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I'm starting a necron army, and I want to learn me some smott taktikkz. This can be general information, such as how to effectively use wraiths, destroyers, heavy destroyers, *insert unit here*, whether or not to use flayed ones, or more specific, such as tactics for destroying enemy vehicles. Should I take more than one monolith, and at what points level? What have you, as a necron player or as someone who has faced them often, learned about using them effectively?

X(

Tactic 1: Become a gracious loser.



Necrons have it really hard in 5th. "Successful" builds revolve mostly around the Deciever, 2 Monoliths, 20 Warriors, and a bunch of Destroyers.

Always put the Lord on a destroyer body. Some say give him the warsythe, others say dont. That really depends on you, Ive seen both do really nice.

When playing against SMs and the like, scarabs swarms are fantastic for tying them down in CC. They just DONT have enough attacks to take out the swarms fast enough. On the flip side, your wasting you time trying that on Orks and the like. Ive walked through scarabs in 1 turn with the boyz.

Immortals supporting warriors can be a pretty good tactic. But if your planning on tourny play, your screwed lol. If your group is nice, they will allow you to forget about using the phase out, that will make your army MUCH better.

I have to second the gracious loser comment. I only played necrons a very short amount of time, but I have to agree with the woes from my necron friends. Three big problems with the still 3rd ed codex in 5th ed.

1. Glancing hits can no longer blow up vehicles – completely rocked the armies #1 means of anti tank. They went from being the best equipped to deal with vehicles IMO to arguably the worst. And vehicles dominating a lot of the meta game only exacerbates the problem.

2. True Line of Sight – really puts a hurt on the monoliths. Before there was a chance that they could be hidden behind a forest or a building for a turn or two until you could get it within 24 inches to start shooting/portaling. But with TLoS you can almost guarantee every lascannon in the other army is going to be shooting at it top of turn one. And worst still the thing is so big you’re rarely going to get cover saves.

3. Combat resolution – if I remember correctly necrons are not fearless (this sticks out in my mind only because of how unfluffy and stupid it was). The new combat resolutions means your formally solid LD 10 will be reduced to 5 or worse and your expensive squad will break and die instead of holding, we’ll be backing, portaling, and shooting.

Formally good builds revolved around a boat load of warriors backed up by 1-2 monoliths, but those are the units that got hit hardest by the rules change. I would suggest and have heard of destroyer heavy builds doing alright, but I have never seen it. I personally didn’t like destroyers in 4th. There were too few usually apart from each other and it was easy to knock them all out to negate any we’ll be back rolls.

I would suggest starting a different army or go into it knowing it will be an uphill battle until you get a new ‘dex, which may be a long while.

ICB has it right. Go with Monoliths + Deceiver + Destroyers. I actually prefer 3, but to each his own.

It's still a strong list (no, really). Monoliths + Deceivers + Destroyers usually win KP missions, and drawfests are still drawfests. Multi-objective depends on the foe.

The key is to leave the warriors in reserve, not monolith reserve, but real reserve. Bring them in on your back objectives after you've swept the enemy back with Monoliths + Deceiver.

I must respectfully disagree with Iron_Chas_Brute. The last thing I consider taking is a C'Tan or Monolith. The Necron achilles heal is, of course, phase out. A small number of necron units means your opponent has less to kill before your monoliths and C'Tan simply vanish. My typical build involves a core of Lord+res orb, 2 warrior squads, immortals, destroyers, and scarab swarms. My opponents almost always want to play annihilation, so keep that in mind. What losses I've had are almost always seize ground games. Hmmm, you'd think my opponents might go for that more often then.

Anyway, I usually set up a core with warrior wing - immortals - warrior wing. The Lord goes somewhere in the middle in res-orb range of all 3 squads and will attach any squad that is convenient. Note that this can lead to some weird setups with a warrior wing off somewhere but a few trailing out so that someone is in range of the lord. Other units will set up somewhere convenient to their job.

In annihilation games, the immortals usually venture out towards the enemy a bit and can shoot on the move. The warriors will generally try to get into a defensive position. As the enemy approaches, the immortals can still walk back and continue to fire. Meanwhile the enemy will be coming in range of the warrior squads which can open fire. If the enemy will be assaulting, you have a variety of choices. You can try assaulting first, just so they lose their bonuses (usually won't work out). You can let the immortals take it. They are tough. Or you can move the immortals back further and force the enemy to take on a sacrificial warrior squad first.

If you have enough slots, split your destroyers into multiple squads, but run them within 6" of each other. They can target different enemies, when one squad can finish a target off and you can only lose a single squad to a single enemy fire. Thus your enemy needs to use two units to wipe out both units of destroyers. If one squad goes down, half will get back up and join the other squad. Destroyers are good for anti-transport duty but I've also used them to simply keep heavier armored units shaken or stunned so they can't be shooting back. And heck, sometimes they'll glance off some guns or immobilize. Use their mobility to try and avoid enemy retaliation as much as feasible. Sometimes I've ignored the armor for just a bit to shoot up some scary squad going after the core around the lord though. With the res orb, the warriors and immortals can stand to occasionally be nailed by some pretty heavy weapons and still get back up.

Scarab swarms are useful for disrupting your enemies plans. I prefer large units of 9 or 10. Turbo-boosted, they have a 2+ cover save. That's darn hard for enemy fire to take out. I generally direct them at small group enemy assault specialists (ex. seer councils). It's quite satisfying to see a few hundred points of enemy ICs spending round after round swatting at bugs, and often losing several of their own while doing it. Note swarms will go down quickly to anyone with a 6+ strength so watch out there. I've also used swarms to take out infantry units with long range big guns. E.g. scouts with sniper guns or missile launchers, IG lascannon squads, guardian scatter laser squads, etc. If you are facing something like an ork hoard, you might also simply line them up in front of your core, forcing your enemy to stumble over the swarms, when they'd rather assault your troops. Even better (usually for you) scarabs rarely offer any cover to your opponent so they won't get a 4+ cover save due to your shooting through an intervening squad.

One other unit I've been having some success with is a Lord+destroyer body, usually with a warscythe. It's fast and darn tough. I've used it to go out and assault enemy assault marines! I originally did it as a sacrificial move, to keep his best assault units away from my warrior core, but the lord was actually tough enough to fight 3 enemy marine squads by himself, and he actually wiped out one whole squad and blew up a rhino.

Another tactic I've used successfully is, of course, the veil of darkness. Nothing bugs an Ork player more than to have finally reached your core army, get past your sacrificial screen, only to have the majority of your army teleport to the other side of the table were it can kill off his small special units. Note on this one. I once set up two warrior squads, one smaller one and one large one plus some destroyers to face the orks. I left out the immortals. Anyway, the small warrior squad was my sacrificial screen. The Orks of course wiped out the small warrior squad on the charge. Note they didn't sweep the squad! Over half the dead squad gets back up and joins the nearest squad. That combined squad happily teleported into rapid fire range of his loota squad, which was after my destroyers. The main ork army never caught up with me.

Note the techniques above are very defensive, fading (or running) away to set up a new defensive position. Objective games require you to stand your ground, or even assault and I think the Necrons have a much tougher time of it there. Generally, I have the warriors try and hold one objective while lord+immortals+destroyers contest some other objective or at least try to make sure your enemy doesn't have any troops alive to hold one.



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I should also point out that most of my games are around 1000 points. In 2000 point games I have been known to bring a Monolith and have purchased a deceiver to try out for bigger games as well. I would have bought a nightbringer but have read the model is fragile and figure I can use "plays as" if I need to.

I just use as many Destroyers as possible combined with a Monolith to just mow things down. The destroyers are hard to pin down, and the Monolith doesn't care if it gets pinned down or not. KP is easy enough because Destroyers are fantastic at mowing down transports for easy kill points. Objective games are pretty rough though, especially since your troops are so expensive/ineffective that you're probably only going to take two squads. I can usually win 3 or 4-objective games by playing very defensively, hiding my warriors behind my monolith as they advance, dropping them off at objectives as I pass them and using Destroyers/Monolith to wipe out scoring units and then contest their own. 5-objective games are a problem because of my opponents having things like combat squads, or just more decent troops choices in general.

Well the tournament issue is easy; I don't play tournaments at the moment. I have a chaos army already, so if it comes to tournament play I can just use that. No, the necrons are just for playing at the LGS/against friends, etc. I am familiar with scarabs as tarpits, and I already know about the glancing issue. There are some more questions I have regarding tactics. For example, should I start with my monolith on the table, or deepstrike it in? How many heavy destroyers should I use? What's wrong with using an infantry Lord? (res orb+veil, join a big unit of warriors)
Should I use tomb spyders/wraiths/flayed ones? What are some good lord layouts? Should I attach a destroyer lord to a scarab unit or go solo? Things like that are what I'm interested in learning.

Also, major props to Ostrakon's sig, that's exactly how I feel. I've always liked Necrons; you could say they brought me into 40k. I played Dark Crusade back in the day, and my friends used to meet up at a small game store that specialized in Magic: the Gathering in one half, and 5 black leather sofas/widescreen TVs/Xbox 360s in the other half that you could rent time on. We went there to play Halo 2, and one day one of them pointed over into the 'nerd' half of the store and said something like "Hey, isn't that that game you have on the PC?" It was a big 40k sign. I immediately fell in love, and I've been broke ever since...

MasterDRD wrote:Well the tournament issue is easy; I don't play tournaments at the moment. I have a chaos army already, so if it comes to tournament play I can just use that. No, the necrons are just for playing at the LGS/against friends, etc. I am familiar with scarabs as tarpits, and I already know about the glancing issue. There are some more questions I have regarding tactics. For example, should I start with my monolith on the table, or deepstrike it in? How many heavy destroyers should I use? What's wrong with using an infantry Lord? (res orb+veil, join a big unit of warriors)
Should I use tomb spyders/wraiths/flayed ones? What are some good lord layouts? Should I attach a destroyer lord to a scarab unit or go solo? Things like that are what I'm interested in learning.

Also, major props to Ostrakon's sig, that's exactly how I feel. I've always liked Necrons; you could say they brought me into 40k. I played Dark Crusade back in the day, and my friends used to meet up at a small game store that specialized in Magic: the Gathering in one half, and 5 black leather sofas/widescreen TVs/Xbox 360s in the other half that you could rent time on. We went there to play Halo 2, and one day one of them pointed over into the 'nerd' half of the store and said something like "Hey, isn't that that game you have on the PC?" It was a big 40k sign. I immediately fell in love, and I've been broke ever since...

I was aware of the tabletop game way before i ever played DoW, and thought Necrons were just incredibly badass after a rich friend in high school was showing off his army. It was the only faction I was aware of at the time, but I was in high school and there was no way I was going to afford the game. I only got into the game recently after being reminded how cool it was by getting DoW cheap off of steam, because I can afford it now, and had settled on Necrons even after learning about most of the other fluff because of the aesthetic. I was advised to pick a faction based on looks/fluff anyway since rules change all the time but the models you paint are yours forever anyway.

Anyway, I only use an infantry lord if I need an Orb to hang back with my troops. I've never tried using the veil trick, I'm too worried about getting screwed out a unit or two. On foot, their wureaponry is just not impressive. 1 powerweapon attached to a unit that should probably never be in CC anyway is not a good use of 100 points. On a destroyer body, his short range becomes much less of a problem.

I've been setting my monolith up instead of deep striking unless I have 2. True, a lucky shot - usually an incredibly lucky shot - can take it out, but whatever they're throwing at it is usually something I'd rather not be hitting my warriors or destroyers, like a demolisher blast. I tend to play very defensively with my troops, hiding them behind the monolith to further increase their already commendable resiliency. I'll try to wipe out problematic vehciles with the combined efforts of the monolith and the destroyers ASAP so it's helpful to have one on the table first turn when you need to take out something like a Demolisher/Basilisk/Vindicator ASAP.

I've had miserable results as of late by sending my Destroyer Lord in without a Scarab escort. One game, due to crap rolls, he got taken out by bolter fire of all things. 80 points to give him 15 extra wounds is nice, plus with the scarabs' help it's easier to glance vehicles to death. The biggest problem is that they won't stand anything resembling a chance against dedicated CC units because they'll score easy wounds on the scarabs and screw you in combat resolution because Necrons aren't Fearless for whatever reason.

MasterDRD wrote:For example, should I start with my monolith on the table, or deepstrike it in?

When I do use a monolith, I tend to take it in at the start. I use the monolith defensively rather than offensively. It can provide portable cover for your troops. Extra WBB rolls. Pulling troops out of close combat. All of these argue for keeping the Monolith with your troops, not deepstriking into your opponents back lines.

How many heavy destroyers should I use?

Personally never used them. Always thought they were a waste compared to regular destroyers. I am thinking of trying some in the future if my opponents get into heavier armor. Actually, in my last game, the Blood Angles brought a Land Raider. I attacked it with a 10 man warrior squad! More like 8 before they got in range of the raider. I advanced through cover. They rendered it useless by glancing it. The machine spirit could still shoot one gun, but I could afford to lose one warrior a round.

What's wrong with using an infantry Lord? (res orb+veil, join a big unit of warriors)

I do it all the time. The res orb keeps troops alive through orbital strikes, lascannon hits, MC and power weapon combat. A veil is useful for escaping. The veil is expensive though and I often leave it out.

Should I use tomb spyders/wraiths/flayed ones?

I find these are more difficult to employ effectively but are fun sometimes. Wraiths are expensive and easily killed. They're often good for assaulting one small unit then they're gunned down. I've used flayed ones in larger games as a defense screen. If you send them out on the attack, they'll probably get gunned down or simply avoided. Tomb spyders are good against non-close combat specialists or buildings. Non-CC units are more easily dealt with by shooting, or you can assault them with warriors. Buildings aren't that common an issue.

What are some good lord layouts?

I like an infantry lord with a res orb. I also like a destroyer lord with a warscythe. Other wargear can be fun but not a big deal either way.

Should I attach a destroyer lord to a scarab unit or go solo?

Never tried it. I am considering it for future games though to allow me to advance the lord more aggressively.

I run 2 lords, foot is orb and phase shifter. Other is destroyer body and Nightmare Shroud. Both kitted with Scythes as there is always some sort of invul save that will give you a headache in CC.

The infantry lord stays with the main bulk of the army to maintain the WBB rolls and the destro lord flies around with scarabs to cause some grief with his morale test inducing wargear. If he's shot at, that is majority of 2+ covers as I always turbo boost until he is ready to do his part.

I play Crons a lot and I have had success with as few a troops as possible, and always making room for the Ctan and Monolith. After that Destroyers are really good, but dont count out those other fast attacks. I havent found a unit in the codex that doesnt have a purpose.

Be patient and learn the army. Once you start to "turn the corner" or figure out how they work, they can be extremely competetive. I built a Necron army because I liked them in Dawn of War and knew nothing of how 5th edition worked. I started playing not knowing how "bad" Necrons were. Just playing with them and learning them I started winning games and the month or two of learning the army really payed off.

I would say the best general tactic is similar to Eldar approach. Use movement advantages your army has to isolate parts of the enemy and wipe them out. Sacrifice units when you have too, and learn when it is better to run than risk lucky shots to wipe out the enemy. Deciever and monolith really even the playingfield. The mono I almost never use as an offensive weapon. It can be in a pinch, but I use it more for moving units around the battlefield and getting units out of melee.

Once you understand how to win with the destroyer spam, I would suggest the more tricky units such as pariah and wraiths. They catch a lot of people off guard and (when used correctly) can wipe units out wholesale. Ive actually had a lot of success with crons in tournaments so I say go with them and have fun with those wacky undead robots.

Well, I played a game earlier today, with 1500 points of (mostly) proxied Necrons. I'll say it now; I got horribly raped. The main reason is a combination of 2 factors. 1st, I didn't take a res orb on my lord. (who was a destro lord with scarabs and would only have worked on the 1st turn anyway) 2nd, I somewhat question how much points value my opponent had. I was facing IG, with 4 infantry squads (I don't know exactly what kinds), a 3 man autocannon heavy weps team unit, a sentinel, a valkyrie, a demolisher, and an executioner. The Valkyrie had (iirc) a lascannon, heavy bolter sponsons (not entirely sure on that), and 2 1-shot-only large blast missiles. The demolisher had battle cannon, lascannon, heavy bolter sponsons, and a storm bolter. The executioner had 2 plasma cannon sponsons, a 3-shot plasma cannon main weapon, and a storm bolter. Both leman russes apparently had Lumbering Behemoth, which let them not move and shoot everything. The sentinel had a plasma cannon. All of his vehicles had hunter-killer missiles. His infantry squads had a couple missile launchers, a couple grenade launchers, and some model (special character or hq of some sort?) that had an ordinance weapon. One of the infantry squads had 3 flamers. My list was 2 20 man warrior squads, a monolith, 3 heavy destroyers, a wraith, 10 scarabs, and a destroyer lord with phase shifter, phylactery, lightning field, and warscythe.
So opponent goes 1st, moves the flamer infantry squad up, moves the valkyrie forward diagonally to see my 1st warrior unit clearly. Basic rundown of shooting phase: wraith and heavy destroyers are untouched. those 2 large-blast-missiles-of-fething-doom hit smack dab in the middle of my warrior squad with a clear LOS. S8 exactly so no WBB, ap3 so no save. That takes out 15 models total. Rest of the squad is mowed down by other weapons. (I forget the details) Other squad loses about 5 or so models permanently, and 12 go down temporarily. Scarabs lose 2 bases to blasts. Monolith is glanced on a 6 and then stunned by a hunter-killer missile (really?), the only weapon fired at the monolith. Opponent whines about not killing off the rest of warrior unit 2 despite O-FETHING-BLITERATING an ENTIRE 20 man squad, 360 points worth, and making my monolith unable to get closer to his vehicles or shoot for a turn. Yeah. My turn; most of unit 2 gets back up, they move forward and spread out to avoid being clusterf***ed by small/large blasts. Monolith does fething nothing, because it was stunned by the weakest possible weapon. Wraith moves forward towards nearest infantry. Scarabs/lord turboboost towards his infantry units; big mistake, because the closest had 3 flamers. (that was entirely my fault for not noticing...) Heavy destroyers move out from behind cover for a clear shot at the demolisher, and destroy it. Heavily. (dur hur)
His turn 2; virtually nothing moves. Heavy destroyers get WTFBOOM!!!!AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!-ed, so does the wraith. Scarabs get raped by 3 flamer shots, losing about 4 more bases, and the get shot at continuously with various lasguns, plasma pistol, blast weapons, etc. Nothing gets through the almighty 2+ cover save, to my opponent's continued discontent. Monolith is wtf-stunned again by another missile... I mean seriously, what the f***? (the only possible explanation is that my opponent had just bought shiny new swirly green dice with gold pips, thus pleasing the dice gods.) Warrior squad loses a few more permanently, taking it down to 11. Another goes down. My turn 2; wbb roll is failed. Unit teleports through monolith portal; wbb failed again. Opponent then points out that I've lost 75% of necron units. 43 original units, 11 remaining. If that last warrior had passed either wbb roll the game would have continued (if you could still call it a game); I phase out dramatically.
I'll attach a picture showing roughly what the table looked like, drawn in MS Paint.

It's possible to build an IG army that more or less fits that description within 1500 points. However, this player is badly misusing his Valkyrie. The missiles described are ordnance, so only one of them can be fired a turn. They're also one of the few ordnance weapons that aren't also blast weapons, so they're basically a pair of slightly quirky hunter-killer missiles

Well then... My grievous strategic error in not bringing a res orb aside, that one tiny little detail would have made a very, very serious difference.

A rule of thumb I've started to employ is take the minimum of 10 and no more warriors, that way i can get more scoring units on the field for captures. When it comes down to you know you are versing a heavy amount of infantry, I typically deep strike the monolith and cautiously advance. Always turbo boost the destroyers/H. destroyers until you know they will be most effective, as alot of people will throw AT weapons at them hoping for the easy WBB denial.

Res Orb, it should almost be standard Necron Lord equipment before even buying wargear how useful it is. Also, you can particle whip when you deepstrike as the power matrix can be used even if the monolith moved, deepstrike is just simply moving at cruising speed in shooting weapons sense and HTH attacks, whip on the touch down then flux your heart out next turn portaling in troops across the field to reap the Red Harvest.

Hope this tidbit helps.

for 1750 I recommend

Deciever
3 monoliths
3x10 warriors
2x6 scarabs

Idea is that against any mech army, the monoliths s9 ap1 ord. attack is the best 'cron attack possible. Also, the warriors go in reserve, and hide. The scarabs turboboost for fun 2+ cover, and the deciever waltzs behind the monoliths to provide a counterassault against the scary warrior killing stuff that comes forward.

Deepstrike the monoliths versus tau to help mitigate broadside shootings, and other than than park the 'liths on objective to contest them, get warriors on your home objectives, and try to win by 1 objective as long as the monoliths dont die to lucky shots.

If you do the math for destroyers, it becomes obvious that they are about as good at killing transports as necron troops: IE not good at all. They only glance chimeras/valks on a 6, and only pen a rhino on a 6. Meanwhile, counter shots from any top tier gunline can and will kill up to 15 destroyers in a single shooting phase. While destroyers have a place, versus the new top tier armies they fail pretty horribly.

MasterDRD wrote:Well, I played a game earlier today, with 1500 points of (mostly) proxied Necrons. I'll say it now; I got horribly raped. The main reason is a combination of 2 factors. 1st, I didn't take a res orb on my lord. (who was a destro lord with scarabs and would only have worked on the 1st turn anyway) 2nd, I somewhat question how much points value my opponent had. I was facing IG, with 4 infantry squads (I don't know exactly what kinds), a 3 man autocannon heavy weps team unit, a sentinel, a valkyrie, a demolisher, and an executioner. The Valkyrie had (iirc) a lascannon, heavy bolter sponsons (not entirely sure on that), and 2 1-shot-only large blast missiles. The demolisher had battle cannon, lascannon, heavy bolter sponsons, and a storm bolter. The executioner had 2 plasma cannon sponsons, a 3-shot plasma cannon main weapon, and a storm bolter. Both leman russes apparently had Lumbering Behemoth, which let them not move and shoot everything. The sentinel had a plasma cannon. All of his vehicles had hunter-killer missiles. His infantry squads had a couple missile launchers, a couple grenade launchers, and some model (special character or hq of some sort?) that had an ordinance weapon. One of the infantry squads had 3 flamers. My list was 2 20 man warrior squads, a monolith, 3 heavy destroyers, a wraith, 10 scarabs, and a destroyer lord with phase shifter, phylactery, lightning field, and warscythe.
So opponent goes 1st, moves the flamer infantry squad up, moves the valkyrie forward diagonally to see my 1st warrior unit clearly. Basic rundown of shooting phase: wraith and heavy destroyers are untouched. those 2 large-blast-missiles-of-fething-doom hit smack dab in the middle of my warrior squad with a clear LOS. S8 exactly so no WBB, ap3 so no save. That takes out 15 models total. Rest of the squad is mowed down by other weapons. (I forget the details) Other squad loses about 5 or so models permanently, and 12 go down temporarily. Scarabs lose 2 bases to blasts. Monolith is glanced on a 6 and then stunned by a hunter-killer missile (really?), the only weapon fired at the monolith. Opponent whines about not killing off the rest of warrior unit 2 despite O-FETHING-BLITERATING an ENTIRE 20 man squad, 360 points worth, and making my monolith unable to get closer to his vehicles or shoot for a turn. Yeah. My turn; most of unit 2 gets back up, they move forward and spread out to avoid being clusterf***ed by small/large blasts. Monolith does fething nothing, because it was stunned by the weakest possible weapon. Wraith moves forward towards nearest infantry. Scarabs/lord turboboost towards his infantry units; big mistake, because the closest had 3 flamers. (that was entirely my fault for not noticing...) Heavy destroyers move out from behind cover for a clear shot at the demolisher, and destroy it. Heavily. (dur hur)
His turn 2; virtually nothing moves. Heavy destroyers get WTFBOOM!!!!AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!-ed, so does the wraith. Scarabs get raped by 3 flamer shots, losing about 4 more bases, and the get shot at continuously with various lasguns, plasma pistol, blast weapons, etc. Nothing gets through the almighty 2+ cover save, to my opponent's continued discontent. Monolith is wtf-stunned again by another missile... I mean seriously, what the f***? (the only possible explanation is that my opponent had just bought shiny new swirly green dice with gold pips, thus pleasing the dice gods.) Warrior squad loses a few more permanently, taking it down to 11. Another goes down. My turn 2; wbb roll is failed. Unit teleports through monolith portal; wbb failed again. Opponent then points out that I've lost 75% of necron units. 43 original units, 11 remaining. If that last warrior had passed either wbb roll the game would have continued (if you could still call it a game); I phase out dramatically.
I'll attach a picture showing roughly what the table looked like, drawn in MS Paint.

Too many warriors, not enough destroyers. Heavy destroyers seem irrelevant most of the time, your vehicle hunters are the scarabs+scythe lord combined with the monolith.

And a lone wraith? What is he supposed to accomplish?


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DevianID wrote:
If you do the math for destroyers, it becomes obvious that they are about as good at killing transports as necron troops: IE not good at all. They only glance chimeras/valks on a 6, and only pen a rhino on a 6. Meanwhile, counter shots from any top tier gunline can and will kill up to 15 destroyers in a single shooting phase. While destroyers have a place, versus the new top tier armies they fail pretty horribly.

What? Destroyers are FANTASTIC transport hunters, except for the Valk. First of all, they need a 5/6 to penetrate against a chimera because with a 12 inch movement they're rarely going to be hitting the front. 5 Destroyers will average 2 glances/2penetrates on a rhino, and 2 glances/4 penetrates on a chimera.

Even against AV 12, those glances add up against the Valk, and even have a shot at taking it out altogether.

It's the demolisher you have to worry about in this case, which is precisely why I like to hide units behind the monolith while TBing the lord in turn 1. When the lord/scarabs hit the tanks, the tanks die, end of story. A destroyer lord/scarab escort is feckin' pain for IG infantry too.

ALSO: stunned monolith can still fire particle whip, thankfully.

If you think a good IG list will let you get side armor, you will be in for a surprise. If destroyers had more than 36 inches for range I might agree, however as you move to get the proper angle for all 5 destroyers on a vehicle flank, you are basicly putting yourself in rapidfire/close combat range of the guard. But I digress.

If 5 destroyers kill 1 rhino a turn for 5 turns (very unlikely), they are still 75 points short of making their value back. Now, in kill points I agree you will be ahead in that situation, but most games are objective based, and the 'crons have very little to shift units off objectives. That is why I recommend 3 monliths at the expense of destroyers... the monoliths can stride through units.

Wait... it can still fire the particle whip when it's stunned? How? Not that it would've made any difference here because it wasn't within 24" of anything anyway, but...

Something you should try, is being over aggressive with your Necrons. Deepstrike your monolith in and start killing things. Hell take 2, and try it. Those things are serious fire bases and can blow the living pooh out of infantry, specially IG. Then use your scarabs/lord to give them to many things to shoot at. Theres no way they can pop BOTH monoliths and the lord/scarabs in one turn.
Most likely both liths will be in fine shooting order, and able to shoot at all those units within the 12inch range. Considering the awesome roll a D6 for any unit with in 12 inches, your going to be smoking things left and right. Just remember that a Lord in the scarabs, can be singled out in CC. So mainly the scarabs are for screening shoots, and then tangling up a unit you dont want shooting or attacking.

This might work great, then again, you might take it hard lol

MasterDRD wrote:Wait... it can still fire the particle whip when it's stunned? How? Not that it would've made any difference here because it wasn't within 24" of anything anyway, but...

The Monolith has quite a lot of special rules. One of them is that the power matrix can be used if the monolith is shaken or stunned. Look over the monolith's rules under Power Matrix for more details. Even if no enemies were in range you also were able to use the magic door.

Yeah, I figured the magic door would be unaffected... That's nice to know, that I can still use the giant wtfboom despite being shaken/stunned.
@KingCracker My only worry with that (other than buying 2 monoliths ) is that it would leave too few necrons to avoid phase out. Maybe save that tactic for 2000+ points?

IMO, don't take scarabs, have a Destroyer Lord and Wraiths for cc, maybe two squads, take 3 tomb spyders and 2 Monoliths. 5 Pariahs just in case enemy tanks become a problem. Pariahs also batter models Terminators so long as they don't have LC's. Some Flayed ones come in handy with Deep Strike. But take lots of warriors and a few destroyers to back them up to get into cc, also for range.

MasterDRD wrote:Yeah, I figured the magic door would be unaffected... That's nice to know, that I can still use the giant wtfboom despite being shaken/stunned.
@KingCracker My only worry with that (other than buying 2 monoliths ) is that it would leave too few necrons to avoid phase out. Maybe save that tactic for 2000+ points?

I did some tinkering with my lists and found out a way to take 2 monliths and still have some flavor

1 lord- orb, phy, chrono, scythe

1 lord- dest body, shroud, phy, scythe

7 immortals

30 warriors, 3x10

4 destroyers

7 scarabs

2x monoliths

1850

You have a good amount of warriors for scoring and phase out, some firepower in the form of immortals and 4 destroyers for mobile gun platforms, 2 liths for the firebases of doom and WBB any unit within 18" regardless of them not having another necron of their type in 6" 'feth YEAH FAQ!' a support combat lord just in case things get dicey and a terror lord to shake up low leadership armies and the occasion bad SM ld roll. Hell, it made Shrike run off the table.

Ive heard someone say the fastest way to win a game is to get your opponent to make dice rolls. It sounds like a "well duh" thing to say, but its very true. Even SM will fail a roll/ld roll from time to time. Just keep hammering them is what I say lol