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Ok, so my thinking here is that the go-to logic for the canoptek harvest is actually not the best. The units in it aren't awesome at killing, they're awesome at living and being annoying, so rather than making those units bigger, I'd rather have more. This flies in the face of conventional 40k wisdom where if you pay a set price for a buff (ie the spyder,) you want to maximize how many guys get hit by that one buff. But harvest spyders seem so incredibly undercosted that I think just having the extra units is more helpful. With that in mind, I also didn't bother upgrading them. The wraiths still hit like assault cannons at i2, and it's not like they tend to die before striking or anything...

Decurion

Rec legion
Overlord with staff of light and veil of darkness
2 10 man warrior squads
1 5 man immortal squad
1 3 man tomb blade squad with n scopes
10 lychguard w/ warscythes

Canoptek harvest x 3
Spyder, 3 wraiths, and 3 scarabs each

Destroyer cult
Destroyer lord with solar staff, res orb, phylactery, and phase shifter as warlord
3 units of 3 destroyers

Tactics: the d lord and lord deploy with the lychguard, and d lord rolls on strategic with reroll, hoping for infiltrate for a quick start to some shooting. He veils the guard and "reroll 1's RP lord" over to the enemy turn 1 and breaks the staff open. The canopteks line up in front of the destroyers and ground troops, and everyone gets into firing range. Each spyder makes a scarab. Tombblades either zip over to kill a cover-abusing target or stay in reserve for late game objective snags.
Turn 2: lychguard wreck something threatening. If left out in the open after this turn, The Lord can break his res orb to make the unit stay super-durable. Also make sure to put The Lord out front for invuln save if it's an issue. Canopteks move up and start finding things to intercept before they mess with the destroyers or troops. Each spyder makes a scarab again.
Turn 3: lychguard are out of immunity items, but there shouldn't be much able to shoot. They go find another thing to wreck. Spyders can join their canoptek buddies in ongoing combats and help them out, or just stay near and watch as they tarpit. Ground troops get themselves situated on objectives. As enemies free themselves from wraith/scarab combats, the rest of the army just shoots at them while the lychguard unit goes around making sure things die.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ran a couple games with this now.

Because of a lengthy discussion I had with a guy on dakka about green tide formation, I got a guy to run it against this list, backed up by mostly lootaz and tank bustas, and the other was the guy who owned the necron models borrowing my BA and running a BSF with 4 medium size DC, Astorath squad-hopping, a line of rhinos with 5 man melta asm, 2 razorbacks with heavy flamer tacticals, a stormraven and 2 vindicators.

Both games were eternal war with objectives, and they were both heavy necron victories.

The green tide was easily held at bay exactly how I predicted by tarpitting with the tiny wraith squads. The rest of the army split to the sides to go wreck all his support guys in the back, with the lychguard taking on the few counter assault units in the back first thanks to an early veil. At the end of the game, the tide was still very healthy and STILL stuck in combat on the third set of wraiths with two more spyders and a massive scarab squad prepared to jump in and help tarpit if the game had gone on. They were covering one objective with their massive blob unit which was contested by the tarpit units, and I had all the others. Everything but the tide was dead and all my other units were sitting around munching popcorn watching half a green tide do nothing as they couldn't get close enough to swing against 3 wraiths. A choke point of terrain helped a lot in that regard so his pile ins were severely hampered.

Vs BA game, I hung back and shot, waiting for him. When DC got close, the canopteks jumped out to spoil their charges. The lychguard waited til turn 2 to veil near the vindis, stretched out and multiassaulted them even though they were a good foot apart. Scarabs were hiding until the vindis died, then they got brave and charged as well. Once a lot of BA were stuck in combats, the destroyers and foot troops focus fired the storm raven out of the sky.

Ended up killing everything but a couple DC squads who were still trying to get out of combat with wraiths, but were whittled down to a mere couple guys each. ( +asty)

List works great so far. Important thing to remember is that the wraiths aren't there to be offense, they're there for melee defense for all the shooty troops and destroyers.

Two more games. The Necron player using my list.

First one was against the dreaded wave serpent spam. Everything in the cron army getting a 4+ ward save just made them too durable. Instead of holding back, the wraiths and scarabs charged as fast as the spyder would let them, and most serpents got caught by something on t3. The lyches went after a shooty WK early, and knocked it out of the game after a few rounds. Preferred enemy on those war scythes from d lord pushed the rolls over the top. Pretty decisive necron victory.

Game 2 was a farsight bomb with 3 riptides, some marker drone units, and some kroot for late game objectives via outflank.
Even with s8 ap2 plates, the tides just couldn't do enough damage to make a good hole for farsight. Just too many msu melee around. Tau guy needed farsight to NOT come in turn 2 so he could have more time to clear a flank of wraiths and scarabs after dropping a spyder, but farsight was impatient. They did shockingly little damage when they came in, mostly just wounding a spyder, and almost-killing a destroyer unit and warrior unit with split fire. They also tried to kill nearby wraiths, but they weren't having any of that. That whole flank closed its jaws on the farsight bomb and neutered it, also locking it in melee. (The hit and run suit died in melee.) the lyches popped over to the middle of the tau side and just ran after the riptide who rolled the lowest jet pack move. Made a good 8" charge and that was that. Game ended with about half the cron army alive surrounding a riptide and some marker drones in a corner, ready to take them out next turn.

That lych squad is brutal. On the turn they veil, you just gotta high tail it away from them. And as I figured, the wraiths just do such a good job of enemy disruption while the destroyers and foot units get where they want. The scarabs even pull their weight, and the spyders soak up unbelievable firepower for a mere 50 points. Armies that rely on ridiculous offense alpha/beta strikes seem to crash like a wave against the rocks on this army.

Grats dude, nice to get a good list working well. Do you have any issues with the lychguard not being effective after they veil and kill whatever it is they are going after?

Not really. They tend to go after valuable things near the middle/ middle rear/ near important objectives on turn 2, so the world is their oyster after that. They've been especially potent in relic and emperor's will eternal war missions.

I thought you could only have 1 arrtefact per army. Maybe I was reading that wrong as I'm at work and not looking at the book, so please enlighten me as to how you take more than one if I am wrong.

From 'Artefacts of the Aeons' in Codex Necrons:

Artefacts of the Aeons are items of terrifying power, and each is older than many of the lesser races themselves. Only one of each of the following relics may be chosen per army.

'One of each' artefact, not just one.

Page 65 on the points list for the Artifacts says "A model may take one of the following" I read that as one artifact per model that can take one.

When you get infiltrate, what do you infiltrate?

The on-foot warriors and immortals. Not really close, just close enough to walk to shooting range on t1 or get in good objective holding positions for maelstrom etc. bonus points if they're going to be somewhat close to the lychguard unit for the reroll 1's ability from that overlord.

It's actually pretty important that you don't over reach with the non-melee crons and accidentally get assaulted before one of the many many intercept units (read: anything from one of the harvests) can hold them back. Just a few wounds in combat might see a whole unit of crons swept.

I've only rolled the trait a couple times so far, but once saw me just infiltrate 2" or so outside my deployment zone against a guy using my jump pack BA.

You could replace one of your canoptek formations with 15 flayed ones and have points left over to beef up your tomb blades to a unit of 5. Then your fast moving objective grabbers are a little tougher and you still have an excellent 3rd tar pitting unit that has the option to infiltrate or deep strike.

Reasonable suggestion. Although each harvest is actually 3 good tough disruption units, so I feel like replacing 3 with one is something of a step down. I was considering flayed ones for the deathstar unit instead of lyches originally.

Another issue is that my cron buddy that leaves his models at my place doesn't have flayed ones, and I like running wysiwyg. I'll try it out though.

I've been playing almost the exact same list; only difference is I run 8 lychguard and 5 tomb blades with beamers and scopes.

I've found 8 guard to be more than enough for a unit, while the extra bodies help keep the tomb blades alive. Plus, I'm just a real fan of the ignores cover blast templates on those bikes; allows them to pull triple duty as objective grabbers, special unit assassins for units like snipers or marker light squads, and anti horde duty.

Yeah, I feel like the concept is strong, and all that's left is some minor optimizations like that. I also thought about dropping the lychguard bomb and wargear to grab night scythes for the legion.

Alas, our group has decided that decurions are just too much for pick up games, which is pretty much what we've been testing the past few weeks. It's probably for the best.

I think if you're trying to make Wraiths work competitively then this is the best way to run them these days. MSU CC spam backed up by a combat death star. I like it. As you said against the bomb list the Tau player was struggling to get his bomb somewhere where it wouldn't get multi charged by a bajillion units.

I would like to see more tomb blades and Warscythes on the Characters but there's no free points in the list. So unfortunately I can't see a way to improve the list. It looks good

The one suggesting I'd say is try the wraiths out with Transdimensional Beamers, the formation makes it so their Relentless, so you can actually seriously mess things up with them especially the whole 6s are instant death.

Play tested a few more time last night; this time, against other necrons.
The list did great against everyone else, but seems to really struggle against it's own kind.

Wraiths and scarabs just tied each other up all game lychguard bomb was overwhelmed by a flayed one bomb, and nightscythes had a field day.

Oh, and Destroyers are really bad at doing damage to other necrons lol

Looks like I'm going back to the drawing board

 FlingitNow wrote:
I think if you're trying to make Wraiths work competitively then this is the best way to run them these days. MSU CC spam backed up by a combat death star. I like it. As you said against the bomb list the Tau player was struggling to get his bomb somewhere where it wouldn't get multi charged by a bajillion units.

I would like to see more tomb blades and Warscythes on the Characters but there's no free points in the list. So unfortunately I can't see a way to improve the list. It looks good

Ten Lynchguard is a tough unit but I can't see its value as its too slow.
Even if it teleports it has to wait a round before it can charge.

What Necron army did you face and, was it a close fight?

Will try out your army this coming weekend :>

The Lychguard are a board control unit in this list. I think they can work well in a list with the amount board control as this. Throw it into the centre of the enemy army they can run into your Wraiths or try to fight it. Granted it's not doing any damage until turn 2 but the survivability of a Necron army means that is not the issue it can be for other armies.

I see what you mean.
Warscythes or swords and shields?

War scythes help against the stuff the Wraiths don't want to fight (like Knights). The unit is tough enough as is so the shields don't seem necessary.

So wait, you have 3 harvest Formations, 1 Destroyer formation plus the Decurion; totaling 5 detachments?

I thought most people were trying to stick to the 2 detachment limit set by the ITC. Comments?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hollismason wrote:
The one suggesting I'd say is try the wraiths out with Transdimensional Beamers, the formation makes it so their Relentless, so you can actually seriously mess things up with them especially the whole 6s are instant death.

The beamer is too expensive to trade the CC ability of the wraith for shooting prowess. I'm sorry but no way. If that 6 caused instant death, then i would say it was worth considering but essentially it is a rending roll on a single shot weapon when the wraiths already have rending and are 4 attacks on the charge.

So wait, you have 3 harvest Formations, 1 Destroyer formation plus the Decurion; totaling 5 detachments?

I thought most people were trying to stick to the 2 detachment limit set by the ITC. Comments?

On the second question perhaps those people should try playing 7th Ed, it's really great. Much more balanced and tactically rewarding than 6th (or indeed any edition I can remember).

On the first question this is 1 detachment, the Decurion. The Harvests, Reclaimation legion etc are just parts of the Decurion detachment.

As for trans dimensional beamers you aren't trading you get to shoot AND assault. They help make up for the woeful damage output of Wraiths but at too much of a cost for me. Wraiths aren't good at killing and it takes more than some S4 shots to change that.

But they are 10 points a pop for what should only be 1 turn of shooting. And I disagree that the wraiths' cc damage output is "woeful". 4 rending strength 6 attacks on the charge - how is that woeful on a 3+3++, T5 beast (12" move, Fleet, ignore terrain) chassis?

 Deuce11 wrote:
So wait, you have 3 harvest Formations, 1 Destroyer formation plus the Decurion; totaling 5 detachments?

I thought most people were trying to stick to the 2 detachment limit set by the ITC. Comments?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hollismason wrote:
The one suggesting I'd say is try the wraiths out with Transdimensional Beamers, the formation makes it so their Relentless, so you can actually seriously mess things up with them especially the whole 6s are instant death.

The beamer is too expensive to trade the CC ability of the wraith for shooting prowess. I'm sorry but no way. If that 6 caused instant death, then i would say it was worth considering but essentially it is a rending roll on a single shot weapon when the wraiths already have rending and are 4 attacks on the charge.

Negative. This list is only 1 detachment. A Decurion detachment includes 1 to 10 formation plus the Reclamation Legion and up to 1 Royal Court.

(edit: ninjad by fling)

oh and obviously I5 with wc


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Zimko wrote:

 Deuce11 wrote:
So wait, you have 3 harvest Formations, 1 Destroyer formation plus the Decurion; totaling 5 detachments?

I thought most people were trying to stick to the 2 detachment limit set by the ITC. Comments?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hollismason wrote:
The one suggesting I'd say is try the wraiths out with Transdimensional Beamers, the formation makes it so their Relentless, so you can actually seriously mess things up with them especially the whole 6s are instant death.

The beamer is too expensive to trade the CC ability of the wraith for shooting prowess. I'm sorry but no way. If that 6 caused instant death, then i would say it was worth considering but essentially it is a rending roll on a single shot weapon when the wraiths already have rending and are 4 attacks on the charge.

Negative. This list is only 1 detachment. A Decurion detachment includes 1 to 10 formation plus the Reclamation Legion and up to 1 Royal Court.

(edit: ninjad by fling)

oh i see. thanks for the clarification.

 Deuce11 wrote:
But they are 10 points a pop for what should only be 1 turn of shooting. And I disagree that the wraiths' cc damage output is "woeful". 4 rending strength 6 attacks on the charge - how is that woeful on a 3+3++, T5 beast (12" move, Fleet, ignore terrain) chassis?

Why only 1 turn of shooting? Every time you charge you should be shooting too, but I agree 10 points for a S4 shot is too much for my money, you need to fire them at marines 3 times to earn their point back which just doesn't seem likely or worth it. As for woeful damage output a unit of 5 for 215 points has 20 S6 rending attacks on the charge (sounds good so far). But that's only 10 hits, less than 2 rends and about 6 other wounds in total you kill on average 3.67 MEQs for a purely combat 215 points. Compare with 10 Orks boyz with a PK Nob for less than half that kill 4.67 MEQs on the charge and that is just a troop choice. Wraiths are as tough as they come but their damage output is very poor for their points cost it is why they always needed a Dlord with them when they were competitive in the last book.