Tesseract Vault: New Meta for Necrons?

[FAT_MAN]

So, having just purchased and glanced over the new Escalation supplement, I'm of the opinion that Necrons and Imperial Guard are the big winners regarding standard play, cost, and ease of accessibility. Yes, Eldar and their dark kin have access to the most destructive and maneuverable monstrosity that escalation offers, but its price tag, both points and dollars wise-will likely keep it from most game boards. In stark contrast, Imperial Guard and Necrons both have options for super heavies that are under 500 points, their kits are plastic and capable of producing multiple variants, and are likely found at your local gaming store.

Since I'm a cron player myself, I figured that it might be worth having a conversation about the Necron Tesseract Vault and what it does for the army.

SOMETHING MISSING?

This description is broad one that does not characterize all of the various builds that the Necron codex is capable of, but I think its fair to say that when people think of crons, they tend to think of an army that relies on massive numbers of low to medium strength shots that have an effective range of 24 inches; blast templates are few and far between, and if it weren't for certain combinations of deathmarks and cyrpteks, Necrons wouldn't have much in the way of AP 2 weapons or guns that can deal effectively with high toughness targets. Enter the Vault.

FILLING THE GAPS

Unlike the Imperial Guard's super heavies that are essentially a +1 to their standard arsenal ( bigger blast templates, more range, more guns, slightly more strength or AP, etc), the Tesseract Vault provides weapon types that Necron army simply did not have before it became 40k approved. Necrons did not have blast templates that were AP 3 or below or many guns that were strength 8 and above. The Vault adds both and at a price that allows it to be taken in games 1850 and above without too much eggs in one basket syndrome (whether its guilt free or not I leave that up to the player and their individual opponents).

TESSERACT VAULT: The nuts and volts

More than 2x the hull points of a Monolith with the same armor values on all sides, The Tesseract Vault is one of the toughest super heavies out there. Couple this with the fact that the Vault is hitting on 2s and can fire each of its weapons as though it were stationary, means that the Necrons have a vehicle that can finally move at full speed and waylay the board with all of its fire power.

OPTIONS:

Like the C'Tan shard in the codex proper, the Tesseract Vault works by purchasing a stock figure that you must buy additional powers for. Gamers that hate magnetizing equipment options rejoice! The same Vault can be tailored against all of your opponents with little to no effort. You get to choose 2 powers amongst a grand total of 6 and while you can equip your Vault with powers costing upwards of 600 points (including the Vault), I think a fantastic machine can be made for under 500 (close but still under).

ON THE "CHEAP":

If you want to keep the Vault under 500 points then you are limited to 4 powers and must purchase Cosmic Fire. Here's the list.

Cosmic Fire: apocalypse flame template, like a Hell turkey in terms of power with an ap that will kill terminators

Sky of Falling Stars: range and strength of an auto-cannon with an ap that kills power armor withs multiple blast templates

Transdimensional Maelstrom: heavy bolter range earth shaker cannon shot (basilisk) with 2nd biggest apocalypse blast template

Wave of Withering: Apocalypse flame template, destroyer: horrible things happen if it touches you with little recourse besides your opponent rolling a 1

WHICH TO CHOOSE

Since 2 of the 3 powers that are not cosmic fire cost the same as one another, and the last remaining power is only a few points less, the cheap Tesseract Vault is fairly customizable for the same slot of points. You need only match the right tool for the right job. Here's my basic list of options for a given situation

Lots of hard to kill Monstrous Creatures that you can't ignore (daemons, possibly tau depending on how many riptides they take)
-cosmic fire
- wave of withering

Hard to kill models at distance,
- cosmic fire
- Transdimensional Maelstrom

Hordes of non-Terminators with softer Monsterous Creatures (my least favorite option of the 3)
- cosmic fire
- sky of falling stars

WEAKNESS OF THE CHEAP VAULT

- weapons that temporarily reduce the armor value for their attack or add dice for armor penetration

- flyers and flying monstrous creatures (the vault can't target them when made on the cheap)

- deep strikes with melta or high powered attacks that can be used the moment they arrive

- destroyer weapons, (if that eldar player brings their titan go cron air and watch probably close to half of their army do nothing)

CONCLUSION

I plan on getting a Tesseract Vault in the near future and will likely use it for higher point games or against those who rely on death star units with re-rollable saves (you know who you are). In general I think that the Vault is a great anvil model that can probably hold the middle of the field supporting and being supported by the rest of your army.

[Kevin48220]

I had the same reaction looking at the Escalation book earlier this week; IG definitely got the biggest number of superheavy options (which does make sense, fluff-wise), but I think Necrons did very well. The three options are all very different from each other and have different reasons why you might use one in a higher-point game.

I had the thought, too, about dropping a transcendant c'tan into the middle of an enemy force as (essentially) a suicide bomber. They'll kill it, but if you could position it right, you'd essentially drop a tactical nuclear device onto the battlefield when it dies. If you could keep it close to the enemy, it could turn into a "you don't dare kill it" scenario.

Overall, though, the vault is really the one to take of the three. The obelisk is a good idea, but it's too expensive, considering that for the same points, you could pick up an Aegis with a quad gun and a few croissants, and have greater effectiveness and flexibility overall, IMO.

I do appreciate your thoughts on the Vault and your analysis. It really gave me a few ideas about what could happen with one of those in my current Necron force, so thanks very much.