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Fixing units by changing their pts is all well and good, but that'll never make a bad Dynasty good. This is V.2 of the Necron Codex intending to fix the balance issues from having played many dozens of games with Necrons, having used every Dynasty, most Stratagems, Traits and Relics.

I want to make the Traits open to more units. Italics denote new rules.

Mephrit: Each time a model with this code shoots an enemy unit that is within half range of its weapon’s maximum range, the Armour Penetration characteristic of that weapon’s attack is improved by 1 (i.e. an Armour Penetration characteristic of ‘0’ becomes ‘-1’, an Armour Penetration characteristic of ‘-1’ becomes ‘-2’, etc.). In addition, increase the Damage characteristic of Melee weapons (excluding close combat weapons) used by models with this code by 1.

Nihilakh: Re-roll hit rolls of 1 for units with this code whenever they shoot, including when firing Overwatch, as long as they did not move in the preceding Movement phase and they have not disembarked from a TRANSPORT during this turn. In addition, INFANTRY and SWARM units with this code gain the Their Number is Legion, their Name is Death ability, even if they do not have the Troops battlefield role.

Nephrekh: If a unit with this code Advances, add 6" to its Move characteristic for that Movement phase instead of rolling a dice (if the unit is being affected by the My Will Be Done or Wave of Command ability, add 7" to its Move characteristic instead). In addition, if a unit with this code Advances, its models can move across models and terrain as if they were not there and if it is a FLYER it can turn up to 90° after ending its Move.

Novokh: You can re-roll failed hit rolls in the Fight phase for units with this code if they charged, were charged, or performed a Heroic Intervention this turn. In addition, you can re-roll failed hit rolls of 1 in the Shooting phase while targeting enemy units within 12".

Sautekh: If a unit with this code Advances, it can still Charge this turn and it treats all ranged weapons it is equipped with as Assault weapons until the end of the turn (e.g. a Rapid Fire 1 weapon is treated as an Assault 1 weapon, and a Heavy D6 weapon is treated as an Assault D6 weapon etc.). In addition, unless it has Advanced this turn, a unit with this code does not suffer the penalty to hit rolls for moving and firing a Heavy weapon.

Stratagems. Some of these are useless, maybe that's just my opinion because we also get some super powerful Stratagems, but I do think every Stratagem deserves to have a use. Also, a nerf for Extermination Protocols, it makes Heavy Destroyers useless and is generally just a little too strong on big units of Destroyers. Judgment of the Triarch is probably the least useless of these, I just think giving them MWBD instead of +1 to hit in the Fight phase makes more sense, it also makes the Rod of the Covenant version better because it was totally useless to buff Triarch Praetorians Shooting.

Enhanced Reanimation Protocols (2CP): Use this Stratagem before making Reanimation Protocols rolls for a unit from your army. You can re-roll Reanimation Protocols rolls of 1 for that unit this turn. In addition, add 1 to Reanimation Protocol rolls for that unit this turn.

Extermination Protocols (1CP): Use this Stratagem in your Shooting or Fight phase before shooting or attacking with a Destroyer Lord, a unit of Destroyers or a unit of Heavy Destroyers from your army. Re-roll failed hit and wound rolls for that unit until the end of the phase. This Stratagem costs 2 CP if it is used in the Shooting phase to target a unit that contains 4+ models.

Judgement of the Triarch (1CP): Use this Stratagem before a unit of Triarch Praetorians from your army moves in the Movement phase. Add 1 to hit, Advance and Charge rolls made for this unit until the end of the turn. (As opposed to just hit rolls in the Fight phase or just hit rolls in the Shooting phase and no bonus Advance or Charge rolls.)

Talent for Annihilation (1CP): Use this Stratagem before a MEPHRIT unit from your army attacks in the Shooting or Fight phase. Each time you make an unmodified hit roll of 5 or 6 for a model in that unit, you can make one additional hit roll for that model with the same weapon against the same target. These additional hit rolls cannot themselves generate any further hit rolls.

Warlord Traits. Just fixing up the worst of the garbage.

Eternal Madness: You can re-roll failed wound rolls for your Warlord in the Fight phase. (Even if he did not charge, was not charged, or did not perform a Heroic Intervention this turn)

Honourable Combatant: If your Warlord targets the same enemy CHARACTER with all their close combat attacks, add D3 to your Warlord’s Attacks characteristic until the end of the phase. In addition, add 1 to your Warlord's Wounds characteristic.

Precognitive Strike: Your Warlord always fights first in the Fight phase, even if he didn’t charge. If your opponent has units that have charged, or that have a similar ability, then alternate choosing units to fight with, starting with the player whose turn is taking place. In addition, your Warlord can perform a Heroic Intervention if, after the enemy has completed all of their charge moves, there are any enemy units within 6" of them. They can move up to 6" when performing a Heroic Intervention, so long as they end the move closer to the nearest enemy model.

Relics. One of the worst Relics in the game and some other bad ones, I don't want them to be on the level of my beloved Veil of Darkness, but these are just jokes.

The Orb of Eternity: Model with resurrection orb only. When making Reanimation Protocols rolls for models from a friendly <DYNASTY> INFANTRY unit within 3" of the bearer; add 1 to the result of each roll. (As opposed to only adding the +1 once per game when the Orb is activated.

The Gauntlet of the Conflagrator:
RANGE 8"
TYPE Pistol D6
S 7
AP -3
D 2
Abilities: This weapon can only be fired once per battle. This weapon automatically hits its target. (As opposed to dealing a MW on a 6+ to a single unit for each model from that unit within 8" once per game.)

Sempiternal Weave: INFANTRY model only. Increase the Toughness and Wounds characteristics of the bearer by 1. If the bearer does not move in your Movement phase increase the bearer's Toughness to 10 until the bearer moves instead of increasing the bearer's Toughness by 1.

The Sempiternal Weave jumps out as "Holy hell that's borked".

From the view of an Admech player those are op as hell.

Like seriously you get 2-3 rules for one dynasty.

Some thoughts from a guy who doesn't know Necrons well at all:

* You've got a lot of redundant buffs in there. Most of the dynasties and strats seem to be some combination of rerolling to-hit and moving faster. This opens you up to "double dipping" (where a bonus that was fine in isolation becomes too good when too many similar rules are available; think Alaitoc to-hit penalties) and also means that there's probably a mathematically superior dynasty for whatever it is you want to do.

So if you're building a shooty 'cron army, you'll just take the shootiest dynasty and ignore the less shooty dynasties.

* Nephrekh's dynasty rule seems potentially too good on speedy units. This is basically a free Warp Time on things like Praetorians, Flayed Ones, or tomb blades that are out of range, no? I may be overlooking something.

* The Toughness 10 part of the semipiternal weave seems a bit much. Sure, it doesn't kick in right away, but your opponent will be facing a Toughness 10 version of an already-durable character the turn after he charges your warlord.

JNAProductions wrote:The Sempiternal Weave jumps out as "Holy hell that's borked".

He becomes an immobile brick, I'm not sure what tactical value that offers. Even if you use him to hold an objective, you can still get shot off relatively easy because it's just a character. You cannot charge, pile in, consolidate, anything then it immediately stops. Can you explain what kind of a situation where it might be unfair? With the Nightmare Cloak you get a 2+ Sv and a -1 Ld bubble, so you are more durable than what the +1 T/W offers, Sempiternal Weave needs something to be better in some cases, I'd argue that having to not move a single inch is a big enough downside to offset the admittedly amazing buff.

0XFallen wrote:From the view of an Admech player those are op as hell.

Like seriously you get 2-3 rules for one dynasty.

Orks do as well, I was planning on writing something up for all the factions.

Wyldhunt wrote:Some thoughts from a guy who doesn't know Necrons well at all:

* You've got a lot of redundant buffs in there. Most of the dynasties and strats seem to be some combination of rerolling to-hit and moving faster. This opens you up to "double dipping" (where a bonus that was fine in isolation becomes too good when too many similar rules are available; think Alaitoc to-hit penalties) and also means that there's probably a mathematically superior dynasty for whatever it is you want to do.

So if you're building a shooty 'cron army, you'll just take the shootiest dynasty and ignore the less shooty dynasties.

* Nephrekh's dynasty rule seems potentially too good on speedy units. This is basically a free Warp Time on things like Praetorians, Flayed Ones, or tomb blades that are out of range, no? I may be overlooking something.

* The Toughness 10 part of the semipiternal weave seems a bit much. Sure, it doesn't kick in right away, but your opponent will be facing a Toughness 10 version of an already-durable character the turn after he charges your warlord.

I don't understand what you are saying when you say you'll take the shooty dynasty, that's the problem with the current Codex, each Dynasty is too hyperfocussed so I gave them rules to support different playstyles.

Flayed Ones are M5, so they don't benefit from the changes I made and they cannot charge after advancing. Praetorians can't have dynasties so they don't benefit either. You are right about Nephrekh being too OP for speedy units, it's especially a problem on Canoptek units, I hadn't thought of that issue. I was mostly just thinking that fast units deserved a relatively larger movement speed boost from Advancing but they really don't.

Why do you need to charge the Warlord? Why not just ignore him? He's a scenery piece, cannot move for any reason. Put a Troops choice within range of an objective he is standing on and you hold it, or two mdoels from a Troops unit if the Warlord is Nihilakh with my changes.

I've never really thought the Dynastic Codes were a problem; they offer some flexibility and there's not really any I would call redundant. But adding bonus abilities seems like pushing the envelope, some of these are a bit ridiculous.

Especially close combat weapons, but not melee weapons (I'm guessing you just mean the melee attack a warrior has for example) doing damage 2 is nuts.

Wyldhunt wrote:

* You've got a lot of redundant buffs in there. Most of the dynasties and strats seem to be some combination of rerolling to-hit and moving faster. This opens you up to "double dipping" (where a bonus that was fine in isolation becomes too good when too many similar rules are available; think Alaitoc to-hit penalties) and also means that there's probably a mathematically superior dynasty for whatever it is you want to do.


So if you're building a shooty 'cron army, you'll just take the shootiest dynasty and ignore the less shooty dynasties.

Umm what you stated applies to every codex. You stack stuff to hell and only pick optimal units for whatever trait you use. you don't have blood angel devastators for example. Those don't exists according to GW. Nor do slugga&choppa bad moons.

* Nephrekh's dynasty rule seems potentially too good on speedy units. This is basically a free Warp Time on things like Praetorians, Flayed Ones, or tomb blades that are out of range, no? I may be overlooking something.

Only thing it added to current is ability for flyers to do extra turn but that's at the expenive of advance...ATM the trait is 100% useless for flyers. Max advance! Yey. Except a) why do 20-60" need to advance in the first place b) if they do flyers get flat 20" anyway...





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:

Flayed Ones are M5, so they don't benefit from the changes I made and they cannot charge after advancing. Praetorians can't have dynasties so they don't benefit either. You are right about Nephrekh being too OP for speedy units, it's especially a problem on Canoptek units, I hadn't thought of that issue. I was mostly just thinking that fast units deserved a relatively larger movement speed boost from Advancing but they really don't.

Ummmm wraiths don't benefit from new version at all. And they are hardly broken. Advance isn't much use anyway without stratagem and necrons are starving for CP. Also even with that T1 charge is not quaranteed. Assuming opponent is noob enough to deploy straight in front it's still 6" needed. But smart opponent won't allow that so you are looking at 8-9" charge anyway.

tneva82 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

* You've got a lot of redundant buffs in there. Most of the dynasties and strats seem to be some combination of rerolling to-hit and moving faster. This opens you up to "double dipping" (where a bonus that was fine in isolation becomes too good when too many similar rules are available; think Alaitoc to-hit penalties) and also means that there's probably a mathematically superior dynasty for whatever it is you want to do.


So if you're building a shooty 'cron army, you'll just take the shootiest dynasty and ignore the less shooty dynasties.

Umm what you stated applies to every codex. You stack stuff to hell and only pick optimal units for whatever trait you use. you don't have blood angel devastators for example. Those don't exists according to GW. Nor do slugga&choppa bad moons.

Well yes. That's kind of what I"m getting at. Glancing at the dynasties and strats, I see a lot of things that boil down to either shooting better or stabbing/getting into stabbing position better. It seems like there's a certain amount of overlap between them meaning that you risk having two dynasties whose gimmick boils down to something like, "stabby necrons," but one will be better at it than the other. So whichever one is better at it will render the other redundant. Kind of like how Ulthwe and Alaitoc both have defensive craftworld traits, but the fact that Alaitoc's is generally more powerful means that you don't see Ulthwe very often.

Only thing it added to current is ability for flyers to do extra turn but that's at the expenive of advance...ATM the trait is 100% useless for flyers. Max advance! Yey. Except a) why do 20-60" need to advance in the first place b) if they do flyers get flat 20" anyway...

I was looking at it in terms of speedy non-flyers and melee-only units. For flayed ones, this basically means that you move +6" a turn unless you're potentially in range for a charge. For tomb blades, you're basically getting an automatic warptime (albeit one that requires you advance). Maybe that's okay on necrons? I know people would be furious if my eldar had such a thing, but 'crons are a different animal.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Well yes. That's kind of what I"m getting at. Glancing at the dynasties and strats, I see a lot of things that boil down to either shooting better or stabbing/getting into stabbing position better. It seems like there's a certain amount of overlap between them meaning that you risk having two dynasties whose gimmick boils down to something like, "stabby necrons," but one will be better at it than the other. So whichever one is better at it will render the other redundant. Kind of like how Ulthwe and Alaitoc both have defensive craftworld traits, but the fact that Alaitoc's is generally more powerful means that you don't see Ulthwe very often.

I was looking at it in terms of speedy non-flyers and melee-only units. For flayed ones, this basically means that you move +6" a turn unless you're potentially in range for a charge. For tomb blades, you're basically getting an automatic warptime (albeit one that requires you advance). Maybe that's okay on necrons? I know people would be furious if my eldar had such a thing, but 'crons are a different animal.

So you want more specific Dynasty Codes so that each Dynasty gets a small number of units that it is good for and useless to the rest, like Biel-tan? I think that creates the problem that you never see a Biel-tan army, you maybe take some Biel-tan units, but the amount of good Biel-tan units is too small to make an army out of, so instead you create an alliance of Biel-tan and some other Aeldari detachments. If you do make a Biel-tan list it'll most likely be something very boring like a bazillion small units of Dire Avengers. As tneva mentioned it also creates the issues that you'd expect to see units other than Dire Avengers in a Biel-tan army, but you don't because Hemlocks are so much better in an Alaitoc Detachment compared to a Biel-tan Detachment. I don't think this is good, sub-factions should be able to fight on their own without being relegated to 2-3 effective units. Therefore I prefer that we have two melee Dynasties, one most likely better in general than the other, rather than one Flayed One Dynasty and one Lychguard Dynasty. If you tie a Dynasty too closely with individual units you will also relegate that entire Dynasty's balance on how good those units are.

2,5" on average for Flayed Ones since they aren't moving the extra D6" from Advancing, they also have Deep Strike so the distance they can Advance is irrelevant. It is relatively weak for a unit with 10+" of Movement unless that unit can Advance and charge or Advance and shoot. Tesla loses half its firepower rather than 25% when it advances, so it is rarely worth it even though Tesla units can shoot some amount after Advancing. Nephrekh is basically useless on Ghost Arks, Doomsday Arks, Gauss and Sentry Pylons, all 3 Flyers, Monoliths, Gauss Tomb Blades, Deathmarks. In addition to not being amazing on anything.

 vict0988 wrote:

So you want more specific Dynasty Codes so that each Dynasty gets a small number of units that it is good for and useless to the rest, like Biel-tan?
...

Therefore I prefer that we have two melee Dynasties, one most likely better in general than the other, rather than one Flayed One Dynasty and one Lychguard Dynasty...

Ideally, I'd like a middle ground between a dynasty only being good for one or two units and dynasties being totally overshadowed by stronger similar dynasties. Craftworld Traits are an example of this being done wrong as the defensive traits have clear winners and losers and Biel-Tan/Saim-Hann are arguably beneficial to too narrow a selection of units. Wych Cult Obssessions, I feel, are an example of this concept done well. Red Grief (advance + charge and reroll failed charges) lets you expand your threat radius and makes turn 1 charges possible. Cult of Strife (extra attacks) is a straight forward offense booster. Cursed Blade (+1 strength and semi-fearless) is a slightly worse offense booster, but it helps more significantly against high toughness targets and prevents large wych blobs from evaporating. They each play very differently despite having a non-zero amount of overlap. Maybe the proposed dynasties are accomplishing that. From the outside looking in, I kind of feel like I'd end up playing some to the exclusion of others due to redundancy in what they do and how they play.

2,5" on average for Flayed Ones since they aren't moving the extra D6" from Advancing..."

I feel like I'm missing something. As I understand the rule, Flayed ones would basically just automatically roll a 6 for any advance rolls they make. (Basically getting auto sixes instead of rolling a d6). Right?

... they also have Deep Strike so the distance they can Advance is irrelevant. It is relatively weak for a unit with 10+" of Movement unless that unit can Advance and charge or Advance and shoot. Tesla loses half its firepower rather than 25% when it advances, so it is rarely worth it even though Tesla units can shoot some amount after Advancing. Nephrekh is basically useless on Ghost Arks, Doomsday Arks, Gauss and Sentry Pylons, all 3 Flyers, Monoliths, Gauss Tomb Blades, Deathmarks. In addition to not being amazing on anything.

Those are good points. Again, a similar rule would probably be frowned upon in an army like eldar or even tau who can field a bunch of solid assault weapons. Maybe it's reasonable on necrons.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I feel like I'm missing something. As I understand the rule, Flayed ones would basically just automatically roll a 6 for any advance rolls they make. (Basically getting auto sixes instead of rolling a d6). Right?

A similar rule would probably be frowned upon in an army like eldar or even tau who can field a bunch of solid assault weapons. Maybe it's reasonable on necrons.

Yes, Advance is D6" or 3,5" on average, Nephrekh Advance is 6" with Fly. 6-3,5=2,5. So you will on average get an additional 2,5" worth of Movement. This is pretty bad on Tesla Tomb Blades because they are already moving 15,5" on average, those extra inches matter very little and they already have Fly. The Stratagem is pretty good for a number of units (basic DS Stratagem) and those 2,5" of extra Movement and Fly makes Tesla Immortals pretty mobile.

I don't see how it would be frowned upon if Eldar players had this? What's annoying about Eldar has nothing to do with Advance moves. As long as it wasn't on the Craftworld that gets the Advance and Charge Stratagem then I don't see how it would be a problem.

I think the new Dynasty Codes I made fit what you described pretty well, the +1 D is going to be useful in some circumstances and might be especially important for Lychguard w/ Shields, Scarabs and Flayed Ones (all of which have D1), while re-rolling hit rolls on the first round of combat is far more versatile and also affects Warriors and Immortals. I think Novokh is stronger than Nihilakh in close quarters, but for the few units Necrons have that don't love that, then Nihilakh is still better and if all you are doing is staying back and shooting and sending out small units to capture objectives then I think Nihilakh could work, while Novokh is much better if you intend to engage in a more meaningful way with your opponent. If you could pinpoint the specific rules where you find one to be much better than the other then that'd be awesome.

I think the Craftworld Codex is very poorly written, the Craftworlds don't fit the themes they should fit at all. Iyanded Guardian blobs? Ulthwe being better for vehicles than Infantry. Alaitoc being the best option for Dark Reapers, almost any dakka unit really and a large swathe of melee units as well. I already wrote a new set of rules for Craftworld, but I'll wait for a couple more days for more comments on this thread.

 vict0988 wrote:

Yes, Advance is D6" or 3,5" on average, Nephrekh Advance is 6" with Fly. 6-3,5=2,5. So you will on average get an additional 2,5" worth of Movement. This is pretty bad on Tesla Tomb Blades because they are already moving 15,5" on average, those extra inches matter very little and they already have Fly. The Stratagem is pretty good for a number of units (basic DS Stratagem) and those 2,5" of extra Movement and Fly makes Tesla Immortals pretty mobile.

Ah. I see what you mean. I also see that you've removed the double move for speedy units part since this line of conversation started. Fair enough.

I don't see how it would be frowned upon if Eldar players had this? What's annoying about Eldar has nothing to do with Advance moves. As long as it wasn't on the Craftworld that gets the Advance and Charge Stratagem then I don't see how it would be a problem.

They probably shouldn't get any flack for such a rule, but they definitely would. But that has more to do with general eldar hate and the fact that eldar have access to more assault weapons than 'crons (13" movement on fire dragons; 11" movement on wraith guard, etc.). I won't derail the thread with griping about people griping about my first army.

I think the new Dynasty Codes I made fit what you described pretty well, the +1 D is going to be useful in some circumstances and might be especially important for Lychguard w/ Shields, Scarabs and Flayed Ones (all of which have D1), while re-rolling hit rolls on the first round of combat is far more versatile and also affects Warriors and Immortals. I think Novokh is stronger than Nihilakh in close quarters, but for the few units Necrons have that don't love that, then Nihilakh is still better and if all you are doing is staying back and shooting and sending out small units to capture objectives then I think Nihilakh could work, while Novokh is much better if you intend to engage in a more meaningful way with your opponent. If you could pinpoint the specific rules where you find one to be much better than the other then that'd be awesome.

I trust your judgement on this point more than my own. As I said, I do not know 'crons well at all. At a first glance, I saw a lot of "shoot better" and "stab better" rules, but maybe the nuances of 'cron gameplay make them functionally different enough. You'd know better than I would if that's the case.

I think the Craftworld Codex is very poorly written, the Craftworlds don't fit the themes they should fit at all. Iyanded Guardian blobs? Ulthwe being better for vehicles than Infantry. Alaitoc being the best option for Dark Reapers, almost any dakka unit really and a large swathe of melee units as well. I already wrote a new set of rules for Craftworld, but I'll wait for a couple more days for more comments on this thread.

Totally agree with you there, and I look forward to seeing your Craftworld changes.