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So after alot of thinking about what my first army will be and I've settled on Necrons, but after looking through the codex and the Baal Shield supplement about the Mephrit. Color scheme wise Nihilakh really caught my eye but Mephrit had some interesting rules. But I'm not sure how to put it all together into a durable force that can hit hard when it needs too. I'm having trouble processing it all, like what to equip my units with to be most effective.

Any advice is much appreciated

The standard Decurion Detachment is better than a Mephrit Dynasty Cohort or the other formations in that book.

The Conclave USED to be fun until the FAQ, where they blocked you from taking the Nightbringer as the C'tan shard, and make you take the Transcendant C'tan.

Basically, rule #1 is that you want to build a Reclamation Legion.

Necrons are very straightforward really. Run a Decurion, make sure to include a Canoptek Harvest for an immediate and nigh unkillable threat your opponents will often be forced to unsuccessfully engage, fill out the reclamation legion and the rest to your taste, and you should be able to engage just about anything you face with success. You wont quite match the raw killing power of other armies, but you wont need it, you'll have lots of versatility and gobs of mobility, and probably the most resiliency in the game to boot.

Yeah, you can't lose with Decurion (literally! )

Start by building up the Reclamation Legion minimum requirements, then pick one or more of the formations that catch your fancy, and go from there. There really aren't any bad formations.

Necrons are one of the most easy armies to collect! Reclamation Legion + 1 or more formations, and there you go. If you have more specific questions, that might help us narrow things down and be more helpful.

As far as what to equip, Gauss weapons are better in most cases. The only real exception is the Tesla can potentially be (marginally) better than Gauss if you expect to spend at least half the game out of Rapid Fire range. The classic example is using Tesla Immortals to guard backfield objectives.

Okay so if I'm reading this right on the codex flow chart I can have one option per reclamation Legion so if I wanted can I have a royal court and canoptek harvest and as dedicated transports would ghost arks be better than a nightscythe?

I'd need the codex in front of me, but yes if you wanted I think you can do Reclamation Legion + Royal Court + Canoptek Harvest.

Ghost Arks are great, but they can only transport Necrons Warriors, so just keep that in mind.

I'll echo what has already been said... Build a Decurion.

If you are brand new, then I'd actually advise against the Canoptek Harvest. It adds Beasts and Monstrous Creature rules... which may be more complicated than you want to tackle right away.
Flayed Ones are a good, cheap alternative. Praetorians and Stalker is another good alternative, and T5 models are amazing.
(The Start Collecting helps there). Destroyer Cult is expensive to build but awesome on the table.

And Nightscythes can't attempt to come on until turn 2.

 Rahshen wrote:
Okay so if I'm reading this right on the codex flow chart I can have one option per reclamation Legion so if I wanted can I have a royal court and canoptek harvest and as dedicated transports would ghost arks be better than a nightscythe?

OK now I have the book in front of me.

To play Decurion, you have to have a Reclamation Legion, and 1 (or up to 10) formations. 1 Rpyal Court can be taken, but it doesn't have to be.

There really aren't any bad formations. Some formations might be a little OP, but they'd be a good place to start if you want instant power: those being IMO the Destroyer CUlt, and the Canoptek Harvest. I have the models but have never got around to assembling them for Caoptek Harvest, so I can't talk to much about how that plays out on the table. Destroyer Cult is usually the formation I take, its pretty badass ont he table. Gauss Cannons and Heavy Gauss Cannons on T5 W2 platforms with RP is nothing to sneeze at. That's a hard formation on the wallet, though, as has been mentioned. I lucked into mine a bit because I got a bunch from a dude who was selling off his 40k stuff. Less expensive $-wise options would be a C'Tan (Nightbringer is the best IMO), a unit of Flayed Ones or a unit of Deathmarks.

Flayed Ones, incidentally, can be converted from Necron Warriors fairly easily if you are so inclined. I'm sure there's a tutorial here or on Youtube or something if you go digging.

Destroyer Cult is a powerhouse of shooting. Marines just die to its shooting as AP3 ignores their armor.

Canoptek Harvest is mostly about tying up units. It's not actually super killy. It's about making 3+ invulnerable saves on the wraiths and burying your opponent in scarabs.

The start collecting set is also pretty useful with nigh invincible scarabs and warriors.

How does selecting wargear work for the Overlord the codex says

"May take weapons from Melee Weapons, Ranged Weapons, Technoarcana and/or Artifacts of the Aeons list."

What does that mean, can I take one of each? What's good gear for a Overlord

A Warscythe is the best pick for your Overlord. Either mounted in a Barge, or with a bodyguard of Lychguard.

 Rahshen wrote:
How does selecting wargear work for the Overlord the codex says

"May take weapons from Melee Weapons, Ranged Weapons, Technoarcana and/or Artifacts of the Aeons list."

What does that mean, can I take one of each? What's good gear for a Overlord

Each list will tell you what is necessary to take items from that list.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Rahshen wrote:
How does selecting wargear work for the Overlord the codex says

"May take weapons from Melee Weapons, Ranged Weapons, Technoarcana and/or Artifacts of the Aeons list."

What does that mean, can I take one of each? What's good gear for a Overlord

Each list will tell you what is necessary to take items from that list.

Do they cost points because I can't see any point cost in the wargear lists ( I am using a downloaded PDF of the codex till I start an army)

Decurion + Canoptek Harvest.

Avoid all the vehicles. They look cool, but your points are better spent elsewhere.

I miss the days when people just took what looked cool, regardless of performance :(

f4ction wrote:
I miss the days when people just took what looked cool, regardless of performance :(

A lot of people still do. I mean personally I like my cool looking models to have a bit of bite on the table, there's nothing wrong with wanting to maintain a semblance of competivity to your army. But generally I don't want to buy, build and paint a model that I don't like the look of. If I'm going to spend a week painting a kit then I want to be enthused by the look of it.

i have painted my crons Nihilakh style, check out my gallery if you want an idea of one possibility with them.

Also avoid annihilation barges. Useless. 1000% pointless. Dont run the annihilation nexus. Doomsday ark can be good in CAD's vs certain armies. Sit it in a corner and blast the everloving hell out of things. Build a decurion first off, but there is a lot of fun to be had running CAD's, many more options to play with. But learn your army and its strengths and weakness of the units before playing about with CAD's

 Rahshen wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:

 Rahshen wrote:
How does selecting wargear work for the Overlord the codex says

"May take weapons from Melee Weapons, Ranged Weapons, Technoarcana and/or Artifacts of the Aeons list."

What does that mean, can I take one of each? What's good gear for a Overlord

Each list will tell you what is necessary to take items from that list.

Do they cost points because I can't see any point cost in the wargear lists ( I am using a downloaded PDF of the codex till I start an army)

Points for this stuff are on Page 65 in the hardback version. It should be on the page immediately before the Data sheet for the Overlord .

Other than our characters and the Tomb blades, nothing in our army is very customizable.
For me, I like my Tomb Blades with the 3+ save and ignores armor special rule. I generally run them with Gauss but have heard others having luck with the blast. Mine end up jinking too much to get use out of the blast or tesla.
Overlords - I add the invuln save and the warscythe. As far as relics, Nightmare is good with the 2+ save, or the Veil to redeploy via deepstrike. You can take those options on Court Lords and Crypteks, but I feel that those models are over costed.
Generally, a few of our special characters are much better than others. Even those, you really only see them in deathstars.
Orikan can go crazy when he evolves... he gets MC stats, even though he stays and IC. Plus he lets his unit reroll saves of 1... damn useful when you have some 2+/3++ saves tanking the wounds.
Oberyon is my favorite Lord. He comes with the Warscythe and a really good Veil of his own.
Immotehk is our Lord of War, but can be taken as an Overlord in the Royal Court. Makes Flayed Ones more fun to play. Has the Necron equivalent of Orbital Bombardment... which is fun. DOesn't necessarily need to be in a Deathstar.
Zahndrehk is fun if you can predict what Warlord trait you will need any given turn.

Zandrekh has always been my HQ of choice. He got alot cheaper with the new codex, and IMHO he's probably one of the most useful HQs point-for-point that I've ever played in any army. After Round 1, you can pick any Warlord Trait you like, camp on it for as many rounds as you like, then select any other one you like in any Round. Target Priority in particular is pretty nasty in a Necron army which seems to get a ton of reroll anyway, but I've also found the traits on the Strategic table to come in handy with trying to interfere with opponent reserves, and also boosting your own reserves.

He brings alot of guacamole to the party for his relatively low points cost. There's some synergy with Obyron there, for sure.

I know there's some definite advantages to one HQ over the other, but I really think there's something fun about each one of the named HQs. They all sort of run some unique interference into a game that makes the game play out differently if you have the opportunity to use their special rules.