[Now with Battle Report!] First Game in the new Codex and New BRB, 750pts Vs Necron

I've been playing with 2 major list options, one looks alot like what I would have run back in the older codex, just minus the all powerful Archon (you could do soo much back then!), the other is flavored by Mushkill's beautiful battle reps, just scaled down to my model limitations, which may make it less than viable as I only own x6 reavers.

Things I know about the enemy, 1 Crons (I think he sold off all his Nurgle Marines), 2 He owns no barges or Fliers, though I am a nice guy an would allow proxies...

List A Splinter spam in Raiders:
HQ - Naked Haem
Elite - Blaster Born (x3) in a Venom with NS and x2SC (place naked haem here for pain token goodness)
Troops - Warriors (x10) with SC in a Raider with NS and a Splinter Wrack
Troops - Warriors (x10) with SC in a Raider with NS and a Splinter Wrack
Fast Attack - Scourge (x3) as frankly filler and extra splinter weapons fire. I had 66 pts and no clue where to put them
Heavy - requisite Ravager with NS. Not sure if swapping for Dessies would be worth it, the AP and RoF would be nice.

List B, something I am less comfortable with, but could prove very fun and play to the known weaknesses of most Necron units (CC)
HQ - Succubus, Venom Blade, Haywire
HQ - Succubus, Venom Blade, Haywire
Troops - Wyches (x6) Haywire, Hekatrix with PGL, VenomBlade, in a Raider with the Dissie Upgrade (1 HQ attached)
Troops - Wyches (x6) Haywire, Hekatrix with PGL, VenomBlade, in a Raider with the Dissie Upgrade (1 HQ attached)
Fast Attack - Reavers (either x3x2 or x6) If x3 then both with HL, one squad gets an Areana Champ with a VB. Currently leaning toward 1 Squad of 6.
Heavy - requisite Ravager with NS. Not sure if swapping for Dessies would be worth it, the AP and RoF would be nice.

Thanks for the kind mention!

I can help you with the B list as I have had a lot more experience with wyches then warriors in this edition. Here is what I would do for 750 points.

HQ
Succubus, Venom Blade - 70
Succubus, Venom Blade - 70

TROOPS
7 wyches, hekatrix, PGL, Venom Blade
Raider, lance - 181
7 wyches, hekatrix, PGL, Venom Blade
Raider, lance - 181

FAST ATTACK
3 reavers, champion, Venom blade - 77
3 reavers, champion, Venom blade - 77

HEAVY
Ravager, NS, lances - 115

Total: 747

The Succubi don't need haywire grenades as the squads they are with have them. The raiders/ravagers have lances the tried and true tactic most dark Eldar are used to (even before the new edition/codex). The reaver have a champion for the extra leadership which is useful in a small squad, they don't have any special weapons as their main purpose will be to support your wyches, by tanking overwatch and/or screening your wyches when they are out of their transport (bikes can screen units despite the stands as you are still shooting through them) so stringing your reavers out in a line gives you about 5" of cover, at close range this will give your wyches a much needed 4+ cover save. They can also provide support in combat with the extra venom blade. They will be a royal pain to your opponent however their threat rating is low so will most likely be ignored (if your opponent shoots them it means he isn't shooting the more important parts of your army so it's win win!). If the bikes survive they can also be used for contesting objectives on the last turn, or get line breaker (be careful not to give away first blood with them though!).

Depending on how much armour you face you can switch out the raiders' lances for disintegrators. Another option though risky is to replace the reaver champions with heat lances and rely on your heat lances and haywire for anti-tank, you could then replace all your lances with disintigrators. However generally it's better to have anti-tank vehicles and anti infantry infantry, mainly due to how pain-tokens work, you don't want your vehicles finishing off squads as you would be wasting the opportunity for a pain token. Also in small squads of reavers it's easy to snipe out the heat lance unlike the champion who at least gets a 4+ look out sir, the lance also increases their perceived threat (meltas scare people).

The important element of the list is using your reavers to support your wyches properly (it will take some getting used to), giving them cover, tanking overwatch, softening up targets with bladvanes/splinterfire and helping them on the charge.

Hope that helps!

One thing I have learned with Reavers against Crons is be very careful of rapidfire. Should you fail to bring down a Ghostarc due to bad rolls or charge a 20man Warrior blob without someone else to soak overwatch your Reavers will fall very quickly even with a 3+ CS.
At this points level those probably won't be so much of an issue but its something to keep in mind.

Thanks for the advice! I ended up going with the Wych CC list, after the adjustments from the Jetbike King. First time I have ever run a CC Dark Eldar list, old or new codex.

In the end I unfortunately defeted myself rather soundly come turn two... I lasted a good while longer but it was all down hill from there.

He brought no vehicles, a Lord with some goofy Necron Scyth business that was super strong, 2 squads of Warriors with not guass tesla things, two cypteks (err something like that) with "big guns", and 6 Necron jet bike guys with some kind of crappy small blast template gun.

First turn nothing much happened. Second turn I was over eager and turbo boosted his bike 'not-destroyers', which was fruitless and stupid. Got those locked in an assualt with 1 squad of wyches and popped a few models (most of which promptly stood back up) with Darklances. Had my 6 reavers shot of the board and Nightshields quickly earned MVP.

From there, whyches clearned his 'not-destroyers' from the table but were caught in the open and shot to bits, the remainder of the game was cat and mouse with 2 or 3 whyches and my 3 vehicles vs. his 20 odd foot sloggers. in the end he wittled me down through 1 hull point a turns and snap shots as a I charged (then the Lord's super power str 8 or whatever lance was also something that, ultimately proved useful to him, though he almost lost the lord to the Succubus in the end).

Learned alot about CC Dark Eldar, 6th ed, and that I really need to brush up on my rules, as I know that shenannigans abounded on both sides.

...Sorry to disapoint, as a true Dark Eldar player, I will force some minion to commit Harukari for me...

Yeah, DE CC armies are even more unforgiving then their shooting counterparts.

Small bikes like that survive because of target priority. If they are too far ahead of the army and the enemy doesn't have anything else to shoot then they get slaughtered. They really are a support unit for your wyches so your wyches need to be at their destination first.

Some Examples:

You flat our your raider (carrying wyches towards a necron warriors unit). You have two options:

1) Get 1" away from them because they are more likely to wreck it then make it explode (it also means they can't get out of your defensive grenade bubble. If they wreck the raider deploy the wyches behind the destroyed raider so that they get a 4+ cover save. If they make it explode you are in a wreckage (not the same as when it gets wrecked) which will give you a 3+ cover save (thanks to the PGL). The same turn you turbo your reavers about 15-19" (depending on how easily they can move towards you) away from the necrons that way they can't be rapid fired. Next turn you can then charge the reavers in first and then follow through with the wyches.

2) Move the raider 13" or so away from the necrons this means they will have to come closer in order to rapid fire you. Or they can move away from you and not rapid fire either way you will be in charge range next turn. Keep the reavers behind/next to the raider. Next turn you can move the reavers forward so that they are in front of the wyches, the wyches can then charge through the reavers to get a cover save against overwatch (if the reavers had to turbo boost to get into position), or if they didn't turbo boost they can charge in and tank the overwatch.

Another trick is when the wyches are about to win combat against unit A but there is a unit B that will be able to shoot them next turn, turbo boost the reavers between unit B and your wyches that way the wyches will get a cover save against shooting when they come out of combat.

Finally like you said the old adage of know your enemy, you should know what everything in your opponents list is capable of, have a read through his codex.

Hope the next battle goes better!

Thanks again for the advice. I know the next game will be very interesting, as I was expecting him to have handle on 6th ed since I had not had any time to get a good grip on it till now... the level of 'oh... I couldn't have actually done that' that I'm discovering is kinda rediculous!

To be honest I was just too eager with the jet bikes, If I had hit him in the assault with the wyches and bikes, game would have been mine, no contest. The warriors were just too slow to catch me, and I think he forgot that he had his silly necron teleporter redeploy thing. As it stand I know he's probably the only Meta I have around here soooo I plan on borrowing his dex sometime and going all Thomas Jefferson on it.

Good call on the necron dex you should know it better then he does! Read up on necrons, find out what units are good what units aren't (I haven't played that many necrons can't really offer much advice but I'm sure someone in the TDC can).

As for the main rules unfortunately DE have always had to know them inside out to get the most out of their units (and in this edition even more so). It was only the other day that I discovered you could replace an exploded vehicle with a wreckage or a crater... little did I know that the wreckage gives you 4+ save which is better then the crater which only gives a 5+ save (time to model some wreckages!).

Another thing is each unit can throw a single grenade per shooting phase (he probably didn't even mention grenades!), and DE get good grenades, a BS6 plasma grenades from a succubus is great for killing necron warriors (S4 AP4 small blast). Wyches have them too.

Oh and I'm honoured to be called the "Reaver King" (might have to put that in my sig), better not let that DE arrogance get to my head though.

The Chrome plated socket wrench of a tool did not mention grenades and had challenges all wrong. My succubus should have tied up his Lord's warrior squad for the bulk of the game leaving 3 odd whyches free to roam with a raider and a ravager vs his only other remaining unit, 10 odd warriors... easy pickings says I...

I'm gonna make an Archon with a friggin' necron skull for a cod piece!

Blind_Baku wrote:

I'm gonna make an Archon with a friggin' necron skull for a cod piece!

That would be "cinematic".

Having just won my first proper game against Necrons I say just keep at it. It can be annoying especially if they have more 40k experience than you. Just keep in mind that a well written DEldar list should have no issues against Necrons once you get the hang of what your list and more importantly his list can do.

As mush said, look for ways to abuse Nightshields to force him to move closer to you to get into range/rapidfire range and remember that they can take some brutal HQ options for Challenges. If your against a Warscythe Overlord with MindScarabs and Tesseract Labyrinth it may be better to decline challenge and sit your HQ back.

Two important notes to remember from my last game. Focus fire everything at a single footsquad, you might have a nasty other squad to worry about next turn, but if you can kill every last member in the first it wont get back up as I have seen whole turns shooting wasted by lucky Resurrections.
Also once you kill the HQ, consolidate into a 3 inch circle over the everliving token. If he cant stand up within 3" of it while being 1" away from any of your troops, he can't get up at all and you secure your "Warlord Slayer" lesser objective.