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I think necrons greatest strength by far is reanimation protocols. They aren't fast, they aren't particularly killy, and they struggle to field cheap and plentiful multi-damage dealing weapons like melta and lascannon equivalents. But gosh darnit, they are stupid durable, and they do a good job of "everything can hurt everything," attrition is the name of their game. This list is an attempt to make the best attrition based, TAC, all around solid list, that plays exclusively to their greatest strength. Stand out examples would be two good size blobs of warriors supported by a cryptek for 4+ RP, as well as a ghost ark for each blob to give them double RP rolls per turn. Another example is going for max squad sizes to push the RP mechanic, as well as taking all RP capable units, no canoptek here, 10 immortals/deathmarks/lychgyard. The oither elements have living metal for more necron durability. Szeras brings a nice anti-tank weapon along with buffing the warriors, and 10 deathmarks means enemy character will not be safe. The only thing I would have liked to do differently is had two groups of 20 warriors rather than two groups of 15, but I just couldn't fit it while keeping to my other stipulations - namely maxing out the size of the other units while also fielding monolith; not only for it's impressive solo capabilities, but also because it's my lychguard delivery service. You could look at running one ghost ark instead of two, but I like having each blob being able to operate seperately from one another while still maintaining 4+ RP as well as double RP rolls.


Battalion Detachment

HQ – Illuminor Szeras

HQ – Cryptek w/ Staff of Light

Troops – 15x Warriors
Transport – Ghost Ark

Troops – 15x Warriors
Transport – Ghost Ark

Troops – 10x Immortals w/ Gauss Blasters

Elites – 10x Deathmarks

Elites – 10x Lychguard w/ Warscythes

Heavy Support – Monolith

Realistically I think the strongest TAC list you can make with Necrons will be pure Doomsday Ark spam with some Scarab and Triarch Stalker support.

But if you mean making the best TAC list you can make using infantry, then I think you want to probably drop a Ghost Ark and fill out those warrior squads to 20 man strength. The second GA is redundant because the nature of Necrons will discourage your opponent from splitting their fire among multiple squads (and you get diminishing returns for each additional GA used on a single squad).

I think Orikan is the better TAC cryptek because he provides a 5+ in melee as well as against shooting, which can really help units to stay alive long enough for RP to matter at all. Helps out the Lychguard a lot.

The 5++ on Orikan is nice, I go with Szeras for the eldritch lance and the permanent buff on the warriors. By dropping a ghost ark I could expand the warrior squads to 20 each and swap the normal cryptek for orikan and have both named characters, that might be better overall. Though you'd have to keep both blobs with the one ghost ark to get the benefit, and at that point the ghost ark becomes a bigger priority target for the opponent. And I also just noticed that each ghost ark can only give one unit of warriors a reanimation protocol roll at the end of the movement phase, you can't use one ghost ark to give out the extra RP to multiple units, even if in range.

On the issue of doomsday arks, scarabs, and stalkers, I don't see how that would be the best TAC list at all, to be honest. Individually, I really rate the stalker highly, and think scarabs are still OK, but I think thew doomsday ark is horrible value for the points.

peteralmo wrote:
The 5++ on Orikan is nice, I go with Szeras for the eldritch lance and the permanent buff on the warriors. By dropping a ghost ark I could expand the warrior squads to 20 each and swap the normal cryptek for orikan and have both named characters, that might be better overall. Though you'd have to keep both blobs with the one ghost ark to get the benefit, and at that point the ghost ark becomes a bigger priority target for the opponent. And I also just noticed that each ghost ark can only give one unit of warriors a reanimation protocol roll at the end of the movement phase, you can't use one ghost ark to give out the extra RP to multiple units, even if in range.

On the issue of doomsday arks, scarabs, and stalkers, I don't see how that would be the best TAC list at all, to be honest. Individually, I really rate the stalker highly, and think scarabs are still OK, but I think thew doomsday ark is horrible value for the points.

RP is wonky now it doesnt proc for models lost for battleshock. That being said though you still want max squads. Drop the deathmarks, snipers are useless, theyre not doing much to anything, while just providing easy targets for your opponents. They are probably some of the worst units in our codex IMO. Use the points to increase warrior squads.

Scarabs are point for point amazing. Way better than warriors. Faster, more wounds, cheaper, more attacks.... whats not to love.

15 warriors are suprisingly easy to kill, negating RP. Infact RP isn't that great anymore. Its good when your opponent doesn't know how to deal with Crons but the second you get a couple games under your belt, forget ever getting it.

On DDA vs warriors...

equivilant points, warriors put out 7 more gauss shots, or 14 in RF range. They are better in CC. and that is literally their only two benefits over DDA.

DDA threaten the whole board from the back corner with a very good gun. Has QS, which negates the damage from the things that are meant to be shooting at it. Sure you can say that RP is similar to this, but its much harder to chew through 14 T6 wounds vs 17 T4 wounds. DDA also have living metal, which regens wounds. It moves faster, while still threatening a wider range of targets. Theyre cheaper to buff and protect too, with a properly buffed warrior blob coming in at 605 pts vs the DDA, stalker and Scarab combo of 501 points. The warrior blob is putting out hilariously little damage vs the DDA combo, requires way more logistical effort to pull off, requires HQ buffs that can be sniped out, and close range to do its damage. Just sayin'

To build on your list, you have very little capable anti tank, szerath and a particle whip is not enough, and while warscythes are good, they have a glaring problem. They will pop a single tank, then be left standing in the open ready to die from the rest of their army as they are too slow to catch anything. You have slow, footslogging units that will take an eternity to get into RF range (if they are around). Seriously, 30 warriors and 10 immortals is not hard at all to kill this edition.

Finally, the monolith isn't a transport, so your looking at a T2 charge from the scythe-guard, and remember they cant move after disembarking. This is all assuming the monolith survives a whole round of shooting, otherwise you have sunk 681 points into a trick that is not very reliable.

A night scythe is cheaper, hell 2 night scythes are cheaper and provide redundancy in the likely chance one dies.

If you wanna go silver tide, go hard, with crypteks and lords and GA and warriors everywhere.

Remember, if your main anti tank is the warscythes, your looking at a maximum damage output of 20 damage a round of CC.

A single DDA can put out a max of 18 damage from its main gun per shooting phase, can do this T1, from the extreme end of hte board, doesn't require nearly 400 points of brick wall to get off, and will be able to do it all day every day without hoping to make charge ranges/having enough space to DS to ensure the guard can do their job.

The cheapest way to get Scytheguard into combat is a Nightscythe. Your looking at a t2 charge minimum with that. Its also nearly 500 points. 2 DDA put out more damage, at a higher strength, a higher rend, with more wounds, more survivability, more safely and for nearly 100 less points. All of this is without counting the flayer arrays on the side...

I'm not trying to sound mean or aggressive or anything, Ive just seen people time and again saying DDA are crap, when there is little in the index that is as good as them. Makes no sense to me.

Cron strength ATM is in our vehicles. Every one of them is good, viable, strong and way more durable than every infantry option we have. Try some out, if you dont like them/their playstyle thats cool, I like running large blobs of warriors in my games too cus it looks cool and is thematic. I just dont expect them to do much except soak damage while my big guns in the back do all the heavy lifting.

P.S try a Tesseract Ark if you havent yet. I know you dont like the DDA, but this is even better than it.

Drop the deathmarks, snipers are useless, theyre not doing much to anything

I played 10 Deathmarks against a Tzeentch list the other day that had a Herald and Changing. I was able to kill them both (even with -1 to hit) by shooting 5 Deathmarks at each unit. It is safe to say that the rest of the army really missed that -1 to hit.

Deathmarks can be good if you want to screw up your opponents tactics by killing their characters and forcing them to re-think their plan.

for 20 pts a model your not really investing that much into them unless you start going above 8+ but even then I think there worth it.

Not aggressive, you've piqued my interest. I hadn't realized the meta for necrons had changed so aggressively. Has it become sort of a tau gunline huddled in the corner? All DDA's and Stalkers in a corner with tons of scarabs flooding the board? I assume you use the gauss loadout for the stalkers then? What's a typical list look like?

peteralmo wrote:
Not aggressive, you've piqued my interest. I hadn't realized the meta for necrons had changed so aggressively. Has it become sort of a tau gunline huddled in the corner? All DDA's and Stalkers in a corner with tons of scarabs flooding the board? I assume you use the gauss loadout for the stalkers then? What's a typical list look like?

I mean it all depends on what you wanna do, but our vehicles are very strong and very durable. I mean right now we dont really have a competitive answer to conscripts, but we can kill tanks very well. Going against blob guard youll find vehicles are okay, anni barges are good for hordes, as are tesseract vaults funnily enough, and monoliths can draw alot of fire DS in. It all really depends on how the meta shapes up, and also what our codex gives us in the way of mobility. If we get more mobile options (cheap access to DS) or they rework the eternity gates it might be better but atm yea, points wise the spearhead detachment is the way to go.

Well stalkers dont have to be next to anything to give the buffs, but for low points games, yes DDA in backfield (usually 2 is enough) screened by scarabs (if you know they have DS threats) is a very solid and relatively cheap alotment of points for big guns. Add a stalker if you want more damage, and yes the gauss is the best, due to having the range on the other guns.

A tesseract ark is very good, its 5++, fleshbane flamer, assault and heavy profiles coupled with the tesla cannons make it a solid, mobile firebase. Its basically the way to go if you want more mobile tanks, 100% screened by scarabs all the time. They have fly but if you have a screen you can choose when you get into CC.

Vehicle heavy lists do well against hordes that dont have much Anti tank.

Our index isnt in that good of a spot tbh, all of our infantry options are too expensive to do the cool tricks you do with them (im talking competitive now, normal games do whatever you want )

Obviously the gauss pylon is amazing, especially for its points. All of our vehicles are basically the best options we have ATM, until the codex comes out.

Yeah I've been reading a lot about this guard problem in the meta, I haven't played any competitive tournaments yet since 8th dropped, it sounds more like a conscript problem though. I know this isn't technically the correct forum for it, but could you briefly explain this issue with guard generally and conscripts specifically? What is their typical list doing that's so broken?

So conscripts can be taken in squads of 50, they have rapid fire 2 weapons, so with FRFSRF its 4 shots a piece, thats 200 shots, normally 5+/5+, but still, lots of dakka. Additionally, they can fall back from combat, and take an order and act normally, as if they have fly. Finally, if you kill 20 of them usually battleshock comes in and would do heavy damage, however they have a commisar nearby and they just take 1 more damage and pass battleshock, meaning you have to chew through all 50 wounds... all for 3pts a model.

peteralmo wrote:

Battalion Detachment

HQ – Illuminor Szeras

HQ – Cryptek w/ Staff of Light

Troops – 15x Warriors
Transport – Ghost Ark

Troops – 15x Warriors
Transport – Ghost Ark

Troops – 10x Immortals w/ Gauss Blasters

Elites – 10x Deathmarks

Elites – 10x Lychguard w/ Warscythes

Heavy Support – Monolith

As someone who plays (wins) often against similar Necron lists, i think the main problem is that you can render the character RP+ traits useless easily by focusing down the blobs one by one.

A competent enemy will not let you take RP rolls.
Most shooty armies have the capabilty to destroy even a 20 Warrior blob in a single turn (talking 2000 points, and think of the FAQd morale casualties) denying RPs and thus create wasted points in characters and th RP ability of the model which you paid for.

Another thing is the combination of quantum shielded high T high W stuff vs non-shielded high T high W stuff. (arks and monolith). You should stick to either group, to give your opponent a more difficult target decision. A single monolith will go down faster because he is the only viable target for D6 damage weapons. No one will use their meltas againt arks.

If you toss the monolith and add more high T infantry like lychguard for example and QS vehicles(doomsday arks), your enemy has a serious problem, because he will not have enough medium strength, low damage weapons.

 Klowny wrote:
So conscripts can be taken in squads of 50, they have rapid fire 2 weapons, so with FRFSRF its 4 shots a piece, thats 200 shots, normally 5+/5+, but still, lots of dakka. Additionally, they can fall back from combat, and take an order and act normally, as if they have fly. Finally, if you kill 20 of them usually battleshock comes in and would do heavy damage, however they have a commisar nearby and they just take 1 more damage and pass battleshock, meaning you have to chew through all 50 wounds... all for 3pts a model.

Well this seems like a huge problem, but an easy fix, I hope they change the few key rules they have that make them completely broken.

Kremling wrote:

peteralmo wrote:

Battalion Detachment

HQ – Illuminor Szeras

HQ – Cryptek w/ Staff of Light

Troops – 15x Warriors
Transport – Ghost Ark

Troops – 15x Warriors
Transport – Ghost Ark

Troops – 10x Immortals w/ Gauss Blasters

Elites – 10x Deathmarks

Elites – 10x Lychguard w/ Warscythes

Heavy Support – Monolith

As someone who plays (wins) often against similar Necron lists, i think the main problem is that you can render the character RP+ traits useless easily by focusing down the blobs one by one.

A competent enemy will not let you take RP rolls.
Most shooty armies have the capabilty to destroy even a 20 Warrior blob in a single turn (talking 2000 points, and think of the FAQd morale casualties) denying RPs and thus create wasted points in characters and th RP ability of the model which you paid for.

Another thing is the combination of quantum shielded high T high W stuff vs non-shielded high T high W stuff. (arks and monolith). You should stick to either group, to give your opponent a more difficult target decision. A single monolith will go down faster because he is the only viable target for D6 damage weapons. No one will use their meltas againt arks.

If you toss the monolith and add more high T infantry like lychguard for example and QS vehicles(doomsday arks), your enemy has a serious problem, because he will not have enough medium strength, low damage weapons.

What army do you use against Necrons that you have won all the time?

Also, what Necron unit's from you POV do you have the most trouble with and what units dish out the best amount of dakka in terms of shoots, BS, weapon strength and damage?

I am just wondering as I find Warriors to be lack-luster due to the new FAQ and for the points you stated above and I wanted to find another unit that could take the Warriors place and also be tough to go up against.

What do you guys think of this list based on the above recommendations? I admit, it puts out a lot more total damage than my original list, and has an absurd amount of total wounds, 221 lol ! And everything accept the scarabs has living metal and/or quantum shielding.


Spearhead & Outrider Detachments

HQ – Overlord w/ Staff of Light
HQ – Overlord w/ Staff of Light

Fast Attack – 9x Canoptek Scarab Swarms
Fast Attack – 9x Canoptek Scarab Swarms
Fast Attack – 9x Canoptek Scarab Swarms
Fast Attack – 9x Canoptek Scarab Swarms
Fast Attack – 9x Canoptek Scarab Swarms

Elites – Triarch Stalker w/ Twin Heavy Gauss Cannons
Elites – Triarch Stalker w/ Twin Heavy Gauss Cannons

Heavy Support – Doomsday Ark
Heavy Support – Doomsday Ark
Heavy Support – Doomsday Ark
Heavy Support – Doomsday Ark

Overlord isnt doing much, tis a waste of points. Toholk gives D3 regen to a vehicle, synergises well with the DDA. additionally, that many scarabs and no spyder? you can only regen 1 per turn, so more than one is only for redundancy. But those spyders can also repair vehicles....

Is Toholk FW? I've ordered the book but haven't received it yet. I purposely took a ton of scarabs to allow for play in the list, a spyder can easily be added.

Yep FW cryptek, rerolls failed seize's, std cryptek buffs, D3 to living metal on one vehicle at the start of the game instead of 1, had a fancy SoL and a TDB. One of the better named crypteks.

Yeah, it seems like FW is where necrons may want to be atm. I can easily fit in a spyder and keep it near the doomsday arks along with some scarabs to bubble wrap them. I can't imagine you'd want more than one spyder though.

Some of this has already been covered, but I wanted to elaborate on my original comment:

The second army (outside Necrons) that I play is Harlequins. I have a 100% winrate over about 7 games with Harlies against Necrons, and I don't expect that to change soon. Why is that? 20 man warrior blobs is why.

In order to maximize reanimation, we pack large units of infantry into our list and deploy them close together near crypteks. A single 99 point Starweaver or a pair of 56 point Skyweavers can disable both these units on the first turn by charging them. There isn't enough overwatch to threaten them, and the warriors cannot fall back and shoot. During the games I've played my opponents rarely have the opportunity to do anything more than make CC attacks with their warriors while I dismantle the rest of their army.

Consider what the DDA gives you:

- An anti tank gun.
- A defense against the primary weapon people will use against you.
- The firepower of a 10 man warrior squad.
- The ability to fall back and charge.
- A high movement speed.

That's why the DDA is the best unit we have.

Yeah the FLY keyword is incredibly powerful this edition. wonder if it will be tweaked eventually.

It is funny that the Teseract Ark has Particle beamer and Tesla cannons, but the Particle beamer is clearly useless in every case.

I've been running necrons in an escalation league and doing pretty badly, but the more triarch stalkers and doomsday arks I've added, the better I've done. That said, I've been running one squad of 20 warriors and two squads of 10 immortals as part of my list, and they haven't been dying. On the contrary, they've been extremely resilient, especially with cryptek support. The problems have mostly been their lack of mobility, and how long it takes them to kill anything armoured. They've done really well killing tyranids and Tzeentch daemons, but marines and chaos marines (mostly planes, terminators, and Nurgle-y monstrous creatures) have been tougher. And I do always get a bad taste in my mouth when I look at my list and realize that the warriors are the most expensive unit I'm running.

I think your second list looks a whole lot better, for sure, but I just wanted to chime in and say that I don't think warriors are unplayable. They're just not the best unit to spam. Immortals and scarabs are better, and most of the army's strength is in its vehicles (as others have said).

ClutterEater wrote:Some of this has already been covered, but I wanted to elaborate on my original comment:

The second army (outside Necrons) that I play is Harlequins. I have a 100% winrate over about 7 games with Harlies against Necrons, and I don't expect that to change soon. Why is that? 20 man warrior blobs is why.

In order to maximize reanimation, we pack large units of infantry into our list and deploy them close together near crypteks. A single 99 point Starweaver or a pair of 56 point Skyweavers can disable both these units on the first turn by charging them. There isn't enough overwatch to threaten them, and the warriors cannot fall back and shoot. During the games I've played my opponents rarely have the opportunity to do anything more than make CC attacks with their warriors while I dismantle the rest of their army.

Consider what the DDA gives you:

- An anti tank gun.
- A defense against the primary weapon people will use against you.
- The firepower of a 10 man warrior squad.
- The ability to fall back and charge.
- A high movement speed.

That's why the DDA is the best unit we have.

Yea I am actually not that worried about harlequins with my comp list. I'm running a pylon, dda, TB and a ridiculous amount of scarabs, and tesla immortals. So I plan to just turtle, blow up 2-3 starweavers a turn and then just blast the troupes off the board as they footslog towards me. When they get close, ill charge them with scarabs, which put out a bucketload of attacks. If they dont survive the harlies can charge.... the second wave of scarabs, repeating again before they get to actual valuable units, all the while ive been shooting them. I haven't faced them on the table top yet so its all in theory so far but they don't worry me too much. Against normal necron lists however....

valdier wrote:It is funny that the Teseract Ark has Particle beamer and Tesla cannons, but the Particle beamer is clearly useless in every case.

Its cheaper, if your tight on points you can run it, but otherwise forget it. Im really sad at what they did to particle weapons in general, they were actually a viable choice in 7th, shredding hordes when equipped to tomb blades. Now htey are just a poor mans tesla.

Benn Roe wrote:I've been running necrons in an escalation league and doing pretty badly, but the more triarch stalkers and doomsday arks I've added, the better I've done. That said, I've been running one squad of 20 warriors and two squads of 10 immortals as part of my list, and they haven't been dying. On the contrary, they've been extremely resilient, especially with cryptek support. The problems have mostly been their lack of mobility, and how long it takes them to kill anything armoured. They've done really well killing tyranids and Tzeentch daemons, but marines and chaos marines (mostly planes, terminators, and Nurgle-y monstrous creatures) have been tougher. And I do always get a bad taste in my mouth when I look at my list and realize that the warriors are the most expensive unit I'm running.

I think your second list looks a whole lot better, for sure, but I just wanted to chime in and say that I don't think warriors are unplayable. They're just not the best unit to spam. Immortals and scarabs are better, and most of the army's strength is in its vehicles (as others have said).

They are durable against certain armies, hilariously terrible against others. I play guard alot and warriors die super fast against them. But they can be durable, and GI 40 of them into RF range is very fun.

But they cost too much for what they provide, especially when immortals do their job so much better.

Gauss Pylon dude... gauss pylon.

Yeah, its so good, nothing in either index is better than it. 100000 times better than a everything else. Fun to build too....

I actually like the Sentry Pylon with heat cannon better, incredible value for 175 points and gives the necrons something the normal codex just cannot.