Necrons NEW 8th ed. Codex tactica - [please post lists under spoilers]

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**Bosskelot**

Interesting that you beat Ynnari and Imp Soup with mass tomb blades. I really love Tomb Blades but I've found so much Eldar stuff just hard counters them. It's usually a combination of things that ignore modifiers, autohit and also do flat 2 damage that can turn you TB's into giant liabilities. I'd be curious to know how you dealt with Spears and Reapers with that list.

**torblind**

elook wrote:
So in May, we will be having the first ITC Tournament in China. I have a sort of idea of what I will be taking and I would like to get any advice or ideas on my list.

Spoiler:

TOTAL POINTS: 1998
Sautekh Battalion Detachment
HQ
Imotekh Stormlord (Warlord)
Artefact - Veil of Darkness

Cryptekh w/ Chronometron

Troops
20x Warriors
10x Tesla Immortals
10x Tesla Immortals

Heavy Support
2x Doomsday Arks
1x Annihilation Barge

Nephrekh Outrider Detachment
HQ
Cryptek w/ Canoptek Cloak

Fast Attack
6x Scarabs
6x Wraiths w/ 5 Whip Coils & 1 Particle Caster
6x Destroyers w/ 1 Heavy destroyer

Other Units I currently have:

Spoiler:

4x Warriors
10x Lychguard
1x C'Tan Deceiver
2x Overlords

Imotekh can't take the relic. Destroyers might want to be in Sautekh instead of Novokh, although depends. The Annihilation Barge likely won't pull it's weight. Could free up points there

**Odrankt**

Bosskelot wrote:
Interesting that you beat Ynnari and Imp Soup with mass tomb blades. I really love Tomb Blades but I've found so much Eldar stuff just hard counters them. It's usually a combination of things that ignore modifiers, autohit and also do flat 2 damage that can turn you TB's into giant liabilities. I'd be curious to know how you dealt with Spears and Reapers with that list.

I kept the TBs ontop of buildings for 2+ saves (as they all had shieldvanes) so when jinxd I was back to 3+. Also, we played a rule where the 1st floor of all buildings were Los from all points of view, so what I would do is have 5 on top of a building and than congolined the other 4 to the 1st floor so that when 5 would due the other 4 would be safe and would get RP back as only a 6 for morale would lose me a model. I also sent in my DDAs at his shining Spears and my Tesla TBs at his dark reapers. I was able to delete with units on my turn 2.

At the end of that Gane I did lose 2 DDAs, 1 full TB unit, the Scarabs and 1 Triarch Stalker. However the only models he had left was an aux detachment Succubus, 5 rangers and 1 Farseer. If the game had gone on I would of tabled him.

Getting Jinxd, doom was annoying but it took over 1100pts of his army (including 3 wace serpents) to kill my Tesla TBs. I'll be honest in saying that my list did better than I had expected seeing as the Ynarri player had 4 perfect games (20-0) which I stopped and nearly got 1st place.

When in the right hands Necrons can be a good army. Just stay Away from troops. Imo. I only had 5 Cps but ended all my games with 1-2 left. All of my opponents had 9-13 CPs and they were all gone by turn 2.

**elook**

torblind wrote:

Imotekh can't take the relic. Destroyers might want to be in Sautekh instead of Novokh, although depends. The Annihilation Barge likely won't pull it's weight. Could free up points there

Thank you, how about getting rid of Annihilation Barge and Whip Coils for The C'Tan Nightbringer? And why Destroyers in Sautekh?

**vict0988**

Odrankt wrote:
Bosskelot wrote:
Interesting that you beat Ynnari and Imp Soup with mass tomb blades. I really love Tomb Blades but I've found so much Eldar stuff just hard counters them. It's usually a combination of things that ignore modifiers, autohit and also do flat 2 damage that can turn you TB's into giant liabilities. I'd be curious to know how you dealt with Spears and Reapers with that list.

I kept the TBs ontop of buildings for 2+ saves (as they all had shieldvanes) so when jinxd I was back to 3+. Also, we played a rule where the 1st floor of all buildings were Los from all points of view, so what I would do is have 5 on top of a building and than congolined the other 4 to the 1st floor so that when 5 would due the other 4 would be safe and would get RP back as only a 6 for morale would lose me a model. I also sent in my DDAs at his shining Spears and my Tesla TBs at his dark reapers. I was able to delete with units on my turn 2.

At the end of that Gane I did lose 2 DDAs, 1 full TB unit, the Scarabs and 1 Triarch Stalker. However the only models he had left was an aux detachment Succubus, 5 rangers and 1 Farseer. If the game had gone on I would of tabled him.

Getting Jinxd, doom was annoying but it took over 1100pts of his army (including 3 wace serpents) to kill my Tesla TBs. I'll be honest in saying that my list did better than I had expected seeing as the Ynarri player had 4 perfect games (20-0) which I stopped and nearly got 1st place.

When in the right hands Necrons can be a good army. Just stay Away from troops. Imo. I only had 5 Cps but ended all my games with 1-2 left. All of my opponents had 9-13 CPs and they were all gone by turn 2.

Tomb Blades only get Cover if they are 50% covered because they don't have the Infantry keyword. Nice tech choice with the Nightbringer, knowing your meta definitely worked out for you, were your DDAs able to deal with triple Ravager or did those not show up?

**torblind**

elook wrote:
torblind wrote:

Imotekh can't take the relic. Destroyers might want to be in Sautekh instead of Novokh, although depends. The Annihilation Barge likely won't pull it's weight. Could free up points there

Thank you, how about getting rid of Annihilation Barge and Whip Coils for The C'Tan Nightbringer? And why Destroyers in Sautekh?

Destroyers can then advance and shoot which may be something you need if 10"+24" isn't enough.

And yeah, drop the whip coils and AB for the nightbringer sounds good

**Odrankt**

Tomb Blades only get Cover if they are 50% covered because they don't have the Infantry keyword. Nice tech choice with the Nightbringer, knowing your meta definitely worked out for you, were your DDAs able to deal with triple Ravager or did those not show up?

the buildings had a rim on top so I was able to get 50% obsecured. Also the buildings had windows from which we could shoot from but you get +1 save.

Thank man. Out of 40 People there was 22 Eldar lists including soups and D Eldar. Nightbringer packed a punch. Cosmic fire did a good few wounds we my enemies got to close.

In my 1st game I got 2st and lost 1 DDA to them. It took 3 to kill 1 DDA though. On my turn my 2 T stalkers and other 2 DDAs were able to kill the 3 Ravengers. So I didn't mind losing one when I was able to tank that many hits with lucky saves and QS rolls.

**Merkabah**

That list looks a lot like my pre faq 2000 point list. Get a lot of eye rolls when I say I hate our troops and never use them. Even had the guy in the GW store try to explain how warriors were our best unit and I needed to spam them

Thing that really surprised me was lack of destroyers. I've been considering scrapping them because they are lascannon magnets. Was that your reasoning too?

**moonsmite**

Merkabah wrote:
That list looks a lot like my pre faq 2000 point list. Get a lot of eye rolls when I say I hate our troops and never use them. Even had the guy in the GW store try to explain how warriors were our best unit and I needed to spam them

Thing that really surprised me was lack of destroyers. I've been considering scrapping them because they are lascannon magnets. Was that your reasoning too?

Way i been talking to my friends about the lack of using destroyers is that every unit needs to be judged in two ways

attack and defence
.
Every one knows the destroyers have the highest damage output in the codex. but when you factor in all the high damage weapons wont aim at our tanks. the destroyers will get hit by every high ap/damage going. So their defence value in synergy with the rest of the army becomes terrible.

Not saying they are a bad unit. but when against the higher skilled opponents, they are just not worth their points. and against the newer inexperienced players. its just winning more

**torblind**

moonsmite wrote:
Merkabah wrote:
That list looks a lot like my pre faq 2000 point list. Get a lot of eye rolls when I say I hate our troops and never use them. Even had the guy in the GW store try to explain how warriors were our best unit and I needed to spam them

Thing that really surprised me was lack of destroyers. I've been considering scrapping them because they are lascannon magnets. Was that your reasoning too?

Way i been talking to my friends about the lack of using destroyers is that every unit needs to be judged in two ways

attack and defence and context
.
Every one knows the destroyers have the highest damage output in the codex. but when you factor in all the high damage weapons wont aim at our tanks. the destroyers will get hit by every high ap/damage going. So their defence value in synergy with the rest of the army becomes terrible.

Not saying they are a bad unit. but when against the higher skilled opponents, they are just not worth their points. and against the newer inexperienced players. its just winning more

Added a bit. Quantum shielding typically means that the Dmg D6 or Dmg 3+ weapons find other targets. And then suddenly all eyes are on the destroyers.

If you bring dangerous, non-QS fast high-wound targets to them, then this may change. Of course we dont have that many of the

**dapperbandit**

In more friendly games I usually opt to have the destroyers come down in DS using the Nephrekh strat

But sometimes a game is all but decided by the end of the 2nd Battle Round in more competitive games.

Back when the deep strike rules said you could only deep strike inside your own deployment zone in the first battle round it was more of a no brainer.

**Odrankt**

Thing that really surprised me was lack of destroyers. I've been considering scrapping them because they are lascannon magnets. Was that your reasoning too?

I never like Destroyers. Even before CA18.

I always saw them as a One trick pony (did damage in turn of arrival w/ EO and would die the exact same turn).

So, I never saw the point investing 300pt +1CP for a unit that will kill what they target (unless it had good invul saves and FnP) but will die just as easy on my opponents next turn.

Would rather put those points in a Tark, Tomb Blades, DDA or even a C'tan.

**iGuy91**

Honestly, in regards to destroyers, they have one job in my lists. Kill the thing that kills them best before it kills them.

They come in, kill the biggest threat to their existence, and then their survivability improves.

Lists with more redundancy tend to make that really, really tough, usually need to play with LoS Blocking in order to keep them alive. Going first helps a lot too.

**Maelstrom808**

I've been using 2 units of Destroyers since the codex dropped, but I run them as nephrekh and usually deep strike them with a cronotek. It allows me to put them where I need and usually gives me the chance to delete the biggest threats to them before they have the opportunity to fight back. After that they can usually survive most return fire enough to Rez with the help of the cryptek.

**wuestenfux**

With Destroyers its also a matter of deployment.
They should see the unit that needs to get killed but the other enemy units should not/hardly see them.
On heavy terrain boards this should be doable.

**Doctoralex**

Yep that's what I usually do with my Destroyers. Hide them as best as I can, Veil them forward (preferably into cover) and have them unload on the enemy's biggest threat.

Also for the people who are saying they just go in and die; don't forget that if you place these babies into cover they are quite a tough nut to crack. It often takes between half or 3/4th of my opponents army to wipe them out.
Also thanks to the psychological effect of RP, which makes them wanna wipe out the unit. Even to the point of them using very inefficient weapons to take them down.

**Merkabah**

Doctoralex wrote:
Yep that's what I usually do with my Destroyers. Hide them as best as I can, Veil them forward (preferably into cover) and have them unload on the enemy's biggest threat.

Also for the people who are saying they just go in and die; don't forget that if you place these babies into cover they are quite a tough nut to crack. It often takes between half or 3/4th of my opponents army to wipe them out.
Also thanks to the psychological effect of RP, which makes them wanna wipe out the unit. Even to the point of them using very inefficient weapons to take them down.

Problem that I've been grappling with is that a 2+ save with no invulnerable in an army that craps all over lascannons because of QS is really bad. Because your enemy has lascannons (or lascannon equivalents) and generally only one good target for them.

**iGuy91**

Merkabah wrote:
Doctoralex wrote:
Yep that's what I usually do with my Destroyers. Hide them as best as I can, Veil them forward (preferably into cover) and have them unload on the enemy's biggest threat.

Also for the people who are saying they just go in and die; don't forget that if you place these babies into cover they are quite a tough nut to crack. It often takes between half or 3/4th of my opponents army to wipe them out.
Also thanks to the psychological effect of RP, which makes them wanna wipe out the unit. Even to the point of them using very inefficient weapons to take them down.

Problem that I've been grappling with is that a 2+ save with no invulnerable in an army that craps all over lascannons because of QS is really bad. Because your enemy has lascannons (or lascannon equivalents) and generally only one good target for them.

To be honest, most of my opponents don't run lascannons against me any more. Tends to hurt my vehicles more now since they dont use them.
But it helps my destroyers.

**Cynista**

I just try to run enough immediate different threats so that my Destroyers aren't solely targeted. VOD Immortals, flanking Wraiths and deep striking Tomb Stalker all fairly big distractions. They do still get targeted a lot though

**drakerocket**

So I think destroyers are fragile, but what makes tomb blades not in the exact same boat? Is the -1 really so enormous of a difference given what you're talking about?

**torblind**

drakerocket wrote:
So I think destroyers are fragile, but what makes tomb blades not in the exact same boat? Is the -1 really so enormous of a difference given what you're talking about?

That and they're not an imediate threat in the same way. Destroyers kill whatever they lay their eyes upon. Tomb blades play the long game, slowly trickling back with RP, have good but not devastating fire power, have utility with their good movement to reach far away objectives. These qualities tend not to draw fire the same way. Units easier to wipe out, also having lower levels of damage output, such as infantry, are often targeted instead. Perhaps with the exception of damage 2 weapons, which are cut out for tomb blades.

Of course if you play your tomb blades well, they will learn.

**IHateNids**

It also helps a little that Blades aren’t 50ppm

**Odrankt**

drakerocket wrote:
So I think destroyers are fragile, but what makes tomb blades not in the exact same boat? Is the -1 really so enormous of a difference given what you're talking about?

Tomb Blades are probably* our best units in the entire codex. When compared to Destroyers they do different roles. Tomb Blades (TBs) can zip across the board grabbing objectives or can be congolined to hold two objectives. Can be a good screen for your C'tan, Cloaktek or CCB because they have FLY (Yes, the CCB doesn't buff TBs but the TB can keep up with the CCB which is nice).

The Destroyers. Well, they just Destroy things. They pretty much go into cover for 2+ save point at something, use EP, and now they delete something they point at.

While TBs don't put out as much DMG as Destroyers can in 1 turn, TBs will put out more reliable DMG as the game goes on than Destroyers can.

The pros to TBs are; 9 models per unit so better chance are survival + RP, have -1 to hit so can tank a lot of hits, produce a good quality of dakka, don't need any buffs or Stratgems to be good. Just 4+ RP from Cloaktek. Can be kitted with 3+, 5++ or ignore cover and so more durability than most of our other units.

Cons to TBs - bikers so need to be 50% covered to get +1 save... That's pretty much it.

Pros to Destroyers - have infantry keyword, can** Destroy something they point at.

Cons to Destroyers - only 6 per squad so easily killed, need help from ChromoCryptek to get 5++, need a 1cp gem for them to reliably kill what they target, very hard to get RP on them as most people will shot them to Oblivion, need a gem to become the Destroyers they should be. Fire magnet till dead.

When you see TBs and Destroyers on the filed ask yourself. Which unit looks more dangerous and which unit will die quicker.

* - definitely our best unit in the Codex. Anyone saying otherwise hasn't played them or doesn't know how to use them

** - i say can because without EP they don't do that much DMG. So, do you really want to spend an extra CP just to make a 300pt unit preform good? I'd rather out those points in units that are already good and don't need CPs to preform better.

**ImPhaeronWeasel**

Just to add my two cents to the comparison:

I think Destroyers are cool but I too dont like the idea of investing 300points plus 1CP into something where I have to roll enough 5s with a reroll, hope the opponent doesnt make his invulnerable saves AND that dies next turn after arriving.

Especially the „roll 5s“ part is where I question my dice luck. Ive never killed ANYTHING while pointing my destroyers at it. Yes I did some damage here and there, sometimes even a lot of dmg but I always wondered if it was worth it.

PLUS PLUS: Then again IF I roll enough 5s and the opponent fails his saves I roll 1s and 2s for dmg...because necrons dont have flat numbers of attacks or dmg...randomcrons!

**torblind**

Remember - If played correctly a unit of Destroyers could soak up fire (and die) and force your enemy to change his plans to achieve that, allowing your tomb blades to live longer, out maneuver him and make a late game impact.

**dapperbandit**

Its obviously very circumstantial but one way I've been able to keep my destroyers alive is using them to movement block vehicles against terrain once they've charged

**Quixeemoto**

Been lurking in this thread for a while and figured I would offer up some of my thoughts and a list I have been working on:

First, the list:

Spoiler:

Main idea of the list is that the destroyers are useful for shredding heavy infantry or vehicles with the strat (yea rolling 5's to wound feels bad but against normal vehicles you will still do a decent chunk of damage). Wraiths usually advance and charge something turn 1, and can do a good chunk rerolling to hit. The lychguard get MWBD and then veil to charge whatever needs to die (needing an 8 now because they get +1 to charge rolls, hitting on 2's rerolling to hit. I usually save a cp to reroll a die if need be, if its a matchup where they have to get into combat, you can also take the reroll charge distances warlord trait on the overlord). The tesla immortals and tomb blades basically just remove infantry while the warriors can be either a screen or rapid fire stuff at ap-2.

In my experience DDA have never been worth it, I find they are too swingy or too low shot against what necrons really need to kill (castellans, where 3 DDA only do like 5 damage to it on average). So far with this list I am 2-1, so far the unit that has done the least has actually been the tomb blades, so I may swap them out.

**Odrankt**

Your tombblades are dying because your running them with 4+ saves and not in a full unit of 9. Least give some of them Shield vanes and the rest Shadowlooms for 3+ and 5++. And make it s full size unit.

**Quixeemoto**

the issue wasn't that they were dying, its that they did not do very much. Also I only own 6 and getting more isn't an option atm

**Doctoralex**

Heeya folks, was thinking of this list for an upcoming ITC tourney. Note that it is a MONO-faction tourney. Absolutely no flavours of soup are served:

Sautekh Battalion:
Immotekh, Warlord
Cryptek

3x5 Tesla Immortals

9x Tomb Blades /w Tesla , 7 with shield vanes
6x Destroyers

Triach Stalker

Sautekh Spearhead

Lord /w Hyperphase Sword.

3x DDA

What do you think? Too much anti-tank? Especially since it's mono-faction, so Knights probably won't be on the table.