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Hi all,

I see a lot of Necron lists and take interest because I am almost finished my own Necron army (since 2004 - I'm not a fast painter).

I am curious however to see that rarely anyone take Deathmarks when personally I see them as being an outstanding choice:

* They can deep strike (giving you a degree of mobility)
* They can "counter-deep strike" allowing you to upset your opponent's plans to drop behind you
* They have rapid fire sniper rifles that can cause extra mortal wounds (given, the AP is terrible for normal wounds but a good choice again high toughness)
* You can target characters
* They have reanimation protocols with a 3+ armour
* They're relatively cheap when you consider all the above

A unit of 10 for example can deep strike into cover and pour a lot of unwanted focus on your opponent's support characters. 20 shots by itself on normal units is not something to turn your nose up at. All this with a 2+ save (in cover) and a RA roll? Hitting on 2's if they are near enough an Overlord?

What am I missing therefore? I ask because I'm about to buy and paint 10 of them (genuinely tempted to get 20) and worried that I'm missing something obvious and they are really just lemons.

The issue is that there's no room because our good options are stupid expensive.

My explanations in Red.

Sumilidon wrote:

I am curious however to see that rarely anyone take Deathmarks when personally I see them as being an outstanding choice:

* They can deep strike (giving you a degree of mobility) This is okay but rather let down by their mediocre weapons.
* They can "counter-deep strike" allowing you to upset your opponent's plans to drop behind you This is a niche ability at best.
* They have rapid fire sniper rifles that can cause extra mortal wounds (given, the AP is terrible for normal wounds but a good choice again high toughness) From a more pragmatic standpoint, it means that, even if you do land in optimum range, you're only going to get off one shot before you end up dead or locked in combat.)
* You can target characters Except those Sniper Rifles won't do enough to kill all but the weakest characters (and if you use 100-200pts to kill a 35pt IG character, it's probably not a point in your favour. What's more, 12" means they're quite easy to counter (since it's not hard to bubble-wrap your characters such that they can't land within 12" of them).
* They have reanimation protocols with a 3+ armour Reanimation protocols aren't going to do much - especially if you don't take full squads. And a 3+ armour doesn't mean much when you have to land within rapid-fire and charge range of your opponent.
* They're relatively cheap when you consider all the above I don't consider 20pts per model even remotely cheap.

The main issue is that they're a niche unit. A lot of the time, there isn't going to be a good target for them and you'll quickly wish that you'd spent those points elsewhere. What's more, most Necron units are insanely expensive at the moment, so they're rarely going to have points left over to spend on such niche units (especially ones that cost 100-200pts).