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 Badablack wrote:
I wish Spyders were a little tougher. I’ve been running a Novokh Scarab list with cryptek and spyder support and it’s pretty nasty unless they just pop the spyders first. Giving a non character monster the same amount of wounds as a guard commander is a little insulting.

Crimson Haze scarabs are no joke though, they can tear through a lot of targets pretty well.

I run a Novokh Spyder/Scarab list too!
I try and run three Spyders per squad, eats points, but the extra wounds and ability to spread out can be really handy, as well as adding in Particle Projectors.

I tend to run a core of Scarabs surrounding a Crimson Haze Dlord. I deploy the Spyders really aggressive, with the Scarab ball behind, cause the who mess advanced over the Spyders, but I can generally keep them in range of the Hive until they hit CC, then I'll get Spyders in range after a round or so.

The rest of my lists tend to be two x 3 Sentry Pylons with Heat Cannons, and a Cloaktek.

IanVanCheese wrote:
Maybe. I think you're going to see an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor in most marine armies soon since he doesn't break their doctrines and they're great toolboxes. They can give infantry a 5++ with a power. I know it seems like a bit of a random thought, but they're that good. They'll be in most lists.

I still think sautekh is our best option (of Nephrek to teleport in)

It's difficult to adapt to all the new things you can do with Space Marines as they get new rules/combo every week

Guess we will have something in CA19, like ... point reductions ? Yay ...

BillyN831 wrote:
Reading immortals and destroyers are good. Should I run more immortals if I have any and run heavy destroyers as destroyers? What about wraiths?

Immortals are our superior Troops choice, primarily with Telsa Carbines.
Destroyers are glass cannons. But their damage output with 'Extermination Protocols' is exceptional
Wraiths are our best melee choice they are solid.

 iGuy91 wrote:

BillyN831 wrote:
Reading immortals and destroyers are good. Should I run more immortals if I have any and run heavy destroyers as destroyers? What about wraiths?

Immortals are our superior Troops choice, primarily with Telsa Carbines.
Destroyers are glass cannons. But their damage output with 'Extermination Protocols' is exceptional
Wraiths are our best melee choice they are solid.

I would disagree with Wraiths being the best. They are expensive for the job, I have to say. They come with a lot of utility for that cost, but when you get right down to the job they are supposed to be good at, it's not efficient. I'd take Flayed Ones over them in most lists.

 Jancoran wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:

BillyN831 wrote:
Reading immortals and destroyers are good. Should I run more immortals if I have any and run heavy destroyers as destroyers? What about wraiths?

Immortals are our superior Troops choice, primarily with Telsa Carbines.
Destroyers are glass cannons. But their damage output with 'Extermination Protocols' is exceptional
Wraiths are our best melee choice they are solid.

I would disagree with Wraiths being the best. They are expensive for the job, I have to say. They come with a lot of utility for that cost, but when you get right down to the job they are supposed to be good at, it's not efficient. I'd take Flayed Ones over them in most lists.

Flayed ones are awful. Take warriors as your melee units before you go near flayed ones.

But yeah, Wraiths are more of a distraction and nuisance than melee powerhouse.

 Jancoran wrote:
I would disagree with Wraiths being the best. They are expensive for the job, I have to say. They come with a lot of utility for that cost, but when you get right down to the job they are supposed to be good at, it's not efficient. I'd take Flayed Ones over them in most lists.

They might not be good but necron's don't have good cc units and wraiths are best there is. Flayed ones are lol bad. They don't get into combat to begin with. 9" deep strike charges waaaaaay too unreliable(27% yey!) nor do they have even punch.

IanVanCheese wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:

BillyN831 wrote:
Reading immortals and destroyers are good. Should I run more immortals if I have any and run heavy destroyers as destroyers? What about wraiths?

Immortals are our superior Troops choice, primarily with Telsa Carbines.
Destroyers are glass cannons. But their damage output with 'Extermination Protocols' is exceptional
Wraiths are our best melee choice they are solid.

I would disagree with Wraiths being the best. They are expensive for the job, I have to say. They come with a lot of utility for that cost, but when you get right down to the job they are supposed to be good at, it's not efficient. I'd take Flayed Ones over them in most lists.

Flayed ones are awful. Take warriors as your melee units before you go near flayed ones.

But yeah, Wraiths are more of a distraction and nuisance than melee powerhouse.

Warriors? Hmm... No. Lol. I love the production on Flayed Ones. So many synergies possible with them and they will AT LEAST get as close to the enemy as the Wraiths will. Wraiths give enemies an entire turn to negate them (whatever form that may come in). Spamming them is the only answer to THAT issue but then you really start questioning the wisdom, given the need for enough shooting units in the army. So th Wraiths kinda form a vicious circle. UNless you plan to play a nearly entirely melee force, in which case, okay! Suddenly the threat saturation stops them from being as obvious a target. Wraiths best attributes have little to do with them in combat, which is ironic but true. You're paying for everything but combat output in most cases. a 7 attack typically outfitted Nurgle Daemon Prince is slaying 3 a round, and if he gets real lucky... GK's are removing them easily. The new stratagems that can make a damn suppressor good enough to plow a whole squad of Wraiths in one go, albeit they'd need a touch of luck is still scary. Elite things in 8E have lost some lustre.
Simple, regenerative Flayed ones... Now those are the ones I trust to do the down and dirty work. Theyve got their Cryptek to help and maybe Anrakyr along for example. They pounce on you for 80 buffed attacks, re-rolling wounds. That is a level of certainty in damage dealing that you cannot find anywhere else and best of all... It need not be irected at just one unit either. Its a large enough unit to cut a swathye threou a coule important units and click offtheir shooting.

Just saying.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
I would disagree with Wraiths being the best. They are expensive for the job, I have to say. They come with a lot of utility for that cost, but when you get right down to the job they are supposed to be good at, it's not efficient. I'd take Flayed Ones over them in most lists.

They might not be good but necron's don't have good cc units and wraiths are best there is. Flayed ones are lol bad. They don't get into combat to begin with. 9" deep strike charges waaaaaay too unreliable(27% yey!) nor do they have even punch.

Look a lot closer to those synergies. Necrons are all about the Synergies.

 Jancoran wrote:
Warriors? Hmm... No. Lol. I love the production on Flayed Ones. So many synergies possible with them and they will AT LEAST get as close to the enemy as the Wraiths will. Wraiths give enemies an entire turn to negate them

Hide behind terrain, do T1 charge. That's how I do it. I have yet to fail to get them T1 charge. With flayed warriors it's lousy odds of making charge and even if you make it bad damage output.

Look a lot closer to those synergies. Necrons are all about the Synergies.

What synergy? Can't MWBD them. There's no way to boost their AP. There's very little synergy to them. They come out of deepstrike and try that 9" charge(28% odds) and if somehow make it make minor dent and then die.

tneva82 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Warriors? Hmm... No. Lol. I love the production on Flayed Ones. So many synergies possible with them and they will AT LEAST get as close to the enemy as the Wraiths will. Wraiths give enemies an entire turn to negate them

Hide behind terrain, do T1 charge. That's how I do it. I have yet to fail to get them T1 charge. With flayed warriors it's lousy odds of making charge and even if you make it bad damage output.

Look a lot closer to those synergies. Necrons are all about the Synergies.

What synergy? Can't MWBD them. There's no way to boost their AP. There's very little synergy to them. They come out of deepstrike and try that 9" charge(28% odds) and if somehow make it make minor dent and then die.

Yep.

Warriors get to deal 2/3rd of their damage even if they fail the charge because they have guns. Then you can gamble on the charge to finish the job. Flayed Ones have bugger all synergy beyond the Novokh buff. Just stick Anrakyr near the warriors if you want a bit more bite in combat. Warrriors still get RP, they still get buffs from Crpyteks (including the characters who can give them better Str or Attacks. All that and a gun. Flayed Ones blow. They need some AP or another buff. Also a points drop.

Giving them infiltrate and charge after advancing could be fun.
Then you can pull off T1 charges like those warsuits can.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Giving them infiltrate and charge after advancing could be fun.
Then you can pull off T1 charges like those warsuits can.

Yeah they need some new rules. - 1 AP would be nice, but something more flavourful would be good too. Maybe a buff once they wipe a unit out, like Electropriests. Could represent them being in a blood frenzy after a fresh kill.

IanVanCheese wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Giving them infiltrate and charge after advancing could be fun.
Then you can pull off T1 charges like those warsuits can.

Yeah they need some new rules. - 1 AP would be nice, but something more flavourful would be good too. Maybe a buff once they wipe a unit out, like Electropriests. Could represent them being in a blood frenzy after a fresh kill.

Maybe they can consolidate up to 6 inches and it counts as a charge, so they can fight again in the same turn.
Would make them into one of the most dangerous units against a MSU gunline, because if a horde of them wipes out a squad, they'll just keep going.
Though given the Flayed One's lore, it would probably make more sense that they won't run off to find new victims, as they'd be too busy skinning the corpses.

tneva82 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Warriors? Hmm... No. Lol. I love the production on Flayed Ones. So many synergies possible with them and they will AT LEAST get as close to the enemy as the Wraiths will. Wraiths give enemies an entire turn to negate them

Hide behind terrain, do T1 charge. That's how I do it. I have yet to fail to get them T1 charge. With flayed warriors it's lousy odds of making charge and even if you make it bad damage output.

Look a lot closer to those synergies. Necrons are all about the Synergies.

What synergy? Can't MWBD them. There's no way to boost their AP. There's very little synergy to them. They come out of deepstrike and try that 9" charge(28% odds) and if somehow make it make minor dent and then die.

Check your codex again. I mean not that I'd use him, but the Stormlord comes standard with one of them. But there are others. It's pretty sweet honestly. But the way you use them with a Cryptek and possibly Anrakyr or even the master of deception himself... It's good.

 Jancoran wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Warriors? Hmm... No. Lol. I love the production on Flayed Ones. So many synergies possible with them and they will AT LEAST get as close to the enemy as the Wraiths will. Wraiths give enemies an entire turn to negate them

Hide behind terrain, do T1 charge. That's how I do it. I have yet to fail to get them T1 charge. With flayed warriors it's lousy odds of making charge and even if you make it bad damage output.

Look a lot closer to those synergies. Necrons are all about the Synergies.

What synergy? Can't MWBD them. There's no way to boost their AP. There's very little synergy to them. They come out of deepstrike and try that 9" charge(28% odds) and if somehow make it make minor dent and then die.

Check your codex again. I mean not that I'd use him, but the Stormlord comes standard with one of them. But there are others. It's pretty sweet honestly. But the way you use them with a Cryptek and possibly Anrakyr or even the master of deception himself... It's good.

Please stop playing coy. This is a tactics thread.

 Jancoran wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Warriors? Hmm... No. Lol. I love the production on Flayed Ones. So many synergies possible with them and they will AT LEAST get as close to the enemy as the Wraiths will. Wraiths give enemies an entire turn to negate them

Hide behind terrain, do T1 charge. That's how I do it. I have yet to fail to get them T1 charge. With flayed warriors it's lousy odds of making charge and even if you make it bad damage output.

Look a lot closer to those synergies. Necrons are all about the Synergies.

What synergy? Can't MWBD them. There's no way to boost their AP. There's very little synergy to them. They come out of deepstrike and try that 9" charge(28% odds) and if somehow make it make minor dent and then die.

Check your codex again. I mean not that I'd use him, but the Stormlord comes standard with one of them. But there are others. It's pretty sweet honestly. But the way you use them with a Cryptek and possibly Anrakyr or even the master of deception himself... It's good.

When you deep strike something it is at the end of the Movement phase, you will not get MWBD on them the turn they arrive. And the Named Characters have a 12" or 3" aura. So, you are either foot slogging them or using other tricks to get those characters into position.

If you use the Deceiver, they can not charge your first turn. Thus will be exposed to being shot/charged on the opponent's turn or the opponent just has to put a junk screen in the way or move the ideal targets out of range of your move/charge attempt on your second turn.

 Jancoran wrote:
Check your codex again. I mean not that I'd use him, but the Stormlord comes standard with one of them. But there are others. It's pretty sweet honestly. But the way you use them with a Cryptek and possibly Anrakyr or even the master of deception himself... It's good.

Ummm okay so reroll 1's to hit...weeee. So awesome! Problem with flayed ones isn't hitting. It's lack of AP and GETTING INTO COMBAT!!!

Grans strategist: Nothing related to flayed ones.
Lord of storms: Ditto
MWBD: So you are foregoing deep strike and foot slogging across the field? That's sure death. If you DS you can't use this(PLEASE don't tell me you MWBD flayed ones when they come from deep strike to improve charge roll? As that would make you blatant cheater)
Phaeron: Useless for here. Can't use with deep strike flayed ones so 2 isn't any good.
4++ and improved living metal, none.

So basically you pay 160 pts for reroll to hit and somehow needs to keep up with DS ones...That's not worth it. That 160 pts would be better spent for more flayed ones. More attacks>reroll to hit.

Only synergy that provides is the reroll to hit. But that doesn't solve the issues which is making into combat(PLEASE don't say your grand plan involves DS+MWBD charge? Surely you aren't so sure of them because you blatantly cheat?) and lack of AP.

Master of deception I presume refers to deceiver? That's no good either. You get to position yes but can't charge and then you are shot off the board.

Literally only way to get them into combat reliably is deceiver+zahndrek+obyron but that misses your stormlord and you have spent 840 pts for the 20 guys. 6 wraiths costs 300 and are T1 charging anyway and you aren't having half the army in enemy DZ ready to be killed in return. Hardly most cost efficient way to go around.

So yeah. Fail on you. Where's that awesome synergy you mention? 12" reroll 1's to hit isn't awesome. You arent' going to be within 12" of flayed ones unless you use another character AND relic to deep strike them there as well.

So first attempt from you to show the synergy: Epic fail.

Could it be that GW wants to scrap necrons as a faction?

Necrons havent gotten much GW love for a long time. A few point reductions, thats it.

 Jancoran wrote:
Check your codex again. I mean not that I'd use him, but the Stormlord comes standard with one of them. But there are others. It's pretty sweet honestly. But the way you use them with a Cryptek and possibly Anrakyr or even the master of deception himself... It's good.

It's Good ? Really ? 17ppm. The price of an intercessor. No thanks.

Stormlord only works on Sautekh Flayed Ones. If you bring them at all, you'd bring them as Novokh for the rerolls.

Flayed Ones are bad. You're paying 17 pts a model for a warrior with no gun. As Shaelinith said, that's Intercessor money for a vastly inferior model.

It's not that we don't "see the synergies", it's that they aren't very good..

torblind wrote:
Could it be that GW wants to scrap necrons as a faction?

Nah, we got our Cryptek on Cloak not long ago and Forge World did the Seraptek. Necrons aren't going anywhere, but we just gotta accept that Xenos races don't get the love that Imperial/Chaos do.

Except that Orks recieve fairly frequent new models even if not new rules, Tau got one of the most model-intense releases of a recent codex second only to Primaris, and Eldar are actually poster aliens so get bonkers rules all the time, yeah Xenos get no love.....


I genuinely think we're just the unloved child

EDIT: I forgot Nids existed, which is Ironic given the username, but they're in the saem boat as us, except that at least they seem to be interesting enough for GW to put them in bundle boxes.

tomb blades, gauss or tesla?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 IHateNids wrote:
Except that Orks recieve fairly frequent new models even if not new rules, Tau got one of the most model-intense releases of a recent codex second only to Primaris, and Eldar are actually poster aliens so get bonkers rules all the time, yeah Xenos get no love.....


I genuinely think we're just the unloved child

EDIT: I forgot Nids existed, which is Ironic given the username, but they're in the saem boat as us, except that at least they seem to be interesting enough for GW to put them in bundle boxes.

...bundle boxes? forgebane? last years battleforce, this years apocalypse box... (we are in serious need of some rules love though)

If I were to try and make Flayed ones work, I would try and hide 20 of them in my deployment zone accompanied by an Overlord with the Veil and reroll charges WL trait. Then teleport them out with MWBD for an 8" rerolled charge.

This would be far less effective than 30 Da Jumping Boyz for almost double the cost.

xenoterracide wrote:
tomb blades, gauss or tesla?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 IHateNids wrote:
Except that Orks recieve fairly frequent new models even if not new rules, Tau got one of the most model-intense releases of a recent codex second only to Primaris, and Eldar are actually poster aliens so get bonkers rules all the time, yeah Xenos get no love.....


I genuinely think we're just the unloved child

EDIT: I forgot Nids existed, which is Ironic given the username, but they're in the saem boat as us, except that at least they seem to be interesting enough for GW to put them in bundle boxes.

...bundle boxes? forgebane? last years battleforce, this years apocalypse box... (we are in serious need of some rules love though)

Tomb Blades always Guass IMHO

Forgebane I'll admit I forgot about, but they were still overshadowed by AdMech launch hype. Also, token "robot vs robot lel".

The Christmas Battleforce is the only one I was aware of, because the Apocalypse box was something everybody got so it wasnt special. It wasnt a box for the sake of a box, if you get me?

Rules tho, absolutely we get shafted a lot.

From a design perspective, you’d prefer to have a tiered perspective in every slot type: FA, Elite, HS, etc. This gets modulated based on how you want to reflect certain Faction flavor elements. (For example, a ‘slow, plodding army’ may not have as many Fast Attack options, or may have pricier ones).

Starting with internal balance: for the base game (i.e., excluding Forgeworld) you can look at our FA slot for some good design work here: you have cheap options (Scarabs) and midrange options (Wraiths) for melee and similar for shooting (TBs and Destroyers). Our Heavy is similar, but biased to shooting due to faction differentiation: Cheap (ABs), midrange (Doomsday arks).

And then there’s our Elite slot. This is a total mess—which is pretty poor from a Faction differentiation perspective. If the idea is that Necrons are an ‘elite’ army with fewer, better guys this would be the slot to push, along with the Heavy slot. Instead, the tiers seem to be: FOs, then Praetorians and Lychguard, then C’tans. For shooting we have... the Stalker with the antisynergy of being null dynasty. Where are the Elite shooting low range and midrange options? Why are the low and midrange melee options so expensive for such poor performance?

However! This reveals the reason why FOs further suffer. In the modern design criteria, they should really be Troops. Their statline is basically “Warrior, but CC instead of shooting...” but if you took them out of the Elite slot, what will fill its place?

This is also why you don’t see Pariahs coming back. They would be instantly comparable to no less than 4 different effectively equivalent other options in slots and cost ranges where we already have too much.

This glut of midrange, overlapping role options is part of the problem Necrons have in general, and why we get pushed to the extremes of running 6Ark3Scythe, because we have too many options in one spot, and are too anemic elsewhere.

On FOs, there’s one other point: if they actually made them cheaper, there wouldn’t be any to buy: you can only get metal or resin ones both of which are out of production. And I don’t mean this in a “GDUB$$$!” way, I mean, it would be poor game balance to make potentially essential options, with upgraded potential, that are unavailable to your player base. In other words, for good reasons, until/unless they cast plastic FOs, you will absolutely not see significant point drops or effectiveness upgrades.

One side note: it isn’t necessarily the case that Necrons are MEANT to be an Elite concept. It could be that the idea is Necrons are a relentless horde model. In this case then troops and Character or Machinery support would be the name of the game, and we need quite a few more options in these slots.

I do kind of also think it’s possible that Necrons are (inappropriately) being designed for both options, or have been historically anyway. This would be problematic as you’d end up offering an Elite force access to good chafe, and simultaneously be offering a Horde force access to good Elite options.

 IHateNids wrote:


The Christmas Battleforce is the only one I was aware of, because the Apocalypse box was something everybody got so it wasnt special. It wasnt a box for the sake of a box, if you get me?

Rules tho, absolutely we get shafted a lot.

Actually not everyone got an apoc box, was it admech that I remember being called out? I don't think 'nids got one either. I do remember being told by the local store manager the people that got apoc boxes were the ones with the highest sales, or something. Don't know if that's true... doesn't feel like it.

sieGermans wrote:
From a design perspective, you’d prefer to have a tiered perspective in every slot type: FA, Elite, HS, etc. This gets modulated based on how you want to reflect certain Faction flavor elements. (For example, a ‘slow, plodding army’ may not have as many Fast Attack options, or may have pricier ones).

You definitely shouldn't make a unit pricier or worse just because it doesn't fit into your view of how an army should operate. You can limit the amount of that unit can be included in an army, make the unit sizes small, one per Detachment, one per other choice, but making the unit worse is unfun, especially because GW balance is hit and miss. Sometimes they may be pushing a unit or trying to limit how good a unit is, other times they've just done a poor job at balancing. So you can't say Elites are tier 1 Necron Fast Attack are tier 3 without saying some Necron Elites are tier 0 and some are tier 2 and some Fast Attack are tier 2 and some are tier 4. It won't say on the box whether a unit is tier 1 or tier 4, when balancing pts the most amount of people should be able to have fun with their armies as possible.

And then there’s our Elite slot. This is a total mess—which is pretty poor from a Faction differentiation perspective. If the idea is that Necrons are an ‘elite’ army with fewer, better guys this would be the slot to push, along with the Heavy slot. Instead, the tiers seem to be: FOs, then Praetorians and Lychguard, then C’tans. For shooting we have... the Stalker with the antisynergy of being null dynasty. Where are the Elite shooting low range and midrange options? Why are the low and midrange melee options so expensive for such poor performance.

However! This reveals the reason why FOs further suffer. In the modern design criteria, they should really be Troops. Their statline is basically “Warrior, but CC instead of shooting...” but if you took them out of the Elite slot, what will fill its place?

This glut of midrange, overlapping role options is part of the problem Necrons have in general, and why we get pushed to the extremes of running 6Ark3Scythe, because we have too many options in one spot, and are too anemic elsewhere.

FOs are Elites because of fluff. Troops are Troops to incentivise building armies with units that don't do crazy stuff or at least they do less crazy stuff than the Elites, they may be more restricted in weapons they bring or be less elite. Our bad elites are bad because they cost too many pts, you are way overanalyzing this. Doomsday Arks are good because they are pts-effective. There is no secret sauce there, the rest of the codex is just relatively overcosted. Maybe people would run Flayed One bombs, you can add as many rules as you want but at the end of the day you just have to look at the value to cost ratio of different units and take the units that provide the most value to your list and playstyle. Instead of fiddling with giving units various abilities or changing their combat roles you should just change their pts and be done with it. Except when you have a problem with their gameplay, I don't think Monoliths are fun as-is, I don't think they evoke Necron technology when I've played with them, so I think their rules need to be changed. How does making Flayed Ones into Troops evoke more or a Necron feel, how is the gameplay better? Well it's better because some Dynasties use a lot of Flayed Ones, so changing them into Troops is a good idea from a thematic stand-point. Changing FOs to Troops to make them more viable outside of casual settings is a waste of time when you can just cut their pts to 15 and people might start to experiment with them competitively or 12 and people take them in moderate amounts or all the way down to 9 and bam people spam them.

One side note: it isn’t necessarily the case that Necrons are MEANT to be an Elite concept. It could be that the idea is Necrons are a relentless horde model. In this case then troops and Character or Machinery support would be the name of the game, and we need quite a few more options in these slots.

That would ruin the theme of the army. Fielding tonnes of similar models is a thing that I enjoy, at least in my Troops choices. If Deathmarks and Flayed Ones were Troops and fielded 2x5 Deathmarks, 2x5 Flayed, 1x20 Warriors, 1x10 Immortals that wouldn't be as satisfying to me as fielding 6x10 Immortals or 3x20 Warriors. Cool auxiliary options are cool, but the soulless core should remain an option. I don't see the need for a dozen more kinds of medium-range infantry or more Elite options. I really don't need any more Necrons models, maybe in 5 years I'd want something. For now, I'd like some more Character sculpts and a posable Transcendent C'tan with a couple of different heads and arms. What SM got with their 6 different kinds of Intercessors is not appealing to me. 6 different kinds of Crypteks would and maybe that just means I want Necrons to be pushed into a HQ direction instead of a Troops or Elites direction from your perspective an army having a slant. IMO the Necrons HQ slot isn't just relative to the rest of the slots, it's tiny, held up only by a very nice selection of unique units.

I do kind of also think it’s possible that Necrons are (inappropriately) being designed for both options, or have been historically anyway. This would be problematic as you’d end up offering an Elite force access to good chafe, and simultaneously be offering a Horde force access to good Elite options.

You're overanalyzing some more here, GW are mostly just bad at balance and once in a while they sneak in an obvious or not so obvious buff or nerf to push new product. Consider the Imperium, they have the best chaff and the best Titanic units, Necrons having similarly diverse options would not hurt the game. Doomsday Arks might get relatively stronger with a chaff squad on the same tier as Infantry Squads, but the price would just have to be adjusted.

 vict0988 wrote:

sieGermans wrote:
From a design perspective, you’d prefer to have a tiered perspective in every slot type: FA, Elite, HS, etc. This gets modulated based on how you want to reflect certain Faction flavor elements. (For example, a ‘slow, plodding army’ may not have as many Fast Attack options, or may have pricier ones).

You definitely shouldn't make a unit pricier or worse just because it doesn't fit into your view of how an army should operate. You can limit the amount of that unit can be included in an army, make the unit sizes small, one per Detachment, one per other choice, but making the unit worse is unfun, especially because GW balance is hit and miss. Sometimes they may be pushing a unit or trying to limit how good a unit is, other times they've just done a poor job at balancing. So you can't say Elites are tier 1 Necron Fast Attack are tier 3 without saying some Necron Elites are tier 0 and some are tier 2 and some Fast Attack are tier 2 and some are tier 4. It won't say on the box whether a unit is tier 1 or tier 4, when balancing pts the most amount of people should be able to have fun with their armies as possible.

And then there’s our Elite slot. This is a total mess—which is pretty poor from a Faction differentiation perspective. If the idea is that Necrons are an ‘elite’ army with fewer, better guys this would be the slot to push, along with the Heavy slot. Instead, the tiers seem to be: FOs, then Praetorians and Lychguard, then C’tans. For shooting we have... the Stalker with the antisynergy of being null dynasty. Where are the Elite shooting low range and midrange options? Why are the low and midrange melee options so expensive for such poor performance.

However! This reveals the reason why FOs further suffer. In the modern design criteria, they should really be Troops. Their statline is basically “Warrior, but CC instead of shooting...” but if you took them out of the Elite slot, what will fill its place?

This glut of midrange, overlapping role options is part of the problem Necrons have in general, and why we get pushed to the extremes of running 6Ark3Scythe, because we have too many options in one spot, and are too anemic elsewhere.

FOs are Elites because of fluff. Troops are Troops to incentivise building armies with units that don't do crazy stuff or at least they do less crazy stuff than the Elites, they may be more restricted in weapons they bring or be less elite. Our bad elites are bad because they cost too many pts, you are way overanalyzing this. Doomsday Arks are good because they are pts-effective. There is no secret sauce there, the rest of the codex is just relatively overcosted. Maybe people would run Flayed One bombs, you can add as many rules as you want but at the end of the day you just have to look at the value to cost ratio of different units and take the units that provide the most value to your list and playstyle. Instead of fiddling with giving units various abilities or changing their combat roles you should just change their pts and be done with it. Except when you have a problem with their gameplay, I don't think Monoliths are fun as-is, I don't think they evoke Necron technology when I've played with them, so I think their rules need to be changed. How does making Flayed Ones into Troops evoke more or a Necron feel, how is the gameplay better? Well it's better because some Dynasties use a lot of Flayed Ones, so changing them into Troops is a good idea from a thematic stand-point. Changing FOs to Troops to make them more viable outside of casual settings is a waste of time when you can just cut their pts to 15 and people might start to experiment with them competitively or 12 and people take them in moderate amounts or all the way down to 9 and bam people spam them.

One side note: it isn’t necessarily the case that Necrons are MEANT to be an Elite concept. It could be that the idea is Necrons are a relentless horde model. In this case then troops and Character or Machinery support would be the name of the game, and we need quite a few more options in these slots.

That would ruin the theme of the army. Fielding tonnes of similar models is a thing that I enjoy, at least in my Troops choices. If Deathmarks and Flayed Ones were Troops and fielded 2x5 Deathmarks, 2x5 Flayed, 1x20 Warriors, 1x10 Immortals that wouldn't be as satisfying to me as fielding 6x10 Immortals or 3x20 Warriors. Cool auxiliary options are cool, but the soulless core should remain an option. I don't see the need for a dozen more kinds of medium-range infantry or more Elite options. I really don't need any more Necrons models, maybe in 5 years I'd want something. For now, I'd like some more Character sculpts and a posable Transcendent C'tan with a couple of different heads and arms. What SM got with their 6 different kinds of Intercessors is not appealing to me. 6 different kinds of Crypteks would and maybe that just means I want Necrons to be pushed into a HQ direction instead of a Troops or Elites direction from your perspective an army having a slant. IMO the Necrons HQ slot isn't just relative to the rest of the slots, it's tiny, held up only by a very nice selection of unique units.

I do kind of also think it’s possible that Necrons are (inappropriately) being designed for both options, or have been historically anyway. This would be problematic as you’d end up offering an Elite force access to good chafe, and simultaneously be offering a Horde force access to good Elite options.

You're overanalyzing some more here, GW are mostly just bad at balance and once in a while they sneak in an obvious or not so obvious buff or nerf to push new product. Consider the Imperium, they have the best chaff and the best Titanic units, Necrons having similarly diverse options would not hurt the game. Doomsday Arks might get relatively stronger with a chaff squad on the same tier as Infantry Squads, but the price would just have to be adjusted.

Describing the incredibly facile and overly simplistic run-down I gave as “OVER-analyzing” has undertones of Dunning-Kruger. Just because the outcome is poor doesn’t mean GW doesn’t put a lot of effort and thought into internally balancing these systems. I guarantee you I’m probably wrong 100 different ways, but it won’t be because I’ve analyzed it TOO deeply.

I may have been ambiguous when I referred to tiers; that was referring to Quality assuming an equal application of points:effectiveness. I wasn’t referring to tier of competitiveness.

I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating: FOs are overcosted or underperforming for their cost and probably in the wrong force organization. And they have been for a while. And I am willing to provide a testable hypothesis: they will only be seriously re-tooled if/when they become available in plastic. I have 30 metal ones I’ve painted, ready to go, so hopefully I’m wrong!

I have the same feeling with FO. They won't ever be reworked until they get a plastic kit. But even then, see what they done with banshees, i would clearly not be overly optimistic about it.

 Draco765 wrote:

When you deep strike something it is at the end of the Movement phase, you will not get MWBD on them the turn they arrive. And the Named Characters have a 12" or 3" aura. So, you are either foot slogging them or using other tricks to get those characters into position.

If you use the Deceiver, they can not charge your first turn. Thus will be exposed to being shot/charged on the opponent's turn or the opponent just has to put a junk screen in the way or move the ideal targets out of range of your move/charge attempt on your second turn.

I didnt literally mean the literal Deciever, and that was my bad. By Deceiver, I was talking about Zahndrek and wasnt even thinking about the fact that there was an actual deciver. My Will be done wasn't what I was referring to either. So yeah sorry for confusing you there.