Necrons: Competitive or Crap, Part II

I posted my current 'competitive' list yesterday, and I got to test it against the Client Pimp in Question.

First, the comments!

Tao, from Tides of Madness, noted:

Convert one of your Particle beamers to a Gloom Prism on your Spyders. This will give you a 4+ Null to any force jibbing on the unit and also give you wound allocation (Beamer, Gloom, Naked)

With the 15 points you get from the conversion give yourself a 3 Whipcoil and 1 Partical Caster. This gives you 3 Whips and for better lack of terms 2 red shirts from wound allocation. In practice i find 3 whip coils has been the lowest amount to spread Inn 1 across the unit with the placement (alternating Whips).

With this change two of your units get wound allocation for some increased survivablity, and your spiders (who lack an invul) get force jibb protection.



I thought this was a very practical suggestion.  I actually intended to include a Gloom Prism on one of the guns both for psychic defense and allocation, but I had to cut it when trimming the list.  Practically speaking, I usually have only two rounds to farm Scarabs until I have to use them, at which point rolling 1's for wounds becomes less of an issue.

I'll be breaking down a Wraith to include a 3rd Whip Coil.

Darkwynn said:

I still think Necrons are one of the worst books GW has made in years. Too few units, too expenaive, the stats and assaulting issues are still there.

Looking through the 6th edition book also I don't see them being fixed by that. They suffer from major design flaw.

I'm not sure what to say to this except I don't agree.  Nick is much better at breaking down numbers and optimizing lists than I am - he's a lot like Evil Homer or the Client Pimp in Question like that - but I'm not sure Necrons are so easily quantified.

Destroyers are overpriced.  The Triarch options are also, in my opinion, and the Ghost Ark, but even then I don't believe it tells the whole story.  I've said from the beginning Necrons look to reward a mixed arms approach, and now I include the choice of Tesla and Gauss in that equation.

As my list demonstrates, I love the basic Necron Warrior, and I don't at all agree that a 5-strong Warrior or Immortal unit is the 'standard,' the former being a throw-away unit.  I'm liking beefy Warriors and trim Immortals...

...and the Tesla Carbine is ichiban!  In a practice game last night, my two 5-strong units consistently rolled five or so wounds against a Marine each turn, good for mopping up shots.

Last night I played the Client Pimp in Questions Purifier list:

You can review my list from yesterday's post, but on paper this army looks the stronger.  Tye made a comment before we began that he worried my list would suffer this weekend, at the tournament, once my tricks were known.

Speaks of confidence!  To be fair though, I thought I was at a huge disadvantage.

Not so much.  It was Capture and Control and Tye did narrowly burgle a win in Turn 5.  Had the game continued, I would likely have tabled him.  He had one Purifier on my objective facing down a 10-strong Warriors unit with Crytek, a Monolith, and a 5-strong Immortals.  He had two Rhinos, one Immobalized, and Crowe.

I also still had the other Monolith, three Spyders, and a 20-strong unit with the Overlord, Cryptek, and Warriors!  I was on his objective and he contested at the bottom of Turn 5 with a Rhino.

Don't get me wrong - it was a brilliant win and a great game, but it wasn't a blowout - in fact, the Kill Points and Victory Points were rather lopsided.  He simply gambled on the game ending early and won, and that's part of the game.

So why did I think I was at a big disadvantage?  Force Weapons.  Purifiers.  4d6 Armor Penetration each round from the Vindy.  Psycannons rending armor like tissue paper..!  And those things happened.

But I have toys, too!

More in Part III...