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Ah, thanks! Good to know.

 jy2 wrote:
Ah, thanks! Good to know.

Yeah, not to sound snippy, it's just late right now, haha. After looking over it though, I am legit concerned why they missed some wording in Exterminatus. I foresee many people exploiting that while they can, sadly enough.

BTW, the Overlord does not get a 50% chance to save every wound he takes (unless there is a cryptek in his unit). With re-roll 1's, he has a 39% chance to save a wound (compared to 33% without the re-roll 1's).

I should have specified. In the Decurion he does, which is the way I think most people will be running Necrons.

While I can't see any reason why you can't take an Artefact of the Aeons along with a Relic of the War in Heaven [for now, anyway], you can't take multiple relics from either book.

The Exterminatus restriction is buried, oddly, under the "The Cryptan Alliance" section immediately following the "Echoes of War" missions:
"Characters with the Necrons Faction that are part of a Detachment or formation presented in this book can select an item from the Relics of the War in Heaven list at the points cost shown..."

"an item" is, unfortunately, fairly clear.

caelim wrote:
While I can't see any reason why you can't take an Artefact of the Aeons along with a Relic of the War in Heaven [for now, anyway], you can't take multiple relics from either book.

The Exterminatus restriction is buried, oddly, under the "The Cryptan Alliance" section immediately following the "Echoes of War" missions:
"Characters with the Necrons Faction that are part of a Detachment or formation presented in this book can select an item from the Relics of the War in Heaven list at the points cost shown..."

"an item" is, unfortunately, fairly clear.

Wow, thanks for that! I searched but couldn't find anything. That's a load off my mind. But yeah, the other issue bothers me. I think it's just poor wording, or lack there of.

 krodarklorr wrote:
Yeah, not to sound snippy

Snippy? No. Downright bitter for no reason? Yes. Some of the most out of the blue aggressive posting I've ever seen on Dakka.

 jy2 wrote:
And his Spamtalons formation is really damn good. I've been thinking about running the Tyrannic War Vet formation myself.

Actually considering it as an army. It's one of the only formations I know of which is '1+' rather than a fixed number, and it's a nice and flexible primary detachment; sternguard-equivalent veterans, land raiders, and the wonderful aerial superiority stormtalon gunships.

Plus it feels kind of appropriate as a follow-on/counterpart to a tryanid army.

 Zande4 wrote:


Snippy? No. Downright bitter for no reason? Yes. Some of the most out of the blue aggressive posting I've ever seen on Dakka.

I think it might have been the fact that necrons for a long time now have been a brain dead army. Anyone could take a wraith wing/flyer spam and win tournaments with it. It required no real thought process, just push things forward and out shoot everyone while grabbing obj late game. Wargear was op and everything was far too cheap. Getting necron players to try something new that might require some thought will probably take a little while. Kidding of course competitive play will focus on wraiths again and av13 with whatever new unit happens to be good.

 Goldphish wrote:

 Zande4 wrote:


Snippy? No. Downright bitter for no reason? Yes. Some of the most out of the blue aggressive posting I've ever seen on Dakka.

I think it might have been the fact that necrons for a long time now have been a brain dead army. Anyone could take a wraith wing/flyer spam and win tournaments with it. It required no real thought process, just push things forward and out shoot everyone while grabbing obj late game. Wargear was op and everything was far too cheap. Getting necron players to try something new that might require some thought will probably take a little while. Kidding of course competitive play will focus on wraiths again and av13 with whatever new unit happens to be good.

Yeah that's cool, but why did he post like he was fixing for a fight? "Overtired" is not an excuse, unlike real life you can read what you say before you click post.

Good report as always. Thanks for sharing.
Will you field Necrons in your next GT?

Wow, spam-x really played a poor game. Classic example of the list only gettign you so far. Yesterday I looked at lists and thought he had it clinched if he plays to the mission and doesn't get baited, then I realized he would probably over commit his firepower at wraiths or the CCB and give up FB and his edge over your NS. I wasn't wrong

Good game, don't get to frustrated, the old everliving was effectively the same with one exception. That being in the old book an entire army could only kill him once and any left over firepower was wasted and he STILL got to get up. Now, gone are the frustrating days where timing prevents an entire gunline from continuing to pump rounds into him until hes dead. It honestly makes much more sense now. The thing that kills him the most however is the loss of MSS, now any old MC can run up and bitch slap his chariot

I think you will come around to see the decurion eventually. None of the compulsory choices are really a tax. Everything in the reclamation legion are things you would want in a TAC list anyway. Spamming things however is much harder, but variety only makes a list more adaptable on the fly.

BTW the fluff bunny in me vomited when you said Necronids, I am pretty sure if you field that army your copy of exterminatus will explode

Having some of the same issues figuring optimal necron lists aside from some variant of wraith spam tbh. still need more play testing. Sure, the necrons are alot more durable but am not liking that they have some issues with air, ndk/wk and Imperial Knights.

caelim wrote:
While I can't see any reason why you can't take an Artefact of the Aeons along with a Relic of the War in Heaven [for now, anyway], you can't take multiple relics from either book.

The Exterminatus restriction is buried, oddly, under the "The Cryptan Alliance" section immediately following the "Echoes of War" missions:
"Characters with the Necrons Faction that are part of a Detachment or formation presented in this book can select an item from the Relics of the War in Heaven list at the points cost shown..."

"an item" is, unfortunately, fairly clear.

This needs to be shouted wide, loud, and clear. If this really is the case, then we need to nip the assumed alternative in the bud.

EDIT: On second though, I'm not sure if it really is all that clear. Isn't Zarathusa (sp?) said to be represented by wielding an Edge of Eternity with Thermasite? In addition, "a" and "an" sound more like designators than restrictions, which are usually more explicit.

Boy we're more convoluted than Congress.

We ought to have a FAQ thread to gather our thoughts. This release has holes all over the place large and small.

caelim wrote:
While I can't see any reason why you can't take an Artefact of the Aeons along with a Relic of the War in Heaven [for now, anyway], you can't take multiple relics from either book.

The Exterminatus restriction is buried, oddly, under the "The Cryptan Alliance" section immediately following the "Echoes of War" missions:
"Characters with the Necrons Faction that are part of a Detachment or formation presented in this book can select an item from the Relics of the War in Heaven list at the points cost shown..."

"an item" is, unfortunately, fairly clear.

Actually, now that I've read the rules in exterminatus again, RAW it seems that we can take both, even for the BA items.

The other supplements all specifically state that taking relics from the supplements list means you cannot take relics from the main codex. However, in the case of exterminatus, the supplement only states that you can take the relics "instead of", without explicitly precluding you from taking items from the main codex. I'm looking at it from the lens of the warlord traits, which use the same wording, but that's probably because you can't mix and match WT and re rolls.

Again, this is probably a YMDC.

Well played, jy2. I think there were a couple of big mistakes made by the SM player though.

1) Outflanking the tactical squads. Tacticals achieve meaningful battlefield effects when they can mass fires on a target. With scout, he could have very easily positioned himself center of the board to control objectives and bring the ridiculous amounts of bolter fire to bear against the right target at the right time. He compounded this mistake by bringing the tacticals in dispersed, allowing them to be picked off.

2) starting all the talons on the board. Given your good AA with night scythes, he would have been better off putting 2-3 of the talons into outflank reserves. It would give him the chance to pop up behind your scythes or control your positioning by hugging the short board edge. Instead, he flew upfield and gave you the drop in the dogfight.

Good stuff with the new Dex J

PanzerLeader wrote:
Well played, jy2. I think there were a couple of big mistakes made by the SM player though.

1) Outflanking the tactical squads. Tacticals achieve meaningful battlefield effects when they can mass fires on a target. With scout, he could have very easily positioned himself center of the board to control objectives and bring the ridiculous amounts of bolter fire to bear against the right target at the right time. He compounded this mistake by bringing the tacticals in dispersed, allowing them to be picked off.

2) starting all the talons on the board. Given your good AA with night scythes, he would have been better off putting 2-3 of the talons into outflank reserves. It would give him the chance to pop up behind your scythes or control your positioning by hugging the short board edge. Instead, he flew upfield and gave you the drop in the dogfight.

I think it was ok to start the Talons on the board because he was going first. He took his shot at the Bargelord on the top of 1 and Jim could not effectively respond on the bottom of 1. On the top of two is when he could have flown off into ongoing reserve with the talons and then come back to shoot at the Nightscythes on the top of 3. I suspect since he was very close at killing the bargelord on turn 1, he couldn't resist going after him again on turn 2.

Yikes; is your opponent new to the Stormtalon spam? As soon as I saw that deployment I thought he was in an amazing position having first turn:

Deployment: Deploy first, watch your deployment with no downside, Infiltrate the Talons once he sees the lone Bargelord
His Turn 1: Take the shot at the Turn 1 victory by throwing everything at the Bargelord
Your Turn 1: No risk whatsoever to his army against the lone Bargelord
His Turn 2: Fly all of the Stormtalons off the board
Your Turn 2: Night Scythes arrive
His Turn 3: Beta-strike the Night Scythes from Ongoing Reserve

Instead, he kept ALL of those Stormtalons on the board to take what had become entirely meaningless shots at the Bargelord on Turn 2, costing him the easy opportunity to kill the Night Scythes and guaranteeing he wouldn't be able to engage them until Turn 4 at the earliest (due to the positioning allowing you to get behind them). Seems like a pretty enormous misplay given that there was virtually zero upside in taking out the Bargelord on Turn 2.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Without MSS and the new RP they are incredibly vulnerable to assault actually. Just pick the barge and bust off the 3 HP's and they have no way to save the damage. From shooting you can make 1 very tank like still.

CCB vulnerability to assault is completely unchanged since 7th released; as soon as Chariots became a "locked in combat" fight like Walkers, and thus allowed a Consolidate, nobody with any sense was ever allowing a CCB a chance at an RP following a successful assault kill. Even with a rather poor Consolidate roll, it was never particularly hard to block off that large of a model.

Basically, they're directly more survivable against incoming shooting however it is also, somewhat paradoxically, easier for an opponent to kill them when they really want to--as the ability to permanently destroy them is now actually in the opponent's hands, as opposed to waiting for a coin-flip at the end of each phase.

Sorry jy2, but in my opinion, that's absolutely a positive change for the game as a whole. Necron players get more survivable models across the board, and opponents get the ability to actually focus-fire down important units when they deem it necessary (which was already an option for everything except Ever-living models anyway). Nothing was more frustrating than "I really need to kill this Bargelord, but there's literally zero way for me to assure that happens, so let's hope for the best on that coinflip." That's not a positive game mechanic in any way.

This is a Codex that had literally one vehicle in all prior editions, and then somehow became a vehicle spam army. At the time, everyone was mad about losing the ability to run massed infantry hordes as an actual, relevant option. The new RP is an enormous step back in that direction. Not to say hordes of infantry are ever going to be a viable competitive option, but they're at least not the enormous detriment they were in the prior book.

How did your wraiths deepstrike? Didn't think beasts could do that.

Also didn't your opponent kill your barge lord netting him warlord as well?

POST-GAME ANALYSIS:

First of all, I'd like to apologize for a mistake I made in this game. I forgot for a brief moment that wraiths were no longer Jump Infantry. (Actually, I was reading the entry for Destroyers/Heavy Destroyers and got them mixed up with the wraiths.) In any case, the wraiths should not have been able to deepstrike in. Now that was both a blessing and a curse for my opponent. It was a curse because his flyers had no viable target initially. However, it was also a blessing because my 2nd wraith unit did not come in until Turn 4 and basically couldn't do anything until Turn 5.

Am I happy with my list? Not really. I'm finding there to be holes that I am having a hard time trying to fill up. Wraithspam is a very unbalanced Necron build and you have to give up a lot to run them. Granted, wraiths are very good, but I am finding my shooting to be woefully underpowered compared to previous. Moreover, my anti-air is a lot worse than it used to be and I have to rely on the very expensive (and nerfed) night scythes to do so. And this isn't even the Decurion detachment, where there may be even more holes to fill due to the amount of "fat" that is usually in that detachment/those formations.

As good as wraiths are, they still suffer from the same weakness that they had before. They are still vulnerable to Volume-of-Fire, which some of the top armies like Mechdar and Tau can pack a lot of. T5 helps, but when the majority of the shooting is S6/7, it is only marginal. That was why I reserved my wraiths against my opponent's stormtalons....they can really put the hurt on with the amount of BS5 S6/7 shots in their arsenal. I also miss the 2+ tanking HQ units that used to run with my wraiths. They are the real secret to making the wraithstar work. Now, at most I can only include one of these guys.

My opponent did make a couple of tactical mistakes in this game. First and foremost:


This was a big no-no. Fortunately for my opponent, he rolled really well with his jink saves and only lost 1 flyer, but you really don't want to put your flyers in such a position to get alpha-struck by the enemy flyers. The problem was compounded also by the fact that we were playing the Scouring and talons are Fast Attack choices.


Secondly, he gave my C'tan a target. He was trying to hide his rhino behind BLOS (blockin-LOS) terrain, but he forgot about my C'tan coming in from Reserves.


Lastly, when his stormravens came in, they went after my C'tan. While this wasn't a huge mistake, it did hurt him because:

1) It set up his 2 stormtalons to get beta-struck by my night scythes coming in next turn.

2) He should have sent them to go after my tomb blades. With 4 stormtalons, there was a good possibility of them wiping out my tomb blades for 1 Scouring VP. Also, by going after my tomb blades, he could have positioned them in a way that my night scythes wouldn't have been able to beta-strike them when my flyers came in. Basically, this move was a potential 2-pt swing. He could have potentially killed 1 of my Fast Attacks and also deny me from killing one of his Fast Attacks.

With more experience playing flyer armies, he should get better, but his inexperience with them really cost him in this game.


As for the my Necron units, here is my evaluation of them:

Catacomb Command Barge: B+. He soaked up a ridiculous amount of firepower in this game....but then died to a krak grenade in close combat. As a bullet-soaker, this guy is a God. But when it comes to actual offense, he is a bit underwhelming. He killed a rhino and 1 combat squad so he really didn't pull his weight in the offense department. However, soaking in firepower from 10 stormtalons and keeping them on the table more than made up for the lack of killiness. But to be fair, he did lose his Quantum Shielding. Had he not done that, he would have done great offensively as he would have been immune to the krak grenades.

Immortals: C+. No change from before. Now, these guys are the defacto troop choice if you want to go MSU.

Night Scythes: B. The role of the night scythe hasn't changed all that much. IMO, it is still a necessity in a Necron army. However, now it's just more expensive with a gun that is still good but not uber-good like it used to be. I'd grade the old Night Scythe an A. The new Night Scythe is just a step down but still a pretty good transport overall.

Transcendent C'tan: B. The jury is still out on this guy. I did make a mistake by not deepstriking him and I rolled so poorly for his saves (failed all of his saves) that I think he deserves a second shot. I don't see him as being a consistent contributor, and it is a bit risky fielding him against an army with so many S6/7 shooting, but I think that he can be a decent board control unit. He definitely strikes fear into the enemy, and if you run him with Godshackles and the Mephrit C'tan formation, I think he can be quite good. In any case, I am going to have to do some more playtesting with him.

Wraiths: A. These guys are for sure one of the All-Star units in the new Necron codex. They just got better in almost every aspect. T5, Fleet and now they strike at normal Initiative when charging through terrain (which would be I5 with whip coils)? Wow. I almost give this unit an A+ if not for the same old weakness that they had before - vulnerability to Volume-of-Fire attacks. Now without a tanking character to lead them, they will have problems against certain armies with high VoF. Also, the lack of re-rolls is still annoying. While the Destroyer Lord has gotten slower in a sense, I still feel that adding the D-lord to a unit of wraiths makes the unit even better overall. Next time, I will give that combo a try.

Tomb Blades: A. This unit has really impressed me with its shooting. A 3+ T5 jetbike with 5+ RP/FNP and either +1 cover save or Ignore Cover and who can fire a S6 blast....all for 23-24 pts? This unit is a steal! In the game, it took out a couple of Tyrannic War vets and a combat squad. However, that was due to poor rolling on my part (not a single direct hit against my opponent's command squad with 7 blasts!) as well as a little bad luck (failing Morale and falling back, thus denying them 1 turn of shooting). This unit is one with a huge upside at a fraction of its previous costs. I definitely highly recommend this unit. I don't think you should spam them, but at least 1 unit in every army provides a lot of utility.

MVP: Wraiths. They definitely did the most damage in this game, and that was only with 1 unit of wraiths. The other unit did not contribute at all until Turn 5 and even then, their contribution wasn't really necessary. So with just 1 unit of wraiths (and the help of the bargelord), I basically secured an entire flank. I can only imagine the carnage they could have potentially done had I deployed both units on the table.

The bargelord (Catacomb Command Barge) would be a close runner-up for MVP. The amount of punishment he withstood was just phenomenal. It was because of him leading the stormtalons why my flyers were able to get the beta-strike against them. And although he died to a krak grenade, it was because of all the shooting that he withstood. You will need to change how you run him in the new edition, but he can still contribute positively to the army.

@DJ3 actually it was more difficult then you think since the old RP said the model was placed no more then 3" away from the TOKEN. Meaning that only the edge of the hull had to be within 3" of where the sucker went down, it actually took a lot more bodies then you'd think, which is why it took Frankies dark eldar what4-5 venoms to achieve? Sorry but that's not a small task requiring so many transports. That and IMO more importantly the MSS nerf has really made them vulnerable in assault. Now MC's tear through it effortlessly.

I agree on your other points though. The old everliving was a poorly designed mechanic like much of the things changed in the new book. Necrons have many viable builds now, and no more controversy sparking mechanics. Makes for a much more fluid game IMHO.

DarthDiggler wrote:

PanzerLeader wrote:
Well played, jy2. I think there were a couple of big mistakes made by the SM player though.

1) Outflanking the tactical squads. Tacticals achieve meaningful battlefield effects when they can mass fires on a target. With scout, he could have very easily positioned himself center of the board to control objectives and bring the ridiculous amounts of bolter fire to bear against the right target at the right time. He compounded this mistake by bringing the tacticals in dispersed, allowing them to be picked off.

2) starting all the talons on the board. Given your good AA with night scythes, he would have been better off putting 2-3 of the talons into outflank reserves. It would give him the chance to pop up behind your scythes or control your positioning by hugging the short board edge. Instead, he flew upfield and gave you the drop in the dogfight.

I think it was ok to start the Talons on the board because he was going first. He took his shot at the Bargelord on the top of 1 and Jim could not effectively respond on the bottom of 1. On the top of two is when he could have flown off into ongoing reserve with the talons and then come back to shoot at the Nightscythes on the top of 3. I suspect since he was very close at killing the bargelord on turn 1, he couldn't resist going after him again on turn 2.

That's fair. But the odds of dropping the barge lord are relatively low, even with 5 storm talons. A ResOrb makes the RP rolls rerollable and jy2 can tank the S6 on the barge until he suffers a pen and tank the S7 on the shields until he's lost 2 HP and then switch to the lord. Too many variables to do the math quickly in my head, but not a really good gamble. Very high risk and you're absolutely correct: once it failed turn 1, he should have entered reserves and repositioned. I think in a competitive setting, playing the long game with the flyers would have been a little better.

The odds of killing the Bargelord are irrelevant; it was a shot to auto-win and had no downside...until the inexplicable decision to not go into ongoing reserves. But starting them on the table was absolutely the right call.

How did you feel about the new change to Reanimation Protocols, also could you remember what you actually had left on the board at the end of the game?

It was Jim's first game with the new codex... Let's not try to crucify him. I know I have made a tonne of mistakes when first playing new lists. The Libby having access to Divination lore offset the deep striking Wraiths.

We can learn a lot from this report and besides Jim's reports always being very entertaining that's one of the main reasons I always read them.

@ jy2

I'm really hoping you won't go the route of spamming initially with the new codex. This list of yours featured lots of different units and was a great tutorial for me. I think if you can resist the urge to spam it could open new doors for you. That said I see no reason not to run two to three units of Canoptek Wraiths they are even better now. Obviously the Tomb Blades are really good too now and have the speed.

Thanks for the report. : )

DJ3 wrote:
The odds of killing the Bargelord are irrelevant; it was a shot to auto-win and had no downside...until the inexplicable decision to not go into ongoing reserves. But starting them on the table was absolutely the right call.

Disagree. Getting storm talons in off the long edge via outflank lets him come on behind night scythes (likely given the -1 to reserves) and mass his firepower much better in the H&A deployment as the Necrons emerge. Ongoing reserves off the short edge is not nearly as effective as ongoing reserves off the long in either of the other two standard deployments.

The odds matter because he traded late game positioning for a not very good chance of auto winning. Plus, with infiltrate he would get a chance to see the Necron deployment before committing them to outflanking. Going off turn two is a good move, but it's not as good as a few talons coming off the long edge later in the game when he can mass them against the right targets. His tactical marines have so much resiliency he could easily have held the center and then responded. Hell, with his warlord trait he could have deployed nothing, made Jy2 deploy, and then countered with 4 rhinos and 40 marines midfield and outflanked his last couple squads via scout. His army is build on resilient ObSec and shooty, but vulnerable, talons. Going 2nd accentuated the vulnerability of the talons to the night scythes and ongoing reserves in H&A doesn't help mitigate risk as much because jy2 can move his night scythes at acute angles to stay out of the assault cannons 60" threat range (cutting ~50% of the talons firepower) and then retaliate by zooming in 36" and using his Tesla. If the talons try to play the same game, the Necrons come out ahead as the fixed arc of the sky hammers means they will likely be unable to mass both weapons on the same target except those deepest in marine territory.

Going after the bargelord is a decent chess move, but a bad strategic maneuver.

locarno24 wrote:

 jy2 wrote:
And his Spamtalons formation is really damn good. I've been thinking about running the Tyrannic War Vet formation myself.

Actually considering it as an army. It's one of the only formations I know of which is '1+' rather than a fixed number, and it's a nice and flexible primary detachment; sternguard-equivalent veterans, land raiders, and the wonderful aerial superiority stormtalon gunships.

Plus it feels kind of appropriate as a follow-on/counterpart to a tryanid army.

If I were to run the Tyrannic War Vet formation, I was thinking more along the lines of running it with a centurionstar.

But now that you mentioned it, 6 stormtalons backed by 3 flyrants does sound kind of nasty. Of course I wouldn't be able to pick up any actual Maelstrom objective-objectives, but the sheer hilarity of running all those flyers would be a sight to behold indeed.....assuming the opponent doesn't throw up.

 Goldphish wrote:

 Zande4 wrote:


Snippy? No. Downright bitter for no reason? Yes. Some of the most out of the blue aggressive posting I've ever seen on Dakka.

I think it might have been the fact that necrons for a long time now have been a brain dead army. Anyone could take a wraith wing/flyer spam and win tournaments with it. It required no real thought process, just push things forward and out shoot everyone while grabbing obj late game. Wargear was op and everything was far too cheap. Getting necron players to try something new that might require some thought will probably take a little while. Kidding of course competitive play will focus on wraiths again and av13 with whatever new unit happens to be good.

Honestly, I don't know what that is at the moment (competitive Necrons, that is), but I promise I will give the readers a better picture after a few weeks of playtesting.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Good report as always. Thanks for sharing.
Will you field Necrons in your next GT?

It's a definite possibility....if I can finish my army in time. That is the main strike against bringing the Newcrons to my next GT. I really don't have enough time to make any major changes to my current army.

I will put up a poll later this week.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Wow, spam-x really played a poor game. Classic example of the list only gettign you so far. Yesterday I looked at lists and thought he had it clinched if he plays to the mission and doesn't get baited, then I realized he would probably over commit his firepower at wraiths or the CCB and give up FB and his edge over your NS. I wasn't wrong

Good game, don't get to frustrated, the old everliving was effectively the same with one exception. That being in the old book an entire army could only kill him once and any left over firepower was wasted and he STILL got to get up. Now, gone are the frustrating days where timing prevents an entire gunline from continuing to pump rounds into him until hes dead. It honestly makes much more sense now. The thing that kills him the most however is the loss of MSS, now any old MC can run up and bitch slap his chariot

I think you will come around to see the decurion eventually. None of the compulsory choices are really a tax. Everything in the reclamation legion are things you would want in a TAC list anyway. Spamming things however is much harder, but variety only makes a list more adaptable on the fly.

BTW the fluff bunny in me vomited when you said Necronids, I am pretty sure if you field that army your copy of exterminatus will explode

To be fair, he is still green with his army. I expect him to improve the more he plays, but he isn't the type who gets an army right away. Usually, he learns by making mistakes.

I'm not really frustrated. I'm just scrambling because I don't really have a lot of time left if I want to bring the new Necrons to my next GT, the LVO. Unlike my other tournaments, I really want to try to win at the LVO. Between now and the LVO, I really don't have a whole lot of time to playtest the new codex. I need to figure out what is probably the best list I can bring right now and start building/painting for it.

I may even end up bringing the Oldcrons for their "2nd Last Hurrah".

There are tournaments to bring fluffy or themed lists and then there are the tournaments that I really want to try to win. The LVO is probably one of the most competitive tournaments currently as it will have a whole bunch of the best players in the US, from the West to the Midwest and to the East Coast. I have no compunction about bringing the strongest, most fluff-killing type of list that I can think of for this tournament.

Deshkar wrote:
Having some of the same issues figuring optimal necron lists aside from some variant of wraith spam tbh. still need more play testing. Sure, the necrons are alot more durable but am not liking that they have some issues with air, ndk/wk and Imperial Knights.

Yeah, I think it is easy to build a fun but strong Necron list. However, building a top-tier balanced Necron list is another matter entirely. Even pure wraithspam might not be good enough, due to its unbalanced nature. It is definitely a challenge.

 Victory wrote:
This needs to be shouted wide, loud, and clear. If this really is the case, then we need to nip the assumed alternative in the bud.

EDIT: On second though, I'm not sure if it really is all that clear. Isn't Zarathusa (sp?) said to be represented by wielding an Edge of Eternity with Thermasite? In addition, "a" and "an" sound more like designators than restrictions, which are usually more explicit.

Boy we're more convoluted than Congress.

We ought to have a FAQ thread to gather our thoughts. This release has holes all over the place large and small.

Agreed....on the designator part. It isn't clear at all.

"...can purchase an Artefact...." is not a restriction. It is a permission.

"...can purchase 1 Artefact...." is a restriction.

Bah, whatever, I won't be getting both the Thermasite and the Edge of Eternity in the future. BTW, for this battle, I never used the Edge of Eternity's special rule at all. I completely forgot about it. Lol.

PanzerLeader wrote:
Well played, jy2. I think there were a couple of big mistakes made by the SM player though.

1) Outflanking the tactical squads. Tacticals achieve meaningful battlefield effects when they can mass fires on a target. With scout, he could have very easily positioned himself center of the board to control objectives and bring the ridiculous amounts of bolter fire to bear against the right target at the right time. He compounded this mistake by bringing the tacticals in dispersed, allowing them to be picked off.

2) starting all the talons on the board. Given your good AA with night scythes, he would have been better off putting 2-3 of the talons into outflank reserves. It would give him the chance to pop up behind your scythes or control your positioning by hugging the short board edge. Instead, he flew upfield and gave you the drop in the dogfight.

1) Personally, I thought he played that well. I myself would have considered a Reserve-denial strategy with the Marines, especially considering that this was Hammer & Anvil and so he could cover a lot of ground by outflanking. His marines aren't very killy. IMO it's better to delay them from coming in in order to win the objective game in the end.

2) Unless the opponent is going 1st with a very good alpha-strike army, you should almost always deploy your flyers on the table. After all, this was Hammer-&-Anvil and he had a lot of space in the back to put his flyers to avoid the shorter-ranged alpha-strike armies. What he should have instead was to fly his flyers off the table at the top of Turn 2.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Good stuff with the new Dex J

Thanks!

DarthDiggler wrote:
I think it was ok to start the Talons on the board because he was going first. He took his shot at the Bargelord on the top of 1 and Jim could not effectively respond on the bottom of 1. On the top of two is when he could have flown off into ongoing reserve with the talons and then come back to shoot at the Nightscythes on the top of 3. I suspect since he was very close at killing the bargelord on turn 1, he couldn't resist going after him again on turn 2.

Agreed. That would be the correct way to play it.

DJ3 wrote:
Yikes; is your opponent new to the Stormtalon spam? As soon as I saw that deployment I thought he was in an amazing position having first turn:

Deployment: Deploy first, watch your deployment with no downside, Infiltrate the Talons once he sees the lone Bargelord
His Turn 1: Take the shot at the Turn 1 victory by throwing everything at the Bargelord
Your Turn 1: No risk whatsoever to his army against the lone Bargelord
His Turn 2: Fly all of the Stormtalons off the board
Your Turn 2: Night Scythes arrive
His Turn 3: Beta-strike the Night Scythes from Ongoing Reserve

Instead, he kept ALL of those Stormtalons on the board to take what had become entirely meaningless shots at the Bargelord on Turn 2, costing him the easy opportunity to kill the Night Scythes and guaranteeing he wouldn't be able to engage them until Turn 4 at the earliest (due to the positioning allowing you to get behind them). Seems like a pretty enormous misplay given that there was virtually zero upside in taking out the Bargelord on Turn 2.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Without MSS and the new RP they are incredibly vulnerable to assault actually. Just pick the barge and bust off the 3 HP's and they have no way to save the damage. From shooting you can make 1 very tank like still.

CCB vulnerability to assault is completely unchanged since 7th released; as soon as Chariots became a "locked in combat" fight like Walkers, and thus allowed a Consolidate, nobody with any sense was ever allowing a CCB a chance at an RP following a successful assault kill. Even with a rather poor Consolidate roll, it was never particularly hard to block off that large of a model.

Basically, they're directly more survivable against incoming shooting however it is also, somewhat paradoxically, easier for an opponent to kill them when they really want to--as the ability to permanently destroy them is now actually in the opponent's hands, as opposed to waiting for a coin-flip at the end of each phase.

Sorry jy2, but in my opinion, that's absolutely a positive change for the game as a whole. Necron players get more survivable models across the board, and opponents get the ability to actually focus-fire down important units when they deem it necessary (which was already an option for everything except Ever-living models anyway). Nothing was more frustrating than "I really need to kill this Bargelord, but there's literally zero way for me to assure that happens, so let's hope for the best on that coinflip." That's not a positive game mechanic in any way.

This is a Codex that had literally one vehicle in all prior editions, and then somehow became a vehicle spam army. At the time, everyone was mad about losing the ability to run massed infantry hordes as an actual, relevant option. The new RP is an enormous step back in that direction. Not to say hordes of infantry are ever going to be a viable competitive option, but they're at least not the enormous detriment they were in the prior book.

Yes he is (new to stormtalons).

As for your opinion with the direction of the new Necrons, I absolutely agree. The new codex wasn't designed to be a powerhouse like the old one. That's why certain competitive players like me and Justin Cook (thanatos) are having trouble coming out with super-optimized competitive lists. But we are only a minority. I think the majority of the people will enjoy the new codex. I will enjoy it as well....after the LVO is done. But for now, it's stress time trying to find a Necron build that can compete with all the other top-tier army builds out there.

Punisher wrote:
How did your wraiths deepstrike? Didn't think beasts could do that.

Also didn't your opponent kill your barge lord netting him warlord as well?

As I mentioned earlier (and in my Post-Game Analysis), it was just a simple mistake due to not having enough time to read and digest the new codex.

Thanks for the correction regarding the bargelord. Fixed.

Not implying this, but taking the Old Cron book over the new one might diminish any win you'd get anyway. I mean fielding a book where tesla is flat out better and on fliers and barges that are 30 points lighter with characters that are better offensively in every imaginable way including MSS just seems off.

I think I'd switch to a different army first if the winning was my first goal personally but that's just me.

I am sure you can come up with a solid list though. you have most of the best models now already, it's just finding the right strategy and mix.

Hollismason wrote:
How did you feel about the new change to Reanimation Protocols, also could you remember what you actually had left on the board at the end of the game?

I think it benefits the regular infantry but hurts the characters that used to have Ever-living. Normal infantry has an extra save that they didn't used to have, especially if you are able to wipe out the unit. Characters are slightly more resilient due to the extra save, but I think that is nothing compared to them being able to get back up at the end of a phase. That mechanic was so much more powerful.

Also, I don't like the change because it just feels too much like FNP. After 2-3 editions of the old We'll Be Back, the new RP just doesn't feel very Necron-like, at least not to me.

The only thing I lost in the game was my Warlord, the C'tan, 1 wraith and 3 tomb blades. I did have 1 night scythe in Ongoing Reserves, but if I weren't so far ahead in the Maelstrom (or if my opponent had kill 2 units for his Maelstrom objectives), then I wouldn't have flown it off the table.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
It was Jim's first game with the new codex... Let's not try to crucify him. I know I have made a tonne of mistakes when first playing new lists. The Libby having access to Divination lore offset the deep striking Wraiths.

We can learn a lot from this report and besides Jim's reports always being very entertaining that's one of the main reasons I always read them.

@ jy2

I'm really hoping you won't go the route of spamming initially with the new codex. This list of yours featured lots of different units and was a great tutorial for me. I think if you can resist the urge to spam it could open new doors for you. That said I see no reason not to run two to three units of Canoptek Wraiths they are even better now. Obviously the Tomb Blades are really good too now and have the speed.

Thanks for the report. : )

You're welcome.

If I were to play competitively, there is a good chance that I will do some spamming. Though other than the wraiths, I don't find the new codex to be too spammable, at least not like previously.

But other than that, I think I will have a lot of fun with the new codex trying different things. But that won't be until after the LVO. Right now, my focus will be on coming up with and building a list for the LVO and unfortunately, I won't have a whole lot of time for experimentation.