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Hi All,

I'm facing Necrons tonight for the first time ever and don't know much about them or any good tactics.

I'm taking Dark Angels and have decided on the following 1800 point CAD list:
2 x Level 2 Librarian
Deathwing Knights
Land Raider Redeemer
2 x Dreadnought (one with lascannon and missile launcher, one with assault cannon and power fist)
1 x half size tac squad
1 x full size tac squad with Plasma gun/cannon and Rhino
Assault squad with jump packs
Devastator squad with missile launchers x 2 and multi-melta x 2
Ravenwing Bike Squad with attack bike
Ravenwing Land Speeder with typhoon missile launcher.
I don't think it's a power list at all but rather a bit of a jack of all trades.


I have no idea what my opponent brings but I think his force will be quite fluffy and is going to also be a CAD.

I've not faced Necrons before, don't know much about them (other than their awesome reanimation protocol). Any general tips for how to fight them? Any units I should look out for to go for first (or to ignore/run away from)?

Thanks.

That land raider is a massive liability vs necrons.

If they have wraiths, do not get your good units engaged with them.

Thanks for the feedback Martel. Why's it a liability? Do they have good anti-tank stuff?
I could take a unit of vanilla deathwing instead of the landraider - would that be a good swap?

Edit - Oh and now I'm going to look up wraiths on the gw website so I know what they look like, thanks.

3 things to know about Necrons.

1) Their basic guns glance vehicle on a 6, not matter the AV. 10 Warriors in rapid fire range will drop a Dread in 1 turn, and Landraider in 1-2 turns. And that's just 1 basic troop unit. That is why Land Raiders are liabilities against Necrons. You are handing them an ideal target on a silver platter.

2) The whole army has a better version of FNP (reanimation protocol). If you can get some str8 stuff, your lower the roll for RP on units with T4.

3) Necron are the only 40K army that can successfully field a decent shooting & assault based army in the same list,
Most other armies cannot focus evenly on both as they will sacrifice one for the other. For example, Eldar, despite having plenty of CC units are far better at just shooting. Daemons, while having a few units that shoot, are far better focusing on CC.
Marines like to think they can do both well, but really most lists will focus on shooting with 1 or 2 CC threats, hence why most "Death-Star" armies are Imperials. Even Space Wolves have to take a good base of shooting to support their CC units, and Space wolf shooting is 'meh' at best.

Necrons have good shooting & good CC, and more importantly, can field both in the same list without sacrificing efficiency in the other.
Unfortunately, this means that a "jack of all trades" list probably won't do very well against a balanced Necron list, since there shooting stuff will be better than yours and their CC stuff will be better than yours.

For DAs, particularly with the units you listed, I would focus on shooitng him down. Focus on the units that are fast (Wraiths, Tomb Blades, etc) and worry about the warriors later, particularly using your Assault units.
I would give serious consideration to drop the Land Raider & Dreads from your list. Necrons LOVE destroying those in 1 turn of Gauss fire. Necrons have very little AP2 Shooting, so Terminators are not a bad idea here, just don't let them get tied up with the Wraiths.

-

I own both army so my idea would be to field a Lion Blade. Drop assaults marines without jump packs in drop pods with 2 flamers each behind their lines. You'll need 3 drop pods to drop 2 automaticaly on your first turn. That should give him something to think about. Meanwhile the rest of the army shoot the hell out of his vehicles and heavy infantries/fast attack.

If the necron field some triarch pretorian (jump units) they will eat up the terminators. Get a shield if you want to field some.

If you won't have a lion blade then use your bikes. Hit and run like crazy. Harrass the wraiths with them. Sacrifice a unit to keep them busy for a while. They are incredibly resilients but not that killy in cc vs a thought unit.

If possible field a Support Squadron, 3 LS with Typhoon missiles with a Dark Shroud. That will waste his line of warriors.

Finaly you need special weapons on your tacticals and you'll need good Leadership. Don't hesitate to invest in a veteran sergeant there and there.

Try fish Aversion or Mind wipe in the DA Psychic discipline, they are the best to deal with Necrons. Killing the Necrons are very hard, but silence them for a while is sth can be done.

If the Necron player runs a Decurion and you run a CAD you will lose.

You should run a Lion's Blade Strike Force or some other juicy formation or formations in the Dark Angel's codex.

Best way to circumvent Reanimation is sweeping advance. Black Knights will murder everything except wraiths which don't really have a counter but at least they can Hit and Run. Maybe an Imperial Knight works against wraiths?

 axisofentropy wrote:
Best way to circumvent Reanimation is sweeping advance.

That is old codex thinking. Thanks to the change in RP it is significantly harder to cause enough wounds to get them to break on Ld10. You should not be relying on sweeping them as your main strategy.

As a Necron player I can tell you the biggest pain I have to deal with from DA is MSU bikes. Fast, tough, and full of gimmicks? "Ugh, he just tied all my guns up in combat. Well there goes my shooting."
Throw whatever you can at his Wraiths and Tomb Blades ASAP and you will dictate how the rest of the game goes.