I was asked to post battle reports of my Necrons. I haven't played any games with them in since the Battle Missions tournament (I'm gonna be playing Orks until August), but here's one I wrote on Dakka about a month ago. This basically shows my usual tactics against a Deep Striking army.
Tyranids
- The Swarmlord
- Flyrant w/ Hive Commander + other stuff (made no difference)
- Doom of Malan’Tai + spore
- 3 Zoanthropes + spore
- 3 Zoanthropes + spore
- 9 Genestealers w/ toxin sacs + Broodlord
- 9 Genestealers w/ toxin sacs + Broodlord
- 9 Genestealers w/ toxin sacs + Broodlord
Setup
Mission was Annihilation; deployment was Spearhead. I won the roll for first, and I considered giving it up because I was predicting he would put everything in reserve, but in the end I decided to take first.
Deployment
The quarter I chose was on the left side of the board. I deployed everything as far away from the short table edges as possible because I didn’t want to get roflpwned by his genestealers outflanking. Monoliths were close to the center; warriors and C’tan behind them with the Scarabs slightly to the left. Destroyers were lined up on my table edge right behind my warriors.
He kept everything in reserve as I had predicted. Stealers outflanking, Swarmlord walking on and everything else was deep striking.
Turns 1&2 – Necrons
I shuffled my models into a piece of area terrain about 3 inches off my table edge. Monoliths in front, C’tan and warriors surrounded by scarabs with my destroyers in the back, right along my table edge. All the jetbikes had turbo-boosted for the 3+ cover (2+ for scarabs). I left a big hole in the warriors to bait the Doom to DS there, then get killed by Big D.
Turn 2 – Tyranids
Everything came in from reserve. Swarmlord moved and ran forward. All of his stealers came in on my left in a big horde. The Zoanthropes dropped about 12” in front of my monoliths. His tyrant landed about 9” forward/left of my army. He would need to be killed next turn. DoM took the bait and landed right in the middle of my warriors, taking off 2 scarab wounds, then dropping its psychic power pie plate instant-killing 4 swarm bases (I forgot to take cover saves lol). The zoanthropes shoot at my monoliths, destroying one.
Turn 3 – Necrons
I turbo-boost my remaining scarab I shuffle my Necrons around a bit, getting my destroyers into LOS of the tyrant. My surviving monolith moves forward. DoM takes a wound off my C’tan. My shooting goes fantastically. The flyrant goes down to destroyer fire, while the Doom’s pod is killed by my warriors’ mass rapid-firing. Then I shoot my monolith’s pie plate at the left zoies. I hit and wound all three, and he fails all three invulnerable saves in some awesome luck. The Deceiver kills the Doom in assault. 4 KPs in one turn, not bad!
Turn 3 – Tyranids
At this point it’s an uphill battle for him. He has 3 Genestealer squads on the left, 1 Zoanthrope squad, the Swarmlord and 2 spores. Basically in this turn he moved and ran his Swarmlord forward, Zoies whiff on the Monolith, and his genestealers kill my scarab roadblock.
Kill Points – Necrons: 4, Tyranids: 2
Turn 4 – Necrons
I have not lost a single Necron model yet, so things are looking good. I portal my left warrior squad through the monolith to get them out of charge range of the Stealers and into Rapid Fire range of the Swarmlord. The Swarmlord has moved to within charge range of the Deceiver, so I move forward for the epic fight. I move my Destroyers out of charge range from the Genestealers, failing one DT test. They pop off some shots at one stealer squad, reducing it to just the Broodlord. Portalled warriors rapid fire the Swarmlord, taking off 2 wounds. Then the C’tan charges the Swarmlord taking off one wound while remaining fine himself.
Turn 4 – Tyranids
His Genestealers all move towards my army but nothing is in charge range. My opponent shoots his zoies at my ‘Lith and does no damage. I believe his shooting at the Monolith was a mistake because my warriors were all huddled up together after going through the portal and he could have blasted them with AP3. My deceiver leaves combat.
Kill Points – Necrons: 4, Tyranids: 2
Turn 5 – Necrons
My downed destroyer which had failed DT gets back up. Then, when I move to get in LOS of his swarmlord & zoies, I fail 3 out of 5 DT tests. I kill his Swarmlord and a spore from shooting and kill his Zoanthropes in CC with the deceiver. I had placed my Warriors so that his last spore and my one monolith were blocking his stealers from charging.
At this point he concedes, as none of his stealers are in charge range. Kill Points were 7-2 for the Necrons, and there was no way for him to phase me out as I had not lost a single “Necron” model aside from the 3 destroyers in WBB mode.
Post-game Thoughts (written a while ago but still applicable)
This game has reinforced my opinion on the ‘nids: they are not very good. Doom of Malan’Tai is useless against Necrons, and I was prepared for his all-reserve strategy. The Swarmlord did not fit into his list. If you want to start in reserve with ‘Nids, you need to have everything deepstriking, not some deepstriking, some outflanking and some walking on. If you do the latter it will be easy for an experienced opponent to kill you in bite-sized chunks. The all-deepstriking ‘Nid army is powerful purely for the shock factor, and if you have never played against it before then it can be pretty tough. However I have played several games against drop ‘Nids so I knew what to expect and I was not surprised by anything so this game was a breeze.
So to sum things up, ‘Nids should be deployed on the table and run across. However, it is very difficult for them because they lack the speed to get into the assault quickly and they still lack long ranged anti-tank (tyrannofex is not points-efficient). Another thing that I think is quite important is that ‘Nids have no way to tank shock (or do anything similar). The tank shock move is so underrated and without the ability to tank shock troops off an objective the codex will struggle in objective games.
Comment away...
Taking 1 game against a sub-par list played poorly isn't a good basis on judging an entire Codex.
ReplyDeleteNids are great. They aren't obviously awesome like IG, but they have enough variety and synergy to make plenty viable builds.
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ReplyDeleteIt wasn't just that game, it's been like 20 now. Yes that list was sub-par but it wasn't that bad and I have played against much better ones. I have also borrowed my friends' Tyranid armies and played with them.
ReplyDeleteThe codex doesn't have enough firepower to be a shooty army, so I think the best build is full-on, smash-your-face assault mode + some Hive Guard to pop transports. This still struggles because they make you choose between either speed (genestealers, gargoyles) or durability (Swarmlord, MCs). If you want both you have to pay out the ass for it (shrikes) which then makes them not durable (because you're paying so much for them).
I dunno, maybe we (the interwebz) just haven't figured out the real power builds yet. I have yet to see a 'Nid list that made me go, "wow, how the hell would I beat that?"
I'm a big fan of the 6-9 HG, 2 T-fex, 2 Tervigon, plus Harpies dealy. That's a ton of firepower going out at range with decent HtH built in if you field Tyrants, Warriors, or Raveners.
ReplyDeleteAll DS armies with spores and Trygons can be nasty too.
A lot of folks want to keep playing bugs like the last Codex and they really shouldn't be, hence the interwebs pre-emptive declaration of suck.
It's annoying, but no biggie since I can bring bugs anywhere and comp well and still stomp face :P
I think he would have done a lot better if he would've tried to Outflank on both sides with his genestealers. That way I couldn't have blocked off all of his stealers with my scarabs.
ReplyDeleteI think his Zoanthropes would have been better off shooting at my Warriors, especially when they got out of the portal because they were all packed together for the blast.
My opponent was actually a pretty good player, but this was maybe his second game with the Nids.
I find that facing necrons is very tough as nids. I am a nid player and my brother plays the necrons. In our first couple of games together, I seemed to have the upper hand and won a mix of annihilate/objective matches. He soon found out the power of 'liths and C'Tan, and it's been down hill for me since then. I can't seem to do anything better than a tie these days, though I will be blessed with an occasional (rare) phase out victory.
ReplyDeletepersonally, I have found that running up with fast waves of gaunts and raveners are decent, but will get cut down on their own. Lictors are perfect for disrupting rear destroyers and warriors and Malocs too for their deepstrike large blast.
Still, the best way, in my opinion, to kill the necrons is to hope for a phase out. i have the worst time dealing with living-metal 'liths and Star Gods...
Honestly, tyranids don't have any souls to harvest, and the necrons will never give any biomass, so, why can't we all just get along ;)
I think Tyranids are best in close combat. They dont really have any stand out shooters like you see in Space Marine armies but close combat is what they're best at. You can field swarms of hormagaunts with 3 attacks each if you charge and Genestealers when used well are lethal. They can rend on rolls of 6 which is a nice little bonus. Most Tyranids have a high initiative of 5's and 6. Have a Hive Tyrant to use psychic powers on your enemy and the gaunts and stealers will rip them apart.
ReplyDeleteIts true that aside from the Tyrannofex that the Tyranids don't have decent ranged anti tank weaponry. The Tyrannofex is good but quite pricey, so I rely on Carnifexes and Hive Tyrants to take out enemy tanks. I'm starting to use Zoanthrops now, but I've found that once they get stuck in close combat it's all over for them, whereas a Tyrant doesn't rely on psychic powers for killing tanks