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Yes, lets get rid of the flavor that necrons had since 3rd ed. Can't let any non-marines have any distinguishing features now can we. Nah, lets just make necrons into what are more or less demons by giving them army wide invuls. -_-
No, 7th ed doesn't count. Because it was ott crap.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yes, lets get rid of the flavor that necrons had since 3rd ed. Can't let any non-marines have any distinguishing features now can we. Nah, lets just make necrons into what are more or less demons by giving them army wide invuls. -_-
No, 7th ed doesn't count. Because it was ott crap.

I wasn't saying in place of RP, I was saying in addition to it.

It would make sense, since they are robots.

Between Daemons and Necrons, Necrons would still be unique since they would have their normal armor save.

 Talamare wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yes, lets get rid of the flavor that necrons had since 3rd ed. Can't let any non-marines have any distinguishing features now can we. Nah, lets just make necrons into what are more or less demons by giving them army wide invuls. -_-
No, 7th ed doesn't count. Because it was ott crap.

I wasn't saying in place of RP, I was saying in addition to it.

It would make sense, since they are robots.

Between Daemons and Necrons, Necrons would still be unique since they would have their normal armor save.

Technically necrons already have a 5+ invul in the form of the cyptek's chronometron bubble, and that's already pretty decent, but it is an interesting suggestion.
It does make sense; Skitarri get invuls due to their bionics iirc, and necrons are completely mechanical, so logically they would get even better bionic saves.

Is a blanket 5++ really going to help?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Is a blanket 5++ really going to help?

Not really, we can get blanket 5++ via a cryptek, or get about the same save by hopping into cover, and yet here we are.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Is a blanket 5++ really going to help?

Probably not, it's not enough

Just an idea, give the crypteks aura back to the rez orb and give the crypteks back their Tek. They were meant to be the keepers of all the super gadgets right? so give them gadgets! give them back their unique staff choice, give them some one time use things, give the units that were intended to have unique and special effects just that, unique and special effects.

Vipoid said it back on page 3, Crypteks are now nothing more than what a rez orb used to be. Giving Necrons access to special weapon equivalents (staffs) and other goodies would make them unique again. and having the necrons special weapons only able to be taken by 'characters' does fit fluff wise.

This just came to me and I think it would be really cool:

Necron units phase out to the tomb world when reduced to 25% of starting strength.

You can then bring them back in through Monoliths and Night Scythes.

-Makes the Monoliths and Night Scythes really useful even if they don't get the transport rules.

-Stops RP being Negated

-Super fluffy.


Or just give Necrons a special rule/stratagem which lets you immediately phase out to the tomb world at any unit size. Yeah this second option is better as it gives the monolith back its ability to teleport units that are already on the board.

Optional phase out rule would be so cool.


EDIT: This would actually be a bit broken: 20 Genestealers successfuly charge a warrior unit. Warrior unit: "Nope".

EDIT 2: Stratagem: Phase Out 2CP: Remove a Necron Infantry unit from the board and place it in tomb world deploy. This unit can be brought into play from a Monolith or Night Scythe in your next movement phase.

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
This just came to me and I think it would be really cool:

Necron units phase out to the tomb world when reduced to 25% of starting strength.

You can then bring them back in through Monoliths and Night Scythes.

-Makes the Monoliths and Night Scythes really useful even if they don't get the transport rules.

-Stops RP being Negated

-Super fluffy.


Or just give Necrons a special rule/stratagem which lets you immediately phase out to the tomb world at any unit size.

Do they roll for RP on the tomb world? Because if not you're just sending out crippled squads to be killed off.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
This just came to me and I think it would be really cool:

Necron units phase out to the tomb world when reduced to 25% of starting strength.

You can then bring them back in through Monoliths and Night Scythes.

-Makes the Monoliths and Night Scythes really useful even if they don't get the transport rules.

-Stops RP being Negated

-Super fluffy.


Or just give Necrons a special rule/stratagem which lets you immediately phase out to the tomb world at any unit size.

Do they roll for RP on the tomb world? Because if not you're just sending out crippled squads to be killed off.

The first example they would have to because otherwise they would come back at 25% and phase out again lol. The stratagem idea works much better.

A unit coming back crippled would still be an improvement over being wiped. You could bring it back somewhere safe. Having it as a Stratagem would let you do it before taking the critical damage, so if an army starts to focus fire a unit you can pull it off the board.

The enemy would still achieve something as they have cost you command points and possibly pushed a unit off an objective.

20 genestealers would kill them off in one go, do you send off 5 then, to roll RP on the tomb world, or do you send off 0, to roll RP on tomb world?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One of the problems with Monolith and Night scythe, is that once the vehicle is gone, you lose the units on the tomb world. Hinging even more on these vehicles to stay around (to now also save endangered units), doesn't seem to fix that problem

Stratagems are used at any time. You could use it when the Stealers declare their charge, or after overwatch, or before you roll your saves.

It would make the portal units interesting to use. Do you keep the monolith in the back field to help it survive? Deploy it aggressively so that returning units get straight into the fight? Your opponent would also be faced with interesting choices depending on how many CP you have.


EDIT: The stratagem would probably have to be used at the start or maybe the end of a phase tto not get silly.

That could be solved by introducing a cheap ground based unit that gives tomb world deployment. Something like a mobile stargate, like those Shaltari gates from DzC.

I think it would be fine with the units we have. If you have portals and CP left a Necron unit can never be totally wiped out, but if the enemy takes out your portals first they can stop the tide of Necrons. It doesn't need to be unstoppable (and shouldn't be) but would be a really cool mechanic to have.


Instead of making your opponent always want to focus fire a unit to deny RP as things are currently there would be a choice of ways to approach the fight:

-Suffer the infantry while you take out the portals then focus units down
-Target multiple infantry units, allowing them RP but stopping the phase out CP being used to great effect.
-Focus units down as now in order to force them back to the portals and burn through the Necrons CPs.

Becomes a bit wonky with DS units, as they wouldn't need he gate to return. Flayed ones would be the only unit you would bring. Or spam deathmarks.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Talamare wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yes, lets get rid of the flavor that necrons had since 3rd ed. Can't let any non-marines have any distinguishing features now can we. Nah, lets just make necrons into what are more or less demons by giving them army wide invuls. -_-
No, 7th ed doesn't count. Because it was ott crap.

I wasn't saying in place of RP, I was saying in addition to it.

It would make sense, since they are robots.

Between Daemons and Necrons, Necrons would still be unique since they would have their normal armor save.

Technically necrons already have a 5+ invul in the form of the cyptek's chronometron bubble, and that's already pretty decent, but it is an interesting suggestion.
It does make sense; Skitarri get invuls due to their bionics iirc, and necrons are completely mechanical, so logically they would get even better bionic saves.

Are we talking invuls or FNP? Iron Hands get FNP for their bionics, and that would stack with armor while Invuls wouldn't.

 keltikhoa wrote:
Just an idea, give the crypteks aura back to the rez orb and give the crypteks back their Tek. They were meant to be the keepers of all the super gadgets right? so give them gadgets! give them back their unique staff choice, give them some one time use things, give the units that were intended to have unique and special effects just that, unique and special effects.

Vipoid said it back on page 3, Crypteks are now nothing more than what a rez orb used to be. Giving Necrons access to special weapon equivalents (staffs) and other goodies would make them unique again. and having the necrons special weapons only able to be taken by 'characters' does fit fluff wise.

Please? The fact that all our characters have been shoved into cookie cutters is crazy. Lords have been thoroughly cusotmizable since the first codex and we used to be able to make custom c'tan shards, but suddenly nothing is and "necrons were never that customizable to start with."

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:

EDIT 2: Stratagem: Phase Out 2CP: Remove a Necron Infantry unit from the board and place it in tomb world deploy. This unit can be brought into play from a Monolith or Night Scythe in your next movement phase.

This has been suggested a couple times now, and I really hope it gets picked up. It's probably *the* classic necron move. If they don't continue to heal on the tomb world (which would be a baldly mechanistic over narrative nerf) they should get an immediate RP roll as part of the strategem.

torblind wrote:
20 genestealers would kill them off in one go, do you send off 5 then, to roll RP on the tomb world, or do you send off 0, to roll RP on tomb world?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One of the problems with Monolith and Night scythe, is that once the vehicle is gone, you lose the units on the tomb world. Hinging even more on these vehicles to stay around (to now also save endangered units), doesn't seem to fix that problem

Monoliths clearly and desperately need some substantial buffs. I'd say "or a pont decrease," but I think their points are probably close to right for what they *should* be. I generally have wanted monoliths to get better guns, but with this making them more survivable would be a perfectly acceptable buff becuase killing them becomes a strategic imparative.
Night scythes mostly just need to be able to hover or, preferably, drop minimum move distance and maximum turn radius. Edition after edition of having floating buildigs but dedicated fliers that can't turn or move better than an actual jet is exhastingly stupid.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
That could be solved by introducing a cheap ground based unit that gives tomb world deployment. Something like a mobile stargate, like those Shaltari gates from DzC.

"Dolmen Gates"
Really, doesn't even need to be mobile. Make it a drop-pod analogue that we can keep pouring out of...

 Klowny wrote:
Becomes a bit wonky with DS units, as they wouldn't need he gate to return. Flayed ones would be the only unit you would bring. Or spam deathmarks.

as much fun as yo-yoing deep strike units on/off the board would be, we're tracking "fled" vs "slain" now... i can't imagine that we won't be expected to track what kind of reserves our models are in.

 Klowny wrote:
Becomes a bit wonky with DS units, as they wouldn't need he gate to return. Flayed ones would be the only unit you would bring. Or spam deathmarks.

Nah. Those units are set up an a specific place that allows them to deep strike in, not the tomb world.

I know there were some thoughts on using characters to help with RP, and I think I might have an idea that could work. Give Overlords/CCB a new ability:

Rise My Minions
Pick a unit with the <Dynasty> keyword and the repair protocols special rule that was completely destroyed in the prior turn within 6" of the Overlord, that unit may roll repair protocols at the beginning of the movement phase. If successful, the returning units must setup within 2" of the overlord and more than 1" away from enemy models, units that can not be placed are lost. You can not use this ability and My Will Be Done/Command Wave in the same turn.

Overlords are too pricey to spam, and using this ability takes away their ability to buff, which seems like a fair trade off. There are a few ways around it, kill the Overlord, Surround him, or kill multiple units in a round (which will probably involve some setup), or create losses via morale, and all of them are harder than simple concentration of fire, but all are very doable. It's a buff to Overlords, who need the love, and to repair protocols. What do you guys think?

 Grimgold wrote:
I know there were some thoughts on using characters to help with RP, and I think I might have an idea that could work. Give Overlords/CCB a new ability:

Rise My Minions
Pick a unit with the <Dynasty> keyword and the repair protocols special rule that was completely destroyed in the prior turn within 6" of the Overlord, that unit may roll repair protocols at the beginning of the movement phase. If successful, the returning units must setup within 2" of the overlord and more than 1" away from enemy models, units that can not be placed are lost. You can not use this ability and My Will Be Done/Command Wave in the same turn.

Overlords are too pricey to spam, and using this ability takes away their ability to buff, which seems like a fair trade off. There are a few ways around it, kill the Overlord, Surround him, or kill multiple units in a round (which will probably involve some setup), or create losses via morale, and all of them are harder than simple concentration of fire, but all are very doable. It's a buff to Overlords, who need the love, and to repair protocols. What do you guys think?

I think that looks like what a Ressurection Orb should do...

silentone2k wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
I know there were some thoughts on using characters to help with RP, and I think I might have an idea that could work. Give Overlords/CCB a new ability:

Rise My Minions
Pick a unit with the <Dynasty> keyword and the repair protocols special rule that was completely destroyed in the prior turn within 6" of the Overlord, that unit may roll repair protocols at the beginning of the movement phase. If successful, the returning units must setup within 2" of the overlord and more than 1" away from enemy models, units that can not be placed are lost. You can not use this ability and My Will Be Done/Command Wave in the same turn.

Overlords are too pricey to spam, and using this ability takes away their ability to buff, which seems like a fair trade off. There are a few ways around it, kill the Overlord, Surround him, or kill multiple units in a round (which will probably involve some setup), or create losses via morale, and all of them are harder than simple concentration of fire, but all are very doable. It's a buff to Overlords, who need the love, and to repair protocols. What do you guys think?

I think that looks like what a Ressurection Orb should do...

I suppose, but res orbs can be spammed much easier.

Necrons in my opinion have the same situation that they did in 7th:

We have all the tools we need to defeat/play against standard armies. Against well rounded armies with a bit of everything, we are pretty high tier.

But we suffer against super min/max lists. In 7th that was Deathstars and LoWs (and to a lesser extent silly MSU like Warp Spiders and Gladius). We lacked the tools to bind up/shut down a Deathstar, and we didn't have the ability to distract or kill a LoW effectively.

Nowadays those lists are spam. Knightspam, 4++ spam, Character shenanigan spam, artillery spam, etc. All those top lists we don't have the tools to deal with because they exist outside the well rounded middle that we are comfortable with. We can maybe deal with 1 or 2 flyers, but someone putting down 6? Nope. We can kill a WK or Knight better now than in 7th, but 4 Knights + Magnus? Not even close.

We don't have that powerspam unit or combo of our own, and it shows. When you play against a person running Tacticals in Rhinos backed by Devs and flanked by Assault units, you can have a great game. When you play against a huge Fearless Conscript line with mass Artillery and Scion drop spam, we don't really hold up as well. Just my opinion, though I have played less Necrons than I have Guard at this point in 8th.

silentone2k wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
That could be solved by introducing a cheap ground based unit that gives tomb world deployment. Something like a mobile stargate, like those Shaltari gates from DzC.

"Dolmen Gates"
Really, doesn't even need to be mobile. Make it a drop-pod analogue that we can keep pouring out of...

Please don't mention Dolmen Gates. Reading that necrons use the webway in the 5th ed codex gave me figurative conniptions. Not literal ones, because that would be silly.
Yeah, something that just drops down and doesn't move all game would be fine too. We already have a unit like that in the form of a Gauss Pylon, so there's a good precedent for that already.

 Klowny wrote:
Becomes a bit wonky with DS units, as they wouldn't need he gate to return. Flayed ones would be the only unit you would bring. Or spam deathmarks.

Comes down to wording. If they automatically get re-deployed to a tomb world, then they don't get to use their deepstrike rules and must come back via a portal. Deepstrike rules in 8th specify where the unit must be deployed to in order to deepstrike, and in the case of necrons if you want to come out of a portal you must be deployed to a tomb world. Deathmarks who want to deepstrike in must be deployed to a timespace oubliette. Flayed Ones must be deployed to a charnal realm, etc...

Phase Out for Repairs and Redeploy = Tomb World
Tomb World = Portal

Which would be fairly balanced seeing as how any units on a tomb world when the game ends count as destroyed, and you can only bring back as many units in a turn as you have portals.

The one concern I have is the Night Scythe's price vs their durability. They're quite fragile. I'd love to see them get a cloaking field type ability in addition to everything else they've got (or don't got, in the case of raw firepower compared to most other flyers). It would be doubly necessary to give them some more survivability if Necrons became reliant on portals for attrition.

 Grimgold wrote:

silentone2k wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
...

I think that looks like what a Ressurection Orb should do...

I suppose, but res orbs can be spammed much easier.

Yeah, but for a 25 point 1/game effect...

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

silentone2k wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
That could be solved by introducing a cheap ground based unit that gives tomb world deployment. Something like a mobile stargate, like those Shaltari gates from DzC.

"Dolmen Gates"
Really, doesn't even need to be mobile. Make it a drop-pod analogue that we can keep pouring out of...

Please don't mention Dolmen Gates. Reading that necrons use the webway in the 5th ed codex gave me figurative conniptions. Not literal ones, because that would be silly.
Yeah, something that just drops down and doesn't move all game would be fine too. We already have a unit like that in the form of a Gauss Pylon, so there's a good precedent for that already.

Eh, fighting in the webway makes sense if that's where your enemy goes to hide. I didn't like the attempts to force necrons to use the warp (or warp adjacent) just like everyone else...

But, regardless, it's functionally indistinguishable from what you're describing.

Aren73 wrote:

I'd suggest a faction command point ability:
"2CP
As soon as a unit has finished attacking a NECRON unit with the REANIMATION PROTOCOLS ability and the NECRON unit has suffered any wounds you can use this ability to immediately make Reanimaion Protocol rolls for each model slain as if it wa the beginning of the movement phase. This does not stop you from making any other reanimation protocol rolls"

Also maybe make this ability only usable if the unit is within 12' of a character.

I haven't seen anyone really talk about this on this thread, but I think this is a great idea! It would give cushion to units so they can't be wiped out as easily while avoiding an army wide buff that would make the army OP and remain fluffy. It would also make an opponent think twice about which units they would want to target to wipe out at what time.

What if you took the randomness out, then allowed certain boosts to help the number?

For instance, the Reanimation step happens let's say when a unit activates in the movement phase. For every 5 models the units started with, it regains 1 that's been lost to battlefield damage, up to the number of models it started the game with. (IE, 10 models, lost a guy, can only get 1 back, not 2.) (This cannot be done if the unit has been wiped out.)

A Cryptic allows you an aura, "Quality Reanimation" or whatever you'd like to name it, which adds 1 to the reanimation protocols of a unit within, say, 6". Thus, a 10 man unit gets back 3 per movement phase, a 20 man gets 5, etc.
The Res Orb goes in the psychic phase. Target a unit with 12". Immediately gain the resurrection protocol for that unit. NOT a one per game, but you can only target a single unit at a time, so, it lets your leaders influence things.

From there, you can have units interact with this... Spyders might get a repair option, while Ghost Arcs certainly would. (When a unit embarks, trigger Reanimation Protocols.) .... and let 'em heal each turn that they're inside, so when a unit gets down to 2 or 3 guys, you pick 'em up, and in a coupe of turns, they're back to fighting shape, faster if you fly over to a Cryptec who can raise 'em faster.


It's less Feast or Famine, but easier to handle.

Just a thought.

Wakshaani wrote:
What if you took the randomness out, then allowed certain boosts to help the number?

For instance, the Reanimation step happens let's say when a unit activates in the movement phase. For every 5 models the units started with, it regains 1 that's been lost to battlefield damage, up to the number of models it started the game with. (IE, 10 models, lost a guy, can only get 1 back, not 2.) (This cannot be done if the unit has been wiped out.)

A Cryptic allows you an aura, "Quality Reanimation" or whatever you'd like to name it, which adds 1 to the reanimation protocols of a unit within, say, 6". Thus, a 10 man unit gets back 3 per movement phase, a 20 man gets 5, etc.
The Res Orb goes in the psychic phase. Target a unit with 12". Immediately gain the resurrection protocol for that unit. NOT a one per game, but you can only target a single unit at a time, so, it lets your leaders influence things.

From there, you can have units interact with this... Spyders might get a repair option, while Ghost Arcs certainly would. (When a unit embarks, trigger Reanimation Protocols.) .... and let 'em heal each turn that they're inside, so when a unit gets down to 2 or 3 guys, you pick 'em up, and in a coupe of turns, they're back to fighting shape, faster if you fly over to a Cryptec who can raise 'em faster.


It's less Feast or Famine, but easier to handle.

Just a thought.

I'm not really too big of a fan of this idea, as the game is partially based on chance so why purposely remove the chance aspect in this one thing? Its also not really a Feast or Famine deal, as that rarely occurs. Most of the time you get a base average of successful RP rolls while rarely getting little to none or the big rez. Most of all, it doesn't really fix the issue that people are having with RP. Its definitely an interesting idea, but is prone to being abused and doesn't fix any problems.

An idea for fixing RP:
Allow wiped out units to roll for RP.

Introduce this phase out rule:
Models rolling for RP when their unit is destroyed phase out if they fail to reanimate. Phased out units are permanently removed from play.

We could then count morale losses as phase outs. We could also take living metal away from our characters and give them RP instead.

Necron_Mason wrote:

Wakshaani wrote:
What if you took the randomness out, then allowed certain boosts to help the number?

...

It's less Feast or Famine, but easier to handle.

Just a thought.

I'm not really too big of a fan of this idea, as the game is partially based on chance so why purposely remove the chance aspect in this one thing? Its also not really a Feast or Famine deal, as that rarely occurs. Most of the time you get a base average of successful RP rolls while rarely getting little to none or the big rez. Most of all, it doesn't really fix the issue that people are having with RP. Its definitely an interesting idea, but is prone to being abused and doesn't fix any problems.

this^

Sequence wrote:
An idea for fixing RP:
Allow wiped out units to roll for RP.

Introduce this phase out rule:
Models rolling for RP when their unit is destroyed phase out if they fail to reanimate. Phased out units are permanently removed from play.

We could then count morale losses as phase outs. We could also take living metal away from our characters and give them RP instead.

Most of this is hard nerfs trading away what little Necrons have for something equally or more mediocre. The faction needs a strict buff somewhere.

Well after two games I'm dumping my crons back in the box they really arnt in a good place and I'd have to spend a fortune to get a mediocre army, just not worth it.