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The guy in the lead in my local tournament is using Necrons, so far undefeated. I'll inevitably end up against him some point, with a 1000 point army.
With the entire might of Mars at my disposal, I'm really rather buggered for deciding on what to use.
I can use Bound and Unbound armies, which is nice.

I had a gander at their codex earlier today, and concluded that I should try and maintain 20" away from them at all times, or rustle them with fast melée.
If I'm remembering right, the Resurrection Protocol has to be tried for each wound they suffer, so if I deal enough wounds, they might'n't manage to resurrect?

I would use a Knight, maybe a Magaera, as the Chainsword is strength D (which they can't resurrect against), and the Lightning cannon can cause alot of wounds, but their Gauss weaponry is terrifying for vehicles.
Vanguard have to get within 18" to shoot them, putting them in effective Rapid Fire range, which I really would like to avoid.
Rangers don't seem to be able to supply enough Dakka at 20"+.

Perhaps a bundle of Kataphron with Grav guns would be fair-doo?
Maybe I can get away with a line of Dunecrawlers, or a Knight (Errant, Crusader, or a Styrix with that wad 45" Cheirovile?) and a Techpriest with a few Magos Domini for silly repairing escapades.

Necrons have a few weaknesses that you can exploit. I'm not a Mechanicus player but generally the best way to deal with necrons are

1. cheap disposible transports. Necrons will gauss anything to death, make them waste a turn of shooting chewing through cheap av 10-11 boxes

2. lowering their toughness. Necrons RP is based on the not getting ID'd. Your boys have some guns that lower toughness right? hit them with that first and then hit them again with plasma, that way their RP is lowered from a 4 to a 5 or maybe even 5-6. or better yet hit them with stuff that is above s8 to begin with

3. Longer range. Almost exclusively necrons are limited to 24" on their guns. anything that shoots further than that will be able to pick on necrons with impunity.

4. close combat. with the exception of some very good hand to hand units, necrons are only okay in close combat. RP means nothing if you sweep the entire unit in combat resolution. int of 2 is not doing them any favors if you have some powerswords at even int 3.

Alright, that's a handy list, thankyou.

Presumably the point of using an expendable tank, instead of tarpits (looking at you, 35 pts 10-man AdSecs), is that an entire unit of Warriors, probably 10-man, will do so much damage that it all goes to good use, whereas unloading it all on a single tank will most likely result in alot of it being wasted?

- "Necrons are bad at CC" is a holdover from previous editions. They now range from "meh" to "oh God, I've made a mistake" in combat. Learn which things to avoid (Wraiths, Lychguard, Praetorians, Scarabs, and Flayed Ones... especially Flayed Ones) or you're going to regret it.

- Running them down is not as easy as it used to be. Needing to get through RP as super FNP makes it significantly harder to get Necrons to lose enough wounds to turn and run. Be prepared for long tarpits with both sides ineffectually slapping each other until the end of the game.

- People make a big deal out of Guass, but to be honest, unless they're using Warrior spam, there's not much to worry about (they need to roll a 6 to pen and they a glance. If they've only got 10 guys shooting at a vehicle, those aren't great odds... if they've got 40 shooting at it, THEN you've got something to worry about).

- Being the case, things with "Knight" in their name are particularly difficult for Necrons to deal with.


These are just a few basic counter points to be aware of.
...
Though it might help better advise you if you could tell us what he's using.

1. If he runs canoptek harvest, Focus down the spyder ASAP, 3++ and 4+++ wraiths are too much pain in the nuts.

2. Bring lots of S8-10, D weapons, force, and other ID.

3. Aside from wraiths and their jet bike guys, necrons are not very mobile. Draw the fast units away from the warlord so they don't get to reroll reanimation of 1s.

 SonsofVulkan wrote:
Aside from wraiths and their jet bike guys, necrons are not very mobile.

Beware of Praetorians, units using Veils, Ghost Arks, Infiltrating Flayed Ones, Scarabs and Night Scythe drop offs, though. Can come as quite a shock if you're unaware they have these things at their disposal.
Destroyers to a lesser degree, too.

Well, the only ID I have access to is the Paragon Blade (Archmagos Dominus, and that's on 6's) and the Blast Volkite Incinerator (Ursarax, mêlée mode, 175pts for a unit minimum).

As far as I'm concerned, this Necron guy has everything bar Monoliths. It's in my interest to have lists for every encounter (I already have 23 of them).

Ursarax do actually seem like a good idea, and they're Jump infantry.
Torsion Cannons will do wonders, but Breachers only get one gun, and their mêlée is rather last-ditch.
I certainly want to get a Styrix involved; graviton gun, S8 Volkite, and an SD mêlée weapon. Fits the bill very nicely.

 Buddingsquaw wrote:
this Necron guy has everything bar Monoliths.

Well, in that Monoliths are some of the worst rated units in the codex at the moment, if he's doing pretty well I'd say it'd already be a given that he's not using them.

You don't know anything about the list he's purported to be using?
There are a bunch of general anti-Necron tactics in this thread already, but specifics on what he may be taking would help us be able to tell you how best to play against it.

You don't know anything about the list he's purported to be using?

I'll have to enquire tomorrow, but we're allowed to use whatever lists we like (of our chosen faction for the Tournament).
If he's like myself, he'll've taken completely different lists in each of the 5 battles he's done so far, so you can't really predict what combo he'll use next.

Due to a number of factors (short range, relentless, being stupid tough), Necrons are generally played aggressively. You can try to match their tempo, but unless you are much more killy than they are (tau, eldar, grav marines), you'll probably fall behind. Instead play reactively, punish aggression, practice excellent target prioritization, finally don't try to trade with him because you'll loose. I know that seems like fortune cookie advice, but you'll grok it after a few fights.

As for specific tips;
1.) At a thousand points he'll be running a reclamation legion and a canoptek harvest. The harvest will give you the most headache, and at a thousand points there are very few hard counters.
2.) Kill the spider, no really, it will be forced to hang in the back because it's slower, murder it and your life gets about twice as easy.
3.) Scarabs swarms are first in to trap units in CC and suck up snap fire for the wraiths. If you can tar pit the scarabs with a low value unit, you'll force his wraiths to take snap fire. Str 6 weapons will also make quick work of them, as will templates.
4.) He is likely to have a fair amount of AP 4, so stay in cover if you can't stay out of range. He will have at least one unit that ignores cover, and rapid fires at ap 4. It's the jet bikes, they only have one wound each so it's fairly easy to overwhelm them with fire. They will want to be one of your priority targets as well.
5.) Remember you're playing math hammer, don't get frustrated by his hot streaks on saves and RP, there will always be a return to the mean, just wait. It takes about 4 wounds to down a warrior assuming no ID or AP 4, and his toughness only goes up from their, plan accordingly.
6.) He is either LD 10 or fearless, so you aren't going to break his forces in shooting. This means you need to concentrate fire as opposed to just doing enough damage to amke a morale check and moving on.

Now that, as of Death From the Skies, Necrons have greatly reduced ability to deal them, so that is always an option. Except you are playing Ad Mech, so you don't have flyers. Hmmm.

 Grimgold wrote:

-snip-

'Aight, another solid list of points. Sounds like I'll be fine and dandy with a flamer wall, but killing the Spyder might be a bugger.
48x48 boards, though, so I could get away with starting my Kataphrons at 12" and sniping it with Grav cannons.

Except you are playing Ad Mech, so you don't have flyers.

I'm using Taghmata aswell, and they have access to fliers, such as Lightnings and Avengers.
But I've not used a single flier yet, in all of my games. They don't take too much my fancy.

Spider can't be more than 12 inches away from the wraiths, if they are the wraiths don't get RP. So range will probably not be the problem, not being in melee might be a tad more challenging, because wraiths are a second turn assault almost in every time. If you can deploy back to buy yourself another turn of shooting, I promise it will be worth it.

I've finally gone against the still-undefeated Necron chap, and now know what he's been using in every league match. I don't expect he'll change it, either:

30 Warriors, w/ Gauss.
5-man Tomb guard
5-man Immortals
Overlord (who never does anything)
A Triarch,
And the absolute bugger: 2 5-man Praetorians.

I went against him in a 2000pt game.
Threw my 3-man Arlatax at the two Praetorians, with a successful Rite of Fury, so 7 CC attacks each at S9.
Also got a successful blind on one of the 5-mans, killed two of the spooks with guns firstoff.

I got rekt to the point of human rights abuse.

The Triarch did that targeting thing, which, as he claims, allows the Praetorians to reroll all failed To-Hit and To-Wound rolls.
His list also ended up giving everything a 4+ res protocol.

What-do against these horrible jump units? I can't see a Vanguard spam successfully shooting them to pieces before getting locked in CC, and they were my 2nd port of call.

That's a pretty immobile Necron list; without transports, the only thing with more than 6" base are the Praetorians (I think). Dancing around them shouldn't be too hard. The Praetorians also only have 12" guns, so putting target priority on them and the Stalker should leave you free to maneuver as you want.

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
That's a pretty immobile Necron list; without transports, the only thing with more than 6" base are the Praetorians (I think). Dancing around them shouldn't be too hard. The Praetorians also only have 12" guns, so putting target priority on them and the Stalker should leave you free to maneuver as you want.

Well sure, having relentless on all my Skitarii is damn handy, but we only ever play on 4x4 boards.
Can't slow down the sods either, due to their MTC.

Prats are an interesting unit, I prefer a D-cult myself, but I can see their charms. They are jump infantry, so 12" move, and they have move through cover so they ignore dangerous terrain. Str really isn't that great against prats, they have T5 so you can't interfere with RP short of S10, and they armor Save on a 3+ RP on a 4+, so wounding isn't the problem making it stick is the problem. The scorpion looking thing was your priority target, You only needed one pen to drop it to AV 11, and at that point skitarii shouldn't have a problem moping it up.

In all honesty though a 4'x4' table really plays to his strengths, he can take the middle and club you where ever you go, so his lack of mobility was a non-issue. The only way out of his range was backing yourself into a corner, which has historically not been a great tactic. What list were you running?

4x4? Why the heck would you play on a 4x4 at 2K? Thats insane

In addition to the 1000pts listed that he was using, he had a Monolith with that C'tan chap, and a rather swanky Necron'd Imperial Knight paladin.

I was using:
Primary,
2 10-man Vanguard with an Arc Rifle each.
2 Dunecrawlers with Neutron Lasers and Cognis Manipulators (sat atop towers right in my two corners).
1 Knight Styrix with Occular Augmetics

Allied Cybernetica Cohort,
1 Archmagos Dominus with an MC Conversion Beamer, Abeyant, and Cortica Primus.
1 2-man Castellax with Enhanced Arrays and Darkfire Cannons.
1 3-man Arlatax with an Arc Scourge each.

Part of the reason for doing a 2k game was to properly try out a Cybernetica cohort. Pulling off the allied detatchment trick in order to get all the bonuses isn't quite fair-doo enough for 1k games.
And we use 4x4 boards because my local shop is rather small. There's actually only two gaming tables, at the back, both 4x4. No room for anything bigger.

I'm thinking that Blind is definitely good to use, seeing as the Praetorians basically cannot pass the initiative tests, and I'm going to need to tarpit them to prevent the steamrolling, so I'm thinking:
(Not fussing about being Bound)

1000 pts:
Taghmata:
1 20-man Adsecularis
w/ Chainblades, Rite of Pure Thought, and Revenant Alchemistry.
[125 pts]

2 1-man Castellax
w/ Enhanced arrays and Darkfire cannons.
[280 pts] [140 * 2]

[405 pts]

Skitarii:
2 Dunecrawlers
w/ Neutron Lasers
[230 pts] [115 * 2]

2 10-man Vanguard
w/ 3 Arc Rifles, Enhanced Data-tethers.
Alphas get Arc pistols, Taser goads, and Conversion fields.
Warlord gets Arkhan's Divinator
[365 pts] [180 * 2 + 5]

The AdSecs will be wounding the Praetorians on 3+, which is rather dandy. And whilst on WS 2, they do get Hatred.
Arc Rifles are pretty fair-doo against Necrons anyway, and I don't want to take any chances taking down that Triarch. Anyway, the 24" range gives me some options in keeping range and still being useful.
Dunecrawlers will be in the same squad this time, getting a 5++ on their Emanatus.
Shan't need a Cortex Controller for the Castellax, as they'll be too far in the back for the Programmed behaviour to be a nuisance.

So what I have here is a huge, cheap tarpit, which can actually stand a chance with murdering the Praetorians.
There's 4 Blind and Lance shots coming from the robots, at 60" range.
Dunecrawlers are primarily an accertance against taking out the Triarch's shield, ready for the Arc Rifles to work their magic.

If that screws up, I'll look into getting my Kataphrons finished.

As a pretty experienced Necron player we have a pretty large lack of ignores cover outside of tomblades. I've always had issue dealing with the infiltrators or rust stalkers hugging cover with shrouded.

 Buddingsquaw wrote:
The Triarch did that targeting thing, which, as he claims, allows the Praetorians to reroll all failed To-Hit and To-Wound rolls.

This bit concerns me.
What EXACTLY was he rerolling?
All failed to-hit/wound rolls, or just the shooting ones?

IF HE HAS A TRIARCH STALKER KILL IT FAST!

I play 'Crons and the biggest mistakes made against me is getting close, assualting things like wraiths, and not killing my Stalkers. The Stalkers buff all units BS within 6", and that can be nasty combined with Heavy Destroyers. Heavy Destroyes are really our only good high strenght low AP platform, as they have a 36" range lascannon, are jet pack infantry, and have PE.

 skoffs wrote:

 Buddingsquaw wrote:
The Triarch did that targeting thing, which, as he claims, allows the Praetorians to reroll all failed To-Hit and To-Wound rolls.

This bit concerns me.
What EXACTLY was he rerolling?
All failed to-hit/wound rolls, or just the shooting ones?

All of them: Mélée and Shooting.

He wasn't using a bound list, though. I'm guessing there's some rule loophole or some crud like that?

 Buddingsquaw wrote:

 skoffs wrote:

 Buddingsquaw wrote:
The Triarch did that targeting thing, which, as he claims, allows the Praetorians to reroll all failed To-Hit and To-Wound rolls.

This bit concerns me.
What EXACTLY was he rerolling?
All failed to-hit/wound rolls, or just the shooting ones?

All of them: Mélée and Shooting.

He wasn't using a bound list, though. I'm guessing there's some rule loophole or some crud like that?

He is probably using the Formation of 1 Stalker unit and 2 Pretorian units called Judicator Battalion. and it only allows re-rolls against 1 unit the Stalker has LoS too, and only in the shooting phase.

If you are having trouble with Necrons, find a Necron player and ask to read there book for a few minutes. Or even ask to see a rule anytime you think it is too good. Often players misread stuff and get the worng impression. As long as you point it out politely (whether they are doing it on purpose or by accident) you shouldn't have any issues.

 Galef wrote:

 Buddingsquaw wrote:

 skoffs wrote:

 Buddingsquaw wrote:
The Triarch did that targeting thing, which, as he claims, allows the Praetorians to reroll all failed To-Hit and To-Wound rolls.

This bit concerns me.
What EXACTLY was he rerolling?
All failed to-hit/wound rolls, or just the shooting ones?

All of them: Mélée and Shooting.

He wasn't using a bound list, though. I'm guessing there's some rule loophole or some crud like that?

He is probably using the Formation of 1 Stalker unit and 2 Pretorian units called Judicator Battalion. and it only allows re-rolls against 1 unit the Stalker has LoS too, and only in the shooting phase.

If you are having trouble with Necrons, find a Necron player and ask to read there book for a few minutes. Or even ask to see a rule anytime you think it is too good. Often players misread stuff and get the worng impression. As long as you point it out politely (whether they are doing it on purpose or by accident) you shouldn't have any issues.

I'll have to make an enquiry. Starting to make sense now why every match he's played has been a stomp.
Luckily my local has open copies of all the codices, so I can study them at my leisure. I did have a gander at the Necron codex 3 weeks ago, to get the jist of how to deal with them, but didn't bother looking into the formations.

 Jancoran wrote:
4x4? Why the heck would you play on a 4x4 at 2K? Thats insane

My group plays 2500 and up 3000 on them.

 Buddingsquaw wrote:
I did have a gander at the Necron codex 3 weeks ago, to get the jist of how to deal with them, but didn't bother looking into the formations.

The formations are the main thing you want to look at when going against Necrons, as that's where all the shenanigans come into play.
...
And yeah, he may have inadvertently been cheating. (The Stalker and Judicator Battalion are good, but not THAT good)

2000pts on a 4x4 board? WTF. Up to 1000pts is fine on a 4x4, but beyond that it gets really cramped. Even from the back of his DZ he could cover half the board with the Warriors' 24" guns.

What kinds of games are you playing? Please tell us it's not Purge the Alien every single game.

As others have said, if you can out-range him, play to objectives, and tie him up in assault, then you stand a chance. Bring Str8 if possible. Learn his codex, and if he's making stuff up (or simply doesn't understand his own army's rules), then call him on it.

Dude it's not that uncommon.

Whenever I play against crons the idea is focus fire. Focus everything you've got against whatever is buffing his army around it and make damn sure you salt the earth after. Dont let them get back up. The next turn you will take losses but everything after that will be easier. Make sure you pack mobile suicide cheap infuriating meltas to get up in his av14 while scaring his warriors into getting ready for it.