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Anyone else feel like the Necrons are fundamentally bad? The majority of their units are ineffective in CC, and yet the majority of their shooting requires being near the enemy. I want to like them, but I just don't see them being viable in tournaments.

They're arguably more mobile than most, but I don't have much faith in what are essentially open-topped AV11 transports and a much less resilient monolith. And what little long ranged shooting they do have seems to be overpriced!

I haven't played to much of the codex BUT I'm going to have to disagree with you a bit.

Yes their CC sucks, but their not a CC kind of army...at all. Yes a lot of their shooting is mid/short range, but they have abilities to create night fighting. By doing that, it greatly increases their chances to get where they need to go and do what they need to do.

Another thing, yea those AV 11 skimmers are open topped, but do you realize how tough it is to pen 13 armor. I'm not saying its the most impossible thing to do, but when your faced with night fighting, PLUS av 13...it poses problems. Most armies are spamming str 8 shots...you need 6s to pen...thats tough to do.

Also, their scarabs are by far the nastiest things when munching on some armor. Your going to see a lot of necron armies that send in 3 full squads of 10 scarabs to completely wipe out land raiders and other threats all while keeping the rest of their army at a safe distance. Then once the large threats are out of the way, Night Fighting gets shut off and you have a hail of fairly scary fire power being dumped into your stuff. Not to mention some of their weapons get X amount of hits where X is the amount of people in that squad. When your looking at a STR 10 AP 1 hit for every model in your squad...thats pretty scary.

While Necrons aren't insanely overpowered, I feel they can run with the best.

I've tested alot of the units and builds in proxy battles and I do seem kinda disappointed. The army itself has some nice builds to it and is very durable , but every game I played I never felt like I packed enough of a punch. And also some units just are not worth it in my opinion. Doom Scythes I will never take again, basically buying a night scythe and paying 75 points for the Death Ray which isn't as effective as it seems on paper. For assault the only real viable units I see being taken , other than the ICs and C'tan, are the scarabs and Wraiths. Wraiths just outperform Lychguard and what not and tend to make their points back almost every game for me. The codex is still very new and there could be some things we are overlooking , but for now the army only seems to have a few must take units to really pose a huge threat.

I think that the jury is still out on them. People need some time to chew on the book, crunch the numbers, and see what works on the tabletop.

I personally think that a lot of the things people are very excited about right now (30+ Scarab Swarms + Stormlord & Spyders) are lists that will scare some lists, but fold utterly against others. Sure, Mech-Guard probably doesn't want to see 30 Scarabs and 2-3 rounds of night fighting, but a Grey Knight army will laugh uproariously at it, as a simple psychic test per unit takes a scarab swarm from 30 wounds a unit to only 10... and the Grey Knights go first, hit on 3's, and wound on 3's (2's if characters with hamerhand are about). Thunderwolf Space Wolves, DOA Blood Angels, Nids in general, and most Orks lists are also armies that will not blink at 30 Scarabs with Spyder support.

Being awesome against Land Raiders and Mechanized forces in general but failing against the rest of the field, as Tau have shown, is not a good way to break into the top tier.

Wow, the codex has been out for a solid week and a half and some are already deeming it non-competitive?



SRSLY?

Preconceived notions know no bounds.

The new Tesla they wield seems to make their troop's small arms outshoot everyone elses.

Tesla Carbines leave Shuricats, Pulse Rifles/Carbines, Bolters, Lasguns, Splinter rifles, everything for dead. Only GK Stormbolters are a match.

In addition to that, their Transports are Supersonic Rhinos carrying Firepower on the level of a Rifleman Dread. What's more, they put you in Nightfight so this firepower gets the drop on you.

How is that not a very competitive base for an army...

Then you add the toys. Sure Elites doesn't offer much of value.
But Fast Attack offers Wraiths which point for point you won't mind throwing into almost any unit in the game.
Heavy Support, Annihilation Barges stick out like a sore thumb.

Sure you can't blow up AV14 from range, but pretty much no one does. Armor up close gets vulnerable to Warscythes and being pulled apart by Gauss.

At the moment people are trying their hand at the gimmicks, because this codex has a LOT of gimmick units. But when you boil the gimmicks away, your standard Mech army core is 5 Immortals in a NightScythe for 185 points, which is nails.

Some things in the army do look good on paper, but when tested kinda falls short. Played several games against nids with tesla heavy lists, didn't do that much damage because even though I wounded alot, tesla is ap - and my nid player got to make alot of saves. Against vehicles , if you pen you need a 6 to wreck and its only against light tanks so count on other options to take out armor. So no the transport isn't on par with a psyrifle dread, not to mention how durable they are and the drawback that if the Night Scythe is destroyed the unit inside has to go in reserves and won't let the unit deepstrike if able, whpch means I have to take a monolith. I do agree with wraiths and annihilation barges, but that's what I mean when I say there are only a few units that you can take that really makes you hit somewhat hard, but yet again it is mostly against marine armies and everything else you will have a hard time fighting. Yeah the codex is still new and there is much time yet for it to grow. The FAQ will clear some things up and might help the army a bit. Another note is that this is a 6th ed army, so until then this army might not shine fully until then.

Codex is amazing.

Necrons are amazing from what I'm seeing...

-Entire army can stunlock vehicles of any armor value.
-Ability to create night fighting cripples a chance at laying down pens on AV13 transports.
-Transports are AV frickin 13, rez troops, have gauss weapons, can negate crew stunned and crew shaken results with average rolling.
-Shooting at 24" and 12" is insanely lopsided in Necrons favor against most armies.
-Upgrades for these guys are stupid awesome... S10 AP1 Hunter Killers kick ass... and that's not even the best of what they have.
-Can negate Eternal Warriors and Toughness 6 Characters and just toss them out of the game with special powers.
-Rez Protocols combined with Ghost Ark repairs make finishing off troops without CC very difficult forcing you into melee/rapid fire range.

If anything, Necrons are borderline OP in OBJ games, which make up most game types. The amount of tank stunning they can do is only rivaled by the crazy amount of special rules each unit/weapon has.


In a meta where mech and OBJs are two big factors, I think the glance happy AV13 transport army is sitting pretty comfy.

I like the new rules, but I'm not sold on why everyone loves Tesla weapons: It's a 1/6 change of actually doing something, coupled with the lack of Ap, and yet somehow some people think it's better than the Rapid Fire S5 Ap4 Gauss Cannons.

Valkyrie wrote:I like the new rules, but I'm not sold on why everyone loves Tesla weapons: It's a 1/6 change of actually doing something, coupled with the lack of Ap, and yet somehow some people think it's better than the Rapid Fire S5 Ap4 Gauss Cannons.

Because rapidfire range is 12", and Immortals are terrible in assault? Vs Tesla being Assault 24" and 50% more accurate than single shot Gauss?

Halfpast_Yellow wrote:

Valkyrie wrote:I like the new rules, but I'm not sold on why everyone loves Tesla weapons: It's a 1/6 change of actually doing something, coupled with the lack of Ap, and yet somehow some people think it's better than the Rapid Fire S5 Ap4 Gauss Cannons.

Because rapidfire range is 12", and Immortals are terrible in assault? Vs Tesla being Assault 24" and 50% more accurate than single shot Gauss?

This Pretty much. Being able to move and shoot at 24' is pretty huge. It can keep you out of assault range longer, and inflict a ton of damage. Not to mention Tesla weapons are better at killing MEQs, than the Blaster, outside of 12'


As for Necron competitiveness, it seems they will be be in the BA/DE list. I think they are a lot like DE, in that you have to think about how you use your units. You also have to make a smart list, as it's very easy to make a bad one with our book. There are plenty of good Combos in the book.

You really have to see for yourself how the army preforms on the tabletop, because it all works together very very well.

Halfpast_Yellow wrote:

Valkyrie wrote:I like the new rules, but I'm not sold on why everyone loves Tesla weapons: It's a 1/6 change of actually doing something, coupled with the lack of Ap, and yet somehow some people think it's better than the Rapid Fire S5 Ap4 Gauss Cannons.

Because rapidfire range is 12", and Immortals are terrible in assault? Vs Tesla being Assault 24" and 50% more accurate than single shot Gauss?

It turns into quantity over quality with Tesla , and it always allows your enemy a save and takes away from Gauss stun lock potential. I prefer Gauss >Tesla after alot of testing and math hammer

I remember starting a similar thread to this when the GK codex came out--basically wondering if their lack of bodies and melta spam would keep them from being top tier.... and we all know how that turned out.

I read through the codex and was thinking the opposite.

Necrons basically have a 4+ invul with a rez orb (If I read it correctly).

I also really like the C-Tan, the Melta Walkers, and alot of the shooting from Heavy Slot.

I think its a cool codex that has alot of potential.


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BeefCakeSoup wrote:Codex is amazing.

Necrons are amazing from what I'm seeing...

-Entire army can stunlock vehicles of any armor value.
-Ability to create night fighting cripples a chance at laying down pens on AV13 transports.
-Transports are AV frickin 13, rez troops, have gauss weapons, can negate crew stunned and crew shaken results with average rolling.
-Shooting at 24" and 12" is insanely lopsided in Necrons favor against most armies.
-Upgrades for these guys are stupid awesome... S10 AP1 Hunter Killers kick ass... and that's not even the best of what they have.
-Can negate Eternal Warriors and Toughness 6 Characters and just toss them out of the game with special powers.
-Rez Protocols combined with Ghost Ark repairs make finishing off troops without CC very difficult forcing you into melee/rapid fire range.

If anything, Necrons are borderline OP in OBJ games, which make up most game types. The amount of tank stunning they can do is only rivaled by the crazy amount of special rules each unit/weapon has.


In a meta where mech and OBJs are two big factors, I think the glance happy AV13 transport army is sitting pretty comfy.

Where did you get the # 13? I thought I read they were armor 11 open topped?

All of the AV 11 open topped vehicles in the Necron Codex, have Quantum Shielding, which raises the front and Side to AV 13, until the first penetrating hit.

Smitty0305 wrote:
Necrons basically have a 4+ invul with a rez orb (If I read it correctly).

It is different to an invul. With invul if you pass, you can still hit in assault. With RP if you get knocked down you forfeit the close combat hits, which is very likely due to low initiative. It is by design.

BUT rez orb is an additional save on top of generally high resiliance (good armour save and high toughness). I'd probably take the invulnerable save instead thanks! It is superior because RP trades damage potential for slightly more resiliance. That resiliance is also useless if you get wiped or swept.



By the time there is a second wave with the Scythe flyers, it'll be clearer which units are worth buying and the strengths of the codex.

Saw a thread a while back with this exact topic (troll face?) general concensus was that if you look at them from a mathhammer stand point, each individual unit sucks. You gotta look at how they interact with their buddies. Take the tesla cannon for example, it shines against MEQ (the kind of armies that pretty much always get a save cause nothing is AP3 anymore really) but sucks against spam armies like nids and IG and orks. so you have to tailor it to fight your opponant. OR you have to consider that no matter what you take, there will be a glaring weakness, and take a unit to account of that. It's not a mentality a lot of people like (that whole but why should I spend the points if I have to spend even more to protect it) but the truth is that units in the crondex rely on each other, so its not so much buying units to protect one another as it is buying units that will make up for the weaknesses in others. Like an eldar army, ironically (given the fluff), only moreso. After all, all those short range guns look horrible on paper. But when you consider that a different unit can give nightfighting to let your short range guns get in close safely, it makes them a lot more viable.

Army seems like it is geared towards space marines =P

They definitely are better than they were (but given how badly their old codex performed in the current edition, and how many units were simply not viable, any direction was basically up!).

I think they'll settle to be a middle tier army. The fact is, they're an army designed around mid-range shooting and resiliency in an edition that has MASSIVELY lethal close combat that totally ignores resiliency. This is always going to be a incredibly huge dent in the army's viability to start with.

The basic idea of the necrons remains the same; you don't really have great firepower, point for point. You have above average, not fantastic, firepower with short to medium range. But you're very resilient for points. You trade blows, and while the enemy may hit you harder than you hit them, you survive more than they do, and the balance of firepower tips in your favor as their numbers thin out faster than yours, then you finish them off with CC units. Necrons are -still- intended to have some CC; they have far too many CC-oriented units in both the old and new codex for people to say they're supposed to be a shooting-ONLY army. Just, the plan was clearly the CC was a 'knockout punch' to take out shooting-worn enemy units. The new codex does this much better than the old one, at least.

In theory. In practice, the high tier armies tend to be very destructive to the point where resiliency almost doesn't matter at all. Any high tier CC army is going to laugh at Necrons still. You probably won't even get to shoot at most of them for more than 1 turn before they swamp you in CC, and Necrons simply do not have the firepower-for-points for 1 turn worth of shooting to wear the enemy down enough to matter in the following turn's CC, and Sweeping still completely negates their heavy resiliency without really having to fight through what SHOULD be tarpits of units. They'll do much better against the shootier lists than they used to, but still lack a 'power strategy' and combined arms, as much as it sounds like it should be how the game plays, actually tends to fail against strength-exploitative focused lists because it never has quite enough of what it needs against any one enemy.

That's against deliberately honed top tier lists though. I think the new codex has done a great job of making them much, much more playable in the 'average game' scene. I do not, however, seem them able to compete in really cut-throat "if you're not overpowered then get out" gaming settings.

Taking into account 6th edition will be out in less than an year, long-range predictions about necron competitiveness are baseless. If indeed our codex is the first one of the 6th edition ones rather than the last of the 5th edition ones, all previous codexes should be weaker than ours within the new edition, both by GW tradition and by incongruity.

Let's take the sweeping issue as an example. Such glaring weakness (no way to make units stubborn or fearless, few fearless units, low I, sweep negating RP) it must be that the 6th ed. CC rules will be rather different. If sweeping is no longer a weakness for necrons, the weight of the codex would be completely shifted. Suddenly being that close may not be as bad for the health (or structural integrity).

Regarding what we can do in the meantime, my belief is that after all is said and done, we'll see essentially a cookie-cutter boil-down list of NS spam plus scarabs with spyders and with minimal warriors or immortals, supported by the Stormlord or solar pulse crypteks for the night rules . Gimmicky lists that count on a few expensive models with weird combinations will simply fail by being fragile and too specialized.

I still don't see what people see in Scythes... if they wreck/explode your unit goes into reserve... meaning your basically attempting to turbo around until last turn to tag objectives; but your AV 11.

Herm......

I think the Codex is OK, It's not as OP as SW, or GK, or even IG. It feels like more of a finesse army. Fragile units overpriced skimmers, Swarms seem to be the FoTM atm. We'll see how they pan out for'em.

I think the necron codex is really good against heavy mech and msu builds.

However, I think it matches up quite badly against 'nids.

Warboss Gutrip wrote:I think the necron codex is really good against heavy mech and msu builds.

However, I think it matches up quite badly against 'nids.

Depends on the build. AV13 is out of the reach of most nids. Also even if they need 6's necrons can kill every thing you have.

Zid wrote:I still don't see what people see in Scythes... if they wreck/explode your unit goes into reserve... meaning your basically attempting to turbo around until last turn to tag objectives; but your AV 11.

Herm......

The NS are 100 pts, so cheap for the toys they get. Yes, they are av11 without quantum shielding, but they are fast, spammable, and have an amazing 24 inch gun. They are a unit that can produce a true alpha strike for the necrons. The tesla destructor is twin-linked S7 with 4 shots at 24 inchs, and has the tesla rule and the arcing rule. Take 6 of these and work out the math. It boils down to ~ 26 hits of S7 and that is not counting the arcing rule, which can produce additional hits. They also deliver that pain after moving 12 inches, which means you can reach out and touch anything on the first turn.

The idea with them is to cause so much damage in turn 1-2 that the opponent is knocked down and cannot mount a significant retaliation. The av11 then is not that important.

IMO having the infantry go in reserve if the NS is destroyed is not a hindrance but a boon. It means a bunch of scoring units are perfectly safe and can either walk in to claim home objectives or be pulled in by monoliths whenever and wherever desirable.

The points work out correctly as well. In a standard game, one can have 5 or 6 units of NS with 5 warriors each, 2 monoliths, 2x 10scarabs, and Imotekh. That is a ton of firepower and av-busting scarabs.

My only gripe with NS is they don't have quantum shielding, which is very strange. I expect that to be FAQed together with a slight increase in point cost.

Warboss Gutrip wrote: Also even if they need 6's necrons can kill every thing you have.

Not anymore. Gauss lost the auto-wounding on 6 rule but kept the auto-glance.

Tri wrote:

Warboss Gutrip wrote:I think the necron codex is really good against heavy mech and msu builds.

However, I think it matches up quite badly against 'nids.

Depends on the build. AV13 is out of the reach of most nids. Also even if they need 6's necrons can kill every thing you have.

Meh it's only 11 on the rear armor, Hive guard will eventually get through. Or just flat out kill warriors cuz of AP4. Liths can't hide behind Living Metal anymore so TMC's can nom nom on that as well. Their codex is new/shiny and has some fun toys, yet it's still fifth edition and their downfall is in the assault.


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Necrontyr40k wrote:

Zid wrote:I still don't see what people see in Scythes... if they wreck/explode your unit goes into reserve... meaning your basically attempting to turbo around until last turn to tag objectives; but your AV 11.

Herm......

The NS are 100 pts, so cheap for the toys they get. Yes, they are av11 without quantum shielding, but they are fast, spammable, and have an amazing 24 inch gun. They are a unit that can produce a true alpha strike for the necrons. The tesla destructor is twin-linked S7 with 4 shots at 24 inchs, and has the tesla rule and the arcing rule. Take 6 of these and work out the math. It boils down to ~ 26 hits of S7 and that is not counting the arcing rule, which can produce additional hits. They also deliver that pain after moving 12 inches, which means you can reach out and touch anything on the first turn.

The idea with them is to cause so much damage in turn 1-2 that the opponent is knocked down and cannot mount a significant retaliation. The av11 then is not that important.

IMO having the infantry go in reserve if the NS is destroyed is not a hindrance but a boon. It means a bunch of scoring units are perfectly safe and can either walk in to claim home objectives or be pulled in by monoliths whenever and wherever desirable.

The points work out correctly as well. In a standard game, one can have 5 or 6 units of NS with 5 warriors each, 2 monoliths, 2x 10scarabs, and Imotekh. That is a ton of firepower and av-busting scarabs.

My only gripe with NS is they don't have quantum shielding, which is very strange. I expect that to be FAQed together with a slight increase in point cost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tri wrote:

Warboss Gutrip wrote: Also even if they need 6's necrons can kill every thing you have.

Not anymore. Gauss lost the auto-wounding on 6 rule but kept the auto-glance.

I sincerely doubt they'll FAQ and point adjust NS to have QS lol that's just you doing some wishful dreaming...

I expect the Night Scythe and the Doom Scythe to gain some additional rules as "Flyers" in 6th Edition. That's likely where their durability is going to come from.

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:

Tri wrote:

Warboss Gutrip wrote:I think the necron codex is really good against heavy mech and msu builds.

However, I think it matches up quite badly against 'nids.

Depends on the build. AV13 is out of the reach of most nids. Also even if they need 6's necrons can kill every thing you have.

Meh it's only 11 on the rear armor, Hive guard will eventually get through. Or just flat out kill warriors cuz of AP4. Liths can't hide behind Living Metal anymore so TMC's can nom nom on that as well. Their codex is new/shiny and has some fun toys, yet it's still fifth edition and their downfall is in the assault.

Av13 means you'll struggle with you ranged units and AV11 puts it out of reach of all of most troop as you need strength 5 to glance.

I'll admit the monolith has been stripped some of it survivability its still AV14 all round but its also only 200pts. On the other hand ... it now has far more weaponry. One Particle Whip, 4 Gauss Flux arc (may shoot at any target they like) and if any one does get close and personal (if it survives) it can open a portal suck any models into oblivion if they fail a strength test. But that is not really relevant as most people will just take three doomsday ark and just laugh as they drop str9 AP1 large blasts.

Necrontyr40k wrote:

Zid wrote:I still don't see what people see in Scythes... if they wreck/explode your unit goes into reserve... meaning your basically attempting to turbo around until last turn to tag objectives; but your AV 11.

Herm......

The NS are 100 pts, so cheap for the toys they get. Yes, they are av11 without quantum shielding, but they are fast, spammable, and have an amazing 24 inch gun. They are a unit that can produce a true alpha strike for the necrons. The tesla destructor is twin-linked S7 with 4 shots at 24 inchs, and has the tesla rule and the arcing rule. Take 6 of these and work out the math. It boils down to ~ 26 hits of S7 and that is not counting the arcing rule, which can produce additional hits. They also deliver that pain after moving 12 inches, which means you can reach out and touch anything on the first turn.

The idea with them is to cause so much damage in turn 1-2 that the opponent is knocked down and cannot mount a significant retaliation. The av11 then is not that important.

IMO having the infantry go in reserve if the NS is destroyed is not a hindrance but a boon. It means a bunch of scoring units are perfectly safe and can either walk in to claim home objectives or be pulled in by monoliths whenever and wherever desirable.

The points work out correctly as well. In a standard game, one can have 5 or 6 units of NS with 5 warriors each, 2 monoliths, 2x 10scarabs, and Imotekh. That is a ton of firepower and av-busting scarabs.

My only gripe with NS is they don't have quantum shielding, which is very strange. I expect that to be FAQed together with a slight increase in point cost.

Warboss Gutrip wrote: Also even if they need 6's necrons can kill every thing you have.

Not anymore. Gauss lost the auto-wounding on 6 rule but kept the auto-glance.

Its the ap - that hurts really bad. I've done a tone of test games with scythe spam and it is iffy because it has a hard time popping light tanks. The high number of shots really is just good against marines and MCs to spam saves, anything else can just shrug it off. And the Doom Scythe I think is garbage, too many points for a 1 shot vehicle that will usually never make its points back. Annihilation barges are the way to go I think if you want tesla, cheaper and more durable.

Necrontyr40k wrote:

Tri wrote: Also even if they need 6's necrons can kill every thing you have.

Not anymore. Gauss lost the auto-wounding on 6 rule but kept the auto-glance.

... think you messed up a quote i have corrected for you ... thing is Highest Toughness Nids have is 6 ... Str4 vs T6 needs a 6's to wound ... so we can kill everything you've got even if we need 6's to wound.

edit ..To be frank even scarabs (Str3) can wound T6 on a 6's but you really don't want them charging MC as they'll be ID them.