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I don't think reanimation protocols is that bad - its just certain Necron units need to be cheaper. In the case of the elite/small squad size units this is considerable.

I also think - and this is coming up from grots in the Ork Codex - that all units which don't currently get a chapter tactic should get some sort of special rule. This isn't even really a balance thing - its just... feels like you are being short changed. Which upsets people.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Honestly at this point they could/should just go back to making it like "We'll Be Back" and have it always work, even if the unit is wiped.
Except maybe without the whole "joining other units" part and just having the whole unit be rezzed roughly where it died.

That leads to problem with kill point scenarios though. Necrons will be either laughably easy to win against(unit dies, 1KP scored, some 2-3 comes back, you kill them, yet another KP) or pretty much impossible to win especially if necrons go second(last turn necrons roll RP's and if anything succeeds no kill point whatsoever for you)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
I don't think reanimation protocols is that bad - its just certain Necron units need to be cheaper. In the case of the elite/small squad size units this is considerable.

Problem here is that the rule does not scale. At all. It's very powerful at the lower points because wiping out necron unit is much harder. At 1500 pts it starts to be weak. At 2k units will get focus fired and destroyed so now necrons are paying for ability they don't really get to use. At 3k unit surviving long enough to roll RP is super slim. 5k? Yeah right. RP? What's that?

tneva82 wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
I don't think reanimation protocols is that bad - its just certain Necron units need to be cheaper. In the case of the elite/small squad size units this is considerable.

Problem here is that the rule does not scale. At all. It's very powerful at the lower points because wiping out necron unit is much harder. At 1500 pts it starts to be weak. At 2k units will get focus fired and destroyed so now necrons are paying for ability they don't really get to use. At 3k unit surviving long enough to roll RP is super slim. 5k? Yeah right. RP? What's that?

What if you make the roll for a necron unit whenever an enemy unit resolves shooting or assault against them? That would minimize the impact of focus firing somewhat. It would still be distinct from FNP, as dead necrons still have a chance to get up and multiple damage weapons still only cause 1 roll for every necron.

That and/or you could just only count the first time the unit "dies" for kill point purposes.

tneva82 wrote:
Problem here is that the rule does not scale. At all. It's very powerful at the lower points because wiping out necron unit is much harder. At 1500 pts it starts to be weak. At 2k units will get focus fired and destroyed so now necrons are paying for ability they don't really get to use. At 3k unit surviving long enough to roll RP is super slim. 5k? Yeah right. RP? What's that?

Well yeah - but I don't really care about 500 point or 5000 point games. I'm not convinced GW does either.

In a 2k game sure, your opponent will try to focus down units. There may be good reasons to do this (getting kill points, denying objectives) but forcing your opponent to kill whole units or risk them coming back is a reasonable boon. It could make them force them into less efficient choices because they need that unit wiped. The question is "what is this worth"? Right now a Necron Warrior isn't worth 12 points. An Immortal isn't worth 17. Lychguard are not worth 35 or whatever.

Tyel wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Problem here is that the rule does not scale. At all. It's very powerful at the lower points because wiping out necron unit is much harder. At 1500 pts it starts to be weak. At 2k units will get focus fired and destroyed so now necrons are paying for ability they don't really get to use. At 3k unit surviving long enough to roll RP is super slim. 5k? Yeah right. RP? What's that?

Well yeah - but I don't really care about 500 point or 5000 point games. I'm not convinced GW does either.

In a 2k game sure, your opponent will try to focus down units. There may be good reasons to do this (getting kill points, denying objectives) but forcing your opponent to kill whole units or risk them coming back is a reasonable boon. It could make them force them into less efficient choices because they need that unit wiped. The question is "what is this worth"? Right now a Necron Warrior isn't worth 12 points. An Immortal isn't worth 17. Lychguard are not worth 35 or whatever.

That's a good point. Forcing your opponent to waste his turn destroying a unit is a good thing. The problem though is that necrons are too expensive for that tactic to really work, as you won't be able to afford that many high threat targets. Your opponent would be more inclined to destroy your destroyers than warriors.
Only possible solution, other than making them cheaper, is to make every necron a potential threat. Warriors suddenly seem a lot more dangerous if their guns have a chance of inflicting an extra point of damage, for example.

meleti wrote:


This seems like semantics. Repulsor is a tank and plays like a tank, a bigger tank possibly coming out sometime in the uncertain future does not change that.

The best kind of semantics!

That is plays like a tank just speaks to the Primaris design philosophy. You could say it's a Razorback, I suppose.

Tyel wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Problem here is that the rule does not scale. At all. It's very powerful at the lower points because wiping out necron unit is much harder. At 1500 pts it starts to be weak. At 2k units will get focus fired and destroyed so now necrons are paying for ability they don't really get to use. At 3k unit surviving long enough to roll RP is super slim. 5k? Yeah right. RP? What's that?

Well yeah - but I don't really care about 500 point or 5000 point games. I'm not convinced GW does either.

In a 2k game sure, your opponent will try to focus down units. There may be good reasons to do this (getting kill points, denying objectives) but forcing your opponent to kill whole units or risk them coming back is a reasonable boon. It could make them force them into less efficient choices because they need that unit wiped. The question is "what is this worth"? Right now a Necron Warrior isn't worth 12 points. An Immortal isn't worth 17. Lychguard are not worth 35 or whatever.

Ah yes. Let's ignore everything but 2k(where RP already sucks) because everybody plays only it right? Now that's good excuse for lazy game design! Just like GW. Can't be bothered to do the job they are paid for so put out any crap.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Tyel wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Problem here is that the rule does not scale. At all. It's very powerful at the lower points because wiping out necron unit is much harder. At 1500 pts it starts to be weak. At 2k units will get focus fired and destroyed so now necrons are paying for ability they don't really get to use. At 3k unit surviving long enough to roll RP is super slim. 5k? Yeah right. RP? What's that?

Well yeah - but I don't really care about 500 point or 5000 point games. I'm not convinced GW does either.

In a 2k game sure, your opponent will try to focus down units. There may be good reasons to do this (getting kill points, denying objectives) but forcing your opponent to kill whole units or risk them coming back is a reasonable boon. It could make them force them into less efficient choices because they need that unit wiped. The question is "what is this worth"? Right now a Necron Warrior isn't worth 12 points. An Immortal isn't worth 17. Lychguard are not worth 35 or whatever.

That's a good point. Forcing your opponent to waste his turn destroying a unit is a good thing. The problem though is that necrons are too expensive for that tactic to really work, as you won't be able to afford that many high threat targets. Your opponent would be more inclined to destroy your destroyers than warriors.
Only possible solution, other than making them cheaper, is to make every necron a potential threat. Warriors suddenly seem a lot more dangerous if their guns have a chance of inflicting an extra point of damage, for example.

Again tgis just highlights the inconsistency between codex's.
Are troops supposed to be good enough that you want to take them anyway or are they supposed to be a tax unit that rewards you with CP?

Right now the elite armies with expensive troops have tax units while the horde armies have non tax troops, so get better units and more CP? How is that balanceable?

Ice_can wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Tyel wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Problem here is that the rule does not scale. At all. It's very powerful at the lower points because wiping out necron unit is much harder. At 1500 pts it starts to be weak. At 2k units will get focus fired and destroyed so now necrons are paying for ability they don't really get to use. At 3k unit surviving long enough to roll RP is super slim. 5k? Yeah right. RP? What's that?

Well yeah - but I don't really care about 500 point or 5000 point games. I'm not convinced GW does either.

In a 2k game sure, your opponent will try to focus down units. There may be good reasons to do this (getting kill points, denying objectives) but forcing your opponent to kill whole units or risk them coming back is a reasonable boon. It could make them force them into less efficient choices because they need that unit wiped. The question is "what is this worth"? Right now a Necron Warrior isn't worth 12 points. An Immortal isn't worth 17. Lychguard are not worth 35 or whatever.

That's a good point. Forcing your opponent to waste his turn destroying a unit is a good thing. The problem though is that necrons are too expensive for that tactic to really work, as you won't be able to afford that many high threat targets. Your opponent would be more inclined to destroy your destroyers than warriors.
Only possible solution, other than making them cheaper, is to make every necron a potential threat. Warriors suddenly seem a lot more dangerous if their guns have a chance of inflicting an extra point of damage, for example.

Again tgis just highlights the inconsistency between codex's.
Are troops supposed to be good enough that you want to take them anyway or are they supposed to be a tax unit that rewards you with CP?

Right now the elite armies with expensive troops have tax units while the horde armies have non tax troops, so get better units and more CP? How is that balanceable?

Yeah, ideally "elite" armies should have higher damage output per model. Right now though the damage output of a marine is the same as an ork or a guardsman; they both fire the same number of shots. Except for the price of a marine you could have 3 guardsmen, effectively tripling the number of potential casualties.

tneva82 wrote:
Now that's good excuse for lazy game design! Just like GW. Can't be bothered to do the job they are paid for so put out any crap.

C'mon, give the guys a break. They've been doing a better job the past couple years than they have been in previous decades before. At least they're listening to their customers somewha...
WTF. I'm actually defending GW now?!? What has the world come to?!?
Every now and then I have to remind myself what they did to WFB 8th.

wisetiger7 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Now that's good excuse for lazy game design! Just like GW. Can't be bothered to do the job they are paid for so put out any crap.

C'mon, give the guys a break. They've been doing a better job the past couple years than they have been in previous decades before. At least they're listening to their customers somewha...
WTF. I'm actually defending GW now?!? What has the world come to?!?
Every now and then I have to remind myself what they did to WFB 8th.

No. I would give them if a break if it hadn't taken said decades to actually realize we want a balanced game. A year and a half of half arsed and lazy updates is not going to erase those decades of them totally fething up, and besides some decent PR, their rules writing hasn't really improved. They just take 6 months to write a "patch" and change a few points costs that could have been done in an hour tops, and people give them applause saying how amazing the "new GW" is. Power creep is real, the recent fluff makes me gag, and the nerfing of "OP" stuff without addressing the source of problem is lazy trash.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

wisetiger7 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Now that's good excuse for lazy game design! Just like GW. Can't be bothered to do the job they are paid for so put out any crap.

C'mon, give the guys a break. They've been doing a better job the past couple years than they have been in previous decades before. At least they're listening to their customers somewha...
WTF. I'm actually defending GW now?!? What has the world come to?!?
Every now and then I have to remind myself what they did to WFB 8th.

No. I would give them if a break if it hadn't taken said decades to actually realize we want a balanced game. A year and a half of half arsed and lazy updates is not going to erase those decades of them totally fething up, and besides some decent PR, their rules writing hasn't really improved. They just take 6 months to write a "patch" and change a few points costs that could have been done in an hour tops, and people give them applause saying how amazing the "new GW" is. Power creep is real, the recent fluff makes me gag, and the nerfing of "OP" stuff without addressing the source of problem is lazy trash.

Bruh. Lighten up. I'm in agreeance with you.

CA is around the corner, it's fine if are pitchforks are sharpened but let's not light or torches just yet.

Between looted wagons, 12 missions and the Sisters beta, this might end up being a decent sized book

There needs to be a grounds-up point adjustments with guardsmen as the baseline.

 skchsan wrote:
There needs to be a grounds-up point adjustments with guardsmen as the baseline.

Absolutely. Plus 2000 point games are just arbitrary numbers. But I'm also for a 10 point guardsman and go from there and who knows 3000 points might be the norm from there

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

wisetiger7 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Now that's good excuse for lazy game design! Just like GW. Can't be bothered to do the job they are paid for so put out any crap.

C'mon, give the guys a break. They've been doing a better job the past couple years than they have been in previous decades before. At least they're listening to their customers somewha...
WTF. I'm actually defending GW now?!? What has the world come to?!?
Every now and then I have to remind myself what they did to WFB 8th.

No. I would give them if a break if it hadn't taken said decades to actually realize we want a balanced game. A year and a half of half arsed and lazy updates is not going to erase those decades of them totally fething up, and besides some decent PR, their rules writing hasn't really improved. They just take 6 months to write a "patch" and change a few points costs that could have been done in an hour tops, and people give them applause saying how amazing the "new GW" is. Power creep is real, the recent fluff makes me gag, and the nerfing of "OP" stuff without addressing the source of problem is lazy trash.

I think you've grinded this axe to dust. Time to find a new game for you, m8.

But here's an Ork head psychically playing a violin to hopefully make you feel better

 skchsan wrote:
There needs to be a grounds-up point adjustments with guardsmen as the baseline.

Yeah, probably true. Also maybe time to reassess the value of a wound.

 skchsan wrote:
There needs to be a grounds-up point adjustments with guardsmen as the baseline.

Gounds-up point adjustment, yes. Based on Guardsmen? No.

4ppm Guardmen make it darn near impossible to point anything else correctly, it doesn't leave enough granularity in the scale.

The Newman wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
There needs to be a grounds-up point adjustments with guardsmen as the baseline.

Gounds-up point adjustment, yes. Based on Guardsmen? No.

4ppm Guardmen make it darn near impossible to point anything else correctly, it doesn't leave enough granularity in the scale.

Nobody said base it around 4 ppm guardsmen - just guardsmen as the baseline instead of marines.

Even if guardsmen were to stay at 4 ppm, the proportional price point for marines is at around 11 ppm, so on and so forth.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

wisetiger7 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Now that's good excuse for lazy game design! Just like GW. Can't be bothered to do the job they are paid for so put out any crap.

C'mon, give the guys a break. They've been doing a better job the past couple years than they have been in previous decades before. At least they're listening to their customers somewha...
WTF. I'm actually defending GW now?!? What has the world come to?!?
Every now and then I have to remind myself what they did to WFB 8th.

No. I would give them if a break if it hadn't taken said decades to actually realize we want a balanced game. A year and a half of half arsed and lazy updates is not going to erase those decades of them totally fething up, and besides some decent PR, their rules writing hasn't really improved. They just take 6 months to write a "patch" and change a few points costs that could have been done in an hour tops, and people give them applause saying how amazing the "new GW" is. Power creep is real, the recent fluff makes me gag, and the nerfing of "OP" stuff without addressing the source of problem is lazy trash.

Dude you are literally the hero of Dakka. It's tough to be the hero though. Prepare for the Dakka backlash.

 NH Gunsmith wrote:

wisetiger7 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Now that's good excuse for lazy game design! Just like GW. Can't be bothered to do the job they are paid for so put out any crap.

C'mon, give the guys a break. They've been doing a better job the past couple years than they have been in previous decades before. At least they're listening to their customers somewha...
WTF. I'm actually defending GW now?!? What has the world come to?!?
Every now and then I have to remind myself what they did to WFB 8th.

No. I would give them if a break if it hadn't taken said decades to actually realize we want a balanced game. A year and a half of half arsed and lazy updates is not going to erase those decades of them totally fething up, and besides some decent PR, their rules writing hasn't really improved. They just take 6 months to write a "patch" and change a few points costs that could have been done in an hour tops, and people give them applause saying how amazing the "new GW" is. Power creep is real, the recent fluff makes me gag, and the nerfing of "OP" stuff without addressing the source of problem is lazy trash.

Yea, so I'm going to call bs.

It was a year and a half of nearly wall to wall codexes that weren't fully envisioned at the onset of 8th. They've clearly explored many facets and grown in certain areas.

What you think is a simple patch is a moving target with each successive codex. Their creativity has gotten better aside from the Necron nose dive.

AdMech, Tau, Necrons, Deathwatch and Tyranids were not power creep. Eldar and IK are the only books that were far enough from the misunderstandings from the initial releases that could be considered creep.

People here like to wax poetic on how easy they think it is, but I'd bet you'd fall flat on your face, too.

All that said this CA is GW's prime opportunity to show they have a good grasp of the situation now that most of the books are out.

I really think the necron players who are expecting a complete codex overhaul in CA are deluding themselves and setting themselves up for disappointment. Necrons probably will never be a top tier army in 8th edition, and I am ok with this. I do really hope for some points reductions though, maybe a look at repricing or errata-ing some of our less powerful stratagems.

240 pts for a max squad of warriors kinda sucks, but 200 would be pretty cool, like wise a monolith at 400 is AWFUL, but 230 would make it at least playable.

If we could just field MORE units, I think we'd have a much better baseline to worth with.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Dude you are literally the hero of Dakka. It's tough to be the hero though. Prepare for the Dakka backlash.

The famous Dakklash!

DudleyGrim wrote:
I really think the necron players who are expecting a complete codex overhaul in CA are deluding themselves and setting themselves up for disappointment. Necrons probably will never be a top tier army in 8th edition, and I am ok with this. I do really hope for some points reductions though, maybe a look at repricing or errata-ing some of our less powerful stratagems.

240 pts for a max squad of warriors kinda sucks, but 200 would be pretty cool, like wise a monolith at 400 is AWFUL, but 230 would make it at least playable.

If we could just field MORE units, I think we'd have a much better baseline to worth with.

Agreed. I would be satisfied if a typical 2k necron list would be 1.8k with CA 2018. I dont expect any major rules changes. RP will stay the same.

Necrons need about a 10-25% reduction across the board on all but:

Infantry need to either be immune to morale or can't lose more than 1d3 models on a failed roll.

Tomb blades and Destroyers.

Monolith and Obelisk need roughly a 50% reduction.

I would like to see the monolith return to being the support vehicle for the silver tide. Add a 5++ aura to troop units within 6" of it. Give it a 5++ save or quantum shielding. Increase the to wound by +1 for troops within the same aura.

Fix Gauss to be a mortal wound on 6's vs all non-infantry.

Fix Tesla to be on an unmodified roll of 6.

Overlord change to reroll misses aura.

Fliers need quantum shielding.

Doom Scythe to 2d3 attacks, changed to assault or ignores heavy.

Spiders become characters

That could make them at least competitive (Still low tier 1 or high tier 2 *maybe*). It also doesn't make any model better than their equivalent in other armies for the same price.

Some of your ideas are insane. 25% point decrease on all units ? Ridiculous. Monolith and obelisk 50% ? Impossible. I would be very suprised if either loses more than 100 points.

 p5freak wrote:
Some of your ideas are insane. 25% point decrease on all units ? Ridiculous. Monolith and obelisk 50% ? Impossible. I would be very suprised if either loses more than 100 points.

I get that you don't understand the issue necrons have. At 50% off the Monolith would barely be playable, and *still* not competitive.

25% off on most units? I said 10-25% actually. Also, yes, that is pretty accurate. Compare necron models 1 for 1 with other top tier armies and you will see 10-25% barely puts them in the ballpark. Remember that they still don't have psykers or any method to fight them.

valdier wrote:
Necrons need about a 10-25% reduction across the board on all but:

Infantry need to either be immune to morale or can't lose more than 1d3 models on a failed roll.

Tomb blades and Destroyers.

Monolith and Obelisk need roughly a 50% reduction.

I would like to see the monolith return to being the support vehicle for the silver tide. Add a 5++ aura to troop units within 6" of it. Give it a 5++ save or quantum shielding. Increase the to wound by +1 for troops within the same aura.

Fix Gauss to be a mortal wound on 6's vs all non-infantry.

Fix Tesla to be on an unmodified roll of 6.

Overlord change to reroll misses aura.

Flier need quantum shielding.

Doom Scythe to 2d3 attacks, changed to assault or ignores heavy.

That could make them at least competitive (Still low tier 1 or high tier 2 *maybe*). It also doesn't make any model better than their equivalent in other armies for the same price.

Proof in this post that game design is not easy.

CassianSol wrote:


Proof in this post that game design is not easy.

Mostly proof of how badly GW messed up the Necron codex.

Seriously, tell me where I'm wrong in my assessment compared to units in other armies.


(Btw, I've actually written for award winning books in the game industry and edited for the same numbers intensive system [#2 selling game in the world at the time], since you mentioned it)

I wouldn't expect much from Chapter Approved as far as game balance goes. Keep in mind that it has already hit the printers and the final version has therefore been locked in, so they can't make changes to stuff that shows up now. This CA is certainly an opportunity for GW to make the fundamental changes the game needs. However, as we creep up to December, more and more red flags seem to be showing up, and it's becoming more and more likely that any of the larger-scale balance changes people are expecting in CA will be mainly patch jobs and a couple of points changes per army. For me, the biggest red flag has to be the way that it is being marketed. They seem to draw more and more on the sister's beta codex and the looted wagon rules as their big draw. It could be nothing, but it wouldn't be unrealistic to believe that the reason for them pushing these elements is because they're the areas that they put their primary efforts into.