Hi guys,

Been out of the game (and this forum) for a good 3/4 months and had my first game with my regular Necron opponent the other night.

We normally play with the same lists but make little changes here and there trying to out do each other (quite fun for us two) but he added a Destroyer Lord with NS. It's 12" radius of LD death is really hurting me and during that game he made 1 Crisis run off the table and 1 squad of FW nearly run off the table. Luckily I had amazing luck on the dice and saved all my other units.

Now do I ;

1) Pour every single heavy weapon plus Pulse fire into the Lord asap and try bring him down

Or

2) Try and use a bait unit or two to pull him away from the main force? I'm unsure if he'd fall for this but worth a try.

I was thinking of adding some Pirhanas to my force so I can add some hidden fusion nastiness and use them to close the gap before he reachs my lines?

Also - can he assault after using the NS? We agreed on a "yes he can" but the rules are unclear.

Out,
Shas'O Grim

If I remember correctly, using a psychic power essentially counts as firing an assault weapon so he'd be free to assault the target afterwards (no rulebook/codex to hand so please correct me if I'm wrong).

If you can spare even one railgun then thats a juicy instant-kill, and I usually run 6 Broadsides and an Ionhead in 2,000 points, so its an example of where a target lock on a 3 man broadside team can really pay off.

Piranhas are also a good choice for this, as melta is of course wasted on the monolith, though no instant death goodness.

For a specific counter, try keeping your infantry (as opposed to veichles) together 'til he's dead, and take a shas'o with a command and control node for a counter-leadership bubble. And keep fire warriors inside their transports as much as possible, if you don't take many consider a positional relay to keep them off the board at least for a couple of turns. Also, using markerlights to strip the 3+ turboboost cover save means he is going down pretty fast. If he has a phase shifter then massed pulse fire might be your friend instead.

*Edit*: Changed a spelling mistake generated by my broken keyboard.

Oberon, Destroyer Lords are T6, so even Railguns can't cause Instant Death.

I cannot remember what the lord has for a invuln save, but in the past, I found it best to just spend the 1st turn firing as many missile pods into it as I can. Distractions units usually don't fool my opponents, who all have played me enough to know what not to do. Speed bumps arn't effective against it either, since its a jetbike and can just jump over them.

But otherwise, what Oberon said seems to me like a good way to go about it.

Several things:
1) It is only psychic shooting attacks that count as firing an assault weapon, non shooting powers should not prevent you from assaulting unless it says so in the codex entry. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the necron codex but I do remember that some of it is needlessly complicatedly worded.
2) A railgun will not instant kill a lord on a destroyer body as they become toughness 6 and the codex says that this value is used for instant death purposes so S10 won't cut it.
3) The command and control node would have no effect on tau leadership as it only affects target priority tests which no longer exist, to gain a leadership bubble you would need to use commander shadowsun.

Hi mate, I'm terrible with rules so I won't clutter up that part.

Basically, the Necrons lack of Light Vehicles leave us with a heap of S7-8 weapons to pound Destroyers. If there aren't any threatening Warriors or Immortals nearby then hit them with plasma too.

Move your Piranhas out to block the DL off, and hit him with your MPs and stuff. Your piranhas will die, but it saves you from running. And you get a handy I4 squad of goons

Just to clear a couple things up,
The nightmare shroud isn't a Psychic power. Necrons have no psychic powers. It is a piece of wargear may be used instead of shooting, so since it doesn't shoot at anything and doesn't have a target, I'd say that he can't assault since he used a shooting attack with no target.
Necron Lords don't have invulnerable saves unless they buy one, but this does count towards their wargear point limit.

And boy do they have to pay for them.
Back to the topic of assaulting after using the nightmare shroud. I would like to question as to whether it does count as shooting a weapon or is it simply used instead of shooting a weapon. If it is a shooting attack (which to me sounds unlikely) then I think it would stop the unit from assaulting but if it is simply used instead of shooting then I don't think it would stop the unit assaulting unless it specifies in the shrouds rules.

The nightmare shroud states:

However that does not make it a shooting attack, you may choose to run instead of firing a weapon but that does not make running a shooting attack.

Correct, Nightmare shroud can be used then he can also assault.

Also, a shooting attack needs a specific target. I'm not aware of any shooting attacks that are area effects.
(blasts and templates still have specific targets, so they don't count ^_^)

As for the T6 destroyer body, I play against one pretty often, and I usually just spam volume of fire to deal with it.
In your case I'd most likely be looking at Deathrains and maybe another supporting unit of Fireknives. But stay at max range if possible...

The NS has no statline for range, strength, AP or weapon type. Its description designates it as a 'weapon' which has an area effect. If it is used, it precludes the user from firing any ranged weapon (Staff of Light). It is not categorised as any specific weapon type, nor is there any mention in its explanatory notes in the Codex or in the Necron FAQ to say that the Lord cannot assault after using it.

If you think that a Destroyer Lord with a Nightmare Shroud is bad, try facing him doing his "thing" with the Shroud when a Pariah unit is nearby .... Now *that* can be real fun.

As for getting rid of him: max range shots from plasma rifles (don't forget to factor in the JSJ extra range) to negate his armour save and force him to use the WBB roll instead. He is a hard nut to crack, but enough shots hitting home will eventually do the trick.

E.

You must treat killing the lord as a bonus, because he can actually get back up with all his wounds back, considering that he has that phylactery, which is a rather cheap item. And also, choose your targets well, since his fast troops are not really good at close combat, even wraiths. Hurt the lord with firepower that can be expended, meaning that can shoot no other necrons nearby(They are rather slow), and then tie up other fast units with close combat, such as broadsides to wraiths, for they don't have power weapons. Just plan to kill right, and they will fall quite easily.

Instead of putting your infantry in reserve I suggest keeping them inside a devilfish/smartfish, this way you do not have to wait for reserve rolls, and they just do not up and run off the board.

As for bait, a unit that expensive is going to need a pretty good sized bait element to get its attention, the lose of such a unit would not be worth the gain usually...

Focus your vehicles on him and leave your infantry to handle the rest of his army. If he gives you and opportunity lay into him with EVERYTHING.

Personally I found the Ionhead does the best here.

It's not a weapon, but you need to be able to shoot to use it (ie, no running).

But yeah, volume of fire is your solution to a lonesome lord with obnoxious toys.

Cheers for the advice guys.

I'm definitely thinking of getting a slightly more mech army (i.e get the FW squads in Vehicles - no way a LD test can be taken then surely?) I think this is a toy/unit he will use for a long time because it is VERY annoying and VERY effective against my army (I don't use Shadowsun).

Its very effective against most armys which do not have a consistent Ld 10 across the board. My first time I played against one I lost my Aun right off the bat who ran off the table, I then failed EVERY Ld test and ran all my units off the board. That day I bought 4 Devilfish to compensate. Then again that was back when I only had like 3 fireknive suits running and was still a new person.

There are a few things in the game that can force Ld tests while you're embarked in a vehicle.
Thankfully they're few and far between.

I'd have to read the precise wording of the Nightmare shroud to be certain, though it sounds like the NS makes units fall back if they fail a test. Which cannot happen in a vehicle as far as I am aware.

I best get buying a couple more DF's then!

I can't believe how crazy some of his upgrades are, I mean, this thing can turboboost into your weak LD lines, take a round of firing (it has done too! T6 3+ save and 3W AND can get up again in the next round) and pretty much make your army run away!!!

It's a good thing the rest of the army is pretty slow then huh? The Lords are the pivotal part of a Necron army, as without him the crons are even slower than usual [no Veil] or less resilient than they should be [no Res Orb]. While the Nightmare Shroud can be annoying, it is easy for us to protect our scoring units by mounting them in Devilfish or Outflanking later with Kroot. The amount of Missile/Plasma we can pack in Elite and HQ slots can lay the smackdown on any of the Necron Infantry or Destroyers, and Warrior Squads are easily slowed down by suicidal Piranha or Kroot - making objective games against Necrons quite an easy task.

Argh just rechecked this thread and can't believe what an idiot I made of myelf. A necon with a Psychic power? Damn. The same goes for forgetting his toughness 6.

I'd agree with the above posters, delay his slower units and focus fire, preferably of the low-AP kind. Ionheads can work wonders here, and easily make more points back shooting Destroyers aftewards.