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!