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the guy I play with most regularly plays Eldar and has been fielding a lot of wraithguard ever since he discovered the damage their wraithcannon can do to my monolith. He'll hold them back in Wave Serpents until my monolith shows up, zip up and drop them off and quickly dispatch my monolith. It seems like all I can do against them (and wraithlords) is send my Deceiver their way or stock up on a lot of Heavy Destroyers to deny their saves.

Does anyone have any other ideas for dealing with 6+T, 3+Save units? Oh, did I mention that they're almost always fortuned? Even regular Destroyers aren't doing anything to these guys.

I'd much rather have my Deceiver dealing with CC specialists like Banshees and Scorpions or Avatars than these jokers. Any thoughts are welcome.

What is preventing you from taking down the Serpent before it drops off the WG? Also, why not start your 'Lith on the board?

Yeah, smoke the wave serpent and make them foot it. With 24" range drop a pieplate on 'em and watch 'em die. Make it difficult to get within 12" of your monolith by castling up around it with the rest of your stuff. Grind his army till your winning by attrition and it won't matter so much if he gets it late game.

By taking a wave serpent he has actually made it easier on you.

The WORST 4th edition beating my necrons took was against a Iyanden style eldar list. By the time both of my liths were dead i think my entire army had combined for a single wraithguard and one of the two wraithlords.

The particle whip idea is ok, until your opponent runs a spiritseer in the unit with conceal. So they save about 55% of the particle whip hits, and make 89% of their armor saves. Necrons have almost no answer to that unit. Thankfully it is a pretty rare unit.

If you want to beat him, and you know hes coming and you know the WG are going to be there... don't take any monoliths. Take a destroyer horde. Add like 6 heavy destroyers. Outrange his WG and make him take those fortuned conceals. A necron list like that will fall apart against ANYTHING with long range anti- tank, as they can just peel away the heavy destroyers and not let them get WBB. A wraithguard eldar list just doesn't have the range and the firepower to make you pay for being so risky.

If you can wade through all the nasty short range shooting and land Dirty D into close combat you'll be in great shape. I had the Deceiver that game too. It was their priority target with wraithlords, once i got in close the wraithcannons made short work of him.

good luck, let us know how the rematch turned out

Take Wraiths, and Pariahs. The Wraiths and the Pariahs should lay some hurt on the Wraithguard and any accompanying Warlocks, break them easily thanks to the Pariah's leadership reducing rule, and then kill them all in a Sweeping Advance thanks to the Wraiths' Initiative.

Nurglitch, Wraithguard are Fearless.

Anyway, you wouldn't need to make them run even if you could. Pariahs will slaughter them. I would rather use a DLord, though.

Fair enough, I can't say I've ever actually played a game with Wraithguard in it (actually that's a lie, I borrowed my brother's Eldar army back during 3rd edition and used Wraithguard so I should know better). Still, the combination of Pariahs and Wraiths should at least take the Wraithguard's Wraithcannon out of shooting, and hurt them a bit.

Pariahs? I think I saw someone buy one once.

Play with them? Oh boy.

What, afraid you might lose?

Nurglitch, it won't just hurt them, it will wipe them out. Still doesn't mean Pariahs are a good idea.

Why not? They seem to fit the bill for dealing with Wraithguard. The Gauss Blasters shouldn't be too shabby against Aspect Warriors and vehicles and whatnot either.

But their lack of attacks and lower initiative (not to mention 1 wound) means that it's an uphill battle with Wraithguard, not to mention that it's 5+ to wound. True, it's unsavable, but when dealing with that few attacks, the odds just aren't that great.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, they're hella expensive.

Pariahs make a good retinue for the Deceiver or Lord, or maybe even a back up to work in conjunction with Flayed Ones, but they are definitely not a dedicated assault unit.

Re: Shep. This player is really good about balancing his army, so he may have two units of 5 WG, but he's definitely going to have some good cover fire from Rangers, Dark Reapers, or Wraithlords that can pick apart Destroyers until the WG get within Wraithcannon range. Still, 6 H. Destroyers might not be a bad way to go. Would definitely be different for me. Thanks for the thoughts.

Pariahs are no good for necrons because:

1) They do not count as necrons, so they hurt your phaseout number.
2) They don't get WBB, and they are expensive models.
3) They can't be teleported through the monolith or with the Veil, so their mobility is limited.

In 4th edition, they are next to useless because all it takes is a single leadership check or a shot from a vehicle to bypass whatever is "screening" the Pariahs and then shoot them off the table. In 5th edition, with being able to be screened again, they may be a little bit more useful, but ultimately they are too expensive, too slow, and hurt your phase out.

Nurglitch:

Why not? They seem to fit the bill for dealing with Wraithguard. The Gauss Blasters shouldn't be too shabby against Aspect Warriors and vehicles and whatnot either.

The problem is delivery. As whitedragon has pointed out, they're about as mobile as rocks, and they don't get WBB. The Pariahs should not live to see combat with the WG, or if they do, it will be in severely depleted numbers. That's a pity, because like I said, if you actually did get that magical near full-strength charge off, WG are perhaps the only targets the Pariahs will own and be relatively points-efficient while doing so. Too bad they are crappy units that won't survive to do the job.

When thinking of playing Pariahs, remember this little rhyme:

Pariahs: Fun to shoot, and expensive to boot.

If you can solve the first part, the second part might not be a huge issue. If you can't, they are not worth the points.

Here's something I wrote a while back on how to handle a Wraith Wall brick. Ought to be applicable to what you are talking about.

Definition: A big unit of Wraithguard followed around by a Farseer (or Saint Eldrad the perpetual) and some manner of counterattack unit. The Farseer throws fortune on the Wraithguard every round. They walk onto objectives/into your deployment zone/into the center of the board. Typically, the enemy is followed around by a unit of CC specialists, in or out of a transport.

Here's some ways to take it on with Necrons.

First off, no need to hurry, in general, the longer you wait the more you are winning by. As long as that brick doesn't do anything you are adding the ~600 points in it to your codex granted fire superiority. Make sure you have handled everything else before moving on to the combat brick. A fairly ordinary shooty Necron army can do 7 to 10 glances at range, so you are turfing a Falcon every round. Take your time, they aren't doing anything significant with their return fire.

The easiest thing to do is send a full unit of scarabs at it, turbo boosting right up into its face. They fire and do squat, between your invul save and their inability to ID except on a 6 to wound. They can try and fire with the rest of their army (good # of S6 weapons on their skimmers), but you most likely shook them all. Next round you charge and they are stuck for the majority of the game. If the CC specialists join in they won't contribute too much unless they are striking scorpions with a chainsword, and that makes ~800 to 900 points in the brick itself, the Farseer/Eldrad and the CC squad, all fighting with your 120 point scarab unit. Unless something inexplicable is going on you should be cleaning up the board in the meantime.

A Lith can mess them up pretty well. Hang back (> 18, < 24) and shoot the particle projector at them. They have to choose between hanging around on the objective and hoping you don't make them non scoring by game's end or chasing after your lith. If they chase you eventually charge them and begin the recycling Lith/avoiding Eldrad dance with your warriors, somewhere far from the objective. If they stick you keep shooting pie plates at them, and charge some destroyers in on the last round to contest the objective.

The best option of all, though, is a C'tan. Walk your compulsories towards the brick, followed by the C'tan, while your immortals/destroyers stun the rest of his force. If he steps up to fire he can only get the warriors, as his range is trash and your boss is hanging back. If they back up you get the objective. Presuming they fire on the warriors you lose half of one unit and charge with the remaining 1.5 units of warriors. If you manage to stick for your charge round and their charge round the C'tan joins in on your next round and that's it for Eldrad and his Brick. It is worth noting that the Deceiver is occasionally able to skip the foreplay and misdirect off of someone else (Harlies, etc.) and zip in on the Brick before they manage draw a bead on him.

Hilariously, the option to "Double Down" on the C'tan with their CC squad still won't be effective. The Eldar CC squads won't seriously damage a Star God. Even if you are worried that they might (if the other player's dice are hot on his rending) you've got a foolproof counter in either C'tan's special abilities. The Nightbringer can just Wind of Death them off while the Deceiver's misdirect ability will make a mockery of their efforts. If you get B2B with Eldrad make sure to show him what the Star Gods think of his rerollable 3+ invulnerable and t4. *squish*

Functionally, the key to remember is that the Brick and the skimmers/whatever that compose the rest of his army don't support each other. You can defeat them in detail. The army, as a whole, can't win a long range shooting game with the Necrons, so just focus on that.

If none of these strategies are applicable to your particular situation you should still be able to do alright by just blasting the rest of the list down and then initiating a scrum with the Brick on the last round/second to last round.

Occasionally, you don't even have to oppose the Brick. If he wants to recon, let him, just recon with your army on the other flank, and win by the skimmers you blasted down. If its an alpha game his ~600 point one scoring unit isn't all that great.

Ths brick is just a psychological weapon, he wants you to fixate on trying to wound his brick by dakka. This is like when people fire on the Immortals you are recycling in cover in front of a Monolith. Don't fall for it. Disregard it or handle it properly, but the optimal application of your long range gauss is to his skimmers, shooting at a t6 model with a rerollable 3+ save is a fool's game.

Oh, and remember about Eldrad's redeploy. Don't even play that game. Deploy your army based on the objectives and controlling the field, as though the enemy hadn't even setup. He's not going to give you first turn LOS on his falcons with heavy d's.

Very well put, 40k.

Probably why it should be all bricks and no support, or no bricks at all.

5th edition will make all bricks more viable, but I don't know what games it will actually win outright.

40k, as always, knows his necrons.

and i'd just like to reiterate: never field pariahs. ever. if you're as fond of the models as i am just convert them into something else. i found that they make for a great lord. in 3rd edition small squads shooting from behind warrior screens while waiting to countercharge were actually quite decent. but even then their drawbacks made the point cost questionable.