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Hi... So I'm kinda new with necrons, and the fact that people seem to think that they're noncompetitive made me realize that i had no experience with their competitive played tactics... And i haven't been able to come across regular army themes that Necrons should play...

I have came across only two different tactics that people play... One was destroyer spam, where you take max noumber of units of destroyers, add few monoliths and heavy destroyers and finaly few warriors which you keep in cover or in reserves... You're trying to outmaneuver your opponent, blasting down his troops and giving extra wbb rolls to destroyers...

Next tactic I saw was lot of warriors and 3 monoliths, protecting warriors with los blocking monoliths and creating a wall of AV14 between you and your opponent and slowly advancing forward...

So i wonder if there are other playable solutions in creating a competitive army?

And what is a must have in those themes above?

And finaly, if some1 has any links to competitive 5th edition Necron tactics or guides, please share with me...

You can go onto youtube and search wayofsaimhann, he is a BOLS member (I think, well he posts regularly) and he has a slew of videos on necrons, eldar, and SM. His batreps are also pretty cool.

I don't think having a lot of warriors is a good idea, most just take 2 10 man squads, just enough to get by the FOC requirements. Also a foot lord with a res orb and VoD will keep the group of warriors you need to avoid phase out alive, and will be awesome for 5th turn objective grabs.

Interesting... So he claims that there are 3 widespread competitive ways to play necrons:

1. The destroyer wing:
There is a nice video about this on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcFA6U-VwG4

2. The wraith wing

3. The C'tan wing

I haven't been able to find his video of the last two tactics.. Can anyone provide the link? Doesn't have to be his (or video for that matter, it could be article or thread)...

I would say that there are just 2: Destroyers and Wraiths.

The Deciever is highly useful, but not the focus of an entire strategy.

A third focuses on 30 Scarabs and 9 Spyders, but I think only 40kenthusiast has actually played this of the people I am familiar with on the board.

They all play similarly. You hide/reserve the Warriors while sending the Destroyers/Wraiths&Monoliths out to kill things. Focus on fast moving assault elements first, since if they reach both Warriors squads you lose all your objective takers and probably phase out sooner or later.

Please don't pack three monoliths. Scary though it might seem, you're dropping your "phase out" limit by about 525 points. At that point, most enemies can just ignore them and just shoot up your necrons until they disappear.

Also I would THINK a tomb spyder would be useful to help insure WBB. IIRC, with a res orb and a Lith, the only way to put down a group of warriors is to kill them all. I mean ALL and the Spyder would allow you to get WBB even if the unit is down and there are no similar units within 6" of the unit. It's pretty cheap at 55 pts. And can poop out a scarab to give it like 3 extra wounds and a cover save.

xxBlazinGhostxx wrote:Also I would THINK a tomb spyder would be useful to help insure WBB. IIRC, with a res orb and a Lith, the only way to put down a group of warriors is to kill them all. I mean ALL and the Spyder would allow you to get WBB even if the unit is down and there are no similar units within 6" of the unit. It's pretty cheap at 55 pts. And can poop out a scarab to give it like 3 extra wounds and a cover save.

No, not really. It only really helps against shooting, and an entire unit of necrons getting shot to death is pretty rare. If you have several very separated Destroyer or HeavyD units it could be worthwhile, but then you are shackling them to a slow model when speed is one of their great advantages.

Triple Monolith can work. Dash is playing that now. It is highly vulnerable to phase out, but it's not automatic.

Greetings!

There are two variations that I'm playing with.


1. Wraith Wing:

HQ: Deceiver
HQ: Destroyer Lord (Phase Shifter, Rez Orb + War Scythe)
Troop1: 11x Warriors
Troop2: 12x Warriors

Fast1: 3x Wraiths
Fast2: 3x Wraiths
Fast3: 3x Wraiths

Heavy1: Monolith
Heavy2: Monolith
Heavy3: Monolith

2. Spyder Wing

HQ: Destroyer Lord with Phase Shifter, Rez Orb
HQ: Walking Lord with Rez Orb

Troop1: 10x Warriors
Troop2: 10x Warriors

Elite1: 8x Immortals

Fast1: 10 Scarabs
Fast2: 10 Scarabs
Fast3: 10 Scarabs

Heavy1: 3x Tomb Spyders
Heavy2: 3x Tomb Spyders
Heavy3: 3x Tomb Spyders

Unbelievably, both of these have roflstomped over quite a variety of lists. Ponder something: A wraith can teleport 18" to and through a Monolith, which is 6" wide. You can deploy out 2" with a 2" base, then move 12" and assault 6". That's a 46" assault radius. I keep my triple wraith squads tight with my Destroyer Lord so that as long as one wraith stays up, they all get WBBs. And thus far, I've been effective at it. A lot of it has to do with judging assaults and what you're going to need to win.

In both lists, my warriors stay in reserve and walk on from a table edge - I teleport them through a monolith to an objective later if I need them, but I keep them on my table edge and away from danger as much as possible.

In the Tomb Spyder list...30 scarabs ties up lots of things until the tomb spyders get there, and they can poop out a scarab as many times as they need to keep having a T6 scarab with them. You can do all sorts of movement shenanigans to keep the scarab in cover but the spyder out, so that the scarab is T6 with a 3+ cover save, while counting for half the unit being in cover to grant a 4+ cover save to the spyder. I've learned to lead the way with the scarab in assaults, since it moves like jump-pack infantry - with clever positioning, the only model that can make it into base will be the scarab, leaving your spyders not having to 2d6 to get into assaults. Thus far, my immortals have teleported around with the Lord shooting stuff, but I'm discovering that it doesn't impress me at all.

I play assault-oriented Orks, assault-oriented Dark Eldar, and now assault-oriented Necrons.

The Grog wrote:

xxBlazinGhostxx wrote:Also I would THINK a tomb spyder would be useful to help insure WBB. IIRC, with a res orb and a Lith, the only way to put down a group of warriors is to kill them all. I mean ALL and the Spyder would allow you to get WBB even if the unit is down and there are no similar units within 6" of the unit. It's pretty cheap at 55 pts. And can poop out a scarab to give it like 3 extra wounds and a cover save.

No, not really. It only really helps against shooting, and an entire unit of necrons getting shot to death is pretty rare. If you have several very separated Destroyer or HeavyD units it could be worthwhile, but then you are shackling them to a slow model when speed is one of their great advantages.

Triple Monolith can work. Dash is playing that now. It is highly vulnerable to phase out, but it's not automatic.

What he said about the spyders is spot on, imo at least. I'm no expert but in the few games I've played I find it best to give your enemy a lot of scary targets he needs to get rid of. Like destroyers, C'tan (I prefer Deciever), monoliths, pariahs, etc. This will force him to either just try to phase you out at the expense of ignoring some devastating units.

Destroyers are also probably one of the best things you can field, heavies dont really seem worth it but at the same time you have very little other AV cept for "glance it till it dies".

I've never run a melee lord because frankly he seems best suited for support. With a res orb keep him near groups of warriors to keep on trucking. I also never take the warscythe since AP3 is so rare to come by with necrons, besides 12 range S5 AP3 Assault 3 aint a bad default weapon. Some interesting tricks the lord has are phylactery which is great when it works, phase shifter since you'll run into AP, and Nightmare Shroud/Gaze of Flame which has some nice synergy with the Deciever, Pariahs, and flayed ones (though I've never used them). I have run into some problems with my brother's IG who likes dropping some mean pie plates, a VoD could help getting them close to basilisks and leman russes I suppose, but then you'd need a warscythe or wraiths to take it down, and if you are that far in the enemy line you'll get shot, up even by lasguns.

Also never ever melee, I've lost to Tau in melee...several times

Finally I'm a big fan of immortals, they have a 24 inch assault wep which effectively gives you a 30 inch S5 AP4 weapon, if you can take a lot of these they wont dissapoint you.

Dashofpepper wrote:Greetings!
In both lists, my warriors stay in reserve and walk on from a table edge - I teleport them through a monolith to an objective later if I need them, but I keep them on my table edge and away from danger as much as possible.

Don't the warriors have special rule that if in reserves, they can only enter via monolith? I just re-read the rule... Does it mean that 2 squads of warriors can enter normaly from table edge, but others must get through monolith?

that's how I understood it, any in excess of FOC requirement must port through. I could be mistaken though.

Oh, and Dash, you have any necron battle reports with those lists... I'd gone through some of your ork reports and I found them quite useful...



Automatically Appended Next Post:

asimo77 wrote:that's how I understood it, any in excess of FOC requirement must port through. I could be mistaken though.

My second interpretation would be that only if you play a game with no reserves, you have to port them through... But that "whether" in rules makes me think it's the first interpretation...

asimo77 wrote:that's how I understood it, any in excess of FOC requirement must port through. I could be mistaken though.

You declare at the start whether they are porting in or going to walk on. If all Liths are destroyed and you still have warriors waiting to port in, they are also destroyed.

Warmaster wrote:

Sanctjud wrote:Can you walk onto the board when a monolith is in the list?
I thought you had no choice in the matter and HAD to port them in if the monolith is in the list... though I'm not too familiar with Necrons as well.

It's actually answered in the Necron faq on the gw website for once.

Q. Can units of Necron Warriors enter from
reserve as normal or must they enter via a
Monolith?
A. If the players hold any units of Necron
Warriors in reserve, he must specify if they are
going to enter the game through the Monolith or
simply walk in from their own table edge, as
normal. If units of Warriors are using this rule
and all available Monoliths are destroyed, the
Warriors count as destroyed and may therefore
trigger the Phase Out of the on-table portion of
the army.

I found this on another topic regarding necrons, so that's out of the way... As for wraith wing strategy (and necron tactica in general), I found quite the better topic than this:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/310956.page

Remember, that rule was written back when reserves was a special rule only in some scenarios, rather than always accessible.