Detachment Focus: Starshatter Arsenal

Merry Grotmas! Games Workshop is releasing a new series of detachments – one per army, every day until Christmas. In this series we’re looking at these new detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games.

Necrons have been eating good in 10th Edition, supporting a very broad range of army builds via strong detachments, a few key centrepieces and a great range of supporting utility tools. In the most recent metagame we’ve seen Hypercrypt Legion dominate via its exceptional movement tricks, but the strong all-rounder options of Awakened Dynasty and Obeisance Phalanx have also seen a decent amount of successful play. That makes it all the more impressive that the new Starshatter Arsenal is immediately in contention for best Necron detachment, and is probably the strongest one unleashed by the Grotmas calendar so far. Let’s dive right in and find out why it’s quite so good in today’s Detachment Focus.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for Review purposes.

Detachment Overview

Starshatter Arsenal is a very potent all-rounder detachment with particular incentives for running MOUNTED and VEHICLE units (except TITANIC ones, which most of its rules exclude). While these specific keywords are the focus, it has a good amount to offer other options as well, making a substantial proportion of the Necron toolbox available to you.

Hypercrypt Legion can, of course, already make great use of Vehicles and (sometimes) Lokhust Heavy Destroyers thanks to the mobility it offers them, but what sets this detachment apart from Hypercrypt is that it provides you with both substantial mobility boosts and a toolbox of tricks to power up your units, and the overall package it offers feels stronger than any of the ones currently on the market. It also distinguishes itself by providing tools to make Lokhusts of both flavours durable and mobile enough to operate normally on the table, rather than relying on Hypercrypt or the Veil of Darkness to make them feasible, turning them into premium choices. Finally, it’s incredibly broad in what you can do with it – as well as Lokhusts, units like Doomstalkers that have only previously been viable in one detachment get a look-in, and having broad buffs not tied to Leaders opens up the use of stuff like Triarch Praetorians.

Basically the only situation where this isn’t great is if you really want to run Monoliths or Tesseract Vaults, and if so then hey, Hypercrypt is still right there. However, you’re definitely going to want to think long and hard about whether you love those enough to stick with them. 

The Video Version

If you’re looking for a video version of this Detachment review, we’ve got you covered here:

Detachment Rule: Relentless Onslaught

Each time a NECRONS model makes an attack that targets an enemy in range of an objective marker, add 1 to the Hit roll. In addition, all NECRON VEHICLE and NECRON MOUNTED units (excluding TITANIC) get ASSAULT on all their guns.

This is, obviously, exceptionally strong. Almost all Necron units hit on 3s or 4s, so +1 to hit when going after key targets is nice, especially for a few things like Triarch Praetorians that can plausibly benefit from it in multiple phases. It’s important not to start thinking of this as always on, because long-ranged shooting exchanges in particular often won’t feature a foe on an objective, but it helps get the job done when it really matters – and it isn’t even the whole ability. It’s also particularly relevant for my beloved Illuminor Szeras, whose mediocre WS/BS3+ is normally a source of shame.

Part 2 really helps Lokhusts of all types operate, and is a nice bonus for Doomsday Arks or Doomstalkers trying to line up shots. Lokhusts have suffered a lot from the combination of FLY changes and not being INFANTRY in 10th, and some extra reach to help them get around (supplemented by a powerful Stratagem) helps mitigate that. The combination of effects also starts making particle beamer Tomb Blades worth looking at as an actual “go” unit, as they’re speedy and get great volume, while operating with near impunity once you factor in the Stratagems we’ll look at shortly.

This is a great foundation to build on top of, but also doesn’t lock you into any one build (beyond needing at least some Vehicles/Lokhusts to be about to get the most from it).

Enhancements

The hits continue in Enhancements, and these have a ton of play.

• Dread Majesty (30pts): Give an Overlord or Catacomb Command Barge a 6” Aura of re-roll 1s to hit and wound for all non-TITANIC Necron units. Uh. Sure. Yes, I will do that in any build not taking the Silent King, thank you. Good with pretty much anything you’re doing in this detachment other than maybe regular Lokhusts just because they already have access to re-rolls.

• Miniaturised Nebuloscope (15pts): Gives a unit Ignores Cover. Great on any of enmitic Lokhust Heavies, Immortals with Szeras support, or regular Lokhusts, and priced to move.

• Demanding Leader (10pts): In your Movement Phase, pick one friendly Vehicle or Mounted unit within 6” to be eligible to Shoot in a turn it fell back. Protects against one of the key ways to defeat Lokhusts, is dirt cheap, and has an important wording subtlety – you pick the target at any point in the Movement Phase, so you can either fall something back into reach to activate this, or move the bearer forward to set it up.

• Chrono-Impedance Fields (25pts): In your Command Phase, pick one Vehicle/Mounted unit within 6” to get -1 to incoming damage till your next Command Phase. Exceptionally good, completely changes the game on how well Lokhusts of both types match up into their nemesis, which is medium volume D2 shooting, and if you don’t feel like doing that, just have someone follow the Silent King around as a -1D hype bot.

Stratagems

The Stratagems are where this all falls apa- just joking they’re great. There are five that are good or better (one a new top ten game-wide contender) and a sixth that you’ll use occasionally. You really want to be bringing Imotekh along so you can go ham on these.

All of these exclude TITANIC units.

• Merciless Reclamation (Battle Tactic, 1CP): +1 to Wound when one of your units Shoots or Fights something on an objective. No keyword limitations other than the no TITANIC one. Extremely good in a wide variety of contexts, whether it’s powering up re-rolling Immortals to deck something, horrendous volleys for a big Triarch unit out of deep strike, or maybe even a C’tan punching something into the sun.

• Unyielding Focus (Battle Tactic, 1CP): Use in your opponent’s Shooting Phase or the Fight Phase to give a Vehicle or Mounted unit -1 to be wounded by attacks with higher S than their T for the rest of the Phase. Good clean fun, and particularly strong on a big unit of regular Lokhusts, especially stacked with one of the Enhancements for maximum durability.

• Chronoshift (Strategic Ploy, 1CP): Auto-advance 6” for Vehicles or Mounted. When you need it, you love having it, and it’s a great combo with the detachment ability for Assault.

• Dimensional Tunnel (Strategic Ploy, 1CP): In your Movement Phase, allows a Vehicle or Mounted unit to move horizontally through terrain and models. An additional huge boost to the mobility of larger Lokhust units, and very helpful to set up improbable pounces with Catacomb Command Barges or Triarch Stalkers. If you’re inclined towards taking one big shooty Doomsday, it also makes it far more feasible to start it hidden and still expect to get early value.

• Endless Servitude (Strategic Ploy, 1CP): At the end of your Fight Phase, activate the Reanimation Protocols of a unit on an objective you control. Probably the weakest of the bunch because it’s conditioned on the thing you’d like it to help you achieve – if you already hold an objective, adding more models isn’t letting you flip it. Warriors might occasionally be strung between two and be able to pull that off, and in very specific circumstances you might be able to use it while the enemy is Battle-shocked so they don’t then take the point on their turn, but this is mostly going to be used when you have a C’tan you want to heal up, and it’s at least fine for that. Also worth considering that if you know you’re going to use this somewhere, you can zip a Reanimator into range before doing so, maybe using one of the preceding strats for the reach.

• Reactive Reposition (Strategic Ploy, 1CP): Saving the best for last here, good lord. After an enemy unit has shot you can pick one of their targets and make a Normal Move, either of d6” for most stuff, or an automatic 6” for Vehicles or Mounted. This is astoundingly good, and likely to drive people up the wall. The struggle for Necrons has always been handling situations where stuff can get taken out in a single turn, and this makes that way harder to do against high-value stuff like Lokhust Heavies, and being able to use this on The Silent King is monstrous. You can use it to press forward onto objectives as well as run away too – this kind of reactive move after the enemy shoots without constraints on where you go with it is practically unheard of outside of once-per-game abilities. It will sometimes be worth slinging it onto something that doesn’t match the keywords too – it has the same problem as modern Phantasm, which is that sometimes you’ll roll a 1 and it’ll do nothing, but it’s usually pretty feasible to plan so that a 3+ does something meaningful, at which point you’ve got the option to gamble if you want to.

Playing This Detachment

There are several ways in which you can address this. On some level, you can pretty much just jam some units in and do whatever, because there’s plenty of support here for your good datasheets, and pretty much everything in the detachment helps you achieve successful Warhammer.

The second level of flippant answer is “Silent King and some buddies” because hoo boy is Szarekh busted to all hell in this, going from already being an ultra-potent all-round monstrosity to a nigh indestructible one. Support him with some Doomsdays, maybe some Destroyers, few utility things, you’re golden. Alternatively, go all-out scorched earth shooting by maxing out on Doomsdays and Doomstalkers, because unlike in Hypercrypt there’s no cap on how many big threats can benefit from the mobility in the detachment rule. You can also establish an exceptionally good aura combo to augment them, because although the Silent King theoretically overlaps with the aura from Dread Majesty, you can just take both and then leave ignore modifiers on TSK all the time, fantastic with the flat damage shooting that build throws out.

Let us assume, however, that the attraction here is playing something a little more nuanced, and you want to use some options that don’t always thrive. If you’re aiming at that, what this build really helps with is properly utilising big but somewhat cumbersome hammerblow units, because it both enables them to hit at peak strength when you need them to, provides mobility to get them into position, and adds protection for plenty of them via the Enhancements and Stratagems. You can either go hard on lots of these, or maybe support them with a few big conventional Infantry units, as limited quantities of both Warriors and Immortals can get plenty of value here.

With that in mind, below, you can see what I’m going to be jamming the first time I take this out (or something close to it).

Strengths

• There’s a lot of really great movement tech here – everything from extra speed to moving through walls to reactive moves
• Great buffs for mounted units – Lokhusts are going to have a great time
• Extra movement and [ASSAULT] on your vehicle and mounted units will make it difficult to hide from your big guns

Weaknesses

• Doesn’t work for TITANIC, so Monoliths and Vaults are off the table
• You’re going to want to have a lot of CP for those Stratagems
• There’s no way this Detachment survives un-nerfed for long

Army List

Let’s wrap things up with a list that puts all of this together into a terrifying package.

Wings’ Starshatter Arsenal - Click to Expand

OK, now technically I will be running this out with staffs on the Praetorians rather than the pistol build cause I already have five of the former painted, but other than that, this is what I’d put on the table tomorrow, and this is what I’m hoping to bring to the Nottingham GT in January. The two units of Destroyers can project exceptional ranged threat while soaking up enemy responses, either drawing them in where the Nightbringer can handle them, or keeping them at bay. The Tomb Blades can provide harassing firepower or they can pick up the -1D buff and go out and durably secure an objective early on, acting as bait for the big Deep Strike threat from the Praetorians, who really do excel here, especially once you factor in their inbuilt charge re-rolls. Hell, even 5 Flayed Ones become comically deadly when they charge something on an objective in this detachment – just the +1 to hit takes them to a point where they deck a squad of Marine Scouts or Genestealers on average dice, and having the option on +1 to wound as well is great. Extremely excited to give this a go! 

Final Thoughts

I mean look, right at the end I’ve got to caveat this with “enjoy it while it lasts”, because this is currently feeling like it’s very likely to get at least some sort of visit from the Dataslate Fairy (who leaves nerfs under the pillow of detachments that have been naughty), but right now this is going to be an absolute blast for Necron players everywhere, especially those who’ve seen a whole squad of Lokhusts vanish to a frankly underwhelming quantity of firepower one-too-many times.

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