Necron HQ: Command Barge

The Necron codex has been out for a while and I feel like one of two things, if not both, are happening; First, people hate grey knights SO MUCH that they didn't notice the Necron codex.  Second, people that know the necron codex are sitting around saying, "Yeah, those Grey Knights....boy are they broken.  I play these Necrons, you know, just for fun."

I'm going to break the internet silence on the Necrons.  They're an awesome codex.  

You should start caring about and adjusting your meta (especially going to Adepticon) for Necrons.  I hate to put things like this out there because I hate eating my own words, but I would not be surprised if Necrons win Adepticon (after which the internet will start to hate them).

So for everyone who has been blind to the waking threat to your galaxy I'm going to put out some idea and strategies that I've seen and used in playing the Necrons.  For this installment I'm going to go over the command barge or as we call it locally, The Douche Canoe.

Urban dictionary


Douche Canoe:
Any vehicle filled to capacity with a group of major douchebags. Usually a luxury SUV. Most often owned or purchased by the parents of one of the douche mcgouches inside. The group of individuals who pour out of the douche canoe can be affectionately referred to as a "shitstorm of douchebags."

If that douche canoe tries to swoop us in the Taco Bell line, I will go fisticuffs with that whole shitstorm of douchebags inside!

I have to give this explanation every time I use one of these so to save all your future Necron opponents (the ones that will soon be saying "This is my grey knight's counts as necron army") here are a few key notes on the vehicle will a sprinkle of strategy.

1. Its a fast open topped skimmer. Pretty obvious.  Open topped gets forgotten a lot on the damage table, so don't forget to add one to the damage roll.  In this codex, if its a vehicle and not a [something]scythe, it's open topped.  Also, this means that I can move it 12" and assault out of it.  Pretty important to note that.

2. It's a transport.  It seems weird and people getting pretty messed up by this but it does have a transport capacity of one and typically has a douche bag lord ridding inside it.  In my experience people think that its some sort of dreadnought, 3rd edition vect like vehicle.  Its not.  Why does that matter to you? When you blow it up, chances are there will be a pretty annoying Lord running around your backfield messing up your lines that you will still have to deal with.

3. It can ignore stunned/shaken/immobilized.  Living metal lets you shake off stunned and shaken on a +4/+2 and the lord can take a wound to ignore an immobilized result (or weapon destroyed if you care).  Why do this matter?  It basically takes away your ability to 'handle it' for a turn by stunning it or immobilizing it.  Also, when something turbo boosts and you immobilize it the next player turn, typically it would crash, but not the douche canoe.  Throw a wound on the 3 wound lord and keep on paddling.

-As a side note I think for 6th edition Living Metal is an improvement on the Grey Knight Fortitude; if they start making multiple stunned/shake result stack into higher results on the table, fortitude doesn't shake it off until the next player turn, which would allow them to stack. Living metals shakes them immediately so they'd never get a chance to stack. And by stacking stunned/shaken, I mean how weapon destroyed currently stacks- if it has no more weapons to destroy it turns into immobilized, and if its immobilized, its wrecked.

4. Fly over attack.  Here is where it gets tricky.  The barge can make a special fly over attack...and it takes from both shooting and close combat but isn't either....and happens in the movement phase.  The idea is that lord sails over something and karate chops it.  This is the order of the rules as it matters to you on the receiving end:  The lord gets 3 attacks on one unit under it's flight path that hit on a 3+ if the barge moved 12" or less and on a 4+ if it moved over 12".  Doesn't matter how far your tank moved or what your weapon skill is; that's what it hits on.  Next, if a 6 to hit is rolled against an infantry unit, the necron player gets to allocate the wound.  Next, if its a vehicle the barge flew over, it uses the riders strength (which because he will likely have a warscythe, will be 7) and any special rules (warscythe gets 2d6 to pen).  In addition, like close combat it ignores any cover save you get for smoke or turbo boost or cover and is resolved against rear armor.  The final piece to this is that you don't attack back; you're not locked in combat because its not close combat nor is it shooting; its a special attack with special rules. (also for the Necron players out there, remember that at the end of any phase in which 25% casualties were taken they need to make a ld test, so if you scythe down 2 out of 8 guys they need a ld test at the end of your movement)     

5. Referring back to number 1, it's open topped so you can assault out of it.  Put this together with number 4 and it means you can fly 12" over one thing, make the fly by attack, get out, and assault something else.  you're barge could even shoot at a third target if you wanted.  Being able to fly by attack and then get out is pretty nice.  Typically you have to gamble and get your unit out during the movement and then hope that your plans to blow up the tank works, otherwise you're a sitting duck.  This way you can fly by attack and if you failed to blow it up stay in your barge if you wanted, or get out to take charge the tank and try to blow it up again (essentially giving your lord 7 attacks on a tank to blow it up with str 7+2d6)

The last thing I want to mention to people is that for the sweep attack to work, it has to be a unit the barge flew over.  Now that doesn't mean started on one end and ended on the other, it just means something that was under it's flight path.  If your tank is 11.5" away, I can just go 11.51" moving 0.01" over the tank and then back 0.02" and take a sweep attack (yeah I know, stay an inch away, its just an example).  Its pretty douchy but it's legit.  

To stay fair and give advice to those playing against the Necrons, remember that they can move 24" to turbo boost (it doesn't have to be a straight line) but they have to end at least 18" from the start point to get a cover save.  So if they move 16" forward and then 3" back, yeah they turbo boosted, but they won't get a cover save because they ended less than 18" for the start point still.  

Also, if playing against a barge I advise you to shoot it down early and away from your stuff.  Otherwise, even if you do shoot it down, chances are the lord is going to live and he's going to still wreck your vehicles, just not as wide spread as he would have he been on the barge.  For example I was playing OST with my mech guard and I shot down the barge after it flew over and wrecked a chimera.  By this time the barged lord was in my tank line and even though I destroyed his ride, he still ran around unchecked and flipped over 3 manticores before I killed him.  Its a 180 or 190 points for a lord with a warscythe in a canoe and that guy killed just over 25% of my army.  He pretty much still functions the same in or out of the barge just not as mobile, so blow it up far way from your tank lines and shoot him down while he slogs towards you.    

So thats the douche canoe and I have to give this talk almost every time I use one.  Hopefully this has saved some other Necron player from silently sighing to themselves when you point to your command barge and say "Are you familar with the command barge and what it does?" and the opponent says "No I don't know what the command barge does."

So if you guys have any questions or thoughts to add, feel free to post them, and if you don't here is a talking point: 

According to the rules, can I fly over and Sweep attack an existing close combat? (please cite books and page numbers, don't just put down feelings.  If you can't cite a book or rule exactly, at least try to.  I'm trying to find why you couldn't because I was asked as a TO and couldn't find a reason why not)