Anti-Vehicular Options

I haven't been able to get many games in this past week thanks to some combination of school and Skyrim, but I have been reading a few forums and a lot of people are trying to figure out the best strategies for Necron anti-tank.

Here's the reality: We got lots of new toys with the redesign, and some of them are very good at killing tanks. Tachyon arrow is very powerful against a single target, Eldritch Lance Crypteks can be good when massed in a Ghost Ark, etc. However, everything we have that looks like a traditionally solid anti-tank unit comes with a serious drawback. Crypteks are vulnerable when not part of another squad (which reduces their anti-tank power), Tachyon arrow only has one use, Heavy Destroyers are still expensive and now share a squad with regular Destroyers.

When it really comes down to the wire, Necrons still aren't great at wrecking enemy vehicles. Seasoned Necron players, however, know that killing a vehicle is actually only very rarely necessary. All we really need is tank suppression.

What does tank suppression mean? Instead of destroying a vehicle, just stop it from doing its job on a particular turn. Keep that transport full of a mean assault squad from hitting your lines this turn. Prevent that Vindicator from shooting it's cannon this turn. And Necrons are still the masters of this.

With the advent of Tesla and Particle weapons, Necrons can't rely on Gauss to handle all of their suppression like they used to. In reasonably pointed games, there isn't enough Gauss in my armies to handle lots of vehicles. However, sticking one of the aforementioned Crypteks in a Warrior unit adds a lot of power to that squad, making its suppression much more effective. Next time I'll go into more detail about specific units and how best to suppress vehicles with them.

Arrival

So I know I'm a bit late, but I finally got to pick up the Necron codex last night. I've only briefly looked over the rules as of yet, but I do have a few thoughts so far:

I love the fact that we now have truly useful troops. I was very much a warrior hater before the new 'dex, but with a 5 pt cost reduction and 1 less armor save, I find them much more reasonable. The ability to grab a Ghost Ark and regenerate models also helps significantly. I'm expecting to run a LOT more of these guys in the future.

I'm still not quite sure how I feel about the new Immortals. Yes, they're a lot cheaper and have the same power on their gun (though they downgraded from Assault 2 to Rapid Fire), but I feel like their role in the old codex wasn't really replaced. I loved Immortals because even for Necrons, they were extremely hard to put off the table and had very strong shooting at the same time. The new Immortals have less shooting power (at mid range, anyway) and lower durability. Which is fine when coupled with the points reduction, but I would've liked to see a new shooty infantry unit with T5.

As for the Lychguard/Praetorians, I'm both disappointed and hopeful. Disappointed because having I2 and costing 40+ points per model means very few people are going to see them as a viable CC unit for the time being. I'm hopeful because I have a feeling that in 6th Ed, Initiative won't play as crucial a role in combat resolution. Important, yes, but not unit-breaking like it is now.

Anyhow, that's a few of the units that really stuck out to me on my first pass. I'll be reading a lot more today and hopefully getting some games in over the course of this week. Expect another post soon!