Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

[I've been reading some V for Vendetta recently, and decided to do my latest tactica in the style of his address to the nation]

Hi.

I think it's time we had a talk.

I've seen your Necron lists. I've read your battle reports.

Previously I assumed that this was the manifestation of some manner of grand internet witticism. Some sort of universal mandate to refer only to the worst flavors of Necrons, and relate (falsely) that they have difficulties in 5th edition.

I have recently discovered that this is not so.

You err, it turns out, because you do not know any better.

Fair enough, no one has enlightened you.

I've got a few minutes, I'll do that.

Here's you you make a Necron list.

Step 1: Buy 2 boxes of Warriors, assemble 20.
Step 2: Buy and assemble the Deceiver.

This is the foundation of your list. Warriors numbering 20, and the Deceiver. With me so far? Great.

Next, the actual question as to what manner of Necrons you'd like to use occurs. It won't be as easy as selecting your HQ.

I'm going to give you a choice.

You can take Immortals, or Destroyers, or both.

If you've taken both, congrats, you are done. Your Necron list looks something like this:

Deceiver
10 warriors
10 warriors
5 Destroyers
5 Destroyers
5 Destroyers
6 Immortals
6 Immortals
7 Immortals

If you've taken only Immortals, or only Destroyers, you've still got some points left over.

You can use those points to look into Heavy Support. Specifically, you can buy Monoliths.

How about this?

Deceiver
10 warriors
10 warriors
4 Destroyers
4 Destroyers
4 Destroyers
Monolith
Monolith
Monolith

And there you have it. That wasn't so bad, was it?

If you enjoy adequate success with these builds, you might consider branching out to Tomb Spyders, Scarabs and Heavy Destroyers.

I'm glad we had this little talk.

Won't it be easy to get them to phase out? I know with my eldar it would be quite easy, but that could just be my kind of lists.

And then the Necrons met a Leman Russ Executioner.

Bad end.

I think that Necrons need, and I mean need, a resurection Orb.

@coca: You hide the warriors in reserve, and direct your shooting at the enemy's who can threaten them. The deceiver goes and contests the opponent's objective/plays goalie, while the Necron shooting outdoes the enemy shooting.

@cheese: ? Who cares? It can't hurt destroyers behind cover, only gets one round of fire befores permaglanced, and comes in an army without lash. plasma cannons have never bothered Necrons. WBB, big bases and good spread, monolith double WBB if necessary, cover for infantry cowering on objectives, Deceiver laughs it off.

Crazy: You are wrong. S10 is rare, and usually comes from vehicles, who get permaglanced, and swiftly lose the weapon, and can't put it out at Destroyer range. CC is avoided by jetbike move, move back + shoot for Immortals, and the goalie.

Thank you Vend.....er....40kE. This is a very helpful thread.
GW employees should be contractually obliged to read this post to any potential Necron customers.

What are your opinions on Immortals versus Destroyers, clearly they are both very good units but which one do you prefer? I know I often choose Destroyers over Immortals because of their increased range and mobility. The ability for Destroyers to dance around CC units and threaten rear and side armour on vehicles seems important, and even with the Deceiver pulling his goalie moves it seems like it wouldn't be too hard to engage Immortals in CC with a dedicated assault army.

Necrons vs IG

Imperial guard players first turn - he shoots

There are no other turns

I'm curious as to why only 20 warriors? Is that really enough scoring units to capture objectives, especially since they can only move 6" a turn? What happens when a couple of battlecannon ruin your day?

I dont have much experiance with large necron games so thats why i ask.

@Fold: Thanks!

Immortals vs. Destroyers, in 4th, was almost academic. You wanted both, split your fire up as much as possible. In 5th, however, there's a good reason to prefer the destroyers.

Popping Rhinos. Destroyers can pen them, Immortals can't. Obviously you try and rely primarily on particle whips for vehicle popping, as they are a bit better than railguns, but its very helpful to have backup plans.

@Sharik: Rubbish. Can the IG shoot into reserve now? No? Then they aren't threatening the warriors. They can't pop Monoliths at range, or win a shooting duel with Necrons.

Leaving aside the silly assertion of a turn 2 win, I presume your point is that you think IG can beat Necrons by outshooting them? I don't agree. The only ones who can do that are CSM, with Lash to group the crons for plasma cannons and pull them out of cover.

Essentially the problem is range and WBB. IG can't destroy 3 Necron t5 squads in cover that are spread out beyond template formation at long range, and with double WBB if they don't destroy them all they don't really destroy any. This means the Necrons don't lose shooting power. By contrast, even if they fail to destroy the IG vehicles they certainly stun them, so the IG do lose shooting power.

Further, the Deceiver will eventually steal a whole shooting phase, they have to pay attention to him eventually. IG have a really hard match with a good Necron army.

@Regwon:

You keep the warriors in reserve. While they are gone the shooting Necrons try and take out the enemy's capable of long range threats, and the Deceiver rushes the enemy objective. When your crons come on they move towards your own side's objective, if it is still safe. You can move + run them, or if they've rolled in late you can port them over with a lith.

Necrons play to take one objective and shoot/contest the enemy off the others. You could occasionally go for 2 if you managed to get them into your own zone, and it seems safe to split up your warriors.

+1 40k enthusiast

Those are the basics of necrons in 5th.

@40KE...

First off according to the Necron codex there must be at least 2 units of warriors on the field at the beginning of the game. It says it in the codex so the BRB can't change that. So, you can't hold you warriors in reserve.

So yeah you will get shot to hell IG if they have any S8 AP3 Weapons or even by a Lash army with vindicators. Say good bye to you warriors. Heck even some ork armies will shoot you to hell (Shooty Orks yeah thats right I predict you will see more of them now with the mech armies out there).

In reality the deciever is not that good. For 300pts you get what? A slow as hell WLEQ (moving 7-12" a turn if you don't use his powers). A power to make opponents hit on 6's in CC, be pinned or flee, and the power to leave combat if you want. The one good thing about him is that you can redeploy your army if you want.

So basically defeating your army comes down to focus firing on the two warrior squads (not that hard to destroy them) and then destroying 4 destroyers. That can be easily accomplished by many armies in 2-3 turns, possibly even 1.

@drummer:

I'm not referring to holding them in reserve via the monolith. Warrior units, as with all units in 5th edition, may be held in reserve at the player's discretion, they walk on as per any other unit. Necron warriors have no special rule prevent this, nor does the Necron codex have any any wide special rules that prevent it.

Yeah Necron warriors may be held in reserve at the players discretion. Under the warrior listing is says squads exceeding the minimum number held in reserve must come in using a monolith if you have one.

Since we are only talking about using 2 squads of warriors the rule is irrelevant because it applys to excess squads.

Bid D is abosolutley amazing for 300 pts. He will beat the absolute hell out of anyone that doesn't have a force weapon. being able to leave CC before blows struck in the opponents turn can get you a possible movment of 24" in one turn! (Misdirect-leave combat, fall back 2 d6 any direction, go to your turn, move 6" charge 6"= 24" possible inches) This allows you to engage shooty units the enemy is trying to keep you away from, and it's Big D, he WILL kill them.

Big D is also a Close Combat deterrent, something the necrons desprately need (nobody wants to get near him). And Grand Illusion is fantastic with everyone trying to stick you with first turn in objective and dawn of war games.

Not sure if it's just me, but i fail to see how necrons would be able to outshoot the imperial guard. Even the monoliths go down relativly easily if the IG player has some few vendettas + some manticores/demolishers/medusas. And then we are talking monoliths only, everything non-monolith would get blasted to bits and phased out before they even had a chance to say "why hello!".

It's a combination of target denial, reserves, necron speed, range and the fact that weapons that scare 'crons tend to be mounted on vehicles that make it work, and maybe a 'lith or two to re-roll failed WBBs.

I'm not saying it's an easy match up, but good use of cover and position, with units of the same type hanging around the same 6" bubble, and a lith or two to re-roll failed (WBB) saves. A list w/ 15 Destroyers and a lith or two have a VERY good chance of making most of their WBB, and since they are hanging out close enough together, nuking a whole squad won't send them packing.

All those big guns are mounted on vehicles, destroyers are VERY good at making sure vehicles don't shoot, and they will eventually destroy those dangerous mounted weapons.

Hopefully by that time Big D has hit your line and when he does, that's all she wrote!

Just MHO

I think the OP nearly got it correct but he missed one crucial element.

Deceiver

2x10 necrons

Necron Lord with Resserection orb

Now you can build from there.

Wow I would really like to play against this list. Killing 24(?) Necrons without res orb support would be a cake walk. Any army can do it. And with all the melta toting mech squads out there the D wouldn't pose much of a problem. Or you could just ignore him and insta kill all the warriors. A game against a list like this wouldn't take very long. Nothing personal

@40KE...
You are right about that but I believe that a Necron List needs a Res Orb.

How many str 10 guns do you guys field in a standard list?

Destroyers/Immortals are toughness 5, WBB isn't feel no pain. You need to shoot them with a str 10 weapon to deny WBB, and you WON'T be catching destroyers in CC unless somehting is terribly wrong, and if you do they will die anyway to SA, res orb doesn't help.

Res orbs are great for keeping warriors alive. But in 5th, warrios are a liability, they are best kept in reserve and far away from combat anyway.

A res orb is near useless in a good min/maxed necron list, and one costs almost as much as a destroyer.

With necrons in reserve & no monoliths.. How do you expect to win @ 33% of missions normally played?

Or is it a plan to always excel at the other 66% and hope to always draw on the other 33%?

Huh? I assume you have your numbers backwards.

It's very simple.

In 33% of the games (KPs) your small number of units gives you a natural advantage, and your vunerable units, AKA warriors, are not there to get killed.

In 66% (Objectives) destroyers turbo boost to contest the opponents objectives in the last turns.

Warriors walk on and claim objectives on your side.

....All you need to do is remeber to place objectives as close to the board edge as allowed, then try to claim 1-2 and contest 1-3.

Umm...
So I only have to destroy 4 warriors and then wait for the warriors Any S8 weapon (you fail you dead) to come in epic win!

You hoping that you will make a 50/50 roll and that is a bad thing to base a list on and if they are the only thing on the table (destroyers). If you have a squad alone (no with in 6" of another then well it will get shot by everything and you will fail sme 3+ saves (its not hard to fail 4 of them). Or if they are close it will get hit by a pie plate weapon that will ignore you armor save and then you have to roll a 4+ I'll take those odds against your army.

I don't know why you expect your big guns to be left by the time my Warriors arrive. They are the first thing this list destroys.

@7: Thanks for the backup, glad to see someone out there concurs with me! You seem to get this precisely, have you played this flavor of list before?

@Sharik: 7 explains the theory behind it quite well, but truthfully I don't know if the Necrons can outshoot the IG. It seems like they ought to be able to, but I think it depends on the particle whip rolls and the lascannon rolls that happen in turns 1-2. I think it'd be a great game between the last 2 shooting armies standing in 5th.

I'm not really trying to say that this flavor of Necrons can always outshoot IG. Maybe they can, maybe they can't. I'm trying to say that if any Necrons can do it, its this flavor. This sort of Necron list is the best kind, particularly for opposing a shooting foe.

@Razerous, drummer: Orb Lord is a hundred forty points. You usually go whole hog and give him a veil if you get him at all, so that's 200. 200 points for a guy who helps your guys only when they die, and only if they die to an enemy who is shooting s10, or who won combat and didn't sweeping advance. For the same price you can get 4 destroyers.

The volley from 4 destroyers, on average,
Glances a land raider twice. OR
kills 2-3 marines. OR
Destroys or at least immobilizes a Rhino OR
Kills 7 orks

They typically shoot all game long, so mulitply those results by 5-7, depending on enemy fire, etc. You give all that up for the Lord, and most games he does nothing. He's a CC piece in an army that folds in CC, and that has the Deceiver to keep the enemy off you.

If you keep spread out to avoid templates, stick to cover, and STAY OUT OF CC you can avoid losing guys without getting your WBB roll.

@Sgt. Salt: EDITED To remove wall of text post: Nothing personal, indeed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@7:

Actually, I prefer to walk the Deceiver over rather than turbo boost the destroyers over for last minute objective contesting, but I guess you could do it in a pinch.

Yeah the last turn turboboost is usefull when there are 5 objectives and you need to contest just one more for the win, since big d can only be in one place.

I play similar lists, I don't use 'liths as often, but that's not because I've found something stronger, I'm just not a big fan of them.

And I don't want to hear about how scared of meltas Big D should be. At BS 4 it takes 30 melta shots on average to take him down. 20 hits, 10 wounds, 5 failed saves. That is a LOT of melta or other high str guns. And if you are shooting Big D, you aren't shooting Destroyers, it's a pick your poison type thing.

Well, now I'm curious. seven, 40kenthusiast...

How would this army deal with a "green tide" style ork list? I'm talking lots and lots of boyz, lootas in the backfield, the works.

How would this army deal with the typical deamon list with lots of plague bearers / horros/ LOC's? I don't know statlines that well here, but how threatening is the typical LOC to the deceiver in assault?

How would this army deal with a mech eldar list with lots of dire avengers, fire dragons, and possibly either a jetbike council/ OR farseer/eldrad setup?

Lastly, any ideas on what gives this army trouble?

Milquetoast Thug wrote:Well, now I'm curious. seven, 40kenthusiast...

I have played roughly 15 games with this style list since I got back in to my 'crons, I also play 'variations' of this general style that I don't consider as strong, but I will answer with the best of my ability using the limited anecdotal knowledge I have.

How would this army deal with a "green tide" style ork list? I'm talking lots and lots of boyz, lootas in the backfield, the works.

The closest list I played to green tide was at 1500, it had 120 boys 2 medium loota squads, two bosses and some bikers.

I had Big D, My D. Lord with his 3 wraiths, two 5 man destroyer squads, two 10 troops and some filler?......

I got first, I 'grand illusioned' most of my stuff (destroyers) for clear LOS on lootas, smacked both squads off the board.

He walked up, ran. Bikers scratched Big D.

The lord + wraiths got stuck up in CC W/ a 30 man squad and boss, they were wiped in his following turn, then big d got invovled and took the 30 man squad and boss (took him the whole game)

Big D's close combat blocked a direct route in to CC with my destroyers (which he wouldn't catch anyway) so by the time he walked around my warriors had come on the far flank and went unmolested holding 2 objectives.

Destroyers worked off the bikers then started in on the boys.

Game ended on the 6th with 2 objectives for me and one for him.

I ened up losing D.Lord Wraiths and 5 Destroyers. He had 2 badly hurt boys squad at the end one w/ a boss attached.


How would this army deal with the typical deamon list with lots of plague bearers / horros/ LOC's? I don't know statlines that well here, but how threatening is the typical LOC to the deceiver in assault?

Big D rapes LoC in CC, I haven't played this exact match up, my buddy has demons so I'll let you know soon enough. But my guess is they won't be able to catch the things they want to fight, and won't want to fight the things they catch. It seems like it comes down to how fast I can clear PBs off objectives

How would this army deal with a mech eldar list with lots of dire avengers, fire dragons, and possibly either a jetbike council/ OR farseer/eldrad setup?

I played (one of my very similar lists) against a wraithguard/lord army, it did okay but it was a tough match up. Draw on objectives and I lost all my stuff except Destroyers/warriors. I think Mechdar or Jetseer would give me trouble...

Lastly, any ideas on what gives this army trouble?
Well we are talking about 'crons here, I'm not expecting to see this style take any serious wins, it's just the BEST necrons have to work with, and I think it's worth trying for those who haven't

I play guard, necrons and marines. This list is only scary to an opponent who plays vs them rarely, they will be surprised and by the time they find out what to do it will be too late. Where this list has issues is if your opponent has good to great long range fire power, and concentrate on one squad at a time. Destroyers, while good, suffer from one wound a piece. That is 5, toughness 5 marines in comparison. In order to get WBB you have to pay attention to the rules of WBB. You have to have another destroyer nearby for them to get back up, or at least one member survive the shooting phase, spiders don't count as you don't have them. Can't pull the unit threw the monolith if they are all dead. So you have to keep 2 or 3 squads near each other to better your chances of survival. If not you lose a squad a turn minimum vs most lists. That mean bunching up large base models. Even spread out that covers a good amount of ground. So blasts and barrages have a good chance of hitting a few. A direct hit is worse then a scatter as you will have them spread out.

Vs guard if you go first you will hinder their firepower true, however you cannot boost to claim objectives at the end. If you do then you get melta and rapid fired off the objective. If you go second, a average guard player will kill 7 to 10 destroyers per turn. That is a squad plus some. I have done it. Best I have done was kill all 15 in the first shooting phase. Phased him turn 2. Then you are screwed.

The army you speak of is nasty and will give some people nightmares. However it can be stomped by a player who knows the dangers of the list. Ignore the monolith, deciever and kill the destroyers, one at a time. Good list. But hardly top tier. But one of the best if not the best necron build. It is a bit of a one trick pony, so do not be surprised if you get tabled or phased out by a player who knows what to look for. With almost any army. It fits well in the current meta game however as most people will not game plan for it.

Good luck. Its a fun army to play, I have, but best to only use it from time to time or people will learn quickly.

That is my experience with it anyway...

No one ever said this was 'top tier'.

Just something stronger than most 'cron lists.

*shrug*

And I agreed with the stronger then most cron lists. My advise is to be careful when using it or the regular players will figure it out and give you headaches. As it gets easier to beat the more you get familiar with it. Plus a few of the above posts came off like "THIS LIST CAN BEAT ANYTHING." Probably not the intention but had to add a bit of reality to the conversation. Still a good list.