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Made in us
Been Around the Block




I just wanted to get a general feel of how necrons were in 8th edition. Seems like they feel a little abandoned what with power armor stats doing so poorly and all. I want to start up necrons as they were my first army way back in 4th edition but I don't want to invest the time and money into a new army if they aren't going to be receiving any love and support from GW.
   
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Norn Queen






Their core rule (reanimation protocols) does not scale with the size of the game and it hinders them a lot because of it.

At smaller point games killing an entire unit in a single turn is difficult at best which gives RP lots of opportunity to return models and make necrons nigh indestructible. At larger point games so many units can focus fire onto a single unit that RP will never have a chance to go off if your opponent is at all competent. Paying for a durability rule that never gets used is a big bummer.

Maybe it will change? But it hasn't since the index so... ::shrug::

If you play 1k-1250 games a lot you can probably have a lot of fun. The moment you get near 1500-2k things get much harder for you.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/03/01 07:03:50



These are my opinions. This is how I feel. Others may feel differently. This needs to be stated for some reason.
 
   
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They're more fun to play against than last edition for sure. RP are still a nice rule, but at least you can do something against it which I like. In that perspective they're probably more enjoyable than Death Guard now.
Their units are still solid, though they lack anti-tank weapons or at least these are restricted to few units (destroyers, doomsday arc, maybe lychguard). Necrons can do CC as well as gunline, which I like about them. Though their gunline lacks a bit of range, even their troop choice can have Ap-2.
I'd say they're in a good spot, maybe not super-competitive-tournament-material - but then what is?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/03/01 08:35:24


 
   
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Been Around the Block




Just to add more info about me, i've been playing admech for the past year as my reintroduction to 40k. I like infantry heavy armies and monstrous creatures. I absolutely will not buy a unit if I don't like the models even if its really good.

A lot of people consider admech to be in a poor spot as well but I do ally imperial knights in which has helped me get out of any pinch.

I'm mostly interested in running lots of necron warriors and immortals with wraiths and Arks.
   
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Facisminthe41m wrote:
Just to add more info about me, i've been playing admech for the past year as my reintroduction to 40k. I like infantry heavy armies and monstrous creatures. I absolutely will not buy a unit if I don't like the models even if its really good.

A lot of people consider admech to be in a poor spot as well but I do ally imperial knights in which has helped me get out of any pinch.

I'm mostly interested in running lots of necron warriors and immortals with wraiths and Arks.


ever considered Nids then?

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As lance said, they dont scale up that well. I have a friend who started necrons about 6 months ago, and we have games most weekends and once we started hitting 1750-2500pts per game the necrons were lagging behind to much. I was using a primaris infantry army with support like dreads, predators and armigers, with calgar as warlord and he was using warriors, immortals, destroyers, wraiths, an ark, a barge, lynch guard [i think] a bunch of tomb blades, and a bunch of named characters that have some cool abilities, but it was a one sided win for me about 50% of the time, and a close win for me and another 15-25% of the time. Now im not saying either of our armies were competitive or anything, but i was bringing like 40 intercessors and 20 reivers every game in 2000pt battles so about 800-1000 points of my army was not very strong in terms of killing power. So i think that says it all really.

When we were playing games under 1500 points though, it made for some great battles, close wins down to the wire on both sides.

Funny thing is my same friend just started up Ad Mech the last month cause he was somewhat frustrated with necrons [dont blame him really] and is enjoying them much more! Ive switched to Imperial guard as well so it makes for a nice match up so far

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 FEARtheMoose wrote:
As lance said, they dont scale up that well. I have a friend who started necrons about 6 months ago, and we have games most weekends and once we started hitting 1750-2500pts per game the necrons were lagging behind to much. I was using a primaris infantry army with support like dreads, predators and armigers, with calgar as warlord and he was using warriors, immortals, destroyers, wraiths, an ark, a barge, lynch guard [i think] a bunch of tomb blades, and a bunch of named characters that have some cool abilities, but it was a one sided win for me about 50% of the time, and a close win for me and another 15-25% of the time. Now im not saying either of our armies were competitive or anything, but i was bringing like 40 intercessors and 20 reivers every game in 2000pt battles so about 800-1000 points of my army was not very strong in terms of killing power. So i think that says it all really.

When we were playing games under 1500 points though, it made for some great battles, close wins down to the wire on both sides.

Funny thing is my same friend just started up Ad Mech the last month cause he was somewhat frustrated with necrons [dont blame him really] and is enjoying them much more! Ive switched to Imperial guard as well so it makes for a nice match up so far


No surprise. When one of the main rules(resurection protocol) is designed in a way that the bigger the game the less efficient it is while units pay same...Inevitable result. It's like orders for IG would be max 3 per round regardless of game size. Would have bigger impact in 500 pts than 2000 pts.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/03/01 12:11:27


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Dakka Veteran




tneva82 wrote:
 FEARtheMoose wrote:
As lance said, they dont scale up that well. I have a friend who started necrons about 6 months ago, and we have games most weekends and once we started hitting 1750-2500pts per game the necrons were lagging behind to much. I was using a primaris infantry army with support like dreads, predators and armigers, with calgar as warlord and he was using warriors, immortals, destroyers, wraiths, an ark, a barge, lynch guard [i think] a bunch of tomb blades, and a bunch of named characters that have some cool abilities, but it was a one sided win for me about 50% of the time, and a close win for me and another 15-25% of the time. Now im not saying either of our armies were competitive or anything, but i was bringing like 40 intercessors and 20 reivers every game in 2000pt battles so about 800-1000 points of my army was not very strong in terms of killing power. So i think that says it all really.

When we were playing games under 1500 points though, it made for some great battles, close wins down to the wire on both sides.

Funny thing is my same friend just started up Ad Mech the last month cause he was somewhat frustrated with necrons [dont blame him really] and is enjoying them much more! Ive switched to Imperial guard as well so it makes for a nice match up so far


No surprise. When one of the main rules(resurection protocol) is designed in a way that the bigger the game the less efficient it is while units pay same...Inevitable result. It's like orders for IG would be max 3 per round regardless of game size. Would have bigger impact in 500 pts than 2000 pts.


But guard's orders ARE limited, the problem is that you generally don't reach that limit (unless going full infantry but who does that anyway?
   
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Necrons are as fun to play with and against as any other army is, IF your intention is to have fun!

if however, your intention is to stomp on your enemies, drink their tears and laugh at the lamentation of their women, then you're going to have a bad day 90% of the time for the reasons stated above..

I would counter though that it's entirely plausible to have fun with our robotic guys AND sometimes win, especially in the newer CA18 missions and Maelstrom missions

Tomb blades and destroyers get around the place, Wraiths are amazing and we do have some decent heavy weapons platforms in DDA's

Silver tide is a difficult army to play and backing them with Ghost Arks is often redundant because of the transport limitations (Max 10 warriors when you want to be running 20 man squads)

They are good to fallback a few guys out of combat and into a GA to escape and recover for a while .. totally valid tactic ... but not exactly reliable.

the HQ units are pretty good and reasonably costed.

so yeah - go ahead and have fun ... just don't expect to be ruling the meta for long with them .. most everything else in tourney lists will stomp on your shiny metal behind!
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut





So long as you're not looking at tournamnet-level competition, Necrons are sitting just fine. They got a lot of potent stuff, some dirty tricks, and steel solid abs. I have a friend that plays them religiously, and while he's not winning tournaments, his list is never easy to beat.

The BIG thing with Reanimation Protocols is that a lot of people expect it and want it to be something that impacts the game RIGHT AWAY. This is not the case. Reanimation Protocols is an end-game victory path. As stated, it doesn't scale up as game size goes up, so in the early game your opponent will be wiping out squads without giving them a chance to RP. However, by the mid-game, Necrons start losing units at a decelerated rates, and by the end-game, it'll feel like the Necrons just stop losing units. In this way, a Necron army can really seem to come back from behind, and are better for games where your path to victory is based on the late game.

As others have stated, Destroyers, Tomb Blades, HQ units, Wraiths, and Doomsday Arks all seem to be the best units Necrons can bring. I've noticed Immortals pulling their weight really well too. There's a bunch of other very reasonable units (C'Tan, Triarch Stalkers, Ghost Arks, Warriors, Flayed Ones), but these units have a few issues, and you often don't have a ton of points to go around. There are a number of other duds (Tomb Spyders, Praetorians, flyers, Monoliths) that are generally pretty bad, but are pretty amazing at doing the one specific thing you're taking them for, so long as they're fully accomplishing that task.

 Galef wrote:
If you refuse to use rock, you will never beat scissors.
 
   
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There's a player at my LGS who is currently rocking a wall of Immortals backed by DDAs and Destroyers, and anything short of a competitive tournament level list he'll generally disassemble by turn four with moderate casualties.
   
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Sterling191 wrote:
There's a player at my LGS who is currently rocking a wall of Immortals backed by DDAs and Destroyers, and anything short of a competitive tournament level list he'll generally disassemble by turn four with moderate casualties.
That list is in a weird spot. A guy in my local plays it. Against my casual Inquisition/Deathwatch he wins strongly, but I pull out my drukhari and its a 2-3 turn whitewash the other way. We're reasonably equal in skill. There aren't a lot of close matchups for it.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/03/01 13:52:18


 
   
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Drager wrote:
That list is in a weird spot. A guy in my local plays it. Against my casual Inquisition/Deathwatch he wins strongly, but I pull out my drukhari and its a 2-3 turn whitewash the other way. We're reasonably equal in skill. There aren't a lot of close matchups for it.


It really comes down to terrain and play. If one can split his force (usually via LoS shenanigans) then theyve got a pretty decent chance. But let him consolidate fire and its gonna hurt. With RP in the equation that heavily favors the Necron army.

Fortunately we play on somewhat oversized boards with lots of terrain, so maneuver plays an outsized role in determining outcomes as opposed to raw firepower. It also makes deep strike drops a viable option for taking out camping backfield artillery units, which he typically does with one or two arks.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/03/01 14:05:50


 
   
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KurtAngle2 wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
 FEARtheMoose wrote:
As lance said, they dont scale up that well. I have a friend who started necrons about 6 months ago, and we have games most weekends and once we started hitting 1750-2500pts per game the necrons were lagging behind to much. I was using a primaris infantry army with support like dreads, predators and armigers, with calgar as warlord and he was using warriors, immortals, destroyers, wraiths, an ark, a barge, lynch guard [i think] a bunch of tomb blades, and a bunch of named characters that have some cool abilities, but it was a one sided win for me about 50% of the time, and a close win for me and another 15-25% of the time. Now im not saying either of our armies were competitive or anything, but i was bringing like 40 intercessors and 20 reivers every game in 2000pt battles so about 800-1000 points of my army was not very strong in terms of killing power. So i think that says it all really.

When we were playing games under 1500 points though, it made for some great battles, close wins down to the wire on both sides.

Funny thing is my same friend just started up Ad Mech the last month cause he was somewhat frustrated with necrons [dont blame him really] and is enjoying them much more! Ive switched to Imperial guard as well so it makes for a nice match up so far


No surprise. When one of the main rules(resurection protocol) is designed in a way that the bigger the game the less efficient it is while units pay same...Inevitable result. It's like orders for IG would be max 3 per round regardless of game size. Would have bigger impact in 500 pts than 2000 pts.


But guard's orders ARE limited, the problem is that you generally don't reach that limit (unless going full infantry but who does that anyway?


How are guard orders limited? The only hard limit is the amount of times you can give a squad an order, but there is nothing stopping you giving an order to every infantry squad if you have enough Company or platoon commanders

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 FEARtheMoose wrote:

How are guard orders limited? The only hard limit is the amount of times you can give a squad an order, but there is nothing stopping you giving an order to every infantry squad if you have enough Company or platoon commanders


With the rule of three there is a theoretical upper limit to the number of infantry squads that can be ordered because the number of officers to give orders is not an infinite resource. Very few lists ever get that foot heavy though.
   
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Sterling191 wrote:
 FEARtheMoose wrote:

How are guard orders limited? The only hard limit is the amount of times you can give a squad an order, but there is nothing stopping you giving an order to every infantry squad if you have enough Company or platoon commanders


With the rule of three there is a theoretical upper limit to the number of infantry squads that can be ordered because the number of officers to give orders is not an infinite resource. Very few lists ever get that foot heavy though.


Well not really cause a company commander can give 2 orders per turn, and costs 30 points. Then 2 basic squads is 80pts. Only limit is the point limit of the game itself and what you what to bring. You could spend 2000 points on just CC's and infantry and you would have orders left over probably. I always have more orders to give out than squads usually!

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 FEARtheMoose wrote:


Well not really cause a company commander can give 2 orders per turn, and costs 30 points. Then 2 basic squads is 80pts. Only limit is the point limit of the game itself and what you what to bring. You could spend 2000 points on just CC's and infantry and you would have orders left over probably. I always have more orders to give out than squads usually!


Please read what I wrote. The rule of three caps the number of CCs and PCs one can take. Yes you could take 2000 points of HQs and Troops, but you'd be illegal in matched play for a whole host of reasons.
   
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Not sure why we're talking about orders in a Necron thread, but most Guard lists have max 4 orders available for their infantry. One company commander (and maybe a platoon commander) needs to sit back and babysit the Mortar teams ordering them to take aim. So 2 commanders are available to go with the frontline infantry teams. Which isn't really a problem, usually I take 6 infantry squads at 2000 points, and they die fast enough I usually have extra orders.
   
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Sterling191 wrote:
 FEARtheMoose wrote:


Well not really cause a company commander can give 2 orders per turn, and costs 30 points. Then 2 basic squads is 80pts. Only limit is the point limit of the game itself and what you what to bring. You could spend 2000 points on just CC's and infantry and you would have orders left over probably. I always have more orders to give out than squads usually!


Please read what I wrote. The rule of three caps the number of CCs and PCs one can take. Yes you could take 2000 points of HQs and Troops, but you'd be illegal in matched play for a whole host of reasons.


Rule of three is neither a rule nor is it a matched play restriction. It's a suggestion for organized events. There's nothing illegal about spamming datasheets in matched play (provided it fits in the detachments).
   
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Dandelion wrote:


Rule of three is neither a rule nor is it a matched play restriction. It's a suggestion for organized events. There's nothing illegal about spamming datasheets in matched play (provided it fits in the detachments).


Show up at a table with 22 CCs and 33 Infantry Squads. I'm curious how many games you'll get.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/03/01 16:52:38


 
   
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Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high

Ish....Fun narrative play and casual play, just cannot stack up competitively for a host of reasons mentioned above. If part of your list doesnt pull its weight or fails an assigned task, you're in trouble, since our stuff costs a ton, and thus limits our redundancy.

Bedouin Dynasty: 10000 pts
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The Custodes Winter Watch 4000 pts

MajorStoffer wrote:
...
Sternguard though, those guys are all about kicking ass. They'd chew bubble gum as well, but bubble gum is heretical. Only tau chew gum. 
   
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A quick fix would be to allow RP rolls on wiped out units as well.
   
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 skchsan wrote:
A quick fix would be to allow RP rolls on wiped out units as well.


But then you can never kill a unit with RP.

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Sterling191 wrote:
Dandelion wrote:


Rule of three is neither a rule nor is it a matched play restriction. It's a suggestion for organized events. There's nothing illegal about spamming datasheets in matched play (provided it fits in the detachments).


Show up at a table with 22 CCs and 33 Infantry Squads. I'm curious how many games you'll get.


Right, cuz I would totally roll up with 22 CC...
Anyway, it's still not a rule regardless of whether or not I can find a willing opponent. Besides, I don't go to game stores or clubs to play in the first place since I play narrative games at home, so... yeah it's pretty easy to find an opponent who will let me ignore "rule of three".
   
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Necrons sure can be fun, but more han most it depends on you knowing your own army and knowing his army (or her!)

RP isn't too heavily costed these days, and it barely makes much difference in games I play. It forces the opponent's hand and it's a nice bonus every now and then, that's about it.

One less visible thing we lost from 7th was mid range damage output. We used to be kings up to 24" , not any more. We can no longer melt vehicles with our Gauss weapons.
   
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 JNAProductions wrote:
 skchsan wrote:
A quick fix would be to allow RP rolls on wiped out units as well.


But then you can never kill a unit with RP.
Yes but they'd give out more VP's everytime they're wiped!
   
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 skchsan wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
 skchsan wrote:
A quick fix would be to allow RP rolls on wiped out units as well.


But then you can never kill a unit with RP.
Yes but they'd give out more VP's everytime they're wiped!


You could let them reanimate on a 6+ for 1 CP or something, ie tone it down if need be.
   
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 skchsan wrote:
Yes but they'd give out more VP's everytime they're wiped!


If and only if you're playing a very specific game format.
   
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 skchsan wrote:
A quick fix would be to allow RP rolls on wiped out units as well.


If that was just how RP worked, it would be insanely OP. However, a 3-point stratagem (or possibly a cheaper, once-per-game stratagem) allowing a destroyed unit to make RP rolls would have been pretty nifty.
   
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 CommunistNapkin wrote:
 skchsan wrote:
A quick fix would be to allow RP rolls on wiped out units as well.


If that was just how RP worked, it would be insanely OP. However, a 3-point stratagem (or possibly a cheaper, once-per-game stratagem) allowing a destroyed unit to make RP rolls would have been pretty nifty.
But that's how they're depicted in the Dawn of War trailer!

But in a more serious note, maybe resurrection orb could've been an item that allows RP rolls on units that were wipe on the previous turn (and previous turn only) - something like:

Resurrection Orb:
If a unit that is within 6" of a model with this rule is destroyed, place a token at the location of the last model removed from the unit. At the beginning of your turn (when you would normally make RP rolls), roll d6 for each token. On a roll of 4+, the unit may roll for RP as if the unit was not destroyed. Place the first model where the token was placed, and place the rest of the models in coherency (with all applicable distance rules.). If you roll less than 4, resurrection orb has failed to take effect and the unit is destroyed for good.
   
 
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