Hey everyone, Reecius here again from Frontline Gaming to continue the discussion on the new Necrons!
- Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Codex Review Part 4: Lords of War and Formations
- Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Codex Review Part 3: Fast and Heavy
- Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Codex Review Part 2: Elites and Troops
- Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Codex Review part 1: HQs
Check out the Tactics Corner for more great reviews. Let’s keep on truckin!
The Good
Warriors
Necron Warriors are not too exciting on paper, but they’re solid as a troop selection and you can really scale up their power output a ton if you want to. They come in units of 10-20, weigh in at 13ppm, and have all of zero upgrades. Simple! However, there’s a lot to love with Warriors. For one, their gun can hurt anything in the game, which is awesome. Gauss Flayers hit like a Bolter (Rapid Fire, Str4, Ap5, 24″) but with the added benefit of always wounding on a 6, and always glancing on a 6. Baller. That makes these one of the best basic sidearms in the game. Warriors en masse can really do some work, particularly with some support. For example, slap a Destroyer Lord in there with them to give them Preferred Enemy, and bring a Triarch Stalker nearby and they go up to a BS5 unit rerolling 1’s to hit, resulting in over 97% accuracy, which is incredible. A unit with high volume of shooting that can hurt anything is–obviously–quite good. Note, that combo listed works for any unit too, not just Warriors. Warriors may only have a 4+, but with RP, they get a solid secondary save and with a Cryptek or in a Decurion Detachment, they have a 4+ RP, possibly rerolling 1’s, possibly also with a 5++ from a Chronometron. If you slap Orikan in there, they even reroll 1’s on failed saves. Back this up further with a Ghost Ark and you will keep making new Warriors and hey, why not, a Res Orb to reroll failed RP rolls once per game, too. WOW. That is a resilient unit that also shoots well and can be ObSec, too. You can do a lot with these guys and I have always really enjoyed Warriors. You can run them on foot, Phalanx style, or in the awesome Ghost Ark, or in Night Scythes, throw Szeras in there to further buff them, as well. Deffinitely a well rounded unit and a solid troops choice. The only downside is their weakness to morale and susceptibility to being run down. You have to be very wary of that. If in doubt, you can always take Zandrehk to give them Zealot and ensure they don’t go anywhere!
Immortals
Another solid troops choice! Immortals are great and I almost always take at least 1 unit of them. Immortals have stats like Warriors, but instead of a 4+, they come with a 3+ and a better gun. They have either the Guass Blaster, or Tesla Carbine. Both are great choices, but I typically go with the Tesla Carbine as I run lots of Warriors, but YMMV and both weapons are excellent choices. Immortals don’t have as many support options as Warriors but can run on foot fairly well (although the smaller unit size and lack of Ghost Ark support outside of the WD Formation that allows a Monlith to res them means they are often more easily dispatched), but are still resilient with a 3+ and RP. You often see 5 man units in Night Scythes to grab objectives at game’s end for the win, but, they work very well in units of 10 as well, walking up the field or dropping out of a Night Scythe earlier in the game. Immortals are a solid troop and will not disappoint.
Lychguard
Wow, what an improvement! Lychguard were grossly over-costed last time around, but have been adjusted appropriately. They’re fantastic now for the points and I think we will see them fairly often. If not for the OTT amazingness of Wraiths, Lychguard would be the go to assault unit, IMO. They’re T5 and S5, with a 3+ and come standard with a Warscythe which is awesome (S+2, AP2, Armorbane, 2 handed). Or, for +5pts, you can give them a 3++ and Hyperphase Sword (power sword). Again, due to RP and all of the ways to buff the roll, Lychguard can become ultra resilient. If you go with the 3++, you can stick Orikan in there to give them a reroll of failed saves of 1, which makes them ultra tough, and they also get a 4+ RP, to boot! If they are in a Decurion Detachment, and you have the Overlord of that detachment with them, they also reroll failed RP rolls of a 1! Add in a Res orb for lols and, good lawd, these guys will be hard to kill. To top it off, give the Overlord a Nightmare Shroud for a 2+ or stick in Obyron for the same purpose+his Ghostwalk Mantle and you have a unit that will kick serious ass. Alternatively, you could just take 5 for a cheap unit to throw into the backfield and with their natural toughness, you can have great results chopping up weak units and vehicles. The only real question with Lychguard is how to get them across the table. A Nightscythe works but that means at best, you are getting a turn 3 charge. The best bet, IMO, is using a Veil of Darkness or the Ghostwalk Mantle to move them up-field. If you kit them up, they are resilient enough to take most shooting to the face and shrug it off. They also deliver a mighty wallop in melee, particularly if you go with Warscythes. Again, the only fear is their weakness to morale which can be brutal if you lose a combat and get swept. However, due to their resilience, this should not happen often. In all, a great melee unit.
Deathmarks
They work essentially as they did before, but now you don’t have to nominate a unit for death, they just wound on a 2+ the turn they come in from Deep Strike reserves. That is awesome for smoking high toughness models. They can also counter-reserve by Deep Striking on the enemy turn when one of their units comes in from Deep Strike reserves and then shoot in the enemy turn, which can be cool when it works. You can still get a similar effect to what they used to do with the Abyssal Staff Cryptek by sticking a character that can Deep Strike in the unit with them with the Gauntlet of the Conflagrator, although it is a bit pricey. A good choice to go with them though, is the Destroyer Lord as he can also Deep Strike, gives them Preferred Enemy, and can provide another backfield threat as well as melee defense. In all, they are a solid back-field disruption unit and can kill key enemy units the turn they come in played well.
Flayed Ones
Wow, can we say most improved unit? These fellas went from zero to hero in a hurry. Flayed Ones have Warrior Stats, but now get 5 S4, AP5, Shred attacks on the charge…damn, son! Plus, with changes to RP, they can become very resilient. With infiltrate, and Deep Strike, they are built to be a back-field disruption unit and are quite good at killing weak objective taking units like Guardian Jetbikes, Scout Squads, etc. with just a smallish unit of them which weighs in at a low price point. With enough numbers, so long as they can hurt what they are in melee with, they will take down dang even tougher units. My only complaint is that it is hard to give them character support and still use their cool abilities as the unit would lose Infiltrate and/or Deep Strike in may cases. As above, a Destroyer Lord goes well with them for PE and more melee punch and as he can also Deep Strike, you lose nothing. Otherwise, teleport up the field turn 1 with a Veil or Obyron and beef them up with Character support as with Warriors and profit.
Triarch Praetorians
Triarch Praetorians, much like Lychguard, got a massive boost and are solid, now. They’re fast, tough, fearless (which is huge for Crons), and hit pretty hard. They come stock with Rod’s of Covenant which provide good AP2, but short ranged shooting, and the same in melee, or Particle Caster for S6 short ranged shooting and Void Blades in melee which give you Rending, AP4, Entropic Strike which is functionally the same rule as that Guass weapons have. I prefer the Rod load-out as Wraiths give you rending attacks in spades, and solid AP2 attacks are actually a bit rare in a Cron list and a such, Praetorians provide some nice utility. They also don’t need any character support, which is nice. They don’t mind it at all, but there really aren’t any characters that are designed to keep up with them. The Destroyer Lord kind of can, but that’s about it. In all, this is a solid unit, flirts with going into the Ugly category only because they compete with Wraiths which are superior, but are solid and provide you AP2 weapons which is great utility.
Triarch Stalkers
The Stalker is, again, much improved. He now provides a 6″ +1BS bubble to other friendly, non-vehicle Necron units. That is incredible as stated above, when you combo that with Preferred Enemy you get ridiculous accuracy. A unit or 2 of Heavy Destroyers loitering around this guy become brutally effective, as does anything else with a Destroyer Lord attached to them. And even without layering that combo, the general purpose buff is fantastic for any foot style list and that 6″ bubble is actually pretty big off of the large Stalker model. The Stalker itself is cheap, AV13 with Quantum Shielding, can ignore a lot of the damage table with Living Metal and/or being in the Decurion Detachment, and comes stock with a dual shot Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer. Not bad! You can up-gun him to have a large blast or 36″ Las Cannon, but I wouldn’t bother. The Heat Ray is solid. Triarch Stalkers provide a lot in a list designed to take advantage of them.
The Bad
Nothing!
The Ugly
Both C’Tan Shards
I know I will catch some flakk for this,but that is OK! While the C’Tan are much improved, I still don’t think they will have a place in a competitive list. Why? They suffer from the same problem the generic C’Tan did in the previous codex: they’re easy to kill and slow. Their shooting can be quite powerful, but it is relatively short ranged and random. You may get something that can’t hurt the target you are shooting at. They also can’t overwatch. They hit fairly well in melee, but are not outstanding there, either. If Nightbringer can get within 12″, his Gaze of Death is pretty awesome to keep him alive. The Deciver’s Grand Illusion and Dread rules are likewise, pretty awesome. You can use some fun deployment tricks to out-deploy your opponent or combo the Ld debuff with other rules (such as with Nightbringer) to do some cool stuff. If you use them in a MTO list, they can do some work, or if you take lots of them. However, ultimately I think these units will most likely get shot to death before they do much. I’d love to be wrong though, as I dig the models and the fluff of them quite a bit.
“The only downside is their weakness to morale and susceptibility to being run down.”
When you write like this it seems like they have really low Leadership and are actually likely to fail those tests, but in actuality they have Ld10 so they’re pretty safe… and as to being run down, due to RP and all that they’ll not really lose combat in a big way so they’ll still have a good chance of passing that test. If they actually do lose combat big, it’s against a unit that would have most likely obliterated ANY other target so they’re still winning there. 😛
Also… I think the only change to Flayed Ones from last codex is actually just Shred? They were always this crazy good, it’s just that the Necron codex is so full of great stuff you never had any reason to take them.
And I think it’s worth mentioning that if you take the Mephrit Dynasty list from Exterminatus the C’Tan can take this upgrades that makes them T8 much improving their survivability. It’s also nice that the Nightbringers ability is not a shooting attack, so can have a different target. I played against it a couple of days ago and once it reached me it started killing stuff left and right, it’s only real downside being how slow it is. But I agree that you probably have to build your list around it for it to be really effective.
“Also… I think the only change to Flayed Ones from last codex is actually just Shred? They were always this crazy good, it’s just that the Necron codex is so full of great stuff you never had any reason to take them.”
They gained an extra attack, AP5, Fear and Shred whilst staying the same point cost and benefitting from the improved RP. They were absolutely terrible in the previous codex but are pretty damn good now.
The big change to Flayed Ones is that with RP rolls, more of them survive to swing, now, which is huge! Plus, they have +1 attack over last edition and shred, which makes them massively more efficient.
Yeah, morale isn’t a HUGE problem as the Crons will soak more damage than before and lose combat by less, but it is a concern, for sure.
The redeploy on the deceiver can be really good especially if you fake out your opponent with a refused flank or extended deployment and bamb move D3 things anywhere in your deployment/reserves ( if in range of the Ctan)
Yeah, you can certainly pull some shenanigans with him, for sure.
The Deceiver can also provide another nasty combo with Flayed Ones with respect to his -2 Ld bubble. Don’t forget that Flayed Ones also have Fear, so stacking that with the -2 Ld and those FOs can really shine in close combat. They both are moving 6in and the FO can infiltrate a little further infront of the C’Tan. Now think about that as a “bubble wrap” for your phalanx!
Nice combo!
Yup, played last night and 3 squads of warriors failed moral checks in h2h and got wiped…
Ouch!
Necron code in a nutshell:
– what was too OP, now toned down a bit (except for wraiths)
– what was meh, is now either awesome, or solid
– and EVERYTHING can be buffed next to cheesiness with formations
Now, I have to restrict myself to bring only CAD in a friendly game, lest I’ll be without opponents 🙂
Haha, good summary, but, I don’t think it will be too cheesy. It just makes Crons a really tough army.
Nice writeup! Look forward to hearing your thoughts on the new Decurion Detachment Formations 🙂
Thanks! And I really dig the Decurion Detachment, tons of fun!
I don’t have the codex on me, but don’t the C’Tans have Deep Strike? If so, that helps the C’tans get in range to use their powers.
The C’tan with Deep Strike is in the heavy support section, this is a review of elites and troops.
The Shards don’t have Deep strike, the Transcendent does.
I there is my confusion.
There is mephrit dynasty formation that puts any c’tan with 2 Crypteks as one unit. It gets FNP and the unit always uses the c’tan’s toughness. Now the way I read it the mephrit dynasty just says that they get access to the relics of the war in heaven and say nothing about replacing the Necron codex relics. So based on that one can have the god shackle for strength and toughness 8 and the other can take the veil of darkness. Turn one the nightbringer is in your fave with t8 a 4++ and 5+ FNP.
I want to bring this soooo bad because it looks like a ton of fun but I noticed a couple of things about your statement. 1st can you take a veil of darkness? Doesn’t all the wargear have to come from the mepherit dynasty list because it’s a formation from that book? Or at least from the same wargear list? Or is that just wargear on the same character? And 2nd it would have a 4+ FNP due to the crypteks special rule.
You can take a Veil. The Mephrit detachment gives access to an additional set of relics, but doesn’t limit you from taking others (because at the time Necrons did not have any other relics.)
Crypteks add +1 to Reanimation Protocols, not Feel No Pain. They are distinct rules.
You are correct about the reanimation protocols my apologies. Now if I understand you correctly what your saying is that the mepherit dynasty is treated as an extension of the necron codex rather than being considered a supplement?
It is a supplement, but being a supplement doesn’t mean anything in and of itself. The Mephrit Dynasty rules simply say that if you use their special detachment or formation, you are allowed to use their warlord traits and/or relics if you so please.
(Also unlike the Necron codex, you are not limited to taking a single one of the Mephrit relics.)
Is that true. I have both but pretty sure u can’t mix and match.
As a spokesman for the internets, you cannot possibly think flayed ones, lychguard, praetorians or c’tan shards are good because they don’t have grenades. 😛
Shards treat all terrain as open ground. No need for grenades.
Know you are joking but being durable and I2 you don’t really benefit much from grenades. Its all the DE and Tyranids that suffer (although I am in the camp that if everyone has frags — then what is the point of frags and assaulting into cover).
I don’t think they would ever need grenades, as their Immune to Natural Law rule (as well as Wraithflight, albeit the same rule is worded differently for Transcendent C’Tan) allows them to “move over all other models and terrain as if they were open ground”, thus never moving though difficult terrain during a charge move to trigger the range or Initiative penalty.
Hey, at I2, it doesn’t make much difference, lol.
I4 for C’Tan, I5 for Wraiths with Whip coils
Yes, those are the exceptions to the rule.
Man, I’m going to have a batch of a time killing crons
Yeah, they can be ultra durable.
What I’m going to hate if freaking wraiths with daMN rp
nice writeup as usual! The access to PE and +1 BS is pretty sick potentially. Just means people have to pay for a buff unit that doesn’t do much else.. lots of competitive players (I guess) tend to not pay that tax.
He’s not really a tax, per se. He provides a unit with solid melee defense, and means they can assault, too.
Surprised you think so highly of Tesla immortals. I am only going to run them because that’s what I built for last edition. Just think that with the tesla nerf and gauss buff it’s pretty much always better to have Gauss.
12″ or less Gauss is better, getting assaulted gauss is better(slightly) against vehicles or t9+(obscure sure but whatever) gauss is better. The only times tesla is good is if your kitting to always be around 24″ away from your target or your going to assault something(which your pretty bad in assault and it means you were in rapid fire range where you could have just double tapped your gauss).
Yeah, that is exactly how I run my Immortals” as skirmishing units that go up-field for objectives. The Gauss Flayer is an objectively better weapon though, yes. Tesla gets it done for skirmishing.
As I go through the new cron book, as I prepare for 0-6 at LVO, I think there is a lot to like in these sections. I am liking the praetorian a lot and think you could have fun with them. Warrior blobs with some layered support from crypteks and ghost arks can provide a good base.
What I see are some great options for having many fun games.
What I dont see is them matching up well with the many super heavies or FMC lists that are prevalent in the games highest levels of competitive play
Looking at the last couple tournies and it seems necrons have a tough time consistently cracking the top 10.
I would say we could expect a worse showing from them with the new codex. We should soon see with the results from LVO.
Time will tell
I think Crons will actually be incredible at taking down Super Heavies with all the Entropic Strike and Gauss weapons they have. Flyers though, may be more of a problem. The Night Scythe is still good, but never was that great at killing FMCs.
I am less impressed on ES. a full unit of scarabs on the charge has 45 attacks. assuming 2 bases die before, the 7 remaining hit about 18 times and put on 3 hull points or wounds with armor save and FnP then an average stomp roll kills another 5 bases outright.
20 warriors in rapid fire range on a lone knight put 2 glances on it. The same warriors will put a half a wound on many of the toe in cover monstrous creatures that are on the ground.
doing things on sixes is not all that powerful without negating armor or cover saves.
Yeah, and especially with the points increase and survivability decrease (6+ armor) alongside the prevalence of high-strength and Ignores Cover weaponry that flies around these days. It really just takes one volley from a Serpent to wipe a unit of Scarabs off the map.
If they can see them! Scarabs are actually really, really easy to completely hide out of LoS. Wyverns scare me more. Plus, you can give them RP with the formation.
True enough, but many of those weapons are either highly mobile (Serpents) or don’t care about LOS (TFC, Wyverns, SMS.) Being able to give them Feel No Necrons is certainly handy, but needing to stay within 12″ of the Spyder can really limit where the unit moves to.
I wanna like Scarabs- I have a shitload of really awesome ones I grabbed a while back- but I feel like they end up a bit lackluster. I’m crossing my fingers that the IA12 list drops the additional cost on their special scarabs if/when their list gets updated, because 20pts for those guys felt about right.
Fair enough, YMMV. I have always used them and had great results with them, personally.
I agree that crons will have problems with especially Knights. What made them so effective in the previous codex was the haywire- crypteks that were almost guaranteed a wrecked vehicle when they disembarked from a schyte with immortals/warriors.
I can’t find this effective way of eliminate super heavies in the new codex. A solution that could work is to lock a Knight with wraiths, a knight will only inflict 1-2 unsaved wounds per round.
Wraiths are a pretty reasonable anti-Knight tool; they strike ahead of the Knight, have a 3++ against it, and glance on 6s with multiple attacks. Not fantastic, but could be a lot worse. The rest of the codex is in similar shape against them- having lost Haywire, they don’t have any _amazing_ tools, but they do benefit from having a whole bunch of stuff that is decent (flyers, Gauss, Warscythes, etc.)
Zandrekh giving Tank Hunter (via a PEN Commander) to a bunch of Warriors is the best thing I’ve found so far. Even out of Rapid Fire range, that’s ~5 glances per turn, enough to give a Knight serious pause.
Shit, now I want a walking Necron army with Triarch, Ghost Ark, and D-Lord support. Two big units of 20 with a D lord in each, then a triarch in between and maybe heavy destroyers in front and a Ghost Ark behind.
That’s a solid core force that’s dangerous to pretty much everything in the game.
Question: do you think massive gauss is a good counter to Knights? Seems like facing entire armies that can glance you to death would be pretty tough to deal with.
Yeah, totally! I play Phalanx style Crons already, so for me, I am pumped! They and Scarabs will make short work of Knights.
Good point on the scarabs too. Wraiths aren’t going to be too shabby either what with S6 rending. Then again, there isn’t much that wraiths aren’t good at at this point. BEASTS?! Are you kidding me!?
I am thinking something like this at first.
40 warriors 2 crypteks, 12 wraiths, 3 barges, 1 ghost ark, 1 night scythe.
Wraiths are bananas. I love how GW can make them 40 pts with a straight face while tactical terminators are ALSO 40 pts. smh
Don’t forget that the Triarch Stalkers can now be fielded in squadrons. I can have 3 Stalkers in one slot AND two other Elite options?! Yes, please!
Reecius do you think Praetorians can use their Nightscythe? I am pretty excited about them if they can. I hope Games Workshop will FAQ this one.
It’s a weird oversight in that regard, but I’m not sure why they would want to use it. They can still only deploy 6″ out from it despite being Jump Infantry and they’re fast enough not to need it.
I only would like this as I can get Ghost Arks for my warriors and not use up my fast attack slots getting flyers. I guess occasionally picking them up late game and zooming across the board for a last second deploy.
Only problem there is that per RAW, you can’t actuall get back into a Night Scythe, doh!
Beam me up Scotty… arggggh
my Scythes are going to be updated with Ropes…
Lol, nice one!
How does RAW not allow you to get back into the Scythe?
pg. 80 BRB “transports on flying bases also count the base as an Access Point”
right below that: “A unit can embark onto a cehicle by moving each model to within 2″ of its Access Point in the Movement phase”
You cannot embark on a zooming flyer, the Night Scythe does not have hover mode, and the Invasion Beamer only says you can disembark, not embark.
bleh, that’s so terrible. =\ do you suppose that is intentional or just poor writing? “units starting their movement phase embarked” why not just write, units coming in from reserves embarked
Yeah, I don’t know what RAI would be in this case (although, we never know what RAI is, really). It seems weird, but they had to mean they could get back in, right? Maybe not? I don’t know.
From a strictly conceptual perspective, it makes a certain sort of sense that your magic teleporter beam only works one way. On the other hand, last edition you COULD re-embark on them and there’s obviously some other oversights at play (such as the aforementioned Praetorians), so it’s hard to say either way.
I would default to RAW when there isn’t a clear reason to do otherwise, though.
It could open a lot of possibilities as the scythe can carry up to 15 models.
great paint on that C’tan Reecius.
Thanks! Wish I was wrong, though.
Look at it This way, gw just took your ork ramshackle fun away and gave the randomness to ctans. That’s fun I tell you. Well it puts the f-u- in fun I guess…
The F-U in fun, lol!
As far as the C’tan go can’t you take the Exterminatus formaton with atleast 1 cryptek with the veil of darkness and then deepstrike them wherever you wanted whenever you wanted? Also with the god shackle he get’s T8 with a feel no pain roll of 5+ if you use 2 crypteks… Unless for some reason you still can’t deep strike him? That’s alot of points for 1 unit but probably worth it for the harassment alone.
On another note as if the new Crons weren’t good enough if you take the Memphrit dynasty as your dynasty you can reroll all 1’s for RP and I believe you also get a new warlord trait list but I can’t remember…
Rerolling 1s on RP only works for Troop units.
The C’tan formation is okay, though not amazing. It clocks in at ~420pts with the Godshackle, Solar Staff, and Veil of Darkness, which can be a lot of points to ask for a unit that isn’t THAT amazing in close combat.
I wasn’t referring to the rerolls being for this formation. I think the cost of the formation is high but if you deepstrike it into the backfield you force the other player to deal with it freeing up other units. I would use it just to harass and tarpit. Distraction Ctan :D!
I also forgot to mention that the Crypteks won’t be going anywhere either as they use the toughness of the Ctan which even unmodified is T7! Now with 2 wounds to boot!
Yeah, it is quite good! That Formation isn’t bad at all.
Can’t wait for part 3!
The wait is over! https://frontlinegaming.org/2015/02/06/necron-codex-review-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-part-3-fast-and-heavy/
Er… thanks.
“Can’t Wait for Part 4”
Would just like to toss in that the Nightbringer can possibly be worth it if you take him with the Conclave of the Burning One (although this is of dubious legality due to the edition changes) and then give one of the crypteks the Godshackles. It boosts the C’tan’s toughness to 8, which means that most guns in the game and dedicated assault infantry will be unable to hurt it, and due to the formation’s rules, the Crypteks are also now out of reach (as they will use the Shard’s toughness rather than their own).
Since the Crypteks are armed with a Staff of Light each, this means that the unit can put out insane amounts of firepower each turn. Basically anything within 12 inches might as well be dead. Since the Crypteks have their own RP roles and also grants the Shard a FnP roll, the unit can basically charge straight forward and nuke everything in it’s path.