Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: 10th Ed. Codex Necrons – The Good, Bad, and The Ugly
Today we delve inside the covers of the new 10th Edition Codex Necrons. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly coming to a Warhammer 40K tabletop near you.
It’s a glorious week as we have two new codexes coming to 40K. Both are robotic armies, with one being a scourge from eons past and the others worshiping a metallic god that might be on a throne. Both books are very different in how they play, so let’s sit down, pull up a chair, and chit-chat a bit about what I like from each book.
The first one we’ll talk about is the Necrons. Necrons are one of those armies I like but just never felt the desire to really jump into. Their designs are cool, gameplay is interesting, and their rules feel fine. I just never felt like they were – chaotic enough for me. Still, they are a fun army to see painted well on the tabletop and they feel interesting. Plus, my love of big smashy stuff means I adore the C’Tans and their crazy stories and rules.
I won’t dive into every last thing in the book, as I am just one lowly little Goatboy who tries his darnedest to read as much as I can, play when I can, and yell about death to the false Emperor when I can.
Codex Necrons – The Good
We got a bunch of new detachments, with a few of them that seem to be pretty good. The main one is the same as the index so if you like that play style you can keep it. We have a Destroyer Cult one, a Canoptek Court one, a Character heavy one, and a sweet Phasing one – the Hypercrypt Legion. I really like the Hypercrypt Legion and Canoptek Court ones, as they both seem to have powerful abilities.
I get the feeling the Hypercrypt Legion will see some place as being able to move your army around the table all the time seems like a powerful option – especially since you pick your guys up at the end of the opponent’s turn. With a few core units you can quickly rearrange your army and make it very hard for your opponent to have a good footing. As well as just putting a ton of firepower as needed into units.
The Canoptek Court detachment pushes the whole Cryptek leading things with a power matrix-like zone based on objectives you control. These give you a ton of Reroll options with your Cryptek lead units too as the units gain the Cryptek keyword. Your Canoptek also gains this ability too with Reroll 1’s to hit or full Rerolls if you are in your power matrix. You can see what is pushed pretty hard in this book – Wraiths – which loves this detachment.
Oh yeah, about those Wraiths. They got tougher, love to be friends with the floating Cryptek, hit pretty dang hard while in the power zone, and are now one of the best things in the book. Oh, and they didn’t get crazy expensive either. Expect to see 18 of these in most Necron armies; especially those wanting to use the Canoptek Court Detachment. There are going to be a ton of creepy Matrix-like tentacle robots coming to take all the candy you have at your base.
There are only five detachments which some will thnk is not enough, but I think it just brings the rules more into focus into each of the options. I want each detachment to feel good ainstead of haveing more bland ones. The 10th Necron codex feels like three of the options are pretty good, with one of the flavorful ones (Destroyer cult) feeling like something useful if someone wanted to go in that direction. This is a cool thing to me and means everything feels alright overall.
Updated Units!
The other weird mix of good/bad is that actual unit rules were changed. I like this as it means some things that might have been broken in the index will get changed in their book. I didn’t like the GW statement that these rules would stay locked, and seeing them go back and adjusting units is a good thing. It gives me hope that things beyond just detachment and stratagem tweaks are in line for all the upcoming books.
Some of the big changes are the C’Tan’s not getting relics anymore but gaining a 5+ FNP in the process. This pushes the Void Dragon into being something good again, as his named status and lack of Relic option was what kept him at bay before. Lots of little things were pulled off of sheets too. The Silent King doesn’t fly anymore. The Hexmark has better guns but can no longer shoot for each unit, and is just once a phase one of them gets to shoot option. Cryptothralls got fixed to only granting the Cryptek FNP and not themselves. They did gain a wound for this, so it’s a much different load out. Night Scythes are now buttery-flavored drop pods. It is just nice to see actual units updated instead of just living with some weird decisions.
Overall the Good is really there as we have a ton of neat options to play with, some “bad interactions” were cleaned up, and the army feels adjusted in a way that should make it fun. Of course, not everything was good, as there are some sad things missing from the book.
Codex Necrons – The Bad
Somehow the only Finecast model that survived was Trazyn the Infinite. It is a really weird thing to see some of the other flavorful characters fall out of the book. Anrakyr has seemed to gotten lost in their tomb world as well as Vargard Obyron. The basic Overlord also has changed, and you now have locked-in options for all your “leadership” which is a weird one. I always hate how some “custom” options get kicked away, as well as some fluffy options too.
I also hate how we still don’t have a true “C’Tan” plastic kit that isn’t a special character. I just feel like GW should have made one by now. I like the Void Dragon but it is the Void Dragon. It isn’t the sweet-looking one that floats around from inside a floating Obelisk. It always feels like a weird missing piece in this as we see them on the tabletop but it is hard for a new player to go get one without dropping some serious cash for a rather hard-to-transport model.
Oh, and all those players that invested in a ton of Lychguard. I am sorry to tell you a lot of your combo pieces of characters can no longer join them. I expect armies to shift to Warrior Blobs as they can take Cryptek, unlike the Lychguard.
Codex Necrons – The Ugly
The new Necron Character kits go together in a rather annoying way. The new Necrons started to feel a little too thin and flimsy, so it is something that annoys me when trying to build a kit. The plastic bits you get after clipping can be so hard to cut off without damaging the model. I also hate how their necks are always separated, which is again just an annoying piece to fit in there, make sure it fits between the chest shell, and then glue a head on.
10th Ed. Codex Necrons – The Verdict
With that, it is an exciting day to see a new Codex and figure out how the other books will most likely show up. You know will see 5-6 detachments that try to bring the themes from their old books out and hopefully won’t wreck the meta like some kind of monster. We also see GW taking this chance to fix some things in the codex that felt a bit unfair in the index unit rules.
All Hail the Silent King
