Necron flyer spam

My frien who play Necrons ordered more Night- and Doom- scyhtes last weekend. Now he tells me how awesome they are and how easy would be all games for him, even against another Wardexes.

I'm bored a little by this talking of MW Mary Sues, but i cannot prove anything opposite. How we can retaliate to mass-flyer treat, like 3x2 (or even 3x3) Vendettas, 4-6 Nightschytes followed by 3 Doomschytes.

Our only anti-aircraft is our own flyers, but they are limited to 3 Voidravens. So at best case they can in on turn2, destroy Doom Schytes then being shot down by NS. At worst case, Necron will win initiative, give it to us, then Voidraven going to die when they enter table. Or we can use 36" Flat-out to save them, kill some Scyhtes (they would have free time ravaging rest of our army), and being shot down.

what's answer to mass-flyers?

You can tell your friend that flyers are not the answer to everything.

1) First of all WH40K is ussually about objectives. And flyers can't claim those. So the more points he throws in flyers, the less he can in scoring troops.

2) Moving flyers is an art on itself now in 6th edition. I watched some games this weekend with 6th edition and you have to declare which direction the flyer moves up to 90 degrees prior to moving and then move it atleast 18" every turn. I've seen some players having to move the flyer to a position in which it couldn't shoot anything meaningfull (or anything at all).

3) You can buy terrainpieces with AA guns.

Maybe I'll come up with more points, but...

The most important one is point 1. If he max out on flyers and has just a handfull of troops, I would ignore the flyers and destroy all his troops asap. Then have your own troops come out of a WWP or reserves and claim objectives.

As we have no AA capability beyond our own fliers the only thing that will being enemy fliers down is weight of fire. Necron scythes are AV11 so we need S5+ to glance them and, realistically, we want S6+ to have a decent chance of glancing on the few shots that hit. Ravagers with Disintegrators maybe? 9 shots will get 1.5 hits, so that's 0.5 Hull Points per Ravager per turn with a chance of it being a penetrating hit which has a reasonable chance of destroying a scythe outright (+1 on damage roll for AP2 and I believe fliers are destroyed on a 4+?).

tlronin wrote:

You can tell your friend that flyers are not the answer to everything.

1) First of all WH40K is ussually about objectives. And flyers can't claim those. So the more points he throws in flyers, the less he can in scoring troops.

<snip>

The most important one is point 1. If he max out on flyers and has just a handfull of troops, I would ignore the flyers and destroy all his troops asap. Then have your own troops come out of a WWP or reserves and claim objectives.

Only problem is that one of the Necron fliers is a troop transport that can deploy troops onto objectives as long as the Scythe hasn't moved more than 36"

tlronin wrote:

You can tell your friend that flyers are not the answer to everything.

1) First of all WH40K is ussually about objectives. And flyers can't claim those. So the more points he throws in flyers, the less he can in scoring troops.

He is Necron, flyers are dedicated transports for his troops. And he can disembark it at any point, even while Zooming. And if you destroy they flyer, passangers enter reserves instead of taking S10 hits.

tlronin wrote:

2) Moving flyers is an art on itself now in 6th edition. I watched some games this weekend with 6th edition and you have to declare which direction the flyer moves up to 90 degrees prior to moving and then move it atleast 18" every turn. I've seen some players having to move the flyer to a position in which it couldn't shoot anything meaningfull (or anything at all).

Yes, it's pain in the ass, but with their quantity and arc of shooting there would be something for shoot. And they can always flat-out to ongoing reserves, if cannot target ANYTHING.

tlronin wrote:

3) You can buy terrainpieces with AA guns.

Expensive, do not fit DEldar style, useless against MASS flyers - they'll just destroy it ASAP. Guns are stationary and they have artillery profile w/ T7 2W. Now look at tesla destructors.

@Count Adhemar
I know, but still... How many troops can you buy when you max out on flyers? Flyers are not cheap. So if you can keep counter units in reserve for when his troops are dropped you can destroy them.

@Hijallo
See what I said to the count.

What is the arc of firing then? The guys at the club this weekend played it as that the flyer can only shoot straight forward. I saw them screwing up a lot with the flyers. Ofcourse over time, players will learn how to move their flyers...

Agreed about the terrainpieces, I rather not use them either. But it was just a suggestion. It's currently the only way we have access to AA guns. I hoped ppl would chime in with more suggestions...

flyers are allowed 1 90 degree turn before they move, and then they must move straight atleast 18"

What is special about Cron flyers is that they can drop their troops even while zooming, while every other transport flyer must become a skimmer to disembark their troops, which will make it a wonderful last turn contesting or capturing.

I expect we will see necron battlestar lists (alittle nickname we have coined at my LGS for them since the night/doomscythes look like a battlestar galatica ship) for awhile until people realize that flyers arent really that important.

Consider this, DE take 2 flyers and a defense line w/ quad gun. DE goes first. So 2+ a good number of his flyers come out. First off your quad gun shoots at every plane as it comes out. Secondly the rest of the planes have to make a choice. Shoot DE's two flyers, or shoot at ground targets (as you have to pick skyfire or not to have skyfire with planes) Also the Doomsycthe cant hit a flyer, as it only have a template weapons (and templates cant hit flyers)

Also considering his entire force is in the air, we are also shooting all our dark matter in the air as well. Sure you need 6s, but with 20+ darkmatter shots on the ground alone, Im sure your getting some sixes.

Sure, Cron Flyer spam is going to be annoying, but I think its manageable if you know what you are doing.

tlronin wrote:

@Count Adhemar
I know, but still... How many troops can you buy when you max out on flyers? Flyers are not cheap. So if you can keep counter units in reserve for when his troops are dropped you can destroy them.

Nightscythes are cheap, 100 points a piece.

tlronin wrote:

What is the arc of firing then? The guys at the club this weekend played it as that the flyer can only shoot straight forward. I saw them screwing up a lot with the flyers. Ofcourse over time, players will learn how to move their flyers...

90 forward i think?

shadows revenge wrote:

Also the Doomsycthe cant hit a flyer, as it only have a template weapons (and templates cant hit flyers)

Wrong, doom scythe have no template weapons. Death ray is not template.

Hijallo wrote:

He is Necron, flyers are dedicated transports for his troops. And he can disembark it at any point, even while Zooming. And if you destroy they flyer, passangers enter reserves instead of taking S10 hits.

It's weird, doesn't make sense and should be FAQed, but right now, the passengers of a destroyed Night Scythe first take the S10AP1 hits, then go into reserve and can't take their RP rolls.

JasoX wrote:

Wrong, doom scythe have no template weapons. Death ray is not template.

You cannot fire Snap Shots with weapons that do not use ballistic skill. In case of the Doom Scythe, it means you either hit ground targets (when firing in non-Skyfire mode) or Flyers/Flying MCs/Skimmers (when in Skyfire mode) with the Death Ray.

I think our best bet against against a large number of flyers is either buying a Quad Gun with an Aegis Defense Line or Bastion or an Eldar Farseer with a Guided/Prescient Ravager or squadron of War Walkers with Scatter Lasers.

Also, if the Necron player goes all out on Flyers and you manage to kill the models he's left with to deploy on the first turn, you autowin the game. Not that easy to do with Necrons, but you might get lucky.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

What is special about Cron flyers is that they can drop their troops even while zooming, while every other transport flyer must become a skimmer to disembark their troops, which will make it a wonderful last turn contesting or capturing.

What's even more special is that you cannot ever embark on a Night Scythe, except during deployment.

*yawn*

Flyers are insanely over-rated.

Have you used them yet? It's damn hard enough to get maximum effectiveness out of a single flyer, now imagine using multiple flyers on a single table. Even with moderate terrain density, you will definitely run into problems blotting out the sun with aircraft.

You wanna screw with flyer armies? Take the time to measure distances and FORCE those flyers into really stupid places. Especially if you're Dark Eldar, you can position your vehicles in such a way that enemy flyers are forced to zoom right over them, and now their guns are pointed the wrong way.

I know flyers sound all big and bad with their 6s to be hit and immunity to close combat, but the logistics of using even a single flyer are way more difficult than it sounds on paper. "Overshooting the target" with flyers will be a constant problem. This isn't the old days where you could zip through the air and then spin the things around at the end of their move. Now you're forced to aim in the direction of the enemy, and move 1/3rd of the table width towards them. If the enemy is mobile, they're just gonna crowd right where you wanna park your flyer, and now you gotta go OVER the target. Might not be a problem if you can Vector Strike them, but it's still gonna dramatically cut down your firepower, leave your rear armor exposed to back shots in the following turn (A single 6 could spell doom against AV10), AND will make it impossible to get shots off on your next turn. After all, you gotta either bank the flyer around for another shot, or zip it off the table to re-enter reserves. So I'm not worried about flyers, flyer armies will be a cheap and impractical gimmick most of the time.

See? I'm not the only one that sees the movement of flyers make them impractical. It was the point 2 i was making and Arrex sees it too...

There will be enough turns he can't shoot or goes back to reserve. Flyers are not the death to all non-flyers.

You've said many brave words, but if Necron aren't really robot and know what to do too?

For example, shoot AA first, Interceptor do not allow you to shoot at everyrhing, it have limitations, and it's only single S9 or 4 S7 shots - first is too unreliable (may miss, removing only one HP (sure, 5+ is destruction...), second doesn't work well against 11-12 armor. And, please, do not think this stupid gun will live more then one turn.

You suggest to buy 100500 ADL, place troops behind them etc... blah, i'd take IG for rhis, or Orks perhaps (15 Lootaz behind ADL, going to ground = 2+ cover, and snap shots aren't bad for them because their orinigal ballistic is only 2.

I'm thinking a squad of warwalkers would do the trick. 24 strength 6 shots for around 180? Yep, thatl'll kill flyers.

I'm confused. How many fliers can the quad gun shoot when they fly on and how many points is quad gun + aegis?

Thanx

Painjunky wrote:

I'm confused. How many fliers can the quad gun shoot when they fly on and how many points is quad gun + aegis?

Thanx

You can target any one unit at the end of the enemy movement phase that arrived from reserves. The costs for the Aegis Defense Line with Quad Gun upgrade is on page 114 of the rulebook.

You people lack the basic math.

Let's assume we are shooting with 20 DL's on singe Nightshcyte/Doomschyte. 20 shots, hit on 6's so 3,33 hits. 3+ glance, 4+ pen so we assume this volley of fire will strip 2 HP. Not enough to kill the thing outright. But remember, flyer always strike first due to arriving from reserves, you wouldn't have 20 DL's for entire game.

Walkers... let me assume they are Guided, so 11/36 chance to hit, so full ScatterWalkers squad will score 7.33 hits at average. 5 to glance, so result is same as above.

Craftworlders can pretend to be Stand-and-Shoot army, which gives them good use for ADL's. We, due to our superior mobility and inferiour durability, sadly can't play SnS.
May be someone should test and find an unobvious weakness of Schyte-spam?

Hijallo wrote:

You people lack the basic math.

Let's assume we are shooting with 20 DL's on singe Nightshcyte/Doomschyte. 20 shots, hit on 6's so 3,33 hits. 3+ glance, 4+ pen so we assume this volley of fire will strip 2 HP. Not enough to kill the thing outright. But remember, flyer always strike first due to arriving from reserves, you wouldn't have 20 DL's for entire game.

But, of those 3.33 hits each one has a 25% chance to destroy the vehicle entirely (4+ to pen, 4+ to destroy) and any pen that doesn't destroy the vehicle will prevent it firing, or at least with most of its weapons. Still not brilliant but better than nothing.

the fact that most people wont be able to afford to buy 6 flyers at 30 quid a pop?
i suspect it'll be fairly rare that you see a full army like that, the same as the 9 valkyrie army.

besides, their units cant be everywhere at once, its not like we cant beat 10 necrons in CC when they deploy

Immboile flyers aren't destroyed, and lances aren't AP1. They will fly off table on Locked Velocity and then enter through Ongiong Reserves... and shoot again, or disembark troops.

Linked Tesla Destructors - 4 re-rollable shots, it's 76% chance of scoring atleast one "6" which cause 2 additional auto-hits. And even if 24% will occure... Jesu, whole army's shooting results in rendering one flyer useless for one round of combat! But we talk about 6-8 flyers, and each can hurt us. Next phase you wouldn't shoot all 20 DL's

Only one reasonable tactic i've seen is deploying on the edge, then rush on flat-out to Necron's table edge. But if i remember well, flyers can pivot before movement. so we'll suffer their alpha strike everywhere.

Mass-Vendetta/Valkirie is much less annyoing, because they are taken in Squadrons, and you need to hire atlest one Valkirie squadron for big footslogging armies and transporting troops. It means they will destroy 2 vehicles per turn.

Necrons bring same amount of fliers, but they are independent and pose more treat to us. And their Tesla Destructors effective against both infantry and light vehicles.

Mandor wrote:

What's even more special is that you cannot ever embark on a Night Scythe, except during deployment.

Why not? I can't find any restriction against embarking on a flyer transport that is in Zoom mode. And the Night Scythe's entire base is an access point.

Hijallo wrote:

Immboile flyers aren't destroyed, and lances aren't AP1. They will fly off table on Locked Velocity and then enter through Ongiong Reserves... and shoot again, or disembark troops.

Fair point on the immobilised thing. I must have been thinking 5th edition still, and for some reason it still applies to skimmers but not fliers. I was assuming AP2 for lances, therefore +1 on damage table. With Night Scythes only having one weapon, anything other than immobilised does what we need it to on a penetrating hit (as well as taking a hull point off).

2 Shaken (can't shoot)
3 Stunned (can't shoot)
4 Weapon Destroyed (can't shoot)
5 Immobilized
6+ Explodes

Allandrel wrote:

Mandor wrote:

What's even more special is that you cannot ever embark on a Night Scythe, except during deployment.

Why not? I can't find any restriction against embarking on a flyer transport that is in Zoom mode. And the Night Scythe's entire base is an access point.

rulebook page 80 said = models cannot embark upon, or disembark from a zooming flyer.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Hijallo wrote:

Immboile flyers aren't destroyed, and lances aren't AP1. They will fly off table on Locked Velocity and then enter through Ongiong Reserves... and shoot again, or disembark troops.

Fair point on the immobilised thing. I must have been thinking 5th edition still, and for some reason it still applies to skimmers but not fliers. I was assuming AP2 for lances, therefore +1 on damage table. With Night Scythes only having one weapon, anything other than immobilised does what we need it to on a penetrating hit (as well as taking a hull point off).

2 Shaken (can't shoot)
3 Stunned (can't shoot)
4 Weapon Destroyed (can't shoot)
5 Immobilized
6+ Explodes

Living metal can try to negate effects of shaken and stun