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Darsath wrote:

I'm going to quote you on this in a month's time.

Cynista wrote:
I really admire your optimism man. But cmon, Necrons are firmly lower tier.

If we had better internal balance we would be mid-tier. But we don't, not enough of our units are viable and some are just garbage, leading to cookie cutter builds that still can't compete with the best

Replying to both at once.

I just don't see how we are lower than mid tier. We are in a solid place right now, with plenty of strong units. Are we top or high tier? No, although an argument can be made for being on the border of mid-high. But we definitely aren't low tier.

Has Necrons really been tested well enough to say something definitive since CA? People stopped bringing them before that, have they started bringing then to bigger tournaments after that?

torblind wrote:
Has Necrons really been tested well enough to say something definitive since CA? People stopped bringing them before that, have they started bringing then to bigger tournaments after that?

LVO had a 5-1 Necrons list if I recall correctly.

RogueApiary wrote:

torblind wrote:
Has Necrons really been tested well enough to say something definitive since CA? People stopped bringing them before that, have they started bringing then to bigger tournaments after that?

LVO had a 5-1 Necrons list if I recall correctly.

Yeah the Ghost Ark list - I don't know many details about his (or her) games, but I think of that as somewhat of an anomaly until I see Ghost Arks as being the new hotness.

 Werekill wrote:

Darsath wrote:

I'm going to quote you on this in a month's time.

Cynista wrote:
I really admire your optimism man. But cmon, Necrons are firmly lower tier.

If we had better internal balance we would be mid-tier. But we don't, not enough of our units are viable and some are just garbage, leading to cookie cutter builds that still can't compete with the best

Replying to both at once.

I just don't see how we are lower than mid tier. We are in a solid place right now, with plenty of strong units. Are we top or high tier? No, although an argument can be made for being on the border of mid-high. But we definitely aren't low tier.

Not my own work, but here is some data plotted from LVO: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/b3tsy4/as_requested_lvo_performance_by_faction

Necronplayer wrote:

Not my own work, but here is some data plotted from LVO: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/b3tsy4/as_requested_lvo_performance_by_faction

That doesn't seem that bad. Not top but several worse ones as well. With FAQ indirectly helping us could help us a bit.

tneva82 wrote:

Necronplayer wrote:

Not my own work, but here is some data plotted from LVO: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/b3tsy4/as_requested_lvo_performance_by_faction

That doesn't seem that bad. Not top but several worse ones as well. With FAQ indirectly helping us could help us a bit.

Yes and no. Weirdly I think Necrons did OK against castellans. The guns on it are all high damage, so our QS protected our vehicles. If people start replacing them with twin Crusaders, that's bad for business.

Our worst match up IMO is Tau, and they remain untouched.

Still, I think we're in an OK spot, we'll have to see what happens to the meta, One thing we can be thankful of is that no one is building their lists to beat us lol.

Castellans might be good but everybody's response to them was not high power AT guns due to 3++ making them inefficient. So our vehicle protection was bad against their AT weapons.

Also orks had the loota bomb nerfed so that's lot less always hit on 5+(if needed) S7 -1 D2 shots coming necron's way. I'm an ork player as well(as sig should tell ) and lootas are just murder vs necrons. Tomb blades? Bye bye. Doomsday ark? What's that?

tneva82 wrote:
Castellans might be good but everybody's response to them was not high power AT guns due to 3++ making them inefficient. So our vehicle protection was bad against their AT weapons.

Also orks had the loota bomb nerfed so that's lot less always hit on 5+(if needed) S7 -1 D2 shots coming necron's way. I'm an ork player as well(as sig should tell ) and lootas are just murder vs necrons. Tomb blades? Bye bye. Doomsday ark? What's that?

True, but I don't see the meta switching back to lascannons and the like anytime soon. I think spamming D2/D3 weaponry is just the best way to kill anything and everything. Lotta's getting nerfed is nice. We'll see.

 Werekill wrote:

Darsath wrote:

I'm going to quote you on this in a month's time.

Cynista wrote:
I really admire your optimism man. But cmon, Necrons are firmly lower tier.

If we had better internal balance we would be mid-tier. But we don't, not enough of our units are viable and some are just garbage, leading to cookie cutter builds that still can't compete with the best

Replying to both at once.

I just don't see how we are lower than mid tier. We are in a solid place right now, with plenty of strong units. Are we top or high tier? No, although an argument can be made for being on the border of mid-high. But we definitely aren't low tier.

It depends. If you are talking non-competitive or competitive with no allies or LoW, then we are pretty good.
If you are talking super-competitive WAAC bs with allies and LoW, then we have a bit of a problem as we don't have allies, we don't have good faction trait combos, our force multipliers are a little lacking (seriously, 3" auras? feth off GW), and our LoW / anti-LoW aren't great.

yeah, 3" auras why?

Because of reasons only known to GW Necrons are still OP in GWs world

IanVanCheese wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

Necronplayer wrote:

Not my own work, but here is some data plotted from LVO: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/b3tsy4/as_requested_lvo_performance_by_faction

That doesn't seem that bad. Not top but several worse ones as well. With FAQ indirectly helping us could help us a bit.

Yes and no. Weirdly I think Necrons did OK against castellans. The guns on it are all high damage, so our QS protected our vehicles. If people start replacing them with twin Crusaders, that's bad for business.

Our worst match up IMO is Tau, and they remain untouched.

Still, I think we're in an OK spot, we'll have to see what happens to the meta, One thing we can be thankful of is that no one is building their lists to beat us lol.

Exactly. With everyone referencing the 5-1 Necrons list as an indicator that we're not low tier, we should take the time to look at why it did so well (ignoring the player skill, because I'm sure the person is a great player) in the Castellan meta.

3 DDAs
2 Ghost Arks
1 CCB

Almost half of the list has QS making them ignore most damage from the knight.

If we want to look at the average Necrons placement in LVO, ~425, and check that against the total number of players at LVO, 662 according to BCP, Necron players place in the ((662 - 425) / 662) * 100 = 35.8% percentile. Meaning the average Necron player can expect to place better than 35.8% of other 40k players on average.

Looking at the other mono factions as a reference, Tau players place around 325 and Orkz place around 300, putting them in the 50.9% percentile and 54.7% percentile respectively.

We were fortunate to not get nerfed by the FAQ, but I doubt the nerfs GW handed out to other factions is enough to close the performance gap seen at LVO.

We do have better tools against Tau since CA2018 though. I play against VERY good Tau players, and have for years. Getting my butt handed to me by them is a common occurrence.

Doom Scythes are one such addition. The most dangerous Tau builds are going to be battlesuit gunlines where they have to bunch up to take advantage of shield drones and force multipliers such as commanders and cadres. If you can go first, the Doom Scythes can wreak havoc on those multipliers. I've had several games where I've knocked out 600+ points just with the Doom Scythes on the first turn and they were left with no commanders or shield drones. Now that said, if they go first, you are in trouble.

Also, the mech Tau list is gaining steam as a more common build and quite frankly, it's one of our best match ups. We can absolutely wreck Tau vehicles. I've yet to lose a game to one of these lists

So, I've been playing Orks competitively for the last two years, basically since 8th came out, with the exception of a brief Necron kick last year where I took them to Nova and BfS. In both those cases I took them to the final rounds of my (low tier) brackets before getting kinda thrashed at the finish line, and then I came to my senses and returned to Orky goodness.

Well, it's that time of year again when I get the urge to play robots. I'm just now driving up to Ottawa for an ITC Major this weekend. Two weekends ago I managed to win a local RTT with Necrons , beating both Mech Tau and Imperial Soup on the way! Two weeks from now I'm playing in a GT called Steel City Slaughter in Pittsburgh, so it's go time for my Necrons and I need some help.

Lists are due by midnight for the Ottawa event, and they're using the new FAQ. Ynnari are still a thing for the moment, but everything else is "new."

Can y'all help me throw a list together? I won the RTT but that puts me at 4 games with Necrons since last October, haha. Here's what I've brought on the trip:

3 Doomscythes
3 DDAs
Imotekh/Overlord
2 Crypteks/Cloakteks
25 Tesla Immortals
14 Gauss Tomb Blades
9 Scarab Bases
6 Wraiths

So I've got to make a list from that. I am mostly not planning to use the Wraiths, but they're a good hard anchor unit with Nihilakh, and can charge Elder Flyers....

Help! Haha.

Yeah...except Wraiths don't actually have the fly keyword needed to charge flyers.

On a slightly more helpful note, a solid list making the rounds right now is

Sautekh Airwing
3x Doom Scythes

Sautekh Battalion
Imotekh
Overlord
3x 10 Immortals
9x Tomb Blades
3x DDAs

Since you are short on Immortals, you could sub in some Scarabs to screen/sit on objectives

Oh fark, you're right. Oh well.

My list at the RTT was:

Sautekh Air Wing
3 Dscythes

Sautekh Spearhead
Claoktek
8 Gauss Blades
3 DDAs

Sautekh Battalion
Imotekh
Veil Cloaktek
25 Tesla Immortals
3 x 3 Scarabs

So I may do that. My current first alternate is dropping Imotekh, Scarabs, and 5 Immortals for an Overlord and 6 more Blades.

Personally, I'd save some points by dropping the Spearhead and the Cloaktek that you are using for the HQ. You should have enough CP to do most of what you need to do already. You could then invest that into more tomb blades or Scarabs.

That's a possibility, but I like having multiple teks around to buff RP rolls on all my units.

If I do that, I can then drop the scarabs and go for 2x7 blades with 16 points to spare.

Played a list quite similar for a friendly game today (versus Tau), and the first time playing the 3 Doomscythes.

Had the 1st turn. Even with full cover with a building, a blob coudn't escape the Doomscythes mobility and the dice were hot :
- 6 Firewarriors
- 8+2 Pathfinders (2 due to morale)
- 5 Shield Drones
- 8 wounds to a riptide

Needless to say that the Doomscythes were focussed the next turn, leaving room for the Destroyers to shine.
I won quite heavily, but had good dice rolls and my opponent not so much.

The List :
Sautekh Battalion
Imotekh
Chronotek with Veil

26 Tesla Immortals (10+10+6)

6 Destroyers
9 Gauss Tomb Blades (6 shieldvanes + 3 Shadowloom)

2 DDA

Sautekh Air Wing
3 Doomscythes

I played only two DDA because my third is not yet builded, but i'm not sure i would put it in. I'll probably try this list some more.

I only rock 2 DDA... I still have not recovered fully from assembling the first 2 (plus my psychotic kitbash to them) and have no desire to make a thrid lol.

I think 2 are fine considering just how many units are viable now. I am generally out of points with like 3 things I'd still love to drop in anyway. That said, I'd obviously never try to convince someone to not take 3 if they have them.

The trio of doomscythes is more important obviously. I love these things and they are so easy to build lol.

Shaelinith wrote:
Played a list quite similar for a friendly game today (versus Tau), and the first time playing the 3 Doomscythes.

Had the 1st turn. Even with full cover with a building, a blob coudn't escape the Doomscythes mobility and the dice were hot :
- 6 Firewarriors
- 8+2 Pathfinders (2 due to morale)
- 5 Shield Drones
- 8 wounds to a riptide

Needless to say that the Doomscythes were focussed the next turn, leaving room for the Destroyers to shine.
I won quite heavily, but had good dice rolls and my opponent not so much.

The List :
Sautekh Battalion
Imotekh
Chronotek with Veil

26 Tesla Immortals (10+10+6)

6 Destroyers
9 Gauss Tomb Blades (6 shieldvanes + 3 Shadowloom)

2 DDA

Sautekh Air Wing
3 Doomscythes

I played only two DDA because my third is not yet builded, but i'm not sure i would put it in. I'll probably try this list some more.

What did your Immortals prioritise on? Shield Drones or the Fire Warriors?

How do we counter an ork horde ? There is an ork player at my FLGS who always brings 3x30 boyz. He always sets them up way outside of my weapons range and uses warpath and da jump on T1 to get them 9.1" away from my units. Most of them time he makes the charge roll, because he can re-roll one or both dice, plus the command re-roll. I screen with scarabs in front of my tesla immortals, but thats not enough. 120 attacks usually kills the scarab screen, or makes a big enough hole which allows him to pile in towards my tesla immortals. 10 tesla immortals with MWBD cant kill 30 boyz. Only one ork needs to stay alive and he plays the 3CP stratagem which allows him to set up the unit again at FULL STRENGTH, where ever he wants, within 6" of any edge of the battlefield, and more than 9" from enemy units. Its like he has ~250 more points (the cost of 30 ork boyz). If i focus fire the jumped boyz, and try to wipe them out, another unit of 30 boyz with warboss, painboy, weirdboy, nob with banner advance towards my units. And because they can still charge after advancing he usually charges them T2.

Even if i get first turn and manage to get some of my units within weapons range i am actually doing him a favor by shooting at his ork boyz, he plays that 3CP stratagem and sets them up right in front of my units. One way would be to not kill more than half of the unit (he can only play that 3CP strat if he lost more than half of the unit), but thats hard to do, i cant stop firing when i want to, and 16 boyz is still a threat. This is just the boyz, he has more bikes, fast vehicles, which get in my face T2, sometimes even T1.

 p5freak wrote:
How do we counter an ork horde ? There is an ork player at my FLGS who always brings 3x30 boyz. He always sets them up way outside of my weapons range and uses warpath and da jump on T1 to get them 9.1" away from my units. Most of them time he makes the charge roll, because he can re-roll one or both dice, plus the command re-roll. I screen with scarabs in front of my tesla immortals, but thats not enough. 120 attacks usually kills the scarab screen, or makes a big enough hole which allows him to pile in towards my tesla immortals. 10 tesla immortals with MWBD cant kill 30 boyz. Only one ork needs to stay alive and he plays the 3CP stratagem which allows him to set up the unit again at FULL STRENGTH, where ever he wants, within 6" of any edge of the battlefield, and more than 9" from enemy units. Its like he has ~250 more points (the cost of 30 ork boyz). If i focus fire the jumped boyz, and try to wipe them out, another unit of 30 boyz with warboss, painboy, weirdboy, nob with banner advance towards my units. And because they can still charge after advancing he usually charges them T2.

Even if i get first turn and manage to get some of my units within weapons range i am actually doing him a favor by shooting at his ork boyz, he plays that 3CP stratagem and sets them up right in front of my units. One way would be to not kill more than half of the unit (he can only play that 3CP strat if he lost more than half of the unit), but thats hard to do, i cant stop firing when i want to, and 16 boyz is still a threat. This is just the boyz, he has more bikes, fast vehicles, which get in my face T2, sometimes even T1.

Leave more than 5" between your scarabs and troops that way he can't consolidate into your Immortals. If you can, have 2 units of 10 Tesla Immortals using MWBD. That should get you out of his first assault. Take note that you'll need to prepare your units for a second screen against the 2nd unit of boyz.

elook wrote:

Leave more than 5" between your scarabs and troops that way he can't consolidate into your Immortals. If you can, have 2 units of 10 Tesla Immortals using MWBD. That should get you out of his first assault. Take note that you'll need to prepare your units for a second screen against the 2nd unit of boyz.

Thats what i am already doing. Not 5", 4" is enough. Scarab bases are more than 1" in diameter. But i almost never manage to kill all of those boyz, and they all return with the 3CP stratagem. I have 2x9 scarabs as screen, but i feel like i need like 4x9 to screen against all these orks. And with two screens, and 5" space between each screen, and tesla immortals, i may run out of deployment zone space. My tesla immortals wont be able to shoot when i get first turn, because they are so far back

 p5freak wrote:

elook wrote:

Leave more than 5" between your scarabs and troops that way he can't consolidate into your Immortals. If you can, have 2 units of 10 Tesla Immortals using MWBD. That should get you out of his first assault. Take note that you'll need to prepare your units for a second screen against the 2nd unit of boyz.

Thats what i am already doing. Not 5", 4" is enough. Scarab bases are more than 1" in diameter. But i almost never manage to kill all of those boyz, and they all return with the 3CP stratagem. I have 2x9 scarabs as screen, but i feel like i need like 4x9 to screen against all these orks. And with two screens, and 5" space between each screen, and tesla immortals, i may run out of deployment zone space. My tesla immortals wont be able to shoot when i get first turn, because they are so far back

Going out on a limb here...

Could it work to put something up that they can't kill in one turn of CC? Wraiths should weather 120 attacks, of course they would get softened up in shooting phase first, but you could perhaps pull from front to make charge harder?

Or wraiths and scarabs in close lines, he would shoot some off but perhaps not reach both units in CC with enough boys to wipe one unit off anymore?

Now turn two, could you pull back, charge in with something else to keep them busy, fire everything at boys unit nr 2 and/or unit 3 and leave unit 1 entangled as a road block?

Hard to pull off and at best situational I fear, bit of nothing else works could be worth investigating. Also things like terrain etc would play a part

Alas we can't block with aircraft anymore.

.. also anything T5/2W/3+ could weather those 120 attacks I think? Haven't played orks much.

Edit: phone spelling errors

Well, let's see. 120 attacks is 80 hits.

Against T5-7, that's 27 wounds.
So that's 9 wounds against a 3+ save. BUT the Boss Nob can have better gear, so I'd want more than 10 wounds as a safeguard.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Well, let's see. 120 attacks is 80 hits.

Against T5-7, that's 27 wounds.
So that's 9 wounds against a 3+ save. BUT the Boss Nob can have better gear, so I'd want more than 10 wounds as a safeguard.

So wraiths and T5 elites are safe so far, problem is the preceding shooting phase.

The Tesseract Ark has some nice anti CC features but might not help in this case. It'd get shot up first and explode to kill parts of your remaining screen

Edit: or could aircraft be used to road block? Boys can't charge them, and would need to clear every one of those models 1" away from it if moving under it. Of course they Aldo til the risk of getting shot up but they are -1 to hit..

Something to consider. You could even keep a unit on the tomb world to drop down if they get shot not to leave a hole.

More crazy ideas.. Deceiver up two night scythes after each other on their path to make it hard to clear passed both.


Or... Deceiver up an Obelisk, it would take some effort to shift and would be a real road block. But that list is hardly TAC any more

Its not 120 attacks, its 150. Base is 2, +1 for melee weapon, +1 for warpath, +1 for greentide (more than 20 models). In addition, he plays them as goffs, which create additional attacks on unmodified hit rolls of 6s. And for 1CP they get S5 They would eat wraith for breakfast And on top of that they can fight again for 3CP at the end of the phase There is no screen in the entire game who would work against that. And thats just the boyz, he can pull off more shenanigans with other units.