Help Me Teach Necrons

[ElectricPaladin]

There's this adorably naive 12-year-old at my FLGS who's just starting Necrons. My friend IG John and I are trying to give him a good introduction to the world of 40k. The only problem is that I play Blood Angels and IG John plays (unsurprisingly) Imperial Guard. While we can teach our friend the Necrontike all about the rules and give him generic advice like "boys before toys!" and "vehicles are really powerful in this edition" and "don't worry about it, because whatever is cool now will be lame in the next codex and vice versa, just start buy buying, painting, and building what you like," we can't give him any detailed information about Necron builds, options, and so on.

So, I come to you.

I have a few specific questions - bullet pointed below - but in general, I want to learn about Necrons, so if I don't even know enough to ask the right question, feel free to chime in with whatever you think I should know to teach the Necrontike how to crush star systems beneath his living metal boot.

Here are the specific questions:
* What are the Necron builds? As the Necrontike begins to develop interests in different versions of the Necron playstyle, how can I aim him?
* How good/bad/useful/neat are these units he has expressed interest in: Ghost Ark, Annihilation Barge, Doomsday Ark, and Necron Monolith?
* Necron Warriors vs. Necron Immortals - which is better for what roles?

Thanks in advance.

[Chumbalaya]

Necrons have a lot of variety, anything from a foot horde to fast skimmer army can work.

Ghost Arks are really expensive transports. AV13 is nice, but they definitely aren't worth spamming to try and emulate IG/SM transports. Arks are great for blocking movement/LoS, keeping Warrior units buffed up, carrying Courts and so on.

Annihilation Barges are awesome. 90 points for that kind of firepower on an AV13 platform is incredible. They are hampered by normal tank movement and a 24" range weapon with AP-, but for the points they are a steal.

Doomsday Ark is one of those dud units. They're expensive and are forced to be static to use their rather underwhelming weapon.

Monoliths are of limited effectiveness, only really suited to particular builds (midfield control, reserve manipulation).

Warriors get you Arks and are the cheaper Troops choice, while Immortals don't require support and can put out a lot of firepower on the move. I prefer Immortals for their durability and assault weapons.

[Nosmo75]

I've heard it said that while Warriors and Immortals are both great Troops choices, the main difference in their roles is that Warriors excel at holding objectives, while Immortals excel at taking them. =)

[AbusePuppy]

I disagree somewhat with Chumby on the Ghost Ark- I think it's a transport that you're fine with having multiples of, even as many as four in a 2K game, so long as you're bringing a lot of other vehicles with Quantum Shielding along as well (especially Annihilation Barges and Command Barges.)

I'm a little softer than him on the Doomsday Ark- it's not particularly good, but it's not completely awful, and a little harder on the Monolith- I don't think there's ever a time I'd want to see one in a list. It's super-iconic, but I don't feel it ever does a job well.

To expound on what Chumby said about the troops choices:

Warriors are about survivability and cheapness; you can either get the super-discount 5man squad to sit on an objective/in a transport or you can get some larger ones for a bit tougher of a nut to crack. Your ideal sizes are 5man (dinky), 9man (fits inside an Ark with a Cryptek) and 15man (big enough to scare units when an Overlord with Phaeron accompanies it, not ridiculously expensive/vulnerable.) Taking a Ghost Ark is one of the main reasons to go for Warriors.

Immortals put out scarier shooting and the fact that their guns are S5 means they can penetrate targets that the Warriors can't. The ability to get Tesla makes them much more mobile when you don't want to stick an Overlord to babysit them, which can be very nice.

Chumby, Kirby, and I are putting out a Necron review/overview at 3++ here; it just got started and should take a week, or perhaps a bit more, to finish up the next few sections, and it will include discussions of the various units, how they match up, and what some of the ways to build Necrons are. I think you might find it helpful if you're new to the faction and looking to get a grasp on what they do.

[(TV)]

I run my local 40k promotion and I had so many ask about necrons lately, a thread like this will be really useful, and I look forward to the 3++ review!

Regards,
TV

[Jenn]

I've been playing with a Doomsday arks as of late, while I didnt like them at first they are certainly growing on me. In my area Paladin spam lists are pretty popular, arks handle them a lot better than anything else I can think of. They are expensive for what they do, but if you arent running an Imhotek list there are definitely worse choices. On the other hand, I have been systematically disappointed with my ghost arks when I take them, more often than not I would prefer another 8-9 warriors over a ghost ark. This also has to do with my local metagame where anti-tank weaponry is in abundance and people have a harder time with blobs than boxes.

As for Warriors vs Immortals...

I personally like to take warriors in blobs wherever possible, they are very hard to remove via shooting, especially if you have a weave overlord in there with them absorbing fire. (again, MSUs are popular in my metagame, being able to absorb a wound from each unit firing at my unit adds up quickly) Of course these units are vulnerable to assault but in my experience wraiths do a decent job of distracting dedicated assault units and an overlord with mindshackle and a scythe go a way towards deterring less dedicated units.

As far as immortals are concerned I love running a unit of 10 with tesla carbines, and harbinger of despair w/ veil. They make a great harassment unit for early-mid game, but are all stars late game for objective grabbing/contesting. I want to start experimenting with giving them a harbinger of transmogrification as well upgrading it to help prevent enemy assaults in the case of an accidental scatter too close.

[deviant_cadaver]

Necron builds

I think the general net builds ( usually strongish and easy to play) are:

AV 13 wall

an overlord

royal court with lances and a solar pulse

wraiths and/or scarabs

annihilation bargesx

immortals in night scythe

Imotek scarab farm

Imotek

royal court with lances and a solar pulse and a cronomitrion

scarabs

spiders

warrior blob

Necron playstyle

The play style is going to be geared more toward getting to 24" and shooting with a few counter assault elements and counting on your resilience to win the fire fight.

Units
Ghost Ark: Expensive, but high AV and puts out a good number of shoots. I have a royal court highjack mine.

Annihilation Barge: Really cost effective, durable and good fire out put.

Doomsday Ark: Not a fan dose have some uses and works for some builds. Has to stay still to be used to full effect and might be something a beginner should avoid using.

Necron Monolith: pricy but it is AV 14, not the indestructible monster it used to be, but puts out a lot of fire. Has some utility too , may be hard to use to full extend and costly to lose if not positioned right.

Troops
Warriors are cheaper and can be taken in bigger units worse guns and save though.
Immortals are a bit more durable and if given tesla weapons can move and shoot at full range.Both are good just need to figure out witch works with your army or what combination.

[ElectricPaladin]

the best thing about playing with someone who you're teaching is that even when you lose, you win.

That's right, the Necrotike managed a decisive victory last night. I'm so proud!

I was playing my Tau, but I found that they were surprisingly effective against his Necrons. The fact that even the basic Tau trooper's gun bypasses Necron armor seemed to counteract Reanimation Protocols (though I haven't done the Mathhammer to see if this is really true), and at least once I managed to focus fire and completely wipe a unit of Necron warriors so that they couldn't reanimate.

Anyway, I'm here to talk about my student's win!

It was the multi-objective mission. Three objectives in a rough triangle around the center of the board. Fairly dense city-fighting terrain. Dawn of (mother-f*<king) War deployment.

The Necrotike started off aggressively by killing my lone Broadside with a Tachyon Arrow - damn you Instant Death! Thus empowered with control over half the board, he began to stretch one unit of Warriors and their accompanying Lord between two of the three objectives while his Scarabs and the other Warrior team attempted to assault the third. The way I see it, he made two mistakes: he was unclear what he wanted to do with his Scarabs and started them diagonally across the board from the objective he wanted them to assault, and he obsessively kept his advancing Necron Warriors moving through terrain. While that was effective at keeping them safe, it also kept them further away from their goal, so that when my battlesuits finally Deep Struck I had two rounds of shooting to completely eliminate the squad, whereas if he had kept them in the open he might have lost a Warrior or two, but he would have been closer to his goal.

In the end, however, my fire warriors in reserve took too long to arrive and were unable to claim the unclaimed objective and I wasn't able to force him off either of his objectives. Had the game gone a turn longer, I might have been able to force a tie, or even a win. But, as I said to the Necrotike, all that matters is that he won - everything else is just a theory.

I also passed along your advice: he should use both Immortals and Warriors, but for different purposes, Doomsday Arcs are worth it as transports and generally viewed as better than Annihilation Barges, and the Monolith has a mixed reputation but might be useful in the right kind of list.

What I'm struggling with right now is how to teach the Necrotike how to take best advantage of cover. Certainly, cover is important - as a marines player who consistently loses to melta and plasma IG Vets and a Tau player, who needs to grab all the advantages I can - I know that, As I wrote above, though, the Necrotike seemed to play a little too conservatively. If anything could have cost him that win if I'd been luckier (or if the game had gone on longer) it would have been that his Necron Warriors spent the entire game hiding from my Fire Warriors - often to the point that he couldn't shoot at me - and being stuck in terrain. If he'd played more aggressively, he probably could have wiped out the squad that was causing him such fear - six Fire Warriors deployed in the second and third levels of a ruined tower with a commanding view of all lanes of advance - and removed my only ability to control the board.

[Jenn]

Im not sure where you are getting that the fire warrior's weapons are punching through the Necron armour but they actually don't. Necrons have a 4+ save whereas fire warriors have ap 5 weapons...

One thing I've learned through teaching is that new players either fall into one or two camps. They either underestimate the value of cover and often dont bother using it... Or they do what Necrotike here is doing and overvalue it and cling to it like a blankie. The best thing you could probably do is go through your list before game and show him which models in your army have ap 4 or higher weapons and explain to him that those are the only ones he needs to worry about getting cover saves from, the rest he doesnt need to worry about. That should go a ways towards helping him see that he's overvaluing sticking to that cover.

Anyway congrats to Necrotike on his first victory.

Also, I have one more piece of list building advice for him, despite how well it worked this game, the Tachyon arrow is generally accepted as being a very very bad choice. Against infantry more often than not it will need a 3+ to hit 2+ to wound and usually have to bypass a cover save, meaning it usually only has a 27.8% chance of actually wounding the model.... Which isn't exactly a good expected return for a 30 point investment. Against vehicles the odds are slightly better, but still more often than not it will fail when you need it most.

[Gorfang]

So I'm getting the idea that the monolith isn't that useful anymore. This makes me sad