Necrons... can anyone give me a heads up?

[Retalitus]

Hey folks... Got an upcoming campaign where I'll be facing Necrons for the first time with my CSM and Daemon armies.

 

Now, I've read all about the Monolith here on B&C, but I know next to nothing about the rest of their force, or any tactics I should be employing against them. From what I've gathered, I should be aiming to leave any Monoliths alone, and going straight for their warriors... or something like that!

 

Would really appreciate it if anyone here could give me some tips on what nasty surprises may be in store for me, and how best I can deal with what I'm likely to face!

[minigun762]

From what I've gathered, I should be aiming to leave any Monoliths alone, and going straight for their warriors... or something like that!

 

Exactly.

The big drawback of Necron is "phase out". I forget the exact wording but it basically means that the INSTANT they have lesss then 25% of all units listed as "Necron" alive, they auto-lose. This is the reason you ignore Monoliths, they don't count towards the Phase out number.

At the start of the match, find out what the phase out number is and keep track of it. If I remember right you check for Phase out BEFORE "We'll Be Back" (WBB) which is what I'll talk about next.

 

WBB is a rule that plays like a funky version of Feel No Pain. If you kill a unit, they come back to life on a 4+. Now there is some exceptions. 2x S weapons, Power Weapons and AP2/1 weapons all negate WBB. The typical counter to this is that a Necron Lord will carry a ressurection orb (bit of wargear) that allows the units to ignore those weapons so most everything gets a WBB roll.

Important thing, you don't get a WBB roll if there is not another similar unit within 6". This is most important for their skimmers. If you kill the entire squad and there isn't a similar squad within 6", no getting backup.

 

Run down on the scary units.

Necron Lords are decent in HtH, they have either a Power weapon that ignores Inv saves as well or a power weapon that also has some short range shooting. They will almost always have that orb I mentioned. Often in big games, people will play with two such Lords. The other big piece of wargear they get is the ability to teleport themselves and their attached squad out of combat and anywhere on the map. This is doubly dangerous as it means its hard to kill them in assault and it moves them into rapid fire range.

 

Warriors are their only troop choice. They're basically Marines with a Bolter that auto-glances any armor on a 6 (I think it also auto-wounds on 6's too), so its like a weak version of rending.

 

Destroyers/Heavy Destroyers are their fast moving skimmers. They're Fast/Heavy choices respectively. The one carries a suped up Heavy Bolter, the other a LasCannon. Treat them similar to Loyalist Attack Bikes and you'll be ok.

 

Monoliths you know about. Try to ignore them if at all possible. The big pain in the ass with them is they also can teleport units out of combat and that teleport gives them a 2nd chance at their WBB roll.

 

Flayed Ones are basically infiltrating Assault Marines, not too scary.

Immortals are super Warriors. They pack an assault Heavy Bolter and are T5. Expensive though.

 

Tomb Spyders are MCs with the ability to create scarabs or help repair units. Not hugely scary but fairly cheap.

 

Scarabs are like Nurglings basically, but usually pack an upgrade that lets them auto-glance armor on 6's. They are a tarpit/anti-tank unit and they are fast.

 

I'd say the typical Necron army is probably something like this:

1-2 Necron Lord w/ Orbs (one with teleport)

2-4 squads of 10 Warriors

2-3 squads of 3-5 Destroyers

Either 2-3 Monoliths or 2-3 squads of Heavy Destroyers and 1-2 Tomb Spyders

 

As for how to kill them, its simple really.

Assault the crap out them. They're the same as slow (I2) Tactical Marines. We're Chaos, we can outassault almost anyone.

Power Fists, Meltaguns, Plasma Cannons, these are your friends.

Try to assault multiple units, so they can't teleport everyone out.

If you win combat, you can often run the whole squad down. They have LD10 but with enough wounds, they'll be failing the morale check and I2 isn't going to save them. If you run a squad down, it gets no WBB which is a HUGE advantage for you.

Vindicators/Defilers/Obliterators are all good choice as our Terminators.

 

I hope that helps some, its alot to process.

[IronWinds]

I play both armies(chaos and necrons) so here is my two cents.

 

 

If you have something that can kill the mono(like an all las pred).... do it, but don't focus to much time on it because it doesn't count towards phase out. While it does not count towards their phase out any compentant necron player is going to use the monoliths special rules to bring back necrons, in addition to everything it kills more than making up for the fact that it doesn't count towards phase out. The monolith can teleport squads, and when it does they get to re-roll all failed WBB rolls. Not only that but it can teleport them out of close combat. So the squad you just maimed, get back up, appear in front of you and shoot you at point blank again. I'm sure you can see that next turn... repeat. When it is not doing that its dropping pie plates everywhere, and anything close to the thing gets hit with a lot of anti infantry fire. More units near it, more it gets to shoot. Now as I'm sure you know, the only weapon you have that is actually effective against the thing is a lascannon. Melta weapons, power fists, chainfists, DCCWs, monstrous creatures... all loose their anti-vehilce bonuses.

 

Lord w/ Res orb. If you can kill this guy, do it early. As long as he is alive people are going to keep coming back regardless of what you kill them with.

 

Lord with Viel of Darkness: He can teleport every turn, taking a squad with him. Just be prepared to have stuff apear out of thin air. Most of the time they teleport immortals. If you assault this squad try to get in base to base with the lord, and if you do direct everything you can against him because if he lives they will just teleport away next turn.

 

Lords can have weapons that ignor inv saves, but I wouldn't worry about it. A good DP can kill a lord no problem. I once had a DP kill a necron lord 10 times in a row. Seriously, the thing kept getting back up.

 

Vehicles are your friend. Necrons took a huge hit in 5th. They use to be able to kill any tank with any of their guass weapons. Now that glancing isn't as bad... neither are their weapons. If one of their warrior squads opens up on a tank still expect to suffer a stunned, immobalised, or gun destroyed result though.

 

Try to get in HtH early. They are weak there. If you have the firepower try to take on the monolith, but I would actually keep oblits firing plasma cannons into their troops or at their destroyers. Destroyers are a major target, if you wipe out the whole squad they very rarely come back and they are one of the necrons biggest assets. There only really good anti tank unit are the heavy destroyers. Monolith is also good at anti tank, but in order to fire its big gun it can't teleport anyone.

 

Flayed ones: Not very effective against CSMs. Not a big worry.

Scarabs: not a big threat but time consuming to kill, str 6 weapons make short work of them. I use to use these to tie up units while I moved my C'tan in for the kill. Just a warning.

Pariah: Over priced, keep your termies away from them though(ignor all saves). Oh and they don't get back up, so shooting them is a good idea. Watch out, they are nasty againt psykers and lower your Ld.

Destroyers(regular and heavy): Mean. Consider a primary target.

Warriors: Get in HtH

Tomb spyders: Can be kinda scary in hth. Not to much of a threat though.

Wraith: Meant for hth, but not very good at it. They always get their save, that is the worst part about it so PWs are not to great against them. Oh do watch out, they can move through anything.

C'tan: Hope he doesn't field one. It eats up a ton of points making it easier to phase them out, but it takes a lot of firepower to kill one of these things. And don't even think about hth unless your throwing cheap stuff at him to tie him up. These things are nasty in hth, keep your DP, termies, lords, tanks, anything expensive very far away from the thing. If your playing demons try to tie it up with cheap stuff, at str 10, T8, and ignoring all saves these things eat up expensive HQs. Can also move through anything.

 

Hope all that helps.

[Jeffy.Gee]

As a Necron and Chaos Space Marine player myself, I'd recommend exactly those tactics you listed.

Monoliths are pretty awesome but a big points sink. Two of them adds upto 470 points and that's a big chunk of your opponents list right there.

Plasma cannons, Defilers and Vindicators are all really going to punish your opponent as you can get lots of hits and wounds and start knocking them down to size nice and quick. Oh and Necrons really are pants in close combat so a nice fat squad of CSM or Bezerkers will do wonders as well.

 

The scariest units in the codex in my opinion are destroyers. 36inch, strength6, heavy3 weapons mounted on skimmers are certainly mobile and a big pain to avoid and kill (T5 with WBB as well). But at 50 points a piece the cost of an effective squad soon mounts up. Take a few out early enough and you'll have no problems attacking the bulk of his force.

 

It's difficult to tell you much else without knowing your points limit, unit composition or favored tactics but my above points are a start. To be honest though Necrons have a pretty pants codex in 5th so it's pretty much a one sided battle anyway.

 

I would say "Good luck", but I really want the Necrons to win.... so I'm not going to! :confused:

 

JG

[Devil Dog]

You could try a little trick if he brings a C'Tan, it probably won't work but it annoys the crap outta Necron players. Take a Chaos sorceror on a bike with Gift of chaos. Get in close to the C'Tan and use it. Roll a 6 and its byebye C'Tan! Otherwise Turbo-boost like mad to get away. This also works with a greater degree of success on the lords.

[Citizen Snips]

Necrons are a joke vs CSM or Demons. If you play CSM, throw zerkers at warriors and sweeping advance. You play Demons, throw Bloodletters at warriors and sweeping advance. Tactical win!

 

Ignore monoliths all together, unless you have a las cannon that can not see anything but the monolith. If he has a C'tan, throw some regular marines or lesser demons at it to tie it up for a bit. Other than that, you will beat everything of his in melee. Even the lord is Initiative 4 and can die before even fighting back with his lame bat.

 

You could try a little trick if he brings a C'Tan, it probably won't work but it annoys the crap outta Necron players. Take a Chaos sorceror on a bike with Gift of chaos. Get in close to the C'Tan and use it. Roll a 6 and its byebye C'Tan! Otherwise Turbo-boost like mad to get away. This also works with a greater degree of success on the lords.

 

You can't do this unless the Necron player is an idiot. Gift is done at the start of a turn before anything even moves. So you would have to come right next to a C'Tan and hope he forgets to assault you. You can't wait in combat till the next turn either because his STR 8 warscythe will instant kill you.

[Pinky Narfanet]

From what I've gathered, I should be aiming to leave any Monoliths alone, and going straight for their warriors... or something like that!

 

Exactly.

The big drawback of Necron is "phase out". I forget the exact wording but it basically means that the INSTANT they have lesss then 25% of all units listed as "Necron" alive, they auto-lose. This is the reason you ignore Monoliths, they don't count towards the Phase out number.

At the start of the match, find out what the phase out number is and keep track of it. If I remember right you check for Phase out BEFORE "We'll Be Back" (WBB) which is what I'll talk about next.

Phase Out is calculated after We'll Be Back rolls (which occurs at the beginning of the Necron player's turn).

[minigun762]

From what I've gathered, I should be aiming to leave any Monoliths alone, and going straight for their warriors... or something like that!

 

Exactly.

The big drawback of Necron is "phase out". I forget the exact wording but it basically means that the INSTANT they have lesss then 25% of all units listed as "Necron" alive, they auto-lose. This is the reason you ignore Monoliths, they don't count towards the Phase out number.

At the start of the match, find out what the phase out number is and keep track of it. If I remember right you check for Phase out BEFORE "We'll Be Back" (WBB) which is what I'll talk about next.

Phase Out is calculated after We'll Be Back rolls (which occurs at the beginning of the Necron player's turn).

 

Really? I don't have the codex with me but I always heard it was before.

 

Hmm, thanks for the update. ^_^

[LuNCHBiZZLe]

I have found that Vindies and meltas are my friend as they will not give WWB rolls unless he has a orb close by and even the destructors will go down to vindies like chumps,as everyone has said phase them out but if you get a good shot(as in nothing else to shoot at wortha damn) with your vindie on the lith take it on a good roll you can take it out.

[Hellios]

Power weapons (where possible), lots of attack where possible, speed where possible and high I where possible (although high I just helps as you will be higher than anything but the lord).

 

Charge into combat kick necron ass by a lot watch as they take LD at 4 or something and fail you now roll off (i'll presume his res orb lord is there) he gets 5 (Oh No!) But your winged lash DP (who is something like I6 or 7) needs only 2/3/4 whatever and all those suckers who ran go down and can't get back up even if he has a res-orb and tombspyder near by ^_^.

 

Also if you want to have a giggle with the monolith use lash of submission or pavane if anyone is near enough and move a unit of warriors infront of the monoliths portal and it will stop him bringing anyone through it until the unit/monolith have moved away from each other.

[minigun762]

Also if you want to have a giggle with the monolith use lash of submission or pavane if anyone is near enough and move a unit of warriors infront of the monoliths portal and it will stop him bringing anyone through it until the unit/monolith have moved away from each other.

 

Thats just evil. Good job! :D

 

Honestly though, Necron's aren't that much of a worry. Their biggest trick is probably the triple Monolith list, teleporting units around and dropping pie plates on things.

 

I will say that often a savvy Necron player will hide a unit out of LOS that is just slightly bigger then the Phase Out Number. This means its harder to phase him out as you have to get to those hidden troops but it also means he's not using 200ish points of his army, so you have an advantage there.

[LuNCHBiZZLe]

I played against trip lith and I shot 2 down in the first turn(went 2nd)he wasn't happy.I had to take a smoke break to not laugh after it happened.

[Corpse.]

Monoliths: Powerfist double strength rule does not apply. (This applies to dreadnoughts as well) Two dice from monstrous creatures and 6" meltaguns too, so count daemon princes out and monstrous creatures/meltas only get glances(+1 for ap1 though for meltas).

 

Melee armies should down a monolith if there is one if they have enough lascannons otherwise ignore it. If your balanced/shooty/rapid fire marine user, then just kill the necrons.

 

Targets of oppertunity that count for WBB are:

Lords;Wraiths;Flayed Ones;Immortals;All their Jetbikers

Depending on how his army is made up will decide what you kill first. Though I always down the jetbikes then immortals whenever I get the chance since their guns hurt the most.

[minigun762]

Monoliths: Powerfist double strength rule does not apply. (This applies to dreadnoughts as well) Two dice from monstrous creatures and 6" meltaguns too, so count daemon princes out and monstrous creatures/meltas only get glances(+1 for ap1 though for meltas).

The rest of it its true but I believe Power Fists get the Strength bonus.

I know there is alot of debate on this point but all the arguements I've seen have been resolved that the doubling of Strength is not the same as rolling extra dice so its not effected by Living Armor.

[Hellios]

Monoliths: Powerfist double strength rule does not apply. (This applies to dreadnoughts as well) Two dice from monstrous creatures and 6" meltaguns too, so count daemon princes out and monstrous creatures/meltas only get glances(+1 for ap1 though for meltas).

The rest of it its true but I believe Power Fists get the Strength bonus.

I know there is alot of debate on this point but all the arguements I've seen have been resolved that the doubling of Strength is not the same as rolling extra dice so its not effected by Living Armor.

 

Monoliths rules are pretty weapons that change the AV do not work (this is all good because chaos don't have any) and also no weapon may get more than S+D6 for AP. So No S+D6+D3 (rending) & no S+2D6 (MC, melta weapons). You also do not get additional bonus like S+1+D6 for having rules like tank hunters

 

However you do get to roll 2D6 for ordanace weapons (picking the highest), you do get the full strength of your weapon (including bonuses to your strength such as powerfists that increase the S of your attack but don't give a bonus to AP) and you do get the benefist of +1's on the damage chart such as AP1 weapons and seismic hammers.

 

Yer Lysander can smash monoliths into the ground :lol:

[Warp Angel]

Necrons suck in hand to hand combat for the most part. A1, I2, and a lack of any CC upgrades.

 

Against base CSM statline, they hit half the time, wound half the time, and you get 1/3 saves. So it takes 12 of the buggers to kill one of you. And they don't get to do that until AFTER you've pounded them into paste.

 

On the flip side, you're getting 3 attacks on the charge with your Marines, hitting 1/2, wounding 1/2 and failing 1/3 even when you don't have power weapons. That means it takes 4 of your boys to kill 1 of his. Add in additional attacks from champs, characters, etc. and it's very easy to win combat by a large amount.

 

That means a pretty easily failed leadership check, and Necrons can't use WBB if they're run down in CC.

 

Consider defilers and dreads as (relatively) cheap ways to beat on spamed monoliths. S10 base and a large number of attacks does fun things to them without having to worry about the 'living metal' rule. On the flip side, you need to watch out for being within range of a large volume of gauss shooting attacks.

 

Both the defilers and vindicators have got great odds of eliminating large numbers of Necrons who can't take advantage of WBB with High S large blasts, and the latter is one of the few shooting weapons that are of much use against a monolith, should they be worthy of your attention.

 

Unless they're spammed, they generally aren't worth your time, as others have said. Go for phase out and exploit the CC weaknesses.

[Retalitus]

Cheers guys, all this info is very much appreciated.

 

Had a chance to look at my opponents list in the upcoming tournament, and here's what I'm going to be up against:

 

x1 Lord (Resurrection Orb; Veil of Darkness)

x1 Lord (Destroyer Body; Lightning Field; Resurrection Orb)

x20 Warriors

x15 Warriors

x10 Warriors

x10 Warriors

x3 Destroyers

x10 Scarab Swarms

x10 Scarab Swarms

x1 Monolith

 

So, I think I'm going to go straight for the Warriors... don't really anticipate this being an issue with either my Daemons or my CSMs. The Monolith, I'll stay well away from!

[minigun762]

x1 Lord (Resurrection Orb; Veil of Darkness)

x20 Warriors

My assumption is that the Lord will be teleporting around, dumping 40 rapid fire shots into your squads with this unit.

This is the kind of unit you hit with 2+ of your units, hopefully supported by an HQ unit. All together this is 500 points of the opponent's army you should be able to gang up.

 

x1 Lord (Destroyer Body; Lightning Field; Resurrection Orb)

He'll either be alone or maybe escort the Scarabs. I think he's T5(6) on the Destroyer Body so you need to bring the big guns out or Power Fists. The good news is if you can catch him, he'll probably be dead. Might want to toss a winged DP after him.

 

x15 Warriors

x10 Warriors

x10 Warriors

He's using a fair number of Warriors so his phase out is going to be fairly high. Your best bet is to do the assault/flee/rundown trick against him. Barring that, multiple pie plates each turn will take their toll.

 

x3 Destroyers

These guys are good but its a small squad of them. Treat them the same as Attack Bikes or Land Speeders. Obliterators and Plasma Cannons should be a good way of knocking them out.

 

x10 Scarab Swarms

x10 Scarab Swarms

Tarpit units, remember that S6 will insta-kill bases but otherwise a CSM squad is going to pound them into the ground. The bad thing is it will take time. Raptor squad with dual Flamers will thin their numbers nicely.

 

x1 Monolith

With only 1 Monolith, I'd just ignore it. Its going to teleport a squad around to keep them out of HtH combat. It might also plop down some pie plates, which can be dangerous sometimes.

[Corpse.]

Scarabs move like jetbikes, so I assume your role for the raptors is to get the charge first. Basic marines have the same attacks as raptors do, if he keeps his army fairly near eachother he can charge everything into the tarpit and remove them quickly while stopping return fire as much as possible by being in melee.

 

Warriors look like they enjoy staying near eachother when knocked down. I say oblits are good for it, if not to plasma-blast the scarabs.

 

 

Kill the destroyers and HQ first then work on the warriors. It should be a fine bash if he doesnt use the scarabs wisely. They can be a pain if he uses them to give his warriors 4+ cover saves.