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Hey everyone, im about to play my first game tomorrow and was hoping you guys could help me out before I go in and get crushed by my buds.

We are going to be playing 750 point armies and I bringing the necron stuff I just bought. I can barely make 750 and probably going to get crushed but was hoping you could give me some tips on how I should play it out.

The pieces I have include a Necron Overlord, 24 Warriors, Annihilation Barge, and 6 bases of the Scarabs.

How would you recommend I set up my units? How should I be using the Overlord and Barge etc. Any tips would be appreciated!

Is it too late to be able to acquire ANY transports? Not just fliers, but perhaps arcs? The problem is that you've got a slow army with short-ranged weapons. You're probably not going to kill anything before you get blown off the table.

At the moment, the best thing I can recommend for you is prayer...

Haha yeah thats what I figured, the original plan was to play 500 but they want to go up to 750 so its tough. I only started building these yesterday so I havent bought anything to big yet, just wanted to make sure I enjoyed the game before I dove all the way in.

The pieces that I got is what I got to work with so its a shame I wont be able to get anything else beforehand. Thanks for the advice on the transport, and my friend actually told me I would need transport soon. I am not to worried about winning tomorrow, its more just to get use to the game and see how it works.

Any other recommendations?

If you want to take different units you don't own, ask to proxy them with another unit or an item of similar shape and size, even if you have old shoe ghost arks and breakfast croissant night scythes.

Thats pretty much a good idea any time you want to try something new. If you don't like em, at least you didnt spend the money.

Its your first game so just bring a couple drinks and a sense of humor. If your buds wont let you proxy or roflstomp you instead of helping you learn, bring new friends next time.

I suppose if you're going to make the best with what you've got, I'd recommend two things.

FIrstly, keep all of your stuff relatively close together. You'll have a giant deployment zone, but you are not required to use all of it. Better to keep a single cohesive armored fist then probing with a bunch of little armored fingers. That said, actually measure your models when you deploy them so that they are all at LEAST 1.5" apart from each other to keep down casualties from blast wepaons. Just because the units should be close to each other doesn't mean that the models within a unit should be.

Secondly, you have short range weapons, the only chance you have at all is going to involve you getting into range and shooting stuff. This means that you should be deploying directly across from your opponent (even if you need to choose to go second to make this happen), and then spend the first two whole turns just moving forward, and then running forward in the shooting phase. That is, unless things rush towards you, then you can naturally start shooting when your guns get in range.

The one thing you've got going for you is the fact that your guys will stand back up when they've been knocked down. This just might give you the ability to survive a cross-board charge... maybe. Once you're there, don't forget that gauss weapons auto-glance vehicles.

Otherwise, just don't succumb to the temptation to run your scarabs out in front of everything, but instead, let them hang back and be a counter-attack kind of unit. Dead scarabs on turn 2 won't do you any good.

Anyways, good luck.

And yeah, booze and humor are good things.

They are laid back for sure so they would let me "proxy" Im sure of it. What would you recommend doing at this point then if thats the case? Its going to be a great time for sure pop open a few brews and get stomped haha.

Again thanks for any suggestions guys everyone on this site is so helpful.

proxy those scarabs out for wraiths and you'd be off to a good start.

Here's your nightscythes, when your opponent shoots them down he gets to eat `em! It's your first game of 40k, don't worry about it too much. Take the tactical advice for sure, but don't fall into the mindset that you have to win, or that if you don't win your first game it means you'll never get anywhere.

P.S. Any ideas what armies you'll be going up against? That might help us give advice.

I think we are going to be doing 3v3. It wasnt an original part of the plan for me to be playing I am just sort of barging in haha.

Anyway the armies that my friends have include Orks, Imperial Guard, Chaos Demons, Eldar, and Chaos Space Marines. I am not sure who will be on my team, we are going to decide that when we get over there.

Also im not going in with the mindset of winning but more so just to ahve a good time and learn the game. However, I also hate losing at anything so if I can get myself some sort of an edge before I go in then that would be great

Definitely proxy in a ghost ark or 2. They are THE biggest pain going up against necrons because they help keep your squads at full strength every turn. And probably the scarabs for wraiths. I dont play necrons( my cousin does though and he's my main opponent), but i do know that if you are having trouble getting enough points to make it 750, and are taking unnecessary upgrades and what not then its going to be very uphill for you. Its much much better to have to trim a list down some than force a higher point level.

Biggest thing though, crack jokes and have a blast!

And remember, Chaos rules all and Screamers mow down infantry like a lawn mower over a field of cotton candy! See you In a few hours jackass!!! B-)

Dont you hijack my help thread Frenchie! I need to get this advice so I dont get smoked tomorrow. I dont believe I will do all that well but tomorrow is more of a learning day for me, well later today I guess haha. Im going to put a roll on a base and call it my ghost ark, take that!

Buy some rigged dice.

Ok, it's going to be hard, but some basic advice is as follows.
If an enemy unit is good at something, don't let them do it.
If the unit is good at shooting, assault it.
If the unit is good at assault, shoot it.
Pay attention to the objectives, don't get bogged down with target fixaton.

Thanks for the input Marv! It seems my warriors are much better at shooting than assaulting so I think I should try to keep them out of melee range.

I believe I found an item that will serve as a suitable proxy for tomorrow's game for a ghost ark. I think I could make another one if need be.

With that being in mind, what would you recommend I do for my army set up? What should I take for options on my Overlord?

Also if anyone could explain to me exactly how the ghost ark works that would be great! I mean how should they be used and why are they effective. Im about to do some reading on them and hopefully I can get a good grasp on what they do.

Cant sleep just want to get this game going already, can already see how much strategy is going into it to make this so interesting. Again everyone thank you for your replies you have been very helpful!

If I'm outfitting my Overlord, I tend to take a Warscythe as his weapon. S7 Ap1 Armourbane tends to make short work of pretty much anything, I also get him the weave for the 2+ save, and a res orb to aid the reanimation protocols of the unit he's in.
If I have the points I'll take MMS to protect him from characters.
The Necrons, while they do have a couple of decent assault units, are primarily a shooting army. Decent Bs and a standard gun that can kill anything in the game is an advantage, and you should always play to your advantages.

The ghost ark is there mainly to support your warriors, replacing up to 3 casualties per turn.

Okay so far I got:

Overlord- Warscythe, Sempiternal Weave, and Res Orb
10 Necron Warriors
10 Necron warriors with Ghost Ark
Annihilation Barge

This is a total of 610 points so I have 140 to spare. I have the base models for 6 Scarabs, so I could use those or I could proxy them as Wraiths as was mentioned earlier. What would you guys suggest?

Wraiths.
You could have three with whip coils to take you up to 745 or 4 without anything to go to 750 exactly.
Personally I'd probably go with 3 with coils.
Scarabs are great at killing tanks, but with all the Gauss, you've got that covered already.

I have two pieces of advice to give:

Stick to your mission - In 40k it's so easy to get caught up in killing things that you lost sight of the overall goal of the game - to win. The missions add tactical thinking - don't get distracted, especially if things are going well!

Have fun - The most important rule of all!

Okay awesome, thats what im going into this battle with then. Thanks for the suggestions on the army list.

Overlord- Warscythe, Res Orb, Semp Weave
20 Warriors
Ghost Ark
Annihilation Barge
3 Wraiths with Whip Coils

Any tips on how I should be setting up the army into units? How I need to make the Anni Barge successful etc. After the first battle I will want to be making my own strats, but for now I would love suggestions seeing as Ive never played and they are going to give me a beating.

Thanks again everyone you have all been very helpful, I love me some Dakka Dakka community!

Just have fun. It's a game. Your hanging out with your buddies and pushing models across a table.

Don't get to attached to your models. Just like in chess, you trade pieces and can expect to lose them. Don't get it get you down when you start losing models.

Your going to lose a lot until you get the hang of it. Don't give up easily.

Learn how your units operate.

Don't be afraid to try things out. You will never know how things work out until you give em a fair shake.

Ask your opponents what they would have done differently if they were you.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. People here tend to view units as "OMF GAWESOME SAUCE!" or "WTF THIS UNIT SUX! H8 U GW!" Reality does not into such a binary equation.

Finally, look back at the first tip. That's more important than anything else.

I agree with most of the posters here on just having fun. Just accept this right now: you are going to suck. You are going to make mistakes. You will lose a few games most likely starting out. There's a crap ton of information in this game, and it can sometimes suddenly leak out of your head the moment you sit down at the table.

Just have fun. Don't get upset about losing units, or making dumb mistakes. Don't focus on "winning".

The only advice i can give to you, is to not "push your list". By that i mean, don't try to outfit and fill your army to reach a certain point level to play. If you do that, you might not have an adequate army. I was struggling with that when i first started because i didn't have a lot of units. Hell, i was trying to play games at 1000-1250 with only one crisis squad and 12 FWs. Yea....lol.

So how was the game OP??

Your biggest worry during your first game shouldn't be losing - it should be learning the rules. Your buddies shouldn't be bringing armies that completely roflstomp you...