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For all the experienced necron players out there.

What is the ideal number of necron warriors that should be in a squad for it to be effective?

I mean, if you put just the minimum 5 warriors, then its just mainly for objective taking. Few things would consider 5 warriors much of a threat. On the flip side, load up all the way to 20 warriors, and you are inviting such a big blob to get attacked and possibly swept. And if it gets swept in combat, that's a lot of points just lost.

So, what is the ideal number, and does this number change if it is unsupported by any necron lords or crypteks vs being on its own?

How about 15? Or 12? What is that ideal number such that when you place that squad on the table, it is too dangerous to ignore, because it hits vehicles, and it can take a sizable dent out of anything else. Yet, they are forced to divert more troops than its point cost to deal with it, and such that it will make back its points every game. So, what is the magic number?

Im not a Necron player, but I have played my friends Necrons a few times. He runs his in squads of 10. Now I dont know if this is ideal, but id say between 10-15 seems like a good number. At that size, if I wanted them gone I had to devote considerable resources to taking them out, resources that were better used on higher threat units. Plus, with a Res Orb in there, its damn hard to make a serious dent in their numbers without a full turn of dedicated shooting on them.

It really depends on what you want to do with them. hile they have no options themselves, their abilities + other support units in the codex make them a highly adaptable force that can be molded around how you want to use them.

To build on what Maelstrom808 said:

Option #1
Sometimes I'll load up three or four night scythes with five man warrior squads + 1 cryptek of the storm. While they can hold a completely unprotected objective or help out with line breaker where it shines the most is when you need a russ, LR or vindie taken out. Wanna make your opponent cry? take out both his fast vindie's in turn two. Just be prepared to lose those two units to shooting in your opponents turn :(

Option #2
I've been known to take 20 with a fully decked out overlord (orb, mss, ws, sw - whole nine yards). Add a stalker with the heavy gauss and have him sit back and make that brick twin linked. Overkill against armor. Keep a squad of wraiths on hand to make people think twice about assaulting them.

That's how I tend to roll. Either as MSUs or the brick.

Common Loadouts I've seen:

5 Men in a Nightscythe for MSU suppression and objective holding.
8-9 Men with 1 to 2 Crypteks (depending on the number of courts) in a Ghost Ark for a durable gunboat with decent AA (usually from Destruction or Storm Crypteks)
15+ Warriors + Res-Lord, on foot or with GA support. Mathematically speaking, Res Orbs won't save their points in Necrons until at least 12 Warriors, but even at 12 warriors an orb may not be as good as 2 additional warriors due to the decrease in the volume of fire output, so I don't really recommend them with squads smaller than 15. Additionally, if you take this configuration, you can stick a second warrior squad in the Ark to protect it and act as a gunboat, or a Royal Court for a disco party.

I find 10 to be both the minimum and maximum number. 10 Fits into transports (both ghost arks and nightscythes), can footslog, and is small enough that if it is swept in CC it won't cost the game.

One tactic I've been using in recent games is to put 10 warriors in a GA, then have another 12-15 footslogging around it. This gives the potential to fire at 4 separate targets, and somewhat protects the GA. If the footsloggers take wounds and don't res, the GA just rebuilds them. For maximum effectiveness, use this either as a distraction while you do something dastardly elsewhere, or set up some distraction elsewhere and use this to take out vehicles/blobs.

20 or 20

 necron99 wrote:
To build on what Maelstrom808 said:

Option #1
Sometimes I'll load up three or four night scythes with five man warrior squads + 1 cryptek of the storm. While they can hold a completely unprotected objective or help out with line breaker where it shines the most is when you need a russ, LR or vindie taken out. Wanna make your opponent cry? take out both his fast vindie's in turn two. Just be prepared to lose those two units to shooting in your opponents turn :(

Option #2
I've been known to take 20 with a fully decked out overlord (orb, mss, ws, sw - whole nine yards). Add a stalker with the heavy gauss and have him sit back and make that brick twin linked. Overkill against armor. Keep a squad of wraiths on hand to make people think twice about assaulting them.

That's how I tend to roll. Either as MSUs or the brick.

This is almost exactly what I do also. It also depends if I am playing double-court of single-court/D-lord. If I'm doing double court, I almost always do many-5-man squads with 2 court members (destruction for all sorts of st8ap2 36"). The brick has yet to fail me though, interesting to note.

I see 10 or 20 from our Necron Players. 20 on the straight foot sloggers and 10 on the scyths as I think that is the Transport limit.