Fighting Necrons (Orikan) - Some Common Sense!



I have read several blogs that have pointed out the potential problems for a mech list in Dawn of War. Yes I am talking about Orikan the Diviner and his Temporal Snares.

Lots of people seem to feel this is potentially game breaking in Dawn of War, especially those people out there who have 10+ tanks half of which (or more) are transports.

Well for everyone crying Broken, I am sure plenty of silent readers (the majority of the gamer base & Blog readers) are either not worried about it, or wondering how to deal with this.

Here are my thoughts, as a Necron player of what I expect my opponent to do, and what I would do in their situation.

When your opponent lets you know that he has Orikan in his army (and really you should know this before deployment is even rolled for) and you are in a Dawn of War Scenario simply declare all your transport models are going to going to enter the battlefield empty, with the units walking on as well.

Then roll the move for your Transport to check they can get on the table, if they can then roll the move for the squad that is normally in the Tranport so they come on the table in the same area. With a bit of luck you will be able to get your unit on the table and embarked upon your tank straight away. Ok so you are losing the 12"+ of movement from your table edge should you pass the difficult terrain test on your tank, but it is a safer way to ensure that your men always get on the table.

If you want to risk moving your guys onto the Table in Dawn of War against Orikan then please suck it up if it goes wrong, because its not Orikan that killed your transport and the men in it, its your decision to ignore what could potentially happen.

The other strategy is to reserve everything, this one is (imo) far more risky as you could come onto the table piecemeal and make the Necrons job easier.

So overall my the common sense bit of this simply that.... common sense. Adapt your army. For me a Truly broken army is the one that doesnt need to change any models, strategy or deployment with a new Codex release.

Comments

Terrible T said…
Know thy foe. Adapt or die! Shame you have to spell it out.
AbusePuppy said…
Remember that can still end up separating/killing your units if you roll poorly on Difficult Terrain for them, however- if you do not have enough space to move them all onto the board (due to rolling some 1s and 2s), you may be unable to bring all your units on and end up destroying some of them.
Kraggi said…
@ Terrible T - Yes, but after reading all the qq rage in comments I figured I would post something.

@AbusePuppy - True, it still can end up Killing / Seperating your units. For the most part though the units that will take up a board edge are ones like 20+ Orks and as they are troops they can start on the table. Not saying its easy to work round it but there are certainly ways and its all about thinking about something like this ahead of time so you arent caught out and have an idea before you start.
Rusty Nail said…
Does it kill the unit if it can't deploy on the table? I thought it just went back into reserve?
Immobilised vehicles are a different kettle of fish - mind you if it's a rhino and it goes back into reserve does it get chances to repair itself and then come on?

Tom
Kraggi said…
Hmmmm, good question Tom.

I think the only thing here is that to get in reserve you either start the game in reserve or you get put into it via a special rule.

Sort of makes an interesting point about that tactic we discussed of lining the board edges with models.

If the enemy arrives from reserve and cannot move onto the table, from what people are saying I guess they would die, rather than end up in reserve again.

Have to say I havent seen anything stating clearly that if some models of the unit can't make it on the table then they are destroyed, nor have I seen anything saying if they can't deploy they go back in reserve.

Hmmm I am sure someone will correct me if needed, dont have time right now to dig out the rule book.