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Today at the GW I visit I played some necrons, now to let you guys know I'm fairly new to this. I'm probably about a year in and my tiny gaming group means I don't see much outside of marines and guard. So this was a new experience. It was an 1000 point game and we were just killing each other because I had forgot my rulebook and he didn't have one so we couldn't roll for objectives etc. And we just wanted a game in. This was a mistake. His list was 6 wraiths, a spyder, and 4 scarabs making the can-topkek formation (as I call it now ) and the reclamation legion with 3 tomblades with the ignores cover, small blast high str things, 5 immortals with gauss and 20 warriors (2 units of 10) as well as 5 lychguard with his warlord varguard? I think that's his name, the one with 2 wounds and is pretty much a lychguard on steroids. I was playing my wolves, the list was pretty simple. Champions of Fenris detachment, wolf lord with frost axe and plasma pistol with 4 terminators of assorted wargear in a land raider (this was probably my first mistake, it got wrecked turn 2-3) as well as 10 grey hunters with ccw and 2 plasmas with a WGPL with frost sword in a rhino. The stars of the list were the thunderwolves, the loadout was a unit of 3, all with shields, one hammer. That made 1000 points for me and we started playing. First round was pretty simple, move up the board for rapid fire range and/or charge. He informed me that his scarabs could eat up my land raider so I blasted them away and my hunters took potshots at warriors. Next turn the wraiths got into combat with my cav and my rhino blew up, as well as 5 bolter boys inside. The wraiths were slowly chipping away at my cav and they were clearly gonna lose, it just mattered how long they lasted. (5 turns actually) My hunters tried to engage the warriors but were blasted away with the return fire. My land raider got gaussed to death so the cargo just took cover. Fast forward a turn or two and it was just my lords retinue holding back 80 percent of a cron army by turn 5. (I had killed varguard and a unit of warriors, the scarabs, and 3 wraiths)

What went wrong here? My rolls weren't terrible and his weren't great, so that didn't really change anything. Like I said above the land raider was probably a bad choice, so I'll fix that next time. Other than that and some questionable movement phases where for some reason I didn't hide my grey hunters, (was a long day ) it was fairly tactically fair I think. Was it my list, the way I played? Or was it just the crons general power level up against a casual space wolf list? Let me know guys, because I'd rather not get tabled every game I play against them.

Thanks guys, have a good one

Land Raiders are never a good choice.

The problem here is just choice of formations, you have picked a fairly average formation but your opponent has picked something amazingly top tier, land raiders are a waste of points and the terminators are also a bit iffy and very situational. Where he has something you would run at a tournament. Formations I think you should check out are:

- Wyrdstone Brotherhood, if your looking for a little psyker madness this is the way to go, especially with the new SM powers

- Try and complete the "wolf claw strike force" which is a decurion formation that gives all units COUNTER-CHARGE meaning you can declare a charge on your opponents turn! As well as the other little formation bonuses

- If you really love your landraider, and I mean REALLY love it check out the spear of russ formation

- When filling up a greatpack formation try and and avoid termies and include as many thunderwuff as possible

A Necron player taking a Decurion + Canoptek Harvest is a little like an Eldar player taking Wraithknights and spammming Jetbikes: they're perfectly within rights to do so, but if they're taking such high level stuff to play casual games it's very uncool.
...
Also, did you say he took Vargard Obyron as his HQ?
If so, and that was his ONLY hq, then he may have been cheating (only Overlord level HQ can be taken in a Decurion, unless he adds a Royal Court formation).

You dont like losing to Necrons? Spam grav or play eldar and spam Str D weapons.

Against Necrons AV26 is pretty much on par with AV10 so you want lots of cheap vehicles if you are going to use them.

As for tactics, Thunderwolf Cavalry are pretty amazing. I would put either a Wolf Lord, Wolf Guard Battle Leader or Iron Priest on a TWC with a Power Fist and Storm Shield (depending on who you bring) and a few Fenresian Wolves if you have points. That way you have a 2+ armour save tanking stuff (and can LoS! onto Storm Shields for AP2 weapons) and some ablative wounds in the wolves as well as a larger footprint.

Plasma Grey Hunters in a Drop Pod is what I would do against the Spyder. Take out the Spyder from the Canoptek Harvest and those Wraiths are much, much easier to deal with.

As a general rule, you want to be at least doubling out Necrons, even more so against a Decurion. That 4+ is just going to cause you problems all day without high strength. TWC of course excel at this.

Wulfen are pretty gnarly too. They may even be extremely good against Wraiths. 2W, 3++ from Storm Shields an FnP might save them as you whittle them down (I think they are I5 so will strike at the same time). Tie em up with a throwaway squad for a turn or two so the Wulfen can strike.

Use S8-S10 AP4+ weapons when you can to reduce their RP.
Don't bother using small arms; a necron decurion is basically an army full of cheap terminators. You want to hit them hard, delete a squad at a time.

If he's running Canoptek Harvest kill that Spyder asap. He should only have one in the formation; if he's using more he's doing it wrong.

Kill the spyder, tarpit the wraiths. Hammer all the warriors as they're the least durable.

Note: Necrons are pretty hardy anyway you look at it unless you have a lot of D strength at your disposal, so killing numbers of them is never fun.

 Frozocrone wrote:
Wulfen are pretty gnarly too. They may even be extremely good against Wraiths. [...] Tie em up with a throwaway squad for a turn or two so the Wulfen can strike.

Better yet, just tie them up with a throw away unit and have the Wulfen go after something more squishy.
(Wraiths are the ultimate Necron tarpit, able to survive almost anything and are fearless... but the thing is, without an attached Destroyer Lord, they're not all that killy themselves. That means you could throw something disposable at them and, as long as it has enough wounds to last them a couple turns of combat, essentially take them out of the game for the most part).

 skoffs wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:
Wulfen are pretty gnarly too. They may even be extremely good against Wraiths. [...] Tie em up with a throwaway squad for a turn or two so the Wulfen can strike.

Better yet, just tie them up with a throw away unit and have the Wulfen go after something more squishy.
(Wraiths are the ultimate Necron tarpit, able to survive almost anything and are fearless... but the thing is, without an attached Destroyer Lord, they're not all that killy themselves. That means you could throw something disposable at them and, as long as it has enough wounds to last them a couple turns of combat, essentially take them out of the game for the most part).

This is obviously better, but I don't know what would work for space wolves. My best guess would be a Dreadnought with an invulnerable save, or a large unit of Blood Claws. Heck even Fenresian Wolves if they are just to tarpit.

They have rending, so maybe not the Dread (just in case).
Do the SW have anything cheap and fast?
If so, use those (engage quickly to hold them, then if they start getting thinned out, maybe throw something else into the combat to keep them there).

SW have TWC, which an run over an entire Necron list. Not to mention Wulfen.

skoffs wrote:
Also, did you say he took Vargard Obyron as his HQ?
If so, and that was his ONLY hq, then he may have been cheating (only Overlord level HQ can be taken in a Decurion, unless he adds a Royal Court formation).

Yes, that was his only HQ.

Grief wrote:You dont like losing to Necrons? Spam grav

Us wolves are so spiteful of the codex we wont even accept their new toys

Frozocrone wrote:

 skoffs wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:
Wulfen are pretty gnarly too. They may even be extremely good against Wraiths. [...] Tie em up with a throwaway squad for a turn or two so the Wulfen can strike.

Better yet, just tie them up with a throw away unit and have the Wulfen go after something more squishy.
(Wraiths are the ultimate Necron tarpit, able to survive almost anything and are fearless... but the thing is, without an attached Destroyer Lord, they're not all that killy themselves. That means you could throw something disposable at them and, as long as it has enough wounds to last them a couple turns of combat, essentially take them out of the game for the most part).

This is obviously better, but I don't know what would work for space wolves. My best guess would be a Dreadnought with an invulnerable save, or a large unit of Blood Claws. Heck even Fenresian Wolves if they are just to tarpit.

Like I said my TWC did well against them. However, I think anything less hardy would just get shredded.
I was thinking wolves, but they'd probably get shredded. A shield dread is probably the best option now I think of it.

skoffs wrote:They have rending, so maybe not the Dread (just in case).
Do the SW have anything cheap and fast?
If so, use those (engage quickly to hold them, then if they start getting thinned out, maybe throw something else into the combat to keep them there).

Not really, there's the aforementioned wolves but they have 6+ save and won't be anything but a speed bump.

Wraiths have an AP- cc attack (admittedly rending) so anything with a large number of wounds will slow them up unless they get lucky with wound rolls.

Without preferred enemy from a Destroyer Lord they're not going to be able to reroll those critical to wound rolls, meaning Rends won't be above average... unless the Spyder is still alive and giving them Shred. (Reminder: if Spyder is still alive by turn three, you're doing something wrong).

But yeah, Wraiths vs Dread will not end well for you. Trust us, cheap and fast is key here against them. There are better things for TWC and Wulfen to engage.

... also, yeah, if he had a Decurion lead by Obyron then he had an illegal list.

Kill the Spyder first when facing that formation, pretty sure the wraiths have to be within 12" to benefit from the RP buff, so if hes charging up the board with the wraiths let them get out of range of the spyder before engaging or pull the spyder out of cover to keep pace, the spyder is slow so he will have to hang back or leave him.

 Dioxalyn wrote:
Kill the Spyder first when facing that formation, pretty sure the wraiths have to be within 12" to benefit from the RP buff, so if hes charging up the board with the wraiths let them get out of range of the spyder before engaging or pull the spyder out of cover to keep pace, the spyder is slow so he will have to hang back or leave him.

Alright, I guess my wolves shouldn't have been that eager to get close. Any other suggestions? The 2 big ones was the wraiths and the gauss. So far I've gathered that I want to get rid of the spyder ASAP. Anything else?

1- Kill Spyder ASAP
2- Tarpit Wraiths, if possible (but not with TWC, Wulfen, or Dreads)
3- Stop Tomb Blades (the jet bikes) from moving (either by killing them or engaging them in combat. Goal is to not let them run around the board taking objectives).
4- Engage Warriors in combat ASAP (Warriors are best when shooting. They're pretty garbage in CC. They're still going to be hard to kill, but at least they won't be shooting, which is what your opponent wants them to be doing).
5- Use either S6 or template weapons against Scarabs.
6- Don't let the Lychguard catch anything. Seriously, keep everything away from them, even the TWC and Wulfen (not because they're super deadly, but because they're a trap. Do not fall for the trap. They're slow as all hell, and also pretty expensive, so if you're able to avoid letting them engage anything all game, that's points wasted for your opponent).
7- If he brings Obyron as his Warlord again, tell him he needs to change his list to make it legal (inform him that only Overlord level ICs can be taken in a Decurion, unless he also includes a Royal Court).
8- Immortals? ... *shrug* they're hard to kill, but not very good at killing much of anything. You probably won't have to worry about them much.

That necron list without upgrades is 14 points over 1000.

That's assuming BattleScribe is up to date and correct. I don't have the codex so someone with it could say if that is true or not.

Also, don't be too hard on yourself. Taking major losses when you are new to the game is like a right of passage.

You're going to get smashed by lists you have no idea existed. Happens to all of us. But why do we lose, ShieldBrother?.. So we can get back up.

So you'll go back to the drawing board. cut the fat from your list, train to beat this guy.. and one day... you'll show up at the store looking stronger than ever and BLAM!!! you'll face little timmy from down the street and destroy him...

You either quit as a casual player.. or you play long enough to see yourself become the competitive player..

...Well that got a little out of hand, but the batman references should help.

You have to play CAD Necrons differently than decurion necrons. With the Decurion list, you have to work your obj sec as much as possible. Keep the TWC away from the Wraiths and murder everything else.

Grief wrote:
You dont like losing to Necrons? Spam grav or play eldar and spam Str D weapons.

Grav is not at all good vs necrons...which is why I don't understand peoples obsession with spamming it.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Grief wrote:
You dont like losing to Necrons? Spam grav or play eldar and spam Str D weapons.

Grav is not at all good vs necrons...which is why I don't understand peoples obsession with spamming it.

This game is just an obsession with spamming things.

 krodarklorr wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Grief wrote:
You dont like losing to Necrons? Spam grav or play eldar and spam Str D weapons.

Grav is not at all good vs necrons...which is why I don't understand peoples obsession with spamming it.

This game is just an obsession with spamming things.

Pretty much this.

Any unit that ticks: (1) High Strength/Damages everything (2) High Rate of Fire (3) High Durability/Low Points Cost and (4) High Mobility are the kings of 7th.

And that is why the balance sucks.

 Frozocrone wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Grief wrote:
You dont like losing to Necrons? Spam grav or play eldar and spam Str D weapons.

Grav is not at all good vs necrons...which is why I don't understand peoples obsession with spamming it.

This game is just an obsession with spamming things.

Pretty much this.

Any unit that ticks: (1) High Strength/Damages everything (2) High Rate of Fire (3) High Durability/Low Points Cost and (4) High Mobility are the kings of 7th.

High rate of fire and ap2 is what the grav does. It will would the warriors on a 4+ and anything else with a good armor on a 3+.

A grav gun is almost statistically equal to a heavy bolter vs a necron warrior.

Yeah, against Warriors.
But the majority of the codex is wearing 3+ armor.

 skoffs wrote:
Without preferred enemy from a Destroyer Lord they're not going to be able to reroll those critical to wound rolls, meaning Rends won't be above average... unless the Spyder is still alive and giving them Shred. (Reminder: if Spyder is still alive by turn three, you're doing something wrong).

But yeah, Wraiths vs Dread will not end well for you. Trust us, cheap and fast is key here against them. There are better things for TWC and Wulfen to engage.

... also, yeah, if he had a Decurion lead by Obyron then he had an illegal list.

A dread with an invuln does well enough. Wraiths only wound it on 6's and then having a 3++ from the Shield makes it a great tarpit unit.

Fair enough.