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Just had my first competitve game leading up to the tournament, faced a triple dreadknight/stromraven GK list.

I got tabled end of turn 3....

Got the worst deployment map, the triangular hammer and anvil one, didn't get first turn, my pylon whiffed repeatedly, and I also made numerous tactical errors, primarily GI my TB and immortals when I should have used it to reposition my scarabs into a better position for my army.

Really good learning curve, I know better for next time. Going second really hurt, and the way I redeployed my tomb blades meant I left enough space for TWO dreadknights to DS behind them and wipe them T1. I feel really stupid now haha.

My pylon got a 1 for its first shot against the stormraven, so I CP rerolled it....... and got a 1, meaning it only did 7 wounds to the storm raven, as I got a 1 for the D3 wounds.

DDA whiffed first turn, Im dropping it now for a TA, as I realised you can give it its D3 from Toholk T1, before GI Toholk away if necessary, as they both happen at the start of the first battle round. Had I supported the immortals with Toholk I could have gotten more back from RP.

Grey Knights as a faction really hurt my list, I knew it was an uphill battle T1, D3 damage army wide is nasty.

Im now dropping the DDA for a TA, as the immobility was really painful, I never got to use the flayer array, and D3 shots just doesn't cut it. With good positioning the TA can be in solar fire range t1, which is 48 inches but with a 5++, QS, and D3 from living metal its a much tougher nut to crack, as it also is T7.

This thursdays theme is Lord of War but im having trouble picking a build that feels like its taking advantage of Gauss pylons abilities at only 1000 points (since I should put stuff with gauntum shielding nearby and stuff that doesn't usually get invul saves and can then maybe negate the bada boom of mortal wounds via Gauss pylons explosion. )

note - dont particularly like Obelisk or Tesseract Vault. Granted I could see them being useful maybe against the right compositions but I think Gauss pylon is the most versatile even if it is immobile.

Suggestions?

Think the Vault is...okay. That's about it though.

Obelisk's gimmick was better last edition and now it barely matters.

 Klowny wrote:
Flayed ones are a much, much better option. This is because they cant be shot off the board T1, as you hold them in DS reserve (if your going second) and you deepstrike them down at the end of the phase next to obryn, then GWM them up to zandrekh who you have Grand Illusioned up the board before the game started.

20 flayed ones will do considerably more damage to most targets than lychguard, as the considerable amount of attacks is delishious. If you somehow get anrakyr up the board too....

Mathematically FO's are notably worse against anything T4 4+ or better. T2/3 or 5/6+ FO's are better. Point for Point LG are vastly superior.

All of the below assume MWBD and an extra attack from Anrakyr. LG are better (and FAR more durable) against anything but a swarm army.

These all assume no invuln yes? lych's effectiveness drops off when you factor in invulnerable saves :(

Shouldn't a straight comparison not include the buffs from the HQ's? I realise lych are much more effective with it, but to get lych to work you are looking at anrakyr, a deciever, obryn and zandrekh to get charges off, otherwise your footslogging it, which means you will maybe get 1 turn of combat in end of game vs t1 of the FO?

They become alot closer when you do a full points comparison, there is no buffs and you factor in invuln saves.

Don't forget that Lychguard are slow (5" move), have no deep strike ability, and become significantly less effective if you give them an invuln save to get them up field. You are basically forced to take either the deceiver or a night scythe to make LG viable so you are essentially increasing the cost of the unit by 170 pts or so.

They may mathhammer as more effective in combat, but they have to survive till they get there. Much less of an issue for FOs and Praets. You cannot shoot what isn't on the board.

Ok so I used torblinds calculator, although I'm confused as to why it seperates Lychguards damage against T4, as the damage should be the same as T5-6, but oh well its a handy eyeball tool anyway.

Here we go, straight comparison with no buffs, both squad are at full size so assuming charge:

Lychguard on left, FO right


But the FO are more expensive, so assume you give anrakyr to the lych to make them comparable:

(FO on left, Lych w/Anrakyr on right)


Not as different as you might think, raw damage wise.

Basically lychguard are better in most cases where there is a 2+ save, but overall, against anything 3+ or worse, flayed ones pull ahead on damage over a wider variety of T/Sv characteristics.

Then you factor in the variables and it gets even murkier.

Sure the lych can do alot more damage in some cases, but they have a 5" M and no DS, so they have to footslog it up the board facing rounds of shooting before they get to their intended target. I know they might have MWBD, but the extra 1" isn't that phenomenal. Any smart general will be looking at 11 warscythes trudging up the board and will put all of their multi damage guns at them, and then bye bye lychguard. Especially considering you either have your warlord in there, or at least a a character that can give more VP.

FO on the other hand can do alot of damage, unsupported by HQ's, can DS t1, sure they might not make the charge, and they're left out in the open and they could die, but if the charge gets off they are pulling ahead in effectiveness already.

Its basically a choice of 'do I hope for a random uncontrollable variable happening (getting the charge off) that I can assist with CP, or do I hope for an uncontrollable variable happening (opponent skill/capability) that I have no control over whatsoever?'

I personally would go for the one that I have control over.

It caps damage at 1 for T3 and T4 as these are typically 1W models, it's all explained in the text in the box and you can click a button to toggle the behavior. (if you want to show full damage even against T3 and T4)

AH this makes sense now

Keep in mind that the "footslogging across the board" getting g shot to bits is only a problem if you bring them vs a full gun line army. Any cc units would have problems at that point.
If you expect to face a gun line, FO are more viable than Lych if you didn't ready decide to bring Zahndrek/obyron to get them into a charge position. But Praetorians might be better than FO, jumping from cover to cover and being able to more effectively deal with T4/5 3+ saves.
Quite a few armies have ds units or at least 1 cc unit. At that point having a unit of lych as countercharge or a "whack a mole-unit"™ would increase their effectiveness greatly and reduce their weaknesses at the same time.
Against high invul saves fo would prob do better than lych, but you don't want to put them against such a target either. Having some teslamortals are much more effective at that point (or maybe deathmarks/meteor throwing c'tan)

If you're facing harlequins for instance. Their entire army has a 4++. So a few units of teslamortals and some FO would have a lot of fun. Against space marines, praets/lych +gaussmortals will be more effective.

Basically my point is one is never always better to take than the other. It depends on what you expect to face and how you deal with it. But you probably already knew that.

Yeah, I mean if your looking at a competitive sense where you face a multitude of armies and want a good CC threat, FO cover a wider variety of targets, are more flexible in their deployment and use vs lychguard.

If you know your playing against x army then sure, lych can and will outperform FO when they are against what theyre meant to, but as will FO when theyre doing what they love to do.

But if you have no idea what you are facing, or facing multiple armies, FO win out IMO.

Lych are a scary countercharge unit, but they bank on the enemy coming to you, which will happen sometimes, but again dedicated CC units will shred through them, either by WOD or by having good invuln saves that the lych wont have coupled with multi damage attacks.

In the latter case FO win out again due to damage not spilling over, so less will die to muilti damage weapons, but more will die to WOD, so its a 50/50 on that front.

They both have their uses, strengths and weaknesses, but my point is for a TAC/comp list FO are more versatile, need less buffing to be efficient while having similar damage outputs.

You're right that if you don't know what you're up against fo might do better than lychguard, but I really don't like banking on that 9" charge. Even with a Cp reroll. If the enemy catches them out of cover they will die very quickly. And I try to avoid having only one unit in their deployment zone. Target saturation is the way to go for Necrons imo. I try to get the enemy to make mistakes and not ff units one at a time. And imo fo are just too expensive to have them shot off the board before they can do anything 50% of the time.

I'd must sooner go for praetorians with void blades as a nice best of both approach. More attacks and movement than lychguard, and more durable than fo +they don't really need much supporting.

I guess it all comes down to play style.

I agree, I don't actually run either, both are too high a points investment, and I prefer shooting over CC, as necrons have almost no penalty for getting into combat with our shooting as the good stuff is all FLY. Hopefully FO get a points decrease, and lych get some sort of mobility increase

It might feel tempting to hold back a bunch of flayed ones to maintain the threat of dropping them in, but the way things are going it seems we need all hands on deck from the beginning to even have a fighting chance in the first place.

I think there is a case for a t2/t3 DS, unless you also have things like the deciever to GI say 20 immortals into RF range (& cover preferably), then DS in the flayed ones, light up the units with the immortals and then charge in with the FO. Pretty brutal alpha from the infantry side, if you had some big cannons pounding on the backlines it could be a good combo.

After my game last night, and using your awesome calculator Tor I've realised that TA are hands down better in every sense than DDA. At every range, every mobility option the TA out dakka their index brethren. D3 shots just doesn't cut it if they roll poorly, hell even D6 isnt good when you roll poorly, but D3 is consistantly worse.

The TA can move and shoots its main profile (albeit with a -1) but even so it still puts out more damage than a DDA, it can also advance and shoot its mid profile, and not worry too much about charges due to its fleshbane flamer (seriously how good is that profile). It also has a 5++, and T7. The tesla, like all tesla, outdamages the gauss more often than not.

I'm going to build mine up in time for the SHO, and give it Toholk's D3 to its living metal, meaning it should be a fairly durable little gunboat.

I'm not usually a huge fan of cluttering the thread up with lists, but here's what I'm putting the finishing touches on for Nova -

necrons - 2k - spearhead + lord of war - 4 CP

Gauss Pylon

Necron Lord w/Hyperphase Sword

Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark

9X Scarabs
8x Scarabs

This comes to exactly 2k. I think right now RP is sort of a weakness. For units that have it, you are either paying too much for RP or the units just aren't killy enough. I figured, let's run a list where we minimize our RP risk.

Here you've got 6 of the dda main gun, which evens out for shot randomness if you have to split a bunch of them to shoot down one thing, and you've still got the firepower of 60 necron warriors. The pylon always goes into reserves, and you choose First Strike and Marked Unit secondaries so hopefully you get two of them turn 1 when the pylon fires. The scarabs screen you against drop armies, assault armies, and mortal wound spam.

As someone mentioned a few posts ago, sometimes you roll a 1 for shots and reroll a 1. Those situations are fairly rare but they do happen and there's no way around it. it would be cool if they built synergy for random shots, like a character that adds +1 to the random shots generated for things within X inches, or reroll random shots, or etc. Literally any kind of synergy since random number of shots seems to be a core mechanic with no real advantage. The things with random shots aren't really cheaper points wise than just paying for more shots, either in the Necron army itself or comparing it to stuff in other armies.

Thoughts?

Yeah that was me last night vs a nasty GK list. Wasn't fun, especially after I already lost 1st turn, deployment etc haha.

That list does even out the damage, its still only 2 on average, you could bring 5 Tesseract Arks for a better gun system, but I suppose thats quite cost prohibitive

 RobPro wrote:
I'm not usually a huge fan of cluttering the thread up with lists, but here's what I'm putting the finishing touches on for Nova -

Spoiler:

necrons - 2k - spearhead + lord of war - 4 CP

Gauss Pylon

Necron Lord w/Hyperphase Sword

Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Ark

9X Scarabs
8x Scarabs

This comes to exactly 2k. I think right now RP is sort of a weakness. For units that have it, you are either paying too much for RP or the units just aren't killy enough. I figured, let's run a list where we minimize our RP risk.

Here you've got 6 of the dda main gun, which evens out for shot randomness if you have to split a bunch of them to shoot down one thing, and you've still got the firepower of 60 necron warriors. The pylon always goes into reserves, and you choose First Strike and Marked Unit secondaries so hopefully you get two of them turn 1 when the pylon fires. The scarabs screen you against drop armies, assault armies, and mortal wound spam.

As someone mentioned a few posts ago, sometimes you roll a 1 for shots and reroll a 1. Those situations are fairly rare but they do happen and there's no way around it. it would be cool if they built synergy for random shots, like a character that adds +1 to the random shots generated for things within X inches, or reroll random shots, or etc. Literally any kind of synergy since random number of shots seems to be a core mechanic with no real advantage. The things with random shots aren't really cheaper points wise than just paying for more shots, either in the Necron army itself or comparing it to stuff in other armies.

Thoughts?

Huh, that's quite similar to a variation of an idea for a potential list-


Friendly Reminder:
PLEASE put lists under spoilers.

 Karhedron wrote:

 skoffs wrote:

 Karhedron wrote:
The release schedule I have seen has Necrons in December so we get a shiny new Codex just in time for Christmas.

Got a link for that seen schedule?
(All the things I'd seen so far had listed only marine books coming out this year)

Yup, here it is. I can't vouch for the provenance so take with a pinch of salt.

This can officially be laid to rest as a false rumor. From Warhammer Community:

We also heard what the next three codexes will be following the release of Death Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus in September. Before the end of November, xenos fans will be pleased to see some of the galaxy’s alien races get their codexes for the new edition with Codex: Craftworlds and Codex: Tyranids, while Codex: Astra Militarum lets fans of the Imperium’s vast human armies create thematic armies from their favourite Regiment.

Speaking of RP being a hindrance, I think too many people rely on it, which is a bad thing. I look at it as more of an added bonus. We already know that players will focus fire large blobs to eliminate them from the board, thus getting no RP.

I toyed with the idea of 10 man squads, making use of Ghost Ark's transport capabilities and leap frogging in and out of the Arks for RP. My biggest issue with running large blobs of Warriors is that you are going to get focus fired. It's inevitable. If you have a 20 man blob, killing 15 will automatically cause your last 5 to run, unless you spend CP. You are effectively losing the toughness of 5 units. With 10 Warrior squads, you will still get focus fired. You will still lose squads. But every model will do their part. Losing 9 of the 10 is still a 33% chance the last one won't run. It also increases the amount of overkill shot at units. It's much more difficult to wipe out two squads of 10 rather than one squad of 20 Warriors due to the overshooting required for each.

Just my two cents. Maybe it doesn't work in reality but it seems a better option in my noggin.

Maybe just maybe we might see some new models with our late release. Get rid of the finecrap characters. A plastic Silent King that could go toe to toe with Bobby G?
A man can dream.

Well, a silent king is powerful yes, but what has unimaginable power, that could also fight bobby G? A C'tan that has found its shards....

The model would have more design capabilities, instead of just another necron with extra bits holding a SoL/Warscythe (my buddy pointed out necron HQ's are just 'how many different ways can we pose a fancy necron holding a warscythe' )

But something that looks like the yncarne (ectoplasm swirling wise) has unlimited design potential, and tabletop power options depending on how many shards it has found. Could spend CP to find more in a game for example and bring it to its max level power which would be very strong.

Hoodwink wrote:
Speaking of RP being a hindrance, I think too many people rely on it, which is a bad thing. I look at it as more of an added bonus. We already know that players will focus fire large blobs to eliminate them from the board, thus getting no RP.

I toyed with the idea of 10 man squads, making use of Ghost Ark's transport capabilities and leap frogging in and out of the Arks for RP. My biggest issue with running large blobs of Warriors is that you are going to get focus fired. It's inevitable. If you have a 20 man blob, killing 15 will automatically cause your last 5 to run, unless you spend CP. You are effectively losing the toughness of 5 units. With 10 Warrior squads, you will still get focus fired. You will still lose squads. But every model will do their part. Losing 9 of the 10 is still a 33% chance the last one won't run. It also increases the amount of overkill shot at units. It's much more difficult to wipe out two squads of 10 rather than one squad of 20 Warriors due to the overshooting required for each.

Just my two cents. Maybe it doesn't work in reality but it seems a better option in my noggin.

If the Ghost Ark becomes Open Topped again I'm for it 100%. Otherwise I'm gonna pass.

As long as it keeps the firepower of 10 Warriors, I doubt it's going open topped any time soon.

Hoodwink wrote:
As long as it keeps the firepower of 10 Warriors, I doubt it's going open topped any time soon.

Its always had the firepower of 10 warriors?

Hoodwink wrote:

My biggest issue with running large blobs of Warriors is that you are going to get focus fired. It's inevitable. If you have a 20 man blob, killing 15 will automatically cause your last 5 to run, unless you spend CP. You are effectively losing the toughness of 5 units. With 10 Warrior squads, you will still get focus fired. You will still lose squads. But every model will do their part. Losing 9 of the 10 is still a 33% chance the last one won't run. It also increases the amount of overkill shot at units. It's much more difficult to wipe out two squads of 10 rather than one squad of 20 Warriors due to the overshooting required for each.

Just my two cents. Maybe it doesn't work in reality but it seems a better option in my noggin.

this is good thinking.

 Klowny wrote:

Hoodwink wrote:
As long as it keeps the firepower of 10 Warriors, I doubt it's going open topped any time soon.

Its always had the firepower of 10 warriors?

I think the big difference right now for 8th is they seem to be reducing open topped vehicles. The ones that are open topped are relatively low firepower since you can fire out of it. Getting 20 shots in rapid fire range is some pretty potent firepower if you also get another 20 shots from inside.

It does seem a bit silly that Ghost Arks aren't open-topped, given that they not only lack tops but also sides.

I just want to see Arks capable of carrying "Necron Infantry". Just the thought of carrying Nemesor up to the front lines to jump out and have Oberon and a squad of LG teleport in melee range to an enemy is terrifying.

It already can carry Nemesor