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Hi guys,
I have recently bought a Necron army, to be played mainly against orks and space wolves. I was wondering how I should structure my army to cope with these threats. We are all extremely new to the game, so they matches will start off small and work their way up to 1500-1850pt games when we are comfortable.

I am under the assumption that the orks are a horde so I should be taking tesla against them? And space wolves are CC monsters so should I spam mass firepower and try and stay out of CC? And is a Decurion a must-take? I have at my disposal:

1x Overlord
1x Catacomb Command Barge/ Annihilation Barge
1x Destroyer Lord
20x Warriors
5x Immortals
3x Tomb Blades
7x Flayed ones
5x Lychguard (sword&board)
6x Destroyers
3x Heavy Destroyers
2x Ghost Arks
5x Canoptek Scarabs
3x Canoptek Wraiths (w/ whipcoils)
1x Canoptek Spyder

I am looking at purchasing Nemesor Zandrekh, a Judicator Battalion, 3x more Tomb Blades, 3x Canpotek Wraiths and a couple of Doom Scythes to round out my list. Do I need 3x more standard Destroyers to make a cult or am I fine with what I have (The book says they are a unit of 1 so would 3x destroyers w/ a DLord make a cult?)

I believe this list will give me a fair amount of flexibility, with the option of going heavy CC so I can toe to toe with the Space Wolves or very shooty to counter the green tide.

I enjoy the lore and do not like the idea of using OP units from other armies to buff what I am lacking in certain areas. I want my crons to win under their own merit, and keep the games fairly consistant to the fluff and fun for everyone.

Am I on the right track or should I be looking at other strategies?

The missus is buying me a Tesseract Vault for Christmas, from what I've read it doesnt seem to be that competetive in actual play, I just love the lore and unpredictable nature of it so might include it if its warranted.

Thanks for any and all help guys, is muchly appreciated.

The decurian is a must as the 4+ reanimation plus the warlord's reroll bubble for ones makes a very resilient army. This means that tomb blades are a must. I'm in a similar position as I've just started with necrons and im really enjoying the flexibility that the decurian gives you. Enjoy

Yes, you're on the right track. Tesla is potentially good against hordes, but you need those 6s. In principle, Tesla is better outside rapid fire range, but once you get to that 12" sweet spot, Gauss overcomes it exponentially. I would stick with Gauss across the board, especially since Orks will be throwing lots of Trukks and Battlewagons your way. You don't need to stay out of CC. Necrons have some great CC units, namely, Wraiths, Flayed Ones, Lychguard and Praetorians. You just need to pick your fights wisely. Decurion is not a must take, it's more competitive, but not a must take. I've been running Combined Arms for a few months, including two tournaments, and have been doing just fine. Decurion makes your stuff tougher at the cost of having to field tax units you don't want.

I would hold up on buying new units until you've played with what you have. Nemesor Zandrekh seems expensive for what he does. Judicator Battalions are anti-marine, so use them against the space puppies, but they may be overkill. Tomb Blades are a lot better than people give them credit for. I compare them to an Immortal with a Gauss Blaster. The Tomb Blade is 1 point more. You go down to a 4+ save, but gain a twin-linked Gauss Blaster, toughness 5 and a jet-bike. Well worth the extra point. You'll be happy with more Wraiths. Wraiths are probably the best unit in the codex and one of the top ten units in the entire game. I think you'll be disappointed with the Doom Scythes. You don't need the anti-tank because you have Gauss and most people don't field tanks these days to begin with. With the prevalence of cover saves in 7th edition, S10 AP1 just isn't as good as it used to be. A squad of Guardsmen in a bush still get a 5+ cover save against it. You can't even use the epic gun against flyers because it's blast. Furthermore, Necron flyers have to zoom, so you're only getting three turns of shooting out of them per game, four if you're lucky. Try them out, but I suspect they'll become regular Night Scythes after a few runs. I would also add to your buy list some more Necron Warriors. Run some on the ground and some in the arks to benefit from repair barge.

I hope this helps!

To answer your question regarding the destroyer cult, yes you need to have 3 units of destroyers and are then allowed to have a separate unit of heavy destroyers, so technically you need 3 more. I would say that you could play it currently and just play "counts as" for the heavy destroyers and say that they're just normal ones to get some use out of it in the mean time.

Go with what Kevhplus9 said. Run a Decurion for the buffs which are amazing and very important. You can run a decent decurion w/ what you have already: the canoptek harvest, the destroyer cult, and the flayed ones. In this list, I'd run the overlord on foot and NOT use the CCB. That is actually a very solid list overall. As point allow, take the ghost arks.

As for the TV, I have one and find that it's fun but definitely not competitive. In general, Orks are a tough army for necrons because there are just so many of them that you can't kill them all before they get into combat, and they're not that bad once they're in combat and can stay there all game, so you'll probably lose if that happens. Against the Wolves, they can be tough as well since AP 2 is hard to come by and the wolf riders are absolute beasts. That's one that i'm still working on myself, but what I can say at the moment is basically that you have to tie them up in combat w/ your harvest for as long as possible...

I hope all of that helps.

Thanks for taking the time to reply guys!

I was gonna get the Judicator Battalion so I have the flexibility to run it in the Decurion, or to switch it up and have a really shooty army or a really CC oriented army for the . That is a good way of looking at Tomb Blades, I like the idea of zooming about causing headaches for the opposition, especially with the nebuloscope ignore cover rule.

If it does turn out that the flyers are only good as transports, is it worth getting them at all considering I have 2x Ghost Arks already?

Is it advisable to run one big group of 6x Wraiths or split them into two groups of 3?

Sorry for the question spam, I'm just working myself up in anticipation of the actual games!

I appreicate the help, all this stuff has probably been asked before, I've done a fair bit of reading, but its hard to find stuff still relevant to 7E 'crons in the search. (I assume this wouldn't be a problem if I was an Eldar/Tau/SM player?)

Klowny wrote:
Thanks for taking the time to reply guys!

If it does turn out that the flyers are only good as transports, is it worth getting them at all considering I have 2x Ghost Arks already?

Is it advisable to run one big group of 6x Wraiths or split them into two groups of 3?

You're very welcome for the feedback. The Necron dynasties are fractured right now. We need as many active tomb worlds as possible to reclaim our rightful place as rulers of the galaxy

Regarding your first question, the short answer is yes. Ghost Arks and Night Scythes are very different units. When playing, don't treat Ghost Arks like dedicated transports, treat them more like tanks. Ghost Arks are floating platforms of pure Gauss and nine times out of ten, you'll want to keep the Warriors in the Ark. Night Scythes, on the other hand, aren't bad at shooting, but are at their best when dropping troops. Night Scythes are wicked fast. You can move 36 inches and drop Warriors or Immortals, giving you great board control.

Regarding your second question of three or six Wraiths, try them both and see what one you prefer. A squad of six has a much better chance of killing what they're attacking at the risk of being tar-pitted by large units of Gaunts or Orks. Three, on the other hand, can threaten more targets, but are less survivable in close combat and don't have as much punch. Keep in mind though, that if you run two squads of three in a Decurion, you'll also need to field two Spyders and two units of Scarabs. As an aside, always give your Wraiths Whip Coils.

I hope this helps!

This helps alot actually.

With Scythes, are warriors/immortals the best option to put in them or is something alot more hurtey better to put in there?

A squad of 6 sounds the go, and yep Whip Coils will be on them all.

Klowny wrote:
With Scythes, are warriors/immortals the best option to put in them or is something alot more hurteybetter to put in there?)

You can run them with either. I run mine with Immortals because they're tougher and operate far field with little to no support from the rest of the army. Don't sneeze at 20 S5 AP4 shots from a squad of ten Immortals. That's a lot of Dakka. Warriors and Immortals are really the only units that benefit from it. Deathmarks are a maybe, but they perform best when Deep-Striking. A Lychguard assault bomb could benefit, but you can't assault when disembarking. Praetorians are jump infantry, so don't need it and Wraiths are Beasts. Plus, you want to get that objective secured bonus with such a fast moving transport.

@counterwavecounter

Right, so another unit of Immortals to make 10 sounds like the go with a Scythe.

I was thinking possibly running a S&B guard/Orikan/Obryn with the Scythe, dropping them into the backline as quite a big distraction. Is this cheesey?

Also dont you lose ObSec with a decurion? Is it a big loss for objective based games?

I run Orikan with Hyperphase/Dispersion Lychguard and they're pretty much invincible, but I wouldn't call them cheesey. They're an expensive unit that's pretty slow and it's not like they're amazing in assault. Assault Terminators are way better and no one screams cheese when they show up. If you're running Obyron, why do you need the Scythe? Just deploy turn one and Ghostwalk. As an aside, if you want to run this in a Decurion, you'll need to buy a Royal Court, which means a unit tax of two Overlords (one in the Reclamation Legion and one in the Royal Court). That's 160-200 extra points, so just be mindful of that when list building. Yes, you do lose objective secured in a Decurion. I've played a few games where objective secured makes the difference between victory and defeat, but I find it doesn't come up super often.