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Hey I need some help with my anti necron list- ill be playing against about 40 warriors, scarabs, destoyer lord, destroyers, tomb spyder, lord, Monolith, maybe even a nightbringer- hoping for some feedback!



============Anti Necron List 1750============
HQ=============
Eldrad Ulthran 210
1 x Farseer, Runes of Witnessing, Spirit Stones, Guide, Fortune, 135
2 x warlocks Singing spears 56
Troops=============
6 x pathfinders 144
10 x Dire Avengers, Exarch, Dual Catapults, Bladestorm 152
10 x Dire Avengers, Exarch, Dual Catapults, Bladestorm 152
Elites=============
10 x Harlequins, 2 Fusion Pistols, Troupe Master with Power Weapon, Shadow Seer, and Death Jester 7 Kisses 288
Fastattack================
6 x Swooping hawks, 126
Heavy Support===============
2 x Fire Prisms, Shurkien Cannons, Spirit stones 270
5 x Dark Reapers, Exarch, Tempest Launcher, Crack shot 217
========================
Total 1750

Also any anti necron tactics would be awesome, as i havent played 'crons before!

With what you've shown, Pathfinders are your best shot at killing the NB...Fire Dragons in a serpent would work well too, if you have any.

Does your opponent take a lot of Destroyers? Does he have Heavy Destroyers? Does he use Veil of Darkness regularly? If the answer to these is "no," then outmaneuvering him with tanks would be nice.

Yeah, fire dragons are good. This looks pretty awesome. I might reccommend another fire prism.. Never mind. 2 is enough.

if you can, use more pathfinders. I find they excell against necrons, as they can take out C'tan and destroyers alike.

Sorry to piggy-back your thread but I have a similar challenge at hand.

My main headache is getting the Avengers into range.
As per the Dragon Serpent suggestion, wouldn't transports be a priority to get your blue boyz past the Cron guass range?

Well, Necrons are a nemesis army for Eldar.
I'd consider a large Seer Council in a mech list with Serpents.

By the way, in the GT final 2008, I fielded mech Eldar and rammed one Monolith to pieces by a Serpent.

As a necron player, the pathfinder/sniper is a serious threat to the NB, so much so, that I generally avoid using them in games vs Eldar. I generally use the "flying circus" (a lord with the Veil of Darkness, and 6-10 Immortals) to outflank and destroy transports. WBB supported with a tomb spider, monolith and lord w/ res orb, can be frustrating, but separate a unit from this support and picking them off is not too hard. Destroyers are the backbone of my army, and one of the best units the necrons have available, and I would be surprised if you did not see a group of them (I play up to 10 in a 1500 pt army). At 3 - S6 AP4 @36 inch range shots per, eliminating them will seriously decrease the 'cron firepower. The destroyers are tough, but in taking advantage of their maneuverability usually eliminates the ability to supplement WBB using the monolith or spider.

Well, the Pathfinders eventually inflict too less wounds against the NB before this d**** thing can do some damage.
A Seer Council can slice it nicely.

I think it's the D cannon that does 1-2 nothing, 2-4 glance, 5-6 penetrate on vehicles? A few rounds from that will really screw up a Monolith. All it's fancy rules for 'you can't hurt me' apply to armor values and stuff like that, so if you side step all that and just get two good rolls, one for penetrate and one for a decent result on vehicle damage table it will seriously demoralize the Necron guy. They tend to panic once that thing is gone.

Yeah, my council usually wrecks face of nightbringer/deciever (against silly people ) and monoliths.

I take two large squads of fire dragons and some prisms to smite the warriors and destroyers, and to make the phase out.

Walkers make destroyers cry from my experience.

hey guys, thanks for the replies, I will be facing 3 Destroyers, Destroyer Lord, 30 warriors, Tomb spyder, Monolith, Lord on foot, and several scarab bases- also I need to reduce the list to 1500 pts

any suggestions where i should scrimp/ remove??

just blast the hell out of the warriors and force a phase out would be the easiest I would think.

A wraithguard unit in a wave serpent is also an option, can inta kill models, and can take out the monolith no issues, even gives ol dead face nightbringer something to think about. PLus if you need get them in combat with a cron unit, tarpit the hell out of them with the hi toughness.

I have been playing against necrons for quite a while and here is my all-comers list that has done very well against them at the 1500 point level:

farseer w/10 banshees in serpent
falcon w/EML carrying 6 harlies or 6 fire dragons
10 avengers in serpent
10 scorpions with w/exarch & infiltrate
3 war walkers w/scatters & EML's
2 squads guardians w/EML's and warlocks
Wraithlord w/EML & wraithsword

This has worked decently well against basically everything and really does well with necrons. Here are 2 bits of wisdom that generally work when facing necrons:

#1: Avoid the monolith. It can only fire 1 weapon and can only move 6". It ignores shaken/stunned. You don't get an extra D6 of penetration for ANYTHING. Don't bother trying to assault or shoot it. S8 weapons are for killing destroyers.

#2: Avoid the C'tan. Eldar are mobile. Use that to your advantage because they just don't have enough staying power to hack it on foot (unless you're using lots of wraithguard).

Here is my target priority list when facing necrons:
#1. Destroyers/heavy destroyers
#2. Lord or tomb spyder (i.e. whatever helps hold together the WBB web).
#3. Warriors.

The destroyers go first because they're mobile, they can wreck any light tank easily, and they're typically out of range to get the "WBB no matter what" bonus.

Once the destroyers are gone, the slow moving undead are much easier to surround. It's very easy to get the enemy to play on your terms if you're blocking lanes of fire and preventing escape and bunching them up together.

Finally, whenever it's possible, GET INTO MELEE WITH THEM! The best way to kill necrons is by winning assault, forcing a test, seeing them fail, and then running them down because they're only I2. Basically any CC oriented Eldar unit can do that (banshees, scorpions, harlies).

doubled wrote:A wraithguard unit in a wave serpent is also an option, can inta kill models, and can take out the monolith no issues, even gives ol dead face nightbringer something to think about. PLus if you need get them in combat with a cron unit, tarpit the hell out of them with the hi toughness.

Bad idea. Horrible idea.

It costs too much. It can instant kill a few things sure.

Nightbringer simply takes one wound from it. No instant kill on him.

Tarpitting doesn't work if you won't last one round in CC if they get the charge off.

They rape monolith face sure, though hardly to justify costs, a medium sized seer council with yriel support does that, and can wipe any necron unit off the table.

Necrons have no power weapons, and need 6's to even cause a wound after going last with init, how can they wipe out wraithguard in combat.

Are you implying that a unit of 5 will not be wounded before it gets into CC with a squad of necrons...?

thanks for the replies everyone, im still looking for comments on my list- i.e. what to remove/swap out to bring it down to 1500pts

cheers for the tactical advise Grunt, much appriciated!

You're very welcome!

And, if you have the time, would you mind telling us what models you have? If we know everything you have available that would probably help us help you.

Yes, thank you Grunt for all that wonderful anti-necron advice. :-P

doubled wrote:Necrons have no power weapons, and need 6's to even cause a wound after going last with init, how can they wipe out wraithguard in combat.

The warscythe is not a power weapon, but that doesn't stop it ignoring invulnerable armour saves...

feediz wrote:what to remove/swap out to bring it down to 1500pts

How's this look?

Eldrad 210pts
Farseer w/ Stones, Fortune & Doom 125pts (dropped Runes)
(Dropped Warlocks)

8 x Harlequins incl Troupe Master w/ PW, Shadowseer & Death Jester, 2 Fusion Pistols & 5 Kisses 244pts (dropped 2 Harlies)

10 x Dire Avengers incl Exarch w/ Dual Cats & Bladestorm 152 pts
10 x Dire Avengers incl Exarch w/ Dual Cats & Bladestorm 152pts
5 x Pathfinders (dropped 1) 120pts

(Dropped Swooping Hawks)

Fire Prism w/ Stones and Shurikannon 135pts
Fire Prism w/ Stones and Shurikannon 135pts
5 x Dark reapers incl Exarch w/ Tempest Launcher and Fast Shot (instead of Crack Shot) 227pts

1500 exactly

The one concern I have with this one is that everyone is on foot. Eldar do best when they're mobile because with everyone being T3 it doesn't take much for all those pretty weapons to go splat before they get close enough. Though Eldar have a lot of awesome weapons, most of them are very short ranged, making it essential for them to get close without having taken many casualties.

Danu,

I think your list is actually counter intuitive. Gauss Rifles have a larger range than the S-Catapults, and even with bladestorm, DA's are going to have a hard time dropping more than half of a 10 or 20 man squad of necron warriors. Retaliatory fire will crush them. S-cat S4 shots vs T4 and 3+ saves are at your disadvantage. (Not to mention the 'cron warriors will likely be near the orb and Necron Lord, so they'll rez before returning fire, which.. if your in S-cat range means you are going to be in Rapid Fire range after movement because of the 'crons rifles. Bad news for the T3 DA's.)

Pathfinders are actually his best bet to an extent for a troops choice, as long as he finds okay cover, but he doesnt need to go crazy with them. I recommend the following list, and this is the only time I'd recommend such a list. And since he hasnt told us what models he's got, I'm going to assume he can field this. If not, he can substitute as needed.


HQ - 240

Farseer, RoWit
Spirit Stones
Doom, Fortune


Farseer, RoWit
Spirit Stones
Doom, Fortune

(You will want to attatch these to your elites.)


Elites - 540

Banshee x8 - 270
Exarch w/Executioner
Wave Serpent w/ TL S-Cannon, TL S-Catapults, Spirit Stones.

Banshee x8 - 270
Exarch w/Executioner
Wave Serpent w/ TL S-Cannon, TL S-Catapults, Spirit Stones.


Heavy Support - 370

Fire Prism - 115
Fire Prism - 115
Dark Reapers x4 - 140


Troops - 360

Pathfinders x5 - 120
Pathfinders x5 - 120
Pathfinders x5 - 120


This list is 1510 points. If you need to make it fully 1500, drop a single Executioner from a Banshee Exarch for 10 points or you could drop RoWitnessing from 1 of your Farseers. This should work a necron force pretty good, especially since your opponent won't be deepstriking any flayers on your pathfinders.

Pathfinders..

Sit them in cover and keep punking at targets of opportunity; anything NOT in cover so you can benefit from your high AP and rending shots. If it's an objective heavy game, make sure that after your Banshees are delivered, you high tail those Wave Serpents and pick up at least one of these squads of 5 so you can protect your troop choice. Even taking two off the board if your serpents live long enough is a good idea, so you can objective shock near the end. If its annihilation, put them in cover and blast away. Any fire his destroyers or other units send at 2+ cover save pathfinders are shots NOT going to your serpents trying to deliver Banshees and Farseers.

Banshees..

Even though Scorpions have a higher Str vs T4/5 necrons thanks to chainswords, wounding wont be as big a problem thanks to Doom. The idea is that between Banshee Masks and Doom, you should obliterate an opponent on the charge, especially since you have power weapons. The Executioner is a good deal because it raises your higher initiative exarch a 5 str power weapon. So you are hitting on 4+, Wounding on 4+ (with rerolls on failed wounds the first round.) Your normal banshees will only hit on 5's or 6's, but they are all using power weapons with fortune. Then there's your farseer, hitting with a 2+ that sadly, still allows an armor save.

The biggest problem you will have with Bashees will be their lack of grenades. It will take slightly crafty generalship to overcome that. There's also the risk of getting your transport popped and only having 4+ armor.

You could run scorpions instead, gaining an outflank ability, 3+ armor, and more attacks in a round along with plasma grenades. In this case you will put more hits on your opponents, but only a power claw will negate his armor rolls. That choice might very well be made by what models you own.

Fire Prisms..

Leave them naked and take two. They're hella good as is. Just remember to move them enough for the cover save each round.

Dark Reapers..

A good mix of high fire rate and decent str. 8 shots at BS 4 @ Str 5 will either wound on 3's or 4's vs the enitre necron codex you will be facing. And that they are AP3 means no saves allowed. If you have a chance to doom a unit before firing your reaper launchers is great against a squad of warriors. I was debating dropping points elsewhere to get you a 5th reaper (The exarch with fast shot adds 32 points for 1 extra shot, [12 for exarch, 20 for fast shot.] which is a bad deal economically.)


This should be able to get the job done, but you have to play aggressive. Avoid his Monolith until it's in range to attack you. It's slow with small attack range, so your Prism shots are better off killing his destroyers and units than they are sniping at his Monolith.

Good luck!

Thunderfrog wrote:Danu,

I think your list is actually counter intuitive. Gauss Rifles have a larger range than the S-Catapults, and even with bladestorm, DA's are going to have a hard time dropping more than half of a 10 or 20 man squad of necron warriors. Retaliatory fire will crush them. S-cat S4 shots vs T4 and 3+ saves are at your disadvantage. (Not to mention the 'cron warriors will likely be near the orb and Necron Lord, so they'll rez before returning fire, which.. if your in S-cat range means you are going to be in Rapid Fire range after movement because of the 'crons rifles. Bad news for the T3 DA's.)

Pathfinders are actually his best bet to an extent for a troops choice, as long as he finds okay cover, but he doesnt need to go crazy with them. I recommend the following list, and this is the only time I'd recommend such a list. And since he hasnt told us what models he's got, I'm going to assume he can field this. If not, he can substitute as needed.


HQ - 240

Farseer, RoWit
Spirit Stones
Doom, Fortune


Farseer, RoWit
Spirit Stones
Doom, Fortune

(You will want to attatch these to your elites.)


Elites - 540

Banshee x8 - 270
Exarch w/Executioner
Wave Serpent w/ TL S-Cannon, TL S-Catapults, Spirit Stones.

Banshee x8 - 270
Exarch w/Executioner
Wave Serpent w/ TL S-Cannon, TL S-Catapults, Spirit Stones.


Heavy Support - 370

Fire Prism - 115
Fire Prism - 115
Dark Reapers x4 - 140


Troops - 360

Pathfinders x5 - 120
Pathfinders x5 - 120
Pathfinders x5 - 120


This list is 1510 points. If you need to make it fully 1500, drop a single Executioner from a Banshee Exarch for 10 points or you could drop RoWitnessing from 1 of your Farseers. This should work a necron force pretty good, especially since your opponent won't be deepstriking any flayers on your pathfinders.

Pathfinders..

Sit them in cover and keep punking at targets of opportunity; anything NOT in cover so you can benefit from your high AP and rending shots. If it's an objective heavy game, make sure that after your Banshees are delivered, you high tail those Wave Serpents and pick up at least one of these squads of 5 so you can protect your troop choice. Even taking two off the board if your serpents live long enough is a good idea, so you can objective shock near the end. If its annihilation, put them in cover and blast away. Any fire his destroyers or other units send at 2+ cover save pathfinders are shots NOT going to your serpents trying to deliver Banshees and Farseers.

Banshees..

Even though Scorpions have a higher Str vs T4/5 necrons thanks to chainswords, wounding wont be as big a problem thanks to Doom. The idea is that between Banshee Masks and Doom, you should obliterate an opponent on the charge, especially since you have power weapons. The Executioner is a good deal because it raises your higher initiative exarch a 5 str power weapon. So you are hitting on 4+, Wounding on 4+ (with rerolls on failed wounds the first round.) Your normal banshees will only hit on 5's or 6's, but they are all using power weapons with fortune. Then there's your farseer, hitting with a 2+ that sadly, still allows an armor save.

The biggest problem you will have with Bashees will be their lack of grenades. It will take slightly crafty generalship to overcome that. There's also the risk of getting your transport popped and only having 4+ armor.

You could run scorpions instead, gaining an outflank ability, 3+ armor, and more attacks in a round along with plasma grenades. In this case you will put more hits on your opponents, but only a power claw will negate his armor rolls. That choice might very well be made by what models you own.

Fire Prisms..

Leave them naked and take two. They're hella good as is. Just remember to move them enough for the cover save each round.

Dark Reapers..

A good mix of high fire rate and decent str. 8 shots at BS 4 @ Str 5 will either wound on 3's or 4's vs the enitre necron codex you will be facing. And that they are AP3 means no saves allowed. If you have a chance to doom a unit before firing your reaper launchers is great against a squad of warriors. I was debating dropping points elsewhere to get you a 5th reaper (The exarch with fast shot adds 32 points for 1 extra shot, [12 for exarch, 20 for fast shot.] which is a bad deal economically.)


This should be able to get the job done, but you have to play aggressive. Avoid his Monolith until it's in range to attack you. It's slow with small attack range, so your Prism shots are better off killing his destroyers and units than they are sniping at his Monolith.

Good luck!

A few small things here:

1. Banshees have something better than grenades: Masks. They go at I10 regardless of modifiers on first phase.

2. Reapers only have access to 1 S8 shot. That would be the exarch with EML (which is a great thing when combined with crack shot).

3. If a unit is doomed it will stay doomed until the beginning of the Eldar players next turn. This will mean that if you're stuck in with a unit you'll get 2 rounds to reroll failed wounds--your assault phase and theirs.

4. Be careful with only having units of 5 pathfinders with no other troops. 66% of games you play in 5th will be objective based, so your troops will need to be mobile... Pathfinders are meant to find a comfy spot to snipe from and do absolutely nothing else. It wouldn't be that difficult for a unit of destroyers to turbo boost to a unit of pathfinders and contest on the last turn. Also it'll only take 2 casualties and then 1 after that to cause a Ld. check--which pathfinders will fail 50% of the time at least.

These are all lessons I've learned through the years. I hope the OP will be able to put something together that's a compromise of all our advice and get something nice and effective.

I largely like Thunderfrog's list for anti-Necron. Just a couple tweaks:

Thunderfrog wrote:Banshee x8 - Exarch w/Executioner
Wave Serpent w/ TL S-Cannon, TL S-Catapults, Spirit Stones.

Though pricey, and lousy BS, even Twin-Linked, a BrightLance on the WaveS is the best cure for Monoliths, but ... depending on whether or not your opponent uses the Mono well, or plays it in such a poor way that you can ignore it.

However, it is Thunderfrog's banshees that I was surprised to *not* see, until way down the thread.

Feediz, the WBB pretty much works against (almost) all shooting. It's h2h that the warriors and destroyers fold under. So, girls with power swords ... against a Doomed unit, as TF covers it in his post, *that's* the way to beat undead robots.

Thunderfrog wrote:Dark Reapers x4 -

A good mix of high fire rate and decent str. 8 shots at BS 4 @ Str 5 will either wound on 3's or 4's vs the enitre necron codex you will be facing. And that they are AP3 means no saves allowed.

Humbly, I would not recommend DRs. The AP3 just means no save, but the necron might still get back up. Considering the price of DRs, points might be spent elsewhere, BrightLance upgrades for each WaveS (unless you're committed to being able to ignore the Mono), transport upgrades (HoloFs for instance).

ThunderFrog, I just found found that against Plague Marines, DRs were great, but WBB is better than FnP.
:(

Thunderfrog wrote:Pathfinders x5 - 120

As stated, good for taking down the HQs.

Brothererekose wrote:I largely like Thunderfrog's list for anti-Necron. Just a couple tweaks:

Thunderfrog wrote:Banshee x8 - Exarch w/Executioner
Wave Serpent w/ TL S-Cannon, TL S-Catapults, Spirit Stones.

Though pricey, and lousy BS, even Twin-Linked, a BrightLance on the WaveS is the best cure for Monoliths, but ... depending on whether or not your opponent uses the Mono well, or plays it in such a poor way that you can ignore it.

However, it is Thunderfrog's banshees that I was surprised to *not* see, until way down the thread.

Feediz, the WBB pretty much works against (almost) all shooting. It's h2h that the warriors and destroyers fold under. So, girls with power swords ... against a Doomed unit, as TF covers it in his post, *that's* the way to beat undead robots.

Thunderfrog wrote:Dark Reapers x4 -

A good mix of high fire rate and decent str. 8 shots at BS 4 @ Str 5 will either wound on 3's or 4's vs the enitre necron codex you will be facing. And that they are AP3 means no saves allowed.

Humbly, I would not recommend DRs. The AP3 just means no save, but the necron might still get back up. Considering the price of DRs, points might be spent elsewhere, BrightLance upgrades for each WaveS (unless you're committed to being able to ignore the Mono), transport upgrades (HoloFs for instance).

ThunderFrog, I just found found that against Plague Marines, DRs were great, but WBB is better than FnP.
:(

Thunderfrog wrote:Pathfinders x5 - 120

As stated, good for taking down the HQs.

Just one point here: Bright lances do nothing against Monoliths. The special rule for monoliths overrules all other special rules for getting extra penetration dice, counting armour as lower than it is, and so forth. So basically what you have is 1 S8 shot that will glance on 6's. Since monoliths ignore shaken and stunned you have a 33% chance of doing something, and no chance of wrecking/blowing it up.

I would tend to agree with you that reapers aren't worth the points because they're still T3 3+ pointy-eared tree people. It only takes one casualty to be taking a leadership check and at 35 points per model, that's just not enough for me. Not when I can put in a wraithlord in its place for less points.

I like most of what I hear, but I disagree on one point:

I love my reapers against 'crons and take them in almost every battle I've had vs. undead robots. Their range is a nice counter to the mobility of destroyers and they'll wound them on a 4+. I take a unit of 5 with crack shot exarch, but no weapon upgrade. The tempest is nice, but pricey. The unit of five should be able to take out 2-4 destroyers in a round of shooting. Even if they only take out a single unit of 5 destroyers, they've made their points back.

Thunderfrog wrote:Danu, I think your list is actually counter intuitive. Gauss Rifles have a larger range than the S-Catapults, and even with bladestorm, DA's are going to have a hard time dropping more than half of a 10 or 20 man squad of necron warriors. Retaliatory fire will crush them.

Indeed. I was trying to work within the spirit of the original list, available models etc.
As a solution, you could drop the Prisms in favour of two EML Serpents.

HQ
Eldrad - attached to DA 1
FS w/ Stones, RoWit, Doom, Fortune, Spear - attached to DA 2

Elite
Harlies x 5 w/ 2 Fusion Pistols and 3 Kisses, Troupe Master w/ PW, Shadowseer w/ Kiss, Death Jester w/ kiss

Troops
10 Dire Avengers incl Exarch w/ Dual AvCats and Bladestorm
Wave Serpent w/ Stones and TL EML

10 Dire Avengers incl Exarch w/ Dual AvCats and Bladestorm
Wave Serpent w/ Stones and TL EML

5 Pathfinders

Heavy Support
5 Dark Reapers incl Exarch w/ Tempest Launcher and Crack Shot

1498

Grunt_For_Christ wrote:

Brothererekose wrote:Though pricey, and lousy BS, even Twin-Linked, a BrightLance on the WaveS is the best cure for Monoliths, but ... depending on whether or not your opponent uses the Mono well, or plays it in such a poor way that you can ignore it.

Just one point here: Bright lances do nothing against Monoliths. The special rule for monoliths overrules all other special rules for getting extra penetration dice, counting armour as lower than it is, and so forth. So basically what you have is 1 S8 shot that will glance on 6's. Since monoliths ignore shaken and stunned you have a 33% chance of doing something, and no chance of wrecking/blowing it up.

Ack!

Seriously? Crap, mis-read that/mis-remembered that out of my opponent's 'dex (about a month ago). I coulsa swore a Lance trumped the Mono's Living Metal routine ... I knew that melta toys are neutered by it ...

Well, my apologies for the wrong bit of advice on that.

Howling banshees work great better than harlequins