A large number of people seem to think the necrons are an unviable army in 8e. So what are the problems and what are the fixes? Points cost reductions? Making resurrection easier?
Better gauss weapons?

Purely as an outsider, it looks like they are over pointed and suffer from a lack of easily accessible multi damage sources.

Well, I played Necrons in 6th and 7th edition shelving my beloved Eldar for being over the top.
In the new ed., I came back to Eldar shelving Necrons.
Necrons are hardly playable atm.
The main problem I see is point costs. Reductions of 20% would make them viable again.

Points reductions across the board and some better synergy/buffs for RP.

I think RP as a core rule is fine, but there need to be better buffs to it. Best suggestions I've seen are:

Allowing Res Orbs to be triggered at any time.
Spyders can reanimate dead units
Stratagem to roll RP on dead units (probably 3CP)

I also think we need the Gauss rule back to give our warriors some kick against armour, but I think the first lot of changes are much more important.

Monolith also needs an inv save, a 2+ save or QS. It'd also be amazing for it coming in at the start of the movement phase rather than the end, so units can disembark the turn it arrives, but I think this is pie in the sky stuff.

I recently saw a game where Orks out shot a Necron army. I think Necrons have the same problem as marines but don't have as much access to anti-tank weapons. I think they should add a mortal wound against vehicle keyword on a 6 to wound to all their gauss weapons. The point reduction issue is always brought up but I think the Reanimation protocol or We'll be Back rules should be where they address their durability. I still think I laughed for 5 minutes about that 2k game where Orks out shot a decent looking Necron list. Hilarious!

 Brotherjanus wrote:
I recently saw a game where Orks out shot a Necron army. I think Necrons have the same problem as marines but don't have as much access to anti-tank weapons. I think they should add a mortal wound against vehicle keyword on a 6 to wound to all their gauss weapons. The point reduction issue is always brought up but I think the Reanimation protocol or We'll be Back rules should be where they address their durability. I still think I laughed for 5 minutes about that 2k game where Orks out shot a decent looking Necron list. Hilarious!

That idea to make gauss do mortal wounds on 6+ actually sounds quite cool and fun. Maybe auto wounds vehicles on a 6 instead if mortal wounds is too powerful. But still, interesting idea.

Some way to block psychic powers would be nice.

Over-Priced infantry
No cheap multi-damage sources
Short Ranged Shooting Still (24 Inches)
RP can by bypassed via target selection and priority
Vehicles being T6, 4+ armor, but very expensive
Anti-Vehicle firepower is very expensive, and most of it is either 1 shot, or on a d6 shots.
Lack of Cheap Screens
Almost no recourse against psyker-heavy armies
No psychic phase presence.
Flyers are completely unplayable
Transports are all broken.

I think Lychguard would be quite great if they were 10% cheaper. And the Monolith would be amazing with a big point reduction. 1 or 2 of them being able to be placed comfortably in a list would be fun.

In escense, you're all correct.

However, it can be broken down more "thoroughly" into several factoids:

1:
GW priced us based on a gimmicky-at-best survivable mechnic way back when, and hasnt really done anything else since.

We are priced around a revival mechanic that is very easy to neuter in this edition of Overkill Above All, so we seem very lackluster bang-for-buck.


2:
We have absolute zero customisation, not even taking the piss there either.

Our HQs (which are hilariously overpriced comparatively) have a weapon choice, thats it. The Cryptek doesnt even have that, instead it has Cloak or Chrono.

Our basic trooper has no options period. Our 'advanced trooper' has an option of gun A or gun B.

Our Elites Troopers have, in order, 2 options of big stabby or little stabby with shield, 2 options of big stabby/shooty or little stabby more/shooty futher, 1-trick-wonder, legitimately useless outside of a perfect 1-turn countercharge. Or are gimmick-hungry Shards... (then FW)

Our Fast Attacks do everything, so we need like 12 in each list. (also more FW)

And Heavies are realy limited, in that they're all Vehicles or the Spyder, barring the H.Destropyers, which arent that good

bringing us on to Vehicles, they're all extremely fragile, even with QS.

monolith is overpriced (and no QS), Flyers are barely viable if at all, and we have no other DT outside of a truck that specifies it can only carry the basic guys or Characters (AND it cant even fit a full size unit of said bsic guys in it) (barring yet more FW)

but, our good LoW is obnoxious good, like argueably most OP in game for their cost, hance them shooting up by 75points in CA



I think that about covers it

If the RP role won't change then I think larger unit sizes would help. It's no secret that you just focus fire down a necron unit to deny RP. As the game scales up in points that simply becomes easier.

I feel (in addition to points drops across the board) warriors should be up to 40, immortals 20, Destroyers 10, and lychguard 20.

If RP forces you to take infantry bricks then at least let them be units large enough to actually survive and get an RP roll.

Still doesn't address the other problems of lack of anti-tank, no anti-psyker, broken flyers, wierd statline vehicles, etc but one thing at a time.

Where to start? Necrons are pretty much universally overpriced and extremely inflexible. On top of that we have an army-wide special rule that is easily countered just by playing the game properly and many of our vehicles are terrible because they have a bunch of non-functional special rules that actually hinder them rather than helping them. We also lack anti-tank, which means we've gone from having some of the best anti-tank in previous editions to the worst in 8th. Because our models are so expensive we get outshot by everything (including Orks) and we lack the range to effectively trade fire with most armies anyway. In practical terms, when you look at effective shooting, Necrons are pretty solidly in the bottom tier. Despite defeating the most powerful race of psykers ever to exist in the 40k universe we also have one of the worst psychic defences in the game, behind only Tau. Necrons also lack aura abilities, which means our characters are both extremely expensive and much more restricted in their impact than those of other races. What's really annoying is I think the Necron way of handing out unit buffs is probably how the whole of 40k should work, but since everyone else gets such easy access to auras Necrons are left behind again. Even more bizarrely, the range on some of our buffs is only 3", despite them not even being auras.

To fix this, Necrons need some pretty drastic point reductions, but the designers need to be careful not to go too far because Reanimation Protocols could potentially be completely broken if Necrons become too cheap. Characters and vehicles could easily be made much cheaper without breaking anything though. I think the issues go further than that, and things like our lack of anti-tank are baked into the fabric of the army because of the lack of customisation. That means we can't scatter a bunch of anti-tank weapons across our units and instead have to put them all in one or two units, which then become very easy to destroy, especially when you consider the short range of most Necron weapons. I honestly think the best approach would probably be to tear the Codex up and start again because the problems with Necrons are quite hard to solve with points with the rules and options as they are.

if you're really worried about balancing resurrection protocols, just make it a 5+ FNP.

Apart from that, everyone else has it covered.
* Everything is too expensive
* Limited or unreliable anti-tank
* slow, short range, no functional transports

momerathe wrote:
if you're really worried about balancing resurrection protocols, just make it a 5+ FNP.

Congrats, you just made robot deathguard and got rid of the gimmick that made necrons necrons.
There should be FNP somewhere in the army, but it shouldn't replace RP.

The dynasty traits need to be redone. They aren't great. I play Orks, and I love what they did there. Everything has a use and you have 7 options.
With necrons you have 5 options and they are all dull and mediocre, that don't really synergize with the rest of the army.
If the Bad Moons trait replaced nihilakh and if Necrons had access to the snakebites trait, they would be so much better. And snakebites are considered to be the worst of the orks traits.

No conventional transports is a design element, and it should stay that way. What necrons need more of are teleportation options.
Veil of Darkness should not be one use, Gate of Infinity should be an ability, not a stratagem, Translocation Crypt should not be faction locked, and there should be some teleporter unit that instantly moves necrons from one teleporter to another. A race that has mastery over time and space should not travel around in a slow metal box like a bunch of savages.

Make basic gauss weapons anti-tank. Maybe something like "+1 damage on a roll of a 6 to wound", or just rip off DZC and give gauss weapons the scourge plasma rifle rule, that allows them to combine hits into stronger hits.

Off the top of my head:

- RPs needs to change. I like the *idea* of the current mechanic but it just doesn't work in practise. How about something like:

Resurrection Protocols:
'Each time a model with this special rule dies, put it on its side (or keep a tally of how many died in each squad). If the last model in a squad dies, place a counter to mark that spot. If an enemy model touches the counter it is removed. At the beginning of each of your turns, roll a dice for each dead model with this rule. For each roll of 5+, you may place that model back in coherency with its original squad. If the squad was wiped out, instead put the first model back on the marker for that squad and then place subsequent models in coherency with it. No model may be placed within 3" of an enemy unit. If any model cannot be placed for any reason, it is treated as having failed its roll. Models that fail their rolls cannot return to play for the remainder of the game, except via a Resurrection Orb.

(I know it's not phrased brilliantly, but hopefully you get the idea)

Also, Resurrection Orbs:
'Once per game, a model with a Resurrection Orb may choose to activate it instead of shooting. Pick a unit with the Resurrection Protocols rule within 6" of the bearer. Each slain model in that unit (including any models that have previously failed their Resurrection Protocols roll) may immediately attempt to return, following the normal rules for Resurrection Protocols.'


- Part of the benefit of the above would be that Necrons don't need to use max-size squads anymore. Which would be very useful, given the nature of detachments in 8th.

- As others have mentioned, Necrons are really lacking in anti-vehicle firepower. I think the real problem is that Gauss is supposed to fulfil this role but the current rules don't allow for that. AP-1 on S4 weapons just isn't enough. Not sure what the best solution would be, honestly. Maybe have Gauss do extra damage to vehicles?

- Piddling movement combined with few short-range (or even melee) weapons. Yeah.

- Anti-synergy. I think the Destroyer Lord is the best example of this. He's a melee HQ who is only able to buff a single ranged unit with mid-long range weapons. Genius.

- So many of their units/weapons just seem to have no meaningful role. Lychguard seem to be bodyguard units, yet Necrons don't have HQs worth protecting - especially not with a ~200pt unit. And if they're supposed to be an offensive melee unit, then why are they stuck footslogging across the table with 5" of movement?

There was an almost identical thread a few months ago, most of which is covered in the above posts.

I'd like to see all Gauss weapons double their app on a natural roll of a 6, with heavy Gauss cannons just doing a mortal wound instead. Mortal wounds for all Gauss weapons sounds great, but I think it's a tough sell. This way it's restricted to the most expensive Gauss weapon, with the rest just upping their anti armour.

The change that lots of people have mentioned is making Tesla destructors damage 2. Goes a long way to fixing annihilation barges and scythes in one go.

Lots of changes to rp have been mentioned. The most commonly discussed option is just copying death guard fnp. Seems to crush the character of the rule to me. My favorite idea so far is to only allow rp on models killed in the last player turn, but allow a roll for wiped out units. Then the res orb can let you roll for the entire unit.

 Brotherjanus wrote:
I recently saw a game where Orks out shot a Necron army. I think Necrons have the same problem as marines but don't have as much access to anti-tank weapons. I think they should add a mortal wound against vehicle keyword on a 6 to wound to all their gauss weapons. The point reduction issue is always brought up but I think the Reanimation protocol or We'll be Back rules should be where they address their durability. I still think I laughed for 5 minutes about that 2k game where Orks out shot a decent looking Necron list. Hilarious!

Well orks are top teir now so not the best example. Orks outshoot a lot of armies now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

momerathe wrote:
if you're really worried about balancing resurrection protocols, just make it a 5+ FNP.

Apart from that, everyone else has it covered.
* Everything is too expensive
* Limited or unreliable anti-tank
* slow, short range, no functional transports

Basically yes.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

momerathe wrote:
if you're really worried about balancing resurrection protocols, just make it a 5+ FNP.

Congrats, you just made robot deathguard and got rid of the gimmick that made necrons necrons.
There should be FNP somewhere in the army, but it shouldn't replace RP.

I did say "if". There is a general opinion that RP is hard to balance because it's strong in low point games and weak at high points - I don't think any amount of futzing around at the edges is going to make that go away.

No conventional transports is a design element, and it should stay that way. What necrons need more of are teleportation options.

By "transport" I mean Monoliths and Night scythes. They should be able to, you know, work.

Except they do work though?
The problem with monoliths is that you can't deploy troops out of them as soon as they arrive. Otherwise the transport feature works fine.
Night scythes and monoliths were FAQ'd to behave like transports.

I've found that using some super glue with a little spray of zip kicker for those annoying arm joints works pretty well.

 iGuy91 wrote:
Over-Priced infantry
No cheap multi-damage sources
Short Ranged Shooting Still (24 Inches)
RP can by bypassed via target selection and priority
Vehicles being T6, 4+ armor, but very expensive
Anti-Vehicle firepower is very expensive, and most of it is either 1 shot, or on a d6 shots.
Lack of Cheap Screens
Almost no recourse against psyker-heavy armies
No psychic phase presence.
Flyers are completely unplayable
Transports are all broken.

Spot on mate.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Except they do work though?
The problem with monoliths is that you can't deploy troops out of them as soon as they arrive. Otherwise the transport feature works fine.
Night scythes and monoliths were FAQ'd to behave like transports.

A big issue with Monoliths and Night Scythes as far as the transport rules go is characters. You can't really use characters effectively if you're going to be transporting stuff. It's why the Veil is so much better for that. A single infantry character counting as your 1 unit for deployment for a Monolith for that turn is pretty crazy.

Darsath wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Except they do work though?
The problem with monoliths is that you can't deploy troops out of them as soon as they arrive. Otherwise the transport feature works fine.
Night scythes and monoliths were FAQ'd to behave like transports.

A big issue with Monoliths and Night Scythes as far as the transport rules go is characters. You can't really use characters effectively if you're going to be transporting stuff. It's why the Veil is so much better for that. A single infantry character counting as your 1 unit for deployment for a Monolith for that turn is pretty crazy.

Ah right, they are unit based as opposed to model based like the other transports. Ok, that is a little bit different.

1. Rework of reanimation protocols. The ability is entirely within your opponents control. If it was working as intended, I think most of our infantry would be priced fine. If GW can't find a way to balance it at higher point games, change it to a 5+++ instead, like Death Guard, so there is at least some guaranteed throughput.

2. Anti-tank. Outside of Destroyers(24") and EP, we have no reliable AT. DDA at 193 points is too volatile for D6 shots and D6 damage. A change to 2D3 shots would be more appropriate. Or even bring back some form of the mortal wound on 6s with gauss weapons

3. 24" range. This is related to 1 and 2, tbh. If they up the survivability, then 24"range is fine. If we have more reliable weapons outside 24", then this is fine. But as it stands without either, it snowballs into a lower tier faction that can't soup these shortcomings.


Edit: I realize I just regurgitated most of what was already said. Glad we're on the same page, at least!

Darsath wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Except they do work though?
The problem with monoliths is that you can't deploy troops out of them as soon as they arrive. Otherwise the transport feature works fine.
Night scythes and monoliths were FAQ'd to behave like transports.

A big issue with Monoliths and Night Scythes as far as the transport rules go is characters. You can't really use characters effectively if you're going to be transporting stuff. It's why the Veil is so much better for that. A single infantry character counting as your 1 unit for deployment for a Monolith for that turn is pretty crazy.

Moreover, if you want to deepstrike the monolith (and you do, because it's so slow) you units can't disembark until turn 3 at the earliest.

Don't make it FNP!

Doing that sucks the remaining theme and feel of the army and would really not align with the lore.

Make RP more common, or allow Spyders to help, like they used to, just don't make it FNP

Question regarding Monoliths (as I only have the Index). Is it true that you can't teleport models already on the table? I played Necrons in 3rd and 4th, and the Portal ability back then was just awesome.

momerathe wrote:

Darsath wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Except they do work though?
The problem with monoliths is that you can't deploy troops out of them as soon as they arrive. Otherwise the transport feature works fine.
Night scythes and monoliths were FAQ'd to behave like transports.

A big issue with Monoliths and Night Scythes as far as the transport rules go is characters. You can't really use characters effectively if you're going to be transporting stuff. It's why the Veil is so much better for that. A single infantry character counting as your 1 unit for deployment for a Monolith for that turn is pretty crazy.

Moreover, if you want to deepstrike the monolith (and you do, because it's so slow) you units can't disembark until turn 3 at the earliest.

Actually, you'll only be able to disembark on turn 3. You can't bring it down 'till turn 2 if held in deepstrike, and no reserves allowed from turn 4 onwards.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Question regarding Monoliths (as I only have the Index). Is it true that you can't teleport models already on the table? I played Necrons in 3rd and 4th, and the Portal ability back then was just awesome.

You can, but only with a stratagem, and you can't use it to drag your units out of combat.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Question regarding Monoliths (as I only have the Index). Is it true that you can't teleport models already on the table? I played Necrons in 3rd and 4th, and the Portal ability back then was just awesome.

You can teleport a unit already on the board if you spend a command point for the stratagem.

^Ok, well that's something I guess.

Poo, poo to not being able to pull them out of combat. That was such a good ability. Plus I remember it helping to re-gen your models, too.

A single Monolith is all I have left of my old army, it makes me sad that it doesn't seem that good.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Question regarding Monoliths (as I only have the Index). Is it true that you can't teleport models already on the table? I played Necrons in 3rd and 4th, and the Portal ability back then was just awesome.

I haven't busted out the codex in months, but I think it was a Strategem.

The problem is, EVERYONE can ignore their army wide rules (QS and RP).


When you can completely ignore what makes them work... well then they dont work.


RP needs to be a new type of FnP, you roll the 4+/5+ after the model died, and on a 5+ (or w.e the RP is as you can buff it) the model comes back, but do this instantly the the model dies. Changes some rules and relics to also work at the end of the turn.

QS should be always -1 damage (to a minimum of 1 damage), meaning 2D weapons do 1D, 3D does 2D, etc..

 Amishprn86 wrote:
The problem is, EVERYONE can ignore their army wide rules (QS and RP).


When you can completely ignore what makes them work... well then they dont work.


RP needs to be a new type of FnP, you roll the 4+/5+ after the model died, and on a 5+ (or w.e the RP is as you can buff it) the model comes back, but do this instantly the the model dies. Changes some rules and relics to also work at the end of the turn.

QS should be always -1 damage (to a minimum of 1 damage), meaning 2D weapons do 1D, 3D does 2D, etc..

Eh, I wouldn't say QS is easily ignored. You'd definitely have to bring a list tailored to it.

Though, I will say that since GW puts our vehicles at T6, they should give them all QS as well.

I was thinking of making an OLDCRON style Necron army, with Immortals, Monoliths, regular Crons, and destroyers. HQs would be lords, destroyer lords, and overlords, probably not many Crypteks or any of the new stuff.

Sounds like this would be the worst idea in the history of ideas.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I was thinking of making an OLDCRON style Necron army, with Immortals, Monoliths, regular Crons, and destroyers. HQs would be lords, destroyer lords, and overlords, probably not many Crypteks or any of the new stuff.

Sounds like this would be the worst idea in the history of ideas.

Right there with ya. I keep googling images of Immortals and imagining what 80ish of them together would look like.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I was thinking of making an OLDCRON style Necron army, with Immortals, Monoliths, regular Crons, and destroyers. HQs would be lords, destroyer lords, and overlords, probably not many Crypteks or any of the new stuff.

Sounds like this would be the worst idea in the history of ideas.

The issue for me is that this is basically the army I want to play.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I was thinking of making an OLDCRON style Necron army, with Immortals, Monoliths, regular Crons, and destroyers. HQs would be lords, destroyer lords, and overlords, probably not many Crypteks or any of the new stuff.

Sounds like this would be the worst idea in the history of ideas.

Tl;Dr - Silver Wave wants you to take a horde of over-costed elite infantry, and works about as well as you'd expect.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I was thinking of making an OLDCRON style Necron army, with Immortals, Monoliths, regular Crons, and destroyers. HQs would be lords, destroyer lords, and overlords, probably not many Crypteks or any of the new stuff.

Sounds like this would be the worst idea in the history of ideas.

This is basically my collection:

2x Destroyer Lords
1 Lord
59 Warriors
39 Scarabs
6 Spyders (metal)
4 Wraiths (metal)
5 diy immortals (Warriors dual wielding flayers)
1 diy cloacktek (metal wraith with a cloak and a a different arm
1 Destroyer (plastic)
5 Destroyers (metal, in parts, but all there)

My entire collection is based around an awakening tomb.
I've been been getting stmoped since 3rd ed, I think when the Ward-Rex came out, I could have been better, but I still can't stomach the changes.
Canoptek madness backed by a silver tide.
Gods, 60 warriors isn't even that much anymore..

Ok incoming wall of text. Tl;DR - if you only read one section read the destroyers section, because I think that area covers the big pain point, and is a conclusion I put a lot of thought into.

What works
-Our troops choices aren't badly priced compared to other troops of a similar statline, if marines go down a point or two I would hope Warriors and immortals do the same, but it's not our troop selections that are dragging us down. Troops are a CP tax anyway, you pinch your nose and slot them in because you have too. Immortals bring S5 AP -2, or an absurd number of S5 shots, which are arguably the best of breed for general issue troop slot weapons. Warriors can have the numbers to make RP much much harder to bypass to the point where most opponents won't even bother shooting a 20 man blob.
-Repair protocols, I know this is an unpopular opinion, but RP is inline with other core abilities from other codexes, it's better than ATSKNF, about the same as synapse, isn't backloaded like power from pain (thought RP can become better over time via snowballing), and compares pretty well to Disgustingly resilient. It can be bypassed, but that's ok, if there were no way to stop it, it would be completely over the top. I've said this a few times but RP is a resource mechanic your opponent has to manage, If they don't manage it well necrons can snowball. I'd like a cheaper way to punish an error on your opponents part, like a 1 CP reroll ones stratagem, or a reroll fails for 3 CP, because otherwise the necron player doesn't really have much to do with the ability. People get hung up on how good RP was in 7th ed, and that's a trap, being able to ignore almost 2/3s of wounds was a rules mistake, outside of 7th ed, RP is arguably the most powerful it's ever been.
-Quantum shielding is silly, random, and fun. I was sure it was going to be replaced in the necron codex and I'm glad I was wrong. Got a straight 10 damage weapon, that's great against every vehicle but necron vehicles, are you in melta range, your chance of getting wounds through just went down. It's a wonderful mechanic that is largely wasted on necron vehicles, because no one takes them, which I'll get to in the section of what doesn't work.

What needs fixing
-Tesla destructor, I like to blame the tesla destructor issues on a way to literal translation from 7th ed. Assault 8 Str 6 AP 0 and 1 damage is basically a very slight upgrade to a hurricane bolter, they are all on vehicles so they have very limited access to a +1 to hit, and minus ones to hit are all over the place. We don't know what GW is actually charging us for these, since the cost appears to be baked into the vehicles that have them, but I wouldn't be surprised if the cost was around 20 or so points. We need our vehicles to be able to take on other vehicles, our infantry can't bring big enough guns, our melee is too slow to catch, and anti infantry is pretty much covered by immortals. Since half of our vehicles have tesla destructors (or tesla spheres), and we need our vehicles to be competent at fighting other vehicles, changing tesla destructors would be an easy way to boost our viability. You don't even have to go over the top, just an AP -1 and 2 damage per shot would put destructors in the damage range of twin linked lascannons against heavy vehicles.

Twin Lascannon at a LRBT:
2/3 * 2/3 * 5/6 * 3.5 * 2 = 2.59 damage per round on average
Suggested destructor at a LRBT
(1/2 + 1/6 * 3) * 1/3 *1/2 * 2 * 8 = 2.66 damage per round

Destructors have a 24" range, las cannons have a 48" range, las cannons are heavy (but don't need to move much) and destructors are assault (which is ok since they would need to get close). So if it came with a points bump that would be fine, anti-vehicle is a capability we are lacking, and I don't mind paying a fair price for it. This would bring units into the sun that haven't been common on tables since 5th ed, units like annihilation barges, doom scythes, night scythes, and obelisk.

-Destroyers, this is probably another unpopular opinion, but destroyers are simultaneously a crutch and the reason we get crushed so easily. Their weapons are good, with the Gauss cannon comparing favorably to a plasma cannon (though being more expensive), and the heavy gauss cannon being a strictly better lascannon. What's not good is that we are paying 30 points a model for the privilege of bringing those weapons, this means that our output will always be strictly worse than someone bringing equivalent weapons on infantry. Are destroyers worth 30 points, certainly, they have fly, a 10" movement and a built in reroll 1s, in fact they might be a little cheap for how good they are. As with most problems though, the devil is in the details. The destroyers statline is similar to a few other units specifically Tau Battlesuits, Tyranid warriors, and space marine Centurions. The astute among you probably already noticed that other units with that statline are hard passes in the codexes they come from, and that's because that statline is very easy to counter with heavy weapons. Your paying for a powerful base model, without an invul save, carrying expensive weapons, and cruising around only 3ish wounds, which is a great target profile for las cannons meltas, battle cannons,

This makes destroyers a high risk high reward unit, which is fine there are lots of units like that, and some like dark reapers have had a lot of success this edition. The difference for necrons is that no other army is completely dependent on such units for the majority of their heavy weapons capability. So destroyers are a crutch because we need them, and a liability because once they get dropped Necrons hit like they have pillows for hands. If GW insists on keeping Destroyers as our only viable heavy weapon carriers, then they need to be less risky to use. They need an invul or wounds that are above the average las cannons damage. Most people arguing for better RP, are arguing for better RP for destroyers, because they couldn't give a fig if a few extra warriors or immortals got back up. Understanding that destroyers being risky to use is a separate issue from RPs relative strength or weakness, allows us to take a different approach to fixing the issue. In this case I like destroyers the way they are, and would prefer that GW gave us a viable alternative to them for heavy weapons, like the one I suggested above for tesla destructors.

Easy fixes
Points adjustments are the easiest fix GW can make, they have the least risk of unforeseen consequences, so this is the section where I'll talk about which units need adjusting.

-Lychguard, an assault unit without a good transport, no built in deep strike, and a 5" move. The base model price is about right at 19, Str 5 toughness 5, 2 wounds and 2 attacks base is a hefty statline. Again if MEQ get adjusted down these guys should probably follow suit. Their wargear on the other hand is crazy expensive. They pay 12 points for a worse stormshield, and 11 points for a chainfist with less strength that takes up two hands. The dispersion shield should priced the same as a storm shield be 5 points, and the war scythe should be 8 or 9 points.

-Triarch praetorians, Our better assault unit in that with a 10" move and fly, that don't see much love because they are too expensive. 22 points seems ok for the base cost, but again their wargear is way more expensive than the imperial equivalents, the rod of the covenant is basically a power sword and a plasma pistol (that can't be used as a pistol) rolled into one, and is more expensive than both. Should Drop it to 8 points, and void blade and pistol should just about match that.

-Doomsday ark, this is a double cost basilisk, without indirect fire, and more damage per hit. Should it cost more than a basilisk, certainly, it has quantum shielding to make it pretty defensible, and a fancy hurricane bolter. Should it twice as much as a basilisk, probably not. Just chipping a few points off of the top would bring it into line. Or they could give it the macro keyword, and not worry about it.

well time for bed, more thoughts tomorrow.

Necrons are a complicated problem. The short answer on what's inherently wrong with them is that they are overpriced and their rules are too generic and lackluster. There's not enough unique tricks and synergy is difficult to shoehorn into a list. Most of the cool stuff you could do from previous editions have been removed. This is understandable from an index, but it was unfortunate they added very little of the classic Necron shenanigans back with the codex. Clearly the idea was that the strategems would cover the bases. But it's not enough.

How would you make the current book playable? Big point reductions across the board and remove certain limitations regarding synergy. How would you make the army as a whole actually good? Nothing short of an overhaul of the entire codex. Lots of good suggestions in the thread already. Bring back Gauss on warriors, make Spyders useful, buff all of the heavy weapons, tweak RP etc.

Regarding RP I would simply keep it as is, but make it so you can always roll if the slain model is within 6" of a lord holding a ResOrb. Or remove the "from the same squad" limiter. So if my 5 man squad of Immortals are wiped, but another intact squad of Immortals are standing right next to them, they can still roll. There's many ways to fix it.

Now all we have to do it kidnap the GW rules staff and force them to listen to Justin Bieber albums until they fix the necrons...

One interesting problem with Necrons I have found comes about as a result of the interaction of Quantum Shielding with the enemy army. I'll start by saying I think QS is a great rule. It's fluffy and mechanically interesting while also being pretty effective. The problem is it's a little too effective.

Most armies contain a decent mix of weapon types, from basic weapons like bolters and lasguns to plasma (or equivalents) to D3 damage mid-range guns, all the way to Lascannons and Volcano Lances. Usually you fire the basic guns at infantry, the plasma and D3 damage stuff at heavy infantry - and vehicles where necessary - and the heavy stuff at vehicles. Against Necrons most players quickly realise you need to swap the last two around, so your 2-damage or D3 damage stuff is shooting at vehicles and the heavier weapons are shooting at things like Destroyers or Tomb Blades. That then leads to those units melting quickly because their Wounds characteristic is ignored, and because our vehicles are not quite as tough or well armoured as most others, the mid-damage weapons do just fine getting rid of them. So it's like our own special rules are working against us.

I'm not sure what any of this means, but I wouldn't want to see QS substantially changed because I think it largely works in its own right. It's the knock-on effect that's problematic.

I'm amazed the night scythe doesn't;t have QS.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
I'm amazed the night scythe doesn't;t have QS.

It's the same as in 5th, they didn't even try to redo anything.
Models that had QS in 5th have QS in 8th. The fact that the rule is totally different from then, or that the ruleset is different doesn't even matter to the design team.

Necron had a very lazy design.

I mean... yes? Models with quantum shielding have quantum shielding, and those that don't do not. That's like complaining about space marine scouts not getting a 3+ save.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
I mean... yes? Models with quantum shielding have quantum shielding, and those that don't do not. That's like complaining about space marine scouts not getting a 3+ save.

Except that the scout armor had always been a 4+ and the difference with the powered armoured marines.

QS was a bonus the Armor Value of the front and side facing the the vehicule. At the time of the 5th release it was illogical to give is to Monolith, or even Nighscythe because the flyers were very difficult to hit.
There is no ultimate background that explain what is Quantum Shielding and why Necron chose to give it only to some vehicules. It was a gameplay design (and a good one) that excluded Nightscythe/Doomscythe to QS.

In 8th it wound not be aberrant to give them QS.

We have the only transport in the game that destroy the entire units inside :
- if taken down T1
- if you have no CP when destroyed
- if you doesn't disembark before T4
- if Emergency Beams is denied by Agent of Vect

In this iteration, you have to take more Nightscythe than units you want to deploy to have hope that they survive until T2 and you can drop your unit.

Given all these restriction, it would have been cool that they give QS to the vehicule to help him does it's job.

Not the worst aspect of the codex by any means, but it is odd that our open-topped transport isn't.

 vipoid wrote:
Not the worst aspect of the codex by any means, but it is odd that our open-topped transport isn't.

To be fair, it is clear that they are trying to make it more of an ambulance than a transport. Can't shoot if you are being repaired.

Oh, another gripe

MAKE THE GHOST ARK ABLE TO CARRY (ANY) INFANTRY UNIT!!!! (Not including destroyers)
WHY IS THE THING STILL STUCK TO ONLY WARRIORS OR CHARACTERS!!?!?!

 iGuy91 wrote:
Oh, another gripe

MAKE THE GHOST ARK ABLE TO CARRY (ANY) INFANTRY UNIT!!!! (Not including destroyers)
WHY IS THE THING STILL STUCK TO ONLY WARRIORS OR CHARACTERS!!?!?!

Probably because there are warriors in the model already, for some dumb reason. I would just remove the transport capacity entirely and make it into an every better repair vehicle. Like, give it the +1 to RP rule in addition to rerolls or something.
It should repair other units. I don't see why a unit that's clearly intended to be a support vehicle is locked to repairing warriors.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:
Oh, another gripe

MAKE THE GHOST ARK ABLE TO CARRY (ANY) INFANTRY UNIT!!!! (Not including destroyers)
WHY IS THE THING STILL STUCK TO ONLY WARRIORS OR CHARACTERS!!?!?!

It should repair other units. I don't see why a unit that's clearly intended to be a support vehicle is locked to repairing warriors.

I could get onboard with that. Repairs nearby units, and can carry any infantry unit.

Though, for its size, 10 man capacity seems tiny...maybe bump to 15? That would allow a lord to hop in with his pimp squad and Lychguard and go HAM finally, after like...3 editions of existing. (And would finally make Lychguard Viable)

Phase out: 2CP: Use this stratagem when a Necron infantry unit is reduced to 25% of its starting size. Immediately remove that unit form the board and place it in tomb world deployment.


This strat would fit with the old fluff, solve the problem of RP being easy to deny, and make the Monolith/Scythes more valuable (though the mechanics of those units still need some work).

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
Phase out: 2CP: Use this stratagem when a Necron infantry unit is reduced to 25% of its starting size. Immediately remove that unit form the board and place it in tomb world deployment.


This strat would fit with the old fluff, solve the problem of RP being easy to deny, and make the Monolith/Scythes more valuable (though the mechanics of those units still need some work).

What would happen should it be destroyed in a single round of shooting from a model? You can't save your doods.

Yeah, that stratagem is terrible.

Ok, so you put them in TWD. How are you going to get them out? You can't just walk onto the table anymore, a unit that its reserve is stuck there unless they have a specific way to get onto the table. Which means you have to buy a monolith or a NS in order to use the strat.

Ok, so you have a monolith/NS and your unit is in TWD. You bring them on next turn...and then they immediately die in your opponent's turn because they are still at 25% strength, and you can't roll RP in TWD.

No one would ever use that strat. Even if it were free no one would use it.

If you want it to work and be effective, it would have to say this :

Emergency Phase Out 3CP : Use this stratagem when a <Dynasty> NECRON unit is destroyed. Immediately roll RP for the entire squad. The revived models go into Tomb World Deployment. You may then set them up anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 12" away from an enemy model at the start of your turn (but before RP rolls are made), even if they would not be normally allowed to do so.
A unit that arrives on the battlefield this way may move and act as normal. You may only use this stratagem once per battle.

What about a weaker RP for units that are wiped out? Like if a unit gets wiped, put a marker down where you took the last model of the unit off the table, and you can still roll RP for that unit, but models only come back on a 6+ or an unmodified 6 even, or a 6+ for the rest of the game, or you can roll regular RP (5+, 4+ with cryptek, etc) for half the models.

Or maybe a 2CP strat that allows you to do a regular RP roll for a wiped unit.

Either would lessen the enemy's need to focus fire down a unit at a time because they can come back anyway. Or would this be too powerful?

 iGuy91 wrote:

MAKE THE GHOST ARK ABLE TO CARRY (ANY) INFANTRY UNIT!!!! (Not including destroyers)

I thought this initially, but it's not a good idea. Transports aren't a necron thing. They need their teleportation fixed, not their ambulance turned into a cab.

Fix monolith and night scythe deployment. Open up some other movement options. A ghost ark is an ambulance. It transports soulless, mindless warriors. It's already point efficient, but providing lots of weak firepower isn't very useful when the army has a troop tax that covers that base.

secretForge wrote:
Purely as an outsider, it looks like they are over pointed and suffer from a lack of easily accessible multi damage sources.

Pretty much this! You either run Destroyers, Doomsday Arks, or Wraiths as our best multi-damage units. Really wish Praetorians could get a damage buff to fill the gaps in our army. Both the Stalker and the Jump Infantry are just such cool models and I really want to use them!

I'm an outsider here and you guys seems to have the same problem orks did. I've played aboit 3 or 4 players who play necrons and their armies vary widely. Twomof the armies were very fluffy and were demolished fast. The other 2 were extremely cheesy meta and steam rolled me.

Basically, you have 1 or 2 good units that you spam in order to win while the rest of the army is ignored. I feel that if you brought down the price of some stuff it would open up room for more toys and encourage people to use other things.

However, if rumours are true you might be getting nerfed soon because GW. I hope this rumour is false, you guys need some good price reductions.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, that stratagem is terrible.

Ok, so you put them in TWD. How are you going to get them out? You can't just walk onto the table anymore, a unit that its reserve is stuck there unless they have a specific way to get onto the table. Which means you have to buy a monolith or a NS in order to use the strat.

Ok, so you have a monolith/NS and your unit is in TWD. You bring them on next turn...and then they immediately die in your opponent's turn because they are still at 25% strength, and you can't roll RP in TWD.

No one would ever use that strat. Even if it were free no one would use it.

If you want it to work and be effective, it would have to say this :

Emergency Phase Out 3CP : Use this stratagem when a <Dynasty> NECRON unit is destroyed. Immediately roll RP for the entire squad. The revived models go into Tomb World Deployment. You may then set them up anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 12" away from an enemy model at the start of your turn (but before RP rolls are made), even if they would not be normally allowed to do so.
A unit that arrives on the battlefield this way may move and act as normal. You may only use this stratagem once per battle.

3CP to bring a unit back with a couple models is horribly overcosted. That unit would just be wiped the next turn they arrive. At that price, I'd expect Tide of Traitors level and the whole unit is recycled and comes back able to deploy as per normal 9" DS rules, strat being restricted to INFANTRY only.

I cannot comment on the strengths/weaknesses of necrons, but it seems like whenever any variation of this comes up, it seems like "reduce the cost" is many people's first reaction.

I think the base cost of most everything is too low as it is. When the dollar cost of the miniature is almost equal to its point cost, your creating a bad situation for attracting new players as well as encouraging players to try new armies.

I would really love to see reasonable suggestions for actually improving units as opposed to continuing to lower their point cost.

Well, fixng the RP would be a good start. The enemy hits one squad with everything, wipes it out and your RP is worthless. Maybe make RP better, or add a strategem that costs like 1cp and let's you make an rp roll for a squad that's been wiped out.

Maybe make a resseurection orb no longer a one shot thing.

Allow a spider to let a wiped out unit make a rp roll.

Let a monolith let a wiped out unit roll for rp.

I hope some of these suggestions meet your approval.

Once again, most people who want better RP want better RP for destroyers. This is because they are the central unit for our offense, without which we hit like we have pillows for hands. Thus most of the dislike for RP in its current incarnation is actually misplaced annoyance at being so reliant on destroyers, who typically gain very little from RP. If we fixed our reliance on destroyers by adding more offensively viable options to the necron list, I think people could even come to like RP for the much more fluffy and potentially snowballing power that it is.

One of the things GW could do to wean us from the destroyer reliance we currently have is make a minor alteration to tesla destructors and up. All they need to do is give tesla destructors a -1 ap and 2 damage. It's not a huge buff but would bring tesla destructors into line with twin las cannons against most heavy vehicles. This would give us a lot of ways to deal with heavier targets, doom scythes, night scythes, annihilation barges, hell maybe even the obelisk would see some use. Combined with some points reductions for our melee focused war gear, and we could get to be a mid tier army pretty easily.

 Grimgold wrote:
Once again, most people who want better RP want better RP for destroyers. This is because they are the central unit for our offense, without which we hit like we have pillows for hands. Thus most of the dislike for RP in its current incarnation is actually misplaced annoyance at being so reliant on destroyers, who typically gain very little from RP. If we fixed our reliance on destroyers by adding more offensively viable options to the necron list, I think people could even come to like RP for the much more fluffy and potentially snowballing power that it is.

One of the things GW could do to wean us from the destroyer reliance we currently have is make a minor alteration to tesla destructors and up. All they need to do is give tesla destructors a -1 ap and 2 damage. It's not a huge buff but would bring tesla destructors into line with twin las cannons against most heavy vehicles. This would give us a lot of ways to deal with heavier targets, doom scythes, night scythes, annihilation barges, hell maybe even the obelisk would see some use. Combined with some points reductions for our melee focused war gear, and we could get to be a mid tier army pretty easily.

Maybe make annihilation barges more effective? Maybe give tomb blades anti vehicle weapon options?

RP needs a rework for sure, tbh i dont care if it goes to a fnp as long as the points spent are actually viable for the army.

Absolutely, mine isn't the only solution, and I would be stoked at any solution that achieved the same end. I think mine is the easiest and requires the least new rules, but I've been pleasantly surprised by GW in the past.

However it's done, The goal is to make us a less dependent on Destroyers. Once it's done, we can leave destroyers as High risk high reward unit, like dark reapers are for eldar (but significantly less OP). This would make them an interesting tactical choice than a required staple.

If they are going to keep destroyers as our only viable offensive option, then they need an invul or something to make them more durable against heavy weapons fire. Maybe something crazy like a rule where heavy weapons get a -1 to hit them, but I think that's a less clean solution.

Give Destroyers a ‘half damage rounding up’ rule? It’d make them tough against heavy weapons but still susceptible to Assault Cannons and the like. Just spitballing though, not sure if it’s a workable solution.

It’s actually something I originally suggested to fix all units with the Terminator keyword, along with being allowed to Deep Strike at 6” rather than 9”

Give destroyers some of the option tomb blades have like shieldvanes or shadow looms?

They already have a 3+, and -1 to hit on a unit that can delete pretty much anything it looks at is silly-levels of OP

I think the people who are saying buff our Heavy Weapons to be worth a damn are on the right track

Heavy weapons are often used to snuff vehicles and other are targets like daemons, monsters, etc. Maybe my idea of focused gauss fire rules being used to let flayer and blaster units damage vehicles could be of some help there.

I mean, Heavies need an overhaul regardless

but, if we keep the "Guass is just Necron-flavour Bolters", then we need them to actually hit like Lascannons/Battle Cannons/other species-specific heavy weapon like a pulse laser or a railgun

If we dont have heavy weapons worth that title, which is so to say that they remain the same as they are now, good enough to function but not good enough to excel, we need to be able to have our little guns do something to metal boxes again.

I like the "6s do Mortal Wounds to anything with the <Vehicle> keyword" suggestion I saw flaoting about, which means our destroyers can stick to tracking down things like MCs and elites, and allow infantry to crack tanks like they always have, until now

 Grimgold wrote:

-Repair protocols, I know this is an unpopular opinion, but RP is inline with other core abilities from other codexes, it's better than ATSKNF, about the same as synapse, isn't backloaded like power from pain (thought RP can become better over time via snowballing), and compares pretty well to Disgustingly resilient.

Comparing RP to ATSKNF seems nonsensical because the SM codex isn't built around ATSKNF. Same goes for Power from Pain.

Disgustingly Resilient is the best juxtaposition and I'd argue that RPs fall flat in comparison because Disgustingly Resilient doesn't have an easy counter like RPs do. Disgustingly Resilient also works on Characters, unlike RPs. Disgustingly Resilient allows models that succeed to fight in combat on the same turn (unlike RPs) and means that they don't count towards morale losses (again, unlike RPs - which are doubly bad in that any resulting morale losses further counter RPs).

 vipoid wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:

-Repair protocols, I know this is an unpopular opinion, but RP is inline with other core abilities from other codexes, it's better than ATSKNF, about the same as synapse, isn't backloaded like power from pain (thought RP can become better over time via snowballing), and compares pretty well to Disgustingly resilient.

Comparing RP to ATSKNF seems nonsensical because the SM codex isn't built around ATSKNF. Same goes for Power from Pain.

Disgustingly Resilient is the best juxtaposition and I'd argue that RPs fall flat in comparison because Disgustingly Resilient doesn't have an easy counter like RPs do. Disgustingly Resilient also works on Characters, unlike RPs. Disgustingly Resilient allows models that succeed to fight in combat on the same turn (unlike RPs) and means that they don't count towards morale losses (again, unlike RPs - which are doubly bad in that any resulting morale losses further counter RPs).

That's a very well though out response; how would you suggest GW fix RP?


On a separate note, personally I'm a fan of Gauss causing a Mortal Wound on a natural Wound roll of 6. It fits their fluff where the shot peals back layers of paint, then armor, then skin, muscle, all the way to bone. Or the stories where a Gauss shot slowly eats it's way through a tanks armor. We're not talking about a lucky las shot hitting a vision slot or a weakened weld seam; physically breaking down the tanks armor.

You could make RP work like the Tomb Kings banners in AoS where they return a set number (or random like D3 or D6) of models to the unit each turn depending on the unit. It would be easier to cost aswell.

Darsath wrote:
You could make RP work like the Tomb Kings banners in AoS where they return a set number (or random like D3 or D6) of models to the unit each turn depending on the unit. It would be easier to cost aswell.

That would be 3 times harder to balance than the actual RP, like it was in AoS.

No, Necrons right now need to start with Tesla destructors at damage 2 (AP-1 could be a bit too much) and with a mortal wound on 6 against vehicles for gauss weapons.
That would already completely shift the necron meta and solve most of the problems by itself.

Reducing the cost of some weapon upgrades (in particular the melee ones), could also be helpful.

Spoletta wrote:

No, Necrons right now need to start with Tesla destructors at damage 2 (AP-1 could be a bit too much) and with a mortal wound on 6 against vehicles for gauss weapons.
That would already completely shift the necron meta and solve most of the problems by itself.

I completely agree. Those two changes alone would do us the world of good and I really don't know why GW didn't implement Gauss this way in our codex. Maybe they thought it would be OP but vehicles have so many wounds anyway and it only really benefits big blobs of Warriors and to a lesser extent Gauss Immortals. Everyone uses Tesla Immortals and nobody takes Warriors so.... maybe they need all the help they can get....

Maybe because mortal wounds on basic weapons is absurd, and would overlap with Deathmark's gimmick?

Stop suggestion mortal wounds, the game has enough of those already. You don't put out a trash fire by pouring gasoline on it.

+1 damage is much more balanced and benefits all weapons equally, and is more useful against multi-wound units.
Or combining the hits to make stronger hits, which would compensate for the lack of heavy / special weapons option. Mortal wounds would be effective against hoards, as you can spread the mw to 1w infantry, which is not what Gauss weapons were about. This obsession for mortal wounds needs to die.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Maybe because mortal wounds on basic weapons is absurd, and would overlap with Deathmark's gimmick?

Stop suggestion mortal wounds, the game has enough of those already. You don't put out a trash fire by pouring gasoline on it.

+1 damage is much more balanced and benefits all weapons equally, and is more useful against multi-wound units.
Or combining the hits to make stronger hits, which would compensate for the lack of heavy / special weapons option. Mortal wounds would be effective against hoards, as you can spread the mw to 1w infantry, which is not what Gauss weapons were about. This obsession for mortal wounds needs to die.

While I agree about Mortal Wounds being too prevalent, I think you're missing the fact this suggestion relates only to damage against vehicles. So it'd be a MW to anything with the <VEHICLE> keyword on a wound roll of 6. I think that would be OK for Necrons given the current state of their anti-tank.

If its locked to vehicles...maybe. I still don't like it, but if it affects a single unit type then it might not be too bad. It would do something against knights at least, which have annoyingly high invuls.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If its locked to vehicles...maybe. I still don't like it, but if it affects a single unit type then it might not be too bad. It would do something against knights at least, which have annoyingly high invuls.

Rending could be another flavorful option. On a wound roll of 6, AP increases by 2. So a Warrior wound roll of 6 results in an AP-3 wound.

Doesn't actually help that much against vehicles though. Against vehicles you want extra damage, not extra pen. You are already reducing more vehicle saves to 4+ anyway, and immortals can take that down to 5+.

 vipoid wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:

-Repair protocols, I know this is an unpopular opinion, but RP is inline with other core abilities from other codexes, it's better than ATSKNF, about the same as synapse, isn't backloaded like power from pain (thought RP can become better over time via snowballing), and compares pretty well to Disgustingly resilient.

Comparing RP to ATSKNF seems nonsensical because the SM codex isn't built around ATSKNF. Same goes for Power from Pain.

Disgustingly Resilient is the best juxtaposition and I'd argue that RPs fall flat in comparison because Disgustingly Resilient doesn't have an easy counter like RPs do. Disgustingly Resilient also works on Characters, unlike RPs. Disgustingly Resilient allows models that succeed to fight in combat on the same turn (unlike RPs) and means that they don't count towards morale losses (again, unlike RPs - which are doubly bad in that any resulting morale losses further counter RPs).

Assuming the unit survives (which is a big ask for destroyers, but less so for other units with RP), RP is better than DR. It's the same 5+, but can bring back multiple wounds on a single roll, can be buffed fairly easily to be 4+, and continues to function even after the first failure. So it can be way better than DR, with a single exception from our codex, which is a small unit, destroyers.

As a thought experiment to prove the point, imagine if they gave us mob up for destroyers or Destroyer max units size is now 12. This would be a game changer, You could count on RP to always occur for destroyers, because getting 9+ heavy weapon shots against destroyers is fairly easy for most list, getting 18+ less so. That's about the fire power required to down a knight in a single shooting phase, which we know most armies struggle with. In this thought experiment, RP would be giving us hundreds of points per round to snowball from, and multiple chances to silence our opponents heavy weapons making the destroyers even more safe as the battle went on. This would make RP completely overpowered, and doesn't involve a single change to RP.

Rules wise RP is a great mechanic that compares favorably to just about any other armies central gimmick, but people judge it based on a single unit that by design doesn't benefit very much from it. If they fix our big guns to be worth a fig, destroyers move from the central pillar of our offense to be a high risk high reward unit that you can bring to put some extra punch in your army.

The slight problem with adding one damage on a 6 to hit is that a Gauss flayer still has to wound, meaning it's really not very useful for taking vehicles out.

I'd like to see doubling up on a 6, but again this doesn't help take out vehicles. Making the natural 6 to wound instead of to hit would probably solve this to some degree.

So, all Gauss weapons add one damage and double AP on a natural to wound roll of 6.

Not sure whether it is a better alternative to mortal wounds. Might stand out more as unique to necrons since mortal wounds are so prolific. Also vaults and ctan are our source of MW.


Still a big fan of two damage destructors and melee unit price drops. And the big fix needed is movement, i.e. teleportation transports.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimgold wrote:


Assuming the unit survives (which is a big ask for destroyers, but less so for other units with RP), RP is better than DR. It's the same 5+, but can bring back multiple wounds on a single roll, can be buffed fairly easily to be 4+, and continues to function even after the first failure. So it can be way better than DR, with a single exception from our codex, which is a small unit, destroyers.

As a thought experiment to prove the point, imagine if they gave us mob up for destroyers or Destroyer max units size is now 12. This would be a game changer, You could count on RP to always occur for destroyers, because getting 9+ heavy weapon shots against destroyers is fairly easy for most list, getting 18+ less so. That's about the fire power required to down a knight in a single shooting phase, which we know most armies struggle with. In this thought experiment, RP would be giving us hundreds of points per round to snowball from, and multiple chances to silence our opponents heavy weapons making the destroyers even more safe as the battle went on. This would make RP completely overpowered, and doesn't involve a single change to RP.

Rules wise RP is a great mechanic that compares favorably to just about any other armies central gimmick, but people judge it based on a single unit that by design doesn't benefit very much from it. If they fix our big guns to be worth a fig, destroyers move from the central pillar of our offense to be a high risk high reward unit that you can bring to put some extra punch in your army.

So what you're saying is that if we take a unit that rp completely doesn't work for, and then change the unit so its op, then rp must be good under all situations?

Somehow I don't think your argument holds up.

As many many people have said already rp is great at low points and sucks at normal/high point levels. Fundamentally this is the issue. It needs to work better at all point levels, or at least for the standard 2k games.

What's funny is I already know the route GW is going to take with Destroyers.

They'll increase the unit cost, but not touch Extermination Protocols.

I'm not sure where you're getting RP is good, except for destroyers. I've brought full units of warriors/immortals in many 1.5-2k games, and watch my opponent proceed to wipe a unit each turn, even with the prepared positions stratagem. It's pretty bad all around.

Sure, you may get lucky 1 out of 5 games, and your opponent fails to wipe a unit. Now you run through the checklist. Do I need to autopass morale? If I do, do I already have a Cryptek nearby to buff the RP roll? Basically, so many things have to fall into place to make RP work well, whereas Disgusting Resilient requires no extra interaction.

If RP were changed to a 5+++, for example, the effective wounds on a 20 model squad is now around 26, which is significantly better than not being able to roll for RP at all. RP as it stands is too volatile to build a competitive army around.

As to discussing the specific of giving tesla destructors a -1 AP and two damage. Here is the math that shows, it just brings it into line with twin las cannons:

Twin Lascannon at a LRBT:
2/3 * 2/3 * 5/6 * 3.5 * 2 = 2.59 damage per round on average
Suggested destructor at a LRBT
(1/2 + 1/6 * 3) * 1/3 *1/2 * 2 * 8 = 2.66 damage per round

We are not talking about a huge change, if you brought two annihilation barges and a couple of flyers, it's the equivalent of 8 extra lascannons worth of firepower. Added to a DDA it's 11 or 12 lascannons worth of output for the army, formidable certainly (especially compared to our current abilities), but well short of what's required to drop a knight in a round. The above scenario would require an investment of 820 points minimum, so it's not like we are getting all of this for an absurdly low cost.

As for other changes I've seen in this thread

tesla destructor with just -1 AP
(1/2 + 1/6 * 3) * 1/3 *1/2 * 8 = 1.33 damage per round

Tesla destructor with just 2 damage
(1/2 + 1/6 * 3) * 1/3 * 1/3 * 2 * 8 = 1.74 damage epr round

So each change by themselves fall pretty short of where we need to be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Necronplayer wrote:
I'm not sure where you're getting RP is good, except for destroyers. I've brought full units of warriors/immortals in many 1.5-2k games, and watch my opponent proceed to wipe a unit each turn, even with the prepared positions stratagem. It's pretty bad all around.

Sure, you may get lucky 1 out of 5 games, and your opponent fails to wipe a unit. Now you run through the checklist. Do I need to autopass morale? If I do, do I already have a Cryptek nearby to buff the RP roll? Basically, so many things have to fall into place to make RP work well, whereas Disgusting Resilient requires no extra interaction.

If RP were changed to a 5+++, for example, the effective wounds on a 20 model squad is now around 26, which is significantly better than not being able to roll for RP at all. RP as it stands is too volatile to build a competitive army around.

I've put in over a hundred games with necrons this edition, and my experience is completely different. My infantry almost always get a few rounds of RP, because by the time they can afford to waste firepower on low threat units like troops, they've already won the game by dunking my destroyers. If someone is devoting the firepower to completely kill a 20 man blob of warriors, or a squad of immortals in cover, they've already wiped out your dangerous units and already won the game, or they are making a terrible mistake. Do you need to see the math on what incredible efforts it takes to wipe out those units in a single turn, I'm happy to show you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MrPieChee wrote:


So what you're saying is that if we take a unit that rp completely doesn't work for, and then change the unit so its op, then rp must be good under all situations?

Somehow I don't think your argument holds up.

As many many people have said already rp is great at low points and sucks at normal/high point levels. Fundamentally this is the issue. It needs to work better at all point levels, or at least for the standard 2k games.

Ok so let's walk down the garden path since I seem to have lost you at some point.

1.) Compared to other central gimmicks, RP is mathematically a good ability. It's better than DR for the vast majority of our units.
2.) A single unit in the necron codex doesn't benefit from RP much, which is by design.
3.) If that unit were able to take better advantage of RP, it would be completely OP as shown in my thought experiment.
4.) We are heavily dependent on the single unit in our codex that doesn't benefit much from RP.
5.) The combination of point 2 and point 4 make people feel like point 1 isn't true.

I was in the same boat, I used to not like RP, because I felt it was too weak, You can check my post history to verify. I was hung up on how good RP was in 7th ed, but I know that the ability to ignore wounds almost 2/3 of the time was not good for the game. I was also suffering like every other necron player with trying to find ways to keep my destroyers alive. What's different now is that I experimented with list without destroyers, I did the math, played other armies, played against necrons with other armies. This challenged my assumptions on RP, and rather than ignoring it I did more research into why observations didn't match what I expected to see. The math said what I was observing wasn't even all that unlikely, and when the math says your wrong it's time to reconsider your view point. This allowed me to think about the problem in new ways, and that's how I came to the conclusion I did.

 Grimgold wrote:
As to discussing the specific of giving tesla destructors a -1 AP and two damage. Here is the math that shows, it just brings it into line with twin las cannons:

Twin Lascannon at a LRBT:
2/3 * 2/3 * 5/6 * 3.5 * 2 = 2.59 damage per round on average
Suggested destructor at a LRBT
(1/2 + 1/6 * 3) * 1/3 *1/2 * 2 * 8 = 2.66 damage per round

We are not talking about a huge change, if you brought two annihilation barges and a couple of flyers, it's the equivalent of 8 extra lascannons worth of firepower. Added to a DDA it's 11 or 12 lascannons worth of output for the army, formidable certainly (especially compared to our current abilities), but well short of what's required to drop a knight in a round. The above scenario would require an investment of 820 points minimum, so it's not like we are getting all of this for an absurdly low cost.

As for other changes I've seen in this thread

tesla destructor with just -1 AP
(1/2 + 1/6 * 3) * 1/3 *1/2 * 8 = 1.33 damage per round

Tesla destructor with just 2 damage
(1/2 + 1/6 * 3) * 1/3 * 1/3 * 2 * 8 = 1.74 damage epr round

So each change by themselves fall pretty short of where we need to be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Necronplayer wrote:
I'm not sure where you're getting RP is good, except for destroyers. I've brought full units of warriors/immortals in many 1.5-2k games, and watch my opponent proceed to wipe a unit each turn, even with the prepared positions stratagem. It's pretty bad all around.

Sure, you may get lucky 1 out of 5 games, and your opponent fails to wipe a unit. Now you run through the checklist. Do I need to autopass morale? If I do, do I already have a Cryptek nearby to buff the RP roll? Basically, so many things have to fall into place to make RP work well, whereas Disgusting Resilient requires no extra interaction.

If RP were changed to a 5+++, for example, the effective wounds on a 20 model squad is now around 26, which is significantly better than not being able to roll for RP at all. RP as it stands is too volatile to build a competitive army around.

I've put in over a hundred games with necrons this edition, and my experience is completely different. My infantry almost always get a few rounds of RP, because by the time they can afford to waste firepower on low threat units like troops, they've already won the game by dunking my destroyers. If someone is devoting the firepower to completely kill a 20 man blob of warriors, or a squad of immortals in cover, they've already wiped out your dangerous units and already won the game, or they are making a terrible mistake. Do you need to see the math on what incredible efforts it takes to wipe out those units in a single turn, I'm happy to show you.

You are approaching this the wrong way.
Tesla destructors are not lascannons, they don't cover the same role. Lascannons are there to hurt T8 3+ targets, because they have high AP and high strenght, but lose efficency as soon as invul saves get into the picture, and can't kill more than one guy.
A tesla destructor (new version) is a multi damage high ROF weapon, which isn't impaired by invul saves and can make a mess of heavy infantry, but is countered by high T. If it has the same efficency as a lascannon against it's preferred target, then it means that it is completely broken, it would be in a situation identical to the current dissie cannons.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Some way to block psychic powers would be nice.

This so much. I always found it odd that the faction of soulless robots that created the pylons that held back the eye of terror had such poor psychic defense. They should have the strongest along side sisters of silence.

 Grimgold wrote:
As to discussing the specific of giving tesla destructors a -1 AP and two damage. Here is the math that shows, it just brings it into line with twin las cannons:

Twin Lascannon at a LRBT:
2/3 * 2/3 * 5/6 * 3.5 * 2 = 2.59 damage per round on average
Suggested destructor at a LRBT
(1/2 + 1/6 * 3) * 1/3 *1/2 * 2 * 8 = 2.66 damage per round

We are not talking about a huge change, if you brought two annihilation barges and a couple of flyers, it's the equivalent of 8 extra lascannons worth of firepower. Added to a DDA it's 11 or 12 lascannons worth of output for the army, formidable certainly (especially compared to our current abilities), but well short of what's required to drop a knight in a round. The above scenario would require an investment of 820 points minimum, so it's not like we are getting all of this for an absurdly low cost.

As for other changes I've seen in this thread

tesla destructor with just -1 AP
(1/2 + 1/6 * 3) * 1/3 *1/2 * 8 = 1.33 damage per round

Tesla destructor with just 2 damage
(1/2 + 1/6 * 3) * 1/3 * 1/3 * 2 * 8 = 1.74 damage epr round

So each change by themselves fall pretty short of where we need to be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Necronplayer wrote:
I'm not sure where you're getting RP is good, except for destroyers. I've brought full units of warriors/immortals in many 1.5-2k games, and watch my opponent proceed to wipe a unit each turn, even with the prepared positions stratagem. It's pretty bad all around.

Sure, you may get lucky 1 out of 5 games, and your opponent fails to wipe a unit. Now you run through the checklist. Do I need to autopass morale? If I do, do I already have a Cryptek nearby to buff the RP roll? Basically, so many things have to fall into place to make RP work well, whereas Disgusting Resilient requires no extra interaction.

If RP were changed to a 5+++, for example, the effective wounds on a 20 model squad is now around 26, which is significantly better than not being able to roll for RP at all. RP as it stands is too volatile to build a competitive army around.

I've put in over a hundred games with necrons this edition, and my experience is completely different. My infantry almost always get a few rounds of RP, because by the time they can afford to waste firepower on low threat units like troops, they've already won the game by dunking my destroyers. If someone is devoting the firepower to completely kill a 20 man blob of warriors, or a squad of immortals in cover, they've already wiped out your dangerous units and already won the game, or they are making a terrible mistake. Do you need to see the math on what incredible efforts it takes to wipe out those units in a single turn, I'm happy to show you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MrPieChee wrote:


So what you're saying is that if we take a unit that rp completely doesn't work for, and then change the unit so its op, then rp must be good under all situations?

Somehow I don't think your argument holds up.

As many many people have said already rp is great at low points and sucks at normal/high point levels. Fundamentally this is the issue. It needs to work better at all point levels, or at least for the standard 2k games.

Ok so let's walk down the garden path since I seem to have lost you at some point.

1.) Compared to other central gimmicks, RP is mathematically a good ability. It's better than DR for the vast majority of our units.
2.) A single unit in the necron codex doesn't benefit from RP much, which is by design.
3.) If that unit were able to take better advantage of RP, it would be completely OP as shown in my thought experiment.
4.) We are heavily dependent on the single unit in our codex that doesn't benefit much from RP.
5.) The combination of point 2 and point 4 make people feel like point 1 isn't true.

I was in the same boat, I used to not like RP, because I felt it was too weak, You can check my post history to verify. I was hung up on how good RP was in 7th ed, but I know that the ability to ignore wounds almost 2/3 of the time was not good for the game. I was also suffering like every other necron player with trying to find ways to keep my destroyers alive. What's different now is that I experimented with list without destroyers, I did the math, played other armies, played against necrons with other armies. This challenged my assumptions on RP, and rather than ignoring it I did more research into why observations didn't match what I expected to see. The math said what I was observing wasn't even all that unlikely, and when the math says your wrong it's time to reconsider your view point. This allowed me to think about the problem in new ways, and that's how I came to the conclusion I did.

If you're having a tough time killing a 17 point Marine or 12 point Marine I think your army has issues.

Spoletta wrote:


You are approaching this the wrong way.
Tesla destructors are not lascannons, they don't cover the same role. Lascannons are there to hurt T8 3+ targets, because they have high AP and high strenght, but lose efficency as soon as invul saves get into the picture, and can't kill more than one guy.
A tesla destructor (new version) is a multi damage high ROF weapon, which isn't impaired by invul saves and can make a mess of heavy infantry, but is countered by high T. If it has the same efficency as a lascannon against it's preferred target, then it means that it is completely broken, it would be in a situation identical to the current dissie cannons.

We are already a nightmare for elite infantry thanks to the gauss blaster, which is str 5 ap -2 rapid fire, and available on tomb blades/immortals, units which are staples of every necron list. So this changes nothing on that front, Custodes and terminators are already good matchups for us, and this change isn't likely to affect their viability.

As for tesla destructors not being las cannons, sure that's absolutely true as of right now. There are two problems with the status quo on that though; first tesla destructors are useless, with mid strength, no ap, and a single damage the current TD is a slight upgrade to a hurricane bolter. This is the main armament of four of our vehicles, and that makes them completely useless. The other problem is we aren't able to bring our lascannon equivalents in any quantity, two units can bring them, one of which falls over in a stiff breeze, and the other is a dreadnought equivalent, with some neat rules and half again the cost. We are failing in the current meta because of this, we can't counter vehicles/monsters, and in the current meta that is a death sentence.

So my proposed solution, is by design a change to the status quo, because the current status quo blows for necrons. It fixes two big issues with necrons, the viability of TD and therefore a large chunk of our vehicles, and our inability to effectively take on heavy units.

How are you getting 4?
I count Annihilation Barge, Doom Scythe and Night Scythe. What's the fourth vehicle armed with it?
And yes, the TD should totally be damage 2. Its supposed to be our Autocannon equivalent, and yet its 1 damage less.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

If you're having a tough time killing a 17 point Marine or 12 point Marine I think your army has issues.

the question is not whether you can kill these units, an entire armies worth of firepower should be able to bust up a 180/240 point unit. The question is, is it ever worth it to waste the amount of firepower necessary to do so.

Let's look at a twenty man warrior blob, how many, say dark reapers, does it take to kill one without the opportunity for RP.

dark reapers shooting star swarm missiles
2/3 * 2/3 * 5/6 * 2 = .75 damage per reaper

So to wipe a twenty man blob you would need 20/.75 = 25 dark reaper shooting at them, which is 850 points of reapers to do the deed in a single shooting phase. If they leave even one alive, you could get back 10 warriors the next phase, so it will probably require more just to be safe.

Maybe that's a fluke though, a bad choice on my part, so why don't we try it against the math hammer champs of destroying infantry, aggressors.

aggressors shooting at warriors:
2/3 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 9.5 = 1.5

At 1.5 it would take 14 aggressors or 555 points of aggressors to kill a 280 point unit, and if they leave even 1 alive RP will bring back 10 the next round.

Do either of those scenarios seem like a good investment of offense to you? You see the best way to deal with large blobs is to chip away at them with units that have nothing better to shoot at, a tactic that is demonstrably bad against necrons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
How are you getting 4?
I count Annihilation Barge, Doom Scythe and Night Scythe. What's the fourth vehicle armed with it?
And yes, the TD should totally be damage 2. Its supposed to be our Autocannon equivalent, and yet its 1 damage less.

I was thinking two annihilation barges and 2 flyers (both night scythes, which thanks to the fact that they are not offensively useless, might tip them into useful enough to use them as transports for units).

Yeah, in my experience warriors are usually the units that benefit the most from RP, as they have the numbers to ensure that RP actually works, they actually have a support for their RP, and it takes a surprising amount of effort to remove one squad.

The problem though is that warrior's offensive capabilities are lackluster, so a savvy opponent would go after weaker units that can actually deal damage before dealing with warriors.

You know what would be hilarious? If there was a grot shields equivalent for warriors. You'll be shooting those warriors whether you want to or not

Necronplayer wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
If its locked to vehicles...maybe. I still don't like it, but if it affects a single unit type then it might not be too bad. It would do something against knights at least, which have annoyingly high invuls.

Rending could be another flavorful option. On a wound roll of 6, AP increases by 2. So a Warrior wound roll of 6 results in an AP-3 wound.

I could get behind "rending" on Gauss weapons instead of Mortal Wounds.

The last thing Necrons need is even more reliance on AP in a game where most of the significant threats have an invuln...

HoundsofDemos wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Some way to block psychic powers would be nice.

This so much. I always found it odd that the faction of soulless robots that created the pylons that held back the eye of terror had such poor psychic defense. They should have the strongest along side sisters of silence.

100% agree & it would be nice to have the option to take Pariahs again.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, in my experience warriors are usually the units that benefit the most from RP, as they have the numbers to ensure that RP actually works, they actually have a support for their RP, and it takes a surprising amount of effort to remove one squad.

The problem though is that warrior's offensive capabilities are lackluster, so a savvy opponent would go after weaker units that can actually deal damage before dealing with warriors.

You know what would be hilarious? If there was a grot shields equivalent for warriors. You'll be shooting those warriors whether you want to or not

Even immortals in cover are a PITA to get rid of in a single volley,

dark reapers shooting star swarm missiles
2/3 * 2/3 * 1/2 * 2 = .44 damage per reaper

That means it takes 10/.44 = 22 dark reapers to get them in a round, which is a commitment of 748 points of dark reapers

For aggressors the story is worse
2/3 * 1/2 * 1/6 * 9.5 = .53 damage per aggressor

So it would take 10/.53 = 19 aggressors to do the job, which is a commitment of 703 points.

Which means it's possible to one shot our infantry, but it's not a good use of resources, and therefore highly unlikely to happen in actual play. If we get to roll RP even once it's better than DR, and if we get to roll it more than once it is way better than DR.

*edit* Also warriors are a great unit for capping midfield objectives, they have obsec, large numbers, and are a royal pain to get rid of. At 240 points they are a good investment to get hold more every round.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
The last thing Necrons need is even more reliance on AP in a game where most of the significant threats have an invuln...

Care to cite any examples? Because we would be making this change to let necrons take on heavy vehicles, which do not have typically have an invul save. Knights have an invul save, but short of rotate ion shields on their warlord, -1 ap would still put us at or below their invul save, meaning their invul save wouldn't help them.

 Grimgold wrote:

Maybe that's a fluke though, a bad choice on my part, so why don't we try it against the math hammer champs of destroying infantry, aggressors.

aggressors shooting at warriors:
2/3 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 9.5 = 1.5

At 1.5 it would take 14 aggressors or 555 points of aggressors to kill a 280 point unit, and if they leave even 1 alive RP will bring back 10 the next round.

Do either of those scenarios seem like a good investment of offense to you?

I hope you realize that is a great investment...
If we're playing at a 2k level, and you keep up the kill efficiency of 2:1, you will wipe out half your opponents list if you get turn 1.

Hell, even if you can't keep it up, and you only take out 250 more points with the remainder of your list, that is still doing really well being able to take off a quarter of their list before they can respond.

EDIT:
I'm prefer not to cherry pick examples, but in my meta, being able to wipe a 20 model unit in addition to other units is pretty easy to come by. May just be the meta I'm playing in, but from reading the Necrons tactics, it doesn't seem like it's limited to my local scene.

 Grimgold wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

If you're having a tough time killing a 17 point Marine or 12 point Marine I think your army has issues.

the question is not whether you can kill these units, an entire armies worth of firepower should be able to bust up a 180/240 point unit. The question is, is it ever worth it to waste the amount of firepower necessary to do so.

Let's look at a twenty man warrior blob, how many, say dark reapers, does it take to kill one without the opportunity for RP.

dark reapers shooting star swarm missiles
2/3 * 2/3 * 5/6 * 2 = .75 damage per reaper

So to wipe a twenty man blob you would need 20/.75 = 25 dark reaper shooting at them, which is 850 points of reapers to do the deed in a single shooting phase. If they leave even one alive, you could get back 10 warriors the next phase, so it will probably require more just to be safe.

Maybe that's a fluke though, a bad choice on my part, so why don't we try it against the math hammer champs of destroying infantry, aggressors.

aggressors shooting at warriors:
2/3 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 9.5 = 1.5

At 1.5 it would take 14 aggressors or 555 points of aggressors to kill a 280 point unit, and if they leave even 1 alive RP will bring back 10 the next round.

Do either of those scenarios seem like a good investment of offense to you? You see the best way to deal with large blobs is to chip away at them with units that have nothing better to shoot at, a tactic that is demonstrably bad against necrons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
How are you getting 4?
I count Annihilation Barge, Doom Scythe and Night Scythe. What's the fourth vehicle armed with it?
And yes, the TD should totally be damage 2. Its supposed to be our Autocannon equivalent, and yet its 1 damage less.

I was thinking two annihilation barges and 2 flyers (both night scythes, which thanks to the fact that they are not offensively useless, might tip them into useful enough to use them as transports for units).

Wow imagine that. Dark Reapers against their non-preferred target don't kill a lot.

The Aggressor investment is good though so you failed your argument there. Typically people can expect around 2-3× the cost of a unit shooting to remove a particular target and Aggressors do that.

as I said Aggressors are the math hammer champs, and I try to argue in good faith by presenting the best argument possible. But can you share three units you think would do as well? because so far as I'm aware aggressors are something of an aberration, there just isn't another unit in the game that even comes close in terms of wiping out light infantry. A gak load of mortar teams maybe, but those take up a heavy slot apiece in an army that has much better options for heavies. I'm honestly kind of curious what kind of metas you guys play in where a 20 man squad can be mowed down in a single volley. Because I'm ok being wrong, but I'd like to learn something in the process.

 Lord Clinto wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Some way to block psychic powers would be nice.

This so much. I always found it odd that the faction of soulless robots that created the pylons that held back the eye of terror had such poor psychic defense. They should have the strongest along side sisters of silence.

100% agree & it would be nice to have the option to take Pariahs again.

I think we should get Pylons, Blackstone something, as a series of fortifications that mess with psyker powers, messing with casting somehow.

I'm suprised the C'tan shards aren't mentioned yet. Y'all cool with how they are?

I think they are... ok-ish. Yea they dish out some reliable mortal wounds and kick the crap out of any character/small elite unit but that's kinda it.

Here are my suggestions:
-All C'tan become S8. This is to make them more of a threat towards vehicles.

-Lower the cost of the Transcendant C'tan or change something else. Right now he is almost objectively weaker than the Nightbringer unless you roll well on his Split Personality upgrades.

-The Deceiver is too reliant on getting first turn/roll a 3 on Grand Illusion. Maybe have him affect the going first/steal the initiative roll? Or make it a solid 3 units he can teleport?

To make Necrons work better I'd propose the following fixes apart from Point reductions:

-Move Scarabs to Troops Slot.
That'd ease up on the cluttered fast attack Slot and give us plenty more viable army builds to work with. 2 Troop choices neither of which are cheap hinders CP generation greatly which just isnt fair as monofaction in a soupy Environment. Imperium has Guardsmen, Orks have grots, Nids have Rippers, Chaos has cultists and so on. This Change alone would help big time.

-Change the "Monster" keyword from Wraiths to "Infantry" or change the Stratagems/Relics that only affect Infantry to also affect Wraiths.
I mean, if Destroyers can have those Stratagems I suppose Wraiths should also be able to use them. Not being able to port Wraiths is a big deal.

-Reanimation Protocols should also affect Units which have been wiped the previous turn.
Just give a wiped unit one attempt to bring back at least one Model. This would make RP worthwhile again.

-Add the "Character" Keyword to Spyders.
I mean, they ARE the head Units of all other Constructs after all. Right now they die to pretty much every single heavy weapon pointed in their general direction. And it's not like they have much offensive output for their point cost. Maybe reduce their toughness to 5 in the process but the Spyders really need help.

I must admit, played a competitive necron dude in a GW store once and put all my fire power into 1 of his 2 20 man blobs... I was index Orks but i finally got ine down to like 3 guys and then in 2 turns he was back up to 18 warriors. Again, I've watched games on youtube where because they've missed one or two guys an entire armies worth can get back up again... RP, in my opinion, isn't a problem that needs to be fixed. I think it's pretty powerful as it is... just Necrons players have to rely too much on 2 or 3 units while the rest of their codex kinda sucks. You balance it out enough and they could become OP. As soon as there is more stuff on the table to distract the opponent then RP becomes worth it again.... "Oh no, you killed my elites, well now my warriors are in you face at full strength." Or "Oh no you killed my 20 warriors so i don't get rp. Well now my elites are in your face at full strength" or "Oh no you killed half of each of my units. Now watch as I roll rp and undo everything you did this turn".

With the above, I'd be happy for scarabs to be troops. It's fluffy and means necrons can play more mek lists and have more variety.

The spyder thing should be a character. Then you can hide him behind vechiles or units. Right now he is a waste of points for what is an awesome model.

 Lord Clinto wrote:

That's a very well though out response; how would you suggest GW fix RP?

My suggestion would be something along these lines:
- Models that fail their RP rolls can't try again in subsequent turns. Might sound like a nerf on its own, but doing this allows the ability to be more flexible.
- Keep a tally of the number of models in a unit that die each game turn. If the last model in a given unit is killed, mark the spot where it died.
- At the beginning of each Necron turn, roll a dice for each model that died since the beginning of the previous turn (roll separately for models from different units). For each roll of 5+ the model is returned to its unit with all lost wounds restored. Returning models must be placed in coherency with any existing members of their unit, and more than 3" from any enemy models. If the unit was wiped out, returning models must instead be placed within 6" of their unit's marker, in coherency, and more than 3" from enemy models. If any model cannot be placed for any reason, it counts as having failed its RP roll.
- Necron characters gain this rule (not sure if they should get back all their wounds, though. Maybe d3+1?).
- Instead of their current effect, a Resurrection Orb is activated in the Shooting Phase instead of shooting. Pick a unit within 6" of the bearer. All models in that unit that have died - including ones that previously failed their RP rolls - may immediately make RP rolls (all normal rules for model placement still apply).

it's a bit wordy but the point is that you can still attempt RP rolls even if the squad has been wiped out (but models that fail their rolls no longer get to try again in subsequent turns - though a Resurrection Orb gives them one more chance). Also, Necron characters (with the possible exception of CCBs) would gain the ability to revive in this manner.

It's just a rough idea at the moment, but I think trading potentially-infinite resurrection for the ability to roll RPs even if the squad is wiped out would not only be an improvement but would also make it a lot easier to further tweak the ability. e.g. the current rules simply don't allow for characters to have the ability, whereas my version would work fine for characters.

At the very least, I think this would be a much better jumping-off point for a revised RP ability.

Ergghh, all the above sounds complicated. We're playing 40k, not a strategic war game...

Maybe my view of rp has been warped by all the hate for it. Normally no one takes warriors, so a real world example of a 20 warrior blob isn't seen very often. Also, they can't damage anything worth while, so they get ignored. If the rest of the necron force is dead it's easy to focus the warrior blob in turn 3+.

With all the damage two weapons out there lychguard and praetorian's don't hang around long enough to make use of it, but again, they are too expensive to see board time.

Perhap the problem is necrons just have so many problems that it's easier to blame what's meant to be iconic about the army.


And, backing away from rp for a sec, the suggestion for anti psychic fortifications for necrons is great! Something for lychguard to, you know, guard would be great! Then the enemy can come to them instead of slogging up the field and dying.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@vipiod - that's a really complex way to achieve exactly my suggestion from the 1st(?) page:

When a rp model is killed, leave it on the table. At the start of the necron player turn roll rp for all models killed last turn. Those that fail are removed. No having to worry about counters or keep track of anything. This also means you can roll for wiped units. Simple. It's a Nerf because you only roll for models that died last turn, but a buff because focus fire doesn't negate the rule.

 Grimgold wrote:
as I said Aggressors are the math hammer champs, and I try to argue in good faith by presenting the best argument possible. But can you share three units you think would do as well? because so far as I'm aware aggressors are something of an aberration, there just isn't another unit in the game that even comes close in terms of wiping out light infantry. A gak load of mortar teams maybe, but those take up a heavy slot apiece in an army that has much better options for heavies. I'm honestly kind of curious what kind of metas you guys play in where a 20 man squad can be mowed down in a single volley. Because I'm ok being wrong, but I'd like to learn something in the process.

You can try Deathwatch Vets with Storm Bolters. The math will vary depending on which ammo you use (though you can just ignore the Dragonfire one because it sucks). It's actually difficult to use anything in the Marine codex for this purpose.

You can try Punishers as well. Those have 40 shots standing still.


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 lolman1c wrote:
I must admit, played a competitive necron dude in a GW store once and put all my fire power into 1 of his 2 20 man blobs... I was index Orks but i finally got ine down to like 3 guys and then in 2 turns he was back up to 18 warriors. Again, I've watched games on youtube where because they've missed one or two guys an entire armies worth can get back up again... RP, in my opinion, isn't a problem that needs to be fixed. I think it's pretty powerful as it is... just Necrons players have to rely too much on 2 or 3 units while the rest of their codex kinda sucks. You balance it out enough and they could become OP. As soon as there is more stuff on the table to distract the opponent then RP becomes worth it again.... "Oh no, you killed my elites, well now my warriors are in you face at full strength." Or "Oh no you killed my 20 warriors so i don't get rp. Well now my elites are in your face at full strength" or "Oh no you killed half of each of my units. Now watch as I roll rp and undo everything you did this turn".

With the above, I'd be happy for scarabs to be troops. It's fluffy and means necrons can play more mek lists and have more variety.

The spyder thing should be a character. Then you can hide him behind vechiles or units. Right now he is a waste of points for what is an awesome model.

Ah yes, because we should say a rule is great when the opponent's rolls are below average and the RP rolls afterwards are WAY above average so someone gets a whole army's worth of models back.

I'd offer you to look at mortars, as well. Very popular heavy slot (HWT) and for 5 points, you can also put them on the 40point infantry squad. Bring cadian and you're rerolling failed hits with an order.

Chances are if you're running imperium, you have an AM battalion or brigade (CP battery) with these dudes.

The problem with rp isnt that it's not working for large warrior blobs. The problem is that it doesnt work for anything else.

Sure you can have working rp for warriors but those have enough problems as is. They are very slow and are armed with fancy bolters. They wont do much apart from waddling about on the battlefield being semi hard to kill and that just doesnt cut it for their point cost.

Also rp is THE signature mechanic of necrons. It shouldnt be something that only one unit benefits from. I'm still a bit disappointed that all the constructs have no equivalent. I may be a little biased tho because I run a pure canoptek army. Basically metal nids

Edit: I'd also like to see mortal wounds for all gauss weapons on 6 to hit. Gauss is another thing that list its glory in 8th

I'll get back to slayer in a sec, but I wanted to talk points for my proposed tesla destructors. Any improvement should have a comisrate increase in points cost, we aren't asking for GW to make us OP (we'll leave that to the Yannari players), and thus we should be willing to pay for better kit. My hunch is that we are currently paying about 10 points for tesla destructors, a little more expensive than a hurricane bolter (if we are paying more we are getting ripped off). It's hard to tell because few codexes have as much baked in stuff as we do. I think this shows that necrons were one of the first codexes out of the bin, but were delayed to coincide with forgebane. Which is the reason our codex is such a back step in quality compared to codexes released around the same time.Our design philosophy has more in common with grey knights than tau of dhrukari.

The suggested TD should be priced a little north of lascannons, they have half the range, but are assault instead of heavy, have less ap and less damage per shot but have a ton more shots. So around 25 points per TD, and since we are equipped with only twins that means about a 50 point hike, but 10ish of that is already baked into the unit. Our vehicles are bit overpriced, so if they drop the base unit by 20 (10 for being overpriced 10 for the baked in cost of the TD), and then make the twin linked tesla destructor cost 50. For a net increase of 30 PPM for annihilation barges, night scythes, and doom scythes.

 vipoid wrote:

 Lord Clinto wrote:

That's a very well though out response; how would you suggest GW fix RP?

My suggestion would be something along these lines:
- Models that fail their RP rolls can't try again in subsequent turns. Might sound like a nerf on its own, but doing this allows the ability to be more flexible.
- Keep a tally of the number of models in a unit that die each game turn. If the last model in a given unit is killed, mark the spot where it died.
- At the beginning of each Necron turn, roll a dice for each model that died since the beginning of the previous turn (roll separately for models from different units). For each roll of 5+ the model is returned to its unit with all lost wounds restored. Returning models must be placed in coherency with any existing members of their unit, and more than 3" from any enemy models. If the unit was wiped out, returning models must instead be placed within 6" of their unit's marker, in coherency, and more than 3" from enemy models. If any model cannot be placed for any reason, it counts as having failed its RP roll.
- Necron characters gain this rule (not sure if they should get back all their wounds, though. Maybe d3+1?).
- Instead of their current effect, a Resurrection Orb is activated in the Shooting Phase instead of shooting. Pick a unit within 6" of the bearer. All models in that unit that have died - including ones that previously failed their RP rolls - may immediately make RP rolls (all normal rules for model placement still apply).

it's a bit wordy but the point is that you can still attempt RP rolls even if the squad has been wiped out (but models that fail their rolls no longer get to try again in subsequent turns - though a Resurrection Orb gives them one more chance). Also, Necron characters (with the possible exception of CCBs) would gain the ability to revive in this manner.

It's just a rough idea at the moment, but I think trading potentially-infinite resurrection for the ability to roll RPs even if the squad is wiped out would not only be an improvement but would also make it a lot easier to further tweak the ability. e.g. the current rules simply don't allow for characters to have the ability, whereas my version would work fine for characters.

At the very least, I think this would be a much better jumping-off point for a revised RP ability.

Quite a similar mechanic to 5th Ed necrons - I like it, maybe a bit of refinement but something like that would go a long way.

Current RP is terrible because it is durability that is included in the model cost, which is far too easy to bypass at the moment. Imagine if DR could be ignored the same way? It's a signature rule of the faction, having such a simple way to ignore it is bad design.

The Tesla Destructor isn’t a Lascannon equivalent; it isn’t set up to carve big chunks off heavy tanks. It’s set up to take smaller chunks off medium targets, which makes it an Autocannon equivalent. Therefore, you should be measuring it against an Autocannon, not a Lascannon.

If you make the TD 2Dmg and keep it at AP- it ends up comparing nicely to a twin Autocannon. Against a target with a 4+ save it does exactly the same damage as a twin Autocannon. The Autocannon does better against targets with better saves, but the TD does better against targets with worse saves or Invuls. The Autocannon has longer range but the TD is more mobile. A twin TD is then essentially a quad Autocannon, which makes the Annihilation Barge a reasonable equivalent to a Rifleman Dreadnought. Just making Tesla Destructors 2Dmg is a great solution.

We really need our basic troops to do more work against vehicles again. A rending-style rule is a good idea, but for the love of God, the God-Emperor, the C’Tan, the Chaos Gods, Gork, Mork, the Eldar Pantheon and the Greater Good, no more f***ing Mortal Wounds. They’re an anti-fun and unbalanceable mechanic that are already grotesquely over-prevalent in this game. +1 Damage (and AP?) on 6s to Wound with Gauss weapons sounds much more fun, but I wonder if it’d actually be strong enough to made a difference.

Honestly I was shocked the Destructor didn't get D2. It's like the perfect weapon for that.

They could even make it so gauss gets +1 to wound against vehicles, or reroll failed to wound rolls against vehicles if you want something more than AP or extra damage.

 Grimgold wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, in my experience warriors are usually the units that benefit the most from RP, as they have the numbers to ensure that RP actually works, they actually have a support for their RP, and it takes a surprising amount of effort to remove one squad.

The problem though is that warrior's offensive capabilities are lackluster, so a savvy opponent would go after weaker units that can actually deal damage before dealing with warriors.

You know what would be hilarious? If there was a grot shields equivalent for warriors. You'll be shooting those warriors whether you want to or not

Even immortals in cover are a PITA to get rid of in a single volley,

dark reapers shooting star swarm missiles
2/3 * 2/3 * 1/2 * 2 = .44 damage per reaper

That means it takes 10/.44 = 22 dark reapers to get them in a round, which is a commitment of 748 points of dark reapers

For aggressors the story is worse
2/3 * 1/2 * 1/6 * 9.5 = .53 damage per aggressor

So it would take 10/.53 = 19 aggressors to do the job, which is a commitment of 703 points.

Which means it's possible to one shot our infantry, but it's not a good use of resources, and therefore highly unlikely to happen in actual play. If we get to roll RP even once it's better than DR, and if we get to roll it more than once it is way better than DR.

*edit* Also warriors are a great unit for capping midfield objectives, they have obsec, large numbers, and are a royal pain to get rid of. At 240 points they are a good investment to get hold more every round.


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 Arachnofiend wrote:
The last thing Necrons need is even more reliance on AP in a game where most of the significant threats have an invuln...

Care to cite any examples? Because we would be making this change to let necrons take on heavy vehicles, which do not have typically have an invul save. Knights have an invul save, but short of rotate ion shields on their warlord, -1 ap would still put us at or below their invul save, meaning their invul save wouldn't help them.

Guys, I think you are using the wrong weapon in this scenario. Why you haven't consider Tzeentch Flamer?

9 model strong units, 9D6 autohit at 12", Str5 VS T4 and plus 1 to wound when buffed simply by a Herald backing them up, AP-1. Math yields 13.3 Immortal dead. I don't remember the exact points of those Flamers, but what I can recall is they may not be over 30pts, so that is <270pts units wipe a 170pts Immortals. Easy kill!!!

How anout Kraken Genestealers? 240pts for 20 strong unit. 80 attacks, hit on 3s, wound on 4s, AP-1 minimum. So even not count the rending on 6s. It is already average 13.3 Immortal dead. Easy Kill!!!!

How about Tzaangors? 210pts for a 30 strong unit, 60 attacks, hit on 3s wound on 4s, AP-1, so they have only 4+ save now, yields exact 10 dead Immortals. Easy Kill!!!!

On the record guys, there are things that are as bad as vehicles but aren't vehicles that necrons need to deal with. Greater daemons, monstrous tyranids, eldar avatars, Guilleman, daemon primarchs, etc, and many of these have ++ saves.

Interestingly, a good candidate for killing Immortals... is Immortals.

14 Mephrit Immortals (238pts) kill 10 Immortals in rapid fire range in one go.

My contestant for crappiest unit to kill 10 Immortals in one go: 10 Vanguard Veterans with Lightning Claws at 280pts. Kills 10 Immortals with the Sergeant’s bonus attack as spare.

Dont waste your time on thinking how to fix necrons, the only thing that (hopefully) will happen are point drops.

 Grimgold wrote:
I wanted to talk points for my proposed tesla destructors. Any improvement should have a comisrate increase in points cost, we aren't asking for GW to make us OP (we'll leave that to the Yannari players), and thus we should be willing to pay for better kit. My hunch is that we are currently paying about 10 points for tesla destructors, a little more expensive than a hurricane bolter (if we are paying more we are getting ripped off).

Well isn't it lucky then that annihilation barges are already incredibly overcosted. I admit that a large part of there problem is the troop tax covers most of their current targets, so they are surplus to demand, but even if that wasn't the case they are still to costly to consider.

With an extra damage and an ap or two there would still be an argument for a point decrease. Leaving them as is is the best bet. I guess changing the base cost and weapon cost so they add up the same is an option, but kinda pointless since it's only scythes that share the weapon and they are basically in the same boat (incredibly overcosted).

The changes from CA should make all lists mid tear - even spam armies of destroyers (our best unit) aren't really mid tear (sure they get some wins, but not in the true competitive scene). Three vault lists either win big or loose big, which doesn't make them as good as some think. (Basically what I'm saying is necrons don't need any point increases!)

MrPieChee wrote:

@vipiod - that's a really complex way to achieve exactly my suggestion from the 1st(?) page:

I know it's a bit complex, but generally you need to be precise with wargaming rules. I'd rather have a wordy rule that takes a couple of reads to fully understand but which leaves little room for interpretation than one which is simple to read but leads to all sorts of issues in practise.

MrPieChee wrote:

When a rp model is killed, leave it on the table. At the start of the necron player turn roll rp for all models killed last turn. Those that fail are removed. No having to worry about counters or keep track of anything. This also means you can roll for wiped units. Simple. It's a Nerf because you only roll for models that died last turn, but a buff because focus fire doesn't negate the rule.

- How do you tell the difference between a 'killed' Necron model and an 'alive' Necron model?
- Can 'dead' Necron models still move?
- Can 'dead' Necron models still attack?
- Can dead Necron models still be attacked?
- Can wounds be allocated to 'dead' Necrons?
- Can enemy models move within 1" of 'dead' Necrons?
- Can enemy models charge 'dead' Necrons?
- If a Necron unit suffers losses due to Morale, can 'dead' Necrons be removed instead of 'living' ones?
- When Necron models revive, do they remain where they are even if they are out of coherency with their unit?
- If they remain where they are, what happens if their are enemy units within 1" of them?

I'm not trying to bash your idea. I'm just saying that there was a reason I chose to make my version 'wordy'.

Why not let an annihilation barge carry a heavy gauss cannon as an option for the twin Tesla destructor?

BTW I like theAB, I just think i'd like it more if itcs cost wasn't so high, or I could lark a spider behind it to buff it's living metal effect. Also not letting it take a heavy gauss cannon seems dumb.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Why not let an annihilation barge carry a heavy gauss cannon as an option for the twin Tesla destructor?

BTW I like theAB, I just think i'd like it more if itcs cost wasn't so high, or I could lark a spider behind it to buff it's living metal effect. Also not letting it take a heavy gauss cannon seems dumb.

Because GW says no.
I would totally be on board with more weapon options for the AB though.
I'm not just talking about twin heavy gauss either. I'm talking about heat rays, particle shredders and deathrays.
The fact that weapon options are locked to single, specific units is a weak point in the necron army. I don't mind our infantry having limited options, but our vehicles should really have an expanded armory.

 vipoid wrote:

- How do you tell the difference between a 'killed' Necron model and an 'alive' Necron model?
- Can 'dead' Necron models still move?
- Can 'dead' Necron models still attack?
- Can dead Necron models still be attacked?
- Can wounds be allocated to 'dead' Necrons?
- Can enemy models move within 1" of 'dead' Necrons?
- Can enemy models charge 'dead' Necrons?
- If a Necron unit suffers losses due to Morale, can 'dead' Necrons be removed instead of 'living' ones?
- When Necron models revive, do they remain where they are even if they are out of coherency with their unit?
- If they remain where they are, what happens if their are enemy units within 1" of them?

I'm not trying to bash your idea. I'm just saying that there was a reason I chose to make my version 'wordy'.

Killed models are lying on their side (which I normally do out of habit from whfb while phases are ongoing). None of your other questions matter - rp is at the beginning of your turn - models that revive are back in the unit, and models that don't are removed. Models on their side don't interact in anyway. They are effectively a marker.

Presumably if the unit is wiped out this still works (otherwise no point to it), so there would need to be a mechanism to determine where they pop up (models on their side are less precisely positioned than ones stood on their base).

I would like to see more long ranged weapons available - Necrons are really a short range shooting army I always feel outgunned against a "proper" shooting army that we have to spend a couple of turns advancing to get into range, and against a melee army we need to get close enough that we have only 1 round of shooting before we get charged. I liked the long range plasma lance from the previous edition (that could be put on crypteks in a royal court and distributed amongst the troops) but that has been squatted now... Our few long range guns are all on big expensive platforms that are easy to target...

MrPieChee wrote:

Killed models are lying on their side

And?

They're still models and they're still on the table. The game does not differentiate between 'live models that are on the table' and 'dead models that are still on the table', and laying those models on their sides doesn't change that.

If you think that no one will ever claim that they can see an otherwise out-of-sight Necron unit because they can see some 'dead' members of their unit or that a Necron player will never attempt to allocate wounds to a 'dead' Necron, then clearly you have never read the YMDC section of this forum.

What are the oldest kits to the Necron army right now? The Warriors and the Monolith, right?

If they were to be updated, more than likely new options will become available. Either a second/third unit added or a new weapon mix included.

Either way, what new versions of these units do you think would be for consideration?

Should Warriors get another weapon to dakka with, or have an updated version of their old Disruption Fields (remember when they actually had options besides numbers), or should their chassis make a new unit with a new weapon?

Should a new Monolith kit be set up between tank and dedicated restoration teleporter, or should it involve more of an artillery beast?

Odds are, with any effective update, you'll be looking at new models along with them as well.

 vipoid wrote:

MrPieChee wrote:

Killed models are lying on their side

And?

They're still models and they're still on the table. The game does not differentiate between 'live models that are on the table' and 'dead models that are still on the table', and laying those models on their sides doesn't change that.

If you think that no one will ever claim that they can see an otherwise out-of-sight Necron unit because they can see some 'dead' members of their unit or that a Necron player will never attempt to allocate wounds to a 'dead' Necron, then clearly you have never read the YMDC section of this forum.

There isn't really a response to that. I'm suggesting a rule to replace rp. I could spend lots of time making perfect wording so there are no loop holes and 100% of people completely understand the rule, but gw doesn't do that, and this is a forum where in reality the rule doesn't have a chance of being implemented. The key to a good ruleset is clarity.

If it makes you happy then every model could be removed when killed and replaced with a marker. However if you're playing with people who require that then you need a better gaming group. It's tolerating people who act like that which keeps them around.

 vipoid wrote:

They're still models and they're still on the table. The game does not differentiate between 'live models that are on the table' and 'dead models that are still on the table', and laying those models on their sides doesn't change that.

Are there any examples of this already?

 Charistoph wrote:
What are the oldest kits to the Necron army right now? The Warriors and the Monolith, right?

If they were to be updated, more than likely new options will become available. Either a second/third unit added or a new weapon mix included.

Either way, what new versions of these units do you think would be for consideration?

Should Warriors get another weapon to dakka with, or have an updated version of their old Disruption Fields (remember when they actually had options besides numbers), or should their chassis make a new unit with a new weapon?

Should a new Monolith kit be set up between tank and dedicated restoration teleporter, or should it involve more of an artillery beast?

Odds are, with any effective update, you'll be looking at new models along with them as well.

Destroyers, Warriors, scarabs and the Monolith.
All of these are unchanged. The ones I got more than a decade ago are still the same design as the ones today.
That's just the plastic kits. If we were to go by aesthetic instead of material, then the Nightbringer, Deceiver, Destroyer Lord and Heavy Destroyer are also unchanged.

Flayed Ones, Spyders and Wraiths look nothing like their 3rd ed counterparts. The latter 2 are pretty good, even though wraiths moved from being necrons to canopteks. The new Flayed Ones are a joke, and whoever designed them shouldn't be allowed to touch necrons again. Ever.
Immortals may look similar to their 3rd versions, but there are some subtle differences - they aren't as bulky and they don't have a glyph on their forehead. Instead they have these depressions.

Disruption fields already exist as a stratagem, I believe. Its actually pretty nice. It works well with Novokh.
I would like to see more necron heavy vehicles. Something that's more inline with the monolith or the obelisk, like a big chunk of masonry.
A heavy weapons platform variant would be a nice tank stand in.

8,000 points of Necrons with another couple hundred points in the works were all relegated to a bin in my garage. I will never play 8th edition again.

Moving forward, I will not longer purchase any products from GW including Citidel paints or any other hobby supplies until Necrons are fixed.

The upshot, I have extra money to purchase fuel to pilot airplanes and more Keyforge!

If my focused gauss fire option to inflict a mortal wound on one target per 3 hits whether they wound and penetrate or not might make large units too powerful suppose we cap it at like 3-4 wounds regardless of the number of units and hits?

But still allow it to work with rapid fire.

 Tokhuah wrote:
8,000 points of Necrons with another couple hundred points in the works were all relegated to a bin in my garage. I will never play 8th edition again.

Moving forward, I will not longer purchase any products from GW including Citidel paints or any other hobby supplies until Necrons are fixed.

The upshot, I have extra money to purchase fuel to pilot airplanes and more Keyforge!

That is the most hypocritical thing i have ever herd on dakka.

For those that dont know, Keyforge is a new card game like MTG without mana and you are always 3 colors, but, you can not build your deck, they are all pre-built, completely random and have power levels (that you have to log into and use the deck code to find out your power level), with 7 colors that are based on a type of playstyle, you could get a low power level deck, with 0 synergies and your opponent get get a higher power level with perfect synergies. Yes they have a "way" to balance the power levels a tiny bit, but its still not balance in anyway. Its a cash grab game that is completely made to trick you into that dopamine rush.

Once you buy your deck, if its bad, its literally unplayable and no one wants it, so you cant even get your 10$ back, you might be able to sell it for 1-2$ tho... at least in 40k you models serve multi-purpose, can resell for over 50% the value. Decks are 100% unique and 1 time use as well, so you cant build/copy others.

That game sounds terrible, why would anyone want to blow money on it?

Oh, dont forget, b.c of the "balance" you could get a level 8 deck with bad synergies, and you oppnent could get a level 5 or 6 with good synergies, b.c of that, the higher PL deck will have a handicap, but b.c his deck doesnt work well with the cards he is now at a disadvantage.

This tho is just from watching 6-7 games online (not many online atm) and reading the rules/having it in person. Im still new to the game.

But from my PoV and a couple others (a player that is huge into card games and been playing them for years) all agree its currently not a balanced game.

This isnt to say after mass player beta runs they cant balance future decks better, but currently i wouldnt touch it.

PS: event organizers can already super easily pop open the decks, scan the codes and find the "high" power level ones, and deck the color combinations, there are a few colors that are better right now, and they can already cheat the events/games/sell to friends. I mean its super easy, like it takes 30sec to do.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Tokhuah wrote:
8,000 points of Necrons with another couple hundred points in the works were all relegated to a bin in my garage. I will never play 8th edition again.

Moving forward, I will not longer purchase any products from GW including Citidel paints or any other hobby supplies until Necrons are fixed.

The upshot, I have extra money to purchase fuel to pilot airplanes and more Keyforge!

That is the most hypocritical thing i have ever herd on dakka.

For those that dont know, Keyforge is a new card game like MTG without mana and you are always 3 colors, but, you can not build your deck, they are all pre-built, completely random and have power levels (that you have to log into and use the deck code to find out your power level), with 7 colors that are based on a type of playstyle, you could get a low power level deck, with 0 synergies and your opponent get get a higher power level with perfect synergies. Yes they have a "way" to balance the power levels a tiny bit, but its still not balance in anyway. Its a cash grab game that is completely made to trick you into that dopamine rush.

Once you buy your deck, if its bad, its literally unplayable and no one wants it, so you cant even get your 10$ back, you might be able to sell it for 1-2$ tho... at least in 40k you models serve multi-purpose, can resell for over 50% the value. Decks are 100% unique and 1 time use as well, so you cant build/copy others.

I know this is OT but holy gak that game sounds awful! A card game with ZERO collectibility or deck building? Those are like the only two things WORTH doing in a TCG.

Bringing back Pariahs would be a start. Just my 2p. Give them some smite defense.

If the CA 2018 teaser is literal, there are no rules changes in CA 2018, only points changes. So expect necrons to stay boned at least the summer FAQ. The necrons will get a new trait though, dust of a thousand shelves.

Army gets cheaper cross codex, I’m good with not getting rules.

 IHateNids wrote:
Army gets cheaper cross codex, I’m good with not getting rules.

Lacking anti-vehicle that can withstand a stiff breeze, it would take some silly big points reductions to make us effective in the current meta.

 Grimgold wrote:
If the CA 2018 teaser is literal, there are no rules changes in CA 2018, only points changes. So expect necrons to stay boned at least the summer FAQ. The necrons will get a new trait though, dust of a thousand shelves.

I made this prediction a fair few weeks ago based on the information that I gathered from Warhammer World back in July. I suspected that there could have been changes in opinion since then, and there still could. However, I don't think that change will be a very large change, since they do believe that Necrons as an army are in a decent spot as it stood back in July.

 vipoid wrote:

MrPieChee wrote:

Killed models are lying on their side

And?

They're still models and they're still on the table. The game does not differentiate between 'live models that are on the table' and 'dead models that are still on the table', and laying those models on their sides doesn't change that.

If you think that no one will ever claim that they can see an otherwise out-of-sight Necron unit because they can see some 'dead' members of their unit or that a Necron player will never attempt to allocate wounds to a 'dead' Necron, then clearly you have never read the YMDC section of this forum.

At that point you smack them with the BRB for being TFG




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimgold wrote:
If the CA 2018 teaser is literal, there are no rules changes in CA 2018, only points changes. So expect necrons to stay boned at least the summer FAQ. The necrons will get a new trait though, dust of a thousand shelves.

The chance of a rule overhaul was already extremely slim so banking on that was a recipe for disappointment. If they get a sufficient points drop across the board it would be enough to make them at least playable.

 Grimgold wrote:

 IHateNids wrote:
Army gets cheaper cross codex, I’m good with not getting rules.

Lacking anti-vehicle that can withstand a stiff breeze, it would take some silly big points reductions to make us effective in the current meta.

I mean, Destroyers and DDAs remain our collective answer to everything not infantry, so I’m still good with paying less to get more of them

I think Necrons should be allowed to work a bit differently to other armies. They are Xenos and crazy advanced after all - they don’t have to stick to the tropes of more conventional armies.

Aside from the Ghost Ark, which is more of an ambulance, we don’t use transports per se, but rather teleportation. This is a nice distinction that gives the army character, just the execution is a bit lacking. It’s not unfixable, though. Similarly, we don’t have to stick to the idea of ‘this is an anti-infantry unit, this is an anti-tank unit’. Having our anti-tank coming from basic troops was another fun distinction, and I’d like to go back to it.

With that in mind, I think the ‘combined fire’ idea posited above has merit. Something where minor anti infantry firepower snowballs into heavy anti-tank as they focus fire. Something like this:

‘If a single model suffers two unsaved wounds from Gauss weapons fired by one unit in one phase, the Damage characteristic for those wounds is increased by 1. If a single model suffers three or more unsaved wounds from Gauss weapons fired by one unit in one phase, the Damage characteristic for those wounds is increased by 2. Note that the increase in Damage is resolved before rolling for abilities that ignore unsaved wounds such as Disgustingly Resilient.’

I’m not sure if it would be too powerful - you’d need 36 Warriors or 14 Immortals in rapid fire range to kill a Leman Russ - but it’d solve our anti-tank woes and would mean we wouldn’t need a price reduction for our troops.

 Grimgold wrote:
If the CA 2018 teaser is literal, there are no rules changes in CA 2018, only points changes. So expect necrons to stay boned at least the summer FAQ. The necrons will get a new trait though, dust of a thousand shelves.

That's GW for you. Release a flawe d army, keep! People buying CA hoping to fix it, then maybe halfway fix it with faq updates and when itcs finally halfway decent, NEW EDITION TIME!

 NurglesR0T wrote:

The chance of a rule overhaul was already extremely slim so banking on that was a recipe for disappointment. If they get a sufficient points drop across the board it would be enough to make them at least playable.

What are they going to reduce the price on that would make a difference in the current meta? I know we are due some points reductions, but even after points reductions It's hard to bring more destroyers, because a lot of lists are already brining three units of them, same with DDAs. Are we going to get enough reduction to regularly bring three units of heavy destroyers, and are they going to be cheap enough that them getting popped like balloons won't matter? We are already filling up our detachments with our best units and it's flat not enough, with the rule of three there is a hard limit on how much points reductions can help us, and alot of our top lists are already near those limits.

I'm not saying points reduction won't help, or are a bad solution for other armies (both admech and marines could be much more competitive with points reductions), but necrons are lacking in certain capabilities, and bringing more incapable units won't make up for that fact. Half of our vehicles are a joke, you could cut the cost on a annihilation barge by quarter and it still wouldn't be worth taking, and if you cut it in half it would only be worth taking for an extra gauss cannon. Doom scythes don't have hover or strafing run, so always hit on a 4+ with their only gun that matters, The obelisk is bad joke with no AP, and the nightscythe is basically unarmed and requires CP to make tomb world deployment work well enough to be useful. Maybe if they cut the cost of the monolith in half we could use it as a battle tank, but they are never going to reduce it that much because it has too many special rules.

Destroyers don't fit the bill for Necrons; they're a glass cannon model in an army that is intended to win by outlasting the enemy. Destroyers would be really good in Eldar but I think as long as Destroyers are our best unit Necrons will continue to be bad.

Does anyone think that the problem with immortals is that gauss and tesla are the wrong way round - Gauss blasters should be assault 2 and Tesla carbines should be Rapid Fire 2 (and loose their special rule).

Tesla is a big lightening bolt, so it would make sense over range it would get worse as it grounds itself, but over short distances it hits everything.

Gauss Blasters have two barrels and so should be able to make use of them all the time.


This has two bonuses, Blasters are now more equal, and tesla now doesn't suffer from stupid -1's to hit removing their bonus.

You remove the "Tesla" rule and we no longer have any answer to hordes

MrPieChee wrote:
Does anyone think that the problem with immortals is that gauss and tesla are the wrong way round - Gauss blasters should be assault 2 and Tesla carbines should be Rapid Fire 2 (and loose their special rule).

Tesla is a big lightening bolt, so it would make sense over range it would get worse as it grounds itself, but over short distances it hits everything.

Gauss Blasters have two barrels and so should be able to make use of them all the time.


This has two bonuses, Blasters are now more equal, and tesla now doesn't suffer from stupid -1's to hit removing their bonus.

Spoiler:

This might not work well if applied to other gauss and tesla weapons, but it doesn't have to. All gauss weapons look quite different, so having smaller guns rapid fire and bigger heavy doesn't matter. Tesla mounts everything else on vehicles so doesn't matter either.

However making tesla sphere rapid fire 4 might be more interesting... and a tesla destructor rapid fire 4 with str 8 and dmg 2....

Gauss Blasters were assault 2 weapons to begin with. I don't know why they changed them to rapid fire in 5th.
Maybe rapid fire 2? That way they are sort of equal with tesla at 24", but are deadlier at close range.
Tesla shouldn't lose their extra hits rule.

Making them rapid fire 2 and keeping their 6+ hit rule would make them really expensive.

Rapid fire 2 means 4 hits at 12" all the time, so you don't care about needing to roll a 6+. Imo it's more robust. With no AP, going to rapid fire 3 could be an option, but it's probably OTT.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 IHateNids wrote:
You remove the "Tesla" rule and we no longer have any answer to hordes

Yes we would, it would just be at 12" instead, and wouldn't be screwed by -1 to hit.

No, I mean make Gauss Blasters rapid fire 2.
They'd still be better at Tesla at close quarters, but not as bad at long range.

Necrons need soup

Oh, I see. They have extra AP, so I don't think making them rapid fire 2 is better than assult 2 when you consider the cost increase that will be needed.

Currently no one uses Gauss blasters, so a buff of assult 2 would blance them. But having them rapid fire 2, str 5 and AP -2 would probably add 2-4 pts.

Tesla is strong already, making it rapid fire 2 with no special rule means it's a little worse at 24", but better at 12", and generally more reliable.

When you consider immortals are normally used with MWBD, then then it looks like more of a Nerf to Tesla, but it feels more fluffy to me.

No, soup is terrible game design and is a clear marketing ploy vomited up by bean counters. The game needs less soup, not more.

MrPieChee wrote:
Making them rapid fire 2 and keeping their 6+ hit rule would make them really expensive.

Rapid fire 2 means 4 hits at 12" all the time, so you don't care about needing to roll a 6+. Imo it's more robust. With no AP, going to rapid fire 3 could be an option, but it's probably OTT.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 IHateNids wrote:
You remove the "Tesla" rule and we no longer have any answer to hordes

Yes we would, it would just be at 12" instead, and wouldn't be screwed by -1 to hit.

1 - Tesla is Assault 2 currently, no AP, so we have horde Control at a range where you havent already lost as a shooting-oriented army

2 - Guass Blasters being Rapid Fire 2 is something I have wanted for a while. Even if they go back up by the 2 points they just lost in CA, I would then have no isue at all taking a unit of 10 as a Veiled in Strike Team.

3 - please dont remove the Tesla rule

4 - Please dont make Tesla Rapid Fire, it makes no sense

Pancakey wrote:
Necrons need soup

No one needs soup.

If I organised a tournament then I would only allow cp from the same faction as the Warlord. Instantly fixes lots of the problem armies, while allowing players to field what they want.

I'd also set a Max unit size on all units to 20, and play 1500 pt games, stopping this silly horde wars and making it more like the skirmish game it should be. With the drops in CA, 1500 pts is much like the 2k of 4th Ed.

MrPieChee wrote:
Oh, I see. They have extra AP, so I don't think making them rapid fire 2 is better than assult 2 when you consider the cost increase that will be needed.

Currently no one uses Gauss blasters, so a buff of assult 2 would blance them. But having them rapid fire 2, str 5 and AP -2 would probably add 2-4 pts.

Tesla is strong already, making it rapid fire 2 with no special rule means it's a little worse at 24", but better at 12", and generally more reliable.

When you consider immortals are normally used with MWBD, then then it looks like more of a Nerf to Tesla, but it feels more fluffy to me.

Tesla isn't really that strong though. It just has a range and slight RoF advantage. It has no AP, so it doesn't perform that well against armored targets, and it relies on chance in order to get it to work to its fullest, which can be denied easily with hit modifiers. Its just better than Gauss, that's all.

Making Gauss RF2 would balance out the advantages and allow it to deal absurd damage in close quarters. You still need to get into range to do that, and really, considering how every other faction except necrons seem to have some option to roll buckets of dice, the necrons probably need such an offensive option.

Destroyer Lord should be 90 points before weapon/wargear and his buff should affect all -Dynasty- units.

Flayed ones rules should stay as they are but come down to 12-13 ppm. Alternatively, 15 ppm (same as Immortals) and gain back the attack they lost. They still wouldn't see much action with these changes but at least they wouldn't be worthless

Spyders need a complete rework. Make them 50 points, 6 wounds and grant re-rolls for RP to -Dynasty Infantry- units.

Cynista wrote:
Destroyer Lord should be 90 points before weapon/wargear and his buff should affect all -Dynasty- units.

Flayed ones rules should stay as they are but come down to 12-13 ppm. Alternatively, 15 ppm (same as Immortals) and gain back the attack they lost. They still wouldn't see much action with these changes but at least they wouldn't be worthless

Spyders need a complete rework. Make them 50 points, 6 wounds and grant re-rolls for RP to -Dynasty Infantry- units.

Seems good, but the lord would have to be changed to reroll 1s to hit to avoid overlap with the d lord, and the orb should be completely reworked to be useful and to avoid overlap with the spyder.

Cynista wrote:


Spyders need a complete rework. Make them 50 points, 6 wounds and grant re-rolls for RP to -Dynasty Infantry- units.

spyder should have 6 wounds or more and be tougher.

and the repair claws should be able to add models to any swarm or infantry unit up to its starting quantity in the same fashion it adds scarabs

it would still attarct all the firepower .. but it would deserve it

+1 for Tesla destructors being either S8 or D2 ... no AP ... just lots of shots vs vehicles and able to shoot reliably at knights

Agreed. Regarding the Orb, it should stay fairly expensive but actually be powerful. Grant RP to a unit that has been wiped out entirely is the obvious solution. Perhaps even not only be one use per game.

It's on the front cover of the codex and is modelled on several of our Lord's after all. It should be an auto include yet nobody takes it....

What if instead of being a crappy one use 35 pt item, it was a permanent item that provided a 6+ FNP aura? Now, it may seem expensive if kept at 35pt, but keep in mind that necrons also have RP, so it would actually be pretty powerful. It would take a bit more firepower to destroy a unit of necrons, which means they would live long enough to get their RP rolls.

Pancakey wrote:
Necrons need soup

I miss using my Super Deathmark as a stand-in Vindicare. Yeah it was bad performing but even *I* have a slight masochistic side to me.

Remains 1-use

Affects all units in 6"?

 IHateNids wrote:
Remains 1-use

Affects all units in 6"?

6" is the standard, yes, but it would be so much better if it was a constant buff giver instead of a one trick pony.
It wasn't a one shot in 3rd ed, and that was the edition its famous from.

right...

Just checked it out, and they hit all units in 3"

Make them 6" & permanent might work?

Or instead, make them the OoE as standard (one use, preferably 6", re-roll RP w/ an uncapped +1), and then make the Relic version do the same at 12", maybe with a +2

Because a 12" bubble of Re-rollable 3+ Res will bring a Battalion back to life, and will be more than enough to warrant a Relic.



also has the happy accident to make people double check if they need the Veil, because I'm fairly certain people are sick of only having one actually outstanding good option

The Necrons need to scare their foes; give them the old rules. 3+ armour saves, destroyers with jet bikes movement of old. When my gaurd only had one way to fight SM and Crons (with the battle cannon) warriors were a serous threat. Those hight speed,, peek a boo, shooring is exactly what was needed to put down Tau crisis suits and riptides.
GW just sit one day and want to change how all the armies play out. Tau was mobility, Eldar was speed, Necron were about raw toughtness and staying power.I was into necronds knew them for. They can be used, but now the way I want or the way to make them fun.

"Thr Necrons aren'the Necons anymore"

Avor wrote:
The Necrons need to scare their foes; give them the old rules. 3+ armour saves, destroyers with jet bikes movement of old. When my gaurd only had one way to fight SM and Crons (with the battle cannon) warriors were a serous threat. Those hight speed,, peek a boo, shooring is exactly what was needed to put down Tau crisis suits and riptides.
GW just sit one day and want to change how all the armies play out. Tau was mobility, Eldar was speed, Necron were about raw toughtness and staying power.I was into necronds knew them for. They can be used, but now the way I want or the way to make them fun.

"Thr Necrons aren'the Necons anymore"

I actually like the idea of necrons being a control style army and it's actually why I just started them. I think though that their main trait is simply too easy to counter by just focus firing down 1 unit at a time. I haven't read all the thread posts but imo i think that they simply need to have rules that live up to how resilient they are. Death Guard always get their FNP so why not always give necrons the get back up even if wiped or at least give a strategem that allows wiped units to get back up.

Like I said I'm just starting them and don't really play anyone who has them so my idea might not be amazing but from what ive seen they just aren't as resilient as they should be

I think letting Ressurrection Orbs allow Reanimation rolls for destroyed units within 6” as a permanent effect, along with a Stratagem with a similar effect, would be enough of a help for durability.

Anti-tank is the bigger problem IMO. Maybe something like doubling the Damage on Gauss weapons if the target is over T5?

kombatwombat wrote:

Anti-tank is the bigger problem IMO. Maybe something like doubling the Damage on Gauss weapons if the target is over T5?

I had a similar idea:
- Gauss blaster: gets 2 damage
- gauss flayer: gets ap-2

Reasoning:
1. tesla already covers the anti-infantry role, so give blasters an anti-vehicle role.
2. a S4 ap -2 flayer would be highly versatile, which is great for a unit with only 1 weapon option.

Spyders allow any unit with Reanimation Protocols within 6" the loses its last model to make an RP roll for the entire unit at the end of the phase, this roll only succeeds on an unmodified 6. If no models succeed the unit is permanently destroyed.

Also, Spyders gain 2 more wounds.

Dandelion wrote:
I had a similar idea:
- Gauss blaster: gets 2 damage
- gauss flayer: gets ap-2

Reasoning:
1. tesla already covers the anti-infantry role, so give blasters an anti-vehicle role.
2. a S4 ap -2 flayer would be highly versatile, which is great for a unit with only 1 weapon option.

I would be very hesitant to just increase Gauss weaponry’s Damage. Necrons don’t need to be more lethal to elite infantry like Primaris, Terminators and Custodes, they need to be better against specifically vehicles and monster analogues. Hence the stipulation that the extra damage only occurs if the target has T6 or better.

Necrons got a fair amount of points reductions in CA 2018, which helps the army in general but some rules changes need to occur if necrons are ever going to be competitive. Rules changes are limited to the Spring and Fall FAQ, and since there is lead up time involved in creating the FAQs, now seems like a good time to go over what areas the necrons are struggling in, and try to brainstorm some solutions.

Anti-vehicle
I’ll try to limit myself to just this single mention of 7th ed, but Necrons went from being one of the most capable armies of dealing with vehicles to being one of the least capable. This is because we don’t have many good options for dealing with vehicles, we have very limited access to las cannons equivalents, and we bump up against the rule of three for our only vehicle with a decent anti-vehicle weapon (the doomsday ark). We currently try to scrape by using melee (lychguard armed with warscythes), and leaning heavily on our plasma cannon equivalents (Gauss Cannons). As heavily as the current meta skews towards knights, this is a fatal weakness.

Make the tesla destructor damage 2 or damage D3. 3 of our vehicles feature the tesla destructor/orb as primary armaments, and one of them uses it as a supplementary weapon. At str 7, no AP, and a single damage the Tesla Destructor is an awful weapon. Since I prefer to show as opposed to tell, here is the break down of the math of it shooting at a T8 3+ vehicle: (⅔ + (⅙ * 3)) * ⅓ * ⅓ * 8 = 1.037 damage Per Shot. As you can see that’s just not functional against heavy targets, and when it comes to anti-infantry it’s outshined by the humble tesla carbine. The tesla carbine can be taken in large amounts and has more access to bonuses to hit. So it’s a weapon that doesn’t have a role currently, and that makes a good target for changes. Increasing the weapon damage to 2 (or a D3) will bring it into rough parity with a twin linked autocannon, which is useful against light vehicles, and helpful to get some extra chip against heavy vehicles. It would also be helpful in getting 4 of our vehicles off of the bench.

Stop penalizing doom scythes for moving. Our second best anti-vehicle weapon (The deathray) is a heavy weapon mounted on a flyer with a minimum speed value. The doom scythe has no way to negate the -1 to hit from moving (outside of a specific dynasty), so it’s d3 shots tends to be pretty prone to missing completely. If they gave the Doom scythe a machine spirit equivalent (no penalty for moving and firing heavy weapons), combined with the above change to tesla destructors, it would actually be a decent tank hunting unit.
⅔ * ⅔ * 3.5 * 2 = 3.1 added to the above change it comes out at just a little over 5 damage. This puts just slightly below a quad las predator in terms of anti-vehicle capability, and I don’t believe people would argue that a quad las predator is overpowered.

Repair protocols
I realize I’m in the minority on this one, but I think reanimation protocols (RP) is in general fine (but could use a few tweaks mentioned below). It compares well to closest ability in the game to it, disgustingly resilient (DR). They both save models on a 5+, can be buffed to a 4+ (though RP is much easier to buff), and while the effect of DR is front loaded, RP is back loaded in a such a way as the enemy has to plan around it. RP forces your opponent to over commit, lest your opponent see a significant chunk of the unit he just chewed on get back up. It can be avoided by wiping the unit out, but if there was no way around it, it couldn’t activate on succeeding rounds because that would make necron units more or less unkillable. It’s disappointing that certain units like destroyers don’t benefit as much from it, and it requires max unit size for best effect, but lots of other armies have central gimmicks that have to be planned around, and necrons aren’t unique in that regard. The only real alternative would be for RP to always function, but the units that fail have to be removed as casualties and can no longer come back. So it would more or less be delayed action DR, and it would be better than DR since you could never reliably kill a necron unit in one round of shooting. Then you would have to leave the models on the board, to make sure they came back in the same place, track which units died in which round, in addition to the current tracking we have to do for morale losses.

Ditch Morale losses being unrecoverable. Tracking which losses are from morale is just an unnecessary complication that slows down play. Also the fear of losing units and not being able to recover them is a strain on our very limited CP pools. Finally is RP already has a very viable work around, kill the unit, a secondary method around it seems unnecessary.

Change Enhanced reanimation protocols. At 2 CP to reroll ones on RP, it’s a terrible return on investment. At its best it might get you an additional model back per 12 RP rolls, and more often than not that number is an additional model per 18 RP rolls. A command reroll is always a better investment (get an additional model back 1 in 3 RP rolls or 1 in 2 RP rolls near a cryptek, to a maximum of 1) for half the cost, and that’s a problem. At 2 CP I feel like it needs to reroll all fails, which would be 1 extra model back per 4 RP rolls under best case, and 2 extra models back per 9 RP rolls is most cases.

Quality of life changes
Just a couple of suggestions that won't affect play too much, but would make necrons players happier in general.

Increase the range of cryptek auras: I’m not sure who decided that cryptek auras need to be 3”, but that person has mildly annoyed me. No other command auras require the person with the aura to be in easy consolidation range of the unit they are buffing. It’s not like the auras would be overwhelmingly powerful if they did span a whole 6”.

More command points: The minimum investment for a Necron battalion is 361 points after chapter approved, and unlike other elite armies we have no way of allying in cheap units to make a battalion. I think giving overlords a +1 cp ability if they are the warlord, and Imotekh +2CP would go a long way towards helping with that. With necrons usual configuration (Battalion + Outrider) That would bring us into the 10 CP - 11CP range, and even that modest increase would be helpful. This is a moot point if GW is as good as their word, and rewards mono detachments with say extra CP for instance. If they gave a bonus 3 CP if all of your army has the same faction keyword (and imperium, chaos, and aleadari don’t count for that), it would go a long way towards leveling the playing field between soup and non-soup.

How about improving the Gauss Flayer by doubling their stats when hitting with a natural 6? So Rapid Fire 1 S4 AP-1 D1 evolves to Rapid Fire 1 S8 AP-2 D2. Would have a much bigger impact on vehicles.

vs. Primaris (T4, 3+)
from 1* 4/6* 3/6* 3/6* 1 = 0,167 damage per shot aka 12 shots to kill a Primaris
to 1* 3/6* 3/6* 3/6* 1 + 1* 1/6* 5/6* 4/6* 2 = 0,31 damage per shot (186%)(7 shots)

vs. Venerable Dreadnaught (T7, 3+)
from 1* 4/6* 2/6* 3/6* 1 = 0,111
to 1* 3/6* 2/6* 3/6* 1 + 1* 1/6* 4/6* 4/6* 2 = 0,231 (208%)

vs. Land Raider (T8, 2+)
from 1* 4/6* 1/6* 2/6* 1 = 0,037
to 1* 3/6* 1/6* 2/6* 1 + 1* 1/6* 4/6* 4/6* 2 = 0,111 (300%)

vs. Knight (T8, 3+, 4++ with CP)
from 1* 4/6* 1/6* 3/6* 1 = 0,056
to 1* 3/6* 1/6* 3/6* 1 + 1* 1/6* 3/6* 3/6* 2 = 0,181 (323%)

At long range a 20-warriors-blob can put a dent in Dreads and Tanks, at short Range starting to cripple knights. Maybe limit the ability to "against vehicles", cause 2-3 20-warriors-blobs might become a thing.

I like the way you're going Grimgold, very thoughtful and explained well.

Personally I still think the basic Warrior, and Gauss in general, needs help. At the minimum I'd like to see either -3ap or -4ap on natural 6 to wound or even mortal wounds on natural 6 to wound.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ictaris wrote:
How about improving the Gauss Flayer by doubling their stats when hitting with a natural 6? So Rapid Fire 1 S4 AP-1 D1 evolves to Rapid Fire 1 S8 AP-2 D2. Would have a much bigger impact on vehicles.

vs. Primaris (T4, 3+)
from 1* 4/6* 3/6* 3/6* 1 = 0,167 damage per shot aka 12 shots to kill a Primaris
to 1* 3/6* 3/6* 3/6* 1 + 1* 1/6* 5/6* 4/6* 2 = 0,31 damage per shot (186%)(7 shots)

vs. Venerable Dreadnaught (T7, 3+)
from 1* 4/6* 2/6* 3/6* 1 = 0,111
to 1* 3/6* 2/6* 3/6* 1 + 1* 1/6* 4/6* 4/6* 2 = 0,231 (208%)

vs. Land Raider (T8, 2+)
from 1* 4/6* 1/6* 2/6* 1 = 0,037
to 1* 3/6* 1/6* 2/6* 1 + 1* 1/6* 4/6* 4/6* 2 = 0,111 (300%)

vs. Knight (T8, 3+, 4++ with CP)
from 1* 4/6* 1/6* 3/6* 1 = 0,056
to 1* 3/6* 1/6* 3/6* 1 + 1* 1/6* 3/6* 3/6* 2 = 0,181 (323%)

At long range a 20-warriors-blob can put a dent in Dreads and Tanks, at short Range starting to cripple knights. Maybe limit the ability to "against vehicles", cause 2-3 20-warriors-blobs might become a thing.

Doubling seems a little too powerful to me.

Fluffwise Gauss weapons peel away armor, flesh & bone one molecular layer at a time. Which is why I suggest -3/-4ap or the MW on natural 6 to wound. A good,well-placed wound should almost automatically wound.

So, still a big fan of swapping gauss blasters to assault 2, and making tesla rapid fire 2 or 3, but as a simpler fix to Gauss Immortals, would a range of 30 on their rapid fire 1 blasters be enough to make them even with Tesla Immortals? Just looking for the minimum tweak to make them even.

At the moment they cost the same, and blasters are fractionally better in slightly more circumstances, but with MWBD tesla becomes much better against almost every target.

Making blasters one point cheaper than tesla carbines is another easy alternative, but then make tomb blades better still. Extra range wouldn't effect Tomb blades much at all, but make more of a difference to Immortals.

Blasters were Assault 2 in ye olden days and it was kinda cool having that effective a weapon on a T5 platform.

For fairness I think Rapid Fire 30" is less broken than Assault 2 simply because of the weapon profile, but that's a whole different discussion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
At 15 points though? Both Immortals are now good at least.

Make Guass Blasters 24" RF2 OR 30" RF1 and I would call it done at that.

But thats just me, I have a soft spot for Guass Immortals

TBH i don't think Immortals need fixing. I think that they're a very solid choice at 15 points. Plenty Killy. Gauss is just harder to use.

The characters are one of the most problematic aspects of Necrons currently. They lack a lot of the synergistic buffs other characters from other characters can provide because they usually only provide bonuses to infantry, have abilities that are too short range and partly as a result of both of these things are massively overcosted as a result. People got excited for cheaper Lords and Immortals in CA2018, but even if you make the cheapest battallion possible you end up with an extra Lord who is functionally useless in the Necron army. In fact, because the unit only provides its bonus to infantry you could argue they're both useless and you've just wasted 140 points on worthless characters. The saddest is probably the Cryptek though; if you compare it to other characters that buff survivability of nearby units then it's just an absolute joke. Not only do the range of his abilities need to be increased and made universal for things like the Chronometron, but he needs a pretty hefty points decrease too. 50 more points than a Canoness who can give 5+ universal invuns in a 9" bubble and who actually has combat potential and a invun save as standard (along with re-rolls of 1 to hit) is just a joke. +1 to RP, Living Metal and the gakky Chronometron are not worth 50 points, especially on a model with a statline as poor as the Cryptek has.

And while we're on the topic of poor statlines the Overlord needs 4 attacks base at least. Especially since he does not have a re-roll 1 aura. I can't believe some people still take voidscythe's on them.

@Bosskelot, agreed! Either a few pages back or the other thread on the same topic, I mentioned 4 attacks - necron characters shouldn't be combat monsters, but they are currently pathetic. When their role as support is a bit lack luster for the points it makes it all the more painful.

Kinda hoping that the lack of point drops for many of our other problem entries means a change in the FAQ... But probably unlikely. Still, ca2018 was better than most expected

I stand by my suggestion to make Gloom Prisms a wargear choice for Crpyteks and give all Gloom Prisms a flat -2 to Warp Charge rolls within 24"

I'm still legitimately surprised that Necron Warriors don't have Fearless by default. It'd fit the fluff of them (mostly mindless and fearless robots, compared to Immortals who have more brains), and it would be one hell of a buff.

Yeah, they have L10. But considering how the granting-fearless warlord trait is mandatory with warrior swarms, I think that points to an issue.

I like the gloom prism idea for Crypteks.

Also....i blew an opponent's mind when he found out they only had 1 melee attack. Overlords only have 3 is criminal. 4 would make a great deal more sense.

I'm fine with Overlords at 3 attacks. They only get a penalty with one weapon so it's fine.

I'm NOT cool with Destroyer Lords having a low WS3+ though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I'm fine with Overlords at 3 attacks. They only get a penalty with one weapon so it's fine.

Yeah, Overlords having 3 attacks doesn't bother me.

What does bother me is that they don't have a ranged option with more than 12" range.

Could we not have an option to add a Gauss Blaster to the Warscythe, like Pariahs used to have?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I'm NOT cool with Destroyer Lords having a low WS3+ though.

Same.

When you think about it, a Cryptek with a cloak isn't really any better than a tech priest enginseer apart from having 4" more movement but costs a whopping 55 points more.

Cynista wrote:
When you think about it, a Cryptek with a cloak isn't really any better than a tech priest enginseer apart from having 4" more movement but costs a whopping 55 points more.

"But he makes your Immortals' RP activate on a 4+!"
"The ones you just wiped off the map?"

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I'm fine with Overlords at 3 attacks. They only get a penalty with one weapon so it's fine.

I'm NOT cool with Destroyer Lords having a low WS3+ though.

Well, in theory its because they can reroll 1s....like Space Marine characters, which have a WS of 2+.
GW can be dumb sometimes.

 Werekill wrote:
I'm still legitimately surprised that Necron Warriors don't have Fearless by default. It'd fit the fluff of them (mostly mindless and fearless robots, compared to Immortals who have more brains), and it would be one hell of a buff.

Yeah, they have L10. But considering how the granting-fearless warlord trait is mandatory with warrior swarms, I think that points to an issue.

I remember reading a take on Necrons and morale and how fleeing models represent models being strategically beamed back to the tombworld from a battle that is going unfavourably... but I don't really buy it.

It would be amazing if just generally, Necrons had fearless across the board. Even with the more sentient units like Lychguard, their core protocols would really prevent them from fleeing.

dapperbandit wrote:

 Werekill wrote:
I'm still legitimately surprised that Necron Warriors don't have Fearless by default. It'd fit the fluff of them (mostly mindless and fearless robots, compared to Immortals who have more brains), and it would be one hell of a buff.

Yeah, they have L10. But considering how the granting-fearless warlord trait is mandatory with warrior swarms, I think that points to an issue.

I remember reading a take on Necrons and morale and how fleeing models represent models being strategically beamed back to the tombworld from a battle that is going unfavourably... but I don't really buy it.

It would be amazing if just generally, Necrons had fearless across the board. Even with the more sentient units like Lychguard, their core protocols would really prevent them from fleeing.

What if you can choose to remove a weakened unit from the field to their tomb world to undergo repairs, and the leadership stat determines how many successfully teleport away?
Say during the morale phase you have a unit that's on the verge of being deleted. You can elect to immediately remove it and place it on the tomb world where it receives repairs (on a 4+ because come on, its a factory), but you still have to roll to see how many successfully withdraws before being destroyed.
I'm not sure how to go about it though.
Maybe you use the unmodified ld of 10, but you roll 3d6 and for every point over 10, you permantly lose a model as its destroyed by gunfire, self-destructs to prevent capture, experiences catastrophic teleportation failure, etc.

My take post CA is that Necrons are in a MUCH better place than they were before. The biggest issues though now is that we have a lot of issues popping through invulnerable saves. Outside of C'tans, we really don't have many ways to generate mortal wounds. However, every army needs a weakness and it isn't as prevalent as the weakness Tau have.

Our anti-tank is much better now that DDAs are way cheaper. They can put in a LOT of work, but yes it is very swingy.

All in all I feel we are now a solidly middle-tier army, very good for beginners and casuals who want to get into the game and learn to paint.