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.