Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 – Necrons Strategies

Other Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 Guides:

• Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 – Beginners Guide
• Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 – Tips and Tricks
• Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 – Ships Guide

Necrons Strategies

“That man is beset at all quarters by traitors, mutants and fiends is self-evident. But in truth none of these evils shall be our undoing. When the end comes it will be not at the hand of any mortal being of this or any other realm: death will come at the hands of the ancients, those who determined our fate aeons before we stood erect upon the holy ground of Terra and gazed up into the starry night.”
– Inquisitor Hoth

After a lengthy look at this faction as a whole we come down to basic strategies and tips available to players who wish to bring the death in all of its glory to all the sentient species of the galaxy.

Important Skills/Upgrades

Unlike some other factions there are far fewer options when it comes to what is good with the Necrons in the skills and upgrades department. I will outline what I think are the best and most important in the following. If there is a skill or upgrade that you like that doesn’t make it to this list, I encourage you to try it and find what works best for you.

1. Pyramidal Reconstruction (skill)
2. Scarab Swarm (skill)
3. Lightning Link (skill)
4. Mass Recal (skill)

Out of all the skills, these are the four to choose from. Among these four, Pyramidal Reconstruction is a must have in every fleet. While Necron ships do repair light critical effects over time, if your engines are completely destroyed you will lose access to your teleport ability. The Necron fleet relies on this ability heavily, without it all their ships are paper weight. Still dangerous but they will not achieve anything. The closest comparison to this is thinking of an Aeldari ship that has had its engines destroyed… Those are dead Eldar. That same logic applies here.

Scarab Swarm I think is the second best skill by far on this list, though this is preferential. I believe that the ability to do mass repairs on your ships and keep them in the fight longer is worth more than the extra mobility and damage the other skills offer. However, I leave this choice up to you. But please take Pyramidal Reconstruction, I can’t overstate this enough.

1. Tesseract Crypt (upgrade)
2. Unstable Pulse Core (upgrade)
3. Nightmare Shroud (upgrade)
4. Arc Propagator (upgrade)

These are the best upgrades of the list to choose from available to the Necrons. They are the most useful in nearly all situation and have an impact on gameplay. The best of the ones listed is Tesseract Crypt, the utility this offers by allowing you to still use stances even when your deck in destroyed or damaged is amazing. All those passive buffs your ship has access to will still be there when opponents destroy the deck sub system of the ship.

Unstable Pulse Core is very good if you are running at least three heavy ships that have accesss to the Star Pulse Wave ability. The other two upgrades listed do either bonus damage or damage to morale, both are useful in nearly every game against every opponent.

Personal Note

Now for those of you reading the past few sections you may realize that the combination of using Pyramidal Reconstruction and Tesseract Crypt seems a like a bit of an overlap. The reason why I recommend both of these together is because the Necrons lack shielding, they are vulnerable to critical hits from the very beginning of the fight. You need stances on your ships to boost the dps output of your vessels and to help regenerate those that are getting focused down. You need your engines up as much as possible in order to use the only access to viable movement you have. Without these two things, your ships will fail, and your fleet will fail. It is not impossible to win without either of these, it is simply much harder.

Helpful tips for Constructing your Fleet

1. Necron fleet building is all about the choice of whether to have a heavier or lighter version of a ship or not. You need to get the most out of your points wtih this faction and make sure your opponent pays dearly for every ship they eliminate.
2. Take escorts with you, they are essential in capturing zones and scouting for the enemy. Running a massed battlegroup is fun, but leaves you vulnerable to several strategies.
3. The Star Pulse Wave ability is among one of the most powerful abilities in the game and it is available to the three heaviest ships on the roster. You need at least one of these ships or a fleet composing of at least 3 three of them. The utility and raw damage this ability offers is amazing.
4. It might be tempting to take a double Cairn list, but I advise against it. While it is and amazing and very powerful ship. Its extremely slow speed and turn rate make it very vulnerable against certain strategies.

In Battle Tips

1. Target the engines of nearly every faction you come across is probably a good idea.
2. Target the generators of factions with strong shields (Imperial Navy, Tau).
3. The Star Pulse Wave ability is one of the best abilities in the game. Use this to cause significant damage to enemy ships and clustered formations.
4. Against carrier or torpedo spam, use your Star Pulse Wave ability. This will destroy all oncoming ordinance and fighters instantly.
5. Use your teleport ability (Intertialess Drive) wisely. It is the most important ability available to the Necrons hands down, everything else pales compared to the importance of this ability. The difference between good and bad Necron players will come down to the judgement of how and when to use this.
6. Put all of your escorts on the “Running Silent” stance, there is no reason to have them not stealthed.
7. The “Dispersed Lightning Arc” stance is what all line ships should be put on default and using throughout the fight. The bonus damage dispersed between clumped enemy formations will increase dps output by a significant margain.
8. Use the “Reactive Hull Shift” stance when one of your ships is being focused down so that it can focus on regenerating hull points. This extra regeneration will make it harder for your opponent to kill said ship and buy you time to do damage with your other vessels.

Personal Tips

1. If you are getting beaten by a specific strategy and getting frustrated, try to relax and think calmly. A good admiral will never allow emotions to toy with tactical decisions. More than likely you are getting beaten by a specific thing because you aren’t countering it effectively or aren’t prepared to fight it. Either look at this guide for more information or go to the community for help. The Warhammer community is generally friendly and willing to help out its own.
2. In the off chance that something is broken, report it with what you have seen and evidence of it to the developers. There is a fine line however between “broken” and “I don’t like that” or “that seems unfair”.

Videos

The following are videos available on Youtube that I think are good representations of the Imperial Navy and strategies found by other members of the community. All credit to the content creaters of said videos.

Have fun!