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I'm an Eldar Corsair fleet player and am having some difficulty dealing with Necrons.  They seem to counteract every rule for which I have some sort of benefit.  I can't outrun them, as their ships can travel at ungodly speeds, especially on all ahead full orders.  Use of terrain doesn't seem to make much difference as they use that speed to outmaneuver me. I can't outshoot them because of those shields and high armour values.  I can't take any sort of damage from them as they ignore holofields.  The only thing I do seem to have any luck with is waves of ordnance, but even then it requires me to get in range of their guns to make it count.  Carriers and torpedo boats become one trick ponies. 

Are these games supposed to be as one-sided as they're turning out to be, or am I missing something very obvious in fleet design and tabletop tactics?

Lance them first, so that they have to choose whether to BFI, and get the 2+ save, or not and retain their armor for later gunnery shots. If they BFI, they lose half of their shooting. That halving also applies on All Ahead Full orders, so their shooting shouldn't be THAT nasty. By the way, only one of their guns ignores holofields: the Star Pulse Generator.

The Star Pulse generator ignores it defintiely, but if I recall the lightning arcs always count my ships as closing and don't suffer the right shifts from holofields, and the Gauss particle whips ignore them on a roll of 6.

I will give the lancing first a try, thanks.

Ignoring the shift and ignoring the save are two different things. And you're right, the gauss whip ignores on 6s... but that's not the same as ignoring them totally. Remember that the star pulse can't used if the ship is on any special order or crippled; so, if he used BFI or used the speed of AAF, no pulse for him in addition to half guns.

The weakness of Necrons is that they give up more VPs per crippled/destroyed ship. Focus on one capital ship and crush it; it gives up a minimum of 200% (completely destroyed) and up to 300% (leaves a hulk). One Scythe gives up 825 VPs and one Shroud gives up 465 VPs on a hulk. You can kill one or two capital ships and make a lot of points. He might wreck you up, but I bet you earn more for your efforts.

You are forgeting the second part of Hit and Run. BFG is not like the other GW games. It is perfectly acceptable to complete your mission early band disengage, especially when you are playing against the odds.

Take plenty of Hemlocks drill the closest ship(s) until they are useless, or they blow up. When you have destroyed one or two Necrons disengage. Yep, flee the battle. You wont lose many VP's, but you will gain a whole load and win.

Assuming you are playing a scenario that forces you to stay, or the game gets unfair, try the following.

1. Try to get behind the Necrons, at any range. Necrons movement bonuses allow them to travel far, they do not give them extraordinarty manoeuverability though. Like every race except Eldar they have minimum movement distances - exploit this. The biggest mistake Eldar players make is to try to get away - you might be better off getting close. Now portals and Star Pulse are a problem but portals are short range, even at half movement the bots will drift out of range. Star Pulse generator ships need to be braced or crippled. This is what your Hemlocks are for.

2. AAF gives Necrons random movement so its very unreliable unless they squadron and a good Necron player NEVER squadrons. So if you can split a Necron fleet you can make it suprisingly difficult foir them to regroup because of the random nature of their fast movement.

3. Brace and ignore, brace and ignore. then choose a target - apparently at random to cripple with your remaining firepower. As Necrons have no shields any shot is a potential winner.

4. Eldar capital ships can deal with Necron escorts easily. You just role reversal on them. Get in close and destroy them with teleport attacks. As they have no shields they have no defence.

5. Dont forget teleport attacks on capital ships. If all else fails a teleport attack might disable a ships guns temporarily.

6. You only need temporary damage to disrupt Necron firepower, keep them upressed and you can chip away at them to victory. But this is a high risk strategy. You have to be able to - on average dice- disrupt EVERY Necron ship in the engagement range. Its the remaining firepower AFTER you have disrupted the enemy fleet that you must count on to build up a victory. This is unreliable, and the dice only need to be badfor one turn for it all to be over. So the sooner you can build some VP's and exaporate the better.