The Necrontyr Threat

Smurfy wrote:

Doomsday Ark with a scattering blast? You guys remember how reliable scattering blasts are for anti-tank duty, right? If not try using Fire Prisms for anti-tank duty as Eldar.

I've lost plenty of tanks to Plasma cannons, which scatter also. Lots of low area terrain forces mee to bunch up..scatter just moves from one unit to another.

Quote :

Doom Scythe - Ok cool but sounds like it's short ranged? BTW how does 3D6 feel about Night Shields?

Who takes Night Shields though? Unless your are tailoring a list to beat Necrons that won't help, and given in a tournament, you'll play 3+ games versus various opponents that'd be wasted points if the other games are full of lascannons etc. Also the 'crons have a flare gun thing which means it's daylight for their shooting phase, so they don't affected. Think it's a new piece of wargear.

Quote :

Survivability wise for Stormlord - 2+ Save/4+ Invul I'm guessing. Are Praetorians 2+ too? then that's a decent bunker for him but I think the key thing is - Not everyone is going to take him I think. if he's out of sight, what are you on about you're the most mobile force in the game, You can get anywhere on the board or visual of it within 2 turns, lol. You may be "suicidal" going all in hunting him down but apparently he's that scary enough for me to take the gamble and invest my firepower and sweep out after he's taken care of.

Yes and they reflect hits back at you too. Most folks here seem to have necron armies, and all want this guy when they hear what he does. He's going to be like Vulkan, turning up all over I think.

Just out of curiosity, what point level do you usually play, and is it mostly tournaments or friendlies? I'm getting a feeling you may play higher points than I usually do, and this does make a huge difference to the ability to deal with enemy units.

Harsh luck with Plasma Cannons then, because for me it doesn't happen often. I can't count how many times I've shrugged off blasts due to skinny hulls.

Do you know Night Shield rules? They're not Night Fight rules, lol. 3D6 was reference to the beam of doom that does Str 10 AP 1 hits on anything it crosses. So that avg's 10-11" right? With Night Shields that goes down to 4-7".

They don't reflect what's thrown at them unless you're in 6" of them, re: Praetorians.

I have yet to see a DE list without Night Shields on a few vehicles, especially to prepare against GK?

I usually play around 1850-2000 and though I admittedly haven't entered an event, I make lists similiar to effectiveness of those thrown at events. (Though I have lost faith on the 5 Warriors - Blaster/ Venom to a degree and not many other DE have yet --Hint: 1 missile shot a turn isn't reliable-- ; and the Beaststar can just be left for fun lists because Tank Shock a few times that unit won't be a bother anymore unless someone invested a big amount of points to make the unit Fearless and even then it's still more anti-infantry in a game where I think the DE need to mass more reliable Anti-Tank)

To be honest Ordnance (and "Scatters" in general) is excellent weapon. In Codex Orks anything with it have greater chance to hit than BS2 (ok, it's not so hard. However I must say that - My Lobbas, with scatter rerolls and BS3 hit nearly every single time where I want) and in SM books they are even better (-4 is huge boost). If PC would cost 5-10 points more than ML, I would be more than happy to take them because... Well, compare old Diss Ravager to new one.

Also, with S5+ and 2 die for pen they are pretty good tool for making holes in our "boats".

Good for You for losing faith in Venom Warriors, it's terrible combo for higher point games.

The Lyche Guard (guys with stormshield-equivalents that reflect hits. Praetorians are jump infantry with ap2 guns) have 3+/4++ saves and if they pass their invulnerable, they reflect the hit to an unit within 6'' (they won't reflect blasts or templates tho). We're fast enough to just move more than 6 incheas away before shooting them, tho.

The Stormlord is still going to be a pain in the ass, as he essentially has 1 in 6 chanse to just win the game againt us. Luckily it's not exactly reliable, and other than that one ability, he doesn't strike me as particularly good (seize the initiative on 4+ is nice, but less useful to Necrons than to us since they can actually survive getting shot at, and other than that he seems like your average really expensive combat char, only with ws4 and 3 attacks). I don't really see him becoming that common, as he's really expensive and you also want to take the court and a command barge (preferrably not for the Stormlord himself, since you want to keep him safe in a Lyche Guard unit, but for a cheap lord with warscythe), which means you've now spent about 400-600 points in hq options alone.

Smurfy wrote:

Harsh luck with Plasma Cannons then, because for me it doesn't happen often. I can't count how many times I've shrugged off blasts due to skinny hulls.

Do you know Night Shield rules? They're not Night Fight rules, lol. 3D6 was reference to the beam of doom that does Str 10 AP 1 hits on anything it crosses. So that avg's 10-11" right? With Night Shields that goes down to 4-7".

They don't reflect what's thrown at them unless you're in 6" of them, re: Praetorians.

I have yet to see a DE list without Night Shields on a few vehicles, especially to prepare against GK?

I usually play around 1850-2000 and though I admittedly haven't entered an event, I make lists similiar to effectiveness of those thrown at events. (Though I have lost faith on the 5 Warriors - Blaster/ Venom to a degree and not many other DE have yet --Hint: 1 missile shot a turn isn't reliable-- ; and the Beaststar can just be left for fun lists because Tank Shock a few times that unit won't be a bother anymore unless someone invested a big amount of points to make the unit Fearless and even then it's still more anti-infantry in a game where I think the DE need to mass more reliable Anti-Tank)

I'm aware of the night shield rules, and what the 3d6 means...but as I said no-one takes them so it's irrelevant whether it's 3d6 range or not. I was pointing out the flare thing, which turns out to be a Cryptek ability, simply to point out trying to reduce the Necron range is not going to be worth the points, sorry if I was confusing you. I'm not sure how they help versus GK...are people near you actually running Stormbolter guys? All I see is Rifleman dreads, DCAs and henchmen - I've only had a chance to play 2 of the 4 GK players I know though. Reducing an autocannon by 6" is pretty pointless on a 6x4' sadly.

Good to know it's only reflected in 6", that's good news indeed.

Ok 1850-2000 explains a lot, I'm usually playing at 1500-1750 and it's a completely different ball game - lots of trade offs at the lower points, which when you go up you just don't have to make. DE hit harder at 2k, I played a game the other month at this level versus Dark Angels, and was much more deadly than I'd be at 1500..it's possibly the sweet spot for DE.

Mostly the Night Shields take the Psycannons a bit out of the equation if you have enough of them, but if not all of them have it at least your Ravagers can be safe from Psycannons. (Also help vs. rear marching SW Scouts, where you only gotta go 18" in and be safe from their meltas coming on your rear, lol, and other small tricks of the trade) Psyfledreads are the real bother in the GK lists, I concur, but if it's only 3 it's not that bad, 6 you know you're in for a rough one) Why are we worried about Henchmen and combat units when we have plenty of poison for them? lol

? Flare gun removes Night Fight right? Still the 6" less to a gun's range applies, if they have Night Fight already (via Stormlord) that helps us doesn't it if they can only remove it every so often? Unless they can continuously do it for themselves and we don't get the benefit it might be a bother (but we have Acute Senses so not...really...)

Yeah as points go up DE gets harder to play as we have no real benefit for making squads bigger outside Warriors and we have no squadrons D: Sigh, /rant at lack of squadrons.

Death Ray: I think it's pretty useless, especially because it's one gun. Vindicators suffer from the same problem. Short Range, 1 Gun, and a hella lotta firepower

Crypteks - Lightning (Tesla) is rumoured to be Str 5. If it's anti-tank (Str 7+) that jumps, I will be impressed. If it's merely a high str shot, not really because like I said about Daemons, Bolts don't get the job done.

FYI: Vect wouldn't be worth my efforts to take down in a game. He was bought to "guarantee" first turn which is a farce seeing as I could easily reserve if he gives me first to try to Alpha Strike me and then it's still a even game? lol He does not affect Vehicles very much. (His Orbs don't affect vehicles) Stormlord different here because he can

Small arms fire needs to get into 12" to fire its fusilade even then assuming a rapid fire broadside from a Ark - 10 shots, not likely to even dent a vehicle. I faced Tyranids the other day and even 20 Hormagaunts (60? S4 attacks) couldn't dent my Raiders.

Haywire Wychs work because not everyone else is moving 12" a turn, more like 6" and firing turrets or people out of firing points (Chimeras/Razorbacks/Rhinos -- I'm looking at you)

On the anti tank crons have the same and more as in the old dex all gauss weapons glance on 6's and to be honest I'm not worried by the stormlord I'm more worried by the rumored spec that can control one of your vehicles and make it shoot for the crons. Taking control of a razor/void firing everthing of will put a dump in any late turn tatics, but this is all in the air until Saturday.

Smurfy wrote:

Why are we worried about Henchmen and combat units when we have plenty of poison for them? lol

Because they are in Chimeras who laugh at poisoned weapons!

Because clearly the henchmen are scary charging out of moving Chimera which they cannot do and must get out the rear?

hmm no, the guys fire out the fire points, usually with meltaguns.

Received my codex this evening and have only glanced through it so far, so I just have some general impressions - I'm probably gunna get creamed. And if not, it's going to be a tough slog.

One thing that springs to mind immediately is, don't bunch up your units, to try and nullify the effects of many of their weapons that can hit neighbouring units.

Overall, they have the same average WS and BS as we do, but they have better S and T, and Saves. Their worst is 5+ on just one unit.

None of their units are cheap, so that will help keep the numbers down a bit.

All of their vehicles are AV11 all round and several have Deep Strike and Aerial Assault. The Doom and Night Scythes are Supersonic like the RW and VR, but unlike them there is very clear artwork for them in the codex. And they look damn good!

How would you like a transport that has a twin-linked Str7, Assault 4 Tesla weapon, Aerial Assault, Deep Strike, Living Metal and Supersonic as standard, is a closed lid Fast Skimmer, and can carry up to 15 models, including Jump Infantry and Jetbikes. All for less than a bog-standard Ravager? (Tesla's automatically score two additional hits on a To Hit roll of 6)

Thought so.

Or, how would you like to give three of your jump infantry a 36", Str 9, AP2 Assault weapon for just 20 points each?

Dark Lance - Schmark Lance.

Looking at some of the points discussed above:

The Doomsday Ark's Cannon has a large blast and high strength, and long range, so think Void Lance with large blast effect.

Crypteks can choose from one of five of sets of wargear, some of which are really going to hurt. While you can have multiple Crypteks of the same kind, their wargear options can only be taken once per Royal Court, so that will limit our exposure somewhat. You can have up to two Royal Courts with up to 5 Crypteks in each, I can see people attempting to max these squads out.

The only Heavy 2 Melta job they have can be found on either a walker or a deep-striking, aerial-assaulting fast skimmer - TOGETHER WITH an Assault 4, Str7 Tesla weapon.

The Ghost Ark will hurt many of our squads, it's two arrays of rapid fire gauss flayers can broadside different targets each turn.

Warriors and Immortals do not have any special AT load outs, but against DE their regular gauss weapons (24" range) can glance and pen our vehicles anyway, even without the gauss guns' auto glance on a 6 effect. The Immortals can swap out for Tesla Carbines, which again on a To Hit roll of 6 auto score two additional hits at Str 5.

OK, enough from me for now. Must sleep.

Ok, that's just sounding bad. What the hell is up with that transport?

The Doomsday Cannon can't really be compared to the Void Lance, since their roles are completely different (one is an anti tank weapon, the other is a large blast and therefor bets suited to blow up big infantry units). The Doomsday Ark is probably the worst of the HS choises, suffering both from the "one big gun syndrome" and from having to remain stationary to make use of the gun. The two planes on the other hand seem very powerful (and the transport is crazy cheap).

By the way, I fully expect the Fire Prism to work like the Doomsday Ark when the Eldar get a new codex.

Ha ha ha. Mat Ward FTW.

I believe all tournaments are now having 2 seperate competitiions.
One for normal codices and the other for the overpowered nonsense written by Ward.

The mans a clown.

With AP1 BS4 Blast, Doomsday Ark is like meltagun... from another board edge. With autohit, most times. It could been worse, what if it would have Ordnance? Auto-pen with +1? Damn...

and people thought I was being overly worried LOL

Don't we need to wait to fight some armies before flying off the handle?

The ghost ark is pretty expensive, is it not? Just ravager them!

Although I think the +2 av until penetrated is wack.

Doomsday Ark – 175 points
Ghost Ark - 115 points (according to BoW)

It's the same case as shielded Archon - nearly indestructible, but on 1 it should fold pretty easly... problem is in scoring enough hits to make it happen.

IMHO it isn't that bad for us actually. Our crafts have unique ability to have 5+ save outside cover while beeing relatively small. Also we can outmanouver them IF they would spam blasts (mobile weapon is just pathetic, R 24" S7 AP 4 Blast) so either score easy hits OR force them to move.

[edit]
Wow? Really Sir Tainly? That's... fail. I would definetely NOT pick that one for AI. Not with cover saves and LoS blocks.

Probably that thing would NOT worry any of my armies. Even Orks, tho I use Warbikers.

They suffer from the OOH SHINY effect. they have so many super powerful toys, that they can't afford them all.

1750 point army with 38 infantry models, 4 destroyer bodies, one (non-special) character and two monoliths?

The Necrons look like us in power level, not overwhelming, but powerful if played right. I also foresee a new era of scourges and RJBs to heatlance Quantum Shields down.

I paged through the codex, and while the units seem powerful, they also don't seem to be overly powerful when you consider their points costs. At first, looking at the Doom Scythe I thought "Wow, it's Razorwing except better!", but then I looked at the points cost. For the same points I have a pimped out Razorwing that will absolutely decimate that one prized squad and then be headache afterwards. Doom Scythe seems to just have that "headache" part, without the initial devastation.

Also, all units have I2. While they do brandish impressive T4-5, with enough losses in assault, sweeping advance will be their doom. Really, my impression on them is that they have plenty of shiny toys that will have some time to find counter tactics to, but nothing overly gamebreaking that we couldn't deal with. I still dread fighting Mech Guard far more than I ever will the new Necrons.

Yes, none of their units are cheap, so that will limit them in numbers. But overall they do seem to be more resilient than us and they certainly have some heavy hitting gear and useful tricks.

Only time, and a few games, will tell. I don't have much experience against them, and I have never read their codex before, so it will take me a while to get my head around all of this. Right now, I am not sure what I would lean towards the most to counter them.