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Ive been playing the Necrons alot lately. It started out as "hey this is a new army for me, and itll be fun" which it has been. Learning new rules and forcing myself to learn different play styles has been a blast, they are so much different then my Orks (having fantastic armor saves and incredible LD is a nice change of pace ) I figured I would be loosing alot though since they are new to me, and Ive heard nothing but SUCK!!!! about them. Oddly enough thats not how its been for me.

Ive played some incredibly close games, and won the rest. Infact yesterday I played against a SM player that at 1500 had 2 LR, both packing terminators (1 was assault) and 2 rhinos that had plasma cannon/rocket launchers and naturally they sat on objectives. I freaked, I had

Lord w/VOD +stuff n things
Lord w/warscythe/res orb +things n stuff
usual warrior load out
Immortals
flayed ones
destroyers
scarabs w/fields
scarabs w/fields

But I still managed to kick alot of ass. We played a mission from the battles book but I cant remember what they were tbh. My scarabs literally ate a LR on turn 1. My Immortals damn near turned the other into a slag heap on turn one. So on the first turn, the things I worried about the most where gone.

The game ran 6 turns which annoyed me to no end. I was actually winning by 2 objectives, I had everything right where I needed it to win. As long as the game didnt go 1 more turn I would of held out and took the victory from a build I thought I was going to get my head kicked in by. But I rolled another turn and wouldnt ya know it, I phased out in turn 6. It was a super close game, and I had a blast. But I learned a few things


Scarabs w/disruption fields
These things are fairly cheap, are super fast, and will kick the living hell out of a tank on the assault. Yea sure, you need 6s and can only glance, BUT when your pumping out a metric ton of attacks, 6s pop up. Not only that, but they are FANTASTIC at tying up units (specially the MEQs type) Infact I used them in a game against Tyranids to set up the nids player. I strung out a unit of scarabs right infront of a genestealer squad and then just sat them there. So the nids player either A. assaults them, or B. goes around them, keeping them too far away from my warriors. My next shooting phase, they were in perfect rapid fire range, and those warriors simply murdered the stealers. Seriously, scarabs are probably going to always be in my lists.

Immortals
Sticking them with a VOD Lord is what Ive been doing from the get go. My ONLY problem is Im still mis judging my distance (odd because normally Im good at it) and they are too close to other units and get assaulted. BUT, ignoring that, these guys will kick in teeth. The gauss blaster has a boat load of shots and can and did strip down tanks. Again, 1 turn they pop up behind a LR and shot it to pieces. Stunned, and 3 weapon destroyed results in 1 go. Not to mention its a str5 weapon, so Ive thrown shots at infantry units causing some pretty painful results. Not to mention, with the volume of shots, you can strip wounds off of big tough guys with ease as well.

Destroyers
Simply put, I need more of these and stat. I only have 3 currently, but they have made transports go bye bye with ease, and have cause some damage to infantry as well. Super duper fast, and a really long range weapon + high str is just a winner in my book



So anything else? My list is pretty mish mash right now, but in time Ill improve on it, and once the codex comes out (fingers crossed this summer) I think they will be even better. Are they auto lose? I dont think so, it takes some thinking and prioritizing on how to play them currently, but even using sub par units, Ive pulled out some nice wins/close calls. I need to do a 2k point game, because then I can play with monoliths which Im excited about. What other tactics have you used, or had used on your army that was really tough? Im very curious because Ill be honest, I think my boyz are going to be shelved for a little while, as Im really digging the robozombies

The key to this army, as you no doubt have seen, is staying out of assault. In a straight up shooting war, even in 5th, you can still beat almost everything. It is only combat where necrons fall apart, or when they need to glance 12-15 vehicles to death. but even that CAN be done.

There are several ways to defend your army from assault. One, is being highly mobile, with destroyers, and a VOD lord teleporting immortals around.

Another, and it looks like you have been doing it, is using scarabs to either tie up scary assault units, or screen your more valuable troops.

One that I have used, and many others as well, is using monoliths to stay out of assault. They are great at making walls, and teleporting you vulnerable models around is pretty handy.

If you can do some mix of all of this, then you can still do well with Necrons.

The problems arise when you face an army that has too many assault threats for you to deal with, or can easily destroy your scarabs or monoliths, or has the firepower to simply wipe out whole units and deny you WBB.

This problem often comes in the form of Mech IG with Manticores, Thunder Wolves with Power Fists, Battle Wagons with Deff Rollas, or Nob Bikers. There are others, but these are just a few examples.

That being said, there are still a lot of armies floating around that can be taken off guard by a good Necron list. Play them well, and good luck.

I can add, that Lords with Warscythes are still incredibly underwhelming, even with a 4+ inv save. I mean, EVENTUALLY I had the scythe lord kill off a 5 man terminator squad, it was pretty funny, but he doesnt get enough attacks, or he needs higher WS in the new codex, either one of those will fix his problem.

Also, anyone that relies on the scythe lord to KO a tank, is doing it wrong. I attack a LR twice (immobolised even) and did nothing. Youd figure out of 8 auto hits, one of them would of been a magic number lighter tanks go for it, not big guys.

Seriously, scarabs just own vehicles. I now want more scarabs for bigger mech armies

That sounds like a really suboptimal Space Marine army to take on Necrons. 2x Land Raiders and 2 squads of termies in 1500 list? that's 900 points minimum... One of them had tactical terminators in it? Talk about making your gauss and scarabs really good.

I think your analysis on those units is fairly good, but have you played against any large blast high strength units yet, like vindicators or defilers? The whole instant death and vulnerable to blast rules tend to combine fairly poorly for those little scarabs. One hit can make the whole squad disapear.

-Myst

I....I....y.y..you won without a monolith!?!!?!?


I am astounded!

Can't tell if you're being serious or not, Jaon.

They're not mandatory, just a huge help.

Got second in an 8-person 1500 point tournament a couple days ago without one.
Not that my area is ultra-competitive yet, but still.

How many scarabs did you have per squad? I've just bought myself another 10 destroyers so I can have either 2x5 Destroyers+1x10 scarabs or 3x5 Destroyers.

Also, whats your experience Vs Dreads? I need to knock my SM friends Dread and Devastator squad out ASAP because he charges in to C&C with his dread and punishes me with his plasma cannon and have been wondering what I'm going to do about his dread...or even any of his armour.


Congrats though man, you've given me hope that I haven't made a doomed choice for a first army! The stuff about the new dex just depresses me though....

Against dreads, necrons have a few options.

The better ones:

Heavy destroyers, C'tan, Monoliths.

Average:

Mass gauss.

The worse ones:

Paraiahs, Wraiths, Tomb Spyders, Lord w/warscythe,

I have had great success with my Necrons and actually have yet to phase out against a variety of lists.

Currently, I am running this:

Necrons - 2000
Lord - Warscythe, Resurrection Orb, Phase Shifter, Destroyer Body
15 Warriors
10 Warriors
5 Destroyers
5 Destroyers
5 Destroyers
3 Heavy Destroyers
3 Heavy Destroyers
3 Heavy Destroyers
Total - 1995

I've always run 15 Destroyers. I cannot fit Scarabs because of it. Otherwise, I'd probably have a couple units of the little guys. They're great for late-game objective contesting as well.

I'm surprised that you think the Lord is bad. My Destroyer Lord threatens enemy Devastators and static tanks. He once revived 3 times in one game and kept tying up Abaddon & retinue.

King, I have no doubt that you do things right.
No Monolith ?

Hrm. There's a lot I'd like to write. I've touched on this thread about 3 times in the last few days and haven't said anything yet. I'll just say this -

KingCracker, well done - teach some newbies to RESPECT YOUR NECRON AUTHORITA!

But redundancy is important, and I'm not sure you'll like the experience against some of the more competitive armies out there.

I have only been playing necrons for a short time now but i have to say i love em.

Dont really care about phase out, I like the rule. (dont hit me )
just wish my gauss would work agein.

And i have hade some succsess so far.

Just wana send my support man. keep at em.

If it weren't for the radical changes that 5th did to the survivability of vehicles, necrons would still be considered by many to be a decent to good codex. The fact that they can make more than just 1 list being as old as they are shows that. Most common list types: monolith spam, destroyer wing, wraithwing (requires monolith support, so looks a lot like the monolith spam) and the high toughness horde (all T5+ models, can look a bit like the destroyer wing, but lacks the HS destroyers for tomb spiders, and has quite a few immortals), not as popular or wide spread, but facing it sucks, needing 5s or 6s to wound with your small arms is not a good place to be against a 3+ and WBB army.

If you aren't bringing a ton of vehicles, and are disrespecting necrons, you are going to get hurt. The book isn't what I would call great, but even the bottom feeder codex can mess you up if they are run by a competent player, and you don't know the counters (or your list lacks the counters) to the strategy they are using.

Well like I said (I think I said it ) the army I have is not optimized at all, it was given to me from a guy that used to work for GW some years ago, but he doesnt care for the game, so its just a mish mash of everything.


And uh yea, doing rather well with out the liths. I remember reading somewhere on here that its not wise to use them in smaller point games, so I havnt.

I know the SM list I mentioned wasnt "Holy crap!" but when you see something like that plop down and the strongest weapon in your entire army is STR6, it makes you a bit worried. Not to mention until then, I had only thought the idea of disruption fields would work.

And on that note, I took 2, 6 scarab squads. You REALLY have to know what your sending them after, because as mentioned, damn those things go fast if a template drops on them. I lost one of the squads in no time when a plasma cannon template landed on them, followed by a frag missile. But even still, the one unit left just made that LR its bitch.

Ive yet to play against a dread, so really I cant talk about the experience. But I can say that going by the damage I caused with gauss and disruption fields, a dread wouldnt be too scary (not saying they wont murder things if they make it into CC) Personally, Id probably throw scarabs at one if I didnt gauss it to death before hand.

Lords are just not good in CC. I took one that was geared towards CC against the SM, and still.....so many 4s, and so little attacks. Sure he kept getting up and eventually killed off 5 terminators, the point was it took like 3 or 4 turns to pull that off, 1 bad WBB and he would of been wasted. Couldnt kill tanks, couldnt get his CC on.

KingCracker wrote:Ive yet to play against a dread, so really I cant talk about the experience. But I can say that going by the damage I caused with gauss and disruption fields, a dread wouldnt be too scary (not saying they wont murder things if they make it into CC) Personally, Id probably throw scarabs at one if I didnt gauss it to death before hand.

They splat Scarabs. Just hit them with Gauss. Might not blow them up, but if they're just standing around looking stupid you don't need to blow them up.

Teh Warscythe can be underwhelming in CC sometimes.

I tend to use it on a Destroyer Lord and go tank hunting. With 2D6 vs armour thats a potential S18 max. Plus being able to assault with that after 12" and a 6" charge, muwhahahahaha!!!

STR18?

He's STR5 + 2d6 (12 max) for 17 max....unless I'm missing something?

I use my destroyer lord with my wraiths - gives them a rez orb and since they don't have power weapons, the destroyer Lord's Warscythe adds a little bit of help to the close combat.

you're right, Str17. It's been a long day.

Still, my point was that he is capapbale of killing any armour in the game....potentially.

Yea, it does have the potential to take out a LR, but in that one game, I tried twice with my warscythe lord on an already immobolised LR, and still couldnt do more then an occasional glance.

Ive decided that my first Lord will be a VOD/res Orb and just port everywhere. Only if I take two will I switch it up and take a warscythe build, they just are not up to par for what they are suppose to be. At first I was thinking its because Im used to Orks HQs, you know, you throw them at things, and those things tend to die a horribly bad death. So Im going support Lord first and foremost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dreadnaught
Yea, didnt think about the scarabs being so damn slow. Id suggest gauss the dread to death.

I've always been an advocate of Staff of Light>warscythe. The WS has it's benefit but the drawbacks are just too harsh. You lose one of your only AP3 weapons, it's still a power weapon in CC and it's an assault 3 weapon. To lose all the ranged capability just to have +1d6 AP and ignore invul saves (few and far between, generally) just doesn't cut it in my book. And even then, the ability to ignore invul saves, while nice, isn't a catch-all. It's still on a WS4 model (so typically a 50/50 chance to hit) and unless you take pariahs *Laugh* you're only going to have 2 models with this ability. Against how many units that could potentially have Inv saves?

Anywho man, I'm with you KingCracker, everyone saying that "necrons suck" probably just played against someone that either had a bad run or was inexperienced with them. I've had bad games and I recognize the weakness of necrons but I've compensated and do quite well against the 3 MEQ opponents I play against. Glad to hear you're having a good time with them.

Just remember, there will come a game when your scarabs get obliterated or just accomplish nothing. Str 6 weaponry is not hard to field for other armies.

Well the moast common guilty culprint is of course hammer temrinators.

I know not to expect to always roll so well with the scarabs, but just having 6 a squad did pretty fantastic, so Im pretty sure they will be a common thing in my builds. And thunder terminators wouldnt scare me that badly. Id probably be sending Immortals at them when they hit the ground running. So Id just shoot the piss out of them and keep my distance.

Ive really go to get my distance thing down with them though, I just dont understand why Im shorting myself with them so much. MAYBE Im relying on them to do a bulk of the harassing/damage and I dont want to end up being to far away. Ill work on it


Automatically Appended Next Post:
While Im at it, Ill be playing with the Monoliths here soon and wonder as far as how my build is currently, how should I utilize them? Ive got 2, so should I cram one down the enemies throat and use the other for support?

average roll on 2D6 is 7.

7+5 = not good enough to reliably destroy tanks.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Good enough for transports, but not for AV12 +

(What other than mono's and LR's have good rear AV?)

mulkers wrote:average roll on 2D6 is 7.

7+5 = not good enough to reliably destroy tanks.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Good enough for transports, but not for AV12 +

(What other than mono's and LR's have good rear AV?)

Storm ravens have 12 all arounds, and russes varients have 11s.

notabot187 wrote:Storm ravens have 12 all arounds, and russes varients have 11s.

Storm Ravens, if used right, should be moving too fast to hit reliably in CC.
Russes, though? He'll carve through Russes well enough.

monoliths block the enemy from charging your crons, put pie plates on the enemy, and pull your troops out of combat, not necessarily in that order. Oh they can also be fun to place right on objectives so your opponent cannot get to them

Nightbringer's Chosen wrote:

notabot187 wrote:Storm ravens have 12 all arounds, and russes varients have 11s.

Storm Ravens, if used right, should be moving too fast to hit reliably in CC.
Russes, though? He'll carve through Russes well enough.

In that situation is why Im glad they have gauss. Id just shoot the damn things down or immobolise/stun them first.


And to the above, I laughed at the monoliths literally blocking objectives Thats a good one

I don't have trouble will many armies. Been guard I have a gun for almost anything. I have enough options to swap out and change to keep up with my local meta game and i'm one of the guys that stay a step ahead. Necrons however have always been my bane. I know the little loop holes in orbs and we'll be back. I know to avoid 'liths and things ect. My army should drop 'crons without a second thought but I can't. I've outfought the nid's, outshot tau, out flanked DE. Necrons just seem to defy all logic People claim the army is full of crap and is pretty much a broken codex but they still cause me such a headache. I can shoot and shoot and shoot, firing every heavy weapon into them but they keep coming. I can send blobbed units armed with power weapons to the teeth and still be outfought. A good 'cron list can be a very challenging list to face for even the seasoned vets of the game. Good show!