*WARNING LONG POST* - again

Same again, criticize away

NECRONS VS MARINES

HQ:

Commanders: The versatile option for marines tending to give Ld 10 to all of them. Overall any marine character is going to hurt against necrons due to power weapons or lightning claws so keep them at arms length where possible. A lord will be able to threaten a marine character but wont hold out for long if they go toe to toe. Best bet is just try to keep the character at arms length and shoot him.

Chaplains: Same as commanders but more so, if it comes to it charge a chaplains squad because otherwise the chaplain will allow the entire squad to re-roll misses on the charge. Chaplains also come with better inv saves as well but as there aren’t many power weapons for necrons it doesn’t matter all that much

Librarians: Able to kill multi-wound targets with force weapons, boost themselves or just plain hurt things with psychic powers these guys are versatile and if the dice favour them down right vicious. Same as any marine character though, keep them at arms length and let the guns do the talking.

Command Squads: As versatile as any elite squad they can deck out for shooting but they are best decked out for combat, they can also allow the character(s) to get furious charge. They can have 2 character attached to them which can make them even more of a nightmare and have various troop upgrades for a standard, vet sergeant, company champion and apothecary. The standard will boost moral making them even harder to break, the vet sergeant can (with a massive points expenditure) allow the entire squad to boost there attacks and bring power weapons (though thankfully most players skip this due to the astronomical costs), the company champion is another inv save and power weapon for the squad and the apothecary helps keep them alive and again makes them yet harder to break. Usually command squads are given a transport to keep them safe, luckily against necrons this isn’t the safest way. Even in a land raider everything can get glancing hits on a 6 so make sure that whatever they’re hitching a lift in goes down early. Alternatively if they are in a drop pod just make sure that everything able destroys the squad when they jump out.

ELITES:

Dreadnaughts: usually such a pain the wonderful gauss weapons can tear right through them, whatever you do don’t let them reach combat unless you can teleport out straight away. If you get a weapon destroyed option remove the ccw and reduce the biggest threat. If it’s a fire support dread (typically lascannon and missile launcher) it’s less of a threat to necrons though it can threaten the monolith. Largely it’s an easy call on when to ensure they die as you’re fairly safe in the first couple of turn when other vehicles will be higher priority.

Terminators: The marines equivalent to immortals these are particularly tough for necrons. They still have T4 but they tote an impressive 2+ save with a 5+inv backup so the key is to make them take as many saves as possible. Tactical terminators will come with the mobile firepower, each wielding a storm bolter with 2 heavy weapons available that’ll fire on the move. Assault cannons are the current weapon of choice with 4 S6 rending shots but they can also get missile launchers and heavy flamers. Where these become the biggest pain for necrons to handle is combat. They have 2 attacks each base with power fists, now granted they strike last but with all that armour between them and you they’ll probably survive and then proceed to tear a very large whole in your army. The upside is that because of the shooting people tend to field them on foot and have them walk across the battlefield and they do cost a lot (40points each before upgrades). They do sometimes deep-strike in or hitch a lift in a land raider though so watch out.

Assault Terminators: These guys are just as hard to kill but as they don’t have guns people will almost always deep strike or have a taxi. Just because they don’t shoots though doesn’t make them less of a threat, if anything they are more of a threat to necrons. Most of the squad will have lightning claws (3A each normal with power weapons re-rolling wounds) with thunder hammers to deal with anything too hard. These guys you wont get a chance to hit first they will just chew up a squad quite happily. Due to the gauss you wont often see them in a land raider if your opponent knows necrons, more likely they’ll deep strike. Unfortunately you can only bank on 1 turns shooting against deep strike, you might get lucky but you can’t bank on it, be ready to level serious firepower at them.

Techmarine: New and haven’t had the joy of it yet so this’ll be based on what I can see on paper. Pretty much always has a servo-harness giving it great weapon options. Main role is of course (in theory) repairing vehicles but this tends not to be their main role unless they bring several tech servitors. Mostly they turn up as either improvised combat squads (4 powerfist servitors and the techmarine with 2 power weapon attacks and 2 more power fists) or mini-devastator squads with 4 heavy bolters / multi-meltas and sometimes a plasma cannon. I have also seen some people attach the techmarine to plasma-heavy units to use the signum but to me it would be wasting the best of his abilities.

TROOPS:

Tactical Squads: Well there’s not very much that’s basic about a marines, a statline that’s 4’s where it counts (WS, BS, S, T and I) and a 3+ save makes them very powerful. The tactical squad is also incredibly versatile. It can do long range tank hunting with lascannons, mid-range with multi-meltas, short range with meltaguns. It can go for versatile with plasma cannons, missile launchers and plasma guns. It can go for anti troop with heavy bolters and flamers. And to top it off because they are marines they can hold their own in combat nicely as well. In fact these guys can play any role. Because of this I’ll just give a quick rundown of the most common squad configs (without traits)
5-man with lascannon – basic anti-tank
6-8 man with Lascannon & plasma – versatile anti-armour
6-8 man with missile launcher & plasma – versatile
6-8 man with heavy bolter & plasma – anti-troop
6+ man with melta, vet serge & transport – short range mobile anti-tank
6+ man with flamer / plasma, vet serge & trans port – short range close support

Scouts: The cheap option isn’t so cheap for marines at 13 points but is a lot more fragile to higher power weapons with only 4+ armour. Scouts can infiltrate, hold their own in combat or lay down covering fire quite well. Scouts tend to be used 3 ways, as combat support for fast-moving assault units, as a teleport homer for terminators or as snipers (anti-tank or troop). They wont be too much trouble for necrons to get rid of provided there aren’t too many of them, the firepower ones can be overlooked in favour of combat units (though the snipers could be a threat to a C’Tan). The combat ones will be making a bee-line for you or waiting just out of sight and should be gotten rid of fairly quickly but considering destroyers will kill on 2’s it wont be hard.

Rhino: Workhorse of the adeptus astartes, unfortunately 4th Ed seems to have relegated the basic rhino to little more than mobile cover in most armies and unless it’s a tournament game you probably wont see many against necrons, however if you do I’d advise dropping them quickly as even though you can’t assault from them now you’ll be hard pressed to get through a squad of power armour reliably in only 1 round of shooting.

Razorback: Same armour as a rhino but with a heavy weapon on top, a very sound investment against most people, against necrons though its just another pile of scrap that doesn’t know it yet. You’ll tend to see razorbacks for small squads (max 6 to fit in) that will use turn 1 to deploy out on a flank or to lend some heavy weapons fire to an otherwise combat based army. Watch out for the lascannons as they can and will bring down a monolith of your opponent gets scared by it.

FAST SUPPORT:

Speeders: 3 types of speeders you could be up against but I’ll get to them actual configurations in a moment. These guys are good VP’s for necrons as anything can bring them down and mostly they’ll be coming to you if your opponent uses them how they would against most other armies. They’re armour 10 and fast skimmers so if your opponent gets the chance to move them you’ll only ever get a glancing hit against them, remember that a speeder with no weapons is no longer a threat but that it can still capture and contest and no VP’s till its downed. The main 2 types you’ll see are the tank hunter with a single multi-melta, not much for the monolith to worry about but can be very good at removing isolated destroyers, and the anti-troop tornado with assault cannon and heavy bolter, again not much threat to your troops as only the rending will bypass armour but 7 shots on the move will very quickly mount up to failed saves. The other configs are of course single heavy bolter, multi-melta with heavy flamer and typhoon missiles with either heavy bolter or multi-melta. The multi-melta heavy flamer is incredibly versatile but expensive and will torch scarabs with ease, the typhoons will have the range and normally sit behind your opponents lines as rapid response. As I mentioned before most people out of habit move their speeders up the flanks to take advantage of the speed but against necrons the flanks don’t mean all that much, use this to your advantage to bring your guns to bear.

Assault Squads: Jumps packs on combat specialists, something for most necrons to worry about, luckily only the veteran sergeants will tote power weapons or fists. These guys will cover hop till they can charge so you’ll need your immortals or destroyers to manoeuvre to get a clear shot and keep out of the 18” charge. Once they are weakened of course you can swamp them with wraiths, flayed ones scarabs or even a tomb spyder should be able to handle a couple. Unless your opponent their characters with the units then there’s only so much they can do on the charge before you can teleport out so don’t be worried about moving into rapid-fire range to kill more and take a charge from what’s left before finishing them.

Bike Squads: Usually overlooked in favour of speeders or assault squads these are not that good at what they should do. About the only role you see them in effectively is a small squad turbo-boosting to get in short range for melta gun shots at side and rear armour of vehicles. Being mobile though they can take advantage of any smaller units that get isolated and give them a hard time. They still have power armour but with T5 backing them up they can be a pain to get rid of. Luckily with no real combat beef unless a character joins them even basic warriors should be able to drag them down eventually.

Attack Bikes: whilst I understand that speeders with more weapons being more numerous tends to catch people eyes more I don’t understand why attack bikes aren’t used more. With the new turbo-boost they can get round to the flanks just as easily as speeders with the added advantage of the fact they are easier to hide. The biggest disadvantage is of course that they can only get a heavy bolter or multi-melta. Still if you see a unit of these remember that they’ve certainly got the manoeuvrability to claim/contest quarters on the last turn quite happily.


HEAVY SUPPORT:

Devastator Squads: Far more vulnerable now you can target them with a priority check but they still pack one hell of a punch with 4 heavy weapons. The favourites are 4 heavy bolters or 4 missile launchers but occasionally you’ll get some plasma cannons making life hard. These guys will always be a threat to you especially to your destroyers as 4 heavy weapons backed up by very little else can drop the small units very quickly. These guys will also tend to be in cover to keep them safe but as there are very few weapons that’ll ignore power armour available to necrons this isn’t usually an issue. Destroyers, a particle whip and ultimately wraiths are all good for removing devastators but it does have to be done quite quickly

Predators: Probably the most versatile tank going. With an autocannon and heavy bolters you have a massive number of shots for a small cost that’ll force necrons to take a bucket of saves and with all lascannons you have a stationary threat that can bust open a monolith surprisingly fast. It’s the all lascannon type that is the biggest threat if you’re using a monolith and these guys should attract a massive amount of firepower at least until you have stopped it from firing but ideally until its dead. The anti-troop variant isn’t such a big deal but it’ll wipe wraiths out by itself or pulp scarabs with ease so just keep an eye on it. Luckily for dealing with both gauss will keep you safe, the ability to glance on 6’s tends to stop a lot of people from even bringing vehicles to the battle against necrons.

Vindicator: Another high threat vehicle but this time because it’s ordnance, S10 ordnance to be precise, and therefore a priority for everything. It can take out a monolith with a direct hit and butcher any squad not close to a resurrection orb (and to be fair even if you are near an orb you’ll need to pass a lot of WBB rolls). Ensure that this tank dies or has its weapon destroyed ideally on turn 1 and you’ll save yourself a headache.

Whirlwind: An 85pt ordnance barrage weapon that has the option to launch minefields or rockets. Mines shouldn’t be too much of a worry but they can instant kill scarabs. The rockets are S5 AP4 so they shouldn’t lay out too many warriors but they could end up with you taking a lot of saves. Because they don’t need line of sight you’ll probably have to use destroyers to hunt them down but there are higher threats around.

Land Raider: Close rival (in theory) to the monolith its got armour, transport capabilities and guns. The main use is for transporting terminators (even if it is only 5) and using 2 twin-linked lascannons to ensure that other vehicles have a bad day. The fact that it will probably be racing towards you with terminators is good enough reason to put a lot of holes in it and luckily you can (being able to take out armour 14 with a basic gun is great J). If that isn’t enough reason to gun it down the fact that it has the firepower to bring down a monolith with surprising ease should seal it for you.

Land Raider Crusader: Probably more common now because its more of a transporter (8 terminators… ouch) and less of a firebase. The guns can still do a bit of damage but nowhere near as much, because of this though it wastes no time trying to shoot things and by turn 2 you’ll have a squad of terminators (probably assault ones) in your lines. Same applies for the land raider really, the AV14 isn’t the benefit it usually is because of gauss weapons but a generic list could still contain one, just make sure it drops fast and get rid of the contents.

very good, mind if i steal this for my tactica? which is slowly comming along

sure... hadnt got to pming it to you yet but figured i ought to get any thoughts