1,850 Necrons vs Eldar

[Maelstorm]

I switched-up the list a bit and played another 1,850 list against a formidable Eldar commander. Random Mission from the Battle Book, Page 78 Fighting Withdrawal - The Eldar took the place of the Tau.

225 StormLord
140 4x Necron Lord
40 4x Warscythe
170 10x Immortals
170 10x Immortals
130 10x Warriors
130 10x Warriors
120 8x Scarabs
120 8x Scarabs
105 7x Scarabs
200 Monolith
150 3x Tomb Spyders
150 3x Tomb Spyders

I spread the Necron Lords out to the Troop squads (buried a Str 7 Power Weapon in each unit)
Lined the Tomb Spyders up behind the 2-8x Scarab units, the 7x Scarabs were used to go after his Eldar Sniper unit.
The StormLord kept Nightfight up for 3 turns. Lightning Strikes killed one of his nasty pie-plate shooting vehicles and his CC unit transport on turn 1. Lightning killed the other pie-plate vehicle on turn 2.
The 2 8x Scarab Swarms were bumped to 11 bases each on turn 1 before they took off across the field.
All 6 Tomb Spyders ran to keep in range of a single trailing Scarab (lagging behind on purpose) - allowing them to bump the unit up to 17 Scarabs the next turn before they piled into close combat!
With Nightfight the Eldar only got off 1 vehicle and 3 troop units worth of shooting the whole game.
We forgot about the Monolith and it sat beside the table turn 1 - I rememebered and deep-struck it on turn 2 (a very rare direct hit).
I pulled 1 unit of Warriors forward for rapid fire mayhem just before the largest blob of Scrabs charged-into Close combat
A unit of Scrabs ate a vehicle on turn 2 (even after the vehicle moved 12" the Scarabs still reduced it's armour by 6 before wrecking it) and headed towards tasty Eldar troops (yes, they taste like chicken).

The Eldar commander tossed in the towel at the end of turn 3. He had 0 of 4 vehicles left, 7 basic troops and 1 HQ model - everything else was wiped-out.
Necron losses: 4 Warriors, 1 Immortal, cumulative 6 Scarabs (I created 18 new Scarab bases).

This is my 5th battle using the new Necrons - In all games the opponent has conceded by turn 3 - only 1 went past and that was just to see if the new Necrons could table Sicarious and the Ultramarines (they did).

Codex's beaten so far:
Grey Knights (4 vehicles, no LOS required shooting-heavy)
Blood Angels (10 vehicles - Tournament spam)
Imperial Guard (Troop & Troops & Troops + LOTS of Autocannons)
Ultramarines (Balanced Tournament List)
Eldar (Nasty-nasty psyker - Tournament Balanced list)

This seems to be the most effective "basic" list I've used so far - No new, expensive GW vehicle models required. The Necron Lords could possibly be dropped to add Orikan to the list to hamper enemy turn 1 movement.

The opponent is so focused on handling wall-to-wall Scrabs in nightfight that by the time they begin to come-up for air the unmolested Warriors/Immortals and Monolith(s) are upon them.

[Maelstorm]

Notes to add:

Use Tokens when a model with Reanimation Protocols (RP) goes down. The rules state that you place a marker and then roll for RP, if you get a 5 or 6 a model is placed back in coherency with the group - you can use this for model placement shenanigans.

When I have 3 Tomb Spyders following Scarabs - I roll for each Tomb Spyder creating a Scarab and then place all 3 new Scarabs at once, I don't feel "right" doing the conga-line trick, so I just place them in a horizontal row 2" in front of the current row of Scarabs (gaining 4" total of forward location including the base diameter). If I have a second unit of 3 Tomb Spyders I don't feel guilty placing their new Scarabs in front of the newly created row of Scarabs from the previous models (for a total of 8" of forward location including the base diameter).

8" of "free" movement (By Tomb Spyder-Scarab placement) on a unit that already charges 19"-24 is huge! Your boosted Scarab unit effectively Charges 27"-32"! If you start 12" in from your side of the board, that means you're hitting the enemy lines 39"-44" away from your edge of the table - An enemy Land Raider with it's back against the opponents edge of the table is fair game for a wave of Autohits at the top of turn 1.

If the FAQ comes out and does not disqualify cheesy "Conga-line" Perpendicular placement, you can place the newly created scarabs end-to-end with 2" of Coherency drawing a line straght to the other edge of the table.

Important: Remember that a single "unsaved" Scarab wound against a multi-wound model eliminates it's armour for the rest of the game! It is much more dangerous for your opponent to allocate Scarab wounds to his multi-wound power-weapon wielding model buried in troops!!

There is nothing that 3 single-shot Heavy Destroyers (just 3 wounds) at 180 points can do that 10 Scarabs (30 wounds) at 150 points cannot do much-much better. Roll 3 dice or 50 dice? Plus the Scarabs will completely change your opponents tactics.

9 Tomb Spyders can add 135 points of FREE scarabs (27 Free wounds of models) to your army every turn. In 5 turns you can add 675 points of FREE Scarabs (135 Free wounds of models) to your army.

[Maelstorm]

Question and or comments are welcome.

[plawolf]

I do wonder about the longevity of this scarab swarm approach.

As impressive as it is doing now, you have to bare in mind that since the codex is so new, few opponents would really have a good feel for it yet, so the results may be a lot different once people have a little more experience about what all the new necron stuff can do.

Relying so heavily on scarabs seems too much like a one-trick-pony list for my liking, and such lists can often become victims of their own success.

Does the list have a Plan B in place for when it comes across a list that can slaughter your scarabs a lot faster than your spiders can pump out reinforcements?

Your typical foot slogging GK list with a few characters attached to a few squads could potentially easily spell doom for this list.

Even if we leave side the very likely scenario of rad grenade lobbing attached ICs, even a regular psyker character attached to a GK squad and stacking hammerhands for S6 will put a massive amount of pressure on your numbers.

Such a GK list could easily bubble wrap their psyrifle dreads and weather the scarab rush, and once night fighting wears off, those psyrifles and psycannons will easily out range and outshoot the rest of your army.

If someone decided to bring along a couple of 5 men suicide incinerator interceptors and gets first turn, he could potentially fry most of your scarabs before they even get out of the blocks.

I hate to pour cold water on someone's ideas, but I can see this list having major issues against a lot of builds if the alpha strike of lightenings and the initial scarab rush does not decimate the enemy before night fighting wears off.

[Tynskel]

As a swarm player, myself, I can tell you--- when the bombards and flamestorm cannons come out, the massive scarab swarms will be no more.

[Maelstorm]

@plawolf: Thank you for your thoughts. Have you played against them yet or is this just electronic conjecture?

Bubble-wrapping Dreads with troops just ties up more points - none of which are shooting at anything in the dark. This allows the Necron army to focus on everything else loose on the table.

The 2 local tournament winning Grey Knight players are having fits with it, as well as the tournament winning Blood Angels player. For the next game against GK I'll try out Gloom Prisms to cancel psyker powers directed against the Swarms.

With 90 wounds for 30 models the Scrabs take a while to whittle down, even with power weapons (3 wounds per inst-gib). It's the 30-50 return attacks every turn that mop-up squads. The whole time 40 Necrons with Gauss weapons are charging/Teleporting towards the enemy backed by Monoliths

Flamer template weapons in 2 big groups (Imperial Guard) has been tried as well, but the unit was mobbed in CC before they could pick up the 8" plastic teardrop. Flame weapons on Land Radiers (2) never got to fire.

Having a Monolith(s) on the table gives Necrons a Strength 8 AP 3 large blast Template against troops (insta-kill) who have just been rapid fired by 10 Str 5 Immortal weapons pulled through the gate - effectively wiping out a squad before they can assault.

Roll 150+ dice on turn 1 (without firing a shot), then 120 dice on turn 2, then 90 dice on turn 3. 330 dice rolls in CC in 3 turns is a war of attrition that not much can stand up to. Get a dice tray or you'll be chasing dice all evening.

The army listed above is about 10 games worth of refinement. 140+ wounds on the table growing by 18 wounds per turn. With only 1 hard target (Monolith) The wounds are spread all over the table - It's tough for them to get to everything, even if the bad guys get loose in the backfield. Remember, 40 wounds of the Necron army can get back up from any Lascannon/Power fist hit.

1. Destroy all paper-thin vehicles (Land Raider/Stormraven/Razorback/Chimera/Lemun Russ - all paper-thin to Scrabs), make them walk in the dark (I prioritize to eliminate Monolith threats and template weapons first).
2. Destroy the soft scoring troops first (Gauss, Monolith, Scarab Assault)
3. Tie-up the non-scoring units with Scarab spam.
4. Teleport the Necron Troops as needed with the Monolith(s) for mop-up.

The original GK/BA/IG cheese that is so effective against other armies is really-really failing hard. They are busily rewriting their armies and painting-up new units. If your opponent runs an army built to handle Scarab Spam in a Tournament they are going to get owned by every other mech-heavy codex army they play that day that didn't change.

Most fun-easy kills to-date:
1: A dreadnought delivered by Drop Pod into my back lines. 40 Guass shots and it was a smoking ruin.
2: 2 Land Raiders placed front and center on the enemy front lines - Armor reduced to 4 (or less), penetrated repeatedly by Scarabs with Str 3 weapons. 4 Flamestorm Cannons never fired a shot.

[plawolf]

Maelstorm

No, I have not played against such a scarab heavy list, but then I am not the one trying to advocate that it is a necron 'leafblower' build.

You seem to think a GK list needs to be specially tailored to deal with your scarabs, but that is simply isn't true.

Your run-of-the-mill GK footslogging list has all the tools it needs to really give your list problems without having to sacrifice any of it's competitiveness against other armies.

I don't play 1850 pt games, so I don't have a list, but just ask your local GK players to buy 2-3 psyrifle dreads; one 10 men GKT squad with banner, twin psycannon and whatever weapons they feel like; an almost standard grenade carrying =I= (psyker or blunt, depending on their points availability and preference, doesn't matter a whole lot regardless); a Librarian with Sanctuary, warp rift, might of titan and whatever other powers he cares to buy; (optional) a 10-11 men/woman death cult assassin and crusader squad with a couple of meltas thrown in for fun in a Chimera, and then just take as many more GKSS or GKTs as the remaining points would allow with psycannons.

With such a list, you can bubble warp your psyrifles and also keep everyone close enough that they are all mutually supporting each other, so you are not likely to get the chance to 'focus on everything else'. That is how a good GK list should be played anyways.

Also, I would appreciate it if you did not try to bluff me like some wide eyed noob who doesn't know the rules or tactics. You can only pull 1 squad out of combat with 1 monolith, so all someone needs to do assault 2+ of your squads in one turn and you are in trouble.

The particle whip is also only 24", so it's not going to stop anyone from bunching up no matter how much you toy with your large blast template during deployment.

A fairly competitive take all comers list I hope you will agree, with hardly anything taken specifically to counter necrons.

How hard would it before for such a competitive GK list to dish out 30 scarab ID wounds?

Lets see, a 10 men GKT squad with a banner has 30 attacks base. 3+ to hit and 2+ to wound, and this squad is dealing around 12.5 instant death causing wounds on scarabs in CC alone. Before the scarabs gets to strike. If we throw in the attached IC and stay conservative and for the sake of roundness, lets say the Librarian totally whiffs and only does 0.5 wounds, that squad alone kills 13 bases of scarabs.

Assuming a fairly standard 6 DCA, 3 crusader and 2 meltagun henchmen squad with attached grenade carrying hammerhand casting =I=, even if we ignore the psychotroke grenades altogether and just consider the rad grenades, you have DCA @ S5 and everyone else at S4, so everything IDs the now T2 scarabs.

Assuming the scarabs get the charge, that's 18 S5 attacks and 6 S4 power weapon attacks (since im lazy, I'm just ignoring the melta acolytes). That translates to another 10 dead bases of scarabs.

So on average, you can expect to loose around 23 bases of scarabs in 1 round of combat if you assault, against just these two squads. And that is a very conservative estimate as I had deliberately left out powerful, but hard to estimate things like Sanctuary going off (or worst case scenario for you, sanctuary making you not get the charge, and then you get warp rifted in the face next turn and shot up by the entire GK army before he assaults you), the effects of psychotroke grenades etc.

Factoring in the possible spread in the results and the rest of the GK army attacking, and it is not hard to imagine your entire scarab swarm disappearing in one round of combat. Before they get to even swing.

Now, I am sure there are many things I have said you would disagree with, or have counter tactics of your own that you are sure can counter this list and deployment, and we can go on theory hammering till the cows come home.

But an easier and more informative approach could just be for you to game it out with some of your local GK players using some of the suggestions I made, and see how well your scarabs would fair against such a 'nightmare' GK list for you.

[Brymm]

It is silly to attempt to argue when one person has 10+ games of experience against supposedly good players while the other person hasn't played as or against such a list.
To dismiss actual evidence, even from as small of a sample as this, with none of your own is very short sighted. I understand if you think you could present some scenarios in which his list would have a hard time, which you have done, but to attempt to counter his response with no real evidence is silly and a waste of time.
It is becoming painfully obvious that this is going to be a game changing codex. The game is currently dominated on the highest levels by spamming mid-armor value transports and vehicles paired with whatever is the most points effective choices that a codex has availible: Imperial Guard Chimera/Vendetta spam, Grey Knights psyfilmen/chimera spam, Space Wolves razorback/long fang spam, Venom spam...
And from what I've seen with my two eyes, what this gentleman is reporting, and what other internet sites are reporting is that lists similar to this absolutely wreck that type of army. I mean WRECK those armies.
This might have been intentional by GW. It makes sense in the competative world and in the REAL world where only the bottom line matters. This will probably be a big reset button.
I currently own 41 Scarab bases. I plan i using that many nearly every game until a FAQ comes out or until the landscape changes. Because if those things don't happen, I think that I will enjoy quite a few wins in the months to come.

[Maelstorm]

Scarabs are nuking our local GK lists, BA lists and Vanilla Lists. Note: Vehicles with flame template weapons (Land Raiders, Baal Predators) are not getting a single shot off. Baal Predator Scout moves bring them closer to the scarabs, woohoo! Pie plate template weapons are shootng in the dark - parked as far away from the front line as possible to save their thin hides.

Against Sunday's Imperial Guard Leafblower list it was over at the end of turn 3, ZERO vehicles survived. The 2 Vendettas that moved flat out were assaulted from 19-24" and immobilized. Lightning accounted for 1 additional Vendetta and 2 vehicles in 3 turns. The rest were eaten by Scarabs. Casteling-up a pile of vehicles in an attempt to save them just makes for a parking lot of burning wrecks the inside vehicles cannot escape.

Scarab casualties do happen quickly but it is a war of attrition that the Necron commander accepts, all the while cranking out more bases every turn. All of the opponents firepower and CC power is directed at stopping the scarabs - not much is hitting the 40 Troops and Monolith(s) rolling forward into range.

Multi-assulting a vehicle and a troop unit at the same time is strategic fun. Pop a vehicle (or two) and prevent point blank return shots from hitting the scarabs the next turn.

Once the GK/BA/IG/SW armies reset and begin to take a more balanced approach, things will be different. But as long as they keep their heads buried in the sand and try to take their favorite internet spam turnament list, they are easy kills. The EASY button imperial army spam commanders will have to learn to list build and think - a very healthy thing for the game.

I'm playing in a tournament in 2 weeks with a Necron list similar to this. The results will speak for themselves.

@ plawolf: You haven't read the Codex. A Monolith cannot pull troops out of combat anymore, that special ability is limited to 1 Character HQ unit.

Note: To a scarab, Vindicare Assasins taste like chicken

[plawolf]

It is silly to attempt to argue when one person has 10+ games of experience against supposedly good players while the other person hasn't played as or against such a list.
To dismiss actual evidence, even from as small of a sample as this, with none of your own is very short sighted.

What is silly and short sighted is making a strawman argument instead of reading and understanding what has actually been written.

Where have I dismissed anything exactly?

I understand if you think you could present some scenarios in which his list would have a hard time, which you have done, but to attempt to counter his response with no real evidence is silly and a waste of time.

Do you have problems with reading comprehension? Where exactly have I dismissed anything?

I have asked the question how just how effective such lists will do against a competitive GK list taking some of the most popular and common GK units, hell, I even specifically mentioned that others might have differing opinions so suggested they go play test this scarab list against such a GK list to see how it fairs instead of wasting time theory hammering it out on the internet.

It is becoming painfully obvious that this is going to be a game changing codex. The game is currently dominated on the highest levels by spamming mid-armor value transports and vehicles paired with whatever is the most points effective choices that a codex has availible: Imperial Guard Chimera/Vendetta spam, Grey Knights psyfilmen/chimera spam, Space Wolves razorback/long fang spam, Venom spam...
And from what I've seen with my two eyes, what this gentleman is reporting, and what other internet sites are reporting is that lists similar to this absolutely wreck that type of army. I mean WRECK those armies.
This might have been intentional by GW. It makes sense in the competative world and in the REAL world where only the bottom line matters. This will probably be a big reset button.
I currently own 41 Scarab bases. I plan i using that many nearly every game until a FAQ comes out or until the landscape changes. Because if those things don't happen, I think that I will enjoy quite a few wins in the months to come.

And now things start to make sense since it is painfully obvious you are a fanboy who is nerdraging hard because someone had the audacity to question the invincibility of your new hard-on list.

Maybe you and your list can get a room together while the grown ups try to discuss things like mature adults.