With the worst top finish of any major army at the BAO, I thought now would be a good time to go over what wrong with the necrons in 8th ed. I know a lot of people still have grudges against necrons from 7th ed, but we aren't that army anymore, so please keep an open mind. Hopefully by raising awareness of the issues with Necrons we can have a few quality of life changes made to tide us over until a codex.
Part 1 Tomb world deployment What do you call something that has the worst elements of summoning, transports, and deep strike, tomb world deploy. Necrons have 1 transport in this edition, and it only works for warriors at min unit size (a problem I'll go more into in a later post). This is on a faction that moves 5" and has super short range guns, we need ways to get across the battlefield, and we just don't have it. Instead of giving us transports, they gave us tomb world deploy, which for those unfamiliar with it, when setting up you pick units to deploy into tomb world reserves, and they can come in via night scythes invasion beam, or a monoliths eternity gate. Night scythes are fast and monoliths can deep strike so it seems like a winning tactic right? Well not really. It has a host of problems that make it worse than worthless, because we are paying for the right to have this worthless ability on two of our vehicles:
If you lose your portals, all of the units left in tomb world deploy count as casualties. With other transports you roll a die for each person on board and on a one remove them. So tomb world deploy is already way more risky than transports in other armies, and given how expensive the monolith and night scythes are you're unlikely to have more than one or two portals on the board.
All units in tomb world deployment have to be on the board by turn three or be removed as casualties. Other units can hide in transport waiting for the right moment to strike, necrons are on a clock from the word go, and will only have one or two opportunities to deploy before being removed as casualties.
Only one unit can go through a portal at a time. Other transports can disembark all of their passengers at once, not so with tomb world deploy. If you put an IC in tomb world deploy, he will take up an entire turn to deploy. Since you need to get units out of the tomb world as fast as possible, you don’t bring ICs. This means the troops coming out of the portal are generally left unsupported, which is a problem in 8th ed because of the reliance on HQ to buff infantry for them to be effective.
Disembarking from a portal happens at the beginning of the movement phase, so it will always be turn two or later before you can actually call units from the tomb world. Remember from one and two you are on a clock, because if you lose your portals all units die, if they are not deployed by the end of turn three they die then as well. So this makes a tight timeline nearly untenable. I know this is how other transports work but there is an additional rub...
Portals do not have the transport keyword, so disembarking takes up the units entire movement. It’s a real pain for our slow assault units who get out after having telegraphed where they are coming from (having deep struck or flown over the prior turn) and hoping the enemy hung around within 10” so that you can charge them.
We can not re-embark into tomb world deploy, once on the board necrons have to foot slog for the rest of the game.
So despite desperately needing something like tomb world deploy, you won’t see Necrons use it because it is a trap. This lack of mobility is one of the reasons the best necron player placed 46th at the BAO, armies with transports or deep strike can dance circles around necrons, and mobility allows enemies to take advantage of our other issues.
Part 2 weak offense Necron offense is weak in comparison to the armies we fight, not because our weapons suck (some do but I’ll get to that) but because we have very limited access to heavy weapons, and no access to special weapons. We also pay a premium for our heavier weapons, which often cost half again as much as imperial equivalents.
Our lascannon equivalent is available to exactly two units, Heavy destroyers who come in a max unit size of three, and the Triarch stalker a walker/light tank who can take a twin linked version. It is also seven points more expensive as a lascannon at 32 points with a shorter max range.
Our other big guns are a weapon with a d3 shots that can’t move and fire (doomsday ark), and a heavy weapon on a flyer with a minimum movement (doom scythe). If the DDA was on a space marine list it would never get a second glance because everyone would take quad las predators to fill the same role more effectively for less points and with better mobility. The doom scythe is about as expensive as a kitted out stormraven, and far less capable, having a worse save, lacking a machine spirit, transport capacity, or the ability to customize loadout.
The most common armament on our vehicles is something that is more or less equivalent to a high str hurricane bolter, an assault 8, S7, 0ap, 1D, that gets extra shots on sixes to hit. With the extra shots and out BS it work out to be about 8 hits for 8 shots. We have this on our light tank, our flyers and on our super heavies. Against anything with a decent armor save and toughness it hits like a wet noodle, with average rolls it might get a single wound through on predator or other toughness 7 vehicle.
Our best offensive unit is destroyers, who are armed with a grav equivalent (those things that got dropped like a gladius when 7th ed ended and no one ever looked back), it has a 24” range, Heavy 2, S5, ap -3, D3 damage. The low strength makes high toughness targets problematic, but it works well against heavy infantry. The problem is it cost almost as much as a lascannon (20 points), and destroyers cost as much an attack bike (43 points). They end up being more expensive and less capable versions of hell blasters.
Necrons have fixed weapon loadouts for the majority of our units, and with one exception they are all mono weapon units. So to change the target profile you are going after, you have to change your entire army composition. You can’t just load out on heavy bolters or lascannons, you literally have to take different units. This makes a necron TAC list hard to pull off, because each type of unit has it’s own support, for example destroyers need a destroyer lord, but destroyer lords are useless for for our troop choices. I’ll get more into my concerns about necron buffs in a later post though.
Part three repair protocols
Originally I had a long write up about RP, and it's lacks, but truth be told if you've gotten this far in this thread, you already know what the problem is. RP can be bypassed by using focus fire. Focus fire is generally what you should be doing in the first place, so you can get past RP by doing what you would have done anyway. I think the current RP rule is beyond salvage, they could make it a 2+ and it wouldn't matter in high levels of play. Since they can't buff it out, they'll have to replace it, and the other options are to go back to 5th ed RP, where you get one chance to come back, but can do so if your unit is wiped out, or 7th ed where RP is a FnP style save. Both of those options are stronger mechanically, but boring. I'm probably going to get myself into trouble with the other necron players, but it might just be best to leave it as it is. it's not a top notch ability, but getting us back to absurd levels of toughness doesn't do us any favors. There is a real opportunity here to bring us back into line with the other factions without turning us into the turtle faction. If we can have our mobility, offense and synergy (more on that in a second) brought into line with what other armies, we will be more fun to play and more fun to play against.
Part Four lack of synergy
Comparing mobility and weapons shows some areas where improvement is needed but it only tells part of the story. The least obvious problem with the Necrons is the hit or miss synergy between HQ units and the rest of the army. We have pretty lack luster buffs, as well some really questionable decisions on our independent characters. I'd spend some time on our special characters but they can be summed up by saying they don't add enough to their generic counterparts to justify their expense.
“My Will Be Done” is inferior to reroll ones that captains have, on the surface it appears to be better because it’s a 17% buff compared to reroll ones to hit being an 11% buff. The problem is that reroll ones is a six inch aura, and MWBD is one unit within 6”. So it’s not unreasonable for rites of command or what not to be affecting 3 or 4 units at a time, MWBD only ever gets one unit.
A destroyer lord has a reroll ones to wound aura, kind of like space marine lieutenants, but it only works on destroyers. So 90% of our units can’t use his aura, and at 315+ points per unit of destroyers, you are not getting much mileage out of that aura. It’s like having a buff that only affects attack bikes.
A cryptek has a 3” range on his two auras, he literally has to be within consolidation distance (and he has the weakest statline for an IC in the necrons) for units to benefit from his aura. I can’t even fathom who thought that was a good idea, it has to have been a leftover from a prior iteration of the rules that no ever one bothered to update.
“The Lord’s will” is a really weak buff, it allows you to reroll failed morale checks. The rub is we have army wide LD 10, so the only units that benefit from his aura are 10+ man strong units, which are immortals and warriors since praetorians are immune to morale. He also only saves about an average of one dude per morale check. He is so universally ignored by necron players that GW nerfed RP to try and make his aura useful, and now we have weaker repair protocols and we still don’t take him.
Well that's it for me, thank you for walking through this wall of text and listening to the issues another faction is having. Maybe we can raise some awareness and get some fixes, but at the very least it was pretty cathartic for me. As always I'd love to hear you ideas and comments.
What confuses me is that when you watch FLG talk about playtesting and all that they were saying that they were super scared necrons were going to be super OP. I wonder if they were seeing stuff we didnt, or that they had a different meta. Either way I really hope we get most of this addressed in our Codex, cus as of now were not in the best place. All of our fun tricks/combo's are prohibitively expensive, were slow as hell, have wonky/unusable transports, and our whole 'tough as nails' shtick isn't really a thing anymore.
Im not complaining overall, were not in a bad spot, even if everything stayed as expensive as it is now, and was just made workable id be content.
Feels like both Necron reserves and Daemon summoning were from an earlier build of the system. Completely out of sync with the other factions reserves mechanics.
Yeah, at least Daemon summoning can happen after turn 3, and can happen t1. Unless we sink another 240 points into a C'tan, we have 2 rounds to deploy our stuff, and then theyre stuck where they are that turn.
Necrons don't need transports, they need to teleport. They are the masters of time and space. Riding around in a metal bawks is for primitives. Remember the veil of darkness? That was a good item. But yeah, our mobility options are terrible now. Hopefully we'll get our traditional stuff back in the codex.
It's irritating how Necrons are supposed to be the masters of teleportation, and yet they seem far behind most other races in their ability to do so.
Also, just on the subject of transports, why is the Ghost Ark not open-topped?
"Oh no, how can we possibly see through all these weighty cubes of nothing?"
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Necrons don't need transports, they need to teleport. They are the masters of time and space. Riding around in a metal bawks is for primitives.
I wish someone had said this to Matt Ward back in 5th.
Agree with everything above, but I think it focuses on the negatives of Tomb world deploy, and mis-identifies the real reason Necrons are underpowered.
Tomb world deploy does have some advantages. First the models that allow for this are pretty good on their own (especially monolith at BS 3+). You get the benefit of deep striking closer than 9" from an enemy. Alternatively, if you think of the ability as a transport rule, you don't have to declare what unit is in what transport, adding some flexibility. I know this doesn't completely outweigh the disadvantages, but it helps. Alternatively, (or in conjunction) Necron players can just skip the Tomb world, and re-deploy some of their army using the Deceiver, or come in using deepstrike (flayed ones). If you deploy a monolith on the table, and redeploy it using the Deceiver, you can bring in a unit from the Tomb World right in the opponents face on turn 1. Some armies such as Ad Mech don't have any transports, and would love to have any of these options.
I think the Necron index was relatively well written, to a higher standard than many of the other indices, and this is currently its downfall. Someone else recently put a poll on the general discussion page asking for votes on the TOP THREE strongest units of 8th edition FOR THEIR POINTS COST.
No Necron units are on that list. Perhaps the Forgeworld Pylon is too good, I'm not sure. But I don't think anything in the Necron index is OP like the Guillimans, Conscripts, Kastellan robots, Celestines, Tempestus, Ynarri, and demons that other factions get.
So while players of other factions scoured their index to identify and maximize use of the most undercosted or overpowered units, Necrons players are/were stuck with a balanced index (which is perhaps 5-10% over priced across the board). But in an alternative reality where the top 20 undercosted units in the game had arbitrary 50% point increases, and a key model in the Necron army like the monolith was accidentally too good, I think Necrons would be performing just fine.
I have to disagree - I don't think the Necron book is particularly well balanced. It's just that it leans towards being underpowered rather than overpowered, so it doesn't stand out to non-Necron players as being an issue.
What's more, this is only likely to get worse given that codices are straight buffs to their respective armies. e.g. SMs got:
- New Strategies and Warlord Traits (fair enough).
- Free buffs for most of their units (sigh).
- Point drops across the board (and no increase for the criminally-undercosted Gilliman).
- A free relic for one model, and up to 2 more with CPs. (Really?)
In other news, I think that the nerf to RPs (in that they can't revive slain models) was completely unnecessary. Especially given that we're pushed to take maximum squads by the new RP rules and have no way to ignore Ld.
Tower wrote: First the models that allow for this are pretty good on their own (especially monolith at BS 3+).
I've seen "the monolith is good this edition" thrown out a few times. I haven't seen it. Certainly not for its points. For the second edition I'm playing my monoliths as Bastions because they have similar survivability, greater punch, greater range, and cost substantially less. I'd like to be able to improve their accuracy, but the extra foot+ of range and models I can get for the same price as a monolith make that an acceptable tradeoff. I'd also like a way to give the thing Living Metal, but that's mostly fluff because the monolith will at best heal 5-7 points in a game (usually ~3) and the extra point of toughness on a bastion reducing high-power hits generally shaves off at least that much damage.
The night scythe is a decent transporter, and as a flier has maneuverability and survivability. It still kills me, edition after edition, that the super-tech aliens have worse maneuverability than the Humans for less survivability and shots... but those are the choices that have been made.
Posted in the tactics thread but I'll post here as well. Necrons can be terrors of your local club but will likely be stuck at mid-table in a large event as they simply don't have the tools to beat most meta lists.
1) IG conscript spam with artillery. As Grimgold posted in OP, we don't have great board control for movement so screened artillery becomes untouchable. We also lack true horde control so enough bodies is simply a rock to our scissors.
2) Bobby G. We have nothing that can go toe to toe with him and it's not like you can just shoot him against a good opponent.
3) Flyers. Excluding the pylon we have straight up ziltch to deal flyers other than mass dice.
Look at the best BAO lists and what do you know, those things are top.
The other problem is the army itself in 8th.
1) Tesla destructors. Our main tank and plane weapon took a big hit in 8th. Strength 7 went from wounding most things on a 2 to a 3. Since it has no AP it is a worthless gun against anything other than infantry with would be fine if it wasn't positioned as our main anti-tank weapon.
2) No anti-flyer. As above, no dedicated anti-flyer means God help you against stormraven, hemlocks, or other flyers. Our own flyers are not good due to their weapon and gain no bonuses against enemies.
3) no psykers. Necrons, obviously, don't have any psykers which is fine except we lose out on a whole phase of the game. What's worse is that we also have no real psyker defense. This means we both lose buffing and offensive potential but also defensive options and makes armies like brimstone's spam with Magnus a pie in the sky army to beat.
4) Anti-tank. Tanks are back and bad in 8th which I think is great but the necron army didn't transition to 8th well in dealing with them. You can point to our summary and say oh, look at those awesome weapon profiles, what are you smoking!? But the problem is the platforms they are on are fragile and expensive. Heavy destroyers are 75pts for a single lascannon shot. Doomscythes have the death Ray's but will always be hitting on 4's. DDA are great so long as you can keep rolling well plus they have to sit still. Triarch stalkers are super fragile and very expensive at 181 points for just 2 lascannon shots.
None of this is to be construed as woes to the necrons but it does broach good discussion. Indeed, I this they have great internal balance but their external balance is pretty bad.
Yeah, the Monolith seems pretty terrible, even with BS3+. It's paying 19 points per wound with a 3+ save, no invulnerable save, and no Quantum Shielding. The lack of QS is an especially big deal because a Monolith will often be the only thing in your list that's worth shooting a lascannon at. It only spits out one unit per turn, and not on the turn it shows up, and then that unit can't move. Its weaponry is pretty pathetic for its cost and many things are going to be able to simply move away from it since it only shoots 24" and moves 6".
Likewise the Night Scythe is pretty sad. Against many targets, it shoots a lot like 4 Immortals. If not for the penalty to hit when moving, you'd basically always prefer it to be armed with a twin assault cannon instead. A Stormhawk is going to shoot better against basically everything and especially things with Fly, can hover, and is cheaper. I've not found its transport capacity to be at all worth it. You can't hope to drop something right in the enemy's face unless you bring more than one NS/Monolith, even though you don't actually intend to actually use all of them to call in reinforcements, but if you bring a lot of Night Scythes your opponent is just going to ignore them because they're a huge points sink for something that barely does any damage.
I agree with all the above.... except the anti tank. Somehow and somewhere lots and lots of people across multiple medias have gotten the idea that we dont have good anti tank.
Heavy destroyers and Doomscythes are our worst anti tank, and sure they aren't great. But everything else is very good. DDA, TA, SP, Pylon, aranthracites, tomb sentinel. All perform very well for their points cost.
I wouldn't give too much about tournaments. Just look at the ETC lists. They are incredibly boring and choose only 3 units out of each codex, sometimes less.
So the only problem of Necrons in a tournament setting is that they don't have any of these broken units. You know what? Out of all Chaos armies(9 Legions+Renegades+R+H+4Daemons) only one has access to Tournament units - namely Tzeentch daemons. Without Brimstones Chaos would be at the same point as Necrons, probably worse as Necrons has overall pretty cool units.
Necrons are totally okay in a casual setting, they simply lack broken units. And I think if that were the case for every army in 40K that game would finally be balanced .
Can you please share the full rankings? i can't seem to find them on google
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Sgt. Cortez wrote: I wouldn't give too much about tournaments. Just look at the ETC lists. They are incredibly boring and choose only 3 units out of each codex, sometimes less.
So the only problem of Necrons in a tournament setting is that they don't have any of these broken units. You know what? Out of all Chaos armies(9 Legions+Renegades+R+H+4Daemons) only one has access to Tournament units - namely Tzeentch daemons. Without Brimstones Chaos would be at the same point as Necrons, probably worse as Necrons has overall pretty cool units.
Necrons are totally okay in a casual setting, they simply lack broken units. And I think if that were the case for every army in 40K that game would finally be balanced .
Magnus + Knights is a good list, Daemon Princes are still good.
ETC was done before the FAQ that nerfed flier spam. So i would expect that meta to be very stale.
Knowing that the good stuff will come with the codex, here are my thoughts on a few quality of life changes that would make tombe world deploy not awful:
1.) If you lose your portals, make it so your units show up on your table edge, also with a 1 in 6 chance of dying. You pay for the versatility of using multiple entry points by not deploying where the transport died. 2.) Give portals the transport keyword, or an equivalent rule, so units can move after "disembarking". 3.) Make it so that the portal can deliver up to 1 IC and one unit per round, so characters are no longer bottlenecks. 4.) Have units in the tomb world not count as being in reserve, so they are not auto-murdered at the end of turn 3.
These four changes won't make tomb world deploy awesome, but will make it tolerable. To make it awesome and a faction defining ability here are some ideas:
A.) Make it so units can embark via portals into tomb world deployment. So a unit could enter via a monolith and exit the next turn via a nightscythe on the other side of the board. Fluffy and fun.
B.) Get rid of the dynasty keyword requirement, or make sure all of our units have a dynasty keyword. Some of our units don't have a dynasty keyword, and some of our HQ do not either, so they can't use tomb world deploy.
C.) Make portaling in happen at the end of the turn, if it's going to have the restrictions of deep strike, they could at least give us one of deep strikes advantages.Night scythe zooms up the board, and drops off a squad of lychguard. Who then could then possibly make a first turn charge.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @marmatag it's on BCP, but their site is more than a little arcane. Here is a direct link;
Note they withhold lists because they use them as a revenue source. So to see lists you have to have a subscription and to use their god awful mobile app.
vipoid wrote: It's irritating how Necrons are supposed to be the masters of teleportation, and yet they seem far behind most other races in their ability to do so.
Also, just on the subject of transports, why is the Ghost Ark not open-topped?
"Oh no, how can we possibly see through all these weighty cubes of nothing?"
Actually, the fact that you can't shoot out of it makes perfect sense now, as its assumed that the occupants are all undergoing critical repairs. They are simply too damaged to fight back.
Hence the rule that allows RP to work even though the embarked squad is not on the table. They clearly intend for you to embark a squad with a few models left onto the ark to protect it from fire whilst RP brings back a few.
And I like that. Its not perfect, but its better than the necron cosplaying raiders they were before.
Grimgold wrote: With the worst top finish of any major army at the BAO, I thought now would be a good time to go over what wrong with the necrons in 8th ed. I know a lot of people still have grudges against necrons from 7th ed, but we aren't that army anymore, so please keep an open mind. Hopefully by raising awareness of the issues with Necrons we can have a few quality of life changes made to tide us over until a codex.
What do you call something that has the worst elements of summoning, transports, and deep strike, tomb world deploy. Necrons have 1 transport in this edition, and it only works for warriors at min unit size (a problem I'll go more into in a later post). This is on a faction that moves 5" and has super short range guns, we need ways to get across the battlefield, and we just don't have it. Instead of giving us transports, they gave us tomb world deploy, which for those unfamiliar with it, when setting up you pick units to deploy into tomb world reserves, and they can come in via night scythes invasion beam, or a monoliths eternity gate. Night scythes are fast and monoliths can deep strike so it seems like a winning tactic right? Well not really. It has a host of problems that make it worse than worthless, because we are paying for the right to have this worthless ability on two of our vehicles:
If you lose your portals, all of the units left in tomb world deploy count as casualties. With other transports you roll a die for each person on board and on a one remove them. So tomb world deploy is already way more risky than transports in other armies, and given how expensive the monolith and night scythes are you're unlikely to have more than one or two portals on the board.
All units in tomb world deployment have to be on the board by turn three or be removed as casualties. Other units can hide in transport waiting for the right moment to strike, necrons are on a clock from the word go, and will only have one or two opportunities to deploy before being removed as casualties.
Only one unit can go through a portal at a time. Other transports can disembark all of their passengers at once, not so with tomb world deploy. If you put an IC in tomb world deploy, he will take up an entire turn to deploy. Since you need to get units out of the tomb world as fast as possible, you don’t bring ICs. This means the troops coming out of the portal are generally left unsupported, which is a problem in 8th ed because of the reliance on HQ to buff infantry for them to be effective.
Disembarking from a portal happens at the beginning of the movement phase, so it will always be turn two or later before you can actually call units from the tomb world. Remember from one and two you are on a clock, because if you lose your portals all units die, if they are not deployed by the end of turn three they die then as well. So this makes a tight timeline nearly untenable. I know this is how other transports work but there is an additional rub...
Portals do not have the transport keyword, so disembarking takes up the units entire movement. It’s a real pain for our slow assault units who get out after having telegraphed where they are coming from (having deep struck or flown over the prior turn) and hoping the enemy hung around within 10” so that you can charge them.
We can not re-embark into tomb world deploy, once on the board necrons have to foot slog for the rest of the game.
So despite desperately needing something like tomb world deploy, you won’t see Necrons use it because it is a trap. This lack of mobility is one of the reasons the best necron player placed 46th at the BAO, armies with transports or deep strike can dance circles around necrons, and mobility allows enemies to take advantage of our other issues.
These are fantastic points. Thanks for posting! Those are solid reasons why the army is having issues. They're not weak individually, but their lack of movement options in a game so centred on movement now is a real issue for them. I think that you're correct in that if Necrons could have 1 Character plus a unit come out of their Reserves, and/or could have units walk onto the board from their board edge like before if the transport is destroyed, and/or could hold units in reserve past the 3-turn limit, then they would have a lot more options to getting around. It'd be really cool to have their transports beam models back to the homeworld for a turn of repairs before coming back in.
As for their Reanimation Protocols, they're still very good (even moreso really, because it's forever), but they suffer the VERY REAL penalty of "wipe out the unit, and they never come back". Since it's so easy to shoot through and past units now, it's not hard to take them out. If you could more effectively hide and easily gain +1 armour due to cover, then the Necron Reanimation would be a lot stronger.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Actually, the fact that you can't shoot out of it makes perfect sense now, as its assumed that the occupants are all undergoing critical repairs. They are simply too damaged to fight back.
That makes even less sense.
So you have a completely undamaged unit of Warriors aboard it . . . who are far too damaged to do anything.
What's more, why then does it make a difference if you disembark them? Why is it that these warriors that are "too damaged to fight back" can just walk off and shoot normally? Is the Ghost Ark itself damaging them while they're aboard to pretend that it actually has a purpose? Or does it just offer free Wifi and they're too mesmerised by Youtube cat videos to do anything?
Eldarain wrote: Feels like both Necron reserves and Daemon summoning were from an earlier build of the system. Completely out of sync with the other factions reserves mechanics.
And drop pods. I'm usually a pretty anti-marine guy, but Drop Pods are absolutely DESPERATE for something to differentiate them.
They're 100 points. Allow the dropped unit to use flamers/meltas and have a decently assured chance at a charge. 100 points is totally fair for that, because that's an extra 100 points you have to kill with your alpha to stay relevant.
Eldarain wrote: Feels like both Necron reserves and Daemon summoning were from an earlier build of the system. Completely out of sync with the other factions reserves mechanics.
And drop pods. I'm usually a pretty anti-marine guy, but Drop Pods are absolutely DESPERATE for something to differentiate them.
They're 100 points. Allow the dropped unit to use flamers/meltas and have a decently assured chance at a charge. 100 points is totally fair for that, because that's an extra 100 points you have to kill with your alpha to stay relevant.
Yeah, I think the unit needs to be able to get a bit closer than 9". Maybe just over 6" (so 3" from the pod, if it landed just over 9" from the enemy).
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Actually, the fact that you can't shoot out of it makes perfect sense now, as its assumed that the occupants are all undergoing critical repairs. They are simply too damaged to fight back.
That makes even less sense.
So you have a completely undamaged unit of Warriors aboard it . . . who are far too damaged to do anything.
What's more, why then does it make a difference if you disembark them? Why is it that these warriors that are "too damaged to fight back" can just walk off and shoot normally? Is the Ghost Ark itself damaging them while they're aboard to pretend that it actually has a purpose? Or does it just offer free Wifi and they're too mesmerised by Youtube cat videos to do anything?
It does fall apart if you try to use it as a conventional transport. If you just use it as a repair boat and only put weakened squads in it, then it makes a little bit more sense.
They probably could have represented it better though.
As for their Reanimation Protocols, they're still very good (even moreso really, because it's forever), but they suffer the VERY REAL penalty of "wipe out the unit, and they never come back". Since it's so easy to shoot through and past units now, it's not hard to take them out. If you could more effectively hide and easily gain +1 armour due to cover, then the Necron Reanimation would be a lot stronger.
One thing I find a bit irritating is that it pushes you to use maximum squads. I used to like running MSU Necrons.
It does fall apart if you try to use it as a conventional transport. If you just use it as a repair boat and only put weakened squads in it, then it makes a little bit more sense.
Even then though, it still doesn't make sense. The warriors embarked on it are either dead (awaiting RPs) - in which case they couldn't fire even if it was open-topped. or they're fine, in which case there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to fire - especially when they can just get out and do so.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: They probably could have represented it better though.
On that at least we agree.
If it's meant to be a repair barge, then I don't think it should be transporting models at all (at least not in game terms). Instead, I'd let it give a better bonus to Warrior RPs (since they can be more quickly repaired and returned to service). Or perhaps have a mechanic by which it can collect warrior models whose squads have been completely wiped out (up to a maximum of 10), and respawn the squad after a turn or two.
In essence, if every model aboard is completely unable to fire then it has no business transporting models that are fully intact with no need of repair.
Klowny wrote: I agree with all the above.... except the anti tank. Somehow and somewhere lots and lots of people across multiple medias have gotten the idea that we dont have good anti tank.
Heavy destroyers and Doomscythes are our worst anti tank, and sure they aren't great. But everything else is very good. DDA, TA, SP, Pylon, aranthracites, tomb sentinel. All perform very well for their points cost.
It feels like a decision was made that every necron unit should do ONE thing really well and pay a premium for anything else. Unfortunately, that only works out for the glass cannons that can sit in the rear line and pelt away. The monolith becomes a big block of minimally mobile wounds that can flail at anything that cames into range and lingers. Close combat units have to contend with getting into melee if they have to cross board (generally) or have one shot at charging. Units that can move at good speed have had their close combat turned way down (scarabs and wraiths). And our fliers... can move really fast! Can't turn worth anything or deliver a great amount of firepower before rushing on really fast.
So, yeah, we have anti-tank. Assuming they don't bring artillery...
CthuluIsSpy wrote: They probably could have represented it better though.
On that at least we agree.
If it's meant to be a repair barge, then I don't think it should be transporting models at all (at least not in game terms). Instead, I'd let it give a better bonus to Warrior RPs (since they can be more quickly repaired and returned to service). Or perhaps have a mechanic by which it can collect warrior models whose squads have been completely wiped out (up to a maximum of 10), and respawn the squad after a turn or two.
In essence, if every model aboard is completely unable to fire then it has no business transporting models that are fully intact with no need of repair.
That's actually a pretty good suggestion. I too would be happy to turn the GA into a dedicated repair vehicle instead of a dedicated transport vehicle.
Appearance wise it doesn't even make sense as a transport. Where do the passengers go? There's broken necrons everywhere. Do they sit on the broken warriors?
vipoid wrote: It's irritating how Necrons are supposed to be the masters of teleportation, and yet they seem far behind most other races in their ability to do so.
Also, just on the subject of transports, why is the Ghost Ark not open-topped?
"Oh no, how can we possibly see through all these weighty cubes of nothing?"
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Necrons don't need transports, they need to teleport. They are the masters of time and space. Riding around in a metal bawks is for primitives.
I wish someone had said this to Matt Ward back in 5th.
The ghost ark fascinates me to no end. Logically, it's redundant. It offers zero value to the necron force strategically. It's entire value is tactical AND largely self-defeating/limiting, which makes no sense.
First, it's a transport, but for an army traditionally built around a phalanx or Napoleonic Gun-line that is intended to slowly advance while protected by heavy armor. Neither of these need transports. They need shields.
Second, it can repair warriors, but runs into problems whereby warrior squads are larger than the Ghost Ark's transport capacity. Which means you can use it in one of two ways, as either a transport or a repair barge, but not as both at the same time.
Third, it can ONLY transport necron warriors, which are the LAST necron unit you actually want to stuff into any kind of transport. You want to transport short-range or melee units. Warriors are mid-range non-melee. The only reason you'd ever want to pop a squad of warriors into a transport is to get them AWAY from an attacking CC unit, but if you do you run into the squad size conflicting with the ghost ark's repair barge issue. Also, why the restriction? Necrons DO have units you might want to stuff into a transport, assuming you're either not running a phalanx, or when the phalanx is simply supporting something else. The only problem here is that you can't. Immortals, Lychguard, etc cannot embark into a ghost ark. They can be repaired though...
Fourth, as pointed out, Necrons have teleportation mastered. Why the are they embarking on a physical transport in the first place?
Fifth, why isn't it open topped? When you could shoot units embarked inside an open topped transport, the ghost ark made a LOT of sense. As did running a min-size warrior squad. The ark carted them around and repaired them while they were embarked up to their max squad size, and the embarked troops helped extend the ark's lifespan by eating about half the fire the ark took. As a result you got roughly the same firepower of a 20-warrior squad, out of 10 warriors and their transport with the single limitation of being forced to split your fire because of the awesome-looking, but stupid, locations of the gauss flayer arrays. In exchange, the squad gained 6" of movement, could largely ignore terrain, and gained defenses against being charged because skimmers were usually more difficult to hit. But now it's not open topped? I'm assuming that's simply an oversight (it's additionally hurt by the total removal of rules related to dealing damage to a unit embarked in an open topped transport). They probably haven't FAQ'd it because nobody bothers to actually use the damn thing because they make no sense.
Seriously, get rid of the ark's transport capacity entirely, because it doesn't make any sense, and let it resurrect completely destroyed warrior squads or something. Call it "Phase Out Interception" or something.
Semi-related to the Ghost Ark, the doomsday ark sucks. Having finally seen it in a game, it's more expensive than a lascannon devastator squad, and brings less firepower to the table.
Also, the monolith has a lot of wounds, but is simply too expensive to field with all its limitations. I mean, it's a quarter of your army at 2000 points, and is far less scary than anything the imperial guard could field for the same points.
No offense, but could some of the problems Necrons are having be related to some players being stuck in the 7th Edition Decuri-Cron mindset and playstyle? 8th Edition is a whole new game, where durability isn't as important as melee power or mobility.
Pardon my ignorance, but it seems to me like taking Max-size units with Necron Warriors is a mistake. Necron units are LD10 across the board, and the minimum squad size for Warriors is 10. Instead of trying to max out Res Protocol potential for a single squad, wouldn't it make more sense to have two squads of 10 for the same cost? You have the same morale, can cover more Ground, and force your opponent to split their shooting or melee between the two options.
Can someone please share a link to the results which show them ranked 46th? It's not that I doubt that, I just want to see where Grey Knights, Blood Angels, and other factions measured up.
TheNewBlood wrote: No offense, but could some of the problems Necrons are having be related to some players being stuck in the 7th Edition Decuri-Cron mindset and playstyle? 8th Edition is a whole new game, where durability isn't as important as melee power or mobility.
Pardon my ignorance, but it seems to me like taking Max-size units with Necron Warriors is a mistake. Necron units are LD10 across the board, and the minimum squad size for Warriors is 10. Instead of trying to max out Res Protocol potential for a single squad, wouldn't it make more sense to have two squads of 10 for the same cost? You have the same morale, can cover more Ground, and force your opponent to split their shooting or melee between the two options.
You could, but if you go that route then why not just use Immortals? They're a little more expensive, sure, but they are more resilient, have much better guns, and are far less reliant on support units (Crypteks, Ghost Arks etc.).
That aside, Necrons Warriors literally have 2 advantages: durability and slightly better standard guns. Do you really want to ignore 50% of your advantages?
I mean, you can, but it seems like you'd be better off using that strategy with a different army.
To keep my suggestions separate from the issues list, here are my thoughts on improving necron offense. All of these together might be too much, but it will probably take a few of them to bring necrons up to par.
Reduce the points cost on a heavy gauss cannons to 25, It already has shorter range as a trade off for the extra AP, no reason for it to be 7 points more expensive. Reduce the cost on Gauss Cannons to 15, which will put it more in line with the grav gun, which it matches fairly well for capabilities.
Give doom scythes a machine spirit/gravimetric support, so they aren't always hitting 4+ with their main gun.
Tesla destructors need a buff to be useful. I'd start by giving it an ap value of -1, and upping the damage to 2. That should should make it a short ranged twin autocannon, which would fill a mixed target role that necrons need filled pretty badly.
The lack of special weapons in our infantry needs to be addressed somehow, we can probably use the same rule from feeder mandibles (always wounds on a 5+ even if the toughness is higher than or equal to twice the strength of the weapon) for gauss weapons to bring them some of the flexibility they are missing.
Give doomsday arks high power blast the macro keyword, given how little we have that works well against titanic enemies, it would be a good buff for our viability against them. It would also give it a reason to stand still, because a d3 lascannons shots hardly seems overpowered on the move when a predator can out out 4 for less points.
Give doomsday arks high powered blast a fixed number of shots as opposed to a D3. Probably 2 against targets smaller than 10 models, and 4 against targets with 10 or more models.The randomness makes it unreliable.
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TheNewBlood wrote: No offense, but could some of the problems Necrons are having be related to some players being stuck in the 7th Edition Decuri-Cron mindset and playstyle? 8th Edition is a whole new game, where durability isn't as important as melee power or mobility.
Pardon my ignorance, but it seems to me like taking Max-size units with Necron Warriors is a mistake. Necron units are LD10 across the board, and the minimum squad size for Warriors is 10. Instead of trying to max out Res Protocol potential for a single squad, wouldn't it make more sense to have two squads of 10 for the same cost? You have the same morale, can cover more Ground, and force your opponent to split their shooting or melee between the two options.
Offense taken, as soon as you have to justify your factions superiority over another army be saying L2P you have left the bounds of good conduct and fair minded debate. Surely if it were a question of skill someone, somewhere, would have made it work. that's not what the dakka results show, and that's not what the results from major tournaments show. So L2p is just a cheap shot and not helpful.
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Marmatag wrote: Can someone please share a link to the results which show them ranked 46th? It's not that I doubt that, I just want to see where Grey Knights, Blood Angels, and other factions measured up.
I linked it six posts ago, but I guess I should probably put it in the OP:
TheNewBlood wrote: No offense, but could some of the problems Necrons are having be related to some players being stuck in the 7th Edition Decuri-Cron mindset and playstyle? 8th Edition is a whole new game, where durability isn't as important as melee power or mobility.
Pardon my ignorance, but it seems to me like taking Max-size units with Necron Warriors is a mistake. Necron units are LD10 across the board, and the minimum squad size for Warriors is 10. Instead of trying to max out Res Protocol potential for a single squad, wouldn't it make more sense to have two squads of 10 for the same cost? You have the same morale, can cover more Ground, and force your opponent to split their shooting or melee between the two options.
Warriors give you a distinct wound advantage over your opponent if they try, and fail, to wipe out the squad. This is because with support from a cryptek and either a rez orb or a ghost ark, a squad of warriors will be able to negate 3/4ths of any wounds lost in the previous turn. This kind of result is more difficult with a smaller unit because the firepower required to wipe out ten models is half that required to wipe out twenty. Ten immortals lie somewhere in the middle depending on what you're pointing at them because of their better armor save, but we're generally talking about weight of wounds rather than AP values when we talk about firepower.
One metric of an army's staying power is the number of wounds they can put on the board. Basically, if your opponent's army is mathematically incapable of dealing more wounds than you can field before the game ends, you cannot be tabled. This gives you an advantage because it means that, tactically, you don't need to worry about positioning as much. It also means you can take more risks and not automatically lose the game if you fail.
Most armies that rely on weight of wounds to win do so by fielding hordes. Think Orks, Nids, and IG.
Necrons are capable of relying on weight of wounds through anti-attrition regeneration of models. A.K.A Resurrection Protocols. Where Orks, Nids, and IG need to field more models than their opponents from the very beginning, Necrons can do so by making their RP rolls with big units that hang "shoot me!" signs on themselves. This gives your opponent two choices: Shoot the warriors and risk failing to wipe out the unit (which wastes a lot of the firepower you just poured into them), or ignore them and go after the rest of their army (which leaves a full block of 20 warriors with gauss flayers running around the board unopposed).
You run max size warrior blocks because they have the best chance in the army of not getting blown off the board, and can still bring a LOT of firepower to bear.
The name of the game has always been target priority and eliminating whole units, as far back as when i got into it during 3rd edition because the most dangerous models in a unit are its special weapons and its sergeant. No one is being taken off guard or forced to jump through extra hoops to deny reanimation protocols, it's their plan A. We're being charged a premium in points for an ability that gets denied by the opponent simply pointing at the same unit twice instead of 2 units once.
Necron offense is weak in comparison to the armies we fight, not because our weapons suck (some do but I’ll get to that) but because we have very limited access to heavy weapons, and no access to special weapons. We also pay a premium for our heavier weapons, which often cost half again as much as imperial equivalents.
...
Necrons have fixed weapon loadouts for the majority of our units, and with one exception they are all mono weapon units. So to change the target profile you are going after, you have to change your entire army composition. You can’t just load out on heavy bolters or lascannons, you literally have to take different units. This makes a necron TAC list hard to pull off, because each type of unit has it’s own support, for example destroyers need a destroyer lord, but destroyer lords are useless for for our troop choices. I’ll get more into my concerns about necron buffs in a later post though.
I'm 110% with 90 plus percent of what you're saying. This makes me pause though, because necrons should, by design, be mostly mono-build at just about everything but the HQ level. Specialist weapons is as (or more) thematically inappropriate to Necrons as a boost to overall army speed.
Intuitively, this requires that mono build be better at everything than the general baseline without pushing over into the range of specialization. However, what this actually does is put the entire army into a wasteland where everything is capable at doing a task its put to but the entire army becomes incapable of dealing with an army of specialists. And, of course, all of this is done with slow movement and short range. One of the sets of handcuffs needs to come off.
The most thematically appropriate boost to necrons is always surviveability but, in a game with a max number of turns, you can't survive someone to death. Which brings us back to those mono/minimal-builds. Each needs to push past the power of "generalist weapons" and into "low-end specialist weapons" while staying out of the premium costs that many of our "multitools" (monolith) have gotten hit with and staying in manageable costs.
Klowny wrote: What confuses me is that when you watch FLG talk about playtesting and all that they were saying that they were super scared necrons were going to be super OP. I wonder if they were seeing stuff we didnt, or that they had a different meta.
They're biased liars. Have you never met or observed them?
Actinium wrote: The name of the game has always been target priority and eliminating whole units, as far back as when i got into it during 3rd edition because the most dangerous models in a unit are its special weapons and its sergeant. No one is being taken off guard or forced to jump through extra hoops to deny reanimation protocols, it's their plan A. We're being charged a premium in points for an ability that gets denied by the opponent simply pointing at the same unit twice instead of 2 units once.
I'm also curious as to whether RP is actually significant for most units.
From what I've seen, most units just don't get much benefit out of it. It's usually only a 1/3 chance and only Warriors exceed 10 models - so most other squads, when maxed out, need to lose all but one guy in order to get back a measly 3 models (and the odds of being left with 1 guy in the first place are pretty damn low). In essence, aside from Warriors with a ton of support, you rarely ever get back enough models for it to have a meaningful impact on the game.
I think RP might be more useful for other units if there was a way of coming back from getting wiped. Things like that existed in the 3rd ed codex; if you had a spyder and another squad of the same type, you can make WWB rolls for a unit even if they are all dead, iirc. They could do something similar, where if a squad is wiped, but if there's another squad of the same type nearby, you can still attempt RP rolls. If no models come back then they stay dead.
Klowny wrote: What confuses me is that when you watch FLG talk about playtesting and all that they were saying that they were super scared necrons were going to be super OP. I wonder if they were seeing stuff we didnt, or that they had a different meta.
They're biased liars. Have you never met or observed them?
I don't know if that's fair, Reece and crew have a pretty obvious love for the hobby, and FLG has done great work in popularizing it. I disagree with Reece on a lot of things (like keeping the faction scores from 7th ed instead of doing a soft reset), but he has a good head for game balance. So I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
There are also a few things to keep in mind, FLG was probably playing with a bunch of finished or mostly finished codexes, so the balance as we see it now is not how they played the game during the testing phase. They might have switched over to the current meta before launch, but by then it was too late to do anything about it. Also Reece was not on board with at least some of the changes they made, like determining who goes first by who has the fewest drops as an example. So it's a bit unfair to beat up on Reece and the other TOs that were involved in testing, when they didn't have final sign off on anything, and obviously had some of their suggestions rejected out of hand.
There is also a sample size problem, I'd be impressed if there was 1,000 test games played during the final six months of prep. The community probably blew past that number within days of launch, so of course the community spotted things the testers didn't. A thousand isn't that many games per faction either, 100 or so, and you can bet certain factions got more test than others. Those games were also spread out through multiple TOs and their staff, so it's unlikely that any one player got the kind of experience with a faction that regular players have gotten since release. The 1,000 theoretical games played to test were probably done in an iterative design process, so the first games were probably very different than the last ones, which also makes getting balance right as well. I'm willing to give GW and their testers some slack, what they are trying to do is hard, and it was made much harder by the small size of their test group.
The final point is that even with the problems with 8th ed, it's still more balanced than 7th ed was at any point. Don't get me wrong I'm annoyed that Necrons got hosed, and that there seem to be lots of obvious issues that slipped through. However the difference between necrons and the current top armies is a fraction of the gulf between Gladius lists and Orks in 7th ed.
I'm also curious as to whether RP is actually significant for most units.
From what I've seen, most units just don't get much benefit out of it. It's usually only a 1/3 chance and only Warriors exceed 10 models - so most other squads, when maxed out, need to lose all but one guy in order to get back a measly 3 models (and the odds of being left with 1 guy in the first place are pretty damn low). In essence, aside from Warriors with a ton of support, you rarely ever get back enough models for it to have a meaningful impact on the game.
I've found that it's significant for Warriors, Lychguard, Praetorians, and Tomb Blades. The other three are limited to 9 or 10 models, but they have two wounds each, so your opponent still has to chew through 18 or 20 wounds to wipe the squad. You get fewer RP rolls, but each one you make brings back two wounds instead of one. Most armies in pick-up games are going to struggle to take out a whole squad in a turn if you can give them an invulnerable save.
Actinium wrote: The name of the game has always been target priority and eliminating whole units, as far back as when i got into it during 3rd edition because the most dangerous models in a unit are its special weapons and its sergeant. No one is being taken off guard or forced to jump through extra hoops to deny reanimation protocols, it's their plan A. We're being charged a premium in points for an ability that gets denied by the opponent simply pointing at the same unit twice instead of 2 units once.
I'm also curious as to whether RP is actually significant for most units.
From what I've seen, most units just don't get much benefit out of it. It's usually only a 1/3 chance and only Warriors exceed 10 models - so most other squads, when maxed out, need to lose all but one guy in order to get back a measly 3 models (and the odds of being left with 1 guy in the first place are pretty damn low). In essence, aside from Warriors with a ton of support, you rarely ever get back enough models for it to have a meaningful impact on the game.
With units like destroyers getting T5 and 3 wounds, getting everyone but that last guy blown off the board happens more than you might think.
Necrons also have a huge advantage over units like an Marine Apothicary because when a model comes back, it comes back at full wounds. So if you have a unit of 5 destroyers, you lose 4 and the last guy has 1 wound left, making 3/4 RP means that unit just got +9 wounds.
The unit that probably benefits the least from RP is Immortals. 10/unit max @ 1W per model, and all they get over warriors for +6 ppm is +1 sv and +1S/-1AP on their gun unless they replace them with Tesla. They're great from a "punch you in the face" context, but they don't take incoming fire very well. IMO, they were way better when they had T5 like destroyers.
Part of the issue is...your units pay for the "survivability" of your units via stats and/or rules.
Though you have nothing to throw aside morale issues, you also aren't running masses of leadership 7 or lower units.
Both of these are things other factions do have to accommodate to one effect or the other.
Taking what I've seen in this thread one thing I would see is why not take Arks, remove the transport completely but allow them to RP wiped units (taking ideas stated from Vi and Spy) if within a certain radius.
Portals I believe need to allow (as the TC stated) units to be deployed like other armies if all portals are closed off as well as allowing them to re-embark and then disembark at any other portal.
I.e. come out of a Nightscythe, once done there hop in and pop out a Monolith on the other side of the board with the same unit. Different enough without it being the same as a normal transport.
I do hope Crypteks get something unique to them and not jus "Psykers but not psykers"...always felt they (and Dark Eldar) considering their factions would cater more towards heavy negative psyker toys (along with Nids not being able to suffer perils).
I know Crons have expanded a lot over the years but they really hurt for unit variety compared to say Eldar or Space Marines. Outside of adding new units I feel your destroyers should become your go to anti-air platforms (though able to be kitted for vehicles or infantry for flavor).
Hopefully your book fixes or addresses some of these. You've been knocked down quite a few pegs from last edition but now that their are not the Decurion's as a crutch its even more obvious crons hurt for variety as you have a lot of redundancy in your faction.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Necrons don't need transports, they need to teleport. They are the masters of time and space. Riding around in a metal bawks is for primitives.
Remember the veil of darkness? That was a good item.
But yeah, our mobility options are terrible now. Hopefully we'll get our traditional stuff back in the codex.
This is so true. I don't have my Necron army any more, but I played them in 4th and they were the fastest army in the game with all their teleporting. It would be great to see that again.
Necrons seem to be better at low point level armies. Maybe 1000 points or less. Once you hit 2000 points, where other armies can bring in super heavies, multiple heavy support and such, then Necrons disadvantage as per what OP posted will start to show up more and more.
At 1000 points, at most you are beaming in one or two units.
cavebear56 wrote: Part of the issue is...your units pay for the "survivability" of your units via stats and/or rules.
Though you have nothing to throw aside morale issues, you also aren't running masses of leadership 7 or lower units.
Both of these are things other factions do have to accommodate to one effect or the other.
Taking what I've seen in this thread one thing I would see is why not take Arks, remove the transport completely but allow them to RP wiped units (taking ideas stated from Vi and Spy) if within a certain radius.
Portals I believe need to allow (as the TC stated) units to be deployed like other armies if all portals are closed off as well as allowing them to re-embark and then disembark at any other portal.
I.e. come out of a Nightscythe, once done there hop in and pop out a Monolith on the other side of the board with the same unit. Different enough without it being the same as a normal transport.
I do hope Crypteks get something unique to them and not jus "Psykers but not psykers"...always felt they (and Dark Eldar) considering their factions would cater more towards heavy negative psyker toys (along with Nids not being able to suffer perils).
I know Crons have expanded a lot over the years but they really hurt for unit variety compared to say Eldar or Space Marines. Outside of adding new units I feel your destroyers should become your go to anti-air platforms (though able to be kitted for vehicles or infantry for flavor).
Hopefully your book fixes or addresses some of these. You've been knocked down quite a few pegs from last edition but now that their are not the Decurion's as a crutch its even more obvious crons hurt for variety as you have a lot of redundancy in your faction.
Thanks for the feedback, as for paying for toughness I agree that's the goal, but currently I don't think we are getting our money's worth out of it. Necron strategy has always revolved around turtling and grinding our opponent down through attrition while we limited our own attrition via RP. However with repair protocols being able to be bypassed we are at a disadvantage in high levels of play. Before RP we are no tougher than space marines for most of our units, and even our tougher units are in the realm of space marine bikes. So if someone knows how to fight us, they will find us no more difficult to kill than space marines.
My concern is that the current RP rule is beyond salvage, you could make it a 2+ and it would change very little against good opponents. So we can't buff it out, and instead have to supplement or replace the rule. I'm hesitant to go back to the days of RP being a FnP style save, one because deathguard are already camping on that particular niche, and two because it was dreadfully boring. We could go back to fifth ed style RP where you just had to be close to another unit, but only get one chance to come back, however that had it's own challenges. If anyone has a good idea I'm all ears.
Additionally, our infantry guns have lost their oomph. 20 warriors dont scare much anymore, sure the -1 rend is okay but I cant put my finger on it, our lethality across the board just isnt what is was in 7th. I know comparing the two editions is frivolous, and we were very strong in 7th. But now, we dont have the durability we once had *and that was meant to be our whole army identity* and we dont pack the offensive firepower we used to have, meaning were a slow, weak, and fragile army.
My cron's are undefeated atm but in no part due to my armies strength, I just have been lucky to avoid tablings/outscored/played the game better than my opponents.
My most cherished unit in 7th was Tomb Blades, and while they still are good this edition, even they have lost some of their damage, while also costing around 500 points for a squad of 9.
We got the better end of the stick in the FW index, but our main index is very far down the ladder.
Currently we are paying a heavy premium for literally nothing. We have a damage output akin to a horde army, yet we have the body count of an elite army. Either they want us to be a more silver tide army (very boring IMO) and have a substantial points decrease across the board, or they keep the identity they've always had of an elite army and give us our damage back. Giving us a -1 increase on our rend to compensate for us losing gauss isn't enough. If str, rend and damage were all increased I can see it being more viable, but again I dont know how far over the edge that would push us.
Added final sections to the OP, I hope the right people see this and we can get some QoL changes, but I'm almost as happy if someone walks away from this thread with a better understanding of where the necrons are at. Good night Dakkadakka.
What about resurrection orbs? Could make them bring any RP eligible unit back to full strength, wiped or not. And have it be slightly more expensive and available to lords and overlords. It adds a tactical element in that the bearer can chose when and for whom to use it, so it's not a boring, given dice roll.
It would be very thematic.
Spoiler:
Exactly as depicted in 'Dead man walking' where the Krieg army succeeded in holding back the necron forces only to have the necron warlord walk on to the battlefield with a mysterious green orb and suddenly every slain necron started rising, molten metal poring together to reshape fallen warriors.
This is kind of a radical 4AM change to RP but I figured I'd put it down anyways:
When a unit of Necrons is completely destroyed, roll a d6. On a 4+ (3+ with cryptek) some of the Necrons reanimate. Roll a d3 for every 5 models in the unit and return that many Necron models to the unit.
I like this because it scales with unit size, making MSU Necrons not completely useless. The concept of infinitely reanimating Necron models might be too ridiculous though.
I've read the updated OP.
RP are fine. You don't pay any points for one of the strongest faction abilities. I'd like to trade Death to the False emperor with you. Or ATSKNF.
Of course, Focus fire is sth. everybody does. However, against other factions you don't necessarily HAVE to. Against Necrons you have to wipe out every single model of every unit (once they run out of CP you might be lucky with a bad morale roll, but at that time usually not enough is left to bring a Necron unit down to roll in the first place). If you don't, your shots are wasted. If you kill one hellblaster, it's dead. If you kill one Plasma-chosen, it's dead. If you kill one one lychguard - haha, I'm back again.
I agree on the weapons. Necrons lack heavy weapons. They kill infantry better than anyone else, but they struggle against multiwound models and vehicles. I'd guess they'll update destroyers with a new codex eventually, as these are very old (yet expensive) models. Lychguard are one of the best CC units in the game but they are rather slow to catch vehicles.
torblind wrote: What about resurrection orbs? Could make them bring any RP eligible unit back to full strength, wiped or not. And have it be slightly more expensive and available to lords and overlords. It adds a tactical element in that the bearer can chose when and for whom to use it, so it's not a boring, given dice roll.
It would be very thematic.
Spoiler:
Exactly as depicted in 'Dead man walking' where the Krieg army succeeded in holding back the necron forces only to have the necron warlord walk on to the battlefield with a mysterious green orb and suddenly every slain necron started rising, molten metal poring together to reshape fallen warriors.
Heh, sounds like they read the 3rd ed necron codex. That is exactly what happened there; a bunch of necrons got liquefied by some IG tanks, and just when they thought it was over a lord just walked up, activated the orb and all the necrons just came back.
The newer orbs are boring. The ones in 3rd and 5th ed were more interesting.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sgt. Cortez wrote: I've read the updated OP.
RP are fine. You don't pay any points for one of the strongest faction abilities.
You do, actually. Its built into the model's cost, same as every other special rule.
Heh, sounds like they read the 3rd ed necron codex. That is exactly what happened there; a bunch of necrons got liquefied by some IG tanks, and just when they thought it was over a lord just walked up, activated the orb and all the necrons just came back.
The newer orbs are boring. The ones in 3rd and 5th ed were more interesting.
Agreed. I'm really not a fan of them being one-use-only. It was always supposed to be a constant aura (not just a single pulse). What's more, I dislike how they've become progressively worse:
- First they affected all units in a 6" bubble.
- Then they only affected a singe unit.
- Then It could only be used once per game (but could be used retroactively after failing a lot of RP saves and protected you and the unit for the remainder of that turn).
- Now it's just a once per game item.
I think part of the problem is Crypteks - which have basically replaced Resurrection Orbs and forced them to change. Whereas, in fact, Resurrection Orbs should have stayed the same and Cyypteks should have a role that doesn't muscle in on preexisting artefacts.
Otherwise, if Resurrection Orbs have to be once-per-game items, could their effect perhaps be a little more impressive? Something more than getting a few extra dudes back?
I'm not a Necron player but there are a few I play against and have watched in other matches - this is what I've noticed.
Necrons are really solid until the Imperial Knights hit the table.
Necrons simply don't have what it takes to cut down an Imperial Knight, if the dice don't roll their way a Necron force can unload six turns of shooting on a Knight and not manage to even scratch it, nor can they afford to ignore it.
While a good Necron player can stand strong against the meanest Daemon, Tyrannid and SoB cheese as soon as the first IK hits the table the best Necron player is up the proverbial creek against all but the most incompetent opponent. I'm not sure how they fare against other Apoc level stuff but I know one Knight will stomp even the most specialised to fight a Knight Necron army into the ground.
I do have to say that I hope some of this is fixed with things that are pretty much automatically going to happen with a Codex (whatever year that happens, being not-imperium.)
Some things I've kicked around that would make some of this interesting and useful;
Stratagems
Spoiler:
Shiny and Chrome *cp A Necron unit with the either the Living Metal or Reanimation Protocols rules regains a number of wounds lost earlier in battle equal to the CP spent.
With Dark Aeons 2 cp Choose 1 necron infantry model slain earlier in battle. If the model had a Resurrection Orb or if there is a model with a Resurrection Orb within 3" of its last location you may place the model as close to its previous location as possible with 1 wound remaining. You cannot replace a model if there are enemy models within 3" of its previous location.
We'll Be Back 1 cp You may take one infantry unit from the table and place it on your tomb world, as if it were set up there during deployment. You can make Reanimation Protocols rolls for any slain models from units embarked on our Tomb World, even though these models are not on the battlefield.
Of course, that last requires making the Tomb World a transport capacity rather than a reserves thing, which would fix a whole list of problems including the round 3 reserves cap and the super-slow disembarkment.
This edition gauss weapons took a big nerf due to mechanics changes.
A roll to wound of 6 use to always wound or always cause a hull point damage. The change to the wounding mechanic gave the auto wound of 6 to everyone else making that part of their special rule meaningless, and vehicles changed to wounds removing auto removing hull points as well as getting far tougher.
I would like to see the gauss rule become a wound roll of 6 becomes a mortal wound. It will increase all gauss weapons by a modest amount, is fluffy and addresses another weakness with necrons in their ability to apply mortal wounds.
I would also like to see an addition to rp that if the entire unit is destroyed rather than no rp they get an unmodifiable rp of 6. Before anyone scream they would never die, no but they would only get 1-3 back on average (1 if any for destroyers, 1-2 for 10 model units and upto 3 for warriors. Not a huge hassle to keep contained but addresses the issue of ignoring our rp. This could also be applied to characters (rp on a 6) to remove the illogical un fluffiness of having no rp while all lesser infantry do
For our mobility i would like to see the veil of darkness re added, its use to be able to remove the overlord and a unit within x inches at the start of the movement phase and place more than 9" from an enemy unit. Sill able to move ideally. But as an item that is multiuse, not a 1 use relic.
6+ after wipe might be OP (should still award kill points even if they come back), but it's nice in the way that it doesn't force the hand anymore, of both players.
Necron players bring maxed units to get value of RP, and enemies are forced to kill all to negate it. If they are allowed to reappear on 6+ (perhaps only once?) that would still be a worry for enemies but they would be less forced to wipe every last unit and we'd be less forced to maximize every unit
Marmatag wrote: Can someone please share a link to the results which show them ranked 46th? It's not that I doubt that, I just want to see where Grey Knights, Blood Angels, and other factions measured up.
I linked it six posts ago, but I guess I should probably put it in the OP:
And WOOT! Grey Knights had someone at 49! We got one in the top 50!!!! Yeah he was running conscripts in a GK list, but who cares, top 50 is so much better than i expected.
Marmatag wrote: Can someone please share a link to the results which show them ranked 46th? It's not that I doubt that, I just want to see where Grey Knights, Blood Angels, and other factions measured up.
I linked it six posts ago, but I guess I should probably put it in the OP:
And WOOT! Grey Knights had someone at 49! We got one in the top 50!!!! Yeah he was running conscripts in a GK list, but who cares, top 50 is so much better than i expected.
True but grey knights get the next codex after chaos, so things are probably looking up. As for the necron codex, I'm sure it won't be as long as the necrons were asleep for, but it might feel longer.
I think our offense is actually pretty okay as is, but the entire theme of the army is its durability and it's less durable than conscripts or horrors. Reanimation is pretty clean and fun and thematic as it is (well except that whole fleeing faq thing) but if the army has to rely on it so much there needs to be ways to interact with it from the necron player's side. There's currently nothing you can do aside from taking maximum squad sizes to play to your strengths, so the entire efficacy of rp is up to the opponent and not yourself. If we could proactively do something in game to stop the last models from being wiped out like if lychguard could block attacks for anyone or if rez orbs were a thing you could use in response to losing a model during the opponent's turn or something, if you could do anything to CHOOSE to live as opposed to sometimes getting lucky and having the opponent roll cold and leave 1 guy alive maybe it would feel much better.
Marmatag wrote: Can someone please share a link to the results which show them ranked 46th? It's not that I doubt that, I just want to see where Grey Knights, Blood Angels, and other factions measured up.
I linked it six posts ago, but I guess I should probably put it in the OP:
And WOOT! Grey Knights had someone at 49! We got one in the top 50!!!! Yeah he was running conscripts in a GK list, but who cares, top 50 is so much better than i expected.
True but grey knights get the next codex after chaos, so things are probably looking up. As for the necron codex, I'm sure it won't be as long as the necrons were asleep for, but it might feel longer.
Honestly I sympathize with you. It's good knowing we're in the same ball-park. Necrons had a 40% win rate at the BAO, Grey Knights had 38%.
Let's soak in the hot tub of misery together! I hope that (a) my codex is awesome and (b) your codex is awesome, and that we can all compete with Imperial Guarddar
I mentioned before that I expect some of the weakness Necrons are experiencing right now might fade when our codex drops. One of the things that we should get from that is Dynasty abilities, which can reasonably be expected to look like the Chapter Tactics that Space Marines are already rolling around with.
Reviewing a few of those that seem necron-appropriate or specific dynasty appropriate;
6+ FNP +1 saves from >12"
reroll charges (lychguard-heavy dynasty)
Morale damage (the night lords ability seems perfect for the Maynarkh)
Reroll hit or damage once for each unit (Salamanders ability, fits a couple options, including the Mephrit, d-arks have dynasties...)
Thinking about how some of these will synergize with what we already put on the table gives me some hope.
Slightly off topic but dynasties have been mentioned - anyone think the Charnovokh will get rules? I was surprised when they were mentioned in the rulebook, always thought they were just a small not really developed dynasty just for variety but have seen them pop up a few times and now in the 8th rulebook...gets my hopes up.
Klowny wrote: Additionally, our infantry guns have lost their oomph. 20 warriors dont scare much anymore, sure the -1 rend is okay but I cant put my finger on it, our lethality across the board just isnt what is was in 7th. I know comparing the two editions is frivolous, and we were very strong in 7th. But now, we dont have the durability we once had *and that was meant to be our whole army identity* and we dont pack the offensive firepower we used to have, meaning were a slow, weak, and fragile army.
My cron's are undefeated atm but in no part due to my armies strength, I just have been lucky to avoid tablings/outscored/played the game better than my opponents.
My most cherished unit in 7th was Tomb Blades, and while they still are good this edition, even they have lost some of their damage, while also costing around 500 points for a squad of 9.
We got the better end of the stick in the FW index, but our main index is very far down the ladder.
Currently we are paying a heavy premium for literally nothing. We have a damage output akin to a horde army, yet we have the body count of an elite army. Either they want us to be a more silver tide army (very boring IMO) and have a substantial points decrease across the board, or they keep the identity they've always had of an elite army and give us our damage back. Giving us a -1 increase on our rend to compensate for us losing gauss isn't enough. If str, rend and damage were all increased I can see it being more viable, but again I dont know how far over the edge that would push us.
Note: I ended up going on a rant. Sorry.
eh, I wouldn't say that warriors, or gauss flayers, are bad. The -1 ap is huge as long as you're not in a cityfight.
I think that the necron army is incomplete. They've got all these special characters, and that's it. Also, their unclear transport rules are a huge disadvantage. I don't have my books in front of me, but I think people might be misinterpreting how the night scythe and monolith portal work. Or, at the very least, they way they run by the RAW aren't how they're supposed to work by the RAI. They way they're written, you're never actually embarked on your transport, so it's exactly like deepstriking, with the idea that Invasion Beams can put you on the board with a LOT less restriction than normal deep strike (3" from enemies rather than 9", which is a trivial charge). Sure you can't move after you come onto the board, but the idea is that you shouldn't have to. If anything, the invasion beams should have a longer range. Especially given how vulnerable necrons tend to be if they have more than one or two units in portal reserve. Goes double if they're using a monolith as a backup portal because of how expensive the freaking thing is.
IMO, Necrons, Nids, and Orks need varied codicies that all specialize in different ways of waging war. The armies also need to be shown making a difference in the universe. They need to wage war against not just the imperium, but also each other. And they also need to take large actions that shake the rest of the galaxy because, as it stands, the only armies that get to do that are the imperium and chaos. Everyone else gets left out.
If you want to know why *I* think necrons are in 46th place, it's because they're in the GW Xenos-trap. They're not a well-developed army with multiple grand strategies available to them. They're a one-trick army (Damage resistant phalanx) with a shallow bag of options and variation (deep strike deploy with portals and/or the Deceiver, or mobile melee flankers with wraiths and paretorians).
The detachment system fixes some of this. All destroyers and tomb blades? You can do that.Godzilla list? You can do that too.
However, this is only a partial fix. Space marines are an extremely healthy army, and they almost have more elite choices than Necrons have non-character units across their entire army.
Why does this matter? It matters because small armies like Necrons suffer more from bad rules and units than more healthy armies. If Space Marines have a bad unit in their codex, there are easily another 4 to 6 units that can fill the same slot in their force.
Necrons have a transport that doesn't work. That means they don't have transports.
Orks have a similar issue with Boyz being hands-down better than everything else. If an army like space marines gets a single unit that can handle hordes, and that unit becomes popular, Orks are suddenly completely dead against half of the armies on the board (the issue is reversible). At least with an army like nids you might be bringing a nidzill list that can ignore the SM AI firepower. But if you're Orks, you've lose before you take your models out of the case.
Why are Necrons doing poorly? For the same reason they were doing poorly in 4th edition. A limited army in a limited codex where other more popular armies have the tools necessary to adapt that Necrons simply do not. Out of all the armies in the game, IMO, Necrons are at the top of the "needs codex" list. They're up there with T'au and Orks. The one thing I'm happy about with marines and chaos being first is that early in a process like this, mistakes will be made. I'd rather those mistakes be made with SM than with a Xenos faction that won't see attention for another 5-6 years.
Klowny wrote: Additionally, our infantry guns have lost their oomph. 20 warriors dont scare much anymore, sure the -1 rend is okay but I cant put my finger on it, our lethality across the board just isnt what is was in 7th. I know comparing the two editions is frivolous, and we were very strong in 7th. But now, we dont have the durability we once had *and that was meant to be our whole army identity* and we dont pack the offensive firepower we used to have, meaning were a slow, weak, and fragile army.
My cron's are undefeated atm but in no part due to my armies strength, I just have been lucky to avoid tablings/outscored/played the game better than my opponents.
My most cherished unit in 7th was Tomb Blades, and while they still are good this edition, even they have lost some of their damage, while also costing around 500 points for a squad of 9.
We got the better end of the stick in the FW index, but our main index is very far down the ladder.
Currently we are paying a heavy premium for literally nothing. We have a damage output akin to a horde army, yet we have the body count of an elite army. Either they want us to be a more silver tide army (very boring IMO) and have a substantial points decrease across the board, or they keep the identity they've always had of an elite army and give us our damage back. Giving us a -1 increase on our rend to compensate for us losing gauss isn't enough. If str, rend and damage were all increased I can see it being more viable, but again I dont know how far over the edge that would push us.
Note: I ended up going on a rant. Sorry.
eh, I wouldn't say that warriors, or gauss flayers, are bad. The -1 ap is huge as long as you're not in a cityfight.
I think that the necron army is incomplete. They've got all these special characters, and that's it. Also, their unclear transport rules are a huge disadvantage. I don't have my books in front of me, but I think people might be misinterpreting how the night scythe and monolith portal work. Or, at the very least, they way they run by the RAW aren't how they're supposed to work by the RAI. They way they're written, you're never actually embarked on your transport, so it's exactly like deepstriking, with the idea that Invasion Beams can put you on the board with a LOT less restriction than normal deep strike (3" from enemies rather than 9", which is a trivial charge). Sure you can't move after you come onto the board, but the idea is that you shouldn't have to. If anything, the invasion beams should have a longer range. Especially given how vulnerable necrons tend to be if they have more than one or two units in portal reserve. Goes double if they're using a monolith as a backup portal because of how expensive the freaking thing is.
IMO, Necrons, Nids, and Orks need varied codicies that all specialize in different ways of waging war. The armies also need to be shown making a difference in the universe. They need to wage war against not just the imperium, but also each other. And they also need to take large actions that shake the rest of the galaxy because, as it stands, the only armies that get to do that are the imperium and chaos. Everyone else gets left out.
If you want to know why *I* think necrons are in 46th place, it's because they're in the GW Xenos-trap. They're not a well-developed army with multiple grand strategies available to them. They're a one-trick army (Damage resistant phalanx) with a shallow bag of options and variation (deep strike deploy with portals and/or the Deceiver, or mobile melee flankers with wraiths and paretorians).
The detachment system fixes some of this. All destroyers and tomb blades? You can do that.Godzilla list? You can do that too.
However, this is only a partial fix. Space marines are an extremely healthy army, and they almost have more elite choices than Necrons have non-character units across their entire army.
Why does this matter? It matters because small armies like Necrons suffer more from bad rules and units than more healthy armies. If Space Marines have a bad unit in their codex, there are easily another 4 to 6 units that can fill the same slot in their force.
Necrons have a transport that doesn't work. That means they don't have transports.
Orks have a similar issue with Boyz being hands-down better than everything else. If an army like space marines gets a single unit that can handle hordes, and that unit becomes popular, Orks are suddenly completely dead against half of the armies on the board (the issue is reversible). At least with an army like nids you might be bringing a nidzill list that can ignore the SM AI firepower. But if you're Orks, you've lose before you take your models out of the case.
Why are Necrons doing poorly? For the same reason they were doing poorly in 4th edition. A limited army in a limited codex where other more popular armies have the tools necessary to adapt that Necrons simply do not. Out of all the armies in the game, IMO, Necrons are at the top of the "needs codex" list. They're up there with T'au and Orks. The one thing I'm happy about with marines and chaos being first is that early in a process like this, mistakes will be made. I'd rather those mistakes be made with SM than with a Xenos faction that won't see attention for another 5-6 years.
I agree with this, I think our codex will shore up a lot of problems. I also hope for a price drop across the army, otherwise getting access to CP to do almost anything will force us into Battalions, something which I dont like doing as I feel warriors are terrible.
The only thing that bugs me is our supposed 'durability'.
The only durability mechanic that works well is QS. Living metal is 1 wound a turn, not really counteracting much at all, and RP is completely negatable almost all of the time. If you take away RP, we have fragile infantry for the most part. With only 2 units having an invuln, and not many multi wound models.
Necrons are definitely a durability faction; being a phalanx of warriors that don't die when they are killed is one of the prime selling points of the faction, and that extreme resiliency is why I played them in 7th. Reanimation Protocols is still as army defining as it was in 7th (even more so really, since it requires you to build your list with max size squads) , the problem is that now the ability sucks. Of course a durability army with a poor durability rule is going to be bad.
Arachnofiend wrote: Necrons are definitely a durability faction; being a phalanx of warriors that don't die when they are killed is one of the prime selling points of the faction, and that extreme resiliency is why I played them in 7th. Reanimation Protocols is still as army defining as it was in 7th (even more so really, since it requires you to build your list with max size squads) , the problem is that now the ability sucks. Of course a durability army with a poor durability rule is going to be bad.
Yep I'm in the same boat. I loved our durability in 7th (much to the chargrin of my opponents however) and now that we've lost our durability, we don't have anything. No offensive piwer, no durability, no speed, not many special weaponry. I had hopes we were going to do well this edition, initial reports looked dire, my win rate said otherwise, but now a clearer picture is out it's making me sad again
eh, I wouldn't say that warriors, or gauss flayers, are bad. The -1 ap is huge as long as you're not in a cityfight.
I think that the necron army is incomplete. They've got all these special characters, and that's it. Also, their unclear transport rules are a huge disadvantage. I don't have my books in front of me, but I think people might be misinterpreting how the night scythe and monolith portal work. Or, at the very least, they way they run by the RAW aren't how they're supposed to work by the RAI. They way they're written, you're never actually embarked on your transport, so it's exactly like deepstriking, with the idea that Invasion Beams can put you on the board with a LOT less restriction than normal deep strike (3" from enemies rather than 9", which is a trivial charge). Sure you can't move after you come onto the board, but the idea is that you shouldn't have to. If anything, the invasion beams should have a longer range. Especially given how vulnerable necrons tend to be if they have more than one or two units in portal reserve. Goes double if they're using a monolith as a backup portal because of how expensive the freaking thing is.
IMO, Necrons, Nids, and Orks need varied codicies that all specialize in different ways of waging war. The armies also need to be shown making a difference in the universe. They need to wage war against not just the imperium, but also each other. And they also need to take large actions that shake the rest of the galaxy because, as it stands, the only armies that get to do that are the imperium and chaos. Everyone else gets left out.
If you want to know why *I* think necrons are in 46th place, it's because they're in the GW Xenos-trap. They're not a well-developed army with multiple grand strategies available to them. They're a one-trick army (Damage resistant phalanx) with a shallow bag of options and variation (deep strike deploy with portals and/or the Deceiver, or mobile melee flankers with wraiths and paretorians).
The detachment system fixes some of this. All destroyers and tomb blades? You can do that.Godzilla list? You can do that too.
However, this is only a partial fix. Space marines are an extremely healthy army, and they almost have more elite choices than Necrons have non-character units across their entire army.
Why does this matter? It matters because small armies like Necrons suffer more from bad rules and units than more healthy armies. If Space Marines have a bad unit in their codex, there are easily another 4 to 6 units that can fill the same slot in their force.
Necrons have a transport that doesn't work. That means they don't have transports.
Orks have a similar issue with Boyz being hands-down better than everything else. If an army like space marines gets a single unit that can handle hordes, and that unit becomes popular, Orks are suddenly completely dead against half of the armies on the board (the issue is reversible). At least with an army like nids you might be bringing a nidzill list that can ignore the SM AI firepower. But if you're Orks, you've lose before you take your models out of the case.
Why are Necrons doing poorly? For the same reason they were doing poorly in 4th edition. A limited army in a limited codex where other more popular armies have the tools necessary to adapt that Necrons simply do not. Out of all the armies in the game, IMO, Necrons are at the top of the "needs codex" list. They're up there with T'au and Orks. The one thing I'm happy about with marines and chaos being first is that early in a process like this, mistakes will be made. I'd rather those mistakes be made with SM than with a Xenos faction that won't see attention for another 5-6 years.
I think this is a good point.
I mean, which is your favourite Necron Troop choice? The slow, shooty, infantry or the other slow, shooty infantry?
Arachnofiend wrote:Necrons are definitely a durability faction; being a phalanx of warriors that don't die when they are killed is one of the prime selling points of the faction, and that extreme resiliency is why I played them in 7th. Reanimation Protocols is still as army defining as it was in 7th (even more so really, since it requires you to build your list with max size squads) , the problem is that now the ability sucks. Of course a durability army with a poor durability rule is going to be bad.
It sucks, yet it's better than ever. This describes Necrons since 4th edition.
"But WBB is so GOOD!"
Sure...except when you completely ignore it. At which point I'm removing a squad I should have paid about 200 points for, except I actually paid 360 points for them.
Klowny wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote: Necrons are definitely a durability faction; being a phalanx of warriors that don't die when they are killed is one of the prime selling points of the faction, and that extreme resiliency is why I played them in 7th. Reanimation Protocols is still as army defining as it was in 7th (even more so really, since it requires you to build your list with max size squads) , the problem is that now the ability sucks. Of course a durability army with a poor durability rule is going to be bad.
Yep I'm in the same boat. I loved our durability in 7th (much to the chargrin of my opponents however) and now that we've lost our durability, we don't have anything. No offensive piwer, no durability, no speed, not many special weaponry. I had hopes we were going to do well this edition, initial reports looked dire, my win rate said otherwise, but now a clearer picture is out it's making me sad again
Well, I think we've still got some very deceptive mobility going for us. It's just held in units necron players have been avoiding since 5th edition or before.
Wraiths and Praetorians are highly mobile, and hit very, very hard.
The Deceiver is better than he has ever been.
Same with Flayed ones, who pair beautifully with a command barge for that potential 1st turn charge (use a reroll die if you have to) and can take more advantage of the +1 to hit than even a squad of Warriors with their 4 attacks per model, wound rerolls, and huge squad size.
Also, I would argue that the monolith and invasion beams are not as bad as has been made out. You can't move after you come onto the board, but the only placement restrictions are 3" coherency to the scythe or monolith, and not directly into melee. You can pull some wacky conga-line shenanigans, and charging out of either is trivial if you're positioned correctly. My only complaint here is that the monolith is WAAAAAAY too expensive for what it does. It's the same price as an IG super-heavy with a quarter of the firepower, a third to half of the movement, even fewer wounds, and no options. I mean, it's a Necron vehicle, and it doesn't even get a 4+ BS. For 381 points, it's freaking garbage. The sad part is I don't want it to get cheaper. What I want is a new mold with more guns and a few options. I'd like some variations on the 'lith a lot more than I'd like seeing it drop back to it's ~235 point price-tag.
However, honestly, I think the most humiliating thing in the index is how Necron flyers are strictly inferior to pretty much every other flyer in the game. We're talking about a race that has mastered a FTL inertialess drive. The damn things make them absolute nightmares to fight in BFG. Yet their 40k flyers pack less firepower, less effective range, no shields, cost more points, and are still limited to the same supersonic rules AND cannot hover? Immortal androids with unlimited technology capable of killing gods, and it took a human tech-priest to think of pointing a thruster down?
However the flyers are my pet peeve. Especially the difference in price between the Night Scythe and the Doom Scythe. It made sense originally that the doom scythe would be about 50 points more, because the Death Ray was just obscene. However, every time they've iterated on it, it's been heavily nerfed. However the price has never come down, and the doom scythe has never gotten any better in any other area. The invasion beamers on the night scythe are worth the price as long as you're packing enough scythes into your list that they're immune to being entirely wiped out in a first turn alpha, however the doom scythe is just garbage no matter how you build it into your army. For comparison, the SM Stormtalon is roughly the equivalent to the Doomscythe for basic loadout. Trade the two heavy bolters in for two lascannons and you get roughly the same loadout. Except it gets compensated for all the heavy weapons, can choose to hover, the tesla cannon is strictly inferior to the twin assault cannons, and Necrons pay roughly 20 points more overall.
Necrons can be fast, but especially in this edition, we pay through the nose for it. Wraiths hit okay, as do praets (1 damage hurts so bad). TB are good, as are flayed ones, but not for their price.
The good is too expensive, the bad is too expensive and also bad.
Just had a thought regarding RPs. What if, instead of being done on a unit-by-unit basis they were instead done on an army-wide basis?
I don't know exactly how it would work, but the idea is that you'd roll dice based on the number of models you'd lost (perhaps with some qualifiers) and then you could assign the successes to whichever units you liked.
Or, perhaps you could have a number of points each turn for RPs (these could be based on number of units or such, so that they'd scale with game size), and you use these each turn to revive a set number of wounds of models. So, for 6 points you could revive 6 warriors or 2 Destroyers. There could also be a way to pay extra points in order to bring a dead unit back. Perhaps dead characters, too.
I haven't had a chance to work out some of the details yet, but do you think one of the above might be a better way of running RPs?
I mean, which is your favourite Necron Troop choice? The slow, shooty, infantry or the other slow, shooty infantry?
I think Immortals should go back to being elites (woth the power bump that entails) and Scarabs should be troop choices... Those would make some interesting choices.
Arachnofiend wrote: Necrons are definitely a durability faction; being a phalanx of warriors that don't die when they are killed is one of the prime selling points of the faction, and that extreme resiliency is why I played them in 7th. Reanimation Protocols is still as army defining as it was in 7th (even more so really, since it requires you to build your list with max size squads) , the problem is that now the ability sucks. Of course a durability army with a poor durability rule is going to be bad.
Yep I'm in the same boat. I loved our durability in 7th (much to the chargrin of my opponents however) and now that we've lost our durability, we don't have anything. No offensive piwer, no durability, no speed, not many special weaponry. I had hopes we were going to do well this edition, initial reports looked dire, my win rate said otherwise, but now a clearer picture is out it's making me sad again
Lots of this.
Necrons key, defining feature as an army is overwhelming durability... with long aeons even death may die type durability. In practice it feels more like "until someone pays attention" durability without some of the things that make other armies credible threats. (range, mobility, massed fire...)
The good is too expensive, the bad is too expensive and also bad.
This is the basic summary. I think that Necrons should be grossly (points) expensive per model. Our troops should be priced the way some other faction's elites are.
But, for the faction to be competitive the models have to be able to be worth their points, whatever level those are set to.
My thoughts are the 'fix' is quite simple now that the last FAQ went in that morale casualties can't be ressed. Necrons eligible to roll RP regardless of the unit being destroyed.
It's the only way to be able to actually assign a reasonable points value to a mechanic that's powerful, but in it's current form can be completely circumvented by the opposing player doing something they likely want to do anyway, which is concentrate force to wipe out whole units.
I mean, which is your favourite Necron Troop choice? The slow, shooty, infantry or the other slow, shooty infantry?
I think Immortals should go back to being elites (woth the power bump that entails) and Scarabs should be troop choices... Those would make some interesting choices.
That would indeed be interesting. I think Flayed Ones should also be troops. They're basically melee-warriors.
Crazy idea, what if you rolled RP after a unit finished inflicting damage on a necron squad?
Its like this -
Enemy Squad Fires at a unit of necrons. If there is at least one necron left in the squad, you can roll for RP. If there are no necrons left in the squad, then no RP.
If there are still necrons left at the beginning of your turn, you can roll RP for any missing models from the squad.
I mean, which is your favourite Necron Troop choice? The slow, shooty, infantry or the other slow, shooty infantry?
I think Immortals should go back to being elites (woth the power bump that entails) and Scarabs should be troop choices... Those would make some interesting choices.
That would indeed be interesting. I think Flayed Ones should also be troops. They're basically melee-warriors.
Yeah, I always thought they should be elites. Lore wise they aren't that special either; Immortals were professional soldiers, so it made sense that they would be elites in the 3rd ed book.
Flayed Ones were just crazy necrons.
I think Immortals are fine as troops and flayed ones as elites. Immortals were just the regular soldiers in the Necrontytr armies (warriors are civilians/militia) and flayed ones are just warriors gone crazy but I'd wager there are a lot more immortals than there are flayed ones. Also no overlord in their correct mind would use them as troops, in fear of the virus spreading. In the lore they are most often used just as shock troops behind enemy lines, far away from the regular army.
So I don't think Necrons ever would build their armies on the backbone of flayed ones, but they sure would on a foundation of Immortals
Oh that's right, Flayed ones are victims of a stupid virus that makes them hungry for some reason now. I don't know why they changed that from their 3rd ed version, where they were necrons who remembered their past selves and were driven insane by it. Way more disturbing than cannibal zombie robots.
What's really dumb is that the old flayed one lore would have worked perfectly with the Silent King's motivation, as you would then have a concrete example of why bio transference was a bad thing. But no, good writing and consistency is hard, gotta retcon everything. Granted, it doesn't help that it was in some White Dwarf from 12 years ago, but you'd think that whoever was writing the necron codex would be arsed to actually do some research on the necrons, instead of glancing over the codex. Its been 12 years and I still remember obscure stuff like that.
People have gone into more detail but I don't think the issue is durability, the issue is that the damage kind of sucks.
Anti-tank is too expensive while tesla is just bad. Give cost reductions on both and this will boost your durability because you will just have more stuff on the table.
I really didn't like the overlapping layers of Necron durability in 7th. It wasn't fun to play against and beyond "but I like winning" I struggle to see how it was especially fun to play. Top tier armies could still wipe you out but everything mid tier and down bounced completely.
Aren73 wrote: I think Immortals are fine as troops and flayed ones as elites
...
So I don't think Necrons ever would build their armies on the backbone of flayed ones, but they sure would on a foundation of Immortals
The counter argument about building a force with flayed ones as troops is one of the forgeworld dynasties which has been described as doing exactly that.
For me, the Immortals as troops v elites more a choices thing. Immortals and warriors are currently too similar. Immortals need a bump in effectiveness/price, warriors need a drop in price, or both. Moving Immortals back to the elite slot where they started would highlight that. There are currently no "regular infantry gunline" elites, while the lychguard and flayers are competing as elite CC and Praetorians as mid-range jumpers. Elite Immortals would compete with Deathmarks, which is not without irony given they come from the same box. But if GW can't distinguish between elite gunline and snipers we have bigger issues.
Let's also remember that in 8e you can build an army on a backbone of elites, whether that's flayers, immortals, or otherwise. Just gives less CP than a troop driven force. Getting fewer CPs for a force of trained soldiers seems weird, but basic mechanics are making them suffer where they are. If GW wants a the professional warriors to be part of a higher CP army even as elites give them a baby version of the ability some characters are getting; for each X in your army (X being; unit, 5 Immortals, something else) you get 1 CP. Bring Gauss Blasters into line with Tesla Carbines and you're off to the races.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Oh that's right, Flayed ones are victims of a stupid virus ...
Even within a given Codex the reason for Dlayed One's degeneration is explained in several contridictory ways, from viruses to biotransference side effects, and even 'a c'tan did it.' Mostly, though, the poont is the 'crons don't know and all the explanations that are given for it are stories they tell to pretend they understand what's happening to them.
Tyel wrote: People have gone into more detail but I don't think the issue is durability, the issue is that the damage kind of sucks.
Anti-tank is too expensive while tesla is just bad. Give cost reductions on both and this will boost your durability because you will just have more stuff on the table.
I really didn't like the overlapping layers of Necron durability in 7th. It wasn't fun to play against and beyond "but I like winning" I struggle to see how it was especially fun to play. Top tier armies could still wipe you out but everything mid tier and down bounced completely.
A lot of this. Tesla isn't bad, especially at the low end. (Carbine immortals, can throw out 20 shts at range and get 20 hits, 30 with MWBD.) But Tesla isn't the Necron's trademark weapon. I do like the Necron uber-durability. But, by itself, that won't win games or even make for an interesting fight.
Klowny wrote: Yea, durability in this edition seems to be not a favourable asset. Both necrons and death guard are at the bottom of the ladder on all metrics... :(
Everything got more durable, vehicles have saves and plenty of wounds to go round. Necron models did not increase their durability proportionally. Perhaps +1W for any RP eligible model could be a thing. Necron warriors with 2W sounds interesting
Klowny wrote: Yea, durability in this edition seems to be not a favourable asset. Both necrons and death guard are at the bottom of the ladder on all metrics... :(
I don't think that's quite the right way to think about it. GW made some large mistakes in regards to durability in the 5th - 7th ed super edition. This lead to an arms race which gave us wide access to rerollable invuls and D-weapons, and finally units that could ignore some aspects of D-weapon shots. That insane toughness is what made deathstars possible, if it weren't for insane durability dropping 1200 points on a unit with 20 wounds would have been a self defeating strategy. So I understand their resistance to make the tough armies truly tough, and it's kind of a moot point given how much offense has increased. For our toughness to be reliable in this edition we'd probably need to be as tough as we were in 7th ed (army wide 4+ FnP), because the Death guard have 2/3 of what we had in 7th ed (maybe almost equal since they can use DR on 8th eds version of d-weapons), and it's not doing them any favors.
Instead of trying to restart that particular arms race, I think they should leave RP as it is, sure it can be bypassed, but it's interesting which is more than we can say for RP in any edition since the phase out days. Instead of trying to turn us back into turtles, they should stick with an interesting if underwhelming defensive aspect and make us offensively interesting/capable. The once and future rulers of the galaxy, who put the old ones to the sword and destroyed living gods, shouldn't have heavy weapons that the average guardsman would find unimpressive. Gauss getting a -1 ap instead of an interesting rule was one of the big disservices done to us this edition. We are also overpaying for all of our heavy weapons, and the rules for Tesla weapons have not aged particularly well. You can also start to see the outlines of a unique movement aspect to the army in tomb world deploy, but it's so incompetently implemented that it was dead on arrival.
Here is what I think we can reasonable hope for before a codex, fix the Dynasty keyword inconsistencies via FAQ, tweak tomb world deploy to not murder our units after three turns and/or if we lose all of our portals, also done via FAQ. Chapter approved will likely come before our codex, so we will probably see a points balance pass there, with gauss cannons and heavy gauss cannons going down in price, as well as some of our heavier units like praetorians, destroyers, and tomb blades also getting a reduction. if we are really lucky we will see tesla destructors get an ap value and a damage boost. Even taken all together we won't be burning down the ITC charts, but that should help us limp along until we get a codex and they can dig in and fix the underlying issues.
Yeah I fee durability is okay as it is this edition for us, we are more durable than the majority, maybe a +1T across the board at most, considering toughness isn't as big of a safety blanket as it used to be? Either way the more pressing issue is our lethality. A -1 rend increase would help in most cases, stuff that's -5 already goes to a mini macro weapon? And an increase in shots in our heavies, maybe d3+2 or something similar?
Codex: Necrons - Base necron codex. The foundation for the entire faction. Basically what we have now but with any index problems balanced. Includes basic rules for the Sautek and Nihilakh Dynasties as well as introducing one or two more. Necron forces represented by this codex are ascendent.
Codex Necrons: The Legion of Rust - Alternate necron army codex for Dynasties completely taken by the destroyer virus. Little shooting that isn't destroyer-mounted. Lots of melee. Necron forces represented by this codex are descendent.
Codex Necrons: The Canoptek Dynasty - Alternate necron army codex that expands the canoptek roster to a full army. Capable of fielding a full army of just canoptek units, but can also ally with necron armies. Canoptek forces represented by this codex are from "dead tombs" that have no functioning Necrons remaining, but have somehow awoken anyway.
In fluff, describe the faction-wide search for a way to reverse the effects of the Destroyer virus as the only possible outcome of a confirmed destroyer virus infection is a steady decline from fully functioning dynasty, to widespread infection, to the extinction of the, otherwise ageless and immortal, Necron race.
Man, the necrons need to update their anti-malware programs. Sure lot of viruses floating around recently. Maybe their operating system is faulty; they should have stuck with necrodows 7 instead of updating to necrodows 10.
We are paying for RP and base ld 10 with 3 things really - lack of psykers, slow movement and points.
The ld 10 is nice and comes into play but I wouldn't say it's game winning.
RP...well, it's a type of durability that is delayed and due to its delayed nature sometimes doesn't come into play.
Now, if RP worked like a save like in 7th - wasn't delayed, well I think it would be too powerful and much less fluffy.
Yet with its current delayed nature against a good opponent it won't come into play that much which makes it quite an odd rule - with most faction abilities they can be used nomatter who you're playing agaist.
So how to tweak it?
I'd suggest a faction command point ability:
"2CP
As soon as a unit has finished attacking a NECRON unit with the REANIMATION PROTOCOLS ability and the NECRON unit has suffered any wounds you can use this ability to immediately make Reanimaion Protocol rolls for each model slain as if it wa the beginning of the movement phase. This does not stop you from making any other reanimation protocol rolls"
Also maybe make this ability only usable if the unit is within 12' of a character.
Additionally, res orbs should allow you to make RP rolls even for units that have been wiped out, but one use only.
Well, I did tell people that they didn't need to be too scared of Necrons.
Granted, I didn't think they'd be *that* bad, but just how horrifically useless tomb-world deployment is probably does have a lot to do with that.
Beyond that though, it does seem that a lot of Necron stuff, while strong on paper, is rather specifically built to troll low model count MEQ, TEQ, or MC/Vehicle heavy armies. Their lack of options leaves them unable to adapt to a horde meta.
Defensively too, their reliance on RP makes them good at resisting fire from elite armies who easily kill individual models, only to see those models get back up because they didn't have the volume of fire to wipe a whole 20-man block. Throw any horde at them though, and the value of RP rolls drops immensely as the horde can throw enough dice to wipe blobs one at a time, and don't suffer as much for having any one shot negated.
Necrons seem to suffer from being cripplingly over-specialized for a meta that has fallen out of favor, and not having nearly enough codex options to re-tool.
Who says GW will fix this with the codex? They let Tyranids go for years with no fix. Orks and AM where pretty poor performers in competitive settings for all of 7th.
All armies can't be equally competitive.
I don't think the game ever will be balanced enough that any competitive player could take any faction to top ten.
We're a pretty small army in terms of fluff and choices, as have been explained by others. Few or no wargear options, only one transport etc. Perhaps nobody in GW really care enough about what is really only a quite small niche faction.
The old GW let Tyranids and AM stay awful for a long time, and didn't address a whole host of other balance issues. The new GW has had three FAQ updates since launch to address balance issues such as flyers and scions. Included in those changes was a buff to the CCB, and a few other necron changes. In fact almost every faction has gotten some attention in the new FAQs. So new GW has shown more interest in balance in the two months since launch than old GW did in the prior two years.
I agree that perfect balance between each and every model/faction is not doable, but we have several examples of games with multiple factions that are balanced such that every faction can compete for the top spot. Games like infinity, warmachine/hordes, and flames of war show us what is possible when a company puts their mind to balance. They do so not only as a matter of professional pride, but because games where multiple factions compete for the top spot leads to more interesting play. The theory being the better the game the more people will play/buy it. GW seems to have come around to that logic as well, albeit a decade after they should have figured that out.
Obviously anecdotal but I recently had a game with some friends. It was a 2v2 with 2 750pt Necron lists vs 2 750pt Marine lists.
I ran destroyer wing, my partner had a cryptek, 2 full warrior squads and a triarch stalker.
Our opponents had a vindicator, a razorback, 5 marines, a biker-techmarine w/ conversion beamer and relic axe, a biker captain w/ flaming sword, 3 centurions, a devastator squad with missiles, 3 full assault squads, and 5 bikers.
Basically every Necron rule or stat was declared overpowered - especially destroyers (Destroyers have 3 wounds? OP! Destroyers do d3 damage? OP! Destroyers come back with full wounds? OP! Crypteks let Necrons come back on a 4+ and give them a 5++? OP!).
By about turn 3, I had my destroyer lord left and my partner had a few warriors clinging to life. Our opponents had about half their collective army left.
I don't mind losing, but it's rather irritating to have all my stuff declared OP whilst their "completely fair and balanced" stuff proceeds to table us.
vipoid wrote: Obviously anecdotal but I recently had a game with some friends. It was a 2v2 with 2 750pt Necron lists vs 2 750pt Marine lists.
I ran destroyer wing, my partner had a cryptek, 2 full warrior squads and a triarch stalker.
Our opponents had a vindicator, a razorback, 5 marines, a biker-techmarine w/ conversion beamer and relic axe, a biker captain w/ flaming sword, 3 centurions, a devastator squad with missiles, 3 full assault squads, and 5 bikers.
Basically every Necron rule or stat was declared overpowered - especially destroyers (Destroyers have 3 wounds? OP! Destroyers do d3 damage? OP! Destroyers come back with full wounds? OP! Crypteks let Necrons come back on a 4+ and give them a 5++? OP!).
By about turn 3, I had my destroyer lord left and my partner had a few warriors clinging to life. Our opponents had about half their collective army left.
I don't mind losing, but it's rather irritating to have all my stuff declared OP whilst their "completely fair and balanced" stuff proceeds to table us.
had the same thing happen to me, opponent was running Guilliman and the ultra smurfs. He had 11 command points, the ability to get them back on a 5+, was re-rolling hits and wounds, and had four characters including Sicarius and Guilliman. "Man destroyers are OP".
Grimgold wrote: The old GW let Tyranids and AM stay awful for a long time, and didn't address a whole host of other balance issues. The new GW has had three FAQ updates since launch to address balance issues such as flyers and scions. Included in those changes was a buff to the CCB, and a few other necron changes. In fact almost every faction has gotten some attention in the new FAQs. So new GW has shown more interest in balance in the two months since launch than old GW did in the prior two years.
I agree that perfect balance between each and every model/faction is not doable, but we have several examples of games with multiple factions that are balanced such that every faction can compete for the top spot. Games like infinity, warmachine/hordes, and flames of war show us what is possible when a company puts their mind to balance. They do so not only as a matter of professional pride, but because games where multiple factions compete for the top spot leads to more interesting play. The theory being the better the game the more people will play/buy it. GW seems to have come around to that logic as well, albeit a decade after they should have figured that out.
I agree that the outlooks to have problems fixed are more promising than ever in 7th. Those FAQed necron fixes though were most likely correcting errors rather than adjusting the balance. ( Immy LD9 / CCB character / Mono BS3+ )
I hope they toned down necron power ( by increasing cost ) to be on the safe side due to the anti-necron clamour after 7th RP, so that they can come back from the lower end to adjust balance, but after hurting us this bad I just don't really have my hopes up.
Grimgold wrote: had the same thing happen to me, opponent was running Guilliman and the ultra smurfs. He had 11 command points, the ability to get them back on a 5+, was re-rolling hits and wounds, and had four characters including Sicarius and Guilliman. "Man destroyers are OP".
On that note, I find it rather irritating that a SM Character does reanimation better than any Necron character.
The way RP (and living metal to a lesser extent) work makes Necrons a difficult faction to balance.
Generally speaking, if you want to beat crons you have to pass a certain threshold of damage output per turn.
-If you are below that threshold you don't get to deny or outpace RP and the Necrons can finish the game at full strength, even if you knocked a lot of tin men over during the game.
-If you are just about at the required threshold the game can be close and go either way. Howerver it probably won't look like a close game by the final turn- If you did just enough to deny RP the Necrons will fold- If you didn't do quite enough the Necron army can start growing from turn 3 and you get steamrolled (a lot of my games have gone like this).
-Finally, if your damage output per turn easily exceeds the threshold required the Necrons are going to get blown off the table.
I think the Necron index is well balanced for most normal games of 40k where the opposing army will be in the middle of the above three situations. The top tables at tournaments are not normal games of 40k and the lists there will be firmly in the last category so the Necrons can't compete.
The problem is that GW can't adjust things so that the required threshold for damage output is at the level of tournament winning lists without making most normal games against Necrons really unpleasant.
A competitive tournament Necron list will not be able to make use of RP and will instead have to use vehicles and scarabs and maybe 5 man tesla immortals.
Moosatronic Warrior wrote: A competitive tournament Necron list will not be able to make use of RP and will instead have to use vehicles and scarabs and maybe 5 man tesla immortals.
I had this idea for an army which was all doomsday arcs and annihilation barges, maybe some blades or stalkers thrown in. Not convinced about flyers due to their cost but you could look at them too. Try and use your speed to avoid taking on their whole army at once. Rely on quantum sheilding to limit the effect of their D6 damage weapons.
Problem is everything is expensive. I am not sure you would have sufficient guns.
Problem is everything is expensive. I am not sure you would have sufficient guns.
We're supposed to be an attrition army.
But, in 5 rounds (maybe 7) we can't output enough or (reliably) heal enough for those trends to significantly impact the game.
We need something to keep entire units from being eradicated. One option is more in the moment resillience- some mix of higher Toughness, FNP, more wounds, better armor, etc. Maybe other abilities- let the res orb's 1/game ability work on eradicated units, or a strategem to do the same...
We also need the ability to reliably attrit our opponents. Maybe that's longer range so we can engages sooner, I think it's probably harder/more hits in general... Gauss is currently not doing the work it did before. Just -1 AP comes too late in the probability chain and has too many counters for its cost.
But, right now, we're paying too much in too many ways and simply not getting value.
Regarding Gauss, I think Warriors are just too much of a step back from Immortals in terms of firepower. S5 AP-2 is very effective. S4 AP-1 . . . not so much.
Also, the progression of our Gauss weaponry seems strange, to say the least:
Gauss Flayer: -------------- Rapid Fire 24" S4 AP-1 D1
Gauss Blaster: ------------- Rapid Fire 24" S5 AP-2 D1
Gauss Cannon: ------------ Heavy 2 24" S5 AP-3 Dd3
Heavy Gauss Cannon: --- Heavy 1 36" S9 AP-4 Dd6
Should the Gauss Cannon not have higher strength than the Gauss Blaster (perhaps 6 or 7)?
Also, it seems weird that the Heavy Gauss Cannon is actually a step backwards from the Gauss Cannon in terms of number of shots.
vipoid wrote: Regarding Gauss, I think Warriors are just too much of a step back from Immortals in terms of firepower. S5 AP-2 is very effective. S4 AP-1 . . . not so much.
Also, the progression of our Gauss weaponry seems strange, to say the least:
Gauss Flayer: -------------- Rapid Fire 24" S4 AP-1 D1
Gauss Blaster: ------------- Rapid Fire 24" S5 AP-2 D1
Gauss Cannon: ------------ Heavy 2 24" S5 AP-3 Dd3
Heavy Gauss Cannon: --- Heavy 1 36" S9 AP-4 Dd6
Should the Gauss Cannon not have higher strength than the Gauss Blaster (perhaps 6 or 7)?
Also, it seems weird that the Heavy Gauss Cannon is actually a step backwards from the Gauss Cannon in terms of number of shots.
This is more or less a direct conversion from 7th with the glancing hits on sixes replaced by rend -1. Necrons wouldn't have been particularly good against vehicles in 7th if the glancing rule wasn't there.
I think that both the flayers and blasters are good against infantry, but are really lacking against vehicles. Idon't really mind that if Necrons would have better/cheaper options against high toughness targets.
The cannon was also in a weird spot in 7th. It's very good against elite infantry such as marines and terminators (not in 7th), but pretty useless against tougher targets. In the current meta it's pretty much useless.
The heavy gauss is great, but it's too expensive and so are the units that can carry it. The heavy gauss should not cost more than a lascannon since it trades an additional -1 range against range.
We're supposed to be an attrition army.
But, in 5 rounds (maybe 7) we can't output enough or (reliably) heal enough for those trends to significantly impact the game.
We need something to keep entire units from being eradicated. One option is more in the moment resilience- some mix of higher Toughness, FNP, more wounds, better armor, etc. Maybe other abilities- let the res orb's 1/game ability work on eradicated units, or a stratagem to do the same...
We also need the ability to reliably attrition our opponents. Maybe that's longer range so we can engages sooner, I think it's probably harder/more hits in general... Gauss is currently not doing the work it did before. Just -1 AP comes too late in the probability chain and has too many counters for its cost.
But, right now, we're paying too much in too many ways and simply not getting value.
Even with "in the moment" defense such as 5+ FnP, it doesn't fix the fundamental problem with RP, it just requires a bit more shooting to bypass it. If you don't allow people to bypass RP, eg: downed units always get a chance to roll RP, then you have to take away the subsequent turns part of RP because otherwise it would be impossible to get rid of necron units. With only one roll, it turns into an after the fact FnP, with the bonus of being per model as opposed to per wound.
Basically GW has painted themselves into a corner, they can't give us 7th ed RP because the deathguard already have it (and in all fairness it's not working that great for them), and 8th ed RP is hard to adjust without making it OP. They can give us something in the style of 5th ed RP, which has some advantages like no min unit size, and focus fire isn't that hot against it, but it's kind of boring, and stomps all over the death guard because it's basically their gimmick +1.
Thinking about it the only way to save the current system is via brute force, which is to say fix it with a points decrease as opposed to rules changes, which should increase our toughness via list building efficiency, You can see this in action with conscripts, or scarabs for that matter. If a 20 man warrior blob was 200 points (an example, not a suggestion), who cares if they get wiped out, because your opponent had to use a disproportionate amount of his points to do so. 40k is a game where almost anything can be useful if it's pointed correctly, again the crap statline of conscripts is a good example. It turns us into a horde army, but that is more or less how we played in 7th ed as I always outnumbered my opponent.
I'd still prefer rules changes that would allow us to be an elite army, that numbers closer to space marines as opposed to orks or guard, but my bet is a points reduction is what we will get until we get a codex. Which means we will probably continue to suck until chapter approved.
I really think the current system is fine, there just has to be a way to circumvent the squad wipe caveat. Maybe give the ghost ark an ability to allow RP rolls for wiped squads, or bring back that old Spyder ability they had in 3rd. Hell, give the res orbs that ability. Then they'll be worth taking.
Honestly, whilst it's fluffier than what we had in 7th, I think the 8th edition mechanic needs a rethink.
- As Grimgold pointed out, it severely limits their options. It's also sits on a knife-edge between being useless and OP. If Necrons are too easy to kill, then you'll never even get to make the roll. If Necrons are too hard to kill ten your opponent will struggle to kill even a single squad.
- It means our characters don't have RPs in any form.
- It doesn't scale well (larger armies can pour more firepower into units to kill them, but we gain no scaling of unit size or survivability).
I don't think they are ever going to let you bring squads back from the dead.
Maybe they could offer it as a stratagem (after all returning conscripts are a thing - although not if they are all dead) but it seems to open the door to confusing situations and abuse.
Then again the stupid "no RP from morale" adds another needless complication so keeping things simple may not be a priority.
vipoid wrote: Honestly, whilst it's fluffier than what we had in 7th, I think the 8th edition mechanic needs a rethink.
- As Grimgold pointed out, it severely limits their options. It's also sits on a knife-edge between being useless and OP. If Necrons are too easy to kill, then you'll never even get to make the roll. If Necrons are too hard to kill ten your opponent will struggle to kill even a single squad.
- It means our characters don't have RPs in any form.
- It doesn't scale well (larger armies can pour more firepower into units to kill them, but we gain no scaling of unit size or survivability).
Well, I did make a suggestion about rolling for RP every time a unit takes damage, provided there are models left in the squad. Not sure if that would help with the scaling problem though.
But yes, at higher point levels it becomes easier to focus down squads.
As many people have mentioned Necrons are currently pretty one dimensional where they only good against low toughness armies such a infantry armies.
These are som rambling thoughts I've had.
1. I'm fine with the way RP works today. If other things are fixed there will be other threats for the opponent than just wipe out one unit of warriors.
2. A fix to our transport along with price decreases.
I'm not sure how the Ghost Ark could be fixed. Perhaps open topped and a price decrease would solve it.
Night Scythes and Monoliths are in a terrible spot with the Tomb world rule.
Monoliths should have the Eternity gate special rule from 7ths where they could teleport units already on the battle field. They should also be a bit tougher if their cost and firepower stays the same.
I not sure what could be done about the Night scythes, perhaps they could have an emergency teleport function if they are destroyed. Deploying the Tomb world unit where they where destroyed. They also need to be much cheaper.
3. Heavy weapons and units needs a price decrease. Although Necrons heavy weapons platforms were also expensive in 7th, but back then the had glancing gauss and vehicles weren't in the meta.
4. I don't like to have Forge World as a crutch because they will probably not be allowed in tournaments where I play.
5. The characters only buff the infantry and a infantry heavy Necron army isn't competetive. If the characters have access to ranged weapons that are good against high toughness targets it might help.
I'm all for stripping the transport status from ghost arks and just making them into dedicated ambulances.
Its as if GW couldn't decide if it should be a transport or a repair vehicle, so they tried making it do both and it ends up being subpar at both.
I would rather have it specialize in a single role and be really good at it. Transports are out because necrons and transports don't mix thematically, imo.
Tyel wrote: I don't think they are ever going to let you bring squads back from the dead.
Maybe they could offer it as a stratagem (after all returning conscripts are a thing - although not if they are all dead) but it seems to open the door to confusing situations and abuse.
Then again the stupid "no RP from morale" adds another needless complication so keeping things simple may not be a priority.
Ive always maintained that the lower tier necrons, warriors at the very least shouldn't even be prone to morale at all. If mindless immortal resurrecting automatons aren't immune to running in fear no one should be.
We need something to keep entire units from being eradicated. One option is more in the moment resillience- some mix of higher Toughness, FNP, more wounds, better armor, etc. Maybe other abilities- let the res orb's 1/game ability work on eradicated units, or a strategem to do the same...
We also need the ability to reliably attrit our opponents. Maybe that's longer range so we can engages sooner, I think it's probably harder/more hits in general... Gauss is currently not doing the work it did before. Just -1 AP comes too late in the probability chain and has too many counters for its cost.
But, right now, we're paying too much in too many ways and simply not getting value.
Personally, I'd like to see special rules/units/options/etc that would allow us to prevent focus fire. Not entirely. But something we could use to make pointing more units at one unit more "costly".
Though, what I'm thinking they'll do is give us stratagems that will allow us to roll RP for units that were obliterated in the previous enemy turn, and/or phase out a unit and bring them back at full strength through a portal (similar to what the word bearers do with cultists). Simply because that's easier than introducing some sort of complex anti-focus fire mechanic.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
vipoid wrote: Crazy idea - what if RPs were predicated on having a character nearby?
So you can bring squads back from the dead, so long as a character is within, say, 3" of the last model that died (put down a marker or such).
However, if there's no character nearby, you can't roll RPs for dead squads and other squads subtract 1 from the roll.
(We'd probably need some cheaper characters for this.)
Necrons already spam crypteks. It wouldn't change a thing.
what if you could roll RP at the start of both phases. Your's and your opponents. It makes us much more hardy, but also still has counterplay in focusing down a single squad a turn?
Klowny wrote: what if you could roll RP at the start of both phases. Your's and your opponents. It makes us much more hardy, but also still has counterplay in focusing down a single squad a turn?
Simple fix or too OP?
Interesting (or welcome at least) but wouldn't really change the either or nature of RP
Yes, lets get rid of the flavor that necrons had since 3rd ed. Can't let any non-marines have any distinguishing features now can we. Nah, lets just make necrons into what are more or less demons by giving them army wide invuls. -_- No, 7th ed doesn't count. Because it was ott crap.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Yes, lets get rid of the flavor that necrons had since 3rd ed. Can't let any non-marines have any distinguishing features now can we. Nah, lets just make necrons into what are more or less demons by giving them army wide invuls. -_-
No, 7th ed doesn't count. Because it was ott crap.
I wasn't saying in place of RP, I was saying in addition to it.
It would make sense, since they are robots.
Between Daemons and Necrons, Necrons would still be unique since they would have their normal armor save.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Yes, lets get rid of the flavor that necrons had since 3rd ed. Can't let any non-marines have any distinguishing features now can we. Nah, lets just make necrons into what are more or less demons by giving them army wide invuls. -_-
No, 7th ed doesn't count. Because it was ott crap.
I wasn't saying in place of RP, I was saying in addition to it.
It would make sense, since they are robots.
Between Daemons and Necrons, Necrons would still be unique since they would have their normal armor save.
Technically necrons already have a 5+ invul in the form of the cyptek's chronometron bubble, and that's already pretty decent, but it is an interesting suggestion.
It does make sense; Skitarri get invuls due to their bionics iirc, and necrons are completely mechanical, so logically they would get even better bionic saves.
Just an idea, give the crypteks aura back to the rez orb and give the crypteks back their Tek. They were meant to be the keepers of all the super gadgets right? so give them gadgets! give them back their unique staff choice, give them some one time use things, give the units that were intended to have unique and special effects just that, unique and special effects.
Vipoid said it back on page 3, Crypteks are now nothing more than what a rez orb used to be. Giving Necrons access to special weapon equivalents (staffs) and other goodies would make them unique again. and having the necrons special weapons only able to be taken by 'characters' does fit fluff wise.
This just came to me and I think it would be really cool:
Necron units phase out to the tomb world when reduced to 25% of starting strength.
You can then bring them back in through Monoliths and Night Scythes.
-Makes the Monoliths and Night Scythes really useful even if they don't get the transport rules.
-Stops RP being Negated
-Super fluffy.
Or just give Necrons a special rule/stratagem which lets you immediately phase out to the tomb world at any unit size. Yeah this second option is better as it gives the monolith back its ability to teleport units that are already on the board.
Optional phase out rule would be so cool.
EDIT: This would actually be a bit broken: 20 Genestealers successfuly charge a warrior unit. Warrior unit: "Nope".
EDIT 2: Stratagem: Phase Out 2CP: Remove a Necron Infantry unit from the board and place it in tomb world deploy. This unit can be brought into play from a Monolith or Night Scythe in your next movement phase.
Necron units phase out to the tomb world when reduced to 25% of starting strength.
You can then bring them back in through Monoliths and Night Scythes.
-Makes the Monoliths and Night Scythes really useful even if they don't get the transport rules.
-Stops RP being Negated
-Super fluffy.
Or just give Necrons a special rule/stratagem which lets you immediately phase out to the tomb world at any unit size.
Do they roll for RP on the tomb world? Because if not you're just sending out crippled squads to be killed off.
The first example they would have to because otherwise they would come back at 25% and phase out again lol. The stratagem idea works much better.
A unit coming back crippled would still be an improvement over being wiped. You could bring it back somewhere safe. Having it as a Stratagem would let you do it before taking the critical damage, so if an army starts to focus fire a unit you can pull it off the board.
The enemy would still achieve something as they have cost you command points and possibly pushed a unit off an objective.
20 genestealers would kill them off in one go, do you send off 5 then, to roll RP on the tomb world, or do you send off 0, to roll RP on tomb world?
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of the problems with Monolith and Night scythe, is that once the vehicle is gone, you lose the units on the tomb world. Hinging even more on these vehicles to stay around (to now also save endangered units), doesn't seem to fix that problem
Stratagems are used at any time. You could use it when the Stealers declare their charge, or after overwatch, or before you roll your saves.
It would make the portal units interesting to use. Do you keep the monolith in the back field to help it survive? Deploy it aggressively so that returning units get straight into the fight? Your opponent would also be faced with interesting choices depending on how many CP you have.
EDIT: The stratagem would probably have to be used at the start or maybe the end of a phase tto not get silly.
That could be solved by introducing a cheap ground based unit that gives tomb world deployment. Something like a mobile stargate, like those Shaltari gates from DzC.
I think it would be fine with the units we have. If you have portals and CP left a Necron unit can never be totally wiped out, but if the enemy takes out your portals first they can stop the tide of Necrons. It doesn't need to be unstoppable (and shouldn't be) but would be a really cool mechanic to have.
Instead of making your opponent always want to focus fire a unit to deny RP as things are currently there would be a choice of ways to approach the fight:
-Suffer the infantry while you take out the portals then focus units down -Target multiple infantry units, allowing them RP but stopping the phase out CP being used to great effect. -Focus units down as now in order to force them back to the portals and burn through the Necrons CPs.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Yes, lets get rid of the flavor that necrons had since 3rd ed. Can't let any non-marines have any distinguishing features now can we. Nah, lets just make necrons into what are more or less demons by giving them army wide invuls. -_-
No, 7th ed doesn't count. Because it was ott crap.
I wasn't saying in place of RP, I was saying in addition to it.
It would make sense, since they are robots.
Between Daemons and Necrons, Necrons would still be unique since they would have their normal armor save.
Technically necrons already have a 5+ invul in the form of the cyptek's chronometron bubble, and that's already pretty decent, but it is an interesting suggestion.
It does make sense; Skitarri get invuls due to their bionics iirc, and necrons are completely mechanical, so logically they would get even better bionic saves.
Are we talking invuls or FNP? Iron Hands get FNP for their bionics, and that would stack with armor while Invuls wouldn't.
keltikhoa wrote: Just an idea, give the crypteks aura back to the rez orb and give the crypteks back their Tek. They were meant to be the keepers of all the super gadgets right? so give them gadgets! give them back their unique staff choice, give them some one time use things, give the units that were intended to have unique and special effects just that, unique and special effects.
Vipoid said it back on page 3, Crypteks are now nothing more than what a rez orb used to be. Giving Necrons access to special weapon equivalents (staffs) and other goodies would make them unique again. and having the necrons special weapons only able to be taken by 'characters' does fit fluff wise.
Please? The fact that all our characters have been shoved into cookie cutters is crazy. Lords have been thoroughly cusotmizable since the first codex and we used to be able to make custom c'tan shards, but suddenly nothing is and "necrons were never that customizable to start with."
EDIT 2: Stratagem: Phase Out 2CP: Remove a Necron Infantry unit from the board and place it in tomb world deploy. This unit can be brought into play from a Monolith or Night Scythe in your next movement phase.
This has been suggested a couple times now, and I really hope it gets picked up. It's probably *the* classic necron move. If they don't continue to heal on the tomb world (which would be a baldly mechanistic over narrative nerf) they should get an immediate RP roll as part of the strategem.
torblind wrote: 20 genestealers would kill them off in one go, do you send off 5 then, to roll RP on the tomb world, or do you send off 0, to roll RP on tomb world?
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of the problems with Monolith and Night scythe, is that once the vehicle is gone, you lose the units on the tomb world. Hinging even more on these vehicles to stay around (to now also save endangered units), doesn't seem to fix that problem
Monoliths clearly and desperately need some substantial buffs. I'd say "or a pont decrease," but I think their points are probably close to right for what they *should* be. I generally have wanted monoliths to get better guns, but with this making them more survivable would be a perfectly acceptable buff becuase killing them becomes a strategic imparative.
Night scythes mostly just need to be able to hover or, preferably, drop minimum move distance and maximum turn radius. Edition after edition of having floating buildigs but dedicated fliers that can't turn or move better than an actual jet is exhastingly stupid.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: That could be solved by introducing a cheap ground based unit that gives tomb world deployment. Something like a mobile stargate, like those Shaltari gates from DzC.
"Dolmen Gates"
Really, doesn't even need to be mobile. Make it a drop-pod analogue that we can keep pouring out of...
Klowny wrote: Becomes a bit wonky with DS units, as they wouldn't need he gate to return. Flayed ones would be the only unit you would bring. Or spam deathmarks.
as much fun as yo-yoing deep strike units on/off the board would be, we're tracking "fled" vs "slain" now... i can't imagine that we won't be expected to track what kind of reserves our models are in.
Klowny wrote: Becomes a bit wonky with DS units, as they wouldn't need he gate to return. Flayed ones would be the only unit you would bring. Or spam deathmarks.
Nah. Those units are set up an a specific place that allows them to deep strike in, not the tomb world.
I know there were some thoughts on using characters to help with RP, and I think I might have an idea that could work. Give Overlords/CCB a new ability:
Rise My Minions Pick a unit with the <Dynasty> keyword and the repair protocols special rule that was completely destroyed in the prior turn within 6" of the Overlord, that unit may roll repair protocols at the beginning of the movement phase. If successful, the returning units must setup within 2" of the overlord and more than 1" away from enemy models, units that can not be placed are lost. You can not use this ability and My Will Be Done/Command Wave in the same turn.
Overlords are too pricey to spam, and using this ability takes away their ability to buff, which seems like a fair trade off. There are a few ways around it, kill the Overlord, Surround him, or kill multiple units in a round (which will probably involve some setup), or create losses via morale, and all of them are harder than simple concentration of fire, but all are very doable. It's a buff to Overlords, who need the love, and to repair protocols. What do you guys think?
Grimgold wrote: I know there were some thoughts on using characters to help with RP, and I think I might have an idea that could work. Give Overlords/CCB a new ability:
Rise My Minions Pick a unit with the <Dynasty> keyword and the repair protocols special rule that was completely destroyed in the prior turn within 6" of the Overlord, that unit may roll repair protocols at the beginning of the movement phase. If successful, the returning units must setup within 2" of the overlord and more than 1" away from enemy models, units that can not be placed are lost. You can not use this ability and My Will Be Done/Command Wave in the same turn.
Overlords are too pricey to spam, and using this ability takes away their ability to buff, which seems like a fair trade off. There are a few ways around it, kill the Overlord, Surround him, or kill multiple units in a round (which will probably involve some setup), or create losses via morale, and all of them are harder than simple concentration of fire, but all are very doable. It's a buff to Overlords, who need the love, and to repair protocols. What do you guys think?
I think that looks like what a Ressurection Orb should do...
Grimgold wrote: I know there were some thoughts on using characters to help with RP, and I think I might have an idea that could work. Give Overlords/CCB a new ability:
Rise My Minions Pick a unit with the <Dynasty> keyword and the repair protocols special rule that was completely destroyed in the prior turn within 6" of the Overlord, that unit may roll repair protocols at the beginning of the movement phase. If successful, the returning units must setup within 2" of the overlord and more than 1" away from enemy models, units that can not be placed are lost. You can not use this ability and My Will Be Done/Command Wave in the same turn.
Overlords are too pricey to spam, and using this ability takes away their ability to buff, which seems like a fair trade off. There are a few ways around it, kill the Overlord, Surround him, or kill multiple units in a round (which will probably involve some setup), or create losses via morale, and all of them are harder than simple concentration of fire, but all are very doable. It's a buff to Overlords, who need the love, and to repair protocols. What do you guys think?
I think that looks like what a Ressurection Orb should do...
I suppose, but res orbs can be spammed much easier.
Necrons in my opinion have the same situation that they did in 7th:
We have all the tools we need to defeat/play against standard armies. Against well rounded armies with a bit of everything, we are pretty high tier.
But we suffer against super min/max lists. In 7th that was Deathstars and LoWs (and to a lesser extent silly MSU like Warp Spiders and Gladius). We lacked the tools to bind up/shut down a Deathstar, and we didn't have the ability to distract or kill a LoW effectively.
Nowadays those lists are spam. Knightspam, 4++ spam, Character shenanigan spam, artillery spam, etc. All those top lists we don't have the tools to deal with because they exist outside the well rounded middle that we are comfortable with. We can maybe deal with 1 or 2 flyers, but someone putting down 6? Nope. We can kill a WK or Knight better now than in 7th, but 4 Knights + Magnus? Not even close.
We don't have that powerspam unit or combo of our own, and it shows. When you play against a person running Tacticals in Rhinos backed by Devs and flanked by Assault units, you can have a great game. When you play against a huge Fearless Conscript line with mass Artillery and Scion drop spam, we don't really hold up as well. Just my opinion, though I have played less Necrons than I have Guard at this point in 8th.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: That could be solved by introducing a cheap ground based unit that gives tomb world deployment. Something like a mobile stargate, like those Shaltari gates from DzC.
"Dolmen Gates"
Really, doesn't even need to be mobile. Make it a drop-pod analogue that we can keep pouring out of...
Please don't mention Dolmen Gates. Reading that necrons use the webway in the 5th ed codex gave me figurative conniptions. Not literal ones, because that would be silly.
Yeah, something that just drops down and doesn't move all game would be fine too. We already have a unit like that in the form of a Gauss Pylon, so there's a good precedent for that already.
Klowny wrote: Becomes a bit wonky with DS units, as they wouldn't need he gate to return. Flayed ones would be the only unit you would bring. Or spam deathmarks.
Comes down to wording. If they automatically get re-deployed to a tomb world, then they don't get to use their deepstrike rules and must come back via a portal. Deepstrike rules in 8th specify where the unit must be deployed to in order to deepstrike, and in the case of necrons if you want to come out of a portal you must be deployed to a tomb world. Deathmarks who want to deepstrike in must be deployed to a timespace oubliette. Flayed Ones must be deployed to a charnal realm, etc...
Phase Out for Repairs and Redeploy = Tomb World
Tomb World = Portal
Which would be fairly balanced seeing as how any units on a tomb world when the game ends count as destroyed, and you can only bring back as many units in a turn as you have portals.
The one concern I have is the Night Scythe's price vs their durability. They're quite fragile. I'd love to see them get a cloaking field type ability in addition to everything else they've got (or don't got, in the case of raw firepower compared to most other flyers). It would be doubly necessary to give them some more survivability if Necrons became reliant on portals for attrition.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: That could be solved by introducing a cheap ground based unit that gives tomb world deployment. Something like a mobile stargate, like those Shaltari gates from DzC.
"Dolmen Gates"
Really, doesn't even need to be mobile. Make it a drop-pod analogue that we can keep pouring out of...
Please don't mention Dolmen Gates. Reading that necrons use the webway in the 5th ed codex gave me figurative conniptions. Not literal ones, because that would be silly.
Yeah, something that just drops down and doesn't move all game would be fine too. We already have a unit like that in the form of a Gauss Pylon, so there's a good precedent for that already.
Eh, fighting in the webway makes sense if that's where your enemy goes to hide. I didn't like the attempts to force necrons to use the warp (or warp adjacent) just like everyone else...
But, regardless, it's functionally indistinguishable from what you're describing.
I'd suggest a faction command point ability:
"2CP
As soon as a unit has finished attacking a NECRON unit with the REANIMATION PROTOCOLS ability and the NECRON unit has suffered any wounds you can use this ability to immediately make Reanimaion Protocol rolls for each model slain as if it wa the beginning of the movement phase. This does not stop you from making any other reanimation protocol rolls"
Also maybe make this ability only usable if the unit is within 12' of a character.
I haven't seen anyone really talk about this on this thread, but I think this is a great idea! It would give cushion to units so they can't be wiped out as easily while avoiding an army wide buff that would make the army OP and remain fluffy. It would also make an opponent think twice about which units they would want to target to wipe out at what time.
What if you took the randomness out, then allowed certain boosts to help the number?
For instance, the Reanimation step happens let's say when a unit activates in the movement phase. For every 5 models the units started with, it regains 1 that's been lost to battlefield damage, up to the number of models it started the game with. (IE, 10 models, lost a guy, can only get 1 back, not 2.) (This cannot be done if the unit has been wiped out.)
A Cryptic allows you an aura, "Quality Reanimation" or whatever you'd like to name it, which adds 1 to the reanimation protocols of a unit within, say, 6". Thus, a 10 man unit gets back 3 per movement phase, a 20 man gets 5, etc.
The Res Orb goes in the psychic phase. Target a unit with 12". Immediately gain the resurrection protocol for that unit. NOT a one per game, but you can only target a single unit at a time, so, it lets your leaders influence things.
From there, you can have units interact with this... Spyders might get a repair option, while Ghost Arcs certainly would. (When a unit embarks, trigger Reanimation Protocols.) .... and let 'em heal each turn that they're inside, so when a unit gets down to 2 or 3 guys, you pick 'em up, and in a coupe of turns, they're back to fighting shape, faster if you fly over to a Cryptec who can raise 'em faster.
Wakshaani wrote: What if you took the randomness out, then allowed certain boosts to help the number?
For instance, the Reanimation step happens let's say when a unit activates in the movement phase. For every 5 models the units started with, it regains 1 that's been lost to battlefield damage, up to the number of models it started the game with. (IE, 10 models, lost a guy, can only get 1 back, not 2.) (This cannot be done if the unit has been wiped out.)
A Cryptic allows you an aura, "Quality Reanimation" or whatever you'd like to name it, which adds 1 to the reanimation protocols of a unit within, say, 6". Thus, a 10 man unit gets back 3 per movement phase, a 20 man gets 5, etc.
The Res Orb goes in the psychic phase. Target a unit with 12". Immediately gain the resurrection protocol for that unit. NOT a one per game, but you can only target a single unit at a time, so, it lets your leaders influence things.
From there, you can have units interact with this... Spyders might get a repair option, while Ghost Arcs certainly would. (When a unit embarks, trigger Reanimation Protocols.) .... and let 'em heal each turn that they're inside, so when a unit gets down to 2 or 3 guys, you pick 'em up, and in a coupe of turns, they're back to fighting shape, faster if you fly over to a Cryptec who can raise 'em faster.
It's less Feast or Famine, but easier to handle.
Just a thought.
I'm not really too big of a fan of this idea, as the game is partially based on chance so why purposely remove the chance aspect in this one thing? Its also not really a Feast or Famine deal, as that rarely occurs. Most of the time you get a base average of successful RP rolls while rarely getting little to none or the big rez. Most of all, it doesn't really fix the issue that people are having with RP. Its definitely an interesting idea, but is prone to being abused and doesn't fix any problems.
An idea for fixing RP:
Allow wiped out units to roll for RP.
Introduce this phase out rule:
Models rolling for RP when their unit is destroyed phase out if they fail to reanimate. Phased out units are permanently removed from play.
We could then count morale losses as phase outs. We could also take living metal away from our characters and give them RP instead.
Wakshaani wrote: What if you took the randomness out, then allowed certain boosts to help the number?
...
It's less Feast or Famine, but easier to handle.
Just a thought.
I'm not really too big of a fan of this idea, as the game is partially based on chance so why purposely remove the chance aspect in this one thing? Its also not really a Feast or Famine deal, as that rarely occurs. Most of the time you get a base average of successful RP rolls while rarely getting little to none or the big rez. Most of all, it doesn't really fix the issue that people are having with RP. Its definitely an interesting idea, but is prone to being abused and doesn't fix any problems.
this^
Sequence wrote: An idea for fixing RP:
Allow wiped out units to roll for RP.
Introduce this phase out rule:
Models rolling for RP when their unit is destroyed phase out if they fail to reanimate. Phased out units are permanently removed from play.
We could then count morale losses as phase outs. We could also take living metal away from our characters and give them RP instead.
Most of this is hard nerfs trading away what little Necrons have for something equally or more mediocre. The faction needs a strict buff somewhere.
Well after two games I'm dumping my crons back in the box they really arnt in a good place and I'd have to spend a fortune to get a mediocre army, just not worth it.
hobojebus wrote: Well after two games I'm dumping my crons back in the box they really arnt in a good place and I'd have to spend a fortune to get a mediocre army, just not worth it.
Yeah, its really bumming me out tbh. Just waitin for the codex. I want my steel phalanx back
Im just going to say as someone who knows that top necron player she is a cunning and brilliant player who has been practicing since well before 8th dropped. From what she told me a lot of her issues with the BAO were a lot of hard matchups (full knight lists, Magnus Brimstone lists, etc) and a lot more of people still playing rules wrong. He list was a Guass pylon and a load of wraiths + warriors if I recall.
generalchaos34 wrote: Im just going to say as someone who knows that top necron player she is a cunning and brilliant player who has been practicing since well before 8th dropped. From what she told me a lot of her issues with the BAO were a lot of hard matchups (full knight lists, Magnus Brimstone lists, etc) and a lot more of people still playing rules wrong. He list was a Guass pylon and a load of wraiths + warriors if I recall.
The thing is, though, those "bad matchups" are very much part of the meta. It's not like she pulled edge lists that nobody plays. Tzeentch Daemons/Mixed in particular is going to continue to be top notch even if the nerf hurt their damage output a bit.
If you struggle against strong regular meta lists, you struggle in the meta period. That's what a metagame is in games like 40k.
generalchaos34 wrote: Im just going to say as someone who knows that top necron player she is a cunning and brilliant player who has been practicing since well before 8th dropped. From what she told me a lot of her issues with the BAO were a lot of hard matchups (full knight lists, Magnus Brimstone lists, etc) and a lot more of people still playing rules wrong. He list was a Guass pylon and a load of wraiths + warriors if I recall.
Wraiths have awful damage output, as do warriors. It sounds like she was planning on using the pylon to make up that gap but found herself overwhelmed when the pylon couldn't clear the board fast enough. Hats off to her for trying something interesting, but that's more or less the phase all of the competitive necron players are at, throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks. Also, if your friend is skilled, in practice, has a good understanding of the current meta, and yet ended up only winning only half of her fights that says something.
I'd suggest a faction command point ability:
"2CP
As soon as a unit has finished attacking a NECRON unit with the REANIMATION PROTOCOLS ability and the NECRON unit has suffered any wounds you can use this ability to immediately make Reanimaion Protocol rolls for each model slain as if it wa the beginning of the movement phase. This does not stop you from making any other reanimation protocol rolls"
Also maybe make this ability only usable if the unit is within 12' of a character.
I haven't seen anyone really talk about this on this thread, but I think this is a great idea! It would give cushion to units so they can't be wiped out as easily while avoiding an army wide buff that would make the army OP and remain fluffy. It would also make an opponent think twice about which units they would want to target to wipe out at what time.
Well, the debate has been between making immediate RP rolls for non-destroyed units vs. making RP rolls for destroyed units.
My only feedback on that particular example is that 2CP is too expensive for an expensive army like Necrons. We're already outnumbered on the board. No need to bake in a CP disadvantage.
IMO, almost all RP shenanigans should be 1CP abilities unless the ability is literally "every RP roll is automatically successful" because we already pay out the nose for RP in the first place.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wakshaani wrote: What if you took the randomness out, then allowed certain boosts to help the number?
For instance, the Reanimation step happens let's say when a unit activates in the movement phase. For every 5 models the units started with, it regains 1 that's been lost to battlefield damage, up to the number of models it started the game with. (IE, 10 models, lost a guy, can only get 1 back, not 2.) (This cannot be done if the unit has been wiped out.)
A Cryptic allows you an aura, "Quality Reanimation" or whatever you'd like to name it, which adds 1 to the reanimation protocols of a unit within, say, 6". Thus, a 10 man unit gets back 3 per movement phase, a 20 man gets 5, etc.
The Res Orb goes in the psychic phase. Target a unit with 12". Immediately gain the resurrection protocol for that unit. NOT a one per game, but you can only target a single unit at a time, so, it lets your leaders influence things.
From there, you can have units interact with this... Spyders might get a repair option, while Ghost Arcs certainly would. (When a unit embarks, trigger Reanimation Protocols.) .... and let 'em heal each turn that they're inside, so when a unit gets down to 2 or 3 guys, you pick 'em up, and in a coupe of turns, they're back to fighting shape, faster if you fly over to a Cryptec who can raise 'em faster.
It's less Feast or Famine, but easier to handle.
Just a thought.
All that would do is encourage focus fire even more from our opponents.
Actually, I'd almost be in favor of putting limits on how many RP rolls we can make per turn in exchange for a blanket point cost decrease. Something like you get 10 RP dice per detachment, and can only take RP rolls on units that have not been destroyed. In exchange, for example, Necron warriors would only cost 8-9 points per model instead of 12.
That way you get less frustration for opponent who risk spending ALL of their firepower on a single unit only to watch it all get negated by one or two godly RP rolls.
Then, allow necron armies to use command points to break the RP dice-limits.
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generalchaos34 wrote: Im just going to say as someone who knows that top necron player she is a cunning and brilliant player who has been practicing since well before 8th dropped. From what she told me a lot of her issues with the BAO were a lot of hard matchups (full knight lists, Magnus Brimstone lists, etc) and a lot more of people still playing rules wrong. He list was a Guass pylon and a load of wraiths + warriors if I recall.
A wraith wing? I think I'm in love!
Seriously though, I played a wraith wing back in 4th and 5th. I was so depressed when they lost WBB in 5th :(
Had some thoughts about how to improve reanimation protocols.
"If a unit with <Reanimation Protocols> would be destroyed for the first time during an enemy turn, you may immediately make a Reanimation Protocols roll for each model destroyed during their turn. This rule does not apply to units that have fled from moral.
If a unit was destroyed and returned in this manner, skip that units normal reanimation protocols on the next turn.
Other abilities that allow additional reanimation protocols rolls still apply."
I think one of the main problems facing GW is how to fairly balance durability armies. If you balance durability too low/focused on single damage weapons, than we are at risk against multi damage weapons.
If you balance against multi damage weapons, you become very, very strong, nigh unkillable.
The two weakest factions atm are death guard and necrons, suggesting that our durability on both sides is undertuned.
Klowny wrote: The two weakest factions atm are death guard and necrons, suggesting that our durability on both sides is undertuned.
My guess is that Death Guard will pick up as soon as their codex drops (to judge by the significant price reductions awarded to SMs and CSMs in their books).
It's possible that Necrons will be the same, except that we're in for a significantly longer wait for our book.
The idea is it will force your opponent to choose. Do I wipe the squad? I'll get guaranteed casualties (because you skip your RP for that unit the next turn), or do I let moral tests do their job and have the unit run away (if the squad flees from moral you don't get the immediate reanimation).
That gives us some room for counter play. Do I spend the 2 CP to auto-pass the moral test? Does a Lord's moral reroll suddenly become useful? The ghost ark then becomes a prime target to stop the second reanimation rolls.
I'd suggest a faction command point ability:
"2CP
As soon as a unit has finished attacking a NECRON unit with the REANIMATION PROTOCOLS ability and the NECRON unit has suffered any wounds you can use this ability to immediately make Reanimaion Protocol rolls for each model slain as if it wa the beginning of the movement phase. This does not stop you from making any other reanimation protocol rolls"
Also maybe make this ability only usable if the unit is within 12' of a character.
I haven't seen anyone really talk about this on this thread, but I think this is a great idea! It would give cushion to units so they can't be wiped out as easily while avoiding an army wide buff that would make the army OP and remain fluffy. It would also make an opponent think twice about which units they would want to target to wipe out at what time.
Well, the debate has been between making immediate RP rolls for non-destroyed units vs. making RP rolls for destroyed units.
My only feedback on that particular example is that 2CP is too expensive for an expensive army like Necrons. We're already outnumbered on the board. No need to bake in a CP disadvantage.
IMO, almost all RP shenanigans should be 1CP abilities unless the ability is literally "every RP roll is automatically successful" because we already pay out the nose for RP in the first place.
Yeah, I was thinking about the CP cost as well. I have only played a few games of 8th so far and I wasn't sure the average of CP armies usually get throughout the point tiers, as well as how powerful the stratagems are suppose to be, so I didn't comment on it. I am completely fine with it being 1CP, but as I said I don't have the experience to really say for sure if 1CP would be overpowered or if 2CP would be underpowered.
Honestly...call me crazy. Something that would make our units a little more reasonably priced at their current level, and improve our durability, leaving RP alone, would be a number of +1 buffs to base necron armor saves...Lychguard and Characters getting a 2+...Immortals having an upgrade option to GIVE them a 2+ armor saves.
These beings are made of metal...living...regenerating metal. I'm amazed their armor isn't better in some cases that it is.
Also...the Monolith...supposed to be absurdly hard to destroy...WHY does it only have a 3+?? At nearly 400 points...there is 0 reason to take one, when you can take the Necron FW Pylon, and get far more mileage out of it for like...50 points more.
That, or give us back the Cryptek toolbox. The ability to force nightfighting turn 1 for your enemy to get a -1 to hit on that absurd alpha strike would help us last later into the game.
Reading through this, there is alot of good ideas.
My gaming group has been talking about necrons, and everyone is in rough agreement that mobility and damage are the most important buffs we need to get back in order to be a more competitive army.
Enhanced durability is hard to balance, either being underwhelming or broken.
Whats easier and quicker is mobility and damage, metrics every other army uses. It would also be better for a necron player, as increased durability isn't very engaging in a game, and it makes you just sit there and take punishment and hope you outlast the opponent, which can lead to passive playstyles.
Keep us on our current chassis, its durable if you dont know how to play against it, but give us more power in our punches, and give us abilites to get said punches to land efficiently. That is a much more engaging army.
RP is a cool and thematic mechanic, its better than 7th for both parties, but I feel doubling down on its power wont fix the problems we have as an army.
One of the main selling features of this edition from GW themselves was that everything can hurt everything and stuff dies fast. Increasing our durability negates this to some extent and isn't fun to play with or against for the most part.
What necrons lack is a way to take multiple high str attacks we have a few expensive vehicles and heavy destroyers which is pitiful compared to most other armies.
I saw a monolith torn down in one round of shooting there's no way for us to equal that.
That, or give us back the Cryptek toolbox. The ability to force nightfighting turn 1 for your enemy to get a -1 to hit on that absurd alpha strike would help us last later into the game.
Well, on the bright side, the cryptek toolbox is something I'm blindly assuming we'll get back. I mean, the psycher toolbox is the first thing everyone else got back and the relic system would be an easy thing to incorporate it into (on top of a simple "pay-by-the-rule" upgrade selection on the cryptek datasheet.
I'd be more worried about GW keeping crypteks as they are, and giving all the customization over to the lords and overlords instead of spreading it around.
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hobojebus wrote: What necrons lack is a way to take multiple high str attacks we have a few expensive vehicles and heavy destroyers which is pitiful compared to most other armies.
I saw a monolith torn down in one round of shooting there's no way for us to equal that.
We handle infantry fine but gl taking on knights.
Which is backwards because vehicles has never been a necron weak point before. But it was that way because of auto-glancing on 6's with gauss. The Index took that away, and didn't give anything back to compensate. So now we're just stuck without anything to kill big stuff with, barring 100 ppm heavy destroyers, 200 ppm death rays, and 200 ppm doom's day cannons.
Granted, there's also the problem that S10 fire used to be a lot better at simply popping vehicles. Even with only one shot per model per round, it was reliable.
Now it's reliably 7 wounds per round or less, which is just terrible for it's price. At 200 ppm, I could get a quad-las pred which would push out double the wounds per turn, or more if I buff it with a character bubble.
Now it's reliably 7 wounds per round or less, which is just terrible for it's price. At 200 ppm, I could get a quad-las pred which would push out double the wounds per turn, or more if I buff it with a character bubble.
That's really two of our problems on display there, the first being that we are paying too much for our anti-vehicle assets, and second being we don't have a buff aura/ability for our vehicles. For a weapon like high powered blast on a DDA, It's expensive enough it should have a fixed number of shots similar to the Monolith. even if they gave us heavy 2 (heavy 4 vs. 10+ models), the DDA is a twin las predator with two hurricane bolters, that we are paying a 50% premium on, that can't move and shoot. I assume we are paying for quantum shielding and living metal, but man are they over priced if they account for the remainder of the difference.
In the same vein, If they gave the deathray heavy 2 instead of heavy D3, it would be a slightly better twin linked lascannon.
Now it's reliably 7 wounds per round or less, which is just terrible for it's price. At 200 ppm, I could get a quad-las pred which would push out double the wounds per turn, or more if I buff it with a character bubble.
That's really two of our problems on display there, the first being that we are paying too much for our anti-vehicle assets, and second being we don't have a buff aura/ability for our vehicles. For a weapon like high powered blast on a DDA, It's expensive enough it should have a fixed number of shots similar to the Monolith. even if they gave us heavy 2 (heavy 4 vs. 10+ models), the DDA is a twin las predator with two hurricane bolters, that we are paying a 50% premium on, that can't move and shoot. I assume we are paying for quantum shielding and living metal, but man are they over priced if they account for the remainder of the difference.
In the same vein, If they gave the deathray heavy 2 instead of heavy D3, it would be a slightly better twin linked lascannon.
On the bright side, after reading the new chaos codex, I'm six kinds of excited about where the new edition is heading. However, I'll reserve final judgement for the first Xenos codex release. If it goes "Next up, 3 different Ork codexes!" I'll be very happy!
OTOH, if it goes "First up, Orks! Then Eldar! Then Necrons! All out in the next two months!" I'm going to be very sad, and probably pack up my again until they start diversifying things that aren't marines.
...maybe I'll take a few hours out of my schedule to track down some GW people at GenCon...
How do you all feel about the Gauss Pylon, Sentry Pylons and Tesseract Arcs when it comes to vehicle killing?
A Sentry Pylon with Gauss Exterminators for example (if for some reason you arent taking the Heat gun for 25pts more), is the same price as 2 Heavy Destroyers, has the same number of shots, has far more powerful shots, is way more durable, can deepstrike for 10pts more, and only lacks the destroyers mobility and rerolling 1s to hit. In my eyes they make Heavy Destroyers redundant. With the Heat gun (FW Xenos dex is at home and can't remember it's exact name) they are even better for their points with 3.5 average shots and more damage at half range.
Whilst Arks (with tesla) are like a cross between a Pylon and an Anni Barge, but far more durable than either (5++, T7, Quantum Shielding, Living Metal), for just around 60pts more than a heat Pylon, throwing almost as many tesla shots as an Anni Barge on top of that (6 st 6 as opposed to 8 st 7, but the difference between st6 and 7 is no longer dramatic).
As for the Gauss Pylon, it looks crazy good at killing vehicles and MCs. Auto hitting most things with fly, hitting 'hard to hit' flyers on a 2+, hitting all other vehicles on a 3+, with D6 shots, wounding T6 on a 2+ and anything above on a 3+, ignoring almost all armour saves and then doing 6+d3 damage a shot (at some point in the process it would probably be the most efficient use Necrons have of that CP reroll). Plus being Macro for double damage against Titanic. It looks like it will eat a vehicle/flyer/MC for breakfast each turn, for less than 500pts. Let alone that small 5++ bubble it gives.
I know an Index shouldn't have to rely on FW to work properly, but that was the case last edition with my CSM and BA... just a pity that more money is now going to be needed to make my Crons usable now - already had to fork it out for the other armies.
This is all what I've seen in paper. I've only used my IG and CSM so far in this edition so I may be wrong and have literally zero experience with Crons this edition. But what do you think? Do these three units help towards solving the absurdity that Necrons can't deal with armour and MCs in a points efficient manner any more?
Obviously it does nothing to help the mobility and RP issues, but 1 step at a time.
P.s. I still really really miss my haywire/veil courts running rampant against opponents mech!
The big pylon is the star of our faction currently, very good for its price point.
The sentry pylons are also very good, I prefer running the heat ray (just for the increased amount of shots on average) and its not tethered to focusing on "FLY" units. But both work well.
TA i have found to do a lot of work, however if you bring a pylon, DDA get the job done better while also having the 5++, but are not as mobile. But the arks on their own are very very capable and a solid vehicle addition to a fast mobile necron army.
I'm glad to hear that this is the case. Having only Heavy Destroyers, Doom Scythes (no rule to keep full bs on the Death Ray is very bad) and Doomsday Arcs as the only reliable anti tank would have been pretty depressing since, imo, they are all massively overcosted.
Acanthrites look pretty nifty for 60pts as well - very mobile, hit hard in assault, wielding Melta weaponry and pretty tough to boot. A nice unit to be escorting a Destroyer Lord. In a list with a Gauss Pylon, Sentry Pylons and Tesseract Arcs, they shouldn't be absorbing much multidamage ap stripping shots either.
Tesla Immortals look the go-to troops choice in this edition as it stands having run the maths on them compared to Warriors and Gauss Immortals - they make the Crons a mid rather than short range force.
We've always been a short-mid range army, not much has changed. Just what is good. But yes, aranthracites are okay, id be using scarabs to screen the lord, much cheaper and less of a threat concentration.
That's true but the 'assault' aspect of their tesla weaponry puts them firmly in the mid range rather than short like Gauss. Yeh Scarabs are a good shout for a screen... Will come up with a list using these ideas soon.
TBH, I personally think a balanced cron list now incorporates a wide variety of ranges. We should have some backfield cannons, with good midrange damage dealers and mid-close range firefights.
DDA and pylons, fronted by arks/destroyers/tomb blades and GI immortals make a consistent damage output.
With that in mind Necron Reinforcement Protocols is the most OP thing in 8th edition. Yes i know the counter is focus fire, but still sometimes your dice rebel and won´t let you kill the last of the 20 warriors, and next turn are all back.
With that in mind Imperial Knight Ion Shield is the most OP thing in 8th edition. Yes i know the counter is focus fire, but still sometimes your dice rebel and won´t let you kill the last of the 24 wounds, and next turn it is all still there.
All Is Dust and Disgustingly Resilient are both much better survivability rules than RP is. Largely because neither of them can be cancelled out by a sufficiently large amount of fire.
The main issues from this thread seem to be lack of decent anti-tank, inability to deal with horde, RP not being very effective and serious lack of mobility.
Keeping these in mind and considering Klowny's responses to my questions I've tried to come up with a list that addresses them. It was exceedingly difficult which says a lot.
What do you think of the following 2k list (only options not auto wargear listed):
Destroyer Lord with Warscythe
Cryptek
10 Immortals with Tesla
10 Immortals with Tesla
9 Immortals with Tesla
3 Wraiths with Particle Shredders
5 Scarab Swarms
3 Acanthrites
1 Tesseract Arc with 2 Tesla Cannons
1 Sentry Pylon with Heat Ray
1 Gauss Pylon
Between them the 3 'Vehicles' are putting out 3d6 very effective anti tank shots 2/3's of which are D6 damage and 1/3 of which is 6+d3 damage. The Acanthrites cutting beams also adds to this.
58 Tesla shots at mid range plus 6 Tesla Cannon shots should put 43/44 wounds before saves on T3 and T4 respectively.
All Immortals have a fully effective 24" range meaning that they will be less likely to be in rapid fire range or within range of short range weaponry of the opponents. It also means that they have more choice with cover whilst keeping full firing effectiveness. These should help increase the amount of models left standing to a small extent. the 5++ and 4+RP from the Cryptek also obviously helps.
The D-Lord, Scarabs, Acanthrites and Wraiths add much needed mobility and shouldn't need to worry about multi damage weapons as much with the Pylons and Arc absorbing a lot of the opponents firepower (I presume).
There are a multitude of armour ignoring shots for MEQ and TEQ as well as the Acanthrites and D-Lords assault capabilities and the sheer amount of Tesla hits to be able to deal with Marines.
It comes to 1999pts so the Particle Shredders could be removed for an extra Scarab Swarm.
I can make better lists using other Indexes, Necrons are definitely sub-par due to their costings, but this is the best I can come up with personally, having read the problems that people are bringing up.
Now I've only played 4 games in 8th so far, and none with Necrons, so it's all theory crafting up till this point. So to those of you with more experience of Necrons in 8th, am I going along the right track here?
With that in mind Necron Reinforcement Protocols is the most OP thing in 8th edition. Yes i know the counter is focus fire, but still sometimes your dice rebel and won´t let you kill the last of the 20 warriors, and next turn are all back.
(Emphasis mine.)
Sigh.
My reaction in meme format
Spoiler:
Well that's a blast from the past, there was what 15 pages of that obnoxious pre release thread, with each page having more outrageous claims about necrons imminent takeover of eighth ed than the last. I've occasionally thought about necroing it and asking people to come back and defend their dire predictions, because a victory lap might be good for a chuckle, but ultimately decided against it because that much stupid needs to stay dead.
Poly Ranger wrote: The main issues from this thread seem to be lack of decent anti-tank, inability to deal with horde, RP not being very effective and serious lack of mobility.
Keeping these in mind and considering Klowny's responses to my questions I've tried to come up with a list that addresses them. It was exceedingly difficult which says a lot.
What do you think of the following 2k list (only options not auto wargear listed):
Destroyer Lord with Warscythe
Cryptek
10 Immortals with Tesla
10 Immortals with Tesla
9 Immortals with Tesla
3 Wraiths with Particle Shredders
5 Scarab Swarms
3 Acanthrites
1 Tesseract Arc with 2 Tesla Cannons
1 Sentry Pylon with Heat Ray
1 Gauss Pylon
Between them the 3 'Vehicles' are putting out 3d6 very effective anti tank shots 2/3's of which are D6 damage and 1/3 of which is 6+d3 damage. The Acanthrites cutting beams also adds to this.
58 Tesla shots at mid range plus 6 Tesla Cannon shots should put 43/44 wounds before saves on T3 and T4 respectively.
All Immortals have a fully effective 24" range meaning that they will be less likely to be in rapid fire range or within range of short range weaponry of the opponents. It also means that they have more choice with cover whilst keeping full firing effectiveness. These should help increase the amount of models left standing to a small extent. the 5++ and 4+RP from the Cryptek also obviously helps.
The D-Lord, Scarabs, Acanthrites and Wraiths add much needed mobility and shouldn't need to worry about multi damage weapons as much with the Pylons and Arc absorbing a lot of the opponents firepower (I presume).
There are a multitude of armour ignoring shots for MEQ and TEQ as well as the Acanthrites and D-Lords assault capabilities and the sheer amount of Tesla hits to be able to deal with Marines.
It comes to 1999pts so the Particle Shredders could be removed for an extra Scarab Swarm.
I can make better lists using other Indexes, Necrons are definitely sub-par due to their costings, but this is the best I can come up with personally, having read the problems that people are bringing up.
Now I've only played 4 games in 8th so far, and none with Necrons, so it's all theory crafting up till this point. So to those of you with more experience of Necrons in 8th, am I going along the right track here?
Hey Poly maybe post this in the Necron tactics thread, youll get better responses there and we can keep this as a discussion about our inherent weaknesses currently
Warriors- 10 ppm from 12
Scarabs- now a troop unit
Immortals- now elite, 2W, 20 ppm from 17, gauss blaster is now assault 2
deathmarks- gun is now 30" from 24"
Praetorians- gain 1W, Str 6, flat 2 damage on both melee weapons
Lychguard- 3++ with shield, scythe is now AP -4, 6+ FNP Flayed ones- now fast attack, 17ppm from 21
Doom Scythe - death ray damage is now mortal wounds
Monolith/Night scythe - the units being transported in are a lot scarier now so I would hesitate to change these
Poly Ranger wrote: The main issues from this thread seem to be lack of decent anti-tank, inability to deal with horde, RP not being very effective and serious lack of mobility.
Keeping these in mind and considering Klowny's responses to my questions I've tried to come up with a list that addresses them. It was exceedingly difficult which says a lot.
What do you think of the following 2k list (only options not auto wargear listed):
Destroyer Lord with Warscythe
Cryptek
10 Immortals with Tesla
10 Immortals with Tesla
9 Immortals with Tesla
3 Wraiths with Particle Shredders
5 Scarab Swarms
3 Acanthrites
1 Tesseract Arc with 2 Tesla Cannons
1 Sentry Pylon with Heat Ray
1 Gauss Pylon
Between them the 3 'Vehicles' are putting out 3d6 very effective anti tank shots 2/3's of which are D6 damage and 1/3 of which is 6+d3 damage. The Acanthrites cutting beams also adds to this.
58 Tesla shots at mid range plus 6 Tesla Cannon shots should put 43/44 wounds before saves on T3 and T4 respectively.
All Immortals have a fully effective 24" range meaning that they will be less likely to be in rapid fire range or within range of short range weaponry of the opponents. It also means that they have more choice with cover whilst keeping full firing effectiveness. These should help increase the amount of models left standing to a small extent. the 5++ and 4+RP from the Cryptek also obviously helps.
The D-Lord, Scarabs, Acanthrites and Wraiths add much needed mobility and shouldn't need to worry about multi damage weapons as much with the Pylons and Arc absorbing a lot of the opponents firepower (I presume).
There are a multitude of armour ignoring shots for MEQ and TEQ as well as the Acanthrites and D-Lords assault capabilities and the sheer amount of Tesla hits to be able to deal with Marines.
It comes to 1999pts so the Particle Shredders could be removed for an extra Scarab Swarm.
I can make better lists using other Indexes, Necrons are definitely sub-par due to their costings, but this is the best I can come up with personally, having read the problems that people are bringing up.
Now I've only played 4 games in 8th so far, and none with Necrons, so it's all theory crafting up till this point. So to those of you with more experience of Necrons in 8th, am I going along the right track here?
Hey Poly maybe post this in the Necron tactics thread, youll get better responses there and we can keep this as a discussion about our inherent weaknesses currently
Warriors- 10 ppm from 12
Scarabs- now a troop unit
Immortals- now elite, 2W, 20 ppm from 17, gauss blaster is now assault 2
deathmarks- gun is now 30" from 24"
Praetorians- gain 1W, Str 6, flat 2 damage on both melee weapons
Lychguard- 3++ with shield, scythe is now AP -4, 6+ FNP Flayed ones- now fast attack, 17ppm from 21
Doom Scythe - death ray damage is now mortal wounds
Monolith/Night scythe - the units being transported in are a lot scarier now so I would hesitate to change these
Haven't played other models so cant comment
Slayer is a little abrupt, but there are a few issues with that wishlist,
Warriors are appropriately costed, maybe even a bit of a bargain for what you get. The problems they do have can't really be solved by just reducing their points cost.
Changing immortals to be terminator equivalents again is something that gets floated a lot, I like the flexibility of having heavy and light infantry in troops choices, but given that our two other TEQs are assault focused I can see the appeal.
Scarabs as troops would make list building much easier, and nurglings are troops so it's not without precedent, but scarabs don't really fit the Fantasy of troops very well. I feel like if we are moving something into troops to replace immortals flayed ones would fit the role best. However this is really a side bar as changing slots for Immortals, flayed ones, or scarabs is fairly unlikely to bring us up to par.
Praetorians are kind of the opposite of warriors, their Kit is ok (in that they can fill roles well), but what they really need is cost reductions.I'm always bad at these so take these with a grain of salt but probably knock five points off of praetorians so they would be 20 points per model after reduction, and 30 with gear, I'd also give them back deep strike.
Lychguard are in a rough spot, their lack of mobility hurts their chances of getting into assault, and if their role is to be a distraction carnifex they are way overcost. War scythe is solid, a good powerfist equivalent without the -1 to hit, of course you need to get close to use it. The dispersion shield is a solution looking for a problem, it was great in the days of deathstars where you could expect to regularly see power weapons in CC, but these days that's a much less common occurrence. I'd knock 10 points off of the shield if it's going to continue to be a 4++, for 310 points a 10 man sword and board lychguard squad advancing up the battle field might survive long enough to earn it's points.
Reanimation protocol (or as I say, reassembly line) is (as said in the topic) not particularly good, being most of our opponents focus fire a unit and then continue with the next unit etc.
Now in order to make RP viable we would need to be able to make RP rolls for units that are 100% destroyed, but at a cost (to not make it OP).
I suggest making us able to RP entirely destroyed units at 5+ and the failed rolls == "models fleeing".
And boost the ordinary roll to 4+ (units that still have surviving models).
Ex. A unit of 10 Immortals die because of heavy fire, on my turn I roll 10 dices for them and roll four dices with ei. 5 or 6 on it and those four come back and fight yet again while the rest "flee" and you can no longer roll for them, they are removed from the game.
To clarify the new unit: If these four that came back would die, you would still be able to roll RP for them (if all four die, on 5+, and if atleast one survive, you make ordinary RP rolls for the unit).
Now the key here is the models actually fleeing after this RP roll, which makes this rule unique from the rest of the factions in 40k (my point is no FnP "Death guard Necrons" bla bla) and also brings back their fluff of "always" coming back and also making it fairly balanced.
A sidenote: With this system the pointscosts might need to be adjusted abit for units.
And for our wargear:
Ressurection orb: (one time use only) Roll for RP again for all units within 5".
(Passive) Boost RP value with +1 to the roll, so its 4+ to reanimate entirely dead units and 3+ for units that still have models alive. also make it 5" range.
And for stratagems: A stratagem that boosts RP significantly for one unit, per 1CP spent you get +1 to this roll up to 2+ (a roll of 1 is always a failed roll), also this strategem you would be able to use more than once during your turn.
Ps. Models that flee from morale would still count as "removed" to not confuse anyone.
There are all kinds of ways they could "fix" necrons.
I'd like to see them...
Gauss - Never wound targets on worse than a 5+.
RP - Necrons should NEVER run away in fear. Tie morale into a "phase out" rule that would allow us to repair and redeploy when overwhelmed and wiped out. Have portals make it easier to redeploy, but not required.
Give us one of the following:
A mechanic to make RP rolls for squads that have been wiped out completely.
A mechanic to prevent concentrated fire and spread out casualties across the army.
One or more mechanics to punish concentrated fire and encourage our opponents to spread out casualties across our army.
Our army weakness is obvious, and we completely lack any tools to play around it. Not taking advantage of it is completely up to our opponents.
More Extreme Changes:
Either...
Make Necrons immune to morale. They're immortal robots when they're self aware, and immortal automatons the rest of the time. What, exactly, do they have to fear? Re-work morale for Necrons into a "reinforcement" mechanic to emphasize their focus on attrition warfare. Something like: during the morale phase, you can choose to automatically pass your morale test. Or you can attempt to phase out and come back. If you choose to phase out remove the unit from the board and roll a leadership test with -2 if under 50% and -4 if under 25%. If successful, bring the unit back onto the board via <insert methods here. Portal or board-edge something, something>. If unsuccessful the unit is destroyed. Any unit completely wiped out in the previous shooting or fight phase is considered to be under 25%.
or
Limit the number of RP rolls we can make per turn, and drop our PPM significantly. Give us something like 3-5 RP dice per CP, though you don't lose RP dice when you spend CP. This should solve most of the RP woes people have simply by increasing the number of units and models we can bring to the table, and by preventing us from making RP rolls for all of them as long as our opponent can actually deal damage.
Edit - Thinking more on this...
A mechanic to make RP rolls for squads that have been wiped out completely.
Introduce wording to enable precisely this to Resurrection Orbs and Ghost Arks. IMO, just remove the ark's transport ability and make them gunships/unlimited rez orb carriers. Necrons don't need "transports" beyond portals.
A mechanic to prevent concentrated fire and spread out casualties across the army.
Change the cryptek's chronometron from a 5++ aura to "Once per game during any shooting or fight phase this unit, and one additional unit within 6", cannot be the target of shooting attacks until the end of the turn. Additionally, all charges declared against these units will automatically fail."
One or more mechanics to punish concentrated fire and encourage our opponents to spread out casualties across our army.
Cryptek Upgrade: Vengeance Staff -
Ranged - 24" Assault* S6 AP- D1 Tesla Melee - S As User AP -1
You may make a number of attacks equal to the number of casualties that unit took the previous turn. If a unit with a model within 6" was destroyed, make a number of attacks equal to the starting number of models in that unit. This replaces the unit's staff of light.
The idea is that the nearby cryptek stores up energy in a techno-arcane capacitor system as units near him are shot to pieces. He can then unleash the stored up energy at enemy units to "punish" them. The opponent can, of course, defeat the weapon by simply not concentrating fire so much, but doing so allows the Necrons to make RP rolls.
This item is definitely OP, but I think the general idea is sound.
I literally LOL'd at the notion of making a Gauss rule that they can't wound on worse than a 5. That's literally just affecting Flayers and the Array against Land Raiders.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: I literally LOL'd at the notion of making a Gauss rule that they can't wound on worse than a 5. That's literally just affecting Flayers and the Array against Land Raiders.
Oh...but the QQ that would arise from changing it to a 4+...
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: I literally LOL'd at the notion of making a Gauss rule that they can't wound on worse than a 5. That's literally just affecting Flayers and the Array against Land Raiders.
Oh...but the QQ that would arise from changing it to a 4+...
Well, I can imagine DE players would be (not unreasonably) annoyed if Necrons were basically given Splinter Weapons. Except that they also work on vehicles. And are allowed AP. And have actual buffs to go with them.
I still think the best way to fix gauss is give it back what it lost. Before it did a hull point on a 6, and auto wounded on a 6 (which was effectively removed as everyone else has been given it).
The easiest and logical way of giving it back its utility in 8th imo is to have gauss do a mortal wound on a 6.
Honestly guys, I don't think they are going to buff our offense outside of some points adjustments, at least judging from the codexes we've seen so far. More than likely we'll get a long list of points reductions, and some gimmicky tactic that lets us spend a CP or two and roll reanimation for a unit that got wiped out. The dynasty rules should be interesting, though I expect more defensive traits.
The area we really need to stay on GW about is how awful tomb world deploy is, it is so bad right now, and we really really need it to not suck.
I'd love to see something to the effect of gauss doing an extra damage on a 6 to wound. Not a mortal, just a damage. Flavorful as heck cos it will help us strip elites and vehicles, like in the fluff, but won't help against basic infantry so it wouldnt be unbalanced.
Arandmoor wrote: Make Necrons immune to morale. They're immortal robots when they're self aware, and immortal automatons the rest of the time. What, exactly, do they have to fear?
Sorry to interrupt, but... By this account, EVERYTHING in 40k should be immune to Morale, except Guardsmen and Gretchins. And guess what ? It's how it was in the last 3 or 4 editions. And it sucked.
Arandmoor wrote: Make Necrons immune to morale. They're immortal robots when they're self aware, and immortal automatons the rest of the time. What, exactly, do they have to fear?
Sorry to interrupt, but... By this account, EVERYTHING in 40k should be immune to Morale, except Guardsmen and Gretchins. And guess what ? It's how it was in the last 3 or 4 editions. And it sucked.
The average warrior has just enough intelligence and memory to fight and follow orders, all other mortal instincts were taken from them during transference. So fear doesn't really factor into it, at least from a fluff perspective. Rules wise this is reflected in the highest leadership value for any troop. With that said I agree with your general thought though, in 5th thru 7th morale was more or less a joke, and that while it might make sense from a fluff perspective, leaving morale in place just makes for a better game.
Arandmoor wrote: Make Necrons immune to morale. They're immortal robots when they're self aware, and immortal automatons the rest of the time. What, exactly, do they have to fear?
Sorry to interrupt, but... By this account, EVERYTHING in 40k should be immune to Morale, except Guardsmen and Gretchins. And guess what ? It's how it was in the last 3 or 4 editions. And it sucked.
The average warrior has just enough intelligence and memory to fight and follow orders, all other mortal instincts were taken from them during transference. So fear doesn't really factor into it, at least from a fluff perspective. Rules wise this is reflected in the highest leadership value for any troop. With that said I agree with your general thought though, in 5th thru 7th morale was more or less a joke, and that while it might make sense from a fluff perspective, leaving morale in place just makes for a better game.
Of course not everything should be immune to morale, but even in 8th SOME things are. Given the fluff and the facts behind necron warriors they are the unit in game that has most reason to be immune to morale, but they aren't, whilst things that do have minds are.
If mindless immortal self resurrecting machines aren't immune to morale then nothing else should be.
A cryptek has a 3” range on his two auras, he literally has to be within consolidation distance (and he has the weakest statline for an IC in the necrons) for units to benefit from his aura. I can’t even fathom who thought that was a good idea, it has to have been a leftover from a prior iteration of the rules that no ever one bothered to update.
Honest question - would you prefer if a cryptek's 5++ aura, say, only protected units that were entirely within 9" of him? Because that's exactly how ork kustom force fields work, and I can't tell if it's better or not. My only gauge is a painboy, and I honestly feel like his 3" aura is a bit harder to use at times without cheesy conga lines.
Arandmoor wrote: Make Necrons immune to morale. They're immortal robots when they're self aware, and immortal automatons the rest of the time. What, exactly, do they have to fear?
Sorry to interrupt, but... By this account, EVERYTHING in 40k should be immune to Morale, except Guardsmen and Gretchins. And guess what ? It's how it was in the last 3 or 4 editions. And it sucked.
The average warrior has just enough intelligence and memory to fight and follow orders, all other mortal instincts were taken from them during transference. So fear doesn't really factor into it, at least from a fluff perspective. Rules wise this is reflected in the highest leadership value for any troop. With that said I agree with your general thought though, in 5th thru 7th morale was more or less a joke, and that while it might make sense from a fluff perspective, leaving morale in place just makes for a better game.
Of course not everything should be immune to morale, but even in 8th SOME things are. Given the fluff and the facts behind necron warriors they are the unit in game that has most reason to be immune to morale, but they aren't, whilst things that do have minds are.
If mindless immortal self resurrecting machines aren't immune to morale then nothing else should be.
What's weird is that a few Necron units actually lost Fearless in the transition to 8th. Scarabs, Spyders and Wraiths all used to be Fearless on account of being near-mindless or more autonomous (or something like that). Now though, even bloody scarabs will run away.
But yeah, I really think Necrons could do with at least some protection from morale - even if it was like Synapse and only worked when they were near a lord/overlord/destroyer lord model.
A cryptek has a 3” range on his two auras, he literally has to be within consolidation distance (and he has the weakest statline for an IC in the necrons) for units to benefit from his aura. I can’t even fathom who thought that was a good idea, it has to have been a leftover from a prior iteration of the rules that no ever one bothered to update.
Honest question - would you prefer if a cryptek's 5++ aura, say, only protected units that were entirely within 9" of him? Because that's exactly how ork kustom force fields work, and I can't tell if it's better or not. My only gauge is a painboy, and I honestly feel like his 3" aura is a bit harder to use at times without cheesy conga lines.
Hmm, I feel like that is how all auras should work, but it was changed for the sake of simplicity. I don't think I'd have a strong opinion either way, as they both kind of suck compared to everyones elses auras.
The first problem I noticed with the Necron army is definitely our lack in anti-tank. We used to be really good with anti-tank now I feel we can barely kill a Rhino sometimes. My last game I actually couldn't kill a Rhino (wasn't bad plays just really bad at rolling that game). I know we have Heavy Destroyers and DDAs although they are very expensive. I really liked DDAs in 7th although in 8th relying on D3 shots hurts badly. DDAs do require 10 models to have D6 shots, although the Vindicator requires only 5 models in a squad. The Vindicators have a much shorter range although we can't move or lose the firepower. Having mortal wounds with gauss would be nice but something I would like to see return is the option for Eldritch Lances for Crypteks. Even if the lances cost the same as a Lascannon, I would be happy with that. If they didn't want Crypteks to become more auto include as they are now, give it to a different model like a Lord and give us a reason to take them (wouldn't make sense but still an idea).
Crixia36 wrote: The first problem I noticed with the Necron army is definitely our lack in anti-tank. We used to be really good with anti-tank now I feel we can barely kill a Rhino sometimes. My last game I actually couldn't kill a Rhino (wasn't bad plays just really bad at rolling that game). I know we have Heavy Destroyers and DDAs although they are very expensive. I really liked DDAs in 7th although in 8th relying on D3 shots hurts badly. DDAs do require 10 models to have D6 shots, although the Vindicator requires only 5 models in a squad. The Vindicators have a much shorter range although we can't move or lose the firepower. Having mortal wounds with gauss would be nice but something I would like to see return is the option for Eldritch Lances for Crypteks. Even if the lances cost the same as a Lascannon, I would be happy with that. If they didn't want Crypteks to become more auto include as they are now, give it to a different model like a Lord and give us a reason to take them (wouldn't make sense but still an idea).
We actually have some of the best anti-tank in the game, its just all in FW. Try proxying some sentry pylons, or the big gun, or the tesseract ark. All very strong. The centipedes and aranthracites are also good at killing tanks, albeit more fragile. DDA are still very good, add a few with a stalker usually is enough anti tank for most armies. No other army can one shot a knight for 500 points from a single weapon.
Crixia36 wrote: The first problem I noticed with the Necron army is definitely our lack in anti-tank. We used to be really good with anti-tank now I feel we can barely kill a Rhino sometimes. My last game I actually couldn't kill a Rhino (wasn't bad plays just really bad at rolling that game). I know we have Heavy Destroyers and DDAs although they are very expensive. I really liked DDAs in 7th although in 8th relying on D3 shots hurts badly. DDAs do require 10 models to have D6 shots, although the Vindicator requires only 5 models in a squad. The Vindicators have a much shorter range although we can't move or lose the firepower. Having mortal wounds with gauss would be nice but something I would like to see return is the option for Eldritch Lances for Crypteks. Even if the lances cost the same as a Lascannon, I would be happy with that. If they didn't want Crypteks to become more auto include as they are now, give it to a different model like a Lord and give us a reason to take them (wouldn't make sense but still an idea).
We actually have some of the best anti-tank in the game, its just all in FW. Try proxying some sentry pylons, or the big gun, or the tesseract ark. All very strong. The centipedes and aranthracites are also good at killing tanks, albeit more fragile. DDA are still very good, add a few with a stalker usually is enough anti tank for most armies. No other army can one shot a knight for 500 points from a single weapon.
I don't use any FW, that is probably my problem. I've used a DDA a few times and it never really performed, even with the stalker, it just seemed ok. I would averagely get 2 shots and miss with 1 either in shooting or wounding (Even with the stalker). Maybe I need to take 2 of them.
Necrons used to have great antitank, now they struggle with it.
Necrons used to be the most survivable, now Death Guard are.
Tesla was the best on overwatch, now it's worse than it's normal profile.
Crypteks had tons of amazing options, now they do not, but are practically a required default upgrade.
Transcendent C'Tan used to be amazing....etc..
They have systematically nerfed everything that was exceptional in the Necron Army, over the last 2 editions, and what have they given them in return ?
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: We absolutely didn't have the best anti-tank and Im sure you meant Tesla for Overwatch, but I overall agree with the rest.
Also remember it's because Necrons are super powerful and broken and need those nerfs!
You are correct. I edited my post to reflect.
Don't get me wrong, TP'ing across the board and melting vehicles with haywire, may have been a bit much... but every weapon in the game has the equivalent of the old Gauss special rule, and Necrons get a -1AP Bolter. Oh wait, space Primaris Marines have that too...
morgoth wrote: Tesla for overwatch was just a bug that many chose to consider as a feature. It never really defined competitive Necron anyway.
It was a feature because it wasn't as strong as some people chose to believe.
It was an obvious mismatch between a codex rule written for another edition and a BRB rule of the then current edition.
That it was available on the most undercosted flyer ever only made it worse.
It was only undercosted until everyone started getting AA. Tournament wins for Necrons went down little by little as that happened. THEN it was just a pretty great unit.
morgoth wrote: Tesla for overwatch was just a bug that many chose to consider as a feature. It never really defined competitive Necron anyway.
It was a feature because it wasn't as strong as some people chose to believe.
It was an obvious mismatch between a codex rule written for another edition and a BRB rule of the then current edition.
That it was available on the most undercosted flyer ever only made it worse.
It was only undercosted until everyone started getting AA. Tournament wins for Necrons went down little by little as that happened. THEN it was just a pretty great unit.
I do feel that Night Scythes are in a terrible position right now. They've lost a lot of their unique transporting rules (including the transport keyword now). It's difficult to justify their use in the current rendition.
morgoth wrote: Tesla for overwatch was just a bug that many chose to consider as a feature. It never really defined competitive Necron anyway.
It was a feature because it wasn't as strong as some people chose to believe.
It was an obvious mismatch between a codex rule written for another edition and a BRB rule of the then current edition.
That it was available on the most undercosted flyer ever only made it worse.
It was only undercosted until everyone started getting AA. Tournament wins for Necrons went down little by little as that happened. THEN it was just a pretty great unit.
Not really, no.
It was crazy good for all that codex's life, until they released the new necrons which were then more about being unkillable and moving 12" rather than spamming croissants.
The number of tournament wins is irrelevant to the fact that a unit is undercosted.
morgoth wrote: Tesla for overwatch was just a bug that many chose to consider as a feature. It never really defined competitive Necron anyway.
It was a feature because it wasn't as strong as some people chose to believe.
It was an obvious mismatch between a codex rule written for another edition and a BRB rule of the then current edition.
That it was available on the most undercosted flyer ever only made it worse.
It was only undercosted until everyone started getting AA. Tournament wins for Necrons went down little by little as that happened. THEN it was just a pretty great unit.
Not really, no.
It was crazy good for all that codex's life, until they released the new necrons which were then more about being unkillable and moving 12" rather than spamming croissants.
The number of tournament wins is irrelevant to the fact that a unit is undercosted.
Actually it does because it proves my point. As more armies got accessible AA, the power of the Scythe decreased significantly. The issue was it was 100 points and wasn't being hit by anything. Dedicated AA from armies like Tau and SM and CSM and even Eldar (though there's was more a power creep issue, like it always is with Eldar), made the AV11 unit easily killed, and if you looked at tournaments you'd see that, though they were a top army, they had WAY less topping lists.
You're right it was crazy, but it was only crazy in the codex. There's a reason this thread right here exists, and it's to prove Necrons are always called more powerful than they really are. You even talked about Decurion, and look how long that lasted: right until the next codex releases of Eldar and Space Marines!
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are they embarking on a physical transport in the first place?
