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.

Okay, so I just registered to ask a question: Are there some Necron players out there who think their new codex is a wee bit overpowered?

I don't want to go on a rant (And I know this sentence always precedes a rant^^), but I'm a CSM player, and when I see what Necrons get for fewer points than I do, it infuriates me to see my Necron-playing friend bitch about how some Necron-choices became "unplayably bad".
He used the Scarabs as an Example; 20pts/scarab for T3, 4 Wounds and no ranged attack - Therefore, they are worse than cultists at what they do, since they can't even fire overwatch.
I say he is a lunatic and doesn't look at the numbers.

For 20pts, I (hypothetically) get:
4 Cultists (w/o champion), which are T3, W1, S3, BS/WS3, 1 attack each, Ld 7 and Sv 6+. No special rules except Champion of Chaos for the Champion, which usually hinders me more than it does any good. So 4 Wounds (Same as scarabs). I could take marks, but they'd make cultists more expensive than the scarabs and aren't worth it most times anyway.

For 20 pts, a Necron player gets:
1 Scarab-base, which is T3, W4, S3, BS/WS2, 4 Attacks, Ld 10 and Sv 6+. Looks relatively similar, except for the BS/WS2, but they get Ld10 for that (as most Necrons do). This wouldn't be so bad a comparison if it stopped here.
BUT: These are the special rules the scarabs get just by themselves (more, of course, if they take the canoptek harvest formation - but more on that later):
-Fearless (Awesome for capturing points and in general)
-Swarms (Which is an alright-drawback, but becomes quickly irrelevant if scarabs are paired with Spyders and the aforementioned formation)
-Fleet (Beast-Unit type)
-12" movement (Beast-Unit type, also awesome for capturing points)
-Ignore difficult/dangerous terrain (Beast-Unit Type)

That's 4 beneficial special rules and 1 drawback - all for the same points as a cultist squad with the same point-cost. And he has the nerves to tell me they're bad. Not to mention what happens if you put them in the canoptek harvest formation (which he, naturally, does) - He would've taken the spyder and the wraiths anyway, and through that, the scarabs also get relentless (useless, I know), Move through cover and their choice of reanimation protocols or shred (Only the spyder has no fleet, so he'd never take it). So 3 extra special rules just for taking a formation with models he'd have taken anyway. Oh, and the spyder pumps out 4 cultist's worth of points every turn on its own - more if there's more spyders, of course.

Same thing with the wraith - he fielded 3 of those guys in the canoptek harvest formation in a decurion detachment (Spyder sat behind a wall 12" away and merrily produced scarabs while the wraiths did the hard work of grinding my marines to pulp).
So 3 of those guys stood before my 20 man Bolter squad with a Chaos Sorceror with Burning Brand of Skalathrax (4/3 Torrent Flamethrower) and 2 plasma guns. I poured 1 whole turn of fire and 1 round of overwatch fire into these guys (amounting to 72 boltershots, 8 plasma shots, and 3+1d3 Artefact-flamethrower hits) into those 3 dudes (which cost about 1/6 of the squad they were charging; maybe 1/3 if you take the scarabs and the spyder into account which are needed for the formation) - The aftermath? One of them took ONE unsaved wound.
So I did some math (simplifying a bit for maths-reasons - math is hard :( )
20 man boltersquad vs. a single wraith, when he's in rapid fire range:
first: 40 shots at BS4: about 26 hits.
Bolter str 4 against T5: 5+, which means of those 26 hits, only 8,5 stick - let's say I have a bit of luck and 9 actually wound.
Of these 9, only 3 make it through his 3++ save. Of these 3, only 1,5 make it through his 4+ FNP save. So with a bit of luck, a whole 20-man-bolter-squad kills a single wraith in one turn of firing. This would, essentially, be the same if I took 40 Lascannons to fire at them (except that I would wound with more hits. You'd need something around 35 lascannons to reliably kill a 3-model-wraith-squad in one turn of firing, which I think is pretty ridiculous). Comparing this to a melee-CSM-Terminator (double lightning claw, 37pts), the terminator takes 4 wounds compared to the 2 the wraith takes. Not to mention the wraith has double the wounds of a terminator for roughly the same point cost. And a higher base strength. and a higher base toughness. And more basic attacks. And a (siginificantly) higher invulnerability-save. And is a beast (12" movement/ignores difficult terrain). And has fleet (again, Beasts). And can move through enemy units as if they weren't there. And is fearless. And doesn't care if a Strength 3 or strength 9 gun is aimed at it, or if that gun has AP - or AP 1. And have the potential for either an "Insta-death on 6 and insta-penetrate on 6" ranged weapon with AP2 or Initiative 5. I am quite surprised they don't have IWND, Flesh/Armourbane, Infiltrate and Fear in there as well.

On a completely different note, their Doomscythe is 160pts, still has their UBERDEATHCANNON and another twinlinked weapon that is powerful enough to kill other flyers. All for 10pts less than a heldrake.

So yeah - I think they are completely overpowered. It may be that some of their choices became more expensive (certainly not lychguard), but they're still WAY cheaper than any other army for what they can do (and they can do a lot - every single unit in that new codex has at least 3 special rules - especially when in a decurion detachment and related formations). Yes, they have to spend more points on actually getting their formations - but those are models that are usually taken in Necron armies anyway, so that's really not too big a hurdle. Who wouldn't take wraiths in a canoptek harvest formation? They're absolutely invincible and rip through enemies as if there's no tomorrow.

Sorry for the small rant - I hope the comparison was more or less accurate, though - or did I forget/overlook something? I'm hoping for someone to debunk my arguments - The necron player I know and asked certainly couldn't.

Every army is OP if you play CSM.

On a more serious note; yes the Decurion is a powerful formation but you pay for it in a a fair amount of model tax and you are often forced to tailor your formations depending on what army you think you will be facing. The Canoptek is a meatgrinder of death but it isn't an auto-win. As with any army it is all about your strategy and target priority.

I get my grumpy head on when people groan and moan about something being OP because it wipes x-unit out ina single round. Treat the canoptek formation as a CC MC and think would you stand a squad of marines in the way of a carnifex brood and expect them to come out the other end?

Prioritize your targets; take out the Spyder that gives them RP in the first place and suddenly you are evening things up. When a new codex comes out expect to have to adjust how you play your army in order to combat it.

It's a strong codex. Not quite as strong as the new eldar codex, which was clearly written to limit it (D-weapons! D-weapons everywhere!) but a cut above the last few.

CSM needs a similar treatment. One can only hope we'll get some legion-specific buffs and some relic tanks/contemptors etc. in the next version.

^highly doubt that

Necrons are very good, but no,.. not overpowered.

Necrons are an army that you have to take down squad by squad with massed firepower or D weapons or High toughness weapons. D weapons ignore reanimation and usualy laugh at your armour save..
High strength usually give a minus 1 modifier on reanimation. Heavy Flamers work as well

We are strong, but not invincible,... as the lore suggests

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
Necrons are very good, but no,.. not overpowered.

Necrons are an army that you have to take down squad by squad with massed firepower or D weapons or High toughness weapons. D weapons ignore reanimation and usualy laugh at your armour save..
High strength usually give a minus 1 modifier on reanimation. Heavy Flamers work as well

We are strong, but not invincible,... as the lore suggests

D weapons do not ignore reanimation protocols. They take them at -1. Its what makes it a bit better than FnP.

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
Necrons are very good, but no,.. not overpowered.

Necrons are an army that you have to take down squad by squad with massed firepower or D weapons or High toughness weapons. D weapons ignore reanimation and usualy laugh at your armour save..
High strength usually give a minus 1 modifier on reanimation. Heavy Flamers work as well

We are strong, but not invincible,... as the lore suggests

Good thing chaos marines don't have mass fire power or D or heavy flamers. That is like telling an IG player that mass flamer in drop pods can wipe out scatter bikers in one turn.

 Xerics wrote:

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
Necrons are very good, but no,.. not overpowered.

Necrons are an army that you have to take down squad by squad with massed firepower or D weapons or High toughness weapons. D weapons ignore reanimation and usualy laugh at your armour save..
High strength usually give a minus 1 modifier on reanimation. Heavy Flamers work as well

We are strong, but not invincible,... as the lore suggests

D weapons do not ignore reanimation protocols. They take them at -1. Its what makes it a bit better than FnP.

Instant Death is the one they take RP at -1. S: D ignores RP

Reanimation Protocols rolls may even be taken against hits with the Instant Death special rule, but cannot be used against hits from Destroyer weapons or any special rule or attack that states that the model is ‘removed from play.'

Prior to the Eldar codex, Necrons were the great consternation.

They absolutely are clearly much more powerful than most other army books, certainly moreso than the late 6E/early7E books.

I think most people would rate Necrons and Eldar alongside Knights as the most powerful lists in the game.

I still haven't seen the new Necron book lose or even merely tie a game.

Depends on what you are going up against. I played in a game this past weekend where my opponent had the DE Talos formation and two WKs. With all the T7 and T8, it was hard to really do much. I had a TAC list that beat everyone else I played but the WKs and the 5 Talos were too much. Unfortunately it's an objective game and he camped the WKs and Talos formation on two of the objectives to ensure he wouldn't get beat out. Sure talos don't move fast but if they are in the center of the board on an objective and they have 30 TL splinter cannon shots, they can still reach out and touch you.

 Xerics wrote:

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
Necrons are very good, but no,.. not overpowered.

Necrons are an army that you have to take down squad by squad with massed firepower or D weapons or High toughness weapons. D weapons ignore reanimation and usualy laugh at your armour save..
High strength usually give a minus 1 modifier on reanimation. Heavy Flamers work as well

We are strong, but not invincible,... as the lore suggests

D weapons do not ignore reanimation protocols. They take them at -1. Its what makes it a bit better than FnP.

You're thinking of the Instant Death rule. Destroyer weapons completely ignore Reanimation Proticol on all of its wounds.

Never ever ever compare a unit point for point, model for model. If the game was balanced around that, we would all be playing the same army.

Necrons without the Decurian, not OP....Necrons WITH the Decurian, slightly OP, simply because without Str D, you are not killing their infantry units. They may not do a ton of damage all at once, but over the course of the game they will wear down just about any army, and they can and will weather any non-Str D storm you drop on them, and they will do it with a smile. The more intact units you have at the later stages of the game, the more VPs you are going to potentially earn (depending on the game), and that's where the balance is really tipped.

With the sheer amount of D they have available, its clear that CW Eldar were intended as the hard counter for Necrons. Guess that's how they won the ol' War in Heaven...

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Xerics wrote:

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
Necrons are very good, but no,.. not overpowered.

Necrons are an army that you have to take down squad by squad with massed firepower or D weapons or High toughness weapons. D weapons ignore reanimation and usualy laugh at your armour save..
High strength usually give a minus 1 modifier on reanimation. Heavy Flamers work as well

We are strong, but not invincible,... as the lore suggests

D weapons do not ignore reanimation protocols. They take them at -1. Its what makes it a bit better than FnP.

You're thinking of the Instant Death rule. Destroyer weapons completely ignore Reanimation Proticol on all of its wounds.

Too bad none of the races our group takes have D strength weapons, then. We have a CSM (me), a tyranid (Who also has a Black Templar army), a Blood Angel and a Tau. No Eldar, no Dark Eldar, No Grey Knights, No Imperial Army. So I guess we're just f****d then, huh?^^

Zelles wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Xerics wrote:

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
Necrons are very good, but no,.. not overpowered.

Necrons are an army that you have to take down squad by squad with massed firepower or D weapons or High toughness weapons. D weapons ignore reanimation and usualy laugh at your armour save..
High strength usually give a minus 1 modifier on reanimation. Heavy Flamers work as well

We are strong, but not invincible,... as the lore suggests

D weapons do not ignore reanimation protocols. They take them at -1. Its what makes it a bit better than FnP.

You're thinking of the Instant Death rule. Destroyer weapons completely ignore Reanimation Proticol on all of its wounds.

Too bad none of the races our group takes have D strength weapons, then. We have a CSM (me), a tyranid (Who also has a Black Templar army), a Blood Angel and a Tau. No Eldar, no Dark Eldar, No Grey Knights, No Imperial Army. So I guess we're just f****d then, huh?^^

What was the purpose of this post?

To determine if Necrons are OP. The reply was to "just take D Weapons". BUT if half of the armies you can play don't even have access to D weapons, where does the balanced part come in?

"We make a new codex, and the only reliable and good way to kill its units is to use weapons practically nobody has access to." - Not a good premise, if you ask me.

I define OP as "higher than the middle" and broken as "significantly higher than the middle."

Pre 7e eldar, 7e necrons were fighting with 6e eldar as the most broken book in the game. A clear head and shoulders above any previous 7e book.

...And then the nightmare came, and even 7crons look woefully outclassed, as the true villains of our age emerged.

Not to mention that it shouldn't take Titan-Destroyer type weapons to kill 13pts/unit infantry or 40pts/unit Fast attackers. I thought the fast slot was reserved for relatively fragile but fast units, not for almost invincible ones you'd have to pour 35 Lascannon shots into. 35! That's 12-13 Laspreds.
It's absolutely ridiculous how many points in guns have to shoot at a single Wraith in order to kill it. That, and the completely absurd amount of special rules every single Necron unit gets is what I think makes Necron OP in comparison to other races (except for Eldar, of course).
So - What do I do if I don't want to play Eldar?
On a different note: You don't design a Hard counter against a single race by giving the "hard counter" weapons that can kill EVERY OTHER thing in the game as well. That's not a hard counter, that's creating a race everyone has to play in order to win.

niv-mizzet wrote:

...And then the nightmare came, and even 7crons look woefully outclassed, as the true villains of our age emerged.

I respectfully disagree. 7th Ed. Eldar and Necrons are overall on the same tier. Necrons are tougher than any other army, and would most likely deal with anything Eldar have to offer, bar cheesy combinations like WWP Wraithguard (Which, you shouldn't count that as Eldar being OP, because half of that combo isn't from the Eldar book). And even in that case, it's easily dealt with. Once people learn that Scatriders die easily and Wraithknights die more-or-less the same for most armies, Eldar will be as powerful as they were. No more, no less. Especially because they're either not bringing Wave Serpents (because they actually need other stuff to kill units now) or they're bringing wave serpents, and then of course, they need other stuff to be able to kill units.

But to answer the OP, I've lost a grand total of 3 games with the new codex, one of which is only a technical loss, because my friend didn't know how a rule of his worked, which wouldn't completely turned the game around. Otherwise, when I play casual lists (no wraiths, no destroyers) I've done rather well, and when I pull out the aforementioned, it's either to fight a similarly strong list (and I've won) or if wanted to try them out for the first time (in which case I also won.) Are they OP? With the Decurion and the formation benefits, yes. Compared to other books, they are ridiculously hard to beat, but not unbeatable. Against new Eldar? It's more of an even match, but Necrons still do very well.

Why didn't you just move your marines back so the Spyder had to come out from cover or they lost RP...

 Ferros wrote:
Why didn't you just move your marines back so the Spyder had to come out from cover or they lost RP...

This is my general feeling too. It's easier to blame the game rather than your own bad strategy!

Quick math tells me that Khorne Berzerkers that have been buffed by Blood Tithe will hurt Wraiths reasonably badly on the cherge.

Fun fact: with chain axes, they're also I think the only low-level-ish infantry unit that will beat Flayed Ones (?)

Duh, I did that. Retreated & shot at the wraiths (Spyder still behind LoS blocking cover). His round, spyder came out (So I could've shot it next round) - Wraiths engaged in uber-rape mode and wrapped my squad up in melee (And killed about 10 of them in one go, the rest in my next turn), since, yknow, Infantry can't really outrun 12"-movement-beasts with ignore terrain/move through cover/ignore enemy models in order to shoot what's behind said beasts. So what should've been easy (killing 1 or possibly 2 fast attack models so they don't have the balls to attack a 20 man boltersquad with 2 plasmaguns) and would've been easy against almost every other army with normal, killable fast attack choices became an impossible ordeal through T5, 3++ and 4+ FNP.

Okay, let's do the math. Let's say you have a whole squad of 20 Berzerkers. (They run around 390pts since you don't need the chainaxes because Wraiths have 3++ anyway - I still don't know why they need a 3+ Sv when they have a 3++, but that's another question).
Let's say you charge on your turn and get your rage extra attack.

You got 20 zerkers, one of 'em a champion. So you got a great total of 81 Str 4, AP - attacks (1+1 for pistol+CCW, 2 for Charge). WS 5->WS4 hits on 3+, so 53 of those hit. Str 5 (FC) wounds T5 on 4+, so 26,5 (let's say 27) of those hits deal a wound. Of those 27 wounds, 9 make it through the 3++ save, of those, only 4,5 make it through the FNP save. Congrats - You killed 2 Wraiths Of potentially 6 in a squad. With 390vs240pts, and that's only if you didn't give your zerker squad any extra equipment (Which wouldn't have helped). Again, you could've absolutely obliterated about 10 Terminators with this charge, which cost 300-400pts instead of 2 wraiths for 80 pts. And terminators are supposed to be more or less hard to kill, fluff-wise.
And that's if the Wraiths don't kill anything on their Initiative, which they (with whipcoils) of course could and would before your Zerkers strike:
(Worst case) 6 wraiths have 18 attacks. with BS4, 9 of those hit - with str 6 and rending, most of the time, 9 will wound (2+ rerollable). Of those 9, 3 will go through, which lowers your above attack by 12 attacks. With 68 attacks, you'd deal 3,7 wounds more or less reliably. There's a chance you wouldn't even kill 2 wraiths. With about double the points, you'd kill 40-80 points - Against any other army in the game, such a charge would be absolutely devastating. But Necron Fast attack slots? Nah, they can take it.

Alcibiades wrote:
Quick math tells me that Khorne Berzerkers that have been buffed by Blood Tithe will hurt Wraiths reasonably badly on the cherge.

Fun fact: with chain axes, they're also I think the only low-level-ish infantry unit that will beat Flayed Ones (?)

"Beat" Flayed ones, yes. 10 Zerkers charged 10 of my Flayed Ones, and while they did kill them, it wasn't until 2 and a half turns later, and they lost half their squad in the process. Plus, aren't Zerkers with Chainaxes like, 22 points per model? That performance is rather disheartening when 13 point models tied them up/killed a good bit of them.

 krodarklorr wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Quick math tells me that Khorne Berzerkers that have been buffed by Blood Tithe will hurt Wraiths reasonably badly on the cherge.

Fun fact: with chain axes, they're also I think the only low-level-ish infantry unit that will beat Flayed Ones (?)

"Beat" Flayed ones, yes. 10 Zerkers charged 10 of my Flayed Ones, and while they did kill them, it wasn't until 2 and a half turns later, and they lost half their squad in the process. Plus, aren't Zerkers with Chainaxes like, 22 points per model? That performance is rather disheartening when 13 point models tied them up/killed a good bit of them.

I can't think of any infantry off the top of my head that would do better.

Let's see. 13 Berzerkers with Furious Charge vs. 22 Flayed Ones. (Equal points values)

Berzerkers shoot pistols -- kill (deactivate?) 1 Flayed One. 21 Flayed Ones left.

Berzerkers charge. Kill 12 Flayed Ones. 9 Flayed Ones left.

Flayed Ones hit back -- kill 4.5 Berzekers (round up to 5). 8 Berzerkers left.

Result: Flayed Ones lose combat by 7.

Math-hammer time.
20 chain axe beserkers(455) vs 35 flayed ones (455)

Berserkers charge (assuming 2 BT points)

80 attacks - 54 hits.
54 hits-36 wounds.
18 reanimated(decurion) - 18 dead.

17 flayed ones-68 attacks back
34 hits-25wounds
~8 dead berserkers.
Flayed ones break and run.

Flayed ones charge.
Berserkers get 40 attacks
24 hits-12 wounds-6 dead

29 flayed ones swing.
145 attacks-72 hit-54wounds
18 dead berserkers.

Flayed ones mop-up next round.

Mathematically, whoever gets the charge wins, decisively.

harkequin wrote:

Mathematically, whoever gets the charge wins, decisively.

Oh absolutely. What does it for the Berzerkers is Rage and hopefully Furious Charge.

9 wraiths (whipcoils) 387 vs 20 berserkers 390
Berserker charge.

Wraiths first.
27 attacks-13 hits-2 rend+9 wounds.
5 dead berserkers.


60 attacks-40 hits
20 wounds-7 wounds (3.5 dead wraiths)

Round 2.
wraiths 18 attacks-9 hits-1 Rend+7 wounds
3 dead berserkers

Berserkers, 24 attacks-16 hits-6 wounds
1 dead wraith.

R 3.
15 attacks-7hits-1 rend +6 wounds
3 dead berserkers.

18 attacks-12 hits-4 wounds, (0.5 dead wraiths)

At this point
4 Wraiths - 9 berserkers left, just getting worse for berserkers.

Berserkers charging wraiths is apparently not a good idea. (unless you are trying to tarpit them)

EDIT : didnt notice the wraith maths above me

Zelles wrote:
Duh, I did that. Retreated & shot at the wraiths (Spyder still behind LoS blocking cover). His round, spyder came out (So I could've shot it next round) - Wraiths engaged in uber-rape mode and wrapped my squad up in melee (And killed about 10 of them in one go, the rest in my next turn), since, yknow, Infantry can't really outrun 12"-movement-beasts with ignore terrain/move through cover/ignore enemy models in order to shoot what's behind said beasts. So what should've been easy (killing 1 or possibly 2 fast attack models so they don't have the balls to attack a 20 man boltersquad with 2 plasmaguns) and would've been easy against almost every other army with normal, killable fast attack choices became an impossible ordeal through T5, 3++ and 4+ FNP.

No need to be rude - you left that out. You omitted a relevant fact.

So you had nothing with ignore cover, or was with LOS, no barrage, etc?

Fact is you treat Wraith as this inevitable thing you can do nothing against and as someone who both plays and plays against Necrons, that isn't the case. I think you were either outmanuevered or the terrain just wasn't in your favor but your attitude makes me think the former.

only 4,5 make it through the FNP save

with str 6 and rending, most of the time, 9 will wound (2+ rerollable)

How are they getting RP and shred? Plus the spider shouldn't live past T2 anyway, every gun should point at it to avoid this situation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also I should probably mention that although wraiths are strong, you would have been destroyed by praetorians.

Basically buffed up assault marines.

This is a case of a dedicated CC unit reaching a non-dedicated one, of course it's a massacre. You do have to mitigate this with shooting/positioning.

It's hard to do vs Jump infantry / beasts but it is do-able.
Wraiths are as durable as 2 tac-marines against S7+ AP4+ weapons, (which there are tonnes of)

They are strong, but not unbeatable.