Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to add to the large tally of Necron threads that have popped up recently, but as of yet I have not seen one like this and so here it is. Sorry if this is a duplicate and/or in the wrong place, so here we go.

There appears to be a divide in my gaming group. One side screaming that Necrons are OP, the other countering with similar shouts that they are balanced. I have not been able to engage them in conversation for much time so I decided to see what the concensus on Dakka is like. I have had the codex since Tuesday and to be honest I don't think it's over powered, I think that it's good but not OP.

So, what are your opinions? Are Necrons OP, and if so why?

Rampage wrote:I'm afraid I'm going to have to add to the large tally of Necron threads that have popped up recently

There is nothing good about who you are or what you do.



To answer the thread, I don't think so. They're definitely better than before, but not OP. Actually, they seem slightly less competitive than some of the other 5e codices, more on the level of Tyranids according to a lot of people here.

Void__Dragon wrote:

Rampage wrote:I'm afraid I'm going to have to add to the large tally of Necron threads that have popped up recently

There is nothing good about who you are or what you do.

Ok, brilliant, thanks I've been playing Necrons for a while actually so I personally don't have a problem with it.

I would agree with you. Maybe just slightly higher than the Tyranids, but I think that the large points cost of the Ghost Ark that seems to deal a big blow to them really.

Necrons are a solid codex, if actually slightly less powerful then the other new Codices.

Screams of OP are most assuredly because people havn't come up with the counter-tactics just yet, and they just can't fathom getting whooped by Crons.

I would like to point out that ghost arks are very well pointed for what they are capable of doing if you make your warriors enough of a threat that they get attacked, and you properly utalize counter-assault.

True, but it also makes it very difficult to run a necron list with everything in a transport. Also, not forgetting that it is open topped, so S7 can still kill it, even on AV13.

Rampage wrote:True, but it also makes it very difficult to run a necron list with everything in a transport. Also, not forgetting that it is open topped, so S7 can still kill it, even on AV13.

Good luck rolling a 6 followed by another 6...

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Rampage wrote:True, but it also makes it very difficult to run a necron list with everything in a transport. Also, not forgetting that it is open topped, so S7 can still kill it, even on AV13.

Good luck rolling a 6 followed by another 6...

very true, you have me there, good point.

Well goodluck finding a person willing to spend $500 in just vehicles to achieve the wall of av 13 (if you get all 6 troops plus heavies and hqs). Amazingly this codex is very well balanced, several things here I can find better marine versions of. Characters are decent but I think this discussion should resurface when 6th comes out and we can see how the codex performs with that edition.

thehod wrote:Well goodluck finding a person willing to spend $500 in just vehicles to achieve the wall of av 13 (if you get all 6 troops plus heavies and hqs). Amazingly this codex is very well balanced, several things here I can find better marine versions of. Characters are decent but I think this discussion should resurface when 6th comes out and we can see how the codex performs with that edition.

Lots of people would do it.
BA can already do that though (Not entirely, but they can get up to 9 AV13 vehicles.)

Rampage wrote:True, but it also makes it very difficult to run a necron list with everything in a transport. Also, not forgetting that it is open topped, so S7 can still kill it, even on AV13.

But, why would you want to fully mount a necron army?

That effectively amounts to spending points in order to de-value your resurrection protocols.

IMO, the best way to use ghost arcs isn't actually as a transport. Use it as a repair barge and buy them for a full 20-strong warrior block backed by a rez orb. Then make sure you give your opponent more vehicle targets to shoot at. This will do one of three things:
1) he kills the ghost arks early to start whittling down the warrior blocks which is AT fire not going after your doomsday arks, triarch stalkers, or annihilation barges.
2) he ignores the ghost arks AND warriors in order to focus down your doomsday arks, triarch stalkers, and annihilation barges. This effectively devalues the ghost arks but it lets your warriors close some distance for free, and there will be a much better chance that your ghost arks will get to do their jobs later.
3) he ignores the ghost arks, but poors some fire into your advancing warriors to try and reduce their effectiveness before they start shooting at him. This is what hopefully happens as the ghost arks can nullify any and all shooting he directs at the warriors in the following turns.

Combine this with a pair of solar pulses or the Stormlord and the chances of the arks surviving to make their points back greatly increases.

Also, Ghost Arks can effectively turn your warriors into a tarpit unit because the arks can restore models to warrior units engaged in CC.

I'm personally considering basing my army around something like this (760 pts)...

Phaeron Overlord with Warscythe, sepitermal weave, phase shifter, and mindshackle scarabs (in order to survive heavy CC he's pricey, but it's required. could easily dump another 60-90 points on him for a tachyon arrow, tesseract labyrinth, and another rez orb in case he joins up with a different unit like lych guard or something)

Royal Court #1 ->
Lord with warscythe, rez orb, and mindshackle scarabs

Royal Court #2 ->
Cryptek - Harbinger of Transmogrification with all options

Warrior Phalanx: 20 necron warriors + Ghost Ark

Triarch Stalker with TL heavy gauss cannon

Put the Phaeron Overlord, the lord, and the cryptek with the warrior block. They relentlessly walk up the board and focus fire with the stalker. Whatever unit they're targeting has it's movement shut down by the cryptek's tremorstave and the stalker twin links their shooting. My goal is to get into rapid fire range of some poor, unfortunate, large enemy unit, unload at rapid fire range and assault with the warrior block (plus a backup CC unit of some sort if I have one to protect against sweeping advance. hps/ds lych guards would be excellent backup for this unit, as would praetorians).

They'll tarpit whatever they assault (almost anything short of a cc deathstar) by virtue of their 4+/4+++ saves and the ghost ark bringing back 1d3 of them a turn to pile back into coherency.

This is all assuming they don't just blow whatever it is you're targeting off the board first. We're talking a round or two of shooting from 20 warriors (was dangerous before...and it's dangerous now) preceding a volley of 40 S4 AP5 shots at BS4, TL'd as well as a few hits from a S4 AP - blast template (tremorstave) AND the TL'd heavy gauss cannon (or whatever else you decide to put on there. The Particle Shredder is pretty sexy too).

As any good ork player will tell you, "Quantity is a quality all its own", and 20 warriors bring plenty of shooting.

I really do not think the Ghost Arc is really that great. You resurrect at most 3 Warriors.

Really. Thats not all that much. For the points you spend on a ghost Arc, you could have another 8.8 warriors walking

Comrade wrote:I really do not think the Ghost Arc is really that great. You resurrect at most 3 Warriors.

Really. Thats not all that much. For the points you spend on a ghost Arc, you could have another 8.8 warriors walking

Yeah...and after you ressurect 6 warriors with it, it's earned enough points back to effectively make it the same price as a rhino.

Bring back 9, and you've made your points back completely. Effectively, the ghost ark is in your list for *free* at that point.

The trick is to have your opponent regularly kill off your warriors, without wiping out the unit. CC is great for this because he has to attack them.

Comrade wrote:I really do not think the Ghost Arc is really that great. You resurrect at most 3 Warriors.

Really. Thats not all that much. For the points you spend on a ghost Arc, you could have another 8.8 warriors walking

well thats three turns of max rezzing, dont think its unreasonable, plus its a target.

The one guy who voted "yes" is either trolling or got his lunch money stolen by a Flayed One.

I haven't held the codex in my hands, but everything I've read sounds by and large pretty reasonable. The only logical reason for thinking they're overpowered at all is because they're new and not everybody knows how to fight them yet.

I am in the underpowered camp. So far, only max spyders with max scarabs and wraiths appeal to me power level wise, and scarabs do have counters... even 50 of them.

The main thing I like about necrons is that they do have units that play differently than other armies.

Quantum shielding, as a concept, I love.
Entropic weapons, as a concept, I love.
Tesla weapons, as a concept, I love.

The actual implimentation of all the above, combined with the reduction of previous core necron abilities of living metal, warscythes and will be back, I hate. Too much of the necron army plays like other armies. I mean, the monolith is basicly a leman russ now. RP is priced like an invuln save, but is functionally much worse. The transport with the 'gate' technology leaves units stranded on their board edge. The army likes to teleport, but is terrible at it. So much wasted potential.

They are certainly not OP.

They are powerful when used correctly and are a good starting army for a beginner as they are very forgiving on mistakes.

They are new, not OP. A lot of people get that mixed up.

They are Solidly BA/DE level, so they can put up a good fight to any of the codex's out there.

I think Arks are fantastic, you get to bring up necrons and cypteks that can all fire out. It has the same number of shots as 10 more warriors. If it gets destoryed its drawing fire off your other arks/doomsday ark/command barge. It is great for getting objectives and giving the necrons mobility. Did I mention that it can fire 20 shots at anything 12" away + the 10-20 shots from the models inside?

Arandmoor wrote:Put the Phaeron Overlord, the lord, and the cryptek with the warrior block. They relentlessly walk up the board and focus fire with the stalker.

I'd like to point out that I'm pretty sure that you can only have one royal court member join a squad. So this wouldn't work.

Something that I've thought of though it to put a Harbinger of Darkness and a Phaeron with an orb in a group of Immortals. If the new Rapid Fire rumours are true, that's 20 shots at 24" with deep striking and a 4+ RP.

The only really abusive model I can see is the Stormlord, Trayzn in certain CC situations, and the one guy that makes the whole table difficult for the first turn (causing vehicles to have a 1/6 chance to kill themselves before they can come on as if they immobilize themselves they can't make it on so they're done right there during Dawn of War missions). The latter two are situational.

Other than that, no real glaring issues.

acekevin8412 wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Put the Phaeron Overlord, the lord, and the cryptek with the warrior block. They relentlessly walk up the board and focus fire with the stalker.

I'd like to point out that I'm pretty sure that you can only have one royal court member join a squad. So this wouldn't work.

Something that I've thought of though it to put a Harbinger of Darkness and a Phaeron with an orb in a group of Immortals. If the new Rapid Fire rumours are true, that's 20 shots at 24" with deep striking and a 4+ RP.

You need two separate courts but yes, you can play the exact squad I describe.

Brother SRM wrote:The one guy who voted "yes" is either trolling or got his lunch money stolen by a Flayed One.

Not his lunch money.

His lunch.

AFTER he'd eaten it.

I can imagine being understandably bitter after something like that.

Arandmoor wrote:

acekevin8412 wrote:

Arandmoor wrote:Put the Phaeron Overlord, the lord, and the cryptek with the warrior block. They relentlessly walk up the board and focus fire with the stalker.

I'd like to point out that I'm pretty sure that you can only have one royal court member join a squad. So this wouldn't work.

Something that I've thought of though it to put a Harbinger of Darkness and a Phaeron with an orb in a group of Immortals. If the new Rapid Fire rumours are true, that's 20 shots at 24" with deep striking and a 4+ RP.

You need two separate courts but yes, you can play the exact squad I describe.

My bad, I just reread it and it does say only one member of THE Court can join. Nice find there.

But if you have 2 Courts you can have one member from each court join the same unit. The restriction is within that specific court, not any additional ones around.

My only real issues are the unlimited range super attack that some units have and that special character that makes it night fighting and attacks every unit in your army during it.

The Mad Tanker wrote:My only real issues are the unlimited range super attack that some units have and that special character that makes it night fighting and attacks every unit in your army during it.

Uh, this isn't exactly accurate. There are only two things that have Unlimited range. One is the Tachyon Arrow, which is one use, and the other is the Harp of Dissonance, which you can only have two of. In addition, The Storm Lords Lightning Strikes only hit with a roll of a 6. So it's very very unlikely they are going to hit more than 1-2 units aturn.

So learn o use those searchlights, blacksun filters and such.

runmymouth wrote:So learn o use those searchlights, blacksun filters and such.

searchlights fine, but who in their right mind would pay for black sun filters?

OP? No.

A fantastic step up to bring them inline? Absolutely.

I look forward to dusting my cron's off and putting them back on the tables.