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Sorry if the *edits* are obnoxious - I wanted to keep the original meat of my stance but change what was inaccurate and/or may be more clear and let you know where those changes were made. I still stand by my original stance - That while I like the new codex I also hate it - rhe reason being it feels like this codex was built with one purpose in mind: To table MEQ's.

I couldn't resist picking up the new Necron Codex as it was written by my "favorite" author Mat Ward... (*I'm serious when I say he's my favorite - I think his Codexes are well put together and well organized with page references for weapons making it easy to find their stats *). I have to say - It's not the steaming pile of feces Robin Cruddance dropped on us with the Sisters - but it is in its own right just as bad.

Allow me to explain: WD SOB was terrible as it nerfed an already underpowered and uncompetitive army. It took a list which could be worked with and made it entirely unplayable. What Ward has done is balance out the see-saw and made an army which is almost impossible NOT to win with!.I mean, sure, WBB isn't as epic as it used to be but in general the army has *some severely* OP issues I noticed *edit* after digesting it.

1. Entropic Strike - Seriously! *Edit* ** Unsaved wounds ** make you lose your armor save for the rest of the game. Unless I read that wrong, "Until the end of the battle" which could mean the end of the assault, it's not too clear. But still, a unit of Lords with Voidblades (45 points each model) makes Paladins (60-80 points each) totally useless! - **I re-read the codex and this rule and it states the unit's armor save in the profile is essentially changed to (-). I do think this is sick but I have to agree that since most models are 1 wound anyway it's not as terrible as I originally thought - tho it will still wreck havoc on Paladins, multi-wound mobs (Nob Bikers) and FNP armies. **

2. A flood of AP 2/1 ranged weapons. 23 ranged weapons, 10 are either AP 2 or 1 and/or just remove a model with alternate/no saves!

3. Imotekh for 225 points!!!!! Free attacks against the entire enemy army every turn plus maintain night fighting! AND steal initiative on a 4+? This guy is way too cheap for what he does
Ohh I am holding fast on this guy - He should have been at least 275 if not 300. But I will say his stat line is meh but his utility is priceless, especailly for a close/mid range shooty army.

Last but not least

4. 200 POINT MONOLITH! Come On Games Workshop! A Deep Striking Land Raider with 4 assault and essentially 2 ordinance weapons for 50 points LESS than a Land Raider? Are you really trying put an end to marines?
*Edit* ** Even without the stuff that prevents the extra dice AV14 is still very difficult for many armies to deal with. It's low point cost means 2-3 can comfortably fit in a 1500 point army. That's a lot of AV14 for any army to deal with! **

Ya, well Seeing as how half the guys in my local club are going to be jumping ship to Necrons I may just table my Sisters and Knights and just play Orks... at least then I deny steal the initiative against Imotekh.

By all means if you find more ridiculousness by all means point it out - stuff such as deep striking snipers with 24" rapid fire sniper rifles which can wound on a 2+ (So AP 1, wounds on 2+... see ya later paladins/terminators) -

ADENDUM: I've had a chance to re-read and re-read and I'm holding fast to my position. I guess I'm QQing from the POV of a Marine player - The Codex seems like it was built specifically to kill Grey Knights and other MEQ's. With all the low AP weapons the shooting seems crippling - add a C'Tan Shard with World... whatever... which makes the entire battlefield difficult terrain will slow the enemy down long enough get lots of shots in.

So I think the codex is trixy - I do think it's a good codex I just hate how it seems to be built for one purpose: To wreck MEQ's and no codex should be THAT focused. Like I said tho - I'll just dust off the old Kan Wall which should have no problem dealing with the cron's.

Take a breath, man. They're not that bad. The things you're worried about aren't what's gonna get you. The fact that you can't stop them from getting back up is what is gonna suck. Let's look at your worries:

1. Entropic Strike only takes away your save after you fail a save. So only multi wound models have to worry. And most of them ain't scared of necrons in assault.

2. The ap 1 & 2 weapons are high costed and short range.

3. He is under costed.

4. Monolith is priced right since it lost all of its immunities, not just to melta but to deep strike mishap as well. You don't see any BA deep striking land raiders for a reason.

5. You can deep strike death marks on your opponents turn, but they can't shoot untill their turn. They only have rapid fire guns. They can wound one chosen unit on 2+, but sniper weapons are only ap 1 on a to wound roll of 6.

It's those freaking scarabs/ tomb spider comboes that are gonna get you.

Removes armor on a failed save, hmm? Will play havoc with armies that rely on Feel No Pain. And multi-wounders. Tyranids just took another hit, looks like.

Battle = Until combat is resolved.

And I love how you utterly failed to say that Lychlords are I2, meaning Paladins will always go first. Good on you for screaming cheese, when in fact, you have a traffic cone.

I think "remainder of the battle" means the rest of the game. Why couldn't he just write remainder of the game or remainder of the combat so we'd know for certain which one was meant.

I vote we all wait and see what actually playing against them is like. Skimming through and yelling 'CHEESE!' is unnecessary.

Every time a new codex is released, it looks over-powered until people start to see the flaws, or start to figure out the appropriate counters.

The is a cycle that has been going on for as long as GW have been printing codexes.

I can't speak much on the actual rules issues, since I haven't seen the codex. But on the Monolith, I would point out that one-for-one points comparisons are meaningless. You can't field an army just of Monoliths... When you see something in an army that seems insanely cheap, you need to stop and consider what else needs to be included in the army in order to field that unit before you start screaming about it being over-powered.

The Newcrons are not OP, they are actually a good army now. Something they really deserved. And don't be disappointed that Mr Ward of all people made a fun and effective counter to marines.

Here's a simple task. Instead of QQing about "how OP the new necrons are", you should be sitting down and figuring out how to beat them with the armies you have.

insaniak wrote:Every time a new codex is released, it looks over-powered until people start to see the flaws, or start to figure out the appropriate counters.

poor sisters never had a chance... I think even by part 1 most people were getting kind of slanty eye'ed at the sister's futures. But then again, that's a WD not a full codex so meh, who knows.

Necrons are not OP in the slightest; it's just that the way Necrons are made, they utterly wreck MSU armies and units.

The trick is focus firing squads at a time and assaulting those squads you can either destroy outright in the first turn or catch them in the sweeping advance.

As per your little list:

2) They're a short range army, so there's bound to be serious weapons when the window of opportunity is one-two turns of solid shooting.

3) He's not that overcosted. After experiencing him on the Table Top first hand, its his getting back up that's more annoying than anything else.

4) Really... And end to Marines? Please.

5) Death Marks are the best distraction unit in the world and I'm super envious that the Necrons have them...

As for Scarabs and Tomb Spyders; if the Scarabs move as slow as the Spyders, they're going to die from blast weapons. If they move faster, the Spyders cant make more Scarabs. Not that big of a deal.

I still play tau. I will always play tau. From what I've seen in the new necron codex has, I fear no robots.

Blacksails wrote:I vote we all wait and see what actually playing against them is like. Skimming through and yelling 'CHEESE!' is unnecessary.

This, I saw someone using a proxy list of them today. He was facing off against normal marines and he got creamed.

sudojoe wrote:poor sisters never had a chance... I think even by part 1 most people were getting kind of slanty eye'ed at the sister's futures. But then again, that's a WD not a full codex so meh, who knows.

Yeah, the Sisters were a special case, since their 'codex' was really just a get-you-by to tide people over until the actual release. A cynical person might suggest that they were made deliberately bad to discourage people from taking them up between now and their codex... means they don't have to waste resources and warehouse space on models for an army that's just going to be updated shortly anyway. They can just let the current stocks sell out.

Necrons are equal to tyranids power level wise. They have a lot of neat tricks but in the end they arent that great. That being said I like armies that have a lot of gimicks which are fun to play.

If nothing else, Matt Ward is actually doing a great job at balancing the game right now. With every codex he writes the meta game is improving and all the armies are competitive.

Poor guy can't win with some people. If he writes a competitive codex every one screams cheese. If he writes a codex that won't have people scream cheese, then they will scream "this codex is crap, it still can't beat Space Wolves/Blood Angels/Grey Knights"....

I hope that GW has him write all the remaining books that need to be updated so that we can have an enjoyable and competitive meta by next year.

juraigamer wrote:I still play tau. I will always play tau. From what I've seen in the new necron codex has, I fear no robots.

Stormlord will wreck your party. "nightfighting till I roll under or equal to the turn number", just enough time to get in nice and close for some short range murderizing.

I think the Crons are powerful, but well balanced as a codex(having played one game against them so far)

Grey Templar wrote:

juraigamer wrote:I still play tau. I will always play tau. From what I've seen in the new necron codex has, I fear no robots.

Stormlord will wreck your party. "nightfighting till I roll under or equal to the turn number", just enough time to get in nice and close for some short range murderizing.

I think the Crons are powerful, but well balanced as a codex(having played one game against them so far)

Blacksun Filters.

Necron: Aww you only rolled 6, so 18 inches.

Tau: Nope, Chuck Testa. I gots mah Blacksun Filter. 36 inches!

Acute Senses.

Necron: lawl, you got snake eyes on Nightfighting.

Tau: Yep, but I can reroll it on my Crisis Suits.


While the Stormlord will be a pain in the butt, We can check him, We have the Technology.

IMO, I'm more worried about the stuff people aren't using in the Stormlord/Scarab/Immortal spam lists.

C'tan and Wraiths.

Forget scouring the codex for ways to beat it, how about scouring the book for correct information. OP looks like he just got back from a redshirt telling him rumors

insaniak wrote:Every time a new codex is released, it looks over-powered until people start to see the flaws, or start to figure out the appropriate counters.

The is a cycle that has been going on for as long as GW have been printing codexes.

I can't speak much on the actual rules issues, since I haven't seen the codex. But on the Monolith, I would point out that one-for-one points comparisons are meaningless. You can't field an army just of Monoliths... When you see something in an army that seems insanely cheap, you need to stop and consider what else needs to be included in the army in order to field that unit before you start screaming about it being over-powered.

This. Anyone who's been on Dakka for more than 1 release has seen this. Even then, I don't think the new Codex is OP, it's just good. I'm looking forward to the new challenge it is going to bring.

Forget scouring the codex for ways to beat it, how about scouring the book for correct information. OP looks like he just got back from a redshirt telling him rumors

Indeed.

I dont even think its good, its one of the weaker, if not weakest 5th edition codex.

Crevab wrote:Forget scouring the codex for ways to beat it, how about scouring the book for correct information. OP looks like he just got back from a redshirt telling him rumors

Not even that. It looks like he just got back from some random guy in a red shirt telling him rumors.

Andilus Greatsword wrote:
I don't think the new Codex is OP, it's just good. I'm looking forward to the new challenge it is going to bring.

+9001


Everyone has to act like the sky is falling because they have to change up their army list to counter new threats. I applaud Mat Ward for this Codex. The Meta game needed some shaking and the lists needed some changing up anyways. Most armies have some way to counter (or at least Check) Nightfighting and since 1/3 of the games involve Nightfighting regardless of what armies are in play the tools like Searchlights, Blacksun Filters and the ilk will have more utility than just fighting Necrons anyways.

Give it a Month and everyone will hammer out how to best deal with the New army and, after the dust has settled, we will all be glad this shake-up has happened.

insaniak wrote:

sudojoe wrote:poor sisters never had a chance... I think even by part 1 most people were getting kind of slanty eye'ed at the sister's futures. But then again, that's a WD not a full codex so meh, who knows.

Yeah, the Sisters were a special case, since their 'codex' was really just a get-you-by to tide people over until the actual release. A cynical person might suggest that they were made deliberately bad to discourage people from taking them up between now and their codex... means they don't have to waste resources and warehouse space on models for an army that's just going to be updated shortly anyway. They can just let the current stocks sell out.

I just hope they do a better job on the heads for the unhelmeted sisters. So far I've not really been a fan of the look. Maybe if it was more like Daughters of the flame from warmachine then I think I'll be more pleased.

d-usa wrote:If nothing else, Matt Ward is actually doing a great job at balancing the game right now. With every codex he writes the meta game is improving and all the armies are competitive.

Poor guy can't win with some people. If he writes a competitive codex every one screams cheese. If he writes a codex that won't have people scream cheese, then they will scream "this codex is crap, it still can't beat Space Wolves/Blood Angels/Grey Knights"....

I hope that GW has him write all the remaining books that need to be updated so that we can have an enjoyable and competitive meta by next year.

I doubt he will be there for long, but I believe that this codex was designed by a designer's team (yes I know he is supposed to be the head writer) and had him curtailed a bit due to the severe backlash from his previous writing content , than just leaving him to his own devices.

As I have stated before, you have to read all of the codex and all of the game mechanics within. After conferring with a few GW cronies that I know we've come to the conclusion that this is going to be an interesting codex.

I give credit when credit is due and post a retraction when I am wrong on a topic. Honest thing to do in my opinion.

Hard Core Vets are going to do well with this codex. I'm going to retract my previous posts concerning that this codex is going to be an almost army. This is the first Xeno Codex I believe GW got it right. It is going to be a very competitive army -if- people start crunching the numbers on the meat of the Army than the candy of the army.

Fluff wise? Eh I can live without tomb kings in space but the fluff was not so blatant "Ward like" as compared to the GK codex. This was a decent read. It gives enough room for your own fluff to fit in.

New Models. Without question are very nice. Where I ding the designer team is the wording of certain important rules within the codex, as well as the usual layout problems, which is quite normal for a GW product.

Am I going to take my old skool Necron Army out of the display case? I'm tempted to do so because I do not feel pigeon holed about the codex. I can still run my simple Necron Army mostly intact. The new models are not going to break the bank to keep my fluff intact. Fluff is what I am into with the game mechanics that support it.

The spider/scarab dynamic is easier than you think as far as utility. The swarms only move 6 and fleet. Spiders and move 6 and run. Its when the swarms charge off (at that point they are doing their job and further casualties are irelevant) then they lose track. You add the bases at the start of movement, what ive done in games so far is have the first swarm get into position first turn bolstered by spiders keeping a swarm or two in the back or within spider reach (just has to be in 6') It took a slight bit getting used too but im really thinking the swarm rush might be viableish?

lazarian wrote:The spider/scarab dynamic is easier than you think as far as utility. The swarms only move 6 and fleet. Spiders and move 6 and run. Its when the swarms charge off (at that point they are doing their job and further casualties are irelevant) then they lose track. You add the bases at the start of movement, what ive done in games so far is have the first swarm get into position first turn bolstered by spiders keeping a swarm or two in the back or within spider reach (just has to be in 6') It took a slight bit getting used too but im really thinking the swarm rush might be viableish?

Someone took a scarab swarm army against a Blood Angel Army at 2500 pt. Blood Angels were very unhappy (swarms dropped his LR AV to 8 (lucky rolls, true) and then a Warrior poked it and it blew up.) lol

Well let's see.... My. Dark eldar look at this new crin dex and say:

"night fighting all game? Awesome! We have night vision and like it with the lights out anyway!"

"army wide init 2? Looks like I can chop em up before they know what's coming - init 5+ army wide"

"short range shooting....taste my 36" splinter cannons and dark lances!"

"monolith lost the old living metal? Say hello to my three friends. Ravager ravager and oh yea....RAVAGER"

"plus 2 armor untill you. Take a pen or glance ....aww too bad I has lances"

"and as usual, your troops will feel muh poison!"

So no. I don't think crons are that much of a. Worry to me. Or my dark eldar. All the tricks they have I can do better, or simply ignore. OP? No... New and possibly scary because it's new? Yup yup yup. Give it a month or so and crons players will be crying. About how they can't beat DE or GK or whatever. Mce they pass th flavor of this month I might actually pick em up and reboot my old orginal cron army.

Edited iPad auto fails

DarthSpader wrote:Well let's see.... My. Dark eldar look at this new crin dex and say:

"night fighting all game? Awesome! We have night vision and like it with the lights out anyway!"

"army wide init 2? Looks like I can chop em up before they know what's coming - init 5+ army wide"

"short range shooting....taste my 36" splinter cannons and dark lances!"

"monolith lost the old living metal? Say hello to my three friends. Ravager ravager and oh yea....RAVAGER"

"plus 2 armor untill you. Take a pen or glance ....aww too bad I has lances"

"and as usual, your troops will feel muh poison!"

So no. I don't think crons are that much of a. Worry to me. Or my dark eldar. All the tricks they have I can do better, or simply ignore. OP? No... New and possibly scary because it's new? Yup yup yup. Give it a month or so and crons players will be crying. About how they can't beat DE or GK or whatever. Mce they pass th flavor of this month I might actually pick em up and reboot my old orginal cron army.

Edited iPad auto fails

Good thing the Necrons have nothing to deal with dark eldar, might as well not even play... oh wait there are tons of options in the book. Couple that with wraiths and shieldguard on average beat any DE unit mathematically in close combat and yeah its not that bad. Your going to love 30+ scarabs as well. A 10 strong unit of them wont exactly suck against anything in the DE army (or anyone elses if the various first game impressions are to be believed across the various 40k hobby sites. You also cant say in the same breath night fight and ranges past 24" mesh, they just dont go well together. (which is why the Necrons thrive in a 24" range knife fight)

Furthermore in the one off game scenario the Necrons can pick cheaper shooting just as effective if not more against you than you can against them. Tesla destructors mulch the flying tin foil brigade for a fraction of the cost of the dark lance return fire.

With that said Dark Eldar dont exactly suck and they have certainly much to be positive about in a Necron matchup, its just expecting the book to be a drastic pushover given the pages and pages of untested combos just dropped in our lap is a tad bit premature. I know my next game will be Ctan with his magic wrecky terrain and a horde of tremorstaves a slight smattering of cruicbles.

2000 Volts wrote:
1. Entropic Strike - Seriously! You get merely HIT with a weapon and you lose your armor save for the rest of the game. Unless I read that wrong, "Until the end of the battle" which could mean the end of the assault, it's not too clear. But still, a unit of Lords with Voidblades (45 points each model) makes Paladins (60-80 points each) totally useless!

Wrong. You have to fail a save. For 95% of models, they're already dead by the time this applies.

2. A flood of AP 2/1 ranged weapons. 23 ranged weapons, 10 are either AP 2 or 1 and/or just remove a model with alternate/no saves!

7 are, all are RoF 1 weapons, 2 are one-shot HQ only items and one of those is only available on the Stormlord

3. Imotekh for 225 points!!!!! Free attacks against the entire enemy army every turn plus maintain night fighting! AND steal initiative on a 4+? This guy is way too cheap for what he does

Agreed, a very poorly designed unit and drastically undercosted. "hey, I'm in the army list, not even on the board, and get to take free attacks against your units and wreck tanks". A huge mistake of a unit and a stellar example of poor game design. He'll end up being to Necrons what Eldrad is to Eldar and Vulkan was to SM's for the first year or two of that books existence. That said, probably the only thing I really would hesitate to play against.

4. 200 POINT MONOLITH! Come On Games Workshop! A Deep Striking Land Raider with 4 assault and essentially 2 ordinance weapons for 50 points LESS than a Land Raider? Are you really trying put an end to marines?

Um, did you know anything about the old one? 35pts more but immune to anything that gave bonus armor penetration or lowered its AV rating (melta/lance/chainfists/monstrous creature/etc), and higher strength secondary weaponry that could never be removed and hit *everything* within 12" with D6 S5 shots.

The Monolith isn't sporting highly accurate long range AT guns, multi-meltas, or weapons that ignore cover saves and wound marines on 2's with no save. It's also not not able to provide and armored shell for troops the way a Land Raider can an the Necrons don't have anything near as killy to make use of it, and they can't assault out of the portal.

There's nothing at all wrong with the monolith's cost.

By all means if you find more ridiculousness by all means point it out - stuff such as deep striking snipers with 24" rapid fire sniper rifles which can wound on a 2+ (So AP 1, wounds on 2+... see ya later paladins/terminators) -

Sniper shots are only AP1 on a to-wound roll of 6, and they only wound enemy units on 2+ if it's a specifically chosen unit. They're 19pts each with 12" shorter range than normal sniper rifles, and their "special" DS ability basically means they get to come on just in time for an opponent to shoot/assault them before they get to do anything.

DarthSpader wrote:
"army wide init 2? Looks like I can chop em up before they know what's coming - init 5+ army wide"

How is that any different than SM's, Orks, IG, Sisters, etc?

"short range shooting....taste my 36" splinter cannons and dark lances!"

They get back up every phase and about as much of the DE's weapons are close ranged as the Necrons weapons are. The Necrons have access to long range weaponry if they want/need it.

They also have a ton of ways to move units across the board as needed and more jump infantry units.

"monolith lost the old living metal? Say hello to my three friends. Ravager ravager and oh yea....RAVAGER"

The monolith probably isn't what your going to see a lot of however.

"plus 2 armor untill you. Take a pen or glance ....aww too bad I has lances"

Still makes them harder than AV11, and still harder than DE vehicles.

"and as usual, your troops will feel muh poison!"

So against most Necron troops it's no different than bolters, and they're troops wield weapons that wound your infantry on 2's and can penetrate your vehicles.