Beyond 750 points of Necrons....

[Anon!]

Over the past few weeks I've been building up a 750 point army of the 'crons, and (shock, horror) actually managing to win with them. So what I've ended up doing is deciding I'm going to take them to at least 1500, and possibly further. What I want to know is what'll be good, what'll be crap (and before anyone says it, no, I will NOT be taking any Pariahs. Ever) and what'll be a half-decent one trick pony that opponents'll wise up to in 10 minutes flat.
As reference, here's my 750 point list:
Lord with Resurrection Orb, Warscythe, Destroyer Body
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
3 Destroyers
5 Scarab Swarms

So far, I'm thinking a second Lord with a VoD, and a Phase Shifter on the Destroyer Lord. Opposition is incredibly varied, but I can expect to be seeing CSM, mech Tau with lotsa 'suits, Black Templars, and SOBs.
Floor's yours, advice is muchos appreciated.

[Nabterayl]

I'd suggest picking up some heavy destroyers when you move from 750 to 1000. That's about the level at which you'd start to see medium and heavy armor, I'd expect. Destroyers can handle light armor (AV11 and less) just fine, but it seems to me that the ability to threaten some of the AV12 and AV13 threats you'll start to see at higher points levels would be worth it. Destroyers can still go for side shots, of course, but not all side armor is weak enough to be seriously threatened by a gauss cannon, and banking on getting rear shots with destroyers seems to me like asking for trouble. Plus, against Tau battlesuits, the heavy destroyers can pop one suit per hit - or force your opponent to start loading up on shield drones, which reduces the number of suits you'll have to face.

[Unlighted]

I've been playing Necrons at 2000 points and this is what I've observed so far.

Tomb Spyders rarely do good in CC. They are good for crunching vehicles that are foolish enough to get close, but anything with average WS will stomp it into the dirt. If you get one don't expect much from it.

Wraiths aren't really worth their points. They are a dedicated CC unit, but don't really excell in CC. If you use wraiths its kind of an all or nothing choice. D-Lord with 9 Wraiths can cause some serious hurt, but costs a lot of points and $$$.

Heavy Destroyers are a good thing to have. They can bring the pain to anything that the rest of your army stuggles to wound/blow up.

Monoliths are fun, but they cost a lot and they reduce the amount of phase out units you have to keep yourself in the game. They are hard to kill, but on average won't kill a lot unless you can get them/it into the heart of your opponent's army.

Lords don't do well in CC even with the Warscythe. Its better to avoid CC if at all possible. The Lord upgrades should be to help him and his unit survive rather than win outright.

I haven't used Flayed Ones yet so not sure about them.

You should invest in Heavy Destroyers for your next expansion. If you get another Lord don't go crazy on the upgrades so you can have more units.

[karandras]

Your 750 list looks pretty balanced and I would try to maintain that balance when expanding to 1500.

I would definitely add the Phase Shifter to your Lord and then bump your Destroyer squad from 3 models to 5 models. Then, I would add another squad of 10 Warriors to give you another scoring unit and increase your phase out. From that point, you should have about 440 points to go, which can be spent in one of two ways: the I want a Monolith in my army way or the I think Monoliths suck way.

Personally, if you see a lot of objective based scenarios in your area, I think Monoliths become a bit of a neccessary unit in order to provide Necron troops with enough mobility to have any hope of reaching far off objectives (via deep strike). So, I would probably spend that last 440 points or so on a Monolith and two units of 1 Heavy Destroyer. With the 75 points or so that are left, I would add another unit of Scarab Swarms as they are quite nasty against Sisters and Tau and are great for contesting objectives late. If you like to play aggressively, you could arm your Lord for CC and put him with one of the Scarab Swarms. If you like to play more conservatively, keep him back to use the ResOrb in support of your Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers.

If you were of the school of thought that Monoliths suck and you don't want to go that route, I would consider spending the points on either another squad of 5 Destroyers (which would mean losing one of the Scarab Swarms) or a unit of 8-10 Immortals in place of the Monolith. Good Luck. Necrons are a lot of fun, but are terribly hampered in 5th edition due primarily to their initiative of 2 and being considerably over costed points wise.

[Anon!]

Well, thanks for all the comments so far, they've been quite helpful, and I'm thinking of reowrking my 750 point list as well as expanding. The new 750 list looks a bit like this:
Lord with Warscythe, Solar Pulse
Basically there to support the Warrior gunline; I'll be giving him a Resurrection Orb later.
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
The firebase. So far, they've proven stupendously good at not dying, and mediocre at best when it comes to actual shooting. I'm not really going to go into assualt (last game, they got beaten in combat by a Shas'O, then ran down - 'nuff said)
4 Destroyers
Increasing the squad size seems to be the way to go; a higher Phase-out count is always good, and they're providing the heavy firepower. These move up the flank with the Scarabs.
5 Scarab Swarms
The tarpit. Anything super-shooty, or threatening to assault the Destroyers gets charged by these guys as soon as humanly possible.

Whereas the 1500 point list plays rather differently:
Lord with Warscythe, Solar Pulse and Resurrection Orb
Gets into a nice position with the Immortals, and stays there. Only time he'll move is if the Warrior/'Lith combo needs any extra shootiness.
10 Immortals
Extra dakka.
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
Now here's a problem. Should I devote the majority to assaulting enemy positions, or stick 20 on the closest objectives and dare anything to come near them while sending a 10-man squad to consolidate gains by everything else?
4 Destroyers
Used in the same way as before, except now they have Heavy Destroyers running with them they can be a lot less scared of tanks.
5 Scarab Swarms
No tactical changes here. I'm counting on them going unnoticed, so I might hide them behind the Monolith to counter threats to that as well.
Monolith
Two words - Fire magnet. Also used for teleporting, and laughing at melta spam.
2 Heavy Destroyers
1 Heavy Destroyer
Sooooo glad I managed to fit these in. I've never seen the need for them in smaller games where a Warsycthe takes out most of the armour I see, but I can see that stuff like Land Raiders, Russes and the like become annoyingly common at around 1500 points. I might leave one in my deployment zone to blast at any incoming transports, or just run all of them with the normal Destroyers )and risk them getting templated by a Medusa or somesuch.

[Cryl]

If you're taking that up to 1500 I'd consider

A monolith. The greatest way to give your army mobility and surviveability. The portal is the main reason to take one, it's a hard to kill way of anchoring your army around a safety point that can extract units from CC and regenerate them.

Immortals. Brilliant models, 24" range S5 AP4 Assault 2 weapons on a unit that's harder to kill than plague marines are just great. Sure they're expensive £ wise but they're worth it. Ten with a res orb will keep the death coming for a long time.

Heavy Destroyers are a necessary evil. They're your only way to kill armour with any degree of success. They're also really overpriced lascannons on jetbikes that are disturbingly easy to kill T5 3+ for 65 points.

I'd also consider adding more destroyers, another unit of 10 warriors and possibly some more scarabs to allow a unit of ten.

[karandras]

I like what you've done, but will give one tidbit of advice. Don't bother running the lone Heavy Destroyer.

All he'll do is die. He won't get the benefit of his we'll be back and he will literally get off 1 or 2 shots before he is killed. If you don't have the points to run two squads of one each, then don't waste the points.

For 60 points, you could add another Swarm of 5 Scarabs and give yourself another unit to work with. It comes down to 15 wounds versus 1 wound for the same points.

[Anon!]

I like what you've done, but will give one tidbit of advice. Don't bother running the lone Heavy Destroyer.

All he'll do is die. He won't get the benefit of his we'll be back and he will literally get off 1 or 2 shots before he is killed. If you don't have the points to run two squads of one each, then don't waste the points.

For 60 points, you could add another Swarm of 5 Scarabs and give yourself another unit to work with. It comes down to 15 wounds versus 1 wound for the same points.

Would he still be viable if I put the Heavy Destroyers in a squad of 3, or would that just be a points sink for a unit that's only going to kill one tank a turn?

I might drop the Res. Orb on the Lord for another 3 Scarab bases, it's done absolutely nothing for me so far whereas the Scarabs I have now pretty much won me an Annihilation game against Tau single-handedly (charged an FW squad, wiped them out in 2 turns, then scared the bejeezus out of another one coming in from reserve so that it ended up getting in a Devilfish and running towards all 20 of my Warriors... not pretty).

[karandras]

I think you must have edited your post. You can more or less disregard my post now, as your list has changed. I would still reccommend two squads of 1 Heavy Destroyer each, bumping the normal Destroyer Squad up to 5 and using any left over points to increase the size of your Scarab Swarm. Good luck.

[Anon!]

I'm guilty, I can't resist making little tweaks every so often when I haven' got the models yet :)
Well, thanks for that, and for the extra 15 points I'll probably just plonk a Gaze of Flame on the Lord, or buy another Scarab Swarm.

[Cryl]

Whereas the 1500 point list plays rather differently:
Lord with Warscythe, Solar Pulse and Resurrection Orb
Gets into a nice position with the Immortals, and stays there. Only time he'll move is if the Warrior/'Lith combo needs any extra shootiness.
10 Immortals
Extra dakka.
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
Now here's a problem. Should I devote the majority to assaulting enemy positions, or stick 20 on the closest objectives and dare anything to come near them while sending a 10-man squad to consolidate gains by everything else?
4 Destroyers
Used in the same way as before, except now they have Heavy Destroyers running with them they can be a lot less scared of tanks.
5 Scarab Swarms
No tactical changes here. I'm counting on them going unnoticed, so I might hide them behind the Monolith to counter threats to that as well.
Monolith
Two words - Fire magnet. Also used for teleporting, and laughing at melta spam.
2 Heavy Destroyers
1 Heavy Destroyer


It's a solid list, like Karandras says though lone heavy destroyers will probably get a single shot off before they're gunned down.

Couple of thoughts from your comments though; The biggest benefit that your Immortals have is that those lovely S5 24" range guns are assault 2 so you can move them around killing things, keep them mobile and killing whatever needs to die. As for your warriors, park 10 somewhere safe to try to avoid phase out, on an objective is the best place for them if possible then try to keep the 'lith around 18" from all the squads using it to move the warriors around. Warriors are pretty poor but having ten appear in rapid fire range backed up by the S5 shooting on the lith is going to spoil the day of pretty much any infantry unit. Camping in cover at least gives you a chance if you're assaulted.