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.