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So the new up and coming (well not that new) hard to beat army seems to be Necrons, I have never faced them but that is just cause of who I play with right now (and the fact I play rather little) still with all I have read about them I do fear alittle about being totally creamed by them and would like to know how to fight them.
I am by no means the best 40k player but I do know how to stand a chance against every army I fight against but really not sure what I need to look out for in Necrons.

I play Marines of all types and want some good tactics on taking down the metal living dead, so far I have seen that they can shoot like crazy, have great speed options, have several great close combat units and all their guys can come back from the dead....to me I can see no real weakness to exploit, I know that warriors are weak in CC but they can get back up and hold up my units for a while and even if I get one I think I'll get shot to death in the following round.

What do I do keep the dead, dead?

Please and thanks, EIS

Well, not *all* necrons get back up, wraiths, scrabs and spyders do not. The key is focus fire/melee. NEcrons are zombies, more or less, and what do you do to kill a zombie? Cut it a few times with a knife? Shoot it in the limbs? NO. You crush it with a hammer, you blow its head off, you break it into lumps of meat. Same with necrons, when you hit them, hit them HARD and FAST. Fire 2-3 of you units at one group of necrons, remember, if there in no unit to get up and join, they dont get up. Dont charge 10 warriors with 5 tactical marines and expect to win in less than 2 turns. ALWAYS make sure you win combat enough so that our Ld 10 is meaningless, then we flee, then you sweep. Rinse and repeat

I hard and fast hitting? Sounds like maybe my biker list could do well, they can move quite fast and their relentless ability sound help with killing off units.

One more problem with this is that how does my guys survive the trip? Necrons got great range on them and they have scarab swarms that are rather dangerous at kill just about anything.

 Ecstasy in Service wrote:
I hard and fast hitting? Sounds like maybe my biker list could do well, they can move quite fast and their relentless ability sound help with killing off units.

One more problem with this is that how does my guys survive the trip? Necrons got great range on them and they have scarab swarms that are rather dangerous at kill just about anything.

Most Necron ranged weaponry, is limited to 24' or less. Flamers and template weapons make a mess of Scarabs, and they really only dangerous if taken in large swarms with Spyder Support.

Getting into close combat ASAP is probably the best thing you can do. Most Necron units will crumble once you hit them.


Be wary of a lot of the tricks that Necrons can use. Things like MSS, can throw you for a loop if you are not used to dealing with them.

I think the most important thing to consider is the range of the Gauss weapons and Tesla weapons.

Make sure you keep your vehicles out of the range of his gauss weapons. They suto glance a vehicle on either a hit roll or DM roll of 6 (can't remember, neither is good), and tesla can really rack up staggering amounts of hits on your units.

Make sure you bring plenty of templates and blasts. Scarabs can be easily removed by plasma cannons. They do double wounds and ID scarab swarms. Templates and Plasma cannons can also punish Necrons when they decide to deep strike in on you.

Null Zone Librarians are a good counter to Wraiths if he decides to field them.

Foot Sternguard with Kraken rounds deny armor saves and outrange Necron warriors.

Getting into CC is another good option. Make sure you get their fast though.

You already got some good advices.
By the way, Thundercannons can also take on Scarabs.
Competitive Necron lists contain flyers, which can be countered by an ADL.

 wuestenfux wrote:
You already got some good advices.
By the way, Thundercannons can also take on Scarabs.
Competitive Necron lists contain flyers, which can be countered by an ADL.

an ADL isn't near enough to blunt the strength of a True Necron Flyer force though. 3 Doomscythes are pretty much guaranteed to get the Alpha strike on whatever they want, and it can and will cripple an enemy army. an ADL with Quadgun can only do so much.

However, I've found myself (and others) steering away from flyer spam in a non-tournament environment. There are still plenty of ways a Necron list can be competitive without flyers, as well.

Focus fire single units at a time. Warriors have a 4+, so use weapons to deny armor- you have such weapons in your armory, employ them to good effect. Fast speeders with flamers and asscannons are useful here. If you can woe a unit, no one gets up iirc. They have some potent fliers, so be sure to have AA

Flamers devastate scarabs, even in overwatch. Bikers are an excellent idea agaisnt crons, just try and use cover as you approach. Most of our weapons are 24" so try and stay just outside that, then we move up to shoot, but only 1/2-1/3 or the blob is in range and can shoot you. Then move 12" and charge. If your opponent puts 2+ on alot of his stuff, don't use a power axe, since we'll swing first and kill you, use something like lightning claws so we have to make *alot* of saves.

Also, our vehicles become av11 after you pen them(maybe glance as well but I forget) and most are open-topped. So after that first pen, we blow up easy to lascannons/anything ap2. I'd also reccomend DSing terminators, my friends BT termies have wrecked alot of havoc on my legions that way

From my games against necrons so far I found that the most glaring weakness of the army as a whole, is that the units cannot assst each other.

Well, for one his units are SUPER focused, the ones aimed to melee cant shoot at all, or crappy as hell (so untill they get all the way to you they cant do anything), while the shooty ones collapse in melee against pretty much anything thats as good as a tactical marine in melee, and totally wiped out against true melee-oriented units.

On another note, they amusingly have very little high range for a shooty army, so a bombardment army can wipe out quite a few before even getting any return fire. and being forced to advance to you means its not very hard to isolate them, and systemerically take down one unit at a time, once a unit has been wiped out completely it cannot come back.

Also, try to take out the things that cause the infinity first, take down leaders with rez orbs with precision shots, if he runs a warrior block followed by an ark then take down the ark first, in scarab farms remove the spiders first. most necron "never die" units depend on another, far easier to kill unit to maintain it.

These guys are incredibally strong, but most of them depend on key units to maintain them, or get themselves isolated really quickly-they got pretty much nothing that can do any hard without totally exposing itself.

 BoomWolf wrote:
the most glaring weakness of the army as a whole, is that the units cannot assst each other.

[...]

 BoomWolf wrote:
but most of them depend on key units to maintain them

... uhhh, that right there would be an example of units assisting each other.

In fact, I would argue that the Necrons are one of the only races that MUST rely on support units for an army to operate at maximum effectiveness.

Yes, troops fold to CC, so that's why they need CC support to intercept for them.
Yes, CC units can't shoot for crap, so that's why they need fire support to help them advance up the field.
That's how they're meant to work (Unit A, if taken by itself, is meh at best. However, add unit B in for support and you've suddenly got ).
The entire Necron codex is nothing but a lesson in synergy.
BREAKING that synergy breaks the army. Taking out one key unit can turn the tide of the entire battle, more so for 'Crons than anyone else.
Now, that's not to say it will work every time. A good general will have factored in redundancy, so even if he does lose a major hitter, he's still got a chance to take the game.

Just be aware: if you want to take down the Toasters, don't just go rushing in head long. Analyze his units and how he's deployed them. Find the most important parts of the army and focus on those first.
Like everyone said- focus fire the Wraiths, assault the Warriors, keep your characters away from MSS, stay out of LOS of the Crypteks, etc.

Do Necrons still phase out if reduced to 25%(IIRC)? that would be a weakness unless they removed it in the new codex.

 edbradders wrote:
Do Necrons still faze out if reduced to 25%(IIRC)? that would be a weakness unless they removed it in the new codex.

No, Necrons no longer phase out.

Thank God for that, Phase out was a stupid rule

 rednecroncryptek wrote:
Thank God for that, Phase out was a stupid rule

Not if you look at it in the edition where it came out.

It was damn necessary back then (this coming from someone whose played em since about that time). In 4th they would have been niegh unstoppable, they get up, pariahs might have actually been taken, there would have been no weakness to 3 pretty much indestructable monos and a ctan w 2 token warrior squads and a cheap lord.

Once 5th hit yeah it was a stupid rule and should have been "phased out" itself. But in 4th it was necessary.

I too have seriously struggled against Necrons with My Space Marines. The problem is marines really wanna get closeup for max effectiveness, so I guess a more shooty list might be better. The AV 13 was surprisingly difficult for me to get the one Penetrating hit to knock out, it's a good defense for the ol' Necrons.

I remember in the last codex, they were an "easy" opponent for me, as I'd just run vindicators up an smash them, one squad at a time, to pieces - using tactical marines to clean up any stragglers. You can still do that, to a point, but most lists nowadays will have fast skimmer or flyer boxes for those Necrons, making them much harder to smash.

I think I have definitively got'n some very helpful advice, thanks for all the help, having great range and a follow up heavy hitting CC unit (termies) seems to be the way to go, also tactical marines will do the best loaded with at lest some flamers.

Thanks for the help guys, I still feel like the Necrons are going to be a tough enemy to beat but I suppose that's what updated codex are for!

Understand the 'Crons rules, so remember that Reanimation protocols triggers at the end of the step not the turn, this means that he has to place them before you charge, this means that you can potentially have an easier charge. Equally, it means you have to wipe the squad in the phase not the turn to deny them getting back up.

When fighting the shackles, you can negate them if you get the charge, this is because both the shackles and the challenge step are at the beginning of the turn, this means it's the current player turns prevogitive. So if you charge you can make sure you keep your hq out of base with the lord, hopefully making them trigger the shackles while no-one is next to them, as they only pile in during Initiative step. Then you can move onto the challenge step once the shackles have safely used up.

DoomScythes can't target other flyers with their str 10 laser so against other flyers they are rather underwhelming especially vs. armour 12 the str 7 tesla destructors can only do so much.

So use flyers against flyers? Sounds good to me, but should I got with Stormravens? they could transport my termies into battle and fight off other flyers pretty good.