Necron challenge laid down.

So, my mate has started playing a pretty competitive Necron list, and after a 14-5 thrashing against me has agreed to keep the same list to let me try and beat it. He is basically playing 1750pts consisting of:
3 Annihilation barges
1 Command barge
3 Night Scythes
5 Wraiths with coils
10 scarabs
Deathmarks with a flamer dude (Cryptek?)
20 odd warriors in the Scythes
Overlord with Veil and 36" shot and various Royal Court members

Now I realise this is a borderline Meta list, and frankly I don't expect to beat it, but what do you folks think...?
I have everything Dark Eldar at my disposal, and would rather avoid allies if possible.
If you've had any luck against similar lists drop me a reply, I would appreciate the help.

P.S. prior to him playing this list I've had about a 60+% success rate against his 'crons. :-)

Does he keep re-deepstriking the Deathmarks and making them wound on a 2+? Because that's been FAQed out.

Thankfully, he hasn't tried that. I tend to target the Deathmarks' Scythe first so they have to walk on, but it's not always possible. Btw Mushkilla, I'm a big fan of your bat reps, good job. He HATES my Reavers! :-)

daviedight wrote:

Thankfully, he hasn't tried that. I tend to target the Deathmarks' Scythe first so they have to walk on, but it's not always possible.

That's good, it used to be really annoying before it was FAQed.

daviedight wrote:

Btw Mushkilla, I'm a big fan of your bat reps, good job. He HATES my Reavers! :-)

Thanks! Glad to hear it.

What's causing you the most trouble in the list? What do you normally run?

Is it 20-odd warriors in each scythe or 20-odd warriors spread between all the scythes?

Does he have anyone in the command barge? Or is he just using it as a throwaway shooty unit?


I'd suggest some of the following:

1. Go second. This will give you last say on those objectives, let your reserves come on in time to counter or mess with his, and let him spread out a bit before you bring the pain.

2. Just before his turn 2, get cover from those Nightscythes for everything. Ditto on turns where he will have two scythes coming in from reserve.

3. It looks like those annihilation barges are what do most of his heavy lifting. I can't remember if they were 36" or 48"? Either way, Ravagers with Nightshields are great, ditto for turboing Wyches or Reavers. And if you keep the barge moving it'll be less effective.

4. His troops can't effectively take an objective away from you by themselves. They'll depend heavily on the objective being already cleared by his ground dudes or on that objective being empty.

I play against similar builds minus a couple things like ccb which I wouldn't rate here honestly. That large scarab unit otoh could actually be problematic against us and triple anni barges is always tough, scythes less so IME.

Night Shields are generally great against crons due to nearly army wide range 24"except lance courts and a few other things. He will get wise to that though and either flat out at you and or cruise to snap shot those TL tesla destructors which is often worse than full bs shots.

I think a little more info would help like what you were using and the main units that have you problems.

Hi guys, sorry, of course, yes, you need more info. I posted late here, (I'm in Thailand) so I forgot.
Here's what I ran when he trounced me:
2 ravagers N/S F/F
Voidraven F/F 2 monoscythes
Duke Sliscus
Haemonculus
10 Warriors - Splinter cannon
Aegis Defence line and Quad gun ( manned by the Warriors and Haemonculus.)
10 Warriors with cannon in a lance Raider with F/F 'blessed' by Sliscus.
10 Warriors in a lance Raider with F/F
5 Haywire Wyches in a dual cannon Venom
5 Trueborn (4 Blasters) in a dual cannon Venom
5 Wracks with a liquifier
6 Reavers with 2 Caltrops and 2 Blasters.

Now I was thinking about just going all footDEldar maybe running a few optimised Beastpacks or Grotesque units?? Also, he HATES my Reavers cause he can't keep up with them. A possibiliy?

@Brom, you are right about the snapfiring Annihilation Barges. They are deadly to us! He does just that, Flat outs, then snapfires. He rolls those 6s like a DEMON!!

@sgb69, Its usually about 8 - 10 warriors in each Scythe, and he runs a lord on the Catacomb Command Barge. I think you may be get mixed up with the Annihilation Barge, and the Doomsday Ark. He runs the small ones, the barges, they have twin linked Tesla destructors on them and Tesla cannons. 6 shots each that often multiply into more than 8 or 9 strength 7.

Oh, and we also use loads of terrain, LOS blocking stuff, so turn 1, I am generally safe. Turn 2 however...

Cheers for the help.

He cant shoot after flat out.

I would drop Heamonculus, Duke Sliscus, Wyches and maybe Wracks. Depends if those scarabs are coming at you or you shoot them before.

I think you have too few AT, about 17, at 1750 its easily to get like 23-24 lance guns. Drop clusters or blasters, you want to either shoot or bladevane.
Sclicus and haem give you nothing, I would go with blaster Archon, cheap and another AT weapon.
More venoms with blasterborns, even two blasters per squad give toy more target saturation and mobile At.

If you have so much terrain, better stay away from lots of Kabalite Warriors sitting behind aegis, go with transports and assault weapons that way you can hit and run from any side.

Maybe go with three Voidravens, against 3 Scythe you would have quad and void lances, also void mines can easily destroy his vehicles.

Of course you can go Mush- way and go Warriors with splinter in raiders, I prefer Warriors with blasters in Venoms, and usually just let Venoms take role as AI in my army. But thats up to you.

Sorry, my mistake. Moves 12' then shoots.

I loaned out my Necron codex a few weeks back, my apologies.

I'll give this some thought after some sleep. It's 4:30 in the morning here.

Massed strength 7 shooting is pretty much the silver bullet that drops us.



Edit: Back with java. It is delicious.



What does his Veil of Darkness unit look like? Is it scoring?

What do you have for transports? Any particular units you don't have or don't like using?


Looking over your list, looks like you're generally weak in the assault phase and focused on shooting, where-as this guy is packing a bunch of shooting resistant stuff and is pretty great at assault.

To start with, it seems that you could use a dedicated assault unit for Sliscus to hang out in. The goal here would be to hit the wraiths hard enough to knock them off the board after softening them up with shooting. They and the scarabs are a major part of his gameplan, and without them he's in trouble.

For the Scarabs, I'd suggest taking a second Voidraven with missiles. Wipe that squad in one turn from the safest place possible, then turbo off the board. He's got some amazing anti-air in those Barges and Night Scythes.

Beyond that, the game turns into claiming as much cover as possible and mitigating damage from those Barges and scythes. Try dropping higher numbers of dudes onto your objectives and win on mission, perhaps upping your warrior squad at the aegis to 20 with a Sybarite?

Those Wracks and Haemy tag teaming around in a Raider would also be golden for holding or taking objectives. Furious Charge giving their poisoned attacks rerolls to wound is amazing, especially after hitting something with two liquifier guns. Can you increase the squad size at all?

Those blasterborn in a venom would probably be better off becoming two 3 man dark lance teams.

Against Necrons Nightshields will almost always be a better investment than Flickerfields.


Tacticswise:

1. Let him be the aggressor. Bleed him until he reaches you and then bring the hammer down.

2. Shoot the choppy ones. Even though they have a 3+ invul, Wraiths can be an alright target for Dark Lance fire. Scarabs... kinda aren't worth shooting splinter fire at if you've got other options.

3. Get into a position to contest or claim all of the objectives.

4. Hold back a mobile response to deal with that Catacomb Command Barge and/or those deathmarks. I'd say Reavers with Heat Lances and... maybe Wyches? Beasts? Hellions if you're feeling wacky?

5. He'll almost definitely place one objective near his table edge in case a Nightscythe gets shot down and a unit of his warriors have to walk on. If you can keep your Reavers alive all game, contesting it would be a major advantage to you.

6. Since his scoring troops are more mobile than yours it will be to his advantage to spread out the objectives and to your advantage to group the objectives together.

Quote :

Hi guys, sorry, of course, yes, you need more info. I posted late here, (I'm in Thailand) so I forgot.
Here's what I ran when he trounced me:
2 ravagers N/S F/F
Voidraven F/F 2 monoscythes
Duke Sliscus
Haemonculus
10 Warriors - Splinter cannon
Aegis Defence line and Quad gun ( manned by the Warriors and Haemonculus.)
10 Warriors with cannon in a lance Raider with F/F 'blessed' by Sliscus.
10 Warriors in a lance Raider with F/F
5 Haywire Wyches in a dual cannon Venom
5 Trueborn (4 Blasters) in a dual cannon Venom
5 Wracks with a liquifier
6 Reavers with 2 Caltrops and 2 Blasters.

Now I was thinking about just going all footDEldar maybe running a few optimised Beastpacks or Grotesque units?? Also, he HATES my Reavers cause he can't keep up with them. A possibiliy?

@Brom, you are right about the snapfiring Annihilation Barges. They are deadly to us! He does just that, Flat outs, then snapfires. He rolls those 6s like a DEMON!!

@sgb69, Its usually about 8 - 10 warriors in each Scythe, and he runs a lord on the Catacomb Command Barge. I think you may be get mixed up with the Annihilation Barge, and the Doomsday Ark. He runs the small ones, the barges, they have twin linked Tesla destructors on them and Tesla cannons. 6 shots each that often multiply into more than 8 or 9 strength 7.

Oh, and we also use loads of terrain, LOS blocking stuff, so turn 1, I am generally safe. Turn 2 however...

I agree with the sentiment that you dont have enough mech. I run with minimum 8-10 skimmers including full ravagers, and as good as crons can be against these I feel going infantry heavy gives them more of an advantage. His advantage is actually a facade here. You own night fighting, range, mobility, unit count and first strike potential. His advantage is strictly durability. Heres what I suggest:

Load up on dark light as already suggested, preferrably on skimmer chassis with night shields to make his army 18" range (+ movement). This forces him to come at you. I have not yet tried our flyers but honestly my approach to flyers whether with my DAs, SW, Raven guard, DE, etc has always been to ignore them in list design and deal with them through early aggressive tactics and movement.. baleflamers aside. Flyers are overrated. I will add the one temptation in this instance is for S7 large blasts to nuke scarabs.

Moving on...I feel your on the right track thinking of a strong assault element. Assaulting av13 skimmers is actually possibly the most reliable way to kill them, or at least disrupt their shooting, and for this you will need grots and wyches. Other people here who have played DE longer than I have seem to have success with wyches. I havent really so far but in this instance I would recommend a couple units for countercharge duty. Also equip your archon with some HWG. Put him in BtB with 2 ablative grots and the unit will cause problems the entire game to pretty much anything. Meanwhile wyches in cover to assault his skimmers when they move close will cause problems with his target priority and draw heat from your dark lances.

Also take ID weaponry of some sort (huskblade/flesh gauntlet) so you can tarpit and kill that large pack of canoptek beasts quickly. Since DE lack S6 blast weaponry these lil' dudes will cause big problems for you with multi assault, or, tempt you to direct dark light their direction, both of which are losing propositions for you.
To elaborate on assaulting their skimmers, they can at times avoid you if they dedicate themselves to it but that can be in your benefit since they wont be shooting. Deposit your assault unit(s) in front of his skimmers forcing him to either move back (likely out of his shooting range but inside ours) or to move aggressively forward and put himself closer to your assault unit(s) you just deposited (and bunkered wyches).

Bunker your non HWG infantry in terrain as far away as possible to make as many seperate elements as you can in the early game. These guys just need to survive to shoot down the wraiths and warriors he will be dropping off then hopefully contribute more in later stages. Keep them in support of each other if possible to retaliate against that ap1 flamer that will eventually arrive, but also out of arc range. As mushkilla stated its a one hit wonder (likely targetted at your grots for which the shadowfield will be priceless) after which they become expensive immortals with worse guns.

Ignore the flyers other than to move 12" to get behind them after their initial impact. He will hit you once for certain but after that he will likely need to go into ongoing reserves again before doing damage during which you have another chance to table him in the meantime. Also keep in mind spreading your units out of tesla arcing range if it doesnt hurt you to do so.

The command barge took a big nerf on his sweep attack in 6th. I dont see this unit at all since the nerf to threat range so im not that familiar with it. It used to be freakin nasty but now I feel its subpar. I would be interested to hear how he uses this guy effectively though.

Anyway lemme know if that made any sense and if it helped at all. Cheers.

Oh it was so close...( shakes head)
Here I sit, beer in hand a mere hour after the event. Gutted.
If the game had gone to turn 6, I could probably have drawn, maybe even squeezed a win, but alas, no.
He won, 5 - 0 ( 1 objective/ first blood/ line breaker)

Here's what I ran:
Ravager 3 DL n/s
2 voidraven bombers f/f and 1 mono scythe missile each
Aegis and quad gun
3 Wracks manning it
10 Warriors in a Raider with blaster and DL
10 Warriors in a Raider
2x 5Wyches in dual cannon Venoms
3Trueborn in a venom blaster and dual spl. Cannon
4 Trueborn in a raider 4 Blasters
Baron Sathonyx
3 beastmasters
5 Kymerae
4 Razorwing flocks

I think that's about 19 lances, 10 haywire attacks, and over 20 rending attacks on the charge? Surely not too shabby!?

It was looking good up until turn 4. I had taken out 2 of his Night Scythes, forcing his troops to walk on. I had taken out 2 of his Annihilation barges and stripped the last one to 1 HP and I had destroyed all his Scarabs and Wraiths!

In turn 4, I had his Catacomb command Barge in my sights. I whiffed 4 lance shots from the Voidravens, and 12 rending attacks from the Razorwing flocks! He sweep attacked my last Raider, destroying it and killing 5 Warriors. He shot and assaulted my beasts with the barge. They lost by one wound and fled 11" off the table!
My warriors were falling back from the wreckage of the Raider. They rallied, and moved 3", to within 5" of my home objective. My other lone surviving Warrior was 8" from the mid table objective!!
Turn 6 could've made all the difference but hey ho!

Now I have a fortnight to tweak. He will play the same list again to give me a chance.
Thanks for all your feedback guys. Sorry to have failed you.
I will do better next time!