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Assuming they work at all, that is.

BYE

you mean compared with 3rd edition? I'm not a regular Necron palyer, but I don't recall any howls of angush (or joy) when 4th edition came out

I actually mean how do they work in 4th in general.

I've been interested in two armies for a while, one being a proper Death Guard army, the other being a Necron Army. I don't care about the new Chaos Codex making Death Guard invalid (my friends don't care either), but I just want to know how the Necrons work in 4th, if they work, and what are some good builds.

BYE

I just started them not too long ago nabbing the army off eBay and am repainting now. I've gotten about 6 games in with them so far from 1500 points to 2k or so.

Like most armies, there's the "take" and "don't take" stuff:

Lords (w/ Res Orb)
Immortals
Warriors (because you have to)
Scarabs
Destroyers
Monolith

Some units that can be good but require work would boil down to the C'Tan and Heavy Destroyers. And if you were wondering, the Deceiver is the better choice between the two Star Gods.

My favorite way to play them is as a mobile shooty army. This revolves around 1 Monolith and a Veil/Res Orb Lord. Traditionally you get "long range support" from Destroyers and Immortals, who can move and fire (36" for destroyers, 24" for Immortals) and they do my anti-tank work for the first few turns. In a pinch using the Monolith or Veil to put Warriors into Rapid fire of a particularly nasty tank or unit.

The normal way to play them is to setup a firebase of your two Warrior squads with the Res Orb/Veil Lord somewhere (in cover if possible) but close enough to support eachother and the WBB. Deploy units that can safely go "on their own" without a Res-Orb near by elsewhere as needed, though Immortals work best near the Lord in case of problems.

Depending on the enemy, you advance the warrior block to be in range to fire or they'll be coming to you in which case you sit tight and in case of emergency (close combat) you use either the Monolith or Veil to get the squad that was locked in combat, out of it, and proceed to shoot/move away from whatever it was that assaulted you.

In general, you protect your weakest troops (the Warriors) with a Res Orb near by to provide WBB rolls and keep them out of assault with teleporting, most other aspects of your army can move away and still fire, making them hard to lock in assault. If you're going to run a Monolith or a C'Tan, generally the strategy is to identify what aspects of your opponents army can actually hurt those two things, focus on taking that out or neutralizing it on turn 1 or 2 (snipers for the C'Tan, Railguns/Lascannons for the Lith), and then using your 'Lith/C'Tan to work with your army to run over the rest of your opponents list with it's threat neutralized.

I generally enjoy playing with a Monolith, though I can think of a few competitive builds without it which are C'Tan based. Even still I've heard some people say that 2 Lords (with Res Orbs, one with the Veil and the other with Destroyer Body) and just maxing on Necrons make the hardest list to kill.

The most powerful lists come into play around 1750 and 1850 points, as I've found the higher the points, the better the Necrons are as it's easy to take the good stuff and still pad phase out very well. A few posters here will recommend the Immortals + Scarabs + Monoliths list, which I think sounds great though I've never tried it.

Assaults generally suck for the Necrons except for a few situations where an MEQ (with WBB) will just slaughter whatever units your opponents are fielding. I've sent destroyers in to kill pathfinders in CC, teleported Warriors through a monolith to get a turn 2 assault on Guardsmen or an isolated squad of Sisters far away from Seraphim or Cannoness support. Basically as long as it doesn't have a power weapon or rending, you can likely win the war of attrition in CC with that unit because of WBB. Also if your lith isn't busy you can always teleport squads out of CC and then re-charge them back into whatever you wanted. I've used that against IG, Eldar, and Sisters to good effect.

About the only assault unit worth taking is the Scarab, and then with D-Fields to take out indirect ordinance like Basalisks or hiding tanks. They act as great tarpits for non power-fist squads and even then do a decent job of it. Against things like Tau or IG/Guardians/Pathfinders, they do wonderful things at actually winning combat.

Really the army is about knowing how to identify exactly what can hurt you and then using your options to focus on killing that, while using your resilience to shrug off whatever else your opponent has to throw at you. About the only army list I can think of that's REALLY hard for Necrons to deal with is Nidzilla. I think they can beat it, but you'd have to build a list specifically to deal with them, and even then it's an uphill battle.

I can't claim to be an expert, but I've played against Crons regularly for 3 years and started them not too long ago, above is what I've learned about the army through that. I hope you find it useful.

The successful cron players I talk with believe you are better off taking larger units of warriors, don't try and get away with 2x10

2x10 Warriors works out just fine if the rest of the points for "Necrons" are spent on Immortals.

Voodoo boyz: thanks for that concise treatise on Necrons. My buddy used to play them, but since painting up his "Fallen Angel" army two years ago, I haven't really seen any 'Crons lately. (Barring the time my Opponent had two monoliths, one of which went down on turn 1, but the other didn't take damage from a marine SAFH for the rest of the game. It turned into attrition, and I lost.)

The key to Necrons, even more in 4th, is using all the tricks. It's not a gun line, it's not an assaulty army, and it's not a fast skimmer army. You have to use the Orb, Veil, Monolith, and opportunistic shooting to succeed. Necrons are not immobile, however. Played properly they are one of the most agile forces out there. Not agile in the delicate, ballerina style of the eldar, but in the hulking, deliberate brutality of a defensive Tackle.

I know to avoid Pariahs, Tomb Spyders, Flayed Ones and Wraiths, but how do Heavy Destroyers work? My reading of the 'Dex tells me that keeping them alive would be difficult, as I need a nearby Necron of the same type to WBB, and there are never very many HD's.

And I know all about Scarabs. 30 wound unit of Jump Packers with 40 attacks on the charge... hate them. First time I faced them my teammate and I were so surprised at their movement rate.

And I wasn't thinking of 2X10 Warriors, more along the lines of 2X16 or even 2X20, or a combination thereof.

BYE

Careful with large units of Warriors, here's something that I picked up recently.

One of the ways to get the most out of a unit of Warriors is to use a Monolith to port them around and recycle WBB's at the same time. This gets you in rapid fire range and keeps you doing it over and over.

One problem is that if your opponent is a rules stickler, you really can't fit more than 15 necrons through a Monoliths portal when you have to deploy within 2" of the access point, the center door. So if you teleport 20 warriors through a lith, technically, by RAW, you would lose 5 of them as they couldn't fit within 2" of the portal.

Now if you don't plan on using a monolith, then by all means max out the squads. I know when I started playing them I used more Warriors but as I've moved on my list evolved to the point where now I take 2x10. I haven't been phased out yet though.

FYI, here's what I like to use:

Lord, Res Orb+Veil
8 Immortals
2x10 Warriors
2x4 Destroyers
5 Scarabs, DFields
Monolith

As far as Heavy Destroyers, I've read about people claiming to make them work in an all destroyer list. The key is that you're not taking a monolith so you're free to take 3x2 Heavy Destroyers. Keeping them alive is subject to playing the range game and limiting what can shoot back at you. Also the best list I can think of to use this with also uses a lot of regular destroyers and a C'Tan, so you're not short on targets for heavy weapons.

All that said, the only reason I can think to take HD's is to combat Nidzilla lists, their utility in your average "take all comers" Necron list is limited because of Gauss. They're there for the AP2 and that's it. Even terminators can be forced to fail saves because of T4, but if you're looking at T6 and 2+ (or T7), you're going to struggle to stop that Flyrant from hitting your lines, and if you don't have a C'Tan that can be fatal because you can only teleport so many units in a turn.

Also killing those sniper fex's is very important.  Venom Cannons are 2 shots and S10 means it can glance the lith if you take it,  and if your lith starts taking glances on a 5 or a 6 you're hosed mobility wise. 

Oh one last thing I think I should add is the running joke between me and the guy in my gaming group who plays Necrons. Having "Ignore the Monolith" as a strategy is beyond dumb.

As a Necron player if you can use the monolith without fear of it taking serious damage (or can see your opponent is planning on ignoring it) you can really ram-rod them with its capabilities. Going for phase out isn't so easy when all the warrior casualties are getting WBB (because you know how to play the Res Orb game) and is getting to re-roll those failed WBB's because of the monolith. That's a 75% reduction in casualties in a squad. Good luck trying to get the necron player to phase out when he's reducing all the casualties you can cause by 75%.

If you're going to take the Monolith, you'll find it quickly becomes central to your game plan. You can win if you lose it, but it becomes much harder and you really be careful with maneuvering and how you split units up afterwards.

Heavy Destroyers do play an important role in Necron lists. The ap2 firepower is sorely needed, as are cheap mobile scoring units and the ability to instakill characters. Also, as for larger squads of warriors, I used to run 2 units of 10 who typically would not accomplish much for me. Since I switched to 2 units of 18 I have had much better success. That unit is large enough to absorb a huge amount of firepower before it is ever taken below half. Combine that with WBB recycling through a monolith and you have a unit that just can't be killed. Also, it is large enough to never have to take modifiers when it loses combat. Ld10 is great when you dont have to deal with under half and outnumbered 2 to 1. I have had a great deal of sucess with the following list:

Lord - orb, veil
2X Warriors x 18
2X Destroyers x 5
2X Heavy Destroyers x 2
Monolith

As to the rules dispute over he monolith portal, if someone is going to be silly enough to argue that you dont have room to place the models, simply convert your monolith so that you do. There is no set width of the portal, so if you liked you could cover up the usual portal and have the necrons walking right out of any point on the monolith living metal T1000 style.

Posted By Slyde on 06/14/2007 11:25 AM

As to the rules dispute over he monolith portal, if someone is going to be silly enough to argue that you dont have room to place the models, simply convert your monolith so that you do. There is no set width of the portal, so if you liked you could cover up the usual portal and have the necrons walking right out of any point on the monolith living metal T1000 style.

Not quite sure you would get away with quite that much, the portal is the access point at the front of the lith by the rules, so you would have to have an access point at the front at least.  But yes, I can't see any obvious technical reason for a 'converted' lith to not have a wider portal.

I was just making a point. I wouldn't go so far as to use the entire monolith as an access point, but as the access point has no set width I can make it as wide as I want. Even though I don't expect anyone would ever argue 20 warriors exiting a monolith portal, maybe I should go ahead and widen it just to make it harder to block. =P

Go ahead and deploy all 20 out of you monolith. I once used 2 Ravagers w/ Disintigrators to wipe out a nearly 20 man Necron squad deploying that way. That made phase out a whole lot easier...

I guess the tactical advice there is don't do it if your opponent has Plasma Cannons or equivalent in their army.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Posted By Ozymandias on 06/14/2007 3:04 PM
Go ahead and deploy all 20 out of you monolith. I once used 2 Ravagers w/ Disintigrators to wipe out a nearly 20 man Necron squad deploying that way. That made phase out a whole lot easier...

I guess the tactical advice there is don't do it if your opponent has Plasma Cannons or equivalent in their army.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Well, the monolith counts as an unmoved vehicle IIRC, so the warriors get to move and then shoot or assault.

Even if they stay put, and you drop all 20 from plasma cannon, 15 of them on average get back up (assuming another warrior squad within 6" ).

Phase out is calculated after WBB, btw. 

Only if all 20 models are within 6" of a live model. And assuming they go back through the monolith again.

And then you have a unit of 40. Which I may balk at letting disembark from a monolith...

True, but as it was pointed out, the Warriors get to move after coming out of the 'lith, which means they won't be so bunched up anymore. And the fun of teleporting is that it really lets you get the drop on hiding things, especially AV11 skimmers which can promptly get glanced to death.

I've faced off against DE with Necrons, it's not pretty for the spikey eldar.

Really? I've managed a phase out just about every time I play Necrons. The Archon, Incubi, and Wyches all put the hurt on those big squads and Ravagers shoot up everything else. And I do ignore the monolith and just go for killing as many crons as possible as fast as possible.

It must have been the DS'ing wargear item and the Lord and a unit then cause I remember them all bunched up and unable to move. And no, he didn't have another unit within 6" (he wasn't expecting ALL of them to die). And I know phase out is calculated after WBB, but if you lose 20 warriors in one turn, your chances of phase out get much higher.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Posted By Ozymandias on 06/15/2007 8:49 AM
Really? I've managed a phase out just about every time I play Necrons. The Archon, Incubi, and Wyches all put the hurt on those big squads and Ravagers shoot up everything else. And I do ignore the monolith and just go for killing as many crons as possible as fast as possible.

It must have been the DS'ing wargear item and the Lord and a unit then cause I remember them all bunched up and unable to move. And no, he didn't have another unit within 6" (he wasn't expecting ALL of them to die). And I know phase out is calculated after WBB, but if you lose 20 warriors in one turn, your chances of phase out get much higher.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Ah, the unstoppable, "play somebody who made a really bad mistake" strategy.  It's my personal favorite.

I'm not trying to diminish your tactical acumen.  You played him like a $2 Banjo.  I've played DE vs. Necrons a lot, and a good Necron player can really put the screws on DE.  Between a monolith that's basically untouchable wiping every squad with S5 shots every turn, tons of firepower that can kill all your infantry and drop all your skimmers; it's a tough draw.  Your only hope is to get locked into combat, break them and run them down, and hope you don't get caught flat footed by their shooting.

Either you're very good, your opponents are very bad, or you got lucky.

Yeah, I have to agree with Polonius here (Hamlet reference?).

I've played DE for 5-6 years. When I lived in Savannah, I never had any trouble with any of the Necron players down there, and kinda thought the army sucked.

I move up here to Atlanta, and the first few 'cron players I came across reinforced that opinion. Urk...then I ran into some competent Necron players with some hard lists. My opinion has completely changed. My only viable tactic was to try to do combined charges against multiple enemy units (and to do it with at least two of my own units), 'cuz the players could pull two units per turn out of combat. Any of my assault troops left standing around would be shot off the board the next turn.

Necrons make baby DE cry.

Sal.

I have to agree De against cron is no harder than marines. Id love to play cron any day with de. Monoliths are VERY easy to kill with DE. And so is bringer for that matter. There very slow massed troops die in hoards to incubi.
The hardest armies to beat with DE are massed numbers like the bug swarms and orcs with huge amounts of troops.
There is a massive thread from a very good DE player at relic if you wanna check it out.

Not that taking the Nightbringer is even a good idea, but Dark Eldar can't assault him, you have to have base S4 otherwise he just blows you away and out of combat. The Deciever? He just flat out leaves combat before anything happens if he wants.

As far as having a hard time killing monoliths, your lances don't work. Your haywires need 6's to hit and then to work. It's just hard to kill, I've seen it done, but generally it's pretty rough.

With a Monolith and a Veil you can pull out of CC and shoot the fragile DE troops. If you see ravegers on the board you shoot them with immortals or destroyers the minute they come out to fire.

Heck the guy in my group who plays Necrons also plays DE and when we've had our matchups (I borrowed his Necrons for games he wanted vs. his DE) and he said it's just an uphill battle. If you play the phalanx right and space things out nicely, you can really put the screws to a DE list.

Posted By Polonius on 06/14/2007 3:32 PM

Well, the monolith counts as an unmoved vehicle IIRC, so the warriors get to move and then shoot or assault.

I started a thread in YMTC to discuss this issue:

dakkadakka.com/Forums/tabid/56/forumid/15/postid/170534/view/topic/Default.aspx

 

However, my conclusions (from that thread) are that Necrons coming through the portal only get to move/assault if the Monolith didn't move before the unit came through the portal.