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So my buddies and I are taking a break from mostly maelstrom games to purely kill points and secondaries. As the title says, does anyone have any unique strategies for beating a Necron Canoptek Harvest/ decurion necron list? I've played 6 games against em (lost 4, drew 1 due to time and won only once with Crimson fists)recently and it seems it can be done, but it's so far beyond stupidly difficult I have no words. I would appreciate and be open to any fresh ideas that don't involve superfriends or allying in even more cheddar.

Doesn't work:

Tarpiting. You don't have enough models to do this

Skyhammer: Tried it. Please popped a ghost ark, killed the a Spyder and took out 11 of 15 warriors. They laughed it off and my entire formation was either deleted or pitted for the next 4 turns again by 3 Wraiths

Gladius: Vehicles? Lol

Psychic shrieking Conclave: Good luck, they're LD 10 and their amazing invuls and reanimation couldn't give a feth about Psychic Shriek

Grav Spam: See above^^

Wound spam: Good luck with that when 2/3 has 3 up invuls, T5 and rerolls ones on invuls

Templates and high strength shooting : not enough, unreliable and blow over to a stiff gauss breeze

CC bike star: if you aren't combat ineffective after their shooting, works okay until you meet Zandrek, Orikan and their unkillable retinue of sword and board lychguard... before getting absolutely booty played when the wraith going the party



Works:
MSU Spam with 2 CC Knights

Invisibility and Veil of time Conclave (full) with fire Raptors and 2+ armor Spam


EDIT: Turns out I got cheated (or the other guy was exhausted, but he's been playing crons for almost a year so still not much of an excuse). He shouldn't have been rerolling 1s for invuln and the harvest should have collapsed after I nuked the Spyder... all 4 times.

Works:
MSU Spam with 2 CC Knights

Invisibility and Veil of time Conclave (full) with fire Raptors and 2+ armor Spam

As a long term Necron player, I second this.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Works:
MSU Spam with 2 CC Knights

Invisibility and Veil of time Conclave (full) with fire Raptors and 2+ armor Spam

As a long term Necron player, I second this.

I mean, this works against most armies...

Don't play only Kill Points. Mission Variety is crucial to balance.

Harvest collapses when spider dies yes, but you do get to re-roll 1s for RP if the unit is within 12" of the overord/HQ.

I believe it's a rule of the Reclamation Legion (core part of Decurion).

 D4V1D0 wrote:
Harvest collapses when spider dies yes, but you do get to re-roll 1s for RP if the unit is within 12" of the overord/HQ.

I believe it's a rule of the Reclamation Legion (core part of Decurion).

Copy that. Problem is he was rerolling 1s for wraith invuln saves too. After I zapped his warlord.

The 12" reroll RP bubble only applies to members of the Reclamation Legion. Tomb Blades, Warriors, Immortals, Lychguard. The Wraiths don't get that.

Dantes_Baals wrote:
Copy that. Problem is he was rerolling 1s for wraith invuln saves too. After I zapped his warlord.

Orikan in a unit of Wraiths isn't an uncommon tactic, and will let you do this.

Like all necron armies, if you take out their HQ, the rest of the army starts to fall apart.

At least thats what i have noticed.

Easier said than done when he's surrounded by 10 sword and board lychguard in a zooming transport. I only got Zandrekh due to bad placement and a lucky scatter.

Necrons are kings of kill points, cus our whole shtick is not dying.

Irrumare wrote:
The 12" reroll RP bubble only applies to members of the Reclamation Legion. Tomb Blades, Warriors, Immortals, Lychguard. The Wraiths don't get that.

Dantes_Baals wrote:
Copy that. Problem is he was rerolling 1s for wraith invuln saves too. After I zapped his warlord.

Orikan in a unit of Wraiths isn't an uncommon tactic, and will let you do this.

Orikan was with the Lychguard and Zandrekh


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Klowny wrote:
Necrons are kings of kill points, cus our whole shtick is not dying.

I'm beginning to get that... Only reason I created the thread was because I believe skill can trounce list when army power levels are within the same ballpark. But yea, hard mode Crons in a KP game is going to be tedious at best.

Caveat: I forget if any of the Decurion Crons are Fearless or not. But if they aren't, maybe you can sidestep their toughness with Ld. tests.

With most Decurions Necron units are pretty close to each other. The 1st Co task force can drop their Ld. by 2. Sternguard can wound on twos and force a lot of saves. Rest of the army can aim for causing casualties and forcing break tests.

Are there lots of Warriors? Whirlwinds are pretty solid against lots of Warriors. A unit of three causes pinning tests.

A dirtier trick might be to take a Speartip Strike Formation of 3 Units of Land Speeders, and 2 Attack bikes, Give everybody Heavy Bolters. Use the Focussed Suppression ability against a troublesome unit by firing every Speartip unit at it, and force a pinning test with a -6 to Ld, on top of the -2 Ld proximity to Sternguard gives.

Instead of aiming to kill, aim to Pin, Break, and annoy the Necrons while your CC units close the gap.

With Ld Reduced, kill Wraiths with Psychic Shriek.

Try out a cheaper Skyhammer, use it for suppression and charging, rather than loading it up with expensive stuff.

Can't believe that I overlooked leadership manipulation. That's a brilliant idea (or maybe I'm a dunski, maybe 50/50 lol). The thing is, I don't know for sure that he'll be bringing crons (also runs Demonkin) but this strategy could work for either army.As far as I know, they get relentless and move through cover. I'll definitely give it a shot next time I play him. If he's bringing the cheddar, I don't mind taking a hard counter. Only one WW, but I can make the Speartip/Shreik/1st coy work.

Many thanks Insectum. This is exactly what I was looking for.

Even with leadership manipulation its the invulns and reanimations that will cause you trouble, there are multiple ways of beating these guys and here are the key ways how.

D weapons - obviously, the bane of any deathstar shoot enough D and those crons won't be able to handle it. Where are your saves now!

Out Death-star them - Necrons are annoying but don't have the strongest deathstar in the game, the best they are going to get is a 3+ invuln with re-rolls of 1 and a 4+ reanimation. Daemons can do you one better, a 2++ with re-rolls of 1 and a 4+ FNP with the right powers. You have a higher chance of winning the lottery than dealing 1 wound to that deathstar. Space marines can also get a pretty crazy deathstar going with the right powers.

Can't kill what you can't touch - flyer spam isnt good at holding objectives, but man is it good at getting kill points, not sure whats worse, always hitting on 6's or reanimation protocols.

These are just a few ways of dealing with all the crap necrons spew, and you only need to impliment a little bit of each and you realise necrons arent so bad, maybe a flyer or 2, some D weapons and a deathstar never hurt anyone, well, except your opponent.


Funnily enough, eldar has some of the best units for each of these tactics.

I primarily run Crimson Fists. My secondaries are KDK and bugs. D isn't an option sadly. It's either a thunderhawk, d thirster or knights. The first is way out of what my paychecks can support. The second will be long dead before he gets to swing that big brass Axe and I've been using the third to good effect, but you can only run so many Knights before you're essentially running knights as your primary. Not to mention the whole gauss +HPs =bad day. I've tried to out deathstar the deathstar, but the problem is its a single unit and if it isn't IH smashfucker and all of his stupidness, they will fall apart waaay before the necrons do. Flyer spam might work, but I've only got a raptor, a raven and 2 talons. Not enough to carry the game by a long shot.

Next game I'll be trying out the Speartip strike force with 2 knights, a conclave (1 div, 2 telepathy) and the first coy strike force.

My best bet outside of D weapons which are very few in number is wound spam and invis (that's what I'm going for here), the problem being that they are so stupidly hard to wound.

Having said that, Bugs straight up can't hold their own against tournament level crons and my KDK, while pretty killy, isn't killy enough and while I'll be the bill Gates of tithe points, I'll be giving up almost twice as many as I pull in as far as the actual KPs go. I'll try Cabal with 2 D thirsters and a deathstar with Khorne dogs down the road, but I don't think it will work as well as my SMs with knights are doing now. Especially if the cabal can't get Invisibility off.

However, Im not gonna go out and buy a bunch of stuff because my group wasn't smart enough to see that Crons and Eldar are the the undisputed kings of KP hill.

That said, I appreciate the input Reavas

Dantes_Baals wrote:
I primarily run Crimson Fists. My secondaries are KDK and bugs. D isn't an option sadly. It's either a thunderhawk, d thirster or knights. The first is way out of what my paychecks can support. The second will be long dead before he gets to swing that big brass Axe and I've been using the third to good effect, but you can only run so many Knights before you're essentially running knights as your primary. Not to mention the whole gauss +HPs =bad day. I've tried to out deathstar the deathstar, but the problem is its a single unit and if it isn't IH smashfucker and all of his stupidness, they will fall apart waaay before the necrons do. Flyer spam might work, but I've only got a raptor, a raven and 2 talons. Not enough to carry the game by a long shot.

Next game I'll be trying out the Speartip strike force with 2 knights, a conclave (1 div, 2 telepathy) and the first coy strike force.

My best bet outside of D weapons which are very few in number is wound spam and invis (that's what I'm going for here), the problem being that they are so stupidly hard to wound.

Having said that, Bugs straight up can't hold their own against tournament level crons and my KDK, while pretty killy, isn't killy enough and while I'll be the bill Gates of tithe points, I'll be giving up almost twice as many as I pull in as far as the actual KPs go. I'll try Cabal with 2 D thirsters and a deathstar with Khorne dogs down the road, but I don't think it will work as well as my SMs with knights are doing now. Especially if the cabal can't get Invisibility off.

However, Im not gonna go out and buy a bunch of stuff because my group wasn't smart enough to see that Crons and Eldar are the the undisputed kings of KP hill.

That said, I appreciate the input Reavas

Why not try knight and flyer spam, am I correct in assuming they have Str D melee weapons? If so get them into combat asap and let the flyers take out their gunline they cant shoot whats in combat. If you want your main detatchment being SM you might want to check out the death from the skys book and see the flyer formations they got.

Also if you have even a few khorn daemons check out the new Khorn relics in the wulfen book, some give you Str D on rolls to hit of 6, some even distort reality and teleport enemies out of the game which can be helpful. Grab a grimoire on a prince or bloodthirster and give em the skullreaver and BAM 2+ invuln save thirster with str D hits on 6. Heralds can get a sword that sunders time, on a successful wound the model is removed from play, only on a roll of 4+ can it come back via deepstrike

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Like all necron armies, if you take out their HQ, the rest of the army starts to fall apart.

At least thats what i have noticed.

Eh, not really?

Dantes_Baals wrote:
Can't believe that I overlooked leadership manipulation. That's a brilliant idea (or maybe I'm a dunski, maybe 50/50 lol). The thing is, I don't know for sure that he'll be bringing crons (also runs Demonkin) but this strategy could work for either army.As far as I know, they get relentless and move through cover. I'll definitely give it a shot next time I play him. If he's bringing the cheddar, I don't mind taking a hard counter. Only one WW, but I can make the Speartip/Shreik/1st coy work.

Many thanks Insectum. This is exactly what I was looking for.

I haven't tried anything like it, but I look forward to hearing about how it goes

 Insectum7 wrote:
Caveat: I forget if any of the Decurion Crons are Fearless or not. But if they aren't, maybe you can sidestep their toughness with Ld. tests.

With most Decurions Necron units are pretty close to each other. The 1st Co task force can drop their Ld. by 2. Sternguard can wound on twos and force a lot of saves. Rest of the army can aim for causing casualties and forcing break tests.

C'tan, Praetorians and all Canoptek things are Fearless.

Reavas wrote:

Dantes_Baals wrote:
I primarily run Crimson Fists. My secondaries are KDK and bugs. D isn't an option sadly. It's either a thunderhawk, d thirster or knights. The first is way out of what my paychecks can support. The second will be long dead before he gets to swing that big brass Axe and I've been using the third to good effect, but you can only run so many Knights before you're essentially running knights as your primary. Not to mention the whole gauss +HPs =bad day. I've tried to out deathstar the deathstar, but the problem is its a single unit and if it isn't IH smashfucker and all of his stupidness, they will fall apart waaay before the necrons do. Flyer spam might work, but I've only got a raptor, a raven and 2 talons. Not enough to carry the game by a long shot.

Next game I'll be trying out the Speartip strike force with 2 knights, a conclave (1 div, 2 telepathy) and the first coy strike force.

My best bet outside of D weapons which are very few in number is wound spam and invis (that's what I'm going for here), the problem being that they are so stupidly hard to wound.

Having said that, Bugs straight up can't hold their own against tournament level crons and my KDK, while pretty killy, isn't killy enough and while I'll be the bill Gates of tithe points, I'll be giving up almost twice as many as I pull in as far as the actual KPs go. I'll try Cabal with 2 D thirsters and a deathstar with Khorne dogs down the road, but I don't think it will work as well as my SMs with knights are doing now. Especially if the cabal can't get Invisibility off.

However, Im not gonna go out and buy a bunch of stuff because my group wasn't smart enough to see that Crons and Eldar are the the undisputed kings of KP hill.

That said, I appreciate the input Reavas

Why not try knight and flyer spam, am I correct in assuming they have Str D melee weapons? If so get them into combat asap and let the flyers take out their gunline they cant shoot whats in combat. If you want your main detatchment being SM you might want to check out the death from the skys book and see the flyer formations they got.

Also if you have even a few khorn daemons check out the new Khorn relics in the wulfen book, some give you Str D on rolls to hit of 6, some even distort reality and teleport enemies out of the game which can be helpful. Grab a grimoire on a prince or bloodthirster and give em the skullreaver and BAM 2+ invuln save thirster with str D hits on 6. Heralds can get a sword that sunders time, on a successful wound the model is removed from play, only on a roll of 4+ can it come back via deepstrike

I'll definitely look into the Wulfen book. My buddy has a copy so this may give me a few creative ideas for my Demonkin. Luckily my store has a community copy of the Demons book and there is a boatload ob Bloodletters and crushers in the used bin, because I don't want to win badly enough to buy a NIB allied detatchment.

We usually play pretty big games so I can probably squeeze Stormwing into the list with first coy and the Knights etc. The Raptor might be a stretch and I'm not crazy fond of going unbound.

My buddy is in A TX for the next weel, but I'll definitely post results if I remember to after we game upon his return.

Thanks for the replies folks. Glad to see this thread come to life.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Irrumare wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Caveat: I forget if any of the Decurion Crons are Fearless or not. But if they aren't, maybe you can sidestep their toughness with Ld. tests.

With most Decurions Necron units are pretty close to each other. The 1st Co task force can drop their Ld. by 2. Sternguard can wound on twos and force a lot of saves. Rest of the army can aim for causing casualties and forcing break tests.

C'tan, Praetorians and all Canoptek things are Fearless.

He rarely brings a C'TAN and when he does its the nightbringer who is usually Swiss cheese by turn 3. I can kite the Lychguard all day long, but if it touches something, that something goes *poof*. I'll probably just keep the wraiths busy with 20 invisible khorne dogs. That should be interesting.