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.

TBH, I personally think a balanced cron list now incorporates a wide variety of ranges. We should have some backfield cannons, with good midrange damage dealers and mid-close range firefights.

DDA and pylons, fronted by arks/destroyers/tomb blades and GI immortals make a consistent damage output.

We shouldn't have to rely on fw units to work though.

hobojebus wrote:
We shouldn't have to rely on fw units to work though.

Agreed.

Gauss needs to do something again, even if it's just a reroll to wound against vehicles.

Just saw this in the Reinforcement Points thread:

Firefox1 wrote:

With that in mind Necron Reinforcement Protocols is the most OP thing in 8th edition. Yes i know the counter is focus fire, but still sometimes your dice rebel and won´t let you kill the last of the 20 warriors, and next turn are all back.

(Emphasis mine.)

Sigh.

Yeah FW reliance is unfortunate, but it's all we got until our codex.

Yeah I saw that post and immediately called him out on his claim. Ridiculous lol. Poor soul doesn't know how to play 40k

Yeah you can get lucky and res 80% of your losses but you could also only get 10% back with a bad roll.

That may let us hang in longer but it does nothing to help us kill at range

With that in mind Imperial Knight Ion Shield is the most OP thing in 8th edition. Yes i know the counter is focus fire, but still sometimes your dice rebel and won´t let you kill the last of the 24 wounds, and next turn it is all still there.

Omg

All Is Dust and Disgustingly Resilient are both much better survivability rules than RP is. Largely because neither of them can be cancelled out by a sufficiently large amount of fire.

The main issues from this thread seem to be lack of decent anti-tank, inability to deal with horde, RP not being very effective and serious lack of mobility.
Keeping these in mind and considering Klowny's responses to my questions I've tried to come up with a list that addresses them. It was exceedingly difficult which says a lot.
What do you think of the following 2k list (only options not auto wargear listed):

Destroyer Lord with Warscythe
Cryptek
10 Immortals with Tesla
10 Immortals with Tesla
9 Immortals with Tesla
3 Wraiths with Particle Shredders
5 Scarab Swarms
3 Acanthrites
1 Tesseract Arc with 2 Tesla Cannons
1 Sentry Pylon with Heat Ray
1 Gauss Pylon

Between them the 3 'Vehicles' are putting out 3d6 very effective anti tank shots 2/3's of which are D6 damage and 1/3 of which is 6+d3 damage. The Acanthrites cutting beams also adds to this.
58 Tesla shots at mid range plus 6 Tesla Cannon shots should put 43/44 wounds before saves on T3 and T4 respectively.
All Immortals have a fully effective 24" range meaning that they will be less likely to be in rapid fire range or within range of short range weaponry of the opponents. It also means that they have more choice with cover whilst keeping full firing effectiveness. These should help increase the amount of models left standing to a small extent. the 5++ and 4+RP from the Cryptek also obviously helps.
The D-Lord, Scarabs, Acanthrites and Wraiths add much needed mobility and shouldn't need to worry about multi damage weapons as much with the Pylons and Arc absorbing a lot of the opponents firepower (I presume).
There are a multitude of armour ignoring shots for MEQ and TEQ as well as the Acanthrites and D-Lords assault capabilities and the sheer amount of Tesla hits to be able to deal with Marines.
It comes to 1999pts so the Particle Shredders could be removed for an extra Scarab Swarm.

I can make better lists using other Indexes, Necrons are definitely sub-par due to their costings, but this is the best I can come up with personally, having read the problems that people are bringing up.

Now I've only played 4 games in 8th so far, and none with Necrons, so it's all theory crafting up till this point. So to those of you with more experience of Necrons in 8th, am I going along the right track here?

 vipoid wrote:
Just saw this in the Reinforcement Points thread:

Firefox1 wrote:

With that in mind Necron Reinforcement Protocols is the most OP thing in 8th edition. Yes i know the counter is focus fire, but still sometimes your dice rebel and won´t let you kill the last of the 20 warriors, and next turn are all back.

(Emphasis mine.)

Sigh.

My reaction in meme format


Well that's a blast from the past, there was what 15 pages of that obnoxious pre release thread, with each page having more outrageous claims about necrons imminent takeover of eighth ed than the last. I've occasionally thought about necroing it and asking people to come back and defend their dire predictions, because a victory lap might be good for a chuckle, but ultimately decided against it because that much stupid needs to stay dead.

Hey Poly maybe post this in the Necron tactics thread, youll get better responses there and we can keep this as a discussion about our inherent weaknesses currently

Wishlist:

Warriors- 10 ppm from 12
Scarabs- now a troop unit
Immortals- now elite, 2W, 20 ppm from 17, gauss blaster is now assault 2
deathmarks- gun is now 30" from 24"
Praetorians- gain 1W, Str 6, flat 2 damage on both melee weapons
Lychguard- 3++ with shield, scythe is now AP -4, 6+ FNP
Flayed ones- now fast attack, 17ppm from 21

Doom Scythe - death ray damage is now mortal wounds
Monolith/Night scythe - the units being transported in are a lot scarier now so I would hesitate to change these

Havent played other models so cant comment

That wishlist is garbage.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That wishlist is garbage.

Garbage as in it wouldn't help? Garbage as in it would be too much? Or garbage in that it lacks ambition?

I'd want more mobility, but a lot of these are okay I'd want more offence across the board too

 Klowny wrote:

Spoiler:

Poly Ranger wrote:
The main issues from this thread seem to be lack of decent anti-tank, inability to deal with horde, RP not being very effective and serious lack of mobility.
Keeping these in mind and considering Klowny's responses to my questions I've tried to come up with a list that addresses them. It was exceedingly difficult which says a lot.
What do you think of the following 2k list (only options not auto wargear listed):

Destroyer Lord with Warscythe
Cryptek
10 Immortals with Tesla
10 Immortals with Tesla
9 Immortals with Tesla
3 Wraiths with Particle Shredders
5 Scarab Swarms
3 Acanthrites
1 Tesseract Arc with 2 Tesla Cannons
1 Sentry Pylon with Heat Ray
1 Gauss Pylon

Between them the 3 'Vehicles' are putting out 3d6 very effective anti tank shots 2/3's of which are D6 damage and 1/3 of which is 6+d3 damage. The Acanthrites cutting beams also adds to this.
58 Tesla shots at mid range plus 6 Tesla Cannon shots should put 43/44 wounds before saves on T3 and T4 respectively.
All Immortals have a fully effective 24" range meaning that they will be less likely to be in rapid fire range or within range of short range weaponry of the opponents. It also means that they have more choice with cover whilst keeping full firing effectiveness. These should help increase the amount of models left standing to a small extent. the 5++ and 4+RP from the Cryptek also obviously helps.
The D-Lord, Scarabs, Acanthrites and Wraiths add much needed mobility and shouldn't need to worry about multi damage weapons as much with the Pylons and Arc absorbing a lot of the opponents firepower (I presume).
There are a multitude of armour ignoring shots for MEQ and TEQ as well as the Acanthrites and D-Lords assault capabilities and the sheer amount of Tesla hits to be able to deal with Marines.
It comes to 1999pts so the Particle Shredders could be removed for an extra Scarab Swarm.

I can make better lists using other Indexes, Necrons are definitely sub-par due to their costings, but this is the best I can come up with personally, having read the problems that people are bringing up.

Now I've only played 4 games in 8th so far, and none with Necrons, so it's all theory crafting up till this point. So to those of you with more experience of Necrons in 8th, am I going along the right track here?

Hey Poly maybe post this in the Necron tactics thread, youll get better responses there and we can keep this as a discussion about our inherent weaknesses currently

K k, will pop it in there tomorrow :-)

 crunkDealer wrote:
Wishlist:

Warriors- 10 ppm from 12
Scarabs- now a troop unit
Immortals- now elite, 2W, 20 ppm from 17, gauss blaster is now assault 2
deathmarks- gun is now 30" from 24"
Praetorians- gain 1W, Str 6, flat 2 damage on both melee weapons
Lychguard- 3++ with shield, scythe is now AP -4, 6+ FNP
Flayed ones- now fast attack, 17ppm from 21

Doom Scythe - death ray damage is now mortal wounds
Monolith/Night scythe - the units being transported in are a lot scarier now so I would hesitate to change these

Haven't played other models so cant comment

Slayer is a little abrupt, but there are a few issues with that wishlist,

Warriors are appropriately costed, maybe even a bit of a bargain for what you get. The problems they do have can't really be solved by just reducing their points cost.
Changing immortals to be terminator equivalents again is something that gets floated a lot, I like the flexibility of having heavy and light infantry in troops choices, but given that our two other TEQs are assault focused I can see the appeal.
Scarabs as troops would make list building much easier, and nurglings are troops so it's not without precedent, but scarabs don't really fit the Fantasy of troops very well. I feel like if we are moving something into troops to replace immortals flayed ones would fit the role best. However this is really a side bar as changing slots for Immortals, flayed ones, or scarabs is fairly unlikely to bring us up to par.
Praetorians are kind of the opposite of warriors, their Kit is ok (in that they can fill roles well), but what they really need is cost reductions.I'm always bad at these so take these with a grain of salt but probably knock five points off of praetorians so they would be 20 points per model after reduction, and 30 with gear, I'd also give them back deep strike.
Lychguard are in a rough spot, their lack of mobility hurts their chances of getting into assault, and if their role is to be a distraction carnifex they are way overcost. War scythe is solid, a good powerfist equivalent without the -1 to hit, of course you need to get close to use it. The dispersion shield is a solution looking for a problem, it was great in the days of deathstars where you could expect to regularly see power weapons in CC, but these days that's a much less common occurrence. I'd knock 10 points off of the shield if it's going to continue to be a 4++, for 310 points a 10 man sword and board lychguard squad advancing up the battle field might survive long enough to earn it's points.

'Crons and I, a suggestion

Reanimation protocol (or as I say, reassembly line) is (as said in the topic) not particularly good, being most of our opponents focus fire a unit and then continue with the next unit etc.
Now in order to make RP viable we would need to be able to make RP rolls for units that are 100% destroyed, but at a cost (to not make it OP).
I suggest making us able to RP entirely destroyed units at 5+ and the failed rolls == "models fleeing".
And boost the ordinary roll to 4+ (units that still have surviving models).

Ex. A unit of 10 Immortals die because of heavy fire, on my turn I roll 10 dices for them and roll four dices with ei. 5 or 6 on it and those four come back and fight yet again while the rest "flee" and you can no longer roll for them, they are removed from the game.

To clarify the new unit: If these four that came back would die, you would still be able to roll RP for them (if all four die, on 5+, and if atleast one survive, you make ordinary RP rolls for the unit).

Now the key here is the models actually fleeing after this RP roll, which makes this rule unique from the rest of the factions in 40k (my point is no FnP "Death guard Necrons" bla bla) and also brings back their fluff of "always" coming back and also making it fairly balanced.

A sidenote: With this system the pointscosts might need to be adjusted abit for units.

And for our wargear:
Ressurection orb: (one time use only) Roll for RP again for all units within 5".
(Passive) Boost RP value with +1 to the roll, so its 4+ to reanimate entirely dead units and 3+ for units that still have models alive. also make it 5" range.

And for stratagems: A stratagem that boosts RP significantly for one unit, per 1CP spent you get +1 to this roll up to 2+ (a roll of 1 is always a failed roll), also this strategem you would be able to use more than once during your turn.

Ps. Models that flee from morale would still count as "removed" to not confuse anyone.

There are all kinds of ways they could "fix" necrons.

I'd like to see them...

Gauss - Never wound targets on worse than a 5+.

RP - Necrons should NEVER run away in fear. Tie morale into a "phase out" rule that would allow us to repair and redeploy when overwhelmed and wiped out. Have portals make it easier to redeploy, but not required.

Give us one of the following:

A mechanic to make RP rolls for squads that have been wiped out completely.

A mechanic to prevent concentrated fire and spread out casualties across the army.

One or more mechanics to punish concentrated fire and encourage our opponents to spread out casualties across our army.

Our army weakness is obvious, and we completely lack any tools to play around it. Not taking advantage of it is completely up to our opponents.

More Extreme Changes:

Either...

Make Necrons immune to morale. They're immortal robots when they're self aware, and immortal automatons the rest of the time. What, exactly, do they have to fear? Re-work morale for Necrons into a "reinforcement" mechanic to emphasize their focus on attrition warfare. Something like: during the morale phase, you can choose to automatically pass your morale test. Or you can attempt to phase out and come back. If you choose to phase out remove the unit from the board and roll a leadership test with -2 if under 50% and -4 if under 25%. If successful, bring the unit back onto the board via <insert methods here. Portal or board-edge something, something>. If unsuccessful the unit is destroyed. Any unit completely wiped out in the previous shooting or fight phase is considered to be under 25%.

or

Limit the number of RP rolls we can make per turn, and drop our PPM significantly. Give us something like 3-5 RP dice per CP, though you don't lose RP dice when you spend CP. This should solve most of the RP woes people have simply by increasing the number of units and models we can bring to the table, and by preventing us from making RP rolls for all of them as long as our opponent can actually deal damage.

Edit - Thinking more on this...

A mechanic to make RP rolls for squads that have been wiped out completely.

Introduce wording to enable precisely this to Resurrection Orbs and Ghost Arks. IMO, just remove the ark's transport ability and make them gunships/unlimited rez orb carriers. Necrons don't need "transports" beyond portals.

A mechanic to prevent concentrated fire and spread out casualties across the army.

Change the cryptek's chronometron from a 5++ aura to "Once per game during any shooting or fight phase this unit, and one additional unit within 6", cannot be the target of shooting attacks until the end of the turn. Additionally, all charges declared against these units will automatically fail."

One or more mechanics to punish concentrated fire and encourage our opponents to spread out casualties across our army.

Cryptek Upgrade: Vengeance Staff -

Ranged - 24" Assault* S6 AP- D1 Tesla
Melee - S As User AP -1

You may make a number of attacks equal to the number of casualties that unit took the previous turn. If a unit with a model within 6" was destroyed, make a number of attacks equal to the starting number of models in that unit. This replaces the unit's staff of light.

The idea is that the nearby cryptek stores up energy in a techno-arcane capacitor system as units near him are shot to pieces. He can then unleash the stored up energy at enemy units to "punish" them. The opponent can, of course, defeat the weapon by simply not concentrating fire so much, but doing so allows the Necrons to make RP rolls.

This item is definitely OP, but I think the general idea is sound.

I literally LOL'd at the notion of making a Gauss rule that they can't wound on worse than a 5. That's literally just affecting Flayers and the Array against Land Raiders.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I literally LOL'd at the notion of making a Gauss rule that they can't wound on worse than a 5. That's literally just affecting Flayers and the Array against Land Raiders.

Oh...but the QQ that would arise from changing it to a 4+...

 Arandmoor wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I literally LOL'd at the notion of making a Gauss rule that they can't wound on worse than a 5. That's literally just affecting Flayers and the Array against Land Raiders.

Oh...but the QQ that would arise from changing it to a 4+...

Well, I can imagine DE players would be (not unreasonably) annoyed if Necrons were basically given Splinter Weapons. Except that they also work on vehicles. And are allowed AP. And have actual buffs to go with them.

I still think the best way to fix gauss is give it back what it lost. Before it did a hull point on a 6, and auto wounded on a 6 (which was effectively removed as everyone else has been given it).

The easiest and logical way of giving it back its utility in 8th imo is to have gauss do a mortal wound on a 6.

Honestly guys, I don't think they are going to buff our offense outside of some points adjustments, at least judging from the codexes we've seen so far. More than likely we'll get a long list of points reductions, and some gimmicky tactic that lets us spend a CP or two and roll reanimation for a unit that got wiped out. The dynasty rules should be interesting, though I expect more defensive traits.

The area we really need to stay on GW about is how awful tomb world deploy is, it is so bad right now, and we really really need it to not suck.

I'd love to see something to the effect of gauss doing an extra damage on a 6 to wound. Not a mortal, just a damage. Flavorful as heck cos it will help us strip elites and vehicles, like in the fluff, but won't help against basic infantry so it wouldnt be unbalanced.

MW on 6+ already is a sniper thing. Doubt they will diminish that by making it an army wide necron feature.

+1 dmg on 6+ perhaps. Like tyranid toxin sacks could be a thing though

Make Gauss weapons inflict +1 Damage on a 6+ to wound.

Give a Stratagem for 2CP that allows for a squad that was wiped to immediately get a RP roll to come back.

Allow Ghost Arks to transport Necron Infantry and affect RP for Necron Infantry. Praetorians and Lychguard count as two models each.

I think that would solve a majority of the problems.

 Arandmoor wrote:
Make Necrons immune to morale. They're immortal robots when they're self aware, and immortal automatons the rest of the time. What, exactly, do they have to fear?

Sorry to interrupt, but... By this account, EVERYTHING in 40k should be immune to Morale, except Guardsmen and Gretchins. And guess what ? It's how it was in the last 3 or 4 editions. And it sucked.

 Nym wrote:

 Arandmoor wrote:
Make Necrons immune to morale. They're immortal robots when they're self aware, and immortal automatons the rest of the time. What, exactly, do they have to fear?

Sorry to interrupt, but... By this account, EVERYTHING in 40k should be immune to Morale, except Guardsmen and Gretchins. And guess what ? It's how it was in the last 3 or 4 editions. And it sucked.

The average warrior has just enough intelligence and memory to fight and follow orders, all other mortal instincts were taken from them during transference. So fear doesn't really factor into it, at least from a fluff perspective. Rules wise this is reflected in the highest leadership value for any troop. With that said I agree with your general thought though, in 5th thru 7th morale was more or less a joke, and that while it might make sense from a fluff perspective, leaving morale in place just makes for a better game.