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Post by kazetanade on Dec 13, 2020 19:01:42 GMT
So a bit of an update (not sure if anyone is interested but leaving it here for myself anyway):
Only got 1 game since Nov. Vs, what do you know, Green Tide. A small 90 man Green Tide, with an auto exploding plane that also drops bombs several times on me and hurts real bad vs infantry.
Playing maps that are using OBSTACLE midfield rather than RUINS midfield makes a huge difference - that one change downgraded Skorpekh from decent to unplayable. they CANNOT get around obstacles fast enough with their 8" move, and they are not tanky enough to soak damage running up the field unless they are out there with multiple units of threat - basically going back to Nids MTO strategies. Very all in. I cant deal.
Also, that RF exploding auto wound combo is FAQed somewhere to not work - one of the other factions has an FAQ on it. So that makes Flayers nearly worthless - Gauss Reapers or bust. That also means this Warriors unit needs a big middle of board ruin to hide near, or transported using Veil. Not too bad an issue, as based on Siegler's playstyle, keeping warriors as a trump card seems to be the right play.
For a really quick Batrep, basically: Orks Da Jumped in my way, sat on the objective and drew a line. Plane kept flying over warriors or random other stuff to do bombing runs, shooting More Dakka into whatever exposed characters appeared, and couldnt be killed as nothing in my army can deal with Fliers other than a C'tan shard. Ran Scarabs into them, ran Wraiths into them, ran Warriors into them - total failure as Scarabs failed to hit and wound (full unit of 9 only forces 3 saves), Wraiths kill 7 or less Orks a unit (5 man, so not far off average), Warriors shot and killed 7 Boyz/charged and killed 2 or 3 grots in combat after Veil and Novokh +1A, and Skorpekh do 2W after 3 combat rounds with Ghazkull, Nightbringer comes in at 9" (I strategic reserved him via Deceiver and came out of a table edge) and fails charge, Deceiver comes in and fails or gets low mortals.
After 2 turns, 1 Boys unit is nearly dead, but I've lost 1.5 Wraith units, Skorpekhs dead, half a Scarabs unit left, Nightbringer failed charge, Warriors dead, Orikan dead, Chronomancer dead, and Deceiver about to go mano-a-mano with a triple Kommando unit. I called it top of 3 because I had no more resources left and I failed the kill on the Boyz, letting them Green Tide into my backfield and charge NB to keep him forever locked in (basically 20% of my army vs 100% of his).
Moral of the story: I need to be able to kill things in shooting, and 20 Flayer Warriors is not the way to do it.
On a side note, I'd done some simple mathhammer on Particle Beamer Tomb Blades - 54 shots buffed by an Overlord actually kills a 5 man Marine unit, kills 2-3 Gravis, and murderifies Boyz/Gaunts/other hordes which I was worried about early on. Much more powerful than expected, and very cheap - being extremely stingy on how to spread the armor buffs and using a Chronomancer+Arkana on them allows me to turn this unit into a T5 W2 2+ 5++ -1Hit Reanimation; on paper something really tanky, at a price point CHEAPER than 20 warriors. The Gauss would kill people more, but only if I'd come within 15" range of the enemy, whereas particle cannons in Mephrit will allow me to maintain 21" away to get my work done.
6 Wraiths per unit also puts me at the "I will probably kill whatever camping unit I charge" level, thereby skipping the need for Novokh on them to secure my damage.
Tomb Blades work out to be much more efficient per wound taken compared to Skorpekh (Skorpekh primarily having advantage due to -1 to wound only, trading out -1 to hit and 2+ cover on TBs) and while Skorpekh does way more damage overall, TBs arent fighting Wraiths for the same space, have no issues with Obstacles or movement penalties, and dont need to rely on waiting for a charge before they start doing damage.
I was also originally running more chronomancers instead of Overlords, as Chronomancers are really cheap characters that give a great buff. The issue being that this buff started to become tied to specific units only, and were therefore a tax I had to fill to run this unit (thus turning the cheap 135pts Scarabs into a 215pt unit, and warriors from a 260pt unit into a 340pt unit). Chronomancers do not give you any other value than this due to their abysmal shooting and combat. Orikan was a fun gimmick, but is sadly a super unreliable gimmick. After seeing Siegler's recent builds, I think that having the Overlords back in, as CCBs instead for Quantum Shielding and much faster movement, is actually a lot more valuable than the Skorpekh unit.
Also, since there is relatively little finesse in this list (majority of the finesse is just Canoptek placement to maximize their disruption), there's no need for a Deceiver, who helps out a LOT by having Strategic Reserves play that can either move flexible/vulnerable items into reserves or by making better use of terrain/attacking a weak flank going first but is worthless going 2nd), and better to run a 2nd beatstick C'tan instead. The army essentially runs as fast as possible upwards and tries to MTO the enemy while doing damage on the way up. Secondaries are: EoAF, WWSWF/Domination/GTD, Ancient Machineries (Necron Core/Canoptek Action)
So the list essentially looks like:
Relentless Expansionist: - Chronomancer - 2x6 Wraiths - 1x7-9 Scarabs - 0-2 x 3-5 Scarabs (this is for disposable or cheap EoAF points) - Nightbringer
Mephrit: - Chronomancer w Veil - CCB w Ress Orb + Warscythe relic (WLT: Mephrit) - 1 x 20 Reaper Warriors - 1 x 9 Tomb Blades w Particle Cannons - Void Dragon - 0-1x Hexmark Destroyer (no value here, can be either)
Hopefully I get to test this again soon, get some final thoughts, and move onto Silent King lists.
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Post by No One on Dec 14, 2020 5:45:27 GMT
Also, that RF exploding auto wound combo is FAQed somewhere to not work - one of the other factions has an FAQ on it. This what you're thinking of?
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Post by kazetanade on Dec 14, 2020 9:21:03 GMT
Also, that RF exploding auto wound combo is FAQed somewhere to not work - one of the other factions has an FAQ on it. This what you're thinking of? Yeap, that'd be the one. I dont actually own a BRB for 9th ed.
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Post by No One on Dec 14, 2020 12:13:03 GMT
Neither (yay internet ). But that's the BRB FAQ.
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Post by kazetanade on Feb 4, 2021 19:50:38 GMT
So, I got a few more test games in as people dont mind trying TTS. Weirdly enough I changed my phone halfway through Dec/Jan, and my list took a 180 degrees turn without me realizing, where instead of investing more into Mephrit for potential synergy, I ended up going all in on Novokh.
Turns out that Novokh Wraiths with Technomancer buffs is a real threat. Assuming I only need 1 unit in combat a turn, that's 36A hitting on 3+; really decent. That's all S6 ap-3 and 2D, so Marines melt. At 36A, we get 24H, 16W, 14 dead Orks (above the previous 7 - so a lot more effective than before, even if still not the best choice).
The unexpected catch was that, 1: I misread Awaken Ancient Machinaries. I had been working on the assumption that I could use the action even if I was stuck in combat, that there was no enemy unit range restriction. THERE IS ONE. So brawling on the enemy point to use the action when in combat (which was a big part of the strategy) is invalid.
2: With Wraiths actually doing noticeable damage in Novokh, I found myself playing them super aggressively to push damage into the enemy. They've done great against armies that arent DG, for obvious reasons.
these two things mandated me to change my strategy quite a bit, playing a much more aggressive game vs the sort of run it up MTO and just sit on obj to score. My games were starting to end earlier with much swingier results - either I could out trade and out damage, or I failed and was grinded away into paste. I wasn't scoring the way I was supposed to in this army concept, and this necessitates some serious changes.
C'tans continue to be really hit and miss. The raw pressure they output with their ignore invul potential makes them a bit of a target which is good, but the amount of times Void Dragon has gone into a fight and lost embarassingly is as bad as my Swarmlord's hit rate. I'm still pushing double C'tans purely because I WANT to play double C'tans, but speaking from a competitive standpoint, I would definitely drop the Void Dragon and keep only the Nightbringer. At least NB wounds almost everything in the game on a 2+, barring Mortarion, Knights, PBCs and LRs.
The Tomb Blades were a pathetic unit. They died every game to melee, could barely tank any damage, and without Gauss they actually did 0 damage to Marines. This game is kind of skewed in a way that having a dedicated low armor save clearer is not really that good (even if you really want it on the Orks or Poxwalker matchup) since you're less likely to meet those kinds of armies.
I tried out the Flayed Ones featuring in Siegler's earlier Art of War podcasts - they're surprisingly good. I deepstrike them for Scramblers, or if unecessary, I charge them into a backline Marine unit. 5x3(+1) = 15-20A on exploding 6s. 14+3 = 17H, 8-9W, -2ap = 6W dealt so 3 marines dead. Fight Twice wipes the squad and you suffer relatively little repercussions. DG Getting +1T and making you -1T and having inbuilt good melee performance skews things heavily though. I'm really sold on them right now and even if they're not the best choice, I kind of try to bring them into every list because as Novokh they give me a high level of flexibility and an additional anti horde unit for a really decent price.
Another thing I've been considering a lot is the Heavy Lokhust Destroyer (HLD abbrev) - I remember some people talking the Doomstalker up a lot, but I just hate how swingy D6 shots D6 damage is. In contrast, 2 HLDs will give you 1 Doomstalker, for 2 shots S10 3d3 damage vs 1D6 S10 D6. Talking averages, you'll get 4 shots, 2 hits, 1-2 wounds, 4-7 damage (most likely less). HLDs will give you 2 shots, 2 hits, 1 wound, 6 damage. If we bring 3 and are willing to spend the 2cp reroll wound, you get 1.5 Doomstalkers but almost guaranteed kill any non-invul vehicle. You may just lose them upfront thereafter, but they've already killed a tank and made their mark, whereas the Doomstalker would have done not much of anything at all. Quite sold on them at this moment as a fire and forget missle - it's not like it's more expensive than OOE by much and that was a clutch option for us for a whole edition.
Siegler apparently played 3x20 Warriors for the LVO Noven(?) thing they were doing, but I'm not sold on 60 warriors right now with my own experiences being really negative for 60 warriors. I want to play it eventually though so will move into it some time but not yet, I have 12 Wraiths and 12 Skorpekh to use.
I'll probably use 12 and 12 if I forgo all my C'tans and work out some wonky scoring scheme to accommodate them. I dont like how the whole army is really fighting for terrain, but meh.
Anyway, coming back to the list - Novokh Wraiths were really tearing things up better than people expected, but ran into some serious problems with armies that either negated their tankability, or that could absorb their damage like DG. They also did noticeably less damage once we started having losses from shooting, charging with a 5 man unit was less effective noticeably than charging with 6. You know what unit matches their output and tankability? Skorpekh. The issue with Skorpekh is their speed - they're slow compared to Wraiths and lose their utility of weaving in and out of fights, but are extremely good at defensive positions.
An easy way to change this out is to sit Skorpekh near terrain and not move out, taking things like PURGE THE VERMIN instead of Awaken Ancient Machineries. This lets me leverage the humongous potential of Skorpekh (One model hits with 3+1+1+1A of S6 -4ap 2D, even better than Wraiths since it's base WS3+ rr1s, with one guy hitting with 3+1+1 S8 -4ap 3D, negating 3W options and DG in general) without putting them into unecessarily exposed positions where they wont be able to get alot done but leave themselves open as prime targets to be focused down. Also, no need to worry about crossing Difficult Terrain (which also affects Wraiths frustratingly and is present in my midfield more than Obscured is) lets them fully utilize their threat range.
New list assuming I stop with the Wraiths, would look something like this:
- 2x Chronomancer - 1x Skorpekh Lord - 2x 6 Skorpekh + Plasmacytes - 1x 20 Reaper Warriors - 2x 5 Flayed Ones - VD - NB - 2x 5 Scarabs
Pick up PTV/EOAF/DS or Map Secondary for secondaries, and hold my own and primarily look to only contest Hold More or Center depending on what will keep me scoring most consistently. Having 2 units of Scarabs lets me throw one at a time, with a Chronomancer buff on the one going out to keep it alive for 2 turns if possible so that I can score 5 turns of 2pts at least for the breakeven 10pt Secondary.
One thing that has been irking me with these lists though is that I have very little ability to push off deepstrikers from my backline - Deathshroud Terminators and the other shooty ones have been a real thorn in my side, putting uneccessary threat and stress on my backfield objectives when the rest of my army wants to be pushing up. But that was with aggressive Wraiths play, so with more defensive Skorpekh play the game may change, and it's worth looking into a bit more.
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Post by No One on Feb 5, 2021 2:35:28 GMT
Pretty sure PTV is the same category as engage.
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Post by kazetanade on Feb 5, 2021 15:30:55 GMT
Pretty sure PTV is the same category as engage. FML, that's like saying back to the drawing board. Really struggling for a 3rd objective to work around right now.
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Post by kazetanade on Feb 5, 2021 15:52:20 GMT
In other news, I tried a variation of Siegler's Warrior blob on request, going in for 40 + Lychguard + SK + HLDs, using Chrono+CCB+Lord as support.
The HLDs feel a bit better than Doomstalkers (War of the Worlds, WotW) with much more consistent shooting and slightly better damage fluctuations (I rolled dogshit and still managed to squeeze 4 damage out, enough to kill 1 Deathshroud Terminator with the single failed save, whereas WotW wouldnt have made the cut). It's not the best feeling in the world to rely on 3 shots to do a tonne of work, esp where invuls are involved, but the only other decent alternative I think are Triarch Stalkers with their 6 shots S7 Gauss (4 hits average, 3 wounds, 1-2F, 2-4 damage) whose main selling point is Quantum Shielding rather than damage. In terms of damage output, the Destroyers are definitely the best pick. Issue would be return fire would be really fatal for them.
Lychguard are a bit finicky to use - they have great output, but extremely limited mobility. I think you have to choose early on whether you will use it as a pressure piece to veil into the enemy's lines, or as a countercharger in your own lines, but you cant tech for both.
SK lists do EoAF a little bit poorly - I still have a unit of Flayed Ones doing EoAF and Deploy Scramblers for me, but that's really a tyranid thing more than anything else. The scarabs dont really have the consistent movement to get past the midpoint, if only they had 12" movement instead of 10".
SK Himself is decent - I always failed each 1st shot of the Menhirs, so I always auto wound the 2nd. The autowound is such ridiculous threat since it guarantees you at least 1 super crazy forced save that will hurt if failed. We found a weird interaction when you have a Judicar debuff and an SK debuff against each other what happens - which we ruled that both have to fight after all are eligible, but chargers go before defenders. But DG has a relic that also makes you count as not charging this turn, so defenders go first.
The SK backed Warriors shred extremely well - 3+ rerolling everything with 6s auto wound put 18 saves on the enemy consistently, doing work like Devilgants except more reliably rather than with averages. Low roll is mitigated a lot by auto wound, bringing the estimated average to be around 10-13 saves to make even on a not so good outcome. Rerolls are majestic. The only issue with them for balance reasons is that abysmal range. Warriors still make fantastic Ace in the Holes, not as great an opener honestly, but if you move the list to 60 warriors, you have enough to make them the openers and the aces in the hole. Esp tied up with Orbs of Ress.
The issue would be armies that tech to wipe 20 man warriors in up trades or meet trades, such as vs Plasma or Bolter Inceptors who will wipe the floor with any 20 man unit, or Harleys that 10 man could wipe right out. Heck, even an opposing Necron with Lychguard could wipe that. Losing 20/20 is actually less damaging IMO than losing 20/60, since you have so many points tied up in them that they just have issues responding to a lot of different threats. But that's just theorycraft.
Played EoAF/Code of Combat/Strategic Scan, may use the CoC/DS/Map Obj as the basis for the future since that doenst force me to get out of position just to score.
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Post by garg on Feb 9, 2021 9:46:31 GMT
I'm curious what your experience with the warriors is. Looking at the numbers the plasma kill about 12/15 or 14/18 (cpt/Lt) (normal/overcharged) reliably (>.75) which is good but they do need to add some extras to ensure a kill. Maybe some scarabs to push out DS would help?
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Post by kazetanade on Feb 9, 2021 16:56:26 GMT
My exp with Warriors is that they die to Inceptors - 5 man units are 10d3 = 30 shots. Hitting on 2+ rr 1s means 29 hits (Chaplain buffs).
Wounding is weird - I fought salamanders which have +1 to wound, or you could have a chaplain giving +1 to wound on condition. Otherwise, 3+ to wound.
If you eat a 3+ to wound, the unit isn't insta-wiped, but it is small enough that its nearly irrelevant unless you have technomancers/Orb/Ghost Arks to push them back up. In my game, 2+ to hit rr 2+ to wound rr meant whole unit wiped in a single attack through 5++.
Inceptors have 18" range and aren't deepstriking - they're crossing midfield together with a thick block of BGVs and Apothecaries. Frim midfield they have a threat range of 28" +D6 cuz assault guns, and There isn't a lot of shooting in the Necron codex that deals with that very well, since we have no real good 3D options.
Overall though warriors like I highlighted above, very good Ace in the Hole - pulling it out as a T4 or T5 item is strong, but you need tools to play the early game with. If you're running 60, then you can afford to run 2 forward and keep 20 back as insurance. Its pretty powerful, not the hardest list but by no means a pushover to deal with. One unit of 20 at least in most lists that have a noble (not worth in lists without nobles to buff).
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Post by kazetanade on Feb 11, 2021 19:55:34 GMT
I'm curious what your experience with the warriors is. Looking at the numbers the plasma kill about 12/15 or 14/18 (cpt/Lt) (normal/overcharged) reliably (>.75) which is good but they do need to add some extras to ensure a kill. Maybe some scarabs to push out DS would help? I take some of it back - 20/20/20 is noticeably harder than expected to deal with, assuming they are given the right tools. 20 Necron Warriors with a Chronomancer giving them 5++ and COVER, and a Reanimator giving 4+++RP: 3 Mortifiers with Flails - 45A, 3+ to hit 30H, 2+ to wound (if the strategem works, dont remember) 25W, 5++ = 16F, 4 left; 16 Reanimations, 9pass, 13 guys left 12 Frozen Stars Harleys - 60A, 3+ to hit 40H, 2+ to wound (assuming the appropriate weapon + FS' strategem for +1 to wound) rr1s = 36W, 5++ = 24F, none left (but the expected size of 10 gets 50A, and likely to survive with like 1 guy left, 19 reanimations, 10 come back, so 11 left. Also will be less painful if you're hit with S4 d3D instead of S5 1D). 5 Inceptors - 30A, 2+ to hit rr1s =29H, 3+ to wound (or 2+, assuming Sallies or Chaplain with condition) = 19W (25W), 5++ = 13F (17F), 7/3 left; 13/17 reanimations, between 7-9 pass, so you get around 12-14 left. 5 Sally Flamer Aggressors - (assume the guy with full flamer shots aura for worst case) 60A, auto hit, 3+ = 40W, 5++ (wont get cover cuz within 12") = 27F, none left (but if without flamer shots man, average shots of 7 per Aggressor, so 35A; expect damage to drop by half, meaning 13F, 7 left, 7 back, 14 left). 3 Deathshroud - 30A, same as Sallies Inceptors. There is a consistent remaining of around 10-14 models after taking sizeably painful attacks, as long as there is a survivor. You wont take more than 1 on the chin, but it buys you enough time or enough focus from the enemy to try and react with something. But of course if you decided to spec for the undead warrior build, by having Ghost Arks and Technomancers to support it, you can see your 14 guys left easily become 20 all over again. Having the Orb of Eternity as a back up only excarberates the situation into something possibly silly where misplays or bad luck can be almost entirely mitigated with Orb + Techno + Ghost Ark combo. The question for a Necrons list thereafter is do you have something to react with that can reach or threaten the enemy while the Warriors are being focused, or can you just let the endless Necron horde do the work for you? It also goes without saying that if you eat 2 of these before your turn, it's game over for the warrior unit, but it's very unlikely you eat TWO major attacks in one sitting, unless it's something like a VV + Inceptor drop. Thankfully BGVs dont have the right output of attacks, only achieving 21 vs a VV's drop with 40 IIRC. I have come back after yet another SK Warrior test list, although I dont think the results were conclusive since it was against Poxwalker spam with 2x Terminator drops, which with 60 warriors was actually pretty easy to screen out and stop from getting anywhere actually important. The issue with the poxwalker list is the lack of outright damage - it's a slow mortal wound grinding fest, which relies on Poxwalkers being able to get into combat, use their MWs on 1s and 6s, and reroll all hits strategem to really put out the pain. Typhus adds a lot of pressure by giving Poxwalkers + 1S, and getting a good cast on Vitality makes them S5 T5, which is suddenly a little bit more intimidating than you'd like, especially once they're in your face. Typhus also gets bigger Contagion range, and his WLT Contagion Shamblerot is actually pretty annoying. His own Command Phase ability is also terribly annoying and potential dangerous, and has hurt me heavily in the earlier Scarabs/Wraiths/C'tans setup to deal 3/3/3 wounds and 1-round C'tans. However, due to how RP works, I could actually shrug off the massive mortal wounds from the Poxwalkers since it's generated by his Attacks rather than some out of phase effect like Psychics, Bombing Runs, Charge effects, etc. Since they dont count as having died, he doesnt get as many Poxwalkers back, making it a double penalty on their effectiveness. Since his army lacks any other hard punching high damage unit, other than the terminator drops, there are issues in finishing Warrior units - he took 2 turns to take a non-buffed Warrior unit down to 5 man, whom with some creative use of RP I managed to string from far away into range of the Orb of Eternity, suddenly gaining back 9 guys who then put the unit back into range of the Technomancer to get back another 3, who also were pushed straight up to an objective on his side of the map for free (in total I managed to move and cover nearly 20" of movement purely from RPs, which is more than the warrior squad would be able to pull by itself in any number of turns normally). It's like playing the game back in 7th with Gaunt Conga lines to block the enemy's movement (and it makes me feel like I am back in my element to be playing with coherency tricks and daisy chaining effects). If it was any of the more meta armies or compositions (even having a Morty instead of so many Terminators would have made my game significantly harder), we would have likely ate and killed the entire unbuffed warrior squad outright instead of taking 2 turns to whittle it down, which tells me something - you really need to have 5++ for any warrior squad that decides to play outside your deployment zone. Double Chrono I think is a very good idea in general, with 3 units who can benefit from it at any one time. I wouldnt use Reanimators with any other unit composition other than Warriors - it doesnt feel worth it, but for Warriors it's extremely worth it since it gives them nearly Abberrant + Iconward levels of durability (no care about multi damage while Abbys are weakest to single damage weapons anyway, better save, FNP not conditioned on the damage received, free movement shenanigans that come with it). On a related note, Purge the Vermin (PtV) is an EXTREMELY good secondary objective, far better than EoAF is for Necrons. With this list, it moves slowly - I moved more from Reanimation Protocol shenanigans than my models actually moved almost the whole game. Very "static", in that I was trying to move but found myself unable to even clear buildings with SK, and the Characters had massive difficulty staying safe and central to all the warrior squads at once. Very finicky. Picking objectives that lets you sit tight and wait plays very well into this army's strengths whether you are playing defensive or aggressively, and PtV lets you do this and force the enemy to come to you. Domination does too but since that requires taking the center, it leaves you at risk, and most people who take Oath/Domination may have to deal with these huge warrior blobs and fast Skorpekh tearing the ground up to get at them. Even BGV will wilt in the face of Warrior fire, especially with 6s auto wound. Word of caution - I found DG Terminators extremely hard to shift. A warrior blob unloading a majority of the unit takes off about 5W - 1 dead and 1 almost dead, which isnt felt in a unit of 10 and isnt felt next to an apothecary (I dont know what size of Terminators you'd expect to see out of the new DA, maybe 5 or maybe 10). Lokhust Heavy Destroyers have been REALLY helpful at taking these kinds of targets out with their min 3 and usually 4+ damage, although fighting through an invul will always have that risk of invuls being made. The most efficient is of course Skorpekh, no one can contest this - but the consistency of the Lokhust hasnt felt too bad, and certainly not worse than other options in the codex (the only number I never want to see is a 2 to hit, for eg). To be honest, in terms of finding efficient or effective 3D platforms, having a combination of Skorpekh + Lokhusts will probably be an ideal play where people will have trouble to focus both the Lokhusts and the Skorpekh at the same time, since them + Warriors are a huge unmovable brick being bashed into their face repeatedly. I also decided to test Szarekhan dynasty for the lolsies of uber tankiness - getting 5+++ vs MW mitigates one of Necron's major weaknesses, alloting you a save vs the one thing that cuts through everything we have, and getting 1 reroll to wound is fantastic for big guns like Lokhust Heavy Destroyers and was relevant for everything and anything shooting. It's a shame SK doesnt get it himself. In addition, I used SK to stack two turns of Szarekhan's favoured Protocol for 2W Living Metal and Reroll RP once per attempt. The look of frustration for an army that relies on a LOT of chip damage as he has to fight through a 4+++ rr1 extra reroll is immensely satisfying. Wouldnt put it as top tier though since the impact of 1 reroll wasnt really the best, so stacking 1 turn or 2 turns of reroll RP and 1 turn of Novokh's preferred in a Novokh army may work better (Novokh's preferred is only relevant for Lychguard IMO - they need to hit S8 to get their 2+ to wound to make their volume actually scary, and against anything T5-T7 they will still be a huge threat.) the 5+++ is nice as mitigation, but in total I prevented 2 out of 9 or 10 mortal wounds, so being able to recover from RP/Orb/Techno/Ark was much more effective than the 5+++. If going for this kind of play, I might decide to get with Relentlessly Expansionist - this is the army for it more so than Wraiths and Scarabs, which although are very good in this chapter, move too much faster than the rest of the army and cannot output the damage required to actually be a threat, and since everything is obsec nowadays, its VERY difficult for 6 models with no damage output to actually do their job of stealing/messing with enemy scoring (in my test games, once I moved everything to Novokh and paired it with the support Technomancer, the Wraiths started performing much better against non DG, being an actual threat that couldnt be ignored by people and slowly beat down. Who needs to steal an objective if they're not even on it anymore?) . On the other hand, does anyone reaaaaally want to deal with Warriors that count as 2 models each gunking up objectives? Getting that 6" move in the begining also lets them get to point a lot faster which is... well... pretty important. I just have big questions on how to deal with something like Morty. Szarekhan will lose in a straight up fist fight. Triple HDLs dont push enough damage through (although fairly, Necron as an army doesnt really do enough to push enough damage through). Morty would almost certain take the WLT that kills rerolls, making most of your potential damage moot and unaccessible. A bad but maybe serviceable answer in my mind right now is in fact the Undead Warrior scheme, since Morty cant push through them effectively (21A that hurts like a truck, but with our returning and RP combination, he can never push enough damage through them unless you give him two turns back to back in combat). I'm also struggling to find what damage supports the warrior blob. You need longer range harassment (so maybe 2x Reapers 1x Flayers even if I completely hate this), but you also need something to take down really big targets or targets with thick invuls, and with SK in play you cant afford a C'tan (or not advisable to have 800pts in 2 models/units...). I dont have a strong solid answer right now other than the oft touted "Just bring Skorpekh", but it's definitely something to mull around a bit.
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Post by kazetanade on Mar 4, 2021 19:35:36 GMT
Right, so my VD has finished its painting (I got it commissioned by a friend - looks really good. I'd post pictures if I knew how, but at the moment I only have his youtube to share and a load of pictures on my phone. www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH9uK3sFy7Y&feature=youtu.beHe does international commission painting as well, so if you like his style, give him a hollar on his youtube - poor guy is struggling right now and could use some work. With how good it looks, I'm really keen to have it on the table, so I'll be trying to work out a final list version for my double C'Tans list. The most latest idea is out in front - it's essentially VD. NB, 2x 6 Wraiths, 1x 6 Skorpekh, 20 Warriors, 5 Immortals, and 5 Flayed Ones. It's EXTREMELY tight and really elite, with very few units to make positional plays with. Primarily I am testing the unit of 6 Skorpekh as potential countercharge ONLY - this directly replaces the 3 HDLs, as the HDLs do not push damage through thick invuls coming into your lines (Such as with 10x VVs, 5x TWC, 2x Bloatdrones, etc) eventhough they do damage big vehicles very nicely. They're just not capable of keeping up in an elite based meta, and may make a come back when vehicles start to take centre stage. Hence, scoring becomes a bit of an issue. This forces me to use the 20 man Warrior as a scoring tool, or to use the Wraiths as a scoring tool. Right now the plan is moving back into PTV, Dep.Scram, and the Map Objectives or Banners. WWSWF is also a consideration although I dislike it immensely, as it directly hits on 3 key units in my army. The idea is to not move much from my deployment zone - Wraiths move fast enough that they can make it to the objectives outside the deployment, and are tanky enough that they will take a beating before dying. In Novokh I have the option of them being a damage unit or a scoring unit, and wait for or bait the enemy to come into my line of fire. With 2 C'tans and a Skorpekh unit, I can likely keep my side of the board clean no matter what they throw at me (I just need to throw both C'tans at the same invul unit to make sure it dies dies, and throw the Skorpekh into the other unit and hope it's enough. I am also considering removing 2 wraith models to make space for a Hexmark Destroyer, just in case of the Poxwalkers/Sisters match up where I need more than just 20 warriors spray gunning. But the list is more or less settled with only these minor changes - the key strategy is in place, and I feel working with PtV has more value than trying to rough it out with EoAF with an army that is struggling for resources as is. Sadly, Necrons just does not have the kind of durability I thought they would - I was assuming originally they could be a march to mid and hold kind of army, but it's been shown that Necrons cant do that. They're still too fragile vs a gunline, and it's frustrating that their obsec tricks arent enough to get them near top tables without generous LOS blocking terrain that counts as ruins, a lot due to a lack of movement shenanigans than anything else. DG has been pretty good doing that though, so I might want to borrow someone's DG to give it a few spines some time. I still have an SK list to work out, but once I am done with these 2 Necron lists, I'll be moving back to Nids with the recent Lennon Kraken madness. I think MANY of us have been trying some variation of multiple Dimachaerons and finding a lot of success, and although I only have one, I wouldnt mind just giving it a try and mucking about a bit with these movement shenanigans. Gunlines are still the biggest problem, and Dimas cant hide, but let's see how it goes - their huge movement shenanigans may allow them to actually get in there and be a tangible threat even from across the board going 2nd. Maybe.
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Post by kazetanade on Mar 21, 2021 15:51:51 GMT
Just had a 3 game RTT today - the wraiths weren't ready so I had to adapt on the fly to use Skorpekh instead of Wraiths, swapping out the technomancer for double chronomancer instead. There were a fair bit of restrictions on models avail so I had to go essentially:
VD,NB 2 x Chrono 2 x 6 Skorpekh + Plasmacytez 2 x 9 Scarabs 2 x Chronomancer 2 x 5 Flayed Ones 1 x 20 Reaper Warriors
Which looks similar to my list but not really. The way the buffs are shared is really diff - there's a clear 2 flanks down the line that actually worked decent, but I found over 3 games I did no have enough throwaway scorers.
A few things -
1. Skorpekh are adept at killing medium to small sized elites. My results varied wildly- charging a 10 man Deathwing unit yielded 5 dead. Charging a 5 man VV squad also barely yielded 5 dead. My skorpekh in general did poorly, often being visible to flanking Attack Bikes getting long angles on them, losing around 2, then either failing charges or just not performing well into combat as everything pretty much had invuls and tanked them, while overkilling things without invuls and dying to retaliation even with chronomancer buffs. In general, poor use of 600+ points (skorpekh+plasmacytes+chronomancers), so the chronomancers usually got better value out of 5++ on Scarabs. I could definitely easily bait people into shooting Skorpekh or Ctans by placing them out of position a little bit though, and someone fed me an Oblitz squad to kill my Skorpekh.
2. I built to fight Oath marines. I did not meet a single Oath marine. 3/3 times I met super heavy on 1 flank and decent ranged damage dealers on the other flank. I seldom got to fight the whole castle with my full strength - hence the table was often divided in half with me taking 2 quarters, but not necessarily my own. It makes me wonder if Oath Marines is what we should be building against, although I know the other tables had to deal with it (my table wasn't conducive for Oath, big area blocker in middle).
3. Deploy Scramblers from the enemy 3/3 times. I lost my final game a big portion because I screwed up my own DepScram by accidentally giving up the Veil carrier, and didn't screw his properly. That 20 pt swing would have put the game firmly in my favour. On that note, Veil is bloody amazing for it. Flayed Ones are probably baller for it too but they keep getting creamed by Auspex, whether I mean for them to or not (once dropped barely within 12" due to mismeasure). Definitely should expect players to build to force Scramblers out though (totally forced out due to lack of guns on G3) and with 20 man warrior in the base, we can do it pretty easily and generally safely too. Its the forward objectives that's a pain in the ass to claim, since Necrons aren't exactly very tanky.
4. Scarabs. I both love them and hate them - they're a ridiculously efficient block of wounds. In a Technomancer list with a NOBLE for NOVOKH protocols, they might just be killer good with 3+ to hit, S4, and ap-1. If the stars don't align this way, they're just a bother to the enemy, and doesn't matter if they're in Novokh or not, they just won't be doing all that much. Particularly SM armies running these Terminators and BGV are worse than a chore to cut through. As the Skorpekh weren't doing particularly well, I think a single trio of Scarabs / Chrono / Warrior is sufficient to produce decent results, and find some other way to push anti-elite and anti-invul damage through.
If only Skorpekh or Wraiths had an advance and charge...
All in all, pretty satisfied even if it could be better. Forward objectives is definitely an issue for Necrons (holding, more than anything else) so figuring it out is like, the winning ticket i think.
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Post by kazetanade on Apr 7, 2021 9:16:12 GMT
A short interjection- i have a Silent King list in the making that's proving to be difficult to work out. Next post will talk more about it and I need some brains to bounce off.
For today, been listening to Art of War 40k a tonne recently and super stoked to be playing Nids. I got my 2nd Dima in hand and just needs to be assembled and painted, and I'll be good to go.
I think it was Lennon that was running around with this type of list and won a GT with it(although many on the Hive was already experimenting with it prior to that). Essentially Genestealer Sling without Genestealers, opting for the use of Dimachaerons instead. Big difference - in 8th we had to kill to score, so playing cagey vs a gun line pounding you wasn't the greatest play ever. In 9th, you can be tabled and still win. So with that in mind I wanted a toolbox list with most* of our prominent tools in it to allow us to deal with a wide variety of threats, and the ability to keep up scoring despite playing Conservative and waiting for an opportunity to strike. (This is back to the old Trapdoor Spider, and underpins my Double C'tans list as well, which is a far cry from original GSS lists that thrived off hyper aggression keeping the enemy locked in).
Essentially: - SL + 2 Dimas - 1 x Exo, 1x 6 HG, 1 x 30 Devilgants - secondary scorers like lictors rippers more gaunts.
In my mind, the guns are insufficient - skew lists would hurt us terribly, and this list is not capable of handling 3x KOS + Morty + Magnus line ups. Likewise, 3x Chaos Moiraxes would probably be bad as well. I don't think we can kill 120 poxwalker lists either (not sure how do they even fit 120 poxwalkers though.) The Dimas can help carry a bit but not by that much, esp against a no reroll morty that cuts through everything without a 3++ or 4++.
Still working through it mentally but thinking seriously of losing the SL and a unit of Horms, popping a unit of 6-12 Zoeys, and making use of Onslaught + Kraken OA to get Dimas into the midfield. HG can have fun shelling midfield or shallow enemy deployments while the Exo and the Devil Gaunts can do their own thing whenever. Its been awhile since I ran Nid concepts so I want some feedback from anyone whos still reading.
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Post by hiveoverall on Apr 7, 2021 11:45:50 GMT
On the nid thing, 6-12 kraken zoeys is quite expensive, and unless you catalyst them they risk falling quite fast to damage 3 (but they move fast and are great for turn 1 smites). Also, If you ditch the SLord, then only one dima will be able to get slingshotted (which may be ok depending on how forward had the opponent moved). Leviathan zoeys have 6+++ to enable one out of two, on average, to absorb the nexte damage 3 shot. They still are quite tanky though compared to our other options, and I agree with you on the lack of gunpower for the John Lennon list. I think you may be on to something, replacing SL and hormas by zoeys. You replace the SL with what HQ then kazetanade?
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