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Dakkites, I am in need of your aide.

A friend of mine has recently become keenly interested in starting a WH40K army. He has minimal experience, but is learning quickly. I've been able to teach him how to play using Imperial Guard, but as of late he has expressed his want of an army of his own.

After playing Dark Crusade for the past few months, he's come to love the Necrons. I explained as much as I could about their strengths and weaknesses, but to be honest, I don't know that much about them, compared to my better understanding of the Guard and Space Marines.

Now, I ask you all to explain to me the Necrons. How they function as a whole, how each of their units do in conjunction with other units and on their own, the inherent strengths and weaknesses of each unit selection, et cetera. Any advice and information you could give would be great - I want to be able to help my friend create a solid, powerful army list, one that will allow him to enjoy the game in a competetive fashion.

I recommended that he purchase the Codex first, which he will be doing next week. After that, he's planning on picking up the Necron Battleforce (28 Necron Warriors, 7 Scarab Swarm Bases, 3 Necron Destroyers) shortly thereafter. I agreed with his decision becuase I believe that having two 14-man Troop choices, a Fast Attack Scarab Squad and a trio of Fast Attack Destroyers will be a good base from which he can start. He wants to wait on picking up a Necron Lord, given that the regular Lord might be more cost-effective (economically and points-wise) than his planned Destroyer Lord.

Thanks for your suggestions and advice.

CK

The codex, 2 Battleforces, a lord blister, and a monolith is the best way you can start Necrons. Every single thing in that is useful, and it gives you enough stuff to play decent sized games while you learn how Necrons work. Once you have a better idea of the army, you can fill out the list based on what you feel is lacking. It also gives you enough warriors to convert some into immortals if you can't stomach the $10 price tag per immortal.

As for tactics, those are easy enough to find with a little looking. Good luck.

Since I'm starting Necrons I think I can help out.

Have him start with the foot lord. There's a new model coming out with a Res Orb in the next month or two I think. If not, the stock foot lord is the way to go when starting.

The batteforce is an excellent purchase, heck if I didn't get a deal off ebay my army plan was going to be: Two Battle Forces, 2 Destroyers, Foot Lord, Monolith.

Unit selection is very important for necrons since the way the We'll Be Back and Phase Out rule is structured there are certain things you want to do army selection wise that mitigate/benefit from these rules.

As a general rule, the only CC unit you should take are scarabs. Flayed Ones aren't that effective in CC and neither are Wraiths. Also it's easy for the enemy to deny them a We'll Be Back Roll, than say it is for them to deny a block of warriors their WBB since it's easy to keep a Necron Lord with a Resurrection Orb near your warriors. It's not so easy to do with Flayed Ones or Wraiths.

The best units he can take are as follows:

Warriors
Immortals
Destroyers
Scarabs
Monolith

The Lord is obviously the default HQ. He probably shouldn't mess around with a C'Tan for a while till after he gets the hang of the army and playing the game in general.

You can make a great army list out of a bunch of destroyers, warriors, scarabs, a lord, and a Monolith that should suffice for a while. Heck with a Foot Lord, a battle force, and a monolith you can do a decent 1k points list.

Since your troops choices are your warriors, the idea is to figure out what you want to use along side them for support and flavor. Destroyers are your cheapest $$$ option to do this with. 6-8 Destroyers works out pretty well, along with some scarabs because they come in the battle force. It's not the most "optimal" thing to do, but it's not a bad choice either.

A monolith is a great way to get him a really nice model that is fun to use and easy/nice to paint. It also takes up a nice chunk of points and adds to the army, though some people don't like taking it, it's really a toy that has a good use while being kind of a luxury in the army. I know I'm not going to go without one for a while when playing Necrons to start for a while.

Dont get a destroyer lord unless you have him travelling by himself. The 4th ed mixed toughness rules really put the nerf stick to its added toughness.

It would be much better for him to just use a footlord.

Thanks for the advice, all. I'll be sure to remind him of the mixed toughness problems that come with the Destroyer body, as well as recommend that if he expands beyond his currently planned 1000 points (We used the army lists that GW makes online for their battle reports to estimate the costs of everything) to buy another Battleforce or perhaps a Monolith.

I'll keep you updated, as he is going to be visiting me over the summer and will be getting some mileage out of his shiny new 'Crons.

CK

The Destroyer Lord is pretty good, but like HF said, you really don't want to be attaching him to squads.

The beauty of a Destroyer Lord is that you can turbo boost him around and put a Res Orb where you need it, and in a pinch he can help out in a CC engagement. Plus as long as he's not attached to a squad, he's still an IC and thus can't be targeted in shooting if he's not the closest unit, which helps out quite a bit.

The only real problem is that he doesn't have a veil of darkness, which is very useful for defensive purposes. If you get into CC where you don't want to be, you can just veil yourself to freedom. At least to start he's probably better off with a foot lord with a Veil of Darkness and a Resurrection Orb.

I have about 3000 points of Necrons which I haven't played since 3rd Edition.

They have a few qualities that recommend them to a new player: They're easy to paint, have very few options to complicate list building, they have no truly bad choices, and they're very straightforward and forgiving to play.

Some of this is double edged... Not having any real squad upgrades to choose will stunt the player's list building development. All that 3+ saving and standing back up will severely distort the player's feel for what sort of beating a unit can take. The player will also spend a lot of time learning and using Necron special rules, and they're not useful anywhere else.

I'm sure everyone hates to hear it, but I still recommend Space Marines for a starting army. They capture all the core concepts of the game. They can shoot, they can assault, they have plenty of options and upgrades, etc. etc. No matter what list you choose, it's going to be at least moderately decent on the table.

If your friend likes Necrons, I think he'll be fine starting with them. As has been said, have him build up a core of Warriors, Destroyers and a Monolith. A few games with that, and he can think about adding some of the peripheral stuff like Spyders, Flayed ones, etc.  Immortals are a fantastic unit, and some winning lists are based on them, but they're a bit expensive and annoying to build, so maybe not a great unit to start with.

His personality will be a big factor.  Any army will be fine for a patient, thoughtful person.  But most people will be discouraged if they go out and lose their first ten games.  Necrons are nice, in that they'll assure the player, no matter how new to the game, a good chance of getting a few wins right away.

Posted By Slyde on 05/22/2007 7:29 AM
The codex, 2 Battleforces, a lord blister, and a monolith is the best way you can start Necrons. Every single thing in that is useful, and it gives you enough stuff to play decent sized games while you learn how Necrons work. Once you have a better idea of the army, you can fill out the list based on what you feel is lacking. It also gives you enough warriors to convert some into immortals if you can't stomach the $10 price tag per immortal.

As for tactics, those are easy enough to find with a little looking. Good luck.

Dont get a monolith until you have at least 40 warriors and 15-20 other true necrons, or the oppenent can win by popping 15 of your warriors.   Its a old 40k saying, "how do you kill a nightbringer or the monolith?  Kill 15 warriors."  its cheese, but it costs to many points.  Get the battle force,  a lord blister, and instead of a monolith  get another pack of warriors and as many immortals as you can, up to 10.  As for tactics, have the lord in the immmortal squad with a res orb.  If anything comes near to hurt the immortals, you can assult them with the lord, and it makes sure a rending attack or something along those lines dont take them out in one hit and stop the will be back save.  If you have 6 destoriers, have them in 2 squads of 3 and space the squads within 6 inches of eachother.  Have the warriors in as many squads of 10 you can make.  Use scarbs only if you have the points.

As for a 1000 point list, for crons, go 1 lord and 40 warriors, kills a whole lot and phase out is hard.  Dont use the monolith unless its 2000+ point game.  Dont use the nightbringer or deciver unless its 2500+ points, or phase out will kill you.  If you get either of the 3 before the points i said, you will die horribly.  Just my tips.

Don't listen to this dude. I've played multiple times against him (with my own Necrons), and have beaten him every time (except once, when we tied). If I were you, I would (I can't believe I'm saying this) completely forgo Immortals for more Destroyers. Go with two footlords, a Monolith, about 6 Destroyers, 2 Tomb Spiders, and as many Warriors as possible. Give the footlords Res. Orbs. Tactics? Run the Monolith up the middle, warping your warriors that get assaulted out of assault. Blow the living hell out of anything that comes near you with rapid-firing gauss beauty, and use the Destroyers to take on those Genestealers who think they're crafty with extended carapaces.

Another thing: no matter how tempting it may seem, DO NOT take C'tan. He's 20 warrior's worth of 4+ save crap.

And as for that "old 40k saying"... that's mine.

There are actually a couple necro builds that work out well.

While taking something on the order of 3 monoliths will severly lower your phase out, and probably make people yell cheese, at lower point games (1000-1500) it can be really brutal. Usually lists like this will hide a squad of warriors so they cant be phased out so easily. Not a very balanced army, and will probably get you yelled at quite a bit. But on monoliths, they're generally only for larger games unless your maxing them, like 1500+. Lower than that and you can only take one which becomes a huge fire magnet and the cost eats into the number of necrons you can take.

If you want destroyers, a necron airforce can be very effective. Max the number of destroyers and heavy destroyers. Then use your 12" move and assault guns to out shoot lots of armies. Even though you've got a lower model count, WBB and turbo boosting will help preserve your force. It can really do a number on static shooting armies that dont have much indirect. I think destroyers are pretty much like monoliths though, in the fact that they are really all or nothing. If you only take a squad or two of destroyers they will get hammered first. Trying to hide them wont really help you as you're essentially playing without a large chunk of points. Maybe it's just me, but I havent had success with destroyers in moderation.

Most successful necron armies that i've seen max out immortals. They really are the best thing in the codex. They're more than twice as shooty as warriors for less than twice the price, why would you not want them? Plus their assault guns are rude against almost anything except high strength, high save models, like zilla nids, but necrons have problems with them anyways. A lord with an orb and veil can travel around with a squad of immortals and be really irritating for most people. Most of these lists only take the minimum troop requirements so you can max the number of immortals.

For your fast slots, if not destroyers, scarabs are incredible. They can tie up entire sections of someones armie for a few turns while your immortals are dealing with other threats. They're fast, they're cheap, what's not to like?

Lots of people dont like C'tan because of the cost, but recently I've seen some lists with people saying that the deciever worked pretty well in their list. Not too sure about this, so hopefully someone who plays something like that can provide more information.

Like people have said, try to stay away from wraiths and flayed ones. They dont ignore armor saves which really makes them quite worthless. Pariahs are really, really expensive and with monoliths and veiling lords to help you get out of combat there's not point on buying a fighty unit in a shooty army. Tomb spiders arent that great either. They help a bit with WBB and that sort of thing, but you'd probably be better off not wasting points on them, overpriced for what they do, and just buying some more immortals or destroyers.

Necrons are a hard list to do poorly so long as you stick to immortals or destroyers and avoid the obviously bad choices in the codex.

I have been playing with Necron for almost seven years now, and I can tell you a few things.

1. Stay away from the heavy support units. A monolith is prtty good, but more ground troops is better. After a while you can mess around with a Tomb spider, but I rarely do.

2. DO NOT use Pariahs, wraiths, flayed ones, or C'tan. They are decent, but not for the points they use up.

3. If you can keep them hidden, a large unit of scarab swarms with disruption feilds is SUPERB. They are fast, decent number of attacks, and can kill vehicles with ease. Each base has an 11% chance of killing a stationary land raider. If need be they can also tie up close combat threats until you are ready to deal with them.

4. Immortals are a dead-hard shooting unit. They pump out a good number of high strenth shots on the move and shrug off bolter rounds with easy. Two units of them is a good idea.

5. Give one lord a Veil of Darkness. It will come in handy. Not only can you pull your shooting units out of close combat to save them or kill the attackers, but you can also drop behind enemy lines and kill that annoying basilisk. Then you can hop out before the enemy can respond in force. If you are going to do this tactic, then you better do it in force. Bring as many shots as you can and make sure whatever you shoot at is dead in one turn. Necron are tough, but not when they get outnumbered 5 to 1.

6. Don't waste firepower unless you have to. With all other armies you tend to use small weapons for small targets (bolter firing into guardsmen) and large weapons for large targets (missile launcher against a tank). With Necron the opposite is true. Since Guass weapons can always glance, go ahead and shoot tanks with warriors. Save the higher strenth multiple-shot weapons for infantry and light vehicles (your immortals and Destroyers actually have a chance to penetrate armor 10 or wound on a 2+ with no save).

7. Don't be afraid to sacrifice an expensive unit if you have to. With so few models it stinks when you loose even a single guy. However loosing a squad of Immortals is better than loosing a squad of warriors if it means the difference between fazing out or not.

8. Terminators are the Bane of Necron existance. We have very few units that can beat a 2+ save. So either run from terinators, or shoot everything you have into them hoping that they drop from shear number of shots. Killing one will not help mush, killing 4 will usually force a last man standing test each turn. Although it might seem like a good idea to use your lord's power weapon here, it IS NOT. Unless it is a matter of life or death keep him away from terminators, especially assault terminators. The lord is what holds the army together. He will strike simultaniously with the terminators, so they will kill your lord.

To be honest, there are only a few basic things you will need for a successful Necron army. Warriors, Immortals, and Destroyers. Add a Necron Lord as HQ with a Vial of Darkness and resurection orb and you will be golden. If you want, add in a Monolith. I have used one before and the results are awsome. You will only need to see a deep-striking Monolith taking out a Chaos Predator and a Defiler to see what I am talking about.

However, as stated in the post above, do not use wraiths because a lack of power weapons and small squad size makes them rather ineffective in combat. Also, there is no need for flayed ones. While they look cool and cost the same as a necron warrior, they take away from the thing that Necrons are really good at, Shooting. It's the same thing with Pariahs. They look good on paper, but in truth they really stink. The one tried and true fact is that they will almost never get into close combat because of the 6 inch move range. They are also not necrons, so they take up space on your list and make it easier to phase out. Simply use Immortals in their place.

Well, after a solid week of 40K, with the total tally of games reaching somewhere in the low 20s, I'd like to report on how my friend fared.

Over the course of his six-day stay, I was able to field my Black Templars and Imperial Guard against his Necrons. My brother pitched in and let me use his Tau army a couple of times too in an attempt to give him the full experience, from dedicated assault troops to horde Guard to Shooty Armies From Hell.

I initially was unsure how to fight Necrons on the board, so our first game of 1500 BT v. Necrons was quite close. I lost a hideous amount of troops attempting to get by the Monolith to kill his troops, and had to do so with one arm tied behind my back - his Nightbringer, which I stupidly allowed him to use in such a small battle, managed to force me to devote almost 600 points worth of stuff to kill it. It still managed to punch a huge hole in my already meager anti-tank gunline before I finally killed it in close combat with a Furious Charge Reclusiarch and Command Squad backed by my remaining quartet of Terminators. After exploding, and reducing my entire firepower base to molten slag, it was too late for him, as I was able to get my remaining Assault Marines and 16-man (8 Inits, 8 Neophytes) Crusader Squad into close combat with his two fleeing 14-man warrior squads. He phased out at the end of turn 5.

I felt a bit bad after the game, since in my bloodlust that surfaced from killing the Nightbringer, I absolutely unloaded the entirety of my remaining forces into CC with his troops, leaving him no hope of winning. We proceeded to play around half a dozen small (500-600 points) games using Combat Patrol rules to allow him to experiment with some of his units. He was a quick learner, and was even sharp enough to call me out on holding back against him, which only made him angry.

After about three days of these small tests, most of which were done from the hours of 12 to 3 in the morning, we came to quite a few conclusions, which I will now touch on:

Scarabs are worthless against dedicated assault troops. They are fast moving, and can tie up weaker units in CC, like Tau or Guard, but against a squad of Assault Marines, they melted like butter under the Nevada sun.

Pariahs are seriously hindered in their abilities against anything that has an Initiative higher than 3. They're way too expensive, they don't get enough attacks in close combat, and can be matched in shooting by Immortals.

Immortals do so very, VERY well against anything without a 3+ save. Against Tau and Guard, they cut their targets down like a scythe. Their Assault 2 characteristic is immensely helpful as a mobile firebase for Warriors, which he moved in as a medium-ranged support unit, complemented by a Lord with a Resurrection Orb. They were even able to kill half of a Terminator Squad as it trudged across the board in a fit of Righteous Zeal.

Flayed Ones, though unable to ignore armor saves, proved quite useful when pitted against anything without a 3+ save or against anything that wasn't Fearless in close combat. Since Templars are both these, they (the Flayed Ones) had a hard time just staying in close combat, even when the Lord was there to support.

Wraiths, we discovered, are tailored for only certain types of enemies. Their ability to Turbo-boost through terrain because of Wraithflight makes them excellent at closing the distance with their enemies quickly. However, because they are essentially Space Marines in terms of survivability and only 1-3 in number, he quickly realized that using them against Templars was a bad idea. Against Guard and Tau, however, they were able to inflict massive casualties, and despite the disproportionately high number of Tau or IG attack-backs, not enough wounds were landed to force a failed save through dice saturation.

Necron Warriors, which are statistically as resilient as terminators, performed at a subpar level throughout the week. An 18-man squad was massacred by a single Tau Shas'O. Despite the fact that the Shas'O had Iridium Armor (2+ Save) and Stimm Injectors (Feel No Pain), neither side failed a morale check, and the commander was able to turn around what was looking like a major loss on the Tau side into a ridiculous victory as the XV8 swept the board clean. Whenever he wasn't feeling aggressive, meaning that he hadn't moved them straight at their opponents, he got to shoot with them, and the results were more of what I expected. They slaughtered Guard, did markedly average against Tau, and only made Black Templars angrier, which allowed them to get into Assault more quickly, which was bad for the Necrons.

The consenus with them was that now that he has 40 Warriors, he plans of capping them and moving on to Immortals. Tons, and tons, and tons. Of Immortals.

He really enjoyed Destroyers, when they worked, and plans to take many more as harasser units. They performed poorly, but now that he knows how to use them, he believes that they are much better, and proved it by causing two Fire Warrior squads to fall back off the board, one turn after another.

His Monolith did much better than it should have. It survived somewhere around 30 Power Fist strikes, while it just sat there and Flux Arced the crap out of my assaulting troops. He's planning on picking up another one quite soon.

The Nightbringer is stupidly powerful. He used it in two games. The first time I beat him by killing the Nightbringer and assaulting his troops. The second game involved him hiding everything but the monolith and the nightbringer, which he used almost exclusively. This made me really mad, especially since it was only a 1500 points game, but after doing so many tests/small games that showed us both that his conventional assault troops can't stand up to Templars, I knew he didn't have much else to go with as a tactic.

* * * * * * *

We played one massive game while he was here, which involved both my brother and my friend versus me. They each had 1250 points, while I had 2500. I thought I was going to get my ass handed to me on a silver platter, since I usually lose more than half of my troops before even getting into Assault. As it turns out, I was able to make my friend's Necrons phase out in turn 4 after having lost only 5 models out of nearly 80 in shooting, and an additional 8 in close combat (8-man Assault Squad versus 10 Immortals and a Res Orb Lord). The mop-up with Tau took another 4 or 5 turns (it was a standard set-up-and-kill-each-other game that lasted until it ended, which was around turn 10), but in the end, I swept the board with about 1000 points of stuff still around, more than half of which never even got used.

* * * * * *

After doing small and large tests, math-hammer, tactica-hammer, and model proxying, he came to the conclusion that the way to go with Necrons is as follows, which is his projected army list:

Lord w/ Res Orb, random upgrades
Lord w/ Res Orb, Veil of Darkness

10 Immortals
10 Immortals
10 Immortals

20 Warriors
20 Warriors

3 Destroyers
3 Destroyers
10 Scarabs (he already has them, might as well include them in the event he fights Guard or Tau)

Monolith
Monolith

~2700 points

He doesn't expect to reach this goal for another 4 years or so, but it's what he's working for. He was pretty discouraged for a while, when he went for 4 days and nearly a dozen games without winning, but he's reaffirmed his faith in the Necrons by doing the math, the tests, and talking the tactics. As I said before, he's a quick learner, and by the end of his stay, was able to keep me guessing a couple of times about his tactics, which initially were garish and somewhat hopeless. I have high hopes for his development as a player - he already has a gaming partner in his hometown (Tau opponent), and I'm still trying to give him tactical advice.

I'd really appreciate everyone's thoughts so far about where he's taking his list, and how well I did to expose him to various armies. I realize Templars are a little extreme on the Stompy side, and that Tau are a little extreme on the Shooty side, but hey, it seemed to work.

I'll keep you all posted on a battle report or two before I head off to the land of no internet (aka summer cottage). Thanks again, and pardon the threadcromancy.

CK

I also have one quick question about Pariahs:

I know that they are not eligible for WBB rolls, but is that ignored if a Lord with a Resurrection Orb is within 6"?

Another question, this time about Wraiths:

When he proxied a squad, he argued that Wraithflight allows Wraiths to not only turbo-boost through terrain, but to also assault through terrain, without any ill effects in the form of Dangerous Terrain tests, which are normally taken as per Jetbike movement rules when moving through terrain. I countered by saying that the specific wording of the Wraithflight rules only allow the model to MOVE through terrain without Dangerous Terrain checks, while still leaving the Wraiths exposed to Dangerous Terrain tests when moving into assault as per the normal Jetbike rules.

In other words, he argued that Wraithflight allows assaulting under its protective umbra of ignoring Dangerous Terrain tests, while I argued that Wraithflight only ignores DT tests for movement, as per the specific wording under the Wraithflight special rule.

Did I rightly hinder his game by convincing him that they would be affected by DT tests when assaulting through terrain, or was I in the wrong?

Help is much appreciated.

CK