Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

It's the nature of the game.

3rd - Necrons OP
4th - Pretty balanced
5th - Worst army in the game, maybe GK (Demonhunters) was worse through most of 5th.
6th - OP

They've probably a wider swing through the power scale than most, but every army goes through this...and every edition has it's over the top armies. If you are in it for the long term, you just have to get used to the fact that there will always be that army that is over the top, and it might be yours one day (which when you get there, you'll probably find it's not all it's cracked up to be) and there is always that army on the bottom of the dog pile, and you'll probably spend some time there as well....none of which has much to do with the OP.

To answer the OP, I've never found a particular army annoying or unfun to play based on special rules in an of themselves. The armies that I don't really enjoy playing against are the ones that just seem to have a relatively cheap answer for everything without glaring weaknesses or an Achilles's heel of their own (5th ed SW would be a good example).

3rd - Necrons OP
4th - Pretty balanced
5th - Worst army in the game, maybe GK (Demonhunters) was worse through most of 5th.
6th - OP

I just can't agree with most of that. If there was ever a time where they were legitmately OP it was probably when they first came out in second ed. They had very few options, but they were just so tough and not many armies had the means to deal with them effectively. I found them to be middle of the pack in third since all you had to do was kill enough of them and they would phase out and lose the game. There were also not many options. You tended to have very predictable lists. Didn't play at all in fourth and only played them a little in 5th. Before the new dex it was definitely a challenge to play with them. Their original dex didn't really fit with what 5th ed was all about.

As far as this edition goes, the biggest things I see complained about are the WBB rule and the flying circus. IMO as the OP stated WBB can certainly be irritating at times but it hardly makes them OP. As for the flying circus, it's tough, but no worse than playing a Guard player spamming Vendetta squadrons. Yet I don't see many people complaining that IG is OP ...

The 4th ed necron codex was meh in 5th, while the 5th ed codex was pretty good in 5th, but now all the sudden fliers made one nercon list top class in 6th.

Well be back or reanimate hardly makes the army OP, that's like saying any army with an army wide special rule makes it op, with the exception of space wolves and counter attack, of course.

I've read most of this thread and just had to skip to the bottom to give my 2 cents. I do play Necrons and they do have some cheesey rules but as what I read earlier in the thread.... Special rules is what adds that little bit of something to the army; and plus it makes it feel like you're playing that army, wouldnt you hate to read a SM novel that talks about how awesome SM are and when you bring them to the board and their know no fear that you've read about just doesnt exist, or orks that arnt good in CC even those SM can be scared of them when a horde rushes in.

I play a lot of Tau and GK at my FLGS and boy do I dislike playing them. They are filled with all sorts of goodies that make it a pain to win... and 95% of the time I lose. My advice to OP is to just suck it up... It's a game so just have fun with it. But if you cant get over it stop playing against necron players for good.

It's not really about them being OP or "flavor", it's about simply flaunting so many game mechanics. when all you need to do is just show up with one guy in your list and are likely assured protection from most enemy shooting and a couple vehicle kills without doing anything other than just showing up to the board, that's a bit silly.

Necrons aren't alone in having undercosted units, overpowered or just annoying abilitiles. But they are probably the worst offender, at least with respect to stuff that's annoying/ignores core mechanics/etc.

Just my 2 cents, but to me, its not any one specific Necron unit that is infuriating or OP, its the fact that every single unit has something that breaks established rules, and very few of those special rules are USRs. And when many units get multiple Necron special rules and USRs, it just starts to feel like piling on.

For example, Destroyers have Preferred Enemy (Everything)....why? Based on the fluff, Destroyers should probably have Hatred (Everything), instead of Preferred Enemy. Preferred Enemy would indicate the unit are veterans of several wars against a specific race, army, etc, something that Destroyers really aren't passed off as. Its not enough that Destroyers are T5 jump troops with S5 AP3 Assault 2 Gauss weapons, Reanimation Protocol, and a decent stat line, but they also have to have Preferred Enemy too????

Deathmarks are another example. They have all the standard scout/sniper abilities such as Infiltrate and Sniper, but they also get a slew of other rules, such as Deepstrike, a rule that allows them to wound a selected target unit on 2+, a Nightscythe transport option, and the normal decent statline and Reanimation Protocols available to most Necron units. But the final straw, their sniper rifles, while agreed are shorter ranged than most snipers, are Rapid Fire. Rapid Fire sniper rifles.....Really? Oh, and they can put any IC in there with them and they gain the benefit of the targeting rule.

There are certain standard rule/points configurations that most armies adhere to, but the Necrons will have none of it. Normally, I wouldn't mind, but it gets kind of hard to not get irritated when I get reminded of yet another crazy special rule only Necrons get that completely invalidates a third of my army, or negates a grand tactical move. Nothing against Necron players, they are just using the rules they are given, but to try and act as if those rules are no more OP than any other is a bit much.

Ahhh, but Hatred is only in melee. Preferred Enemy is at range and melee. They needed to make it useful.

Plus being machines, having an intense loathing of life would simply translate into hyper accurate fire.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:

Deathmarks are another example. They have all the standard scout/sniper abilities such as Infiltrate and Sniper, but they also get a slew of other rules, such as Deepstrike, a rule that allows them to wound a selected target unit on 2+, a Nightscythe transport option, and the normal decent statline and Reanimation Protocols available to most Necron units. But the final straw, their sniper rifles, while agreed are shorter ranged than most snipers, are Rapid Fire. Rapid Fire sniper rifles.....Really? Oh, and they can put any IC in there with them and they gain the benefit of the targeting rule.

I don't really see what's flawed about assassins that appear anywhere they want and have an ability that allows them to...assassinate stuff? Then again, fluff should not really be taken into consideration when it comes to making rules. Else Necrons would be *ridiculously* overpowered.

Synaptic Disintegrators aren't sniper rifles. They are closer to battle rifles, really.

The Sniper rule does not make that weapon a sniper rifle. By your logic, the Vindicare's exitus pistol would be a sniper rifle.

Deathmarks can't infiltrate either. No idea what gave you that idea, but its not one of their special rules. They can only deepstrike, take a 100 point flying transport, walk, or deep strike on your opponent's turn (which is useless).
No infiltration.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
There are certain standard rule/points configurations that most armies adhere to, but the Necrons will have none of it. Normally, I wouldn't mind, but it gets kind of hard to not get irritated when I get reminded of yet another crazy special rule only Necrons get that completely invalidates a third of my army, or negates a grand tactical move. Nothing against Necron players, they are just using the rules they are given, but to try and act as if those rules are no more OP than any other is a bit much.

People keep saying this but I can't help but disagree.
Every codex does something that invalidates certain builds/makes them far less effective.

The big annoyance with deathmarks is anything that is a "deployment/redeployment" allowing them to mark another unit.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The big annoyance with deathmarks is anything that is a "deployment/redeployment" allowing them to mark another unit.

The biggest issue is that their ability works on crypteks joining them, I wouldn't mind them so much if it wasn't for that flamertek.

Necrons suffer the same thing as a lot of Matt Ward codexs and that is, regardless of cheese or not, most of his books are just unfun to play against. Lots of special rules, lots of special this that and the other. But most annoyingly is the large amount of stuff that just breaks the idea of an even fair game because it just happens and no amount of planning, trickery, stratigy, baiting, etc. can be used to counter it, and that makes the other guy wonder why they even bothered to show up.

Necrons suffer the same thing as a lot of Matt Ward codexs and that is, regardless of cheese or not, most of his books are just unfun to play against. Lots of special rules, lots of special this that and the other. But most annoyingly is the large amount of stuff that just breaks the idea of an even fair game because it just happens and no amount of planning, trickery, stratigy, baiting, etc. can be used to counter it, and that makes the other guy wonder why they even bothered to show up.

People keep saying that, but I have yet to see anyone show one single example of something that causes the Necrons to be so OP that you shouldn't even bother to play. Can you give me a specific example? That's a serious question. Noo sarcasm intended. Also, before you go there, no, flying circus is not a good example. The IG can do the same thing with Vendettas and actually do it better but as I said before, no one is complaining about IG being OP. Since the complaint seems to be "Necrons have X thing/rule/unit, etc that no one else has" they are OP and auto win. I have yet to see someone post an actual specific example of this. Examples have been given of things people find irritating or difficult to face, but every army has that. Even the original post in this thread the OP admitted that while he found them annoying to a degree, he did not find them to be overpowered ...

Tycho wrote:

Necrons suffer the same thing as a lot of Matt Ward codexs and that is, regardless of cheese or not, most of his books are just unfun to play against. Lots of special rules, lots of special this that and the other. But most annoyingly is the large amount of stuff that just breaks the idea of an even fair game because it just happens and no amount of planning, trickery, stratigy, baiting, etc. can be used to counter it, and that makes the other guy wonder why they even bothered to show up.

People keep saying that, but I have yet to see anyone show one single example of something that causes the Necrons to be so OP that you shouldn't even bother to play. Can you give me a specific example? That's a serious question. Noo sarcasm intended. Also, before you go there, no, flying circus is not a good example. The IG can do the same thing with Vendettas and actually do it better but as I said before, no one is complaining about IG being OP. Since the complaint seems to be "Necrons have X thing/rule/unit, etc that no one else has" they are OP and auto win. I have yet to see someone post an actual specific example of this. Examples have been given of things people find irritating or difficult to face, but every army has that. Even the original post in this thread the OP admitted that while he found them annoying to a degree, he did not find them to be overpowered ...

Your confusing unfun with overpowered, or at least how I have it presented.

Dante causes 75 points of distruption to Logan's stat line just by being included in the army list (doesn't even have to be on the table)... unfun.
MSS causes Lillith to attack herself more than 50% of the time... unfun.
Lightning shield IDs nob squads just because they chose to assault (the one thing they are supposed to do). Again unfun.
Purifiers vs any sort of horde... unfun.
psy ammo schewing the damage results from common units/vehicles for negligable points increase... unfun.
a single 50 point model giving 500 points or more of other 3+/2+ save stuff FNP... Generally Unfun.


Now I'm not saying the above codexs can't loose, but when it becomes such an obvious power bubble you sometimes wonder why bother playing. Especially in a casual inviroment.

Tycho wrote:

Necrons suffer the same thing as a lot of Matt Ward codexs and that is, regardless of cheese or not, most of his books are just unfun to play against. Lots of special rules, lots of special this that and the other. But most annoyingly is the large amount of stuff that just breaks the idea of an even fair game because it just happens and no amount of planning, trickery, stratigy, baiting, etc. can be used to counter it, and that makes the other guy wonder why they even bothered to show up.

People keep saying that, but I have yet to see anyone show one single example of something that causes the Necrons to be so OP that you shouldn't even bother to play. Can you give me a specific example? That's a serious question. Noo sarcasm intended. Also, before you go there, no, flying circus is not a good example. The IG can do the same thing with Vendettas and actually do it better but as I said before, no one is complaining about IG being OP. Since the complaint seems to be "Necrons have X thing/rule/unit, etc that no one else has" they are OP and auto win. I have yet to see someone post an actual specific example of this. Examples have been given of things people find irritating or difficult to face, but every army has that. Even the original post in this thread the OP admitted that while he found them annoying to a degree, he did not find them to be overpowered ...

Again, it's not necessarily OP (though can be), it's that it's not fun. When you've got a character that effectively can do D6 S8 hits on side armor from any point on the board without needing LoS, range, etc or even needing to be alive and guarantees you nightfight on your terms, on top of being damn near impossible to kill, there's nothing fun about that, it's a crutch, and simply ignores too many game mechanics and any opponent interaction. Stuff like that is replete to a greater and lesser degree in Mat Ward's books and most exemplified in the Necron codex.

Your confusing unfun with overpowered, or at least how I have it presented.

If I misunderstood where you were coming from then fair enough, but you did actually say:

But most annoyingly is the large amount of stuff that just breaks the idea of an even fair game because it just happens and no amount of planning, trickery, stratigy, baiting, etc. can be used to counter it, and that makes the other guy wonder why they even bothered to show up.

Everything you listed actually CAN be countered (with the possible exception of Dante, but I don't know enough about him and we're talking Necrons anyway).

If you're worried about Lilith VS MSS, why are you letting them get that close? Lilith is really a squad killer anyway. She should be trashing warriors. Use your lance weaponry to kill the MSS lord. Same deal with the Nob squads. If something can ID one of my units in cc, then I tend to keep those units away from each other as much as possible. If the other guy gets to me then it's more than likely that he outplayed me in which case I really only have me to blame.

I do understand your point about fun in a friendly setting though and it's one of the reasons I don't run the 'cron flying circus. While beatable, I do get how it is really not so much fun to play against.

im just sick and tired of people who make a list like your IG parking lot, venomspam, longfangs, drop pods whatever. its your list. it wins. yay!

then ERMAHGERD! the editions change! or an army gets a new codex!

now your list that was winning dosent work so well. in fact it probally sucks. or what used to work on chaos/DE/crons/GK whatever dosent. because they now have a more recent codex and an entirley new way of doing things.

shocks! i cant believe that your old army wont work anymore!

people who complain that X army or X unit is overpowered or cheesy simply DO NOT KNOW HOW to deal with it. they see a special ability or stat line or something, and it beats them. they freak out, and auto assume its OP cheesy cheddar with extra parmesian. PUH-LEEESE. maybe change your army up. maybe change your tatics. maybe change your deployment, target priorites, i dunno, maybe do something called ADAPTING to the new stuff.

i will pose this friendly challange to ANYONE: you say my crons are overpowered vrs your army? fine. post your list. ill point out how it can change to fight crons, (any build or any of my armies) ill make those changes and play you on vassal. you can make any cron list you want, dosent even have to be the one i usually use. (go ahead and bring scythe spam... ill show you how to beat that too) i promise i will either win or fight to a very close draw/loss. by using adaptive tatics, and the lump of tissue in my skull called a brain - wich aparently seems to be lacking in the majority of the internets.

ive done this once already demonstrating how a SM gunline can take care of venomspam in 5th. the game was pretty fun and i did manage a win.

but my point, is PLEASE stop these whine/rant/pissing and moaning threads about armies being OP. instead of wasting your time on these, maybe try a constructive attempt at changing your list and strats to actually fight the necrons?

Did you even read the OP, he utterly crushed the Necrons, he has no issue winning, he' just annoyed.

Seriously, reading goes a long way...

Bobthehero is correct. I absolutely wrecked them the first 2 games and the 3rd was more a draw with very few casulties on either side. I never claimed they necrons were overpowered. I only stated that, in my opinion, they rules don't interact on the table top in a mutually enjoyable manner. When my favorite opponent plays his 3 tervigon 'nid army and is able to go 4 turns without rolling doubles and has produced 100+ guants in addition to the rest of his starting troops... its FUN! When a necron does anything, it just seems agonizingly boring, ill conceived, and ill suited in its execution. I really don't know how to explain it but necrons just seem lame... not overpowered, not anything like that. Just annoying or, rather, lame... not fun, not interesting... playing them is like trying to do your own taxes..... "See column A and multiply that by row 4 to calculate you average......." lame!

wasent 100% directed at the op. mine last response was a general one. and i DID read the first page and half, and its just coming off as whine whine whine...

if you win against an army why be annoyed at it? when i fight an army and get annoyed or whatever and still win, that just makes it a great game. winning through adversity and what not. and really... the necrons "tricks" are only there to even them up to other armies and make them a contender. take away quantum shielding, MSS, WS and the fliers / barges and you may as well play the 3rd ed codex.

QS is there to help a slow army take a few hits and allow them to actually DO something with their short range (while fighting armies with usually twice or more the range power)

MSS is there again, to help mitigate and deal with assault armies that can pack as much as 4 attacks per model on the charge. sometimes more then that on characters. it also helps to offset the whole going last thing.

warscythes are really the only close combat answer the necrons have to anything. yea, its a str 7 ap 1 armor bane, but its usually striking at init 2, compared to powerfists its not that awsome. - but for the necrons it gives them something of an edge in a dual threat. good for infantry and ok for vehicles.

the barges are not that bad. with a tesla cannon and TWL destructor, ok it has 4 twin linked str 7 shots, and another 3 str 6 ... and 6's to hit make more hits.... but AP - means there is little to fear. unless a single unit takes all 3 in the same round and biffs saves. im the first to promote tesla as an awsome weapon.... but when other armies have auto cannons, assault cannons, plasma, melta, and so on, the necrons really have one mid str weapon. and its AP, and usually mounted on a fragile open topped SLOW skimmer, wich only has a 24" range. pretty easy for a lazcannon team to shoot down. or anything for that matter. fliers are the same. aside from the near 200 pt doom sycthe, (wich has a random distance weapon that cant hit fliers) we have a str 7 anti flier shot. thats IT. nothing else in the army can AA very well. (aside from massing snap shots and praying for gauss glances) - vrs IG with the best flier in the game, space marines with pretty close seconds, chaos with a heldrake, and so on. in the battle of the air forces, necrons really come up short. i would bet on 6 storm talon/.ravens to beat 6 night/doom sycthes 100% of the time.

the necrons are not OP...they are not annoying, and they are not broke. they are an army that uses its special rules and abilities to be competetive against other styles. learn what the tricks do, how they work and the rules behind them, and its easy to develop counter strats and develop a list to play against those. im willing to bet 90% of people calling cheese on necrons is because A: they didnt take time to read and learn the rule, or B: the necron player screwed said rule up or cheated with it. (sometimes its both at the same time) - learn the rules, and all the associated brb rules before calling something broke or annoying ot cheesy.

You seem to be missing it again though, you're arguing the trivialities (nobody much cares about the Tesla's AP- any more than anyone cares that an Autocannon has AP4, the AP isn't relevant) instead of addressing the larger issue, which is that people are saying the army isn't fun and essentially removes many of the elements that do make the game fun, as well as simply bypassing/ignoring/mitigating a huge array of game mechanics.

also keep in mind non-TL tesla weapons have functionally an average 1:1 shot-hit ratio, which means on average they're the most reliable and consistent weapons in the game, and twin linked tesla weapons 33% average more shots than they actually are rated as due to higher chances of rolling 6's. For example, a 4 shot BS4 Twin Linked Tesla weapon actually averages 5.33 hits. Thus, it's not quite as clear cut as it might otherwise seem. Nobody is going to shoot 3 shot twin linked heavy bolter and expect to get 4 hits the way one can with tesla weapons

 pretre wrote:

 Zande4 wrote:
I think the op list people complain about are the "flying circus" ones. And judging by ur comments you didn't come up against one of these luckily

Way not to read the thread...

I read the thread and every post up until mine. What I meant by that was the op seems to be insinuating that everyone has it wrong and Necrons aren't OP but are in fact just annoying. So I was simply stating that the over powered list people complain about are different to the Necron list he has played. I should have elaborated better as looking at my post now I just look like one of those 12 year olds who reads the title and quick replies in like 15 seconds. Apologies

You know what's lame and annoying too?

Psychic powers. Every game, I need to memorize the enemy's psychic powers the enemy might use, I need to know what they do, I need to keep their range in mind etc. It adds an additional layer that makes the game more complicated. Man, psychic powers are really ticking me off.

I fully agree with Spader. Most people who see Necrons immediately shout "LOLOLOL OP FLYER SPAM" as if there was no other list we could field. Guess what, I win tournaments despite not fielding a single flyer. LOLOLOLOL.

Bobthehero is correct. I absolutely wrecked them the first 2 games and the 3rd was more a draw with very few casulties on either side. I never claimed they necrons were overpowered. I only stated that, in my opinion, they rules don't interact on the table top in a mutually enjoyable manner. When my favorite opponent plays his 3 tervigon 'nid army and is able to go 4 turns without rolling doubles and has produced 100+ guants in addition to the rest of his starting troops... its FUN! When a necron does anything, it just seems agonizingly boring, ill conceived, and ill suited in its execution. I really don't know how to explain it but necrons just seem lame... not overpowered, not anything like that. Just annoying or, rather, lame... not fun, not interesting... playing them is like trying to do your own taxes..... "See column A and multiply that by row 4 to calculate you average......." lame!

I guess it all kind of depends on what your definition of "fun" is though. Personally, when I'm playing a Nid player who spams Tervigons and the game is getting slower and slower because he's crapping out dozens of extra gaunts, I tend to get bored. Same thing with sitting through a 120 man Guard army's orders and move phase. Yawn. Of course there's nothing wrong with being annoyed by something an army can do and there's certainly nothing wrong with not enjoying to play certain armies. I'm just not sure that I would single the 'Crons out in the same way that others would.

Edit:

In fact, Tervi-spam armies are one of the biggest reasons that my group does not tend to play 2000 point games anymore...

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Synaptic Disintegrators aren't sniper rifles. They are closer to battle rifles, really.

The Sniper rule does not make that weapon a sniper rifle. By your logic, the Vindicare's exitus pistol would be a sniper rifle.

Deathmarks can't infiltrate either. No idea what gave you that idea, but its not one of their special rules. They can only deepstrike, take a 100 point flying transport, walk, or deep strike on your opponent's turn (which is useless).
No infiltration.

Sorry, but in my book, Rifle(battle or otherwise) + Sniper = Sniper Rifle. Pistol + Sniper = Weird Sniper Pistol. Anyway, its just another example of giving too much bling to a single unit, the very problem that permeates the Necron codex.

And yes, I was wrong about Infiltrate, sorry about that. I confused it with the deepstrike rules they have (again, not standard). In my opinion, Deepstrike is better than infiltration, especially when you combine it with the Deathmarks other special rules and options.

Related to the topic of Deathmark Assassins have lots of rules: I feel sad that the new Chaos Warp Talons have a distinctive lack of any rules that make them worth taking. Fluff wise, they suddenly tear apart a hole in reality and land on top of people, tearing them apart. Gameplay wise, they (might) blind people within 6" and then they get torn apart by the other ten units <7" away. I really wish they had gotten something similar to the Deathmarks marking units, but more for assaulting after deepstriking.
Either way, Necrons, despite being a 5th ed codex, feel like the most 6th ed codex.

Well, Air Force 'Cron isn't as scary to me now that I can take 3-6 fliers that can Vector Strike at S7, fire 4 S8 shots or torrent an S6 AP3 flamethrower, so I guess that's always a good thing.

And CSM are the only army right now who can take flakk missiles.

Wow, 86 posts without being locked? A new record! Anyways, the new newcrons are pretty strong this edition. But it is nice to see a Xeno codex again that is in God Tier, its been too long.

rigeld2 wrote:

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
There are certain standard rule/points configurations that most armies adhere to, but the Necrons will have none of it. Normally, I wouldn't mind, but it gets kind of hard to not get irritated when I get reminded of yet another crazy special rule only Necrons get that completely invalidates a third of my army, or negates a grand tactical move. Nothing against Necron players, they are just using the rules they are given, but to try and act as if those rules are no more OP than any other is a bit much.

People keep saying this but I can't help but disagree.
Every codex does something that invalidates certain builds/makes them far less effective.

To a certain degree, you are right, but you are overlooking the point being made throughout this thread in that even the most basic, non-spamming Necron list can easily invalidate a significant number of army builds, due in part to the sheer number of special rules. How many other armies can do that?

For example, gauss weapons, the most basic of Necron weaponry, can invalidate many mech assault builds. Combine that with a few bases of Scarabs, and without any thought you have an anti-vehicle army. So without taking anything special or out of the ordinary, the Necron player gets to have a strong edge against a large number of army builds.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The big annoyance with deathmarks is anything that is a "deployment/redeployment" allowing them to mark another unit.

The biggest issue is that their ability works on crypteks joining them, I wouldn't mind them so much if it wasn't for that flamertek.

Yep! Lost a terminator squad to that dang combo just recently.