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Ah to kill the dead - seems like something that dark eldar should relish. Unfortunately, I find myself with a lack of experience in dealing with Necrons, and the one game I played was a total wash. I'm used to people glancing my boats to death, but the necrons seem particularly proficient at it. My maneuverability is somewhat hampered when they teleport across the board at me - or better yet, park a monolith beside a wreck and eat all of the warriors aboard whole. Even my ridiculous splinter / blaster spam is of limited use when the enemy gets back up on a roll of 4+ (thanks, res orbs).

Any ideas how to handle this better in the future?

Of all the matchups for DE, necrons are far from the worst. Yes, they can glance your boats, but thats it. Gauss weapons are just bolters to your AV10. Gauss glancing really excells against land raiders and tougher armor targets. Necron armor is either quantum shielded, Av11 or a monolith. All of these are great targets for darklight weapons, as they negate the armor bonuses, and punch through light armor easy. Most necron stuff is open topped as well, so if you get a shot through, you have pretty solid odds to blow the thing up.

To prevent a squad from coming back, wipe it from the table. Necrons can't get back if they fail a leadership test, or if they are all dead. Focus down a squad at the time, and evenutally they wont come back. Another option is CC. Wracks, grotesques and beastpacks can really tear apart necrons, and if they fail morale in the charge you can sweep them easily.

Most necron shooting is short ranged at 24". Use your 36" range combined with night shields to shoot without being shot back. Focus down threats one by one till you can go in for the kill.

Well I know most people don't like mandrakes, but they seem to shine here. Baleblast at AP4 cuts their warriors down fast and then you can assault and wipe out the warriors. Liquifier guns and strong close combat units like Lelith can deal out some damage.

^ Until she gets 1-hit squibbed by a wraith in assault.

Honestly, use your range, and focus your targets until they break and run, or otherwise are all dead to prevent reanimation from kicking in.
That being said, 24 inch range is a pain, night shields make it much much worse.

I play both Necrons and DE and here's a few things I have noticed that work really well against non-wraithwing Necron armies.

1. Necrons are Tactical Marines that can stand back up. Warriors have a 4+ save and Immortals have a 3+. They fire comparable weaponry to marines and thus are pretty much equal when going against our Venoms, Raiders, and other vehicles. Yes Gauss weapons can glance but they still need to roll a 6 - which is the same thing they'd have to hit against our AV10 anyways so there's not much of a difference here. To counter this I've found that Night Shields are particularly effective. While flickerfields provide the nice 5++ save, night shields take the necron's 24" range and make it even shorter, allowing our vehicles to keep their distance whittle them down.

2. With the exception to the fliers and the Monolith, all Necron vehicles are 11/11/11 and have the Quantum Shielding wargear. This makes them 13/13/11 until they survive a penetrating hit. Just turn darklight weapons onto them. Lance still overrides Quantum Shielding so that 13 turns into a 12 and being AP2 vs (mostly) open-topped vheicles, you just need a 4+ to make it explode. Really anything other than a 1 is going to hurt most necron vehicles. Priority targets should any Annihilation Barges as they are very powerful on the ground and act as an effective anti-flyer as well. Next priority is a hard choice between flyers and their triarch stalker. Flyers provide a very mean S7 shot that can make short work of our vehicles and our troops (though saves are allowed). The Stalker on the other hand allows subsequent units that fire at unit(s) the stalker hit in the shooting phase to become twin-linked - which is more deadly for any of out troops on the ground.

3. The monolith shouldn't be a problem. It is more of a tactical unit than much else. It deep strikes (usually). The thing many people miss about it though is that it's a Heavy vehicle - it can only move 6" per turn and cannot flat out. This makes it very easy to run away from. In addition, the portal vacuum feature only has a range of D6" and can only suck up the models within that range. So if he deep strikes in and rolls a 6, only models within 6" of the portal (not the entire monolith) are going to get sucked up. I've never seen this feature do more than 2-4 models unless the defender is clumped together and didn't know to move away from it. The more threatening aspect of it (in my opinion) is that the portal can instantly teleport a unit to it's location; "disembarking" from the portal as if it was a transport. This makes it very easy for a Necron player to move a unit into rapid fire range and hope to do damage. To counter this, MSU works best so that your losses are minimized.

Against Wraith-spam, really, just shoot at it. 3++ save will eventually fall but it takes time. Thankfully they only have T4 so they can be doubled out pretty easily with dark light weapons but that detracts from other targets. Running MSU against wraiths is decent (as is running the Duke and deep striking in blaster borns) and with MSU Venom Spam, you have the mobility to keep the wraiths away from you.

One thing you may want to try out if you find yourself still having issues is to run the Duke and also field a Comms relay to control your reserve/deep striking units better. It's expensive (about the cost of a venom) but would give you a tactical advantage of control that more than likely the necron player won't have. Bring a razorwing and keep it off until your opponent's flyer(s) or monolith dropped in.

Necrons are a very tactical army but aren't not unbeatable against DE. It really boils down to target priority and ensuring you have enough darklight to address their primary threats. Again, MSU and venom spam works really well against them.

Sounds like I need to invest in more venoms.

Anyone ever have any luck using the talos pain engines to any effect?

 Barbarus wrote:
Sounds like I need to invest in more venoms.

Anyone ever have any luck using the talos pain engines to any effect?

Talos are slow but look awesome and thus draw fire from players who don't know better

I have never faced against a Talos with my Necrons.

I only own one for my DE and it draws a lot of fire the 2 times that I used it. Both times I ran it with the TL Liquifier Gun and TL Heat Lance. Turn 1 & 2, it was a target. Turn 3, it turned did decently against a vehicle that got within 18". Turn 4 it was usually dead. At this point I probably would only run one if I knew ahead of time that I was going to be doing Big Guns Never Tire since they can camp an objective a lot better than Ravagers which makes it perfect for midfield placement.

Really, against Necrons, I would rather field another Ravager than a Talos since they end up being almost identical in terms of point cost after wargear adjustments.

 Barbarus wrote:
Sounds like I need to invest in more venoms.

Best advice for almost any Dark Eldar player.

 Unholyllama wrote:
The monolith shouldn't be a problem. It is more of a tactical unit than much else. It deep strikes and doesn't scatter.

How does the Monolith not scatter?

 Gangrel767 wrote:

 Unholyllama wrote:
The monolith shouldn't be a problem. It is more of a tactical unit than much else. It deep strikes and doesn't scatter.

How does the Monolith not scatter?

Good question - could have sworn I read that Heavy Vehicles that deep strike don't scatter but can't seem to find that now. May have been an apoc thing too. /shrug.

Regardless I'm correcting that in my previous post.

No Problem, I was just hoping I missed something there. lol

For the OP, have you considered Eldar Allies, or are you running pure DE? There are some great tools in there to help as well... I'm thinking everything with the monofilament rule, and maybe a wraith knight, since Necrons can sometimes have issues with MC. The point is, there are some options here for good anti-necron allies.

I run Eldar and Necrons, just so you know my frame of reference.

 Gangrel767 wrote:
No Problem, I was just hoping I missed something there. lol

For the OP, have you considered Eldar Allies, or are you running pure DE? There are some great tools in there to help as well... I'm thinking everything with the monofilament rule, and maybe a wraith knight, since Necrons can sometimes have issues with MC. The point is, there are some options here for good anti-necron allies.

I run Eldar and Necrons, just so you know my frame of reference.

I tend to lean towards fluff in my lists, but I've been considering throwing in a spiritseer and some wraithguard based on that bit of fluff in the codex about the DE showing up to help Iyanden because they thought their attempts at necromancy were amusing. I rather like the idea of my pirate archon keeping a (heavily converted) eldar necromancer and his constructs around as a curiosity.

I'm not sure about the rest, but I run them as pirates, so it's hard to say what they might bring to the fight

In a REAL corsair style list (based on the 2nd ed fluff, not the IA rulebook) there should be elements of both DE and Eldar in my opinion. I have always been of the mindset of a pirate/treasure hunter style backstory for my army (which is mostly Eldar at this point, but I do have a bunch of 3rd edition DE to add eventually), which by all accounts should harness the abilities of the one true race. Remember Eldar favor each other over any other race, so it's an easy fluff move.

If you're just afraid of people harping you for using good units, well tough cookies for them. The fluff is only meaningful to you, as it is your army. So as long as it is kosher with you, then everyone else can go blow smoke. IMHO It's not like you're retro fitting Tau! lol

As far as a wraithguard unit with a spiritseer... I love it. I've had tremendous luck my wraithguard this edition. It also gives you the fluff opportunity to get a wraith knight somewhere down the road, as they are certainly part of the Necromantic fluff of the Eldar... and for troops you could use converted Reavers as Windrider Jetbikes. Cheap good scoring.

The idea of grotesques and undead is awesome in my mind, and is definitely the aesthetic I'm shooting for, eventually. Maybe convert some of your own wraithguard using grotesque models as base or something... I'm just shooting ideas here.

If you decide to go the Eldar route let me know as I'm sure I could recommend a few things which could be fun in your list. Especially concerning the wraith units. I have been hot on them for 20 years now, but ever since the new codex they can be highly effective on the battlefield. My recent build is called "The Walking Dead" and it features 3 units of 5 wraith guard(one with d-scythes) all in Wave Serpents, 2 spiritseers, 2 wraith knights (plus jetbikes and a unit of warp spiders)... and it has been a lot of fun. Tabled once at a 2500 point tourney a few weeks back, but that was my fault not the list.

There's a lot of good advice in this forum. I would like to just put my two cents in as I often play against Dark Eldar as a Necron player who favors a heavy armor list. First, Although lances do extremely well against AV14, they lose some oomph against 13. The difference between 12 and 13 is roughly negligible, and it still isn't a highly reliable weapon I've found in my experience. My friend, due to my playstyle, stacks more Dark Lances than I'd say are typical in a list. Often 12-15 if he can manage (without sacrificing anti-infantry a these are generally TAC lists). Between the armor, and especially jink, I've managed to shirk off every single shot or lose one vehicle to 9 of them and just ignore the other 3-6. Don't always expect them to pull their weight.

I'd highly recommend that you ensure good target priority. Tesla Destructors make a mockery of DE vehicles, more so then most weapons due to the Tesla special rule. 2 additional hits through a 6 is huge, and makes them deceivingly accurate even if snap firing. As such, Annihilation Barges should be first priority for lance weapons. Position yourself careful as well. Take advantage of the 54" threat range of Ravagers (this is including movement) to keep yourself out of their range, abuse your night shields as this makes it extremely difficult for them to engage you properly (note that Barges can have an effective range of 34"-36" when you do not factor in Night Shields and if the Barge takes advantage of the extra 2" gained from pivoting).

If you can manage to take down the Barges, it will be much harder for the Necron force to engage your otherwise speedy army. Unless they have Night Scythes. This will give Necrons a very good edge. Especially if this is coupled with Barges (as the generally are).

Also, capitalize on first turn. You have to do enough damage, if you fail to do so, the difficulty of the game will nearly double due to the inherent durability of Necrons.

Also, best way to deal with Wraiths, lots and lots of poison.

Hoped that helps.

I've played a lot against a friends Necrons, not as much with my DE but I do have some thoughts. Most typical DE strategies are gong to work well against Necrons, but against them in particular a few options can really shine. Night Shields are an absolute must as they severely limit Necron firepower, giving you the advantage of extra range and survivability. Dark Lances should kill off their armor fairly quickly so no real worries there. Be wary of Scarabs if they are present, they will absolutely destroy a Ravager and they move FAST. Challenges are annoying in this matchup because of MSS, but you can always run a two character combo to win combats here. If you play aggressively with your Kabalites or Wyches or whatever, I've been using Torment Grenade Launchers and assaulting. Forcing a morale test at LD 7, 8 or worse can devastate big blobs as it disallows Reanimation Protocols. I'm tempted to use a Talos/ TGL combo to wreck squads in close combat but have yet to do so. The biggest problem with Necrons is definitely the Protocols after your shooting phase, so concentrate fire until every last warrior in a squad is dead whenever you have the option. DE lack template weapons on basic troops so can't reliably wound a huge number of models every turn with a single squad unless you run very large squads. I'm also seriously looking at Shredders as an option here to make wound saturation work. The vast majority of our (usable) weaponry is ap5 or 2, we have no mid-strength, massed AP 4 except a troop killer Ravager with Disintegrator Cannons or a Razorwing. I'd be tempted to say that Mandrakes actually might not suck against Necrons, which is breaking my brain a bit. It's worth noting that the Cronos with Vortex and/or Siphon will probably die quickly but hand out a few pain tokens first, and Necrons get cranky when you pretend you have Reanimation Protocols with your FNP. Basically they are playing the fire saturation and/or Wraithy CC game, which is our shtick, and while we outrange their guns frequently they get back up and win wars of attrition. Deny them targets and they are going to start losing.