Astartes Crusade Vs Necrons: Talk Table Tactics

[Dracos]

I was just going to do this in the Raven Guard but I think it’s worth getting a broader view. This is an army list I expect to see netlisted as we move forward. I played against a less refined version of it a month ago.

 

Novokh Battalion: -3 cp

 

HQ

Chronomancer, entropic lance, relic: veil of darkness 80

Chronomancer, entropic lance 80

Technomancer, canoptek cloak, -1 cp relic: voltaic staff 80

 

Troops

20 Warriors, Gauss Reaper 260

20 Warriors, Gauss Reaper 260

20 Warriors, Gauss Flayers 260

 

No Slot

2 Canoptek Cryptothralls 40

2 Canoptek Cryptothralls 40

 

Fast Attack

9 Scarab Swarm 135

3 Scarab Swarm 45

9 Tomb Blades, 8x twin gauss blaster, 1x twin Tesla carbine 270

 

Supreme Command +3 cp

Lord of War

The Silent King, Warlord: the triarch’s will 450 +3 cp

It’s a Richard Seigler list and I think a smart pilot can get a lot out of this list. I have some thoughts on how we should approach playing against a list like this in a competitive setting but before I share what I did a month ago and what I might do now I was hoping to hear some others thoughts before tainting them with my own.

 

Keep in mind we are talking about using a Take All Comers tournament list and how we would pilot it. That’ll be different for different Chapters .... so let’s keep an open line of ideas realizing our top kits work differently sometimes.

[Dracos]

I haven’t ran across the Silent King yet (he looks like a crazy hard nut to crack) but rest of this kind of list I have some experience against.

 

The problem is the Warriors are impossible to kill in one go. With 5 man squads Aggressors or Inceptors your killing 6 maybe 7 if you’re lucky. I had to remove one of the three units to cut down their Primary VPs and it took 10 Inceptors and 5 Aggressors two turns to take a 20 Necron unit off the board.

 

I just ignored the other two 20 Necron units. I just had to accept they were going to get their VP. It was that or let his heavy hitters have free rein on my own troops. Luckily most the army is slow. I hate Wraiths but they took a hit so yeah for that.

 

Raven Guard have the tools to kill characters which isn’t what it was but is actually important against a list like this.

 

 

It’s my thought you need to accept that taking out more than part of the silver tide will have quickly diminishing returns on the investment of resources need to get the job done. Make taking one unit of Warriors out your first priority. Then second kite around the edges and take out the stuff that is designed to kill your ObSec. Stay mobile and bringing units out of strategic reserve wouldn’t be a bad idea. Feint left and work the right.

 

In my game Intried to get my opponent to counter me on the left with the plan of evacuating my left via MoA and deep striking units to my right. Some units you just have to sacrifice. The Necron player castled up in the center more than I had hoped but did lean to my left. So I fed my infiltrating units into the center to keep him pushed back and busy while I ate his units on my right and took one of his DZ objectives. My Aggressors and Inceptors did a lot of work deleting of Warriors/ Swarm/ and a character but the real damage was grabbing the opposing object allowing me to max Primaries and keeping them from maxing also.

 

Secondaries were close also. Necrons don’t have to give up too many Secondaries if they don’t want to. A good Necron pilot is going to chose secondaries that have nothing to do with what they can do to us. It’s not a mirror match but darn if they aren’t close in my opinion.