Harvest Ship

Harvest Ships are basically the Necrons analogue of either a Cruiser or Battlecruiser. They appear to be more common than the larger Cairn-class Tomb Ships and have so far been part of every encounter with Imperial ships. Despite being considered in the same weight as Cruisers, Harvest Ships are incredibly long, at least double the length of other factions' Cruisers/Battlecruisers seeing as how they are as long as a Tomb Ship.

The ships appear lightly built compared to Imperial vessels, but this is misleading as they are particularly difficult to destroy. There are only three known instances of the disabling of a Harvest ship, and in each case, the firepower of several capital ships was required. They are, with their armament, the equal of all but the largest of the Imperial vessels.

Class

Basic

Scythe Harvester

This is where Necrons go from maneagable to unmanageable.

The Scythe Harvester or otherwise known as simply the Scythe-class or Harvester-class, is your bog-standard Harvest Ship. Considered a Cruiser-class due to its weapons, the Scythe Harvester is a flexible and adaptable class of Necron warships.

The Scythe Harvester is also where things start to get really serious with the Necron ships, both with their insane toughness and incredibly high price. At 291 points, the cost of the Harvester is comparable to Battleships of other factions. Because of this, Necron fleets relying on numerous heavy ships have to be careful about being swarmed and taking critical hits to their weaponry.

As an entire Necron fleet can have fewer than 30 actual weapons bays, criting them out is usually the fastest way to stop you from damaging their ships. Also like with the other Necron ships, if they decided to bring a lot of lances, you might be in for a bad day. Another Necron-standard reminder is that while the on-paper raw dps might be low, always remember it doesn't have accuracy falloffs that other factions have to suffer with, and in the Scythe Harvester's case, 1/3rd of its damage is also piercing both Armor and Shields.

Like with other side-firing weapons this faction possesses, all 4 Lightning Arc Batteries can fire from either the right or left side, they just can't fire forward, so they are not broadside weapons in the typical sense. Switching to your Dispersed Lightning Arc when facing large numbers, making good use of your Scythes and utilizing your teleport manoeuvre to retreat for repairs, or chasing down fleeing almost dead enemies, will go a long way in extending the use you get out of this vessel. They also have two Particle Whip Launchers to target heavily armed ships at the front, making it an overall, balanced warship.

• Length: 9-10km; approx
• Width: 2-4km; approx
• Mass: 34.2 megatonnes; approx
• Crew: 71,200 crew; approx
• Acceleration: 2.3 gravities max sustainable acceleration

Reaper

The Scythe Harvester's more jacked-up cousin.

The Reaper-class is an upgrade to the normal Scythe Harvester and as such, it goes from Cruiser-class to Battlecruiser-class in terms of weight category. For a 68 point premium over the Harvester, the Reaper-class packs in an extra 25% damage over the Harvester due to having 6 Lightning Arc Turrets rather than 4 Lightning Arc Batteries, along with a comparable stat boost to its hull and (slightly less to) defences. This mind you, is a ship that still carries the two standard Particle Whip Launchers at the front, coming with a total of 8 weapons platforms.

This is a significant uptick in points cost, so it might be still worth toying around with how taking Harvesters over the Reaper might be of benefit to you as far as making room for an extra ship somewhere.

If you do decide to stick with the Reaper you will find yourself doing considerable damage at range with a nice wide arc for all your weapons to fire together within. Unfortunately taking more than one will eat up more than half your fleet point total and 3 means not enough room for even one light cruiser, forced to split the total left between a pair of escorts.

The Reaper takes a loss of engine speed from the smaller Harvester, however, at 200, it is still comparable to some of the Imperial light cruisers and escorts.

• Length: 9-10km; approx
• Width: 2-4km; approx
• Mass: 39.2 megatonnes; approx
• Crew: 77,000 crew; approx
• Acceleration: 2.3 gravities max sustainable acceleration

Ordnance-boat

Harrower

The ultimate anti-Escort vessel.

The Harrower-class is the Necron's rough equivalent of an ordnance-boat and is another one in the 'Cruiser'-class weight range. It is one of four new Necron vessels added in Patch 3, meant to help expand upon the selection of Necron ship hulls and give players a bit more variety and choices.

The Harrower drops the Particle Whips, to go all-in on the Lightning Arc batteries. This means the Harrower has no ability to shoot targets in front of it, as its weapons are all locked in broadside arcs.

On the plus side, since the full weaponry is Lightning weapons, you can use the Dispersed stance to allow the full armament to hit multiple targets, making the Harrower the better option of the two if you expect to face a more numerous enemy, while the Harvester will perform better against fewer, more heavily armored enemy fleets.

• Length: 9-10km; approx
• Width: 2-4km; approx
• Mass: 37 megatonnes; approx
• Crew: 75,500 crew; approx
• Acceleration: 2.3 gravities max sustainable acceleration

Lance-boat

Ruiner

Pity the poor bastards who face this thing, 'cause their ass would be. In. RUINS.

The Ruiner-class is the Harvest Ship's primary lance-boat. Like the Reaper, the Ruiner is of Battlecruiser-class weight. These monsters say fuck your Void Shields, I am going in dry.

It is the new Battle Cruiser added to the Necron fleet with the release of Patch 3, which brought 4 new ships total to help expand the options available to players with the others being the aforementioned Harrower, the Scourge and the Sekhem.

With the Ruiner, you get a slight trade in weaponry, dropping some of the Lightning weapons and losing the overlapping front-facing arcs, to double the amount of shield-piercing Particle Whip Launchers brought into the field. Notably, this gives the Ruiner the largest number of Particle Whip weapons of all the Necron ships, even beating the Cairns 3 turrets, making the Ruiner your best and most economical way of stacking those weapons.

• Length: 9-10km; approx
• Width: 2-4km; approx
• Mass: 34.7 megatonnes; approx
• Crew: 72,000 crew; approx
• Acceleration: 2.3 gravities max sustainable acceleration

In Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2

In BF:A2, Harvest Ships are split into two categories depending on their weight class. There is the Cruiser-class of Harvest Ships and the Battlecruiser-class of Harvest Ships. For the Cruiser-class, these Harvest Ships are cheaper which could allow for more of these ships to be fielded out at the cost of overall total damage in a match. They offer a leeway between good dps and decent point cost for something of such size, and are a potent, expensive, terror in its own right, capable of slugging it out long term and laying some real waste to enemy vessels unfortunate enough to be the focus of its ire.

For the Battlecruiser-class, the Harvest Ships become more expensive but more powerful. The most notable being an increase in weapon batteries and tougher armor. The boarding damage is also pretty good for all the other benefits the Necrons get, but they are indirectly hampered by the simple fact that having so few ships in a fleet doesn't give them access to that many between reloads, especially if you start needing them to repopulate ships of yours then have been hulked, as is one of the current strategies used against Necrons.

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