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Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
I had another game last night where I learnt a lot. The main takeaways for me were:

1) We can bring a decent amount of anti-tank if we want.
2) Doomsday Arks are very good all round units.
3) In 8th edition things die fast.

My list:

Orikan
Anrakyr

20 Warriors
10 Gauss Immortals
10 Tesla Immortals

3x Heavy Deatroyers

T Stalker w/ HGCs
DDA
DDA
Anni Barge
Anni Barge


Orks:

Gazgul

2x 30 Boys

2x Battlewagons, each containing 10x Flash Gitz and 10x Lootas.

Shock Attack chap.


The Orks went first and those Battlewagons were ridiculous. They move 12" and the units inside count as stationary for shooting!! I lost 1 Anni barge, the Stalker and a whole unit of 10 Gauss Immortals before my first turn! We all agreed the Necrons were going to lose...

However, in the Necrons 1st turn the DDAs, HDs, Anni Barge and Anrakyrs Tacyon Arrow vaporized one Wagon and reduced the other to 3 wounds! The Tesla Immortals with MWBD slaughtered many an Ork, rendering one of the 30 man mobs ineffective.

The Ork shooting was much less effective from then on, killing the other Anni barge and knocking over a handful of warriors and Immortals a turn. As the remnants of their force got into close range the DDAs really shone. They switched from anti-tank to anti-infantry, moving 12" and using their flayers and low power cannon to hose the Orks.

I'm really liking the DDAs now. Heavy Destroyers do more damage to tanks (this is slighlty offset by the range and durability of the DDA), but taking the Arks mean that the huge amount of points we have to spend on anti-armor are not wasted when faced with hordes.

Thanks for the report, really interesting, perhaps easier-to-kill Anni barges means the DDAs are left alone a turn or two longer, to do their work undisturbed

Why do we put Zahndrekh in a Ghost Ark for the Deceiver Bomb anyway?

If we hope for the re-roll for the deceiver to port at least 2 units we could port Zahndrekh and some Warriors or Immortals. He can then buff those infantry with MWBD and Transient Madness. The infantry can definitely get into rapid fire range. Zahndrekh will be, let's round up, 13" away. Even if he doesn't advance and shoots his staff without penalty he will end up 8" away from the enemy. Enough so that Oberyn and his Lychguards can ghostwalk to within 2" of the enemy, making that charge a sure thing.

We lose: The Ghost Ark's fire power. Zahndrekh in melee. We gain: Buffed up infantry.
It's a lot cheaper, too.

I am a bit afraid of my main enemy who will play Astra Militarum. We will start with pretty low point games but I know he already has a Manticore, a Basilisk and a Wyvern ready. How can we best deal with hidden vehicles like that? A deceiver bomb is a bit to expensive for low point games and I don't really see anything that can quickly deal with those. Some regular, not bomb, Deceiver shenanigans might help and a squad of 10 flayed ones can put a surprising amount of wounds on a 7T vehicle, but relying on a 9 for your charge roll seems a tad risky. Any ideas?

Edit:

torblind wrote:
Thanks for the report, really interesting, perhaps easier-to-kill Anni barges means the DDAs are left alone a turn or two longer, to do their work undisturbed

Just about any battle report I've seen them in those Annihilation Barges ended up being the first thing to go. I guess you could take them as distraction barges? They aren't that expensive.

Malygon wrote:
Why do we put Zahndrekh in a Ghost Ark for the Deceiver Bomb anyway?

If we hope for the re-roll for the deceiver to port at least 2 units we could port Zahndrekh and some Warriors or Immortals. He can then buff those infantry with MWBD and Transient Madness. The infantry can definitely get into rapid fire range. Zahndrekh will be, let's round up, 13" away. Even if he doesn't advance and shoots his staff without penalty he will end up 8" away from the enemy. Enough so that Oberyn and his Lychguards can ghostwalk to within 2" of the enemy, making that charge a sure thing.

We lose: The Ghost Ark's fire power. Zahndrekh in melee. We gain: Buffed up infantry.
It's a lot cheaper, too.

I am a bit afraid of my main enemy who will play Astra Militarum. We will start with pretty low point games but I know he already has a Manticore, a Basilisk and a Wyvern ready. How can we best deal with hidden vehicles like that? A deceiver bomb is a bit to expensive for low point games and I don't really see anything that can quickly deal with those. Some regular, not bomb, Deceiver shenanigans might help and a squad of 10 flayed ones can put a surprising amount of wounds on a 7T vehicle, but relying on a 9 for your charge roll seems a tad risky. Any ideas?

You do it for the extra range, protection (harder to kill the Ghost Ark than Warriors, generally), and the fact that it still works even if you roll a 1 for Deceiver. It also allows you to cover a larger area - if you go second and the opponent spreads out, being able to disembark 3" away from any point on the Ghost Ark plus move means your Lychguard have a massive section of the board that they're nearly guaranteed to charge into.

Though I'm not sure about the whole thing anymore. Is it amusing? Totally, a T1 charge with Warscythes is awesome. But... they still suffer after that. If they get tarpitted (hello Conscripts, Boyz, Termagants, Brimstones, Cultists, Scarabs, etc), that's a lot of points that you're out for a few turns. Screening units are going to be a big thing in most lists for this exact reason - lots of armies now can just blast out T1 Alpha Strikes or insanely quick (T2 with little issue) melee pushes. While we won't have a terrible time clearing out those types of units with Tesla and massed Flayers, it's still going to be quite common to just put a stopper on that sort of thing.

Not to mention once you kill that first unit, everything else is going to be spreading out, and Lychguard aren't known for their ability to keep up with the flow of battle that easily. Especially if, say, the unit you charge either dies or Falls Back and then they light up the Lychguard with very little problem. T5 W2 3+ is tough against small arms fire, but Plasma and Autocannons and things of that nature will cut them down without a whole lot of problem.

I dunno. I'm just seeing a lot of the same weaknesses as before. I need to play a game or three with them to get a feel for the state of the game. If this was 7th and we suddenly had a way to nearly guarantee a T1 charge with the Lychguard, I'd say it wasn't that great given the prevalence of BatCo, Scatbikes, and Deathstars. Nowadays, maybe it's not as big of a deal given those are dead, and they can actually fulfill their job. Depends a lot on what other armies bring, honestly.

 Desubot wrote:
Welp made a dumb list for 1k points

Overlord with void blade (i think i can take it maybe)
Night bringer
Necron warriors 10
Immortals Gauss 5
Wraiths 3
Monolith

its probably not a good list. (but its what i have and what i want for a soul storm list) i cant fit the Staff of light or the war scythe which bums me out.

Hmm night bringer might be a bit heavy for that points level. It might be doable, but you're putting a lot of points into two big units and not a lot of bodies.
With the new RP system having ablative wounds is a good thing.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Welp made a dumb list for 1k points

Overlord with void blade (i think i can take it maybe)
Night bringer
Necron warriors 10
Immortals Gauss 5
Wraiths 3
Monolith

its probably not a good list. (but its what i have and what i want for a soul storm list) i cant fit the Staff of light or the war scythe which bums me out.

Hmm night bringer might be a bit heavy for that points level. It might be doable, but you're putting a lot of points into two big units and not a lot of bodies.
With the new RP system having ablative wounds is a good thing.

Thats kinda what i was thinking.

im kinda depending on deep striking that monolith and ass blasting the crap out of whatever tanks/high T things they might have then possibly come out with the immortals to sweep up. walking the warriors up with the night brining and lord. i could probably use the wraiths to go objective grab. but i dont know what to really expect at 1k.

i could drop the wraiths for a big blob of scarabs.
HMM my points look off i needa redoo it

You never want to charge with JUST Lychguard. Always gotta support them. Ghost Ark is a bit more fire to add to Zahndrekh and the C'tan, but you should go with as much as you can.
If you bring 20 Warriors instead of Lychguard you'll be able to put out a punishing number of shots right in rapidfire range. When you get return fired upon, you'll have a Ghost Ark (and maybe a Cryptek who was embarked) to help keep your blob alive.

I feel the deceiver/monolith trickery should be reserved for getting big blobs of warriors into rapid fire range ASAP. A deceiver/monolith combo will transport 2x 20 man blobs into rapid fire range reliably, and on a 3 it gets a GA with a cryptek in it to start protecting them quicker. I'm trying this out on Sunday, will let you guys know how it goes.

That's a hell of a lot of gauss T1 in their face

Yeah I think the Deceiver is better with lots of Infantry. The Deathstar is great but a bit all in, plopping big Warrior units or even in-cover Immortal units down much further up the table than normal is probably better.

Also it should work wonders for board control, 2-3 small units of scarabs, blades or even wraiths could buzz around grabbing objectives while everliving warriors are in his face

 Klowny wrote:
A deceiver/monolith combo will transport 2x 20 man blobs into rapid fire range reliably, and on a 3 it gets a GA with a cryptek in it to start protecting them quicker.

Are you getting two 20 man units in via two Monoliths brought up the Grand Illusion?
Because, yeah, that's going to be a hell of a lot of firepower, but it's also going to cost 846 points for just the Deceiver, 20 Warriors and a single Monolith. Double the Monoliths and Warriors and you're already at 1467 (and that's without including a Cryptek in a Ghost Ark).
Perhaps a couple Night Scythes might be better. Both accomplish the same job, only with less quality AP-2 shooting, but also significantly cheaper.

Just one monolith, gate one blob in with that, on a 2 the second blob comes and on a 3 the GA with cryptek is all ported in by the deciever, otherwise it rushes up the board. The monolith will soak alot of damage from the other side, leaving the warriors relatively safe in comparison to a night scythe imo

Not sure how I'd feel about leaving a single Warrior blob on the other side of the table if you roll a 1. At least with them coming in via Night Scythe you'd be able to get them up there quickly if the Grand Illusion roll fails.

Hmm, two Night Scythes are only like 30 points cheaper than one Monolith.
What option has better damage output vs survivability?

At bare minimum you might be able to take some Flayed Ones or Deathmarks to deepstrike in the same turn to help screen for the Warriors + Monolith to keep them from being charged.

I do wonder how the new tomb board will play when forgeworld launches their book. Will it keep all of the prior shenanigans for weapon mount for pylon /mono, teleport hub (to give us an unbrakable gateway), board wide ++, couple hard buildings,

Could it gain anything new or different?

Night Scythes can deploy Destroyers.

I don't know what to do with this information, I only know that I have it.

Also a Destroyer Lord can fit in a Ghost Ark, giving him 13" move when he Disembarks.

Again, probably not useful, but noteworthy.

Trying to get my arms around deceiver bombs with monoliths, I get the general idea, deceiver redeploys the monolith before turn 1, and on turn 1 the monolith portals in a unit. However I'm having a hard time figuring out a comp that can use that trick effectively. placing a monolith outside of 12" and then a 3" "Disembark" still means a 9" charge. That leaves the obvious choice (scythe guard) in a bad place. So it has to be rod wielding praetorians, because they can at least do something useful even if they don't make the charge.

It also seems less than ideal to use a monolith, because it will probably be your only portal, and since it's in the enemy's face it could get wasted before it gets a chance to portal in your reserves.

A possible refinement I'm kicking around is taking two night scythes instead of a single monolith, it's actually cheaper, gets you more throughput, and with a command point there is only a 1 in 9 chance the deceiver will fail to put them both on top of your enemy.

 Grimgold wrote:
Trying to get my arms around deceiver bombs with monoliths, I get the general idea, deceiver redeploys the monolith before turn 1, and on turn 1 the monolith portals in a unit. However I'm having a hard time figuring out a comp that can use that trick effectively. placing a monolith outside of 12" and then a 3" "Disembark" still means a 9" charge. That leaves the obvious choice (scythe guard) in a bad place. So it has to be rod wielding praetorians, because they can at least do something useful even if they don't make the charge.

It also seems less than ideal to use a monolith, because it will probably be your only portal, and since it's in the enemy's face it could get wasted before it gets a chance to portal in your reserves.

A possible refinement I'm kicking around is taking two night scythes instead of a single monolith, it's actually cheaper, gets you more throughput, and with a command point there is only a 1 in 9 chance the deceiver will fail to put them both on top of your enemy.

Praetorians can't use the Monolith's Eternity Gate since they don't have a dynasty.

My current idea for the Deceiver that I'm kicking around involves:

- Deceiver - 225
- Night Scythe - 174
- Night Scythe - 174
- Night Scythe - 174
- 10 Immortals (Gauss) - 170
- 10 Immortals (Gauss) - 170
- 10 Immortals (Gauss) - 170
- 10 Deathmarks - 200

That comes to 1457.
It brings a lot of diverse shooting that SHOULD be good to decimate most things they encounter.
Tons of redundancy. Whatever doesn't get brought up by Grand Illusion gets dropped off the next turn to help mop up.
I'm thinking about throwing in some Flayed Ones to act as a screen for the shooters, as they don't need help to appear where needed.
Could probably fill out the rest of the army with Tomb Blades and Heavy Destroyers to make a decent Speed Cron list.

The goal of the below list is to short range firefight alpha strike.

20 man blob and immortals deploy into tomb world with the cryptek, 10 man warrior squad in the ghost ark. First turn everything but the wraiths and the ten man warrior squad open up, Second turn everything is on them, and hopefully I've carved a big enough chunk out of them that I can turn and deal with the rest of their army.

+++ Necron trial ([Alpha] Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition) [104 PL, 1984pts] +++

++ Battalion Detachment (Necrons) ++

+ HQ +
Catacomb Command Barge: Gauss Cannon, Staff of Light
Cryptek: Staff of Light

+ Troops +
Immortals: Gauss Blaster, 10x Immortal
Necron Warriors: 10x Necron Warrior
Necron Warriors: 20x Necron Warrior

+ Elites +
C'Tan Shard of the Deceiver: Power of the C'tan: Antimatter Meteor

+ Fast Attack +
Canoptek Wraiths: Canoptek Wraith, Canoptek Wraith, Canoptek Wraith, Canoptek Wraith, Canoptek Wraith, Canoptek Wraith

+ Heavy Support +
Doomsday Ark

+ Flyer +
Night Scythe
Night Scythe

+ Dedicated Transport +
Ghost Ark

Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

7 Wraiths? Is that a group of 3 plus a group of 4?

 skoffs wrote:
My current idea for the Deceiver that I'm kicking around involves:

- Deceiver - 225
- Night Scythe - 174
- Night Scythe - 174
- Night Scythe - 174
- 10 Immortals (Gauss) - 170
- 10 Immortals (Gauss) - 170
- 10 Immortals (Gauss) - 170
- 10 Deathmarks - 200

That comes to 1457.
It brings a lot of diverse shooting that SHOULD be good to decimate most things they encounter.
Tons of redundancy. Whatever doesn't get brought up by Grand Illusion gets dropped off the next turn to help mop up.
I'm thinking about throwing in some Flayed Ones to act as a screen for the shooters, as they don't need help to appear where needed.
Could probably fill out the rest of the army with Tomb Blades and Heavy Destroyers to make a decent Speed Cron list.

The idea is then to re-roll to get as many night scythes in as possible? Can the list stand on its own even if Deceiver gets only one unit up?

 skoffs wrote:
My current idea for the Deceiver that I'm kicking around involves:

- Deceiver - 225
- Night Scythe - 174
- Night Scythe - 174
- Night Scythe - 174
- 10 Immortals (Gauss) - 170
- 10 Immortals (Gauss) - 170
- 10 Immortals (Gauss) - 170
- 10 Deathmarks - 200

That comes to 1457.
It brings a lot of diverse shooting that SHOULD be good to decimate most things they encounter.
Tons of redundancy. Whatever doesn't get brought up by Grand Illusion gets dropped off the next turn to help mop up.
I'm thinking about throwing in some Flayed Ones to act as a screen for the shooters, as they don't need help to appear where needed.
Could probably fill out the rest of the army with Tomb Blades and Heavy Destroyers to make a decent Speed Cron list.

I'm not sure 20 Immortals, 10 Deathmarks and 3 NSs will do enough damage to some armies to be able to survive the retaliation. In every game I have played I have imagined how a D-bomb alpha strike would have done against the armies I have faced. 2 of the four armies I faced only had 5-6 drops so would have gone first against most D-bombs (depending who makes the first drop). That's very bad. The Tyranid army I faced would probably have appreciated free delivery on it's food order. 60 gaunts and 20 stealers would be hard to chew through, nevermind the pair of Hive Tyrants, 3 Fexes and assorted medium bugs. Quick maths tells me that 30 Immortals will just about kill 20 stealers. One unit of 30 gaunts could engage 3 units of 10 Necrons in combat. There was also a SoB MSU army with many Transports, you might drop one or two Imolators with that firepower.

Obviously you still have 500 pts to play with. 3 HDs and some Flayed ones will help somewhat.

Our characters are such great force multipliers that when you throw your infantry out without them they are really going out half cocked.

Again, just an idea I was kicking around.

Basically we have to figure out: do we want to hang back and wait to see how things might come to us, or try to cause damage as soon as possible.
I was leaning towards sooner.
With three Night Scythes I was hoping at least two would get up there. That's 40 S5 AP-2 and 16 (Tesla) S7 AP- shots. Not exactly devastating, but would certainly hurt.

If going with 2x 20 Warriors instead of Immortals would it work out better? The price would be dramatically increased, though. Probably wouldn't be able to bring else in support.
Is quantity over quality really the way we need to play now?

Warriors are good becasue at 20 wounds a unit they are probably more likely to get there reanimation rolls. not sure if they would do better than Immortals for the points though.

The problem I have always found, (in every edition) when trying to write Necron lists that teleport straight into rapids, is that we don't do enough damage. We pay for the durability of our units so the firepower per point is always lower than other armies. Glass cannon type units will always do better at alpha strikes because they can eliminate enemies so that there is no retaliation, or at least kill their own points cost so that it doesnt matter if they die. The maths shows that 510 pts of immortals only kill 240 pts of stealers. Necrons are designed to kill slowly and die slowly, not something that lends itself to alpha strikes.

In this edition in particular, the way reanimation works means that we don't want to be close enough to the enemy that they will be able to focus fire on one unit. Later in the game, when your opponent doesn't have the killing power to wipe whole units we can get closer.

That's fine though. Alpha strikes are more of an Eldar thing, and what self respecting Necron would want to be like an Eldar?

I think the best path for necrons is to capitalize on their strength - attrition. Stack as many ways of buffing RP as possible, to ensure that you win trades just by outlasting the enemy.
So I'm talking Spyders, crypteks, arks, orbs, blobs of warriors, etc.

In other words, build tank, not carry.

I've found that there is a tipping point in games now. When you get to the stage where your opponent can't kill more crons than you get back every turn, what might have been a narrow victory turns into a steamrolling.

Too true, that's why I'm not keen on these all in Alpha strike lists, they just don't seem to be set up to win against a decent opposing army that is aware of it.

In saying that I think you can build a really durable phalanx of guys with Necrons, but you do need some way to project force when needed. You want to take out critical stuff so it gets to the point where they can't stop your RP rolls from taking over the game. I think the Deciever is useful for that, Nightbringer is also good in a phalanx and great against monsters.

I really like the Tesla Immortals+ Overlord combo, I think that's a magic unit, not only does it do damage, but it moves fast at 6"+D6". That can keep pace with other fast units like the C'Tan, Triarch stalkers, etc.

So slow attrition is our thing, then.
Oh well, guess I can put all my Deathmarks, Wraiths, Preatorians, etc. (basically anything that's not a Warrior, Ghost Ark, or generic Royal Court member) back on the shelf.
...
God that's going to be depressingly boring to play.

Now to find the perfect balance of stuff on the board and things that buff them.

Attrition does not mean lack of mobility. Remember that necrons used to be able to teleport around the field, something that GW has apparently forgotten, and even in 3rd ed necrons had long ranged, mobile options.
Attrition just means the enemy dies faster than necrons do.

Can you look at my army list and give some advice?
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/728845.page#9431067

Generally i try create army without spend point on teleport and other tactical move. I try to max army power.

 skoffs wrote:
So slow attrition is our thing, then.
Oh well, guess I can put all my Deathmarks, Wraiths, Preatorians, etc. (basically anything that's not a Warrior, Ghost Ark, or generic Royal Court member) back on the shelf.
...
God that's going to be depressingly boring to play.

Now to find the perfect balance of stuff on the board and things that buff them.

I think we still need some of the fast units that are able to operate independently for objective taking. We can make a very solid phalanx but it is slow and has to stick together to stay in range of our 3" auras. Best case scenario is probably that your phalanx finishes the game in the middle of the board mostly intact. You could go super cheap and use 3 bases of Scarabs but I think Wraith or Pretorians will be needed for when they have to fight over the objective.

A standard rounded Necron list will probably have 3-4 units of Warriors/Immortals/Lychguard supported by 2-3 HQs. Then some long range fire support from DDAs or HDs and a couple of units of something like Wraith, Pretorians or scarabs to fight over the objectives on the flanks.

I'm sure there will be some successful builds that look nothing like that but that's a solid place to start.


EDIT: As far as the phalanx being boring I have to disagree. In my games that has been the most interesting element of the list due to the interactions between the HQs and various units. Zandrek and Oberyn VS assault armies is a lot of fun, dishing out buffs and having units teleport short distances going in and out of combat.