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I've been working my way through Codex Necrons and IA 12, and I like what I see.

I know Cron Air or an extremely flyer heavy list is powerful, but I also noticed that the Crons have access to a lot of AV13 vehicles.

Is this quite competitive or is it something that doesn't quite cut the mustard?

I basically want quite s competitive list, but I don't want my opponent to go "Oh look, yet another Cron Air list".

I'm actually in the same boat, wanting a list that can still do well in tournaments but isn't just a TFG list lol

I'm not a necron player, but isn't the scarab farm or AV 13 spam still competitive? This is just me throwing that out there because the last time I heard these were still competitive. However, I have not heard or seen much of these so then again they might be obsolete lists now.

Cron air isnt that powerful anymore, thanks to TAU. 2x Wraiths + Scarabs works alot better.

Hmm so two units of 6 wraiths and how many scarabs?

Well, I'd take a balanced approach with Wraiths and troops in Night Scythes. Scarabs are too hard to pull off especially when there are not so much terrain on the board.

So even when including the units from IA 12, Wraithwing is still the most powerful?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I agree to a point with Wuestenfux... balanced is best, but then everyone's list is the same.

Biggest reason I want to go with a Dark Harvest army.

The strongest Necron list is still a combination of air force and wraithwing. The base list is:

5 man squads of warriors in Night Scythes
One or two squads of Wraiths with Destroyer Lords
Annihilation Barges

This gives you excellent scoring units, weapons capable to taking out foot units, MCs, flyers, and tanks, and at least one extremely durable CC threat. There are not many units in the game that these three units cannot threaten. If you are extra concerned about AV14 then haywire crypteks are good choices, or you can just add a blob of warriors on foot.

AV13 spam is still a good alternative, though. S8+ weapons are becoming rarer and rarer so your quantum shielding doesn't become a liability. The problem here is that you never need more than one or two Ghost Arks, three Annihilation Barges run less than 300 points, and Command Barges are not great anymore. This means that at higher point levels you aren't bringing enough AV13 threats to really annoy your opponent. A base AV13 spam list might look like:

Wraiths with Destroyer Lord
2 Ghost Arks and a big blob of warriors to walk along side them
Optional Overlord to support the warrior blob and unlock crypteks
Annihilation Barges

Allies also open up your options, but I think that Necrons are the army that least needs allies in order to compete. Orks and CSM bring big blobs of scoring units (and CSM can bring Heldrakes), which can help out. Tau can give you more anti-air but you have plenty with Barges and Night Scythes.

So the 5 Necron Warrior units in Night Scythes are basically only meant to be scoring units for mid to late game right?

Two Destroyer Lords, two units of Wraiths with a couple of Whip Coils in each, and three Annihilation Barges has you sat at 1050 points. You can then throw in as many Night Scythes (with 5x Warriors for 165 points) and Scarab bases as you see fit to suit your army and points restrictions.

Sit back and bask in the rage, feeding on your opponent's tears.

Wraith Wing/Cron Air (generally these go together, although you can see lists that go heavily on one direction or the other).

AV 13 spam lists (which include more then just Ghost Arcs and ABarges, despite what tUncleMeat claims). Doomsday Arcs, CCBs, and Stalkers will be seen in this list as well.

Metal Tide ie, many many Necrons. (which can formulate itself in a number of ways. Pure Wraith Wing could be considered a metal tide list, as well as pure Scarab Farm. Many of these lists will focus on short range/CC and include Imohtek).

That's the biggest molds. These molds are obviously the subdivided by what units are actually selects. I run a metal tide with only a single vehicle (a Ghost Arc that stays in the back) with Imohtek. It's built to outlast the enemy, and it's extremely effective.

I've also seen hybrids between Metal Tide and AV 13 spam that were quite effective.

Really, most of the 5th edition lists are pretty good for Crons, unlike other codexes our transports were never light or cheap. Night Scythe spam is the rage, but it's hardly the only competitive way to play them.

Enceladus wrote:
Two Destroyer Lords, two units of Wraiths with a couple of Whip Coils in each, and three Annihilation Barges has you sat at 1050 points. You can then throw in as many Night Scythes (with 5x Warriors for 165 points) and Scarab bases as you see fit to suit your army and points restrictions.

Sit back and bask in the rage, feeding on your opponent's tears.

Or cry while your opponent wrecks two of those tanks and obliterates a wraith squad in one turn, while their farsight bomb drops down on them and nullzones them.

Try taking ~15 invulnerable saves that you have to re-roll successfuls for.

Noctem wrote:
So the 5 Necron Warrior units in Night Scythes are basically only meant to be scoring units for mid to late game right?

Yeah basically. You have to time it right and hope that you are on the objectives before the game ends.

Ok...

So we all know how a standard competitive list looks. What about a Dark Harvest list?

First of all, you have to take Warriors in squads of ten minimum. So no min maxing here.

Second, they have access to an extremely powerful beatstick in Kutlakh and a pretty good utility cryptek in The Blinded One. The Blinded one gives D3 vehicles IWND, which can be pretty powerful. To top that he also has the Warlord Trait that allows you to either add or subtract one from the reserve dice roll. So he'd be pretty good in an air based list or a mech based list.

Then there's the Flayed Ones as Troops. Now they fit much better here. Still not a very good unit, but better in this slot.

Now if I went with a Dark Harvest list, I'd be tempted to go Mech.

Kutlakh in a Barge or a Destroyer Lord.
The Blinded One with a Warrior Squad in an Ark. Giving Kutlakh's Barge IWND over anything else.

Two Triach Stalkers for Twin Linked shenanigans.

3 units of Warriors in Arks. If I use Kutlakh, add a Lancetek in each unit.

Heavy Destroyers if using Stalkers.

Two Barges.
One Tesseract Ark.

If I was to go air based, I'd go with...

The Blinded One for the reserve rolls and IWND in an Ark Squad.
Destroyer Lord.

Three units of ten warriors in Scythes.
One unit of Lanceteks in an Ark.

Wraiths.

Barges and Tesseract Ark or replace the Ark with a Bomber or the Death Ray Scythe. Or go all flyer and take two Scythes and one bomber.