Warhammer 40,000/6th Edition Tactics/Necrons

This is the latest Edition's tactics. 5th Edition Tactics are here. The Old Codex is here also.

Building Your Army

Painting

• Dry Brushing - The only technique you will need to use to paint any sized Necron force.
• Dip - An alternative to Dry Brushing. Spray everything chrome or a shiny metallic color. Then dip all the models in a brown wash. Blam, done. After assembling, you have any sized Necron force done in 30 minutes. Put some green as an added bonus.

No, seriously.

Buying & Collecting

Just start like with any other army; an HQ, 2 Troops choices, 1 vehicle, and a Fast Attack / Elite choice (easily done by buying Battleforce and a Command Barge).

HQ Choices: Your best bet will be a generic Overlord. One of these guys decked out in the right wargear, riding a Command Barge, is probably the most popular HQ selection. Anrakyr, Trazyn, and Nemesor Zahndrekh are all somewhat decent HQ choices, given the right circumstances. Vargard Obyron, Szeras, Orikan, and the Destroyer Lord, not so much (they're more along the lines of support HQ choices).

Keep in mind that Necron HQ and the Royal Courts they can unlock are incredibly good at buffing your army. Whether it be Anrakyr's Pyrrhian Eternals, Szeras' upgrades, or the Overlord's Phaeron ability, each HQ is tailored for both specific tactics or general enhancement. (Don't start out with Imotekh though. Sure deep striking Flayed Ones may seem nice, but the Stormlord's abilities are grossly overrated (more coming on that later.) He's more useful in larger points games where there's more immediate targets for the enemy to deal with.)

Troop Choices: Warriors are dependable and you can have many of them. Problem is, your opponent will most likely charge them as she/he will know Warriors die when assaulted. Many will argue that Warriors is the way to go, while others praise the Immortals more. Truth of the matter is, you need both. Your Warriors should be your objective holders or mid line support, while your Immortals should be at the forefront capturing contested objectives or taking the fight to the enemy (better done with Anrakyr's upgrades.) Use both Troops choices.

Elite choices: Are okay, but should be considered for bigger point games. If you're starting out use Lychguard with swords and shields, because they gain an invul save (and that's something they'll need, epecially with all the armor ignoring weapons out there lol not even worth it with a proper royal court deathstar to do everything better (buy them for use as lords). Triarch Praetorians are average, and are best when armed with the particle caster and voidblade (you get more bang for your buck out of that) Once again, worthless use bits to make cryptekhs and save money. Flayed Ones=no. Deathmarks are definetly worth considering. Precision shots combined with rending,pinning, rapid fire and hunters from hyperspace makes taking at least one unit of these worth it (add harbringers of despair for taste and your opponents tears are done); only worthwhile unit in the whole slot. Triarch Stalkers are mostly good, but you need to take 2 of them so they can be effective. Redundancy is key with them, especially since they are so multipurpose. C'tan Shards should be avoided unless you've got a specific plan in mind for them.

Heavy Support choices: Monolith. Tough, but not recommended for low point games. They cost a lot but can do a lot, too. If you absolutely need it, take only 1 (for now). Spyders are decent in close combat, but they're best served in a support capacity. Good for both repairing your vehicles and spawning more Scarabs. Doomsday Arks are powerful, but fickle. Doom Scythes have the strongest weapon the Necrons have at their disposal... mounted on the weakest vehicle (lol no, its a flyer and this is 6th edition). If you absolutely have to take it, take two. The Annihilation Barge is one of the best units in the codex. Spam them, if you can.

Fast attack choices: Arguably the best section in the codex. Scarabs are excellent at destroying vehicles, and they will come for free basically with your Warriors (if you have Spyders in your army, go crazy with Scarabs). Wraiths are arguably the best combat unit Necrons have ( or any army has if you take a destroyer lord with them). Take them if you can. Tomb Blades and Destroyers are great, too. It's hard to know what to take and what to leave from this section.

Transports: Catacomb Command Barge is considered one of the greatest vehicles in the game. No exaggeration. If you've got an HQ how has a Warscythe, get him on one of these. You will not be sorry. Ghost Arks are great, but are for Warriors and Characters only. Keep in mind they can only fit 10 models inside, too. They're nice support if you're fielding lots of Warriors. The Night Scythe is for everything else. Move them flat out 3 feet into the enemy and unleash 10 Immortals with a barrage of fire.

• UPDATE: The new Necron Battleforce is now available. It brings 5 Immortals, 20 Warriors, 5 Canoptek Scarab bases, and a Ghost Ark. This is a great way to start. Don't buy it from Games Workshop, though. That'll cost you 105 dollars. Find it online for 25% off and you'll have yourself an easy effective start to your army. The Ghost Ark can only carry 10 Warriors which is half of what the battleforce brings, so either have them all on foot with the Ghost Ark floating along side to replenish fallen Warriors, split them up 10 by 10 (half in, half walking), or perhaps the best combo, 5 in and the rest walking. 5 Immortals isn't bad, but is your only source of mobile heavy firepower. Sure the Ark can be made into a Doomsday Ark, but don't. You'll lose your transport (unless you go through the pain and wonders of magnetizing... but even then, don't brink a Doomsday Ark to a low point game). 5 Scarab bases is nice, since the only way you can normally get them is through Warrior set boxes.

• • Grade: B+ (pro-tip: buy a Command Barge with this and you'll have a playable army that will actually be able to perform decently).

• UPDATE 2: Second wave is now out, some of the models are very nice indeed. Night/Doom Scythe are now out as well.

• UPDATE 3: Necron Megaforce is now available. This beast of a pack includes : 1 Necron Catacomb Command Barge, 24 Necron Warriors, 5 Necron Immortals, 1 Necron Doomsday Ark, 1 Necron Triarch Stalker, 6 Necron Tomb Blades, 1 Necron Canoptek Spyder and 6 Necron Scarab Swarms. Try putting all that together in a weekend.

Extra Elite Units

Want to get some extra units from the bitz of your battleforce? Build the immortals and then take the pieces of the deathmarks, get some greenstuff, thin wire, and 5 lollipops, eat your candy and keep the sticks, use one as a backbone to paste the deathmark back and head, then with some green stuff sculpt the chest of the deathmark (tray to use a card for the rib marks), since this is going to get covered by the deathmark's rifle it doesnt have to look perfect, just enough to look decent (alternatively you can use plasticine and then cover it with a bit of varnish for extra hardness), paste the arms and rifle, then use 2 wires to add some detail in the back of the deathmark and the lower backbone, finally with some additional green stuff make a simple whirldwind and put the deathmark over it, now you got a deathmark phasing out of hyperspace! Add bright white-blueish/greenish colours to the whirldwind for extra effect. If you did well this means from now on you will always get 10 elite units from your battleforce or immortal set box!

Building On Points

Start out anywhere between 750 pts to 1000pts. As you get used to the army, add in a Barge or two, some Wraiths/Destroyers/Tomb Blades and so forth. The choices above are just to get you used to the shooting and assaulting potential of the army. Obviously at 750 pts you won't be able to fit 1 HQ, 2 Troops, 1 Elite, and a Heavy Support choice. So take the HQ and Troops first. Also, if you're going to take a Royal Court, make sure you know what role would best suit your units. The Court is going to support whatever strategy you form as you learn the army. Take a Necron Lord with a Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs and a Res Orb for your Warriors, a Harbinger of Destruction with a Solar Pulse and Gaze of Flame for your Immortals, and you should be fine for now, if possible tray the tip explained at the 'Extra Elite Units' section.

Tactics

• Cron Air - Utilize the awesome spammablity of Necron Fliers. Max out your Heavy Support slots with Doom Scythes, and put your all Troops in Night Scythes. If you STILL feel you need more fliers, take some elite units (like Deathmarks or Lychguard) for even more Night Scythes or perhaps an allied detatchment of Blood Angels for access to Stormravens. With very few codices having access to good AA, you'll clean house. Be careful to plan out your movements carefully, as moving fliers can be tricky, especially when you have six or more of them on the board. Be particularly careful with this list, use it responsibly against players who deserve it.
• Wraith Wing - Just like the Destroyer Armada from 4th, only focusing on Wraiths. This force is a glass sword. Very difficult to use correctly, but can be devastating when you don't fuck it all up Not any more, Wraiths are now without a doubt the single most rapetastic fast attack unit in the game, if not one of the most rapetastic units for their cost period. Include a couple of Destroyer Lords with two of your Wraith units for some particularly vicious rape.
• Silver Tide - Look at the cover of the old Necron Codex. Then use that as a base for your Necron army. Toss in as many Warriors as you can (140 Warriors and a two Lords with Resurrection Orbs at 2020). Then practice the time honored tactic of stand and shoot. Worked very, very well in 4th edition and was pretty much unbeatable in 3rd edition as the sheer number of gauss weapon rolls would slaughter any vehicle through glancing hits and murder any infantry through auto-wounds. In with the addition of hull points in 6th edition, the Silver Tide is back with a vengeance. Take four squads of 20 warriors, and two squads of 10. Give the squads of 20 Lords with Res. Orbs and give the squads of 10 Ghost Arks. This plus an Overlord with a Catacomb Command Barge, Warscythe, Sempiternal Weave, and Mindshackle Scarabs will give you 2000 points even. The warriors on foot will march across the board with the Ghost Arks providing fire support, mobile cover, and additional resurrections as needed. The Overlord, meanwhile, will fly around and make a nuissance of himself. Watch your opponent flip the table after being unable to get even a single warrior to stay dead.
• Scarab Swarm/Farm - Exploit the cheapness of Scarab Swarms. You simply fill your Fast Attack slots with Scarabs instead of Destroyers. Attach a Destroyer Lord with a Lightning Field and other (since when do Destroyer Lords have access to Cryptek wargear?) close combat supporting Wargear and watch the Scarabs scratch away at your opponents and tarpit any infantry unlucky to encounter them for the entire rest of the game. This build is not the most effective, but it is one of the most entertaining builds for a Necron player. The new version of Scarabs in the Necron Codex means that everyone should run it at least once, just to watch them rape vehicles to death in a single round of close combat. If your opponent has a vehicle, even a Land Raider, and you have one or more units of Scarabs, you might as well put on Yakety Sax right now (unless it's a Land Raider Redeemer or a Baal Predator, or any other tank with a flamer on it, which ruins Scarabs' day...). Including 3-9 Spyders means you will have plenty to replace them with, however. Taking Imotekh as your HQ for his night fighting ability will help to ensure your scarabs make it across the table without being obliterated.
• Royal Court Disco Inferno - A single Royal Court, fully decked out. 4 Lords with everything but Res Orbs, 5th Lord has everything including a Res Orb. 5 Crypteks, each a different Harbinger with all gear comes out to around 1050 points alone. Purchase HQ most befitting your opponent, spend the rest on Warriors or Immortals for the 2 obligatory troop choices. You'll have very limited anti-armour and anti-horde but against super-elite armies like Space Marines or especially Grey Knights, it'll make mincemeat of them. T5, 2+/3++ and 4+ Res Protocol will ensure these motherfuckers will rarely die and 10 S7 power weapon attacks (15 on the charge) will deliver a spectacular amount of CC violence. Remember Mindshackle scarab attempts, Lightning Field, Gaze of Flame defensive grenades, possible Ether Crystal usage and everything else. If things appear hairy, consider using some of your 5 Tesseracts or Veil of Darkness to the other side of the board. Requires high micromanagement but is surprisingly fun. For added CC lulz, use Zandrekh and stick Obyron in the Court and give them all Furious Charge. Also quite amusing when you force a Swarmlord to punch itself to death via Mindshackle. Harass and abuse to your metallic heart processor's content. In higher points games, take two of these. If you have the points left over after that, take whatever else you feel is necessary. If you really want to see your opponent smash the table in frustration, only take 4 lords and make the 5th Lord an Overlord and let them teleport them right in front of your opponent's line. Turn 1 is unleashing all of those staves and the Tachyon Arrow. Don't forget the shenanigans of the Chronometron, it is easily one of the more broken pieces of Wargear for its cost.
• Speed Cron: Perhaps one of the strongest glass hammer lists in the game, this list focuses on using the fastest units possible in every. single. FOC slot. Put your Overlords in Catacomb Command Barges. For elite, either go with Triarch Praetorians with particle casters and voidblades, or stick a ton of Lychguard (Nerf'd, go with Deathmarks instead) in Night Scythes. For troop, whether you bring Immortals, Warriors, or both, shove them into Nightscythes. Fast Attack, bring out the Tomb Blades for jet biking fun. Heavy Support, Doom Scythes. Your opponent will hate you for all the cover saves, warscythe drive by's, twin linked tesla weaponry, and S10 AP1 lines of death you'll be bringing to the battle.
• AV 13 Wall: Sometimes known as the Pirate Fleet or Ark Wing due to the appearance of Necron Ark vehicles (which look like pirate ships if you haven't noticed), this list places emphasis on AV 13 vehicles a-plenty. Take preferably 2 Overlords and stick them both into Catacomb Command Barges. Within their royal courts, take a metric shit ton of Harbingers of Destruction, these nasty bastards are then stuck into squads of warriors who you're really only taking for the Ghost Arks, take as many as possible. Then either take 2 Annihilation Barges and 1 Doomsday Ark, OR 2 Doomsday Arks and 1 Annihilation Barge, OR 3 Doomsday Arks and no barges. Top it all off with a couple Triarch Stalkers (one with Heat Ray, one with Heavy Gauss Cannon) from the elite section to grant Twin-linking to all your heavy fire power. The Amount of AV13/13/11 vehicles that you'll be throwing onto the field should be plenty enough to give your opponent a really bad day.
• Tremor-Crons: Do you like making your opponent lose 1/6 (well, not so much, now that 6th lets you take armor saves against Dangerous Terrain wounds) of his army in his first movement phase? Do you want your opponent to stay the hell out of places of cover that happen to be difficult terrain? Then this build is for you! This list revolves around the use of Orikan the Diviner, a C'tan Shard with Writhing Worldscape, and tremor-teks. Orikan makes the entire board difficult terrain for your opponent on the first turn. The C'tan with Writhing Worldscape makes difficult terrain dangerous. Voila! 1/6 of your opponent's moving force just disappeared. Also a fantastic way to maximize damage from units such as doom/night scythes and doomsday arks in the event your opponent decides not to try to move to preserve his army as these babies will drop death upon his army like no other. For additional shits and giggles, Orikan has a chance to pretty much evolve into a cheap C'tan Shard during the game for a while (wear your troll face). And with the tremor-teks, you can make units suddenly find themselves in difficult terrain which just so happens to become dangerous terrain. Not as killy, now that 6th made it possible to armor save against Dangerous Terrain wounds, but still fun.
• C'tan Hammer: Simple, fill up your elite slots with C'tan. Give them troll-tastic powers. Profit.

Apocalypse Tactics

• Monolith Phalanx - one of the most HATED tactics in apocalypse, simply plonk 2-5 monoliths on the field and watch as all of your troops gain 5+ invulnerable saves which usually isn't much but consider that every, single freaking Necron will have it and gain bonuses to their RP rolls (revs on a 2+ lol) and you'll have an army that will simply refuse to fucking die no matter what's thrown at it. Since Monoliths are absurdly durable and a large number of them is bound to fuck up even a Titan's shit (especially if one or more of them is a doomsday monolith), you will win almost all the fucking time even with 5th edition gauss weapon nerfs. If you convince your opponent to play with 3rd or 4th edition vehicle damage rules then you will be pretty much invincible. Keep a troll face on at all times while using this tactic and watch your opponents rage impotently. Monoliths are no longer as impervious as they once were, but have dropped in price significantly (35 points is significant?), so now you can compensate for your less durable Monoliths by fielding even MORE shit. Combine this with the Pylon's bullshit formation to make your enemies cry.
• Pylon spam: Pylons are probably the single most rapetastic unit to ever grace apocalypse. They're nearly indestructible, they can teleport at will, they can reach across the board with a ridiculously rapid fire D strength main gun that does not give a fuck about armour saves, aircraft are no safer against it than anything else, and if anything gets even moderately close to it, it can unleash an unholy amount of flux arc shots at absolutely every enemy near it. Additionally, they have special formations that greatly improve the strength of your army, you'd have to be stupid to not take multiple of them in apocalypse. A trio of pylons is capable of obliterating entire armies.