The Necrontyr Threat

I think one of our biggest problems will be the quantum shielding. They won't be AV11 at first, they'll be AV13. For us it's not quite as bad because we reduce it to 12, but that still means all of their vehicles will only be even rendered vulnerable by a 5 or 6.

Well, they're AV13 from the front and sides only, the rear armour is still 11, to my recollection. Fortunately, the Dark Eldar have never suffered with mobility, and it shouldn't prove too hard to get a shot off from behind them, and take the quantum shields down that way.

Necron vehicles are just as fast as most of ours. I've read the codex, and Ward has pretty much just ripped off the Dark Eldar/Eldar in both rules and backstory (presumably because all he knows how to write himself is ill-thought-out spehss mahreen stuff). Still, if there's anyone to take a leaf from the books of, it's Mr. Kelly and Mr. Goodwin. A Reaver squad, Ravager or Blasterborn Venom is never going to make it behind them without then being shot down before getting to open fire. In this situation, I think it will mostly have to be solved with lots of lance shots, but by all means try and get behind a vehicle that you see as the biggest threat and that it can be accomplished against without losing too much.

Pivoting is free, thus the fact that the rear armour isn't protected will very rarely be relevant outside of close combat. It's a good thing everyone loves haywire wyches, tremble as we don't give a crap about your shields!

Scourges with heat lances/blasters deep-striking in behind them perhaps? Ooh, or maybe using the Duke's aerial raid ability/buying retrofire jets to drop your stuff in behind them and wrecking them? This has put Dark Eldar deep-strike armies into a whole new light. Sure the Necrons can now always get back up (for some reason your average Necron warrior can recover from being vaporised), but their vehicles can't. We will have to be extremely wary of their infantry though, as guys who stand back up after being shot down are not good for a fragile death-strike army like Dark Eldar.

Call me crazy, but I don't find their infantry to really be all that worrying. Any decent NecMech build won't have much on the way on infantry (at 2K, I figure not much more than 5 decent-sized infantry units), and they die just as easily as any other MEQ unit (the only difference is that they tend to get back up again).

So, the way to beat Necron non-vehicle units is to completely wipe them off them off the table. Since reanimation counters are lost along with the unit, they won't be getting back up again. The most reliable way of doing this is by beating face in close combat. Talos, Wyches, Beasts, Incubi, beat 'em down until they can't get up anymore, and run 'em down when they try to get away. Demech 'em, soften 'em up with splinter and disintegrator fire and then charge.

Pity that they don't phase out anymore...

They aren't MEQ, 4+ save.

The Arks, Stalker and Monolith are not fast. The 'Scythes are fast, but don't have QS. Only the Command/Annihilation Barges are fast and have QS.

Also, you can't put destroyers inside a Night Scythe (they're jump infantry, can't put jump infantry in transports), and they can't disembark the turn it moved (and if it's destroyed, they go back into reserves instead of being placed on the board).

Nomic wrote:

The Arks, Stalker and Monolith are not fast. The 'Scythes are fast, but don't have QS. Only the Command/Annihilation Barges are fast and have QS.

Also, you can't put destroyers inside a Night Scythe (they're jump infantry, can't put jump infantry in transports), and they can't disembark the turn it moved (and if it's destroyed, they go back into reserves instead of being placed on the board).

You can put infantry, jump infantry (at 2 slots a pop) and bikes (at 3 slots a pop) in that transport.

They can also disembark on the turn it deep strikes, unless I read the rules wrong.

All I have to say about the new 'crons

Cron's were my 2nd army after Dark Eldar so I'll be revisiting them once the Kabal is up and running..

Namica wrote:

You can put infantry, jump infantry (at 2 slots a pop) and bikes (at 3 slots a pop) in that transport.

They can also disembark on the turn it deep strikes, unless I read the rules wrong.

I am really starting to get tired of codexes just breaking the rules. Much more of this and there won't be much point in even having a core rule book because everyone will ignore large swathes of it anyway. It punishes people who don't have the time and money to buy and read every codex.

Honestly, nothing about the new necrons really scares me as such. But plenty of it is cheap/cheesy all the same. Particularly the 'all terrain will kill you' special powers. That's real fair. My guys just fall over and die sometimes... great. That's absolutely how I imagine war in the far future. A bunch of guys tripping over tree roots and literally dying. Great.

LostAlone wrote:

Namica wrote:

You can put infantry, jump infantry (at 2 slots a pop) and bikes (at 3 slots a pop) in that transport.

They can also disembark on the turn it deep strikes, unless I read the rules wrong.

I am really starting to get tired of codexes just breaking the rules. Much more of this and there won't be much point in even having a core rule book because everyone will ignore large swathes of it anyway. It punishes people who don't have the time and money to buy and read every codex.

Honestly, nothing about the new necrons really scares me as such. But plenty of it is cheap/cheesy all the same. Particularly the 'all terrain will kill you' special powers. That's real fair. My guys just fall over and die sometimes... great. That's absolutely how I imagine war in the far future. A bunch of guys tripping over tree roots and literally dying. Great.

Quick note on that transport. It has no extra shielding, just a flat 11 all sides, with no defensive options or screens possible.

Essentially, I'm fairly sure it's the most fragile vehicle in the game save for the sentinel. Yes, our ships are all 10 all around, but at least they have defensive options. Then again, I'm a complete newb, so could be wrong.

Here is the exact wording on the Sycthe:
The Night Scythe has a transport capacity of 15. It can carry jump infantry (each model takes up two points of transport capacity) and jetbikes (each model takes up three points of transport capacity). If the Night Scythe is destroyed, the embarked unit is not allowed to disembark, but instead enters reserve (when they arrive, they cannot deep strike).

EDIT:

Can a transport deepstrike then disembark it's passengers?

A deep striking vehicle counts as moving at cruising speed (or was it combat speed? In any case, it's moving). Most deep striking vehicles have rules to prevent units from disembarking, but if they don't have such a rule, the models inside will act exactly as they would if the vehicle had moved. However, you can't disembark from a moving vehicle unless it's open topped or has an assault ramp. As far as I know, the Nightscythe has neighter.

On the other hand, we can disembark from deep striking transports if you take the Duke, as unlike the vehicle upgrade that we can buy, his rules make no mention of preventing models from disembarking.

You can disembark passangers if You DS. This is why retrofire have rule that PREVENT you from that and how "Duke Pod" works (You can't shoot from inside due to speed, but You can do that after disembarking).
And how Drop Pods works.

DS specify only You can't assault, OT transport or not because (to make it simple) units inside count as DSing themselves. Only movement allowed in 99% cases is running.

Nomic wrote:

However, you can't disembark from a moving vehicle unless it's open topped or has an assault ramp. As far as I know, the Nightscythe has neighter.

That's assaulting. Normally you can't assault after dissembarking. Open topped allows it, as do assault ramps, but as Local_Ork said that's irrelevant here, because a DSing unit may never assault, unless it has a special rule, that states otherwise.

Namica wrote:

If the Night Scythe is destroyed, the embarked unit is not allowed to disembark, but instead enters reserve (when they arrive, they cannot deep strike).

This just says, that units put into reserves, by destruction of their transport, can't enter the table by deepstriking themselves. Don't ask me why, in my opinion it makes no sense, but hey it's Matt Weird, so who knows.

Tiri Rana wrote:

Namica wrote:

If the Night Scythe is destroyed, the embarked unit is not allowed to disembark, but instead enters reserve (when they arrive, they cannot deep strike).

This just says, that units put into reserves, by destruction of their transport, can't enter the table by deepstriking themselves. Don't ask me why, in my opinion it makes no sense, but hey it's Matt Weird, so who knows.

I'm guessing the Night Scythe has some kind of teleporter, so if it's destroyed they can't teleport to where it was but instead have to walk/fly to the battle. I don't know though, I've had a look at the codex, but not everything.

Yes, it have this rule (embarked unit is placed in reserves). Also You disembark within 2" from BASE (not hull).

However since You want Deep Strike and then immidetly disembark, it's nearly as "useful" like Entropic Strike vs. infantry...
I actually see no other uses for them. They should NOT be taken as "transports" since they are terrible when used like transport. Consider them Drop Pods with uber-cheesy weapon.

However they may be really good in 6th edition if GW would allow flyers making "fly-by" like Stormraven have.

I think one thing that has been overlooked (and to be fair to DE who rely on haywires are less affected than most) is that most if not all Necron vehicles have a back armour of 11 reducing the effectivness of melee against them (especially by the non specialist units) considerably.

The Strange Dude wrote:

I think one thing that has been overlooked (and to be fair to DE who rely on haywires are less affected than most) is that most if not all Necron vehicles have a back armour of 11 reducing the effectivness of melee against them (especially by the non specialist units) considerably.

Easy to overlook with all of the other goodies in the codex, but that is a definite concern for most armies.

Not quite, most units that should assault their vehicles have Haywire Grenades or Rending or can pen AV 11.

Local_Ork wrote:

Not quite, most units that should assault their vehicles have Haywire Grenades or Rending or can pen AV 11.

Like I said it doesn't impact DE as much as say orks (who really take a hit) but it still makes a difference rending razorwings don't auto glance and halfs the penetration rate, mandrakes are even more useless (one thing they could be used for was outflanking parking lot harassment) whereas those seldom used but sometimes crucial grenade charges FC charges lose a lot of thier punch.

Tiri Rana wrote:

This just says, that units put into reserves, by destruction of their transport, can't enter the table by deepstriking themselves. Don't ask me why, in my opinion it makes no sense, but hey it's Matt Weird, so who knows.

Because the Nightscythe, or whatever it's called, doesn't actually carry the troops itself, it has a worm-hole generator underneath it, to bring in troops from elsewhere. As such, if the worm-hole is destroyed, they have to walk. Basically, think of it as a personal Webway portal.

Aroshamash wrote:

Because the Nightscythe, or whatever it's called, doesn't actually carry the troops itself, it has a worm-hole generator underneath it, to bring in troops from elsewhere. As such, if the worm-hole is destroyed, they have to walk. Basically, think of it as a personal Webway portal.

Yeah, I understand that, and I don't want to argue if the rule is good or bad, it's a rule and as such abstract, but I don't get it. If the troops aren't actually inside the vehicle, why can't they teleport more than one unit into battle? Even if the capacitors have to recharge, or what ever, let's assume a unit of flayed ones stands in line to get teleported by a nightscythe, that gets destroyed. When they turn around to teleport onto the battlefield themselves they are stopped by a Preatorian, saying that teleporting away after standing in line is forbidden by law and they have to walk, or what?

In the new codex, when Flayed Ones DS are they officially teleporting?

the necrons are very big on there laws being followed. I think it is for the deathmark unit, only unit that can deep strike and take the nightscythe as a dedicated. The deep strike is suppose to represent hiding in a pocket dimesion before jumping out to ambush, if they were waiting in line for wormhole how would they be waiting in ambush somewhere else.
As far as I know the flayed ones are also waiting in ambush, disguised as corpses, and they can't take a nightscythe. So they would be on battle field, hop through wormhole to necrons home base, then portal gets destroyed, and then walk back to battle field. The portals for nightscythes most be very far appart on ships/tombworlds so they walk to battle field instead of another nightscythe portal when theres is blown up. Or the triarch made a ancient decree "thou shall not share portals, get your own"

Finally got a chance to look at the Codex. Overall I don't think of them to be that big of a deal against us. The Necrons seem to really rely on mid range (They have a total of 6 weapons with range over 24") shooting so I think the best load out for our vehicles are Night Shields, FF; that way it will cut some of there range down. Obviously Vehicles get shot first, then IC, then mop up in CC.

::shrug:: Really, nothing matters much in my mind until we get to see them about a month from now when their power builds are coming into their own and we get to see how they interact with the other power builds.

I remember when IG were all that and DE had to cope.
I remember when BA were all that and DE had to cope.
I remember when SW were (are) all that and DE had to cope.
And currently GK are all that and we are having to cope.

You know what the consistent thing was? Through all of that we were always listed as 3rd or 4th best codex - and that's because our codex is inherently solid and has a lot of flexability. Will Necrons require us to learn to play versus a new army? Most assuredly. Will they redefine the meta enough that we'll need to adjust our power builds in any way to deal with them? Meh...I currently have doubts. Hell, some DE didn't even adjust for the GKs which I think required it, I suspect this will end up being a slight burp on the radar and little else. In six months I'd lay even odds it's not even a thing.