Big Al here. Played a game Saturday against Jester’s Necrons with my Nids. Jester’s list is surprisingly mobile (10 vehicles, if I recall) and very shootie (Tesla and Arc are tricksie since Jester tends to roll sixes a lot). I ended up with a loss (not a landslide though) and had some observations I thought I would share related to what is wafting from the GW think-tank and shaping the future 40K landscape.
Observations:
Starting with IG, then Nids*, SW, BA, GK, DE, and now Necrons, you notice a couple increasingly common themes – Synergy and Mobility. *Nids got some synergy but very little in the mobility department.
Synergy: The ability to take a plain-Jane unit and under the right circumstances (or character) that unit gets abilities it wouldn’t normally get and becomes suddenly spectacular. In previous 40K editions, a unit “was what it was” and served a single function. Nod to other game systems (WarmaHordes comes to mind in particular) for getting GW to realize the benefits of synergies. It adds a new level of complexity and tactics to the game which in turn makes it more rewarding and fun. Thumbs up.
Mobility: As a 15+ year 40K player, I have witnessed the game evolve from footslogger to mech to fast mech. This one is especially evident with DE and Necrons with uber fast flyers and their 36″ flat out moves. In the past, you could camp on a lonely objective in a far corner and be considered out of reach for most of the game. Back then, only certain armies were considered fast – no longer. Every army now has the ability to take units (troops even) and completely reposition them in a single turn. I haven’t read through the 6th rumors and leaks in detail, so I apologize if this has already been covered. From a business perspective, GW seems to be making a move to open avenues for larger/new models as well as Forgeworld models (esp. flyers). For Nids, armor is our Achilles heel so this proves even more challenging. The end result is a faster paced game with very dynamic movement phases. Stand and shoot armies as well as footslogger armies suffer the most. After all, you can’t kill what you can’t catch. Mobile armies can focus fire or cc when and where they want defeating a slower but larger enemy.
Adapting Nids to this changing game:
For the longest time, I have been an advocate of bubble-wrapped blocks of units advancing up field to some distant objective. Cannon-fodder on the outside; kill units on the inside with distraction units supporting. That’s what nids are supposed to be, right? Nidzilla and horde lists swarming/thundering forward into a fulisade of fire to get to grips in a desperate melee (i.e Aliens or Starship Troopers). In theory, this is exciting and very intimidating. In reality, the “they can’t shoot all of us before we get stuck in” doesn’t quite work anymore. Most armies can either shoot you off the table before you can run across the board or they can keep you at arm’s reach by moving around long enough to carve you up like Thanksgiving turkey or grind you to dust through attrition.
So what can be done to breathe some life into this outdated strategy? Allow me to introduce the concept of Null Deployment for your consideration. Null Deployment is putting your whole army in reserve thereby not allowing your opponent to gain any advantage during deployment and through the first 2 turns of play (ideally). It is by no means new to 40K, but nids don’t seem to fit the mold at first glance. Let’s take a closer look.
Consider this 2000 pt list which I would consider all-comers and very diverse.
Hive Tyrant with Wings, Twinlinked Devourers (6 shot S6), and Hive Commander (Outflank a Troop and add 1 to reserve rolls)
Tervigon (Troop due to Gaunts) with Adrenals, Toxins, and Catalyst
7 Ymgarl Stealers – an increasingly popular choice in the highly coveted Elite slot
3 Hive Guard
3 Zoanthropes in a Pod
14 Termagaunts with devourers (42 S4 shots a turn – yikes) in a Pod
11 Genestealers
11 Genestealers
20 Hormagaunts with Adrenals (good choice for Tyrant’s Hive Commander outflank)
18 Gargoyles with Adrenals and Toxins – These gribblies will surprise you
Trygon with Adrenals
The key is flexibility and surprise. You can start most of the army on the table depending on your opponent or you can put them all in reserve. Jester made the comment that playing Nids always keeps you on the defensive – as it should be. With a little luck from the dice overlords, you can put a world of pressure on your opponent turn 2. Jester is very tactically savvy and was able to mitigate this risk pretty well. I made some tactical errors not having played against Necrons before and missed some key rolls when I needed them. Despite these inevitabilities, this list performed like I intended it to. The Tervigon and Hive Guard walk on and hold the backfield while the rest of the army puts on the pressure on the other side of the table by popping transports and clogging the board.
In closing, for Nids to be relevant in an increasingly fast mech world, you have to evolve your tactics to leverage your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses. At the same time, you need to stay flexible to keep your opponent from being able to anticipate your moves. Will Nids be king of the hill – no. Can they be competitive and fun – absolutely. And best yet, 6th is just around the corner and then all bets are off.
No related posts.
Big Al, I think that is a very concise summary of what is happening. I also like your approach on how to handle it and your realistic outlook on the results. Unforetunately, you are going to be hard pressed to not get carved up by well built DE and Cron armies. Definately just have to play through it and adapt though. Oh, and I’m sure 6th will turn the world upside down, but I do think speed will still be a big component of the game.
I was thinking about nids the other day, and came to a similar conclusion. My answer was to take a saturation of fast units that could get anywhere you wanted in a turn: Trygons, Ravagers, genestealers, pod warriors. I agree that the bubble wrapping days are done.
I have been running Nids since the new book dropped and have survived and thrived against everything from Blood Angels to DE to Grey Knights, but it was the crons that really hurt! Three A-Barges, a stalker making twin linked tesla Immortals and of course the cryptek Low AP fire just crushed my nids at every turn, so much so that as a Necron player, I don’t even factor Nids into the take all comers lists. Ymgarls won’t make it happen either, a smart player has counters and then there is always shooting. Lictors are good against crons, but then they are rough in a take all comers.
This leads me to Null Deployment. My whole first Nid year in this codex was spent with a model similar to what you have posted above. I think it will hurt, but it isn’t enough. I always did well with the Null lists until somebody with a tuned-up tournament list showed up and then it was less about ability and more about the lists. Guard, wolves and much of BA are more than capable of dealing with Null deployment and Daemons thank you very much for it as well. I am afraid I am at a bit of a loss as to how to make a list that can take all comers now that the crons have found their place
Great points everyone. Appreciate the insight. The hope is that with Necrons on the scene (and any new contender codex for that matter), the meta may shift a little bit more such that the top tier armies adjust their builds to cope. These incremental adjustments amongst the top tier may open cracks that a savvy nid list can exploit. Time will tell.