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Well, I did tell people that they didn't need to be too scared of Necrons.

Granted, I didn't think they'd be *that* bad, but just how horrifically useless tomb-world deployment is probably does have a lot to do with that.

Beyond that though, it does seem that a lot of Necron stuff, while strong on paper, is rather specifically built to troll low model count MEQ, TEQ, or MC/Vehicle heavy armies. Their lack of options leaves them unable to adapt to a horde meta.

Defensively too, their reliance on RP makes them good at resisting fire from elite armies who easily kill individual models, only to see those models get back up because they didn't have the volume of fire to wipe a whole 20-man block. Throw any horde at them though, and the value of RP rolls drops immensely as the horde can throw enough dice to wipe blobs one at a time, and don't suffer as much for having any one shot negated.

Necrons seem to suffer from being cripplingly over-specialized for a meta that has fallen out of favor, and not having nearly enough codex options to re-tool.

Who says GW will fix this with the codex? They let Tyranids go for years with no fix. Orks and AM where pretty poor performers in competitive settings for all of 7th.

All armies can't be equally competitive.

I don't think the game ever will be balanced enough that any competitive player could take any faction to top ten.

We're a pretty small army in terms of fluff and choices, as have been explained by others. Few or no wargear options, only one transport etc. Perhaps nobody in GW really care enough about what is really only a quite small niche faction.

The old GW let Tyranids and AM stay awful for a long time, and didn't address a whole host of other balance issues. The new GW has had three FAQ updates since launch to address balance issues such as flyers and scions. Included in those changes was a buff to the CCB, and a few other necron changes. In fact almost every faction has gotten some attention in the new FAQs. So new GW has shown more interest in balance in the two months since launch than old GW did in the prior two years.

I agree that perfect balance between each and every model/faction is not doable, but we have several examples of games with multiple factions that are balanced such that every faction can compete for the top spot. Games like infinity, warmachine/hordes, and flames of war show us what is possible when a company puts their mind to balance. They do so not only as a matter of professional pride, but because games where multiple factions compete for the top spot leads to more interesting play. The theory being the better the game the more people will play/buy it. GW seems to have come around to that logic as well, albeit a decade after they should have figured that out.

Obviously anecdotal but I recently had a game with some friends. It was a 2v2 with 2 750pt Necron lists vs 2 750pt Marine lists.

I ran destroyer wing, my partner had a cryptek, 2 full warrior squads and a triarch stalker.
Our opponents had a vindicator, a razorback, 5 marines, a biker-techmarine w/ conversion beamer and relic axe, a biker captain w/ flaming sword, 3 centurions, a devastator squad with missiles, 3 full assault squads, and 5 bikers.

Basically every Necron rule or stat was declared overpowered - especially destroyers (Destroyers have 3 wounds? OP! Destroyers do d3 damage? OP! Destroyers come back with full wounds? OP! Crypteks let Necrons come back on a 4+ and give them a 5++? OP!).

By about turn 3, I had my destroyer lord left and my partner had a few warriors clinging to life. Our opponents had about half their collective army left.

I don't mind losing, but it's rather irritating to have all my stuff declared OP whilst their "completely fair and balanced" stuff proceeds to table us.

 vipoid wrote:
Obviously anecdotal but I recently had a game with some friends. It was a 2v2 with 2 750pt Necron lists vs 2 750pt Marine lists.

I ran destroyer wing, my partner had a cryptek, 2 full warrior squads and a triarch stalker.
Our opponents had a vindicator, a razorback, 5 marines, a biker-techmarine w/ conversion beamer and relic axe, a biker captain w/ flaming sword, 3 centurions, a devastator squad with missiles, 3 full assault squads, and 5 bikers.

Basically every Necron rule or stat was declared overpowered - especially destroyers (Destroyers have 3 wounds? OP! Destroyers do d3 damage? OP! Destroyers come back with full wounds? OP! Crypteks let Necrons come back on a 4+ and give them a 5++? OP!).

By about turn 3, I had my destroyer lord left and my partner had a few warriors clinging to life. Our opponents had about half their collective army left.

I don't mind losing, but it's rather irritating to have all my stuff declared OP whilst their "completely fair and balanced" stuff proceeds to table us.

had the same thing happen to me, opponent was running Guilliman and the ultra smurfs. He had 11 command points, the ability to get them back on a 5+, was re-rolling hits and wounds, and had four characters including Sicarius and Guilliman. "Man destroyers are OP".

Destroyers are OP until you see their cost.

 Grimgold wrote:
The old GW let Tyranids and AM stay awful for a long time, and didn't address a whole host of other balance issues. The new GW has had three FAQ updates since launch to address balance issues such as flyers and scions. Included in those changes was a buff to the CCB, and a few other necron changes. In fact almost every faction has gotten some attention in the new FAQs. So new GW has shown more interest in balance in the two months since launch than old GW did in the prior two years.

I agree that perfect balance between each and every model/faction is not doable, but we have several examples of games with multiple factions that are balanced such that every faction can compete for the top spot. Games like infinity, warmachine/hordes, and flames of war show us what is possible when a company puts their mind to balance. They do so not only as a matter of professional pride, but because games where multiple factions compete for the top spot leads to more interesting play. The theory being the better the game the more people will play/buy it. GW seems to have come around to that logic as well, albeit a decade after they should have figured that out.

I agree that the outlooks to have problems fixed are more promising than ever in 7th. Those FAQed necron fixes though were most likely correcting errors rather than adjusting the balance. ( Immy LD9 / CCB character / Mono BS3+ )

I hope they toned down necron power ( by increasing cost ) to be on the safe side due to the anti-necron clamour after 7th RP, so that they can come back from the lower end to adjust balance, but after hurting us this bad I just don't really have my hopes up.

 Grimgold wrote:
had the same thing happen to me, opponent was running Guilliman and the ultra smurfs. He had 11 command points, the ability to get them back on a 5+, was re-rolling hits and wounds, and had four characters including Sicarius and Guilliman. "Man destroyers are OP".

On that note, I find it rather irritating that a SM Character does reanimation better than any Necron character.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Destroyers are OP until you see their cost.

Quite.

Yeah, used to play against two people who constantly said that Necrons are OP right from 5th ed to 8th. Was quite funny when most of the time I lost.


Dynasties look like a likely addition to the new codex with their separate rules, abilities and relics.

Which dynasties do you think would get this treatment and what would each one get that would help make us more competitive?

The way RP (and living metal to a lesser extent) work makes Necrons a difficult faction to balance.

Generally speaking, if you want to beat crons you have to pass a certain threshold of damage output per turn.

-If you are below that threshold you don't get to deny or outpace RP and the Necrons can finish the game at full strength, even if you knocked a lot of tin men over during the game.

-If you are just about at the required threshold the game can be close and go either way. Howerver it probably won't look like a close game by the final turn- If you did just enough to deny RP the Necrons will fold- If you didn't do quite enough the Necron army can start growing from turn 3 and you get steamrolled (a lot of my games have gone like this).

-Finally, if your damage output per turn easily exceeds the threshold required the Necrons are going to get blown off the table.


I think the Necron index is well balanced for most normal games of 40k where the opposing army will be in the middle of the above three situations. The top tables at tournaments are not normal games of 40k and the lists there will be firmly in the last category so the Necrons can't compete.

The problem is that GW can't adjust things so that the required threshold for damage output is at the level of tournament winning lists without making most normal games against Necrons really unpleasant.

A competitive tournament Necron list will not be able to make use of RP and will instead have to use vehicles and scarabs and maybe 5 man tesla immortals.

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
A competitive tournament Necron list will not be able to make use of RP and will instead have to use vehicles and scarabs and maybe 5 man tesla immortals.

I had this idea for an army which was all doomsday arcs and annihilation barges, maybe some blades or stalkers thrown in. Not convinced about flyers due to their cost but you could look at them too. Try and use your speed to avoid taking on their whole army at once. Rely on quantum sheilding to limit the effect of their D6 damage weapons.

Problem is everything is expensive. I am not sure you would have sufficient guns.

You probably wouldn't. I'm not suggesting that you can make a tournament winning cron list, just that if you can it won't be making much use of RP.

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:
The way RP (and living metal to a lesser extent) work makes Necrons a difficult faction to balance.

Generally speaking, if you want to beat crons you have to pass a certain threshold of damage output per turn.

...(good further detail)

I think that's the way it's supposed to work.

Tyel wrote:

Problem is everything is expensive. I am not sure you would have sufficient guns.

We're supposed to be an attrition army.
But, in 5 rounds (maybe 7) we can't output enough or (reliably) heal enough for those trends to significantly impact the game.

We need something to keep entire units from being eradicated. One option is more in the moment resillience- some mix of higher Toughness, FNP, more wounds, better armor, etc. Maybe other abilities- let the res orb's 1/game ability work on eradicated units, or a strategem to do the same...
We also need the ability to reliably attrit our opponents. Maybe that's longer range so we can engages sooner, I think it's probably harder/more hits in general... Gauss is currently not doing the work it did before. Just -1 AP comes too late in the probability chain and has too many counters for its cost.

But, right now, we're paying too much in too many ways and simply not getting value.

Regarding Gauss, I think Warriors are just too much of a step back from Immortals in terms of firepower. S5 AP-2 is very effective. S4 AP-1 . . . not so much.

Also, the progression of our Gauss weaponry seems strange, to say the least:

Gauss Flayer: -------------- Rapid Fire 24" S4 AP-1 D1
Gauss Blaster: ------------- Rapid Fire 24" S5 AP-2 D1
Gauss Cannon: ------------ Heavy 2 24" S5 AP-3 Dd3
Heavy Gauss Cannon: --- Heavy 1 36" S9 AP-4 Dd6

Should the Gauss Cannon not have higher strength than the Gauss Blaster (perhaps 6 or 7)?
Also, it seems weird that the Heavy Gauss Cannon is actually a step backwards from the Gauss Cannon in terms of number of shots.

 vipoid wrote:
Regarding Gauss, I think Warriors are just too much of a step back from Immortals in terms of firepower. S5 AP-2 is very effective. S4 AP-1 . . . not so much.

Also, the progression of our Gauss weaponry seems strange, to say the least:

Gauss Flayer: -------------- Rapid Fire 24" S4 AP-1 D1
Gauss Blaster: ------------- Rapid Fire 24" S5 AP-2 D1
Gauss Cannon: ------------ Heavy 2 24" S5 AP-3 Dd3
Heavy Gauss Cannon: --- Heavy 1 36" S9 AP-4 Dd6

Should the Gauss Cannon not have higher strength than the Gauss Blaster (perhaps 6 or 7)?
Also, it seems weird that the Heavy Gauss Cannon is actually a step backwards from the Gauss Cannon in terms of number of shots.

This is more or less a direct conversion from 7th with the glancing hits on sixes replaced by rend -1. Necrons wouldn't have been particularly good against vehicles in 7th if the glancing rule wasn't there.

I think that both the flayers and blasters are good against infantry, but are really lacking against vehicles. Idon't really mind that if Necrons would have better/cheaper options against high toughness targets.

The cannon was also in a weird spot in 7th. It's very good against elite infantry such as marines and terminators (not in 7th), but pretty useless against tougher targets. In the current meta it's pretty much useless.

The heavy gauss is great, but it's too expensive and so are the units that can carry it. The heavy gauss should not cost more than a lascannon since it trades an additional -1 range against range.

silentone2k wrote:


We're supposed to be an attrition army.
But, in 5 rounds (maybe 7) we can't output enough or (reliably) heal enough for those trends to significantly impact the game.

We need something to keep entire units from being eradicated. One option is more in the moment resilience- some mix of higher Toughness, FNP, more wounds, better armor, etc. Maybe other abilities- let the res orb's 1/game ability work on eradicated units, or a stratagem to do the same...
We also need the ability to reliably attrition our opponents. Maybe that's longer range so we can engages sooner, I think it's probably harder/more hits in general... Gauss is currently not doing the work it did before. Just -1 AP comes too late in the probability chain and has too many counters for its cost.

But, right now, we're paying too much in too many ways and simply not getting value.

Even with "in the moment" defense such as 5+ FnP, it doesn't fix the fundamental problem with RP, it just requires a bit more shooting to bypass it. If you don't allow people to bypass RP, eg: downed units always get a chance to roll RP, then you have to take away the subsequent turns part of RP because otherwise it would be impossible to get rid of necron units. With only one roll, it turns into an after the fact FnP, with the bonus of being per model as opposed to per wound.

Basically GW has painted themselves into a corner, they can't give us 7th ed RP because the deathguard already have it (and in all fairness it's not working that great for them), and 8th ed RP is hard to adjust without making it OP. They can give us something in the style of 5th ed RP, which has some advantages like no min unit size, and focus fire isn't that hot against it, but it's kind of boring, and stomps all over the death guard because it's basically their gimmick +1.

Thinking about it the only way to save the current system is via brute force, which is to say fix it with a points decrease as opposed to rules changes, which should increase our toughness via list building efficiency, You can see this in action with conscripts, or scarabs for that matter. If a 20 man warrior blob was 200 points (an example, not a suggestion), who cares if they get wiped out, because your opponent had to use a disproportionate amount of his points to do so. 40k is a game where almost anything can be useful if it's pointed correctly, again the crap statline of conscripts is a good example. It turns us into a horde army, but that is more or less how we played in 7th ed as I always outnumbered my opponent.

I'd still prefer rules changes that would allow us to be an elite army, that numbers closer to space marines as opposed to orks or guard, but my bet is a points reduction is what we will get until we get a codex. Which means we will probably continue to suck until chapter approved.

I really think the current system is fine, there just has to be a way to circumvent the squad wipe caveat.
Maybe give the ghost ark an ability to allow RP rolls for wiped squads, or bring back that old Spyder ability they had in 3rd. Hell, give the res orbs that ability. Then they'll be worth taking.

Honestly, whilst it's fluffier than what we had in 7th, I think the 8th edition mechanic needs a rethink.
- As Grimgold pointed out, it severely limits their options. It's also sits on a knife-edge between being useless and OP. If Necrons are too easy to kill, then you'll never even get to make the roll. If Necrons are too hard to kill ten your opponent will struggle to kill even a single squad.
- It means our characters don't have RPs in any form.
- It doesn't scale well (larger armies can pour more firepower into units to kill them, but we gain no scaling of unit size or survivability).

I don't think they are ever going to let you bring squads back from the dead.
Maybe they could offer it as a stratagem (after all returning conscripts are a thing - although not if they are all dead) but it seems to open the door to confusing situations and abuse.

Then again the stupid "no RP from morale" adds another needless complication so keeping things simple may not be a priority.

 vipoid wrote:
Honestly, whilst it's fluffier than what we had in 7th, I think the 8th edition mechanic needs a rethink.
- As Grimgold pointed out, it severely limits their options. It's also sits on a knife-edge between being useless and OP. If Necrons are too easy to kill, then you'll never even get to make the roll. If Necrons are too hard to kill ten your opponent will struggle to kill even a single squad.
- It means our characters don't have RPs in any form.
- It doesn't scale well (larger armies can pour more firepower into units to kill them, but we gain no scaling of unit size or survivability).

Well, I did make a suggestion about rolling for RP every time a unit takes damage, provided there are models left in the squad. Not sure if that would help with the scaling problem though.
But yes, at higher point levels it becomes easier to focus down squads.

Crazy idea - what if RPs were predicated on having a character nearby?

So you can bring squads back from the dead, so long as a character is within, say, 3" of the last model that died (put down a marker or such).

However, if there's no character nearby, you can't roll RPs for dead squads and other squads subtract 1 from the roll.


(We'd probably need some cheaper characters for this.)

As many people have mentioned Necrons are currently pretty one dimensional where they only good against low toughness armies such a infantry armies.

These are som rambling thoughts I've had.

1. I'm fine with the way RP works today. If other things are fixed there will be other threats for the opponent than just wipe out one unit of warriors.

2. A fix to our transport along with price decreases.

I'm not sure how the Ghost Ark could be fixed. Perhaps open topped and a price decrease would solve it.

Night Scythes and Monoliths are in a terrible spot with the Tomb world rule.

Monoliths should have the Eternity gate special rule from 7ths where they could teleport units already on the battle field. They should also be a bit tougher if their cost and firepower stays the same.

I not sure what could be done about the Night scythes, perhaps they could have an emergency teleport function if they are destroyed. Deploying the Tomb world unit where they where destroyed. They also need to be much cheaper.

3. Heavy weapons and units needs a price decrease. Although Necrons heavy weapons platforms were also expensive in 7th, but back then the had glancing gauss and vehicles weren't in the meta.

4. I don't like to have Forge World as a crutch because they will probably not be allowed in tournaments where I play.

5. The characters only buff the infantry and a infantry heavy Necron army isn't competetive. If the characters have access to ranged weapons that are good against high toughness targets it might help.

I'm all for stripping the transport status from ghost arks and just making them into dedicated ambulances.
Its as if GW couldn't decide if it should be a transport or a repair vehicle, so they tried making it do both and it ends up being subpar at both.
I would rather have it specialize in a single role and be really good at it. Transports are out because necrons and transports don't mix thematically, imo.

Tyel wrote:
I don't think they are ever going to let you bring squads back from the dead.
Maybe they could offer it as a stratagem (after all returning conscripts are a thing - although not if they are all dead) but it seems to open the door to confusing situations and abuse.

Then again the stupid "no RP from morale" adds another needless complication so keeping things simple may not be a priority.

Ive always maintained that the lower tier necrons, warriors at the very least shouldn't even be prone to morale at all. If mindless immortal resurrecting automatons aren't immune to running in fear no one should be.

silentone2k wrote:

We need something to keep entire units from being eradicated. One option is more in the moment resillience- some mix of higher Toughness, FNP, more wounds, better armor, etc. Maybe other abilities- let the res orb's 1/game ability work on eradicated units, or a strategem to do the same...
We also need the ability to reliably attrit our opponents. Maybe that's longer range so we can engages sooner, I think it's probably harder/more hits in general... Gauss is currently not doing the work it did before. Just -1 AP comes too late in the probability chain and has too many counters for its cost.

But, right now, we're paying too much in too many ways and simply not getting value.

Personally, I'd like to see special rules/units/options/etc that would allow us to prevent focus fire. Not entirely. But something we could use to make pointing more units at one unit more "costly".

Though, what I'm thinking they'll do is give us stratagems that will allow us to roll RP for units that were obliterated in the previous enemy turn, and/or phase out a unit and bring them back at full strength through a portal (similar to what the word bearers do with cultists). Simply because that's easier than introducing some sort of complex anti-focus fire mechanic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:
Crazy idea - what if RPs were predicated on having a character nearby?

So you can bring squads back from the dead, so long as a character is within, say, 3" of the last model that died (put down a marker or such).

However, if there's no character nearby, you can't roll RPs for dead squads and other squads subtract 1 from the roll.


(We'd probably need some cheaper characters for this.)

Necrons already spam crypteks. It wouldn't change a thing.

Perhaps allow nearby units suffer casualties? I can't find make it work with the fluff, but it could take the edge of that RP knife

what if you could roll RP at the start of both phases. Your's and your opponents. It makes us much more hardy, but also still has counterplay in focusing down a single squad a turn?

Simple fix or too OP?

 Klowny wrote:
what if you could roll RP at the start of both phases. Your's and your opponents. It makes us much more hardy, but also still has counterplay in focusing down a single squad a turn?

Simple fix or too OP?

Interesting (or welcome at least) but wouldn't really change the either or nature of RP

 Arandmoor wrote:
Necrons already spam crypteks. It wouldn't change a thing.

Um, you'd be able to bring dead squads back to life. Hardly nothing.

They should give Necrons a blanket 5+ Invuln