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So, I've played Necrons since the actual Codex came out (rather than just the WD article with a few models).
I remember them being good back in 3rd edition.
But my area has never been really all that competitive, so I don't know if it was just that I was doing well against bad players.

So my question is, were they in fact good back then, and have been neutered by Codex creep and rules changes, or have they always been somewhat iffy?

they were very good, vs things like Tau they used to dominate, giving crys to cheese etc.

they were not the best, but difinatly top 3

They were very definitely a power army at one point, they were brutal in 3rd and the first half of fourth and still pretty damn good at the tail end.

However, Necrons were built very closely to the 4E/3E vehicle rules so that they could kill any tank with any weapon, and at the time of their release most things were way more expensive and a lot of things weren't as good as they are now (e.g. Chaos Raptors were 28pts, Land Raiders were junk, an IG squad generally cost 50% more than what it does now after kit, Orks were 9pts each with no Furious Charge, were Marine Vets basically were just units that had 1 higher Ld and extra weapons availability, etc)

They are a late 3rd edition codex designed with the first inklings of 4th edition in mind playing in a 5th edition closing on 6th edition metagame.


I'll say this, I never beat necrons under 4th edition. I tied them once, but I never beat them in 4th.