Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Rumours are not relevant to this thread.

I noticed some Warriors at LVO, maybe I am too hard on them but they seem like a mistake, even with a Ghost Ark. Tesseract Arks were everywhere which surprised me.

The level of skill and professionalism at lvo was pretty low, even at the top 50 tables, so if you guys have the money to go and just a decent amount of skill I think you should give it a shot. I didn't watch the Necron guy that was on stream too closely, maybe there is something to learn from the game but I heard it was mostly luck, which is a skill I have already fully mastered. The other game of his I watched got finished up rather quick. The atmosphere at the event was surprisingly chill, a few raised hackes and some salt, pretty much average game table and not the pro experience I anticipated.

Pyrothem wrote:
5-1 at LVO against the current meta is impressive no matter how you look at it. Good on ya Eulis Sanders.

Who what? Wow! What was he/she running? What did they get matched against? How did they play tactically to maximize opportunities and mitigate risks?

So many questions!

sieGermans wrote:

Pyrothem wrote:
5-1 at LVO against the current meta is impressive no matter how you look at it. Good on ya Eulis Sanders.

Who what? Wow! What was he/she running? What did they get matched against? How did they play tactically to maximize opportunities and mitigate risks?

So many questions!

Eulis Sanders Nihilakh Spearhead: 3 DDA, 4 Destroyers and a heavy, Lord w. Veil, orb and sword. Mephrit Doomwing. Sautekh Spearhead Imotekh WL, 2x TesArk, lonely Heavy Destroyer, Deceiver.

TesArks and Deceiver popped up a lot, doom6 was everywhere.

27/19 vs 3x Lord of Skulls
36/15 vs Cultist spam with Terminator and Bloodbomb
34/21 vs Horror screen with bloodbomb, DPs and a couple of KoS.
36/14 vs Iron Hands successor filth. He seized and Deceivered up his DDAs to be in LOS and range and wiped out his opponent in no time.
34/17 vs Chaos Knights. Stream game. Eulis got an early lead his opponent could not recover from.
25/35 vs RG successor filth.

 Tauris_Blazestar wrote:
With the Greater Good leak confirming the Imp/GSC/Tau for PA which debunks the rumor of Tau vs DG. How likely is it that Necrons are stuck with DG for our PA book release?

PA is going to have an Imperial Faction in every book. Five bucks say we get stuck with Imperial Guard....and maybe Death Guard.

I dont care what faction(s) we get in our PA book, as long as we dont have to share the book with three other factions, like in engine war. I play daemons as well, and none of the other factions, which means less rules for each faction, and paying for rules which i dont want.

No marine faction getting copy&paste datasheets they already had. How many pages ba and da got that added to nothing they didn't have already? Dozens. So those are pages that fit 4th faction easily

 vict0988 wrote:

sieGermans wrote:

Pyrothem wrote:
5-1 at LVO against the current meta is impressive no matter how you look at it. Good on ya Eulis Sanders.

Who what? Wow! What was he/she running? What did they get matched against? How did they play tactically to maximize opportunities and mitigate risks?

So many questions!

Eulis Sanders Nihilakh Spearhead: 3 DDA, 4 Destroyers and a heavy, Lord w. Veil, orb and sword. Mephrit Doomwing. Sautekh Spearhead Imotekh WL, 2x TesArk, lonely Heavy Destroyer, Deceiver.

TesArks and Deceiver popped up a lot, doom6 was everywhere.

27/19 vs 3x Lord of Skulls
36/15 vs Cultist spam with Terminator and Bloodbomb
34/21 vs Horror screen with bloodbomb, DPs and a couple of KoS.
36/14 vs Iron Hands successor filth. He seized and Deceivered up his DDAs to be in LOS and range and wiped out his opponent in no time.
34/17 vs Chaos Knights. Stream game. Eulis got an early lead his opponent could not recover from.
25/35 vs RG successor filth.

Interesting!

So, some discussion questions:

What is it about the statline for TArks that makes them so attractive for use?

Whilst Doom6 was ubiquitous, aside from the above result, it doesn’t appear to be ‘enough’ to win. Do we think we need to scrap it as a baseline build assumption and look at other strategies? My gut feel is that the DDA component is super flexible and useful, whilst the Air Wing is less so.

I love the assumptions informing Dynasty choice in the above: given the expectation is the strat’s going to be the use case, giving the Tesla AP-1 is quite an uptick in punch—does this seem to be the dominant strategy for employing this formation?

sieGermans wrote:

What is it about the statline for TArks that makes them so attractive for use?

It's more mobile and tougher DDA with slightly less punch(but more on the move). I can see use for it. Also good at clearing W3 models like custodians etc. One of the best units necrons have for that I think

T-arks:
Has an usable 7T with 3+/5++ save. Then Quantum Shielding and living metal.
Main Gun is a tool box, pick the one mode for the target at hand.
Optional guns are medium range, but the 12" move helps. Most likely using 2x Gauss Cannon which is a rather strong gun.
Perfect to run as Sautekh to over come the Heavy penalty or even just advancing and shooting.
With most of it's guns 24" or less, it wants to be close, between the flamer and the charge dice roll manipulation helps mitigate that flaw.

At 180/186/200 points it is rather good. But so much of our good stuff already costs a lot of points and it is overlooked because of past Forgeworld restrictions.

And because it costs lotsa money

I've been hearing talk about the meta moving towards units that are super effective at taking out units with the Fly keyword. Seeing as most (if not all) of our best units have the Fly keyword, how could we adapt to such a meta or do we just keep pushing through?

We'd have to muscle through it. There's no other option seeing as you've rightly pointed out all our vehicles and best units (Or units that push us into the competitive bracket) have FLY. IF the meta really is shifting to punish FLY without alleviating a few core issues in our Codex then Necrons are arguably going to get the worst end of it competitively.

I wouldn't buy any Tesseract Arks right now (if you don't already have them) until the new Forgeworld books drop. After LVO, I wouldn't be surprised to see some heavy handed nerfs across the board for FW.

 D6Damager wrote:
I wouldn't buy any Tesseract Arks right now (if you don't already have them) until the new Forgeworld books drop. After LVO, I wouldn't be surprised to see some heavy handed nerfs across the board for FW.

Maybe i'll get lucky and they'll buff the Seraptek slightly. That'd be nice. But yeah, not buying more forge world right now.

Now that deathmarks are a lot cheaper (seriously, they received a ~25% decrease, unless I misread the entry) it might be worth fielding them now. They are actually cheaper than immortals.

Flayed Ones I think also received a points decrease, but you need more of them due to their low armor and melee orientation.

Monoliths received yet another points decrease. Which is nice, but still not enough.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Now that deathmarks are a lot cheaper (seriously, they received a ~25% decrease, unless I misread the entry) it might be worth fielding them now. They are actually cheaper than immortals.

Flayed Ones I think also received a points decrease, but you need more of them due to their low armor and melee orientation.

Monoliths received yet another points decrease. Which is nice, but still not enough.

18% and now that our HQs are fairly priced I do not see the attraction. It's a flawed comparison IMO I take Immortals in part to get CP. You are really replacing Ghost Arks/C'tan/TBs/Destroyers more so than Immortals.

I haven't played much since the update, but Flayed Ones don't seem terrible, they did pretty much what I would expect and want them to do in the past couple games I brought them.

Only deathmarks can assassinate though and counter deep strike though. Its just that before they were too expensive to do so, as if you wanted a good chance of dealing some damage you had to pay 190 points for ten of them. Now you just need 140 points, which is a little more palatable. They still have a niche use, but at least they aren't over priced.

How are you getting 18%? 5 out of 19 is closer to 25%.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Only deathmarks can assassinate though. Its just that before they were too expensive to do so, as if you wanted a good chance of dealing same damage you had to pay 190 points for ten of them. Now you just need 140 points, which is a little more palatable.

How are you getting 18%? 5 out of 19 is closer to 25%.

I have never been able to assassinate anything with them as far as I recall and I don't think DS is popular so their counterstrike ability is useless to me most games. Assuming Mephrit you need 15 shots to kill a Lieutenant, but I'm not buying a situation where my opponent is placing him in a place where I can kill him very often, in fact I don't think I'll even have LOS to him, but if I do it'll be at 13+" away so I'll need two full squads to kill him on average, with a re-roll he's still safe 70% of the time. A 1W Lieutenant is as good as a 4-wound Lieutenant if my opponent gets rid of my snipers. I'd rather invest in a second Battalion or some of the units I mentioned in my previous post.

Deathmarks were 17 in CA18. Whether it is 10 or 13 that makes them competitive I don't know, but I think 14 is not quite low enough. Definitely low enough to have fun with them and not feel like they are a huge drag on your force. If you wanted to waste 10-40 pts on a unit that isn't quite as efficient as other options, then I think that would most likely get lost in the noise of matchups, dice rolls, terrain, missions and what have you. I wish you good luck if you want to try and make them competitive, but for me Deathmarks are a strong casual choice.

Fair enough. I do agree they aren't an auto-include / competitive choice, just something worth considering now they aren't over priced.
They still need that marking ability they once had to increase their damage potential.
Or maybe just a range increase to 30". That might be a nasty surprise, especially if you can teleport them in a building on your opponent's flank and lay down rapid fire at 15".

They need some sort of additional mechanic

In 7th they would wound on 2+ the turn they came in for example, which was nice against monsters.

Something similar buf, or perhaps as a 1CP strategem. Just something that would allow you to adapt to shifting situations.

as vict said, just keep your squishy HQs outside their 12" threat zone, and you're largely good.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Only deathmarks can assassinate though and counter deep strike though. Its just that before they were too expensive to do so, as if you wanted a good chance of dealing some damage you had to pay 190 points for ten of them. Now you just need 140 points, which is a little more palatable. They still have a niche use, but at least they aren't over priced.

How are you getting 18%? 5 out of 19 is closer to 25%.

i have dropped 10 several times and good if i get 2 wounds. Better bring 2-3 full units if you plan to assasinate anything. Especially as 12" ds prevention bubbles are coming more popular(and deathmarks can't come at all via intercept if they can'w avoid that. Albeit that's rare issue

Dropping points cost only does so much. I don't think dropping the cost of deathmarks is going to ever fix them. It could definitely break them though.

punisher357 wrote:
Dropping points cost only does so much. I don't think dropping the cost of deathmarks is going to ever fix them. It could definitely break them though.

Can we agree that 8 pts would be insanely strong and 21 pts would be insanely weak? Would you also say that 11 pts is as insanely strong as 8 pts or that 15 pts is as insanely weak as 21 pts? Are we not coming close to balance? If 12,5 is still insanely weak and 12,4 is insanely strong, could you not price them somewhere between at 12,42 or 12,48? Are we not getting any close to balance? There is a pts cost that is appropriate for any unit or combination, including one where they are taken occasionally and do well in tournaments but aren't spammed by everyone, we might be there already 18% drop is pretty hefty, so they could see play in a meta where their ability to counter-strike and snipe were mega-valuable or in a format where there is no DS restriction.

You can't always fix a unit with point drops. You can make something cheap enough to be an efficient choice, but not efficient at it's intended purpose. Eldar aspects have this problem; Banshees and scorpions are very cheap now, and are almost usable in certain roles, just not the right ones. Banshees can be used as fast moving tar pits to shut down shooting units, not as slayers of armored infantry. Scorpions are cheap objective grabbers that can have a nasty punch vs characters, not an elite anti-horde unit.
Deathmarks could be made cheap enough to become useful, but not as assassins, just as decent bodies with anti-infantry guns.

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
You can't always fix a unit with point drops. You can make something cheap enough to be an efficient choice, but not efficient at it's intended purpose. Eldar aspects have this problem; Banshees and scorpions are very cheap now, and are almost usable in certain roles, just not the right ones. Banshees can be used as fast moving tar pits to shut down shooting units, not as slayers of armored infantry. Scorpions are cheap objective grabbers that can have a nasty punch vs characters, not an elite anti-horde unit.
Deathmarks could be made cheap enough to become useful, but not as assassins, just as decent bodies with anti-infantry guns.

Exactly this.

Point cost is only one of the levers of balance.

Yeah, deathmarks really need their special marking ability back. The points reduction is nice and does give them more usage, but they really, really their mark back. Because that's what they are called.
I really don't understand what the writers were thinking when they wrote 8th ed Necrons. Its like they wanted to take everything cool away from necrons and, I dunno, give it to marines or something.

And make Immortals immortal, because thats what they are called.

Well once upon a time, Immortals were halfway between Space Marines and Terminators in toughness what with their higher Toughness.

 Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:
Well once upon a time, Immortals were halfway between Space Marines and Terminators in toughness what with their higher Toughness.

And warriors were a little above marines in term of power. I wish we where a more elite army with fun/strange tricks rather than an army with no rules and a lot of point reduction. Toys before Boys.
Obviously it's not the wise gameplay choice because elite armies are seldom good, but more a fluffy one to better represent that necron technology is stupidly above the field.
5th started a work that 7th finished in fashionning the silver tide giving us the undead horde with cheap reanimating bodies i really don't like. While i understand why giving necron this feeling make sense (the limitless undead legions), it sacrifices the "super-duper-advanced-but-doomed-race-where-each-one-of-them-is-unkillable" theme.

While the phase out rule from 3th-4th was probably difficult to implement gameplay wise, i find it gave room to make the army unique. 8th edition,with a lot of streamlined rules, would probably not be relevant for these kind of traits, but it would be good to have the sentiment necrons a not just subpar space marines with no rules.

I feel like I'm going to have to sell my soul to a star god just to live long enough to see our Psychic Awakening book. We're gonna be last, aren't we?