A wise man once told me, “scoring easy Secondaries seems good”. That seems to be what Games Workshop was going for when they were re-writing the Necron Secondary Objectives in Warzone: Nephilim. Some faction Secondaries got strong, some got weaker, and some got everything they could have ever hoped for. The Necrons got points drops, the Core keyword on all Vehicles (to include the Silent King!), and a rework for their Command Protocols. None of these things are going to make Necrons an immediate contender like the buff they got in their Secondary game will.
Purge Vermin: This was always a staple of the Necron’s Secondary plans. Being a relatively slow moving army that relies more on being durable than spreading out units all over the board made this Secondary almost an auto-take since its release in the Necrons Codex. The Nephilim version of this Secondary has received a side-grade in that each table quarter your opponent is not in now only scores you 1pt, but there is now an added bonus point for having no enemies wholly within your deployment zone.
This Secondary is still an excellent pick into a lot of matchups, as Necrons really want to be holding down their side of the board more than ever with their upgraded Nephilim Secondaries. Engage got harder to score, Necrons are never taking Behind Enemy Lines, so Purge Vermin is going to be the go-to with looking in the Battlefield Supremacy slot.
Treasure of the Aeons: This was actually a pretty decent Secondary before, and now with the loss of Stranglehold it becomes extremely more powerful. Any faction that has a Stranglehold Light is going to be using those in almost every game and Treasure of the Aeons is no different.
The change that has made this Secondary an almost auto-take is now your opponent cannot choose the Objective in their deployment zone. This means in all of the missions there will be at least one Treasure Objective close to the Necron deployment zone. Just by holding one throughout the game you will score an easy 10pts! Putting just minimal effort into this Secondary is going to get you an excellent score, and short of killing you off the table their isn’t a lot your opponent can do about it.
Oh, and this Secondary is sitting in the No Mercy, No Respite category. Picking this easily scorable Secondary won’t mess up your plans to take other high scoring Secondaries. Kinda like the one below.
Ancient Machineries: Do an action on an Objective with a Core or Canoptek unit and get 4pts. The action finishes at the end of the turn if the Necron unit was ObSec. The entire Necron army is going to be ObSec. Seems ok.
On some missions this is going to be an immediate 8 points, and just remember you can still start this action with enemy models on the Objective. You just need to control it. Which you should with all that ObSec.
I actually think there are situations where Raise Banners is the better choice over this Secondary with the buffs to Banners, but I don’t think Necrons will ever score less than 8 on Ancient Machineries.
Code of Combat: This was always a tough Secondary for Necrons. Every Lord, with the exception of the Silent King, is kind of a joke when compared to the killing power of other army’s Characters. While the Silent King is perfectly capable of killing at least three units before he goes sometimes your opponent didn’t even need to remove the Silent King from the table to make him combat ineffective. Without the use of his Menhirs, and his degrading profile, a heavily wounded Silent King could turn this Secondary into a bad call.
However, now the Silent King gets the Core keyword, and he benefits from his own re-roll to hit in Shooting and re-roll to wound in melee aura. This makes even a heavily wounded Silent King a huge threat on the table. This, combined with the extra buff that now a melee kill with a Lord gives 4pts instead of 3, makes Code of Combat an extremely viable choice.
Overall: Necrons now have one of, if not the best, Secondary picks in the entire game. Some armies have two solid choices, and they plan to flex in something based off their opponent’s army. Extremely lucky armies have three choices they are comfortable picking in most games. Necrons have FOUR solid Secondaries that are spread throughout all different categories. It will not be a question of if Necrons have the scoring advantage in the Secondary game, it will just be a question how big of an advantage based on the Secondaries chosen.