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My brother and I watched a game of WH40k between a couple of mutual acquaintances and decided to give it a try ourselves. Neither of us have a ton of extra income at the moment, so we decided to start smallish, 500 or 600 points. I've taken a liking to Necrons and he to Tau, so I'm looking for army lists at that budget that we could scale up to 1000 as we go. Any advice for a couple of noobs would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again.

For my necron army I was thinking maybe:

Overlord: Sempiternal Weave, Mindshackle Scarabs,War Scythe - 130 Points

Immortals x5 With a Nightscythe - 185 Points

Warriors x5 - 65 Points
-------------------------------------------------------------- Total 380

With Either:

---------------------------------------------------------------
Heavy Destroyer - 60 Points

Wraith x3: Whip Coils - 135 Points

Immortal x1 added to the Nightscythe Squad - 17 Points
--------------------------------------------------------------- Total 592

OR

--------------------------------------------------------------
Annihilation Barge - 90 Points

Command Barge - 80 Points

Switch the warriors to Immortals and add 2 more to the Nightscythe Squad - 54 Points
--------------------------------------------------------------- Total 604

I like the Deathmarks a lot, but couldn't figure out how to shoe horn them in.

Yes to the AB, you will need the fire power. With your immortals.. put them on the board with telsa and put the warriors in your NS.

I'm not a very experienced necron player, but a single heavy destroyer is waaaaay to fragile to take.
Drop the heavy destroyer , drop 1 whip coil (trust me you only need 2, especially against Tau.) and drop the extra immortal. Bring in an annihation barge, now we have 10 points left over...
Listen to Roci. He knows what he is talking about.

Try to pick up the battleforce and then build on top of it. Its the most cost effective way imo.

 Insane Smile wrote:
Try to pick up the battleforce and then build on top of it. Its the most cost effective way imo.

Seconded.

One of the acquaintances I mentioned offered to sell me 5 unpainted immortals and a partial barge for roughly the price of the immortals (they don't come with any of the extra bits though, so no DM parts), the barge is just missing the lower guns. This seems to me like a good deal, but is the battle force still the way to go?

the battleforce sets are almost always a great way to get rocking in the hobby. there are plenty of retailers who will sell you them at 20% off GW prices (the warstore, wargamer's cave, chaosorc's etc...)

also don't be afraid to hit up the trade forum here or on bartertown, you can get some great deals on some used stuff that will get you started on a vast collection. just a warning, I have spent too much time and money on bartertown in the past month, I just can't pass up a deal!

so unless you are hellbent on supporting your FLGS (which who can blame you there either, esp if they are gamer friendly) don't ever pay retail for anything 40k!

 Insane Smile wrote:
Try to pick up the battleforce and then build on top of it. Its the most cost effective way imo.

The most cost effective way is to take what you can find for cheap on ebay or the dakka swap shop.

necrons want

your hqs are good

2x 5 warriors or 2x 5 Immortals

nightscythes for these dudes

annihilation barges/command barges

wraiths


Find those on ebay and swap shops.

OR you can do the av13 wall with arks and barges instead of the flyer army


Tau

commander suit and/or ethereal

Troops he needs

crisis suits box of 3
2x 9 fire warriors (good number to survive morale)
pathfinders box
broadsides or riptides