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.

Hey all, I just got started with Necrons by swapping some Space Marines I never used for a decent collection of Crons (various conditions, but good enough for me!)

My question is on a few units and how well they do on the grand scheme of things. I've been sifting through the book, though I've only played Orks in my year or so of playing, so this is like a new language for me :p

Flayed Ones: I personally am in love with the unit's looks and their fluff, but how do they fare in general on the board? I can see Crons are kind of a middle ground for me compared to Orks. Similiar CC stats except for attack count. I have about 12 of them I believe, but do they need to be maxed squads to be effective? Or should I just stick with a different unit? I'd really like to use them if they are feasible.

Barges: Are they worth running as Annihilation? Or should I just stick Lords in em and abuse their wound shenanigans?

Monoliths: I've seen various opinions on em, but should I just leave mine on the shelf? It seems like they can be decent enough, even if as a 14-all-around-wall.

Deathmarks: Are they worth bringing as opposed to just regular Immortals? I've got two boxes of immortals, but I wasn't sure if it would be useful to make a box into Deathmarks or just keep em Immortals. The Deep Strike on opponent's turn seems pretty damned good, and being able to pick out a troublesome squad with their ability and hammer them seems nice too...

Edit: I also figure since the army itself isn't really plentiful enough to stand on its own just yet, I'll use them as Allies for my Orks. The 'One Eye Open' rule doesn't really bother me that much since my Orks shouldn't be that close to the Necrons anyway since they will be running up field while the Crons hang back and fire Gauss or send Scarabs and Spiders after tanks.

Edit2: Also, is it possible to take just a regular Lord or are you forced to take the Overlord and regular Lords are for Royal Court only?

To answer from another relatively new cron player, flayed ones are not viable in 7th. They're a completely assault based unit and sadly those get demolished, add in the I2 rather than most at 3+ and they die even more. Sure RP says they can get back up, but not worth it. Make em look cool, make a diarama of them and that's about it.

Deathmarks are amazing.

Barges are great in both versions. Av13 wall is awesome. It's all good things! Lol.

Regular lords are royal court only I believe. I've only ran them as court and most only do. But crypteks are an amazing option.

I wild recommend reading through the discussions in the anecrons in 7th thread it's super helpful and detailed!

Steelbain wrote:
To answer from another relatively new cron player, flayed ones are not viable in 7th. They're a completely assault based unit and sadly those get demolished, add in the I2 rather than most at 3+ and they die even more. Sure RP says they can get back up, but not worth it. Make em look cool, make a diarama of them and that's about it.

Deathmarks are amazing.

Barges are great in both versions. Av13 wall is awesome. It's all good things! Lol.

Regular lords are royal court only I believe. I've only ran them as court and most only do. But crypteks are an amazing option.

I wild recommend reading through the discussions in the anecrons in 7th thread it's super helpful and detailed!

Thanks for the info! Good to know!

I guess I'll be running them mostly as allies for now since I only have about 16 or so Immortals for Troop options, so I'll run the Overlord in Barge, Immortals and be tossed up between Wraiths, Destroyers for my 1 Fast Attack :I Teh sadness. Probly Destroyers since Orks can CC good enough :p

I'd build one box of Immortals as Deathmarks, so you can run one troops choice of 10 Immortals (the max), and one unit of 5 Deathmarks. That with a CCB Overlord gives you a troop, an elite, and a HQ. Destroyers are kind of bad, so I would run an Anni barge if you want dakka. Wraiths are the better FA slot, but only in good sized groups.

 TranSpyre wrote:
I'd build one box of Immortals as Deathmarks, so you can run one troops choice of 10 Immortals (the max), and one unit of 5 Deathmarks. That with a CCB Overlord gives you a troop, an elite, and a HQ. Destroyers are kind of bad, so I would run an Anni barge if you want dakka. Wraiths are the better FA slot, but only in good sized groups.

Sounds solid enough. I got 5 Wraiths in the lot I got in my swap, though I figured I'd take Destroyers since Orks tend to have CC covered in general, but I won't lie. I've seen Wraiths do some work on Bat Reps, so maybe having them trail behind the Ladz wouldn't be too terrible :p

Deathmarks seem really good to me, so making a box into a small squad wouldn't hurt me any. Wounding on 2+ is pretty awesome on whatever unit is giving you issues..

Well, core units are

DLord
Wraiths
Warriors or Immortals in Night Scythes
Annihilation Barges.

Deathmarks are rather situational, the Monolith is meh as are Flayed Ones.

If you need to fill space, and have a good sized blob of warriors, Monoliths aren't half bad. Flayed Ones are horrible, though.

If you take deathmarks, take a harbringer of despair with them in a night scythe. This creates a unit that's great a popping problem units.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, core units are

DLord
Wraiths
Warriors or Immortals in Night Scythes
Annihilation Barges.

Deathmarks are rather situational, the Monolith is meh as are Flayed Ones.

Luckily I own all but the Warriors and Scythes.

In the lot I got:

Overlord with Res Orb
Destroyer Lord with Res Orb
Imotek
Trazyn

6 Assembled Immortals with 2 unopened boxes

5 Wraiths
6 Spiders
10 Destroyers
20 Scarab bases
Monolith
2 Barges
15ish Flayed Ones

other misc models that I think may be Praetorians or Lychguard

So, I know my purchases will need to be Warriors, A Scythe or two, and at least 1 Ark. I might end up buying the Battleforce on Ebay to get 20 warriors, the ark, and a few more Immortals.

Indeed, the Battleforce is a good deal.
I'd assemble the Imortals not the Deathmarks.

Just caught a lucky break. Guy in my gaming group has a bunch of warriors for sale Might save me a little money, depending on his prices.

Flayed Ones are bad. Assault units in general are rather weak in 6th and 7th and only specialized Assault units can still be a viable choice. FO aren't specialized, however, they basically are Necron Warriors without weapons.

Barges: Both are good and viable choices!

Monoliths: Use them as a Bastion stand-in. Size is good and really fits the army's looks.

Deathmarks: Death and Despair squads :thumbsup Other than that, they aren't really viable.

On paper, flayed ones in large blobs (20) should be quite good0.

I have a strong suspicion that Necrons were intended to be played as a large blob army (hence why Warrior squads can get up to 20), but nobody plays them that way because they flubbed the internal balance in the codex in a truly great way..


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The internal balance flub up is also why you have two units (wraiths and triarch praetorians) that are almost identical.

Alcibiades wrote:
On paper, flayed ones in large blobs (20) should be quite good0.

I have a strong suspicion that Necrons were intended to be played as a large blob army (hence why Warrior squads can get up to 20), but nobody plays them that way because they flubbed the internal balance in the codex in a truly great way..

Yarrrrr. The old codex was heavily tilted towards blob armies, i.e. "Silver Tide". The new codex basically is a typical 7th codex: 2-3 very strong picks, hardly any middle-field, rest are bottom picks. It's played like any other 7th codex competitively: pick the top picks, leave out the rest.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
On paper, flayed ones in large blobs (20) should be quite good0.

I have a strong suspicion that Necrons were intended to be played as a large blob army (hence why Warrior squads can get up to 20), but nobody plays them that way because they flubbed the internal balance in the codex in a truly great way..

Yarrrrr. The old codex was heavily tilted towards blob armies, i.e. "Silver Tide". The new codex basically is a typical 7th codex: 2-3 very strong picks, hardly any middle-field, rest are bottom picks. It's played like any other 7th codex competitively: pick the top picks, leave out the rest.

I think Necs were designed as a moving gunline army (the classic advancing horde of undead). Which is why the codex has so many "bodyguard/interception" units that seem designed to keep enemies at 24" range (flayed ones being one of these; C'tan shards are another. Neither are used much because Necrons aren't actually played this way). But for internal codex balance issues and the logic of the game itself (multiple small units and mobility are the opposite of the plodding blob army) this did not work out. So you have 5-model warriors zipping out of night scythes instead.

Alcibiades wrote:
Neither are used much because Necrons aren't actually played this way.

I'd argue that it works the other way around: LG, FO and C'tan are bad units measured against the rest of the codex and the general standard in 40k and therefore, Necrons aren't played that way

 Sigvatr wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
Neither are used much because Necrons aren't actually played this way.

I'd argue that it works the other way around: LG, FO and C'tan are bad units measured against the rest of the codex and the general standard in 40k and therefore, Necrons aren't played that way

Well that's sort of what I meant. Necrons, played as they were intended to be played*, are not nearly as good as Necrons played as they were not intended to be played. In other words, the codex was badly designed.

*I deduce that they were intended to be played this way (plodding gunline army) because there are several units in the codex that make no sense otherwise.

Flayed ones are the most garbage unit in the book.

Don't glue the gun or the railing to the barge and you can have both kits-both are sweet so win win. A lot of cron kits are variable like that.

Lords are just in the Royal court. You can't have a meganob as your war boss can you? Overlord is the vanilla cron HQ-war scythe that sucker up and he's free money.

Deathmarks are amazing, immortals are meh. Marks are my favorite deep strike unit in the game by far. Pair them with a Cryptek with the Ld wounding flamer and the cloak of shadows thingy to show up, instagib a unit of anything with a wounds-on-2s AP2 flamer and the Deathmark shots, then teleport around shooting whoever you want the rest of the game. Immortals are just more expensive warriors-disregard and obtain additional warriors.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also I'd say codex tier goes like this:

Stupid tier: Swarmlord, Night Scythes, Wraiths, a couple Royal court setups, Command Barge

Totally usable middle tier: most RCs, Deathmarks, Tomb Blades, Spyders, Scarabs, Immortals, Spyders, Destroyers, Destroyer lord, Anrakyr, Zandrekyh and Obyron, Vanilla Overlord, Doom Scythe, Doomsaday Arc, Ghost Arc, Annhialation Barge.

Bleah never hit the table tier: Lychguard, Monolith, Praetorians, Ctan, the other two special characters mad scientist Lenny and the Space Geriatric Librarian, and Lame Ones.

Immortals are decent for anti-horde (Tesla) and against Armor Save 4+ (Gauss), and against AP4 or worse fire.

Point-for-Point I would go with Necron Warriors above Immortals unless you are dealing with any of the above.

Deathmarks produce a great deal of Wounds via the Hunters from Hyperspace rule. If you take Deathmarks, its worth it to consider taking more than one unit, so you can get more out of that rule.

As mentioned directly above, don't glue the big Tesla Gun to the Barge, and you'll have access to both types of Barges. The gun is designed to kind of click in place, so don't worry about it wobbling too much during play if you use it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
P.S. The Destroyer Lord is the best HQ in the current codex, but unfortunately cannot unlock access to Royal Courts.

Attach a DLord with Mind Shackle Scarabs and a Warscythe to a unit of Wraiths and you have one of the best CC units in the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
P.S.S Monoliths can be OK. If you already have one, build it, paint it, and give it a try.

If you don't already have one, I would put it pretty low on your acquisition priority list.

And I concur with the majority...Flayed Ones are garbage. Its too bad to, because they are easily convertible out of Warriors, and I like the look and fluff of them too.

Praetorians are not garbage - they are slightly inferior to Wraiths

Monoliths are that one unit every Necron player should have at least two of, but never fields them.
I think they are just awesome to have in your collection
And you want to play them, you really really do. But then you field them in your army and they don't do enough for their points.
So you'll let them stand on your cabinet and keep checking them out, because they look great.

Flayed Ones, without context, are pretty okay.
But they don't fit any list or tactic that we can make with our codex.
Combine that with their ridiculous price-tag and it's no wonder people never play them.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Praetorians are not garbage - they are slightly inferior to Wraiths

This is one of the utterly strange things about the Codex. If you do the math, you'll find that in most situations Wraiths and TPs fubction more or less identically, but Wraiths are slightly better.

What were they thinking making two more or less identical units, only one is usually better?