Warhammer 40K Tabletop XIV: "Pray for 6's!"

[Timberwolf]

The problem is that about half my vehicles get wrecked or immobilised on the first turn which forces me to footslog my units across the board. If he gets the first turn then I am stuck in my deployment zone but if I get the first turn at least I am closer to him. By the time I reach combat I usually only have a couple of sanguinary priests and maybe a few assault marines or tactical marines and even though they are fighting tau they still die against crisis suits.

My son, listen to the sage words of Cheesegear for he is ancient and full of wisdom. Tau are not really all that tough if you bring the right tools.

Ok, to blow the kingdom come out of Tau, there are a few things you should do.

First of all is target priority. If you are running a mech list, Broadsides die first, then Hammerheads. If you are running infantry, plasma crisis suits need to go first if you can.

As he has said many times, a drop pod full of sternguard full of combimeltas is death on Broadsides, Hammerheads and crisis suits alike, multiwound ? no problem. Also, lascannons and never forget the power of the first turn 4 bloodstrike salvo from a Stormraven (or 3) S8, AP1, 72 inch range ? Sign me up. A massive gut punch like taking out every railgun they have on turn 1 is largely insurmountable for the Tau and will leave them reliant on Fusion blasters, which are short range and not everyone takes (no idea why).

All this is, of course, dependent on Turn 1. If first turn is lost, well, the drop pod full of Sternguard will go a long way to evening that out as it arrives on your turn 1. Hold everything back that's not infantry with a cover save or cannot be hidden behind something. If you absolutely must sit out in the open with vehicles, take a Librarian with Shield, 5+ cover is better than nothing. Also, Frag cannon Furioso in a drop pod is a nice suicide unit for killing things camping in ruins.

To change your list I would,,,

lose the whirlwind, the honour guard and its razorback, maybe a tac squad and their razorback too (depending on how big you want this to be) and tool up a drop pod full of sternguard. An unpleasant assassin unit like that landing right in his lines should allow you to kill the biggest threats and advance unmolested.

Just for the record, here's my general purpose list that I tend to play. It does rather well against Tau.

This is the 1000 point core

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Librarian - Shield, Sanguine Sword

Death Company X 5 - Power weapon, power fist

Death Company Dread

Scouts - Sniper rifles, missile launcher

Scouts - Sniper rifles, missile launcher

Stormraven - Lascannon, Multimelta, sponsons

Stormraven - Assault cannon, Multimelta, sponsons

Stormravens move 6 inches, unload the bloodstrikes and lascannons into any broadsides / Hammerheads I see. This should kill most of them and at least shake a hammerhead while the scouts try to pin any crisis suits. Turn 2, the gunships fly up the board, unload and the Death company and the Dreadnought finish things off.

For 1500 points, I'll add

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Stormraven - Assault cannon, multimelta, sponsons

Scouts - Sniper and missile

Scouts - Sniper and missile

Talon Furioso

.

In these lists, there are plenty of things to make a Tau player run away. First of all, the bloodstrikes are death on battlesuits. Use em or lose em, these fly on turn 1 and are usually good for a couple of seriously depleted Broadside teams. Twinlinked multimeltas are just as good, if shorter range. Use these on turn 2 if you missed anything. Next, there are plenty of melee options, unpleasant ones. Watch them run away from the dreadnoughts.

It's no great secret that I'm pretty sure the internet would tell me I'm doing everything wrong, but it works for me. I don't particularly like the idea of Razorback spam and a Tau player who's set up right will be happy to see it with his Twin linked, split firing S10 AP1 stupid range guns that will at the very least glance the eggshell armour of the razorback. Kill the broadsides first with a lot of S8 Ap1 and the world will beat a path to your door.

[crazedloon]

Quantum Shielding:Similar to Dark Eldar Shadow Fields, we rolled individual hits from the same unit until the first fail which is an exception to the 'simultaneous shooting' rule, I know. But Shadow Fields set precedent.

there is not precedent at all. Shadow fields make an exception to the rule, codex trumps main book, Quantum shielding has no such exception as such it uses the normal rules.

The difference between Immortals and Warriors is the Armour Save, better guns and Ghost Arks. Warriors are Tau, and Immortals are Space Marines.

This is not so black and white, Warriors are the better objective holders. They have larger units meaning they are harder to remove from the table and they get the transport allowing them to bring their numbers back.

Tau warriors suck because they are t3 bs 3 not because they have 4+ armor saves (also 4+ with a 5+ is equal to a 3+ save, add a orb and you are better than a marine)

Triarch Stalker: Not bad at all. A bit pricey for a vulnerable Dreadnought (Open-Topped Walker, really?), doesn't have Quantum Shielding so doesn't have AV13 in Assault - if even for a little while. Twin-Linked Heavy Gauss Cannon is the best pick. But at 165 points it's not worth it. But off the Twin-Linking you can get that hit, and then go from there. But, with a Heavy Gauss Cannon, whatever you've hit shouldn't be feeling too well anyway.[/spoiler]

as others have said it has shielding (which work in melee)

You should also stick with the meltagun being a heavy 2 multimelta and only good melta in the list is worth the points

Scarabs: Meh. Lots of attacks with Entropic Strike is good. But 'Beasts' is bad. Wouldn't you just rather those Scarabs to have S6 Rending attacks and move as Jump Infantry with a 3+ Invulnerable save? I know I would.

first you get 2 bases to the 1 wraith

How is beast bad? You are in combat turn 2 with ease and with only a little work you are in combat turn 1.

3+ cover is nearly as good as 3+ invulnerable (and you will have cover due to the size of the model)

Also vs vehicles (which are the scarabs main target)
-your one wraith gets 4 attacks hitting on 4s (assuming the target wanted to shoot) 2 hits glancing on 4s = 1 effect
-your two scarabs get 12 attacks = 6 hits (than entropic strike happens before penetration is rolled because it is hits which trigger the ability. You pull the armor down 3 making it 7) glancing on 4s meaing 3 effects.

point for point better. Vs troops you are looking at over twice as many wounds and number of attacks.

Doom Scythes:
"Every unit underneath the line, suffers a number of hits equal to the number of models in the unit underneath the line."

What it should be, is
"Every unit underneath the line, suffers a number of hits equal to the number of models underneath the line in the unit."
...See the difference?

There is none. They both say the same thing, that you take a number of hits equal to the number of models under the line. There is not ambiguity and if a blackshirt is telling your otherwise he is wrong.

in order to work in the improper manner it would need to say
"Every unit underneath the line, suffers a number of hits equal to the number of models in the unit."

[lord_khaine]

No- it just grants the ability to fire all weapons while at cruising speed.

However, both the Night Scythe and the Doom Scythe come with Deep Strike built in.

Well, since deepstriking down means you moved with cruising speed, then it does in fact make it possible for you to drop down and give some traditional necron love to whatever target is nearby under a 3d6 line.

The problem I see with Vindicares is that they seem to pretty much rely on one getting the first turn. The Vindicare pretty much must be deployed with vision on the enemy to be useful, which means the enemy also has vision on him, and he's not all that difficult to kill...

Not normaly, but thats why you place him within 6 of a Librarian, anyone wanting to get rid of him suddenly have to get though a 2+ cover save.

And while the waste shots on the assasin, then the Dreadnought continue pounding them in peace.

Umm...
I'm kinda perplexed. Because in the German codex... it does have Quantum Shielding.

Yeah, it also does in the english codex i have.

[hamishspence]

There is none. They both say the same thing, that you take a number of hits equal to the number of models under the line. There is not ambiguity and if a blackshirt is telling your otherwise he is wrong.

This is unambiguously one way:

"Every unit underneath the line, suffers a number of hits equal to the number of models underneath the line in the unit."

This is unambiguously the other way:

"Every unit underneath the line, suffers a number of hits equal to the number of models in the unit."

but this

"Every unit underneath the line, suffers a number of hits equal to the number of models in the unit underneath the line."

is a bit ambiguous. Though the repeating of the "underneath the line" does seem closer to the wording of the less powerful version.

[Etcetera]

There is none. They both say the same thing, that you take a number of hits equal to the number of models under the line. There is not ambiguity and if a blackshirt is telling your otherwise he is wrong.

in order to work in the improper manner it would need to say
"Every unit underneath the line, suffers a number of hits equal to the number of models in the unit."

It's grammatically ambiguous, because whoever wrote the passage didn't both to spend 10 seconds writing a clarifying statement. It doesn't specify whether for model under the line in the unit the unit takes a hit, or that each unit under the line takes a hit per model in the unit.

ITT: Levels, levels, spell levels, etc.

[Squark]

I'm having trouble building my new Necron list because... I'm going into shock over all the options in my HQ slot. It's so tempting to overspend on the royal court.

That being said, here's a potential semi-casual list, in which I managed to cut HQ costs by taking a Destroyer lord to constrain my options (and because I still don't have a real overlord)

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Destroyer Lord (Sempiternal weave* and Mindshackle scarabs) 160pts
7 Necron Immortals 119 pts
7 Necron Immortals 119 pts
C'tan Shard (Moulder of worlds and Lord of fire) 215 pts
5 Canoptek Wraiths (2 Whip coils, 1 Particle caster) 200 pts
3 Heavy Destroyers 180 pts


*Sempiternal is actually a word? Apparently so. And it means everlasting or eternal. How... Fitting.

Thoughts?

[lord_khaine]

Well, i cant help but notice you got 3 Lonely heavy destroyers, wouldnt they be better served by having a couple of normal destroyers to take hits for them?

[Erloas]

This is unambiguously one way:

This is unambiguously the other way:

"Every unit underneath the line, suffers a number of hits equal to the number of models underneath the line in the unit."

I find this one to be worded weirdly, and think the original wording is better. I would change this one to read: "Every unit underneath the line suffers a number of hits equal to the number of models, underneath the line, in the unit." for it to work right. I also feel the first common, in ever one of the examples is just wrong.
I also don't see what is wrong with the original wording, the unit takes X number of hits where X is the number of models in the unit under the line. Which is probably a better way of wording it, but it doesn't seem that bad to me unless, as is usually the case in situations like this, people are looking for reasons to make it broken.

The fact that it is the unit taking the wounds, and not the models under the line, is very important so that it can't be used to try and snipe specific models out of a unit (as used to happen with fantasy cannons)

Its the whole "robber stabs man with knife" as opposed to "robber with knife stabs man" sort of wording that ends up being used all the time.

[Squark]

I suppose I could take 1 Heavy destroyer with 3 regular ones as ablative wounds, but that leaves me with very little anti-tank.

My take on the Necron Uniques

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Imoktekh; A generic Phaeron Overlord with his wargear would cost 190 pts, or 175 pts when you consider that Phylacteries are complete and utter excrement. So that's 50 points he has to justify. As far as his unique wargear goes, the nanoscarabs do nothing unless you take flayed ones, and even then they might not do anything if the unit you marked gets killed before they can deep strike. The Staff of the destroyer, on the other hand, is a mini-death ray. Literally. It even has the same ambiguous wording. Un-errated, if you can get away with the broken interpretation, he will probably scare the pants off any unit that gets close to him. Post-Errata, it'll be a lot less scary. Humiliating Defeat would be nice... but what unit are you in that is winning combat? Wraiths should be far ahead of this guy. In short, if you actually get mileage out of Humiliating Defeat, you didn't need it. Hyperlogical Strategy is nice but not gamechanging unless you desperately need to go first. And finally, lord of the storm. Night fighting rules hurts shooty armies (i.e. you). What's that you say? Solar pulses? You only have 1. 2 if you took a second lord, but now we're talking 400+ points spent on HQs alone by the time you give that lord the wargear he needs to be useful. Ad the lightning bolts... They're just too random. Hordes aren't afraid of them, AP 5 is laughed at by things you might otherwise scare. So you're stuck hoping you hit vehicles. Is this worth 225 pts? I... don't know. But ask yourself that before you take this guy.

Illuminor Szeras; Compared to a regular Necron Overlord, this guy costs 10 more points, loses a wound and a point of strength and toughness, and gained an attack (where it came from, I have no clue. He just does) So, let's compare him to a Necron Overlord with a Warscythe, shall we? The Necron Overlord is there acting as a deterrent to assaulting his unit in close combat, and not really anything else. Meanwhile Szeras is doing a similar thing, and has a lascannon that he can move and still shoot. Mechanical Augmentation is too irregular to count on, but 2 thirds of the time the upgrade will be somewhat meaningful. Overall, I could see him being used in really low point games where you still need an HQ. Not being an Overlord (and thus unable to take a royal court) hurts him a lot, though.

Orikan the Diviner: With a 3+ Invul save and a deadly close combat weapon, Orikan Empowered could be a fantastic close combat unit. Except he doesn't start as Orikan Empowered. Let's look at his other abilities right now. Lord of time is good if you need something to come out of reserves, but Necrons don't deep strike well. Temporal snares, though... Combine with a C'tan with Moulder of Worlds. Your opponent has to either choose not to move on his turn, or risk losing a good portion of his army. Now that's scary. Overall, an interesting guy. Compared to an overlord with a Warscythe and a phase shifter, you're only paying 20 more points. Now if only you could take a Harbinger of Time alongside him to turn him into Orikan Empowered when you needed him to.

Trazyn the Infinite; You get two reasonably decent upgrades with him, which would put him at 125 pts. So, let's look at the remaining 50 points. First off, we have the Empathic Obliterator. Allow me to wince in sympathy for the horde of Orks that comes against this guy. If he still gets to swing (and that's no guarantee), this weapon is a serious threat to things that are not monstrous creatures... If it were a power weapon. And it isn't. Still, impressive. He's a scoring unit, which is impressive. Now for surrogate hosts. This guy is going to stick around. And, since he is a scoring unit, you can pick him up with a monolith to put him were you need him if he gets dumped somewhere inconvenient. Certainly a possibility.

Nemesor Zahndrekh: A Necron Overlord with his wargear would cost... 180 pts. ... Wow. And he gives Wraiths furious charge? And takes away all sorts of annyoing abilities from your opponents units? This guy is amazing! Wait, he has another ability? And it isn't a detriment? ... Awesome

Vargard Obyron: Is not an Overlord (despite his statblock) which counts against him. Comparing his stats, though, he's about 145 pts pre-special rules (counting the mantle as a Veil of Darkness), has WS 6, an gets additional attacks when your opponents miss him (Not incredibly relevant, but hey, always nice), and can use his custom Veil of darkness with perfect accuracy if he arives close to Zahndrekh. A close combat dude in an army where all close combat units are jump infantry. Not so hot.

Anrkyr the Traveller: He's got 45 points to justify compared to an overlord with his equipment. His two special rules... Mind in the Machine is terrifying... except the vehicle is most likely pointed at you, severely limiting your options with weapons that aren't a turret. But the other ability. Now, I don't see what Immortals are going to do with Furious charge. But counter attack... Extra attacks are always nice. If you do take him, you will probably want a Chronometron traveling with him to ensure Mind in the Machine works.

[Science Officer]

I also don't see what is wrong with the original wording, the unit takes X number of hits where X is the number of models in the unit under the line. Which is probably a better way of wording it, but it doesn't seem that bad to me unless, as is usually the case in situations like this, people are looking for reasons to make it broken.

There's a difference between "models in the unit under the line."
and "models in the unit under the line."
Depending on how you speak, under the line might describe the models or it might be understood to describe the unit.

[Cheesegear]

First ability: Particle Casters, giving them a S6 pistol

Not worth paying points for.

Second ability: Transdimensional Beamer. It's only got a range of 12" and it's a Heavy weapon, but the target has to make a Strength check or get removed from the table. No armor saves, no multiple wounds, no FNP.

Yeah. I saw it. But I found it never got used. 'Heavy' is too big a drawback for a Jump Infantry unit that wants to be in Assault, especially if they're carting around a Destroyer Lord (which is one of the reasons to take Wraiths).

Third ability (which is the combo): Whip Tail. Any model in base contact with the Wraith has Initiative 1.

I included this as the only upgrade worth taking.

So Wraith and the C'tan charge the enemy unit. He has Initiative 1. Before combat starts, he has to make the check or die.

Hmm. For Time's Arrow, right? That's actually...Pretty good. I like it. But it does require you to take Time's Arrow, which isn't very good otherwise. It burns other Necron armies and Tervigons. It's a lot of points to remove one, maybe two models (depending on how fast you Assault or are Assaulted) in the game. Especially because Gaze of Flame can clean up.

The other thing it allows you is move and still make use of the 24" range of your weapons, which I think is much more the point of it. It increases the effective range of your troops, and it allows you to keep moving away from those units that, as you yourself point out, may want to get into Assault, while still shooting at them.

Didn't try doing that.

Just because you generally don't want to end up in close combat doesn't mean it's a dogma that one may not stray from ever.

True.

...how does it stop stuff from Melta-ing your tanks or Vanguard dropping your unit?

It's a deterrent, more than anything. And, deterrents in this game seem to work. People still unload everything they own into a Land Raider even when they shouldn't.

It's a mere 1d6 hits with AP5, which means you can consider yourself lucky if it drops a single Marine.

Yeah, but it stops Dark Eldar (mostly), and S8 is ignoring Feel No Pain, and, on Vanguard, losing even one or two models (before Assault even starts) is actually a huge downside to the unit, and halves their effectiveness.

That doesn't sound like "stops people" as much as "gets ignored by people" to me...

To you. Unfortunately, all I have is anecdotal evidence to back me up.

3+/4++ is not the same as 2+/3++, true, but 3+/4++ with a 5+ ward save actually pretty much is.

Not really. Lychguard are basically the only unit your opponent is allowed to fire upon 'til they die. Reanimation Protocols is not that good.

AP- gives them a -1 on the damage roll against vehicles, though. Which is bad.

...To a minimum of 1.

Except in my Vehicles Guide, in the long, long ago. I tried to make people understand that Glancing Hits are not bad. In the meta-game of Plaserbacks, Autocannon Dreads and Predators, "Vehicle can't shoot." is actually really good. Especially because no-one takes Extra Armour.

Then remember that not only are Dark Eldar vehicles made out of paper, they're all Open-Topped.

Triarch Stalker does have Quantum Shielding.

Did I play with it properly? It was still better than Deathmarks. Deathmarks are either really bad, or just never worked for me. Even though I probably played it wrong, 'Stalkers were still nearly as good as C'Tan.

there is not precedent at all. Shadow fields make an exception to the rule, codex trumps main book, Quantum shielding has no such exception as such it uses the normal rules.

So how do you work out which is the first Hit? Because it doesn't say that it has Shielding for the first four Hits or until a unit has finished shooting. We made this stuff up as we went. That's what the red is for. The red was for our interpretation of the rules and hopefully all the situations will be Errata'd or FAQ'd.. We weren't sure how to play it, so we made our own rule. And Dark Eldar Shadow Fields gave us an example to play by.

This is not so black and white, Warriors are the better objective holders. They have larger units meaning they are harder to remove from the table

Not really. It only takes one losing Assault (and they will lose) and the whole unit is gone. I'm yet to see a ruin or building that can house 20 models comfortably. And if you're not in a ruin/building then nearly all good Assault units come with Frag Grenades.

Like I said, there is no benefit to a high amount of Warriors, that you couldn't do with 2 units that add up to the same. The only reason that anybody takes a high model count in a unit is if they plan to slog it up the board and need to make it to Assault for more attacks ('Nids and Orks).

and they get the transport allowing them to bring their numbers back.

Yeah, it's fine. But if you're running around with 11+ Warriors + Over/Lord +/- Cryptek, you don't really need the Ghost Ark. I mean it's nice to have, but it's a lot of points.

I know that I hate The Internet. But it's telling me that Warriors are bad and Immortals are the way to go. I tried Warriors, I really did. 20 with a Res Orb, 9 plus Over/Lord. 8 with Over/Lord and Cryptek. Ghost Ark spam. It was fine. But all's it did was stall. Reanimation Protocols is like having extra models. It's a minor inconvenience.

I want to agree with you. But I saw with my own eyes. I read The Internet and my experience matched. So...I don't know. It's all my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

Tau warriors suck because they are t3 bs 3 not because they have 4+ armor saves

I must play a different game to you then. Because for the entire time, my Necron Warriors were terrified of Heavy Flamers and Assault Cannons. Playing against Pedro's Lineguard, the AP4 ammo tore me to shreds.

Immortals, being the same Toughness, didn't care. The only problem being Outflanking Flamestorms. Which, thankfully isn't too common.

You should also stick with the meltagun being a heavy 2 multimelta and only good melta in the list is worth the points

It is. I know the 'Stalker in general is not worth the points (150 points and still Open-Topped), but, aside from C'Tan, it's pretty much the only Elites choice worth having. And I'm pretty sure I even play-tested it without Shielding.

C'Tan for Assault. 'Stalkers for Shooting. Although, C'Tan do have the Thunderbolt as BS5 which is pretty good. But you can't have two Thunderbolts. So, yeah.

How is beast bad? You are in combat turn 2 with ease and with only a little work you are in combat turn 1.

Ruins/Buildings.

3+ cover is nearly as good as 3+ invulnerable (and you will have cover due to the size of the model)

Swarms. Don't assume your opponent is an idiot. If he's playing Blood Angels he's got Flamers and Heavy Flamers. If he's He'Stan he's got Flamers. If he's Dark Eldar he doesn't care.

Sure, if you're playing against Orks and you want to see the look on his face as Scarabs eat his Battlewagon.

The issue with Scarabs is that Wraiths and Destroyers are better, and to be any good, they want to be in Assault, which Wraiths are better at and can actually kill Infantry.



Just because I hate painting, I'm considering building two Destroyer Lords, three C'Tan, minimum Immortals, and as many Wraiths as I can fit. ~750 points for 18 Wraiths and around half of them have Whip Coils.
It'll be like Deathwing.

[The_Final_Stand]

Re: Imotekh
I feel compelled to point out that Necrons have somewhat poor range in the first place, (the only things with greater with 24" is the anti-tank stuff) so Night Fighting isn't that big of an issue. One can simply stand still, and wait for the enemy to come to you. Because they have to. Whilst neither of you are shooting at each other, they are being struck by Strength 8 lightning bolts. Which are going to do serious damage to light vehicles or transports. The heavier stuff has to deal with the lightnng, and possibly deep striking Heavy Destroyers, if you consider them expendable.

Actually, deep striking stuff seems like it could be fun. They can't focus all their fire on you due to the night, and your Immortals or whatever can only shoot at one unit anyway.

I suppose they could wait out the storm, but that's 2 or 3 turns in which nothing is happening for them, and something is happening for you.

Disclaimer: I am not a competitive player. If I've missed something important, point it out to me.

[Squark]

Re: Imotekh
I feel compelled to point out that Necrons have somewhat poor range in the first place, (the only things with greater with 24" is the anti-tank stuff) so Night Fighting isn't that big of an issue. One can simply stand still, and wait for the enemy to come to you. Because they have to. Whilst neither of you are shooting at each other, they are being struck by Strength 8 lightning bolts. Which are going to do serious damage to light vehicles or transports. The heavier stuff has to deal with the lightnng, and possibly deep striking Heavy Destroyers, if you consider them expendable.

Actually, deep striking stuff seems like it could be fun. They can't focus all their fire on you due to the night, and your Immortals or whatever can only shoot at one unit anyway.

I suppose they could wait out the storm, but that's 2 or 3 turns in which nothing is happening for them, and something is happening for you.

Disclaimer: I am not a competitive player. If I've missed something important, point it out to me.

Str 8 AP 5 lightning bolts. Mobs are taking a few casualties (and not taking ones you would have inflicted via shooting). Marines are losing a few men. Monstrous creatures are slightly softened. That leaves vehicles. Against most vehicles (AV 11 Side armor), you're glancing on a 3, penetrating on a 4+ (Lasplasbacks andPredators). With dreadnaughts, it goes up one. This sounds threatening, but... It's random. Totally random. You could waste 6 shots on a Land raider or a guard mob in cover while the Chimera you wanted to hit goes unscathed. You have no way of controlling it.

[lord_khaine]

The main advance of this is that you control when it ends.

So say the opponent get the first turn, its dark and he cant see anything.

Then on your turn the nightfighting is gone, so you unload all your big guns into him.

Then on his turn 2 the nightfighting rules are finaly gone, except its now you uses a solar pulse, resulting in 2 rounds of nightfighting for him, while you can shoot freely.

[Cheesegear]

Special Characters:

Imotekh the Stormlord: 225 Points

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Phaeron - 220 Points
Gauntlet of Fire, Phylactery, Sempiternal Weave, Phase Shifter
Tachyon Arrow

So, factoring in Imotekh's special abilities. He's roughly the same cost as a regular Phaeron. However, Weave and Phylactery is mostly a waste of points anyway. Phaeron too, mostly.

So, what does he do?
Bloodswarm Nanoscarabs: Flayed Ones don't Scatter if they try and Deepstrike near a random unit. Flayed Ones are not Deathmarks, which means they aren't coming down after your opponent's first-turn Drop Pods. And Flayed Ones are...Flayed Ones. They don't even have Entropic Strike or Rending. Kind of crap. Since you shouldn't be using Flayed Ones in the first place.

Staff of the Destroyer: Like a Doom Scythe's Death Ray. But only S6 and you've only got one shot. However, Doom Scythe's generally only get one - or less - shot anyway. You're still wounding a lot of things on 2s (like S10), and anything that isn't particularly bothered by S6 probably has more than one wound.
Use a Chronometron to make the 2D6" go further.

Humiliating Defeat: What is a 'Character'? Independent Character? Monstrous Creature? Uniques? Doesn't process much because Stormlord doesn't have Mindshackle Scarabs or Tesseract Labrynths like other Lords. Which means you're spending points on regular Lords. Which gets kind of expensive when Imotekh is 225 already. Secondly, 'Character' probably means one of the aforementioned, and all the good ones are better than Imotekh, mostly because Gauntlets of Fire allow saves.

Hyperlogical Strategy: Not bad.

Lord of the Storm: Night Fight rules automatically apply during the first game turn which means both players. And affects other game turns. Necrons want to be shooting so Night Fighting is bad. Just take some Solar Pulses instead which don't affect your own side. Furthermore, the Lightning Strikes don't really do anything since it's too random to be effective. If your opponent has Meched up, D6 S8 to a vehicle's Side Armour isn't close to being bad. Good against Mech. Bad against Infantry.

Unlike Storm Crypteks. If a unit Deep Strikes, it's going to get hit. If a unit Assaults, it's going to get hit. Which is good because most units that Deep Strike are MSU or vehicles (Dreads, Dark Eldar vehicles, Land Speeders, etc.).
If Space Marines Combat Squad out of a Drop Pod, are both of them affected by Storm Cryptek?

Summary; Death Ray, bad Solar Pulse and a 'too random' version of Storm Cryptek, Gauntlet of Fire and Sempiternal Weave are sub-optimal. Above average.

Nemesor Zahndrekh and Varguard Obyron: 185 and 160 Points

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Overlord - 180
Sempiternal Weave, Resurrection Orb, Phase Shifter

Similar to Imotekh, paying only 5 points for all the extra stuff that Zahndrekh can do isn't bad. And the Resurrection Orb is one of the more useful things that an Overlord could take. Again, not having Mindshackles is annoying.

Staff of Light isn't the best.

Adaptive Tactics: This is very good. Mostly because it doesn't target the unit he's with, but, in fact any unit that you own. Furious Charge can mostly be ignored, but all the other abilities are very nice. Force Multiplying is good.

Counter Tactics: Take Dark Eldar/Blood Angels' Furious Charge. Make Space Wolves lose Counter-Attack. Use Solar Pulses and take away Dark Eldar/Space Wolves' Acute Senses/Night Vision.

Phased Reinforcements: Gives everything the Deathmarks' special rule. If you know your opponent is using Drop Pods, and has the first turn, you can almost deploy nothing on the board (except Zahndrekh and a few bits) and then have your opponent not know what to do with his stuff. Then after the first-turn Drop Pod, the rest of your army arrives. If you pair this with Imotekh and 20+ Flayed Ones, it's alright. But, you have to take this guy, Imotekh (225 points) and take Flayed Ones, which are mostly bad.
Remember, all Jump Infantry may Deep Strike.

Summary; Does what an Overlord should do. Force Multiply. And how! While Imotekh is trying - and failing - to kill things, Zahndrekh is boosting your army and providing a Resurrection Orb. Very good.

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Overlord - 115 Points
Warscythe, Sempiternal Weave

Destroyer Lord - 140 Points
Sempiternal Weave

Whoa. 45 points over a normal Overlord is pretty steep. The Destroyer Lord is there for comparison. And no Invulnerable on a 150+ point Character? Sad face.
But let's see how Obyron goes;

Ghostwalk Mantle: Not terrible. If you're running around with a stompy unit of Warriors or Immortals who don't want to be in combat, you can just teleport out. Unfortunately, this only works in your Movement phase, which means the enemy has already Assaulted you on his turn. And for some reason you lucked out and you didn't get killed immediately or you passed your Morale check. Doesn't get used often.
It's not even like he's a real Overlord, with access to a Royal Court and a bunch of Eldritch Lances.
However, again with Imotekh, if Obyron joins a unit of Flayed Ones (who start on the battlefield), he can jump straight to a unit which would be alright if he could Assault out of Ghostwalk or Obyron or Flayed Ones had any sort of ranged weapons...Just something to think about.

Cleaving Counterblow: He's still got I2. But, now we're in the no-Invulnerable territory. Your enemy isn't an idiot and knows this rule. He's not going to target your 2+ save. He's going to hit you with as many Power Weapon hits as he can manage (Sanguinary Guard) and this rule wont even take effect because Obyron will be dead.

Varguard's Duty: FUUUUUUUUUUUU-
Obyron doesn't get a choice. If Zahndrek is charged by a stupid unit (Ork Boyz, Hormagaunts, anything where a Warscythe makes no difference), Obyron leaves where he is and has to go fight them. Incredibly annoying. An Ironclad charges Obryon, cool. Immediately, Scouts charge Zandrekh. Obyron leaves the unit and stands next to Zandrekh. The Ironclad - now in Assault - is free to butcher your max-S5 guys.

Summary; Too expensive for an Overlord and doesn't even have good Wargear. Opponents can ignore him in combat, or completely target him down. He's also a very expensive Harbinger of Despair, and the thing that makes him more special than a Despair Cryptek generally happens too late to be any use.

You can take Zahndrekh without Obyron, but don't take Obyron without Zahndrekh. In fact, spend 160 points on a Destroyer Lord if you really want to be killing things. Or, if you've got Zahndrekh, spend 160 points on a Royal Court and Force Multiply some more instead of doing nothing.

Illuminor Szeras: 100 Points

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Harbinger of Destruction - 45 Points
Gaze of Flame

...What? You're paying 55 extra points for an Independent Character (get targeted) Destruction Cryptek that even takes up an HQ slot all to himself, and he doesn't even have what you take Destruction Crypteks for; Solar Pulses! Bad, bad, bad.

Mechanical Augementation: Hardened Carapace is the only useful thing. And, because Szeras doesn't even unlock a Court, it's not like you've got Resurrection Orbs on your units. Improved Optics? Meh. Use Triarch Stalkers to Twin-Link against your scary targets. If you really need the unit dead, the Heat Ray (Heavy Flamer version) auto-hits for many fun times.

Summary; Bad. Bad, bad, bad.

Orikan the Diviner: 165 Points

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Don't quite know how to stat out an equivalent Overlord, but 165 points for Orikan isn't exactly terrible. Considering Obyron is 160...Why would you take that guy? Sorry. We're not talking about him anymore. One thing to note about his stats is that he only has two wounds.

Invulnerable? Check. What? Transdimensional Beamer? Err...Okay. It's Heavy, which is a little bit annoying. But, you get to pick which model it hits. So you can pick out Power Fists, and then let Gauss weapons do the rest. Unfortunately, doesn't work against vehicles.

Staff of Tomorrow: Preferred Enemy (Everything!) and is a Power Weapon. Not bad.

Lord of Time: Get your Doom Scythes out of Reserves earlier so they can do their thing.

The Stars Are Right: Gets progressively easier to do. And gets progressively harder to keep around. Particularly annoying if you get it on the first turn (you wont be in Assault) only to have it immediately leave. Sometimes its an Ace in the Hole, sometimes it does nothing because the game is basically over by Turn 3 (or Orikan gets killed early somehow). Not amazing. But it is a unique power not seen anywhere else in the game.

Temproal Snares: First game turn. Which means you don't need to go first. If you do actually go first, you can hopefully hit your opponent with a Tremorstave (Orikan does not unlock Royal Courts), or use a C'Tan with Worldshape (why not?). When this guy is paired with Imotekh (225 points, geez), you can Night Fight so your opponent can't shoot, and then Temporal Snare so your opponent can't move. But that's expensive, and only lasts one turn. Stall!
...If you can unlock a Tremorstave or two, you can unlock a Solar Pulse.

Summary; Not great. Not terrible. Better than Obyron and Szeras (what isn't? lol). If you need it, Lord of Time can make this guy worth it just for that ability. Still pick Zahndrekh first.

Anrakyr the Traveller: 165 Points

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Overlord - 130 Points
Warscythe, Tachyon Arrow

*shrug* I'm not impressed. Missing crucial wargear.
But let's keep going.

Mind in the Machine: 18" isn't very far. You get to control Rhinos, and maybe the odd Plaserback that has moved into your DZ for some reason or a Drop Pod that maybe has a Deathwind Launcher. Don't expect to be getting Leman Russes or Predators. The game just doesn't love you like that. You can use a Despair Cryptek and teleport to a unit which is hopefully near a vehicle if you want. But then your opponent takes a turn and blows you away (if you haven't already killed yourself with unreliable Deep Strike). And even then, you still need to roll a dice to take control. You're probably better off shooting the Tachyon Arrow. And an Overlord can do that...

Of particular note, is if you take control of a Baal Predator, or Razorback, or even a Redeemer with Heavy Flamers or Flamestorms, you can turn that back on your opponent. Get a C'Tan with Lord of Fire. If you shoot, you can fry some models, if it doesn't, you just exploded Heavy Flamers and Flamestorm Cannons which are basically instant wipe on your Warriors and Immortals.

Pyrrhian Eternals: Do Immortals need Furious Charge (I3!). Maybe they can take out a Tervigon. Counter-Attack is sometimes useful.

Summary; Not exactly bad. But Zahndrekh is 20 points more and can make Pyrrhian Eternals too if he really wants to and does a whole lot more besides.

Trazyn the Infinite: 175 Points

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Phaeron - 135 Points
Mindshackle Scarabs

Even factoring in abilities, Trazyn is way over-costed.

Empathic Obliterator: He's still got I2, and it isn't a Power Weapon. Your opponent is likely to get his attacks in first. If you do get it off, models only have a 50% chance to take a wound, and they still even get an Armour Save.
However, wounds caused this way count towards the Assault Result. Which means swarms of Orks and Tyranids, and even blobs of Imperial Guard are actually going to get smashed (because they have bad saves). But, overall, this weapon is mostly random and can be devastating or ignored. Depends on your opponent.

Excellent! Another Piece [...]: Trazyn can Score. Whoop-de-do. If he already isn't hanging around with Warriors or Immortals you've probably messed up somehow. Probably by 'porting him into a unit of Lychguard with...

Surrogate Hosts: Similar to Obyron, it can actually be bad if this 'works'. Trazyn has Mindshackle Scarabs and a weird weapon. Go back over your standard-build Over/Lords and your Crypteks. Do you really want them replaced for Mindshackle Scarabs? Doubtful. You probably don't even want your Lychguards replaced by him either.

Zahndrekh > Everyone else.
Orikan is useful at times for Lord of Time and Temporal Snares. No Royal Court.
Imotekh I'm still on the fence with. Night Fighting is great. But not when you have to do it too (Necrons are for Shooting!) and Solar Pulses already exist.

[lord_khaine]

Minor issue regarding Bloodswarm scarabs, its a non-vehicle unit that you target.

[Alex Knight]

they also don't scatter on arrival close to the bloodmarked unit.

[Cheesegear]

Minor issue regarding Bloodswarm scarabs, its a non-vehicle unit that you target.

Played wrong then. But fixed. It's now worse. Nearly half the meta-game is vehicles. Minimum units of Flayed Ones are all that's required and only for Infiltration denial.

[The Glyphstone]

Point of questioning, Cheesegear: For all your playtesting, and thus your opinions on unit quality, you only playtested against MEQs and Dark Eldar. Now, those two archtypes do dominate the metagame, but how does the 'Cron list fare against horde armies like Mass Guard, Orks, and Tyranids, or lightly armored lists such as Vet/Storm Guard, Tau, or even other Necrons?

[Squark]

I'd argue that it's better now, on the grounds that now the flayed ones can at least get at something they can kill (since flayed ones are not going to do jack against a vehicle)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A revised list I thought I'd try this Thanksgiving. I'm not sure, but I think I'm too light on bodies.

Destroyer Lord (Sempiternal weave* and Mindshackle scarabs) 160pts
7 Necron Immortals 119 pts
6 Necron Immortals 102 pts
C'tan Shard (Moulder of worlds and Lord of fire) 255 pts
Triarch Stalker (w/ Twin-Linked Heavy Gauss Cannon) 165 pts
5 Canoptek Wraiths (2 Whip coils, 1 Particle caster) 195 pts
Total: 996 pts

[lord_khaine]

Regarding the Stormlord, then i do think it could be possible to make a list that takes advantage of his ability (with the help of a chronomancer) to keep most of the fight in the dark.

A lot of the most nasty necron weapons, like Doom scythes, are pretty short range, so they wont suffer very much from reduced visibility.

Meanwhile a lot of Necron units like C'than, Wraiths and more Doomscythes would really like not being raked by all the missile launcers, auto cannons and las cannons that most armies are spamming.

Of course, SW and DE does have night vision, but at least in the case of DE, then their vehicles and units are at the same time so fragile that the storm will start to hurt them badly.

[Cheesegear]

Now, those two archtypes do dominate the metagame, but how does the 'Cron list fare against horde armies like Mass Guard, Orks, and Tyranids, or lightly armored lists such as Vet/Storm Guard, Tau, or even other Necrons?

They've got Power Armour (Immortals) and Bolters. In fact Immortals have better than Bolters. Against Marines, Telsa weapons are strictly better, because when dealing with Marines, anything not AP3 or less may as well count as AP- and, if it wasn't for the ability to kill vehicles, Tesla weapons would be great. But, against not-Marines, Gauss weapons allow no save which puts them far and away better in this case.
Basically, Gauss weapons are good. Against everything. But, Necron vehicles come with Tesla weapons, so, what can you do?

The issue when dealing with Guard and probably Eldar is that they've got range. Yeah, you can Solar Pulse, but, as a couple of people have pointed out by now, Necrons don't really have the range to shoot stuff while Solar Pulse is in effect, generally that means moving forwards, which means Solar Pulse is less effective. When I said last week that Necrons were on the same scale as Codex Marines, I don't think I was wrong in the slightest. Partly because Necrons are trying to play the same game. That is, the 'mid field'. Some players don't believe that such a thing exists, but, other players swear that it does. I'm the latter kind.

Orks and 'Nids are basically a cakewalk. Both of them are traditionally moving forwards (which Tremorstaves and C'Tan stops), and, while Orks and 'Nids are trying to get a handle on things, you're peppering them with AP5 or less weapons whittling down their numbers to a manageable size. Again, I have to stress just how good Zahndrekh is. Take away Warbiker Nobz' Furious Charge until your next turn. In fact, just take away Orks' Furious Charge in general. They're now I2 - which means you're striking simultaneously - and are only S3. And Necrons are tougher to kill than Orks. Give your own Necrons Counter-Attack. Or hell, Furious Charge and then beat the Orks at their own game.

Against Tyranids and Orks, a C'Tan with Gaze of Death may as well be unkillable. Orks traditionally don't deal well with Monstrous Creatures, especially those that can regenerate wounds. The C'Tan is better than TMCs, especially 'cause the big one most people are taking are Tervigons. Which Time's Arrow kills dead. If you take it, that is.

Anyway, Power Armour and Bolters. Against Infantry Guard...Yeah. Solar Pulse and stall for as long as you can. Against Mech-Guard? You're not going to have a fun time. Chimeras move around a lot and carry Heavy Flamers and Leman Russes have got range on you by a lot. Against Gunships? Solar Pulses do nothing because everything should be Outflanking and Necrons can't do anything about that.

[banjo1985]

A query came up in a game I had last night, to which there is probably an obvious answer, but neither of us could really find a definite statement on the matter.

Can you choose to reroll successful rolls to hit?

It came up because of the TL Tesla Destructor on my Annihalation Barge constantly rolling all 3's to hit. I had the idea that I'd rather re-roll these successful hits and hope for some 6's, which we allowed, but I'm not sure it was legal to do so. Every time I did I got fewer hits and still no 6's anyway, so I guess that could be karma at work.

[Cheesegear]

Can you choose to reroll successful rolls to hit?

It came up because of the TL Tesla Destructor on my Annihalation Barge constantly rolling all 3's to hit.

Depends on the wording of what you're doing.

For the purposes of Twin-Linked (pg 31) the answer is 'No'.

[Borgh]

Why did you allow it in the first place? To me a rolled dice is a rolled dice unless you can specifically reroll. Otherwise I and everyone else would reroll the poo out of any (fantasy) poison and killingblow roll I make.

Being able to fall back (especially if you have atsknf) at will could be a good tactical advantage.

[Cheesegear]

Why did you allow it in the first place? To me a rolled dice is a rolled dice unless you can specifically reroll.

Which Twin-Linking does allow. Just not for hits.

[Winterwind]

A query came up in a game I had last night, to which there is probably an obvious answer, but neither of us could really find a definite statement on the matter.

Can you choose to reroll successful rolls to hit?

It came up because of the TL Tesla Destructor on my Annihalation Barge constantly rolling all 3's to hit. I had the idea that I'd rather re-roll these successful hits and hope for some 6's, which we allowed, but I'm not sure it was legal to do so. Every time I did I got fewer hits and still no 6's anyway, so I guess that could be karma at work.

If you could re-roll successful hits (which, as Cheesegear points out, you can't, because twin-linked is explicitly formulated as "You may re-roll failed to-hit rolls", not "You may re-roll any to-hit rolls"), it wouldn't matter at all for your average number of hits - the amount of shots you miss precisely offsets the bonus hits you get from Tesla on average. So, it would be pointless to re-roll just for the sake of scoring more hits alone, as you might just as well score less instead. It might still make sense sometimes if scoring less hits wouldn't matter much while scoring more hits might have some profound effects (like, you don't care much if only a single enemy model survives or whether three survive - they won't do much either way - but if you could destroy the entire unit, that would actually matter as you would get a killpoint), though.

[Teln]

Being able to fall back (especially if you have atsknf) at will could be a good tactical advantage.

Obviously you've never heard of Combat Tactics.

[Ninjaman]

A query came up in a game I had last night, to which there is probably an obvious answer, but neither of us could really find a definite statement on the matter.

Can you choose to reroll successful rolls to hit?

It came up because of the TL Tesla Destructor on my Annihalation Barge constantly rolling all 3's to hit. I had the idea that I'd rather re-roll these successful hits and hope for some 6's, which we allowed, but I'm not sure it was legal to do so. Every time I did I got fewer hits and still no 6's anyway, so I guess that could be karma at work.

Most stuff says you are allowed to re-roll failed to hit rolls. If it just say that you can re-roll then you can do that, but this often says you will have to re-roll the entire roll. But in general no.

If you could re-roll successful hits (which, as Cheesegear points out, you can't, because twin-linked is explicitly formulated as "You may re-roll failed to-hit rolls", not "You may re-roll any to-hit rolls"), it wouldn't matter at all for your average number of hits - the amount of shots you miss precisely offsets the bonus hits you get from Tesla on average. So, it would be pointless to re-roll just for the sake of scoring more hits alone, as you might just as well score less instead. It might still make sense sometimes if scoring less hits wouldn't matter much while scoring more hits might have some profound effects (like, you don't care much if only a single enemy model survives or whether three survive - they won't do much either way - but if you could destroy the entire unit, that would actually matter as you would get a killpoint), though.

But unfortunately you can rarely do that, since it says failed rolls.

[Borgh]

Obviously you've never heard of Combat Tactics.

Wait what? *reads* ah. Cool. Bleedin' marines.