Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Necron review heavy Annihilation Barge

The last line of Necron tomb world defense is the Annihilation Barge. If you can make it all the way to the heart of a tomb world, this is what you will still have to face these vehicles before you get to….well whatever is in there. It is also used in wartime as an anti-infantry platform. On the battlefield it can be used to counter troop movements, harass scouts, cordon off and keep vital areas of the battlefield safe and aid in counter attacks. Since this is not a fast vehicle, it also is capable of providing support fire to a Necron advance.

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The Annihilation Barge is an open-topped skimmer. It has armor 11 (13), 11 (13), 11 on all sides and is BS 4. It comes armed with a tesla cannon and a twin-linked tesla destructor (necron-guns-and-gear). It also has quantum shielding and living metal. This vehicle comes in at a low cost of the latitude, in degrees, of the North and South poles.


This vehicle is cheap (in points), and looks incredibly effective. Having a main weapon that is four shots, strength 7 and twin-linked is awesome! This thing should hit with all four shots a majority of the time. Yes, I know dice are fickle, but 3+ to hit and twin-linking it will be hard to miss with all four shots. Then there is also the cool tesla ability to gain two additional auto hits on a hit roll of 6. That makes this vehicle that much cooler in my book. Hell, I would hope to miss a few times to try and get that elusive 6 on a re-roll. If you don’t, then you still have four strength 7 shots going down range. It also can arc damage into other units, but I put little if any faith in that. It works like the old school preliminary bombardment (you need more 6’s rolled and one is hard enough to get).  Heck the secondary gun is even two shots at strength 6. Having two guns spewing out six (minimum) shots at strength 6+ is fantastic! The AP- be damned! If you really want something to scare people, then swap the tesla cannon for a gauss cannon for FREE. Yes you lose a point of strength but gain AP 3. Marines hate AP 3 or lower. Myself I’ll keep the tesla cannon, but to each their own.
Now guns are all AP- and that sucks, but does it? I am a fan of quantity over quality. If I can force the opponent to make many saves, they will fail some of them. It might not seem ideal for use against vehicles, but I think it does. If it keeps rhinos from moving that is a plus for me. Necrons blow in hand-to-hand, so keeping transports full of face beaters from moving toward me is huge.
Hey this unit also has that great armor 11(13) from shields and living metal. If all goes well, it will be able shrug off some damage and continue firing. Not a grantee I know, but armor 13 is tough to crack and having living metal on top of that is pretty damn good. Now once again it will suffer the fate of all vehicles in good melta range and monstrous stuff. Yet, with the plethora of strength 7 and 8 weapons on the tables, they are not as scary when you are armor 13.
The Annihilation Barge is super cheap for the damage potential it has. This should cause enough hits and wounds to annoy if not cripple an infantry force. It can also harass and slow a rhino chassis force as well. I have never used this vehicle, but I am a huge fan of it already. I could see two if not three in a Necron force at all times.

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