Necron unit by unit review

[isotope99]

Quick run down of my initial thoughts on the codex. Most units have clear pros and cons so far which is a sign of another book with fairly good internal balance.

Starting with the packed HQ section:

Imotekh the stormlord

Pros: Darkness and a 4+ seize combo gives you a great chance of getting off the first serious round of shooting. Toough to kill, the only thing he is missing is a res orb.

Cons: Not great in close combat as he only has a stick to beat people with so is vulnerable to getting rolled in cc if joining anything other than a lychguard unit or tied up if on his own. I’d be tempted to stick him in a command barge myself.

Nemesor Zandrekh

Pros: Toughest character except maybe Trazyn and can have a lot of fun with his special skill rules. Pairs well with Obyron.

Cons: Similarly weak in cc although this can be offset by Obyron’s warscythe.

Vargard Obyron

Pros: Super powered veil of darkness, hits hardest in cc of any necron character most of the time.

Cons: No invulnerable save, lots of points if taken with Nemesor

Illuminor Szeras

Pros: Mechanical augmentation combines well with Anrakyr’s super immortals

Cons: Generally pretty rubbish unless I’m missing something? Copmpare him with grey knights coteaz for example.

Orikan

Pros: Good invulnerable and his super form is both fun and potebtially nasty. Temporal snares very useful against foot armies.

Cons: very unreliable as his super form wears off and T4, 2W is very vulnerable to being torrented by low S hits,also his snares are pretty useless in dawn of war. Too expensive and risky for my tastes.

Anrakyr

Pros: Machine control has the potential to be very horrible in certain circumstances. Super immortals give an alternative to lychguard as a bodyguard unit. ‘Free’ Tachyon arrow. Warscythe for combat.

Cons: No Invulnerable makes him easy to kill in CC.

Trazyn

Pros: Only scoring character I can think of and ability to hide in other units makes him a nightmare to kill. Empathic obliterator can crush hordes like nothing else.

Cons: Weak in duels with characters or heavily armoured units. Limits your force selection as you need multiple proxies to hide him in.

Overlord

Pros: Solid stats with semi-immunity to Instant Death from T5 and good wargear options.

Cons: gets expensive fast and starts to compare unfavourably with the special characters. The basic model with 3++ and warscythe is 145 points.

Destroyer lord

Pros: Can bolster wraiths, destroyers and pretorians where no-one else can and can be tough to kill in CC if powerfists etc. can be avoided. ‘Free’ preferred enemy.

Cons: No options for an invuln save.

Court:

Lord

Pros: Good bodyguards with warscythes and maybe the tesseract labyrinth or mindshackle scarabs. Can bolster reanimation to 4+ with orb. Not independent characters so can’t be singled out.

Cons: Can’t combine with a cryptek and get expensive quickly for mediocre stats.

Cryptek

Pros: Too many sneaky options to cover (solar pulse particularly good). Can’t be singled out.

Cons: Can’t combine with lord or another cryptek.

Court as a unit

Pros: Horrible combos are possible

Cons: Every loss is a lot of points and they’re not very tough so easy to inflict damage.

More coming soon...

[isotope99]

ELITES

Deathmarks

Pros: Rapid fire, sniper and their assassination target (2+ to wound aganist a specified unit) makes them quite powerful at short range.

Cons: Weak in CC and easy to charge as they are best at less than 12". Their surprise assault opens them up to enemy fire and can't be used recklessly.

Lychguard

Pros: Good profile and tough in cc, a rarity in necrons so make good bodyguards for HQ.

Cons: Can't mix warscythes (+2S power weapons with shields 4++). Slow and need assistance to get in position.

Triarch praetorians

Pros: Fast assault troops, good on the charge once you add in their assault weapons.

Cons: Only one attack base makes them weak in prolonged combat or if charged themselves. Can only be effectively joined by a destroyer lord. I don't much rate the voidblade combo as scarabs are better for entropic strikes on vehicles and voidblades are only rending, not power weapons, but it does give them the extra attack for 2 cc weapons.

C'Tan shard

Pros: Combat monster, some great abilities

Cons: Still slow and gets very expensive fast (even the cheapest version is over 200 points) Some of teh options are very expensive.

Flayed ones

Pros: Lots of attacks (4 on the charge)

Cons: Easy to kill, not cheap, low I, slow, can't really be joined by any characters (I could go on)

Triarch stalker

Pros: Tough with qauntum shielding, targeting relay can combine nicely with some weapons (tachyon arrow), heat ray is pretty cool with its alternative fire modes

Cons: Expensive for what it does, no power attacks so easy to tie in combat, vulnerable to weapon destroyed with only one gun (but could pair with a tomb spyder with repair claws)

[isotope99]

TROOPS & TRANSPORTS

One of the first choices any newly risen overlord will have to make is whether to go for warriors or immortals for their troops choices. Both have had a big drop in points from their previous versions and so eat up less of an army's total points now. In return, they are less survivable than they used to be.

My personal view is that immortals are good enough to justify the 4 point extra cost in most games.

Warriors

Pros: Cheapest troops and still fairly survivable outside of CC if you can get them into cover. Vehicle suppression still possible from all their gauss weapons.

Cons: Very easy to roll in CC as they can't reanimate before resolving combat res and they have weak combat stats, even with necron lord to add some bite.

Ghost ark

A dedicated transport for up to 10 warriors (plus attached lords etc). It's not awful as a scoring bunker but very costly at over 100 points. If it could take immortals, I'd consider it but warriors aren't really good enough IMHO to justify the cost.


Immortals

Pros: Roughly comparable to the old necron warriors with a Strength boost. Hard to kill with shooting and can put out a lot of S5 firepower at short range.

Cons: Also easy to roll in CC, capped out at 10 models, can't take the ghost ark

Catacomb command barge

One man transport for a necron character and suprisingly is available for many of teh special characters too (makes a good bunker for Imhotek)

Pros: Can make sweep attacks in the movement phase which are high strength with a warscythe and can hit vehicles on a fixed roll.

Cons: Costly and a lord really needs a phase shifter (to avoid dying when pitched out) and a warscythe (for decent sweep attacks) to be really effective in it (which puts it up at near land raider cost).

Night Scythe

The night sycthe is a very different prospect to most transports. It's super fast (36" turbo boost) and has a high capacity of 15. It's unique in that it doesn't actually hold the contents but teleports them on when deployed. If wrecked, contents aren't deployed but have to slog it on from a board edge so it really needs a monolith in the army as back up.

I think this vehicle has the potential to be very powerful but will also be much harder to use and need more planning than most.

Pros: Decent transport for 100 points, with a powerful gun

Cons: Only armour 11 so easy to kill and not open topped so less useful for transporting assualt troops especially since they don't deploy if the trabnsport is destroyed.

[isotope99]

FAST ATTACK

Canoptek wraiths

Wraiths have changed style to some extent before providing high S and I, they are now lower I and S but rending and 2W so more survivable.

Obvious upgrade is the whip coils that lower I of models in base contact to 1 so the necronms strike first which offsets their new low I but not essential as wraiths are tougher now and the scary things are power fists which are already I1.

Pros: Fast assault troops that can tie up models in close contact with 3++

Cons: Lower Strength and Initiative, potentially vulnerable to ID.

Canoptek Scarabs

Scarabs have been featured pretty heavily for their anti mech abilities. I think most armies will take at least one squad but I'm not sure they're reliable enough to be the core of an army. Obvious combo with night fighting to minimise incoming fire.

Pros: Entropic strike and lots of attacks plus large bases and beast movement will do serious damage to vehicles moving at 6" or less. Can also bubble wrap necron units.

Cons: Instant death versus S6. Weak against non-vehicle units/armies.

Tomb blades

New jetbike unit, much cheaper than destroyers but considerably weaker. Not sure I see a role for them yet.

Pros: Cheap-ish for jetbike stats

Cons: Fragile and upgrades (better gun, better BS, better save etc.) are very expensive

Destroyers

Destroyers and heavy destroyers have been combined and are now jump troops rather than jetbikes.

Pros: Can deep strike against artillery for rear armour shots

Cons: Shorter range so more vulnerable to melta/plasma. Still very expensive and difficult to get cover saves for, so will be a prime target for AP3 or less weapons. Preferred enemy pretty useless with only one regular attack.

[isotope99]

HEAVY SUPPORT

Doomsday Ark

The doomsday ark has a big gun (S9, AP1 pie plate) on a decent quantum shieleded chassis. It is kind of like a long ranged vindicator in application. Haven't seen the actual model in the flesh yet but the gun looks quite low on the model which might give LOS problems?

Pros: Strong deterrent against deep striking units and deathstars

Cons: One weapon destroyed and the vehicle is significantly less useful. Cover or invulnerable saves will neuter it's effectiveness. Can't really move and fire so needs protecting from CC attacks that will auto hit.

Annhialation barge

Cheap at less than 100 points and can put out a lot of fire with good rolling against clustered units.

Pros: Tough with quantum shielding. Relatively cheap.

Cons: Uses a HS slot. Doesn't do anything the rest of the army can't

Monolith

Not quite the immovable rock of doom that it used to be (of course living metal was downgraded) but still useful for redeploying units to the fight.

Pros: Still armour 14 and blocking LOS and can now use the S8 AP3pie plate and teleport abilities at once (I think). Can now teleport from anywhere on the board.

Cons: Gate attack (S test or die) is unreliable with only D6 range from a relatively small area, loses its ability to reroll reanmination rolls, can't pull units out of CC.

Doom Scythe

The Doom scythe swaps the night scythe's transport teleport gate for a death ray :D that hits all models under a 3D6" line with a high strength AP1 hit. As an aside I think anyone expecting to get every model in a unit that is clipped will be seriously disappointed when the FAQ comes out.

Only AV11 so vulnerable on its own, this will probably only be seen in pairs or threes coupled with solar puls crypteks/Imothek.

Pros: Cool weaponry, massive psychological impact and decent threat range 24"+3D6

Cons: Unreliable line length (3-18" 10.5 average), easy to kill, vulnerable to counter assault

Canoptek Spyders

Still the cheapest monstrous creatures going and can now repair vehicles (good for those single uber-weapon platforms) and buff scarab swarms. If you have a spare 50+ points and an empty HS slot, teh spyder is always a good buy.

Pros: Cheap monstrous creature, can repair vehicles

Cons: Limited attacks makes it hard to hit things

[Crazeh]

A nitpick...

Wraiths haven't suffered a drop in Strength. They've remained a hearty S6 same as the previous edition. Give them Whipcoils and essentially their loss of Initiative doesn't matter much except in sweeping advances, and this way they cost a similar amount to their previous incarnation but with an extra wound, Fearless and Rending, but suffer a loss of reanimation and turbo boosting. Bigger squad size too, that wasn't mentioned and is definitely a factor. 6 Wraiths for 1 FA slot is scary ****. Very solid anti heavy infantry/light to medium vehicle melee unit. I was always a fan of Wraiths, can't wait to see the new kit for them.

Other than that I mostly agree with the rundown. I can't say there's a bad unit in the codex and it looks to be a triumph of balance. Szeras does stand out as somewhat lacking but he's basically a bright lance with an augmentation rule. All in all he's pretty cheap if you're not bothered about playing HeroHammer, but the big drawback to that is he can't take a Royal Court, which I can see being a ubiquitous entity in Necron lists. Orikan is interesting and looks like a real laugh but suffers from the same problem. I think I'll be plumping for an Overlord with Warscythe, Phase Shifter and Command Barge. Maybe an orb if I can squeeze the points, but I'm not sure it's worth it for a model who isn't sitting in a unit.

Deathmarks strike me as a stand-out unit. Paired up with a Cryptek with a Veil I think they could be very nasty indeed. Ethereal Interception seems to be written for 6th edition. Its uses are currently limited and would have to be employed very, very carefully. I think I'd prefer to deploy them on table, out of LoS, and Veil them in at the right time to have at least one round of unmolested shooting on their prey. Should rack up quite a tally, especially when you consider the Cryptek's Abyssal Staff should also account for a few casualities. They're barely more expensive than Immortals, with the same upper limit of 10 per unit and same defensive stats, and they definitely shoot better vs Infantry, especially against their prey. Not scoring but you can't have everything! Models rule too.

I am rather confused about the decision to not allow the Triarch Stalker to ignore armour saves. I'd like to think it's another hint at the direction 6th edition is heading. As it stands, a very solid and flexible mobile fire platform, if a touch on the expensive side. Maybe it'll be considered a steal if 6th brings in a change to the close combat rules for Walkers...