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First tryout of this list yesterday, and I got my arse handed to me by Necrons:

Necrons List:
Nightbringer
Lord w/ Res Orb, Staff of Light and Phylactery
20x Necron Warriors
20x Necron Warriors
Monolith

I did take pictures, but my phone camera isn't great, and they're not the best themselves, so I haven't uploaded them.

Mission - Annihilation
Deployment - Dawn of War - We forgot Night Fighting, but it wouldn't have helped a whole lot anyway.
Necrons deployed first, all 40 warriors were deploed in lines at the very front of his table half, each the full 2" away. His Orb Lord was deployed in Terrain within 6" of both unit.
With nowhere to really deploy, I was forced to stick near the table edge with my FWs and Crisis Commander.
I stole the initiative.

Turn 1 - Tau:
Everything waddled on. My broadsides couldn't fire anything, nor could my Pathfinders (i've not played 40k in a while, so we didn't know how pathfinders dealt with DoW deployment when they can't be on the table to make a scout move). I fired everything I could, including railguns at the Necron lord to kill off the res orb. My terrible luck with shooting let me down, with plasma scoring hits, but rolling 1s to wound like they were going out of fashion. In the end, only a handful of Necrons went down...

Turn 1 - Necrons:
...and then all but 1 or 2 got right back up. Needing 30 to force a phase out, this wasn't going well. He advanced slowly on me, bringing his 'Lith and Nightbringer in from the board edge. They were out of range to do anything large, but in an error of judgement (neither of had played 40k in a while, it seems) we didn't count arriving from reserves as movement, and so the Monolith got into range of my Hammerhead, scattered onto a nearby monats, saved the Dpods cover and watched the suit snuff it. NKPs 1 - 0 TKPs. The warriors rapid fired my hammerheads as the lord closed in to try and get to CC. One Hammerhead was immobilised and stunned, the other was shaken.

Turn 2 - Tau:
I was now completely boxed in. There was literally nowhere to go. The Warriors had blocked all movement forward and I was pinned against the table edge. Desperately, I pulled the movable hammerhead back and moved everything into rapid fire range, lighting up one unit of Necrons with markerlights. It was now or never. The lit up unit took the punishment of:
20 BS5 pulse rifle shots, 6 BS5 Plasma Rifle shots, 6 BS5 Missile Pod Shots, 3 BS5 Burst Cannon shots and 4 BS5 SMS shots. I knocked down a mighty 15. The other squad took:
40 Pulse Rifle Shots, 2 Plasma Rifle Shots and 2 Missile Pod shots, taking around 11 casualties.
Combat next turn was inevitable. Even though my broadsides pummeled the Lord with railguns to try and knock out the Res Orb, he stood strong.

Turn 2 - Necrons:
The Tau watched in horror as 8 of the 15 got back up, and all but 2 of the 11 rose again. When I though it would all be over, it truly was not. Movement saw an additional 5 of the 15 rising as they teleported the monolith, meaning that I only claimed 4 real casualties out of 26 caused. This wasn't good. The Necron unit that remained readied a charge against an FW squad, and the Lord lined up a charge against my immobile hammerhead. Shooting saw nothing much happening. The monolith couldn't fire as he teleported. The Nightbringer missed his shot, and nothing else could shoot bar the teleported necrons (do they count as moving if they teleport?) who fired single shots into my third FW team, claiming 3 casualties. Combat ensued. The Lord ripped the railgun off my hammerhead and immobilised me a second time, tearing off the bust cannons. It was basically now a wreck, but needed 1 more result. The warriors took 1 casualty to 2 in combat, leaving the fire warriors to flee 8" after the Necrons failed to sweep.

Turn 3 - Tau:
I was now abolsutely desperate. One squad of warriors were deep in my half, and only had 2 squads of Fire Warriors to contend with. My fleeing squad rallied and turned to face the warriors once again. I didn't even bother moving . There was no way I was leaving charge range and still being able to shoot. Lighting up the teleported necron warriors, I unleashed a torrent of long range fire and sumbunition shot into them from my last working hammerhead. 2 Warriors fell. 2. The Necron Lord fell to my Broadside Team leader, the monolith was hit but I rolled a 3 for armour penetration as I attempted to blast what I could out of the sky. The warriors previously in close combat took 36 pulse rifle shots, with a good amount still standing at the end. All I could do now was wait.

Turn 3 - Necrons:
This time, they were out of res orb range. Those that fell to plasma rifles were felled forever, but they were few, most of the rest rose again. The Lord also rose on a single wound. The Necrons marched closer. The lord approached the broadsides, the teleported warriors closing on my half again. Not much shooting happened. The monolith's particle whip was saved by disruption pods, the the nightbringer hit my hammerhead, but was also disruption pod saved. Combat saw my brodsides lose a drone and take a wound to the lord, and score 3 hits, but only a single wound to the lord, who saved it. Losing combat, they fled on a roll of 11 and were swept down (they would've run off anyway). The warriors still in my area charged my last full FW unit, doing the exact same as last time, except I failed 5 armour saves and saved 2 instead of saving 5 and failing 2. I rolled an 8 and got away, only to be in range of the board edge by mere millimetres. with a single model. NKPs 3 - 0 TKPs

Turn 4 - Tau:
Moving my 8-man FW squad into cover to try and buy time by forcing a difficult terrain test for chargers and attempting a Tank Shock with my hammerhead was all my moving. Everything else was already in rapid fire range. Firing at the monolith with my hammerhead scored me a hit, but yet another 3 for penetration. I fired everything I had. Several warriors went down the plasma rifles, but only a few to the other weapons. The Lord was rapid fired to death by a crisis suit. It was basically over. There was no way I could force the remaining casualties for a phase out, and he had too few KPs on the table.

Turn 4 - Necrons:
His monolith shifted nearer to the centre. The warriors moved up again. Having thought the Lord dead, I was devestated as the Monolith awoke him again on a single wound. Nothing much happened. The Nightbringer fired again to no avail, and my remaining fire warriors were charged and wiped out by necrons warriors. NKPs 5 - 0 TKPs.

Turn 5 - Tau:
Nothing. No wounds were dealt. At all. I fluffed everything.

Turn 5 - Necrons:
Similarly to my turn 5, no damage was dealt, even by flux arcs.

Game Ends, Necrons win by 5KPs to my 0KPs.

Post-match thoughts:
Buggery. The WBB rolls, the monolith re-rolling them when teleporting, the res orb and necron deployment really killed me. My plasma rifles did nothng for most of the game because the monolith revived them or they were in res orb range. They just got back up after everything else. In the end I needed 13 more kills to force a phase out, and it was never going to happen. My warfish didn't touch much all game, and my pathfinders were at too long of a range to be targetted, sitting in the far corner of my deployment zone. There was nowhere to move, and the mistake of allowing movement after coming in from reserves must've aided in killing me off, as he had somewhere to move and I didn't.

Having to deploy 18" away from models spread across the deployment line in 24" of board space is also extremely hard, and with little terrain, their advance wasn't hindered. His investment in the monolith wasn't wasted, but the Nightbringer was. He failed to do anything, and was just ignored all game; he just wasn't a threat. The Monolith was only threatening because of the repairs it makes by teleporting. If it didn't go down, i'd just be facing the same number of warriors for the rest of the game.

Only my second loss, but a sound thumping nonetheless. We did forget a few rules though due to being away from 40k for a while, and so bits may not have been done properly, or they may have been missed, but I have a re-match next week; i'm undecided about trying again here (and hoping for better luck) or taking my chaos (battlecannons and close combat = too easy of a win?) but any rules corrections would be appreciated (please provide a page reference for the rulebook as well so i know where to bookmark and read up on).

Its good to see necrons succeeding. However the necrons list was flawed. In a 1500 point army, you never have both a monolith and a nightbringer. Its better to have destroyers and another lord

Or perhaps 2 Monoliths for the ability to revive fallen models from 2 units/turn. Of course, Nightbringer costs so much you could take the 2nd monolith, drop some warriors, and take 3 destroyers (or more, depending on warriors dropped).

Anyways, if you play him again, try taking a squad of kroot with some hounds and riders and engage one of his large warrior squads in close combat. With the number of attacks the unit will have, they should beat the Necrons, and maybe destroy them in sweeping advance, with no chance for a WBB roll (one of the large weaknesses of the Necrons).

ouch! I see he did some decent WBB rolls, my priority target in a necron army is always the res orb. I tend to pour as much fire as possible onto the Lord until its dead!
Once its down, necrons drop like flies to plasma!

Not really, they can still get WBB from plasma (you need instant death, that is s8 to ignore the rolls)

I wonder how you didn't pull down the Lith with all those railguns...

I'm surprised to see the Nightbringer against Tau, I'd have taken a destroyer lord and some wraiths or flayed ones instead. Especially on such a small board, the lord and wraiths move so quickly they're soon in charge range. Or you can deep strike the flayed ones in.

Once they get into the Tau battleline it causes chaos and gives the rest of the army time to advance...

Plus, its way harder to force a phase out. You can get 20 flayed ones for 360pts the nightbringer is 350pts and doesn't count towards phaseout.

Oscarius wrote:Not really, they can still get WBB from plasma (you need instant death, that is s8 to ignore the rolls)

I wonder how you didn't pull down the Lith with all those railguns...

Because I mostly tried to ignore it. It was my first game vs Necrons, and from stuff i've read on the net over the years I learned that ignoring the monolith and C'tan is usually the best way. I only took pot-shots when I wasn't shaken/stunned or trying to kill off the res orb.

@Deathbysoup: He did make some quite jammy WBBs. Most of what went down in my turn came back up at the start of his. The Res Orb was also annoying, making necessary saves to get him places, doing damage, then going down, only to come back to life again.

@General Legion: I will never use kroot. I despise them in every way imaginable (same as stealth suits). I will max out wargear and upgrades on all my squads before even thinking about adding them. Unless they're re-done in the next codex, it's doubtful i'll be using them at all.

To be honest I don't know ohow the Res Orb made a difference. Only you rail guns could deny then their WBB, or did it do something else in your game?

Oscarius wrote:Not really, they can still get WBB from plasma (you need instant death, that is s8 to ignore the rolls)

I wonder how you didn't pull down the Lith with all those railguns...

Indeed they do but they dont get saves, with markerlights hitting on 3s wounding on 2s, Fireknives are particularly effective. I just mean that killing the lord will make things easier. Tau do struggle against necrons though as necrons biggest weakness imo is power weapons in CC.

Deathbysoup wrote: ...necrons biggest weakness imo is power weapons in CC.

This is definitely true, but remember that Wraiths get invulnerable saves and so does a Lord if equipped with a phase shifter, give the Lord a destroyer body as well as he has toughness 6 and a 4+ invulnerable save...

Not much use though when the rest of the army has been chopped into tiny little bits and phases out though

People say to ignore the monolith because for most armies destroying a AV 14 all around vehicle that is immune to melta, lance, and MC effects is something that is very difficult.

This is not the case for railguns, The first double monolith Necron player I ever played was dumbfounded when both of his monoliths had been reduced to craters by the end of turn 2, and taking away his WBB re-rolls as Tau is important because we won't have the option of stomping and sweeping advance them in CC.

I shot the monolith when I had nothing else to shoot, but taking down the warriors and the lord was my top priority. I knew I couldn't win the game with KPs, so I had to try and force a phase out.

The big killer was the huge ressurection it did with one of the Necron Warrior units, but that was on his second turn, so unless I unloaded both broadsides into it on my second turn and got a lucky kill, it would've still happened.

Let's put it this way. Using Railguns against warriors is a waste of firepower. Even more so when the res orb is around.

Let's put it this way, if EVERYTHING had unloaded into the monolith, that is a total of 4 railgun shots, roughly 2-3 hits, probably a pen, which destroyes the lith on 4+. That 4+ chance is worth more than killing some warriors which get cover and WBB...

Just my opinion though.

Even with a railgun you need to roll a 5 or 6 to get a penetrating hit, and then a 5 or 6 to destroy the Monolith.

Even if its immobilised you can still use the portal, and the portal doesn't count as a weapon so can't be destroyed.

Unless you get lucky early on I'd agree that you'd be better off targetting other units. The res orb is far more important than the monolith portal.

Plus by targetting other units and causing casualities the monolith's portal is used to re-roll the wbb roles. This means that you don't get hit by a str 9 ap 3 ordnance blast from the particle whip.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Oscarius wrote:, which destroyes the lith on 4+.

A monolith, although a skimmer, is not destroyed if immobilised. Its rules state that it just settles on the ground and can't move... so it takes a 5 or 6 to destroy it.

I used the submunitions against the warriors, more hits = more wounds = more potential casualties, and that was only twice (one HH lost his railgun in the second turn). The broadsides tackled the Lord/Monolith whilst the other railgun did as much as he could to anything.

1st turn = submunition (couldn't see the lord and monolith wasn't on the board), second turn he couldn't fire, third turn submunition (couldn't resist the tight packing of the warriors that had just teleported), 4th turn solid shot against the 'Lith which failed to penetrate, and 5th turn my whole army fluffed everything.

With the broadsides, it was 1st turn = solid shots at the lord, who shurgged them off, 2nd turn = solid shots at the lord to no avail, 3rd turn = lord down and monolith still standing after a failed armour penetration roll and boradsides dying to ressed Lord in the Necron turn.

EDIT: On the topic of skimmers, they are only destroyed if an immobilised result is rolled after they move flat out. As far as I know, Monoliths are only ever able to move 6" anyway.

yep, I don't think 6" will ever count as flat out

Have you considered taking a sniper team rather than broadsides against necrons?

They've a reasonable strenght 6 shot but are ap 3, so negate necron armour saves. Instant kill is fairly meaningless when there is a res orb nearby.

Plus they're a little cheaper than broadsides, so you have points left for something else too.

I'm not a huge fan of list tailoring, so I prefer to have a solid list I use for all my games. Sniper teams are useless against most things, so it'd be a waste to take them.

*cough* Seems that some of you forget that Railguns are ap1, there is nothing in the monolith's rule that stop bonues on the damage table.

Just for a heads up.... It looks like he teleported his lord through the monolith, he cannot due that unless it is attached to a Necron squad listed in the specific set under the 'liths teleporting rules. The little lord by himself isn't going to be teleporting.... And you do get a kill point IIRC for knocking him down. He may regain wounds but it still counts as destroying an HQ. I am not 100% on that, but check on it, might be advantageous to know. Also teleportation range is only 18" so if he moved his full six first turn he may not have been in teleportation range of the lith. Teleporting from the lith does not count as moving for the troop if they or the lith has not moved previous to the teleport. It counts as deploying from a transport. Your game would have gone a lot differently if you could have concentrated all of your volume of fire on a single squad of warriors. I see that you split your fire between them, I don't know if that was because of range or what, but concentrate fire, remove oen squad at a time. Sure he will make a bigger squad with the ones that get up, but the failed ones from the first squad that do not stand up with the first roll do not get the second WBB roll from the monolith as they are not yet part of the squad that is teleporting. Just another example of the 5ed nerfs for crons you can take advantage of.

Oscarius wrote:*cough* Seems that some of you forget that Railguns are ap1, there is nothing in the monolith's rule that stop bonues on the damage table.

Yes, someone did forget they were ap1

AP1 of win. Most vehicles go DOWN to ap1, my vindi got iced on a glancing hit from an exorcist on thursday. I was not amused....

has anyone tried using FNP in place of WBB?.... I am sure that will be the case any way when Necrons finally do get their update...

Avatar 720 wrote:I was now completely boxed in.

Yeah, this is when things go poorly for a tau player.

Other than movement and deployment problems, I'd guess that this was your first time playing against necron. You have to focus fire differently on their army than you do for other armies, as I'm sure you well found out this game.

Also, all that railgun shooting seriously couldn't even dent the monolith?

Red Corsair wrote:has anyone tried using FNP in place of WBB?.... I am sure that will be the case any way when Necrons finally do get their update...

Which is a bit of a shame in many ways since WBB is much more powerful. It introduces uncertainty into the game the Necron player can take advantage of. The only downside is when all the models of a squad type are wiped.

Ailaros wrote:

Avatar 720 wrote:I was now completely boxed in.

Yeah, this is when things go poorly for a tau player.

Other than movement and deployment problems, I'd guess that this was your first time playing against necron. You have to focus fire differently on their army than you do for other armies, as I'm sure you well found out this game.

Also, all that railgun shooting seriously couldn't even dent the monolith?

The thing that really killed me were the numbers of warriors that kept getting back up. I unloaded everything I could into them (the only stuff not shooting the warriors were the broadsides, which tried to kill off the res orb and monolith, and hammerheads, one of which never got to fire much and the other that managed two submunitions when the necrons were clumped but fired at the monolith other times.

6 Pathfinders, a Devilfish, 4 Fireknife Suits, a Fireknife Commander and 30 Fire Warriors couldn't kill off more than 17 Necron Warriors over the course of 5 turns, and since he only had 5 Kill points in the form of a C'tan, Monolith, Lord and 2x 20 Necron Warriors, it was unlikely that i could win through KPs, so i had to try for a phase out.

With the railguns vs the monolith, two successful hits and 2 failed penetration rolls were all I managed to get on it, I don't tend to have good AV luck; in my previous game vs Eldar, 2 Broadsides and 2 Hammerheads couldn't kill a Wave Serpent and a Falcon over the course of 5 turns, despite firing almost solely at them every time. The best I got was an immobilised Falcon, but it was already close enough to spill the harlies it was carrying, which knocked out one of railguns on the hammerheads and charged a fire warrior squad (this is where it ended badly for the clowns as they were furiously beaten down with pulse rifles). I just don't tend to get lucky with shots against vehicles.

You did seem to have a run of bad luck... trying to force a phase out was probably the best tactic though.

Did you consider shooting at the C'Tan? When he is destroyed he explodes and hits everything around him for str 6, with no armour save possible (this includes invulnerable saves - he is after all an exploding star god ). If he is in the middle of a bunch of warriors this can hurt. He can also be targetted ahead of any other units...