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Just a few questions:

What do you equip preatorians with?
Death marks any good?
Is there a LOW, if any, that you would use in an 1850 list?
Is Nemesor, Obryon, and Orican worth it?
Ever considered monoliths in the formation with the oblisc?
Flayed one are good now apparently, how many would you consider running?

Praetorians are typically best with the rod of covenant since AP2 is rare to come by for Necrons in CC short of warscythes. If you are taking the Judicator battalion, then its best to have one squad have rods of covenant and the other have voidblades and particle casters to have a little more versatility against hordes or vehicles.

Deathmarks are okay, if a little situational, they're decent against MC heavy lists and countering deep strike units but for the most part are overshadowed by the amount of dakka that other units put out like tomb blades or more reliable rending units like Wraiths.

Obelisks would be the only LoW I would consider and its mainly because its a great fire magnet for a modest (for a super-heavy) price. Have it hold your backline or shove its bulk into your opponent's enemy lines, knowing that when it does blow that you've redirected firepower from your other units and that many that took it down likely died from its ensuing death explosion. Its also decent in causing trouble for all the speedy jetbike/skimmer lists nowadays.

Nemesor Zandrehk is totally worth it, in many cases he is a go to HQ choice for many Necron armies because of his ability to choose his warlord traits to suit the demands of the battle which can be crazy good in maelstrom since you can double the amount of VP's you get for securing objectives, or buff the shooting of your units, etc. Obyron I feel is fairly meh, at best he's good for getting another veil of darkness in your army and that's about it. Orikan is mainly seen in the lychguard with dispersion shield deathstar unit, since he lets them re-roll failed saves of 1, making them effectively immortal. Otherwise he's fairly limited as an HQ.

Monoliths are sadly lacklustre and don't do much for their cost in the codex, its much better just to take an obelisk than waste points on the formation and ghost arks/night scythes are a much better way to ferry infantry around anyways.

Flayed ones are pretty damn scary, and for the most part I think 5-10 is good enough, their resilience thanks to RP means you don't need to big of a group and the sheer amount of attacks they each have in addition to shred means anything over 10 often means overkill which you don't always want in CC.

1. You're only really going to use Praetorians in the Judicator, and therefore you would want 1 of each Void Blades and Rods.
2. Deathmarks are excellent. They're not for everyone, though. It depends how many MC's you see in your area, but they're still a good counter to IoM Alpha Strike lists. Kinda makes them TAC.
3. If the Obelisk's spheres have a 180 degree arc, they might be worth looking into. Vaults will explode more, which makes them more fun to Deep Strike in the middle of the opponent's deployment zone, but that's not really worth the extra 250.
4. All three are excellent. The only HQ's that don't have much of a place would be Trazyn (taking away what could've been OS and not letting him take over Lychguard screws him over royally) and the Stormlord (kinda...lackluster).
5. Monoliths are still garbage. Ordnance on the whip means that the Gauss guns on it only snapfire.
6. 10 in a squad is fine. 15 is more intimidating and makes for a good Infiltrating firemagnet.

I love deathmarks. They are a fun little unit of assassins, but you have to be careful with how you use them.

Monoliths aren't great. I love them, and the new living metal rule sort of helps them, but they really, really need that DS mishap immunity for them to shine.
Its better to think of them as a support unit than as an offensive unit; you can use the gate to rapidly mobilize squads, and use it to block line of sight.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I love deathmarks. They are a fun little unit of assassins, but you have to be careful with how you use them.

Monoliths aren't great. I love them, and the new living metal rule sort of helps them, but they really, really need that DS mishap immunity for them to shine.
Its better to think of them as a support unit than as an offensive unit; you can use the gate to rapidly mobilize squads, and use it to block line of sight.

I'm surprised to see so many people feeling "meh" towards the Monolith. My buddy runs 6 of them (well, in huge games, anyway. but he's never without a monolith if he can avoid it).

The biggest issue is they are the same price as a land raider with less killing power, and land raiders are really meh now a days.

Monoliths suck now that the Particle Whip forces Snap Firing on the Gauss weapons it has.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The hit to durability didn't help, either.

 General_K wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I love deathmarks. They are a fun little unit of assassins, but you have to be careful with how you use them.

Monoliths aren't great. I love them, and the new living metal rule sort of helps them, but they really, really need that DS mishap immunity for them to shine.
Its better to think of them as a support unit than as an offensive unit; you can use the gate to rapidly mobilize squads, and use it to block line of sight.

I'm surprised to see so many people feeling "meh" towards the Monolith. My buddy runs 6 of them (well, in huge games, anyway. but he's never without a monolith if he can avoid it).

Well if you run six of them, they are bound to be useful. That's a lot of AV14 teleporters

Monolith can really shine in low-point games.

 EnTyme wrote:
Monolith can really shine in low-point games.

Personally my monolith has always done at least decent. I really like running it with the Living Tomb.

Praetorian's are kind of a mixed bag, on their own they are great, very mobile, AP 2, just as capable in CC. They are pricey, but can earn their points. However Necrons are not an army of "on their own", we need our formations to be competitive. The Judicator battalion is kind of curious, because to get the benefits of the formation the Praetorian's have to give up their speed and stay within 6" of the stalker. With a 12 inch range on their good weapon, this is a death sentence.

Death marks are interesting, and can be devastating on a counter deep strike (take that drop pod armies), but once they've blown their loads they are so so. If you know your opponent is going to deep strike in expensive non-vehicle units, they could be a good counter, with rapid fire, sniper, and wounding on a 2+ on their first turn they can hit way above their weight. However they end up being too situational for a take all comers list.

Our LOW, Imhotek, needs a list built around him to maximize his effectiveness. It can be fun but it's not ultra competitive.

As for characters, it depends, they are all pretty situational. Once again you have to think it terms of formations, many of them require a royal court, which means a lych star. They are a fearsome deathstar, but that pigeon holes you into a certain style of play because so many points are sunk into a deathstar. Out of the lot Nemmesor and Anrakyr are the best. The nemmesor would be cool if we had better than middling warlord traits, and Anrakyr is melee focused without an invul save. However points wise they aren't really worth two standard overlords.

Monoliths are ok, they have particle whip which is a nice attack, and eternity gate, which is a cool mobility enhancer, but they are giant targets, standing well above just about any terrain. They are also slow as all get out, so if they are out of position they are scenery. It's not that they are terrible, it's just that there are better things to spend your points on.The living tomb formation has to deep strike, and with the size of the ob, mishaps are pretty common. The stacking shells game of deep striking in a monolith exactly where you want it followed by a unit exactly where you want it is neat, but that's a lot of points. It's not that it's a bad option, That's why you hear so many people defend it, because it can be effective, maybe even clutch in the right circumstances. But compared to spending those points on a harvest or destroyers, or heck even warriors, it's just not that good.

Haven't really played with flayed ones, since i prefer the mobility of the harvest, but yes I hear they are beastly.

Grimgold wrote:
The Judicator battalion is kind of curious, because to get the benefits of the formation the Praetorian's have to give up their speed and stay within 6" of the stalker.

... Why would Praetorians want to stay near the Stalker? Just to give them BS 5? That's a complete waste.
Stalker stays with gunline (Warriors, Heavy D, etc), Praets go do their own thing. If you want to make sure everyone has line of sight on the same target(s) that might be alright to help, but there's no reason to keep them right next to each other.

Out of the lot Nemmesor and Anrakyr are the best. The nemmesor would be cool if we had better than middling warlord traits, and Anrakyr is melee focused without an invul save.

Zahndrekh is our best named SC, by far. I don't know why you'd want to handicap yourself by only sticking to the Necron codex warlord traits instead of the more versatile generic ones found in the main rulebook.
Anrakyr is meh at best. Orikan, Obyron, and even Szeras rank higher than him in usefulness.

Zahndrek confers fearless, which is really important if you are running the Orikanstar.

It's nigh on unkillable, but its low mobility is an issue, so you have to use it for board control.

Grimgold wrote:
The Judicator battalion is kind of curious, because to get the benefits of the formation the Praetorian's have to give up their speed and stay within 6" of the stalker. With a 12 inch range on their good weapon, this is a death sentence.

I don't think you understand what the formation does. The formation rule provides rerolls to shooting against a unit within Line of Sight of the Stalker... range has nothing to do with it. The Praetorians could be 48" away from the Stalker and still get the benefit of the formation's rule if the Stalker can see their target. The Stalker doesn't even have to be shooting at the same target as the Praetorians to provide this rule's benefit.

The 6" buff you're thinking of is the Stalker's ability that is inherent with Stalkers and has nothing to do with the formation. They provide +1 BS to ALL necron units within 6". Obviously the Praetorians are not going to benefit from this much but a lot of other units (Warriors) in the codex will benefit.

zerosignal wrote:
Zahndrek confers fearless, which is really important if you are running the Orikanstar.

It's nigh on unkillable, but its low mobility is an issue, so you have to use it for board control.

The mobility has never been an issue in the 3 or so games I've played with it. I played it mostly against Tau and Eldar (non-jetbike spam) and once they veiled up the board, they single-handedly wiped out most of my friends Tau force every game. And anything that runs away gets caught by the rest of my list.

Anrakyr is an excellent SC, especially in low point games. The abilit to give a relentless crusader bubble is invaluable and he's a beat in CC, again, really shining at lower point games. Also pinching weapons off enemy vehicles is quite fun. I'd recommend him in CADs under 1250 ahead of any other SC.

To be honest, the only reason to take Anrakyr is because he gets the Relentless Warlord trait. That's excellent for Sentry Pylons.

Otherwise, he hasn't much of a place in a competitive list.