# Necrons: Why so damn weak in CC?



## Akaiyou (Feb 15, 2009)

Why are necrons so weak in CC? I have 3,400 points of necrons and the more I play with them the more i feel like they have this huge handicap lingering over their heads. 

Today I was running 2 1000 point army lists. 

1st list had 
Lord - Des.Body; Orb; Phase Shifter; Warscythe

24 Warriors

3 Wraiths

1 Monolith


I was playing against space marines and I was running around with the lord and wraiths assaulting tactical troops and kicking butt for once in close combat. Which was quite refreshing however the wraiths were doing NO DAMAGE! It was all the Lord doing the damage. Sure the wraiths would get 5 wounds almost every time I assaulted with 9 attacks hitting on 4s wounding on 2s but they never actually wounded anything which was horrible. 

Then i got stuck in combat and got charged by a squad bearing a power fist and lost combat by just 1 wound. Forcing me to take a morale check which I failed....and then I got caught in the sweeping advance. 

And this is where I just hate how that works for necrons. The whole unit gets destroyed because the Res.Orb doesn't protect you against Sweeping Advance right? And this can happen so easily that it makes you wonder why use them against anything with a decent initiative. 

In my 2nd game i had a very similar list as in the 1st. 

2nd List
Lord - Des.Body; Staff of Light; Orb; Lightning Field

26 Warriors 

8 Scarabs

1 Monolith

Oh this one was one for the books...so I'm facing chaos space marines this time and I particle whip a squad of khorne berserkers and kill a bunch and i turbo boost to get the lord and squad into assault position in turn 2. 

Then turn 2 comes and i run in there to assault, i shoot the staff of light kill 2 more berserkers and the monolith also helps out where I brought the squad down to 3 berserkers (1 of which was a champion with power weapon). I assault them with the Lord + Scarabs squad and get completely pwned by the Khorne Berserkers.

I had 7 swarms and 1 lord when i assaulted and they killed 1 scarab swarm by causing 4 wounds on me. The scarabs needed 5s to hit and 5s to wound and essentially they did NOTHING and the Lord who has only I4 barely managed to kill 1 berserker. 

I lose combat, fail my morale check and here it comes...sweeping advance! Everyone destroyed yippee!! 

By the way just to be clear Lightning Field automatically inflicts a S3 hit per unsaved wound right? Or do I have to roll to 'hit' with every of those extra attacks? 

In any case I couldn't believe how easy my unit got owned by just 3 berserkers mainly because they happen to have a higher initiative value. Why on earth doesnt the res.orb protect against this? 

Sigh...back to the drawing board.


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## Whizzwang (Dec 31, 2008)

Your troops are incredibly hard to put down permanently
every single model in your army has the potential to take down ANY armoured vehicle
Your tank is nigh indestructible
Your ranged capability is on par with Tau
You have MEQ's as your troops choice


AND you want the CC power of orks?

you cannot have everything, every army has it's weakness, For necrons it's CC


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## Wraithian (Jul 23, 2008)

For starters, Berzerkers are dedicated in what they do. Even having only three there, one of those was a power weapon, and being a Necron, yes, you are going to strike last with most things, at the same time with a few. Even if the zerks didn't get the charge, you're still looking at 10 attacks, 4 of which are powered, at WS 5. Zerks are defiinitely not something you want to try to fight on *their* terms. That, and it also seems you are basing the function of your army on one bad experience. To be honest, it just sounds like you had a shitty CC phase due to dice, mostly.


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## SirShibby (Jan 7, 2009)

I have to go with Whizzwang on this one. You have a pretty resiliant army there, you just need to use it properly.


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## orky1 (Oct 16, 2008)

I've had good success with wraiths in CC. I paired them with the destroyer lord and they took out a squad of space marines. With initiative of 6 they're going to go first most of the time. 

Flayed ones are decent in CC 2 base attacks initiative 4 str 4 toughness 4. A squad of 10 outflanking can be pretty deadly. Especially if you give them disruptor fields then they have a chance of taking out any kind of tank. I never deepstrike them since they can't assault when they do. 

I would use scarabs against standard troops and tie them up. I've had luck taking out Eldar dark reapers with them. 

Obviously the C'Tan are bad ass in CC

It'd be nice if they are some changes with Pariah's whenever they get around to doing another Necron codex. The warscythes are the best CC weapon going. Otherwise I wouldn't use them unless it was an Apoc game and had lots of points to use.

I'd definitely try and keep the rest of the army out of CC though.


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## mcmuffin (Mar 1, 2009)

The necrons are probably the best shooty army in the game of 40k, but aginst assaulty armies like orks, CSM and chaos daemons, they get totally raped in CC. daemons are probably the worst, with all the deep striking crap. the crons dont necessarily need to be CC badasses, just to be able to hold their own. sure they have flayed ones and wraiths, but neither of them are scoring units. warriors can sit on an objective and flay away at the enemies, but once they are assaulted, they get wiped out and your opponent has the objective. GW need to address the necron dex straight after DE and give them some good CC units.


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## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

mcmuffin said:


> GW need to address the necron dex straight after DE and give them some good CC units.


You do have good CC units. It's called a Necron Lord.

Seriously you can't be good at everything! Necrons wipe the floor in the shooting phase, and it takes dedicated CC units (which usually aren't scoring units...unless we're talking about Nids) to wipe out a Necron unit in one phase. That Ld test was very unlucky, too; Necron Lords aren't going to be failing Ld tests all that often.

I propose a compromise: Instead of giving Necrons CC units, just give them a special rule that says they never have to take a Ld test. Ever. Better yet, just give them " - " for Ld; that way, they're immune to psychic abilities that affect Ld values and are more fluffy!


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## darklove (May 7, 2008)

Captain Galus said:


> You do have good CC units. It's called a Necron Lord.


This obviously isn't serious. The Lord is not good in CC, he is about average unless you spend 210pts on him. And if you then compare him to what other armies can get in the way of CC dedicated units for the same points you quickly see that the Necrons are getting roasted.



Captain Galus said:


> Seriously you can't be good at everything! Necrons wipe the floor in the shooting phase, and it takes dedicated CC units (which usually aren't scoring units...unless we're talking about Nids)


Or *ANY *Ork, Space Wolves, Grey Knight, Chaos Daemon, Dark Eldar, Chaos Space Marine unit.



Captain Galus said:


> to wipe out a Necron unit in one phase. That Ld test was very unlucky, too; Necron Lords aren't going to be failing Ld tests all that often.


Have you read the 5th ed. BRB? With the number of models a Necron unit can lose CC by it is very likely that, if you are not killed in 1 turn, you will fail moral with an Ld of 4 or less! = Sweeping Advance = Dead Lord+Dead Warriors+Phase Out.



Captain Galus said:


> I propose a compromise: Instead of giving Necrons CC units, just give them a special rule that says they never have to take a Ld test. Ever. Better yet, just give them " - " for Ld; that way, they're immune to psychic abilities that affect Ld values and are more fluffy!


So you suggest making them Fearless = lots and lots and lots of extra armour saves rather than a Sweeping Advance. This does not make them very much more likely to survive in CC at all.


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## Ferik (Nov 5, 2008)

Giving them Stubborn would most likely fix the entire problem and I see that being fluffy as well.


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## Someguy (Nov 19, 2007)

It's fair to say that necrons are a weak cc army, and that they suffered a lot from the changes to the new edition. LD10 is not what it used to be, now that you can end up with big negative modifiers on that.

To do well as necrons you have to stay away from units like khorne berzerkers. You have to focus on not being in cc with nasty enemies, not on trying to beat them up. 

Luckily, you do have quite a lot of tools to deal with that, particularly your various teleportats. Fielding a C'tan is really quite viable now too. you can use these things to keep enemies away rather than trying to beat them at their own game.


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## Spot The Grot (Jul 15, 2008)

The problem with necrons and CC. Is that they have a crap initiative so they pretty much always strike last. Low model count compared to other armies. As they are attacking last any amount of attack they were getting is gonn abe reduced.

Also CC is the home of power weapons and power fists and anything else like that.

It doesn't sound like much but the fact is that when they get into CC most armies have some sort of edge that necrons don't and never will have. this being initiative.


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## Son of mortarion (Apr 24, 2008)

Someguy said:


> It's fair to say that necrons are a weak cc army, and that they suffered a lot from the changes to the new edition. LD10 is not what it used to be, now that you can end up with big negative modifiers on that.
> 
> To do well as necrons you have to stay away from units like khorne berzerkers. You have to focus on not being in cc with nasty enemies, not on trying to beat them up.
> 
> Luckily, you do have quite a lot of tools to deal with that, particularly your various teleportats. Fielding a C'tan is really quite viable now too. you can use these things to keep enemies away rather than trying to beat them at their own game.


This is one of the most intelligent responses to this question. To cry because an army suffers in one phase is looking at the game in a limiting fashion. As Someguy said, look to minimize oarticipation in those phases your force is weak in. If you can't shoot, stay in close combat, if you can't fight your way out of a paper bag... There are so many ways to fight on your own terms that it would be pointless to list them here, but if you can find a few friendly players that wil indulge you in a few slower games, you can take the time to write down, turn-by-turn, various methods, and which oneswork against which opponent. This way, you can minimize the impact of close combat, and maximise your shooting.


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## darklove (May 7, 2008)

To be honest I don't ever find the Necron tendency to die in CC that much of a problem from a viability point of view. Necrons are a very powerful army.

My personal perspective is that lack of CC ability, combined with perhaps the least number of unit types in any army, means Necron lists all look alike and it can all become a bit boring.


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## SuperNovice (Mar 20, 2009)

Akaiyou said:


> 1st list had
> Lord - Des.Body; Orb; Phase Shifter; Warscythe
> 
> 24 Warriors
> ...


Two comments here:

1 - Like everything else with Necrons, you have to devote yourself to whatever you're doing. If you're going to run Wraiths, it's minimum 6 in 2 squads. It's not that hard for your opponent to knock down 3 Wraiths in one turn, negating your WBB rolls. I realize this is tough in the 1k point but that's the cross Necrons have to bear.

2 - This is just bad luck. 3 Wraiths charging a tactical squad should be averaging 2, maybe 3 unsaved wounds per turn. And having In 6 Wraiths run down by In 4 Marines is more bad luck. Your bad dice rolls or your opponent's good rolls aren't any evidence of a weakness in the unit.



> And this is where I just hate how that works for necrons. The whole unit gets destroyed because the Res.Orb doesn't protect you against Sweeping Advance right? And this can happen so easily that it makes you wonder why use them against anything with a decent initiative.


This is the way it works for everyone so it's not really a unique Necron weakness. As for why use a Res Orb? Because you'll take plenty of other fire that the Res Orb will help against. Also, if you actually run 6 Wraiths and a Destroyer Lord, you're going to be happy you have that Res Orb so your Wraiths can stand up from power weapon/fist attacks. You aren't going to roll badly every single time.



> I had 7 swarms and 1 lord when i assaulted and they killed 1 scarab swarm by causing 4 wounds on me. The scarabs needed 5s to hit and 5s to wound and essentially they did NOTHING and the Lord who has only I4 barely managed to kill 1 berserker.
> 
> I lose combat, fail my morale check and here it comes...sweeping advance! Everyone destroyed yippee!!


I can't believe no one has mentioned this. Scarabs are fearless. Independent characters joining a fearless unit gain the ability. You shouldn't be making any morale checks at all. That's what makes the scarab/des. lord with lightning field so good. He's going to be there until every single scarab swarm is destroyed, hacking away with a warscythe while your opponent takes hits in return for every single wound he causes.

Also, just so I can disagree with everyone a little, Necrons as a whole aren't good at HtH but they do have a few units that are pretty good when used correctly. This means knowing the strengths and weaknesses of Flayed Ones, Wraiths, and Scarabs and how to use them. You're never going to be a CC powerhouse but you don't need to be in order to be effective.


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## darklove (May 7, 2008)

Not that likely that the Destroyer Lord will live longer than the Scarabs, in CC he can be singled out and is not so tough that he can't be killed. You also need to remember that Fearless units take armour saves instead of a Moral test = lots more dead Scarabs and not a very long combat.


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## Spadge (Apr 6, 2009)

Firstly, dude, Necrons aren't mega weak in CC, it's purely a matter of understanding what you do have to hand and what battles to pick and when to pick them. I'm gonna point you in the direction of this thread _(Unlocking the CC Potential of a Necron Army.)_ that I started when I joined the forum. Once you get into the second page or so you'll start finding some really invaluable stuff regarding the use of pariahs, wraiths, flayed ones, tomb spyders, scarabs and even vanilla 'crons.

To sum it up: The necrons are shooty. When it comes to facing off against super CC armies you have a choice of using either a lot of wraiths or a lot of spyders to take down elites and armour. Flayed ones and a unit with a lord will do fine when it comes to combating MEq (or less) units. Warriors and immortals stand a reasonable chance of doing well against MEq (or less) units but should only assault if there's no other choice. Pretty much anything in the army will steam roller IG and Tau as well as stand their own against vanilla eldar/ dark eldar.
Other than that you have scarabs. These little beauties are amazing at slowing and stemming a horde. Also, you can charge them against elites and HQ to keep them tied up for a turn or two while you gun down everything else.
As for Pariahs? Well, as badass as they are they're pretty much bullet magnets and probably shouldn't be taken in non-apocalypse games. They should fare fairly well in cover heavy games if you can keep them hidden long enough to get them all up in your opponent's grill. Other than that I wouldn't consider them unless you know you're going up against a deepstriking invulnerable saving army - which pretty much amounts to Daemons and Terminator/ drop pod heavy lists.

The army is set with the gauss fire as its bread and butter and it should be used as such. Evrything else has its place but for the most part shouldn't be seen as anything other than support - necrons in CC are not about destroying the enemy, they're about reducing the amount of targets your guns have to focus on, however temporary that might be.


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## SuperNovice (Mar 20, 2009)

darklove said:


> Not that likely that the Destroyer Lord will live longer than the Scarabs, in CC he can be singled out and is not so tough that he can't be killed. You also need to remember that Fearless units take armour saves instead of a Moral test = lots more dead Scarabs and not a very long combat.


I was pointing out that, contrary to the OP's post, a lord with scarabs will not run from combat and so cannot be run down. That is a large part of what the OP was complaining about. It doesn't apply to scarabs or the character joining them.

In the same vein, a CC Lord isn't all that weak either. T6 with 3 ignore all save attacks at str 5 isn't something most opponents can simply ignore. Is he going to be taking down carnifexes? No...but then I'd direct you back to my last post. Necron CC is fine if you understand it's strengths and weaknesses.


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## Jackinator (Nov 18, 2008)

Captain Galus said:


> Better yet, just give them " - " for Ld; that way, they're immune to psychic abilities that affect Ld values and are more fluffy!


I agree with them being immune to psychic abilities that affect Leadership but making them fearless is like unfluffy, yeah, they're emotionless, fearless machines. But they have a computer from a brain, they are dull, not stupid. They are a logic engine, if they're losing they will register the fact, then act to minimize losses. On the other hand, giving them stubborn makes sense, and possibly giving the Lord Iron Will equivalent (call it enhanced logic engine, or something like that).


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## PoweredbyCoffee (Oct 31, 2008)

*Confused about WBB and sweeping advance*

Ok.. I'm really lost. I have a couple questions about sweeping advance and WBB.

Let me step through this scenario and maybe you all can help me understand what happens.

1) In opponent's shooting phase, he kills one Necron Warrior. I put him on his side to denote that he may get a WBB. He is within WBB range of his unit and one other unit of Necron Warriors.
2) Opponent assaults this Necron unit and succeeds in a sweeping advance.
3) The Necron unit is destroyed.

Questions:

1) Does the entire unit of "sweeped" Necrons get a WBB if they are within WBB range of another Warrior unit? If not, why?
2) Does attaching a lord with a Res Orb change the answer to this question?
3) Does the Necron Warrior that fell before the sweeping advance occurred get his WBB roll if he is in range of another Warrior unit?

Thanks!!


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## Sebi (Mar 3, 2009)

1. any model within 6" of the same model or within 12" of a tomb spider AND if there is anywhere on the field the same model gets WBB

2. the Orb simply grants THIS WBB even if the kills have been done by weapons that deny the WBB - here it is enugh if any model of the UNIT is with the ORB when the model died to allow the WBB as explained in 1.

3. the "fallen" Warrior gets his WBB if 1. is fact - for weapons denying the WBB 2. has to be also fact to grant WBB (PF/PK e.g. in the CC or a weapon double strength in shooting/CC)

That is how I understand it


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## SuperNovice (Mar 20, 2009)

PoweredbyCoffee said:


> Let me step through this scenario and maybe you all can help me understand what happens.
> 
> 1) In opponent's shooting phase, he kills one Necron Warrior. I put him on his side to denote that he may get a WBB. He is within WBB range of his unit and one other unit of Necron Warriors.
> 2) Opponent assaults this Necron unit and succeeds in a sweeping advance.
> ...


This might repeat what Sebi just said but just to make sure it's clear:

1 - No, every model that was still alive when the unit failed it's Morale test is gone with no WBB. The model that was shot and any models killed in the subsequent assault should be laid on their sides awaiting their WBB rolls, provided their WBB rolls were not negated by power weapons or instant death attacks.

Edit: Just to clarify the why here. The rulebook has this to say on sweeping advances:



> If the winner's total is equal or greater they catch the fleeing enemy with a sweeping advance. The falling back unit is destroyed. We assume that the already demoralised foe is comprehensively scattered, ripped apart or sent packing, its members left either dead, wounded and captured, or at best fleeing and hiding. The destroyed unit is removed immediately. Unless otherwise specified, no save or other special rule can rescue the unit at this stage; for them the battle is over.


As much as I hate this rule as a Necron player, I believe this rule overrides the WBB stipulation that any model removed as a casualty for any reason is subject to WBB. The only exception that I can think of is the Space Marine "And They Shall Know No Fear" rule which specifically singles out sweeping advances; WBB does not single out sweeping advances and therefore, is overridden by the 5th ed. rulebook.

2 - It depends. If the Lord was with the unit when it was run down, then he is gone with no opportunity for a WBB roll as is his Res Orb. Losing a Lord like this a disaster btw; do your absolute best to never, ever let this happen. 

If the Lord is alive, then he only allows you to make a WBB roll with the models that were not run down. Models that are caught in a sweeping advance are dead and gone with no possible of WBB. A Res Orb doesn't change this.

If the Lord was killed from shooting or during the ensuing assault, I believe his Res Orb is still in play although I can almost guarantee that opponent's will argue this with you and it has never been added to a FAQ to my knowledge. All I can say in defense of this view is that the Necron army book is consistent in treating models awaiting their WBB rolls as in play. For example, the Monolith's ability does nothing if "on their side" models are not considered part of their original unit until such time as they either stand up (and potentially join a new unit) or fail all their WBB opportunities.

It's also worth pointing out that the test to see if a Res Orb is within 6" is taken when the model is reduced to zero wounds, not when it's WBB roll is made. Per the 5th ed FAQ (note the use of the word "unit" and not "model"):



> _Q: When is the range of a resurrection orb checked? At the time the Necron becomes damaged or at the start of the turn when WBB is rolled for?_
> 
> A: Check range when a Necron becomes damaged. If at least one (undamaged) model in the *unit* is within 6" of a resurrection orb at that point, leave the damaged Necron on the board. Otherwise remove it as a casualty.


3 - Yes. The only models that would not in this situation are the victims of the sweeping advance.


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