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Ok, so now the Necrons Codex is out and people are probably wondering how they're going to beat it. Well, here's a good place to discuss that sort of thing.

Based on my read-through last night, what stood out to me was:

1. Army-wide I2 is really going to hurt in the Assault Phase. Sure their assault units are pretty hardy with S/T5, but I'm not worried about facing off against them in combat at all. That said, they're more capable than they used to be, and if they get to strike back then it is probably going to sting a bit.
2. Almost non-existent psychic defense. All I saw were Canopek Spyders, and they only have a 3" bubble of protection, which is next to useless. I predict that psychic-reliant armies, like Grey Knights and Eldar, are going to have a lot of fun with the 'Crons.
3. Necron vehicles are relatively fragile. Sure they've got Quantum Shielding, but once that's gone they're toast (and that's if the vehicle doesn't get blown up from being Open-Topped, coupled with any other bonuses). Plus they're no longer immune to melta, MCs.

Definately agree you have a decent chance to stomp the crons in combat, due to init2, however watrch out for wraiths with whips because they drop your unit down to 1.

Agree about psychic defense, youd have to build an army around the spyders for it to be effective.


Its also best to aim to wipe entire units out to prevent resurrection.

Overall the army has alot of mid range shooting, with a few longe range support things, provided you can negate night fight (assuming this will be used by crons a fair amount) a long range army would have some advantage.

Lots of spotlights then.
Getting into a mid/longrange firefight vs. the new 'crons is going to sting, I'd give blood angels odds as the best bet - fast and combat-oriented.
(and they might just hug and make up )

I think the main weakness, other than close combat, is the appalling lack of anti-tank.
The double melta walker might work for a foot list, Heavy Destroyers are quite expensive for a lascannon team, and your heavy support slots are going to get quite croweded (Doomsday, Doom Scythe for anti tank, monolith for general awesome).

I think I might just have to rely on gauss to do my anti-tank work . . .

Ok, so now the Necrons Codex is out and people are probably wondering how they're going to beat it. Well, here's a good place to discuss that sort of thing.

Based on my read-through last night, what stood out to me was:

1. Army-wide I2 is really going to hurt in the Assault Phase. Sure their assault units are pretty hardy with S/T5, but I'm not worried about facing off against them in combat at all. That said, they're more capable than they used to be, and if they get to strike back then it is probably going to sting a bit.

This is their biggest Weakness. CC is still going to hurt pretty badly, and they are almost guaranteed to get swept each time.

2. Almost non-existent psychic defense. All I saw were Canopek Spyders, and they only have a 3" bubble of protection, which is next to useless. I predict that psychic-reliant armies, like Grey Knights and Eldar, are going to have a lot of fun with the 'Crons.

Other armies make Due without Psychic Defense, I'm sure we can as well. Is it a weakness? Sure. Is it a big weakness? No, I'd say it's not.

3. Necron vehicles are relatively fragile. Sure they've got Quantum Shielding, but once that's gone they're toast (and that's if the vehicle doesn't get blown up from being Open-Topped, coupled with any other bonuses). Plus they're no longer immune to melta, MCs.

I'd say this is pretty incorrect here. AV 13 is pretty Huge, as it takes Strength 8 a six to pen it, and remove it's shielding. That's pretty durable. It makes them almost immune to Strength 7, (You'd need a double six to kill it) and very hardy against strength 8+.

Now, on to what I think are weaknesses, besides what I've added in quotes.

Points cost. Everything in the Codex, espially vehicles, is very very expensive points wise. I imagine most tabletops are going to see pretty small armies, Ala GK.

Little Anti-Tank. What Anti-tank we have is really good, but it's not spread around the FOC very well. I think this causes a few issues.

24' bubble. The Army has a lot of great shooting, but 90% of it is limited to the 24' bubble. This is a pretty big deal. We have some things to help mitigate this, but when things step into our killzone, we really need to kill it fast, or it's going maul us in CC.

Most of the Necron stuff are pretty short ranged, though this is not a big deal with solar pulse and storm lord.
CC is gonna hurt them.
Most of their stuff is pretty expensive, especially if you start taking upgrades.

Sasori wrote:

24' bubble. The Army has a lot of great shooting, but 90% of it is limited to the 24' bubble. This is a pretty big deal. We have some things to help mitigate this, but when things step into our killzone, we really need to kill it fast, or it's going maul us in CC.

So when the enemy steps out of your 24" kill zone, you need to kill it fast or its going to...instantly close the gap and assault you to death? If its trukk boyz or fiends they might

From what everyone's saying, the new 'crons can bring the most fire to bear at a 24" range, and have some tough CC units (S/T 5) who suffer on the low initiative. Seems to me that armies like SW or BA who like to get all up in the opponents face are going to give the 'crons their biggest threat. 3 quick questions;

what kind of AT do the new cron's have?
what does gauss weapons do now?
'crons have a wargear/upgrade/character (?) that allows them to start the game with nightfighting, and turn it off when they want, yes?

Jihallah wrote:

Sasori wrote:

24' bubble. The Army has a lot of great shooting, but 90% of it is limited to the 24' bubble. This is a pretty big deal. We have some things to help mitigate this, but when things step into our killzone, we really need to kill it fast, or it's going maul us in CC.

So when the enemy steps out of your 24" kill zone, you need to kill it fast or its going to...instantly close the gap and assault you to death? If its trukk boyz or fiends they might

From what everyone's saying, the new 'crons can bring the most fire to bear at a 24" range, and have some tough CC units (S/T 5) who suffer on the low initiative. Seems to me that armies like SW or BA who like to get all up in the opponents face are going to give the 'crons their biggest threat. 3 quick questions;

what kind of AT do the new cron's have?
what does gauss weapons do now?
'crons have a wargear/upgrade/character (?) that allows them to start the game with nightfighting, and turn it off when they want, yes?

We don't have that much AT, Scarabs being the premier at it. Other than that, we have Heavy Gauss Cannons, a Walker with a Heavy 2 Multi Melta, Warscythes have 2D6 Pen, The Doomsday Ark can be sort of reliable. The Stormlords Lightning Strikes, and a few other things here and there.

Gauss weapons now Glance on a 6, same as before, but lost the ability to Auto-Wound.

There are two things that can do this, Solar Pulses, and the Stormlord.

Jihallah wrote:

Sasori wrote:

24' bubble. The Army has a lot of great shooting, but 90% of it is limited to the 24' bubble. This is a pretty big deal. We have some things to help mitigate this, but when things step into our killzone, we really need to kill it fast, or it's going maul us in CC.

So when the enemy steps out of your 24" kill zone, you need to kill it fast or its going to...instantly close the gap and assault you to death? If its trukk boyz or fiends they might

From what everyone's saying, the new 'crons can bring the most fire to bear at a 24" range, and have some tough CC units (S/T 5) who suffer on the low initiative. Seems to me that armies like SW or BA who like to get all up in the opponents face are going to give the 'crons their biggest threat. 3 quick questions;

what kind of AT do the new cron's have?
what does gauss weapons do now?
'crons have a wargear/upgrade/character (?) that allows them to start the game with nightfighting, and turn it off when they want, yes?

AT they have quite a few, Doomsday Arc, Doom Scythe, Stalker with RoF 2 MM, Scarabs, Heavy Destroyers and Command Barge sweep attack with Warscythe.
Gauss Glance on 6s still.
Storm Lord makes the game starts with Night Fighting, and can continue it so long as he rolls under the turn number. Solar Pulse can make it Night fighting for your opponent while removing Night Fighting for the Necrons.

1.) Triarch Stalker, Walker with a double Multi-Melta
Heavy Destroyers (Think a overpriced lascannon heavy weapon team)
Gauss (6 to hit causes an auto glance)
Doomsday Arc (If stationary, long range str 9 ap 1 large blast)
Doom Scythe (12" Range 3d6 inch line, Str 10 Ap 1 hits to stuff on line)
Tachyon Arrow (HQ only Str 10 Ap 1 One Shot Hunter Killer)
And CC (Anything with a Warscythe is a MC with S7, pretty much. And some stuff has entropic (armor decay))
3.)Imhotep, and kind of. It's auto on turn one, and every turn after that the necron player has to roll over turn number to keep it up. He can drop it freely though. Also, solar pulse can toggle night fight for one player turn

Yeah, not looking forward to the Doom Scythe - when I read the Codex that was the first thing to make me say "OMG I do NOT want to fight that!!!" That, and Tesseract Labyrinths.

24" Range on most of their weapons

Initiative 2

Lack of anti-vehicle weapons (Although I think this could be somewhat mitigated by throwing some scarabs into your FA slots.)

Expensive models. I wouldn't say they'll be as low on models as a GK army, but maybe closer to a BA or vanilla marines army.

The elites section is a bit of a misfire for me.

Rubbish - Flayed Ones & Triarch Praetorians

Nothing Special - Deathmarks

Ok - C'Tan Shards and Lychguard, Triarch Walker thing

I don't think scarabs are going to be the proper solution to the anti-tank weakness. They're just too slow, and with T3, too fragile. At least with turbo boost, you were pretty much guaranteed your turn 2 charge, but now . . .

Maybe Doom Scythes are the answer. They'll certainly clean up IG and SM parking lots

Irdiumstern wrote:I don't think scarabs are going to be the proper solution to the anti-tank weakness. They're just too slow, and with T3, too fragile. At least with turbo boost, you were pretty much guaranteed your turn 2 charge, but now . . .

Maybe Doom Scythes are the answer. They'll certainly clean up IG and SM parking lots

How are they too slow? They are beasts now. They have Fleet, and a 12' Assault range.

I think deathmarks may end up a surprising hit. Consider: They allow you to deep strike a lord with warscythe anywhere, or a Cryptek with an AP 1 flamer that now wounds on +2 against one squad. That could get pretty ugly.

I think the major weaknesses are spot on, I especially agree that even with all the fancy "not pariahs" and "not pariahs on jump packs" models that were released, CC is still gonna hurt. Although Wraiths will be useful with their lash whip like things.

Not the most reliable for big things I suppose but Crypteks with voltic staffs have assault 4 haywire guns for Anti tank. Not too shabby although it is 12" so you'll need to find some way fro them to get close.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Irdiumstern wrote:I think deathmarks may end up a surprising hit. Consider: They allow you to deep strike a lord with warscythe anywhere, or a Cryptek with an AP 1 flamer that now wounds on +2 against one squad. That could get pretty ugly.

Wounds on a +2? You fighting something with LD6?

kenshin620 wrote:

Irdiumstern wrote:I think deathmarks may end up a surprising hit. Consider: They allow you to deep strike a lord with warscythe anywhere, or a Cryptek with an AP 1 flamer that now wounds on +2 against one squad. That could get pretty ugly.

Wounds on a +2? You fighting something with LD6?

Deathmark's Hunters From Hyperspace allows them to wound on +2 any unit marked by a deathmark unit. Crypteks joined to a squad are members of the unit.
And that's consistent with the ruling in the Space Wolves codex about wolf guard, so I doubt it'll be different here.

Fragile I'll agree with you on, but slow? God no. 7-12" move, and a 12" charge? That's still a turn 2 or 3 charge for them, depending on how aggressive your opponent is.

And their entropic touch could turn a humble gauss flayer into a lethal anti-tank weapon. I mentioned this in another thread, but a 10, 10, 10 Land Raider ain't all that scary. That Raider zipping around at cruising speed? 9, 9, 9. Or 8, 8, 8. Suddenly strength 4 weapons are causing scores of penetrating hits.

Irdiumstern wrote:1.) Triarch Stalker, Walker with a double Multi-Melta
Heavy Destroyers (Think a overpriced lascannon heavy weapon team)
Gauss (6 to hit causes an auto glance)
Doomsday Arc (If stationary, long range str 9 ap 1 large blast)
Doom Scythe (12" Range 3d6 inch line, Str 10 Ap 1 hits to stuff on line)
Tachyon Arrow (HQ only Str 10 Ap 1 One Shot Hunter Killer)
And CC (Anything with a Warscythe is a MC with S7, pretty much. And some stuff has entropic (armor decay))

Doomsday arc bs3? or 4?

That's some interesting AT indeed!

Irdiumstern wrote:
Deathmark's Hunters From Hyperspace allows them to wound on +2 any unit marked by a deathmark unit. Crypteks joined to a squad are members of the unit.
And that's consistent with the ruling in the Space Wolves codex about wolf guard, so I doubt it'll be different here.

Hmm intriguing possibility. No doubt though people will bring this to YMDC though

Jihallah wrote:
Doomsday arc bs3? or 4?

That's some interesting AT indeed!

All their vehicles have BS 4

Doomsday Arc spam may seem like an interesting idea but then if you want to pop tanks, you'll have to sit still with those silly things

kenshin620 wrote:Doomsday Arc spam may seem like an interesting idea but then if you want to pop tanks, you'll have to sit still with those silly things

And that will make your doomsday arcs very vulnerable to CC.

My 4 raiders full of Wyches with haywire grenades knows you can't kill all of them before they get to grips with you. Especially if you try to divert some of that firepower to the ravagers in the backfield.

Irdiumstern wrote:I think deathmarks may end up a surprising hit. Consider: They allow you to deep strike a lord with warscythe anywhere, or a Cryptek with an AP 1 flamer that now wounds on +2 against one squad. That could get pretty ugly.

Agreed, Deathmarks are a good unit, but not so much so that they're broken. I can see them making their way into lists.

Lokas wrote:

kenshin620 wrote:Doomsday Arc spam may seem like an interesting idea but then if you want to pop tanks, you'll have to sit still with those silly things

And that will make your doomsday arcs very vulnerable to CC.

My 4 raiders full of Wyches with haywire grenades knows you can't kill all of them before they get to grips with you. Especially if you try to divert some of that firepower to the ravagers in the backfield.

If you can survive getting pas the 24' bubble to the back and the Doomsday Arks, then you deserve to wreck them.

Of course it's somewhat of a rules question, but since they ruled with Space Wolves that models added to a unit like that count as full members, including for unit wide special rules makes me fairly certain it'll end up ruled this way. Otherwise, you couldn't really attach a leader to the Deathmarks anyway, since they then could not deepstrike.

I'll concede the scarab speed thing, I didn't think it through very well.

Another negative: The doomsday arc is not ordnance, so only one dice for armor pen. Then again, one of the named lords does give tank hunters to one unit a turn. . .

BA can cast fear the darkness and chase large squads off the board.

SW can use JOTWW to snipe expensive units/models.

GK can use warp rift to remove swathes of necrons.


I agree a scarab heavy list will eat razorback/ dreadnought heavy lists by making their armor weak enough for basic warriors to kill them.

kenshin620 wrote:

Jihallah wrote:
Doomsday arc bs3? or 4?

That's some interesting AT indeed!

All their vehicles have BS 4

Doomsday Arc spam may seem like an interesting idea but then if you want to pop tanks, you'll have to sit still with those silly things

But if its nightfighting for my opponent for the first two turns, I'm happy against alot of armies to sit there those turns when I have a good chance of not being assaulted, then scooting around...what can/does it fire when it moves?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarthDiggler wrote:
SW can use JOTWW to snipe expensive units/models.

I just put my daemons down to pick up my wolves again (sick of getting trounced, I need a broader selection of daemons ). When I saw the army wide I2 "jaws" popped into my head, before the first thing that popped into my head (which was also "jaws" )

It's not just any CC that will win out however. CC in the flavor of small elite units (talking MEQ armies here), will not fare too well.

The new 'cron codex has a LOT of special rules that cause wounds prior to the assault combat even taking place. For example, vanguard veterans should never be used against a 'cron player who has a Harbinger of the Storm Cryptek out. In fact, that single model completely invalidates heroic intervention. You're either forced to DS further than 6in away (to avoid the Ether Crystal attacks), and thus cannot make the assault move that turn, or you DS within 6" of the Cryptek's unit, bite the bullet on the Ether Crystal attacks, only to walk into the Lightning Field attacks when they assault. That's 2D6 S8 AP5 attacks before they even get to swing on the unit.

Now imagine that's on a unit of Lychguard with Hyperphase Swords and Dispersion Shields. That's a 3+/4++/5+++ unit that reflects shooting attacks that are ap3 or higher, cannot be deep struck near or charged without taking attacks, and is also an entire squad of S5 power weapons. All for 275 points. To get something similar with the Vanguard Vets you're looking at 325 points.

This trend is followed throughout the whole codex. The monolith portal just outright removing whole swaths of models that get within assault range of it. Several C'tan powers either punishing enemies for assaulting, or reducing the assault move range. The list goes on...

The solution to this is horde armies. Yes, tesla weapons are dangerous, but they are ALL AP-. You're better off with larger numbers, simple as that. Almost all of the Necron anti-assault defense is a lot less scary when you can afford to lose 3-4 models out of the squad before you get to swing.

I can see The Green Tide doing really well vs. 'crons, especially with the massive amount of hype surrounding Imotekh. Hell, 'crons can't even seize the initiative against Orks if Imotekh is being used.

Sasori wrote:

Lokas wrote:

kenshin620 wrote:Doomsday Arc spam may seem like an interesting idea but then if you want to pop tanks, you'll have to sit still with those silly things

And that will make your doomsday arcs very vulnerable to CC.

My 4 raiders full of Wyches with haywire grenades knows you can't kill all of them before they get to grips with you. Especially if you try to divert some of that firepower to the ravagers in the backfield.

If you can survive getting pas the 24' bubble to the back and the Doomsday Arks, then you deserve to wreck them.

Doomsday arks can be even nastier than they look, as are the Triarch Stalkers (everyone who doesn't play Tau seems to be underestimating them).

For AT I've been considering the idea of a Triarch Staker with a twin linked heavy gauss cannon upgrade (36" range...not 24) in the front spotting for my Domsday Arks in the back.

How tasty does a twin-linked Doomsday Cannon shot sound?

The 'cron codex is very, very much based around unit synergies. Even more so than the eldar codex is IMO.

Yep... Don't play Tau but I fight them enough to know what's up.

I cannot wait to targeting relay a unit and fill it with Tesla carbine shots, or abuse the twin-link to ensure the ark can connect. There's also the wtf combo of marking a unit that's already tagged by deathmarks... 2+ with rerolls on a rapid fire sniper rifle? Yes please.