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I just saw this video and all I could say was "Holy xxxx!"




This guy loves necrons and plainly didn't want to tear apart a new unit this badly, but seemed to have no choice.

I did think with the mephrit dynasty he gets nasty at half range with AP2, but still this review makes him look like a very dubious choice at best.

I watched this review carefully and really couldn't see much wrong with his logic. I tried to see a use or two from the hexmark, maybe if a soft unit seized a corner objective you could drop him on them to clear it but even if it was just stock IG i don't know if he could clear a unit in 2 turns. Maybe if you hit the unit with a few long range shots and used him to finish the last survivors...

He just looks like a really bad unit when you get past the "cool" factor and start running the numbers.

Anyone find any flaw with this review?

Overall it's weak. It does completely wreck a very few specific things, most notably Repentia and Acolytes, but it'll do some work on any 1W models with bad saves that rely on coming in from reserves for a charge.

It's a very small niche and I'm not sure it's enough to make anybody take it, but it does get really good value for points in that very specific situation.

Well, he's a light infantry killer right? That's the sort of role a troop choice usually takes right? It just feels like you'd be better off taking a unit of warriors for day to day guardsman killing. Maybe if it had damage two instead of generating more shots combined with the ability the snipe characters it'd have more life as a kind of robotic Kellermorph.

I suppose it all depends on your meta, if your meta was say.. Guard heavy and playing space marines was rare, you'd likely take VERY VERY differant units from what the internet decrees as being "good" the internet 's idea of good TEEEENDS to assume a meta that's heavy on Marines as well as whatever the popular "net list" is at the time.

It's terrible against normal guard as well, though it does pretty well against plasma scions.

Not only is this unit's utility very questionable, but it seems like there are just so many elite choices that are clearly more useful.

I mean he has no buffing at all as I see it,he can't buff deathmarks, the closest he has to a buff if extending command protocol reach.

There are cost equivalent units that can do that which certainly dolt have the number of shots of the BS but have other effects, like crypteks. Even a plasmancer, which now looks like a lesser cryptek, might be more effective than this guy. I mean, a plasmancer might get a lot few shots off counting his harbinger ability and staff, but he has a better chance of having a real effect on something that isn't the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of T, W and armor.

Well, GW should have put a bit more effort to make hexmark work.
A single model with 6 pistol shots?

First of all that guy is wrong, you can use more than one hexmark. I dont think the hexmark is useless. He can deepstrike for secondaries like linebreaker or engage on all fronts, or he can react against enemy deepstrikers. You can give him the gauntlet relic thing against hordes. He always hits on 2s, rerolls 1s, and there is no cover against his attacks. Overwatch hits on 2s as well.

He would be good early 8th edition. He's edition and 2.5 years too late.

Unless you are tailoring, he's a joke. Secondary/action shenanigans are the only use, but you can also use five Flayed Ones for that and save 10 points in the process.

Its not trash per se, its just a really niche unit.
There's a specific set of targets its designed to kill and its efficient against those targets, but beyond that it's not great.

It does have the strongest synergy with Ethereal Interception, so it has that going for it at least.

He fills a niche Necrons don't really struggle filling. Killing light infantry is not a problem Necrons tend to have. The only possible use I can see for him is as a character to hand out Command Protocols but that's dubious in the extreme as well.

Ive played against the Hexmark a few times (as Guard) and I can safely say that it does work on outflanking infantry units. Kills 8-9 of the unit pretty reliably.

Not sure how well it would work against MEQ units.

Native DS is always nice in a game about positioning, and the crons have trouble with movement.

Fisheyes wrote:
Ive played against the Hexmark a few times (as Guard) and I can safely say that it does work on outflanking infantry units. Kills 8-9 of the unit pretty reliably.

Not sure how well it would work against MEQ units.

Native DS is always nice in a game about positioning, and the crons have trouble with movement.

A hexmark can disrupt enemy plan if used correctly.
But he's rather situational.

Slipspace wrote:
He fills a niche Necrons don't really struggle filling. Killing light infantry is not a problem Necrons tend to have. The only possible use I can see for him is as a character to hand out Command Protocols but that's dubious in the extreme as well.

The use is to bring him in on your opponent's turn using the strat to blow up a unit of theirs arriving from reserves before it can do its thing. If you've got one in the bag, it basically means the opponent can't put their acolytes or repentia into reserve, which can really mess with their strategy. Against those two armies he's gold, and he's decent against orks and guard too. Super niche, probably too niche to see general play, but he does have a solid use case against those specific armies. .

You know what is super helpful? All these single issue threads in the Tactics forum. "Is the Hexmark useful?" "Lets Talk about Eradicators" "Getting Beatup by Deathwing Terminators" are great questions or issues, that belong in the main Faction threads.

You know what is super helpful? All these single issue threads in the Tactics forum. "Is the Hexmark useful?" "Lets Talk about Eradicators" "Getting Beatup by Deathwing Terminators" are great questions or issues, that belong in the main Faction threads.

Yep! The main faction threads! Where the first 20+ pages are meaningless speculation based on what we "might" get, the next 5-10 are hashing out what we actually DID get, and the rest is a disorganized, sloppy mess that becomes impossible to follow if you don't read the thread every single day ... Those ... aren't very helpful to a lot of folks. Especially if you have a specific question like this where you can't call out that you asked it and it's likely that the question will appear in the middle of a discussion about something else and get ignored ...

If those threads really were that helpful, I don't think you'd see so many threads like this one.

Far as the Hexmark - I like the model so much that I got one to experiment with, but I agree he's so niche. The fact that 'Crons also have issues with buffing things (this guy should have been able to at least buff Death Marks) combined with the fact that, for the most part, he (and a lot of the Necron roster) is a little over-costed makes him dubious at best for now. I am using the Plasmancer for the same reason. He's almost confusingly bad compared to the other Crypteks, and he's silly expensive for what he provides but I REALLY like the model so I'm gonna try to get some use from him. Will report back if either unit meets with any kind of repeatable success.

Pretty sure the mods specifically encouraged such single-issue threads a couple of months ago.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
You know what is super helpful? All these single issue threads in the Tactics forum. "Is the Hexmark useful?" "Lets Talk about Eradicators" "Getting Beatup by Deathwing Terminators" are great questions or issues, that belong in the main Faction threads.

You do realize the mods actually wanted this more and less big tactics thread right?

Anyway, i dont understand all the hate for the hexmark. Yeah hes not ridiculously powerful, hes not trash by any means either.
Dude is unusually durable, consistent, and mobile for a 75pt model. Unless you are axing protocols (which i am of the opinion is a mistake) he's another source of it for downfield units.
I admit i think his gun should have been AP2, and i swear he was supposed to be a character sniper, but he's actually really strong for 75pts. Hes just strong in a way that doesnt scream "TAKE ME IF YOU WANT TO WIN" which is all people tend to look for these days.
He's also the only real good choice for the Gauntlet. All other characters either dont really have a way to use it reliably (overlords should be nowhere near the enemy's numbers, only things that DS near him should be that close) or have nonpistol weapons that you cant use in conjunction with it. And the Gauntlet is pretty good.

i'd say he's B-tier. You arent really missing out on much if you decide to not use him but he's not a bad pick.

 p5freak wrote:
First of all that guy is wrong, you can use more than one hexmark. I dont think the hexmark is useless. He can deepstrike for secondaries like linebreaker or engage on all fronts, or he can react against enemy deepstrikers. You can give him the gauntlet relic thing against hordes. He always hits on 2s, rerolls 1s, and there is no cover against his attacks. Overwatch hits on 2s as well.

Re. Can't take more than 1 Hexmark - I believe he was specifically talking about the fact that the Hexmark takes up and elite slot and you can't take more than 1 per slot. I.e. if you could take 2 or 3 for one elite slot you could do enough damage to justify the loss of an elite slot.

Anyway, i dont understand all the hate for the hexmark. Yeah hes not ridiculously powerful, hes not trash by any means either.

I think part of it stems from people seeing the preview and naturally drawing comparisons to the Kellermorph. He falls well short of being a Kellermorph. lol

The other part is that, his strength isn't really in killing characters imo, it's in whittling down squads of light infantry. I think a lot of people are wondering why, in an edition that is extremely unmerciful on its own to light infantry, and in a codex that already naturally shreds light infantry, we got something that seems to specialize in killing light infantry?

I think I can see using him as something to try to clear weak back-field objective campers, but even then, I admit there are better things in the book for that. He's just too cool to not at least try to use!

This is a large reddit thread today as well.

They do something different for the Necrons which is an anti-infantry character (protocol extender) which can deepstrike. You may decide you don't need that utility but I don't think they are a bad choice.

I think their hate comes two fold. First, as the poster above said, they are not a kelermorph and second, they are not great against 2w marine meta.

Hexmark seems pretty good to me, basic pistols are basically an assault cannon with awesome accuracy and exploding hits and the gauntlet of the conflagrator is a great extra to take.

Seems like the 2 easy plays are to either deepstrike objectives (can easily be obsec), or to be obnoxious with intercept and overwatch - the hexmark could shoot 3 times in a your turn/my turn cycle (intercept, overwatch and normal shooting phase) and can rinse/repeat every turn that reserves come in.

Its probably just some ingrained need to disagree - but while I thought he was useless when first revealed, I don't think he's *that* bad now. 75 points really isn't much.

The whole "but my elite slots" feels... totally alien. I'm not sure how people are building their lists - but a standard battalion has 6 slots, and I don't think using them all is an especially common thing. I guess if you wanted to try something odd like double patrol for 2 C'Tan (not convinced, but its there) - then okay... but still.

Admittedly if you wanted to take 3 its starting to eat up slots - but I'm not convinced you would. Although it could be interesting to actually try it out.

As said - his main advantage is DSing. Or, potentially even better, intercept-DSing. This may not be great - but saying "eh, I'll just bring some warriors over" seems to skip quite a few steps.

The main downside is simple. His gun is awful against multi-wound 3+ save guys, who are unfortunately "the meta", and barring some rather egregious codex creep, which wouldn't help Necrons, that is unlikely to change.

I think he's reasonable - potentially even situationally good - against just about anything else. But if 50% of your games are against Marines, you probably don't care.

I dunno why you'd take more than one, the gimmick that makes him worth considering is the intercept strat. Taking more than one just means you double down even more into uselessness in matchups where he doesn't do much.

yeah i dont get that point either.

Battalions have 6 elites, and unless youre running 2 patrols youre running a batt.

Most of the elites are pretty expensive so running 6 slots of elites is unlikely w/o running min squads of stuff, which necrons dont wanna do.

How many Tesla Immortals do you get for the Hexmark?

4 teslamorts is 76pts

 Vineheart01 wrote:
4 teslamorts is 76pts

You can't field 4 immortals though, you have to field 5. So its more like 95pts.

As said - his main advantage is DSing. Or, potentially even better, intercept-DSing. This may not be great - but saying "eh, I'll just bring some warriors over" seems to skip quite a few steps.

What's he going to intercept though. That's where the questions are for me. What's he going to have an appreciable effect on in terms of units you would want to intercept - Terminators? No. Mega Nobz? No. Oblits? No. A unit of Rsut Stalkers? Maybe? If he rolls real well and it's a small unit? He's built to hurt the one thing that doesn't really DS. And for the other things - Deathmarks are generally better.