8k Apoc vs Necrons

[Frostglaive]

Got an 8,000pt Apoc game scheduled for this Saturday. Cogboys vs. MetalSkullBoys. AdMech/Knights vs. Necrons. Matched Play, mission undecided, winner takes all the bragging rights and all the lulz. Or something like that. I'm just here for the outright carnage that is apocalypse.

 

So here's what I know about my opponent: He's good, got a lot of Destroyers, knows his army very well so he knows some good shenanigans, and I've only played against codex Necrons twice now. So I don't know much. And I've only ever seen him play his Necrons once. So I'm going into this somewhat blind. I know to focus fire on squads to mitigate or deny his Reanimation Protocols, that my Neutron Lasers are practically pointless against his vehicles thanks to Quantum Shielding, and Wraiths and Destroyers are utterly terrifying and need to die ASAP.

 

My army: while I do have access to Deathwatch, Assassinorum, and a few other odds and ends, I want my army to be essentially 'pure' Mechanicus. Partially for fluff reasons, mostly because that's what I know and run the best. (Un)Fortunately, the entirety of my AdMech/Knights collection actually comes up to around 8,000pts, if I run them as planned. Here's what my army will look like:

 

Stygies VIII dogma (I don't like Mars and don't own Cawl anyway).
House Taranis for Knights (I don't use Hawkshroud)

27CP (Brigade, Battalion, Spearhead, 3 for Battleforged, and a Super-Heavy with 3 Questoris) to start. -2 for Heirlooms and Exalted Court. So 25CP

 

Brigade:

3x Dominus

2x Kataphrons w/ Grav

4x Rangers w/ 2 Arquebus and Omnispex

4x 10-man Vanguard w/ 3 Plasma Caliver

3x Datasmith

2x 10-man Fulgurite

3x 3-man Dragoons

2x 2-man Dakkabots

1x 4-man Dakkabots

 

Battalion:

2x Enginseers

5x 10-man TechThralls count-as Vanguard

2x 10-man Fulgurite

3x 5-man InfilTasers

 

Spearhead:

Dominus

3x Neutronagers

1x Icarus Onager

 

SuperHeavy:

2x Crusaders, 1 Thermal 1 RFBC 2 Stormspears

1x Gallant w/ Paragon Gauntlet and Knight Seneschal or Ion Bulwark

1x 3-man Helverins

1x 3-man Warglaives


This is my initial plan: Gallant, Warglaives, Fulgurites and Dragoons all up front. Spend 4CP to Stygies scout move the Fulgurites 9". This is my vanguard. Everything charges in as much as I can. Fulgurites go for the easy kills, such as Warriors or Scarabs, trying to get that 3++ invul. Dragoons and Warglaives go for the harder targets since they have that higher strength and AP. I don't expect the Gallant to survive. If he does, I just want him hitting everything he can. Lock down characters to go for Death Grip, stomp infantry, or hopefully punch some Doomsday Arcs or Destroyers.

Skitarii Vanguard are my bubblewrap. I got a ton of them to do this, so they'll be spread out enough for area denial, deny high priority charges, and grab objectives as needed. And lay down plenty of fire as able. Kastelans, Kataphrons, and Dunecrawlers are my backfield, laying down heavy firepower. Dominus' will be with them as needed, Enginseers will be repairing, Datasmiths will hang with Kastelans. Rangers will pull area denial and try to snipe out characters like Crypteks or Lords. My Helverins will stay mobile and stay back, targeting what they can. Crusaders will more than likely go mid-field to stay in range with their guns and stomp with feet as needed.

I am thinking about dropping the Rangers and bring in some Vindicare assassins instead. Harder to kill, less noticeable presence on the table, and better at targeting characters.

Not exactly much necessary thought to my strategy. Close combat charges, bodies bubblewrap, big guns hangs back and kills things.

Thoughts?

I'll post pictures afterwards if able.

[Stray]

I know little to nothing about Necrons really, so I wouldn't want to even begin to comment in terms of advice or anything Frosty.

 

Your list looks really balanced and flexible though, so I will say 'Good luck!' (black cats get a +2 modifier to all 'luck' call outs). And that I'm really looking forward to hearing how you get on :)

[Frostglaive]

Right now I'm expecting a lot of Wraiths, a lot of Destroyers, and a horde of Warriors. And at least 3 C'tan coming out to play (according to a buddy of mine, essentially fancy psyker daemon princes that'll do about 3d3 mortal wounds a round).

 

And thanks, Stray! I will definitely need all the luck I can get, especially if he gets Turn 1. I may need to call upon that black cat luck when my dice start rolling lol

[Clingy]

Pictures if you can...have fun and good luck!

[Focslain]

You can deal with quantum shielding with dmg 2 weapons so your AGC will do great.

 

Helverins are great for wraiths, hit on 3+, wound on 3+ and while he gets a save, a fail is a dead wraith.

 

Use your multi-damage weapons on the destroyers first since you can drop them easier.

Prime targets that have quantum shielding are ghost ark and annihilation barges. Would be a good idea to wipe these out fast since the ghost ark gives a bonus to re-animate. There is a strat that gives the shielding roll a -1 (ie allowing him to deny dmg 1) but if he uses it then switch targets.

 

The ctan are effectively character dreads, so be careful but don't focus unless you can really focus on them. With your aquabuses you should be able to handle them, but I'd go after cryptks and lord more.

[Frostglaive]

I'm going to swap out the Arquebus Rangers for a batch of Vindicare Assassins instead. Half the shots w/ snipers, but hitting and wounding those lords and crypteks on 2's each time, ignoring their invuls and cover and screwing their armor. Plus it gives my snipers more safety being -2 to hit in cover characters.

Does Quantum Shielding work in close combat as well, or just the Shooting Phase? If it's just Shooting Phase, I could always send my Gallant and Warglaives after the Arks then.

 

Helverins and Crusaders will definitely be targeting Wraiths and Destroyers first.

 

Something else I'm considering is swapping out all 3 Neutron Lasers for 3 more Icarus Arrays instead. Since all Necron vehicles and his Destroyers have Fly, plus they aren't high damage weapons but still wounding on 3's for the most part, and adding +1 to hit against Fly, I feel like that'd be the better option for me. Thoughts on that? The problem with that is I don't own 3 more Icarus Array turrets, so I'd have to count-as. For the most part, my group is pretty lenient on weapons count-as, so I'm not too worried about doing that. But that does kinda make me That Guy if I do...

[ImperialSquishiness]

Quantum shielding works all the time, so stompy feet will be necessary. Helverins do a decent job too against Doomsday Arks/Annihilation Barges/Ghost Arks.

Regarding snipers, whatever you do, kill Crypteks first. A) they give +1 to reanimation rolls and b) they give anyone within 3" a 5++.

Target priority for dakka bots should be Wraiths first then infantry.

Helverins are great to take out destroyers and wraiths as well as anything with quantum shielding.

I'd ditch the thermal cannon and take another rfbc if possible. Unless he brings a monolith/superheavy or any of their fliers, it's damage potential will be limited due to QS.

[Focslain]

I'm going to swap out the Arquebus Rangers for a batch of Vindicare Assassins instead. Half the shots w/ snipers, but hitting and wounding those lords and crypteks on 2's each time, ignoring their invuls and cover and screwing their armor. Plus it gives my snipers more safety being -2 to hit in cover characters.

 

Does Quantum Shielding work in close combat as well, or just the Shooting Phase? If it's just Shooting Phase, I could always send my Gallant and Warglaives after the Arks then.

 

Helverins and Crusaders will definitely be targeting Wraiths and Destroyers first.

 

Something else I'm considering is swapping out all 3 Neutron Lasers for 3 more Icarus Arrays instead. Since all Necron vehicles and his Destroyers have Fly, plus they aren't high damage weapons but still wounding on 3's for the most part, and adding +1 to hit against Fly, I feel like that'd be the better option for me. Thoughts on that? The problem with that is I don't own 3 more Icarus Array turrets, so I'd have to count-as. For the most part, my group is pretty lenient on weapons count-as, so I'm not too worried about doing that. But that does kinda make me That Guy if I do...

 

Just swap the loadouts then, instead of 3x Neutrons and an Icars, go 3 icars and a neutron. The neutron is still usable for destroyers, monoliths, flyers and Teceracts if he takes one.

[Tyriks]

As a Necron player, Helverins will be great. I've had them wipe out absurd amounts of Wraiths and Destroyers. Also almost all our vehicles are only T6 so Helverins do a ton of damage to them (and shield saves are unlikely against 3 damage hits). Anything tougher (besides the Tesseract Vault) is a waste of points anyway.

 

Doomsday Arks have a better reputation than they deserve. They require CPs to make sure you get a good number of shots, they don't work at all if you move. So, just make them move and they are suddenly not a problem.

 

Icarus does seem better than Neutrons. As you said everything has Fly and the reliably high damage of Neutrons is easy to avoid for Stalkers, Ghost Arks and anything else with Quantum Shielding. Monoliths are TERRIBLE so if he brings one don't worry. I've never had my Monolith survive a single turn, even against very non-competitive lists.

 

Tesseract Vaults are about the only really hard to handle unit Necrons can put out and Knights can put a lot of punishment on those. They're still only T7 so pretty much anything Knights have can work.

[Frostglaive]

Remember how I said I don't like Mars and don't own Cawl? Yeah..... I went out and bought Cawl yesterday... I'm going to run my army as Mars... **cough**hypocrite**cough**

 

Here was my thinking on that: The -1 to hit for Stygies is great. But after reading more about Necrons and just seeing various batreps, in my opinion that -1 to hit is not going to matter so much except for my bigger guns. Necrons to me seem like a midfield army, and a lot of my own stuff as well is going to be either midfield or in his face too. I'd rather get the guaranteed two Canticles than a potential -1 to hit against me. Add in the fact that Cawl's reroll bubble is absolutely amazing, that'll make my backfield even stronger and make those Dakkabots/Dunecrawlers much more effective at wiping Necron units off the table, which I'll desperately need to do so he doesn't get Reanimation Protocols. And I know for a fact my opponent has quite a few Crypteks (seeing as how I sold him a couple of the Forgebane ones...) to boost that RP up.

 

I did make a few other changes to my list. Here's the updated version. Same Detachments though, plus 1 0CP Assassin Vanguard:

 

Brigade:

Cawl

2x Dominus

2x 3-man Destroyers w/ Heavy Grav

4x 10-man Vanguard w/ 3 Plasma, Data-tether, and taser goad

3x 5-man Rangers w/ 2 Arc rifles

2x Datasmith

4x 10-man Fulgurites

3x 3-man Dragoons w/ Phospher

2x 2-man Dakkabots

1x 4-man Dakkabots

 

Battalion:

2x Enginseers

5x 10-man Vanguard

3x 5-man Infiltrators w/ taser

 

Spearhead:

Dominus

4x Dunecrawlers, 2 Icarus 2 Neutron

 

Vanguard:

3x Vindicares

 

Superheavy:

2x Crusaders w/ RFBC and Ironstorm

1x Gallant w/ Ironstorm, Knight Seneschal and Paragon Gauntlet

1x 3-man Warglaives w/ meltaguns

1x 3-man Helverins w/ stubbers

 

So I dropped a few upgrades, a datasmith and a dominus. Replaced the stormspear rockets w/ Ironstorm on the knights. Added in 3x Ranger squads for just a couple more guns and a tiny bit more area denial. Replaced the Rangers w/ arquebus for Vindicares. And brought in Cawl. The datasmith got dropped because I'll just spend the 1CP to change protocols on the 4-man dakkabots and roll for the 2x 2-man dakkabots. The dominus dropped in exchange for the rangers for more guns. Replaced stormspears w/ Ironstorms because the high damage weapons won't be great against his vehicles, while the Ironstorms will be nice against infantry and targets I can't see. Swapped arquebus rifles for Vindicares for better character sniping and better survivability for my snipers.

 

I decided on Knight Seneschal for the Gallant because I doubt he'll even survive turn 1. If he does, I want him to have as many devastating attacks as he can get. And I don't really want to spend more CP on another Exalted Court and Heirloom simply because I doubt any of my Knights will survive very long. They're already strong as it is, I don't want to use CP that I could use on Wrath of Mars for something that may not even survive.

 

My free AdMech relic, I'm considering Raiment of the Technomartyr on a dominus paired up with Cawl for the overwatch capability. Or Omniscient Mask on a dominus charging out with my Vanguard to let them reroll hits in their inevitable Fight phase. Or spend 1Cp and do both...

 

Game is tomorrow. I'll try to get some pics of my army up on here today after work. Got them all set up on my kitchen table right now (I have so much left to paint... ugh...)

[Tyriks]

Yeah, most Necron guns are Rapid Fire 24" so they do their best to get in your face as quickly as possible. If they play Mephrit (the usual favorite) then even more so for the -1 AP.

[Focslain]

Looks good on the knight side. Will state the necrons are the only army I won't want to take a castellan against.

 

Get that gallent stuck in a nice unit of warriors and have at it.

 

Good luck on your fight and take lots of pict scans for the group.

[Clingy]

Remember how I said I don't like Mars and don't own Cawl? Yeah..... I went out and bought Cawl yesterday... I'm going to run my army as Mars... **cough**hypocrite**cough**

 

Here was my thinking on that: The -1 to hit for Stygies is great. But after reading more about Necrons and just seeing various batreps, in my opinion that -1 to hit is not going to matter so much except for my bigger guns. Necrons to me seem like a midfield army, and a lot of my own stuff as well is going to be either midfield or in his face too. I'd rather get the guaranteed two Canticles than a potential -1 to hit against me. Add in the fact that Cawl's reroll bubble is absolutely amazing, that'll make my backfield even stronger and make those Dakkabots/Dunecrawlers much more effective at wiping Necron units off the table, which I'll desperately need to do so he doesn't get Reanimation Protocols. And I know for a fact my opponent has quite a few Crypteks (seeing as how I sold him a couple of the Forgebane ones...) to boost that RP up.

 

I did make a few other changes to my list. Here's the updated version. Same Detachments though, plus 1 0CP Assassin Vanguard:

 

Brigade:

Cawl

2x Dominus

2x 3-man Destroyers w/ Heavy Grav

4x 10-man Vanguard w/ 3 Plasma, Data-tether, and taser goad

3x 5-man Rangers w/ 2 Arc rifles

2x Datasmith

4x 10-man Fulgurites

3x 3-man Dragoons w/ Phospher

2x 2-man Dakkabots

1x 4-man Dakkabots

 

Battalion:

2x Enginseers

5x 10-man Vanguard

3x 5-man Infiltrators w/ taser

 

Spearhead:

Dominus

4x Dunecrawlers, 2 Icarus 2 Neutron

 

Vanguard:

3x Vindicares

 

Superheavy:

2x Crusaders w/ RFBC and Ironstorm

1x Gallant w/ Ironstorm, Knight Seneschal and Paragon Gauntlet

1x 3-man Warglaives w/ meltaguns

1x 3-man Helverins w/ stubbers

 

So I dropped a few upgrades, a datasmith and a dominus. Replaced the stormspear rockets w/ Ironstorm on the knights. Added in 3x Ranger squads for just a couple more guns and a tiny bit more area denial. Replaced the Rangers w/ arquebus for Vindicares. And brought in Cawl. The datasmith got dropped because I'll just spend the 1CP to change protocols on the 4-man dakkabots and roll for the 2x 2-man dakkabots. The dominus dropped in exchange for the rangers for more guns. Replaced stormspears w/ Ironstorms because the high damage weapons won't be great against his vehicles, while the Ironstorms will be nice against infantry and targets I can't see. Swapped arquebus rifles for Vindicares for better character sniping and better survivability for my snipers.

 

I decided on Knight Seneschal for the Gallant because I doubt he'll even survive turn 1. If he does, I want him to have as many devastating attacks as he can get. And I don't really want to spend more CP on another Exalted Court and Heirloom simply because I doubt any of my Knights will survive very long. They're already strong as it is, I don't want to use CP that I could use on Wrath of Mars for something that may not even survive.

 

My free AdMech relic, I'm considering Raiment of the Technomartyr on a dominus paired up with Cawl for the overwatch capability. Or Omniscient Mask on a dominus charging out with my Vanguard to let them reroll hits in their inevitable Fight phase. Or spend 1Cp and do both...

 

Game is tomorrow. I'll try to get some pics of my army up on here today after work. Got them all set up on my kitchen table right now (I have so much left to paint... ugh...)

If I can weigh in on rainment of the tech relic.

 

I want to love it and it’s often my go to choice but with 5 wounds as soon as the dominus is focused fired in even a small capacity it is a waste. Put simply if your opponent wants it dead having the 6+++ makes no difference

 

It dies. Equally ineffective is the pimp cane of Arkhan Land. I never find I can reliably heal a Dunecrawler up if it’s focused fired(ok maybe a small number of times if I’m fair)

 

Those are my go two relics and I alternate between the two but they just don’t seem to cut the mustard. If I had to pick I’d probably go with the cane depending on play style

 

Best of luck with what you do

[Frostglaive]

Well..... I lost. And forgot to take pictures.

 

Mission was Dominate and Destroy, 4'x8' table with Dawn of War deployment. Necrons got first turn.

 

Turn 1, opponent Deceiver-deployed two squads of Wraiths that got a Turn 1 charge. Didn't do a whole lot of damage there. 3 Doomsday Arks, barely did any damage due to bad dice rolls. Couple Doom Scythes, no damage done by them. Everything else started moving forward, shot when they could. His turn 1 was very lackluster. Mine ended up destroying both Scythes, Deceiver, both squads of Wraiths in CC, and turn 1 charging my Gallant into a squad of tomb blades that got wiped out.

 

Turn 2, his shooting phase took a turn for the better. A fair amount of my vehicles got crippled, Destroyers did a bit of decent damage. Funniest moment was his 2 Command Barges and Transcendent C'tan charged my Gallant, killed it... then I spent the 2CP to blow it up on a 4. 12" blast range, wounded both Barges, the C'tan (who was later healed anyway...), a couple Warriors and Flayed Ones, then proceeded to one-shot Nemesor Zandrekh and an Overlord... as well as killing my own Warglaive that had 4 wounds left... didn't blow up unfortunately. My turn, wracked up a few more kill points.

 

Turn 3, most of my crippled vehicles were killed. Lychguard and Obyron deep-struck into my area. I also forgot to mention that the past 3 turns, my opponent has been sitting on 4 of the 6 objectives wracking up points. My turn 3, didn't kill enough stuff, didn't have any objectives.

 

By that point in the game, I had called it. Score was 33 to 24, he had full run of the middle and right flank of the board. Left side was completely mine but I didn't have anything fast moving over there to sweep around and help me in time. Was sitting on only 1 objective, the others there was no way I'd be able to reach or knock him off of. And it was just late in the day and I had other obligations to take care of. So I surrendered. All in all, it was an incredibly fun game. My opponent was a great sport and an incredibly tough/smart player. There were plenty of shenanigans which I fully appreciate (my exploding Gallant is still my MVP for that game lol). It was a lot of fun.

 

Although I am a little burnt out from 40k right now. That took A LOT out of me. Like, I was dead asleep by 8:30pm on a Saturday night when I normally am up most of the night lol. Worth it though.

 

Sorry about the lack of pictures. Completely slipped my mind to take them.

[frosteldar]

Thanks for sharing!  Yeah, those large-scale battles or multi-player battles take a lot out of you!  Sounds like it was fun indeed and now you know a lot more about Necrons than you did before!  More data for the Omnissiah!

[Tyriks]

Well..... I lost. And forgot to take pictures.

 

Mission was Dominate and Destroy, 4'x8' table with Dawn of War deployment. Necrons got first turn.

 

Turn 1, opponent Deceiver-deployed two squads of Wraiths that got a Turn 1 charge. Didn't do a whole lot of damage there. 3 Doomsday Arks, barely did any damage due to bad dice rolls. Couple Doom Scythes, no damage done by them. Everything else started moving forward, shot when they could. His turn 1 was very lackluster. Mine ended up destroying both Scythes, Deceiver, both squads of Wraiths in CC, and turn 1 charging my Gallant into a squad of tomb blades that got wiped out.

 

Turn 2, his shooting phase took a turn for the better. A fair amount of my vehicles got crippled, Destroyers did a bit of decent damage. Funniest moment was his 2 Command Barges and Transcendent C'tan charged my Gallant, killed it... then I spent the 2CP to blow it up on a 4. 12" blast range, wounded both Barges, the C'tan (who was later healed anyway...), a couple Warriors and Flayed Ones, then proceeded to one-shot Nemesor Zandrekh and an Overlord... as well as killing my own Warglaive that had 4 wounds left... didn't blow up unfortunately. My turn, wracked up a few more kill points.

 

Turn 3, most of my crippled vehicles were killed. Lychguard and Obyron deep-struck into my area. I also forgot to mention that the past 3 turns, my opponent has been sitting on 4 of the 6 objectives wracking up points. My turn 3, didn't kill enough stuff, didn't have any objectives.

 

By that point in the game, I had called it. Score was 33 to 24, he had full run of the middle and right flank of the board. Left side was completely mine but I didn't have anything fast moving over there to sweep around and help me in time. Was sitting on only 1 objective, the others there was no way I'd be able to reach or knock him off of. And it was just late in the day and I had other obligations to take care of. So I surrendered. All in all, it was an incredibly fun game. My opponent was a great sport and an incredibly tough/smart player. There were plenty of shenanigans which I fully appreciate (my exploding Gallant is still my MVP for that game lol). It was a lot of fun.

 

Although I am a little burnt out from 40k right now. That took A LOT out of me. Like, I was dead asleep by 8:30pm on a Saturday night when I normally am up most of the night lol. Worth it though.

 

Sorry about the lack of pictures. Completely slipped my mind to take them.

Units redeployed by the Deceiver can't charge turn one.

[Focslain]

 

Well..... I lost. And forgot to take pictures.

 

Mission was Dominate and Destroy, 4'x8' table with Dawn of War deployment. Necrons got first turn.

 

Turn 1, opponent Deceiver-deployed two squads of Wraiths that got a Turn 1 charge. Didn't do a whole lot of damage there. 3 Doomsday Arks, barely did any damage due to bad dice rolls. Couple Doom Scythes, no damage done by them. Everything else started moving forward, shot when they could. His turn 1 was very lackluster. Mine ended up destroying both Scythes, Deceiver, both squads of Wraiths in CC, and turn 1 charging my Gallant into a squad of tomb blades that got wiped out.

 

Turn 2, his shooting phase took a turn for the better. A fair amount of my vehicles got crippled, Destroyers did a bit of decent damage. Funniest moment was his 2 Command Barges and Transcendent C'tan charged my Gallant, killed it... then I spent the 2CP to blow it up on a 4. 12" blast range, wounded both Barges, the C'tan (who was later healed anyway...), a couple Warriors and Flayed Ones, then proceeded to one-shot Nemesor Zandrekh and an Overlord... as well as killing my own Warglaive that had 4 wounds left... didn't blow up unfortunately. My turn, wracked up a few more kill points.

 

Turn 3, most of my crippled vehicles were killed. Lychguard and Obyron deep-struck into my area. I also forgot to mention that the past 3 turns, my opponent has been sitting on 4 of the 6 objectives wracking up points. My turn 3, didn't kill enough stuff, didn't have any objectives.

 

By that point in the game, I had called it. Score was 33 to 24, he had full run of the middle and right flank of the board. Left side was completely mine but I didn't have anything fast moving over there to sweep around and help me in time. Was sitting on only 1 objective, the others there was no way I'd be able to reach or knock him off of. And it was just late in the day and I had other obligations to take care of. So I surrendered. All in all, it was an incredibly fun game. My opponent was a great sport and an incredibly tough/smart player. There were plenty of shenanigans which I fully appreciate (my exploding Gallant is still my MVP for that game lol). It was a lot of fun.

 

Although I am a little burnt out from 40k right now. That took A LOT out of me. Like, I was dead asleep by 8:30pm on a Saturday night when I normally am up most of the night lol. Worth it though.

 

Sorry about the lack of pictures. Completely slipped my mind to take them.

Units redeployed by the Deceiver can't charge turn one.

 

Also they have to be set up 12" away, so that had to be one heck of a charge roll. I'm guessing he played the redployment like a DS move so only 9" away and able to charge, which grand illusion is not.

[Tyriks]

They can still move the first turn (hence why you can't charge). So actually would be a very easy charge, if legal!

[Frostglaive]

I just looked up that rule. Yeah, you guys are right. He shouldn't have been allowed to charge his Wraiths after that. In my opponent's defense though, he hasn't played his Necrons in over six months. So I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and just assume he forgot the rule. I did message him just now and pointed it out.

 

Definitely would've helped me out had we both known that initially. Although he probably would've just redeployed his Warrior blobs instead and lit me up with gauss in rapid fire. I don't know. It is what it is.