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Hey all, I picked up the 6th Ed CSM codex, and my buddy recently picked up Necrons. I was used to fighting Dark Angels, Orkz, Blood Angels, SM, Nids and the odd Tau player... But necrons are like a whole new can of worms.

I generally see this from him in a 2,000 pt game (we dont use double force org most of the times, by our own decisions or we'd just do a 1999pt game).

3 Ghost Arcs, 7 warrriors in each, Crypteks, Lords (he brings 1 or 2 councils fully loaded).
They all have mindshackle scarabs, warscythes, these cloaks that let them deepstrike back onto the board and staves of light.
Doomsday Arc
HQ's are the Zeme and Obyron combo a lot, and Imotek the Stormlord.

My List:

Kharn the Betrayer
Nurgle Lord

x2 9 khorne berzerkers, power sword, icon of rage and all chainaxes for AP4
Rhino

x2 8 Plaguemarine squads, 2 meltas, power axe

2 Forgefiends, Hades Autocannons,

2 Hellbrutes, Power Scourge

2x 5 man terminator squads, Mark of Khorne, Chainfist, and some combi melta
Heldrake

Basically what seems to happen, I'll generally go first, or be told to go first.. I get the initiative stolen, 3 ghost arcs re-deepstrike within a few inchs of my entire army. I get most of my transports wrecked by the Guass guns on the ghost arcs, then the warriors inside will choose which vehicle isnt dead or is the weakest to hit. It is undoubtly night fighting but Nemesor Zendrake gives a Doomsday Arc in the back Night Fighting. I will crawl my way out of my rhinos, I can't assault anything because my transports have blown up. I'm left to shoot 13/13/10 armor that seems increasingly hard to penetrate when they have 4 hullpoints. Once i manage those ( i had dreadnaughts charge them w/ powerfists). I get in combat.

Now combat, as we all know Chaos has to issue challenges all the time. I get stuck fighting Necorn Lords with Mindshackle Scarabs and warscythes, I generally fail the 3d6 leadership all the time, so I end up smacking myself in the face and killing myself. IF that doesnt kill me I get to have a warscythe cut me to pieces. Challenges I do win, the lord just pops back up and I need to fight him again next turn. Obyron is busy jumping around the battlefield, i killed that bastard 4 times until he finally killed me (one of the only models i fought that didnt have mindshackle scarabs I was winning against).


How do you guys deal with Necrons? The next list I'm making is going to involve sergeant that are un-upgraded so I wont do much in challenges but i wont spend useless points to kill myself, and mostly ranged firepower to stay out of challenges as I don't excel at them vs Necrons. I'm even afraid to take demon princes because if I get mindshackled I'll kill myself... Kharn the Betrayer killed himself on his own charge, i failed the leadership test, he rolled a 6, kharn wounds himself on a 2.. and only has a 5+ save.. so I just died outright.

how do the ghost arcs re-deepstrike? not sure on that one.

Just to be clear, I'm pretty sure that he's cheating. The wording for the Veil of Darkness reads "A cryptek with a Veil of Darkness can use it in the movement phase instead of moving normally. The Cryptek and his unit are removed from the table and immediately deep strike onto the battlefield." Now, there are two things to note as to why your opponent is cheating.

1) The Veil of Darkness specifies that it is the Cryptek and his unit that are removed from the table and deep strike. In the case of the units listed, that would be the 7 warriors, the attached cryptek, the attached lord, and any other attached characters in the unit. This does not include the Ghost Ark. Even though the Ghost Ark is a dedicated transport, it is considered a separate unit from the squad, even if the squad is embarked on the transport (although that would be irrelevant, as I will get to later). This is the same as how even if you take a royal court with an Overlord, the court and the overlord are considered separate units. So basically the Cryptek can deep strike the unit that could ride in the transport, but not the transport itself.

2) The wording for the Veil of Darkness requires that the unit be removed from the table. In order for this to occur, the unit must actually be on the table. A unit in a transport is not considered to be on the table for the purposes of many rules, Veil of Darkness redeployment included.

3) In order for a Cryptek to take a Veil of Darkness, they must be upgraded to a Harbinger of Despair. Part of that upgrade includes replacing the Staff of Light with an Abysmal Staff. Thus, you can't have a Cryptek with both a Veil of Darkness and a Staff of Light (unless of course I am misunderstanding how his units are equipped).

Also, the best way to deal with Necrons in close combat is to just either ignore characters (or admit that you are going to be sacrificing you 20 some odd point Aspiring Champion to their 100 point Lord) and focus on winning the combat and getting a sweeping advance (which will wipe out the unit with no chance for RP) or to just shoot at the Lord until he's dead, then getting into combat.

Ya, I'm 98% positive you can't deep strike your squad+transport when you use veil.

If he loves to deep strike alot, I would highly recommend some plasma cannons (nurgle obliterators come to mind). Usually I use my 2+ save lord to soak hits in the front, so if you hit them with plasma blasts, he won't be able to make that many 4+ look out sirs.

Also, assault is extremely dangerious for necrons. If you can get a berzerker squad into a warrior squad (even with a Lord), just let the champion die to the lord, and kill as many of the warriors as possible. If they break, the unit is as good as dead (I2 necrons vs I4+ zerkers, ties go to the winners). Oh, and I would only give a few chainaxes to each zerker squad, you shouldn't have a hard time getting through that many 4+ saves. You may also consider starting outside your rhino with the zerkers, use it to block LoS, and make him deep strike in an area you want him to in order to get LoS again.

For his vehicles, any close range melta will mangle them fast (ie. 5man raptors with 2xmeltas or termies with combi-meltas or deepstriking oblits). Rear armor is 11, you pen on a 4+ (with 2 dice), and on a 3+ the vehicle explodes. It looks like you have termies already, so I would just give them MoN and hope for a good deep strike.

Also, when shooting, if you finish off all the warriors from a squad (all 7 in your case), then none of them can reanimate, so focus fire really hurts us.

Hope it helps, definitely ask to look over the necron codex, you can get a feeling for what each unit does, and help identify weaknesses and strengths.

RegalPhantom is half right. Here's the long and short of it all:

1. You can only ever have one Veil of Darkness per Royal Court, and you can only ever have a maximum of two Royal Courts. (but Obyron has the Ghostwalk Mantle which acts like a VoD)

2. The Harbinger of Despair must upgrade to an Abyssal Staff; he cannot have a Staff of Light.

3. Veil of Darkness does not take the dedicated transport with it, to the best of my knowledge (and the Necrons are my primary army).

4. Veil of Darkness can be used while embarked in a transport, as it does not require LOS. The "remove from table" bit doesn't matter.

5. Even if you kill an entire unit via Sweeping Advance, any models with the Ever-Living rule can still get up. You have to physically block those units from having a legal place to stand up in order to prevent this.

6. I'm pretty sure that if the Ghost Ark shoots at a vehicle, the embarked troops within must choose the same target.

7. Where are Zandrekh & Imotech? Are they on foot? If so, deep strike something of your own right at those two. Together, they represent more than 20% of your opponent's total points, and neither does well when not buried in a unit. And Obyron falls quickly because he doesn't have any kind of an unvulnerable save.

Azazel, I believe you're incorrect on point 6. Otherwise, I wholeheartedly agree.

Thanks for all the answers so far, It doesn't feel so bleak. Like I said the army is new to him, and I'm new to fighting necrons. It felt like an uphill battle and I was afraid he was doing everything correctly or I'd be boned.

Main takeaways seem to be ... Veil of Darkness wont take the vehicle (thank god), watch the wargear on his Crypteks and I like the idea of starting units outside of their rhinos and using them as LOS. I actually thought about this awhile ago as my Chosen do very well in CC in 6th Edition but paying for a landraider is hefty.

 azazel the cat wrote:
RegalPhantom is half right. Here's the long and short of it all:

1. You can only ever have one Veil of Darkness per Royal Court, and you can only ever have a maximum of two Royal Courts. (but Obyron has the Ghostwalk Mantle which acts like a VoD)

2. The Harbinger of Despair must upgrade to an Abyssal Staff; he cannot have a Staff of Light.

3. Veil of Darkness does not take the dedicated transport with it, to the best of my knowledge (and the Necrons are my primary army).

4. Veil of Darkness can be used while embarked in a transport, as it does not require LOS. The "remove from table" bit doesn't matter.

5. Even if you kill an entire unit via Sweeping Advance, any models with the Ever-Living rule can still get up. You have to physically block those units from having a legal place to stand up in order to prevent this.

6. I'm pretty sure that if the Ghost Ark shoots at a vehicle, the embarked troops within must choose the same target.

7. Where are Zandrekh & Imotech? Are they on foot? If so, deep strike something of your own right at those two. Together, they represent more than 20% of your opponent's total points, and neither does well when not buried in a unit. And Obyron falls quickly because he doesn't have any kind of an unvulnerable save.

On rule 6, the embarked units don't have to shoot at the vehicle shoots. For obyron you can always look out sir when he is in a group of units. Obyrons weakness is against ap 2 large blasts no invulnerable saves and a flurry of ap2 makes it difficult to look sir with no remaining units.

I'm thinking of running a list w/ Nurgle Sorcerers to debuff him in combat and just smash him down. That or Tzneetch w/ some heavy melta support, grab the 3+ invun and make sure to expend all my warp charges so mind shackle scarabs cant force weapon myself.

 azazel the cat wrote:
RegalPhantom is half right. Here's the long and short of it all:

1. You can only ever have one Veil of Darkness per Royal Court, and you can only ever have a maximum of two Royal Courts. (but Obyron has the Ghostwalk Mantle which acts like a VoD)

2. The Harbinger of Despair must upgrade to an Abyssal Staff; he cannot have a Staff of Light.

3. Veil of Darkness does not take the dedicated transport with it, to the best of my knowledge (and the Necrons are my primary army).

4. Veil of Darkness can be used while embarked in a transport, as it does not require LOS. The "remove from table" bit doesn't matter.

5. Even if you kill an entire unit via Sweeping Advance, any models with the Ever-Living rule can still get up. You have to physically block those units from having a legal place to stand up in order to prevent this.

6. I'm pretty sure that if the Ghost Ark shoots at a vehicle, the embarked troops within must choose the same target.

7. Where are Zandrekh & Imotech? Are they on foot? If so, deep strike something of your own right at those two. Together, they represent more than 20% of your opponent's total points, and neither does well when not buried in a unit. And Obyron falls quickly because he doesn't have any kind of an unvulnerable save.

Thanks for correcting me with 4. However, I'm aware that EL means the characters can still get up. My point is that sweeping gets rid of the unit surrounding them, a lone lord, or a lord+cryptek, is still fairly easy to deal with. From what I've seen his opponents lords are all MSS + Scythe, costing 60 points a piece, for a 1 wound 2 attack model with a 3+ save and what is effectively FNP. If you aren't able to put the lord down in a round of shooting (which you should be able to do), it will get into combat and do what, kill your aspiring champion (which is probably already dead) and a marine while you put him down again? I'm not trying to make Lords out to be bad, I personally like them and think that they are amazing for taking out Characters, but my point is that a lord without a squad to protect him lacks durability, particularly if he doesn't have either weave or a shifter. Plus, even if the Lord kills your character, sweeping the crons still gives you at least a 50% chance of taking him out for good.

I think his lords had the weave.. is that a 2+ save? he also just told me he made the mistake that his lords have only 1 wound.. and he thought all his Lords & Cryptek had 2 wounds... *face palm*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In regards to the veil of darkness ( the deepstriking one?) He's saying that the Cryptek when divided from the Royal Court become part of the unit, therefore the Dedicated transport of the necron warriors is his so he can deepstrike it

decoste007xt wrote:I think his lords had the weave.. is that a 2+ save? he also just told me he made the mistake that his lords have only 1 wound.. and he thought all his Lords & Cryptek had 2 wounds... *face palm*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In regards to the veil of darkness ( the deepstriking one?) He's saying that the Cryptek when divided from the Royal Court become part of the unit, therefore the Dedicated transport of the necron warriors is his so he can deepstrike it

The Cryptek can definitely use VoD to Deepstrike the entire unit, even when embarked in a Ghost Ark. However, the dedicated transport does not count as part of the unit, and thus the vehicle stays behind. There was a mediocre argument for claiming that IG platoon dedicated transports were considered part of the unit for the purposes of the 5th Ed. Dawn of War setup, but otherwise there is absolutely no reference that I am aware of to any other vehicle in any other circumstance being considered "part of the unit".

Oh, and if you really need to get rid of Obyron, just get into CC with Zandrekh. That event will trigger Obyron's rule, Vargard's Duty, which forces Obyron to use his Ghostwalk Mantle and drop whatever else he was doing, and deepstrike into the CC that involves Zandrekh. Alone. I don't believe Obyron's unit goes with him in that case. So if Zandrekh is exposed, it will place only Zandrekh and Obyron into CC with whatever unit you were able to send. At that point, using Look Out, Sir! becomes meaningless, and only one of the two characters can be in a challenge at any given time, which will spell trouble for the expensive Necron HQs.

Hm, from an overall strategy level, I would say go for the objectives. If you can down 21 warriors (and their attached teks+normal lords), he can't hold any objectives. Too many points in HQ IMO. With both teks down (no veil), and if zandrek is stuck in combat with a targpit, obyron can't telle out. His ark's can't contest the objectives. I would say you may want to try and work in some cultists (if you have them) either to tarpit with fearless somehow or objective camp.