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Hey folks! I have a game this saturday, it's a match for our local league and it's a game against a very strong Necron list. The list has 2 squads of 7/8 Wraiths, 3 Anihilation Barges, 3 Night Scythes, you know the drill. I don't think he plays with D-Lords, though, so that's a big plus for me. I on the other hand, play a somewhat unorthodox Eldar list and honestly, I hope I have enough tools to handle his. I am definitely the underdog here, though. My 1750 list is:

HQ:

Autarch(Warlord): Eldar Jetbike, Banshee Mask, Laser Lance, Fusion Gun, Shard of Anaris

Farseer: Eldar Jetbike


Troops:

3 Windrider Jetbikes: Shuriken Cannon

3 Windrider Jetbikes: Shuriken Cannon

5 Rangers

10 Guardian Defenders in a Wave Serpent with Scatterlasers, Shuriken Cannon, Holofields

10 Dire Avengers


Fast Attack:

6 Swooping Hawks

8 Warp Spiders

8 Shining Spears: Exarch with Star Lance, Monster Hunter, Hit and Run


Heavy Support:

3 War Walkers: 2x Scatterlasers

Wraithknight: 2x Heavy Wraithcannons


The list is pretty much set in stone, though I could take out the Dire Avengers and for the same points get a Nightspinner with Holofields. I'm pretty experienced with tmy list, so I'm not really looking advice how to improve upon that, rather what to expect from the Necrons and how to handle them. I played against some really nasty lists already like the Farsight Enclave Tau list(victory), White Scars biker spam(draw), Serpent spam(minor loss by first blood in the Relic, as per usual for the mission) and Tyranid multiple-threat-overload list(victory), but I think this will be my biggest challenge yet, as I've never faced 'Cron bakery/Wraithwing before in 6th.

Well, it looks like youre going to have tough game. For an Eldar list, you don't bring tons and tons of dakka. Your two biggest threats are the Wraiths and the Night Scythes dumping their warriors on objectives at the end game. To stop wraiths, you have to throw lots of dice at them, period. No other solution. Don't get into cc with them, just shoot them and try to keep some distance. The annihiliation barges will likely be moving up the field behind the wraiths, providing fire support. Your only anti-air are your warp spiders and war walkers, so try to keep those spiders near midfield so they can move toward the flyers and knock them out of the sky when they come on the board.

Well, he wont have any monsters so monster hunter on the shining spears seams like a waste...

other than that basically what homeskillit said.

This is a TAC list, not a tailored one. Plus, it's 5 points.

Hornetskilled, how would he deal with my Wraithknight? Rending from Wraiths is the only thing I can think of that can reliably do damage(he'd have to focus all the Barges on it and probably not kill him), but unloading all the shuriken fire on his Wraiths and he's looking at around 90 S4+ shots. That should take care of at least a unit of wraiths. That does expose my troops, however, so how many shots do Barges have? 8 S7 AP4 Tesla? That's tough to deal with. Hopefully I can catch them in CC with the Spears unit by turn 3. Also, should Spears get the charge on the Wraiths, they'll probably kill enough so the return blows won't hurt that much. At least that's my hope. But in addition to having a very tough army, he's also a good general. So I am indeed in for a tough game.

If you don't roll fortune assaulting full unit of wraiths with the spears might not end well. He is going to save 2/3 of all your caused wounds, while you don't have saves vs his rends.
With the right buffs like fortune, invisiblity and prescience it would be a different matter.

You probably don'r have a choice but to assault anyway to tie them up. They will kill everything else for sure. Wraithknight for the other squad.

Of course I will first whittle them down with shooting. My hope is that one Wraith squad will fall to mass shuriken fire(plus War Walkers and Warp Spiders) and the other will get charged by the Wraithknight and Shining Spears. With both of those squads gone, I can go vehicle hunting with impunity. In theory, it should work. In practice, it'll depend on how hot his saves are.

 Araenion wrote:
Of course I will first whittle them down with shooting. My hope is that one Wraith squad will fall to mass shuriken fire(plus War Walkers and Warp Spiders) and the other will get charged by the Wraithknight and Shining Spears. With both of those squads gone, I can go vehicle hunting with impunity. In theory, it should work. In practice, it'll depend on how hot his saves are.

well i woudnt get the wraithknigtht in there unless necessary or its a majorly weakened squad. each wraith has like 2-3 attacks that rend, and those can add up against the wraithknight.

 Araenion wrote:
This is a TAC list, not a tailored one. Plus, it's 5 points.

Hornetskilled, how would he deal with my Wraithknight? Rending from Wraiths is the only thing I can think of that can reliably do damage(he'd have to focus all the Barges on it and probably not kill him), but unloading all the shuriken fire on his Wraiths and he's looking at around 90 S4+ shots. That should take care of at least a unit of wraiths. That does expose my troops, however, so how many shots do Barges have? 8 S7 AP4 Tesla? That's tough to deal with. Hopefully I can catch them in CC with the Spears unit by turn 3. Also, should Spears get the charge on the Wraiths, they'll probably kill enough so the return blows won't hurt that much. At least that's my hope. But in addition to having a very tough army, he's also a good general. So I am indeed in for a tough game.

Take the others' advice and keep your WK away from those wraiths. Remember, he gets a 3++ save against all your attacks; you will get nothing against those rends, and the wraiths have enough attacks that they will get some rends. Also, Wraiths are fearless, so even if you win in combat, you won't get out until you kill them all. I think your best bet is to jump your WK upfield toward the barges and shoot on the way there and assault them.

As to your shining spears assaulting the wraiths, another bad idea. I've yet to play against a Necron player that didn't take whip coils; he will likely be striking before you, despite I2. You will be whittled down before you strike.

It should make for a fun game, good luck to you!

Whip coils lower my I? Like I said, my first time against Wraithwing. Remember I have the Banshee Mask. So we'll go at the same time at worst. New plan would be to turbo boost the Spears across the table. Force him to fight on two flanks. And feed him Rangers or Guardians to occupy him for a turn.

 Araenion wrote:
Whip coils lower my I? Like I said, my first time against Wraithwing. Remember I have the Banshee Mask. So we'll go at the same time at worst. New plan would be to turbo boost the Spears across the table. Force him to fight on two flanks. And feed him Rangers or Guardians to occupy him for a turn.

Yup

Yup, any model in base contact with a model with whip coils is reduced to I1, I believe.

Roger that. Definitely something to watch out for. Cheers!

Tactics against Wraithwing necrons:

1. Shoot down those night scythes! They are what will win him the game, especially if he goes 2nd. They are your target priority.

2. Use your WK as counter-assault to protect your units. Use him to take out the annihilation barges and when the wraiths get close enough, assault them. MSS is what will kill your WK, but fortunately for you, your opponent isn't running a MSS Destroyer Lord.

3. Protect your troops, especially your jetbikes as they will win the game for you with their Turn 5 objective grabs/contesting. A good necron player will prioritize your windrider troops. Use your autarch to keep them in reserves for as long as possible.

4. Try to go 2nd, especially in objectives games.

5. Not sure if you can make any changes to your list still, but I'd give the farseer the Mantle of the Laughing God.

6. Split up his forces. Force him to make tough decisions. I'd probably deepstrike the spiders into his deployment zone and force his wraiths to either advance or retreat to take care of threats to his objectives.

7. Wraiths die to VoF (volume-of-fire), of which you've got loads of. I don't see them really as any problem for your army. The flyers, however, will be.

8. A good necron player will focus-fire to get rid of threats to his flyers first. That means the wave serpent and scatter walkers and maybe even the warp spiders. You might want to consider outflanking with your scatter-walkers, especially if you are going 2nd. This will mean that they will be coming in after the necron flyers do and then you get to alpha-strike his flyers instead of his flyers alpha-striking your walkers.


Good luck.

Enough VoF?

-----------------------------
We are talking about 34 and 36 3++ wounds.

To kill the smaller unit with shooting:
Shuriken Catapults:
To deal 34 unsaved wounds you need to cause102 wounds, that needs 204 hits, which avarages 272 catapult shots.

Scatter Lasers:
34 unsaved wounds, 102 wounds, this needs 122 hits, which avarages 183 scatter laser shots.
-----------------------------

Good luck


edit
In theory your suggestion about the Nightspinner has some merit, against Wraiths it is s8, causing instant death. You could get lucky.
If he spaces well, or if you scatter, youre probably better off with the Dire Avengers

His opponent is only running 2 units, meaning maximum of 12 wraiths (6 per unit). That's only 24 3++ Wounds.

In any case, he doesn't necessarily need to kill off all the wraiths. Just reduce them to more manageable numbers and then lock the bigger unit in combat with his WK. A prescienced WK can handle a unit of wraiths sans D-lord. At the very least, they're going to be in combat for a long time.

Wait, Wraiths are 6 max? Weren't they 9 max?Well, that's a relief. I think he's only playing a squad of 5 and a squad of 6. He also plays a Ghost Ark with 10 Warriors and a few Crypteks inside in the backfield.

Jy2,

I was hoping you'd pitch in a little, I enjoy watching your batreps with your 'Crons, especially against Eldar, most of what I know about Newcrons comes from your reps.

About the Mantle - well, I thought about it long and hard. In the end, that Spearstar is a lot of points(not as much as proper deathstars, but this one is meant to be exactly that, a poor man's Seer Council) and that's why it's good to have a 4+/5+ DtW roll or it's even great to deny cover saves or have counterattack and at-ballistic skill Overwatch, depending on the Div power you roll, especially on a unit that -really- doesn't want to get charged. So in the end, I decided against paying 40 points for something that's potentially a liability.

The rest of your advice: Thanks, that was exactly what I needed! Though some of what you said is regular Eldar trickery, it's good to know what-to-do's and what-not-to-do's about Eldar vs Necrons.

Nivoglibina,

Wraiths are T4 W2 creatures. And in addition to that, Eldar's BS is 4 across the codex now.

You're welcome.

That's fine if you want to put your farseer with the spearstar. It makes sense if what you want to do is to buff them up. For me, I don't really play a deathstar Eldar build so I like to use the Laughseer or Laughtarch more as a disruption unit. When running the Laughseer, he can also buff up outflanking warwalkers and deepstriking warp spiders by getting into the enemy's backfield.


Also, 1 more piece of advance. Tesla-destructors are just as deadly (sometimes, even more so) when you snap-fire with it as when you shoot normally with it. Thus, watch out for those AB's. Their actual range is 36" with a 12" move. Just something to keep in mind when you are deploying.

Hmm, they're S7 AP4 Heavy 4 each? And Barges have two, correct?

Getting 24 S7 shots with a good chance for around 10 extra automatic hits against something...these things need to die. Fast. I daresay faster than the Wraiths, even.

They're actually AP-, but those guns will wreck your serpent and warwalkers pretty quickly. Even 1 barge has a decent chance to kill a AV12 vehicle. 2 barges are almost a guaranteed kill. However, the only thing you have that can reliably kill them is either your WK or warp spiders shooting them in the rear (hence why I recommend deepstriking them into the enemy backfield). All your other shooting should go towards flyers for the bigger guns and wraiths for the smaller ones.

Yes, AV13 spam is a tough nut to crack for my list. However, you do forget Swooping Hawks. 6 Haywire grenades on a Jump Infantry I'd call very realible AT. Plus, their no-scatter DS allows some amazing shenanigans with Battle-focus. I hear what you're saying though.

And they're not AP4, that's very important, that means my Avengers and Hawks are not relying on cover to survive.

As for Serpents/Walkers, they'll be mincemeat for the Barges, if I can't kill them fast enough.

Though not as much of a worry as the Barges/Nightscythes/Wraiths, do you have any idea what Crypteks he's using?
If he's got Deathmarks and a Despair-tek or two in one or more of his Nightscythes, your WK could be in trouble.
Storm-teks, too, could remove your vehicles pretty quickly, thus making it significantly safer for his Nightscythes.
The only other Harbinger-Cryptek to be slightly wary of would be Destruction, but not as tricky as the above two.

 Araenion wrote:

Wraiths are T4 W2 creatures. And in addition to that, Eldar's BS is 4 across the codex now.

Correct, this is taken into account. The numbers are for killing 7 wraiths with shooting.

No they're not. Killing 7 Wraiths need 14 unsaved wounds, which means 42 wounds caused, which needs 84 catapult hits, which means 126 catapult shots. Considering I have 65 S4 shots and 49-54 S6 and above, with half of those twin-linked, that's certainly manageable. If I focus fire, that's less than 2 turns of shooting from my army to kill all 12 Wraiths.

Skoffs, I have no idea what crypteks he'll be using, that is his own personal flavour unit in an otherwise spammy list.

Well, played the game this morning. Must say it was a helluva fun. He played a list that he's going to the ETC with, consisting of 3 Night Scythes with 15 Warriors inside, two with Haywire Crypteks and one with a Lord and 1 Night Scythe with unit of Deathmarks with a flamer Cryptek, 17 Wraiths and 3 Annihilation Barges. My opinion after the game is that it was 5 Wraiths too many and that 2 squads of 6 are more than enough for what they need to do. Of course, I'm no expert, but he concured with my assessment.

It was incredibly entertaining, my opponent was great sport throughout and it was a very back and forth game with some ridiculous rolling on both sides of luck. I will write a batrep of it(unfortunately I took no pictures, but will try to be as vivid in my writing of it) soon, in case anyone's interested.

Cheers for all the help!

Cool. Looking forwards to reading about it. I think it's going to be a tough fight for you, but depending on Mission type and who's going 1st, it is a winnable game.

3 scythes and two wraith units (one of 5) at 1750 points is not spammy or competitive. It's easy to run 3 x 6 wraiths and a couple of fliers in a 1500 pt game. And the ghost ark is only earning it's points if it is sitting backfield with a large blob of warriors. Which is not a great tactic against Eldar.

I'd be interested to know exactly what he is running.

The twin linked tesla destructors that are on his barges (there is also a set on each flier btw) are Str 7 Ap - with 4 shots but also has the Tesla rule. Every 6 rolled to hit gives an additional two extra hits. Average hits per turn shooting with this 4 shot gun is, apparently, 4.88.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ah. Sorry. Just saw your last post (don't know why I didn't see it first). You've learned all the lessons. Sounds like fun.

@kholzerino,

think you need to review your tactis about crons mate,
- at 1500 it is better having 2 destroyer lords in 6 wraiths each than having 3 of them.
- Ghost Arks are great for transporting the relic, its easy for crons to take out its threaths, once in its save, its also good firepower, tide warriors is something from 5th

Tbh, I think 18 Wraiths aren't optimal, as I already said. Today, he achieved nothing with 17 that he couldn't have with 12 of them. Dumping that third Wraith unit for a D-Lord isn't a bad idea.

That's interesting. The first tournament I was at was won by an 18 wraith list and it's what I've been running lately. I like it for being able to tie up the maximum number of units on the field and giving you tag best chance of stuff making it across table (vs Tau and and Eldar in particular) lots of ap 2 around but 3++ is always good.

What are the advantages that people find?

As I said, I'm no expert, but this game all those extra 5 Wraiths did was died as soon as they got into range. Naked wraiths I feel don't do enough damage without the D-Lord and are only as survivable as 2 marines. Weight of fire kills 3++ just as well as 3+.

6 wraiths (12 3++ wounds for 210 pts) survives a lot longer/better than a dlord (3 wounds 2+ 160/190 pts for the most common loadouts...). I'm pretty sure it's better in terms of damage output, resilience and it is another unit too...