Warhammer 40K: Codex: Necrons Five Big Losers

Necrons have a rad new Codex that really shakes up the army, but not everything got better. Let’s take a look at some of the big losers of that book.

You’ve no doubt heard that Space Marines have a new Codex out, and it’s the talk of the town. However, did you know that Necrons also have a new book out? That’s right, just in time for Halloween, the spooky space skelebois are back with new units, new powers, and it appears new players. As with any book that makes major changes to the army, there are some winners and some losers. Last time we talked about some big winners in the book, today let’s talk about 5 of the biggest losers in the new Codex.

Immortals

While Warriors, the other Necron troop choice, were winners in the book, Immortals don’t appear to be. Now it’s not that they particularly got worse, but they also didn’t actually significantly better. That leaves them as kind of the worse of the two troop options here, and they’ve got fewer combos to make them better. While they have decent guns and stats they are a little slow, making it a bit harder to get on objectives in numbers. They are also expensive, clocking in a 17-19pts. This puts them in the same range as a lot of Marine, and soon CSM units that have 2 wounds. I think in those fights Immortals won’t have the power or numbers to come out as winners.

Units With Quantum Shielding 

Quantum Shielding was a major Necron rule and its undergone a big change. In the past when taking damage from an attack you rolled a die and if the result was lower than the damage of the attack it was ignored. This was a superpower rule and made a lot of anti-tank weapons really bad vs Necrons, as anything that did more than 6 damage just couldn’t hurt units with the rules and attacks that did 4-6, normally the ones good at killing tanks, where super unreliable vs them. The new rule gives the unit a 5++ save and makes it so that wound rolls of 1-3 always fail. This isn’t a bad rule at all, and will still help keep these units alive, but it’s just not as good. Since it no longer triggers off of the damage of that attack it now means that heavy anti-tank can hurt Necrons. We’ve seen an increase in damage in 8th, with Melta weapons getting better. Under the old rule this would have actually been good for Necrons, but now it’s not.

Hexmark Destroyer

Man, I know this guy is new, but like… I really don’t like him. I greatly dislike that he has two special rules that add up to him always hitting a 2+ and re-rolling 1s, why not save space and just have him auto hit? Is the 1 in 36 chance of him missing really that important? And like… what’s the point of him, he’s not really good at killing characters as he can’t target them and is only AP -1. His extra shots only trigger on kills, so he isn’t really good at killing multi wound models, he averages like 1 dead Marine a round, which…meh. He can chew through light infantry sure, but the Necron book is full of things that can do that. He just comes off as a mechanical copycat Kellermorph.

Canoptek Reanimator

This is another new unit that I’m just not a huge fan of. At first glance, they seem kind of OK. Giving a +1 to reanimation protocols is solid and it’s got pretty decent weapons. But the more you look at it the worse it gets to me. Its guns are OK, but super short-ranged, making them a lot less useful. It’s +1 isn’t an aura but a “pick a unit” thing which makes it a lot worse. On top of that it a pretty soft target, with only T5 6 wounds, it not hard to kill. At 110 pts it’s not cheap for something that can get one-shotted by plenty of units. Sure it helps things reanimate, but it’s unlikely to survive to do it and you’ll likely be better off just taking 10 more Warriors.

Monolith 

Man, I remember back in the day when the Monolith was the feared mega unit of the Necron army. This was something you worried about facing on the table. Those days are long gone however, but with the new book, and new model coming out we had real hope it would be good again. And… it’s just…not. Yeah, it’s big and kind of OK in combat and has some decent guns. That’s all fine, but also nothing really special. It doesn’t really do anything unique in that regard, but it’s not bad either. Two things however really make it kind of bad. The first is that it’s now a Lord of War. Lords of War are just plan hard to take, requiring their own detachment. While the Monolith isn’t super expensive at 360-380pts taking one will cost you 3 CP, taking more than one will cost you 6CP and that’s a pretty steep price for something that’s just kind of OK. Also using its Portal ability now cost CP to put units into strategic reserve. The second big thing that kills it is its lack of an invulnerable save. Big crazy Lords of War like this aren’t really that hard to kill in 9th if they don’t have an invulnerable save, with many armies still geared up to kill a Knight a turn, a Monolith won’t post much of a threat, since it’s about half as hard to kill as a Knight. Overall you’ve got a unit with decent weapons, that’s hard to take and easy to kill (for its class) making it arguable worse than it was before.

Let us know what you think the loser of Codex: Necrons are, down in the comments!  

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.