Goatboy here with a brand new review of the Necron Lychguard aka the Lynch Pin of another 40k Death Star. Check out the Tactics Corner for more Unit reviews.
Lychguard are known as the “command” squad for the Necron HQ characters. Instead of focusing on a mixture of shooting/assault the Lychguard rely on their superior stats, weapons, and tough Necron rules. Through a mixture of specific HQ and formation combos you can create a pretty tough Death Star that is both hard to crack and deals a good deal of damage.
Overview:
This unit consists of 5-10 Lychguard models with 2 different Melee options available as well as the ability to take a dedicated Night Scythe transport. They have the normal Reanimation protocols ability as well as the beefed up stats of a Necron Overlord – Strength and Toughness 5 with 2 base Attacks and a 3+ armor save. One melee option gives them a Warscythe while the other gives them an Invulnerable save plus a weaker close combat option.
Wargear:
The Warscythe grants +2 to the users Strength, is AP 2, and grants Armour Bane. All of these options make this weapon a terror for Vehicles and other Walker Based combat giants. The other load out option is the Hyperphase Sword and a Dispersion Shield (3+ invulnerable save). The Hyperphase Sword is Strength as the user and AP 3 – so decent when fighting regular infantry but at a disadvantage when fighting against some of the tougher close combat giants like Thunder Wolf characters or Space Marine Super Heroes. The Sword and Board costs an extra 5 points per model so it isn’t cheap as the unit is still expensive.
Special Rules:
This unit has Reanimation protocols like the majority of the Necron army. This lets them become very tough to deal with as they will always have some sort of save. When you mix this with some Formation rules (Reclamation Legion) and HQ combos you start to have a unit that gets a ton of rules to ignore your damage output.
Tactics:
As I stated earlier – this unit is normally used as part of a Death Star the Necron army can bring to the table. I normally see 10 Lychguard equipped with Warscythes with attached HQ to give them a boost. A Destroyer Lord with the Solar Staff as well as a Cryptek/Lord with the Veil of Darkness means this unit can start in the corner and teleport right front and center of your army. I also see the Character Orikan added to the unit as a way to grant more rerolls with the ability to re-roll saving throws of a 1. As this unit is part of the initial Necron Decurion detachment it is very easy to add into the army and use. They also get access to a Night Scythe as a transport so they can easily start off the table, come in, and deploy wherever they need to be.
I have seen others utilize a mixed Lychguard unit to try and create as much protection as they can with Dispersion shields and Warscythes. The only fear is massed D weapons as they ignore your Reanimaiton protocol and can leave you with an extremely expensive and vulnerable unit. The benefit of this unit is that they are just very hard to remove and still put out a ton of damage. The lack of Fearless in the unit by default will have to be watched but you can easily get around it with added in IC support by characters such as Zandrekh.
This unit is close combat heavier than the normal Wraithstars you see. This unit tries to win combat through aggression instead of simply not losing combat due to resiliency. It is still very tough to crack but it can start to lose out to massed stomps and other “combat” options that either ignore their saves or severely hamper their Reanimation Protocols. You will want decent support to ensure your army will win the game as your opponent tries to figure out how to correctly deal with your Necron Bowling ball of doom.