Lychguard, to attack or defend?

[Mr Mystery]

How do?

As per the title, looking to discuss Lychguard and the best use of.

I have ten, armed with Warscythes, usually run as two units of 5, with Nightscythes to get them about, and of course to add a lot of dakka to my force. Yet I all too often find them lurking around either being used to bolster my main line, or being otherwise avoided like the plague by my opponent. Which suits me fine, as they still have an impact on the game.

But how to tether this with a bit more aggression? The Nightscythes tend to be used to drop them off where they're needed, then go to support the rest of my force. Can anyone suggest how to ensure I can get them into favourable combats??

[jgebi]

Well the Harbinger of destruction cryptek is what you want as he can make them deep strike in their movement phase and I believe then charge in the assault phase. But if you really want to be a b**** use a monolith with his eternal gate to move them into the thick of it and watch your enemy scream in terror.

Well hope this helps

[Mr Mystery]

Sadly there's no method to allow them to assault when they turn up. Which is part of the issue at hand. I find my opponents pull out from their location, usually toward the tender mercies of my ranged fire. Nothing wrong with that to be honest, as I'm quite adept at using them to shepherd enemy units in just this way. But at 200 points a pop? They're perhaps a bit expensive.

Other issue is that I don't generally favour the Monolith. I prefer to plump for two annihilation barges and a Doomscythe (which can also help with the shepherding, as the Deathray cajoles my opponent into not bunching up, typically slowing him down somewhat). So can't really fit one in.

Is this the best I can hope for them sans Monolith, or am I missing something?

[Kyban]

The lack of ability to get into combat is the biggest problem with lychguard, they can't even assault out of a monolith. The best use for them is to place them where you need to apply the most pressure but they are generally better off with the shields since they can use the survivability but the scythes are good for vehicles and terminators, other than that they might be good at pushing units out of cover for your doom scythe to turn into slag.

[Mr Mystery]

More or less how I currently use them. Though I don't favour the shield bearers. I tend to find the extra clout of the Warscythes leaves me less dependant on surviving reprisals. Plus they are my best hope against Terminators and their equivalents, even when they have Storm Shields to protect them.

[Necron2.0]

Have you tried using scarabs to anchor your opponent while your lychguards move in for the kill? You might also be able to use wraiths for this. I've not used the new flavor of wraith yet, so I cannot speak to their combat effectiveness nor their survivability in melee against the likes of terminators.

[uglytater]

Wraiths make me very very happy, though my brother never wants to see them again. With a 3++ save and being jump troops, if I was going to make an ideal list, it would include 18 wraiths. I modeled my Lychguard with shields and then used the warscythes that came with it in overlord conversions... I haven't found a good use for the Lychguard yet (which is why I'm reading this article), and fear I might have to buy Warscythe bits make them viable, but with the thoughts that they're supposed to fight termies, the nerf to power swords is harsh. I really wish they had power axes instead.

[Anggul]

The problem with Lychguard is that they really don't fit in with the Necron army. Almost everything else in the book is bad in assault, and having one or two Lychguard squads to deal with that is just throwing away points when you could have just bought more guns to reduce the chance of the enemy getting that close in the first place. I would say run them in support of Wraiths... but the Wraiths don't need their help, they do the job better.

[Necron2.0]

The problem with Lychguard is that they really don't fit in with the Necron army. Almost everything else in the book is bad in assault, and having one or two Lychguard squads to deal with that is just throwing away points when you could have just bought more guns to reduce the chance of the enemy getting that close in the first place.

This.

Actually, the biggest problem with Lychguards is that just about anything else is better. Take for example my suggestion of anchoring Terminators with Scarabs for the Lychguard to catch. Well, for 50 points cheaper than a 10 man unit of Lychguard, you could buy two Death Ray equipped Doom Scythes. Once the scarabs have the Terminators all nice and bunched up, criss cross Death Ray tracks over that furball and you've probably got a bunch of dead termies. Sure, you'll lose some scarabs as well, but that was a foregone conclusion either way.

And for anyone about to cry foul about firing into melee, I direct them to look at the entry for Death Ray - they do not target units at all.