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 Grimgold wrote:
Sorry it wasn't really meant as a serious suggestion, if they tried to return necrons to early 3rd ed levels of elite they would have a model count more similar to grey knights (30 - 40 models) than the 70+ models we fielded in an average decurion decurion in 7th ed.

The general trend seems to be for Xenos to become weaker and cheaper, more hoard-y (happend to Daemons and Necrons), Imperials to stay more or less the same but new mega-elite armies (Primaris, Custardees) to come out to occupy the "uber-elite" slot...

So I don't expect Necrons to get more elite again. They may get more cheap and hordey in fact...

Mark.

 Grimgold wrote:
There are only so many things you can make RP into, and it's more or less been all of them. You can either bring units back from the dead, but limit it in some way, or just ignore damage and say the unit came back. If they went back to 5th ed but got rid of the nearby models rule I'd be over the moon, especially if we got a stratagem for how the monoliths eternity gate used to work.

I suppose there is another way, you could give all necrons multiple wounds and living metal, and the option to not heal a wound and instead bring a model back with one wound. You'd need to Increase points per model, thus Reduce the model count so you'd need to increase the power of necron weapons to make up for the lower model count, something insane like gauss causes mortal wounds on sixes to hit. Low model count, super tough, and wielding crazy guns would certainly capture the feel of the third ed necrons pretty well.

However it won't happen

Not sure if you've been paying attention to Age of Sigmar, but Legions of Nagash has a resurrection aura ability that I thought would be nice for resurrection orbs.

They could make reanimation protocols a FNP roll and require a grave marker to be placed on the position of the last model of a unit to die. Then give the resurrection orb a 6" aura effect that heals D3 wounds or resurrects as many wounds' worth of models. Use the grave markers to allow destroyed squads to come back to life and thus lessen the impact of focused fire, but since the resurrection orb is still an item associated with a character the opponent has a chance of taking out that model and doing something against endless resurrection.

It would require a limit on resurrection orbs, though. Endlessly coming back to life is just as boring as never getting to use one's special rule.

Cheeslord wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
Sorry it wasn't really meant as a serious suggestion, if they tried to return necrons to early 3rd ed levels of elite they would have a model count more similar to grey knights (30 - 40 models) than the 70+ models we fielded in an average decurion decurion in 7th ed.

The general trend seems to be for Xenos to become weaker and cheaper, more hoard-y (happend to Daemons and Necrons), Imperials to stay more or less the same but new mega-elite armies (Primaris, Custardees) to come out to occupy the "uber-elite" slot...

So I don't expect Necrons to get more elite again. They may get more cheap and hordey in fact...

Mark.

The irreconcilable nature of Necrons is that in their early depictions Necron Warriors were both a numberless legion and individually better than a Space Marine. It had to go one way or another because of game balance, and since GW isn't going to take away from the super elite image of their poster child...

Always thought that was a shame. I joked that every new codex would decrease a Warrior's save by one. The last codex didn't, so I feel GW owes me with the next one.

Necron warriors may become the new Star Wars Battle Droids...

Cheeslord wrote:
Necron warriors may become the new Star Wars Battle Droids...

Well, they do have their own little carrier
I wouldn't mind. Warriors have always been the cannon fodder of the necron army, even in 3rd ed. They were expensive cannon fodder, mind you, but they were still one of the cheapest units we could field and armies tended to have a lot of them.
Its Immortals who are the real soldiers.

I expect history to repeat itself, and for Necrons to swing from being one of the weakest factions to the strongest.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Cheeslord wrote:
Necron warriors may become the new Star Wars Battle Droids...

Well, they do have their own little carrier
I wouldn't mind. Warriors have always been the cannon fodder of the necron army, even in 3rd ed. They were expensive cannon fodder, mind you, but they were still one of the cheapest units we could field and armies tended to have a lot of them.
Its Immortals who are the real soldiers.

They had a lot of Warriors because of phase out, not because they weren't real soldiers. They had the same profile as a Marine, and a slightly better gun.

Immortals were the real soldiers because they had assault weapons rather than rapid fire in an edition that wasn't friendly to rapid fire, and a welcome toughness boost that has since been dropped as well.

Oh how the mighty have fallen...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:
I expect history to repeat itself, and for Necrons to swing from being one of the weakest factions to the strongest.

Wouldn't surprise me one bit.

And just like the last time around, I'd expect to have so much fun leaving my Necrons on the shelf because I don't want to do that to my friends...

Pretty sure in the 3rd ed codex it said warriors were more or less mindless minions who were once civilians / people who didn't support the c'tan, and that immortals were higher up because they were either soldiers or loyal subjects.

The whole more or less mindless thing is part of that dreadful 5th ed retcon, as is the civilians/non-supporters thing. I looked it up to be sure. Immortals are favored servants in the 3rd ed codex. Warriors aren't even mentioned as being anything specific. They're just everyone else.

Eh, I probably got editions crossed again. Its been while since I read the 3rd ed codex.

No worries. Time is kind on none of us.

Part of what I mean about the retcon being dreadful. If they didn't retcon stuff, it wouldn't be so hard to keep everything straight.

"And just like the last time around, I'd expect to have so much fun leaving my Necrons on the shelf because I don't want to do that to my friends..."
Boo!

There is hope for Necron players if Reece Robbins (and others at Frontline Gaming) like necrons. Otherwise, you're screwed.

 greyknight12 wrote:
There is hope for Necron players if Reece Robbins (and others at Frontline Gaming) like necrons. Otherwise, you're screwed.

TRUTH

Are Necrons really that bad? I've only played against them once under 8th and they annihilated my Death Guard. I just could not keep them down.

 BlackLobster wrote:
Are Necrons really that bad? I've only played against them once under 8th and they annihilated my Death Guard. I just could not keep them down.

In a lot of ways yes.

RP is exponentially better at lower point games until it's just plain unbeatable. And exponentially worse at higher point games until it's completely worthless. If you just focus fire 1 unit at a time it never gets a chance to do anything and necrons fall to pieces. The more guns you can bring to shoot in a round the more units you can remove whole sale without their expensive special rule ever triggering.

Gauss took a decent hit with the edition change. A ton of wargear was lost so the options got real slim. Transports can only disembark 1 unit at a time. So character synergies are impossible without multiple transports moving in tandem.

 Lance845 wrote:

 BlackLobster wrote:
Are Necrons really that bad? I've only played against them once under 8th and they annihilated my Death Guard. I just could not keep them down.

In a lot of ways yes.

RP is exponentially better at lower point games until it's just plain unbeatable. And exponentially worse at higher point games until it's completely worthless. If you just focus fire 1 unit at a time it never gets a chance to do anything and necrons fall to pieces. The more guns you can bring to shoot in a round the more units you can remove whole sale without their expensive special rule ever triggering.

Gauss took a decent hit with the edition change. A ton of wargear was lost so the options got real slim. Transports can only disembark 1 unit at a time. So character synergies are impossible without multiple transports moving in tandem.

Please tell me more, this is NOT sarcasm, I ask as I am considering necrons as my next army, I've heard they are not great but are they really that bad?

 Formosa wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 BlackLobster wrote:
Are Necrons really that bad? I've only played against them once under 8th and they annihilated my Death Guard. I just could not keep them down.

In a lot of ways yes.

RP is exponentially better at lower point games until it's just plain unbeatable. And exponentially worse at higher point games until it's completely worthless. If you just focus fire 1 unit at a time it never gets a chance to do anything and necrons fall to pieces. The more guns you can bring to shoot in a round the more units you can remove whole sale without their expensive special rule ever triggering.

Gauss took a decent hit with the edition change. A ton of wargear was lost so the options got real slim. Transports can only disembark 1 unit at a time. So character synergies are impossible without multiple transports moving in tandem.

Please tell me more, this is NOT sarcasm, I ask as I am considering necrons as my next army, I've heard they are not great but are they really that bad?

They are not as efficient as they should be. Wait until the codex, don't bother with the index. Most armies receive a power boost when they get their codex, and necrons will probably not be any different.
If you get the index now you are just wasting money. You can start off with a few units if you want, but how they play out might not be to your liking.

 Formosa wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 BlackLobster wrote:
Are Necrons really that bad? I've only played against them once under 8th and they annihilated my Death Guard. I just could not keep them down.

In a lot of ways yes.

RP is exponentially better at lower point games until it's just plain unbeatable. And exponentially worse at higher point games until it's completely worthless. If you just focus fire 1 unit at a time it never gets a chance to do anything and necrons fall to pieces. The more guns you can bring to shoot in a round the more units you can remove whole sale without their expensive special rule ever triggering.

Gauss took a decent hit with the edition change. A ton of wargear was lost so the options got real slim. Transports can only disembark 1 unit at a time. So character synergies are impossible without multiple transports moving in tandem.

Please tell me more, this is NOT sarcasm, I ask as I am considering necrons as my next army, I've heard they are not great but are they really that bad?

Read the original post. Reanimation protocol as it is is super fluffy and cool, but is not working once people know what to do against it (which is slay 15 warrior and make you lose the other 5 through a morale check, or waste 2 CP).
Warrior blobs is still working somewhat (40-60 warrior + ghost ark + cryptek) but you got 500+ points invested there (thats still combined 140 F4 ap-1 rapid fire shot)
Immortals get just killed wayyyy to kickly, and seems everybody got that -1 to hit power, so tesla stuff doesn't work as it should either.
and so on....
its fixable. never lost by BIG margins. i dealt damage.

I read the original post but it does not really explain why certain units suck.

My plan was stalkers, flayed ones, warriors, basically anything I can convert the crap out of to make it look different.

Are the FW units crap too?

 Formosa wrote:
I read the original post but it does not really explain why certain units suck.

My plan was stalkers, flayed ones, warriors, basically anything I can convert the crap out of to make it look different.

Are the FW units crap too?

Its not so much that specific units suck, its just that the army as a whole is missing the synergy that necrons usually need to excel.
RP actually works a lot like 3rd ed WBB, except even stronger as you get multiple chances. However, it worked better in 3rd ed because necrons had ubiquitous (albeit weak) anti vehicle fire and various means of buffing WBB; spyders can allow you to roll for wiped units, res orbs removed WBB's weaknesses, monoliths allowed a reroll, solar pulse weakened enemy shooting, etc. On top of that, the anti-vehicle fire from gauss allowed necrons to engage all targets equally whilst taking little losses.

The Index has next to none of those options, and the options they do have are very limited. Ghost Arks will only provide a reroll to a single warrior unit within 3", which is laughably short, likewise for crypteks, who provide a +1 bonus to RP, but also at a measly 3" in an edition where most buffs are 6".
Res Orbs are an expensive single use item that just provides rerolls, which is pathetic compared to its earlier incarnations, and necrons now have nearly no options to deal with vehicles.

See, the reason why necrons traditionally had few dedicated anti-vehicle options was because of the gauss rule, which while weak compared to a lascannon, was still effective due to weight of fire. However, in an edition where a lucky glance no longer kills vehicles and you actually have to deal damage, not having such options really hurts necrons as they now need to deal multiple damage, something that wasn't given to them except on a few fragile and expensive platforms.

Its almost as if whoever designed the army doesn't understand how necrons work.
Or maybe necrons are incompatible with an index style of army, as indexes are typically lacking in options.

The problem Necrons have is that everything is too expensive so your damage output is weak. This is especially true for anti-vehicles/monsters but it applies across the board. You are also only situationally tough (and toughness in the index was overcosted across the board).

There is always hope.

Unles you like squats... ow wait

There really is always hope.

Apparently there's supposed to be some large changes in the codex. As to what they are, I have no idea. Since Games Workshop have refused to comment on it, or announce a release schedule of some sort. Or mention that a problem even exists.

 Formosa wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 BlackLobster wrote:
Are Necrons really that bad? I've only played against them once under 8th and they annihilated my Death Guard. I just could not keep them down.

In a lot of ways yes.

RP is exponentially better at lower point games until it's just plain unbeatable. And exponentially worse at higher point games until it's completely worthless. If you just focus fire 1 unit at a time it never gets a chance to do anything and necrons fall to pieces. The more guns you can bring to shoot in a round the more units you can remove whole sale without their expensive special rule ever triggering.

Gauss took a decent hit with the edition change. A ton of wargear was lost so the options got real slim. Transports can only disembark 1 unit at a time. So character synergies are impossible without multiple transports moving in tandem.

Please tell me more, this is NOT sarcasm, I ask as I am considering necrons as my next army, I've heard they are not great but are they really that bad?

So the 2 big necron "transports" are Monoliths and Night Scythes.

They don't have a transport capacity because they are not actually carrying anyone. You can just place "Dynasty" units on the tomb world and then each turn you can disembark one unit from the tomb world onto the battlefield.

If all your transports are destroyed before all your units can disembark then the units on the tomb world are destroyed. Because you can only disembark 1 unit a turn you don't want a lot of units sitting off planet. Other players rules allow for a character to be packed into a transport with a unit or 2. But necrons can't synergize that way currently. You have these melee centric characters, but you couldn't pack them into a night scythe with some lychguard and flayed ones or whatever. No crypteks piling in with the warriors they support.

It's a real problem. They don't have a capacity so you could dump a potentially massive number of units out of the transport as long as they fit around it. And hey, you can fit a lot of gak around a monolith. But the limit of 1 unit a turn is incredibly crippling at the same time. They could limit it to... I dunno. No more than 20 models may disembark a turn. That way you could do 10 lychguard a character and whatever. But they havent yet. So for right now nightscythes and monoliths are not doing a big part of their job.

RP only triggers while the unit is still has at least 1 model and generally takes place at the beginning of your turn/movement. So if we are playing a 1k point game how many guns do I actually have to shoot at your blob of 20 warriors? Can I actually kill 15? And worse, models that die from Morale cannot be returned with RP. But at 2.5k I have WAY MORE than enough guns to pick a unit or 2 and guarantee that after morale the unit just won't exist. Which means RP doesn't trigger at all. Now consider melee, where If I charge you on my turn and we fight and then you get to fight again on YOUR turn and THEN I get to RP. It's worse if people are using fall back shenanigans. Lychguard charge and fight. You fight back. You fall back. You shoot the lychguard. You charge the lychguard. You fight. Maybe the lychguard fight back if any are alive? Now it's Necrons turn again. NOW RP kicks in if any are still standing.

Meanwhile, there used to be this big list of wargear available to lords and overlords. Flamer gauntlets, tachyon arrows, mindshackle scarabs. etc etc...All kinds of gak. But there are only 2 models of overlord in production and they come with the same wargear. Staff of Light or Warscythe and a res orb. So now Overlords can takes those options. Same goes for crypteks.

While Necrons had these bunches of named characters with interesting synergies, they now all belong to their own dynasties and now don't mix and play well together. I imagine that will get a lot better come the codex when dynasties get their own perks. But Index wise it just split up combinations people were using before.


RP needs to have a more steady effect regardless of game size. Transports need to be adjusted SOMEHOW so they they are actually usable and not a break neck race to deploy units before the gates close and a chunk of your army just dies. Options need to return so that the characters can become flexible again.

Tyel wrote:
The problem Necrons have is that everything is too expensive so your damage output is weak. This is especially true for anti-vehicles/monsters but it applies across the board. You are also only situationally tough (and toughness in the index was overcosted across the board).

Sums up the issue nicely. Necrons suffer from a narrow range of weapons that leaves their offense full of gaping holes, and wildly overcosted Reanimation Protocols as a universal mechanic keeps them down.

If they get an overhaul that spends time looking over their weapons and giving them the spread of tools to engage a full range of targets they might end up usable or even good. If they get a GK-style phone-in copy-paste-the-Index-and-slap-some-band-aids-on-it-so-we-can-get-back-to-writing-Primarchs mess they'll remain unplayable for a long time.

I'm still under the idea that giving Necrons the Eldar treatment and lowering the point cost on practically everything will improve their game tremendously. Right now, there's not enough on the table to force opponents into a position to make a difficult decision. Opponents focus fire units one at a time because it's easy to do right now. Allowing Necron players to bring more models to the table will make their game much better, even if they don't even want to touch RP. Some units will need adjustments here and there, but mainly it's just the price point.

 Formosa wrote:
I read the original post but it does not really explain why certain units suck.

My plan was stalkers, flayed ones, warriors, basically anything I can convert the crap out of to make it look different.

Are the FW units crap too?

Triarch Stalkers are decent. Flayed Ones are bad because they can't guarantee a charge the turn they come in and have counter-synergy with Overlords (you can't MWBD them until the next turn), Warriors are bad because they get shredded by morale (in the sense that losing even a single Warrior to morale screws you out of RP forever) and are largely toothless compared to Immortals.

Necrons have some passable units like the Stalker, but they lack any grade A unit that can really sell the army and give you something functional to build around. Tesla Immortals are close but get weaker with every army that comes out with a -1 to hit.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
I read the original post but it does not really explain why certain units suck.

My plan was stalkers, flayed ones, warriors, basically anything I can convert the crap out of to make it look different.

Are the FW units crap too?

Triarch Stalkers are decent. Flayed Ones are bad because they can't guarantee a charge the turn they come in and have counter-synergy with Overlords (you can't MWBD them until the next turn), Warriors are bad because they get shredded by morale (in the sense that losing even a single Warrior to morale screws you out of RP forever) and are largely toothless compared to Immortals.

Necrons have some passable units like the Stalker, but they lack any grade A unit that can really sell the army and give you something functional to build around. Tesla Immortals are close but get weaker with every army that comes out with a -1 to hit.

Flayed ones you use with Ctan deceiver, Nemezor + Vanguard or the veil of darnkess. Teleport, pouf, charge. Flayed ones are actually pretty damn good with this 80 X 5-points soldiers meta. WIth Ctan its a cumulative -2 on morale check.
I also tried 2 Triarch Stalker + 3 Doomsday arks. That's 1000 point you can still have plenty on warriors. Hit or miss, but promising. Quantum shield en masse, stay away from those 2-DMG weapons. I use stalker with twin heavy guass cannon, 36''. In theory you can bring down an imperial knight per turn, but those d3 shots, you often get 1!!!!

We NEED open-top ghost ark though. Zoom through the map with 10 warriors on board, load of shots and get those objectives!

6 Wraith + Ctan Nightbringner, promising. Just take a flank and move up field, no regard for loses as long as your Ctan stay protected and can get to a precious target.
Monoliths at 300 pts, i would always use them.

Da W wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
I read the original post but it does not really explain why certain units suck.

My plan was stalkers, flayed ones, warriors, basically anything I can convert the crap out of to make it look different.

Are the FW units crap too?

Triarch Stalkers are decent. Flayed Ones are bad because they can't guarantee a charge the turn they come in and have counter-synergy with Overlords (you can't MWBD them until the next turn), Warriors are bad because they get shredded by morale (in the sense that losing even a single Warrior to morale screws you out of RP forever) and are largely toothless compared to Immortals.

Necrons have some passable units like the Stalker, but they lack any grade A unit that can really sell the army and give you something functional to build around. Tesla Immortals are close but get weaker with every army that comes out with a -1 to hit.

Flayed ones you use with Ctan deceiver, Nemezor + Vanguard or the veil of darnkess. Teleport, pouf, charge. Flayed ones are actually pretty damn good with this 80 X 5-points soldiers meta. WIth Ctan its a cumulatiove -2 on morale check.

You still need to make a 9" charge, same as if you had appeared using their rule. Only difference is that this method would cost a lot more points (around 430 points for the Deceiver and 10 Flayed Ones).

You can't use Grand Illusion to put Flayed Ones into position because you can't charge after that move. Veil of Darkness is an 8" charge, the Obyron Slingshot is reaaaally expensive... It can work, sure, but it's definitely inferior to codex-enabled assault bombs like Bloodletters or Tzaangors.

Flayed Ones will probably be great post-codex though, since they're a unit that will be heavily enabled by stratagems. Assault units in every army seem to heavily rely on the synergy that a codex brings, so I'm excited to see what Necrons will bring to the assault phase.