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Hi people

I created this thread because I've been losing a lot with my new crons, and am getting sick of it. I know the book is really good, but I guess I am not using it right. So far I usually deploy my units with in 24", since most of their range is that far, and avoid close combat as much as possible. I will only engage them in CC, if the squad is whittled down to half strength, or I know I will beat them. Other than that having I2 sucks.

I have a squad of 5 Lychguard with shields, but many of them die before they even get to swing. I even put a Lord with orb and warscythe with them. I am thinking of firing them, and replacing their 300 points with more shooting.

Nobody at my FLGS plays Necrons. Everyone is a Space Marine, and the occasional Ork or Tyranid. Help me crush the living!

Please post your list so that we can see what you are running. That will help.

CGBSpender wrote:Hi people

I created this thread because I've been losing a lot with my new crons, and am getting sick of it. I know the book is really good, but I guess I am not using it right. So far I usually deploy my units with in 24", since most of their range is that far, and avoid close combat as much as possible. I will only engage them in CC, if the squad is whittled down to half strength, or I know I will beat them. Other than that having I2 sucks.

I have a squad of 5 Lychguard with shields, but many of them die before they even get to swing. I even put a Lord with orb and warscythe with them. I am thinking of firing them, and replacing their 300 points with more shooting.

Nobody at my FLGS plays Necrons. Everyone is a Space Marine, and the occasional Ork or Tyranid. Help me crush the living!

Are you walking your guard? PLacing them in a nightscythe tends to help/.

I would love to put them in a Nightscythe but if it dies they go into reserve, and I don't have a model for it.

Here's my list:

HQ

1 Necron Overlord 115 Pts -
Mindshackle Scarabs; Warscythe;

1 Necron Overlord 135
Mindshackle Scarabs;Warscythe; Phaeron

One Overlord goes in a Ghost Ark, and will charge things he can take on and hopefully finish them off or tie them up. The Phaeron makes the Immortal Guass squad relentless.

Royal Court 165 Pts - Crypteks go in the Ghost Ark with the Warriors, 1 from each court, since the same court can't be branched off to the same unit.
2 Crypteks 90
2 Eldritch Lances and 1 Solar Pulse

Necron Lord 75
Mindshackle Scarabs
Warscythe



Royal Court 2 90 Pts
2 Crypteks
2 Eldritch Lances
Solar Pulse

Troops

5 Necron Warriors180 Pts
Ghost Ark

5 Necron Warriors 180
Ghost Ark

10 Immortals
Guass Blasters

10 Immortals
Tesla Carbines

Elites

5 Lychguard 225
Hyperphase Swords and Shield

Fast Attack

10 Scarabs 150

4 Destroyers 180
3 Guass Cannons
1 Heavy

Heavy Support

Annihilation Barge 90

1850 points exactly.

Having night fighting in my opponents first two turns is great, unless they roll extremely high, or when I run out. Also most of my range is 24", which sucks against armies like Guard and Space Wolves who have range 48" up of the ass.

Today I faced a SW, who had like 10 long fangs, with missiles and plasma cannons.

Should I deploy right behind the 12" line to get maximum range? Most deployments is 24" apart turn one, but then I am closer therefore closer to him assaulting me.

The list is mostly solid, I'd only look into the destroyers, the lords, and the lychguard.

Destroyers should very rarely mix weapon types in a squad. Cannons want to shoot infantry and not tanks, heavy cannons want to shoot tanks and not infantry. Tool them one way or another or just drop them and grab another annihilation barge and use the spare points on the other problems.

The overlords aren't really doing much. They can stop monstrous creatures with mind shackles but not much else really cares that they exist, they can't shoot and assault units will focus beat them to death before they swing. Either tool them back to just a scyth and stick them in a catacomb command barge or give them res orbs mind shackles and scyths and stick them in the biggest troop squad you have, in this case the immortals. Phaeron isn't great on gauss immortals, reserve that upgrade for giant bricks of warriors, just save the 20 points and give them tesla carbines.

The lychguard are serving a kind of important role as a screening unit for your immortal squads and you really should have at least one dedicated close combat squad if not just to take a burly assault on the chin and tarpit for a turn or 2 while your shooters move away, but this squad is kinda dinky and making them stronger is a bigger and bigger points investment and you already need points for your overlord upgrades. Wraiths are the obvious go to unit for necron assaulting but maybe a cheap conga line of flayed ones would screen just as well while no one really wants to waste shooting to clear those dirt cheap models out and their weaker stat line insures when they do get assaulted they'll fold like wet laundry and leave the offending unit out in the open waiting to get gunned down in your turn.

I'm p okay with the ghost ark squads but they too are kinda this middle of the road unit where like are you just dumping the grot squads on back field objectives and only using them as ablative wounds for the lances in which case why do they need arks? Do they have someplace to be in a hurry or do 5 warriors really get good use of repair rolls? I'd be dumping 1 of the squads early into good cover or objectives then just following the immortals while empty to get off the flayer array shots and when one goes down steal the other one to keep those lances protected forever but that seems like kinda meh value.

I would drop the lychguard for a unit of wraiths, get like 3 with 3 whip coils and a particle caster. I don't know about anyone else but I find the gauntlet of fire to be pretty good. Re-rolling hits and wounds and having a template weapon is really nice all in one. Especially deadly against guard/orks/bugs. Drop one ghost ark.

If you are facing mostly SM then AP3 is deadly. Staff of light would be better in this case for the lords and its free.

At 1850 two royal courts is kind of point heavy, you can bring a ghost ark for the warriors and just throw the lance-teks in there and have a floating tank killer that can re-roll a d6 every phase.

Here is a revised list:

HQ: Overlord - MSS, Warscythe, Res Orb - 145pts

Royal Court: Crypteks x5 - Harbringer of Eternity x1, Chronometron, Harbingers of Destruction x4 - 200pts
Royal Court: Lords x2 - MSS x2, Res Orb x1 - 130pts

Troop: Warriors x5 - 65pts
Troop: Warriors x5 - 65pts
Troop: Immortals x10 - Tesla Carbine - 170pts
Troop: Immortals x10 - Tesla Carbine - 170pts

Transport: Ghost Ark - 115pts

Fast Attack: Wraiths x3 - Whip coils x3, particle caster x1 - 140pts
Fast Attack: Scarabs x10 - 150pts
Fast Attack: Destroyers x3 - 120pts

Heavy: Annihilation Barge - 90pts
Heavy: Annihilation Barge - 90pts
Heavy: Monolith - 200pts

Basically you want to attach the overlord to a unit of immortals and the lord with the res orb to the other unit of immortals. Leave one unit of warriors in reserve to come in and claim objectives late game. Be aggressive with the lord immortals as they will lure CC squads into attack that you can blast with the rest of your army and finish with the wraiths. The monolith is a beautiful tool that gives you crazy mobility and can fire up to six weapons at one time! You will have a lot of armor on the board that will give your opponent a hard time and can take a beating with AV13 and Living metal. You have a lot of AP3 that will pick up SM off the table. If you are facing an opponent that likes to bring termies then just drop some scarabs and bring heavy destroyers instead.

I've heard that scarabs are really good. Really really good.

They are really good. Not so much that they can't be easily stopped but they become such a huge threat to vehicles as they get closer they jump straight up the target priority list and people end up expending a lot high strength weaponry instant killing swarm bases or they're forced to move their battle tanks to run away and thus can't shoot the big guns, and if there are no tanks they still make a great mobile tar pit unit.

I'm not a huge fan of the full eldritch lance bang bus, you generally want to diversify your st 8 shots to optimize the number of transports you can bust in a turn. I'd tool the list as:

165 Overlord, phaeron, scyth, mss, rorb
130 Overlord, scyth, rorb
180 Lancetekx4, pulsex2
40 tremortek, seismic crucible
60 despairtek, veil

95 death marksx5 (veiltek)
117 flayed onesx9

260 warriorsx20 (tremortek, phaeron)
180 warriorsx5 ghost ark (lancetek w/pulsex2)
65 warriorsx5 (lancetekx2)
153 immortalsx9 (overlord)

135 scarabsx9
180 HGC destroyersx3

90 annihilation barge

1850

Use the arkless grot squad to cover back field, your big relentless warrior brick and immortals and annihilation barge form your phalanx which is screened by a line of flayed ones for cover saves. The ghost ark runs multiple duties protecting its passengers and repairing the phalanx and acting as mobile terrain to block los to your hgc destroyers. The deathmarks and scarabs and hgc destroyers are all high risk/reward priority targets that get focused when you run out of solar pulses but even that insures that your scoring units and the majority of your KP will be largely untouched until the last turn or 2 of the game when there shouldn't be anything left to really dent them.

Set up about 30" away from your opponent, night fight rolls a 21" range most often but 24" or even 27" is not uncommon and all of your weapons are able to move 6" and shoot which gives you an effective 30" range with your phalanx. Try to stay at that optimal 24" range, the flayed ones and tremortek will help keep things in your kill box and out of close combat but backpedal if you need to.

Personally I feel that flayed ones should be played more according to the fluff. Just let them do their own thing near the enemy. I usually infiltrate mine as close as possible to the enemy as it forces them to deal with it or to potentially lose a squad for either a few turns or on a more permanent basis.

That aside, scarabs also make a great tarpit against marines as s4 1 attack troops take forever to get through a maxed scarab squad. So if your enemy has a unit shooting you up (long fangs) scarab the buggers! Don't be stingy with them

I don't like the idea of flayed ones they seem to slow for a ccb troop.

I run a similar list to you actually, to good success thusfar.
I put my overlord with my lychguard w/ the orb, and give him the armor and invuln upgrades, really helps toughen up the unit.

I put res orb lords with scythes and scarabs in two large warrior blobs, making them rather...difficult to move.

They can be strong, you just need to be sure they are properly supported and deployed. They are usually the MVP in my games thusfar.

I use destroyers pretty much as an armor counter, or against monsterous creatures.

I also field a monolith, I usually don't deep strike it.

It almost feels like you need to pick a flavor for your army, you seem to have a bit of a mixed bag atm. Mine is almost exclusively shooty, with a screen of melee to keep shooters shootan'

CGBSpender, the living really do suck, but a foot list of the squishy buggers can be irritating. Is that what you're encountering, or is it a balanced vehicle/foot force typically?

I hate to say this, because I think your army fits the "feel" of how a Necron army should be put together, but it doesn't fit our strengths. If you're playing in a competitive environment that might keep you from having fun. The strength of our codex is in the fast attack and HQ units, not so much the infantry units (elite or troops). I think you may have too many infantry blobs.

Consider maybe trying a CCB-led conventional fast attack combo wraith/scarab farm list, where the key additional element is Cryptek Spyders. It's a bit challenging to find models for all these troops, but there are some reasonable Tyrranid proxy alternatives for wraiths in particular. (paint 'em black and apply metallic sheen, glue on some pointy-bits, wraith!)

Thanks for all your inputs guys.

I think I'm going to go for mostly shooting. I like the idea of putting a Phaeron in a 20 warrior squad plus 2 ghost arks at their flanks. That unit would be very durable. Even if I fail RPs, I can still fix them with the Ghost Arks, and my opponent has to go through two of them. I want to throw in some Doom Scythes and Triarch Stalkers. I don't think anyone wants those guys roaming the table for too long either .

It will give my opponent a headache to prioritize what to kill first: the Ghost Arks, which are keeping the Warriors alive; Doom Scythes which are fast, and have some nasty guns; Triarch Stalkers, AV13 Walkers who make my army's guns twin linked.

The Harp of Dissonance also looks very interested. Too bad you can only take two, as it is one of the unique Crpytek wargear, for good reason I suppose, since it has the Entropic Strike special rule. So in turn one I can potentially reduce a Land Raider to AV12 for the rest of the game, and then my Eldritch Lances and Heavy Destroyers can blow it away much easier.

Even with all that durability, you have to remember to ask yourself:
Is my list doing everything one should be?
Does it do it efficiently/consistently/threateningly enough?
Are the things I have to work with going to be constantly doing something for me?

Most armies should be pretty good at weathering small arms fire, even if it happens to be really resilient. What I'm worried about is you having a very finicky list what's major benefits amount to doing something that isn't very exciting, incredibly well.

I might be wrong, but do try to work in some answers and really efficiently costed threats. I fear you are overcommiting to a lack of breadth.