Blade N Bolter Boyz Stuff

[Aldonis]

Any thoughts on how to beat the Necron fleet?

I played them with Imperials - and it was VERY bad.....

[Gimili]

Take a lot of lance shots

[DakkaDakka]

You could always do what I did first time going at Necrons, fire fire fire. For chaos it was a squadron of 3 Carnages, generally Locking on, pumping out 48 shots a turn, he will eventually take some damage. Also, if you can, use attack craft if you are close enough to hit him in one ordanance phase. A lot of the Necron player's criticals take away leadership, and leadership is always an imporant thing.

Pour enough firepower into him and he will have to go on BFI (Brace for Impact). Causing him to lose his Sepulchre power, and among other things, drop that armour to a 4+ for everything, even with a 2+ brace AND an Armour Save, you can cause him to eventually become crippled and then destroyed. Make your opponent roll as much dice as you can and eventually he is going to go down!

Board Board Board. Space Marines and Chaos especially those marked with the Mark of Khorne, you cause damage by how many points you win by and cause criticals, something good to do to that Cairn tombship after it takes some fire.

Always always remember, you are going to outnumber them, if not, something is wrong. Use this to your advantage, take escorts with lances or torpedos and move them around, harrying the Necron flanks, they are not invincible, just tough, remember that and the game will go fine.

and always have Fun doing it.
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The Emperor Enslaves

[ThirdUltra]

I'm thinking lots of escorts that include lance-boats and torpedo ships; these units should give you a decent angle of attack on the Necrons.

Backing these units up would probably be carriers, mainly Medium to Heavies for Chaos, or multiple Light and Heavies for Imperials.

This would give you an ordnance swarm of bombers and torpedos to attack the Necron vessels without too much fear of reprisal, though you'd have to launch early and often to close distance.

For Imperials, I can see a few fire-ships mixed in for good measure with one Battleship in the mix. Though depending on points, you might have to stick with light carriers and multiple squadrons of escorts. Though having a few Nova Cannon might help for long distance shooting and to get some good damage first before you close.

Chaos can use a decent bit of their cruiser strength by using their long range lance batteries for stand-off shooting; their medium carriers, such as the Styx class can be mixed in with some Infidel and Idolator escort squadrons to harry the enemy fleet.

[Warboss]

At the big waaagh this year the guy who won the BFG tournament had to play a very strong necron fleet. I watched the match because i knew it was one of the couple that would decide who won.

It was 1000 point fleets. Spacemarines vs Necrons. the marine fleet had a battle barge, strike cruiser and several gladius class cruisers. the necron fleet had a tombship battleship, harvester heavy cruiser and three shroud escorts. All of which were tricked out to be, as The Tick used to say, be 'nigh invulnerable."

Basically the spacemarine player used thunderhawks out the ying yang to do boarding actions on the tombship. while he was not able to damage the beast he was able to render it absolutely useless because of the boarding actions. Boarding actions against necrons do not damage the ship, i believe, but cause other affects. Basically, because of the hordes of marines which were rampaging through the ship i dont believe it could even move at one point. And i know it actually had a -2 leadership by the end of the game.

With the tombship fighting off boarding parties he concentrated all his firepower on the harvester and the escorts. he destroyed the escorts easily and cripped the harvester fairly quickly.

At the end of the game the necrons had an undamaged but basically unsuable tombship, no escorts and a cruiser that was about to crash into a planet. the marine player was virtually unscathed!

While i may be wrong on a few of the details as i dont know the necron rules all that well i know that what i wrote there is fairly close to what happened. It seemed to me that if you cant destroy the necrons then boarding actions which render their primary ship useless while you destroy everythign else is a pretty darn fine way to handle them!

[ThirdUltra]

Agreed;

Hit and Run attacks with Thunderhawks or Attack craft is probably the best way to go against them. It silences gun batteries, effectively making the vessel useless.

That's a tough fleet to go against no matter what one runs. Boarding torpedoes would probably work as well when used in conjunction with the Thunderhawks. Also, teleport attacks work well, if you can get close enough to do it.

Nice to see a marine fleet prevail against those guys....

[Morkaither3d]

Marines DO add a bit of punch against some necrons, not only for the thunderhawks, but the bombardment cannons help as well. Al, what kind of imperial fleet do you use? I use a segmentum solar fleet from the Armada book in conjunction with support from Space Wolves(I bring the wolves in for larger engagements). If they are bringing a cairn class, you can kiss ordnance goodbye as far as being effective until you're really close, but you can also make the necron player want to be that close . Nova cannons are your friend in this one. Make him spread out and want to get closer to you. Then just have your shorter range batteries unleash hell while you take advantage of that imperial ordnance. I'd suggest not firing any ordnance until he's hit that range, so you don't have to worry about needing to reload it when you need it for that first shot. The exception to this is standard torpedos, which are NOT affected by the sepulcher, " Any ordnance within 20cm of the Sepulcher (except for non-boarding torpedoes) are destroyed on a 4+." Luckily for Imperials, torpedoes is one thing we have in large quantities if we want. Think of it like shooting an another Imperial fleet, won't do much but might do something, up until we get close n personal. Also, always remember, if they are bracing, they cant put out NEAR their points cost in damage, as they are already expensive. If you can hulk just one cairn in a 2k fleet...thats 1500 VPs. 1000 if the necron player manages to blow it up after you hulk it. So even if you are taking heavy losses hulking one, its worth it.

Oh and to realize what gimli said...bring an Apocalypse class, it will make them brace.
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Paranoia is a wonderful feeling. If you think they're out to get you, it means you think you matter. Always remember though, just because you know your paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.