Lord,
3x Warriors + Night Scythe
3x Annihilation Barge
and 8 included at least 2 6-man squads of Canoptek Wraiths w/whip coils. These are purely to tie up and live through dedicated CC and heavy weapons units. They are also good at popping AV10 vehicles. They're a really good jump infantry unit because they ignore everything but impassable terrain so they can fly in a straight line towards whomever they wish to engage. They also have 3+/3++ and are thus very hard to kill even with just T4 and 2 Wounds. Thankfully they don't have power weapons. It'd be grounds to ban Necrons from tournies that is, combined with Night Scythes and Annihilation Barges. People think Heldrake is under-costed. Look at Annihilation Barge! 90 points! Heldrake should be 80 at that point-scale.
Anyways, ranting about poorly costed units aside how do you counter units like this? Because, to be honest, these guys can ally with damn near anyone, cost nothing and are going to be Top 16 of every competitive tournament so building lists purely to counter these will probably get you far.
Canoptek Wraiths don't really have a counter. Sorry to start on a downer but really they are just as tough to get rid of as TH/SS termies, are 5 points cheaper, have 1 more wound, can FLY, and have more attacks. Appropriately costed at 35. There are 'counters' in high Strength blast and large blasts. Good units would be:
- Riptide (Tau)
- Medusa (IG)
- Executioner (IG)
- Battle Tank (IG)
- Vendetta (IG)
- Vindicator (SM)
- Psydreads (GK)
- Dreadknights (GK)
- Everything (DE) [Seriously all of their guns work well. Plus you can spam blasters and dark lances]
- Fire Dragons (Eldar)
- Pulse Laser (Eldar)
- Prism Cannon (Eldar)
- Wraithguard (Eldar)
- Krak Missile Launcher (Various)
- Hive Guard [Impaler Cannon] (Tyranid)
Those are all I can think of off the top of my head. And the SM entry overlaps the other Marine 'dexs. I say Psydread because their weapon is S8 and instant kills them so each dread can pick off an average of 1 a turn. Not amazing but they work well against vehicles too. Tyranids can field monstrous creatures that ought to be able to deal with them but most of the time you'll lose or be tied up too long anyways. Now what's cool is that when you look at what's good against Annihilation barges you get 'duh duh dun' the same list! What's cooler? They are all great against MEQ too. To summarize: these are the units. There are various other units that do well against them but they are usually pretty bad if they don't get the engage. Good examples: GK termies, Hounds, Thunderwolf Cavalry. So the above units are units you want to field.
(To be more specific with Dark Eldar: you want guns. Too many of them. Try to maximize lances over blasters)
For Daemons: Princes and MCs. Seeker Calvalcades can also do silly amounts of damage at Init 10 then get attacks. Orks can do well with a unit of Nob Bikers. Lootas can shoot Yahweh to death so yeah them too. Deff-rollas were considered hilariously OP when the rule was released in 5th and *can* do damage but only average 1 per d6.
Now to go back to the beginning Wraiths don't have a counter. Just like TH/SS don't truly have a counter. There are methods of taking them out, just like TH/SS but there's no way to kill them without losses. Luckily they don't have guns and only Rending. Against MEQ on the charge they'll get 4.67 wounds average. That's hardcore damage but manageable by most armies. Against TH/SS termies they'll do 3.3 wounds average. With the ~6 attacks back (6 man size unit) they'll kill 2.5 back so 3 dead back. Pretty much an equal trade.
Now onto the Barges. What can take them out? Answer: all of the above (minus DE guns. Sorry but Splinter Rifle doesn't work on them obviously.) High Strength weapons can take them out by blowing them up and lower strength weapons can't even harm them so don't bother. You really need S8 to harm them and you need low AP because Pen shots don't take off HP (what a stupid stupid stupid ruling GW.) Old Breath of Chaos would have ruined these guys without issue.
Strats to take them out:
Strats to take them out:
- Drop Pod, Melta squad
- Lash Princes
- Psycannon + Deepstrike
- Rifleman Dreads (Kinda, 3 of them can bring down 1 a turn. On average they do 1.77 glances but I tend to get 1 glance per dread so I feel it's fine.)
- Nob Bikers
- Melta bombs
- Thunder Hammers, Daemonhammers, Powerfists, Power Klaws
- Heldrakes
- Medusas on a Skyshield
- Riptides (possibly on skyshield, no need to nova charge then)
- Drop Pods with MM Dreads
- Land Raiders (whom are totally immune to their weapons)
- Las/Plas Razorbacks (can do okay)
It seems really silly but a lot of Drop Pods can do you good. Even Mycetic Spores with tentacles can do damage (because even empty the tentacles themselves cause 1.33 pens and .66 glances).
Conclusions
It remains inconclusive what can actually completely counter these lists. Oddly Riptides would be be the unit of hcoice but just one will get zapped pretty quick. You're going to need to main Tau to do that. Yuck. It's unfortunate but this Necron list is so OP that I can think of none that are an excellent counter to it for similar price.
If I were to go to a tourney though I'd do a full IG list. 2 Blobs, Full Heavy Support specialization. Something like this (1850):
HQ
Company Command, Vox Caster, 55
Troops
Infantry Platoon, Command Squad, 4 Infantry, 4 Meltabombs, Vox-Caster, 255
Infantry Platoon, Command Squad, 4 Infantry, 4 Meltabombs, Vox-Caster, 255
Fast Attack
Vendetta Squadron, 2, 260
Vendetta Squadron, 2, 260
Heavy Support
Leman Russ Battle Tank, 3, 450
Leman Russ Battle Tank, 2, 300
Total: 1835
Instead of the tanks I'd switch out the 300 group for an SM Librarian with Gate, Tac Squad w/MB and a Lascannon Vindicator. The Tac Squad does nothing but try to blow up a vehicle. If no one shoots it for some reason it caps points. The Librarian goes with one blob and teleports them around. The Vindicator hides amongst the Battle Tanks and shoots out. The Vendettas are used to bring down Night Scythes. To be sure this will be more about who comes in first. The Battle Tanks front armor is good enough that they can ignore the barges and fire away at them with impunity. The infantry platoons camp objectives, shoot the crap out of units, and if they get close enough to vehicles blow them to heaven with meltabombs.
If you have an idea of a proper counter for the Necron list leave it in the comments below.
Did GW FAQ the pen hit HP issue? I thought RAW stated that pen hits did result in a HP lost...(on the road with a dodgy phone so won't be able to check myself for a few days)
ReplyDeleteI should amend this because I read the ruling incorrectly.
ReplyDeleteQ: If a vehicle suffers the effects of a Crew Shaken, Crew Stunned,
Weapon Destroyed or Immobilised result from the Vehicle Damage
table, does this automatically mean that it loses a Hull Point? (p74)
A: No, unless it specifically suffers a Glancing or Penetrating
hit, or some other effect that specifies that a Hull Point is
lost.
So I read that as if the penetrating hit causes vehicular damage it does not lose HP but in reality it means that if the vehicle is damaged outside of glancing or penetrating hits then it doesn't lose HP.
My apologies for the confusion.
If you suffer a penetrating hit, you lose 1 Hull Point, regardless of what you roll on the Pen chart. On page 74 of the rule book, on the right side that is labelled "Penetrating Hits", it says this exactly: "If a penetrating hit was scored, the vehicle not only loses 1 Hull Point, but also suffers additional damage. After deducting any Hull Points, roll a D6 for each shot that penetrated the vehicle's armor." That means you lose a HP for either glancing or penetrating, no matter what (unless you have some kind of save, like a Jink save).
ReplyDeleteWhich I stated above. Thanks.
Delete