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Hey all. I'm thinking of starting a Necron army after I finish my current Iron Warriors CSM project. I was wondering how you guys feel Necrons are right now in 7th edition.

Does the 5th edition codex hold up well in this edition? Should I hold off and wait for a codex update? Do you think Necrons are going to be updated soon for 7th? Do you think new models are on the way? If I were to start, what a some good baseline models to get? Battleforce and Command Barge (i heard this comes with an Overlord, is that true?)?

Any other input that you guys have on starting Necrons at this point and time would be awesome! Thanks!

Necrons will most likely be the last update, seeing as they are already overpowered... I played them for a bit but I thought they were okay. I enjoy painting a lot and they are not a hard paint job. As for them holding up in this edition... YES, In my opinion Necrons got a buff, and here is why

1. Now chariots (command barges) can reanimate with the overlord, although he cannot disembark.

2. Vehichles got a buff and Necrons have a fair amount of them

3.Now anything can hold objectives (vehichles specifically)

Get the battleforce! Its awesome

Yeah good luck getting rid of a 10 to 20 man Warrior squad on a Objective w/ a Ghost Ark backing them up.

Also, yes, the Battleforce is great and now your scarabs score .

I hope that answered your questions!

As a Necron player, I can tell you this edition only made them better. Vehicles are harder to explode and Jink got better, so their abundance of AV 13 is hard to deal with, plus they still glance anything to death anyway. Also, Chariots are the new black. First 7th edition game I used one against my space marine friend who I always have trouble beating, and he couldn't touch it. I wiped the floor with him. They don't have a lot of options are far as upgrades, but they're straight forward and easy to use. Also tough as balls to kill most of the time.

Interesting. I am still trying to get my hands on a copy of the new rulebook and actually sit down and go through it. Did not realize that crons got so much treatment in this edition. i just looked up the FAQ for them for this edition, quite a few changes, but they all seem to be positive.

What about your current meta? Do you have many other cron players in your area. I always hated showing up to LGSs and having more than 50% of the field being the same army. Where I am, everyone is on the Tau and Eldar bandwagon right now, but I haven't been since the new edition came out.

 tyro_neophyte wrote:
Interesting. I am still trying to get my hands on a copy of the new rulebook and actually sit down and go through it. Did not realize that crons got so much treatment in this edition. i just looked up the FAQ for them for this edition, quite a few changes, but they all seem to be positive.

What about your current meta? Do you have many other cron players in your area. I always hated showing up to LGSs and having more than 50% of the field being the same army. Where I am, everyone is on the Tau and Eldar bandwagon right now, but I haven't been since the edition came out.

My personal favorite way to play Necrons (Even before 7th edition) was an Overlord on a Chariot, multiple Ghost Arks, 2 A-Barges, a Doom Scythe, and 2 Night Scythes with Immortals in them. That's typically what I go with in a competitive setting, and build around that. But another popular way to play them is just tons of Night Scythes and Doom Scythes. Flyers galore.

At the start it's best to get the infantry first, best to get warriors as they're tough, reliable and can take up nearly everything (I got whopped by some chaos daemons because the herald casted some magic which made them have 2+) there also good in flanking manoeuvres. Next you should get some annihalation barges and deathmarks, the barge providing good mid range support and the deathmarks deep striking behind the opposing army. It's also good to get wraiths with whip coils.


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At the start it's best to get the infantry first, best to get warriors as they're tough, reliable and can take up nearly everything (I got whopped by some chaos daemons because the herald casted some magic which made them have 2+) there also good in flanking manoeuvres. Next you should get some annihalation barges and deathmarks, the barge providing good mid range support and the deathmarks deep striking behind the opposing army. It's also good to get wraiths with whip coils.


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O sorry, my ipad went dodgy :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:
O sorry, my ipad went dodgy :(

Warriors are great, with ghost ark backup they can be very hard to kill. and the ghost ark is scoring because of the warriors even if they separate.

Immortals can bring you some nice higher strength weapons and have space marine saves.

2 types of flyers both are really nice.

The annihilation barges are amazing, there really cheep skimmers with some really nice firepower.

Deathmarks with there special rules(especially if you attach a cryptek can be amazing)

Wraiths with whip coils make an amazing assault unit, 3+ invuln save, 2 wounds, strength 6 with rending on a jump infantry unit, and fearless. Attach a destroyer lord to them and they get preferred enemy and he can add mind shackle scarabs to the mix for you.

Personally I usually dont run any overlords usually its 2 destroyer lords with a squad of wraiths each.

Imohtek has always been a favorite of mine, forcing night fighting hitting the enemy with lightning(I've almost tabled several opponents in my first shooting phase with that) stealing initiative on a 4+(but cant at all against orks).

The regular lords can be amazing though so don't underestimate them.

Mind shackle scarabs, the bane of pretty much anyone who engages you in melee, take them all over there really cheap.

Necrons really came out well this edition, still having access to mass fliers, awesome warscythes and such while gaining a couple of new things like the new and improved command barge. I would suggest getting a battleforce and barge to start with. You can make the barge into either a command barge for your overlord or an annihilation barge to add some serious firepower to your army. Afterwards you can either focus on a strong core of warriors and immortals backed with arcs and barges or use units like Wraith to give your opponent a headache.

Very cool, thanks for all the input. Would you say that they are able to be a competitive army like Eldar and Tau both are now? Does it require heavy cheesing of the list in order to be competitive?

This edition works great for them. CCB works great. Most 6th ed tactics i found transfer well to 7th for crons

The most important to thing to consider when playing Necrons is your range - 24" for just about everything. You will need to maneuver your forces carefully to support this range without endangering your forces to a woeful round of cc.

An aesthetic thing to consider: don't paint them metal! go with one of the ceramite schemes!

Necron are IMO viewing for the top spot with Eldar. But, the Necron codex is dating a bit and some of the choices aren't ver good.

But, the codex has gone through two edition changes which boosted the already solid army twice.

CCB Lords
Destroyer Lords
Wraiths
Night scythes
Annihilation Barges


These choices are absolutely phenomenal. Necron has a very strong showing in 6th and were one of the top armies, the 7th edition rules only boost the strong build while formerly strong armies like Tau took a hit. Necron have and will continue to win competitive tournaments.

Tesla is the best widely available weapon in any army.

Annihilation Barges
Command Barges
D Lords
Wraiths
Amazing troop transport options

You can make many viable lists and have lots of fun. Tesla is amazing. Toss in some Stalkers to make sure every thing is twin linked and you can bring down many models when you can bring all guns to bear on something withing 24 inches.

Ranting starts

I'm starting a Necron army, and I am extremely frustrated with the codex frankly to the point where I think I'm to give up. Night Scythes and stealing objectives at the last minute are incredibly un-Necron in spirit and style, but it forces you to play that way if you want a decent army. Wraiths all over the damn place. Mind-Shackle Scarabs over and over and over.

I'm screwing this and starting over with Tyranids, who have a codex that may be bottom-tier but is actually interesting and who actually manage to have more personality and be more believable.

Ranting ends.

(Sorry for the selfish hijack -- just had to vent. I'm really frustrated,).

Alcibiades wrote:
Ranting starts

I'm starting a Necron army, and I am extremely frustrated with the codex frankly to the point where I think I'm to give up. Night Scythes and stealing objectives at the last minute are incredibly un-Necron in spirit and style, but it forces you to play that way if you want a decent army. Wraiths all over the damn place. Mind-Shackle Scarabs over and over and over.

I'm screwing this and starting over with Tyranids, who have a codex that may be bottom-tier but is actually interesting and who actually manage to have more personality and be more believable.

Ranting ends.

(Sorry for the selfish hijack -- just had to vent. I'm really frustrated,).

You don't HAVE to play that way. Hell, I made a fun 1500 point list that didn't spam anything, and actually ended up in a draw against Taudar in the Top-8 of my local store's league. (Obviously before the new rules, which have made necrons stronger). I usually play things I like, which is a balanced list with a few ghost arks, an overlord on a chariot, 2 a-barges, maybe 2 night scythes with immortals, maybe a Triarch stalker and some Deathmarks depending on the point value. It's a fluffy list, works well together, and is fun to play. I find spamming Night Scythes or wraiths is boring and doesn't even make sense anyway. Plus, I don't see it being that effective.

Great Necron units:

Night Scythes and Doom Scythes

Crypteks w/ that 4 shot Haywire staff. I put 1 w each warr.
squad

Chariot Lords

Ghost Arcs

Anni Barges

Spiders w/ Scarabs

Wraiths

Over Lords and Lords

Deathmarks w those ap 1 Cryptek templates

They just have so many good units to choose from.

It's funny, I took a break before the hardback codex was a thing. Now I'm back for 7th and I can't wrap my brain around people talking about Eldar and Tau being "the" top tier forces.

Necrons are a force to be reckoned with in 7th edition.

When my forces fully awaken from their slumber they will teach these foolish Tau and Eldar what it means to be top tier.

Muahahahahahaha...

You're indeed getting an Overlord with the Barge, which means you'd probably want some Crypteks to make use of the Royal Court he unlocks for you. Finecrap Crypteks are expensive, rather ugly and made of Finecrap so it's better to kitbash some of your own.

Get yourself an extra box of warriors and a box of Lychguard and if you assemble the Lychguard in the Sword and Shield configuration you'd have enough spare Praetorian bits from the Lychguard kit to turn 5 warrior bodies into 5 nice looking Cryptek conversions that IIRC would cost more in Cryptek models than both kits combined and still leave you with a ton of spare bits (get a bit to use as a staff and you'll easily have all you need to convert a couple of Destroyers into Destroyer Lords with far more bling than the GW Destroyer Lord conversion kit, which is itself rather expensive). here's mine.

Also, do note that if you don't glue the Tesla Destructor or the CCB rail on top of the Barge hull (and there's really no reason to- they hold up just fine thanks to gravity and the shape of their mounting) the two variations will be easily interchangeable without need of magnetizing.

Necrons are certainly a beating stick in 7th. Everyone talks about the barges and the scythes for good reason. Scythes are tough because both variants are very nasty. The Night Scythe is a great late game objective grabber, and the Doom Scythe will make mincemeat out of just about any unit in the game. Annihilation barges are stupid good with the Tesla/Tesla loadout because they are relatively cheap and have the chance to really pile on hits.

I like Wraiths, but they are best with a Destroyer Lord so be sure to bring him along if you want a strong squad. I personally like Lynchguard. Like...a lot. They are ridiculously killy in close combat (getting them there is tricky but doable) with Warscythes and due to RP (even better with a Lord) they can really chew up just about anything and live to tell the tale. The shield loadout gives them better survivability, but Warsycthes are the way to go. Expensive unit, but fun.. Add Trazyn the Infinite as your HQ for extra fun!

CCB needs no explanation. IMO it is the best vehicle in the edition right now that doesn't fly.

Ghost Arks are stupid good now. Like, stupid, stupid good. Load ten warriors inside and get into rapid fire range for 30 shots gauss. Vehicles=dead. Yes, even Land Raiders. Squishy infantry=dead. No reason at all to not take these. Ever. They can also res fallen warriors on a 2+ in the movement phase, so park this guy on an objective, disembark and watch your opponent seethe with fury as the unit never dies. Drop a warrior and add a Lord for even more troll face goodness. The Ghost Ark will attract a ridiculous amount of fire though so be careful. Remember that jink!

Canoptyk Spiders are also fantastic. Scarabs are crazy good, they blow up vehicles scary fast, and are amoung the more frustrating tarpit units out there. The Spider make more of them. They also have the Gloom Prism (I think that is what it is called I'd have to check) which is great for deny the witch. Triarch Stalkers are really great too. If they hit a unit, all your shooting units get twin linked when firing at the same target. Ever shoot a Riptide with a Stalker, then follow it up with a volley of fire from a squad of Immortals and then a Ghost Ark full of Warriors? Yeah that Riptide doesn't live long. That is 40 shots twin linked. Bye, bye Mr. Tide.

I prefer Warriors over Immortals (because Ghost Ark and Rapid Fire) but Immortals are exceptional shooting units boasting a 3+ save and RP. I usually bring one squad of ten along just so I can deal with horde type armies in some way or another due to Tesla.

Deathmarks are sick. A squad of ten with a Cryptek (Harbinger of Despair) = one dead unit. If traveling with a Despairtek, they can also get around the map pretty easily so after you disperse with that one unit you really hate, point them at something else for additional harassment.

Flayed ones are excellent for sucking hard. They excel at sucking, being bad, and being unplayable. Don't take them. Ever. They suck that bad.

In all, Necrons I believe are still very healthy in the meta, if not one of the top three now. They are a jack of all trades army and can handle anything thrown at them with relative ease. I recommend buying a Necron Battleforce, CCB kit (for the free Overlord) and Night Scythe kit. This will give you everything you need for a VERY decent startup army and compared to other armies isn't terribly expensive. Well expensive relative to GW pricing xD. Ghost Arks are a pain in the arse to paint and assemble, but they are one of the cooler looking models in the GW lineup IMO and they rock very hard on the battlefield.

Flayed ones are excellent for sucking hard. They excel at sucking, being bad, and being unplayable. Don't take them. Ever. They suck that bad

I'm delighted how you were able to put that in a positive manner