Learning the Necron Tactica

Of late I've been trying to really learn my army (the necrons) and get better with them. I bought Fritz's pdf how to win with necrons and I'd have to say it helped me alot. I already knew alot of what was in the pdf but it helped to have it reinforced. For instance I know to keep my units together that way if one unit is wiped out a unit nearby will pick up the guys who died with we'll be back; but sometimes I end up spreading my units out too much. I think personally I've come a long way as a player but I still have alot to learn as do we all.

The One thing that I really need to work on is castling up, it's esential to the necron victory. I've tried to play as many of the Space marine players do esentially barring down on my opponent, it doesn't work for Necrons.  The main thing is you need to have your oppenent come to you. Sometimes your oppent will not come to you and they will sit in their corner and drop templates and las shots into your army. In this case bring the heat, turbo boost that destroyer lord with scarab escort right where your enemy MUST deal with them and while your at it deepstrike your monolith in the middle of their ranks. Of course this all ends up being a judgment call. I'm certianly not going to deepstrike my monolith into assualt range of Moros's defilers or Brother C's venerable dreadnouight, Actually I might try it once just to see what happens maybe I'll get lucky.

I just learned recently that the C'tan ignore all saves which makes a huge difference in the way that I play them  and I also learned how the monolith portal works. The Portal says it works like disembarking from a transport so the unit I teleport can't have moved and if I move the monolith I can't move the unit I teleport.

Lastly I haven't been able to truly appreciate how awesome some of the Necron fear tactics are. The nightmare shroud is EPIC in my last game I forced two marine squads to run off the board with it and another squad was running when the game ended. Normally I'll play either Moros, Brother C, or the Prophet all of whom run fearless heavy armies but against normal space marines and blood angels you can use all your fear evoking goodies.

Like I said at the begging of this post I've got a long way to go but I'm getting better and showing a lot of people in our local area that Necrons are still a viable army. All said Moros and I have discussed that Necrons are really easy to be ok with because they are forgiving with their high armour, toughness and the We'll be back rule. The problem is Necrons are difficult to master, as opposed to aggressive/ assualty armies, and I've seen the other players in my group quickly pass me in terms of skill with their armies and now I'm closing the gap on them. Eventually we all reach a plateau in terms of skill hopefully mine is a long way off.

Necron List for 40k day

For the July 40k day let there be a clash of Necrodermis and Steel! Brother Cornelius I would be delighted to do battle with you I hear you are itching for a rematch. for those who don't know I messed up the we'll be back pretty bad in our last match resulting in me wining, I relinquished the game to Brother C. when I learned of my mistake. Anyway down to business, heres the list. 

My Necron lord with res orb. excuse the bad paint job I am a necron player

Alright so I edited the list and may do a few more modifications. The reason I switched out the immortals for the pariahs is Brother C. and basically everyone else in the club has 2+ Armour. The pariahs don't allow any saves in the assault and also they reduce any enemy unit within 12" to leadership 7, when combined with the deceiver I think they will be a tough nut to crack. I wish that a few members in the club had an army that wasn't entirely fearless.... but with the deceiver has a "spell" that can make an enemy unit take a pinning test or moral test as though they lost 25% of the unit in the shooting phase even if they normally auto pass the test.


Bother C. Speaking of the fearlessness about how many of your normal units are fearless compared to those that aren't?

HQ

• Deceiver- 300pt 
• Necron Lord with destroyer body and war scythe - 140pt

Troops

• 10 Warriors -180pt
• 10 Warriors -180pt
• 10 Warriors 1 with disruption field - 182pt

Fast Attack

• 3 Destroyers - 150pt
• 4 Destroyers - 200pt
• 7 Scarab Swarms all but one with disruption Fields - 108pt

Elite

• 9 Pariahs 324pt

Heavy Support

• Monolith - 235pt

Total 1999pts

Club members should recognize that I am trying out a few new units, the Deceiver  amongst them. Anyway the list is subject to change should I think of a better way to kill dark Angels. Comment If you have any ideas or suggestions

We'll be back flowchart!

you'll need to click on it to enlarge the thing but this should be helpful for speeding up games and playing the rule correctly, I made this with the codex next to me and the FAQs open so everything is correct I hope the logic makes sense.

Dark Angels Vs Necrons Battle report

Amazing 40k, new players showed up and Brother Cornelius and I had our first match against each other. The game was fun and competitive. It was an Annihilation match with spearhead deployment, I won the roll and had Brother C. go first. Brother Cornelius has essentially perfected his alpha strike, and let me tell you as someone who has experienced it firsthand, it hurts! On turn one he used his scout move to get right into my front lines and killed my destroyer lord and the seven scarabs he was accompanying. He then had his terminator squads deep strike right into my defenses. during the game though I miss played the we'll be back rule with the monolith, so essentially I cheated albeit unintentionally. I reread my codex after the game and discovered my mistakes so I relinquish my victory to Brother Cornelius who likely would have won had I not had an unfair advantage.

The Necron Army Amasses

From The Tombs They Come!

no really, I bought around 450 points of models today. These models probably would never have seen the battlefield again if it hadn't been for me. A friend referred me to someone who had long ago quit Warhammer 40k, lucky for me this guy played Necrons. So today I purchased...

• Twelve necron warriors and three scarab swarms - equivalent to one warriors box set
• Two necron destroyers
• One Necron lord with war-scythe and resurrection orb - though I'll probably field him with orb only

sorry the quality stinks all I have is my webcam...

It totals up to 452 points without any war gear, and I got it all for the low low price of only $30! I was very fortunate today, usually when you buy used models it's on eBay and thats a total crap shoot. I was able to see the models before I bought them, and the guy I bought them from had no initiative to sell them online so I was able to get an awesome price. These models would have cost me easily twice as much new. Currently this puts my assembled army at 939 points without any war gear. I have a battle force waiting at home for me, unfortunately that wont get together for this weekend, since I have finals this week. once I put together my battle force I'll have 1605 points. I really happy to see my army developing from fledgling paper cutouts into painted metal and plastic.

In general for new players I would recommend buying used models. Yes sometimes the previous owner screws you  with a crappy paint job or some really weird poses, but most of the time it's fixable. For instance the scarabs and one warrior have a BAD paint job, I think I can get away with just repainting them black over top though. For the most part though, the average player wont need the perfect pose or the perfect paint job.However, if you do want everything to be just perfect expect this expensive hobby to get more expensive. There are deals to be had out there, just look for them and you too can get an army on the cheap. PS expect an awesome video tutorial on how to make walking Necron warriors soon.

Scarab Swarms cover save rule

Scarab swarms are an interesting topic. They have a few special rules that make cover saves complicated. There is a Scarab swarm special rule called small target, this rule states that a scarab swarms cover save is given a +1 modifier because they are hard to hit. The 5th rulebook has special rules for swarms, and  this states that swarms have the stealth rule. Stealth also grants them a +1 modifier on cover saves.

Now the question is do scarab swarms get both those +1 modifiers or not? The Necron faq (around the bottom of the second page) clearly state that scarab swarms are to be considered swarms. Should they get both +1 modifiers it would only affect a few select situations. Because you can't have a 1+  cover save (meaning you would always save) when you turbo boost the save is still a 2+ cover save.

 What would be affected is when the unit of scarabs and any independent character attached to that unit are in cover. If the terrain in question grants a 4+ cover save it would be counted as a 2+ if both rules were used. I wont go into detail about the 5+ or 6+ cover saves because I'm sure you can all determine what they would be.

I don't know how to take this exactly because there is some overlap with other rules for the scarab swarms also, but they do exactly the same thing. The rule vulnerable to blasts  is given in both the necron codex and the 5th edition rulebook though this is the exact same rule, granted the stealth rule and small target do the same thing but at least have different names.

Personally I will be talking with whoever I play against before hand to determine how this rule will be played during the game. I suspect that if and when the Necrons get a new codex that this will be taken care of but until then it's basically between the players how the rules should be interpreted.

What is going on with Necron Pariahs

I'm new to this hobby and thus I don't know a whole lot about the lore involved. However I find it strange that pariahs are elite choices and that they would be used in battle as they are. As far as I understand, in order to create a pariah you need someone with the pariah gene or someone who is a physic blank. The blank's genes are then combined with necron technology to create the pariah.

Assuming that the blank isn't cloned and that for any one blank you can only make one pariah,  why the heck would they just be thrown into battle as they are?  Obviously a group of four isn't that many but at max  per unit and taking only pariahs as your elite choices you can get 30 of these guys! These guys are rare! I've heard of people having a campaign mission of collecting a blank off a planet. If an army of necrons is coming to pick up one guy I sure as hell wouldn't put him or others like him in with the rest of the general army. 


It would only make sense to me that a pariah would be an HQ choice.  Not only are the pariahs great at taking down enemy psykers because of their aura, but they were once human which would make them more cunning leaders. Further more, pariahs should be named characters because they used to be human. I think an upgrade from a lord to pariah would be a cool thing to do in the new codex, it would be possible to keep the pariahs in the new codex as elite choices by saying that they were weaker blanks whereas the lord was a very strong psychic blank.

I may be totally off base here and if I am please tell me so in the comments, however after reviewing my codex and reading wiki pages  a large potion of the lore makes me believe that these blanks are hard to come by and therefore the pariahs would be a more highly valued unit.

Necron Inspired T-shirt design

I'm sure that you've all seen those T-shirts that have a skeletal chest cavity printed on them. Well I was curious as to why no one made shirts with something else on them like muscles or even a suit of armor. After searching around for a bit, I decided  I wasn't going to find anything I liked and decided to make my own.

As you can see it's not done quite yet but it's getting there. I still have to make shoulder pads which I will be printing on the sleeves and I'll need to make a back. I want to make it look a little more grungy, like war torn and  soul-less should. I'd love to hear any comments no matter how devastating they may be to my confidence. Also does anyone know if I'm allowed to make this? Granted none of this is directly taken from any games-workshop images. I know it could get sketchy if I tried to sell it though. 

Necron Tactics for beginners

I've looked into just about everything on Necron tactics. I have read other people's ideas and battle strategies. Through this I have come to one conclusion. Most people are wrong. A large majority of people who think they are helping necron players with their advice are actually doing the opposite. That said I'll give a brief description of what I think is ideal in a necron army compared to the tips others give.

1. One of the main tactics I found for necron army builds is taking tons of warriors. Ok, warriors are good but you shouldn't take 5 units at full capacity. during my last game against Agni Prime my warriors were practically useless. one thing I know for certain is, keep the numbers LOW in your units of warriors. 10 is perfect but 11 to 13 warriors are ok too. In a 2000 point game you should take 4 squads of this small size. Especially in a capture and control mission, you need lots of troops units. Even if you can zoom in with your destroyers to contest, to win you need to have some points under your control.

2. Tip number two, TAKE HEAVY DESTROYERS

I've read so many negative comments on heavy destroyers, about how they are worthless. As far as I can tell these comments are wrong. especially in our gaming club armor is power and saves keep your units alive. high toughness is great but a good armor save is even better, most players know this and use it in their armies. you need a way to get past that armor. Heavy destroyers do that, and in a pinch you can run them in to contest a point. One squad will do just fine, try and protect them though. Destroyers and heavy destroyers are tough but not invincible.

3. My final tip goes for everyone non-necron players included

Don't put too much faith into any one unit. Trying to run a list based solely around an amazing super unit is a losing tactic. At best you will end up killing of one or two units with your unit. when other players see a unit like that they will light it up. If your not trying to be sneaky or you think your "super" unit can take the fire of a whole army you will be sorely disappointed. I've tried using my destroyer lord in this way and he kills things but he ends up dying too quickly. play defensively, play smart, and don't think that any one unit will win you the game. Winning will always be a matter of making the right choices. Starting with what units you take and ending with the final culmination of the game. The winner will be determined by who kept their cool and made the best choices and who took the safest risks.

hopefully I haven't ranted too much and good luck to all players in the upcoming 40k day.

March 40k day Necron pov

Not much is more frustrating than having your monolith being one shotted on turn one. That being said the day did go pretty well otherwise. I learned a LOT this past weekend, mostly about vehicles. Previous to last weekend my only encounter with vehicles had been against an ork player in a very low points cost game. Due to my overconfidence in my destroyers ability to get glancing hits I chose to take no heavy destroyers. The teams ended up being the chaos space marines and the Dark Angels against Nids, Orks and my Crons. None of us were prepared for the huge amount of vehicle spam, or the amount of blast and ordnance templates being dropped on the board (By the way Brother Cornelius HACKS I have only once or twice seen him roll anything other than a direct hit on the scatter die).

The match was very fun but I felt kinda like an underdog considering the armor and vehicles so prevalent in both the armies we were playing against. None of the players on my team had a solid answer to either of these two very large threats. Once again I must state that I learned a lot, in the future I will be taking heavy destroyers. I even got to use my new found knowledge on Tuesday.

while were on the topic Tuesdays game was the real highlight of the week for me just a 2000 point game me vs Moros. The game ended in a tie but it could have gone either way. The main tactic I used was the destroyer lord with war-scythe and scarab swarms to soak up the wounds. This is such a good way to take out some vehicles I can't recommend it enough to Necron players. I also took a unit of heavy destroyers to help get through all that armor. These two simple tactics allowed me to play on par with Moros and his thousand suns. Can't wait to play another game. Next time you shall not be so fortunate Moros.

-Forsaken Name