Alright folks, here is a list with things that I thought were cool on a first glance. I guess I'll lead off with the list, then talk about the choices and say a bit about the book in general. I will be doing a later post on units that I have not covered here, and more development as I think and read and hopefully watch some games.
Had to make a correction based upon a mistaken fact pointed out on Twitter by @hungryclone. See Fast Attack below.
1849 points.
HQ
185 Nemesor Zandrekh
Court
55 Harbinger of Destruction, Solar Pulse
25 Harbinger of the Storm
35 Harbinger of Destruction
35 Harbinger of Destruction
Troops
170 10 Immortals, Tesla Carbines
232 9 Warriors, Ghost Ark
232 9 Warriors, Ghost Ark
130 10 Warriors
130 10 Warriors
Fast Attack
120 3 Wraiths, 1 whip coil, 1 particle caster
120 3 Wraiths, 1 whip coil, 1 particle caster
Heavy Support
90 Annihilation Barge
90 Annihilation Barge
200 Monolith
Alright, so Zandrehk is pretty cool. The taking away enemy rules seems just as great if not better than the granting USRs to your own units. The only game I have actually seen Necrons played so far, he took Zandrehk, getting rid of furious charge on Khorne Berzerkers sure takes the piss out of them. He glanced the guy's land raider to death towards the end.
Zandrehk really adds a lot of verstility, which helps the generalist nature of a lot of Necron units. I am not so sure about his deep strike only counter reserve, not sure what to do with it.
Now the Court is pretty cool. Well Crypteks are, I don't really see much use for the Lords. You want to be shooting with your Necrons, a small amount of expensive power weapon attacks on a 1 wound model won't help how hard you take it in close combat.
These guys give more versatility and anti tank to spread around your units.
These two that seem best are Storm and Destruction. Storm gives you an assault 4 12in, haywire gun. So basically this is like another 4 necrons in the squad. Also, it costs nothing to give them the haywire gun!
The Destruction guys are pretty sweet. Cheap for a 36in AP missile launcher basically. A great way to beef up the range and anti tank of a warrior squad.
Now the coolest part, the Destruction guys get to take a Solar Pulse. That lets you call in or dispel Night Fighting at the start of a turn. Now this is crucial because it does not say game turn. So you can do this to give you cover during their turn, or to take away their darkness and open fire during your turn.
Now on to Troops.
Warriors are cool. Yes they are only 4+ save now, but they are 5 points cheaper than before.
Also, this give me a chance to talk about the new we'll be back, called reanimation protocols. This is now only a 5 or 6. Sounds like a down grade all around huh? Not at all. This coming back can only be negated by either wiping out the unit entirely, or making them run in combat. If they are running in combat the unit is dead anyway. But now, as opposed to before, you don't give a fuck about power weapons, str 8+, or AP 4. Your save is less, but you don't care, you basically have a 5+ Ward Save like in Fantasy or pseudo Feel No Pain. Additionally Resurrection protocols happens at the end of every phase. Oh no you shot 3 guys down before you charged, well 1 or 2 of them got back up. Hey, we actually held against those assault terminators, on hey Str 8 power weapons, whatever, those guys just got back up.
And if there is a Ghost Ark nearby at the start of the movement phase d3 of them get added back up even if they didn't make it last time.
Speaking of the Ghost Ark; 115 points holy shit over costed and don't take it!
That is what I thought at first. But here is what makes this thing tick, AV 13 and Liquid Metal(ignoring Stunned on a 2+, and Shaken on a 4+). Oh you say, but that AV 13 is only until they take a Penetrating hit. A missile launcher needs a 5 to glance and a 6 to pen. If this open topped vehicle get's penned by something it is likely dead anyway. So a 115 point AV 13 all around transport that can get off 30 shots at 12 inches(including the 5 guys inside and any cryptek), and if you bail the guys out to fire for effect you can get 40 shots at something. This may be the definition of anecdotal, but I saw one of these full of warriors glance a land raider to death. It was cool. Also it can fire at two different targets, this seems like something that would be easy to forget and could get that one more lucky glance and keep something from shooting or moving, or even better taking a weapon or immobilizing it.
Immortals are basically your old warriors, a point cheaper with better guns. I don't really know about tesla or gauss on them. Both seem good. I would prefer the tesla for consistent range, they seem like better objective sitters. In the above list I use them to babysit Zandrehk and an objective.
Fast Attack
CORRECTION
Heavy Destroyers suck balls. Still. I thought they had two wounds, if they had two wounds I would give my previous estimation about mobile sturdy lascannons. 60 points for one wound model, no way.
However, wraiths are made of win. 35 points. Remember that while I talk about what else they have.
First they don't have reanimation protocols, and are not Necrons for Phase Out (kidding, it's gone, why did that exist in the first place?).
They are jump infantry( So they can deep strike with Zandrehk).
They ignore difficult terrain and automatically pass dangerous terrain tests.
They have 3 Str 6 rending attacks.
T4, but they have a 3++ invulnerable save, also 2 wounds and fearless.
They can also take wargear(wound allocation), one of which makes models in base contact initiative 1.
So they can go first. Also, they can take a pistol that is str 6, and only 5 points for wound allocation.
So yeah, those are badass. But Destroyers being crap does limit the lists anti tank.
Heavy Support
Monolith is a bit different than it used to be, not totally as unkillable as it was, but good enough.
The key here is turning this thing on it's corner, so that 3 of the flux arks can get a shot, looking for 6s on 12 shots isn't that bad odds. Particle whip is nice. Bringing guys from all over the table to where you want them is the big reason I think.
The Monolith is what you want to be deep striking on their turn with Zandrehk. Oh sorry here is a 4x4 solid LOS blocker that can shoot all around it and bring lychguard or something else nasty in on my turn.
Annihilation Barge, see the durability discussion of the Ghost Ark infra . Telsa Destructor, Str 7 Assault 4, two extra AUTOMATIC HITS for every 6 you roll, and a 1/6 change to affect any unit within 6 inches with d6 str 5 hits. That's cool as fuck. But it only has 24 inch range, and isn't fast. However, see the discussion of the Solar Pulse, and it's only 90 points.
Necrons are pretty sweet. This is just upon a quick glance through. I would love to get some Praetorians in here. I wish someone would have made them or lychguard troops, or even flayed ones. There doesn't seem to be any FOC swapping in this codex, and I was hoping that would basically be a standard feature in this modern era. I think it is one of the best ways to add diversity with the minimum overhead in mechanics.
They seem like a solid army now. They are still terrible in close combat, but they are resilient, and even more so because the common ways to negate the old we'll be back(powerfists, weapons, rending, etc.) are assault oriented. So even if one guy rolls that snake eyes for his leadership against a unit of assault termies or whatever, all the rest of them get the chance get back into the fray.
So, as always stick to the Blood Axe Battle Plan(they're the Orks with the strategery) Fight the shooty ones and shoot the fighty ones. Necrons get hosed on both of these counts, but they might just get back up.
