Advice for a newbie

[IronDreddKnight]

I’ve recently completed my death Watch force and I found myself wanting to try some xenos. Necrons have grabbed my attention. I’ve been messing around on battle scribe for a few days, so I have basic idea of what units do what. But I’m clueless to what synergies the necrons may have.

What are the best units? And what should I avoid? Your advice would be a huge help :)

[Beatnik cryptek]

Well, wraiths are damn good. You can use them stock or add some shooting weapons to them. If you do take them as sautekh dynasty as thy can move and fire heavy weapons sans penalty.

 

Btw the dynasty choice is important as hell, and yiu can give different detachment different dynasties.

 

A doomsday ark or two is good. They are pretty versatile. They can kill tanks and massacre infantry. Again dynasty choice s important as sautekh can move and fire the doomsday cannon on "low power" but mephrit dynasty gives it's weapons extra AP at half range. This is really important at 12" as it let's it fire 20 gauss shots at ap2 instead of ap 1 which will ruin cheap infantry's day.

 

For synergy you need overlords command barges and crypteks. Overlords and command barges can buff infantry with my will be done that adds 1 to a lot of their rolls, and adding to hit rolls is important for necrons as one of their main weapons, the tesla carbine, does 3 hits instead of 1 on a hit roll of 6+.

 

Crypteks do a lot, they give a friendly infantry unit near them a 5++ save making them much harder to totally wipe out, which let's them try to ressurect. Also they add 1 to the ressurect roll for nearby models which helps get your units back up. Very good buff.

 

Don't look down at the humble scarab swarms, against really tough targets they have twice as much chance to wound as most other units. Plus the self destruct stray let's them put the pain on very tough units.

 

Destroyers are very powerful but will also die quickly unless maybe you accompany them with a cryptek.

 

Monoliths are a questionable buy now. GW nerf batted them to get people to buy arks instead.

 

Immortals are solid and your best troop choice. In general tesla carbines are better than gauss blasters especially against low armor forces. Sometimes yiu can get their teslas to do 3 hits on a 4+ with the right circumstances.

 

Deathmarks are questionable but can deep strike, intercept deep striking units and target characters. On a wound roll of 6 they do mortal wounds. Nice to kill that pesky psyker.

 

A stalker is a good buy as all it has to do it attack a target in the shooting phase. Even if it shoots and misses all necrons units friendly to it get to reroll 1's to hit in the same shooting phase. Plus it carries some real firepower.

 

Spiders are very dubious unless yiu park one in cover next to a vehicle and use it to buff it's living metal repair or use it to block psychic powers.

 

I just don't use flayed ones. If you want melee units praetorians with swords and boards are great if combined with a lord or overlord set up for melee.

 

Annihilation barges have their uses but can fail to get their points back. They need buffs to their hit rolls to make their tesla cannons get the 3 hits.

 

Mephrit dynasty is a good choice for tesla armed units as at half range it given them some AP.

[Beatnik cryptek]

Taking C'tan can be good but you need to k ow what to do with them. Nightbringer can be an infantry killing machine and he deceiver can let you pull some surprise moves to deploy heavy firepower in useful places.

 

The generic c'tan can be customized for various purposes and hey are good at dishing mortal wounds.

[Beatnik cryptek]

You really need to study your strategems too. For example, wraiths are canoptek, and normally can't resurrect,  but a strategem can give them resurrection for a turn and they can be very worth the CPs.

 

[IronDreddKnight]

Thank you Beatnik Cryptek, that’s a very thorough guide :)

 

Ive got an idea of what units I’d like to use, (destroyers, Tomb blades, doomsday ark, triach stalker, cryptek, over lord)

 

I was thinking of maxed warrior units with cryptek and overlord with res orb to make them durable. Is this a good way to go? I can see it’s a large points investment.

 

I’ve also decided on a seutekh battalion and a mephrit outrider. The outrider will consist of destroyers and tomb blades. But I’m unsure of which hq would be best suited for them.

[NTaW]

Max size Warrior units are a double edged sword. They put out a great amount of pain on infantry but they are pretty easy to kill either by shooting or combat. Adding a Cryptek and/or Ghost Ark greatly increases their survivability, adding a Lord and/or Stalker increases their attack potential. Played as Mephrit the Talent for Annihilation stratagem can help generate above-average damage output, played as Nihilakh can avoid the need of including a Stalker. The Reclaim a Lost Empire stratagem can be situationally helpful as well. Personally I play a 20 model unit screened by two 10 model units, accompanied by a Cryptek, Lord, and with a Stalker close by.

 

For your potential Outrider detachment you could consider a Cryptek and frequently advance to keep up with the Destroyers. Alternately a Catacomb Command Barge would fit well in a Meprit detachment, the relic and Warlord trait go well on a tesla-equipped Barge. It can keep up with any fast unit and can use MWBD on itself or the Destroyers as necessary. Destroyer Lords are also an option for accompanying Destroyers but I'd rather just spend the CP on Extermination Protocols (often Talent for Annihilation as well) than the points out of my list on making Destroyers better.

[vigitant]

Well, I was going to post pretty much the exact same statement, but i saw your post.  Another Deathwatch player starting Necrons here.  

[IronDreddKnight]

Well, I was going to post pretty much the exact same statement, but i saw your post. Another Deathwatch player starting Necrons here.

Great minds

[Mr4Minutes]

All the above lol.

 

Necrons have a lot of cool units and options. They are not top tier, or even really middle tier, due to their lack of anti armor. But, thanks to the points decreases in CA2018, we can finally get some good options in.

 

If you’re going necron Warriors blobs, I recommend taking a cryptek with chronometer and making him your warlord. Give him the fearless warlord trait and back it all up with a ghost ark , and you’ll have some very durable annoying objective campers.

 

I like the novokh dynasty traits on CC based units, scarabs, wraiths, etc. I’ll take a CCB with the relic and a squad of wraiths and charge them up the table. Great distraction units. Give him a gauss cannon and put MWBD(can’t remember the CCB name) and you’ll be hitting on 2s even after moving.

 

I’ve also thrown a transcendent C’tan with that squad. Ctan our most reliable MW spammers. I roll 2 dice rather then pick because I think most of the abilities are good. Also with the C’tan powers, times arrow can be awesome for character sniping.

 

My only real suggestion is try some proxy games with various units before dropping any crazy founds on outlandish combos. Necrons have things that look amazing on paper that fall very short on the table.