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Hello guys,
I m still a new player having played about 6-8 games. My most epic games have been against the Tau where one was an epic loss, the other an epic win (around 2:9 annihilation) but tactically they were extremely challenging because of the Tau being a better shooty army and me not having enough melee, except a unit of Lychguard. Some general points and issues came up and I would like to clear them up.

Warriors - are they really that useful ? They are a wonderful capping unit, but the rapid fire felt restricting, usually took 2-3 turns to get a shot (maybe just that the Tau tried to maintain range so feel free to correct me). With Transport Arks they are no doubt great, but personally cant afford so many arks yet. How do you use Warriors ?

Stalker - uf, not much good to say about this ! I was warned that a single Stalker is a good target and i must say, they seem to rather underperform. For the price and the amount of firepower they can throw, it is rather a dissapointment - the twin-linked rule is deffo an added value, but till the rest of my foot-sloggers get in range to make use of it, the stalker is usually in ashes. I wonder, even if I fielded 2 Stalkers, I don't think it'd be hard to blow them both up and that is 300 points out the window....

Lychguard - I always field them with the Disp. Shield, and I had a game (the epic one against the Tau) where turn 1, I deep striked a unit of 7 LG with a Necron Lord and Vargard Obyron and it was mere luck that I landed precisely infront of his army (1:5). What than proceeded was a an insane barrage and extreme luck on my part, but i can safely safe, it's very unlikely Ill ever switch to the 4+ invuln. save against the 3+ unless I need to. The unit is simply very precious and expensive and with only 1 wound, it's a waste. Needless to say, they perform extremely well in melee, the problem is getting them there. I actually have my doubts about their utility now. Tips ?

Wraiths + Praetorians - I have never used them, but Im seriously considering going this way. Jump infantry, they should be able to reach the enemy fairly quickly and tie them in melee and both have good saves. Im thinking about taking 2 Anni Barges, 1 Doomsday Ark, a little shooting support consisting of warriors and immortals and the melee force to be the hammer. Thoughts ?

Thanks

Ok first of all if you are going against a shooty army i.e. Tau get Imotehk- night fighting allows you to get in range... secondly the Stalker is a great tool if used correctly. Get the Doomsday Cannon- nasty long range blast. Go get some wraiths and a Spyder they will make your day a whole lot better and your enemies a whole lot worse. The warriors are definitely worth it as they give you a ton of shots once in range 20 war.= 40 shots at 12", and even 20 shots at 24 isn't bad either. Immortals are good option as well as they can also move and shoot and with the tesla it makes their AP nil but anti-infantry top notch.

I had a similar issue with my new 'crons. I was up against IG recently, I just couldn't get close enough to them to really open up. I think it's quite restricting that the necron's longest range guns are pretty much capped at 24", the Doomsday Ark being the exception of course.

I picked up a Doom/Night Scythe recently, so hopefully if I load a Lord/Overlord + Lychguard in I should be able to get them into combat quickly.

Metal_days wrote:Hello guys,
I m still a new player having played about 6-8 games. My most epic games have been against the Tau where one was an epic loss, the other an epic win (around 2:9 annihilation) but tactically they were extremely challenging because of the Tau being a better shooty army and me not having enough melee, except a unit of Lychguard. Some general points and issues came up and I would like to clear them up.

Warriors - are they really that useful ? They are a wonderful capping unit, but the rapid fire felt restricting, usually took 2-3 turns to get a shot (maybe just that the Tau tried to maintain range so feel free to correct me). With Transport Arks they are no doubt great, but personally cant afford so many arks yet. How do you use Warriors ?

I generally don't find them that useful. They are good for hiding a couple of crypteks in, but other than that not much. Also, I've not had much success with blobs of warriors, cos they tend to lose badly in CC and run or get swept.

Metal_days wrote:Stalker - uf, not much good to say about this ! I was warned that a single Stalker is a good target and i must say, they seem to rather underperform. For the price and the amount of firepower they can throw, it is rather a dissapointment - the twin-linked rule is deffo an added value, but till the rest of my foot-sloggers get in range to make use of it, the stalker is usually in ashes. I wonder, even if I fielded 2 Stalkers, I don't think it'd be hard to blow them both up and that is 300 points out the window....

A lot depends on your list. If you don't have many mech units, then the stalkers will stand out as targets. Single stalkers probably aren't the best as the opponent can take away your twin linking advantage by hitting it quickly. So it's worth it for them. Maybe try a slightly different list with more barges or something and see how they go then?

Metal_days wrote:Lychguard - I always field them with the Disp. Shield, and I had a game (the epic one against the Tau) where turn 1, I deep striked a unit of 7 LG with a Necron Lord and Vargard Obyron and it was mere luck that I landed precisely infront of his army (1:5). What than proceeded was a an insane barrage and extreme luck on my part, but i can safely safe, it's very unlikely Ill ever switch to the 4+ invuln. save against the 3+ unless I need to. The unit is simply very precious and expensive and with only 1 wound, it's a waste. Needless to say, they perform extremely well in melee, the problem is getting them there. I actually have my doubts about their utility now. Tips ?

Not sure what you meant about switching to 4+ save, you have to use the best save available. I'm not sure if you meant to land in front of the army, but there aren't any units that I can think of that will survive shooting from an opponents entire army. However, I find that the Lychguard are very resilient and absorb a huge amount of fire, particularly if the Lord/Obyron have the 2+ save as well. The 4+ save is very useful for when someone shoots AP2, AP1 weapons at you, or for power weapons in CC.

As for use I tend to drop a Death and Despair combo and the lychguard at the same time. This again helps with threat saturation - does your opponent shoot at the D&D combo or the LG?

Metal_days wrote:Wraiths + Praetorians - I have never used them, but Im seriously considering going this way. Jump infantry, they should be able to reach the enemy fairly quickly and tie them in melee and both have good saves.

If you are going to use Praetorians I suggest taking the VB/PC option to get the extra CC attack. Wraiths are widely considered the best unit in the codex - but you have to take 5+, three isn't going to work well.

Metal_days wrote:Im thinking about taking 2 Anni Barges, 1 Doomsday Ark, a little shooting support consisting of warriors and immortals and the melee force to be the hammer.

The only real melee forces that Necrons have are wraiths. Check out wraith wing lists on dakka and see if they appeal.

I have never really found Warriors to be very helpful, especially recently with the 4+ armor save downgrade. They only ever hide my crypteks for a couple of turns or they just die.

I run 2 squads of 15 warriors, both with lords with orbs, i find them to brush off pretty much anything but mass focus'd fire, also with the stalker, it pretty much doesnt survive turn one, im not sure if i should get another, or spend the points somewhere else

With a stalker 1 is just to big of a target, you need multiple threats to split up their fire or to force them to focus 1 and ignore the others. Then as an act of vengeance make them regret picking what they did.

I've played against Tau and I've creamed them. Wraiths are a great choice and if you get an Ark, I suggest converting the warriors onboard into wraiths (10 warriors are now 10 wraiths, winning). Now, this is expensive points wise, but is awesome upon the field of battle. Overlord with Lord Court all decked out with Warscythes, Phase Shifters, and one lord with the Res Orb at least. You don't have to worry about using MSS so much against Tau and these guys can shrug off shots like they were nothing and worse comes to worse, they get back up.

Another thing I'd suggest is Doomsday ark/Solar Pulse combo. Simply, Get imotekh for the nightfighting (and the occasional lightning bolt). Your opponent is probably going to have issues at staying back at shooting you. When it's your turn, have a cryptek with solar pulse set it off so you can drop a pie plate or two (as in hopefully you bring two arks) at S9 AP1. That way you can hopefully take out his hammerhead or whatnot and a little more. (Bringing two Harbingers of Destruction with Solar Pulse makes it that much more awesome).

King Pariah wrote:I've played against Tau and I've creamed them. Wraiths are a great choice and if you get an Ark, I suggest converting the warriors onboard into wraiths (10 warriors are now 10 wraiths, winning). Now, this is expensive points wise, but is awesome upon the field of battle. Overlord with Lord Court all decked out with Warscythes, Phase Shifters, and one lord with the Res Orb at least. You don't have to worry about using MSS so much against Tau and these guys can shrug off shots like they were nothing and worse comes to worse, they get back up.

Another thing I'd suggest is Doomsday ark/Solar Pulse combo. Simply, Get imotekh for the nightfighting (and the occasional lightning bolt). Your opponent is probably going to have issues at staying back at shooting you. When it's your turn, have a cryptek with solar pulse set it off so you can drop a pie plate or two (as in hopefully you bring two arks) at S9 AP1. That way you can hopefully take out his hammerhead or whatnot and a little more. (Bringing two Harbingers of Destruction with Solar Pulse makes it that much more awesome).

Having Imotekh and Doomsday arks is a terrible idea. By solarpulsing in your turn, you are wasting Imotekh, as he can not use his lightning.

Sasori wrote:

King Pariah wrote:I've played against Tau and I've creamed them. Wraiths are a great choice and if you get an Ark, I suggest converting the warriors onboard into wraiths (10 warriors are now 10 wraiths, winning). Now, this is expensive points wise, but is awesome upon the field of battle. Overlord with Lord Court all decked out with Warscythes, Phase Shifters, and one lord with the Res Orb at least. You don't have to worry about using MSS so much against Tau and these guys can shrug off shots like they were nothing and worse comes to worse, they get back up.

Another thing I'd suggest is Doomsday ark/Solar Pulse combo. Simply, Get imotekh for the nightfighting (and the occasional lightning bolt). Your opponent is probably going to have issues at staying back at shooting you. When it's your turn, have a cryptek with solar pulse set it off so you can drop a pie plate or two (as in hopefully you bring two arks) at S9 AP1. That way you can hopefully take out his hammerhead or whatnot and a little more. (Bringing two Harbingers of Destruction with Solar Pulse makes it that much more awesome).

Having Imotekh and Doomsday arks is a terrible idea. By solarpulsing in your turn, you are wasting Imotekh, as he can not use his lightning.

I've never had much luck with his lightning anyway, so when I use him, it's just really for seizing the initiative and for forcing nightfighting upon my opponent.

Sasori has it spot on.
No point going with a long ranged cannon if you wont be able to use it.
And if you want to use it, you lose the stormlord's rule.

To be honest, i find lightning to be far more damaging too.

If you want to keep them in darkness, run 2 scythes to fly-by with deathrays.

King Pariah wrote:

Sasori wrote:

King Pariah wrote:I've played against Tau and I've creamed them. Wraiths are a great choice and if you get an Ark, I suggest converting the warriors onboard into wraiths (10 warriors are now 10 wraiths, winning). Now, this is expensive points wise, but is awesome upon the field of battle. Overlord with Lord Court all decked out with Warscythes, Phase Shifters, and one lord with the Res Orb at least. You don't have to worry about using MSS so much against Tau and these guys can shrug off shots like they were nothing and worse comes to worse, they get back up.

Another thing I'd suggest is Doomsday ark/Solar Pulse combo. Simply, Get imotekh for the nightfighting (and the occasional lightning bolt). Your opponent is probably going to have issues at staying back at shooting you. When it's your turn, have a cryptek with solar pulse set it off so you can drop a pie plate or two (as in hopefully you bring two arks) at S9 AP1. That way you can hopefully take out his hammerhead or whatnot and a little more. (Bringing two Harbingers of Destruction with Solar Pulse makes it that much more awesome).

Having Imotekh and Doomsday arks is a terrible idea. By solarpulsing in your turn, you are wasting Imotekh, as he can not use his lightning.

I've never had much luck with his lightning anyway, so when I use him, it's just really for seizing the initiative and for forcing nightfighting upon my opponent.

Then you are wasting a lot of points. Seizing the initiative is good, but it's not worth 225 points. If you just want Darkness, then take solar pulses. The combo of Doomsdark Arks+Imotekh is a really inefficient use of points. If you really want to Use Imotekh, you should capitalize on what be brings to the table, and build your list around the Lightning and nightfighting.

I rarely use Imotekh, prefer a regular ol' Overlord.