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Beat the Guard and their stronghold, took control of the Eres badlands to gain the Attack x2 ability, and Pavonis looked pretty spicy. You mean I get to attack ANYWHERE on the map (except for strongholds) with the spaceport? Hell yeah. Started out, built up scouts to cap SP's, and built up three space marine squads. My Librarian, Assault Marine, and Veteran honour guard were shredded by destroyers. Okay, I'm sure I can overpower them with marines, right? Nope, didn't even have time to give them plasma guns before they got molested by Flayed ones. I knew Necrons were overpowered by themselves in Winter Assault (makes sense, it's only a story element anyway) but I never thought they'd be THIS powerful. Wat do?

You don’t. They are by far the worst balanced faction in Dark Crusade.

If that's the mission where you find and retrieve the most servitors to win, don't worry about conquering the whole map or blowing up the enemy base, grab the strat points nearest your base and generate/use as many jump pack units to locate and escort the servis back to homeplate. iirc you need six+ to win.
When in doubt spend more time grabbing other common battlefields territories first, then come back to the space port when you can start the mission with extra assault marines.

How do you beat Necrons?

Retreating and focusing fire coupled to attacking with overwhelming firepower.

Basically don't be afraid to pull back from a fight. Necrons are a bit slower than other races; they are just unstoppably hard to break. Focusing your fire is a big factor; don't just let combat happen; pick specific targets. Go for their leader way more than other forces; you want him taken down as fast as possible and early so he can't use his resurrection orb to pull half the army back. Keep in mind when he falls he returns where he fell, not back at base.

Focusing fire on single targets lets you wipe them out rather than spreading your fire across the whole army which typically works on most others.



The other factor is always be securing resource nodes; Whilst necrons don't need resource nodes the same way you do for resources; you need those resources so you can deal with their powerful tanky turtling tactics.

Missile launchers are great at knocking Necrons down, disrupting their shooting while they stand back up. Great at keeping the Flayed Ones at bay and good at handling those pesky Destroyers.

When facing Necrons (especially on Pavonis, where you want to keep your captured servitors safe) hunkering down in your bases is always a good tactic. Reinforced by well placed turrets with plenty of overlapping fields of fire. I normally go 4 Heavy Bolters, 2 Missile Launchers. Keep your forces on the defensive blue stance so they can't be lured out of position by the Necron Lord and let them walk into the teeth of your guns. Once you've seen off their assault you normally get a few minutes respite to load up in rhinos and sally forth to mount an attack before the computer resurrects the Lord, who'll then attack your base for a minute before retreating, providing you still have functioning turrets to attack him, otherwise he keeps attacking.
The thing you've got to watch out for when the 'Crons attack you is that the computer almost always gives the Lord the Solar Flare. So he'll teleport into the middle of your base, pop the flare and neuter a good % of your units firing. It's annoying, but if you know to expect it you can position your units accordingly.

When going on the offensive, a couple of non-stealthed scout squads can provide a cheap and effective screen for the bulk of your tooled up tactical squads. The computer generally runs a couple of wraiths ahead of the main force, so if you can tie them up with the scouts, you're not losing the harder hitting plasma/missile launcher tacs, and not risking your commander who's better off fighting off the Lord of reacting to any Flayed Ones that might pop up unexpectedly. Scouts can also be useful as a sacrifice unit, engaging Flayed Ones, while the rest of your force moves away so they can safely shoot them.

Personally i think necron warriors were strong but that's why you engage where you want and use artillery/long ranged units or other vehicles to take them out. Keep in mind necrons at least in Dark crusade were incredibly slow with minor exceptions.

I used to play imperial guard and let me tell you we needed to rely on artillery during tier 2 and even parts of tier 3-4 tech (1 being basic infantry, 2 being anti tank and vehicles, 3 being elite units and tier 4 being like tanks and maybe tier 5 for the super heavy that needs a relic).

The only real issue at that point with necrons was the teleporting leader with the ability to resurrect necrons and prevent ranged shooting in a static area. Hence why you need vehicles to displace and fight somewhere new. Even flayed ones when deep striked won't effect vehicle morale and are too slow to chase after you if you move.

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I may have played imperial guard against necrons but a similar thing applies. Use long range, vehicles and speed to re-position to your advantage. Space marines have whirlwinds and even dreadnoughts and land speeders should work with whirlwinds if you know what you're doing.

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I was basically a really good imperial guard players WAY back in the dying days of dow: winter assault just as dark crusade comes out. Didn't get much gaming in vs necrons and tau in multiplayer but in the campaign both should be easy enough to face. Now Tau are just cancer to face as imperial guard even with scans and pskers. I could still beat all the hq missions with guard though.

I just had one group of soldiers for assaulting and another group for defense. Manage your troops so the ones good at being anti vehicle take out the Destroyers and the ones good at being anti infantry take out everything else. And just take it one pillar and one strategic point at a time. It'll be a good idea to build a second base along the way.

Also be sure to destroy all the pillars along the way, because one of them thats kind of out of the way will take control of all your vehicles after you place the bomb. You want to take out that pillar with infantry only.

And I personally thought that the Tau stronghold was the hardest of Dark Cursade.