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I noticed necrons seem to be really good and in (most) of the threads I've recently seen they have been in the top three of best armies, if not number one. In the batreps I've seen they do really well. The question is "Are they fun to play, because from what I've seen (imo) they don't seem fun to field. just shoot, die, and get back up. I'm not bashing them I'm just wondering how fun they are?

Depends what you take. I get bored of my 'crons after a couple of months, but I always go back to them, too.

I've found that they're pretty fun to play, but that's also because I'm more of a defensive player so their rules work well for me and my playstyle. I've always been the type who prefers durability and decent killing power over say lots of killing power and little durability (DE for example). So, reanimation, AV13, and safe flyers are ideal in my opinion for how I play. If you don't give into the net list and run a different style then Crons can play in a multitude of ways that will always be fun. Although we have some obvious undercosted units that always get spammed, we still have some really good things in those same slots, which are generally on par with other good units in other codices. Like, I personally play 5 AV 13 vehicles with only 2 Scythes to support and two groups of heavy destroyers. Works well for me.

There are a lot of fun ways to play them. Unfortunately, the average person using them generally winds up spamming a couple unit types they deem effective and ignoring the fun stuff. Total shame, because the book has a lot more potential to it than Tesla Campcrons, Cylon Death Fleet, or Wraith Wing.

Define fun to play. If you mean "easy to build a winning list" sure they are. If you mean "I have a rule for that!", yes, they tend to stop a lot of games because of their special rules.

I have been playing them for almost 10 years. I think there a blast to play. Some very cool looking miniatures . To bad their fluff sux so bad now.

If you like being called a douche, go along. Just buy a couple of the best foot/vehicle lists and watch other armies being totally smashed against your defenses. Or buy a full flying circus, crush everyone and then discover Tau can kill it without even moving.

Extremely fun to me.
I like their fluff, they have awesome looking models and very diverse and interesting rules.
almost every unit (codex and fw) is good enough to field.

Their OPness is in the tournamentlist.
But that won't stop a butthurt opponent from claiming you only won because of OP necrons (despite you not taking any of the undercosted models)

In my experience, they are a very difficult army to learn how to play. Their optimum range of maneuver means that unless you are just flyer-spamming, then any list you make will require a delicate balancing act that can be very easy to foul up. This leads some people to an erroneous conclusion that the army is somehow 'weaker.' I personally think it's just a matter of how easy the army is to play, and Necrons are one of the more difficult, which can have a big impact on how fun they are to play.

Depends.

Do you have fun drinking the sorrowful tears of your opponents while they whine and complain how your OP Gauss of 24'' range glanced their vehicles to death?
Rejoice in their cries of despair and anger when your Tesla Immortals, that need a 6+ to Wound, killed a Wraith Knight because he failed the 3+ saves?
Laugh at their rage when you dared use a Night Scythe or, God-Emperor forgive you, TWO Night Scythes to transport your troops?

If you said Yes to all these questions, good news! You can have fun as a Necron Player! We are officially one of the Jerks of the Warhammer 40k's player pool, right up there with the Tau players. *bro-fist* my Fish brothers. Keep the hate flowing.

Ok, now seriously:
Necrons are a fun mid-range shooty army but with some weaknesses:
- Almost all our weapons are 24'' range. We have very few that go 36'' and even fewer over 36''. Never-ever expect to win a long range firefight.
- We are SLOOOOOW. We have 2 transports, the Ghost Ark that can only contain warriors with or without Royal Court and the Night Scythe that can take a wider range of troops. We have other methods to move around like Royal Courts that can teleport units around.
- Besides some very rare dedicated CC units, we are horrendous in CC.The stats of a basic warrior are almost the same as a SM with the exception of the Initiative. With one of the lowest possible you are almost always gonna strike last and that makes a HUGE impact in CC fights. Dedicated CC units eat us.
- We lack ranged AP2. When you face TEQ you have to pray your opponent fails his 2+ saves.

Advantages:
- You have EGYPTIAN ZOMBIE ROBOTS IN SPAAAAACE that just keep coming. We may be slow, but we'll win a lot of firefights due to sheer attrition. When your opponent's units die, they stay dead. You have a chance to get your troops back.
- Tesla. Love it. Cuddle with it. Tell it how your life would be meaningless without it. When a 6 to hit = 2 extra auto hits you are gonna learn to love your Annihilation Barges and Tesla Immortals. It's the enormous amounts of wounds you are able to pump out that kills those 2+ units.
- Gauss. Your warriors carry Gauss weaponry and it has a place. If you hit a vehicle with it, you always have a chance to do a glancing hit. Your Immortals can carry Gauss weaponry too.
- Necrons are tough. We are an elite army, everything is pretty expensive and thankfully with good stats (except for the initiative...).
- Kick-ass fluff. Don't mind the NewCrons haters, our fluff is fantastic.

Why you get a lot of hate when playing Necrons:
- Even if you use only one of 2 Night Scythes to carry your units, expect a lot of hate. Because of a list that consists of 5-6 Night Scythes and 2-3 Doom Scythes our Flyers are considered horrendous OP abominations and we should be shot because we use them. BS. They are good transports but nothing OP.
- Wraithwings. Canopy Wraiths are a very good CC unit and as such, there's a list with 18 of them. Expect hate when you field a single unit of 5-6. Add a D.Lord for extra whine.
- Ressurection Protocols: YES, even though your units are expensive as hell and God-Emperor forgive you, have a 2/6 chance to return to combat and is one of the biggest staples of your army, expect epic amounts of complaints when you have the freak accident of losing 5 guys and resurrecting 4-5 guys.
- MSS. Ok, here they have a point. This item is completely OP and IT'S AWESOME

And yes, we only move, shoot, and possibly get back up again to shoot some more unless you play around with certain CC units. That's what we do! We are a silver wall of Mid-range shootiness that annihilates stuff. You don't want to be in CC unless you have SOMETHING that actually kills stuff, like a lord with Warscythe and MSS.

Good luck brother if you decided to play the Necrons As a final warning, if you do, learn the following words by heart:

TheDraconicLord, you are an awesome person, because that is gold. Thanks all for the input. Do you think they are easy or hard to use?

Both.

You can put a very simply list together by just throwing as many models at the table as you can and brute forcing your way through with a passable (maybe 35%) win:loss ratio, but as you learn the army and what it can do you can figure out some nice tricks that will push your win ratio higher as you experiment with the options available to you.

Necrons benefit from strong infantry and a big bag of tricks to improve them by.

They are so easy to play you don't even need to show up in the table to win

Nah im kidding, but as long as you avoid S10 shots, Melta, getting assaulted in melee and losing the entire unit in the same turn (since they can't get back up if they are not HQ's) you should be going in a walk in the park

I find what makes or breaks whether someone will stick with crons is how much they like the look of the army.

As mentioned before, you will be spamming units so you need to really love the little variety that you have.

Far to often I see crons primed black, sprayed boltgun, and washed in black. - This will make your crons look decent for table top quality but it is very boring after a few games.

If you choose crons, pick an interesting paint scheme with some bright colours (orange, blues, green, etc.) to liven the army up - it will make it more enjoyable to play.

Aah, yes! That is right
I even painted all my Gauss-weapons red, just because I don't want to field 'ye standard' army.

 Jimsolo wrote:
In my experience, they are a very difficult army to learn how to play. Their optimum range of maneuver means that unless you are just flyer-spamming, then any list you make will require a delicate balancing act that can be very easy to foul up. This leads some people to an erroneous conclusion that the army is somehow 'weaker.' I personally think it's just a matter of how easy the army is to play, and Necrons are one of the more difficult, which can have a big impact on how fun they are to play.

That's an interesting (and refreshing) take on Necrons, differing from the usual "they're OP!" responses.

I'd like to add that they're also difficult to play, because it's difficult to predict the effectiveness of shooting when using Tesla weapons. Sort of like Rending, but the effect is far more variable.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Both.

You can put a very simply list together by just throwing as many models at the table as you can and brute forcing your way through with a passable (maybe 35%) win:loss ratio, but as you learn the army and what it can do you can figure out some nice tricks that will push your win ratio higher as you experiment with the options available to you.

Necrons benefit from strong infantry and a big bag of tricks to improve them by.

Miko always gives good advice

Necrons are fun and can be even more fun because we have a lot of stuff. We aren't a "One-Trick" Pony. Some are for fun, others are more... competitive.

- You can have a horde of robot zombies advancing upon enemy lines, Just hordes and hordes of zombies commanded by their Lords, the Silver Tide.
- You can have an army of scarabs and Canoptek Spyders to make even more and more scarabs. - Scarab Farm.
- Want a Fluff army where your Overlord has just awoken from sleep and the enemy is at the door but your warriors are still being awoken?! Call upon your robots! Wraiths, Scarabs and Spyders! With FW you can get even more robots.
- You can have a massive wall of AV13 skimmers advancing upon your enemy. Ghost Arks filled with warriors and AB.
- Then you have the scumbag list that immortalised the Necron Army: The Flying Bakery of Death. A list with 8-9 flyers.
- Death Star of Doom! Bring a pimped Overlord surrounded by Crypteks and Lords, watch it go CHOO CHOO on your enemy.
- The Troll-Master. The Necron in the "Haters gonna hate" pic is one of our HQs. Trazyn the Infinite. He's the supreme troll master. Every time he is killed, he can possess another Lord, Cryptek and / or Lychguard (he onlys fails with a roll of 1). Even if he fails this, he can still take his resurrection protocol roll. And your opponent only gets the "Slay the Warlord" if he dies for good

We have beautiful units like Lychguard, Praetorian, Stalker, Monolith which unfortunately aren't very competitive but are a joy to look at and field them.

Well, can't remember anything else to say

I find them rather boring. Probably because I play in a competitive meta. Good buddies play the army we always joke around with them calling the army, Codex: two guns.

 Goat wrote:
I find them rather boring. Probably because I play in a competitive meta. Good buddies play the army we always joke around with them calling the army, Codex: two guns.

Actually, well said, this is something that must be told.

Codex: Necrons isn't one for people who like to tinker with their armies. SM for example has everything and the kitchen sink when it comes to equip Tactical Squads, Devastators, you name it.
Compare it to Necron Warriors. Gauss Flayer. Done. That's it.
Necron Immortals. Gauss *something* OR Tesla Carbine. 2!!! choices! WOW!

The only units you are able to really, really pimp out are the Necron Overlords and Lords. Those have the biggest number of optional gear.

Great advice guys, thanks again.

Crons were my first army and are still my favorite. I have highly competative builds I run when needed but I also have serveral really funny builds.

I have a 60 warrior silver tide backed by a few ghost arks. Then add in destoryers(or just Heavy Ds) some AB's and a stalker. Run that stalker TL heavy gauss cannon and twin link an entire army worth of shooting. It makes me giggle.

Never underestimate the power of Trollzyn the Infinite. (His girlfriend's pretty cool, too, although she's Imperial...)

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Never underestimate the power of Trollzyn the Infinite. (His girlfriend's pretty cool, too, although she's Imperial...)

Oh yes, she must have loved his gift

Actually, I kinda took that idea and ran with it.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/536367.page#5784904

I got pretty bored of 40k for a little while and then the Necrons got redone and I jumped on board. An I haven't looked back yet. They are the most fun I have had in a long time with 40k. I got sick of playing as Space Marines...playing Space Marines. Necrons are something very different and interesting. Plus with the new models and fluff they are considerably more interesting. I always found the Necrons interesting in a fluff sense but it took the revamp for me to finally get on board.

I will say that the only thing killing my fun is whinny opponents. Nothing is more annoying then being treated like a power gamer or WAAC player for simply playing Necrons. Then God Emperor forbid you actually win the game. Oh boy does the whining take new heights after that. Your going to hear about how you won the game because your army is OP. Then you will hear that your army looks good but only because Necrons are easy to paint (because people without fully built armies never get that little ironic gem). Of course usually my opponents lose the game for themselves and then blame me haha.

Which brings me to a point I think. Necrons are fun once you embrace the Trollcron philosophy. You might win you might lose but if your opponent is annoying you pull out all the troll tricks of the codex and enjoy yourself. Thus it is literally impossible to not have fun while playing.

I also do not repeat the same unit twice in my army. I have two units of Immortals but one has Gauss and the other is Tesla. It has been an experiment from my more competitive days. To build and play an army without the if one is good two is better army philosophy. An it has greatly increased the fun and replay-ability of the army.