Chumby's Nexus of Necron Nowledge

[Exitus Acta Probat]

I'm not going to quote anything specific, as each person's argument against chumby is of a similar vein...

But Chumby is correct.
Necrons rate as one of the lowest of the low lists as of now.
Daemonhunters suvive by dint of allies...thus making their list, if purely DH, a chosen weakness.
Same applies to WH, and they are even viable as pure sisters (or nearly pure) though shortlegged. Include allies, and boom ....they're more than just fine.

Necrons have no buffer for their innate weaknesses.
You can say any one unit in the 'dex is AWESOME...and then you have to confront one sad little fact...their only troop is the warrior.
18 point warrior
with an init of 2.

Welcome to assault, you are wiped out...
welcome to second assault, you are phased out...any questions.


You CAN ignore pariah...they cannot 'port or WBB...and they're more expensive than Immortals.
You CAN ignore C'tan...they cannot 'port, and consume a significant enough portion of the 'cron army that you merely need to focus on other elements to get the job done.
You CAN ignore any of the units you would want to (the non-necron models) as if you are playing proper 5e, you are mobile...or capable of putting forward mobile tarpits...
You CANNOT take any one unit in the codex, and apply it out of context. Wraiths have too low a model count to survive WBB excess...Pariah/TS/Scarabs(etc) don't count toward your totals. C'tan and Monos qualify here too.
Necrons are the easiest army to ignore current objectives (excepting annihilation) and just go for the table, and are the easiest army to table.

I know that yes, you can win games with them..but you cannot consistently win tournament games with adept opponents in an open field with them. They are currently gimped.

[MajorSoB]

Hell, apparently a "1 of everything" Necron list won our last local tourney. I wish I could have seen it, must have been hilarious.

That is one way of looking at it, if your were playing him you might have had a slightly less humorous outlook. The person you speak of was Chris Courtney who has won several GT events. Most of his armies feature a "1 of everything" approach, he relies on tactics and skill to win. I have played this army and I am sure it had 1 Monolith, a squad of Pariahs, and a squad of Scarab, as well as Necrons, Immortals, and Destroyers.

Part of the problem that I see is the way you look at everything. If I hammer can't fix it then its broke. Sometimes something more subtle is required. Again Necrons are not on par with most other armies due to the rule changes in 5th edition but they can still be played. This is why the "1 of everything" list was used, as a personal challenge. You can give the excuse that "the competition was bad....blah, blah, blah" but sometimes the skill of the player is the difference between a win and a lose. Try to get a game with this person sometime, you might be amazed how a soft well balanced list can rip through your army. Remember a simple knife in the hands of a surgeon can perform miracles.

[EmperorEternalXIX]

I still find it hard to believe that people feel you can simply ignore 75% of the enemy's most deadly forces on the table. Alone, yes, you could ignore any of the lamer pieces in the codex. But suppose an army (and bear with my hypothetical, here) took a C'tan, two Tomb Spyders, two Monoliths, and 10 Pariahs, along with a slew of Flayed Ones, flanked by destroyers and warriors. Could the enemy really ignore all that, especially once turn 3 passes and these things are in his lines?

My point overall that I was trying to make is it's not all about the codex, it's also about the meta game. The meta game right now is mobility, forward assault, and melta spam -- all of which the Necrons have ways to deal with.

The argument of "a good player will ignore it" is bad. A good player will tie up my assault terminators with cheap disposable units, too; does that make it a bad choice? Like I said, putting a Monolith in some narrow pass the enemy needs to pass through to reach you easily can be a game winning decision, if you use it that way. Also I have seen warrior squads fail something like 8 or 9 WBB rolls only to be beamed through the door and be brought back almost to full strength.

As for "1 of everything" lists, I run this way myself, and do it precisely because I want to feel like when I win, it was because of my generalship and not my army list/mathhammer. Any idiot can go "Okay THSS Terminators are the best assault unit in the SM codex, so I will take three sets and try to get off an assault with them." It doesn't feel like a real battle when there's just a bunch of redundant best-case-scenario units on the table, at least not for me. If everyone in the game did that the entirety of 40k would totally suck.

I think necron players just can't think out of the box, anymore. They have been touting this "spam Necron models" thing since the dawn of time, since 4th edition when I started for sure. The fear of necrons dying and the subsequent need to spam them always amuses me; I see many games lost by necron players because the phase out is at as many as 15 necrons remaining, often meaning roughly a squad and a half still alive. I also see a lot of big necron warrior squads, which always confuses me. 20 man squads getting swept because of one lucky roll on the power fist really hurts. If you want 60 necrons it should be in six squads of 10, and the last ones that count for phase out should be hiding. The arguments to my earlier hiding suggesting was that it wouldn't work because people can easily maneuver around monoliths, but you necron players need every benefit you can muster, and if the enemy wastes a turn maneuvering instead of blasting you to pieces, then the technique is a success in a way, even though no dice may be rolled and no models may be removed as casualties.

Incidentally...I have never once seen a necron player try to keep enough of his models out of the fight to avoid phase out. If you have a low number of models for your phase out, it should be relatively easy to hide a set of them off somewhere so that your primary fighting force doesn't contain enough necrons to phase you out. At that point, at least the enemy will have to go get the last few manually -- again, buying valuable game time.

[mercer]

I saw this on your blog Chumby, and unfortunately its all true.

C'Tan maybe awesome in combat, but they're slow and can be avoided.

Pariahs are nasty in combat and against vehicles, but they need to footslog and can get gunned down.

Flayed Ones, nothing special really.

Warriors could be cheaper.

Monoliths are mixed up, but only transport method necrons have. I don't think they're that good and are over rated, I think its the huge model presence they have which makes people think they're awesome. Its like defilers, someone I played against targetted them straighted away because they looked big and mean.

[drummerholt1234]

I still find it hard to believe that people feel you can simply ignore 75% of the enemy's most deadly forces on the table. Alone, yes, you could ignore any of the lamer pieces in the codex. But suppose an army (and bear with my hypothetical, here) took a C'tan, two Tomb Spyders, two Monoliths, and 10 Pariahs, along with a slew of Flayed Ones, flanked by destroyers and warriors. Could the enemy really ignore all that, especially once turn 3 passes and these things are in his lines?

Yes because they will be phased out or so close to phase out by the time the flayed ones get there they will be a liability. That set up also runs you 1240pts before any... yes any necron has been bought. Add in your two min warrior squads and now you are at 1600pts. That leaves you with 400pts to spend on 8 destroyers, just over 22 more warriors or some flayed ones and about 4 destroyers. This leaves the army with out mobility a lack of destroyers (even 8 isn't that great, 10+/3+ heavy destroyers is needed), no tarpit unit (scarabs), and no fast CC threat (necron destroyer lord as it is all the necrons have in that department). The max phase out of the army is 32/42 if you bought all warriors with those last 400 points and even less if you didn't.

[Rex]

It's funny how the Necron players are agreeing with Chumby for the most part and the non-Necron players are knocking his content and suggesting unrealistic builds and uses for bad units.

[Cryl]

I play necrons and have for a few years now and I'm not sure I entirely agree with either arguement! Some units aren't worth taking like Chumbys says... Pariahs go straight into this pot point for point they just aren't good enough to warrant taking up the space in an army. That said some other units like Flayed Ones really can be effective against certain armies, Tau or Guard will get hurt badly by them for example.

Monoliths fall into that category, I find them useful for their sheer flexibility, I can either drop a large template of death on a unit or land D6 shots on every enemy unit in range and still teleport teleport something (only if I don't use the template obviously), yes they're a big target, yes they're alot of points that don't help phase out but they are useful.

Heavy Destroyers aren't really good enough to warrant taking them, you'll get a single turn of shooting before they're targetted and wiped out and at 195 points for 2 lascannons they make dev squads look like a good deal! Ordinary Destroyers are one of the best units in the book though, up there with immortals.

Personally I find that mech isn't the biggest issue for a necron army, Monstrous Creatures are my bane... a carnifex with T7, 5 wounds and a 2+ save is a massive issue for an army that has little in the way of weapons above S6 or AP below 3, sure I can always wound it on a 6 but the combination of the armour save and the 5 wounds means I've got problems from the start. Go up against 3 of them with tyrant and guard and you've got problems. I use liths to be able to recycle models out of range / CC with them and keep the fire sustained until he failed enough saves... I'd be interested to know what other people would use to deal with it

[mercer]

Heavy destroyers are 65 points each, so 195 for 3 lascannons which can move like jetbikes are are t5 if I remember correctly

[Chumbalaya]

Let's go through all of this, yayz!

@ Lord Anubis: Actually no, the Ork thing sorts lost momentum since it ended up being the same arguments going back and forth. My well reasoned and intelligent commentary vs. "durpity durp durp you am rong"

If you think that's what I'm talking about, I'd ask you to re-read the thread. Everything has a counter, what makes units useless is that their counters are available, easy, numerous and don't hurt the rest of the army. Also, if they don't adequately make up for their cost by being useful in some way. Orks boyz get knocked out by massed fire, good assault units, templates, and vehicles. Lucky us, all those are good. Ork Boyz aren't worth it because they don't hit hard enough or destroy vehicles, have Ld problems, and have difficult bringing an adequate number of models into assault.

What makes Pariahs bad is that they can't get back up, cost a ton of points, and their effects are mitigated by short ranges or their stats not helping them (assault in particular). And, Immortals are just better.

I'm not talking about tailored lists either, because that doesn't really hold up in a tourney environment. A good, balanced army is capable of handling all the one-dimensional armies like Nob Bikers, Ork Hordes, IG Air Cav, Warrior spam, and so on. It must also be able to handle other balanced armies. To do this, you need a good variety of units that can perform multiple roles, ideally for cheap so you can fit in more backups, and be used well to counter your opponent's army and tactics.

@crazyzombie: Why would you charge TH/SS Termies into Pariahs? It's much easier to down them with bolters or meltas, sending those beefcakes to nuke some Warriors. When you leave all the decisions up to your opponent, they won't play your game, you will have to react to them and they have the advantage. Waiting around for the assault that won't come is not a good idea.

@EmperorEternalXIX: Destroyers get WBB from meltas, not from powerfists. Destroyers can also turbo-boost, so no powerfist will be able to catch them. If Destroyers get in a fight with a PF, you did something wrong.

You can ignore 1 objective when there are 5 on the table. Just send something to contest last turn and make sure you hold 1 more.

You CAN ignore the Monolith because it doesn't completely block off the Warrior, it doesn't threaten my army in any appreciable way, it doesn't need to be destroyed conventionally. All the points you put into the Mono is less points in Necrons and brings you closer to magic Phase Out time. It does give you the chance to teleport, which means that uber S9 pie plate isn't firing and all the Warriors get nice and bunched up, yay assaults. You can hold Warriors in reserve, so when they do show up they get dead and Phase Out. And hey, if you're playing Tau or any army with long range S10 weapons, holding Warriors in reserve is a good way to lose them if you intend to pop out of the Mono, once it goes boom they don't come in.

Phase Out doesn't have to be a big number, but the units that count need to survive. Taking lots of Destroyers and Immortals gives you a lower number than spamming Warriors, but Immortals/Destroyers are harder to kill and get WBB from almost everything. Warriors require a Lord to babysit them and they don't dish out any real damage on their own. Immortals and Destroyers can move independently and dish out a whole lot more pain overall. Scarabs and Spyders are ok because they're cheap. When you take stuff like Monos, C'tan and Pariahs you have less points for Necrons, so it ends up a choice between numbers and effective units. The Noncrons cost so much that it's difficult to fit both in, so you sacrifice one or the other and your entire army suffers. 6 Destroyers >>>> Deceiver any day.

@MajorSoB: I was actually trying to make the point that a good player can bring a bad "on paper" list and still do well. I know Courtney is the bee knees, I was talking with him about it on Tuesday, not trying to diss on anything at all. A good player will bring what he knows he can work and will do with it. I'm aiming more at the newbies or people looking to improve. The best way to learn how to get better is figure out what makes particular units and lists good, play them, figure out why they're good then use that knowledge to blaze their own trail.

@EmperorEternalXIX again: C'tan, 2 Spyders, 2 Monos and 10 Pariahs is at the cheapest 1240 points. How big of a game are you playing? Throw in the minimum Warriors and it's 1600. You can't really fit any good number of much else. What do you do against mech? Nothing you have can stop a good number of vehicles. Nothing you have can stop AV14 reliably. If your local players are having difficulty with it, you are Patton reborn or you need to stop gaming at the day care center.

Without a way to handle mech (glancing hits and charging with 6" per turn MCs is NOT the answer) the army folds. You've got flanking Flayed Ones too? More assaulting infantry models who aren't even good in assault. Anything in a transport ignores them, real assault units stomp them, and shooting units blow apart the Warriors as they come in.

Assault Termies can get tie down, but you have to get them out of their transports first. Good luck cracking AV14 with that army.

5th focuses on close range fights, melta, and mech, but that doesn't mean people are going to run into the arms of your slow MCs. A balanced army will have ranged weapons to pick them off from afar and the mobility to zoom around your big wall of fail and get to the good parts.

@Cryl: Load them up with shots to force saves (Immortals and Destroyers) or use Heavy Ds to bypass the armor. If it's assaulty, you can ignore it for now (send your Lord and Spyders after it, or just tie it down with Scarabs :P), if it's shooty, then spread out to avoid the blasts and blow them apart one by one.

I kinda want to dust off my Necrons. I think I have about 1000 points worth lying around, I just need like 10 more Destroyers

[EmperorEternalXIX]

I find your logic flawed in some of these cases. You know a lot about list building but your tactical acumen differs from my own. We're going to have to just agree to disagree on this one.

I am not a necron player; however, for the entire first year and a half I played this game, I played against a necron player only, week in and week out. He did exactly what you suggest; destroyer spam, no monoliths, lots of necrons to keep the count high...I beat him almost every time we've ever fought. He refused to try anything else pretty much ever, and understandably so -- that was 4th edition.

Now in 5th edition things have changed. The ubiquitous cover save makes things like pie plates not so scary, and the monstrous creatures do not have so little worth now that they can run. It is all about how you use them: each of these things can reach stuff to assault within 12" of it. That means that as far as the radius of influence goes, these things have a bubble of roughly 24" that they can effect (12" out from where they stand). If you position your army correctly, ANY advancing troops will have to pass through this area sooner or later. And per your comments about the Land Raider...since when have players who use a LR NOT barrelled it forwards at the enemy as fast as possible when there's no melta around?

The argument that my suggestions give you too few necrons is kind of irrelevant, since it was my goal to suggest that a list with less necrons can do well. Where I play, the boards have plenty of terrain and plenty of ways to stay out of sight or get cover saves.

I agree with most of your points regarding the other units, but there are ways to use them tactically that aren't at all being considered. For instance throughout all of this I haven't seen you mention at all that the monolith's template can snipe with AP1 under the template's hole -- a great technique for vehicle hunting. In an Apocalypse game, I once saw a player beat an IG army with 12 Leman Russ tanks and 3 Baneblades by using 4 monoliths and the C'tan plus a lot of disruption fields (the IG player rolled incredibly badly, but still...it happened).

Your opinions on destroyers being able to escape are really flawed. They are the best unit in the codex for sure and I would always say maxing them out is a must. But to be honest, the idea that they can't be reached by things that can kill them is absurd. Even if they manage to turbo boost away, I am still doing myself a huge service by silencing their fire for a turn. Do you play any Guard players? Those guys come under Leman Russ fire so fast and from so far away, and like I said before they're never in cover because people don't want to risk them on a DT test. There are countless other things; bikers, LS Storm Scouts, Assault Marines, Drop Podding troops, hell I even nailed a few of them with a Str10 AP1 template from the Master of the Forge once.

I don't mean to be disrespectful, but you say something like "Oh the ork argument made no sense because I was being all reasonable and everyone else was just being stupid" and then come in here and completely disavow the fact that I'm telling you it is NOT that hard to catch the Destroyers with a power fist and that I personally do so almost every time I fight the necrons in a variety of ways. Again, no disrespect meant, but to me that sounds an awful lot like "durpity durp durp you am rong" to me (at least with regards to the destroyers' survivability...the rest of your points are perfectly valid).

While your points about the unit combinations you have listed are perfectly valid, that assumes a lot. I would never take 10 Pariahs, the cost is just too retardedly high. But I could see some utility for them if someone else was willing to try it.The Pariah thing, like everything I've said, is a strategy based around the current meta game, and tabletop psychology. Generally you are correct about most of the units, they are crap...but when life gives you crap, you make ... crap-aid, I guess. If you get lucky with certain things and be extremely cautious, it can prove effective to some degree. You're not going to be winning tournaments, of course. But again, my overall idea was to make use of things purely because they are unexpected, and use that fact to one's advantage.

I know the lists I suggest probably won't win, but they'd sure be a hell of a lot more entertaining to use then warrior spam, heh.