Obeisance Phalanx Review/Strategy

[Prot]

So I had my first Obeisance Phalanx game and it was a good test.

 

It was also a reminder of how "late game" the Necrons can be. I will say my list is probably not that important as I was trying to slap stuff together that had the criteria of 1) Complimenting each other and 2) having synergy with the keywords.

 

Shockingly, The Silent King, and Imotekh do NOT have the overlord key word making this awkward, and forcing a spam of either vanilla Overlords or Shroud Overlords.

 

For those who don't know, you need Overlord, or Lychguard or Triarch to trigger the overall effect of the detachment and/or most of the strats which are weird but good in effect. The detachment is giving you a poor man's sort of Oath of moment for a +1 to wound against a target you choose, but ONLY with the aforementioned keywords.

 

Basics of my list:

Imotekh (with 10 Lychguard)

10 Lychguard (Sword and board, and BACKWARDS NECKS!!! scary stuff!!)

2 x 10 Immortals with Plasmancer and Chronomancer

10 Warriors reapers with a Royal Warden

Illuminor Szeras

 Void Dragon

3 Skorpekh Destroyers

2 x 3 Tomb Blades

1 x5 Flayed ones

1 x 5 Triarch Praetorians

1 x 5 Deathstrikes

 

I think that's about it. I played against an Ork player who said he was turning his list down a bit. He did not include that beast of a character (Mozrog? the guy riding the squig and there's also another squad of squig riders he uses.) It was a very high numbers list and the game went quite wonky.

 

The game played out pretty much how I thought: He got first turn which I was happy about. He decided not to Wagh in T1. But nearly everything advanced. He did have a moderate array of shooting, but it was largely unfocused so my reanimation would bring back most of it.

 

My turn 1 I could not afford to be too aggressive as I knew the Wagh was coming.... We both had terrible first round secondaries, and I was pinned deep in my zone.

 

I shot up a squad, and targeted Ghaz and his squad of Mega Armoured Nobs with my +1 to wound. The shooting took out his entire Body guard of Nobs. Believe it or not, he lost 1 CP from this as I had that enhancement that makes you lose a CP if I kill something with the "character key word'" so his squad had it at the time.... crazy but it made a difference.

 

One thing of Note: I was noticing I might be overloaded on my left side, so I pushed up the Void Dragon. After shooting 3 Tomb blades with blast into a 20 man Ork squad I barely killed anything after feel no pain rolls.... so  I thought the Void Dragon with his sweep + extra attacks would clean house, but he didn't.... this would go back and forth for 4 Close combat sessions!

 

So I'm getting royally   out scored here, but he only hits 2 of my units with 4 of his, and Ghaz (alone with Makari now) only had a 1" advance, which was CP'd into a 2! So he was stuck out in the middle. I would later shoot him down with the same earlier squad, causing him to lose another CP!

 

Fast forward and the Ork player is rather depressed... claiming he's unable to kill me. However I pointed out he split a lot of his assaults.... and at the same time, between being tied up and having Necron shooting/close combat I also failed to kill a single squad!!!

 

He is up by 15 points, and here is the board state:

 

 

 

With Dawn of War deployment, this is my side/overhead. Ghaz is stuck in th emiddle. On the far upper left my Void Dragon is stuck in the close combat from hell. Lower left he has this closed top war truck thing that he wanted to try and it managed to kill a few Lychguard in the Wagh turn. My 3 Lokhusts elude cc that turn and would be decent, but not great this game. 

 

Lower middle is my troops straying away from CC, but closer to Szeras. But mid/right you can see my best Immortal squad is stuck in with a truck and boyz from the wagh and I'd struggle the whole game to put a dent in that unit.

 

 

 

Above: 3 tomb blades anxiously await a moment that never comes.... the Void Dragon would never kill this squad on his own, it would take the eventual arrival of the remaining Lychguard with Imotekh to clear it out... barely in T4.

 

 

Wonky picture above: from the Ork side of the table... same turn.

 

Eventually I would have a T4, T5 push back that sees me over come a 15 point deficit to win by 10 points.

 

Coles notes:

- I managed to take his home objective for 6 points with this trick: Deep strike 5 Triarch Praetorians, charge his little orks (can't remember the name.. the little guys T2.) kill them, and then during my Command Phase play the Phalanx strat to add 1 to my model's OC. He kills 2 models, both come back in my turn, I kill 1 of his 3 Kopters (OC 2 each). After reanimating my 2 models the OC stands as Necrons 6, Orks 4, and I steal his objective. That was big.

 

- Ghaz would die in the open without reaching CC. That was also huge.

 

- I tried very hard to reach the no man's objective on the right flank, but I just could not shift his 20 man boyz squad. I actually had a 5 man Flayed One squad get full crit hits by targeting the squad under half, getting  28 Hits with twin linked! Still only killed 6 boyz and the Warboss erased the squad! 

 

- Void Dragon was so important but looked horrible doing so. If he did not hold up the left flank, I would have been over run. Would I have liked him to be a little more 'killy'? Yea, but in hindsight he needed to be there.

 

- I wanted a high model count but in hindsight I think I really could have used a Monolith but with no other armour, it may have died quickly... (thinking against all comers, not just Orks). Not sure, but I really could have used the mobility and some way to get out of CC reliably as this was really killing my already lethargic damage out put.

 

Anyway it was a learning experience. I doubt I'd take the same list, and the detachment overall is a little niche based to be considered 'competitive' but it had its moments.

 

 

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

That enhancement is actually pretty interesting... I didn't figure that you could get double value out of it by eliminating a bodyguard and then the character itself! Triply useful if you manage to get a bodyguard, character, and lieutenant all out of it. I can see it being fairly powerful in small games where a single brick of a unit hits a lot harder, so advancing, say, a unit of Assault Intercessors with a captain and an apothecary in the unit (for instance, or other close assault unit), if you have the enhancement on a shooting squad, especially with a plasmancer for extra crits, you could remove his entire CP count over the course of a couple of turns.

 

An Obeisance Phalanx might actually be the detachment for me to run all of my triarch stalkers at once, plus my poor unit of 5 Praetorians. (I really do need to repaint them at some point.) Would it be effective? Oh C'tans, no. Would it be funny as all get-out? Yeah, probably. Definitely not a competitive list, but something fun to do - Especially as they all have a 4+ invuln! (Not the most flavorful Quantum Shielding, per se, but definitely one of the most reliable versions, IMO).

 

I do wish GW would fix the Szarekh and Imotekh issue. Obviously Imotekh is worth it just for being a CP battery each turn, but losing that overlord keyword hurts. Thanks for the writeup!

[DemonGSides]

That the enhancement works for killing bodyguards HAS to be an oversight. Like pointed out, you could completely rob an army of CP if they built their army how the game rewards you for doing so.

 

Admittedly it's hard to make it happen consistently, but it seems REALLY strong.  But RAW it definitely works the way you mentioned it.  I would think RAI it'd be a reward for fully wiping a squad, but not how it's currently set up within the rules.

 

Crazy! 

[Prot]

Well I played it as written. But I will say if I killed something out right... IE: a unit with it's HQ. I only counted it once. I mean to be fair the fix is easy: once per phase cap. And of course it's limited to the one Overlord holding it. The enhancements aren't bad in this one, and the Strats are okay and meaningful if used with good timing. Like I said, out OC'ing his Kopters was huge too.

 

The other Enhancement I used was the one to get full re-rolls if their on an objective. Combined with Immortals I almost made this work! Lol (I was never able to fully fire at something on an objective, but it has huge potential.)

 

The use case is so specific with this detachment, so in my opinion the payoff should be pretty good. 

 

I'm trying to convince myself to use it again. The detachment isn't easy to use, and I think I had a couple of bad units. I would keep all the appropriate key words but believe it or not this might be  one of the best use case scenarios for the Triarch stalker. I do have one Triarch Stalker, and maybe I could pull the Lokhusts, but they were critical. 

 

Trying to fit in a Monolith is looking tough in this one BUT there is motivation for not only the movement, but also the -1 damage strat in this detachment for vehicles. Plus could you imagine the look on your opponent's face when you lay down the other strat that lets Triarch keyword Precision with a Melta 4 heat ray??!?!! I'm starting to think some evil things with this detachment. I don't know if they will work, but they fell very "Necron Appropriate" for my meta!

Edited April 18 by Prot