Goatboy’s Quick Thoughts: Necron Dynasties
Goatboy talks about his first impressions of the Necron Dynasty rules.
Welp its been an interesting week – with a ton of the Tau stuff leaked early and it looks like some kind of digital leak of parts of the Necron codex as well. It makes me think will see Crons coming soon especially if GW wants to continue with the neat “preview” releases on Warhammer Community*. There is a lot to digest with these as they have some similar rules to what we have seen in other “codexes” but feel very different and Necron like. I am pretty excited as while I had a small Necron Army and wonder if I could easily add more to the “rusted” hulk army I have played from time to time.
Sautekh is the first one shown and it is a weird mix of Deathguard, Black Legion, and other rules. To paraphrase the rule – it basically is gonna to allow your Necrons to always move, advance, and still cause a good amount of damage. I really like how it even changes Heavy weapons into Assault based weapons as well. This is pretty dang amazing especially if we see weapon upgrades and options added to the Warrior rank and file troops. I just like the constant forced march of the Necrons and feel this could be a very interesting “chapter tactic” in the hands of a savvy general.
Novokh is pretty interesting in that without knowledge of how the “Necron” book is updated it could be a pretty powerful one. If they somehow have a very assault focused army this could be pretty brutal to get involved with. So many rerolls, damage potential, and crazy options could be very very rough to deal with. I know the Lychguard coming in hot and hitting whatever unit you have in the way is very brutal. This could be a very fun Goatboy army as I love the idea of relentless killer robots out for revenge. The rule lets you reroll failed hit rolls if they charge, get charged, or perform a Heroic intervention. An army wide Chaplain bubble seems pretty good if you ask me.
Nihilakh is the one I just don’t feel is very good. This one allows you to reroll 1’s if you didn’t move. I think most of 8th edition is about board presence and control so not moving is a rough thing to deal with. Most of my games are all about spreading out, protecting myself from deep striking, and hopefully punishing your opponents mistakes as you corral them into their corner.
The Mephirit rule seems pretty good too as it gives everyone a sorta Melta ability in that any half range shots gives you a +1 to your AP value. I am not sure how powerful that will be depending on how much other “forced” movement abilities the Necrons have. It could be pretty interesting if the Cron Biker unit gets decent upgrades as the rumors are pointing too. Having that much extra AP on Tesla options could be very powerful as they try to roll 6’s and do more damage. It is again one of those rules that really depends on how more powerful the upgraded weapons are in the book. It is starting to sound like this book has a pretty big departure from the Index option and could be something interesting to look forward too.
Finally we have the Nephrekh option and it really feels very interesting. The crazy amount of movement this army can do is pretty spectacular and could really help cover the table top in waves of shiny metal a$$es. I don’t know if there are other options in the book where a unit could Advance and Charge (Wraiths) so will see how interesting this ability becomes. I really like how if the unit advances it ignores terrain/units as it gets to where it needs to go. Add this up with the little rule tidbit the option threw in there and you could have some really fast hauling robots.
They don’t seem to crazy and well balanced so I expect them to show up pretty much as on point. I really like the rumored Scarab blow up power as that could be pretty dang awesome in the right circumstances as they move fast, get mixed in, and maybe get to use the Dynasty that lets you advance and ignore models. Here is hoping the Cron book is good, comes soon, and gets everyone excited to have space robots beating up the Eldar.
What do you think of these new Dynasty rules? Which one is your favorite?
*note: Goatboy wrote this up before the rules were confirmed by GW. They have since been confirmed and we have posted the rules provided by GW.
