Necron Codex Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Part 2
Hey everyone, Reecius here from Frontline Gaming to continue the discussion on the new Necrons!
This article will be in ye old trusty Good, Bad and Ugly format. Good is Good, Bad is Bad and Ugly is for those units/rules/wargear that fall somewhere in-between. As always, feel free to disagree! This is a first reading of the book and I may get a few things wrong, I may have an opinion you disagree with and I may change my opinions on things after playing them. In fact, I almost always do! Enjoy the review and feel free to share your opinions in the comments section.
You can read part 1, here. Check out the Tactics Corner for more great reviews. Let’s keep on truckin!
The Good
Warriors
Necron Warriors are not too exciting on paper, but they’re solid as a troop selection and you can really scale up their power output a ton if you want to. They come in units of 10-20, weigh in at 13ppm, and have all of zero upgrades. Simple! However, there’s a lot to love with Warriors. For one, their gun can hurt anything in the game, which is awesome. Gauss Flayers hit like a Bolter (Rapid Fire, Str4, Ap5, 24″) but with the added benefit of always wounding on a 6, and always glancing on a 6. Baller. That makes these one of the best basic sidearms in the game. Warriors en masse can really do some work, particularly with some support. For example, slap a Destroyer Lord in there with them to give them Preferred Enemy, and bring a Triarch Stalker nearby and they go up to a BS5 unit rerolling 1’s to hit, resulting in over 97% accuracy, which is incredible. A unit with high volume of shooting that can hurt anything is–obviously–quite good. Note, that combo listed works for any unit too, not just Warriors. Warriors may only have a 4+, but with RP, they get a solid secondary save and with a Cryptek or in a Decurion Detachment, they have a 4+ RP, possibly rerolling 1’s, possibly also with a 5++ from a Chronometron. If you slap Orikan in there, they even reroll 1’s on failed saves. Back this up further with a Ghost Ark and you will keep making new Warriors and hey, why not, a Res Orb to reroll failed RP rolls once per game, too. WOW. That is a resilient unit that also shoots well and can be ObSec, too. You can do a lot with these guys and I have always really enjoyed Warriors. You can run them on foot, Phalanx style, or in the awesome Ghost Ark, or in Night Scythes, throw Szeras in there to further buff them, as well. Deffinitely a well rounded unit and a solid troops choice. The only downside is their weakness to morale and susceptibility to being run down. You have to be very wary of that. If in doubt, you can always take Zandrehk to give them Zealot and ensure they don’t go anywhere!
Immortals
Another solid troops choice! Immortals are great and I almost always take at least 1 unit of them. Immortals have stats like Warriors, but instead of a 4+, they come with a 3+ and a better gun. They have either the Guass Blaster, or Tesla Carbine. Both are great choices, but I typically go with the Tesla Carbine as I run lots of Warriors, but YMMV and both weapons are excellent choices. Immortals don’t have as many support options as Warriors but can run on foot fairly well (although the smaller unit size and lack of Ghost Ark support outside of the WD Formation that allows a Monlith to res them means they are often more easily dispatched), but are still resilient with a 3+ and RP. You often see 5 man units in Night Scythes to grab objectives at game’s end for the win, but, they work very well in units of 10 as well, walking up the field or dropping out of a Night Scythe earlier in the game. Immortals are a solid troop and will not disappoint.
Lychguard, painted by FLG
Lychguard
Wow, what an improvement! Lychguard were grossly over-costed last time around, but have been adjusted appropriately. They’re fantastic now for the points and I think we will see them fairly often. If not for the OTT amazingness of Wraiths, Lychguard would be the go to assault unit, IMO. They’re T5 and S5, with a 3+ and come standard with a Warscythe which is awesome (S+2, AP2, Armorbane, 2 handed). Or, for +5pts, you can give them a 3++ and Hyperphase Sword (power sword). Again, due to RP and all of the ways to buff the roll, Lychguard can become ultra resilient. If you go with the 3++, you can stick Orikan in there to give them a reroll of failed saves of 1, which makes them ultra tough, and they also get a 4+ RP, to boot! If they are in a Decurion Detachment, and you have the Overlord of that detachment with them, they also reroll failed RP rolls of a 1! Add in a Res orb for lols and, good lawd, these guys will be hard to kill. To top it off, give the Overlord a Nightmare Shroud for a 2+ or stick in Obyron for the same purpose+his Ghostwalk Mantle and you have a unit that will kick serious ass. Alternatively, you could just take 5 for a cheap unit to throw into the backfield and with their natural toughness, you can have great results chopping up weak units and vehicles. The only real question with Lychguard is how to get them across the table. A Nightscythe works but that means at best, you are getting a turn 3 charge. The best bet, IMO, is using a Veil of Darkness or the Ghostwalk Mantle to move them up-field. If you kit them up, they are resilient enough to take most shooting to the face and shrug it off. They also deliver a mighty wallop in melee, particularly if you go with Warscythes. Again, the only fear is their weakness to morale which can be brutal if you lose a combat and get swept. However, due to their resilience, this should not happen often. In all, a great melee unit.
Deathmarks
They work essentially as they did before, but now you don’t have to nominate a unit for death, they just wound on a 2+ the turn they come in from Deep Strike reserves. That is awesome for smoking high toughness models. They can also counter-reserve by Deep Striking on the enemy turn when one of their units comes in from Deep Strike reserves and then shoot in the enemy turn, which can be cool when it works. You can still get a similar effect to what they used to do with the Abyssal Staff Cryptek by sticking a character that can Deep Strike in the unit with them with the Gauntlet of the Conflagrator, although it is a bit pricey. A good choice to go with them though, is the Destroyer Lord as he can also Deep Strike, gives them Preferred Enemy, and can provide another backfield threat as well as melee defense. In all, they are a solid back-field disruption unit and can kill key enemy units the turn they come in played well.
Flayed Ones
Wow, can we say most improved unit? These fellas went from zero to hero in a hurry. Flayed Ones have Warrior Stats, but now get 5 S4, AP5, Shred attacks on the charge…damn, son! Plus, with changes to RP, they can become very resilient. With infiltrate, and Deep Strike, they are built to be a back-field disruption unit and are quite good at killing weak objective taking units like Guardian Jetbikes, Scout Squads, etc. with just a smallish unit of them which weighs in at a low price point. With enough numbers, so long as they can hurt what they are in melee with, they will take down dang even tougher units. My only complaint is that it is hard to give them character support and still use their cool abilities as the unit would lose Infiltrate and/or Deep Strike in may cases. As above, a Destroyer Lord goes well with them for PE and more melee punch and as he can also Deep Strike, you lose nothing. Otherwise, teleport up the field turn 1 with a Veil or Obyron and beef them up with Character support as with Warriors and profit.
Praetorians
Praetorians, much like Lychguard, got a massive boost and are solid, now. They’re fast, tough, fearless (which is huge for Crons), and hit pretty hard. They come stock with Rod’s of Covenant which provide good AP2, but short ranged shooting, and the same in melee, or Particle Caster for S6 short ranged shooting and Void Blades in melee which give you Rending, AP4, Entropic Strike which is functionally the same rule as that Guass weapons have. I prefer the Rod load-out as Wraiths give you rending attacks in spades, and solid AP2 attacks are actually a bit rare in a Cron list and a such, Praetorians provide some nice utility. They also don’t need any character support, which is nice. They don’t mind it at all, but there really aren’t any characters that are designed to keep up with them. The Destroyer Lord kind of can, but that’s about it. In all, this is a solid unit, flirts with going into the Ugly category only because they compete with Wraiths which are superior, but are solid and provide you AP2 weapons which is great utility.
Triarch Stalkers
The Stalker is, again, much improved. He now provides a 6″ +1BS bubble to other friendly, non-vehicle Necron units. That is incredible as stated above, when you combo that with Preferred Enemy you get ridiculous accuracy. A unit or 2 of Heavy Destroyers loitering around this guy become brutally effective, as does anything else with a Destroyer Lord attached to them. And even without layering that combo, the general purpose buff is fantastic for any foot style list and that 6″ bubble is actually pretty big off of the large Stalker model. The Stalker itself is cheap, AV13 with Quantum Shielding, can ignore a lot of the damage table with Living Metal and/or being in the Decurion Detachment, and comes stock with a dual shot Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer. Not bad! You can up-gun him to have a large blast or 36″ Las Cannon, but I wouldn’t bother. The Heat Ray is solid. Triarch Stalkers provide a lot in a list designed to take advantage of them.
The Bad
Nothing!
The Ugly
Rantimus’ C’Tan painted by Reecius
Both C’Tan Shards
I know I will catch some flakk for this,but that is OK! While the C’Tan are much improved, I still don’t think they will have a place in a competitive list. Why? They suffer from the same problem the generic C’Tan did in the previous codex: they’re easy to kill and slow. Their shooting can be quite powerful, but it is relatively short ranged and random. You may get something that can’t hurt the target you are shooting at. They also can’t overwatch. They hit fairly well in melee, but are not outstanding there, either. If Nightbringer can get within 12″, his Gaze of Death is pretty awesome to keep him alive. The Deciver’s Grand Illusion and Dread rules are likewise, pretty awesome. You can use some fun deployment tricks to out-deploy your opponent or combo the Ld debuff with other rules (such as with Nightbringer) to do some cool stuff. If you use them in a MTO list, they can do some work, or if you take lots of them. However, ultimately I think these units will most likely get shot to death before they do much. I’d love to be wrong though, as I dig the models and the fluff of them quite a bit.
What do you think the biggest Necron winners and losers are?
