Massed Spyders?

[ZenPaladin]

So as a Necron player my weakest point is my assault. Its how you phase me out. Assult me, break me poof there goes the army.

Also all those dang tanks....

So my curent thought is Mased Spyders. 6 of them at least maybe the full 9. Depending on the size of the game.

Now obviously these guys aint taking any hard core hand to hand units. But they should put a dent in anything else. And 6+2d6 to the rear armor can crumple any vehicle out there. I know they are slow but if you spread them out not only are you providing potential help to we'll be back but you create zones where you are bound to have your rides charged, potentialy by several Spyders.

Sneaky trick? Have your spyder make one swarm token to create a 6 toughness unit with 5 wounds. Then have your Destroyer lord join and creat a second swarm. Voila - 11 wounds of 6 toughness non-instant killable goodness. Even if its kinda slow should be pretty tough in CC.

Anyone given this a shot? Not tournament quality I know but for casual games?

[Polonius]

You might want to check the rules for mixed toughness, as I thought they'd hurt you more than help you, but I could be wrong.

You're spending a lot of points on a slow assault unit that's still not great in HtH, hurts your phase out, and impacts your ability to avoid combat in the first place (with monolith teleportation or viel). It's called building to a weakness, and it's generally not a good idea in 40k. Necrons are bad at fighting in Hth, but good at avoiding it. Build to that strength, not the weakness of trying to be better at something you're never going to be great at.

Even if spyders were great in combat, your enemy, if at all smart, is still going to phase you out by hitting your necron units first.

[ZenPaladin]

Run and hide eh?

Doesn't seem like a lot of fun does it? I'm also not to sure how getting lots of spiders prevents me from using the veil.

Unless your just a fan of the multi-monolith approch. Which is far more expensive and prevents me from taking more necrons to evade phase out.

It seems to me that close combat is in-escapable in 40K you simply don't have games without it. So if you have to fight why not try to make a few of those melee's a win?

[Cyberscape7]

With all units except flayed ones and pariahs, you should try to shoot it out. But if assault is inevitable all I can see is CHARGE. Face it its better for you 2 get the extra attacks and hopefully win the assault.
BUT if you want a good assaulting tactic, you get a necron lord with chronometron, squad of pariahs and a squad of flayed ones. The flayed ones charge(make sure pariah and lord squadron are close enough to use equipment. The people have a max Ld. of 7 with terrifyin visage so will hopefully lose the assault. Then morale check, hopefully fails, then you get 3D6 for sweeping advance. that is my fave necron assault strategy.:cool:

[Prodigalson]

I have a friend that has been very successful with them.

Also remember, they are not slow to get to assault. They create swarms, which count as jetbikes. So they can keap forward, in a line (if you've made multiple stands) up to 12 inches ahead of the spider, and assault, dragging the spider into hand to hand behind them if necessary.

[BuFFo]

My Dark Eldar ate a Spyder army up during the 2006 Necronomicon. This was back when Necrons were good too, lol!

Avoid such an army at all costs, even for casual games. It sounds like a waste of money to me. Anything to do with Necrons is a waste of money actually...

[Gotthammer]

I have a friend that has been very successful with them.

Also remember, they are not slow to get to assault. They create swarms, which count as jetbikes. So they can keap forward, in a line (if you've made multiple stands) up to 12 inches ahead of the spider, and assault, dragging the spider into hand to hand behind them if necessary.

As they're counted as a single unit the unit moves at the speed of the slowest member, so the Scarabs will be stuck moving 6". Also they'd be massively out of unit coherency.

[karandras]

Well, I think it is an interesting idea. I certainly have not seen it in practice, played against it, or tried it myself, so I am really not sure how effective it would be.

They are quite costly models and a pain in the arse to assemble, so I guess I would start with three. Definitely have each Spyder generate a single Scarab Swarm to run with him (and yes they form a single unit and must maintain coherency).

I think Necrons require at least one Monolith for mobility reasons, so I don't really see running 9 Spyders. I think the unit is designed more as a counter assault unit than an offensive unit. That being said, I guess if you can pile 6 monsterous creatures into one area, you are bound to win some assaults... Good luck!!!

[Tombworld]

I've never run Spyders, and never missed 'em. Cutting straight to the chase, their WS is too low for them to be effective in CC. Couple that with their low Initiative, and good, but not awesome, strength, and you have a slow moving CC unit that's preventing you from spending points on better thing. Also, they're going to take a lot of time chasing after the other guy's units,(Likely getting blasted to peices), before getting locked in a fight in which they'll land a single blow every now and again if they're lucky, and if they aren't immediately overpowered by something that CAN fight well.
If you're willing to spend an astronomical amount of points on creating a Necron CC power-house, consider these options:

1) Get a C'Tan. Simple. Nice models, easy to assemble an hour or so of painting (Yep, that quick), and you have something with a huge array of gnarly powers, that's great fun to use, and unlike the Spyders, will actually be able to DO something when it gets into CC. And they are devastating when they get their hands on something...

2) 'Wraith-ring' Get a bundle of wraiths and a Necron lord w/destroyer body and any other 'pimping' to boost his CC ability that you want. Then zoom around chopping things up. Unlike the spyders, these babies will be able to manouver and get into CC very easily, and again, have the abilityto actually hit what they're swinging at.

3) Scarabs. Thaaaaasands of 'em! Yeah, they're weak, and generally poor in CC. They lack the strength of the spyders. But they'll munch up lighter opponents with ease, and tie up stronger ones for ages, which is all you'd really be able to hope for with spyders anyway. And again, they're so fast, at least they'll be able to reach the enemy before the game's over, unlike our cyber-arachnids.

4) Pariah/Flayed one tag team. Well, if you can get it to work, it'd be awesome. The Pariahs reduce the enemies Ld, then the flayed ones go nuts with their terror-causing behaviour. Alas, you pretty much rely on the enemy coming to you, but it'd be great if it works. Not really a fine idea for a competitive tactic, but I'd still rather try this than a mass spyder attack.

If you REALLY want to try using spyders, proxy them, or try integrating them into your army. Even do some theory hammer and bear the results in mind. But my advice would be to leave any CC unit that is awful in CC at home.

[karandras]

Tombworld - I don't really disagree with anything you said, but I think you may have been a little too harsh on the Tomb Spyder.

Certainly, the Wraith is better but the drawback is the Wraith takes up the FA slots preventing you from taking Scarabs. The Tomb Spyder idea is interesting because you could still load up on your FA choices of Wraiths and Scarabs if you wanted to while bolstering the assault capability of the army with the Spyders.

As to the cost, they have more attacks than Pariahs and their low WS will not be a factor unless they are fighting opponents with a WS of 5 or higher. Their initiative is no worse than any other Necron unit. A movement of 6" is pretty standard. 55 points is not cheap, but a Pariah is 36 and Wraith is 41. When you consider after producing a single Scarab Swarm the Tomb Spyder becomes a Toughness 6 model with 5 wounds and a 3+ armour save it is probably a bargain compared to the other two. To top things off, it is a monsterous creature, so its attacks ignore armour saves and roll two d6 for armour penetration!!! Strength 6 will be wounding on 2+ against pretty much everything.

I would bet that a squad of 3 Spyders for 155 points is actually far more survivable than 123 points for 3 Wraiths or 180 points for 5 Pariahs. I have been playing Necrons for several years now and like you have never run Spyders and never missed them, but after reading over this post and crunching some numbers, I think I might give them a try. I just wish they made a nice plastic kit as pinning really sucks!!! I will always still bring at least one Monolith though!!!

[Lerra]

Wraiths are too fragile and too expensive to really be viable, imo. Not to mention that they cost a lot of dollars.

If you're having trouble with assaults, scarabs are great. Every necron army should have at least one squad of scarabs because they are so tactically useful. If you take a C'tan, get the Deceiver. He will make elite assault units like terminators think very hard about engaging nearby units. Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers are also great because they are high priority targets that are very mobile. Assault armies will have a hard time catching them, but they will probably try anyways. Every turn that a unit chases you is one more turn for you to soften them up before you make them run or assault them.

[JamesP]

Let me start off by saying I know where you're coming from. I've been playing Necrons since the codex came out and everytime I see a tooled-up Marine/CSM/etc. close combat unit start to chew its way through my army, I want some way of beating those units on their own terms. I never get tired of shooting things like a Dalek who's just discovered shouting 'Exterminate!' but chopping things up in assault is fun and we don't get to do it that often, mutter, grumble...

And since fifth edition we also have the problem of being less able to shoot up vehicles as well.

I've tried the mass Spyder approach, using a mixture of proper models and proxies to try anything from 3 to 9 models. The results have been mixed but in the end, as others have said, I think that if you want to spend a lot of points in the Necron list, there are better things to spend your points on - Scarabs (love the "thousaaaands of them" quote), Destroyers, more Destroyers, still more Destroyers.

Where Spyders excel is supporting the resilience of models with the Necron rule and as units you can charge in to support combats. I usually take two or three and keep them with my main body of infantry. If one of those units is charged and lives through that turn, charge in a Spyder to turn the tide. Plus it lets you keep units of Destroyers apart and still benefit from WBB.

All fairly self-evident, apologies for that!

[ZenPaladin]

No thanks for all of your responces. I'm going to try a few spyders but I guess I will give up on my massed spyder idea.

Thinking more carefuly about it I understand that they still won't turn the tide against dangerous close combat foes. They can still be handy for a great many things but not worth taking in big numbers.

Now my little mind is working on the how much daka can I pour into one unit idea. IE 20 man warrior unit with Lord with Stalf of Light teleporting into 12 inches and unloading with support from an Immortal squad and maybe another squad that just dissembarked from a mono... could work as some nice poof hey look your surrounded kinda thing.

But can it survive the counter...

Oh and in the interst of not being cheesy I don't field C'tan outside of Apoc and we mostly don't use named characters at all. (I play mostly with friends.)

[Tombworld]

It feels like a bit of a shame to talk someone out of an original idea, but I think it's for the best; they just don't have what it takes to cause any real damage. They do have some uses; the particle projector can spit out 3 AP3 shots which isn't to be sniffed at, and they can really boost a units ability to get their WBB role. But any consideration of their close combat potential can be neutered with 'But they have WS2, Initiative 2, and the game's half over before they even get their claws on the enemy.'

I think that concentrating more on how to pour on the firepower is a better idea. And you have the right idea: Warriors, Destroyers, tooled-up Lords and Monoliths just ladel out big steaming dollops of shooting that really do ruin the other guys day quickly.

It does sound like you're still concerned about close combat, but handily enough, Necrons don't have to stand and fight; they have three great options to let them duck out of close combat:

1) The Veil of Darkness is a good idea , since you can just melt away out of the combat. Jump in cause some damage, maybe take a round of CC (big deal; necrons are TOUGH!), then jump away

2) Monliths can warp a unit with the necron rule out of CC if they're within 18", if you don't fire the particle whip. They also get another WBB rule.

3) It's been mentioned before, but it's worth mentioning again; send a sea of scarabs to '****-block' his scary CC units! They'll die, but he'll spend a few turn tearing his hair out dealing with 'em!