Necron Angst

[Panxer]

Being a Tau player, I naturally have an inferiority complex to other more shooty choppy armies with special magical abilities, whereas the Tau have to rely upon gadgets, gizmos, and pure mobility to get the job done (excluding allies, and the new Eldar dex may change this)...Until you meet the Necrons.

This isn't a "hate" session, but rather a frustration session for which I am reaching out to the gaming community to see if anyone has the same problems and issues that I have run into. Let the games begin.

1. Cron air is WAY more mobile, durable, and shooty than the Tau with regard to transport capacity and objectives claiming capabilities (but easy access to skyfire may ease this a bit)

2. RP rolls. Happens every time. I kill oft a number of immortals or warriors with devastating amount of firepower, and poof they get back up. Add a resurrection orb and the math gods dictate that typically 1/2 of what you kill will just get up (fortunately new advanced targeting systems and Ion weaponry can remedy this with precise shots to hopefully neutralize the more nasty elements of the royal court)

3. The dice gods hate me. Granted, this is a personal gripe, but it never fails...the dice gods hate me, so I have outfitted my army with as much kit to boost shot numbers and twinlinkage just to have a chance. It's not my dice. I have used all manner of dice and methods to help this, but yes...the diice gods (aka Murphy)j hate me

4. Triarch Stalkers. Kill them fast, kill them now. Deepstriking 9" meltas to the rescue!

5. Destroyer lords. Mindshackle Scarabs. Nuff Said.

6. Scarab farming... Tau have a lot more templates now that cause instant death, so maybe this will help, but the armor eating ability is NASTY!

7. The storm lord. I hate. I hate. I hate the lightning rolls. (>_<)

8. Deathmarks. Nuff said.

9. Transports that spam warriors. Again, mybe the ion accelerator can deal with this more effectively.

Have problems with Necrons? I'd love to hear your gripes and issues. For the greater good!

[Tyrendian]

Being a Tau player, I naturally have an inferiority complex to other more shooty choppy armies with special magical abilities, whereas the Tau have to rely upon gadgets, gizmos, and pure mobility to get the job done (excluding allies, and the new Eldar dex may change this)...Until you meet the Necrons.

This isn't a "hate" session, but rather a frustration session for which I am reaching out to the gaming community to see if anyone has the same problems and issues that I have run into. Let the games begin.

1. Cron air is WAY more mobile, durable, and shooty than the Tau with regard to transport capacity and objectives claiming capabilities (but easy access to skyfire may ease this a bit)

2. RP rolls. Happens every time. I kill oft a number of immortals or warriors with devastating amount of firepower, and poof they get back up. Add a resurrection orb and the math gods dictate that typically 1/2 of what you kill will just get up (fortunately new advanced targeting systems and Ion weaponry can remedy this with precise shots to hopefully neutralize the more nasty elements of the royal court)

3. The dice gods hate me. Granted, this is a personal gripe, but it never fails...the dice gods hate me, so I have outfitted my army with as much kit to boost shot numbers and twinlinkage just to have a chance. It's not my dice. I have used all manner of dice and methods to help this, but yes...the diice gods (aka Murphy)j hate me

4. Triarch Stalkers. Kill them fast, kill them now. Deepstriking 9" meltas to the rescue!

5. Destroyer lords. Mindshackle Scarabs. Nuff Said.

6. Scarab farming... Tau have a lot more templates now that cause instant death, so maybe this will help, but the armor eating ability is NASTY!

7. The storm lord. I hate. I hate. I hate the lightning rolls. (>_<)

8. Deathmarks. Nuff said.

9. Transports that spam warriors. Again, mybe the ion accelerator can deal with this more effectively.

Have problems with Necrons? I'd love to hear your gripes and issues. For the greater good!

I'll reply from the other side of the table - I play Necrons and one of my buddies plays nothing but Tau :-)

1. granted - Cron Air is terrible, which is why I don't use it... but it's way less of a problem for Tau than for most anyone else...

2. a Necron Warrior (with normal RP) is only as tough as a marine (less so against your buckload of AP4, more so against your other buckload of AP2+3, so I guess that balances out). Then again, as you say yourself, you have some tools to take out Rez Orbs, and usually you should have the firepower to take down most things short of a 20 man blob of Warriors in a turn, in which case they stay dead... focused fire is the magic word here

3. sucks to be you I guess... that's usually my part in our games, so I feel for you

4. incredibly overcosted and don't do much - why worry? also, as you say, melta them...

5. why would you care about MSS??? Necron characters beat all of yours with their hands tied behind their backs (at least when wielding a Warscythe... sucks to be Imhotek... had him beat futilely on a Broadside for several turns once^^), so why would you even care that they spent points to do so even more???

6. Scarab Farming is about the worst idea ever against Tau... you don't have many problems killing the Spyders, and the Scarabs melt to any and all weapons in your army!

7. That's probably connected to the dice gods hating you... but consider it this way: the night fighting hurts him more than you, since he doesn't have Night Vision, which your Battlesuits do

8. Again, I don't see why they bother you that much - aside from the Riptide, there are not that many valuable targets (i.e. MC) for them... except with a DespairTek, and that's rather unreliable...

9. as if those D3 Warriors were hard to kill - and it doens't work when you wipe out the unit anyway... it's not a Tervigon with its 3D6 bugs that form a new unit...

So all in all, stop whining and learn to roll some better dice
(Don't take this all too seriously plz - no offence intended anywhere )

[Chaoschrist]

I've played 2 games the past 2 weeks (and my first games of the year, not a regular gamer) against my friends Necrons. Played with my Orks last week, Grey knights this week.

I've found that, much like Tyrendian already points out, focused fire helps a lot to wittle down squads. Last night I had to decide if I either wanted to attempt to shoot the 2 remaining guys (after already killing 5 of that warrior squad) or shooting a 8 man squad and trying to wittle it down. I ended up shooting the 2 guys, since it made sure to deny them RP (Terminator with AP 4 psycannon ahoy!). So yes... focused fire really is key.

Those Warrior spawning Arks were a pain in the rear last week with my orks, since the quantum shielding prevented me from getting in proper hits in early game. I learned from that and directed all my anti-tank stuff at it now (3 Lascannon razorbacks popped them both in 2 turns). I pretty much played the range game (and luckily we had no nightfighting in progress) and that obviously help me a lot.

My friend runs 3 squads of Deathmarks, so I'm familiar with those... a lot. They're 5 man squads though, so they're not that tough to kill. Their 3+ save witheld against my psycannons a lot more (and against my orks last week... meh, just had to hope for a insane amount of wounds by shooting and him failing a few). But I didn't treat them a lot different than warriors. Wittle them down... a single deathmark isn't gonna do a lot of damage (even though the remaining two killed off my Vindicare assassin). Though I don't have any experience with 10 man deathmark squads... that seems way more nasty. In defense of that though; points spend on more deathmarks equals less other models, heh. So effectively you can shoot more at the 10 man squad.

[Panxer]

This has given me some food for thought. Good for you Ty for having the moral turpitude to not fly cron air and play like an honest undead robot egyptian (^_^). Seriously though, if GW had kept with the original fluff, I'd have probably picked up Necrons back in 5th ed. I love the skynet undead harvesters angle.

1. I'm going to try altering my suit loadouts from burstcannon spam/missile pods and plasma to meltas and plasma (as the Tau melta is 18" now and I'm realizing that the Tau have very little in the way of AP 1 or 2 infantry based weaponry *I don't field pathfinders as marker units that's what tetras are for, but maybe consider using them as a sniper unit as rail rifles are SICK now)

2. Yeah I have sand in my vag about the dice... but that's my problem. This is why I use fireknives, ethereals, HQ wargear that TL's, and Sensor Towers to throw as many shots out there as I can. So I'm not remiss here, just really really really unlucky. Even mathematically speaking I should be hitting more.

3. I need to look into HQ's and wargear and their most effective uses. Upon examining the Necron dex, I'm learning that their abilities, excluding cron air and some of the other more killy models, are largely HQ driven (as are the New Tau), so you guys are absolutely correct. Lots of precise shots, concentrate fire and sniper drones could help fix this problem (now that Sniper drones are super mobile now and BS5)

4. Riptides could give cron air a run for their money... yes. That Ion accelerator with skyfire is no joke. However, I like to play like my old cav unit and have lots of recon/sniper elements with a strong ADA in the backfield, so I'm glad (and proud) that Skyrays are uber right now).

This is all good food for thought. I'll post more as they come to me.

[Marcin Lipowski]

Being a Tau player, I naturally have an inferiority complex to other more shooty choppy armies with special magical abilities, whereas the Tau have to rely upon gadgets, gizmos, and pure mobility to get the job done (excluding allies, and the new Eldar dex may change this)...Until you meet the Necrons.

as an old eldar player I have inferiority complex since when tau appeared and took away from eldar "Their fire power is only matched by their arrogance"

[Shas'O Alohcry]

Having dabbled in nearly every army at one point or another, and played Necrons quite extensively (though not recently) I have to say, your frustration seems to be mostly from your dice, which I can't blame you for, especially when I have rolled eight 1's out of twelve dice (the rest were 2's). So I thought I would drop a few tips, which are pretty similar to everyone else's.

1. I only use one Night Scythe and it has won/turned around so many games, Cron Air is nasty, I don't think you could ever have enough skyfire, maybe try a skyray? Or just keep praying you don't see it much (I sure do).

2. I personally rarely have much luck with RP even with a Res Orb. But I have figure out that 10 man warrior squads die pretty quickly, 20 man squads tend to stay the game, but are surplus to requirement and eat points, if you see a squad of 20 either ignore it for the more vital targets first, or shoot your entire army at it, and don't stop till every last one is dead. I tend to play 15 man squads which are hardy but don't waste points, if people don't focus on them they will stay the game. So again FOCUS FIRE! or, what always kills my guys is taking a couple of tests at a time, takes longer, but it seems to be harder to roll one 5+ than 10 5+'s. if they run 5 man squads or destroyers, just blast them till they are all gone, which shouldn't take long

3. I know it sucks... But it happens to everyone.

4. Yea, my triarch stalker draws alot of fire, and if ignored causes alot of pain, he should be a high target unless he has barges.

I'm not too familiar with the rest. Except MSS which are awesome for the Cron player but no-one else, all you can do is try to kill him, or pray to pass your test, but if he is in combat with you, he will probably kill you, he usually does.

[Tyrendian]

as an old eldar player I have inferiority complex since when tau appeared and took away from eldar "Their fire power is only matched by their arrogance"

yeah... but with the new book we have arrogance aplenty ...or was it the other one?