The Summer of Skorpekh: Wings' Road to the LGT

As has been extensively chronicled over the last few weeks in Competitive Innovations, Warzone Nephilim is proving to be one of the most balanced formats we've seen for ages, and what's particularly notable is that some previously underwhelming factions are finally getting a chance to shine. Particularly shiny (they're made of metal after all) are my beloved Necrons, finally rescued from the scrapheap by a combination of point cuts, the genuinely inspired change that GW made to Command Protocols, and some extremely pushed Secondaries. The last point is maybe a little artificial in how it impacts things (and perhaps too good to last), but whatever - the huge number of Necrons I painted in that first lockdown summer of 9th is finally paying off, and I have been fully possessed by the spirit of OVERLORD WINGS once more, and getting in some tournament runs with the army.

I'm back mortals! Credit: Wings

Now, it's pretty clear that the best Necron builds are overwhelmingly the Silent King Eternal Expansionist lists, but that's not what I've been playing for two reasons.

Firstly, my Silent King is not completely painted - I got inspired to start late last year when the last wave of Necron buffs hit, but it quickly became clear that it hadn't done enough, and it was back to Aeldari nonsense of various flavours. He's in subassemblies on my painting table with basecoats done, and if there's ever a week where Competitive Innovations doesn't completely devour my evenings, maybe he'll get some highlighting as a treat.

Secondly, I am a contrarian when it comes to lists, and hate playing the "best" build unless I came up with it first, which in this case I didn't. What I do like is returning to old lists after they get some buffs and seeing how they can adapt to the new environment, so it was time to have a go with the Novokh strategy that I tried out a bit at the start of the Edition, but wasn't quite potent enough.

I've now taken them through two tournaments, making some tweaks to the build after the first, and have been having a blast with them. I've got a third version now planned out, that I'll be taking to the Hertfordshire GT at the end of the month, and I've had a few people asking me how I've been finding Novokh, so I thought I'd put together a quick blog post talking through how each version of the list played, and where I'm at with the army now. For the purposes of conforming to the "Road To" format I'm retroactively declaring that this was me preparing for the LGT, which is broadly true - unless something drastic changes between now and then, it's very likely that I'll be playing Novokh there. Hark now to the latest tales of the glorious accomplishments and occasional tactical withdrawals of OVERLORD WINGS.

Event the First - South Coast Brawl

The Format

7-round Major, player placed terrain using VT/FactoruM terrain kits.

The Army

Catacomb Command Barge. Credit: Wings

HQ

Catacomb Command Barge, Blood Scythe, Enduring Will, Gauss Cannon - 155, -2CP Overlord, Warlord, Voltaic Staff, Resurrection Orb - 115 -1CP Chronomancer, Countertemporal Nanomines, Entropic Lance, Veil of Darkness - 110, -1CP (No Slot) Technomancer, Canoptek Cloak, Metallodermal Tesla Weave - 85

Troops

20 Warriors with Reapers - 260 5 Immortals - 80 5 Immortals - 80

Elites

Nightbringer, Sky of Falling Stars - 320 Canoptek Reanimator - 80 20 Flayed Ones - 200 5 Lychguard, Shields - 125 6 Skorpekh Destroyers - 180 (no slot) Plasmacyte - 15

Fast Attack

3 Scarab Swarms - 45

Heavy Support

3 Lokhust Heavy Destroyers with Gauss - 150

2000pts, 2CP

The Plan

The idea here is that you've got the big block of Warriors as your first wave, and then if the opponent can clear them out you've got a full brick of Flayed Ones that can swap into the role of holding the board - with all the buffs up, they aren't that much worse than Warriors at tanking, and have access to Shadows of Drazkh for extra defence. Meanwhile, Skorpekh head out and brawl through stuff, the Nightbringer acts as a potent distraction or a pinpoint killer, and you've got the Heavy Lokhusts to pop a priority target.

Over in the characters section, I've splurged quite a bit on upgrades. The Command Barge with Enduring Will is a great brawler, and the Blood Scythe is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Command Protocol changes - now that you can rely on being S8 on the charge all the time if you want to, it's a vastly better weapon. It works great for picking up Code of Combat, and giving the foot Overlord the Voltaic Staff helps to lock that in. The Crypteks have some fancy toys, most notably the near-mandatory Veil of Darkness and the Metalodermal Tesla Weave. I cannot recommed the Tesla Weave highly enough, especially now it's cheaper - the reach on it is big enough that it's hard for opponents to play around it even when you warn them, and taking out a few extra models before combat begins can make a huge difference. Abaddon's arrival in the metagame (plus opposing C'tan being pretty common) also makes it even better, as tagging a few surprise wounds onto him in the Charge Phase can be clutch.

I was pretty sure the list would need some iterations, but I generally have very little time for games outside tournaments, so I'm pretty used to learning my army over the first few rounds. A bold move, I realise, because my first game turned out to be against Harlequins.

The Games

Round 1 - Harlequins - Secure MIssing Artefacts

Light Saedath with a big Voidweaver unit and some Bikes

Secondaries

• Treasures of the Aeons
• Code of Combat
• Ancient Machineries

A challenging one to start out with. Having been all excited about getting permanent Hungry Void, this game I chose Sudden Storm as my game-long, because the extra S didn't do much for relevant break points. The key pivot point here was that when I pushed out with my Warriors early, the Voidweavers shot into them and high-rolled - but only enough to kill exactly nineteen out of twenty Warriors that were alive. Many then snapped back into being and got orbed, and they pivoted to fighting on the left flank against some Troupes and Characters while the Flayed Ones and Nightbringer went right, with the Command Barge in tow. I was able to control the tempo of the brawls well enough to gradually take over - most notably, his only source of Mortals to put on the Nightbringer was his Shadowseer, and I kept tagging her in combat out of Line of Sight so she couldn't (plus she needed to be doing Weave Veil as well). Over on the left the Tesla Weave was incredibly clutch, as it repeatedly stopped survivors from his unit getting to swing round and murder my Characters, or put things down to a single model so I could pick up Code of Combat with my Overlord. I lost plenty of stuff, but ended up in full control of the board, with only the Voidweavers fleeing away from me really left, and I was well ahead on scoring.

Victory - 93-78

Round 2 - Thousand Sons - Conversion

Cult of Time with a big Scarab unit and a big Warpflamer unit

Secondaries

• Abhor the Witch
• Treasures of the Aeons
• Purge the Vermin

This is one of my worst matchups, especially because I went second, so couldn't even try to pull ahead on scoring. The fundamental issue is that the big Terminator block smokes my Warriors pretty much 100% of the time, and there wasn't really a safe way to push for scoring with them. I ended up deciding to play very aggressively with my Flayed Ones on the left flank, doing a turn one Veil of Darkness to counter-charge into a non-Warpflamer unit. This was definitely the right call, and made this more of a game than it probably could have been, but the Warriors did, in fact, get smoked early and hard, and after some initial violence on the Flayed Ones' flank I stopped managing to kill anything (he had a very tanky build on a Daemon Prince, which was well rewarded here) and got rolled up.

Defeat - 54-99

Round 3 - Adepta Sororitas - Abandoned Sanctuaries

Custom Order with the re-roll and the "Cannot be wounded on 1s or 2s" Trait, big Sisters blobs, Paragons and Exorcists

Secondaries

• Code of Combat
• Treasures of the Aeons
• Purge the Vermin

This is the right mission for me to take this army on, and this started very well - he has to come to the mid board to play for his Secondaries, and my counterattacks into that were extremely brutal. Unfortunately, I got consistently unlucky with my Nobles trying to finish stuff off for Code of Combat, and in the mid game hit a patch where I hit three catastrophic low-rolls in a row, which swung things against me. First up, I rolled very badly on some Warrior Reanimations, which meant I was short about two models to position them to block Vahl charging and finishing off the Nightbringer. Keeping the C'tan up would likely have given me enough damage advantage to rol through from there. Then, my Flayed Ones failed their charge out of the Veil, which happens, but when my Warriors charged the same Sisters block instead they lost a massive number on overwatch, barely killed any when they swung, and then lost a whole bunch more to morale. That gave my opponent enough momentum to push back for the win. In hindsight, though the dice were nasty, charging with the Warriors was a mistake - it would probably have meant losing the Flayed Ones, but if my opponent had chosen to do that they'd be sacrificing clearing the Warriors off the mid-board, which given that I was still just about ahead, might have been enough to hold on for victory. This game also showed up a weakness of the list - it definitely needed a RND plan, as if I'd been able to take that instead of Code of Combat I'd have trivially pulled off three quarters and made it a draw.

Defeat - 69-77

Round 4 - Orks - Recover the Relics

Goffs with Ghaz, Squighogs and Meganobz

Secondaries

• Purge the Vermin
• Ancient Machineries
• Treasures of the Aeons

This game ruled, and was a lot of fun. This was probably the highpoint of having the big Flayed One unit being really great - it meant I had enough units to brawl on both flanks at once, and push pressure right up the table. He also had to be super cautious with Ghaz to make sure that the Nightbringer didnt' get to touch him. The game was absolute carnage and I was running pretty low on units by the end, but I'd kept my opponent largely at their end of the table while pushing onto their near objectives for at least some of the game myself, meaning I was pretty comfortably ahead on scoring.

Victory - 97-52

Round 5 - Necrons - Data Scry Salvage



Double C'tan Eternal Expansionists with a big Warrior blob, no Silent King

Secondaries

• Code of Combat
• Grind them Down
• Ancient Machineries

Ah, the perils of playing an off-meta Faction Trait - running into the good one. I made the call that Treasures was off the table and I'm reasonably sure that was correct - I would have scored more than I did on Grind, but maybe not more than I should have done. I was basically looking at this game and had come to the conclusion that my plan was to be extremely aggressive - use the Nightbringer to discourage his C'tan from one part of the board and go relatively softly there, while using my Warriors and Characters to really pressure the other side. He had the ObSec advantage, but my advantage was that if the armies slammed into each other, I'd come out on top thanks to the higher output of Novokh.

This was the right call and it just about worked in the face of some truly jaw-droppingly bad dice when it came to killing stuff - Code of Combat and Grind should have been a comfortable 12+ and 9 here, but ended as a 10 and a 3 as I just kept whiffing when it really mattered, with the most comical being my Command Barge rolling four 1s to hit and 2 1s to wound when trying to kill a single Skorpekh for four points (which then killed the barge in turn). That made things nerve wracking all the way through, especially as my opponent was building up a better Secondary score, but the pressure I'd applied on the Primary was enough to keep me ahead.

Victory - 74-59

Round 6 - Chaos Knights - Tide of Conviction



Herpetrax with a tanky Abominant and a Desecrator.

Secondaries

• Bring it Down
• Purge the Vermin
• Ancient Machineries

This was easily the highlight of my event, an incredibly close and enjoyable game that swung back and forth several times. My opponent went first and threatened to put me under insurmountable pressure if I didn't make some big plays, so I jumped my Warriors straight into his backline to put a bunch of damage into a Knight with Disintegration Capacitors. This worked well, especially as my shooting did some damage on the other side - he had to double back quite a bit of stuff to try and push them out, didn't manage to fully do it on the first turn he tried, and the Countertemporal Nanomines were good here for the one and only time, slowing down his Abominant once it had doubled back to delay it getting to the main battle. Over there, having the Nightbringer was absolutely clutch, as without the Abominant to put Mortals on it it was hard to stop, and also let me put the Desecrator down fairly easily by ignoring his feel no pain.

I lost a lot of stuff as the game progressed though, and in the end this came down to my opponent hitting a low roll as nasty as some of mine from the previous game - on a flank, my Lychguard were blocking a Blood Shield Karnivore from getting an objective, and it charged in and completely flubbed it two turns running, letting me squeeze a few more primary points out before the flank collapsed. With the Nightbringer also managing to snipe War Dog that had been softened up by the Warriors earlier in the battle off his home objective, this was just enough that with the last turn to maximise my scoring, I snuck a win.

Victory - 86-82

Round 7 - Blood Angels - Death and Zeal



Flying circus with a unit of Centurions

Secondaries

• Treasures of the Aeons
• Ancient Machineries
• Purge the Vermin

I was up against Vanguard Tactics' Stephen Box for the final round, facing down his nasty Blood Angels list. This became a pretty brutal brawl in the middle, with Blood Angels characters throwing themselves onto the Nightbringer with Angel's Sacrifice to stop it killing juicier things, and Sanguinary Guard slamming into my Warriors, and Death Company hitting Skorpekh hard. I definitely made a mistake here in being over-cautious with deploying my Warriors (given how I ended up using them) and putting my Skorpekh too far forward - the Death Company going into the Warriors is much lower value, as they won't wipe the squad through the invuln, and if the Troops had been screening the Skorpekh I'd have had them for a counter charge, which would have been a massive help.

As it was that role fell to the Flayed Ones, and they honestly did a pretty great job of it - they love being Novokh now, and I was surprised by how relevant the extra AP on 6s half of Hungry Void (you get both halves all the time if you're Novokh) proved to be over the event - going from AP-2 to AP-3 is big in an Armour of Contempt world. The spectacular damage they dealt meant that I got to move models around and pick up some Blood Angels for a few more turns, and went for a cheeky Veil of Darkness charge to try and steal some points on his home objective, but once he'd cleared the Warriors and Skorpekh with a lot of his army still operational, the game was never in doubt.

Defeat - 57-100

The Takeaways

The good news is that I definitely came away from this feeling like the army was real - the number of Necron units that go from zero to hero if you can reliably have +1S on them is fantastic.

In terms of what did and didn't work, my feelings were roughly as follows:

• The Good
  • Warriors - good and worth it.
  • Skorpekh - hell yeah.
  • Noble setup - effective for what I wanted, opponents seemed to consistently underrate how good Code of Combat was going to be for me till it was too late (except in the Sisters game where I totally whiffed).
  • Flayed One damage is extremely real.
  • Nightbringer is hilariously fun to use, and very distracting even in games he doesn't make the point back.
• The Bad
  • Flayed Ones pivoting into the tank role never happened, and it was clear from the games that it it never would - the army is still low-ish on units, so it often needs to split up.
  • Three Heavy Destroyers is too many eggs in one basket, and leaves them useless in games where they have no targets.
  • The Lychguard didn't do anything much - they were in there to fill a slot, but they'd have been better as something faster.
  • Deployment footprint was too high - trying to set up the Skorpekh, Warriors and Flayed Ones plus the Lokhusts was consistently challenging and forced compromises.
  • The army needed a RND plan for games where it's short of a third easy Secondary.
  • The Technomancer was surprisingly only OK.

I retreated into my mind palace to cogitate on how to address these issues, painted some new models, and prepared for a second foray onto the tournament tables.

Event the Second - DZTV July GT at FactoruM

The Format

5-round GT, VT/FactoruM terrain kits, fixed maps.

The Army

Reinforcements! I managed to snap two of the three of these at the waist over the event, they are fragile.

HQ

Catacomb Command Barge, Blood Scythe, Enduring Will, Gauss Cannon - 155, -2CP Overlord, Warlord, Voltaic Staff, Resurrection Orb - 115, -1CP Chronomancer, Tesla Weave, Aeonstave 90 (No Slot) Psychomancer, Atavindicator, Veil of Darkness - 85, -1CP

Troops

20 Warriors with Reapers - 260 5 Immortals - 80 5 Immortals - 80

Elites

Nightbringer, Sky of Falling Stars - 320 Canoptek Reanimator - 80 10 Flayed Ones - 100 6 Flayed Ones - 60 6 Skorpekh Destroyers - 180 (no slot) Cryptothralls - 40 (no slot) Plasmacyte - 15

Fast Attack

3 Scarab Swarms - 45 3 Ophydian Destroyers - 90

Heavy Support

4 Lokhust Destroyers, 1 Lokhust Heavy Destroyer with Gauss - 205

2000pts, 2CP

The Plan

A lot of the same stuff, but a bit of tinkering to provide more mobility and address some weaknesses. With the Technomancer underperforming, I decided to get my Psychomancer back out, as it's one of my favourite models I've ever painted, and performed well when I tried it in the past - their Morale Phase debuff effect is surprisingly flexible. Extra targeted Mortals is also always excellent. I swapped the Veil onto them and the Tesla Weave Arcana onto the Chronomancer, planning to keep them more with the main force and cause trouble.

Elsewhere, the biggest change is splitting the Flayed One unit down into a ten and six, providing me with pressure out of Deep Strike and a RND option. From the first event, I felt like 10 Flayed Ones was enough to be an actual threat, and more than that just became clunky. I also added some Ophydians to the mix, a unit I've been itching to try since the update - they're perhaps the very biggest winners from access to ongoing +1S, and add more deep strike pressure to boot. Finally, my Destroyers have shifted up to be a unit of regular ones, giving a broader target profile that feels better adapted to the current metagame.

Round 1 - Astra Militarum - Death and Zeal

 

Lambdan Lions with lots of Taurox Primes, some units in a Valkyrie and a Baneblade in tow.

Secondaries

• Treasures of the Aeons
• Purge the Vermin
• Code of Combat

I was honestly a little nervous going into this, as his army has a tonne of damage against mine, and I don't have a great plan for killing the Baneblade fast. However, the flip side is that I can melt pretty much everything up close, and the Nightbringer is going to be excellent against him unless he pulls off a hail Mary to kill it fast.

Unfortunately he did - his lone Astropath managed to roll the 5+ on a single dice for a smite and get three wounds through, combining with Overwatch from the Baneblade to put the Nightbringer down ahead of schedule. He also played a blinder of a third turn to slow my scoring to a crawl. However, here the Flayed Ones immediately showed their greater value in the new setup - they rolled out of deep strike into his back lines on several consecutive turns, denying him some points and tying up Tauroxes. His power play also let me bank Code of Combat extremely quickly as my two Nobles rolled through his small units. When the game ended I think he was ahead in terms of surviving units, but I'd boxed him in sufficiently for enough of the game that I'd nearly maxed my score.

Victory - 99-74

Round 2 - Orks - Secure Missing Artefacts

Goffs with Battlewagons full of Beast Snaggas and Meganobz

Secondaries

• Treasures of the Aeons
• Purge the Vermin
• Assassination

This was a game where I felt very good about the choice of Novokh over ObSec, as it made it much harder for him to threaten to just roll over me. However, I had to go first which is horrible in a melee-on-melee corner deployment game. The battle swiftly erupted into a huge brawl in the mid board as the Nightbringer and Warriors took on lots of Beast Snaggas, and happily despite the best efforts of the Snaggas the Warriors were able to tank through it.

I wasn't planning to write these events up so didn't take many photos, but this was epic enough that I had to grab it.

That let me punch back effectively and start inching into control of the centre and right flank, but he was able to break through on the left flank with a Battlewagon and some Grots, resuming scoring Get Da Good Bits (after his unit on the right flank had a tragic Flayed One accident) and threatening to reach out and push for my deployment if I wasn't careful, with some Meganobz making a real play for it. I was able to carry the day by teleporting my four surviving Warriors and the Psychomancer into his deployment zone, where they were able to pick up a Mek for Assassinate and tie up some vehicles while ObSeccing his home objective. This did get all the way to his final turn with him still potentially being able to sneak a narrow win, but the Tesla Weave came in absolutely clutch - his only route to evening the score involved the last surviving Meganob punching my Chronomancer off my home objective, but he only had one wound left and I duly rolled the 2+ to fry him after the charge.

Victory - 84-75

Round 3 - Chaos Knights and Abaddon - Conversion

Herpetrax Dogs with a bunch of upgrades (it was in this week's Competitive Innovations in the Showdown for this event).

Secondaries

• Treasures of the Aeons
• Purge the Vermin
• Bring it Down

Another game where I was very glad to be on a more murderous plan than pure ObSec, as this list straight shuts some versions of Expansionists, especially if it goes first (which he did). This game was an absolute slaughter on both sides, with my army fully showcasing its ability to countercharge, picking up nine of the eleven War Dogs over the course of the game. Unfortunately, I kept just not quite landing what I needed - I had two instances over the course of the game where I missed a War Dog kill by a single wound that cost me points on both Purge and Treasures, and handed him 12pt turns. The first one of these, sadly, was entirely my own doing - I messed up the positioning of my Command Barge so he couldn't put My Will Be Done on the Skorpekh turn 1, which very likely would have added enough damage to let them take out a whole two War Dogs rather than one and 13 wounds. The cascading impact of that (given I lost quite a few Skorpekh in response) might genuinely have been enough to make this close given where the score ended up, but as it is the forces of Chaos triumphed. Also, having talked about the Tesla Weave being great against Abaddon, I rolled a 1 on it twice. I don't think it would actually have mattered, but it was pretty ire-inducing.

Defeat - 76-94

Round 4 - Tyranids - Data Scry Salvage

Melee-focused Leviathan Goodstuff

• Treasures of the Aeons
• Retrieve Nephilim Data
• Code of Combat

Unfortunately this game was never really in contention because of how atrocious my dice were (although I should say my opponent also made consistently good decisions, so it would have been tough either way). My opponent went first and pushed hard on the left and cautious on the right, which largely suited me, as I had my Warriors likely able to hold the left for a while, and stuff that didn't want to face the Reaper of Obliterax on the right. I'd also set up a cunning punish for his expected first turn play with his Genestealers - they seemed likely to charge my Immortals, so I'd set up that they'd have to get hit by the Tesla to do so, and my calculation was that between Overwatch, that and punchbacks the unit would get wiped, and I'd be able to move up to RND. Unfortunately I hit a third consecutive one on the Weave (and would go on to hit a streak of six ones in a row on it till it finally recovered in round 5), and two Genestealers lived, and that largely set the tone of the game - my Destroyers went into his Raveners with My Will be Done and full Re-rolls up and did a total of 2 damage through 5+ invuln and feel no pain, though the right flank went a bit better. so I still picked up some points.

Here my opponent correctly assessed that things were going their way and sensibly adapted their play - the original plan had been to send their Flyrant for a fairly long charge into my Destroyers, but he instead went for a safer charge into my Reanimator. Massive overkill, sure, but it meant that he cleared out the Warriors far faster, locking down that flank a turn ahead of what might otherwise have been managed and kind of shutting me out of the game from there. That was very much confirmed when my Skorpekh went into some Tyranid Warriors and did two damage and lost four models on the strike back. RIP to them. I could 100% never have won this game with the dice as they were, but as I said my opponent (who I've played a few times now and was hungry for revenge in this one) still played an excellent game, and choosing to lock in the more conservative but safer play when I was behind and needed a big swing was a good show of tactical restraint - if I'd had my Reanimator up and the Flyrant had been sitting around twiddling its thumbs, there was the faintest sliver of a chance I'd find a way back into it.

Defeat - 47-89

Round 5 - Death Guard - Tide of Conviction

Harbingers with three PBCs, Plague Marines in a Rhino and some Bloat Drones and Deathshrouds for roving threats.

• Treasures of the Aeons
• Purge the Vermin
• Ancient Machineries

This game ruled - the way things played out is that I successfully pushed hard on my left flank, clearing out all his ObSec stuff and getting the Skorpekh into an ongoing brawl with the Plaguebursts, which lasted for the rest of the game with them holding the objective, but my opponent pulling off much the same on the right flank, sending the Rhino up along with some Characters and gradually shattering my position. He also did a great job of keeping me off Purge, which I had very much over-estimated the ease of - between the Drones and him dropping units of Deathshrouds on both sides in my half, I had to work very hard to score it. This came right down to the final turns, where a clutch play with the Veil gave me the slenderest of wins - it let me bring two Opydians and the Psychomancer over to his (now depleted) top right on turn four, then on turn five the Ophydians moved onto an objective and finished Machineries, while the Psychomancer finished off a skulking character with the Atavindicator. That cleared him out of that quarter, denying him 3pts on Despoiled Ground and giving me 3pts for the final Machineries, and I won by...3pts.

Victory - 77-74

The Takeaways

I'd been aiming for a 4-1 here, but this iteration of the list still felt like an improvement, and getting more reps in was great. I also picked up best-in-faction Necrons, which was nice.

In terms of how the list felt this time around:

• The Good
  • 10/6 Flayed Ones worked exceptionally well. 10 was enough if I needed to actually do some damage when I hit, and having two units waiting in Deep Strike gave me lots of options for disruption or RND.
  • The Psychomancer absolutely kicked ass, fully the MVP on multiple occasions, very versatile and does way more for the army than the Technomancer did.
  • The Ophydians were, if I'm honestly, slightly disappointing because they rolled crap a lot of the time (either on charges and swings), but just the extra threat projection was nice, and they did great stuff in the Ork and Death Guard games.
  • The Cryptothralls, who I'd thrown in when making last minute tweaks because I couldn't be bothered to find 5pts for more Scarabs, were honestly really good. Because I was consciously keeping my Chronomancer positioned for the Tesla Weave, they got a few good counter-charges, where their high damage potential (compared to Scarabs) really paid off. In games where that didn't happen, they sat on my home objective behind a wall, which is still fine.
• The Bad
  • The Nightbringer didn't quite pull its weight. It is very scary, and I did get very unlucky with opponents making high-roll plays to kill him and pulling it off, but I definitely came away with the conclusion that I'd be better with a Transcendant and 90 extra points of other units.
  • The Lokhust unit was much better than the three heavies were, but still not quite doing enough to justify their cost.
  • The Aeonstave sucks so bad, I thought I wouldn't mind having it if it saved 10pts, but I do, good grief. Never again.

Overlord Wings' Very Secret Plan For Galactic Domination (V3)

So with two events under my belt with new Necrons, where am I at? Well first up, this army rules now - I can't fully articulate why, but this is one of the most enjoyable lists I've ever played, and I am hungry for more games with it. It seems to just fit how I want to interact with 40K perfectly, there are loads of decisions in every game, and when you win you feel like you earned it. New Command Protocols is a big part of that, and I cannot express fully enough how good a change it is, one of the biggest glow ups to a rule that GW have ever handed out.

There's clearly still room for improvement though, and this is what I'm expecting to run out at the next GT.

The Army

Transcendent C'tan. Credit: Wings

HQ

Catacomb Command Barge, Blood Scythe, Enduring Will, Gauss Cannon - 155, -2CP Overlord, Warlord, Voltaic Staff, Resurrection Orb - 115, -1CP Chronomancer, Tesla Weave, Entropic Lance (let's never fight again) 100 (No Slot) Psychomancer, Atavindicator, Veil of Darkness - 85, -1CP

Troops

20 Warriors with Reapers - 260 5 Immortals - 80 5 Immortals - 80

Elites

Transcendant C'tan, Cosmic Tyrant, Sky of Falling Stars, Transdimensional Thunderbolt - 230 Canoptek Reanimator - 80 9 Flayed Ones - 90 8 Flayed Ones - 80 6 Skorpekh Destroyers - 180 Canoptek Spyder, Gloom Prism - 65 (no slot) Cryptothralls - 40 (no slot) Plasmacyte - 15

Fast Attack

3 Scarab Swarms - 45 3 Ophydian Destroyers - 90 5 Triarch Praetorians - 110

Heavy Support

Lokhust Heavy Destroyer, Gauss - 50 Lokhust Heavy Destroyer, Gauss - 50

2000pts, 2CP

This feels like it builds on the lessons from the last two outings effectively. Two Lokhust heavies is still just enough to make opponents nervous about bringing a non-invulnerable vehicle out (especially with the Entropic Lance bacK), and the Transcendant C'tan can still go be a sticky bully unit where opponents can't easily deal with them. Where they can, a Transcendant can do a better job racking up their value while staying at a distance, where it's harder for opponents to destroy them. Elsewhere, Triarch Praetorians add another mobile threat (and their shooting is perfect for teeing up Code of Combat against Marines), and a solitary Spyder boosts my counter-charge capability a bit more that the Nightbringer is gone, plus provides a single Deny to make Psychic Secondaries a little less of a freebie against me. Finally, spare points are plowed into an extra body for the Flayed ones, and splitting them 9/8 puts them into a position where both units can comfortably pick up enemy skirmishers, and ensures they have enough bodies to be an annoyance (their main role). With a bit of time spare the Triarch could easily become more Ophydians (freeing 20 more pts for Flayed Ones), but I have a very nicely painted unit of the former that I'm desperate to get on the table, and they feel pretty well positioned now.

Wrap Up

Very confident that this version is the best yet, and hyped to see how it plays. I hope you've enjoyed this tour through a couple of events, and I'll return with another update after my next GT, as at that point I'll be drawing together my final build for the LGT.

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