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All units that could deep strike lost the ability to do so in Kill Team. Even GSC had their cult ambush universal rule changed to just getting a chance at a scout move prior to the first battle round.

I've been reading the codex again to see if I've passed over anything awesome I've been missing after that C'tan debacle. What about Amaglated Targeting Data? On a reread, it doesn't stop fire from the Tesla Destructors and obviously can dish out a ton of mortal wounds.
If I wanted to go to with them to try it out, Mephrit for the Destructors? Or Sautek for MD?

Are you sure you read it correctly ? First it requires 3 doom scythes (615 pts.), one of the worst units we have. Then there is a 50% chance to do 3D3 MW to one or two units (66,7% if the unit(s) have more than 5 models), its highly unlikely that there are more units within 3". If one doom scythe is destroyed you cant use the stratagem. For 615 pts i would use a t. vault and something else. The vault will do lots of MW, thats for sure. I doubt the doom scythes will perform as good as the vault.

Compare the stratagem to Linebreaker Bombardment for SM and CSM. Very similar stratagems. Notice how nobody uses linebreaker bombardment or vindicators. That should tell you something.

The doom scythe strat is something that will work exactly once against a Guilliman gun line played by someone who knows nothing about Necrons. It is otherwise non-viable.

From the sounds of it close combat is quite good, so going by the deathguard batrep, you screen with your immortals and get the flayed ones into position to wreck face!

Who knows what the deathmark will be like.

COLD CASH wrote:
From the sounds of it close combat is quite good, so going by the deathguard batrep, you screen with your immortals and get the flayed ones into position to wreck face!

Who knows what the deathmark will be like.

What are you talking about?
What Deathguard batt rep?
Deathmarks be like in what?

I dunno. I've been pondering the Doom/Night Scythe(s). The ATD strat it's has potential,

Before i start Unless it's in an FAQ the SM linebreaker strat has a stipulation of units of 10+ models for the +1, making the necron version slightly better as it is only 5+ models, Factor in the the mobility difference and the model height advantage for drawing line of sight the necron version is a lot more 'usable'. The one advantage SM have is the fact that vindicators are dirt cheep in comparison to doom scythes.

Intermission for some quick back of the envelope math says that it's average expected wounds per target in the 'blast zone' is 3 mortal wounds. That's 0.5(% chance of hit disregarding +/-)*6(the average of 3d3)=3. Or a better way to think about it is that it has a 2/3 chance of doing 6 MW to units with 5 or more characters, 1/2 chance of doing 6 MW to non character units of less than 5 models and a 1/3 chance of doing 6 MW to characters. Factor in a CP reroll for the hit on a character and it's about 55% odds.

Now that we've established some sort of a base value for expected wounds for the ATD It's time to draw a comparison to the expected wounds of the Death Ray. Fortunately i already started doing some of the Mathhammer on this the other day.

Expected wound values are calculated as (#shots)*(hit chance)*(wound chance)*(chance of a failed save)*(chance of a failed FNP)*(weapon damage,(weapon damage cannot exceed models max wounds))
D6 and D3 values are expressed as 3.5 and 2, respectively,
MD is just a straight increase in BS,
Tesla is (number of shots/chance to proc*2) then put through the expected wounds formula at the, wounds chance, stage in addition to the weapons flat damage
TFA is calculated at (number of shots/6) then fed through the expected wounds formula in addition to the weapons flat calculation.

I through in the comparison for the D/N Scythe's tesla and the D/G ark (the volume of shots is set to rapid fire so just half the end value for single shot range) as well just to compare to a unit with a similar PPM and split weapons.

Ok, so, Assuming it's the start of the game, when you still have 3 of these things and you are shooting the death rays an 'optimal target' the same target it should just be a case of comparing the expected wounds *3, comparing that to the the value for ATD we worked out earlier and that should tell us how many units we'd have to get in the target zone of ATD to get more value from the stat than just shooting the normal weapon.
Worst case for the ATD is vs just shooting at a crisis suit equiv with MD. In which case they'd need to do more than 12.51 wounds which equates to hitting 5 units with ATD. That's not exactly spectacular.
More realistically, If you were shooting Rhinos or Razorbacks you'd have to do more than 9.33 wounds, so that's 4 targets. still not fantastic.
Most realistically, you want to take a chunk out of grouped troops or special/heavy weapon teams, something of that ilk, if you hit a unit you're getting value, any additional hit is a bonus.
Ironically though if you're shooting at a T6+ with a 3++ you'll only do 0.78 expected wounds so you'd actually be better off using ATD on a single target.

However the counter argument and something that is much harder to value is the impact of having that the impact of having some flyers with that sort of ability might help disperse characters and screens increasing the chance of your opponent making a mistake and you can swoop in and blap a badly positioned character.
Another thing to consider is you could use ATD to shoot through walls at units out of LOS as you target a spot on the battlefield rather than a specific unit.

Overall though I'd really like for Doom Scythes to be viable, but they're just too many points to justify. I think they'd need to come down by about 30 points to even be worth consideration.

Considering the rampant knight meta, should we consider putting a gauss pylon in our lists? It statistically 1 shots a knight with a 5++. We could protect things that would greatly appreciate a 5++ to survive like destroyers and even DDA(!) without need for a cryptek. I'm thinking we could easily create a castle around it and have wraiths and scarabs pushing up to tar pit and secure objectives. You could also use it to make your enemy knights player hold rotate ion shields by firing everything except the pylon into one knight and then blast another knight if he rotates or finish off the original knight if he doesn't. Just trying to find some salvation for Necrons against knights, the destroyers and DDA haven't really been cutting it...

Only gets a dynasty in a supreme command detachment.

As far a cron killteam was reading some guys simple batrep and he was saying using models to obscure your CC figs then let them charge.

COLD CASH wrote:
As far a cron killteam was reading some guys simple batrep and he was saying using models to obscure your CC figs then let them charge.

Got a link for that? I'd like to see what else might be gleaned.

I don't know what video COLD CASH is referring to but I have seen the rulebook and can confirm that literally any level of obscurity from terrain or other models (including your own models) counts as being concealed and confers a -1 to both the hit and injury rolls. There's a picture in the book of a Skitarii who has half of his base covered up by terrain to show just how little you need to be obscured to Be Obscured.

Extraneous details that stick out from the main body such as the gun and such still don't count, but you can expect models to be obscured more often than not.

 Drider wrote:
I dunno. I've been pondering the Doom/Night Scythe(s). The ATD strat it's has potential,

Before i start Unless it's in an FAQ the SM linebreaker strat has a stipulation of units of 10+ models for the +1, making the necron version slightly better as it is only 5+ models, Factor in the the mobility difference and the model height advantage for drawing line of sight the necron version is a lot more 'usable'. The one advantage SM have is the fact that vindicators are dirt cheep in comparison to doom scythes.

Intermission for some quick back of the envelope math says that it's average expected wounds per target in the 'blast zone' is 3 mortal wounds. That's 0.5(% chance of hit disregarding +/-)*6(the average of 3d3)=3. Or a better way to think about it is that it has a 2/3 chance of doing 6 MW to units with 5 or more characters, 1/2 chance of doing 6 MW to non character units of less than 5 models and a 1/3 chance of doing 6 MW to characters. Factor in a CP reroll for the hit on a character and it's about 55% odds.

Now that we've established some sort of a base value for expected wounds for the ATD It's time to draw a comparison to the expected wounds of the Death Ray. Fortunately i already started doing some of the Mathhammer on this the other day.

Expected wound values are calculated as (#shots)*(hit chance)*(wound chance)*(chance of a failed save)*(chance of a failed FNP)*(weapon damage,(weapon damage cannot exceed models max wounds))
D6 and D3 values are expressed as 3.5 and 2, respectively,
MD is just a straight increase in BS,
Tesla is (number of shots/chance to proc*2) then put through the expected wounds formula at the, wounds chance, stage in addition to the weapons flat damage
TFA is calculated at (number of shots/6) then fed through the expected wounds formula in addition to the weapons flat calculation.

I through in the comparison for the D/N Scythe's tesla and the D/G ark (the volume of shots is set to rapid fire so just half the end value for single shot range) as well just to compare to a unit with a similar PPM and split weapons.

Ok, so, Assuming it's the start of the game, when you still have 3 of these things and you are shooting the death rays an 'optimal target' the same target it should just be a case of comparing the expected wounds *3, comparing that to the the value for ATD we worked out earlier and that should tell us how many units we'd have to get in the target zone of ATD to get more value from the stat than just shooting the normal weapon.
Worst case for the ATD is vs just shooting at a crisis suit equiv with MD. In which case they'd need to do more than 12.51 wounds which equates to hitting 5 units with ATD. That's not exactly spectacular.
More realistically, If you were shooting Rhinos or Razorbacks you'd have to do more than 9.33 wounds, so that's 4 targets. still not fantastic.
Most realistically, you want to take a chunk out of grouped troops or special/heavy weapon teams, something of that ilk, if you hit a unit you're getting value, any additional hit is a bonus.
Ironically though if you're shooting at a T6+ with a 3++ you'll only do 0.78 expected wounds so you'd actually be better off using ATD on a single target.

However the counter argument and something that is much harder to value is the impact of having that the impact of having some flyers with that sort of ability might help disperse characters and screens increasing the chance of your opponent making a mistake and you can swoop in and blap a badly positioned character.
Another thing to consider is you could use ATD to shoot through walls at units out of LOS as you target a spot on the battlefield rather than a specific unit.

Overall though I'd really like for Doom Scythes to be viable, but they're just too many points to justify. I think they'd need to come down by about 30 points to even be worth consideration.

Amazing post!
Agreed that they are too pricey for what they can do, but would be great against the right targets or a very poorly positioned army. And again, it IS just the price that's the problem. Some units in 40k are only "good" because they are so points effective. That strat is realistically a one trick pony but then after that you still have 2-3 flyers zipping around that could uncork some high damage or lots of low AP S7 wounds.
If they were about the price of a Night Scythe, I'd be all over therm.
Again thanks for the great post.

Crp_Cole wrote:
Considering the rampant knight meta, should we consider putting a gauss pylon in our lists? It statistically 1 shots a knight with a 5++. We could protect things that would greatly appreciate a 5++ to survive like destroyers and even DDA(!) without need for a cryptek. I'm thinking we could easily create a castle around it and have wraiths and scarabs pushing up to tar pit and secure objectives. You could also use it to make your enemy knights player hold rotate ion shields by firing everything except the pylon into one knight and then blast another knight if he rotates or finish off the original knight if he doesn't. Just trying to find some salvation for Necrons against knights, the destroyers and DDA haven't really been cutting it...

I'm starting it with some Sentry Pylons. Running with Heat Cannon right now, but might change it up. Got 3 built, 1 in pieces, and 2 on sprue. Eventually I'm planning on 3 full units. All backed by Spyders, Scarabs, Wraiths and a Novokh D-Lord. CC Necrons FTW!

 Blndmage wrote:

Crp_Cole wrote:
Considering the rampant knight meta, should we consider putting a gauss pylon in our lists? It statistically 1 shots a knight with a 5++. We could protect things that would greatly appreciate a 5++ to survive like destroyers and even DDA(!) without need for a cryptek. I'm thinking we could easily create a castle around it and have wraiths and scarabs pushing up to tar pit and secure objectives. You could also use it to make your enemy knights player hold rotate ion shields by firing everything except the pylon into one knight and then blast another knight if he rotates or finish off the original knight if he doesn't. Just trying to find some salvation for Necrons against knights, the destroyers and DDA haven't really been cutting it...

I'm starting it with some Sentry Pylons. Running with Heat Cannon right now, but might change it up. Got 3 built, 1 in pieces, and 2 on sprue. Eventually I'm planning on 3 full units. All backed by Spyders, Scarabs, Wraiths and a Novokh D-Lord. CC Necrons FTW!

9 Sentry Pylons with heat cannons is 1575 points. They aren't going to be backed up by anything.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Blndmage wrote:

Crp_Cole wrote:
Considering the rampant knight meta, should we consider putting a gauss pylon in our lists? It statistically 1 shots a knight with a 5++. We could protect things that would greatly appreciate a 5++ to survive like destroyers and even DDA(!) without need for a cryptek. I'm thinking we could easily create a castle around it and have wraiths and scarabs pushing up to tar pit and secure objectives. You could also use it to make your enemy knights player hold rotate ion shields by firing everything except the pylon into one knight and then blast another knight if he rotates or finish off the original knight if he doesn't. Just trying to find some salvation for Necrons against knights, the destroyers and DDA haven't really been cutting it...

I'm starting it with some Sentry Pylons. Running with Heat Cannon right now, but might change it up. Got 3 built, 1 in pieces, and 2 on sprue. Eventually I'm planning on 3 full units. All backed by Spyders, Scarabs, Wraiths and a Novokh D-Lord. CC Necrons FTW!

9 Sentry Pylons with heat cannons is 1575 points. They aren't going to be backed up by anything.

I'd only use all 9 in bigger games, but I'm hoping to build around the 6 I have.
I'd be running a Spearhead Detachment, filling the other 4 HS slots with individual Spyders, with a full Wraith unit, full Scarabs and D Lord with casket to haul forward.

I tend to play more Narratively, like running my opponent against a number of these, playing special missions, etc.

I have some questions to ask about MWBD coverage.

MWBD boost the damage output of tesla immortals by 50%. Great! However, an overlord costs 94-5 points, which is ~56% the price of another squad. Hmmm. Now, if you're using The Phaeron's Will stratagem, then it becomes clearly cost-effective - but what if you have a third squad? Do you spend the point to get a second overlord? Now admittedly, the overlord add some respectable counter-assault capability, and can be a caddy for Veil. But it's.. marginal.

However - it seems to me the real benefit of teslamortals+MWBD is negating penalties. If you've got a -1 from advancing (it chafes my britches that there's no "advance without penalty" dynastic code), or are shooting at Raven guard/Altaioc, then MWBD boosts tesla damage by a whopping 100%, which is well worth it by any metric.

So, should you/do you take enough overlords to buff all your units of tesla immortals every turn?

momerathe wrote:
I have some questions to ask about MWBD coverage.

MWBD boost the damage output of tesla immortals by 50%. Great! However, an overlord costs 94-5 points, which is ~56% the price of another squad. Hmmm. Now, if you're using The Phaeron's Will stratagem, then it becomes clearly cost-effective - but what if you have a third squad? Do you spend the point to get a second overlord? Now admittedly, the overlord add some respectable counter-assault capability, and can be a caddy for Veil. But it's.. marginal.

However - it seems to me the real benefit of teslamortals+MWBD is negating penalties. If you've got a -1 from advancing (it chafes my britches that there's no "advance without penalty" dynastic code), or are shooting at Raven guard/Altaioc, then MWBD boosts tesla damage by a whopping 100%, which is well worth it by any metric.

So, should you/do you take enough overlords to buff all your units of tesla immortals every turn?

Well one of the main reasons the Overlord is taken is to fill a HQ slot for a Battalion. The Cryptek can also fullfil this role, but he is better suited to support Warriors/Destroyers imo.

Next is that he can take a Relic. The Veil of Darkness is a must and if you play Sautekh, the Abysal Staff can be quite effective. Other relics, eh nto so much.

In terms of effectiveness per points, straight up more Immortals will be better. However, if you want a Battalion you gonna have to fill the HQ slot anyway, so might as well boost their dmg output with an Overlord. However, many Necron players are skipping the Battalion detachment so they don’t have to pay the 2x hq/troops tax.

I'll post the mathhammer of tesla immortals with various different buffs later on.

For now though...

It seems to me that if you do not take a battalion that you are locked into taking a sautekh detachment for the warlord trait. So you either have got to make that your a viable detachment in and of its self or it is a tax detachment on top of what you actually 'want to bring. Add to that, that if you do want to split dynasties then you end up paying for Sept specific buffs that do not overlap.

 Drider wrote:

It seems to me that if you do not take a battalion that you are locked into taking a sautekh detachment for the warlord trait. So you either have got to make that your a viable detachment in and of its self or it is a tax detachment on top of what you actually 'want to bring. Add to that, that if you do want to split dynasties then you end up paying for Sept specific buffs that do not overlap.

Don't forget about Immortal Pride. I find it even more valuable that CP generation. Most of my lists have at least 20 warriors, and under immortal pride they are good. If you go full immortals or have no troops at all - CP generations seems stronger.

Doctoralex wrote:

momerathe wrote:
I have some questions to ask about MWBD coverage.

MWBD boost the damage output of tesla immortals by 50%. Great! However, an overlord costs 94-5 points, which is ~56% the price of another squad. Hmmm. Now, if you're using The Phaeron's Will stratagem, then it becomes clearly cost-effective - but what if you have a third squad? Do you spend the point to get a second overlord? Now admittedly, the overlord add some respectable counter-assault capability, and can be a caddy for Veil. But it's.. marginal.

However - it seems to me the real benefit of teslamortals+MWBD is negating penalties. If you've got a -1 from advancing (it chafes my britches that there's no "advance without penalty" dynastic code), or are shooting at Raven guard/Altaioc, then MWBD boosts tesla damage by a whopping 100%, which is well worth it by any metric.

So, should you/do you take enough overlords to buff all your units of tesla immortals every turn?

Well one of the main reasons the Overlord is taken is to fill a HQ slot for a Battalion. The Cryptek can also fullfil this role, but he is better suited to support Warriors/Destroyers imo.

Next is that he can take a Relic. The Veil of Darkness is a must and if you play Sautekh, the Abysal Staff can be quite effective. Other relics, eh nto so much.

In terms of effectiveness per points, straight up more Immortals will be better. However, if you want a Battalion you gonna have to fill the HQ slot anyway, so might as well boost their dmg output with an Overlord. However, many Necron players are skipping the Battalion detachment so they don’t have to pay the 2x hq/troops tax.

Just to make myself clear, I'm questioning whether it's worth taking *multiple* overlords if you have more than two units of immortals. (so a Battalion is a given in this scenario)

May have missed it in the thread, but has anyone tried Mephrit Night Scythe spam? MSU troops to place on objectives.

The Scythes can easily take advantage of Mephrit while also getting inside of 12" range -1 to hit armies. Taking 4-5 should mitigate first turn losses.

momerathe wrote:

Just to make myself clear, I'm questioning whether it's worth taking *multiple* overlords if you have more than two units of immortals. (so a Battalion is a given in this scenario)

No, its not. I decided to use only a 5 model unit of tesla immortals as third unit, to have more points for other units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 D6Damager wrote:
May have missed it in the thread, but has anyone tried Mephrit Night Scythe spam? MSU troops to place on objectives.

The Scythes can easily take advantage of Mephrit while also getting inside of 12" range -1 to hit armies. Taking 4-5 should mitigate first turn losses.

What ? You want to take 5 night scythes ? Its not only wasted points, its also a nightmare moving them around the board. An experienced player will easily pop them, without using a single shot. You will be forced to fly of the board, or you will be destroyed because you must move your minimum distance and stay away more than 1" from enemy models, which you cant when your opponent places his units in the path of your flyers, or your own units are in the way. If thats not enough reasons not to take flyers, its much easier to table you. No units on the ground, you lose the game.

 p5freak wrote:

momerathe wrote:

Just to make myself clear, I'm questioning whether it's worth taking *multiple* overlords if you have more than two units of immortals. (so a Battalion is a given in this scenario)

No, its not. I decided to use only a 5 model unit of tesla immortals as third unit, to have more points for other units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 D6Damager wrote:
May have missed it in the thread, but has anyone tried Mephrit Night Scythe spam? MSU troops to place on objectives.

The Scythes can easily take advantage of Mephrit while also getting inside of 12" range -1 to hit armies. Taking 4-5 should mitigate first turn losses.

What ? You want to take 5 night scythes ? Its not only wasted points, its also a nightmare moving them around the board. An experienced player will easily pop them, without using a single shot. You will be forced to fly of the board, or you will be destroyed because you must move your minimum distance and stay away more than 1" from enemy models, which you cant when your opponent places his units in the path of your flyers, or your own units are in the way. If thats not enough reasons not to take flyers, its much easier to table you. No units on the ground, you lose the game.

Not to mention the rule of three

torblind wrote:


Not to mention the rule of three

Another reason i didnt think of, but its not an official rule, only a suggestion for organized play, and it depends on the points how many times you can use the same datasheet.

Spamming flyers like that is untenable, but what about presenting a mass -1 to hit army. Mostly tomb blades and scythe?

 p5freak wrote:

torblind wrote:


Not to mention the rule of three

Another reason i didnt think of, but its not an official rule, only a suggestion for organized play, and it depends on the points how many times you can use the same datasheet.

As this is more or less a thread for tactics to use at the competitive level of play we tend to go by most common tournament restrictions when building lists and discussing tactics.

 Brymm wrote:
I've been reading the codex again to see if I've passed over anything awesome I've been missing after that C'tan debacle. What about Amaglated Targeting Data? On a reread, it doesn't stop fire from the Tesla Destructors and obviously can dish out a ton of mortal wounds.
If I wanted to go to with them to try it out, Mephrit for the Destructors? Or Sautek for MD?

I basically tabled a death korp player who casteled up on turn one by using this strategem. I think all but 1 unit I rolled a 4+ for.

 iGuy91 wrote:


Wait. Won't to hit modifiers also mean that snipers are gonna have an awful time ever managing to get a mortal wound? I believe since its a 6+, a minus 1 prevents mortal wounds, just like it prevents tesla from proccing

Isn't it a 6+ on a roll to wound for synaptic disintegrator mortal wound proc, not a roll to hit?

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:


Wait. Won't to hit modifiers also mean that snipers are gonna have an awful time ever managing to get a mortal wound? I believe since its a 6+, a minus 1 prevents mortal wounds, just like it prevents tesla from proccing

Isn't it a 6+ on a roll to wound for synaptic disintegrator mortal wound proc, not a roll to hit?

To wound yes