40K: Faction Minis Focus: Necrons
Let’s take a look at what the Necron miniatures range does right, does wrong, and what needs replacing.
The Necron range is older than people think. While their ancient metal “proto army” turned up in the 90s, the Necrons got their first codex and plastic kits way back in 2002 in 3rd Edition. Since then their mini range has grown, and grown and grown over five more editions and is pretty large with more modern kits like the flying Cryptek and Szeras, alongside old chestnuts like the Destroyers, and Monolith. It’s mainly plastic with a lot of finecast characters but has the marine problem – it has large sections that are very dated and needs some new bloodshot into its veins to get hobbyists excited and buying again. Onto the Necron range.
Standouts
Flyers
The Necron flyer range is fantastic. They are distinctive, high quality sculpts, with lots of options and add cool abilities to the army (eat your heart out T’au flyers). They are instantly recognizable (what’s a canopy?) and really set the look of the Necron army apart. What’s not to like?
Arks
The Ghost and Doomsday Arks are yet another pair of kits that look fantastic. They are utterly alien-looking and befit use by a race that is not made of flesh and blood. Like the flyers, the Arks define the visual look of the Necrons, cannot be mistaken for anything else, and offer decent good service on the tabletop. They look extremely high-tech, but in a completely different direction than T’au or Eldar for example.
Need Replacing
But there are certainly still some holdouts from back in the day who have lived long past their prime. Some minis always had design problems, while others were amazing when released, but have been left behind by decades of the quality and scale of the game increasing.
Monolith
I think it’s time folks. The Monolith came out in White Dwarf 271 in 2002. It’s legal, 18 years old. It is hard to remember, but when the Monolith was introduced it was a monstrous kit, bristling with all-round gauss flux arcs, and dwarfing the almost everything in the game. It served as the nigh unkillable lynchpin of Necron lists for a couple of editions before being slowly strong-armed aside in favor of the newer kits like the Arks, flyers, and Obelisks.
With new Necrons on the way, it looks like GW may have an all-new replacement in mind. I think that’s a new Monolith in that pic down below, but nothing official from GW yet. It looks like the clear plastic is on the way out, and the current Monolith has a ton of it. If GW is going to replace it, I would champion for a combo-kit so there are perhaps 2-3 different models of Monoliths with slightly different abilities.
Flayed Ones
The Flayed Ones have had a hard road to tread. They are fiddly and finecast, and they have never had decent rules. On top of that, they are plague-ridden and even their fellow Necrons shun them. They are truly the Vespids of the Necrons, unwanted and unloved, sitting out their days on the Tomb-world of misfit toys. These fellows need an all-new plastic kit AND new decent assault rules fast.
C’tan
The C’tan have seen better days, suffering the same path as the Eldar Avatar. When the Deceiver and Nightbringer came out back in 2002, they were insanely powerful. Now they are small, puny monsters who look like a humble Carnifex could snap them in two. Alongside their slide on the miniature side, they went from all-powerful star-gods in 3rd Edition to slave shards in modern 40K. If you want a plastic one now, you have to grab the bit from the Obelisk kit – which is odd. It is about time for them to get an all-new plastic kit. There is a new something that looks like a C’tan in the Necron reveal pic down below. I have my fingers crossed that it is something along the lines of the plastic Daemon Prince or Chaos Spawn kit and allow you to “build your own C’tan” for the sake of variety and to hopefully replace the old Nightbringer/Deceiver kits in one fell swoop.
Something New?
It looks like 9th Edition will kick off with more new Necorns than you can throw a Scarab at.
Thank You, GW
It looks so far than in addition to the awesome Szeras, we have:
- The Silent King
- War of the Worlds Spindly Walker (TWO!)
- A couple of new Characters
Normally an army only gets a giant range overhaul only once every 15-20 years. I have such high hopes for the Necrons. It’s been 18 years – and it looks like in 2020, our favorite misunderstood robot kids are finally all grown up (sob, sob).
~What single Necron kit do you think MOST needs replacing?
