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Random idea with the Lychguard. If I run a Chronomancer with them, the Chrono has that "after shooting move 5" ", right. Would the Chrono's ranged weapon count? Obviously Lychguard aren't shooting anything, but the Chrono can.

This would mean an extra 5" movement, potentially getting them onto an objective. That's better than d6" for an advance, on average.

Obviously it'd be better to charge something, but if nothing's in range... Like, if I get first turn, Lychguard won't be charging anything. But if I can get within 18" for a ranged attack, then I can move further.

If I was desperate, I could even do the strat that lets me advance and shoot (Assault), which then gives me d6+5" extra movement on turn 1...

Just wondering if the Chrono's ranged attack is enough to trigger that ability itself. My instinct says yes.

Still counts as part of the unit if hes leading a unit.
Just still separated enough to not be that unit anymore if they all die, but he didnt.

5" Move instead of Advancing 3,5. I'm not saying it's never the right move or that a Chronomancer isn't good in Lychguard, but it doesn't seem huge.

I guess it depends on how badly you want to tarpit the centre objective...

If the opponent gets the first turn, it'd be easier. Move, shoot, 5" from the Chrono, then charge 2d6" into whatever the enemy is running forward.

I just think Necrons really should place an immovable brick in a critical location, however possible.

You could use protocol of the sudden storm to get both an advance and the Chronomancer's bonus move. I think spending CP early on with things like this though might be a trap as you probably want to save a CP for resurrecting a character. Tesla Immortals would be a cheaper option for advance-shoot-move, or just use a unit of Tomb Blades or something else natively quick while Lycheguard catch up.

Hecate wrote:
I guess it depends on how badly you want to tarpit the centre objective...

If the opponent gets the first turn, it'd be easier. Move, shoot, 5" from the Chrono, then charge 2d6" into whatever the enemy is running forward.

I just think Necrons really should place an immovable brick in a critical location, however possible.

Nope, no charging. That's what makes it an Advance replacement. There's a lot more utility for ranged units that can hop out of line of sight after shooting.

 vict0988 wrote:
5" Move instead of Advancing 3,5. I'm not saying it's never the right move or that a Chronomancer isn't good in Lychguard, but it doesn't seem huge.

10” movement puts you on the center objective at 12” distance, whereas 8.5” is too short.

The bigger problem is that if you’re going first, nothing will be in range of the Chronomancer’s 18” range staff to shoot at to qualify for the 5”.

This is why Technomancer with cloak is better. He can toe into range and still maintain coherency and snag the No Man’s Land Objectives on T1.

Every battle report I've seen where the cron player doesn't drop significant points into RP support seems to result in a big loss.

One other thing I noticed is that anti-tank in our army is pretty limited. Those that didn't bring a minimum of two DDA were in trouble. Seems that the doom stalkers aren't tough enough to stay in the game long enough to get the job done. Significantly less punch than a DDA.

I'd be worried that the lokhust HD might suffer from the same shortcomings; not enough resilience.

What's been your experience?

My experience with heavies has been promising.

I've been running 1 or 2 Doomstalkers and a Heavy Lokhust together, plus 1 game with a Triarch Stalker that I just bought.

The Doomstalkers I've found are better at anti-heavy-elites (like Terminators) rather than anti-tank. A flat 3 Damage can knock out a bunch of things.

The Heavy Lokhust... I tried the anti-infantry gun once, and it was underwhelming. The anti-tank was actually good, though. 6 Damage is fantastic. It's only 1 shot, but it's worth the chance of failure in my opinion. Easy to kill, but if the enemy has more important targets to deal with... I'm probably buying a second Heavy Lokhust at some point. They're kind of like the relic Arrow in 9th, except not just 1 shot per battle if they don't get blasted. Cheap points, too.

The Triarch Stalker... It finished off a Predator pretty well. Melta 4 is great on the Heat Ray. It's an anti-tank that loves to run up. It was able to grab an objective, which won the game for me, while blasting that Predator and tying up some Marines for a couple turns.

I've also bought a Void Dragon, so once it's assembled I'll see how good it is at anti-tank.

On the whole, I think:

Doomstalkers are best at hunting 3 Wound units, not tanks.
Heavy Lokhusts are fantastic.
Triarch Stalkers are a good choice.

Hecate wrote:
Doomstalkers are best at hunting 3 Wound units, not tanks.
Heavy Lokhusts are fantastic.

This is spot on. Heavy Gauss Lokhusts are probably the most cost efficient AT gun Necrons have. Doomstalkers are like plasma guns - anti heavy infantry that can shoot at vehicles if they really have to. Doomsday arks are always popular as they are ok against anything, but the same points spent on Lokhust heavies will do substantially more damage to vehicles.

I also found it interesting that both the Doomstalker and the Triarch Stalker are 125 points each. I definitely think 1 of each is better than 2 of 1. I doubt I'll be running 2 Doomstalkers again now that my Triarch is assembled. Being able to fill different roles is super useful.

Doomstalkers number of shots often ditates its power. I love it over all others because of its dual threat to tanks and Heavy infantry.

I had two Doomstalkers kill off a 10 man Wraithguard unit in one round due to number of shots and that -4 AP

Necrons may have the best AT in the game at the moment, and certainly better than we have had for a while.

Lokhust Heavies are the best dedicated AT, while DDAs having blast are a bit better ‘all rounders’.

Welp as per the Balance Update we can no longer proc Undying Legions for 0 CP. Fun while it lasted!

EDIT: There are only two Battle Tactic Stratagems, Hungry Void (which in fairness has always been pretty tempting to proc on Lychguard or a blob of 20 Warriors) and Conquering Tyrant (I'm all-in on Gauss Weapons so re-rolling wounds isn't usually something I want to have to think about). If you want to get the most mileage out of your Overlords then I suppose it's encouraging a more aggressive play-style.

Still across the board we got a lot of point drops which is nice - Lychguard, Hexmark, Doomsday Ark, and Cryptothralls all went up about 20 pts (more for the DA) but we saw across the board drops for Destroyers, and 10 Warriors is now much cheaper than 10 Immortals. Overall good for my Silver Tide army (Undying Legions nerf excepted).

Weird update on the balance dataslate. Everything taken in touney lists went up a little, and a few points drops on the side - I think the overall picture is nothing changes much at all, as you could just make substitutions on your cheap action units to keep the mainstays of the pre-dataslate intact.

Example list:
With the "free strats" nerf, I'm not convinced it makes a huge difference. If you were previously using a battle tactic (paid) and undying legions (free), they just swap places for the same overall CP cost - you are only worse off if you don't use the battle tactics.

The free strat nerf prevents us using undying legions twice in a phase, though - though the opponent could always time their attacks to prevent that anyways

I've been running mostly Scythe guard so the Hungry Void isn't as tempting for me - Going from S8 AP-3 to S9 AP-4 isn't as good as the jump from S6 AP-2 to S7 AP-3. S6-->7 means T12 is now threatened on 5s, which can be useful when Knights exist, whereas S8-->9 really only changes things for T8-9, which is a weird niche. The extra AP is always nice, but when my scythes are looking for Devastating Wounds anyways?

Similarly, the reroll wound rolls in shooting isn't very useful to 0CP. All of our shooting that an Overlord can join is either Lethal Hits (warriors), or already has reroll wounds (Immortals). The stuff that the reroll wound rolls in shooting strat is actually useful on can't be led by an Overlord. Soooooo... Overlords are basically just an extra beatstick which gives a once-per-round free Command Re-Roll.

Reroll to wound is pretty good even if you have lethal hits. Warriors do more wounds with reroll wound hits than with lethal hits as long as opponent T is 7 or less

Ugh... There goes a big reason to take Overlords. Having only 2 of the 6 strats available blows. I found the 0 CP thing was best as a reaction to the situation. Having all 6 available was a big draw.


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Yeah, sure, Overlords are still okay... But now I'm questioning whether they're worth the points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A basic Lord might make more sense. +1" movement helps a lot, and they can still take the Res Orb. 20 points cheaper... Might be the better choice.

Points...

Cheaper Warriors, cheaper Skorpekhs, yay. More expensive Doomstalkers and Reanimators, boo.

Doomstalker going up annoys me, it was doing good work but it wasnt anything ridiculous by any means. Only times it felt like it was punching oddly hard was when the dice gods favored me and i kept getting 7 attacks and hitting 6-7 of them.
Aside from games where that happened they RARELY earned their points back in offense. Usually more useful as a distraction carnifex, as people seem to really hate them and keep firing big guns at it (the amount of lasdestroyers thats plinked off my 4++ amuses me greatly...)

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Doomstalker going up annoys me, it was doing good work but it wasnt anything ridiculous by any means. Only times it felt like it was punching oddly hard was when the dice gods favored me and i kept getting 7 attacks and hitting 6-7 of them.
Aside from games where that happened they RARELY earned their points back in offense. Usually more useful as a distraction carnifex, as people seem to really hate them and keep firing big guns at it (the amount of lasdestroyers thats plinked off my 4++ amuses me greatly...)

That's probably partly why the points increased. Killing enemy units isn't the only way to earn points back.

How about this for an idea:

Getting Warriors onto a centre objective in turn 1 requires movement. Advance is d6", whereas a Chronomancer gives you a flat 5" if you've shot. Someone mentioned how you can't guarantee having a target in range on turn 1. But what about the Overlord's Tachyon Arrow? It's a ranged attack with 72" range. Surely that counts? So all you'd need is line of sight to *something*.

I'm gonna try it in my next game. I need to get the Warriors on an objective. Every game I've played with them so far, they've been charged before gumming up an objective. This might be a solution.

Only issue is the Overlord can't have a Tachyon Arrow AND a Res Orb... That could be a problem. But what good is a Res Orb on a weak damage unit if you're not on an objective?

Hmm...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or else take the advice of treating Warriors as if they don't need to do damage. Give them the 24" Flayers purely to get a shot for the 5" move. Overlord keeps Res Orb.

5" base move, 24" range... Chances are you'll get at least A target against most opponents. Unless they hide everything... In my experience, there's rarely enough terrain to hide *everything*. Even if you're shooting a titan and do no damage, at least you've shot.

I might try that first. The Reapers are better guns, but if you get charged anyway, they're useless.

Getting los to something isn't quaranteed either with proper terrain

Hecate wrote:
How about this for an idea:

Spoiler:

Getting Warriors onto a centre objective in turn 1 requires movement. Advance is d6", whereas a Chronomancer gives you a flat 5" if you've shot. Someone mentioned how you can't guarantee having a target in range on turn 1. But what about the Overlord's Tachyon Arrow? It's a ranged attack with 72" range. Surely that counts? So all you'd need is line of sight to *something*.

I'm gonna try it in my next game. I need to get the Warriors on an objective. Every game I've played with them so far, they've been charged before gumming up an objective. This might be a solution.

Only issue is the Overlord can't have a Tachyon Arrow AND a Res Orb... That could be a problem. But what good is a Res Orb on a weak damage unit if you're not on an objective?

Hmm...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or else take the advice of treating Warriors as if they don't need to do damage. Give them the 24" Flayers purely to get a shot for the 5" move. Overlord keeps Res Orb.

5" base move, 24" range... Chances are you'll get at least A target against most opponents. Unless they hide everything... In my experience, there's rarely enough terrain to hide *everything*. Even if you're shooting a titan and do no damage, at least you've shot.

I might try that first. The Reapers are better guns, but if you get charged anyway, they're useless.

The tachyon shot would work fine. As for moving Warriors as fast as possible with 24" range guns, I think the fastest options are:
1. Take a Royal Warden (has 24" gun) instead of an Overlord, now you can advance/shoot/move
2. If you want a res orb, take a mixed squad (19 reapers, 1 flayer for the 24" gun), then spend a CP on protocol of the sudden swarm, now you can (rerollable) advance/shoot/move
3. Just use the veil of darkness and be roughly where you want to be after your opponents first turn (Chronomancer ability would still work I think so you could slightly overcome the >9" placement)

Might try #2 if it looks like I need the strat help. I do still want to have the Res Orb.

My list for my next game, I'll have the Warrior blob for this ploy, but also have 10 Immortals with a Royal Warden. The Immortals will hang back in turn 1, looking inconspicuous, then use the Warden's assault ability to plug any holes as needed. May act as backup for the Warriors to some extent, depending on how much my opponent focuses on them. Or else the Immortals can plop down on a different objective.

A Reanimator between them, but that'll probably die quickly.

After all the planning, I didn't need anything other than the Chronomancer and Warriors. I was able to get a shot, and swarmed an objective all game. Opponent didn't even wind up targeting the Warriors, as there were too many other targets.

First time using the Void Dragon, too. Probably won me the game with ease. Decimated a squad of Assault Intercessors, a Redemptor Dreadnought, and a couple of minor characters before dying to sheer number of dice being rolled on 1-damage shots. Also finished off a Land Raider on 1 wound, with the special ability that leaches life.

Was using Wraiths for the first time, too, but the squad was wiped before even getting to roll a single attack. Next time, I guess.

Tried a max squad of Immortals for the first time. I think I'll stick with Warriors for now. Just not enough wounds. Wiped in the same turn as the Wraiths, but they did at least do a little damage, and blocked a passageway for a turn...

Wound up winning by a mile after the Void Dragon crushed everything it touched.

Got in my first game of 10th with my 'crons tonight. Ran...

Technomancer with hypermatter ablation
Royal Warden with the veil
2x20 warriors
1x5 immortals
2x3 wraiths
6 scarabs
3 scarabs

My opponent ran a crusher stampede featuring...
Neurotyrant
10 spinefist gaunts
10 hormagaunts
Deathleaper
Tryannofex with the acid spray
Tyrannofex with a rupture cannon
The new little monster from the Leviathan box
Van Ryan's lictors.

The scarabs zipped forward to score secondaries (deploying teleport beacons) and be distracting.

The warrior blobs killed the lictor squad and hormagaunts and then spent the rest of the game locked in combat with the acid 'fex and the new monster (psychophage?), eventually killing the latter. It wasn't flashy, but honestly they probably won me the game by standing on an objective while they steadily reanimated to keep the enemy locked up.

A mix of poor and amazing rolls saw the immortals and wraiths just barely survive and then finish off death leaper. The immortals probably won the game when shot the neuro tyrant to death on my opponent's turn. I was surprised by how underwhelming their gauss weapons looked on paper, but the unit was cheap and did just enough damage to swing the game, so... Good job immortals.

The wraiths not being able to move through ruin walls was kind of brutal. There were multiple times that their nerfed movement and inability to go through ruins caused me to camp objectives with them instead of playing more aggressively. Still, they did manage to finish off death leaper and rescue my immortals, plus my opponent didn't really have a weapon profile well-suited to dealing with them, so they were uniquely good at scoring on the empty flank.

My characters' abilities didn't get a chance to do much except the FNP from the technomancer. Am I correct in thinking that the Royal Warden's ability to make weapons Heavy basically does nothing at the moment because he already provides +1 to hit by virtue of the detachment rules?

Overall, I managed to eck out a victory by like, 5VP. Very close and fun game. Honestly, might be my favorite game of 10th so far, despite the tedium of spending most of the game with 40 warriors locked in combat with MCs.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
My characters' abilities didn't get a chance to do much except the FNP from the technomancer. Am I correct in thinking that the Royal Warden's ability to make weapons Heavy basically does nothing at the moment because he already provides +1 to hit by virtue of the detachment rules?

It can cancel a hit penalty, but generally speaking two sources of +1 are redundant.

Also soon there's more detachments so ability plays more. Tyranid had similar thing with character that provided sustained which most armies had via detachment. Now with 5 det's that don't provide sustained that character got new life

I'm really curious what the new Necron rules will bring when they come out. I mean, +1 to hit with a Leader is great, but I'm hoping for a special rule that lends itself more to tactical planning... Figuring out tactics is my favourite part of the entire game, so I really hope the Necrons detachment rules are different enough, and interesting enough, that it'll improve the game for me that way.

It seems like whatever detachments we get will need to be pretty potent. +1 to hit when characters are attached is huge. Switching back to only hitting half the time with my warriors is going to feel rough.