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I have recently gotten back into Necrons (they were my 1st army way back in 3rd). I have some stuff that I have acquired in trades, and the first buy I am looking to make is 2 boxes of Immortals. The question is should I give them the Tesla or Gauss? The bonus hits from Tesla look really nice but I think overall the extra shot all the time from the Gauss, plus the Gauss special rules would be better overall. thoughts?

Also, how useful are Deathmarks? Rapid fire Sniper rifles seem cool.

While I'm quite a fan of Gaussmortals, thanks to the higher S guns meaning more chances to glance/pen AV10 and wounding T4 on 3s and T3 on 2s (along with AP4 that is very nice against Tau and eldar), I think Teslas are generally seen to be better. They are a great defensive unit, what with every hit on overwatch generating 2 more, and in this role, the short range is less of an issue.

In terms of general use for Immortals, I like using units of 10 as a bodyguard for an Overlord, sometimes with a Veil of Darkness cryptek for more manoeuvrability and the ability to have a very dangerous unit with a huge threat range.

Re: Deathmarks, there is a very nasty combination which involves using a Cryptek with the Abyssal Staff (AP2 template) and allowing him to benefit from their wound on 2+ rule, so you have an AP2 flamer that wounds on 2s. It can be very good against high save models, but is a bit of a one trick pony. I'd generally take Immortals over Deathmarks.

I saw someone did a nice stats analysis on hits and wounds with immortals and Tesla vs. Gauss, and I believe against MEQ units Tesla comes out slightly ahead due to the slight advantage of the extra tesla hits you can get.

Personally I like the Gauss to have the extra threat to armour (however small that is) over a slight advantage vs. troops. But it's really your own personal play style.

I think I played 5 games with Tesla immortals and found myself more often than naught facing down some light to medium armour as well as troops in my own meta here so I switched to gauss to help deal with it and haven't looked back.

disdamn wrote:
I saw someone did a nice stats analysis on hits and wounds with immortals and Tesla vs. Gauss, and I believe against MEQ units Tesla comes out slightly ahead due to the slight advantage of the extra tesla hits you can get.

Personally I like the Gauss to have the extra threat to armour (however small that is) over a slight advantage vs. troops. But it's really your own personal play style.

I think I played 5 games with Tesla immortals and found myself more often than naught facing down some light to medium armour as well as troops in my own meta here so I switched to gauss to help deal with it and haven't looked back.

It doesn't matter if you are shooting marines or guardsmen the following tends to hold true against all targets.

Gauss is always better if in rapid fire range of 12" or less. Average # of hits per gauss double tap=1.3333

Tesla averages 1 hit per shot at any range.

At 12 to 24" Gauss only averages 0.666 hits per shot.

The answer is simple.

If the unit is on foot stick with Tesla because they won't start in double tap range and will make a lot of shots in the 12 to 24" range. The extra early game shots will really help.

If the unit is going to jump out of a scythe stick with Gauss because they will jump out inside double tap range and can easily avoid directional cover against Tau/Eldar/GEQ.

Other minor factors include Tesla is deadlier firing over watch and Gauss is deadlier if shooting Tau/Eldar/IG out in the open and can glance vehicles. They are minor. Focus on the simple math hammer of how many hits per turn they will get on foot or jumping out of a scythe. That's the #1 factor.

I usually take one unit of each unless I'm playing vs marines, preferably with the Gauss Immortals in a scythe.

Dropping a gauss immortal squad in double tap range behind a Tau ADL is downright brutal, and the Teslas can spend the entire game grinding down the suits.

I go Tesla Immortals on foot, warriors in scythes with gauss flayers. You can take fifteen, whilst the maximum immortals is ten. 15 warriors is only 25 more points for 10 more shots. They arent AS survivable, but the aim is to drop them, kill whatever is there and hold the objective. Just don't charge anything left over.

Just a thought: I bought all my Immortal/Deathmark boxes for the Deathmarks, for each box, that's 5 extra Gauss and 5 extra Tesla guns. I cut the fancy tubes from these guns, and plunked them on normal warrior bodies. Paint them up to look snazzier than your warriors, and oila, poor-mans Immortals.