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Post by zephoid on Jul 5, 2012 13:26:59 GMT
Like many of us i was really surprised when crons came out that they were actually balanced. They werent as powerful as GK but they were still quite good. Both beatable and able to beat you a fair amount if the time. Ward actually did a good job for once in balancing a codex (fluff was another matter).
However, time has proved me a fool. 6th came around and not only do necrons get huge buffs from rule changes, they get new rules in the FAQ that make them even better (Invasion beams, Pretorian's getting +1 Str from staff, Warscythe AP1). Now crons are about as balanced as 7th edition Fantasy demons. Played a game against a friend that confirmed my suspicions.
1: Ward though of everything for his fliers. Night scythe are AV11, lets make them 3 hull points, 6s to hit, and can jink.. cool, thats strong, buu fine. Now, because they will need to evade a lot, lets make TL tessla weapons that are the least effected weapons the game has for snap shooting. They get an average of over 3 hits even at bs1. Then, since they are transports, lets make sure that if they crash nothing inside dies like every flier had to deal with. Finally, lets give them a new rule that allows them to go 24" and drop units off that can move 6" after that. First turn in enemy deployment zone anyone?
2: glancing changes. Guess what every necron does incredibly well? glance. Scarabs went from great to insane with the hit-on-3s and able to glance vehicles to death with just 2 or 3 bases on the charge. Disordered assaults dont matter at all when you have 4 attacks base and can cross the map first turn.
3: assault nerfs. Guess what necrons dont do well. Oh look, they all have rapid fire weapons also for overwatch.
This combination is pretty much unstoppable for killing vehicles
Night scythe 100
5 warriors 65
Cryptek w voltaic staff 25
For 190 points you get to come on turn 2-3, move 24, drop and move 6, then shoot 12. Thats 42 inches. In that, you get 10 rapid fire shots with should get 2 glances and a voltaic staff which should get 3 glances/pens or more depending on armor value. Thats a dead vehicle pretty well guaranteed against anything but a land raider which is still more than dead on average. Also, night scythes can shoot, killing passengers or any other inf anywhere on the board. Not only that, since nothing has skyfire, its pretty darn unkillable.
anti inf.... well most of the necron army is pretty darn good anti inf. This Doom Scythes are great, able to fire both weapons on the move, and this also works better than ever
20 warriors
Cryptek veil
Overlord scythe scarabs weave orb
Lord scythe scarabs labyrinth
~500 pts
Now scarabs work even better with challenges. and enemy IC MUST move into b2b with you if its challenged, making this all the more fun. Overwatch is pretty deadly with 40 shots. Kills any vehicle in 1 volly, Massacres most inf, teleports around the map, doesnt give a (please do not swear) about dangerous terrain(armor saves are allowed, then WBB), Misshap table is more forgiving, and another cryptek in the army can just make it nightfight once you DS into terrain to give you stealth/shrouding. for 2+ cover saves and WBB. It deals with pretty much anything but deathstars, and even some of those with the scarabs.
Really im not sure i want to play in tournaments anymore with (please do not swear) like this. I boxed my nids for tournies long ago and my eldar have been winning quite well, but its just seems like Ward just wants to stack the dice for his army every codex he writes. I can say its a good thing that hes supposidly not writing any more codexes, but every other codex writer now has to build into this absurdly strong tournament list and try to make something competitive against this (please do not swear). Again, its the return of 7th edition fantasy demons, this time for 40k.
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Post by hornywingythingy on Jul 5, 2012 13:52:58 GMT
Another ward hate thread? That's so fifth Ed.
Seriously dude there are three principal authors to the 40k rulebook, find another whipping boy, ward bashing had gotten tired in 5th, doing it 5 days into 6th is a little lame.
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Post by zephoid on Jul 5, 2012 14:24:39 GMT
Do you have a solution to the problems then? If not then these are legitimate complaints about the quality of the game and how it is being progressed. Ward bashing may have gotten tiring in 5th but with his had in the 6th rules and the ties to the previous codex he has once again shown his ineptitude to write a balanced codex. I dont need another whipping boy, i need a new codex writer who understands how to make balanced codexes that dont bump the power curve to obscene levels (aka kelly). Ward will continue to be bashed until he is no longer having a negative impact on the game.
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Post by Hellbreaker on Jul 5, 2012 14:57:10 GMT
Another ward hate thread? That's so fifth Ed. Seriously dude there are three principal authors to the 40k rulebook, find another whipping boy, ward bashing had gotten tired in 5th, doing it 5 days into 6th is a little lame. This isn't a simple bashing thread though, what zephoid brings up here is an actual issue. I don't know if you played against Fantasy 7th Edition Chaos Deamons, but it wasn't very fun anyway. If what zephoid talks about here is correct (I wouldn't know, I haven't touched 40k for a while now) I'll have to give my condolences to you guys, more so the people who play Necrons here. They might have been given a ridiculously strong army now but the experience isn't going to be anything but negative in the game stores once everyone figures this out. I might be jumping the gun a bit but just assuming this does hold true the prospect of facing Chaos Daemons Space-robot edition doesn't exactly give me any more incentive than I already have to take my Eldar with me rather than my Lizardmen. I sincerely hope this does in fact not stay true, for the sake of you 40k players. Chaos Daemons were no fun for anyone, neither player nor opponent. |
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Post by hornywingythingy on Jul 5, 2012 15:22:24 GMT
Another ward hate thread? That's so fifth Ed. Seriously dude there are three principal authors to the 40k rulebook, find another whipping boy, ward bashing had gotten tired in 5th, doing it 5 days into 6th is a little lame. This isn't a simple bashing thread though, what zephoid brings up here is an actual issue. I don't know if you played against Fantasy 7th Edition Chaos Deamons, but it wasn't very fun anyway. If what zephoid talks about here is correct (I wouldn't know, I haven't touched 40k for a while now) I'll have to give my condolences to you guys, more so the people who play Necrons here. They might have been given a ridiculously strong army now but the experience isn't going to be anything but negative in the game stores once everyone figures this out. I might be jumping the gun a bit but just assuming this does hold true the prospect of facing Chaos Daemons Space-robot edition doesn't exactly give me any more incentive than I already have to take my Eldar with me rather than my Lizardmen. I sincerely hope this does in fact not stay true, for the sake of you 40k players. Chaos Daemons were no fun for anyone, neither player nor opponent. Yep, played against them in 7th, won a few times too, I also own demons as a fantasy army, which may have helped. (easiest way to learn an armies weakness is to play with it) personally I found my vampire counts easier to win with than demons. I don't think Matt ward writes bad codexes, and he is also a friend of mine. I think when you title a thread "ward crons and 6th Ed" it becomes ward bashing, something like "crons errata too powerful" is less inflammatory, the blokes just a nice guy who gets stick for doing his job. I don't like it, its a red rag to me, and for the record I didn't like it when it was allessio cavatore getting it, or Andy chambers, and so on back down the years. If you have a problem with something, it should be discussed without bringing the authors in to mud flinging, it just cheapens us and stops them wanting anything to do with their community, which is very sad. There may be valid points raised (crons isn't my army, I couldn't say) but 5 days is a bit quick to be stating this will break tournaments, the op has had one game with this, and is throwing ifllamatory remarks around. Matt Ward isn't the only writer in games development, and two other writers wrote 6th with him. Don't blame the man. (if you compare 8th fantasy and 6th 40k, its obvious, there aren't the little wardy touches everywhere that 8th has.) |
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Post by Helonion on Jul 5, 2012 15:37:45 GMT
This isn't a simple bashing thread though, what zephoid brings up here is an actual issue. I don't know if you played against Fantasy 7th Edition Chaos Deamons, but it wasn't very fun anyway. If what zephoid talks about here is correct (I wouldn't know, I haven't touched 40k for a while now) I'll have to give my condolences to you guys, more so the people who play Necrons here. They might have been given a ridiculously strong army now but the experience isn't going to be anything but negative in the game stores once everyone figures this out. I might be jumping the gun a bit but just assuming this does hold true the prospect of facing Chaos Daemons Space-robot edition doesn't exactly give me any more incentive than I already have to take my Eldar with me rather than my Lizardmen. I sincerely hope this does in fact not stay true, for the sake of you 40k players. Chaos Daemons were no fun for anyone, neither player nor opponent. Yep, played against them in 7th, won a few times too, I also own demons as a fantasy army, which may have helped. (easiest way to learn an armies weakness is to play with it) personally I found my vampire counts easier to win with than demons. I don't think Matt ward writes bad codexes, and he is also a friend of mine. I think when you title a thread "ward crons and 6th Ed" it becomes ward bashing, something like "crons errata too powerful" is less inflammatory, the blokes just a nice guy who gets stick for doing his job. I don't like it, its a red rag to me, and for the record I didn't like it when it was allessio cavatore getting it, or Andy chambers, and so on back down the years. If you have a problem with something, it should be discussed without bringing the authors in to mud flinging, it just cheapens us and stops them wanting anything to do with their community, which is very sad. There may be valid points raised (crons isn't my army, I couldn't say) but 5 days is a bit quick to be stating this will break tournaments, the op has had one game with this, and is throwing ifllamatory remarks around. Matt Ward isn't the only writer in games development, and two other writers wrote 6th with him. Don't blame the man. (if you compare 8th fantasy and 6th 40k, its obvious, there aren't the little wardy touches everywhere that 8th has.) How the hell was the title even remotely bashing? It's clearly saying that the topic is Wards Necrons in 6th. One game generally makes you question things, multiple games makes you realize. Zep is bringing up something he is concerned with and feedback from other players can help establish his point further or disprove it to random chance. You Horny, are just ignoring what he says an doing what most would consider a "fanboy defense". I don't care if Ward is a nice guy, a lot of people do not like how he does his job. Ward wrote the Necron dex, everything in there is his and GW's responsibility. And Ward is known for doing power creeps that are broken. |
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Post by Rakuall on Jul 5, 2012 15:51:25 GMT
It's wrong to berate the author for it if it's his first*, or only, mistake. But Ward Writes books that sell models. Of course they're not bad books, the problem is that they are much too good. Blood angels Blew everyone else out of the water, and while they could be beaten, require(d) much less tactical skill to use. They also remained competitive through the end of 5th, and will likely be competitive through 6th as well (they're Imperial). Then Ward wrote Grey Knights, and they blew everyone else out of the water. Again, they can be beaten, but all a GK player has to do is grab a netlist and throw troops at you. Then Necrons blew Everyone else out of the water. As people adapted and got used to 'Crons, they became balanced. No sixth is launched, and yu know what it looks like 'Crons are set to do? That's right, Blow everyone out of the (please do not swear) water.
I'm sure Ward is decent human being, if not a great guy, but he keeps scaling up the power level in the game, making codex creep worse than ever before. We're not (I'm not, at least) bashing Ward's character, simply his writing style. He is the Destroyer of Fluff, the Devourer of Older 'Dexes, and we simply want his style to become more reasonable. I doubt it will happen, people don't change themselves, and Ward's current style sells too many models for HQ to care what some hobbyists think.
*edit: But you shold always call them on it. "We loved books 1, 2 , and 3, but 4 is a broken piece of.... Please make 5 better!" But when You hear "Book 1 was reasonable, but 2, 3, and 4 were all broken pieces of cheese," you know there is a problem with the author.
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Post by zephoid on Jul 5, 2012 16:00:23 GMT
Ward may not be the only writer, but he would have had a significant part in writing 6th. Crons were written to be incredibly optimized to take advantage of the rules in 6th, which means either he wrote the rules he optimized them for or he wrote the crons to take advantage of the rules other people were writing. Most armies have strengths to go on and and weaknesses to be exploited. Crons had weaknesses in 5th in assault, shorter range units, lack of effective transports, and ways to actually destroy vehicles rather than just stop them from shooting. 6th patched just about all of those weaknesses, gave them cheap fliers that few armies have counters to, despite the new errata having a chance to fix that, and a whole bunch more ways to deny assault.
Where is the weakness to crons now? assault is covered by overwatch and lightning field along with mindshackle scarabs and challenges. With flying scythes they have some of the strongest survivable firepower of any army. The range is negated by the new flying scythes and invasion beams, and the passenger overwatch and 4 HP on the ghost ark (Even Rus dont have 4 hp) buff some of the already good transports they had.
While 5 days may be too soon to call it game breaking, i cant find a solution. No one i have passed the information off to has a solution. Guard hydras and DE razorwing are the only things that are reliably effective and even those are reactionary since fliers dont start on the field. The only counter i found was playing the Corsair army list from IA 11 which can take nightwing fighters that have intercept, allowing them to shoot the nightscythes down before they can drop stuff off. However, thats forgeworld stuff and i only have 1 fighter.
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Post by hornywingythingy on Jul 5, 2012 16:09:06 GMT
Fanboy defense? Are you serious? I speak up on a friends behalf, and you say that? For the record I play nids, guard and csm in 40k, and VC, woc, demons, beastmen, high elves, lizardmen and goblins in fantasy. Matt ward wrote one of those armies, demons in fantasy, which I have already said I didn't find so easy to win with as I found my VC in 7th.
He is just a bloke doing a job, leave the names out and I will not have a problem, bash my mate and I will say I think its wrong, because it is. Just put yourself outside of the situation for a second, I don't know what you do for a living, but imagine if the community your job served engaged in what forums see aimed at Matt ward on a daily basis, imagine how you, your partner and family might feel.
Before Matt ward there were other pariahs in gw, its easier to blame a person, its still wrong. No one forces people to use skulltaker in fantasy, just as no one forces you to break your list. (for the record if I ever use a special character, I ask permission, even though you don't need to anymore)
Anyhow, I have stated my opinions, and that's the last I'm gonna say on it in this thread, lest it devolves into name-calling. If anyone still wishes to discuss it with me, feel free to PM.
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Post by coredump on Jul 5, 2012 16:20:01 GMT
[MOD EDIT]
Howdy folks,
Lets be sure to keep this as a 'professional critique' and not an Ad Hominem type attack.
Just to note, Cruddace has had to 'deal' with much more mudslinging around here than Ward will ever have to. (not justifying that... just that the web tends to be home of a lot of complaining)
From my read, 98% of what has been posted has been fact-based critique. (Does not make necessarliy correct or incorrect.) But lets also be sensative that this guy has friends, and no one wants to see their friend get insulted.
So lets keep it on the polite-critique level, and not let it devolve into the rude-smear level.
Thanks
[/MOD EDIT]
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Post by coredump on Jul 5, 2012 16:25:17 GMT
That said...
It sure does look like Ward has a tendency to write codices that immediate jump to the very top tier... and stay there. I have seen a few lists for Crons posted... and I just have no idea how to possibly deal with them.
Now, I don't know how responsible for the FAQ answers; but that just took a really powerful codex, and seems to make it unstoppable. Granted, it has only been 5 days; and we could all be missing something important.... but 9 fliers? And the problem is the rules have some issues that balance flyers, so that isn't too bad... except the Cron dex and FAQ *remove* those issues.
I hope something can be done.... otherwise I have to pray for another Cron dex next year....
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Post by nurglitch on Jul 5, 2012 17:19:51 GMT
Maybe you are missing something important. I don't see a problem with the 5th edition Codex: Necrons.
While there's no 'hard' counter to various Necron tricks, there are easy strategic counters.
1. Yes, the Necrons can put their AV11 flyers into our deployment zone. Fortunately we're Tyranids, and it's kind of them to save us the trouble of flogging across the board. And if the flyers die before dropping off, then they get to flog across the board (or use a Monolith portal). I don't get the problem: They fly into range and drop them off where we can charge them in our turn 1/2? Works for me.
2. Yes, again, it works well for Tyranids, and Warhammer players just need to practice the same bubble-wrap tactics that will prevent Tyranids from smashing through vehicles. S6 is still going to murder the little walmart bugs in droves.
3. They're still going to be swept in any sweeping advance, even with a regenerating Tervigon on their tails. And if you don't like going through overwatch, bog them down in a target and follow them up. Or use units like the Tyrannofex that will shrug off unbelievable amounts of non-AP2 firepower. Most Tyranid units are going to be charging 8.5" (thanks to Fleet and Move Through Cover). Don't want your Tyrannofex getting Mindshackled? Just stand off and rinse/repeat with Acid Spray.
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Post by webebuggin on Jul 5, 2012 17:33:41 GMT
I have a necron army, and building fliers lists from what I have play tested is not even fun. Between Deathmark warping shenanigans, laser beams of death from death scythes (oh can't hit me unless you roll a 6!!) And more movement than any other army (night scythe +23" + 6" move for disembark + 12" rapid fire = dead everything mech at least). I have no doubt that crons are straight broken right now. Until other codexs get things that shoot air VERY well, a 7-9 flyer list with crons is pretty invincible without terrible luck or a really bad player. List at 2k can look like this:
Overlord on barge with warscythe
Overlord on ghost ark with 7 warriors 2 crypteks BOTH able to block/lift nightfiting and shoot lass cannons
night scythe with 14 immortals one cryptek
night scythe with 14 immortals one cryptek
deathmarks cryptek with str8 ap2 template
deathmarks cryptek with str8 ap2 template
(Deathmarks may now be most cost effective unit in game as they can insta toast most member of like a draigo wing with that str8 2+ wounding from the cryptek AND the rapid fire snipers AND being able to pick who is hit on 6's which also rend).
Doom scythe
Doom scythe
Doom scythe
tomb blades (yup 2+ cover on these guys and you can only hit on 6's I believe)
I don't have my book but thats close or slightly over 2k. THAT IS INSANE. How does any army deal with this? Those doom scythes even hit IN THE AIR if they draw the laser. One round of deep striking or even just fliers onto board and every armor of the enemy is dead and troops are simply ready to get mowed through by immortals or more doom scythe. Those doom and night scythe also have the best snap fire weapon in the game now, since that tesla adds 2hits for every 6 rolled. 7 shots twin linked should yield roughly 2 6's that still 6 hits of str 7! Completely brutal!
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Post by zephoid on Jul 5, 2012 17:55:09 GMT
Against nids, the strategy changes to keep-away. Simply fly around all day in the AV11 fliers. 6s to hit, 3s to glance, meaning you need 27 HG shots to down a single flier. Given that fliers should be out of range in a single turn, you get 18 shots to try and roll lucky on before the flier is gone either off the board or shooting at another party of your army. Over the course of 6 game turns, assuming no HG die (.... right... S7 AP4 wont shoot HG right....) you may be able to shoot down 4 aircraft if lucky. Assuming 7-9 fliers, which will be normal, our chances just got pretty small of winning that game, especially with doom scythes IDing everything they can and blasting away at what they cant.
I was speaking from the perspective of every other army. Flight gives a lot of tactical flexibility in addition to strength.
tomb blades only get a 3+ cover save with stealth now as jink is a 4+ save for all boosting. You hit on normal BS, not 6s.
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Post by webebuggin on Jul 5, 2012 18:29:36 GMT
I forget if they had something that gave them something extra. Are they not fliers?
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