I've decided I will be running necrons for sure. I've been play testing and theory-hammering a ton over the last few weeks and ultimately I think I'm going with ally-free pure necrons. The core of my flyers for necrons have been doing very very well which comes in at 845 points plus the 70 points fortification:
Night Scythe with 5 Warriors
Night Scythe with 5 Warriors
Night Scythe with 5 Warriors
Doom Scythe
Doom Scythe
Aegis Defense lines with Com Relay
This is the core of my flyer side. With the Com Relay, I can make sure it all hits at once. The challenge I had been facing while trying different lists is that if I presented the rest of my army too early, it would get beat down before my flyers arrived. After a lot of testing I found that hiding my army for the first turn or two behind the defense lines allowed me to do a couple things.
1. Protect it by going to ground or even being out of range of any weapons (for sure if night fight was in play)
2. Speed up the game so I could always get 5 turns in since my first and my opponents first/second turns go really fast
I started accomplishing this by putting two big immortal squads with veils and attached "super-overlords" that would teleport from behind the lines mid game to start busting skulls. Ultimately the mega squads just didn't do enough damage and I am not comfortable enough with the randomness of deep striking. I also spent way too much points on overlords and crypteks.
After a lot of debate thinking of whether I should ally in some grey knights or orks (again), it was brought to my attention to try the hard/fast hitting punch of wraiths and destroyer lords. It will still allow me to hold my army back the first turn or two until the flyers arrive, then the big fast combat squads and take on units that get busted out of transports. Additionally the destroyer lord can soak up missle shots for the wraith units and eventually split off to crunch heavy armor or even tackle small squads solo (with a 2+ save and toughness 6).
Here's my new list for 2,000 points that I need to frantically assemble and paint!
HQ: Destroyer lord with scythe, 2+ save, mindshackle scarabs
HQ: Destroyer lord with scythe, 2+ save, mindshackle scarabs
Troop: 6 warriors (creep up on objectives)
Troop: 6 immortals (haven't decided if I'll run telsa or gauss)
Troop: 6 immortals (haven't decided if I'll run telsa or gauss)
Troop: 5 warriors in Night Scythe
Troop: 5 warriors in Night Scythe
Troop: 5 warriors in Night Scythe
Fast: 6 wraiths with 3 whip coils
Fast: 6 wraiths with 3 whip coils
Heavy: Doom Scythe
Heavy: Doom Scythe
Fortification: Aegis Defense Lines with Com Relay
Here's what I need to still do to get ready for Nova:
- 7 Wraiths
- 2 Destroyer Lords
- Finish my portable display board
- Creative army lists
This means a lot of painting for me during a pretty busy next few weeks but I think I can do it. I also need to make sure the wraiths will fit in my travel bag, since Battlefoam doesn't have the custom cut templates for wraiths on their composer yet. Plus I doubt I could get one produced and shipped to me in time!
It'll be a fun few next weeks. I'll be updating with pictures on how I'm progressing as well as how the test games go.