Looking for help against necrons

Dogmar wrote:

I'd like to point out that even with Caltrops, reavers are not good against their vehicles unless you drop their shields first. If I remember right Hammer of Wrath is resolved against the facing you're standing in and not the back like the normal CC attacks. That makes dropping AV13 impossible.

Im pretty sure Its not impossible, HOW is rending, therefore Caltrops will Pen if they roll a 6 for AP roll then more than a 1 on a D3??

at least that was my understanding of Rending??

although i may have missed a rule in the necron codex that ignores this, in honesty i havent read it all through!

Lord Puberis wrote:

Dogmar wrote:

I'd like to point out that even with Caltrops, reavers are not good against their vehicles unless you drop their shields first. If I remember right Hammer of Wrath is resolved against the facing you're standing in and not the back like the normal CC attacks. That makes dropping AV13 impossible.

Im pretty sure Its not impossible, HOW is rending, therefore Caltrops will Pen if they roll a 6 for AP roll then more than a 1 on a D3??

at least that was my understanding of Rending??

although i may have missed a rule in the necron codex that ignores this, in honesty i havent read it all through!

You're correct, and you don't even need to worry about rolling more than a 1 on the rend. If four caltrop hits come up sixes you're looking at a wrecked ark. You could even glance it down with the normal bladevanes by rolling double boxcars twice.

Then again if you're doing that I'd wonder why you're not in the casino getting filthy rich...

Something worth remembering (and something necron players seem to "forget about") is that you subtract one from the reanimation protocol roll if the weapon that inflicted the wound had the instant death special rule (Any Wound allocated to a model has the Instant Death special rule if the Strength value of that attack is at least double the Toughness value of that model).

We have access to a lot of S8 weapons and weapons that cause instant death on a 6 (flesh gauntlets and such). I have been courteously reminding necrons players of this rule in my games (as they seem to be unaware it exists).

Mushkilla wrote:

Something worth remembering (and something necron players seem to "forget about") is that you subtract one from the reanimation protocol roll if the weapon that inflicted the wound had the instant death special rule (Any Wound allocated to a model has the Instant Death special rule if the Strength value of that attack is at least double the Toughness value of that model).

We have access to a lot of S8 weapons and weapons that cause instant death on a 6 (flesh gauntlets and such). I have been courteously reminding necrons players of this rule in my games (as they seem to be unaware it exists).

This is also my experience from the one new-necron game I've played so far. For now I've chucked it up to inexperience with the new rules, and I honestly think it will go away over time. I occationally use FNP against S6 attacks too, due to simply forgetting it doesn't work, so it will probably never go away completely.

Mushkilla wrote:

Something worth remembering (and something necron players seem to "forget about") is that you subtract one from the reanimation protocol roll if the weapon that inflicted the wound had the instant death special rule (Any Wound allocated to a model has the Instant Death special rule if the Strength value of that attack is at least double the Toughness value of that model).

We have access to a lot of S8 weapons and weapons that cause instant death on a 6 (flesh gauntlets and such). I have been courteously reminding necrons players of this rule in my games (as they seem to be unaware it exists).

I think the main problem units here in terms of durability are the lords, wraiths, and lychguard though. Those all have T5 so have been out of the instant death threat range of all of our guns and I'll admit to being rather scared of them in close combat. I am hoping to test the grotesque and talos against them soon though.

For the hammer of wrath discussion on vehicles, the rear armor isn't shielded at all so turboboost behind them and hit that facing for lower armor values and easy kills on the caltrops.

On the subject of quantum shielding, does the lance effect still work?

Lord Puberis wrote:

On the subject of quantum shielding, does the lance effect still work?

Yes, no change there.

Granted it is a very small sample size, but from everything I've read/seen so far, it looks like it may not even be worth shooting at a Lychguard unit w/Orikan and/or a Lord attached.  That unit is just a brick that seems like it can literally march from table end to table end (albeit, slowly) laughing at everything you throw at it, with the exception of D weaponry.

sweetbacon wrote:

Granted it is a very small sample size, but from everything I've read/seen so far, it looks like it may not even be worth shooting at a Lychguard unit w/Orikan and/or a Lord attached.  That unit is just a brick that seems like it can literally march from table end to table end (albeit, slowly) laughing at everything you throw at it, with the exception of D weaponry.

Theres only one turn where you shouldn't shoot at it, Followed with many turns of should ignore it.

Mushkilla wrote:

Something worth remembering (and something necron players seem to "forget about") is that you subtract one from the reanimation protocol roll if the weapon that inflicted the wound had the instant death special rule (Any Wound allocated to a model has the Instant Death special rule if the Strength value of that attack is at least double the Toughness value of that model).

We have access to a lot of S8 weapons and weapons that cause instant death on a 6 (flesh gauntlets and such). I have been courteously reminding necrons players of this rule in my games (as they seem to be unaware it exists).

Hey Mushkilla, I would love to hear about those games you've played vs crons. A post or tactica or batrep or whatever you can be bothered doing about ur exp fighting newcrons with DE would be very welcome!

I haven't played vs them yet but I inevitably will, a lot, as there are quite a few around here.

Small bit of intel i found out the hard way yesterday(most of you will probably know about):
Don't be close to a C'tan Nightbringer with that Necrodermis thingy when it dies.
It explodes quite hard, way worse than vehicles.
Didn't know that, killed 4 of my 5 Scourges that were standing next to it. LOL.

I don't know about anyone else, but the new Harlequin psychic powers/Ld debuffing Mask artefact with DE Ld debuffing tools such as AoM and Freakish Spectacle has me thinking that forcing fall back tests, pinning checks, and sweeping advances with greatly decreased Ld is now one of the best ways we, as DE/CWE players, have to fight the ridiculously resilient new Necrons.

They are also one of the few armies that our normally useless Torment Grenade Launchers work on.

I was hoping sweeping in combat would be effective, but do you know if they have access to fearless or stubborn through characters, wargear, or formation bonuses?

Finally picked up the new Necrons codex.  My brain almost exploded when I saw that Wraiths, one of the best (if not the best) CC units in the game now, can also take Str 4 AP2 INSTANT DEATH shooting weapons!!!!  Really, GW?  That's totally "balanced" but our 10 pt Str 4 APD6  Liquifiers were OP???!!!  And letting Wracks take more than one Ossefactor per five man unit would've totally broken the game???!!!    

This is why I drink.

First a few limitations:
- They cause instant death only when rolling a 6 to wound
- The transdimensional beamer is a heavy weapons, so you need to take the canoptek harvest formation to make them relentless if you want to use the weapon effectively.
- Also you can only take one upgrade, so either the transdimensional beamer or the whip coils, but not both.

but otherwise yes, they made an already very good unit even better. I was happy to see that a lot units got more playable (flayed ones, triarch pretorians, lychguard), but I wonder what they thought about wraiths O.o .

Riddip wrote:

First a few limitations:
- They cause instant death only when rolling a 6 to wound
- The transdimensional beamer is a heavy weapons, so you need to take the canoptek harvest formation to make them relentless if you want to use the weapon effectively.
- Also you can only take one upgrade, so either the transdimensional beamer or the whip coils, but not both.

but otherwise yes, they made an already very good unit even better. I was happy to see that a lot units got more playable (flayed ones, triarch pretorians, lychguard), but I wonder what they thought about wraiths O.o .

So being "forced" to take the Canoptek Harvet, aka, The Unkillable Wraith Formation, is a limitation? Initiative 2 doesn't matter quite as much when you're almost invincible to everything except D weapons and/or Str 10. But I do agree that most people will choose to take Whip Coils. I just wish we had the option to give Grotesques a decent shooting attack (no, Liquifiers are not a decent shooting attack).

Also, after reading the entry for Flayed Ones, I wept uncontrollably for my poor Wyches. Flayed Ones are now what Wyches should've been.

Seriously, I wouldn't cry about the wraiths guns, because they're still quite expensive if I remember right. They're dangerous enough with just whip coils ... and then a lot of them. That's the way I'd field them if I wanted to maximize the units bang for bargain ratio.

I agree about the flayed ones, they're right now actually a very very decent close combat unit that DE would kill for. It's a shame really, for Necrons were supposedly designed as a mid range shooting army... haha.

Ok, enough ranting. What I've found out from my (very few) games against the new necrons is this: Their vehicles are as sturdy as ever, expect them to live a while. Learn what is most dangerous, i.e. has longest threat range and can't be outrun, and kill that first. That's usually Wraiths, Annihilation/Command Barges, Tomb Blade units (they're actually quite decent now and with ignore cover are dangerous to DE). In other words, deal with the support stuff and ignore/delay the rest for as long as possible while you grab objectives. You can't hope to crush the main part of the army head on, that's just how sturdy they are. If you have time left after the support is gone, try to maim the bulkier core of the army, but that's hard to do. Don't get too greedy.
You can try to solve the problem in CC, since fearless is rare in the army, however you still need a lot of punch and some durability. If they refuse to fail morale they can grind very well.

Hi Guys,

Just though I'd point out that all the rules which come under the "adaptive subroutines" special rule (apart from move through cover and relentless) are provided by the spider.
Units within 12 inches of it can choose to benefit from one of those rules (including RP) but once the spider is dead it can not longer provide that benefit.
As the spider is effectively 3 marines from a poison shooting standpoint, this makes it relatively easy for us to remove adaptive subroutines from the picture.

Also that formation only allows for 1 unit of wraiths, so it might help to limit the amount of wraiths you see on the board. (Max 6 per unit).

Finally even though monstrous creatures have move through cover, they are not as mobile as the wraiths. If they wish to benefit from the adaptive subroutines rule wraith movement will be somewhat restricted when compared to normal as they must remain within 12 inches of the spider.

I think that kiting them with Venoms and using 5 Kabalite speedbumps to avoid being caught should be sufficient once RP is gone.

Gazbal wrote:

Hi Guys,

Just though I'd point out that all the rules which come under the "adaptive subroutines" special rule (apart from move through cover and relentless) are provided by the spider.
Units within 12 inches of it can choose to benefit from one of those rules (including RP) but once the spider is dead it can not longer provide that benefit.
As the spider is effectively 3 marines from a poison shooting standpoint, this makes it relatively easy for us to remove adaptive subroutines from the picture.

Also that formation only allows for 1 unit of wraiths, so it might help to limit the amount of wraiths you see on the board. (Max 6 per unit).

Finally even though monstrous creatures have move through cover, they are not as mobile as the wraiths. If they wish to benefit from the adaptive subroutines rule wraith movement will be somewhat restricted when compared to normal as they must remain within 12 inches of the spider.

I think that kiting them with Venoms and using 5 Kabalite speedbumps to avoid being caught should be sufficient once RP is gone.

The mission of the spyder is to give wraiths RP at the start of turn 2, then it can die happy from the necron pov. Enough to take them at the beginning of the opponent's deployment zone with 3+/3++/4(5)+++. With poison it's easy to counter them, but on the other side is not that easy to kite a unit that can move 12" over anything (including other troops and impassable terrains) and charge with fleet.
Also, the spyder itself will have RP, so shooting with a venom will cause, let's say, 1W...to kill it you would need more than 300 pts of venoms against a 50 pts MC.

Very nice catch, Gazbal. That knowledge will definately come in handy

Thanks Sigmaril.

Hi Javorra,

Good point that the Spider will also have RP.
So far as how many points of poison firing are focused to take down the spider, I would say we focus everything on threats based on the threat bubble targeting priority system.
Killing the spider will make the wraiths much easier to kill later on when they are a threat and free up more of that firepower for other targets once they are slain.

Another good alternative to the Kabalite speedbump would be Lhamaens.
But whilst the wraiths have RP they are just too tough.

We can use armour negating weapons on other targets in the Cron army to get more kills if necessary but a 3++ means only weight of fire will do the job.
That weight of fire cannot do the job against 3++ followed by RP.

The spyder provides the rp until the start of the next necron movement phase, dead or alive.

If you get first turn shoot it before the "adaptive subroutines" are activated, though any decent player will know this and have his spyder and wraiths hidden when going second.

You are of course correct that the rule is granted in the movement phase and will last until the following Necron movement phase when it is no longer refreshed by the spider.

I'm just pointing out that the adaptive subroutines rule can be avoided or combatted because the rule is granted by another model in the same way the +1 RP is granted by a cryptek. (rather than being provided by the formation)

Not every player will notice this and it's already been pointed out by Mushkilla that the crons players don't always know the rules for their own dex very well yet. (They often forget that the RP roll is reduced by 1 when struck by ID).

As a mobile, hard hitting and long range (relative to crons) army we can exploit details like this.

Yes we need to know all the little details of the crons who are looking pretty strong atm.

Neither Kabalites nor Lhameaens will work well as speed bumps for Wraiths. Unless the Wraiths actually want to go for them, they will just move right through them, as per the Wraithflight rule.

It is also worth noting that Wraiths no longer is reduced to initiative 1 for charging through terrain. They now consider all terrain as Open Ground.