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Hi all,

for the first time in 6th I am going to play with my CSM army against Necron. My opponent is going to play a tournament list, so I guess this means Night Scythes and Wraiths etc. What would you guys field against such a list?

I was thinking about not taking Demon Princes so they don't hit themselves cause of Mindshackle Scarabs. A Heldrake in any case to baleflame them, maybe sorcerers to do stuff from afar. Plasma spam by 3 squads of 5 plague marines? Vindicator is a must take in my eyes. Maybe I should take 10 Berzerkers in a Land Raider, cause scarabs won't hurt them all and they might wipe any squad they rach.

I got the following models to choose from.

All character HQs
2 Demons Princes
3 Sorcerer
1 CSM Lord in Power Armor
1 CSM Lord in Termi Armor
1 CSM Lord on Juggernaut
30 Cultists
20 CSM
15 Plague Marines
20 Khorne Berzerkers
3 Obliterators
1 Heldrake
10 Terminators
1 Land Raider
1 Forgefiend/Maulerfiend
1 Predator
1 Vindicator
3 Rhinos
1 Helbrute
5 Chosen
5 Possessed

Only one Heldrake? If he's taking ScytheSpam, you're not going to be having much fun.
Plus, with the amount of anti-AV Necrons have at their disposal, I would be wary of relying on anything with hullpoints...

If you're up against wraiths, I wouldn't actually worry THAT much. Wraiths are good in close combat.... but so is practically the entire CSM codex. Basic playing to your strengths should sort that problem.

The other one, of course, is fliers. If your opponent is going to bring doomscythes you've got something to worry about, so you may or may not want to consider something specifically to handle them. Nightscythes, though... Meh. All they can do is force armor saves. That's not that big of a problem. In that case, you can just ignore them, and on the half of the games that don't care about objectives, you can just win by focusing on the ground game. On the games that do care about objectives, just make sure to keep all the objectives close to each other, and watch as 5-man warrior squads desperately hope to cling on to them (especially if you can go second).

Honestly, your biggest challenge from necron comes from their AV13 part of the game, between MSS warscythe lords and even more dakka annihilation barges. You said he's going to bring a tournament list, though, which means you're probably not going to have to face much of this, as most necron players for some reason seem to think they're garbage.

Anyways, the moral of the story here is don't worry about it. Get a little bit of anti-flier, just in case, but you won't really have to make many, if any, specific changes to handle necron. Be decent in close combat, and focus on winning the ground game, and you should be fine. Which is good, because that's what CSM does best by default.

Thanks, good hints. And yeah, only 1 heldrake since they do not grow on trees.

I'll probably use some termis with plasma to deal with any vehicle. Also I will use close combat since that might work out fine with I2.

Funny thing is, I think I'd have more problems if he used Monoliths and mass foot spam

Obliterators are very very handy for anti-Necron fliers, and they are good vs most anything else, so take a unit of those (Nurgle Oblits please).

Jugger Lord would be good but without Spawn or Bikers, he'd be dead before assaulting. So go with Terminators in a Land Raider. The LR will get gaussed for sure, but then the Terminators (who I favor with an Icon of Wrath and Marks of Khorne) should be able to assault something and kill it good.

A psyker Daemon Prince, perhaps with the Burning Brand, or even Black Mace, could be very good vs Necrons, since they lack psyker defense.....although I had Necrons DTW to me 3 times in a game, but that's just bad luck for me.

A Vindicator held in Reserves could be useful, you'd have to lure in his ground forces towards your side and then come in blasting.

2 or 3 small Cultists units also in Reserves are great for running in and taking close objectives. You'd almost want an Aegis Line with Comms Relay too, as you should certainly take your Heldrake. Vector Strike a flier on the way in, and flame something else afterwards.

Sometimes it's good to go second vs flier armies for a counterstrike. But Necrons don't have tons of long range firepower, and the fliers won't be in until Turn 2 at the soonest. So if you can go first, and think you can get in range for assaults on your Turn 2 (if he has his ground units at his deployment edge or moved up a bit) then that might be a good tactic to try out. This would take the Land Raider and Wrath Terminators, and a preferably Infiltrating Berzerker mob also with Icon of Wrath (you'd need Huron for that one). I think Crons mostly have armor 4+, so chainaxes could be good in that case.

BTW, don't assault Scarabs unless you've thinned them down with the Baleflamer Drake first, and then only with something S6 or greater at high Initiative that ignores their armor save. You don't want your armor to disappear!

Hmm, I'm not sure, an expensive DP with psyker levels might be too vulnerable to getting caught by something with mindshackle on a barge or a destroyer body.

Maybe instead Sorcerers in Power Armor in a unit of marines in a Rhino? That would also draw glancing hits from the important vehicles, or if he keeps focussing on the important vehicles the marines and sorcerers get forward.

Hold a Daemon Prince with the Black Mace in reserves for as long as possible. Fly him on and have him join in any combat that has been locked by wraiths or what have you and he will annihilate whatever is left.

Your troops should be bare minimum, those cultists should be split into 2 squads and basically camped out behind a D-Line, going to ground for a 2+ cover save at all times.

Your elites should consist of either 2 x 5 man squads of terminators and a Helbrute, or 3 x 3 man squads all with combi-plasma, melee weapons aren't necessary , just give them power axes...

That one heldrake is going to be your mainstay for taking out other flyers... I average out 2-3 croissants destroyed a turn with my 2-3 drake lists just from vector strikes... Its a lot more useful than people think... Throw in a quadgun if you have one, and you should be relatively fine

Aside from the basics, all you really need to worry about is what happens when you get into CC with a MSS lord... and with that, you would basically be feeding low value champions in hopes your HQs can mop up the rest of the squad... Lets face it, that Cultists champion isnt going to turn into a Daemon Prince anytime soon, might as well make him useful while Abaddon wrecks face

GoliothOnline wrote: I average out 2-3 croissants destroyed a turn with my 2-3 drake lists just from vector strikes...

If only everyone were as lucky as you are.

If you roll a 2 on a D3, the average is stripping off 1.5 hull points with about a 1 in 3 chance to cause a vehicle explosion. Your average may be a wrecked nightscythe per helldrake per turn, but that's much better than what everyone else's average is likely to be.

Furthermore, helldrakes aren't that great of a counter to nightscythes because of the nightscythes TL tesla. While you're doing a few S7 attacks to them, they're doing more S7 attacks to you. You're more durable, but two nightscythes will likely throw two hull points off of a helldrake while those two helldrakes are putting 3 off of the nightscythes. That sounds better, except it's a grossly unfair comparison, as a nightscythe costs like half as much as a helldrake, which means that, in the real world, helldrakes will lose to nightscythes.

Really, take a helldrake if you want to roast warriors that get blown out of an ark or scarab swarms. They're middling AA here.

Are Flak ML Havocs worth considering for AA duty?

Quick update on how the game went:

Aside from me rolling incredibly bad dice throws a few things went pretty well. Terminators in a Land Raider got in and assaulted in turn 2. They won cc against a unit of Immortals with an overlord in it and made them flee. The heldrake vector striked a wraith and baleflamed one whole unit of warriors with a cryptek. Sadly it died in the next turn to focus fire.

On the bad side it is pretty worthless to take any characters/HQs for close combad. MSS took out or disabled any important model in cc. Sorcerers were in that regard a good choice since they are not that expensive and at least could buff or shoot for a few turns.

Also those Night Scythes suck. I'll have to try Havocs with Flakk Missiles. But I guess I should take an Aegis Line too then.

Sorry about the bad dice. MSSs really aren't that bad usually, only working about half the time against most stuff that stands a serious chance to beat them.

And don't bother with flakk missiles. For 5 points cheaper you can take a lascannon, which does throw hull points off half as often (but both weapons are crummy here), but makes up for it by causing vehicle explosion results at the same rate, and also being very good for peeling away quantum shielding on arks and being the better all-around choice.

 skoffs wrote:
Are Flak ML Havocs worth considering for AA duty?

ive tried them and found it to be more cost efficient to use an adl with quad gun.