Dealing with necron flyiers

Hi fellow archons;

Finally, after some time hanging around me, ive come to face my friend's necron flyiers. Probably he will be getting 3-4 of those things, and I have no idea how to face them.

I've thought of fielding a full cc list based on 12" movement & strong hitters units, but i don't see them surviving last enough to claim objectives and so on.

Any thougt about that? I'm quite helpless and the battle is starting soon

Dealing with any flyers is a pain for us due to complete lack of skyfire, extremely poor flyers, the absence of high Rate of Fire weapons of sufficient strength and no twin-linking of weaponry.

Personally I usually turn to fortifications with AA gun(s) and/or Eldar allies.

Speed can also be key to keeping out of his firing arcs although thats tricky with so many flyers in one army. Aside from that I think Adhemar has it; aegis line with quad gun(s) / Icarus Lascannons, Eldar War Walkers (I suggest with Scatter Laser and Eldar Rocket Launcher with Skyfire missiles - expensive but needed) or Dark Reapers with an upgraded Exarch to take the same as the War Walkers (DRs are also neat against Necrons due to their AP 3 weaponry).

Personally I think that you should take as much AA and AP 3 stuff as possible so you can really teach this guy a lesson: having any more than 2 or 3 flyers is just taking advantage of the system and others lack of Skyfire I think. Go and school the guy!

Personally, I like to use Voidravens. Any Necron flyers I've taken down, it's usually been because of Void Lances.

Do you not find that they, in return, take your voidraven to the cleaners?!

Voidraven does 1.11 HP a turn to AV11 so you're relying on a penetrating hit and a decent roll on the damage table. The Night Scythe does 1.78 HP without even accounting for the extra hits that they are likely to generate due to the Tesla rule. And yet the Night Scythe costs a staggering 45 points less than the Voidraven despite having better armour, better weaponry, a massive transport capacity and the ability to carry units in 100% safety and deliver them with pinpoint accuracy at any point of the game. Mr Kelly and Mr Ward need to have a long hard look at their points costs! Not that I'm hopeful as Phil Kelly can't even keep points cost balanced across codexes that he writes, let alone ones that others write. Look at the Spell Familiar in Codex CSM compared to Runes of Witnessing in Codex Eldar. Same cost, same effect but one works every time you use a psychic power and the other works once per game.

I disagree with Adhemar. Better armor? Both are AV11. Better weaponry? That's subjective, I highly doubt any Necron player wouldn't take 2 str. 9 AP 2 lances on the Night Scythe instead of the Tesla Weapons that other units can already have.

I too use Voidravens for destroying their fliers. There are other ways of destroying them or making the Necron fliers themselves not as useful. If you Stun them, and they fail their 4+ to ignore the result, you can easily Turbo Boost or run a unit in front of the flier and force them to crash because of the Stun rules for fliers. Immobilizing them almost ensures they fly off the board the next turn which means no shooting or having to deal with them for a turn.

DE doesn't have much besides our own fliers or buying some Fortification. You can Guide/Prescience a Ravager and hope for the best, but it is not reliable.

Primarily for fliers, I would turn to our allies, the Eldar for support. They have loads of things that kill Necron fliers, and are resilient towards them as well. Wave Serpents are awesome with TL-Scatter Lasers and a Shuriken Cannon. Couple both with the Serpent Shield and you should probably bring one down. Hitting with the Scatter Laser is key for Twin-Linking.

War Walkers are nice, depending on their load out. I prefer Scatter Laser/ Bright Lance.

Warp Spiders are very nice with their mass Str 7 fire. Guide them, and they will take one down with relative ease as well.

I also like throwing some Dark Reapers in a Bastion with an Icarus and a Fast Shot Exarch. Give the Reapers Starshot as well if you have the points. Of course, Farseer support helps them as well.

SCP Yeeman wrote:

I disagree with Adhemar.  Better armor?  Both are AV11.  Better weaponry?  That's subjective, I highly doubt any Necron player wouldn't take 2 str. 9 AP 2 lances on the Night Scythe instead of the Tesla Weapons that other units can already have.

Yes, better armour (11 all round rather than 11/11/10). Plus they can ignore stunned/shaken results. Better weaponry is slightly more situational but against vehicles the Tesla Destructor is more effective than the Void Lances in every case other than AV14.

Average HP damage per turn (Voidraven/Night Scythe):
AV10 - 1.33/2.37
AV11 - 1.11/1.77
AV12 - 0.66/1.19
AV13 - 0.66/0.59 (Tesla should overtake once extra hits are factored in)
AV14 - 0.66/0

Against non-vehicles it depends on Toughness and armour save but I'm guessing Rate of Fire will win out against anything other than T6+ and/or a 2+ save.