Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, strangely I've noticed that basically no one in my local meta runs Necrons. There's a SHED LOAD of Eldar and Tau. A crazy amount of marines including space wolves. Along with some Khorne daemonkin, some orks, a few grey Knights and a Nid player. It's a relatively competitive meta and my local gaming store runs a few tournaments each year that are a tonne of fun and very high spirited. So, I want to bring an army that no one plays.

A point to note, they don't play any major tournament formats like ITC, NOVA, Adepticon etc. They just play the book missions as they were intended. Mostly the maelstrom missions. And gaining points is important as a significant victory requires you to beat your opponent by 7 clear points.

So, here's my idea. But aside from net list building and theory I'm quite new to necrons so I'm looking for help. So far I own an overlord and an unbuilt box of praetorians.

Necron Decurion detachment.

Overlord, warscythe, Res orb, phase shifter.

Immortals x5, Tesla carbines

Tomb blades x3, nebulscopes, shield vanes, guass blasters

10x Necron Warriors, ghost ark

10x Necron Warriors, ghost ark

20x Necron Warriors, overlord goes here.

Aux - Canoptek Harvest

Tomb spider, stock.

Scarabs x3

Wraiths x6, whip coils x6

Aux - Judicator battalion

Triach stalker, heat Ray

Praetorians x5, rods of covenant

Praetorians x5, rods of covenant

So am I on the right track? I'm keen for help. I love the idea of a shard, but I think their random powers make them too unreliable. I contemplated dropping the Judicator battalion and taking a second Canoptek harvest. I can take 4 wraiths in each harvest and then put some lychguard in the reclamation legion. But I'm looking for some sound advice.

If you're mostly facing Eldar and Tau, then a melee Overlord is kind of wasted in a 20man blob. I'd recommend taking Zhandrekh instead. He can provide your unit with 'reroll 1s when shooting' warlord trait for offensive potential OR give them fearless to prevent that massive unit from running away or being pinned. Plus, if you're facing reserves shenanigans, then you can switch to the warlord trait that screws with their reserve rolls.

The point is that a melee Overlord will barely affect your game while Zhandrekh will always affect your games.

Check out those pylons that do the STR 10, AP2 beam that hits each target twice for every pylon in the unit. Have a bunch of IC join the pylons to give it preferred enemy and relentless.

My friend runs that and it's insane.

I know a lot of people think tomb blades are a tax, but if you kit them out right they work really well. I run the ignores cover (nebuloscopes? Been playing DE too much and forgot the name) with the particle beamers. A unit of 6 or two units of 3, and you're slinging a pretty fair number of blast templates that'll hurt any squishy unit. And best of all? Those stinky IG hiding behind their Aegis defense line don't get cover! These ignore jink saves on pesky jetbikes... I personally think that they're really great.

The Catacomb Command Barge is also a pretty good choice for a warlord if you like the warscythe. And if you want, the Voidreaper isn't that many more points, and likes to tear open... well... anything.

I'd plain loose the unit of 20 warriors. Not worth the points, too slow to really get places, and your warlord can ride in a barge or somewhere.

Also. Maybe, instead of the judicator battalion, try a destroyer cult. Pretty decent amount of AP3 shooting, rerolling 1s, with assault moves (surprisingly maneuverable Necrons). And the destroyer lord can lone-wolf it with a warscythe and tear things open on his own.You can cripple 3 units of marines per turn with this, which I think is alright. Of course, the +1 BS from the stalker is nice too, so thats take-your-pick

So!

Major Recommendations:
- Rekit Tomb blades
- Lose the warrior Blob
- Grab a CCB for your overlord

Minor things
- Play with a destroyer cult, but it depends on your meta.

Oh! And if you decide to run the Judicator Battalion, it took me a few games to get the hang of them. I found best results with sitting them 12 inches away from the enemy and shooting. They have AP2 attacks which tempted me into charging a few too many times, but at initiative 2, its better to sit back and pelt them with AP2 shooting.

The toughest(most staying power) Necron lists I come across with my Wolfstar are Canoptek Harvest Decurion lists. At 1500 that translates into 2 Harvest swarms with 6 Wraiths each. Then the mandatories for the Decurion. If my opponent rolls hot on the Wraiths, it can take my Star up to 2-3 turns just to chew through them before I can murder the rest of his army. They truly are tough units, even when facing massed S10 attacks.

My meta is listed above.

The idea for the blob was to advance through the middle. They can be kept alive by the ghost arks, and if they make a charge they can slingshot the overlord into a challenge. Maybe. But there's a good chance a named character would suit me better, I've just never used any of them.

I'm not massively sure how you're advising I re kit the tomb blades. What's wrong with their current equipment?

I love the idea of the CCB. But it seems a little.....weak? Every time I've seen it used I've seen it die fast and give up slay the warlord. Is there a trick to it?

In regards to tomb blades, you have a ton of gauss in this army already. I'd switch the gauss blasters for particle casters/beamers/whichever particle option they have, and run two squads of three. Ignores-cover blasts are pretty great.Of course, there's nothing wrong with their current loadout, you have ignores-jink anti-vehicle fire. I've just had a lot of experience against guard and other squishing things (fire warriors) with the blast weapons.

And as far as a CCB goes, work with careful target selection. It's a fast skimmer, so it should be able to steer clear of unfavorable matchups and get into combats it can win. Although maybe thats too much cowardly eldar tactics influencing my decision here.

If you're afraid of giving up Slay the Warlord with your CCB, a destroyer cult gives you a second independent character to make your warlord, who happens to be T6 and also fairly quick.

Necron's resiliency (Extra bonus for decurion+res orb)and low variance give them a bonus across all scenario types for holding board objectives and denying kill objectives. Your MSU style and good (for a necron) mobility will serve you well in maelstrom.

Eternal war doesn't benefit Necrons as much. They're more generalists, good but not great at shooting, good at not dying in combat but not so much the killing in combat. They lack the next level shooty killing power or the CC of deathstars/superfriends lists. This keeps them upper tier, but looking up to top-tier SMs biker/ libby /cent /twc stars or Eldar Wraithknight/ guard /Warp spider /Crimson Hunter Aspect/Warp Charge Stack /Hornet lists and hanging out maybe just a touch above Tau riptide/stormsurge lists. Should still outperform most races here still!

I think you go hard enough on the elite units of the list to be competitive in ITC with their penalties to LOW, strength D, and FA bike/flyer spam.

Yeah, I was going for a guass heavy army. That was kind of half the point. But I may look at switching it up if you think it'll benefit. I'll have a small play with the list.

 labmouse42 wrote:
Check out those pylons that do the STR 10, AP2 beam that hits each target twice for every pylon in the unit. Have a bunch of IC join the pylons to give it preferred enemy and relentless.

My friend runs that and it's insane.

Be very very careful when running this. I used to run 3, and even got 6 at a point. They were and remain one of my biggest competitive disappointments. First thing they have no overwatch. This can be mitigated to a degree by the fact that the destroyer lord is not terrible at combat but without much support he isn't hard to beat. Second thing is the way the unit fires. I ran into an endless quagmire here. Can the beam hit things outside of 24"? Do models that can't be seen by the whole unit still get hit by the beam? Can models take cover saves on being obscured by line of sight to the firing unit or model by model? I mean it just went on and on. In the end I sold them all in favor of armies and units that weren't so debatable and more fun. It also started my turning away from competitive play as I just can't seem to find a format that plays strait out of the books without modified rules.

That being said I love my crons. If you're gonna run justicar run more than one stalker, one single one will die very fast. Also the heavy gauss cannon can keep them a little safer with range. You will really enjoy bs5 Warriors especially when Zandrek uses the re rolls 1's warlord trait.

I won't lie, pylons are likely not an option for me. I'm probably going to stick to off the shelf GW stuff as it's easier. I also don't like working with resin. So I try and keep to as much plastic as I can. Having said that, I won't completely nerf myself purely based on my hatred for fail-cast.

So with some of the suggestions I've been having a play. It's actually more difficult than I thought it would be. There's so many decent options that it's hard to settle on what I want to do. But I'll try and post a new list up later today.

Ok. So I have an idea. It may not be competitive, in which case I'm looking for improvements. Remember, I'm trying to be as competitive as it gets. Trying something without the canoptek harvest.

Here it is:

Necron Decurion:

Reclamation Legion:

Overlord, Warscythe, res orb, phase shifter, solar thermasite

Immortals, guass

3x tomb blades, guass, nebulscopes

10 warriors, ghost ark

20 warriors (overlord goes here)

Judicator Batallion:

2x triarch stalkers, heat rays

5x praetorians, rods

5x praetorians, rods

Destroyer cult:

Destroyer Lord, phylactery, Warscythe

3x destroyers

3x destroyers

3x destroyers

1850 points on the dot.

Any help?

I would post here if I was you?.. http://w11.zetaboards.com/Necrontyr_Online/forum/3988057/
It's a dedicated forum to crons ..

I'd say that if you want this list to be more competitive what you want is to increase the size of the praetorian units. Keep the size of the warrior / immortal units from the reclamation as minimum as possible. Increase the number of Tomb Blade units. Ghost arks are okay if you are playing the AV13 game and relying on your opposition not being able to chew through loads of them, but I don't see much value in them in this list. Don't know what you are going to do with those HQs that you have in there. Obviously if you had a harvest you would stick them into a unit of wraiths and youd have a mini deathstar. You could put them with a unit of praetorians. They would be good but slow. You could throw the the veil of darkness on for back field invasion. Also great for late game objective grabbing (part of the reason why you want more tomb blades - also amazing for dealing with Ravenwing).

Yeah, I see your point. Here's the plan.

20 man warrior blob in the middle of the field with overlord inside. They should dominate the midfield mostly with ark support. Stalkers on flanks with praetorians in support. Destroyers around stalkers for BS5 with preferred enemy and re rolling all to wounds/armour pen.

That's the rough idea. There was a variation that kept the warrior at a minimum, and drop the ark for 5 lychguard in a night scythe. But I think the big blob at BS5 with the overlord for re rolling 1's to RP AND a red orb is a nice idea.

Why not drop the 20 man blob of warriors for flayed ones, and a stalker for a ccb.

If the blob is gonna just march up the mid why not just make an infiltrating phalanx 20 flayed ones instead.

People who think flayed ones suck get a major eye opener when the realize that 100 attacks on the charge or 80 when charged all with fear and shred. also for added bonus throw destroyer lord in the blob and get preferred enemy re-rolling ones to hit for them.

Flayed Ones are definitely better than Warriors. I can't see pushing a big blob of warriors up table versus a top tournament army achieving much other than handing your opponent an easy way to delete 260 pts of your army. Only being firm about this because you said you wanted to be as competitive as possible. 20 warriors get charged lose a few models, run get swept. Honestly, that will happen. You want mobile, killy units. What does 20 warriors (even slightly more accurate warriors) kill?

 Kholzerino wrote:
Flayed Ones are definitely better than Warriors. I can't see pushing a big blob of warriors up table versus a top tournament army achieving much other than handing your opponent an easy way to delete 260 pts of your army. Only being firm about this because you said you wanted to be as competitive as possible. 20 warriors get charged lose a few models, run get swept. Honestly, that will happen. You want mobile, killy units. What does 20 warriors (even slightly more accurate warriors) kill?

Brutal and firm is good. I won't get defensive! This is what I like to hear.

I thought a group of 20 warriors with overlord in a reclamation legion, with a res orb would be incredibly resilient. I also thought that 20-40 guass shots had a potential to cause a shed load of damage. Being used to playing daemons and Khorne daemonkin I forget the fact that they can fail leadership and get cut down....back to the drawing board perhaps.

I have found Destroyers to be the best thing about the Necron dex. Great against Eldar, can lay down pain on pretty much any unit while being very resilient.

The Destroyer Lord also synergizes well with wraiths. JUst daisychain him a bit and they get PE.

 Lord Commissar wrote:
I have found Destroyers to be the best thing about the Necron dex. Great against Eldar, can lay down pain on pretty much any unit while being very resilient.

The Destroyer Lord also synergizes well with wraiths. JUst daisychain him a bit and they get PE.

As a long time Necron player I agree wit this, in my competitive list I usually run a FULL destroyer cult (18 destroyers 3 heavies), T5 3+ armor 4+ FNP 2 wounds is DOUBLE the survivability of a terminator against non ap3 for the same price, oh and they shoot AP3. This gives you a massive advantage against almost any marine list.

I run pretty close to a full destroyer cult, with a 6 wraith harvest, and a reclamation legion with Zahndrekh and a few extra tomb blades. Works quite well for me.