Adressing some of the comments concerning Necrons

I got a plethora (Greek word, look it up) of comments regarding my last few posts regarding my thoughts on the new Necrons, especially my initial list. They will require some extensive answers so I'd better do a new post and try to answer them. Here it goes then:

Anonymous: you got like 15guys for troops total?!!! -.- auto lose in 2 of 3 missions

Warflake: The only I would do differently is increase the size of the Warrior squads

I know, troops look cringeworthingly thin. However keep in mind that they will never, ever, ever, EVER, disembark from their dedicated vehicles. Let me tell you an anecdotal little story. One of my favourite units in my Ork list is my 10 grots. They have won me more games than I care to remember (i.e. two or three). How? They just stay in reserves and when they eventually arrive they claim an objective for me or stay safe and sound behind some LoS blocking terrain.

That's how the Warriors going to function in my list. They are going to fly around in their Night Scythes and when (and if) these get destroyed they will go back to reserves. When they arrive they are going to hug terrain near my board edge and claim objectives. Safe and sound.

Is there any reason to buff up the squads? What's the real difference between 10 warriors and 5 warriors when it comes to offensive capability. One more glancing hit on a vehicle? One more dead MEQ? Not much really. There are much better and cost effective ways to increase their survivability than buying more of them and the Night Scythe is the answer. I will elaborate more in a future post.

Anonymous (I feel that my comments section is starting to resemble a certain image board): I don't have the feeling that you are making the most of the triarch stalker because all your shooting is already TL or so. I've tried triarch stalker with 3 units of 10 immortals, the result was fairly impressive.

Fair enough question. My knee jerk reaction would be that this is irrelevant since the targets of Stalkers and Immortals don't really overlap.But let try to further examine the case.

Let's say we have 10 Immortals with Gauss Blasters. On the move the have 20 S5 gauss shots at 18''. Now, the Stalker has 2 S8 AP1 at 30''. What kind of targets should we be shooting at the first few turns (out of melta and flamer range)? Definitely not infantry, that would be a waste (so not such a good synergy with the Immortals as far as this goes). Maybe low armour vehicles? Well, thats where all our S6 and S7 weapons will be shooting at and they are more than enough to stun lock most vehicles until out heavy hitters (Command Barges and Stalkers) close in for the kill. 

Ideally we should be shooting at AV12 and AV13 vehicles on the first few turn. Even with a glancing hit, the AP1 means we could do some damage (i.e. immobilising a Stormraven or destroying a weapon off a Vindicator). Gauss Blasters are not too bad for this job since a few glancing hits (around 3 if you consider that the weapons will be twin linked) are always welcomed. However as we are still in the first few turns they will definitely be out of range. 

As the game progresses their synergy might get stronger. We could use the Stalker on heavy flamer mode followed by 20 TL S5 weapons on some infantry guys. That would hurt most units. However I wouldn't want my Troops even near 18'' of an enemy scary infantry unit. They don't really belong to the midfield anyway. Even a Tactical Marine squad could beat them up in close combat.Better have warriors safe inside their Night Scythes than this. And 10 Immortals have almost the same cost as 2 Annihilation Barges, don't forget that.

If we equipment with Tesla Carbines then they will fall more in range of the Stalker but then their targets will completely not overlap. 30'' range is good and they will stay at a safe enough distance but losing the gauss weapons will mean that they will be almost useless against vehicles. They can still target light armour but that's not where the Stalker should be shooting and we still have loads of S7 and S6 ranged weapons for that job. Stalkers and Immortals don't work well together in a nutshell. 

Terrible T: "You've gone very shooty with your army. What happens when the enemy charge? You may remember I put wraiths or triarch praetorians behind some Necron units to jump over the combat and charge into the enemy from behind. I do feel you need some anti-combat units. My advice being the wraiths."

Mr.T has left a lot of comments lately and I thank him for that. Even though I don't agree with everything he says, he at least tries to back his claims with logical arguments each time (how fitting for a Necron Overlord that is). Let's see this one.

I've gone very shooty with this army because Necrons are basically a shooting army. They do have a few token close combat units and I love the new Wraiths (gonna write an article about the Wraithstar of my dreams one of these days) but they tend to be on the expensive side points wise. Also necron hybrid lists (infantry + mech together) don't seem to work too well for the Necrons. 

The main problem is that the Night Scythe is a pretty poor transport for close combat unit. I know, I just said it rocks for Warriors but for the same reason it will be awful for Lychguard and close combat oriented characters (they should stay inside their barges them). What's the use of zooming across half of the board when you're going straight back to reserves after your transport pops?

I generally have a beef with "counter charge" units. There are many problems with this concept. First of all, what will they do if you are against a very shooty opponent with no close combat units? Go forward and die to small arms fire? Unless they are very, very resilient (talking about ork biker nobs here) or have an awesome transport (Land Raiders) close combat units won't cut it. Can you imagine a bunch of Praetorians in the midfield? Everything with less than strength 6 will shoot at them, probably blowing them up to little pieces. 

In your best case scenario, if the opponent has some assault units so you keep them close by for a counter attack, consider the following points. First of all you won't get to use them until later in the game (probably turn 3 or 4) so you are wasting resources. With the same points you could have a shooty unit that you could put in use from turn 1. And most importantly, counter charging will probably come after whatever your opponent was planning to do with their close combat unit, i.e. killing your troops or assaulting your tanks. Hope this gives an insight of how I am thinking.