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I'm thinking about starting Necrons, but am fully aware of the shear cheese that they possess at the moment. I like them because they look awesome, and, their lore is quite cool too, being even older than the Eldar! But, does it make me a bad person if I start to play them?

If your answer to the first part was "no" or "not really", then my next question will be, aside from the Start Collecting (i don't like the Triarch Stalker) how should I start my Necrons force (withina £100 limit)?

Hello!

If you're an awful person for liking Necrons, then the vast majority of 40k players are awful since Space Marines and Eldar are often considered worse and Tau are generally considered on par at least.

Play the army you love the most. If that is Necrons, then play necrons. That way you will have the most motivation to slog through the assembly and painting (if you are more into playing), and being inspired by your army is generally what leads to them looking better and being played better. You might get bored of something you chose to play because of the opinions of other people.

As for what you should buy: what do you like the most? I noticed you said you dislike the stalker; any other models you have a similar distaste for? Are you looking to play more competitive or more fluffy/casual? I have not gotten to read the latest book and stopped playing them an edition ago, so I can mostly help in the casual area.

But, I'm sure other people will be jumping on on 3... 2... 1...

You're not a bad person so long as you're trying to play a fun game. If your attitude, going in, is "I want to crush my opponent and hear them cry!" then you suck.

But if your attitude going in is "I want to play a fun game of 40k!" then you're fine.

One of our greatest strengths is in our basic troops. Start there. If you can find the old Necron Battleforce on eBay or Amazon, that's how I started. It gives a twenty Warriors, five Immortals, a Ghost Ark, and a handful of Scarabs if I remember right. Add in an Overlord and a unit of Tomb Blades and you already have a Reclamation Legion! From there, just figure out what other units and formations in the codex you want to field.

Our most competitive formations are the Canoptek Harvest and the Destroyer Cult. I don't use Destroyers because I don't like the models, and they don't fit the head canon for my dynasty, but Wraiths and Spyders are cool as hell. Your personal tastes may be different. If you're just looking for the cheapest way to finish of a Decurion, throw in some Deathmarks. Pretty cool models, and they usually perform decently well on the tabletop.

Necrons aren't so much cheese as they're just ridiculously hard to put down but also doesn't kill people as fast as other races. So most battles tend to be a slog. However this only applies to the full Decurion (where everything basically has a save over a save). If you just run the formations or run a CAD with some brutal hard hitting choices, Necrons can be rather fun.

No necrons have a very good bonus that very few armies have.

You can assemble and paint around 5000 points of them in well under a month and play apoc games with higher the table top quality models.

Lead beltcher, wash, dry brush, DONE!

 DarkShade1999 wrote:
But, does it make me a bad person if I start to play them?

Our resident Necron player is certainly competitive (he's very capable when it comes to evaluating tactics and units from other armies) but he's still fun to play against. He always brings a smile and some good stories so it never feels bad to play him even if it takes a lot of effort to remove units from his army. He never brags about his units, nor does he disparage my unit choices. He just plays the game and accepts both victory and defeat like a gentleman.

So no, you're not automatically a bad person for choosing Necrons.

If you worried about being TFG, you are already on the right path for not being him.

An army does not make you TFG, even if its the most cheesy cheddar to hit the store.

Running a super broken OP army, like wraith knights, scat bikes, and warp spiders and saying its Not op or that its a totally balanced list, or playing tau and always incising you field hammer and anvil style, THAT, is what makes you TFG

If you came to me and ran all scat bikes and told me yo this is cheese or a tournament list, im not going to think you are TFG

I just started eldar about a month ago. Doing so allowed me to bring 10 warp spiders vs my friends tau for a deathwatch game. It was amazing and I have little regrets. Though it is a bit like crack cocaine because now I need more. So necromancy away! Don't feel bad, my buddy literally plays necron, tau and eldar.... Now he likes the cheese!

 Rotary wrote:
I just started eldar about a month ago. Doing so allowed me to bring 10 warp spiders vs my friends tau for a deathwatch game. It was amazing and I have little regrets. Though it is a bit like crack cocaine because now I need more. So necromancy away! Don't feel bad, my buddy literally plays necron, tau and eldar.... Now he likes the cheese!

Well warp spiders are pretty damn cheesy lol

Just build an army that uses a variety of units and you'll be fine. You can get away with spamming some things so long as they aren't "broken"

There are only two armies I don't enjoy playing against. Tau and Necrons. AdMech in high point games.

Now, just because the authors of these books (in my mind) ought to be pummeld into a wheelchair by gargantuan dildos, doesn't mean players bare any responsibility for what their army of choice can do. Doesn't make you an unsavory person or opponent to throw dice against. People who bust chops for another person's army tend to be TFG. If you dig Necron fluff and the models (hell, even the play style) pick up a starter and enjoy yourself man.


Now, as a heads up, if you run a Decurion w/Canoptek Harvest every game, even the most patient players will get tired of playing it. I know, 3 out of 4 of my local necron players run that gak all the time.

You like Necrons? Then join the quest to irradicate the living.

If you like the army then go play the army, simple as. just know how powerful you can be with some lists (i.e. the Decurion with the Canoptek Harvest) and try to not bring that sort of power to every game or at least declare it in advance.

To punctuate the point, I tend to play very powerful Eldar lists but only in competitive events or if I've warned my opponent in advance and they're cool with it.

Well, you already got some good advice. I play my Necron army only in competitive or apoc events. The decurion makes them very powerful if tooled up correctly.

The nice thing about Necrons is, that every unit of them is useful. That way you can buy and play what you like.
On the other hand, Necrons with 4+ RP are really nasty and usually not that funny to play against, but it still depends. The more wraith, the less fun for your opponent .

To add a necron player perspective, as mentioned necrons are the toughest army in terms of ability to take fire without loosing units. This lets you get away with some pretty audacious tactics, but the reason I like necrons is because I get to field a wide array of units. My standard list has beast, Jetpacks, jetbikes, monstrous creatures, swarms, and 3 different kinds of infantry, and that's pretty far from the most exotic list out there. It's also a large army, I usually outnumber space marines by half again. Finally Every part of my army is dangerous, necron firepower isn't top drawer, but every unit can contribute.

With that said there are a few drawbacks, we don't have any show stopping units like wraith knights or riptides. A lot of our toughness is luck based, so if you get a cold streak it can really bone you. Suprisingly the opposite is also a problem, get a hot streak and people don't see fickle dice rolls, they see an invincible army that's piloted by a WAAC player (this is where most of the salt thrown at Necrons comes from). The final semi issue is that we tend to be short ranged, 24" or less in general, I mention it because some necron players tend to complain about it. My personal thought is range is most useful when playing defensively, which is something necrons should not do often.

A brief sidebar that I promise will be relevant, all other things being equal, the person who uses all of his force will be more successful than a person who uses a fraction of his force. Because of how tough we are we can afford to take chances, we also don't have any lynch pin units we have to hide, so all of your army should be engaging the enemy every turn. Playing necrons well means will often mean being completely devoted to aggression, you might not win every fight but you should be in every fight. This is something that not every player is a fan of, most players prefer a more tactical approach, feinting and holding units in reserve, and they will find that necron offense is not strong enough to carry the day. This isn't saying you should play stupidly or simply, you still need to seek the conditions that lead to a win, hold objectives, get local superiority, prioritize targets effectively, and isolate enemy units. You have to do all of that while being the aggressor, because Necron offense is weak enough that you need all hands on deck to be a threat.

If that's not really your thing, there are lots of other great armies, Space marines and Eldar are much more tactical in their approach, and Tau plays much more defensively. Armies outside of the current Big four can be a lot of fun, but you'll have to accept you might be fighting an uphill battle in some match ups. Anyway hope my ramblings help you make a decision!

The only time to be worried about being TFG is if you're using Eldar.

 DarkShade1999 wrote:
I'm thinking about starting Necrons, but am fully aware of the shear cheese that they possess at the moment. I like them because they look awesome, and, their lore is quite cool too, being even older than the Eldar! But, does it make me a bad person if I start to play them?

If your answer to the first part was "no" or "not really", then my next question will be, aside from the Start Collecting (i don't like the Triarch Stalker) how should I start my Necrons force (withina £100 limit)?

Necrons are far, far, far less scary than the most popular armies, Spess mureens and eldar, and are probably about the same or a bit weaker than tau are, no reason at all people should call you a bad person for playing them. A great starting point for Necrons are warriors and ghost arcs, add support for flavour as troops are actually important in a necron army.

 cosmicsoybean wrote:


Necrons are far, far, far less scary than the most popular armies, Spess mureens and eldar, and are probably about the same or a bit weaker than tau are, no reason at all people should call you a bad person for playing them. A great starting point for Necrons are warriors and ghost arcs, add support for flavour as troops are actually important in a necron army.

If I might respectfully disagree, the starting point for necrons is probably the start collecting box, you'll use everything in the box, and it's around a 30% discount off of retail. The goal of a necron player just getting started should be to get a decurion going, and after that to get a second auxillary to reach the 1850 points area. The three best auxilries are the D-Cult, a harvest and a judicator battalion, D-Cult cost almost as much as the rest of the army, so most people opt for a judicator battalion and a harvest. With the start collecting box they need, one more squad of warriors, a squad of immortals, a squad of tomb blades, and then either a two squads of praetorian, or a tomb spyder and a squad of wraiths. Whichever way they go expanding into the other auxiliary is a simple matter. If your Ebay savvy between the start collecting and stuff you can grab from there, you can get your decurion going for around $200 and be tournament ready at 1850 with two aux for less then $300. I would recommend going for the Judicator battalion first because because a harvest ends up being a crutch for too many new necron players.

Also since the FAQ Ghost arks are trash, they were a shaky investment before, but now that the passengers can only snapshot after jinking it's just completely not worth it.

Necrons are far, far, far less scary than the most popular armies

My experience is a bit different. The ''decurion'' refuses to die. Where Marines will fall in round 2, Necrons can prevail.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Necrons are far, far, far less scary than the most popular armies

My experience is a bit different. The ''decurion'' refuses to die. Where Marines will fall in round 2, Necrons can prevail.

As has been my experience. Most Marine Alpha Strikes are dice dependent. Even if they go well, after they've blown their load so to speak, they crumble easily. Even with gladius once you take care of the transports (non-drop pods) you more or less cripple the army. There are also a handful of pretty "bleh" units in the marine book whereas necrons are a threat from cover to cover.

They are more or less the anti-tau. Tau castle up or suit up to kill stuff from across the board. Necrons plod forward and kill stuff. They are absolutely king of purge the alien, and fare extremely well in maelstrom too due to the resilience and the speed of their beasts and skimmers.

My experience as Necrons is that any of the other big four are a decent game, with the exception of tau, who lost when they drew me as their opponent. Marines are completely dependent on obsec to win, because they can't go toe to toe. Eldar are challenging, because they have enough offense to hurt me, but that's a two way street, so they keep their distance and pepper my units with scatter lasers while I stand on objectives and whichever one of us screw up first looses.

My most annoying armies to fight are Space wolves (oh so everything has multiple wounds a 3++, that's nice), Imperial knights (super RNG dependent fight), taudar (why does this thing even exists), and knorne deamons (oh another skarbrand, I would have never guessed).

 Grimgold wrote:
My experience as Necrons is that any of the other big four are a decent game, with the exception of tau, who lost when they drew me as their opponent. Marines are completely dependent on obsec to win, because they can't go toe to toe. Eldar are challenging, because they have enough offense to hurt me, but that's a two way street, so they keep their distance and pepper my units with scatter lasers while I stand on objectives and whichever one of us screw up first looses.

My most annoying armies to fight are Space wolves (oh so everything has multiple wounds a 3++, that's nice), Imperial knights (super RNG dependent fight), taudar (why does this thing even exists), and knorne deamons (oh another skarbrand, I would have never guessed).

This is pretty much my experience. The lower-tier codices can beat us if the dice roll their way and they draw the right objectives, but I have no illusions that my victories in those games come more from my codex than my skill. SM are about 50/50. Spacewolves will likely ROFLSTOMP me even with a Decurion (they're the only thing that can consistently table Necrons. Even Wraiths fear TWC with SS/TH without Orikan cheese). Don't have any Eldar in my Meta, but Tau will drown us in rate of fire and the Monster Mash. It also doesn't help that our local Tau/SW player is a confirmed cheater (so he's given me an irrational hatred of Team Jacob and the Fish-men).

Save your money. Wait until after 8th edition drops so you don't have to double-buy on rules and codex.

 Grimgold wrote:

 cosmicsoybean wrote:


Necrons are far, far, far less scary than the most popular armies, Spess mureens and eldar, and are probably about the same or a bit weaker than tau are, no reason at all people should call you a bad person for playing them. A great starting point for Necrons are warriors and ghost arcs, add support for flavour as troops are actually important in a necron army.

If I might respectfully disagree, the starting point for necrons is probably the start collecting box, you'll use everything in the box, and it's around a 30% discount off of retail. The goal of a necron player just getting started should be to get a decurion going, and after that to get a second auxillary to reach the 1850 points area. The three best auxilries are the D-Cult, a harvest and a judicator battalion, D-Cult cost almost as much as the rest of the army, so most people opt for a judicator battalion and a harvest. With the start collecting box they need, one more squad of warriors, a squad of immortals, a squad of tomb blades, and then either a two squads of praetorian, or a tomb spyder and a squad of wraiths. Whichever way they go expanding into the other auxiliary is a simple matter. If your Ebay savvy between the start collecting and stuff you can grab from there, you can get your decurion going for around $200 and be tournament ready at 1850 with two aux for less then $300. I would recommend going for the Judicator battalion first because because a harvest ends up being a crutch for too many new necron players.

Also since the FAQ Ghost arks are trash, they were a shaky investment before, but now that the passengers can only snapshot after jinking it's just completely not worth it.

AV 13 OT dedicated skimmer transports are "trash" now... huh, that's weird. Also, it would be a good idea to read the OP since he clearly said he wasn't looking at the start collecting box and was worried about being cheese so the decurion wouldnt be a priority for him as well, he said he likes them for looks and lore so trying to get 'tournament ready' also doesn't seem like a priority to him.

Ghost Arks can only hold warriors so OT matters not a whit, cost three times as much as a rhino, and with salvo it's one of the few transports that encourages you not too move. People used it as a deployable jinking pill box, but with the clarification on passengers snap firing as well, it's now a trap that will gimp the fire power of anyone you place in it. So yup total trash.

If someone wants advice on how to be awful and get tabled, they probably won't need this boards help. What this board is good for is offering advice on how to play/collect effectively. If you have a good army you can always tone it down, but if you have a bad collection this hobby can get very frustrating, because no amount of tactics will make up for poor strategy in putting together your force.

As for what people consider cheesy, people will whine and complain about anything, the only person who has to be happy with his army is himself. The sooner he realizes that the more he will enjoy the hobby.

 Grimgold wrote:
Ghost Arks can only hold warriors so OT matters not a whit, cost three times as much as a rhino, and with salvo it's one of the few transports that encourages you not too move. People used it as a deployable jinking pill box, but with the clarification on passengers snap firing as well, it's now a trap that will gimp the fire power of anyone you place in it. So yup total trash.

If someone wants advice on how to be awful and get tabled, they probably won't need this boards help. What this board is good for is offering advice on how to play/collect effectively. If you have a good army you can always tone it down, but if you have a bad collection this hobby can get very frustrating, because no amount of tactics will make up for poor strategy in putting together your force.

As for what people consider cheesy, people will whine and complain about anything, the only person who has to be happy with his army is himself. The sooner he realizes that the more he will enjoy the hobby.

It's also weaker than a rhino, has not even CLOSE to the firepower that a ghost ark can pump out and salvo doesn't matter unless it has been FAQ because vehicles have relentless which makes them count as stationary for firing weapons. A ghost arc can also repair basic troops while shuttling them around quite quickly. and for your last part... don't even bother replying to a post if you really, for whatever reason, don't feel like adding to the conversation, it's just spamming at that point.

Ghost Arks aren't trash. It's just that you have to commit to running a lot of vehicles on the ground (ie an AV 13 wall) for them to earn their points. If the opponent has plenty of anti-vehicle for the couple of Ghost Arks in your list, those points are going to evaporate from your army in the first couple of turns. It's the same problem that happens if you just run one Triarch Stalker and everything else troops.

AV 13 overall isn't as good a strategy as it used to be when Catacomb Command Barges and Annihilation Barges were awesome. Also, the rise of ranged D makes vehicles that aren't dirt cheap a liability for 40k armies across the board. It's a meta of ranged D and free vehicles.

Nowadays, the true gems of the Necron codex are Wraiths and Tomb Blades and to a slightly lesser extent Destroyers. Building a list out of those and no vehicles at all winds up being a flat out better list than an AV 13 wall.

You're not a jerk for choosing the army you like the look and lore of!! I have a Necron army- personally, I find the way they play on the board a bit boring.. But hey- that's me.
If I were you, I'd look for an army that I love the look and lore of and like the way they play on the board. If that ends up being Necrons- THEN PLAY NECRONS!!!
I love the look, lore, and the way to play .. CSM... That has been a challenge as they are a tough army to play against the top tier codecies... But man, do I love to play my CSM.
Go with what you like man- forget what other people will think of you-(with the exception of your opponent). Unless you're playing a tourney- just remember, there are 2 of you playing the game for fun here.. Take it easy on us CSM, Tyranid, sister, Orks and BA players! Lol.

Every army can be strong or it can be weak. Yes, codex strength is a factor, but how you personally play the army is also a huge decider in how your games go.

My advice, play what you want and then adjust accordingly if you are consistantly winning/losing in your gaming circle.