Goatboy here again with another Necron Unit review. This time its the Triach Praetorians – aka the Law of the Necron Legions. As usual you can read more tactics at Frontline Gaming Tactics Corner.
Overview:
The Triach Praetorians are the law enforcers for the Necron Legions. You would think that when the majority of your legions are “mindless” you wouldn’t need a law enforcement group but the leaders need someone to keep the Necrontry Codes intact. It seems weird that a law enforcement unit would be the place for a Jump Infantry squad but that’s where the Necron’s like their coppers – jumping around and taking names. I wonder if they could have an NYPD Green show where the Necron Detectives have to solve crimes, juggle a home life, and maybe show a bare butt or two.
This unit is mainly used as another assault element the Necrons can use. Their mixture of special rules and decent weapons means that they can easily handle most basic infantry. Its always nice to see decent jump infantry in a game where having a jetpack on your back just means you will be a target for massed firepower. The unit starts off with 5 and you can get up to 10 Law Enforcers. You can also take a Night Scythe for this unit – which is interesting as they are not listed as Bulky so they do not take up all the space with a bulky jet pack.
Wargear:
The Praetorians are equipment with a jump pack that lets them move 12 inches in the movement phase and have a hammer of wrath attack if they did not use their 12 inch jump. Starting off at Strength 5 means these guys will wound a lot of people with their hammer or wrath so it something to think about as you move around and set up specific charges. They are also one of the few units that start out fearless which can be an important thing if you want to hold up some units and keep them away from your important units that might get spooked and run down.
They start off with a Rod of Covenant which is a short ranged (12″) Strength 5 Ap 2 Assault weapon that doubles as an AP 2 close combat weapon. With some help from the other Triarch options you can easily be hitting on 2’s and wounding on 3’s with a really powerful anti infantry blast. You can upgrade them for free to having Partical Casters (12 inches Str 6 Ap 5 Pistol) and Void Blades (Entropic Strike, Melee, Rending) which gives them an extra attack. I feel having the AP 2 options work out better but sometimes math makes you feel stupid as having more attacks ends up winning in the end.
Special Rules:
As is the norm for Necron units they have Reanimation protocols and the stats of a Necron lord with Strength and Toughness 5. They are also jump infantry but are not Bulky, have fearless, and start off with 2 base attacks. They are not nearly as tough as some of the other Necron options but they make up for it with the ability to move quickly, keep up with some of the other fast options, and most likely get ignored due to the other wrecking ball nature of Necron Units.
Tactics:
I’ve gotten my butt handed to me twice by Praetorians when used as “extra” attacking options for a Necron Death Star. They are great at keeping up with the Wraiths as another unit that can provide some much needed AP 2 power when dealing with tough units. They are also part of a pretty strong formation called the Judicator Battalion that gives the Move through Cover and the ability to nominate a unit and reroll all hits, wounds, and armour penetrations when dealing with said unit.
I’ve found them to be great extra support for a lot of Necron armies. They can still shoot which is always a bonus as the new versions of the everliving robots seems to have lost a lot of its firepower. They are expensive but when mixed in the Decurion with other support options they can easily become part of a one two punch of a normal Necron Phalanx. A lot of the Necron army depends on each parts producing some kind of benefit and the Praetorians can give your robot warriors a strong unit to go take objectives, kill support units, and threaten a good deal of the table top.
They’re still Bulky. The Datasheets don’t always mention all the Rules associated with a particular Unit because of their Unit Type. For instance, the Praetorians also don’t have Deep Strike listed, and Destroyers don’t have Relentless listed. Destroyers do list that they’re Very Bulky because otherwise the Jetpack Infantry Unit Type would just make them Bulky.
That out of the way, the Particle Casters and Void Blades may be better in CC through weight of Attacks and Entropic Strike, but the Rod of Covenant has way better firepower. Also the Void Blades look stupid.
I don’t favor the Void Blade much- it gives an extra attack, true, but with the bump up to A2 that’s less important overall. Entropic Strike really only matters against AV12+ stuff, and frankly that’s something you can leave to Wraiths and DLords and whatnot anyways, so I think taking the reliable AP2 is a much better deal.
I hadn’t actually run the math. I was just going off the implication in the review that the Void Blade was better. I’m building mine with Rod’s of Covenant for sure.
I think VB and PC is the way to go because you need to pen the MSU Bc free tanks. Plus Str. 6 means you will glance most MC and it’s basically as the article said “drowning your opponent in Str. 5 wounds after shooting with a Str 6 weapons. That extra attack could be the difference between winning/ killing a unit and being locked in for another round of unwanted combat. Or are void blades only ap 3? Not a Necron player anymore but they did decent back in 5th
Void Blades are only AP4 😛
Basically, how good they are is directly correlated with how many 6s you roll.
*Wound most mc
Huh, they also used to be around 200 points nice point reduction if u can run them competitively
Doesn’t their unit type prevent them from actually embarking on the Night Scythe they can buy as a dedicated transport?
ITC had FAQed it to allow Jump Infantry in the Scythe again, I believe.
They aren’t actually embarked in the NS.
Also, on the whole “Why do you need cops when most of the population are mindless drones” thing: The whole point of the Praetorians is to keep the Lords and Overlords and Phaerons in line with what the Triarch (now reduced to just The Silent King) want, or at least within the bounds of disagreement they set.
Praetorians are interesting to me. I consider them something like a mix of Destroyers and Wraiths on the tabletop. S5AP2 is a really good gun profile (yay more AP2 that we lack!), even though they don’t kill as much from a range as Destroyers. Likewise, the same profile in Assault is great, but they don’t kill as much as Wraiths.
So you can’t really compare them to either. They’re almost never going to perform as well or better than Wraiths in Assault, or Destroyers from a range. But, they’re cheaper than either and can be a sort of MSU harassment unit that works well with the equally fast Tomb Blades.
Another comparison to make is to Lychguard. A Rod of the Covenant Praet is comprable to a Warscythe Lychguard. Less Strength and no Armorbane, but faster, Fearless (which is huge), and with a gun.
They can make ok options as a Deathstar unit. You restrict their mobility, but giving Fearless to your Deathstar, which is priceless. Less durable than Shield Lychguard or Wraiths, but again cheaper. Stick them with some Warscythes and a Cryptek toting the Chronometron and Solar Staff and they can scare a lot of baddies.
In the end, they are outperformed in specific tasks by most other things in the book. But, they have a lot of flexibility in what they can do and are generally cheaper than those other choices. So, interesting in my book.
Could you expound on the two times they beat you? What were you playing and what Deathstar were they supporting?
Pretorians (in judicator batallions) are becoming very popular here in Europe. They, together with tomb blades are the hottest stuff for Necrons right now.
Any particular reason? They seem to take a back seat to Wraiths in the US. Is it just the lower points/MSU bit? Just more mobility?
I use the Judicator battalion myself, and really enjoy it.
“The Praetorians are equipment with a jump pack” Well other than that line not making any sense good to hear others thoughts on these guys.
Still don’t know if I like them. Biggest problem is that they are probably best suited for the decurion for the bonus RP, and their formation has tons of synergy with the destroyer cult but then your strapped for points and probably can’t fit a harvest in as well. It just comes down to this is a good unit but is noticeably worse than wraiths. In all situations where you can take these guys you can also take wraiths and I, and most necron players, would just prefer to have wraiths. So not a bad unit just in competition with one of the best units in the game.