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Xyphal wrote:
Dear wargamers,

For too long have the Necrontyrs slumbered nerfed as they are. Let them be glorious again !

-Reanimation protocols and complete squad annihilation:
Make Resurrection orb a one use item activatable item when a squad is wiped out within 12.
Give the squad the opportunity to make 10 (all?) reanimation rolls at the beginning of Necron turn.
Keep one model of the squad on the ground as reference point.
The models must be placed as close as possible to that model and the Necron deployment zone.

-Chronometron and their 3 inch range. Come on guys, Orks even have 9.
Make Chronometron 6 at least and affect all Necron[Dynsaty] units.

-Vehicles and their T6. Why nerf the army because it has quantum shielding ?
Make
Triarch stalker T7
Ghost ark T7
Doomsday ark T7
Canoptek spider becomes a vehicle or character, grant it living metal
Doomscythe T7
Nightscythe T7

-Entropic strike stratagem 1 attack only
I really like everything that make Necrons have unique advantages over technology.
This one should read: "the next time this model activates in the combat phase, invulnerable saves cannot be taken against close combat attack made by this character this activation."
So as to prevent Novokh double fight phase shennanigans but improve the danger of those (few) melee attacks.

Necrons are not nerfed and they are not weak, Necrons got the biggest buff out of any faction in the latest CA if you ignore the nerf of our TVault crutch and even then I'd like my odds of facing an old triple Vault list with my modern list. Necrons only other ever nerf was the removal of our Pylon crutch, see a pattern? Necrons get a lot of buffs and the only things they nerf are stupid Titanic crutches. Extermination Protocols haven't been nerfed despite everyone and their mom knowing it's one of the most OP Stratagems in the game, why? Because GW doesn't want to upset us, it would be totally fair to nerf it given that it is unbalanced and costs too little CP.

- ResOrb needs to be changed/buffed in some way, I think it could impart a permanent bonus as well as the one-use ability, that'd make it a lot less swingy as well. The majority of games it does nothing. If it allowed units within 3" to flee with dead models that are waiting to reanimate instead of taking the models still on the table I could see some more uses for the ResOrb, it would also make its main function more easy to use, without punishing your opponent for killing the entire squad, instead punishing them for leaving a few left to die from morale. I think what you suggested is a little too complicated for 8th.
- Orks have to be entirely within 9", within 3" would be better for Orks and entirely within 9" would be better for Necrons but one isn't really better than the other, it depends on unit size, it's quite easy to snake a model within 3" of a Cryptek while the other 15 are in melee 15" away. The Ork item is insanely strong, we'd need to nerf a large amount of units before the Cryptek can become as good as the Big Mek with KFF, Necrons are not weak ATM. Otherwise, the Chronometron would have to go up 30 or so pts. Doomsday Arks are a big problem, ever tried putting 3 with a Gauss Pylon? That's a lot of firepower that's quite hard to shift with shooting, especially lascannons are useless against DDAs with a 5++, a Pylon can at least be shot, a Cryptek cannot.
-QS is much stronger this edition to what it was previously, losing open-topped is a huge deal as well. If QS shut off at 50% or 25% damage then maybe I could get behind a T increase.

I don't think many people would like it when you pay 1 CP to cut a character's survivability in three. I've already used the Stratagem a number of times for when I really needed to kill something. It'd basically mean you can very nearly guarantee the murder of any Character with the Nightbringer. Consider how much CP you need to invest into a Smash Captain to double his damage output, you want to double or triple your output for 1 CP? With your suggestion Entropic Strike becomes one of our strongest Stratagems and a key thing for our opponents to know. Noob traps are not fun. These kinds of niche Stratagems need to be fairly costed in terms of CP so that any opponent that doesn't know you can pull this gak out of your hat doesn't feel cheated. If you deep strike 20 Warriors 11.9" away from a unit of Kastellan Robots and you lose 20 Warriors for 2 CP you wouldn't feel so good about it would you? You cannot know every Stratagem and the ones that swing games because of small mistakes that you cannot know without knowing every single Stratagem are unfun.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Idk, T6 feels like a balance decision due to QS. Flyers could use QS too though; they feel really flimsy, and considering how expensive and important they are (one of the few transport options available) having them survive for more than a turn would be nice.

I would actually move Entropic Strike from being a stratagem to a C'tan power, replacing Seismic Assault (which is gak). You use it to buff a necron squad (or the C'tan itself. 3rd ed FTW) so that one of their attacks (per model) in CC ignore invuls.
And before anyone calls OP - Null Zone and death hex exists, and that's not restricted to CC.

The Doom Wing is too popular to give our flyers QS, unless you heavily nerfed Amalgamated Targeting Data. Giving them T7 would make sense when you compare it to other vehicles transition to 8th. I don't think anything is going to make the Tomb World worth using, it's almost always just a gakky version of a regular transport. How would you like to pay 1 CP to get out of your transport without losing 1/6 guys or lose 6/6 if you pay 0 CP or wait until turn 4 instead of losing 1/6 guys? The core idea of having multiple units to choose from is useless when my opponent can shoot down the Tomb Portals that are in a place where he doesn't want me to deep strike and when putting multiple units on the Tomb World risks me losing a huge investment if my opponent destroys all my Tomb Portals. The Tomb World needs to have some inherent value over a regular transport to be worth using at all, I don't understand how 8th could get it so wrong when 5th and 7th both it at least sort of right.

I'm not sure why you want to input a totally unrelated power into what is otherwise a list of powers solely focussed on dealing damage at range. Now if it worked like Jinx or Death Hex that'd make more sense IMO, but again would introduce feels badsies if you ever pull it out for 1CP and suddenly murder your opponent's 3++ Terminators. Seismic Assault is totally fair, you really don't need every power to be worthwhile, yes if you have 3 C'tan one of them will have to have it, but you can just put it on your Deceiver and replace it with Cosmic Fire T1, it's also amazing on the Tesseract Vault, 10 MWs to a mob of Ork Boyz? Yes, please. Even just killing 5 with a Shard is superior to many of our other options against Orks.

QS increases survivability by 0%, 20%, 50%, 28%, 125% against 1, 2, 3, d3, d6 damage weapons.

QD increases survivability by a further 20%, 25%, 33%, 27%, 60%. I use Quantum Deflection all the time, I find that a 20% is too little to be worth it, but D3 damage and above I use it. One thing to note is that QD working against D1 goes against the core rules and will no longer be true if they choose to remove the FAQ telling us we can use it.

dapperbandit wrote:
Lord aura ability increased to 6"

It already is. I don't think Monoliths need to be anywhere near a Knight in terms of pts, offense or defence, it just deserves another pts drop of similar magnitude to what it received last time. Obelisk I think deserves a rules change to make its anti-FLY ability useful against armies with fewer than 10 units with Fly. Just make it a 2+ against a unit of your choice, at best you are dealing D3 wounds to a DP or Alaitoc flyer, nothing much compared to its size and cost.

Cynista wrote:
As usual vict0988 hasn't got a clue what he's talking about when it comes to Necrons.

Necrons are not nerfed and they are not weak

They were objectively nerfed the hardest from 7th to 8th edition. They are objectively one of the weaker factions right now.

Necrons got the biggest buff out of any faction in the latest CA

In terms of what? The biggest winners overall were Tau, by far. In terms of points decreases, lots of factions had reductions comparable to Necrons; Eldar, AdMech, Tau, Tryanids.

Necrons get a lot of buffs

No they didn't. They got a lot of small points decreases, which in many cases didn't go far enough and several units that desperately needed decreases didn't get them.

Extermination Protocols haven't been nerfed despite everyone and their mom knowing it's one of the most OP Stratagems in the game

The only reason Destroyers work at all for 50 points per model is because of this strat and because it's 1CP. It's in no way OP and wouldn't even feature in the top 20 strats in the game.

why? Because GW doesn't want to upset us

Citation needed. GW don't want to upset anyone explicitly. You're being ridiculous.

Personal attacks are classy.

I wasn't talking about 7th edition, that was 2 years ago and not really relevant. Necrons were trash in the Index, having exactly 1 relatively good unit and a low number of decent units, we have only gotten better since CA2017 and CA2017 didn't buff our units because the codex was imminent.

Broadsides were bad and were made incredible, but they aren't actually much better than Riptides, CA2018 gave Tau a wealth of more options to choose from in terms of competitive armies, but overall didn't make them much better. The fact that Tau are doing well is as much because of the nerfs to the competition as it is the meagre buffs they got in CA2018. Tau had 10 units change in price, Necrons had 22, Tau 14 pieces of wargear change cost, Necrons had 8. Necrons got a single nerf, let's assume Tau got none, that's still way in favour of Necrons. I'd like to see a list that anyone took before CA2018 with Tau get more than a hundred pts decreased, on the other hand you practically cannot make a Necron list where that is the case. Eldar got nerfed if anything in CA2018, Windriders becoming good was irrelevant, good lists were made without them and continue to be made without them. As for Tyranids...

Both the Tesla Immortal and DDA buffs went too far. It's obvious that buffs don't always go far enough, if you want to ensure that every buffed unit becomes at least viable you're basically guarenteeing that at least some of them will become OP, we are what 5 months out from the next CA and Necrons are already winning tournaments in numbers that fit pretty well with how many Necron players attend those tournaments.

Hehehehe. Strats that increase firepower by 100% for 2 CP are amazing, but increasing firepower by 33%-90% for 1 CP isn't that good... I don't think the Strat needs to be changed, I'm fine with Destroyers where they are now and I prefer seeing a single unit of them once in a while compared to running a whole Destroyer wing every game like was the case in 7th. I agree that Destroyers might need a pts to decrease if the Strat was increased to 2 CP and it isn't really fair when you compare it to the most outrageously OP Strats other factions have, but I'm of the opinion that the whole competitive scene needs to be put on its head with sweeping changes to Strats and pts and setting a whole new baseline instead of trying to make every unit compete with the most competitive lists of today, that route is just going to lead to power creep. Power creep is cancerous for strategy games and especially for a modelling game like 40k. Why would I buy a unit if I knew GW was trying to spin the creep wheel instead of trying to bring everything into a relative state of balance?

I don't have proof of GW's intent, they may nerf us next CA and buff Eldar, but their record so far is promising, their main feth-up was writing gakky index rules for Necrons but I believe things will get better.

Cynista wrote:

Personal attacks are classy.

You would know

I wasn't talking about 7th edition, that was 2 years ago and not really relevant. Necrons were trash in the Index, having exactly 1 relatively good unit and a low number of decent units, we have only gotten better since CA2017 and CA2017 didn't buff our units because the codex was imminent.

Claiming that Necrons are not weak because they are better now than in the index is a complete fallacy. Every army is better now than in the indexes. Necrons are still bottom half

CA2018 gave Tau a wealth of more options to choose from in terms of competitive armies, but overall didn't make them much better.

Having a wealth of options by definition makes them a lot better than they were.

Tau had 10 units change in price, Necrons had 22, Tau 14 pieces of wargear change cost, Necrons had 8. Necrons got a single nerf, let's assume Tau got none, that's still way in favour of Necrons.

You are spinning this. Whilst Necrons had more units reduced, Tau had bigger average reductions per model. And yes, the nerfs to other factions did help the Tau more than anyone, glad you agree

Eldar got nerfed if anything in CA2018

Lol, just no. They got tons of reductions making more things viable. Only SS went up 6 points p/m

As for Tyranids... Necrons are stronger than Nids, they are primarily used as part of Genestealer Cult armies, not a standalone force.

Again, no. Nids aren't tremendously strong but they are comfortably mid tier with a much more rounded, versatile, internally balanced codex than Necrons. But then that wasn't even my point and you know it. My point was that Tyranids got sweeping points reductions in CA18

Both the Tesla Immortal and DDA buffs went too far.

Good joke. Tesla Immortals are one of the only appropriately priced units in the book and DDA's aren't even that good.

I don't think the Strat needs to be changed, I'm fine with Destroyers where they are now and I prefer seeing a single unit of them once in a while compared to running a whole Destroyer wing every game like was the case in 7th. I agree that Destroyers might need a pts to decrease if the Strat was increased to 2 CP

Good, I'm happy to see you've changed your tune because your earlier assertion that their strat is OP is absolute nonsense

As far as I can see I've never personally attacked you, rebuking your bad ideas doesn't have anything to do with personal attacks.

Necrons being bottom half is not the same as saying they are one of the worst or bottom tier. I also didn't claim Necrons weren't weak because they got better in CA2018 or even that them being the most buffed faction in CA2018 makes them good, the pts costs they currently have make them good.

Necrons have more unit diversity than Tau in lists that make it to top 5 at big tournaments, only within the last 2 months have we seen a massive snaring of the range of Necron lists, but we still see some range, not really any less than Tau. I don't personally find most Tau lists that scary, only the Broadside and/or Riptide spam lists supported made invincible by OOLOS Drones.

Can you back that average up or do I have to go through the changes myself to prove that it isn't the case, I could be wrong but Necrons got a very hefty decrease in pts just on paper. In reality Necrons got the good end of the stick, with the practically mandatory 3 DDAs alone you save 90 pts, usually you see lists being about 2200 in old cost for Necrons, while Tau still field lists that would only cost 2050 pts in old cost or even less. Even if they really ramp it up you won't see more than 2200 in old pts. The fact is that all the key Tau units got no changes and only the underplayed units got buffs. Only a fraction of the Necron dex went untouched, the fact that our most common Troops choice went down 2 ppm or 13% is huge, our most or second most used choice also going down 30 ppm or 18% is beyond amazing.

Farseer, Dark Reapers, Fire Dragons, Warlocks and Wave Serpents went up in pts as well. Striking Scorpions went down 3 ppm, Reece from Frontline Gaming says his Biel-tan footdar list is good, is that what's beating you up? Is that why you say they got buffed?

Necrons were weaker than Tyranids pre CA2018, they were stronger after. Ergo, Necrons got a bigger buff from CA2018 than Nids. Which is why you mostly see Nids topping as allies for Cult lists. The unit diversity for Nids has been abysmal IMO, where can I see these diverse lists you speak of? Do Exocrines, Harpies, Haruspexes, Hive Crones, Lictors, Maleceptors, Pyrovores, Tervigons, Toxicrenes, Tyranid Primes, Tyrannofexes, Deathleaper or the Red Terror get used? No, the majority of these buffs were too small to make them viable, so which units actually got buffs? The Swarmlord which was in my experience an already popular build, but overall CA2018 wasn't amazing for pure Nids.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
What if Triarch praetorians had a 6" bubble that gave morale immunity? That might make them more useful.

It would, but I'm not sure how much, I think they are already enough of a priority target over things you might want to make Fearless that it wouldn't be a big difference. You might be able to put a squad of 5 in an L ruin and get some value out of them by snaking 3-4 squads in range of their Aura and using them to counter-charge anything that comes near. I think they are fun as is, ideally they'd be 2-5 pts less expensive, but I enjoy them for what they are. I win a lot of my casual games where I use them, mostly because of the one squad of Immortals and one squad of Destroyers in that list, so GW would have to buff a tonne of units from other factions before I'd feel it was justified to buff Praetorians. They aren't viable for competitive but they aren't total trash either, except against plasma, but they should be trash against plasma, unless you maybe wanted to give them a 5++ or let them benefit from all Aura abilities.

Cynista wrote:
I'm not going to bother with this any more because I know you don't have anything new to say.

Not perhabs because I refuted every one of your pts and you forgot that several other Craftworld units other than the one you mentioned got nerfed? You act like everything you say was handed down by god, saying my arguments and opinions are inherently flawed, do you even know what that means? In case you didn't know subjectivity is implied when you discuss something. Except when you just make personal attacks and accusations of wrong-doing, without pointing out exactly when and how that wrong-doing was done. Believe it or not, I don't want to push anyone out of the proposed rules or tactics community nor make anyone feel bad, maybe I do when people call me names and accuse me of doing this that or the other wrong, but I didn't start by saying how your every opinion is gak because it comes out of your keyboard, I said you have some opinions I disagree with and I don't see how that can be controversial when I pointed out exactly how and why you are wrong, meanwhile you say I belittle people? Have you read what YOU are writing?

I believe that Necrons are not the weakest faction because reason A, B and C is different from saying you're a prick for not agreeing with me and your opinions are inherently bad. How were any of my arguments inherently flawed? As long as they do not contradict themselves they are not inherently flawed. Like saying someone is nice and recently killed a dozen good people for fun is inherently flawed. Saying that you believe Necrons are stronger than some people on the internet make them out to be is not inherently a flawed argument.


That's a strawman. I already said that it is the current pts costs of our most competitive units that make it possible for Necrons to do well at tournaments and in general, it doesn't matter where the buffs came from or how big the buffs are in relation to other factions only that our current costs are pretty good in relation to those of other factions, top tier? Maybe not, maybe right below the middle, but saying Necrons are trash tier is ill-informed from all the tournaments Necrons have topped and how few Necron players attend tournaments.

You keep saying how amazing it is that several Necron units went down ~30pts, but fail to acknowledge they were vastly over-pointed beforehand, which is why over half of the units were adjusted. But when you look through the points reductions and add them all up, dividing by the number of units changed, you'll find that Necrons went down on average about 21 points and Tau about 30 points. This is of course skewed by weapons and wargear because several Tau weapon options went down massively, but the conclusion remains the same.

So if Tau had gotten a 1 pt DECREASE on 10 more Drone models they'd have an average reduction of 15 and therefore get less of a buff from CA2018 than Necrons got. You should become a politician. Nice try, now try listing the number of Tau units and Necrons units that went down 0-10%, 10-15%, 15-20% and more than 20% after wargear. The conclusion is as flawed as the methodology, how about you compare twip or win rate of Necrons pre and post CA2018 in tournaments and Tau pre and post CA2018 or your own win rate with Necrons compared to that of your buddies playing Tau.

If you lose more against Tau after CA2018 than before I don't even know what to tell you, my favourite list would be 2200 in old pts, my strongest list would be over 2200 pts, meanwhile Tau can field a triptide list with a bunch of shield drones, fire warriors, an Ethereal, the markerlight HQ, three Commanders using the exact same pts before and after CA2018 and those lists do amazingly well in tournaments, just as good as the other options available to the Tau now. Meanwhile Necrons had absolutely no luck in tournaments without at least two TVaults, that option got slashed and we got new options instead. The Doomwing is nowhere near mandatory. You know what I do want to belittle you if you if you lose more now than you used to, maybe your opponents started taking the game more seriously and trying to win and you got too caught up in whining about your faction not being in the top half and how everything GW ever does to you is gak, so learn to play and stop being an ass at people. You had a bunch of nice suggestions for how Necrons could be changed though

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You're not seriously suggesting Necrons are in even an okay spot?

That depends on what you mean by an okay spot? I don't think the game as a whole is in an okay spot, it's a rocky spot and I still complain and I still make suggestions for improving the game. I'd say things could be a lot worse, but not a lot better without being too good. I'd say Necrons are in a good place when a double Monolith list makes top 5 at a tournament with more than 20 players, what do you mean by good spot? What do you actually demand that GW do for you as a Necron player? Everything in this thread is going to be ignored, it's just pointless wish-listing, I don't mean that in a bad way I enjoy wish-listing and game design, it's just hard to implement and GW probably won't do it within the next 24 months.

It is the same thing with CA2018, you could either expect to get absolutely canned and for us to get two or three units buffs or you could expect the whole codex to be revived, viable Spyders and RP and Tomb World mechanics fixed. I was pleasantly surprised and at the same time disappointed with CA2018, GW is still gak at balancing the game and creating simple rules that are easy to understand, but they are trying more than ever and the 2020 format will be best we've ever had and it'll still be imperfect.

Cynista wrote:
Like I said, nothing new to say, just a whole bunch of projection

You keep wondering why I purposely dug you out - you have an extremely poor attitude toward online discourse which you have displayed several times in the official Necron thread, towards myself and others. It usually goes something like: You're wrong about XYZ but without any kind of logical reasoning, just a snide insistence that your opinion is correct and a snarky remark. That's why I had no problem calling you out in this one (this is the point where you demand evidence, and I roll my eyes) and you don't like it when someone's doing the same to you.

As usual you ignored all the relevant talking points and direct questions relating to your assertions and spun the narrative. Your misinterpretation of my point regarding Tau and subsequent rant is truly baffling.

Since you didn't even try to actually address my post, I won't with yours. I'm done with this little spat, I've said all I need to.

With that out of the way, as you seemed to like my ideas for improving Necrons, why don't we all get back on track and talk about that, the purpose of this thread.

You keep acting like you made any points but you haven't. You still refuse to point how I've ever been nasty or mean to you or anyone else, while continuing being a git toward me for not agreeing with you or your whining. Try looking up the stats for Necrons in 2018 and in 2019 on 40kstatsdotcom, compare that difference to that of Tau. I know you haven't checked these stats, so why don't you tell that to the rest of the thread what exactly happened between those two years to make that discrepancy so huge for the Necrons and so tiny for Tau?

Darsath wrote:
If Necrons were as popular (or as good) as you make them out to be, then they wouldn't need any changes anyways. Mid tier is where all armies should be.

Even if every army is mid-tier that does not necessitate good internal balance or well designed rules for the faction. Do you think TBs, Tesla Immortals and DDAs need buffs? I also never said the faction is popular, but 3,7% of the field doesn't sound like too little for me. That's only a bit less than Tau. I'd like Tau to be less popular than Necron because the faction's design is more toxic than that of Necrons, on the other hand Necrons can't be too good because of the snowball effect of all the healing the faction has. It'd just be too frustrating to play against Necrons with a 60% win-rate, unless the winning was based on Canoptek units.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Seeing as Tesla Immortals are only good with MWBD and Arks are only mediocre...yeah.

You honestly feel this way? What would convince you otherwise? In the last 12 big tournaments that took place in the previous 14 days Necrons placed top four 5 times. Tau placed top four 4 times. Tesla Immortals were used in 3 of those lists and Doomsday Arks were used in 3 of those lists. Do Riptides and Fire Warriors need buffs?

Darsath wrote:
You make a compelling argument as to why Necrons do not need any buffs. I'm sure Necron buffs would naturally be a negative for you.

Nice strawman buddy. Necrons =/= 5 units. Buffing the remaining units =/= buffing those 5 units. I'm adamant that Tesla Immortals, G/T TBs, DDAs, DScythes, Destroyers don't need buffs.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Seeing as Tesla Immortals are only good with MWBD and Arks are only mediocre...yeah.

You honestly feel this way? What would convince you otherwise? In the last 12 big tournaments that took place in the previous 14 days Necrons placed top four 5 times. Tau placed top four 4 times. Tesla Immortals were used in 3 of those lists and Doomsday Arks were used in 3 of those lists. Do Riptides and Fire Warriors need buffs?

"Big tournaments"
Imma need a source on that.

https://www.40kstats.com/top-4s

Darsath wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Darsath wrote:
You make a compelling argument as to why Necrons do not need any buffs. I'm sure Necron buffs would naturally be a negative for you.

Nice strawman buddy. Necrons =/= 5 units. Buffing the remaining units =/= buffing those 5 units. I'm adamant that Tesla Immortals, G/T TBs, DDAs, DScythes, Destroyers don't need buffs.

You yourself have said that the army is in a fine spot as is in this very thread, dude.

That depends on what you mean by an okay spot? I don't think the game as a whole is in an okay spot, it's a rocky spot and I still complain and I still make suggestions for improving the game. I'd say things could be a lot worse, but not a lot better without being too good. I'd say Necrons are in a good place when a double Monolith list makes top 5 at a tournament with more than 20 players, what do you mean by good spot? What do you actually demand that GW do for you as a Necron player? Everything in this thread is going to be ignored, it's just pointless wish-listing, I don't mean that in a bad way I enjoy wish-listing and game design, it's just hard to implement and GW probably won't do it within the next 24 months.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
It counted a tournament with only 28 players?

This is the document you really wish to use for your statistics on Necrons being fine? Are you SURE?

Yes, per ITC's definition that's a grand tournament, per my understanding of the English language grand is a synonym of big, using the statistics of big tournaments to prove a point seems perfectly rational. You could limit data to purely majors, supermajors or LVO, but why would you? If Tau Empire is tier 1, Necrons tier 4, what would be the chance they do better in either RTTs, GTs or Majors than them in any given two-week period? I don't attend any majors and the one or two RTTs I attend every year uses a unique mission set, I can't really draw any conclusions from that. My own personal practice and casual games go extremely well, but I'm lucky, so I don't think it's worth more than recommending that people try what I try, I understand if what I do only works because I'm skilled at rolling dice. I never said Necrons are going to win you all the majors you attend, but if you bring the most meta lists and you play well you can top and win the GTs and RTTs you attend and what more do you really need?

Toughness represents the difficulty with which an armour piercing object has of causing significant damage.

Sv represents the difficulty with which a non-armour piercing object has of causing significant damage.

Now should Necrons be difficult to kill with armour piercing objects or with non-armour piercing objects? I think the latter. That's why Necrons' main defensive trait should be their Sv rather than T. Especially poison sticks out like a sore thumb for units like Lychguard or Triarch Praetorians, now you can fix that very easily by giving all Necrons the vehicle keyword and that fixes most of that problem, but it still doesn't make armour piercing weapons a great counter for Necrons and non-armour piercing weapons a poor solution for Necrons, something I'd argue would make a lot of sense.

Warriors should be 1W T3 3+ Sv, same for Immortals, except 2W. HQ, Lychguard and Praetorians should be T3 as well, I'm not sure how vulnerable I'd want them to be vs AP vs non-AP weapons so either 2+ or 3+ Sv and either a lot of wounds or a giant amount of wounds. That's if you wanted things to make sense in terms of how the models look, you don't look at Lychguard and think, "those are probably relatively easy to kill with poison weaponry".

Making all Necrons Vehicles would create a lot of feels-bads for Drukhari, while with my suggestion it wouldn't be worse than playing against Sisters of Battle. On some level, I would still like to see all Necrons getting the vehicle keyword, except for the small C'tan, those I'd want to give a 2+ Sv to.

Slipspace wrote:
With how lethal 40k is right now I think upping the Immortals to T5 seems reasonable. Frankly, I don't really care about what distinctions you want to make between Toughness and Save and what they represent. Both are defensive stats that can be tweaked to alter survivability and I think changing Toughness on Immortals would give the correct "feel" for the unit and make them much less vulnerable to small arms fire.

It wouldn't make any difference vs s3, s4 is popular and about to get more popular, but should S4 be more or equally efficient as s3 vs Immortals? Should poison be more effecient against heavily armoured humans or robots? I don't think it makes sense for you to say that Immortals feel too squishy, so the feel is wrong, but neglect the feeling that the change you wish to implement would have. That of a unit that is very hard to kill, but relatively much easier to kill if you have poison, or a large amount of low-S AP0 shots.

dapperbandit wrote:
I have a hard time taking a request for T3 Necron Infantry seriously. In no way is a Necron warrior as squishy as a guardsman.

A 3+ Sv yields 2x as durable unit as a 5+ Sv against AP0 weapons, I did not argue for Necron Warriors to be as squishy as guardsmen.

Slipspace wrote:
You seem very fixated on poison for some reason. Making an entire army immune to another entire army's basic weapons is a terrible idea so I don't think we'll see poison-immune Necrons any time soon. Making Immortals T5, on the other hand, has an instant effect on survivability. S4 and S5 are both very common, in shooting and close combat, and there's a benefit against S8/S9 shooting too. Yes, massed S3 shooting is unaffected, but it's overall still an upgrade for Immortals.

No more immune than Knights or a mechanised list. T5 doesn't make sense though, in terms of what it has an effect on and what it does not have an effect on. I've been obsessed with things that can and cannot be poisoned since I started playing Warhammer Fantasy battles more than a decade ago when I was told that Skinks had magical poisons that magically worked against undead and other magical poisons that worked against Daemons, it was a lousy copout IMO. When I started playing 40k more and went from playing Eldar to Necrons, guess what my main enemy was? Dark Eldar, welcome to poison city and goodbye C'tan. When star gods forged bodies of living metal were perfectly countered by poisonus weapons, yes I care about poison, my whole gaming life revolves around poison and if I could get one thing done in terms of fixing board games it would be to rectify the representation of poison in board games, screw the balance, give me verisimilitude or give me death!

 IHateNids wrote:
To be fair, I can understand T3 *if* we also had like 3 wounds each, even on basic infantry.

That's not really necessary. T3 3+ Sv is not much different that T4 4+ Sv, in general it would be a buff.
*VS S3 AP0 you are 150% tough.
*VS S3 AP-3 you are 80% tough.
*VS S4 AP0 you are 113% tough.
*VS S4 AP-1 you are 100% tough.
*VS S5 AP-1 you are 133% tough.
So with this buff of changing Warriors from 4+ Sv T4 to 3+ Sv T3, you would need less of a pts reduction to make them balanced, than if you let them stay 4+ Sv T4. How many pts are you willing to pay for Warriors? 18? We can pack a lot more upgrades on Warriors if you want to pay more than 15 pts/model, but if you want to stay in the 8-11 pts range, then that's not possible. It's totally fair to want to have Necrons be super-SM, be like DA TERMINATOR, but that's not conducive to placing a legion of Warriors on the table, something I find rewarding and fun.

Voidblades grant an extra attack, there's your fourth power sword attack, same as what a Captain has and they'll thankfully soon be paying an arm and a leg for their thunder hammers so maybe we won't have to be so jealous of their amazing damage output.

Destroyer Lords could have WS 2+, but it wouldn't fit with their previous WS and would degrade the value of WS 2+. Obyron and Overlords having WS 2+ is special because they're the only ones that get it, where does it stop? Lychguard, Praetorians and Lords could be WS 2+ as well. People have asked for the same to be extended to Terminators, but there is too little granularity in the system to do so IMO. Improve the weapons or attacks characteristics, that has more granularity.

For Lychguard I might want to see something like one big attack or two small attacks to represent their fluff of being calculating and precise instead of furiously hacking away at their target.

 Blndmage wrote:
What if Warscythes just dealt MW instead of normal damage?

Lots of people hate MW, I'd like to hear an argument as to why it's actually a bad mechanic I personally love it.

 Grimskul wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Make them characters. That should increase their rate of survival.

Why, that is not really making much sense now doesn't it.

You don't necessarily have to explicitly make them characters, but give them a bespoke rule that makes them untargetable unless they're the closest target, like artillery crew. Chalk it up to phasing/stealth tech, if anyone can hide a 9 foot spyder it would be Necrons. Though personally I feel like they should have more of a role that buffs canoptek units in general and not just scarabs. Maybe an aura that gives them some sort of bonus?

The reasoning has been made previously in the thread. Spyders have been the managers of the Necron tombs for 60 million years, they can form a neural network to increase their effectiveness. They might be 9 feet, but they only have 4 wounds, that's half of a DP and he's a character.

If we leave pts out of the equation for a second then it is a question of what their strengths and weaknesses should be. Should they be a support unit that are vulnerable to snipers, a tough support unit that isn't vulnerable to anything in particular, a vulnerable support unit with a decent melee punch but vulnerable to everything? Is it a Techmarine, a Trojan Support Vehicle or a Wyrdvane Psyker squad?

*Option 1, the Techmarine route: make Spyders characters so it can survive and do it's thing despite being squishy.
*Option 2, the Trojan route: give Spyders 2-4 extra wounds so they don't die when a multi-damage weapon looks their way.
*Option 3, the Wyrdvane route: change nothing, Spyders should often be the #1 target for opponents because they provide a relatively large punch in melee and a relatively large amount of support compared to how easy they are to kill.

No matter whether you do 1, 2, 1 and 2 or 3 you would have to find a balanced cost. There is also the fourth option of giving them a new ability that supports Canoptek units, Morale or Reanimation Protocols in some way, but that makes them an even bigger target and just as easy to kill if you don't couple it with another change. I think a good change would be one that makes 9 Spyders an option, I've used them all twice and it feels pretty bad with how easily they die and how useless they are so it's only really an option for creating fun intro armies for people to play against while they are learning.

torblind wrote:
I just don't get it. They gave Death Guard the exact same army wide FNP ability, yet they don't get heat. Were necrons unlucky to be first out with this in that time and age? Perhaps combined with a functional mid range damage output?

Necrons never had FNP, they had super-FNP for the majority of a single edition, but at the cost of losing the flavour of standing back up. Canoptek units only had FNP when taken in a Formation. Plague Marines have had FNP since at least the 3,5 Codex AFAIK. Is FNP a good rule mechanic? No, it slows the game down. FNP on multi-wound models is really freaking strong, the weakness FNP has toward high-damage weapons is basically irrelevant since the units had that weakness already. Instead of FNP they should've given them the TS +1 Sv ability against single damage weapons. Rubric Marines were supposed to be weak toward weight of fire, not multi-damage weapons with AP -1/-2 or D1 AP -3 weapons.

The DG codex also came out 6 months before the Necron codex, which is irrelevant anyway since the Indexes were released at the same time. The Necron Codex didn't make that many mistakes, over buffing Destroyers slightly and Vaults by a lot, compare that to the Necron Index datasheets and RP which were absolute gak, that was the real culprit. Could the codex have fixed more? Upped the stats of Spyders, fixed RP, fixed the Tomb World, yes. At the end of the day GW staff are human and the writers probably don't play Necrons and didn't have time to playtest and didn't get enough encouragement to go and find feedback on the broken mechanics released with the index.

Ignore me.

Let's try again, thanks to Grimskul for pointing out I was in a different thread than I thought I was.

I think Deathmarks could work fine as is, they are pretty fun to use, Reanimation Protocols being what they are and them often having to drop in close to high-intensity areas makes them pretty vulnerable, I'd like to see their cost go down a couple of pts so they are level with Tesla Immortals.

Alternatively, I think it'd be very cool if they could ignore LOS like their snipers don't even notice walls they just see the target and press the trigger and then their target's insides are microwaved to slush. They are pretty bad at killing characters so they either need to be cheap enough to where that's okay or they need some kind of secondary role like targeting units that are out of LOS, they already kind of have that with counter-DS, but I think stacking another gimmick on top like a bit of a shooting boost on the turn they arrive like Grimskul suggested or ignores LOS would be cool, but not really something I'm dying to see, I'd much rather they update many other datasheets before this one to be honest.

Phase Out: When models flee from a unit with this ability you may select slain models to flee from that unit.

If Necrons got this ability I think RP would be fixed, it solves the issue of more than 10 models fleeing from a 6 man unit. Let's say you have 20 Warriors and 14 are slain. Currently, if you roll a 2+ the unit is gone, not only do you lose 6 models, you also lose any models that would come back next turn and any turns after that.

With this rule you'd be permanently losing RP for 7,5 models, so morale does still have an effect, but it's not double or triple the effect of what most other factions face in terms of how important it is. Losing a couple of Guardsmen is just so unimportant compared to permanently losing a self-repairing block of twenty Warriors that you've invested a couple hundred pts of support into.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Some people have suggested allowing RP to roll at every phase.

That is broken to high hell.

You'd need all failed RP rolls to result in the model fleeing, but I think the 5e system is better than 7e and 8e.

 JNAProductions wrote:

vict0988 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Some people have suggested allowing RP to roll at every phase.

That is broken to high hell.

You'd need all failed RP rolls to result in the model fleeing, but I think the 5e system is better than 7e and 8e.

I ran the math. If you charge 30 Plaguebearers into 20 Necron Warriors, without taking any casualties on the way in, you'd expect the Plaguebearers to win, right? It might take a few fights, but they're a purely melee unit against a mostly shooting unit.

If you RP at every phase, you'd lose with the Plaguebearers, just about every time.

Not if you only RP once per model. If you RP the whole squad every battle round 14 times, yeah they'll win.

If you use 5e RP (end of phase pass or flee) it'll take 12 rounds or less for 30 Plaguebearers to kill 20 Warriors and they'll have 17 or more left.

With current 8th ed rules it takes 20 Warriors 21 rounds to beat 30 Plaguebearers. So if you want 30 PBs that have taken no damage to win then you'll want 5th ed RP, if you want you want them to lose you want 8th ed. But it's not like the Warriors actually win, you're not going to have 21 rounds in most games, any games really being wiped out in a single round + morale is far easier for Necrons compared to PBs.

I'd like to see our WL traits reworked into three tables, mostly to get Cryptek Harbingers back, I'd also love it if we had one or two Stratagems for getting more than one WL trait on the field like Drukhari, Black Legion, Specialist Detachments, Imperial/Chaos Knights.

Unique Warlord Traits


Cryptek Warlord Traits


Lord Warlord Traits

Overlord Traits

Dynasty Eccentricities

Gary_1986 wrote:
100% of what is wrong with Necrons is their race specific rules and buffs. I would argue, as the most advanced race in the 40,000 universe the Necrons deserve a great deal more resilience. Based on their fluff Necrons should be the tankiest force on the tabletop, most of it makes them out to be a foe that cannot be beaten, just held back until an objective is completed, and at great cost.

Necrons don't deserve more resilience, their number is legion, they should not be more elite than Space Marines. Arnold the Terminator wasn't defeated by SM, but by civilians, he was scary, tough and relentless, making Necrons into SM does not make sense in any universe.

The manner in which their dead are described to 'Phase Out' is one of the coolest things in the Universe. Perhaps when Warriors are described as being blown to pieces, and reassembling themselves, that is some fantastic narrative. The Necrons are one of THE great enemies in 40,000 and I have been 100% against them getting 'standard' units like transports for example. A race that can Phase in and out of the material universe needs transports, for real?

Agreed, Ghost Arks should only repair, not transport, Monoliths and Night Scythes both work thematically IMO, they just need new rules.

What made them so interesting was their limited, but exotic choices, I mean back in late third edition Pariahs were one of THE most feared units on the tabletop, their melee weapons were unique in the fact NO-ONE else had them. It wasn't just another Power Sword, or a whatever. It was a weapon that made Pariahs a genuine risk to EVERYTHING on the battlefield be it the biggest, toughest Daemon or the toughest tank. The fact Pariahs also caused absolute panic to witches and the likes made them again, unique. A soulless force with a debuff against the powers of the Warp, people were petrified of Pariahs reaching their lines. I seen a Tau force fold when two squads of Pariahs reached their Fire Warrior line.

Two units of Wraiths or Lychguard in melee with a Tau castle is quite scary.

Their Gauss weapons were again, one of a kind, not just a standard weapon rehash, these weapons disassemble targets at the molecular level but have almost the same base stats as a boltgun? For real? What was wrong with their D6 roll of 6 causes damage regardless rule? It meant humble Warriors could ACTUALLY take out a Land Raider. A feat NO other troop squad could do, speaking of Warriors, the most advanced race in the known universe with automatons forged of Living Metal have the same armour save as a Scout Marine? Where is the logic in that? Warriors should be tough, intimidating, but slow and cumbersome.

Warriors should have a 3+ armour save and be given the Living Metal rule. Make them slow, purposeful but hard to kill. Necron foot soldiers shouldn't be folding under light fire.

Guardsmen wound Land Raiders on 6+ now, as does every other unit, Necrons got 1 better AP now that every faction has Gauss, which is a little bit flavourless and certainly weaker than inflicting glancing hits was in 6th/7th. Warriors should be T3 3+ Sv Vehicles, not just superior more advanced SM.

Living Metal is the one that needs a serious buff. How about giving it an AP debuff of 1, or even 50% rounding down. That'd make them unique in the sense that shooting them isn't like shooting all the other armies. Perhaps instead of an outright debuff, a 'learned' debuff that can be acculated over time, making them more resilient the more Warriors (for example) get gunned down.

The problem IMO is QS being too strong. I'd love QS to give a degrading Sv characteristic boost and living metal reduce damage by 1 if the damage is 3+, this would bring back the Monolith's anti-lance/melta property and would make the different defensive profiles of Necrons more similar.

I dunno, random things that I threw out there. But right now, Necrons as a race are rubbish and in no manner unique like once before. I think the game is worse for it as well, We have fast, swarming armies. We have small, elite armies. We have vehicle based armies. We have the unique Tau battlesuits. What we don't have is a slow, tanker force that is genuinely difficult to take down, especially with the new AP rules where Terminator Armour is no more special than any other armour.

Plaguebearer hordes disagree.

You can make ANYTHING balanced with enough thought on point cost (provided it's not a God unit).

Make it 2001 pts and God units can't ruin 99% of games.

Gary_1986 wrote:
I still have the Third Edition Necron Codex and was having a flick through last night. With the fluff side of things stating:

'Bullets and lasguns' do nothing to their metallic limbs. Then it goes on to state that the humans are arrogant to think themselves among the first in the stars, to the Necrons we (humans) are but dust in the wind. Their narrative implies that Necrons are VERY difficult to put down, even when managing to down a Warrior it still isn't out of action as it self repairs.

Giving them the toughness of a basic human, or a Tau seems somewhat wrong given their implied resilience. It doesn't feel like it's right for even the most basic Necron soldiers. But, I don't see how Necrons can be 'fixed' to make them not seem somehow disjointed, without making them too strong. But some tweaks could at least help make them competitive.

Third edition Codex is not canon.

What do you think the Toughness characteristic is and what do you think the Save characteristic is? Toughness is countered by poison. Save is countered by armour-piercing weapons. Being literally untouched by non-AP weapons makes it seem like they have good armour so they don't get hurt, not that they get hurt but are so tough that they fight through it. What should counter Necrons, AP or poison? Making them T4 Vehicles is probably best, in 7th that wasn't an option so I thought they should have been T3 5+ FNP but I've changed my mind. I suppose it's fine if they are as tough as Marines.