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 BlaxicanX wrote:
Part of the issue with just points drops is that it also only really scales into something meaningful at larger point games. At 2500 you might be getting 300 points back for other stuff, good for you. At 2000 you might be getting around 150-200 back on average, cool I guess. My group plays at 1500 as do the local tournaments here- 1500 is also the standard for the game outside of the biggest tournaments. I'm looking at, *at best*, around 40 points coming back to me from these drops.

At that level basically none of the units that were bad before are worth taking now. Maybe a triarch stalker, but that's it. And at 1500 I can't rely on double detachments and the like to farm CP's.

I mean, sure, "something is better then nothing", but how much am I actually gaining in power boost from just these points drops?

Were you using a Vault or what? Which list specifically only gets you 40 pts more to play with?

The above list is 1750 in today's points, next week you can bring it to your 1500 pt games. This is a very decent list today per Necron standards and you will crush many opponents with this list next week. You have plenty of CP with this list, the Mephrit Strat is pretty bad so all you have is an extra relic, Quantum Deflection, Phaeron's Will, Insane Heroism and re-rolls.

Little saddened to see that the Rez orb is still an overcosted POS.

I liked having characters in my armies so I will have quite a few points to play around with.

Now that Knights stayed the same and almost every faction got some nice point drops I guess the Seraptek is overpriced right now. Especially since the Pylon went down to under 500.

Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

ImPhaeronWeasel wrote:Now that Knights stayed the same and almost every faction got some nice point drops I guess the Seraptek is overpriced right now. Especially since the Pylon went down to under 500.

It always was slightly overcosted, which makes me a little sad that it came out right before the drops and is now our most expensive unit, in both money and points.

A swift fix is "Macro" on the Synaptic Obliterators, a thing I'm fairly certain they were supposed to have regardless, but we wont know for a while.

_Ness wrote:Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

I'd say yes.

They're still in a less-then-perfect place because their ideal target is not part of the meta at the minute, but given that a squad of them with Voidblades is pretty cheap now, they may give a little bit of Comabt Crunch to tear through bigger squads of gribblies.

ten dudes with this setup is 200 pts ish if memory serves on new numbers, and that puts out 10 S6 shos, and then 30 S5AP3 attacks, hitting on 3s and argueably against a load of little things, outright killing on 3s as well. 10 points for a single dead gribbly is a bad deal, yes, but it's not entiely bad since it could get a lot worse (and indee they were before the points drop)

Given auto-pass morale and the ability to fall back, shoot and re-charge thanks to fly, I think these guys may become what Flayed Ones wanted to be

 _Ness wrote:
Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

Wraiths do their job better, and got a points reduction. So I'd just stick with Wraiths for the moment.

 IHateNids wrote:

ImPhaeronWeasel wrote:Now that Knights stayed the same and almost every faction got some nice point drops I guess the Seraptek is overpriced right now. Especially since the Pylon went down to under 500.

It always was slightly overcosted, which makes me a little sad that it came out right before the drops and is now our most expensive unit, in both money and points.

A swift fix is "Macro" on the Synaptic Obliterators, a thing I'm fairly certain they were supposed to have regardless, but we wont know for a while.

_Ness wrote:Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

I'd say yes.

They're still in a less-then-perfect place because their ideal target is not part of the meta at the minute, but given that a squad of them with Voidblades is pretty cheap now, they may give a little bit of Comabt Crunch to tear through bigger squads of gribblies.

ten dudes with this setup is 200 pts ish if memory serves on new numbers, and that puts out 10 S6 shos, and then 30 S5AP3 attacks, hitting on 3s and argueably against a load of little things, outright killing on 3s as well. 10 points for a single dead gribbly is a bad deal, yes, but it's not entiely bad since it could get a lot worse (and indee they were before the points drop)

Given auto-pass morale and the ability to fall back, shoot and re-charge thanks to fly, I think these guys may become what Flayed Ones wanted to be

Can they fall back and charge?

ImPhaeronWeasel wrote:
Now that Knights stayed the same and almost every faction got some nice point drops I guess the Seraptek is overpriced right now. Especially since the Pylon went down to under 500.

A Novokh Seraptek Heavy Construct is the single most dangerous model in melee in the entire game as far as I'm aware. But we've seen a lot of changes in favour of more special weapons, no nerf to the Castellan, no nerf to Jinx/Doom which means the Construct is if anything, even less likely to live long enough to justify its cost. I don't know about the Pylon, I've had a lot of good experiences with it, but also a signifigant amount of bad experiences. Not taking it in a competitive setting is going to be hard now that's down to its original cost and it's almost certainly a better anti-Knight option than a Seraptek Heavy Construct, however, the Gauss Pylon can't deal with a Daemon Primarch as effectively, it is useless against hordes, multiple characters and it doesn't have a chance to destroy 2 Leman Russ tanks in one turn.

 _Ness wrote:
Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

They aren't bad if you're playing against MEQ and your opponent isn't spamming D2 or d3 weapons. Now that Intercessors are going to be able to equip their Sergeants with power fists I think that's less of a strong match-up than you might initially expect. You're likely to see fewer Cultists which means less Daemon Princes hanging out behind Cultists and coming out to slaughter your elite Infantry, although that threat still exists with Plague Bearers and Tzaangors. I'd say no, the only thing I have good experience against is against Blood Angels and Tomb Blades are as good a counter to them as Praetorians are. They're a little cheaper than Tomb Blades with Gauss Blasters and no bonus equipment now, but with the lower cost of plasma guns and the lack of nerfs to dakka Knights I think Tomb Blades with Gauss do most things Praetorians do better. Tomb Blades can even hold Knights in place in melee with just 3 models remaining, I can imagine situations where that is very important.

I think it's safe to say that Praetorians aren't going to be tearing up the competitive scene, but I've had a ton of fun with Praetorians both in the Index and Codex, they're one of my favourite units, so if your opponents aren't bringing too many Disintegrator Ravagers or Hive Guard I'd say go ahead and buy them if you like the models or bring them if you've been holding off because of their previously horrendous price. One thing that is important to keep in mind is how balanced 8th is, by that I mean how much more important it is to know your meta than it was in 7th were a net-list was much more likely to win you games based purely on how OP it was, if your opponent isn't bringing the right counters for Triarch Praetorians, if you learn to abuse the Charge, Pile In and Consolidation Step and abuse enemy units by taking them hostage Praetorians could be very good for you, Tomb Blades can probably just do those thing better.

I haven't seen anything but the points changes so far.
Was there anything about rules/data etc changes?

 skoffs wrote:
I haven't seen anything but the points changes so far.
Was there anything about rules/data etc changes?

There aren't any changes to rules or datasheets as far as Necrons go, and no new beta rules for matched play.

torblind wrote:

 IHateNids wrote:

Spoiler:

ImPhaeronWeasel wrote:Now that Knights stayed the same and almost every faction got some nice point drops I guess the Seraptek is overpriced right now. Especially since the Pylon went down to under 500.

It always was slightly overcosted, which makes me a little sad that it came out right before the drops and is now our most expensive unit, in both money and points.

A swift fix is "Macro" on the Synaptic Obliterators, a thing I'm fairly certain they were supposed to have regardless, but we wont know for a while.

_Ness wrote:Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

I'd say yes.

They're still in a less-then-perfect place because their ideal target is not part of the meta at the minute, but given that a squad of them with Voidblades is pretty cheap now, they may give a little bit of Comabt Crunch to tear through bigger squads of gribblies.

ten dudes with this setup is 200 pts ish if memory serves on new numbers, and that puts out 10 S6 shos, and then 30 S5AP3 attacks, hitting on 3s and argueably against a load of little things, outright killing on 3s as well. 10 points for a single dead gribbly is a bad deal, yes, but it's not entiely bad since it could get a lot worse (and indee they were before the points drop)

Given auto-pass morale and the ability to fall back, shoot and re-charge thanks to fly, I think these guys may become what Flayed Ones wanted to be

Darsath wrote:

 _Ness wrote:
Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

Wraiths do their job better, and got a points reduction. So I'd just stick with Wraiths for the moment.

I'd say wraiths do a very similar job better, but there is a niche for Praetorians going forwards. Wraiths are better at not dying, but they can't obliterate a unit of MEQs in the same way Praetorians can. I think if Primaris/DG/TS become more of a thing, then there might be some cause for Praetorians to come off the shelf.

IanVanCheese wrote:

Darsath wrote:

 _Ness wrote:
Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

Wraiths do their job better, and got a points reduction. So I'd just stick with Wraiths for the moment.

I'd say wraiths do a very similar job better, but there is a niche for Praetorians going forwards. Wraiths are better at not dying, but they can't obliterate a unit of MEQs in the same way Praetorians can. I think if Primaris/DG/TS become more of a thing, then there might be some cause for Praetorians to come off the shelf.

I disagree. Wraith's 2 DMG weapons make them excellent against MEQ, and -2 AP is more than enough to compete.

 IHateNids wrote:

torblind wrote:

 IHateNids wrote:

Spoiler:

ImPhaeronWeasel wrote:Now that Knights stayed the same and almost every faction got some nice point drops I guess the Seraptek is overpriced right now. Especially since the Pylon went down to under 500.

It always was slightly overcosted, which makes me a little sad that it came out right before the drops and is now our most expensive unit, in both money and points.

A swift fix is "Macro" on the Synaptic Obliterators, a thing I'm fairly certain they were supposed to have regardless, but we wont know for a while.

_Ness wrote:Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

I'd say yes.

They're still in a less-then-perfect place because their ideal target is not part of the meta at the minute, but given that a squad of them with Voidblades is pretty cheap now, they may give a little bit of Comabt Crunch to tear through bigger squads of gribblies.

ten dudes with this setup is 200 pts ish if memory serves on new numbers, and that puts out 10 S6 shos, and then 30 S5AP3 attacks, hitting on 3s and argueably against a load of little things, outright killing on 3s as well. 10 points for a single dead gribbly is a bad deal, yes, but it's not entiely bad since it could get a lot worse (and indee they were before the points drop)

Given auto-pass morale and the ability to fall back, shoot and re-charge thanks to fly, I think these guys may become what Flayed Ones wanted to be

Fall back and Shoot is still a pretty good thing, thats true

Darsath wrote:

IanVanCheese wrote:

Darsath wrote:

 _Ness wrote:
Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

Wraiths do their job better, and got a points reduction. So I'd just stick with Wraiths for the moment.

I'd say wraiths do a very similar job better, but there is a niche for Praetorians going forwards. Wraiths are better at not dying, but they can't obliterate a unit of MEQs in the same way Praetorians can. I think if Primaris/DG/TS become more of a thing, then there might be some cause for Praetorians to come off the shelf.

I disagree. Wraith's 2 DMG weapons make them excellent against MEQ, and -2 AP is more than enough to compete.

After looking at it, I'm not so sure if it's as clean cut, since you get 3 praetorians per wraith. Even with 2 damage, on average Praetorians are out damaging Wraiths against MEQs, without including their shooting.

With the Rods, you average 3 wounds in close combat, and with a wraith you average 1, two damage wound. Voidblades are even better in CC, and none of this includes the shooting that Praetorians have. So mathwise, Praetorians are much better and killing MEQs.

The issue comes though with Survivability, where wraiths are clearly far superior. It's pretty easy to knock down a group of Praetorians with D2 weapons.

Really though, I may actually look into 10 Praetorians for 160 points. After tinkering with the math, they arn't as terrible as I initially thought. I already have the models, so I may playtest them a bit.

 Sasori wrote:

Darsath wrote:

IanVanCheese wrote:

Darsath wrote:

 _Ness wrote:
Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

Wraiths do their job better, and got a points reduction. So I'd just stick with Wraiths for the moment.

I'd say wraiths do a very similar job better, but there is a niche for Praetorians going forwards. Wraiths are better at not dying, but they can't obliterate a unit of MEQs in the same way Praetorians can. I think if Primaris/DG/TS become more of a thing, then there might be some cause for Praetorians to come off the shelf.

I disagree. Wraith's 2 DMG weapons make them excellent against MEQ, and -2 AP is more than enough to compete.

After looking at it, I'm not so sure if it's as clean cut, since you get 3 praetorians per wraith. Even with 2 damage, on average Praetorians are out damaging Wraiths against MEQs, without including their shooting.

With the Rods, you average 3 wounds in close combat, and with a wraith you average 1, two damage wound. Voidblades are even better in CC, and none of this includes the shooting that Praetorians have. So mathwise, Praetorians are much better and killing MEQs.

The issue comes though with Survivability, where wraiths are clearly far superior. It's pretty easy to knock down a group of Praetorians with D2 weapons.

Really though, I may actually look into 10 Praetorians for 160 points. After tinkering with the math, they arn't as terrible as I initially thought. I already have the models, so I may playtest them a bit.

Praetorians are 26 pts, and Wraiths are 48 pts. You get 2 praetorians per wraith, not 3.

Darsath wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

Darsath wrote:

IanVanCheese wrote:

Darsath wrote:

 _Ness wrote:
Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

Wraiths do their job better, and got a points reduction. So I'd just stick with Wraiths for the moment.

I'd say wraiths do a very similar job better, but there is a niche for Praetorians going forwards. Wraiths are better at not dying, but they can't obliterate a unit of MEQs in the same way Praetorians can. I think if Primaris/DG/TS become more of a thing, then there might be some cause for Praetorians to come off the shelf.

I disagree. Wraith's 2 DMG weapons make them excellent against MEQ, and -2 AP is more than enough to compete.

After looking at it, I'm not so sure if it's as clean cut, since you get 3 praetorians per wraith. Even with 2 damage, on average Praetorians are out damaging Wraiths against MEQs, without including their shooting.

With the Rods, you average 3 wounds in close combat, and with a wraith you average 1, two damage wound. Voidblades are even better in CC, and none of this includes the shooting that Praetorians have. So mathwise, Praetorians are much better and killing MEQs.

The issue comes though with Survivability, where wraiths are clearly far superior. It's pretty easy to knock down a group of Praetorians with D2 weapons.

Really though, I may actually look into 10 Praetorians for 160 points. After tinkering with the math, they arn't as terrible as I initially thought. I already have the models, so I may playtest them a bit.

Praetorians are 26 pts, and Wraiths are 48 pts. You get 2 praetorians per wraith, not 3.

Ahh, I totally forgot to re add the weapons points back on the praetorians.

At that point you are looking at about the same damage output as Wraiths, with the voidblades doing slightly more damage, and the Rods about the same average as Wraiths. Add in the shooting and on average your damage output is still exceeding the wraiths, just not by that much.

Still though, may be worth testing. Clearly not as good as 3 per Wraith.

It's certainly an interesting option. One of the last things I did in 7th was to build the full Judicator Battalion, a stalker and two full squads of praetorians. Have not seen much action since :(

But I'd love for them to become more viable, even if just for friendly games, Good move and Fly, no moral and RP means they are good to go on their own to clear flanks, scounts or medium schaff or elite infantry.

Wraiths serve a different role. They plunge in in the thick of it, going after vulnerable key elements if any, with the survivability to pull that off.

Ignore this post

Darsath wrote:

IanVanCheese wrote:

Darsath wrote:

 _Ness wrote:
Any thoughts about the Praetorians? Are they worthy now?

Wraiths do their job better, and got a points reduction. So I'd just stick with Wraiths for the moment.

I'd say wraiths do a very similar job better, but there is a niche for Praetorians going forwards. Wraiths are better at not dying, but they can't obliterate a unit of MEQs in the same way Praetorians can. I think if Primaris/DG/TS become more of a thing, then there might be some cause for Praetorians to come off the shelf.

I disagree. Wraith's 2 DMG weapons make them excellent against MEQ, and -2 AP is more than enough to compete.

True, but 260 pts gets you 10 Praetorians or 5 wraiths and change. That's 30 attacks at -3 D1 vs 15 attacks at -2 D2. Same amount of damage coming through at a higher AP. It's close, but I wouldn't say they have no place. Also depends on what you're facing. Against MW spam or anything that cleaves invulns, Praetorians are the clear winners. Niche, but at least useable now.

IanVanCheese wrote:

True, but 260 pts gets you 10 Praetorians or 5 wraiths and change. That's 30 attacks at -3 D1 vs 15 attacks at -2 D2. Same amount of damage coming through at a higher AP. It's close, but I wouldn't say they have no place. Also depends on what you're facing. Against MW spam or anything that cleaves invulns, Praetorians are the clear winners. Niche, but at least useable now.

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison, because that's 5.4 wraiths, the numbers would compare more evenly at 9 Praetorians (234) vs 5 wraiths (240). Praetorians don't get advance and charge, they also don't can't be part of Novokh's dynasty, so they miss out on reroll hits on charge (and considering how slippery they are they can charge every round), or blood rites (fight twice). They have one less strength, and are two inches slower even before advance and charge, and any weapon with a non-zero AP and 2 damage is going chunk them. The only thing they have going for them is RP, which I think is fine, but everyone else seems to hate. Going with voidblade and pistol puts them directly in competition with wraiths, and wraiths are frankly better at that role. Like a 6 man of wraiths can take on a knight, and trap it in combat since they are not infantry or swarms, praetorians get stomped to death and then the knight gets to walk over them to shoot their remaining brothers before charging and stomping the rest out.

Tomb blades do area denia better, wraiths are a better assault unit, and lychguard can ethier hit harder or are more durable. I think we can make lychguard work at their new points, maybe, but I'm pretty sure praetorians are boned. Lack of a dynasty keyword, combined with a unit too focused on doing a bit of everything, and nothing particularly well, means I'm not sure you can ever get the balance right for them.

Another factor in this conversation that should be included is that Wraiths can be Novokh or Nephrekh while Praetorians cannot.

On the other hand, something that Praetorians can do and Wraiths can't is charge fliers.

I thought Wraiths still had fly?

dapperbandit wrote:
On the other hand, something that Praetorians can do and Wraiths can't is charge fliers.

Good point, but with D1 and most Flyers being T6-7 that's still pretty meh. I'd rather ignore them and try to get rid of the rest of my opponent's army. I've lost games because of trying to hit a Flyer with a -1, same applies when trying to put an anti-MEQ unit against a Vehicle. Using them as a spring-board by charging them and then piling into other units is an option only available to Spyders, Scarabs and Praetorians. I still can't see myself taking them against a CE, DE, AM, Knight, DG or TS list. Maybe if TS and DG start using their cheaper elite Troops then Praetorians become better, but I don't even think I'll be using Wraiths as is. Dakka is king in ITC, if you can't reliably shoot a unit down each turn or take full control of the board, you're losing, Wraiths and Praetorians don't really help with those things.

I won a 2000 pt game with 2017 pts using my Supreme Seraptek list against a Triarch Praetorian/Lychguard/3xDDA list. You'd think I'd easily beat the crap out such a bad list, but the board was set up in such a way (by me) as to now allow the Seraptek free reign so it was pretty terrible, particularly against QS with its flat 6 dmg weapons. I ended up winning by 1 pt because I failed to respect RP and my opponent got 10 Praetorians back on his unit of 10 over the course of the game. With the soon to be buffs to our QS vehicles I think I'll move away from the Synaptic Obliterator, you don't want to have to shoot at Immortals with this thing and the other option isn't terrible and those two will almost certainly delete at least one DDA/turn. My Destroyer Lords were terrible, I didn't have the CP to re-roll their attempts to come back to life and they both failed a 4+ to come back.

I won a 1500 pt game with 2017 pts using a Mephrit Warrior heavy force against Night Lords/Daemons. I forgot to Fall Back with my Triarch Stalker and Doomsday Ark and used my Veil of Darkness, then I forgot to use my Ghost Ark to heal and shot with a unit. I chose to surrender and asked my opponent if he wanted to continue as if I hadn't been an idiot, or start a new game. We continued and I crushed his Night Lords list. I had the Fearless WL trait so all his Ld shananigans were useless against me. He also brought a Sicarian Venator which does 2d6 dmg, pretty terrible against QS.

 IHateNids wrote:
I thought Wraiths still had fly?

Never had it in 8th

 vict0988 wrote:

dapperbandit wrote:
On the other hand, something that Praetorians can do and Wraiths can't is charge fliers.

Good point, but with D1 and most Flyers being T6-7 that's still pretty meh. I'd rather ignore them and try to get rid of the rest of my opponent's army.

Flyers get -1 for shooting attacks, right? 10 praetorians would still do 5-6 damage on average with S5/-3 and 3 attacks. It should get the job half done if need be.

 Grimgold wrote:
I think we can make lychguard work at their new points, maybe

For me, they still have the same problem as before: how do you effectively and reliably get them into combat?

Night Scythe-
Turn 1, starts on the board, moves up next to Lychguard target.
Turn 2, Lychguard get out... but taget has probably moved away out of Lychguard charge range.
Turn 3, Lychguard can start walking now, hopefully moving towards something worth charging.

Veil-
Turn 1, Veil across board 9" away from Lychguard desired target. Too far to reliably charge.
Turn 2, start walking towards target... which has, itself, probably moved away.

Deceiver+Zahn+Obyron-
Turn 1 charge... but gonna cost you a fortune in points. Plus, you can't guarantee you're actually going to be able to go first.

So I'm thinking I might start running A Nihilak Bat and Supreme Command Detatchment.

Something like


I think it has potential, the DDAs and Pylons will all reroll 1s to hit, and i have cloakteks to fix the incoming damage.
The tesla immortals get their MWBD, reroll 1s to hit, reroll 1s to wound. Not shabby.

Well why dont we pair our praetorians with a cloaktek? fit a dlord in there aswell and we have a nice mobile, punchy and durable force.