Has anyone fought 9e Necrons yet?

[Helias_Tancred]

I've got a game coming up and I'm inexperienced playing them. Anyone play against them in 9th yet? I need some advice.

 

Thanks.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Be able to kill 15-20 Warriors in one phase. Probably best to ignore TSK as long as possible and play around it.

[Xenith]

I think your game experience will largely depend on the nature of your game group - if it's relaxed, then bring your normal army and have fun. I'm not aware of any horror combos, but as BBF says, if you wipe a unit in one phase, they don't get to come back to life: Single wound models will get back up again on a 5+ (Roughly 1/3) at the end of each phase, and this can be boosted with rerolls and +1 modifiers as I recall. The shooting can be nasty as ever, so try and close that distance asap. 

[Karhedron]

Watch out for big units of destroyers. They put out a lot of firepower and with Lord support normally reroll 1s to Hit and to Wound. With stratagem support they can reroll all wounds which allows them to burn through even tanks with frightening efficiency.

 

If your opponent fields these, try to take them out early or at least tie them up with something fast and disposable in melee. Left alone they will rapidly carve chunks out of your army.

[Bonzi]

Be able to kill 15-20 Warriors in one phase. Probably best to ignore TSK as long as possible and play around it.

I play Necrons in the 9th and I want to make a note that it isn't killing all the models per phase to prevent reanimation, it's per units attacks. If you shoot warriors with a Redemptor Dreadnought and all the shooting from the Redemptor 'kills' all but one warrior, you get to roll reanimations for the killed models (and stand them back up on 5s) before the next unit conducts it's shooting. It's a convoluted Feel No Pain that you don't get if all the models in the unit dies. Another key is Necrons only get reanimations on attacks in shooting and melee phases. Models killed outside of those phases (moral, psychic, ect) don't get reanimation rolls.

 

Ghost Arks, Res Orbs, Technomancers, and Sezeras are the only things that can bring back models that have been killed and removed from play in previous phases.

 

Multiwound models (Destroyers, Praetorians, Scarabs ect) tend to be Necrons killiest units and also the units that reanimate the poorest. Anything with 3 wounds or more is basically very unlikely to get back up (it's hard to roll x3 5+). Single wound models will be the most resilient with reanimations.

 

Necrons specialize in dominating objectives. They won't out kill you but they are very good at outscoring you.

[Brother Cruoris]

Don't they get to reanimate after each weapon type has fired from one squad?

So the redemptor has about 3 weapon types. After shooting the main gun they can reanimate. Then after shooting the 2nd gun type they get to do it again.

Say that a tac squad with 4 bolter and a plasma gun shoot. They can roll to reanimate all losses caused by the bolt guns. Then after the plasma is resolved they get to reanimate those losses.

Or have me and my friend played that rule wrong?

[Vermintide]

Necrons are big on objective holding and overall durability now, so be aware that your army is probably gonna feel like it's lacking punch at times. Units like Outriders that can do some decent killing against other armies will feel like they're wading through treacle with Necrons. Assault intercessors will struggle, and your shooting will be frustratingly slow to do any work. The biggest strength for the army right now does not come in the form of sheer power, but the Dynasties and strats that allow pre-game movement and objective control (everything can have obsec.)
 
However, their killing power still isn't all that great. It's mostly massed Warriors and Immortals, big blobs of Destroyers... Not much in the Necron armoury actually puts out too much scary firepower, sadly. It's all quite swingy and costs a lot for what it is. Keep in mind the army has quite a bit more melee punch than it used to, I'd argue they're actually better in melee than at range now; and if the other player brings a C'Tan it's gonna heavily skew how you want to play against him.
 
The weakness of Necrons is that their synergy is all over the damn place. Command Protocols are dumb restrictive, so you can easily play around and deny your opponent the benefits of it if you do your homework. Personally I just run two dynasties to make sure all my units are at least benefiting from a worthwhile dynasty trait instead of bothering with Command Protocols.
 
There's no way to "play around" reanimation, like there used to be. People will tell you split firing works, but it doesn't, they're just not thinking properly. It's basically an improved FNP now so you just have to bite the bullet and either chip them down, or wipe them in one phase. Now, the thing is, most armies would have to bring some really brutal, cheesy and un-fun WAAC combo to achieve that- But we can just bring a big unit of Sanguinary Guard and that basically takes care of it.
 

It's a convoluted Feel No Pain that you don't get if all the models in the unit dies.

Which is why being able to wipe the unit in a single phase is the only thing that truly works. He said "15-20 warriors in one phase" because that's how many a Necron player will typically be fielding per unit.

 

Still not easy for most armies, but like I said, BA specialise in stupidly effective horde clearance units like DC and SG.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Vermintide

[Bonzi]

Don't they get to reanimate after each weapon type has fired from one squad?

So the redemptor has about 3 weapon types. After shooting the main gun they can reanimate. Then after shooting the 2nd gun type they get to do it again.

Say that a tac squad with 4 bolter and a plasma gun shoot. They can roll to reanimate all losses caused by the bolt guns. Then after the plasma is resolved they get to reanimate those losses.

Or have me and my friend played that rule wrong?

It's by unit, not weapon type because all unit shooting is assumed to happen at the same time.

 

@ Vermintide:. I was just pointing out that saying 'per phase' is incorrect because that is not how you prevent reanimations. If you wanted a unit to not get any reanimations at all you have to kill them all with a single units shooting in one go (phase is irrelevant more or less). This is why most Crons players run large blobs of warriors, very few units can kill 20 models in one go.

 

The general point that you need to be able to kill massed infantry when playing vs Necrons is a good one though.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Bonzi

[The Unseen]

A big melee squad can probably wipe a big blob of warriors in one go, otherwise we aren't getting to ignore Reanimation. Be careful if their running Novokh with the silent king, like I do when I pull the crons out. A unit of 20 warriors with the silent king and Anrakyr in range, for 2 cp, get 60 attacks, re-rolling hit rolls, at Str5 Ap-1. Plus they're probably packing reapers, for 2 shots at Str5 -2 AP, 12" assault 2. And if you end up to close to TSK, he'll make a unit swing last, and whatever you charged into the blob will get clubbed to death very quickly.

Destroyers are expensive, but both the old school Lokhurst and the new melee Skorpekhs are very good, gauss immortals love shooting space marines, but Necrons still, ironically, struggle to put high value shots down-range. Pretty much every anti-tank weapon they have is either d6 shots (Doomsday arks/canoptek doomsday cannons) with no access to consistency beyond a cp reroll, or have just 1 shot (lokhurst heavy destroyers) So while the doomsday stuff can spike and straight blow up just about any tank in the game, theres also a decent chance that it rolls a 1 for shot number and then misses. Hence why many of the best necron lists rely pretty much entirely on board control, and either short ranged shooting or melee, and leave the swingy shooty at home. It helps when the shadow of Eradicators has left many tanks and monsters on the shelf.

[XeonDragon]

Focused fire. You want to kill all the models in one unit from one of your units if possible. 

[Helias_Tancred]

So units that provide volume of fire are good. Assault bolter inceptors, twin assault cannons, assault incinerator hellblasters, etc?

[Karhedron]

Plasmaceptors are great as Blast is excellent against large blobs and there is no need to overcharge against 1W models.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I did recently a crappy batrep was posted.

 

My lessons learned is that it's really important to focus a unit down until it's completely dead and gone as well as possible.

[Xenith]

I posted a BatRep of my last game vs Necrons here. I have another one against them on Monday, and I'll share the results of that also. 

 

My thoughts largely echo the above. Watch out for the relic ressucrection orb that lets your opponent bring models back in the command phase. In my game I killed 20+ models from a unit of 16 warriors, leaving 2, then he resurrected 12 of them again in his command phase...it's like intergalactic whack-a-mole. 

 

C'Tan is scary, especially the nightbringer. It has a power that can do up to 9MW on a unit. Weirdly, ypur best bet at killing it is to let it charge you. Do 3 wounds in their fight phase, fall back, shoot 3 wounds off it, then chage in and knock the last 3 off, killing it before it can regenerate in their turn.

 

How did your game go Helias?

Edited March 27, 2021 by Xenith

[BloodyB]

Spamming high output blasts works well, plasma inceptors are my personal choice. Warriors are disgustingly tough with enough buffs. If your opponent hides a reanimator in range and stacks a res orb, then expect entire squads firepower to be soaked up if you start shooting at them.

 

Some eliminators, sniper scouts or even a vindicare is a good way to tackle the technomancer or lord that is doing a lot of buffing.

 

Destroyers act almost like Spear aspect warriors: great in one particular way. Stab the Lokhusts, shoot the Skorpekhs and throw something tough at the Ophydians. They're all tough, but expensive and hard to res even one of them.

 

Broadly speaking, if you have to choose between well spread damage and horrific overkill, pick the latter, deny the resurrection rolls as much as you can.

 

The vehicles are surprisingly tough, most can only be wounded on a 4+, and some of them are very good support units. For anti tank, if TSK and Ctan are absent prioritize any triarch stalkers, doomstalkers or command barges first, those things can buff infantry well. If you are going for assault specifically then doomstalkers die first. Select weapons that offer damage output over outright high strength, a predator autocannon is more useful here than a twin lascannon.

 

Beyond that, power swords and lightning claws are great at dealing with the rank and file of the Necrons, as are bolt rifles. Hope this helps.

[Helias_Tancred]

 

How did your game go Helias?

 

We had to postpone it, but we're going to play it soon!