Necron Escort
Necron Escorts are nothing more than large, flying croissants. Resembling the smaller Cronsaint flyers like the Night Shroud, Necron Escorts are still more than a match for most races' ships. There are only two types of Escorts known and both are classified as Raiders by the Imperium.
Raiders[edit]
Basic[edit]
Dirge[edit]
The Dirge-class Raider is the smallest vessel in the Necron fleet and the smaller of the two known escort classes (the other being the Jackal-class Raider). It appears to be somewhat rarer, although this may be due to the relative scarcity of encounters with Necron fleets. For armament, the Dirge Class Raider is equipped with 3 Lightning Arc batteries.
They are believed to be the ships encountered before the Yuctan Incident and the first known Necron harvest. In 692.M41 a layer of impenetrable metal was encountered under the ground of Angelis which turned out to be a ship that rose out of the sands and left rapidly. It was likely that the Angelis Boat was the first Dirge-class Raider.
One thing to point out immediately of the Dirge is that it's incredibly susceptible to assault actions. Yeah, it has a great morale bonus but only having 6 troops is harsh even under the best of circumstances. Without the shields other factions possess, this means you are also always in danger of being lightning strikes, meaning the range at which the Dirge can be turned into a drifting hulk quickly is larger than you might normally expect if you've played other factions mostly.
Now the counter to this as also pointed out in the stats above, is you are getting a ship that matches the other fastest destroyers in the game, so if you need a ship to cap points behind enemy lines and zip away before they can catch you or chase down kiting vessels, the Dirge is a good option. If your enemy decided to bring a lot of lances, however, while bad news for Necron's in general, the weakness of the hull means your Dirges are going to pop off like little cyberpunk fireworks.
- Length: 1km; approx
- Width: 2km; approx
- Mass: 9.2 megatonnes; approx
- Crew: 14,000 crew; approx
- Acceleration: 3.2 gravities max sustainable acceleration
Jackal[edit]
The much bigger croissant and the Dirge's bigger brother.
Jackals are the equivalent to Imperial escort vessels, specifically Frigate-class, and have been encountered several times. Only on two occasions have these ships been seen working on their own, instead, they are usually found tailing the Cairn-class Tomb Ships and Scythe-class Harvest Ships. It is the larger of the two escorts (the second being the Dirge-class Raider) encountered as part of the Necron Fleet. For armament, Jackals wield 4 Lightning Arc batteries.
The Jackal seems to be the best option in its weight class considering for just 5 extra points you have a ship that's twice as survivable with better troop defence and trades the 25% speed boost for a 33% damage and crit chance increase from the Dirge. Considering the lack of shields that is such a factor in Necron fleets, the extra hitpoints seems well worth the cost in the long run.
One thing that hampers both of the escort ships, perhaps more so with the Jackal considering its combat orientation, is the 90-degree fire arcs that force you to use head-on attack orders. If you were able to have a wider arc that permitted broadside circling, it would help in dodging shots. This is offset by the fact that lances are your biggest concern anyways and moving about isn't going to save you from 100% accuracy, armour-piercing light beams.
- Length: 1km; approx
- Width: 3.5km; approx
- Mass: 11 megatonnes; approx
- Crew: 19,000 crew; approx
- Acceleration: 3.1 gravities max sustainable acceleration
In Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2[edit]
The Necrons don't have a large variety of ships or weapon systems at their disposal, so the few times you do have choices between different ships of a class, your options are typically going to be rather limited. As it currently stands, there are only 2 ships of the escort vessels weight grouping, the Dirge and the Jackal.
Both of them are visually rather similar, small crescent-shaped ships. Their capabilities aren't very different between the two, basically one's fast and weaker, the other is slower and stronger.
Considering the fact that typically, shields are half of an escort ship's starting hitpoints and tend to be more than half of its damage absorption in the long run, lest it is focused down before it gets too many recharges in, the Necron small craft needs to be more careful than normal, travelling more often with the larger ships that can help keep them alive longer.
| Vessels of the Necrons | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spaceships | ||
| Space Station | World Engine | |
| Battleships | Tomb Ship | |
| Cruisers | Light Cruiser - Harvest Ship Grand Cruiser | |
| Escorts | Escort | |
| Landships | ||
| War Machines | Tesseract Vault Æonic Orb - Abattoir | |
| Mobile Commands | Megalith | |
| Superheavy Tanks | Doomsday Monolith | |
| Airships | ||
| Flying Fortress | Night Shroud - Obelisk | |