Necron Tactica : Dirty Crons + Trickery

Brother C here:

Following a match with Forsaken recently, I decided to talk a little about some tactics one could use to take full advantage of the Deceiver, Pariahs and Scarab Swarms.

I apologize ahead of time for not remembering specifically what each of the abilities is named in the codex.

Pairing the Deceiver, a group of Pariahs and 2 small contingents of Scarabs (+ Destroyer Lord) is a great strategy for Necron players wanting to control the middle of the board. I’m convinced that the middle of the board is essential for victory in the 40kverse. (More on that on a future post.) Keeping your pariahs and deceiver behind cover for the first two rounds of shooting will be the key to this strategy. You can’t allow them to get bogged down early game; you want them to the middle of the field to get the best range on their abilities.

Heavy destroyers and destroyers will need to be used to pop transports if your opponent has gone all mechanized. (remember to exploit the skimmers to get side and rear armor shots)

What you are aiming to do is get your opponent within range of the pariah’s ability to turn all leadership values to 7. Then you want to pair that with the Deceiver’s ability to force a unit to take a morale check regardless of fearlessness or not. With using Leadership 7, your opponent has an approx. 50% chance to fail this test. The key is to get them running, especially if your opponent has not broken off any ICs. (2 KPs instead of just 1)Once your opponent fails their leadership test, you will then want to use the scarab swarms to escort your opponent off the board. (you are not allowed to take a regroup test if an opponent is within 6” of a unit falling back, INCLUDING FEARLESS UNITS). This is huge and will make your opponent very unhappy with you. With the timing of some of this, you may have to boost your scarabs into an estimated position before all the abilities go through. You can also use the deceiver to do any escorting if you absolutely have to, but what you want him to do is to start wrecking armor and other priority targets. If your opponent is not fearless, try to keep your pariahs at a distance so your opponent has to still use Leadership 7 for any regrouping test and attempt to sweeping advance with anything within range. If they fail the leadership 7 regroup test, they are destroyed.

If you attach a destroyer lord to one of your scarabs, get him into the opponent’s priority targets as well or use for sweeping advances.

If you are having trouble keeping the deceiver out of concentrated fire, consider leapfrogging him up through the ranks. Assault a group of infantry on your turn and try not to outright obliterate them, then on your opponent’s turn, use the deceiver’s ability to leave combat for that turn. Continue moving through the field in this manner, trying to avoid any squads with hidden powerfists or termies that will throw some potential wounds onto him. Be sure to take full advantage of the deceiver’s ability to jump around on the field and cause mass havoc.

I know this is a little different of a strategy than most Necron players are currently using. This one encourages you to get your crons dirty instead of sitting back in a clump, hoping you don’t phase out.

Anyways, give it a try and I would love to hear back on anyone’s thoughts about these tactics. If they are using similar lists and how they have fared against the multitude of forces out there.

.Brother C.