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So, my dad's just got into 40k after years of lurking around on game nights with a blank look on his face. He decided to go for Necrons as they're a small, easy to paint army, so we had a couple of 500pt practice games to get him used to the rules and last night he tried his first 1500pt game against my Tau.

I took pity and made a couple of dumb moves and 'forgot' to use my disruption pods (I've been playing for long enough to know that if the first thing that happens is a total massacre you can lose heart and interest fast...) and he still only struggled to a draw.

What I need is some helpful advice I can pass on - having never played with Necrons and only played against them a couple of times a few years back I know very little about the army.

He has 40 warriors, 4 destroyers, 1 heavy destroyer, lord on foot, 10 scarab swarms and a monolith, with a tomb spyder and some immortals on the way.

Q1 - what should he be looking to add to the army?
Q2 - how should he kit out his lord (the only good choices seem to veil, res orb and destroyer body at first glance, but what else works?)
Q3 - the biggest problem he had was getting close enough to do some damage. How do you overcome their slow pace?


Please, I am after some real advice here, so don't start with the 'best thing to do with Necrons is leave them on the shelf until the new book comes out' witicisms.

Thanks in advance, C_C

the immortals are very nice units (but warning: the models are nasty fiddly to put together).

As you say, mobility is a problem for necrons, and there aren't many options (although at least they can run in 5th ed):
- bulk up on destroyers
- get a Monolith and use its weird transport capability
- or use the Lord's weird 'teleport a unit' ability (can't remember the name, sorry)
- I'm also a fan of a Lord on a destroyer body

We're getting round the fiddly-ness of the immortals by converting our own from plastic warriors (its a damn sight cheaper too!!)

Destroyers I think can be quite useful but seem to die very easily - the lack of anything outwith the monolith with an armour value means all my anti-tank went into the destroyers and they were splashed very quickly.

How do you get the most out of them?

several ways to go about it I would say.

Spam scarabs
Spam destroyers
Spam Immortals(less reliable in 5th)
Spam monoliths

Or any combination of those. Its basic, but helpful.

Necrons are pretty much the worst army in 40k. It's going to be an upward slope no matter how you walk it.

Destroyers and Immortals are always solid choices, but they won't make up for the fact that the Necrons are, all in all, gak.

There are a few options for different builds and extrenm(54) is pretty much dead on.

Yeah, the best advice is to wait for a new codex and then bring them out of retirement.

Failing that, I'd say spam Destroyers and Warriors (sort of) with a pair of monoliths and a Lord with a Veil of Shadows. You want the warriors in there to keep your phase out up, and the destroyers are the best firepower option, plus they have speed, so I'd spam those before Immortals. Nightbringer is a better option than he used to be too.

Given how weak Necrons are in HtH now I think you want all the speed and mobility you can muster. Hence Destroyers, two monoliths and VoS. You need to keep those Warrior squads out of HtH at all costs and try to wear people down at range. Use the Monliths to bait and switch with the Warriors, and use their bulk to block assault moves when you can. That was easier when the 'Crons could shoot underneath them of course, but it's not impossible now.

I like the Scarab spam option as well, but that's a list that takes some practice. The weak Phase Out number is a real stumbling block.

@Fenris-77

How would that kind of list handle vehicles?

Do you rely on loads of glances from Gauss weapons, include heavy destroyers with the standard ones, or just hope that particle whip doesn't scatter?

Chimera_Calvin wrote:@Fenris-77

How would that kind of list handle vehicles?

Do you rely on loads of glances from Gauss weapons, include heavy destroyers with the standard ones, or just hope that particle whip doesn't scatter?

Yup, that's pretty much what the list has (minus the heavy destroyers). The destroyers are decent at smoking light vehicles based on Str though, so it's not all glances. Nightbringer would help there too. I mostly don't take the heavy destryoers though - I prefer to keep the number of unit types on the board to a minimum so that WBB is supported as best as is possible. A Lord with destroyer body and a Warscythe can be very helpful for everything short of Landraiders, so in a gaming environment that was vehicle heavy I'd think hard about using one of those as well.

Personally i suggest the deceiver over the nightbringer

2 units of three wraiths with a destroyer lord, res. orb, warscythe, phase shifter. Its a bit of a points sink, 450 or so points, but the unit is fast, resillient, and deadly. The unit can pretty much pick where it wants to assault, and I havent run into a unit yet where I was afraid I couldnt win the combat., err......Abadon makes me nervous though.

I would recommend runinning only 2 or 3 warrior squads @ 1500. The wraiths and lord also add to your phase out, so it is nice to bolster those numbers with a useful offensive unit. Now to maximise firepower, I would run a large unit of destroyers to compliment it. 5 Destroyers are 250 points. So total you are around 700 points. Get a couple squads of warriors, a monolith, and do what you like with the rest and you have a legitimate offensive Cron army.

Dont let the Cron haters get to you, they can get it done in 5th. Just takes practice and a different style of play than most 40k armies. Most people who hate on the crons like the tactic of tabling your opponent, and that is not how Necrons win. It should not be part of the strategy, you need to pick an enemy army apart so your warriors become useful late game when they are needed.

Good luck!

At 1500 I think I'd rather not drop 450 points on just 6 wounds worth of Necron plus a lord. I like Wraiths, and I do think they need to be fielded in at least 6's if they're going to hit the table at all, but I'm not sure I'd do it here.

I haven't used wraiths extensively, so this is certainly worth playtesting at the very least, despite my reluctance. If you're going to go with wraiths then the Lord listed above is a must though, that part I agree with 100%.

I posted a battle report a couple months ago about my crons at the Battle Bunker in Chicago. I used the 6 man wraiths and lord unit and it performed fairly well all 3 games. First game it wiped out a 30 man boyz squad, slowly though the attrition widdled me down to the Lord and then finally he was "lootad" to death. Well I guess they didnt do much that game.
2nd game they wiped out a unit of 5 chaos termies, with chaos lord, but were then wiped out by a berserker deamon prince counter charge. Dice were a bit off, wraiths all died but the lord managed to live and kill another squad of noise marines.

3rd game the unit killed 2 demon princes of Nurgle, 1 GUO, 7 nurglings, and a full 15 man squad of plaguebearers.

So it can get the job done, but it is suseptible to lots of rapid fire shots.

Im surprised that it killed the plaguebearers, those things never seem to die . But against daemons i think wraiths would be amazing, most of the killy stuff ignores armor and the sheer amount of high strength attacks is what kills daemons. Also daemons dont have many rapid fire weapons. Although i think a few squads of horrors would be rough, but i have used the wraith circle and it can be very good, but it is definitely a glass hammer.

As for other suggestions, 20-30 warriors max from about 500-2000 points. Immortals can be good, but they are not quick and need monolith support to be able to pull themselves out of combat and move at any speed.

Your other option is to use destroyers, they dont necessarily need monolith support and you can use an almost all destroyers heavy army. Heavy destroyers for anti tanks and MC and destroyers for everything else. Warriors go in reserve most likely no matter what army you use.

If you want to use a ctan i suggest the deceiver, his abilities are incredibly useful, nothing like watching fearless units pinned, suddenly going missing from combat, and then there is the whole redeployment thing

as a necron player i would say to use monoliths to his advantage, however seeing as you play tau, the near invincible necron vehicle wont last long (hate railguns). so if your father is mainly facing your tau and you include railguns i would reccomend not fielding a monolith.

immortals are good but must be protected. ie. kept out of line of sight or using lord to teleport. they are a very powerful unit put will fall fast to ememy fire. (i also pass less than 20% wwb on average so this may make me biased.)

destroyers are the necrons mobile heavy support. they can take out vehicles (or glance them until they cannot shoot) and rip through tau, but are still very fragile. one railgun could kill one without wwb, and with tau wounding on 4+ volume of fire could take out a unit of destryers easily. i would turboboost behind cover turn one then move around and pick out targets without exposing yourself too much from then on. (there are always exceptions to this)

as for the wraith and d lord. i have never used this against tau. i would keep em in cover if you used this because even with a 3++ volume of fire will destoy this unit. this unit can deal with any tau unit in combat (or keep them held up as to not do damage) and can pop vehicles. if the unit is attacking a non vehicle they might consider splitting up, so they can both take on a unit, otherwise when they kill the unit they are attacking they dont get shot up as bad. (hopefully)


scarabs....enough said use em. they can tie up tau so they arent shooting....and can actualy beat tau in combat...my scarabs are mostly benched because all i ever face is spacemarines and csm. but i would use my whole collection against tau. 2+ (3+? i can't remember off the top of my head right now) cover save while turboboosting.

and i wouldnt recommend heavy destoyers for antitank. i've had horrible luck with them. this is only my opinion and should ask for others advice about them because mine don't kill anything and get shot down before my second turn.