Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey guys, I'm a relative newcomer to 40k, with around 10 battles under my belt, and am going to be playing Necrons for the first time on Wednesday. The trouble is I've never played Necrons or have much idea of what to expect. We'll be playing 1000 points, and I have around 1500 points worth of models to choose from. It would be great if you could help me put together an army to face them.

I have no idea of what my opponent is bringing, but he's a really nice guy and so will bring a fun army and won't make it overly competitive. He's told me he won't be bringing any fliers though, as he knows I don't have anything anti-flyer.

Here's what I have to choose an army from.

Captain in power armour, storm bolter and power sword
Librarian in terminator armour (physchic is new to me so I'd love to use him. Any tips on disciplines would be brilliant)
5 assault terminators (3 lighting claws and 2 thunder hammers)
5 sternguard veterans (combi plasma, combi melta and combi flamer)
4 tactical/devastator sergeants (combi plasma, combi melta, combi grav and one with plain boltgun)
17 tactical marines with bolters (can proxy as sternguard if needed)
3 special weapon marines (melta, plasma gun, grav gun)
6 heavy weapon marines (grav Cannon, multi melta, missile launcher, two Lascannon)
5 assault marines (including sergeant and one flamer)
Razorback with lascannons
3 drop pods (two deathwind launchers and one storm bolter)

I'd rather play wysiwyg if possible. Any help would be great, thanks!

First of all, good luck. You're gonna have an uphill battle against necrons no matter what. Your collection is a little lacking in what I would take against necrons. IMHO Rhinos are superior to droppods against necrons, and honor guard can do very well against a wide variety of necron targets. As for advice that you can use though:

bring the librarian, Necrons have no psychic and very little psychic denial enhancements. A librarian gives you the potential to add a lot of effectiveness to your squads.Since he's in terminator armor, I'd go with either telepathy, to try to keep your expensive terminators alive with invisibility, biomancy, because you're gonna end up in close combat with him attached to a terminator squad, and you want to make that count, or Fulmination off the new psychic powers deck, it has a lot of good stuff in there, especially magnetokeinisis, which can pull units close enough to you to charge them. or if you roll electrodisplacement you could even start your terminator unit on the board and get a turn 1 charge with good positioning.

Sternguard in droppods. bring sterguard in droppods with meltas to drop in behind necron vehicles and get rid of their quantum shielding then afterward, either charge a unit, because you're gonna do better in close combat instead of letting necrons rapid fire at you, or at least take some shots at warriors with your AP4 bolter rounds to deny them one of their saves

heavy bolters. heavy bolters put out a decent amount of shots, 36" means you are too far away to get shot back at by almost all necron shooting, and lastly they are cheap. if you have to proxy something, proxy your heavy weapons guys into an all heavy bolter devastator squad

take the terminators, but be careful where you deploy them. necrons will most likely just drown them in gauss until you roll some 1s so if you can, drop them out of line of sight, but near enough to something important that he feels like he has to come to you to deal with them. don't worry so much if they are not in combat for a couple of turns if they are at least making your opponent reposition his units because of their perceived threat

Thanks for the tips. So I'll bring a sternguard squad in a drop pod to come in turn one, and my terminators. What do you reckon about tactical squads? - a couple of ten man squads or several smaller ones?

A couple of questions:
- Should I put my librarian with the terminators, meaning that if they deepstrike there'll be at least one turn when the librarian isn't able to cast any powers.
- in terms of tactics, should I sit back and let him come to me, or advance forward and bring the fight to them?

Thanks for the help

How does this look for an army? The veterans will drop in first turn, and the terminators will either deep strike or walk up the table if there's lots of cover.

I'm not sure where I'd put the librarian though. Either:
- in the terminators, but if they deep strike that means there would be at least one turn without psychic.
- in the sternguard squad, though this could be dangerous.
- in a tactical squad.

How's this looking? And any advice on psychic disciplines?

I’d put the Lib in with the terminators. Alternatively, stick him in the pod with the sternguard. Both are valid choices. I’d roll biomancy if with the terminators, divination with the sternguard. But that’s one of those decisions you can wait to make tableside, and can be influenced by what your opponent brings.

Try not to mix to many weapons in the sternguard. The odds of getting to use them all effectively is low, so it really just bloats their points. With limited models, you run what you have though. I mostly like mine bare-bones with a pair of HFs. But if you want to run combi-spam, I think 4-5 meltas is the best option. I’d not take a normal melta gun if given the option, (I love me some special ammo) but you could probably use the extra melta shots here.

Rather then 4 small tac squads, I’d run 2 full ones, and put them in your pods. You can combat squad out of them to get the same amount of MSU on the table. Points allowing, I’d run one full metla, the other full grav. If you can’t find the points for that, I’d keep the melta pod, but gear the other tac with a HB/F (ML/F if you lack a HB guy)

This gives you a null deployment, 3 pod list. First turn you plop two pods down, CS out of them, and shoot things up. Then you wait for the terminators and the last pod to arrive to help clean up. It's a fairly aggressive list, but fluffy and should play well.

Thanks for the tips, that's great! I've produced this alternate list. I'd put the librarian with the sternguard and drop them and one of the tactical squads in turn 1 (if there are vehicles then the melta squad, otherwise grav). I've had to take away all combi weapons from the sternguard to save points, or should I drop one sternguard to get two combis? Or drop the deathwind launchers and get three combi meltas (I don't mind proxying them)

You could go either way. I’d probably run it as-is and see how it works. You might be a little light on AV stuff, but are probably OK for the point level.

If you do swap stuff out for c-meltas on the sternguard, make sure you take 3+ of them. If they take time out of their busy schedule of filling foes full of special ammo to take a shot at a tank, they better actually kill it. And outside of buffs, it takes 4-5 melta shots to reliable kill something. With a librarian (and possible chapter tactics) you can get that number down. But one thing you want to avoid in general is one guy in a squad taking his hail-mary shot while the rest of the guys take a smoke break. Not an efficient use of their time/points.

Believe it or not, terminators are kind of frustrating for necrons to fight, outside of melee we don't have much in the way of AP 2, so it takes silly amounts of our firepower to take them down. Outside of that the others are much more qualified to tell you what to stick in your army.

The best advice I can offer is manage your expectations, Necrons are tough, and you're lacking a lot of the things that make marines dangerous against them, such as Grav, and a gladius. At 1k points he is going to be able to bring his formation that makes him awesome, so you are going to be on your back foot. Your first list will actually be much harder for him to counter in a maelstrom, with four ob sec units, and the stern guard drop podding in.

just to 2nd the points made by Grimgold; don't go into this expecting an even fight. 'Crons are a difficult race to fight, and especially so if you're limited on model options.

as ever, some great suggestions from Nevelon, try not to mix n match those combi-weapons.

looks like you're in for an uphill battle brother, pray the emperor protects
GamerGuy

Hey guys, thanks for the advice

Just to update you, it was a very close game and I won 8 and 6 on points. Here's the list I ended up taking - a combination of all the previous lists really.