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Hi all.

Just played my second game against a Necron Army. First game was a straightforward loss. We ran out of time for the game but the intiative was massively swaying towards the crons, hence asking for advice. It was a 2000 pt game and my army included (note not every single gun/grenade choice listed out of brevity):

Huron Blackheart, joined by 6 Beserkers as a retinue and with a rhino.

Chaos Lord, Power maul, MoN, mounted on a bike for T6.
Retinue of 4 Chaos bikes all with MoN, 2 combi flamers as bike options.

10 plague marines with a melta gun

10 marines with melta gun
10 marines with flamer
20 cultists

5 Warptalons

5 Havocs with 4 missile launchers
5 havocs with 4 autocannons
Pred with T/L autocannon and heavy bolter sponsons.

Heldrake with baleflamer.

My tactics were to use Huron to gain more infiltration opportunities, infiltrating as far forwards as I could and to go for his troops choices hard and fast to both remove his scoring units and to minimise shooting losses for my own troops. In addition, I set up the heavies choices centrally on elevated positions to provide fire support due to their superior range against cron weapons in order to manage his heavier choices. All attacks were to be focussed with mass fire against individual cron units, trying to remove the unit entirely to limit regeneration rather than spreading fire.

That I can recall, his army had Anrakr the traveller, all 3 heavy slots filled including a monolith, a praetorian jump unit, the usual cron warriors and a few other nasties.

I managed to get first turn, immediately closed rapidly down both flanks targetting his foot troops (mainly the scoring troop choices) and opened up from the back lines at his troops to soften them up. I caused significant damage against his AB and strated to whittle down his centrally placed infantry squad. The problem was that the cover available to him meant that I couldn't quite mass the firepower sufficiently to finish off any units. Guess what? All of the foot troops wounded got back up. He had quite a few troops in reserve so in my second turn, I tried a further round of "softening up" with the shooting to minimal effect despite only picking 2 units for the entire army to fire at. Good as gold the heldrake came on and toasted 50% of a unit. Again, without wiping the troops out completely all bar 1 got up again. I managed to get into cc but with T4 reanimation protocols, managed to do very little damage.

And then came the pain. All bar 1 of his reserves came on and he deep struck surrounding my bikes and beserked filled rhino which were flatout down the flank. With high numbers of relatively cheap tesla weapons he managed to immobilise the drake, the rhino and utterly destroyed the bikers leaving the lord on his own. Close combat again consisted of a war of attrition in which most of his warriors got back up again. I had 2 units in close combat, but the supporting units running in to aid had either been stopped in their tracks or utterly destroyed do to the insane amount of shooting he was able to bring to bear. A lot of it either strength 6 or arcing around causing mayhem.

And then it strated to go wrong. it became a war of attrition in which I lost the heldrake support as it had to fly off the table and he had managed to close ground through the deepstriking units to limit my movement and support. The havocs went down rapidly as did one entire unit of marines, the rhino and so on and so on.

I am struggling to see a viable route to being able to compete. His "poor" close combat abilities are tempered by the reanimation protocols making troops choice units harder to kill than many other armies elite choices! Indeed, I was having to cause 3 wounds just to actually remove 2 of his unit, during which time he was able tarpit my so called better close combat troops. My saviours were the warp talons and the beserkers (but even then they were so good at cc, they wiped out a unit each but ended up at the mercy of being shot to bits immediately afterwards!), but through placing his monolith at the opposite end of the table and then phase shifting his units, he basically moved his infantry away faster than I could chase him! For a 2000 pt list he was able to table a huge amount of firepower and due to the sheer resilience of his troops I was quickly losing a war of attrition despite focussing on individual units to try to maximise the chances to prevent reanimation. My overall feeling was a very potent shooting army which can deep strike comfortably using the monolith. Deployment after deep striking favours shooty armies such as the crons and their absurd resiliance can tarpit middling to good cc troops comfortably.

I am somewhat at a loss to where I go next. Suggestions greatfully accepted.


:-(

Drop theTalons, Chaos lord, and bikers

Get a Rhino for each CSM squad and another for the plaguemanrines. Pop in a Helldrake and more berzerkers.
Throw in another 10 cultists to flesh out the 20-man squad and you should be good to go.

Sorry if unhelpful.

Thanks Imotekh.

Can I just ask what your reasoning is behind those changes? I can see the logic behind dropping the lord as he didn't cover his points cost. Likewise, another heldrake is on the shopping list. I am not keen on adding a land raider or some terminators due to the point sink.

I thought the warptalons did okay in the game I played and they easily covered their points cost. Likewise, what tactics would you adopt with more marines and rhinos?
I am sure you are right in tweaking the list, however I am also keen to find out what the potential anti cron tactics are that players use.

Is it worth keeping more in reserve/deep striking? Are any of the chaos artefacts/weapons/equipment particularly useful?

Is it worth sitting back with a gunline and then rushing objectives in the final turn, or taking the fight to them? I must admit, the gunline option looks attractive. The short range of their weapons would mean that any of his quicker/deep striking troops could be left unsupported. I guess this might balance the sheer firepower available to him.

Your thoughts are greatfully received.

Did he have a Lord with the Infantry Squad?

If he didnt have any WarScythe i would suggest instead of letting it fly of the board hover your Drake and Charge. A standard warrior cant even harm it in assault.

If i get your report right you completely destroyed his squad and then 1 of them gets back up? If it was a warrior that got back up he was wrong. Once a whole squad is down no one but a Lord, Cryptek and ,Overlord can get back up. None of which would be a troops choice.

Berzerker + rhino = bad option in general.
I'd advice regular marines, with MoK with Huron.

For you chaos lord, I'd take a Nurgle biker, only with Brand of Sh`$ùù`$âxx. Run around and fry up things. It will attract a lot of fire, but is also impossible to ignore.

If you can, I'd try making all your marines PM. You can have them as troops since you have a Nurgle lord. They can fire AND assault with success. Put them in rhino, with havoc launcher and dirge caster.
I use mine this way, basically dropping the PM on an objective and then running around firing the launcher and getting close to units you want to assault to eliminate overwatch - especially on template guys.

After trying havocs, I prefer obliterators to them. Ok, you got only 2 for the price of 5 havocs, but DS and their resiliance and versatility is worth it.

If you need a heavy hitting unit (and I suggest you take one), I would take :
- DP with wing and black mace. Put some flamer wielding raptors around that can assault something else.
- MoK lord on jugger with AoBF. I love mine. It hits like a truck, and is a great unit surrounded by spawns, bikers or jump units.

Here are my suggestions
- +1 on making all your marines plague marines. They are much more resistant to his shooting.
- You want to give your predator LC sponsons and maybe even a LC turrent. You need something to crack his AV 13 annilation barges
- Ask how he's getting 4+ RP rolls. Unless he has a lord with a ress orb in the unit, he should be having a 5+ RP roll.
- Add a melta gun or two to deal with that monolith. A few melta guns to the face will sort it right out.
- Can you post what other models you have? I don't want to give you a bunch of suggestions and have you going to to buy another $500 of models.

This list suggestion should be in your reach.
* I've added/altered some weapon options that you should have currently with few exceptions. (I suggest a bastion w/Quad Gun, but you can proxy that to start with. )
* A quad gun is decent against Necron flyers.
* Just use your bezerkers as PMs for this list. If you like the list, paint em green an call em infected bezerkers.
* Keep your lord and sorcerer with the PMs. They are your mobile responce unit. The nurgle powers suck, and you need to take one, but the T6 bike is really good, so just take 2 powers from biomancy and one from nurgle. (Ill admit though, adding 'gets hot' to gauss guns is quite funny)
* Stick one squad of havocs in the bastion. Stick the other on top. If you find them getting shot up a lot, drop a PM or two and add more bodies to the ones on top.
* Feel free to split up a squad or two of PMs if you have extra special weapons. Ideally at 2k points, you want to have 40 of them. PMs are a pain to shift, and only his telsa weapons will do squat to them. Take out his tesla weapons and watch him flounder.

HQ
Lord w/Bike, MoN, Black Mace, Sigil of Corruption
Sorcerer w/Bike, MoN, Lvl 3, Spell Familiar

Troops
11 PMs w/MG + PG
12 PMs w/MG + PG
12 PMs w/MG + PG
20 Cultists

Fast Attack
Helldrake with Bale Flamer

Heavy Support
Predator w/TL LC and LC sponsons
5 Havocs w/Autocannons
5 Havocs w/Autocannons

Fortification
Bastion w/Quad Gun

 labmouse42 wrote:
Here are my suggestions

HQ
Lord w/Bike, MoN, Black Mace, Sigil of Corruption
Sorcerer w/Bike, MoN, Lvl 3, Spell Familiar

Troops
11 PMs w/MG + PG
12 PMs w/MG + PG
12 PMs w/MG + PG
20 Cultists

Fast Attack
Helldrake with Bale Flamer

Heavy Support
Predator w/TL LC and LC sponsons
5 Havocs w/Autocannons
5 Havocs w/Autocannons

Fortification
Bastion w/Quad Gun

Meta comments !

Don't you take rhinos for the PM? Reducing the squads by one would get you a rhino (roughly), and by 2 they would have dirge / havoc launcher ?
Having 2 IC without a squad is asking them to be fired on ?

And maybe, maybe, you're just sticking to the models the OP has.

 Seb wrote:
[And maybe, maybe, you're just sticking to the models the OP has.

Ding!

I don't think its good advise to suggest someone spends $400 bucks on new models.
I will try and help them with the tools they have, and let them increase their own collection at their own rate.

Knowing ahead of time that you are taking on Necrons really helps. The true might of the Necrons is against TAC lists in a tournament setting. If you know ahead of time, just dump all your ground vehicles and bring anti-necron weaponry.

Martel732 wrote:
Knowing ahead of time that you are taking on Necrons really helps. The true might of the Necrons is against TAC lists in a tournament setting. If you know ahead of time, just dump all your ground vehicles and bring anti-necron weaponry.

Its generally bad practice to tailor a list against one opponent.

The OP did however request advice on how his Chaos force can tackle Necrons.

Thanks guys.

My opponent tailors his army to take on players for each individual game and he is quite happy to spend money to do so. I do have some "spare" units eg. hellbrutes (2), some terminators (approx 10) and a land raider, I have the capacity to buy another couple of units. I don't mind tailoring my army, but realy I am after useful tactics against a HQ/elite/heavy loving player. He does vary his list so there isn't much point posting it directly.

Is it worth outgunning him (unlikely given their numerous hi tech guns) or is there a way of forcing night fighting rules? Likewise, how do you avoid being tarpitted in cc? It just seemed that every cunning plan was evaded by either their sheer (and very nasty) firepower or their exceptional resilience.

It's not just the troops I could do with advice on but good tactics to negate crons multitude of abilities.

Thanks

Anyone?

It only seems to be crons I struggle with. I don't play competitions so any advice re: tactics (as opposed to troop choices directly) is appreciated.

e.g. is a cultist screen worth the points as a screen for other troops?
Is it actually possible to outgun the crons?

Thanks