Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've played 4 different Necron players, and ... approximately, 3 separate builds. My DE are having a rough time with the 'Crons.

The one that's got me stymied is (roughly):

Imotekh
Orikan the Diviner

C'tan (Writhing Worldscape)

Immortals x10, crypt -E-Lance
Warriors x3

Spyders x3
Scarabs x6

Annihilation Barge x2
Mono or Doomscythe, either
1850

Most of my issues are with the HQs, Imo and the lovely combo of C'tan and Orikan. Annih barges are Annih Barges. Bang 'em fast. Got it.

If you win the roll for going first, it's easy to chose to go second and go all Reserve, because you miss two turns of Lord of the Storm which should drop two DE vehicles per salvo, given most of our Flying Circuses have 9 to 10 vehicles. So, onna , that makes for ~1.5 hits (make that 2 because the dice gods Hate me ) will die and/or get shut down. 3 STR 8 hits, at least a Glance and Pen, and your FF will stop only one.

If you chose to deploy, you gotta sweat Imo's Seize the Init on the 4+ which then the two Annih-Barges come up and go nuts with the Tesla-arc .


If the roll to chose sides and go first is won by your opponent, and he says, "You to go first," then you either go all Reserve as above, but only avoid one round of LotS, or you Deploy and hope he doesn't get a 4+ to Seize. What's extra fun, izzat with Orikan, his Temporal Snares, puts all your Dark Eldar vehicles on D-tests, for Turn 1. So, I'm looking for advice on how to Deploy in this case, since he can deploy after, either going with Denied Flank or a Center Castle.

While the C'tan is still kicking, Area Terrain is unfriendly. And our t-shirt wearing DE need Cover Saves, so that hurts, especially given Trueborn outta venoms. See, with Imo bringing on Night Fighting, you gotta bring the venoms forward so those lances have range. And of course you don't wanna just disembark in the open. There's enough gauss going on to get shot up up and have not saves. So, you risk Dangerous Terrain. And in those 3 units of Trublasters, one casualty is enough for a Morale Check.

Experienced tactics on dealing with the Tesla ? Besides, banging the Annih-Barges first (which I tried, but failed).

What to do when your opponent says, "You go first." Deploy? If so, how? All Reserve?

heres how i play it, using my venom spam list, wich depends on the mission played of course. but it basiaclly involves making the necrons play YOUR game.

- night fight we dont really care about, since it hurts them as much as us, and night vision allows re rolls. - wich the crons dont get. lighting is annoying... but nothing to really do about it so suck it up and just deal i guess.

necrons are generally slower, and have vehicles simaler to ours, and lances love A:11. plus we tend to beat them in speed and range. so use that.

anyway deployments i would suggest as thus.

- first type of mission matters. bases, i try to place mine as close as legally possible to his. it "baits" his units out of any firing line to be picked off. plus it forces the crons to either castle up, and play for a draw, or over extend in defence or attack, allowing DE to use speed to isolate and destroy his units. in objectives, the opposite. spread them out, so he cant conga line and claim multiples. again, the idea here: force him to split up, then focus fire and eliminate his units one by one.

for deployment:

A: you win roll off. depending on mission i will generally select the 2nd turn, and reserve everything. this allows me to
- see how the enemy deploys and respond accordingly
- gives me the last game turn "hammer" to secure a win
- gives the necron player a slight psych boost, wich you can take advantage of. (he was probally expecting to go 2nd, so when he goes 1st throws off game plan maybe, and if he wants to go 1st, he now gets perhaps over confident in his alpha strike)

the key to this, is to see how he deploys. a castle deployment in a corner or center (every thing bunched up) means you need to deploy far out, and skirmish him. (snipe from a distance, dont get close and wait him out.) eventually he should break his army up to either come after you, or claim objectives. when he does, pick off the units that move away. an envelop deployment works well here. hit him from multiple angles, at range and out of his, forcing him to teleport or otherwise "come and get you"

if he spreads out, deploying across the table in a line, deploy your entire army on 1 corner, and nail a flank as hard as you can. take it out then move down his lines. i usually go after his big unit. ie monolith etc, since taking it out early is not only good for keeping your stuff alive, its demoralizing on him to loose it early.

if he responds with a reserve everything as well, then even better. you get to see where he comes on, deploy as above and pick off his piecemeil army as it comes on the board.

if on the other hand, he wins deployment and chooses second turn, i suggest being agressive. deploy EVERYTHING as close to center as you can. (spread out keeping more then 6" between to negate tesla) but dont "line up across the board" either. force him to either deploy to match you at wich point, you cna use speed to "re deploy" and attack as above, or alpha strike if you think its doable. or B; deploy away from you in an effort to minimize his alpha strike losses. again, just use speed to re deploy how you like and continue.

the one "kink" is sieze the init. if he does so on the 4+ then let him. but you can play mind games with him (Dash of pepper i believe had this idea first) if he opts to go second, then roll "sieze" on you... then i would ask "wait.. you won the roll off and chose to go second.. now you want to go first?" he may very well choose not to roll his sieze. if he does, respond by being entirley amicable about it. either way itll kind of get in his head. but the same attack style plays out. the only diffrence is youll have to withstand his alpha strike if you deploy aggressive and he matches you.

the key to playing dark eldar is make him play your game. make him chase you, or run away from your units. make him defend, and react to your movments, and attack on your terms. try to hit a small portion of his army with the entirty of yours, and play a guerilla warefare style game. definitly do NOT rush in to take him toe to toe. his units have a ton of tricks to hit you as you charge, negate your init, or otherwise mess up your CC units. not to mention his 24" guns will shred you.

its hard to explain further without pictures or specfic in game examples, but hopefully that helps a bit. its by no means the bible, and YMMV depending on local meta and gaming styles. but thats what works for me and i regularly play against a few necron players who LOVE imotekh, monoliths, veil of darkness teleporting immortals and wraiths.

edit:

specfic to ctan tricks and tesla... simple: dont use cover. if eveything is meched up, you dont need it, and vehicles can be behind cover and not in to get saves. that negates that trick. also, if your vehicles wreck you probally loose a good fraction of the embarked anyway, so not a big loss if your going MSU venom spam. also keep your units more then 6" apart to avoid tesla arcing cheddar. then just use splinter fire to drown the c'tan, and ravagers to focus on and drop the barges. once those go down, (and i suggest actually wrecking them since they have living metal *i think* so stun locking not so reliable. and spiders can fix immob or weapon damage results) - 3 ravagers focusing fire on 1 barge *should* wreck it . venoms focusing on c'tan should also drop him, then mop up the rest.

What I run for some idea:

x3 wyches, raider FF, haem/liquifier, hekazgonizer
x3 Trublaster crew in dakka venom, 4 dudes
warriors - dakka venom
warriors - walking in from Reserve (2k list has 'em in a dakka venom)
x3 Ravs FF
Beast Masters - not part of the equation as the last two games having gone all Reserve, they held out until Turn 5, both games.

DarthSpader wrote:necrons are generally slower, and have vehicles simaler to ours, and lances love A:11. plus we tend to beat them in speed and range. so use that.

With Quantum Shielding, it's AV13, reduced to 12, not 11, particularly for the Annihilation Barges.

DarthSpader wrote:- first type of mission matters. bases, i try to place mine as close as legally possible to his. it "baits" his units out of any firing line to be picked off. plus it forces the crons to either castle up, and play for a draw, or over extend in defence or attack, allowing DE to use speed to isolate and destroy his units. in objectives, the opposite. spread them out, so he cant conga line and claim multiples. again, the idea here: force him to split up, then focus fire and eliminate his units one by one.

Ha! We were playing Bay Area Open, all three missions simultaneously.

DarthSpader wrote:A: you win roll off. depending on mission i will generally select the 2nd turn, and reserve everything. this allows me to

Did that. Got creamed due to piece meal Reserve rolls. I know some times it is good, others ... I mean the Beast Masters waited until Turn 5 in the last game.

DarthSpader wrote:the key to this, is to see how he deploys. a castle deployment in a corner or center (every thing bunched up) means you need to deploy far out, and skirmish him. (snipe from a distance, dont get close and wait him out.) eventually he should break his army up to either come after you, or claim objectives. when he does, pick off the units that move away. an envelop deployment works well here. hit him from multiple angles, at range and out of his, forcing him to teleport or otherwise "come and get you"

if he spreads out, deploying across the table in a line, deploy your entire army on 1 corner, and nail a flank as hard as you can. take it out then move down his lines. i usually go after his big unit. ie monolith etc, since taking it out early is not only good for keeping your stuff alive, its demoralizing on him to loose it early.

Neither of these apply to the current goofery: He tells *me* to go first.

DarthSpader wrote:if on the other hand, he wins deployment and chooses second turn, i suggest being agressive. deploy EVERYTHING as close to center as you can. (spread out keeping more then 6" between to negate tesla) but dont "line up across the board" either. force him to either deploy to match you at wich point, you cna use speed to "re deploy" and attack as above, or alpha strike if you think its doable. or B; deploy away from you in an effort to minimize his alpha strike losses. again, just use speed to re deploy how you like and continue.

He read Dash's stuff.

DarthSpader wrote:the one "kink" is sieze the init.

Yes, a serious kink.

DarthSpader wrote:if he does so on the 4+ then let him. but you can play mind games with him (Dash of pepper i believe had this idea first) if he opts to go second, then roll "sieze" on you... then i would ask "wait.. you won the roll off and chose to go second.. now you want to go first?" he may very well choose not to roll his sieze. if he does, respond by being entirley amicable about it. either way itll kind of get in his head. but the same attack style plays out. the only diffrence is youll have to withstand his alpha strike if you deploy aggressive and he matches you.

I suppose when encountering a different dude ...

DarthSpader wrote:specfic to ctan tricks and tesla... simple: dont use cover. if eveything is meched up, you dont need it, and vehicles can be behind cover and not in to get saves. that negates that trick. also, if your vehicles wreck you probally loose a good fraction of the embarked anyway, so not a big loss if your going MSU venom spam.

Which is how I lost. Vehicle goes down, and being Trublasters, within 18" range readily died to guns or scarabs. Cover or FF saves are not enough against tesla guns, as they average a 2 to 4 Glances and/or Pens per Annih-Barge or 10 robot Immortal crew.

DarthSpader wrote: also keep your units more then 6" apart to avoid tesla arcing cheddar. t

I did that today and he deployed "deny flank", and the flank denied got hosed by Imo's Storm.

Possibly one of my opponent's best games ever.

DarthSpader wrote:hen just use splinter fire to drown the c'tan, and ravagers to focus on and drop the barges. once those go down, (and i suggest actually wrecking them since they have living metal *i think* so stun locking not so reliable. and spiders can fix immob or weapon damage results) - 3 ravagers focusing fire on 1 barge *should* wreck it . venoms focusing on c'tan should also drop him, then mop up the rest.

Yep, this is ideal, but circumstantially, i didn't pull if off. I will *aim* to do just this, as I do ever game against Annih-barges. Amazingly, it still seems to take all 3 Ravs, or 3 units worth of lances to bring the damned things down. And at least two other players are running Twin Annih Barges so I've put in a lot of time trying to bring these things down throughout January.

DS, I'm not blowing off your advice at all. I just re-thought how to avoid the 6" arc ... thanks to you. And what you've given is *good* advice.

However, after the last, say 3 games, my trash goes down too fast to keep up. Have you had to deal with similar robot lists?

the lists i fight are generally imotekh, plus a blob or 2 of immortals that teleport around, a monolith, big unit of wraiths, some spiders and a scarab swarm that gets crazy huge if not dealt with fast.

i find that the range issue is the crons biggest weakness. so try to explot it.. if he splits his army up you can focus your entire turn shooting untill a unit dies, then move on.

as for the barges... well, 3 ravagers with 9 shots should hit 6 times, and glance 4 pen 2. since hes open topped your adding +1 to rolls. so a 4+ on the pen is good enough to wreck it. the glances will be ignored, for the most part unless you get that 6, but really 3 ravagers should drop a barge each turn. add in blasterborn and raider fire if you need too... but i generally dont. lightning is a royal pain... but again what can ya do?

in answer to your answer to my answer..

all 3 missions simo? well that really dont change much. same thing of zip around and snipe kind of applies.

if he wins the roll and tells you to go first, then be aggressive. deploy everything in range, and make sure you have clear LOS lines. some tables are tough, but force him to deploy in areas he may not *want to* then force feed him your alpha strike... if your army runs anything like mine (3x blaster born, 6x venom warriors, beasts, 3 ravagers) my alpha strike can do ALOT of damage. he really has 3 options here... reserve everything, in which case hes coming on in bits and your whole army fights a fraction of his, he deploys opposite you to move up and return fire. (your alpha strike and 1st turn move should keep you safeley out of trouble) and if trys to avoid you, its good because hes already "running away" so to speak.

was worth a shot... but it still makes sense, and its not really a mind game. its a legit thing...why win the roll, choose 2nd then sieze? if your trying to "psyk out" a deployment and are betting on that sieze roll.. 50/50 aint bad but its not gaurenteed either. kind of betting the farm on a dice roll imho.

heres my thoughts on cover:
- infantry should be embarked. it gives them protection from direct shooting untill the transport goes down, and if needed can still fire out. you can posistion your vehicles behind buildings etc so that they can claim cover saves from shooting (and grant saves back, but really...go ahead and take 4+ cover from AP5 splinter fire when you have 3+ armor?). i generally do not disembark my units unless i REALLY need that something to die NOW, in which case i throw everything at it. if your transport goes down, your probally loosing half the unit in the blast, and the rest to other units shooting them, or the incoming assault. failing that, they require pinning then morale. should all those pass... well its 3 warriors. they wont do much. so not a big concern moving them in terrain. 1/6 odds they take a hit... not going to concern myself.

if your having trouble with specfic units, heres my thoughts on unit by unit counters

- any necron vehicle *should* go down to massed lance fire. obviously ravagers are nice, jetfighters a close second.
- scarabs just get WTFPWNED by jetfighter missiles. large str 6 blast hits 4 of them, doubles to 8 wounds, insta killing a base with each wound. 4 of these should deal with a swarm of any size pretty easy (unless he has ridiculus luck with cover or you totally wiff on scatter rolls)
- spiders are MC so splinter fire, with some blasters if needed or lances if other vehicles down.
- immortals are... tricky. so far this unit is the biggest pain. a 10 man unit with a cryptek and imotekh is pretty durable.. plus they teleport like crazy, and fire those gauss weapons once they do. my suggestion for these guys - wait for them to teleport close to you as a "surprise uppercut", then charge them with wyches. tie them up in CC for the game. they wont be able to teleport away, and your wyches should stand up pretty good for a few turns. if you attach a haemy and give your hekatrix a agonizer you should do ok here. beast master units also work nice as a "tarpit" and in combo with wyches should take care of them with not much issue. (plus those 2 units are dirt cheap, vrs the 400+ pts for imotekh and co)

- any other infantry just splinter fire them down. they probally have weapons that are 24" or less, or rely on CC. venoms move 12, splinter fire like crazy and the unit goes away if you do it enough.

- wraiths are a pain. avoid CC with these guys as they have 3++ can wound allocate and reduce init on your attackers. plus high str negates fnp. these guys should be a top priority for splinter fire. dont waste lance or blaster on them, unless you have no vehicles in range since they get the 3+ either way, but forcing ID wounds can help finish them off.

otherwise, i dont worry about lightning, since its a 1/6 chance. annoying if it hits, but whatever.

nightfighting i generally dont care about since i get re rolls to spot stuff.

tesla shooting vehicles - remember ALL tesla is AP - so gets -1 on damage results. (negates your open topped penalty so pretty much the die roll)

the obrien and c'tan thing.... whatever. again, vehicles dont really care about it, since terrain is dangerous anyway, and you shouldnt be parking vehicles INSIDE terrain, but rather behind it. and infantry get hurt on a 1/6 chance. again not odds im going to worry about.

also - based on the combos you mentioned: imotekh, obrien, c'tan... thats about 230 pts for ctan, 165 for orikan, 225 for imotekh, and 180 pts for 2 barges = 800 points for 3 units and 2 special characters. both characters need attached units to last the game, because by themselves probally = getting shredded by incoming fire. as a counter to that - i can get all 3 of my TB squads (4 tb 4 blaster, venom) for 519, ravagers for 345, 6 warrior squads for 750 (5 warriors, blaster, venom) and so on. and the crons havent even purchased anything other then a few tricks that *might work* and be annoying. they have zero troops... and necron troops are pricey. 17pts per immortal (10 man squad comes in at 170 with no upgrades or attached characters) warriors are not much cheaper (4 pts a model less)

in short (long?) you should be out numbering him, his "tricks" you can almost ignore as a mild annoyance, and really... you out range him by a good 12". (18" if you take night shields). the necron army has all of 2 weapons that extend past 24": a stationary doomsday cannon, only available on the doomsday ark, or the hev gauss cannon wich i believe is a hev destroyer only thing, and requires normal destroyers first. the fastest he can move and fire is 12" and fire one weapon since aside from his command barge and night/doom scythe everything is a non fast skimmer. (so uses normal vehicle moving/shooting rules). destroyers are bikes, so can move 12" and fire as well... but those are VERY expensive units pts wise, and i suspect they wont make an appearnce in a list with the above.

Orikan, not Obrien.

He's a 65 million year old "Egyptian", not a 65 year old Irishman.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

the obrien and c'tan thing.... whatever. again, vehicles dont really care about it, since terrain is dangerous anyway, and you shouldnt be parking vehicles INSIDE terrain, but rather behind it. and infantry get hurt on a 1/6 chance. again not odds im going to worry about.

Not sure what you mean by vehicles don't really care about it. WW makes all terrain difficult, which means any vehicle moving at all will me Immobilised at a 1/6 rate. Combine that with lightning and you have all sorts of stunned/immobilised vehicles that the scarabs can go to town on. Or you have a bunch of vehicles not moving which works just as well for the Crons.

DarthSpader wrote:the lists i fight are generally imotekh, plus a blob or 2 of immortals that teleport around, a monolith, big unit of wraiths, some spiders and a scarab swarm that gets crazy huge if not dealt with fast.

Not coupled with the C'tan? Huh. His Writhing Worldscape is brutal on DE mobility.

DarthSpader wrote:otherwise, i dont worry about lightning, since its a 1/6 chance. annoying if it hits, but whatever.

Dude, STR 8 is not annoying It's a dead skimmer. ~3.5 hits per lightning struck vehicle. That's is a *dead* vehicle. And it is not AP- for the lightning strike, but AP5, which cooks Trueborn in the open, unless I risk putting them in Dangerous Terrain thanks to Writhing Worldscape.

DarthSpader wrote:nightfighting i generally dont care about since i get re rolls to spot stuff.

Even with Night Vision/Acute Sense, the average roll is 21 inches, which denies the superior range of Splinter Cannons and lances over the 24" guns of the teslas, which he'll move 12" anyway and then still be able to pop my boat, since I just missed killing it due to night fighting.

DarthSpader wrote:tesla shooting vehicles - remember ALL tesla is AP - so gets -1 on damage results. (negates your open topped penalty so pretty much the die roll)

Yep. we applied it. I still lost every boat, every game.

DarthSpader wrote:the obrien and c'tan thing.... whatever. again, vehicles dont really care about it, since terrain is dangerous anyway, and you shouldnt be parking vehicles INSIDE terrain, but rather behind it. and infantry get hurt on a 1/6 chance. again not odds im going to worry about.

ShadarLogoth addressed this. It is Orikan's Turn 1 hosery that (Temporal Snares) buffs the C'tan's Writhing Worldscape.

DarthSpader wrote:also - based on the combos you mentioned: imotekh, obrien, c'tan... thats about 230 pts for ctan, 165 for orikan, 225 for imotekh, and 180 pts for 2 barges = 800 points for 3 units and 2 special characters. both characters need attached units to last the game, because by themselves probally = getting shredded by incoming fire. as a counter to that - i can get all 3 of my TB squads (4 tb 4 blaster, venom) for 519, ravagers for 345, 6 warrior squads for 750 (5 warriors, blaster, venom) and so on. and the crons havent even purchased anything other then a few tricks that *might work* and be annoying. they have zero troops... and necron troops are pricey. 17pts per immortal (10 man squad comes in at 170 with no upgrades or attached characters) warriors are not much cheaper (4 pts a model less)

He had 4 troop choices, of which the smallest only died in the last game. Merely by blowing morale after a liquifier basted 4 outta 6 members. With a screen of the C'tan, Spyders, two scarab crews, Annih-Barges and, I forget what it's called, but one unit of wyches had the d3 inches subtracted to their assault roll. I rolled a '2' and so did he. Those girls got shot up and were assaulted after getting cut in half.

DarthSpader wrote:in short (long?) you should be out numbering him, his "tricks" you can almost ignore as a mild annoyance, and really... you out range him by a good 12". (18" if you take night shields).

My list is set. Participants had to send in lists to the GT organizers, so I'm not getting to use NightShields.

DarthSpader, do you have a 'Cron codex so you know what all their toys do?

BTW: Please continue to hammer your theories/ideas at me! I don't mean to demean or blow off your ideas. Keep 'em coming! Somewhere in our arguments (as in actual exchange and countering of ideas, not being bickering dickheads ) we might just find something I can use. Thanks!

i have the cron dex. yes.

all im saying about lighting... its a 1/6 chance per unit to do something. unless hes crazy lucky on getting that 6+ its not getting those hits. but more to the point: NOTHING in our codex can stop it. we also cant really avoid it, since it can be kept going almost indefinitly thanks to a chrono reroll. cant stop it, cant avoid it, so i choose to ignore it and not focus attention on something i cant change.

WW and the "transporter chief" really only applies in the first game turn. so reserve everything removes the "entire board is dangerous" thing easy enough. otherwise, moving your vehicles is a 1/6 chance of getting immobilized. not great, annoying etc, but really... the odds are in your favour to pass the checks. also, nightfighting early on, means even if you stay still he probally cant see you anyway.

as for the NF - it hinders both sides. DE get a reroll on the check whereas the crons dont, so whatever. stay at your range, make your checks (hope and reroll for nice long range sight rolls) and if you fail... well your still a long way off, and he still needs to check NF on his turn. so in the end you play a 2 turn game. yay? otherwise - focus fire on single targets till they drop. if you have all those units on field - focus all you rinfantry power on 1 target, wipe it out, then move on. if he only has 4 troops, (warriors or immortals? - and transports?) whatever. the main point here: you have the speed he dosent, so you can stay away from him and pick him off at range while he grinds his gears and does piss all, or hopes his lightning and DT checks kill your entire army. (not likley) i am aware of all those dirty CC toys... hence why i STRONGLY reccomend shooting the buggers at range. something about my CC units getting shot before they get into CC, having charge range reduced, or init down to 1 just peeves me off. id rather pour splinter fire into thier faces from 34" off and laugh as they chase me. - this kind of thing will probally end in a draw. but in tourneys thats better then a loss i suppose? plus playing that way kind of a "rope a dope" - it might aggrevate the necrons into doing something less then intelligent you can jump on. if your list is set then it is...not much to do about it. so really... it kind of depends on how the dice gods like you or your opponent i guess. but in my games WW and DT checks / lightning is an annoyance i cant change anyway so why sweat about it?

*bump*

Other perspectives?

Night Scythe Crons are tough for DE but there are things you can do:

1 - Unless you have plenty of true Dark Lances, I wouldn't go for the 36" range fight as even 1 Solar Pulse will save most of the Crons from harm, even with Night Vision.

2 - if you DO have a good amount of true 36" range weaponry, try to use Night Vision to your advantage :3

3 - Shock Prows; is why I have more Raiders than Venoms in my DE lists these days. Every Night Scythe can be ramm'd and the Str 10 ram you can get from a Raider is quite lovely for a reliable Pen. :3

That's just some basics, definitely try to CC most of the infantry, not only to beat their faces easier (Shooting them will take forever) but also to potentially hide from their shooting. The few things you're afraid to charge as DE are: Lychguard, Lords with Mindshackles; and Stalkers. Wraiths don't scare me much because usually your poisoned shooting can get them after they hit a unit, and torrent of fire still answers any problem the Wraiths try to solve.

Smurfy wrote:Night Scythe Crons are tough for DE but there are things you can do:

1 - Unless you have plenty of true Dark Lances, I wouldn't go for the 36" range fight as even 1 Solar Pulse will save most of the Crons from harm, even with Night Vision.

2 - if you DO have a good amount of true 36" range weaponry, try to use Night Vision to your advantage :3

3 - Shock Prows; is why I have more Raiders than Venoms in my DE lists these days. Every Night Scythe can be ramm'd and the Str 10 ram you can get from a Raider is quite lovely for a reliable Pen. :3

That's just some basics, definitely try to CC most of the infantry, not only to beat their faces easier (Shooting them will take forever) but also to potentially hide from their shooting. The few things you're afraid to charge as DE are: Lychguard, Lords with Mindshackles; and Stalkers. Wraiths don't scare me much because usually your poisoned shooting can get them after they hit a unit, and torrent of fire still answers any problem the Wraiths try to solve.

There are no Night Scythes in the list he posted.

Doesn't have to be that list, he said tesla'crons that what I think of, sorry Same tactics work here though, Shock Prows can tank shock the Warriors/Immortals into wads, templates/blasts can tear apart/break via morale check Crons via brute force Ld tests.

Smurfy wrote:Doesn't have to be that list, he said tesla'crons that what I think of, sorry Same tactics work here though, Shock Prows can tank shock the Warriors/Immortals into wads, templates/blasts can tear apart/break via morale check Crons via brute force Ld tests.

I would say Tankshocking is very risky as well. If you are doing that, you are in the threat bubble of the Necrons. . How many points of Vehicles are you going to Sacrifice in an attempt to get this to work?

How many templates and blasts do Dark Eldar have, that are going to cause enough Casualties to make the Necrons test? Even then, it's a LD 10 test, so it's very unlikely to fail.


I don't know, as a Necron player that tactic does not seem very viable.

Why are you scared of Glancings terriibly much? Outside single/double s8 hits dependent on the army's court workings. And CC hit on 6's? And afraid to lose Raiders to that stuff rather than stand worse chance trying to stand-off, shooting Dark Lances (Or if you're trying to Disintegrators, the shoving out of cover might help ) at infantry (If you're a Raider)

My DE are usually led by Haemmies with Liquifiers and use a Razorwing regularly (Considering even switching to 3 Razors/Bombers; an extreme change over Ravagers and about ~100 pts more, but dual use and dual use is quite reasonable, IMO.

Ld 9 vs DE with TGLs, and you don't need to force them to fall back all the time, the bunch/force off a obj or out of cover is usually helpful enough.

Brothererekose wrote:I've played 4 different Necron players, and ... approximately, 3 separate builds. My DE are having a rough time with the 'Crons.

The one that's got me stymied is (roughly):

Imotekh
Orikan the Diviner

C'tan (Writhing Worldscape)

Immortals x10, crypt -E-Lance
Warriors x3

Spyders x3
Scarabs x6

Annihilation Barge x2
Mono or Doomscythe, either
1850

Quick observations:

The list is as posted is illegal (4 heavy support, Spyders are HS too);

It's totally focused on first turn shenanigans, so I'd always reserve fully;

Scarabs will get huge, but it's only one group: feed them one flat-out moving vehicle a turn and be done with it, just make sure they can't multi-assault;

Take out the barges/scythe fast, they rock your vehicles, 'Lith is less important;

Depending on his other Crypteks, burn down his troops with Venoms, starting with the Immortals;

Try to outmaneuver the rest.

I would suggest reserving and using your venoms against the C'tan when they come in. He only has a 4+ invuln and should be easy to take down. After you kill that, you've removed his "trick" and can now move around freely. If he let's you go first, then deploying isn't that big of a deal. Move your barges into position to light up opportunity targets and if you get immobilised, then so be it. You out-range him on everything so you should still get first blood.

Mandor wrote:Quick observations:
The list is as posted is illegal (4 heavy support, Spyders are HS too)

Neither game had four HS. I listed it thus to show that in one game he had a mono and one Annih-barge with spyders, and in another, the mono was out for a 2nd Annih-Barge. I apologize for not making that clearer.


Overall, guys, going all Reserve seems to be the main strategy to use. I've just had two previous 'All Reserve' games go down the toilet due to bad Reserve rolls ... like the Beast Master unit arriving Turn 5, both of *those* games.

Smurfy wrote:1 - Unless you have plenty of true Dark Lances, I wouldn't go for the 36" range fight as even 1 Solar Pulse will save most of the Crons from harm, even with Night Vision.

2 - if you DO have a good amount of true 36" range weaponry, try to use Night Vision to your advantage :3

My list at 1750+ has 24 lances. NightVision is *not* to DE's advantage. Yes, we have re-rolls and longer range for Ravs & raiders, but coming up with 27"+ rolls is thin, whereas, the Annih-Barge moves twelve, and then needs only at '8' on the Night-sight roll to gain the 24" range. In the sequence of DE Moves & Shoots and then Necrons do, it is in the Necrons' favor.

Smurfy wrote:That's just some basics, definitely try to CC most of the infantry,

Agreed. Unfortunately, he was able to down the girls' boats before getting too close and then (I forget what it's called) but then stymied the one assault with the -d3 inches, when I rolled a '2' for it.

Oy.

My list at 1750+ has 24 lances. NightVision is *not* to DE's advantage. Yes, we have re-rolls and longer range for Ravs & raiders, but coming up with 27"+ rolls is thin, whereas, the Annih-Barge moves twelve, and then needs only at '8' on the Night-sight roll to gain the 24" range. In the sequence of DE Moves & Shoots and then Necrons do, it is in the Necrons' favor.

The Annilation barge can only move 6' and fire it's Tesla Destructor. It's not a fast vehicle, like the catacomb command barge.

Do the lightning bolts come from Imotekh? Can you claim cover saves against them? I don't see anything in the FAQ. If so, I would continue to deploy your guys on the table and "whether the storm" So to speak.
You have longer range and more mobility. Kill the C'tan as target #1 with your venoms. Kill the annihilation barges as #1 with your lances. Everything else can die in it's time, just try not to castle too hard to avoid arcing and multi-charges.

Dok wrote:Do the lightning bolts come from Imotekh? Can you claim cover saves against them? I don't see anything in the FAQ. If so, I would continue to deploy your guys on the table and "whether the storm" So to speak.
You have longer range and more mobility. Kill the C'tan as target #1 with your venoms. Kill the annihilation barges as #1 with your lances. Everything else can die in it's time, just try not to castle too hard to avoid arcing and multi-charges.

The Lightning bolts don't require any sort of LoS, so you would have to be in cover to claim a cover save. If you deploy in cover, then you are risking all the Dangerous terrain test from Writhing Wolrdscape if you move later.

well... as stated, his list relys on first turn tricks. you cant do anyting to stop them, aside from splintering down the ctan, so go full reserve. and the thing with nightfight even if DE move shoot, then necrons respond, if you know your ranges you should be pretty ok.

what i mean: say your primary target (a barge) is roughly 40" off. you move 5" to place you at 35" (this is assuming your good at eyeballing measurments). do the same with your other units. now roll your nightfight. chances are you probally "wont" hit anything. might get lucky with 1 unit... but whatever. necron turn, he;

A: responds by moving as fast as possible to take advantage of your non shooting turn, to close the gap and get within weapons range. this means he wont be shooting much of anything, except for veil teleported immortals if he has them. (35" - 12 necron move = 23" inside his range, but he still needs a decent nightfight roll, and he has very few fast vehicles) so his damage output is anything hit by lightning, maybe a few shots from night scythes. flickerfields should help a tad here, but otherwise your laughing. your next turn you can move (since your watching his range measures and know distance more acurate) and repeat the above, effectivly "kiting" him. focus on dropping the c'tan and his long range threats like the barge.

B: if he hangs back and does not advance, then hes not shooting anything, instead relying on lightning to knock you down, or unlucky DT checks. in either case, your within a respectable range, and on your next turn, can jump forward and pound a portion of his army. again, focusing on his c'tan and barges.

for next turn, the crons have a few choices:
- cancel nightfight and try for the fire fight. hes betting on getting within 24" of you, and "alpha striking" your forces. however, if your keeping your range at aound the 34-36" mark he should not be able to inflict much damage, and the lighting is now gone.
- keep NF in place, and full move towards you closing the gap. again, probally not alot of shooting from him, and lightning the only real damage if any. (ive seen turns where not a single lightning strike hit, across multiple turns) your response - repeat previous turn. back up, shoot a little if your able, or jump on and wipe out that 1 unit that got ballsy and moved away from its support.
- keep NF in play, and hang back, hoping lightning continues to do its thing and knock you around. again, repeat as per last turn and try to snipe him down. in this case you dont even really need to move - thus ignoring the DT checks

keep this process going untill nightfight ends of its own accord. you may have a few vehicles down from the lightning, and his forces are likley only slightly hurt, save for maybe a downed vehicle or 2 and hopefully his ctan. at this point, you no longer need to worry about NF rolls, and can dance around at the edges of his range, sniping units. if he moves towards you 12" to get his 24" shooting, not alot will fire. respond by backing up, and unloading again. his only real threat is the barge moving 12" and firing 24". or teleporting immortals. and generally these units if they are shooting are ranged ahead of his other forces, and thus vulnerable to your massed return fire. if you put every single lance you have into a barge.... it really should go down. same for teleporting immortals. drop enough splinter/blaster whatever fire into them, and they should drop. you can also wait for him to teleport close to you then charge him with wyches/beasts/archon etc. tie them up in CC so they cant keep teleporting and shooting you. and really... at this point its turn 3-4 anyway so you only need a few turns of tarpitting him. keep him away from objectives or limit him to 1, and you should have the game no prob.

Darthspader has pretty much spelled it out. You still have to get around your dice rolling skills, but you can't out tactic luck.

Agree with a lot of what DS said but to sum up.

Try to go second

Reserve everything to avoid turn 1 of lightning and dangerous terrain

Sit off and snipe as best you can with DL and SC until the lightning and the NF stop.



Finally I suggest taking a few Reaver Jet bikes and people are going to call me crazy but listen.

They can JSJ staying 30" away from anything with really nasty 24" shooting but hopefully they can shoot somethings with their 24" relentless weapons.

Depending on terrain they can blade vane things and perhaps bait some units to stray out from the central castle.

When they turbo boost they have a 3++ save and 4+ otherwise. Crons dont have much that can reach out and touch them at range. They will probably stand up to the lightning and telsa better than your vehicles.