Goatboy here again with another Necron Formation review – today its about the Formation combo of the Triarch Praetorians and Stalker into a pretty rough counter assault unit. As usual you can read up on more reviews in the Frontline Gaming Tactics Corner.
The Judicator Battalion is made up of 2 units of Triarch Praetorians and one unit of Triarch Stalkers. They have all their benefits, plus any benefits given by the Decurion Detachment if they are taken within it, and they have their own updated set of rules for no additional point cost. This formation almost feels like a Police force as the Triarch units are known to operate outside the normal Necron host – providing a tough counter assault unit as well as granting the normal Triarch benefits to nearby squads.
Overview:
This unit can be taken as part of the Necron Decurion and thus can benefit greatly by the +1 to their Reanimation protocols as well as the Stalker always ignoring any crew stunned or shaken results. The Praetorians get Move Through Cover which is a pretty nice bonus for a jump infantry unit. Their ability to pick a unit and gain a significant advantage when they attack that unit is a huge bonus as you can easily make such a damaging attack that you can easily kill most other units in the game.
Wargear:
The formation consists of 2 squads of Praetorians and one unit of Stalkers with no changes to their load outs. I would still run the Stalker stock with the Heat Ray and then have one unit of Prateorians with the Convenant Rods and the other unit with the Voidblades and Particle Casters. This lets you have a good set of choices to deal with most types of enemies.
Special Rules:
The additional rules granted by this formation is Move Through Cover and the ability to pick an enemy unit within line of site of the Triach Stalker and the units in the formation get to reroll to hit, wound, and armour penetration when targeting the unit. This can be pretty brutal as each Praetorian shoots decently and then can charge in causing a ton of damage. We all know the power of a reroll! Math starts to brutally beat your opponent as you force so many wounds/saves on your opponent. Also, twin linking makes this formation good for shooting difficult to hit things like flyers and invisible units, too!
Tactics:
I played against this formation once and took a ton of wounds. The Grand Necron master – Ben “Bad Touch” Mohile schooled me pretty hard when I tried to shove a SW deathstar into his part of they yard. The formation hit so hard that I was losing dogs, bikers, and wounds left and right and barely hit and run out of it alive. I did not win that game as I was severely depleted and just hoping for the end of the game on turn 5. This is a neat formation to add to the Decurion as you can easily push larger squads of Warriors and utilize the added Stalker ballistic skill benefit to the other parts of the army list.
You can’t be too aggressive with them as all parts of this formation need the armies support to not be left out in the open and picked off. This formation is a great add on and really helps create the metallic horde of death you expect when you think about the Necron army. As the detachment gives you Move Through Cover you don’t need to be a part of the Decurion in order to fully utilize this. Sure we all know how strong the Decurion is but with threat of a massed horde of free rhinos bearing down on you – having some Objective Secured can help.
The 2 Praetorian units are great, flankers as while they don’t hit as hard as say a Lychguard unit they do help out with their added ability to assault well and shoot well too. This way you try and envelope your opponent. Also since the unit is fearless you can keep some of your other weaker units from getting run down as the Praetorians keep the assault locked up and your Warriors/Immortals can break, run, and hopefully recover and still help hold an objective. The overall Tactic for Necrons is just winning through sheer attrition and this formation can be a big help as your extra 3rd and 4th strong assault unit.
When you played against Ben, what size did he run the two units with and what weapons?
While having a unit of each is nice, I find that the Rod is just plain better overall. An extra attack and Rending doesn’t feel nearly as strong as always AP2 to me, and the extra strength on the Pistol doesn’t make up for the lower AP value at range imo.
2 small units is nice for MSU, but I doubt min units are going to survive all too long against anything decent at Assault, or even a moderately sized blob.
Bear in mind those Voidblades have Entropic Strike too, potentially a “get out of jail” against Walkers tying you up, and a S6 pistol plus rending S5 could be nice for light vehicle killing.
Sure, but if I wanted Auto-wounding on 6s I would just get Wraiths, and if I wanted light vehicle hunting mass Gauss is probably better.
In my mind, if you’re bringing Praetorians, it’s for access to fast, affordable AP2 in both range and assault. They’re a great harassment unit alongside Tomb Blades.
I”m in the process of building a Judicator Battalion at the moment, I was going to just use the rods……not so sure now, when I think about it the Voidblade/Particle Caster will be better against larger squishy units and vehicles.
Do you think that this formation is better suited in the Decurion compared to the more common Canoptek Harvest?
I mean, it really depends on what you want, one isn’t strictly better than the other. Wraiths are a durable Assault-only unit that can tank AP3 or better shooting on their 3++, Praetorians are more MSU (2 units of 5 is around the price of 1 unit of 6 Wraiths), have guns, have AP2, and can Deep Strike.
The Harvest is more taken if you want a big fast beatstick to run up and kill/tie up scary units. The Battalion is more suited to jumping around and picking off opportune targets, or deep striking somewhere and shooting with pretty good guns.
Also, the Harvest Wraiths are a bit more reliant on their formation’s tax unit – without the Spyder, they’re just Wraiths. And while Wraiths are still good, they’re not much different than being in a CAD. If the Stalker dies, the Praets just lose the rerolls – they still get RP 4+ and MTC.
So, tl;dr, it’s not an exact comparison.
Interesting. I got a buddy trying to get back into 40k with his Necrons and I’m trying to figure out how to use the models he has. He loves the Stalkers, but doesn’t have the Praetorians.
A combo of praetorians, stalker, and repair wraiths is not to be underestimated. Wraiths alone are good with lash whips IIRC but praetorians should not be underestimated especially since 5 should still be able to take another scythe. I think the ap 2 rods or Str 6 pistols will both work so maybe magnetize the arms depending on what is needed more in the army. Extra attacks vs ap 2. Another thing that always seem to be overlooked are flayed ones but I heard they were improved since 5th edition. Infiltrate them, give praetorians ap 2 rods in a scythe, and have a full unit of wraiths run up. Flayed ones seem to be getting overlooked in this edition, but are awesome to counter assault swarms. (Ork green tide same price as a Necron warrior). To each their own though.
I think Flayed Ones are mostly getting overlooked because of the poor model availability. I know a couple people who have converted a bunch from Warriors, and they love them. It’s just paying $9 each for resin Models or converting that turns people away.
Flayed Ones are sick good in this edition. Lots of attacks with Shred can rock anything that isn’t T8 or higher. Cheap, durable (especially in the Decurion), killy. If they draw fire, they’re less than 15 points!
Easiest conversion ever: Tyranids hormaguants arms clip off the excess bone growth, minimal epoxy work. I did this on 20 warrior bodies, it’s really fast and simple if you can find a plastic type glue to reposition some limbs. For skin, just use thin layers of epoxy and cover up areas that look too Tyranid on the arms. Maybe even drop a stalker for 2 squads (not familIar with Necron formations). 20 flayed ones for little more than 2 warrior boxes and a bits order off eBay.
I don’t have a problem with it, I’ve got 18 of them in progress already. But I do know plenty of people who are turned off by even simple conversions, enough that I suspect that has a significant impact on their appearance.
buy warriors clip bayonet off gun and give an axe hand then use a bit of plastic card for making a sword hand, simple easy and look good.
here is an example:
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipO7VN-naBebHJQqAr93nHUb-fGpe1_7t-ho42NU
Good of you to mention Praetorian Night Scythes. In the formation, they also get the rerolls from the Stalker! Gets a bit expensive though.
I use the Judicator Battalion quite a bit and I have to say, it is pretty dang good. The Stalker is the best part of it for sure, but the Praetorians are surprisingly solid as back field disruption units.
Formation bonus only applies during your own shooting phase. It does not last through to the assault phase