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NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.4 [Experimental]
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=26211
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Author:  Ulrik [ Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

More generally about the Necrons, and the Raiders especially, the issue does have a certain binary element. In my game against MikeT I killed 6 monoliths at the start of turn 2 (go go Warlock triple assault), and after that the game was effectively over. So the concerns from Necron players that Monoliths can't really be more fragile is valid.

The problem then is that you have a binary outcome:
- Kill enough Monoliths? The Necrons are stranded off-board, or at the very least their infantry is forced to remain on the table, severely limiting their usefulness for the coming turns and rendering them very vulnerable.
- Don't kill enough Monoliths? The portals are all over the place (retreating into position, teleporting back in, doubling and supporting assaults) and you can never get at the infantry.

And the difference between those two game states is often one or two dead Monoliths.

Author:  Dobbsy [ Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

Has anyone ever just considered/tried making them simple transports?

Author:  Borka [ Fri Oct 03, 2014 3:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

Ulrik wrote:
More generally about the Necrons, and the Raiders especially, the issue does have a certain binary element. In my game against MikeT I killed 6 monoliths at the start of turn 2 (go go Warlock triple assault), and after that the game was effectively over. So the concerns from Necron players that Monoliths can't really be more fragile is valid.

The problem then is that you have a binary outcome:
- Kill enough Monoliths? The Necrons are stranded off-board, or at the very least their infantry is forced to remain on the table, severely limiting their usefulness for the coming turns and rendering them very vulnerable.
- Don't kill enough Monoliths? The portals are all over the place (retreating into position, teleporting back in, doubling and supporting assaults) and you can never get at the infantry.

And the difference between those two game states is often one or two dead Monoliths.

Yes indeed and making the monoliths weaker (towards TK and MW) would increase this by making the first more likely. I don't think removing LM would be all that bad though. The epic-UK monoliths seems to be doing quite alright, the sautekh ones would only fare worse against lance and TK attacks and TK aren't all that common. I'm not sure it would be all that bad.

It's the WE I'm worried about, it would effect them the most.

Also, what Sautekh does is add other ways for the necron to play. Less reliant on monoliths. Like adding warrior formations with ghost arks. The night scythes and so on.

I might be able to get a game in on sunday. Will use Sautekh without LM then to get a feel for it.

Dobbsy wrote:
Has anyone ever just considered/tried making them simple transports?

It's an interesting idea. They would still be pretty powerful. Put them at the front to take hits in an assault. You could teleport your formation exactly were you want them. They provide a considerable FF boost.

It would be a pretty usles transport after first strike though with 15cm love.

Author:  Steve54 [ Fri Oct 03, 2014 7:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

Dobbsy wrote:
Has anyone ever just considered/tried making them simple transports?

That would basically require a complete restart of the list, and would ignore completely the monolith and necron fluff

Author:  mordoten [ Fri Oct 03, 2014 7:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

how about just letting them teleport once like all other teleport units in the game?

Author:  Parintachin [ Fri Oct 03, 2014 8:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

But would it feel like Necrons then?

I don't know how they play in 40k these days.
But back when I used to face them, their flavor was exactly this kind of frustration - throwing everything And the kitchen sink at them, and watching them just getting up again. And again. Got a strength 9 lascannon? Against us, it's strength 7, and, by the way, f*ck you very much. Aw; didn't kill the last member of that squad, the one hiding outside LOS? Boo hoo - here they all are again, back to full strength, and teleported right into your face. Now smile.

And yet somehow, I don't remember ever losing a game to them. Stock up with all the ap3 weapons my word bearers could sport, castle up, and I always came out on top. Frustrated like hell, but winning nonetheless.


I think the main problem here might be points cost. And the list working Just as infuriating as it's intended to.


I think a price increase for some of the units; that portal-carrying plane for instance, and a teleport range limit could fix the perceived balancing, while maintaining the infuriating nature of the list.

Author:  Ulrik [ Fri Oct 03, 2014 8:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

The problem is that the list isn't necessarily unbalanced. But it can be very frustrating to play against.

Author:  Kyrt [ Fri Oct 03, 2014 8:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

I think we are at the point where a rethink is needed though, a clean break from raiders.

Brumbaers post is basically what I thought, it's as if the list is designed not to have counters. When I read the list, I thought it looked like it was written by an 8 year old boy.

I know you want to address it but it seems like it's a matter of taking with one hand and giving with the other. Night scythes adds yet another option for the beardy portals that you don't have to leave exposed at the start of the turn, for example.

I don't expect you to do it, but I'll say it anyway. If it were me, I'd totally rethink the role all the special rules play. I'd severely limit the impact of all of them.

For example make portals behave the same way all the other ways of entering the board do, i.e. with downsides. This could be done by making them identical to Eldar portals (i.e. one way). You could keep phase out then, as the only way to leave the board and make it feel different to eldar. Or prevent a formation using more than 1 portal per turn, or limit portals to 1 per formation. Remove living metal and replace with a void shield style regeneration for WE, or make it like void shields entirely (even for the AVs), or dark eldar shadow fields. Remove TK from the pylon. Remove the portals from night scythes. Do something about fearless, or maybe just remove all the leaders.

With all of that they would be far closer to being a regular army and have the same downsides and counters.

Author:  Ginger [ Sat Oct 04, 2014 2:13 am ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

Just Spitballing here.

It sounds as though the main complaint is that the interaction between all the special rules, which effectively removes all weaknesses. This results in the binary result people have alluded to; kill the portals and you win, don't kill them and you lose. Living metal merely increases or decreases the likelihood of killing a portal consequently swinging the likely outcome from one side to the other.

So, perhaps the key is to disrupt the various rule interactions, one of the key ones being the ability to assault out of one portal and consolidate back through another in the same formation.

What would happen if each formation were only allowed to use portals once per turn?

My 2 cents as they say.

Author:  Borka [ Sat Oct 04, 2014 3:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

Steve54 wrote:
Dobbsy wrote:
Has anyone ever just considered/tried making them simple transports?

That would basically require a complete restart of the list, and would ignore completely the monolith and necron fluff

Indeed it would. Tansport would probably be easier to balance. I'd rather try to get a portal based army to work though.

mordoten wrote:
how about just letting them teleport once like all other teleport units in the game?

That's already a part of Sautekh since phase out is not a part of the list.

Kyrt wrote:
I think we are at the point where a rethink is needed though, a clean break from raiders.

Brumbaers post is basically what I thought, it's as if the list is designed not to have counters. When I read the list, I thought it looked like it was written by an 8 year old boy.

I know you want to address it but it seems like it's a matter of taking with one hand and giving with the other. Night scythes adds yet another option for the beardy portals that you don't have to leave exposed at the start of the turn, for example.

I don't expect you to do it, but I'll say it anyway. If it were me, I'd totally rethink the role all the special rules play. I'd severely limit the impact of all of them.

For example make portals behave the same way all the other ways of entering the board do, i.e. with downsides. This could be done by making them identical to Eldar portals (i.e. one way). You could keep phase out then, as the only way to leave the board and make it feel different to eldar. Or prevent a formation using more than 1 portal per turn, or limit portals to 1 per formation. Remove living metal and replace with a void shield style regeneration for WE, or make it like void shields entirely (even for the AVs), or dark eldar shadow fields. Remove TK from the pylon. Remove the portals from night scythes. Do something about fearless, or maybe just remove all the leaders.

With all of that they would be far closer to being a regular army and have the same downsides and counters.

I agree a rethinking of the list is what we need to do. And that's what we've tried to achieve with Sautekh.

Phase out is gone and will not be back. I don't want it back as it often works to the benefit of the necron player rather than their disadvantage.

Some of these things are already in place. A formation using an eternity gate is only usable ones per turn.

A holofield save kind of rule would give the same kind of save against MW and TK. I don't like that. I will test night scythes as only transports in my next game and no LM.
Ginger wrote:
Just Spitballing here.

It sounds as though the main complaint is that the interaction between all the special rules, which effectively removes all weaknesses. This results in the binary result people have alluded to; kill the portals and you win, don't kill them and you lose. Living metal merely increases or decreases the likelihood of killing a portal consequently swinging the likely outcome from one side to the other.

So, perhaps the key is to disrupt the various rule interactions, one of the key ones being the ability to assault out of one portal and consolidate back through another in the same formation.

What would happen if each formation were only allowed to use portals once per turn?

My 2 cents as they say.

In sautekh the portal-engage-portal-out is much litmited already, it is still possible though

Basically a formation can only use one eternity gate portal per turn and can't leave the table through them. But I did leave some regular portals in the list as well. If I were to remove portals from the ariplanes (in favor of transport), then there would only be regular portals left in the warengines. I think that's a fair start.

Perhaps the easiest thing is to just make all portals in Sautekh eternity gates though. It would certainly be neater with only one kind of portals. That would mean each formation could only use one portal per turn. The portal out would be totaly gone.

Author:  Dobbsy [ Sat Oct 04, 2014 5:17 am ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

Borka, one of the issues that bothers me most is opponents can't seem to get away from engagements that come in completely clean. You can't put BMs on them like air assault and the Scythes even go as far as breaking that air assault formula.

Before re-writing the entire thing I think you can perhaps just start by toning down the rules. Like you say, ranges/proximities on portal use, Living metal tweaking (if it's really necessary) etc and Transport for the Scythes. I would really suggest making them part of the assault as well that way the troops leaving the portal may not have BMs (they aren't on the board etc) but the transport does so they all count as having them. Alternatively, could the Scythes be Skimmers instead (much likethe Valkyrie/Stormraven etc) and the other aircraft take up the slack of the fighter role?

Author:  atension [ Sat Oct 04, 2014 5:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

Ahh please don't take the portals off the fighters, I really like the flavour it adds to the army. Just played a game against a standard guard list using the exact same list as I used against Dobbsy, same rule mods on LM. I got crushed!!!!

Guard 4, Sautekh 0 end of turn 3. Battle report to be posted soon.

The guard list is an incredibly well rounded list. The huge unit sizes plus the arty and garisonig skimmers with a large amount of firepower are insane.

Don't go making any rash changes with out some more play testing against other lists. Marines don't seem to fair all that well, though they didn't against the raiders list either. On the other hand I have lost three consecutive matches against guard lists the first 2 were even with the normal LM rules.
My record so far:
3 loss to iron legion lists (2 with original living metal)
2 win 1 loss to Blood angels lots the loss was with the original LM.
1 win against Tau (original LM).

So far I'm 3 of 7 not a great record.

Author:  Borka [ Sat Oct 04, 2014 2:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

Thanks Atension. I'm looking forward to reading that. I agree having to take things slow and we shouldn't base to much on a single game. What I do believe now though is that we have to rethink the night scythes. They're pushing necrons back into the I ignore all your counters territory. I think they were a bad concept from the start by me and the others. Air assaulting is very powerful, and this formation will do it without a lot of the inbuilt risks in the basic air rules.

I don't want people to be able to do a post like Brumbaers about the scythes. To paraphrase him (I thought it was fun ;D ) as they stand now we would perhaps be hearing:

  • So your air assaulting me? Well I invested all these points in AA. So you will have at least one BM going in.
    Well no not really. The airplanes will but not the assaulters.
  • Ok, but I will intercept you. Well yeah you can try but I have this pylon over here that has a 90 cm TK attack.
  • Ok, but even so I actually shot (one or both of) your planes down. So I guess your air assaulting phalanx is dead/diminished. Well you'd think so but they're still over here in reserves untouched.
  • Ok but I'm hiding way over here so you can't prep my formation before the assault. Well you'd think so, but I can. The airplanes will do the prepping.
  • Ok but through some planning of mine/luck your phalanx lost the assault. So your airplanes will be autokilled. Well you would think so, but they were never at risk because they weren't actually part of the assault.

The synergy between aircraft, portal and the rest of the list is to great I think. The problem I see with transport though is internal balance within the list. Atension do you think you'd still use them if they had transport instead? Or wouldn't they be good enough in comparison to the portals?


If you do play any more games during the weekend please try a 60 cm range for the eternity gate.

Concerning living metal. How did you find the invulnerable save? Did you find it an improvement? For now I'd suggest we use the old LM rule but having to take a save against each point of TK damage.

Author:  atension [ Sat Oct 04, 2014 2:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: NetEA Sautekh Legion (Newcrons) 0.3 [Experimental]

http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=26977&p=537983#p537983
For the battle report.

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