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My Necron friend gets spanked by my Tau pretty often, and he's gradually been getting better over time. Our last game, he apparently brought a "Tau killing" army, but I brought Orks, so he got spanked. We smack talked each other for a while about whether he could beat me or not even with his anti-Tau list, so we scheduled a game to settle it - 2,000 points and he was going to bring his anti-Tau list, and I was going to bring an anti-Necron list. We even made a wager on it.

He's used to playing against a Tau gunline, so he's started incorporating more and more scarabs as well as deep-striking Monoliths. Here's how it went down.

Mission: Seize Ground (3 Objectives)
Deployment (Spearhead)

I won the roll and had my friend deploy first so that I could react (and make him hold his monoliths in reserve as is his tradition - if he had seen my deployment, he would have put them on the table.). His army list:

10 scarabs (2 squads of 10)
1 Lord on a destroyer body with a Phylactory and Nightmare Shroud and Warscythe (no rez orb)
1 Lord with Veil of Darkness (no rez orb)
5 Immortals (Lord with Veil attached here)
3 squads of 10 warriors
5 Destroyers
2 Monoliths

We had a neutral 3rd party set up the table and it was a cityscape with two bunkers on either side.

My army list:

HQ1: Commander Farsight + 7 Crisis Suits and an array of shield drones(Mostly Plasma Guns - AP2 and Fusion Blasters AP1)
HQ2: Shas'o with Fragmentation Airburst Launcher, Flamer, Iridium Armour, 2 Shield Drones

Troop 1: 6 Firewarriors
Troop 2: 6 Firewarriors

Elite 1: 3 suits with Plasma/Fusion, 2 Shield Drones
Elite 2: Same
Elite 3: Same

Fast 1: Pathfinders (5 Markerlights / 3 Railrifles) with a Devilfish, Flechette+Disruption

Heavy 1: Hammerhead (Railgun), Burst Cannons, Flechette+Disruption
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As mentioned before, I had him deploy first as he's used to seeing a gunline and holding monoliths in reserve, and I wanted to deep strike after his monoliths so I could get the best access to my suits as I could. As expected, he put both monoliths in reserve. The rest went in a line along his spearhead.

My deployment: The bunker was in the center rear of my deployment zone, so I put 1 firewarrior squad into it, 1 firewarrior squad in my rear behind impassable terrain, my devilfish along my front, and the Hammerhead behind it. Shas'o hid behind the bunker, and I kept the rest of my army (3 elites and 1 HQ) in reserve for deep striking.
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Scout Move: I move my Pathfinders laterally across the long table edge and dump them out into some ruins.

Turn1(Necron): His units look around curiously as most of my army isn't on the table and he doesn't know what to think of it. His destroyers move 12" up the table towards my pathfinders and shoot at the devilfish, doing nothing. His warriors move into cover and his scarabs spread out to try minimizing the area I have to deep-strike. His other scarab squad turbo-boosts over to my pathfinders to threaten them with assault next turn.

Turn1(Tau): I feel very stupid about my use of pathfinders at this point, so they jump back into my devilfish and run away 12". Shas'o jumps out of cover and uses his Fragmentation Airburst Launcher on one scarab squad, killing 3 bases. The Hammerhead takes a single shot at the bunker on the other side where he's hidden 10 warriors and does nothing. His phase out number is 9, so I have to break into that bunker sooner or later. My firewarriors in the bunker take a few shots at his warriors and knock two down (of which one gets back up later) My Shas'o jumps back into cover.

Turn2(Necron): Both monoliths come out. He leaves his scarabs in cover and directs shooting from several places into my Devilfish; I make disruption pod coversaves, and the rest of his shots don't roll high enough to glance. His monoliths, warriors, and scarabs are arrayed in such a way that I have little room to deep strike. He does no damage here and I'm thankful that my devilfish and pathfinders live.

Turn2(Tau): I roll for reserves. Farsight + 7 suits come out, 2 of 3 elite choices come out. I place my first elite unit between his bunker, monolith and scarabs - they mishap into the monolith, so I reroll the scatter (Pathfinder Devilfish grants it) and they mishap again. I roll a 3 and my friend places them all the way at the end of the table, 2 turns out of anything interesting. I place the second elite in the same place, and they scatter in front of the bunker. Farsight goes next to the destroyers. Shooting phase is where it gets fun. Farsight and his retinue unleash on the destroyers and wipe them off the board. Shas'o takes out another 2-3 scarab bases. Elites by the Necron bunker put fusion blasters into the bunker and explode it - the necrons are out of cover. My hammerhead drops a railgun into one of the Monoliths and misses. My pathfinders get out of their devilfish and markerlight the immortals + Lord. 4 of 5 hit, and I cause 2 rail rifle hits. I used the 4 markerlights to cause -4 to his pinning test, and he fails; Immortals and Lord are pinned.

Turn3 (Necron): The Lord on the destroyer body jets over to my Devilfish. The two warriors squads out in the open move in behind his monoliths to get cover from my plasma. The warriors in the wrecked bunker move out and assault my elite suit team that blew up the bunker. He's moving to take objectives, and I'm just trying to phase him out. His Lord assaults my Devilfish+Pathfinders and he directs his attacks against my devilfish doing nothing. His full scarab squad assaults Farsight and suits, and his depleted scarab squad assaults Shas'o.

Turn3 (Tau) I roll for my last elite and they come out. They hit on target by one of his hiding warrior squads. My pathfinders are stuck in combat with his Lord, and the devilfish jets back to my second firewarrior squad and pick them up. My hammerhead pops a shot at a monolith and misses again. My mishap suits continue advancing back towards the fun, and my freshly deep-struck suits rapid fire plasma (and Fusion shots) into the nearby warriors. My suits aren't dying or suffering any problems against the scarabs, but they *are* stuck - I kill 3-4 bases with Farsight's unit and another one with Shas'o.

Turn4 (Necron): He doesn't have much to move, but continues to maneuver his warriors to stay away from where I might get shots on him. He has two warriors squads inside area terrain sitting on objectives, and 1 warrior squad in close combat with one of my suit teams. One of his monoliths templates my elite team that was firing on his warriors and I lose a suit and a drone. His warriors rapid fire into the remaining two suits and shield drone, and I lose one more suit and a drone leaving just one suit. However, it passes leadership when he has nothing else to shoot. His other monolith is busy blocking line of sight for my Hammerhead (which is immobilized now). His lord kills my pathfinders who run for it, get caught and die. His warriors in close combat make HORRIBLE rolls and lose 4; he fails leadership and gets away. However, we were fighting on his back table edge and they run off the board. Farsight and Shas'o fight some more and stay locked.

Turn4(Tau): My devilfish + firewarriors jump over my immobilized hammerhead to get 12" movement in case I get assaulted. My mishap elites are now back in range, and they join forces with the second elite squad who just killed the warrior squad in close combat (both units are in the middle of the table now) and they kill the Lord on the Destroyer body with a combination of Plasma and Fusion. Hammerhead shoots at a monolith, hits and does nothing. First hit at this point - I hate hammerheads; I usually take Broadsides. My single remaining suit jumps towards the warriors (in terrain) and rolls a 1 on its dangerous terrain test. He only had one wound left, so he dies.

At this point, here's what the board looks like:

10 warriors are sitting huddled inside area terrain within his spearhead zone sitting on an objective. 10 more warriors (8 at this point; two died) are in the zone to the right of my spearhead sitting in area terrain on the second objective. The third objective is dead in the middle of the table with no terrain. His lord with the destroyer body was on it, but now that Lord is dead and my suits are on it.

We continue assaults, and Shas'o finally wins. He gets a 5" consolidate and moves towards the 8 warriors holding an objective by me.

Turn5(Necron) His two necron squads remain in cover holding objectives. His Lord uses his Phylactory and fails. He teleports him to a monolith (inside 18") and succeeds his WBB and gets back up with 1 wound. His scarabs are sitting in close combat with me still. His lord with the immortals (no longer pinned) fire on Shas'o, who takes 1 wound (Failed a 2+ with Iridium Armor) His Lord (alive again) uses shroud of darkness on my two suit teams, one of which fails leadership and runs. Assault phase: Farsight finally wins, scarabs are all dead. Farsight + 7 suits (all still alive) get a 5" consolidate and they move into the ruins on the necron deployment zone where he has 10 warriors hiding.

Turn5(Tau): My Devilfish+Firewarriors jet over to the objective in the middle and sit on it. My falling back suit team falls back again and doesn't regroup. They end up running off the board. Farsight + 7 suits move fully into the ruins and unleash unholy terror on the 10 warriors with an insane amount of plasma, fusion, a twin-linked flamer, and another flamer. End result: 8 warriors go down, one evaporates from double toughness Fusion. Hammerhead takes another pot shot at a monolith and does squat. My remaining elite team in the middle kills his Lord on the destroyer body again. Shas'o moves into cover by the other warriors, fires on them, then assaults them. At this point, I own one and contest two.

Turn 6, we roll off and the game continues. I have both HQs (8 suits in Farsight's unit) still alive, 1 elite, 1 heavy, and two troop choices left - one of the troop choices only has 1 firewarrior left; I got out to rapid fire at the immortals, and took a beating in return. The remaining survivor ran back into the bunker. Necron has 4 Immortals + Lord, 2 monoliths, 10 warriors.

Turn6 (Necron): Lord on Destroyer body fails WBB, teleports to Monolith for 2nd WBB and succeeds; he rolls a 6 and the Lord gets back up with 3 wounds. He WBBs both dead warriors in the unit Shas'o assaulted, and then turns his monolith so the door faces away from Farsight's unit and pulls his warriors out of close combat with me. He flux arcs and causes a couple of wounds here and there, but doesn't kill anything. His Destroyer Lord assaults the devilfish holding the objective and misses, the flux arcs get a couple of hits and shake the devilfish - between all the shooting and assaulting the devilfish, it got shakes 3-4 times. His immortals (also shooting at the devilfish) used Veil of Darkness to teleport away from Shas'o and into my spearhead zone opposite the center objective to get rear armor shots on my devilfish (the other shaken results).

Turn6(Tau): I make a huge mistake and give him a tie. Instead of concentrating fire on the Destroyer Lord and killing it (thereby granting me 1 objective to his none) I continue concentrating on trying to phase him out. Farsight's unit moves trying to get fields of fire on the 10 warriors hiding behind the monolith. The devilfish in the middle sits still. The hammerhead pops a shot at a monolith and does nothing. My elite team in the middle fires on the immortals and kills 3 of 4 of them. Farsight's unit (4 suits in line of sight) rolls absolutely horrendously and drops 2 warriors of the 10. He has 8 warriors, 1 immortal, 1 lord, and 1 lord with a destroyer body standing. 11 models still up, I needed two more to phase him out.

Turn7 roll off: We roll a two and the game ends. The middle objective is contested (My firewariors in a devilfish against his destroyer lord). Both the other objectives are wide open.

If killpoints had been a factor, I would have won the tie (5 killpoints to 3) but...we ended in a very unsatisfying tie. I was too focused on trying to phase him out.
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We had a rematch to settle the score; I subbed out the pathfinders, hammerhead, and several suits to bring in 2 teams of 2 broadsides and a heavy support choice of snipers. He got spanked. Unfortunately, I didn't clarify or something that this was to settle our bet so I ended up winning nothing; I couldn't even get him to give me a moral victory by announcing out loud that "Tau are far superior to Necrons!"

And in a funny anecdote, while we were discussing which army was better, someone else in the store laughed and said, "That's like asking which is better: A crap or a turd - they're both at the bottom of the competitive ladder"

Dashofpepper wrote:My pathfinders get out of their devilfish and markerlight the immortals + Lord. 4 of 5 hit, and I cause 2 rail rifle hits. I used the 4 markerlights to cause -4 to his pinning test, and he fails; Immortals and Lord are pinned.

You can't do this. Both Markerlights and Rail Rifles are weapon type Heavy, so you can't fire them after having moved (disembarking counts as movement).

Dashofpepper wrote:I subbed out the pathfinders, hammerhead, and several suits to bring in 2 teams of 2 broadsides and a heavy support choice of snipers.

You can't take more than 1 squad of Broadsides in a list that includes Farsight.

Dashofpepper wrote:And in a funny anecdote, while we were discussing which army was better, someone else in the store laughed and said, "That's like asking which is better: A crap or a turd - they're both at the bottom of the competitive ladder".

I couldn't have said it better myself. Both Tau and Necrons have been hit hard by the release of 5th edition and are in need of a new codex. Only the Imperial Guard got of worse (instant loss when the mission is Kill Points).


Very nice detailed battle report though. Tau and Necrons are always a nice match up. Both lists didn't really seem extremely tailored though.

Mech Tau are absolutely great against Necrons in 5th, because the Necrons have enormous difficulty with most vehicles. Only their Monoliths and Heavy Destroyers (which are terribly overpriced) are any good against vehicles at the moment. Farsight is a terrible list to take against Necrons, as their Monoliths can very easily snipe Farsight (model under the hole of the Ordnance has to be the model to take the wound, so only a 4+ save or Farsight will be instantly killed). I was rather surprised he didn't hit your Farsight unit with double Ordnance the turn after you dropped. Since you had fired the same turn you dropped, your unit should've been packed together. Any wounds caused on the Crisis suits would've been instant kills (which doesn't seem that hard if they are all in deep strike formation).

The Necron list wasn't great either. Necron units need to be taken in multiples (though this goes for almost any army, it is even more important for Necrons due to their WBB rules). Also a Necron player should never leave their home without a Resurrection Orb. I'd suggest the Necron player to use something like this:

Necron Lord (Resurrection Orb)
3x10 Warriors
2x5 Destroyers
1x10 Scarab Swarms
3x Monolith

Keeping both Destroyer units together will allow them to WBB if one of the units gets wiped out in one round of shooting. The Warriors and the Lord will provide a solid phalanx, which will be hard to kill due to always being allowed to WBB (Resurrection Orb) and being able to re-roll these WBB rolls if you teleport to a Monolith. Alternatively, the third Monolith and some Scarab Swarms could be replaced by the Deceiver to make the list a bit more of an all comers list.

Ah, I made a couple mistakes, but there's nothing new there. I never take Farsight because of the 0-1 things, and I tend to like multiple units of broadsides.

This list of mine was an attempt at something completely new to surprise and try to ninja my necron buddy.

In regard to the monolith template, he did template Farsight a time or two, and they did land on target. Having a Strength 9 AP3 hit is no different than having a Strength 9 AP1 hit - both punch through a suit's armor and leave only an invulnerable save. However, in 5th edition the player taking saves allocates wounds, the result being that the Strength 9 AP1 centered hit is on whomever I choose it to be. This has been discussed in depth elsewhere, with precedent in the Shokk Attack gun (where the model under the hole takes special characteristics) but still scatters, and other stuff - I tend to go with the rulebook on this one.

Now that I think about it, we did make a couple other mistakes - I didn't realize it until just this moment, but he was rolling to hit after templating something, and he shouldn't have been. Also, one of my elite squads disappeared in the game, and I just realized that it got merged into Farsight's unit by accident.

And Farsight's unit (along with other suits): Suits have an assault move because they are jump infantry where they can move another 6 inches. We weren't sure whether it was allowed or not after deep-striking, and our local rules said that Eldar jump infantry specifically allow it in their codex and have the same rules or something. Ultimately, he said that we should roll off on it because there's never been a clear ruling, so I ended up being able to take assault moves after deep striking - IE, my units were a bit spread out for when he templated me.

Yeah, not the best rules game in hindsight, but it was fun anyway.

Dashofpepper wrote:However, in 5th edition the player taking saves allocates wounds, the result being that the Strength 9 AP1 centered hit is on whomever I choose it to be.

I just looked at the 5th edition Necron FAQ and you are right. I hadn't read the 5th edition Necron FAQ yet and assumed the Monolith's Particle Whip rules hadn't changed (the model under the hole of the template was always the model to take the S9 AP1 wound in 4th edition). My bad.

Dashofpepper wrote:And Farsight's unit (along with other suits): Suits have an assault move because they are jump infantry where they can move another 6 inches. We weren't sure whether it was allowed or not after deep-striking, and our local rules said that Eldar jump infantry specifically allow it in their codex and have the same rules or something. Ultimately, he said that we should roll off on it because there's never been a clear ruling, so I ended up being able to take assault moves after deep striking - IE, my units were a bit spread out for when he templated me.

The wording in the BGB is: 'In that turn's Assault phase, however, these units may not launch an assault (even if they have the 'fleet' special rule), unless clearly stated in their special rules - they are too disrupted by their deep strike move.' This, as usual, is a matter of following RAW (may not launch an assault, but can move in the assault phase if allowed to without launching an actual assault) or following RAI (too disrupted by their deep strike move, therefore are unable to move).

Dashofpepper wrote:Yeah, not the best rules game in hindsight, but it was fun anyway.

Almost everybody makes rules mistakes. Just make sure to check the BGB after every game you play to make sure certain errors don't sneek into your games.

The Tau codex states that suits do not get their extra assault move after a deep strike (p.27).

The additional 6" move referenced on page 27 doesn't say anything about the assault move, just an "additional 6" move."

Can they really be linked to each other?

Hahaha, of course. I'm pretty sure you must be joking/trolling because there is nothing else it could possibly be talking about.

Dashofpepper wrote: His Lord uses his Phylactory and fails. He teleports him to a monolith (inside 18") and succeeds his WBB and gets back up with 1 wound.

dashofpepper wrote:
Turn6 (Necron): Lord on Destroyer body fails WBB, teleports to Monolith for 2nd WBB and succeeds; he rolls a 6 and the Lord gets back up with 3 wounds.

The Lord cannot be given a second WBB roll via the Monolith, especially if it's not joined to a unit. (The Monolith needs to target a unit for the portal; While awaiting a WBB all necrons are debris and untargetable.) If a Lord is joined to a unit when killed it is immediately no longer Joined to said unit, it is debris and ignored for game purposes; Upon a successful WBB, the Lord cannot rejoin the unit until it is again within 2" of the unit at the end of the movement phase.

Lordhat, is that in the rulebook somewhere? I don't remember seeing that anywhere, and I can't really present that and argue it without evidence. =)

Codex Necrons (second printing) pg.12, first paragraph:
"....Damaged Necrons are ignored completely for all normal game purposes.....they are debris only."

And also note more importantly:

Codex Necrons pg.21 Under the rules for the Power Matrix, 2nd bullet under for option2:

"If there are no reserves and a Necron unit ( SPECIFICALLY Warriors, Immortals, Flayed Ones, Destroyers, Heavy Destroyers, or Wraiths and any Necron Lordthat has JOINED such a unit) is at least....."

Emphasis mine.

A Lord MUST be joined to a unit to be teleported. Whether or not Necrons are still part of the unit while they are down (and therefore subject to destruction via sweeping advance and such) is still under debate, but I side with no.

All that aside, your opponent was unable to use the Portals to TP his Lords as he was doing.

EDIT: Also not that this means that said Necron units may NOT be TP'd if the ENTIRE unit is wiped out, regardless of whether they get WBB or not: If a 10 man squad is waiting WBB for all 10 of it's members, and subsequently fails, it cannot be targetd by the Lith. At least one model needs to be standing.

Hrm...the intricacies of what you're talking about are beyond my limited grasp of the rules. :(

can jump infantry assault after deep striking if not theres your answer, i don't think you can jump-move after deep strike as it should say no movement after deepstriking

Quit it with the thread necromancy.