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Hey,

As the title says I've taken quite a break from playing Necrons, which were my first army in 40k. I first played them when they had their rules only in White Dwarf and the 3rd edition codex is still the one I'm most familiar with. I've read about them quite a lot and I know that the army is ridiculously durable and all that. What I don't know is how to build a 7th edition Necron list that can actually pack a punch and win some games. I went through my old miniatures and here's what I found:

1 Destroyer Lord
1 Lord
5 Destroyers
24 Warriors
7 Immortals (the old metal ones, I seem to have lost one somewhere)
8 Flayed Ones
1 Nightbringer
6 Scarab Swarms
1 Monolith

Which of this stuff is still actually usable? As in worth taking, I know that all those guys do have their rules in the new codex too. I also have a bunch of the old metal warriors lying around, maybe could use those as Deathmarks or something. So what should I get more of? What should I just completely forget about? Wraiths are an obvious pick and so are the jetbikes if I want to run Decurion.

Forget the flayed ones. Everything else is still very playable though.

Warriors and immortals are great. As much as people love Tesla, I still kit everyone out with Gauss to just glance any armour to death

Everything else you have is great. There's a formation with Warriors and a monolith to improve your resurrection protocols and I believe you have the bits for that formation.

Scarabs are still great, though not as horrifying to enemy armour as they once were. The only thing I would look to add to your list might be a flier or some wraiths.

 disdamn wrote:
Forget the flayed ones. Everything else is still very playable though.

Warriors and immortals are great. As much as people love Tesla, I still kit everyone out with Gauss to just glance any armour to death

Everything else you have is great. There's a formation with Warriors and a monolith to improve your resurrection protocols and I believe you have the bits for that formation.

Scarabs are still great, though not as horrifying to enemy armour as they once were. The only thing I would look to add to your list might be a flier or some wraiths.

Okay, that's a good thing to hear. I never even liked the flayed ones and the old metal minis were a pain to assemble, the hands just keep falling off. And it's kind of funny to hear you say that about the Scarabs, they actually were pretty scary when they were first introduced. Eating vehicle armor, toughness 8 (yes, eight) and that disruption zone that messed with your enemies' shooting and melee... good times!

Actually, Flayed Ones are one of the most solid units in the codex. You're a bit light on them numbers wize for getting good use of them, but they could absolutely serve as a cheap distraction that'll turn into a more serious problem if ignored.

The Monolith though? Dead weight. There's a few ways to force it to do passable work for you, including with the aforementioned White Dwarf exclusive formation, but it remains point for point one of the few poor units in an otherwise well-internally balanced codex.

Scarabs just took a huge effectiveness hit, and I would say are now rather unpleasantly overpriced unless you combo them with a lot, and I mean 6+, Spyders to generate free ones.

Nightbringer? Best of the avaliable C'tan. C'tan take a huge jump in effectiveness from underwhelming to pretty great if combined with the supplementarry rules from the Exterminatus campaign though.

In fact, I would say the other person giving you information is out of date: He thinks people still love Tesla, which took a sharp nosedive from tactically superior to situational at absolute best where a gauss equivalent exists.

What to buy?

The Destroyer Cult formation is great. 4 regular and 3-6 Heavy Destroyers on top of what you already have will give you a good one.

And fairly importantly, some sort of dedicated combat prescence. Wraiths are good, but you have multiple options there depending on preference/strategy/fluff.

The biggest piece of advice I could give you is to pick up the new codex. Necrons have changed a lot since 3rd editon, and in ways you might not like.

Let the formations the book gives for Necrons guide you though the list-building process. A lot of them include the standard units you would normally take for Necrons and make them better!

Scarabs got a bit slower since third edition, and more expensive, but their armour-eating is the same as it was in third.

Warriors are rubbish now, with a mere 4+ save. Immortals now are what Warriors were then, only with S5AP4 instead of S4AP5.

Lords are W1 now, the old Lord is the new Overlord, who has a fancier body. They also introduced Crypteks, who are basically Warriors that are an HQ choice and have a Staff of Light. Not great, but they boost your WBB to 4+ (it's now a 5+ feel no pain type save called Resurrection Protocols).

changemod wrote:
Actually, Flayed Ones are one of the most solid units in the codex. You're a bit light on them numbers wize for getting good use of them, but they could absolutely serve as a cheap distraction that'll turn into a more serious problem if ignored.

The Monolith though? Dead weight. There's a few ways to force it to do passable work for you, including with the aforementioned White Dwarf exclusive formation, but it remains point for point one of the few poor units in an otherwise well-internally balanced codex.

Scarabs just took a huge effectiveness hit, and I would say are now rather unpleasantly overpriced unless you combo them with a lot, and I mean 6+, Spyders to generate free ones.

Nightbringer? Best of the avaliable C'tan. C'tan take a huge jump in effectiveness from underwhelming to pretty great if combined with the supplementarry rules from the Exterminatus campaign though.

In fact, I would say the other person giving you information is out of date: He thinks people still love Tesla, which took a sharp nosedive from tactically superior to situational at absolute best where a gauss equivalent exists.

What to buy?

The Destroyer Cult formation is great. 4 regular and 3-6 Heavy Destroyers on top of what you already have will give you a good one.

And fairly importantly, some sort of dedicated combat prescence. Wraiths are good, but you have multiple options there depending on preference/strategy/fluff.

Agreed on most points.

Flayed Ones are stupid. They are a cheap distraction unit (anyone who knows anything will shoot them first), and if they do make it to CC, they'll destroy any infantry in the game. They are totally worth considering.

Warriors are not rubbish, and Immortals are also good. both are annoying hard to kill.

The Monolith doesn't get enough credit. Sure, it's not hyper-competitive, but most codexes only have 3-4 "competitive" units anyway. In casual games, the Monolith will wreck gak.

Scarabs aren't super good, but certainly usable. I would get some Wraiths and a Spyder and run a Canoptek Harvest if you want to use them, though.

Nightbringer is the best C'Tan, though in this game where S6-7 is easily spammable, they are usually wasted points. In casual games though, they are awesomely fun.

Yeah, most people don't care for Tesla now, so not sure if he's still talking about the 5th edition codex or not.