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I really started hating Necron Infantry, they suck in melee, if they get tagged they lose their shooting unlike vehicles, S4-5 is not impressive with a lot of units going up 1-2 points in Toughness in 10th edition and even with lethal hits a lot of things have a 2+ Sv and/or an increased Wounds characteristic.

Immortals

Codex wrote:Implacable Eradication: Each time a model in this unit makes an attack, re-roll a Wound roll of 1. If the target of that attack is an enemy unit within range of an objective marker, you can re-roll the Wound roll instead.

Gauss blaster has lethal hits
Tesla carbine has sustained hits 2

You are going to make a lot more wound rolls with tesla carbines than with gauss blasters, the ability feels bad if you take gauss blasters, whether or not the weapons are actually equal.

My Solution wrote:Implacable Eradication: Each time a model in this unit makes a ranged attack, a successful unmodifed Hit roll of 5+ scores a Critical Hit. If this unit includes a PLASMANCER, a successful unmodifed Hit roll of 4+ scores a Critical Hit.

If gauss blasters need a nerf as a result they could be changed to 1 shot RF instead instead of just 2 shots.

Warriors

Index wrote:Their Number is Legion: Each time this unit’s Reanimation Protocols activate, it reanimates D6 wounds instead of D3 wounds, unless it is within range of an objective marker you control, in which case it reanimates D3+3 wounds instead.

Codex wrote:Their Number is Legion: Each time this unit’s Reanimation Protocols activate, you can re-roll the dice to see how many wounds are reanimated.

They got a big nerf when translated from index to codex, the problem was being able to reanimate 2-3 times per battle round, effectively getting 9 Necron Warriors back with this ability. The problem with the new ability is that it hardly does anything, Necron Warriors are one of the least exciting things to reanimate in fact, their only saving grace is that you can bring a unit of 20 so it is fairly likely that they get to activate the ability in the first place. The second problem is that if my understanding is correct the Necron Canoptek Reanimator heals D3 models, but that's technically not rolling for Reanimation Protocols, so now you have to roll those seperately or do you have to roll them together and either re-roll both or neither? Dice is an ambiguous term, it could be plural or singular since GW never uses die, only dice.

My Solution wrote:Their Number is Legion: Each time this unit’s Reanimation Protocols activate while it is within range of an objective marker, do not roll a dice to see how many are reanimated, assume you rolled the highest possible, including for the Nanoscarab Reanimation Beam ability of any CANOPTEK REANIMATORS.

Bit wordy, but just guarentees you get a good amount back. I imagine points would have to increase quite a bit, especially for the 20-man unit. Perhaps 90->95 pts for 10 models and 200->220 pts for 20 models. An alternative is a once per battle round or even once per battle ability that boosts the amount of models returned.

I do not think there is a real solution to the problem of small arms fire feeling weak, maybe it is just a me problem.

Deathmarks

Codex wrote:Hyperspace Hunters: Once per turn, in the Reinforcements step of your opponent’s Movement phase, when an enemy unit is set up on the battlefield from Reserves within 18" of and visible to this unit, this unit can shoot as if it were your Shooting phase, but must only target that enemy unit when doing so, and can only do so if that enemy unit is an eligible target.

Deathmarks sadly lost their super unique ability to deep strike after an enemy and immediately shooting it, while shooting at units entering from DS is useful, the loss of cool factor is not okay in my book.

My version wrote:Hyperspace Hunters: Once per turn, in the Reinforcements step of your opponent’s Movement phase, when an enemy unit is set up on the battlefield from Reserves within 18" of and visible to this unit, this unit can shoot as if it were your Shooting phase, but must only target that enemy unit when doing so, and can only do so if that enemy unit is an eligible target. If this unit is in set up in Deep Strike when an opponent's unit is set up as described above you can set this unit up within 18" of and visible to that enemy unit following the rules for Deep Strike and then shoot at the enemy unit as if this unit was set up on the battlefield before the enemy.

I don't care what this costs, I want it. Deathmarks are 12 pts per model, that is insanely low for what used to be an elite unit, make them go up to 13 with this weird little favourite of mine.

It would be cool if Doomscythes could do the thing where you draw a line and attack every model beneath the line with their main weapon again, 6" D3 shots against each unit under the line without Sustained Hits instead of 3 shots with Sustained Hits D3.

I really miss Vargard Obyron, but I don't see a way to get back the Zahndrekh dynamic with Translocation Shroud Overlords.

 vict0988 wrote:

Immortals

Codex wrote:Implacable Eradication: Each time a model in this unit makes an attack, re-roll a Wound roll of 1. If the target of that attack is an enemy unit within range of an objective marker, you can re-roll the Wound roll instead.

Gauss blaster has lethal hits
Tesla carbine has sustained hits 2

You are going to make a lot more wound rolls with tesla carbines than with gauss blasters, the ability feels bad if you take gauss blasters, whether or not the weapons are actually equal.

My Solution wrote:Implacable Eradication: Each time a model in this unit makes a ranged attack, a successful unmodifed Hit roll of 5+ scores a Critical Hit. If this unit includes a PLASMANCER, a successful unmodifed Hit roll of 4+ scores a Critical Hit.

If gauss blasters need a nerf as a result they could be changed to 1 shot RF instead instead of just 2 shots.

So the first and biggest issue I see here is that this probably helps Tesla carbines out significantly more than it does gauss weapons. 10 tesla carbines critting on 4+ and hitting on 3+ get something like 20 shots > 10 crits + 3.3 hits = ~33.3 hits. Which against anything T6-T9 is going to translate to more than 10 wounds, and significantly more wounds than that against anything T5 or lower.

In comparison, the gauss blasters will get 10 lethal hits against anything, and will then roll to wound with the 2.3 additional hits that they generate, doing less than 1 additional wound on average against anything T6 or higher. So the teslas are doing better against most targets and basically tie the gauss blasters against the high toughness targets the gauss weapons are supposed to have the edge against. The extra AP on the gauss isn't nothing, but against its preferred targets you're probably still looking at a 3+ or 4+ save after AP, so a pretty meh conversion rate for both Tesla and Gauss here. And then more importantly, the gauss weapons being D1 means even if they get a few more wounds through, it hardly matters because you just shot a 205 point unit (10 immortals + 1 plasmancer) into an enemy vehicle to do like 3 or 4 points of damage with your immortals.

So this change takes the teslas from good to great against their preferred targets, makes them nearly equal to gauss against heavy targets, and doesn't give gauss much meaningful damage against vehicles. I'm not sure how the math works out against heavy infantry, but I suspect taking away gauss's wound rerolls and replacing them with some extra lethal hits is more or less a wash. But on the other hand, giving teslas an average of 20 extra hits on guns that are already wounding more often than no feels like it's probably a big improvement for the tesla.

So I think this change ends up making gauss feel even worse by eroding its slim advantage over certain targets and making teslas just way more desirable into a wider variety of targets.

Warriors

Index wrote:Their Number is Legion: Each time this unit’s Reanimation Protocols activate, it reanimates D6 wounds instead of D3 wounds, unless it is within range of an objective marker you control, in which case it reanimates D3+3 wounds instead.

Codex wrote:Their Number is Legion: Each time this unit’s Reanimation Protocols activate, you can re-roll the dice to see how many wounds are reanimated.

They got a big nerf when translated from index to codex, the problem was being able to reanimate 2-3 times per battle round, effectively getting 9 Necron Warriors back with this ability. The problem with the new ability is that it hardly does anything, Necron Warriors are one of the least exciting things to reanimate in fact, their only saving grace is that you can bring a unit of 20 so it is fairly likely that they get to activate the ability in the first place. The second problem is that if my understanding is correct the Necron Canoptek Reanimator heals D3 models, but that's technically not rolling for Reanimation Protocols, so now you have to roll those seperately or do you have to roll them together and either re-roll both or neither? Dice is an ambiguous term, it could be plural or singular since GW never uses die, only dice.

My Solution wrote:Their Number is Legion: Each time this unit’s Reanimation Protocols activate while it is within range of an objective marker, do not roll a dice to see how many are reanimated, assume you rolled the highest possible, including for the Nanoscarab Reanimation Beam ability of any CANOPTEK REANIMATORS.

Bit wordy, but just guarentees you get a good amount back. I imagine points would have to increase quite a bit, especially for the 20-man unit. Perhaps 90->95 pts for 10 models and 200->220 pts for 20 models. An alternative is a once per battle round or even once per battle ability that boosts the amount of models returned.

As someone who struggles to make his warriors work post-codex, I feel the pain about their special rule not being very useful. However, my understanding is that their rule is actually considered pretty useful on large squads specifically in the context of Awakened Dynasty and with rez orbs and such available to let them heal more than d3 models. Rezzing d6 models at a time means you're potentially turning a 1 into a 6 or a 2 into a 5, etc.

So with that in mind, I think a simple way to buff their rule that doesn't result in a guaranteed 6+ reanimated models when used along rez orbs, reanimators, etc. is to simply let the squad roll for how many wounds they'll recover twice and then take the higher result. This ups the average wounds restored but not the minimum or maximum. It also makes their rule more likely to matter on unsupported squads because it potentially turns a result of 2 into a result of 3 without risking downgrading it to a 1 with a bad roll.

I do not think there is a real solution to the problem of small arms fire feeling weak, maybe it is just a me problem.

I think gauss weapons specifically just need a little more oomf into big targets so they can fill the roll of the death-by-a-thousand-cuts source of anti-tank that they used to be. I get why GW went with Lethal Hits to try and emulate that, but I just don't think most gauss platforms have the volume of shots or rerolls to meaningfully make LH count. Warriors and immortals (who are arguably supposed to be the main beneficiaries of the gauss rule) certainly don't.

They're basically trying to do what Thousand Sons do with Inferno Bolts, but without the rerolls or extra AP from rituals that make that work.

Maybe make gauss weapons +1 Damage on critical hits and wound rolls of 6? You're still not going to get a ton of wounds through, but you do twice as much damage with the one that *do* go through making gauss somewhat better against both high-toughness targets and against multi-wound smaller targets like marines. Although that might create slow rolling issues...

You could simply make all gauss weapons anti-vehicle/anti-monster 5+ to help the S4/5 gauss weapons out against big things, although that admittedly doesn't do much for gauss cannons and such.

Immortal gauss blasters specifically feel like they could reasonably be either AP-2 or D2 base without it being a problem.

Deathmarks

Codex wrote:Hyperspace Hunters: Once per turn, in the Reinforcements step of your opponent’s Movement phase, when an enemy unit is set up on the battlefield from Reserves within 18" of and visible to this unit, this unit can shoot as if it were your Shooting phase, but must only target that enemy unit when doing so, and can only do so if that enemy unit is an eligible target.

Deathmarks sadly lost their super unique ability to deep strike after an enemy and immediately shooting it, while shooting at units entering from DS is useful, the loss of cool factor is not okay in my book.

My version wrote:Hyperspace Hunters: Once per turn, in the Reinforcements step of your opponent’s Movement phase, when an enemy unit is set up on the battlefield from Reserves within 18" of and visible to this unit, this unit can shoot as if it were your Shooting phase, but must only target that enemy unit when doing so, and can only do so if that enemy unit is an eligible target. If this unit is in set up in Deep Strike when an opponent's unit is set up as described above you can set this unit up within 18" of and visible to that enemy unit following the rules for Deep Strike and then shoot at the enemy unit as if this unit was set up on the battlefield before the enemy.

I don't care what this costs, I want it. Deathmarks are 12 pts per model, that is insanely low for what used to be an elite unit, make them go up to 13 with this weird little favourite of mine.

Probably fine. Deathmarks aren't exactly a power house unit even if they do get an out of sequence sucker punch like this. Two caveats/concerns:
1. Probably limit it to only being usable by one unit in your army per turn. 5 death marks sucker punching an incoming deepstriking squad is a nasty surprise but not game breaking. 30 death marks is almost a death sentence for most characters. Given that there's limited counterplay to this ability, you want to avoid making it too feelsbad.
2. This *would* probably require a modest price hike. And I think it's worth pointing out that one of the things that makes deathmarks really useful right now is that they're one of our cheaper, more disposable and mobile units. Increasing their cost will make them less useful as action monkeys/scoring units.

It would be cool if Doomscythes could do the thing where you draw a line and attack every model beneath the line with their main weapon again, 6" D3 shots against each unit under the line without Sustained Hits instead of 3 shots with Sustained Hits D3.

D3 shots against each unit under the line seems fine. Thematic, but probably too few shots for it to generally be a *good* choice. So the only concern here is that you'd probably need to break the rule of thumb by giving them an additional special rule, or else risk making them technically worse by dropping one rule to make room for the new one.

I really miss Vargard Obyron, but I don't see a way to get back the Zahndrekh dynamic with Translocation Shroud Overlords.

What specifically do you miss? The Legends rules for these guys still exist and seem useful enough.

Interesting suggestion to make gauss weapons anti 5+, the simplicity of the current profiles is super cool though.

What I miss about Vargard Obyron is him bringing his unit along with him when teleporting to Zahndrekh, especially the part where it could be used in melee.

Gauss has AP, tesla does not. My change makes tesla worse against high T and gauss better against high T, so if you are worried about gauss being outcompeted against T5+ then you should like my change. Math spoilered away, you are assuming a plasmancer as well, which I don't think is or would be meta. My change should probably only apply to enemy units on objectives at any rate.

What I miss about Vargard Obyron is him bringing his unit along with him when teleporting to Zahndrekh, especially the part where it could be used in melee.

I feel like that should still be doable. You'd probably just have to ditch Fights First so that it's not a table-wide fights first sucker punch.

Maybe have it trigger off of the last bodyguard model in Obyron's unit dying? Basically have Zandrekh's unit teleport into coherency with Obyron immediately and instantly become his bodyguard? The wording would probably be long and clunky, but the mechanic itself probably wouldn't be broken.

Gauss has AP, tesla does not. My change makes tesla worse against high T and gauss better against high T, so if you are worried about gauss being outcompeted against T5+ then you should like my change. Math spoilered away, you are assuming a plasmancer as well, which I don't think is or would be meta. My change should probably only apply to enemy units on objectives at any rate.

Assuming plasmancer partly because it's easier math and I'm lazy and partly because if I'm not mistaken, the issues I mentioned become more significant the more critical hits you generate. Because SH increases your average and max damage while lethal hits only ups the average damage. Thinking aloud while I step through some sloppy math...

20 tesla shots from 10 immortals = 10 crit hits and ~3 non-crits. So a total of ~33 crit hits. So about 11 successful wounds into a wave serpent (before saves) but only ~5.5 into a T10 target like an immolator. AP 0, so ~3.67 damage into the serpent and 1.83 into the immolator

20 gauss shots from 10 immortals = 10 crits and ~3 non-crits. 3 non-crits will translate to 1 extra wound against a serpent and 0.5 extra wounds against an immolator. AP-1, so 11 saves against the serpent becomes 5.5 damage, and 10.5 saves becomes 5.25 damage into the immolator.

So the gauss does compare better than I thought against T10. It outperforms tesla against T9 as well, although not by much. My concerns at this point are that:
1. I'm not sure how valuable the gauss's advantage over high durability targets actually is given that we're still talking about a 205 point unit being used to only do 5 damage to the targets it has the edge against.
2. If I'm correct in thinking that tesla is significantly better against T5 and T4 or less targets, then tesla becomes much more of a generalist weapon. Especially given that one of gauss's main advantages (AP-1) can be negated if the target is standing in cover. So tesla is better in most scenarios, and I'm not sure the small performance advantage vs T10+ is going to be attractive enough to get people to field the more specialized gauss option.

Hm. I almost wonder if we should consider splitting immortals into two datasheets and giving the gauss variant a rule that makes them more efficient into monsters/vehicles/heavy infantry.

Currently you are getting 3,7 unsaved wounds against a Wave Serpent on an objective with tesla + Plasmancer buff, 5,2 with gauss. Right direction I think? Tesla becoming stronger against T4 might be dangerous.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Hm. I almost wonder if we should consider splitting immortals into two datasheets and giving the gauss variant a rule that makes them more efficient into monsters/vehicles/heavy infantry.

If you think Warrior weapons are too weak against them as well then it makes more sense to buff gauss weapons. An extra 6" range for gauss blasters could work, while it would be new they could become assault weapons as well. Given the look of tesla carbines it is already odd they are assault weapons even if it's a nice thing to have.

If you think Warrior weapons are too weak against them as well then it makes more sense to buff gauss weapons. An extra 6" range for gauss blasters could work, while it would be new they could become assault weapons as well.

Fair point. Probably better to do something with gauss in general. Extra range/assault isn't really the problem I have with them though. My issue is that I want gauss weapons en masse to be a decent-but-not-amazing source of chip damage against vehicles, and right now they just kind of aren't. 40 shots out of a gauss flayer blob does something like:

6.67 lethal hits + 13.33 normal hits. Normal hits then do a little over 2 wounds against anything T8+ for a total of about 9 saves at AP0. So against a Sv3+ tank, that's about 3 damage for ~200 points. Which just isn't enough to really be threatening.