Help - Necron Fleet Build?

[Satori]

Hey guys, I want to play as Necrons but I'm really struggling. Every fleet I build seems to fail. I run into a couple issues:

1. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to keep enemies at range or get close.

2. I'm not sure what ships to use.

I've tried a build of 2 cairns with escort ships, that did OK at least but it would get annihilated by any enemy that thought to use boarding actions.

Then I tried a build of 4 Scythe Harvesters and that was a dismal failure / joke. Teleport in, but the starpulse weapon does minimal damage, even x4 upgraded. Unless your opponent is dumb enough to bring all escort ships in a clump, the starpulse generator doesn't really hurt heavy ships, and my scythe harvesters proceeded to die with no means of escape after warping in. Or they'd get bombarded / ability spammed into oblivion before even reaching the enemy.

So basically my question is, what fleet build is good for the Necrons?

If you could include what abilities to use I'd appreciate it. Bear in mind I'm low level.

Thank you!!

[Lord Holland of Wessex]

3 x Harvesters ( one as flag )
1 x Shroud
2 x Jackal

or

1 x Shroud ( flag )
2 X Reaper
1 x Cartouche
2 x Jackal

I like these 2 builds, only just started playing MP mind though so if anyone who is Good with the Crons can comment on these it would help me too.

[Satori]

Thanks!

[Lord Holland of Wessex]

For abilities:

ALWAYS TAKE:

Pyramidal reconstruction as one admiral spec and Tessrect Crypt as one of your upgrades,

For the others:

If you have 3 or more ships with starpulses take unstable pulse core otherwise take Structural analyser. For the other technical skill, Mass Recall is probably most useful in MP but i love the scarab ability and the lightning and thunderbolt ones for looks and they work in campaign

[Kyo Gnome]

I would suggest

3 x Harvesters
5 x jackels


you really want 3 pulsar waves to defend against torpedo and launch.

Harvesters have 240 speed which is critically important to kite 160 speed ships properly. ideally, stay between 4.5k and 9k where you deal maximum damage and will take the least damage. Secondly, use your regenerating hulls to the fullest and run the hell away once you are damaged.

Almost everyone takes too few escorts. Necron is not a "me smash enemy" faction, you have to play smarter than that. as long as you can kill all but 2 of the enemy ships than you win (even if those are two large battlships).

[Lord Holland of Wessex]

Thanks for the input Mr Gnome, I will give this build a try.

[GeekFreak]

I've tried the 3 x Harvesters + 5 x Jackels and it works well for me too. In addition I've started using the Necrons as a ramming race, warping the harvesters in and running into the vulnerable ships. Their high armor and regeneration work well for this.

Now you have to do this selectively, for instance you probably don't want to do this against space marines. But if you can manage a ram against an Eldar (something impossible for most other races) then you've effectively destroyed that ship.

Also, more so than any other race, I think you have to effectively use their stances, frequently switching depending on the situation. Do you notice a huge gap between their current health and their effective max health? Time to regenerate. Are you just attacking 1-2 ships? better do reload stance. Is the enemy all clumped together? Better do the arced lightning (possibly even with the Jackels) and keep your distance.

[PlasmaWaagh]

Just beginning to try and figure out how to play Crons against AI. The Cairn is too expensive to lose and gets burned down too fast when literally everything goes for it. The most luck I've had is with a Shroud as my flag ship, 3 Cartouches, and if I recall 2 Jackals (maybe 3) and the rest Dirges to get right close to 1200. With the low level skills I take the Pyramid Recon to help mitigate the flood of crits and the probe, and I've been playing around with other things to pair with the Nightmare Shroud (I think the extra detection works best with the fleet comp, if I am remembering properly). Use the escorts to cap and harass until you have all enemy Frigates on priority 1 and run silent with everything. Pop out, kill 1-2, and then tele away and re-stealth to shake fighters as you don't have a pulse. Once they are out of frigates, I can track them into an advantageous spot while keeping them from capping everything and pop out my Cartouches in their lightning stance. Then, bring in my escorts to form flanks to pick at any frigates I might have missed or help out with the damage, while I switch the Shroud to reload. Moving from Run Silent to reload won't break the Shroud's stealth unless something marks/forces it (hence why you kill off the frigates first), and with its great detection range and Nightmare Shroud being active in reload just having it dance around the edges of the enemy fleet sucks down morale surprisingly well except against SM. If ships begin to take crits you can use the reconstruction ability, and if low on hull (60% or less seems to be the spot) teleport out and head to a gas cloud to recoup while the Shroud keeps on sucking down everything in range's morale like a nid sucking down troops. Cheesy and silly, but Crons seem a bit obtuse to me and with only the lower level abilities to add on I've found this works nicely.

[a great big ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ truck]

the only competitive cron build is a cartouche admiral with mass recall, two cairns and a jackal

[Lord Holland of Wessex]

Originally posted by You'll got any of that dopamine?:

the only competitive cron build is a cartouche admiral with mass recall, two cairns and a jackal

Good news i will have a bash with it - however i keep playing same chaos guy with 6 cruisers and 3 escorts build and need some hints please.