Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have a game scheduled against a tau army later in the week. i'll be using my necrons in what the local group has dubbed "the battle of the WAAC/OP/newDEX thunderdome" not the most flattering but honestly most of thats in fun. truth is, the battles between us have gotten rather competetive, and we often engage in a cold war of escalation and counters.

having started a tau army, but not really having fought against them, im wondering on some things necrons can do to take them down. some tidbits on the tau.

- has at least 1 riptide, perhaps a second. both feature interceptor and skyfire ion accelerators.
- lots of firewarriors
- crisis suits are probally 2 teams, plasma or twin linked plasma and fusion likley featured in bunches.


my necrons have a pretty good varaity of stuff, i have a ctan, monoliths, a dessy lord, immortals, warriors, arks, barges wraiths and fliers. my initial response is to take my 5 immortals in a nightscythe, and spam them. but the amount of skyfire and interceptor makes me think twice. the other approach i was thinking of, was a variation on the silver tide. immortals on the ground backed by warriors and ghost arks. perhaps some monoliths as LOS blockers and support. so any thoughts?

If it's WAAC, scythe flyer spam, max annihilation barges. AV13 is tough for them now, depending on the loadout on his suits.

I think that silver tide is a bad idea. Firewarriors will totally chew them up, even with Ghost Arks and res orbs. Too many Tau weapons are AP4.

Destroyer lords are great, and don't be afraid to split them off. They're your best weapon against riptides, and can get in to CC.

Personally when I'm against Tau, these are the main things I notice:
1. Take out the markerlights!!
2. Try and avoid getting pens on your barges... without Quantum Shielding, they become firewarrior fodder, but until that happens they're the scourge of firewarrior units and instant kill Ethereals (if you're lucky)
3. Missilesides must die, preferably being attacked from an angle where the drones take the wounds

Against Tau:
Nightscythes with Deathmarks and flamer cryptek will murder them... (no cowering behind defenselines)
Monoliths to block los and template them to smithereens, use portal to pull big units through it and assault. If he assaults with riptide try to portal him.

what to do: shoot markerlights ASAP, kill Missile broadsides...

1: Remove Markerlights
2: Remove Hammerheads
3: Remove Battlesuits of any and all variants
4: Mop up

thats some good pointers. i dont have a WAAC attitude myself, but i do love a nice competetive counter my counter to your counter game. wich can involve list tailoring.


so here is what im thinking for my list.

a 20 blob of warriors supported by a resorb lord, a ghost ark, and a cryptek of some form. these guys form the core of the army, and should be able to return fire on firewarriors pretty fast if they are taking fire (30" fw vrs 24" warriors...1 turn move) they can also threaten crisis teams, pathfinders, etc. ill support them immortals. im debating between 2 teams of 10 or a single team of 10, or multiple 5 man teams. tesla will be weapon of choice, the question on deploying them. does interceptor work: if they are already on field and move via a veil, or if they come in through a lith portal? the other thing i was thinking of, and a DIRTY little combo, would be to deepstrike deathmarks with a resorb and lancetek, right next to the riptide, to draw its interceptor rule, then same turn drop out the immortals into his backfield to take care of broadsides. (3 of them, with railrifles, plasma and skyfire)

i was also thinking of running a trimmed down disco inferno unit. 5 crypteks with staffs of light, then a couple of lords. they can teleport around and make life tough for his crisis suits. round out the army with some anny barges, maybe a monolith, a unit of wraiths and if i can squeese him in: a c'tan..... thoughts?

Looks solid enough in theory.

I can only really say that drop the lords on the mini-RCDI, and add a Stalker w/ TL HGC and trade the SoL on the 'Teks to Eldritch Lances.

edit: the TL Lascannon + 5 TL S8AP2s will troll Crisis/Broadsides off the board, and put some serious pain on Riptides unless the 3++ is up (range also gives advantage of hitting it turn one, before it has done anthing)

stalkers coiuld indeed be very useful here.... i own 2, but they need serious repairs. anyway heres a unit i was thinking of:

(i have two overlords in the greater list, so 2 ctypteks can join as well)

10 tesla immortals, 2 lords with staves, phase shifters, 1 with resorb. 2 crypteks, 1 with a lance, the other with a veil. this unit is not really meant to charge anything, instead it teleports around and shoots the gak out of things. 2 staves of light and an eldich lance give me a TON of high str ap 2 shots, and the tesla spam should be able to pile on even more wounds. plus the ability to bounce around.

the reason for this, is im thinking with tau packing a bunch of overwatch support, and counterfires on crisis etc, going pure shooty is a better option. and since tau rely on mobility - countering that mobility with teleport tricks should keep them on the ropes. add in a bunch of good armor saves and high number units... well i *think* its the right play.


edit: will post a link to the actual army list im using in the army list section. feedback is very much apreciated
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/539246.page#5835767

Seems good. Three things (one of which is repetition from earlier):

1. I think from your last comment you might have moved away from warriors, which is good. They die to Tau. Badly. One squad of missilesides (with no buffs, shooting at 30") will on average kill 13.8 warriors before reanimation. If a riptide has a heavy burst cannon as well, there are not-unreasonable odds to lose the whole squad in one volley.

2. Interceptor doesn't work on veil movement. They just move as though they have deepstrike (Necron dex, p84). Interceptor lets you shoot units that arrive from reserve at the end of the movement phase (BRB, p38). The Veiltek was not in reserves.

3. A unit that I really like for 'crons (and have advocated elsewhere on this forum) is Veiltek + 2-4x stormteks (110-160 points), especially agaist Tau. If they have a vehicle, it can often claim an easy first blood. Your opponent basically has to shoot the unit, because it's annoying and in their home base (Tau hate that). It's a small unit, which means they're probably wasting firepower on it. And since all 3 models have ever living, you've got a 70% chance of at least one of them getting back up again, meaning your opponent might waste more shots on them next turn. Plus, it's fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarthSpader wrote:

(i have two overlords in the greater list, so 2 ctypteks can join as well)

10 tesla immortals, 2 lords with staves, phase shifters, 1 with resorb. 2 crypteks, 1 with a lance, the other with a veil. this unit is not really meant to charge anything, instead it teleports around and shoots the gak out of things. 2 staves of light and an eldich lance give me a TON of high str ap 2 shots, and the tesla spam should be able to pile on even more wounds. plus the ability to bounce around.

As an aside, it could be risky to have both of your Overlords with staves in that unit. In my opinion, our HQs are the only reliable way to kill riptides (although, nightmare shroud on a veiltek could be hilarious)

i beleive the broadsides ill be facing have railrifles, skyfire and plasma guns. the riptide has the ion cannon, fusion and skyfire/interceptor. hence, i expect warriors to ...do alright. but really i just need them to draw a few turns of fire from the other units allowing me to inflict some good damage and hopefuly take down the broadsides/riptide/crisis teams early. or at least ding them up quite a bit.

i do love the cryptek squad you mentioned, and ive used it before to AWSOME effect. all those haywire shots... problem here is im using 2 courts to spread out lances, orbs and other gear across my troops, thus leaving slots in my court pretty thin. and i think having strong troops is a magor asset to any army. strong troops make for strong wins.

 DarthSpader wrote:

i do love the cryptek squad you mentioned, and ive used it before to AWSOME effect. all those haywire shots... problem here is im using 2 courts to spread out lances, orbs and other gear across my troops, thus leaving slots in my court pretty thin. and i think having strong troops is a magor asset to any army. strong troops make for strong wins.

I hear what you're saying. I've personally never really had a love of Eldritch lances. Too expensive for one shot a turn... I've had too many occassions where I've rolled a unit's To Wound dice (20 white ones for the warriors, and one red one for the cryptek) and too often seem to see that annoying "1" staring up at me on my red dice!

With my meta having dbl and triple tide armies and now the eldar making their way in.. I have been playing a list that I call (Crony crony bang bang) don't ask me why... I just do.

Naked lord
one lancetek

Stalker with HGC

3x NS with 5 man warrior unit
8man warrior unit

6 man wraith unit with two whipcoils

2x 3man heavy destroyer units

3x ABs

ADL and quadgun


I use the 8 man and lance tek to man the quad... the heavy destroyers also sit behind the adl... I keep the wraiths back to stop DS... jetbikes... or whatever else wants to come to the adl. If I don't have anyone coming for my adl... I'll use them to push something.


Vs Tau... I have pretty send the ABS after the markerlights till they are gone or hurting. I set the stalker and all the s9/8 ap2 shots to put down the tides.. then the broadsides. I have 7 s9 ap1 shots that will be TL and 6 of them have preferred enemy. I use the quad for whatever I feel the shots will do better vs...

So far... ( not been tested a lot) it has proven to be very strong. The missilesides can be avoided so I tend to put down the tides first. Once they go down I turn on the sides...

Just to be funny I like to sneak the wraiths up to give them more targets to focus on.. after the NS are in.

a riptide with interceptor and skyfire or heck even 3 of them will make mincemeat of any fliers that show up. im trying to avoid giving the tau an easy kill. or more acuratly, make the points spend on toys and gimmicks useless. he has points invested in velocity trackers? well...no aircraft to speak of = waste of points. got a bunch of fusion? well, no tanks are going to get close enough, and the ones you do get close to will FRY them. stuff like that. as far as lanceteks, i generally like them. they can be a nice addition to longer range high str shooting.

the only thing... i have used stalkers in other games and been less then impressed with them. i suppose combining them with lance teks, can make them good riptide hunters etc... but how to deploy? my initial thought is in behind my warrior block, with the warriors almost "bubble wrapping" them (and close to the spider for repairs if needed)

5x Lanceteks in cover, T4 4+ isnt that tough, Stalkers to fire over the Battleline.

TL Tesla Carbines will also hurt 'Tides, but not quite as much