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Crons shooting bar a very few odds n sods is limited to 24'' sit back and hammer one unit at a time till it dies, repeat until the core of his army has moved into range them move in for kill in CQC, crons are or the same in assault as your dark angels but will strike second so take advantage of this to try a sweeping advance as much as possible. if hes troop heavy I find bottle necking foot slogger armies great too, use suicide rhinos and drop pods to pin his crons in so they find it harder to get into rapid fire range, their Gauss weapons can seem terrifyingly versatile but use that to your advantage they wont explode your vehicles leaving husks for cover and bottle necking.

 Slaphead wrote:
Awesome to hear that you beat those Necrons.

Have you considered the Dark Talon? The large blast template on the rift cannon (with a chance of creating a vortex rift) can be pretty devastating if you get large number of models beneath it.

I actually have considered it and is near the top of my 'to get' list.

The dark talon is oddly good at removing wraiths, the i2 and taking an I test or die if wounded is pretty good against crons.

 PaulTheFirewoodSalesman wrote:
Hello all,

I'm going to start by saying that this thread isn't anything new. It's mainly just yet another person complaining about Necrons. But at the same time, I'm looking for tips.

Anyways, I played against Necrons for the first time today. And holy moly it was absolutely brutal. I actually conceded by the end of turn 2 because I was getting slaughtered. It was 1500 of my Dark Angels vs 1500 of my buddy's new Necrons. And I thought the option of having (and I was actually using) a 2+ rerollable jink was mean. But compared to Necrons... 2+ rerollable jink is laughable.

This game was one of the few cases where I legitimately questioned why I play 40k over other games like Warmachine. I mean losing is one thing. I've lost before (I actually lose a lot. Still fairly new after all and I face Tau often). But this was INSANE. This wasn't a game. This was a one sided slaughter! I mean my buddy didn't even use the Decurion Detachment. But with formations and what not he was getting 4+ invulns and 4+ resurrection (or whatever it's called) and I just couldn't kill a damn thing.

Enough of my complaining, though. I don't want to go "Welp, with Necrons around, I'm never going to play." and I don't want to refuse to battle my buddy. I mean he bought the models after all! I want to face them and have a decent match. Win or lose, I really don't mind. As long as it isn't a one sided slaughter. So what tips would one offer to someone when up against necrons? Or even better; what tips would one offer to someone who plays Dark Angels and Harlequins when up against necrons?

Dude all you have to do is jink everything then shoot what you can and lock urself in close combat... There is no way you can actually lose if you play a pure ravenwing, since your army is fast and you can hit and run... Of course, if your friend play a power list with mass flyrers, tom blades and ghost arks, its a bit different ! However, blacknights always stand a chance man ! Grav guns and twin-linked plasma guns are awsomes !

 Vaktathi wrote:
There have been many suggestions in this thread, many of them correct, the problem being that pulling them off in practice and/or generating the sheer volume of fire (e.g. heavy bolters and such) needed to do the job often is simply not practicable. I haven't personally seen Necrons lose a game with the current book to anyone but Eldar, Admech, FMC spam tyranids, and the new SM codex yet, and the book's been out for IIRC 8 months now.

Hormagaunt swarm with a few Venomthropes (or Malenthropes), Tervigons as synapse and some can openers works wonders. The massed hormagaunts are more than a match for warriors in combat in addition to providing target saturation and a meat wall, your shrouded spewer of choice acts a force multiplier for the guant wave by increasing their screening potential and helping them into combat. The tervigons don't directly add much to the combat but they throw out psychic powers and some termagants to aid hormies in target saturation and provide a little shooting for those times the enemy tries to kite, you can also put crushing claws on them if you can spare the points. Finally the Carnifexes actually get to play melee in this build as their role is to seek out repair barges and tear them open like wet tissue paper. Despite the lack of Anti-Air it doesn't really matter as the teleporter just throws more units into the grinder and the death ray is basically worthless against MC's and spread out swarms.

The main threats to this build are death marks taking out your synapse (Take regen and laugh at them if you have the points) and flayed ones tarpiting the hormagaunts.

AtraUnam wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
There have been many suggestions in this thread, many of them correct, the problem being that pulling them off in practice and/or generating the sheer volume of fire (e.g. heavy bolters and such) needed to do the job often is simply not practicable. I haven't personally seen Necrons lose a game with the current book to anyone but Eldar, Admech, FMC spam tyranids, and the new SM codex yet, and the book's been out for IIRC 8 months now.

Hormagaunt swarm with a few Venomthropes (or Malenthropes), Tervigons as synapse and some can openers works wonders. The massed hormagaunts are more than a match for warriors in combat in addition to providing target saturation and a meat wall, your shrouded spewer of choice acts a force multiplier for the guant wave by increasing their screening potential and helping them into combat. The tervigons don't directly add much to the combat but they throw out psychic powers and some termagants to aid hormies in target saturation and provide a little shooting for those times the enemy tries to kite, you can also put crushing claws on them if you can spare the points. Finally the Carnifexes actually get to play melee in this build as their role is to seek out repair barges and tear them open like wet tissue paper. Despite the lack of Anti-Air it doesn't really matter as the teleporter just throws more units into the grinder and the death ray is basically worthless against MC's and spread out swarms.

The main threats to this build are death marks taking out your synapse (Take regen and laugh at them if you have the points) and flayed ones tarpiting the hormagaunts.

You also forget that Flayed Ones will destroy Hormagaunts with ease, and Tomb Blades will destroy them and the Venomthropes, again, with ease. AP5-4 with Ignores Cover is the bane of Tyranids.

Got absolutely slaughtered with my decurion by Ravenwing at the weekend.

Take the following (approximate) list:

Sammael
Black Knights command (apothecary)
Black Knights
Support Squadron (Darkshroud, Typhoons with multi-melta)
Support Squadron (Darkshroud, HB/AC speeders)
Bomber (dark talon?)
Bomber
Fighter

Very fast, very survivable. 2+ re-roll jink, T5, 3+ save bikes.
Speeders are weaker but can still jink with re-roll and are in squadrons so focussing down the Darkshrouds is hard.
Anything coming in from reserve gets a volley of S8 to the face.
Anything assaulting gets a volley of BS2 S8 to the face, plus overwatch from the unit itself (if it's bikes).
Good shooting - twin-linked plasma, S8 missiles, melta. BS5 strafing runs from the fliers which are heavily armed.
Skyfire/hovering fliers as required, that arrive on turn 2.
S5 4A on the charge with rending bikers (+HoW) that hit and run. Stasis nerfs your units WS and I.

It absolutely butchered me!

Necrons have low firepower in my opinion and all you have to do is sweeping advance vs their 2 initiative, with harliquins you have like a 6 initiative ezpz

marcman wrote:
Necrons have low firepower in my opinion and all you have to do is sweeping advance vs their 2 initiative, with harliquins you have like a 6 initiative ezpz

Its easy to just say it.

They have have average fire power. bolters all around that glances on 6 has a lot of utility. they also have a lot of st7 though i dont know if is spammed as much anymore.

in combat they are still marines. just slower. and wraiths are just boss.

Unless you list tailor and only take ap4 or better cc. they will be getting (If my math serves me right) something equal or slightly better than a 3+ save. and or effectively a 4-5+ invul save.

on top of LD10 to force the fail.

It is possible to make them fail LD and sweep but its not as easy as people keep saying it is.

I actually win against my friend's Necrons quite often, or the game ends in a close tie. And he's not a bad 40k player either, I think he came 3rd place in a national tournament half a year ago.

I play DKoK, so my army has a greater weapons range than Necrons. Being able to bombard them with templates and outgun them while hiding behind an Aegis wall, goes a long way.

Also try to figure out which or your weapons fit which target and concentrate on wiping out targets one at a time.

A well built DKoK army is probably one of the few things a Necron army has to fear from anything IG related, with the ability to spam large amounts of relatively cheap S10 AP2 pieplates from T7 W4 3+sv guns that ignore 25% morale tests *and* still have points left over for lots of S6 AP4 pieplates in elites slots.

An arty-spam DKoK list can be a very good Necron neutralizer in a way that a Codex IG army can't do as well.

 Formosa wrote:
The dark talon is oddly good at removing wraiths, the i2 and taking an I test or die if wounded is pretty good against crons.

Sadly not. Wraiths are not i2.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
The dark talon is oddly good at removing wraiths, the i2 and taking an I test or die if wounded is pretty good against crons.

Sadly not. Wraiths are not i2.

Actually, they are. They can take an upgrade that gives them i +3. I'd have to look at the wording to see if this applies to initiative tests. Even if it does, when Wraiths are being spammed they don't always have this upgrade.

That is true. I have never faced Wraiths without the upgrade, so I always assumed them to be I5.

Tbh in the last 17 years I have never beaten necrons with my now incredibly old 3rd/4th ed BA force or my current IG army which has been rehashed from 3rd all the way to 7th.

So any tips to a Guard player? Especially seeing I struggle to wipe necron units out.

I have a hard time understanding how DA will do well against necrons. Our local necron player utilizes a Wraith heavy force, and is all about getting into CC as quickly as possible. The squads tie up anything devastating and manage to beat nearly anything in melee given their absurd damage output and speed.

How is jinking helping against this?

Zimko wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
The dark talon is oddly good at removing wraiths, the i2 and taking an I test or die if wounded is pretty good against crons.

Sadly not. Wraiths are not i2.

Actually, they are. They can take an upgrade that gives them i +3. I'd have to look at the wording to see if this applies to initiative tests. Even if it does, when Wraiths are being spammed they don't always have this upgrade.

They just receive +3 to their Ini when they are attacking. So you can easily blind em.

 Ashiraya wrote:
That is true. I have never faced Wraiths without the upgrade, so I always assumed them to be I5.

Nah, only I5 during the fight sub-phase, so it applies for Sweeping Advance and strike order, but not elsewhere.

These days, all the Wraiths in a unit will have Coils though - you only saw wraiths without them when they affected enemy models in base contact, meaning only 2/3 wraiths in a unit needed them.

Waitwaitwait...

Blind is effective...against wraiths....


THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!

Everything with a defensive grenade is actually a threat to them!

Yaknow, if you are the one that has gotten close and all...not quite something to rely on, but it might come up!

(gotta stop forgetting ralai has def grenades x_x)

Surely the humble LRBT would be useful for IG vs Necrons. S8 AP3 instant kills everything except Overlords, reducing their RP save to 5+.

Necrons:
Cheaper
Tougher
Killier
and more numerous than marines.

OP army is OP

exsanguis wrote:
Surely the humble LRBT would be useful for IG vs Necrons. S8 AP3 instant kills everything except Overlords, reducing their RP save to 5+.

Not quite, for one thing things like Tomb Blades, Destroyers and Wraiths are all T5 and fast so they largely shrug off the battle cannon and engage the tanks quickly, either disabling it or outright destroying it in return. Furthermore, when it comes to immortals or warriors, the big issue comes from how the RP comes in addition to cover saves, meaning that even if you add a -1 modifier they remain frustratingly resilient unlike units with FNP which have it cancelled out completely. And for IG, the LRBT is woefully overcosted and difficult to bring in sufficient numbers without sacrificing the cost efficiency of the rest of your army to deal with the other threats I have mentioned.

exsanguis wrote:
Surely the humble LRBT would be useful for IG vs Necrons. S8 AP3 instant kills everything except Overlords, reducing their RP save to 5+.

On paper, yeah. In practice, unfortunately they're just not as cool.

Assume decent spread and that an LRBT will typically get no more than 5 models beneath a blast template, maybe 2.5 on a mild scatter, and none on a bad scatter, assume 5+ cover (there's usually *something*), and between Decurion & Reclamation Legion bonuses to RP (still 5+ reroll 1's for the "troop" equivalents) you're averaging just 0.85 wounds per turn Warriors/Immortals/Flayed Ones/etc.

Even with a direct hit, getting 10 models under the template, in the open, wounding on 2's with no armor or cover saves allowed, you'd only average about 5 wounds with the most optimal and rare of circumstances.

Also, as noted, the T5 units still get their full 4+ RP, and things like Tomb Blades or Wraiths can always rely on Invuls or Jink.

For a 150pt tank (that Gauss is actually pretty useful against due to not caring about AV value), they're not particularly impressive

There's a massive breakpoint in Ignore Cover weapons between AP3 and AP4. That's one of the the reasons why 3+ bike spam is so commonly abused in 40k

Have you fought an admech War Convocation with an Imperial Knight?

Space Marines can defeat Necrons. The trouble is that you need specific units in order to do it, and quite often the other player doesn't have those units. Honour Guard and Assault Terminators are good.

Also bear in mind that every single unit in the army counts as a Necron (IIRC), so you basically hit him.

The basic Necron, the Necron Warrior, is Toughness 4 and has an Armor save of 3+ (just like Marines) so to easily kill them use a lot of weapons with more than Strength4 and at least Ap3, to nullify his armor saves. Stuff like Namely, Lascannons, Meltaguns, Plasmaguns, Missile Launchers and Assault Cannons. Get him to 25% of his army by killing off all the weaker units, and you automatically win.

The warrior has a 4+, not three. You are thinking of the immortals which are 17 points iirc.

Your go to weapons for necrons should be power mauls, power spears, lightning claws, and power swords. For ranged weapons look for autocannon, heavy bolter, assault cannons, and any anti tank guns. Also, do not forget that every space marine unit has access to krakk grenades. A single str6 ap4 shot is much more effective than a double tap from a bolter or a single pistol shot.

An immortal is almost as survivable as a terminator, but their survivability is easier to negate. The warrior is just a bit over or under the survivability of a tactical marine depending on decurion or cryptech assistance, but again their survivability is more easily negated than the marine due relying on multiple saves as opposed to a single better one.

Myc wrote:
Space Marines can defeat Necrons. The trouble is that you need specific units in order to do it, and quite often the other player doesn't have those units. Honour Guard and Assault Terminators are good.

Also bear in mind that every single unit in the army counts as a Necron (IIRC), so you basically hit him.

The basic Necron, the Necron Warrior, is Toughness 4 and has an Armor save of 3+ (just like Marines) so to easily kill them use a lot of weapons with more than Strength4 and at least Ap3, to nullify his armor saves. Stuff like Namely, Lascannons, Meltaguns, Plasmaguns, Missile Launchers and Assault Cannons. Get him to 25% of his army by killing off all the weaker units, and you automatically win.

Phase Out is no longer a rule.

Myc wrote:

Also bear in mind that every single unit in the army counts as a Necron (IIRC), so you basically hit him.

The basic Necron, the Necron Warrior, is Toughness 4 and has an Armor save of 3+ (just like Marines) so to easily kill them use a lot of weapons with more than Strength4 and at least Ap3, to nullify his armor saves. Stuff like Namely, Lascannons, Meltaguns, Plasmaguns, Missile Launchers and Assault Cannons. Get him to 25% of his army by killing off all the weaker units, and you automatically win.

you are doing something I am often guilty of, and mixing up your editions. Current necrons are 4+, not 3+. This is "balanced" out by the fact that their resurrection protocols are much better now, taken like a feel no pain save instead of at the turn phase, can pretty much always be taken, and are only -1 from ID, instead of ignored. Also, they no longer have the 25% phase out rule.

As to beating necrons (without bike spam, other super death stars, counter cheesy business), CC and/or long range fire is your friend. Anything AP 4 will deny their save (but they will still get RP, often on a 4+ thanks to formation bonus).
Rifleman dreads (two TLAC) are great vs necrons. 4 TL str 7 ap 4 shots, at 48" range is pretty good. Plus they can still tie them up in CC without their PF, but will likely not sweep the squad.
Assault cannons are nice, but they need you to get close enough that the warriors can fire back, and can typically only be taken en-mass on vehicles.
Lascannons are one shot and tend to be overkill.
Melta is one shot and has the same issue as lascannons AND assault cannons.
Plasma works well, but some people shy away due to overheat (not me, DA player).
Heavy bolters are actually great vs most of their army, 3 str5 ap4 shots at 36" range gives you a cheap way of putting shots at a comfortable range while ignoring their armor and increasing your wound pool. I actually enjoy running 2 HB land speeders, and this match up is one of the times they shine the most. Dakka preds also do well with AC + 2 HB.
In CC, you don't need super great units. Pretty much any dedicated assault unit will do. Unless you are fighting wraiths, lychguard or flayed ones.

For wraiths, you can either: Ignore them with speed and maneuverability, tar pit them with gobs of cheap models, or try and kill them with either huge volumes of fire or an even harder CC unit. There are tons of tactics discussions about wraiths specifically, a quick search should give you some ideas of how to deal with them for your army.

The rest of the advice is pretty general stuff. Target priority (spyders in canoptic harvest), focus fire important things. CC the shooty stuff, shoot the CC stuff, out range them, use terrain, cause more wounds, yada yada.

What GW doesnt tell you is that they actually feed off of your hate and anger towards the necrons.
thankfully they already have a large store of it so the won't update the necrons for another 5 years