You would expect an ancient civilization with the most advanced technology to have weapons that absolutely liquefies whatever they shoot at. Today, I’ll be reviewing a unit that carries this type of weapon into the battle, Necron Deathmarks. For other unit reviews and tactics articles make sure to check out Fronlinegaming’s Tactics Corner.
Deathmarks, like the name suggest, are designed to pick a unit anywhere on the board and kill that unit. Also with some cool special rules the can also give you a form of interceptor which Necrons can’t usually access. So let’s take a closer look at these ancient robotic snipers.
Overview:
A unit of five Deathmarks carry the basic Necron Immortals stat line plus an additional 5 points. Those 5 points buys you Deep Strike and some special rules. 5 points for Deep Strike and “baby interceptor?” Yes, please. You can take up to ten which is something to consider as you will want to make sure you maximize the damage this unit does when it lands. So for 180 points you will get a unit of 10 that can dish out a respectable amount of wounds and will need to be dealt with, not bad.
Wargear:
Deathmarks come with: Synaptic Disintegrators. Synaptic Disintegrators are the Necron sniper rifle. The have a range of 24” SX, rapid fire, ap 5, and the sniper special rule. Potentially 20 BS 4 shots that can be precision shots and ap 2 is nothing to sneeze at. More importantly this gun is designed to have synergy with Deathmarks’ special rules.
Special Rules:
Deep Strike, Reanimation protocols, Hunters from Hyperspace, and Ethereal Interception.
Reanimation protocols are well known and awesome. You can also take Deathmarks as a single unit auxiliary formation to a Decurion Detachment to take their resiliency up a notch.
Deep Strike allows you to drop this unit wherever you need it to pump out wounds against any high toughness non Gargantuan Creatures, like Wraithguard, bikes, and artillery.
Hunters from Hyper space is where these guys go from a harassing, annoying unit to putting out some pain. Hunters from Hyperspace makes all shooting attacks from the Deathmarks wound on a 2+ during the player turn the unit arrives from Deep Strike reserve. That is nuts. By the numbers a unit of 10 will do about twelve wounds to any non-gargantuan creature infantry model (two of which on average will be ap2). For reference that will take out a combat squad from the Skyhammer Annihilation Force in a single volley.
Ethereal Interception is basically “interceptor light.” If your Deathmarks are in Deep Strike Reserve, you can choose to immediately after any enemy unit arrives from Deep Strike Reserve using the rules for deep strike and fire at the end of the enemy movement phase at any unit that arrived from reserve that turn. While not quite interceptor this allows you to soften the blow of anything that plans to drop in and alpha strike you. Very cool when playing against units that deep strike!
Tactics:
Deathmarks are really straight forward to play with their Wargear and special rules. Put the unit into deep strike reserve and pick a target to drop a bunch of wounds on when you drop in. Another option is to simply drop them into your opponent’s backfield. The Deathmarks should make short work of any backfield objective sitters and now you opponent has to dedicate resources to killing the Deathmarks as your other units get closer. If your opponent chooses to ignore the Deathmarks, they will just continue to cause wounds to anything around it. Those are the type of choices I like to make my opponents make. If you are up against a drop pod army or War Convocation, put the unit into Deep Strike reserve and drop them in to intercept and blunt what ever bit of nastiness that is coming at you. Your Deathmarks won’t delete whatever you point at, but they will cause damage and can disrupt your opponent’s plans. Overall, I would say Deathmarks are not a must take unit or a never take unit. Deatmarks are just a solid choice from a solid codex for anyone wanting to add some individual spice to their Necron list.
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Interesting to see so many cool uses for this unit. I still really enjoy my Deathmarks although, I haven’t been putting them on the table as much, anymore. Although, I am curious, has anyone tried running MSU Deathmarks in the Decurion Detachment? You could take 10 units of 5 if you wanted to. That might actually be pretty sick, especially against a Drop Pod army or in general to drop them all over the table vs. opponents!
Wow, good point!
Yeah, I want to try it now! haha
I’ve done some MSU Decurion Deathmarks. It’s really pretty effective, but you have to make sure you get a lot of damage the turn they come in. After the 2+ wounding turn, they’re back to normal. Now, rapid firing sniper rifles on a durable body isn’t a bad thing, but it’s by and far not as effective as other things you could bring for the points.
That said, there’s nothing quite like dropping 5 units of 5 around the board and suddenly tearing a handful of units to shreds. While it’s tempting to shoot 2+ wounding at hard targets like Wraithknights, Stormsurges, or ‘Stars and force them to make lots of saves – I find they are much more useful to just guarantee kill lighter targets.
Mathed out, a unit of 5 in Rapid Fire range against a WK does about 1.5 wounds after saves and everything (even less if it’s in Ruins), so you have a chance of shooting one to death in a single turn… or you could use that shooting to basically guarantee a dead unit of Scatbikes/MSU Marines/etc.
I want to try using them more, for sure!
Also just the fact that they can be one of the cheapest Auxiliary Choices for the Decurion is pretty cool. I see them a lot in smaller Games just because of that.
As a note, these guys synergize very well with a Destroyer Lord. Since he’s Jet Pack, he can DS with them (even during Ethereal Interception!) and let them reroll 1s, making their BS4 and 2+ wounding even more deadly!
They also work quite well alongside Rod of the Covenant Praetorians and/or Destroyers. You could make a pretty decent Deep Strike army out of all of them. Sadly, no way to reduce scatter – but you’re DSing around guns that are AP2, AP3, or wounding on 2+ with Rend! That can be a very strong MSU/Beta Strike army.
Damn, nice! I had not even considered that combo.
When I read the Ethereal Interception special rule, it looks like it confers to the entire unit. If this is the case, then the Deathmarks could be joined by an independent character who also has deep strike, like a Destroyer lord. Preferred enemy would really help the 2+ to wound the Deathmark models get from the hunters from hyperspace spec rule.
Used to use this tactic with the old AP1 template Cyptek. Wounding on 2+ instead of comparing vs leadership made a huge difference and you could wipe high value solid armor save infantry off the table.
Damn, I seriously want to run an MSU Deathmark list, now! haha
Lol damn I really want to play Deathmarks now too! Just putting the finishing touches on a full maxed out Destroyer cult formation but the deathmarks will be up next!
Nice one! Let us know how it goes if you try it out.
Those gys put down a wraithknight with shield in one move! 😀 (Last weekend, Apocalypse, asset: precise co-ordinates) I let 3 units of 7 Deathmarks each deep strike within 12″ of the Knight.
Math: 3x7x2=42 Rapid Fire shots –> 28 hits –> 18dmg + 4dmg AP2 –> 6 + 2 unsaved wounds after Sv3+ and Shield 5+ ==> one dead WK.
378 points and all alive in the end of my turn. I like those gys! 😉