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Hello all,

I'll be going up against Death Guard this weekend with my Necron army. I don't know the mission yet, but I do know that we'll be playing at 1000 points with no Lords of War available. I have no real idea what my opponent will field, but I'd expect to see Plague Marines and Poxwalkers in the mix.

I'm initially considering going Canoptek Heavy... Wraiths, Scarabs and a Destroyer Lord. Do you think I'd be better off with massed Warriors?

Any helpful advice would be welcome. I've never played versus DG before.

For deathguard, if they are running hordes, Tesla Immortals or Tomb Blades will put out good weight of fire.

A unit of Wraiths can basically take on most anything that does melee in their dex short of a demon prince. Keep a unit of scarabs between your wraiths and their pskyers to avoid them getting smited into oblivion.

Just expect that while you may be reducing their armor saves, you will learn to HATE Disgustingly Resilient.

 iGuy91 wrote:
For deathguard, you will learn to HATE Disgustingly Resilient.

like fighting 7th ed Decurion crons. .. I thought that would have gone away this edition completely.

don't throw a C'tan into CC with a DP and expect it to live ... it's no match!

massed tesla and destroyers as normal are the order of the day.

This is my general Necron v Deathguard List for 2k play for frame of reference. Very no-nonsense



It has a good balance, can speed bump melee threats, and defeat weaker melee opponents. Good shooting at long range as well, with the DDAs trading favorably against Plagueburst Crawlers, and blighthaulers.

The destroyers get held in deep strike reserve based on the type of army to keep them alive, pop EP until I run out of CP, or they die.

 iGuy91 wrote:
This is my general Necron v Deathguard List for 2k play for frame of reference. Very no-nonsense

Spoiler:

Mephrit Battalion +5CP
Extra Artifact -1CP

CCB with Gauss Cannon, Voltaic Staff Relic, Warlord: Merciless Tyrant
Cryptek with Chronometron, SoL (My dg players run a lot of plague marines with plasma)

x10 Immortals with Tesla
x10 Immortals with Tesla
x10 Immortals with Gauss (for closer encounters)

x2 Doomsday Arks

Nephrek Outrider +1CP


Destroyer Lord, VoD, Staff of Light

x7 Scarabs
x6 Wraiths
x6 Destroyers

It has a good balance, can speed bump melee threats, and defeat weaker melee opponents. Good shooting at long range as well, with the DDAs trading favorably against Plagueburst Crawlers, and blighthaulers.

The destroyers get held in deep strike reserve based on the type of army to keep them alive, pop EP until I run out of CP, or they die.

Thanks! What would you field at the 1000 point level? My issue is that I want to take Canoptek stuff, but then I run out of points almost immediately and gain little to no CP.

Scaling down to 1k...hm...


Try maybe....

Overlord w/ VoD, Warscythe, Warlord
Lord w/ Hyperphase Sword

3x5 Immortals with Tesla

x4 Scarabs
x4 Wraiths
x6 Destroyers

Comes out to 998, Scarabs are basically used to make sure smites land on them instead.
Wraiths tie nasty melee threats up.

Destroyers are gonna be where your real killing comes from.

You will need your infantry to focus on their infantry.

 iGuy91 wrote:
Scaling down to 1k...hm...


Try maybe....

Overlord w/ VoD, Warscythe, Warlord
Lord w/ Hyperphase Sword

3x5 Immortals with Tesla

x4 Scarabs
x4 Wraiths
x6 Destroyers

Comes out to 998, Scarabs are basically used to make sure smites land on them instead.
Wraiths tie nasty melee threats up.

Destroyers are gonna be where your real killing comes from.

You will need your infantry to focus on their infantry.

I think I might give that a shot. Thanks!

Take lots of multi-damage weapons. He has to take DR for every wound lost, and his units tend to have only 1 wound. So if you inflict 3 wounds at once on a model, he has something like a 72% chance of losing a plague marine.

I would play 3 foetid bloat drones as DG. These things really are disgusting. One survived 61 tesla hits...... With T7 5++, 5+++, and FLY and autohitting plague spitters they can ignore wraiths, can't be stopped by them.

I have a recommendation but it's not necessarily crazy competitive, per se. I also tend to take what I have thats painted up, and wysiwyg

HQ

Overlord (Immortal Pride WLT)
Voidscythe
Res Orb
Veil of Darkness

Cryptek
chronometron

TROOPS

Immortals x 10
Tesla

Immortals x 10
Tesla

Warriors x 18

ELITES

The Nightbringer

TOTAL: 1000

-Overall this list gives you your "psychic potential".
-You get deny potential
-You have full squads to best make use of reanimation
- The nightbringer save for a few games has never not made its points back. (tailor the powers)(exchange mid game with CP)
-I've had him solo DP, Swarmlord, other big meaties.
--make use of the no invuln strat.
- Full squads of warriors are harder to remove at 1k games. maybe drop 1 off each immortal to bump to 20.
-8 CP army which gives you a lot of opportunities and/or rerolls
--you can deny warlord killpoint by resurrectng him.
-- or teleport him away from danger.
--Units near warlord immune to morale.

 p5freak wrote:
I would play 3 foetid bloat drones as DG. These things really are disgusting. One survived 61 tesla hits...... With T7 5++, 5+++, and FLY and autohitting plague spitters they can ignore wraiths, can't be stopped by them.

This, you might also be facing PBC or blight haulers, which are pretty similar in durability. I have no idea how 8th editions necrons work, but make sure you bring something that can blow big holes into vehicles. You will have a bad time withing down DG through attrition and small arms fire.

Also, if he brings large units of pox walkers, make sure to wipe those units. Even two or three can grow back to large numbers with the help of a stratagem.

In general, DG are pretty slow, so some fast units can help winning the objective game against them.

Last, but not least, Death Guard don't have great anti-armor weapons besides plasma. Tough models might survive longer than you expect, if you can keep them from daemon princes and sources of mortal wounds.

All solid advice. Thanks.

Post game followups...

I took a Mephrit Battalion.
Warlord Cryptek w/Voltaic Lance
Sword Lord w/Veil of Darkness
5x Tesla Immortals
5x Tesla Immortals
5x Gauss Immortals
3x Scarabs
5x Wraiths
5x Destroyers

My opponent played DG. I don't know all the character names, but the core of the army was as follows.
Warlord was a power armored guy with some sort of auto hit flamethrower thing.
Typhus w/2x blocks of Poxwalkers
Plasma Pistol/Sword Chaos Lord
Las/Missile Helbrute
2x blocks of 6 or so Plague Marines
A couple of rando force multiplier characters.

We played a Maelstrom mission. Between my mobility and firepower, I was able to score 3 cards on turn 1 and 2 on turn 2, all while wiping out almost all of his foot troops. He ended up conceding after round 2.

Awesome! Glad to hear it went well!

that Dg list sucks a lot

 blackmage wrote:
that Dg list sucks a lot

It wasn't ideal. It was a pretty one sided fight.

Next week, I'm playing The Relic versus an Ork player. Never played him before and no idea what he'll bring. It's only 1000pts, so he can't bring too much stuff.

 Kriswall wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
that Dg list sucks a lot

It wasn't ideal. It was a pretty one sided fight.

Next week, I'm playing The Relic versus an Ork player. Never played him before and no idea what he'll bring. It's only 1000pts, so he can't bring too much stuff.

Ork boys are about 6pts each. He can totally bring a lot of stuff.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
that Dg list sucks a lot

It wasn't ideal. It was a pretty one sided fight.

Next week, I'm playing The Relic versus an Ork player. Never played him before and no idea what he'll bring. It's only 1000pts, so he can't bring too much stuff.

Ork boys are about 6pts each. He can totally bring a lot of stuff.

My concern is that he'll Da Jump onto the Relic turn 1 with a very large Ork unit and I'll spend the rest of the game trying to get it back from him.

 Kriswall wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

 blackmage wrote:
that Dg list sucks a lot

It wasn't ideal. It was a pretty one sided fight.

Next week, I'm playing The Relic versus an Ork player. Never played him before and no idea what he'll bring. It's only 1000pts, so he can't bring too much stuff.

Ork boys are about 6pts each. He can totally bring a lot of stuff.

My concern is that he'll Da Jump onto the Relic turn 1 with a very large Ork unit and I'll spend the rest of the game trying to get it back from him.

You might want to switch out the destroyers for more tesla user. Destroyers are our best unit, but they aren't that efficient against light infantry. I mean, they'll kill them good, but there's better targets for them out there.
Maybe keep a few of them in case he brings out a dred. 5 in 1k points is probably overkill.

For anti-light infantry, we have warriors - because of number of shots and relative cost efficiency

tesla - annihilation barges are actually useful for once here

flayed ones - they are designed for it. They may still be overpriced, but they can still make a lot of attacks, and the absence of AP doesn't matter against 6+ saves. They even get rerolls, and if they make a kill that's another -1 LD. They are as much as 3 boys, and they can kill that many. On the flip side, a boy can probably kill 3 flayed ones too. Just charge them first

Scarabs - same idea as flayed ones, whole lot of attacks. No rerolls though and only S3. At least they can't wound on worse than 5+.

You may want to take Novokh this time - The orks will probably want to go in CC, and Novokh procs when the unit gets charged as well as when it charges. Works really well with scarabs and flayed ones.

Solid Advice. I do have tons of Scarabs. I was thinking that the Destroyers would be great to hold the Relic. They're Infantry, so they can pick it up. They can also move the maximum 9" each turn and still be able to shoot.

Yeah, destroyers would be good at securing the objective. You probably don't need to invest heavily in them for that. Praetorians can probably do it too, and they are better in CC if given void blades.

Please note
There is NEVER a reason to take an annihilation barge.

For basically the same points, you get over twice as many shots from 10 immortals, and you can buff them with MWBD

For orks, I'd run some kind of 3x3 scarab screen around a tesla immortal blob, with some melee punch unit like FO who are very efficient against low armor.

 iGuy91 wrote:
Please note
There is NEVER a reason to take an annihilation barge.

For basically the same points, you get over twice as many shots from 10 immortals, and you can buff them with MWBD

For orks, I'd run some kind of 3x3 scarab screen around a tesla immortal blob, with some melee punch unit like FO who are very efficient against low armor.

Its not the same price though. 10 immortals is 170pts. An Annihilation barge with tesla cannon is 146 points. A closer comparison would be 8 immortals. That's the same number of wounds than a barge with better armor, but lower toughness and no QS. In terms of shots immortals can shoot 5 more shots, but at lower strength, and they aren't as fast.

The annihilation barge isn't as good at it should be and the main gun could use a buff (or maybe even other weapon options. There is no reason why it can't take a particle shredder, twin heavy gauss or even a heat / death ray), but its not completely useless.

Ok... taking the advice into consideration and expecting more of a Boy heavy versus Mech heavy list...

Novokh Battalion (8CP, -1 for second relic)
Warlord - Overlord w/Blood Scythe, Rez Orb and Crimson Haze Warlord Trait
HQ - Cryptek w/Chronometron and Veil of Darkness
Troops - 5x Tesla Immortals
Troops - 5x Tesla Immortals
Troops - 20x Warriors
Elites - 5x Flayed Ones
Fast Attack - 5x Scarabs
Fast Attack - 5x Scarabs
Fast Attack - 3x Destroyers

Novokh lets me re-roll hit rolls in combat, if it comes to that. Blood Haze means more hits. The Overlord can probably stand up to most Ork Characters, assuming I get to swing before I die. Chronometron and VoD are in case I face something like Mek Gunz. I can weather the storm OR just teleport over and kill the things. Tesla Immortals kill Boyz. Scarabs and Flayed Ones hopefully kill Boyz in combat. Destroyers make a run for the Relic and then try to stay at range at all times.

Specifically choosing the Relic as an ork player seems cheesy. Cheese 'im right back with the Deceiver and ensure your warriors are squatting on the objective before his orks even have a chance to jump.

You really want to face orks in melee ? 30 boys are only 180 points, he can easily bring 90 of them for 540 pts. 90 orks can have 540 attacks, 360-450 is more realistic. And they can hit on 2s.....

 Arachnofiend wrote:
Specifically choosing the Relic as an ork player seems cheesy. Cheese 'im right back with the Deceiver and ensure your warriors are squatting on the objective before his orks even have a chance to jump.

A 3rd party chose The Relic. I might look into the Deceiver. My very real fear is that he essentially starts the game Jumped onto the Relic and I never have a real chance to grab it.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 p5freak wrote:
You really want to face orks in melee ? 30 boys are only 180 points, he can easily bring 90 of them for 540 pts. 90 orks can have 540 attacks, 360-450 is more realistic. And they can hit on 2s.....

What's my alternative? It's not like my 5" movement Necrons can avoid combat indefinitely.

 Kriswall wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
You really want to face orks in melee ? 30 boys are only 180 points, he can easily bring 90 of them for 540 pts. 90 orks can have 540 attacks, 360-450 is more realistic. And they can hit on 2s.....

What's my alternative? It's not like my 5" movement Necrons can avoid combat indefinitely.

Good question. Tesla is really good against orks with their 6+ armor sv. MWBD on tesla immortals will hit on 2+ and explode on 5+. Another way to surprise orks would be anrakyr, 20 warriors, and the S+1 stratagem. Suddenly your S4 A1 WS 3+ warriors will become S5 A2 WS 2+ warriors. I would build a castle with scarabs as the first line of defense, then warriors, then tesla immortals and characters. Buff the immortals with MWBD, and use the stratagem for a second MWBD on the other immortal unit for shooting. When the orks breach your scarab line use MWBD and the S+1 stratagem on your warriors. Veil out when he also breaches through your warriors.

If you build a castle against a good ork player, you are going to lose.

Ork's only strategy at the moment is flood the board with bodies and score as many points as possible. Even if you wipe most of them, by the end of turn 3 or 4 you will have precious little rounds and movement left to catch up on points. You should aim to take as much area from orks as you can. Gunning down droves of orks while sitting in a corner is not going to win you the game.

There arent any points to score. The mission is the relic, which is in the middle of the board. The whole castle should move towards the center, trying to grab it. Getting first turn is critical, the player who goes first can grab the relic, and the opponent has to kill the model carrying the relic, which is difficult with a 30 model ork mob, you must kill 29 first. A low unit count army is essential. Destroyers would be good, they are infantry and can fly. The +1 to initiative only applies to CA missions, so unless you house rule it, the player who deploys first, has first turn.