Necron Wraiths

I can see a lot of exploits for Necrons wraiths, but the problem is that they only come in units of three and they take up a fast attack choice so they are competing with scarabs and destroyers. That said, they can form part of a hard hitting close combat unit which you can use as a surprise since Necrons and close combat often don’t go together. Consider this build:

Necron Lord W/ Destroyer Body, Warscythe, Phase Shifter, Gaze Of Flame, Chronometron + 3 Wraiths.

Necron close combat doesn’t mean heading out full charge like assault terminators in a land raider, do this and they are done. Use these guys with sneak and guile like an assassin. Yes they are a small unit, and are thus vulnerable to being wiped out and leadership checks, but small also means easy to hide behind LOS terrain including a monolith- wraiths ignore terrain and the lord is skilled rider so with the 12” move, 6” assault, and 18-24” turbo boost it is more about position and setting the time to strike.

Tactically this combo works well zipping up the side of the board and assaulting back rank units- these guys are often static objective holders or support units and not dedicated assault troops. You also have some hitting power with the scythe on the lord and the wraiths going at S6 on rear armor vehicles. I’m not worried about hitting a land raider, since what is a raider doing in the back ranks by the time I get there?

In the assault I’m probably going first with the wraiths to score a kill or two that can’t strike back, and then my lord mops up. Getting the charge off for the +1 attack makes a huge difference. If I win combat my opponent is then at -1 LD from gaze of flame, plus their loss modifier and the chronometron is huge in this build- the bulk of the unit is at I6 so that is my base plus rolling the 2d6/highest for sweeping advances, etc. Nasty right?

Then, there is the debatable first turn assault with this combo + monolith. While I’m not a big fan of charging out and ahead, I do think of it as another tool in the Necron box if you needed to take somebody by surprise. Monolith deploys as far forward as it can with the lord and wraiths behind. On your turn it moves forward 6” and ports the wraith/lords though for another “2 distance. The unit then moves out 12” and assaults 6”…