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Hey guys. I need help as I am out of ideas.

Let me explain quickly what I'm dealing with here.
- my firend plays IG and he's quite a seasoned player with much better ability to "judge" distances with bare eye
- he uses a Psyker Battle Squad (so far never used Chimera as transport) to decimate my poor Crons
- he fortifies multiple 48" range Autocannons and keeps Psykers in max possible range, hidden behind buildings usually
- we play 600 point tournament patrol games (local store league rules : 0-1HQ,1-3Troop,0-1Elite,0-1Fast,0-1Heavy - more info in this thread : http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/412358.page)
- as we know 95% of Necron units avilable in this point range will have 24" + 6" move shooty range
- Psykers have 36" + 6" move range and they only have to pass psychic test (with Ld 10) to lower my unit's Ld to 2.
- adter he does that, he uses Autocannons and Hydra Flak Battery to kill at least 25% of mentioned unit.
- after that I have to make morale check and it's f*** impossible to roll 2 ones and pass with Ld2.
- so most of times my units fallback, and how it was with Tomb Blades which almost got to psykers - 3 get killed, rest failed, less than 50% unit, cannot regroup - screwed.

Big story short, can't find a way to come close enough to him :( Before I can get in my shooting range, he already has me falling back.
Not many things I can pick with mentioned setup, and rule that allows you to only use vehicles with max 34 armor (front+side+back) gives Necron Vehicles large disadvantage. The shop rules state Necrons can use all of their vehicles but they are counted as NOT HAVING Quantum Shielding as it would abuse mentioned rule (since front and side would count as 13). Therefore I have costly skimmers with 11 armor - not good. <- this restriction was lifted 04/12 an we can finally have normal QS in the league Yay!

Any ideas? Please, I'm growing sick of getting decimated every freaking battle. That Psyker Battle Squad is one of most OP things in small games I've seen. If only he had 24" range or anything... Nope 36" abuse power e-peen :/

So far I'm thinking how to use Solar Pulse (will only get one with these rules). And to use Tomb Spyders as deiscussed here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/413544.page

Perhaps any of you can give me some advice on how, and with which units I can get to those bloody psykers and kill them? The way he plays - killing that unit will cripple him largely and give me a large chance of killing him or at least holding enough objectives to win (usually he has me fleeing from objectives, so I can't even hold anything... there is no cover save from Psyker's Weaken Resolve).

Take a Doomsday Arc and peg him from 72 inches away? Thats the very first thing that pops into my head,

Your best chance is to try to whittle them down before they can use that power. If there are only like 5 of them left, you may have a chance of passing.

Destroyers, Tomb BLades with the particle weapons and the Doom Ark will work well in this case.

Yeah, I'm beginning to think the only way to fight a no-fun abusive tactic is to use a more no-fun abusive tactic :]

Will hold troops in reserve until last round and until then - decimate him from 72". Let's see IG going out of their trenches trying to get at least 48" from Ark. Especially since he can't take any long range Leman Russ with these rules :]

CthuluIsSpy wrote:Your best chance is to try to whittle them down before they can use that power. If there are only like 5 of them left, you may have a chance of passing.

Destroyers, Tomb BLades with the particle weapons and the Doom Ark will work well in this case.

He has 9 psykers (or 10?) and overseer. So quite a few, and he always keeps them in back lines behind cover.
Last time I tried to get close enough with Tomb Blades - they got affected by Weaken Resolve, 3 got killed by massive fire and remaining two fleed with no chance to regroup :(
I'm afraid same will happen to Destroyers who have 24" range and can't even turbo-boost, which again gave Tomb Blades little chance as he only had to kill 3 blades which are 1 wound.
Even with 3+ cover save, Weaken Resolve hit automaticly and 4 autocannons and hydra menaged to kill 3 of them :/

Thanks for such quick response - I apreciate any ideas so please, keep 'em coming

Sanctioned Psykers are LD9, not LD10. Use lots of small units to lessen the impact of the psykers. Wraiths and scarabs can run up and assault rather quickly. Shoot their weapon teams with Annihilation Barges.

As to the rule about vehicles having max 34 AV...technically, you may still have QS because it counts as an upgrade, and not part of the vehicle itself.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/410739.page#3586114

MasterSlowPoke wrote:Sanctioned Psykers are LD9, not LD10. Use lots of small units to lessen the impact of the psykers. Wraiths and scarabs can run up and assault rather quickly. Shoot their weapon teams with Annihilation Barges.

Will definetly try that in bigger games. At 600 points it's hard to get proper scoring units and have points left for wraiths and arc But will try to pull the best I can from this idea.

Also Ld9 and Ld10 is still little difference to me here :( I only seen him fail 2 times out of like 15 and suffered Perils of the Warp only once. Ever :(

CthuluIsSpy wrote:As to the rule about vehicles having max 34 AV...technically, you may still have QS because it counts as an upgrade, and not part of the vehicle itself.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/410739.page#3586114

Will try to convince local store (who holds that tournament) to be more generous about Necron Vehicles, and send them thread you linked.
Or at least to convince my friend to use slightly altered rules / let me use vehicles with QS as you described them.

EDIT:
One more thing that screws the idea of using Doomsday Ark - the tables we play at that store and mentioned in rules are 48"x48".
Add the lowered armor on Ark (see rant above) and I find myself in range of Autocannons with their S7, Heavy 2 :/ That's 4+ glance and 5+ penetration. And he has like 12 such shots per turn...

All I can say is vehicles don't take LD checks. Neither do units in transports.

Unfortunately you don't have much points room to do that with and some arbitrary extra rules that mess with you.

Herr Dexter wrote:

MasterSlowPoke wrote:Sanctioned Psykers are LD9, not LD10. Use lots of small units to lessen the impact of the psykers. Wraiths and scarabs can run up and assault rather quickly. Shoot their weapon teams with Annihilation Barges.

Will definetly try that in bigger games. At 600 points it's hard to get proper scoring units and have points left for wraiths and arc But will try to pull the best I can from this idea.

Also Ld9 and Ld10 is still little difference to me here :( I only seen him fail 2 times out of like 15 and suffered Perils of the Warp only once. Ever :(

CthuluIsSpy wrote:As to the rule about vehicles having max 34 AV...technically, you may still have QS because it counts as an upgrade, and not part of the vehicle itself.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/410739.page#3586114

Will try to convince local store (who holds that tournament) to be more generous about Necron Vehicles, and send them thread you linked.
Or at least to convince my friend to use slightly altered rules / let me use vehicles with QS as you described them.

EDIT:
One more thing that screws the idea of using Doomsday Ark - the tables we play at that store and mentioned in rules are 48"x48".
Add the lowered armor on Ark (see rant above) and I find myself in range of Autocannons with their S7, Heavy 2 :/ That's 4+ glance and 5+ penetration. And he has like 12 such shots per turn...

Its only 48x48? Good. Time for some destroyer shenanigans.

Scarabs are fearless and dont fall back.

Tyrs13 wrote:Scarabs are fearless and dont fall back.

Ai, but they are T3 and vulnerable to blasts. The same psyker squad could just drop a template on them and get it over with.

I believe your best chance is to whittle them away at range.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Its only 48x48? Good. Time for some destroyer shenanigans.

Sounds fun, but pardon my newb knowledge - what is a destroyer shenanigan?

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Tyrs13 wrote:Scarabs are fearless and dont fall back.

Ai, but they are T3 and vulnerable to blasts. The same psyker squad could just drop a template on them and get it over with.

I believe your best chance is to whittle them away at range.

That's my fear about scarabs. They are awesome to take down vehicles, but he has only one Hydra which I can take out with Eldrich Lance (though last time I rolled "1" on penetration roll, five times in one game, causing not even a glancing hit O_o). He has around 3 greande launchers and psyker squad can indeed place large blast. I fear Scarabs will just share fate of my Tomb Blades, only in other manner. And let's be honest - Scarabs are a bit expensive when we deal with Necrons and point limit 600. A sturdy 10 base swarm would be 150, and can die in one precise psyker large blast :(

As for range, that is the issue all the time - his shooting range is far greater than mine and I can't get close enough to shoot them :(

Herr Dexter wrote:

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Its only 48x48? Good. Time for some destroyer shenanigans.

Sounds fun, but pardon my newb knowledge - what is a destroyer shenanigan?

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Tyrs13 wrote:Scarabs are fearless and dont fall back.

Ai, but they are T3 and vulnerable to blasts. The same psyker squad could just drop a template on them and get it over with.

I believe your best chance is to whittle them away at range.

That's my fear about scarabs. They are awesome to take down vehicles, but he has only one Hydra which I can take out with Eldrich Lance (though last time I rolled "1" on penetration roll, five times in one game, causing not even a glancing hit O_o). He has around 3 greande launchers and psyker squad can indeed place large blast. I fear Scarabs will just share fate of my Tomb Blades, only in other manner. And let's be honest - Scarabs are a bit expensive when we deal with Necrons and point limit 600. A sturdy 10 base swarm would be 150, and can die in one precise psyker large blast :(

As for range, that is the issue all the time - his shooting range is far greater than mine and I can't get close enough to shoot them :(

Well, it is a 48"x48" table, so range isn't that much of a problem. Tomb Blades and destroyers may move 12" and they have 24" guns, giving them an effective 36" kill zone. Deploy them 12" from your table edge and you can shoot every thing. I think the Tomb Blades would actually be better than Destroyers, since they can take a 24" S6 AP5 blast weapon, and with shieldvanes they will be about the same price.

What about using a Night Scythe? Fly up and shoot down the enem,y, and if it still around next turn you can drop off whatever is inside.

If he drops a template on scarabs he isn't lowering another unit's LD. And he HAS to deal with the scarabs. Use them as bait.

One your frien iss kinda a waac to me if hes running all 10 as psykers and at ld10. There not ld 10 rather they are ld 9. And only 9 psykers max.

Two. I agree with the scarabs. Or maybe have a couple of solar pulses, night fighting as ig is no fun.

Three. If these are friendly games, this guy isnt very friendly.

Hope your luck changes.

-remember scarabs have up to a 24" charge range, if he moves /anything/ forward, you can assault it (though it sounds like he is just castling in a corner)

- run 3 small units of scarabs, move up, run and get them behind cover on turn 1 (remember they get +1 cover save) on turn 2 you can easily assault a large chunk of his army. If you get first turn thats only one shooting phase to deal with.
If you are /still/ having problems a tomb spider can give you a bubble of anti-psyker defences (remember that only one model per squad must be in range for it to work)

-weaken resolve requires line of sight, you should be able to cut at least one of them out of the picture by keeping out of its sight if you are using the proper amount of terrain

-think about playing on an actual warhammer sized table (6X4) and at a reasonable point value (1500 or so) with stand in models, since necrons are so expensive you have few options at that pt value.

That "QS doesn't count" rule is bull considering all of the other restrictions on the format.

You could also use Canoptek Spyders for psychic defense. But a Ghost Ark with real QS absolutely destroys the cheese he is trying to spam. Any other gimmick is probably going to tailor your list so much that you will be weak against someone else.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:One your frien iss kinda a waac to me if hes running all 10 as psykers and at ld10. There not ld 10 rather they are ld 9. And only 9 psykers max.

Two. I agree with the scarabs. Or maybe have a couple of solar pulses, night fighting as ig is no fun.

Three. If these are friendly games, this guy isnt very friendly.

Hope your luck changes.

ad One - my bad, just checked his army list - 9 psykers + overseer, I was wrong. But was right about autocannons - 4 and grenade launchers - 3.

ad Two - with max.1 HQ in those 600pt patrol games I can have max 1 Solar Pulse, and had trouble finding free points to spend on it :(

ad Three - Can't crack him when it comes to gaming. He's a nice guy and I know him since highschool, can't say a bad word about him honestly. But when it comes to Warhammer (both FB and 40k) and RTS (Starcraft, C&C, RedaAlert etc..) he's VERY waac :( Doesn't make sense to me as he hates tournament play and is not even playing in the mentioned local tournament league - we play every now and than at my house. Only reason we play that 600 pt. patrol is since I was trying to sharpen up tactics for tournament and test my lists. Also I don't have Necrons to make larger army yet... The nofun part is that he runs almost the same army list every time with same scenario - Platoon in cover and Psykers hidden around the corner. Same damn game every time. I would get bored :( Same army decimated my DE friend even harder than my crons - Wyches got decimated and Warriors ran away screeming "Slanesh is coming, runaway!" O_o. What's the fun in beeing ditched in one building and making everyone runaway :( Was fun first 3 times, back when we played 500pt and I had oldcrons, but now it's really boring. Pardon my wall of text, had to vent.

Grundz wrote:-remember scarabs have up to a 24" charge range, if he moves /anything/ forward, you can assault it (though it sounds like he is just castling in a corner)

- run 3 small units of scarabs, move up, run and get them behind cover on turn 1 (remember they get +1 cover save) on turn 2 you can easily assault a large chunk of his army. If you get first turn thats only one shooting phase to deal with.

If you are /still/ having problems a tomb spider can give you a bubble of anti-psyker defences (remember that only one model per squad must be in range for it to work)

-weaken resolve requires line of sight, you should be able to cut at least one of them out of the picture by keeping out of its sight if you are using the proper amount of terrain

-think about playing on an actual warhammer sized table (6X4) and at a reasonable point value (1500 or so) with stand in models, since necrons are so expensive you have few options at that pt value.

ad 3 small units - will try in larger games, with patrol rules we have atm it's only 0-1 Fast Attack, so I can have only one unit of scarabs

ad Spyder - that's my curent approach, will try it next time - hope it will at least allow me to come close enough to spam teslas into his tightly packed platoon goons

ad LOS terrain - we had a quarrel about that, all my buildings have open windows at ground floor and you can indeed look through them - so he claims that as long as he sees at least a bit of 1 of me models he can psyke them out :/ Same reason I could never use infiltrate Flayed Ones, no way to get out of LOS... I will have to make adjustments and "barricade" all those windows so that groundfloor has no fire points and blocks LOS unquestionably...

ad 6x4 table and rules - as soon as I have enough painted crons to make some nice 1000-1500 point army I will gladly abandon idea of playing patrol with him. Frankly, atm I'm sharpening my universal army list and want to enter that small 600pt patrol tournament, mostly to get a chance of learning game from other players and chance to play against armies other than IG and DE which my friends have

immortals then, with telsa, maybe a lord to give them relentless
he runs no ap3 weapons, autocannons and grenade launchers shouldn't be able to put much of a dent in them.

any av13 vehicle will be very hard to deal with for autocannons, I suggest the one that carries all the telsa weaponry for 90 pts

Grundz wrote:-think about playing on an actual warhammer sized table (6X4) and at a reasonable point value (1500 or so) with stand in models, since necrons are so expensive you have few options at that pt value.

This was the first thing that popped into mind for me as well. At 600 points the IG still has many options where we necrons have almost none. Forgive me if this wasnt really the advice you were looking for but its the only thing I can really think of too. At 1500 things will balance out a bit more and on a regular sized table you wont actually be in range of his PSB all the time.

The table is 48in... how the hell are you having range issues?

On that note, the psychers need to have line of sight in order to use that power... Take a tomb spyder and force him to make it through another 4+ on top of his psychic test.

Also, use a cryptek with a veil of darkness to port a full squad of tesla immortals right on top of his psychers. Sure, it's a suicide move, but they're going to fall back to YOUR table edge which means if he doesn't wipe them you'll get at least a round of shooting off with them. The psychers are T3 last I remembered... Pretty sure you can wipe them all out with only like 6 tesla shots if you roll a six or two.

Another idea is to, like the others have said, take a doomsday ark or annihilation barge. Slam a s9 blast or the tesla destructor shot into the unit of psychers and watch his whole army fall apart.

Finally, if you want to be REALLY annoying, take immotekh. Ya I realize he's stupidly expensive at 600pts, but you stand a chance of outright killing his whole army on your first shooting phase. On top of that, psychic powers that require line of sight still need to test for night fighting in order to function. If you deploy back, he would need to move forward a full move AND roll double 6s to hit you.

Shake Zoola wrote:Forgive me if this wasnt really the advice you were looking for but its the only thing I can really think of too. At 1500 things will balance out a bit more and on a regular sized table you wont actually be in range of his PSB all the time.

It's ok - been looking up to that myself. At 1500 I will have much more fun, and threat from PSB will seriously lower.

Grundz wrote:
any av13 vehicle will be very hard to deal with for autocannons, I suggest the one that carries all the telsa weaponry for 90 pts

Av13 is my main issue with the rules I listed in OP link. Unless tournament judges agree for some kind of compensation in points or at least lowering QS to 12, all Necron vehicles
count as 11/11/11 with no QS in all 600pt tournament games there. Need to talk some sense into them :/

WanderingFox wrote:
Also, use a cryptek with a veil of darkness to port a full squad of tesla immortals right on top of his psychers. Sure, it's a suicide move, but they're going to fall back to YOUR table edge which means if he doesn't wipe them you'll get at least a round of shooting off with them. The psychers are T3 last I remembered... Pretty sure you can wipe them all out with only like 6 tesla shots if you roll a six or two.

Bloody good idea. Will give that a try! As for Imotekh - no go, no named characters allowed by rules. In bigger games I'll have to convince friends I play with to allow use of named characters, as Necrons seem really balanced around certain HQs... And I always wanted epic battles. Humiliating defeat and bringing Lord Castellan Creed to his knees to carve Necron logo on his fat Cadian ass would defo make my day ;]

You really ought to talk to them about the vehicle thing... Necrons would be the only army that could not field at least one vehicle with those rules. I would honestly say that they're all okay outside of the monolith. They are av11 all around according to their stat line. They just get that boosted by a rule (like furious charge). The strength bonus to furious charge doesn't count for strength tests, so neither should the av bonus from shielding count for if you can use it or not. In fact it prevents you from using 2/5 of the models in your codex (ghost ark, doomsday ark, annihilation barge, catacomb command barge, triarch stalkers, night scythe, doom scythe). Thats 7 vehicles (not counting the monolith since it wouldn't be usable anyway). The necron codex only has 24 other models in it. That's counting ICs too... If we omit those, there are only 18 other models, which means the excluded vehicles are over a quarter of your codex. That's a SEVERE handicap in terms of tactical ability.

Really though, everyone else has hit the nail on the head here... Crons just aren't meant to play at this low point cost, they never were (old codex's min deployment of 2 troops and an hq was 460 :3).

Will see if the rules change after the first "season" of the tournament.
I will be joining league in early february. And will be ranting about vehicles constantly until they make some reasonable rule adjustments.

As for nail on the head - you're all right. And I'm looking forward to playing large games, just need some time for army gathering and painintg.
Would be sad not to play just because I don't have more units atm But meybe I am destined to play some other army for patrol and Necrons for large games.
We shall see

And, Fox - I do recall oldcrons 500pt very good :] My 2x troops + Lord on destroyer body + warscythe got me 5 wins (and horrible losses against said IG).
At least now I got some options, even at 600pt. Again, I am indeed going toward playing regular point games. Soon I hope.

Well what I was getting at is that we have NO options at low point costs. Even in the new codex we have no real options at 600 pts... Granted it's more than before, but without the ability to take things like lychguard, or multiple infantry units with crypteks...

One of the biggest things footcrons have going for them is the ability to hide multiple crypteks in the units of infantry. The issue you're hitting here is that it's just too damn expensive to do (nevermind the HQ limitation). It's like 730 pts for 3 units of immortals with 3 harbingers of destruction and an OL with scarabs and a scythe. You could probably get that down a little bit, but you have no flare in the unit...

Necrons really need the 1000 points since it lets you take ~775 in core (immortals, crypteks, and a CC overlord) and still gives you enough points for a unit of "something else" usually some long range fire support, or a CC unit, or a vehicle or two of some sort.

You could try a tomb spider with the psi defence upgrade, can't remember the points off the top of my head, and other then that wait for the points raise, and your "friend" is playing a non friendly WAAC list that shouldn't be played in any kind of friendly or non-competitive enviroment.

Praetorians. Fearless. T5. JI.

Your main problem is that the rules are complete garbage.

Don't get me wrong, I think non standard games can be a blast... but unfortunately for you, like most homemade rules, the ones your store has come up with completely benefit certain armies while making others nearly unplayable. The IG in particular are allowed to take everything they have that is effective in low point games, while you aren't allowed to take the units that would make the fight even. Not matter what good advice you get, you will be fighting against the odds from turn 1; there's no reason why you should have to try so hard while your opponent gets to "autopilot" through the match.

Get them to change the rules and allow you to take your vehicles at the least. If they won't, hand them your codex and tell them to to build an army and fight that player. Maybe after they get massacred a few times they will change the restrictions.

Okay, so...

Guard frustrates you when they run Psykers and eliminate your Ld10 on one unit per.

Very frustrating game. How terrible for you.

Except when fighting Necrons, half the damn game is night fighting. How frustraing for the Guard player. How terrible for him.

Bleh.

Arent Necrons, in the fluff, supposed to be really vulnerable to psykers?

Hmm.