Core Concept: Target Priority

I know my posts have been getting less and less regular, but this month is kinda a crazy one for me, things should settle down once summer starts.

This time around, I'd like to throw some stuff out there for the people just getting into the hobby. This won't be specifically about Necrons or any other one army, but rather I'd like to talk about a core concept of 40k: Target Priority.

Target Priority is the understanding of what is worthy of your attention (and actions!) on the battlefield. This covers everything from what you shoot at, what you're moving towards, what you try to assault, to what your overall goal is for this game.

We'll start with the small scale stuff. When it comes right down to it, your army consists of several units and vehicles while your opponent has a different set of units and vehicles. Think honestly about the last few games you've played. Think about which targets you chose to shoot at, which ones you avoided. Why did you make those decisions? The truth is, we all have a sort of "list" that we mentally go through to determine what each of our units need to do for the turn. For example, I tend to move my Necron Warriors (troops choices) towards objectives around turn 4, often choosing to run rather than shoot. Why? Because I've determined that, for my Warriors, it's extremely important for them to be near objectives at the end of the game rather than just blindly shooting at targets.

This may sound really obvious when put like that, but consider another example: It's turn 4, and I've only got one Warrior squad left. They're about 12" away from an objective, but there's also an enemy unit (non-scoring) there, and the objective is in difficult terrain, so I may not get my full 6" in the movement phase. So here's the question: do I run my Warriors to the objective, trusting my other units to bring down the contester in case the game ends on turn 5? Or do I choose to let the Warriors shoot, even though they might fall just short of the objective when the game ends?

The answer depends on much more context than I care to come up with at the moment, including the positioning of my units, other objectives, etc. However, this is what Target Priority is all about: trying to determine the best "target" for your unit to go after.

For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to talk about kill point games from here on: Objectives tend to make Target Priority very murky, and I don't want to get into that just yet. When the only goal is to kill more enemy units than your opponent kills of yours, my priority tends to shift mostly towards survival. I guess it's part of being a Necron player, but I always would rather keep one of my squads alive than kill an enemy squad. So when I'm thinking about what my units should do, it's not only that unit's survival I'm concerned about, but also any squad that could be protected by them. Necron Immortals make an excellent example of this. For the most part, I'm not really concerned about the survival of Immortals, but they can put out a lot of firepower, and that can help considerably in keeping a Warrior squad, which is much more fragile, from being knocked off the table.

So with that in mind, you'd probably assume that my first target would be an assault marine squad bearing down on me headlong from across the table. It's clear that they're gonna get to my lines before anything else, so I should shoot at them to keep them away and protect myself, right?

Not necessarily. I try to look beyond immediate threats, and also look at the ones that are slower coming, but far more dangerous. For example, what if, behind those Assault Marines, there was a Furioso Dreadnought hoofing it across the table? It's significantly slower than the Marines, but far more dangerous. In this scenario, I'd probably focus on at least disabling the dreadnought first. Then, if that danger is neutralized, I'll pay attention to the Assault troopers.

Another thing to consider here is what units I have available. Obviously, some of my models are better suited to certain tasks than others: Heavy destroyers are more likely to eliminate the Dreadnought threat than the Marine threat, for example. However, for the Necrons, everything in my army can, to some extent, affect either unit. This is where order of shooting can really come into play. Because I see the Dreadnought as the bigger threat, and my Heavy Destroyers are the best way to deal with it, I'll use them against it first. If they succeed in eliminating the threat, then it leaves the rest of my army available to deal with the next target on the list. If they fail, then I need to proceed down the line of units that can damage it realistically.

Next time you play a game of 40k, analyze what you're doing. Try to figure out what your target priority is, and how you can improve it. After you've figured yourself out, a different tactic is trying to figure out what your opponent's priority is. If you can figure this out even half-way through the game, you'll be able to effectively predict his movements, allowing you to counter him before he even acts. Try it!

Annihilation

Sorry this post's a bit late, the week's been a bit crazy for me.

Annihilation is a pretty straight-forward game type, and it's tactics are also fairly simple, so this'll probably be a short one.

The obvious thing to say is: focus fire targets. Don't leave squads half-dead, cuz they're not worth kill points. Glad we got that over with.


Here's my advice when it comes to Kill Point games - follow the natural flow of the battle. The kill points will come if you focus on taking out high priority threats rather than focusing entirely on the weak links of the enemy army. Have to decide between shooting 2 Marine models who are just barely hanging in there or softening up the assault squad that's about to hit your ranks? Go for the assault squad. Whatever you do, don't put yourself in a position where you're getting one kill point, only to give one back to your opponent - you WILL lose that way.

I always harp on the Necron strong-suit being durability...well this is where that comes into play more than in any other game type. Keep your squads alive, and they'll kill things. You might only get 2-3 kill points, but if you do it right, they'll be just a couple behind you.

If you have things like the Monolith or Veil of Darkness, it's even easier to play the denial game. Got a squad of warrior's that's down to 3 members? Turn your monolith around, and teleport them so that nothing can see them. Let them hide in some bushes somewhere, and keep going.

I keep looking over this, trying to find something to add, but that's really it. Sorry it's so short, but I did say at the beginning that Annihilation is pretty straight-forward, nothing fancy about it.

Starting next week, I'm gonna take a break from the 'Crons and talk about 40k strategy in general...the kind of stuff that they should have included in the manual in a tips & tricks section, but didn't. It'll seem fairly basic to many, but it's good to lay some ground work for the newer players out there. I think I'll be starting with Target Priority.

The Team Tournament Results!

I know that everyone has been waiting breathlessly for me to post the results of the team tournament I mentioned earlier, so I'll discuss how it went down for this week's topic.

Spoiler Alert: We didn't win.

I ended up using a simple list of a Lord with Gaze of Flame and Veil of Darkness, 10 Warriors, 8 Destroyers, and a Monolith. My partner switched over to Tyranids at the last minute, using a Flyrant, 3 Zoanthropes (each one taking a seperate slot to increase durability and allow shots to different targets), and two squads of 14 Genestealers + Broodlords.

Our first match was against Vanilla Marines and Tau. The Marine player had a Predator (autocannon turret), two tac squads with lascannons, flamers, powerfists, and razorbacks, a landspeeder with a Multi-Melta, a Vindicator, and a Librarian on a bike. The Tau guy was using a Shas'el (cheaper HQ, only BS4) with Plasma Rifle and Missile Pod, two squads of 2 Crisis Suits with the same weapons, two squads of Fire Warriors, a squad of Pathfinders, and 2 Broadsides. The mission was essentially Dawn of War with Seize Ground, but the 3 objectives were all in a line across the center of the board, and one of them required a scoring unit from both team-members to be near it. Ultimately, I got extremely terrible reserve rolls (my Monolith waited until turn 4 to come in, and the Vindicator killed it on its first shot), so my Destroyers were too busy putting out fires in the form of rushing Razorbacks and keeping the Vindicator from firing to be of much real use to my partner. The game was finally decided when two marines passed their Morale test and stayed on the one objective our opponents were controlling, while we had none. He needed a 9, and rolled the 9 exactly. Oh well.

Second game was against two Black Templar players, and I don't know that army well enough to give much specifics...I know there were three Tac Squads (one with an Emperor's Champion), two Assault Squads (one had a chaplain), and a Terminator Squad. I had a complete brain fart at the beginning of the game and moved my Destroyers too close to the Rhinos with Tacs in them, thinking that "Rhino's aren't assault vehicles, so I'll be fine." Silly me, forgetting that you can still assault if the vehicle doesn't move before you disembark. However, we still came out on top, because he couldn't get his squads into cover quickly enough to avoid severe casualties from my Monolith's AP3 Ordnance...I was killing 5-7 marines per turn with that awesome gun. The Flyrant used Deep Strike to hold the enemy objective (wierd quirck about the scenario: each player could assign one non-vehicle unit to count as scoring), while my Monolith contested the second. A sound victory for us!

Third game was completely retarded. I knew going in that our biggest weakness was probably going to be Dreadnoughts, because they could usually outrange the Zoey's with S8 or better weapons, and Stealers have a very hard time against walkers in assault. It was almost as if our opponents tailored their list to deal with one like ours: Dark Angels (Belial, 3 Deathwing Terminator squads, and an outflanking Scout squad) and Vanilla Marines (Master of the Forge, 10-man Tactical Squad with a Meltagun in a drop pod, Dreadnought with Multi-Melta and Missile Launcher in a drop pod, and THREE Ironclad Dreadnoughts in drop pods). Since the game was based on which player on the team got the least kill points, we were at a marked disadvantage...it was bordering on impossible for my Nid ally to go net-positive on kill points with her fragile squads, and I only did remotely well getting them because I had a lord running around targetting drop pods with his Warscythe. The numbers were close, but the game surely was not - all the Nids had left on the board when the game ended were two Stealer squads that were broken and had no chance to rally, and all we had to show for it was two dead Terminator squads, Belial's death, and one of the Ironclads destroyed (and a drop pod or two, but those hardly affect the game).

Though we did not win the tournament, that is not to say that we did not win a prize! My teammate is absolutely amazing with a paint brush and does awesome conversion work, so between that, the awesome display boards she made for us, the green-glowing Monolith that she created for me, and a distinct lack of completely painted opponents, we were able to take home the prize of best paint job! If I was able to get a hold of a decent camera, I'd post pictures of our armies and the trophy, but alas, such is the life of a college student.

Anyhow, I've been putting it off because it's fairly simple, but next week I'll be talking about Annihilation's do's and don't's.

Necrons: Capture and Control

So next in our lineup for missions is what I like to call the Drawmaster: Capture and Control. I say this because there are only two objectives for this mission, one in each deployment zone. Basically, I have my objective and will defend it with everything I've got, and you've got your objective and will probably do the same. However, Necrons do have a few tricks that can steal a win in this sort of game.

The most obvious tactic is to try just shooting your opponent off of their own objective. It's not terribly sophisticated, but hey, he can't control his objective if he doesn't have any troops, right? The problem with this is that it'll put your opponent into draw-seeking mode, where he'll rush forward with his non-troops (vehicles are particularly effective in this against Necrons) so that he can contest your objective. As I said before, it's very hard for Necrons to stop enemy vehicles from doing this unless you're packing a Lord with a Warscythe or, even better, the Deceiver. If he wants to sit that Land Raider on the objective, that's fine. It means that we don't need to roll to hit in close combat with it.

If you're bringing a Monolith along for the ride, take an especially long look at your opponent's list. If he doesn't have anything that can actually destroy it, in close combat or otherwise (Eldar lists without a Wraithlord or Wraithguard are prime examples of this), this battle could become really easy for you. So easy, in fact, that only one objective will ever need to be focused on. Deep Strike your Monolith near the enemy's objective, and steadily move towards it until you're standing on it. If he can't destroy it outright, there's no way for him to get it off of there, so he'll need to focus all of his efforts on getting your objective. You can plan for this before the game even starts, but your opponent may not, leaving several units awkwardly out of position. If things get too rough on your side of the board, try to move your Warriors close enough to teleport to that Monolith and steal his objective right from under his nose.

Naturally, you'll also need to worry about your opponent going after Phase Out, but that's essentially the same as in Seize Ground, so I won't go over the details (read my last post).

Sorry this is a bit short, but there's really not a whole lot to say that's unique about Capture and Control (it's also my least favorite game type). Many of the strategies from Seize Ground still apply, so look over those again but apply them to the two-objective scenario instead of 3-5.

Next week, rather than going over Kill Points, I'll give you guys a rundown of the team-tournament I'll be going to on Saturday. It's 1000 points per player, with 1 HQ and 1 Troop minimums and each team shares a FOC. I'll be using my Necrons with an Eldar player who likes her jetbikes. Just because the idea of having 2 T8 monsters on the board at once seems fairly nasty, she'll be bringing one Wraithlord along for the ride. My list will probably be as follows:

Deceiver
10 Necron Warriors
10 Necron Immortals
Monolith

Simple, but has the potential to be brutally effective when combined with some Jetbike scoring units and other vehicular support. I'll let you all know how it goes next week!

Necrons: Seize Ground

This is the game type where there are D3+2 objectives, and they usually manage to not be in the deployment zones (Dawn of War being the obvious exception). Overall, I find this one the hardest for Necrons, simply because we can't afford the abundance of scoring units that other armies can (6 points for an Ork Boy? Really?). Even at the 2000 points level, I try to keep with only 2 squads of Necron Warriors, so for me this game type devolves to one real goal: hold a single objective and ensure that all the others are contested. Keep that in mind as you place the objectives.

Against assault-oriented armies, that means you'll want one of the objectives on your side of the table, and all the others on the opposing side. It sounds silly when first said, but if you think about it, it'll make sense - in assault-heavy armies like Orks or Tyranids, few options exist for true ranged scoring units. Thus, in order to keep hold of these objectives, your opponent will have to leave some of his assault troops in the back.

This is where we, again, try to create the win-win scenario: If they try to win through objectives, they can't send their full force against the objective we're holding, and we're free to contest theirs on the last turn with sudden, lightning fast movements like turbo-boosting Scarabs or a Veil of Darkness teleport. Or, if you think they're going to try to Phase you Out, have your Warriors come onto the field through Deep Striking Monoliths or, again, Veil of Darkness them to the opposing end of the table. This both prevents the Phase Out (it's nigh-impossible to Phase Necrons Out without killing the Warriors) and gives you multiple objectives to choose from, where most of their forces will likely be concentrated around the single one on your end of the table.

Against shooty armies, you'll be doing the opposite, trying to hoard as many objectives near you as possible to keep them from gunlining you down. This will turn the game into a shooting war, but Necrons excel at focus-fire, so you should be able to quickly eliminate your opponents scoring units to secure victory. The real danger to watch for here is high-power shooting from vehicles - Leman Russes and Hammerheads being prime examples. These are dangers that must be suppressed, because with AV14 or a cover save regardless of whether the vehicle is in the open makes it very difficult for you to truly end such a threat. Allow one or two of your units to specifically deal with such threats - A squad of Immortals with a Veil of Darkness Lord excels at this duty. Once you destroy the main gun, ignore the vehicle and continue down the list of such threats. Only deviate when one of the crippled vehicles starts dashing forward - This means that your opponent is going to try to contest your objectives by sitting a vehicle on top of it. Make sure, at all costs, that this does not happen, because it is nearly impossible for the Necrons to actually destroy a vehicle. Sure, you can immobilize it and remove its main gun, but that doesn't stop it from contesting the objective unless you manage to immobilize it before it gets there. If a vehicle does slip through, you're probably better off trying to move to another objective than trying to destroy the tank.

Another important note when it comes to this game type: A single unit can hold multiple objectives. You've got 10 warriors in a squad. Each one can be up to 2" away from the next, and you need to be within 3" of an objective to score. That means that you have a range of up to 24" for controlling objectives. If they're placed properly and you get lucky by not losing any warriors (unrealistic, I know), you can potentially hold 3 objectives with a single squad! More likely, this means that a squad down to 5 Warriors can still potentially hold 2 objectives at once. Never forget this opportunity to steal a victory by getting two points with one scoring unit.

That's all for now, next week I'll go over how to win the Draw-master: Capture and Control.

Unit Breakdown: Scarab Swarms

It might seem that there's little to talk about when it comes to scarab swarms - most see them as little more than a really fast tarpit. However, they really have an incredible array of uses, and when paired with a Destroyer Lord with Lightning Fields, can be one of the most versatile and effective units in the codex.

Here are just a few of the ways you can use Scarab Swarms to destroy your opponent's plans.

--> Tarpit. This is the obvious one. Everyone expects them to be used this way, but they have good reason for it: Scarabs are extremely adept at tying up enemy units of any kind in close combat. Need some Dark Reapers to stop shooting at you? Throw scarabs at 'em. If the Scarabs don't kill them outright, at the very least the Reapers will be stuck bashing bugs for the rest of the game.

--> Assault denial. Slightly less common, but still a fairly well known tactic. Keep your Scarabs behind your lines for most of the game, and then, once a squad is threatened by an assault, turbo-boost them directly in front of the would-be assaulters and watch your opponent cry. This strategy relies on knowing when you're going to be assaulted, so it's a good idea to keep in mind how far your Scarabs can move in one turn and how quickly enemy assaulters can get into their positions. For example, you'd need to know that Orks in a Trukk with a Red Paint Job have a threat range of 27" for assaults (Trukk moves 19", Orks deploy out 2", then assault 6" because Trukks are open-topped).

--> Tank hunters. Scarabs are increasingly becoming the Necron commander's unit of choice for dealing with vehicles. For a small upgrade that brings a 10-Scarab squad to 160 points, you can cause scarabs to glance vehicles on a 6, as though they had the Gauss rule in assault, even though they're strength 3. Since said 10-base squad gets 40 attacks when charging, even a vehicle that moved at combat speed is looking at no less than 3 glancing hits - often 7 if the vehicle was stationary. This guarantees that the vehicle does nothing for the next turn, and even better, has a chance of permanently disrupting that vehicle by immobilizing it or destroying its weapon. Add a Destroyer Lord with a Warscythe here, and you have some real vehicle-killing potential (S 5 with 2d6 penetration on rear armor is nothing to sneeze at).

--> Objectives. Sadly, Scarabs can't hold objectives, but they can still contest 'em, or prevent enemies from even getting close to your own objectives. I've actually been in a position where a single 10-base squad of Scarabs was able to turbo-boost into all 3 objectives that my opponent was holding, stealing victory from the clutches of defeat. If you're expecting to use this tactic, it's best to hide your Scarabs away somewhere and deliberately do nothing with them for the first few turns of the game - I've waited as long as turn 5 before moving them beyond my initial deployment. If you make no mention of them and seem to pay no attention to what they should be doing, lesser opponents will often forget that they're there entirely, and won't take them into account for their strategy until it's too late.

--> Real assault unit. It seems silly to think of Scarabs this way, and really it only applies if you attach the Destroyer Lord I mentioned earlier to the squad. However, these guys can become real assault machines, especially against lower toughness/higher model count armies like Eldar or Imperial Guard. The Destroyer Lord can wreak havoc on almost any assault unit he encounters by ignoring their armor AND invulnerables, as well as being T6 with (ideally) a 4+ invulnerable save of his own... He really only needs to fear powerfists and the like. The Scarabs make a great escort him, providing ablative wounds for shooting (don't forget that a turbo-boosting Scarab Swarm has a 2+ cover save!) and millions of attacks in assault. The Lightning field makes them especially deadly if you throw them up against other assault units, like Berzerkers. For every unsaved wound that the attackers inflict on the swarms, they take a S3 hit back - essentially adding directly to the Scarab Swarms normal attacks. Again, though, it's important to remember that there's one thing this squad really fears in assaults...Power Fists. Don't send them up against a squad of Terminators, because every wound they inflict kills a full base, not just 1/3 of a base.

Looking back on this, most of it really isn't advanced tactics - experienced Necron players probably won't have learned anything new here - but it's still a good reference and helpful to newer players.

Anyhow, for the next article I think I'll change things up and talk about how Necrons can deal with specific game types.

I'm back! And a short discussion on Destroyers.

It's been a while since I've posted, but I am now back in business. Recently upgraded my computer to Windows 7, and life's been throwing a lot of stuff at me recently, so updating the blog has been fairly low on the priority list. But now that I'm here again, I'd like to talk a bit about Destroyers.

Destroyers are the biggest heavy hitters in the Necron codex. At Strength 6 and with 3 shots per Destroyer, you get both high volume (15 shots per squad) and high return per shot (18% chance to kill a marine with each shot fired, or a 27% chance to kill a marine with each hit). What's more, their shooting is good against just about everything: The Gauss rule allows them to become long-range tank hunters for the zombie-robots, even if the target is above Armor 12, and they can annihilate almost any enemy infantry of any type. They're even great for picking out T3 characters, like the super-annoying Eldar Farseer on a jetbike. Then, when you add in the fact that they are jetbikes themselves and have a flat T5, making WBB denial extremely difficult, it's no wonder that these guys are relied on heavily by current Necron players: Many of them see the Destroyer as the only really good model left in the codex.

Of course, there is one fairly major problem with Destroyers, and it counts double against Necrons because of Phase Out: 50 points per model, and only squads of 3-5.

Even with the Destroyer's awesome firepower and mobility, I often find it hard to justify taking large amounts of them (by that, I mean more than 5) in anything under 2000 points...They just hurt the Phase Out number too much, especially if you plan to also use things like the Deceiver or a Monolith. So when you're limited in how many Destroyers you can efficiently field, how do you prioritize targets for their shooting? Well, there are a few ways to go about it.

--> Long range: Destroyers have 36" range, more than anything else in the codex. Therefore, it's often a good idea to use it. Because most 'Crons have an optimum range of 24", they're often forced to take down immediate threats only, dealing with things as they come into range and hoping that one or two volleys is enough to at least slow it down. Destroyers, on the other hand, have the luxury of planning ahead - not only can they help you take down an immediate threat, but if your other units have it under control (tip: resolve Destroyer shooting last in most circumstances to optimize target priority), they are some of the only units in the codex that can actually eliminate a threat before it becomes dangerous - giving the rest of your units time to focus on other things.

--> High value target: Sometimes, there's a unit that simply has to go down now. You might have other troops in the area who could deal with it, but it would be more effective for them to target a different unit - Say, Warriors able to shoot at some nearby Hormagaunts rather than the rampaging Carnifex about to crash into them. Destroyers are clearly the better choice for wounding the 'fex, wounding it on 4's rather than 6's, and their presence also allows the Warriors to soften up the Gaunt squad rather than feebly attempt to destroy the more pressing threat.

Last but not least, never forget the Destroyer's mobility. Moving as a Jetbike is a precious thing in our codex, where movement is a key weakness. Do not hesitate to jump them forward 24" to contest an objective when turn 6 rolls around - unless there's a power fist nearby, they can probably handle any troop squad nearby until the game ends.

Next week I'll go into more detail on Scarab Swarms, and talk a bit about the Destroyer Lord as well.

Unit Breakdown: The Deceiver

When you don't consider how effective he is with the entirety of the Necron army, the Deceiver seems like a terrible waste of 300 points. Yeah, he's hard to kill with T8 and 5 wounds...but an Eldar Wraithlord is almost as durable for as little as a third of the cost. It's also just as strong in assaults, and is actually capable of shooting as well...something the Deceiver can't do. Ultimately, the Deceiver (and even moreso, his counterpart the Nightbringer) is among the least point-efficient Monstrous Creatures available.

But, as with just about everything else in this codex, you have to look at the bigger picture with this guy. He has amazing synergy with everything else in the Necron army. Ultimately, however, he boils down to two main roles: Shock Absorber and Damage Control.

Let's take a look at Shock Absorber first:

I've already mentioned the Deceiver's great durability, and made the point that Wraithlords fulfill this same function for the Eldar for less. But here's the thing: when an Eldar player's opponent shoots at a Wraithlord, he's using weapons designed to take down vehicles. However, with upgrades like Holo Fields and Spirit Stones, Eldar vehicles are already very durable... They really don't need a giant pincushion to protect them. However, Necrons don't really have vehicles for those anti-tank weapons to fire at - the only option is the Monolith, but most of those weapons barely affect it, if they even do at all. This means that, in an army without the C'Tan, those lascannons, rockets, meltas, etc, are going to be firing at one of two things: your Destroyers/Heavy Destroyers, who have such low model count that the entire squad can easily be taken down by a few high-strength shots, or your Warriors, preventing your all-important We'll Be Back! roll. Sure, they'll only take a few down per turn, but those ones are going to be staying down for good.

With the Deceiver, however, everybody panics. They find out that he's got 5 wounds and a 4+ invulnerable save, and they start getting crazy, thinking that they simply have to bring that monster down. Often, new players will go nuts over the idea that he ignores invulnerable saves with his 4 S9 attacks, instant-killing any Space Marine IC without him standing even a remote chance. You put him in the front of your army, and made him an obvious target...He's actually daring your opponent to try to assault your Necrons, just so he can show those assault troops how it's done.

Regardless of what it is that's shooting him, the Deceiver is going to take a stupid amount of punishment before he goes down. Most opponents I've played tend to shoot anything that's strength 5 or higher and in range at our Golden Boy, even if it only wounds on 6's. And whatever's shooting him, isn't shooting your 'Crons. This allows them to rain death with their powerful guns in return fire. And if you're playing against an assault army, and he survives the shooting onslaught, he can continue this role by standing between the assault troops and your precious Necrons. That squad of Stormboyz rushing headlong towards your lines isn't nearly as scary when they have to get through the Deceiver before they can do any damage to your real troops.

Secondarily, the Deceiver can also be useful in damage control. That is, he can throw around Morale and Pinning checks at will to your enemy's units. Fearless? Don't care, you take 'em anyhow. Granted, most fearless units are Ld 10, so it doesn't matter much, but people tend to get really annoyed when you make their Khorne Berzerkers take a pinning check.

If there's a single unit that you need to make sure simply can't do anything for the next turn, the Deceiver's your best bet. I used to think that the Morale check was best most of the time, because it caused your enemy to move away from you rather than just sit still, but I've come to see the value of the Pinning check as well. Morale is best against non-fearless assault troops - it gives you valuable ground, probably allowing an extra round of shooting (if not two!) before they get back in the fight.

Note that I said non-fearless; when the Deceiver forces a morale check on a fearless unit, and they fail, they don't run away. Instead, according to the FAQ, they take armor saves for each point they failed by (as if they had lost an assault by that amount). Weird, and not nearly as effective as one would have hoped, but whatever. Therefore, it's better to pin these guys, just keeping them sitting still. It's also better to pin Space Marines in general: with And They Shall Know No Fear, morale checks have almost no real effectiveness against them, unless they're right on the edge of the board, destroying them.

Also, don't forget the feints you can pull with Grand Illusion. You want to be going first anyways, but this ability seals the deal. If you go first, you can put units on a flank, seeming easy targets, and allow your opponent to respond to this by sending a unit or two to deal with it. Then, before the game begins, you can redeploy those units back with your main force, essentially neutralizing a small part of your enemy's army before the game even begins. Another powerful use is in the Dawn of War deployment type. If you're fighting an assault army, you may be afraid of how close they can start to you - 18" from your closest unit seems to be way too close, especially since you can't bring your full firepower to bear for a full turn. The Deceiver can solve this problem: when you deploy first, rank up one squad of your warriors in a line, with maximum coherency distance, along the 24" mark. If you can get them to cover a decent portion of the middle of the board, your opponent will only have the initial 6" along his board edge to deploy on - not a lot of room for getting objectives or for getting close to you. Then, use Grand Illusion to bring your Warriors back to a more reasonable position, and watch the tears streak down your opponent's face! Yes, it's a dirty trick, but let's face it, Necron players need all the help they can get right now.

Well, it's been a fun chat, and I'll post again next week!

Unit Breakdown: Necron Warriors

Realistically speaking, Necron Warriors are, point for point, among the worst possible units in the entire game of 40k. At 18 points a model, and a ten-man (robot) minimum squad size, Every Necron player will have a decent chunk of his points devoted to this subpar unit. And what does he get for those points? Let's compare them to a generic Tactical Space marine, since they are so similar statwise.

Pros of the Necron Warrior:

--> Higher Leadership (10 regardless of Sergeant)

--> Basic gun that can glance vehicles on 6's

--> We'll Be Back!

Pros of the Imperial Space Marine:

--> Higher Initiative (the Warrior only has 2, making Sweeping Advances inevitable in assault)

--> And They Shall Know No Fear (making the Warrior's higher leadership almost irrelevant)

--> Combat Tactics (Necrons are logical about retreating rather than fearful, but Marines are the ones that choose when to run? *mind blown*)

--> Ability to take heavy/special weapons in the squad (allowing the squad to actually DESTROY vehicles or specialize against infantry)

--> Combat Squadding to increase objective-capturing power

And with all that makes the Marine better, he costs 1 point per model less!

Now I've mentioned before the Necron weakness in the assault phase. Warriors are the main reason that this is the case: With only average toughness and WBB not kicking in until the beginning of the Necron player's turn, it is very easy for a dedicated assault unit of any kind to beat a Warrior squad in combat by 4 or even 5. This reduces our awesome leadership 10 to a meager 5-6, so the Warriors will inevitably try to run away. When this happens, our Initiative of 2 will practically guarantee a sweeping advance, destroying the entire squad, including any model that was waiting for WBB.

However, because they are the only Troop choice in the Necron arsenal, we are required to field two of these terrible units. So the real question becomes not how do we avoid putting them in the army, but rather how do we turn this unit around and make it an effective part of the army?

The answer to this lies in one major aspect of the Warrior: its reputation. It sucks. Everyone knows it sucks, and everyone knows how to exploit it to beat the Necrons (killing 20 Warriors will in almost all cases bring you dangerously close to your Phase Out number). So what is its best use? Well there's really only one option.

Bait.

The Tau codex describes a battle tactic called the Kauyon, or Patient Hunter strategy. Quite simply, it involves using a unit to lure enemy troops into a position where the "hunters" can eliminate the target with little difficulty. Although it may seem odd drawing from the battle philosophy of an opposing army, Warriors are perfectly suited to a role as the lure, because of both their reputation as described above and the movement synergy they have with other units in the army.

Think of it this way: If an assault squad is bearing down on your Warriors, take the time while they advance to fortify the position of the Warriors. A key aspect of this is having either a Monolith or a Lord with Veil of Darkness near the "lure" squad of Warriors, as well as having enough firepower to at least severely punish the assault squad as it closes in. It is also worth noting that this tactic becomes significantly more effective if the assault squad's transport, if it has one, is immobilized or destroyed. Once the assaulters get close enough that you know they will assault on the opponent's following turn, use either the Monolith or the Lord to teleport the squad away from the conflict. Then, you should be in position to easily hammer away at the target until it is either dead or only a couple of models are still standing.

If for some reason you don't have any escape options incorporated into your list, you can always use the old standby of a counterassault: Scarab Swarms and large groups of Wraiths can be very effective at delaying and even destroying anything that gets too close to your lines.

Hope this helps, and we'll chat again next week!

Necron Tactica Part 4

So, when asked about the number-one weakness of the Necrons, most experienced 40k players will tell you that it's Phase Out. The Necron player must constantly be aware of it, as it allows his opponent an extra victory condition - regardless of the mission, someone playing against Necrons can win just by killing lots of Necrons.

However, Phase Out can be used as a way to psych your opponent out of going after the real objectives by building your list to make Phase Out seem like a weakness.

You see, when most opponents check out a Necron player for Phase Out, they usually don't care about which Necrons are being fielded: They only really care about the number of Necrons, of any type, that they need to kill.

Therefore, consider the following example. For 840 points, you can buy 30 Immortals (I realize that this is unrealistic, but the example is easier to understand in the extreme). For the same amount of points, you can buy 46 Warriors - 16 more bodies, meaning that your Phase Out number will be roughly 4 models higher. The warriors seem, for the purposes of Phase Out, like the better choice, right?

However, when you factor in the Immortals' toughness 5 and significantly higher firepower, you might think twice. The Gauss Blaster shoots twice as often at long range as the Flayer, has strength 5 (allowing it to kill more enemies per shot than Warriors), and can easily be fired on the move, allowing a skilled Necron player to delay assaults. This means that, in an isolated scenario, fewer enemies will be capable of attacking the Immortals, and each enemy model will have a harder time killing each Immortal due to the higher toughness. Against anything short of massed plasma fire, the Immortals will go farther to prevent Phase Out than an equal points-value of Warriors ever will.

But while your opponent probably knows that Immortals are basically upgraded, more expensive Warriors, he probably won't link them to helping you with Phase Out: At best, he'll probably see them as a compromise between the awesome offensive power of the Destroyer and the perceived defensive power of the Warrior. So when he finds out that your Phase Out number is low, he may very well try to Phase you Out, when you know that he isn't likely to manage it.

This becomes a win-win scenario for the Necron player. On the one hand, the opponent may try to ignore the normal mission completely, gearing solely for Phase Out. This pits your army's greatest strength, its durability, against your opponent's offensive power, regardless of whether it is his army's main strength. With the great firepower of Immortals and a few back-up plans to avoid the truly nasty assaults (Terminators of any kind come immediately to mind), Phase Out should be fairly easy to avoid, and your Warriors can be in a comfortable position to nab objectives by the end of the game.

On the other hand, the opponent could attempt to go for Phase Out, but still keep one or two of his troops camping objectives as a last resort. This usually turns out better for the Necron player, as now the opponent is attacking your greatest strength with only part of his force. Treat this in exactly the same way as the first scenario, but this time try to keep one of your faster units in position to contest an enemy objective at the end of the game.

On a limited scale, Destroyers can also be effective for creating a tempting Phase Out number, but the Necron player must be much more careful, as Destroyers rely primarily on their mobility to create durability, and even this usually doesn't help them against enemy shooty armies.

That's all for now! The next topic is gonna be a surprise, mainly because I don't know what I want to talk about yet.

Necron Tactica Part 3

Because it's probably the question that is most important - and most obvious, with 40k's current emphasis on vehicles - I'm going to address the Necron ability to deal with mech armies.

I was a bit surprised when last night I found out that Fritz, AKA wayofsaimhann on youtube, actually posted some useful information about Necrons the other day. He's got quite a list of videos dealing with Necron tactics, but most of the initial ones deal with a 50-warrior list, which I think is a terrible waste of resources...but that's a topic for another time. Recently, he posted a vid about Necron anti-tank options that really hits the nail on the head. Basically, the goal with the Necrons isn't to destroy your opponents' vehicles, but rather to nullify them.

As Necrons, we really have very few options for true tankhunting. The Monolith's Particle Whip is ok if it's in range, but usually better spent dealing with infantry targets. Heavy Destroyers are commonly cited, but 65 points for a mobile lascannon on a single-wound model just doesn't cut it - it'll get shot up before it has a chance to really do anything. That leaves our anti-mech assaults, but anything that can kill a vehicle in close combat for Necrons usually has a much more important job to do somewhere else - The C'Tan or Lord w/ Warscythe being prime examples.

So our only remaining option then is to ensure that those vehicles can't hurt us. Glancing got nerfed heavily in 5th Ed, but it can still be very useful in buying time... And the longer the game goes, the more it favors the Crons because of our insane durability. Consider Fritz's example of the Vindicator: it's S10 AP2 blast shot makes it a major threat to everything in the army, ignoring armor, We'll Be Back!, and our high toughness. In order to fire, however, it has to move right into the Necron sweet spot - 24".

Bear with me, we're about to do a bit of Mathhammering. Feel free to skip this part if you don't believe in math.

A squad of 10 warriors firing from maximum range at a Vindicator has pretty good odds. With 10 shots, 6-7 will hit (33.3% miss rate). Of those you're almost certain to get one glance (16.67 chance to glance any target). Now we're in business, because there is nothing that can happen on a glance that the Necron player wouldn't want:

1-3: Shaken. It can't fire. 10 S4 shots to make sure a S10 Ordnance can't fire? I'd take that trade any day.

4: Stunned. Same as above, but now it can't even get away.

5: Weapon Destroyed. The "ideal" result against a Vindicator...I can now completely ignore it for the entire game.

6: Immobilized. Not quite as good as the other results in the short-term, but since a Vindicator is so short-ranged, I can ignore it now as long as I avoid its field of fire. For obvious reasons, this is the ideal result against a transport.

Speaking of transports, it's worth bringing up that most troop-transports can take a relatively cheap (15 points) upgrade that makes it much harder for glances to affect them - Extra Armor. Stunned becoming Shaken may not seem like much, but when all you do is glance, that means your opponent just halved your chances of keeping that transport from moving for a turn. It's in cases such as this that you bring out your big guns - Destroyers. Their S6 is extremely potent against most transports (excluding the Land Raider variants, which I'll admit are very tough to deal with as Necrons), especially since they have the mobility to pull off side shots against Chimeras and the like. Make sure you know at the beginning of the game which transports your opponent has put extra armor (or its equivalent) on - these are the ones that you need the Destroyers to focus on.

This is getting kind of long again, so I'll end it here for now. I'll save the discussion of vehicles contesting your objectives for when I go into more detail on the mission types and how hey affect your play...though that won't be next week's topic. I think I'll talk about Phase Out next.

Necron Tactica Part 2

So for this note, I'd like to talk a bit more about specific Necron units and their uses (or lack thereof). Let's take a standard size list for Necrons: 1500, including many units that are commonly found in a Necron army list:

HQ: Necron Lord, Warscythe, Gaze of Flame, Phase Shifter, Phylactery, Resurrection Orb

Elite: Immortals (10)

Troops: Warriors (10)

Troops: Warriors (10)

Fast Attack: Destroyers (5)

Fast Attack: Scarab Swarms with Disruption Fields (10)

Heavy Support: Monolith

Total: 1495 Points

Let's break this list down, one unit at a time:

The Lord is your best bet at defending your Necrons from assaults. As such, he should stay near your infantry block to support them with his Resurrection Orb, and he should be attached to your front-line unit to protect them with the Gaze of Flame. The Phylactery and Phase Shifter are "bonus points" that can drastically improve his durability in both close combat and shooting (you'll want to assign him AP 2/3 wounds so that you can save as many Necrons as possible).

Don't let the two squads of Warriors fool you: The Immortals are the real backbone of this army. This unit takes a HUGE amount of punishment with its toughness 5, rarely needs the support of a Resurrection Orb, and has the ability to shoot a strength 5 gun after moving with no penalty! These guys are your ultimate defense against Phase Out, the reason that the strategy won't work for your opponents - it takes an inefficient amount of firepower to bring these suckers down, in shooting and in assault, if used properly.

The Warriors are NOT in this army to be part of the main battle...in fact, I start almost every game, objective or otherwise, with all of my Warriors in reserve (A tactic that can be seen in a youtube video from Beasts of War). However you choose to do so, make sure that you deploy your Warriors (and objectives, more on this later), separate from your main force. An excellent way to do this is *castling* your army on one side of the board, and letting your Warriors arrive from reserves on the other side (usually with the Lord attached to one of the squads). This forces your opponent to make a choice: Do they split their forces to deal with the Warriors that are on the opposite end of the table, do they change course and gun everything for the weak link in your army, or do they ignore the warriors and attempt to destroy your heavy firepower? The more choices you force, the more likely your opponent is to make a mistake.

The Destroyers are your big guns. For my army, they are used primarily to pop transports, as they're one of the few units in the army that can destroy one - relatively easily - before it's gotten close enough to do its job. They're also great for hunting monstrous creatures like the Tyranid Carnifex or Hive Tyrant - wounding something like that on 4's really takes some of the bite out of it. Destroyers have another main purpose that in many cases outshines even their amazing firepower: they're mobile in an army that simply isn't. Being jetbikes, they are among the fastest units in the Necron arsenal, and each Destroyer is as durable as an Immortal (though there are fewer of them because of their high points-cost). This makes them great for last-turn objective grabs. However, they can become a crutch that Necron players tend to rely on too heavily. Yes, the unit is great, but taking 10 or more of them under 2000 points drastically reduces your model count, an important factor in Necron lists.

Scarabs are, in my opinion, the single best unit in the Necron army list. When a full-sized unit has 30 wounds, a 2+ cover save while getting into position, moves like jetbikes, and has 40 attacks on the charge for a mere 120 points...well, how can you say no to that? Especially when you can add 40 points to make those attacks glance vehicles on 6's? It just seems that every time I look at this unit, I find another use for them - tank hunting with the upgrade (Even the mighty Leman Russ or Land Raider will find itself utterly crippled if not wrecked when caught by a Scarab assault), tarpit for enemy shooters, assault screening, last-turn contesters...these little bugs do it all. Then, if you have the points and HQ slot to spare for a Destroyer Lord with Warscythe to run around with them, the unit becomes a real killing machine.

Ahh, the Monolith. So commonly used, so feared, and yet really, not all that strong. Yes, it's got a big gun (slightly stronger than a Leman Russ Battle Cannon). Yes, it can teleport your Necrons, even out of close combat (I won't lie, this is a VERY handy ability). And yes, it is AV 14 all around and ignores anything that gets 2d6 for penetration (so even if your enemy does bring anti-vehicular weapons, most will be ineffective). However, it has one drawback that is reall just typical of the Necrons, and yet so crucial on a tank with so little range - it can only move 6" per turn. That makes it, officially, the SLOWEST model in the GAME - even infantry with Slow and Purposeful can run in the shooting phase. This doesn't make the Monolith obsolete, but it does mean that you have to be more specific in the tank's goal. For example, DON'T use it as a primary offensive strategy - if you try to Deep Strike it near your enemy's lines, they'll just move away and leave the Monolith behind. Instead, use the behemoth as a distraction. If you fire its S9 AP3 Large Blast at a squad of marines that didn't think it needed cover the first turn, you can be sure that your opponent will throw everything he's got to try to take that Monolith down (which means that he isn't shooting your real killers, the Immortals and Destroyers). Similarly, Monoliths can be used to shut down firing lanes that you don't want to use. Got a group of Devastators on a hill blasting your forces with Plasma Cannons? The Monolith can block their line of sight quite easily. Using it in this way can also help to protect you from assaults. If that squad of terminators has to get around your Monolith to reach your more vulnerable Warriors, it has to get around an 8" barrier - the Monolith itself is 6x6", and the Termies must stay at least 1" away from it unless they assault it. Add in the ability to tank shock - slowly - and teleporting Necrons to the other side of it just as they get close, and you will probably have one very frustrated opponent. Just remember that the main goal of the Monolith isn't to kill your enemies, but rather to defend your troops. Make use of its massive size.

That's all for now! Next time I'll go over some broader tactics that this list can use to compete with the newer, flashier armies out there.

Necron Tactica Part 1

This is (hopefully) the first of many notes I'll be creating about tactics/ strategies in Warhammer 40k, mostly because I'm sick of all the really stupid stuff taht people post claiming that it's "good advice." Of course, for the moment I probably sound exactly like one of those people, but with any luck, this stuff should actually work for you. I'll also be compiling some evidence and suggestions from other sources, trying to filter out what little good advice there is in internet-land, and I'll also be incorporating a bit of MathHammer (sorry, only a little bit) to explain my reasoning.

So without further ado, my first tactics session involves the one aspect of 40k I know the most about: the Necrons. Yeah, I know, they're the one race that almost everyone who knows anything about 40k agrees needs a new codex the most...except for the Dark Eldar, Necron rules are the oldest in the game (Blood Angels might have come before also, but they're marines and as such are bound to get a new codex soon). However, with all the evidence showing that it'll be at least a year until our zombie-robot-alien friends receive their much needed update, I think that it's time for some people to dust off their shelved models and show the gaming community what real 'Cronnage can do.

To start off, let's take a look at what the Necrons are really good at. The "pros" list:

--> High durability (50% chance to stand back up after dying is very, very good)

--> Extremely versatile shooting (any Necron weapon can *damage* ANY target)

--> Often underestimated due to the army's poor usage in recent history

Now then, let's take a look at Necron weaknesses. The "cons" list:

--> Weakness in assault

--> Low mobility (no real transport hurts)

--> Phase-Out's alternate lose condition

--> Many overcosted units limits our real choices (who seriously takes Flayed Ones at 18 points per model?)

--> One subpar Troops choice can make objective games difficult

--> Shooty army with only medium range can create awkward tactical situations

From the beginning, it's fairly clear that the deck is stacked against the 'Crons. We have only a handful of strengths, and many would have you believe that our weaknesses are truly crippling.

Most experienced players see the Necrons almost as a joke at this point. And in many cases, they're right, because many Necron players seem stuck in a rut of using 4th Edition tactics in a 5th Edition environment. The simple fact is that most armies now win by specializing in the extreme: Mechanized Guard and Green-Tide Orks are excellent examples. If you throw 10 tanks at an enemy in 1250 points, they'll crumble, and a swarm of 100+ models at taht points level will have a similar effect. However, Necrons don't have these options: We're a low model-count army with only a single vehicle in our roster. We don't have the volume of fire to stand and shoot, but at the same time, we don't have the mobility for guerrilla tactics.

So what do we do? We adapt to the situation.

You see, the 5th edition metagame, whether it be infantry-heavy or mech-heavy in a given area, has really played to the Necrons' strengths. Everyone around us is specializing in a certain style of play, but the Necrons have both the versatility to take on any type of army with the same list and the durability to withstand the punishment that any list tries to throw at you. Even better, experienced players will often abandon the given scenario goals in favor of trying to phase you out, pitting your awesome against their firepower, which probably isn't designed to take out your style of army. In this way, I almost think that Phil Kelly did us a favor when he wrote the Phase Out rule. I am only saddened by how few Necron players choose to capitalize on this, and the massive number that instead live in fear of Phasing Out.

I suppose that after making a statement like that, it's time for me to get into specifics...but I'll leave that for the next note, or else this'll get waaaay too long. Until next time, my friends!

Welcome to my new blog!

Hello, my name is Cory, and this is my blog about Warhammer tactics...

Gawd, that's an awful way to start this off.

Alright, so here's the deal: I have two main reasons for starting this blog up. The first is that I really need a way to focus my thoughts on 40k strategy and, as weird as this sounds, force myself to think about all of my accumulated knowledge and actually apply it to games, and I figured that I might as well let the rest of the world share in this pool of knowledge, and even add to it. The second is that I really enjoy teaching games to people at any level - at tournaments, I have a really hard time keeping myself from telling others (including my current opponent!) what I believe the correct course of action is for a given situation.

Before this blog, I used the notes feature on Facebook to do this, but that's really inefficient and only allows a select few to actually see my posts, hence the switch. I've re-posted those notes for your reading pleasure. I'll be trying to make a new post every week, but we'll see how that actually turns out.

As for the posts themselves, most will revolve around tactics for the Necrons, mostly because they have so much potential that most players don't really tap into, though some will deal with general strategies in Warhammer 40k and the other armies that I own (Tau, Imperial Guard, even a few Space Marines). If you want more detail than that, read the opening paragraph of the first note mentioned above.

I'm looking forward to sharing some good discussion with the rest of the interwebz!