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I do not have the feeling that Necrons are this weak, but I'll examine your post.
You have little personal comparison then. If you only play Necrons (and I am not trying to offend you) it's possible (from my perspective as I do not know you) that you personally are not that good and therefore in your matches you lose with the Necrons.
Well it's not that simple. As Necrons you have Heal-over-time passive and the influence ability, with the rest of races you have units to build or research to research and those units need to activate their abilities to heal. Also, you can use the Cryptek for big fast heals as the Necrons. I really don't think the Necrons have it bad in the healing department. Maybe focus on influence income some more? As very late-game healing they can merge a very wounded C'tan and very wounded Obelisk to create a healthy Tesseract Vault. That's insane healing potential.
They do not have a lot of range 3 abilities, that's true. But they have Doomsday Ark for range 3 and some C'tan abilities range 3. I don't think they really are hampered by this.
I solve this by using Lords and before long use the Lord's Triarch Praetorian spawn to have additional anti-armor. This works fine for me, and I get Heavy Destroyers soon after and, well, just works for me.
Yes, true, but they cannot choose what to overwatch against. Move fodder or a Lord or self-healing Cryptek into their overwatch and then melt their armor.
And yes, Doomsday Ark's range 3 cannon is hard to use because of the moving, but the low-powered cannon and broadside combined also does huge damage. It also has cooldown protection against ranged.
Glass cannons. Yes they are hard to keep alive, but did you know their specific armor research adds 2 armor? That's quite a lot. But yeah, they die very easily. I build 3 or 4 max and then stop. I don't bother with trying to improve them through research (I think next time I play I will try this to see if viable).
See this is so weird.. people keep saying this but I never build them anymore. I tried. Multiple times. But the unit simply doesn't *click* with me or so. I cannot use them, I personally think they suck, but seeing all comments about them must mean it's a personal thing of me.
Don't sleep on Monoliths! They come before C'tan and for me the whole Necron race suddenly went from struggle to the lategame (my first 2 games or so) to easy steamroll: get Monoliths asap!
Different styles of play. I only ever make a Spyder to found a city and never get their techs and never get Scarabs at all. I guess I'll have to try it out sometime, but so far I've been thinking it would be a suboptimal strategy to get Scarabs.
Also, you said you're playing on fast speed.. maybe ask your friends to play on slow speed next: on slow speed survivability (and thus passive healing) becomes way more important and may make Necrons shine (I usually play on default/medium).
Like I said for that specifically: I use 2 Lords and soon get them to make 2 Praetorians and that works well enough.
Other things I do differently are written throughout. One huge caveat though: I don't play against humans, so my experience is limited to playing against AI.
Good luck man!!
range/anti-armor: all gauss weapons do minimum damage scaled to total hp regardless of armor. your basic t1 unit does good damage against everything at rapid fire range. thats why the heavy destroyer are one tier late compared to the other AP-infantry units. heavy destroyers are skimmers with no movement accuracy debuff. the other weapons teams can't reposition and fire accurately, thats why they have 3 range. heavy destroyers can move in and shoot at full damage (it's a huge advantage if you play with simultaneous turns). only devastators marines can outdamage them (while having close to half the hp of the heavy destroyers), the other weapon teams have worse accuracy even without moving. at t3 you have access to annihilation barges, movement 4 skimmers that delete weapons teams. you are not safe at 3 tiles range against skimmers. the doomsday ark is extremly strong against heavy infantry: 12dmg, 10pen large blast attacks + extra gaus flayer attacks. it's not for tank hunting (at that stage you have praetorians and heavy destroyers to do that).
weak vehicles: I agree that their powerhouse is the infantry line backed by heroes, but annihilation barges and doomsday arks synergies really well with their same tech level infantry options. only the triarch stalker is redundant.
huge gap of usefull tech/units: immortals have tesla weapons, no gauss. they are only better against low armor stuff compared to warriors. scarabs are worse than heavy destroyers if you compare upkeep/damage. imo you would be better of building more warriors and heavy destroyers while researching +gauss damage instead of building a spyder swarm and researching scarabs. hunters work well against heavy destroyer, but they can hit only one warrior model for 3dmg with 50% accuracy. landspeeder and scout bikes perform very bad against the necron infantry line (and both get slaughtered by annihilation barges). the guard vehicle line till t5 gets eaten alive by heavy destroyers in cover.
necrons have one big disadvantage: they can't expand as reliable as orks and guards. if you are unlucky, you can't find enough spots for new cities fast enough to keep up with them.
Strongest eco + most of they units are cost effective. Can't say the same about others. Will play it again when new race became availble + maybe with some balance changes.
Space Marines don't even get any healing for half the game. Vehicle repair for them is tier 5 and infantry healing tier 6.
Necrons are also the faction whose basic infantry does the best damage against armor. You should compare Heavy Destroyers to Ork Tankbustas. They both only have range 2, but don't have to stand still to be able to do damage.
The Tomb Blades used to be so strong that it had to be nerfed and it might even still be too easy to spam.
I kinda think Immortals are fine because at close range they might be weaker than Warriors, but at long range most of the time they are stronger. That means if you only have Warriors, you're forced to get adjacent to the enemy to do most of your damage. I don't know about the research balance though, no idea if they are worth researching in a competitive 1v1 or not.
Necrons in general are glass cannons until they get stuff like Obelisks. Their units tend to be pretty squishy, but also do a ton of damage back. Necrons also like to get very close to their enemy, similar to Orks. No idea if that means they're bad or not though.
By the way, the Doom Scythe's Death Ray entirely ignores armor, which probably makes it the best destroyer of high armor vehicles like 11 armor Vindicators and heroes (plus it has Blast).
For example, disembarrassed1912 and Divine Heretic.
Just a few comments:
Healing
- Cryptek has a heal spell for 6/12/18 as I recall. It does have a cooldown, but it really helps.
- Lord armor buff really helps reduce the damage you take.
- use ruins and forests.
Necrons vs anti-armor:
- actually 4-5 warriors can take down a castelan robot pretty easily. No other faction can handle castelan robots with their basic unit. But the most common way to take down a castelan robot is probably lord + 3-4 warriors.
- also, if you're using your heavy destroyers to tank the hit, you're using them wrong. March in with another unit first, who absorbs the overwatch hits, then move the heavy destroyers to destroy it.
Weak vehicles
- as I recall, the bikes are glass cannons. Very low HP, but ridiculously high damage. Mind you, I don't use them myself.
- Annihilation barges have ridiculously high attack value. They're a great support unit to add damage. With 4 movement and being skimmers, they're great skirmishers, and allow you to easily destroy the enemy frontline (and then march the necrons warriors ahead of them to keep them alive).
Unit "trading" is pretty common in this game. You lose a doom scythe, you kill some hunters in your counterattack.
The main thing is really to have enough forces to make the trade in your favour.
Essentially, necrons have one of the strongest early-games, which is very suitable for MP.
The early-game ~turn 50 unit combo of (roughly):
6-7 warriors, 2 heavy destroyers, 2 lords, 1 cryptek is very very hard to beat.
The mid-game ~ turn 70 unit combo of (roughly):
6-7 warriors, 7 heavy destroyers, 1-2 annihilation barges, 2 lords, 2 crypteks, 1 destroyer lord is also a real challenge to fight.
As an example, in this 1v1 on turn 36, 1 hour into the match:
https://youtu.be/PeTfSgAsd_4?t=3697
There's around 4-5 warriors, 2 lords, 1 Cryptek in play, and heavy destoyers will be researched in 7 turns.
Notes:
- If these aren't your unit counts (roughly) by these stages of the game, you need to work on your build order a bit.
- All this also assumes you play a style that does't lose you any units in the early-game.
In my games against AI Necrons, I've found they are very strong. Solid units with no clear down side to them. Tanky, good to moderate damage dealing. Decent abilities. Good vehicles.
Ai necrons in my games (playing second-to-hardest difficulty) always come out on top. In fact, me and my friend whom I play with consider them overpowered; I guess maybe we're wrong.
I believe in the early mid-game only orks doing a hero build are capable of competing with necrons on a small/tiny 1vs1 map.
I have played necrons as my main race, but I have played all the races to learn their strengths and weaknesses. In my group of players I seem to be the most flexible with strategy especially in 4x games such as civ and I have no problem until recently (which I will go in to). My friends and I all play on fast speed with high land mass and we switched to fast due to the constant issues of trying to save and rejoin multiplayer games. We basically had to make sure we could play a 100 turn game in 1 day and have it finished. As of late games are only running 50-60 turns due to a rush/zerg play style of AM that is extremely hard to counter and this isnt just from necrons but all races in my group of players, i have just really been the only one trying to adapt and try different play styles and units. We don't play against AI and it is all live players with simulations combat turns.
The AM player has a rush build where he drops a 2nd city in about 20 turns. His first city is specialized to build mechs so he starts pumping sentinels around the first 8 turns (This NEVER STOPS). His 2nd city is usually dropped 6-8 spaces away as he is building wide with both cities both sitting at around 6 population for 40+ turns till eventually he builds a population building. His 2nd city builds heroes and guardsman. This play style doesnt even really bother with heavy support units because he can scout the entire map in 30 turns with sentinels, and have a huge line of guards men that run in take hits use medic pack then throw grenades for massive damage. On average from what I have seen from the last 8 games he has about 8-10 sentinels, 20 guards men, and 4 basilisk (which has been changed to hydras due to their effectiveness against necrons and less tech racing). All of this is pumped out and on my door in the first 45-50 turns then turns into a slogfest at my city. By this time I am able to have about 5 warriors, 4 immortals, 3 spyders, and a bunch of scarabs if I am rushing infantry. I am also at the point where I have found my 2nd city spot and might be able to drop (as this is usually guarded by robots and brains due to it usually being relatively close to a relic and about 20+ spaces away from my city on a medium made in a fast paced game.
From what I am seeing from your guys posts, which I highly appreciate and think is VERY informative is my group might be playing on a to fast of a game speed. Usually the AM player has WAY to many units for even 2 players to handle as he is pumping up 2 units a turn and only gets worse as the game continues. My group wants to try playing on a slower speed since we find out work around for joining multiplayer saved games buy having a player load the game then once in the game every player direct connects RATHER than the normal join lobby and load.
At a guess, he has a build order where he makes multiple mech construction buildings and multiple infantry training buildings, while you only have 1 of each.
There is no other way he could have 28-30 units against your 12 units.
Hint: your capital should really have: 1 hero trainer, and around 4 infantry production buildings so you can train lots of infantry.
The fact is, everyone's army sizes should be equal at every point in the game, unless someone has dramatically messed up their build order, or someone has been completely unable to create a 2nd expansion.
My build order is:
first 6 population - 2 resource buildings -> infantry or vehicle building (depending on what i am going for to focus build wise, usually infantry) -> population building -> resource building
Next 12 population - > another duplicate infantry building or vehicle building -> 2-3 resource buildings -> 2 core construction buildings -> ect.
I try to be efficient as possible, but i am still in a position where I can only pump out 1 unit every 2-3 turns where on a fast game a guard player can pump 1 unit every turn with generally the same build along with a 2nd city that can do the same. This means twice as much production and due to sentinels having a huge armor value and crazy high health pool it is hard to keep up since I dont have reliable anti infantry or any type of artillery.
It isnt that He has a more efficient build, frankly my build is more efficient than his, since I can actually give him a run for his money and rush him down faster than he can me. Other game I zerg rushed him with 7 annihilation barged 3 tomb blades, and 5 warriors in 30 turns. Problem is it is either I HAVE tot find that one player immediately and take him out in less than 40 turns or I get taken out due to the lack of ability to grow as a necron player in a fast paced game in part because of the inability to drop a 2nd city for 40+ turns where an AM player can drop in 15-20 turns which makes it actually able to produce something by turn 40
Also as mentioned this is not my first turn based strategy game, or 4x game. I am very familiar with the game play and have put in lots of time into Gladius. I am always trying to improve my game and looking at what I did wrong and where I could grow/expand better. I am sure there might be better build orders for sure since no one has a perfect build, but to say mine would be extremely bad is FAR from accurate. The real reason why I even made the post is my whole player base that I play with agrees and sees problems with necrons specifically, but also see AM as way to strong of a force. As mentioned we are planning on changing our game speed to see if this fixes it, as the AM player is making the game very unplayable. I think it is a game speed issue since production is significantly cut down, we will be testing this to hopefully have a more enjoyable game rather than a 1 hour build up game and waiting to see who the first person found is and try to take them out with overwhelming force of small grunts. (Funny sounds like I am talking 8th Edition 40k table top now lol)
It's because their early game exploration strength is severely weakened since additional units come out much faster (rather than having to spend ~20 turns stuck with your starting 2-3 units).
In any case...
1. You're still taking way too long to build cores.
It sounds like you will have a lot of buildup of resources without any ability to use it.
As I recall, my build order was something like:
infantry trainer > energy building > hero trainer > ore > infantry or resource > resource or infantry > infantry.
You need to be up and running with more warriors ASAP so you can explore the map and seize outposts and so on.
2. You should have a cryptek spider in play as soon as you research it. It should march with your army so that you can settle a tomb as soon as it is scouted.
Otherwise, you're absolutely giving the AM player an advantage with the 2nd expansion.
3. Forget about population buildings early game. Use your lord's + population skill instead. It'll save you several turns to build more cores and units. Almost nobody gets the Lord's melee attack skill in favour of +population skill and armor buff (they turn into tanky support heroes this way).
4. As long as you make proper use of terrain, specifically ruins and forests, AM are dramatically weakened, since their whole faction is basic ranged attack without any scaling or anything.
5. Heavy Destroyers can and will crush sentinels with ease. As long as your "blob" of units is properly positioned, you should be able to crush those sentinels bit by bit, while keeping your HDs alive.
- Use lords to provide armor buff.
- Use HDs to target his hydras and sentinels.
- Use warriors to tank hits and finish things off.
- Use Crypteks to heal units.
and really, don't run into his guns. Try to make him run into yours, preferably when you're in set positions.
As you said, overwatch kills. That applies to your units as well as his ;)
But honestly, the biggest issue with is being able to to have enough income to support all the units you train while continuing to train more.
It's a real struggle to train and upkeep 20 guardsmen, and it's more disadvantagous than an advantage to do so.
Thank you for the response back I really appreciate it
1. reason behind the resources in because I am pumping out units every 1-3 turns (depending on where I am in the game) which means a lot of upkeep imagine it takes 3 turns to build an ore building but in those 3 turns I have 3 warriors for 3.5 upkeep thats 1/2 of the building's production. In order to stay viable I need to have about 20-30+ units on the map in 40 turns
2. I usually do this. and has recently been my go to strategy due to the great impact of scarabs against vehicles. So I usually pump out 4 spyders ASAP and y first one is always used to drop a city. problem is finding the necron tomb. it usual is 35-40 turns to find the tomb and atually be able to settle it due to having to fight 2-3 robots and a brain due to map layout. and that is if you guess right and went in the right direction.
3. I used to do this, but due to a re-balance update recently I think in the last 5-7 days I dont think this is viable. Heroes used to get so much xp from neutrals that we woudl have level 10 heroes walking around. I usually didnt even need to build a pop building till much later due to this, but xp has been SEVERELY cut back and we are lucky to have a level 4 or 5 hero on the map by the end of the game. this means I invested a huge cost in a hero to get 2 population at which point I would out grow in 4 turns (as average on fast speeds it is 2 turns to grow 1 population). I will try this out again, but due to xp i dont think this is viable and heroes in general are more supportive now in nature rather than the power houses they were.
4. Usually I am on the defense and I sit in ruins and woods. problem is grenades do about 60% damage or around 40% damage if I am in cover. so imagine 2 grenades on 1 unit then a sentinel and 2 guard poke shoot it from behind them, then a hydra finishes off my unit. I get that the grenades are on cooldowns and usually I end up taking some big hits early, but sustain out. Problem is the artillery from 3-6 spaces is what kills and I have no real way to get to it since there are a million units to get through. I have tried pretorians and such, but the artillery moves or the back line by the artillery will have overwatch on so I jump or move scarabs to intercept or try anything I get blasted. I am still figuring this part out of how to counter this, but honestly it is my least concern compared to production output from a 2nd early city.
5. As mentioned usually I am on the defense and frankly I have gone 30 turns of combat with only 6 units keeping all 6 alive against 4 basilks, 10 guard, 2 commissars, and 4 sentinels. I find that tactics wise I am actually the best in my group and can make great plays that frustrate my players. It is just sheer number is the problem, eventually you get worn down.
when it comes to resources due to the speed we are on, the AM player can get his buildings to support the high number of units. Honestly I can support WAY more units as well, but i just physically cant produce more without a 2nd city, but it takes WAY to long to get that 2nd city vs AM who can build it almost immediately.
Gonna take some time today to test on a slower speed and will let you guys know how it is. I think that is really the core problem here.
They have an INSANE economy, because they can spend influence on rushing building construction they basically have the perfect curve regarding their pop.
They have the strongest early unit that is the Tomb Blades, they have the strongest Mid-tier unit that is the Pretorians and have an insane late game with one of (if not the best) air unit and c'tan.
They have no real weakness aside from Very high HP units with 1 model. But when the Pretorians are online, it's already game over.
If you look at the original comment this is a 4 player game so being the best in a 1v1 is kind of irrelevent as it doesnt really matter the army, the better player will almost always win. where a 2v2 or free for all is more about the player and the army. I know the strengths and weaknesses of the army and YES there are weaknesses. Frankly thier range and lack of hard hitting punch to highly armoured units are the biggest weakness. Thier economy is only boosted due to the influence spending because necrons have a super slow expanstion unlike AM and Orcs. Similar to how Space marines have no expanstion due to having the best units pretty much all game minus early game (but they are quickly upgraded and are relevent all the way to late game unlike most early units for other armies)
You arent really pointing out anything new and frankly doesnt seem like a lot of actual playtime was put in for different scenarios to warrent this. Necrons are pretty OP if you are new to 4x stradegy games or Gladius in general. But Necrons do have some very large flaws that are pretty easy to exploit, that is really the whole reason for this thread. Saying that pretorians are awesome is kind of a moot point. I already said it is probably the best unit in the game for where it is tech wise. But I am looking at the army as a whole vs dealing with vehicles and rushing mechs as well as healing compared to other races. There are huge gaps of useful units where other races are kind of always advancing, necrons just seems like you are RACING technology wise to the next power spike cause you are either behind in effectiveness or ahead. which if another player catches you in the long downtimes of being behind in strength you are pretty much done.