while that will obviously extend to your Overlords as well, it won't be able to provide the kind of nigh invulnerability Orikan can bring.

Is there another option that might do well?
Sticking them in a Bunker or a Bastion or a Ghost Ark, for example.

Hello there. Sorry to bother, but I was thinking of sneaking Szerasz into my Decurion by playing a Royal Court with him, Obyron and either a slightly tooled Overlord, or Zahndrek. I love playing Immortals and warriors, and currently play 10 Tesla immortals from turn 1, and 10 gauss ones in a Scythe. Other than that I play a blob of 20 warriors, and another squad of 10. Given the Relentlessness of the Decurion I'm playing and the amount of infantry I'm moving, do you think Szerasz would be an improvement? And if he were, who should he buff?

If running a blob, that's typically where you want to give Szeras' upgrade.

Beware, though: with all those guys that's a loooot of points you'd be investing in HQ. Classic Timmy move. Not saying it's the worst idea ever, but typically you want to spend points by trying to cover as many bases as possible.

skoffs wrote:Hmm, query:
In a setup like the above (running Retribution Phalanx and a bunch of Destroyers), what ends up working best for your army- Orikan or a Void Shield Generator?
• Orikan is probably better at keeping your Overlords alive, and as that's the most important thing in a Ret.Phal, that's good. Problem is, he doesn't do much else for the rest of your army.
• a VSG with two or three shields will obviously help keep your more vulnerable units like the Stalkers and Destroyers alive for longer, and while that will obviously extend to your Overlords as well, it won't be able to provide the kind of nigh invulnerability Orikan can bring.

Is there another option that might do well?
Sticking them in a Bunker or a Bastion or a Ghost Ark, for example.

I feel like those two are the best options. Orikan for unkillability in general, VSG for more army-wide durability. However, VSGs aren't super powerful, they'll get stripped down by lots of stuff. Gauss, Scatbikes, D, Meltas, etc will all just remove it quickly. Drop Pods and Assault armies will bypass it. But, in general, it's good for keeping your stuff alive until later turns. Orikan is better for keeping specific models alive, tho.

Adam Spielmann wrote:Hello there. Sorry to bother, but I was thinking of sneaking Szerasz into my Decurion by playing a Royal Court with him, Obyron and either a slightly tooled Overlord, or Zahndrek. I love playing Immortals and warriors, and currently play 10 Tesla immortals from turn 1, and 10 gauss ones in a Scythe. Other than that I play a blob of 20 warriors, and another squad of 10. Given the Relentlessness of the Decurion I'm playing and the amount of infantry I'm moving, do you think Szerasz would be an improvement? And if he were, who should he buff?

Well, Szeras does 3 things:

1) Gives out RP 4+ in a bubble. Not super useful in a Decurion, but it saves your guys against S8+ weaponry
2) Boosts one unit of Immortals or Warriors. If you're playing 10 man units of Immortals, that's not a bad thing.
3) Brings a great gun. Seriously, one of the best guns in the codex.

If you're set on a unit of 10 Tesla and 10 Gauss Immortals, he's actually not too bad. Put him with the Tesla Immortals in your backfield. They're now RP 4+ against everything but D, and he brings another great gun to the unit (though Split Fire would be nice). Boost the Gauss in the Night Scythe, and they become pretty hardcore. Even the Strength buff isn't bad, since they have Relentless and can Rapid Fire and then Charge.

If you want to do it, consider making one of your Overlords into Anrakyr - put him with the Gauss Immortals (who are buffed by Szeras), and then they're an extremely strong unit against a lot of stuff.

Thanks for both the replies. I'm not a really competitive player, and I tend to like the "fluff" part of the games, and the painting as well, but as for now the only chars I'm playing in my list are a generic Overlord with a scythe, and a coule crypteks in the nightbringer's Conclave, for 2+ armor and solar staff. I was fiddling with points, and was considering a second Canoptek Harvest and a 6 men unit of tomb blades, rather than the 3 ones I got (which are one of my most valuable unit... people tends to ignore them till turn 3...)

Might proxy a bit and fiddle with points. Orikan would bring some muscles, Zahndrek would make an unit Zealot, which is good, Szeras fits my infantry spam gameplay. All in all I think it might be a fun addition, and maybe even tactically advisable.

Requizen wrote:

skoffs wrote:Hmm, query:
In a setup like the above (running Retribution Phalanx and a bunch of Destroyers), what ends up working best for your army- Orikan or a Void Shield Generator?
• Orikan is probably better at keeping your Overlords alive, and as that's the most important thing in a Ret.Phal, that's good. Problem is, he doesn't do much else for the rest of your army.
• a VSG with two or three shields will obviously help keep your more vulnerable units like the Stalkers and Destroyers alive for longer, and while that will obviously extend to your Overlords as well, it won't be able to provide the kind of nigh invulnerability Orikan can bring.

Is there another option that might do well?
Sticking them in a Bunker or a Bastion or a Ghost Ark, for example.

I feel like those two are the best options. Orikan for unkillability in general, VSG for more army-wide durability. However, VSGs aren't super powerful, they'll get stripped down by lots of stuff. Gauss, Scatbikes, D, Meltas, etc will all just remove it quickly. Drop Pods and Assault armies will bypass it. But, in general, it's good for keeping your stuff alive until later turns. Orikan is better for keeping specific models alive, tho.

I like the VSG for Retribution Phalanx lists. My sample list combined Orikan, 6 Shieldguard, VSG, and 2 Retribution Phalanxes for the best of both worlds.

1) You have enough ground presence to bubble wrap your Stalkers and make Drop Pod traps.
2) The VSG sucks up 5 or so AV or D shots which drastically improves the survivability of the Stalkers who are famous for otherwise dying on turn one.
3) Any unit that has a sliver of a base under the VSG is immune to small arms fire. That means the congo-line of scarabs that get re-spawned can get small arms immunity to overwatch by trailing a base to be under the VSG when assault is declared.
4) The VSG protects against psychic shooting and makes an immune to small arms fire bubble until it goes down.


The VSG also works marvelously in Scarab Farm lists since the only thing you worry about in those lists are opponents with crazy turn one alpha strike potential. Crypteks with Solar Staff and Chronometrons and a VSG shuts that stuff down until you get a solid turn or two of making babies.

col_impact wrote:

Requizen wrote:

skoffs wrote:Hmm, query:
In a setup like the above (running Retribution Phalanx and a bunch of Destroyers), what ends up working best for your army- Orikan or a Void Shield Generator?
• Orikan is probably better at keeping your Overlords alive, and as that's the most important thing in a Ret.Phal, that's good. Problem is, he doesn't do much else for the rest of your army.
• a VSG with two or three shields will obviously help keep your more vulnerable units like the Stalkers and Destroyers alive for longer, and while that will obviously extend to your Overlords as well, it won't be able to provide the kind of nigh invulnerability Orikan can bring.

Is there another option that might do well?
Sticking them in a Bunker or a Bastion or a Ghost Ark, for example.

I feel like those two are the best options. Orikan for unkillability in general, VSG for more army-wide durability. However, VSGs aren't super powerful, they'll get stripped down by lots of stuff. Gauss, Scatbikes, D, Meltas, etc will all just remove it quickly. Drop Pods and Assault armies will bypass it. But, in general, it's good for keeping your stuff alive until later turns. Orikan is better for keeping specific models alive, tho.

I like the VSG for Retribution Phalanx lists. My sample list combined Orikan, 6 Shieldguard, VSG, and 2 Retribution Phalanxes for the best of both worlds.

1) You have enough ground presence to bubble wrap your Stalkers and make Drop Pod traps.
2) The VSG sucks up 5 or so AV or D shots which drastically improves the survivability of the Stalkers who are famous for otherwise dying on turn one.
3) Any unit that has a sliver of a base under the VSG is immune to small arms fire. That means the congo-line of scarabs that get re-spawned can get small arms immunity to overwatch by trailing a base to be under the VSG when assault is declared.
4) The VSG protects against psychic shooting and makes an immune to small arms fire bubble until it goes down.

I do kinda like the idea. I've been thinking of trying it myself at some point, need to get around to converting one that'll be passable.

My only concern would be mobility. Even with conga-lining, it severely limits the mobility of everything. Warriors can leave the bubble because inifini-respawn, but they're pretty slow as well and go right back to square one if they die and come back.

But, of course, the Orikan-star can go out because it's basically unkillable even without the VSG, so I guess it's not all too bad.

Requizen wrote:

col_impact wrote:

Requizen wrote:

skoffs wrote:Hmm, query:
In a setup like the above (running Retribution Phalanx and a bunch of Destroyers), what ends up working best for your army- Orikan or a Void Shield Generator?
• Orikan is probably better at keeping your Overlords alive, and as that's the most important thing in a Ret.Phal, that's good. Problem is, he doesn't do much else for the rest of your army.
• a VSG with two or three shields will obviously help keep your more vulnerable units like the Stalkers and Destroyers alive for longer, and while that will obviously extend to your Overlords as well, it won't be able to provide the kind of nigh invulnerability Orikan can bring.

Is there another option that might do well?
Sticking them in a Bunker or a Bastion or a Ghost Ark, for example.

I feel like those two are the best options. Orikan for unkillability in general, VSG for more army-wide durability. However, VSGs aren't super powerful, they'll get stripped down by lots of stuff. Gauss, Scatbikes, D, Meltas, etc will all just remove it quickly. Drop Pods and Assault armies will bypass it. But, in general, it's good for keeping your stuff alive until later turns. Orikan is better for keeping specific models alive, tho.

I like the VSG for Retribution Phalanx lists. My sample list combined Orikan, 6 Shieldguard, VSG, and 2 Retribution Phalanxes for the best of both worlds.

1) You have enough ground presence to bubble wrap your Stalkers and make Drop Pod traps.
2) The VSG sucks up 5 or so AV or D shots which drastically improves the survivability of the Stalkers who are famous for otherwise dying on turn one.
3) Any unit that has a sliver of a base under the VSG is immune to small arms fire. That means the congo-line of scarabs that get re-spawned can get small arms immunity to overwatch by trailing a base to be under the VSG when assault is declared.
4) The VSG protects against psychic shooting and makes an immune to small arms fire bubble until it goes down.

I do kinda like the idea. I've been thinking of trying it myself at some point, need to get around to converting one that'll be passable.

My only concern would be mobility. Even with conga-lining, it severely limits the mobility of everything. Warriors can leave the bubble because inifini-respawn, but they're pretty slow as well and go right back to square one if they die and come back.

But, of course, the Orikan-star can go out because it's basically unkillable even without the VSG, so I guess it's not all too bad.

You basically deploy the VSG center and far forward in your deployment zone and then push forward into the center with Orikanstar and your troops. The center of the board is covered by the VSG bubble and claiming the center means you get serious centralized re-spawn and assault threat with your scarabs. You want the VSG to cover an area of strategic importance to you which is almost always the center and center objective or the center of the board along a side. Even if they bring the shields down, the shields can get re-spawned in later turns unless they take the extra effort to destroy the actual VSG.

That's your basic game plan. It gets modified for null deployment Drop Pod armies where you would possibly take a corner and force the Drop Pods outside the VSG.

col_impact wrote:


You basically deploy the VSG center and far forward in your deployment zone and then push forward into the center with Orikanstar and your troops. The center of the board is covered by the VSG bubble and claiming the center means you get serious centralized re-spawn and assault threat with your scarabs. You want the VSG to cover an area of strategic importance to you which is almost always the center and center objective or the center of the board along a side. Even if they bring the shields down, the shields can get re-spawned in later turns unless they take the extra effort to destroy the actual VSG.

That's your basic game plan. It gets modified for null deployment Drop Pod armies where you would possibly take a corner and force the Drop Pods outside the VSG.

Hm, interesting. I've never actually used a fortification before, but I'm quite interested to try one.

Unlike Tau, we're not exactly designed to sit back, we want more of a midfield presence. But, given that we can place the structures all the way up to the line, even an Aegis works pretty well for us, just placing Warriors or Tesla Immortals behind it. However, the main holdback is that we're durable enough to not necessarily need the cover saves or to hide in a structure. However, the VSG affects such a large field and protects us from things that we hate, like certain Eldar or Tau guns, so it might be a good exception to the rule. It doesn't do anything to help against, say, Eldar/DEldar WWP Wraithguard, but then again, what the hell does at this point?

Hey guys. Just wanting to know how we stack up against the War convocation? My mate is investing in one currently, and while I haven't played yet, it seems pretty ridiculous. What are its strengths and weaknesses, and what can we do to play against it? Also it will be my first time against an imperial knight, looks scary and would soak up a lot of hurt.

I tried asking this in the Admech tactics thread however it immediately got diverted to fielding FW IG cannons against it

Klowny wrote:
Hey guys. Just wanting to know how we stack up against the War convocation? My mate is investing in one currently, and while I haven't played yet, it seems pretty ridiculous. What are its strengths and weaknesses, and what can we do to play against it? Also it will be my first time against an imperial knight, looks scary and would soak up a lot of hurt.

I tried asking this in the Admech tactics thread however it immediately got diverted to fielding FW IG cannons against it

Depends on the list, the convocation has a lot of cover saves boosting

Tomb blades, ignores cover and either S6 or AP4 in spades, melts most of the army. other than that, wraiths, S6 Rending CC will hurt.

Klowny wrote:
Hey guys. Just wanting to know how we stack up against the War convocation? My mate is investing in one currently, and while I haven't played yet, it seems pretty ridiculous. What are its strengths and weaknesses, and what can we do to play against it? Also it will be my first time against an imperial knight, looks scary and would soak up a lot of hurt.

I tried asking this in the Admech tactics thread however it immediately got diverted to fielding FW IG cannons against it

One of the few other army lists without ObSec, so Decurion is actually a strong matchup for us here.

War Convo relies on two main things:
1) The Knight(s) survive and do major damage
2) Everything else does enough shooting to kill everything before dying.

Knights can be a sticking point for us, but generally speaking Necrons are durable enough to survive the initial barrage that comes from War Convo + Drop Pods, and then even with boosted Cover we have the output to kill back just as hard. A lot of the final outcome is based on how you can deal with/survive the Knight, because a Decurion or even well made CAD should be able to win against the rest.

Requizen wrote:

Klowny wrote:
Hey guys. Just wanting to know how we stack up against the War convocation? My mate is investing in one currently, and while I haven't played yet, it seems pretty ridiculous. What are its strengths and weaknesses, and what can we do to play against it? Also it will be my first time against an imperial knight, looks scary and would soak up a lot of hurt.

I tried asking this in the Admech tactics thread however it immediately got diverted to fielding FW IG cannons against it

One of the few other army lists without ObSec, so Decurion is actually a strong matchup for us here.

War Convo relies on two main things:
1) The Knight(s) survive and do major damage
2) Everything else does enough shooting to kill everything before dying.

Knights can be a sticking point for us, but generally speaking Necrons are durable enough to survive the initial barrage that comes from War Convo + Drop Pods, and then even with boosted Cover we have the output to kill back just as hard. A lot of the final outcome is based on how you can deal with/survive the Knight, because a Decurion or even well made CAD should be able to win against the rest.

This. The Knight is honestly the most annoying thing out of that whole list, but if need be, pretty much everything in our army can hurt it one way or another. So if it's just 1 Knight (not sure how the War Convo works, or how many knights there are), then it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

 krodarklorr wrote:

Requizen wrote:

Klowny wrote:
Hey guys. Just wanting to know how we stack up against the War convocation? My mate is investing in one currently, and while I haven't played yet, it seems pretty ridiculous. What are its strengths and weaknesses, and what can we do to play against it? Also it will be my first time against an imperial knight, looks scary and would soak up a lot of hurt.

I tried asking this in the Admech tactics thread however it immediately got diverted to fielding FW IG cannons against it

One of the few other army lists without ObSec, so Decurion is actually a strong matchup for us here.

War Convo relies on two main things:
1) The Knight(s) survive and do major damage
2) Everything else does enough shooting to kill everything before dying.

Knights can be a sticking point for us, but generally speaking Necrons are durable enough to survive the initial barrage that comes from War Convo + Drop Pods, and then even with boosted Cover we have the output to kill back just as hard. A lot of the final outcome is based on how you can deal with/survive the Knight, because a Decurion or even well made CAD should be able to win against the rest.

This. The Knight is honestly the most annoying thing out of that whole list, but if need be, pretty much everything in our army can hurt it one way or another. So if it's just 1 Knight (not sure how the War Convo works, or how many knights there are), then it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The War Convocation includes an Oathsworn Detachment, which is 1-3 Knights (no extra rules). While you can run it with 3 Knights, that would stop them from taking any allied Drop Pods. I think most of them are 1 Knight with allied Flesh Tearers for Drop Pods. You could conceivably see 3 Knight War Convos, but the rest of the army would be pretty weak/ineffective.

Requizen wrote:

The War Convocation includes an Oathsworn Detachment, which is 1-3 Knights (no extra rules). While you can run it with 3 Knights, that would stop them from taking any allied Drop Pods. I think most of them are 1 Knight with allied Flesh Tearers for Drop Pods. You could conceivably see 3 Knight War Convos, but the rest of the army would be pretty weak/ineffective.

Well then yeah, that's a fair trade off. ! Imperial Knight isn't hard for most people to deal with, and Necrons have the durability to survive the rest of the army's shooting.

So realistically, something to take care of a Knight or two, something to weed out cover takers, and something to deal with deployment zone pods, then?
(unless 2x Oathsworn Knight Convocations are not a thing)

He is currently looking at Cult Mechanus as the bulk of his war convo, and probably will eventually go with flesh tearers. Hasn't decided on allies yet. So would something like this work?

Destroyer lord w/ voidreaper &phylactery

9x Deathmarks
1x Triarch stalker HGC

10x Warriors GA
10x Warriors GA

6x Wraiths w/ coils
5x Blades w/ vanes & scopes
5x Blades w/ vanes & scopes

3x HDestroyers
3x HDestroyers
3x HDestroyers

Destroyers and stalker focus knight, deathmarks for drop pods, wraiths and DLord for CC, Blades for IC harassment and warriors in GA's to grab objectives/ get shooty.

It's not Decurion, but it's putting down a serious amount of hurt. Is the trade off in resiliency worth it? First turn I would say is vital to mitigate the potential damage the knight puts out.

That's actually fairly solid for a CAD Necron list.

Phaseshifter is more important to have on a DLord than Phylactery.

Yea but I'm tight on points, I chucked it in to get to 1850. I could take a warscythe instead of the void reaper and get it?

Klowny wrote:
Yea but I'm tight on points, I chucked it in to get to 1850. I could take a warscythe instead of the void reaper and get it?

Sounds good.

Requizen wrote:
The War Convocation includes an Oathsworn Detachment, which is 1-3 Knights (no extra rules). While you can run it with 3 Knights, that would stop them from taking any allied Drop Pods. I think most of them are 1 Knight with allied Flesh Tearers for Drop Pods. You could conceivably see 3 Knight War Convos, but the rest of the army would be pretty weak/ineffective.

This is not correct - Its a single Knight only from memory - need to find the WD now...

 Massaen wrote:

Requizen wrote:
The War Convocation includes an Oathsworn Detachment, which is 1-3 Knights (no extra rules). While you can run it with 3 Knights, that would stop them from taking any allied Drop Pods. I think most of them are 1 Knight with allied Flesh Tearers for Drop Pods. You could conceivably see 3 Knight War Convos, but the rest of the army would be pretty weak/ineffective.

This is not correct - Its a single Knight only from memory - need to find the WD now...

It says Oathsworn on the detachment.

So it does! I never see it with more than 1 knight simply due to the taxes on the rest of the force!

Klowny wrote:
Destroyer lord w/ voidreaper &phylactery

9x Deathmarks
1x Triarch stalker HGC

10x Warriors GA
10x Warriors GA

6x Wraiths w/ coils
5x Blades w/ vanes & scopes
5x Blades w/ vanes & scopes

3x HDestroyers
3x HDestroyers
3x HDestroyers

I was gonna say it could do with more ObSec, but I guess the Tomb Blades could pull double duty grabbing objectives.
If you need to free up points, you might be able to get away with 2x Heavy Ds per unit (often time three tends to be overkill and you end up wasting shots that could have gone into something else).
You could possibly also drop a Wraith for that unit. No one's gonna be chewing through 5 Wraiths in a hurry.
If you give your Heavy Ds a Stalker or two to back them up, they'll love you for it (though beware: that thing will probably not survive past turn two)

 skoffs wrote:

Klowny wrote:


Destroyer lord w/ voidreaper &phylactery

9x Deathmarks
1x Stalker w/ HGC

10x Warriors w/ GA
10x Warriors w/ GA

6x Wraiths w/ coils
5x Blades w/ vanes & scopes
5x Blades w/ vanes & scopes

3x HDestroyers
3x HDestroyers
3x HDestroyers

I was gonna say it could do with more ObSec, but I guess the Tomb Blades could pull double duty grabbing objectives.
If you need to free up points, you might be able to get away with 2x Heavy Ds per unit (often time three tends to be overkill and you end up wasting shots that could have gone into something else).
You could possibly also drop a Wraith for that unit. No one's gonna be chewing through 5 Wraiths in a hurry.
If you give your Heavy Ds a Stalker or two to back them up, they'll love you for it (though beware: that thing will probably not survive past turn two)

Yea I thought the warriors in ghost arks would be primary objective grabbers, with tomb blades secondary, as well as the destroyers once the IK is deaded. I have a stalker in there already

So maybe something like this?

1x Destroyer lord w/ voidreaper & phase shifter

8x Deathmarks
8x Flayed ones
1x Stalker w/ HGC

10x Warriors w/ GA
10x Warriors w/ GA

6x Wraiths w/ coils
6x Blades w/ vanes & scopes
6x Blades w/ vanes & scopes

2x HDestroyers
2x HDestroyers
2x HDestroyers

I watched the miniwargaming batrep between war convo and necrons and Decurion RP seemed to go a very long way. This list seems fun and I wanna try it out though.

I'm trying to tell you, man, you're going to need another Stalker.
And why are you bringing the Void Reaper? Does he have something high toughness that a Warscythe would not be enough to deal with?
Perhaps this might serve you better- (alternatively, you could drop the Deathmarks and Flayed Ones down to 7 each and bump the Tomb Blades up to 5 per unit, but if you're primarily using them for objective grabbing and harassment, you might not need that many.)

But back on the topic of general tactics,
Tesla Tomb Blades.
What's wrong with them?
They're twin linked. Tesla LOVES being twin linked! And you usually don't want your TBs anywhere near combat, so Tesla should win out over Gauss in regards to shots taken at optimal range. Yet everyone seems dead set on taking Gauss.
"Oh, well, Gauss can kill tanks!"
Really? You have any idea how statistically unlikely a typical unit of TBs would be at doing so?
With the N.Scope equipped it might even put out more wounds than P.Beamer TBs.
(Though the weird thing is why they didn't make it a choice between the Shadow Looms and the Shield Vanes (so it would be increased armor save vs increased cover save) instead of the Scope and the Loom.)

That said, if the Tomb Blades are mostly for objective grabbing, they would be at three bikes. Otherwise we're taking a more offensive approach with them.

 skoffs wrote:
I'm trying to tell you, man, you're going to need another Stalker.
And why are you bringing the Void Reaper? Does he have something high toughness that a Warscythe would not be enough to deal with?
Perhaps this might serve you better-

Spoiler:

1x Destroyer lord w/ warscythe & phase shifter

8x Deathmarks
9x Flayed ones
2x Stalker w/ HGC

10x Warriors w/ GA
10x Warriors w/ GA

5x Wraiths w/ coils
4x Blades w/ vanes & scopes
4x Blades w/ vanes & scopes

2x HDestroyers
2x HDestroyers
2x HDestroyers

(alternatively, you could drop the Deathmarks and Flayed Ones down to 7 each and bump the Tomb Blades up to 5 per unit, but if you're primarily using them for objective grabbing and harassment, you might not need that many.)

But back on the topic of general tactics,
Tesla Tomb Blades.
What's wrong with them?
They're twin linked. Tesla LOVES being twin linked! And you usually don't want your TBs anywhere near combat, so Tesla should win out over Gauss in regards to shots taken at optimal range. Yet everyone seems dead set on taking Gauss.
"Oh, well, Gauss can kill tanks!"
Really? You have any idea how statistically unlikely a typical unit of TBs would be at doing so?
With the N.Scope equipped it might even put out more wounds than P.Beamer TBs.
(Though the weird thing is why they didn't make it a choice between the Shadow Looms and the Shield Vanes (so it would be increased armor save vs increased cover save) instead of the Scope and the Loom.)

Dude, you want tomb blades in combat!
They are amazing, and near invincible to any non-dedicated CC unit. The ammount of time tomb blades have saved my ass by assaulting something like scat-bikes or ork boyz , or devs is gilarious. they are an amazing tarpit, and cheap to boot.

The problems with tesla are

AP - making your ignores cover a lot less useful,
S5 - PBs have S6 to instant death T3 models, (like scarabs/nurglings)
one shot, twin linked is fine, but tesla doesn't help if you jink whereas rapid fire does.

Gauss or beamers are better in almost every situation.

at 13-24" 5 blades vs pathfinders/scouts the ideal sort of target.
Gauss, 5 shots 4.5 hits, 4 wounds(pathfinders) or 3 wounds (scouts) -> 3 or 4 dead
Tesla 5 shots 4.5 hits +2 (probably got a 6) 6.5 hits, 5.3 wounds 3.5 dead(PF) or 4 wounds (2 dead scouts)

In fact, vs scouts, even if you get 5 sixes, you are still worse off than rapid fire gauss. 15 hits-10 wounds- 5 dead. 9 hits - 6 wounds - 6 dead.

Gauss in rapid fire just get's better.
If you jink Gauss and tesla are identical outside rapid fire, except for AP, in rapid fire, Gauss is 2x as goof, before we include AP.

Tesla just isn't worth it for small squads, and larger squads waste their ignores cover potential damage if they hang back.
Blades can get close, AP3 is so rare, they are usually jet bike termies, 3+4+++ if in decurion, witha potential 4+4+++ if they have to jink.
In combat, they are T5 termies. Send them against anything AP4 or higher and tie it up for the whole game.

Tomb blades excell at getting in your face

Also, 5 rapid fire gauss blades vs vehicle.
10 shots - 9 hits - 1.5 glances, no cover saves. They are great for finishing the last HP off.

I'm partial to Beamers myself though, personally love them for scouring ruins, S6 AP 5 ignores cover is great for removing cover campers, or even ravenwing. S6 is no joke.
Lack of AP4 and the inability to jink hurts though.

 skoffs wrote:
I'm trying to tell you, man, you're going to need another Stalker.
And why are you bringing the Void Reaper? Does he have something high toughness that a Warscythe would not be enough to deal with?
Perhaps this might serve you better-

Spoiler:

1x Destroyer lord w/ warscythe & phase shifter

8x Deathmarks
9x Flayed ones
2x Stalker w/ HGC

10x Warriors w/ GA
10x Warriors w/ GA

5x Wraiths w/ coils
4x Blades w/ vanes & scopes
4x Blades w/ vanes & scopes

2x HDestroyers
2x HDestroyers
2x HDestroyers

(alternatively, you could drop the Deathmarks and Flayed Ones down to 7 each and bump the Tomb Blades up to 5 per unit, but if you're primarily using them for objective grabbing and harassment, you might not need that many.)

But back on the topic of general tactics,
Tesla Tomb Blades.
What's wrong with them?
They're twin linked. Tesla LOVES being twin linked! And you usually don't want your TBs anywhere near combat, so Tesla should win out over Gauss in regards to shots taken at optimal range. Yet everyone seems dead set on taking Gauss.
"Oh, well, Gauss can kill tanks!"
Really? You have any idea how statistically unlikely a typical unit of TBs would be at doing so?
With the N.Scope equipped it might even put out more wounds than P.Beamer TBs.
(Though the weird thing is why they didn't make it a choice between the Shadow Looms and the Shield Vanes (so it would be increased armor save vs increased cover save) instead of the Scope and the Loom.)

Sorry mate, I understand you now, my bad