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Greetings fellow Dakka-ites,

I'll be the first to admit that I'm just a novice armchair general. I prefer painting, converting and assembling over playing the game, since it takes so much time and the models can get harmed. I really dislike damage to my paintjobs.
However, I do have a few friends that I try to have regular games with, not withstanding the fact that they are both much, much better at the game. One of them always scores close victories (he plays Grey Knights) over me. My other mate though... let me put it like this: killing more then 5 of his line infantry is something I remember as a great victory. Don't get me wrong, I do have fun, but I'd prefer our matches to be just a little closer.

I'll use yesterdays match as an example, and I hope some of you might have an idea how I can improve over the ideas I myself have.

My forces: Overlord with Tachyon Arrow and Warscythe, 3 squads of 10 Warriors, 10 Flayed Ones, a Ghost Ark, 4 Scarab bases and a Doom Scythe, 1000 pts.
His Forces: Command squad wit lascannon in a chimera, vendetta valkyrie, lemann russ, banewolf (the hellhound with meltaweapons), 4 ratlings and about 60 man guard split up in small groups with one missile launcher and lots of vox-casters; 1000 pts.

We rolled for the mission, which turned out be be Seize the Relic, which was right in the middle of the board, with trenches on both sides. We deployed along the long table edges with him deploying first. He kept his Valkyrie and Hellhound in reserves, deployed his infantry in a gunline behind cover, the chimera behind that on the left side, the russ on the right side.
I also kept my Doom Scythe in aerial reserves, and deployed my forces mainly at the right end of the board, since I had insufficient bodies to hold a table long gunline. My overlord went behind a barricade with a warrior team, the scarabs and the Ghost Ark behind that, a second warrior group in the trenches near the relic and the third deployed with a building between them and the enemy gunline.
Infiltration moves were made into the mysterious forests, his ratlings deploying into an ironbark forest to the far left of my forces, and my flayed ones on the right end in a brainleaf forest.
I tried to seize the initiative, failed, and his first turn started. His Russ lumbered ahead a bit, and got a bead on the warrior group out of cover. The battlecannon killed 9 of the 10, with the ratlings (just in range) killing the last member. Not an auspicous start. A group of guardsman fired at my flayed ones with 'first rank fire, second rank fire!', killing three. Another squad opened fire with the same order on my centre warriors, killing 3. One flayed one returned.
My first turn. Ghost Ark racing for the (former) centre squad to support them, scarabs moved forward, flayed ones tried to leave the forest to engage the guardsmen, rolled badly, two stayed in cover. My centre warriors killed three guardsmen, my scarabs ran and the flayed ones failed their test for the brainleaf. They fell on each other, inflicting 4 casualties. Flayed ones were at half strength, tested, failed, and ran back, ending up even behind the warriors.
His second turn; he got both his reserves, deploying the wolf at the centre of his line, and the valkyrie at the left table edge. He stayed put, killing five more warriors of the centre squads. They made their rolls, and actually got a reanimation roll right as well. The hellhound variant fired a template melta at the scarabs, hitting them all and inflicting a wound with a double str weapon on every base. Boom, end of the entire squad. The russ fired at the Ghost Ark, docking two hull points.
My second turn: I got my Scythe, deploying it close to the Valkyrie. My Ark repaied one warrior, leaving my centre group at 6. The chimera was behind cover, so I fired my tachyon arrow at the Russ, only glancing it. Killed thee more guardsmen with my warriors. My Scythe scored a penetrating hit on the valkyrie with the tesla destructor (death ray can't fire at flyers), getting a crew shaken result.
His turn three: Valkyrie sped to my ghost ark, firing away. With only being able to hit on 6's, he still scored two lascannon hits of the three and blew up the Ark. His missile trooper fired at my Doom Scythe, rolling two 6's in a row, and smoking it in one shot (penetrating, wrecked). His guardsmen plink away at my warriors, killing a few more. That left me with my overlord and 1 1/2 warrior squad. His highness, the Grand Vizier Raphet-Mal, decided it was time to return to the tombworld for a cup of tea, and teleported away.

In the end, I killed 6 guardsmen and did two hull points damage (1 on the valkyrie, 1 on the russ), while he destroyed all my armor and annihilated the squads. I thought my list was nice and balanced, even advantageous in a relic match. I screwed up with the warrior group in the open (should have deployed them in the forest where the ratlings ended up, but that was 48" away from the relic, felt like a waste) and I should have let my flayed ones outflank and been less gung-ho with my scarabs. That might have kept more alive, but I'd still have been trounced.
So, any tips on my list or my tactics?

Break up that wall of text with some compositional formatting. That's a brutal read, guy.

Both of these lists seem pretty goofy; biggest tips I can give both you and your friend is to do some reading on competitive army-builds. Bunch of stuff in both armies that just frankly shouldn't be.

A couple things that jumped out at me:

1. You went up against an IG list without any Solar Pulses. That's generally not a good idea. The Night Fighting will help keep you protected from his artillery until you can start to close the gap, and actually get into range of your own weapons. Even just one Cryptek with a Solar Pulse will work wonders; and you will even get a Str 8 AP 2 gun from that guy, too. Great for taking potshots at side armour after he's used the Solar Pulse.

2. I'm personally not a fan of the Tachyon Arrow, but against IG it definitely has its uses. I'm unsure as to why you didn't fire it on your first turn.

3. Those Guardsmen? They're probably not going to hurt you, and you don't have enough firepower to wipe out all of them anyway. Take out his tanks; they are the real threat to you. Scarabs and Solar Pulses will really help with this, although mass Gauss doesn't hurt, either.

4. If you can yet your Overlord into CC with his Guardsmen units, your Overlord can just keep challenging each turn until he runs out of characters; effectively tarpitting for a while. Your Overlord w/ Warscythe & MSS should be able to take out any characters that he goes up against, as he'll swing before any P.Fists and insta-kill the T3 Guardsmen; and any generic power weapons won't be able to do much against the Overlord's Sempiternal Weave. Oh, yeah, and start taking MSS and Sempiternal Weave on your Overlord. Just watch out for Overwatch if you attempt this.

5. You were using Flayed Ones.

i like tesla against gaurd. all those blobs packed up close.... just begging for some arcs.

otherwise.. flayed ones... wow. those are honestly a massive waste of points. get rid of em. next, i would suggest making your warriors 20 strong, instead of 3 squads of 10. then add in a few 5 man immortal squads. without support the scarabs die, so loose those. replace with court lords for your troops. finally, take some annihlation barges. at 1000 pts the doom scythe is a pricey option. instead, a pair of night scythes for your immortals brings double the tesla fire, and minus the random gun. my 1000 pt list would look like:

overlord, ws, mss, CCB
20 warriors, court lord w/ orb, ws, (maybe mss), ghost ark
5 immortals, tesla, night scythe, court lord w/ mss, orb, ws
5 immortals, tesla, nightscythe, court lord w/ mss, orb, ws
annihlation barge
annihlation barge

not sure on the exact points cost of that, but gives you enhanced RP across the table, repairs on your warrior squad (wich will function as anti armor) and you have a fast moving WS sweep attack to smack his flanks and backfield with. nightscythes bring in some fast moving tesla fun, and your annihlation barges bring some more.

also, i like the CCB for anti tank because: you can drive up, sweep and kill one tank, then disembark, and charge a second (or even stay on the barge) so you could take out 2 vehicles a turn with this guy. plus being a fast skimmer gives you jink. you could also consider squeesing in zandrekh to give your units tank hunters. (and remove stealth from ratlings) and so on.

First of all, your list sucks, his list sucks. I'm not really sure how much of a lesson you can learn from this, since a real IG list isn't going to be bringing point-wasters like ratlings.

The only real advice I can offer, besides "bring a better army", is to remember that coherency is 2". A Leman Russ shouldn't be getting even 9/10 hits on a unit if you spread out properly, so remember to keep things spaced out and minimize the damage those templates can inflict.

DarthSpader's list is pretty decent, but I'd consider azazel's suggestion to bring a Solar Pulse, too (maybe drop 5 Warriors from the blob (15 is still good) and get a Destr-tek. Stick him in the Ghost Ark. That way he'll be higher up, and therefore have better line of sight, AND he'll be able to shoot at a different unit than the blob).

In his turn 1 how did his battlecannon kill 9 warriors?! The only thing i can think of is that you had them all bunched up together. Spread them out a bit further to avoid this. if you do this right the battelconnan should only be able to hit 3-4 warriors at a time.

I wouldn't worry too much about losinga single squad of Scarabs. I tend to field 2 squads of 5 as they are very cheap and too dangerous for the opponent to ignore.

I woudl suggets getting an Annihilation Barge or 2. They are probably my favourite unit in the codex as they are supremely effective for their points cost.

it looks like you deployed your Ghost Ark quite fr form the warriors units if you had to race to support them - it has a 6" bubble of support and it's only "the unit" that has to be in range, not all the models. That gives you quite a lot of space to deploy it effectively.



In a 1000 point game the Tachyon Arrow is quite expensive for a one-shot weapon. i woudl drop that and give the Lord a Weave 9for the 2+ save) and use the spare point for another scarab swarm or warrior for example.

another really nice anti vehicle unit is 5 crypteks. give one a vail (60pts total) and take the other 4 as (storm tekks i think? - give them the voltaic staffs) - believe these are either free or 5 pt upgrades. (no codex handy sorry) the whole unit will run about
160 pts, and you get 16 shots that are str 5, and have haywire. plus a nifty flamer that BAKES ig infantry like nothing. and you can teleport them around. those guys will make ANY vehicle just "go away" in a single turn. land raiders, LRBT, you name it. plus against gaurd, they do alright vrs the infantry as well. hitting on 3+ and wounding on 2+. they get armor saves... but at 5+....really? say good bye to that squad.

i find that solar pulses dont really have the kick they did in 5th.

first: it dosent stop the shot, it just gives you cover. with smart deployment, you can get that anyway.

second, if your more then 36" away with necrons, something is wrong. your optimal range is 12-20" so you should be deploying forward and using speed to close gaps. rely and take advantage of your RP, and repair abilities. thats why a big blob of warriors with a orb lord inside, and a ghost ark behind them is a VERY sturdy unit. anything that goes down gets up on 4+, then you repair d3 more every turn. use that advantage. night scyhes can get your other units up into optimal range quickly, and pack a decent gun on top of that. CCBs are fast, and great at taking down ANYTHING thats silly enough to seperate from the main battle line. and if they bunch up, you can still hit the flanks and then charge in. (not to mention if they bunch up, that just makes it easier for your tesla destructers to do their thing)

third: why spend huge pts on something that only really provides a small defensive bonus? necrons are an offensive army. they are meant to attack, hard and fast and not stop. the minute you try to play a defensive game, especially against IG - your going to loose. they out gun, and out range you, so you need to focus on mitigating those odds. close the gap fast with teleporting or speed, and maximize your damage (wich is why i like tesla, every 6 to hit nets 2 free hits, and most things get armor vrs gauss anyway, or will have cover, or invuns etc.)

i agree with forgetting the tachyon arrow. honestly your overlord is pretty tough at stock prices. give him a warscythe, then follow that with MSS and maybe an orb. (although if he runs solo the orb is kind of questionable) ive run my overlords with just WS/MSS/CCB to great effect, and its a pretty cheap unit that hits hard, and can take some beats.

scarabs - really forget em. especially against gaurd. ok they scare vehicles, but the number of blast weapons IG has combined with the "OMG!!! scarabs!!! ahhh!!!!" factor means they die fast without spider support and multiple units. save the points. the cryptek squad i mentioned above does the same job better, and is about the same cost, but is more durable with RP, and can teleport, (so it gets in range faster, even DS in) - wich completly removes any chance of them getting alpha shot down.
EG: with a 10 man unit of scarabs(140pts) you get 50 attacks on the charge, (assuming none die on the way in) vrs vehicles you attack ws 1 or 2, so your hitting on 3+ or 4+ wich is roughly half. so you get 27 hits. out of those, you need another 4+ to use entropic strike. so 14 results. ok that bakes most tanks. BUT: that assumes that you took ZERO fire coming in, wich is unlikley. vrs the cryptek squad, wich can get into range for its first strike without taking a hit, gets 16 shots. hit on 3+ so 10 hits. then you just need a 2+ to glance it. thats probally 8 results... = 8 hP removed and dead tank. both squads can make a vehicle die without a problem. but the cryptek squad is more useful vrs infantry, can teleport into the game, and around the battle as needed. and has RP. the scarabs...have none of that, and are kind of useless in CC vrs infantry.

finally, with your warriors: really a big blob, plus orb lord, and ghost ark makes a very tough unit. deploy them forward in cover, and make things go away. if you REALLY want to protect your ark some more, take a single spider with a fab claw, and hide it behind your ghost ark, it makes a nice CC support if your charged, and it can repair a HP or other damage to the ark, keeping it functioning.

sorry for the wall of text, hopefully this helps.

Thank you all for your feedback, I'll do my best to take it all in and use it next time.

Well I wouldn't suggest flayed ones ever, especially at 1000pts, but if your intent on taking them, then split your 10man squad into 2 5 man squads. Make it so if he wants to shoot at them, then that good for you as he isn't shooting the rest of your army. Also as 5 man squads you force your opponent to "overkill" your squad so that he wastes more firepower than is normally needed to kill the flayed ones. Plus with 2 units you can potentially tie up 2 units for a turn or 2 while your army advances.