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Army, I was going to buy a box or 2 of immortals to paint / hobby until the new models and rules come out.

 Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Army, I was going to buy a box or 2 of immortals to paint / hobby until the new models and rules come out.

ATM they are on the middle ground suffering in particular from lack of competive builds. There's basically one and it's not even extremely competive one though it can do. Who knows how 9th ed or PA and eventually new codex changes thing.

If you already want to start painting immortals are safe bet as they aren't changing. So would be doomsday arks, fliers, command barge/annihilator barge/ghost ark(at least in terms of model not being replaced. Competiveness is another thing).

Unless you specifically WANT the green rod ones what you want to avoid are warriors, destroyers, heavy destroyers and monolith. Rest is fair play to buy and paint.

Given that there are new rules, new models and a new edition coming soon, I'd maybe suggest holding off and see what the game (and Necrons) look like when the dust settles.

8e Necrons are pretty weak due to poorly-conceived rules (GW chronically overcharges for Reanimation Protocols and RP-related stratagems) and the loss of Gauss as a backup anti-tank option without really getting anything to replace it. They also have a small range and no allies, so they're not very flexible and hard to make much use of.

They're getting a lot of narrative focus and a lot of new models in 9e, though, so they're probably getting a lot better. Also demand for starter boxes is usually driven by people who want the Space Marines, so there will be a flood of cheap Necron halves of the starter box right after it lands and it'll be pretty cheap to expand on if you start grabbing some models now.

I'm not sure I'd suggest buying/building many models right now if WYSIWYG is a major concern for you; a lot of units have two loadouts, and which weapon is the better choice (and what role a weapon even fills) tends to flip from edition to edition. Immortals really wanted Gauss in 5e, but balance shifted more towards both having a function in 6e and 7e, then 8e flipped it on its head, neither was an effective anti-light-vehicle gun anymore, and the tesla carbine was just better than the gauss blaster. It's entirely possible than 9e will flip it around again and make the gauss blaster relevant again, but it might not, and you might find yourself needing to proxy the one gun as the other if you build/paint the unit now.

Necrons are fair and balanced, they have meta builds that don't repeatedly win majors but do stand a good chance against the lists that do win those events regularly. Some Necron mechanics can be unfun at times, like Leadership messing with your Reanimation Protocols or Quantum Shielding either being really good or very meh.

Immortals would be a good place to start, that kit is not going to get an update as far as we know. Warriors might become a lot better if cheap troops stop being a factor in the strength of armies. Nobody really knows where Necrons will end up, if you're concerned with competitive then I'd tell you to wait, otherwise, I'd advise you get started with the kits that are not getting updated, namely Immortals, but also Wraiths and an Overlord.

You heard? But you didn't see?

 Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Army, I was going to buy a box or 2 of immortals to paint / hobby until the new models and rules come out.

As others have mentioned Necrons about to get a nice big update. However Immortals are not getting a new kit, so I think if you wanted to worry free models to hobby with, getting 10 immortals would be a safe bet.