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Ive been playing necrons for a while now and seem to run into trouble whenever I face MC spam. Anni barges work ok but Ap- hits can be easily bounced off by some of the meaner monsters .Deathmarks seem good on paper but rarely seem to do much killing on the table .I have been mainly using wraiths for MC killing/control with mixed results. What have you guys found to be effective at stopping 3+ MC .( Note this is not just demons but tau ,grey knights ,nids .etc ..)

Overlord on barge with 2+/3++, ws, mss, tl is an awsome MC hunter. Other than that, spam mss.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Although as soon as hes off the barge get him in a unit with a chronometron to reroll his 3++ or he'll risk being insta gibbed with smash attacks.

Mind Shackle Scarabs, nuff said.

As Thaylen said Mindshackle Scarabs are what help a lot vs MCs.

But you should really look back into Deathmarks they are really good and will cause a lot of saves for MCs.

Also don't discount some Lanceteks with their weapons they can do some damage from afar.

Slap in a destroyer lord with MSS to go with your wraiths! :-D that should take care of your pest problem, preferred enemy anyone?

Well, wraiths and D-Lord are unlikely to work against riptides and the accompanying tau gunline. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/527213.page

shows this quite well.

I've never had my wraiths explode like that ,but I dont think full assault is answer to dealing with tau in general (just too much shooting within 15").Lanceteks seem like they might be effective at dealing with riprides and dreadknight ,but I'm not sure how they will deal with stuff with decent Inv saves or 2+ cover.
Maybe it would be best to take wraiths lances and deathmarks ?

Well, I'd use Wraiths to lock MCs as long as possible. At the same time. the rest of your army, Warriors or Immortals in Night Scythes, should go for the enemy's throat.

 azgrim wrote:
I've never had my wraiths explode like that ,but I dont think full assault is answer to dealing with tau in general (just too much shooting within 15").Lanceteks seem like they might be effective at dealing with riprides and dreadknight ,but I'm not sure how they will deal with stuff with decent Inv saves or 2+ cover.
Maybe it would be best to take wraiths lances and deathmarks ?

Be careful with the deathmarks, if they appear anywhere near the line interceptor will shred them. Tau is a hard counter to most necron builds, though lanceteks are still efficient.

What are some good ally options to help with the hard counter?
Ive been looking at orks recently but most things im thinking about taking are better for killing infantry which isnt really the problem im having . (lobbas,lootas,dakkajet......)

Well, lanceteks will get massacred in a shooting match, their firepower/resiliency ratio is WAY off. The way to take down tau is to eliminate marker light support. Maneuver around them, keeping them pinned in place with threat bubbles and win the objective game.

In order to crack a Tau gunline, I'd opt for Ork allies, run 2-3 Battlewagons with skorcha nobs. Tau are weak against AV 14 and skorchas are perfect for sweeping away FWs and PFs.

To kill riptides, OLs on CCBs w/ MSS, PS, WS are a fast-moving threat that can keep pace with riptides and be on top of them with a turn 1 turbo-boost. Heavy destroyers are also a solid counter. Nevertheless, Necrons are notably weak against MC heavy armies.

The CCB has come up a couple of time in this thread I tried one out the other day and was very unimpressed in my 300 pt investment .He failed his 3++ and got smashed then stayed dead.Granted he got charged by two deamon princes but still unimpressed by him.Although I could charge him into a tau line and laugh as the Str 5 bounces off of him.

 azgrim wrote:
The CCB has come up a couple of time in this thread I tried one out the other day and was very unimpressed in my 300 pt investment .He failed his 3++ and got smashed then stayed dead.Granted he got charged by two deamon princes but still unimpressed by him.Although I could charge him into a tau line and laugh as the Str 5 bounces off of him.

To be honest, two DPs are about 550 points of purpose-built CC, you cant judge an overlord for that. You probably should have avoided them. A CCB overlord is not an-end all gladiator, he is a bully unit. He rips into weaker units like FWs and attacks non-CC MCs like riptides. He is, in essence, a more mobile, more expensive destroyer lord with an invuln.

What happened in that game was a failed charge left me out in the opened to get counted by what i was charging and his buddy.But reguardless would the CCB's 300 pts be better spent with teks,deathmarks and something else?Ill Give the barge another try and see how well he does when hes not getting smashed

 azgrim wrote:
What happened in that game was a failed charge left me out in the opened to get counted by what i was charging and his buddy.But reguardless would the CCB's 300 pts be better spent with teks,deathmarks and something else?Ill Give the barge another try and see how well he does when hes not getting smashed

ABs en-masse shred MCs with sv 3+ or worse. It is important to note that you need to take an OL to even unlock the RC, so who says you can't have both CCBs and lanceteks. Wraiths are fairly good when used for board control rather than an all-out assault force. Advance 6 Wraiths and a D-Lord to hamstring the movements of Riptides, yet avoid the tau sweet spot. Combined with support from ABs, Lanceteks and a predatory CCB lord.

I really like heavy destroyers, although I've never used them against a really shooty army like the Tau, but they certainly work wonders against nid MC's. A counter-argument to using them is perhaps that they are a bit pricey.

I used deathmarks against a riptide only on one occasion, and only managed to deal it a single wound from the initial round of 2+ rapid-fire shooting. Figuring I was being clever, after they were completely ignored in the enemy's next turn I decided to have them charge and keep the riptide in combat, although none of the seven survived to land any blows. Of course I could see them working better against an MC that didn't have a 2+ armor save, invul. save, FNP BS2 overwatch and AP2 CC attacks.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
Be careful with the deathmarks, if they appear anywhere near the line interceptor will shred them.

Simple solution: don't deep strike them from reserves. Deploy them on the table at the beginning of the game with a Veil-tek attached. Veil within rapid fire distance. Shoot it down with no worry of interceptor fire.

 skoffs wrote:

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
Be careful with the deathmarks, if they appear anywhere near the line interceptor will shred them.

Simple solution: don't deep strike them from reserves. Deploy them on the table at the beginning of the game with a Veil-tek attached. Veil within rapid fire distance. Shoot it down with no worry of interceptor fire.

On average, a 10 man deathmark squad, even doubletapping against a marked riptide, will fail to kill it, whilst signing their own death sentence next turn.

I've heard people tell me that C'Tan shards are useful against MC's. My main opponent is a Tau player and his Riptide is a pain to deal with but I fear I would never get my Nightbringer close enough with the amount of firepower he would level at it and it's (respectively) weak saves.
Against a less shooty army though, I think it could have it's place. Even if it's expensive to field.

Against Tau, a 4+ invulnerable save is much better than a 3+ armour save.

Ive used Ctan shards vs MCs quite often. the only ones they struggle with are Daemon Weapon Winged Princes. As of yet I haven't managed to get one into combat with a Flyrant, but I don't think it will be that tough. flyrant gets no saves vs Ctan, as he doesn't have an invun, and needs to risk the Psychic tests for a chance to wound on better than a 5+.

I find Ctan shards to be quite good actually at things like this. Killing expensive things. Wouldn't throw one at some Hammernators though...

Actually, the Necrons are capable of Monstrous creature spam to a degree only the Tyranids can surpass if you allow for forge world.

You have the choice of Tomb Stalkers and C'tan shards for elites, Canoptek sentinels for Fast Attack, and Spyders for heavy support.

So in one FOC you can have

3 Shards or Stalkers in elites
3 Sentinels in Fast Attack
And 9 Spyders split into groups of three in heavy support.

So fifteen total. Note that the Dark Harvest list can't have Shards.

Of the armies out there, only the Tyranids surpass it with a possible maximum of

2 Hive tyrants/one tyrant and a swarmlord in HQ (or six malanthropes...are they still MCs?)
3 Tervigons
6 mycetic spores (three for the gants, three for your elites)
3 Harpies
And 9 carnifexes.

So twenty three or twenty nine in total.

By comparison the Eldar can have four (One Avatar, and three Wraithlords/Knights)

The grey knights can have three dreadknights

Chaos can have five in both varieties (Two Daemon Princes and Three Giant Chaos Spawn/Spined Chaos beasts for the CSMs, Two Greater Daemons and three Daemon Princes/Spined chaos beasts for daemons)

The Dark Eldar can have three Talos', not sure on Chronoses though.

None of the other loyalist marines have monstrous creatures.

The Guard has no monstrous creatures either and neither do any of their variants.

The Orks can have six or three depending on just which slot the Big Squiggoth goes in.

The sisters have no monstrous creatures

The corsairs don't have any either.

Thanks to Knarlocs the Tau, surprisingly can have up to Twelve (three riptides and nine knarlocs in three groups of three in fast attack).

Now Sentinels and Stalkers are very resilient with T7, four wounds, the ability to get it will not die, a three plus save, and war construct lolnoping Poison and Fleshbane. They're a bit pricey, but Stalkers also have the amusing ability to seriously screw with psykers. If they pass their test within 3' of a Stalker with gloom prison, you can roll a die and if you get four of better their spell fizzles out.

Sentinels are more iffy, having only two attacks to the Stalker's four, and a very strange gun, but they have pretty much all the same resilience.

Now that being said Shards are probably better than the canoptek units against other monstrous creatures because of their invulnerable saves and some nasty abilities. Time's arrow in particular is horrible to low initiative monstrous creatures like Great Unclean ones, Carnifexes, and Tervigons.

Cant you charge a shard with times arrow into a mc accompanied by a wraith with whip coils? Then on a 2+ you say bye bye to the mc with no saves allowed. Or is that against the rules in some way?

I had to play against a nid list at Nova the other day and in one game my opponent had the typical 3 tervigons. He took them as troops and had them plop down on objectives and start spawning. It wasn't easy but three death&despair units and a doomscythe flew in and in two or three turns had killed off two tervigons and it's guants. When I first saw how he almost completely filled his deployment zone I thought there was no way I could kill that much sh*t in 5+ turns. By the end all he had left was one tervigon, a hivertyrant some gargoyles and some guants. Let me tell you - two anni barges just chewed through the gargoyles - it wan an amazing thing to watch. But back on topic. The deathmarks regularly put out two rending wounds and the despairtek put out one on the tervigon and a couple on the nearby guants. The Doomscythe similarly put a AP1 hit on the tervigon and some guants and the TL Tesla Destructors thew a ton of wounds on.

Heavy D's in concert with Triarch Stalker. I find it works out pretty well.

that works well vs 90% of everything not infantry... bar Termies...

Poly Ranger wrote:
Cant you charge a shard with times arrow into a mc accompanied by a wraith with whip coils? Then on a 2+ you say bye bye to the mc with no saves allowed. Or is that against the rules in some way?

You can (two separate units charging, mind you)... it's just very difficult to pull off.
If only there was some way to make the C'tan move faster.