Drop Crons

[Norbu the Destroyer]

Here is a 2500 point list I have had success with, I call it "Drop Crons"

Lord Veil, Gaze, W. Scythe, Solar Pulse 205
Lord Res. Orb, W.Scythe 150

3 monliths 705

10 Immortals 280

9 Scarabs D. Fields 144
9 Scarabs D. Fields 144

12 warriors 216
12 Warriors 216
12 Warriors 216
12 warriors 216

Total 2492.

Everything starts in reserve except Immortals and 2 lords all together. The rest of the army arrives via deepstrike or the Scarabs can turboboost on, your choice. The crons all arrive via mono portals. Immortals veil arround but with res orb, solar pulse and 2 warscythes, can stand up to most threats. WIld army, but A LOT of fun for those of you looking for something fun to try.

[mkerr]

Hey Norbu the Destroyer; fantastic to hear that you've had a lot of success with the list!

These triple Monolith armies can be a hassle to deal with (much like the triple Landraiders armies), but at 2500pts a decent player will just focus on phasing you out. The gunline is back (thanks to the IG codex) and close combat is deadlier than ever, so I'm recommending all-Necron lists (or just shelving the army until the next codex comes out, lol) and using my Monoliths in Apocalypse and Planetstrike games.

Have you tried a list like this? You have to kill 63 Necrons to phase it out. That's rough.

HQ
Lord (Resurrection Orb)
Lord (Resurrection Orb)

TROOPS
12 Warriors
12 Warriors
12 Warriors
12 Warriors
12 Warriors

FAST
5 Destroyers
5 Destroyers
5 Destroyers

HEAVY
3 Heavy Destroyers
3 Heavy Destroyers

It's not optimal because it would be nice to be able to move around and grab objectives (so a Veil of Darkness would be nice). But you get the idea.

-- MKerr

[Chumbalaya]

I like mkerr's a lot more, all it needs are Destroyer lords. Lots of dakka, a good amount of high S (not gonna be blowing away tons of Land Raiders, but it is the best Necrons can do).

The drop crons has no way of hurting armor beyond glancing or dropping S9 pie plates. Not exactly reliable. And deploying all your bots right in combat range, clustered up nice and good for templates is never a good idea. And no, 24 bolter shots is not "t3h ub4r"

[The Green Git]

I dunno...Norbu's list looks fun. That Destroyer heavy list of mkerr's looks awfullly static. If you use the Destroyers to Turbo-boost you'll be leap frogging or giving up your heaviest shooting altogether... objective missions will be hell.

Besides with 5th Edition LOS rules you don't necessarily expose the Warriors to templates on the turn they disembark. Just turn the Monolith to shield them. No LOS... no shooting for you.

[Chumbalaya]

So they deploy behind the Mono, out of shooting range to do...what exactly? What happens against a mobile army that can get those templates flying from all over the place? Or fast combat troops for that matter.

This army will stomp all over crappy lists, which is what Necrons are apparently built to do, but it doesn't dish out enough hurt or have the staying power to contend with a halfway decent army run by somebody with a modicum of intelligence.

[Darkwynn]

agree with Mkeer here going with a lot more destoryers is the way to go. You can do monoliths but its going to depend on what objectives you are playing.

best thing for a 3 monoith list is setting up in a corner and castling but what are you going to accomplish by doing that? Not much..... besides maybe tie or loose as you are too slow to go out and grab objectives.

[The Green Git]

So they deploy behind the Mono, out of shooting range to do...what exactly?

Space out and shoot at the time and place of your choosing. Perhaps just stay alive and hold an objective. Might be to shoot up a weaker unit on the other side of the Monolith and defeat the enemy in detail. Point is, with a Phalanx of Warriors and a Lord (or two) with Res Orbs you're horribly static and vulnerable to exactly those same fast assaulter troops and templates.

With the Monolith you can Teleport up to 18" per turn with zero chance of Deep Strike scatter... oh and that will let you re-roll WBB to boot. AND you can fire the Gauss Flux Arc while doing so. Choices man... you get choices instead of "Let's march toward the enemy in a big block of guys".

[Chumbalaya]

Hooray for gauss bolters? Those don't do anything lol

[Vince]

I saw someone play a list like this at hard boyz and all it did was make his opponents get ties. This list cant win at best it can get the lowest sort of victory in any setting. Turtling in a corner is not really a viable strategy.

[Chumbalaya]

I saw someone play a list like this at hard boyz and all it did was make his opponents get ties. This list cant win at best it can get the lowest sort of victory in any setting. Turtling in a corner is not really a viable strategy.

No wai man, they're so l33t! Nothing destroys quite like S4 AP5 gauss en masse! Who needs high S when you can glance Land Raiders to death?

[Darkwynn]

No wai man, they're so l33t! Nothing destroys quite like S4 AP5 gauss en masse! Who needs high S when you can glance Land Raiders to death?

Chumbalaya is right. The list just annoys people and pisses people off when you turtle up in the corner. On top of that you’re not doing yourself any favors to set yourself up for a win.


You want to use 3 monoliths in a fun hobby game go right ahead. If you really have to take them to a tourney go ahead but don't expect miracles to happen. You would have to load up on a lot of destroyers and I might have one monolith just so you can move guys to the other side of the table quicker.

Monolith is a expensive speed bump or a moving wall that is about it.

I personally would take the destroyers and load up on tomb spiders so you can keep the destroyers up in case something happens. You might want to have a unit of heavy destroyers but even still it’s a las cannon and those are just best for killing light to medium vehicles. Your best chance to hurt AV 14 is just glance it to death and you are going to be spending the whole time doing that because of the new damage table.

[dixon]

Norbu plays the DROPCRONS at our store with great success. I've only seen him tie once, never a loss.

[mkerr]

I saw someone play a list like this at hard boyz and all it did was make his opponents get ties. This list cant win at best it can get the lowest sort of victory in any setting. Turtling in a corner is not really a viable strategy.

These lists are monsters and remember that the first Ard Boyz winner was a Necron army. A Destroyer heavy army can do extremely well against a variety of armies (including tank heavy armies -- the sheer number of glances will stop your advance).

If the player couldn't manage better than a tie with a Destroyer spam army, he either had terrible luck, terrible match-ups or he wasn't that great a player.


Norbu plays the DROPCRONS at our store with great success. I've only seen him tie once, never a loss.

I have great success with my Sisters of Battle, but I don't consider them a tough army.

In table top wargaming, your army list is really the only control you have over a game -- the mission, the match-up and your luck are out of your control. So you have two choices, became a better player or get a better army list.

But we're talking about tuning an army list, not talking about FUN. I hate playing (and playing against) Destroyer heavy armies. It's not fun at all. So I'd rather see a varied Necron list than a destroyer spam list.

-- MKerr

[FirstLegion]

To be honest, that first Necron army winner was back in 4th.

But yes, the destroyer list is the strongest list right now.

[mkerr]

To be honest, that first Necron army winner was back in 4th.

Sure, but no army has dropped from the top of the heap to the bottom of the barrel with the edition change. The shift to 5E didn't hurt Necrons as much as the power bump from Orks, Space Marines and Imperial Guard.

[avatar8481]

I played a version of this drop 'crons list with mech eldar +seer council at 2000 points this week.

I was trying to do the 'right thing' and focus on the necrons to get a phase out, but failed on kill points in the end. (4 to 2).

The seer council ate 3 rounds of shooting from his entire army, which was nice and kept my tanks alive longer, but they never earned their points back, the normal tactic of tying them up in CC to keep them safe from shooting didn't work since he could just pull the necrons out and rapid fire me again. (to say nothing of just portalling so he could reroll WBB (ended up only killing a few necrons a turn)) I feel like there are situations where going after the monoliths would be better. To be fiar I made a whole series of bad tactical/strategic decisions in this game, but not running the seer council into the monoliths and killing one a turn was a mistake I think (since the council was the only thing that could reliably kill them or keep them from shooting/portalling.

[DarkLink]

Well played necrons are good at not dying. But the lists that revolve around that I don't find very fun to play. You roll a bunch of dice and do absolutely nothing. Of course, I may be biased because our necron player never fails his WBB. I once killed his lord 6 times in one game, and he kept coming back.

[karandras]

"Everything starts in reserve except Immortals and 2 lords all together. The rest of the army arrives via deepstrike or the Scarabs can turboboost on, your choice. The crons all arrive via mono portals. Immortals veil arround but with res orb, solar pulse and 2 warscythes, can stand up to most threats. WIld army, but A LOT of fun for those of you looking for something fun to try."

Am I mistaken, or at least 2 units of warriors would be forced to either deploy initially or walk on from your board edge. Only warriors in excess of the 2 compulsory choices can deploy from reserve via monoliths. You could obviously hope to teleport them after they walk on, but that may be tough to achieve with all of your portals clogged with additional units coming from reserve. You'd have to hope your reserve rolls fell into place.

I enjoy running my Necrons, but don't expect to win with them at tournaments. I am not as down on the monolith as some players and think they are a vital prerequisite in giving necrons enough mobility to compete in objective scenarios. I have never run more than 2 of them though.

Destroyers just don't seem to earn their points back most of the time. I like to run them in mass at 1500 point level, but generally drop them from 1750, 1850, and 2000 point lists. At 50 points a pop, they're just too expensive!

At the last 1850 tournament, I ran the following list:

Deceiver + 300
6 x Pariahs + 216
10 x Immortals + 280
15 x Warriros + 270
10 x Warriors + 180
10 x Warriors + 180
8 x Scarabs + 96
7 x Scarabs + 84
Monolith

...It was pretty ba;anced across the board. The dice gods worked against me as I lost the roll off for 1st turn all 3 games and was not able to put the Deceiver's redeployment ability to any effect. I played mech guard to a draw, beat mech orks, and played grey knights + guard spam to a draw. Finished 2nd overall.

Necrons are still effective, but are grossly over points cost in comparison with every other army. That and of course WBB does nothing for you when you lose a 5th edition assault.

[mercer]

When you say all units deep strike on, I take you mean pull them through the Monolith portals? If so then you've got to wait for the Monoliths come in from reserve - or do you deploy them? You did mention everything is in reserve, sio I presume they are.

This is a list I would run, quite a-like Mkerr's

1 x Necron Lord - warscythe, resurrection orb & veil of darkness
1 x Necron Lord - phase shifter, phylactery & staff of light

10 x Immortals

10 x Immortals

10 x Warriors

10 x Warriors

10 x Warriors

10 x Warriors

5 x Destroyers

5 x Destroyers

10 x Scarab swarms w/ dispution fields

3 x Tomb Spyders

3 x Heavy Destroyers

3 x Heavy Destroyers

You've got buckets of fire power, teleport a Lord and a Warrior unit for rapid fire of death. Lord has a warscythe if any one fancies charging, ok Lord isn't a combat monster but a weapon which disallows armour and invulnerable saves makes people think twice.

Other Lord is a support unit for Warriors. Nothing more as a combat blocker - I went for SoL to boost fire power, ap3 is nice :D

Tomb Spyders each support a Warrior unit, acting as combat blockers. Can spawn swarms obivously, but only spawn one ;)

Destroyer wings should take about infantry and light vehicles.

Scarabs annoy the hell out of vehicles scoring those glancing hits. Or they can act as a tarpit unit.

Heavy Destroyers do the nitty gritty.