New to Necrons - How to Hunt Tanks

[kombatwombat]

Hello all, I have recently decided to scratch my 3rd-Edition Necron itch and join the ranks of the soulless.

 

With that in mind I’m sticking to units available in the 3rd Edition Codex. The exceptions are Ghost/Doomsday Arks, which to my eyes suit the aesthetic of the older models, and Crypteks, which are an easy counts-as for Lord models.

 

The basic army structure I’m looking at is an infantry-heavy death march up the centre of the board with a big block of Immortals, Warriors and characters, with the rest of the army made up of support units like Destroyers, Wraiths, a Doomsday Ark and maybe some Scarabs/Flayed Ones. With that in mind I’m going with Mephrit.

 

My question is how should I go about tank hunting? A Doomsday Ark is an obvious choice but also an obvious target, and Heavy Destroyers are a pricy way to field a Lascannon in any sort of numbers. Should I just focus on death by a thousand cuts and just flense them with Gauss and Tesla?

 

I’m not out to place in tournaments, but I would like to be able to fight things like Knights and Guard tanks. Any help is much appreciated. :)

[Tyriks]

Vehicles are a major weakness. We don't have any strong, reliable shooting. Everything is random shots, too expensive to field in necessary numbers, poor BS, or just not damaging enough. Doomsday Arks look good on paper, but they can't move and you need to save CP for when you inevitable roll a one for its shots. Heavy Destroyers are very easy to kill and are too expensive for what they do. Doom Scythes hit on a 4 at best (unless you play Sautekh) and you STILL have random shots and need to save CP for when you roll one for it.

 

I've had luck against vehicles (not Knights or stuff that tough) with Lychguard (which you could use Pariahs as a counts as). But they have to make it in first which is a problem for sure.

 

Triarch Stalkers are okay, but also too expensive. They do help 'better' units get the job done. Regular destroyers can do a lot with support due to rerolling a lot of failures.

 

Basically, bring a bunch of stuff and focus it all on one target at a time. Against guard just get something into combat and they can't shoot you next turn. That doesn't help much with Knights.

[kombatwombat]

Damn, that’s unfortunate.

 

I had already hit on the idea of using Pariah models as Lychguard, but more as a ‘I want to use Pariah models’ than a ‘this will fill a hole in my army’. Looking at them again, with Warscythes and the +1 Str Stratagem they look nasty, but they do seem to have a few holes. Needing a Stratagem to fuel them is costly, they don’t seem to have a strong delivery system unless you build around it and a 3+ save without an Invul is going to make them a juicy target.

[Tyriks]

Anything you use will need stratagem support, from Destroyers reroll stratagem to strategic reroll on Doomsday Arks. We just do not have any good anti-armor since Gauss used to shred vehicles and we didn't need anything else.

[NTaW]

This is a frustrating point for Necrons in this edition. It was bad in the Index days and it's only barely better now. The problem I've had facing big units (Daemon Primarchs, superheavy tanks, Knights, multiple monstrous creatures) is that our AP often means nothing given the abundance of invulnerable saves for those unit types, which forces Necron armies to over commit resources in points and dice rolled to kill high toughness/wound models. I often find myself hobbled to the task of attacking only one unit with almost my whole army for 2+ turns watching it eliminate crucial units at a whim while trying to limit the damage the rest of the enemy army can cause on my distracted troops.

[Mr4Minutes]

Anything you use will need stratagem support, from Destroyers reroll stratagem to strategic reroll on Doomsday Arks. We just do not have any good anti-armor since Gauss used to shred vehicles and we didn't need anything else.

I feel this is the main hang up of Necrons in 8th. A lot of roll over rules from 7th that used to be good. Gauss was great when vehicles had only 3 hp(same thing with scarabs.)But with the larger numbers of wounds on vehicles, the old strategy of stripping wounds with gauss isn’t effective.

 

I do think the new FW super heavy model will fill this role pretty effectively. It’s just a matter of $$ you want to pay for it and how effective the rest of the army will be with only 1375 points.

[Tyriks]

I think it will help but I don't think it'll be enough for Necrons to be competitive. FedEx says I'll have it Monday so hopefully I can try it out next weekend. But its guns are swingy so you'll need CP to make sure you aren't putting out minimum shots, and it needs to get into CC to do what it wants to.

 

I'm hoping for a CA change to Gauss to make it do more damage to <Vehicle> units (or just make heavy gauss cannons heavy 2 or even 3 but that would make a few units very good and make them necessary) or something because short of new units it's gonna be very unlikely we are able to handle Knights or anything else with a lot of vehicles. I've written the FAQ line about this a few times, with lots of math and comparisons, so hopefully they listen.

[kombatwombat]

I’m not exactly getting filled with hope here guys! But thank you for the replies. I’ll have a go with the army when I have it built and report back. It may be that I have to double up on Doomsday Arks or something.

[NTaW]

:lol: it really is a grim dark future we game in. The community as a whole seems to think it will get better when Chapter Approved drops next month. The army is really fun to play, when I go up against enemies that don't focus on having an excess of high toughness/wound units it all goes quite a lot better.

 

I too thought I would double down on DDAs but then I built one and just about went mad. Kinda wish their big gun was 2d3 shots instead of d6 though.

[Bonzi]

The very best tank hunters we have are large groups of Destroyers (6) with regular Gauss Cannons. You have to use the reroll all failed hits and wounds stratagem and ideally My Will Be Done as well. If you do you can tear apart most vehicles, even those with T8, but vehicles with invuln saves are a huge problem. The problem is that this is one unit and it's not tough to kill if you don't use LOS blocking terrain or cover to your bennefit.

 

You do need to supplement this with other sources of antitank. A Doomsday Ark, a Triarch Stalker with heavy Gauss, or some heavy destroyers. The problem is our heavy Gauss is expensive and difficult to spam in numbers great enough to make a Mech army sweat.

 

If you play crons you will have to get clever with how you break armor or tie it up with cheap units like scarabs or fast tough units like Wraiths. You will face an even tougher time if you are trying to limit your army to 3rd Ed units. Our dex isn't really tough enough or containing enough redundant units to set units aside without crippling your options.

 

I have had unusual success vs armor by going outside the box when I play. I used Anni Barges to tie up Leman Russes that I had no way of killing. Quantum Shielding and living metal + fly keyword make for potent and durable units. Tomb Blades work for this too. This won't work vs Knights though...and they are the current meta Boogeyman.

 

All we can hope for is that Chapter Approved gives us huge point drops across the board. Short of an actual rules rework it's our only hope of staying competitive.