There were a number of comments made on another thread, and I wanted to address them separately. One reason is to bring some focus to the discussion, but the other is because longer threads tend to scare off people, especially when the topic is buried on page 7.

Okay, let's talk shop. First off, I read back over the thread and these are the comments (edited for space) on the Destroyers.









So, clearly not a consensus that the Destroyers are underpowered, overcosted, worthless pieces, also showing I am not the only defender of them. But in fairness let's do some history on the units.

Up until version 4.2 of the Necron list, the Destroyers were 350 points for a formation, 25 points less than right now. The Heavy Destroyers had 2 x AT4+ shots. Everything else was the same. It was during this time that, amongst other things, the Destroyers were being shown in playtests to be overpowered, with emphasis on the Heavy Destroyers. Here is just one such thread... Solutions ranged from making them light vehicles to bumping the price to 400 points!

Version 4.3 came out around the end of 2007 and Corey (the Necron Champ at the time) with advice from the community, changed the Destroyers to 375 points and changed the armament on the Heavies to 1 x AT3+. This was a change that I generally supported. This change made it to the 4.4 version which was published in the original Raiders.

Version 5.0 was the last change to effect the Destroyers. The Strategy Rating was fixed and the the Necron rule on how they regenerate was modified. While these did not target the Destroyers, the rule changes directly effected every formation in the list, including them.

It is now May 2011, three+ years later, and the feedback on the Necrons has been generally favorable. Because of proxies and how-to guides, there are more armies being built and played than ever before. I did a cursory check through the threads and did not find the Destroyers to be the subject of a complaint. Not until now, anyway.

So, for people who feel like the formation isn't playing well, here are my recommendations:

Try playing differently when you field these formations. Destroyers are extremely versatile; shooty and still good at assaults, great for support and claiming objectives, relatively speedy and being able to be fielded on the board or ejected from a portal. They canNOT be played the same way you would a standard Phalanx would be played. If you do, they will die. It may seem counter-intuitive to place them on the board, but doing so will allow them to engage garrisoned formations and free up portal usage. Because of their movement, placing them next to a Tomb Complex will allow them to portal from there in the event that things get dicey. Because the formations are small, most players will underestimate their usage. When you drop 6-12 dice on a sustained fire and take out a formation, only then will your opponent understand. Placing a lord in the formation is very handy for both shedding BMs and regenerating.

If you cannot stomach the idea of the Destroyers being unchanged, then playtest something else. Take some notes on how that extra 25-50 points helped and what else it purchased for you in the army. Determine the usefulness of that extra purchase in your game and report back.

I concede that the v5.0 changes could have had an adverse effect on the Destroyers that weakened them more than the Phalanx, but were that the case, I think more people would be commenting.

Any official changes are not going to be done willy-nilly. There isn't any 'experience card' being played here. The experience I have (as well as other players like Zombocom who have been playing them for a long time) should be used as a reference whenever possible, and I see no huge push to change the formation. In other words, "Those who do not remember their history are doomed to repeat it" seems apropo.

However, maybe I'm wrong. How do you feel about the Destroyers? How often do you play with them compared to the total number of times you play the Necron? What kind of use do you get out of them? Successes? Failures? Generally what is your win/loss ratio like with the Necron army?

(edited to add links)

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I hope the submitted NetEA document has been changed then, because the Draft copy has them at 350pts base in the 'standard' list (375pts in the non-Tomb Complexable one), with the same stats. Both versions allow a +25pt character upgrade.

Which solves the biggest issue I had with the original Destroyers, and is the same issue I have with the Castellans/Crusaders in the Knightworld list. A fixed cost, non-upgradeable, expensive formation, essentially means taking more than one requires either accepting multiple BTS's*, or needing to take a MORE expensive formation (either an obnoxiously large Infantry Phalanx, or a Large Harvester). The latter means SERIOUSLY cutting into your activation count.

* Made worse because of the Necron Reserves rule.

Morgan Vening

The NetEA has been corrected. I did it several weeks ago. The cost is definitely 375. The only reason it hasn't come out is because some ACs are behind on submitting other lists (I am one of them).

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

my problem with destroyers are this:

they're too expensive. they may be worth their points, they may not be. thats rather irrelevant to the problem (although it may compound it if they underperform) because if people cant/wont fit them into the lists, then their relative value is not going to come into it.

at 375 points (and as a non-core formation) it causes a big problem with list design.
assuming you take one, in order to take a different BTS (one that is more likely to survive the turn 3 'break them to get them off the table') you need to buy at the least a second 385 formation (which is an ugly and vulnerable formation in its own right, a more functional one comes in at 405)
so you've taken two bigish formations in a teleport assault force, while at the same time, taking portals out (in both point and support slots) heaven forbid you take 2 destroyer formations. try it, and at 3000 points you're looking at a 9-10 activation army with two, maybe 3 portal formations available, or easily multiple BTSes

perhaps making them start off as a formation of 4 instead of 6, with the ability to add 1 or 2 to them, and/or making them core, would solve that problem.

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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

Jagged, put this in perspective. They have never been anything less than 350 points. That is a 25 point difference. Less than 1% of the army. Are you seriously suggesting that this 1% swing took the Destroyers from being overly abusive to being impossible to fit in an army?

Play them at 350, record what you did with that 25 points, and let me know how that 25 points impacted your game.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

The point JTG and I have is it's not just the 25 points. It's the impact that a fixed 375 point formation has on the army build. If the intent is to only competitively field one formation of Destroyers, so be it. I'd rather a hard cap. While I'll admit I don't have a ton of experience playing them, I've tried to put together competitive lists together for the games I've had, and trying to fit in multiple Destroyer formations just seems like an easy way to concede too much opportunity to the opponent.

Any chance of a competitive build from the more experienced players, that fields more than a single Destroyer formation?

Morgan Vening

the problem is not 25 points. if nothing else, its atleast 50 points, because for every 25 points you spend on the destroyers, you also need to spend on an infantry phalanx in order to not have a 6 model phasing BTS
you also mentioned that since they where 'overly abusive' at 350 points a number of other effects have also changed

you should have noticed that i never suggest dropping their price by 25 points (if you did not, check again) infact, i said that if they are worth their current points or not is rather irrelevant to my problem. I suggested dropping their formation size to the point where they can more easily fit into the activation war army building process.

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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

I know you didn't personally suggest it - just pointing out that the only two versions of Destroyers have been 350 points with stronger Heavies, and 375 points with weaker heavies. That's it. In that change the complaints about their abuse stopped. I wasn't the champ so I won't take credit for it, but the modification was 40 months ago and it seemed to do the trick. Now all this seems to be coming up at one time. What is different?

As for the change in formation size, that would be a big change. I'm curious what that would do, to be honest. I see the formation being easier to fit into a list, but then you are looking at other problems. I wouldn't go any lower than 5 because formations of 3-4 break very easily (BM dynamics). If you want to try a formation of 5 at 300-325, go for it. Let me know how it spins.
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Morgan, let me rummage to see if I can find some of my older lists where I fielded two or three Destroyer formations. At one point I was spamming them to see what the effect was for playtesting purposes.

As MNB was quick to point out, I haven't played the Necrons in awhile. What he didn't point out (and needs saying) is that we are in the same group of local players. MNB put together a Necron list awhile back and -out of courtesy to him and the others- I didn't play them nearly as much. I wanted him to have more time with his army and the others to have a variety of armies to play with. I still got the benefit of playing against them and watching them first hand. Hopefully that explains MNB's comments and what might be falsely perceived as a disconnect with the army.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Also you need to remember the list should scale from 2700 to 6000 points so some of the issues with lists at 3000 disappear as points increase. If you balance only at 3000 you are leaving a list open to issues at higher points cost. It's the main reason that hard limits are relatively rare in epic lists.

Destroyers are fine IMHO.

I've played against them many, many times, and they're completely and totally fine.


2000-5000 is the standard scale the original lists were balanced at IIRC.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

YDRC (you do recall correctly). But the point is correct regardless. There is a range to be satisfied. As long as I don't get called in for work, I'll be playing this weekend and I'll post the army list and the outcome then.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I think destroyers should cost 100 points, and get 12xAP4+ shots.

There, that should help sales. And in the classic method of GW!

I think Necrons should have access to Reaver Titans and Space Marines. :p

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

In the spirit of Otter-week, I declare all Monoliths, Destroyers, Scarabs, and Tomb Spyders to be 50% of their point value (of course they are still 100% of their original price, but you can't have it all).

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.