Necron Tactics

Un-Phasable here,

Necrons are an army fit to wage war against any opponent. They are easy to play once you have learned the things you must do to keep them alive. I have been playing Necrons since they were first created way back in Chapter Approved, and continue to do well with them now. This is the first installment of many about succeeding with Necrons.

First of all you must remember to give the Necron Lord a Resurrection Orb -this may seem obvious to any Necron player- but it has to be said. I also recommend replacing the staff of light with a warscythe. At 10 points the warscythe is a bargain considering it is the most deadly close combat weapon in the game.

Necrons function as a network. You want to keep every unit of warriors within 6 inches of any other unit of warriors, the same goes for immortals, wraiths, etc. The best way to achieve this is to deploy and move as blocks. It is important to keep each individual model as close to the full 2 inches away from each other squad member as allowed by the coherency rules, as well as each unit at the maximum 6 inches from any other unit. This is mainly to avoid being devastated by template weapons. The Necron Lord should always begin the game attached to whichever unit in your army has the highest overall toughness, and he should never be left alone or away from the body of your force. With that being said I will show you a sample 1500 point army list I have been successful with for years.

HQ

Necron Lord (100) Destroyer Body (30) Resurrection Orb (40) Phase Shifter (30) Warscythe (10) 210

Elites

10 Immortals 280

10 Immortals 280

Troops

10 Warriors 180

10 Warriors 180

Fast Attack

3 Wraiths 123

3 Wraiths 123

3 Wraiths 123

1499 Points

When playing this army, I will usually begin the game with the Necron Lord attached to a unit of Wraiths. The only time this changes is when I am faced with an army that severely out numbers me with close combat oriented units (i.e. Orks, and MOST Tyranids), then the Lord begins attached to a unit of Immortals. Barring those circumstances, the Lord together with his unit of Wraiths along with the other two units of Wraiths begin by turbo-boosting up the board on my first turn. They move as a block directly past terrain maintaining the important rules about unit spacing I mentioned earlier. It is also important to be sure not to get too close as to get assaulted, you always want to initiate the assault if possible. This "block" of wraiths is not only deadly but also very difficult to kill. In my opinion Wraiths are probably the best overall close combat unit in the game, undoubtably the best in the Necron Army.

The best things to charge are your opponents HQ units, and/or the unit in their army with the most power weapons. If playing an army with lots of vehicles, consider taking a unit of wraiths at each vehicle after dealing with their assault oriented units (remember to keep them close enough to each other to allow 'we'll be back rolls'). I have destroyed 4 vehicles on turn two using this strategy. If they have few vehicles in their army use the Wraiths to concentrate on the assault troops/HQ, and the Immortals to deal with vehicles.

After eliminating close combat specialists, it is also a good idea to go after heavy weapons squads. You would be surprised how deadly this tactic is, time and time again I obliterate most of the opposing army with just the Wraiths and the Lord. Your goal is to get all three units of Wraiths with the lord into an assault together. You will be able to swiftly eliminate your first target, then move on to the next as a group. The Wraiths are the key to this army so it is a good idea not to expose them to too much fire. You also do not want to be too outnumbered in an assault, since their sheer number of attacks can only go so far. However they will strike first most of the time so keep that into consideration.

The Immortals and Warriors simply do what Necrons do best, march up the board, while staying close enough to other units of the same type. This army's firepower increases greatly when the rest of the army gets into range. Use the warriors to claim objectives when they exist, however you must be careful to keep them out of early assaults. The immortals are very tough and their firepower is also very deadly S5 AP4 Assault 2 (24 inch range). You do not need to worry about your Immortals dying as they are not easy to shoot down, and the only weapons that don't allow we'll be back rolls are Strength 10 (they are still allowed to get up from AP1 and AP2) but try not to let them get assaulted with power weapons.

If you use this strategy it will serve you well with this Necron list and others. I will be posting other articles with more tactics for other units in the Necron Army soon.