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Ive never played as or against the Necrons, so I had no idea how to answer this for my nephew. He was asking how the Necrons are in a 40k game. He plays them in dawn of war and likes them. SO please be honest and dont say you hate them because you hate them.
Hes young and needs help when playing but he wanted to know if they are good. So how are they as an army to play with? Thanks

If Dawn of War is his only experience with 40k in general then no, they are not a good army to play.

they are fairly complicated due to all the special rules they use, so for a new gamer - i wouldnt take them, it would confuzzle him alot.

if he is just starting out its best to use marines or ork for simplicity, then as he picks up the hobby and rules, necrons could be introduced in time.

Necrons aren't a bad army, but due to the way the rules in the new edition work in regards to their codex, they're currently the losingest army in the game. Also, if he likes DoW, some of the neater units from there, like Flayed Ones and Wraiths, are very weak units in the table-top game, and only available as metal models, so rather expensive.

The necrons got it bad right now beause mech armies are everywhere and they lack reliable ways to destroy vehicles (aka. no meltas, Heavy Destroyers are expensive, etc).

I'd do like everyone else I guess: pick an Assault on Black Reach box or two and start from there.

I just recieved Necrons in the mail because i liked ho wthey looked and thought of some fun things that i can do with modeling. I think they are fun and very cool because of 3+ armor saves and then WWBB rolls XD

lots of special rules, not a wide variety of models, quite an elite army in terms of points.

begginers should start with a balanced army, space marines, chaos space marines, imperial guard or orks.

Yea I personally know that SM or even Orks are probably the easiest armies to play. But I play Orks, my brother plays SM and its normally us (unless we want a bigger game) SO I was hoping to get him into some other army more for variety. IG isnt a bad idea, what about nids? I painted an army for one of my brothers once, and played a few games of them, tho that was a few editions ago, and they were pretty good. Are they still good and mostly inexpensive as far as money goes?

I dunno,
I've got a very basic necron force:3 10 man squads,1 5
man squad of immortals and a lord.In my very first
battle I took out 2 leman russ,1 chimera, a mortar
platoon, and decimated 2 ig platoons!Can't afford to
buy pariahs or flayed ones or even pyramid.Disruption
fields are brilliant!Against vehicles penetrating hit
on a roll of 6 , priceless!

they are fairly complicated due to all the special rules they use, so for a new gamer - i wouldnt take them, it would confuzzle him alot.

if he is just starting out its best to use marines or ork for simplicity, then as he picks up the hobby and rules, necrons could be introduced in time.

I disagree... its more likely that someone will actually enjoy and play the hobby if they have miniatures they like the look and fluff of.

Sure they will get beaten to bits .... but so will any newb. And there is no point using a point and click marine/chaos/orc army if you really want to play Necrons. Marines have tonnes of special rules, so do orcs nd chaos... By all means borrow marines or orcs or whatever or get black reach (rulebook templates dice plus lots of minis) but go necrons if you want necrons. their special rule's aren't that confusing. WBB isn't actually that akward its just that some people try to be hyper retentive about it. basically assuming you are not Instakilled or Powerweaponed and you are near a similar unit you get back up on a 4+

They will suffer a little against a lot of vehicles as mostly its glancing hits that will be inflicted. However enough of them will stop one.

Also a new codex will be out. Don't wait for it collect play and HAVE FUN in the present.

4th ed. Necrons were a good starter army. Resilient enough to be forgiving of mistakes, relatively few choices meant you had less of a learning curve getting to know what things did, the models you needed the most of were plastic so were relatively cheap, and were easy to paint and make look decent.

5th ed. though has really put a hurt on necrons. I rarely take them off the shelf anymore. You do well enough as long as you can keep it a firefight, but once it gets to CC against anyone decent at CC, the I2 means you don't get to do much swinging back.

If they actually get a new codex anytime in the next year or two, they might be worth it again. Right now, probably not so. If you have some extra figures (enough for a couple different armies), run some proxy battles, let you friend try out several different armies. Get a feel for each kind and decide what he likes as well as how he tends to play before starting to purchase.

Slipstream - disruption fields, like gauss weaponry, glances on a 6, not penetrate. That was one of the nerfs that hurt the 'crons. The gauss was what gave them their anti-tank, so you didn't need to have it elsewhere, which was good because they had very little else specifically devoted to it. With the new vehicle damage table you essentially have to strip a vehicle of all weaponry and immobilize it, then you have a chance of destroying it.

I'd also point out that if you guys aren't playing super tooled lists, then he should get along fine with necrons. They're cheap money wise and easy to paint. Fifth edition hasn't been kind to them at all though.
I believe 40kenthusiast is one of the better necron players on these boards.

They have an old codex. I would suggest waiting until they get a new codex before getting them. They are supposed to be a high toughness ranged army.

As always, he should play the army he likes the fluff and look of because the rules are so fluid and inconsistent that the army will be pure cheese at time and pure crap at others.

alright, those last couple posts made me feel a little better. Cause the feller really was asking about the necrons. He likes the walking metal skeleton guys lol. High toughness is a good thing. We would end up playing smaller games with him seeing as it would be me and my brother buying his stuff, simply because his parents dont play and his dad (my othea brotha) makes fun of us

But that could actually work out for him. High toughness and good at shooting could SUCK for me in a small game. Thanks everyone

necrons are a fun army to play, no matter what some people say, they dont win as much as other armies but still great nevertheless. the rules aren't that complicated and there aren't very customizable but if i were you, take him to your local store and show him the other armies, i find it is better to collect an army you are going to enjoy, rather than ones that win more, or are more popular, thats why i started at necrons.

Budda thats what Im all about. I play what I like. Ive wanted to be Orks for pretty much ever. Only after I started them did I know they have the cheaty lootas thing going. BUT I play as all CC so I dont even have lootas.
Your idea is a good one tho. My brother and I were talking the other day at a bday party and my nephew usually sits and asks those annoying child questions like "*goofy laugh* what if you had a SM army that was ALL drednaughts..... and they had like.... plasma cannons... 2! plasma cannons on both sides! and fought against like..... one squad of your Orks.... what would happen?"
But then he started asking what armies are cool to play as in 40K and he really seemed to want to know about the necrons... BUT Ive never played them... period lol

*sheesh I forgot alot of words.... damn broken sentences *

Necrons are OK as an army, but they're designed following a completely different Codex philosophy. Rules complexity is high and non-uniform, and it doesn't "mesh" well with the rest of 40k, as 40k as it has changed.

In particular, WBB is a "messy" rule which is overly cumbersome and often misplayed.

If Necrons are what he really wants, then that's fine, but he should be aware that they'll be redone, and lots of changes will occur at that time.

My son plays necrons, the first army he learned about in 40K from Dawn of War. He showed no interest in marines or orks (of which I have plenty) and didn't want to play eldar since I'm playing them. Tau is the only other army that he's been interested in and only in a very casual way.

Necrons are easy to paint - spray paint a metallic silver, wash with badab black or devlan mud, touch up details like the gun and that's it! They're easy to field as well, especially for a beginner: one lord with rez orb and 2 units of 10 warriors is exactly 500 points, perfect for a nice short skirmish to learn the rules.

This will sound contradictory, but We'll Be Back is pretty simple when it's not complicated. As long as it's just dead necrons things are pretty simple, but when you throw in power weapons, rez orbs, tomb spyders, monoliths and all the other rules it can get a tad confusing - especially for a beginning player. As long as you ease the complicated into a match a little at a time, and give the newbie time to get acquainted to the rules, they'll get the hang of it.

I played a 750 game this weekend vs. my boy's Lord w/ rez orb, gaze, and phylactery, 2 units of warriors, a small squad of destroyers, and a handful of scarabs. It was his second game of this size and he did remarkably well. He almost took two out of three objectives, but ended up losing one to close combat and didn't get close enough to the second. If he had remembered that he could turbo-boost his destroyers and scarabs, he would have been able to contest the objective I had just regained from his warriors.

Anyway, as long as you're not throwing him into the deep end of the pool so to speak I think that Necrons are an okay choice for the beginner. If he likes them, that's what's important.

Pretty much what Im thinking. Besides my brother and I usually toss out hints like mad anyways to help the young ones out. We dont really care much who wins or looses, its all about the fun factor in our group

I've only played necrons and i have really enjoyed collecting, painting and battling with them, overall a great army to collect, but so are all the other armys. Maybe you could use some models as proxys and test try a few different armies?

Naw the kid REALLY wants to play them. The way I see it, if you think an army sounds cool and looks cool, youll like them. Im still kindda annoyed that I was pressured into choosing chaos instead of the good ol Orks.

well if he really likes them then let him, i love necrons, i love skeletal things that can come back, hence why i also collect tomb kings if he really wants to play them then i dont think he will be dissapointed