Help against Necrons

[Infidel]

CSM lash works incredibly well against necrons. Spyders are very slow and only provide a 4+ against the lash. They really don't cover much ground and even when the gloom prism is in range it is hardly reliable. Not only that but foot crons are very popular. Not many people run ghost arks for their troops, and night scythes don't even have a model.

Searchlights make nightfight a non issue really. With everything in the chaos dex outclassing necrons in close combat you want to close with them. Pushing forward with your rhinos, dreads, defilers means you will easily light up something valuable and kill it.

Wraiths fall to weight of attacks and if someone is geared up for wound allocation not every wraith has a whip coil. Charge the prince in against a coil-less wraith and tie the others up with berzerkers. The prince wounds on a 2+ btw. Also, I didn't say you charge the wraiths with a lone prince. You charge them with everything available and focus fire them down in a single turn. A full squad of berzerkers and an additional prince should easily wipe them out in one turn. Wraiths are usually played aggressively, so getting the charge on them isn't difficult with a double lash list.

Lash has an effective 36" range on a winged prince, and double lash can move an enemy unit twice in one turn for a total 4d6". Foot crons really are very vulnerable to a lash list. I play them regularly and while I don't always win I always feel like I have the upper hand. The last nercon army I played in a local tournament I tabled in turn 4.

Fair enough, forgot that CSM DPs come with S6. Used to be a Daemon player you see.

As far as searchlights make NF a non-issue, I'm not sure what the Necron player is doing, but even against BA with fast vehicles, I can reliably get 2 turns worth of night-fight without any issue. Don't forget that the rhino need to get there to shine their searchlight, and once they get there, there's still a chance of falling short and even then, each of them can only light up a single target.

Searchlight most definately does not make NF a non-issue if the Necron player knows how to kite, god forbid you're playing DoW or even pitched battle, there are plenty of things you can do to ensure that no searchlight is within range until turn 3 at very earliest.

As for Gloom Prism, short of reinforced aegis, it's identical to Rune Staff. 4+ to cancel a is an odd i'm more than happy to deal with. As for them being slow, no slower than other MCs that doesn't fly.

Insofar as getting beserkers and DPs both into a fight with Wraiths, achievable with Lash I suppose but then you won't be lashing anything else, and the Wraiths should either be deep-struck or held back for counter-assault purposes. If you're absolutely determined to lash the wraiths, the rest of the army should make short work of those DPs.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to movement. Against Lash princes, battles are won and lost at single dicerolls. A 4+ gloom prism cancellation, a bad 2D6 lash roll or a bad spot distance roll means the Necron player immediately gets the upper hand.

[blurrymadness]

Several posts of B.S.ing

Look; I understand you have a hard-on for this necron army; but this is *not not not* the fully optimized scarab farm business; this is an army that at most could gain 18 scarab bases in a game, and more likely something around 9. So let's just make the army look like it has the total of 26 scarab bases; this hardly seems unbeatable.

It's much different when your maximum *additional* scarabs is 27 and you start with 15-20. The Eldar would do just fine here. Warp Spiders have 12+3d6 movement then 12" range (highly highly likely to pass night fighting if they're at *maximum* range) and they cost next to nothing. You might have to be ballsy with Eldar to kill the scarabs, but it's not hard *at all* when you have 50-75 S6 shots in the army and can choose what turn you start fighting. You might get 2-3 turns of night fighting, but if the Eldar come on turn 2 and give you first turn you're kinda stuck with however they choose to fight you. With everything having the option of moving 12" it takes something like 8+ scarabs to even take down the vehicle reliably; if they don't they simply die to a big load of 6+ cover saves instant death rapage.

The scarabs are the only *reliable* anti-tank here and there are not enough of them to deal with good 5th ed armies. Any of them.

3 RifleDreads, 3 ACLC preds, 3 MMHF speeders, 2 sets of tacs, and some stuff

Notice that everything there is effective against *everything* in the army; they always have really really good targets. Notice that you can *at most* kill 3ish vehicles before including stormlord stuff as you'll generally be on the back foot eating loads of heavy firepower. Average rolling for night fighting is still 21", and most armies can start shooting turn one if they play aggressively. The only thing that you can punish aggressiveness with are the Scarabs (in the list) and in that case you have to hope they don't get demolished before they eat... what... 11+ vehicles? And this is one of the armies that isn't top tier.

A few scarabs aren't a match for a well prepped army. Scarab farm; sure, that's more difficult. 1/3rd of a Scarab Farm is... what you'd expect.

[Kevlar]

Whats really funny is tying up the scarabs with plague marines. I had a unit of five tie up a big unit of scarabs for a whole game. The scarabs just can't put a wound on the plagues.

[Mr Ogre]

Necrons seem to be able to make really tasty 1,500 point armies. I used the following at an inter-store Tournament, and smashed all three opponents...
Necron Overlord -
Phaeron, Warscythe, Ressurection Orb, Phase Shifter, Sempiternal Weave
Cryptek -
Harbinger of Despair, Veil of Darkness
Crpytek -
Harbinger of the Storm, Lightning Field, Ether Crystal

20 Necron Warriors -
10 Necron Immortals -
Gauss Blasters
10 Necron Immortals –
Tesla Carbines

5 Destroyers

Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Monolith

This turned out to be a very tasty list. There was little I couldn't damage through sheer weight of firepower, though of course HTH remains risky (was funny when I electrocuted a charging Terminator Librarian though!!!) I did okay due to my sheer jamminess (the Warriors zapped the Librarian, and took down 4 Terminators in a single round of combat. And most of mine stood back up)

I hesitate to draw conclusions of the list/armies overall power, but to add to the mix, first time I'd ever played with Necrons, and first time playing 40k for around 18 months.

[DJ3]

this is an army that at most could gain 18 scarab bases in a game, and more likely something around 9.

I'll have to check my math, but I believe 3*7 is 21. You're right for Dawn of War though! And I have no idea where you invented that nine from--that's virtually the minimum amount he'll spawn. The only way you don't spawn on the first two turns is if a sinkhole eats your game table, the third turn is virtually a given, and you may have missed that he has a second unit to spawn to once the original has Assaulted out of range. If he ever spawns fewer than 12, it's a travesty, or something ate his Spyders.

The Eldar would do just fine here. Warp Spiders have 12+3d6 movement then 12" range (highly highly likely to pass night fighting if they're at *maximum* range) and they cost next to nothing.

Alright, I don't know what happened here. Aside from the fact that going all Warp Spider is just a tad list-tailory, which is what the guy is trying to avoid, I think you have some serious misconceptions about how Warp Spiders work. Especially the part about them being cheap.

Well, no, especially the part about them having 12+3d6 movement followed by 12" firing range, because that one is fully imaginary. That's their maximum hypothetical movement for an entire turn, given that they do not want to Shoot or Assault. The effective range of their guns really isn't so complicated--it's 24". Which puts them firmly back into the Seer Council problem, as the Scarabs' average range is greater than theirs, though it's a lot closer in their case.

And in the end, if this all somehow works out and the entire unit gets to fire at some Scarabs, you've paid 220 points to kill 3.7 bases. Which is almost exactly (3.3) what a unit of Scatter Laser War Walkers could be doing--reliably--from a different zip code. So it's not just list tailoring, it's completely ineffectual list tailoring.

but it's not hard *at all* when you have 50-75 S6 shots

I agree, that would be easy, in Hypothetical Warp Spider Wonderland.

but if the Eldar come on turn 2 and give you first turn you're kinda stuck with however they choose to fight you.

This one bothers me in a broader sense--I have never understood the line of thinking that leads to people reactionarily going full-reserve to avoid the Stormlord against Scarab armies. That's just the absolute worst decision. It says, hey! Have a couple turns to set up your Scarabs in the middle of the board, and spawn uncontested. I will then come on piecemeal, assuring that I have nowhere near the weight of firepower necessary to threaten said Scarabs.

But hey, at least I'm not getting struck by one-in-six lightning! Unless I do, since it's still entirely likely most of my army will be exposed to 1-2 turns of it.

if they don't they simply die to a big load of 6+ cover saves instant death rapage.

I don't know what happened here.

3 RifleDreads, 3 ACLC preds, 3 MMHF speeders, 2 sets of tacs, and some stuff

I don't know what happened here.

and most armies can start shooting turn one if they play aggressively.

I don't know what happened here, but no.

A few scarabs aren't a match for a well prepped army. Scarab farm; sure, that's more difficult. 1/3rd of a Scarab Farm is... what you'd expect.

I'm going to make a random, left-field observation here--based mostly off this statement and your desire to field a seventy-five S6 shot 1500 Eldar army, but it sounds as if you've had some problem with Scarab Farms in the past.

I think the most important fact you're missing is that mini-Farms do not play like full Farms. They're not designed to. He's not going to blanket the board in bases and drown you in wounds--they're solely designed to fill a role, not be a gimmick that the entire army revolves around. The whole of the Scarabs and the Spyders only fill a quarter of that army's points, and it should be played as such--and from the sound of what Axem1n was saying, that's exactly what's happening. The Scarabs are not rushing forward to take on the entirety of his army. Instead, he's using everything else to set up favorable situations for the Scarabs to exist in, by which point he should have a reasonable number of them built up.

It's a simple concept, and a rather simple army. It's not optimized by any means--it relies too heavily on that single Annihilation Barge and Stormlord to hopefully open some Transports, but it's still certainly not bad, and there's some obvious synergy present in the abundance of 24" firepower combining with the Stormlord/mini-Farm's tendency to force opponents to come at you. In the end, it's good enough to force some terrible matchups if played well.

[Infidel]

Look; I understand you have a hard-on for this necron army; but this is *not not not* the fully optimized scarab farm business; this is an army that at most could gain 18 scarab bases in a game, and more likely something around 9. So let's just make the army look like it has the total of 26 scarab bases; this hardly seems unbeatable.

Okay, the hostility is a bit perplexing. If you could please tell me exactly which part of my post qualify as BS, that'd really help. As for 'this' necron army, i was more talking about a more optimised version of this army. Flip back a few pages, the first thing I said was how this list could be improved by optimising various units.

It's much different when your maximum *additional* scarabs is 27 and you start with 15-20. The Eldar would do just fine here. Warp Spiders have 12+3d6 movement then 12" range (highly highly likely to pass night fighting if they're at *maximum* range) and they cost next to nothing. You might have to be ballsy with Eldar to kill the scarabs, but it's not hard *at all* when you have 50-75 S6 shots in the army and can choose what turn you start fighting. You might get 2-3 turns of night fighting, but if the Eldar come on turn 2 and give you first turn you're kinda stuck with however they choose to fight you. With everything having the option of moving 12" it takes something like 8+ scarabs to even take down the vehicle reliably; if they don't they simply die to a big load of 6+ cover saves instant death rapage.

What...? DJ3 has beaten me to it.

I guess it would be a 12+3D6 if you're doing HnR, but unless you get to assault your own unit from behind, I just can't see how their HnR is ever relevant in the context of shooting scarabs.

Also, while it is entirely possible for your army to pump out 50~75 S6 shots, good luck cutting through nightfight when you don't have access to searchlights. IIRC, War-Walkers can out-flank, that helps, but the Necron player should be able to counteract that with the placement of their scarabs.

The scarabs are the only *reliable* anti-tank here and there are not enough of them to deal with good 5th ed armies. Any of them.

And I'd agree! Scarabs are simply one type of anti-tank we can muster, and also one that can thoroughly punish a player for mishandling them, but it is rare to see a list relying entirely on Scarabs. Don't forget Spyders also pack a mean punch when they get close and Necron guns can pretty reliably glance stuff.

3 RifleDreads, 3 ACLC preds, 3 MMHF speeders, 2 sets of tacs, and some stuff.

Notice that everything there is effective against *everything* in the army; they always have really really good targets. Notice that you can *at most* kill 3ish vehicles before including stormlord stuff as you'll generally be on the back foot eating loads of heavy firepower. Average rolling for night fighting is still 21", and most armies can start shooting turn one if they play aggressively. The only thing that you can punish aggressiveness with are the Scarabs (in the list) and in that case you have to hope they don't get demolished before they eat... what... 11+ vehicles? And this is one of the armies that isn't top tier.

Start shooting turn 1 if they deploy aggressively? Last I checked even Spearhead, the shortest distance between us still starts at 24", and im not sure what manner of idiocy will drive a person to deploy so close to you.

Like I said, between vehicle supression and deployment and kiting, unless something goes amazingly wrong, a good Necron general will always get 3 turns of scarab spawning. Turbo-boosting and deepstrikers and shunting will get there by turn 2, but unless the rest of the army can keep up, those unit you've comitted to killing scarabs are forfeit.

As for everything in that army is good against everything? Hardly. What have you got to deal with 6 wound-allocating spyders? What about the wraiths flying up your flank? What if those rhino goes down? What if gauss/mass tesla gets a hold of those flimsy speeders or if the Scarabs get to them first? What about Stormlord's lightning? What have you got to cut through NF besides those 2 rhino? Also, what is in that list that is capable of dealing with 30 immortals? 20 tesla and 10 relentless gauss blasters will tear through the TACs.

With immortals spread out in a screen down the front, Spyders immediately after and the scarab units spreading out the a flank and wraiths pushing forward with cover...let's just say I dont mind fighting that army.

God forbid you run into Mechrons and see the autocannon spam bounce off quantum shielding.

Don't get me wrong, that's a good marine list and will put up a stiff fight, but it still won't curbstomp a well-constructed scarabfarm in the hand of a competent general.

[Axeman1n]

I wonder if I should run footdar with Wraithlords. If I run 3 Wraithlords, then any scarabs will be useless. All I need to do is take out the wraiths. I did consider running jetcouncil, but I felt it was a bit too tailored. I feel there is no "All comers" list that can expect a win against this scarabfarmlet.

[Kevlar]

Wraithlords are good, but you have to protect them from MSS. Not being vehicles means they will be smacking themselves a lot. Farseer with mindwar is probably the best bet against those pesky necron lords.