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So i am a bit of a new comer to the Necrons, i have had the book for a year, but never had time to start em becuase of my chaos armies. There a bit of a new army to me because they are a range, short range, based army, not a CC army like my orks and previous codex World eaters. So just gona list what i know and it would be great if i could get osme pointers.

The veil of darkness and Res. orbs are probably the two overall best. Phase shifter and destroyer body also good. Troops you got the Warriors, who are rock hard with good guns and accuracy. I also know that a lot of players are hesitant to to take heavy tanks such as land raiders when you play necrons due to the power of the guns. Umm i know immortals are a must, form what ive heard. go great with veil of darkness lord. Destroyers i usually hear you want one unit of em at least. Scarabs are great tank hunters with disruption field, and piss off low toughnes things with crappy armour like gaurd, gaurdians, etc. Monoliths i hear are great because unless you come across somthing that is strength ten that either has relaly long range (rail gun) or is fast( Ork warboss on bike) you dont need to worry to much about it blowing up. it also has a ton of power, and abillity to move stuff around.

So the stuff people say stay away from are Pariahs, i can see why. Expensive, fire magnets, and dont have necron special rules. C'tan are a point sink, and dont benefit much.

So i am curious about flayed ones (look great when going against hoard armies, not as good against marines,) wraiths (look really good for a unit going with a destroyer lord,) heavy destroyers for ranged anti armour and things like termies or wraith gaurd, and tomb spiders. And when you upgrade a staff of light to a warsythe, does it come with the blaster like the Pariah ones?

The Necron Lord's Warscythe does not come with a built-in blaster.

Wraiths aren't very good, even combined with a Destroyer Lord. I want them to be good, because they're cool, but they're too fragile and expensive without enough hitting power to make up for it. Scarabs will do pretty much anything that can do, and often do it better.

Speaking of Scarabs... Want to tick off your opponent? Turboboost a swarm of Scarabs to block off the access points on his transports before blasting em with your guns, or wrap them around a unit before you break it with moral. They also make great screens to keep people from shooting at Destroyer Lords.

Destroyer Lords are fun. I usually take mine as something to go out solo (other than his scarab screen) and disrupt the enemy. I never give him an Orb since there's seldom anyone around to benefit from it. A really good item to give him is a Nightmare Shroud. So full of win, and those scarabs that are following him around can help to escort any units you break off the table.

I don't normally mess with normal Destroyers, simply because of their cost. I can generally do most anything that can do by simply adding more Warriors/Immortals, which also helps to boost your Necron count. It's a shame because like Wraiths, I dig the figs. I'd probably give them more table time if not for the Phase Out rules.

Flayed Ones are fun, but tricky. Despite being one of the better Necron HtH units, they're still only mediocre compared to what other armies can field against you. I only use them when paired with a Monolith. They'll do their best to stay out of sight, but within 18" of the Monolith as it drifts towards the enemy lines. When I believe I've gotten it's front door with 14" of my target, they teleport and charge. A Lord with a Gaze of Flame is a good addition to benefit their special fear rule. An Orb also allows you to not fear power weapons.

A ROVOD (Resurrection Orb Veil Of Darkness) Lord is a standard option. Allot of people will tell you it's mandatory, though I disagree. Quite handy if you're facing an army with allot of heavy weapons (guard) or a hard to avoid close combat army. When I do take this guy, I still seldom use his Veil, as I have a general dislike of Deepstrike because of the way it clumps you up and leaves you very vulnerable to blast weapons, not to mention potential for really bad scatters.

Monoliths are fun times. Moving the Monolith, then teleporting a unit thru which is itself then allowed to move is just about your only means of mobility for standard Necrons. If you fight Tau, Deepstriking the Monolith is just shy of mandatory, otherwise the Railguns can make short work of it before it gets in range to do much. I typically Deepstrike it everytime I'm allowed to except in Cleanse missions (unless tau). If you sit the Monolith over the exact center of the board, which isn't hard since it's a fully symmetrical tank, you can spin it to drop Warriors into quarters as needed to take, contest, or reinforce. As a cheddar bonus, because it occupies all quarters equally, you can declare it to be in whichever one you want at the end of the game. Pair of more of Monoliths are nice, but can hurt your Necron count, and if you do field them in mass, don't be a coward and hide your units like I hear some do.

I think this is my longest textual post ever.

Lol thanks. i think i might still give my destroyer lord a Res Orb because there are too many powerfists in my store now. I want him to live if he gets hit by a couple! My plan was to give him a res orb, destroyer body (duh, hes a destoyer lord) and maybe the phase shifter for those peskey power fists. Is the phase shifter any good?

Scarabs are great anti firebase tools. turna boost for lovely invunerable saves, charge next turn and watch as the hold up that annoying heavy weapons platoon for pretty much the rest of the game

Isn't choosing material stategy, while employing that material "tactics"? I mean, this is the tactical forum, not the army list forum. If you're a new-comer to the Necrons I recommend taking the most diverse army possible, and learning how they work together.

The deciver is really really good, as is monoliths(around 2 is good).. both of wich will rock the socks in 5th ed. Back that up with a ord lord and a few destroyers(3-6).. fill up with troops.

Depending on what you play wraiths and scarabs works nice against people who are not MEQ.

I think there's very little tactics in 40k. Winning is largely army selection based which is why winning UK GT lists change enormously with each round of nerfs/boosts.

Kallbrand wrote:The deciver is really really good, as is monoliths(around 2 is good).. both of wich will rock the socks in 5th ed. Back that up with a ord lord and a few destroyers(3-6).. fill up with troops.

I reeeeeaaaalllly hope you're not taking that all at once. Your necron count would be SO low, you'd probably be phased out on the second turn. I would personally say C'tan OR Monolith OR Destroyers, maybe some pairing of two, but in no way three. That's just too much invested.

Depending on what you play wraiths and scarabs works nice against people who are not MEQ.

Scarabs are great against most everyone, but the wraiths are too expensive and fragile. The scarabs can do pretty much anything the wraiths can, but better.

At 1750, Deciver + 2 monoliths will usually leave you enough things to get a pretty decent phaseout number.
Even with a few destroyers added.

lots of necrons isn't actually the most effective way to avoid phase out. using non necrons and forcing your opponent to deal with them is better. monoliths can be ignored, they don't really do that much damage against most armies, but there is no way to avoid scarabs. the absolute best way to not phase out is to keep the biggest threats on the table locked with scarabs.

broadly speaking there are two ways to play the army.

the first is what people often call a phalanx: two warrior blocks with an orb'n'veil lord babysitting, monolith or two, scarabs to taste and as many immortals as you can get your hands on.

the second is based around firepower and the mobility of destroyers. this style can better afford to run a deceiver (since a lord is much less important), and skips scarabs and monoliths to pack in lots of jetbike mounted guns. immortals are still a must.

in my experience the former is more reliable due to having the twin problem solvers of scarabs and teleporting to get you out of sticky spots, but both are effective and have their following.

as for the units not mentioned above, some are just plain bad like pariahs, but most of them just don't fit into the army. flayed ones can be made to work, but it usually takes more effort to get them into combat than it's worth for what they accomplish once there. wraiths would make decent objective grabbers but necron armies need all their fast attack slots and for actual combat tasks scarabs are just better. tomb spyders are slow, and their intended purpose of bolstering a phalanx died with the introduction of 4th edition mixed toughness rules which killed their scarab defense option.

I've tried C'tan in my games and don't like them much. Not enough mobility and they have a tough time getting their points back.

If I run anything with the "necron special rule" I make sure and run plenty. Savvy opponents will try and destroy entire squads to limit or eliminate your WBB rolls. I run three squads of five destoyers, two warrior squads, and three squads of six immortals. If I'm facing a shooty army I'll make certain each squad is close to another squad of the same type as long as possible. After the opponent is way behind on attrition I'll break away elements to claim quarters or objectives, usually turn four or five.

If the tournament points are 1850 and over I'll start adding monoliths. The higher the points limit, the stronger necrons get. I would take a monolith over scarabs or veil of darkness. Scarabs aren't scoring, use up fast slots, and die quickly to blast and strength 6 weapons. The veil is expensive at 60 points and it's too tempting to try and drop in on a vehicle or critical enemy squad. Usually I regret it, either scattering dead or not killing my target, then losing the squad and lord to shooting and or assault. Monoliths are scoring, give your opponent the shakes, force units to go around if they want to assault infantry. They can teleport units into rapid fire range or out of CC and give units another WBB. They can tank shock, deep strike and flux arc large portions of enemies, or particle whip tougher targets. I don't worry much about strength 9 fire, and 15 destoyers can often sort out vindicators, broadsides or hammerheads.

I phalanx up at the beginning of the game and just push towards the center. With their natural toughness and redundant WBB rolls I generally only suffer 3-5 casualties before I get most of my army into effective range. Against CC armies I castle with my monolith(s) screening the rest. Either way the destroyers start firing turn one, the monoliths and immortals turn two, and the warriors turn two or three. If I can stay out of CC I'm usually grinding away my opponents tanks or fast elements, or anything threatening my monoliths. Whatever you do, don't hare off with a destroyer squad or teleport a unit over 6" away from a like unit. In a shooting match you'll win barring a lucky shot on your monolith(s).

Good luck!

necrons are the kind of army that has a flow to them. depending on how you approach the shooting and movement in the army . most of the army has accpetle firepower for inf and anti tank for what there trying to do. unit wise what ever works for you is different.

Krak_kirby wrote:The veil is expensive at 60 points and it's too tempting to try and drop in on a vehicle or critical enemy squad. Usually I regret it, either scattering dead or not killing my target, then losing the squad and lord to shooting and or assault.

yeah, i did that so many times before i learned my lesson about the virtue of patience with regards to the veil. now i hardly ever use it before turn 4. by waiting for my opponent to commit to a strategy i find i can almost always get the veil to pay back its points with interest. it's particularly useful for last turn objective/quarter grabs. the only time i use it early is to redeploy into a refused flank configuration on the first turn, which is usually quite safe. a tip for not dying horribly when deepstriking near an enemy unit is to actually place as close to them as possible, that way if you do scatter in their direction you usually land safely on the other side of the unit.

Aduro:

As a cheddar bonus, because it occupies all quarters equally, you can declare it to be in whichever one you want at the end of the game.

Not true. You would decide which quarter it occupies randomly, just as you would with any unit that is not wholly in any one quarter.

I wholeheartedly agree with Corinth and Krak-kirby. The Veil is a great end-game ability, but you have to commit to that and not be tempted by juicy targets. Once isolated, no matter how tough (C'Tan aside) almost any Necron unit will succumb to massed fire and CC.

I've found that the Deceiver can be a great asset on the battlefield, so long as his deployment (or redeployment with Grand Illusion) puts him in a position to engage by Turn 2. This works best with Cleanse mission types or anything else using quarters instead of long table edges. My last game I used him to take out 2 Wraithlords, a squad of wraithguard, and a full squad of Rangers the other player had amassed in the center of the board. Interestingly enough, I used a small squad of Pariahs as his retinue to increase his chances of forcing a fallback move and it worked pretty well.