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| My Ideal HQ |
After playing several games of Sixth Edition, I finally feel as if I have my go-to list for 1500pt games. This list comes after much trial and error - a few units that seemed absolutely great to me beforehand just haven't been living up to their points.
To wit, my old list:
- Anrakyr w/ Barge
- 9 Warriors & 1 Voltaic Cryptek in Ark
- 9 Warriors & 1 Voltaic Cryptek in Ark
- 6 Wraiths (3 with coils)
- 6 Wraiths (3 with coils)
- Doom scythe
- Annihilation Barge
Sounds great, right? A little low on the number of troop units, but god knows they're protected enough. Anrakyr gets in on his barge and tears through armor, the wraiths are all purpose, and the doom scythe cleans up the rest. It's a pretty fair "all comers" list.
That said, after about 15 games with that list, it's become very clear that it's far from perfect. Two of the units therein just aren't up to snuff.
ANRAKYR on a barge is worth a whopping 245 points. For that, you're getting an Overlord with a warscythe, mind in the machine, a tachyon arrow, and some middling close combat abilities. Without MitM, that amounts to a 210 point unit, which means you're paying about 35 points for MitM. Not bad, and fairly situationally useful.
That said, I simply can't justify it, and here's why: With the advent of new chariot rules, the purpose and versatility of the classic surfboard overlord has changed. Now, they're more than capable of assaulting monstrous creatures and specialized units and holding their own. However, the big barrier to this is 1) insta death and 2) power weapons. At AP3, if something big and mean is hitting your Overlord at S10 AP3 or better, you're smoked. Getting your 245pt HQ one-shotted isn't pleasant.
My proposed fix is this: Screw Anrakyr. MitM isn't all that great, and Tachyon Arrow, as nice as it is, can't be relied on enough to justify its points.
Here's my new HQ: Necron Overlord w/ Warscythe, Phase Shifter, and Mindshackle Scarabs, mounted on a CCB. This is five points cheaper than Anrakyr, and it fits the Chariot role, in my mind, far better than Anrakyr. You've got an (admittedly expensive) invuln save that has a decent likelihood of precluding getting smashed, and even if you're worried about that, Mindshackle Scarabs are absolutely *wonderful* against HQ and Monstrous Creature fights. Yeah, you lose the ability to use enemy armor against itself, but I sincerely can't think of one time that's been abundantly helpful recently.
My other change falls on the DOOM SCYTHE. This thing flies around the board at 18-36 inches a turn, which is great and all, but it makes the Doom Scythe extremely hard to effectively control. When I've fought good players recently, they've always positioned their units in such a way that left me very few good shots throughout the game. While its big gun is very nice when it works, I find myself with very few opportunities to use it correctly. With a hefty price tag of 175 points, it just doesn't cut it. Maybe I'm a terrible player, but my typical game with a Doom Scythe goes like this:
Turn 2-3 Enter board, get off a shot against armor, probably kill it
Turn 3-4 Shoehorn a shot in if possible, probably fly off board
Turn 4-5 If anything's left, take a potshot at it
Turn 5-6 Zoom off board, try another potshot maybe.
... Not worth 175 points. I'm replacing it with a Night Scythe, which can still *very* effectively dispose of enemy air while simultaneously transporting a third troop squad around. Even better, in the event that the Night Scythe gets shot down, my troops don't vaporize.
That said, here's my new 1500 list:
- Necron Overlord w/ Warscythe, Phase Shifter, and Mindshackle Scarabs, mounted on a CCB.
- 9 Warriors & 1 Voltaic Cryptek in Ark
- 9 Warriors & 1 Voltaic Cryptek in Ark
- 7 Immortals & 1 Lord (Warscythe, Res. Orb), mounted in Night Scythe
- 6 Wraiths (3 coils)
- 6 Wraiths (3 coils)
... Upon looking at this list, the only thing that really bothers me about it is that there aren't any Annihilation Barges, which are fantastic vehicles. It *does* get another troop choice though, and that troop choice should be fairly effective. I lost to a Necron foot list recently that reminded me of the power of a 4+ Feel No Pain. I threw the Lord in there to try and help out with some of the assault losses. Sweeping advance is the bane of that unit.
