Drukhari vs Necrons

I have very few problems facing off against most armies, but Necrons in particular give me trouble.  I tend to fight a Lychguard heavy list that loves to teleport all over the place.  I can't seem to find a way to reliably destroy the lychguard.  They are a constant threat to my shooters, and if I attempt to outmaneuver them they just teleport to me.  I am also dealing with destroyers on the side and Immortals with their attacks adding 2 hits to rolls of 5, 4, and 6.  It is tough to deal with.  Any advice, fellow denizens of the Dark City?

EDIT: Also, can the Necron stratagem "Dispersion Field Amplification" effect units embarked in a transport? It would seem that they couldn't because the stratagem doesn't directly give them "permission," but I have met a few people who think that it would so I am unsure.

Assuming you are facing Dispersion Shield Lychguard then you need units that can deal a lot of wounds, AP isn't a priority and is low points per wound for shooting in case you face the Dispersion Field Amplification Stratagem. Prime candidates would be Flayed Skull Kabalites in Venoms, Wyches, Wracks and Grotesques. Lhamaeans are ideal against this type of unit, but you can't generally bring enough to make a strategy based on them worthwhile. Either take them down with massed splinter fire or tie them up with Wyches or Wracks.

Dispersion Field Amplification makes units targeting the Lychguard take a mortal wound on a Lychguard invulnerable save of 6+. If the Lychguard are on the table and you target them with shooting they can activate the Stratagem. If you then shoot at them with a unit in a transport then the transported unit could take mortal wounds.

Destroyers are a stable of most Necron lists. You need to hit them with enough firepower to get rid of them completely.

How do you get +2 to hit on Tesla Immortals? I have seen +1 from the Overlord's buff, but don't know of a second boost. If that is a major part of the enemy list, use lots of Venoms as your transports and keep Lightning Fast Reflexes for the unit they target.

Kantalla wrote:

How do you get +2 to hit on Tesla Immortals? I have seen +1 from the Overlord's buff, but don't know of a second boost.

He uses a stratagem for it. I believe it was called methodical destruction.

My first piece of advice would be to concentrate fire on the Destroyers until they're all dead.

Other than that, could you give us more information about the army he's using?

Also, could you give us your own army list?

Methodical Destruction cost 2CP and is used after a SAUTEKH unit inflicts an unsaved wound on a unit. After that, all friendly SAUTEKH units get +1 on their to hit rolls on that unit only. Seems pretty expensive to me, but I've play Necrons on this side quite a bit and I can say from experience that a unit of Immortals with My Will Be Done (+1 on the to hit roll) make Immortals pretty mean. A unit of 10 will put out 20 shots and will end up with almost 20 wounds (against T4) every time it. It would obviously be more with another +1 to hit.

Necrons have a few ways of teleporting Lychguard.
1) C'Tan Shard of the Deceiver
2) Obyron
3) Monolith or Night Scythe
4) Combination of any of the 3

1) If he's running C'Tan of the Deceiver, then this can only be used at the beginning of the game, before T1 begins. They must be placed 12"+ away from you and he cannot charge in his first turn. This give you at least a full turn to shoot down his Lychguard. If your list can't bring down a unit of Lychguard in a single turn, then you're lacking firepower.

2) Since he's running Sautekh and teleporting, then I'm assuming that he's using Obyron. It's important to note that Obyron can only teleport within 6" of Zhandrekh. Zhandrekh can't deepstrike, so he needs delivery options, which are only a Night Scythe or Monolith. This means that he cannot perform the teleport until his T2. If that's the case, then spread your units out and force him to only get in range of 1 target at at time. This teleport will often times leave Zhandrekh and/or Obyron open to be sniped, especially with our movement options.

3) If he's running the Monolith or Night Scythes then he's probably running more than 1 of them. If they are destroyed before the units deploy, then the units are destroyed. Neither of these are listed as transports. The "embarked" unit is actually placed in orbit and can be teleported onto the field by any unit with the Invasion Beams rule (i.e Monoliths and Night Scythes). Only 1 unit can be teleported onto the battlefield by a unit with this rule. The pain with this rule is that they can be placed anywhere more than 1" away from enemy models. So again, screening and spread out to avoid as much damage as you can.

My guess is that he's running Zahndrekh, Obyron and a couple of Night Scythes. He'll probably be hiding Obyron and the Lychguard out of line of sight in T1, then flying up his Nights Scythes into position. Zahndrekh will be placed in "orbit". In T2 he'll drop Zahndrekh and then teleport Obyron and the Lychguard. Best advice here is to focus down the Night Scythes in Turn 1. With our fire power, destroying 2 is a definite possibility.

Also, DCs are great against Necrons. Can't say this enough. Do whatever you can to keep your Ravagers and Razorwings alive.

Lychguard are 2W each, so they are an ideal target for the DCs. DCs also are great for negating the Quantum Shielding.

One other thing to note as that Destroyers should almost always be the #1 priority (again DCs are great here) as Soulles Samurai has said. Destroyers do most of the heavy lifting for Necrons. This list (from what I am assuming) is built around making you make tough target priority choices. He puts a threat in your face early in hopes of keeping his Destroyers and Immortals alive to pick you apart. Lychguard don't do THAT much damage (especially the Hyperphase sword + shield version) for their cost honestly, plus they move slow. So spread out and stay away from them. You will most certainly lose a unit to their initial charge, but you should be able to avoid them after that.

Personally, I would focus down the Destroyers and Immortals. Eat the initial charge on the Lychguard and spread everything else out to minimize the damage from them. The sword and shield version of the Lychguard are 34 pts per model. If he's running a lot of them, then good. They are too slow and expensive for what they do, especially when facing a fast army like ours.

Just to add to what merse24 has said, Lychguard can also be teleported via a Veil of Darkness. However, that's one-per-army and can only be used once-per-game.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

My first piece of advice would be to concentrate fire on the Destroyers until they're all dead.

Other than that, could you give us more information about the army he's using?

Also, could you give us your own army list?

My army list varies.  I have tried a few tactics, but have just recently learned that DCs work really well against them, so I haven't tried that quite yet.  I can offer you a list of what I own if you could suggest a list for me?  
His list is ever changing, but it includes
Lychguard (10), Immortals (20), Warriors (40), and between 4 and 8 HQs that I am not entirely familiar with.  Obyron is one, and a cryptek is another, sometimes he runs Imotekh(sp?).  

I own 6 Raiders, 4 Venoms, 60 Kabalites, 60 Wracks, 5 Haemonculi, Urien, Incubi (10), Drazhar, Lelith, Wyches (10), Succubus (1). Archon (4), Grotesques (10), Scourges (15), Hellions (5), Jetbikes (11), Triumvirate, Death Jesters (3), Solitaire, Shadowseer (2), [(Incoming in the mail) Maugen Ra, Dark Reapers (10).  I think this is everything I have.  Sorry for the slow reply, I was out of town for a few days.

merse24 wrote:

Methodical Destruction cost 2CP and is used after a SAUTEKH unit inflicts an unsaved wound on a unit. After that, all friendly SAUTEKH units get +1 on their to hit rolls on that unit only.  Seems pretty expensive to me, but I've play Necrons on this side quite a bit and I can say from experience that a unit of Immortals with My Will Be Done (+1 on the to hit roll) make Immortals pretty mean.  A unit of 10 will put out 20 shots and will end up with almost 20 wounds (against T4) every time it.  It would obviously be more with another +1 to hit.

Necrons have a few ways of teleporting Lychguard.
1) C'Tan Shard of the Deceiver
2) Obyron
3) Monolith or Night Scythe
4) Combination of any of the 3

1) If he's running C'Tan of the Deceiver, then this can only be used at the beginning of the game, before T1 begins.  They must be placed 12"+ away from you and he cannot charge in his first turn.  This give you at least a full turn to shoot down his Lychguard.  If your list can't bring down a unit of Lychguard in a single turn, then you're lacking firepower.

2) Since he's running Sautekh and teleporting, then I'm assuming that he's using Obyron.  It's important to note that Obyron can only teleport within 6" of Zhandrekh.  Zhandrekh can't deepstrike, so he needs delivery options, which are only a Night Scythe or Monolith.  This means that he cannot perform the teleport until his T2.  If that's the case, then spread your units out and force him to only get in range of 1 target at at time.  This teleport will often times leave Zhandrekh and/or Obyron open to be sniped, especially with our movement options.

3) If he's running the Monolith or Night Scythes then he's probably running more than 1 of them.  If they are destroyed before the units deploy, then the units are destroyed.  Neither of these are listed as transports.  The "embarked" unit is actually placed in orbit and can be teleported onto the field by any unit with the Invasion Beams rule (i.e Monoliths and Night Scythes).  Only 1 unit can be teleported onto the battlefield by a unit with this rule.  The pain with this rule is that they can be placed anywhere more than 1" away from enemy models.  So again, screening and spread out to avoid as much damage as you can.

My guess is that he's running Zahndrekh, Obyron and a couple of Night Scythes.  He'll probably be hiding Obyron and the Lychguard out of line of sight in T1, then flying up his Nights Scythes into position.  Zahndrekh will be placed in "orbit".  In T2 he'll drop Zahndrekh and then teleport Obyron and the Lychguard.  Best advice here is to focus down the Night Scythes in Turn 1.  With our fire power, destroying 2 is a definite possibility.  

Also, DCs are great against Necrons.  Can't say this enough.  Do whatever you can to keep your Ravagers and Razorwings alive.  

Lychguard are 2W each, so they are an ideal target for the DCs.  DCs also are great for negating the Quantum Shielding.  

One other thing to note as that Destroyers should almost always be the #1 priority (again DCs are great here) as Soulles Samurai has said.  Destroyers do most of the heavy lifting for Necrons.  This list (from what I am assuming) is built around making you make tough target priority choices.  He puts a threat in your face early in hopes of keeping his Destroyers and Immortals alive to pick you apart.  Lychguard don't do THAT much damage (especially the Hyperphase sword + shield version) for their cost honestly, plus they move slow.  So spread out and stay away from them.  You will most certainly lose a unit to their initial charge, but you should be able to avoid them after that.  

Personally, I would focus down the Destroyers and Immortals.  Eat the initial charge on the Lychguard and spread everything else out to minimize the damage from them.  The sword and shield version of the Lychguard are 34 pts per model.  If he's running a lot of them, then good.  They are too slow and expensive for what they do, especially when facing a fast army like ours.  

This is some extremely helpful information. I will give this a try in the next game I play against him. Thanks!

I would do something like this:

Flayed Skull Battalion:

Archon - Huskblade
Archon - Huskblade
Warriors (10) - 1 shredder, 1 blaster
Warriors (10) - 1 shredder, 1 blaster
Warriors (5) - 1 blaster
Scouges (3 units of 5) - 1 unit of Haywire and 2 units of Shredders
Raider - DC (to carry warriors)
Raider - DC (to carry warriors)
Venom - 2 SC (to carry warriors)
Venom - 2 SC (to carry both Archons and Succubus)

Prophets of Flesh Battalion:
Urien
Haemy (no upgrades)
Wracks (5)
Wracks (5)
Wracks (8 )
Grotesques (10)

Red Grief Outrider
Succubus
Wyches (10) - 1 shardnet, 1 razor flails
Reavers (3 units of 3) - 1 Grav talon in each
Raider - DC (to carry wyches)

The idea here is to each of the 3 units of Reavers up and get a charge off in T1.  Don't expect to do much with them other than slow down his infantry.  The reavers will be just a speed bump to allow your other stuff to move up the board.  He'll probably still teleport the lychguard, but will have them unsupported while he deals with your 3 units of Reavers.  

Advance your grots (and have them wrapped around Urien).  You want these guys in combat as soon as possible.  Keep the wracks held back on objectives.  And keep 1 unit ready to use Black Cornicopians.  This can be used to get behind his lines to get into his arillery if he's taking the Death ARk (or whatever its called).  If not, then you can use it to steal an objective in his back field.  

For the wyches, get them into the immortals or into the warriors (whichever is biggest threat) as soon as you can.  The shardnet should keep them tied down for a couple of turns.  

And as always with Necrons, once you start shooting one of his units, keep shooting until it's gone.  Reanimation can be a pain, but it's easy to negate.  If you fail to do this, you could quite possibly lose the game.

merse24 wrote:

I would do something like this:

Flayed Skull Battalion:

Archon - Huskblade
Archon - Huskblade
Warriors (10) - 1 shredder, 1 blaster
Warriors (10) - 1 shredder, 1 blaster
Warriors (5) - 1 blaster
Scouges (3 units of 5) - 1 unit of Haywire and 2 units of Shredders
Raider - DC (to carry warriors)
Raider - DC (to carry warriors)
Venom - 2 SC (to carry warriors)
Venom - 2 SC (to carry both Archons and Succubus)

Prophets of Flesh Battalion:
Urien
Haemy (no upgrades)
Wracks (5)
Wracks (5)
Wracks (8 )
Grotesques (10)

Red Grief Outrider
Succubus
Wyches (10) - 1 shardnet, 1 razor flails
Reavers (3 units of 3) - 1 Grav talon in each
Raider - DC (to carry wyches)

The idea here is to each of the 3 units of Reavers up and get a charge off in T1.  Don't expect to do much with them other than slow down his infantry.  The reavers will be just a speed bump to allow your other stuff to move up the board.  He'll probably still teleport the lychguard, but will have them unsupported while he deals with your 3 units of Reavers.  

Advance your grots (and have them wrapped around Urien).  You want these guys in combat as soon as possible.  Keep the wracks held back on objectives.  And keep 1 unit ready to use Black Cornicopians.  This can be used to get behind his lines to get into his arillery if he's taking the Death ARk (or whatever its called).  If not, then you can use it to steal an objective in his back field.  

For the wyches, get them into the immortals or into the warriors (whichever is biggest threat) as soon as you can.  The shardnet should keep them tied down for a couple of turns.  

And as always with Necrons, once you start shooting one of his units, keep shooting until it's gone.  Reanimation can be a pain, but it's easy to negate.  If you fail to do this, you could quite possibly lose the game.

I like it. I will definitely try this. Hopefully I can take him down a peg. He is always so smug about how well he does. It gets on my nerves, since at face value his army seems a lot easier to run than Drukhari.

@merse24 You rock, man. I ran that list tonight and had 36 models left at the end of the game, while he had only 6 warriors. In the end, he won due to his objectives being favorable to him and mine being largely useless when they came up. Overall though the game was good and I wrecked him hard. Thanks for the tip. (Also, if you hate it when people are smug about everything... You will be happy to know he whined about his dynasty and every other excuse he could come up with for why he was not doing well all game. )

I also found out today I have twice as many wyches as I thought, and realized I forgot to mention I have a voidraven bomber. Kinda hard to forget that one, but somehow I managed it.

Great job man! Sounds like it was a fun game and in true DE style you caused your opponent some pain and suffering!

ArkhamScholar wrote:

Also, if you hate it when people are smug about everything...  You will be happy to know he whined about his dynasty and every other excuse he could come up with for why he was not doing well all game.

Hehehe, I'd love to see this done to the two necron players in my small local club of 8. Then again, in my clubs I'm never the one who has to endure my opponents smugness and a hears all of the excuses. I'm the smug one constantly xD

On a side note, this forums really helps (see above 2 of 8 of my local club are necrons and only 4 people in the club ever actually want to play me cuz Dark Eldar) me see the weaknesses of Necrons and allow me to take advantage of them

merse24 wrote:

Great job man!  Sounds like it was a fun game and in true DE style you caused your opponent some pain and suffering!

It was glorious. So glorious I have decided to paint my grotesques with the colors of conquered armies. Firstly will be these purple Necrons, followed by the Thousand Sons I frequently destroyed. (Before someone broke into his car and stole all his models. )

Fl4iedSkul wrote:

ArkhamScholar wrote:

Also, if you hate it when people are smug about everything...  You will be happy to know he whined about his dynasty and every other excuse he could come up with for why he was not doing well all game.

Hehehe, I'd love to see this done to the two necron players  in my small local club of 8.  Then again, in my clubs I'm never the one who has to endure my opponents smugness and a hears all of the excuses. I'm the smug one constantly xD

On a side note, this forums really helps (see above 2 of 8 of my local club are necrons and only 4 people in the club ever actually want to play me cuz Dark Eldar) me see the weaknesses of Necrons and allow me to take advantage of them

That pretty funny. With a little more practice and understanding of my targets, I will likely end up there as well.