So my love of necrons is widely acknowledged on the UK tournament scene, I played the old Necron codex at the start of 5th edition when getting wins was as difficult chasing hens in a barrel, and then when the new codex came out I was in love with them all over again, and rather than just sticking with one list I've tried to use as many different Necron builds as I can over the course of the last year or so. I was the first to use 18 wraiths, I've used a gun boat Cryptek build, a destroyer armada, a bouncing deepstrike build and a flyerspam Zahndrek list.
With the Wraith build being the flavour of the month, I wanted to build a list to prove that the strength of the codex does not lie in the fast attack section, it lies in the troop section, as was the case with the previous codex.
So I got to writing a list based around warriors, but what form would the list take? Would it be a foot horde? Well for me, the only way to do that would be to have very expensive Phaeron Overlords, but with Space Wolf armies packing Jaws by the bucket load I didn't fancy the chances of those overlords surviving very long. So I decided to take at look at a more mech orientated build centred around warriors in transports. But what transports? Night scythes? Nah, been there, flown that. And besides, it's hardly original. No, what about ghost arks? I'd used them in 5th and they were pretty resilient but pricey for what they brought to the party, but in 6th they have a juicy 4 hull points and have relentless. Also with the increased power of gauss weaponry in 6th edition they can deal out far more damage. They also have quantum shielding and living metal which make them very durable and if I'm building a list around warriors their ability to top up warrior squads with 6" is also very useful. All of a sudden their 115 point price tag doesn't seem that bad.
So what about a 7 man warrior unit including 2 storm crypteks (gotta love those haywire blasters) so a 9 man unit that can fire 14 gauss shots and 8 str5 haywire shots as soon as it gets within 12". That coupled with the Ghost Ark's broadside guns and you've got good fire output. Why a 9 man unit? More on that later.
So for my troops I took four of those units as something pretty solid to build the army around.
Then it struck me, with all that small arms fire it's a shame I can't make it twin linked! But as I was flicking through the necron codex looking for ideas I landed on the triarch stalker. They are a unit that I hadn't used before so I wanted to try them out and with there ability shoot a target and make the rest of the army twin linked against that unit I just couldn't resist. All my small arms fire just got super charged! Happy days.
So by this point I'd followed a theme around making the most of my troops. But by accident I'd included 5 AV13 vehicles without even noticing. So I decided to see how far I could take it. So annihilation barges for my heavy support! Ok so I know they are hardly original in terms of a choice, but they fit my AV13 theme and for just 270 points, three of them took my AV13 count up to 8.
Earlier in the list I had included 2 crypteks in each of the warrior units so I knew at some point I needed 2 overlords, so into the list they went. I tooled them up with the obligatory warscythe and mindshackle scarabs and of course because of my theme they each took a command barge. This brought my AV13 count up to a staggering 10 units!
So, I had my AV13 wall and it all came in a just a shade under 1850 points. Perfect! Also, those 9 man units in the Arks meant that if I lost a command barge early the overlord could hitch a ride with a warrior unit.
It is almost universally accepted that torrent of fire wins games in 6th addition. So lets examine this list in terms of torrent. I set up in a tight formation and move my arks into position so they can target the same unit. The stalker uses it's longer range to light up the target unit with it's relay and then the fully loaded arks open up. If I can be clever (difficult for me) and bring all four arks to bear on the unit, I can get 96 strength four twinlinked gauss shots and 32 twinlinked strength five haywire shots. And if there is anything left after that I still have my devastating annihilation barges to follow.
SO that is my new list. With the 15 points I had spare I added a twinlinked gauss cannon to the stalker, just to make sure he hits so I definitely get twinlinked guns against my favoured target.
Defensively the list in tough as old boots, how many armies do you know that can deal with 10 AV13 vehicles? And even if a warrior unit spills out I've got 4 ghost arks topping the units up if they take damage.
So there we have it, my 6th tournament Necron list. Here it is in print:
Necron Overlord 195
Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Command Barge
4 Crypteks (Harbingers of the Storm) 100
Necron Overlord 195
Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Command Barge
4 Crypteks (Harbingers of the Storm) 100
7 Warriors 206
Ghost Ark
7 Warriors 206
Ghost Ark
7 Warriors 206
Ghost Ark
7 Warriors 206
Ghost Ark
Triarch Stalker 165
Twinlinked Gauss Cannon
Annihilation Barge 90
Annihilation Barge 90
Annihilation Barge 90
1849
So there it is. Comments welcome.
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