1600pts vs. Necrons

[thorax]

Greetings Hive!

I'm a long time browser and a 1st-time poster - happy to be aboard.

I will be fighting my friend's Necrons over the weekend and was looking for some advice on my army list please. We've played maybe 6 times in 6th edition and I've lost all but 1 - help!

A couple of points/questions:

1) Is The Doom effective against LD10 Necrons, or are the points better spent elsewhere?

2) Are there any effective strategies against Destroyers and lash-coil Wraiths? They seem to boss me.

3) Neither of us have flyers yet, so I see no need for a Flyrant. With no flyers on either side, is The Swarmlord the best HQ choice for me?

4) I don't see many of our Fast Attack options making peoples' lists. Are they really that ineffective?

HQ

The Swarmlord
w/ 1 Tyrant Guard w/ lash whip

Elites

Doom in pod

2 Zoanthropes

3 Hive Guard

Troops

30 Termagants

Tervigon w/ AG, TS, Cataclysm

15 Hormagaunts

10 Genestealers

Heavy Support

Biovore

Trygon w/ TS

Any comments are very much welcome!!

Thorax

[thorax]

Sorry to bump but I'm playing tomorrow! Can anyone help me?

[Ragged Warrior]

Hey Thorax!

Sorry I got here so late--it's been a busy week. How did your game go? I imagine that the DoM wasn't very helpful, but I would think that the hormagaunts and trygon were. (Our close combat really eats Necrons.) I've never been able to successfully use the Swarmlord, and would be interested to know how he did.

So, how did it go?

Regards,

[gigasnail]

your opponent not having any flyers is the best time to take one. or, better yet, take two. seriously.

doom is hit or miss. it's best to drop so that he's next to multiple units. LD10 units are still taking that test on 3d6, so they'll pass a little more than half the time. make sure he's in range to two or three units and he'll rapidly become a really annoying distraction that must be dealt with.

hormagants and gaunts charging a necrons is great, if you survive to actually get them there. the regular units aren't great in combat; you should mow them. however, getting across the board and through overwatch with enough bugs left to assault can be problematic. that's why many folks have moved away from stealers and hormagants. stealers are best used as several groups of infiltrators (to apply early pressure and turn 2 assault) or broodlord delivery systems (infiltrated minimal squad as ablative bodies to ensure biomancy buffed broodlords get into combat to assassinate troublesome HQ or weapons teams). people have had success with hormagants buffed/supported by swarmlord, but i'm not a fan of this approach so i'll let others take that one.

how are your termagants arranged? one big unit of 30? two 15's? three 10's?

nid FA options range from great/cheap (gargoyles), sorta (please do not swear) but niche (harpy) to good but too expensive and fragile (ravenors/shrikes). gargs are a mainstay in many armies as they're fast, autowound on 6's in CC, and can be a legitimate threat with adrenal glands/toxin sacks to nearly everything or can be used as a cheap ablative screen for your more valuable units.

what is your opponent specifically fielding? are you looking to just beat him, or have an all-comers list?

[thorax]

Thanks guys for the useful reponse.

We played.a few weeks ago, so my memory is a bit sketchy, but here are the basics:

1) The Doom was amazing. Because my army had a lot of models, my opponent decided to defend a large ruined building with almost his entire army, right in the corner of his board. When he landed, the Doom was within 6 inches of 6 seperate units on the ground floor (C'tan, 3x destroyer, 3x destroyer, 3x wraith, 3x wraith, Immortals) and was amazing. Over the 3 turns in-which he was on the board, her did 3 wounds to the C'tan and killed almost everything listed above. To be fair, I've never seen that many 5's and 6's rolled by my opponent for his Ld tests, but still a great debut.

2) The Swarmlord failed hard, but allowed the Trygon to get into combat. I ran the 2 together on 1 flank and my opponent focussed on the SL. He killed the 1 guard in turn 1 and killed him entirely on turn 2 with combined destroyer/immortal fire. Without guard and without in invun save he is seriously vunerable against shooting. This did allow an unscathed Trygon to get into combat with his army, however, which may well have justifued his points!

3) Termagants. I like to run a unit of 30 Termagants. I find this increases their survivability and means you get the most from Tervigon buffs. That unit of 30 (probably 20 at that stage) shot then charged a 10-man unit of necrons in cover and killed them in 1 turn. Satisfying. To be fair, they were toxin sac'd, adrenal gland'd and I'd enfeebled the necrons, but it was still fun

4) Fast Attack. I really like the idea of raveners, but at T4 and 5+ they just won't survive methinks. Re: gargs. I've seen a few people wax lyrical about their use as a screen/LOS-blocker, but wouldn't they just permit a cover-save to the unit behind? I thought 6th Edition got rid of the "shoot-the-nearest-unit" rule?

5) Flyrant. My opponent turned up with a flying metal croissant. He only turned-up on turn 3 and dumped some 'crons on an objective. That was about it. Is ignoring them a legitimate tactic? I plan to stick with the Swarmlord for a little longer, until he does something useful (which could be while, based on the last game). Surely a dakka flyrant would be a lot more useful against necrons though. Yes, he's more mobile. But 12 S6 shots will only equate to a few downed warriors, surely not worth the points? Unless I'm just to accept that all of our HQ choices are poor and he's the best of a band bunch...

6) I have 1 opponent and he plays Necrons Therefore tailoring my list to face his isn't the worst idea ever! He has around 3000pts worth, so has a lot of flexibility. We normally play between 1500-1700pts. He usually fields some combination of C'tan or Monolith, 6 wraiths, 6 detroyers, a few small warrior units, a unit of immortals, deathmarks and lots of those little cheap HQ guys in each unit (I can't remember what they're called, but basically the 40k equivalent of a Tomb Kings Lich Priest).

[killme304]

The doom is uniquely situated vs crons. Normally it will eat a S8 wound and be gibbed, but crons don't get many S8+ shots. This makes it super durable and borderline ridiculous.

Swarmlord usually fails hard, because while hes the scariest SOB in combat, he usually can't get there. People will shoot the (please do not swear) out of him almost every time. Good ways to make him live include rolling 4 biomancy to grab Iron Arm. With only one guard in the unit, the highest toughness is used, making it a 2 man T8ish brood, and very, very durable. Add endurance to the mix and your opponent won't bring it down short of full army fire.

A large number of gaunts will always be threatening to any low model count unit, buffs or no. Ask the orcs how many ****s they give about terminators when they have a full mob hit something.

Raveners are good if you have good target saturation in your list. They are fast enough (being beasts) that they actually might make it to combat before the S8 comes their way. For the same reason doom has it easy vs crons, Raveners (and even warriors) don't have it that bad vs them.

Gargs cost 1 more point than gants, and have wings. When they say screen, they mean a charge screen and a cover save to whats behind them. The opponent then has 2 options:

A) Kill a ton of 6 pt models and let the scary stuff behind it get closer unhurt.

B) Shoot the stuff that (rightly) causes them to fear you. They will be harder to bring down because they now have a cover save if you deny them armor.

Flyrants are crazy good in 6th. Before it was kinda "eh", useful mostly in lists that focused on high mobility. In 6th, they either will rape your opponents list quickly, or get shot down under the weight of heavy fire, giving the rest of your army time to get closer. They also get more done than a swarmy. Be thankful he only has one night scythe, because they are cheap and have super cheesy rules.

If he likes his warriors, invest in biovores. He will probably stop taking them altogether.

Monoliths have been rather disappointing in the new dex honestly. They would be very good vs bugs, but if he was building all-comers lists, they have a lot of glaring weaknesses.

I have no comment on c'tan shards, mostly because they are super over-costed for the stat line, and the forced 2 picks are all super expensive on top of that.

Wraiths are cheesy guys because they only cost 35 points base for a really good stat line and 3++.

You have to try and corner destroyers, because they can easily kite bugs around all day with both a 24" gun and 12" move. Dakka Flyrant would be your best answer far and away.

Crypteks are cheap and come in royal courts. They can do tons of stuff, so you cant really pick against them unless he has favorites.

Wait til he gets more flyers, and gets better at maneuvering them. Then you will learn why you shouldn't ignore them. They are cheap and can easily put a hurt on any list.

Check out the vs necrons thread to see more tactics.