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Hello Dakka,

I got into 40k with CSM, but never truly felt the love for any of the Chaos gods (though Nurgle is my favorite).

So, I am thinking about getting into Necrons, but I have some questions:

What is/are the preffered HQ(s):

Are monoliths viable?

Basically, any Necron tips/advice/lists will be helpful.

Also, 1500 points is the level that I play at.

Cheers!

Honestly, unless you wish to tailor a list to an HQ, you are best with a DIY overlord hq
In my experience they are, i've never had trouble with mine, however everyone online will say to the contrary.
For necrons, you gotta figure what kind of army you want to run.
Wraithwing tanks most everything, needs nightfighting to be extra effective
Scarab Farm absolutely ruins vehicles
AV13 spam= flood field with ghost arcs, A. Barges, ect
Warrior flood= old fashioned footslogging warriors and immortals, usually with crpyteks to have them able to deep strike all over the place when need be.

What kinda flavor did you have in mind, then i'd be happy to offer you more specific advice

My personal opinion, which is heavily biased towards friendly gaming and the story behind an army, is that if you are just starting out with an army start with some units you like, either because of their models, background or tabletop effectiveness. Then build up the army around them to make it viable. As the previous poster wrought it is much easier to give advice once a basic set of guidelines have been decided.

I have a regular opponent that simply wanted an army done in a weekend and so 5 of us got together and between a lot of drybrushing with tank brushes we knocked over a Necron army in about 40 hours. Won't win any awards, but it looks good as a whole. That army was as many warriors as he could pack in and it is a pain to play against.

SO, after much rambling my advice is get a basic idea together and then the Dakka faithful can help further. Too many Necron units support other units to be considered on an individual basis.

Look forward to more info.

Well, I started liking Necrons with my first 40k experience, DOW Dark Crusade.

I'm also thinking of doing an Aperture Science theme for mine.

However, I know very little about them, and haven't gotten a codex yet (not for at least 2 weeks :( )

I like the idea of centering it around a Monolith. Maybe a C'tan too?

Could somebody briefly explain how reanimation protocol works and any special things with that?

I'm also thinking of foot slogging the most.

I like the old flayed ones and they seem like CC masterpieces.

I'm thinking that an Overlord will be my best bet for an HQ.

Destroyers?

Are the spyders what spawn scarabs?

You should probably pick up a codex, the necron dex is amazingly varied and capable of a wide wide variety of viable lists with intricate synergies.

Monoliths are still strong if the list built around them, a little cheaper then they used to be but a little more killable. C'tan are still good, a monstrous creature with beastly stat line and an array of powers that can be tooled to fit the list, and the only place in the whole codex to get initiative 4. A little pricey though.

Reanimation protocols work a lot like we'll be back did except it's a base 5+ and it's not negated by power weapons or ID anymore. In case you were unfamiliar with old we'll be back, when a guy dies you just tip him on his side or place a token where he keeled over then later you make rolls to see if he stands up again. Negated by your unit being wiped out to a man, so msu isn't as favorable in necron armies because it's easier to lose your whole unit and miss out on rp rolls, necrons like fat bricks of guys so they can weather a lot of losses and still get back up.

Thanks to superior defensive stats and a slew of ways to activate night fight necrons are ideally suited to foot slogging.

No one seems to have flayed ones figured out yet. They have solid stats and special rules but they come in a weird place in the army. They don't score, they don't shoot, they aren't one of the units you can attach royal court members to. Fickle, but intriguing.

Overlords are the go-to HQ you can't go wrong with. Sit him in a barge for a solo murder missile or tool him up with wargear to enhance troop bricks.

Destroyers are not in vogue currently given the brutal competition for fast attack slots with wraiths and scarabs, but mostly because people just assume they aren't all they can be until 6th edition maybe makes one of their do nothing special rules relevant. They are still solid performers though, highly mobile and some of the best dakka in the army, just a little expensive.

The spyders do spawn the scarabs.

I actually got into them from dark crusade as well.
I've gotten good mileage out of both my c'tan and monolith.
My advice is to never deep strike the monolith, I like to park it near objectives and blast anything that threatens it, also still reaps a huge tally against horde armies.

Reanimation protocols lets casualties get back up on a 5+ roll, otherwise if you have a Res orb in the squad, they get up on a +4

Footslogging is plenty viable
Flayed ones compared to other Necron melee options such as lychguard, or wraiths. (wraiths get +3 invulns, rending attacks and whip coils) and lychguard getting a whole squad full of power weapons and potentially a +4 invuln with 3+ armor.

Destroyers have strong weapons, and count as jump infantry now.
The spyders are monsterous creatures that spawn scarabs yes.

The codex is a great read, lots of info and really expands the Necron background. I think they have done a reasonable job.

The monolith is a solid centrepiece of a model as well as a strong unit, lots of weapons and will definately attract a lot of enemy fire.

The C'tan are interesting now with so many upgrade options they can really be tailored to a certain roll.

The reanimation protocol allows any unit with it as a rule to attempt to get casualties back. At the end of each phase, shooting, CC, etc get a 33% chance of rejoining their unit so long as they weren't entirely wiped out or falling back after a failed morale check.

Flayed ones have a lot of attacks, good toughness and decent armour save can deep strike and infiltrate and reanimation protocol means they can appear anywhere and hard to shift.

HQ choices are quite extensive for necron now and well worth exploring once you have a copy of the codex.

Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers are jump infantry with big guns. Basically mobile weapon platforms. They have the preferred enemy rule against everyone which is useful.

Canoptek Spyders can spawn scarab swarms at the start of the movement phase by adding to an EXISTING swarm.

So, 10-20 man squads and you'll get a lot of life out of them?

I'm thinking that I will focus on Necron warriors, with a Monolith.

Maybe some Praetorians (Do they have the shields?).

Are spyders a must have?

Is it good to be taking a ressurection orb then?

What can force night fighting?

Royal Court?

And thanks for helping!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
How many points is a scarab swarm?

10-20 man squads of warriors are ideal, a twenty man squad with a res orb lord is incredibly durable.
I'd avoid praetorians, they are the jump pack guys, lychguard are the ones with power weapons and shields.
Spyders are not a must have, however i'd think that scarabs are a must if you are facing a mechanized force.
Taking a res orb with a Royal court lord, popping him into that warrior blob is a great idea.
For each Overlord in your army, you unlock 0-5 lords/crypteks, and you put them into squads like sergeants, with all their wargear.
Night fighting can be started (or negated) using a Cryptek with "solar pulse" wargear.
Immotehk the Stormlord can also cause up to 6 rounds of night fighting, with lightning to kill things as well.

Scarabs are 18 points a base

Wow

The Necrons sound a lot better (even though they were awesome before) than they were!

Thanks for all the help!

How much is a monolith? Are they worth taking in pair?

I remember reading about a duo monolith strategy (before the necrons got updated) Where you use 1 to teleport a squad, and the other blasts the squad that the necrons were fighting. Is that viable?

If you mean about Teleporting Necrons out of combat the Monolith can no longer do that. And without it being immune to melta and having very short range weapons, it tends to just sit around most of the game or get close and get taken out almost immediatly. At least where I play melta is in plenty of supply in lists so I took them out completely. Also the Monolith got a weapon strength reduction across the board, hardly worth its points IMHO

Portaling units no longer grabs them out of close combat so that particular trick is not quite viable anymore, but just taking 2 monoliths still works. If just 1 monolith appearing and portaling in units is a threat than 2 monoliths portaling 2 units is a crisis. The portal is also now limitless range so you can have one monolith in your deployment and deepstrike the other at the other end of the table and bounce units back and forth across the map to avoid assaults or get shots on rear armor values or control both your and your opponent's home objectives while your opponent is stuck halfway between both.

Dakka frowns on essentially outright copy pasting codex info into posts so i don't wanna give out too many specific point values but i'll say that it's comparably priced to other vehicles with av14 and that you can probably find it in any necron army list posted in this section that takes monoliths.

I understand on not posting GW things. My fault.

I like the iconic symbol of a monolith in a force.

But AV14 can be quite a threat. Can the monolith itself teleport? Basically running away from the meltas? Or would that make the thing just an annoying rabbit-like waste of points?

It can Deepstrike onto the table and usually mishap. a full square 6" was never meant to be deepstriking on the table for any reason. Take into the account of an average 7" scatter, thats a 20" diameter circle you need clear on the table to be mostly safe. Good Luck!

The AV14 can be a threat when its carrying nasty things inside it. In 3rd edition if the Monolith didn't move, you could still pull things out, like flayed ones, and assault. You can no longer do that, you can shoot of course, but thats about it.

So you have to drive up, wait a turn, hope the monolith doesn't die to melta. then port out a squad before the monolith can even turn. Its so hard to set up the rapid fire and opponents are not usually dumb enough to let you do it.

They can either use melta or just park a vehicle in front of the door, then your done

My advice would be to closley read the rules before you make a purchase I would not want you to regret

A Scarab farm messes up everyone,
9 spyders spawning a base each turn my opponent builds up one swarm for turns 1-3 by 4 they are chomping through everything while the spyders build up a second swarm for turns 4-7.. this makes everyone a sad panda.

Step 1: I suggest you read through the codex very carefully (you may need to consult the new Necron FAQ, as some of the rules in the book are poorly written, and therefore very confusing at first glance).

Though, if you can manage to wait a bit more, the 2nd wave of models should be released next month. A lot of people are waiting on the MVP of the army (Wraiths) to be released then.

In the mean time, 1D4chan has a pretty good overall pro/con unit-by-unit analysis for the entire army. It's a pretty good place to start for a general introduction to NewCrons.

I just borrowed a codex. I'm going through it now. There are a LOT of tough decisions that need to be made.

The Necron report card:

HQ
Imotekh the Stormlord = A (only consider him for big point battles)
Nemesor Zahndrekh = A
Vargard Obyron = A-
Illuminor Szeras = F
Orikan the Diviner = D
Anrakyr the Traveler = B
Trazyn the Infinite = B
Generic Overlord = A+
Destroyer Lord = B+
Lord = B-
Generic Cryptek = C-
Harbinger of Destruction = A+
Harbinger of Transmogrification = B+
Harbinger of the Storm = D
Harbinger of Eternity = C
Harbinger of Despair = C+/B-

TRANSPORT
Catacomb Command Barge = S++
Ghost Ark = A
Night Scythe = B+

TROOPS
Necron Warriors = B+
Immortals = B

ELITES
Deathmarks = C
Lychguards = B-
Triarch Praetorians = C-
C'tan Shards = C+
Flayed Ones = D-/F
Triarch Stalker = C

FAST ATTACK
Canoptek Wraiths = S+
Canoptek Scarabs = S
Tomb Blades = A-
Necron Destroyers = C
(Heavy Destroyers = B+)

HEAVY SUPPORT
Annihilation Barge = S
Canoptek Spyders = A
Doomsday Ark = B
Doom Scythe = C
Monolith = C


(keep in mind, this is a very synergistic army, so a lot of things won't be as good if you don't take the other corresponding unit for the combo).

TL;DR- get ready to buy a lot of Barges...
(Wraiths, too, once they're released)

Thanks for all the support!

Although, after looking through the codex, I like what's in there, but I don't think Necrons are for me...I'm leaning towards building a WAAAGH!

Here's my feedback for somone starting with Necrons.

The Necron Lord on a CCBarge is a steal. Don't give him a lot of wargear, just the Warscythe, and he is extremely though for your opponent to kill. I've won games just by moving him to contest their objective.

Scarabs are worth their points... not only do they destroy vehicles, but they make your opponent react/overreact to them. They are a great distraction force... cheap, with plenty of wounds, but don't expect them to win a combat unless they seriously outnumber the opponent.

Wraiths are the best CC in the codex, but you need to be smart on how you use them. They can get swarmed by large units, so make sure that you weaken their target somewhat before they charge into combat.

Both Immortals and Warriors have their place. Immortals are better for lists that use a lot of toys (read expensive toys), so that you can save on points somewhat. You can't beat, however, the toughness of a large unit of warriors supported by a Ghost Ark and a res orb.

Monoliths and destroyers are two units that will probably get a lot better when 6th edition comes around. I have a nice unit of destroyers that just isn't seeing the table top right now, and I'm not buying my Monoliths just yet.

Another unit that will get better when the new rules come out is are Deathmarks. I have 10 built, but they are waiting for their time.

Anpu-adom wrote:Monoliths and destroyers are two units that will probably get a lot better when 6th edition comes around. I have a nice unit of destroyers that just isn't seeing the table top right now, and I'm not buying my Monoliths just yet.

Another unit that will get better when the new rules come out is are Deathmarks. I have 10 built, but they are waiting for their time.

Have the official rules been leaked/spoiled somewhere that I missed?
Last I remember hearing about was the "fake" 6th Ed. a few months ago...
(everyone's assuming the weird rules for some of the Necron units were written with the 6th Ed. changes in mind, but... I have yet to see anything believable yet)

skoffs wrote:

Anpu-adom wrote:Monoliths and destroyers are two units that will probably get a lot better when 6th edition comes around. I have a nice unit of destroyers that just isn't seeing the table top right now, and I'm not buying my Monoliths just yet.

Another unit that will get better when the new rules come out is are Deathmarks. I have 10 built, but they are waiting for their time.

Have the official rules been leaked/spoiled somewhere that I missed?
Last I remember hearing about was the "fake" 6th Ed. a few months ago...
(everyone's assuming the weird rules for some of the Necron units were written with the 6th Ed. changes in mind, but... I have yet to see anything believable yet)

No leaks or spoils here either... I just think that we'll see a lot of things from the "fake" book make it into 6th.