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Right, my friend, who plays Necrons (and may be starting Orks) just cannot win against me! I quote him 'don't you ever get bored of winning?'
Well, no. But it'd be nicer if the games were a little bit more challenging. I play Marines - notably my Crimson Fists. Also, that's another good point... he's the only one of our gaming group that doesn't play SM's(there's only 4 of us!)! So he really needs to know how to beat us! I'm not in the mood to tell him how to beat me so maybe you guys should! Well, yeah you should... 'cause that's the point of the topic. You might be wondering why I'm doing this for him? Well he doesn't have internet access at his house so I may as well.

A lil' about my playing style:
Usually tank spam and assault - sometimes a lot of terminators. Pedro walks about killing some stuff which is fun... or a chaplain or cap'n with command squad. I play mech 9/10 games, so Tac squads in Rhino's with small squads in Razorbacks. Termies deep striking or some in my land raider.. usually both.

OR

I might just bring out my wolves ^^ But this is about codex marines, so stick to that please.

To my knowledge, his collection is something like this:

Nightbringer
Deceiver
Necron lord
Destroyer lord
4 Pariahs
Some immortals (he extremely under values these!)
about 60 warriors
about 10-15 scarab bases
About 7 destroyers
two monoliths
1 Tomb spyder

He really doesn't have any strategy... I've told him about tooled up Destroyer lord and scarab combo.. but he doesn't use it right. Okay guys, tell me how to loose! (or how he can beat me... y'know what I mean!)

Wait until the new necron codex comes out. Necrons are currently fighting with grey knights for the slot of least powerful army. They don't even have a chance if you are playing space wolves

Volkoc, I'm aware of everything you said, but thanks for the input anyway. You're just saying I should thrash him another 30 times before the codex is supposedly going to be released (late 2010, early 2011, no?). The point of this thread is to give him advice NOW, not to wait for later, I mean he's probably coming round tomorrow so if I can hand him some advice by then it'd be good! :d

Right now Necrons are terribad. I suggest you guys make up some house rules to give him an edge, worst case is you make the rules too good and he wins a few friendly games.

Suggestions

Change guass weps to just rending
Change WBB to just FnP
Remove Phase Out completely

Yeah, the best advice, in all seriousness, is stop playing Necrons until they get revised. They have very, very few options and were nerfed by some of the universal game changes in 5th edition. Even great Necron players with ultra min/maxed lists can't win consistently against all comers.

Orks aren't a power army either, somewhere towards the middle of the pack, but you can make competitive lists with them for sure.

...

Thanks, I guess? ;d

But there are actually a lot of tourny winning armies I've seen, along with the tactica (i.e. Fritz over at WayofSaimHann).

Demo, your siggie is awesome! I want to steal it :/ Can I? (jk btw)

If you want it go ahead, it was written by Manchu here on dakka

The insurmountable problem is that Necrons sacrifice one strength in order to gain another. Possibly if you posted your exact space marine list I could work something up to fight it, assuming you never changed it

I have a large SM collection... but I'm trying to shape a CF decent all comers tourny list out of it, y'know 1850, multiple cheese-tastic Sternguard squads with combi spammage... that sorta stuff. But that's awhile off. Volkov, your sig is awesome also. But I'll make my army list in a bit and PM it to you, if that's OK.

In the most general sense the best Necron tactics currently are spamming Destroyers and/or Immortals - neither of which he really has that many of. Also Necrons currently have a lot of issues dealing with mech - so your mech spam list is basically the worst nightmare situation for the Necrons.

My most basic advice is;

Take lots of Destroyers/Immortals.
Choose the Deceiver over the Nightbringer.
Do not field the Pariahs.

I don't play necrons a ton, but the guy i play with who lets me use his necrons also has a SM army (ultramarines) and I have been so-so at playing him. Generally most of the games are pretty close.

I use lots of warriors, a lord with a res-orb and a veil, a monolith (i would use 2 if he had them) as my basic force.

Nec warriors are solid in CC against basic marines due to their WBB. They struggle against things that deny the WWB unless you have the res. orb.

Against a mek list they are really going to struggle to deal with hitting your tanks.

Here is a 2k list I would try:
I'd take a lord with orb/veil, 2 monoliths, the deceiver, and the rest warriors (maybe 4 squads). Put the lord with a nice sized unit of warriors to provide some mobile fire. Use the monoliths to take out vehicles with their particle whips. Keep one of the units of warriors in reserve. I would think about screening the necrons with the moniliths. They are still one of the toughest tanks in the game and marines are going to struggle to take them down. The deceiver should help deployment to make sure the moniliths have plenty of solid targets on turn 1. I'd keep the necrons out of CC as long as possible and remind him that the moniliths can pull his warriors out of CC and then put them into rapid fire range after their second WBB role.

The necrons struggle with few advantages, so you have to use the ones they have to have any shot at a close game.

Swap armies.

If he plays as the marines he should click as to what in his necron army will do well against and what they will fail against, he can use that when he uses his necrons again.

Iv'e done this with one of my friends, he plays SM and Tau against my Eldar. He's never beaten me and i massacred him everytime, then i used his armies against my own, and our games are alot more closer now that he has insight from the other side of the board. Sometimes all it takes is a different perspective.

Good idea! I've been thinking about doing something like that for awhile, so maybe I'll try it! Problem is, I still have an advantage; I know the rules of both codex' inside out... But we'll give it a go!

His best chance is taking minimum warriors and keeping them both in reserve. Generally hiding them to grab objectives late game.

After that, I would take the Deceiver and two monoliths. After that, you can either take Immortals, and screen them from assault with scrabs, or take destroyers.

For example, at 2k, you could take:

Deciver
10 warriors
10 warriors
3 destroyers
4 destroyers
8 Immortals
8 Immortals
6 scarabs
monolith
monolith

This works within the models that your friend has.

Monoliths form a gate, put the deceiver and the immortals in between. Use the Scarabs to either go assault stuff, or form an assault wall to keep something out of CC. THe Destroyers stick together and shoot stuff. Or, you can swap them out for more immortals and scarabs. Its up to you.

Whatever the final details are, two BIG things to remeber for Necrons in 5th edition are minimum warriors, and the Deceiver. Its not the only way to do it, but I have found it very helpful.

Hope that helps.

Yep, it all works for his collection... except he doesn't have 16 immortals. Proxying standard warriors ahoy.

The general problems he's found are monoliths do too little, but he gets phased out too quickly if he doesn't have enough warriors!

Also, he still hasn't got his deceiver built yet, you know how hard those little buggers are.

What about this as a list?

Lord with all the good important stuff with 20 warriors to hop around with Veil and rapid fire some stuff up, mono's deep strike in and cause trouble, destroyers hang back for long range firepower along with his unmentioned heavy destroyer, and 3 ten man squads in reserve to pop outta the mono. Also, destroyer lord with all the stuff with Scarabs to add fast moving anti-tank or anti- infantry CC spammage.

Ah, I had the opposite problem. I play Necrons and my Eldar/BA opponent can't beat me. I'm can't claim to be good, just more successful than him.

Marines in vehicles? I'd go for a highly mobile Necron force. A lord with a veil and a bunch of immortals. That gives some ability to stay away from, or escape, from assault. Fire 2 strong shots after moving. Immortals should always be willing to walk away from their enemy while shooting. Destroyer squads offer mobile, long range, hard hitting power. Monoliths might provide some cover and the ability to pull out of close combat. Otherwise you're left with using sacrificial warrior squads to blunt assaults. A destroyer lord with a warscythe might be useful against vehicles, but against marines I usually ignore the vehicles in favor of marines if any are in range. Most marine vehicles are simply annoying to Necrons if a res orb is nearby. The marines are the real threat since they represent higher volumes of fire and possibly assault.

Thanks, I'll pass it on to him.

I slaughtered a marine player at 1800 with this list last Friday...
Lord, orb, veil
Lord, destroyer body, phase shifter, lightning field, phylactery, WARSCYTHE
4 squads of 10 Warriors
5 Destroyers
10 Scarabs
Tomb Spyder
Monolith

I used the 1st 2 warrior squads to cover the other 2, the monolith to Whip/portal(never needed it)/flux arc(never got into range)/attract fire. Destroyers are shooting 3 S6 shots each with 36" range and 12" movement without impairing shooting. They should be used to target weaker squads/disable vehicles through glancing. After all, even the weakest glance result means your tank can't shoot, (unless it's a Land Raider... *shakes fist*) and he can actually pen. your transports with that. The destro lord with scarabs is perfect for assaulting anything that isn't S6 or full of powerfists. 33 total wounds, and each wound you take forces a wound on his unit whether you save against it or not. Warscythe will RAPE his characters, nothing can instant-death your T6 lord in combat, and his 3+/4++ saves will protect him from almost anything they throw at him. Phylactery means even if he wipes your whole squad, not only can that lord pop up behind him to assault again, it might do it with full wounds. The warriors can probably handle any vehicle that gets into range by disabling it in some way. If a warrior unit is in danger of being assaulted, monolith can save them. Orb/Veil lord can teleport with a squad, but he does best by sitting in the middle of your Warrior battle line. Another advantage to having warriors in line formation is that blasts will do less damage than they would if the warriors were in a tighter formation for advancing in...
I have no experience with the C'Tan, but the basic idea seems to be that Deceiver is more useful than Nightbringer and costs less. I know I'll probably never run a list without at least 1 res orb in it. Until the next codex, for anyone but a HIGHLY experienced necron player, I would aviod Pariahs like the plague. Expensive squad/no WBB/you're easier to phase out/slow combat squad with no transport option, that can't use any of the necron teleportation tech, and no invul. = NO!