anyone know necrons

[greatcrusade08]

Ill probably have a section for "other units", which will include LR's and vanguard, this may cross over with the HQ option of Shrike...

Khan is still a big fave with S5 and I5 they hit first against even flayed ones, and S5 will oust a few more crons before they attack back. Khan on bike is always a big fave. the rapid firing S6 grenades are pretty handy too.

 

I think a libby could help here too, maybe he can sort out that darned Lith, if not his psychic attacks could mess up necron warrios pretty well and he can gate around a rapid firing squad for protection and to bolster pre assault shooting (even one or two casulties can turn a combat)

 

Any other options do you think?

 

GC08

[Captain Malachi]

Meltabombs should be discussed before the game. Personally I'm of the opinion that they don't but a lot of rules lawyers try and claim that since they aren't a weapon the line "in practice, any weapon attacking the monolith will roll for armour penetration using its unaugmented strength and a single D6 no matter what" doesn't apply. They also like to conveniently forget it's there as well. To be honest in the interest of actually having a game with some semblence of fun, just say that meltabombs only get the one D6. Oh, that line also seems to say that power fists don't get double strength to me, but for some reason no one else seems to agree *shrugs*.

[greatcrusade08]

Ill accept that and write the article assuming they dont get 2D6...

 

GC08

[Borinar]

Weapons that double a characters CC str are still good, its weapons that get a 2d6 for armor pen that dont get the extra d6, chainfists are just power fists for 5 more points, melta bombs are only a d6. Ordanance gets the 2d6 pick the higher and is the only one that gets to, even bright lances dont get to down grade the armor value (i know eldar).

 

However, i see nothing in the rules for items that add +1 to the damage chart so Lysander can glance roll a 6 and get a 5 on the chart. AP 1 weapons still get a +1 so they also can glance ang get a 6 for a 5. As you can see you have to get double 6's on melta to get that wrecked. A vindicator could do it however, to get into that 24" range means that the Lith can Whip you and that means if the hole on the template is on your tank its AP1 which means he can likely Pen your tank while you are trying to barely Pen his on a armor pen roll of 5+.

 

It should be noted that a monolith can Deep strike on a turn and scatter into your models and if it does you have to move yours out of the way to make room for the Lith, it only rolls for miss hap if it scatters off the table or onto impassable terrain, though it is a skimmer so it may be debatable on the terrain.

 

When it Deep strikes it can flux arc all models within 12" for D6 attacks, they are light hits but force saves, and a 4+ save will not last long against that.

 

I still think that a monolith should be destroyed after 7-8 weapon destroyed/immobilized results since you cannot kill any more weapons and cannot immobilize it any further. 7 because i think there is an faq about the lfux arc can still hit for 1 attack no matter so 5+1(immoblized)+1(a final coffin nail)=7, or 8 because you can d6 flux arc so same formula.

[Castus Xanthis]

Librarians can't hurt the monolith much, for machine curse you have to roll a 5 or 6 and even then it is going to take a while and vortex of doom is very hit or miss.

[Borinar]

There is a nice melta combo in another post:

 

Vulkan

Librarian (gate)

Attack Bike Squad of 2+ with MM

 

that combo you can pump several (practically garunteed) melta hits into a vehicle turn 1.

[Castus Xanthis]

Monoliths are usually kept off table and deep struck into the centre of your army where they can flux arc and usually eliminate a good portion of your army in one turn. The only defence is to be spread out and in good cover (it can only use the flux arc against targets it can see). As for glancing it to death it takes 2 weapon destroyed results and an immobilized result plus another result of either for the kiling blow unless it has the same rule as the pylon where it loses a shot for each weapon destroyed result in which case it takes 7 weapon destroyed results, one immobilized result and another result to kill it in either case it is very hard to glance a monolith to death. I recommend always avoiding it but if you absolutely have to kill it DCCWs work along with Lysander's hammer and demolisher cannons.

[Captain Malachi]

Nah, you can't glance it to death. The power matrix can't be destroyed by weapon destroyed results, so it'll always have a weapon left. It's odd but it's immune to 'death by glancing'.

[Frosty the Pyro]

The thing with meltabombs is a RAW vs RAI vs :cuss sort of thing. By raw, yes they get 2d6 (yeah that last line with the "in practice bit" doesnt matter, because it says "in practice" that like saying "in most cases" and was likely added (its not in the original printing) to lessen confusion, yeah GW screwed the pooch a bit with that one). by RAI it feals realy realy weird.

 

 

On a more on topic bit, whats the opinion of Telion sniping out necron lords to selectivly wound lords and get rid of res orbs. while not that usefull in a all scout army (as your not packing much thats going to need the orb to allow WBB), it could be used in conjuction with other bits (such as a vindicator).

[Captain Malachi]

In practice means always, dunno what dictionary you're using but you need a new one :P.

[Castus Xanthis]

Telion is always a good choice since he has a rending weapon with a 30" range.

[greatcrusade08]

Telion is always a good choice since he has a rending weapon with a 30" range.

 

You mean 36" surely?

Plus he shoots twice and has BS6, so he needs 2's to hit and get re-rolls of 6's if he does roll a one.

Plus with his special abilities hes pretty hardcore.

 

GC08

 

Edit for clarification on telions rules

Pinning

Rending

Eye of vengeance

Voice of experience

Stealth

[Warp Angel]

-You're not going to generally be able to outshoot Necrons. They have the equivalent of bolters that glance vehicles on a 6.

-Despite the high base model cost, due to the lack of vehicles, they're probably going to outnumber you, or at least field comprable model count.

-Without high S/AP2 or better weaponry, they've essentially got something slightly better than Feel No Pain in the "We'll be back" rule.

-They're relatively weak in hand to hand as a general rule, but are hard to kill. Their relative weakness is made up for, by some extent, with the larger squad sizes they are capable of.

-Base leadership is 10, meaning that they need to lose combat by a lot before they'll break.

-I2 means that when they break, you'll probably run them down.

-Run down Necrons don't get WBB.

 

-A Monolith is going to wreck scout squads all by its lonesome. Between the particle whip and the gauss flayers, it can deep strike safely into the middle of your deployment area and start beating on you. And there's not a lot you can do about it.

-Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers are essentially bikes with heavy weapons (more or less heavy bolters and lascannons) that can dish out a world of hurt to even full Marine squads. Your 4+ save isn't going to help much.

-The Land speeders, while reducing the LD of the Necrons, will have to be fielded together to have a fair chance of winning hand to hand against a large squad of Necrons. 11 attacks from sarge and the other 4 scouts isn't a guaranteed win when you've got 15+ attacks coming back.

-A Necron Destroyer Lord is capable of beating a 5 man scout squad by himself in hand to hand, as well as raising Necrons up who were destroyed by things that normally ignore WBB.

 

The only times I'm successful against Necrons is when I'm able to engage in assault and am simultaneously able to destroy their destroyers at range. They're fast enough to avoid being caught in an assault, and have the range to engage whatever they want to on any given turn. You have to be able to engage them at range.

[Borinar]

They shine at short range, so either hit them hard at long range or hit them hard in CC but mid range they will force so many saves that your dice will melt!

[Warp Angel]

They shine at short range, so either hit them hard at long range or hit them hard in CC but mid range they will force so many saves that your dice will melt!

 

Depending on the army build, they may outgun you at long range (i.e. Destroyer Heavy), while being relatively immune to long range fire in return due to good saves, WBB, Res Orbs, etc.

[Captain Malachi]

You can have a maximum of 24 destroyer type units in an army (26 if you count lords but they aren't long ranged). Whereas you have to take at least 20 warriors. Therefore I think it's safe to assume they will be better at medium range than long range.

[Brother Tual]

Necrons are my nemesis army - for some reason I always struggle against them and I dont know why..

 

anyway - I have only once been able to out shoot a necron list and win - using typhoons - I took out the 8 destroyers first turn that he had and his two heavy destroyers through an ironclad in a pod - he had no models in range to WBB and they all died.. Form there I lost the ironclad to mass gauss fire but the typhoons just kitted and blew whole units away each turn until I got the phase out - they simply cannot shoot more than 24' bar two unit types..

 

Other than that - I have only done it through combats - you do loose a bit on the way in, but once you are in and you can contact multiple units with more than one of your own, alot of their counter ability is lost -

 

As I said earlier - I think that tricky IC combos and unit abilities (shrike and Khan etc) are going to be your easiest way of doing the job.. but that is not really doing it with scouts..

 

Big units with a PF in each - match him model for model and just hope enough make it in.. sounds like a guard thing to do but without the ability to take reliable heavy weapons with any significant number it is going to be the hardest method to try and win at range...

 

Immortals are definately going to be a key unit against you with scouts..

[Borinar]

The last time i faced 2k necrons (2 liths) i got very lucky, he was tossing particle whips around like candy except one scattered off my Dread which i then used to walk up to the immobilised Lith and break it. The other Lith got a taste of Lysander runnning up and Breaking it. I did learn to respec Immortals, they just wont die even 1 squad thats been knocked to the ground, half will get back up. C'Tan can be destroyed by Missile Launchers and Hellfire rounds, my Sternguard ate well that day. I prefer power weapons to PF for going after warriors, there are just so many of them.

[greatcrusade08]

Ill put his here as first draft, the second draft will have its own thread...

 

[center; background-image:url(http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/hq2.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 8px 2px; padding: 12px 8px 12px 8px; border: 1px solid #DDD; margin-left: 0 auto; text-align: left; color: #fff; text-indent:50px; font-size:130%; width:50%;">Scout tactics: Part 6 Necrons[/center]

 

This article will cover necrons as an opponent to playing an all scout army. Necrons are a tough opponent for any force to face, even more so if you elect to choose only scout units, in this article I will try to show the ways in which to improve your chances of victory through unit selection and tactics.

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/hq2.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 8px 2px; padding: 12px 8px 12px 8px; border: 1px solid #DDD; margin-left: 0 auto; text-align: left; color: #fff; text-indent:50px; font-size:130%; width:50%;">WBB: we'll be back rule

 

When a necron model is killed it is placed on its side, at the start of each necron turn you roll a dice for each model, on a 4+ they get back up. For this to work they need to be within 6” of another model of the same type or within 12” of a tomb spyder.

WBB can only be negated by double strength weapons, rending and CC power weapons, however a resurrection orb can be used to give these dead necrons their WBB roll.

Combined with their basic 3+ armour saves this makes necrons extremely difficult to kill.

 

Phase out

 

The best way to beat necrons is to make them phase out, to do this you have to destroy 75% of all models with the necron rule, these include:

Lords, Immortals, Flayed ones, Warriors, Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers.

Models not included are:

Pariahs, Scarab Swarms, Tomb Spyders, Monoliths, Nightbringer and the Deceiver.

 

Monolith

 

The necron monolith is a scary propostion for a scout army to face, it can deepstrike in the middle of your forces and can shoot at every unit within 12”, potentially decimating your army single handedly.

Unfortunatey there is little we can do to destroy a monolith as with AV14 even a melta weapon needs a 6 to cause a glance and then a 6 to destroy it, and in scout armies melta weapons are hard to come by.

The only good thing to facing a monolith is that your opponent has paid a lot of points into a model that doesn’t count towards his phase out total, also these ‘wasted’ points means you will have to kill fewer necron models to win the game.

Monoliths can teleport necron warrior units from other places on the board and have them disembark, it can also be used this way to allow models their WBB rolls.

 

Tactics: If the monolith does teleport near your troops, there is little you can do except whether the storm of fire, in the next turn its best to either keep out of its 12” firing arc, or enter CC and remove yourself as a shooting target. Of course making good use of cover and camo cloaks is also a good idea.

Another point to remember is that Monoliths cannot be destroyed by multiple weapon destroyed results, infact a weapon destroyed result wont stop his guns from firing.

If possible try to avoid firing at the monolith unless you have no other targets, and whilst you cannot destroy it directly without melta weapons a S8 krak missile is capable of immobilising it, making it easier to avoid its close range multi-shots.

Even a stunned or shaken result can keep its guns silent, so it may be of some use to try for the occasional glancing hit.

The only viable tactic to taking down a monolith is to spam double melta LSS teams, a couple of these teams should be able to do some damage to it, but this does require an element of luck. Of course by choosing Vulkan as your HQ, you can then re-roll failed to hit rolls with your melta weapons increasing your chances even more.

Meltabombs

There is some debate on whether meltabombs roll 2D6 for armour penetration against monoliths, the wording of the rule does seem to allow it, but without an FAQ to clear it up, we have to assume its not the case when writing a tactica.

The plan is to take an LSS with multi-melta a 5 man scout squad with combi-melta and meltabombs, when the Monolith shows up, you can fire both melta weapons and then plant meltabombs, each such unit gives you 3 chances to damage the monolith, of course the meltabombs dont add +1 to damage table as they are not AP1 and the combi-meltas are only single use, so these units are reduced in effectiveness after the initial strike. Even if used this way the chances of success are not great, but it is possible none the less.

Filling your valuable fast attack spaces with anti-tank tank choices may not be the best way to go, but Multi-meltas can be very handy against most necron types so it’s a tactic that is worth considering as the unit can still play a part in the battle.

By far the best option is to keep your units spread out, and avoid it like the plague, use your shots and attacks on units you have far better odds of destroying instead.

 

C'Tan

 

C'tan are the necron “gods”, each one is a monstrous creature with a 4+ inv save, the two available to the necrons are the nightbringer and deceiver.

Ultimately the best way to deal with them is the same for any MC, hit them with snipers and missile fire until they stop moving.

You could choose to ignore them, as they don’t count towards phase out, but ultimately if you kill them they wont be able to employ some of their special rules and amazing close combat prowess to kill your own troops

 

destroyers

 

Necron destroyers are T5 and are fast moving skimmers with weapons that have a similar stat line to heavy bolters, these weapons are the bane of scout armies with S6 AP4 and must be avoided as much as possible, utilising cover and taking camo cloaks are the best way to survive these shooting attacks, and with their high Toughness, snipers would be best at taking them down.

 

Close combat

 

Necrons are primarily a shooty army, and are very good at it too. Most of their base units are slow and ineffective in close combat, and with their WBB rules, close combat is the best place to do the damage.

A unit of necron warriors has 1 attack each and Initiative of 2, this means scouts will get the first strike, whether or not you use power weapons instead of fists is personal preference, the PW will strike first, but the fist will do more damage, and with the low number of attacks back the fist will probably still be around to do the damage.

With the WBB rule you have to win combat and break the necrons, with their low intiative you should be able to run them down and remove their ability to repair themselves with WBB, the important facts to note are that necrons are Ld10 which means you would need to beat them well in CC to reduce this enough, although a combined assault using a large CCW scout squad and an LSS team will add the Cerberus launcher affect onto their Ld score.

Also note that a necron lord or tomb spyder may still be able to repair the dead necrons even though they were cut down, so these units are priority targets if you want to keep the necrons down for good.

Alternatively if the lord is in with a unit of necrons target his unit and attempt to kill 2 brids with one stone as it were.

The problem with this tactic is that if the necrons have a monolith it can be used to withdraw the necron unit from CC and makes your unit vulnerable to shooting, the key is to hit them hard enough in one turn to destroy them thereby removing the chance of this happening.

The next obstacle we face with this tactic is that necrons are extremely dangerous at rapid fir range, if we try to get close for charges our delicate scout units will quickly be decimated, the options we have are first turn charges or the use of transports and mobile units to do the charging.

 

Tactics

 

Ulitmately our main priority to is to make the necrons phase out, even if we are losing on KP or objectives if they phase out we win!

To do this their units with necron rule must be destroyed, and to this end close combat is by far the easiest way to accomplish it.

As I have mentioned getting in close with units to assault will result in large losses to necron shooting, but mobile hard hitters like big units of bikes and LSS teams would be perfect for killing necron units and combined with a decent HQ charcter like Khan on bike they can hit hard enough to wipe them out, the LSS team will provide the Ld modifier once we win combat and Khans high intiative means they will almost certainly be run down.

The high strength grenade launchers will wound necrons on a 2+ and would help to bolster pre assault shooting from the bikes.

Now we know that killing them in CC is possible we have to look at keeping them down, as I pointed out certain units can still bring them back from the dead, necron lords and tomb spyders are the main culprits for this and must be dealt with early on to avoid our hard work being undone.

Snipers units would be reasonably useful in taking down the tomb spyder whilst the lord would be best dealt with by a strong CC unit, perhaps its best as described above to target him and his attached unit by your strong assault elements at the same time.

If taken solo he becomes vulnerable to shooting and can be dealt with by a single MM blast from an LSS storm.

 

Multiple assaults: Although its important to wipe out the necrons as quickly as possible, its also a good idea to prevent them shooting, in some cases tying up multiple units from a single charge may be a good idea, especially if they are crammed together for support.

In these cases the monolith cannot withdraw all the engaged units and you wont then be vulnerable to shooting, also if they didn’t take a monolith you can wear them down slowly or hold them in place until more units can be sent to help.

 

Heavy weapons: Of the two choices available the ML has a good bonus over the heavy bolter as it has AP3 and S8 which means it will negate normal necron armour saves and negate WBB on T4 necrons.

Although a far better use for heavy weapons is in with sniper squads to help bring down ctan, used with Telions voice of experience, a ML can be used to plant wounds on these monstrous creatures, needing a 2+ to hit and 4+ to wound, although it should be said the Ctan have a 4+ invulnerable save, still combined with the other snipers you should be able to score some wounds. also a hellfire shot can be used this way to wound on 2+, which more than outweighs the chance of scatter

The same tactic can be used to do wounds on necron warrior squads with Telions VOE ability, although in this case using the hellfire heavy bolter rounds to wound multiple necrons on 2+.

 

Combi-weapons: If you have read my previous articles, then you would know my stance on scout squads using plasma weapons, but in some cases i have pointed out that scout sergeants who have no other special weapons like meltabombs or power weapons, can afford to take the risk of Gets hot wounds.

Against necrons the extra plasma shot at rapid fire can often make the chances of gets hot wounds worth the risk, although if using a combi-weapon on an 'important' scout sergeant then the combi-melta has obvious benefits over the plasma, with S8 and AP1 it can instant kill most necron troop types and ignore WBB.

 

Non-scout units

 

Against Necrons it may be adviseable to add in a few non-scout elements into your army, a decent HQ gives you a few options to play around with for example:

 

Shrike: as mentioned in previous articles, Shrike gives you the option to take a hard hitting CC unit like an assault squad or vanguard and gives them infiltrate, this keep the scout theme of your army relatively intact and allows you to utilise the necrons CC weakness a little more effectively, and also allows for first turn charges.

With their power weapons and massed attacks these units are perfect for killing necrons and with jump packs are perfect for keeping clear of rapid fire range.

 

Khan: Khan is my all time favourite IC, his furious charge ability has it uses against most armies and he is flexible in that he can be taken on foot or mounted, this is unusual for a special character.

Against necrons Khans Initiative bonus may not make a huge difference, but against necron CC elements like flayed ones who have intiative 4 it can sway the battle in your favour, on bike he can be added into scout bike squads to from a highly mobile assault unit and the strength bonuses can only help to kill more T4 necrons.

Ultimately his strength bonus is best used to compliment a greater number of attacks, in the case of scout armies this means a scout CCW squad, this is a cheap option and can be upgraded to include a power weapon or fist for extra damage, the biggest advantage is getting 36 attacks at S5 and I5, which should be enough to beat most necron units and make them flee, again Khans high intiative will help to run them down.

The problem with this, is again getting footsloggers into range of his units without them being shot to pieces, a viable option is to include a land raider as a transport for your HQ, this adds other options to our game plan

 

Landraiders: The choice of LR for your HQ unit can affect your tactics, whilst a redeemer is by far the best option for taking down necrons with template auto hits, 2+ to wound and no saving throws, it can also be upgraded to include a MM, aswell as the assault cannon in comes with as standard, these weapons are excellent at killing necrons and the MM can be used to damage the monolith

But I must reiterate the point that it is far better to shoot at units you know you can kill, than to rely on lucky shots against the monolith. It is however a good option if no other units are in LOS or in range.

The other choice is a landraider with twin lascannons, these weapons can also be used to destroy monoliths and with BS4 and twin linked re-rolls can do it better than any other unit in a scout army.

 

Orbital bombardment: Generic or special characters with this ability can be used early in the game to score some much needed kills, although the OB is unreliable with its scatter, if it hits a large warrior unit its high strength and AP means it disallows WBB and saving throws aswell as wounding on a 2+, and at S10 can also be used to take out the monolith quite successfully.

Being S10 it can also be used to negate WBB on necron destroyers.

 

WIP...more to come, please let m eknow if ive missed anything important or have gotten something wrong..

I still have to add a section in dealing with scarab swarms, its on my to do list

[Captain Malachi]

Assault cannon can't be used to kill the monolith, rending is negated by living metal. Also you said land raiders are BS3, I'm assuming that's a typo, just thought you should know.

[greatcrusade08]

Assault cannon can't be used to kill the monolith, rending is negated by living metal. Also you said land raiders are BS3, I'm assuming that's a typo, just thought you should know.

 

yup good catch ill just sort that out...;)

always happens with first drafts...hehe

 

Gc08

[Castus Xanthis]

When a necron model is killed it is placed on its side, at the start of each necron turn you roll a dice for each model, on a 4+ they get back up. For this to work they need to be within 6” of another model of the same type or within 12” of a tomb spyder.

WBB can only be negated by double strength weapons and weapons that ignore saving throws, however a resurrection orb can be used to give these dead necrons their WBB roll.

Combined with their basic 3+ armour saves this makes necrons extremely difficult to kill.

This is not quite accurate, only AP1 and AP2 weapons ignore WBB, AP3 weapons don't.

[Captain Malachi]

Unless they've FAQ'd it (and even then it isn't really official), even AP1/2 weapons don't ignore it, it says CC attacks only in my codex.

[greatcrusade08]

The ignore saving throws was meant to mean power weapons and power fists, i can change it in order to clear the wording up, thats not a problem..

 

GC08

[Borinar]

This is not quite accurate, only AP1 and AP2 weapons ignore WBB, AP3 weapons don't.

 

I am sorry but Ap1 is for Feel no pain and will not disallow WBB for Immortals and Destroyers, also Plasma weapons AP2 will not instant kill necrons so they would get their WBB on those as well.

 

Also your line for the WBB rule is not quite right. Ranged Weapons that would cause Instant Death and CC weapons that ignore armor saves will negate WBB, so its not only power weapons but rending as well.

 

I would also reccomend bringing Heavy Hellfire Bolters instead of missile launchers because you get more shots at 36" and you can bypass the high toughness of the power units.