Yeah I belive your right. It's a bad match up. I'm not sure what can be done about it.
I'm bringing a Tau list to the Berlin tournament next week. I will in all likelihood face necrons at least ones, possibly twice. This will be raiders though, but should still be interensting. I see them as a big challange when playing tau for mentioned reasons.

I concur.
The Tau list works by shooting the enemy to smithereens up close, preferably just inside assault ranges.
Necrons neatly counter this by waltzing directly out of their portals into assaults.

My Tau has beat Necrons once out of three games, and I attirbute that to my opponent being tired and playing them just about as wrong as possible. The other two games were swift, painful and overwhelming.

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Let there be code.

Maybe allow a broken formation's portal(s) to be used, but with the proviso that coming on through a portal in a broken formation gives the moving on formation a BM? They would still be good and usable, but a bit less annoying and worth the opponent going to the trouble of breaking the portal formations.

They have already had significant changes, my point was that Tau are very hard pressed against Necrons. All other lists with the exception of tyranids don't have the same impediments. I don't recommend nerfing them more without further play testing. As mentioned this was my first win (of 4 games) with the Sautekh list where as I was winning nearly every game with the scarab conflict list.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

Yes I agree I too think it is to early to nerf portals even more.

Having some kind of small penalty, like a BM, for coming out of a broken portal seem fair and makes the Necrons less annoying to play and gives the opponent more tactics to help deal with them.

Getting a BM for going through a portal has been suggested by others in the past and I would mean for it to apply to both the Raiders list (which is overpowered and annoying to play) and the Sautekh list, which is still very early in development and could easily be balanced taking it into account.

I'd just like to note that if any changes are to be done to the Raiders list playtests need to be done. A playtest list has been up for a year and a half with two or three reports. Add the six a champion with an actual group could produce and we're still only halfway to where a change could happen.

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- Ulrik

True. Mark here locally has a Necron army which I've played and lost against a couple of times, but he feels the Epic-UK Necron list is more balanced and fair so he uses that for his Necrons instead.

Have him try the sautekh list and see how you feel about that. All my opponents with the exception of dobbsy have had quite enjoyable games.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

Mark has mentioned thinking of trying the Sautekh list sometime and I'd be happy to. We leave it up to each other what we play though and normally keep it a surprise till after we write our lists, just agreeing to play an approved or non-approved list.

Thoughts on Necrons
While I have enjoyed playing necrons (played several games against the necron list and the Sautekh list), I do feel there needs to be some balancing. I find the area that is the most cause for concern in not the units per say, but the special abilities. Namely Living Metal and Portals.
Here are two changes I am submitting for consideration:

Living Metal becomes: 5+ invulnerable save
What this does is keep the rule simple, does not penalize/marginalize other army builds by not recognizing their purchase/use of macro and titan killer weapons. I think this still accomplishes the same effect of representing this cannon necron ability.

Portals/Eternity Gate: functions as described in the Sautekh army list with the following additions:
1) When a formation with the Portal ability is broken, count the unit has having one additional portal not available for use. (Given that the max amount of portals in a formation is currently 3)
2) Other formations using a broken units Portal for movement are subject to the same disruption as per the Teleport rules (roll a D6 for each unit that uses the broken units portal, on a roll of 1 the formation that the unit belongs to receives a Blast marker).
Currently the Portals are just too powerful given the fact that there is no down side to the unit being broken. What I have seen happen time and again is that an inordinate amount of effort is spent trying to “shut the portals down” (ie destroy the formation with the Portal ability) and inevitably the unit survives and the portals are still fully functional. Additionally, using a broken formations portals does not preclude there use but does have a consequence attached to it. This way there is actual motivation and consequence to the breaking of a portal formation.
This will have a consequence on the Monoliths, Abbatoir, Aeonic Orb, Warbarque and Night Scythe (which should count has having one portal per model).

I believe these rule changes preserve the essence of what the necron list wants to be but will go a long way to gaining wider acceptance of the necron list and ultimately Approved status. Many feel, as do I, that some of the fundamental special rules are too different and difficult to play against because they negate too many fundamental concepts (broken units should degrade in effectiveness, macro weapons and titan killer weapons should be better at killing things (that is why you spent all those points on them).
I leave it to you to discuss.

I think you speak for many people when you describe the problem of opponents' perceptions of the list. Nobody likes to discover their precious star units are summarily negated by a special rule, or seeing units take the field with their weaknesses covered.

Not sure about the "one fewer portal when broken" bit as it's not very elegant (eg which portal?) but the simple living metal rule is one I would favour.

Personally for portals I think they should just be not usable when broken. If they break, oh well, tough luck, wait until next turn and try again. And by the way the same thing should be applied to the Eldar lists (although the effect is far worse for Necrons since they have so many and can keep leaving and coming back). However I recognise this may cause some gnashing of teeth, so the teleport mechanic sounds very good to me.

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Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

You can't nerf the portals to make them unusable when broken without changing the unit size of the units with portals. With the exception of the abattior, the sizes on units with portals is very small, 3 monoliths, 3DC warbarque. Much too easy to break. It would severely cripple the list. You also have to think about how it would play with the flyer Portals as they don't break like land units.

A 5+ invulnerable as living metal would make them stronger against normal fire but far weaker against macro and especially TK fire. The war engines would be much worse (they already have very underwhelming firepower) comparitively as most other large engines have shields.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't try some changes but to change the core rules like that will also require point and unit size adjustments.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

Phase out is gone in this list by the way (as well as leaving the table through portals for the most part.), that plus the reduced armour on infantry makes the list less effective already as compaired to the scarab conflict list. Take a look Kyrt, I think you'll agree the newcrons list is quite a bit more ballanced. I'm only 1 win in 4 with it. It still needs some tweeking here and there but I see it becoming the new standard.

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Necron AC (click to see current Necron list threads)
Toronto Wargaming Group

I think the idea Atension had when we played was a reasonable option to begin with.

Formations coming out of a broken portal gain a BM. Evens up engagements reasonably well for the ability to move across the entire table in one pop and the opponent having broken the portals in the first place. There's a trade off there which is fairer than the current situation.