So i have nearly every codex and wfb armies books.
(just missing tau, as i accidently sold it, but rumours say new book soon, so ima savin my penny's)
and i find each and every one of them, a pain in the arse.
sure theyre great, i can read them and then re-read them again and again. but sometimes, i wish they were a bit more flexible. and none is more so, in the region of current angst, than the Orks
grrrrr
stumbling upon some "cheap" mega-nobz on ebay, and looking through my meagre collection that i still retain after the big sell-off of last year. i thought to myself "hey a mega nob army, that would be great! and i wouldnt have to buy many, or more importantly paint many!
oh dear
so i set about looking at the rules for this and that, and then i wept a little! right there in the HQ section was two things that could of been oh so perfect for a usable (given normal FOC and points range) army list.
the Mad Dok
and the Big Mek.
now they dont give me my lovely mega'nobz as troops, oh no! i need warbosses for that, but what they do, do is provide that extra save that every big heavy armoured elite section unit has these days, namely a second dice roll on the "save me" chart. im talking about cover or feel no pain saves. the Big mek and his lovely big force field bubble would look perfect, if he could also wear that mega-armour too. look its right next to it in the "pick only one of these" coloumn! oh how i weep, surely those techno-brains could come up with meshing the two technologys of preservation together. and mad dok! why does he have to be mad? why does he have to be a HQ choice! normal nobs get painboys, is it that hard to give mega'nobs one too? sure he can also dish out 5++ saves army wide if you have the points, but he needs to be baby-sat, specifically inside a vehicle that he never has to get out of. its suprising actually that they dont just list "rage" underneath his special rules, as it is only quietly mentioned in his "one scalpel short of a medpack" rule.
anyway im waffling about one particular aspect of Orks, what im trying to say is that all of these rule-books are so restrictive in making us choose nice things, that come along with nasty things. I guess its what keeps this game so addicitive, your chess pieces if you will can hop across the board to check the king in one move, and then be taken down by a lowly pawn in the next.
anyway, all this thought on modelling and army lists is starting to get my mojo back, perhaps ill find the time over the holidays to do something and post some nice pictures,
till next time
ciao
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Thursday, November 24, 2011
wait wait wait... forgeworld where did you put those land raiders?
so, happily browsing away this late thanksgiving/black friday/ american celebration blah di blah night (im english, i just dont get the fun celebrations!)
i noticed something
something sinister,
something theyve done before... sorta
Forgeworld have quietly pulled another conversion kit from its online shop....
well fudge nuggets. not a-bloody-gain
i wish they would announce these things, perhaps even leave the "order now" button there for the times when they do actually replace their complicated moulds that are all so "worn out"
now i dont really know the popularity of some of these kits, but i do know i fantasise about having the spare cash to own some!
so whats missing i hear your figuratively cry!
the land raider mk2B all of them, both astartes and chaos flavour, i even remember there once being chaos specific treads for land raiders, that had arrows instead of the aquila. theyre gone too, and why? well i suspect the new land raider proteus with all its pre-heresey-not-an-assault-vehicle crap is here.
boo i say!
boo and hiss!
my world eaters want to assault! i dont need some metal box with advanced scanners, and i dont want the latest top of the range, fresh out of the factory model either!
chaos has been slogging around for ages! their tanks are gonna be a bit old design, and i liked the way the sponsons had a slopped angle behind them for the doors, it was a nice feature.
and you might be wondering why i said ive noticed this before. well check out the rhino upgrades, notice how they have "reinforced armour" under new releases..... its not new, and theres another armour design. again go check the chaos rhino armour upgrades,
back?
yes the spaced armour design, there was a regular astartes one too, thats been "under repair" or "re-casting" or whatever, for a year now
my dark angel rhino's havent been assembled partly because of it. i like the look. and i am considering purchasing the chaos ones too....
when i have the money....
cmooon lottery numbers *crosses fingers*
ciao
i noticed something
something sinister,
something theyve done before... sorta
Forgeworld have quietly pulled another conversion kit from its online shop....
well fudge nuggets. not a-bloody-gain
i wish they would announce these things, perhaps even leave the "order now" button there for the times when they do actually replace their complicated moulds that are all so "worn out"
now i dont really know the popularity of some of these kits, but i do know i fantasise about having the spare cash to own some!
so whats missing i hear your figuratively cry!
the land raider mk2B all of them, both astartes and chaos flavour, i even remember there once being chaos specific treads for land raiders, that had arrows instead of the aquila. theyre gone too, and why? well i suspect the new land raider proteus with all its pre-heresey-not-an-assault-vehicle crap is here.
boo i say!
boo and hiss!
my world eaters want to assault! i dont need some metal box with advanced scanners, and i dont want the latest top of the range, fresh out of the factory model either!
chaos has been slogging around for ages! their tanks are gonna be a bit old design, and i liked the way the sponsons had a slopped angle behind them for the doors, it was a nice feature.
and you might be wondering why i said ive noticed this before. well check out the rhino upgrades, notice how they have "reinforced armour" under new releases..... its not new, and theres another armour design. again go check the chaos rhino armour upgrades,
back?
yes the spaced armour design, there was a regular astartes one too, thats been "under repair" or "re-casting" or whatever, for a year now
my dark angel rhino's havent been assembled partly because of it. i like the look. and i am considering purchasing the chaos ones too....
when i have the money....
cmooon lottery numbers *crosses fingers*
ciao
Saturday, November 12, 2011
quick necron post
so quick short one, i found another intriguing list idea, that makes 3 groups of immortals able to deepstrike around the board, with a ress orb, and one character with 3++ for invuln.
basically its
Nemesor
Cryptek w/veil
10 immortals
Obryon
lord with res orb and 3++
10 immortals
Overlord, withs res orb and 3++ (and phaeron relentless)
cryptek w/veil
10 immortals
this very mobile core also leaves some points for a horde of scarabs, or w/e you desire.
then i noticed something else, what if you replaced that Overlord with our favourite expensive character, the Stormlord.
of course you wont have that res orb,
but the combined abilities of Nemesor, and Stormlord allow for one very key difference to the codex.
Flayed Ones.
suddenly theyre a viable choice.
Stormlord gives the no-scatter if within 6" of a chosen enemy unit, which is nice. but your Flayed ones are still sitting around for one of your turns, and the enemies. very ineffeicient.
The Nemesor, allows all deepstriking units, to become like Deathmarks, do the "you deepstrike, so i can do it too in your turn" ability.
suddenly those units of 20 Flayed ones, can appear in your opponents turn, without a mishap, and be used as a big nasty wall of sharp things between their units, and your units. and with 3 attacks each, its a very sharp pointy wall indeed. and then you can move these guys as normal in your turn! brilliant, no time wasted.
downsides :
you do end up grooped together after the deepstrike, as you cant run to spread out
the enemy is more likely to charge you, you are after all within 6" of a unit that is most likely orientated to assault, seeing as it has the deepstrike rule also.
i figure this tactic more for drop-pods full of sternguard or other shooty unit choices, sure your gonna get obliterated with shooting, but that is going to happen if you deepstrike in your turn anyway, at least this time you have more control on where you go.
ciao
basically its
Nemesor
Cryptek w/veil
10 immortals
Obryon
lord with res orb and 3++
10 immortals
Overlord, withs res orb and 3++ (and phaeron relentless)
cryptek w/veil
10 immortals
this very mobile core also leaves some points for a horde of scarabs, or w/e you desire.
then i noticed something else, what if you replaced that Overlord with our favourite expensive character, the Stormlord.
of course you wont have that res orb,
but the combined abilities of Nemesor, and Stormlord allow for one very key difference to the codex.
Flayed Ones.
suddenly theyre a viable choice.
Stormlord gives the no-scatter if within 6" of a chosen enemy unit, which is nice. but your Flayed ones are still sitting around for one of your turns, and the enemies. very ineffeicient.
The Nemesor, allows all deepstriking units, to become like Deathmarks, do the "you deepstrike, so i can do it too in your turn" ability.
suddenly those units of 20 Flayed ones, can appear in your opponents turn, without a mishap, and be used as a big nasty wall of sharp things between their units, and your units. and with 3 attacks each, its a very sharp pointy wall indeed. and then you can move these guys as normal in your turn! brilliant, no time wasted.
downsides :
you do end up grooped together after the deepstrike, as you cant run to spread out
the enemy is more likely to charge you, you are after all within 6" of a unit that is most likely orientated to assault, seeing as it has the deepstrike rule also.
i figure this tactic more for drop-pods full of sternguard or other shooty unit choices, sure your gonna get obliterated with shooting, but that is going to happen if you deepstrike in your turn anyway, at least this time you have more control on where you go.
ciao
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
you call this concise?
right, as you may notice, ive deleted all those necron related spam ive been posting.
what can i say, this book has so many exciting combinations, that are fraught with so many key downsides for the points value a lot of them are at.
and yes ive thought up another army list because of that... or an idea of one.
anyway, im going to condense all ive thought about into one concise post.
first off. The units with that coehsive balanced, i can use these, feel. and why i cant use them.
and im not going to start with the HQ,
Annihalation barges.
ive typed this so many times i can actually remember how it goes now.
lovely tesla destructor twin link zzap
armour 13 on those front and sides.
another little gun for meh.
now this is a lovely little skimmer, for that strong short ranged punch. yes i said short ranged, its only 24" and the armour buff is great too for survivability. Surely there cant be anything wrong with this unbelieveably cheap heavy choice.
the downsides? well...
the Nightsycthe.
(thats another unit? how is it a downside???)
it has the same weapon, thats how. what you have here is a the same twin linked tesla destructor zappy goodness, mounted on an armour 11 fast vehicle.
yes fast, so thats a full 12" added onto that 24" threat range. 36" ranged weapon! those units over there are suddenly within range! now it isnt the stronghold busting 72" range of a basilisk, but its starting to look like the best weve got in between practicality and death-di-cality (yay made up words)
sure your survivability is down with armour 11, but you can grant yourself a lovely 4+ cover save if you really have nothing to shoot at. and heres the kicker. its a dedicated transport.
now i see lots of people opting for immortals actually using these, or other infantry. But if you think about it, kicking the footsloggers out of the vehicle makes this a very quick gunboat, for those all important flanking manouvers. and the only limit, is the amount of units who can take one as dedicated transport.
suddenly you have a very quick fleet of tesla goodness. which can always be used as transport at the end of the day (its ability can be used to jump some vulnerable troopers back into reserve, while making the unit scoring!) and oh, how amazing, your freeing up those valuable heavy support slots. why are they valuable? spyders, thats why!
its not all amazing though.
we are of course missing the model (grrr GW!)
and no doubt it will be an expensive kit(what isnt these days?)
and you pay 10points more than the barge for it.
well, 10points and the dedicated unit/transport tax.
now, moving on. the triarch stalkers. similar vein to our barges here. armour 13, slow, 2 shot multi-melta or heavy flamer thingy, twin link augment ma-doodles. very lovely. and its a walker that can move through cover? no difficult terrain rolls? yum yum. ill take 3! errr wait, theres more information coming
downsides, its slow, its only a walker. that means hes going to have to sit with your footsloggers or shuffle into some terrain to abuse that move through cover USR. he will provide very nice anti-armour defence, but if he gets into combat? well hes not gonna be very effective. only strength 7 and 3 attacks, at that lovely I2. no insta-kills there. not even power weapon attacks. this guy is kinda like a sentinel.... or perhaps a mortis-dread armed with two multi-meltas.... great ranged power, but its short ranged, and close-combat will tie him up.
as will it tie up most of the necron army.
but if we can shoot it to bits first! we stand a chance!
so he has his place.
and you notice i keep mentioing footslogging infantry.
yes, i believe a really strong combination in this army involves these guys. not all of them, a few hiding in ghost ark's is still really strong, armour 13, 15 gauss weapons, living metal, and that repair magic. a very strong unit. but even better, is 20 warriors, lead by a HQ armed with a ressurection orb, and relentless. backed up by one or two ghost arks, and some triarch stalkers, thats a very nice ball of death you have there. abuse that royal court to stick some crypteks inside a ghost ark, and suddenly, theres some very strong firepower. bubble-wrapped by troops that just dont stay down... or in one place.
it is a rather costly build. but we are talking about effective synergy's here....
(well i think i am, i will welcome some contradictory comments, or just comments. doesnt matter if your declaring your love for cheese, just something! oh gawd i better get back to the codex..... )
suddenly its all starting to come together.
a list that has that strong castle formation, some sharp, fast firepower. and lets not forget an extra blanket of scarabs.
the census on scarabs. they are good. you cant deny it anymore. the beast tag, means they have fleet. and, they have a 12" charge. so thats 24" right off the bat (and a lucky roll). very fitting with the rest of the necron arsenal.
and you have those heavy support slots for spyders! cheap, cheerful, scarab baby makers. slow though. so that means they also join the ball of death. not a bad thing, they are monstrous creatures, so we suddenly have our powerfist equivelants. they can be upgraded with anti-psychic defense. and their fearless! wow, we have some solid melee defense, combined with a rising scarab population as each spyder can pump out a base a turn to add to the swarms and with a maximum of 9 spyders? thats 9 scarabs a turn? think you have the firepower for that!.
our ball of death is growing (almost literally).
some of you might opt for one or two, heck maybe the full 3 doomscythes instead. a valid choice with our nightscythes from earlier. makes for a very strong shooty alpha strike/flanking force. just dont expect them to come back alive.
Destroyers and the "tomb blades" are perhaps rather at odds with themselves. the tomb blades, are expensive and somewhat ineffective jetbikes although i might see the point of using the stealth option to create moving turbo-boosted cover shields to contest objectives. perhaps hiding them in a nightscythe till late game, yet their offensive capabilities are somewhat blunted by their choice of weaponry.
the destroyers are interesting, but being such large models, they seem at odds with being labelled jump-infantry, making their gauss, and heavy gauss cannons Assault weapons, negates the the downsides of choosing to move or shoot, and it allows them to charge in if they want to. with that extra re-rolls to hit thanks to preferred enemy i can see the value of doing so, but that is instantly dismissed thanks to the cancerous Iniative 2 and 1 attack. They are, perhaps best as expensive str9 snipers, able to actually get those rear shots thanks to mobility, but vulnerable to any return fire. perhaps they should be using "glass cannons"
sooo, whats left. do we have any points left? yes? good.
HQ, need at least one of those. lets see here.
yes a lot of good choices, heck even illuminator can be good in this build (hes the necron fabius bile for those that dont know, one unit gets a random stat buff, bit meh, but our warriors in the ball of death wont say not to more goodies, yet this fella is basically an expensive cryptek, no invuln, no phaeron, just like fabius, hes not good enough!)
some important things to thinkabout :
what does he do? .... well does he unlock a royal court? does he give out special abilities? does he have special abilities? does he have an invulnerable save? a ress orb? heck even just a warscythe?
the obvious big ones are the stormlords night-fighting/lightning gimmick, the infinites scoring unit ability, the travellers, mess with tanks ability, and nemesors, ima gonna fuck up your shiny's and then make my bodyguard take the hit abilitys.
with this large list, the nemesor is looking very tasty.
first off, he unlocks that royal court, cryptek shooty goodness, check!
second, hes got that funny special USR changing gimmick, very nice check!
(nb, important to note that tank hunters on scarabs sounds pretty lethal, didnt think of that till i read a post on vanus-temple, link is in the side)
and! most importantly for high point games, he unlocks his vargard Obryon as a non-HQ choice. check!
he also has some deep strike thingy, and a 3++ invulnerable. check! check!
but he lacks phaeron, so this gimmicky fella will be very much on the defensive, while his gimmicks allow your force to go on the offensive. In essence, we would might want a different overlord to provide that ball of death relentless phaeron rule, but with only 2 slots in the force org, we cant then sneak in obryon as the 3rd choice.
now why is the vargard unlock nice?
well hes a super veil of darkness. suddenly, we can stick him in a close combat unit, and then abuse the veil of darkness to hop from one combat to (potentially) the next and lets not forget he can deepstrike without scatter within 6" of the nemesor, so nice for reinforcing a position. with a melee weapon, hes not going to directly benefit from these deepstrikes, as he cant assault but he is going to be messing with your opponents tactics.
do they shoot at your ball of death, or the nasty looking weapon weilding elites who just appeared next to your devestators.
aha! we can charge the ball of death with our nasty deathstar, oh wait, theres a small unit of things blocking our path!
heck this guy can be a distraction all by himself. he has ever-living, so hes always gonna get that re-animation roll. just hope your dice are lucky.
now that we have our two HQ for the slot of one. we can look at some more options. and my go-to guy is always gonna be trazyn. heck one more scoring unit on the board thats not a troop choice? yes please, yes please, oh pretty please!
sit this guy with mr vanishing act Obryon, and his mobile meatshield, and suddenly that last turn-objective grab is possible. the extra royal court is a bonus, and he is also a phaeron so we have the relentless for our ball of death, or as previous he can join obryon to buff up that deepstrike unit, you dont even have to have a close-combat orientated meat-shield. In fact, a close-combat orientated meat shield is not the way to go. You either choose lychguard that will run away, praetorians, that will get shot and die, or wraiths, who wont die like the praetorians, but will be hamstrung in the movement phase, like the praetorians (theyre both jump infantry, your HQ is not)
however there is some hope! deathmarks, immortals, a big fat unit of warriors. suddenly we are teleporting a lot of deadly shooting attacks down your opponents throat. in the case of the last 2, traz can be swapped for just an overlord with phaeron to keep them shooting, whereas with deathmarks, those dangerous sniper shots are also scoring.
the tradeoff with these units is definitly the quality of shooting, and the meagre defense in return. both deathmarks and immortals sport a 3+ with the only difference being their choice of weapon by a few points, while warriors loose that quality for quantity. The weapons arent much different either, your choices are between s5 ap4 gauss rapid fire, s5 tesla, or rapid fire snipers ap5 that can sometimes wound on a 2+ if you get near the right target, but otherwise is 4+.
great unit for assination, like theyre meant to be, but after that one target is gone, what next? suddenly your strength can become your weakness, the gauss and tesla wound your average t4 unit on a 3+, and there are a lot of those! suddenly that one unit, while important that it was destroyed (monstrous creatures, thunderwolves, etc etc), is gone, and your ability to deal with anything else, is ... well, sub par. those immortals look a lot more tempting now. cheaper, more flexible, bland. The amount of unit balance in this book is so frustratingly tangible.
its important to note, that all 3 can get a nightscythe for transport, or alpha/flank/striking
anyway. this has all become an exercise in futility. This is not the concise list i imagined when i started. I cant write any sort of tactica, unit review, or even just an army list, without expelling huge essays of what i think, and why i think it, on this thrice dammed Necron codex.
its good. its an army list that makes you think. once people had pointed out that a grey knights army is great when filled with psyfilemen and purifiers it got dull.
ive yet to see any real list that sway's me into a definitive, nail in the coffin, i want that. they just keep punching me back and forth. heck i was still into my Ark list yesterday, then i found a post about night scythe MSU, and i actually read the part in the codex that says these 100point transports, have the exact same gun, that 90point heavy's have. the gun i was so keen on having in my Ark list.
its these little details that just dont slam home to you until youve thoroughly thumbed the codex to death. no doubt ill find something else really amazing i will want to leverage tommorrow. or perhaps glance back through another codex. even the thought of the Tau getting a new one soon piques my interest. i cant wait to read it. heck i wont ever collect a full army anytime in the next several years (unless i win the lottery, and even then ill pay someone else to paint it!) but the thought of new army configurations, new ideas, new tactics. they breathe life, again and again, into this hobby. definitly my favourite part.
ramble over.
army list of the day template :
HQ
Nemesor,
Obryon
trazyn
(or substitute for cheaper overlord alternative)
royal courts, consisting of shooty cryptek 5men squads, or choppy super expensive lord squads
Troops
5 warriors in an Ark, or with a NightScythe
or
20 warriors, and an Ark or NightScythe
or
5 immortals, and a Night Scythe
(as i said earlier, the units dont have to ride the Nightscythes, allowing them to shoot in the first few turns, and then any NS left, can help airlift them onto objectives. And with the large unit of warriors, their Ark can be used to house cryptek courts, turning them into 36" range death machines, hiding behind Armour 13, keeping near to the warrior unit to provide the +d3 ressurection)
Elite
Lychguard unit for traz+obryon, or perhaps deathmarks/immortals?
Stalkers to go with warrior death-ball
C'tan?
Fast
swarms,
or perhaps wraith unit with whips,
Heavy
spyders, nom nom
doomscythes
or if your more Ark orientated, some annihalation barges. mmm Armour 13 spam
thankyou for reading, if you could manage it at all. i know i would of tuned out. perhaps i need more pictures.
ciao for now benitos!
(no im not calling you mussolini, it just rolled off my tongue and onto my keyboard ^^ )
p.s. already editing this thing! noticed a few errors i made, and no doubt ill continue to edit this.
p.p.s, okay i know, im posting my thoughts again, but after the post about stormlord and nemesor in his army by tim, i believe we have a new winning combo. and as much as i dont want to be rid of my lovely lovely trazyn, and his scoring ability, the stormlord is a huge gaming douchebag of awesomness. why he fits into this army? well hes got that phaeron ability, so check one off for our big ball of death, hes got that nightfighting, to hamstring those long range armys and bring them closer to your 24" death. and on top of that, hes got a hundred little gimmicks he can pull out of his shiny metal butt. lightning strikes? seize on a 4+, 2+/3++ save, nano swarm thingy for flayed ones (if only they were a troop choice!), one use shooty death ray, a flame thrower, and a freebie auto-reanimation one-time only button.
now lets look at adding nemesor and obryon to the death ball with stormy in.
ress orb, just what hes missing.
super dooper veil of darkness,
and some extra wounds hidden behind 2+ and 2+/3++
whats missing?
a cryptek with defensive grenades (gaze of flame)
and solar pulse (more night fighting shenanigans)
now its not perfect, you still have a lot of 4+ warriors, with their pea shooters. but if we look back, we solved the glaring issues with ghost arks, more crypteks riding the arks, or a few stalkers, maybe a C'tan and definitly spyders.
the legions march motha'f***a!
edit, okay heres the list. and i find my ball of death with the overlords seems to require a minimum of 2kpoints. but that might be because im starting with a small scarab pool, and a larger spyder one. banking on my ability to produce faster than the enemy can blast, rather than triaging one or two bases a turn in the hopes they dont wittle away what i have left.
HQ
stormlord,
nemesor (all 3 in my ball o'death, did u mention a basket of eggs?)
obryon
cryptek, lance, gaze, solar (joins ball o'death)
5x crypteks, 5x lance, 1x solar (these ride the spare Ark)
Troops
20 warriors, Ark (ball o'death)
5 warriors, Ark (minimum requirement for force org, also some more warrior repairs)
5 warriors, Ark (more warrior repairs, and we need more scoring)
Fast
3 scarabs (the minimum)
Heavy
3 Spyders, 1x gloom (more for our ball o'death)
3 Spyders, 1x gloom (yet more)
1 Spyder, 1x fabricator array (i had 10 points spare, so a little vehicle repair if necessary sounds good)
downsides to this list, well its a ball o'death. large blast templates might hurt, i can always string things out in a line, but then we get the multi-assault problem. abuse that obryon veil to get outta thar!
and we hide everything behind this thin metal line for suprise reveals and cover saves.
so how do u cripple the ball?
well, obryon seems to be the key. he doesnt have an invulnerable save. so if you can squish him, and i fail my 4+ reanimation. well im not going anywhere! this combat is gonna grind me away. also we arent fearless or stubborn, or have a rule of many over few. were going to fail a leadership check sometime. heck we arent invcible, the wound allocation thanks to so many special characters will help squeeze away those high strength power weapon hits, but at the end of the day, our warriors arent going to live long.
the counter? well we back off out of your charge range, duh! weve got relentless, we can keep doing this as long as we have enough table. and then we teleport across the table to shoot you in the back. and even if you do manage to squeeze us into combat, if any are left standing, we can pick ourselves up, and bam! weve jumped out of combat, and were shooting at you again. and now your in rapid fire range of a the arks' and in charge range of our monstrous spyders. so you better pray, that when you get into combat, there isnt even one warrior left standing. because were coming back, and were gonna hurt!
4 edits, in less than an hour. eep >< must... stop..... argrhhghghggha
what can i say, this book has so many exciting combinations, that are fraught with so many key downsides for the points value a lot of them are at.
and yes ive thought up another army list because of that... or an idea of one.
anyway, im going to condense all ive thought about into one concise post.
with pictures!
first off. The units with that coehsive balanced, i can use these, feel. and why i cant use them.
and im not going to start with the HQ,
Annihalation barges.
ive typed this so many times i can actually remember how it goes now.
lovely tesla destructor twin link zzap
armour 13 on those front and sides.
another little gun for meh.
now this is a lovely little skimmer, for that strong short ranged punch. yes i said short ranged, its only 24" and the armour buff is great too for survivability. Surely there cant be anything wrong with this unbelieveably cheap heavy choice.
the downsides? well...
the Nightsycthe.
(thats another unit? how is it a downside???)
it has the same weapon, thats how. what you have here is a the same twin linked tesla destructor zappy goodness, mounted on an armour 11 fast vehicle.
yes fast, so thats a full 12" added onto that 24" threat range. 36" ranged weapon! those units over there are suddenly within range! now it isnt the stronghold busting 72" range of a basilisk, but its starting to look like the best weve got in between practicality and death-di-cality (yay made up words)
sure your survivability is down with armour 11, but you can grant yourself a lovely 4+ cover save if you really have nothing to shoot at. and heres the kicker. its a dedicated transport.
now i see lots of people opting for immortals actually using these, or other infantry. But if you think about it, kicking the footsloggers out of the vehicle makes this a very quick gunboat, for those all important flanking manouvers. and the only limit, is the amount of units who can take one as dedicated transport.
suddenly you have a very quick fleet of tesla goodness. which can always be used as transport at the end of the day (its ability can be used to jump some vulnerable troopers back into reserve, while making the unit scoring!) and oh, how amazing, your freeing up those valuable heavy support slots. why are they valuable? spyders, thats why!
its not all amazing though.
we are of course missing the model (grrr GW!)
and no doubt it will be an expensive kit(what isnt these days?)
and you pay 10points more than the barge for it.
well, 10points and the dedicated unit/transport tax.
now, moving on. the triarch stalkers. similar vein to our barges here. armour 13, slow, 2 shot multi-melta or heavy flamer thingy, twin link augment ma-doodles. very lovely. and its a walker that can move through cover? no difficult terrain rolls? yum yum. ill take 3! errr wait, theres more information coming
downsides, its slow, its only a walker. that means hes going to have to sit with your footsloggers or shuffle into some terrain to abuse that move through cover USR. he will provide very nice anti-armour defence, but if he gets into combat? well hes not gonna be very effective. only strength 7 and 3 attacks, at that lovely I2. no insta-kills there. not even power weapon attacks. this guy is kinda like a sentinel.... or perhaps a mortis-dread armed with two multi-meltas.... great ranged power, but its short ranged, and close-combat will tie him up.
as will it tie up most of the necron army.
but if we can shoot it to bits first! we stand a chance!
so he has his place.
and you notice i keep mentioing footslogging infantry.
yes, i believe a really strong combination in this army involves these guys. not all of them, a few hiding in ghost ark's is still really strong, armour 13, 15 gauss weapons, living metal, and that repair magic. a very strong unit. but even better, is 20 warriors, lead by a HQ armed with a ressurection orb, and relentless. backed up by one or two ghost arks, and some triarch stalkers, thats a very nice ball of death you have there. abuse that royal court to stick some crypteks inside a ghost ark, and suddenly, theres some very strong firepower. bubble-wrapped by troops that just dont stay down... or in one place.
it is a rather costly build. but we are talking about effective synergy's here....
(well i think i am, i will welcome some contradictory comments, or just comments. doesnt matter if your declaring your love for cheese, just something! oh gawd i better get back to the codex..... )
suddenly its all starting to come together.
the census on scarabs. they are good. you cant deny it anymore. the beast tag, means they have fleet. and, they have a 12" charge. so thats 24" right off the bat (and a lucky roll). very fitting with the rest of the necron arsenal.
and you have those heavy support slots for spyders! cheap, cheerful, scarab baby makers. slow though. so that means they also join the ball of death. not a bad thing, they are monstrous creatures, so we suddenly have our powerfist equivelants. they can be upgraded with anti-psychic defense. and their fearless! wow, we have some solid melee defense, combined with a rising scarab population as each spyder can pump out a base a turn to add to the swarms and with a maximum of 9 spyders? thats 9 scarabs a turn? think you have the firepower for that!.
our ball of death is growing (almost literally).
some of you might opt for one or two, heck maybe the full 3 doomscythes instead. a valid choice with our nightscythes from earlier. makes for a very strong shooty alpha strike/flanking force. just dont expect them to come back alive.
Destroyers and the "tomb blades" are perhaps rather at odds with themselves. the tomb blades, are expensive and somewhat ineffective jetbikes although i might see the point of using the stealth option to create moving turbo-boosted cover shields to contest objectives. perhaps hiding them in a nightscythe till late game, yet their offensive capabilities are somewhat blunted by their choice of weaponry.
the destroyers are interesting, but being such large models, they seem at odds with being labelled jump-infantry, making their gauss, and heavy gauss cannons Assault weapons, negates the the downsides of choosing to move or shoot, and it allows them to charge in if they want to. with that extra re-rolls to hit thanks to preferred enemy i can see the value of doing so, but that is instantly dismissed thanks to the cancerous Iniative 2 and 1 attack. They are, perhaps best as expensive str9 snipers, able to actually get those rear shots thanks to mobility, but vulnerable to any return fire. perhaps they should be using "glass cannons"
sooo, whats left. do we have any points left? yes? good.
HQ, need at least one of those. lets see here.
yes a lot of good choices, heck even illuminator can be good in this build (hes the necron fabius bile for those that dont know, one unit gets a random stat buff, bit meh, but our warriors in the ball of death wont say not to more goodies, yet this fella is basically an expensive cryptek, no invuln, no phaeron, just like fabius, hes not good enough!)
some important things to thinkabout :
- what does he do?
- what does he have?
- why do i want him?
what does he do? .... well does he unlock a royal court? does he give out special abilities? does he have special abilities? does he have an invulnerable save? a ress orb? heck even just a warscythe?
the obvious big ones are the stormlords night-fighting/lightning gimmick, the infinites scoring unit ability, the travellers, mess with tanks ability, and nemesors, ima gonna fuck up your shiny's and then make my bodyguard take the hit abilitys.
with this large list, the nemesor is looking very tasty.
first off, he unlocks that royal court, cryptek shooty goodness, check!
second, hes got that funny special USR changing gimmick, very nice check!
(nb, important to note that tank hunters on scarabs sounds pretty lethal, didnt think of that till i read a post on vanus-temple, link is in the side)
and! most importantly for high point games, he unlocks his vargard Obryon as a non-HQ choice. check!
he also has some deep strike thingy, and a 3++ invulnerable. check! check!
but he lacks phaeron, so this gimmicky fella will be very much on the defensive, while his gimmicks allow your force to go on the offensive. In essence, we would might want a different overlord to provide that ball of death relentless phaeron rule, but with only 2 slots in the force org, we cant then sneak in obryon as the 3rd choice.
now why is the vargard unlock nice?
well hes a super veil of darkness. suddenly, we can stick him in a close combat unit, and then abuse the veil of darkness to hop from one combat to (potentially) the next and lets not forget he can deepstrike without scatter within 6" of the nemesor, so nice for reinforcing a position. with a melee weapon, hes not going to directly benefit from these deepstrikes, as he cant assault but he is going to be messing with your opponents tactics.
do they shoot at your ball of death, or the nasty looking weapon weilding elites who just appeared next to your devestators.
aha! we can charge the ball of death with our nasty deathstar, oh wait, theres a small unit of things blocking our path!
heck this guy can be a distraction all by himself. he has ever-living, so hes always gonna get that re-animation roll. just hope your dice are lucky.
now that we have our two HQ for the slot of one. we can look at some more options. and my go-to guy is always gonna be trazyn. heck one more scoring unit on the board thats not a troop choice? yes please, yes please, oh pretty please!
sit this guy with mr vanishing act Obryon, and his mobile meatshield, and suddenly that last turn-objective grab is possible. the extra royal court is a bonus, and he is also a phaeron so we have the relentless for our ball of death, or as previous he can join obryon to buff up that deepstrike unit, you dont even have to have a close-combat orientated meat-shield. In fact, a close-combat orientated meat shield is not the way to go. You either choose lychguard that will run away, praetorians, that will get shot and die, or wraiths, who wont die like the praetorians, but will be hamstrung in the movement phase, like the praetorians (theyre both jump infantry, your HQ is not)
however there is some hope! deathmarks, immortals, a big fat unit of warriors. suddenly we are teleporting a lot of deadly shooting attacks down your opponents throat. in the case of the last 2, traz can be swapped for just an overlord with phaeron to keep them shooting, whereas with deathmarks, those dangerous sniper shots are also scoring.
the tradeoff with these units is definitly the quality of shooting, and the meagre defense in return. both deathmarks and immortals sport a 3+ with the only difference being their choice of weapon by a few points, while warriors loose that quality for quantity. The weapons arent much different either, your choices are between s5 ap4 gauss rapid fire, s5 tesla, or rapid fire snipers ap5 that can sometimes wound on a 2+ if you get near the right target, but otherwise is 4+.
great unit for assination, like theyre meant to be, but after that one target is gone, what next? suddenly your strength can become your weakness, the gauss and tesla wound your average t4 unit on a 3+, and there are a lot of those! suddenly that one unit, while important that it was destroyed (monstrous creatures, thunderwolves, etc etc), is gone, and your ability to deal with anything else, is ... well, sub par. those immortals look a lot more tempting now. cheaper, more flexible, bland. The amount of unit balance in this book is so frustratingly tangible.
its important to note, that all 3 can get a nightscythe for transport, or alpha/flank/striking
anyway. this has all become an exercise in futility. This is not the concise list i imagined when i started. I cant write any sort of tactica, unit review, or even just an army list, without expelling huge essays of what i think, and why i think it, on this thrice dammed Necron codex.
its good. its an army list that makes you think. once people had pointed out that a grey knights army is great when filled with psyfilemen and purifiers it got dull.
ive yet to see any real list that sway's me into a definitive, nail in the coffin, i want that. they just keep punching me back and forth. heck i was still into my Ark list yesterday, then i found a post about night scythe MSU, and i actually read the part in the codex that says these 100point transports, have the exact same gun, that 90point heavy's have. the gun i was so keen on having in my Ark list.
its these little details that just dont slam home to you until youve thoroughly thumbed the codex to death. no doubt ill find something else really amazing i will want to leverage tommorrow. or perhaps glance back through another codex. even the thought of the Tau getting a new one soon piques my interest. i cant wait to read it. heck i wont ever collect a full army anytime in the next several years (unless i win the lottery, and even then ill pay someone else to paint it!) but the thought of new army configurations, new ideas, new tactics. they breathe life, again and again, into this hobby. definitly my favourite part.
ramble over.
army list of the day template :
HQ
Nemesor,
Obryon
trazyn
(or substitute for cheaper overlord alternative)
royal courts, consisting of shooty cryptek 5men squads, or choppy super expensive lord squads
Troops
5 warriors in an Ark, or with a NightScythe
or
20 warriors, and an Ark or NightScythe
or
5 immortals, and a Night Scythe
(as i said earlier, the units dont have to ride the Nightscythes, allowing them to shoot in the first few turns, and then any NS left, can help airlift them onto objectives. And with the large unit of warriors, their Ark can be used to house cryptek courts, turning them into 36" range death machines, hiding behind Armour 13, keeping near to the warrior unit to provide the +d3 ressurection)
Elite
Lychguard unit for traz+obryon, or perhaps deathmarks/immortals?
Stalkers to go with warrior death-ball
C'tan?
Fast
swarms,
or perhaps wraith unit with whips,
Heavy
spyders, nom nom
doomscythes
or if your more Ark orientated, some annihalation barges. mmm Armour 13 spam
ciao for now benitos!
(no im not calling you mussolini, it just rolled off my tongue and onto my keyboard ^^ )
p.s. already editing this thing! noticed a few errors i made, and no doubt ill continue to edit this.
p.p.s, okay i know, im posting my thoughts again, but after the post about stormlord and nemesor in his army by tim, i believe we have a new winning combo. and as much as i dont want to be rid of my lovely lovely trazyn, and his scoring ability, the stormlord is a huge gaming douchebag of awesomness. why he fits into this army? well hes got that phaeron ability, so check one off for our big ball of death, hes got that nightfighting, to hamstring those long range armys and bring them closer to your 24" death. and on top of that, hes got a hundred little gimmicks he can pull out of his shiny metal butt. lightning strikes? seize on a 4+, 2+/3++ save, nano swarm thingy for flayed ones (if only they were a troop choice!), one use shooty death ray, a flame thrower, and a freebie auto-reanimation one-time only button.
now lets look at adding nemesor and obryon to the death ball with stormy in.
ress orb, just what hes missing.
super dooper veil of darkness,
and some extra wounds hidden behind 2+ and 2+/3++
whats missing?
a cryptek with defensive grenades (gaze of flame)
and solar pulse (more night fighting shenanigans)
now its not perfect, you still have a lot of 4+ warriors, with their pea shooters. but if we look back, we solved the glaring issues with ghost arks, more crypteks riding the arks, or a few stalkers, maybe a C'tan and definitly spyders.
the legions march motha'f***a!
edit, okay heres the list. and i find my ball of death with the overlords seems to require a minimum of 2kpoints. but that might be because im starting with a small scarab pool, and a larger spyder one. banking on my ability to produce faster than the enemy can blast, rather than triaging one or two bases a turn in the hopes they dont wittle away what i have left.
HQ
stormlord,
nemesor (all 3 in my ball o'death, did u mention a basket of eggs?)
obryon
cryptek, lance, gaze, solar (joins ball o'death)
5x crypteks, 5x lance, 1x solar (these ride the spare Ark)
Troops
20 warriors, Ark (ball o'death)
5 warriors, Ark (minimum requirement for force org, also some more warrior repairs)
5 warriors, Ark (more warrior repairs, and we need more scoring)
Fast
3 scarabs (the minimum)
Heavy
3 Spyders, 1x gloom (more for our ball o'death)
3 Spyders, 1x gloom (yet more)
1 Spyder, 1x fabricator array (i had 10 points spare, so a little vehicle repair if necessary sounds good)
downsides to this list, well its a ball o'death. large blast templates might hurt, i can always string things out in a line, but then we get the multi-assault problem. abuse that obryon veil to get outta thar!
and we hide everything behind this thin metal line for suprise reveals and cover saves.
so how do u cripple the ball?
well, obryon seems to be the key. he doesnt have an invulnerable save. so if you can squish him, and i fail my 4+ reanimation. well im not going anywhere! this combat is gonna grind me away. also we arent fearless or stubborn, or have a rule of many over few. were going to fail a leadership check sometime. heck we arent invcible, the wound allocation thanks to so many special characters will help squeeze away those high strength power weapon hits, but at the end of the day, our warriors arent going to live long.
the counter? well we back off out of your charge range, duh! weve got relentless, we can keep doing this as long as we have enough table. and then we teleport across the table to shoot you in the back. and even if you do manage to squeeze us into combat, if any are left standing, we can pick ourselves up, and bam! weve jumped out of combat, and were shooting at you again. and now your in rapid fire range of a the arks' and in charge range of our monstrous spyders. so you better pray, that when you get into combat, there isnt even one warrior left standing. because were coming back, and were gonna hurt!
4 edits, in less than an hour. eep >< must... stop..... argrhhghghggha
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)