Best way to deal with Necron fliers

What are your thoughts, experiences with the best way to deal with Necron fliers, either in small or large quantities? I've been getting hammered by just 2 of them in my last two games against them in a match/rematch to see what I had learned from my first beating by them.

I'll try and write up a report (albeit from memory) to post soon of my last game (too embarrassed by the first). But, in about 3-4 rounds of shooting from 2 doomscythes, I've lost approximately 16 vehicles (7 in a turn, 5 in a turn, 2 on another turn, plus a couple of randoms). I did manage to win my second game, but by so close a margin that it probably shouldn't even count as a win, but simply surviving.


Was running 1850

Baron goes beasts
Haemy w/ venom bld and liquifier goes w/ wyches
2x Warriors 5x w/ blaster in venom w/ 2x spl. cannon
3x Warriors 5x w/ blaster in raider w/ FF
1x Wyches 9x w/ haywire in raider w/ FF
4x Trueborn w/ 4x blaster in raider w/ FF
4x Trueborn w/ 4x blaster in raider w/ FF
3x Beastmasters w/ 5x khymera and 4x razorwings
3x Ravagers w/ FF

I'm probably a few points short on that. I wrote it from memory and was a last minute change due to not finishing putting another venom model together.

Necrons were (approximately)

Destroyer lord w/ mind shackle scarabs and something else. went with wraiths
10x Warriors
10x Warriors
10x Warriors
10x immortals
10x scarabs
10x Deathmarks
7 or 8 wraiths w/ 3 whip coils
2x Doomscythes

He basically played defense with everything, squatting on objectives, daring me to get too close, except for his scarabs and wraiths w/ lord which move asap to get into assault. The deathmarks were used to DS into my backfield or near an objective to clean it off.

phish

ps...I did a quick search and didn't find anything, so if I missed another thread on this, please point me in the right direction.

Try to work in a Razorwing or Void Raven of your own.

Even though the necron list is not the most they can get it's not easy win so concrats on the win. Try to write down what worked for you in second game.

Your list is a bit light on splinter cannons so I'd probably trade some raiders for venoms to better shoot his troops whit out fear of retaliation.

At first though you need to deal with Wraiths and Scarabs (say hello to monosycthe missiles) Keep your beast back untill you can charge them in to the much weakened wraiths. Both Wraiths and Scarabs die to high strenght shooting.

I'd ignore the flyers att first and tried to stay away from his troops shooting range. When his assault force is wiped I'd go in for the kill with the beasts.

DE Flyers lose usually the battle for air superiority even against only two scythes So I wouldn't take those if your list is not othervice build to support them. Allthough the afore mentioned monoscythes are pure fun against scarabs. Just lure them to one big bunch with "easy" target for charging.

Swap all FF for night shields just for starters... This ruins necrons alot

Flyers are a lot less scary than people assume.

First turn it arrives, it will hit you hard.
But unless it bounces off the board, it should never get another shot. It can make one 90* turn and then has to move 18"-36"
Its very easy to get out of LoS.
It should only get shots on Turns 2, 4 and 6, or 3 and 5.

Its going to eat your ravagers, but that cant really be helped

DominicJ wrote:

Flyers are a lot less scary than people assume.

First turn it arrives, it will hit you hard.
But unless it bounces off the board, it should never get another shot. It can make one 90* turn and then has to move 18"-36"
Its very easy to get out of LoS.
It should only get shots on Turns 2, 4 and 6, or 3 and 5.

The problem there is that you're only thinking of a single flyer. When they turn up in numbers they tend to arrive staggered across different turns so you're always likely to have 3-4 flyers that have LOS to something. And with the firepower of most flyers that can spell doom for our fragile vehicles and infantry.

Better those Ravagers than your troop transports.

But its usually quite easy to get two turns of shooting with flyers when they come on the board.

Its harder against many fliers, but there are only two here.
I've had two StormRavens with nothing to shoot at quite frequently.

If you are in the enemy DZ, fliers will struggle

There's also nothing to stop a flyer coming onto the table at an angle. If you bring a flyer in at an angle of say 20-30 degrees to your own table edge being in your DZ is not necesarily going to stop you blowing them up.

Count Adhemar wrote:

There's also nothing to stop a flyer coming onto the table at an angle. If you bring a flyer in at an angle of say 20-30 degrees to your own table edge being in your DZ is not necesarily going to stop you blowing them up.

I don't thing anyone was implying they couldn't. But it guarantees they will overshoot you next turn, which looses them a turn of shooting.

Mushkilla wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

There's also nothing to stop a flyer coming onto the table at an angle. If you bring a flyer in at an angle of say 20-30 degrees to your own table edge being in your DZ is not necesarily going to stop you blowing them up.

I don't thing anyone was implying they couldn't. But it guarantees they will overshoot you next turn, which looses them a turn of shooting.

Exactly.
Hence my point about shots in T2/4/6 or T3/5

Which is a fair point but, as mentioned earlier, only works well against small numbers of flyers. When they start to appear in numbers, eg a Necron Flying Circus, then you will almost always end up in the firing arcs of several flyers each turn.

Granted I do play on a 4 x 8 board, but I haven't had any difficulty lining up consecutive turns of shooting with my Razorwing. Nor has my regular opponent for that matter. Of course he's a Guard player and if necessary his Valkerie simply goes into hover mode. As others have noted I bring my Razorwing in from as close to the flank as I can. The only thing that has effectively limited my opportunity for consecutive turns of shooting is forcing me to jink or outright destroying my flier. I will take my first two shooting turns with my Razorwing and go AI with my missiles and I assume most other players do the same. Therefore assuming your Razorwing is otherwise occupied I recommend that after his Doomscythes come onto the table you point every Raider mounted gun that you have skyward. Then as needed and able add in the weight of fire from your blasters. And of course hope for a lot of sixes.

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Which is a fair point but, as mentioned earlier, only works well against small numbers of flyers. When they start to appear in numbers, eg a Necron Flying Circus, then you will almost always end up in the firing arcs of several flyers each turn.

But he isnt fighting a flying circus.

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but I haven't had any difficulty lining up consecutive turns of shooting with my Razorwing. Nor has my regular opponent for that matter.

And do you make an effort to not be in LoS?

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Of course he's a Guard player and if necessary his Valkerie simply goes into hover mode.

Hovering fliers are dead, fast,

DominicJ wrote:

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Which is a fair point but, as mentioned earlier, only works well against small numbers of flyers. When they start to appear in numbers, eg a Necron Flying Circus, then you will almost always end up in the firing arcs of several flyers each turn.

But he isnt fighting a flying circus.

First line of the OP.

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What are your thoughts, experiences with the best way to deal with Necron fliers, either in small or large quantities?

So I trust you will forgive me if I discuss the issue of mutliple flyers when asked to do so.

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And do you make an effort to not be in LoS?

Both of us do, at least as much as is practical.

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Hovering fliers are dead, fast,

Yes, sir. In our last game one of my sybarites shot his hovering Valk. down with her blast pistol. My gaming friend weighed the risks; it was late game and he needed to blast a warrior squad off of an objective. He rolled poorly with his shooting. I didn't.

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Both of us do, at least as much as is practical.

Well, all I can suggest is getting some paper out and drawing where a flier can arrive on board, and where it can then go in future movement phases.

Deldar would be unlucky to get caught by the same flier in two consecutive turns.


Fliers are nasty when they hit you, but they are far from invulnerable (with the exception of that stupid dragon thing)

oops

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Deldar would be unlucky to get caught by the same flier in two consecutive turns.

I didn't mean to imply that it was a particular unit that was targeted by the same flier on consecutive turns. If a flier zooms the minimal distance each turn as it goes down the length of the battlefield it shouldn't be a problem to find other targets on successive turns. Our mobility is a huge asset, but sometimes scenario conditions require that we stay put and sometimes moving a unit to avoid fire from a flier may put that unit in greater jeopardy from another threat. That's what I meant by as practical.

Some good responses here. I'll try and respond to some.

@Vasara, It was really so close that I couldn't, in good conscience, call it a win. If the game ended turn 5, I would have lost, turn 6, would have won, turn 7, won. Literally every turn came down to making a save on the multiple squads 'running' to get on my objective. I had not threatened his objective since turn 4.

I have 1 more venom that I need to assemble. I'll end up with more eventually and I think that will help quite a bit in future games.

The biggest contributing factor to me winning was probably that he failed to get both doomscythes in until turn 3 and had some pretty bad rolling on a few occasions, as did I, but his was worse.

@Massaen, The question is really just about the flyers. DE shooting outranges Necrons in general by 12" so the extra 6" isn't really worth it to me. The Night Shield doesn't work on the Deathray that the doomscythe shoots, and if the deathray can hit you, the other weapons it carries can also hit you, regardless of the NS or not. I take FF for being assaulted, mostly b/c of Necrons, and for when I go second and there's no night fighting. Scarabs scare the crap out of me.

@DominicJ, The first turn is where these have done the most damage. Granted, my first game I really screwed up and basically just lined up my army for him. My second game, I spaced everything out as much as I could, staggering everything, trying to break up the ability to draw lines between more than 2 models, but where I could still shoot. I screwed up though, b/c I still left 3 models within 13" of each other, being greedy, trying to get some shots in at the wraiths that were moving forward. First doomscythe rolled 13" and popped 3/3, ravager and 2 raiders. The 2nd one rolled high, like 15" and was able to put a line between a ravager and another raider. Popped 2/2. So turn 3, I lost 5 vehicles. Beyond that, they did very little, but the first turn is so bad that they don't have enough targets to go after. What I should have done is backed up, spacing everything out even more to draw the flyers further down the board, maintaining the ability to shoot the scarabs and the wraiths and ignoring the remainder of his army since they would have been out of range, letting the flyers do what they were going to do to minimal effect (hopefully), then moved back forward/focus on the flyers. More flyers would have destroyed me though. The deathray S10 AP1, essentially auto-hit, auto pen on our transports and 2+ on our ravagers with +3 to the damage roll is just awful for DE.

I've been avoiding posting on this topic but here goes.
Zooming into your enemies DZ is the worst idea ever, hands down you will straight up get tabled. After all whats in your enemies DZ, Necron warriors who's only disadvantage is range so closing the gap for them bad idea. Same thing applies to Space marines and Chaos space marines.
We die to rapid fire....

Also if you can successfully go against 2 storm ravens under 2k, then I would assume either you are talking about Grey Knights or a Blood Angles player that doesn't have a clue on how to play them they really are that bad. Far worse than 2 or 3 dreaded hell drakes.

We have some flyer options, including the quad gun, which is pretty good if you take fire dragons as Allies. The Void Raven also isn't terrible AA, it's just not nearly as good as what the far less advanced races got this edition.

Ignoring flyers can be good option, but I mean just ignore them, entirely. Don't try to flat out to get this crazy positioning because then they've neutralized you with out even firing. And if they slap down something crazy like 3 BA storm ravens or 3 hell drakes or 9 Vendettas and you didn't bother with Anti Flyer elements then you probably lost. Just tell them good game and congratulate them on their victory.

If the rumors are true we will be getting some updates to our flyers on the 16th that will improve them dramatically and this may all be mute point.

I had considered the quad gun, w/ interceptor, but for the second match, I really just wanted a straight up rematch to see if I could outmaneuver the flyers. It worked, to some degree. I still made mistakes, but it was more of a learning experience. I will try different things in upcoming games.

Cane the Aegis be run through area terrain / can the quad gun be placed on the aegis in area terrain? I don't have my book handy to look it up.

If so, a Squad or 2 of wracks, small ones, located to where either could fire the quad gun in area terrain/ruins. One squad could go to ground if necessary and let the other fire or vice versa.

edit: http://www.thedarkcity.net/t5193p40-death-from-the-skies 16th release doesn't sound too hopeful based on the 3rd page.

Yes, you can do that but most likely they will be shooting at the gun not the wracks

Why would you need to place the Wracks in Area terrain when they are manning the Quad Gun? The Defence Line itself is perfectly fine for that use case and would be a waste of area terrain.

If you play the proper 6th edition way, technically the Aegis would go down on the table before terrain and I believe any other terrain has to be placed at least 3" away from it. Beyond that, if you're playing 5th-ish style, then that's a house rule and then its up you and your group.

I personally like using Wracks for the use of a quad gun. I have found that my small 3 man squads will get cut down though so be prepared to have multiple back up squads capable of using the Quad gun.

huymix wrote:

If you play the proper 6th edition way, technically the Aegis would go down on the table before terrain and I believe any other terrain has to be placed at least 3" away from it.

People often overlook that the Alternating Terrain method is only an alternative to the preferred Narrative method. Indeed it says "If you and your opponent can't agree on a narrative to help you set up the terrain, you should use this method instead"

That's not to say that the whole idea of putting fortifications down before any terrain isn't totally batshit crazy!