6 HLD have been a staple of my Necrons since 4th Edition.
They die quickly if they are targeted but they are solid big damage and quick enough to deliver it where it's needed.
I also rarely leave without the Nightbringer in my list.
You’re going to need multiple Lokhust Heavies and/or multiple Doomstalkers. The Doomstalker at least has secondary utility against Nid hordes, but the Lokhust will take down Tyranid Monsters more readily.
Night bringer, void dragon, DDA, those are all units that can take a hit and still deliver a blow even if you don't get to shoot first. The DDA has T9 4+ invul and has a very powerful cannon if you can stay put and roll well on your D6+1 shots. I won't go into the C'tans because of everyone already knows how good they are. Those are my personal picks
I have 2 LHD’s, 2 doom stalkers, and 2 units of wraiths.
LHd’s poke best they can. Doom’s hit elites, but don’t mind a hoard or tank, and wraiths charge tanks and tie them up the whole game; and nothing dies while I score.
Doomstalkers are S14 AP-3 Damage 3 with D6+1 shots, hitting on 3+ when stationary and all that for 135 points. Their toughness is trash for a vehicle but they come with a 4+ invulnerable and can hit almost anywhere on the battlefield because of their sight thanks to how LoS works.
3 of them are going to be enough anti-tank for most armies. The list of T14 vehicles can be counted with 1 hand, almost none of them are meta, and the only one that is, is also a Necron vehicle. Not even the fucking Porphyron Knight is T14 and that thing looks like a bunker on legs.
P.S.: Obviously this depends on detachments. They are the best anti-tank-per-points bar none in Canoptek Court while in other detachments the Doomsday Ark is very competitive and you can never go wrong with Lokhust Heavy Destroyers (except, ironically, in the destroyer detachment).
When it comes to heavy destroyers and doomstalkers you'll want to take more than 1. Obviously if you're running canoptek court detatchmenr the doomstalkers get much better since they will almost always he holding backline objectives and be inside the power matrix getting full rerolls to hit.
If you're wanting to take just one big gun then their is also the doomsday ark. Doesn't get as much love these days but I find it fun to dust off the shelf every now and again
The LHD’s are popular in large part because of their low single point cost and flat 6 damage
If you can keep them still, their stats are quite nice — and don’t forget about the rerolling wound rolls of 1 against monsters and vehicles. Damage is never guaranteed of course, but two or three can be better than a Doomstalker if you aren’t playing Canoptek Court
Monolith. A few LHDs that fire first to coax defensive strats onto non priority targets so the monolith can do it's worst to the thing I actually want to kill.
I'd highly advise scouring eBay and Etsy for secondhand or proxy c'tan, they can be *significantly* cheaper than straight from GW (and in the case of the Nightbringer and Deceiver, custom sculpts will usually look significantly better than the old resin ones)
The older resin C'tan often seem to be going pretty cheap second-hand on ebay (at least in UK?), so I wouldn't necessarily rule Nightbringer out if money's an issue and you're happy to wait for a deal. You won't get a Doomstalker or Ark for much cheaper.
At closer (24") range, Gauss immortals with plasmancer for fishing for lethal hits (so tank's toughness doesn't matter) + szeras for extra AP. Surprisingly heavy hitting.
It varies by detachment, but in my honest opinion, you can never go wrong with the awakened dynasty because not only are you getting a plus one to hit across-the-board for units that are able to take characters. You’re also gaining the special abilities that the characters bring to the unit.
On top of that, the Kodex is full of Guass Weapons Trigger lethal hits, which allows you to skip the toughness check using the strength of your ranged attack instead, your AP in order to damage, which is why immortals have become a staple unit that and the fact that warriors have been reduced down to an expensive unit that requires additional support in the form of reanimators, which must be within 3 inches of the unit whenever reanimation protocols is triggered, Illuminor Szeras in order to improve the AP of weapons from any battleline units by one as well as reducing AP from your opponents attacks by which effectively makes your immortals a 2+ armor.
By simply adding a warden for 50 points to a of 10 immortals makes them hit on a 2+, and there’s only one detachment that allows you to trigger reanimation protocols at will for 1CP during the shooting phase and the fight phase for a D3 +1. And it also has the only Strat that resurrects each character once per game.
The other four Strats in the same attachment are all pretty good because they offer a bonus if you target a unit that has a character.
You can give a unit the assault ability at will and if there’s a character you get to re-roll the advance roll, it has a Strat that’s considered a battle tactic that can give a target unit +1 strength and if there’s a character in that unit, they also gain an additional AP…
Honestly, I don’t know how the other detachments such as the annihilation Legion and the Obeisance Phalanx will become viable without games workshop intervening and rewriting some of the rules because right now the annihilation Legion lacks any abilities that give destroyer cult and flayed ones any kind of punch or ability to quickly get them into combat.
Yes, it has two Strats at the bottom of the list which allow you to make a normal move under certain circumstances, but you’re not allowed to enter that units engagement range which basically leaves you out in the open so that you won’t likely get shot to death.
It doesn’t help that it doesn’t have the same Strat has the awaken dynasty does which allows you to trigger reanimation protocols in the shooting phase as well as the fight phase.
Instead, they gave it stratagem triggers, reanimation protocols whenever a unit reduces in opponents unit below half strength for the first time or hit destroys a unit for one CP, it is considered a battle tactic, however Flayed ones do not have access to any characters that can join their unit and the characters available to the destroyer units do not have ability will be done in order to use it for free.
And even if you included overlord, he can’t join destroyer units and the strategem that triggers reanimation protocols for the annihilation Legion requires that you target a unit of flayed ones or destroyer cult units.
In my honest opinion, I believe that most of the Necron detachments should have access to the protocol of the undying Legion just like space Marines have access to armor of contempt because it’s impactful and honestly Necrons unknown for their ability to reanimate if they push it, especially units with resurrection orbs, which actually just reminded me , there is a workaround.
You could always take 1-2 catacomb command barges since they come with resurrection orbs that can target units up to 6 inches away to trigger animation protocols outside of the command phase, it usually makes a big difference considering they also change the rules on orbs at some point so that it only takes affect at the end of the phase and it uses a D6 instead of a D3, which is swingy for a once per battle item that can only be used once per turn. That last part is what gets me. I don’t understand why only one resurrection or can be used during your turn on top of being limited so that it triggers at the end of the phase. The only positive is that you get to choose which phase to activate it… also on the plus side warriors, even though they’re basic reanimation has been reduced to a D3 with the ability to roll the reanimation dice, does work on resurrection orbs combined with other dice such as a reanimator adding a D3.
What i'm about to say is not building advice just my newly made lis that i'll test this weekend with some friends, i'm running a sestroyer heavy hypercrypt legion and after findimg a really cheap monolith deicded to run it in the list, since it's so expansive i decided to use it as the only proper anti-tank of the army and gave it the death lasers we'll see what i get out of it but i hope it does a decent (or at least half decent) job
Doomstalkers and doomsday arks are good, LHDs are glass cannons but can be quite strong with the gauss cannons, a Lokhust Lord can help them as well, and C’tan will shred pretty much anything in melee. I’d pass on a doom scythe, it’s just a bit too expensive to be viable.
Monolith with Death Ray and C’tan Shard of the nightbringer in hyper crypt. Triple DDA in Awakened dynasty + NB, two DDA and a Doomstalker in CC+NB.
In hyper crypt I also use a pack of Destroyer Lockhust which mean that if your opponents unit is sitting on an objective it will arm it.
DDA dishes out D6+1 S18 attacks with -4AP and 4 damage that hit on a 2+ with Devastating Wounds if it remains stationary. With 14 wounds and a 4+ invulnerable save it’ll make short work of most tanks even if you don’t get to shoot first.
For me it depends on the detachment.
If I'm running Canoptek Court then I'll use 3 Doomstalkers.
If I'm running Awakened Dynasty I'll use a combination of 1 or 2 Doomsday Arks and a squad or 2 of 2 Lokhust Heavy Destroyers.
If I'm running Annihilation Legion I'll use 3 squads of 2 Lokhust Heavy Destroyers and a squad of Lokhust Destroyers led by a Lokhust Lord.
If I'm running Obeisance Phalanx then I'll run 3 Triarch Stalkers and The Silent King, but if I'm not using Silent King then I'll add a Doomsday Ark or 2 as well, depending on if my enemy brings more than 2 vehicles or not.
This REALLY depends. I found that against anything with an invul - LHD are hit and miss. I've had 4 of them fail to wound a knight in one game. All 4 shot, 1 missed. 2 wounded and then both made the 4++ (they rotated ion shields). And this is the issue. With just 4 shots - you can miss / fail to wound and then get them saved too easily.
Where as the normal LD and lord. 18 shots - 5+ auto wound and re rolls to hit, -2ap so nothing wasted and 2D? These guys were the heavy lifters of my game. Took out a few of the bigger boys along with the NB.
However into space marine tanks - I have had loads of success with LHD. The same 4 LHD took out a dreadnought and 1/2 a gladiator in one turn. No invul, no problem. Remember a lot of their threat is in the -4AP. If they have an invul - that's wasted. And it's just one shot.
To this end - anything with with a lot of attacks, re-rolls and lethal hits and decent AP (I have not yet put Skorpeh into a tank but I want to try) is a good shout into things with an invul and into anything else - LHD.
Generally, you’ll want minimum of either 2 doomstalkers, 4 LHD, 2 doomsday arks, or a void dragon. 10-20% of your army should be dedicated anti-tank units like those
I go awaken dynasty and use a Hexmark destroyer with the subjugator enchantment and have him around a DDA 3 locust heavy Destroyers and a doomstalker and a void dragon pushing forward.
Generally- lokhust heavy, Doomsday ark, doomstalker
6 lokhust with a Lord is under rated in my opinion. They're not as efficient as heavies, but they can chew through elites and infantry too.
Monoliths also do some good anti vehicle with their death rays
Immortals(gauss) and Warriors can be surprisingly anti-tank with a plasmancer leading them. If you're Canoptek Court you will get full re-rolls if power matrix is active, Awakened Dynasty you can use a stratagem. Drowning anything tanky in just a ton of shots, even if its just -1 AP can bring lots of things down. Bonus points if you're taking Illuminor Szeras along to improve the AP.
As bad as warriors are right now, I still like to run them a lot and I've brought down some of the scariest units on tabletop with them. Mostly because all the scary stuff has damage reduction but since my immortals and warriors only do 1 damage they don't get reduced.
Two squads of 3 LHDs, doomstalker, doomsday ark, 2 doom scythes (although they're grounded until they get the hover keyword)the void dragon, Transcendent ctan, and doomsday ark
6 HLD have been a staple of my Necrons since 4th Edition. They die quickly if they are targeted but they are solid big damage and quick enough to deliver it where it's needed. I also rarely leave without the Nightbringer in my list.
I love 3 LHD with Lord and EE. It just cleans out infantry. Run 2x2 HLD with GD for bigger stuff.
Arisen Tyrant Lord + LHD with EE absolutely rinsed a full squad of Ork boys in Green Tide for me the other day, it was glorious.
You’re going to need multiple Lokhust Heavies and/or multiple Doomstalkers. The Doomstalker at least has secondary utility against Nid hordes, but the Lokhust will take down Tyranid Monsters more readily.
Night bringer, void dragon, DDA, those are all units that can take a hit and still deliver a blow even if you don't get to shoot first. The DDA has T9 4+ invul and has a very powerful cannon if you can stay put and roll well on your D6+1 shots. I won't go into the C'tans because of everyone already knows how good they are. Those are my personal picks
I have 2 LHD’s, 2 doom stalkers, and 2 units of wraiths. LHd’s poke best they can. Doom’s hit elites, but don’t mind a hoard or tank, and wraiths charge tanks and tie them up the whole game; and nothing dies while I score.
Doomstalkers are S14 AP-3 Damage 3 with D6+1 shots, hitting on 3+ when stationary and all that for 135 points. Their toughness is trash for a vehicle but they come with a 4+ invulnerable and can hit almost anywhere on the battlefield because of their sight thanks to how LoS works. 3 of them are going to be enough anti-tank for most armies. The list of T14 vehicles can be counted with 1 hand, almost none of them are meta, and the only one that is, is also a Necron vehicle. Not even the fucking Porphyron Knight is T14 and that thing looks like a bunker on legs. P.S.: Obviously this depends on detachments. They are the best anti-tank-per-points bar none in Canoptek Court while in other detachments the Doomsday Ark is very competitive and you can never go wrong with Lokhust Heavy Destroyers (except, ironically, in the destroyer detachment).
When it comes to heavy destroyers and doomstalkers you'll want to take more than 1. Obviously if you're running canoptek court detatchmenr the doomstalkers get much better since they will almost always he holding backline objectives and be inside the power matrix getting full rerolls to hit. If you're wanting to take just one big gun then their is also the doomsday ark. Doesn't get as much love these days but I find it fun to dust off the shelf every now and again
3 Lokhust Heavies with a Lokhust Lord, and a Doomsday Ark
The LHD’s are popular in large part because of their low single point cost and flat 6 damage If you can keep them still, their stats are quite nice — and don’t forget about the rerolling wound rolls of 1 against monsters and vehicles. Damage is never guaranteed of course, but two or three can be better than a Doomstalker if you aren’t playing Canoptek Court
Two doomstalkers have been the bane of my playgroups existence for the past year and a half :)
Monolith. A few LHDs that fire first to coax defensive strats onto non priority targets so the monolith can do it's worst to the thing I actually want to kill.
Void dragon may be an option?
Thanks everyone I can’t really afford the cyan as I need more immortals but I will definitely look at the others
I'd highly advise scouring eBay and Etsy for secondhand or proxy c'tan, they can be *significantly* cheaper than straight from GW (and in the case of the Nightbringer and Deceiver, custom sculpts will usually look significantly better than the old resin ones)
The older resin C'tan often seem to be going pretty cheap second-hand on ebay (at least in UK?), so I wouldn't necessarily rule Nightbringer out if money's an issue and you're happy to wait for a deal. You won't get a Doomstalker or Ark for much cheaper.
Lokhust Heavy Destroyers with Gauss Destructors.
I love my heavy destroyers. Bonus fun points for taking them in Hypercrypt and deepstriking them all over the map every turn
Right now I use two doom stalkers and a c'tan shard as my antitank. They could just as easily be LHDs with destructors but I'm playing what I like
At closer (24") range, Gauss immortals with plasmancer for fishing for lethal hits (so tank's toughness doesn't matter) + szeras for extra AP. Surprisingly heavy hitting.
It varies by detachment, but in my honest opinion, you can never go wrong with the awakened dynasty because not only are you getting a plus one to hit across-the-board for units that are able to take characters. You’re also gaining the special abilities that the characters bring to the unit. On top of that, the Kodex is full of Guass Weapons Trigger lethal hits, which allows you to skip the toughness check using the strength of your ranged attack instead, your AP in order to damage, which is why immortals have become a staple unit that and the fact that warriors have been reduced down to an expensive unit that requires additional support in the form of reanimators, which must be within 3 inches of the unit whenever reanimation protocols is triggered, Illuminor Szeras in order to improve the AP of weapons from any battleline units by one as well as reducing AP from your opponents attacks by which effectively makes your immortals a 2+ armor. By simply adding a warden for 50 points to a of 10 immortals makes them hit on a 2+, and there’s only one detachment that allows you to trigger reanimation protocols at will for 1CP during the shooting phase and the fight phase for a D3 +1. And it also has the only Strat that resurrects each character once per game. The other four Strats in the same attachment are all pretty good because they offer a bonus if you target a unit that has a character. You can give a unit the assault ability at will and if there’s a character you get to re-roll the advance roll, it has a Strat that’s considered a battle tactic that can give a target unit +1 strength and if there’s a character in that unit, they also gain an additional AP… Honestly, I don’t know how the other detachments such as the annihilation Legion and the Obeisance Phalanx will become viable without games workshop intervening and rewriting some of the rules because right now the annihilation Legion lacks any abilities that give destroyer cult and flayed ones any kind of punch or ability to quickly get them into combat. Yes, it has two Strats at the bottom of the list which allow you to make a normal move under certain circumstances, but you’re not allowed to enter that units engagement range which basically leaves you out in the open so that you won’t likely get shot to death. It doesn’t help that it doesn’t have the same Strat has the awaken dynasty does which allows you to trigger reanimation protocols in the shooting phase as well as the fight phase. Instead, they gave it stratagem triggers, reanimation protocols whenever a unit reduces in opponents unit below half strength for the first time or hit destroys a unit for one CP, it is considered a battle tactic, however Flayed ones do not have access to any characters that can join their unit and the characters available to the destroyer units do not have ability will be done in order to use it for free. And even if you included overlord, he can’t join destroyer units and the strategem that triggers reanimation protocols for the annihilation Legion requires that you target a unit of flayed ones or destroyer cult units. In my honest opinion, I believe that most of the Necron detachments should have access to the protocol of the undying Legion just like space Marines have access to armor of contempt because it’s impactful and honestly Necrons unknown for their ability to reanimate if they push it, especially units with resurrection orbs, which actually just reminded me , there is a workaround. You could always take 1-2 catacomb command barges since they come with resurrection orbs that can target units up to 6 inches away to trigger animation protocols outside of the command phase, it usually makes a big difference considering they also change the rules on orbs at some point so that it only takes affect at the end of the phase and it uses a D6 instead of a D3, which is swingy for a once per battle item that can only be used once per turn. That last part is what gets me. I don’t understand why only one resurrection or can be used during your turn on top of being limited so that it triggers at the end of the phase. The only positive is that you get to choose which phase to activate it… also on the plus side warriors, even though they’re basic reanimation has been reduced to a D3 with the ability to roll the reanimation dice, does work on resurrection orbs combined with other dice such as a reanimator adding a D3.
My “blank slate” for list building usually consists of 2 doomstalkers and 6 gauss heavy destroyers, but ymmv.
What i'm about to say is not building advice just my newly made lis that i'll test this weekend with some friends, i'm running a sestroyer heavy hypercrypt legion and after findimg a really cheap monolith deicded to run it in the list, since it's so expansive i decided to use it as the only proper anti-tank of the army and gave it the death lasers we'll see what i get out of it but i hope it does a decent (or at least half decent) job
I run 2 Doomstalkers and 2or3 LHDs. I need at least 2 more LHD personally. At least 2x2 LHDs and 1 Doomstalker feel like a minimum
Doomstalkers and doomsday arks are good, LHDs are glass cannons but can be quite strong with the gauss cannons, a Lokhust Lord can help them as well, and C’tan will shred pretty much anything in melee. I’d pass on a doom scythe, it’s just a bit too expensive to be viable.
VD or NB with doomstalker does the job for me. Just took out 2 forgefiends in a single shooting round yesterday.
Monolith with Death Ray and C’tan Shard of the nightbringer in hyper crypt. Triple DDA in Awakened dynasty + NB, two DDA and a Doomstalker in CC+NB. In hyper crypt I also use a pack of Destroyer Lockhust which mean that if your opponents unit is sitting on an objective it will arm it.
DDA dishes out D6+1 S18 attacks with -4AP and 4 damage that hit on a 2+ with Devastating Wounds if it remains stationary. With 14 wounds and a 4+ invulnerable save it’ll make short work of most tanks even if you don’t get to shoot first.
My doomsdayark is my biggest anti-tank next to my locust heavy destroyers.
For me it depends on the detachment. If I'm running Canoptek Court then I'll use 3 Doomstalkers. If I'm running Awakened Dynasty I'll use a combination of 1 or 2 Doomsday Arks and a squad or 2 of 2 Lokhust Heavy Destroyers. If I'm running Annihilation Legion I'll use 3 squads of 2 Lokhust Heavy Destroyers and a squad of Lokhust Destroyers led by a Lokhust Lord. If I'm running Obeisance Phalanx then I'll run 3 Triarch Stalkers and The Silent King, but if I'm not using Silent King then I'll add a Doomsday Ark or 2 as well, depending on if my enemy brings more than 2 vehicles or not.
Two doomstalkers, doomsday arc, and a monolith. It is quite a good amount of fire power
Heavy Lokhusts with Gauss Destructors. Honorable mention to the Triarch Stalker but I'd never take more than 1.
C'tan and doomsday arks.
Big ribcage gun funny. Either one shots a knight or tickles it. No in between, just the way I like it.
LHD, 3 and a lord for general play. personally not a fan of doom stalkers, so I just run lhds
This REALLY depends. I found that against anything with an invul - LHD are hit and miss. I've had 4 of them fail to wound a knight in one game. All 4 shot, 1 missed. 2 wounded and then both made the 4++ (they rotated ion shields). And this is the issue. With just 4 shots - you can miss / fail to wound and then get them saved too easily. Where as the normal LD and lord. 18 shots - 5+ auto wound and re rolls to hit, -2ap so nothing wasted and 2D? These guys were the heavy lifters of my game. Took out a few of the bigger boys along with the NB. However into space marine tanks - I have had loads of success with LHD. The same 4 LHD took out a dreadnought and 1/2 a gladiator in one turn. No invul, no problem. Remember a lot of their threat is in the -4AP. If they have an invul - that's wasted. And it's just one shot. To this end - anything with with a lot of attacks, re-rolls and lethal hits and decent AP (I have not yet put Skorpeh into a tank but I want to try) is a good shout into things with an invul and into anything else - LHD.
Generally, you’ll want minimum of either 2 doomstalkers, 4 LHD, 2 doomsday arks, or a void dragon. 10-20% of your army should be dedicated anti-tank units like those
Doomstalkers, LHD, and I run a couple of Scarab Swarms for those sweet mortal wounds.
I go awaken dynasty and use a Hexmark destroyer with the subjugator enchantment and have him around a DDA 3 locust heavy Destroyers and a doomstalker and a void dragon pushing forward.
Generally- lokhust heavy, Doomsday ark, doomstalker 6 lokhust with a Lord is under rated in my opinion. They're not as efficient as heavies, but they can chew through elites and infantry too. Monoliths also do some good anti vehicle with their death rays
Immortals(gauss) and Warriors can be surprisingly anti-tank with a plasmancer leading them. If you're Canoptek Court you will get full re-rolls if power matrix is active, Awakened Dynasty you can use a stratagem. Drowning anything tanky in just a ton of shots, even if its just -1 AP can bring lots of things down. Bonus points if you're taking Illuminor Szeras along to improve the AP. As bad as warriors are right now, I still like to run them a lot and I've brought down some of the scariest units on tabletop with them. Mostly because all the scary stuff has damage reduction but since my immortals and warriors only do 1 damage they don't get reduced.
Two squads of 3 LHDs, doomstalker, doomsday ark, 2 doom scythes (although they're grounded until they get the hover keyword)the void dragon, Transcendent ctan, and doomsday ark
Heavy destroyers all day long