DE counter tactics against ... NECRON CANOPTEK ACANTHRITES

Ok guys, today iv been told that my cron playing mate has ordered the new forge world NECRON CANOPTEK ACANTHRITES...

As am sure he wont be the only one who will order them my question to you my fellow Archon is this...how to counter them?


NECRON CANOPTEK ACANTHRITES .................................................. 45 POINTS EACH

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
4 4 4 5 3 2 2 10 3+

Unit Composition
• 3-9 Canoptek Acanthrites

Unit Type
• Jump Infantry

Wargear
• Cutting Beam
• Voidblade

Special Rules
• Fearless
• Stealth

Cutting Beam
The cutting beam mounted within the Acanthrite’s thorax is a highly
concentrated shaft of thermal energy able to slice apart the toughest
materials, dissecting steel, stone and flesh with the precision of a
surgeon’s scalpel blade.

Weapon Range Str AP Type
Cutting Beam 12" 6 2 Assault 1, Melta

That to me does not sound like a fun time out.....

T5 prevents ID from most of our shooting but a 3+ save means that our old friend the Agoniser is back in the frame against these babies.

...why do they have T5 3 wounds? They're smaller than Wraiths and there's no reason for them to be tougher. Silliness.

Our good friend splinter weaponery on paper seems good against them, but lets run it through the mathhammer:

A Vemon (twin cannons) kills 20 pts of them a turn*
A disintegrator cannon armed raider kills 15 pts of them a turn*
A dark lance armed raider kills 8.3 pts of them a turn*

Although the venom is the best, non are particularly impressive.

10 Warriors with a Cannon (100 pts) static at 24" range kills 25 pts a turn*
while moving into rapid fire range they kill 36.7 pts a turn*

* I didn't include cover saves, so actual kills will be less.

I think the immunity to instant kill and 3 wounds makes them very tough to get rid off. T5 to ignore instant death from str 8 & 9 seems to get getting quite popular. One last shooting option is a haemonculus with a shatterfield, which I think is turning into a must have tool in the fight for 6th edition survival. Although it's only once a game two thirds of the models under the template will fail the initiative test and be removed from the game

Combat wise the Acanthrites aren't too good in combat, 2 str 4 attacks, so maybe wyches can tarpit them with 4+ dodge and 5+ FnP, although they would struggle to do damage. Wracks while not being as tough in combat would do as much damage to the Acanthrite’s as they do to them.

10 Wracks (160 pts including raider) charging would do on average 2.5 wounds
4 Acanthrites (180 pts) charging would do on average 2 wounds (I've ignored the wracks 6+ save)
Basically who charges will probably win

The problem will be that the Acanthrites may come in bigger units sizes and the wracks (if mounted) are limited to 10.

After all this my advice would be:
- Start by ignoring them for turn 1 (if you go first), as they have short range and you will be busy with the usual necron barges and flyers (of course if your splinter cannons can see nothing else fire away)
- Keep your distance so they have to advance to be effective, you have 36" range on your splinter cannons
- When they use their weapons to shoot something, or run so they can easily charge next turn, focus on them with splinter and disintegrator fire and then charge them with a wrack AND wych squad. A beastmaster or hellion unit could be used instead of one of the above units.

Army list wise I think a balanced force that has 3 assault units (at least 1 is certain to be out of commission by mid game). 3+ venoms, 2+ raiders with distingrators and loads of lances elsewhere to deal with the rest of the necron armour. As always with nob bikers, wraiths etc being popular a haemonculus with shatterfield should be considered.

One final note is beware if this unit has a destroyer lord attached, as the wound shenanigans that will happen will make the toughness of draigo and paladins seem soft

Good luck and let is know how you get on.

Rathstar

Rathstar wrote:

Basically who charges will probably win

They are Necrons => 2 I
Wracks win

but wracks are no jump infantry and don't have such weapons =/.

Remember also that their voidblades are much less effective against us than they are against, say, MEQ. Rending and Entropic Strike matter very little when your armour is made of paper to start with!

Anggul wrote:

...why do they have T5 3 wounds? They're smaller than Wraiths and there's no reason for them to be tougher. Silliness.

At one time, I'd have said that its Forge World, and their stuff is never balanced. I'm told those times are over, mostly by people on the Bolter & Chainsword. I'm still not entirely sure at times.

I think I would pour as much splinter weapons (poison doesn't care about T) + dissies (ignores their armour) into them as possible and when they get too close for comfort, tarpit them with Wyches (4++).

I wouldn't per se ignore them 1st turn. It's a lot of points you can scare off the table.

I personnally would refuse playing against such unit imho
Those are completely unbalanced unit and not even official ones ( not GW )

Anyone wanting to use these guys might like to consider these as alternative models, being less than half the price of the FW ones.

GW stated FW legal IIRC.

Is one allowed to play those things during competition ?
W40k is a game.
If you play with friends you can just refuse him having those ones, or ask him to review the point cost of it.
I don't quite see the point playing against that knowing how much overpowered it is.

seing how much it is unbalanced is quite easy, compare one of them with two scourges.
they are both jump units
one is (very) squishy while the other is very, very beefy
one does nothing in CC while the other is quite okay
one does need to pay 12 or 15 points more to be effective against armoured vehicles, the other doesn't

You could argue that about most of the Necron/GK codex, if anything CANOPTEK ACANTHRITES come across as rather tame compared to the rest of the necron dex.

I actually considered Necrons as my new army for a while before plumping for the Dark Eldar. As good as the models and codex are though, I just didn't have that 'feel' for the codex. I wrote several lists and none of them entthralled me. That's why I chose DE. I wrote a list for them and had to start crossing stuff out because I didn't have the points even though I really liked the unit.

Shame really, as Necrons are now considered one of the top armies in 6th but I'm happy with my choice.

Mushkilla wrote:

You could argue that about most of the Necron/GK codex, if anything CANOPTEK ACANTHRITES come across as rather tame compared to the rest of the necron dex.

Yeah, I agree with this. Really, these things are Wraiths minus whips and 3++, but with one extra wound. Melta is hardly scary when your basic Necron is able to shred our paper boats to nothingness.

Kill them with splinters and dissies.

Thanks for the feedback guys, and for those asking if there legal...yes they are. Also my group of people that i play with are pretty cool with people using what they like in there armies (aka FW stuff) so am not going to say no to him using them in a game against me

Also just to point out one day i plan on getting a Dark Eldar Reaper....which is a FW mod...if i was to say no to him using these mods then he can just as easily same the same to me when i get that...matter of fact if everyone did that then there would be no point in buying stuff from FW as no one would be able to use there mods cos people would just refuse to play against them.

Oh and the same guy already has a Tomb Stalker which he has been using without complain for the last few months lol

should have been complaint*

A Talos would be a great counter to this unit.
With chain flails and extra combat weapon, your average attacks are at a minimum 6 on a charge.
You can smash attack em, hitting on 3's, wounding on 2's, and insta killing with each hit.
if you kill 3, you made the talos's points back.
smash a couple, run em down.

Fruz wrote:

I personnally would refuse playing against such unit imho
Those are completely unbalanced unit and not even official ones ( not GW )

Well, these are just the experimental rules, not the finished product, so send off an email to FW telling them to tone them down somewhat. The actual rules should be much better. As for them being official, FW is noted as being official standard rules or not in their unit entries. FW is a part of GW, and has the GW stamp on their books, so yes, they're official, and can be used in games of 40k when the unit entries say they can.

Skulnbonz - that does sound like a good idea against them, id not thought about using a Talos or two to counter them.