Hmmm. Okay, I have plenty of BT, but the rules say nothing greater than AV12 unless a DT, so there go my dreams of a LRC with a squad inside. How about my Necrons? At 400 points?! You must be joking, especially since not only do you need 90 points just to field the Royal Court models that make the army work, but a Necron Overlord is illegal because he has three wounds... Wait, what about my Witchhunter inducted Guard platoon? That actually might work...
So, I'm off to a nearby town to play in a little 400 point skirmish tournament using Adepticon rules. Yes, this is about 5th Edition, but the theory will fit into 6th, and IMO be a testbed for the new Allies rules. Especially if, as I fully expect, NOVA 2012 ends up jumping to 6th at what is really the last minute for a 6thish-NOVA-FUBAR Edition tournament. Anyway, back to the list design. Only requirement is one Troop and then you can use up to one of any slot, including another Troop.
Hmmm. Okay, I have plenty of BT, but the rules say nothing greater than AV12 unless a DT, so there go my dreams of a LRC with a squad inside. How about my Necrons? At 400 points?! You must be joking, especially since not only do you need 90 points just to field the Royal Court models that make the army work, but a Necron Overlord is illegal because he has three wounds... Wait, what about my Witchhunter inducted Guard platoon? That actually might work...
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For this last post, I'm going to go over both various lists and a bit more of my issues with the departures from the fluff. For review, here are the first, second and third posts.
My biggest issue remains the loss of the fear & loathing aspect of the Necrons, since in at least one specific case (Flayed Ones), adding in fear & loathing effects would have transformed them from worthless to useful. Other factors that are contradicted by the fluff have made other units less than viable for their cost. The next big disconnect comes from the idea that the higher ranking Necrons have improved bodies and more "spark" in them to function better than the lower orders. However, none of this actually shows up in the stat lines of the models. Yes, Immortals get the 3+ save (which is part of the infamous power armor as fancy carapace armor syndrome) and some later models (Lychguard, Praetorians, Lords, HQs) get S5 T5, but why the army wide I2? How is it an "improved" body with preprogrammed hyperfast reactions when super Necrons can get butchered by anything in CC before it gets a chance to fight? But, but, the Necrons are supposed to be weak in CC? Well, they still will be weak, I'm talking about a few units and pretty much the ones I'd reject in most cases. Lords, Lychguard & Praetorians would jump to I3 and Overlords (including Destroyer Lords) would go to I4. Maybe Flayed Ones & Wraiths, but for them I prefer the 3d6 Ld test or you hit on a six only. So we aren't talking about something game breaking. An alternate solution, especially reading the fluff about precision CC strikes which accounts for the low number of strikes, would be to allow a Necron to always score a swing, no matter if they died during the round. Again, this is for the higher level Necrons. Last bit of venting: Okay, so they took power weapon status away from the Staff of Light, so why is it we have to pay extra for our HQ units (OL & Lords) to get a PW and then don't get a pistol option? Destroyer Lords should have RCs also, with the option to add a Destroyer body. Speaking of Destroyer bodies, why do we have a Skimmer model that is bigger than any of the Jetbikes I've seen so far and classify it as "jump infantry", a.k.a. big fat target that moves slower now. Why, why, why?. Oh, I can go on and on nitpicking stupid stuff here. So, let's go onto the types of lists. My favorite part of 40k. The rules disputes. There are a number of internet proclaimed "unclear" rules and interpretations on both sides. In a number of these cases, pundits have pronounced on both sides of the issue. I'll go ahead and weigh in on these. Some are "iffy" to me and I'll note them as such because they read one way RAW, but they might be FAQ'd the other way by GW. I also am interpreting some one way in my games because if I'm going to play Necrons for now, I'd rather play them "gimped" for now so that I don't depend on the which way the FAQ blows.
If that ends up taking as little room as I think, then I'll go over some of the fluff stupidities, especially since even with the "refining" (or reboot), it still calls on the "fear factor" without giving any to the army. Continuing onwards through the Necrons from the back to the front of the codex. The first part is here. Again, I'm going to save some of the analysis for the last post. Well, I did Heavy Support, Fast Attack and Elites last time, so now on we go.
Well, everyone else seems to be doing it, but, seemingly as usual, I have a slightly different take on some of the units. So, I thought I would do my own version of how I score the units.
ADDED: I'm going to make some commentary on types of lists in Part Three, also including where I think GW screwed up on the fluff with units. For those who have followed my discussions around the Net about Black Templars and Deep Strike/Drop Pod lists, you have probably noticed that I'm not a fan of Dreadnoughts. Well, actually I love them, but, they just don't work out that well most of the time on the battlefield for me. So, I've moved over to the use of Terminators in the Elite slots which causes other compromises because of the difference in points. Quite simply, Dreadnoughts with a strong CC or short range combat (MM/Ass Can) mission simply die. Put them in a Drop Pod and they get one shot and then die. Usually soaking up some firepower, but they don't last and other than the Ven Dread w/ TLLC & Tank Hunter stooging around my rear areas sniping, I haven't had any success in Dreadnought survival and except for the Ven Dread, I don't think I've gotten my points back out of one.I also dislike the Black Templar gunlines, they are just too fragile IMO for the points they cost. I'm not even getting into the stupidity of Rhino body vehicles and their side armor. If I could do it, I'd take Chimeras for my Marines. At 55 points per Chimera, yep, I'd be running some Mech Marines. Okay, back on topic, the point is that vehicles die like flies locally. Yes, they can do their missions, but a lot of vehicles just die in battles.
Thinking more on the ongoing friendly debates between myself, Marshal Laeroth, Devjon & others about list composition, elements to include in a list, proper purpose for a list, fluff, theory, mathhammer/metrics, the elusive "Style" component and now dealing with my favorite 40k Xenos race, the major thing is the "Style". There are no hard and fast rules on it. There can be strong guidelines though. This is a little long and fuzzy, like the title. Unfortunately, this isn't one of those posts with answers.
When it comes to guidelines and archetypes, the corollary always comes up: "A good player plays by the "Book", a great player knows when to throw the "Book" away and still win." For those that play MMORPGs, you might know what I mean. Tanks tank and squishy Nukers nuke, but slowly so that the Tanks can keep aggro. RIght? Except for my buddy on a top raiding guild. He didn't need the uber casting gear for raids, he had to nuke slowly, so his raiding gear was about extra AC, Hit Points and Resists. Which meant when the primary Tank went down and the secondary didn't grab control right away, he'd unload his biggest nuke, the a series of stun spells to chain stun the mob. Yes, he died, but he gave the raid time and a chance to regain control instead of wiping. So, the question is: What is "Style"? This was more of a learning game, not sure if the guy was getting back into 40k after a long absence or just learning. He was running a Tau list with (I think, not familiar with Tau):
2x Hammerhead(?) Tanks with railguns + some of the S5 AP5 guns 1x Tank with seeker missiles, marker lights & some smaller guns 2x Transports with 9x Fire Warriors (BS3, S5, AP5 RF guns) each 1x Transport with 5x Pathfinders (Sgt, heavy weapon of some kind, 3x troops, markerlights) 2x Squads of battle suits, one with the leader, with a variety of gear, lots of flamers, RF weapons, heavier stuff. My list was trimmed to: 1x Overlord w/ Warscythe in Command Barge (Gauss) (CB) 1x Overlord Phaeron (with the Gauss Immortals for Relentless) 1x Immortals (Gauss) w/ Cryptek of Destruction (Solar Pulse) 1x Immortals (Tesla) w/ Cryptek of Destruction (Solar Pulse) 15x Warriors with Lord w/ Rez Orb 10x Warriors in a Ghost Ark (GA) 9x Scarabs 2x Spyders Of some interest to me is how I would fare if I faced a Necron Imotekh (or double Solar Pulse) list. with my Templars. Since the general objective is to:
1. Shoot the crap out of everything 2. Beat the crap of anything left standing Disregard all the fancy, highfalutin jargon about maintaining the initiative, movement blocking and other such goodies, those are only the tools by which I achieve the two basic objectives. Similarly, mech lists use Rhino rushes, vehicle bunkers, etc. to perform the same two tasks. Dealing with Night Fighting can be a problem with a lot of 48" range units. Simply running up closer and engaging at shorter ranges isn't the best option, especially for my Speeders since that would deny me my range advantage, although since S4 weaponry can already glance AV10, the Gauss auto glance isn't such a big deal, but I do depend on a turn or three of prep fire to soften up and stress my opponent's army to set him up for the endgame. Well, I went in to test some of the Necron "tricks" using the models that I had on hand. I need to work on my skillz with Necrons and coordinating some of their goodies to work better together, but after a 2k game vs Blood Angels and a 5550ish (3x players: Blood Angels, Eldar, Necron vs. 2x 'Nid players) and both of them wins, I'm wondering about my "stupid-good" simple list. Most of the "good" comes from people not being used to a seventy-six model shooty army that can walk up into your face and blast you at short ranges.
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