Necrons

The mechanical undead have arrived to the Battlefleet Gothic universe, and they have quite a few differences to the standard factions.

PROS:

* Very accurate weapons
* High armor, decent hull hitpoints
* Many Area of Effect abilities
* Hull and troop regeneration
* Good wide-angle boarding actions

CONS:

* Short range weapons
* Extremely dependent on undamaged engines
* No shields, vulnerable to boarding
* No torpedoes
* Lower raw weapon damage output

## TACTICAL SUMMARY

The Necrons are an interesting bunch. They are quite explicitly short-ranged; their longest weapon baseline range is 13500 and they always constitute less than half of the weapons of any ship (of those few that even have them in the first place), most of the time their weapon range is 9000. They also do not have the Lock On stance that extends the range a further 4500; instead they have a stance that allows their weapons to fire additional shots at 50% strength to other enemy ships within a 9000 range. Their weapons are always 100% accurate, and the Particle Whip type can both ignore shields and jump to a second target. Since they do not have a Lock On stance to increase their weapon critical rate, all Necron weapons naturally have much higher natural critical rates.

The Necron defenses are completely hull-based as they use no shields. Instead their armor is at the highest ratings found anywhere, their hulls can regenerate over time by spending some maximum hull strength to restore current hull strength, one Active ability for their commanders (Scarab Swarm) can apply a decent damage-over-time effect to enemy ships while simultaneously regenerating the hull of allies, their ships are immune to the Fire On Board critical and Light Criticals last half as long as normal, and one tech tree upgrade can make their defense turrets immune to being destroyed. Also, while like any other faction the Necrons do have dedicated carrier ships with multiple launch bays, every single Necron Line ship is also a basic carrier with a 2 charge fighter squadron that are much like the Interceptor squadrons of other factions. They can't do much damage to an enemy target but they excel defensively, quickly destroying enemy fighters and torpedoes. This combines with a unique ability found on many Necron line ships, Starpulse Wave. A short range shockwave fires from the Necron vessel and damages all enemy ships within, and completely destroys all enemy fighter squadrons. A concentrated Necron fleet should be considered virtually immune to carrier and torpedo attacks at everything except near point-blank range, so don't try to attack them in this way.

Their engines also function quite differently; instead of an All Ahead Full ability to move at double speed, they have an effective Microwarp Jump instead. While the original Microwarp Jump has been modified to have a 15 second windup time and has had its range extended to anywhere on the battlefield revealed by your sensors, the Necron jump functions quite like the original with a half-second windup and a 9000 range. Given the short range nature of their weapons the Necrons are VERY, VERY DEPENDENT on their engines being fully functional! Clever opponents always target the Necron engine subsystems (made easier by the fact that the Necrons have no shields), as without their jump and their baseline speed halved, a Necron ship is completely crippled as most other factions can easily outrange, outrun and destroy them at this point. A frequent tactic for Necron commanders is to focus fire on the Weapons of enemy line ships; their high weapon critical rates plus focused fire can strip the weapons off of an enemy ship surprisingly quickly.