Necron Tactica Part 4

So, when asked about the number-one weakness of the Necrons, most experienced 40k players will tell you that it's Phase Out. The Necron player must constantly be aware of it, as it allows his opponent an extra victory condition - regardless of the mission, someone playing against Necrons can win just by killing lots of Necrons.

However, Phase Out can be used as a way to psych your opponent out of going after the real objectives by building your list to make Phase Out seem like a weakness.

You see, when most opponents check out a Necron player for Phase Out, they usually don't care about which Necrons are being fielded: They only really care about the number of Necrons, of any type, that they need to kill.

Therefore, consider the following example. For 840 points, you can buy 30 Immortals (I realize that this is unrealistic, but the example is easier to understand in the extreme). For the same amount of points, you can buy 46 Warriors - 16 more bodies, meaning that your Phase Out number will be roughly 4 models higher. The warriors seem, for the purposes of Phase Out, like the better choice, right?

However, when you factor in the Immortals' toughness 5 and significantly higher firepower, you might think twice. The Gauss Blaster shoots twice as often at long range as the Flayer, has strength 5 (allowing it to kill more enemies per shot than Warriors), and can easily be fired on the move, allowing a skilled Necron player to delay assaults. This means that, in an isolated scenario, fewer enemies will be capable of attacking the Immortals, and each enemy model will have a harder time killing each Immortal due to the higher toughness. Against anything short of massed plasma fire, the Immortals will go farther to prevent Phase Out than an equal points-value of Warriors ever will.

But while your opponent probably knows that Immortals are basically upgraded, more expensive Warriors, he probably won't link them to helping you with Phase Out: At best, he'll probably see them as a compromise between the awesome offensive power of the Destroyer and the perceived defensive power of the Warrior. So when he finds out that your Phase Out number is low, he may very well try to Phase you Out, when you know that he isn't likely to manage it.

This becomes a win-win scenario for the Necron player. On the one hand, the opponent may try to ignore the normal mission completely, gearing solely for Phase Out. This pits your army's greatest strength, its durability, against your opponent's offensive power, regardless of whether it is his army's main strength. With the great firepower of Immortals and a few back-up plans to avoid the truly nasty assaults (Terminators of any kind come immediately to mind), Phase Out should be fairly easy to avoid, and your Warriors can be in a comfortable position to nab objectives by the end of the game.

On the other hand, the opponent could attempt to go for Phase Out, but still keep one or two of his troops camping objectives as a last resort. This usually turns out better for the Necron player, as now the opponent is attacking your greatest strength with only part of his force. Treat this in exactly the same way as the first scenario, but this time try to keep one of your faster units in position to contest an enemy objective at the end of the game.

On a limited scale, Destroyers can also be effective for creating a tempting Phase Out number, but the Necron player must be much more careful, as Destroyers rely primarily on their mobility to create durability, and even this usually doesn't help them against enemy shooty armies.

That's all for now! The next topic is gonna be a surprise, mainly because I don't know what I want to talk about yet.