Fighting Necrons and other MEQs

That's one of the worst Necron armies for taking on Tau I can imagine....

Your opponent has invested a high number of points in units that:

A/ Don't count towards phase out.
B/ Can't catch or hurt you.

The only things that should present any threat to you are the Immortals, Destroyers and the Scarabs. The Wraiths maybe, but they come in such a small unit you should be able to kill them no-problem. Considering from your list you play Mech Tau, I wonder if your applying your army correctly.

Things you should have no problem with:

1. The Monolith. It's slow and short-ranged so it should never catch you unless it deep strikes, and you should be able to evade it easily. Also fire a couple of Railguns at it and it will go pop.
2. The Nightbringer. Realistically this should present no threat to you at all. It moves 6" a turn, you play a Mech List, if it gets with 12" you should just jump in your Devilfish and fly away...
3. Tomb Spyder. Same principles apply really, if it's getting into CC with your Firewarriors your doing something wrong.

The Scarab Swarms are dealt with very easily with submunitions, just take a pair of Railheads and if you can't shoot the monolith drop your templates on them. The Wraiths are also easily dealt with. Although they are fast and deadly, their small squad size means you just have to make a few saves and it's not hard to kill them all and deny their WBB. Shoot them with pulse rifles, burst cannon, SMS.....they die easy.

Onto the things you should be worried about:

Destroyers should be your first and main target for your special weapons and suits. They have the speed and firepower to really hurt you. However like the Wraiths they aren't particularly hard to kill, and come in small squads. Hit them with your plasma and concentrate your fire till they are all dead. Once they are all down you don't have to worry about them coming back.

Immortals should be your second target on the list. Ok Immortals are truly scary, they are tough and their weapons will absolutely shred you. Fortunately they are slow, your opponent hasn't take VOD so they wil be forced to footslog accross the board. However their guns do make up for this movement deficit. The same generalist advice applies to all Necron Units applies here.

Don't "nibble" away at units, firing at different ones depending on what comes close. Pick a squad and keep firing at it with different units till they are all dead. Now that they don't get their WBB, you can pick a different target.

Warriors: Oddly enough the warriors shouldn't be that much of a threat to you. They are slow, and when they move they only fire at 12". Lacking heavy weapons they will use the Gauss effect to rip your transport apart if you let them get in range. Again the solution is simple - don't. You should have 2/3 turns of firing before you gauge your opponent is approximately 18" and they are too close for comfort. Rather than let them get the oncoming shooting phase they are waiting for, simply pile into your Devilfish and fly away. Your opponent has to now footslog slowly after you...

Looking at your list, I will post here and echo some earlier points for you.

Your list is illegal until you invest in another squad of firewarriors, dedicated transport options do not take up a troop slot in any army - marines, eldar whatever.

Swap the multitrackers for something useful like Target Lock.

Your list is horribly min maxed - you need to scale down your HQ and invest in some firewarriors. I'd take 3 full strength firewarrior squads at least, and invest in devilfishs with decoy launchers for them all.

Use your HQ as an independant character so he can't be shot and put him behind a squad.

Your stealthsuits are good, they will everything that moves 6" in the Necron list a headache but don't put them anywhere they will face those Wraiths or Scarabs.

Railheads are the daddy. Take 2 or if you can take 3.

Ycuk. The others are right, this Necron list doesn't know what it wants to be. With the proper application of force at certain points this list will crack.

This guy has a huge amount of points sunk into very few units (Lord, Monolith, C'tan, Tomb Spider). You should be dominating this guy through shear numbers.

To reinterate what others have said:

#1 Anti-Necron rule. Shoot it till it stops moving, if it twitches shoot it again. Concentraited fire hurts necrons bad, you gotta deny that WBB role.

#2. Monoliths fear rail guns, drop that bad boy and he loses a huge portion of his points.

#3. If you can, assaisnate that lord. It's doubtfull that the guy will ever put him in a position that you can shoot at him, but if he does, take that bad boy down. You can cripple Necrons if you toast their lords (though its hard to do and rarely happens)

#4. Dance around the C'tan while sticking your toung out at him, don't bother shooting him, its a waste of time.

That's quite possibly the worst Necron list I've ever seen.:x I'm not even joking, thats bad.

STill necrons are tough for Tau. All the advice above is pretty good but I would like to add that:

1. EMP's work great against monoliths, especially when they try to deep strike on your warriors. This allows you to use your tanks big guns to focus on the Necron warriors, Which brings me to...

2. I own a 3000 pt Necron army and I can say that I find the Ion cannon to be more effective than a Rail Gun when fighting Necrons. It's true against warriors a Rail will drop about the same give or take as an Ion, but Ions take down destoyers w/ ease, whereas railguns begin to fall short. Although if you use the solid shot it will insta-kill them I find the rate of fire isn't enough, especially since my Railheads rarely hit. The sub shots do take down scarabs quickly, but any Necron player who knows his stuff brought these for just that reason.

In closing I play mech Tau but I find a hybrid list works best against 'Crons as they take down tanks w/ ease. Good Luck.

Phase Out....

Squall, the problem doesn't lie with your list really. There are minor tweaks that could be made to it for greater effectiveness but nothing thats going to tip the scales in your favor. Because of the weakness of this Necron list we have simply been trying to give you good advice and tactics on how to fight Necrons. Thats all we can do, this game is as much tactics as it is in troop composition. There is no magic genie that you can add to your list to make the Necrons roll over and die.

That said there is really nothing more too tell you to do. We've all told you the most important things to keep in mind while fighting, its up to you to put them to good use. And remember that Tau always have a harder time against Necrons, even a crappy Necron list (like this one) can prove difficult to break.

As to the Gun Drones never killing anything...technically with their TL they have a better to hit chance than FW's, course if your trying to kill destroyers with them well thats sorta like pissing in the wind but....

Actually Squall thats fairly good advice. Tau vs Necrons is just one of those army matchups thats lopsided no matter what. All of the Necron natural advantages are right where Tau have their weakness. Their wepons and armor saves are the most damaging things Tau can face. They can out static shoot us and if they want to they can be supper speedy, faster even than the purest mech tau list. Deepstriking monoliths, lords with VoD's and imortal retinues, destroyers all these things rip Tau apart, and unlike Necrons Tau don't get back up.

Even totally trash Necron lists are hard for solid Tau lists to beat, the Necrons have a great deal of error forgiveness in their armies, we have almost none.

While I don't entirely agree with refusing to fight Necrons simply because its not likely I'll even come close to wining, for less experienced players its best to cut you teeth on other armies while you gain experience and confidence. Once you've got that, then you go play Necrons and if you lose, so what? they're necrons, they should beat you, but if you win, oh my if you win then you really got something to talk about.