Whether you are new to Warhammer, or even wargames, or you’re interested in starting your second or fifth new army, getting started in Warhammer 40k can be confusing. We’re here to help get you started, and show you how to get your new favorite army on the table with our new series: The First 2,000: Necrons.
In Part 4, we look at how a 1,000 point test game can impact our decisions and challenge our assumptions.
1k Test Game
I’ve been hard at work building my Necrons, and even got to sneak in a bit of primer during one of the warmer days of winter. Before diving into painting, which will take my army out of action until complete, I wanted to get them on the table once to test a few things and get a feel for my new army. I arranged a 1,000 point game at TBZ against Blood Angels.
Full disclosure: I have quite a few more Necrons than I have in my 2,000 point blog list. I decided to add a unit of models not included in my 2,000 point list.
The List
- Skorpekh Lord (Warlord)
- Chronomancer
- Chronomancer
- 20x Necron Warriors (with Gauss flayer)
- 20x Necron Warriors (with Gauss flayer)
- 5x Lychguard (with Dispersion Shield and Hyperphase Sword)
- 5x Deathmarks
- 3x Skorpekh Destroyers
- 1x Canoptek Doomstalker
I’ve gone with Warriors in my 2,000 point list because they come in every starter product for Necrons, and are very easy to obtain. I do love a good silver tide list, where you line up big blogs of Warriors and march them at your foe like the British in the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, 10th Edition isn’t so kind to that type of list, which is why we see Immortals in most lists. However, assembling an Immortals-heavy list is quite the investment.
Warriors are a bit weaker than Immortals. Warriors are Toughness 4, with a 4+ Save. Immortals are Toughness 5, with a 3+ Save. But, you can get 10 Warriors for the cost of 5 Immortals, and Warriors are packed in everything.
There are ways to make Warriors a bit more interesting, which is what I’ve tried to do in my 1,000 point list, and in my 2,000 list. I’ve done that by Adding a Chronomancer to each quad of Warriors. Chronomancers can do two very important things to make Warriors a bit more interesting.
Timesplinter Mantle:
While this model is leading a unit, each time an attack targets that unit, subtract 1 from the Hit roll.
Chronometron:
In your Shooting phase, after this model’s unit has shot, if it is not within Engagement Range of any enemy units, that unit can make a Normal move of up to 5″. If it does, until the end of the turn, that unit is not eligible to declare a charge.
The Chronomancers address two specific concerns with Warriors. First, they don’t hit all that well when shooting. Gauss Flayers are Ballistic Skill 4, and Strength 4. The Timesplitter Mantle doesn’t solve all of the issues with that profile, but it does help a bit.
The second issue is a big block of 20 warriors takes up quite a bit of space on the table. And, they’re slow, with a Move of 5″. Darting from cover to cover isn’t exactly in their nature, but we want them to get up the board and be a nuisance as quickly as possible. That’s where the Chronometron comes in. A 5″ move, shooting, then another 5″ move is great. Warriors can get to objectives a bit quicker, or simply be more effective at getting in the way.
Deathmarks make an appearance from my greater collection, because they fit the points I had leftover in list building. I don’t rate them very highly for anything beyond dropping on secondary objectives, and like Immortals, their box is rather pricey for what you get. At worst, I imagined dropping them in and trying to take a shot at a character.
Lychguard are an interesting choice. My plan for them in the 2,000 point list is pairing them with an Overlord to get extra mobility, and Trayzn to sneak around scoring secondaries. Five lone Lychguard were a bit risky, but the goal here was to see how they do in practice, and how I feel about using them.
Finally, the Skorpekh Destroyers and Skorpekh Lord are the units I was most excited to try. They look like absolute monsters. The Destroyers have 4 Attacks, with a 3+ Weapon Skill, Strength 7, AP -2, 2 Damage weapon. They’re Toughness 6, with 3 Wounds and a 3+ Save.
The Lord is a Toughness 7, 3+ Save, 7 Wound monster with a 4+ Invulnerable Save. He has two melee weapons. The Flensing Claw is an 8 Attack, 2+ Weapon Skill, 6 Strength, AP -1, 1 Damage weapon. The Hyerpshase Harvester is a 4 Attack, 2+ Weapon Skill, 10 Strength, Ap -3, 3 Damage weapon.
Then there are the special rules:
United In Destruction:
While this model is leading a unit, melee weapons equipped by models in that unit have the [LETHAL HITS] ability.
Crimson Harvest:
Each time this model ends a Charge move, select one enemy unit within Engagement Range of this model and roll one D6: on a 2-5, that unit suffers D3 mortal wounds; on a 6, that unit suffers D3+3 mortal wounds.
Remember those 4 Attack, 3+ Weapon Skill, Strength 7, AP -2, 2 Damage weapons on the Destroyers? With United In Destruction, they now get Lethal Hits, which means when they roll a Critical Hit, they automatically wound.
Crimson Harvest is just some deliciously evil icing on a very murdery cake. Skorpekhs are made to charge into their foes, and splashing in Mortal Wounds before the fight even begins is a lovely bonus to a unit that doesn’t have too much trouble deleting enemies from the table.
Finally, the Canoptek Doomstalker added a bit of punch, and a threat that might need to be dealt with before it smashed through a vehicle or monster. I imagined it might have a use holding a back objective while blasting away, depending on the terrain and missions.
The Game
Testing is never a failure, even if you get completely wrecked. And, get wrecked I did.
Let’s start with the bad. The Warriors died so fast. I was busy trying to make them a bit better a moving and killing, and that didn’t matter. When faced with the Space Marine toughness and saves, they didn’t do much in the way of damage. When fired on, they died quickly, and standard Resurrection Protocols couldn’t keep reanimating them quickly enough to stay in the game. When engaged in melee, they simply melted. I’m not sure if a Canoptek Reanimator to buff the Reanimation Protocols would have done enough, but as it is, Warriors, even in massive blobs, aren’t the best choices.
There is a bright side to a big block of 20 Warriors though. It took my opponent’s entire shooting phase, focused on my Warriors, to take them all down. If it takes most of an army to take them down, that might be a decent trade with the correct units around them to still find ways to score objectives.
The Doomstalker had a similarly bad performance, though that was more about my dice rolling than it being terrible. It died rather quickly, again from focused fire, but I never believed it would survive the whole game. I wanted it to put a dent in something valuable before it went out, but that just didn’t happen. Overall, I like the unit, and I like have two of them in my 2,000 point list.
Lychguard we also disappointing. They survived shooting alright, but they couldn’t hold an objective against continued volleys from the Blood Angels. I think 10 of them would do a lot better, and having characters to give them some extra movement would help.
The Deathmarks were, simply, awful. I used them to Deep Strike behin my opponent to attempt to kill the Warlord. Instead, their impotent shooting was completely ignored and they died after contributing nothing.
The good of this list is easily the Skorpekh Destroyers and the Skorpekh Lord. They came, they saw, they charged, they killed, and then they killed some more. One round of melee combat deleted a squad of Blood Angels, and they took a chunk out of a dreadnought before they eventually fell.
My 2,000 point list has six Skorpekh Destroyers, not three, so I can imagine that the carnage will be quite worth it. I’ve been considering trying to fit in another squad of them, but that will likely be a project for another day.
Chronomancers were equally good. Even though the Warriors they led melted away, their bonuses were quite helpful, and a good amount of the damage the Warriors did do was because of the bonus to the Hit rolls from the Chronomancers.
Lessons Learned
Warriors are in a tough spot right now. They can be useful, and likely more useful at 2,000 points, where there are enough other units to take attention from them or they can serve as decent screens for scoring units. Even so, they’re just not as good as Immortals. But, we’re building a Necron army for the long haul, and Warriors will come back around eventually.
Additionally, other leader units might be a better fit than Chronomancers. Plasmancers can cause Critical Hits on 5+, and Overlords with Translocation shroud can get a flat 6″ Advance move. Additionally, Overlords can use the Resurrection Orb, which would double the potential amount of Warriors that would be returned in Reanimation Protocols.
Lychguard and Doomstalkers seem pretty solid, but need the rest of the list to pull its own weight. The Warriors dying so quickly opened them up to be easily focus-fired dead. Lychguard, especially in a pack of 10 and with Resurrection Orb carrying Overlords, seem like they’ll be quite fun.
I’ll need some more test games, and more time working around the 2,000 point list to get used to the Necrons play style, and figure out what needs to change. That’s a big part of this, and why we settled on a list very early. Warriors might be pretty good in a 2,000 point list when supported well and played properly. Positioning with them is very important, especially with how easily they can get destroyed. Lychguard are in a similar spot. They have to be used just right.
Before I make any big changes to my list, I need to simply log games and learn my army. I need to make dumb mistakes and forget to spend CP when I should have. That’s part of the learning process. Now, I’ve got some very important testing done, and I can move on to painting.