Making Necron Pariahs Work?

Ok, so the question of the week is how to make pariahs work, and this is the number one email question that I get asked the most. Forget about the hate on the internet and the endless meta-game debate over their validity vs. point cost, the fact that they aren’t Necrons and their insane point cost in an already over priced army- sure the warscythe is nice, but not when everything else is hitting your first and you only have one attack back! All that has been debated about and I’ll leave you to find that elsewhere. The focus of this article is going to be: Fritz, here are ten pariahs to use in the next tournament- show us what you can do with them!

First the other players in the game- the Deceiver, destroyer lord with shroud, pulse, and gaze (important!), and destroyers as a base. Fill out the rest with warriors, spyders, whatever.

Ten pariahs are the key, either ten or none! With T5, cover, and a bit of luck + solar pulse they are going to be around. As long as just one is standing I’m still in business. Forget about trying to assault anything other than a carnifex with these guys, it will be a fail. Oddly, cats really sweat out the warsythe so they are not in any hurry to assault the pariahs in return- mistake- assault them with anything and they go poof!

What I am going to use them for is to reduce the leadership of my opponent and then build on that with my lord and C’Tan. Face a fearless army and I’m sucking wind, face Space Marines and I’m fine, face anything not fearless and without “They shall know no rules!” and I’m in evil business.

I need to do two things since my Pariahs are on foot and they are forced to walk it across the table- they need to be in a central position and I have to give my opponent a reason to close into range to be effected by them other than just hanging back and shooting away.

Speaking of shooting, there are at most seven rounds of it in a game- I’m not so sure I can take the seven rounds of shooting on the P’s, but I can take three or four. Reserves help since I’ll get my opponent to move to me (more on that in a sec!) and the P’s aren’t going to be in range for the first turn or two anyway. Solar pulse is also huge, attach the lord- you can take a wound on him to help keep the P’s alive plus popping off pulse from far away or mid range negates another round of shooting. Ten P’s will stand up.

I get my opponent to come to me by objective placement, by clustering them up as best I can, or by putting my capture and control counter as far forward as I can so I can advance to both it and my opponent’s.

When it’s time I’m looking to shroud my opponent and pin/flee them with the C’Tan. This does a couple of thing- it will force a unit or two to start running which means my advancing (and outnumbered) army can take on bits and pieces of my opponent’s, and two it means the running units can then be escorted off the board or if they are not marines potentially cut down. Once a unit start running, the destroyer lord then goes into hunter killer mode, assaulting the fleeing unit- fail morale and the unit is removed, fight it out in the assault (which I would soften up a bit beforehand with my destroyers so the odd are in my lord’s favor) and you are dealing with the reduced LD from the P’s plus the -1 from gaze of flame. Same idea with the C’Tan only he is less mobile so that is more of an opportunity presenting itself over a plan.

Next article is going to look at my old “nightmare list” which while far from competitive, makes for a fun game, and is something you never see with Necrons anymore, taking the synergy of the pariahs and combining them with flayed ones and tomb spyders…

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Shroud Lord?

Email In:

Hi Fritz, I have played necrons since they were released in plastic and I have a 8-0 record with them in 5th edition so I understand how they work in and out of competition.

I love your videos and Saim Han tactics but I don't think your necron tactics are up to snuff. I don't want to be overly harsh but the advice you are giving for necron lords with nightmare shroud is just plain bad.

1. Every turn you Turbo boost you cannot pass through or end your turn in cover. Also you cannot shoot. No shooting = no Nightmare Shroud. That means you are sitting there in open terrain for a whole turn with a 2+ cover save. Note that it is a cover save and not a invulnerable save.

2. Nightmare shroud is useless against vehicles. With the current reliance on Mechanized forces, few players with any skill are going to sit on an objective with non fearless or non mechanized troops. Making a 35 point rhino more effective than your 260pt unit.

3. Nightmare shroud only works 27.7% of the time at leadership 8 and only 16.6% at leadership 9. That is terrible odds when gambling with a single 200pt HQ.

4. Nightmare shroud requires you to be within 12" for any effect. Most decent CC troops have a 13"-18" threat radius. Including anything that is Fleet, or has a jetpack, or another bike. That means if the shroud doesn't work (only a 16.6% chance against MEQ) you are going to get charged and mauled.

5. Scarabs are vulnerable to templates, blast and barrage which negate cover saves on top, making them doubly dangerous! That means flamer's, grenade launchers, and especially cannons are going to SHRED that unit placed together in a clump like you suggest. The main reason scarabs live so long normally is that nobody bothers to shoot at them when there are so many more targets. Now with a lord attached, they are going to get hammered.

Take a quick look at an average hit from a space marine flamer. Say it hits 5 out of the six models in the unit.A Str 4 flamer is going to hit your T3 on a 3+ so lets say you get 3 wounds. Your cover save is negated so you are back to 5+ save. The flamer is AP5 so what do you do. try to save one with the lord and two on scarab bases. Those two on the scarabs automatically count as 4 wounds taking out one base and putting a wound on another and hopefully you make the save on the lord.
A battlecannon, siege cannon, earthshaker, Vanquisher and demolisher shot is going to instant death every scarab swarm that takes a wound on 2+, and a couple will instant death the lord too. Even if he comes back with the phylactery you now have a lord all alone in the open waiting to die.

If you are somehow getting this tactic to work I applaud you. I also think that you must be doing something else to set up this trick OR the people you are using this on are not very experienced or playing competitive lists. I have come accross many players that have never played against Crons before and I can run roughshod over them using any tactic because they don't know what to expect. Against an experienced player I doubt you would get off a sigle shroud.

Here is a fun little unit for you to try. 4-10 flayed ones with a lord w/ gaze of flame and whatever else you want. Followed directly behind by 4 Pariahs. Any unit attempting to charge the lord gets no bonus charge attack AND has a maximum leadership of 6. Plus they must pass a leadership test or only hit on rolls of 6. Then counter charge with the Pariahs in your turn if there is anything left.

Reply Out:

Brad, thanks for emailing. I hear what you are saying with the shroud and it seems like it shouldn’t work in the world or mech and fearless troops but it does- with a little planning and finesse. Here is what I’m doing with it running down your points:

RE Turbo boost. True I can’t use it but it is rare something is in range first turn anyway, and usually I want to get into the back ranks which is going to take a turn. The rare time something is put out in range or maybe bikes ready to move forward I’ll do this. Lord and scarabs get deployed together as a unit as SOP. If I see a shroud opportunity first turn then I’ll use the Deceiver’s grand illusion to separate the lord a bit over so he is not part of the scarabs. My turn has the scarabs turbo boosting out and the lord moving out separate but ending his movement next to the scarabs. I pop off the shroud and then he auto joins the scarabs being an independent character and I get cover saves on the unit from turbo boosting, but not on the lord- but he has the scarab body guard for wounds.

RE Mech Spam. Again 5th is mech…for now…just wait till the wave of Tyranids really hit, but that is a though for another time. By the time my lord hits, and I may have to delay it a turn, guys are out on foot due to my destroyers. The destroyers are the can openers popping rhinos along with the monolith particle whip. Also, with internet “wisdom” saying the Deceiver and monolith suck cats just ignore them. I’m always getting the lord and Deceiver in the back assaulting vehicles- I use warrior and destroyer blocks as bait to shoot at to give my opponent incentive to sit there, say with their chimera’s and fire everything into my units for phase out- then the lord and C’Tan hit with living metal/warscythe.

RE Mathhammer. Is that the odds? I always get a unit or two to run each game, and vs. Tau and Eldar it is murder. The tricknology edge of it is sometimes better then the unit itself- people don’t like you forcing them to take LD tests on multiple units each turn. Objective placement also helps with this- placing them in a cluster and letting your opponent have them- they pile on, you get them out on foot if they are not, and then when you shroud you are hitting 3-4 units a turn. Somebody is going to fail. I do something similar with my cullex assassin in my GK build.

RE Assault. Now this is the real weakness. I have to get within 12” and if I get assaulted I’m done- even with the warscythe and T6. Worse is if I get hit with a power weapon which everybody has like candy these days, no WBB for me. If my opponent is protecting a clustered area and I still want to go with it, I’ll move out turbo boosting and then turn two make a half ring around my lord with the scarabs- I can get a pretty big ring with 2” unit coherency, and then keep the lord back so he is not part of the unit. This way I can pop off the shroud and hopefully the only thing they can assault is the scarab wall, of course they can shoot it with another unit, etc. That said, over all I find most assaulters heading as fast as they can to my core of warriors clustered in the back for the easy phase out.

RE Swarms. Yes, they are vulnerable to templates, and S6 shots- I hate playing vs. Eldar! Nothing I can do against this, but again, those big IG cannon shots often go against my warriors and destroyers for phase out. Why bother with five lonely scarabs.

RE N00bz. I’ve played both Necron ignorant players so to speak, and cats that fancy themselves “elite” tournament players and I always get shroud off- except when I face chaos cult legion marines like a particular world eater army I’m thinking about. But then I’ve only lost 30 points of wargear- I still have a mobile unit that can soak up fire, contest, hack vehicles, or act as a one turn speed bump. I always make sure my opponent’s know that I have nightmare shroud and what it does along with the rest of my wargear, monolith portal, etc. Veteran players fall for it the most since they not only dismiss Necrons, but they dismiss mass leadership tests as a valid tactic.

I like the idea with the flayed ones, and I’m especially interested in working pariahs into the list. What do you think the smallest best number is? 4? 5?

-Fritz

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Necron Destroyer Lord Tactica

I think of my lord(s) as more of a delivery vehicle for nifty wargear over an independent character. Kind of like their wargear is additional software. Tool your lord up for the job, boosting the synergy of your army. Shift that thinking of Necrons away from the veil of darkness and res orb standard that everybody has seen and can counter in their sleep, and go with some of the other hidden gems- nightmare shroud, gaze of flame, solar pulse…

As for the delivery system I prefer the destroyer body over veil of darkness. Sure VOD can get you anywhere on the board in one turn as long as you don’t scatter, but it is sixty points which means you need two lords on the table to get the optimal wargear selections since you can have more then 100 points and then that means no C’Tan. And how can you not play a living god? I think of the Deciever as Xerxes from 300- he is a kind god, while others ask you to stand before them, like the emperor of mankind, he asks only that you kneel…

…anyway, back to the lord. Destroyer body gives me the fast pinpoint movement to deliver the wargear without the scatter and bumps me up to T 6 BASE! This is huge, especially after you tack on a phylactery, and if that fails the monolith portal for another re-roll. It is a rare game where my destroyer lord goes down.

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Necron Lightning Lord

Here is another lord build that I have been having some fun with recently:

Necron Lord W/ Destroyer Body, Lightning Field, Gaze Of Flame, Chronometron, Warscythe

10 Scarabs

He is geared up for close combat, but he really isn’t that good at it, odd right? Necrons can’t do close combat and this build is about the best they can do, and it won’t stand up to a group of terminators or other dedicated assault unit. Don’t let the warscythe fool you- sure you are ignoring all saves which is sweet, but how many models is your lord going to kill? Two on average, and then the other eight terminators hit you back bypassing your T6 and save. So how do you use a close combat lord who sucks in the assault? The key is the destroyer body and scarab body guards- remember from my other posts that the lord is just a delivery vehicle for wargear.

With this type of build you aren’t zooming up the center cutting down marines like crazy, you are looking to exploit the weak side of the table. This type of lord is a back alley man- zooming up the edge of the table as the battle rages on hitting that lone tactical squad sitting on an objective or taking out a pesky group of snipers or devastators in a good position. You want to hit units that you can actually win with in a single round of assault and force them to flee so you can sweeping advance them/lock them in. The scarabs are there so as you zoom up you get mass cover saves and can take incoming wounds on them over your lord. Once you are in the assault any wounds taken on the scarabs give a S3 hit back- annoying to your opponent, but in mass they will take down another guy or two, and gaze of flame gives the -1 LD followed by chronometron to give you two chances to sweeping advance. Pick your target well, since the group is fearless any wounds you loose by will be taken on the scarabs and whittle them down to nothing in no time from the fearless wounds/saves. Now, why no phase shifter for the 4+ invul? Well, you don’t have the points for that and the other toys. Plus, you are T6- that protects you more then a 50/50 save- and if you are getting hit by mass thunder hammers you are smoked anyway.

IF, and it is a big IF you are going to throw these guys at a solid assault unit then you have to weaken that assault unit first to even stand a chance- destroyers and immortals are good for this- a round or two of shooting before the assault.

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