Tactics against the new Necrons

What have you all seen that works against there new necrons? I cannot seem to find anything to give tips. I have a game Saturday and just wanted mainly key points advice as my list is set in stone. What are their weaknesses and what is their strengths. I am using pure Kabal force.

Pain Engines are very nice against Necrons. They have very little shooting that will do anything against a T7, 3+, FNP (4+) creature! A full squad of BS5 Warriors in Rapid Fire range does, on average, 1 wound!!

Dang, good to know.

Voidravens have good weaponry aganist Necrons, with Dark Scythes, implossion missiles and a Void Mine, however, you need some Razorwing support to protect them. As Count stated, Talos are also good. You might consider a Grotesquerie, just be careful what he has in stock.
Once, I tried two Ravagers with Desintegrator Cannons and 3 Raiders. They were simply muderlicious against the infantry and bikes, dropping even Paretorians as flies.

I agree with Count Adhemar in that the Talos in any form is good. Dark Artisans, Corpsethief, or a normal squad is decent and can help withstand the mass amounts of shots the new Necrons dish out.

That said, their new codex change some of their core mechanics beyond their Decurion detachment stuff. Here's things that I focus on and expect when I play my Necrons:

1. Warriors went from 5-10 minimum unit size. This means that if you see warriors in a Ghost Ark, you'll have 10 rapid fire guns plus the Ark's broadsides. Factor in Jinking not affecting the transported unit and they have an amazing gun platform. The "downside" to this change for Necron Players though is that the HQ can no longer be in one with warrior body guards until 1 dies somehow.

2. Reanimation Protocol changed to be pretty much an army-wide FNP-like ability. If the army is part of their decurion detachment, they make the same on a 4+ instead of 5+. Furthermore, ID weapons only cause -1 to that roll which makes it better than FNP.

3. Necrons became more durable but still are weaking in close combat. Wraiths and Praetorians are good melee units; however, the rest of the army crumbles pretty well to a solid unit of Grotesques. Though due to RP, they tarpit extremely well so be careful when using the Talos formation.

4. Tomb Blades dropped in points and gains Ignores Cover as a 2pt upgrade/bike. I've seen lists where people take S5 Gauss weapons on them while others use a S6 small blast. Regardless, if ever there's a primary target for an assault, these are them. Jink + RP just isn't fun with these guys. If you use Medusea, I'd recommend Tomb Blades being priority number 1. These are a good target for Reavers as well if you can stay approach them w/o getting caught by their shots.

5. Triarch Stalkers generate a 6" bubble of +1BS. This is terrifying with Ghost Arks; however, in the formation, they can cause Re-rolling to Hit and to Wound/Pen for any other unit in their formation. Their formation consists of 1 Stalker (not 1 unit) and 2 units of Praetorians. Praetorians can be nasty normally but with the stalker marking a target w/o any action needed beyond having LoS is very powerful. In addition, Praetorians can also take Night Scythes as DTs even though they are Jump Infantry and cannot embark. This means that the Night Scythe's S7 Tesla shots would also be able to reroll to wound/pen. So the Stalker is a large enough force multiplier that it needs to be a target too despite not doing much itself.

6. Just try to stay away from Wraiths, they became T5 and could get RP themselves if they are close to a Spyder. Shoot them at a distance.

7. C'tans are laughable still. If your opponent brings one, tell them that you've always been interested in such and am interested to see how it does. (And then destroy it after you realize that it can't has a single random ranged weapon that rarely rolls something useful.). Joking aside, most of the powers a C'tan could generate CAN hurt almost any DE unit since we don't have high-armor. At the end of the day though, it's still a normal MC with only a 4++ save.


One of the best lists I've experienced recently is either 3-4 Ghost Arks of Warriors or an old Silver Tide list of just walking Necrons. I think for DE, I would fear Silver Tide more due to the foot print it produces - limiting our own movement options.


Razorwing Fighters, Talos, and Grotesques would be my recommendations for key units to have when going up against a Necron Army.

Tomb Blades, Ghost Arks, Triarch Stalkers, and Canoptek Spyders are priority targets as they are either the largest threats, protect the warriors from assault, or enhance other units in dangerous ways.

Good thoughts. I run 2 Razorwings and I figured the Tomb Blades would be my first target for first blood and for their speed. I plan to try and kill his faster units and pick off his troops and greater range and use my much faster mobility to try and dance around him. I was thinking of deep striking my Archon in to deal with the spider. 6 Dark Light Weapons with 4 poison shots hopefully do 3 wounds. I know 4 up reanimation so it will be tough.

if your problem is with large blocks of troops in my experience it's nearly impossible to shoot them to death. You need to break them in combat the good news is that most of our good assault units can beat them with relative ease. The necrons are also initiative 2 so you will almost always catch them.

Problem is I take a shooty list

They will be hard to beat with shoot de list. You would definitely benefit from some coven units (grotesques, talos, and cronos).

Well my shooty does well against all other things and like I said it is set

Tomb Blades might be a good unit to pick off early, but I have never really seen Tomb Blades do much in their little squads of 3 or 4 that they are usually taken in.

If your opponent takes the harvest formation with the Wraiths, Spyder, and Scarbs, I would defiantly be focusing the Wraiths, especially if you can get first turn and prevent the Wraiths from getting Reanimation. Those Wraiths are very fast, very tough, and can ruin your day if you let them get to your venoms / scourge / ravagers.

Otherwise, most of what you need to know has already been stated. I cannot emphasize enough that warrior blobs may look tempting to target, but are in all honesty a long way down the priority list, especially if there are any ghost arks in the list. Targeting ghost arks early and before you work on the warrior blobs will save you alot of wasted poison shots.

Good Luck

Sinister wrote:

Tomb Blades might be a good unit to pick off early, but I have never really seen Tomb Blades do much in their little squads of 3 or 4 that they are usually taken in.

3-4 is worthless, I see 5-6 almost exclusive in my local area and my own lists usually run 5. 1 person in my group runs 10 with particle beamers and scopes. I think it's overkill but I can't deny the amount of damage it does to infantry and light armor.

I agree that working on Warrior squads via shooting is a waste. However, they are still warriors and fall to close combat - and if combined with some of the -LD items like the AoM or FS, they get swept quickly.

If you are determined to out shoot them my advise would be to play the range game as much as possible. Most necron shooting is fairly short ranged if you can skirt around past the edge of his range you may have some chance.

doctorz wrote:

If you are determined to out shoot them my advise would be to play the range game as much as possible. Most necron shooting is fairly short ranged if you can skirt around past the edge of his range you may have some chance.

I've had success with this strategy in the last edition of the Necrons. I have yet to face the current incarnation of the 'crons but still range is an issue for them still by the sounds. Also, low initiative so look to sweep in assaults and does anything give/get Fearless??

Trying to shoot the Necrons to death is going to be an uphill struggle. They are just incredibly tough. Even a basic unit of warriors is very resilient but if your opponent really tries he can create a unit that is almost invulnerable and not even particularly expensive. Close combat really is the best option to shift them.

Alot of Necrons now run the jetbike units that mitigate the range barrier for them as they are so darn hard to kill. I recently played against Necrons at a tournament, and they were so hard to kill it was not funny. 6 of my thunderwolves with a lord went into a jetbike unit and took two turns to kill them (stoopid 4+ re animation). Best way to kill them en masse is to cause enough wounds in cc that they break and you can sweep them off the board

I would have to wait until turn 4 really before I could really ensure ibhurt his Warriors

So that formation with the pratorians and the stalker it is indeed a unit of stalkers so you can have 3 of those +1 bs guys running around.