Tactica: 5th edition Necrons codex.

[Necr0n]

The biggest tourny in my country just happened and it was a 2-day one. 3 games in the first, 2 in the second day! It worked something like this: You win, you play with a winner, you lose, you play with a looser. So, I got an automatic defeat in the first game due to some problems I've had ( I didn't show up, so it counted as a defeat-0 victory points).

Due to my first automatic defeat now I was gonna play with a "looser" which meant that probably his list wasn't very optimised. I know my list has a weakness, and that is the non-optimised, non-msu lists. So I played with a Black Templar list that went something like this: 3squads of 5 marines each with a lass cannon, 2squads of 5marines-3scouts +HQ's in Rhinos, 1 LandRaider with High Marshal-FC Termies and 3 Typhoon speeders.

The game was Pitched Battle, 4 Objectives.
I destroyed him for the biggest part of the game(turn 3 I had no casualties while he was left with his termies fighting my wraiths and 2squads of 5 man, and 1squad of 8. Unfortunately, one of my wraiths decided to hold the termies for the whole game (kept rolling 3+) and only left them at turn 5 when they only got shot for 1 round (2 Courts, Ghost arks, and 2 Barges targetted them). 1 Terminator with Lightning Claws and the Marshal survived with one wound. They Split up and contested my two objectives, while my 8 man immortal squad lost Close Combat to a single marine and got sweeped. As a result, I lost. Anyway, he was a good player, and my wraith too lucky!

Third game was versus a Salamander list that featured two Landraiders, 10 TH/SS termies, Vulcan, a chaplain and two Drop-Pod Tactical squads.It was Dawn of War-Kill Points I tabled this guy save for a couple of TH/SS termies, while he only killed my Overlords.

Fourth game was versus a Chaos IG list (1 Manticore, 1 Vendetta, 2 Plasmacutioneers, and 6? Chimeras) he had arround 60 veterans with meltas in the vendetta-chimeras and a psycker squad in the other chimera. The game was spearhead-Killpoints. Nightfighting helped me close the gap (spearhead is mean!) and I ended up tabling him as well. My casualties were the 2 CCB's and an Overlord.

Fifth game was versus a well known competitive player and his Guard! His list was something like: 2 Vendetta's, 1 Manticore, 1squadron of 2Hell-hounds, a platoon with Autocannons/Mortar, 4 Chimeras with a CCQ, and 3 squads of 10 veterans(melta etc). He also had a footslogging psycker squad.
The game was Dawn Of War, 5 Objectives.

I played second, let him play alone first turn when I arrived and used my pulse for something like an Alpha Strike. It didn't work. Both My Courts missed, and only one Annihilation Barge managed to destroy a Vendetta while the others Shook another. The Game was very, very close. He focused on my troops that died rather easily due to the Hellhounds (exept for a 5man warrior squad), while I just tried to table him since I wasn't gonna win the objective game. It went pretty well, until the time was up, and he was only left with 1 Manticore, 1 psycker squad (locked in assault with my HQ that was supposed to kill them), one Immobilized/Weap Destroyed Chimera and a 3 man squad from the platoon.It ended up as a draw, because we had to finish the game, time was up.

Generally, the tourney was fun. I could've done better. Unfortunately I lost the first game for no reason, which meant I couldn't really do well, but still it was okay. I realised how strong my list is, and damn it is! In all of my games only once did an Annihilation Barge get wrecked and onle twice a single Ghost Ark while the courts remained unharmed.

I'm afraid I'm kind of bored for a more detail report, and I don't even remember that well, but if you have certain questions as for how I faced different stuff feel free to ask.

[Starwolf]

What was the points value and what was your list?

[Necr0n]

What was the points value and what was your list?

Points Value: 1750

My list: Balanced List (as is visible in my signature)

[Buddha777]

A question to other necron lords, what are your best strategies against dark eldar? I'm already a little shot in the foot since I run a footcron cohort but in general what you do you find the most effective/ineffective against the evil elves?

[Str10_hurts]

I play both, tesla makes me shiver as a DE player. 24'' is your sweetspot, out of charge range (of most things) and deal full damage with tesla. Vehicles will pop, and troops will fail. Dark eldar cares not for expensive units (pimped landraiders, tooled terminators = lol). Its weakness is having to play against a lot of resilient cheap units (mass chimera/mass 3+ = ouch).

[Necr0n]

A question to other necron lords, what are your best strategies against dark eldar? I'm already a little shot in the foot since I run a footcron cohort but in general what you do you find the most effective/ineffective against the evil elves?

I'll say having lots of AV13- threats they can't deal with and pack lots of TL-Tesla Destructors. 3 Annihilation Barges are the must in the list that wants to defeat the Dark Eldar. Also, because of their lack of melta and their reliance on cover saves I'll say CCB's shine! So generally, barges of any kind shine versus the DEldar. Generally, Tesla is the answer to their threat.

HoDe with the Shroud can be very effective as they tend to run pretty often (especially versus beastpacks it's very effective).

I'd say give them a lot of targets. Overload them, give them anxiety through nightfighting, and bring them down one vehicle at a time.


**PS: If you wanna be cheesy and don't have problems proxying play Scythewing.
6 NightScythes, 3 DoomScythes and Imotekh.(30 warriors for the NightScythes)
It's 1740 points and will uterly and forever destroy Dark Eldar.

[archonisthebesthqever]

A question to other necron lords, what are your best strategies against dark eldar? I'm already a little shot in the foot since I run a footcron cohort but in general what you do you find the most effective/ineffective against the evil elves?

Your answer is imotekh,with so many vehicles in the table he will surely kill a lot.Also i find it impossible with the DE to win the scythe spam list,it is just more shooting,in the same range but the de ride on paper planes while scythes are made from wood.

[Infidel]

Imhotekh is so disguisting against DE.

In last week's game, he raped a ravager, a venom and 2 raiders, and that's before any shot was fired (pitched and NF). Every 6 is a neutered vehicle, even if god forbid you roll all 1s, a stun still hurts the fast DEs.

[DJ3]

Everyone already got the good ones. Imotekh and Tesla are both pretty enormous problems for them, particularly Tesla, since virtually everything is Open-Topped to offset the AP- penalty. Other than that, the biggest key to playing DE is having at least a little mobility, otherwise they can just out-maneuver you to a rather crazy degree. CCBs and Scythes or Veils/Obyron are all great for this.

Disembarked Infantry will tend to get shredded against DE, so it's best to have an Ark (or even Scythes) to hide some Troops in. If you're sticking with Footcron, that will obviously be an issue.

[Alsiaie]

On the flip side, DE can be incredibly annoying to face with necrons. It's a bad day when imotekh get's paired against a wych rush army that maxes out on ravagers, raiders and venoms all armed with night shields and flickerfields. We have two DE players that pretty much run the same idea. So basically nightfight is active, my overall max range is reduced to 18" and DE have night vision to boot. I have to get within range of charges and blaster spam to even shoot my guns. Lightning storm is good when it works don't get me wrong. But there's more working against you than helping you. Last time I faced this type of list stormlord decided to fail the nightfight roll on turn 3 even with a chronometron. It was a dawn of war mission. Game Over. Of course I'm playing full mech myself which does not help the cause against DE.

[stonehorse]

Wraiths are also good, their strength is enough to cause instant death, which negates them their Feel No Pain, Whip Coils reduce their Initiative, also the Wraiths have speed to catch up with the Dark Eldar.

Also Annihilation Barges can do nasty things to Dark Eldar, both their troops and their vehicles.

[zendral]

Depends on what kind of DE you are facing.....now if you asked me how to use necrons against DE skimmer spam (a ton of little pesky skimmers.....venoms, raiders, true born, oh my) without using Imotech I could lend a few words .

The great thing about facing an army with lots of poisoned weapons is the lack of strength to ID scarabs. The more long-ranged shots the better...courts with and that sor of thing of course. The last game I played was against a very competant skimmer DE player that just so happened to not know so much about necrons (although he did have the codex and was reading out every rule I used and learning as we went). My strategy involved two scarab swarms with spyders spending the first 2-3 turns cranking out as many bugs as possible. Flooding the field and absorbing as many guns as I could. Hearding the skimmers as best as I could into firing lines. The MVP would have to fall to the CCB and lord. Flying around and slicing open skimmers with ease, jumping out only to hit one more target. Luckily the size of the troop squads in the DE transports were minimal so to save points for more DE skimmers.

What I remember the most was just having 2 large scarab squads spreading out and carpeting big sections of the map. Threatening the ability to move into safe spots as DE skimmers may like to do. While I may not have done as much damage as I wanted with the little critters, they absorbed the barrage of poisoned shots away from my warriors and immortals. I can't give you my exact list, but I do remember having:

lord on CCB

lance court

doomsday ark

10 tesla immortals

10 warriors + ark

3 spyders

2 squads of scarabs

triach stalker

Was also the first time using the stalker. I used a proxy. Twin heavy gauss. Worked good for this setup. Just sniping skimmers and surviving. I truly came to appreciate it at the end of the game. The game was objectives and the enemy was down to 2 skimmers. Of course the last move was going to be moving flat-out and contesting at the end. All I needed was one. Marked the target....rest of the army boosted by twin-linked overwhelmed the flat-out save . As it it says in the codex...if you wanted something dead...by goly the stalker will help.

The trick is bringing out as much ability as the DE to target multiple things. I think it was like 10 or so skimmers with troops on board with those little lance guns. So many skimmers...so many embarked units shooting at separate targets.

[Wolfsbane]

What's the verdict on withering worldscape lists? I've recently showed interest to start another army and crons have been an old favorite (had a real small WD list from back in the day). I see most lists seem to spam AV 13 along with lance courts. While I understand the tactics and why those lists are strong, I was just wondering if anyone had experimented with anything besides AV 13, Stormlord, or Wraith lists?

[lethlis]

Dont know if this has been discussed or not, but I was looking at investing in tesseract labyrinths to snipe out the unit sergeants and the like with special weapons. Since that model with something like a power fist is going to do most of the killing be nice to be able to single them out that way. Not bad for 20 points. Also a pretty solid chance to take out a 2 wound character or even a TT/SS terminator and its already made its points back.

Also after reading the Adepticon necrons list and explanations I decided to try something like it with my Units. I was thinking of loadouts like this

10x immortals Gauss
1x transmogrification with crucible
1x storm with lightning field.

Run two units of these

5x warrior
2x lance tek one with pulse

Run two of these as well.

The immortals have a good rate of fire, combined with slowing the target down in their movement phase and then also lowering their assault value if they try to charge. Follow that by them taking d6 strength 8 hits when they do. I think it could be quite interesting.

I am not really a fan of the lance tek courts since you really need to invest in a ghost ark to make them work. However with some small warrior units you can put them some place safe, they are scoring and still have the same number of shots(small price I think compared to the chronometron losses)

[rocdocta]

What's the verdict on withering worldscape lists? I've recently showed interest to start another army and crons have been an old favorite (had a real small WD list from back in the day). I see most lists seem to spam AV 13 along with lance courts. While I understand the tactics and why those lists are strong, I was just wondering if anyone had experimented with anything besides AV 13, Stormlord, or Wraith lists?

WW is extremely effective vs assault armies. i came 4th in generalmanship with one. however vs IG that castle, not so effective. some matches you are the rock ie vs marine biker armies...and other matches they are the paper ie IG mech. stopping an assault army from moving or sniping out melta/Pfist with lucky rolls is very handy. combine slow movement dangerous terrain checks with a monolith template and you can cuse a lot of casualties.

[Bonzai]

What's the verdict on withering worldscape lists? I've recently showed interest to start another army and crons have been an old favorite (had a real small WD list from back in the day). I see most lists seem to spam AV 13 along with lance courts. While I understand the tactics and why those lists are strong, I was just wondering if anyone had experimented with anything besides AV 13, Stormlord, or Wraith lists?

My verdict on the whole WW lists is that they are gimmicky, but ok. However, once opponents get used to it, and lose their fear of it, it quickly loses what edge it had. It's a nice trick, but the points you spend supporting that trick and optimizing it, are better spent on just killing your opponents out right. My first list with the new dex was a WW list, but now I run a pure gunline style list and I like it better.

[Wolfsbane]

WW is extremely effective vs assault armies. i came 4th in generalmanship with one. however vs IG that castle, not so effective. some matches you are the rock ie vs marine biker armies...and other matches they are the paper ie IG mech. stopping an assault army from moving or sniping out melta/Pfist with lucky rolls is very handy. combine slow movement dangerous terrain checks with a monolith template and you can cuse a lot of casualties.

That was kinda my thoughts. A monolith, a small farm, and a stalker or two can really bog down those units that end up getting through the difficult terrain. I do believe that this list would do poorly against a IG mech and Tau lists. I was really wracking my brain on how to try to counter this. I thought about going with a foot slog army that is supported by scarabs, stalkers, and wraiths. So if you focus on my gunline, you get assaulted, if you focus on my assault units, you get gunned down. I'm going to try to make it a come all list.

I am going to be playing in some team tournaments this year and playing a WW list with a lash teammate would be disgusting.

[Bonzai]

This was my writhing worldscape list for the record.

Overlord w/warscythe, mss, ps, command barge
3x harbingers of transmogrification
C'tan w/ ww, dust
Triarch Stalker
10 warriors
10 warriors
10 warriors
3 hvy destroyers
3 hvy destroyers
8 scarabs
Doomsday ark
Doomsday ark
Tomb spyder w/ fabricator array
Total: 2,000

As I said, it did ok. My first draft of the list had Orriken in it, but after a few games with him I ended up dropping him. If he could have a court, it would have been different, but as it is it's a hefty tax for a one turn ability. I didnt have points for him and the overlord, and I feel tremor staves brings more to the table over all.

I had the doomsday arks in there on the premise that the hvy destroyers could pop transports and the arks could drop the templates on the passengers. That worked, but the cover saves mitigated it some what.

I did enjoy the C'tan though. It was a nice counter assault unit, and while they werent what they used to be, they still pack a nice punch.

[Wolfsbane]

This is my "on paper" thoughts.

Overlord w/warscythe, mss, res orb
Overlord w/warscythe, mss, res orb
Court 1
Veil-tek
Lance-tek - pulse
Tremor-tek

Court 2
Veil-tek
Lance-tek - pulse
Tremor-tek
Tremor-tek

C'tan w/ ww, lord of fire
Triarch Stalker
7 Immortals w/ tesla
7 Immortals w/ tesla
5 warriors w/ ark
6 scarabs
6 scarabs
Annihilation barge
2 Spyders w/ gloom prism
Monolith

Total: 1993

Overlord, tremor-tek, and veil-tek go into the Immortal squads porting around to stay out of charge range/los from stuff. One tremor-tek and both lance-tek get on the ghost ark with the warriors. Stalker shoots a big nasty I want to help the tremor-teks/lance court with the warriors. Monolith is there for deepstriking, los blocking, big scary thing. Vacuum and porting scarabs/C'tan to tie down nasty units. Sypders are a mini-farm/counter attack for the annihilation barge.

Again this is just my thought process. I have not yet built an army so it's all theory-craft. Most of the discussion the last few pages have been about gunlines with double command barge. It's a wonderful list, but I would love some feedback about this idea. If anything I'll proxy it up a couple games to figure out the folly of my ways.

[Infidel]

I wish the C'tan were still S8/T8. If they were, I'd wager we'll be seeing a lot more of them.