Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello! I'm the OP for that "we all need to wait and see" thread
I started that thread to caution my comrades in the hobby against holding too hard to their expectations, good and bad. It started a lot of discussion that I greatly enjoyed, and I would like to get a general reaction/feedback to the new codexes thread going.
I'll start with what I think of the new Codexes, although note that as a dedicated Necron fan I will have more to say on that than the Marines

the good
I really like a lot of the changes in the new books overall. I really feel like Necrons as a whole were made into a much more fun and customizable army, with better internal balancing and many more options. It's not all good, but overall I really think they made the whole faction more fun to play as and against.
While the Marine nerfs aren't what we were hoping for, there are still some and I think it's a step in the right direction. I'm honestly against them nerfing Marines "too" hard, because that would just create a cycle of them getting buffed again(and can you imagine how annoying it would be if the main complaint went straight from "they're too good" to "they're too bad"?)
Necrons got a lot of stuff they were missing before, good melee, good Troops, more options, etc. It legitimately gives me hope that the guys making these books can figure out what's wrong and fix it.
While they might not be super viable in competitive meta(idk though, I'm really not an expert), Necrons are definitely better off than they were. And Marines might still be annoyingly strong, but I do feel like the slight nerfs open up a lot of opportunities for other armies against them.
And it's a small thing, but I really like the formatting on the new books. It feels much more intuitive and easy to get into. YMMV of course, but I think the books are just easier to read.
I still think that a points drop is not only coming for Necrons, but will help a lot. Definitely not a full fix, but I think it would help. You can accuse me of maintaining a wait and see mindset even after we've actually seen, but I do feel like a buff is pretty likely.
the bad
Necrons were definitely one of the weakest factions in the game, and I'm a little confused that they were nerfed in some areas? Like, it's on the level of someone deciding "Tau are too good at melee, let's nerf them", like, what? I don't like to complain too much, but I don't know why you would be so restrictive on a faction that clearly just needs to be a little stronger.
I said that Necrons have more options, but that's only in most areas. For some reason, their relics and warlord traits are even worse than they were. I have no idea why they refused to give them better relics/traits, like, um, it's a new book, you can give them new stuff?
While I feel like Necrons and Marines are still more even with each other by a lot, it's still a little upsetting to compare the books and realize how obvious it is which faction GW likes more. It's not unexpected, but I just wish the power gap wasn't so obvious.

the ugly
All this and the Monolith is still bad :( it needs so little to be good at this point and yet it's not.
Eradicators definitely go under "ugly" but people with more experience have already discussed them more extensively. So I'm just acknowledging that it's a big issue
The number of different datasheets for the same units in the Marime codex makes me worry for the writers health.
A lot of the units that didn't get new models feel left behind real bad and that makes me sad(poor Obelisk)

Overall
My reaction is overall positive, but I do like to remain positive even on silly internet forums. I recognize the flaws present in these books but still feel like it's a huge step in the right direction. Not the silver bullet full fix we wanted, but I definitely feel like we're much better off with these books. Also the new models look cool durr.
But please, tell me your opinions! If you think I'm completely stupid, than unironically ill accept that. If you agree, then I'd love to see your thoughts! No matter what, I just want to hear what others have to say on these releases. Please be polite to each other in this thread, I might no mind accusations of idiocy or foolish idealism, but most people do.

Games Workshop opened themselves up for scrutiny when they decided to release two codices at the same time, as the first books of the edition. The onus was on them to set a good precedent and they didn't.

As much as I'm trying to find powerful and fun builds, it's very very obvious that the Necron codex is substantially weaker and generally lacking compared to the Space Marine book and GW deserve to be criticised for it.

The monolith is good LOL.

 Xenomancers wrote:
The monolith is good LOL.

Stompa, Ork Buggy good?

I think the difference in power level between the two factions is not a good thing, and nor is the fact that Marines are annoyingly strong.

I expected Necrons to be at least somewhat on par with marines, but they're unsurprisingly not.

Have people actually played Crons vs Marines yet or is all this talk about the imbalance all just theory crafting?

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Have people actually played Crons vs Marines yet or is all this talk about the imbalance all just theory crafting?

They saw YouTube vids probably. It'll be mostly theory and knee jerking.

Xeno has a point on the monolith, it does have some uses and is an expensive ace in the hole potentially.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Have people actually played Crons vs Marines yet or is all this talk about the imbalance all just theory crafting?

Some people have. Although it isn't necessary, just read both books and it's stunningly obvious. The funny thing is that head to head, the right Necron build will actually do quite well against the Marine meta (lots of power armour, few vehicles) that we will see. If there's one thing I think they can do well, it's killing Space Marines.

Cynista wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Have people actually played Crons vs Marines yet or is all this talk about the imbalance all just theory crafting?

Some people have. Although it isn't necessary, just read both books and it's stunningly obvious. The funny thing is that head to head, the right Necron build will actually do quite well against the Marine meta (lots of power armour, few vehicles) that we will see. If there's one thing I think they can do well, it's killing Space Marines.

This... makes no sense, the marine book is better but the necron can easily beat them?

Dudeface wrote:

Cynista wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Have people actually played Crons vs Marines yet or is all this talk about the imbalance all just theory crafting?

Some people have. Although it isn't necessary, just read both books and it's stunningly obvious. The funny thing is that head to head, the right Necron build will actually do quite well against the Marine meta (lots of power armour, few vehicles) that we will see. If there's one thing I think they can do well, it's killing Space Marines.

This... makes no sense, the marine book is better but the necron can easily beat them?

Yes it does. Use your brain. And I didn't say easily.

Cynista wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Have people actually played Crons vs Marines yet or is all this talk about the imbalance all just theory crafting?

Some people have. Although it isn't necessary, just read both books and it's stunningly obvious. The funny thing is that head to head, the right Necron build will actually do quite well against the Marine meta (lots of power armour, few vehicles) that we will see. If there's one thing I think they can do well, it's killing Space Marines.

Common wisdom often makes fools of us all.

Cynista wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Cynista wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Have people actually played Crons vs Marines yet or is all this talk about the imbalance all just theory crafting?

Some people have. Although it isn't necessary, just read both books and it's stunningly obvious. The funny thing is that head to head, the right Necron build will actually do quite well against the Marine meta (lots of power armour, few vehicles) that we will see. If there's one thing I think they can do well, it's killing Space Marines.

This... makes no sense, the marine book is better but the necron can easily beat them?

Yes it does. Use your brain. And I didn't say easily.

But you've clearly said necrons will do quite well. But also that the imbalance is 'stunningly obvious.'

I'd say his brain is doing quite well if he finds those to be incompatible assertions.

Cynista wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Cynista wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Have people actually played Crons vs Marines yet or is all this talk about the imbalance all just theory crafting?

Some people have. Although it isn't necessary, just read both books and it's stunningly obvious. The funny thing is that head to head, the right Necron build will actually do quite well against the Marine meta (lots of power armour, few vehicles) that we will see. If there's one thing I think they can do well, it's killing Space Marines.

This... makes no sense, the marine book is better but the necron can easily beat them?

Yes it does. Use your brain. And I didn't say easily.

They can be built to do well against marines and "if there's one thing I think they can do well, it's killing marines", doesn't suggest they find it easy?

One of our local top players read the Necrons book and said there were really good elements there. From his words: Flayed Ones are great and can be buffed to high levels, and the C'tan shards of the Void Dragon and Night Bringer are almost auto-include. I didn't listen to the rest as I started discussing with someone else but I'm curious to see what the competitive scene will make of that instead of the usually negative and dismissive Dakka Community (don't take it badly folks I'm like that too).

I hope the writers will be a consistent team and not like in AoS where you feel like there's a team that writes the most broken OP stuff they can, and another team that loves to write fluffy casual books. I hope there was COMMUNICATION in the writing of 9th overall.

I'm eager to play against those two new codices but the pandemic isn't getting any better and my store has closed games again sadly.

 Eldarain wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
The monolith is good LOL.

Stompa, Ork Buggy good?

Ork buggies are good - top tier ATM actually. Never said Stompa was amazing. Just that it wasnt the worst unit in the game. Typical dakka. Bad memories.

Necrons are basically a new army with triple the options they had before. I laugh at how people is so fast to disregard them as a bad competitive force, specially without big tournament evidence for covid.

I'm not saying they are better than marines but they are in no way bad.

Voss wrote:

Cynista wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Cynista wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Have people actually played Crons vs Marines yet or is all this talk about the imbalance all just theory crafting?

Some people have. Although it isn't necessary, just read both books and it's stunningly obvious. The funny thing is that head to head, the right Necron build will actually do quite well against the Marine meta (lots of power armour, few vehicles) that we will see. If there's one thing I think they can do well, it's killing Space Marines.

This... makes no sense, the marine book is better but the necron can easily beat them?

Yes it does. Use your brain. And I didn't say easily.

But you've clearly said necrons will do quite well. But also that the imbalance is 'stunningly obvious.'

I'd say his brain is doing quite well if he finds those to be incompatible assertions.

They are not incompatible assertions. If you can't see that, then I'd kindly ask you to use your brain too before wading in.

This is not a difficult concept to understand (although I could be wrong and Necrons could be horrible against Marines), because the status quo hasn't changed. Necrons were already an anti-meta pick. Back end of 8th they were one of the only factions who were beating Marines, despite having one of the weakest books.

Cynista wrote:
They are not incompatible assertions. If you can't see that, then I'd kindly ask you to use your brain too before wading in.

This is not a difficult concept to understand (although I could be wrong and Necrons could be horrible against Marines), because the status quo hasn't changed. Necrons were already an anti-meta pick. Back end of 8th they were one of the only factions who were beating Marines, despite having one of the weakest books.

Would you elucidate on why they're so weak? If it's obvious it shouldn't take much time for you to explain it to us Luddites who think the Necrons look pretty awesome.

Cynista wrote:

Voss wrote:

Cynista wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Cynista wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Have people actually played Crons vs Marines yet or is all this talk about the imbalance all just theory crafting?

Some people have. Although it isn't necessary, just read both books and it's stunningly obvious. The funny thing is that head to head, the right Necron build will actually do quite well against the Marine meta (lots of power armour, few vehicles) that we will see. If there's one thing I think they can do well, it's killing Space Marines.

This... makes no sense, the marine book is better but the necron can easily beat them?

Yes it does. Use your brain. And I didn't say easily.

But you've clearly said necrons will do quite well. But also that the imbalance is 'stunningly obvious.'

I'd say his brain is doing quite well if he finds those to be incompatible assertions.

They are not incompatible assertions. If you can't see that, then I'd kindly ask you to use your brain too before wading in.

This is not a difficult concept to understand (although I could be wrong and Necrons could be horrible against Marines), because the status quo hasn't changed. Necrons were already an anti-meta pick. Back end of 8th they were one of the only factions who were beating Marines, despite having one of the weakest books.

So what you were trying to say is necrons can be pushed into being efficient against marines specifically but weak overall, whereas most marine options can be slapped together with no real loss.

Because if necrons aren't considered overly weak against other armies and can beat Marines, that puts them at number 1 contention.

Even if people are judging Necron performance on youtube battle reports I have to ask; which battle reports? Both TTTactics and TTTitans have Marine v Necron reports and both were incredibly close, with Necrons winning in Tactics and losing in Titans. And the differences were like 4 points each time. In Titans other Necron batrep they kind of stomped a Daemon list.

On the whole - Necrons match up REALLY well with marines.

Just wait. Armies with 30 deathmarks killing all your characters while also being really hard to kill with t5 and 3+ essentially a 5+ FNP.
Immortals and warriors get great returns and win battles of attrition with equal points of marines.
Pretorians Murder rek primaris like it's their job (oh yeah it is their job)
Doom stalkers are good against literally everything they shoot in the army.

I wouldn't bring a monolith against marines if I had a choice. Simply because eradicators exist but anyone reasonable knows that wont last longer than a month.

Use your brain

Can we please avoid making comments like this. Really doesn't add anything to a discussion and is guaranteed to get people's backs up and quite possibly derail the whole thread.


ta.

Cynista wrote:
They are not incompatible assertions. If you can't see that, then I'd kindly ask you to use your brain too before wading in.

This is not a difficult concept to understand (although I could be wrong and Necrons could be horrible against Marines), because the status quo hasn't changed. Necrons were already an anti-meta pick. Back end of 8th they were one of the only factions who were beating Marines, despite having one of the weakest books.

If that would have been the case, we would have seen Necrons making top placements like Orks do right now. I can't recall such results. Can you please provide me a link where I can verify it myself?

Dudeface wrote:
So what you were trying to say is necrons can be pushed into being efficient against marines specifically but weak overall, whereas most marine options can be slapped together with no real loss.

I said precisely what I meant.

But yes, you now have the general idea. They have the tools to kill marines. Of course, marines have the tools to kill everything. So like I said, my optimistic prediction that Necrons will be anti-meta again could be wrong.

what armies do necrons struggle with? they seem pretty potent to me. sure Marines have a lot more options but well.. we knew that

 CommanderWalrus wrote:

I said that Necrons have more options, but that's only in most areas. For some reason, their relics and warlord traits are even worse than they were. I have no idea why they refused to give them better relics/traits, like, um, it's a new book, you can give them new stuff?

This is the part that really gets me.

Given that the non-Cryptek Necron characters still have very little wargear, artefacts and warlord traits are going to be the main way in which you differentiate them . . . and they're almost universally terrible.

The worst part is that they're not just bad, they're also boring. Nanoscarab Casket used to let a model heal in your opponent's turn and gave it a 50% chance of coming back to life the first time it died. Now it lets you heal a single extra wound each turn and does literally nothing else.

Because a Necron character coming back to life would just break the fluff entirely.


And then we've got joys like the Sempiternal Weave (seriously, the Timesplinter Cloak was removed but this stayed?), which is just +1T, +1W. Does there even exist an item with a less exciting effect than this?


Maybe they'll still be competitive but it seems like a lot of potentially fun options and builds have been removed for no good reason.

Cynista wrote:
Games Workshop opened themselves up for scrutiny when they decided to release two codices at the same time, as the first books of the edition. The onus was on them to set a good precedent and they didn't.

As much as I'm trying to find powerful and fun builds, it's very very obvious that the Necron codex is substantially weaker and generally lacking compared to the Space Marine book and GW deserve to be criticised for it.

Yeah, this is really what it comes down to. By releasing two books at once, they invite comparisons between the two, and they just aren't very favorable.

Which in a lot of ways is a shame, because standing alone, the Necron book is a solid 8/10, replacing a book that was more like a 3/10. It's a massive improvement.

If only the Space Marine codex was like the Necron one, I think we'd all be a lot more positive about the direction of the game.

The Necron won’t won’t get nerfed, and the Marine one no doubt will. Necrons stand to gain in time I guess!

Voss wrote:

Cynista wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Cynista wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Have people actually played Crons vs Marines yet or is all this talk about the imbalance all just theory crafting?

Some people have. Although it isn't necessary, just read both books and it's stunningly obvious. The funny thing is that head to head, the right Necron build will actually do quite well against the Marine meta (lots of power armour, few vehicles) that we will see. If there's one thing I think they can do well, it's killing Space Marines.

This... makes no sense, the marine book is better but the necron can easily beat them?

Yes it does. Use your brain. And I didn't say easily.

But you've clearly said necrons will do quite well. But also that the imbalance is 'stunningly obvious.'

I'd say his brain is doing quite well if he finds those to be incompatible assertions.

He said a specific build will do well against marines. Nothing about that makes his assertion that the book is overall less powerful false or incompatible.

Yes, that is what gives me the most hope. But that relies on the SM book being the outlier.

We'll have a better idea once we see the DG book. If that is at the Necron power level, it's going to be a good sign that GW Gee-dubbed it up again with Space Marines.