Faction Focus: Necrons

[zero888]

This is by far the best preview so far. Flavorful rules that seem appropriate but nothing looks broken. Warriors reanimating on an objective is no joke, and rightfully so Destroyers/Wraiths rarely get models back. Stationary/moving differences to doomsday cannon are finally as they should be after 2 editions, and the Monolith is finally scary again. The stratagem is excellent as well. 

[Captain Idaho]

Finally, the Doomsday Cannon lives up to its model and name!

 

Happy they changed the Reanimation Protocols. They were all but useless for anything higher than 2 wounds.

 

The old feeling of Necrons, where if you didn't kill a unit it would come back, is now a feature again which is find the greatest success. Especially with Warriors being particularly good at it.

 

As someone who loves Skorpekh Destroyers I'm happy to see that Strategum is in.

 

Overall interesting and fun. Many of the Necron problems appear to be resolved.

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, Stealth_Hobo said:

Now that characters are able to join units again and the new rules will give more buffs while doing so, it looks like silver tide might be back on the menu.

 

I can see a role for plenty of cheap Characters like Royal Wardens just to buff big Warrior blobs.

 

42 minutes ago, Tokugawa said:

High-tech robot men having only ld7+ looks a bit weak.

 

You only take Battleshock tests when below 50% and Necrons are the only army (so far) that can bring all its units back up again meaning that a unit having to take a Battleshock test in one turn won't necessarily have to do so in the next turn.

[chapter master 454]

Ok...so you can't EVER just chip an objective monkey squad of warriors off an objective...minimum 4 dudes back each turn is kind of nuts. Tyranids just keep throwing new dudes at you, necrons make you have to kill the unpaid intern 20 times!

 

Kind of excited to see Tau and Knights, maybe because of bias...-looks at his Stormsurge and Taranis Knights-...yes...soon...but guard are next -looks at his stormlord, shadowsword and baneblade- its hard being a mecha fan/tread head.

[Zoatibix]

This bodes well for other Xenos armies, in my opinion.

 

I hope that the other noble races gets equally fluffy yet effective looking rules.

[GenerationTerrorist]

I think this has been my favourite preview so far. Very simple to understand and some really nice rules.

Them tin boys are going to be a pain to shift off objectives.

[Doobles57]

Like it. Simpler reanimation protocols is good. No idea if it's stronger or weaker, but certainly seems easier to use. And less likely to do nothing on dead destroyers, scarabs etc.

Doomsday cannon with fixed damage! Hallelujah!

Command protocols basically now being My Will Be Done is a thing I guess? Interested to see what the various characters do now. Technomancers boosting their units reanimation by 1 or something? Dunno, but could be interesting.

Monolith looks tough. Good. OC of 8 means its holding things well and then can just pull through a unit of forever reanimating warriors to mean you never lose that point. Very good.

I like all of this a lot.

 

Leadership 7+ though.......

I'm sure I remember an editor's note in White Dwarf in 3rd (4th?) edition where they said that Necron's Ld10 characteristic was just because they had to give them a value and they should essentially be immune to leadership stuff. Or something to that effect. Maybe I misremember. 

 

Side note. Not much in the way of rerolls......just to open that can of worms again.

 

[redmapa]

So far I'm liking all these faction rules, they are simple yet meaningful and there's a choice to them so there's player agency in what gets buffed by characters in case of Necrons. I'm excited to see what Guard becomes, I can't imagine what orders will be like.

[phandaal]

For some factions Leadership represents morale, for others it could be getting back up after they get knocked on their ass, or their ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

 

Necron warriors by themselves are mindless automata, so they are definitely not running away. They may start milling about aimlessly though, if a bunch of them get shot or stabbed through the head and lose their command protocols. Or maybe their last command was to advance onto an objective, and once they do so they just sit there waiting for more orders. Et cetera.

 

I bet their characters will have a much better leadership score.

[mel_danes]

Agreed Phandaal.

I think of Necron Warriors a lot like Rubrics or Servitors. Without direct guidance they lack initiative. Left upon an objective and set to aggressively defend it is about as far as I see them tactically. The unit is certainly not going to react well to change, or a rapidly evolving battle.

And with the new Morale system that will be the result, not models running away in fear rather disorganized and easily shifted from objectives, well easily for units that actually stay dead that is.

Love the new RP rules.

[Vermintide]

Gauss is back, baby! Sort of, anyway. A bit. Good to see, because that's something I've been bitching about for like the last six years.

 

We will have to see how the new Reanimations shakes out, that's one of those rules they can simply never make their minds up on, and frankly I don't think any method has ever really done it the same justice as the simple OG method from 3E. Problem is they always over-value it when assigning points to Necron units. This version seems to give us a bit more reliability, but it still has that same old weakness; so if it still reflects in over-costing our units, it'll be another disappointment.

 

Bit of a shame to see that stuff like the death ray will still be a pretty swingy single shot weapon, not gonna lie, but the return of auto-wounds for gauss might go some way to making up for it.

 

53 minutes ago, Doobles88 said:

Leadership 7+ though.......

I'm sure I remember an editor's note in White Dwarf in 3rd (4th?) edition where they said that Necron's Ld10 characteristic was just because they had to give them a value and they should essentially be immune to leadership stuff. Or something to that effect. Maybe I misremember.

 

There was something in the old codex about how while they don't suffer panic or fear like other races, they still retreat when logical or advantageous to do so; but there again, that was when leadership was more than just an abstraction of units routing, and played a part in stuff like pinning and combat resolution etc.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Vermintide

[Ahzek451]

1 hour ago, Doobles88 said:

Like it. Simpler reanimation protocols is good. No idea if it's stronger or weaker, but certainly seems easier to use. And less likely to do nothing on dead destroyers, scarabs etc.

Doomsday cannon with fixed damage! Hallelujah!

Command protocols basically now being My Will Be Done is a thing I guess? Interested to see what the various characters do now. Technomancers boosting their units reanimation by 1 or something? Dunno, but could be interesting.

Monolith looks tough. Good. OC of 8 means its holding things well and then can just pull through a unit of forever reanimating warriors to mean you never lose that point. Very good.

I like all of this a lot.

 

Leadership 7+ though.......

I'm sure I remember an editor's note in White Dwarf in 3rd (4th?) edition where they said that Necron's Ld10 characteristic was just because they had to give them a value and they should essentially be immune to leadership stuff. Or something to that effect. Maybe I misremember. 

 

Side note. Not much in the way of rerolls......just to open that can of worms again.

 

Not yet anyway, maybe they heard too many re-roll comments and left them out this time, heh. Re-rolls coming from the leaders not shown yet. They did mention that this time there was more emphasis on necron leaders and leading units. 

[Stupidity]

Looks good to me.

Very glad to see a Doomsday Cannon that lives up to the name. It's been a joke for 90% of 9e. 

Hmmm. Seems like I'm going to need to pickup some more Technomancers and Royal Wardens for the index detachment. And I have to wonder how the CCB is going to work, it's one of my favorite models. 

 

Edit: Oh Hey! The Monolith has Fly again. That was a huge problem in 9e. I might pick one of those up now. 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Stupidity

[CL_Mission]

I wasn't super familiar with the rules for Necrons before so I can't really make comparisons but at least Command Protocols looks like something I can't actually keep track of. Reliably reanimating warriors also seems very nice.

[Marshal Loss]

Love the change to Reanimation Protocols, the local Necron player will be really happy with this.

[Mandragola]

This all looks good to me. The Necron army I got about half way through painting might see some action in 10th. Necrons will benefit from a slightly less lethal environment in which units might actually live long enough to reanimate.

 

So far so good with these previews, really. Hope to see full rules soon.

[spessmarine]

A little ehh seeing a BS -1 change to Warriors with the to hit bonus then tucked in the detachment. Feels like snipping from one place and tacking it on elsewhere.

 

10 hours ago, acrozatarim said:

If everyone has super-high Leadership it just shunts battleshock back into being a vestigial little clump of rules that no-one cares about. I'd much rather the disruption and collapse of fighting units' capabilities be a serious aspect of the game to contend with across the board.

 

 

Really feels at times, stepping back from just this conversation in particular, people lament about morale being irrelevant alongside with being annoyed if it impacts them at all. Morale for everyone but me. Can't have morale matter if the only one who can't ignore it is Guard.

[Arkangilos]

13 hours ago, phandaal said:

That is what apocryphal means

If they mean it was a hidden away, secret, or dubious as to the reality of it, then yeah. If they don’t mean that then no.