Experienced Necron KILLERS. Key word, KILLERS.

[number6]

Well ... I've never had to shoot at the Monolith! (And no Monolith has ever fired upon me.)

[MorbidlyObeseMonkey]

Sorry guys but the whole "ignore the monoliths, go for phase out" is terrible advice. Any competent player will simply not let you phase him out. As a Necron player who uses two monoliths and the deceiver I will say that it's not that hard to prevent phase out. You just need to have a strong knowledge of how to use blocking, bubblewrap and reserves.

If anyone has Vassal and wants a game I'd be glad to show you how hard it is to phase out a Necron player who knows what he's doing. I'll be taking my Necrons to two GTs this summer and making battle reports as well. There is also several Necron tactics articles on my blog and I'm working on an all-encompassing Necron tactica as well.

So as I said, if you want to beat a good Necron player you need to ignore phase out and go for the objectives. Going for phase out is exactly what a Necron player wants you to do.

[camarodragon]

At this point, all I can do is disagree, I guess. Necrons are the single weakest codex in existence right now. All the locals who own Necrons have been forced to pick up a secondary army in order to enjoy 40K again because they haven't beaten anybody with them almost since the release of 5th edition. The new rules did them no favors whatsoever.

Secondary army? Im on my 5th!!! {Nothing to do with my me still winning with necrons, but more to do with my ADHD}

[number6]

I need somebody to explain to me what is threatening about the Monolith. If it's the 'lith shooting -- which indeed would be dangerous to our crisis suits -- all you have to do to stop it shooting is kill Necron models. If you kill Necron models quickly and efficiently, the 'cron player will be forced to TP 'crons for WBB rolls and give up his shooting.

Otherwise, the thing is slow. No reason you can't run away from it all day long. You're Tau.

If it deep strikes, you have at least one turn of shooting at Necrons. Keep that up. When it arrives, it can't shoot and otherwise just shoves some of your models around. And then you continue shooting Necrons, and the 'lith will not be shooting because it'll be teleporting 'crons again....

What am I missing here? How can you not be phasing 'crons out each and every game you play against them? I mean, I rack up plenty of losses, but in my entire 40K history with all of GKs, Tau, and now Tyranids, I have lost a grand total of one game against Necrons, and that was my first 5e game: GKs v Necrons. A battle of the two worst 40K armies.

[MorbidlyObeseMonkey]

Necron Warriors are tougher than you give them credit for. They should always be in cover, spread out the full 2", or out of LOS if possible. The Tau army doesn't have enough firepower to kill enough 'Crons to phase them out. Remember, you will be taking losses as well. Especially from the Monoliths if you're not shooting at them. If you're only shooting at the Necrons, the Deceiver will ruin your day. The ability to make you take morale checks is very strong against Tau and since he can jump over all models you can't tarpit him with kroot. Also if you charge him to tie him up then he can just leave combat.

[number6]

I can't speak to the C'Tan. Nobody's ever brought them in any actual game I've played. If I played 'crons, I wouldn't field them, either. Too many points not invested in avoiding Phase Out. (That's exactly what every 'cron player has told me, anyway, and I agree with that analysis.)

But 'cron shooting is pathetic outside of destroyers. There's a reason I listed them tops on the priority list. Destroy them, and the Necrons are absolutely and totally boned in my experience. Every other weapon they have is 24" max (Immortals) or rapid fire ... on infantry. So we can simply play keep away for an entire game. If Necrons are cowering where they can't be seen, OK then, avoid them. They're clearly not contributing to the Necron victory. Shoot at other targets, then. (Even the Monolith, if that's all that's being offered.)

But to win games, Necrons will not be hiding from you. They can't afford to. They have to take objectives or at least attempt to kill you.

Again, we're Tau. Slow 'n pokey 'crons simply cannot hide from us. Not with True Line of Sight they can't. Necrons are expensive, and like any "elite" army of expensive models, torrent of fire is all you need to kill them off. WBB is just a different kind of FNP in this analysis, and you don't hear people complaining about how broken or tough Chaos is when people field 4x or 5x Death Guard or 4x or 5x Plaguebearers.

I don't even hear people complaining that much about BA, where you can get an entire army of FNP ... and BA are significantly deadlier than 'crons in every phase of the game. They're faster, they're shootier, and they're assaultier.

Necrons simply don't equate to a quality army. It is easily defeatable.

[sonoftheemperor]

I can't speak to the C'Tan.

Neither can I... They make raspy sounds, I try to talk English... It just doesn't work.

[Blasterdude3]

Neither can I... They make raspy sounds, I try to talk English... It just doesn't work.

me too, much easier.
but anyway, i have to go with M.O.M on this one, if you kill the monlith not only does it eliminate the threat it poses completely it limits the versatility of the army itself. kill the lith, and the crons cant teleport everywhere, and they are easy to corner and or trap (save for the destroyers and c'tan, but thats another story). as said above they're slow pokey necrons.

[MorbidlyObeseMonkey]

I can't speak to the C'Tan. Nobody's ever brought them in any actual game I've played. If I played 'crons, I wouldn't field them, either. Too many points not invested in avoiding Phase Out. (That's exactly what every 'cron player has told me, anyway, and I agree with that analysis.)

See this is a perfect example of why the Necron players in your area are losing. One little known fact is that it's actually better to have less Necron models because it means you can sacrifice more units without worrying about Phase Out. It is this secret alone that I place the majority on my success upon, because if I hadn't realized it then I'd probably be phasing out a lot more.

Also, have you read the rules for the Deceiver? Everyone just assumes that he sucks, then they read his stats and realize he's one of the best CC units in the game, if not the best.

But 'cron shooting is pathetic outside of destroyers. There's a reason I listed them tops on the priority list. Destroy them, and the Necrons are absolutely and totally boned in my experience. Every other weapon they have is 24" max (Immortals) or rapid fire ... on infantry. So we can simply play keep away for an entire game. If Necrons are cowering where they can't be seen, OK then, avoid them. They're clearly not contributing to the Necron victory. Shoot at other targets, then. (Even the Monolith, if that's all that's being offered.)

The Particle Whip is one of the most underrated weapons in the game. Plus it's the Necrons' only decent tank-hunting unit. Tank glancing is still good but sometimes you just need to kill them. I wrote a novel about the Monolith here.

But to win games, Necrons will not be hiding from you. They can't afford to. They have to take objectives or at least attempt to kill you.

They can hide until turn 5 where they'll run out and capture objectives or portal through the Monolith if need be.

Again, we're Tau. Slow 'n pokey 'crons simply cannot hide from us. Not with True Line of Sight they can't. Necrons are expensive, and like any "elite" army of expensive models, torrent of fire is all you need to kill them off. WBB is just a different kind of FNP in this analysis... *snip*

Actually, WBB is waaayyyyyyy better than FNP. For starters, WBB doesn't care about AP 2-1, which is huge in the current metagame.

Secondly and most importantly is that FNP rolls happen immediately, so one can simply focus-fire on the FNP unit and kill it (albeit the unit take more firepower to die). When a unit with WBB dies, you can't shoot it any more. So if you have a ten-man warrior squad then there'll five left next turn, 2-3 the following turn and maybe one the turn after. So Necron units will take at least 3 turns of being wiped out to kill fully, and usually more. Keep in mind this works no matter how much shooting you have.

It is for this reason alone that Necrons are far tougher than Terminators, far tougher than plague marines and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they are the toughest troop in the game. Of course this is all assuming there are warp spyders hidden behind the Monoliths, which there should be.

*snip* ...and you don't hear people complaining about how broken or tough Chaos is when people field 4x or 5x Death Guard or 4x or 5x Plaguebearers.

Well, maybe you don't. Then again the players in my area complain about how cheesy my Necrons are, so who knows.

I don't even hear people complaining that much about BA, where you can get an entire army of FNP ... and BA are significantly deadlier than 'crons in every phase of the game. They're faster, they're shootier, and they're assaultier.

Well they are certainly faster, no doubt about that. Then they have a choice between shooty or assaulty; they can't beat Necrons at both. The Deceiver can run through any close combat unit they throw at him without a second thought, so they will need a lot of CC power to break through the Monoliths, scarabs and Deceiver. This means sacrificing a lot of shooting. Don't say they'll jump over them because I know you're good with your kroot and you know how to stop jump packers. I do the same thing with scarabs. Except scarabs are way better at it than kroot (fearless, natural 2+ cover, faster, 4 pts per wound).

EDIT: For reference here is my 2000 points list.

HQ
[300] The Deceiver

Elites
[168] 6 Immortals
[168] 6 Immortals

Troops
[180] 10 Warriors
[180] 10 Warriors

Fast Attack
[150] 3 Destroyers
[150] 3 Destroyers
[120] 10 Scarab Swarms

Heavy Support
[235] Monolith
[235] Monolith
[110] 2 Tomb Spyders

Total: 1996 Points

[number6]

Replace the Deceiver with a couple of Res Orb Lords and a few more Warriors to make up the difference and you've got approximately the same list I've regularly seen and that gets phased out easy by just about everybody.

Now I will admit that the Deceiver poses a specific problem for Tau, and actually makes your army more challenging ... at least in the first couple of turns. If we can keep our suits on the table, then I predict phase out by no later than turn 5. The lack of even a single Res Orb is crippling.

Stopping the Deceiver from tearing through your entire army in combat is little different than stopping Mephiston from tearing through your entire army, and we can do that if required. So it really does come down to how well our suits can resist the Deceiver's powers. If they do it, we're fine. If they don't, I actually agree the game is going to be very tightly contested.