DE vs the Decurion

I usually go second if I can, I reserve 3/4 of my list. I like to see how my opponent deploys, where he moves and what he intends to do before I fly on (with the help of reserve manipulation) and rip up his weakest flank and roll up his line.

This way I have the initiative and momentum, he is reacting to my moves and I have the last turn. This tactic has worked very well for me.

Now vs a 2000pt Decurion with its super tough and shooty phalanx (40-50+ warriors and immortals, ghost arcs, destroyers, triarchs). Its super tough and fast and shooty and fighty vanguard (spyder, scarabs, wraiths, flayed ones, tomb blades and praetorians) is this still a good idea?

My question is should I deploy everything and go for first turn to pack in as much shooting as possible against this or should I stick with what I know?

Without any detailed knowledge of the Decurion detachement itself (so apply whatever level of merit you think to the comments)

Necrons tend to have shorter ranged weapons, therefore I'd think going first would actually give you a good two clear turns of shooting before they're in range.

The toughness of that detachment is such that keeping stuff off in reserve, even with manipulation, is hampering your chances of taking it down by keeping 3/4 of your firepower off the board for at least one turn (think of it this way, would you deploy everything on the board out of their possible shooting range on turn 1 and decide not to shoot with those units? Didn't think so).

In conclusion where an opponent wants to get up close to you, I want to shoot them as much and as often as i can before that happens.

If they are running Wraiths and Scarabs, you probably have one turn of shooting before they're on you. They don't really do the Alpha Strike well do to their shorter ranged weapons and lack of turn one deepstrike. I agree with Burning Eye that you probably want everything on the board to try to do as much damage as possible before they get into your lines.

Well, they do actually have a turn 1 deep strike with the Veil of Darkness.

D'oh! I stand corrected. Man, Necrons are so good.

I really think GW have screwed the pooch with the new Necrons Codex. Every recent one has been really good with regards to trying to implement some balance and then they come out with this. Has anyone seen Miniwargaming's Matthew playing with the new Decurion Detachment? The ability to take the Wraith formation which has a Tomb Spyder granting reanimation protocols, which ALSO benefits from the +1 and re-rolling 1's. It's ridiculous.

I have played against the Decurion a few times, and I find it a pain to deal with but nothing too serious. It has some weaker elements that if taken in minimum squads (wraiths, bikes, warriors) aren't too difficult. But when those squads become beefed up to max or just adding more bodies, it is rather difficult to deal with.

I have found just concentrate on one squad, kill it dead and move on. CC works great (grotesques) or Razorwings for causing a serious amount of wounds.

The Spyder Reanimation formation isn't too bad as killing one spyder is not difficult to do foro ur army with poison. First and possibly 2nd turn it may be difficult but having them stay within range of the Spyder can be hard and once they leave kill the spyder and wraiths are 2 wound marines to us so not too difficult I have found.

The Wraithknight I bring seriously helps with taking out the Lord as well as they cant afford to take the shots on the Lord so I Penetrate the barge or attack the bunkering warrior squad with grotesques or bikes. With them being slow, it should be too difficult to concentrate on one side of the army and work around to the other. Our maneuverability seems to be the key against them I have found.

I found the forge world reaper to be great against the decurion due to the fact he has to bring armor and warriors. The reaper has a s5 ap 4 large blast that removes 1 save from them or a haywire on steroids beam that can take out vehicles. I tend to deploy my entire army and shoot at them. Kill their jetbikes first (they can get ignore jink shots) and the rest of their fast stuff and then focus on sloggers.

I few corrections, since I've played against that particular detachment several times now (at 1500).

Quote :

Has anyone seen Miniwargaming's Matthew playing with the new Decurion Detachment? The ability to take the Wraith formation which has a Tomb Spyder granting reanimation protocols, which ALSO benefits from the +1 and re-rolling 1's. It's ridiculous.

This is wrong.

My opponent typically runs:

Overlord with veil

10 Lychguard w. warscythes

30 Warriors in 3 Ghost arcs

3 Jetbikes w. ignores cover S6 blasts

5 Immortals w. gauss in a Nightscythe

6 Flayed ones (I HATE the new flayed ones, 4 attacks on the statline - and shred! 13 point, for reasons! If only wyches were half as good...)

I have not found a way to kill this bullshit yet... but I have made some observations.

First, the 4+ reanimation with re-rolling 1's, does NOT apply to the canoptec formation - "only" the rest of the army.

Yesterday, I had one razor fighter make 20 wounds on a warrior unit. 3 die, and the ghost arc repaired 2...

In general it takes about 20 wounds before 1-2 guys die. DE really don't stand up to that kind of sustain. It's like playing a 50 terminator army backed up by 3 land raiders with a unit of 10 strong assault centurions thrown in for funsies.

Lychguard: you can't even tank them with a Dark artisan formation.

Instant death attacks only lowers reanimation by 1, and most of our instant death attacks doesn't bypass armour saves.

On the + side: those suckers are short ranged - only problem is, so are we... 24" haywire is nice, but that is also the main necron range. With a flyer and a veil of darkness, they don't really care about their range.

Ravagers? Yea, if only they didn't have a flyer that can drop off a unit to murder them - or veil in the aforementioned 10 lychguard, which have a huge footprint due to 32 mm bases, and thus they will zone you.

At least the necrons don't like getting hit with haywires, and their gauss "only" damages us on 6 from the warriors and ghost arcs. Jinking raiders/venoms are quite survivable due to this.

Don't get charged by the Lychguard, they do a million S7 armour bane attacks, and you can't tank them even if you have something that can survive, as they will just veil out of combat.

It's even more tough than the old 5th Blood angels with 3+ armour and 4+ fnp bubble.

There were and are ways to bypass fnp - but not reanimation protocols. Lame.

Oh, this is btw the "friendly" list, because obviously it can be made even harder with wraiths instead of lychguard

Septimus wrote:

I few corrections, since I've played against that particular detachment several times now (at 1500).

Quote :

Has anyone seen Miniwargaming's Matthew playing with the new Decurion Detachment? The ability to take the Wraith formation which has a Tomb Spyder granting reanimation protocols, which ALSO benefits from the +1 and re-rolling 1's. It's ridiculous.

This is wrong. <snip> the 4+ reanimation with re-rolling 1's, does NOT apply to the canoptec formation - "only" the rest of the army.

As part of a Decurion Detachment, all models gain the Decurion command benefits in addition to the ones that apply to the specific formation. This means that all models gain:

Quote :

Ever-living: Models in this Detachment with the Reanimation Protocols special rule receive a +1 bonus to Reanimation Protocols rolls. Models in this Detachment with the Living Metal rule ignore the effects of Crew Stunned and Crew Shaken (but still lose a Hull Point).

They don't however get the re-roll 1's on RP as that applies specifically to the Reclamation Legion.

Wasn't that what I said?

I think we may have to try and break the shooty Necrons in combat (with Coven stuff and/or Armour of Misery) - if we manage to cut them down then that will save us having to grind through them. Although, I'm doubtful that any non-coven units will actually be able to beat them in combat.

With some units though, I think we'll just have to run. When I look at Flayed Ones and the new 3++ Lychguard, I just don't think we have the firepower or combat ability to feasibly kill them. I think we'll just have to focus our fire at (hopefully) more vulnerable targets, whilst staying away from such mini-death-stars.

Similarly, I think range is something we'll have to utilise against their shooty elements. A lot of their weapons 'only' have a 24" range, and we'll never beat them in a fair firefight.

Septimus wrote:

Wasn't that what I said?

Not quite. You said they don't get 4+RP and re-roll 1's. They actually do get 4+RP but don't get re-roll 1's.

I don't get the confusion, we're saying the same thing - 4+ with re-rolling 1's does not apply to the canoptec formation, that is not the same as saying they don't get the normal benefits of being part of a Decurion detachment.

Septimus wrote:

I don't get the confusion, we're saying the same thing - 4+ with re-rolling 1's does not apply to the canoptec formation, that is not the same as saying they don't get the normal benefits of being part of a Decurion detachment.  

Except that if you say that "4+ with re-rolling 1's does not apply to the canoptec formation" then you're saying that neither apply, which isn't true.

At the very least, it's a poor way of phrasing it.

If you know the Decurion detachment rules, you also know what is meant - yes?

And yes, I did assume that people talking about this detachment also know its rules.

Septimus wrote:

If you know the Decurion detachment rules, you also know what is meant - yes?

And yes, I did assume that people talking about this detachment also know its rules.

But unless you also know the source of the other rules that you're referring to (4++, reroll 1's) then your statement is misleading as it says they do not get 4++ when they do.

Well, clearly not everyone reading this knows all the Necron's rules.

I saw Matt's matches against Leland on MWG. I couldn't even finish watching either match and I'm pretty sure I'm going to skip most future battle reports with the Newcrons. Lucky rolls aside, the games are so boring when next to nothing gets killed through entire rounds of shooting. Why even waste time shooting at that point?

On a more positive note, Dave played against a Dark Eldar player recently. I think the match was posted yesterday. I enjoyed watching that match.

lustigjh wrote:

I'm pretty sure I'm going to skip most future battle reports with the Newcrons.  Lucky rolls aside,  the games are so boring when next to nothing gets killed through entire rounds of shooting.  Why even waste time shooting at that point?

I had a good game against necrons the other day. Assault is definitely the answer. Here's the report if anyone is interested:

BR1: The Repugnant Ramblers Vs Necrons - 1250pts

I've now had my 4th game against the Decurion detachment, and finally beat them!

I used a Dark artisan formation to zone his fast units away from objectives, and though they didn't do much in the battle, they did keep the arcs and jetbikes at a distance - except for 1 bike unit that got too close.

I focussed all haywires and dark light on one arc at a time.

You really have to focus one unit at a time - and don't engage the deathstar in cc! They will kill everything we can throw at it.

Regarding the Canoptek Harvest formation (spider+wraiths+scarabs), the Spider should be your first target since it provides the adaptive subroutines bubble to everything else. It can be tempting to try to blast the wraiths first since they are one of the scariest elements of that list but killing the spider first should level the odds.

Against newcrons in general, you need to pick ONE target at a time and shoot at it with everything until it dies. The whole MSU death by one thousand cuts idea doesn't really work because they are so resilient. You need results from shooting on turn one before they get all their guns in range. Shooting units other than flyers should be deployed on the table. Assault units should be held back for counter charging wraiths or preatorians.

Another aspect of the list you have to be prepared for are those frak Tomb Blades. They sneak up on you with their move through cover and strong cover save then blast you at your weak spots. I honestly don't have a good answer for how to deal with them.

So, so far the number one dangers are Canoptek Harvest and Tomblades? I assume we can safely add Annhialation barges to that list?

Timatron wrote:

So, so far the number one dangers are Canoptek Harvest and Tomblades? I assume we can safely add Annhialation barges to that list?

Barges are far less dangerous now due to the changes to Tesla. Force them to Jink and they become almost ignorable.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Timatron wrote:

So, so far the number one dangers are Canoptek Harvest and Tomblades? I assume we can safely add Annhialation barges to that list?

Barges are far less dangerous now due to the changes to Tesla. Force them to Jink and they become almost ignorable.

The changes to tesla also means they can't move more than 6" and fire effectively.