The Unappreciated and forgotten angry ones. Be sure to check the Tactics Corner for more great articles!
Ah, Heavy Destroyers, the forgotten bitter step child of the Destroyer. These guys cost merely 10pt. more than their lighter cousins, and fulfill a tank hunting roll with their guns that is surprisingly not that common in the Necron Codex. Fused onto their hover chairs of doom, these guys scoot around with their jr. lascannons being super angry at everything.
Overview: With the same stat line as a normal Destroyer, we get a durable model that is maneuverable and can put out some serious damage. Coming in packs of 1-3, we have some options. Honestly, if we’re going to run them, we’re probably going to use only 1-2. Jet pack infantry keeps these guys maneuverable and flexible. Deep Striking will help if we’re worried about not having long enough range, and the Thrust ability will keep us safe. We could deploy normally, but only having 36 inches leaves us somewhat limited on our range. The most important thing to remember is that Heavy Destroyers are used to handle enemy units that are otherwise a pain for the Necrons.
Wargear: Heavy Gauss Cannons bring us some tank killing power that while the Necrons aren’t necessarily lacking, is a nice alternative to simply throwing tons of Gauss dice at a vehicle and hoping for 6’s. Strength 9 and AP 2 is an awesome set up for a weapon, as anyone who has ever faced or used a Lascannon knows. The issue though is that the gun’s range is merely 36 inches. While this isn’t crippling thanks to Relentless, it does limit some options that would be nice to have with him. Still though, we’ll happily take it since our effective range is really 42 inches.
Special Rules: I basically copied these exactly from my last article on Destroyers.
First we have Preferred Enemy, an excellent rule that will make our BS 4 even more impressive. Re-rolling 1’s to hit and wound is something that makes our guns WAY better. Tanks and MCs, our preferred targets, will rightly fear us. Preferred Enemy even helps in combat should the Destroyers get stuck there, and help to give them a bit of a fighting chance.
Reanimation Protocols is awesome, and has been gone over in depth a hundred times, but its good to know we have it, and even nicer because being Toughness 5 makes it a lot harder to be at -1 from Instant Death wounds.
They’re also Very Bulky. Game changer.
Tactics: So there are a couple of things that we want to keep in mind using our Heavy Destroyers. Again, we can use them like our regular Destroyers to hop in and around terrain scoring secondary objectives in the ITC format. Place your objectives around line of sight blocking terrain so you will be able to move and shoot from behind them while using your Thrust move to get back behind terrain to protect your angry bots from returning fire. Rinse and repeat.
If you’re fighting in a mission without objectives, or the Emperor’s Will, you may feel more inclined to deploy normally. This can also be worth considering if you opponent is playing an aggressive army that comes across the board at you and is packing armor. Use your movement to get into range and then keep the firepower going, and use Thrust to hide again. If facing off against Drop Pods though, we’re most definitely going to want to deploy via Deep Strike. This lets us put our models out of harms way and lets us use our superior range to gun the occupants down.
But what do we do with our Heavy Destroyers? While every unit with Guass can threaten any vehicle or any enemy unit, we really don’t want to be dumping our Warrior’s and Immortal’s fire power into a single vehicle. The Heavy Destroyers will help with that in no time, dispatching any vehicle with ease. In addition, the Heavy Gauss Cannon gives Necrons something that they have in short supply: AP 2 shooting; plus Strength 9 helps us put the fear of the C’tan into units like Crisis and Broadside battlesuits or Farseers on jetbikes. While these targets aren’t normally a big problem for Necrons, having the chance to punch through heavy armor with a single shot with only one or two shots as opposed to a whole unit of warriors is awesome. Just like the regular Destroyers, these guys pair well with Wraith/Lynchstars, but for a different reason. These guys pop open transports which let the star go to town on the juicy goodies inside.
Also, like Destroyers, these guys LOVE a Traiarch Stalker nearby. Bumping their BS to 5 with Preferred Enemy means they have amazing 97% accuracy! This really helps to make them ultra reliable.
So there you have it, Heavy Destroyers offer some tools that aren’t super common within the Necron Codex. While there isn’t a whole lot of competition for Heavy Support slots within the books, there isn’t always necessarily a huge demand for tank killing power. Still though, keeping the Heavy Destroyer in mind if your meta is filled with heavy vehicles or boardsides is something to consider. Don’t forget the hateful big bots, they need some loving too guys!