Drop 'Crons

[FirstLegion]

Triple monolith has it's place, but a tournament is not it (unless you don't care about winning).

The list I'm working on incorporates using destroyers as efficiently and often as possible. It's not going to win any tournaments, but it might annoy some people into submission.

[FirstLegion]

Goodness, what a lot of heat over not all that much content.

If you want a top-table tournament force, you aren't going to be trying to figure out which Necron choices get you there. Necrons aren't a top-table army, no matter the choices in it. Since our theoretical Necron player is already at a disadvantage, we'll have to give him the best choices if we want him in the top half of a competitive field. While the 3 Monolith wall can be effective against some builds and armies, it doesn't meet the criteria of the best choice - too many points that don't help against Phase Out.

I'm always amused that people think their views of the best list are going to be the best for all players. That's simply not true, and more demonstrates a lack of broad experience than anything. I get good value out Possessed CSM, but the tubes will tell you they're awful and never take them.

What's even funnier is when someone thinks my "bad" decisions bad their good decisions not work. Lists aren't made in a vacuum, so making choices in my list is partially about making my list more effective and partiallyabout making your list less effective. Sorry I didn't spam Rhinos so your min-sized units with Meltas in Rhinos were ineffective? Good times.

I don't mind Chumbalaya's certainty that he's right - better to have strong feelings than none. I do think that the message gets lost in the noise some times, but where better to learn how to express yourself effectively than in fan forums?

This.

[Chumbalaya]

And its good you are passionate about it Chumbalaya and I agree with a lot of things your saying. If you were down here for Bols Con I would take you out and buy you a beer. Big thing right now it takes a lot of time to write and its put solid strong articles out about tactica.

Its really not directed at you but mabye that just one point about the centric view that is being generated by some people that is driving me nuts .

Chum, I have absolutely no problem with being competitive, god knows I've agreed with a large number of your points in this thread alone. However, in this particular case its not the points you make, its how you sell them.

Yeah, I can totally dig that. One man's humor is another's flamefest. I'll work on it, but no promises

I'm generally always coming from a competitive POV, so it may seem like I'm harsh on friendly/fluffy armies and expansion play, but it's mostly because I don't feel the knowledge base for those are really lacking. BoLS and other places pretty much have it covered. It's the tactics and list building people have the most trouble with, so that's where I do my thing.

@jwolf: Working with what you're most comfortable with (or in my case, what I can afford to field) is your best bet. But you can't deny that some units, options, and general builds are stronger than others. It's that way with any strategy game. You can toss a curve ball, but you better know exactly what you're doing to get any mileage out of it. I've seen the lists you've posted and my knee jerk reaction is "blarg, this sux" but it depends on the strength and attitude of your opposition and your skill. I'm going from a neutral perspective, not sure what everyone's style and level of skill is but steering them along the path of figuring just why certain lists are better than others, how they work within the system, and eventually to get comfortable enough in the system to blaze your own trail. It's getting there that people get hung up over, and there's where I try and come in to make life easier.

[ZenPaladin]

So this is the list that's doing well at Ard Boy's?

It seems like its esentialy a version of the Go BIG idea that bushido is throwing around. Personaly I just could never bring myself to bring three mono's to anything thats not Apoc. I mean I would grone at someone who brought three Land Raiders. Just cuz the Cron's are not so hot isn't really an excuese I would think.

Though oddly enough I do have three mono's... can't wait to try the Nodal Grid.. >

I was kind of hoping for a magic bullet of some sort. And I can see how this is some what survivable. But I'll agree with some that it seems not so competative in the end.

The warriors have to come out of a portal if that's the selected entry.. and only one can come out at a time.. and you can't fire the whip or teleport if they do. The fact that you loose the ability to chose what to do with your mono can be a serious disadvantage. Sometimes you need it to get the whip out and destroy some assult marines or a tank. Sometimes you need to port a badly shot up/assulted unit to safty. And you might just find yourself out of luck if a unit of warriors needs to come in.

Three portals also means three units in at a time. Quickly pulling them out of reserves and into a field where they are dangerously outnumbered.

As a side note @ Chumb. It was Bushido's necron tactica that got me onto BoLS and I'm very glad it did. I've read a few of your comments and posts and a lot of the things you say come off very caustic and mean spirited. But reading these more recent ones has made me feel that you have legitment points to make and a completly valid view. Might wana work on the style of your posts though.

[Nabterayl]

You know, I haven't played against this, but in its defense, three monoliths does maximize your warrior placement flexibility in the early turns of Reserve rolling. By corollary, if you have a monolith that you feel you must whip with, you need to roll three squads of warriors coming in before you're forced not to do so, and the odds of that happening are fairly small, (it's fairly small odds-wise in the middle turns, and by the latter turns you're unlikely to have three squads of warriors left in Reserve in the first place). So the advantage here isn't just survivability; it's a way to pair the survivability of keeping warriors in reserve with the flexibility of still getting to choose what one or monoliths does with its power matrix. In a single-monolith list you'd have to pick one or the other; in a drop crons list, you reach a middle ground.

[avatar8481]

You know, I haven't played against this, but in its defense, three monoliths does maximize your warrior placement flexibility in the early turns of Reserve rolling. By corollary, if you have a monolith that you feel you must whip with, you need to roll three squads of warriors coming in before you're forced not to do so, and the odds of that happening are fairly small, (it's fairly small odds-wise in the middle turns, and by the latter turns you're unlikely to have three squads of warriors left in Reserve in the first place). So the advantage here isn't just survivability; it's a way to pair the survivability of keeping warriors in reserve with the flexibility of still getting to choose what one or monoliths does with its power matrix. In a single-monolith list you'd have to pick one or the other; in a drop crons list, you reach a middle ground.

It should be trivial for a decently mobile mech list to avoid the liths and destroy the warrior squads as they come on, eventually phasing out the army since so much of it will be tied up in non-necron models.

[ZenPaladin]

I see Nabterayl's point though. The ability to pop the squads out of any of the three mono's does help you put them where they will be in the least danger.

Also you could spin the mono to teleport a suqad out of a trouble spot to the other side of the mono wall formed by them. Esentialy pulling them not just out of hand to hand but out of los of shooters as well.

Admitedly though a heavy asssult army could simply swarm the mono's leaving the warrior squads little to no place to go. But I can see how chasing the warriors with a balanced force could be difficult or even dangerous while, Destroyers, C'tan and pie plates rain down.