Here we see the much feared Necron Airforce taking on the equally feared Darigowing in a cheese-off! We see how good the Necron Airforce is but also how it can struggle with certain missions and conversely how stupid easy the Relic is for Deathstar armies. This is a good video to give you an idea of what to expect from 6th ed.
While 8 Flyers in 1.5k is scary, I think Necron armies will be better-served by taking fewer Flyers than this so that they can afford some Crypteks with Voltaic Staves, Command Barges, or similar. Countering Leman Russes and Land Raiders is otherwise fairly difficult, as doing so reliably requires you to either commit multiple Doom Scythes (which are prime targets for Interceptor weapons and enemy Flyers) or else suicide large numbers of Warriors to get Gauss hits.
One other problem with the flyerwing is that the very restricted movement of Flyers means that you have to “telegraph” your approach to objectives, and focused fire can often shut down last-minute grab attempts.
I agree with a lot of your points, BBJ. I don’t think this army is “unbeatable” by any means, simply not a ton of fun to play against.
As for Interceptor guns, unless you have a lot of them, they won’t last a single turn. They may kill a single Flyer, but that’s about it.
We’ve found that with the movement rules you can get around the Flyers pretty easily, but when there are 8, you won’t have anywhere to hide.
I agree though, that a balanced army will be better in general.
A thousand times this. Cron airforce is way overrated.
Have you played against it? So far we’ve seen it destroying things. What tactics do you use to get around it?
I have, probably 3-4 games. Seeing as how I play Crons as well, I actually have a few tools to deal with it. The first is annihilation barges, which are actually quite good at taking out fliers – I run three. Also, I’ve managed a turn one win before by taking 10 deathmarks with a veiltek and burning down the Imotek that was hiding inside a building and getting a no-models-on-the-table win. Granted, he probably should have gotten a CCB, and most good Cron players will, but what I’ve found is that you really have to take advantage of the fact that your opponent’s firepower cannot fully come to bear for three turns, unless they get lucky turn 2. If you can get in their face, get up towards their deployment zone, it becomes very hard for fliers to effectively hit you, since they come on and basically fly over you. The times I’ve won against both Necron and IG air force armies have been by punching hard for the first two turns, crippling what I can, and then playing reactively and dropping fliers while I can, being patient.
Warriors can’t take Night Scythes, only Immortals, Deathmarks and Lychguard can. Huge mistake right there…unless my book is misprinted.
pg.33
[Necron Warriors] may select either a Ghost Ark or Night Scythe as a dedicated transport.
Even if it were the case that only immortals could take it, it is only a difference of 20pts per unit and you gain more survivable troops.
As I understand it a unit can only snap fire and a flyer and you couldn’t use weapons with no BS either. As it also states from memory that a flyer only has skyfire when shooting at another flyer if he used the tesla destructer on the pallies he should not have been able to hit his own flyer with the death ray yes?. Would wound allocation use the point the beam starts at or the flyer to figure out who is closer? I always thought it was the death ray raking the target rather than shooting a laser the “ricochets” across, curious on how you chaps play it.
Actually, it’s not technically that you can’t target fliers with shots that don’t use BS… It’s that blasts and things that hit on a fixed number cannot be used against fliers, IE always hitting on a 4+. Line guns are kosher because they disregard the to-hit roll ENTIRELY, and are not a template or a blast weapon.
Ok but pge 81 says “shots resolved at a zooming flyer can only be resolved as a snapshot”. Pge 13 says in the snapshot entry “Any shooting attack that does not use a ballistic skill cannot be fired as a snapshot.
Pg. 81, 2nd column, 1st para:
“Flyers can choose wether or not to use the skyfire special rule at the start of each shooting phase” (Note: This is before any other shooting is resolved)
Pg. 42 1st Para
“…with this special rule [Skyfire weapon], fires using its normal ballistic skill when shooting at flyers, FMCs, and skimmers. Unless it also has the interceptor rule, it can only fire snap shots against other targets.”
Pg. 13, 2nd column, Last Para, last sentence
“…any shooting attack that does not use a ballistic skill – … – cannot be fired as a Snap Shot”
THUS:
I would interpret it to mean:
If the Doomscythe chooses Skyfire at the beginning of the turn then it can only hit flyers, skimmers and FMCs with the death ray, and if it doesn’t choose skyfire it can hit everything but Flyers and FMCs.
Admittedly its not perfectly clear, since the Death Ray does not nominate targets, it chooses two points. Making it possible for sots of wild abuses (Like does the death ray follow the normal LOS rules). Can a doom scythe not declare sky fire, aim to hit a ground unit with the death ray, and still hit flyer since it was not the ‘target’?
Agreed that line drawing weapons are not Blast nor Template, and thus CAN be fired at flyers.
Yeah, that is essentially how we saw it. It is pretty confusing, but I agree with your interpretation.
Wrong.
Flyers have the Hard to Hit rule: “Shots resolved at a Zoorming Flyer can only be resolved as Snap Shots (unless the model or weapon has the Skyfire special rule, as described on page 42).”
So you must Snap Shot in order to hit a flyer.
Snap shots say the following: “It’s important to note that any shooting attack that does not use a Ballistic Skill – such as the Necron Monolith’s portal of exile – cannot be ‘fired’ as a Snap Shot.”
Line guns do not use Ballistic Skill. Therefore they cannot be fired as a Snap Shot. Since they cannot be fired as a Snap Shot, they cannot hit Flyers.
If the line gun has the Skyfire rule, however, you can then shoot Flyers but not ground units. So a Flyer with a line gun can choose to either hit other Flyers or to hit ground units, but not both at the same time, and a line gun without access to Skyfire cannot hit Flyers at all.
Good points Gordy, I actually missed the bit about the weapons not hitting that don’t roll to hit, only the bit about blast weapons. I believe you may be correct, though. Do you have a pg. reference for that?
Wow.. 40k looks reeeeeaaalllly fun these days.
“This is a good video to give you an idea of what to expect from 6th ed.”
You.. Might.. Want.. To.. Consider.. A.. Way.. To.. Limit.. This.. Nonsense..
At least, if this is what we should expect from 6th (your quote). Unless, you find this fun. I highly doubt that. I will not be going to any tournaments where this “what to expect”. Sorry, no way I’m paying even $5 for a day of this.
Tic-Tac-Toe has more strategy involved.
Yeah, we are concerned about this stuff, too. We’re hoping to find ways around it, and inpur form the community helps us to see things we miss.
What is the point of this video? I usually love your guys’ stuff but this was kind of pointless. You were trying to prove a point about but the game itself was awful. Draigo cheating and taking divination really skewed it. And then the flyer player spends turns shooting at the non relic unit why? And how do you blow up your own doom scythe, you choose the points!!! Sorry guys this video wasn’t very good.
The doom scythe choose a point and then rolls to see how far the beam goes, it isn’t totally controlled.
The guys made a number of mistakes in this video, but they are both new with the rules, so it is to be somewhat expected.
I think the point of the video was to check out how Flyers performed, and the game did a great job highlighting how silly Flyers are.
Driago cheated and gained reroll to hits, and even then he could not kill even a single flyer despite all those Psycannons. That’s not fun for the player facing those flyers, at all. Just sit there and get shot and wait ’till the game ends. Even if you win, like in this game, it’s simply not entertaining.
That is exactly the point we were trying to make.
Thanks, Gordy.
Honestly, it’s because that Draigowing army isn’t balanced. I think that’s the watchword for 6th – balance. Reece has asked before whether we think it will be deathstars and ridiculous lists will come to the fore or balanced ones, and my vote is for balanced – I think we’ll see this from the NOVA open. You need to have the tools to deal with the extreme lists, and if you do, you win, because they RELY on you NOT having the tools to deal with them. For example, a friend of mine plays Deathwing. The list he’s bringing to the nova open is 5 squads of 5 TH/SS termies with belial, a land raider, and IG allies with two Hydras and an Aegis Defense Line with a quad gun. It is well equipped to deal with anything that the opponent can bring, and it’s a very tough nut to crack. If you brought a cron airforce against it, I feel that the Cron player would lose at least one flier a turn – the quad gun plus the hydras drop things pretty handily. If the Necron player focuses the hydras, it lets the terminators hunker down on objectives.
If played correctly, GK could easily have gotten a turn 1 win if there had been no LOS blocking terrain. 6″ move + run for turn one, 6″ move + 24″ Psycannon/Storm Bolter shots turn 2 – If Necron lord dies, Necron player loses the game. I don’t understand why people are afraid of this list. If you have any sort of way to touch the lord with multiple decent strength and rending or ap2 guns (or s10) then you win turn 1/2.
A. He should be in barge. You have to kill that first. B. That Barge is hiding somewhere hard for you to shoot. C. If you kill the AV13 Barge, the Lord is T5, 2+/3++, 3 wounds, gets back up on a 4+.
Oh, yeah, and night fight.
What kind of terrain do you have on your tables that you can’t hide a single model for one turn?
D. until FAQ’d it’s a stretch to play that necron warriors don’t need to deploy half their units. Thus, more then just the lord are required to deploy. I still don’t understand how people are interpreting that the fliers reserve rule is conferred on the unit. Yes it’s a dedicated transport, so together they are counted for calculation purposes, but only one has the requirement to reserve while the other has no such requirement that it has to reserve OR start the game embarked. Only pods and demons can full reserve.
Seeing as you can’t embark into a nightscythe it would be pretty silly if you couldn’t start everything in them. Then again random charge seems pretty silly so who knows…
I think you’re right and that is how I read the rule too, but these guys in the video didn’t know that at the time.
Ok but a drop pod doesn’t have to have a squad in it so a full drop pod army wouldn’t work either by that interpretation. I suspect that rule was put in with models like drop pods and nightscythes in mind because units cannot embark in them unless they are already in them when they come on.
That’s what we were thinking. Hiding him shouldn’t be too difficult.
The point I’m trying to make is that lots of armies have ways to get to him, via Gate of Eternity, Veilteks, Drop pods, etc. It’s MORE than possible to get a turn 1 win against it.
And if the Lord deploys in the far corner that’s well out of the 30″ range? Or if there is LOS blocking terrain, as there is and should be on most boards? Not a particularly reliable plan on your part.
Because its at the end of GAME turn, not player turn – learn the rules before you sprout off mkay. Drop Pod armies, teleporting units and barrage weapons can turn one kill said Lord, but if hes not dead turn 1 – the flyers are coming.
What are you referring to?
And sorry for sprouting off? How does one do that exactly? haha
Mmm sprouts are the best on jimmiejohns subs.
Agreed!
Honestly, even if this army is the “super build” if they want to spend that much money on that many fliers, go ahead… As long as they are using suitable models and they don’t look like they’ve been painted by dumping them in a box with a paint covered chicken, they can do whatever they want imo.
We’re still feeling this out and trying to learn how viable this army is or isn’t.
We’re not calling it the super list yet (I don’t know why people so often seem to infer that) just showing you all what this list plays like and what it can do.
$40×8 = 320 + $60 for two warrior boxes. Plus 20% off from frontline.
I’m sorry, but, relatively speaking that is a darn cheap army to build right there. Necrons are also the single easiest army to paint: Spray silver, black wash, a few dabs of neon green and you are tabletop ready.
Man the errors in this game……Making me very sad. Do either of those guys own the rule book? Anyway my first real comment here and it’s kinda funny that this video is what got me doing it. First of all i’ve been watching your battle reports for a while and I usually find them entertaining and informative. But, this one made me so sad. It’s as if neither of them actually READ the rule book and the GK player only skimmed his Codex.
Anyway….onto the problems….You can’t take 4 Psycannons in a 9 man Paladin Squad..Its 2 per 5. Draigo Can’t roll in the BRB. That Necron list had some errors as well. He needs to place half of his warrior squads on the board regardless because they don’t have to start in reserve like the NightScythes do. That’s just mainly the codex or basic rule book errors. There are other errors one could pick out ,but i’m just giving some examples.
This video is not a valid representation of 6th edition or of how either of these armies actually play. I’m surprised this got somebody’s stamp of approval.
Continuing onto the positive: The necron flyer list is quite scary if you dont know how to deal with it. With allies most armies have some kind of an answer. Draigowing is one of the armies that because of its elite nature struggles to really compete with them. At 1,500 it’s rough, but I kinda feel that if you’re going to be seeing these lists you only have a couple options: Coteaz and Acolyte spam, Psyflemen, Allying with IG or Allying with Orks and taking a lootah blob. But, those are just the answers I can think of right now. Stormbolters with Psybolt ammo can glance necron fliers to death I suppose.
Always Play to the Mission with Draigowing it’s the only way to win with them.
There were a number of errors made in this video, however, it still give you a good idea of how this army plays in 6th ed.
We’ll post more videos with it to get a better representation of how it plays out.
Hoop! My codex isn’t misprinted, I just suck ass at reading apparently. I’ve looked at that entry several times and never seen the Scythe as an option for warriors. Well, least I learned something today 🙂
Haha, no worries, happens to all of us!
For those being a little too critical of this report, keep in mind that this is a hobby, and even though this may be their business, the people here at Frontline are also doing it out of love for the hobby. I mean, does it make sense to you that the people who rely on the hobby for a living would then go on to highlight some of the negativity about the game? They are doing it because they are also fans of the hobby and want to help out the community on the whole by providing more information about the game that many people probably don’t know about. So please, LAY OFF THEM. Yes, mistakes were made in this game. Everyone will make mistakes when they are playing what essentially is a brand new game (arguably even more so for 40k veterans who are still thinking 5E in their minds). I applaud frontline for doing the videorep anyways in spite of these mistakes. Because these mistakes will be noticed in a public forum and will help educate viewers on how the game is or isn’t played. In short, we will all learn from this hopefully.
As for the report itself, it shows how 6E is more rock-paper-scissors now more than ever. Play against the wrong army in the wrong scenario and on any given day, any army, no matter how strong, can lose. That’s just how 6E will be.
Thanks for the support, Jy2.
We have pretty thick skin as the internet often brings out the worst in people, or seems to (often we may read something as being more insulting than it was intended).
You are right though, we are pointing out some of the negatives because we want people to be ready for them. This is what the game is now, and if you aren’t prepared for it, you will have a very rude awakening to it on the table top.
And, as I always tell people, it is a lot easier to be a critic than a creator. If anyone would like to make a video bat rep we will post it for the world to see.
I intend to, this weekend if I can figure out how to edit clips from an iPhone together =P If not, I’ll be bringing a camera to the NOVA Open and do a couple batreps from there. You guys really do a great job, solid articles and lots of content. People (including myself) get critical over the batreps but I come here over BoLS any day for interesting articles, information, what have you.
Keep up the good work =)
Thanks!
And try Windows MovieMaker for editing your clips, it is easy to use and works well. If you have a good video, we’ll post it up for sure!
ANd the criticism helps us improve, so no worries. As long as people aren’t being rude, we don’t mind it.
Jeez guys…I believe Bill Murray Said it Best IN Stripes
“Lighten Up Francis”
The point of this video was not to display tactical superiority of the players at hand but rather to illustrate how difficult it is to address 8 flyers. For ANY foot based list.
Simple Math tells you that focused fire isn’t a good strategy to take these bad boys down as it relies on a minimum of multiple S7 shots to Glance things to death, and there’s only so much of that to go around. Even with Horde Lootas If I take a grand total of 45(which is rightfully insane) They Average 30 shots per target per round. 5 of which hit and ONE of which should glance. so If you focus fire all 3 units of them at your average scythe you can take one down per turn, and that’s assuming that Night Fight doesn’t hose you over. Assuming Night Fight doesn’t Hose you over, AND they all remain on the board every turn AND you hit at a statistical Average, You can take out 4……With no losses taken to your Loota Units of course. Oh and them not taking Jink Saves. So for the bargain basement price of 675 points you MIGHT take out one Flyer per turn! Where do I sign up for that Realgoodtime?
(p.s. Math is hard ,I am sure there are errors ,Congrats on finding them, you win the internet)
P.P.S. Before you go all haterade on the greenskins, Lootas might just be the most cost effective antiflyer foot unit out there!
How many ork vehicles are tall enough parking under a flying to use that grabbing claw thingy? That’ll brighten a fliers day.
Boarding plank don’t work on zooming fliers as they can not be assaulted.
Yeah, that was exactly the point. The guys in the video made a few goofs, but the point was just to show how this stuff all works.
So I used this list at 1750, 3 doom scyth, 6 night scyth, 30 warriors, and Imoteck, I didn’t play it properly in the fact that I was only starting Imoteck on board, won all tree games including the one against the person who was also bringing a large number of fliers 5 vendettas and a stormraven, I made him go first and it turned into his turn 2 trying to blast Imoteck out of this millennium, he managed to kill him with lascannons heavy bolter and manticor, but of course I got him back up, it was a big thing though as I would have lost then and there if not for that 5+ roll and of course he got up with full wounds and didn’t go back down for the rest of the game, I really don’t think this army is unbeatable but played by a huge fan of flying curcii such as myself it is really destructive. And I manages to find the only thing more powerful than 30 Fire dragons with melta. 3 S10 Ap1 10” average lines.
I think you said it better than we did: it’s not unbeatable but wow is it a tough nut to crack.
Also only lost fliers in the game against fliers, other wise barely lost a hull point, ridiculous.