basic anti-necron ideas, SM sacrificial allies?

I'll be going up against my buddy in a couple days to play a 2000pt game. And just wanted some basic strategies or tactics to focus on when going up against the necrons. Any units to use or stay away from.

Im thinking about using SM as allies (the other army I have) to drop pod units to block LOS, give him something to focus on turn 1 maybe 2, and give raiders and venoms a cleaner path to move up. These would be sacrifices and I would use aggressively to avoid the desperate ally 6inch rule. Too crazy, or worth a try? Thanks

Everything depends on the units your opponent prefers to use. I suppose it's barges, wraiths and flying croissants. If so you'd better to stay away from barges shooting at them with dark lances and if possible to sink in poison everything on foot also from the distance.
For me the best desperate allies are ork bikers. Lot of wounds (if nobs), toughness, good cover and lots of high strength twin-linked dakka.

The Red wrote:

I'll be going up against my buddy in a couple days to play a 2000pt game. And just wanted some basic strategies or tactics to focus on when going up against the necrons. Any units to use or stay away from.

In terms of Dark Eldar:

- Night Shields, splinter cannons and dark lances are your friends. Most necron weaponry is 24", so with night shields you can easily out-range them. Considering that they can have basic troops with S5 guns, this is incredibly useful. Even if you can't avoid being shot completely, you should be able to prevent a good portion of his army firing at you.

- Beware Necron lords and overlords with MSS with your archons and/or MCs. It's rarely worth the risk.

- Kill their infantry one squad at a time to prevent their resurrection protocols - otherwise they'll easily attrition you to death.

- Don't forget that their non-fliers are open topped.

- you may have to bring fliers, unless you're certain your opponent won't bring any.

- Keep the objective in mind.

Thanks guys thats good info, ill let you know what I come across and what I find out.

Ugh just lost a whole post..

I second what shredder said and ill add games against crons and really any midfield shooty army can be swingy especially with night shields. We usually start out demolishing them but just keep in mind these armies can come back hard once they get into range, flyers show up etc. I try to remember this so I dont give away what would of otherwise been a solid win.

Also shooting at scythes can actually make them deadlier sometimes so I just ignore them if at all possible. That said if you have dedicated AA then they drop pretty easy. To this end storm ravens are brutal here, FW contemptor dreads too.

Lastly if you use any assault elements capable of AT then assaulting their mech often yields better results then shooting at them due to av13 5++.

Are Dark Lances or Disinegrator Cannons more viable for the Ravager? I only have 1 Ravager.

The rest of my list is even with anti-tank anti-infantry.

The Red wrote:

Are Dark Lances or Disinegrator Cannons more viable for the Ravager? I only have 1 Ravager.

If you've only got 1, I'd go anti-tank.

If worst comes to worst, you can at least fire dark lances at enemy infantry. On the other hand, Disintegrators won't do a damn thing to necron vehicles.

He brought 6 spyders and an Overlord with court of 5 lords 2+ 3++ 4+ reanimation on overlord. and others but I had the issues with these guys.

-I focused too much on the Overlord and court, should have left them alone
-Your absolutley right about splinter cannons and Dark Lances, I didnt bring enough lesson learned
which is the perfect counter to Spyders especially when theres 6
-Had fun thanks again

Hey Red,

tomorrow I'm up against our chairman's necrons 1850p.
I suspect him of bringing 2 Arks 2 Barges 2x 10 warriors, Overlord w MSS 2+ 3++ 4+ Orb, 10 Deathmarks with Veiltec w Abyssal Staff, 6 scarabs and 3 spiders or 6 wraiths w whipcoils.
Maybe he throws in the croissant with 5 immortals for some cheese.

I build my army around a 3 Grotesque LG 1 Abberation Scissor Archon HB ST CD SF BP and Heamy VB.
In Enh Sails Raider.
They should rush the opponent to get in CC. This way his deathmarks can't target them.
For scoring support I have:
10 Wyches HWG Heka VB
10 Wracks 2LG Aco
In 2 Enh Sails Raider

5 warriors Blaster
5 Wracks
In 2 GTroph Venoms 2SC

10 Warriors SC
In NS GTroph Raider DC

2 Talos TL-LG
1 Ravager NS FF

Allies
Farseer on bike
6 Windriders 2SC

My plan is to go for the deathmarks ASAP because they are going to mark my grotesques. Here the wracks and wyches play support.

Hopefully he brings spyder so I could try to get a soul with a sneaky blast pistol. Hopefully I will still make the charge to kill off spyders and scarabs.

Otherwise I'm trying to out manoeuvre them to deny targets with my shooty units. Talos can soak nicely here.

My shooting priorities are:
1 Barges
2 Arks
3 Troops

Anyway I'll let you know how it went.

seems like a good plan for that game mate! have those talos pain engines been good on the table. ive played em' once and they decided to smash some green skins into avacado paste. what are your experiences with them?

I don't get this Night Shields. So what that you give Necrons -6" ranger? Sure it works on Anihil Barges or Infantry, but since when they were a problem with 24". Night Scythe or Doom Scythe will still just fly 36" and shoot with 24" tesla destructor. -6" won't help much. As Necron, I would kill our Ravagers first anyway.

Tomorrow I play against 1600 Necrons, who brings 4 Scythes, Wraithes with 2+ save Destro Lord, some Anihil Barges and scarabs. For me most prblem with Necrons is 2+ Destro Lord who keeps wraithes save from our poison and Scythes who just kill us far too easily.

Zanais wrote:

Tomorrow I play against 1600 Necrons, who brings 4 Scythes, Wraithes with 2+ save Destro Lord, some Anihil Barges and scarabs. For me most prblem with Necrons is 2+ Destro Lord who keeps wraithes save from our poison and Scythes who just kill us far too easily.

Deary me my friend I wish you the best but... It will be difficult.

Well, I was beaten hard. He had Imotekh + Cryptek with Chronometron attached to 9 immortals squad, 3 Anihil Barges, 3 Night Scyhes with 5 warriors each and 2x 6 Wraiths. Could not kill Wraiths, he saved most of wounds I dealt, imotekh lightning was hitting hard and when anihil barges + scythes shot their destructors it was over. I still don't know what can we do against wraiths and tesla destructor Spam, Imotekh is hard to deal with too.

Zanais wrote:

Well, I was beaten hard. He had Imotekh + Cryptek with Chronometron attached to 9 immortals squad, 3 Anihil Barges, 3 Night Scyhes with 5 warriors each and 2x 6 Wraiths. Could not kill Wraiths, he saved most of wounds I dealt, imotekh lightning was hitting hard and when anihil barges + scythes shot their destructors it was over. I still don't know what can we do against wraiths and tesla destructor Spam, Imotekh is hard to deal with too.

too bad old chap, wish you better in the next one.
i really dont know how to help u but i will say this, persevere!

I play a friend a lot who plays necrons and he played a similar list this week:

His list:
5x5 Warriors in a Night Scythe
2x6 Wraiths
1x5 Wraiths
1 Destroyer Lord with War Scythe, MSS and Weave (put with the 5 Wraiths)
3x Annihilation Barge

My List:
4x10 Warriors w/ Splinter Cannon, Raider NS, Splinter Racks
8 Wracks w/ 1 Liq gun, Raider Dizzy Cannon (Hid this out of LOS because no NS)
1 Haemonculus w/ Liq gun and Venom blade (Goes with Wracks)
1 Archon Shadow Field, Huskblade, Soul Trap, PGL, and Combat Drugs (Goes with Wracks)
2x6 Reaver Jet Bikes with 2xBlaster
2xRavagers with 3x Dark Lance
1 Voidraven Bomber with Flicker Field

We rolled the Scouring so fast attack were scoring (good for him). It was night fighting and I won the roll and chose to go second.  This helps a lot with necrons because of the relatively short range on their weapons.  Basically I parked everything on my board edge out of range of his stuff because he could really only shoot 18 inches due to the NS on everything.

Reavers start in reserve with the bomber, everything else parks as far away as I can to make him waste a turn.  He had put his Wraiths one group on each end and and 1 in the middle and I spread my Raiders out to make it look like I was going to defend everywhere.  On his turn he moved to my weak end of the board with 2 units of Wraiths (wasted turn running, and doing what I expected) and moved everything up.  On my turn I turbo boosted my one Raider getting close in on out of range of his 2 groups of Wraiths.  Troops got out of one of the Raiders and the Raider parked inbetween the Wraiths and that unit (who cares if I give him cover when he has a 3+ invuln). Everything else converged and dumped all shots at that group.  All lances shot at Barges (killed one first turn).  Command/Wrack unit stayed hidden turbo boosting behind LOS bocking cover.  The combined fire of 3 units of warriors killed all but 2 wraiths (18 twin linked splinter rifles, 9 normal splinter rifiles, 4x splinter cannons)

On turn 2, 3 of his flyers came in, he managed to immobilize a Ravager and I Jinked all the shots at my Command unit from the 2 other fliers (2 different ends of the board).  He got a couple of hull points off of Raiders using barges but none destroyed.  2 units of Wraiths wasted another turn running towards me and the unit with 2 left only moved 6 cause he wanted to use his jump pack charge (HoW hits) to blow up the Raider screening my unit on the ground, and he failed the charge of 7 (even with the jump re-roll).  On my turn turn I destroyed that almost dead Wraith unit, 1 unit of jet bikes came in and killed 1 Wraith and did 1 wound to another from the middle unit, 1 more barge, and my Bomber came in and killed 1 of his flyers.  Since all but 1 barge was dead and I still had 4 Raiders with lances around and an immobile Ravager (that had LOS to almost everything on the board) I decided to put my one good Ravager in the way of the charge from the middle unit of Wraiths knowing I would probably lose it.  Command unit did the turbo boost hide again.

The last of his flyers came in shooting at my bikes killing 2, the other 2 fliers shot at the Ravager and took 1 HP off.  The far unit of Wraiths came forward hitting the middle of the board but only had the Ravager in charge range so they just ran again as he was going to charge it already with another unit.  He spit warriors out of 2 of his fliers and ran them to objectives.  He charged my Ravager as expected and blew it up (the explosion put another wound on one of the Wraiths) but they were now stuck there in the open.

Now on my turn, since all his flyers were out I just needed to stay out of the firing arc on them.  I forgot to roll my bike reserves this turn  My command unit moved 6, disembarked and got ready to meet the wraiths in combat.  My warriors that disembarked earlier were running to an objective and got into cover (since they couldn't reach anything to shoot anyway no point in getting back in their transport).  All my Raiders and one Ravagers dark lance shots went into the last barge but I didn't even glance it.  I had to leave my command unit's transport where it could get shot by flyers so I could disembark.  I ignored the flyers completely, and all units moved 6" to get some shots into his untouched Wraith squad (which I could only shoot at with 1 unit of warriors) I did manage to kill 1 between my bikes and that 1 unit though.  My Command unit charged and utterly destroyed his Wraths (2 pain tokens for having wracks and a haemy) on the charge (24 attacks from the wracks and 3 from haemy that wound on 2's and 5 from the Archon that insta-gib, which happened to 2 of them failing their invuln saves, sadly the ones with wounds already). I reconciled towards their transport.

Turn 4 he shot my command squad with a flyer (I was hoping combat lasted more then a round with those Wrathes) and I lost 2 (I got lucky cause the 3rd pain token meant I couldn't go to ground) between saves and FnP.  Their transport got blown up (of course 6" range) which killed another Wrack.  2 flyers flew off the board. The last Barge shook a raider (no moving and snap shots), and the flyers all dumped out their warriors which ran towards objectives.  His last warrior squad came in from reserves and ran to an objective. The last Wraith unit realizing he could kill 1 transport this turn but not make it to an objective next turn decided to run to the objective they could reach.

My Turn 4 I brought in my last bikes which I used to bladvane a group of warriors (killing all but 1, but 2 stood back up). My other bikes shot at his Wraith squad as did 1 Raider of warriors.  The immobilized Raider just snap shotted the barge and missed.  Another raider dumped out it's crew so it could kill the 5 warriors from reserve and get on their objective next turn.  All lances shot the barge and killed it.  At the end of it all 4 Wraiths (2 with 1 wound each) and his Lord were left.

His turn 5 he moved to objectives with warriors and wraiths, brought flyers back in and shot my warriors on the 4 point objective (the ones that exited on turn 1) they went to ground and I lost 3 of them, but made my moral check.  He made a mistake here though and moved one of his flyers more than 24" so he couldn't crap his warriors on to the objective he was over. The other 2 flyers shot the empty Raider which I was trying to get my command squad to and blew it up.  If I couldn't kill his wraiths this turn he may actually win.

I moved everything into range and dumped 2 Raiders full of warrior shots, into his wraiths, as well as a group of bikes.  I killed all the Wraiths and only his warlord left with a 2+ save.  I was smart and saved all my lances on the off chance this happened, and then I blew him up with lances that he couldn't save.  My unit that disembarked last turn killed his warriors on an objective and my last unit of bikes bladevaned a unit of his warriors (killing all but 1 an 2 got up again, arrg) but I landed to contest the objective.

He gave up at this point as next turn I could kill his 2 units of warriors that were on uncontested objectives easily next turn.  2 of his flyers had to leave the board because there would have been nothing to shoot at based on the turn radius he had to make, and 1 unit would have disembarked no where near an objective.  I had a 4 point, and 3 point objective, he had a 1 and 2, I had line breaker, slay the warlord and first blood  so there really was no point in going on.

I really found that out manoeuvring, instead of shooting his flyers helped, and placing Raiders so I could take advantage of the splinter racks while placing something in between to wreck his charge helped.  I had some lucky jink saves but all in all I think the NS and manoeuvring were key.  Giving him a juicy target to charge instead of my troop loaded one I think helped too.

I know this was long winded but I hope it helped.