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I just got done playing my first game against a necron army...and it drove me insane. The game 2000 points (roughly) Tyranids & Chaos vs Necrons (I played about 900 points chaos, I was only there so hte Tyranid team would have ennough to play 2000 point match.) It lasted about 3-4 turns...and I managed to kill 3 necrons. Now I admit the Tyranid player was fairly new and hasn't had a lot of experience, but how in the world did I only manage to kill 3 necrons?! I don't remember the name of the model (maybe Ghost ark) but it had a 72" range AP 2, which meant even my Terminators were obliterated in a turns time. Does anyone else think that they need to be seriously cut down in the next Codex?

I'm not complaining but I find unreasonable that they have that amount of firepower AND the ability to reserect themselves.

 Khorne's Herald wrote:
I just got done playing my first game against a necron army.

This is why you lost so hard. Don't worry about it, playing against an unfamiliar codex is tough the first time. Stop complaining, learn from your mistakes (because I promise you, they were your mistakes).

The codex is not OP. It's strong, but not insane. I had trouble with them the first few times, but I think I have it pretty much understood.

Doomsday Arks.

Yeah I can see your point even when those RP troops can glance a Land raider on a 6...

and MSS, have you encountered them?

best way to combat them is to hit hard and hit fast take out key aspects of the list (such as the Doomsday Ark with DS combi-meltas for example) also what was in his list exact? we (the community) can help you if you tell us what he is running...

I think he was running 10 Immortals, an Overlord, Doomsday Ark, 20 or 30 warriors I don't remember exactly, 6 mindshackle scarabs, a Triarch Stalker, a few Tomb blades, 3 Canoptec Wraiths, a Canoptic Spider, and I think 2 Annihilation Barges (one might have been a Command Barge but I never got a good look at it).

I play mostly khorne based army so there's a lot of cc. I think that was my mistake because I couldn't get close enough to charge. I had 5 raptors w/ plasmas which would have been able to take out the Doomsday Ark but they got rushed by Wraiths and tied up in cc for most of the game. Any ideas on how to keep from getting blown away before I can get close enough?

I've played against Necrons a few times with Tau in 6th. Every game has ended with the Necrons down to a lone unit in my zone for line breaker, with one unit of warriors hiding out of LOS on an objective. They are really annoying to deal with because of their durability and have some pretty nasty guns.

I know that feeling though. The feeling when you pump half your armies firepower into one unit of Immortals that then all get back up to shoot you the next round. Only thing that's worked well for me is taking down their vehicles early to limit their ranged attacks. Once the vehicles are down focus everything onto one unit and don't stop till the entire unit is wiped out. No unit, no RP.

The big issue with Necron is that they are in alot of ways like the Space Marines, they dont have any real weaknesses and on top of some insane special characters their guns on infantry and vehicles make a mokery of most opponents vehicles. Yes they are a pain and I personally believe with the arrival of 6th they became easily a top tier if not the best army in the game. A few things I have found that held alot when fighting them:

-As mentioned destroying their vehicles will go a long way in helping you slow their advance and then focus everything you have into one unit at a time, accuracy by volume is he name of the game.

-Template weapons help alot as well as cheap infantry spam. One of the lists I have seen that has consistantly mopped the floor with the new Necrons is the IG heavy weapon team, lasgun spam. Put enough shots and templates on them and cause as many wounds as you can, the more dice he rolls the better.

-If your army has good CC ability get into combat asap. I know you mentioned its hard but I watched (just last week in fact) a Salamander Landraider list with Thunderhammer Terminators whipe out a necron army, some things like that will help you out alot.

I've played two games against necrons with my Eldar. My first game I got MSS'd like crazy and it was impossible to get myself out of combat. I got totally tabled by turn 5. He ran a destroyer lord with wraiths behind him. He took all of his saves on the Lord, I couldn't kill a thing.
The second game however, I learned a fair bit. I tabled crons by turn four remembering what was dangerous and what I could cope with.
If you don't know the army, the harder it is to win. When I played new chaos, I got tabled, mainly because I didn't know what all of the stuff did. Playing against an army you haven't seen before for the first time is always the hardest to win. Once you get that first game over you, you can combat that army easier.

My advice is that if you have any long range AP 3/4 weapons, use them to your advantage. Wipe out those barges by hitting them with everything so it doesn't hit back. Once their long range power is gone, they have a maximum range of 24"? then you can sit back and blast away. That's what I did anyway.

No offense to the OP but you played then once, without knowing knowing what the units could do, to the point you don't know the names, and you think the Army is over powered and needs nerfing.

First off you and a Tyranid played most likely had a poor list, which you jammed together to make up the points and went up against a list designed for 2k games. That's never going to end well.

Read the codex before declaring it OP.

Well, I played two RTTs with my Necrons (1850 pts, 20 players each) and I'm still undefeated. No matter what the enemy was throwing at me, he got destroyed. Its a strong army but I can think of some armies out there which can counter it. But that's another story.

Necrons have some fantastic units and abilities that is to be sure. Ive played several matches against them (including flying French bakery lists and wraithwings) with Tau and have learned a few things about them.

1) Like all codexes, there are some units and wargear that cost far less than they should, however that is balanced by a generally high cost per unit in the codex overall reducing the number of these super units and items you have to face. This gives you the chance to focus on them.
2) The Necron codex includes many viable builds, super tough but slow, fast and comparitively fragile, as well as hybrids of the above. It can make lists dedicated to long range firepower or close in assault. It can deep strike in your face or it can sit on objectives and dare you to come get some. It can also make lists built around reality bending special abilities. This flexibility is strong, more importantly the synergy that fuels it is even more so, however the synergy is also a weakness. If you can peel off the key elements of that synergy, things go badly for the necrons in a hurry.
3) Assault the shooty units, shoot the assault units and don't let the necrons do the same. Get your assault units up fast and protect them from shooting on their way in. Stand back from Wraiths and Scarabs, shoot them to bits.

Well, I played two RTTs with my Necrons (1850 pts, 20 players each) and I'm still undefeated. No matter what the enemy was throwing at me, he got destroyed. Its a strong army but I can think of some armies out there which can counter it. But that's another story.

Necrons can be irritating at times. They used to be this implacable, 'Laugh at your plasma doods' army. Now they got speed. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. An experience player usually accepts his casualties will be high when playing Necrons.

Before: Necrons walked and you fell asleep.

Now: Necrons are so fast. So fast that Ailaros can only go 'Oh sh-' and his army dies (hehe).

Necrons fear CC....a lot. On the surface they look like they can take it (S4, T4...same as a marine) btu their I2 across the board makes them suffer hard. They will hit last most of the time, and the army was a distinct lack of ANY cc options save the Warscythe.
As a necron player the units i am usually most worried about losing are my Wraiths and my Anni barges. They are both amazing at what they do.

With the Doomsday Ark - force it to move. It is only 72" S9 if it stays still. Once it moves it drops a lot. Remember that if it stays still it doesn't gets its Jink save either.

The Stalker itself isn't amazing - AFAIK (i've never used one myself) its main strength is boosting the rest of the army - anything it shoots at and hit counts being twin linked for the rest of the army. Think of it as a 'cron-y markerlight.

For the Wraiths it is tempting to blast them with high strength guns - dont do it. Their 3++ makes them tough. Blast the crud out fo them with as much bolter fire as you can.

Anni Barges are stupidly cheap points-wise for what they do. And your necron opponent will deliht in telling you they are AV13....but that's only on the front and sides. Flank them with a melta and you are hittiing its AV11 rear end.

Assume that your Rhinos wont survive past turn 2. A blob of 20 warriors will quite happily butcher any visible vehicles asap. Just about all the guns in the army are 24" in one way or another. The only thing i can suggest is to write them rhinos off from turn one and just get them moving as fast as you can - move flat out or pop smoke and then get the hell out of them. to be honest land Raider wont fair much better since it is just a case of rollign enough 6's and gauss weapons dont have to worry about the armour value at all.

For the Wraiths it is tempting to blast them with high strength guns - dont do it. Their 3++ makes them tough. Blast the crud out fo them with as much bolter fire as you can.

As someone who has played a SoB army, I can tell you that one is not true, 5+ wounds in a short range means you'll either get one to two rounds of 24" shooting, or one round of 12". It really is not effective, you need some plasma at least or something that has higher strength, but does far more wounds.

I have 2k of necrons and i dont fear CC at all between my wraiths with whip coils and my praetorians i can kill anything in melee and have wiped out TH/SS terminators with ease.

In fact i actively seek it out.

Its only a weakness if you allow it to be if you turn it around on your opponent hitting his flanks where he does not expect it, or counter charging his thrusts and robbing it of its momentum necrons can easily ruin a CC oriented armies day.

My point was mass-fire. You will have more luck killing wraiths with 10 bolter shots that you will with 2 Lascannosn thanks to their 3+/3++ save.

If their invul is the same as their armour then you might as well blast away with more shots.

yes the lascannons will insta-gib one model - but after that oen model is dead they could still get the charge on you.

I lose more Wraiths to mass small arms fire than I ever do to focuseed heavy weapons like Las/Plasma cannons. I suppose this coudl be a good role for a squad of HB Havocs. 5 marines means 15 shots with 3's to hit and wound.

 Praxiss wrote:
I lose more Wraiths to mass small arms fire than I ever do to focuseed heavy weapons like Las/Plasma cannons. I suppose this coudl be a good role for a squad of HB Havocs. 5 marines means 15 shots with 3's to hit and wound.

The mathhammer supports this.

The Resilience-Per-Point values for wraiths are the following
IG Lasgun.....102
MEQ bolter...51.42
MEQ PG......30.85
MEQ AC.......30.85
MEQ LC.......15.42

Compared to a grey hunter...
IG Lasgun.....120
MEQ bolter...59.9
MEQ PG......11.99
MEQ AC.......36
MEQ LC.......11.99

Compared to a C:SM TH/SS terminator
IG Lasgun.....90
MEQ bolter...44.99
MEQ PG......13.5
MEQ AC.......26.99
MEQ LC.......13.5

Simply put, wraiths are extremely durable. I would argue their biggest weakness are STR 8+ shots, like ML spam or LCs. Anything that means 1 failed save = 1 dead wraith is bad news for wraiths. This is even moreso when being assaulted by beatsticks like Abbadon who can deliver 6 STR 8 hits when he is assaulted.

However, most armies don't have access to ML spam. Most armies have access to bolter spam. When shooting at wraiths, bolter spam is much more effective than plasma guns or autocannons.

The reason Praxiss likely sees more killed with bolters than LCs is due to saturation. Most armies will have a few lascannons but tons of bolters. Bolters are the most common weapon in the game. It logically stands that most of his wraiths would die to bolters.
(As a side note, this is why units like plague marines, with a RPP value of 84.3 to bolters are so good)

They are probably the most powerful codex in the game at this stage. Not sure if that means they are "over powered" but they have the upper hand in most battles of two equally skilled players.

I think the Necron flier spam is the part that’s really considered "over powered" at the moment. In a 1250 you can easily fit 5 fliers, with an AV 13 wall on the ground to support it, which is too much for most standard lists to take. However I've had great fun playing against mixed Necron lists, they have a great flavor to them and make for some really entertaining games.

Sure it helps to know the codex, and if you tailor your list to beat an exact build its doable, but unless your Necron opponent isn't a great player or makes some serious mistakes they are going to be a hard army to beat.

necrons are not overpowered. play them more then once. and read the codex.

it also helps if you know your own codex, and can make a respectable list.

noe because im feeling kind of nice.... some tips for fighting crons.

getting back up... just wipe the unit and NONE come back. not even from a ghost ark. make the unit go away and it stays away.

- necrons have lots of shots but few things that beat any decent armor. they win by forcing wounds, and winning the attrition war. deny this by taking away LOS, and staying out of 24". every other army out there (save GK) can provide a good amount of fire at 36" or more. so do it. shoot the long range/fast stuff first, (fliers, doom arks, and destroyers) and then the army is a slow 24" force.
- as far as wraiths go... just shoot them with as much as you have. bolters, hev bolters, missiles, whatever. they dont get cover saves, and with only t4 and no reanimations, they can be dropped pretty quick. just force as many wounds as possible, and they will fail. especially when you think of them as effectvily a 12 man assault marine squad with no power weapons, and half the attacks. shoot them up. then they go away.
- vehicles are sort of the same. majority live in that 24" range with the scythe and annihlation barge being the big hitters. but what works REAL well on them... shooting them in the rear armor, or just glancing them down with haywire. all you need is 1 good pen to wreck them all open topped except the lith and fliers) and no +2 armor on the rear. DS or move some fast unit in behind and they go away fast.
- as for the fliers, just about any other flier can take them. dragons can VS, storm raven/talons can get up and lazcannon them, quad guns work awsome, flakk missiles work better, valkries, vendettas, whatever. use hover mode to get in behind them, and all they can do is turn 90 and fly 18. or disengage. get right up on their butts, and introduce them to multimelta shots or lazcannons. = DONE.

the only thing i believe is *kinda* broke are the MSS.... if only because there is no way of really stopping them. that said, all they do is even the combat playing field, by removing a single model from the fight, and maybe a few of his buddies if your lucky. avoid challanges, and feed the MSS user a normal thug and it should be a non factor. then just pile the wounds on him. (or his unit, then win the combat and sweep)

its amazing how many people dont know a codex, play one game, then cry cheesy overpowered BS on that book. yeesh... whatever happened to the way it was 10 years ago, when if a new book came out, people READ it, and learned how it worked? if they lost a game, they adapted tatics and lists to play against the new army? now.... all we have are cookie cutter net lists, that HAVE to play a certain way, and if that way fails "OMG!!! that army is OP!" ... puh - leese!

Truth be told, Necrons aren't unbeatable, but to be fair, they are probably the book best built to the 6th edition game mechanics moreso than any other army.

AV13 shields to mitigate the HP issues other armies face, a special rule for their flyer that makes passengers immune to the problems with flyer transports, Tesla weapons that really help make SnapShots and AA fire much more productive than for other armies, lots of nightfighting mechanics/abilities, and a basic transport with more HP's than anything but a Land Raider, lots of character-based abilities, etc.

I don't think any other army is better suited to the underlying core mechanics of 5th edition than Necrons. Really nothing they relied on in the previous edition was particularly perturbed by the changes to reserves/assaults/etc while they came out ahead pretty much everywhere else.

Meaningless story:

Whenever I fight this one necron player at my store, for some reason his scarabs always end up assaulting my terminators...the one squad I give an incinerator to.
It goes like this:
"ok I'm going to overwatch you, wall of death...2 wounds. So you lose 4 bases (S6+doubled wounds from templates)"
Charge successful
"Well, I get to strike first with my halberds...6 wounds."
"Now I'm going to activate my force weapons"

There's not really a point to that story. I guess just look at their codex and once you get some experience with the crons it'll be a little bit easier, they have a lot of unconventional stuff and it takes time getting used to. But they can still die (eventually).

Yeah, after a while, as you figure out the certain units that REALLY need to go, you should be fine. I run Jump BA vs Necrons( warriors + wraiths + destroyers + scarabs + stalker) and I haven't lost yet. Most of their characters and units are amazingly horrible in CC.

Lucarikx

 DarthSpader wrote:
necrons are not overpowered. play them more then once. and read the codex.

Well, compared to a lot of codices, yes, yes they are. Just because they can be beaten by something - usually by another very powerful Codex and/or list tailoring - doesn't mean they're not overpowered. For some reason some people don't seem to understand this.

getting back up... just wipe the unit and NONE come back. not even from a ghost ark. make the unit go away and it stays away.

Yeah, just wipe away that 3+ save unit of which if even one is out of line of sight you can't kill it. Of course you have to try, but it's hardly a given unless you manage to charge them, and even then they're really not that bad. Yeah, they're only I2, but the otherwise MEq statline means it takes time to actually kill them in CC unless you have a lot of AP2-3 CC weapons. Let's say you had to charge them with your tactical marines to try gain an advantage rather than trying to outshoot them with your weaker weapons - even with a full squad on average you'd kill a whopping 1 necron per fight subphase (well, 2 on the turn of the charge).

- necrons have lots of shots but few things that beat any decent armor. they win by forcing wounds, and winning the attrition war. deny this by taking away LOS, and staying out of 24". every other army out there (save GK) can provide a good amount of fire at 36" or more. so do it. shoot the long range/fast stuff first, (fliers, doom arks, and destroyers) and then the army is a slow 24" force.

Few things that beat any decent armor? How about them Gauss guns? You know, the ones that mess you up on a roll of 6 and that can be spammed bolter-style? Plus getting a lot of 36" dakka with marines usually means heavy bolters, and if you take a lot of them you usually sacrifice anti-vehicle power. Of course there's a balance to be found, but it's still not all that simple. And of course necrons still get their armor save against heavy bolters (unless it's warriors instead of immortals, I suppose).

And then there's of course the Doomscythes whose 360-degree auto-hit S10 AP1 Death Rays will really make any vehicle's day.

- as for the fliers, just about any other flier can take them. dragons can VS, storm raven/talons can get up and lazcannon them, quad guns work awsome, flakk missiles work better, valkries, vendettas, whatever. use hover mode to get in behind them, and all they can do is turn 90 and fly 18. or disengage. get right up on their butts, and introduce them to multimelta shots or lazcannons. = DONE.

Yeah, but how many flyers can another army take is another question entirely. A croissant spam list can mess up your ground army up before your fliers can even try do anything about it. Something to consider is that even if you were to take 3x Flak devastators - which only DA and Chaos Marines can currently do - in your Heavy support slots, totaling at 12 missile launchers, you'd end up causing only 8 hits of which 6 would glance or penetrate against AV 11, and on average 2 of those would be jinked. So yeah, you just killed one flyer out of 9, hooray. Assuming, of course, that your devastators didn't get blown off the table before it was their turn to fire. This combined with the fact that if you design your list against CronAir, it might not work so well against other opponents. On the other hand CronAir works against a whole lot of lists. In fact locally the only thing to win against CronAir so far has been Chaos Daemons with a Fateweaver MC list. Could an IG list with a maximum number of Hydras and some Vendettas on top do it? Quite likely, but who else would that list do well against is a different matter.

its amazing how many people dont know a codex, play one game, then cry cheesy overpowered BS on that book. yeesh... whatever happened to the way it was 10 years ago, when if a new book came out, people READ it, and learned how it worked? if they lost a game, they adapted tatics and lists to play against the new army? now.... all we have are cookie cutter net lists, that HAVE to play a certain way, and if that way fails "OMG!!! that army is OP!" ... puh - leese!

I agree that knowing your opponent is important. But that simply doesn't remove the power level differences of codices. Like my BT simply cannot do a list that would win against even remotely optimized Chaos Daemon armies especially while staying viable against other armies. And against CronAir... yeeeaaaah... good luck with that. C:SM has more options, but even then it'd most likely end up in a defeat even with a tailored list, never mind a TAC one. If C:SM get the Stormraven in Heavy Support instead of Fast the coming Monday, then beating CronAir would become possible with 3 Talons and 3 Ravens, but whether that happens or not remains to be seen. And of course that list would probably be screwed against other anti-CronAir lists.

Just because something can be beaten doesn't mean it isn't overpowered, lol.

Akuma could certainly be beaten in Super Street Fighter II. But he was definitely overpowered.

Well when I have played against Necrons I usually find that a High Str pie plate usually dose the job a lot for example, I run a Vindicator and a defiler for my CSM if there are any High AV targets, the vindicator goes after them, if there are blobs me deffy has a field day

Of course my Necron opponent plays footcrons so I think there is my reason, but its still effective advice for you if against Waiths that dont have that RP, just a vinidcator ruins them as I have found out from past experiance .

Necrons ARE overpowered, that much is a fact.

Necrons are also WAY too versatile, and have units contesting for the "best of" in every single category.

Necrons are also very, very forgiving. having the thoughest to kill base infantry around in a game revolving 5/6 times on objective makes it hard to deny point and on the 6th time you score by actually killing stuff, not easy either against them.

Are they undefeatable? no, I usually beat them (with pure tau army), but it is by no means easy.
That codex is the stuff of nightmares. the ONE codex that even knowing I am going to fight against, I have not a shred of clue to it's fighting style, target types, guns to expect or actually any information at all.
Also, no matter what they brought and what I brought, even if I counter perfectly by sheer luck, I am always, ALWAYS at a disadvantage when the game starts, and have to slowly dwindle their painfully hard to kill forces.

That codex just has too many options, that are too good, leading to a codex without a single disadvantage, and as such-overpowered.
But yes, it can be beaten. a stronger codex can only cover up for some level of lower gameplay, but at the hands of a good tactical mind, its potential is far above most others.

its a very strong codex, with many viable playstyles, but knowing what you are up against will usually help greatly. (I know, i play them to very strong effect)

Their vehicles die to a stiff breeze when you get penetrating hits.
Their infantry are almost worthless in assault, dedicated CC units will sweep squads they attack, high leadership or not.

They are always ways to win against them. Just gotta know the gimmicks.

Are Necrons overpowered? Yes, pretty obviously.
Necrons are the strongest codex in 6e and they're stronger in 6e than GK were in 5e.
They have huge amount of extremely undercosted units, like Annihilation Barge, Night Scythe, Wraiths etc.


Are they unbeatable? Obviously no, nothing is unbeatable.

People who claim "Necrons are bad in CC'" just haven't read the codex or are deliberately ignoring units like Wraiths and wargear like Warscythes and MSS.

For example, from durability point of view, Wraiths are basically as good as TH/SS terminators. They're twce as resilient against against Plasma or any other S7- AP2 weapons and half as resilient against S8+ AP3 or worse.

hobojebus wrote:
I have 2k of necrons and i dont fear CC at all between my wraiths with whip coils and my praetorians i can kill anything in melee and have wiped out TH/SS terminators with ease.

In fact i actively seek it out.

Its only a weakness if you allow it to be if you turn it around on your opponent hitting his flanks where he does not expect it, or counter charging his thrusts and robbing it of its momentum necrons can easily ruin a CC oriented armies day.

Well, I got rid of whip coils. Wraiths are also decent without them. CC weapons which can hurt Wraiths most have initiative one anyway.

Luide wrote:
Are Necrons overpowered? Yes, pretty obviously.
Necrons are the strongest codex in 6e and they're stronger in 6e than GK were in 5e.
They have huge amount of extremely undercosted units, like Annihilation Barge, Night Scythe, Wraiths etc.


Are they unbeatable? Obviously no, nothing is unbeatable.

People who claim "Necrons are bad in CC'" just haven't read the codex or are deliberately ignoring units like Wraiths and wargear like Warscythes and MSS.

For example, from durability point of view, Wraiths are basically as good as TH/SS terminators. They're twce as resilient against against Plasma or any other S7- AP2 weapons and half as resilient against S8+ AP3 or worse.

There is no way that Necrons is the strongest codex in 6th, and they are nowhere near as bad as GK were in 5th. They are a strong, versatile codex with a lot of options and playstyles, but in terms of pure power I would argue that both Guard and Wolves are stronger. The Annihilation Barge, Night Scythe, and Wraith are not 'hugely undercosted', the barge is maybe 10 points too cheap because Ward slightly underestimated the power of quantum shielding, and Wraiths should have been forced to make it so that all models in the unit have to take an upgrade if any one takes it (ie, instead of taking 3 whipcoils in 6 wraiths, you should have to choose all or nothing), but the Night Scythe is fine as it is, especially if you play with IA:Aeronautica. Meanwhile, Guard have access to the Vendetta, the single most powerful unit in the game for its cost, strong artillery, and the ability to present a cheaper wall of AV13 while also using allies as ridiculous force multipliers (A rune priest or Azrael in a guard blob is insanely powerful). Space Wolves meanwhile have the most powerful and undercosted basic infantry in the game, the best devastators in the game, the best psychic powers and the best psychic defense. The only issue that they really have is a lack of AA options outside of an Aegis.

In short, the Necron codex is powerful, but it is the ideal point where most codices should aim to be. I would say it is better than both GK and DA, but only because of flierspam, and once more AA options become available across codices they will be sitting very comfortably in the the upper end of the middle of the power spectrum.