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Hi all,

Played Necrons for the first time on the weekend and i got absolutely slaughtered. I play as SW. Without going into details of this game, i was hoping to get a bit of thread going as to how people approach/deal with Necrons in their games? In one sense, keeping beyond 24" seems to be a good idea. Contrastingly, i feel getting into CC quickly is also a possible plan? I just dunno hey and as i'm more of a WFB player, i was hoping to glean some advice from people wiser than me...

So just to re-cap - what are best tactics to use vs Necrons?

I find that weight of fire works best - they can't ressurect all of their warriors. This of course is easy for me because I play IG. The last time I played against Necrons I tabled them by turn three.


as for SW, I'd advise getting into combat. warriors are Initiative 2, so you should be alright. pop in a few lascannons against those poncy blocks of metal called monoliths and ghost/doomsday arks, and a flakk gun against night/doom scythes.


GA

Necrons are pretty damn good at close-quarters shooting. They're a bit better than space marine chapters in doing that, I'd say, given reanimation protocols and the power of tesla weapons. However, they give up a lot of longer-range shooting and CC power in exchange for it.

These things of course depend on what kind of necron army you're facing. However, some things are more often seen than others. These things are: Tesla (Particularly TL Tesla Destructors, on either Nightscythes or Annihilation Barges), Wraiths, Warriors, Immortals, occasional Mindshackle Scarabs. Tesla Destructors have 24" range, as well as gauss flayers and Tesla Carbines. Wraiths move 12" and assault.

The two strats you outlined are pretty good. Either stay out of the 24 inch kill zone, or get into CC. For SW, how you do this is up to you. Long Fangs w/ Missile Launchers (+ Rune Priest w/ Prescience and Perfect Timing if possible) are always recommended, as it gives you firepower that can deal with basically all the AV13 threats that necrons commonly bring. You'll have a bit of trouble with hitting flyers (prescience helps), but that's a SW problem right now, not a Necron problem. Drop-podding Grey Hunters works, if you present enough threats that some get into CC. Grey Hunters will win based on sheer number of attacks, and hopefully sweep. Necrons are very vulnerable to getting swept in combat -- because of their low number of attacks on their basic troops and low init, they'll often lose combat, and Ld10 doesn't help that much. When they fall back, they don't get RP rolls, and I2 means they get swept a lot. MSS will happen, just deal with it. SW get a lot of attacks, so they can win that way, rather than by single beatstick characters that then get MSS'd.

As before, a lot of your in-battle tactics depends on what kind of necron army it is -- Wraithwing gets a lot of mobility, but then loses ground presence against your weight of fire. Scarab farms generate a lot of attacks, but lose to templates, which you have if you're running ML Long Fangs. Silver Tide needs to be engaged in CC. Against AV13 wall, Long Fangs and meltas on your Drop-podding GH.

Necrons are a strong to broken army, depending on what the guy is fielding

Against regular armies, their pair of Deathmarks + Despairtek in Flyers will destroy 2 units as soon as they come in, but they are vulnerable to Interceptor weapons
Their MSS Deathstar will destroy anything in CC as well but it can be easily contained if you have units to sacrifice
And so on ...

The main issue is that they have lots of powerful and very cheap units (notably the Annihilation Barge and Night Scythes) and then a few very nasty combos that you can field along with the above-mentionned support

Hopefully, armies such as the new Tau are the first nail in the coffin of the Cron-Air
Fielding an army with a very high body count and AV14 vehicles is efficient against Necrons as they usually rely heavily on S7 Teslas, which can't do s**t to AV14 and don't have the amount of shots required to destroy a true horde

Yeah thats some good advice right there fellas - thanks.

So the list i faced (just some random dude in my local GW store) i had no idea what he was gonna run until the game started. But it was pretty much the following, exact wargear im not sure (it was a 1750pt game):

2 x OL on CCB with MSS the St7 power weapon thingo (he commented that they were both fully tooled up and cost around 250pts each;
3 x 10 immortals with tesla;
2 x 10 warriors both in ghost arks;
1 x AB;
1 x Monolith.

I had a pretty crappy list cos i suck at 40k basically:

Lord on TW + TH/SS, runic armour,saga of bear;
RP TDA chooser;
RP (naked);
3 x TWC (2 SS);
4 x WG in TDA (3 x wolf claws, 1 x chain fist, 1 x assault cannon, 1 x power weapon);
1 x Drednaught (Assault cannon, hvy flamer, DCCW);
3 x 10 GH (one with melta, one plasma, one flamer + 1 x rhino, 2 x MoTW, 2 x Wolf Standard);
5 x LF (1 x Las, 1 x plas, 1 x ML, 1 x HB);
5 x fenrisian wolves.

So the stars for me were the TDA RP, dred and LF. Everything else got obliterated by shooting.

I'm really lacking some delivery methods. I like the idea of DP, but don't wanna commit to an all pod list. What do you all think about a mix of say 3 pods and a few rhinos or something?

3 Pods is never bad because 2 automatically come in on turn 1. Just pick two units you want on the field at the start of the game and a third you want in reserves.

In your list, you Long Fangs are too different. Pick a weapon, and take 4 of that, or 2 and 2 of two different weapon to make use of that Split Fire. It just redundancy that ensures your LFs get to do something useful.

Also, his list isn't that good. Way too many troops and the OL is way too expensive. The CCB just isn't that good, and then combined with zero CC units and no Scythes of any kind, he's gimping himself. If he had cut the troops to just the Immortals and put them all in Night Scythes he would have done a fair bit better.

I'm very new to WH40k and currently have a record of 2-3. That being said one of my two victories came against Necrons.

My two tactics were to concentrate my fire and get into combat. Staying out of rapid fire range was pretty important too. I play a green tide Ork list and the Necrons could not deal with mobs of 30 Shoota boy Orks getting into combat. Even a royal court was killed by a mob of 30 Boyz shooting and then assaulting. (Ghaz and a mob of Nobs in a trukk also ruined his day)

My basic point is that if I can beat Necrons, anyone can.

Assuming that you'r opponent isn't using mass flyers.

Most Necron stuff has a range of 24" so Long Fang spam with missiles (140pts=5missiles) (420pts=15missiles) then you may be able to simply outrange them, remember you also have 3+ armour so getting into CC would also dramatically improve your chances, finally a R.P with Jaws tends to help (clear with your opponent before hand wheather or not he gets R.P's because i play they don't.


To sum up


1.Long Fangs
2.CC
3.Rune Priest's and not Wolf Lords (unless Logan)

They are the strongest codex out at the moment (although they are a nice match up for the new tau dex) but the strength of the codex in no way determines the quality of the player or the luck of the di, any army can be beaten its just harder to beat some

I play Necrons primarily against SW. Usually he will field 2 units of long fangs with missiles to take out any tanks I have, and he will throw his units into drop pods or rhinos and try to rush into CC with me. If I can keep him out of CC range I am usually golden, but as soon as he starts assaulting I notice the game goes downhill fast. Also jaws is really good against us....

Jaws of the World Wolf for a SW player. Everything in our army that matters is Initiative 2 so they pretty much poof out existence without any saves or RP.

Either stay out of 24 inches or get into melee combat - pick one and don't fool around in between or they will roast you with the firepower.

Watch out for Night Scythes dropping guys off late game to capture/deny objectives.

Uh... force them to make LD tests because if they fail everything that died doesn't get a re-animation roll.

I've been playing Necron for a bit and I find you really need to be on your game. This army definitely punishes people for playing mid-range shootouts against them. You need a concise plan of attack to deal with them.

My cousin always beats me with his necrons.......

But on a happy note I destroy his monolith on the first I can see it EVERY game.....so I dont mind losing with my terrible dice rolls lol

Wolfnid420 wrote:
My cousin always beats me with his necrons.......

But on a happy note I destroy his monolith on the first I can see it EVERY game.....so I dont mind losing with my terrible dice rolls lol

That could be why he beats you. Monolith is a beast but if you sunk the firepower that you put at it into something else you'd probably be wiping out his troops and cheaper, yet more deadly units.

You can't totally ignore the Monolith but in some cases firing at it draws right into the Necron players plan. I've considered using it for that reason alone - all those high STR shots going at my AV14 instead of my Wraiths.

No no, you mistake. Its Always either 1 squad of broadsides or like last time i shot 3 zoeys at it. 3 pens 3 explodes results. It was hilarious!!! Mostly its because he runs 2 ghost arks and 2 full warrior squads. They dont ever die! He's uncanny with his RP rolls its ridiculous, plus his damn ghost arks ALWAYS seem to spit out 3 new ones. He won the last game pretty decidedly because his damn doomscythe ran my broadsides off the board with a failed morale check. The way the terrain was i couldnt shoot the monolith or anything else with them so his 2 ghost arks, 40 warriors and a mono just walked up and ate my FW after taking a couple turns to kill my stealth units.....

Anyways, im just saying it dies, turn one, TO MINIMAL SHOOTING(i guess i left that out), and it makes me happy lol

If you can avoid it, dont take too many vehicles. Saying that tesla can't scratch AV14 is all well and good, but when your basic warriors gauss weapon can strip a hull point on a 6 that changes the rules bit.

Necron dont fear armour (apart from long range artillery). If you spend a chunk of points on land raiders expect to seem them gimped by turn 2 or 3. last game I played was against a WE army and by turn 3 i have gaussed to death 2 Land Raiders and a Rhino with just my warriors. That left my Wraiths free to pick and choose which squad to move on.

If you are playing SW then your best option against anything but Wraithwing is to get into charge range asap. if you want to take vehicles would suggest cheap rhinos as you are most likely going to lose them anyway- at whcih point they become line of sight blockers (gauss only wrecks, doesn't explode).

last game I played was against a WE army and by turn 3 i have gaussed to death 2 Land Raiders and a Rhino with just my warriors.

You played a Wood Elf army with your Necrons? That doesn't seem very fair...they suck against armies in their own game system...