Necron flyer spam

JasoX wrote:

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

Thanks, I couldn't find that rule.

=bs=

And this is why discussing Warhammer40K in a sealed vacuum chamber on the internet is such fail....

Everyone just crunching numbers instead of asking practical questions like, how on earth will 6-8 fliers be remotely effective on the table top?! Are we playing on a completely flat 8 x 8 table with no terrain features? YOU'RE DARK ELDAR! You only need TWO TURNS to get into their deployment zone. If you can survive one turn of shooting from their fliers, you'll be okay. Also, I sure wouldn't be screwing up my TAC lists by building them exclusively to handle a mythical problem.

two turns? im normally all over my enemys deployment zone by the end of turn 1...

Take a fortification? Take one of our flyers? Shoot at the flyer?

I had a demon player take 4 flying demons and fateweaver(which for those who don't know allows anything within 6" of him to reroll any save, and who by the way is ALSO a flying demon) .

So he basically had a tornado of flying demons swoop around the table and bolt my army to death; it was my first game with 6th edition and we did a few things wrong but none the less I realized I was going to need to add some kind of anti flight to my lists. That's why the standard game is getting raised to 2500; you have 500 more to work with, but building a whole list around flyers is silly.

Seeing as how going over 2k gives you an additional force org chart, I imagine that tournaments will actually drop to 1500, less points= less spam. 2.5k lets you take 12 troops, 6 h support, etc. Its mini Apoc.

Torpedo Vegas wrote:

Seeing as how going over 2k gives you an additional force org chart, I imagine that tournaments will actually drop to 1500, less points= less spam. 2.5k lets you take 12 troops, 6 h support, etc. Its mini Apoc.

Depends on the Tournament Organizer. I'm playing in a 2K tournament in October that restricts players to 1 primary detachment, including 1 fortification, but no allied detachment. It gives me a deadline to actually get my army painted.

Hijallo wrote:

=bs=

You asked our take on this and then you ignore everything we say. Plus this reply is not very mature.

Maybe you should wait untill you've played this mythical Necron flyer spam built and then come back to us with your experience... I'm not saying this built doesn't sound annoying, but I don't believe we can't win per se.

@The person who replied doom scythes are only 100 pts. So? Still 100 pts not spend on troops or other stuff.

- We can focus all our lances, blasters and haywires on a flyer a turn ('cause there's nothing else on the table). We should be able to score a glance or 2/3 (I believe they are HP2 or HP3). Factor in the flyers you'll be fielding yourself and perhaps the quad gun on the ground (which do not need to hit on 6s).

- Keep outsmarting them in the movementphase, 'cause like I said, moving flyers is an impractical business.
--> Quick question: Flyers in reserve need to come out from your own table edge? 'Cause then indeed if you make sure you're on their table edge from turn 2, they'll fly right over you without being able to hit anything (sounds really funny by the way).

Since they don't have scout, they have to come in on their own table edge. Altough they might have deep strike.

Thnx. Yeah, they have Deep Strike (GW's site has unit entries). So that would make it harder to outsmart them in the movementphase.

I think until more units get FAQ'd to have skyfire such as flakk missiles being given as an option (although we can't directly access them, the number of Imperium players will likely cause an effect across the metagame - they have their uses after all ), flyers will be a dominant presence in the game. For most armies this is mitigated by points cost, FOC and the fact they can't score or deposit troops without entering hover mode. Typically, thanks to Ward the Necrons get around this. Necrons I think will be rather strong throughout the opening stages at least of 6th ed but they can be dealt with. Our lances and haywire can counter their vehicles and although being able to have their vehicles wrecked by their opponent's basic weaponry may come as a shock to many players, it's nothing new to us!

If I saw a Necron army that had spammed flyers I would first think what a WAAC gamer they must be, how much money must they have and then how to counter them. If the force they deployed on the board was relatively weak, I would go all out and desperately try to eliminate their meagre starting force, regardless of all else since if you can achieve that, you've won! If that does not seem possible then mech up as best you can (shouldn't be too hard for your typical Deldar army) and flat out right up to their board edge. If all goes well they'll flyer over you, unable to draw any LoS. In the following turn, stay in your transports as long as you can, using your far superior manoeuvrability to constantly stay near to the flyers while pounding them with firepower. Don't forget that because haywire grenades are not blasts, you can throw them at flyers. Due to minimum movement constraints and being unable to pivot at the end of the move, it should be surprisingly easy to keep the amount of firepower coming at you to a minimum. A clever Necron player may use Deep Strike and Ongoing Reserves to make life difficult but hopefully you can make the most of your advantages to give them a harder battle than they were expecting.

Taking Strategic Traits can be useful here as rolling that penalty to their reserves could really help. Yes, War Walkers and fortifications can be useful but are a bit too static for the tactics outlined above. On the other hand, your own flyers, and an Eldar Firestorm (if your opponent allows you to use it) will be both effective counters and have sufficient manoeuvrability.

I hope this helps a few people. Don't forget that this is all in theory and needs to be playtested to confirm that it works. If anyone does have the misfortune of facing such a list, their feedback on how it went would be immensely useful.

The fact that Night Scythes can Deep Strike gives the Necron player options to counter the "flat out to his table edge" tactic, but they have to declare which Night Scythes are deep striking during deployment, so we can adapt to that information.

Don't they have to put half of their flyers on the field in the beginning of the game because of the reserve rule? I have read that on a French forum. It said thet even being a flyer forced you to do so if you're only fielding units with flyers.

No, units that have to go into reserve don't count against the 50% reserves rule. For example, if you took a list with 2 flyers and then 4 other units, those flyers would go into reserve automatically and then out of your remaining 4 units you could put up to 2 of them in reserve and you would have to deploy at least 2 of them. This means that Daemons and Drop Pod lists are still viable although just remember if at the end of any game turn, your opponent has no models on the field, you automatically win. Does that make it a bit clearer?

Yes it's very clear, thx. This rule interpretation from necron's players is really weird.

Starstrider wrote:

No, units that have to go into reserve don't count against the 50% reserves rule. For example, if you took a list with 2 flyers and then 4 other units, those flyers would go into reserve automatically and then out of your remaining 4 units you could put up to 2 of them in reserve and you would have to deploy at least 2 of them. This means that Daemons and Drop Pod lists are still viable although just remember if at the end of any game turn, your opponent has no models on the field, you automatically win. Does that make it a bit clearer?

DISCLAIMER - I haven't bought the 6th edition rulebook, yet. So, the claims I make here are from discussions I've had with people who own the rulebook while playing the game.

I'm pretty sure that the "no models on the board rule" is only if the reserves are "ongoing". Ongoing reserves are those that enter the board from reserves, then are forced back into reserve for whatever reason (zooming flyer going off the board is the most common example). However, reserves that haven't entered the game yet are not in ongoing reserves, thus this rule doesn't apply.

Like I said above, I don't have access to the actual rulebook with me, but that was a point of discussion in my local gamer group and that's what we came up with. We were looking at it from the scenario of the game we were playing, but I pointed out the difference in wording between ongoing and regular reserves in the book (I was helping them pour over the rules while they played, as I was a simple bystander). After pointing this out, everyone seemed to agree that tabling the opponent in such a manner is only written up for ongoing reserves.

However, the rulebook seems very clear to me that this rule is not just for ongoing reserves but in fact applies all the time.

I have also discussed this with my local gaming group and we agreed that if, at the end of any game turn for whatever reason you have no models on the board, you lose by default.

"If one player concedes the battle, or his entire army is wiped out, the game ends and a crushing victory goes to his opponent. Likewise, if at the end of any game turn, one player has no models on the battlefield, his opponent automatically wins."

This is on pg. 122 under Victory Conditions, the first paragraph under the bold text, if you wish to check next time you have access to a rulebook.

Rather than speak to the types of reserves, it checks the battlefield condition for the determination.

something to keep in mind if we are to use Lady Maly's ability to put more than 50% in reserves.

I will be playing my first game of 6th ed sunday against necrons, usually he takes 4 nightsythes... bugger!

Iv'e got this crazy idea in my head not to take any AA, no terrain guns or fliers. Ill just rip up the stuff he has on the table with the usual lance/splinter spam, throw in a unit of beasts and reavers for distaction/fire magnets and torrent the fliers when they come on.

Easy! I tell myself.

Am i nuts, should i take some AA defence?

I thought about that few days ago, and it may be one of the efficient option. Flyers are expensive, you can field many dark weapons rather than them. It's ballsy and it has to be tried at least! Or you can play Voidravens without any equipement, it's the way I thought to go first.

According to the BRB, if at the end of a game turn (ie. a pair of player turns) one player has no units on board, he automatically loses. Simple as that. Since flyers can only enter the board on the 2nd turn at earliest, if the Necron (or IG player) spends 90% of his points on flyers, all you have to do is shoot the coule of units he has on board and he loses on turn 1. For full effect, I suggest not mentioning this to an opponent with a full-flyer Necron army untill the game begins.

I played against a list like this a couple days ago. It was a 2000 point army as follows:

2 Night Scythes carrying immmortals with cryptec/lord add ons, plus one IC
2 Night Scythes carrying deathmarks with cryptec add ons
1 Squad of immortals with cryptec/lord/stormlord special character starting behind an Aegis defense line with the comm array upgrade

I took an all shooty list with 4 venoms (3x5 warriors, 1x4 TB) 4 raiders (2xwarriors, 2xTB), 2 ravagers, bomber, 2x reavers, 1x scourges.

The basic necron strategy was this; take the first turn if possible and plop the 13 man immortal squad plus the storm lord behind the Aegis line. They gain +2 to cover saves when they go to ground, making it a 2+ cover save. Odds are 6 wounds to fail one save and he has 15 wounds in that squad... so 90 wounds? Probably not going to happen in one turn. The storm lord blasts units apart with the lightning storm, although night fight hurt him more than me. With rerolls from the Aegis comm array, all the flyers come on turn 2, move 24" and beam out their blob squads, which point blank the raiders/venoms. That along with the 4x tesla destructors that get bonus auto hits if he rolls 6's. I couldn't hit enough to destroy any of the flyers, and the ones that took damage just turbo'd off the board on his next turn to line up for re-entry on 4th. My opponent is pretty good at target priority and went after the venoms first, since they had the highest volume of anti-troop fire and he knew I wouldn't be able to hit the flyers anyway.

From what I saw, I could hug my own table edge going turbo until the flyers come out and take advantage of him causing night fight (2+ cover!), although I don't think night fight has an effect on the lighting strikes. Or I could just get everything on top of him and in the face of the one squad and kill it off in melee turn 2. That would get rid of the stormlord and if he couldn't use the comm array there's no guarantee the 4 fighters come in at the same time, although he wouldn't auto lose because he still has an opportunity for flyers to come on game turn 2. They can take fairly extreme angles to enter from reserve, so simply turbo boosting to his side of the table won't force him to fly completely over you every time, but it gets you a good save and could set him up to be useless with fliers turn 3.

Anyway, 5 necron squads and 4 vehicles isn't that scary, its just that they get the first shot and have a really high shot volume. They can even come on 36" and drop troops, although only snap fire. Now that I've played against it once I think the 2nd time will be easier to manage. Sorry for the length of this, but I've been thinking about how to fight this Necron list for days and it gets me fired up......

Did you lose? By what margin?

Was that the exact army he was using? If so, and after discussing this with a number of other players on the board here (note the "Three Archons" thread), the LGS, and the local GW (I know, I know, everything with a grain of salt), and looking at the reserves rules, I think that that army deployment may not be allowed.

The relevant rules are almost all on page 124. Essentially:

(1) Half of the Units in your army can start in reserves, rounding up.
(2) Units that must start in reserve do not count.
(3) A Unit and its Dedicated Transport count as one Unit.
(4) An IC counts as a separate Unit, regardless of whether he joined a squad or not.

And then the deployment order:
(1) Declare which units will be in reserve
(2) Specify if any ICs are joining a unit
(3) Specify if any units begin embarked on a transport.

Which leads to the following:
(1) Under these rules, the Crypteks count as part of the unit they are deployed with.
(2) So your opponent has 4 night scythes, 3x immortals, 2x deathmarks, and 2x IC for a total of 11 units.
(3) However, the four night scythes that must start in reserve do not count. 11 - 4 = 7 Units.
(4) The Night Scythes are a DT, so the 4x Night Scythes, 2x Immortals, and 2x Deathmarks only count as 4 units. However, the Night Scythes were already subtracted from the total due to the fact that they must begin the game in reserve, so this does not actually change anything. Note that because the 2x Immortals and 2x Deathmarks still count as units as they are not required to begin the game in reserve. (For more consideration of this, see the C:SM FAQ v. the C:Tyranid FAQ, concerning Drop Pods (not required to have a unit embarked on them and able to drop empty) v. Mycetic Spores (required to have an embarked unit and cannot drop empty).)

So he has a total of 7 Units. He is allowed to deploy half, rounding up (4 Units). However, he placed 2x Immortals and 2x Deathmarks, and 1 IC in reserve. (5 Units). He overshot by one.

Probably not a game-breaking difference, as he would just place that second IC on the ground somewhere, but its definitely something worth noting for future games as everyone adjusts to the new rules. It took the GW and LGS here a good week to come to a large consensus

@Ereshkigal

I went 2nd. I lost two vehicles and 3 scourges to the storm lord 1st turn (D6 str8 = death for DE rigs). I then moved up and tried to shoot the one squad off the board to try and table him, which was pointless because I did not have the capability to force 90 saves. Then the fliers came on and I took everything to the face. Even with night fighting he had a lot of shots and managed to get 10 hits several times by rolling multiple 6's with the destructors. In short, I lost horribly.

@Roc

My understanding (mabye wrong) is that since the squad and dedicated transport count as 1 unit, and the transport is required to be held in reserve under the flyer rules, they wouldn't count toward the reserve limit as long as the squad is embarked on the transport. I don't have an issue with the way he deployed. If the way you explain it is how it ends up, you are right about having to ground the 2nd IC. Overall, I don't think it really matters much in his list because if I had countered it correctly it wouldn't matter where that 2nd IC was.