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Hey everyone.

As some of you may know Im just getting back into 40k after my collection was stolen mid 4th ed. Money was a bit of a issue and I wanted to get right into battle. I was fluff huntung and read about the Necrons. I liked the fluff and the stats seems good, the price was right so I went Necron. I keep hearing how terrible they are and kinda feel like I wasted a few hundred building a army of them. I realize they are somewhat handicapped in 5th although I dont fully understand why. Besides the Necrons having bland options whats so bad about them?

I love my crons. The problem is agains a shooty army they get outranged, against a close combat army they get murdered. There are too many effective combinations to get in your face before you can dakka them down. I consider myself at least decently skilled general, and I have turned many losses into draws, and a few draws into wins. Monoliths are still among the toughest tanks to kill, but phase out is such a killer when faced with all the templates that can be spammed now. Worst scenario, IG player takes 9 bassilisks and blows you to hell turn two (assuming you started on table, 4th turn you keep things in reserve) Nothing you can do but hope for scatter against that. With Necrons generally sucking in CC, I2, a single lightning clawed termi will kill and squad it chooses, one turn of good saves on his part, and you lost a squad. pariahs are overcosted for their one wound, wraiths with them. Lords are awesome, but 100pts base cost seems high when you can only field two and generally one if you field a ctan. nightbringer is the hugest and most beastly independant character ever at 360pts, run a dirty list at 1850? you bet, nightbringer lord w/ veil WS, three liths destroyes 20 warriors. go higher than that and the opponent no matter what can field enough to phase you out most games. necrons are fantastic when i play 1500 to 1850 lists. but competitions like ard boys at 2500, demons, ig, tau, face a decen player and ur screwed. also tabling another army with necrons almost never happens. you can hurt them but outright destroy them, very very unliekly. cripple them to the point of not playing, sure, but you will almost never table them. Most other armies have that list sumwhere that can table something. Necrons don't, maybe soley for the fact they have such limited choices. Just hope and pray we get that new codex there s rumors of early next year lol.

Ive heard they stuggle fighting tank heavy armies, now that glancing hits don't do all that much.

Also, a smart opponent will ignore most of your army & kill your warriors to force you to phase out.

I havent played against necrons in 5E yet, but Im sure theyre not as bad as people make out. Remember a lot of the stuff you've read on here comes from tournament players who make optimised lists tailored to fighting elite lists from the most powerful codexes, & necrons aren't a top tier army, so they get slated.

Im sure in the hands of a competent general, they can be used well.

As a general rule for fun games, i win as many as i lose. but against tier 1 builds yea that s the struggle at high point cost. 1500 to 1850 really are my niche, or kill teams, i love kill teams (we generally ditch the phase out for that, one model dies and i phase out? not so fun) but a wraith with FNP? haha lovely or stealth

I have heard of Crons topping at tournaments if played by a good player. you just have to know their weaknesses

and not face a land raider spammed templar... can t for the life of me figure that one out

Landraider spam in general isn't fun

The game right now is all about mechanizing, mobility, and bloody melee. Necrons can't really mechanize, as they have no cheap transports, have a hard time moving around (teleporting around with a Monolith?) and are absolute garbage in hand to hand combat. They also nerfed glancing a bit, so the "always glance on 6" rule their gauss weapons isn't that great anymore. As a result, they also have no cheap anti-tank. Also, units like Space Marines have the same or better stats for less points, generally. With all the special weapon spam these days as well, you're not going to get many WBB rolls in.

So in short, Necrons:
- Have a hard time killing vehicles
- Have a hard time moving fast
- Are awful in hand to hand
- Are overpriced in points
- And Phase Out, of course

Well, if anyone is interested, you can solve your necron problems (if in a friendly game or a very lenient tournament/event) with this: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/294849.page

Toeko wrote:I have heard of Crons topping at tournaments if played by a good player. you just have to know their weaknesses

Ten year old tournament results don't have much relevance to the game today.

That wasn't all just snark - against any army meant for a tournament play, necrons are really going to get kicked around, because in 5th edition, they're weakness are:

-serious lack of shooting that can beat 2+/3+ saves.
-serious lack of shooting that can beat AV 12.
The way necrons have to get around both of these is volume of fire - unfortunately it takes an immense volume of fire to earn enough rolls to glance a vehicle to death or ineffectiveness (since there's no longer even a 1/6 chance of killing a vehicle with a single glance), unfortunately that's the same volume of fire you need to inflict on infantry so that they start failing an appreciable amount of armor saves.

-inability to negate armor in CC
-difficulty staying in combat.
Their advantage in 3rd and 4th edition was being able to absorb casualties, have a good chance of holding fast due to LD 10, and then get some of those losses back due to WBB. It made them quite capable of being a tarpit unit, or keeping an enemy tied up until you could bring shooters to bear, and then yank your squad out of CC via teleportation.

However, in 5th edition, just because you get to make WBB rolls next turn doesn't mean you don't count those casualties in combat resolution. Especially if you've had power weapons mucking things up (which you can counter with a Res Orb, but then that means your Lord is tied up in that too, uping the unit cost by another 200 points or so) you've probably lost combat by a notable margin, so that LD 10 isn't as much of a guarantee that you'll be able to stick around long enough to make the WBB rolls. If you lose combat, you've got an I that is going to be 2-3 on average to add to the d6 roll-off.

The above wouldn't be so bad because you can overcome both by sheer weight of numbers, except for their third significant weakness- point cost.
The smallest possible legal army to field for Necrons is a lord with two 10 man warrior squads, coming in at 460 points, giving you a power weapon and an assault 3 ap 3 gun on the HQ, and twenty bolters on the warriors. In comparison, 460 points of vanilla space marines get you a captain, and two full tac squads carrying melta guns and plasma cannons. Or MLs and flamers, or start passing around power weapons. 460 points of IG, or Tyranids... ouch.

Essentially, as Necrons were written, the changes instigated in 5th edition couldn't have hurt the codex more if it'd been deliberate.

Necron are Bad because the Vehicle Damage rules changed.

5th makes it harder to kill vehicles.

5th is a mechanized edition.


Necrons killed vehicles in 4th by glancing them to death. because a glance could kill then, Necrons lack of Melta and High Str weapons was offset by the ability for the lowly Warrior to kill a Landraider.

now the lack of High Str and Melta is no longer balanced by the ability for a warrior to kill a tank.



But, the bright side is tha they should get a New codex soon so you didn't waste your money.

Besides i think the Necrons have some of the coolest fluff and look awesome on the table top.